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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

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 28, 2024 at 10:38am

A typical CT scanner scans the human body using X-rays, and reconstructs its spatial internal structure section by section. In biology, a similar function has recently been performed by the holotomographic microscope. Here, cells are also swept by a beam of radiation, though not high-energy radiation, but electromagnetic radiation. Its energy is chosen so that the photons do not disturb cell metabolism.

The result of the scan is a set of holographic cross-sections containing information about the distribution of refractive index changes. Since light refracts differently on the cytoplasm and differently on the cell membrane or nucleus, it is possible to reconstruct a three-dimensional image of both the cell itself and its interior.

Unlike other high-resolution microscopy techniques, holotomography does not require the preparation of samples or the introduction of any foreign substances into the cells. The interactions of gold nanoparticles with cancer cells could therefore be observed directly in the incubator, where the latter were cultured, in an undisturbed environment--what's more, with nanometric resolution--from all sides simultaneously and practically in real time.

The unique features of holotomography allowed the physicists to determine the causes of the unexpected behavior of cancer cells in the presence of gold nanoparticles. A series of experiments was conducted on three cell lines: two glioma and one colon. Among others, it was observed that although the small, spherical nanoparticles easily penetrated the cancer cells, the cells regenerated and even started to divide again, despite the initial stress.

In the case of colon cancer cells, the gold nano particles were quickly pushed out of them. The situation was different for the large star-shaped nanoparticles. Their sharp tips perforated the cell membranes, most likely resulting in increasing oxidative stress inside the cells. When these cells could no longer cope with repairing the increasing damage, the mechanism of apoptosis, or programmed death, was triggered.

Researchers used the data from the  experiments to build a theoretical model of the process of nanoparticle deposition inside the cells under study. The final result is a differential equation into which suitably processed parameters can be substituted—for the time being only describing the shape and size of nanoparticles—to quickly determine how the uptake of the analyzed particles by cancer cells will proceed over a given period of time and how they kill the cancer cells.

Joanna Depciuch et al, Modeling Absorption Dynamics of Differently Shaped Gold Glioblastoma and Colon Cells Based on Refractive Index Distribution in Holotomographic Imaging, Small (2024). DOI: 10.1002/smll.202400778

Part 2

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 28, 2024 at 10:34am

What type of Gold nanoparticles kill cancer

Gold particles of the size of billionths of a meter are lethal to cancer cells. This fact has been known for a long time, as has a simple correlation: The smaller the nanoparticles used to fight the cancer cells, the faster they die. However, a more interesting, more complex picture of these interactions is emerging from the latest research  using a novel microscopic technique.

Smaller kills faster—this is what was previously thought about gold nanoparticles used to fight cancer cells. Scientists thought that small nanoparticles would simply find it easier to penetrate the interior of a cancer cell, where their presence would lead to metabolic disturbances and ultimately cell death.

The reality, however, turns out to be more complex, as demonstrated by research carried out by scientists.

Nanoparticles can be produced using a variety of methods, yielding particles of different sizes and shapes. Shortly after starting their own experiments with gold nanoparticles, researchers  noticed that biology does not follow the popular rule that their toxicity is greater the smaller they are.

Spherical nanoparticles of 10 nanometers in size  turned out to be practically harmless to the glioma cell line studied. However, high mortality was observed in cells exposed to nanoparticles as large as 200 nanometers, but with a star-shaped structure.

Elucidation of the stated contradiction became possible thanks to the use of the first holotomographic microscope.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 28, 2024 at 9:38am

This theory fits with a pattern of strategies mammals have adopted in an evolutionary bid to limit the spread of potentially harmful elements. Notably, in humans, mitochondrial DNA is exclusively passed down from the mother. This mechanism serves as a natural filter, maintaining genetic integrity by suppressing the proliferation of detrimental mutations. Additionally, the prevalence of monogamous relationships among certain species has been suggested as an adaptive response aimed at minimizing the transmission of sexually transmitted infections (STIs).

Maternal transmission as a microbial symbiont sieve, and the absence of lactation in male mammals, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-49559-5

Part 2

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