Our quest to find novel compounds in nature that we can use against human diseases —a process called bioprospecting — has led a research team to a small frog found in India. From the skin slime of the colorful Hydrophylax bahuvistara, researchers reported finding a peptide — a small piece of protein — that can destroy many strains of human flu and can even protect mice against the flu.
Antibiotics used to prevent diseases in livestock are creating a world of hurt for humans and the soil we depend on for food. Bacterial resistance to antibiotics is a global health issue. The overuse, underuse, and poor use of these life-saving drugs is rapidly removing them as a treatment option for serious infections in humans—plus bacteria are naturally adaptive.
The squiggly guys in this article's cover image are Propionibacterium acnes. These bacteria live in low-oxygen conditions at the base of hair follicles all over your body. They mind their own business, eating cellular debris and sebum, the oily stuff secreted by sebaceous glands that help keep things moisturized. Everybody has P. acnes bacteria—which are commonly blamed for causing acne—but researchers took a bigger view and discovered P. acnes may also play a part in keeping your skin clear.
Within the coming months, software startup Neurable plans to introduce the next paradigm in virtual and augmented reality: the brain–computer interface (BCI).
Tremendous strides have been made in the treatment and outlook for patients infected with HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus. Treatment with a combination of antiretroviral drugs can keep patients with HIV alive for decades, without symptoms of the infection. The trouble is, if HIV-infected people stop taking their medications, the virus takes over in full force again—because the virus hides out quietly in cells of the immune system, kept in check, but not killed by the treatment.
Marijuana is legal to use for medical purposes in 28 states and the District of Columbia, but the quick development of this new industry could have left some regulation issues in the lurch.
Before you bite into that beautiful tomato in your garden, the tomato fruitworm, or the Colorado potato beetle, might have beat you to it.
If you want to appreciate the value of microbes, look no further than a chunk of cheese. Because cheese roughly traces back to the Neolithic Era, we might say the earliest cheesemakers were the first humans to manipulate microbes—without even knowing it. Now, thanks to microbiologists and the long tradition of cheesemaking, we know a lot more about the microbes that make our favorite types of cheese possible.
"Necessity, not novelty," is a phrase I use often when it comes to HoloLens development. It would be fair to call it my mantra, or mission statement, as I prototype and explore software creation on this new frontier of mixed reality.
Scientists are constantly on the search for new organisms, species, and other types of life. A special group of these researchers, calling themselves "bioprospectors," dive deep into mines to find unique lifeforms with special properties not found anywhere else.
A tiny louse is responsible for decimating the citrus industry. Diaphorina citri, the louse in question, better known as the Asian citrus psyllid, harbors and spreads the "Candidatus Liberibacter asiaticus" bacteria that causes citrus greening disease.
You know the signs—sneezing, fever, nagging cough, no energy, no appetite. It's the flu, but this time, it's your dog who's down and out. Yes, dogs get the flu, too. However, a team from the University of Rochester Medical Center and their collaborators have developed a new vaccine that may make the doggy flu a thing of the past.
Where in the world did it come from? All of a sudden, one day, someone had an infection with flesh-eating bacteria. It captured headlines and worldwide attention because it was such a severe, strange, uncontrollable, and really disgusting condition.
Over 1.2 million people in the US are infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)—and one out of eight of them don't know it. Even after decades of intense research into the virus, there's still no cure for it. One of the big problems is that the virus hides out in certain cells of the body, resisting treatments that kill it.
Despite the availability of a vaccine against it, almost 50% of men aged 18-59 in the US are infected with the human papillomavirus (HPV). Why?
Ask anyone that works on the development of driverless vehicle technology and there is a very good chance that AutonomouStuff will have supplied something to their project.
As researchers learn more and more about our intestinal bacteria—also called the gut microbiome—we're finding out that these microbes aren't just influencing our health and wellness, they're a useful tool for improving it, too.
Cholera may be rare in the US, but cases of the disease have increased worldwide since 2005, particularly in Africa, southeast Asia, and Haiti. An estimated 3 to 5 million people are infected, and more than 100,000 die from the disease globally each year, mostly from dehydration.
Specialized cells in the lining of the gut may provide a key to preventing an infectious brain disease caused by misfolded proteins.
One thing you'll find a lot of in the Windows Store for HoloLens is demos and mockups, but very few projects are as fully realized and fully-functioning as Muralize. Created by Magnopus, an all-female development team, Muralize first appeared in the Windows Store in late-November of 2016, and makes it easy and fun to create real-life murals using a HoloLens.
True innovation tends to come from the places we least expect as developers. The Microsoft HoloLens is still a very new product, and some of the other headsets are still just ideas, so the rules for mixed reality are not set in stone. That means all the real problems to be solved are yet to come.
Even though the 88th Academy Awards have come and gone, there's a good chance you still haven't seen all the films that were nominated—or even those that won big.
As many of you know, I have been running a couple of series here on Null Byte about digital forensics called Digital Forensics for the Aspiring Hacker and Digital Forensics Using Kali. Although many readers have seemed to enjoy these series, just as many seem to be pondering, "Why should I study digital forensics?"
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! The Holy Grail of any hacker is to develop a zero-day exploit—an exploit that has never been seen by antivirus (AV) and other software developers, as well as intrusion detection system (IDS) developers. In that way, you can exploit systems with your newly discovered vulnerability with impunity!
Not too long ago, Sony was looking to create a method for theming the interface of their Xperia smartphones and came up with a framework called Runtime Resource Overlay (RRO). They then contributed this framework to Android's main code base, and Google has since taken over the development of RRO as a way for manufacturers to implement themes in their skinned versions of Android.
Dropping upwards of $60 on a new game can really break the bank, and being a struggling college student leaves me having to decide whether to pick up the latest title or, you know, eat. But often my more primitive urges win out, meaning the only way to enjoy the latest and greatest games are vicariously, using increasingly-popular live streams.
Although iOS 8.4 was just released, the team behind the iOS 8.3 jailbreak have updated their tool for the latest operating system, and will work on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod touch. So if you've been wanting to get all your tweaks back, or want to start exploring all of Cydia's options, now's the time to jailbreak.
With each day that dawns, there is a new, major hack that makes the news headlines. If you are paying attention, there are usually numerous hacks each day and far more that never make the news or are kept private by the victims. Every so often, a hack is so important that I feel compelled to comment on it here to help us learn something about the nature of hacking and IT security. This is one of those cases. Last week, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM) revealed that they had been ...
Whether it's terrorism or brain-hungry zombies you're neutralizing, first-person shooters are an awesome way to immerse yourself within a new world and kill some time with your iPad or iPhone. And with so many games available in this genre, we wanted to show off ten of our absolute favorites.
There are many, many home remedies out there for relieving itchy mosquito bites. Everything from mud to banana peels and basil leaves to Alka-Seltzer tablets can help curb the itch. But before you even have to resort to any of those methods, you should be thinking about prevention. Wearing white clothing can help to keep mosquitoes aways from your skin, and there are many plants that will help mask your mosquito-attracting smell. But there's even more ways to keep those bloodsucking bugs away.
Sometimes, stock just doesn't cut it. When you're sick of the limitations in Sense on your HTC One, a new ROM can be a ray of sunshine. By installing a custom ROM, you can add or unlock new features in Sense, or you can get a pure Android experience instead. It's all up to you.
Once you unlock your bootloader and root, you're left with one more hurdle to overcome, and that's getting S-Off.
Keeping up with current events is a good step towards becoming a well-informed person, but sometimes it's a chore. In-between work, school, commuting, social lives, and hobbies, it can be extremely hard to find time to pick up a newspaper or browse CNN to find out what's going on in the world.
A rooted Android device means we're on our way to some truly amazing customization options. But there may be a few steps left to completing that journey, and a major one is installing a custom recovery.
Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! Continuing with my Wi-Fi hacking series, this article will focus on creating an invisible rogue access point, which is an access point that's not authorized by the information technology staff and may be a significant security vulnerability for any particular firm.
If you've got yourself a Brain Slug and some black paint, you're in business. This video tutorial will show you how to paint that Brainslug (Triboniophorus tyrannus) black for use as headwear on a Pyro in TF2.
Get some simple home repair and improvement advice from the H.O.W. TV team. Watch this video tutorial to learn how to tighten screw hooks and eye hooks.
Get some simple home repair and improvement advice from the H.O.W. TV team. Watch this video tutorial to learn how to make a clamp when you don't have one.
In this sports how-to video, Farmington HS boys basketball coach Shane Wyandt and team demonstrate 1-ball, ball handling drills. One ball handling drills are great for kids who are beginners to the sport of basketball. Follow along with this video and learn to do the speed dribble, change of pace dribble, fake crossover/stutter, crossover, between the legs, behind the back and the pivot drill with both the left and right hand.
These drills are named after the moves of the famous basketball player Michael Jordan. In this sports how-to video, Farmington HS boys basketball coach Shane Wyandt and team demonstrate the 2-spot Jordans drill. Watch and learn how to shots basketballs like Jordan himself with these 2 spot drills.