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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 29, 2024 at 10:57am

NASA streams first 4K video from aircraft to space station and back

A team at NASA's Glenn Research Center in Cleveland has streamed 4K video footage from an aircraft to the International Space Station and back for the first time using optical (laser) communications. The feat was part of a series of tests on new technology that could provide live video coverage of astronauts on the moon during the Artemis missions.

Historically, NASA has relied on radio waves to send information to and from space. Laser communications use infrared light to transmit 10 to 100 times more data faster than radio frequency systems.

Working with the Air Force Research Laboratory and NASA's Small Business Innovation Research program, Glenn engineers temporarily installed a portable laser terminal on the belly of a Pilatus PC-12 aircraft. They then flew over Lake Erie, sending data from the aircraft to an optical ground station in Cleveland. From there, it was sent over an Earth-based network to NASA's White Sands Test Facility in Las Cruces, New Mexico, where scientists used infrared light signals to send the data.

The signals traveled 22,000 miles away from Earth to NASA's Laser Communications Relay Demonstration (LCRD), an orbiting experimental platform. The LCRD then relayed the signals to the ILLUMA-T (Integrated LCRD LEO User Modem and Amplifier Terminal) payload mounted on the orbiting laboratory, which then sent data back to Earth. During the experiments, High-Rate Delay Tolerant Networking (HDTN), a new system developed at Glenn, helped the signal penetrate cloud coverage more effectively.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 29, 2024 at 9:50am

New study links brain microstructure to gender differences in mental health

A team of neuroscientists and behavioral specialists has found differences between male and female brain structure in areas associated with decision-making, memory processing and handling emotions.

In their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group compared more than 1,000 brain scans to better understand why men and women are more prone to different kinds of brain illness.

Prior research has shown that male babies are three times as likely to be diagnosed with autism as they grow older than are female babies—they are also twice as likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. On the other hand, female babies are almost twice as likely to be diagnosed with anxiety or mood disorders later in life than are boys.

Mental health specialists have wondered for many years why there are differences, and many suspect that it is due to physical brain differences between the genders. The research team thinks they may have found evidence for such differences.

To spot possible gender differences in the brain, the researchers focused their attention on subcortical gray matter regions that prior researchers have associated with mental health, including the amygdala and the thalamus. They then analyzed MRI scans of 1,065 male and female brains, looking for differences in brain microstructure, such as the way cells are concentrated, their arrangement or even their physical characteristics.

The research team found what they describe as "large, sex-related differences in microstructures." They noted that such changes were still apparent after adjusting for age and the relative size of the brains under study. They also found diffusion metrics in the amygdala and thalamus that they believe could be associated with mental disorders such as anxiety, ADHD, social skills issues and depression.

They suggest that further study of diffusion MRI imagery could provide more insight into gender-based brain disorders.

Richard Watts et al, Sex and mental health are related to subcortical brain microstructure, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2403212121. www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2403212121

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 29, 2024 at 9:05am

Trees reveal climate surprise: Microbes living in bark remove methane from the atmosphere

Tree bark surfaces play an important role in removing methane gas from the atmosphere, according to a study published 24 July in Nature.

While trees have long been known to benefit the climate by removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, this new research reveals a surprising additional climate benefit. Microbes hidden within tree bark can absorb methane—a powerful greenhouse gas—from the atmosphere.

An international team of researchers has shown for the first time that microbes living in bark or in the wood itself are removing atmospheric methane on a scale equal to or above that of soil. They calculate that this newly discovered process makes trees 10% more beneficial for climate overall than previously thought.

Methane is responsible for around 30% of global warming since pre-industrial times and emissions are currently rising faster than at any point since records began in the 1980s.

Although most methane is removed by processes in the atmosphere, soils are full of bacteria that absorb the gas and break it down for use as energy. Soil had been thought of as the only terrestrial sink for methane, but researchers now show that trees may be as important, perhaps more so.

Vincent Gauci, Global atmospheric methane uptake by upland tree woody surfaces, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07592-w. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07592-w

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 29, 2024 at 9:01am

Signs of Ancient Life on Mars?

NASA’s Perseverance rover has made very compelling observations in a Martian rock that, with further study, could prove that life was present on Mars in the distant past – but how can we determine that from a rock, and what do we need to do to confirm it? Morgan Cable, a scientist on the Perseverance team, takes a closer look.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 28, 2024 at 12:11pm

Neuroscientists discover brain circuitry of placebo effect for pain relief

The placebo effect is very real. Some placebo effects are so strong that individuals are convinced they received a real treatment meant to help them. This we've known for decades, as seen in real-life observations and the best double-blinded randomized clinical trials researchers have devised for many diseases and conditions, especially pain. And yet, how and why the placebo effect occurs has remained a mystery. Now, neuroscientists have discovered a key piece of the placebo effect puzzle.

 And the placebo effect—feeling better even though there was no "real" treatment—has been documented as a very real phenomenon for decades.

It is the human experience, in the face of pain, to want to feel better. As a result—and in conjunction with millennia of evolution—our brains can search for ways to help us feel better.

It releases chemicals, which can be measured.

Published now in Nature, researchers discovered a pain control pathway that links the cingulate cortex

 in the front of the brain, through the pons region of the brainstem, to cerebellum in the back of the brain.

They showed that certain neurons and synapses along this pathway are highly activated when mice expect pain relief and experience pain relief, even when there is no medication involved.

That neurons in our cerebral cortex communicate with the pons and cerebellum to adjust pain thresholds based on our expectations is both completely unexpected, given our previous understanding of the pain circuitry, and incredibly exciting. These results do open the possibility of activating this pathway through other therapeutic means, such as drugs or neurostimulation methods to treat pain.

This research provides a new framework for investigating the brain pathways underlying other mind-body interactions and placebo effects beyond the ones involved in pain.

Grégory Scherrer, Neural circuit basis of placebo pain relief, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07816-z. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07816-z

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 28, 2024 at 12:11pm

Biologists discover human-infecting parasite produces sterile soldiers like ants and termites

New research from scientists finds a tiny freshwater parasite known to cause health problems in humans defends its colonies with a class of soldiers that cannot reproduce.

The discovery, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences vaults this species of parasitic flatworm into the ranks of complex animal societies such as ants, bees and termites, which also have distinct classes of workers and soldiers that have given up reproduction to serve their colony.

When it gets into humans, usually via the consumption of raw or undercooked fish, this species of flatworm, Haplorchis pumilio, can cause gastrointestinal issues and, in severe cases, stroke or heart attack. Fully cooking fish or freezing any meant to be eaten raw for at least one week is enough to kill the trematodes, per Food and Drug Administration guidelines.

While there are no specific statistics for Haplorchis pumilio, foodborne trematode infections cause 2 million life years lost to disability and death worldwide every year.

Unlike bees and termites, the colonies of this species of flatworm are not underground or in a tree hollow, but inside the body of a live snail. The parasites don't kill the snail, but instead siphon off nutrients for years as they pump out free-swimming clones that search for fish, the flatworms' next host in their complex life cycle.

These flatworms could become invaluable tools to probe fundamental questions of sociobiology—like, 'how does this kind of social organization evolve?

This study is the first evidence for trematode soldiers that are so physically specialized to their task that they lack any reproductive tissues and appear permanently incapable of reproduction.

 Daniel C. G. Metz et al, The physical soldier caste of an invasive, human-infecting flatworm is morphologically extreme and obligately sterile, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2400953121

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 27, 2024 at 12:35pm

Komodo Dragon Teeth Have Iron Caps For Sharpness, Scientists Discover

As if komodo dragons weren't amazing enough, these giant lizards literally have teeth of iron.

A new study of these formidable predators' chompers has revealed concentrated deposits of iron along the serrated tearing edges and the tips of their teeth, helping to keep them razor-sharp for tearing the flesh from the prey they devour.

Although many vertebrates have iron enhancements in their teeth, komodo dragons (Varanus komodoensis) and other similar species with serrated teeth, called ziphodonts, represent the most striking examples found to date.
In fact, so much iron is concentrated along the sharp edges of komodo teeth that they are tinted orange.

Never before has iron been found so localized along the cutting edge of a vertebrate tooth. This suggests that a stronger cutting edge confers a competitive advantage, and may yield insights into how some of the fiercest dinosaurs devoured their food.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-024-02477-7

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 27, 2024 at 9:51am

Scientists control bacterial mutations to preserve antibiotic effectiveness

Scientists have discovered a way to control mutation rates in bacteria, paving the way for new strategies to combat antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotics are given to kill bad bacteria; however, with just one mutation a bacteria can evolve to become resistant to that antibiotic, making common infections potentially fatal.

The new research, published recently in the journal PLOS Biology, used high-performance computing to simulate more than 8,000 years of bacterial evolution, allowing scientists to predict mechanisms that control mutation rates.

They then made more than 15,000 cultures of E. coli in lab conditions to test their predictions—that's so many that if you lined up all of the bacteria in this study, they would stretch 860,000 km, or wrap around the Earth more than 20 times.

The tests revealed that bacteria living in a lowly populated community are more prone to developing antibiotic resistance due to a naturally occurring DNA-damaging chemical, peroxide. In crowded environments, where cells are more densely packed, bacteria work collectively to detoxify peroxide, reducing the likelihood of mutations that lead to antibiotic resistance.

The finding could help develop "anti-evolution drugs" to preserve antibiotic effectiveness by limiting the mutation rates in bacteria.

By understanding the environmental conditions that influence mutation rates, we can develop strategies to safeguard antibiotic effectiveness. This new study shows that bacterial mutation rates are not fixed and can be manipulated by altering their surroundings, which is vital on our journey to combat antibiotic resistance.

Peroxide, a chemical found in many environments, is key to this process. When E. coli populations become denser, they work together to lower peroxide levels, protecting their DNA from damage and reducing mutation rates. The study showed that genetically modified E. coli that is unable to break down peroxide had the same mutation rates, no matter the population size. However, when helper cells that could break down peroxide were added, the mutation rate in these genetically modified E. coli decreased.

Rowan Green et al, Collective peroxide detoxification determines microbial mutation rate plasticity in E. coli, PLOS Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002711

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 27, 2024 at 9:44am

New aerospace and building materials could repair themselves thanks to fungi and bacteria

Researchers are using biological matter to create unique new materials that can adapt to their environment and repair themselves.

Researchers are developing what they call "living materials," for use in the aerospace and transportation sectors. These living materials are, precisely as they sound, literally alive. They contain microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria, which give them the capacity to sustain their integrity and self-healing.

The goal is to make engineered structures that can behave like living organisms, able to sense and adapt to mechanical stresses.

The material they are developing is a composite that combines living fungi cells and wood. It consists of a hydrogel and mycelium, a root-like structure of a fungus that normally lives underground.

They chose to work with fungi because fungus is a really robust organism, it is tolerant to harsh conditions and is relatively easy to cultivate. 

Moreover, fungal cells have a great ability to connect. Mycelium can grow a vast sensing network that allows it to send signals throughout the organism. That means the scientists can distribute only a few cells throughout the material, and these cells will reconnect and form a sensing network.

Biological materials could help to improve the performance and durability of critical structures used in areas like aerospace and transportation.

These materials are very lightweight and more sustainable than currently used materials. 

Sources: 

• AM-IMATE
• ARCHISKIN
• EU research and innovation for chemicals and advanced materials

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 27, 2024 at 9:34am

Ice 0: Researchers discover a new mechanism for ice formation

Ice is far more complicated than most of us realize, with over 20 different varieties known to science, forming under various combinations of pressure and temperature. The kind we use to chill our drinks is known as ice I, and it's one of the few forms of ice that exist naturally on Earth.

Researchers have recently discovered another type of ice: ice 0, an unusual form of ice that can seed the formation of ice crystals in supercooled water.

The formation of ice near the surface of liquid water can start from tiny crystal precursors with a structure similar to a rare type of ice, known as ice 0.

In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers showed that these ice 0-like structures can cause a water droplet to freeze near its surface rather than at its core. This discovery resolves a longstanding puzzle and could help redefine our understanding of how ice forms.

Crystallization of ice, known as ice nucleation, usually happens heterogeneously, or in other words, at a solid surface. This is normally expected to happen at the surface of the water's container, where liquid meets solid.

However, this new research shows that ice crystallization can also occur just below the water's surface, where it meets the air. Here, the ice nucleates around small precursors with the same characteristic ring-shaped structure as ice 0.

Simulations have shown that a water droplet is more likely to crystallize near the free surface under isothermal conditions. This resolves a longstanding debate about whether crystallization occurs more readily on the surface or internally.

Ice 0 precursors have a structure very similar to supercooled water, allowing water molecules to crystallize more readily from it, without needing to directly form themselves into the structure of regular ice.

The tiny ice 0 precursors are formed spontaneously, as a result of negative pressure effects caused by the surface tension of water. Once crystallization begins from these precursors, structures similar to ice 0 quickly rearrange themselves into the more familiar ice I.

Surface-induced water crystallization driven by precursors formed in negative pressure regions, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-50188-1

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