Press monitoring
Immortalized stem cells produce bigger, better blood batches
29.3.2017 | Press monitoring
Donating blood saves lives, but there's never enough, especially when the difficulties of storage and matching blood types are taken into account. Artificial blood has been in the works for years, but it's held back by the fact that the stem cells it's grown from can only produce so many red blood cells. Now, researchers at the University of...
Team nebulizes aphids to knock down gene expression
27.3.2017 | Press monitoring
Researchers are nebulizing soybean aphids with RNA, which, when incorporated into the body, can hinder the expression of specific genes. The new method of delivering "interfering RNA" in a mist will likely speed the process of discovering the function of many mystery genes in insects, the researchers report in the journal Insect Molecular...
Lab-grown chicken on the menu for the first time
24.3.2017 | Press monitoring
Memphis Meats has just served up chicken and duck meat cultivated in a lab from poultry cells, meaning no animals were harmed in the making of the meal. Along with the ethical issues of animal cruelty that surround a carnivorous diet, feeding, breeding and keeping livestock for food has an enormous environmental impact. The animals burp more...
3D-printed bacteria could make bespoke graphene-like materials
22.3.2017 | Press monitoring
How do you make a bespoke material with graphene-like properties? By putting bacteria to work using a 3D printer. Such bacteria could create brand new materials. For example, if you could use bacteria to print a substance resembling graphene – the 2D material made of single-atom layers of carbon – the end product might have similar desirable...
Popular weedkiller doesn\'t cause cancer: EU agency
20.3.2017 | Press monitoring
The EU's chemicals agency said Wednesday that glyphosate, one of the world's most widely used weedkillers, should not be classed as a carcinogen. The assessment paves the way for Brussels to make a final decision on the chemical, despite deep divisions in the 28-member European Union over its use. Glyphosate is used in the best-selling...
Phage therapy shown to kill drug-resistant superbug
17.3.2017 | Press monitoring
Scientists from the University of Liverpool's Institute of Infection and Global Health have shown that phage therapy could offer a safe and effective alternative to antibitotics in the treatment of cystic fibrosis lung infections. Chronic lung infections caused by the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa are becoming increasingly difficult to treat...
New nano-implant could one day help restore sight
15.3.2017 | Press monitoring
A team of engineers at the University of California San Diego and La Jolla-based startup Nanovision Biosciences Inc. have developed the nanotechnology and wireless electronics for a new type of retinal prosthesis that brings research a step closer to restoring the ability of neurons in the retina to respond to light. The researchers demonstrated...
This small molecule could have a big future in global food security
13.3.2017 | Press monitoring
Researchers at the University of Arizona have found a promising way to prevent the loss of millions of tons of crops to a fungus each year, offering the potential to dramatically improve food security, especially in developing countries. The team's approach uses transgenic corn plants that produce small RNA molecules that prevent fungi from...
Want more crop variety? Researchers propose using CRISPR to accelerate plant domestication
10.3.2017 | Press monitoring
Out of the more than 300,000 plant species in existence, only three species—rice, wheat, and maize—account for most of the plant matter that humans consume, partly because in the history of agriculture, mutations arose that made these crops the easiest to harvest. But with CRISPR technology, we don't have to wait for nature to help us...
Artificial embryo grown in a dish from two types of stem cells
8.3.2017 | Press monitoring
Artificial mouse embryos grown from stem cells in a dish could help unlock secrets of early development and infertility that have until now evaded us. Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz at the University of Cambridge and her team made the embryos using embryonic stem cells, the type of cells found in embryos that can mature into any type of tissue in the...
