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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 20, 2023 at 12:51pm

People With Complete Color Blindness Given Their First Sight of Color
A small selection of volunteers who were completely color blind can now faintly detect a splash of color following retinal gene therapy.

Following the trial by researchers in Israel, three adults and one child who could only sense brightness of light found that after gene therapy they were able to tell a red object apart from its darker background.
Achromatopsia is caused by defects in genes that control cone cells, our eyes' color-sensors. The approximately 1 in 30,000 people affected see all the vibrant colors of the world as blurry shades of gray.

A single gene mutation caused the congenital condition in the volunteers, and the researchers hoped that inserting functional copies of the gene into cone cells would allow them to see color.
The researchers used a viral vector to transport a functional copy of the gene into the retina which houses cone cells, in one of each participant's eyes.
Researchers found treated 'achromats' can perceive red color, albeit in a very limited way, and differently than normally sighted controls.
But the different shades of gray were not replaced by a range of rainbow colors.

Nevertheless, color detection was evident in all patients' treated eyes.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(23)00826-6?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0960982223008266%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 20, 2023 at 12:03pm

Lasting Brain Effects
Researchers recently examined the brains of patients born with congenital blindness who had their vision restored surgically. Despite many years of having their sight back, these individuals had a visual cortex that more closely resembled the corresponding visual areas of individuals with permanent blindness.

Why this matters: These findings suggest that harsh experiences or environments early in life can result in irreversible structural changes in multiple regions of the brain. Poverty and adversity (abuse or neglect) have often been found to have a widespread effect across the brain, and extrapolating from this vision study, experts expect permanent neurological changes resulting from harsh early experiences, write Cordula Hölig, Brigitte Röder and Ramesh Kekunnaya, cognitive neuroscientists and an ophthalmologist, respectively, who are the study’s lead authors.

What the experts say: “Poverty and adversity can cause changes in brain development. …Ensuring access to safe environments, affordable health care, healthy food and appropriate education gives children the opportunity to develop and stay physically and mentally healthy,” write the study authors.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 20, 2023 at 12:02pm

The true cost of science’s language barrier
Researchers whose first language is not English can spend around twice as long reading an English-language scientific journal article as native speakers. In a survey of more than 900 environmental scientists from 8 countries, non-native speakers also reported needing more time to prepare conference presentations in English — and many avoid this type of commitment. Conservation scientist and co-author Tatsuya Amano has felt the impact first-hand as a Japanese researcher who has adapted to working in the United Kingdom and Australia. “Behind the scenes, I have to spend so much time to reach that level.”

https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article?id=10.1371/journal.pb...

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02320-2?utm_source=Natur...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 20, 2023 at 11:59am

Can India's new billion-dollar funding agency boost research?

India’s proposed National Research Foundation will shake up the scientific landscape to encourage a culture of research.

India is planning to set up a national agency to increase research across the nation’s thousands of universities, colleges, institutes and laboratories. Legislation to establish the fund is expected to be introduced into the Indian Parliament in the next three weeks.

The National Research Foundation (NRF) will have a budget of roughly US$6 billion over five years. Some 70% of these funds is intended to come from investors in the private sector, and the remaining portion will be covered by the government.

The NRF’s goal is to “seed, grow and promote” research across the country’s institutions by strengthening ties between academia, industry and the government, according to a statement from the Ministry of Science and Technology.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02336-8?utm_source=Natur...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 20, 2023 at 11:51am

Bacterial protein found in the urogenital tract may contribute to reduced fertility, birth defects

A   study, published on July 17 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), established a new link between genomic instability and a protein from Mycoplasma fermentans, a kind of bacterium that commonly colonizes the urogenital tract. This bacterial protein also reduced fertility in mother mice and resulted in more birth defects in their newborn pups.

The study results not only broaden our understanding of the interplay between the urogenital tract microbiota and human reproductive health, but also shed light on the previously unidentified contribution of the human microbiota to genetic abnormalities.

For this latest study, researchers created mice that make the DnaK protein normally produced by the bacterium Mycoplasma fermentans. These mice with exposure to DnaK accrued genomic instability in which entire sections of the genome were duplicated or deleted, resulting in mice with varying numbers of copies of certain genes.

The team noticed that some of these mice from three to five weeks of age had problems with movement and coordination. They found that these mice have a deletion in the Grid2 gene, which in humans leads to the rare genetic disease known as spinocerebellar ataxia-18 (SCAR18) that causes delayed development of skilled movements and intellectual disabilities.

Remarkably, this instance marks the first time a mouse model successfully recapitulated a human genetic disease de novo, showcasing this model's potential for further cancer biology research.

More than a third of the female mice that made the DnaK protein were unable to get pregnant. Additionally, more than 20% of the pups born from moms with the DnaK protein had some sort of birth defect/deformity.

"The occurrences of genomic instability, in the form of increased number of copy number variations, could explain the decreased fertility and the increased instances of abnormally developed fetuses we observed upon DnaK exposure.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2219897120

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 20, 2023 at 11:39am

Can two exoplanet siblings share a single orbit?

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), astronomers have found the possible "sibling" of a planet orbiting a distant star. The team has detected a cloud of debris that might be sharing this planet's orbit, which they think  could be the building blocks of a new planet or the remnants of one already formed. If confirmed, this discovery would be the strongest evidence yet that two exoplanets can share one orbit.

Two decades ago it was predicted in theory that pairs of planets of similar mass may share the same orbit around their star, the so-called Trojan or co-orbital planets. For the first time, scientists have found evidence in favour of that idea.

Trojans, rocky bodies in the same orbit as a planet, are common in our own solar system, the most famous example being the Trojan asteroids of Jupiter—more than 12,000 rocky bodies that are in the same orbit around the sun as the gas giant. Astronomers have predicted that Trojans, in particular Trojan planets, could also exist around a star other than our sun, but evidence for them is scant.

"Exotrojans [Trojan planets outside the solar system] have so far been like unicorns: They are allowed to exist by theory but no one has ever detected them.

Now, an international team of scientists have used ALMA, in which ESO is a partner, to find the strongest observational evidence yet that Trojan planets could exist—in the PDS 70 system. This young star is known to host two giant Jupiter-like planets, PDS 70b and PDS 70c. By analyzing archival ALMA observations of this system, the team spotted a cloud of debris at the location in PDS 70b's orbit where Trojans are expected to exist.

Trojans occupy the so-called Lagrangian zones, two extended regions in a planet's orbit where the combined gravitational pull of the star and the planet can trap material. Studying these two regions of PDS 70b's orbit, astronomers detected a faint signal from one of them, indicating that a cloud of debris with a mass up to roughly two times that of our moon might reside there.

The scientists think  this cloud of debris could point to an existing Trojan world in this system, or a planet in the process of forming.

O. Balsalobre-Ruza et al, Tentative co-orbital submillimeter emission within the Lagrangian region L5 of the protoplanet PDS 70 b, Astronomy & Astrophysics (2023). DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202346493

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 20, 2023 at 10:14am

Magnetic fields around cosmic bodies tend to be asymmetric, or stronger on one side. Magnetic fields can prevent the mixing of materials. So, if the magnetic field is stronger on one side, then that side would have less mixing and thus more hydrogen.

Another theory proposed by the scientists to explain the two faces also depends on magnetic fields. But in this scenario, the fields are thought to change the pressure and density of the atmospheric gases.

The magnetic fields may lead to lower gas pressures in the atmosphere, and this may allow a hydrogen 'ocean' to form where the magnetic fields are strongest.

At present scientists don't know which of these two theories is correct. so further work in this regard is being planned.

Ilaria Caiazzo, A rotating white dwarf shows different compositions on its opposite faces, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06171-9. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06171-9

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 20, 2023 at 10:10am

Two-faced star : Unusual white dwarf with a hydrogen side and a helium side

In a first for white dwarfs, the burnt-out cores of dead stars, astronomers have discovered that at least one member of this cosmic family is two faced. One side of the white dwarf is composed of hydrogen, while the other is made up of helium.

The surface of the white dwarf completely changes from one side to the other.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 20, 2023 at 9:49am

Mosquito-friendly gene drive may lead to a malaria-free future

Researchers have developed a gene drive solution for mitigating malaria transmission from mosquitoes.

In their paper, "Dual effector population modification gene-drive strains of the African malaria mosquitoes, Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii," published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, they present a proposed gene drive approach to reducing human malaria cases by introducing genes into vector mosquitoes that hinder the transmission of the malaria parasite.

The study demonstrates the potential of using Cas9 guide RNA–based gene drive systems coupled with dual anti-parasite effector genes to rapidly spread through mosquito populations and reduce the load of Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite that causes malaria in humans.

Gene drives operate by taking advantage of genetic systems that link highly conserved or advantageous traits to chromosomes or other genetic elements with a positive transmission bias so that it will be inherited at rates much higher than 50%. In this way, a new gene can be introduced into a rapidly reproducing population with a small number of modified individuals and quickly spread to become dominant within the population.

Previous considerations of using gene drive modifications to eradicate mosquitoes have been met with great concern for the potential unintended effects of removing a species from the environment, even one as universally despised as mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes are food for many creatures, including several birds, bats, turtles, fish and frogs, spiders and snakes, dragonflies and damselflies. While they may have a taste for blood, mosquitoes primarily feed on nectar from small flowers, making them important pollinators.

The current study takes a much more holistic approach, essentially using the gene drive to vaccinate generations of mosquito populations against the parasite that causes malaria without harming the mosquitos or jeopardizing their important role in the ecosystem.

Researchers added the designed gene drive effector gene to a small population of mosquitoes under laboratory conditions. Trials were conducted using two strains of mosquitoes, Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii. The genes were inherited by offspring at nearly 100%, and researchers observed the complete spread of the gene drive augmentation to captive wild-type populations within a few months. The effector genes spread by the gene drive produce monoclonal antibodies that target specific stages of the parasite's life cycle within the mosquitoes, significantly reducing P. falciparum prevalence and their potential subsequent infection intensity.

Transmission modeling predicts that, with a series of releases, the genetically modified mosquito strains could have swift and meaningful epidemiological impacts by reducing malaria incidence by 50% to 90% within just a few months.

Rebeca Carballar-Lejarazú et al, Dual effector population modification gene-drive strains of the African malaria mosquitoes, Anopheles gambiae and Anopheles coluzzii, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2221118120

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 19, 2023 at 1:20pm

Mammal mightier than the Dinos

An ancient fossil discovered in China shows a Cretaceous-period mammal preying on a dinosaur. The two animals were locked in combat when lava from a nearby volcanic eruption flowed over them, pristinely preserving the 125 million-year-old scene. The mammal, a Repenomamus roughly the size of an opossum, is clearly the aggressor as it bites into the ribs of a Psittacosaurus, a dinosaur nearly three times its size. 

Why this is cool: This is the first glimpse back in time of a mammal actively hunting a much larger dinosaur. “It’s like watching the coyote catch the roadrunner,” says Stephen Brusatte, a paleontologist at the University of Edinburgh. 

What the experts say: This mammal was something of an anomaly for its time—it would take tens of millions of years and an asteroid strike to give mammals the evolutionary advantage on Earth.

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