BREAKING Monthly earnings rise, payroll employment falls: jobs report
The number of vacant jobs in Canada increased in February, while monthly payroll employment decreased in food services, manufacturing, and retail trade, among other sectors.
As NASA prepares to send humans to Mars sometime in the 2030s, figuring out how to keep astronauts healthy during the three-year mission has been a challenge.
But researchers from the University of California, Davis say they've developed a genetically modified lettuce that could be grown in space and provide astronauts what they need to avoid bone loss.
"We decided to use lettuce because lettuce is a plant that has been grown on the International Space Station. It's also a plant that is very productive in terms of producing seeds," UC Davis professor Karen McDonald said in an online media briefing on Tuesday.
On Earth, the bones in your body constantly form microfractures due to gravity and constantly rebuild themselves while regulating the supply of calcium in the blood. But in space, this doesn't happen, resulting in a net loss of bone mineral density.
The modified lettuce contains a fragment of the parathyroid hormone (PTH), which stimulates bone formation. There already exists a medication that can supply the hormone, but it requires daily injections. On a three-year mission, it would be impractical to transport that much medication.
Using a plant that can be grown in space, like lettuce, solves this supply conundrum.
"If you grow that plant and harvest seeds, you can generate thousands of seeds. So, you get this biological amplification of the amount of material," McDonald said. "It's a very simple and cost-effective way to make a therapeutic."
The researchers were able to develop this lettuce by attaching the hormone to a piece of protein, resulting in a protein called PTH-Fc that makes the hormone more stable and effective. From there, they infected plant cells with a species of bacteria that can transfer genes to plants.
"From that we grew plants, harvested seeds from those plants, and we now just extract protein from the lettuce tissue and use analytical techniques to verify that they are producing PTH-Fc. We also looked at this over different generations of lettuce plants," UC Davis graduate student Kevin Yates said during the media briefing.
At its current state, astronauts would need to eat eight cups of the lettuce per day in order to get enough PTH. The researchers said they're working on trying to improve the amount of PTH-Fc that the lettuce generates so astronauts won't have to eat as much of it.
"We also want to look at the stability of the lettuce from one generation to the next, over many generations, to make sure it maintains its production level," McDonald said.
The researchers also said the lettuce could one day help treat or prevent osteoporosis and other bone conditions on Earth.
"Obviously, we need ways to produce therapeutics … in a lower cost manner and I think the use of plants to make therapeutics such as PTH-Fc would be very valuable here on Earth," said McDonald.
The number of vacant jobs in Canada increased in February, while monthly payroll employment decreased in food services, manufacturing, and retail trade, among other sectors.
The Canadian Medical Association asserts the Liberals' proposed changes to capital gains taxation will put doctors' retirement savings in jeopardy, but some financial experts insist incorporated professionals are not as doomed as they say they are.
A West Virginia father is getting some sense of closure after authorities found the remains of his young daughter and her mother following a deathbed confession from the man believed to have fatally shot them nearly two decades ago.
For centuries, people have wondered what, if anything, might be lurking beneath the surface of Loch Ness in Scotland. When Canadian couple Parry Malm and Shannon Wiseman visited the Scottish highlands earlier this month with their two children, they didn’t expect to become part of the mystery.
Recent injected drugs like Wegovy and its predecessor, the diabetes medication Ozempic, are reshaping the health and fitness industries.
Two military horses that bolted and ran miles through the streets of London after being spooked by construction noise and tossing their riders were in a serious condition and required operations, a British government official said Thursday.
Mounties in Nanaimo, B.C., say two late-night revellers are lucky their allegedly drunken antics weren't reported to police after security cameras captured the men trying to steal a heavy sign from a downtown business.
It's no secret that spring can be a tumultuous time for Canadian weather, and as an unseasonably mild El Nino winter gives way to summer, there's bound to be a few swings in temperature that seem out of the ordinary. From Ontario to the Atlantic, though, this week is about to feel a little erratic.
The oldest living former major leaguer, Art Schallock turns 100 on Thursday and is being celebrated in the Bay Area and beyond as the milestone approaches.
A property tax bill is perplexing a small townhouse community in Fergus, Ont.
When identical twin sisters Kim and Michelle Krezonoski were invited to compete against some of the world’s most elite female runners at last week’s Boston Marathon, they were in disbelief.
The giant stone statues guarding the Lions Gate Bridge have been dressed in custom Vancouver Canucks jerseys as the NHL playoffs get underway.
A local Oilers fan is hoping to see his team cut through the postseason, so he can cut his hair.
A family from Laval, Que. is looking for answers... and their father's body. He died on vacation in Cuba and authorities sent someone else's body back to Canada.
A former educational assistant is calling attention to the rising violence in Alberta's classrooms.
The federal government says its plan to increase taxes on capital gains is aimed at wealthy Canadians to achieve “tax fairness.”
At 6'8" and 350 pounds, there is nothing typical about UBC offensive lineman Giovanni Manu, who was born in Tonga and went to high school in Pitt Meadows.
Kevin the cat has been reunited with his family after enduring a harrowing three-day ordeal while lost at Toronto Pearson International Airport earlier this week.