Lifeboat Foundation

Scientists at the University of Helsinki working in collaboration with the University of Oxford have deciphered for the first time how a virus genome is condensed inside the capsid of a virus.

“The motivation of the study was to increase our basic understanding of viral replication, but in the long term this may contribute to tackling viral disease,” says the director of the of the project, Associate Professor Juha Huiskonen from the Helsinki Institute of Life Science, HiLIFE.

The breakthrough results were achieved using cryogenic electron microscopy, a method that has in recent years revolutionised structural biology—a field of biology that aims to understand how molecules of life work at the atomic level.

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In her new book, “The Age of Living Machines,” Susan Hockfield argues that we have entered a new era of scientific innovation in America.

[Photo: VCG/VCG via Getty Images].

Hosted by Dr. Oliver Medvedik, the May edition of Journal Club will focus on the recent publication by the Spiegel Lab at Yale University where two forms of advanced glycation end products were successfully cleaved. We already discussed this important breakthrough in our article – Reversal of Two Advanced Glycation End Products Achieved. Now we will be taking a deeper look at the data during the journal club.

Link to Paper:

https://sci-hub.tw/https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/1.…201900158

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Researchers from Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg present a new method which can double the energy of a proton beam produced by laser-based particle accelerators. The breakthrough could lead to more compact, cheaper equipment that could be useful for many applications, including proton therapy.

Proton therapy involves firing a beam of accelerated protons at cancerous tumours, killing them through irradiation. But the equipment needed is so large and expensive that it only exists in a few locations worldwide.

Modern high-powered lasers offer the potential to reduce the equipment’s size and cost, since they can accelerate particles over a much shorter distance than traditional accelerators — reducing the distance required from kilometres to metres. The problem is, despite efforts from researchers around the world, laser generated proton beams are currently not energetic enough. But now, the Swedish researchers present a new method which yields a doubling of the energy — a major leap forward.

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Researchers have made a breakthrough that could eventually lead to a more effective treatment for tuberculosis.

In a terrifying breakthrough similar to the metal morphing villain in Terminator 2, scientists at the University of Sussex and Swansea University have discovered a way to apply electrical charges to liquid metal and coax it into 3D shapes such as letters and even a heart.

This discovery has been called an “extremely promising” new kind of material that can be programmed to alter its shape.

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Advanced propulsion breakthroughs are near. Spacecraft have been stuck at slow chemical rocket speeds for years and weak ion drive for decades. However, speeds over one million miles per hour before 2050 are possible. There are surprising new innovations with technically feasible projects.

NASA Institute for Advanced Concepts (NIAC) is funding two high potential concepts. New ion drives could have ten times better in terms of ISP and power levels ten thousand times higher. Antimatter propulsion and multi-megawatt ion drives are being developed.

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Superfast data processing using light pulses instead of electricity has been created by scientists.

The invention uses magnets to record computer data which consume virtually zero energy, solving the dilemma of how to create faster data processing speeds without the accompanying high energy costs.

Today’s data centre servers consume between 2 to 5% of global electricity consumption, producing heat which in turn requires more power to cool the servers.

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