Today, in a peer-reviewed paper published in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, DeepMind offered further details of how exactly its A.I. software was able to perform so well. It has also open-sourced the code it used to create AlphaFold 2 for other researchers to use.
But it’s still not clear when researchers and drug companies will have easy access to AlphaFold’s structure predictions.
Researchers at UC San Francisco have successfully developed a “speech neuroprosthesis” that has enabled a man with severe paralysis to communicate in sentences, translating signals from his brain to the vocal tract directly into words that appear as text on a screen.
The achievement, which was developed in collaboration with the first participant of a clinical research trial, builds on more than a decade of effort by UCSF neurosurgeon Edward Chang, MD, to develop a technology that allows people with paralysis to communicate even if they are unable to speak on their own. The study appears July 15 in the New England Journal of Medicine.
That said, the Borgs do clearly contain metabolic genes, which might be able to boost the energy metabolisms of Methanoperedens that host them. If so, these unique genetic elements could provide new insights into reducing methane emissions, which is a major aim for climate change mitigation plans.
These ‘Borg’ elements assimilated genes from other organisms, and could be used to help fight climate change.
Summary: Aromatic turmerone, a compound derived from turmeric essential oil, and its derivatives directly affect dopamine neurons to generate neuroprotective properties in tissue culture models of Parkinson’s disease.
Source: Kumamoto University.
Researchers from Kumamoto University, Japan have found that a component derived from turmeric essential oil, aromatic turmerone (ar-turmerone), and its derivatives act directly on dopaminergic nerves to create a neuroprotective effect on tissue cultures of a Parkinson’s disease model.
In a medical first, researchers harnessed the brainwaves of a paralyzed man unable to speak and turned what he intended to say into sentences on a computer screen.
Study marks important step toward restoring more natural communication for people who can’t talk.
Summary: Using human stem cells to develop a brain organoid model, researchers were able to show exposure to a common pesticide synergizes with an autism-linked gene mutation. The study provides clear evidence that genetics and environment may combine to disrupt neurodevelopment.
Source: Johns Hopkins University.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health have shown in a brain organoid study that exposure to a common pesticide synergizes with a frequent autism-linked gene mutation.
University of California San Diego scientists have now developed several genetic editing tools that help pave the way to an eventual gene drive designed to stop Culex mosquitoes from spreading disease. Gene drives are designed to spread modified genes, in this case those that disable the ability to transmit pathogens, throughout the targeted wild population.
Genetics toolkit targets less researched Culex mosquitoes, which transmit West Nile virus and avian malaria.
Since the onset of the CRISPR genetic editing revolution, scientists have been working to leverage the technology in the development of gene drives that target pathogen-spreading mosquitoes such as Anopheles and Aedes species, which spread malaria, dengue, and other life-threatening diseases.
Much less genetic engineering has been devoted to Culex genus mosquitoes, which spread devastating afflictions stemming from West Nile virus—the leading cause of mosquito-borne disease in the continental United States—as well as other viruses such as the Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) and the pathogen causing avian malaria, a threat to Hawaiian birds.
Once studied by Charles Darwin, the Venus flytrap is perhaps the most famous plant that moves at high speed. But as Daniel Rayneau-Kirkhope explains, researchers are still unearthing new scientific insights into plant motion, which could lead to novel, bio-inspired robotic structures.
“In the absence of any other proof,” Isaac Newton is once said to have proclaimed, “the thumb alone would convince me of God’s existence.” With 29 bones, 123 ligaments and 34 muscles pulling the strings, the human hand is indeed a feat of nature’s engineering. It lets us write, touch, hold, feel and interact in exquisite detail with the world around us.
To replicate the wonders of the human hand, researchers in the field of “soft robotics” are trying to design artificial structures made from flexible, compliant materials that can be controlled and programmed by computers. Trouble is, the hand is such a complex structure that it needs lots of computing power to be properly controlled. That’s a problem when developing prosthetic hands for people who have lost an arm in, say, an accident or surgery.
The “show” starts with a robot grabbing a handful of dough and depositing it on a pan, where another bot flattens it, a third applies tomato sauce, etc. From dough-grabbing to inserting in the oven, preparing a pizza takes just 45 seconds. The oven can bake 6 pizzas at a time, yielding about 80 pizzas per hour. Once a pizza is baked to gooey perfection, a robot slices it and places it in a box, and it’s then transferred (by a robot, of course) to a numbered cubby from which the customer can retrieve it.
It’s a shame the pizzeria didn’t open during the height of the pandemic, as its revenues likely would have gone through the roof given that there’s zero person-to-person contact required for you to get a fresh, custom-made pizza in your hands (and more importantly, your belly!).
Pazzi’s creators spent eight years researching and developing the pizza bots, and they say the hardest part was getting the bots to work effectively with the raw dough. Since it’s made with yeast, the dough is sensitive to changes in temperature, humidity, and other factors, and for optimal results it needs to be rolled out and baked with very precise timing.
Scientists have been turning to the animal world for inspiration for a long time, including for medicines. And many different types of animals have been responsible for this inspiration, including sharks, spiders, and… roadkill.
Hosted by: Michael Aranda.
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Sources:
Intro.
https://lemelson.mit.edu/resources/otto-lilienthal.
https://www.hookandloop.com/invention-velcro-brand/
https://biomimicry.org/biomimicry-examples/#construction.
Frogs.
https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/pressroom/newsreleases/2010/august/frog-skin-may-provide-kiss-of-death-for-antibiotic-resistant-germs.html.
https://www.nature.com/scitable/definition/peptide-317/
https://www.khanacademy.org/test-prep/mcat/organ-systems/the-immune-system/a/innate-immunity.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0924857906001026?casa_token=kd7aaejRbHcAAAAA:0p6llm5xh0HZeGjrfz7JugDaTBLhQEeTHITOjGnhtITL8pFnvcciFafZoUYCfEBkJJOrPGU9AA
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Andrea-Rinaldi-7/publication/321616913_Antimicrobial_Peptides_Methods_and_Protocols/links/5a3bddacaca272dd65e4b616/Antimicrobial-Peptides-Methods-and-Protocols.pdf#page=15
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/j.1747-0285.2008.00671.x?casa_token=AVXGzLAv1BMAAAAA: e948bW6RQBrCzh1txPciwa4XacFnbKwHeGPY8ARsnfTJDYIQJoGEIS-2JLBRKh5rY8gRN3vS4aM5vdU
https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s00726-012-1395-7.pdf.
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7087712/
