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How many brain cells does it take to play a video game? No, really. That's not a joke, and there isn't a punchline. Instead, there's a real actual answer, thanks to a neural network system called DishBrain. If that game is Pong, the number of brain cells is around 800,000. While their slow-moving, one-sided strategy for digital table tennis won't see them win any e-sports championships in the near future, it does reflect the potential in fusing living tissues with silicon technology. VIDEO AT LINK.............. This is the first synthetic biological intelligence experiment that shows neurons can adjust their activity...

Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of my Administration to coordinate a whole-of-government approach to advance biotechnology and biomanufacturing towards innovative solutions in health, climate change, energy, food security, agriculture, supply chain resilience, and national and economic security. Central to this policy and its outcomes are principles of equity, ethics, safety, and security that enable access to technologies, processes, and products in a manner that benefits all Americans and the global community and that maintains United States technological leadership and economic competitiveness. Biotechnology harnesses the power of biology to create new services and products, which provide opportunities to grow...

Plants are growing in complete darkness in an acetate medium that replaces biological photosynthesis. Photosynthesis has evolved in plants for millions of years to turn water, carbon dioxide, and the energy from sunlight into plant biomass and the foods we eat. This process, however, is very inefficient, with only about 1% of the energy found in sunlight ending up in the plant. Scientists at UC Riverside and the University of Delaware have found a way to bypass the need for biological photosynthesis altogether and create food independent of sunlight by using artificial photosynthesis. The research, published in Nature Food,...

Funders of a deep-pocketed new "rejuvenation" startup are said to include Jeff Bezos and Yuri Milner.Last October, a large group of scientists made their way to Yuri Milner’s super-mansion in the Los Altos Hills above Palo Alto. They were tested for covid-19 and wore masks as they assembled in a theater on the property for a two-day scientific conference. Others joined by teleconference. The topic: how biotechnology might be used to make people younger. Milner is a Russian-born billionaire who made a fortune on Facebook and Mail.ru and previously started the glitzy black-tie Breakthrough Prizes, $3 million awards given each...

Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Maywa Montenegro de Wit joined the UC Santa Cruz faculty this past July, amidst the global coronavirus pandemic, and that experience has guided her work in some important new directions. Montenegro de Wit’s research focuses on the intersection of agroecology, food sovereignty, and biotechnology. But this past year, she undertook a new project to document the role of the food system in the pandemic and explore how lessons from the abolition movement could position agroecology to bring about transformative change.

During National Biotechnology Month, we recognize the enormous potential of biotechnology to improve people’s lives here in the United States and around the world. Its applications hold boundless possibilities for economic growth, national security, healthcare, manufacturing, and agriculture. Using biotechnology, we can develop new ways to treat cancer, manufacture medicines, generate plastics, and provide America’s farmers and ranchers the tools they need to help feed, fuel, and clothe the world’s growing population, which is expected to surpass 9 billion by 2050. The United States has made remarkable advances in this critical technology over the past two decades thanks to our...

The CRISPR genome-editing technique revolutionising biology just got a major upgrade. A new variant, called prime editing, should be even better at correcting disease-causing mutations. This approach, devised by Andrew Anzalone at the Broad Institute in Massachusetts makes it possible to add or delete short DNA sequences, or change one DNA letter to another, with fewer unwanted side effects. The technique gets closer to the ideal form of genome editing, which would work like the “find and replace” command in a writing app. Use of CRISPR has grown rapidly since it was devised in 2012 because it made the “find”...

A former top Hillary Clinton aide and her husband just bought their second unit at the Four Seasons Residences at the Surf Club for $19 million. Beth and Ronald Dozoretz purchased unit S1001 at the south tower of the 150-unit luxury condo development at 9001 Collins Avenue in Surfside. The purchase comes just a year after the Dozoretz’s bought a unit in the north tower for $7.4 million. Their new condo totals 6,429 square feet, which equates to a price of $2,955 per square foot. The unit has four bedrooms and six-and-a-half bathrooms. Beth Dozoretz was formerly the finance chair...

A couple of days ago, there was a quite successful thread here entitled Top Physicist Freeman Dyson: Obama 'Took the Wrong Side' on Climate Change. As an admirer and follower of Professor Dyson, I enjoyed it greatly, and posted several items on it. That thread got me interested in Dyson once again, and in looking for Dyson material I found this remarkable lecture on YouTube. I believe it is worth anyone's time to listen to in its entirety. At a little more than an hour in length, it is a bit long for one sitting, but I am sure most...

This week’s article for National Catholic Register explores the seismic upheaval that has been the bio tech revolution. We seem blind to the fact that we are living in the midst of the most astounding technological revolution the world has ever seen. Biotechnology is the umbrella term for all the advances we have made in medical know-how, and reproductive technology is the most socially revolutionary subdivision of biotechnology. To put it simply, we no longer approach the transmission of human life as a sacred mystery — but, rather, have reduced it to the status of a baby-making machine that we’ve learned how...

Rechargeable, energy-dense bio-batteries running on sugar might be powering our electronic gadgets in as little as three years, according to a US team of scientists. The battery, created by the group of Percival Zhang, an associate professor of biological systems engineering at Virginia Tech, can convert all the potential chemical energy stored in a sugar into electricity.The prototype is similar in size to a typical AA battery and has an energy storage density of 596 amp hours per kilogram – roughly one order of magnitude greater than a smartphone’s lithium-ion battery. This means that the battery could last at least...

A local group is attempting to clean the waters in Corvallis’ Sequoia Creek — and potentially the Willamette River beyond it — using an unusual tool: mushrooms. The process used by volunteers with the Ocean Blue Project, an ecological restoration nonprofit, is to place mushroom spawn and a mixture of coffee grounds and straw in burlap bags that mushrooms can grow in, and then place the bags so that water entering storm drains will filter through them. The technique is attempting to take advantage of the natural ability of mycelium — the underground part of fungi — to break down...

The use of 3D printers to create lab equipment, deliver reagents and even build biomaterials is on the rise. Katharine Sanderson installs drivers and prints away © Frank WojciechowskiThe latest piece of cool technology at the top of every self-confessed geek’s wish list is quite likely to be a 3D printer. Who wouldn’t want the wherewithal to print a range of gadgets on a whim, from plastic toys to a spare pair of glasses or even pizza? And now seems like the perfect time to splash out on your own 3D printer: companies like MakerBot are selling 3D printers...

Sharp corners and jagged edges on graphene sheets enable them to puncture cell membranes. Researchers from Brown University have shown how tiny graphene microsheets — ultra-thin materials with a number of commercial applications — could be big trouble for human cells. The research shows that sharp corners and jagged protrusions along the edges of graphene sheets can easily pierce cell membranes. After the membrane is pierced, an entire graphene sheet can be pulled inside the cell where it may disrupt normal function. The new insight may be helpful in finding ways to minimize the potential toxicity of graphene, said...

This is Christian Derntl in the bio-lab.Lignocellulosic waste such as sawdust or straw can be used to produce biofuel – but only if the long cellulose and xylan chains can be successfully broken down into smaller sugar molecules. To do this, fungi are used which, by means of a specific chemical signal, can be made to produce the necessary enzymes. Because this procedure is, however, very expensive, Vienna University of Technology has been investigating the molecular switch that regulates enzyme production in the fungus. As a result, it is now possible to manufacture genetically modified fungi that produce the necessary...

A simpler and faster way of producing designer bacteria used in biotechnology processes has been developed by University of Adelaide researchers. The researchers have developed a new one-step bacterial genetic engineering process called 'clonetegration', published in the journal ACS Synthetic Biology. Led by Dr Keith Shearwin, in the University's School of Molecular and Biomedical Sciences, the research facilitates faster development of designer bacteria used in therapeutic drug development, such as insulin, and other biotechnology products. Designer bacteria are produced by integrating extra pieces of genetic material into the DNA of bacteria, in this case E. coli, so that the bacteria...

Sometime near the end of the twelfth century, a wealthy young man named Giovanni Francesco di Bernardone came upon a shepherd driving his flock to market. And apparently for the sheer joy of it — the extravagant pleasure of saving those sheep from slaughter — the young man promptly bought the entire flock, led the sheep out to open meadows, and set them free.This is the man everyone knows as St. Francis of Assisi (ca. 1182–1226) — namesake of the newly elected pope, a saint beloved throughout the world, even by people who have nothing to do with the Catholic...

Scientists used 3-D printing to merge tissue and an antenna capable of receiving radio signals.Scientists at Princeton University used off-the-shelf printing tools to create a functional ear that can "hear" radio frequencies far beyond the range of normal human capability. The researchers' primary purpose was to explore an efficient and versatile means to merge electronics with tissue. The scientists used 3D printing of cells and nanoparticles followed by cell culture to combine a small coil antenna with cartilage, creating what they term a bionic ear. "In general, there are mechanical and thermal challenges with interfacing electronic materials with biological materials,"...

Pond scum – algae – gained prominence a few years ago, emerging from research obscurity to hog the green limelight. With questions over growing food crops for biodiesel and concerns over fuel security and global warming, algae seemed to offer a renewable, carbon-neutral source of fuel. Algal cultivation could use a large amount of non-arable land without harming food production, said the sales pitch, and its demand for water could be met with non-potable supplies, even saline or wastewater. As algal biochemist Alison Smith of the University of Cambridge, UK, explains, ‘I was being phoned up every five minutes by...

Engineered organs produce urine, though not as efficiently as natural ones. Scientists at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have fitted rats with kidneys that were grown in a lab from stripped-down kidney scaffolds. When transplanted, these 'bioengineered' organs starting filtering the rodents’ blood and making urine. The team, led by organ-regeneration specialist Harald Ott, started with the kidneys of recently deceased rats and used detergent to strip away the cells, leaving behind the underlying scaffold of connective tissues such as the structural components of blood vessels. They then regenerated the organ by seeding this scaffold with two cell types: human...