Month: November 2017

The pink layer in the image is the extracellular matrix, which helps the epidermis stay attached to the underlying dermis. (credit: University of Chicago)

The genetic disorder epidermolysis bullosa is the stuff of nightmares. The epidermis contains the cells that form our body's boundary with the outside world; in epidermolysis bullosa, they lose their ability to hold on to the cells underneath them. Small scratches that healthy people wouldn't notice cause the skin to blister off, leaving these patients prone to infection. The constant inflammation makes cancer more likely. More than 40 percent of those afflicted don't even survive to adolescence.

Now, for the first time ever, researchers have restored functioning skin to a young epidermolysis bullosa patient. Their method? His lost skin was entirely replaced using stem cells that had been genetically engineered to replace the inherited defect. The basic outline of the work, published today in Nature, would have sounded like a work of science-fiction less than two decades ago.

The patient

The work was possible because of years of basic research and technology development. To begin with, we have a good handle on the genes involved in epidermolysis bullosa and how the proteins they encode work. The junction between the cells of the epidermis and underlying dermis contains a bed of proteins called the extracellular matrix. The cells on either side have specialized proteins that allow them to latch on to the extracellular matrix. Epidermolysis bullosa is caused by mutations that damage any of a number of genes that encode components of the extracellular matrix or the protein that latches on to them. Because we knew all of this, it's relatively easy to identify the damaged gene when doctors encounter a patient with epidermolysis bullosa.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Peter Dazeley)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation has not been able to break the encryption on the phone owned by a gunman who killed 26 people in a Texas church on Sunday.

"We are unable to get into that phone," FBI Special Agent Christopher Combs said in a press conference yesterday (see video).

Combs declined to say what kind of phone was used by gunman Devin Kelley, who killed himself after the mass shooting. "I'm not going to describe what phone it is because I don't want to tell every bad guy out there what phone to buy, to harass our efforts on trying to find justice here," Combs said.

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson)

Canada is legalizing marijuana and leaving it up to provincial governments to regulate its sale and distribution. The government of British Columbia asked for comments on the best way to manage the province's marijuana market. In a regulatory filing, IBM argued that the province should use a blockchain to manage its legal marijuana market.

That is probably not a sentence that you ever expected to read. But it's not as crazy as it sounds.

IBM helped build a different kind of blockchain

The idea of a blockchain originated with Bitcoin. The Bitcoin blockchain is the public, shared ledger that keeps track of payments in the Bitcoin network. The volatility of Bitcoin's virtual currency has hampered its mainstream adoption as a payment network. But companies quickly realized that the core concept of the blockchain could be repurposed for other applications.

Enlarge (credit: NASA/ESA)

Ever since LIGO (and now Virgo) started picking up gravitational waves, theorists have gone nuts. The volume of papers on exciting possibilities seems to grow faster than the disk space available to accommodate them. If I were sensible, I would probably ignore them. But I'm not, and you, dear reader, will suffer along with me.

When two black holes collide and merge, they emit gravitational waves, but we don't expect them to emit light. But is that really true? After all, black holes decay away by emitting Hawking radiation, so maybe there is some light associated with the event.

How black are we talking?

Now, it should be pointed out that Hawking radiation, though widely accepted as an inevitable consequence of black hole physics, has never been observed. The problem is that big, long-lived black holes emit tiny amounts of Hawking radiation at very long wavelengths. The low intensity, combined with the long wavelength, makes it pretty much impossible to detect. Tiny, short-lived black holes are much brighter and might be detectable... but, I'm not sure that anyone has any idea how such a black hole might be formed in the present-day Universe. Every black hole we know about is in the large and long-lived bucket.

Enlarge / Still from an industry-funded ad warning against municipal broadband in Fort Collins, Colorado. (credit: Priorities First Fort Collins)

Voters in Fort Collins, Colorado, yesterday approved a ballot question that authorizes the city to build a broadband network, rejecting a cable and telecom industry campaign against the initiative.

Fort Collins voters said "yes" to a ballot question that gives the city council permission "to establish a telecommunications utility to provide broadband services," The Coloradoan wrote. "Unofficial, partial returns as of 12:42 a.m. showed the measure passing with 57.15 percent of the vote."

The vote doesn't require the city to build a broadband network, but it gives the city council the permission it needs to move forward on the plan if it chooses to do so.