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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 10, 2023 at 9:39am

Supercomputers have revealed the giant 'pillars of heat' funneling diamonds upward from deep within Earth

Most diamonds are formed deep inside Earth and brought close to the surface in small yet powerful volcanic eruptions of a kind of rock called "kimberlite."

A supercomputer modeling, published in Nature Geoscience, shows these eruptions are fueled by giant "pillars of heat" rooted 2,900 kilometers below ground, just above our planet's core.

Understanding Earth's internal history can be used to target mineral reserves—not only diamonds, but also crucial minerals such as nickel and rare earth elements.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 10, 2023 at 9:35am

Scientists raise concerns about popular COVID disinfectants

The COVID-19 pandemic has boosted the unnecessary use of antimicrobial chemicals linked to health problems, antimicrobial resistance, and environmental harm, warn more than two dozen scientists in Environmental Science & Technology.

Their critical review details how quaternary ammonium compounds (QACs) are increasingly marketed and used in home, health care, education, and workplace settings despite the availability of safer alternatives and in some cases limited evidence of reduced disease transmission.

Disinfectant wipes containing QACs are often used on children's school desks, hospital exam tables, and in homes where they remain on these surfaces and in the air.  And disinfecting with these chemicals in many cases is unhelpful or even harmful. So experts recommend regular cleaning with soap and water and disinfecting only as needed with safer products.

Human studies have found associations between QACs and asthma, dermatitis, and inflammation. Laboratory animal studies also raise concerns about potential links to infertility, birth defects, and more. Further, there has been evidence dating back to the 1950s that QACs contribute to antimicrobial resistance, making certain bacteria species resistant both to QACs themselves and to critical antibiotics.

It's ironic that the chemicals we're deploying in vain for one health crisis are actually fueling another.

Erica Hartmann et al, Quaternary Ammonium Compounds: A Chemical Class of Emerging Concern, Environmental Science & Technology (2023). DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.2c08244

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 10, 2023 at 8:21am

Rising temperatures are drying up Asia's water tower

Climate models predict that melting glaciers and snowpacks in High Mountain Asia will make one of the largest freshwater reserves unsustainable, threatening water security for Asia’s rapidly growing population.

One of the world’s largest freshwater reserves outside the polar regions, High Mountain Asia is a vast expanse of mountain ranges that encircle the Tibetan Plateau. This area has been recognized as Asia’s water tower for delivering a continuous supply of freshwater into the continent’s major river basins, supplying water to over 2 billion people.

But, as global temperatures continue to rise, evidence shows that water supply in this region is increasingly in danger. In two separate climate models, researchers found that 84% and 97% of the Tibetan Plateau could experience extensive water deficits by the end of the 21st century.

Now, scientists are leveraging this data to help build on immediate policy changes that would protect the future of affected communities in Asia.

A team of researchers from the United States has warned that this critical water resource is on an alarming path of becoming unsustainable due to rising temperatures and climate change, putting downstream communities and biodiversity at serious risk. Their findings were published in Nature.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05643-8

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 9, 2023 at 6:42am

Nutrition, cognition, and brain health

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 9, 2023 at 6:25am

Recycling plastics might be making things worse

A team of environmental engineers  has found that techniques for recycling plastics may inadvertently lead to increased environmental microplastics. In their study, reported in the Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances, the group tested water used to clean plastic at a recycling plant.

By most accounts, plastic recycling efforts have been a resounding failure. Prior research has shown that only 9% of plastic worldwide is recycled.

This is despite millions of people around the world dutifully separating out their plastic bottles; most of them wind up in landfills anyway. And now, it appears that the recycling process itself might be making things worse. In this new effort, the research team received permission to test a plastic recycling plant to see if it was emitting plastic pollution.

The problem, the researchers note, is that for plastic to be recycled, it must first be cleaned. This is done by washing it in water several times. The rest of the process involves shredding and melting to create pellets. Prior research has suggested washing may result in the release of microplastics into the water. In this new effort, the group found that the plastic was being washed four times. Each water source was tested to find out how much plastic (in the form of micron-sized particles) remained in the water. The research team found microplastics in all four sources. They also noted that most of the water is routed to sewage systems or directly into the environment at most recycling plants. After adding up all the particles they observed, the team estimated that the facility could be emitting approximately 6.5 million pounds of microplastics into the environment each year.

But there was more to the story. The researchers revealed that the facility under study had installed a filtration system, which reduced the number of particles by approximately 50%. However, there was a caveat—the researchers only tested for plastics down to 1.6 microns. Plastic particles can be much smaller than that. Prior research has shown that some can be small enough to make their way into individual cells in an animal's body.

Erina Brown et al, The potential for a plastic recycling facility to release microplastic pollution and possible filtration remediation effectiveness, Journal of Hazardous Materials Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.hazadv.2023.100309

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 9, 2023 at 6:19am

Smallest species shifting the fastest: Bird body size predicts rate of change in a warming world

Birds across the Americas are getting smaller and longer-winged as the world warms, and the smallest-bodied species are changing the fastest.

That's the main finding of a new study of online publication  in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The study combines data from two previously published papers that measured body-size and wing-length changes in a total of more than 86,000 bird specimens over four decades in North and South America. One study examined migrating birds killed after colliding with buildings in Chicago; the other looked at nonmigrating birds netted in the Amazon.

Though the two datasets are nonoverlapping in both species composition and geography, and the data were collected independently using different methods, the birds in both studies displayed similarly widespread declines in body size with concurrent increases in wing length.

Now, a new analysis of the combined data has revealed an even more striking pattern: In both studies, smaller bird species declined proportionately faster in body size and increased proportionately faster in wing length.

Both the Chicago and Amazonian studies attributed the reductions in species body size to increasing temperatures over the past 40 years, suggesting that body size may be an important determinant of species responses to climat4e change.

Even so, exactly why smaller-bodied species are changing faster remains an open question, according to the researchers.

 Zimova, Marketa et al, Body size predicts the rate of contemporary morphological change in birds, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2206971120

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 9, 2023 at 6:14am

Study finds that experts support DNA sequencing in newborns

New born babies  undergoing routine newborn screening, a laboratory test to identify the risk of up to 60 treatable conditions is beneficial. Because hundreds of genetic disorders, including a growing number of devastating childhood diseases, now have targeted treatments, including gene and cell therapies, that can offer permanent cures. Despite these advances, the addition of genomic sequencing to newborn screening programs has remained controversial.

Findings from a new study led by researchers  suggest that rare disease experts are now in favour of more expansive newborn testing. In a study published recently in JAMA Network Open, 88% of rare disease experts agreed that DNA sequencing to screen for treatable childhood disorders should be made available to all newborns.

The study further identified 432 gene-disease pairs that are not currently screened for, but that were recommended for newborn screening by more than 50% of the experts. Among the genes that most experts recommended for newborn screening were those associated with a lethal liver and brain disorder, the severe bleeding disorders known as hemophilia A and B, and an increased risk for retinoblastoma, a rare and fatal eye tumour in young children.

Early identification of infants who are at risk for genetic disorders can be lifesaving and screening has the potential to improve health care disparities for affected children.

In many cases in which DNA sequencing identifies a child at risk, a blood test or imaging study can then determine whether the disease condition is already underway, enabling early treatment. In other cases, the child will be entirely healthy despite the positive DNA screen and can be followed for the appearance of symptoms and signs in the future. The researchers note that future studies will be needed to determine whether newborn sequencing is cost-effective and positively contributes to short- and long-term outcomes.

Perspectives of Rare Disease Experts on Newborn Genome Sequencing, JAMA Network Open (2023). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2023.12231

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 9, 2023 at 6:06am

The study finds markers for pathology pre-symptom progression of Parkinson's disease and REM sleep behavior disorder, highlighting the potential role of gut microbiota in the pathogenesis of α-synucleinopathy. The observations open the door for future research to go beyond the correlations and seek the early causative path of both diseases in hopes of discovering what could be a pre-clinical diagnostic intervention to prevent Parkinson's from developing in the first place.

Bei Huang et al, Gut microbiome dysbiosis across early Parkinson's disease, REM sleep behavior disorder and their first-degree relatives, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-38248-4

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 9, 2023 at 6:06am

Early signals of Parkinson's found in gut microbiota of REM sleep behaviour disorder patients

Scientists have found that the gut microbiome holds Parkinson's disease markers and may indicate a method of early diagnosis.

In the study, "Gut microbiome dysbiosis across early Parkinson's disease, REM sleep behavior disorder and their first-degree relatives" published in Nature Communications, the research team looked for correlations in the gut microbiota between comorbid pathologies to see if they could find a causal link.

REM sleep behavior disorder (RBD) causes people to physically act out their dreams while sleeping. RBD affects around 40% of patients with Parkinson's disease (PD), which is also a condition of unintended movements. Patients with RBD are even more likely to acquire PD at some point. The partial overlap in conditions raises interesting questions, and researchers looked to the gut for answers.

In recent years growing knowledge around the gut-brain connection and the relationship between neurological pathologies and microbiota populations has inspired researchers to focus more attention on the role the gut plays in overall human health. While causal relationships are not always clear, correlations between pathologies and microbiota profiles can be strikingly similar across patients with shared diagnoses.

Parkinson's is characterized by the abnormal aggregation of a presynaptic neuronal protein in the central nervous system (spine and brain), alpha-synuclein (α-syn). While this had been considered causal to the pathology, the authors cite studies offering increasing evidence that α-syn pathology has already occurred in the enteric nervous system (neurons embedded into the walls of the gastrointestinal system).

Following the related symptom progression backward, RBD is considered the most specific precursor signal of Parkinson's. Patients with RBD report having an increased prevalence of constipation and increased phosphorylated α-syn immunostaining in their enteric nervous system. Parkinson's patients with RBD features also exhibit these increased constipation and enteric α-syn histopathology effects compared to those without RBD, suggesting a distinct subtype of Parkinson's disease that reflects a gut-brain link of α-synucleinopathy.

The researchers performed a cross-sectional microbiome study across prediagnoses and early stages of the diseases along with controls and RBD relative to disentangle the associations of gut microbiota with the progression of α-synucleinopathy.

The study found gut microbiota compositions significantly altered in early PD and RBD compared with controls and the relative cohort. In RBD patients, the overall microbiota composition shifted closer to those with early Parkinson's.

Random forest modeling identified 12 microbial markers, including depletion of butyrate-producing bacteria and an overabundance of Collinsella, Desulfovibrio, and Oscillospiraceae UCG-005. The profile produced a signal distinct enough to distinguish RBD from controls reliably with machine learning assistance. These findings suggest that Parkinson's-like microbiota profile changes occur at the early stages of RBD-related Parkinson's when RBD first develops.

Another interesting find was the depletion of butyrate-producing bacteria and enrichment of pro-inflammatory Collinsella in RBD relatives, a group that had not yet shared any of the other tell-tale signatures in the microbiota, hinting at a pre-precursor signal that needs further investigation.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 9, 2023 at 5:58am

The findings gathered by this team of researchers offer some interesting new insight about what past experiences humans tend to replay in their brain before deciding whether to approach or avoid a certain situation.

Jessica McFadyen et al, Differential replay of reward and punishment paths predicts approach and avoidance, Nature Neuroscience (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41593-023-01287-7

Part 2

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