Breakthrough for Biofuel Production

Researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego have developed a method for greatly enhancing biofuel production in tiny marine algae.

As reported in this week’s online edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Scripps graduate student Emily Trentacoste led the development of a method to genetically engineer a key growth component in biofuel production.

In the quest to loosen humanity’s dependence on traditional fossil fuel consumption, and with it rising concentrations of carbon dioxide and their damaging impacts on the environment, finding economically viable fuels from biological sources has been elusive.

A significant roadblock in algal biofuel research surrounds the production of lipid oils, the fat molecules that store energy that can be produced for fuel. A catch-22 has stymied economically efficient biofuel production because algae mainly produce the desired lipid oils when they are starved for nutrients. Yet if they are limited in nutrients, they don’t grow well. With a robust diet algae grow well, but they produce carbohydrates instead of the desired lipids for fuel.

In a significant leap forward that clears the lipid production hurdle, Trentacoste and her colleagues used a data set of genetic expression (called “transcriptomics” in laboratories) to target a specific enzyme inside a group of microscopic algae known as diatoms (Thalassiosira pseudonana). By metabolically engineering a “knock-down” of fat-reducing enzymes called lipases, the researchers were able to increase lipids without compromising growth. The genetically altered strains they developed, the researchers say, could be produced broadly in other species.

“These results demonstrate that targeted metabolic manipulations can be used to increase accumulation of fuel-relevant molecules.… with no negative effects on growth,” said Trentacoste. “We have shown that engineering this pathway is a unique and practical approach for increasing lipid yields.”

“Scientifically this is a huge achievement,” said Mark Hildebrand, a marine biology professor at Scripps and a coauthor of the study. “Five years ago people said you would never be able to get more lipids without affecting growth negatively. This paper shows that there isn’t an intrinsic barrier and gives us hope of more new things that we can try—it opens the door to a lot more work to be done.”

In addition to lowering the cost of biofuel production by increasing lipid content, the new method has led to advances in the speed of algal biofuel crop production due to the efficient screening process used in the new study.

“Maintaining high growth rates and high biomass accumulation is imperative for algal biofuel production on large economic scales,” the authors note in the paper.

“It seems especially fitting that Scripps-UC San Diego is displaying so much leadership in the field of sustainable biofuels from algae, for instance with the California Center for Algae Biotechnology starting here, given the history of the institution playing such a pivotal role in climate change research,” said paper coauthor William Gerwick, a distinguished professor of oceanography and pharmaceutical sciences
at Scripps’s Center for Marine Biotechnology and Biomedicine
and UC San Diego’s Skaggs School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences. “But these advances do not happen in isolation, and the current project is a great illustration of how different labs can collaborate to achieve greater advances than possible singly.”

In addition to Trentacoste, Hildebrand, and Gerwick, coauthors include Roshan Shrestha, Sarah Smith, Corine Gle, and Aaron Hartmann. With a graduate student leading the research and two others contributing, the study underscores the value of a Scripps-UC San Diego education and the leadership role of students in cutting edge research.

The National Institutes of Health, California Energy Commission, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, Department of Energy, and National Science Foundation supported the research.

Immortality for Human Only 20 Years Away :Scientist

Ray Kurzweil, a world-renowned scientist and author of The Singularity is N One of the changes he thinks are possible: Scientists may finally crack immortality.ear, thinks the world as we know it will be unrecognizable in 20 years. “I and many other scientists now believe that in around 20 years we will have the means to reprogramme our bodies’ stone-age software so we can halt, then reverse, aging,” he writes in The Sun. “Then nanotechnology will let us live for ever. Ultimately, nanobots will replace blood cells and do their work thousands of times more effectively.” Kurzweil, whose fans include Bill Gates adn Bill Clinton, makes a number of other substantial claims, such as humans being able to replace all failing organs with artificial ones. He says we’ll be able to scuba dive for hours without oxygen, and write entire books within minutes thanks to advanced nanotechnology. Oh, virtual sex will also be commonplace in the not-so-distant future. Kurzweil’s absurd-sounding proclamations stem from the fact that technological progress is growing at an exponential rate. “Computer technology and our understanding of genes — our body’s software programs — are accelerating at an incredible rate,” he writes. His theory of the Law of Accelerating Returns, suggests there will be another “billion-fold” increase in technology over the next quarter century. “In reality, the time needed for technology to double is constantly decreasing,” Inc’s Kevin Bailey explains. “The next thing to realize with an exponential curve, is that at a certain point progress relative to time skyrockets up. The increase in technology that once took 20 years now takes 10, and then 5, and then 2.5, and then 1.25, and then .75 years, and then on and on. Kurzweil claims that we are right at the beginning of the sharp upturn that’s characteristic of exponential curves.” Kurzweil thinks we’re just beginning to tap into the possibilities artificial intelligence can bring, and the advancements will only get more wild. We’re already using it in small ways to help us land airplanes and conduct searches on Google. “These technologies should not seem at all fanciful,” says Kurzweil. “Our phones now perform tasks we wouldn’t have dreamed possible 20 years ago. When I was a student in 1965, my university’s only computer

MARS a Habitable Place for Human ? A New View of the Viking Experiments

Almost 40 years ago, two NASA probes on the surface of Mars scooped the soil in search of signs of microbes. The results that came back from the twin Viking missions were, to say the least, ambiguous. The scientific literature contains decades of debate over what they found. A new study took a bit of a different track. Rather than focusing on the question of life, the SETI Institute-lead study, which was carried out at NASA Ames and recently published in the journal Astrobiology, was more interested in defining the martian environment that the Vikings sampled. The results suggest the landers not only found evidence of perchlorate salts on the surface, but there also should be highly reactive related compounds that can decompose organic compounds at low temperatures and explain the results of the Viking biology experiments.

Real Bionic Man With Real Blood

Not only do they have the technology to make bionic body parts, such as hands or legs, but they now possess the capability to make bionic hearts and brains! The bionic man will have a circulatory system just like a human, with bodily fluids. Have they gone too far? Could this be how they will create the
Beast of Revelation?

Meet the Bionic Man: a talking, breathing, walking man, made of the best prosthetic body parts and robotic technology available.

Where did the first Americans come from?

Where did the first Americans come from? Most researchers think Native American roots lie in Asia, although exactly where is not clear; but a few have suggested Europe, a decidedly minority view because today’s Native Americans have clear Asian ancestry. It turns out that both may be right, according to the latest ancient DNA evidence.

A team based in Europe and the United States sequenced the entire genome from the skeleton of a boy who lived in Siberia 24,000 years ago (see photo), the oldest complete genome of a modern human to date. Surprisingly, the boy is closely related both to Eurasians and to Native Americans, but not to East Asians. So the researchers think that Native American ancestors with Eurasian roots might have interbred with East Asians sometime before making the journey over the Bering land bridge to the New World.

The work, first reported by Science from a meeting in Santa Fe last month

Surpassing the Speed of Light

A look at the speed of light, the ultimate speed limit enforced by the laws of the universe, and how scientists are looking for ways to exceed it; a look at what happens when we reach the "light barrier"; what could happen if we surpass it, and how the "cosmic constant" can be manipulated.

The speed of light in vacuum, commonly denoted c, is a universal physical constant important in many areas of physics. Its value is exactly 299,792,458 metres per second, a figure that is exact because the length of the metre is defined from this constant and the international standard for time. Its value is about 186,282 miles per second in imperial units. According to special relativity, c is the maximum speed at which all energy, matter, and information in the universe can travel. It is the speed at which all massless particles and associated fields (including electromagnetic radiation such as light) travel in vacuum. It is also the speed of gravity (i.e. of gravitational waves) predicted by current theories. Such particles and waves travel at c regardless of the motion of the source or the inertial frame of reference of the observer. In the theory of relativity, c interrelates space and time, and also appears in the famous equation of mass--energy equivalence E = mc2.

The speed at which light propagates through transparent materials, such as glass or air, is less than c. The ratio between c and the speed v at which light travels in a material is called the refractive index n of the material (n = c / v). For example, for visible light the refractive index of glass is typically around 1.5, meaning that light in glass travels at c / 1.5 ≈ 200,000 km/s; the refractive index of air for visible light is 1.000293, so the speed of light in air is 299,705 km/s or about 88 km/s slower than c.

In most practical cases, light can be thought of as moving "instantaneously", but for long distances and very sensitive measurements the finite speed of light has noticeable effects. For example, in videos of an intense lightning storm on the Earth's surface taken from the International Space Station, the expansion of light wavefronts from individual flashes of lightning is clearly visible, and allows estimates of the speed of light to be made from frame-to-frame analysis of the position of the light wavefront. This is not surprising, as the time for light to propagate completely around the Earth is on the order of 140 milliseconds. This transit time is what causes the Schumann resonance. In communicating with distant space probes, it can take minutes to hours for a message to get from Earth to the spacecraft, or vice versa. The light we see from stars left them many years ago, allowing us to study the history of the universe by looking at distant objects. The finite speed of light also limits the theoretical maximum speed of computers, since information must be sent within the computer from chip to chip. Finally, the speed of light can be used with time of flight measurements to measure large distances to high precision.

Ole Rømer first demonstrated in 1676 that light travelled at a finite speed (as opposed to instantaneously) by studying the apparent motion of Jupiter's moon Io. In 1865, James Clerk Maxwell proposed that light was an electromagnetic wave, and therefore travelled at the speed c appearing in his theory of electromagnetism. In 1905, Albert Einstein postulated that the speed of light with respect to any inertial frame is independent of the motion of the light source, and explored the consequences of that postulate by deriving the special theory of relativity and showing that the parameter c had relevance outside of the context of light and electromagnetism. After centuries of increasingly precise measurements, in 1975 the speed of light was known to be 299,792,458 m/s with a measurement uncertainty of 4 parts per billion. In 1983, the metre was redefined in the International System of Units (SI) as the distance travelled by light in vacuum in 1/299,792,458 of a second. As a result, the numerical value of c in metres per second is now fixed exactly by the definition of the metre.

Comet ISON Enters the DANGER ZONE; No Scientist knows what Comet ISON is going to do

No one knows what is happening" and "No one knows what Comet ISON" is going to do. But! Professional Astronomers & Big Science has narrowed it down to 3 outcomes. We do know that ISON has had some outbursts and has been brightening, we do know some of the photographs that have been coming in are beautiful, stunning an awesome, we also know that 2P Encke & Comet ISON are both going to pass very close to mercury and maybe do a little double double dusting. These are interesting times with Comets Lovejoy & Linear flying around the inner solar system, these are going to be some interesting times, indeed. We're also going to keep our Eye on the minimal strange Solar Maximum that is Double Peaked, there has been an explosion of numerous large Sunspots that have erupted in solar flares and Coronal Mass Ejections. We also take a look at the fireballs that are being reported by space weather.

Labs Mixing Human DNA with Animal DNA

WARNING TO HUMAN RACE human-animal genetic hybrid or chimera Human dog thousands of labs worldwide with animal human experiments this is sick and funded by the world Governments.

The UN is now and in preparation through 2025 worldwide. Gods Judgement will happen World war 3.

We are in the end times last days the medical field is playing god DANGEREOUS times we are living.

Part Human part animal genetic hybrids A parahuman is a human-animal Genetic engineering hybrid or chimera hybrid.

For Years Scientists have done extensive research into the mixing of genes or cells from different species, e.g. adding human (and other animal) genes to bacteria and farm animals to mass-produce insulin and spider silk proteins, and introducing human cells into mouse embryos.

Para humans have been referred to as "human-animal hybrids" in a vernacular sense that also encompasses human-animal chimeras. The term parahuman is not used in scientific publications.

The term is sometimes used to sensationalize research that involves mixing biological materials from humans and other species.

According to Daily Mail, as of 2011, more than 150 human-animal hybrid embryos were created in British laboratories since the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 2008. DEVELOPMENTS IN THE CREATION OF ANIMAL-HUMAN MIXTURES: 5. Animal-Human Transgenesis 6. Animal-Human Gestation 6.1. Placing a human embryo into an animal 6.2. Placing human sperm into an animal
6.3. Placing an animal embryo into a human 6.4. Placing animal sperm into a woman
7. Animal-Human Hybrid Embryos 7.1. Embryo containing cells made up of both human and animal chromosomes 7.1.1. Non-human eggs into which human nuclei are inserted
Frog-Human Hybrid Entities 7.1.2. Animal-Human chromosome transplant Mouse-Human Hybrids 7.2. Non-human eggs stripped of their chromosomes into which human nuclei are inserted Gametal Cow-Human Hybrid Embryos Gametal Rabbit-Human Hybrid Embryos 7.3. Mixing of Animal and Human Gametes Genetic Human-Hamster Hybrid Embryos 18/10/2010 Ethics of animal-human mixtures
schb.org.uk/.../report - animal-human ... 2/22 8. Animal-Human Chimeras
8.1. Animal-Human Chimeras Created Through Xenotransplantation 8.2. Animal-Human Embryonic and Fetal Chimeras 8.2.1. Incorporation of Human Stem Cells into Post-natal Animals 8.2.2. Incorporation of (1) Human Stem Cells into Post-blastocyst Stages of Non-human Embryos or (2) Non-human Stem Cells into Post-blatocyst stages of Human Embryos Genetic Human-Mouse Chimeric Fetuses Genetic Sheep-Human Chimeric Fetuses Genetic Monkey-Human Chimeric Fetuses
Genetic Pig-Human Chimeric Fetuses 8.2.3. Incorporation of (1) Human Pluripotent Stem Cells into a Non-Human Blastocyst or its Preliminary Embryonic Stages or
(2) Non-human Pluripotent Stem Cells into a Human Blastocyst or its Preliminary Embryonic Stages Genetic Human-Mouse Chimeric Embryos Glossary

References Nevertheless, mixtures between biological species are relatively rare in nature, and most such entities would be less 'fit' than their progenitors. With respect to animal-human mixing, no evidence of any entities being born has ever been recorded but new developments in crossing the species barrier may no longer limit animal-human mixtures to the domain of mythology. Indeed, procedures have recently been developed by scientists which mix human and animal biological elements to such an extent that it questions the very concept of being entirely human. For example, concern for animal-human mixtures was raised in 2001 by the UK Animal Procedures Committee which indicated in its Report on Biotechnology that though questions may exist as to the likely fate of such animal-human mixtures, there may be a deeper repugnance at the thought of their very existence. Indeed, The Regulation of New Biotechnologies and published in 2004, that the crossing of the animal-human boundary was, in some respects, quite complex and subtle but that the mixing of human and animal tissues and materials was not by itself objectionable. In other words, in the context of therapy and preventive medicine, the President's Council accepted that the transplantation of animal parts to replace defective human ones could be considered as ethical. Moreover, the Council had no overriding objection to the insertion of animal-derived genes or cells into a human body - or even into human fetuses.

Pregnant Robot Trains Students

Medical students at Johns Hopkins University get a real-life birthing experience when a robot goes into labor. Kasey-Dee Gardner reports.

The UN's Plan To Defend Earth From Asteroids

The UN has announced it's undertaking the effort to protect the planet from killer asteroids. Trace explains what their plan is if a giant space rock sets it's sights on Earth.

If an incoming asteroid became a blip on our radar, who do you suppose we’d call? Sure, you could try NASA, which will formulate a baffling plan to assemble a brigade of oil drillers to detonate a nuke on the marauding space rock. But, assuming you don’t want to be the part of a bad Hollywood storyline, you’d likely call the second number in your Rolodex — the United Nations. Sadly, even if you did call the U.N., there wouldn’t have been much of a response — except, perhaps, some mild panic.

The U.N. is currently in the early stages of setting up an “International Asteroid Warning Group” so that member nations can share data about hazardous space rocks and coordinate an interception plan should a scary space rock be identified, according to Scientific American. The U.N.’s Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space will coordinate the mission, in an effort to prevent the asteroid from putting a dent in our planet.

Phew.

It is, perhaps, surprising to find out that there wasn’t a plan in place before today. Near-Earth asteroids, after all, are the oft-cited harbinger of doom for humanity. Also, there are some very famous extinction events most likely triggered by stonking great space rocks (bye bye T. rex). Forget the dinosaurs and their sad demise for a moment, what about that cosmic flesh wound we received in February, when a ‘tiny’ asteroid exploded, unannounced, over the city of Chelyabinsk, injuring up to 1,500 people and causing millions of dollars worth of property damage?

That event was the biggest asteroid hit in modern history after the Tunguska impact of 1908, and there are a lot more where that came from.

“There are 100 times more asteroids out there than we have found. There are about 1 million asteroids large enough to destroy New York City or larger,” said Ed Lu, ex-NASA astronaut and co-founder of the B612 Foundation. “Our challenge is to find these asteroids first before they find us.”

Lu was speaking at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City on Oct. 25 with other Association of Space Explorers (ASE) members to push the point home about planetary safety and the continuous threat of asteroids, many as small as the Chelyabinsk impactor. Last week, the U.N. took the ASE recommendations on board, prompting the General Assembly to kick start planning for the U.N.-headed initiative.

“No government in the world today has explicitly assigned the responsibility for planetary protection to any of its agencies,” said Rusty Schweickart, Apollo 9 legend, fellow ASE member and B612 Foundation co-founder. “NASA does not have an explicit responsibility to deflect an asteroid, nor does any other space agency.”

The front line of any asteroid impact mitigation strategy is that of early warning. Nudging even a small asteroid off course would be a lengthy affair. Even assembling the resources to attack said space rock with a nuclear weapon (should that plan be deemed effective) would take some time. Therefore the ASE members advocate better monitoring of the skies as, if we spot an incoming asteroid too late, it will be, well, too late.

“If we don’t find it until a year out, make yourself a nice cocktail and go out and watch,” quipped Schweickart.

Not waiting for a government-funded program, the B612 Foundation is planning its own infrared space telescope, the Sentinel. The $450 million mission will launch in 2017 if the cash can be raised for developmental and launch costs.

You can watch the full American Museum of Natural History talk here: