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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 15, 2014 at 6:49am

How researchers unearthed the saga of a tiny fern that may have saved the planet
55 million years ago, our planet had no polar ice caps; in fact, it nearly became a steamy, runaway greenhouse world, with CO2 levels exceeding 2,500 ppm. Then, all of a sudden, something intervened, causing a shift.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide began to drop, steadily generating today's world, with ice caps at both poles. But why did this happen? And better yet, could whatever triggered this drastic switch be used to temper today's climate?
Encompassing the period of time in question was a 26-foot-thick column of fossilized ferns, a species so small it can fit on your fingernail but is capable of doubling its mass in two days. It is called Azolla.
In 1878, German naturalist Heinrich Aton de Bary used Azolla to first illustrate his definition of the term symbiosis, or two unlike biological identities living together in unison. He used the example of Azolla paired with lichen to exemplify his new term but also noted a bacteria that seemed to be inherent to the fern, serving as an even more extreme example of symbiosis.
With their spongy, lobe-like leaves only a fraction of an inch long, Azolla float on the surface of bodies of fresh water, dangling long tendrils below. In these leaves, Azolla have created a microenvironment, co-evolving with tiny bacteria called cyanobacteria for an estimated 100 million years.

Over time, the bacteria lost the ability to live independently of the fern, but their photosynthetic machinery increased its nitrogen-fixing capability by a factor of between 12 and 20. The bacteria became the powerhouse of the fern leaf, super-concentrating its photosynthetic power, while gaining shelter and a continuous food source from the fern.
Being able to fix nitrogen so well also makes the fern a fantastic carbon sequesterer.
The researchers remained dumbfounded -that was, until one of them piped up that they also needed to consider the fern's carbon-capturing power in the context of this time period.

Researchers hadn't considered this property a likely factor in the fern's Arctic success, and for good reason. Even with abundant carbon and nitrogen to consume, the size of the plant and its limited access to fresh water make it almost inconceivable that it could even survive in the Arctic, let alone muster up enough power and mass to change the Earth's entire climate, saving our planet, perhaps, from a Venus-like, overheated oblivion.
If Azolla had grown to such proportions that it could have affected the climate to such a degree, what had stopped the so-far invincible fern in its tracks and led to the initial climate plunge? The more the team looked, the more they found evidence that made the Azolla saga even more unbelievable.
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060002785

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 13, 2014 at 8:59am

Using spider toxins to study the proteins that let nerve cells send out electrical signals, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have stumbled upon a biological tactic that may offer a new way to protect crops from insect plagues in a safe and environmentally responsible way. Their finding -- that naturally occurring insect toxins can be lethal for one species and harmless for a closely related one -- suggests that insecticides can be designed to target specific pests without harming beneficial species like bees. A summary of the research, led by Frank Bosmans, Ph.D., an assistant professor of physiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, will be published July 11 in the journal Nature Communications.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2014 at 6:18am

Quantum math makes human irrationality more sensible
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/quantum-math-makes-human-i...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2014 at 6:12am

Two genes clear up psoriasis and eczema confusion
The two inflammatory skin disorders, often misdiagnosed, are distinguishable with a simple test
A test might prevent hundreds of thousands of misdiagnosed cases of skin disease by simply checking two genes, scientists report in the July 9 Science Translational Medicine.

Eczema and psoriasis are widespread, affecting 10 percent and 3 percent of the population, respectively. Both skin diseases produce itchy red patches that can look similar, even under the microscope. Accurate diagnosis is crucial because treatmentsfor one disease can exacerbate symptoms of the other.
Disease-specific genes could distinguish between the two, but so far scientists have searched in vain for such markers. The genes involved in each condition can differ between patients, so Eyerich and his colleagues compared tissue samples for eczema and psoriasis collected from 24 people afflicted with both disorders. After sequencing RNA from patients’ tissue samples, the team discovered 15 genes that could distinguish psoriasis from eczema.

The researchers screened the two best classifier genes, NOS2 and CCL27, among a second group of 34 patients, 16 with psoriasis and 18 with eczema. The researchers found that the two-gene test could discriminate between the disorders in every case.
-Science News.org

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 10, 2014 at 9:49am

Although feelings are personal and subjective, the human brain turns them into a standard code that objectively represents emotions across different senses, situations and even people, reports a new study by Cornell University neuroscientist Adam Anderson. “We discovered that fine-grained patterns of neural activity within the orbitofrontal cortex, an area of the brain associated with emotional processing, act as a neural code which captures an individual’s subjective feeling,” says Anderson, associate professor of human development in Cornell’s College of Human Ecology and senior author of the study. “Population coding of affect across stimuli, modalities and individuals,” published online in Nature Neuroscience.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 10, 2014 at 9:46am

A team of researchers in the U.S. and Germany has measured the highest level of ultraviolet radiation ever recorded on the Earth’s surface. The extraordinary UV fluxes, observed in the Bolivian Andes only 1,500 miles from the equator, are far above those normally considered to be harmful to both terrestrial and aquatic life. The results are being published in the open-access journal Frontiers in Environmental Science.
“A UV index of 11 is considered extreme, and has reached up to 26 in nearby locations in recent years,” notes Cabrol. “But on December 29, 2003, we measured an index of 43. If you’re at a beach in the U.S., you might experience an index of 8 or 9 during the summer, intense enough to warrant protection. You simply do not want to be outside when the index reaches 30 or 40.”

The intense radiation coincided with other circumstances that may have increased the UV flux, including ozone depletion by increased aerosols from both seasonal storms and fires in the area. In addition, a large solar flare occurred just two weeks before the highest UV fluxes were registered. Ultraviolet spikes continued to occur – albeit at lower intensity – throughout the period of solar instability, and stopped thereafter. While the evidence linking the solar event to the record-breaking radiation is only circumstantial, particles from such flares are known to affect atmospheric chemistry and may have increased ozone depletion.

High UV-B exposure negatively affects the entire biosphere, not just humans. It damages DNA, affects photosynthesis, and decreases the viability of eggs and larvae. For these reasons, it is important to keep a close watch on UV flux levels.
- SETI Institute

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 10, 2014 at 6:02am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 10, 2014 at 5:50am

Undisclosed stocks of small pox virus can exist!
Do you think Smallpox, officially preserved in only two repositories worldwide ( Since its eradication in 1980, smallpox officially exists in only two places: the CDC in Atlanta, and its Russian counterpart, the State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology VECTOR, in Novosibirsk), then think again. Because "variola”, the name of the virus that causes smallpox - may have been sitting alive and well in an unsecured US government refrigerator. On July 8, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that vials containing the deadly virus had been discovered in a cardboard box in the refrigerator, located on the National Institutes of Health (NIH) campus in Bethesda, Maryland. A similarly forgotten stock of smallpox was found in a lab in eastern Europe in the 1990s, for instance, and more recently at the Swiss Serum and Vaccine Institute in Bern.
Most experts believe that numerous stocks exist around the world, whether in clandestine labs or preserved in tissue, such as the scabs used for immunizations into the 20th century. They believe that the box now found that held the smallpox vials dates back to the 1950s, but the virus is extremely stable in its powdered form and could still be infectious.
People don't excuse the negligent virologists if small pox virus escapes into the outer world again and ... Need I complete the sentence?
WHO are you listening? Take steps immediately to find undisclosed samples around the world and kill the virus before it spreads havoc again.

Story source: Nature

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 9, 2014 at 10:27am

One of the most severe complications of hepatitis B is the development of liver cancer, which is responsible for approximately 745,000 deaths worldwide each year. Two new studies published in the journal Gastroenterology provide strong evidence that antiviral therapy can reduce the risk of liver cancer in patients with chronic hepatitis B infection.
Both papers support the accumulating evidence that, to avert the risk of liver cancer, antiviral therapy needs to be initiated early during the chronic hepatitis B infection, preferably before the stage of advanced fibrosis.
http://www.gastrojournal.org/article/S0016-5085%2814%2900445-4/abst...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 9, 2014 at 10:23am

Ten Million Genes Of Human Microbiome Sequenced
Researchers have generated the highest quality integrated gene set for the human gut microbiome to date—a close-to-complete catalogue of the microbes that reside inside us and outnumber our own cells ten to one. The results of this study have been published in the journal Nature Biotechnology.

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