Apparently, the newest scientific discovery can possibly leave dentures and implants in the past, and make millions of people extremely happy.
These two methods for a missing tooth or teeth can lead to serious dental health issues, such as discomfort and irritations, difficulties to eat, and pain in the case of dentures, while implants can cause infections, nerve damage, injury or damage to the surrounding structures, and sinus problems.
We need to begin a serious debate about whether artificially evolved humans are our future, and if we should put an end to these experiments before it is too late.
In 2016, Craig Venter and his team at Synthetic Genomics announced that they had created a lifeform called JCVI-syn3.0, whose genome consisted of only 473 genes. This stripped-down organism was a significant breakthrough in the development of artificial life as it enabled us to understand more fully what individual genes do. (In the case of JCVI-syn3.0, most of them were used to create RNA and proteins, preserve genetic fidelity during reproduction and create the cell membrane. The functions of about a third remain a mystery.)
Doctors could soon be able to grow new brain cells, which would help treat people with strokes or other neurological conditions, using just a small blood sample.
Scientists from Heidelberg University Hospital in Germany and the University of Innsbruck in Austria figured out how to reprogram mature human blood cells into neural stem cells. Scientists have reprogrammed stem cells before, but these new cells are the first ones that can continue to multiply and propagate in the lab thanks to specific genetic tweaks, according to research published Thursday in the journal Stem Cell.
A daring effort is under way to create the first children whose DNA has been tailored using gene editing.
When Chinese researchers first edited the genes of a human embryo in a lab dish in 2015, it sparked global outcry and pleas from scientists not to make a baby using the technology, at least for the present.
It was the invention of a powerful gene-editing tool, CRISPR, which is cheap and easy to deploy, that made the birth of humans genetically modified in an in vitro fertilization (IVF) center a theoretical possibility.
Thanks to genetically engineered pigs, the donor-organ shortage could soon be a think of the past.
ANCHORING A ROW of family photos in Joseph Tector’s office is a framed, autographed picture of Baby Fae, the California newborn who made headlines in 1984 when she received a baboon’s heart to replace her own malfunctioning organ.
It’s inscribed “To Joe” by Leonard L. Bailey, the surgeon who turned to the monkey heart as the only option to keep his patient alive. Bailey snapped the picture about five days after the operation, while Stephanie Fae Beauclair was sleeping. A strip of surgical tape runs down the center of her chest from neck to diaper, marking the incision line where her rib cage was pulled apart to make the swap. Baby Fae would die less than three weeks later.
It’s an unsettling image to come upon while glancing over snapshots of someone’s dutifully smiling children. But to Tector, who was 19 at the time of Baby Fae’s surgery, the cross-species organ transplant was the most inspiring thing he’d ever heard of. “I remember where I was when the news broke,” he says. “At that moment I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life.” What he wanted to do with his life, though he may not have articulated it precisely this way, was to become a surgeon-scientist trying to crack the problem of xenotransplantation — the placing of animal organs into human bodies.
A new easy-to-use device can quickly and accurately screen for a variety of diseases, including Zika, Ebola, hepatitis, dengue, and malaria.
The portable device, called enVision (enzyme-assisted nanocomplexes for visual identification of nucleic acids), can also screen for various types of cancers and genetic diseases. EnVision takes between 30 minutes to one hour to detect the presence of diseases, which is two to four times faster than existing infection diagnostics methods. The device also costs less than 75¢—100 times less than tests currently in use.
“The enVision platform is extremely sensitive, accurate, fast, and low-cost. It works at room temperature and does not require heaters or special pumps, making it very portable,” says team leader Shao Huilin, assistant professor from the Biomedical Institute for Global Health Research and Technology (BIGHEART) and biomedical engineering department at National University of Singapore.
I’m Caleb Harper, principal investigator and director of the Open Agriculture initiative at the MIT Media Lab. Kent Larson courtesy of MIT Media Lab
In his book Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit, Barry Estabrook details how grocery store tomatoes are both less nutritious and delicious than those grown decades ago. Industrial farming now grows crops for yield, sacrificing taste and vitamins for an easy-to-harvest, shippable product. It’s why apples at your local supermarket are probably about a year old. Caleb Harper, a principal research scientist at MIT and director of the OpenAg Initiative, wants to use technology to grow food that’s healthier, tastier, and more sustainable.
“Growing for nutrition and growing for flavor, it’s not really something anyone does,” he told Digital Trends at the recent ReThink Food conference in Napa, California.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The next generation of biotech food is headed for the grocery aisles, and first up may be salad dressings or granola bars made with soybean oil genetically tweaked to be good for your heart.
By early next year, the first foods from plants or animals that had their DNA “edited” are expected to begin selling. It’s a different technology than today’s controversial “genetically modified” foods, more like faster breeding that promises to boost nutrition, spur crop growth, and make farm animals hardier and fruits and vegetables last longer.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has declared gene editing one of the breakthroughs needed to improve food production so the world can feed billions more people amid a changing climate. Yet governments are wrestling with how to regulate this powerful new tool. And after years of confusion and rancor, will shoppers accept gene-edited foods or view them as GMOs in disguise?
Trades Union Congress concerned over tech being used to control and micromanage.
Britain’s biggest employer organisation and main trade union body have sounded the alarm over the prospect of British companies implanting staff with microchips to improve security.
UK firm BioTeq, which offers the implants to businesses and individuals, has already fitted 150 implants in the UK.
Scientists delivered pups with genetic material from two moms and two dads. But only pups with two moms survived to have babies themselves.
BIRDS DO IT, bees do it—even laboratory mice do it. But with science in the mix, actually creating new life may not always require a male and a female.
Using gene editing and stem cells, researchers in China have helped mice of the same sex bear pups. While this feat has been accomplished before with mouse moms, the new study marks the first time that pups from pairs of male mice were also carried to full term.
The technology is far from ready for the leap to humans. Though mice pups born from two females appeared healthy and bore their own young, pups with two papas died soon after birth. Of the 12 born, just two survived more than 48 hours.
Infection with the bacterium Staphylococcus aureus can cause many health problems, including sepsis. Certain strains of this bacterium are resistant to antibiotics, so they are particularly dangerous. However, researchers discover that a probiotic bacterium can destroy this superbug.
Researchers are now investigating the potential of a probiotic bacterium in treating MRSA infections.
Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is highly resistant to treatment with antibiotics.
These include oxacillin, flucloxacillin, and dicloxacillin.
