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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 2 hours ago

AI-designed antibodies race toward trials
Scientists say they are on the cusp of turning antibodies designed by artificial intelligence into potential therapies, just a year after they debuted the first example of an entirely AI-designed antibody. Previously, the structure of antibodies proved somewhat of a black box to AI models. But new and improved models — such as an updated version of AlphaFold — have more successfully predicted the shape of flexible structures that give antibodies the specificity they need to bind to foreign molecules. Researchers at several companies now say they’ve designed ‘drug-like’ antibodies.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03965-x?utm_source=Live+...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 3 hours ago

Sick, Immobile Young Ants Send “Kill Me” Signal to Colony Workers

Cocooned ants infected with a deadly fungus call on workers to kill them to protect the colony—the first example of altruistic disease signaling in social insects.

Adult ants that have been infected with deadly pathogens often leave the colony to die so as not to infect others. But, like infected cells in tissue, young ants are largely immobile and lack this option.

Invasive garden ant pupae that have been infected with a deadly fungal pathogen produced chemicals that induced worker ants to unpack their cocoons and kill them, preventing the disease from spreading to the rest of the colony.

In a new study, researchers discovered that the infected pupae only released chemicals when there were workers nearby, suggesting that the sick young ants put these events in motion. The researchers’ findings, published in Nature Communications, are the first evidence of altruistic disease signaling in a social insects and share similarities with how sick and dying cells send a “find me and eat me” signal to the immune system.

Infected pupae consistently upregulated immune genes upon infection, regardless of whether workers were around. However, changes in the level of specific CHCs only occurred when the pupae were infected and workers were nearby. Furthermore, the team found that when they coated healthy pupae with extracts from infected pupae, workers unpacked the healthy pupae more frequently than healthy pupae covered in “non-signal” extracts. Altogether, these observations indicate that infected pupae likely release specific CHCs so workers could find and kill them, which means that these young ants sacrifice themselves to benefit the colony.

1. Pull CD, et al. Destructive disinfection of infected brood prevents systemic diseas.... Elife. 2018;7:e32073.
2. Dawson EH, et al. Altruistic disease signalling in ant colonies. Nat Commun. 2025;16:10511.
3. Kugelberg E. Cell death: Find me and eat me. Nat Rev Immunol. 2016;16(3):131.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 3 hours ago

How embryos and the uterus 'talk' during implantation

Implantation is one of the most delicate and failure-prone stages of pregnancy in humans and other animals.

A new study shows that the embryo and the uterine lining conduct an active "conversation" from the very earliest stages of implantation. They engage in a back and forth of tiny packages called extracellular vesicles and lipid droplets, which carry metabolites and signals. Hormones determine what the uterus sends, and one signaling pathway (related to aryl hydrocarbon receptor, [AhR]) appears to assist in determining how hospitable the uterine environment is.

When this pathway is blocked, embryos attach more strongly. These packages are taken up quickly; their genetic material is used almost immediately, they influence how cells use energy and handle fats, and they reshape the uterine tissue—all in ways that support embryo attachment and implantation.

Published in The Journal of Extracellular Vesicles, the research uncovers a previously underappreciated communication network between the early embryo and the uterus, which may be critical for successful implantation and early pregnancy. The study reveals how extracellular vesicles, lipid droplets, and AhR ligands dynamically interact during the earliest stages of embryo-maternal crosstalk.

Alisa Komsky‐Elbaz et al, Extracellular Vesicles, Lipid Droplets and AhR Ligands in Early Implantation: The Dynamics of Embryo‐Maternal Crosstalk, Journal of Extracellular Vesicles (2025). DOI: 10.1002/jev2.70161

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 3 hours ago

Chronic fatigue syndrome linked to widespread energy, immune and vascular changes
People with ME/CFS exhibit concurrent abnormalities in cellular energy metabolism, immune cell maturity, and plasma proteins linked to vascular dysfunction. Elevated AMP and ADP levels indicate impaired ATP production, while immune profiling shows less mature lymphocyte subsets. Machine learning identified seven biological markers strongly associated with ME/CFS.

Key findings of a multimodal study published in the journal Cell Reports Medicine include changes in markers of cellular energy metabolism, in the proportions and maturity of circulating immune cells, and in plasma proteins associated with blood vessel dysfunction in people with ME/CFS.

Led by researchers from Macquarie University, the study compared whole blood samples from 61 people meeting clinical diagnostic criteria for ME/CFS with samples from healthy age- and sex-matched volunteers.

Cellular and immune system changes
White blood cells from ME/CFS patients showed evidence of "energy stress" in the form of higher levels of adenosine monophosphate (AMP) and adenosine diphosphate (ADP), indicating reduced generation of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the key energy source within cells.

Profiling of immune cell populations revealed a trend toward less mature subsets of T-lymphocyte subsets, dendritic cells and natural killer cells in people with ME/CFS.

Comprehensive analysis of plasma proteins highlighted disruptions of vascular and immune homeostasis in patients with ME/CFS. Levels of proteins associated with activation of the endothelium—the innermost lining of blood vessels—and remodeling of vessel walls were higher, while levels of circulating immunoglobulin-related proteins were lower.

Benjamin Heng et al, Mapping the complexity of ME/CFS: Evidence for abnormal energy metabolism, altered immune profile, and vascular dysfunction, Cell Reports Medicine (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrm.2025.102514

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 4 hours ago

HOW THE BRAIN MEASURES DISTANCE OF A FAMILIAR PLACE IN THE DARK

Whether you are heading to bed or toilet of your home in the dark, you don't need to turn on the lights to know where you are as you walk through your house at night. This hidden skill comes from a remarkable ability called path integration: your brain constantly tallies your steps and turns, allowing you to mentally track your position like a personal GPS. You're building a map by tracking movement, not sight.
Scientists think that understanding how the brain performs path integration could be a critical step toward understanding how our brain turns momentary experiences into memories of events that unfold over time.
In their study, the team trained mice to run a specific distance in a gray virtual reality environment without visual landmarks, in exchange for a reward. The animals could only judge how far they had traveled by monitoring their own movement, not by relying on environmental cues.

As mice performed this task, the scientists recorded tiny electrical pulses that neurons use to communicate, allowing them to observe the activity of thousands of neurons.

They focused on the activity of neurons in the hippocampus, a region essential for both navigation and memory. Using computer modeling, they then analyzed these signals to reveal the computational rules the brain uses for path integration.
The hippocampus is known to help animals find their way through the environment. In this brain region, some neurons become active at specific places. However, in environments full of sights, sounds, and smells, it is difficult to tell whether these neurons are responding to those sensory cues or to the animal's position itself.
The scientists discovered that during navigation without landmarks, most hippocampal neurons followed one of two opposite patterns of activity. These patterns were crucial for helping the animals keep track of how far they had traveled.

In one group of neurons, activity sharply increased when the animal started moving, as if marking the start of the distance-counting process. The activity of these neurons then gradually ramped down at different rates as the animal moved further, until reaching the set distance for a reward.

A second group of neurons showed the opposite pattern. Their activity dropped when the animal started moving, but gradually ramped up as the animal traveled farther.

The team discovered that these activity patterns act as a neural code for distance, with two distinct phases. The first phase (the rapid change in neural activity) marks the start of movement and the beginning of distance counting. The second phase (the gradual ramping changes in neural activity) counts the distance traveled. Both short and long distances could be tracked in the brain by using neurons with different ramping speeds.
The scientists have discovered that the brain encodes the elapsed distance or time needed to solve this task using neurons that show ramping activity patterns.
This is the first time distance has been shown to be encoded in a way that differs from the well-known place-based coding in the hippocampus. These findings expand our understanding that the hippocampus is using multiple strategies—ramping patterns in addition to the place-based coding—to encode elapsed time and distance."

When the researchers disrupted these patterns by manipulating the circuits that produce them, the animals had difficulty performing the task accurately and often searched for the reward in the wrong location.

Time or distance encoding by hippocampal neurons via heterogeneous ramping rates, Nature Communications (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-67038-3

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 4 hours ago

Grok spews misinformation about deadly Australia shooting
Grok, an AI chatbot, disseminated multiple false claims during the Bondi Beach mass shooting in Australia, including misidentifying a hero, mislabeling images, and suggesting a survivor staged his injuries. These errors highlight the limitations of AI chatbots in real-time fact-checking, especially during rapidly evolving news events, and underscore the continued need for human oversight.

Source: News agencies

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 5 hours ago

The team also has a theory as to how WHG genes may help people live to a ripe old age. They suggest that these variants were selected during the last Ice Age, when our ancestors had to survive extremely harsh conditions with limited food resources. The scientists think these genes helped improve metabolism to process food more efficiently and strengthen the immune system to protect the body from age-related stresses.

Stefania Sarno et al, Western Hunter-Gatherer genetic ancestry contributes to human longevity in the Italian population, GeroScience (2025). DOI: 10.1007/s11357-025-02043-4

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 5 hours ago

Why some people live to 100 years or more? Because they carry a higher proportion of genetic material from Western Hunter-Gatherers!

Our hunter-gatherer ancestors have given us many things. They passed down mastery of fire for cooking and early survival technologies, such as stone tools. They may also have given us the secret to a long life. A new study published in the journal GeroScience found that Italian centenarians carry a higher proportion of genetic material from Western Hunter-Gatherers (WHG) compared to the general population.

It has been known for some time that longevity can be explained by "good" genes, as well as by other factors such as our environment and daily habits. Some studies have found individual genes linked to longer life, while others suggest that ancestral DNA may play a role.

Italy has one of the highest concentrations in the world of people living to 100 or more. To help understand why, researchers analyzed the genomes of 333 centenarians and 690 healthy adult controls aged around 50. They compared the DNA of these individuals with 103 ancient genomes of the four groups that make up the modern Italian gene pool.

These are Western Hunter-Gatherers, who were among the original inhabitants of Europe after the Ice Age, Anatolian Neolithic farmers, Bronze Age nomadic groups and ancient groups from the Iranian and Caucasus regions.
The results revealed that those who reached the age of 100 tended to have more Western Hunter-Gatherer DNA than the average person. "The present study shows for the first time that the Villabruna cluster/WHG lineage... contributes to longevity in the Italian population," wrote the research team.

Till now mediterranean diet stole most of the credit!

While everyone in the study carried a mix of DNA from all four ancient groups, only the WHG genetic material was linked to longevity.

In fact, for every small increase in hunter-gatherer DNA, a person's odds of becoming a centenarian rose by 38%. This was even more powerful in women, who were more than twice as likely to reach 100 if they had a higher proportion of this ancient DNA. 
Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

Study finds sports injuries sustained during a woman's period might be more severe
Injuries sustained by elite female football players during menstruation are more severe and result in over three times more days lost compared to injuries at other times in the menstrual cycle. While menstruation does not increase injury incidence, hormonal and physiological changes may worsen injury severity and prolong recovery. Individual menstrual tracking and tailored training may help reduce injury impact.

Menstruation and injury occurrence; a four season observational study in elite female football players, Frontiers in Sports and Active Living (2025). DOI: 10.3389/fspor.2025.1665482

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

Biodegradable dishes could transfer gluten to foods, posing health risk to gluten-sensitive individuals
Some biodegradable tableware made from wheat by-products can contain gluten and transfer it to foods and drinks at levels exceeding gluten-free regulatory thresholds, particularly into liquids. This poses a potential health risk for individuals with celiac disease or gluten sensitivity, as such products are not required to carry allergen labels.

In 30-minute experiments conducted by researchers, gluten-free foods were placed on the different tableware items at room temperature. The foods' gluten contents were measured and compared against the gluten-free (less than 20 ppm) and low-gluten (less than 100 ppm) regulatory thresholds set by the European Union and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Only the gluten-containing plate passed protein into omelet, rice, milk and vegetable cream samples. Significantly less gluten transferred into the solid foods than into the liquids:

• Rice: up to 17 ppm, below the gluten-free threshold.
• Omelet: up to 30 ppm, below the low-gluten threshold.
• Milk: up to 240 ppm, over the low-gluten threshold.
• Vegetable cream: up to 2,100 ppm, over the low-gluten threshold.

In some cases, microwaving foods in the dish reduced gluten contamination compared to room temperature samples, and the researchers hypothesize it is because heat denatures the protein and disrupts its transfer into foods.

The researchers urge mandatory gluten labeling for materials that contact food.

Carolina Sousa et al, Potential Transfer of Toxic Gluten from Biodegradable Tableware to Gluten-Free Foods: Implications for Individuals with Gluten-Related Disorders, Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry (2025). DOI: 10.1021/acs.jafc.5c07516

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