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Scientists Develop a Breathalyzer That Detects 17 Diseases With One Breath From a Patient

randomErr quotes a report from Quartz: In the last 10 years, researchers have developed specific sniff tests for diagnosing tuberculosis, hypertension, cystic fibrosis, and even certain types of cancer. A group of global researchers led by Hossam Haick at the Israel Institute of Technology have taken the idea a step further. They’ve built a device — a kind of breathalyzer — that is compact and can diagnose up to 17 diseases from a single breath of a patient. The breathalyzer has an array of specially created gold nanoparticles, which are sized at billionths of a meter, and mixed with similar-sized tubes of carbon. These together create a network that is able to interact differently with each of the nearly 100 volatile compounds that each person breaths out (apart from gases like nitrogen, oxygen, and carbon dioxide). Haick’s team collected 2, 800 breaths from more than 1, 400 patients who were each suffering from at least one of 17 diseases (in three classes: cancer, inflammation, and neurological disorders). Each sample of the disease was then passed through the special breathalyzer, which then produced a dataset of the types of chemicals it could detect and in roughly what quantities. The team then applied artificial intelligence to the dataset to search for patterns in the types of compounds detected and the concentrations they were detected at. As they report in the journal ACS Nano, the data from the breathalyzer could be used to accurately detect that a person is suffering from a unique disease nearly nine out of ten times. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Scientists Develop a Breathalyzer That Detects 17 Diseases With One Breath From a Patient

Ebola Vaccine Gives 100 Percent Protection, Could Be Readily Available By 2018

According to a study published in the Lancet medical journal on Thursday, an experimental vaccine against the Ebola virus was found to be 100 percent effective. The results offer hope of better protection against the disease that ravaged West Africa in 2014, killing more than 11, 000 people. From a report on BBC: A highly effective vaccine that guards against the deadly Ebola virus could be available by 2018, says the World Health Organization. Trials conducted in Guinea, one of the West African countries most affected by an outbreak of Ebola that ended this year, show it offers 100% protection. The vaccine is now being fast-tracked for regulatory approval. Manufacturer Merck has made 300, 000 doses of the rVSV-ZEBOV vaccine available for use should Ebola strike. GAVI, the global vaccine alliance, provided $5m for the stockpile. Results, published in The Lancet medical journal, show of nearly 6, 000 people receiving the vaccine, all were free of the virus 10 days later. In a group of the same size not vaccinated, 23 later developed Ebola. Only one person who was vaccinated had a serious side effect that the researchers think was caused by the jab. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Ebola Vaccine Gives 100 Percent Protection, Could Be Readily Available By 2018

Scientists Discover Antibody That Neutralizes 98% of HIV Strains

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Inquisitr: The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) announced this week that a “remarkable” breakthrough has been made in the study of preventing and treating the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), the virus that leads to acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS), according to a press release posted on the agency’s official website. The breakthrough centers around the discovery of a powerful antibody named N6 that is highly effective in both binding to the surface of the HIV virus and neutralizing it. The former has proved elusive in the past. “Identifying broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV has been difficult because the virus rapidly changes its surface proteins to evade recognition by the immune system, ” the press release explains. The antibody was initially discovered in an HIV-positive person and has since proven to potentially neutralize 98 percent of HIV isolates, “including 16 of 20 strains resistant to other antibodies of the same class, ” according to the press release. Researchers have had previous success with other antibodies, but N6 appears to be more effective. The new discovery has potential benefits far beyond preventing and treating HIV as well. Studying exactly how N6 works could potentially lead to breakthroughs in other anti-viral antibodies. “Findings from the current study showed that N6 evolved a unique mode of binding that depends less on a variable area of the HIV envelope known as the V5 region and focuses more on conserved regions, which change relatively little among HIV strains, ” NIAID explains. “This allows N6 to tolerate changes in the HIV envelope, including the attachment of sugars in the V5 region, a major mechanism by which HIV develops resistance to other VRC01-class antibodies. Due to its potency, N6 may offer stronger and more durable prevention and treatment benefits, and researchers may be able to administer it subcutaneously (into the fat under the skin) rather than intravenously. In addition, its ability to neutralize nearly all HIV strains would be advantageous for both prevention and treatment strategies.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Earth’s Plants Are Countering Some of the Effects of Climate Change

A new study published in Nature Communications has found that Earth’s plant life between 2002 and 2014 has absorbed so much carbon dioxide that the buildup of CO2 in the atmosphere has slowed down, despite humans pumping out more CO2 than ever before. The study also found that between 1982 and 2009, “about 18m square kilometers of new vegetation had sprouted on Earth’s surface, an area roughly twice the size of the United States.” The Economist reports: In 2014 humans pumped about 35.7 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the air. That figure has been climbing sharply since the middle of the 20th century, when only about 6 billion tons a year were emitted. As a consequence, the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere has been rising too, from about 311 parts per million (ppm) in 1950 to just over 400 in 2015. Yet the rate at which it is rising seems to have slowed since the turn of the century. According to Dr Keenan, between 1959 and 1989 the rate at which CO2 levels were growing rose from 0.75ppm per year to 1.86. Since 2002, though, it has barely budged. In other words, although humans are pumping out more CO2 than ever, less of it than you might expect is lingering in the air. Filling the atmosphere with CO2 is a bit like filling a bath without a plug: the level will rise only if more water is coming out of the taps than is escaping down the drain. Climate scientists call the processes which remove CO2 from the air “sinks.” The oceans are one such sink. Photosynthesis by plants is another: carbon dioxide is converted, with the help of water and light energy from the sun, into sugars, which are used to make more plant matter, locking the carbon away in wood and leaves. Towards the end of the 20th century around 50% of the CO2 emitted by humans each year was removed from the atmosphere this way. Now that number seems closer to 60%. Earth’s carbon sinks seem to have become more effective, but the precise details are still unclear. Using a mix of ground and atmospheric observations, satellite measurements and computer modeling, Dr Keenan and his colleagues have concluded that faster-growing land plants are the chief reason. That makes sense: as CO2 concentrations rise, photosynthesis speeds up. Studies conducted in greenhouses have found that plants can photosynthesis up to 40% faster when concentrations of CO2 are between 475 and 600ppm. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Earth’s Plants Are Countering Some of the Effects of Climate Change

Every Year of Smoking Causes About 150 New DNA Mutations That Can Make Cancer More Likely, Says Study

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Los Angeles Times: For every year that you continue your pack-a-day habit, the DNA in every cell in your lungs acquires about 150 new mutations. Some of those mutations may be harmless, but the more there are, the greater the risk that one or more of them will wind up causing cancer. The threat doesn’t stop there, according to a study in Friday’s edition of the journal Science. After a year of smoking a pack of cigarettes each day, the cells in the larynx pick up roughly 97 new mutations, those in the pharynx accumulate 39 new mutations, and cells in the oral cavity gain 23 new mutations. Even organs with no direct exposure to tobacco smoke appear to be affected. The researchers counted about 18 new mutations in every bladder cell and six new mutations in every liver cell for each “pack-year” that smokers smoked. The findings are based on a genetic analysis of 5, 243 cancers, including 2, 490 from smokers and 1, 063 from patients who said they had never smoked tobacco cigarettes. The researchers used powerful supercomputers to compare thousands of cancer genome sequences. The computers grouped the sequences into about 20 distinct categories, or “mutational signatures.” Mutations tied to five of these signatures were more common in tumors from smokers than in tumors from nonsmokers. One of the signatures involves a specific DNA nucleobase change — instead of a C for cytosine, there was an A for adenine — that “is very similar” to the change that occurs in the lab when cells are exposed to benzo[a]pyrene, a compound that the International Agency for Research on Cancer says is carcinogenic to humans. Most of the lung and larynx cancers obtained from smokers had this type of mutation, the researchers reported. They also found that the signature was more common among smokers than nonsmokers. Another mutational signature was characterized by Cs that should have been Ts (thymine) and vice versa. Although these changes can be found in all kinds of cancers, the signature was 1.3 to 5.1 times more common in tumors from smokers than in tumors from nonsmokers, according to the study. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Every Year of Smoking Causes About 150 New DNA Mutations That Can Make Cancer More Likely, Says Study

First-Ever Dinosaur Brain Tissue Found Preserved In a Pebble

sciencehabit quotes a report from Science Magazine: A decade ago, a fossil hunter was combing the beach in southeastern England when he found a strange, brown pebble. The surface of it caught his eye: It was smooth and strangely undulating, and also slightly crinkly in some places. That oddly textured pebble, scientists report today, is actually an endocast — an impression preserved in the rock — that represents the first known evidence of fossilized brain tissue of a dinosaur (likely a close relative of Iguanodon, a large, herbivorous type of dinosaur that lived about 133 million years ago). Human brains and bird brains are packed tightly into the brain case, so that their convolutions leave an impression of the inside of the case. But dinosaur (and reptile) brains are more loosely fitted; they are surrounded within the brain case by membranes called meninges, tough sheaths that protect and support the brain. So an endocast of a dinosaur brain might be expected to show those structures — and it did. But beneath them, remineralized in calcium phosphate, the researchers also spied a pattern of tiny capillaries and other cortical tissues — the sort of fabric you’d expect for the cortex of a brain. That those textures were pressed up against the brain case doesn’t necessarily mean that dinosaurs were bigger-brained and smarter than we thought, however: Instead, the dinosaur had likely simply toppled over and been preserved upside down, its brain tissue preserved by surrounding acidic, low-oxygen waters that pickled and hardened the membranes and tissues, providing a template for mineralization. The structure of the brain, studied with scanning electron microscopes, reveal similarities to both birds and crocodiles. The researchers reported their findings in a Special Publication of the Geological Society of London. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Uber’s Self-Driving Truck Went on a 120-Mile Beer Run To Make History

An anonymous reader writes: In the arms race to build self-driving vehicles, Uber-owned Otto just reached a landmark milestone by completing the first-ever commercial cargo run for a self-driving truck. On October 20, the self-driving truck left Fort Collins, Colorado at 1 a.m. and drove itself 120 miles on I-25 to Colorado Springs. The driver, who has to be there to help the truck get on and off the interstate exit ramps, moved to the backseat alongside a crowd of transportation officials to watch the historic ride. 2, 000 cases of Budweiser beer filled the trailer. “We’re just thrilled. We do think this is the future of transportation, ” James Sembrot, senior director of logistics strategy at Anheuser-Busch, told Business Insider. Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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Uber’s Self-Driving Truck Went on a 120-Mile Beer Run To Make History

"Splat" of Schiaparelli Mars Lander Likely Found

Long-time Slashdot reader Tablizer quotes Space Flight Now: Views from NASA’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter released Friday show the crash site where Europe’s experimental Schiaparelli lander fell to the red planet’s surface from a height of several miles, leaving a distinct dark patch on the Martian landscape…The image from MRO’s context camera shows two new features attributed to the Schiaparelli spacecraft, including a large dark scar spanning an estimated 50 feet (15 meters) by 130 feet (40 meters). Schiaparelli’s ground team believes it is from the high-speed impact of the lander’s main body… A little more than a half-mile (1 kilometer) to the south, a bright spot appears in the image, likely the 39-foot-diameter (12-meter) supersonic parachute and part of Schiaparelli’s heat shield, which released from the lander just before ESA lost contact.” Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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"Splat" of Schiaparelli Mars Lander Likely Found

MuckRock Identifies The Oldest US Government Computer Still in Use

Slashdot reader v3rgEz writes: When MuckRock started using public records to find the oldest computer in use by the U.S. government, they scoured the country — but it wasn’t until a few tipsters that they set their sights a little higher and found that the oldest computer in use by the government might be among other planets entirely. The oldest computer still in use by the U.S. government appears to be the on-board systems for the Voyager 1 and 2 space probes — nearly 40 years old, and 12.47 billion miles away from earth. (Last year NASA put out a call for a FORTRAN programmer to upgrade the probes’ software.) But an earlier MuckRock article identified their oldest software still in use on earth — “the computers inside the IRS that makes sure everybody is paying their taxes”. And it also identified their oldest hardware still in use — “the machines running the nuclear defense system”. (The launch commands are still stored on 8-inch floppy disks.) Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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MuckRock Identifies The Oldest US Government Computer Still in Use

Revolutionary Ion Thruster To Be Tested On International Space Station

Three Australian researchers have developed “an ion thruster that could replace the current chemical-based rocket propulsion technology, which requires huge volumes of fuel to be loaded onto a spacecraft.” Slashdot reader theweatherelectric shares this article from the ABC News: An Australian-designed rocket propulsion system is heading to the International Space Station for a year-long experiment that ultimately could revolutionize space travel. The technology could be used to power a return trip to Mars without refuelling, and use recycled space junk for the fuel… It will be placed in a module outside the ISS, powered, as Dr Neumann describes, by an extension cord from the station. “What we’ll be doing with our system is running it for as long as we can, hopefully for the entire year on the space station to measure how much force it’s producing for how long.” In the early 2000s “it was basically a machine the size of a fist that spat ions from a very hot plasma ball through a magnetic nozzle at a very high velocity, ” and the researchers are now hoping to achieve the same effect by recycling the magnesium in space junk. Read more of this story at Slashdot.