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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 8, 2023 at 11:45am

A Chance Event 1 Million Years Ago Changed Human Brains Forever

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

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 8, 2023 at 11:17am

Strange planets

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 8, 2023 at 11:09am

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

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 8, 2023 at 10:28am

Advanced aliens could soon detect life on Earth, say scientists

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

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 7, 2023 at 12:13pm

AI could run a million microbial experiments per year, says study

An artificial intelligence system enables robots to conduct autonomous scientific experiments—as many as 10,000 per day—potentially 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 health—with 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

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 7, 2023 at 11:59am

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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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 7, 2023 at 11:57am

One non-invasive method is imagery rehearsal therapy, in which patients rewrite their most harrowing and frequent nightmares to give them a happy ending. Then, they "rehearse" telling themselves that rewritten story, trying to overwrite the nightmare.

This method can reduce the frequency and severity of nightmares, but the treatment is not effective for all patients.

In 2010 scientists found that playing sounds that people have been trained to associate with a certain stimulus, while those people are sleeping, aids in boosting the memory of that stimulus. This has been named targeted memory reactivation (TMR), and researchers wanted to find out if it could improve the effectiveness of imagery rehearsal therapy (IRT).

After having the study's participants complete a dream and sleep diary for two weeks, the volunteers were all given a single IRT session. At this point, half of the group underwent a TMR session, creating a link between a positive version of their nightmares and a sound.

The other half served as a control group, imagining a less horrific version of a nightmare without being exposed to positive sounds.

Both groups received a sleep headphone headband that would play the sound – the piano chord C69 – while they were sleeping, every 10 seconds during REM sleep when nightmares were most likely to occur.

The groups were evaluated after two weeks of additional diary entries, and then again after three months without any sort of treatment.

At the start of the study, the control group had, on average, 2.58 nightmares per week, and the TMR group had an average of 2.94 weekly nightmares. By the end of the study, the control group was down to 1.02 weekly nightmares, while the TMR group had dropped to just 0.19. Even more promising, the TMR group reported an increase in happy dreams.

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 7, 2023 at 11:56am

Nightmares Can Be Silenced by a Single Piano Chord, Scientists Find

Using non-invasive techniques to manipulate our emotions, it might be possible to curtail the screaming horrors that plague our sleep.

A study last year conducted on 36 patients diagnosed with a nightmare disorder showed that a combination of two simple therapies reduced the frequency of their bad dreams.

Scientists invited the volunteers to rewrite their most frequent nightmares in a positive light and then played sound associated with positive experiences as they slept.

"There is a relationship between the types of emotions experienced in dreams and our emotional well-being. Based on this observation, sceintists had the idea that they could help people by manipulating emotions in their dreams. In this study, they show that they can reduce the number of emotionally very strong and very negative dreams in patients suffering from nightmares.

Many people suffer from nightmares, which aren't always a simple case of a few bad dreams. Nightmares are also associated with poor-quality sleep, which in turn is linked with a whole plethora of other health issues.

Poor sleep can also increase anxiety, which in turn can result in insomnia and nightmares. Recent studies have shown that nightmares and sleep disturbances have seen an uptick during the ongoing global SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

Given that we don't really understand why, or even how, our brain creates dreams while we sleep, treating chronic nightmares is something of a challenge.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 7, 2023 at 11:52am

Why should our PC or laptop  restart to install updates?

Software comprises lots of files and programs all interacting. 

When a computer is running software, it loads much of the program into its memory.

If we managed to update that same software on the hard disk or solid state drive (SSD), then the program may panic as everything will be different – it won’t be able to find the files that were there a moment ago. The version in memory will not be compatible with the version on the hard disk or SSD. Lots of errors will be thrown and your computer may crash.

To prevent this, operating systems usually insist that when major updates are needed, we shut down the software being updated, then restart with the new software installed.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 7, 2023 at 11:00am

The Human Digestive System Varies a lot from person to person

The human digestive system is much more variable than we tend to think, according to a new study, with significant differences in gut anatomy even among healthy individuals.

This includes individual differences from person to person, the researchers report, plus broader differences such as those between women and men.

In one noteworthy example, the researchers found that women tend to have longer small intestines than men, by an average of 30.7 centimeters.

Because having a longer small intestine helps you extract nutrients from your diet, this finding supports the canalization hypothesis, which posits that women are better able to survive during periods of stress.

The study also revealed more granular differences, suggesting healthy human digestive systems are far more variable than many experts had appreciated.

If you're talking to four different people, odds are good that all of them have different guts, in terms of the relative sizes of the organs that make up that system.

For example, the cecum is an organ that's found at the nexus of the large and small intestine[s]. One person may have a cecum that is only a few centimeters long, while another may have a cecum the size of a coin purse.

The researchers point out that this has big implications for health care, emphasizing the importance of recognizing individual differences in gastrointestinal systems rather than focusing on typical or "normal" anatomy among humans in general.

The researchers point out, however, that humans stand apart for our high variation in intestinal length compared with other species. One possible explanation, they suggest, is that humans don't eat a "standardized captive diet," unlike many other species .

https://peerj.com/articles/15148/

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