Researchers make a living circuit out of bacteria

Under the right circumstances, bacteria can be quite cooperative — both with each other and the organism they’re living in. A research team at Rice University has managed to exploit that natural congeniality to, for the first time, create a biological circuit that works much like a conventional computer chip. But the goal of the researchers’ work isn’t to build better biocomputers, it’s to help them more fully understand how these organisms interact within our guts.

“They naturally form a large consortium,” Rice synthetic biologist Matthew Bennett said in a statement. “One thought is that when we engineer bacteria to be placed into guts, they should also be part of a consortium. Working together allows them to effect more change than if they worked in isolation.” To that end, the team’s proof-of-concept model employs two species of genetically engineered bacteria (both variants of the common E. Coli) that that regulate each other’s production of a specific protein via intercellular signaling pathways.

Rice University’s cooperative bacterial colonies – Image Credit: Rice University

Specifically, one population, the “activators”, was tasked with increasing the expression of one set of genes while the others, the “repressors,” acted to down-regulate other genes. Taken together, the circuit generated rhythmic gene transcription oscillations across the entire population. This coordination allows each species to produce the proteins more efficiently than if they did so individually. In turn, that could lead to greater bacterial biofuel production yields. “The main push in synthetic biology has been to engineer single cells,” Bennett said. “But now we’re moving toward multicellular systems. We want cells to coordinate their behaviors in order to elicit a populational response, just the way our bodies do.”

Eventually, these systems could even help us regulate our own internal chemistries. “One idea is to create a yogurt using engineered bacteria,” Bennett continued. “The patient eats it and the physician controls the bacteria through the patient’s diet. Certain combinations of molecules in your food can turn systems within the synthetic bacteria on and off, and then these systems can communicate with each other to effect change within your gut.” The team recently published their findings in the journal Science.

[Image Credit: Getty Images]

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Science

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Source:
Rice University, Science

Tags: bacteria, biology, bionics, E. Coli, livingcircuit, riceuniversity

Jeep hackers get new jobs at Uber’s autonomous-car lab

Security researchers Charlie Miller and Chris Valasek have made a habit of getting the attention of the automotive world with their vehicle hacks. This year, the team showed an exploit that would allow hackers to remotely hijack a Jeep. That hack resulted in Fiat Chrysler recalling 1.4 million vehicles. The hack apparently got the attention Uber which has hired the team to work in its Advanced Technologies Center research laboratory in Pennsylvania. In addition to researching mapping and safety, the car hailing service has been dabbling in autonomous vehicles at the research center. Miller — who previously worked on security at Twitter — tweeted that he would begin working for Uber this coming Tuesday. It’s smart of Uber to bring on two renowned security researchers to make sure those autonomous cars don’t get compromised while rolling around with passengers. The last thing it wants is to lose control of its future fleet of robot cars during surge pricing.

Looking forward to starting Tuesday with the great team at @Uber Advanced Technology Center. Should be a cool challenge and a lot of fun.

— Charlie Miller (@0xcharlie) August 28, 2015

Filed under:
Misc, Robots, Transportation

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Source:
Reuters

Tags: CharlierMiller, ChrisValasek, Hackers, Security, Uber

DARPA wants to launch and land Gremlins on moving planes

DARPA wants to transform airplanes into drone carriers. Last year, the agency invited technical ideas and business expertise to help create a reusable airborne system. Today, it announced the launch of the Gremlins program that’s designed to make that air-recoverable unmanned system a reality. According to Dan Patt, program manager at DARPA, the “goal is to conduct a compelling proof-of-concept flight demonstration that could employ intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) and other modular, non-kinetic payloads in a robust, responsive and affordable manner.”

Bots that could be deployed and recovered mid-air are expected to boost the military’s operational flexibility and drive mission costs lower. As per the DARPA statement, the program aspires to launch gremlins or swarm bots from large aircraft such as bombers or transports after some modest modifications. When those planes are out of range, the bots will be launched from smaller, more accessible fixed-wing platforms. After completing their mission, the gremlins will be retrieved by a C-130 transport aircraft and brought home, where they will be prepped for their next mission within the next 24 hours.

[Image credit: DARPA]

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Transportation

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Via:
Washington Post

Source:
DARPA

Tags: aircrafts, Bots, C-130, DARPA, drones, gremlins, Military, Swarm-bots, UAV, wargadget

Twitter publicly announces goals for hiring diversity in 2016

It may have taken a while, but major tech companies are finally making diverse hiring more of a priority. To that end, Twitter has publicly announced its diversity goals for 2016 in an effort to hold itself more accountable going forward. Worldwide, the company wants 35 percent of its employees to be women in 2016, with 16 percent of “tech” roles and 25 percent of leadership roles to be held by women. Today, the company reported that 34 percent of its workforce was women, with 13 percent of its tech roles and 22 percent of its leadership roles held by women. Twitter’s 2016 goals are pretty modest increases over what its reporting now, but it’s still one of the few major tech companies making such goals public.

The company also shared goals for increasing minority representation for its workforce in the US. Currently, 59 percent of Twitter’s workforce is white and 31 percent was Asian, and those numbers are even more skewed among Twitter’s leadership — 72 percent of leadership is white and 28 percent is Asian. The company wants to increase “underrepresented minorities” in the US to 11 percent and wants six percent of leadership roles to be held by those minorities in 2016. Twitter’s leadership roles in the US actually got less diverse in 2015, so while these goals all seem like a small step forward, it can still mark a notable change over where things stand today.

[Image credit: AP/Mark Lennihan]

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Source:
Twitter

Tags: diversity, hiring, hiringgoals, minorities, techdiversity, twitter, women

LG announces new partnership with Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s HitRECord production company

LG has just announced a new partnership with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and his production company, HitRECord, to help develop new creative content over the coming year. LG says it wants to help celebrate and support creators of all types throughout the world, which is exactly what HitRECord aims to do.

HitRECord is an online production company based on collaborative efforts, which was founded and is directed by Mr. Gordon-Levitt. The company produces short films, publishes books, releases records, and has even produced two seasons of Hit Record on TV with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, a half-hour-long variety show. 

Joseph Gordon-Levitt explains:

HitRECord is a community that anyone can join. It doesn’t matter who you are, if you have something to share, all you need is to go out there and do it. In the past, the movies and shows we’d watch could only be made by certain people, and the stories we’d hear would only come from a limited number of perspectives. Technology is changing all that, and giving more people the opportunity to share their own, unique stories. LG understands this and that’s why we’re embarking on this partnership.

The first project to come from the partnership is a collaborative short film called “In-Between Moments”, which will kick off sometime this week. The new short film will focus on all of the moments that happen throughout the day, whether that means moments that are beautiful, or spontaneous or short-lived. We’re sure we’ll get some more details sometime in the future, so look out for more collaborative efforts to come from this new partnership.