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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 23, 2023 at 11:48am

Caffeine in Your Blood May Affect Body Fat And Diabetes Risk, Study Finds

The levels of caffeine in your blood could affect the amount of body fat you carry, a factor that in turn could determine your risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular diseases. Those are the findings of a recent study that used genetic markers to establish a more definitive link between caffeine levels, BMI, and type 2 diabetes risk. The researchers suggest that calorie-free caffeinated drinks could be explored as a potential means of helping reduce body fat levels. Genetically predicted higher plasma caffeine concentrations were associated with lower BMI and whole body fat mass. Furthermore, genetically predicted higher plasma caffeine concentrations were associated with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes. Approximately half of the effect of caffeine on type 2 diabetes liability was estimated to be mediated through BMI reduction. In general, those with variations affecting the genes – namely CYP1A2 and a gene that regulates it, called AHR – tend to break caffeine down more slowly, allowing it to remain in the blood longer. Yet they also tend to drink less caffeine in general.

https://bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000335

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 23, 2023 at 10:48am

Teens Who Smoke Show Reduced Brain Matter, Scientists Discover

Neurological imaging reveals people more inclined to begin smoking as teenagers tend to have reduced gray matter in two important brain regions, indicating they may play a significant role in inhibition and addiction.

An international team of researchers compared MRI brain scans from over 800 people, collected from the UK, Germany, France and Ireland across different time points. These volunteers also answered questionnaires on personality traits. The researchers then compared those who began smoking by age 14 with non-smokers and repeated this again with the same patients at ages 19 and 23. The images revealed those who took up smoking from the age of 14 had comparitively less gray matter in the left ventromedial prefrontal cortex; a part of the brain involved in emotional regulation, decision-making, and self-control. Scans taken five years later revealed the opposite part of this same brain region (on the right) was also reduced in the smoker group compared to non-smokers. This side of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex has also been linked to pleasure. The ventromedial prefrontal cortex is a key region for dopamine, the brain's pleasure chemical. As well as a role in rewarding experiences, dopamine has long been believed to affect self-control.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-40079-2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 22, 2023 at 11:49am

Silica particles found in food and makeup could be chemically reactive, study finds

New research has revealed that the mineral silica, a common food additive and popular cosmetics ingredient, is not a chemically inert substance, as has long been supposed.

As described in a new study, researchers placed commercially available silica particles in a water solution with biomolecules containing compounds called thiols. These thiol-containing biomolecules are widespread in nature and in the human body, for instance, in the form of glutathione, a key antioxidant found in most cells. When exposed to silica, the thiol biomolecules underwent redox chemical reactions. These reactions, in which electrons are lost, could degrade or alter the molecules' function, potentially posing health risks. For instance, low levels of glutathione can lead to increased oxidative stress in the body that can damage all manner of cellular components, from membranes to DNA.

The findings highlight the need for further research into the reactivity of silica, especially given its extensive usage in everyday products.

Silica—another name for compounds of silicon and oxygen—is a colorless, odorless, tasteless material. While silica occurs naturally in foods including leafy greens, manufacturers often add tiny, sand-like particles of silica as an anticaking agent to soups and coffee creamers, for instance. 

For cosmetics, including skin care products, silica serves as a bulking or absorbing agent, or as an abrasive in scrubs. In health care, silica particles have also found significant use in the delivery of drugs and for medical imaging purposes. For those applications, silica particles are manufactured to have tiny holes, or pores, into which pharmaceuticals and other substances can be slotted.

For the study, the  researchers purchased commercially available, pure silica particles, sold as a dry powder.

Yangjie Li et al, Silica particles convert thiol-containing molecules to disulfides, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2304735120

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 22, 2023 at 9:55am

The eye tracking data confirmed that items with more competitors were looked at the longest, which led to the memory advantage for those items later on. These findings show that the bilingual cognitive system is highly interactive and can impact other cognitive components such as recognition memory.

Other studies also show enhanced memory processing in bilinguals relative to monolinguals in categorization tasks that require suppressing distracting information. This could certainly indicate that bilinguals are more efficient at multi-tasking and more able to focus on the task at hand, especially when the task requires ignoring irrelevant information (think trying to work in a noisy café).

The picture that emerges is one where bilingualism is a cognitive tool that enhances basic cognitive functions, such as memory and categorization. Bilingual hangman is a tougher game, but one that, ultimately, pays off.

Now  what about multilinguals like me?

Matias Fernandez-Duque et al, Speakers of different languages remember visual scenes differently, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adh0064

Part 2

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 22, 2023 at 9:54am

Bilinguals may have a memory advantage

In any communication, we generate myriad predictions regarding what we are about to hear. To begin with—when we only have one or two letters to go on—the pool of potential candidate words is massive. The more letters we guess correctly, the more the pool of candidate words narrows down, until our brain clicks and we find the right word.

In natural communication, we rarely wait to hear the entire word before we begin to plan what to say back. As soon as we hear the first sounds of a word, our brain uses this information, and together with other clues—such as frequency, context and experience—fills in the blanks, cutting down from a vast list of potential candidate words to predict the target word. But what if you are a bilingual with languages that have similar sounding words? Well, then, the list of candidate words is much larger. This may sound negative—making it more difficult to predict words. But a new study, published in Science Advances, has revealed that this may actually give bilinguals an advantage when it comes to memory.

The languages of a bilingual are interconnected. The same neural apparatus that processes our first language also processes our second language. So it is easy to see why, upon hearing the first sounds of a word, potential candidate words are activated, not only from one language, but from the other one as well.

For instance, upon hearing the sounds "k" and "l", a Spanish-English bilingual will automatically activate both the words "clock" and "clavo" (nail in Spanish). This means the bilingual has a tougher cutting down job to do in order to settle on the correct word, simply because there is more to cut down to get to the target. It is not surprising then that bilinguals usually take more time to retrieve or recognize words in psychological and linguistic experiments.

The findings showed that recognition memory for objects with many competitors (such as beaker, beetle, speaker) was enhanced relative to items with low competitors (such as carriage) in both monolinguals and bilinguals. In addition, bilinguals showed the effect for cross-language competitors as well (for example clock, clavo)—giving an overall memory advantage.

Interestingly, second language proficiency played a crucial role. The memory advantage was most profound in bilinguals with high second language proficiency than in bilinguals with low second language proficiency and monolinguals. Clearly, to play bilingual hangman efficiently, you need to develop high proficiency in the second language, so that its words become competitors alongside those of the first language.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 22, 2023 at 9:44am

The projective measurement approach to quantum tomography can be thought of as looking at the shadows of a high-dimensional object projected on different walls from independent directions. All a researcher can see is the shadows, and from them, they can infer the shape (state) of the full object. For instance, in CT scan (computed tomography scan), the information of a 3D object can thus be reconstructed from a set of 2D images.

In classical optics, however, there is another way to reconstruct a 3D object. This is called digital holography, and is based on recording a single image, called interferogram, obtained by interfering the light scattered by the object with a reference light.

Researchers now  extended this concept to the case of two photons.

Reconstructing a biphoton state requires superimposing it with a presumably well-known quantum state, and then analyzing the spatial distribution of the positions where two photons arrive simultaneously. Imaging the simultaneous arrival of two photons is known as a coincidence image. These photons may come from the reference source or the unknown source. Quantum mechanics states that the source of the photons cannot be identified. This results in an interference pattern that can be used to reconstruct the unknown wave function. This experiment was made possible by an advanced camera that records events with nanosecond resolution on each pixel.

This method is exponentially faster than previous techniques, requiring only minutes or seconds instead of days. Importantly, the detection time is not influenced by the system's complexity—a solution to the long-standing scalability challenge in projective tomography.

The impact of this research goes beyond just the academic community. It has the potential to accelerate quantum technology advancements, such as improving quantum state characterization, quantum communication, and developing new quantum imaging techniques.

Danilo Zia et al, Interferometric imaging of amplitude and phase of spatial biphoton states, Nature Photonics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41566-023-01272-3

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 22, 2023 at 9:41am

 Quantum entanglement of photons captured in real-time

Researchers  recently demonstrated a novel technique that allows the visualization of the wave function of two entangled photons, the elementary particles that constitute light, in real-time.

Using the analogy of a pair of shoes, the concept of entanglement can be likened to selecting a shoe at random. The moment you identify one shoe, the nature of the other (whether it is the left or right shoe) is instantly discerned, regardless of its location in the universe. However, the intriguing factor is the inherent uncertainty associated with the identification process until the exact moment of observation.

The wave function, a central tenet in quantum mechanics, provides a comprehensive understanding of a particle's quantum state.  For instance, in the shoe example, the "wave function" of the shoe could carry information such as left or right, the size, the color, and so on.

More precisely, the wave function enables quantum scientists to predict the probable outcomes of various measurements on a quantum entity, e.g. position, velocity, etc.

This predictive capability is invaluable, especially in the rapidly progressing field of quantum technology, where knowing a quantum state which is generated or input in a quantum computer will allow to test the computer itself. Moreover, quantum states used in quantum computing are extremely complex, involving many entities that may exhibit strong non-local correlations (entanglement).

Knowing the wave function of such a quantum system is a challenging task—this is also known as quantum state tomography or quantum tomography in short. With the standard approaches (based on the so-called projective operations), a full tomography requires large number of measurements that rapidly increases with the system's complexity (dimensionality).

Previous experiments conducted with this approach by the research group showed that characterizing or measuring the high-dimensional quantum state of two entangled photons can take hours or even days. Moreover, the result's quality is highly sensitive to noise and depends on the complexity of the experimental setup.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 21, 2023 at 12:58pm

India Is About to Attempt Its First Ever Moon Landing Can anybody else ever feel the same way Neil Armstrong felt when he first stepped on the moon? Or how Watson, Rosalind Franklin and Crick felt when they first discovered the double helix of DNA? Their experiences are mind blowing and no amount of money can buy you that thrill. Can anybody feel the same way scientists feel when they discover/invent something for the first time and report it to the world? NO. Nothing in this world compares to it. Experience at least some of it when the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) mission Chandrayaan-3 will deploy its lander and rover to the surface of the Moon on 23rd Aug. Chandrayaan-3, is all set to make a soft and successful landing on the south polar region of the Moon around 6.04pm today, August 23. In case of 'unfavourable conditions' the landing may be postponed to August 27. But that is not on the cards right now. Viewers can watch the live landing on the ISRO website, its YouTube channel, Facebook, and public broadcaster DD National TV starting at 5:27 PM (IST) on August 23 (today). Every success by a space agency means more free-to-use data for both the scientific community and the public. Come join us on this epic journey.

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Gravitational Waves: Ripples In Space-Time

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 21, 2023 at 12:11pm

This tightens competition among the creatures living there, the researchers explain, making rivalry a big factor in determining the pools' biodiversity. With so few other niches to fall back on, any species that can't compete will struggle to survive.

Most animals serve as hosts or carriers for parasites of some kind, and water fleas are no exception. It's rare to find a species with nearly total parasite resistance, yet the study did include one Daphnia species with an almost supernatural ability to withstand parasites.

"In the population of water fleas in Israel, we found one species called Daphnia similis, whose nickname in the laboratory is 'Super Daphnia' due to its almost complete resistance to parasites.
Nevertheless, this 'Super Daphnia' does not become the dominant Daphnia species in ponds.
The most common species is actually Daphnia magna, which is highly vulnerable to a wide variety of parasites."

To figure out why, the researchers simulated an ecosystem in the lab, placing the two Daphnia species together in habitats either with or without parasites.

In a habitat free of parasites, not only did the parasite-sensitive D. magna outcompete its parasite-resistant relative, the study found, but it was the only Daphnia left standing.
Things played out differently in habitats with parasites, however, where D. magna proved less dominant and Super Daphnia managed to establish a population and coexist with D. magna – thanks to a little help from parasites.

"The results of these experiments emphasize the important role of parasites in shaping biodiversity, as the parasites can mediate competition between Daphnia species.
Although Super Daphnia excels at resisting parasites, its overall competitive ability still doesn't match that of D. magna and without parasites it "would probably become extinct when it shares the same habitat."
This work shows that coexistence of these two Daphnia species is only possible through the mediation of a parasite..
By learning details like this about the ecological sway of parasites, the researchers say, we may gain new insights to help us fend off invasive species or better protect endangered wildlife.

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1135252/full

Part 3

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 21, 2023 at 12:08pm

In a new study, researchers focused on how parasites influence populations of tiny crustaceans commonly called "water fleas," from the genus Daphnia.
Daphnia grow up to 5 millimeters long, inhabiting various freshwater habitats where they feed on single-celled algae, bacteria, and protists. In turn, they serve as a food source for other larger aquatic species, like fish, tadpoles, and insects.

Using two Daphnia species with differing levels of parasite resistance, the researchers tested how the presence of parasites affected an ecological phenomenon known as the competitive exclusion principle, or Gause's law, among the water fleas.

Biodiversity is a key feature of healthy ecosystems, Orlansky and Ben-Ami note, and related species can share space if their relationships with predators and natural resources are different enough.

According to Gause's law, however, two species with identical niches in the same habitat can't coexist indefinitely at constant levels. If they're too similar, even a small advantage can help one species dominate, leaving others to eventually die out or seek a different niche.
The Daphnia species in this study are adapted to small rock pools – relatively enclosed habitats where many aquatic lifeforms can't migrate or come and go on their own.
Part 2

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