SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

In many parts of the world there is risk of a mosquito bite mainly in warms parts. But what effect does the booze in your blood have on the insect itself?

Intelligence agencies all over the world look to collect information pertinent to their various operations, and that involves hacking emails accounts. Google for a while now has been able to identify such government-backed
hackers , and notify potentially affected customers so they can take immediate action.
In an update on the ways Gmail is getting even more secure (which is good news in the wake of the Apple vs.
FBI scandal), Google revealed that as many as 1 million Gmail accounts may have been targeted by government-backed attackers so far.
Google did not divulge the exact number and did not explain how it knows when these hacks take place. But the company did say that it knows who the targets are – the list “often” includes “activists, journalists, and policy-makers taking bold stands around the world.”
When a hack is detected, a pink Warning tab appears on top of Gmail urging affected users to better protect themselves.
In addition to that bar, users will now get a full-page warning with instructions about how to stay safe, the company said in an announcement on Thursday. This is what you’ll see if a government is trying to hack into your Gmail account:
Google did say that these warnings are rare, with “fewer than 0.1% of users ever” receiving one. However, Gmail is not a nimble startup looking to take off. It’s a service that has more than 1 billion users as of February 2016. That means that “fewer than 0.1% of users” translates to as many as about 1 million users who may have received warnings about their email being hacked by a government.
In its security update, Google also said that it’s improving its Safe Browsing warnings that appear in Gmail every time a user clicks on what’s deemed to be a shady link that could lead to malware or phishing attacks. This is what it looks like, so don’t be surprised if you see it in Gmail in the future:
Google said that since introducing a visual element to mark unencrypted emails in Gmail 44 days ago, the amount of inbound mail sent over an encrypted connection increased by 25%.
Google wants to further improve email encryption, and the company partnered up with Comcast, Microsoft and Yahoo to submit a draft IETF specification for “SMTP Strict Transport Security.” Essentially, Google and its partners want to make sure that encrypted email stays encrypted along its entire path from sender to recipient.
News source : http://bgr.com/2016/03/25/gmail-warning-government-hackers/

Ferrodoxins are the group of non-hame iron sulphur protein which are responsible for electron transfer in plants and animals (bacteria). They serve the same function that cytochromes perform in animals. Ferrodoxins are involved in the realese of energy by oxidising glucose with molecular O2 in mitochondria inside the living cell. they have the moleculr weight 6000-12000amu which may contain 1 to 4 or 8 Fe-atoms. The Fe atoms are surround by 4 sulphur atoms and they may be represented as Fe(S-system)4

Biological role of Ferrodoxins
1. ferrodoxins have vital role for electrons transfer in plants and animals and serve the same function that cytochormes perform In animals.
2. Some bacterial ferrodoxins forms clustor compounds such as Fe2S4(S-Cysteine)4. There are protein bound Fe3S4 Clusters in some enzymes and bacteria.
3. The [2Fe;2s] proteins also contain Cytrine groups bound to Fe and these proteins are important in photosynthasis and gain one electron per Fe upon reduction.

An artificial bacterial genome with the smallest number of genes needed for life has been created in a lab, opening the way for creating synthetic organisms with customized sets of genes aimed at specific tasks such as eating oil.
The newly created bacterium, which can metabolize nutrients and self-replicate (divide and reproduce) brings the team one step closer to building custom artificial life with particular functionalities, they said.
The artificial bacterium has only 473 genes, compared with the thousands that exist in wild bacteria. The team doesn't yet know the function of 149 of these essential-to-life genes. [Unraveling the Human Genome: 6 Molecular Milestones]
"We're showing how complex life is even in the simplest of organisms," said
Craig Venter , founder and CEO of the J. Craig Venter Institute (JCVI), where the study was completed. "These findings are very humbling in that regard."
The story starts with a genus of bacteria called Mycoplasma, germs that have the smallest genomes of any organism found in nature and tend to live in humans and other mammals.
Venter said he and another of the study's authors, Clyde Hutchison of JCVI, had discussed in the 1990s what it would take to answer basic questions about the way life functions. Their conclusion was that they'd need to build an organism with the smallest genome possible.
In 1995, Venter said, other researchers estimated such an artificial organism would need, at minimum, 256 genes to be viable. That turned out to be wrong – but it wasn't until now that they knew just how wrong.
The team used the genome of the M. mycoides to create their bacteria. That bacterium's genome was synthesized in 2010, creating the first self-replicating cell from an artificial genome . The Venter Institute called that bacterium syn1.0. That bacterium, though, had 1.1 million base pairs in its DNA, or 901 genes.
Their new bacterium has 531,000 base pairs, for 473 genes. To cut down the number of genes the team used the syn1.0 genome as a template. From there they designed a set of possible genomes for the bacterium and broke them into shorter strings. To see which genes were absolutely necessary for life, the scientists inserted genetic sequences called transposons that disrupted the functioning of a given gene. If after that the cell stayed alive, then it was considered nonessential, and snipped out. Conversely, if the cell died, then it was clear that whatever was taken out was essential.
However, the process wasn't as simple as that, Venter said. Sometimes a single gene could be removed by itself, but coupled with another it became essential. Venter likened it to an aircraft: "If you know nothing about airplanes and you're looking at a 777… and you remove the right wing, the airplane can still fly and land, so you'd say it's not essential, and you don't really discover the essentiality until you remove the second one."
Eventually they built a synthetic genome that could be inserted into another
Mycoplasma bacteria (the old genome is removed), which on its own was able to grow and live like a normal cell. They called the result syn3.0. [Infographic: How Scientists Created a Semi-Artificial Life Form ]
Venter and his team added that the minimum number of genes required for life would differ depending on what organism they started with — they would get a very different result had they begun with an algae species, for example. Which genes are essential can also depend on the environment a cell or bacterium is in.
For example, in early work on
Mycoplasma genitalium , the growth media was both fructose and glucose. Knocking out a gene that transports fructose may not affect a cell that is in a glucose-rich environment, and knocking out a glucose transporter wouldn't affect it, either. But if both are knocked out, then the cell will die. So which gene is essential is not an all-or-nothing proposition.
Hutchison, lead author of the study and a distinguished investigator at JCVI, noted that the minimal genome would also depend on what one wants the cell to do — a bacterium that glows in the dark will have a different minimal genome than something else.
"There will be lots of minimal genomes," Venter said.
Maria Lluch Senar, a staff scientist and biotechnologist at the Center for Genomic Regulation in Barcelona, Spain, said the achievement is exciting, because it has revealed a method for designing genomes that is much faster than the trial-and-error methods currently used. "The thing is here you can identify which is the minimal genome you want," she said, for a given function. "With this technique you can define which is the best combination of fragments of DNA … You can assemble them later on and generate different molecules that can be tested."
"In theory, we could add gene sets and essentially recreate any organism," Venter said. "It would be an important experimental tool."
That said, the technique promises better avenues for making germs that do everything from eating oil to making biofuels.
"Our long-term vision has been to design and build synthetic organisms on demand where you can add in specific functions and predict what the outcome is going to be," said study co-author Dan Gibson, an associate professor at the Venter Institute.
A minimal cell would devote the maximum amount of energy into whatever you designed the cell to do, and have less potential to mutate, and be easier to engineer, Gibson said.
That ability to add gene sets could also aid in the understanding of why some bacteria evolved the way they did — and even life in general, though that's more of a stretch, Hutchison said. "We may be seeing some processes that occurred early in evolution," he said. "But [ Mycoplasma's genomes] are not small because they are primitive, they are small because they evolved from a cell that had a few thousand genes and they've lost genes that they don't need in their environment."
Venter said the plan is to keep working on adding genes to the synthetic genome, to tease out the functions of the unknown genes. "We want to get to where we understand 100 percent of the genes in the organism, not just 66 percent."
#artificial_genes
news source livescience

We have been hearing about Samsung’s plans to make foldable smartphones for sometime now and the company has also been talking regarding this technology for years. A recently filed patent application by Samsung has surfaced which shows the foldable smartphone tech in advanced development stage.
As per the images, the phone has a large display and the design shows a hinge that will be used to fold and unfold the phone. Also seen are various buttons on the sides of the phone but the trademark Samsung home button is missing. A camera sensor is seen in one of these images along with two magnetic studs that will ensure that the phone remains secure while folding and unfolding.
Reports from last year had stated that Samsung is working on dual screen foldable smartphone under
Project Valley . The company had already patented a the foldable smartphone technology that described how dual display handset will be able to open and close in different configuration with the use of hinges. The above patent builds further on this tech and shows how the device will function.
Samsung has been rumored to release a foldable smartphone in 2016 and may be the recent patent could be a move towards it.

Chines smartphone company Huawei recently scheduled an event on April 6th in London, where it is expected to introduce its flagship P9 smartphone with dual rear cameras. Now VentureBeat (@evleaks ) has posted images for the smartphone along with some of its specifications. The image reveals a phone with a metal-like finish and a fingerprint sensor on the back, but it will apparently not have a full metal body, according to the leak (source).
According to the leak, the phone will have a 1080p screen and will not be smaller than the 5.2-inch P9. It is said to pack 3GB of RAM, similar to the P9, but its processor will not be as powerful as P9’s Kirin 950 SoC. We still don’t have the complete specifications of the smartphone.
Huawei is expected to announced the P9 in several variants – P9, P9 Premium and P9 Max, in addition to the P9 Lite. We will have to wait for two more weeks to find out what Huawei has to offer.

A company in France has developed a new smart umbrella that when paired with a smartphone app, can not only predict the weather but also send you a notification if you leave it behind. 'Oombrella', the smart umbrella is fitted with a capsule having sensors for air pressure, humidity, temperature and light.
This setup allows the umbrella to tell whether or not it may rain in the next 15 minutes, notifying the user via a Bluetooth-connected smartphone with the corresponding app. It can also record weather data and can hold camera at the top. The capsule also has an integrated buzzer and light so that users can be alerted when they get a call.
The ribs of the umbrella are made of Kevlar, a synthetic fibre of high tensile strength, TechTimes reported. According to the company Wezzoo, that developed Oombrella, the device is "really wind-resistant" with the capability of withstanding storms, hailstorms and snowstorms. The handle has a waterproof, ergonomic design that makes it easy to hold while ensuring that the components inside are not damaged by rainwater.
The canopy is made from the "finest shiny material", and is UV-resistant.
source:timesofindia