Scientific American - Biotechnology

Microchip Implant Gives Medication On Command

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:10:00 EST

For people who face frequent needle jabs to treat chronic conditions, a new technology is on the horizon that might make treatment a lot less painful. [More]

How the First Plant Came to Be

Thu, 16 Feb 2012 14:01:00 EST

Earth is the planet of the plants--and it all can be traced back to one green cell. The world's lush profusion of photosynthesizers--from towering redwoods to ubiquitous diatoms--owe their existence to a tiny alga eons ago that swallowed a cyanobacteria and turned it into an internal solar power plant.

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Cool Aid: Drug That Lets Body Temperature Drop Could Save Stroke Victims

Wed, 15 Feb 2012 13:00:00 EST

During the last decade, a series of studies in The New England Journal of Medicine chronicled the potential benefits of rescuing patients from stroke, heart attack and other conditions by lowering body temperature to reduce demand for oxygen. Depressed body temperature may also have manifold effects beyond the ones described--anything from prolonging life span to inducing a lower metabolic state suitable for long-distance spaceflight.

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Making Liquids Go Bipolar

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:00:00 EST

For a slick, supple mouthfeel, there’s nothing like a suspension of fine droplets of oil in water (or vice versa)--what scientists call an emulsion. Cream, butter and chocolate are emulsions, as are gravy, vinaigrette and cheese. But when an emulsion breaks, the results can get ugly: a layer of clear fat floating on top of the gravy boat, a salad dressing that comes out of the bottle all oil and no vinegar, a plate of nachos covered in greasy goo.

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Fasting Might Boost Chemo's Cancer-Busting Properties

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:30:00 EST

Cancer treatment can be brutal for patients. Many of the tools we have-- chemotherapy , radiation--are big, blunt weapons that deal punishing blows to healthy tissues along with cancerous ones. So the hunt has been on for more and more finely targeted therapies that will attack malignant cells yet minimize damage to patients' bodies.

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Sight Seen: Gene Therapy Restores Vision in Both Eyes

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 14:00:00 EST

Gene therapy has markedly improved vision in both eyes in three women who were born virtually blind. The patients can now avoid obstacles even in dim light, read large print and recognize people's faces. The operation, researchers predict, should work even better in children and adolescents blinded by the same condition.

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Custom-Designed Proteins Could Counteract Chemical Weapons

Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:00:00 EST

Custom-designed proteins made with the aid of computers could fight chemical weapons such as nerve gas and help decontaminate toxic-waste sites, scientists say.

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New Cornell Campus to Cultivate High-Tech Industry in New York City [Slide Show]

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 07:00:00 EST

For years New York City–based universities have been opening satellite campuses worldwide, whether it is New York University's sites in Abu Dhabi and Tel Aviv or Columbia University's Global Centers in Beijing and Nairobi. Technion–Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa is returning the favor in a big way, partnering with Ithaca, N.Y.–based Cornell University to build a campus on New York City's Roosevelt Island . [More]

Can Too Much Information Harm Patients? [Excerpt]

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 11:00:00 EST

Editor's Note: The following is an excerpt from The Creative Destruction of Medicine: How the Digital Revolution Will Create Better Health Care (Basic Books, 2012), by Eric Topol, a professor of innovative medicine and the director of the Scripps Translational Science Institute.

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Notion in Motion: Wireless Sensors Monitor Brain Waves on the Fly

Fri, 27 Jan 2012 07:00:00 EST

A fighter pilot heads back to base after a long mission, feeling spent. A warning light flashes on the control panel. Has she noticed? If so, is she focused enough to fix the problem? [More]

Diabetes Mystery: Why Are Type 1 Cases Surging?

Tue, 24 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST

When public health officials fret about the soaring incidence of diabetes in the U.S. and worldwide, they are generally referring to type 2 diabetes. About 90 percent of the nearly 350 million people around the world who have diabetes suffer from the type 2 form of the illness, which mostly starts causing problems in the 40s and 50s and is tied to the stress that extra pounds place on the body’s ability to regulate blood glucose. About 25 million people in the U.S. have type 2 diabetes, and another million have type 1 diabetes, which typically strikes in childhood and can be controlled only with daily doses of insulin.

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New Target Discovered for Pain Relief

Sun, 22 Jan 2012 21:30:00 EST

An uncharted trawl through thousands of small molecules involved in the body's metabolism may have uncovered a potential route to treating pain caused by nerve damage.

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Scientists Call for 60-Day Suspension of Mutant Flu Research

Fri, 20 Jan 2012 14:50:00 EST

Reprinted from Nature magazine

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Genetically Engineered Stomach Microbe Converts Seaweed into Ethanol

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:01:00 EST

Seaweed may well be an ideal plant to turn into biofuel. It grows in much of the two thirds of the planet that is underwater, so it wouldn't crowd out food crops the way corn for ethanol does. Because it draws its own nutrients and water from the sea, it requires no fertilizer or irrigation. Most importantly for would-be biofuel-makers, it contains no lignin--a strong strand of complex sugars that stiffens plant stalks and poses a big obstacle to turning land-based plants such as switchgrass into biofuel .

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Oral Exam

Sun, 15 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST

Personal oral hygiene notwithstanding, your mouth is teeming with hundreds of species of microorganisms. Until now, researchers have had a tough time sorting out all these small species--and how they interact. A new multicolor fluorescent-labeling technology is allowing microbiologists to peer into the human mouth’s microscopic jungle and discover new dynamics among several key groups. The findings were presented last December at the American Society for Cell Biology’s annual meeting in Denver.

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Scientists Tweak Photosynthesis in Pursuit of a Better Biofuel

Fri, 13 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST

For years researchers have been trying to figure out the best ways of making plants produce biofuels. But there is a fundamental problem: photosynthesis, the process by which plants convert sunlight into stored chemical energy, is highly inefficient. Plants turn only 1 to 3 percent of sunlight into carbohydrates. That is one reason why so much land has to be devoted to growing corn for ethanol, among other bad biofuel ideas. And yet plants also have many advantages: they absorb carbon dioxide at low concentrations directly from the atmosphere, and each plant cell can repair itself when damaged.

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Anti-GM Groups Attempt to Sully Transgenic Control of Dengue Fever

Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST

Genetically engineered mosquitoes developed by British biotech firm Oxitec as an approach to controlling dengue fever have been caught up in controversy since 6,000 of them were deliberately released to an uninhabited forest in Malaysia in a trial in December 2010.

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Shape-Shifting: Researchers Change How Monkeys See in 3-D

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:00:00 EST

At the backs of your eyeballs, on the living projector screens called retinas, your corneas display upside-down 2-D images of the world around you. With some complex mental origami , your brain transforms those flat worlds into a beautiful 3-D model of everything you see. In a new study, researchers changed how monkeys perceived 3-D optical illusions by stimulating particular clusters of neurons in their brains. The researchers think the region they tweaked is where 3-D modeling happens. [More]

Craig Venter Explains How Pond Scum Will Save the World

Wed, 11 Jan 2012 08:00:00 EST

Name: J. Craig Venter [More]

Doomsday Clock Moved 1 Minute Closer to Midnight

Tue, 10 Jan 2012 16:15:00 EST

In a sign of pessimism about humanity's future , scientists today set the hands of the infamous "Doomsday Clock" forward one minute from two years ago.

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