Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 29, 2024 at 11:36am

To date, male brains have been the focus of the vast majority of neurological studies. Of all published brain imaging papers out there, less than 0.5 percent consider and explore the way hormones – including those produced by the gonads – can impact brain health and development.
In general, male brains possess greater white volume matter compared to female brains. Some scientists suspect this is due to differences in how sex hormones, produced by the testes and ovaries, impact the developing brain.

While testosterone is often thought of as a male hormone, it is also produced by the ovaries, and it plays a critical role in the female body. The hormone is also linked to white matter integrity in the brain.

If the ovaries are taken out of the body before menopause, the sudden loss of testosterone could have negative effects on the brain's development.

In the current brain imaging analysis, participants who had both their ovaries removed before age 40 commonly took estrogen to replace what their sex gonads once made. But this hormone replacement therapy had no impact on their white matter integrity.

"[I]t may be hypothesized that the explanation for our results is in part due to loss of testosterone," the team of researchers suggests.

"Additional studies to replicate this finding are clearly needed."

Many unanswered questions still exist to this day about what role the ovaries play in the lifelong health of female-bodied individuals and what happens when they are removed.
Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 29, 2024 at 11:35am

Losing Both Ovaries Could Come at a Serious Cost to The Brain, Researchers Find

The ovaries are involved in far more than just reproduction. The two oval-shaped glands that float on either side of the uterus don't just produce and release eggs, they also pump out hormones that help keep a person's heart, bones, brain, and immune system healthy as they age.
A new brain imaging study has scientists concerned that the surgical removal of both ovaries can have overlooked health consequences in the long run.

The analysis included data from more than 1,000 females over the age of 50 in the US. Participants who had both ovaries removed before the age of 40 showed reduced white matter in several parts of their brain compared to 907 females under the age of 50 who had not undergone the same procedure.

Participants who had both ovaries removed after age 40 also showed reduced white matter integrity, but significantly less so than those who underwent the surgery younger.

The observed changes resembled vascular brain disease more closely than Alzheimer's, the researchers note, but it's also true that these are "early, preclinical features of [Alzheimer's disease] pathology."

Recent research has found that patients who've had both of their ovaries removed before they hit menopause face a higher risk of cognitive impairment and dementia later in life. But this is one of the first studies to try and figure out why.
Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 29, 2024 at 11:26am

Are viruses living organisms?

I saw several answers on Quora where people say viruses are not living.

But the question is really complicated. And Biologists are divided.

When the Nature journal recently conducted a poll, 14% of the readers who responded said they are undecided, 46 percent said viruses are living organisms, while 35% said, they are not living.

Some viewed viruses as in between chemistry and biology, because viruses can be considered dead or alive at different times. For example, a dormant virus in a test tube is not alive until it finds a host. Then it comes alive and replicates with the help of the host.

“Chemistry becomes biology when chemistry is self-replicating and evolving,” according to some biotechnologists . “Viruses fit very well to this definition. They just wait for the perfect conditions (a suitable host cell) to replicate and evolve. So viruses are 100% living organisms,” they say.

Others suggested that the real question is whether the word ‘alive’ has any scientific meaning at all. “The divide between live and dead material is artificially imposed by us as biologists and more generally by us as people,” they say. “We like categorising everything in neat little boxes, but nature is not so easily categorised.”

And the debate goes on!

Would you like to join?

But are questions in science decided using polls?

NO!

Source: Springer Nature

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 29, 2024 at 11:06am

How gut bacteria affect cancer drugs
A holistic view of the gut microbiome can help to predict how people with certain cancers will respond to a type of immunotherapy. Researchers developed a scoring system based on the ratio between two different populations of gut microbes: one linked to resistance to immune checkpoint inhibitors and the other associated with positive responses. The score also included quantification of Akkermansia muciniphila, a microbe that has gained attention owing to its potential role in influencing immune responses. The work “is a breakthrough from a diagnostic point of view”.

Gut microbiome discovery provides roadmap for life-saving cancer therapies

The balance between bacterial communities in the gut affects the likelihood of a positive response to drugs called checkpoint inhibitors.

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00538-5?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867424005385%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02070-9?utm_source=Live+...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 29, 2024 at 11:02am

Risk of deadly fungus from climate change
Rising temperatures could cause mutations in fungi that mean they grow more aggressively or develop drug resistance. During a survey of fungal infections in 96 Chinese hospitals, researchers discovered a fungus, Rhodosporidiobolus fluvialis, not seen before in humans. The infection was resistant to the two most common antifungal drugs — fluconazole and caspofungin. In the lab, when the fungus was exposed to higher temperatures, it quickly mutated and developed resistance against a third drug, amphotericin B, making it essentially untreatable. This is a remarkable and truly unexpected finding, which bodes badly for the future.

Pan-drug resistance and hypervirulence in a human fungal pathogen are enabled by mutagenesis induced by mammalian body temperature

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-024-01720-y?utm_source=Live+...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 29, 2024 at 8:56am

Researchers discover 1 in 5 bacteria can break down plastic

Researchers discovered that nearly 20% of the bacterial strains they studied could degrade plastic, though they needed some encouragement to do so.

Some of the world's smallest organisms could play a significant role in solving the problem of plastic pollution. Increasingly, it is being discovered how certain bacteria can break down plastic into small particles, which can then be recycled.

Moreover, this research reveals that many more bacteria than previously thought can degrade certain types of plastics.

The external conditions are crucial because a plastic bottle doesn't just disappear when it lies in the soil for a while. Bacteria are like people in that sense. Just like us, they don't do things automatically; they need encouragement. People only start running when they are chased by a tiger.

Similarly, bacteria surrounded by a lot of sugar, and thus energy, won't do something that requires too much effort. However, if they are "hungry," they will. This was evident during lab experiments where  the researchers added plastic models to plates with bacteria. At one point, they even "fed" the bacteria perforated pieces of plastic.

 The researchers made two discoveries. First, they noticed that a remarkable number of bacteria could degrade plastics under the right conditions: as much as 18% of the strains studied. They also discovered that a gene called "Lipase A" plays a significant role. When it was present in large numbers, the organisms broke down plastic more quickly.

This research expands the pool of bacteria that we can potentially use to degrade plastic.

Jo-Anne Verschoor et al, Polyester degradation by soil bacteria: identification of conserved BHETase enzymes in Streptomyces, Communications Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s42003-024-06414-z

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 29, 2024 at 8:25am

The earliest known eyed needles appeared approximately 40,000 years ago in Siberia. One of the most iconic of Paleolithic artifacts from the Stone Age, eyed needles are more difficult to make when compared to bone awls, which sufficed for creating fitted clothing. Bone awls are tools made of animal bones that are sharpened to a point. Eyed needles are modified bone awls, with a perforated hole (eye) to facilitate the sewing of sinew or thread.
As evidence suggests bone awls were already being used to create tailored clothes, the innovation of eyed needles may reflect the production of more complex, layered clothing, as well as the adornment of clothes by attaching beads and other small decorative items onto garments.
We know that clothing up until the last glacial cycle was only used on an ad hoc basis. The classic tools that we associate with that are hide scrapers or stone scrapers, and we find them appearing and going away during the different phases of the last ice ages.
Clothing became an item of decoration because traditional body decoration methods, like body painting with ocher or deliberate scarification, weren't possible during the latter part of the last ice age in colder parts of Eurasia, as people were needing to wear clothes all the time to survive.

That's why the appearance of eyed needles is particularly important because it signals the use of clothing as decoration.
Eyed needles would have been especially useful for the very fine sewing that was required to decorate clothing."

Clothing therefore evolved to serve not only a practical necessity for protection and comfort against external elements, but also a social, aesthetic function for individual and cultural identity.

The regular wearing of clothing allowed larger and more complex societies to form, as people could relocate to colder climates while also cooperating with their tribe or community based on shared clothing styles and symbols. The skills associated with the production of clothing contributed to a more sustainable lifestyle and enhanced the long-term survival and prosperity of human communities.
Covering the human body regardless of climate is a social practice that has endured.

Ian Gilligan, Palaeolithic eyed needles and the evolution of dress, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adp2887. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adp2887

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 29, 2024 at 8:22am

The beginnings of fashion: Paleolithic eyed needles and the evolution of dress

A team of researchers led by an archaeologist  are the first to suggest that eyed needles were a new technological innovation used to adorn clothing for social and cultural purposes, marking the major shift from clothes as protection to clothes as an expression of identity.

Eyed needle tools are an important development in prehistory because they document a transition in the function of clothing from utilitarian to social purposes.

From stone tools that prepared animal skins for humans to use as thermal insulation, to the advent of bone awls and eyed needles to create fitted and adorned garments, why did we start to dress to express ourselves and to impress others?

Dr. Gilligan and his co-authors reinterpret the evidence of recent discoveries in the development of clothing in their new Science Advances paper, "Paleolithic eyed needles and the evolution of dress."

Why do we wear clothes? We assume that it's part of being human, but once you look at different cultures, you realize that people existed and functioned perfectly adequately in society without clothes. What intrigued the researchers 's the transition of clothing from being a physical necessity in certain environments, to a social necessity in all environments.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 29, 2024 at 7:06am

Most kids get antibiotics for pink eye, study shows. Experts say they're usually not needed

Doctors are prescribing antibiotics to most kids and teens who have pink eye, despite guidelines that discourage their use, researchers reported this week.

More than two-thirds of  children and teens who saw a doctor for pink eye left with a prescription for antibiotic eye drops, their research found. The American Academy of Ophthalmology recommends that doctors do not routinely give out antibiotics for what's also called conjunctivitis, which usually clears up on its own.

Antibiotics don't work at all on viruses—the most common cause of pink eye. And even mild eye infections from bacteria will resolve on their own in most cases, the medical group says.

Pink eye is highly contagious and causes red, swollen and sometimes itchy eyes. Often, a chilled, wet towel and artificial tears are enough to ease symptoms.

But antibiotics shouldn't be overused if they aren't going to help. Moreover, the misuse can lead to resistance. 

There are more supportive measures you can take to make your child or you feel comfortable without resorting to antibiotic eye drops.

Daniel J. Shapiro et al, Antibiotic Treatment and Health Care Use in Children and Adolescents With Conjunctivitis, JAMA Ophthalmology (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2024.2211

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 29, 2024 at 6:56am

Kids given 'digital pacifiers' to calm tantrums fail to learn how to regulate emotions, study finds

Tantrums are part of growing up. How these outbursts of anger or frustration are managed, however, can impact children's emotional development.

An international team of researchers has investigated how giving children digital devices acting as "digital pacifiers" to avoid or manage tantrums impacts children's later anger management skills. They found that children who were routinely given digital devices when they threw a tantrum had more difficulties regulating their emotions. The researchers also stressed the importance of letting children experience negative emotions and the crucial role parents play in the process.

Children learn much about self-regulation—that is, affective, mental, and behavioral responses to certain situations—during their first few years of life. Some of these behaviors are about children's ability to choose a deliberate response over an automatic one. This is known as effortful control, which is learned from the environment, first and foremost through children's relationship with their parents.

In recent years, giving children digital devices like smart phones or tablets to control their responses to emotions, especially if they're negative, has become common. Children are fascinated by digital content, so this is an easy way to stop tantrums and it is very effective in the short term.

But researchers found  that when parents used digital emotion regulation more often, children showed poorer anger and frustration management skills. Children who were given devices more often as they experienced negative emotions also showed less effortful control at the follow-up assessment.

Tantrums cannot be cured by digital devices. And the researchers recommend new training and counseling methods  for parents. 

Cure for tantrums? Longitudinal associations between parental digital emotion regulation and children's self-regulatory skills, Frontiers in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (2024). DOI: 10.3389/frcha.2024.1276154

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 121
• 122
• 123
• 124
• 125
• …
• 1000
• Next ›
• Page