07 Aug

Posted at 10:41h in Scoop.it

Insights from quantum physics have allowed engineers to incorporate components used in circuit boards, optical fibers, and control systems in new applications ranging from smartphones to advanced microprocessors. But, even with significant progress made in recent years, researchers are still looking for new and better ways to control the uniquely powerful electronic properties of quantum materials.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: phys.org

31 Jul

Posted at 14:57h in Scoop.it

NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has discovered three new worlds that are among the smallest, nearest exoplanets known to date. The planets orbit a star just 73 light years away and include a small, rocky super-Earth and two sub-Neptunes — planets about half the size of our own icy giant.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.sciencedaily.com

21 Jul

Posted at 18:20h in Scoop.it

Researchers from China’s Peking University have developed a new gene-editing technology —  and they think it shows promise as a CRISPR alternative for fighting human diseases.

 

According to a paper published on Monday in the journal Nature Biotechnology, this new technology, LEAPER, which stands for “leveraging endogenous ADAR for programmable editing of RNA,” works similarly to CRISPR-Cas13, targeting RNA molecules as opposed to DNA like the well-known CRISPR-Cas9.

 

But while CRISPR-Cas13 relies on both a guide RNA and the Cas13 enzyme to make its edits to RNA, the LEAPER system needs just one component known as an arRNA. This makes the system “more easily deliverable and less likely to result in unwanted cellular immune responses,” the researchers told China-based media outlet Caixin.

 

As for the potential uses of their CRISPR alternative, Peking researcher Zhou Zhuo told Caixin that “there are clear prospects for using this technology in disease treatment.” In fact, in tests of cells taken from people with the debilitating genetic disorder Hurler syndrome, LEAPER was able to correct “sufficient amounts” of the cells’ mutated RNA, University of Queensland geneticist Ernst Wolvetang, who wasn’t involved in the research, told Caixin.

 

However, the research is still in the early stages and is only now moving into tests on animals — meaning we won’t know for some time if LEAPER will dethrone CRISPR as the preeminent gene-editing technology.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: futurism.com

21 Jul

Posted at 18:17h in Scoop.it

Beneath the spread of all “fake news,” misinformation, disinformation, digital falsehoods and foreign influence lies society’s failure to teach its citizenry information literacy: how to think critically about the deluge of information that confronts them in our modern digital age. Instead, society has prioritized speed over accuracy, sharing over reading, commenting over understanding. Children are taught to regurgitate what others tell them and to rely on digital assistants to curate the world rather than learn to navigate the informational landscape on their own. Schools no longer teach source triangulation, conflict arbitration, separating fact from opinion, citation chaining, conducting research or even the basic concept of verification and validation. In short, we’ve stopped teaching society how to think about information, leaving our citizenry adrift in the digital wilderness increasingly saturated with falsehoods without so much as a compass or map to help them find their way to safety. The solution is to teach the world’s citizenry the basics of information literacy.

Sourced through Scoop.it from: www.forbes.com