Items tagged with dna
Over the course of the last 11 months or so, tens of millions of Americans have been tested for the SARS-CoV-2 virus which has caused the COVID-19 pandemic. Many, many more people globally have undergone the same tests. Amidst the scramble to test for and identify the virus responsible for a long-term global health crisis, some opportunistic companies have allegedly tried to wiggle their way into gaining advantages they wouldn't otherwise have. In one particular case, U.S. Intelligence officials were so concerned about biological data falling into the wrong hands, that they issued a rare public warning to stop it. When the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 appeared in Washington state nearly...
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It's not quite Skynet, but scientists have created "lifelike" machines seem like something straight out of a sci-fi movie. Researchers from Cornell University has crafted what they call artificial machines using synthetic DNA that can move on their own, grow, evolve, consume resources and eventually die. Now before you start putting on your judgmental hats and questioning the ethics of the researchers, they are quick to point out that their creations are not true "living" organisms. "We are introducing a brand-new, lifelike material concept powered by its very own artificial metabolism," writes Dan Luo, who serves as a professor of biological and environmental engineer at Cornell. "We are...
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A team of scientists from the University of Washington have figured out how to infect a computer using malicious code inside DNA. This attack vector isn't aimed at your everyday PC sitting on your desk at home or in the office; this hack aims directly at the infrastructure around the DNA transcription and analysis industry. The team behind the hack was concerned about the security with that infrastructure after finding basic vulnerabilities in some of the open-source software used in labs that analyze DNA all around the world. While the basic issues with the software could be vulnerable to hacks using traditional tools, like malware and viruses, the team of researchers went the extra...
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If you think that 60TB SSDs are impressive, you might want to sit down for what researchers at Columbia University and the New York Genome Centre have managed to pull off using DNA storage. Using new encoding technology, the researchers have the ability to store an amazing 215 petabytes (215 million gigabytes) of data onto a single gram of DNA. If you recall, we brought you news last July that Microsoft had managed to store 200MB on a single strand of DNA. This latest advance, however, takes those efforts to the extreme. According to Columbia University computer scientist Yaniv Erlich, they were able to encode at 1.6 bits per nucleotide, which works out to 85 percent of the theoretical...
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Researchers at Microsoft and the University of Washington have set a new record for DNA storage. The pair was able to record 200 megabytes of data on the molecular strands. Once encoded, the data was smaller than the tip of a pencil. How does storing digital data on DNA work? The data is translated from binary into the “letters” of the four nucleotide bases of a DNA strand. Twist Bioscience, a startup that makes and uses synthetic DNA to store digital data, then translates the letters into actual molecules and sends them back to a computer. Researchers read the data through RAM and use a polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to multiply or “amplify” the strands it wants to recover. Researchers can...
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The age-old question asks: If you replace every part of a ship, is it the same ship? Converted into 21st-century tech, the question becomes whether a 3D bioprinted ear created in part from Vincent van Gogh’s s great-great-great nephew’s DNA is actually the famous painter’s ear. The answer is that we don’t know, but it sure is gross and weird. Yet that is exactly artist Diemut Strebe has done in collaboration with scientists with the piece “Sugababe”, now on display at the Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM) in Karlsruhe, Germany. You can “talk” to the ear because software converts input sound to stimulate nerve impulses. And here’s...
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If you were planning to purchase a $99 DNA test kit for the holiday season, you may have to put those plans on hold. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration ordered 23andMe, a Google-backed DNA analysis company, to stop sales of its genetic testing kit since they're being sold without marketing clearance or approval. "FDA is concerned about the public health consequences of inaccurate results from the PGS device," the agency said in a statement. "The main purpose of compliance with FDA’s regulatory requirements is to ensure that the tests work." 23andMe sells a $99 Saliva Collection Kit and Personal Genome Service, which tells users if they're genetically predisposed to some 260 diseases...
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Most days, we're content just hearing about a new operating system or tablet. But when you really think about it, it's raw science that delivers that kind of stuff to consumers. Scientists at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology are digging deep into that science, and have developed a new biological computer. Specifically, they've engineered an "advanced biological transducer, a computing machine capable of manipulating genetic codes, and using the output as new input for subsequent computations." The trick? They're using only biomolecules such as DNA and enzymes. "Our results show a novel, synthetic designed computing machine that computes iteratively and produces biologically relevant...
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Push aside your political feelings on stem-cell research; any halfway respectable PC enthusiast will definitely be giving IBM the thumbs-up here. The wacky minds over at IBM, which have already proven that they never, ever stop ticking, have apparently determined that the next great generation of microprocessors will have quite a lot in common with human DNA. And so long as those chips push Quake IV along with ease, we can't help but be okay with that.Artificial DNA nanostructures, which are called DNA origami within the lairs at IBM, could one day provide an inexpensive infrastructure which tiny microchips could be built upon. The design is based on research within the company, which is being...
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When it comes to high-end gaming rigs, few companies have been able to achieve the stellar reputation that VoodooPC had with its enthusiast desktops and laptops. VoodooPC had a penchant for building speedy systems with the latest high-quality components, and packaging it all together in sexy looking designs. It's no wonder that HP acquired VoodooPC in 2006 and began integrating VoodooPC's innovations and approach to system design with its own HP-branded enthusiast systems--culminating in the popular HP Blackbird 002 gaming rig--utilizing what HP calls "VoodooDNA." Rahul Sood, the vocal founder of VoodooPC, announced yesterday in his blog the end of VoodooPC as we know it:"It's been announced...
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Your Digital Video Recorder might not have found Sarah Conner yet, but it seems to be responsible for the disappearance of six million primetime TV viewers since last May. Some of the miserable ratings of this year's crop of primetime shows could be laid at the feet of the writer's strike, but that really can't explain the whole number. It's starting to dawn on the TV industry that there's no such thing as primetime anymore. ...the more significant shift can’t be blamed on the strike. In the past television season, there has been a sharp increase in time-shifting. Some of the six million are still watching, but on their own terms, thanks to TiVos and other digital video recorders, streaming video...
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Look for the mark of excellence with Diamond Multimedia’s xDNA™ CHATSWORTH, CA —November 11, 2007— Diamond Multimedia (www.diamondmm.com), a leading manufacturer of PC graphics cards, sound cards and communications products, today unveiled their newly developed xDNA©™ technology platform. This new technology platform enables heterogeneous graphics cards to function and operate on heterogeneous platforms. With advanced performance and unprecedented software architecture, the newly released Diamond xDNA software platform is the ideal solution on graphics cards for the most demanding enthusiasts who want to use different chipsets and CPUs. Diamond xDNA technology-enabled features...
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