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Scientists Use Caffeine To Control Genes (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: A team led by Martin Fussenegger of ETH Zurich in Basel has shown that caffeine can be used as a trigger for synthetic genetic circuitry, which can then in turn do useful things for us -- even correct or treat medical conditions. For a buzz-worthy proof of concept, the team engineered a system to treat type 2 diabetes in mice with sips of coffee, specifically Nespresso Volluto coffee. Essentially, when the animals drink the coffee (or any other caffeinated beverage), a synthetic genetic system in cells implanted in their abdomens switches on. This leads to the production of a hormone that increases insulin production and lowers blood sugar levels -- thus successfully treating their diabetes after a simple morning brew.
The system, published Tuesday in Nature Communications, is just the start, Fussenegger and his colleagues suggest enthusiastically. "We think caffeine is a promising candidate in the quest for the most suitable inducer of gene expression," they write. They note that synthetic biologists like themselves have long been in pursuit of such inducers that can jolt artificial genetics. But earlier options had problems. These included antibiotics that can spur drug-resistance in bacteria and food additives that can have side effects. Caffeine, on the other hand, is non-toxic, cheap to produce, and only present in specific beverages, such as coffee and tea, they write. It's also wildly popular, with more than two billion cups of coffee poured each day worldwide.
The system, published Tuesday in Nature Communications, is just the start, Fussenegger and his colleagues suggest enthusiastically. "We think caffeine is a promising candidate in the quest for the most suitable inducer of gene expression," they write. They note that synthetic biologists like themselves have long been in pursuit of such inducers that can jolt artificial genetics. But earlier options had problems. These included antibiotics that can spur drug-resistance in bacteria and food additives that can have side effects. Caffeine, on the other hand, is non-toxic, cheap to produce, and only present in specific beverages, such as coffee and tea, they write. It's also wildly popular, with more than two billion cups of coffee poured each day worldwide.
Does that mean you can only have one coffee per day?
I don't think they've thought this idea all the way through.
No sig today...
the team engineered a system to treat type 2 diabetes in mice with sips of coffee, specifically Nespresso Volluto coffee
Without even being asked to, the mice coded a small but functional operating system for Raspberry Pi. Though it was quickly infested with catware, it did basically run.
Is there anything it can't do`?
No, no, no! We need more journalists. There are only a handful of real journalists left. The ones you're complaining about are really advocates for one side or the other pretending to be journalists.
I think most readers are smart enough to recognize the difference between journalism and advocacy. My main complaint is that very few of them (the pretenders) seem to educated. It's nearly impossible to read an article by one of our local writers without finding multiple misspelled words and a few grammatical errors. Words are their tools and you'd think a "professional" writer would know how to use those tools.
There are a lot of bio-active chemicals in coffee, caffeine being the most obvious. Interchangeably using the words coffee and caffeine to report the results of an experiment is sloppy and misleading.
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Geneticists Learn to Code in Java
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
Some people have caffeine cause multiple health problems and can't use it. Like myself for example. Guess we get cut out of the medical future.
I use caffeine to control scientists.
How many cups of coffee did you have today? I had about 5 strong cups yesterday. I foresee people ending up in the hospital with low blood sugar on a regular basis. And it is NOT " ...only present in specific beverages, such as coffee and tea..". This is just being deliberately stupid to support a thing you want to do.
E Proelio Veritas.
Read it as "Scientists use caffeine to control Gases" and was dumbfounded for a minute!