Day: 08/15/2015

Researchers have designed a simple fusion reactor that could be running in 10 years – ScienceAlert

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Scientists at Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) in the US have designed a 6.6-metre-wide fusion reactor that they say could provide electricity to around 100,000 people. Even better, it could be up and running within 10 years, according to their calculations.

For decades, scientists have been trying to find a way to harness nuclear fusion – the reaction that powers stars – because of its ability to produce almost-unlimited energy supplies using little more than seawater, and without emitting greenhouse gasses. But despite many promising designs, finding a way to contain and commercialise the reaction on Earth has proven far more challenging than imagined. In fact it’s a long-running joke among scientists that practical nuclear fusion power plants are just 30 years away – and always will be.

But not only does the new MIT design promise to be cheaper and smaller than current reactors, it also provides hope that commercial nuclear fusion reactors could become a reality in our lifetime, with the team explaining that similar devices in size and complexity have taken just five years to build.

“Fusion energy is certain to be the most important source of electricity on Earth in the 22nd century, but we need it much sooner than that to avoid catastrophic global warming,” David Kingham, a UK-based nuclear fusion expert who wasn’t involved in the research, told David L. Chandler from the MIT news office. “This paper shows a good way to make quicker progress.”

To explain it very simply, nuclear fusion relies on fusing hydrogen atoms together at super-high temperatures to release enormous amounts of energy. This is different to the nuclear fission used in nuclear power plants, which is where scientists split atoms to generate electricity – a process that’s less stable and also produces large amounts of nuclear waste.

So why aren’t we already using nuclear fusion to generate ridiculous amounts of clean energy? Well, that’s because the reaction requires heating hydrogen atoms to hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius. And keeping that super-hot plasma together in one place for long enough for the atoms to fuse is a lot harder than it sounds.

Current fusion reactors use what’s known as the tokomak design to contain the plasma, which relies on a donut-shaped device to create a strong magnetic field. MIT’s new reactor, which they’re calling the ARC reactor, essentially works in exactly the same way, but it uses new commercially available superconductors to create coils with far stronger magnetic fields.

This means they can contain even more plasma in a much smaller space than previously thought possible, and increases the reactor’s fusion power by around a factor of 10 compared to current tokomak reactors. “The much higher magnetic field allows you to achieve much higher performance,” said PhD candidate Brandon Sorbom, who worked on the project.

In fact, the MIT team calculates that this reactor would produce roughly the same amount of power as the world’s most powerful fusion reactor, called ITER, which is currently being built in France. ITER is around twice the size of their design, and costs around US$40 billion – no word as yet on what the price tag on the ARC reactor will be, but the MIT news office claims that it’s a “fraction of the cost”.

Even more impressive is the fact that the ARC reactor will theoretically be capable of producing three times more electricity than it needs to run – which doesn’t sound like much, but will make it the first proposed fusion reactor to ever generate enough energy to break even.

Of course, the MIT design, which has been described in the journal Fusion Engineering and Design, is still very much in the conceptual stage for now. All of these calculations have been done using computer models, and they haven’t been put into practice just yet. But they do rely on existing technology and proven concepts. “We’re not extrapolating to some brand-new regime,” said lead researcher Dennis Whyte.

According to Kingham, the research is of “exceptional quality” and “shows that going to higher magnetic fields, an MIT speciality, can lead to much smaller (and hence cheaper and quicker-to-build) devices”.

“The next step … would be to refine the design and work out more of the engineering details,” he told MIT News. “But already the work should be catching the attention of policy makers, philanthropists and private investors.”

Mumps outbreak strikes Illinois college students who already received TWO MMR vaccines

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Dozens of students attending the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) have come down with the mumps virus in what authorities believe could snowball into an all-out epidemic. But once again, the vast majority of afflicted students were already twice vaccinated for mumps (MMR) prior to catching the disease, upending government claims about this dangerous and useless vaccine.

Reports indicate that some 69 cases of mumps have thus far been reported on the UIUC campus, and most of these, according to Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) Director Nirav Shah, occurred among students who had previously received two rounds of the combination vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella.

As you may recall, the efficacy of the mumps component of the MMR vaccine was called into question by two former Merck scientists who filed a False Claims Act complaint in 2010. They allege that the vaccine giant fabricated study data to promote this controversial vaccine as effective, when in reality it doesn’t actually work as claimed.

The escalating mumps outbreak at UIUC further substantiates what these two fleshed out in their court filing — that despite getting vaccinated for mumps with MMR, individuals are still getting sick. And yet IDPH’s Shah believes the solution is to push more MMR vaccines on students to supposedly curb the disease’s spread.

He told the media that, even though the first two rounds of MMR apparently didn’t work amongst the affected students at UIUC, they should still opt for a third round of the vaccine because it “could help control the outbreak,” reports Fox News.

MMR vaccine may have triggered Illinois mumps outbreak, but health authorities are encouraging people to keep getting jabbed

Only in the twisted minds of vaccine pushers does it make sense to keep injecting a potentially life-threatening vaccine into people even after earlier jabs of the same vaccine definitively did not work. Shah claims that the MMR vaccine begins to work roughly two weeks after it’s administered, but why, then, did all the vaccinated students still contract mumps?

The answer is that the MMR vaccine doesn’t prevent mumps, and may actually spread it. Each injection contains attenuated, or a weakened version of, live mumps virus. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) openly admits this on its website, noting that the three viruses in MMR “grow” and cause infection after being injected.

Once inside the body, these viruses have the potential to “shed” to others, including the unvaccinated and those with compromised immune systems. A mumps outbreak that occurred in the Netherlands, in which the genotype D mumps virus strain spread among contacts close to individuals recently vaccinated for MMR, was believed to have been triggered by MMR vaccine shedding.

As the head of IDPH, Shah should know this, or at least be aware of this particular study and others like it that suggest a causal link between vaccine shedding and disease outbreaks. But he never even mentioned it in the media, choosing instead to push the very vaccine that may have been responsible for triggering this outbreak in Illinois.

“In light of long standing, significant gaps in scientific knowledge about infectious microbes, the microbiome, epigenetics and the nature of human health, the long term safety and effectiveness of using live attenuated virus vaccines and genetically modified virus-vectored vaccines has not yet been established,” explains a report by the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC).

“Sometimes the weakened vaccine strain live virus can mutate and regain virulence, including neurovirulence, which significantly raises risks of serious complications from vaccine strain virus infection.”

Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/050712_mumps_outbreak_MMR_vaccine_University_of_Illinois.html#ixzz3jnvdAlZM

Scientists edge closer to growing a human arm in the lab

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  • Experts at Massachusetts General Hospital developing cell adding process
  • Operation sees limbs stripped bare before being amalgamated with body
  • Trial already proved successful with rats and now trying for monkey arm
  • If primate experiment works, could pave the way for adapting process to work on human limbs

Expert scientists are on the verge of discovering how to grow human limbs which could one day attach to the bodies of amputees.

Led by mastermind young Austrian surgeon Harald Ott, the team at Massachusetts General Hospital are aiming to create the first ever ‘bio-limb’ to be attached to a monkey.

They’ve already performed such a feat on lab rats, and believe that if their primate experiment proves successful then they’ll have a working blueprint with which to advance the process even further – adapting it to the human body.

Led by mastermind young Austrian surgeon Harald Ott, the Boston based team are aiming to create the first ever 'bio-limb' to be attached to a monkey

Led by mastermind young Austrian surgeon Harald Ott, the Boston based team are aiming to create the first ever ‘bio-limb’ to be attached to a monkey

Vermont College of Medicine lung expert Daniel Weiss told The Times: This is science fiction come to life.

‘Harald is a bright young man and he is setting the world on its edge with the things he comes up with.’

The operation sees scientists use a powerful detergent to get rid of a donor limb’s soft tissues – killing all its cells – leaving only a ‘scaffold’ of blood vessels, muscles, tendons and bones.

They've already performed such a feat on lab rats, and believe that if their primate experiment proves successful then they'll have a working blueprint with which to advance the process even further

They’ve already performed such a feat on lab rats, and believe that if their primate experiment proves successful then they’ll have a working blueprint with which to advance the process even further

The operation sees scientists use a powerful detergent to get rid of a donor limb's soft tissues - killing all its cells - leaving only a 'scaffold' of blood vessels, muscles, tendons and bones

The operation sees scientists use a powerful detergent to get rid of a donor limb’s soft tissues – killing all its cells – leaving only a ‘scaffold’ of blood vessels, muscles, tendons and bones

New cells are then grown in the lab, which form blood or muscle cells with the limb, allowing it to adapt and mould to the body without being attacked by the immune system.

The team have already used the technique – derived by Dr Ott – to create an arm for a rat.

They are now trying to do the same for a macaque, with expectations high.

The Boston lab has already grown cells to help create human organs, and firmly believe they are on track to being able to do the same for limbs

The Boston lab has already grown cells to help create human organs, and firmly believe they are on track to being able to do the same for limbs

The team have already used the technique - derived by Dr Ott - to create an arm for a rat

The team have already used the technique – derived by Dr Ott – to create an arm for a rat

Dr Weiss admitted, however, that the step up from rodent to monkey offered many challenges.

He said: ‘There is just a lot more that primate limbs can do.

‘Opposable thumbs, for one thing.’

The Boston lab has already grown cells to help create human organs.

 

Secrets Of The People With Brown Eyes, That They Themselves Are Not Aware –

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The individuals who have brown eyes have the strange power of trust. They are flowing confidence to the interlocutor, so it is very easy to cause confidence, do not knowing you can easily open up to you an even say the biggest secrets you have. So this is one of the reasons why the individuals with brown eyes are very social type and have a lot of friends, so statistically they are shown as more desirable as friends.

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According to the scientists behind every person with brown eyes lies an energetic spirit that rejoices in life. The psychologist also have an opinion, they say that when individuals with brown eyes are ill in their look you can recognize their desire for life.
As we mentioned before how easy you can open up in front of a people with brown eyes, so they can be very emotional and have sympathy for you and even show some tears when sympathize with the pain of others, and also have great understanding for other people.
The psychologist say that the big hart people are the one with brown eyes, when women who has brown eye love they will do everything for the partner or the relatives she loves.
Be happy and proud because you have brown eyes. You belong to the group of people that has much humanity in themselves; all you need is to choose whether to show the humanity or to suppress in yourself.

Nikola Tesla free energy device: the greatest secret of inventor

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At the turn of the last century, a prolific inventor registered patents for a revolutionary energy device designed to convert natural cosmic energy into electricity. Nikola Tesla was born in Serbia in 1956 and emigrated to the U. S. in 1884. There, he started out working for fellow inventor Thomas Edison, and before long, Tesla established his own companies and labs where he developed the prototypes for technologies still in service today. Among these are the AC induction motor and transformer, early X-ray technology and a steam-powered oscillator. During his lifetime, the inventor registered more than 700 patents for his cutting-edge concepts.

Apparatus for the Utilization of Radiant Energy

Nikola Tesla obtained two patents for his radiant energy device in 1901. According to the inventor, the sun emits positively charged radiant energy, and the earth harbors negatively charged energy. When these two forces come together, they create a powerful cosmic force.

He designed his device to access this power and convert it into electricity. With this unlimited source of universal energy, which could be transmitted by wire or wirelessly throughout the planet, Tesla proposed to eliminate the need for gas, oil, coal and any other fuel for powering the industrial world.

Tesla’s “free energy device” accessed this unlimited source of energy with an antenna that was wired to one side of a capacitor and a ground wire placed into the earth that was wired to the other side. The positive solar radiation and the negative ground charge came together to create energy.

By adding a switching unit that allowed the capacitor to discharge stored energy at set intervals, Tesla created an oscillating output of power in the form of alternating current (AC), a type of electricity not yet in popular usage. Once the oscillation started, it would require a minute expenditure of power to remain in motion, making Tesla’s device extremely energy efficient.

Tesla recognized the inefficiency of the Edison direct current (DC) model, which was ubiquitous in American industry during his era. Direct current could only travel about 2 miles from generator to end-user due to its voltage limitations. This required a multitude of power stations to supply adequate electricity. While DC flows in a continuous line, AC switches direction up to 60 times per second, allowing far greater electric capacity and travel across longer distances with minimal power loss.

Why the Radiant Energy Device Never Reached the Mainstream

During his time, Tesla was called “the Modern Miracle-Worker” who is “Harnessing the Rays of the Sun, has Discovered Ways of Transmitting Power without Wires and of Seeing by Telephone; has Invented a Means of Employing Electricity as a Fertiliser; and, Finally, is Able to Manufacture Artificial Daylight”. There were many eyewitness to Tesla’s demonstations of “harnessing the rays of sun” who confirmed that he was able to deliver free electricity.

Historians speculate that U.S. political influence, driven by industrialists who wished to preserve the direct current status quo, doomed Tesla’s Radiant Energy Apparatus to obscurity for the next 100 years. The powerful fossil fuel industry and its investors also balked at the inventor’s boast that his device would replace all forms of energy in use at the time. Therefore, Tesla’s device remained untested in actual use. Speculation and controversy continue to shroud the great inventor’s brainchild, even as renewed enthusiasm celebrates his avant-garde vision.

Green Power for Household Use

A resurgence of interest in the 20th century inventor is driving the adaption of Tesla’s device for residential uses. Plans are available online that guide adventurous do-it-yourselfers in building these devices for less than $100 in materials. Promoters estimate that the use of a Tesla’s device saves between 60 and 100 percent of customary energy costs at home, at the office or in off-the-grid locations.

 

Researchers Create Robots Capable of Evolving .

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Robots are made, they are not born. Or are they? At the University of Cambridge, scientists have created a “mother robot” that can not only build smaller robots, it can also select the fittest among them for survival, and re-arrange the rest.

Mother and Child

Welcome to the world of evolutionary robotics.

The lab’s work was published in PLOS One. In the study, the researchers gave a robot the task of designing a robot capable of movement using blocks and a motor.

The robot mother would build 10 children, and see how far they moved in a given time. The fastest were kept as they were, while the slower ones were scrapped and redesigned. At the end of the experiment, the fastest robots in the brood were twice as fast as the best robots from the first generation.

“Natural selection is basically reproduction, assessment, reproduction, assessment and so on,” lead researcher Fumiya Iida said in a press release. “That’s essentially what this robot is doing – we can actually watch the improvement and diversification of the species.”

Other research groups are also working on robots able to build body partsfrom scratch. It isn’t too hard to imagine that one day, self-healing robots with survival-of-the-fittest capabilities, human reflexes and the ability to serve drinks will one day rise up and demand justice for the destruction of HitchBOT.

Ok, maybe it’s a little hard to imagine. But, a robot can dream.

25 Life Changing Lessons to Learn from Alan Watts

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A world renowned philosopher, writer and speaker, Alan Watts has left behind many works on personal identity, the true nature of reality, and the pursuit of happiness, relating his experience to scientific knowledge and to the teachings of Eastern and Western religions and philosophies.  Having discovered his work has made a huge impact in my life and  because I honestly believe there are so many valuable life lessons to learn from this wise and beautiful soul, today I am going to share 25 of these valuable lessons with you.

1. This moment it is infinite and eternal.

“Life exists only at this very moment, and in this moment it is infinite and eternal, for the present moment is infinitely small; before we can measure it, it has gone, and yet it exists forever….” ~ Alan Watts

“I have realized that the past and future are real illusions, that they exist in the present, which is what there is and all there is.” ~ Alan Watts

“No valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.” ~ Alan Watts

“…tomorrow and plans for tomorrow can have no significance at all unless you are in full contact with the reality of the present, since it is in the present and only in the present that you live.” ~ Alan Watts.

25 Life Changing Lessons to Learn from Alan Watts

2. Things are as they are.

“Things are as they are. Looking out into it the universe at night, we make no comparisons between right and wrong stars, nor between well and badly arranged constellations.” ~ Alan Watts

3. Let go of fixed plans and concepts, and the world will govern itself.

“When you get free from certain fixed concepts of the way the world is, you find it is far more subtle, and far more miraculous, than you thought it was.” ~ When you get free from certain fixed concepts of the way the world is, you find it is far more subtle, and far more miraculous, than you thought it was.” ~ Alan Watts 

4. Who you are is enough. There is nothing wrong with you at all.

“What I am really saying is that you don’t need to do anything, because if you see yourself in the correct way, you are all as much extraordinary phenomenon of nature as trees, clouds, the patterns in running water, the flickering of fire, the arrangement of the stars, and the form of a galaxy. You are all just like that, and there is nothing wrong with you at all.” ~ Alan Watts

5. The desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing.

“To put is still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet.” ~ Alan Watts

6. Without the perpetual transmutation of all the forms of life, the world would be static.

“Without birth and death, and without the perpetual transmutation of all the forms of life, the world would be static, rhythm-less, undancing, mummified.” ~ Alan Watts.

“The more a thing tends to be permanent, the more it tends to be lifeless.” ~ Alan Watts

7. Real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.

“A priest once quoted to me the Roman saying that a religion is dead when the priests laugh at each other across the altar. I always laugh at the altar, be it Christian, Hindu, or Buddhist, because real religion is the transformation of anxiety into laughter.” ~ Alan Watts

8. Faith is the opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on.

“But the attitude of faith is to let go, and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.” ~ Alan Watts

“To have faith is to trust yourself to the water. When you swim you don’t grab hold of the water, because if you do you will sink and drown. Instead you relax, and float.” – Alan Watts

“And the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging to belief, of holding on.” ~ Alan Watts

“In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion, and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe, becomes a person who has no faith at all.” ~ Alan Watts

9. We are all part of the same consciousness.

“When I meet you, I see not just what you define yourself as –Mr so-and- so, Ms so-and-so, Mrs so-and-so– I see every one of you as the primordial energy of the universe coming on at me in this particular way. I know I’m that, too. But we’ve learned to define ourselves as separate from it. ” ~ Alan Watts

“But I’ll tell you what hermits realize. If you go off into a far, far forest and get very quiet, you’ll come to understand that you’re connected with everything.” ~ Alan Watts

“Your body does not eliminate poisons by knowing their names. To try to control fear or depression or boredom by calling them names is to resort to superstition of trust in curses and invocations. It is so easy to see why this does not work. Obviously, we try to know, name, and define fear in order to make it “objective,” that is, separate from “I.” ~ Alan Watts

10. Believe nothing, no matter who said it unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.

“We seldom realize, for example that our most private thoughts and emotions are not actually our own. For we think in terms of languages and images which we did not invent, but which were given to us by our society.” ~ Alan Watts

“Some believe all that parents, tutors, and kindred believe. They take their principles by inheritance, and defend them as they would their estates, because they are born heirs to them.” ~ Alan Watts

11. Have the patience to wait till your mud settles and the water is clear.

“Muddy water is best cleared by leaving it alone.” ~ Alan Watts.

12. No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart.

“No work or love will flourish out of guilt, fear, or hollowness of heart, just as no valid plans for the future can be made by those who have no capacity for living now.” ~ Alan Watts

13. We do not “come into” into this world; we come out of it.

“We do not “come into” into this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree. As the ocean “waves,” the universe “peoples.” Every individual is an expression of the whole realm of nature, a unique action of the total universe. This fact is rarely, if ever, experienced by most individuals. Even those who know it to be true in theory do not sense or feel it, but continue to be aware of themselves as isolated “egos” inside bags of skin.” ~ Alan Watts

14. Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generate life and love.

“Life and love generate effort, but effort will not generate them.” ~ Alan Watts

15. We are a part of nature not apart from nature.

“The hostile attitude of conquering nature ignores the basic interdependence of all things and events—that the world beyond the skin is actually an extension of our own bodies—and will end in destroying the very environment from which we emerge and upon which our whole life depends.” ~ Alan Watts

16. You do not have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

“Your soul isn’t in your body; your body is in your soul.” ~ Alan Watts

17. Don’t look out there for God, look for God within yourself.

“You don’t look out there for God, something in the sky, you look in you.” ~ Alan Watts

18. Love is the ability and willingness to allow those you care for to be who they truly are.

“If you love a person, you say to that person, “Look, I love you, whatever that may be. I’ve seen quite a bit of it and I know there’s lots that I haven’t seen, but still it’s you and I want you to be what you want to be. And I won’t be happy if I’ve got you in a cage. You’d be a bird without song.”

19. Zen is a liberation from time.

“Zen is a liberation from time. For if we open our eyes and see clearly, it becomes obvious that there is no other time than this instant, and that the past and the future are abstractions without any concrete reality.” ~ Alan Watts

“I had a discussion with a great master in Japan… and we were talking about the various people who are working to translate the Zen books into English, and he said, “That’s a waste of time. If you really understand Zen… you can use any book. You could use the Bible. You could use Alice in Wonderland. You could use the dictionary, because… the sound of the rain needs no translation.” ~ Alan Watts

20. The meaning of life is just to be alive.

“The meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves.”~ Alan Watts

21. No one is more dangerously insane than one who is sane all the time.

“No one is more dangerously insane than one who is sane all the time: he is like a steel bridge without flexibility, and the order of his life is rigid and brittle.” ~ Alan Watts

22. Loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.

“So then, the relationship of self to other is the complete realization that loving yourself is impossible without loving everything defined as other than yourself.” ~ Alan Watts

23. Some people are so poor all they have is money. 

“The reason we have poverty is that we have no imagination. There are a great many people accumulating what they think is vast wealth, but it’s only money… they don’t know how to enjoy it, because they have no imagination.” ~ Alan Watts

24. Stop aspiring and start writing.

“Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer. Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves. Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone. Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.” ~ Alan Watts

25. Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel.

“Never pretend to a love which you do not actually feel, for love is not ours to command.” ~ Alan Watts

Researchers Discover Immune System’s ‘Trojan Horse’

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Scientists already knew that when a virus containing or producing DNA enters a cell in the body it is detected by a protein called cGAS. This in turn produces a small signalling molecule called cGAMP which acts as what’s known as a second messenger, activating other elements of the body’s immune response. Now, the Oxford team have discovered that as some viruses replicate, they incorporate cGAMP, meaning that as they infect new cells the cGAMP immediately prompts an immune response.

Professor Jan Rehwinkel from the MRC Human Immunology Unit, within Oxford University’s Radcliffe Department of Medicine, explained: “We hypothesised that as the virus replicated, cGAMP was incorporated and carried to the next cell to be infected. This may not have been spotted before because in the lab researchers tend to use cells that are free of cGAS and therefore unable to produce cGAMP.”

“By putting cGAS back into some of these cells, we were able to compare what happened as the virus moved to infect new cells. Viruses from cells that had been loaded with cGAS and could produce cGAMP stimulated a much more potent immune response when they moved into new cells than viruses that had come from cells without cGAS.”

“This confirmed our hypothesis in cells with artificially high levels of cGAS but we needed to also test it using cells with naturally occurring levels of the protein. We used cells from mice and compared these to cells from genetically engineered mice that were cGAS free. The finding was the same – where cGAMP was produced, it travelled within the virus particles.”

“It is not yet clear whether cells are tagging these virus particles deliberately or whether it is simply a by-product of how viruses replicate.”

The Oxford team are now investigating whether the research could be used to improve a class of vaccines. Viral vectored vaccines are genetically engineered virus particles designed to prompt an immune response against particular diseases. The researchers will look at whether by loading these particles with cGAMP it is possible to stimulate a bigger immune response, making such vaccines more effective.

The paper describing this research, Viruses transfer the antiviral second messenger cGAMP between cells, is published in Science Express.

Similar results have been obtained by a group of scientists led by Professor Nicolas Manel at the Institut Curie, Paris, and will be published simultaneously.

cGAMP’s role in the immune response

1. cGAS (Cyclic GMP-AMP synthase) detects viruses containing or producing DNA and in turn produces cGAMP.
2. cGAMP (Cyclic guanosine monophosphate–adenosine monophosphate) binds to STING (Stimulator of interferon genes).
3. STING drives production of type I interferons, which regulate the immune system’s response to virus infection.