JetLib News

Kramer747 writes “to share a new tool I’ve developed for neuroscience that uses optogenetics to remotely control the neurons of a worm as it swims or crawls. Its called CoLBeRT, Controlling Locomotion and Behavior in Real Time. With the instrument I can induce the worm to stop, accelerate, lay eggs or experience the illusion of touch. All source code to run the instrument is GPLd and available. Science News and Scientific American both have stories. The project homepage is at colbert.physics.harvard.edu.” I hope that name also constitutes a successful bid to get on the actual Colbert show!

Source: Remote Control Worms With Laser Light, Using FOSS

Techmeology writes “Professor Akira Iritani of Kyoto University plans to use recent developments in cloning technology to give life to the currently extinct woolly mammoth. Although earlier efforts in the 1990s were unsuccessful due to damage caused by extreme cold, Professor Iritani believes he can use a technique pioneered by Dr Wakayama (who successfully cloned a frozen mouse) to overcome this obstacle. This technique will enable Professor Iritani to identify viable cell nuclei, and transfer them to egg cells of an African elephant which will carry the mammoth for a 600 day pregnancy.”

Source: Extinct Mammoth, Coming To a Zoo Near You

theodp writes “In its just-published patent application for Adapting Parasites to Combat Disease, Microsoft lays out plans to unleash ‘altered parasitic organisms’ on humans, including mosquitoes, fleas, ticks, bed bugs, leeches, pinworms, tapeworms, hookworms, heart worms, roundworms, lice (head, body, and pubic), and the like. ‘Irradiated mosquitoes can be used to deliver damaged Plasmodium to individuals,’ explains Microsoft. ‘Instead of contracting malaria, an individual receiving the damaged Plasmodium develops an immune response that renders the individual resistant to contracting malaria.’ Don’t worry about runaway breeding, advises Microsoft — ‘a termination feature [that] can include programmed death’ makes this impossible. As David Spade might say, I liked this movie the first time I saw it — when it was called Jurassic Park.”

Source: Microsoft Seeks Do-Let-The-Bed-Bugs-Bite Patent

HJED writes “New Scientist is reporting that the joint winner of the Nobel Prize for medicine in 2008, Luc Montagnier is claiming that DNA can send ‘electromagnetic imprints’ of it self into distant cells and fluids which can then be used by enzymes to create copies of the original DNA. This would be equivalent to quantum teleportation. You can read the original paper here [PDF].”

Source: Nobel Prize Winner Says DNA Performs Quantum Teleportation

Megaport writes “After the banning of direct-to-consumer genetic testing in Australia last July, new rules were imposed to require a physician to be involved in the process. Now a new Australian start-up, Lumigenix, has launched a genome decoding service for Australian (and global) consumers that meets the new regulatory requirements. Their products include genetic testing for health and ancestry information. The Australian government is planning to revisit the issue later this year and further regulation is anticipated in response to the emergence of direct-to-consumer genetic services.”

Source: Consumer Genetic Testing Available In Australia

hnkstrprnkstr writes “MIT scientists have created a sort of genomic fossil (abstract) that shows the collective genome of all life underwent an enormous expansion about 3 billion years ago, which they’re calling the Archean Expansion. Many of the new genes appearing in the Archean Expansion are oxygen related, and could be the first biological evidence of the Great Oxidation Event, the period in Earth’s history when oxygen became so plentiful that many anaerobic life forms may have become extinct.”

Source: Scientists Decipher 3-Billion-Year-Old Genomic Fossils

wilmavanwyk writes “In research that further bridges the biological and digital world, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco have created bacteria that can be programmed like a computer. Researchers built ‘logic gates’ – the building blocks of a circuit – out of genes and put them into E. coli bacteria strains. The logic gates mimic digital processing and form the basis of computational communication between cells, according to synthetic biologist Christopher A. Voigt.”

Source: Scientists Create Programmable Bacteria

An anonymous reader writes “Men with type 1 diabetes may be able to grow their own insulin-producing cells from their testicular tissue, say Georgetown University Medical Center (GUMC) researchers who presented their findings today at the American Society of Cell Biology 50th annual meeting in Philadelphia. Their laboratory and animal study is a proof of principle that human spermatogonial stem cells (SSCs) extracted from testicular tissue can morph into insulin-secreting beta islet cells normally found in the pancreas. And the researchers say they accomplished this feat without use of any of the extra genes now employed in most labs to turn adult stem cells into a tissue of choice.”

Source: Diabetic Men May Be Able To Grow Their Own Insulin-Producing Cells

SpeZek writes “Dolly the sheep has been reborn. Four clones have been made by the scientist behind the original research. The quads, which have been nicknamed ‘the Dollies’, are exact genetic copies of their predecessor, who was put down seven years ago. The latest experiments were partly carried out to check if improvements to the technique cut the risk of problems in and out of the womb. Named after country and western singer Dolly Parton, Dolly was created from a cell taken from a mammary gland. The rest of the sample of tissue has lain in a freezer since, until it was defrosted to make the Dollies.”

Source: Dolly the Sheep Alive Again

Bananana writes “A research team out of the Chinese University of Hong Kong has found a way to do data encryption and storage with bacteria. The project is called ‘Bioencryption,’ and their presentation (as a PDF file) is here.”

Source: Hong Kong Team Stores 90GB of Data In 1g of Bacteria