stories of more than passing significance, we think:
AI predicts all protein folds It took humanity about 100 years to understand the shape of a handful of proteins, and that was using the best brains and technology we had. Now AI system Alphafold has basically cracked the lot in minutes. In the short term, it will be a boon for medical researchers. And the long run? It implies there is an intelligence greater than our own starting to form on our planet. And that’s before quantum computing has got started. Anyway here’s Nature Briefings, AI predicts the shape of every protein
Determining the 3D shape of almost any protein known to science will soon be as simple as typing in a Google search. Researchers have used the revolutionary artificial-intelligence (AI) network AlphaFold to predict the structures of some 200 million proteins from one million species, covering nearly every known protein on the planet. The data will be uploaded to a free database. “It’s going to be an awesome resource,” says computational biologist Eduard Porta Pardo.Nature | 5 min read
Tiger, Tiger Yesterday was International Tiger Day and most of the great and good of the conservation world ran a promotion or did a little media to help these iconic animals. We’ve chosen a link to the inestimable WWF site where you can make a contribution by adopting a wild tiger. Remember how much carbon-capturing habitat that will save as well.
https://support.wwf.org.uk/adopt-a-tiger
Have a heart LSS is nothing if we’re not always promoting new ideas in medicine. Regular readers will recall our latest wheeze was Base editing. Well, here it is in action
Women on the Ball Women’s football has come on in leaps and bounds. Tomorrow the ladies offer us a nation -gripping, nay, world-gripping final. Let’s hope they read about this in places like Afghanistan and Texas, where the position of women is a little less favourable. Jonathan Liew for the Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2022/jul/30/women-euro-2022-final-england-germany
Shoot the Messenger Executing the bearer of bad news was one of the perks of tyranny in classical times. The same mindset is shown by those who have been trolling weather forecasters for stating simple facts. Next time you meet a climate denier (or an antivaxxer) you may be looking at a budding little dictator. Don’t date them! Merlyn Thomas for the BBC
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-62323048
#tiger #base editing #climate change #womens football #AI #protein fold
Learning, Science and Society 