It’s neither a bird nor a plane, but a winged microchip as small as a grain of sand that can be carried by the wind as it monitors such things as pollution levels or the spread of airborne diseases.
Northwestern University says these are the world’s smallest human-made flying structures, and they could be used for monitoring the environment, population surveillance or disease tracking.
“Our study points to sex-and environment-specific effects of a common genetic variant. In the mice, we observed that Ghrd3 leads to a ‘female-like’ expression pattern of dozens of genes in male livers under calorie restriction, which potentially leads to the observed size reduction,” Saitou says.
“Females, already smaller in size, may suffer from negative evolutionary consequences if they lose body weight. Thus, it is a reasonable and also very interesting hypothesis that a genetic variant that may affect response to nutritional stress has evolved in a sex-specific manner,” Mu says.
A new study delves into the evolution and function of the human growth hormone receptor gene, and asks what forces in humanity’s past may have driven changes to this vital piece of DNA.
The research shows, through multiple avenues, that a shortened version of the gene—a variant known as GHRd3—may help people survive in situations where resources are scarce or unpredictable.
Findings will be published on Sept. 24 in Science Advances.
Consciousness: Evolution of the Mind Documentary (2021), a film by Alex Vikoulov, Part I, WHAT IS CONSCIOUSNESS?
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*Based on recent book The Syntellect Hypothesis: Five Paradigms of the Mind’s Evolution (2020) by evolutionary cyberneticist Alex M. Vikoulov, available as eBook, paperback, hardcover, and audiobook on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Syntellect-Hypothesis-Paradigms-Minds-Evolution/dp/1733426140
The study of consciousness needs to be lifted out of the mysticism that has dominated it. Consciousness is not just a matter of philosophy or spirituality. It’s a matter of hard science. It’s a matter of understanding the brain and the mind — a pattern structure made out of information. It’s also a matter of engineering. If we can understand the functionality of the brain, its neural code, then we can build the same functionality into our computer systems. We should recognize that our brain is not a “stand-alone” information processing organ, though: It acts as a central unit of our integral nervous system with recurrent data exchange within the entire organism and the Universe. Artificial consciousness may be within our grasp, however, not the way many AI researchers envision.
There’s no consensus on what produces consciousness, but everyone regardless of metaphysical views can agree what it is like to be conscious. Given that consciousness is subjectivity, what consciousness is like is what consciousness is.
Different species have a variety of their biological information processors which unsurprisingly results in qualia diversity. All species live in their own unique sensory universes. Consciousness and optimized information-processing are the two sides of one coin. Feeling and thinking are ways we process information, but our emotional sensation is normally faster than a conscious thought.
Contrary to conventional scientific wisdom, conscious minds as macro-level phenomena might have greater influence over the unfolding future than does the sum of their cognitive algorithms that are arguably their micro-level components. That’s why human consciousness is so scientifically elusive. Neuronal circuits supposedly give rise to cognitive modules, and these immaterial cognitive algorithms, in turn, give rise to meta-algorithmic conscious awareness, all in all at least two layers of emergence on top of “tangible” neurons.
Mammalian neural circuits, referred to as the limbic system, are responsible for human emotional intelligence and forming of long-term memories. The main structures of the limbic brain are the hippocampus, amygdala, and hypothalamus. The neocortex, the latest evolutionary addition, is present in primates and now culminated in the human brain with its two large cerebral hemispheres. The neocortex has been responsible for the development of human language, abstract thought, imagination and self-reflective consciousness. The neocortex is flexible enough to allow almost infinite learning abilities. The neocortex is also what has enabled human cultures to develop.
We know that a daily diet that includes lots of fruit and vegetables is healthier, but now it seems that it can also help prevent one from being infected with COVID-19.
A new study from Boston published in the journal Gut reports that consuming healthy food like produce may lower the risk of contracting the virus, in addition to lowering the severity of symptoms if one is infected. Although doctors have stated that metabolic conditions including obesity and type 2 diabetes can cause severe coronavirus complications, this study is among the first to add nutrition to the equation.
A new study claims that one-third of coronavirus cases could have been avoided if people had healthier eating habits.
Researchers turn back the clock on heart cells via yamanaka factors in mice.
Scientists may have found a way for the heart to gain regenerative capabilities, offering a potential silver lining for patients who have suffered a heart attack.
Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research reportedly achieved positive results after returning adult cardiomyocytes to their fetal-like state in mouse models. To make this happen, they selectively expressed four genes, collectively called OSKM, which are necessary for cell renewal — Oct4, Sox2, Klf4, and c-Myc.
Cardiomyocyte replacement can be extremely slow in adult mammalian hearts, which prevents the healing of damaged myocardium post-injury, but fetal hearts are able to regenerate because their less mature CMs still have the ability to proliferate.
The K. Lisa Yang Center for Bionics has been established thanks to a $24 million donation from philanthropist Lisa Yang, according to an MIT announcement. That’s probably not enough attain the center’s enormously ambitious goals of restoring neural function and rebuilding lost limbs, but it does get the ball rolling and bring together MIT faculty with a variety of specialties toward a common big-picture objective — potentially serving as a much-needed accelerant for disability tech research.
The new research center will fall under the leadership of MIT Media Lab professor Hugh Herr, who is a double amputee himself and has come to be known as a leader in the field of robotic prosthetics. In the MIT announcement, Herr said that he sees this new initiative as an important step toward eliminating physical disabilities altogether.
“The world profoundly needs relief from the disabilities imposed by today’s nonexistent or broken technologies,” Herr said. “We must continually strive towards a technological future in which disability is no longer a common life experience. I am thrilled that the Yang Center for Bionics will help to measurably improve the human experience for so many.”
Based on our international COVID-19 vaccination data, we publish projections of which countries are on track to achieve global targets.
Visit the COVID-19 Information Center for vaccine resources.
Leave it to the Japanese to come up with technology-induced fruit
A Tokyo-based startup called Sanatech Seed Co. teamed up with scientists at the University of Tsukuba to develop a new variety of tomatoes with the help of CRISPR/Cas9 gene-editing technology. The result was a Sicilian Rouge High GABA which contains high levels of gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), an amino acid that is believed to have lower blood pressure and help in relaxation.
The company was able to add high levels of GABA by removing an inhibitory domain within the tomato’s genome to enable the high production of GABA. According to Shimpei Takeshita, President of Sanatech Seed and Chief Innovation Officer of Pioneer EcoScience, the company was given permission to commercialize the genetically altered Sicilian Rouge GABA variety last December. The contract farmers had been growing them ever since and now these tomatoes are finally ready to hit the stores and become a useful product.
A deep-learning model identifies a powerful new drug that can kill some antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Scientists at Stanford University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have created a 3D-printed vaccine patch that provides greater protection than a typical vaccine shot.
The trick is applying the vaccine patch directly to the skin, which is full of immune cells that vaccines target.
The resulting immune response from the vaccine patch was 10 times greater than vaccine delivered into an arm muscle with a needle jab, according to a study conducted in animals and published by the team of scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Scientists at Stanford University and University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill create a vaccine patch with microneedles that dissolve into the skin.
