Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 3 hours ago

Engineered antibodies offer broad protection against deadly cobra toxins

Each snake species produces a distinct cocktail of toxins that attack nerves, blood or tissues, making it difficult to develop a unified treatment. Current animal-derived antivenoms also have drawbacks, such as batch-to-batch variability, side effects and limited species coverage. Their production is costly and outdated, relying on venom milking and animal immunization, with low yields of active antibodies.

A research team has developed a recombinant, nanobody-based antivenom that offers broad protection against venom from geographically diverse cobra and king cobra species in India. The study is published in Science Translational Medicine
A five-nanobody recombinant cocktail neutralized neurotoxic venoms from diverse Indian cobra and king cobra species in mice. It prevented toxin–receptor binding and protected animals, including when administered 30 minutes after envenomation. Recombinant production could reduce reliance on animal-derived antivenoms and enable region-specific formulations.
Antibodies are usually Y-shaped, with both heavy- and light-chain proteins. The researchers used a portion at the tip of the Y shape, which is made up of heavy-chain proteins that can specifically bind to venom toxins.
They isolated a cocktail of five such antibody fragments, called nanobodies, that could bind to toxins in the various cobra species they tested. They found that this cocktail could neutralize venom activity and prevent the venom from binding to its target receptor.

The team then tested the antibody cocktail in mice injected with venom and found that it protected the animals against toxins from spectacled cobras, monocled cobras and both Indian king cobra species. It was also able to save mice from death even 30 minutes after venom injection.

Unlike conventional antivenoms, these recombinant antibodies can be manufactured using microbial and humanized expression systems without repeatedly immunizing animals such as horses. Additional antibody components can be added to expand protection to other medically important snakes, allowing future recombinant antivenoms to be tailored for different regions or species.
This work provides a blueprint for how recombinant antivenoms can be tailored to different regions of the world by targeting the toxin families that drive disease in local snake species.

Arpan Samanta et al, Oligoclonal nanobody-based recombinant antivenom protects mice challenged with venom from cobras and king cobras from India, Science Translational Medicine (2026). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.aed4290

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 4 hours ago

Anemia in pregnancy linked to differences in babies' brain development

Maternal anemia during pregnancy was associated with ~4% smaller infant total brain volume and reduced putamen, caudate, and corpus callosum volumes by 12 months. Corpus callosum differences increased to 6% by 24 months, including among predominantly mild anemia exposures. Portable low-field MRI detected these differences comparably to conventional MRI.

The observed differences in regional brain volumes were still evident despite most of the mothers in this cohort having only mild anemia. The researchers say these findings identify antenatal maternal anemia as a strong risk factor for altered child brain structure and highlight the importance of preventing and treating anemia before and during pregnancy.

Jessica E Ringshaw et al, Antenatal maternal anaemia and infant brain structure: high-field (3 T) and ultra-low-field (64 mT) MRI findings from South Africa, Brain Communications (2026). DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcag318

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 4 hours ago

Ultimately, the results of this study could pave the way for incorporating cognitive assessments into routine athlete monitoring. Coaches could then better detect early signs of overtraining or altitude-related strain, which can increase the risk of technical errors and injury.

"The brain is also a key factor in athletic performance," said Varesco. "Even in sports that seem primarily physical, athletes must constantly make decisions: adjusting pace, reading the environment, reacting to the unexpected or following their coach's instructions. In mogul skiing, where movements follow one another at high speed, a split-second lapse in attention can have serious consequences."

A reliable, rapid cognitive test could allow coaches to gauge an athlete's cognitive readiness before or even during a training session, helping them decide when to dial back the intensity or steer clear of high-risk situations.
In Tignes, athletes sleep at 2,000 meters (6,600 feet) and train at elevations up to 3,400 meters (11,200 feet). While these are not considered extreme altitudes, they are enough to trigger a series of physiological adaptations.

The rarefied atmosphere is the obvious culprit, but according to Varesco, the story is more complicated than that. The body is reacting to more than just reduced oxygen supply to the brain.

Upon arrival at high altitude, the body activates a host of adaptive mechanisms, particularly in the cardiovascular and respiratory systems. Changes also occur in brain function and neurotransmitter regulation. All of these adjustments can affect sleep, performance and cognitive function.

"During some phases of sleep, breathing can become less regular and blood oxygen levels can fluctuate more," said Varesco. "We've observed that these fluctuations are more pronounced at the beginning of stays at high altitude, before the body gradually acclimatizes."

Poor sleep quality, in turn, affects the next day's performance. Fatigue at altitude is rarely due to a single factor. Altitude, travel, jet lag, stress and the accumulation of training sessions can all contribute.

Giorgio Varesco et al, Assessment of cognitive performance and fatigability in elite athletes: Short and portable protocols for field monitoring under hypoxia, PLOS One (2026). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0353673

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 4 hours ago

Does thin air slow the mind? New research on skiers' mental reactions

In mogul skiing, a fraction of a second can make all the difference. A momentary lapse in attention, a misjudged turn or a delayed decision can turn a smooth sequence into a mistake or even a disaster.

This is of particular concern to the coaches at Ski Acro Québec, the provincial governing body for freestyle skiing. During high-altitude training camps in Tignes in the French Alps, they noticed a marked increase in fatigue among their athletes, ages 16–21.

To understand why, they turned to Giorgio Varesco, a postdoctoral researcher at Université de Montréal's Centre for Advanced Research in Sleep Medicine, working under Guido Simonelli, a professor in the Department of Medicine.

Together with François Bieuzen and Nicolas Bourrel of the Institut national du sport du Québec, Varesco launched a study in 2025 to explore the interplay between sleep, fatigue and athletic performance. A key aim was to develop simple, field-ready methods for measuring cognitive fatigue—right on the mountain.

At 3,500 m, where oxygen saturation fell to 88%, young elite skiers showed slower reactions (363 to 375 ms) and increased errors (one to three) on brief mobile cognitive tests of attention and inhibitory control. Altitude-related cognitive fatigue may reflect hypoxia, sleep disruption, travel stress and training load.
In a controlled laboratory environment, assessing cognitive function is relatively straightforward. Researchers have access to a wide array of instruments and ample time to run tests.

On a European glacier, however, conditions are far from ideal. Equipment must be flown in and operated under often-challenging conditions. Tools need to be compact, rugged, user-friendly and, above all, fast. Athletes aren't keen to spend an hour a day on a battery of cognitive tests when they're there to train.

In a recent study published in the journal PLOS One, Varesco and his team used tablet- and smartphone-based tests that deliver reliable measurements of cognitive performance and fatigue-related decline while keeping time demands to a minimum.

They focused on two cognitive functions essential to elite performance: inhibitory control (the ability to override automatic impulses and distractions) and sustained attention.

Early results are encouraging, even with very short test durations. The tests were able to show that, in young elite athletes, cognitive performance declines at an altitude of 3,500 meters (11,500 feet), where blood oxygen saturation drops to 88%. Exposure to this altitude increased reaction times from 363 to 375 milliseconds and more than doubled error rates, from one to three mistakes.
Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 4 hours ago

Could quantum protocols make electronic voting more secure?
Photon-based GHZ entanglement enabled proof-of-principle quantum voting protocols that anonymously encode votes and permit public result verification without a trusted central authority. Demonstrations involved up to 16 candidates and small voter groups. Scalability, efficiency, remote deployment, and resilience to real-world threats remain unresolved.

Nicolas Laurent-Puig et al, Experimental Quantum Electronic Voting, Physical Review Letters (2026). DOI: 10.1103/scjl-5ygh

F. Joseph Marcellino et al, Experimental Quantum Voting Using Photonic Greenberger-Horne-Zeilinger States, Physical Review Letters (2026). DOI: 10.1103/jlvb-t2xl. On arXiv: arxiv.org/abs/2512.03659

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 6 hours ago

"Therefore, we expect greater risk of obstructed labor, likely cephalopelvic disproportion, with male offspring in several taxa, but it has not yet directly been shown. We cautiously interpret this as support for the 'costly son' hypothesis: male offspring disproportionately contribute to fetopelvic disproportion and obstructed labor owing to their larger average size at birth."

The researchers also point out that the results identify a small average shift in risk for male births, not a prediction for any individual pregnancy. Because this is a comparative review and analysis, it doesn't prove that fetal sex directly causes difficult birth, but it does provide a testable prediction.
Evolutionarily speaking, larger sons often have more offspring because of male-male competition, and thus more grandchildren for the mother, ultimately meaning reproductive "success." The Trivers–Willard hypothesis used this argument to explain why mothers might be more likely to produce sons or daughters, depending on their physical condition. The mother expends more energy on large male babies, and on male babies in general. This increases birth risk but also increases the chance of reproductive success later on.

The study authors explain, "In humans, male fetal sex imposes a double burden on mothers, combining increased obstetric risk with elevated metabolic investment. Mothers of sons expend more energy during pregnancy and lactation, and this higher energetic investment contributes to enhanced fetal growth and larger birth size. In turn, this increased size elevates the risk of obstructed labor and adverse birth outcomes."

The new study does not find that mothers are more or less likely to produce sons or daughters, but the researchers do say that younger mothers seem to produce smaller newborns to partition energetic resources, regardless of sex. They also say it remains unknown whether females can adaptively adjust offspring sex to mitigate obstetric risk. Future work could systematically test whether younger or first-time mothers adjust offspring sex ratios or mainly produce smaller babies.

Nicole D. S. Grunstra et al, The "costly son" hypothesis: Sons exacerbate obstetrical dilemmas in humans and other mammals, The Anatomical Record (2026). DOI: 10.1002/ar.70331

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 6 hours ago

The 'costly son' hypothesis: Why bigger sons may make births riskier across species

A new comparative review, published in The Anatomical Record, examines factors that may lead to birth complications among humans and other mammals. The study suggests that faetal sex may play an important role in risky births in humans and several other species.
It's often thought that human childbirth is unusually difficult among mammals. The idea is that an evolutionary "obstetrical dilemma" arose because of our bipedal pelvic anatomy and increasing brain size over time. Larger babies passing through a narrow birth canal can increase the chance of obstructed labour, affecting mortality for both the baby and mother. Yet difficult births, including cases in which a faetus is too large for the birth canal, occur across many placental mammals.

Some research has suggested that the obstetrical dilemma was solved by relatively earlier births, but other studies found no evidence that humans have shorter gestations than other apes, even after controlling for body size. Furthermore, researchers involved in the new study say there is a maximum fetus size compatible with safe delivery, and when it is exceeded, obstructed birth results. In other words, birth size and weight are known to be associated with difficult delivery.

The new study suggests, however, that because male babies also tend to be larger, male births tend to be riskier. The team says this pattern is not restricted to humans.

"Most taxa, including humans, displayed a bias toward larger male fetuses. Fetal sex has nonetheless not been incorporated in evolutionary perspectives of childbirth, perhaps because it is often assumed that the sex of each baby is determined at random, since most mothers are likely to produce both sons and daughters," the study authors write.

"Every mother has the potential to gestate both offspring through the reproductive career. Hence, it might be assumed that selection has acted on offspring size in general to resolve the obstetrical dilemma. As we show, however, the risks of birth complications are not equal for sons and daughters."

Researchers compiled sex-specific birth-weight data for 140 placental mammal species across 11 mammal orders and compared sex differences among newborns with adult body-size differences and developmental style. They then searched for reports of difficult birth by offspring sex.

This analysis led the authors to propose the "costly son" hypothesis, which states that larger male offspring may raise birth risks for both mothers and babies. They found that male newborns were more often larger than female newborns across many species. In humans, boys are, on average, heavier by around 3% to 4%, have bodies that are around 1% to 1.7% longer and have bigger heads at birth.

In particular, larger male newborns were common in species in which adult males are larger than adult females. Species with male-biased adult size differences were about six times more likely to have larger male newborns than species in which adult females are larger.

The team says evidence from humans, livestock and some other mammals suggests male fetuses are more prone to difficult births (referred to as dystocia), especially when newborns are relatively large compared with the mother. They note that data on birth complications by offspring sex are scarce outside humans and domesticated animals, leading to a focus on humans and domesticated animals rather than wild animals.

"Where sufficient evidence exists—principally in precocial domesticated species and some other ungulates—larger male fetuses are associated with an elevated risk of dystocia. In several primate species where dystocia is reported, male neonates have larger average anatomical dimensions than females," the researchers write.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 6 hours ago

The researchers mapped a specific four-step neural highway originating at olfactory sensory neurons in the nose and ending at glutamatergic neurons in the amygdala that translate physical air movement in the nose into emotional states.
They found that the speed of sensory signals from nasal airflow can directly push anxiety in opposite directions. Slow airflow at 2 Hz acted as a calming signal, reducing anxiety-like behavior in the mice, while fast airflow at 7 Hz had the opposite effect, increasing anxiety-like behavior. Airflow at 4 Hz, meanwhile, produced no significant change in anxiety.

Slow nasal stimulation activates PV⁺ interneurons in the perirhinal cortex, which in turn inhibit anxiety-promoting glutamatergic neurons in the basolateral amygdala. When the researchers silenced the connection between the olfactory bulb and the perirhinal cortex, this breathing-dependent control of anxiety disappeared completely.
Mice that received two hours of slow 2 Hz nasal airflow daily for two weeks showed restored normal high-gamma brain wave activity and reduced anxiety-like behaviors. These calming effects held strong for at least a week after the treatment stopped.

Together, these findings offer a more detailed view of how the nose and brain communicate, a pathway explaining how slow breathing calms anxiety. With anxiety disorders affecting more people worldwide than any other mental disorder, understanding this connection could open the door to effective, noninvasive ways of dealing with the issue.

Xinsong Guo et al, A nose-to-brain circuit underlies anxiety regulation by nasal afferent frequency in mice, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2026). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2603853123

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Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 6 hours ago

Newly mapped brain circuit offers clues to how slow nasal breathing eases anxiety

A slow breath in and out does the trick for many people when calming their nerves and dealing with anxiety, a disorder that affects millions of people worldwide. Pranayama, Taoism and meditation have long used slow nasal breathing to ease a negative mood. How this simple act works its magic, however, has been tickling the gray cells of scientists curious to unravel the biological pathways behind it. Now, scientists may have found a clue.

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences discovered a nose-to-brain circuit that may help explain how the rhythm of nasal breathing can influence anxiety.

Researchers mapped a specific neural highway running directly from the nose into the brain's emotional network. This circuit begins with olfactory sensory neurons in the nasal cavity and continues to mitral cells in the olfactory bulb, the brain's smell-processing center. It then connects to a specific type of neuron, parvalbumin-positive interneurons (PV⁺), in a nearby brain region called the perirhinal cortex, which in turn links to the amygdala, the brain's fear and anxiety hub.

The frequency of nasal stimulation appeared to steer anxiety in different directions. Slow, low-frequency stimulation eased anxiety and boosted high-gamma brain waves in the perirhinal cortex, while faster stimulation had the opposite effect, increasing anxiety.
Breathing happens largely on autopilot, with the brainstem setting its rhythm. The breath, however, also sends information back to the brain. The same nasal neurons that detect odours can sense the movement of air, and the rhythm of that airflow can synchronize activity in brain regions involved in emotion. Humans have used slow breathing for ages to influence emotional states, even without conscious control.
Despite its widespread use, researchers didn't know whether simply changing the pace of this nasal sensory signal could directly shift anxiety, nor had they pinpointed the exact brain pathway connecting nasal airflow to emotional states. In this study, researchers identified that missing link, exposing the brain pathway that could explain why slow, deliberate breathing feels so calming.
Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa yesterday

We saw the results, we looked at ourselves, we said, 'this can't be correct'!

Arctic Rivers Are Breaking The Rules of Erosion

And scientists formed a new theory around Arctic erosion

Arctic landscapes are eroding much faster than previously thought, according to new SFU research. Fueled by climate change and extreme weather events, Arctic erosion is leading to the creation of new river systems as ice in frozen riverbeds melts. Earth scientists previously believed that the ice acted as a sort of glue, holding the landscape together and slowing down erosion. But surprising new findings suggest thawing ice in the ground can actually increase erosion rates up to 10 times compared to unfrozen rivers. SFU researchers explain how they carried out their research and what impact it could have.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-026-03468-1

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