DailyDirt: Who Wants To Live Forever

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Several discoveries in biology could lead to treatments that reverse the effects of aging and prolong lifespans. There isn't quite a magic bullet, but it's not unreasonable to think that people could live longer and longer lives. The Methuselah Foundation has several monetary prizes for researchers in the field of life extension interventions. Here are just a few other interesting research studies on aging.

• Little worms (Caenorhabditis elegans) on the International Space Station are actually living longer in a micro-gravity environment than their earth-bound relatives. Researchers have identified several genes that contribute to this unexpected lengthening of longevity, but living on a space station isn't the fountain of youth. [url]
• The cost of sequencing the human genome has fallen dramatically from $3 billion for the first one... to a few thousand dollars. Having access to the information in our DNA could lead to lifespans of 150 years, but getting hit by a bus would still be a problem. [url]
• Certain kinds of exercise may extend your life more than others. Aerobic exercise is correlated with living a bit longer than non-aerobic exercise -- so expect a few more infomercials to start plugging exercise equipment with claims of helping you live longer. [url]
• Senescent cells can no longer divide, and they might bring down neighboring cells and create various symptoms of aging. Eliminating these senescent cells could lead to more age-resistant organs -- and people living longer (perhaps as undead zombies). [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: aging, biology, biotech, exercise, human genome, immortality, life extension, lifespan, longevity, senescent cells
Companies: methuselah foundation

DailyDirt: Making Smarter Animals

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Animals may (or may not) be getting smarter, but there sure is growing evidence that animals have more cognitive abilities than we might have expected. In some cases, we're actually breeding animals for intelligence. (Who wouldn't want to buy a genetically engineered parrot with the conversational capability of a 5 year old kid?) Perhaps we'll end up regretting our animal experiments someday when we're faced with super-intelligent birds or insects, but for now, it's interesting to see just how smart our animal pals can get.

• Breeding smarter fruit flies doesn't sound like a good plan to create a race of super intelligent insects. Still, a decent first step has been accomplished by directing the evolution of fruit flies to exhibit the ability to count to four... [url]
• Some baboons in a French laboratory have been observed to be able to tell the difference between real English words and fake words. This study probably says more about the rules of English spelling rather than evidence of baboons being linguistic geniuses. [url]
• For many mammals, the ratio of brain size to body size is a fairly predictable matter, but there are some outliers with larger than expected brains for a given body size. Curiously, the smaller mammals with larger than expected brains tend to survive extinction better and adapt more easily to environmental changes -- but correlation isn't the same as causation. [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post.

Filed Under: animals, baboons, biology, biotech, brains, fruit flies, intelligence, smart animals, spelling

DailyDirt: Bio-Inspired Superglue

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

When you need some good ideas for solving a problem, sometimes nature already has an answer. For example, the original idea for what became Velcro, the hook-and-loop fastener, was inspired by the burrs of the burdock plant which tend to stick easily to fur and clothing. Here are a few other examples of some very sticky adhesives that were inspired by nature.

• Oxford University researchers have developed a molecular superglue inspired by flesh-eating bacteria. To attach itself to human cells, the Streptococcus pyogenes bacterium uses thin hairs made up of a protein with a 3D structure stabilized by a very strong intramolecular isopeptide bond that can survive boiling in detergent and strong acids.[url]
• Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst have created a super-adhesive called "Geckskin" that was inspired by gecko feet. The Geckskin is only about the size of an index card, but it can support a maximum weight of about 700 pounds. It can hold a 42-inch flat screen TV to a wall, and be removed and restuck to another surface many times without leaving a residue.[url]
• Mussels, barnacles, and tubeworms are providing the inspiration for future medical adhesives. Aside from clinging to rocks, mussels can also stick to wood, iron, steel, and even Teflon. [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: adhesives, biology, geckskin, proteins, superglues, velcro

DailyDirt: Spiders, Man!

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Spiders are just fascinating creatures -- not only because they have a crazy number of appendages, but also because they create intricate webs and seem to have incredibly complex behaviors for such small animals. To top it off, we're learning something new about the properties of spider silk all the time. Here are just a few examples.

• Japanese researchers have used spider silk as violin strings. This is what it sounds like when doves flies cry.... [url]
• Surprisingly, certain spider silk is an excellent conductor of heat -- better than silicon, aluminum or iron -- and becomes more conductive as it stretches. Silk threads from "golden silk orbweavers" could teach us more about thermal conductivity and have applications in heat sinks or textile fiber technology. [url]
• It took a million spiders to produce enough silk to make an 11'x4' rug. It also took 70 people four years to collect all that silk. [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: biology, heat conductor, materials, silk, spider silk, spider silk rug, spiders, violins

DailyDirt: Geekier Than Monkeys Typing

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

According to the "Infinite Monkey Theorem," a monkey hitting keys randomly on a keyboard for an infinite amount of time will eventually type out the complete works of Shakespeare. There have even been efforts to put that theorem to the test by creating virtual typing monkeys that managed to recreate at least one of Shakespeare's works. But those monkeys were digital – here are a few examples of some real, geeky animals.

• Cows in the UK outfitted with "smart collars" can notify farmers when they're sick or in heat. The collars use the same kind of 3D sensor that is found in Wii video game controllers to detect movement. [url]
• A monkey in China with two sensor chips implanted in its brain can control a robot hand with its thoughts. The sensors monitor 200 neurons in the monkey's motor cortex, and its brain signals are translated into real-time robotic finger movements. [url]
• Alex, an African grey parrot, had mathematical abilities that were at least as good as those of chimpanzees. He had been trained to count objects, and could add two numbers up to a total sum of eight, or add two sets of objects up to a total sum of six. [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: animals, biology, cows, intelligence, monkeys, parrots, smart animals

DailyDirt: Robot Scientists

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

People are usually pretty quick to admit that artificial intelligence programs are better than most humans at solving a lot of math problems. Human scientists have generally been needed to interpret data and make conclusions, but AI software could be catching up with scientists by coming up with their own hypotheses and conclusions. Here are just a few examples of programs that might be writing up their own PhD dissertations someday.

• Robot mathematicians like Graffiti have been around for a very long time, generating far more interesting conjectures than any human could. Interesting mathematical conjectures should be surprising, not too closely related to an existing conjecture, and not too specific. [url]
• Software dubbed Eureqa is analyzing (without help from humans) experimental data from biological systems to derive mathematical models for processes like glycolysis -- and could potentially find new biological discoveries. And I'm sure we'll see stories of robots found cheating by plagiarizing from Wikipedia soon. [url]
• Adam is the first automated scientist -- successfully developing a hypothesis, performing experiments, refining its hypothesis into a novel discovery. Adam found three yeast genes that coded for an orphan enzyme. [url]
• A newer version of Adam, called Eve, is sifting through some of Adam's data and looking to find her own discoveries about yeast genetics. Unfortunately, some intellectual property issues are delaying some of Adam and Eve's latest publications. [url]
• To discover more interesting robot-related content, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: adam, ai, biology, conjectures, eureqa, eve, graffiti, math, orphan enzyme, robots, scientists, software, yeast genetics

DailyDirt: Re-visting Vitalism

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

In the early days of chemistry, organic molecules were thought to require a living source. Then Friedrich Wohler synthesized urea using a process that didn't involve any living organisms. That chemical reaction struck down the hypothesis of vitalism -- which suggested that living matter was fundamentally different from inanimate chemicals. Over a hundred years later, though, no one has really discovered how to create living materials from scratch. Here are just a few projects that could change that.

• Martin Hanczyc gives a TED talk about the difference between life and non-life. Making a chemical "protocell" model might help us understand how life develops from non-living materials. [url]
• Working on metal-based life could lead to the discovery of completely non-organic life. Inorganic chemical reactions could form self-replicating structures with sufficient complexity to begin evolutionary processes. Maybe. [url]
• Re-programming worms to create an unnatural amino acid could be the start of designing artificial lifeforms with unnatural traits. This achievement is just a proof of principle project that could lead to other biological techniques for modifying the genetic expression in all kinds of multicellular animals. [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: amino acids, biology, life, non-organic, organic chemistry, organisms, protocell, unnatural, vitalism

DailyDirt: Bioengineered Microbes Are Growing Our Way

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Scientists haven't quite figured out everything about the genetic code of living things on Earth, but plenty of folks are tinkering with genetic engineering and creating some interesting results. Here are just a few neat projects with some modified microbes.

• The evolution machine is just a prototype right now, but it could speed up genetic engineering projects with directed and automated mutations for microbes. One of the projects for the evolution machine would be to create an organism that was immune to all viruses. What could possibly go wrong with that? [url]
• Single-cell biological lasers have been created with green fluorescent protein and human embryonic kidney cells. It's not sharks with lasers attached to their heads, but it's a start. [url]
• The technique of steganography by printed arrays of microbes (SPAM) sounds like the nerdiest way to send a message. Using bacteria to encode secret messages could also be another interesting method for lots of copies keeps stuff safe (LOCKSS). [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: bacteria, biology, evolution machine, genetic engineering, lasers, microbes

DailyDirt: Life, But Not As We Know It

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

We've noted before that the classification of living things is a bit tricky. It's not just plants and animals anymore. Biologists are continuously discovering creatures that defy the old taxonomies. Here are just a few more examples of the incredible diversity of life on our planet.

• Christoph Adami tries to define life -- by studying artificial life and the characteristics of information processes that seem to behave like life. His self-replicating programs evolve and create virtual ecosystems -- and could help figure out how to find extraterrestrial life. [url]
• Biologists thought they had only cataloged about 10% of all fungal species. But there could be a whole different domain of life that is similar to fungus, but isn't. [url]
• Mantaphasmatodes is the first new insect order discovered since the 1900s. And these insects are almost everywhere. [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: biology, domain, fungus, insects, life, mantaphasmatodes

DailyDirt: Learning From Nature

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Biology has solved a lot of problems over millions of years, so we might as well try to learn from it. Here are just a few examples of using biological systems to help improve our own technology.

• Slime mold can be used to verify the efficiency of Japan's railroad networks. Creating a food map of Japan and letting mold grow over it sounds like a fun science project for kids! [url]
• Researchers in distributed computing problems are learning from insect nervous systems. By studying how a fruit fly develops its sensory organs, we can learn the strategies of biological evolution and apply similar techniques to technological problems. [url]
• Security software that mimics ant behavior is a project that's been around for awhile. So the bad guys are probably already writing ant-eater malware.... [url]
• To discover more interesting biological curiosities, check out what's currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

By the way, StumbleUpon can recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: ants, biology, computation, fruit fly, security software, slime mold