Science, Art, Litt, Science based Art & Science Communication
JAI VIGNAN
All about Science - to remove misconceptions and encourage scientific temper
Communicating science to the common people
'To make them see the world differently through the beautiful lense of science'
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Latest Activity: 2 hours ago
WE LOVE SCIENCE HERE BECAUSE IT IS A MANY SPLENDOURED THING
THIS IS A WAR ZONE WHERE SCIENCE FIGHTS WITH NONSENSE AND WINS
“The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge.”
"Being a scientist is a state of mind, not a profession!"
"Science, when it's done right, can yield amazing things".
The Reach of Scientific Research From Labs to Laymen
The aim of science is not only to open a door to infinite knowledge and wisdom but to set a limit to infinite error.
"Knowledge is a Superpower but the irony is you cannot get enough of it with ever increasing data base unless you try to keep up with it constantly and in the right way!" The best education comes from learning from people who know what they are exactly talking about.
Science is this glorious adventure into the unknown, the opportunity to discover things that nobody knew before. And that’s just an experience that’s not to be missed. But it’s also a motivated effort to try to help humankind. And maybe that’s just by increasing human knowledge—because that’s a way to make us a nobler species.
If you are scientifically literate the world looks very different to you.
We do science and science communication not because they are easy but because they are difficult!
“Science is not a subject you studied in school. It’s life. We 're brought into existence by it!"
Links to some important articles :
1. Interactive science series...
a. how-to-do-research-and-write-research-papers-part 13
b. Some Qs people asked me on science and my replies to them...
Part 6, part-10, part-11, part-12, part 14 , part- 8,
part- 1, part-2, part-4, part-5, part-16, part-17, part-18 , part-19 , part-20
part-21 , part-22, part-23, part-24, part-25, part-26, part-27 , part-28
part-29, part-30, part-31, part-32, part-33, part-34, part-35, part-36, part-37,
part-38, part-40, part-41, part-42, part-43, part-44, part-45, part-46, part-47
Part 48, part49, Critical thinking -part 50 , part -51, part-52, part-53
part-54, part-55, part-57, part-58, part-59, part-60, part-61, part-62, part-63
part 64, part-65, part-66, part-67, part-68, part 69, part-70 part-71, part-73 ...
.......306
BP variations during pregnancy part-72
who is responsible for the gender of their children - a man or a woman -part-56
c. some-questions-people-asked-me-on-science-based-on-my-art-and-poems -part-7
d. science-s-rules-are-unyielding-they-will-not-be-bent-for-anybody-part-3-
e. debate-between-scientists-and-people-who-practice-and-propagate-pseudo-science - part -9
f. why astrology is pseudo-science part 15
g. How Science is demolishing patriarchal ideas - part-39
2. in-defence-of-mangalyaan-why-even-developing-countries-like-india need space research programmes
3. Science communication series:
a. science-communication - part 1
b. how-scienitsts-should-communicate-with-laymen - part 2
c. main-challenges-of-science-communication-and-how-to-overcome-them - part 3
d. the-importance-of-science-communication-through-art- part 4
e. why-science-communication-is-geting worse - part 5
f. why-science-journalism-is-not-taken-seriously-in-this-part-of-the-world - part 6
g. blogs-the-best-bet-to-communicate-science-by-scientists- part 7
h. why-it-is-difficult-for-scientists-to-debate-controversial-issues - part 8
i. science-writers-and-communicators-where-are-you - part 9
j. shooting-the-messengers-for-a-different-reason-for-conveying-the- part 10
k. why-is-science-journalism-different-from-other-forms-of-journalism - part 11
l. golden-rules-of-science-communication- Part 12
m. science-writers-should-develop-a-broader-view-to-put-things-in-th - part 13
n. an-informed-patient-is-the-most-cooperative-one -part 14
o. the-risks-scientists-will-have-to-face-while-communicating-science - part 15
p. the-most-difficult-part-of-science-communication - part 16
q. clarity-on-who-you-are-writing-for-is-important-before-sitting-to write a science story - part 17
r. science-communicators-get-thick-skinned-to-communicate-science-without-any-bias - part 18
s. is-post-truth-another-name-for-science-communication-failure?
t. why-is-it-difficult-for-scientists-to-have-high-eqs
u. art-and-literature-as-effective-aids-in-science-communication-and teaching
v.* some-qs-people-asked-me-on-science communication-and-my-replies-to-them
** qs-people-asked-me-on-science-and-my-replies-to-them-part-173
w. why-motivated-perception-influences-your-understanding-of-science
x. science-communication-in-uncertain-times
y. sci-com: why-keep-a-dog-and-bark-yourself
z. How to deal with sci com dilemmas?
A+. sci-com-what-makes-a-story-news-worthy-in-science
B+. is-a-perfect-language-important-in-writing-science-stories
C+. sci-com-how-much-entertainment-is-too-much-while-communicating-sc
D+. sci-com-why-can-t-everybody-understand-science-in-the-same-way
E+. how-to-successfully-negotiate-the-science-communication-maze
4. Health related topics:
a. why-antibiotic-resistance-is-increasing-and-how-scientists-are-tr
b. what-might-happen-when-you-take-lots-of-medicines
c. know-your-cesarean-facts-ladies
d. right-facts-about-menstruation
e. answer-to-the-question-why-on-big-c
f. how-scientists-are-identifying-new-preventive-measures-and-cures-
g. what-if-little-creatures-high-jack-your-brain-and-try-to-control-
h. who-knows-better?
k. can-rust-from-old-drinking-water-pipes-cause-health-problems
l. pvc-and-cpvc-pipes-should-not-be-used-for-drinking-water-supply
m. melioidosis
o. desensitization-and-transplant-success-story
p. do-you-think-the-medicines-you-are-taking-are-perfectly-alright-then revisit your position!
q. swine-flu-the-difficlulties-we-still-face-while-tackling-the-outb
r. dump-this-useless-information-into-a-garbage-bin-if-you-really-care about evidence based medicine
s. don-t-ignore-these-head-injuries
u. allergic- agony-caused-by-caterpillars-and-moths
General science:
a.why-do-water-bodies-suddenly-change-colour
b. don-t-knock-down-your-own-life-line
c. the-most-menacing-animal-in-the-world
d. how-exo-planets-are-detected
e. the-importance-of-earth-s-magnetic-field
f. saving-tigers-from-extinction-is-still-a-travail
g. the-importance-of-snakes-in-our-eco-systems
h. understanding-reverse-osmosis
i. the-importance-of-microbiomes
j. crispr-cas9-gene-editing-technique-a-boon-to-fixing-defective-gen
k. biomimicry-a-solution-to-some-of-our-problems
5. the-dilemmas-scientists-face
6. why-we-get-contradictory-reports-in-science
7. be-alert-pseudo-science-and-anti-science-are-on-prowl
8. science-will-answer-your-questions-and-solve-your-problems
9. how-science-debunks-baseless-beliefs
10. climate-science-and-its-relevance
11. the-road-to-a-healthy-life
12. relative-truth-about-gm-crops-and-foods
13. intuition-based-work-is-bad-science
14. how-science-explains-near-death-experiences
15. just-studies-are-different-from-thorough-scientific-research
16. lab-scientists-versus-internet-scientists
17. can-you-challenge-science?
18. the-myth-of-ritual-working
19.science-and-superstitions-how-rational-thinking-can-make-you-work-better
20. comets-are-not-harmful-or-bad-omens-so-enjoy-the-clestial-shows
21. explanation-of-mysterious-lights-during-earthquakes
22. science-can-tell-what-constitutes-the-beauty-of-a-rose
23. what-lessons-can-science-learn-from-tragedies-like-these
24. the-specific-traits-of-a-scientific-mind
25. science-and-the-paranormal
26. are-these-inventions-and-discoveries-really-accidental-and-intuitive like the journalists say?
27. how-the-brain-of-a-polymath-copes-with-all-the-things-it-does
28. how-to-make-scientific-research-in-india-a-success-story
29. getting-rid-of-plastic-the-natural-way
30. why-some-interesting-things-happen-in-nature
31. real-life-stories-that-proves-how-science-helps-you
32. Science and trust series:
a. how-to-trust-science-stories-a-guide-for-common-man
b. trust-in-science-what-makes-people-waver
c. standing-up-for-science-showing-reasons-why-science-should-be-trusted
You will find the entire list of discussions here: http://kkartlab.in/group/some-science/forum
( Please go through the comments section below to find scientific research reports posted on a daily basis and watch videos based on science)
Get interactive...
Please contact us if you want us to add any information or scientific explanation on any topic that interests you. We will try our level best to give you the right information.
Our mail ID: kkartlabin@gmail.com
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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
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
Past neuroscience studies suggest that when deciding their next actions, mice and other rodents tend to replay past outcomes of similar situations in their brain, which is reflected in a rapid activation of certain brain regions in a sequence. Recently, some studies recorded similar replay-associated brain activity in the human brain using imaging techniques.
Researchers have carried out a study exploring the possibility that this rapid "replay" of past positive and negative outcomes could predict the choices that humans make in a situation where they could either lose or gain money. Their findings, published in Nature Neuroscience, unveil a possible link between replay in the brain and the planned behaviour of humans, suggesting that while choosing to approach or avoid a situation, humans mentally represent the worst case scenario that could result from their choice.
Researchers wanted to examine how different paths are replayed in the human brain in situations where the outcome is not easy to deduce. Specifically, they examined scenarios in which humans might be conflicted about whether to approach or avoid a given path, a dilemma known as the approach-avoidance conflict.
Choosing whether to stay (avoid) or go (approach) is hard when we're uncertain, and it's possible that replay in the brain could explain how we eventually make up our mind. To test this hypothesis, researchers used a brain imaging technique called magnetoencephalography, which entails the use of a machine that sits on the scalp to pick up the tiny electric currents that pass through human neurons.
Magnetoencephalography allows researchers to precisely measure bursts of activity in different areas of the brain and when they occur. They specifically used it to measure the very fast bursts of brain activity that happen in the brain during replay, which are only about 40 milliseconds apart.
After they collected their brain recordings, the researchers used machine learning to analyze them and determine which of the images they were previously presented with were replayed in the brain while participants made a new decision. In other words, the models they used detected the re-activation of sequences of brain activity that were first recorded while the participants were initially presented with a given image.
By analyzing these results in combination with the decisions that participants took (i.e., whether they approached or avoided a given situation), researchers were then able to determine what sequences were being replayed before participants decided to approach or avoid a given path.
Their biggest finding was that humans play out paths of the worst-case scenario. If participants eventually decided to avoid altogether, they tended to replay (or rather 'simulate') paths leading to the desired but forgone reward. On the other hand, if participants eventually decided to approach and take the risk, they tended to replay paths leading to the feared negative outcome. This sort of counterfactual thinking could be a way for the brain to make sure we don't forget alternative outcomes.
For their most recent study, the team compared the genomes of 241 mammal species using machine learning to cope with a large amount of data.
They identified 312 HARs and examined where they are located within the 3D 'neighborhoods' of folded DNA. Almost 30 percent of HARs were in the regions of DNA where structural variations had caused the genome to fold differently in humans compared to other primates.
The team also discovered neighborhoods containing HARs were rich with the genes that differentiate humans from our closest relatives, chimpanzees.
In an experiment that compared DNA within growing human and chimpanzee stem cells, one-third of identified HARs were transcribed specifically during the development of the human neocortex.
Many HARs play a role in embryo development, especially in forming neural pathways associated with intelligence, reading, social skills, memory, attention and focus – traits we know are distinctly different in humans than other animals.
In HARs, these enhancer genes, unchanged for millions of years, may have had to adapt to their different target genes and regulatory domains.
Something big happens like this massive change in genome folding, and our cells have to quickly fix it to avoid an evolutionary disadvantage."
We don't yet understand exactly how these changes have impacted specific aspects of our brain development, and how they became an integral part of our species' DNA.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm1696
Part 2
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Like treasured recipes passed down from generation to generation, there are just some regions of DNA that evolution doesn't dare tweak. Mammals far and wide share a variety of such encoded sequences, for example, which have remained untouched for millions of years.
Humans are a strange exception to this club. For some reason, recipes long preserved by our ancient ancestors were suddenly 'spiced up' within a short evolutionary period of time.
Because we're the only species in which these regions have been rewritten so rapidly, they are called 'human accelerated regions' (or HARs). What's more, scientists think at least some HARs could be behind many of the qualities that set humans apart from their close relatives, like chimpanzees and bonobos.
In a new study, researchers found the 3D folding of human DNA in the nucleus is a key factor in this pivotal moment for our species.
A big difference between human and chimpanzee DNA is structural: large chunks of the DNA's building blocks have been inserted, deleted, or rearranged in the human genome. So human DNA folds differently in the nucleus compared with the DNA of other primates.
In a study published earlier this year, researchers created a model suggesting the rapid variations appearing in HARs in early humans often opposed each other, turning the activity of an enhancer up and down in a kind of genetic fine-tuning – a model supported by their new research.
Part 1
Strange planets
Happy worms have healthy eggs
Worms might not be depressed, per se. But that doesn’t mean they can’t benefit from antidepressants.
In a new study researchers exposed roundworms (a well-established model organism in biological research) to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), a class of drugs used for treating depression and anxiety. Surprisingly, this treatment improved the quality of aging females’ egg cells.
Not only did exposure to SSRIs decrease embryonic death by more than twofold, it also decreased chromosomal abnormalities in surviving offspring by more than twofold. Under the microscope, egg cells also looked younger and healthier, appearing round and plump rather than tiny and misshapen, which is common with aging.
Astounded by the results, the researchers replicated the experiment in fruit flies — another common model organism — and the SSRIs demonstrated the same effect.
Although much more work is needed, the researchers say these findings provide new opportunities to explore pharmacological interventions that might combat infertility issues in humans by improving egg quality and by delaying the onset of reproductive aging.
Erin Z. Aprison, Svetlana Dzitoyeva, Ilya Ruvinsky. Serotonergic signaling plays a deeply conserved role in improving oocyte quality. Developmental Biology, 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.ydbio.2023.04.008
Aliens on nearby stars could detect Earth through radio signals leaked from the planet, new research suggests.
Researchers used crowd sourced data to simulate radio leakage from mobile towers to determine what alien civilizations might detect from various nearby stars, including Barnard's star, six light years away from Earth.
The research, published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society journal, found that only more technologically advanced civilizations would be able to detect the current levels of mobile tower radio leakage from Earth. However, as most alien civilizations are likely to have more sensitive receiving systems and as we move towards more powerful broadband systems on Earth, the detectability of humans from other intelligent beings will become more and more likely.
Although it's true we have fewer powerful TV and radio transmitters today, the proliferation of mobile communication systems around the world is profound. While each system represents relatively low radio powers individually, the integrated spectrum of billions of these devices is substantial, according to them.
Current estimates suggest we will have more than one hundred thousand satellites in low Earth orbit and beyond before the end of the decade. The Earth is already anomalously bright in the radio part of the spectrum; if the trend continues, we could become readily detectable by any advanced civilization with the right technology.
Ramiro C Saide et al, Simulation of the Earth's radio-leakage from mobile towers as seen from selected nearby stellar systems, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2023). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stad378
AI could run a million microbial experiments per year, says study
An artificial intelligence system enables robots to conduct autonomous scientific experimentsas many as 10,000 per daypotentially driving a drastic leap forward in the pace of discovery in areas from medicine to agriculture to environmental science.
That artificial intelligence platform, dubbed BacterAI, mapped the metabolism of two microbes associated with oral healthwith no baseline information to start with. Bacteria consume some combination of the 20 amino acids needed to support life, but each species requires specific nutrients to grow.
Robots trained by artificial intelligence can conduct autonomous experiments, as many as 10,000 per day, to answer scientific questions. New research from University of Michigan engineers shows how automation can help speed the pace of discovery, with ramifications for a variety of fields of study.
Adam C. Dama et al, BacterAI maps microbial metabolism without prior knowledge, Nature Microbiology (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41564-023-01376-0
At the three-month follow-up, nightmares had risen slightly in both groups, to 1.48 and 0.33 per week respectively. However, that is still an impressive reduction in the frequency of nightmares, the researchers said, suggesting that using TMR to support IRT results in a more effective treatment.
Researchers observed a fast decrease of nightmares, together with dreams becoming emotionally more positive. For researchers and clinicians, these findings are very promising both for the study of emotional processing during sleep and for the development of new therapies.
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01477-4
Part 3
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