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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 29, 2021 at 9:28am

Aspirin and Birth Defects: Fetal Cell Inhibition — Science News, October 2, 1971

Although aspirin has triggered defects in rat and mice fetuses, the evidence suggesting aspirin taken by women during pregnancy can harm their offspring has been circumstantial at best. Now, however … [evidence shows] that aspirin can dramatically arrest the growth of human embryo cells.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 28, 2021 at 12:51pm

The Common Kitchen Ingredient That Could Help if Your Child Swallows a Battery

Every day, and thousands of times a year, a kid swallows a battery.

In the last 20 years or so, this dangerous and sometimes fatal accident has actually become significantly more common in children, and severe injuries caused by button battery ingestion (BBI) have led to a marked increase in hospitalizations.

Thankfully, in most such cases the item ends up passing harmlessly through the patient's digestive tract. However, even tiny batteries can cause tremendous damage if they get stuck in the esophagus.

Young children up to six years of age are most at risk of BBI complications due to their smaller body size, which increases the chance that a swallowed battery might get lodged in their esophagus – especially larger button batteries such as the ubiquitous 20-millimeter CR2032, used in a vast range of small electronics.

Within just two hours, a stuck battery can cause severe burns as its negatively charged surface makes prolonged contact with the conductive tissue of the esophagus; this contact produces an electrical current and breaks nearby water down into a highly corrosive fluid.

If this happens to your child – or you suspect your young, non-verbal child might have swallowed a battery – do not delay. Seek immediate medical attention, as a lodged battery could require urgent endoscopic removal.

However, while you're waiting for medical assistance, researchers now say there is something you can do yourself to mitigate the risk of tissue injury – and it makes use of a condiment many of us have in our kitchens.

According to a newly published research summary on BBI events and complications, honey may help when administered before the patient reaches the hospital, given at 10 milliliters every 10 minutes for children older than one year (up to six doses).

That recommendation is based on a study published in 2018, which explored injury mitigation from button battery blockages in the esophagus using an animal model of young pigs.

In the experiment, researchers tested a range of different household liquids (including honey, maple syrup, Gatorade, and fruit juices) to see whether any of them helped minimize tissue injury resulting from battery lodgment in the animal's esophagus.

Ultimately, two liquids produced the most clinically optimal results: honey, and a product called Carafate, (brand-name version of the medication sucralfate), which is used to treat ulcers and other stomach conditions.

"In the crucial period between button battery ingestion and endoscopic removal, early and frequent ingestion of honey in the household setting and Carafate in the clinical setting has the potential to reduce injury severity and improve patient outcomes.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/lary.27312

https://www.sciencealert.com/the-common-kitchen-ingredient-that-cou...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 27, 2021 at 9:57am

Scientists report starch synthesis from carbon dioxide

Scientists recently reported a de novo route for artificial starch synthesis from carbon dioxide (CO₂) for the first time.

The new route makes it possible to shift the mode of starch production from traditional agricultural planting to industrial manufacturing, and opens up a new technical route for synthesizing complex molecules from CO₂.

Starch is the major component of grain as well as an important industrial raw material. At present, it is mainly produced by crops such as maize by fixing CO₂ through photosynthesis. This process involves about 60 biochemical reactions as well as complex physiological regulation. The theoretical energy conversion efficiency of this process is only about 2%.

Strategies for the sustainable supply of starch and use of CO₂ are urgently needed to overcome major challenges of mankind, such as the food crisis and climate change. Designing novel routes other than plant photosynthesis for converting CO₂ to starch is an important and innovative S&T mission and will be a significant disruptive technology in today's world.

To address this issue, scientists at the Tianjin Institute of Industrial Biotechnology (TIB) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) designed a chemoenzymatic system as well as an artificial starch anabolic route consisting of only 11 core reactions to convert CO₂ into starch.

This route was established by a "building block" strategy, in which the researchers integrated chemical and biological catalytic modules to utilize high-density energy and high-concentration CO₂ in a biotechnologically innovative way.

The researchers systematically optimized this hybrid system using spatial and temporal segregation by addressing issues such as substrate competition, product inhibition, and thermodynamical adaptation.

The artificial route can produce starch from CO₂ with an efficiency 8.5-fold higher than starch biosynthesis in maize, suggesting a big step towards going beyond nature. It provides a new scientific basis for creating biological systems with unprecedented functions.

This work would open a window for industrial manufacturing of starch from CO₂.

If the overall cost of the process can be reduced to a level economically comparable with agricultural planting in the future, it is expected to save more than 90% of cultivated land and freshwater resources. In addition, it would also help to avoid the negative environmental impact of using pesticides and fertilizers, improve human food security, facilitate a carbon-neutral bioeconomy, and eventually promote the formation of a sustainable bio-based society.

Cai Tao et al, Cell-free chemoenzymatic starch synthesis from carbon dioxide, Science (2021). DOI: 10.1126/science.abh4049

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-chinese-scientists-starch-synthesis-c...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 27, 2021 at 9:47am

One more myth busted: Cavers find snakes but no genies in Yemen's 'Well of Hell'

A team of Omani cavers has made what is believed to be the first descent to the bottom of Yemen's fabled Well of Barhout—a natural wonder shunned by many locals, who believe it is a prison for genies.

The forbidding 'Well of Hell', whose dark, round aperture creates a 30-metre (100 foot) wide hole in the desert floor of Yemen's eastern province of Al-Mahra, plunges approximately 112 metres (367 feet) below the surface and, according to some accounts, gives off strange odours.
Inside, the Oman Cave Exploration Team (OCET) found snakes, dead animals and cave pearls—but no signs of the supernatural.
https://phys.org/news/2021-09-cavers-snakes-genies-yemen-hell.html?...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 27, 2021 at 9:42am

Melting of polar ice shifting Earth itself, not just sea levels

The melting of polar ice is not only shifting the levels of our oceans, it is changing the planet Earth itself. Researchers recently  explained in a paper in Geophysical Research Letters that, as glacial ice from Greenland, Antarctica, and the Arctic Islands melts, Earth's crust beneath these land masses warps, an impact that can be measured hundreds and perhaps thousands of miles away.

By analyzing  satellite data on melt from 2003 to 2018 and studying changes in Earth's crust,  researchers were able to measure the shifting of the crust horizontally. Their research, which was highlighted in Nature, found that in some places the crust was moving more horizontally than it was lifting. In addition to the surprising extent of its reach, the Nature brief pointed out, this research provides a potentially new way to monitor modern ice mass changes.

The implications of this movement are far-reaching. "Understanding all of the factors that cause movement of the crust is really important for a wide range of Earth science problems. For example, to accurately observe tectonic motions and earthquake activity, we need to be able to separate out this motion generated by modern-day ice-mass loss.

Sophie Coulson et al, The Global Fingerprint of Modern Ice‐Mass Loss on 3‐D Crustal Motion, Geophysical Research Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1029/2021GL095477

So much ice is melting that Earth's crust is moving, Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/d41586-021-02285-0

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-polar-ice-shifting-earth-sea.html?utm...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 26, 2021 at 12:23pm

AugLimb: Compact Robotic Limb for Human Augmentation

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 26, 2021 at 12:18pm

A 3D printed vaccine patch offers vaccination without a shot

 Scientists have created a 3D-printed vaccine patch that provides greater protection than a typical vaccine shot. The trick is applying the vaccine patch directly to the skin, which is full of immune cells that vaccines target.

The resulting immune response from the vaccine patch was 10 times greater than vaccine delivered into an arm muscle with a needle jab, according to a study conducted in animals and published by the team of scientists in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Considered a breakthrough are the 3D-printed microneedles lined up on a polymer patch and barely long enough to reach the skin to deliver vaccine. The ease and effectiveness of a vaccine patch sets the course for a new way to deliver vaccines that's painless, less invasive than a shot with a needle and can be self-administered.

Study results show the vaccine patch generated a significant T-cell and antigen-specific antibody response that was 50 times greater than a subcutaneous injection delivered under the skin.

That heightened immune response could lead to dose sparing, with a microneedle vaccine patch using a smaller dose to generate a similar immune response as a vaccine delivered with a needle and syringe.

“Transdermal vaccination via 3D-printed microneedles induces potent humoral and cellular immunity” by Cassie Caudill, Jillian L. Perry, Kimon Iliadis, Addis T. Tessema, Brian J. Lee, Beverly S. Mecham, Shaomin Tian and Joseph M. DeSimone, 22 September 2021, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2102595118

https://researchnews.cc/news/9101/A-3D-printed-vaccine-patch-offers...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 25, 2021 at 8:57am

The research team also performed a systematic transcriptome and proteome analysis of monosomic cell lines in comparison to their parental cell lines—i.e., the quantification of all messenger RNAs (mRNAs) transcribed based on DNA, as well as the quantification of all proteins in the cells. As expected, this showed that the expression of genes localized on the monosome was reduced. 

Yet, teh researchers observed the lower levels in only 20 percent of the encoded proteins. They suspect that gene dosage effects came into play here. The cells need to return to their 'natural' diploid protein levels to sustain their function and thus compensate for the chromosome loss. Scientists envision two possible scenarios: First, translation of mRNAs encoded using the genes could be selectively increased, or second, protein degradation is reduced. These results suggest that cells use multiple pathways to mitigate the consequences of altered gene expression.

In summary, these scientists present for the first time a successful experimental approach to study the effects of monosomy in human somatic cells.

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-chromosome-lost-human-cells-react.htm...

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 25, 2021 at 8:55am

How do cells react when a chromosome is lost?

Human cells are usually diploid—they contain two sets of chromosome. Cells in which one chromosome is missing from the duplicated chromosome set are generally not viable. For a long time, the mechanisms responsible for the loss of viability were unknown. New research now throws some light on it.

Monosomy occurs when chromosomes are incorrectly distributed during routine cell division and cells subsequently lack one chromosome in an otherwise double (diploid) set. The only form of this deviation in chromosome number (aneuploidy) that human cells can survive is known as Turner syndrome. The hallmark of the hereditary disease, which occurs in women: only one of the two X sex chromosomes is present. However, what happens in human somatic cells that are missing other than sex chromosome had not been explored until now, because monosomic cells are generally not viable.

When monosomy occurs, the protein 'p53," encoded by the so-called tumor suppressor gene TP53, ensures that the cell cycle stops. In other words, the cells stop dividing. Therefore, researchers have switched off this gene in one part of their cell lines, which were originally derived from human retina cell lines, to downregulate the production of the encoded protein. Thus, for the first time, they succeeded in generating stable monosomic cell lines for research purposes.

The research team subsequently focused on the effects of monosomy on proliferation (cell growth/multiplication), genomic stability and how chromosome loss affects the amount of mRNAs and proteins (transcriptome and proteome, respectively). They we observed reduced levels of cytoplasmic ribosomal proteins and reduced protein synthesis (protein translation) in all monosomal cell lines. Accordingly, they hypothesize that chromosome loss impairs ribosomal biogenesis and thereby cellular proliferation. They also showed that this change triggers cell cycle arrest and or senescence via the p53 signaling pathway.

The findings also shed light on the link between cancer and monosomy. Recurrent loss of an entire chromosome or chromosome arm is common in certain tumors, such as neuroblastoma, lung cancer, and myeloid malignancies.

Since monosomies are viable only without p53, scientists predicted that the cancers with monosomy must have defective p53 pathway. The analysis of scientific databases of cancer-related changes, such as "The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA)' and "Cancer Cell Lines Encyclopedia (CCLE)", indeed revealed a strong association of monosomy with p53 inactivation and ribosomal pathway impairment.

Narendra Kumar Chunduri et al, Systems approaches identify the consequences of monosomy in somatic human cells, Nature Communications (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-25288-x

**

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 25, 2021 at 8:35am

Scientists suggest pregnant women only take paracetamol/acetaminophen only if medically necessary

A group of 13 scientists has penned a consensus statement regarding the use of paracetamol/acetaminophen (APAP) by pregnant women. In their paper, published in the journal Nature Reviews Endocrinology, the group suggests that pregnant women only take paracetamol/acetaminophen only if it is medically necessary. Nature has also published an Editorial in the same journal issue, outlining the consensus statement and noting that its authors are not calling for a ban on the drug being used, instead they are suggesting that it be taken more cautiously by pregnant women because of a possible risk of birth defects.

In their paper, the authors note that research over the past several years has shown that it is possible under some circumstances for APAP to alter fetal development which in some cases can lead to problems with neurological, urological and reproductive disorders in the baby—they looked at 29 studies and found evidence of birth defects in 26 of them. They call for more research to be conducted to better understand possible problems with the drug being used by pregnant women. They also acknowledge—as do several experts in a reaction piece published on the Science Media Centre, site—that APAP is the only drug currently available for pain management for pregnant women. And they point out that medical use of APAP is generally warranted when the mother experiences problems that can negatively impact her baby—such as having a fever. But they also note that use of APAP by pregnant women appears to have crept up into general use as it has gained a reputation as being safe to use as an all-purpose analgesic.

The authors of the consensus statement further suggest that their intent in publishing such an article is to bring renewed and more focused attention to the possibility of APAP use leading to certain birth defects and the conditions under which they might arise. They note that current research has shown, for example, that the possibility of harm seems to increase as the duration of APAP use goes up. Thus, they suggest pregnant women consider using the drug for short term pain management, rather than as a long-term solution.

Ann Z. Bauer et al, Paracetamol use during pregnancy—a call for precautionary action, Nature Reviews Endocrinology (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41574-021-00553-7

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-09-scientists-pregnant-women-pa...

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