Comparing centenarians to extremely sick diabetic people has found more genes that cause diabetes

Aging researcher compared centenarians on one side and T2D patients with severe complications (people with extreme diabetic complications) on the other, thus maximizing possible genetic differences among patients and controls. Their data suggest that the use of relatively small numbers of cases and controls with extreme phenotypes (thus reducing sample heterogeneity) in genetic association studies …

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Focardi who worked with Rossi on the Energy Catalyzer has died

Rossi has announced that Prof. Sergio Focardi has died. Sergio Focardi worked with Rossi to develop the highly controversial energy catalyzer (cold fusion / LENR – low energy nuclear reaction) device. Sergio Focardi (1932–2013) was an Italian physicist and professor emeritus at the University of Bologna. He led the Department of Bologna of the (Italian) …

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Highlights of the Starship conference

Jonathan Markley provided a report on the Starship conference to Transterrestrial. Futurist Peter Schwartz Schwarz sees 4 possibilities for interstellar ships: 1. Generation ships 2. sleep ships 3. relativistic ships 4. download ships Forgotten types 5. Radically life extended crew 6. Breakthrough physics Freeman Dyson Freeman Dyson sees bio-tech as the way of the future …

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Synthetic Biology Will take months off of the time for Flu Vaccine Production by speeding virus genome synthesis

At a meeting on synthetic biology held at MIT, the drug company Novartis said it has synthesized hybrid flu genomes in a process that could shave weeks off the time required to produce vaccines. When new flu strain emerges, government agencies normally send samples to vaccine manufacturers, who grow large numbers of the pathogen in …

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New flash memory combines graphene and molybdenite

EPFL scientists have combined two materials with advantageous electronic properties — graphene and molybdenite — into a flash memory prototype that is very promising in terms of performance, size, flexibility and energy consumption. After the molybdenite chip, we now have molybdenite flash memory, a significant step forward in the use of this new material in …

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Cable companies make 97% margin on internet services and have no incentive to offer gigabit internet

The cable distribution giants like Time Warner Cable and Comcast are already making a 97 percent margin on their “almost comically profitable” Internet services, according to Craig Moffet, an analyst at the Wall Street firm Bernstein Research. As Levin points out, “If you are making that kind of margin, it’s hard to improve it.” And …

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Virus kills cancer tumors in animals

Telegraph UK = Lab results show a virus is more effective than drugs at killing cancer tumors in animals. However, adenovirus serotype 5 is a common virus in which we have achieved transcriptional targeting by replacing an endogenous viral promoter sequence. Cheap to produce, the virus is exquisitely precise, with only mild, flu-like side-effects in …

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