Lifeboat Foundation

New method for tracking single cells; definitely could be interesting for genetic mutation research such as cancer, Parkinson, etc.

As far as the scientists are concerned, the new possibilities that these programs offer should be available to as many researchers around the world as possible. Therefore the software is freely available, and can be downloaded from the following link: http://www.bsse.ethz.ch/csd/software/ttt-and-qtfy.html

Technical obstacles were removed as far as possible. “Our focus was on making the application also available to researchers who do not have background IT know-how,” Schroeder explains. And the application appears to work well: Two high-ranking publications can be traced back to the spyware for cells.

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Arthritis sufferers have been offered new hope after scientists grew a ‘living hip’ in the lab which not only replaces worn cartilage but stops painful joints returning.

Researchers in the US have used stem cells to grow cartilage in the exact shape of a hip joint while also genetically engineering the tissue to release anti-inflammatory molecules to fend off the return of arthritis.

The idea is to implant the perfectly shaped cartilage around the joint to extend its life before arthritis has caused too much damage to the bone.

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Inspired by the large-scale sky surveys with which astronomers explore the cosmos, neuroscientists in Seattle, Washington, have spent four years systematically surveying the neural activity of the mouse visual cortex. The Allen Brain Observatory’s first data release, on 13 July, provides a publicly accessible data set of unprecedented size and scope, designed to help scientists to model and understand the human brain.

The project is part of an ambitious ten-year brain-research plan announced in 2012 by the Allen Institute for Brain Science. Designed to catalogue neurons and their electrical characteristics in minute detail, the initiative aims to enable new insights into how perception and cognition arise.

To compile the brain observatory’s first data set, researchers used a specialized microscope to record calcium waves that occur when neurons fire, sampling activity in 25 mice over 360 experimental sessions, while the animals viewed a battery of visual stimuli such as moving patterns of lines, images of natural scenes and short movies. The data set so far includes 18,000 cells in 4 areas of the visual cortex, making it one of the largest and most comprehensive of its kind. The set also includes information about each neuron’s location and its expression of certain genetic markers. At 30 terabytes, the raw data are too large to share easily, but users can download a more manageable processed data set, or explore it online.

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Can serve many uses such as geneology, etc. However, the bigger advancement will be with criminal/ legal investigations.

Rice University researchers have developed gas biosensors to “see” into soil and allow them to follow the behavior of the microbial communities within.

In a study in the American Chemical Society’s journal Environmental Science and Technology, the Rice team described using genetically engineered bacteria that release methyl halide gases to monitor microbial gene expression in soil samples in the lab.

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Every wanted to reverse silent genes without mutations created? We now have a way.

Researchers have developed a technique that turns back on silenced, or switched-off, genes without causing unwanted mutations.

There is a well-documented organ shortage throughout the world. For example, 3,000 kidney transplants were made last year in the United Kingdom, but that still left 5,000 people on the waiting list at the end of the period. A lucrative trade in organs has grown up, and transplant tourism has become relatively common. While politicians wring their hands about sensible solutions to the shortage, including the nudge of opt-out donation, scientists using genetic manipulations have been making significant progress in growing transplantable organs inside pigs.

Scientists in the United States are creating so-called ‘human-pig chimeras’ which will be capable of growing the much-needed organs. These chimeras are animals that combine human and pig characteristics. They are like mules that will provide organs that can be transplanted into humans. A mule is the offspring of a male donkey (jack) and a female horse (mare). Horses and donkeys are different species with different numbers of chromosomes, but they can breed together.

In this case, the scientists take a skin cell from a human and from this make stem cells capable of producing any cell or tissue in the body, known as ‘induced pluripotent stem cells’. They then inject these into a pig embryo to make a human-pig chimera. In order to create the desired organ, they use gene editing, or CRISPR, to knock out the embryo’s pig’s genes that produce, for example, the pancreas. The human stem cells for the pancreas then make an almost entirely human pancreas in the resulting human-pig chimera, with just the blood vessels remaining porcine. Using this controversial technology, a human skin cell, pre-treated and injected into a genetically edited pig embryo, could grow a new liver, heart, pancreas or lung as required.

Continue reading “Should a human-pig chimera be treated as a person?” »

In order to build a better map of the brain, begin by slicing glass windows into the glowing skulls of genetically-engineered mice.

Transhuman Terminology.

ADHOCRACY
AEONOMICS
A-LIFE
AGORIC SYSTEM

AI-COMPLETE ALEPH ALGERNON AMORTALIST ARACHNIOGRAPHY ARCH-ANARCHY ARCOLOGY ARROW IMPOSSIBILITY THEOREM ARTILECT ASEX ASIMORT ASIMOV ASSEMBLER ATHANASIA ATHANOPHY ATHEOSIS AUGMENT AUTOEVOLUTIONIST AUTOMATED ENGINEERING AUTOMORPHISM AUTOPOTENT AUTOSCIENT BABY UNIVERSE BASEMENT UNIVERSE BEAN DIP CATASTROPHE BEANSTALK BEKENSTEIN BOUND BERSERKER BETELGEUSE-BRAIN BIG CRUNCH BINERATOR BIOCHAUVINISM BIOLOGICAL FUNDAMENTALISM BIONICS BIONOMICS BIOPHILIAC BIOSTASIS B-LIFE BLIGHT BLIND UPLOADING BLUE GOO BOGOSITY FILTER BORGANISM BREAKEVEN POINT BROADCATCHING BRUTE FORCE UPLOADING BUSH ROBOT CALCUTTA SYNDROME CALM TECHNOLOGY CALORIE RESTRICTION CASIMIR EFFECT CEREBROSTHESIS CHINESE ROOM CHRONONAUTS CHURCH-TURING THESIS COBOTS COMPUFORM COMPUTRONIUM CONCENTRATED INTELLIGENCE CONSILIENCE CONNECTIONISM CONTELLIGENCE CONTINUITY IDENTITY THEORY COSMYTHOLOGY CRYOBIOLOGY CRYOCRASTINATE CRYOGENICS CRYONICS CRYONIC SUSPENSION CRYPTO ANARCHY CRYPTOCOSMOLOGY CYBERCIDE CYBERFICTION CYBERGNOSTICISM CYBERIAN CYBERNATE/CYBERNIZE CYBERSPACE/CYBERMATRIX CYBRARIAN CYPHERPUNK DEANIMALIZE DEATH FORWARD DEATHISM DEEP ANARCHY DEFLESH DIGITAL PSEUDONYM DIAMONDOID DISASSEMBLER DISASTERBATION DISTRIBUTED INTELLIGENCE DIVERGENT TRACK HYPOTHESIS DIVERSITY IQ DIVIDUALS DOOMSDAY ARGUMENT DOWNLOAD DRYWARE DUBIFIER DYSON SPHERE ECOCALYPSE ECTOGENESIS

EMBRYOMEME
EMULATION
ENHANCED REALITY
ENVIROCAPITALISM
EPHEMERALISTS
E-PRIME
ESCALATORLOGY
THE ETERNAL LIFE POSTULATE
EUPSYCHIA
EUTHENICS
EVOLUTIONARILY STABLE STRATEGY (ESS)
EVOLUTURE
EXCONOMICS
EXES
EXFORMATION
EXISTENTIAL TECHNOLOGY
EXOPHOBIA
EXOSELF
EXTROPIAN
EXTROPIATE
EXTROPIC
EXTROPOLIS
EXTROPY
FACULTATIVE ANAGOROBE
FAR EDGE PARTY
THE FERMI PARADOX
FEMTOTECHNOLOGY
FLATLANDER
FLUIDENTITY
FOGLET
FORK
FREDKIN’S PARADOX
FUNCTIONAL SOUP
FUTIQUE
FUTURE SHOCK
GALAXY BRAIN
GAUSSIAN
GENEGENEERING
GENETIC ALGORITHM
GENIE
GREEN GOO
GÖDEL’S THEOREM
GOLDEN GOO
GREAT FILTER, THE
GREY GOO
GUY FAWKES SCENARIO
HALLUCINOMEMIC
HIVE COMPUTING
HOMORPH
HPLD
HYPERTEXT
HYPONEIRIA
HYPOTECH

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