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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 22, 2025 at 9:03am

According to the new findings, magma with a low gas content that seems not to be explosive could nevertheless lead to a powerful explosion if a large number of bubbles form due to pronounced shear and the magma therefore shoots upwards quickly.

Conversely, shear forces can also cause bubbles to develop and combine at an early stage in gas-rich and potentially explosive magma, leading to the formation of degassing channels in the magma that bring the gas pressure down.

Therefore, it can be explained why some viscous magmas flow out gently instead of exploding, despite their high gas content—a riddle that's been puzzling us for a long time.

Olivier Roche et al, Shear-induced bubble nucleation in magmas, Science (2025). DOI: 10.1126/science.adw8543

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 22, 2025 at 9:02am

Why some volcanoes don't explode

The explosiveness of a volcanic eruption depends on how many gas bubbles form in the magma—and when. Until now, it was thought that gas bubbles were formed primarily when the ambient pressure dropped while the magma was rising.

Gases that were dissolved in the magma in lower strata—due to the higher pressure—escape when the pressure drops and form bubbles. The more bubbles there are in the magma, the lighter it becomes and the faster it rises. This can cause the magma to tear apart, leading to an explosive eruption.

This process can be likened to a bottle of champagne: while the bottle is closed and therefore pressurized, the carbon dioxide remains in solution. When the cork is removed from the bottle, the pressure drops and the carbon dioxide forms bubbles. These bubbles draw the liquid upwards with them and cause it to spray out of the bottle explosively.

However, this explanation is incomplete—because the lava from some volcanoes

has sometimes flowed out gently despite the presence of highly explosive magma with a high gas content. Now, an international research team has provided a new explanation for this riddle, which has puzzled volcanologists for a long time.

In an article in the journal Science, researchers show that gas bubbles can form in the rising magma not only due to a drop in pressure but also due to shear forces. If these gas bubbles grow deep in the volcanic conduit, they can combine with one another and therefore form degassing channels. Gas can then escape at an early stage, and the magma flows out calmly.

The experiments showed that the movement in the magma due to shear forces is sufficient to form gas bubbles—even without a drop in pressure.

The researchers' experiments show that bubbles are formed primarily near the edges of the conduit, where the shear forces are strongest. Existing bubbles further strengthen this effect.

The more gas the magma contains, the less shear is needed for bubble formation and bubble growth.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 22, 2025 at 7:28am

India Faces "Looming National Health Emergency" As 83% Carry Drug-Resistant Superbugs

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 22, 2025 at 7:23am

Pigeons detect magnetic fields through their inner ear

In 1882, the French Naturalist Camille Viguier was among the first to propose the existence of a magnetic sense. Many animals—from bats, to migratory birds and sea turtles use the Earth's magnetic field to navigate.

Now these questions arise: 

 How do animals detect magnetic fields? Which brain circuits process the information? And where in the body is this sensory system located?

Viguier audaciously proposed that magnetic sensing might occur in the inner ear relying on the generation of small electric currents. This idea was ignored and then forgotten; a historical musing lost with the passage of time.

Now, more than a century later it has been resurrected by neuroscientists at LMU in a paper, titled "A global screen for magnetically induced neuronal activity in the pigeon brain," published in Science.

Researchers took an unbiased approach, studying pigeon brains exposed to magnetic field. State-of-the-art microscopy allowed them to identify specialized circuits that process magnetic information. Moreover, it provided a critical clue to the location of the primary magnetic sensors.

Genetic analysis of inner ear tissue revealed cells with highly sensitive electric sensors, the same ones used by sharks to detect their prey.

The cells they described are ideally equipped to detect magnetic fields using electromagnetic induction—enabling pigeons to find their way home using the same physical principle which permits the wireless charging of phones. In both cases, a magnetic pulse is converted into an electrical signal. For the pigeon, this powers their natural GPS.

The researchers emphasize that it is likely not the only magnetic sensing strategy in nature. Their data suggests that there's a 'dark compass' in the inner ear, while other studies point to a light-dependent compass in the visual system.

Gregory C. Nordmann et al, A global screen for magnetically induced neuronal activity in the pigeon brain, Science (2025). DOI: 10.1126/science.aea6425

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 21, 2025 at 8:52am

You must have heard about visual illusions. But have you heard about auditory illusions? 

Auditory illusions: New research discovers how our ears play tricks on us
Humans often misperceive the location of brief sounds directly in front of them, typically hearing them as coming from behind. This auditory illusion persists across various environments and sound types, likely due to similar timing and intensity cues reaching both ears. The phenomenon highlights a limitation in spatial hearing, which may have implications for individuals with visual impairments.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/03010066251395028

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 21, 2025 at 8:18am

Young donor age emerges as key factor in stem cell transplant success
Donor age significantly influences outcomes in allogeneic hematopoietic stem cell transplantation (allo-HSCT), with younger donors associated with improved event-free and overall survival, and reduced relapse risk, even surpassing older HLA-identical sibling donors. Gender and CMV status also affect results, and younger donor age remains beneficial in both fully and partially matched transplants.

Johannes Schetelig et al, Young unrelated donors confer a survival advantage for patients with myeloid malignancies compared to older siblings, Leukemia (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41375-025-02724-1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 21, 2025 at 8:14am

Images of drying blood samples are acquired using brightfield microscopy (transmitting white light through a specimen, which makes it appear dark against a bright background) and a common 4x objective lens, which magnifies samples four times. Images are acquired over time with a digital camera mounted on the microscope.

The same workflow can also be used to analyze other bodily fluids, including saliva and urine, expanding the diagnostic capacity of the workflow without the need for additional equipment.

The key takeaway is that every moment of the drying process holds valuable clues, not just the final pattern left behind. Each stage reveals how proteins, cells and other components move and reorganize within the droplet, capturing a dynamic 'story' of the sample's internal state.
By combining this time-evolving information with machine learning, the team can accurately identify subtle abnormalities in blood samples. This approach opens up a new way of thinking about medical diagnostics, one that is simple, fast and low-cost, yet remarkably informative.
The research establishes proof of concept for the team, demonstrating an effective workflow for detecting diseases such as diabetes, influenza, malaria and others, that has potential in the field. Ideally, the researchers hope to translate their methodology into a mobile and practical health-screening tool for use in developing countries.

 Anusuya Pal et al, From Droplet to Diagnosis: Spatio‐Temporal Pattern Recognition in Drying Biofluids, Advanced Intelligent Systems (2025). DOI: 10.1002/aisy.202500550

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 21, 2025 at 8:11am

Researchers diagnose disease with a drop of blood, a microscope and AI

Not long ago, the idea of diagnosing a disease with a droplet of blood was considered a pipe dream. Today, this technology could soon become a reality.

A group of scientists  has developed an automated, high-throughput system that relies on imaging droplets of biofluids (such as blood, saliva and urine) for disease diagnosis in an attempt to reduce the number of consumables and equipment needed for biomedical testing.

In the workflow, biofluid droplet images are analyzed by machine-learning algorithms to diagnose disease. Remarkably, the technology relies on the drying process of biofluid droplets to distinguish between normal and abnormal samples.

Current medical diagnostic tests typically require 5 milliliters to 10 milliliters of blood, necessitating a trip to the clinic or other phlebotomy service to draw blood with needles and tubes. Besides being painful, inconvenient and inefficient, blood draws are often a luxury of developed nations with modern health care infrastructure.

By eliminating the need for phlebotomy services and other consumables, diagnostic tests could be implemented worldwide to improve disease diagnosis and cost efficiency.

Traditionally, researchers have focused only on the final pattern left after drying. In this study, researchers looked beyond that, observing the entire drying process in real time. By tracking how the droplet's shape and internal structures evolve over time, they were able to uncover rich information about the fluid's composition.
By using machine learning, the team could "decode" the evolving patterns in drying blood droplets, allowing them to clearly distinguish between healthy blood and samples with abnormalities based solely on their drying behaviour.
Importantly, this technique doesn't require specialized equipment to make an accurate diagnosis.

Part1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 21, 2025 at 7:27am

Underlying cause of Gulf War illness confirmed
Gulf War illness symptoms are linked to mitochondrial dysfunction rather than neuronal damage, as shown by elevated total creatine (tCr) levels in affected veterans' brains. This energy imbalance, rather than irreversible nerve injury, suggests that targeting mitochondrial function could offer effective treatments for the chronic symptoms experienced by Gulf War veterans.

 Sergey Cheshkov et al, Decadelong low basal ganglia NAA/tCr from elevated tCr supports ATP depletion from mitochondrial dysfunction and neuroinflammation in Gulf War illness, Scientific Reports (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-24099-0

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on November 21, 2025 at 7:24am

In a further step, the researchers investigated whether the ubiquitylation patterns found could be influenced by changes in diet. To this end, older mice were fed a moderate diet (calorie restriction) for four weeks before being returned to a normal diet. The surprising result was that the short-term change in diet significantly altered the ubiquitylation pattern in the mice—in some proteins, it even reverted to the previous, youthful state.

The  results show that even in old age, diet can still have an important influence on molecular processes in the brain.

However, diet does not affect all aging processes in the brain equally: some are slowed down, while others hardly change or even increase.

The study thus provides new insights into the molecular mechanisms of brain aging. It suggests that ubiquitylation is a sensitive biomarker of the aging processes—and potentially a starting point for slowing down age-related damage to nerve cells.

Antonio Marino et al, Aging and diet alter the protein ubiquitylation landscape in the mouse brain, Nature Communications (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-60542-6

Part 2

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