Science in the News - Facts Document
Name: Bonnie May
Date: September 29, 2014
Date: September 29, 2014
Topic Selected: Biochemistry
Why did you choose this topic? I chose to research biochemistry because, after looking at multiple topics, the things that biochemistry articles covered were fascinating and I became interested in it.
Why is this topic currently a news headline? Biochemistry is currently a headline because many advances are being made to cure diseases, create fuels, and even bring animals back from extinction.
Facts Source 1
Source 1 Title: National Geographic
MLA Citation: "George Church: The Future Without Limit | Innovators." National Geographic. National Geographic Society, n.d. Web.]
Facts Source 2
Source 2 Title: Science Daily: Scientists Make Droplets Move on Their Own
MLA Citation: "Scientists Make Droplets Move on Their Own." ScienceDaily. University of Southern Denmark, 29 Sept. 2014. Web.
Why did you choose this topic? I chose to research biochemistry because, after looking at multiple topics, the things that biochemistry articles covered were fascinating and I became interested in it.
Why is this topic currently a news headline? Biochemistry is currently a headline because many advances are being made to cure diseases, create fuels, and even bring animals back from extinction.
Facts Source 1
Source 1 Title: National Geographic
MLA Citation: "George Church: The Future Without Limit | Innovators." National Geographic. National Geographic Society, n.d. Web.]
- “...all six billion chemical letters that make up human DNA. If individuals were told which diseases or medical conditions they were genetically predisposed to, they could adjust their behavior accordingly, he reasoned.” George Church wants to map everyone’s DNA to warn/prepare them for diseases in their future.
- As a graduate student, he used x-ray crystallography to study the three-dimensional structure of "transfer" RNA, which decodes DNA and carries instructions to other parts of the cell.
- Made plastic entirely from plants: “The cups were made of Mirel, or polyhydroxybutyrate (PHB), a substance normally produced with petrochemicals. But this batch was manufactured at a factory in Clinton, Iowa, from genetically altered microbes and corn sugar.”
- Wants to use his research to cure disease: “If you were to remove stem cells from the bone marrow of an individual with the disease, repair the defective gene in each cell, and then return the cells into the marrow to produce healthy blood cells, the individual would be cured, Church says.”
- By studying the way that certain bacteria defend themselves against viruses, researchers figured out how to precisely cut DNA at any location on the genome and insert new material there to alter its function.
- Could possibly resurrect extinct animals by combining their DNA with that of a live animal today, creating a “better” version of both.
- “The easiest way to create a mammoth, Church argues, would be to start with an elephant's genome and gradually transform it into a mammoth's.” (i.e. the wooly mammoth is closely related to the Asian elephant, so by combining the most useful traits of each a new species of elephant could be created with the characteristics of both mammoth and elephant).
- “Starting with a stem cell genome from a human adult, you could gradually reverse-engineer it into something like that of a Neanderthal.” You could then study useful traits and different ways of thinking.
- Church calls MAGE technology (multiplex automated genomic engineering), which some have nicknamed the "evolution machine."
- Rather than carrying out substitutions one at a time, MAGE allows researchers to simultaneously introduce new genetic material on a wholesale basis.
- By studying the way that certain bacteria defend themselves against viruses, researchers figured out how to precisely cut DNA at any location on the genome and insert new material there to alter its function.
- Last month, researchers at MIT announced they had used CRISPR to cure mice of a rare liver disease that also afflicts humans.
Facts Source 2
Source 2 Title: Science Daily: Scientists Make Droplets Move on Their Own
MLA Citation: "Scientists Make Droplets Move on Their Own." ScienceDaily. University of Southern Denmark, 29 Sept. 2014. Web.
- “To be able to move on your own -- to be self-moving -- is a feature normally seen in living organisms. But non-living things can also be self-moving…”
- The researchers have made alcohol droplets move in a life-like way.
- Small droplets of alcohol in water can move through complex mazes.
- The droplets can be led to certain targets, and therefore they may be used as a technology to physically move chemistry to a place where it is desired.
- The droplets start to move when they sense salt in their environment.
- Salt is the stimulus that makes them move. They move because the salt gradient provides a different energy landscape.
- But with a salt gradient coming from one direction the droplet can move energetically downhill into the salt gradient. And stronger salt concentrations will attract the droplet more
- The system is sustainable in that the same droplet can migrate towards salts at different positions added sequentially.
- In addition the droplet can distinguish between salt sources of different concentration.
- The process can also be controlled by external temperature stimulus, and when the droplet arrives at the source it can physically fuse with it and react with it.
- Martin Hanczyc has previously reported that oil droplets display a life-like moving behavior and may be a simple chemical predecessor to biological life.
- Scientists have been able to get alcohol droplets to navigate through mazes, and they believe that in the future, such moving droplets may deliver medicines.