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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 5, 2023 at 11:04am

One night of total sleep deprivation shown to have antidepressant effect for some people

A study  has investigated a seemingly contradictory phenomenon of sleep deprivation leading to mood improvement in patients with depressive disorders.

In a paper, "Enhanced amygdala–cingulate connectivity associates with better mood in both healthy and depressive individuals after sleep deprivation," published in PNAS, the research team mapped brain region activity through resting-state-functional magnetic resonance imaging to see why some people receive a healthy boost from an otherwise negative public health epidemic.

The study finds that one night of total sleep deprivation enhanced amygdala connectivity to the anterior cingulate cortex, which correlated with better mood in some healthy and depressed individuals.

Ya Chai et al, Enhanced amygdala–cingulate connectivity associates with better mood in both healthy and depressive individuals after sleep deprivation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2214505120

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 4, 2023 at 10:34am

COVID-19 booster vaccine doses strengthen immunity in blood cancer patients, shows study

Research  into the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in people with lymphoma has shown that repeated vaccination increases their ability to prevent infection from the virus, particularly after four doses.

The finding, from the two-year PROSECO study, is important because blood cancer patients have compromised immune systems—either as a result of cancer, or from cancer treatments. This leaves them more vulnerable to COVID-19 than other people and raises questions over how well they respond to vaccination. Latest findings from the study are published in the journal The Lancet.

 Ratna Wijaya et al, Predicting COVID-19 infection risk in people who are immunocompromised by antibody testing, The Lancet (2023). DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(23)01180-7

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Urine tests identify brain tumors by capturing cancer DNA using nan...

A group led by researchers at Nagoya University in Japan has developed a technology to capture and release cell-free DNA (cfDNA) on nanowire surfaces from urine. By extracting this DNA, they were able to successfully detect IDH1 mutation, a characteristic genetic mutation of gliomas, a type of brain tumor. Their findings increase the effectiveness of cancer detection tests using urine. They published their results in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 4, 2023 at 9:03am

Quasar 'clocks' show the universe was five times slower soon after the Big Bang

Scientists have for the first time observed the early universe running in extreme slow motion, unlocking one of the mysteries of Einstein's expanding universe. The research is published in Nature Astronomy.

Einstein's general theory of relativity means that we should observe the distant—and hence ancient—universe running much slower than the present day. However, peering back that far in time has proven elusive. Scientists have now cracked that mystery by using quasars as "clocks."

Looking back to a time when the universe was just over a billion years old, we see time appearing to flow five times slower, according to these scientists. 

If you were there, in this infant universe, one second would seem like one second—but from our position, more than 12 billion years into the future, that early time appears to drag.

Researchers used observed data from nearly 200 quasars—hyperactive supermassive black holes at the centers of early galaxies—to analyze this time dilation.

Thanks to Einstein, we know that time and space are intertwined and, since the dawn of time in the singularity of the Big Bang, the universe has been expanding. This expansion of space means that our observations of the early universe should appear to be much slower than time flows today. In this new study, scientists have established that back to about a billion years after the Big Bang.

Previously, astronomers have confirmed this slow-motion universe back to about half the age of the universe using supernovae—massive exploding stars—as "standard clocks." But while supernovae are exceedingly bright, they are difficult to observe at the immense distances needed to peer into the early universe.

By observing quasars, this time horizon has been rolled back to just a tenth the age of the universe, confirming that the universe appears to speed up as it ages.

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Where supernovae act like a single flash of light, making them easier to study, quasars are more complex, like an ongoing firework display.

What we have done is unravel this firework display, showing that quasars, too, can be used as standard markers of time for the early universe.

 Detection of the cosmological time dilation of high-redshift quasars, Nature Astronomy (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-02029-2 , www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-02029-2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 2, 2023 at 9:52am

A journey to study dark matter and dark energy

ESA’s Euclid mission was launched into space on a SpaceX Falcon 9 from Cape Canaveral in Florida, USA, on 1 July 2023. It is now on its way to Sun-Earth Lagrange point L2. By observing billions of galaxies out to 10 billion light-years, the space telescope will create the most detailed 3D-map of the Universe, with time as the third dimension.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 1, 2023 at 12:06pm

Ultimate Predators

Humans capture more terrestrial vertebrate species for medicine, the exotic pet trade and other uses than we do for food, according to a new study of how humans affect species’ extinction risk. Humans target some 15,000 vertebrate species, amounting to one thir....  Why this matters: Our ecological impact, the researchers found, is 1,300 times larger than that of comparable predators (wolves, bears). When they assessed species by habitat type, they found that humans have the greatest impact on the ocean. What the experts say: The findings are clear evidence that humans are novel predators. If anything the study’s conclusions are conservative, says Kaitlyn Gaynor an ecologist at the University of British Columbia. “We of course don’t have perfect information on every single species that people are using,” she says.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 1, 2023 at 11:25am

Rising monkey and pig populations pose human disease risk

Exploding populations of wild pigs and macaque monkeys in Southeast Asia are threatening native forests and disease outbreaks in livestock and people, according to research published in Biological Reviews.

Macaques and wild pigs are taking over Southeast Asia's disturbed forests.

Humans are largely to blame for this by altering forests with logging and establishing palm oil farms which provide food and ideal breeding conditions for these animals.

We saw that wild boar and macaque numbers were 400% higher in forests near the plantations than in untouched environments.

These animals take full advantage of the farmland, raiding crops and thriving on calorie‐rich foods.

There were significant human health risks in the rising pig and macaque populations.

The wildlife origins of the COVID-19 pandemic show that mammals in human-modified ecosystems often host high pathogen loads and pose serious zoonotic disease risks. Both pigs and macaques are recognized as carriers of diseases that can be transmitted to people and they're the most common species in a region considered to be the global zoonotic disease hotspot.

Jonathan H. Moore et al, The rise of hyperabundant native generalists threatens both humans and nature, Biological Reviews (2023). DOI: 10.1111/brv.12985

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 1, 2023 at 10:03am

Light pollution is out of control, say astronomers

Concern over global light pollution is growing. Astronomers are noticing its growing effect on astronomical observations, just as predicted in prior decades. Our artificial light, much of which is not strictly necessary, is interfering with our science.

But there's more than just scientific progress at stake. Can humanity afford to block out the opportunities for wonder, awe, and contemplation that the night sky provides?

We've all seen satellite images of Earth at night, with glittering interconnected cities lit up like strings of holiday lights. These images show us how our global civilization has grown, how we've made progress, and how advanced we've become. But in reality, what we're seeing is also light pollution. And we're beginning to pay a price for that pollution.

In January 2023, the Globe at Night organization released a paper based on 10 years of data on the night sky. The data wasn't from satellites—an important point that we'll get to later—it was from citizen scientists spread around the world.

Globe at Night published a research article showing that the night sky is getting 10% brighter each year. Each year, more of the sky's dimmest stars are being drowned out by sky glow from streetlights, traffic lights, and other sources. For more and more people around the globe, the sky shows fewer and fewer stars, never mind the grand arch of the Milky Way.

Globe at Night gathered over 50,000 individual naked-eye observations of the night sky, where they asked citizen scientists to find the dimmest stars. The decrease in dim stars visible in these observations over the ten-year effort indicated a steadily brightening sky.

"Remote sensing of night lights: A review and an outlook for the fut...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 1, 2023 at 9:45am

Use of vertebrates by humans and other predators. a Number and percent of vertebrate species with documented human use, and b number for which use is considered a threat, including the subset facing extinction (Vulnerable, Endangered, or Critically Endangered status on the IUCN Red list). c Prey diversity (number of species; logarithmic scale) of humans and comparable predators (i.e., those that prey on vertebrates for which range-wide data were available) across equivalent geographic ranges, with percentages indicating human prey overlap with each predator. Credit: Communications Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-04940-w

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 1, 2023 at 9:44am

Humans found to prey on approximately one-third of all vertebrate species

An international team of ecologists, life scientists, conservationists and biologists has found that humans prey on approximately one-third of all vertebrate species in existence. In their study, reported in the journal Communications Biology, the group analyzed data collected by members of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

Prior research has shown that humans are the ultimate apex predator. Our species not only catches and eats prey, but domesticates certain animals to collect their milk, to make leather from their hides or to keep them as pets. In this new effort, the research team wondered just how many vertebrate species humans prey on—in their study, they defined predatory behavior as acts that remove animals from their natural environment, either dead or alive, and use them for a source of food or as a harvesting or trade resource.

To find their answer, they turned to the IUCN, an organization made up of both civil and governmental organizations engaged in monitoring, protecting, and conserving natural resources. Its 1,400 members have become a well-known resource for natural resource status reports.

In this effort, the researchers focused only on the 47,665 vertebrate species tracked by the organization. In looking at the data, the researchers found that humans prey on approximately 14,663 species, which is approximately a third of those known to the IUCN. They also found that nearly 40% of the species preyed upon by humans are listed as threatened. More specifically, they found that approximately 55% of these species are eaten. And they found that more than half of all the terrestrial species preyed on by humans are part of the pet trade. Also, humans hunt approximately 358 species of finned fish for sport and 452 species of birds—and 207 species of mammals and fish are used for clothing. They also found that 192 mammal species and 82 amphibian species are used for medical purposes.

The research team notes that such large numbers make humans far and away the biggest predator on the planet—summing it up, they found that humans prey on other species at a rate 300 times that of any other predator when accounting for the size of predation areas.

 Chris T. Darimont et al, Humanity's diverse predatory niche and its ecological consequences, Communications Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s42003-023-04940-w

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 1, 2023 at 9:24am

Static electricity attracts ticks to hosts, scientists find

Ticks carry a lot of nasty diseases, including Lyme disease, that make many people's and animal's lives miserable, and can even cause death. Therefore there is a huge social and economic benefit to trying to reduce the ability of ticks to attach onto people and the animals humans rely upon.

Ticks can be attracted across air gaps several times larger than themselves by the static electricity that their hosts naturally accumulate, researchers have discovered.

This likely greatly increases their efficiency at finding hosts to parasitize because ticks are not capable of jumping, and therefore this is the only mechanism by which they would be able to make contact with hosts that are beyond the reach of their tiny legs.

Findings of the study, titled "Static electricity passively attracts ticks onto hosts," published in Current Biology, are the first known example of static electricity being implicated in the attachment of an animal to another animal.

Static electricity attracting tick

Until now, we had no idea that an animal could benefit from static electricity in this way, and it really opens up one's imagination as to how many invisible forces like this could be helping animals and plants live their lives.

Sam J. England, Static electricity passively attracts ticks onto hosts, Current Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.06.021. www.cell.com/current-biology/f … 0960-9822(23)00772-8

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