Magical Material

A seemingly magical material can block microwaves, infrared (IR) heat, and light and then magically shift to a transparent state that also allows IR and microwaves to pass through simply by being stretched or contracted.

Inspired by the properties of squid skin, which can shift from translucent to opaque due to the presence of iridocytes and chromatophores, the new material could help create stealth materials, safeguard electronic devices, dramatically improve energy efficiency in commercial buildings, and even protect against microwave weapons.

In the last few decades, researchers have developed a number of different seemingly magical materials. Some can shift from transparent or translucent states to more opaque states, with common applications including use in external office windows to improve energy usage or for internal windows that shift between public (transparent) and private (opaque) modes.

This ability was first noted in cephalopods like squids, which can shift the iridocytes and chromatophores embedded in their skin cells to alter their appearance, just one of the unique traits about these animals that have had some biologists asking if they are actually alien creatures. READ MORE...

Sexually Frustrated Sea Snakes

A scuba diver off Australia noticed some odd behavior whenever he came into contact with male sea snakes: The venomous reptiles would coil around his fins, licking the water around him and even sometimes chasing him underwater. 

Now, he knows why: It was mating season, and the males thought he was a potential mate.

In a new study, the diver and another researcher analyzed 158 of these interactions with olive sea snakes (Aipysurus laevis) over several years in the Great Barrier Reef and found that interactions were more common during the reptiles' mating season. 

The sexually frustrated snakes also displayed elaborate behaviors that are often used during courtship between the sea serpents.

"Males are very aroused and active while looking for 'girlfriends,'" lead author Rick Shine, an evolutionary biologist and reptile expert at Macquarie University in Australia, told Live Science. 

But because the males can't tell the difference between female snakes and scuba divers, it can lead to some comical interactions, he added.  READ MORE

Using CRISPR

Can we reprogram existing life at will?

To synthetic biologists, the answer is yes. The central code for biology is simple. DNA letters, in groups of three, are translated into amino acids—Lego blocks that make proteins. Proteins build our bodies, regulate our metabolism, and allow us to function as living beings. Designing custom proteins often means you can redesign small aspects of life—for example, getting a bacteria to pump out life-saving drugs like insulin.

All life on Earth follows this rule: a combination of 64 DNA triplet codes, or “codons,” are translated into 20 amino acids.

But wait. The math doesn’t add up. Why wouldn’t 64 dedicated codons make 64 amino acids? The reason is redundancy. Life evolved so that multiple codons often make the same amino acid.

So what if we tap into those redundant “extra” codons of all living beings, and instead insert our own code?

A team at the University of Cambridge recently did just that. In a technological tour de force, they used CRISPR to replace over 18,000 codons with synthetic amino acids that don’t exist anywhere in the natural world. The result is a bacteria that’s virtually resistant to all viral infections—because it lacks the normal protein “door handles” that viruses need to infect the cell.

But that’s just the beginning of engineering life’s superpowers. Until now, scientists have only been able to slip one designer amino acid into a living organism. The new work opens the door to hacking multiple existing codons at once, copyediting at least three synthetic amino acids at the same time. And when it’s 3 out of 20, that’s enough to fundamentally rewrite life as it exists on Earth.

We’ve long thought that “liberating a subset of…codons for reassignment could improve the robustness and versatility of genetic-code expansion technology,” wrote Drs. Delilah Jewel and Abhishek Chatterjee at Boston College, who were not involved in the study. “This work elegantly transforms that dream into a reality.”  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...