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Spikes of graphene can kill bacteria on implants

A tiny layer of graphene flakes becomes a deadly weapon and kills bacteria, stopping infections during procedures such as implant surgery

A tiny layer of graphene flakes becomes a deadly weapon and kills bacteria, stopping infections during procedures such as implant surgery. This is the findings of new research from Chalmers University of Technology, Sweden, recently published in the scientific journal Advanced Materials Interfaces.

Operations for surgical implants, such as hip and knee replacements or dental implants, have increased in recent years. However, in such procedures, there is always a risk of bacterial infection. In the worst case scenario, this can cause the implant to not attach to the skeleton, meaning it must be removed.

Bacteria travel around in fluids, such as blood, looking for a surface to cling on to. Once in place, they start to grow and propagate, forming a protective layer, known as a biofilm.

A research team at Chalmers has now shown that a layer of vertical graphene flakes forms a protective surface that makes it impossible for bacteria to attach. Instead, bacteria are sliced apart by the sharp graphene flakes and killed. Coating implants with a layer of graphene flakes can therefore help protect the patient against infection, eliminate the need for antibiotic treatment, and reduce the risk of implant rejection. The osseointegration – the process by which the bone structure grow to attach the implant – is not disturbed. In fact, the graphene has been shown to benefit the bone cells.

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‘Junk’ DNA Plays Crucial Role in Holding Genome Together: Study

Jagannathan et al propose that chromocenter and satellite DNA serves a fundamental role in encapsulating the full complement…more Image credit: Lisichik.

Science gets one horsepower fast

Who Needs Hard Drives? Scientists Store Film Clip in DNA

In a first, researchers converted a movie into a DNA sequence and inserted it into bacteria. They hope to someday use the technology to record cell behavior.

It was one of the very first motion pictures ever made: a galloping mare filmed in 1878 by the British photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who was trying to learn whether horses in motion ever become truly airborne.

More than a century later, that clip has rejoined the cutting edge. It is now the first movie ever to be encoded in the DNA of a living cell, where it can be retrieved at will and multiplied indefinitely as the host divides and grows.

The advance, reported on Wednesday in the journal Nature by researchers at Harvard Medical School, is the latest and perhaps most astonishing example of the genome’s potential as a vast storage device.

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Rocket into sub-orbit on Blue Origin’s New Shepard! (December 15, 2017) It’s a pristine day in west Texas. The desert stretches far to the horizon out the capsule’s windows with the foothills of the Van Horn mountain range in the distance. The typical winter day is broken first by a deep rumble from below  followed an instant later by clouds of smoke and a flash of flame. That’s the scene inside Blue Origin’s New Shepard crew capsule during launch as seen in new footage from this week’s test. Mannequin Skywalker - the company’s astronaut simulator - is seen rocketing to over 322,000 feet, or 61 miles, strapped in one of the cabin’s six seats.

Within seconds, the receding countryside below gives way to vast swaths of desert. The sky turns from thick and blue to pitch black in a matter of seconds as the vehicle races upwards. New Shepard would reach a maximum ascent velocity of Mach 2.94 during the flight.  As the single BE-3 engine of the propulsion stage cuts out, the cabin becomes weightless as indicated by straps on the dummy’s chest. Hundreds of miles of the Earth below spread out in all directions from the cabin’s six panoramic windows. Measuring 2.4 by 3.6 feet, they’re the largest ever flown on a space vehicle. Weightless conditions and breathtaking views continue as the capsule begins its descent to Earth. It’s like the launch but in reverse; the black of space quickly fills with colour as the atmosphere is reentered. Because New Shepard is a suborbital vehicle and doesn’t boost the capsule fast enough to achieve significant atmospheric friction, there is no flaming meteor-in-the-sky or heat shield on the spacecraft. It simply falls through the sky, racing to meet the Earth below which it only just left. Back in the thicker atmosphere, three drogue parachutes help stabilize the cabin before the larger main canopies are unfurled. These help bring the capsule to a safe, soft landing at just one foot per second a few kilometers from the launch pad. According to Blue Origin’s founder and CEO, Jeff Bezos, the pinging heard inside the capsule in the video was due to one of the 12 experiments carried on board Mission 7. This was the first New Shepard flight granted a commercial launch license by the FAA, allowing them to carry commercial research payloads on the flight. Other flight milestones can also be discerned by the subtle audio and visual clues, such as MECO, stage separation, drogue cute deployment and mail parachute deployment. Read our full story on Mission 7 and the resumption of New Shepard testing by clicking here.

Check out the full video with audio by clicking here or below.

P/C: Blue Origin.

First DNA sequence from a single mitochondria

DNA sequences between mitochondria within a single cell are vastly different, found researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. This knowledge will help to better illuminate the underlying mechanisms of many disorders that start with accumulated mutations in individual mitochondria and provide clues about how patients might respond to specific therapies. The findings are published in Cell Reports this week.

Journal reference: Cell Reports 

Manual isolation of a single live mitochondria. The mitochondria can be seen under a microscope where a thin glass tube can be used to isolate the mitochondria from the dendrite region of the mouse neuron. Credit: Jacqueline Morris and Jaehee Lee, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania

A woman in Nevada dies from a bacterial infection that was resistant to 26 different antibiotics. A U.K. patient contracts a case of multidrug-resistant gonorrhea never seen before. A typhoid superbug kills hundreds in Pakistan. These stories from recent years — and many others — raise fears about the possibility of a post-antibiotic world.

The development of antibiotics in the early 20th century was one of the greatest leaps forward of modern medicine. Suddenly, common illnesses like pneumonia, strep throat and gonorrhea were no longer potential death sentences.

But even in the infancy of antibiotics, it was clear that their misuse and overuse could lead to antibiotic resistance and eventually create untreatable superbugs.

In this video, we explain how antibiotic resistance happens — and what we can do to avoid living in a post-antibiotic world.

Video: NPR

Mars Surface Is Looking Much Deadlier Than We Previously Thought

So much for those space potatoes.

A new study has revealed that compounds present in the Martian soil can wipe out whole bacterial cultures within minutes.

Researchers have had their suspicions over whether microorganisms can actually survive on the surface of the Red Planet, and now lab tests are spelling doom for any potential little green bacteria. And yeah, growing potatoes on Mars might be more difficult than we thought.

The problem here lies with perchlorates - chlorine-containing chemical compounds that we first detected on Mars back in 2008. These salty compounds are also what makes water on the Martian surface stay liquid, essentially turning it into brine.

Perchlorates are considered toxic for people, but they don’t necessarily pose a problem for microbes. And because they keep surface water liquid, on Mars the presence of these compounds could even be beneficial for life - or so we thought.

Researchers from the University of Edinburgh have now confirmed that when you pair the compounds with intense ultraviolet (UV) light exposure, things become grim for any life forms.

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