Longevity science

Using the technique that created Dolly the sheep, researchers from the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan, have identified a way to produce healthy mouse clones that live a normal lifespan and can be sequentially cloned indefinitely.

In an experiment that started in 2005, the team led by Dr. Teruhiko Wakayama has used a technique called somatic cell nuclear transfer (SNCT) to produce 581 clones of one original "donor" mouse through 25 consecutive rounds of cloning.

MIT researchers have genetically engineered muscle cells to make them flex in response to laser light.

“With bio-inspired designs, biology is a metaphor, and robotics is the tool to make it happen'" says Professor Asada. "With bio-integrated designs, biology provides the materials, not just the metaphor. This is a new direction we’re pushing in biorobotics.”

>>Home-built "Bio Computer" runs Linux, grows wheatgrass:
PC case modder and hardware hacker Mike Schropp's latest project, the 'Bio Computer' sees a working PC put to use as a garden in which to grow wheatgrass.
http://www.gizmag.com/bio-computer-grows-wheatgrass/22550/

>>Dwarf plants could reduce demands for water, fertilizer, nutrients and pesticides:
Aside from arable land, most farm crops require significant amounts of water, fertilizer, nutrients and pesticides to grow. While specialized breeding is often used to help produce plants that require less of these inputs, Purdue University researcher Burkhard Schulz has found a way to create tiny versions of plants that suffer no reduction in yield through the addition of a cheap and widely available chemical.
http://www.gizmag.com/dwarf-plants/22561/

>>Maintaining genetic diversity in food supply

Could we be missing the point? Natural and wild may not mean the same in the future. Struggling to keep this stuff alive in a polluted and warming environment, increasingly encroached upon by human beings is a losing battle. But cultivating, preserving, building environments (semi-indoor) can save the plant and animal species that we struggle to maintain.
http://www.naturalnews.com/031144_food_security_biodiversity.html

Scientists have long thought that part of our genetic code was redundant. Further, they thought that the redundant code contained only duplicate information. A new discovery indicates that the redundant bits contain unique and speed-related instructions for protein formation.

“By measuring the rate of protein production in bacteria, the team discovered that slight genetic alterations could have a dramatic effect. This was true even for seemingly insignificant genetic changes known as “silent mutations,” which swap out a single DNA letter without changing the ultimate gene product. To their surprise, the scientists found these changes can slow the protein production process to one-tenth of its normal speed or less.”

“This new discovery challenges half a century of fundamental assumptions in biology. It may also help speed up the industrial production of proteins, which is crucial for making biofuels and biological drugs used to treat many common diseases, ranging from diabetes to cancer.”