Digital data storage in DNA

The demand for data storage increases sharply. The rate at which these needs increase will make that very soon we will find the problem that the means at our disposal are not enough to accommodate the huge volume of information. According to Microsoft in 2017 this demand will be about 16 zettabytes, a volume that supports we use today are not prepared to accept. Although the improvemant of the optical discs we still needed million units to store 1 zettabyte (approximately 1,000 million terabytes), which also mean a significant physical space, too. 

With the aim of revolutionize the digital data storage, Redmond are collaborating with Twist Bioscience, a company specializing in biotechnology based in San Francisco, and with the University of Washington to use DNA as a means to store information in a small space.

The genetic material is an attractive alternative for this purpose because it is extremely dense (up to 1 exabyte per cubic millimeter) and very durable (it has a half life of over 500 years). However, the great difficulty to store digital data in DNA is that the processes of reading and writing are not simple.

To carry out this project, Microsoft has bought 10 million Twist DNA strands. According to the cooperation agreement, the corporation will provide the data as a digital sequence, and Twist will convert it to a physical form through synthetic biology techniques.

To encode digital data into a DNA strand the researchers convert digital zeros and ones of the file in combinations of the four elements that form the molecules of genetic material (adenine, thymine, guanine and cytosine). According to Microsoft, in a single gram of DNA it could store 1,000 million terabytes.

This news set out one of the problems that maybe nobody had think about. In last years we are collecting and storing enourmous amounts of data and information, but the space we have to keep it is not unlimited. It means that we have a limit and acording to the news this is not far away. It's also true that the means to keep information has improve a lot but it is still not enough so we need alternatives and it's when we turn to see science and technology working together. Thanks to bioteclogy, that it's a field that is in constantly improving over the years, now Microsoft seems that have the solution to do problem. What Microsoft propose is really very difficult and have a lot of complications, but we can't say no just satrting, so we only can wait to see what happend and trust in science. 

Genetic modification at service of cancer

CRISPR is a kind of genetic manipulation that has also been at the service of oncology. From the Novartis Boston Research Institut (NBIR), an old candy factory, not far from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Rob McDonald, one of the researchers, explain how they use the famous genetic scissors discovered by the scientific Doudna and Charpentire to try to develop new drugs against different types of cancer.

McDonald explains that cancer is a complex genetic disease, and although the tumor initially responds to treatment, we know that is able to develop resistance because has secondary mutations, usually in tumor suppressor genes (that are the responses to the control of tumor cells). "If those guards are mutated or missing, how can we attack them, if they are not already?"

Thanks, CRISPR technology scientific from NIBR are putting one by one million of genes to checking how it affects to the tumor cell and  tries to accelerate the discovery of new anticancer molecules. In this old candy factory, they are working with 400 cell lines, 19000 genes and about 76000 million cells that could cover an entire baseball field. This new kind of technology suppose a titanic effort, says McDonald, and it would be impossible without the new genetic technology that is not only apparently simple (its use has spread quickly to all fields of science), but also very cheap (about $ 20-30 per gene, compared to a previous edition genetic technology, TALEN, which could cost up to around $ 4,000 per gene).Technology allows doing precise changes in the DNA cells to try to answer a question: Is it important that gene for the survival of tumor cells? And consequently, is not is a good candidate to try to attack with a drug potential?

Although this application now seems to have their main potential in the field of drug development it is not the only one. Laboratories around the world are also exploring the therapeutic potential of this genetic technology in the treatment of cancer patients. In 2015, researchers at the Eliza Hall Institute (Australia) demonstrated  that this technique was able to remove Burkitt lymphoma cells by deleting the gene (MCL1) responsible for keeping alive the tumor cells. And from the same NIBR, in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania, the use of CRISPR has been investigated to improve the effectiveness of treatment with modified cells. This hematologist showed few years ago that modify genetically the patient own cells in the laboratory and then transfering this cells to the patient allowed to control certain hematological tumors, mainly leukemia. This cells from the laboratory have already proved effective in a group of 36 children with lymphoblastic leukemia who had not responded to other treatments.

Glen Dranoff is the responsible for Immuno-Oncology at NIBR. He explains that CRISPR could improve the control of the defensive cells and make them more powerful.  Although he is very cautious about the therapeutic potential of genetics in cancer cells edition: "Of course there is much interest, but we are not there yet. At the moment, CRISPR is a very potent drug development tool." And Glen Dranoff is right. In the clinic, there is some risk you don't have in the laboratory like the security. Because at the end you are making changes in the genome and you have to be very sure of what you do. 

NASA asteroid hunter

NASA has spent two years investigating the asteroids and comets of our Solar System. Their objective is to protect the Erth from the objects that could easily crash against the Erth. Because of that, NASA has carried out and investigation of two years with their Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer for Polling Near Earth Object (NEOWISE) and now we are able to know what they have found. According to NASA, NEOWISE has categorized 439 near objects to Erth (or NEOs, the name to describe any asteroid or comet approaching Erth). In the group of 439 objects, a total of 72 were unknowing for all the scientific world. 

The sounding line was thrown in 2009 to space and it was deactivated in 2011 when their mission was completed. But in December of 2013, it was reactivated to help astronomers to track NEOs and be aware if we run some risk of been impacted. During last year, NEOWISE collect about 5.1 millions of images and it also measured more than 19000 asteroids. Then, NASA could reduce the number to 439 NEOs that only 8 has been classification as potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs). 

NEOWISE is not the unique ship that it's working to keep the NEOs under control. It's only a part of the system. NEOWISE discover NEOs that are big and dark and that kind of discovery help astronomers to complete the net of ground-based telescopes that work with visible wavelengths with light. 

As far as we think, the Solar System is a very crowded place. There are a lot of comets, meteorites, and asteroids that are plough through the universe. Having into a count the big distance presents in space, all of them comes from very far, many come from millions of light years away and there are some that approach only one time each long time. In this sense, the universe is full of life!
But, how many times we have think about a catastrophe produced by the impact of an enormous meteorite? Or how many films can we find about this kind of thematic? Only think about the main hypothesis we have today about the dinosaur extinction: the impact of a big meteorite. Because of that, NASA proposed to keep an eye in any NEOs that could complicate the life of our planet.

Kalimán en Jericó

This third term goes about Human Rights, something that can drive us to talk about the good thing they involve, their importance or necessity but also about their legitimacy, their violation or their default. Well, sorry but now I'm coming with the second part because unfortunately nobody can guarantee the compliance of Human Rights. On one hand there are many countries in the world where Human Rights are respected by their citizens and they are also supported by the law, but on the other hand, still there are a lot of countries where this right have no importance, they seems to no exist and they are constantly violate. As a result, the world is divided into these countries where the citizens are able to have a good life, they have rights, they are protected by the law and they are free to promote themselves and get a full life, and the rest of the countries where people are battered, repressed and have fewer opportunities to get a full life. These problems create inequality in the world. Nobody has chosen where they born, so it's a matter of change which makes it less worthy and more unfair. 

With all this premises I would like to talk about Kalimán en Jericó, wich is a book written by Àngel Burgas. This book related to a mosaic of true stories, which intertwined, show us the portrait of a broken childhood. Àngel Burgas travel to Medellin and he visits the Faro foundation in Jerico where he meet with all the boys that have let behind the life in the streets of the city where they lived the drugs world, mistreatment, and they have meet the gangs world. All this boy have been exiled from the good life but now, in Faro foundation, they have the chance to start looking the future with hope and try to start a new life. 

It's not possible they can forget all experiences they have lived and erase the lived. Àngel Burgas, with this book, move us to another reality well away from our day a day that it's unimaginable. All the stories are told by child of nine to sixteen years old and what they say is not exactly what we would imagine in people of his age: they have been drug addict, they have been battered and have seen how to mistreat others, they have been part of gangs, they have stolen and some of them have killed. All they are childs that have been driven for the bad way. Most of them have lost their families and they are alone and are always in danger. 

It's very difficult to think that things like that are happening and they are very real. We use to weak up every morning and go to the school where we are going to find our friends, and then, when we return home we find our family there. We are always safe and, by now, one of our bigs problemes is to hand over our TDR on time. But there is also the life of people of our same age that have nothing in common with the one we use to. After red this book, if we think about Human Rights, we notice there is something wrong in all that because they don't exist for the people and children who live in Medillín. 

An example of success

By now maybe you already know about the young Augusta Uwmanzu-Na. She becomes popular and her name appears in all media after she was accepted in the eight Ivy League Universities that are the elite schools in the United States. It's something that can achieve very few people. Now she has time since the 1st of May to choose their future university. 

Although she born in North-America the origins of Uwmanzu-Na are Nigerian and she says she could not have reached the punctuation without the help of their environment. "My recent achievements reflect the values of the Elmont people hard work, the support of my parents and dedicated teachers. I'm happy but above all, I am grateful" says Augusta. 

It's easy to use the story of Uwamanzu-Na as an example to other teenagers. Anyone does no wrong to imitate what she said has been the key to her success: the tenacity and her persistence, and it's what has help Augusta to overcome all the difficulties she found. A story reflected in all the medias of the country. Two years ago, when Augusta was 15 years old, she started to carry out a project for school which she tried to understand by himself how works the fluid mechanics based on an example which allowed him to observe and measure. But she has a problem: she need to use cement and concrete and use the gym banks to measure the forces. She couldn't work well so she decides to present in a lab where she can work. First, she was rejected by Columbia University but finally she could bee accepted in an engineering school at the University of New York. But she kept an ace up his sleeve and she keeps the contact with the main investigators from Columbia University wich allows she to achieve a summer job. 

This one of the many stories that proves that the important thing to achieve what we propose is the hard work and determination. Augusta Uwmanzu-Na has been successful in studies but everyone can stand out in what it proposes. The world is full of stories that this, stories of people that in spite of the problems they found they manage to overcome them and achieve what they wanted. 

The number of executions in the world returns to Cold War levels

According to with what International Amnesty has announced in their annual report, 2015 was the year with the largest number of death penalties carried out in more than 25 years. A total of 1634 people were executed what is the highest figure recorded since 1989. This number also suppose an increase of 573 cases with respect to 2014. The global increase of this data is because of three countries: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan wich were responsable of the 89% of the death penalty cases during 2015. Another cause of concern is the increase in the number of countries around the world that apply this penalty last year. If in 2014 were 22 countries, the last 2015 the number rise until 25. One of the new countries that are now in the statistics is Chad, where the last august 10 presumed terrorist were shooted.

 

The director who carries out the study concludes that 2015 was a year of extremes because it let us both good and bad news. On one hand we have and increase the number of death penalties but on the other hand, 2015 was the year when the majority of the world, 102, countries abolish completely this kind of sentences. Some of this new countries are Madagascar, Republic of Congo or Mongolia. 

But there is another bad data. Inside of the 1634 sentences does not include China ones because this kind of data is a state secret. Although International Amnesty esteem that about thousands of people were executed last year in this country. China leads the listing of the countries with more executions per year and it's followed by Iran, that executed at leats 977 people in 2015, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United States. Besides Iran apply the death penalty to minors so it means that the country violates the international right. By the other way, Pakistan killed 320 people and in Arabia the number of people executed by sentences like the beheading increase in a 79% in relation with 2014. 

Chiara Sangiorgio, who is an expert in the death penalty, argue that the government say that they use this kind of sentence referring to the keep of national security. The true governments use them to create an emotional response in the citizens and not to make the nation more secure. 

There are also a lot of countries where the international rules about fair trials are infringed because these country use tortures or threats to obtain confessions. In addition, a lot of countries use this kind of sentence to condemn crimes related with drugs or money that have any relation with death crimes what are the only ones for which there is an international law that allows the use of this practice.

This news surprised me, not only because of the increase in the number of cases where the death sentence was applied during last year but also because it made me see how different things are and how little we know about what really happens. The news shocks me because I used to think that the death sentences were something of the past but the fact is that 2015 has been the year with the largest number of executions in last 25 years and it shows us that it's something very real and it's happening every day. 

Another thing that can surprise us is that the United States are the number seven in the list of the countries that use this sentences. All we know about the death sentence in the United States but I didn't know that it was used as much. 

Well, maybe we can have the feeling that things are changing very fast but the reality is very different to this feeling.

Human Rights

I'm sure we all have listened to a lot of times about Human Right, but we really know what they are? Why do they need to exist? Or what are they importance?

Well, we start at the beginning. Human Rights are the rights that have all the humans without distinction for the simple fact of been a human. Human Rights are universal and it means that have the same value and validity in all the world.

It is in the 17th century when we start to see some statements with a clear idea of a "natural right" and in the 17th century, there are some countries that start to include "Bills of Rights" in their Constitutions. Along the 19th and 20th century we can start to see some laws that act as a guarantor for the dignity or moral integrity of humans. But it's also the time when took place the First World War and then, despite all the efforts, we can't avoid the Second World War with all the consequences that it involves. And it's just in this time when born the necessity of designated guarantees individuals against public authorities. On 1948, the United Nations General Assembly approved the document entitled "Universal Declaration of Human Rights", totally thirty items, which represent civil, political, social, economic and cultural rights. 

I would like to talk about the 19th article: 

Article 19."Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom o hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and idea through any media and regardless of frontiers"

Of course, there are a lot of articles that should be the base of our societies they should be in all ideologies and behavior of all citizens. They would have to be taken for granted without the necessity of have to be included in a document. But, unfortunately, the history of humanity lead us the need of having to include them. I'm talking about the number one, for example, that says: "All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights", or the number three that says: "Everyone has the right to live, liberty and security of person".

I have chosen the number 19 because I think it's one of the least respected rights. We are in an age where it supposes we can express and say whatever we want immediately, thought The Internet, we have the possibility of share what we have to say with all the world and also we have the possibility to listen to everybody. Even so, there are some places where people are jail because of their thoughts and there are some places where the words of ones have more weight that the others.

But this article says something more that it's also very important in any society. People have the right to listening others and choose what opinion he defend without interference. Nobody should be coerced by the ideas of others and nobody should be treated as the instrument of another cause than itself. Freedom of opinion and freedom of speech also includes not be intilled something you don't want.

Hey Planet Nine fans...

By twitter the astronomer Mike Brown, from the Universiti of Caltech (USA) awake new expectations about what can be the ninth planet in our Solar System. Mike Brown? Yes, the same scientific who reduce in rank the planet Pluto to the disgraceful category of "short planet". Brown announcement the discovery after present it in SETI, the organisation dedicated to exploring the universe and search intelligent live out of the Erth.

According to the first estimations the hypothetic ninth planet should be describing a super-orbit around the Sun that will make him take about 10.000 and 20.000 years to complete it. However, thanks to the new discovery of a new Kuiper belt (KBO) there is more evidence to believe in the real existence of a new plant. Mike Brown explains that when they saw a strange signal in the records they notice that something strange was happening. The strange signal was described as a heavy gravitational force which was able to drag little objects in specific areas of the Solar System. And the only explication is that only a mass with a big volume can produce an effect like this. The estimations about this ninth planet say that it is 10 times bigger that the Erth and is located about 149 billion kilometers from the Sun.

All these new discoveries have been possible thanks to the Canada, Franç Hawai Telescope wich is working in the development of the study of the beginning of the Outside Solar System (OSSOS). Because of scientifics are talking about something that is happening in an extremely large distance they can't support or confirm the existence of the ninth planet. They should wait for more evidence.

Besides the Brown study, it has been developed in parallel another study lead by the astronomer professor Daniel Whitmire who affirm that the existence of this ninth planet could be linked with the massive extinction in the Erth. Acording with Whitmire study this ninth planet trigger comet shower every time it completes a whole orbit around the sun. It happens every 27 million years and when in take place the planet makes that comets impact against the planets of the Solar System. Appareny the ninth planet keeps key answers about the running of the whole Solar System.

Recently astronomers are making great discoveries and they are also carrying out amazing investigations. In last years, we have seen new projects to find live in other planets and now we are witnessing discoveries like the gravitational waves or this one about the existence of a ninth planet in our system. All these new discoveries have a grat impact in the last hypothesis we believe about the beginning of the universe or the causes of the extinction of dinosaurs. I think it's amazing and we are only at the beginning so it means that there are a lot of new things to know that could allow us to understand a little bit better the place we live. I think we are very lucky to live in an era when each day we advance and we progress a little more. We live in an era when a lot of discoveries have taken place and all make progress very quickly. It means that maybe in few years we can have a completely different idea of the universe. I think it's great, nothing it's predictable, now we can't know with wich technology we'll be living or how will be our daily routines. It can be a little frightened, too, but I think we are in the progress line.

364 Expedition

Many years ago, when humans still didn't exist, took place on catastrophic fact wich was responsible for deleting the dinosaurs from the visage of the earth. Many years ago an immense meteorite more than 10 Km in diameter crashed into the Erth. Now, the project waited by researchers is about to carry on: drilling under the ocean bed of the Chicxulub crater, the enormous hole opened 66 million years ago where now we know as Yucatan peninsula (Mexic). 

On 13th of April, an international scientific team will set off from the Mexico gulf to the drill platform which is 30Km open sea. This will be the first time that the crater has a submarine drilling. The main question the project try to work out is: what that impact was so catastrophic? The scientific team tries to get more knowledge about the formations of the crater and the environmental and ecologic effects of the impact. Another of the objectives is to study what were the conditions that make possible the return of the sea life in the area after the impact. 

The drillings will take place in a characteristic structure that also have other craters on the Moon or in Mart. This position is know as rings-peaks and is circular mountain ranges. The crater is about 180 and 200 Km in diameter. On earth, there are only two bigger and both are also older, one is in Vredefort (South Africa) and the other one in Canada, both formed 2000 million years ago. The problem is that the zone has been modifying by the erosion and can't be investigate properly by scientific. 

The plan for the study is to drill 500m the first week and then over tow month drill one kilometer more checking the surface and collecting signs of minerals and fossils. But the scientific team in charge of the project are sure that it could figure out more mysteries that they have been bottomless until now, for example, the global warming wich took place 55 million years ago and was responsible for the end of the giant birds.


It seems unreal that now, after millions of years, we can know that one-day enormous dinosaurs walk the earth for thousand of years. I think it's incredible how analyzing the earth we can know how was the Erth millions of years ago, who lived in there or what happened. These kind o studies are like "the pictures were never made" because they give us a real image of the world. Maybe we can think that the study of the dinosaurs has no relation with us because they lived million of years before the humans, but the fact is that their extinction makes possible the life of the mammals and, therefore, the evolution till our times. 

Why I Hate School But Love Education

Why I Hate School But Love Education. Well, it's true that at first sight it can sound a little bit contradictory, but actually it isn't at all. This is the name of the video wich Suli Breaks could get almost eight thousand views on YouTube in 2012. Suli Breaks is a world's leading spoken word artist who creates poetic presentations with the aim of telling powerful stories. With this one he wants to make us think about the educational system and he wants to make us ask ourselves some questions like why we are studying?

The fact is that most of us are living our last times at one stage and we are getting ready to change to another stage. Now we are finishing our high school chapter and in few moths, we'll start our first steps in the "adult" world. Also, we are in an age, which is said to be the best age of our lives, where we have the obligation of dream about our futures, think what we want to share with the world and don't take anything for granted. So with all this I want to say that it's a good time to ask ourselves the kind of questions that Suli Breakers make us. 

"If you don't build your dreams, someone else will hire you to help build theirs"

This quote is telling as something as simple as we have to chase our dreams. One of the thigs that characterise humans is the capacity of creating future prospectives. It means that each person can think in their future, know what he wants and act in the present in order to get it. The worst decision we can make is to choose not make what we think that can make us happy. And the point of the quote: if you don't work for yourself someone else will hire you to make their dreams come true. 

Actually, the video is a good critique of the educational system. Applying the meaning of the quote before to school system it's saying that schools are not making their true work. Schools should strengthen the love for knowledge and motivate people to broaden horizons. School should prepare students for what they really need that it's not only to be good at their job but finding what they really are and what they want. School should be places where one could create himself.

Nowadays "school" is not fully related to "education". There are a lot of ways of education and a lot o differents ways in which a person can be educated and currently school only focus in one of them: be beneficial for the society and not for the own interest. In this point, we should analyse other factors that make education not be the tool it could be like for example the interest that "leaders" have in the control of the society and keep their power.