This article was originally published at The Conversation. (opens in new tab) The publication contributed the article to Space.com’s Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
A glowing blob known as “the cocoon,” which appears to be inside one of the enormous gamma-ray emanations from the center of our galaxy dubbed the “Fermi bubbles,” has puzzled astronomers since it was discovered in 2012.
Accurate detection and manipulation of endogenous proteins is essential to understand cell biological processes, which motivated laboratories across cell biology to develop highly efficient CRISPR genome editing methods for endogenous epitope tagging (Auer et al., 2014; Nakade et al., 2014; Lackner et al., 2015; Schmid-Burgk et al., 2016; Suzuki et al., 2016; Nishiyama et al., 2017; Artegiani et al., 2020; Danner et al., 2021). Multiplex editing using NHEJ-based CRISPR/Cas9 methods remains limited because of the high degree of cross talk that occurs between two knock-in loci (Gao et al., 2019; Willems et al., 2020). In the current study we present CAKE, a mechanism to diminish cross talk between NHEJ-based CRISPR/Cas9 knock-ins using sequential activation of gRNA expression. We demonstrate that this mechanism strongly reduces cross talk between knock-in loci, and results in dual knock-ins for a wide variety of genes. Finally, we showed that CAKE can be directly applied to reveal new biological insights. CAKE allowed us to perform two-color super-resolution microscopy and acute manipulation of the dynamics of endogenous proteins in neurons, together revealing new insights in the nanoscale organization of synaptic proteins.
The CAKE mechanism presented here creates a mosaic of CreON and CreOFF knock-ins, and the number of double knock-in cells depends on the efficacy of each knock-in vector. Therefore, to obtain a high number of double knock-in cells, the efficacy of both the CreON and CreOFF knock-in vector must be optimized. We identified three parameters that regulate the efficacy for single and double knock-ins in neurons. First, the efficacy of gRNAs varies widely, and even gRNAs that target sequences a few base pairs apart in the same locus can have dramatically different knock-in rates (Willems et al., 2020; Danner et al., 2021; Fang et al., 2021; Zhong et al., 2021). Thus, the efficacy of each individual gRNA must be optimized to increase the chance of successful multiplex labeling in neurons. gRNA performance is dependent on many factors, including the rate of DNA cleavage and repair (Rose et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2020; Park et al.
PASADENA, Calif. (Reuters)-Fast-food French fries and onion rings are going high-tech, thanks to a company in Southern California.
Miso Robotics Inc in Pasadena has started rolling out its Flippy 2 robot, which automates the process of deep frying potatoes, onions and other foods.
A big robotic arm like those in auto plants — directed by cameras and artificial intelligence — takes frozen French fries and other foods out of a freezer, dips them into hot oil, then deposits the ready-to-serve product into a tray.
Chipmaker Micron Technology revealed on Tuesday ambitious plans to develop a $100-billion computer chip factory complex in upstate New York, in a bid to boost domestic chip manufacturing and possibly deal with a worrying chips shortage. The money will be invested over a 20 year period, according to Reuters.
The world’s largest semiconductor fabrication facility
Micron claims the project will be the world’s largest semiconductor fabrication facility and will create nearly 50,000 jobs in New York alone. Currently, the largest semiconductor manufacturers in the world are: Intel Corp., Samsung, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. Ltd. (TSMC), SK Hynix, Micron Technology Inc., Qualcomm, Broadcom Inc., and Nvidia.
The event will take place in a man-made city with a year-round winter sports complex.
Can you make snow in the desert? It seems you can, as Saudi Arabia will be hosting the 2029 Asian Winter Games, according to a report.
The games will take place at an under-construction US$500 billion megacity called Neom that is set to boast a year-round winter sports complex along with other futuristic amenities and features.
The project will take 7–8 years.
An 853-mile-long (1,373 km) undersea electricity cable connecting Egypt with Europe has been touted to help Europe’s impending energy crisis amidst Russia’s war with Ukraine.
Imaginima/iStock.
The undersea cable from northern Egypt to Attica, Greece, will be able to transport 3,000 MW of electricity, which is enough to power up to 450,000 homes, according to a report published by Euronews last month.
It looks like Musk’s buy-out will lead to the creation of his own app named X.
According to a report from Bloomberg News, Elon Musk has informed Twitter that he is once more prepared to purchase the business at his original offer of $54.20 a share. This news is also supported by an official U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing from the 3rd of October 2022.
“Elon Musk is proposing to buy Twitter Inc. for the original offer price of $54.20 a share… Musk made the proposal in a letter to Twitter, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information,” states the Bloomberg report.
JD Lasica/Wikimedia Commons.
“Lawyers communicated the proposal to Twitter’s lawyers overnight Monday and filed a letter confidentially with the Delaware Chancery Court ahead of an emergency hearing on the matter scheduled for Tuesday,” added the Wall Street Journal on the news of Musk’s apparent change of heart.
An upcycling method changes the most widely produced plastic into the second most widely produced plastic, making it more sustainable.
A new technique has been developed by scientists that transforms polyethylene (PE), the most widely produced plastic, into polypropylene (PP), the second most produced plastic.
Upcycling plastic efficiently to eliminate waste
The purpose of this process is to reduce greenhouse emissions. “The world needs more and better options for extracting the energy and molecular value from its waste plastics,” said Susannah Scott, co-lead author of the study and Distinguished Professor and Mellichamp Chair of Sustainable Catalytic Processing at UC Santa Barbara. This new study was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Millions of people could suddenly lose electricity if a ransomware attack just slightly tweaked energy flow onto the U.S. power grid.
No single power utility company has enough resources to protect the entire grid, but maybe all 3,000 of the grid’s utilities could fill in the most crucial security gaps if there were a map showing where to prioritize their security investments.
Purdue University researchers have developed an algorithm to create that map. Using this tool, regulatory authorities or cyber insurance companies could establish a framework that guides the security investments of power utility companies to parts of the grid at greatest risk of causing a blackout if hacked.
A group of researchers led by Cornell is unlocking the full potential of aluminum nitride—an important material for the advancement of electronics and photonics—thanks to the development of a surface cleaning technique that enables high-quality production.
The research was published Sept. 9 in the journal Science Advances. Graduate student Zexuan Zhang and research associate Yongjin Cho are the lead authors. The senior authors are Debdeep Jena and Huili Grace Xing, both professors of materials science and engineering and of electrical and computer engineering.
Aluminum nitride has gained significant research interest in the field of semiconductor materials as it provides an unmatched combination of high electrical resistivity and thermal conductivity, according to Zhang. The ceramic material is used as an electrically-insulating but thermally-conducting barrier in electronic devices, and due to its ability to operate at deep UV frequencies, it has great potential for use in light-emitting diodes and lasers.
