Lifeboat Foundation

Some viruses sacrifice themselves so that others may multiply.

THAT predators often hunt in packs is a commonplace. Wolves do it. Killer whales do it. Even Velociraptor, a species of dinosaur made famous by “Jurassic Park”, is believed to have done it. These are, or were, all intelligent species, capable of exchanging and interpreting information. But the logic of pack hunting, that many may achieve what one alone cannot, and that individual pack members may perform different roles, does not depend on intelligence. Indeed, evidence has now emerged that this logic applies to viruses, the simplest biological entities of all. It was published this week in Cell, by Edze Westra and Stineke van Houte at the University of Exeter, in England.

The viruses in question are bacteriophages, which “hunt” bacteria. They do not eat their prey. Rather, they take over its genetic apparatus to create replicas of themselves, killing the host as a consequence. To do so they have to penetrate a bacterium’s cell wall and then subvert its internal defences, of which there are several. One of the best known, because it is the basis of an emerging gene-editing technology (see article), is called CRISPR. The CRISPR system detects and cuts up alien DNA. In the wild, such DNA will almost always have come from a virus. To counter this, some bacteriophages have evolved ways of gumming up CRISPR’s cellular machinery. Dr Westra and Dr van Houte have shown that, in essence, such phages collaborate. Some do the gumming. Others hijack the genetic apparatus.

Continue reading “Viruses that attack bacteria have evolved to collaborate” »

Beauty in binary.

The RoboArt gallery has hosted an art competition for robots and AI for the third year in a row.

Although i dont really like the idea of a different robot for every job, because you will get nickel and dimed to death.

If you love scrubbing the floors of your kitchen and bathrooms, then don’t get an iRobot Braava Jet 240. If you would rather let a plucky little robot do the mopping for you, then do get one, and leave this thankless household chore behind forever.

When CRISPR-Cas9 is used to edit genomes, off-target DNA damage is more common than previously thought.

A GREAT deal rides on the accuracy of the gene-editing tool known as CRISPR-Cas9. Since its discovery in 2012 it has become popular for tinkering with genomes of all kinds, thanks to its ability to make editing cheap and easy. Firms such as CRISPR Therapeutics, Intellia Therapeutics and Editas Medicine have been built on the idea that it could be used to develop treatments for human diseases. Editas, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, announced this year that it would work on five new human medicines over the next five years.

In China the technology is already in clinical use. In Hangzhou Cancer Hospital, for example, CRISPR-Cas9 is being employed to engineer immune-system cells removed from patients with cancer of the oesophagus. The hope is that when the engineered cells are returned to a patient’s body, the editing will have improved their ability to attack tumours. More studies involving human beings are expected in other countries for the treatment of beta-thalassaemia, a blood disorder, and Leber’s congenital amaurosis, a form of blindness. Further ahead, there is hope that CRISPR-Cas9 will help treat diseases such as AIDS, cystic fibrosis, Huntington’s chorea and Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

Continue reading “The safety of CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing is being debated” »

The big roll out Was going to be 2022, now looking like maybe 2027. There has been some shady stuff happening in the background in the USA to hold up self driving cars. It seems the people who were set to lose a lot of money on the changeover have found ways to hold it up.

Despite the rapid accumulation of testing miles, Krafcik warned the governors not to end all of their infrastructure investments just yet. Responding to a question about the need for new parking facilities, he responded that there will be a very long period of overlap between personally owned human driven vehicles and shared automated vehicles from Waymo and others. He suggested that it might be possible to slow down on some massive parking structures but was non-committal on timelines.

With Waymo planning to launch its commercial service by the end of 2018, GM coming in 2019 and others including Zoox, Daimler and Voyage in the next 2–3 years, there will be shared automated vehicles on the road. However, these will be limited to locations where they are demonstrated to function reliably and there is a market for ride-hailing despite the optimistic projections of some investors and developers. Widespread adoption in the millions of vehicles globally is unlikely before the latter half of the 2020s.

Continue reading “Transition To Autonomous Cars Will Take Longer Than You Think, Waymo CEO Tells Governors” »

Scientists like Dan Carlson are in high demand, thanks to recently discovered tools that enable them to tweak the DNA of all kinds of organisms.

Robot bartenders are mostly novelties today. But a group of startups is hoping to bring automation to your neighborhood watering hole—and even your home bar.

An over looked planet. After the Moon, Mars and Venus, the last other planet to realistically debate building colonies on in the Solar System.

Our previous view of Titan was shrouded by its thick atmosphere, making it difficult to put together a clear global picture.

Now infrared imaging, which is similar to the technology used in night vision goggles, has provided a window through the moon’s clouds to the rugged surface and methane lakes below.

Continue reading “NASA has released some of the clearest ‘global’ images of Saturn’s moon Titan” »

The company’s autonomous vehicles just drove 8 million miles on public roads. What’s more, it took the company just one month to go from 7 million miles to 8 million miles driven.

“We’re driving now at the rate of 25,000 miles every day on public roads,” CEO John Krafcik said Friday while addressing the National Governors Association.

Waymo’s acceleration in logging miles with self-driving cars has picked up in the last year. In November 2017, it crossed 4 million miles. Less than a year later it’s doubled that figure.

Continue reading “Waymo’s self-driving cars log 1 million miles on public roads in a month” »