Posting on this blog has been slow because I have been the only one making any new posts. But, now there is a submission form. Use it to make submissions for content that you think may be relevant, interesting, or meritorious of discussion, and, if I approve it, it will show up here!
This TTS Demo is scary good, in English, but especially in Russian, and, near as I can tell, in French.
sUnderstanding the intricacies of protein folding is a crucial step in deciphering the genetic code that serves as the operating system of all living things. Protein misfolding is a critical factor in many diseases, including Alzheimer’s, cystic fibrosis, emphysema, and various cancers. The new computer program will allow scientists to peer deeper into the roots of the diseases.
The researchers describe their simulation of three short proteins using the new technique in the cover story of the current Journal of Chemical Physics.
In a feat that is the culmination of two and a half years of tests and adjustments, researchers at the J. Craig Venter Institute inserted artificial genetic material — chemically printed, synthesized, and assembled — into cells that were then able to grow naturally.
“We all had a very good feeling that it was going to work this time,” said Venter Institute synthetic biologist Daniel Gibson, co-author of the study published May 20 in Science. “But we were cautiously optimistic because we had so many let downs following the previous experiments.”
A laser has been used to generate small clouds on demand in lab, and real-world experiments suggest this could be a way to call down rain when it’s needed.
People have experimented with cloud seeding for decades in the hope of boosting rainfall, usually by sprinkling silver iodide crystals into clouds high in the atmosphere.
These crystals encourage large water droplets to form around them, and the droplets then fall as rain – in theory, at least. “The efficiency of this technique is controversial,” says Jérôme Kasparian at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, one member of a research team that think lasers may be a better way to trigger rain on demand.
Kasparian and colleagues have just reported the first successful use of this technique to summon clouds from air both in the lab and in the skies over Berlin, Germany.
