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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 8 hours ago

To figure it out, the researchers investigated the effect of gamma radiation on a species of tardigrade called Hypsibius exemplaris. They placed tardigrades in a benchtop irradiator that exposed the critters to gamma rays emitted by the beta decay of cesium-137. Since the amount of radiation is known, they were able to expose the tardigrades to specific doses – one lower dose that is within tolerable levels, and a much higher median lethal dose.

To their surprise, although H. exemplaris does have Dsup, the radiation exposure didn't seem to trigger it. In fact, the tardigrades' DNA took a pretty big whack of radiation damage.

Rather than prophylactic protection, the tardigrades ramped up production of DNA repair genes to such a degree that their products became some of the most abundant in their microscopic bodies. By 24 hours after radiation exposure, the tardigrades had repaired most of the DNA broken by ionizing radiation.
In a follow-up, the researchers expressed some of the tardigrade repair genes in a culture of Escherichia coli, and exposed samples of the bacterium to ionizing radiation. Bacteria that had been inoculated with tardigrade genes showed a similar DNA repair ability to that seen in H. exemplaris, but not seen in untreated E. coli.
This suggests, the researchers found, that H. exemplaris is able to sense ionizing radiation, and mount a response that allows it to survive doses that would obliterate other animals.

These animals are mounting an incredible response to radiation, and that seems to be a secret to their extreme survival abilities.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(24)00316-6

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 8 hours ago

Scientists Discover How Tardigrades Survive Blasts of Radiation

Tardigrades are possibly the most indestructible animal on Earth. These microscopic little beasties can take almost anything humans throw at them, and waddle away perfectly intact.

 

The strategies behind these feats of superheroic survival are multiple, from a damage suppressor protein that literally protects their DNA, to a dehydrated, suspended animation 'tun' state that they can enter when external conditions get untenable.

And now, scientists have uncovered a new one. They're able to turn up the dial on damage repair to 11.

They blasted tardigrades with gamma rays, and watched to see how they responded.

We've known about tardigrades' fascinating resistance to ionizing radiation for decades. They can survive around 1,000 times the dose that would be lethal to humans, and continue going about their tiny lives as though it were nothing.

The damage suppression protein, Dsup, is thought to play a role in this for some tardigrades, but not all tardigrade species have Dsup or a homolog thereof, suggesting that there is some other means of survival at play.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 8 hours ago

Sink to source: Does what we put into our plumbing end up back in the water supply?

When you see an advertisement for a detergent promising to brighten your clothes, something called a fluorescent whitening compound, or optical brightener, is probably involved. Such material absorbs UV light and emits visible blue light via fluorescence. The result? Brighter whites, vibrant colors. Yes, your clothes are glowing.

However, these brighteners can make their way into the water supply!

 When limestone and dolomite dissolve, they can form spectacular caves and sinkholes characteristic of a karst terrain. Karst aquifers can also feature interconnected fractures that create conduits that channel water. These aquifers are a major source of drinking water around the world. Unfortunately, they're also exceptionally vulnerable to pollution. Features that connect Earth's surface directly with an aquifer can funnel pollutants into water supplies.

Researchers have detected high concentrations of fluorescent whitening compounds and microplastics in these waters.

 When fluorescent whitening compounds, which definitely come from humans, and microplastics rise and fall together in water samples, that covariation indicates that microplastic contamination is probably coming from wastewater. Indeed, this is the first study to show such a link in samples from karst springs.

Luka Vucinic et al, Understanding the impacts of human wastewater effluent pollution on karst springs using chemical contamination fingerprinting techniques, EGU General Assembly (2024). DOI: 10.5194/egusphere-egu24-11063

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 8 hours ago

To explore how working memory functions, investigators recorded the brain activity of 36 hospitalized patients who had electrodes surgically implanted in their brains as part of a procedure to diagnose epilepsy. The team recorded the activity of individual brain cells and brain waves while the patients performed a task that required use of working memory.

On a computer screen, patients were shown either a single photo or a series of three photos of various people, animals, objects or landscapes. Next, the screen went blank for just under three seconds, requiring patients to remember the photos they just saw. They were then shown another photo and asked to decide whether it was the one (or one of the three) they had seen before.

When patients performing the working memory task were able to respond quickly and accurately, investigators noted the firing of two groups of neurons: "category" neurons that fire in response to one of the categories shown in the photos, such as animals, and "phase-amplitude coupling," or PAC, neurons.

PAC neurons, newly identified in this study, don't hold any content, but use a process called phase-amplitude coupling to ensure the category neurons focus and store the content they have acquired.

PAC neurons fire in time with the brain's theta waves, which are associated with focus and control, as well as to gamma waves, which are linked to information processing. This allows them to coordinate their activity with category neurons, which also fire in time to the brain's gamma waves, enhancing patients' ability to recall information stored in working memory.

Imagine when the patient sees a photo of a cat, their category neurons start firing 'cat, cat,cat, cat' while the PAC neurons are firing 'focus/remember'.
Through phase-amplitude coupling, the two groups of neurons create a harmony superimposing their messages, resulting in 'remember cat.' It is a situation where the whole is greater than the sum of its parts, like hearing the musicians in an orchestra play together. The conductor, much like the PAC neurons, coordinates the various players to act in harmony.

PAC neurons do this work in the hippocampus, a part of the brain that has long been known to be important for long-term memory. This study offers the first confirmation that the hippocampus also plays a role in controlling working memory.

Ueli Rutishauser, Control of working memory by phase–amplitude coupling of human hippocampal neurons, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07309-z. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07309-z

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 9 hours ago

Researchers identify a group of cells involved in working memory

Investigators have discovered how brain cells responsible for working memory—the type required to remember a phone number long enough to dial it—coordinate intentional focus and short-term storage of information. The study detailing their discovery was published in Nature.

They have identified for the first time a group of neurons, influenced by two types of brain waves, that coordinate cognitive control and the storage of sensory information in working memory. These neurons don't contain or store information, but are crucial to the storage of short-term memories.

Working memory, which requires the brain to store information for only seconds, is fragile and requires continued focus to be maintained. In disorders such as Alzheimer's disease or attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, it is often not memory storage, but rather the ability to focus on and retain a memory once it is formed that is the problem,

Understanding the control aspect of working memory will be fundamental for developing new treatments for these and other neurological conditions.
Part 1

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 9 hours ago

Historically hybridization was thought of as a bad thing that was not particularly important when it came to evolution. But what genomic data have shown is that actually hybridization among species is widespread.
The implications may alter how we view species. A lot of species are not intact units. They're quite leaky, and they're exchanging genetic material.
So the species that are evolving are constantly exchanging genes, and the consequence of this is that it can actually trigger the evolution of completely new lineages.
Normally, species are thought to be reproductively isolated. They can't produce hybrids that are reproductively fertile. While there is now evidence of hybridization between species, what was difficult to confirm was that this hybridization is, in some way, involved in speciation. The question is: How can you collapse two species together and get a third species out of that collapse.

The new research provides a next step in understanding how hybridization and speciation work. Over the last 10 or 15 years, there's been a paradigm shift in terms of the importance of hybridization and evolution.
This research has the potential to play a role in the current biodiversity crisis. Understanding something as basic as "what we mean by a species is important for saving species and for conservation," particularly in the Amazon.
In addition, such work may prove useful in understanding carriers of disease. Multiple species of mosquito, for example, can carry malaria. Although these mosquitos are closely related, almost nothing is known about how they interact, and whether they hybridize with each other.

Neil Rosser, Hybrid speciation driven by multilocus introgression of ecological traits, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07263-w. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07263-w

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 9 hours ago

Amazon butterflies show how new species can evolve from hybridization

If evolution was originally depicted as a tree, with different species branching off as new blooms, then new research shows how the branches may actually be more entangled. In "Hybrid speciation driven by multilocus introgression of ecological traits," published in Nature,  researchers show that hybrids between species of butterflies can produce new species that are genetically distinct from both parent species and their earlier forebears.

Writing to Charles Darwin in 1861, naturalist Henry Walter Bates described brightly colored Heliconius butterflies of the Amazon as "a glimpse into the laboratory where Nature manufactures her new species." More than 160 years later, an international team of researchers led by biologists Neil Rosser, Fernando Seixas, James Mallet, and Kanchon Dasmahapatra also focused on Heliconius to document the evolution of a new species.
Using whole-genome sequencing, the researchers have shown that a hybridization event some 180,000 years ago between Heliconius melpomene and the ancestor of today's Heliconius pardalinus produced a third hybrid species, Heliconius elevatus. Although descended from hybrids, H. elevatus is a distinct butterfly species with its own individual traits, including its caterpillar's host plant and the adult's male sex pheromones, color pattern, wing shape, flight, and mate choice. All three species now fly together across a vast area of the Amazon rainforest.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 9 hours ago

When scientists simulated a rainfall event in the laboratory, they observed that within the first 15 to 30 minutes, almost all taxonomic groups switched from a resting mode to an active mode. This is a remarkable characteristic of desert soil bacteria, as in other types of soil many groups of bacteria take much longer to reactivate. When reactivated, the bacteria would quickly begin to generate energy and repair their genomes.
In the study, the researchers simulated rainfall events with stable isotope labeled water—water containing heavy hydrogen. Using NanoSIMS, they examined individual cells to see which of them had incorporated the heavy hydrogen atoms.

With this approach, researchers can reveal the fraction of biocrust cells that reactivate in a rain event. We can also infer if they can grow in short rain events that in arid deserts often only last 1 to 2 days.
They found that almost all biocrust cells reactivate, but that in these short rain events only a small proportion of the cells would be able to double. A large proportion of the biocrust cells can therefore use rain events to regenerate and prepare for the next drought, but cell division does not occur.
These data help scientists understand how biocrust bacteria make optimal use of the short activity windows they experience in deserts. They are ideally adapted to withstand short-term changes in soil water content, a very stressful situation for the cells. This allows them to survive the sudden increase in water content during rain, as well as the subsequent drying out.
Additionally, the diverse microbial community is capable of immediate reactivation, which is of great benefit when it must return to a dormant state within a few hours to days.
The findings of this study are relevant not only for desert areas but also for other regions. The ability to survive water limitation will become increasingly important for soil microorganisms in temperate regions, as the frequency and intensity of droughts are increasing due to climate change. Insights gained from desert soil research can help to understand which features make soil microorganisms successful in surviving these challenges.

Survival and rapid resuscitation permit limited productivity in desert microbial communities, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-46920-6

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 9 hours ago

Scientists discover how soil microbes survive in harsh desert environments

Prolonged droughts followed by sudden bursts of rainfall—how do desert soil bacteria manage to survive such harsh conditions? This long-debated question has now been answered by an ERC project led by a microbiologist Dagmar Woebken from the Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science (CeMESS) at the University of Vienna.

The study reveals that desert soil bacteria are highly adapted to survive the rapid environmental changes experienced with each rainfall event. These findings were recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

Drylands cover over 46% of global land area and are expanding, not only due to climate change but also unsustainable land management practices. While plants are seldom encountered in deserts, invisible life thrives belowground. Microorganisms located in the so-called biocrust (the top millimeters to centimeter of the desert soil) enrich the soil with carbon and nitrogen, and also help prevent soil erosion and retain water. But these microbes live in a challenging environment, facing long periods of drought with infrequent rain.
Until now, it was unclear how they could maintain important ecosystem functions under such conditions. Using state-of-the-art methods in microbial ecology, Dagmar Woebken's team gained insights into microbial life in these soils.

Desert soil bacteria endure long drought periods in a state of dormancy, but are reactivated in response to rainfall events, which are short and very rare. The researchers uncovered a kind of "all-in" reactivation strategy in the biocrusts of the Negev Desert, Israel. The bacteria make the most of rainfall events—within this narrow window of activity, almost all microbial soil diversity (as well as individual cells) become active.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 9 hours ago

To explore whether appeals to our globally shared biology can affect bonding with humanity at large, the study participants watched a TED Talk delivered by journalist A. J. Jacobs explaining how all humans share a common ancestry, portraying us as one large human family.

Those who watched the video expressed significantly stronger psychological bonds with humanity at large compared with a control group whose attitudes were measured before rather than after they had watched the video. Furthermore, participants who watched the video felt stronger social bonds with individuals supporting an opposing political party, compared with the control group.

To investigate whether globally shared experiences can strengthen social bonds on a global scale, the study focused on the common experience of motherhood. The researchers recruited a sample of mothers and showed that mothers felt stronger bonds with other women from all over the world if they shared motherhood experiences with them.

In each case, the strength of social bonds was measured using a series of images of two overlapping circles—one representing the participant and the other one a group, e.g. humanity at large or the group of all the world's mothers. The images differed in the degree of overlap between the two circles. Participants had to choose the image that best represented their relationship with the group, with the images that had the greatest amount of overlap representing the strongest social bonds with the group.

In both studies, the reported psychological bonding on a global scale was strongly reflected in measures of prosocial action. To assess this, the researchers used a measure from behavioral economics, where participants had to indicate how they would split an amount of money between members of two different groups in hypothetical scenarios. This measure is used as a practical and cost-efficient tool in experiments to shed light on how strongly participants care about different groups and has been shown to predict real-stakes behaviour very accurately.
Remembering that we are all related and all experience many of the same challenges in life could be the key to addressing a wide range of global problems, from intergroup conflicts to extreme poverty and the climate crisis, conclude teh researchers.

Why Care for Humanity?, Royal Society Open Science (2024). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.231632. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.231632

Part 2

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