Tag: science

For The First Time, CRISPR Gene-Editing Has Been Used on Squid

For the first time, the innovative CRISPR gene editing method has been used on squid, marking a milestone in the scientific study of these creatures – and opening up many new areas of potential research.

CRISPR enables very precise, speedy, and low-cost DNA edits. Put simple, the ingenious molecular workings of the method are often described as something that allows us to ‘cut’ and ‘paste’ genes; in humans it promises to give us a way of tackling disease and killing superbugs at the genetic level.

In this case CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing was used on Doryteuthis pealeii (the longfin inshore squid) to disable a pigmentation gene, turning off the pigmentation usually found in the squid eye and inside specialised skin cells called chromatophores.

“This is a critical first step toward the ability to knock out – and knock in – genes in cephalopods to address a host of biological questions,” says marine biologist Joshua Rosenthal, from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) at the University of Chicago.

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‘Nonbinary’ is now a legal gender, Oregon court rules

In a historic move sure to challenge federal policy, an Oregon circuit court ruled on Friday that a resident could legally change their gender to nonbinary.

The Daily Dot spoke—in an exclusive first interview—with Jamie Shupe, the Portland, Oregon, resident and Southern Maryland native who requested the gender identity change.

“Male and female are the traditional categories, but they fail to properly categorize people like me. So I challenged that,” said Shupe.

Shupe’s petition for sex change, as the court calls it, was filed on April 27. With the help of Portland attorney Lake James Perriguey and armed with two letters from primary care doctors (shared privately with the Daily Dot) stating that Shupe’s gender should be classified as nonbinary, the case was made.

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Scientists revive microbes from 100 million years ago

Scientists have successfully revived microbes that had lain dormant at the bottom of the sea since the age of the dinosaurs, allowing the organisms to eat and even multiply after eons in the deep.

Their research sheds light on the remarkable survival power of some of Earth’s most primitive species, which can exist for tens of millions of years with barely any oxygen or food before springing back to life in the lab.

A team led by the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology analysed ancient sediment samples deposited more than 100 million years ago on the seabed of the South Pacific.

The region is renowned for having far fewer nutrients in its sediment than normal, making it a far-from-ideal site to maintain life over millennia.

The team incubated the samples to help coax the microbes out of their epoch-spanning slumber.

Astonishingly, they were able to revive nearly all of the microorganisms.

“When I found them, I was first sceptical whether the findings are from some mistake or a failure in the experiment,” said lead author Yuki Morono.

“We now know that there is no age limit for (organisms in the) sub-seafloor biosphere,” he told AFP.

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This New, Non-Cuttable Material Is Virtually Indestructible

A new material called Proteus is billed as just 15 percent the density of steel, but completely resistant to being cut through. That means cyclists around the world may be blessed with truly inviolable locks for the first time ever.

People who want to steal the outdoor furniture from restaurant patios will have to cut the furniture now instead of the cable lock. Most importantly, TV writers will have to work even harder to make it seem easy to get into a locked electrical storage or nuclear facility.

Researchers in Germany and the U.K. have teamed up to make a material they say uses harmony and vibration to thwart any attempts to cut it. “Our architecture derives its extreme hardness from the local resonance between the embedded ceramics in a flexible cellular matrix and the attacking tool, which produces high-frequency vibrations at the interface,” they explain in their paper.

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