Researchers rewire the genetics of E. coli, make it virus-proof

也就是说,我们可以改造出一种生物,它不会受到现有疾病的影响,但离开特定的非自然氨基酸就不能正常生活?
Hmm,听起来像一种奴隶制度。

Many of the fundamental features of life don’t necessarily have to be the way they are. Chance plays a major role in evolution, and there are always alternate paths that were never explored, simply because whatever evolved previously happened to be good enough. One instance of this idea is the genetic code, which converts the information carried by our DNA into the specific sequence of amino acids that form proteins. There are scores of potential amino acids, many of which can form spontaneously, but most life uses a genetic code that relies on just 20 of them.

Over the past couple of decades, scientists have shown that it doesn’t have to be that way. If you supply bacteria with the right enzyme and an alternative amino acid, they can use it. But bacteria won’t use the enzyme and amino acid very efficiently, as all the existing genetic code slots are already in use.

In a new work, researchers have managed to edit bacteria’s genetic code to free up a few new slots. They then filled those slots with unnatural amino acids, allowing the bacteria to produce proteins that would never be found in nature. One side effect of the reprogramming? No viruses could replicate in the modified bacteria.

Source: Researchers rewire the genetics of E. coli, make it virus-proof | Ars Technica

小红书6月4日微博发问后账号被封,遭中国网信办调查

看来是年轻的新媒体运营人员真的不知道,洗脑很成功,党国可以放心了。

6月4日,小红书在微博(Weibo)上发帖称:“大声告诉我,今天的日期是____!”小红书总部位于上海,阿里巴巴集团控股有限公司(Alibaba Group Holding Ltd., BABA, 9988.HK, 简称:阿里巴巴)和腾讯控股有限公司(Tencent Holdings Ltd., 0700.HK, 简称﹕腾讯)均持有其股份。

上周五的这则帖子很快就被删除了;当天是中国军队镇压天安门广场学生和平抗议活动的32周年纪念日。到北京时间上周五午夜时分,小红书拥有1,400万粉丝的整个微博账号已经消失,取而代之的是一条消息,说该账户因涉嫌违反法律法规现已无法查看。

据知情人士透露,小红书正配合中国国家互联网信息办公室(简称:网信办)就此事展开内部调查。人们认为小红书是Instagram式社交媒体平台和亚马逊(Amazon)式电商网站的结合体。

目前尚不清楚小红书在社交媒体上发帖的初衷是什么,不过其中一位知情人士称,这篇帖子并无意提及1989年的事件。最近几个月,小红书在每周五都发布了类似的帖子,庆祝即将到来的周末。

Source: 小红书6月4日微博发问后账号被封,遭中国网信办调查 – 华尔街日报

Early adopters of Chinese vaccines see case surges; China plows ahead anyway

广州到现在也没公布确诊病例中疫苗接种情况。

The dramatic ramp up comes at an awkward time, however. Early adopters of China’s vaccines have seen dramatic surges in COVID-19 cases—despite high vaccination rates—and are now backing away from the country’s offerings.

In Bahrain, for instance, officials are now offering high-risk people who have already received two doses of China’s Sinopharm vaccine a third vaccine dose—but one made by Pfizer-BioNTech. The apparent vote of no confidence by officials is striking: Bahrain was one of the first countries to back and rollout Sinopharm’s vaccine, and it has had a highly successful vaccination campaign. Nearly 58 percent of the Persian Gulf country has received at least one dose of a vaccine, and most of the vaccines given in Bahrain are from Sinopharm. But the country is now seeing its worst wave of COVID-19 yet and the government has recently issued a two-week lockdown to try to get transmission under control.

The Seychelles went through a similar struggle. The archipelago saw a dramatic spike in cases in mid-May, despite having around 70 percent of its population vaccinated with at least one dose. Like Bahrain, the Seychelles had largely relied on the Sinopharm vaccine.

Dubai, which has also relied on Sinopharm’s vaccine, is now quietly offering residents who have been fully vaccinated with the Sinopharm vaccine the opportunity to get re-vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Source: Early adopters of Chinese vaccines see case surges; China plows ahead anyway | Ars Technica