Everlasting youth, and the hunt for brand spanking new metals

A bit of over 15 years in the past, scientists at Kyoto College in Japan made a exceptional discovery. Once they added simply 4 proteins to a pores and skin cell and waited about two weeks, a number of the cells underwent an surprising and astounding transformation: they turned younger once more. They became stem cells virtually similar to the sort present in a days-old embryo, simply starting life’s journey.

At the least in a petri dish, researchers utilizing the process can take withered pores and skin cells from a 101-year-old and rewind them in order that they act as in the event that they’d by no means aged in any respect.

Now, after greater than a decade of learning and tweaking so-called mobile reprogramming, quite a few biotech corporations and analysis labs say they’ve tantalizing hints that the method may very well be the gateway to an unprecedented new expertise for age reversal. Learn the total story.

—Antonio Regalado

This piece is from our forthcoming mortality-themed problem, launching tomorrow. If you wish to learn it when it comes out, you’ll be able to subscribe to MIT Expertise Overview for as little as $80 a yr.

Machine studying may vastly velocity up the seek for new metals

The information: Machine studying may assist develop new kinds of metals with helpful properties, corresponding to resistance to excessive temperatures and rust, in line with new analysis. A workforce of researchers from the Max Planck Institute managed to determine 17 promising new metals utilizing AI, which predicts which mixtures of metals will present promise much more exactly than present strategies of laboratory experimentation.

Why it issues: The invention may show helpful for a spread of sectors—for instance, metals that carry out properly at decrease temperatures may enhance spacecraft, whereas metals that resist corrosion may very well be used for boats and submarines. It may additionally pave the way in which for higher use of machine studying in supplies science. Learn the total story.

—Tammy Xu