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☆ The 'mammoth meatball' grown in a lab probably doesn't taste like woolly mammoth at all
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | Kelsey Vlamis | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

It probably doesn't taste like woolly mammoth, a meat specialist and mammoth DNA researcher said. The Belgian startup Paleo says it added woolly mammoth myoglobin to a plant-based burger. The mammoth meatball doesn't have either of those elements from woolly mammoth. Mammoth myoglobin doesn't necessarily bring mammoth flavorThough he didn't taste it, Ryall said everyone could smell the meatball while it was cooking. So why make a mammoth meatball that doesn't taste like mammoth?

☆ Small ears, frizzy hair and dry ear wax - the genetics of mammoths
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Researchers on Friday said they had analyzed the genomes of 23 woolly mammoths - including 16 newly sequenced ones - based on remains preserved in Siberian permafrost. "We find that woolly mammoths had molecular adaptations in genes related to coping with cold Arctic environments, such as thick fur, fat storage and metabolism, and thermal sensation, among others," Díez-del-Molino added. Woolly mammoths were about the size of modern African elephants, around 13 feet (4 meters) tall, but had much smaller ears to guard against losing body heat from a larger ear surface. One of them in humans is associated with Uncombable Hair Syndrome, a condition characterized by dry and frizzy hair that cannot be combed flat. The study helped clarify variable shades of mammoth hair color - brownish with a touch of red.

☆ India asks states to ramp up testing as COVID-19 cases climb
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

MUMBAI, April 7 (Reuters) - India's federal government asked states to identify emergency hotspots and ramp up-testing for COVID-19, after the country recorded its highest daily case count since September, a Reuters tally showed on Friday. There were 6,050 new cases of COVID-19 in the last 24 hours, the federal health ministry said on Friday, continuing a sharp upward trend since a lull last year. At a meeting to review the degree to which the states are prepared, health minister Mansukh Mandaviya asked them to ramp up genome testing and conduct mock drills in hospitals, a government statement said. Active cases totalled more than 28,300 with 14 deaths during the last 24 hours, taking the country's official death toll from the disease to 530,943. India has recorded more than 44.7 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 since the start of the pandemic three years ago, the third-highest tally after the United States and China.

Trump arrived via motorcade at 100 Centre Street, a towering, 1940s-era building faced in limestone, granite, and decades of grime. It's the DA investigators who "book" Trump, a process that begins with the former president emptying his pockets. Prints are run on anyone arrested in New York, and Trump will be no different. No one will check if Trump fibsThe DA investigators will also take Trump's pedigree information — name, date of birth, address, phone number, that sort of thing. "There's a cell in the processing area in the DA investigators' offices," she said.

☆ The A.I. boom could also give a boost to these investing trends. How to play it
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-26 | by ( Jesse Pound | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

The recent boom in AI has driven up some of the biggest tech stocks on the market, including Microsoft , Alphabet and chip maker Nvidia . "Anywhere where there's data, AI is going to be useful," Jacobs said. We've actually seen a massive price deflation in genetic testing," Jacobs said. AI can help these companies improve at recognizing patterns and trends for hackers in order to strengthen defenses, Jacobs said. The biggest competitors include the ETFMG Prime Cyber Security ETF (HACK) and Global X Cybersecurity ETF (BUG) .

☆ Locks of hair compose a symphony of genetic information on Beethoven
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-22 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Researchers said on Wednesday his genome showed the German composer was both genetically predisposed to liver disease and had hepatitis B virus infection. The new findings suggest there were multiple factors behind his liver disease including genetics, viral infection and alcohol consumption. "Prior to this study, alcohol was the only definitely known risk factor for Beethoven's liver disease." Beethoven experienced progressive hearing loss starting at age 29 and by 44 his hearing loss was complete, though he continued to compose masterpieces. There was no evidence found for conditions hypothesized by some experts such as otosclerosis or Paget's disease, Begg said.

☆ Scientists have created mice with two biological fathers. They say the technique could one day be replicated in humans.
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +5 min

Speaking at a conference, they said they made female eggs from male cells. He then used that technique to make female eggs, called oocytes, from male cells and fertilized them to create seven mice with two biological dads. REUTERS/Alan Trounson/California Institute for Regenerative Medicine/HandoutThey then deleted the Y chromosomes in the cells and duplicated the cells' X chromosomes, before prompting the cells to turn into egg cells with two X chromosomes. The technique could also help women and people with two X chromosomes who have a genetic issue with one of the X chromosomes to have children, he said. Human reproductive cells are very complex and much less well-known than mice cells.

☆ Genetics study lays bare Ice Age drama for humans in Europe
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-01 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

Tom Bjoerklund/Handout via REUTERSMarch 1 (Reuters) - Europe was no balmy paradise during the Ice Age, with the vast glaciers that blanketed large parts of the continent rendering wide swathes inhospitable for humans. While some populations hunkered down and survived in relatively warmer parts of Europe, including France, Spain and Portugal, others died out on the Italian peninsula, the study showed. "It refreshes our knowledge of how human beings survived the Ice Age," added paleogeneticist and study co-author He Yu of Peking University in China. Homo sapiens arose roughly 300,000 years ago in Africa, then spread worldwide, reaching Europe at least 45,000 years ago. The only people who survived this harshest period in Europe were hunter-gatherers who had found refuge in portions of France and the Iberian peninsula, the study found.

☆ As we work more on the human genome project, the market for rare disease therapies grows, says Nord CEO
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: 1 min

Share Share Article via Facebook Share Article via Twitter Share Article via LinkedIn Share Article via EmailAs we work more on the human genome project, the market for rare disease therapies grows, says Nord CEOCNBC's Meg Tirrell, Nord CEO Peter Saltonstall and Boston Children's Hospital's Dr. Olaf Bodamer join 'Power Lunch' to discuss pharmaceutical companies developing treatments for rare disease, the growth expectations for rare disease pharmaceuticals and the state of competition in the rare disease treatment space.

☆ Trump rape case: Judge denies former president's last-minute offer to provide DNA
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-15 | by ( Ashley Collman | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

A federal judge denied Trump's last-minute offer to provide DNA in the rape case against him. Last week, Trump offered a sample to be tested against DNA found on E. Jean Carroll's dress. Last week, Trump's legal team made a last-minute offer to provide a DNA sample, just two months before the first trial is scheduled to start. Kaplan has previously complained about Trump's legal team holding up the case with delay after delay. Carroll's attorney, Roberta Kaplan (no relation to the judge), wrote in a letter to the court last week that the offer from Trump was a "bad faith" delay tactic.

Globally, IPOs across all sectors nosedived last year after a blockbuster 2021, as aggressive interest rate hikes by central banks to curb inflation put an end to the era of cheap money. In the biotech sector, there were only 47 IPOs last year that raised a total of about $4 billion, compared with 152 offerings in 2021 that had raised over $25 billion. While the XBI is still trading 50% below its February 2021 closing high, analysts believe the downturn in biotech has bottomed out. All we need is one or two biotech IPOs to get good interest and the floodgates will open." Reuters GraphicsThe second half of 2023 is more likely to see a significant step-up in biotech IPOs instead of the first half, as markets await further clarity on potential rate cuts, analysts said.

☆ Trump rape case: After 3 years, the former president finally agrees to submit DNA. Here's why it could be too late.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Ashley Collman | Laura Italiano | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

Trump is now willing to submit a DNA sample for his civil rape case in NY, new court papers say. Trump's sudden willingness to submit a DNA sample — something requested by his accuser for three years — was confirmed in court papers Friday. Carroll's lawyers said they planned to respond to Trump's DNA offer later Friday. A photo from the lab report that Donald Trump rape accuser E. Jean Carroll submitted in January, 2020 as part of her defamation lawsuit against the former president. Letting Trump's DNA into the case would be an 11th-hour roll of the dice for both sides.

HONG KONG, Feb 8 (Reuters) - The world should "calm down" about the possibility of new COVID-19 variants circulating in China, leading Chinese scientist George Gao said. "The world should completely calm down from the fear that there are new variants or special variants circulating (in China)," Gao, professor at the Institute of Microbiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told Reuters. The variants causing infections in China were the same Omicron sub-variants - BA.5.2 and BF.7 - seen elsewhere in the world, he said by email. Gao said China was continuing widespread viral genomic sequencing, and would identify any new variants if they emerged. A total of 13 cases of variants were found, including 1 case of XBB.1, 5 cases of BQ.1.1, 1 case of BQ.1.1.17, 4 cases of BQ.1.2 and 2 cases of BQ.1.8.

☆ Fact Check-No evidence ‘RNA technology’ in chicken feed behind infertility or U.S. egg shortage
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Some posts also reference studies unrelated to the contents of chicken feed, to chicken fertility or to RNA to imply that a feed additive is behind egg shortages and increased prices. One post says, “RNA technology in chicken feed causing chickens to stop laying“ and can be seen (here) . There is also no evidence of alleged additives in chicken feed affecting the laying habits of chickens. “Also, there is no such thing as adding RNA to chicken feed,” Abasht said. There is no evidence that “RNA technology” is present in chicken feed, or causing infertility in chickens or involved in the current egg shortage in the United StatesThis article was produced by the Reuters Fact Check team.

☆ These innovation stocks owned by Cathie Wood have double-digit upside, according to analysts
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-06 | by ( Yun Li | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

Cathie Wood just scored her best month ever as her innovation stocks staged a big comeback, and some of her darlings still have double-digit upside ahead, according to Wall Street analysts. Wood's flagship Ark Innovation ETF (ARKK) jumped 27.8% in January alone, notching its strongest month since its inception in 2014 . We looked at companies with at least five analysts covering them, and these names below all have more than 10% upside in the next 12 months, according to FactSet. Wall Street analysts are most bullish on Ginkgo Bioworks , seeing the stock rally more than 140% in the next 12 months. Other biotech names in the space that analysts love are Verve Therapeutics , CRISPR Therapeutics , Beam Therapeutics and Twist Bioscience.

☆ I raised 2 successful CEOs and a doctor. Here’s the parenting style that turns kids into narcissists
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-04 | by ( Esther Wojcicki | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +2 min

A lot of parents today think the best way to educate kids is to be in total control. This is the foundation of "helicopter parenting," a very involved parenting style in which kids have little or no control of their daily activities. Studies have indicated that kids with helicopter parents who have high expectations for academic performance, or who overreacted when they make a mistake, tend to be more self-critical, anxious and vulnerable. But my biggest problem with helicopter parenting? And if their kids fail, they fail as well.

☆ Some Neanderthals couldn't smell their own stink, suggests a new study recreating early humans' noses
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-03 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

Meanwhile, one group of a related species — Neanderthals — developed a mutation that could have spared them the smell of their own body odors. It's a popular idea that humans have a bad sense of smell, as compared with dogs, for instance. Will Oliver/PA Images/Getty"We have to really understand ourselves within our own context," rather than comparing humans to dogs or monkeys, as previous research on smell receptors has done, Hoover said. To Hoover's surprise, the Neanderthals, Denisovan, and humans all appeared to have the same repertoire of smells. More research like it, with more samples of ancient genomes, could reveal a clearer picture of Neanderthal and Denisovan life.

☆ Fact Check-COVID-19 vaccines do not add a ‘third strand’ of DNA
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-02 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Moderna’s mRNA COVID-19 vaccine does not alter human DNA or add a third strand to people’s DNA, as claimed in a video circulating on social media and viewed more than 400,000 times on Twitter. This gave me chills.”However, the video offers no evidence for its claim about the vaccine altering human DNA. The messenger RNA (mRNA) in approved COVID-19 vaccines does not interact with human DNA inside cells, and does not enter the cell nucleus where DNA is housed. Reuters has also addressed other false claims that mRNA vaccines alter human DNA (here, here, here). COVID-19 vaccines based on mRNA do not alter human DNA or add a third strand to the DNA double helix.

☆ Billion-dollar startup plans to bring the dodo back from the dead, and claims it can also revive the woolly mammoth
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-01 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Colossal Biosciences, a biotech company, says it will aim to revive the dodo using gene editing. This is the latest attempt to revive extinct animals in the face of the biodiversity crisis. The bird is the latest in the collection of long-gone animals scientists at the company want to revive. The startup has previously said it plan to recreate the Tasmanian wolf and the woolly mammoth. A stuffed dodo bird at the Natural History Museum on February 5, 2013, in London, England.

☆ Woman found in a canvas sack in 1971 ID’d through community-funded DNA testing
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( Minyvonne Burke | Minyvonne Burke Is A Senior Breaking News Reporter For Nbc News. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

Law enforcement in Arizona are finally able to identify a woman found dead in 1971 after community members rallied together to help fund crucial DNA testing. Authorities contributed $1,000 to the DNA testing and asked the public for help with the remaining $6,5000. Through the use of Forensic Genetic Genealogy, the victim has been identified as Colleen Audrey Rice," the sheriff's office said. "DNA testing of a relative confirmed this after countless hours of investigation into her family tree and contact with distant family relatives." A post published on DNASolves.com said that detectives had pursued numerous leads in trying to identify Rice.

☆ The CEO of a $1.6 billion biotech says his bet on AI is paying off with faster, cheaper research that could reshape the industry
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-25 | by ( Andrew Dunn | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

It has generated tons of data with AI and robots, aiming to find a better way to make drugs. For a biotech executive hoping to make something vast, Chris Gibson seems proudest in obsessing over the tiniest details. Gibson calls this the "human-y" element of research — and it's what Recursion is working hard to eliminate. What's happening in AI — and Recursion is emblematic of this — is we're at the second half of the chess board." Despite the progress in generating massive amounts of data, Recursion's leaders acknowledged that the goal of creating an approved medicine is likely still years away.

More than a decade later, those that heeded this advice went on to become game-changing tech behemoths, including CNBC Disruptor 50 companies Block , Pinterest , Slack, Twilio , and Cloudera. Seed rounds had a record deal value in 2022, and valuations continued to grow even as late-stage venture companies nearer to the public market suffered. Venture funds raised a record amount of money in 2022, with $162.8 billion closed across 769 funds, according to PitchBook and the NVCA. We've seen companies struggle as public companies and then skyrocket, so a lower value-IPO is not the end of the road." "But when you can generate new share in a difficult market, when the market does turn, they are in a perfect position to capture more market share and customers."

☆ When Does Life Begin?
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-31 | by ( Elizabeth Dias | Bethany Mollenkof | ) www.nytimes.com time to read: +19 min

“It is not black and white.”America’s fight over abortion has long circled a question, one that is broad and without consensus:When does life begin? The question of when life begins has been so politicized it can be hard to thoughtfully engage. Ancient Egypt gave the power to create new human life almost entirely to men. The scientific revolution, from Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution to reproductive science, disrupted centuries of thought on human life. “When does the responsibility for a life begin and end?”

☆ How Amazon's cloud unit is helping researchers analyze genetics
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-28 | by ( Ashley Capoot | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +6 min

Amazon Web Services recently launched general availability for Amazon Omics, which helps researchers store and analyze omic data like sequences of DNA, RNA and proteins. Amazon Omics helps researchers sort through their data by providing them with three components that they can leverage individually or as a collective. More than a dozen customers and partners tested a beta version of the service and are already using Amazon Omics. He said the department spent five years expanding the infrastructure to analyze omics data, and now it's no longer something they need to build or maintain themselves. C2i is a biotechnology company that's working to use genomic data to develop personalized treatments for cancer.

☆ India to step up COVID surveillance as cases increase elsewhere
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-21 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

NEW DELHI, Dec 21 (Reuters) - India's government has asked all states to step up surveillance for any new variants of the coronavirus, citing an increase in COVID-19 cases in China and elsewhere. India has reported the most COVID cases in the world after the United States but its tally of confirmed infections has fallen sharply in the past few months. A recent surge of infections in neighbouring China after it ended its strict COVID restrictions has led to concern that new variants could emerge. Data from the World Health Organization shows that infections have inched up in Japan, Korea, the United States, France and Brazil in recent days. The government has asked all states to ensure that samples of all positive cases are sent to the 54 designated genome sequencing laboratories.

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