Weizmann Research May Allow Memories to be Erased, Strengthened

Prof. Yadin Dudai, Head of the Weizmann Institute’s Neurobiology Department, and his colleagues are challenging the prevalent view that memories are recorded in a static, semi-permanent manner. They recently discovered that the process of storing long-term memories is much more dynamic, involving a miniature molecular “machine” that must run constantly to keep memories going. They also found that jamming said “machine” briefly can erase long-term memories. Their findings, which appeared Thursday in the journal Science, may pave the way to future treatments for memory problems.

Source: IsraelNN.

Researchers Evolve Artificial Enzymes in the Laboratory

Living cells are not the only place where enzymes can help speed along chemical reactions. Industrial applications also employ enzymes to accelerate reactions of many kinds, from making antibiotics to removing grease from clothing. For the first time, scientists have created a completely new enzyme entirely in vitro, suggesting that industrial applications may one day no longer be limited to enzymes that can be derived from natural biological sources.

Source: Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Artificial Life Likely In 3 To 10 Years

Around the world, a handful of scientists are trying to create life from scratch and they’re getting closer. Experts expect an announcement within three to 10 years from someone in the now little-known field of “wet artificial life.”

Source: AP via CBS News.

Rewritable Holographic Memory

A genetically engineered microbial protein could mean better data storage.

By using lasers to etch data onto microbial proteins, researchers at the University of Connecticut may have demonstrated a way to produce rewritable holographic memory. Holographic memory stores data in three dimensions instead of two and could make data retrieval hundreds of times faster. The first holographic-memory systems have recently come to market, but they do not yet feature discs rewritable in real time.

Source: Technology Review.

Dr. Sanjay Gupta’s Search for Biological Immortality

Most recently, Dr. Gupta embarked upon a remarkable quest to investigate “new discoveries in the search for immortality to help you age less today.” For his investigation, he interviewed scientists around the globe from Okinawa and Russia to laboratories throughout the United States. His findings resulted in both a book and documentary titled Chasing Life (Warner Wellness).

Source: Life Extension Magazine via Nanodot.

Embedded: A Benign Way to Nanowire Living Cells

One day it may be possible for physicians to use electrical stimulation to guide the development of embryonic stem cells into neurons, heart cells, lung cells, breast cells, muscles, and other specific cell types. Researchers with Berkeley Lab and UC Berkeley, in collaboration with researchers at the Gladstone Institute of Cardiovascular Disease (GICD) in San Francisco, have taken a critical first step toward that goal.

Source: Berkley Lab.

The new new thing (synthetic biology)

It’s fairly clear that nanotechnology is no longer the new new thing. A recent story in Business Week - Nanotech Disappoints in Europe - is not atypical. It takes its lead from the recent difficulties of the UK nanotech company Oxonica, which it describes as emblematic of the nanotechnology sector as a whole: “a story of early promise, huge hype, and dashed hopes.” Meanwhile, in the slightly neophilic world of the think-tanks, one detects the onset of a certain boredom with the subject. For example, Jack Stilgoe writes on the Demos blog “We have had huge fun running around in the nanoworld for the last three years. But there is a sense that, as the term ‘nanotechnology’ becomes less and less useful for describing the diversity of science that is being done, interesting challenges lie elsewhere… But where?”

Source: Soft Machines.

Engineered Virus Attacks Bacteria

Scientists have engineered viruses to attack and destroy mega-colonies of potentially harmful bacteria called biofilms.

The work is one of the latest potential applications to emerge from synthetic biology, a burgeoning field that aims to change the genomes of organisms on large scales to make them more useful to humans or to even craft new life forms from scratch.

Source: Live Science.

The Case Against Perfection: Ethics in the Age of Genetic Engineering

Three years ago in The Atlantic, the Harvard philosopher Michael Sandel wrote a critique of genetic engineering titled “The Case Against Perfection.” Now he has turned it into a book. The title is the same, but the text has changed, and sections have been added. That’s what human beings do. We try to improve things.
…
Sandel thinks this vision of freedom is flawed. Part of freedom, he argues, “consists in a persisting negotiation with the given.” To abolish the given by re-engineering not only our world but also ourselves would “leave us with nothing to affirm or behold outside our own will.” This is a profound insight. But it’s not fatal to freedom. It’s fatal to perfection.

Source: NY Times.

Cell-transistor interface clears biolectronics hurdle

PORTLAND, Ore. — Researchers at the Max Planck Institute (Munich, Germany) have developed a cell-transistor interface that they believe will usher in a new era of bioelectronics, allowing cells to be manipulated and studied without destroying them in the process.

Source: EETimes.