Clipmarks | Silkweaver's clips

Birds can 'see' the Earth's magnetic field

Mon, 05 May 2008 01:59:25 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

It has been debated for nearly four decades but no one has yet been able to prove it is chemically possible. Now good evidence suggests that birds can actually "see" the lines of the Earth's magnetic field.

Klaus Schulten of the University of Illinois, proposed forty years ago that some animals – including migratory birds – must have molecules in their eyes or brains which respond to magnetism.

The problem has been that no one has been able to find a chemical sensitive enough to be influenced by Earth's weak geomagnetic field.

Now Peter Hore and colleagues at the University of Oxford have found one.

Cryptochromes are a class of light-sensitive proteins found in plants and animals

A few years ago, Henrik Mouritsen of the University of Oldenburg in Germany showed that they were present in the retinal neurons of migratory garden warblers, and that these cells were active at dusk, when the warblers were performing magnetic orientation.

Tags: biology, bird's navigation, perception

Mirrors on the Moon could catch alien eyes

Mon, 05 May 2008 01:52:45 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: On a second thought, it sounds somewhat silly

Clip Source: space.newscientist.com

Mounting mirrors on the Moon and using them to signal across space could let ET know we Earthlings are here.

Ever since radio broadcasts began we've been trumpeting our presence to nearby parts of the galaxy, so far without reply. To improve the chances of being found, Shawn Domagal-Goldman and Jacob Haqq-Misra of Pennsylvania State University in State College reckon we should cover half of the Moon with mirrors.

When angled to catch the Sun's rays, the mirrors would increase the amount of light the Earth-moon system reflects by 20%, they say, more than enough to catch the eye of a vigilant alien astronomer. Domagal-Goldman proposes using a code of prime number flashes - just as aliens used to get in touch in Carl Sagan's book Contact. This will ensure the flashes aren't mistaken for natural variations in brightness.

Tags: astronomy, astrobiology, seti

Nano RNA Delivery Novel delivery agents could mean a more targeted way to turn off disease genes.

Mon, 05 May 2008 01:45:29 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: The MIT researchers, however, developed a way to make more than a thousand different delivery agents in parallel using a simple, one-step chemical process. And that allowed the team to quickly discover effective delivery molecules, including several that surprised the researchers. "We wouldn't have necessarily sat down and said, this is a structure that's going to work," says Daniel Anderson, a research associate at the David H. Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research at MIT. "It was only by making and testing over a thousand that we were able to get to that place."

Clip Source: www.technologyreview.com

An experimental and potentially powerful way to fight disease, called RNA interference (RNAi), could now be closer to reality, as researchers at MIT and Alnylam, a biotech company based in Cambridge, MA, have addressed a key obstacle to effectively delivering the treatment to targeted cells.

The researchers report a method for quickly synthesizing more than a thousand different lipid-like molecules and screening them for their ability to deliver short RNA molecules to cells. They've shown that some of these delivery agents are 10 times as effective at delivering RNA than previous methods were.

RNAi, which was first discovered in 1998, has attracted considerable attention as a potential treatment for a wide range of ailments, including cancer, viral infections, genetic diseases, and even heart attacks.

One big thing holding back RNAi therapy, Langer says, is the lack of an effective delivery mechanism

Tags: medicine, rna inteference, biotechnology

Gene therapy improves vision in patients with congenital retinal disease

Mon, 05 May 2008 01:37:58 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver
clipper's remarks: At last we see the light of gene therapy. Hope this area will soon show its immense potential.

Clip Source: www.kurzweilai.net

University of Pennsylvania researchers and colleagues have used gene therapy to safely restore vision in three young adults with a rare form of congenital blindness.

The patients have one form of Leber congenital amaurosis (LCA), a group of inherited blinding diseases that damage light receptors in the retina. The diseases usually start in childhood and cause complete blindness by the 20's or 30's.

The researchers injected a genetically engineered adeno-associated virus carrying a normal version of the gene RPE65 (mutated in the patients' form of LCA) into one eye of each patient.

Although the patients didn't achieve normal eyesight, their vision improved from detecting hand movements to reading lines on an eye chart. The LCA gene therapy vector showed no signs of causing inflammation in the retina or other toxic side effects.

Tags: medicine, gene therapy

Researchers Develop Quick Way to Create Human Antibodies

Mon, 05 May 2008 01:31:26 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.kurzweilai.net

Emory University School of Medicine and Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation researchers have devised a rapid and efficient method for generating protein sentinels of the immune system, called monoclonal antibodies, which mark and neutralize foreign invaders.

The development could potentially accelerate the traditionally challenging task of generating human antibodies, which can be used both to develop faster disease diagnostics--for instance, to test for a new flu strain shortly after it emerges--as well as safer and more effective medications, including vaccines.

Using their new method, the researchers generated more than 100 different monoclonals in less than a year, with each taking just a few weeks to produce. This is far less than the one to two years typically required to make a single monoclonal cell line.

Tags: medicine, immunology

US researchers have built a proto-prototype nano assembler

Mon, 05 May 2008 01:21:16 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.nanowerk.com

(Nanowerk News) The first real steps towards building a microscopic device that can construct nano machines have been taken by US researchers. Writing in the peer-reviewed publication, International Journal of Nanomanufacturing from Inderscience Publishers, researchers describe an early prototype for a nanoassembler.

In his 1986 book, The Engines of Creation, K Eric Drexler set down the long-term aim of nanotechnology - to create an assembler, a microscopic device, a robot, that could construct yet smaller devices from individual atoms and molecules.

Gorman and his colleagues at NIST have taken a novel approach to building a nanoassembler and reveal details in a forthcoming issue of the International Journal of Nanomanufacturing. "Our demonstration is still a work in progress," says Gorman, "you might describe it as a 'proto-prototype' for a nanoassembler."

it should be possible to have multiple nanoassemblers working simultaneously to manufacture next generation nanoelectronics.

Tags: nanotechnology, nanoassemblers

Is the future of TV on the Web?

Sun, 04 May 2008 18:22:38 GMT

clipped by: Silkweaver

Clip Source: www.cnn.com

(CNN) -- The future of television is changing before our eyes, as media giants scramble to stake their claims in the wilderness of Internet video.

Major studios, including Fox, NBC Universal, and Warner Bros. are moving quickly to establish Web sites for their premium video titles, in hopes of grabbing a growing audience of online video viewers.

It's an exciting time for couch potatoes and mouse potatoes alike, because nobody knows exactly how big audiences will consume video entertainment in the not-too-distant future -- whether it's on a mobile device, a laptop, a wall-mounted screen or something that hasn't been invented yet.

"Historically, the winners are the ones who embrace change," said Jason Kilar, CEO of Hulu.com, which was launched March 12 by the owners of Fox and NBC Universal.

Americans watched 10 billion videos in the month of February alone, said the rating service.

Tags: television, internet