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The meteorites that bombarded Mars during the early days of the inner solar system may have carried enough water to create a 300-metre-deep ocean on the planet.

Martin Bizzarro at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and his colleagues have analysed the concentration of a rare chromium isotope, known as chromium-54, in samples of meteorites that have come to Earth from Mars to estimate how much water was deposited on the Red Planet by asteroids.

The uppermost layer of Mars contains the chemical signatures of carbonaceous, or C-type, meteorites that bombarded it as its crust solidified some 4.5 billion years ago.

Scientists from the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Osaka University introduced a method for manufacturing complex microrobots driven by chemical energy using in situ integration. By 3D-printing and assembling the mechanical structures and actuators of microrobots inside a microfluidic chip, the resulting microrobots were able to perform desired functions, like moving or grasping. This work may help realize the vision of microsurgery performed by autonomous robots.

As medical technology advances, increasingly complicated surgeries that were once considered impossible have become reality. However, we are still far away from a promised future in which microrobots coursing through a patient’s body can perform procedures, such as microsurgery or cancer cell elimination.

Continue reading “3D-printing microrobots with multiple component modules inside a microfluidic chip” »

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Continue reading “Are there Undiscovered Elements Beyond The Periodic Table?” »

This is primarily about Rejuvant or AKG trials. When they first reported an 8 year age difference I did not truly believe it as that would mean I could take it, de-age, then age a bit, then just take it again. The tests however are ongoing and will feature people who are biologically older than their calendar age. There is also mention of 110 drugs/supplements that do “something” to mice. That would be quite a stack to take.

Dr Brian Kennedy presents potential interventions for extend our healthspan. Among them, Rejuvant – a CaAKG supplement which contain calcium + alpha-ketoglutarate shows better response for people who has biological age older than chronological age.

Continue reading “Potential Interventions For HUMAN LONGEVITY, CaAKG Is More Effective for People w/Accelerating Aging” »

Synthetic biology offers a way to engineer cells to perform novel functions, such as glowing with fluorescent light when they detect a certain chemical. Usually, this is done by altering cells so they express genes that can be triggered by a certain input.

However, there is often a long lag time between an event such as detecting a molecule and the resulting output, because of the time required for cells to transcribe and translate the necessary genes. MIT synthetic biologists have now developed an alternative approach to designing such circuits, which relies exclusively on fast, reversible protein-protein interactions. This means that there’s no waiting for genes to be transcribed or translated into proteins, so circuits can be turned on much faster—within seconds.

“We now have a methodology for designing protein interactions that occur at a very fast timescale, which no one has been able to develop systematically. We’re getting to the point of being able to engineer any function at timescales of a few seconds or less,” says Deepak Mishra, a research associate in MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering and the lead author of the new study.

Cheers!

𝐁𝐞𝐞𝐫 𝐈𝐧𝐠𝐫𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐌𝐚𝐲 𝐈𝐧𝐡𝐢𝐛𝐢𝐭 𝐂𝐥𝐮𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐨𝐟 𝐀𝐥𝐳𝐡𝐞𝐢𝐦𝐞𝐫’𝐬 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐭𝐞𝐢𝐧

𝘽𝙚𝙚𝙧 𝙞𝙨 𝙤𝙣𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙤𝙡𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙩 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙢𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙥𝙤𝙥𝙪𝙡𝙖𝙧 𝙗𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙧𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙨 𝙞𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙬𝙤𝙧𝙡𝙙, 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙥𝙚𝙤𝙥𝙡𝙚 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙤𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙝𝙖𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙘𝙩, 𝙗𝙞𝙩𝙩𝙚𝙧 𝙩𝙖𝙨𝙩𝙚 𝙤𝙛 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙨 𝙪𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙤 𝙛𝙡𝙖𝙫𝙤𝙧 𝙞𝙩𝙨 𝙢𝙖𝙣𝙮 𝙫𝙖𝙧𝙞𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙚𝙨. 𝘽𝙪𝙩 𝙖𝙣 𝙚𝙨𝙥𝙚𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 “𝙝𝙤𝙥𝙥𝙮” 𝙗𝙧𝙚𝙬 𝙢𝙞𝙜𝙝𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙫𝙚 𝙪𝙣𝙞𝙦𝙪𝙚 𝙝𝙚𝙖𝙡𝙩𝙝 𝙗𝙚𝙣𝙚𝙛𝙞𝙩𝙨. 𝙍𝙚𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙩 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙧𝙘𝙝 𝙥𝙪𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙙 𝙞𝙣 𝘼𝘾𝙎 𝘾𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡 𝙉𝙚𝙪𝙧𝙤𝙨𝙘𝙞𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙤𝙧𝙩𝙨 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙝𝙚𝙢𝙞𝙘𝙖𝙡𝙨 𝙚𝙭𝙩𝙧𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙝𝙤𝙥 𝙛𝙡𝙤𝙬𝙚𝙧𝙨 𝙘𝙖𝙣, 𝙞𝙣 𝙡𝙖𝙗 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙨, 𝙞𝙣𝙝𝙞𝙗𝙞𝙩 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙘𝙡𝙪𝙢𝙥𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙤𝙛 𝙖𝙢𝙮𝙡𝙤𝙞𝙙 𝙗𝙚𝙩𝙖 𝙥𝙧𝙤𝙩𝙚𝙞𝙣𝙨, 𝙬𝙝𝙞𝙘𝙝 𝙞𝙨 𝙖𝙨𝙨𝙤𝙘𝙞𝙖𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝘼𝙡𝙯𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙧’𝙨 𝙙𝙞𝙨𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 (𝘼𝘿).

Continue reading “Beer Ingredient May Inhibit Clumping of Alzheimer’s Protein” »

A new paper published in Nature Communications presents research on unique peptides with anti-cancer potential.

The research was led by Professor Ashraf Brik and post-doctoral fellows Dr. Ganga B. Vamisetti and Dr. Abbishek Saha from the Schulich Faculty of Chemistry at the Technion—Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, along with Professor Nabieh Ayoub from the Technion’s Faculty of Biology and Professor Hiroaki Suga from the University of Tokyo.

Peptides are short chains of amino acids linked by peptide bonds, the name given to chemical bonds formed between two molecules when the carboxyl group of one molecule reacts with the amino group of the other molecule.

To design better rechargeable ion batteries, engineers and chemists from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign collaborated to combine a powerful new electron microscopy technique and data mining to visually pinpoint areas of chemical and physical alteration within ion batteries.

A study led by materials science and engineering professors Qian Chen and Jian-Min Zuo is the first to map out altered domains inside rechargeable ion batteries at the nanoscale—a 10-fold or more increase in resolution over current X-ray and optical methods.

The findings are published in the journal Nature Materials.

Researchers revealed why cancer cells require proteins that fix copper ions in order to develop and spread throughout the human body. Possible novel treatment targets have been discovered as a result of recent research on the connections between proteins and how they bind to metals in cancer-related proteins.

Small amounts of the metal copper are required by human cells to perform essential biological functions. The conclusion drawn from studies demonstrating higher copper levels in tumor cells and blood serum from cancer patients is that cancer cells require more copper than healthy cells. Additionally, more copper-binding proteins are active when copper levels are higher. “Therefore, these proteins are highly important to study when it comes to understanding the development of cancer and deeper knowledge about them can lead to new targets for treatment of the disease,” said Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede, Professor of Chemical Biology at Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden.

Most cancer-related deaths are due to the fact that metastases — secondary tumors — form in several places in the body, for example, in the liver or lungs. A protein called Memo1 is part of the signaling systems that cancer cells use to grow and spread around the body. Previous research has shown that when the gene for Memo1 is inactivated in breast cancer cells, their ability to form metastases decreases. A research group from Chalmers wanted to take a closer look at the connection between Memo1 and copper. In a new study published in the scientific journal PNAS, the researchers examined the Memo1 protein’s ability to bind copper ions through a series of test tube experiments. They discovered that the protein binds copper, but only the reduced form of copper. It is this form of copper ions that is most common in living cells. It’s an important discovery because reduced copper, while it is needed in the body, also contributes to redox-reactions that damage — or even kill — the cells.