A new test can forecast extreme longevity
Correction to this article
IN PURSUIT of a long life, expect the dismal prescriptions of clean living: exercise, moderation and a healthy diet. Indeed, such choices may help people exceed average lifespans by up to a decade. But when it comes to the oldest of the old, new research emphasises the biological rather than environmental factors behind longevity, suggesting that distinct genetic characteristics animate most centenarians. …
1865: Gregor Mendel reads his first paper on genetics to the local scientific organization. It will be decades before Mendel’s intellectual seeds take root in the fertile grounds of Darwinism and grow a scientific revolution.
Mendel was born in 1822 and became an Augustinian monk, living at the monastery in Brünn, Moravia. (Moravia was then ruled [...]
Genetically modified prairie voles may illuminate the human condition
LOVE, of course, is what makes the world go round, but what makes love go round? To aesthetes, such a question is imponderable. To scientists, it is not only ponderable but increasingly open to scrutiny—the more so now that Zoe Donaldson and her colleagues at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, have succeeded in creating a new kind of transgenic prairie vole. For, unlikely as it might seem, these tiny rodents could be the key to understanding bonding, trust and even decision-making in humans.
For those unfamiliar with the delightful prairie vole, it is a small rodent found in the grasslands of central North America. What makes it unusual among mammals is that it is both sociable and monogamous. Prairie voles groom each other, nest with one another, collaborate to guard their territory and are affectionate and attentive parents who form, for the most part, devoted couples. Their close relatives the meadow voles, by contrast, prefer a solitary, promiscuous existence. …
1898: Trofim Denisovich Lysenko is born in Karlovka, Ukraine. As dictator Joseph Stalin’s lapdog and top scientist, his influence will almost single-handedly retard the course of Soviet science, especially the fields of genetics and agronomy.
Early Soviet propagandists often relied on “miracles of science” to boost the status of their fledgling state. The young plant breeder [...]
Biologists have created a living computer from E. coli bacteria that can solve complex mathematical problems
Computers are evolving – literally. While the tech world argues netbooks vs notebooks, synthetic biologists are leaving traditional computers behind altogether. A team of US scientists have engineered bacteria that can solve complex mathematical problems faster than anything made from silicon.
The research, published today in the Journal of Biological Engineering, proves that bacteria can be used to solve a puzzle known as the Hamiltonian Path Problem. Imagine you want to tour the 10 biggest cities in the UK, starting in London (number 1) and finishing in Bristol (number 10). The solution to the Hamiltonian Path Problem is the the shortest possible route you can take.
This simple problem is surprisingly difficult to solve. There are over 3.5 million possible routes to choose from, and a regular computer must try them out one at a time to find the shortest. Alternatively, a computer made from millions of bacteria can look at every route simultaneously. The biological world also has other advantages. As time goes by, a bacterial computer will actually increase in power as the bacteria reproduce.
Programming such a computer is no easy task, however. The researchers coded a simplified version of the problem, using just three cities, by modifying the DNA of Escherichia coli bacteria. The cities were represented by a combination of genes causing the bacteria to glow red or green, and the possible routes between the cities were explored by the random shuffling of DNA. Bacteria producing the correct answer glowed both colours, turning them yellow.
The experiment worked, and the scientists checked the yellow bacteria’s answer by examining their DNA sequence. By using additional genetic differences such as resistance to particular antibiotics, the team believe their method could be expanded to solve problems involving more cities.
This is not the only problem bacteria can solve. The research builds on previous work by the same team, who last year created a bacterial computer to solve the Burnt Pancake Problem. This unusually named conundrum is a mathematical sorting process that can be visualised as a stack of pancakes, all burnt on one side, which must be ordered by size.
In addition to proving the power of bacterial computing, the team have also contributed significantly to the field of synthetic biology. Just as electronic circuits are made from transistors, diodes and other devices, so too are biological circuits. Synthetic biologists have worked together to create the Registry of Standard Biological Parts, and this new research has contributed more than 60 new components to the list.
For more information on the expanding field of synthetic biology, download the latest edition of the Guardian’s Science Weekly podcast. Alok Jha and James Randerson were joined in the pod by synthetic biologist Paul Freemont, professor of protein crystallography at Imperial College London, to discuss a future of biological machines.
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• New biofuel requires no car or plane engine modification
• Carbon Trust says production will take ‘many years’
Gene scientist Craig Venter has announced plans to develop next-generation biofuels from algae in a $600m (£370m) partnership with oil giant Exxon Mobil.
His company, Synthetic Genomics Incorporated (SGI), will develop fuels that can be used by cars or aeroplanes without the need for any modification of their engines. Exxon Mobil will provide $600m over five years with half going to SGI.
“Meeting the world’s growing energy demands will require a multitude of technologies and energy sources,” said Emil Jacobs, vice president of research and development at ExxonMobil. “We believe that biofuel produced by algae could be a meaningful part of the solution in the future if our efforts result in an economically viable, low-net carbon emission transportation fuel.”
Transport accounts for one-quarter of the UK’s carbon emissions and is the fastest growing sector. Finding carbon-neutral fuels will be crucial to the government meeting its target to reduce overall emissions by 80% by 2050.
Algae are an attractive way to harvest solar energy because they reproduce themselves, they can live in areas not useful for producing food and they do not need clean or even fresh water. In addition, they use far less space to grow than traditional biofuel crops such as corn or palm oil.
“Algae consumes carbon dioxide and sunlight in the presence of water, to make a kind of oil that has similar molecular structures to petroleum products we produce today,” said Jacobs. “That means it could be possible to convert it into gasoline and diesel in existing refineries, transport it through existing pipelines, and sell it to consumers from existing service stations.”
The Carbon Trust, a government-backed agency that promotes low-carbon technologies, has forecast that algae-based biofuels could replace more than 70bn litres of fossil fuels used every year around the world in road transport and aviation by 2030, equivalent to 12% of annual global jet fuel consumption or 6% of road transport diesel. In carbon terms, this equates to an annual saving of more than 160m tonnes of CO2 globally with a market value of more than £15bn.
Ben Graziano, research and development manager at the Carbon Trust, said that alge-based biofuels offered the potential for “major carbon savings”. “Exxon Mobil is estimating that algae could yield just over 20,000
litres of fuel per hectare each year, which is in line with our own forecasts. However, producing biofuel from algae on such a massive commercial scale is a major challenge, which will require many years of research and development.”
Venter, who is best known for his role in sequencing the human genome, said the new partnership was the largest single investment in trying to produce biofuels from algae but said the challenge to creating a viable next-generation fuel was the ability to produce it in large volumes. “This would not happen without the oil industry stepping up and taking part,” he said. “The challenges are not minor for any of us but we have the combined teams and scientific and engineering talents to give this the best chance of success.”
The research programme will begin with the construction of a new test facility in San Diego, where Venter says different techniques to grow and optimise algae will be tested. These will include open ponds as well as bioreactors, where the algae are grown in sealed tubes. “We will be trying out these different approaches … using newly-discovered natural algae to test the best approaches we can come up with to go into a scale-up mode.”
Venter has spent several years trawling the world’s oceans in search of environmentally-friendly microbes that could be used, in one way or another, to bring down the world’s carbon emissions. The organisms he has found include those that can turn CO2 into methane, which could be used to make fuels from the exhaust gases of power stations, and another that turns coal into natural gas, speeding up a natural process and reducing both the energy needed to extract the fossil fuel and the amount of pollution caused when it is burned.
