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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 6, 2024 at 12:35pm

Scientists develop electrified charcoal 'sponge' that can soak up CO₂ directly from the air

Researchers have developed a low-cost, energy-efficient method for making materials that can capture carbon dioxide directly from the air.

They used a method similar to charging a battery to instead charge activated charcoal, which is often used in household water filters.

By charging the charcoal 'sponge' with ions that form reversible bonds with CO₂, the researchers found the charged material could successfully capture CO₂ directly from the air.

The charged charcoal sponge is also potentially more energy efficient than current carbon capture approaches, since it requires much lower temperatures to remove the captured CO₂ so it can be stored. The results are reported in the journal Nature.

Alexander Forse et al, Capturing carbon dioxide from air with charged-sorbents, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07449-2. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07449-2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 6, 2024 at 10:29am

Despite being an important part of an overall solution, wastewater treatment is unable to address this issue in isolation.

In the article, 17 leading international scientists call for an increased focus on designing greener and more sustainable pharmaceuticals to tackle this issue at its source.

Tomas Brodin et al, The urgent need for designing greener drugs, Nature Sustainability (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-024-01374-y

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 6, 2024 at 10:28am

Scientists sound the alarm on pharmaceutical pollution crisis

Our increasing dependency on pharmaceuticals comes at a major environmental cost, researchers have warned.

In an article published in the journal Nature Sustainability, researchers warn that discharges to the environment during drug production, use, and disposal have resulted in ecosystems around the globe being polluted with mixtures of pharmaceuticals, posing a growing danger to wildlife and human health.

While emphasizing that pharmaceuticals are indispensable in modern health care and will remain crucial in the future, the researchers highlight the need for designing and manufacturing more sustainable drugs to combat this issue at source.

A wide variety of drugs have now been detected in environments spanning all continents on Earth.

Exposure to even trace concentrations of some of these drugs can have severe impacts on the health of wildlife and human populations, and has already led to severe population crashes in vultures throughout India and Pakistan, as well as widespread sex-reversal of fish populations exposed to the human contraceptive pill.

Pharmaceutical pollution is a complex problem that demands a multifaceted solution. So far, environmental protection efforts have mainly been focused on upgrading wastewater treatment infrastructure to remove drugs before release into waterways more effectively.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 6, 2024 at 10:21am

Rate of global warming caused by humans is at an all-time high, say scientists

The second annual Indicators of Global Climate Change report reveals that human-induced warming has risen to 1.19 °C over the past decade (2014-2023)—an increase from the 1.14 °C seen in 2013-2022 (set out in last year's report).

Looking at 2023 in isolation, warming caused by human activity reached 1.3 °C. This is lower than the total amount of warming we experienced in 2023 (1.43 °C), indicating that natural climate variability, in particular El Niño, also played a role in 2023's record temperatures.

The analysis also shows that the remaining carbon budget—how much carbon dioxide can be emitted before committing us to 1.5 °C of global warming—is only around 200 gigatons (billion tons), around five years' worth of current emissions.

In 2020, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) calculated that the remaining carbon budget for 1.5 °C was in the 300–900 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide range, with a central estimate of 500. Since then, CO₂ emissions and global warming have continued. At the start of 2024, the remaining carbon budget for 1.5 °C stood at 100 to 450 gigatons, with a central estimate of 200.

This analysis by scientists shows that the level of global warming caused by human action has continued to increase over the past year, even though climate action has slowed the rise in greenhouse gas emissions. Global temperatures are still heading in the wrong direction and faster than ever before.

The latest Indicator report, which is published by more than 50 scientists in the journal Earth System Science Data, also provides new insight into the effects of reductions in sulfur emissions from the global shipping industry. The sulfur has a cooling effect on the climate by directly reflecting sunlight back to space and by helping more reflective clouds to form, but ongoing reductions in those emissions have lessened that effect.

Although this was offset last year by the aerosol emissions from the Canadian wildfires, the report says the longer-term trend nonetheless indicates that the amount of cooling we can expect from aerosol emissions is continuing to decline.

 Indicators of Global Change report, Earth System Science Data (2024).

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 6, 2024 at 10:07am

'Painting with light' illuminates photo evidence of air pollution

Researchers and artists have joined forces to "paint with light"—making invisible air pollution visible and demonstrating the health risks posed to people living and working in Ethiopia, India, and the UK.

Combining digital light painting and low-cost air pollution sensors, the team produced photographic evidence of pollution levels in cities across the three countries—sparking debate among local communities and illustrating:

• Air pollution varying dramatically between locations in Ethiopia—a kitchen using biomass stoves for food preparation where PM2.5 concentrations in the room were up to 20 times greater than what was measured nearby outdoors;
• Two children's playgrounds in India, 500 km apart—one in urban Delhi, the other in rural Palampur—with PM2.5 values at the Palampur playground at least 12.5 times less than those measured in Delhi; and
• Large variations in air pollution around the Port Talbot steelworks, in Wales—air quality monitoring and light painting at dusk in summer measured PM2.5 concentrations in the range of 30-40 mg/m3, when the hourly average value was 24 mg/m3.

The international team of researchers and artists published its findings in Communications Earth & Environment—recording how photographs taken as part of the "Air of the Anthropocene" project had stimulated discussion around the impact of air pollution.

The team used low-cost air pollution sensors to measure PM mass concentrations and took the sensors' real time signal to control a moving LED array programmed to flash more rapidly as PM concentration increased.

A long exposure photograph is taken with the artist moving the LED array in front of the camera—the flash becoming a dot on the photograph. The artist is not seen in the photo because they are moving, but light flashes from LEDs are seen because they are bright. The more light dots appear in the photographs, the higher the PM concentration.

Thanks to the power of images, these people could provoke people's emotions—fostering awareness and prompting people to share their perspectives and take action to tackle air pollution.

Light painting photography makes particulate matter air pollution visible, Communications Earth & Environment (2024).

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 5, 2024 at 12:29pm

Nocturnal heat exposure and stroke risk

Hot Nights Linked With Increased Risk of Stroke, Scientists Warn

The risk of suffering a stroke is significantly higher with high overnight temperatures, posing a potential health concern around the globe as the world gets warmer.

Mapping night-time temperatures against the number of stroke cases recorded in the German city of Augsburg across the course of 15 years, a research team found a statistically significant increase in stroke risk on days where extremely warm night-time temperatures were recorded, with older people and women particularly vulnerable.

Overall, the risk of stroke increased by 7 percent during nights categorized as "tropical". For the purposes of this research, a tropical night was one where the temperature remained above 14.6 °C (58.3 °F). These nights represented the hottest 5 percent of nights across the course of the study period.

There was evidence of a higher number of stroke incidents over time, too: from 2006 to 2012, hot nights were linked to two additional strokes per year, whereas from 2013 to 2020, hot nights were associated with 33 additional cases per year. That reflects increasing temperatures as the years went by.

The researchers say a variety of factors could be behind the statistics, including a greater chance of dehydration – already known to increase the likelihood of suffering a stroke. Limited access to technology such as air conditioning could also play a part.

https://academic.oup.com/eurheartj/advance-article/doi/10.1093/eurh...

"In summary, changes in underlying drivers from climatic factors, stroke risk factors, and socioeconomic conditions may contribute to the increased susceptibility to night-time heat-related stroke over time," write the researchers in their published paper.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 5, 2024 at 11:38am

Relative entropy, which requires two states, in this case, corresponds to the universe and its partner anti-universe. Accelerated expansion seems inevitable in a universe created in pairs that respect the null energy condition. This result is quite surprising and readers familiar with Hawking's area theorem may notice some similarities. The area theorem also deals with causal horizons and requires the null energy condition to hold.

In this new model, the causal horizon corresponds to the Big Bang. The results apply equally to the partner anti-universe.

 Naman Kumar, On the Accelerated Expansion of the Universe, Gravitation and Cosmology (2024). DOI: 10.1134/S0202289324010080

Part 2

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 5, 2024 at 11:36am

New model suggests partner anti-universe could explain accelerated expansion without the need for dark energy

The accelerated expansion of the present universe, believed to be driven by a mysterious dark energy, is one of the greatest puzzles in our understanding of the cosmos. The standard model of cosmology called Lambda-CDM, explains this expansion as a cosmological constant in Einstein's field equations. However, the cosmological constant itself lacks a complete theoretical understanding, particularly regarding its very small positive value.

To explain the accelerated expansion, physicists have proposed alternative explanations such as quintessence and modified gravity theories, including scalar-tensor-vector gravity. Additionally, explanations beyond four dimensions, like the braneworld scenarios in the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati (DGP) model, modify gravity at large distances due to the effect of a higher-dimensional bulk on our four-dimensional brane, and variable brane tension.

Some researchers are now proposing another model to explain the present accelerated expansion of the universe. Unlike existing models, this does not require any form of dark energy or modified gravity approaches. However, there is a price to pay: we need a partner anti-universe whose time flow is oppositely related to our universe.

There are strong arguments supporting this concept. From a quantum theory perspective, it is natural for the universe to be created in pairs. Recently, Boyle et al proposed that the universe does not spontaneously violate CPT (Charge, Parity, and Time reversal symmetry), but rather, the universe after the Big Bang is the CPT image of the universe before it, pointing towards a partner anti-universe.

In a recent paper published in Gravitation and Cosmology, researchers used key concepts from quantum theory, such as relative entropy, and from general relativity, such as the null energy condition, which corresponds to the positive energy condition. The findings suggest that the universe naturally expands in an accelerated manner.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 5, 2024 at 11:30am

Commonly used alcohol-based mouthwash brand may disrupt the balance of your oral microbiome, scientists say

The oral microbiome is the community of bacteria that live in the mouth. It helps us digest our food and keep our mouth healthy. Changes to the composition of the oral microbiome have been linked to periodontal diseases and some cancers.

New research, published in Journal of Medical Microbiology is a follow-up to a larger study investigating the use of mouthwash as a method to reduce the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases in men who have sex with men. Researchers wanted to explore further and investigate whether the mouthwash used had an impact on the oral microbiome of the patients.

Researchers found that two species of opportunistic bacteria were significantly more abundant in the mouth after three months of daily use of the alcohol-based mouthwash, Fusobacterium nucleatum and Streptococcus anginosus. These two bacteria have been previously linked to gum disease, esophageal and colorectal cancers. Researchers also saw a decrease in a group of bacteria called Actinobacteria, which are crucial contributors to the regulation of blood pressure.

Alcohol-based mouthwashes are widely available. The public may use them daily to tackle bad breath or prevent periodontitis, but they should be aware of the potential implications.

The effect of daily usage of Listerine Cool Mint mouthwash on the oropharyngeal microbiome: a substudy of the PReGo trial, Journal of Medical Microbiology (2024). DOI: 10.1099/jmm.0.001830

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 5, 2024 at 11:25am

Study finds maternal obesity in mice increases microRNA levels in the hypothalamus in offspring, leading to overeating

Maternal obesity impacts the eating behaviours of offspring via long-term overexpression of the microRNA miR-505-5p, according to a study publishing June 4 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology.

 Previous studies in both humans and animal models have shown that the offspring of obese mothers have a higher risk of obesity and type 2 diabetes. While this relationship is likely the result of a complex relationship between genetics and environment, emerging evidence has implicated that maternal obesity can disrupt the hypothalamus—the region of the brain responsible for nutrition sensing and energy homeostasis.

In animal models, offspring exposed to overnutrition during key periods of development eat more, but little is known about the molecular mechanisms that lead to these changes in eating behaviour.

In this new study, researchers found that mice born from obese mothers had higher levels of the microRNA miR-505-5p in their hypothalamus—from as early as the fetal stage into adulthood. The researchers found that the mice ate more and showed a preference for high-fat foods. Interestingly, the effect of maternal obesity on miR-505-5p and eating behaviours was mitigated if the mothers exercised during pregnancy.

Cell culture experiments showed that miR-505-5p expression could be induced by exposing hypothalamic neurons to long-chain fatty acids and insulin, which are both high in pregnancies complicated by obesity. The researchers identified miR-505-5p as a novel regulator of pathways involved in fatty acid uptake and metabolism, therefore, high levels of the miRNA make the offspring brain unable to sense when eating high fat foods.

Several of the genes that miR-505-5p regulates have been associated with high body mass index in human genetic studies. The study is one of the first to demonstrate the molecular mechanism linking nutritional exposure in utero to eating behaviour.

This research work helps us understand why the children of mothers living with obesity are more likely to become obese themselves, with early life exposures, genetics and current environment all being contributing factors.

Dearden L, Furigo IC, Pantaleão LC, Wong LWP, Fernandez-Twinn DS, de Almeida-Faria J, et al. Maternal obesity increases hypothalamic miR-505-5p expression in mouse offspring leading to altered fatty acid sensing and increased intake of high-fat food. PLoS Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002641

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