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Bio Technology

  • This 5D imaging technology can digitally scan living tissue

    By on 17 January, 2017

    Researchers from USC Dornsife and USC Viterbi School of Engineering have developed new technology that allows for 5D imaging of animals and human beings. According to the developers, Francesco Cutrale, Prof. Scott Fraser and the late Prof. Elizabeth Garrett, their implementation of 5D imaging -- dubbed Hyper-Spectral Phasor analysis (HySP) -- is cheaper, faster and more accurate than other imaging methods available. 5D imaging technology is useful in detecting important biological molecules, especially signs of disease, being crucial to understanding how diseases interact within a living organism. The HySP uses fluorescent imaging to locate proteins as well as other molecules situated...

  • CRISPR cures mice of blood deficiency through gene editing

    By on 8 December, 2016

    One of the world's most powerful genome-editing tools CRISPR is beginning to show just how efficient it can be. Researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have developed an innovative dual-gene-therapy approach to delivering the editing tool into mice to treat haemophilia B. The disorder is also known as Factor IX Deficiency which is caused by a defective clotting protein. In some cases that protein is missing completely. The research team consisted of associate professor in the Penn Gene Therapy Program, Lili Wang; professor of medicine and GTP director, James M Wilson. The team also consisted of...

  • Future HIV tests might use a USB flash drive-like device

    By on 16 November, 2016

    Scientists at the Imperial College London and DNA Electronics have created a device which could help to save lives of HIV suffers. The device, which is about as small as a USB flash drive, creates an electrical signal which can be read by any PC or handheld device with a USB port. The "flash drive" uses a mobile phone chip which requires a small sample of blood placed on it. Blood containing the HIV virus will differ to non-infected blood by way of acidity. The chip can read these acidity levels and subsequently notify patients, doctors or researchers. According to the scientists, 991 blood...

  • Researchers use drones to find worrying news in ocean

    By on 10 November, 2016

    A research vessel tasked with studying the ocean's surface, has successfully used drones and other autonomous vehicles to discover new dangers to human and sea life. The Schmidt Ocean Institute vessel, aptly named Falkor, returned to port yesterday after successfully deploying 17 sampling stations to various parts of the world's oceans. "The sea-surface microlayer plays a vital role in the uptake and release of greenhouse gases, including methane and carbon dioxide via the ocean," said chief scientist from the University of Oldenburg, Oliver Wurl. "Even the latest models ignore what happens at the sea surface, we hope this research will change that...

  • New smart tattoo measures your blood alcohol levels

    By on 20 October, 2016

    Good news, party animals. Scientists at the University of California have created a way for you to monitor your blood alcohol levels without a breathalyser. The new technology makes use of a phone, and a biosensor patch that beams back information about your blood alcohol levels on the fly. "It resembles a temporary tattoo but is actually a biosensor patch that is embedded with several flexible wireless components," explains Director of the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, Seila Selimovic in a press release. A component within the tattoo reads the levels of sweat around it, and records the change as time progresses. This change...

  • Strawberry is most toxic vaping flavour, study finds

    By on 26 September, 2016

    Scientists at the Roswell Park Cancer Institute have proven that there's more harm in vaping (or smoking ecigarettes) than consumers might think, and subsequently revealed which flavours are the most toxic too. The research team at the institute found that flavourings and voltage levels could greatly affect the toxicity levels of the ecigarette. The research, published in Tobacco Control, was conducted by assistant professor of oncology Maciej Goniewicz and his team. Goniewicz studied how bronchial cells would react when exposed to aerosol from various ecigarettes with different voltages and flavours.   The various devices were filled with flavours such as tobacco, menthol, pina colada,...

  • Ever heard of DNA robots controlled by thought?

    By on 22 September, 2016

    A research paper published in the scientific journal Plos One, titled Thought-Controlled Nanoscale Robots in a Living Host, has garnered a lot of attention this week. Israeli computer science graduate Shachar Arnon and his team have found a way to combine the exciting with the somewhat terrifying by developing remote-controlled nanobots that can operate in a living subject using nothing but the power of thought. "We report a new type of brain-machine interface enabling a human operator to control nanometre-size robots inside a living animal by brain activity. Recorded EEG patterns are recognised online by an algorithm, which in turn controls the state of an electromagnetic...

  • De-extinction: Revive & Restore aims to resurrect lost animals

    By on 8 September, 2016

    Revive & Restore is a scientific project that not only aims to protect endangered animals from extinction, but is also actively trying to resurrect extinct species by means of cloning and genetic engineering. This process is referred to as resurrection biology or de-extinction. The project is run by the California-based research institute, The Long Now Foundation, which was established in “01996”. The zero is added to solve something known as the "deca-millenium bug" (who are these people?). Among the species they intend to resurrect are the woolly mammoth, Tasmanian tiger and the passenger pigeon. In their latest attempt they managed to “birth”...

  • Arizona State University finds a way to control drones using brainwaves

    By on 22 July, 2016

    The brain is a complex processing unit which contains approximately 200-billion neutrons. These neutrons fire thousands of electrical signals per second. As complex as the brain is, we still can't telepathically move things with our minds, until today. Director of Human-Orientated Robotics and Control Lab, Panagiotis Artemiadis who's also the assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering in the School for Engineering of Matter has found a way to successfully control drones using a wireless interface. The controller uses a skull-cap connected to a computer, which is outfitted with 128 electrodes. The cap reads the brainwaves you produce when instructing parts of...

  • Did you know? These 10 human body parts can be replaced

    By on 20 July, 2016

    Medical science and bio technology has given second chances to so many lives, especially in the form of prostheses. Gone are the days where your life was over if you lost a limb or two. So to honour this achievement in human endurance and scientific method, we've made a list of ten body parts that could theoretically be replaced if lost. Heart muscles According to WHO (World Health Organisation), more people lose their life every year to heart disease than any other disease. Influencing factors such as stress and an unhealthy lifestyle could cause your heart to give in. Earlier this year, researchers...

  • CRISPR could help scientists rewrite human DNA, develop perfect ‘being’

    By on 14 July, 2016

    "Human beings are fairly close to being perfect," correct? After all, there's plenty to lay claim to that. We've developed flight without biological wings, ways to travel faster than the speed of sound, and even methods of cloning our genes. That may be so, but in each endeavour, we've had many failures before we've seen a success. And even then, our scientific creations and alterations are still not perfect. But what if they could be? CRISPR or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeat is a new way for scientists to extract selected sections of a living organism's DNA and replace it...