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(Current Affairs) Science & Technology, Defence, Environment | November + December: 2015

Science & Technology, Defense, Environment

Cell-free protein manufacturing platform a game changer (Free Available)
Nasa’s engine for next-generation rocket test-fired (Free Available)
90 percent of the viruses in the soft palate had the reverted form of the virus. (Free Available)
ISRO set to launch first space observatory satellite ‘ASTROSAT’ (Only for Online Coaching Members)
NASA building space shotgun to blast asteroids (Only for Online Coaching Members)

Cell-free protein manufacturing platform a game changer

The human body has a novel way of turning its proteins on and off to alter their function and activity in cells called phosphorylation — the reversible attachment of phosphate groups to proteins.
Using a special strain of E coli bacteria, the researchers built a cell-free protein synthesis platform technology that can manufacture large quantities of these human phosphoproteins for scientific study.
This will enable scientists to learn more about the function and structure of phosphoproteins and identify which ones are involved in disease.
Such knowledge could pave the way for new drugs for a myriad of diseases, including cancer.
Trouble in the phosphorylation process can be a hallmark of disease, such as cancer, inflammation and Alzheimer’s disease.
The human proteome (the entire set of expressed proteins) is estimated to be phosphorylated at more than 100,000 unique sites, making study of phosphorylated proteins and their role in disease a daunting task.
Along with Yale University researchers, Jewett combined state-of-the-art genome engineering tools and engineered biological “parts” into a “plug-and-play” protein expression platform that is cell-free.
Cell-free systems activate complex biological systems without using living intact cells.

Nasa’s engine for next-generation rocket test-fired

Nasa has performed a nearly 9-minute-long test of the engine at the heart of the US space agency’s next-generation megarocket that will take astronauts to asteroids, Mars and other deep-space missions.
The agency successfully tested an RS-25 engine at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. Four RS-25s will power the core stage of the Space Launch System (SLS) megarocket that will launch astronauts in the Orion spacecraft on missions to deep space and eventually on the journey to Mars.
The RS-25 blazed on the test stand for 535 seconds - the same amount of time the core engines will fire during an actual SLS launch.
The seven-test series is “designed to put the upgraded former space shuttle main engines through the rigorous temperature and pressure conditions they will experience during a launch,”
SLS and Orion are scheduled to blast off together for the first time in 2018, on a flight known as Exploration Mission 1 (EM-1). The seven-day EM-1 will send an unmanned Orion on a journey around the Moon, to test out many of the capsule’s key systems.

90 percent of the viruses in the soft palate had the reverted form of the virus

Flu viruses come in many strains, and some are better equipped than others to spread from person to person.
Scientists from MIT and the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) have now discovered that the soft palate — the soft tissue at the back of the roof of the mouth — plays a key role in viruses’ ability to travel through the air from one person to another.
The findings should help scientists better understand how the flu virus evolves airborne transmissibility and assist them in monitoring the emergence of strains with potential to cause global outbreaks.
Researchers made the surprising finding while examining the H1N1 flu strain, which caused a 2009 pandemic that killed more than 250,000 people.
Ram Sasi sekharan, one of the study’s senior authors, has previously shown that airborne transmissibility depends on whether a virus’ hem agglutinin (HA) protein can bind to a specific type of receptor on the surface of human respiratory cells.
Some flu viruses bind better to alpha 2-6 glycan receptors, which are found primarily in humans and other mammals, while other viruses are better adapted to alpha 2-3 glycan receptors, found predominantly in birds.
The 2009 strain was very good at binding to human alpha 2-6 receptors. In the new study, the researchers made four mutations in the HA molecule of this virus, which made it better suited to bind alpha 2-3 receptors instead of alpha 2-6.
They then used it to infect ferrets, which are often used to model human influenza infection.