Short strands of RNA known as microRNA help cells to fine-tune their gene expression. Disruption or loss of some microRNAs has been linked to cancer, raising the possibility of treating tumors by adjusting microRNA levels. Developing such treatments requires delivering microRNA to tumors, which has proven difficult. However, researchers from MIT have now shown that …
Out of a ‘haystack’ of 40,000 genes from three different organisms, scientists at ETH Zurich and a research consortium in Jena have found genes that are involved in physical ageing. If you influence only one of these genes, the healthy lifespan of laboratory animals is extended – and possibly that of humans, too. Driven by …
On 23 September, at the Shenzhen International Biotech Leaders Summit in China, BGI revealed that it would start selling the pigs as pets. The animals weigh about 15 kilograms when mature, or about the same as a medium-sized dog. The institute quoted a price tag of 10,000 yuan (US$1,600) for the micropigs, but that was …
1. Forbes – James Conca – Is Radiation Necessary For Life? Recent studies on the biological effects of radiation at essentially zero levels of radiation demonstrated that the absence of radiation is not good for organisms. Removing almost all traces of radioactivity from their environment inhibited bacterial growth and caused stress-related genes to turn on. …
Pamela Melroy, deputy director of the tactical technology office at DARPA, said such a robotic system could be used to refuel, repair and construct spacecraft at GEO, Cheryl Pellerin writes. Pellerin reports GEO is a stable space environment that is approximately 36,000 kilometers away from Earth but has high levels of radiation that could be …
Observations from ESO’s La Silla and Paranal Observatories in Chile have for the first time demonstrated a link between a very long-lasting burst of gamma rays and an unusually bright supernova explosion. The results show that the supernova was not driven by radioactive decay, as expected, but was instead powered by the decaying super-strong magnetic …
A study of more than 300,000 nuclear-industry workers in France, the United States and the United Kingdom, all of whom wore dosimeter badges, has provided exactly these data. A consortium of researchers coordinated by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) in Lyon, France, examined causes of death in the workers (one-fifth of whom …
Jilin Province in China has offered to build a railway to Vladivostok for Russia’s Far East Region of Primorsky Krai. It would be the first cross-border high-speed rail link between the two countries and Russia’s major Pacific port. “We have an idea to construct a high-speed railway to Vladivostok. In August we will open a …
The Carnival of Nuclear Energy 245 is up at Fukushima Commentary Forbes- The moon is a planet. A minor planet. In our Solar System, there are 28 planets of all sizes within the orbit of Pluto. Major planets. Minor planets. Dwarf planets. And the Moon is one of the minor planets. Here are many small, …
Romanian website Glasul, indicates has awarded the Moscow to Beijing Transsiberian high speed rail project to China Railway High-speed (CRH), a subsidiary of the state-controlled China Railway (CR), which is working in a joint-venture with the local firm Uralvagonzavod. It would reduce a seven day trip to two days and eventually be part of a …
Superconductors.ORG herein reports high Tc has been advanced to 77 Celsius (170F, 350K) with the discovery of the compound Tl7Sn2Ba2MnCu10O20+. This exceedingly high transition temperature (Tc) was achieved by substituting manganese into the titanium atomic sites of the 65 Celsius superconductor announced in January 2014. This substitution increases the dielectric constant (K) of the anion …