The Nano-Doctor is In

The world’s smallest thermometer was created today, but in reality it is as old as life on our planet.  In an article posted on Science 2.0 Professor Alexis Vallee-Belisle of the University of Montreal has created a thermometer 20,000 times smaller than a human hair, and it is made out of you.  Let me clarify the thermometer is actually made of DNA.  The proteins that make up DNA, or RNA, are used as nanothermometers in organisms.  When the nano-structures are exposed to a variance in temperature they either fold or unfold depending on their genetic coding.  By programming their own DNA strands researchers at the University of Montreal have created a sequence of DNA that fold and unfolds at all spectrums of temperature.

Now you may be asking yourself, HOW the hell is this important and what does this have to do with me.  Well for now it has nothing to do with you, but it could lead to a great deal of understanding.  The researchers hope to uncover how well organic nano-mechanics work while exposed to variances in temperature.  Basically they want to understand whether nanomachines will overheat like your computer, or for someone like myself my video game console.  This research could basically allow the team to create artificial nanomachines on their own, which would allow for new fields in engineering and medicine to be explored.  Imagine never getting a cold again because you have nanomachines protecting you from any disease.  So does this sound important to you now?

Robot Love Song

There is a concept called uncanny valley, and no it is not a sequel to the game monument valley.  When something is in the uncanny valley it means that it is an artificial object that appears too real, but still slightly off, and as a result is unsettling to human aesthetics. Robots, and other human facsimiles, often reside in this paradoxical and disquieting position.  So the idea of a sex robot would be quite off putting.  However, the idea of the sex robot may not fall into the uncanny valley.  In an article, posted on the website science 2.0, doctors conducted an experiment where they measured a group of people’s physiological reactions to touching different parts of a robot.

Jamy Li, Wendy Ju and Byron Reeves, of Stanford University, used a modified Alderbaran Robotics’ NAO human-shaped robot, capable of speech, to tell human participants to touch it in specific parts.  Areas like the eyes or buttocks created an emotionally aroused response compared to when the participants touched the robot in more accessible areas such as hand and neck.  The researchers described this as being a “powerful form of media”, specifically the robot and not the sexual act.  This makes me wonder if our societies dependence on smart technology has allowed human empathy to extend to the electronic.  Also the researchers at Stanford describe touch as a “social glue” and as such show robots possibly being a part of our society.  It is not out of the realm to think that if self aware robots ever come to be then robot equality will be the next step in expanding human tolerance and creating a better society.

Gattaca

The focus of the late nineties film Gattaca is about one of the last naturally genetic humans and his struggle to fulfill his dreams.  Well all the humans are naturally genetic, they don’t have jellyfish DNA or anything like that, but he is the last human to be conceived without genetic perfection.  In Gattaca you pay to have a child free of disease and able to be as perfect as humanly possible.  I think about this pop-culture reference as the morality of the film may soon be relevant.  At the university of Montreal, Dr. Sebastien Jacquemont, a geneticist,  has correlated genetics to intelligence, well 25 points of intelligence.

In a study of 700 families researchers had at least one relative carry one specific genetic mutation.  On chromosome 16 researchers looked for genetic structures that were missing gene sequence 16p11.2.  Chromosome 16 is linked to disorders in the autistic spectrum and was a prime place to start examining the effect of genetics on intelligence.  Dr. Jacquemont stated that, “Intellectual faculties are the sum of many factors…” so the absence of this one genetic sequence is not the end all be all of intelligence.  In fact it is common for genetic mutation holders to have no mental differences whatsoever.  It is a first step in a long study as no one mutation can “cause the whole set of clinical signs shown by these patients.”  but what is to say that one day soon parents will be paying Doctors to make sure their children have that 25 point IQ boost.

Don’t Try This At Home

If you think creativity is a talent you were born with, and something you could never develop yourself, you would be wrong.  In an article posted on the blog site Science 2.0 research at Georgetown University Medical Center has focused on applying electrical currents to certain parts of the brain to stimulate creativity.  Professor of Psychology Dr. Adam Green says their research is showing that the traditional thought of creativity as being a “static trait” is wrong, and that creativity is a “dynamic state that can change quickly within an individual.”  Individuals who had the most activity in the frontopolar cortex of the brain had the most creative word associations.  However, when electrical current, or Transcranial Direct Current Stimulation, was applied to that specific region of the brain Dr. Green and his team of researchers noticed an increase in creative word association.

Though this research proves exciting, especially for groups of writers, and doubly so for writers with the state that shall not be named, the research is still relatively young.  As such the researchers at Georgetown Medical are unaware of how the electrical current truly effects the brain.  In addition they need more trials to fully determine how significant this boost in creativity is and also to determine how the long the effects last.  Green also cautioned to the readers of the article that one should not attempt to use this method at home.  Though the thought of artists trying to boost their creativity by sticking a finger in a socket is quite amusing, if not alarming.

Houdini Now

The fear of computers developing intelligence outside of our control has been subject to a great deal of our science fiction, the film Terminator being the most prominent.  However, imagine not a computer with an intelligence greater than a human but a human with an intelligence beyond being human and you would have the future promised in Dr. Michio Kaku’s book The Future of the Mind.  In his book Dr. Kaku explores the rapidly growing field of neuroscience, and how science fiction may soon become science truth.

The book discusses many new experiments being conducted on humans throughout the globe that is creating a greater understanding of the human mind.  Thanks to MRI technology doctors are literally able to read minds on a basic level, and even able to reproduce the thoughts of humans as composite images.  In addition to these developments there are experiments that have grafted artificial limbs with full motion and are controlled directly by the brain.   Not only is the brain able to move limbs directly connected to the body it inhabits the brain is now able to control directly robotic mechanisms across the internet.  Basically a monkey controlled a robot from across the globe.  Maybe humans should not be worried about Skynet  but we worried about the planet of the apes.  Though these upcoming technologies may be frightful, as they unlock great potential and great horror,  Dr. Kaku tries to show how these technologies are limited and will not bring about the apocalypse for man but will create a new avenue in exploration as mankind will no longer be bound by the limitation of the form they were born with.  To our ancestors we will become magical.

Dead or Alive You’re Coming With Me

That was the famous catchphrase from the cyborg cop Robocop.  The fictional character from the 80’s was a police officer who was brutally murdered and disfigured by criminals and was given a partially robotic body to get revenge. In the real world though, with conflict in the Middle East raging, and the continued use of IEDs, many soldiers have been sent home with physical disabilities caused by lost limbs.  What once would have been a permanent detriment to the soldier’s lives is no longer an issue, unless you are vain like me. In an article, reprinted by Science Daily, Mexican born Max Ortiz Catalan has developed a new prosthesis for amputees, that will not only allow them to have full range of motion, but will also allow them to have some form of feeling again.

Unlike traditional prosthesis this new technique which uses osseointergration, which if you had not figured out already means they connect it directly to the bone.  The prosthesis would be attached to the bone via a titanium implant and would be connected to the nerves simultaneously.  So just by thinking about it a person could move their new arm.  The first patient is a man named Magnus with an arm amputation.  Since 2013 he has developed a normal working life and has been able to operate the heavy machinery at his occupation.  This implant is also aided by the titanium material as the bone is able to grow around it, which would not be possible with other materials.  Because the integration, there is no inflammation or chaffing to deal with like in normal prosthetics..

The implant is permanent and requires surgery to install and to connect the wires to the neuronal connections.  However the prosthesis itself is detachable and allows the user to get wet without fear of causing damage to the artificial limb.  Currently 400 people have a titanium implant, but only two have the system of electrodes with ten expected patients  to receive the neural control system.  So in the near future cyborgs will become a very real thing.

Bless You Cavemen!

You can thank cavemen for your allergies, and your immune system too.  In an article, posted on Science 2.0, a series of recent genetic studies focused on three genes, Toll-like receptors 1,6, and 10.  The studies demonstrated that these three genes responsible for the strongest aspects of the modern human immune system and were not originally from the human genome.  In a broad genetic study, corresponding between a thousand different Genomes Projects the scientists at the Institut Pasteur and CNRS lead by Lluis Quinata-Murci in Paris, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology lead by Janet Kelso, in Leipzig, were able to isolate the genetic history of the three genes.  Their discovery shows that due to cross species breeding humans were able to adapt the superior immune system from the Neanderthals and Denisovans.

The scientist state that the Neanderthals and Denisovans who had existed in Europe and Asia for a hundred thousand years longer than their younger human cousins had developed immune systems more suited for their environments.  Also because of their extended existence their immune system was more developed.  It was not until humans mated with their closely related species that they too grew the same immune system, which allowed for them to more easily spread throughout Europe and Asia.  Also the most recent shift in human immune system genetics as humans shifted from a hunter gatherer society to and agrarian life style.  So you can now thank cavemen for your ability to fight off the common cold.

Better Faster Smaller?

The process of creating super computers is not alien to nature.  The silicate processors that powers the computational capabilities are grown in a process called Crystal Growing.  Afterwards they are delicately shaped and stacked till they are functional.  It is so hard to imagine making a computer out of organic matter.  An international research team have done just that as shown  in their article, “Parallel computation with molecular-motor-propelled agents in nanofabricated networks”; published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences or (PNAS). By using protein filament modeled after human mitochondria these scientists representing Microsoft, and Cambridge have been able to create a more efficient computer.

Unlike the standard silicate computer, the protein based computer is more efficient with energy; so it does not have the problem of over-heating.  In addition to the efficiency, the organic computer is able to maintain, they are also able to compute in a parallel manner.  Essentially traditional computers can process a great number of problems fast, but sequentially.  The organic computer would be able to compute these problems simultaneously.   This seems like a fairy tale, and it may be, but it gets even better.  Also these computers would be highly sustainable and renewable as a resource as well as being smaller than their silicon counterparts.

In a article on Science 2.0 it was reported that the computer was tested, and able to efficiently perform a complex classical mathematical problem.  However, the researchers believe that there is more work needed until they will be able to create a full scale functional computer.

Walt Disney You Were So Close

Conspiracy theories are fun to laugh at but it is also fun to think what if.  One of the more memorable theories is that beloved children’s animator and entertainer Walt Disney was cryogenically frozen.  This is not true simply because cryogenics were only first applied to the field of biology ten years before his death in 1966, and that was mostly for the field of artificial insemination.  Fifty years after his death there might have been a chance for the father of Mickey to have his brain preserved.  Scientists have now successfully preserved the first mammalian brain in its entirety, though it was a rabbit’s, sorry Walt.

Robert McIntyre and his team at 21st Century Medicine have preserved the brain of a rabbit while maintaining all of the rabbit’s synaptic connections.  Before you get too excited the brain was dead tissue and will not be transplanted into another rabbit’s body, though a Frankenbuggs does sound adorable.  However, this is a huge step as until this point only small slices of brain tissue have been preserved without damage.  McIntyre’s team used a series of chemicals and negative temperatures, as low as -200 degrees Fahrenheit, to bind the brain’s proteins in place which preserved all the synaptic connections . It is still too early to say whether or not this research will lead to a major discovery but at least it will allow for scientists to observe brain tissue without fear of sample decay.

Grow You Own Limb Today!

Missing an ear? We got ’em! Long to have ten wriggling toes?  We’re having a sale! So come on down to Mick’s Emporium and get your limbs today! These terribly bad slogans might soon become reality as 3D printing has now taken it first step into the realm of biology.

According to Tim Radford of The Guardian, a 3D printer capable of using biodegradable materials as ink, or bioprinter, has been created.  The printer keeps living cells in suspension until they are needed to form the tissue specifically needed according to a CT scan.  Radford believes that this discovery will create bespoke body parts, and I am inclined to agree with him.

Researchers in the US wrote a report in Nature Biotechnology stating that they have the capabilities to grow functioning muscle, cartilage, and bone.  In addition, Radford says, this study is backed by the US Armed Forces Institute for Regenerative Medicine.  So far, the tissue and limbs have only been attached to laboratory animals such as mice and rats, but the study shows that the 3D printed organic tissue has the ability to function in a human. If transplanted, the tissue would be able to be colonized by blood vessels, essentially making cellular rejection a non issue for those who need transplants.

If American industrialization can be applied to these bioprinters I wonder if soon there will be a market for organs. There is currently a demand for organs as many people wait on transplant lists, but what I mean by market is that eventually the creators of the printer, in an attempt to be profitable, may try to create a false need for transplants.  Imagine every couple of years getting the latest model knee or heart because the older model is faultier or less efficient.

The even scarier question posed by the idea of artificial body parts is the issue of property ownership:  would one own what is essentially one’s own body if it was grown in a machine?

As 3D bioprinting becomes a human reality, law, science, and philosophy will have to work together to grapple with these and other ethics questions.