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Chinese super soldiers + AI cracks protein-folding + Reversing age-related decline

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AI has cracked a problem that stumped biologists for 50 years
https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22045...in-folding

EXCERPT: “This will change medicine,” the biologist, Andrei Lupas, told Nature. “It will change research. It will change bioengineering. It will change everything.” (MORE - details)


China has done human testing to create biologically enhanced super soldiers, says top U.S. official
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/nationa...s-n1249914

INTRO: U.S. intelligence shows that China has conducted "human testing" on members of the People's Liberation Army in hopes of developing soldiers with "biologically enhanced capabilities," the nation's top intelligence official said Friday.

Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe included that explosive claim in a long Wall Street Journal op-ed in which he made the case that China poses the preeminent national security threat to the U.S. "There are no ethical boundaries to Beijing's pursuit of power," wrote Ratcliffe, a former Republican congressman from Texas.

His office, and the CIA, did not immediately respond to requests to elaborate on the notion that China sought to create "super soldiers," of the sort depicted in Hollywood films such as Captain America, Bloodshot and Universal Soldier. Last year, two American scholars wrote a paper examining China's ambitions to apply biotechnology to the battlefield, including what they said were signs that China was interested in using gene-editing technology to enhance human — and perhaps soldier — performance... (MORE)


Reversal of biological clock restores vision in old mice
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-0...-0#ref-CR1

EXCERPTS: Researchers have restored vision in old mice and in mice with damaged retinal nerves by resetting some of the thousands of chemical marks that accumulate on DNA as cells age. The work, published on 2 December in Nature, suggests a new approach to reversing age-related decline, by reprogramming some cells to a ‘younger’ state in which they are better able to repair or replace damaged tissue.

“It is a major landmark,” says Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a developmental biologist at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla, California, who was not involved in the study. “These results clearly show that tissue regeneration in mammals can be enhanced.”

But researchers also caution that the work has so far has been carried out only in mice, and it remains to be seen whether the approach will translate to people, or to other tissues and organs that are ravaged by time.

[...] The history of ageing research is littered with unfulfilled promises of potential fountains of youth that failed to make the leap to humans. More than a decade ago, Sinclair caused a stir by suggesting that compounds — including one found in red wine — that activate proteins called sirtuins could boost longevity. Although he and others continue to study the links between sirtuins and ageing that were originally observed in yeast, the notion that such compounds can be used to lengthen human lifespan has not yet been borne out, and has become controversial.

Ultimately, the test will be when other labs try to reproduce the reprogramming work, and try the approach in other organs affected by ageing, such as the heart, lungs and kidneys, says Judith Campisi, a cell biologist at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in Novato, California.

Those data should emerge swiftly, she predicts. “There are many labs now who are working on this whole concept of reprogramming,” says Campisi. “We should be hopeful but, like everything else, it needs to be repeated and it needs to be extended.” (MORE)
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