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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 11, 2023 at 11:35am

Engineered plants produce sex perfume to trick pests and replace pesticides

By using precision gene engineering techniques, researchers at the Earlham Institute in Norwich have been able to turn tobacco plants into solar-powered factories for moth sex pheromones.

Critically, they've shown how the production of these molecules can be efficiently managed so as not to hamper normal plant growth.

Pheromones are complex chemicals produced and released by an organism as a means of communication. They allow members of the same species to send signals, which includes letting others know they're looking for love.

Farmers can hang pheromone dispersers among their crops to mimic the signals of female insects, trapping or distracting the males from finding a mate. Some of these molecules can be produced by chemical processes but chemical synthesis is often expensive and creates toxic byproducts.

Synthetic biology applies engineering principles to the building blocks of life, DNA. By creating genetic modules with the instructions to build new molecules, researchers  can turn a plant such as tobacco into a factory that only needs sunlight and water.

Synthetic biology can allow us to engineer plants to make a lot more of something they already produced, or we can provide the genetic instructions that allow them to build new biological molecules, such as medicines or these pheromones.

Now they have engineered the tobacco plant to produce  moth sex pheromones. 

The same plant has previously been engineered to produce ebola antibodies and even coronavirus-like particles for use in COVID vaccines.

The Group built new sequences of DNA in the lab to mimic the moth genes and introduced a few molecular switches to precisely regulate their expression, which effectively turns the manufacturing process on and off.

An important component of the new research was the ability to fine tune the production of the pheromones, as coercing plants to continuously build these molecules has its drawbacks: As researchers increase the efficiency, too much energy is diverted away from normal growth and development.

However, this new research provides a way to regulate gene expression with much more subtlety

In the lab, the team set about testing and refining the control of genes responsible for producing the mix of specific molecules that mimic the sex pheromones of moth species, including navel orange worm and cotton bollworm moths. They showed that copper sulfate could be used to finely tune the activity of the genes, allowing them to control both the timing and level of gene expression. This is particularly important as copper sulfate is a cheap and readily-available compound already approved for use in agriculture. They were even able to carefully control the production of different pheromone components, allowing them to tweak the cocktail to better suit specific moth species. The researchers  have shown they can control the levels of expression of each gene relative to the others.

Nicola Patron et al, Tunable control of insect pheromone biosynthesis in Nicotiana benthamiana, Plant Biotechnology (2023).

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 11, 2023 at 10:42am

Is there a limit to  scientists' capabilities? NO?!

Here is more evidence!

Scientists map gusty winds in a far-off neutron star system

An accretion disk is a colossal whirlpool of gas and dust that gathers around a black hole or a neutron star like cotton candy as it pulls in material from a nearby star. As the disk spins, it whips up powerful winds that push and pull on the sprawling, rotating plasma. These massive outflows can affect the surroundings of black holes by heating and blowing away the gas and dust around them.

At immense scales, "disk winds" can offer clues to how supermassive black holes shape entire galaxies. Astronomers have observed signs of disk winds in many systems, including accreting black holes and neutron stars. But to date, they've only ever glimpsed a very narrow view of this phenomenon.

Now, MIT astronomers have observed a wider swath of winds, in Hercules X-1, a system in which a neutron star is drawing material away from a sun-like star. This neutron star's accretion disk  is unique in that it wobbles, or "precesses," as it rotates. By taking advantage of this wobble, the astronomers have captured varying perspectives of the rotating disk and created a two-dimensional map of its winds, for the first time.

The new map reveals the wind's vertical shape and structure, as well as its velocity—around hundreds of kilometers per second, or about a million miles per hour, which is on the milder end of what accretion disks can spin up.

If astronomers can spot more wobbling systems in the future, the team's mapping technique could help determine how disk winds influence the formation and evolution of stellar systems, and even entire galaxies.

Peter Kosec, Vertical wind structure in an X-ray binary revealed by a precessing accretion disk, Nature Astronomy (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-01929-7. www.nature.com/articles/s41550-023-01929-7

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 11, 2023 at 9:09am

A unique behaviour of elephants discovered: Elephants can self-teach some things - like peeling bananas - by observing their care-takers!

Elephants like to eat bananas, but they don't usually peel them first in the way humans do. A new report published in the journal Current Biology on April 10, however, shows that one very special Asian elephant named Pang Pha picked up banana peeling all on her own while living at the Berlin Zoo. She reserves it for yellow-brown bananas, first breaking the banana before shaking out and collecting the pulp, leaving the thick peel behind.

This was discovered by researchers  after learning from Pha's caretakers about her unusual banana-peeling talent. At first, they were confused. They brought Pha nice yellow and green bananas, and she never peeled them.

It was only when they understood that she peels only yellow-brown bananas that their project took off.

When yellow-brown bananas are offered to a group of elephants, Pha changes her behavior, they report. She eats as many bananas as she can whole and then saves the last one to peel later.

Banana-peeling appears to be rare in elephants as far as anyone knows, and none of the other Berlin elephants engage in peeling. It's not clear why Pha peels them. The researchers note, however, that she was hand raised by human caretakers in the Berlin Zoo. They never taught her to peel bananas, but they did feed her peeled bananas.

Based on this, the researchers suggest she acquired peeling through observational learning from humans. Earlier reports on African elephants suggest elephants can interpret human pointing gestures and classify people into ethnic groups, but complex human-derived manipulation behaviours, like banana-peeling, appear rather unique, according to the researchers. The findings in Pha nevertheless suggest that elephants overall have surprising cognitive abilities and impressive manipulative skill.

Elephants have truly remarkable trunk skills and that their behavior is shaped by experience.

The researchers find it surprising that Pha alone picked up on banana peeling. It leads them to wonder if such habits are normally passed on through elephant families. They're now looking into other sophisticated trunk behaviors, such as tool use.

Wataru Brecht, Elephant Banana Peeling, Current Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.02.076. www.cell.com/current-biology/f … 0960-9822(23)00266-X

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 9, 2023 at 12:32pm

For the first two decades after its discovery, most of the research has been centered on the core oscillator. it 's now found that the kinases, previously thought to be just output components, are actually part of the whole clock.

The core oscillator is often thought of as the 'gears' of the circadian clock and the kinases as the 'hands', with both required to tell the right time. What this study shows is how they're both needed – and how closely linked the inputs and outputs of the clock are.

If you don't have both hands they don't set time correctly because one of them is a stabilizer and one a perturber to the resetting signal, and you need both."

To put it another way, in retrieving information from the clock, the kinases also interfere with it. It was also shown that two kinases are needed to properly respond to a 'reset' signal, as might happen when we move through time zones.

Now that this method of real-time monitoring has been established, it can be used to better understand how our own internal circadian rhythms work, and how their timekeeping has an effect on the rest of our bodies.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2221453120

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 9, 2023 at 12:29pm

Researchers Studied a Circadian Clock in Real Time in a First For Science

We all have a built-in clock telling us when it's time to eat, time to sleep, and time to get up and do something with the day. Many organisms do, in fact, which is why it's such an important area of research for scientists.

Now the circadian clock and its responses to environmental cues has been studied in a way that has never been done before. Scientists were able to track the clock and its functions in real time, using a tiny aquatic organism called a cyanobacterium (Synechococcus elongatus). Given its clock works in a similar way to ours, it can tell us a thing or two about our own daily rhythms.

The team looked at the cyanobacterium's core oscillator – a nanomachine powered by three proteins that acts as a time regulator – studying the ways its output acts as a signal for timekeeping. The core 'oscillates' in response to different signal molecules binding to it throughout the day, resulting in the rhythmic expression of hundreds of genes within the cyanobacteria.

The new study analyzes how these interactions change when the cyanobacterium's clock 'resets' at the molecular level, something that could be compared to jet lag or daylight saving time adjustments for humans.

The research builds on an in vitro clock some members of the team had previously developed, one that could operate inside a test tube. Through new advancements in the way the clock is monitored and run, the team was able to get real-time readings as the timing settings were adjusted and responded to.

This revealed several new insights, including the fact enzymes known as kinases that mediate genetic expression are more closely related to the clock function than previously thought.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 9, 2023 at 10:49am

In recent years, researchers have focused on this complex diplomacy between gut microflora, the immune system, and neurological functioning in an attempt to understand why areas of the brain degenerate and give rise to the symptoms of memory loss and cognitive decline we recognize as Alzheimer's disease.

Observational studies revealed a reduction in the diversity of gut microbes in individuals diagnosed with the condition, while laboratory analyses showed gut bacteria can release chemicals that could induce damaging inflammatory signals in the brain.

Complicating matters is a gene involved in the movement of fats through the blood known as apolipoprotein E (APOE). Of the three versions found in humans, a variant known as E4 appears to be a genetic risk for Alzheimer's. Why this is the case isn't clear, though there's good reason to suspect that having at least one copy of APOE E4 might hold some sway over the composition of our microbial citizens.

This latest exploration of the connections between microbes, APOE E4, and Alzheimer's provides even more compelling evidence of a mechanism at work in the gut.

An initial search of bacterial genes that could be associated with Alzheimer's revealed 20 genera suspected of playing some kind of role in the disease's development. A second hunt through a more constrained sample produced a slightly more certain 10 genera – six of which were fewer among diagnosed patients, and the remaining four being more common.

Of those 10 bacteria genera, four seemed to have a relationship with an APOE allele that is thought to raise the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

One example genus is the Actinobacterium Collinsella, which isn't only associated with Alzheimer's and the APOE variant but rheumatoid arthritis, atherosclerosis, and Type-2 diabetes as well.

The researchers suspect Collinsella's ability to promote the expression of inflammatory messenger hormones, together with its knack for making the gut more permeable, could play a role in exacerbating – if not triggering – neurological damage.

Elevated cholesterol and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels found in healthy adults with high numbers of Collinsella further show some link between microbes, fat metabolism, and neurodegeneration.

This is just one avenue for exploration; the research also uncovered 'protective' bacterial groups that could counter inflammation.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31730-5

Part 2

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 9, 2023 at 10:43am

Study Pinpoints Specific Gut Bacteria Linked to Alzheimer's

Tensions between the brain, the gut, and the makeup of its microbial inhabitants appear to play a critical role in the development of neurodegenerative conditions. While evidence favoring a link between the microbiota-gut-brain axis (MGBA) and Alzheimer's disease continues to grow, the exact mechanism behind the relationship is still poorly understood.

The puzzle pieces have so far been frustratingly incoherent, involving seemingly unrelated factors as tangled proteins inside nervous tissue to suspect gut microbes to subtle differences in fat-transporting molecules.

Using the largest ever genome-wide association study of human gut microflora, a team of researchers from the US sought out a more explicit relationship between Alzheimer's disease and the mix of organisms living inside the digestive system.

Their analysis uncovered not only a genetic connection between different genera of gut bacteria and a diagnosis of Alzheimer's but also a link between the microbes and a genetic risk factor for the neurodegenerative disorder.

The study further emphasizes the interplay of genetic factors and inflammatory gut microflora in healthy brain function.

---

Early in our development, our bodies are colonized by an assortment of bacteria, fungi, and viruses that strike a tentative truce with the immune system. For the most part, this arrangement is mutually beneficial. The microbes get a place to live, and we get a front-line defense of tiny occupants willing to protect their home.

That's not to say the balance is always a harmonious one. Shifts in our immune system can give some species an advantage over others. Likewise, changes in the makeup of microbes – by way of shifts in our diet, for example – can profoundly affect the body's functioning. For better and worse.

The tug-of-war between our microbial census and general health can ripple throughout the body in less than predictable ways, sowing confusion in how distant tissues identify friend and foe.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 9, 2023 at 10:15am

Lithium in Drinking Water Identified as Potential Risk Factor For Autism

Scientists have identified a link between lithium levels in a Denmark's water supply and an increased chance of children later receiving an autism diagnosis.

While the study of 52,706 kids isn't enough to prove that lithium is directly causing autism, the possibility is worthy of further investigation.

A naturally occurring element and a medication commonly used to treat mood disorders, lithium has previously been associated with miscarriages and cardiac malformations in newborns. This is the first time an association has been made with autism spectrum disorder ( ASD).

"In this Danish nationwide population-based case-control study, the study team found that maternal exposure to higher levels of residential lithium in drinking water during pregnancy was associated with a moderate increase in ASD risk in the offspring," write the researchers in their published paper.

"The findings remained robust after adjusting for several maternal neighborhood socioeconomic factors and air pollution exposures."

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapediatrics/article-abstract/28...

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 9, 2023 at 8:55am

Quantum tunnelling reactions play an important role in chemistry when classical pathways are energetically forbidden, be it in gas-phase reactions, surface diffusion or liquid-phase chemistry. In general, such tunnelling reactions are challenging to calculate theoretically, given the high dimensionality of the quantum dynamics, and also very difficult to identify experimentally. Hydrogenic systems, however, allow for accurate first-principles calculations. In this way the rate of the gas-phase proton-transfer tunnelling reaction of hydrogen molecules with deuterium anions, H₂ + D⁻ → H⁻ + HD, has been calculated, but has so far lacked experimental verification. Here we present high-sensitivity measurements of the reaction rate carried out in a cryogenic 22-pole ion trap. We observe an extremely low rate constant of (5.2 ± 1.6) × 10⁻²⁰ cm³ s⁻¹. This measured value agrees with quantum tunnelling calculations, serving as a benchmark for molecular theory and advancing the understanding of fundamental collision processes. A deviation of the reaction rate from linear scaling, which is observed at high H₂ densities, can be traced back to previously unobserved heating dynamics in radiofrequency ion traps.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05727-z

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 9, 2023 at 8:49am

Bizarre Quantum Tunneling Observation Throws Out All the Rules

The strange phenomenon of quantum tunneling has been observed in a chemical reaction that defies classical physics

A chemical reaction is a bit like traveling from Vienna to Venice: your destination might be downhill, but to get there, you’ll need to cross the Alps. You can think of the energy changes molecules must go through as a landscape. Between the start and end of a reaction, this terrain can sometimes be so hilly that otherwise favorable reactions don’t happen at all if molecules lack the energy to make it over the bumps. Yet in some of these cases, such reactions do happen, thanks to quantum tunneling, which allows particles to occasionally bore through energy barriers they’d never be able to climb. This bizarre behavior is forbidden in traditional physics but allowed under the wild rules of quantum mechanics.

Now, in a new study published in Nature, scientists have managed to spot quantum tunneling in what classical physics would deem an impossible reaction between hydrogen molecules and deuterium ions—heavy, charged versions of hydrogen. This is the first time that researchers have managed to experimentally confirm a theoretical prediction about the rate of tunneling in a reaction involving ions. “Quantum mechanics in theory should be able to predict this [rate] very well,” says physicist Stephan Schlemmer of the University of Cologne in Germany, who was not involved in the study. “But nobody was sure whether this was really true.”

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/bizarre-quantum-tunnelin...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05727-z

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