Breakthrough: Artificial DNA Could Power Future Computers

080705-fake-dna-02.jpgChemists claim to have created the world’s first DNA molecule made almost entirely of artificial parts.

The finding could lead to improvements in gene therapy, futuristic nano-sized computers, and other high-tech advances, the Japanese researchers say.

DNA, popularly illustrated as a double helix, holds the blueprints of life and controls what every living organism becomes and how it functions.

Scientists have tried for years to develop artificial versions of DNA in order to take advantage of its amazing information storage capabilities. Already, DNA has been harnessed to create simple electronic circuits.

DNA uses just four basic building blocks, known as bases, to code proteins used in cell functioning and development. Other researchers have crafted DNA molecules with a few artificial parts.

But Masahiko Inouye and colleagues at the University of Toyama used stitched together four entirely new, artificial bases inside the sugar-based framework of a DNA molecule, creating unusually stable, double-stranded structures resembling natural DNA, they say.

Like natural DNA, the new ripoffs were right-handed and some easily formed triple-stranded structures. “The unique chemistry of these structures and their high stability offer unprecedented possibilities for developing new biotech materials and applications,” the researchers said in a statement.

The breakthrough will be detailed in the July 23 issue of the Journal of the American Chemical Society. – livesci

Officials close bridge that jolted riders in Maple Grove

Officials in Maple Grove have closed a new pedestrian/bike bridge that was delivering an electric shock to some people who crossed it.

One local bicyclist tells KARE-TV that he rode his bike across it last spring and felt a sensation like a swarm of bees flying into his shorts. The same sensation occurred on a second trip, and he contacted the local park district.

He says one of the park directors told him at least two other riders had reported the same experience, as had the park director.

The park district consulted the Minnesota Department of Transportation, which built the bridge, and Xcel Energy, which has powerlines nearby. They decided to close it.

An Xcel spokesman says the powerlines are likely generating an electrical field that’s causing the bridge to develop a charge and deliver low voltage jolts to the bicyclists.

A MnDOT spokesman says authorities are looking into how the bridge was built and grounded and plan to correct the problem so they can reopen it. – twinc

Seeking gold, divers find B-26 wreckage

Thirty miles southwest of the Sanibel Lighthouse, an eerie tableau of silence, sea life and grim reminders of death spreads across the sea floor.

Spanish mackerel rocket through a ball of cigar minnows undulating above an intact aircraft wing in 70 feet of water; 1,350 feet away, goliath grouper loaf near two massive Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp radial engines; tomtates drift slowly around the badly bent propellers, one of which is still attached to its engine, the other lying on the sand a few feet away.

A thriving marine community is on this otherwise barren section of the Gulf of Mexico only because of the anomalous hardware, wreckage of a B-26 Marauder that crashed more than 60 years ago and took the lives of six young airmen. – newspress

Japanese sailor first to cross Pacific in wave-powered boat

Japanese sailor and environmentalist Kenichi Horie has completed a 110-day solo voyage across the Pacific Ocean in a boat propelled by wave power to claim another world first. Weak waves and opposing ocean currents delayed his arrival, which was originally set for late May.

“When waves were weak, the boat slowed down. That’s the problem to be solved,” the adventurer told reporters Saturday from aboard his catamaran Suntory Mermaid II off the Kii Peninsula in western Japan. The 9.5 metre (31-foot) boat is equipped with two special fins at the front which can move like a dolphin’s tail each time the vessel rises or falls with the rhythm of the waves.

Horie, who will turn 70 in September, reached his destination in the channel between the main Japanese islands of Honshu and Shikoku just before midnight (1500 GMT Friday) after covering some 7,000 kilometres (3,780 nautical miles) from Hawaii without a port call.

“The feeling is yet to sink in,” Horie added, according to the Jiji and Kyodo news agencies. “I want to go home as soon as possible and eat home-cooked meals.”

Horie first made world headlines in 1962 when, at the age of 23, he became the first person to sail solo across the Pacific. He embarked on the three-month voyage from his hometown of Nishinomiya near Kobe despite breaking Japanese law, which did not allow its citizens to sail on their own out of the country, and without a passport or money.

He was arrested upon arrival in San Francisco but the city mayor freed him, gave him a 30-day visa and made him an honorary citizen. News of his achievement made him a hero back home in Japan and his book of the voyage “Kodoku (Alone in the Pacific)” was made into a film. – yahoo

Tofu ‘may raise risk of dementia’

Eating high levels of some soy products – including tofu – may raise the risk of memory loss, research suggests.

The study focused on 719 elderly Indonesians living in urban and rural regions of Java. The researchers found high tofu consumption – at least once a day – was associated with worse memory, particularly among the over-68s. The Loughborough University-led study features in the journal Dementias and Geriatric Cognitive Disorders.

Soy products are a major alternative protein source to meat for many people in the developing world. But soy consumption is also on the increase in the west, where it is often promoted as a “superfood”. Soy products are rich in micronutrients called phytoestrogens, which mimic the impact of the female sex hormone oestrogen. There is some evidence that they may protect the brains of younger and middle-aged people from damage – but their effect on the ageing brain is less clear. The latest study suggests phytoestrogens – in high quantity – may actually heighten the risk of dementia.

Lead researcher Professor Eef Hogervorst said previous research had linked oestrogen therapy to a doubling of dementia risk in the over-65s. She said oestrogens – and probably phytoestrogens – tended to promote growth among cells, not necessarily a good thing in the ageing brain. Alternatively, high doses of oestrogens might promote the damage caused to cells by particles known as free radicals.

A third theory is that damage is caused not by the tofu, but by formaldehyde, which is sometimes used in Indonesia as a preservative. – bbc

Test good clean organic tofu vs the contaminated stuff, then if this is true, I’ll stop eating so much of it.

Copper thief ‘died of fear’

A MAN arrested in possession of alleged stolen municipal electrical copper wire died in detention at the Pretoria West Police Station on Saturday.  Spokesperson Captain Dumisani Ndlazi said the man dropped dead while being interrogated.

Ndlazi said the man was arrested while he was on his way to a scrap yard to sell the stolen copper wires. When police arrested him he had shown signs of fear and could only submit his name and address before he died. – dispatch

Nothing to investigate here…

Nitinol wire demonstration

We may be only 60 years behind the aliens that crashed at Roswell, NM in designing amazing indestructible(?) memory metal.

The way I read it, the “restore to original shape” temperature can be changed so you could make Nitinol which returns to its original shape at room temperature.

What would a car or aircraft body of this material be like? Could Nitinol act as a light weight protective armor that would heal itself if deformed by a crash or even a bullet? Perhaps not, otherwise, why would it have not been done already?