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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

Growing transgenic plants in weeks instead of months by hijacking a plant's natural regeneration abilities

Plant biologists have developed a method for growing transgenic and gene-edited plants that cuts the slow and expensive process down from months to weeks.

Publishing in Molecular Plant, the method takes advantage of plants' natural ability to regenerate after being wounded or pruned. By injecting bacteria carrying genetic instructions for wound healing and regeneration into a pruned plant's wound site, the researchers triggered the plant to grow new shoots, some of which were transgenic and gene edited.

The method shows potential even in species that are usually difficult or impossible to regenerate, such as soybeans.

Typically, when creating transgenic or gene-edited plants, biologists edit the DNA of an individual plant cell, which they then stimulate to grow into a new plant. For species like tomatoes that are relatively easy to regenerate, this process takes at least four months; for more difficult species like cotton, it can take almost a year; and for some plants, such as beans and peppers, tissue culture is extremely difficult.

To speed up this process, the researchers took advantage of plants' natural ability to regenerate after being damaged or pruned.

When a plant gets wounded, it triggers a molecular cascade that first seals the wound by creating a hard callus and then stimulates cell division and differentiation to replace the lost tissue. This process is regulated by a protein called WIND1, which activates a string of other proteins that are involved in cell differentiation and shoot growth.

It's like a relay: once WIND1 is activated, it will activate the next step, ESR1, which then activates the next step.

To simultaneously induce regeneration and introduce new DNA into plants, the researchers used a plant-infecting bacteria, Agrobacterium, that naturally introduces its own DNA into plant cells.

They inserted the genetic instructions for WIND1, ESR1, and several other regeneration genes into Agrobacterium, along with a gene that causes red coloration. Then, they pruned plants and applied the genetically modified Agrobacterium to the wound site.

This technique could help us transform species that are usually very difficult to grow in tissue culture because it's faster and more natural.

 A synthetic transcription cascade enables direct in planta shoot regeneration for transgenesis and gene editing in multiple plants, Molecular Plant (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.molp.2025.09.017

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

Scientists have unlocked a way to dye polyester using 90% fewer chemicals and 40% less water

Fizzy water was the key to making polyester dye less harmful to the environment in the creation of a new method developed by an interdisciplinary team.

Polyester makes up more than half of all global fiber output, with production increasing each year—but it takes centuries to decompose and it can be difficult to recycle from garment-to-garment. Textile production is estimated to be responsible for about 20% of global clean water pollution, largely due to chemicals released in the wastewater from dyeing.

The startup aims to tackle these challenges at the dyeing stage by reducing harmful chemicals, water waste and costs. This could also make it easier and safer to recycle polyester garments, according to researchers.

Not many people know that even more toxic chemicals are used to turn brightly colored wastewater into transparent liquid. When released into freshwater, this is a secret killer that harms people, animals and the environment.

The new method makes it easier to insert and remove dyes from the fiber by injecting a small amount of carbonated water into the dye bath. This triggers the dyes' unique switching behavior within the polyester fibers.

Switch Dye also works on other synthetic fibers, such as nylon and elastane, and is just as effective as a widely used dye, without compromising on colour. Importantly, it uses all the same equipment that manufacturers already have.

SwitchDye can be more easily removed from the fiber, making the clothes much more recyclable. Ultimately, SwitchDye helps to make the textile industry more circular and sustainable, in both the dyeing and recycling stages.

Source: University of Leeds

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

Fake or the real thing? How AI can make it harder to trust the pictures we see

A new study has revealed that artificial intelligence can now generate images of real people that are virtually impossible to tell apart from genuine photographs.

Using AI models ChatGPT and DALL·E, a team of researchers  created highly realistic images of both fictional and famous faces, including celebrities.

They found that participants were unable to reliably distinguish them from authentic photos—even when they were familiar with the person's appearance.

Across four separate experiments, the researchers noted that adding comparison photos or the participants' prior familiarity with the faces provided only limited help.

The research has just been published in the journal Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications and the team say their findings highlight a new level of "deepfake realism," showing that AI can now produce convincing fake images of real people which could erode trust in visual media.

 Robin S. S. Kramer et al, AI-generated images of familiar faces are indistinguishable from real photographs, Cognitive Research: Principles and Implications (2025). DOI: 10.1186/s41235-025-00683-w

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

Universe's expansion 'is now slowing, not speeding up': Evidence mounts that dark energy weakens over time

The universe's expansion may actually have started to slow rather than accelerating at an ever-increasing rate as previously thought, a new study suggests.

"Remarkable" findings published recently in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society cast doubt on the long-standing theory that a mysterious force known as 'dark energy' is driving distant galaxies away increasingly faster.

Instead, they show no evidence of an accelerating universe.

If the results are confirmed, it could open an entirely new chapter in scientists' quest to uncover the true nature of dark energy, resolve the 'Hubble tension,' and understand the past and future of the universe.

With the new tools in their arsenal, astronomers will now be better equipped to find clues about what exactly dark energy is and how it influences the universe.

Junhyuk Son et al, Strong Progenitor Age-bias in Supernova Cosmology. II. Alignment with DESI BAO and Signs of a Non-Accelerating Universe, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2025). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/staf1685

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

Woodpeckers grunt and brace their bodies like athletes to maximize drilling power

Woodpeckers pack a punch, pounding wood with extreme force and experiencing decelerations of up to 400g. Now, researchers reveal in the Journal of Experimental Biology that drilling woodpeckers turn themselves into hammers by bracing their head, neck, abdomen and tail muscles to hold their bodies rigid when they pound on wood, driving each impact with the hip flexor and front neck muscles.

In addition, they discovered that the birds synchronize their breathing with their movements each time they strike wood, like ace tennis stars that grunt noisily to stabilize core muscles when they take a shot. The birds exhaled forcefully, as if grunting, at the instant that the beak struck wood. This type of breathing pattern is known to generate greater co-contraction of trunk musculature.

The team also realized that the birds perfectly synchronized their breathing with each impact as they tapped more softly at rates of up to 13 strikes per second, inhaling a mini-breath (~40 ms) between each rapid blow.

Woodpeckers use their entire bodies when drilling and tapping like a hammer, from the tip of their beaks to their tails, but unlike tennis players, their grunts are drowned out by the drumming.

Neuromuscular coordination of movement and breathing forges a hammer-like mechanism for woodpecker drilling, Journal of Experimental Biology (2025). DOI: 10.1242/jeb.251167

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on Thursday

Researchers discover an 'all-body brain' in sea urchins

An international team of researchers has uncovered a surprisingly complex nervous system in sea urchins. The animals appear to possess an "all-body brain" whose genetic organization resembles that of the vertebrate brain. The team also identified light-sensitive cells distributed across the entire body—comparable to structures found in the human retina.

Using state-of-the-art single-cell and gene expression analyses, the researchers mapped the cell types of young post-metamorphic sea urchins. They found that the adult body plan is largely "head-like."

The body is made entirely of head-like organs Genes that in other animals define trunk structures are active only in internal organs such as the gut and the water vascular system. In sea urchins, a true trunk region is missing altogether.

Most striking is the extraordinary diversity of neuronal cell types. Hundreds of different neurons express both echinoderm-specific "head" genes and highly conserved genes otherwise found in the vertebrate central nervous system. These findings suggest that sea urchins do not possess a simple decentralized nerve net, but rather an integrated, brain-like system that extends throughout the entire body.

The team also discovered numerous light-sensitive cells (photoreceptors) expressing different opsins—proteins that respond to light.
One particular cell type combines melanopsin and go-opsin, suggesting a complex ability to detect and process light stimuli, and hinting at a previously underestimated visual capacity. In addition, large parts of the sea urchin nervous system appear to be light-sensitive and may even be regulated by light cues.

The findings challenge long-standing assumptions about the simplicity of echinoderm nervous systems and open up new perspectives on how complex neural and visual systems can evolve—even in animals without a centralized brain or true eyes.

Periklis Paganos et al, Single-nucleus profiling highlights the all-brain echinoderm nervous system, Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adx7753

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on Thursday

Rabies research unlocks how viruses do so much with so few proteins

New antivirals and vaccines could follow the discovery by  researchers of strategies used by viruses to control our cells. Published in Nature Communications, the study reveals how rabies virus manipulates so many cellular processes despite being armed with only a few proteins.

Researchers think other dangerous viruses like Nipah and Ebola may also work the same way, possibly enabling the development of antivirals or vaccines to block these actions.

Viruses such as rabies can be incredibly lethal because they take control of many aspects of life inside the cells they infect.  They hijack the machinery that makes proteins, disrupt the 'postal service' that sends messages between different parts of the cell, and disable the defenses that normally protect us from infection.

A major question for scientists has been: how do viruses achieve this with so few genes? Rabies virus, for example, has the genetic material to make only five proteins, compared with about 20,000 in a human cell.

Understanding how these few viral proteins performed so many tasks could unlock new ways to stop infection.

Scientists now discovered that one of the rabies virus's key proteins, called P protein, gains a remarkable range of functions through its ability to change shape and to bind to RNA.

RNA is the same molecule used in new-generation RNA vaccines, but it plays essential roles inside our cells, carrying genetic messages, coordinating immune responses, and helping make the building blocks of life.

 By targeting RNA systems, the viral P protein could switch between different physical "phases" inside the cell. This allows it to infiltrate many of the cell's liquid-like compartments, take control of vital processes, and turn the cell into a highly efficient virus factory.

Although this study focused on rabies, the same strategy is likely used by other dangerous viruses such as Nipah and Ebola. Understanding this new mechanism opens exciting possibilities for developing antivirals or vaccines that block this remarkable adaptability.

 Stephen M. Rawlinson et al, Conformational dynamics, RNA binding, and phase separation regulate the multifunctionality of rabies virus P protein, Nature Communications (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-65223-y

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on Wednesday

Fixate on the cross and you will see the moving grey circle become purple. Credit: Communications Psychology (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44271-025-00331-5

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on Wednesday

Demystifying a visual illusion: Why we see color that's not there

A new discovery has unraveled why we sometimes see colors that aren't there. The phenomenon of "color afterimages" is when you see illusory—or false—colors after staring at real colors for a longer time. Through this, the brain can be tricked into seeing color in a black and white image.

The cause of this illusion is the mechanism that allows us to see colors the same throughout the day, independently of light changes. Without it, the color of the world would change as we are under yellow sunlight, a green canopy, or in a bluish shadow.

Scientists have long debated what causes color afterimages, and how the brain creates them.

Researchers found the missing link between the illusory colors we see and the neural mechanisms that produce them. The answer is in the cone cells in our eyes.

We've finally got a conclusive answer—color afterimages are not opposing colors as everybody had thought. Instead, those illusory colors reflect precisely what happens in the cone photoreceptors.

Across all the experiments, researchers found the same thing—afterimages are not caused by opposing colors, as many scientists have thought. Instead, they match what we'd expect if they were caused by how cone cells in the eye adapt to light.

So,  now it is certain that afterimages come from cone cells and not from other parts of the visual system.

Christoph Witzel, The non-opponent nature of colour afterimages, Communications Psychology (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s44271-025-00331-5

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on Wednesday

Time-restricted eating without calorie cuts doesn't improve metabolic health, study finds

Contrary to common assumptions, a new study  shows that intermittent fasting (time-restricted eating) with an unchanged calorie intake does not lead to measurable improvements in metabolic or cardiovascular parameters but does shift the body's internal clocks. Prof. Olga Ramich and her team published the results of the ChronoFast study in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

Time-restricted eating (TRE) is a form of intermittent fasting characterized by a daily eating period of no longer than 10 hours and a fasting period of at least 14 hours. TRE is increasingly popular as a simple dietary strategy for weight control and metabolic health improvement. In rodents, TRE protects against diet-induced obesity and related metabolic dysfunctions.

Similarly, TRE studies in humans have suggested numerous positive cardiometabolic effects, such as improved insulin sensitivity, glucose, triglyceride, and cholesterol levels, as well as moderate reductions in body weight and body fat. Consequently, TRE is considered a promising approach to combat insulin resistance and diabetes.

Results of previous TRE trials have been partly contradictory and have not yet clarified whether the metabolic improvements are due to the restriction of daily eating duration, due to spontaneous calorie restriction, or due to the combination of both factors. In fact, most previous studies have not carefully monitored energy intake or other potential confounding factors.

Therefore, this new study investigated whether an eight-hour eating period could improve insulin sensitivity and other cardiometabolic parameters in a tightly controlled isocaloric environment in the ChronoFast trial.

Contrary to previous studies suggesting positive effects of TRE, the ChronoFast study shows no clinically relevant changes in insulin sensitivity, blood sugar levels, blood fats, or inflammatory markers, at least following this relatively short two-week intervention. These results suggest that the health benefits observed in earlier studies were likely due to unintended calorie reduction, rather than the shortened eating period itself, explain the researchers. 

Although the participants showed no marked metabolic improvements, the study of the internal clock in blood cells revealed that TRE influenced the circadian phase in blood cells and the sleep timing. The internal clock was, on average, shifted back by 40 minutes after the lTRE intervention compared to the eTRE intervention, and participants who followed the lTRE intervention went to bed and awaked later. The timing of food intake acts as a cue for our biological rhythms—similar to light, the researchers say. 

The results underscore that calorie reduction plays a central role in the health benefits of intermittent fasting. 

Beeke Peters et al, Intended isocaloric time-restricted eating shifts circadian clocks but does not improve cardiometabolic health in women with overweight, Science Translational Medicine (2025). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.adv6787

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