(Credit: CI Photos/shutterstock)
CRISPR-Cas9 is here to stay. And for good reason. The gene editing system — which is cheap, fast and more precise than previous techniques — blew the gates open for all sorts of research when it hit the scene back in 2012. Traditionally, it’s hinged on the use of a protein that’s right there in the name, Cas9, a member of the Cas protein family.
Now, researchers at the Broad Institute and the National Institutes of Health have announced ...read more
Ash tree killed by the invasive emerald ash borer. (Credit: K. Steve Cope / Shutterstock)
Compared to gene-edited babies in China and ambitious projects to rescue woolly mammoths from extinction, biotech trees might sound pretty tame.
But releasing genetically engineered trees into forests to counter threats to forest health represents a new frontier in biotechnology. Even as the techniques of molecular biology have advanced, humans have not yet released a genetically engineered plant tha ...read more
This composite image is made of several exposures shot in Arizona of the Perseids meteor shower. On Friday, a rocket launched from Japan carrying satellites that will put on the world’s first artificial meteor shower. (Credit: Jeremy Perez)
Artificial Meteor Showers
A rocket blasted off from Japan on Friday, Jan. 18, carrying satellites that will deliver the first-ever artificial meteor shower.
The Tokyo-based start-up ALE Co. Ltd has developed a new micro-satellite that will put on quit ...read more
The study was conducted in a climate-regulated growth chamber in the Netherlands. (Credit:Silje Wolff, NTNU Social Research (CIRiS))
(Inside Science) — Scientists in Norway and the Netherlands may have brought us closer to workable space farms, which experts agree are necessary if astronauts are ever going to reach Mars.
“Astronauts stay on the International Space Station for six months and they can bring everything they need in either freeze-dried or vacuum packs, but the next goa ...read more
Using a new strategy, one researcher believes that he has solved the longstanding mystery of the length of a day on Saturn. (Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute)
The Time on Saturn
For years, the length of a day on Saturn has remained an unsolved puzzle to frustrated astronomers. But now, a graduate student from the University of California Santa Cruz believes that he has finally solved the mystery. Christopher Mankovich used the planet’s rings to determine that a day on Sat ...read more
The strange, clustered orbits of trans-Neptunian objects (shown on the right) suggest that a giant planet could be out past Neptune. One new study shows how a giant disk of small rocks could better explain the strange orbits of these TNOs. (Credit: José Antonio Peñas (SINC)).
For years, some astronomers have suspected that a planet lies beyond Neptune’s orbit in the far reaches of our solar system — a mysterious, giant planet dubbed “Planet Nine.” Tha ...read more
Scientists are trying to learn more about the placenta, which plays a fundamental role in creating a healthy baby. (Credit: sciencepics/shutterstock)
More than 15 percent of women in developed countries suffer from pregnancy complications associated with the placenta, the disk-shaped organ that sustains a growing fetus. Now researchers find the placenta adapts when nutrients are scarce. The discovery identifies possible targets for intervention, the researchers say.
“Pregnancy complicati ...read more
Researchers are pushing for a new kind of energy storage based on compressed air. Using renewable energy, the tech would pump air into underground rocks in the North Sea, and it would power turbines when released. (Credit; NASA)
With reports about climate change becoming increasingly dire, it’s increasingly important to find an eco-friendly way to not only generate energy, but also store it. After all, wind turbines and solar power and the like don’t run steadily. So we c ...read more
