synbio Archives - Page 9 of 10 - Astrobiology

Encoding of light into bacteria and barcoding for preservation of spatial information.

AI - Data - Apps - Cybernetics, Biophysics, Commercial & Private Sector, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Status Report, Tricorders & Sensors

Tricorder Tech: A Biological Camera That Captures And Stores Images Directly Into DNA

by Keith CowingFebruary 5, 2024February 5, 2024

Editor’s note: As we develop the instrumentation for use on offworld Astrobiology Away Teams, compactness and efficiency will be paramount. Given the distances involved team members may well need to […]

Fitness landscape of the TPR. Average fitness values for a given nucleotide position in TPR secondary structure (A) and tertiary structure (B) (Movie S2). Mean fitness of point mutations is shown by color scale from red to blue. Names of stems and junctions of t1 and 5TU are colored in cyan and orange, respectively. For full map fitness of individual mutations at all positions, see SI Appendix, Fig. S19. - Aarhus University

Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Cryobiology, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release

Cryo-microscopy Reveals Nano-sized Copy Machine Implicated In The Origin Of Life

by Keith CowingJanuary 24, 2024January 23, 2024

How the intricate molecular machinery of life arose from simple beginnings has been a long-standing question. Several lines of evidence point towards a primordial “RNA world”, where an “RNA copy […]

Astrogeology, Astropharmacy / Biotechnology, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Comets and Asteroids, Commercial & Private Sector, Meteorites & Asteroids, Microbiology & Virology, Missions & Hardware, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Space Life Science, Space Stations, Status Report

Testing Microbial Biomining From Asteroidal Material Onboard The International Space Station

by Keith CowingJanuary 22, 2024February 14, 2026

Expanding human space exploration beyond Earth’s orbit necessitates efficient technologies for self-sustainable acquisition of local resources to overcome unviable resupply missions from Earth. Potential source of materials are asteroids, some […]

Representative Raman and nanoSIMS data collected in this study Across all panels data from two representative cells, “1” and “2”, are noted. Representative nanoSIMS isotopic images of are shown in Panel A, with pixel counts labeled on the x and y axes. From left to right, the pixel intensity in each panel corresponds to direct ion counts for 1 H- , 2 H- , and the fractional abundance of deuterium (2 F), respectively. The top row shows cells grown in 0% 2 H2O (natural abundance); the bottom row displays cells grown in 50 at. % 2 H2O. Representative single-cell fitted Raman spectra are shown in Panel B, with the characteristic C-H band between 2800 and 3000 cm-1 clearly visible. For cells grown in deuterated media (Cell 2), the C-D band emerges between 2040 and 2300 cm-1. Panel C displays a typical micrograph captured through a confocal Raman microspectroscope. The scale bar represents 2µm. Cells in all panels represent T. hydrogeniphilus. The yellow boxes in the top-left facet of Panel A, and Panel C, represent a correlated region imaged with nanoSIMS and Raman (reflected light), respectively. -- biorxiv.org

Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Biophysics, Exploration Gear & Tech, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Imaging & Spectroscopy, Microbiology & Virology, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Status Report, Tricorders & Sensors

Tricorder Tech: Quantitative Measurement Of Microbial Growth Rate With Raman Microspectroscopy

by Keith CowingDecember 28, 2023December 28, 2023

Rates of microbial activity and growth are fundamental to understanding environmental geochemistry and ecology.

Random interactions reproduce the aggregate diversity observed in simple interaction maps. For each value of affinity and asymmetry, we show a randomly drawn interaction map (bottom left matrix, with the color scale of Fig. 3), a snapshot of the result of the simulated annealing, and the aggregate category, as in Fig. 2. Here and in the following, the lattice has 30 × 30 sites, and there are 100 particles. -- physics.bio-ph

Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report

How Do Particles With Complex Interactions Self-assemble?

by Keith CowingDecember 28, 2023

In living cells, proteins self-assemble into large functional structures based on specific interactions between molecularly complex patches.

X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy confirming the elemental composition of the nanobelt materials. Dashed lines denote peaks related specifically to oxygen, silicon, carbon, and calcium -- University of Sussex

Commercial & Private Sector, Life Support Systems, Mars, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Press Release

Research Takes Us A Step Closer To Sustaining Human Life On Mars

by Keith CowingDecember 22, 2023December 22, 2023

Researchers at the University of Sussex have discovered the transformative potential of Martian nanomaterials, potentially opening the door to sustainable habitation on the red planet.

a Overall structure of E.coli RNA polymerase EC. αI, αII, β′, β and ω subunit of RNAP were colored in green, cyan, gray, yellow, and red, respectively. RNA, template strand DNA (TS), non-template strand DNA (NTS) are shown in red, blue and dark green, respectively. b Model and map of three unnatural base pairs; dB:STP, dB:UTP and dS:BTP are shown with Cryo-EM density maps. c Active site of three UBP EC structures. Bridge helix (BH) is colored in green. UBP in +1 position were colored yellow. Other parts of the structures are colored white. The nitrogen, oxygen, phosphate, and carbon atoms of the base pair at i + 1 position are colored in blue, red, orange, and yellow, respectively. -- Nature Communications

Astropharmacy / Biotechnology, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Origin & Evolution of Life, Status Report

Expanding The Natural Genetic Code – Implications For SynBio And Origin Of Life?

by Keith CowingDecember 19, 2023January 10, 2026

Editor’s note: The genetic code of all life (with a few minor exceptions) on our home world is based on a genomic code consisting of 4 standard nucleotides. It is […]

Like adding new letters to an existing language’s alphabet to expand its vocabulary, adding new synthetic nucleotides to the genetic alphabet could expand the possibilities of synthetic biology. This image shows a rendering of RNA polymerase (center) and a synthetic nucleotide (lower right). CREDIT UC San Diego Health Sciences

Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Origin & Evolution of Life, Press Release

Enzymes Can’t Tell Artificial DNA From The Real Thing

by Keith CowingDecember 15, 2023December 15, 2023

The genetic alphabet contains just four letters, referring to the four nucleotides, the biochemical building blocks that comprise all DNA.

Basecamp Research Away Team

AI - Data - Apps - Cybernetics, Analog Studies, Arctic / Antarctic / Alpine, Atmospheres, Climate, Weather, Biogeochemical Cycles & Geobiology, Commercial & Private Sector, Extremeophiles and Extreme Environments, Genomics, Proteomics, Bioinformatics, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Nomenclature, Systematics, Natural History, Tricorders & Sensors

These Away Teams Are Building The Largest Knowledge Graph Of Life On Earth

by Keith CowingDecember 4, 2023September 18, 2025

Editor’s note: As we search for life on other worlds via orbital and surface surveys, it is useful to use Earth and its diverse biota on land, sea, and air, […]

The Materials Project at Berkeley Lab gives researchers access to crucial information on diverse materials. This image shows the structures of 12 compounds in the Materials Project database. CREDIT Jenny Nuss/Berkeley Lab

AI - Data - Apps - Cybernetics, Biochemistry & Organic Chemistry, Biophysics, Nanotechnology & SynBio, Press Release

Google DeepMind Adds Nearly 400,000 New Compounds To Berkeley Lab’s Materials Project

by Keith CowingDecember 2, 2023December 2, 2023

Editor’s note: As we expand outward from Earth to other worlds we are almost certainly going to encounter things we did not expect to find – things that are unlikely […]