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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,743

US life expectancy drops again as opioid deaths and suicide rates rise

An American born in 2017 is expected to live to be 78.6 years old, according to data from the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. That’s one-tenth of a year lower than the previous year, or, put another way, it shaves 1.2 months off the life expectancy of a baby born in 2016. Life expectancy dropped from 2014 to 2015, then held steady in 2016, the CDC said.

The decline is a troubling sign for the United States, which already usually ranks lowest among other wealthy countries for life expectancy.

The top three causes of death, unchanged from previous years, were heart disease, cancer and unintentional injuries. The report attributed the drop in life expectancy to increases in mortality from unintentional injuries, which includes most fatal drug overdoses, among other factors.

CRISPR has many promising applications—but the gene-edited twins represent something more troubling

Last week Chinese researchers rocked the world with reports that twin babies whose genes the scientists’ edited prior to birth had been born, the product of secret experiments that are being widely decried as unethical. Even as that story plays out, it is true that CRISPR gene editing is already being used in humans, in ways that illustrate just how unethical this recent use was.

“Patients’ parents have been emailing me a lot,” says Hye Young Lee, a researcher at the University of Texas San Antonio whose work looks at alternative delivery methods for CRISPR. Lee says she normally gets a few emails a month from the parents of the patients she works with, but that the number of emails went up recently—in relation, she suspects, to the news of the CRISPR babies, which is creating the illusion that CRISPR and other gene editing techniques are ready for extensive use in humans.

The scientific community’s current consensus is that they’re far from being at that stage—and it’s impossible to know now when or if they will be. But gene editing is being used in adult humans, to early trials to treat genetic diseases. In terms of gene editing for adults, “I know that there are things going on,” Lee says, but it’s nothing like this week’s news. Although her own work is at least a few years away from being ready for human testing, there are some cautiously progressing trials at drug companies using CRISPR in adult humans who have diseases that are the result on mutations in a single gene.

Knowing exactly what genes are saying – and where

Scientists can now discover how the fine details of gene activity differ from one cell type to another in a tissue sample, thanks to a technique invented by Weill Cornell Medicine researchers.

The technique, described in a paper published Oct. 15 in Nature Biotechnology, will enable biologists to better understand the distinct molecular workings of different cell types in the body. It may also enable the improved understanding and treatment of diseases caused by abnormal gene activity.

“An individual gene can ‘say’ different things, and the true meaning often requires listening to entire phrases, rather than single words,” said senior study author Dr. Hagen U. Tilgner, assistant professor of neuroscience in the Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute at Weill Cornell Medicine. “Our new method essentially allows us to record complete phrases, called isoforms, that each gene expresses in each cell.”

Evolution sans mutation discovered in single-celled archaea

I just love it when the reductionists are wrong…again. I can not help myself. bigsmile

University of Nebraska-Lincoln researchers have found revolutionary evidence that an evolutionary phenomenon at work in complex organisms is at play in their single-celled counterparts, too.

Species most often evolve through DNA mutations inherited by successive generations. A few decades ago, researchers began discovering that multicellular species can also evolve through epigenetics: traits originating from the inheritance of cellular proteins that control access to an organism’s DNA, rather than genetic changes.

Because those proteins can respond to shifts in an organism’s environment, epigenetics resides on the ever-thin line between nature and nurture. Evidence for it had emerged only in eukaryotes, the multicellular domain of life that comprises animals, plants and several other kingdoms.

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Billions of nanoplastics accumulate in marine organisms within six hours

A ground-breaking study has shown it takes a matter of hours for billions of minute plastic nanoparticles to become embedded throughout the major organs of a marine organism.

The research, led by the University of Plymouth, examined the uptake of by a commercially important mollusc, the great scallop (Pecten maximus).

After six hours exposure in the laboratory, billions of measuring 250nm (around 0.00025mm) had accumulated within the scallop’s intestines.

How African researchers are adding to deeper knowledge about neutrons

Matter is all around us. As human beings, we’re made of it. Matter is the “stuff” that makes up the physical world as we know it; a collection of atoms made up of particles called protons, electrons and neutrons.

Part of my work, as a post-doctoral researcher at iThemba LABS (Laboratory for Accelerator Based Sciences) in Cape Town, South Africa, focuses on neutrons. These are subatomic particles that can penetrate through matter, which means they can be harnessed for all sorts of important work.

For example, high-energy neutrons may be used to destroy tough tumours that can’t be killed by the usual x-rays that are available in hospitals.

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