Lifeboat Foundation

A Yale research team has designed a system to modify multiple genes in the genome simultaneously, while also minimizing unintended effects. The gene-editing “toolbox” provides a user-friendly solution that scientists can apply to research on cancer and other disciplines, according to a news release from Yale.

The study was published on July 26 in Nucleic Acids Research.

The news release states that, with modern genetic engineering techniques, researchers can edit genes in experiments. This allows researchers to study important disease-related genes and may ultimately allow them to treat genetic diseases by making edits in specific sites of the human genome. However, progress has been hampered by several challenges, including the editing of unintended sites — referred to as off-target effects.

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The nextgen of Solar and fuel energy.

Scientists have just discovered a way to directly convert solar energy into a synthetic fuel using carbon dioxide. Current solar technologies operate in either photovoltaic solar or thermal solar. Photovoltaic solar energy is generated through solar panels, which are typically seen on the roofs of houses and many solar plants. The other method of thermal solar is typically only used in large-scale energy plants, as it used mirrors to focus solar energy to heat a liquid which then powers turbines. Both methods, however, involve the conversion of solar energy into electricity. While electricity is useful, much energy is lost in the storing of electricity, something that the conversion process to liquid fuel overcomes.

“The key to understanding why “social VR” will be important is to think about virtual (and augmented) reality as a computing platform, rather than as a PC peripheral for gaming.”

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Nice.

Elite endurance athletes could be able to keep going for longer thanks to a new drink developed to give soldiers extra energy in battle, a study using former Olympians has found.

Scientists found that cyclists using the drink, which temporarily switches the body’s energy source from glucose to ketones, could travel an extra quarter of a mile than those taking a different energy supplement.

Continue reading “How science could help cyclists to keep pedalling for longer” »

Last week, scientists funded by the NIH’s Human Connectome Project—a precursor to the BRAIN Initiative—identified 97 previously unknown areas of the brain’s cortex.

The Air Force awarded a contract for research in deceptive cyber to be used toward network defense.

Risk Assessment —

Dark Patterns are designed to trick you (and they’re all over the Web)

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Revelations that the ‘Operation Pacifier’ child porn investigation extended to Austria too shows the extent of the FBI’s reach overseas.

Hmmm.

We can rebuild him; we have the technology—but Americans question if we should in a new survey designed to assess attitudes to modern biotechnology advances.

A new report, based on a survey of 4,700 U.S. adults coming out of the Pew Research Center, looked at a range of views on certain advances in biology, with opinions split on the ethics and long-term problems associated with enhancing human capacity.

Continue reading “U.S. wary on biotech advances; gene editing, CRISPR ‘raising urgency’” »