2007 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine

Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2007 awarded to Mario R. Capecchi, Martin J. Evans and Oliver Smithies for their discoveries of “principles for introducing specific gene modifications in mice by the use of embryonic stem cells”

This year’s Nobel Laureates have made a series of ground-breaking discoveries concerning embryonic stem cells and DNA recombination in mammals. Their discoveries led to the creation of an immensely powerful technology referred to as gene targeting in mice. It is now being applied to virtually all areas of biomedicine – from basic research to the development of new therapies.

Gene targeting is often used to inactivate single genes. Such gene “knockout” experiments have elucidated the roles of numerous genes in embryonic development, adult physiology, aging and disease. To date, more than ten thousand mouse genes (approximately half of the genes in the mammalian genome) have been knocked out. Ongoing international efforts will make “knockout mice” for all genes available within the near future.

Mario R. Capecchi, born 1937 in Italy, US citizen, PhD in Biophysics 1967, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA. Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and Distinguished Professor of Human Genetics and Biology at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA.

Sir Martin J. Evans, born 1941 in Great Britain, British citizen, PhD in Anatomy and Embryology 1969, University College, London, UK. Director of the School of Biosciences and Professor of Mammalian Genetics, Cardiff University, UK.

Oliver Smithies, born 1925 in Great Britain, US citizen, PhD in Biochemistry 1951, Oxford University, UK. Excellence Professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, NC, USA.

The USA gains 2 Nobel Laureates born elsewhere – the incidence of this happening 30 years from now will be less I believe than it has been recently.

Prayer Book Reveals Lost Archimedes Work Studying Ideas at Heart of Calculus

A Prayer for Archimedes by Julie J. Rehmeyer

The top layer of writing in this 700-year-old book describes Christian prayers. But underneath, almost obliterated, are the only surviving copies of many of the works of the ancient Greek mathematician Archimedes.
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An intensive research effort over the last nine years has led to the decoding of much of the almost-obliterated Greek text. The results were more revolutionary than anyone had expected. The researchers have discovered that Archimedes was working out principles that, centuries later, would form the heart of calculus and that he had a more sophisticated understanding of the concept of infinity than anyone had realized.

Archimedes wrote his manuscript on a papyrus scroll 2,200 years ago. At an unknown later time, someone copied the text from papyrus to animal-skin parchment. Then, 700 years ago, a monk needed parchment for a new prayer book. He pulled the copy of Archimedes’ book off the shelf, cut the pages in half
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“The interesting breakthrough is that he is completely willing to operate with actual infinity,” Netz says, but he adds that “the argument is definitely not completely valid. He just had a strong intuition that it should work.” In this case, it did work, but it remained for Newton and Leibniz to figure out how to make the argument mathematically rigorous.

Related: Archimedes Palimpsest project – The Archimedes Codex (a book on the discovery) – PoincarÃ© Conjecture

Engineering Education Future at Imperial College

Imperial outlines vision for new era in engineering education

“We want to ensure that the engineering graduate of the future is better equipped to take a leading role in identifying issues and designing solutions to local, national and global challenges affecting society and the world around us, without compromising their technical education,”
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Capitalising on these global issues could also have major financial benefits for UK industry claimed the Science and Innovation Minister, Ian Pearson. He said tackling climate change and the effects of population growth could generate at least GBP 700 billion globally by 2015. He said it was an opportunity that British engineers should capitalise on, while helping to mitigate the most damaging features of climate change.

Mammoth DNA Extracted from Hair

Mammoth DNA extracted from hair reveals ancient secrets

The woolly mammoth hair had been so well preserved that it provided the most accurate DNA sequencing of the extinct animals yet achieved. One of the animals used in the study dated back 50,000 years and its hairs allowed scientists to obtain the oldest complete sequence of mitochondrial DNA.

Three mammoths had been subjected previously to DNA sequencing, two with bone fragments and the third with a sample of muscle tissue.

Results from hair assessed using the sequencing-by-synthesis (SBS) technique were more detailed than bone and muscle samples. Importantly, said researchers, the SBS extraction technique required smaller quantities of ancient material and caused less damage to the preserved specimens.

Mammoths roamed the landscape for about six million years and their disappearance about 10,000 years ago – with a handful of dwarf mammoths surviving on remote Siberian islands until little more than 2,000 years ago – has remained a mystery.

WVU Physics Team Discovers New Phenomenon

WVU physics team discovers new phenomenon in universe

West Virginia University physics professors and an undergraduate student have discovered a new astronomical phenomenon.

Duncan Lorimer and Maura McLaughlin, assistant professors in the Department of Physics in the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, and David Narkevic, a senior physics and political science student from Philippi, detected a powerful, short-lived burst of radio waves.

The findings of their study appear in today’s edition of the online journal Science Express.

Engineering Efficient Vehicles

Read the Cal Poly Supermileage blog to track the progress of the California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo eco-vehicle team. There goal is to achieve the best gas mileage possible using a gas powered, 3 wheeled, fully faired vehicle. At the Eco-Vehicle Student Competition they achieved 1902.7 mpg. The blog also posts on interesting related matters. A great example of students learning about engineering by doing engineering.

Rare Chinese Mountain Cat

rare photo of Chinese mountain cat in the wild.jpg

Rare Chinese Cat Captured on Film

Triggered by body heat, a remote camera recently captured this image of the elusive Chinese mountain cat at about 12,300 feet (3,750 meters) on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau in China’s Sichuan Province. A total of eight images of the feline represent the first time the mountain cat has been photographed in the wild, said Jim Sanderson, a cat specialist with the Wildlife Conservation Network who led the team that snapped the rare shots. A paper about the cat will appear in an upcoming issue of the journal Science.
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“There’s no interest in its conservation because it’s poorly known, but now perhaps this will change.”

I am biased by my love of cats but I hope this helps conservation efforts.

Finding Protease Inhibitors

Can’t Cut This by Kathleen M. Wong, ScienceMatters@Berkeley:

When a malaria parasite lands in your blood, one of the first things it does is whip out its scissors. As fast as it can, this protozoan snips the hemoglobin in red blood cells to get the nutrients it needs to survive. Of course, the microbe behind this deadly disease doesn’t actually deploy stainless-steel blades. Instead, it uses an array of biochemical scissors known as proteases.

Proteases are enzymes that snip proteins. They recognize certain strings of amino acids on a substrate protein, bind to this area, then break a nearby chemical bond. Proteases can destroy proteins by snipping them in half, as in malaria. They can also activate proteins by lopping off atoms covering a reactive site.

This versatility has made proteases critical to all manner of organisms, from viruses to plants to humans. Over the past 10 years, protease inhibitor drugs have become indispensable in the fight against AIDS, cardiovascular disease and diabetes. But finding protease inhibitors is no picnic. Humans manufacture tens of thousands of proteins; figuring out which of these a protease targets is extremely challenging and time consuming.
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Instead of mixing liquid chemicals and painstakingly purifying them again at each step, he attaches his precursor molecules to polystyrene beads resembling sand grains.

Robotics Engineering Degree

Robotics Engineering Degree at Worcester Polytechnic Institute:

WPI has established the nation’s first undergraduate Robotics Engineering degree program to teach people like you. This unique, innovative program was built from the ground-up with future Robotics professionals in mind. In this program, you’ll develop a proficiency for mechanical, electrical and computer engineering which will teach you to build the robot’s body. You’ll also become proficient in computer science, which will help you control the robot’s behavior.

In this program, you will be building robots during your first year of study. You will not find this hands-on approach to Robotics anywhere else but WPI.
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Students graduating from the Robotics Engineering program will have many options for future employment across a wide range of industries including national defense and security, elder care, automation of household tasks, customized manufacturing, and interactive entertainment. New England is home to a strong and growing Robotics industry. Massachusetts alone boasts over 150 companies, institutions and research labs in the Robotics sector, employing more than 1,500 people.

Interesting. via: eContent. Related: Toyota Robots – Tour the Carnegie Mellon Robotics Lab – Applied Engineering Education – Best Research University Rankings – 2007

Internships Pair Students with Executives

photo of Zhen Xia Florence Hudson

Preparing to Lead: Internships pair students with executives

Mechanical and aerospace engineering major Zhen Xia is accustomed to solving problems that have cut-and-dried solutions, but an internship at IBM this past summer taught him how to approach problems that don’t have one right answer.

As part of a new internship program, Xia spent three months working with senior marketing executives at the IBM corporate offices in Somers, N.Y. From analyzing the brand’s image to establishing a business case for a new product launch, he found himself in the midst of the complicated intricacies of the business world.

“Unlike technical problem-solving where everything is black and white, problem-solving in business deals heavily with people and customers who have many different viewpoints,” Xia said. “In business, there are various shades of gray, which make things exciting and interesting.”