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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 20, 2021 at 11:17am

From Avocet to Zebra Finch: big data study finds more than 50 billi...

There are roughly 50 billion individual birds in the world, a new big data study by UNSW Sydney suggests  about six birds for every human on the planet. The study  which bases its findings on citizen science observations and detailed algorithms  estimates how many birds belong to 9700 different bird species, including flightless birds like emus and penguins. It found many iconic Australian birds are numbered in the millions, like the Rainbow Lorikeet (19 million), Sulphur-crested Cockatoo (10 million) and Laughing Kookaburra (3.4 million). But other natives, like the rare Black-breasted Buttonquail, only have around 100 members left. The findings are being published this week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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Study finds link between blood sugar and liver disease progression
DURHAM, NC.- There are no approved drugs to treat nonalcoholic fatty liver disease but controlling blood sugar over time may help decrease the risk of liver scarring and disease progression. According to a new study by researchers, the average three-month blood glucose levels of patients with non-alcoholic fatty liver disease influenced their chance of having more severe scarring in the liver, which can lead to liver failure.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 20, 2021 at 11:16am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 20, 2021 at 11:14am

New technology makes tumor eliminate itself

Scientists at the University of Zurich have modified a common respiratory virus, called adenovirus, to act like a Trojan horse to deliver genes for cancer therapeutics directly into tumor cells. Unlike chemotherapy or radiotherapy, this approach does no harm to normal healthy cells. Once inside tumor cells, the delivered genes serve as a blueprint for therapeutic antibodies, cytokines and other signaling substances, which are produced by the cancer cells themselves and act to eliminate tumors from the inside out. 

Researchers tricked the tumor into eliminating itself through the production of anti-cancer agents by its own cells. The therapeutic agents, such as therapeutic antibodies or signaling substances, mostly stay at the place in the body where they’re needed instead of spreading throughout the bloodstream where they can damage healthy organs and tissues.

This technology is named SHREAD: It builds on key technologies previously engineered by another team, including to direct adenoviruses to specified parts of the body to hide them from the immune system.

With the SHREAD system, the scientists made the tumor itself produce a clinically approved breast cancer antibody, called trastuzumab (Herceptin®), in the mammary of a mouse. They found that, after a few days, SHREAD produced more of the antibody in the tumor than when the drug was injected directly. Moreover, the concentration in the bloodstream and in other tissues where side effects could occur were significantly lower with SHREAD. The scientists used a very sophisticated, high-resolution 3D imaging method and tissues rendered totally transparent to show how the therapeutic antibody, produced in the body, creates pores in blood vessels of the tumor and destroys tumor cells, and thus treats it from the inside.

SHREAD is applicable not only for the fight against breast cancer. As healthy tissues no longer come into contact with significant levels of the therapeutic agent, it is also applicable for delivery of a wide range of so-called biologics – powerful protein-based drugs that would otherwise be too toxic.

https://www.media.uzh.ch/en/Press-Releases/2021/shred.html#:~:text=....

https://researchnews.cc/news/6770/New-technology-makes-tumor-elimin...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 20, 2021 at 9:30am

An illuminating possibility for stroke treatment: Nano-photosynthesis

Blocked blood vessels in the brains of stroke patients prevent oxygen-rich blood from getting to cells, causing severe damage. Plants and some microbes produce oxygen through photosynthesis. What if there was a way to make photosynthesis happen in the brains of patients? Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Nano Letters have done just that in cells and in mice, using blue-green algae and special nanoparticles, in a proof-of-concept demonstration.

The researchers paired S. elongatus with neodymium up-conversion nanoparticles that transform tissue-penetrating near-infrared light to a visible wavelength that the microbes can use to photosynthesize. In a cell study, they found that the nano-photosynthesis approach reduced the number of neurons that died after oxygen and glucose deprivation. They then injected the microbes and nanoparticles into mice with blocked cerebral arteries and exposed the mice to near-infrared light. The therapy reduced the number of dying neurons, improved the animals' motor function and even helped new blood vessels to start growing. Although this treatment is still in the animal testing stage, it has promise to advance someday toward human clinical trials, the researchers say.

"Oxygen-Generating Cyanobacteria Powered by Upconversion-Nanoparticles-Converted Near-Infrared Light for Ischemic Stroke Treatment" Nano Letters (2021). pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.nanolett.1c00719

https://phys.org/news/2021-05-illuminating-possibility-treatment-na...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 20, 2021 at 7:50am

Neuroscientists Have Followed a Thought as It Moves Through The Human Brain

A study using epilepsy patients undergoing surgery has given neuroscientists an opportunity to track in unprecedented detail the movement of a thought through the human brain, all the way from inspiration to response.

The findings confirmed the role of the prefrontal cortex as the coordinator of complex interactions between different regions, linking our perception with action and serving as what can be considered the "glue of cognition".

The study recorded the electrical activity of neurons using a precise technique called electrocorticograhy (ECoG).

The results clearly emphasized the role of the prefrontal cortex in directing activity. The prefrontal cortex was seen to remain active throughout most of the thought process, as would be expected for a multitasking region of the brain.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-017-0267-2

https://www.sciencealert.com/neuroscientists-followed-a-thought-as-...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 20, 2021 at 5:53am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 19, 2021 at 11:13am

First nuke made ‘impossible’ quasicrystals

Scientists searching for quasicrystals — so-called ‘impossible’ materials, with unusual, non-repeating structures — have identified one in remnants of the world’s first nuclear-bomb test. The previously unknown structure, made of iron, silicon, copper and calcium, probably formed from the fusion of vapourized desert sand and coppe.... Similar materials have been synthesized in the laboratory and identified in meteorites, but this is the first example of a quasicrystal with this combination of elements.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 19, 2021 at 11:12am

A newfound quasicrystal formed in the first atomic bomb test

‘Trinitite’ contains a material that is ordered but doesn’t repeat itself

In an instant, the bomb obliterated everything.

The tower it sat on and the copper wires strung around it: vaporized. The desert sand below: melted.

In the aftermath of the first test of an atomic bomb, in July 1945, all this debris fused together, leaving the ground of the New Mexico test site coated with a glassy substance now called trinitite. High temperatures and pressures helped forge an unusual structure within one piece of trinitite, in a grain of the material just 10 micrometers across — a bit longer than a red blood cell.

That grain contains a rare form of matter called a quasicrystal, born the moment the nuclear age began, scientists report May 17 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Normal crystals are made of atoms locked in a lattice that repeats in a regular pattern. Quasicrystals have a structure that is orderly like a normal crystal but that doesn’t repeat. This means quasicrystals can have properties that are forbidden for normal crystals. First discovered in the lab in 1980s, quasicrystals also appear in nature in meteorites .

The newly discovered quasicrystal from the New Mexico test site is the oldest one known that was made by humans.

Trinitite takes its moniker from the nuclear test, named Trinity, in which the material was created in abundance

 the trinitite the team studied was a rarer variety, called red trinitite. Most trinitite has a greenish tinge, but red trinitite contains copper, remnants of the wires that stretched from the ground to the bomb. Quasicrystals tend to be found in materials that have experienced a violent impact and usually involve metals. Red trinitite fit both criteria.

But first the team had to find some.

L. Bindi et al. Accidental synthesis of a previously unknown quasicrystal in the fi.... Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Vol 118, May 17, 2021, e2101350118. doi: 10.1073/pnas.2101350118.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/new-quasi-crystal-formed-first-...

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 19, 2021 at 11:05am

Study shows how our brains sync hearing with vision

Every high-school physics student learns that sound and light travel at very different speeds. If the brain did not account for this difference, it would be much harder for us to tell where sounds came from, and how they are related to what we see. Instead, the brain allows us to make better sense of our world by playing tricks, so that a visual and a sound created at the same time are perceived as synchronous, even though they reach the brain and are processed by neural circuits at different speeds. One of the brain’s tricks is temporal recalibration: altering our sense of time to synchronize our joint perception of sound and vision. A new study finds that recalibration depends on brain signals constantly adapting to our environment to sample, order and associate competing sensory inputs together. Scientists at The Neuro (Montreal Neurological Institute-Hospital) of McGill university recruited volunteers to view short flashes 

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 19, 2021 at 11:03am

Stanford researchers make 'bombshell' discovery of an entirely new ...

Researchers have discovered a new kind of biomolecule that could play a significant role in the biology of all living things. The novel biomolecule, dubbed glycoRNA, is a small ribbon of ribonucleic acid (RNA) with sugar molecules, called glycans, dangling from it. Up until now, the only kinds of similarly sugar-decorated biomolecules known to science were fats (lipids) and proteins. These glycolipids and glycoproteins appear ubiquitously in and on animal, plant and microbial cells, contributing to a wide range of processes essential for life. The newfound glycoRNAs, neither rare nor furtive, were hiding in plain sight simply because no one thought to look for them – understandably so, given that their existence flies in the face of well-established cellular biology. A study in the journal Cell, published May 17, describes the findings. “This is a stunning discovery of an entirely new class of biomolecules.

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