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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 1, 2024 at 11:47am

The fungal infection valley fever

Some areas of the U.S. are experiencing a recent uptick in cases of a fungal lung infection called valley fever. 

Valley fever is a fungus. It lives in the soil, and it's endemic, or known to be in regions in the Southwest, such as Arizona, lower California, New Mexico and parts of Mexico.

Valley fever is transmitted via inhalation of spores from the soil, especially during dusty months or high-dust exposure, such as in construction zones.

"Initial symptoms of valley fever can be cough, difficulty breathing, shortness of breath, sometimes a rash and joint aches, and also associated fatigue.

Most people with a healthy immune system can fight off valley fever naturally, but those with immune problems or on certain medications may be at higher risk.

The people getting really significant illness are those that have immune problems, or if you have diabetes or if you're on immune-suppressing medications can really put you at risk.

The best way to prevent valley fever is to avoid high-dust exposure.

If at all possible, if it's really dusty outside and you can really see the dust in the air, try to stay indoors and try to avoid that inhalation of that high-dust exposure.

Source: Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 1, 2024 at 11:38am

Six dead from Marburg viral disease in Rwanda

Six people have been killed in Rwanda in an outbreak of Marburg virus, a highly infectious hemorrhagic fever similar to Ebola, the country's health ministry said recently.

The highly virulent microbe causes severe fever, often accompanied by bleeding and organ failure.

Marburg is part of the so-called filovirus family that also includes Ebola, which has wreaked havoc in several previous outbreaks in Africa.

Neighboring Tanzania reported cases of the disease in 2023, while Uganda experienced its last outbreak in 2017. The three countries share porous borders.

The suspected natural source of the Marburg virus is the African fruit bat, which carries the pathogen but does not fall sick from it.

The animals can pass the virus to primates in close proximity, including humans, and human-to-human transmission then occurs through contact with blood or other body fluids.

Fatality rates in confirmed cases have ranged from 24 percent to 88 percent in previous outbreaks, depending on the virus strain and case management, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

There are currently no vaccines or antiviral treatments, but potential treatments, including blood products, immune and drug therapies, as well as early candidate vaccines, are being evaluated.

Source: AFP

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 1, 2024 at 11:34am

 Rare human death from rabies

A Minnesota resident who came into contact with a bat in July died of rabies, the state's department of health announced Friday.

The person's death marks a rare occurrence, as fewer than 10 people in the the U.S. die from rabies each year, according to the U.S. Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. The person is over the age of 65 and was exposed to a bat in western Minnesota in July, the Minnesota Department of Health said.

CDC officials confirmed the rabies diagnosis at its lab in Atlanta on Sept. 20. In a news release, the state health department said it was working to evaluate whether more people were exposed to the disease, but said there was no ongoing risk to the public

Officials said the fatal case advised the public to avoid contact with bats, whose teeth are so tiny that a bite may not be felt or even leave a noticeable mark.

Rabies is caused by a virus that invades the central nervous system and is usually fatal in animals and humans. If left untreated, rabies is almost always fatal. But rabies treatment has proven to be nearly highly effective at preventing the disease after an exposure, state health officials said. Treatment must be started before symptoms of rabies appear, they added.

The number of rabies-related human deaths in the U.S. has declined from more than 100 annually in the early 1900s to less than five cases annually in recent years, the health department. About 70% of infections acquired in the country are attributed to bat exposures.

Source: The Associated Press

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 1, 2024 at 11:18am

Patient with type 1 diabetes functionally cured using stem cell injections

A team of medical researchers affiliated with a large number of institutions in China has functionally cured a female patient with type 1 diabetes by injecting her with programmed stem cells.

For their study published in the journal Cell, the group extracted cells from the patient, reverted them to a pluripotent state, programmed them to grow into pancreatic islets, and then injected them back into her abdomen.

For unknown reasons, some people experience an immune attack that results in the destruction of islets in the pancreas that are responsible for making insulin. These incidents typically happen during the teen years, which is why the disease is also known as juvenile diabetes.

Because the islets are destroyed, any cure for the disease must involve replacing the islets somehow, either through transplantation from a donor, or in this new example, by using the person's own cells as the basis for creating pluripotent stem cells, which can be programmed to grow into replacement islets.

In this new effort, the researchers collected cells from three type 1 diabetes patients—all the cells were reverted to a pluripotent state and then programmed to grow into pancreatic islets. The researchers note that they modified the standard approach by exposing the cells to certain molecules rather than introducing proteins. The treatment process for the patients was staggered over time so that findings from the first patient could be applied to the second and then the third.

In a procedure lasting approximately 30 minutes, the researchers injected 1.5 million of the islets they had grown into the abdomen of the first patient, a 25-year-old woman. Placing them in the abdomen allowed for easy monitoring and removal if necessary. Two and a half months later, testing showed the patient was producing enough of her own insulin to stop injections.

After a year, she was still producing her own insulin. The research team notes that the patient was already receiving immunosuppressant drugs due to a prior liver transplant; thus, it is still not known if her immune system will replicate the type of attack that led her to have type 1 diabetes in the first place.

Shusen Wang et al, Transplantation of chemically induced pluripotent stem-cell-derived islets under abdominal anterior rectus sheath in a type 1 diabetes patient, Cell (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.09.004

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 1, 2024 at 11:08am

Well-designed AI tools can help clean toxic comments up

Imagine scrolling through social media  only to be interrupted by insulting and harassing comments. What if an artificial intelligence (AI) tool stepped in to remove the abuse before you even saw it?

This isn't science fiction. Commercial AI tools like ToxMod and Bodyguard.ai are already used to monitor interactions in real time across social media and gaming platforms. They can detect and respond to toxic behavior.

The idea of an all-seeing AI monitoring our every move might sound Orwellian, but these tools could be key to making the internet a safer place.

However, for AI moderation to succeed, it needs to prioritize values like privacy, transparency, explainability and fairness. So can we ensure AI can be trusted to make our online spaces better? Two recent research projects into AI-driven moderation show this can be done—with more work ahead. 

https://www.ai-ally.org/

https://jigsaw.google.com/harassment-manager/

https://hateandhope.righttobe.org/pages/about-page

https://theconversation.com/online-spaces-are-rife-with-toxicity-we...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 1, 2024 at 11:00am

A cooling system that works on gravity instead of electricity

This device needs no electricity, as it extracts water from the air using nothing more than gravity and relies on cheap, readily available materials.

Along with keeping the solar cells and other semiconductor technologies cool, the water can be repurposed for irrigation, washing, cooling buildings on which the solar cells are placed, and other applications.

Scientists estimate that the atmosphere contains six times more water than all the fresh water in the rivers combined. This water can be collected by atmospheric water harvesting technologies.

While these technologies work reasonably well, in arid environments they require electricity to harvest practical amounts of water. This demand risks deterring the adoption of solar cells in rural regions , where electricity infrastructure is costly.

One reason for the low efficiency is that the water adheres to the surface of the harvesting device.

Researchers found that by adding a lubricant coating that is a mix of a commercial polymer and silicon oil, they could collect more water by relying on only gravity.

The system doesn't consume any electricity, leading to energy savings. Moreover, it doesn't rely on any mechanical parts like compressors or fans, reducing the maintenance over traditional systems, leading to further savings.

Shakeel Ahmad et al, Lubricated Surface in a Vertical Double‐Sided Architecture for Radiative Cooling and Atmospheric Water Harvesting, Advanced Materials (2024). DOI: 10.1002/adma.202404037

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 1, 2024 at 10:24am

New mission to create total solar eclipses in space

A  team of researchers  are working on the launch of a spacecraft mission that will allow us to view the sun's atmosphere in more detail than ever before.

The proposed MESOM mission will enable researchers to study the conditions that create solar storms, leading to improvements in forecasts of space weather on Earth. The MESOM spacecraft will fly on a peculiar trajectory enabled by the gravitational attraction of the Earth, the sun and the moon, and will use the shadow of the moon to re-create a total solar eclipse in space once every lunar month lasting almost 50 minutes.

Total solar eclipses seen from Earth are much shorter and only last between 10 seconds and 7.5 minutes, with the annular solar eclipse in the Southern Hemisphere this Wednesday 2 October expected to last around seven minutes. Creating a longer eclipse in space will enable the MESOM team to take high-quality images and measurements of the sun's corona, filling gaps in existing understanding of the physical processes taking place in the solar atmosphere that lead to space weather.

Space weather is not a danger to people or animals on Earth, but solar flares and eruptions from the sun known as coronal mass ejections can cause severe disruption to power grids, satellites and other communication technologies on which modern society depends.

MESOM will offer scientists a unique opportunity to study and understand how the sun creates and controls weather in space.

But MESOM also offers the general public an opportunity to engage with the beauty and spectacle of a total solar eclipse as all their images will be readily available. They aim to reveal the secrets of the sun while inspiring a new generation of space scientists and engineers.

MESOM is an incredibly exciting mission which will advance our scientific understanding of the solar atmosphere and space weather to new levels, enabling us to provide more accurate forecasts and take mitigating action.

By creating eclipses that last up to 48 minutes in space, rather than the maximum 7.5 minutes we manage to see on Earth, we stand a much better chance of unlocking their secrets.

https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2024/sep/new-mission-create-total-solar-...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 1, 2024 at 9:26am

Mount Everest is a remarkable mountain of myth and legend and it's still growing. Our research shows that as the nearby river system cuts deeper, the loss of material is causing the mountain to spring further upwards.

Today, the Arun river runs to the east of Mount Everest and merges downstream with the larger Kosi river system. Over millennia, the Arun has carved out a substantial gorge along its banks, washing away billions of tons of earth and sediment.
An interesting river system exists in the Everest region. The upstream Arun river flows east at high altitude with a flat valley. It then abruptly turns south as the Kosi river, dropping in elevation and becoming steeper. This unique topography, indicative of an unsteady state, likely relates to Everest's extreme height.
The uplift is not limited to Mount Everest, and affects neighboring peaks including Lhotse and Makalu, the world's fourth and fifth highest peaks respectively. The isostatic rebound boosts the heights of these peaks by a similar amount as it does Everest, though Makalu, located closest to the Arun river, would experience a slightly higher rate of uplift.
Mount Everest and its neighboring peaks are growing because the isostatic rebound is raising them up faster than erosion is wearing them down. We can see them growing by about two millimeters a year using GPS instruments and now we have a better understanding of what's driving it.
By looking at the erosion rates of the Arun, the Kosi and other rivers in the region, the researchers were able to determine that about 89,000 years ago the Arun river joined and merged with the Kosi river network, a process called drainage piracy.

In doing so, more water was funneled through the Kosi river, increasing its erosive power and taking more of the landscape's soils and sediments with it. With more of the land washed away, it triggered an increased rate of uplift, pushing the mountains' peaks higher and higher.
The interaction between the erosion of the Arun river and the upward pressure of the Earth's mantle gives Mount Everest a boost, pushing it up higher than it would otherwise be.

Jin-Gen Dai, Recent uplift of Chomolungma enhanced by river drainage piracy, Nature Geoscience (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-024-01535-w. www.nature.com/articles/s41561-024-01535-w

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 1, 2024 at 9:24am

Why is Mount Everest so high? Because a river is pushing up Mount Everest's peak!

Mount Everest is about 15 to 50 meters taller than it would otherwise be because of uplift caused by a nearby eroding river gorge, and continues to grow because of it, finds a new study.

The study, published in Nature Geoscience, found that erosion from a river network about 75 kilometers from Mount Everest is carving away a substantial gorge. The loss of this landmass is causing the mountain to spring upwards by as much as 2 millimeters a year and has already increased its height by between 15 and 50 meters over the past 89,000 years.

At 8,849 meters high Mount Everest  is the tallest mountain on Earth, and rises about 250 meters above the next tallest peak in the Himalayas. Everest is considered anomalously high for the mountain range, as the next three tallest peaks—K2, Kangchenjunga and Lhotse—all only differ by about 120 meters from each other.

A significant portion of this anomaly can be explained by an uplifting force caused by pressure from below Earth's crust after a nearby river eroded away a sizable amount of rocks and soil. It's an effect called isostatic rebound, where a section of the Earth's crust that loses mass flexes and "floats" upwards because the intense pressure of the liquid mantle below is greater than the downward force of gravity after the loss of mass.

It's a gradual process, usually only a few millimeters a year, but over geological timeframes can make a significant difference to the Earth's surface.

The researchers found that, because of this process, Mount Everest has grown by about 15 to 50 meters over the last 89,000 years, since the nearby Arun river merged with the adjacent Kosi river network.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 1, 2024 at 9:18am

Researchers witness nanoscale water formation in real time

For the first time ever, researchers have witnessed—in real time and at the molecular-scale—hydrogen and oxygen atoms merge to form tiny, nano-sized bubbles of water.

The event occurred as part of a new  study, during which scientists sought to understand how palladium, a rare metallic element, catalyzes the gaseous reaction to generate water. By witnessing the reaction at the nanoscale, the  team unraveled how the process occurs and even uncovered new strategies to accelerate it.

Because the reaction does not require extreme conditions, the researchers say it could be harnessed as a practical solution for rapidly generating water in arid environments, including on other planets.

The research is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Yukun Liu et al, Unraveling the adsorption-limited hydrogen oxidation reaction at palladium surface via in situ electron microscopy, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2408277121

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