Regenerative Biology: Scientists Discovered A New Molecule That Regenerates Bone Tissue In Brief Researchers from California discover the key to simplifying the creation of engineered bones: adenosine. This naturally occurring molecule can be injected into bone tissue to coax human pluripotent stem cells to regenerate. Regenerating Bone Tissue The incidence of bone disorders, particularly in populations where aging is tied to rising obesity rates and poor physical activity, has been increasing steadily— so much so that it is expected to double in the coming years. To date, bone grafts have been the only solution to this problem. The findings also show that this solution is not only effective, it’s also a simpler, more cost-efficient, and scalable method of creating bone-building cells. Adenosine The key to the researcher’s discovery is in the use of adenosine. Pluripotent cells can become any type of cell (muscle, heart, skin or bone) through differentiation; but prompting the process and directing stem cell differentiation is very complicated and can be very expensive.
Physicists Are Close to Producing Metallic Hydrogen, And It Could Change Everything Hydrogen’s Mega-Evolution The simplest and most common element, first in the periodic table, shouldn’t be difficult to crack, right? “What could be more simple than an assembly of electrons and protons?” asks Neil Aschcroft, a theoretical physicist at Cornell University. Yet, its supposed metallic form is quite the opposite. Hydrogen is naturally at a gaseous state, at room temperature and under atmospheric pressure. The complexity of the first element in the periodic table continually amazes scientists. The Applications Turning hydrogen into metal has not been the easy press-of-a-button behavior change that scientists may have hoped for it to be. So now there are two teams. Though both are racing to transform solid or liquid hydrogen into its metallic version, the two teams have different goals. One aims to make solid metallic hydrogen into the superconductor it is understood to be. The second group looks beyond this and has their eyes set towards space.
Theranos Had a Chance to Clear Its Name. Instead, It Tried to Pivot Just before Theranos CEO and founder Elizabeth Holmes took the stage in front of a conference room packed with of thousands of skeptical doctors, the PA was playing the Rolling Stones’ “Sympathy for the Devil.” The irony was clear. Since October 16, 2015, Holmes has spent every public moment defending her company against mounting evidence that their drop-of-blood diagnostics service was built on a scientific sham. Many of the people gathered in that conference room at the 2016 annual meeting of the American Association of Clinical Chemistry were probably expecting the company to address those allegations, with data. The box, called miniLab, is a tidy, humbled version of the mythos that made Theranos a $9 billion unicorn. Holmes and Company once promoted an innovative, breakthrough technology that would run up to 70 different tests on a single drop of blood—obtained painlessly from a finger prick—while being cheaper and faster than anything else available. An opportunity, but for whom?
Quantum cryptography system hacked It is supposed to be absolutely secure – a means to transmit secret information between two parties with no possibility of someone eavesdropping. Yet quantum cryptography, according to some engineers, is not without its faults. In a preprint submitted late last week to arXiv, Hoi-Kwong Lo and colleagues at the University of Toronto, Canada, claim to have hacked into a commercial quantum cryptography system by exploiting a certain practical "loophole". So does this mean high-profile users of quantum cryptography – banks and governments, for example – are in danger of being eavesdropped after all? Quantum cryptography works because a system's quantum state cannot be observed without changing it. Finding the loopholes At least, that's how it should work in theory. The loopholes Lo refers to concern noise. Lo's group, however, attack a different source of noise: the inherent noise Alice introduces when she prepares quantum states for Bob to generate the secret key. No cause for alarm
Robots Could Be Performing a Third of U.S. Surgeries by 2021 In Brief Robots are most commonly used in hospitals for aiding surgeons in performing operating room tasks. Top hospitals invest on robotic-assisted surgical systems with the goal of providing better and more cost-effective care. Robot Use in Hospitals Grows Lately, robots are being used by hospitals to perform a multitude of tasks — from delivering medicine to patients, to working alongside surgeons and assisting them in complex and delicate procedures. Because of their precision and inability to feel weariness that may cause muscle tremors, robots are perfect assistants to surgeons in carrying out such meticulous jobs in the operating room. As robotic surgery continues to grow, experts predict that, within the period of five years, robots will dominate the operating rooms in the United States. Paying the Price As you could imagine, these robots don’t come cheap. But there are cheaper choices out there.
CERN Physicist's Fertility Algorithm Prevents Unwanted Pregnancy With 99.5% Efficacy A New Track Back in 2012, a team at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) found the elusive Higgs-Boson particle. While an impressive feat, it does raise the question: how do you top a discovery like that? For one physicist, the answer was to expand her horizons. That’s right, a scientist who was a part of the discovery of the Higgs-Boson switched gears to the field of female fertility, and has created an app that could eventually be the first smartphone-based contraceptive. The fertility app is called Natural Cycles, and it was developed by physicist Elina Berglund when she noticed there were few natural options for birth control. In order to provide a solution for this problem, she wrote an algorithm that analyses the user’s body temperature (input into the app) to display fertile and infertile days. Technology and Biology Trials for the apps have shown positive results. On the flip side, the Daily Record reports that it could also be used to more accurately help track ovulation.
3-D imaging of muscles points to potential treatments for muscle diseases and injuries - Scienmag Eight million people per year in the UK suffer from muscular diseases and injuries including muscular dystrophy, cerebral palsy, exercise-related injuries, rotator cuff tears, and age-related muscle loss (1). Advertisement A new form of 3D imaging of muscles has allowed researchers to "see" inside muscle and trace long cables made up of a protein called collagen. Collagen cables are one culprit behind muscular diseases and injuries, so targeting them could provide treatments. That's according to new research from a team at UC San Diego and the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago (RIC) led by Dr. Muscular conditions, whether hereditary, exercise-induced, or due to normal aging, can result in stiff, dysfunctional muscles due to changes called fibrosis. Researchers used a mouse model of skeletal muscle fibrosis to investigate the structure and function of collagen. Dr. Collagen had not been previously known to form long chains in muscle. Commenting on the study, senior author, Dr. 1. 2. 3.
Researchers Find Hidden DNA of Previously Unknown Species New computer analysis may have discovered traces of long-lost human cousins hiding within DNA from people in Melanesia, a region in the South Pacific encompassing Papua New Guinea and surrounding islands. Ryan Bohlender, Ph.D., a statistical geneticist at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, said during the annual meeting of the American Society of Human Genetics on Oct. 20 that Melanesian people may carry genetic evidence of a previously unknown extinct third hominid species. According to Bohlender, the species is unlikely to be from the extinct Neanderthal or Denisovan species, but from a different, related species likely from a third branch of the hominid family tree. “We’re missing a population or we’re misunderstanding something about the relationships,” he said in a statement. Bohlender and fellow researchers have calculated that Europeans and Chinese people carry about 2.8 percent of Neanderthal ancestry.