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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 29, 2026 at 9:38am

Chemicals present in drinking water may carry a hidden risk tied to uterine cancer

In a recent study, researchers examined whether certain chemicals present in public drinking water are linked to uterine cancer, the most common gynecological cancer that has been steadily increasing in incidence.

Researchers found that long-term exposure to certain drinking water disinfectant by products was linked to a higher risk of uterine cancer. The risk was greatest among women living in areas with higher levels of trihalomethanes (THMs), chemicals formed when chlorine reacts with organic matter in water. This increased risk remained even when THM levels were within the government's legal limits.

Drinking water is a likely contributor, since it can carry contaminants that are known or suspected to cause cancer. While there are legal limits for contaminants, these limits are set based on what's technically possible, affordable and beneficial for health.

Common contaminants include natural substances like nitrate, arsenic and uranium, as well as byproducts created during water disinfection, such as THMs and haloacetic acids (HAA).

 The analysis found that exposure to certain chemicals used to disinfect public drinking water was associated with a higher risk of uterine cancer. In contrast, no association was found with other common contaminants, including nitrate, arsenic or uranium.

THMs, particularly chloroform, showed the strongest association with endometrioid tumors, which account for more than 95% of uterine cancer cases. Women exposed to the highest levels of THMs had an 18% higher risk of uterine cancer overall. Higher exposure to HAAs was associated with nearly twice the risk of developing nonendometrioid tumors.

The findings could help water utilities explore ways to reduce harmful disinfection byproducts while continuing to protect communities from waterborne infections. The results show an association between these chemicals in drinking water and uterine cancer risk, but they do not establish that they cause cancer.

Maya Spaur et al, Drinking Water Contaminant Exposures and Risk of Uterine Cancer, JAMA Network Open (2026). DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2026.24391

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 28, 2026 at 1:16pm

'I get caught up in the numbers game': Why useful social media content gets lost online
Useful, experience-based health content on social media often receives limited visibility because engagement-focused algorithms prioritize sensational or attention-grabbing posts. This leads to narrow, potentially unbalanced representations of illness and limited reach for accurate information on rare conditions. Users are advised to critically evaluate sources, cross-check with reputable health information, and manage their feeds to reduce harm.

original article.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 28, 2026 at 12:34pm

Low-cost spray can help tomatoes grow in salty soils

A simple, low-dose leaf spray could give farmers a practical new tool to keep growing tomatoes on land that salt has rendered increasingly unproductive, according to a new study .

A foliar spray combining manganese oxide nanoparticles and chitosan mitigated salinity stress in greenhouse-grown tomatoes. Under severe salt stress, treatment doubled shoot biomass, increased root biomass >55%, restored photosynthetic pigments (~91% carotenoid increase), reduced cellular damage markers, and boosted antioxidant enzyme activity up to 300%. Field-scale efficacy and long-term environmental impacts remain untested.

Farzaneh Ordooni et al, Synergistic alleviation of salinity stress in tomato: unraveling the physiological, biochemical, and antioxidant mechanisms modulated by manganese nanoparticles and chitosan, International Journal of Phytoremediation (2026). DOI: 10.1080/15226514.2026.2669640

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 28, 2026 at 12:11pm

Purple corn offers a stable natural alternative to artificial food dyes

Researchers are turning a unique variety of corn into an effective natural alternative to artificial food dyes.
scientists are studying a variety of purple-colored corn traditionally grown in South America. Its vibrant shades come from anthocyanins, natural pigments that give blueberries, red cabbage and grapes their colors.

Unlike artificial dyes, which are petroleum-based and added purely for appearance, anthocyanins are rich in antioxidants known for reducing inflammation and supporting heart health.

In corn, these colours are concentrated in the pericarp, the thin outer layer of the kernel.

Purple pericarp corn provides anthocyanin-based colorants that retain ~75% of key pigments after high-temperature exposure, rising to ~97% with protective food-grade coatings, yielding shelf-stable powders. These colorants show minimal degradation in acidic beverages over seven weeks refrigerated, supporting use as natural dye alternatives.
For food manufacturers, replacing synthetic dyes such as Red No. 40 and Red No. 3 has long been a challenge.

Most natural colours are fragile. For food manufacturers, replacing synthetic dyes such as Red No. 40 and Red No. 3 has long been a challenge.
They tend to break down when exposed to heat, light or oxygen.
That has become a major barrier in the food industry, where ingredients must withstand processing temperatures up to 250 degrees Fahrenheit and remain stable on store shelves for weeks or even months.
In testing, researchers exposed purple corn colorants to elevated temperatures often used in food processing. After one hour of exposure, about 75% of the key color compounds remained intact.

If the colour looks good after heating, that's what matters to manufacturers.
When the team coated the pigments in protective, food-grade materials, retention increased to nearly 97% for some compounds. That process allows researchers to create shelf-stable powders, making purple corn-based colorants easier to store and transport.

Researchers also tested their purple colorants in a beverage system, one of the most demanding environments for natural dyes. Drinks are often acidic, exposed to light and stored for extended periods—all conditions that can quickly degrade plant-based ingredients.

"Purple corn-based colorants held up well in acidic and basic environments.
This durability, combined with potential health benefits, makes purple corn colorants more than a niche ingredient. They offer food companies a viable path to cleaner labels without sacrificing performance. For consumers, that could mean replacing artificial dyes with natural ingredients.

Ahmad Ali et al, Thermal and storage degradation kinetics of corn anthocyanin-based natural red colorants in a model beverage system, and their gastrointestinal behavior, npj Science of Food (2026). DOI: 10.1038/s41538-026-00881-w

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 27, 2026 at 12:30pm

Into the ‘unknome’
The ‘unknome’ — the vast number of microbial genes with unknown functions — could encode capabilities that are critical for interactions between microorganisms. But these interactions are rarely captured in single-species lab cultures, which makes studying their genetic origins difficult, argues a group of microbial ecologists and geneticists. They suggest that co-cultures of diverse species and experiments that simulate real-world conditions could give researchers a better picture of complex microbial interactions, which could enable them to start assigning functions to currently unlabelled genes.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41437-026-00870-5.epdf?sharing_tok...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 27, 2026 at 12:26pm

Moss can generate electrical waves

Mosses are some of the earliest plants that appeared in the fossil record, but they're anything but simple.

A new study, published in Royal Society Open Science, reveals that moss cushions produce surprisingly complex electrical activity, with patterns that undulate across the velvety patch in dynamic waves.

His findings suggest that "moss cushions behave as spatially distributed excitable systems potentially capable of coordinating and integrating electrical signals across both space and time."

Moss cushions are actually many individual clones of the same teensy tiny plant.

If you look really, really closely at a mat of moss, you can see it is made up of simple, minute leaves on stems, similar to those of their larger plant relatives.

But the stems of mosses are actually much less useful at moving water and nutrients around the body of the plant.

Mosses actually never developed the vascular systems that we see in other more complex plants, which is why they cannot grow much taller than a few centimeters. Their leaf-like structures are just one cell thick; they don't even have roots.

But that doesn't mean they're not potentially capable of transmitting information across the colony by other means.

Some of the moss's electrical waves were rapid, while others undulated slowly. They tended to spread across the entire cushion rather than remaining confined to a particular region, and followed patterns across different timescales.

These findings suggest that "moss behaves as a dynamic, interconnected system rather than a collection of independent cells."

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article/13/7/252341/482568/...

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 26, 2026 at 9:33am

Analysis of the data revealed that individuals with clinical obesity were much more likely to develop or die from cardiovascular disease than those without obesity.

Women with clinical obesity developed cardiovascular disease at a rate that was 2.5-fold higher than women without obesity. They also died from cardiovascular disease at an almost threefold (2.8-fold) higher rate than women without obesity.

Similarly, men with clinical obesity developed cardiovascular disease at an almost twofold higher rate (1.9-fold) and had a 2.6-fold higher rate of cardiovascular mortality than men without obesity.

However, individuals with preclinical obesity were also at higher risk, despite not having any obesity-related conditions and seeming to be in good health.

Women with preclinical obesity developed cardiovascular disease at a 38% higher rate and died from cardiovascular disease at a 46% higher rate than women without obesity.

For men, preclinical obesity was associated with an 18% higher rate of developing cardiovascular disease and a 52% higher rate of cardiovascular disease mortality.

All of the results were adjusted for socioeconomic status and lifestyle factors, including smoking and alcohol consumption.

Further analysis showed that the more "high-risk" central adiposity markers (waist measurements) an individual had, the more likely they were to develop heart disease. For example, a woman with one high-risk marker (waist circumference, waist-to-hip ratio or waist-to-height ratio) was 17% more likely to develop cardiovascular disease than a woman without any high-risk waist measurements. Having all three high-risk measurements increased the risk by 64%.
The study also found that waist measurements were more accurate at predicting cardiovascular disease than BMI.

The researchers concluded that individuals with preclinical obesity are at higher risk of developing, and dying from, cardiovascular disease despite appearing to be healthy.

Hidden risk of heart disease in seemingly healthy people who are living with overweight or obesity, International Congress on Obesity 2026, icocongress.com/

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 26, 2026 at 9:32am

Weight around the belly is a better predictor of heart health than BMI, research indicates

Individuals with overweight or obesity can have a higher risk of heart disease despite appearing to be healthy, new research presented at the International Congress on Obesity in Mexico City (15–17 July) shows. Using waist-based measurements along with body mass index (BMI) to identify this hidden risk and intervene early could prevent hundreds of thousands from dying from heart attacks, strokes and other cardiac problems in the years to come, say researchers.

Central adiposity markers outperform BMI for predicting cardiovascular disease (CVD). Using a BMI-plus-waist framework, both clinical and preclinical obesity were associated with substantially higher CVD incidence and mortality, even without comorbidities. Increasing numbers of high-risk waist measures markedly raised CVD risk, and early intervention at the preclinical stage could avert ~40–45% of CVD events and deaths.
The link between central, or abdominal, obesity and heart disease is especially strong because fat stored around the waist, known as visceral fat, is metabolically active and releases inflammatory substances into the bloodstream. Over time, this chronic inflammatory state can damage blood vessels and accelerate the buildup of arterial plaque, significantly increasing the risk of heart attacks.
part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 26, 2026 at 9:13am

Why some human brains can outlast other soft tissues after death

Why do some brains survive long after death when most other soft tissue decays?
The brain is one of the first organs to liquefy and decompose after death. Yet in recent decades, archaeologists have recovered more than 4,400 well-preserved human brains dating back 12,000 years. In more than 1,300 cases, the brain was the only soft tissue left inside skeletal remains.

This phenomenon occurs most often in waterlogged, low-oxygen graves.

Brain preservation depends on burial chemistry rather than chance. Waterlogged, low-oxygen environments favor formation of decay-resistant brain protein fragments enriched in beta-sheet structure and metal- and lipid-binding regions, which cross-link into stable networks. Similar structural features to aggregates in neurodegenerative disease suggest shared stabilizing chemistries.

To find out, the researchers examined the brains of 72 mouse carcasses, as they detail in their study published in the Journal of Proteome Research.

Research revealed that brain preservation is not a matter of chance but the result of predictable chemical processes influenced by the burial environment.

The main factor governing decay was oxygen. Waterlogged, oxygen-poor conditions produced the highest number of decay-resistant protein fragments. Meanwhile, in wet, oxygen-rich environments, the number of proteins detected fell dramatically by the six-month mark.

"The same oxidative reactions that drive molecular destruction can also generate molecular stability," say the scientists in their paper.

So what exactly made the proteins decay-resistant in the wet, oxygen-poor environment?

The study authors discovered that the surviving fragments were not random pieces but had a highly ordered structure rich in beta sheets, which are flat, tightly packed folds that help give proteins their shape. They also contained regions that interact with metals and fats.

The researchers propose that, in low-oxygen conditions, chemical reactions link these fragments together into a more stable network. Metals such as iron may help drive these reactions, making parts of the brain more resistant to decay. "Decay is not the opposite of preservation but, under specific chemical constraints, one of its mechanisms," they added.

The research also held a surprise. The team noted that tightly packed beta sheets share structural features with protein clumps found in the brains of people with neurodegenerative illnesses like Alzheimer's disease.

While decomposition and neurodegeneration are distinct processes, the finding suggests they share some underlying chemistry. This could help scientists better understand how proteins become abnormally stable in aging and neurodegenerative diseases.

Alexandra Morton-Hayward et al, Molecular Solution to the Paradox of Ancient Brain Preservation, Journal of Proteome Research (2026). DOI: 10.1021/acs.jproteome.6c00200

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 26, 2026 at 9:09am

Researchers create strong 'super silk' that maintains shape after wetting

Painstakingly woven from the cocoons of silkworms, silk has been valued for more than 4,000 years as a luxury material. More than just beautiful, silk is also lightweight, strong and biocompatible, allowing it to be used for clothing, medical materials and more. However, conventional silk has a glaring weakness—it shrinks and loses its shape after repeated exposure to moisture.
Researchers at Tohoku University have developed high-performance silk that largely solves this weakness. Instead of tampering with the silk fibers, the research team targeted an earlier step in the process by altering the diet of silkworms. The result is silk fibers with 50% greater tensile strength and reduced shrinkage after wetting and drying to less than one-quarter that of untreated silk. These improvements were seen even when the silk fibers were processed into yarn and woven fabrics, meaning that we may be on the right path to using this "super silk" effectively in final products.

Feeding silkworms with plant-derived cellulose nanofibers yields silk fibers with ~50% higher tensile strength and wet–dry shrinkage less than one-quarter that of conventional silk. The enhanced mechanical properties and dimensional stability persist in yarns and woven fabrics, offering a practical, low-toxicity, and environmentally friendly route to higher-performance silk textiles.

Camille Moreau et al, Tensile properties and dimensional stability of cellulose nanofiber-reinforced silk fabrics by silkworm feeding, Journal of Industrial Textiles (2026). DOI: 10.1177/15280837261463657

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