#Synthetic yeast chromosome paves the way for designer genomes A chunk of the genetic blueprint for yeast has been created
and pieced together from scratch paving the way for designer organisms that could produce new medicines food products
and biofuels the creators say. Researchers took tiny snippets of man-made DNA and joined them together to create a synthetic version of a chromosome the structure that contains DNA inside cells from brewer's yeast.
The ability to create such chromosomes is a major step for the field of synthetic biology which aims to engineer microbes to produce useful products.
The work also brings scientists closer to creating synthetic plants and animals. For me one of most exciting aspects is the fact that we've so extensively edited the sequence of natural chromosome
and then synthesized the entire thing from scratch said study leader Jef Boeke a synthetic biologist at NYU Langone Medical center who was previously at Johns hopkins university.
Infographic: How Synthetic Yeast Chromosome Was created Boeke was leader of the study detailed on March 27 in the journal Science.
Humans first domesticated yeast for wine and other alcohol during the days of the Fertile Crescent (roughly 4000 years ago) and have been using it
ever since to make bread wine and beer Boeke told Livescience. Today he said the fungus is used also to makevaccines medicines
and biofuels and the ability to create custom-made yeast would provide useful too for the biotech industry.
To create the artificial chromosome Boeke and his team used computer software to design a modified version of yeast chromosome III which they called syniii
and incorporated it into brewer's yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae). They chose this chromosome because it is the smallest of yeast's 16 chromosomes controlling how the cells mate
and experience genetic changes. It took the researchers seven years to stitch together the synthetic chromosome from pieces of DNA.
The language of DNA consists of four letters A t G and C which form bonds called base pairs.
The syniii chromosome contains 272871 base pairs slightly fewer than the 316617 base pairs in chromosomes of native yeast or natural yeast on
which the simulated one is based. Undergraduate students at Johns hopkins university did much of the work fusing together short pieces of DNA into longer segments as part of a class project
and some of these former students were co-authors on the study Unraveling the Human genome: 6 Molecular Milestones Boeke's team made more than 500 tweaks to the native genome removing repeated sections
and so-called junk DNA (not known to encode proteins the molecules that perform vital tasks inside cells) including so-called jumping genes
which randomly move around in the chromosome. The researchers also added tags to the DNA to label it as native or synthetic.
The completed chromosome was remarkably normal Boeke said adding that the yeast with the synthetic DNA behave almost identically to wild yeast cells.
Using a technique known as scrambling the scientists can shuffle the yeast genes like a deck of cards.
The researchers could make millions and millions of different decks of genetic cards which could give yeast totally new properties.
For example researchers could make synthetic strains of yeast to produce rare medicines such as the malarial drug artemisinin or vaccines like the Hepatitis b vaccine.
Synthetic yeast could also churn out more efficient biofuels such as alcohol butanol or biodiesel which could enable humanity to transition off of a petroleum economy Boeke said.
In addition to practical applications synthetic yeast could be used to study how different genes function and interact to understand how networks of genes influence behavior the researchers added.
In recent years scientists have created synthetic chromosomes from bacteria and viruses but this is the first time anyone has built a chromosome from a eukaryote an organism
whose cells have nuclei. Craig Venter and his team at the J. Craig Venter Institute who created the first synthetic bacterium in 2010 praised the new achievement.
This work is another remarkable example of how synthetic biology can be used to rewrite chromosome sequences at a sizable scale Venter
and his colleagues (who were involved not in the research) said in a statement. The research will lead to a better understanding of the rules of genome structure and behavior in yeast one of the most important model systems for understanding biological processes they added.
Ultimately the researchers plan to synthesize a complete yeast genome with all 16 chromosomes. Boeke's team plans to synthesize larger chromosomes
and do it faster and more cheaply. Despite its utility the work poses questions about the ethics of creating man-made genomes especially in more complex organisms such as animals.
There will always be challenges to new ideas and new ways of doing things and concerns some very legitimate about safety matters Boeke said.
But humans have been engineering plants and animals for a long time spanning from selective breeding to transgenic species he added.
Right now the cost of synthesizing chromosomes is prohibitively high but that could change if the technology improves Boeke said.
He predicts that designer mini-chromosomes will be developed first building on gene therapy which seeks to treat diseases by replacing defective genes with functional ones.
Synthesizing plant and animal genomes is a long way off Boeke said but the day will come.
Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter and Google+.+Follow us@livescience Facebook & Google+.+Original article on Livescience l
#Scientists create'living materials'using E coli Imagine a world where nonliving devices and building materials had some of the same advantages as living things,
such as the ability to self-heal. Well, scientists at the Massachusetts institute of technology are working to make that vision a reality.
They have coaxed bacterial cells to produce biofilms that incorporate nonliving materials, essentially creating"living materials"that can be integrated into everyday objects and devices, from solar panels to adjustable furniture,
reports MIT News. The research was inspired by organic materials like bone, which is super strong
despite being light and shot through with holes. Bone manages this engineering feat because its cells incorporate hard minerals like calcium into the structure of the living tissue."
"Our idea is to put the living and the nonliving worlds together to make hybrid materials that have living cells in them
and are said functional Timothy Lu, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and biological engineering.""It an interesting way of thinking about materials synthesis,
which is very different from what people do now, which is usually a top-down approach."
"Lu and colleagues chose to use the bacterium E coli, a common intestinal organism, for the research because it naturally produces biofilms that contain so-called"curli fibers,
"which are amyloid proteins that attach to surfaces. The fibers were modified by adding peptides that can capture select nonliving materials.
In this case, the researchers chose peptides that could capture gold nanoparticles and quantum dots. Researchers then programmed the E coli cells to produce biofilms with the conducting properties of gold nanowires.
Other films were studded with quantum dots, or tiny crystals that exhibit quantum mechanical properties. The cells were further able to communicate with each other
thus having the ability to change the composition of their biofilms over time.""It a really simple system but what happens over time is you get curli that increasingly labeled by gold particles.
It shows that indeed you can make cells that talk to each other and they can change the composition of the material over time,
"Lu said.""Ultimately, we hope to emulate how natural systems, like bone, form. No one tells bone what to do,
but it generates a material in response to environmental signals.""The technology could have multifarious applications,
such as with energy technology. Improved batteries and solar cells could be produced, and biofilms with enzymes that catalyze the breakdown of cellulose could be used for the conversion of agricultural waste into biofuels.
The possibilities are endless furniture could even be built out of these"living materials.""Devices constructed from these materials could adjust to their environments in ways that traditional nonliving materials cannot."
"I think this is really fantastic work that represents a great integration of synthetic biology and materials engineering,"said Lingchong You, an associate professor of biomedical engineering at Duke university i
#Poop-powered airport shuttle bus hits the road in the U k. A supermarket powered by its own expired comestibles.
Street lamps kept aglow by sewage sludge. An entire town filled with chicken manure-heated homes. The latest initiative in England that's transforming landfill-bound organic waste and excreta into bio-based fuel?
Try a poop-powered airport shuttle bus. The first of its kind in the United kingdom Bio-Bus is a 40-seat transit vehicle that runs entirely on fuel generated through anaerobic digestion.
That is the conversion of waste n this case both locally sourced food waste and human sewage nto a methane-rich biogas.
While it would be most convenient if Bio-Bus serviced the number 2 route it runs along the 20-mile-long A4 route
which ferries commuters between Bristol Airport in North Somerset and the historic tourist-inundated city of Bath with several local stops in between.
The Bath Bus company-operated shuttle carrying about 10000 passengers monthly embarked on its maiden journey last Thursday.
Bio-Bus can travel 186 miles on a full tank of biomethane (or biomethane as they might say across the pond) gas which requires the annual waste of five people to produce according to the operator of the Bristol sewage treatment works GENECO.
A single person annual waste both edible and flushable would fuel the bus for 37 miles.
The annual waste generated by an entire busload of passengers would provide enough fuel for a return trip across Great britain from Land's End in the extreme southwest of England to John O'Groats in the extreme northeast of Scotland.
There always the chance that regular riders on the route hat nice old lady from South Bristol who travels to Keynsham every Sunday to visit her sister re being propelled in part by their own poo.
Says Mohammed Saddiq general manager of GENECO in a press statement issued by parent company Wessex Water:
Through treating sewage and food that unfit for human consumption wee able to produce enough biomethane to provide a significant supply of gas to the national gas network that capable of powering almost 8500 homes as well as fuelling the Bio-Bus. Gas-powered vehicles
have an important role to play in improving air quality in UK cities but the Bio-Bus goes further than that
and is powered actually by people living in the local area including quite possibly those on the bus itself.
Roughly 75 million cubic meters of sewage and 35000 metric tons of food waste collected from households along with local grocery stores and food manufacturers is treated annually at Bristol sewage treatment works located in the suburb of Avonmouth.
The facility is capable of producing an estimated 17 million cubic meters of biomethane from this waste each year.
Bio-Bus which boasts CO2 EMISSIONS that are 30 percent less than buses with conventional diesel engines couldn hit the road at a better time.
In a little more than a month Bristol the eighth most populous city in the U k. will begin its reign as the 2015 European Green Capital.
Come for the nightlife street art and that charming West country drawl. Stay for the human excrement-powered airport shuttle.
In addition to the Bath-to-Bristol airport service Bath Bus company operates open-top sightseeing coaches in England and Wales with routes in Windsor Cardiff Eastbourne and of course Bath.
The company has remarked not as to if any vehicles in its sightseeing fleet will join the airport shuttle
and be converted to run on Bristolian sewage and food scraps o
#Quantum'entangled'light sharpens microscopes'images The first microscope that uses the eerie trick of quantum entanglement to increase its sensitivity has been developed by Japanese researchers.
The new tool relies on a weird principle of quantum mechanics, in which two particles can become entangled
so that even when separated by large distances, say light-years, they are connected intimately. Using such entangled photons,
or particles of light, the microscope reveals things that are completely transparent, visualizing them in a much better quality than could be done with ordinary light.
Physics guru Albert Einstein once famously called it"spooky action at a distance.""This unique property is already being looked at as a potential mechanism for quantum information technologies, such as quantum cryptography and quantum computation.
But a group of scientists from Hokkaido University in Japan decided to go further, and demonstrated that quantum entanglement can also be used in fields such as microscopy.
Most microscopes are limited in their resolving power by what is known as the Rayleigh diffraction limit hich states that it is impossible to image objects that are smaller
or closer together than the wavelength of light used in the microscope to illuminate them.
Creative microscopy The idea of using entangled photons to beat this limit was suggested first in a theoretical paper by physicist Jonathan Dowling and his colleagues at Louisiana State university in 2001.
The physicists used special nonlinear crystals to achieve the superposition of the photons'polarization states,
This pattern is only 17 nanometers higher than the rest of the plate something that is very difficult to see with a standard optical microscope.
The Hokkaido University researchers say the signal-to-noise ratio, which describes roughly how sharp the image is,
Importance for biology One classical way to image smaller objects without using entangled photons is to use shorter and shorter wavelengths of light.
Physicist Jonathan Matthews of the University of Bristol in the U k.,who also was involved not in the research,
said the main achievement is the demonstration that refractive index microscopes can be enhanced fundamentally. The Japanese scientists said their research is especially important for applications in optics and biology."
"It is a very powerful tool to investigate transparent samples such as biological tissues, and, in particular, living cells, without them being damaged by intense probe light,
"Takeuchi said. Dowling agreed.""If you're imaging living organisms in situ, the X-rays may kill
as biologists and doctors are unlikely to be prepared to wait hours for an image to form. o
#'Astroskin'smart shirt monitors astronauts'health in Antarctica Remember that pivotal scene in the movie"Apollo 13"in which crewmembers rip the biomedical sensors off their bodies?
Astroskin, a prototype device to monitor astronaut health, is a garment that fits over a person's upper body
and is embedded with wireless sensors. From the ground, doctors can see an astronaut's vital signs,
as well as how well the spacefarers are sleeping and how they are moving. Before sending Canadian company Carré Technologies'smart shirt on a ride to orbit,
however, a lot of testing must be done to make sure it works as well as the Canadian space agency (CSA) hopes it will.
while spending 45 days in a previously unexplored region of the continent, are beaming their medical information back to civilization while wearing Astroskin graphicastroskin.
which has vowed to use no motorized vehicles. This means the suit is getting tested during skiing, walking and climbing Antarctica's jagged peaks and glaciers.
The University of Quebec at Montreal is monitoring the suit both from the Antarctic and in its labs,
and will share the data with the CSA for possible use on future space missions and other applications.
"CSA chief medical officer Raffi Kuyumijian said in a new videoreleased by the agency.""People who live in remote communities,
for example, will have an easy access to a doctor,"Kuyumijian added.""They can have these shirts on them all the time.
and alert the doctors following at a distance.""Indeed, the technology is used already for sports monitoring On earth.
As GPS watches and blood-pressure monitors become the norm, researchers are now aiming for ideas such as headsets that could assist people with vision problems.
The CSA has indicated not when Astroskin could fly in space, but says it could be used on the International space station during future missions.
Jim Clark/AMNH) Remember that scene in Aliens where Sigourney weaver's Ellen Ripley dons a Power Loader exoskeleton to do battle with the evil alien queen?
240 kilograms) designed for ocean depths down to 1000 feet (305 meters) another extreme environment where no one can hear you scream.
10 Scariest Sea Creatures The one-of-a-kind Exosuit on display at the American Museum of Natural history (AMNH) now through March 5 measures 6. 5 feet (2 meters) tall
and is made of hard metal and other materials. The pressurized suit has four 1. 6-horsepower thrusters to propel the diver up down forward backward or to the side.
The researchers on the July expedition will study bioluminescence and biofluorescence in the mesopelagic zone found at 656 to 3281 feet (200 to 1000 m) below the ocean's surface where light is dim
Bioluminescence is created the light by living organisms through a chemical reaction in the creatures'bodies. Biofluorescence on the other hand occurs
when organisms absorb high-energy short wavelength light (such as ultraviolet light) then re-emit that light at a longer wavelength.
which owns the Exosuit) the AMNH the John B. Pierce Laboratory at Yale university Baruch College-City university of New york the University of Rhode island and Arizona State university.
Follow Marc Lallanilla on Twitter and Google+.+Follow us@livescience Facebook & Google+.+Original article on Livescience
#'Yarn muscles'100 times stronger than human muscles Using just coiled fishing line and sewing thread a team of scientists has developed a way to create super-strong artificial muscles.
The fiber muscles can lift 100 times as much as human muscles of the same length
and weight generating the same power per unit weight as a jet engine researchers say. The artificial muscles could be used to power the limbs of humanoid robots to open
or close windows in a building to maintain the temperature or even to make clothing with fibers that expand
or contract to keep the wearer cool or warm. Biomimicry: 7 Clever Technologies Inspired By nature The simplicity is the beauty of this technology said Ray Baughman a chemist at the University of Texas at Dallas
and leader of the study which was detailed on Feb 20 in the journal Science. High-school students in their family room can make their own muscles
and deploy them Baughman added. Making the muscles is as simple as twisting and coiling high-strength polymer fishing line
and sewing thread (usually twisting with the aid of a power drill). The twisted fiber creates an artificial muscle that can drive a heavy rotor at a speed of more than 10000 revolutions per minute.
The polymer-muscles generate about 3 horsepower per lb. 7. 1 hp/kilogram) or the equivalent of a jet engine.
The scientists found that when they twisted the fiber even more it produced coiling as happens
when you over-twist a rubber band. Coiling in the same direction as the twist creates muscles that contract
when heated and expand again when cooled. By contrast coiling in the opposite direction makes muscles that expand when heated.
The fiber muscles could be used to power the muscles in androids or exoskeletons the researchers said.
In the case of robotic muscles electrical energy not temperature change would drive the contraction of fibers.
Present humanoid robots or exoskeletons or prosthetic limbs are primitive mechanically Baughman told Live Science.
and close heavy windows in a building in response to the air temperature without motors or electricity which the researchers demonstrated.
The coiled fibers would simply expand when the air temperature warms to let the clothing breathe.
Baughman has made artificial muscles out of carbon nanotube yarns before but those are much more expensive and complicated to make.
By contrast the fiber muscles are inexpensive to make and easy to commercialize Baughman said.
The new muscles contract to about 50 percent of their length compared with carbon nanotubes which contract to only about 10 percent their initial length he said.
I know about that does coiled as well as these polymer muscles Baughman said. Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter and Google+.
+Follow us@livescience Facebook & Google+.+Original article on Livescience n
#For stem cells in 30 minutes just add acid Embryonic stem cells have huge potential in treating everything from cancer to diabetes because of their ability to morph into almost any other type of cell within the human body.
But here's a new twist on these controversial cells: what if you could do the reverse
and turn almost any human cell into the equivalent of an embryonic stem cell without taking the cells from an embryo in the first place?
This stress was enough to make the cells pluripotent in as little as 30 minutes. Not only that they were more malleable than the ips cells developed back in 2006.
One of the studies'co-authors stem-cell research Yoshiki Sasai with the RIKEN Center for Developmental biology in Japan told Nature that this discovery is amazing.
I would have thought never external stress could have this effect. The idea came from another biologist at the same facility Haruko Obokata who says it took her five years to persuade her colleagues that this technique would work.
She developed and proved the method which combines a very weak acid physical squeezing and a bacterial toxin to make cells pluripotent.
The work ties into Obokata's other research into stress. As explained on her lab's web page All organisms possess instincts to survive exposures to external stresses by adapting to their environment and to some degree regenerating injured tissues or organs.
Thus it is not surprising to observe dramatic cellular plasticity after exposure to significant external stresses such as an injury.
The next step in the research was to actually prove that the post-stressed cells were indeed pluripotent
and injected them into a mouse embryo. They spread through the entire embryo causing it to fluoresce green.
but said It's exciting to think about the new possibilities these findings offer us not only in regenerative medicine but cancer as well.
Chris Mason a University college London professor of regenerative medicine who was affiliated not with the two studies told the BBC that this is a game changer
and that it could lead to personalized reprogrammed cell therapies to treat a variety of conditions.
In the latest example of biomimicry or science is inspired by nature a team of researchers in California have turned to cats
and other whiskered animals to develop a new technology that could make devices capable of interfacing with the environment.
Whiskers are hairlike tactile sensors used by certain mammals and insects to monitor wind and navigate around obstacles in tight spaces lead researcher Ali Javey of Berkeley Lab's Materials sciences Division said in a news release.
Our electronic whiskers consist of high-aspect-ratio elastic fibers coated with conductive composite films of nanotubes and nanoparticles.
In tests these whiskers were 10 times more sensitive to pressure than all previously reported capacitive or resistive pressure sensors.
How sensitive were these e-whiskers? The researchers say they could detect pressure as low as a single pascal a unit of pressure.
By comparison that's about the same pressure a dollar bill exerts against any surface it is laid upon.
The researchers say this is at least 10 times more sensitive than any other previously developed resistive pressure sensors.
or even wearable sensors that would measure things like heartbeat and pulse rate. The e-whiskers were composed of
what the paper describes as highly tunable composite films of carbon nanotubes and silver nanoparticles that are patterned on high-aspect-ratio elastic fibers.
The nanotubes provide both flexibility allowing the whiskers to bend when they experience pressure and conductivity allowing them to transmit data on the environmental factors they experience.
Javey said the team's e-whiskers could lead to technologies for real-time monitoring of environmental factors.
The ease of fabrication light weight and excellent performance of our e-whiskers should have a wide range of applications for advanced robotics human-machine user interfaces
and biological applications he said s
#$1. 7 million personal submarine lets you'fly'underwater Adventurers with deep pockets can now explore the hidden depths of the ocean,
thanks to a futuristic submarine that lets users"fly"underwater. The Deepflight Super Falcon, developed by California-based Hawkes Ocean Technologies,
is winged a two-seater submersible that can take passengers on undersea joyrides. The custom-built underwater vehicles are designed to dive below the surface, swim amongst marine animals,
deftly navigate through underwater canyons, and even perform aquatic barrel rolls, reported the San francisco Chronicle.""It is like an airplane with wings upside down,"Graham Hawkes,
founder and chief technical officer of Hawkes Ocean Technologies, told the Chronicle.""It is like flying in the air,
"The submarine is 21 feet (6. 4 meters) long, and has a wingspan that stretches nearly 9 feet (2. 7 m). The submersible can carry two
or three passengers, depending on the configuration of the vehicle, and can dive to a depth of about 394 feet (120 m). See Photos of the Deepflight Super Falcon Submersible Traditionally,
submarines are constructed with an inner shell and an outer shell. To dive, submarines fill the space between the two shells with water,
changing the ship's density and creating so-called negative buoyancy when the gravitational tug on the sub is greater than the force of buoyancy.
When submarines remain on the water's surface the area between the two shells is filled with air,
which again changes the vehicle's density and enables it to float. The Super Falcon, however, dives underwater like a whale, using thrust to generate"downward lift"to help the vehicle descend below the water's surface.
Essentially, the submarine uses lift and drag the principles of regular flight to"soar"underwater.
or the vehicle loses power underwater, it will simply float back to the surface.""It looks like a James bond wild machine,
and includes on-site pilot and operations training. The vehicles are among the latest high-tech items geared at the super-rich,
and the company already boasts some famous clients: Sir Richard Branson, the billionaire British tycoon, has made already several dives in the Deepflight Super Falcon,
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