Researchers at UC Riverside have found a way to get into your body and your bloodstream. No, they’re not spiritual gurus or B-movie mad scientists. Nathaniel G. Portney, Yonghui Wu, Stefano Lonardi, and Mihri Ozkan from UCR’s departments of Bioengineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Biochemistry, and Electrical Engineering, and the Center for Nanoscale Science and Engineering, are just talented when it comes to manipulating DNA.

The researchers discovered a system to encode digital information within DNA. This method relies on the length of the fragments obtained by the partial restriction digest rather than the actual content of the nucleotide sequence. As a result, the technology eliminates the need to use expensive sequencing machinery.

Why is this discovery important? The human genome consists of the equivalent of approximately 750 megabytes of data – a significant amount of storage space. However, only about three percent of DNA goes into composing the more than 22,000 genes that make us what we are. The remaining 97 percent leaves plenty of room to encode information in a genome, allowing the information to be preserved and replicated in perpetuity.

Given the size of the DNA fragments (one base pair of DNA is 0.33 nanometers), one could store a large amount of information in a very small space. By storing messages within DNA, organizations can “tag” objects to verify authenticity, as well as to inconspicuously send data to a specific destination. “Already there are several companies using DNA to tag objects that they certify to be original and which then can be very difficult to counterfeit,” says Stefano Lonardi, Associate Professor of Computer Science & Engineering at UCR’s Bourns College of Engineering.

For example, the British company, Redweb Security, has developed something called i-powder that tags DNA and another company called PSA DNA Authentication services tags sports memorabilia.

“What we developed at UCR is a method to encode a message in DNA in a way that does not require an expensive sequencing machine,” notes Lonardi. “The decoding still requires a wet lab procedure, but the experimental procedure is significantly easier.”

The article, entitled “Length-based Encoding of Binary Data in DNA,” was published by the American Chemical Society in Langmuir December 18, 2007.

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Scientists have found hundreds of new marine creatures in the vast, dark deep-sea surrounding Antarctica. Carnivorous sponges, free-swimming worms, crustaceans, and molluscs living in the Weddell Sea provide new insights into the evolution of ocean life.

Reporting this week in the journal Nature, scientists describe how creatures in the deeper parts of the Southern Ocean - the source for much of the deep water in the world ocean — are likely to be related to animals living in both the adjacent shallower waters and in other parts of the deep ocean.

A key question for scientists is whether shallow water species colonised the deep ocean or vice versa. The research findings suggest the glacial cycle of advance and retreat of ice led to an intermingling of species that originated in shallow and deep water habitats.

Lead author Professor Angelika Brandt from the Zoological Institute and Zoological Museum, University Hamburg says,

“The Antarctic deep sea is potentially the cradle of life of the global marine species. Our research results challenge suggestions that the deep sea diversity in the Southern Ocean is poor. We now have a better understanding in the evolution of the marine species and how they can adapt to changes in climate and environments.”

Dr Katrin Linse, marine biologist from British Antarctic Survey, says,

“What was once thought to be a featureless abyss is in fact a dynamic, variable and biologically rich environment. Finding this extraordinary treasure trove of marine life is our first step to understanding the complex relationships between the deep ocean and distribution of marine life.”

Three research expeditions, as part of the ANDEEP project (Antarctic benthic deep-sea biodiversity), onboard the German research ship Polarstern took place between 2002 and 2005. An international team from 14 research organisations investigated the seafloor landscape, its continental slope rise and changing water depths to build a picture of this little known region of the ocean. They found over 700 new species.

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A University of British Columbia astronomer with an international team has discovered the largest structures of dark matter ever seen. Measuring 270 million light-years across, these dark matter structures criss-cross the night sky, each spanning an area that is eight times larger than the full moon.

“The results are a major leap forward since the presence of a cosmic dark matter web that extends over such large distances has never been observed before,” says Ludovic Van Waerbeke, an assistant professor in the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy.

To glimpse the unseen structures, the team of French and Canadian scientists “X-rayed” the dark matter, an invisible web that makes up more than 80 per cent of the mass of the universe.

The team used a recently developed technique called “weak gravitational lensing,” which is similar to taking an X-ray of the body to reveal the underlying skeleton. The study relied on data gathered from the world’s largest digital camera.

“This new knowledge is crucial for us to understand the history and evolution of the cosmos,” says Van Waerbeke. “Such a tool will also enable us to glimpse a little more of the nature of dark matter.”

The astronomers observed how light from distant galaxies is bent and distorted by webs of dark matter as it travels toward Earth. They then mapped dark matter structures by measuring the distortions seen in these galaxy light patterns.

The study involved 19 researchers from 11 institutions and was led by UBC, the Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, the Universite Pierre and Marie Curie (UPMC) and the University of Victoria. Van Waerbeke and his co-authors will publish their findings in a forthcoming issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics. The submission can be seen at: http://arxiv.org/abs/0712.0884.

The team spent several years developing the gravitational lensing tool, which is one of the major goals of the Canada-France-Hawaii-Telescope (CFHT) Legacy Survey.

The gravitational lensing technique also played a pivotal role in another recent UBC first: UBC astrophysicist Catherine Heymans and Van Waerbeke produced jointly with an international team the highest resolution map ever of dark matter.

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