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Catching Cancer: Blood Test for Early-Stage Diagnosis

What is the difference between a normal cell and a cancer cell? The answer lies in their DNA. Cancer results from the accumulation of genetic mutations, which trigger uncontrolled cell growth. Cancer’s mutated DNA can reveal its presence early on in the disease. Like leaving fingerprints at a crime scene, tumor cells release small pieces of DNA into the bloodstream. This “circulating tumor DNA” can now … Continue reading Catching Cancer: Blood Test for Early-Stage Diagnosis

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Blog, Special Edition on Artificial Intelligence

How Artificial Intelligence Will Revolutionize the Energy Industry

by Franklin Wolfe figures by Franklin Wolfe and Kimia Mavon Earlier this year, Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and the richest man on Earth, wrote an essay online at “The blog of Bill Gates,” to college students graduating worldwide in 2017. He stated, “If I were starting out today… I would consider three fields. One is artificial intelligence (AI). We have only begun to tap … Continue reading How Artificial Intelligence Will Revolutionize the Energy Industry

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Blog, Special Edition on Artificial Intelligence

Psychosis, Dreams, and Memory in AI

by Henry Wilkin figures by Rebecca Clements The original dream of research in artificial intelligence was to understand what it is that makes us who we are. Because of this, artificial intelligence has always been close to cognitive science, even if the two have been somewhat far apart in practice. Functional AIs have tended to do best at quickly finding ‘good-enough’ approaches to problems that … Continue reading Psychosis, Dreams, and Memory in AI

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Blog, Special Edition on Artificial Intelligence

Recommended For You: How machine learning helps you choose what to consume next

by Jennifer Wei figures by Jeep Veerasak Srisuknimit Ever wonder how music-streaming services such as Spotify and Pandora find songs that you like? Or how Facebook and Google find stories that are interesting to you? Many technology companies use machine learning algorithms to give personalized product suggestions; these algorithms can be found everywhere on the internet. One such algorithm may have even led you to … Continue reading Recommended For You: How machine learning helps you choose what to consume next

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Canadians bringing genetically modified salmon to their tables

AquaBounty, a Massachusetts-based company, began growing genetically modified (GM) salmon nearly three decades ago. However, it wasn’t until 2015 that the FDA approved the fish for human consumption. Health Canada made the same decision in 2016. While a current law prevents US sales until a labeling system is established, Canada has imported roughly 5 tons of the GM salmon since May 2016. Although the fish sell unlabeled, Canadians appear to be embracing the next frontier in aquaculture. Continue reading Canadians bringing genetically modified salmon to their tables

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Scientists Grow Turtle Skin to Study New Virus

Thierry Work and a team of wildlife disease researchers are manufacturing reptile skin in the hopes of saving endangered turtles. A virus, ChHV5, has been infecting endangered green sea turtles, causing tumors to grown on the their skin and inside their bodies. The infection eventually weakens the immune system, and leads to death. Studying this virus proved incredibly difficult. Traditional methods of growing viruses to study ChHV5 in the lab … Continue reading Scientists Grow Turtle Skin to Study New Virus

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From Seed to Organ: Growing a Liver

Over 17,000 Americans are currently waiting for liver transplants, with millions more living with chronic liver disease. There simply aren’t enough healthy organs to go around. So why not engineer them? Growing a liver “from scratch” by using its constituent cells could replace the need for whole organ transplants. Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology generated hydrogels containing three different types of human cells, … Continue reading From Seed to Organ: Growing a Liver

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New weapon combating flu – caterpillar-grown vaccine

Growing up, every child is familiar with the pain of a seasonal flu shot. However, there is still a chance to catch the flu even with the shot, due to the flu virus’s high variability and adaptability. The major issue with flu vaccine production is a long production time. Using traditional methods, it usually takes 4-6 months for a vaccine to be generated against a particular flu strain, … Continue reading New weapon combating flu – caterpillar-grown vaccine

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Roman Building Techniques – Stronger Than We Thought

There is something unusual about Roman sea walls: they last for a very long time. In fact, while modern concrete erodes when exposed to seawater and eventually requires replacement, Roman concrete grows even stronger. Professor Marie Jackson at the University of Utah investigated the old concrete using imaging techniques called electron microscopy, X-ray micro-diffraction, and Raman spectroscopy. The Romans made concrete out of a mixture of … Continue reading Roman Building Techniques – Stronger Than We Thought

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Scientists draw from nature to build a material that is both stiff and tough—a rarity in material science

In material science, it is difficult to engineer a material that is both highly stiff and tough. In the past, scientists have increased the stiffness of soft polymers by adding nano-sized particles of stiff materials (e.g. carbon nanotubes, silica), but this does not increase the toughness. Drawing inspiration from structures in nature that are both stiff and tough, scientists injected a flexible elastomer disc with pockets of liquid gallium. Compared to control structures, the addition of liquid gallium significantly increased the stiffness and toughness of the overall structure. While this study leaves us with several questions, it demonstrates that putting liquid inside of solid doesn’t necessarily make the combined material softer, thus contradicting a long-standing theory in the material-science world. Continue reading Scientists draw from nature to build a material that is both stiff and tough—a rarity in material science

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