News by Subject Technology & Engineering

Swiss scientists from the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and the University of Basel have created artificial viruses that can be used to target cancer. These designer viruses alert the immune system and cause it to send killer cells to help fight the tumor. The results, published in the journal Nature Communications, provide a basis for innovative cancer treatments.

With C$2.7 million in government and private funding from Canada and the US, a 10-year community-led project on the north shore of Lake Erie has dramatically reduced roadkill on a thoroughfare running through a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. A new paper estimates 89 percent fewer turtles and 28 percent fewer snakes now venture onto Ontario's Long Point Causeway, an important achievement in protecting at-risk species offering a model for other communities worldwide.

Researchers from MIT's Tangible Media Group have concocted something akin to edible origami, in the form of flat sheets of gelatin and starch that, when submerged in water, instantly sprout into three-dimensional structures, including common pasta shapes such as macaroni and rotini.

UW synthetic biology researchers have demonstrated a new method for digital information processing in living cells, analogous to the logic gates used in electric circuits. The circuits are the largest ever published to date in eurkaryotic cells and a key step in harnessing the potential of cells as living computers that can respond to disease, efficiently produce biofuels or develop plant-based chemicals.

A research team from the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory has performed the first-ever direct nanoscale examination of a living cell membrane. In doing so, it also resolved a long-standing debate by identifying tiny groupings of lipid molecules that are likely key to the cell's functioning.