Jul 29, 2016 06:09 AM
New study reveals DNA origins of the average Brit
http://home.bt.com/news/uk-news/british-...4076008245
EXCERPT: A study of UK DNA has found that we might not be as British as we think we are. AncestryDNA tests taken across the UK revealed that the average UK resident is 36.94% British, 21.59% Irish and 19.91% Western European. The study analysed the genetic history of 2 million people around the world and found that Yorkshire is the ‘most British’ region. London is most ethnically diverse, and the East Midlands is the UK’s most Scandinavian and Eastern European area with 10.37% and 2.47% respectively. The average UK resident also has 9.2% Scandinavian heritage, 3.05% from the Iberian Peninsula, and 1.98% from Italy and Greece. Those living in England have less Irish ancestry than the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish....
Growing Organs on Apples
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archi...es/493265/
EXCERPT: [...] The apple ear was created as an artistic statement, referring to a famous case of a human ear that was grafted onto a mouse’s back, and its choice of HeLa cells was intentionally provocative. But the fusion of plant and animal it represents holds promise for regenerative medicine, in which defective body parts may be replaced by engineered alternatives.
Biomaterials engineers, who create stand-ins for our own body tissues, historically focus on animal species, like pigs, with organs similar to ours. Until now, the plant kingdom has been largely neglected, but it offers a vast variety of architectures, many of which can serve the needs of human physiology. It also offers an escape route from expensive, proprietary biomaterials: an open-source approach. A central challenge in organ creation is the development of materials that can host the new cells within the body, holding the organ’s shape and organization....
Antibiotic In Nose Microbes
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archi...es/493121/
EXCERPT: Your nose is a battleground. Just like your mouth or gut, it’s full of microbes. But while those other organs are regularly flooded with food, the nose is a wasteland. Resources are scarce there, and competition is fierce, so nasal microbes have evolved many ways of outclassing and killing each other. And by raiding their arsenals, we could gain new weapons for our own use.
Alexander Zipperer and Martin Konnerth from the University of Tübingen have found one such weapon—a chemical called lugdunin. It has all the makings of a good antibiotic. It’s produced by a bacterium that already lives in our noses, which suggests that it’s safe. It kills another microbe, Staphylococcus aureus, a common and typically harmless inhabitant of the nose. It even kills S. aureus when it’s dressed in its antibiotic-resistant alter-ego, MRSA. And it’s chemically unrelated to existing antibiotics, which opens the door to other new drugs. “It is the founding member of a new class of antimicrobial compounds,” says Andreas Peschel, who led the study.
It will take years to see if this new chemical will work in the clinic, and many similar promising leads have fizzled out. But right now, we need every lead we can get. For decades, pharmaceutical companies have failed to take any new classes of antibiotics to market. Meanwhile, many disease-causing bacteria have evolved to resist our existing weapons, and these impervious strains are predicted to kill 10 million people every year by 2050. To avert an antibiotic apocalypse, we need new drugs....
http://home.bt.com/news/uk-news/british-...4076008245
EXCERPT: A study of UK DNA has found that we might not be as British as we think we are. AncestryDNA tests taken across the UK revealed that the average UK resident is 36.94% British, 21.59% Irish and 19.91% Western European. The study analysed the genetic history of 2 million people around the world and found that Yorkshire is the ‘most British’ region. London is most ethnically diverse, and the East Midlands is the UK’s most Scandinavian and Eastern European area with 10.37% and 2.47% respectively. The average UK resident also has 9.2% Scandinavian heritage, 3.05% from the Iberian Peninsula, and 1.98% from Italy and Greece. Those living in England have less Irish ancestry than the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish....
Growing Organs on Apples
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archi...es/493265/
EXCERPT: [...] The apple ear was created as an artistic statement, referring to a famous case of a human ear that was grafted onto a mouse’s back, and its choice of HeLa cells was intentionally provocative. But the fusion of plant and animal it represents holds promise for regenerative medicine, in which defective body parts may be replaced by engineered alternatives.
Biomaterials engineers, who create stand-ins for our own body tissues, historically focus on animal species, like pigs, with organs similar to ours. Until now, the plant kingdom has been largely neglected, but it offers a vast variety of architectures, many of which can serve the needs of human physiology. It also offers an escape route from expensive, proprietary biomaterials: an open-source approach. A central challenge in organ creation is the development of materials that can host the new cells within the body, holding the organ’s shape and organization....
Antibiotic In Nose Microbes
http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archi...es/493121/
EXCERPT: Your nose is a battleground. Just like your mouth or gut, it’s full of microbes. But while those other organs are regularly flooded with food, the nose is a wasteland. Resources are scarce there, and competition is fierce, so nasal microbes have evolved many ways of outclassing and killing each other. And by raiding their arsenals, we could gain new weapons for our own use.
Alexander Zipperer and Martin Konnerth from the University of Tübingen have found one such weapon—a chemical called lugdunin. It has all the makings of a good antibiotic. It’s produced by a bacterium that already lives in our noses, which suggests that it’s safe. It kills another microbe, Staphylococcus aureus, a common and typically harmless inhabitant of the nose. It even kills S. aureus when it’s dressed in its antibiotic-resistant alter-ego, MRSA. And it’s chemically unrelated to existing antibiotics, which opens the door to other new drugs. “It is the founding member of a new class of antimicrobial compounds,” says Andreas Peschel, who led the study.
It will take years to see if this new chemical will work in the clinic, and many similar promising leads have fizzled out. But right now, we need every lead we can get. For decades, pharmaceutical companies have failed to take any new classes of antibiotics to market. Meanwhile, many disease-causing bacteria have evolved to resist our existing weapons, and these impervious strains are predicted to kill 10 million people every year by 2050. To avert an antibiotic apocalypse, we need new drugs....