Embroys Development 'Pause' For Up To A Month

Scientists have found a way to pause the development of early mouse embryos for up to a month in the lab – and later resume normal growth – a finding with potential implications for assisted reproduction, aging and even cancer. The research involved experiments with pre-implantation mouse embryos, called blastocysts. Researchers from University of California, San Francisco in the US found that drugs that inhibit the activity of a master regulation of cell growth called in mTOR can put these early embryos into a stable and reversible state of suspended animation. Normally, blastocysts only a last day or two, max, in the lab. But blastocysts treated with mTOR inhibitors could survive up to four weeks. Researchers showed that paused embryos may quickly resume normal growth when mTOR inhibiters were removed, and developed into healthy mice if implanted back into a recipient mother. The drugs appear to act by reducing gene activity across much of the genome. The researchers believe that it should be possible to extend the suspended animation for much longer than the 30 days observed in the present study.

This Gene Could Help Fight Obesity

Scientists have identifies a gene that could protect against obesity by increasing the feeling of fullness, a finding that may lead to potential new therapies to treat eating-related disorders. Researchers from King’s College London and Imperial College London in the UK tested a high-fat diet, containing a fermentable carbohydrate, and a control diet on mice. They looked at the effect on food intake of those with and without the FFAR2 receptor, a protein coding gene. The results showed that mice fed the diet containing fermentable carbohydrates were protected against obesity. However, this protection was lost when the FFAR2 receptor was not present. Indeed, those with the receptor showed an increase of 130% in the satiety inducing gut hormone peptide YY, as well as an increased density of cells containing PYY, leading to an increased feeling of fullness. Obesity is currently one of the most serious global threats to human health, determined by genetic background, diet and lifestyle. We know that supplementing our diet with non-digestible carbohydrates reduce appetite and body weight gain, but in this study researcher demonstrate for the first time the essential role of the FFAR2 receptor in enabling specific dietary constituents to reduce food intake and protect against obesity. With this discovery, researcher can start to look at whether we can use diet or pharmaceutical means to change the cellular make-up of the gut in order to treat a host of disorders. This a major step forward in understanding the relationship between diet and appetite regulation. Until a few years ago dietary fiber was a thought of as inert, and having very little effect on physiology. So the fact it actually has a major impact on cells that help control appetite regulation in the colon is amazing. Researcher’s challenges now are to translate this into a technology that we can apply to humans. Researcher need to understand stand how they can use the knowledge and insight gained to develop food systems that are attractive to a large percentage of the population.

A Backpack That's Charged And Ready To Go

Finding a backpack designed to protect and carry your entire tech isn’t difficult these days. What sets the MOS Pack apart is that it can also help keep all of your gear charged. Available in black or grey, the MOS Pack features a cleaner look than most backpacks that are designed to carry all of your gadgets. The pack has a classic design, which means it doesn’t draw attention to itself, or make it obvious that you’re carrying around a bunch of expensive toys. When everything inside the pack is all wired up, the next time you’re in an airport and are lucky enough to find an available power outlet, you can plug in the short extension cable to charge the MOS Pack.

For More Storage Space In Your iPhone, Download Heavier Apps

It seems like strange advice: if your phone is full with rubbish and you want to free some of the storage up, then download even more rubbish. But it works. A new trick lets people get extra space on their iPhone just by downloading some new apps, and by tricking the phone into believing that it needs to clear up some space. To do it, all you need to do is to download a heavier app that takes up more space on your phone than you have left. As soon as you do so, your iPhone will automatically start clearing up much needed storage space. You can see the progress happens in real time, if you head to the Storage options. The amount of remaining space will gradually go up as you see the size of each app go down. One good app to download is Heartstone, which is really big and also has the advantage of being free. But you can download any app and delete it as soon as phone has started clearing up space. That can include deleting things that are backed up in photos, as well as trimming down different apps’ data so that the space can be added.

For The Visually Impaired: Obstacle-Warning Cane

Scientist have developed a new smart cane that could help transform the lives of the blind and visually impaired by allowing them to sense the environment beyond the physical length of their walking stick. Researchers from The University of Manchester in the UK upgraded the cane – which has been used as mobility told for centuries – by adding a low-cost embedded computer. The tool, dubbed mySmartCane works much like a common car parking sensor. The ultrasonic ball wirelessly measure the distance to approaching objects and converts this data into an audio signal. The visually impaired user can gauge the object distance from the frequency of the sound, before the cane physically bumps against it. The user can hear the sounds using headphones. The key takeaway was that mySmartCane had to be as simple and low-cost, so researcher used 3D printing and cheap sensor to create an ultrasonic sensory ball, which attaches to most existing white-canes.

Out-Of-The-World Solution: NASA Hunts For 'Space Poop' Geniuses

When you’ve got to go but you’re out there in space, zipped up in a spacesuit, with no toilet in sight and a crew of other astronauts around, what do you do? NASA has launched a contest for inventors to solve this uncomfortable issue, and promises to award $30,000 to the best “space poop” solutions. Inventors have until December 20 to submit designs for a personalized waste-wicking system that will handle everything, hands-free, for a period of up to six days. The old standby solution consisted of diapers. The two men and one woman who packed themselves into a Russian Soyuz space capsule last week had to wait two full days between launching from Kazakhstan and arriving at the International Space Station. On Future missions to deep space destinations, NASA suspects it could take up to six days to get to a proper toilet. Currently, astronauts use a toilet contraption that includes a vacuum and a tube to help evacuate fecal matter.

Coming, Solar Panel Roads Across Continents

Electric avenues that can transmit the sun’s energy onto power grids may be coming to a city near you. A subsidiary of Bouygues SA has designed rugged solar panels, capable of withstanding the weight of an 18-wheeler truck that they’re now building into road surfaces. After nearly five years of research and laboratory tests, they’re constructing 100 outdoor test sites and plan to commercialize the technology in early 2018. Researchers want to find a second life for a road. Solar farms use land that could otherwise be used for agriculture, while the roads are free. As solar costs plummet, panels are being increasingly integrated into everyday material. Last month Tesla Motors Inc. surprised investors by unveiling roof shingles that double as solar panels. Other companies are integrating photovoltaics into building facades. Wattway joins groups including Sweden’s Scania and Solar Roadways in the US seeking to integrate panels onto pavement. To resist the weight of traffic, Wattway layers several types of plastics to create a clear an durable casing. The solar panel underneath is an ordinary model, similar to panels on rooftops. The electrical wiring is embedded in the road and the contraption is topped by an anti-slip surface made from crushed glass. A kilometer-sized testing site began construction last month in the French village of Tourouvre in Normandy. The 2,800 sqm of solar panels are expected to generate 280kw at peak, with the installation generating enough to power all the public lighting in a town of 5,000 for a year, according to the company. For now, the cost of the materials makes only demonstration projects sensible. A square meter of the solar road currently costs €2,000 ($2,126) and €2,500. That includes monitoring, data collection and installation costs. Wattway says it can make the price competitive with traditional solar farms by 2020. Wattway has also installed its panels to light billboards and is working on links to street lights. The next two sites will be in Calgary in Canada and in the US state of Georgia, with plans to build them in Africa, Japan and throughout the EU in the pipeline. Researcher need to test for all kinds of different traffic and climate conditions. They want to find the limits of it. They think that maybe it will not be able to withstand a snow plow. The potential fragility joins cost as a potential hurdle.