A CLOSER LOOK - Crazy as a Bag of Hammers - Humour, Jokes and fun stuff. Scientist creates lifelike cells out of metal. Scientists trying to create artificial life generally work under the assumption that life must be carbon-based, but what if a living thing could be made from another element? One British researcher may have proven that theory, potentially rewriting the book of life. Lee Cronin of the University of Glasgow has created lifelike cells from metal — a feat few believed feasible. The discovery opens the door to the possibility that there may be life forms in the universe not based on carbon, reports New Scientist. Even more remarkable, Cronin has hinted that the metal-based cells may be replicating themselves and evolving. "I am 100 percent positive that we can get evolution to work outside organic biology," he said. The high-functioning "cells" that Cronin has built are constructed from large polyoxometalates derived from a range of metal atoms, like tungsten.
The metallic bubbles are certainly cell-like, but are they actually alive? The early results have been encouraging. Social - Stanford researchers study how disordered proteins spread from cell to cell, potentially spreading disease. Photos courtesy of Ron Kopito An image of U2OS cells infected with Q91 polygluytamine aggregates (in green) colocalized with intracelluluar expressed (red) Q25. One bad apple is all it takes to spoil the barrel. And one misfolded protein may be all that's necessary to corrupt other proteins, forming large aggregations linked to several incurable neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's, Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. Stanford biology Professor Ron Kopito has shown that the mutant, misfolded protein responsible for Huntington's disease can move from cell to cell, recruiting normal proteins and forming aggregations in each cell it visits.
Knowing that this protein spends part of its time outside cells "opens up the possibility for therapeutics," he said. The ability of these proteins to move from one cell to another could explain the way Huntington's disease spreads through the brain after starting in a specific region. Not all bad Not all misfolded proteins are bad. A bad influence. Microscopy Art [group] most recent on FlickeFlu. The Fibonacci Sequence. Led Scientists Find Antibodies that Prevent Most HIV Strains from Infecting Human Cells. Scientists have discovered two potent human antibodies that can stop more than 90 percent of known global HIV strains from infecting human cells in the laboratory, and have demonstrated how one of these disease-fighting proteins accomplishes this feat. According to the scientists, these antibodies could be used to design improved HIV vaccines, or could be further developed to prevent or treat HIV infection.
Moreover, the method used to find these antibodies could be applied to isolate therapeutic antibodies for other infectious diseases as well. “The discovery of these exceptionally broadly neutralizing antibodies to HIV and the structural analysis that explains how they work are exciting advances that will accelerate our efforts to find a preventive HIV vaccine for global use,” says Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health.
NIAID scientists Peter D. Kwong, Ph.D., John R.