Our DNA is becoming the world’s tiniest hard drive

Our genetic code is millions of times more efficient at storing data than existing solutions, which are costly and use immense amounts of energy and space. In fact, we could get rid of hard drives and store all the digital data on the planet within a couple hundred pounds of DNA.

Using DNA as a high-density data storage medium holds the potential to forge breakthroughs in biosensing and biorecording technology and next-generation digital storage, but researchers haven’t been able to overcome inefficiencies that would allow the technology to scale.

Now, researchers at Northwestern University propose a new method for recording information to DNA that takes minutes, rather than hours or days, to complete. The team used a novel enzymatic system to synthesize DNA that records rapidly changing environmental signals directly into DNA sequences, a method the paper’s senior author said could change the way scientists study and record neurons inside the brain.

The research, “Recording Temporal Signals with Minutes Resolution Using Enzymatic DNA Synthesis,” was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The paper’s senior author, Northwestern engineering professor Keith E.J. Tyo, said his lab was interested in leveraging DNA’s natural abilities to create a new solution for storing data.

Threatened rattlesnakes’ inbreeding makes species more resistant to bad mutations

The Eastern massasauga rattlesnake was listed as threatened under the
Endangered Species Act in 2016 because of loss and fragmentation of its wetland habitat.
Photo by James Chiucchi

The first look at a threatened rattlesnake species’ recent genetic history suggests that inbreeding necessitated by limited habitat may not be as detrimental as theory would predict it to be.

In fact, scientists speculate that Eastern massasauga rattlesnakes may have pre-adapted to living in small, isolated populations – where the most dangerous genetic mutations that arose could be easily exposed and purged.

Researchers sequenced the genomes of 90 Eastern massasauga rattlesnakes, which were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2016 because of loss and fragmentation of their wetland habitat. For comparison, the researchers also sequenced 10 genomes of a close relative, the Western massasauga rattlesnake, a common species with no limitations on breeding opportunities and large populations.

The Ohio State University team found that the most potentially damaging gene mutations were less abundant in the Eastern than the Western species. This finding suggests the breeding limitations of small, isolated populations might be accompanied by an evolutionary advantage of being able to elbow out genetic variants that get in the way of survival, said H. Lisle Gibbs, professor of evolution, ecology and organismal biology at Ohio State and senior author of the study.

Variant hunters: the story behind the race to sequence COVID-19 genetics

 Hear from some of the scientists behind the UK’s nationwide sequencing effort to track SARS-CoV-2. Sir Patrick Vallance (the government’s Chief Scientific Adviser) also describes how the expertise that came together during the pandemic is now recognized across the world – and why it’s crucially important to continue to sequence to be ready for future pandemics.

This pioneering work is being carried out by the COVID-19 Genomics UK (COG-UK) consortium, which comprises numerous academic institutions, four public health agencies and the Wellcome Sanger Institute, and is administered by the University of Cambridge. “Incredibly impressive, incredibly high quality and incredibly focused on the mission to make sure that as many people benefited from the science as possible,” Sir Patrick Vallance.

The variant hunters are helping us to understand how and why the COVID-19 virus is spreading, allowing us to fight back against the COVID-19 pandemic.

Source/Credit: University of Cambridge

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Renewable energy will increase security and lower geopolitical risk

The transition to renewable energy will make the U.S. energy supply significantly more secure not only by decreasing the mining and materials required to build fossil fuel systems, but also by avoiding the political risks that threaten fossil fuel supply chains, according to new research from Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy.

The report, “More transitions, less risk: How renewable energy reduces risks from mining, trade and political dependence,” is authored by Jim Krane, the Wallace S. Wilson Fellow for Energy Studies at the Baker Institute, and graduate fellow Robert Idel. They explain that, contrary to popular discourse on the subject, a transition from coal to wind would dramatically decrease the need for mined materials.

“Since transition technologies, with their smaller trade and profit attributes, are supplanting the far larger fossil fuel industry, the rise in ‘energy security’ alarmism may stem from a wish to maintain the more profitable status quo,” the authors wrote.

Renewables will certainly reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but the authors argue analysts and policymakers have paid less attention to the transition’s other benefits. By moving away from the old energy system, the U.S. won’t necessarily have to dedicate so much of its expensive military resources to protecting oil-producing countries and shipments of fossil fuels. In contrast, renewable energy infrastructure requires only upfront mining and trade during construction.

Krane and Idel compare quantities of mined and traded materials required by renewable systems with those of fossil fuels. Their report also explores the risks an energy transition imposes upon the continuity of the U.S. energy supply.

Increasing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere teaches old oaks new tricks

Anna Gardner carrying out fieldwork in the forest canopy

 Mature oak trees will increase their rate of photosynthesis by up to a third in response to the raised CO2 levels expected to be the world average by about 2050, new research shows.

The results, published in Tree Physiology, are the first to emerge from a giant outdoor experiment, led by the University of Birmingham in which an old oak forest is bathed in elevated levels of CO2. Over the first three years of a ten-year project, the 175-year-old oaks clearly responded to the CO2 by consistently increasing their rate of photosynthesis.

Researchers are now measuring leaves, wood, roots, and soil to find out where the extra carbon captured ends up and for how long it stays locked up in the forest.

The increase in photosynthesis was greatest in strong sunlight. The overall balance of key nutrient elements carbon and nitrogen did not change in the leaves. Keeping the carbon to nitrogen ratio constant suggests that the old trees have found ways of redirecting their elements, or found ways of bringing more nitrogen in from the soil to balance the carbon they are gaining from the air.

The research was carried out at the Free-Air CO2 (FACE) facility of the Birmingham Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR) in close collaboration with colleagues from Western Sydney University who run a very similar experiment in old eucalyptus forest (EucFACE). BIFoR FACE and EucFACE are the world’s two largest experiments investigating the effect of global change on nature.

Birmingham researcher Anna Gardner, who carried out the measurements, said “I’m really excited to contribute the first published science results to BIFoR FACE, an experiment of global importance. It was hard work conducting measurements at the top of a 25 m oak day after day, but it was the only way to be sure how much extra the trees were photosynthesizing.”

Professor David Ellsworth, EucFACE lead scientist, said “Previous work at EucFACE measured photosynthesis increased by up to a fifth in increased carbon dioxide. So, we now know how old forest responds in the warm-temperate climate that we have here in Sydney, and the mild temperate climate of the northern middle latitudes where Birmingham sits. At EucFACE we found no additional growth in higher CO2, and it remains to be seen if that will be the case for BIFOR as well.”

Professor Rob MacKenzie, founding Director of BIFoR, said “It’s a delight to see the first piece of the carbon jigsaw for BIFoR FACE fall into place. We are sure now that the old trees are responding to future carbon dioxide levels. How the entire forest ecosystem responds is a much bigger question requiring many more detailed investigations. We are now pushing ahead with those investigations.”

Source/Credit: University of Birmingham

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Mysterious Metal-Rich Near-Earth Asteroids

 

An artist impression of a close flyby of the metal-rich near-Earth asteroid 1986 DA.
Astronomers using the NASA Infrared Telescope
Facility have confirmed that the asteroid is made of 85% metal.
Addy Graham/University of Arizona

Metal-rich near-Earth asteroids, or NEAs, are rare, but their presence provides the intriguing possibility that iron, nickel and cobalt could someday be mined for use on Earth or in Space.

New research, published in the Planetary Science Journal, investigated two metal-rich asteroids in our own cosmic backyard to learn more about their origins, compositions and relationships with meteorites found on Earth.

These metal-rich NEAs were thought to be created when the cores of developing planets were catastrophically destroyed early in the solar system's history, but little more is known about them. A team of students co-led by University of Arizona planetary science associate professor Vishnu Reddy studied asteroids 1986 DA and 2016 ED85 and discovered that their spectral signatures are quite similar to asteroid 16 Psyche, the largest metal-rich body in the solar system. Psyche, located in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter rather than near Earth, is the target of NASA's Psyche mission.

"Our analysis shows that both NEAs have surfaces with 85% metal such as iron and nickel and 15% silicate material, which is basically rock," said lead author Juan Sanchez, who is based at the Planetary Science Institute. "These asteroids are similar to some stony-iron meteorites such as mesosiderites found on Earth."

Astronomers have been speculating as to what the surface of Psyche is made of for decades. By studying metal-rich NEAs that come close to the Earth, they hope to identify specific meteorites that resemble Psyche’s surface.

"We started a compositional survey of the NEA population in 2005, when I was a graduate student, with the goal of identifying and characterizing rare NEAs such as these metal-rich asteroids," said Reddy, principal investigator of the NASA grant that funded the work. "It is rewarding that we have discovered these 'mini Psyches' so close to the Earth."

"For perspective, a 50-meter (164-foot) metallic object similar to the two asteroids we studied created the Meteor Crater in Arizona," said Adam Battle, who is a co-author of the paper along with fellow Lunar and Planetary Laboratory graduate students Benjamin Sharkey and Theodore Kareta, and David Cantillo, an undergraduate student in the Department of Geosciences.

The paper also explored the mining potential of 1986 DA and found that the amount of iron, nickel and cobalt that could be present on the asteroid would exceed the global reserves of these metals.

Additionally, when an asteroid is catastrophically destroyed, it produces what is called an asteroid family – a bunch of small asteroids that share similar compositions and orbital paths.

The team used the compositions and orbits of asteroids 1986 DA and 2016 ED85 to identify four possible asteroid families in the outer region of the main asteroid belt, which is home to the largest reservoir of small bodies in the inner part of the solar system. This also happens to be the region where most of the largest known metallic asteroids including 16 Psyche reside.

"We believe that these two 'mini Psyches' are probably fragments from a large metallic asteroid in the main belt, but not 16 Psyche itself," Cantillo said. "It's possible that some of the iron and stony-iron meteorites found on Earth could have also come from that region in the solar system too."

The paper's findings are based on observations from the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on the island of Hawaii. The work was funded by the NASA Near-Earth Object Observations Program, which also funds the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility.

Source/Credit: University of Arizona

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Scientists Cite Destructive Dangers of Climate Change

 

Imja Lake, Nepal, is considered one of the most hazardous lakes in Nepal. The moraine dam at lower left was engineered in 2016 to reduce the lake level slightly and to stabilize the outlet river so as to slightly reduce the glacial lake outburst flood (GLOF) hazard. A hazard early warning system is arranged downstream.  Credit: Jeffrey S. Kargel, 2016.

In a new paper in the Georgetown Journal of International Affairs, seven researchers hailing from five countries have called for greater attention to the destructive potential and recent history of disasters seen in the world’s mountain ranges, including places like the Himalaya and Andes.

The scientists, headed by lead author and Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Jeffrey S. Kargel, in “Climate Change, Land Use Change, and Mountain Disasters,” a two-part article, review how climate change and burgeoning development of the world’s mountain regions are driving a variety of natural hazards that can inflict harm on people and damage to critical infrastructure. Read Part One here and Part Two here.

Climate change is driving an increased tempo of the global hydrological cycle as well as thawing of the icy cryosphere. These consequences of global warming may be contributing to an increase of some types of hazards and disasters. “Climate change and other human-caused alterations of the Earth system during this modern era are forcing shifts of the processes and geographic distribution of mountain hazards,” Kargel said. “This is happening even as the exposed human populations and infrastructure of many mountain regions are increasing. Some of these natural processes, such as landslides and glacier lake outburst floods, end up producing disasters.”

Scientists reverse pancreatic cancer progression in ‘time machine’ made of human cells

 

Bumsoo Han, professor of mechanical engineering, has built a realistic model of a pancreatic structure that acts as a “time machine” to understand cancer and reverse its spread.
(Purdue University photo/John Underwood)

What makes pancreatic cancer so deadly is its covert and quick spread. Now, a “time machine” built by Purdue University engineers has shown a way to reverse the course of cancer before it spreads throughout the pancreas.

“These findings open up the possibility of designing a new gene therapy or drug because now we can convert cancerous cells back into their normal state,” said Bumsoo Han, a Purdue professor of mechanical engineering and program leader of the Purdue Center for Cancer Research. Han has a courtesy appointment in biomedical engineering.

The time machine that Han’s lab built is a lifelike reproduction of a pancreatic structure called the acinus, which produces and secretes digestive enzymes into the small intestine. Pancreatic cancer tends to develop from chronic inflammation that happens when a mutation has caused these digestive enzymes to digest the pancreas itself.

Increased infectiousness of coronavirus variants explained

 

Artist's impression of a mutating coronavirus

Researchers from the Universities of Oxford and Dundee have made a discovery that helps explain why variations in the virus causes COVID-19 to spread so rapidly.

Coronaviruses are so named because of the spikes on their surface that make it look like a crown, the Latin word for which is corona. The virus uses these spikes to attach to and enter cells, where they then replicate. All common SARS-CoV-2 variants have mutations in the part of their spike proteins that binds to cells.

The Oxford-Dundee team found that most, but not all, of the common mutations in spike individually strengthened binding to ACE2, a protein found on the surface of our cells.

Furthermore, ACE2 variants found naturally in humans were shown to strengthen binding between it and the virus, suggesting that individuals with common ACE2 variants could be more susceptible to COVID-19 infection.

Professor Anton van der Merwe, from the Sir William Dunn School of Pathology at the University of Oxford, said: 'The purpose of our study was to measure the precise effect of mutations in spike and ACE2 on the strength of their interaction.

'This is important because it helps us understand why some SARS-CoV-2 variants spread more rapidly and should also help us predict whether individuals with mutations in ACE2 would be more susceptible to COVID-19.

'Knowing the precise effect of spike mutations on binding to ACE2 helps us understand why SARS-CoV-2 variants spread more rapidly. This may inform our response to these new variants and help us identify potentially dangerous new variants before they spread widely.'

Even as the world recovers from the pandemic, more infectious variants of the coronavirus have emerged. The Alpha variant rapidly replaced all other variants in the UK and in other countries, while the Delta variant, which largely superseded it, continues to spread around the world. The Beta and Gamma variants also emerged in populations that had previously been infected with the original SARS-CoV-2 virus.

This has led scientists around the world to study these new variants to try and understand the properties which make them more infectious. This latest research has also shown that while common ACE2 mutations led to increased binding, this is not the case for all SARS-CoV-2 variants.

Professor Geoff Barton from Dundee’s School of Life Sciences, said: 'These results are a great example of how collaboration between experts in Computational Biology working with leading experimentalists can result in exciting new findings.

'The work sprang from a computational analysis carried out in our group at Dundee by Dr Stuart MacGowan on the effects of human ACE2 variants on SARS-CoV-2 binding. This helped the Oxford group to focus their complementary skills in the laboratory on the most important human and coronavirus variants.'

The paper is published today in eLife.

Source/Credit: University of Oxford

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Cannabis users at 'much higher' risk of developing poor mental health

 

Those with a recorded history of cannabis use in general practice records are at a much higher risk of developing mental ill health problems such as anxiety or depression as well as severe mental illnesses, new research shows.

The findings point to the need for a public health approach to the management of people misusing cannabis, including the need to emphasize the importance of general practitioners to continue enquiring about recreational drug use.

While the links between cannabis use and severe mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and psychosis are well researched, the associations are less clear between cannabis use as described in patient’s GP records and other, more common types of mental ill health such as depression and anxiety.

In a new study, published in Psychological Medicine, researchers in the University of Birmingham’s Institute for Mental Health and the Institute of Applied Health Research found a strong link between general practice recorded cannabis use and mental ill health in one of the largest cohorts ever explored.

Senior author Dr Clara Humpston said: “Cannabis is often considered to be one of the ‘safer’ drugs and has also shown promise in medical therapies, leading to calls for it be legalized globally. Although we are unable to establish a direct causal relationship, our findings suggest we should continue to exercise caution since the notion of cannabis being a safe drug may well be mistaken.”

Dr Joht Singh Chandan said: “The research reaffirms the need to ensure a public health approach to recreational drug use continues to be adopted across the UK. We must continue to progress measures to improve the prevention and detection of drug use as well as implement the appropriate supportive measures in an equitable manner to prevent the secondary negative health consequences.”

Using primary care data drawn from the IQVIA Medical Research Database (IMRD-UK), the researchers found following the first recorded use of cannabis, patients were three times more likely to develop common mental health problems such as depression and anxiety. In addition, they were almost 7 times more likely to develop severe mental illnesses such as psychosis or schizophrenia.

The dataset included records from 787 GP practices around the UK gathered over a 23-year period between 1995 and 2018. The researchers were able to include data from 28,218 patients who had a recorded exposure to cannabis. These were matched to 56,208 patients who had not been using cannabis and controlled for sex, age, ethnicity, smoking status and other relevant characteristics.

The cannabis users also had much higher rates of having a recorded history of using other drugs such as heroin, cocaine and amphetamines.

Future research in this area will investigate the levels of cannabis use or the potency of ingredients.

Source/Credit: University of Birmingham

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