Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 2, 2022 at 8:35am

In this new study, researchers from the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Josep Carreras Leukemia Research Institute generated single-cell data to investigate epigenetic factors involved in CVID. Samples were taken from a pair of identical twins, only one of whom suffered from CVID, as well as a wider group of CVID patients and healthy individuals.

Analysis of the identical twin participants found that not only did the sibling with CVID have fewer B cells, but that B cell defects resulted in epigenetic problems with DNA methylation, chromatin accessibility and transcriptional defects in memory B cells themselves. In addition, researchers found massive defects in the cell-to-cell communication required for the immune system to function normally.

Single-Cell Atlas of Common Variable Immunodeficiency reveals germinal center-associated epigenetic dysregulation in B cell responses, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-29450-x

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-04-immunodeficiency-affects-ide...

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 2, 2022 at 8:34am

Study sheds light on why immunodeficiency affects only one identical twin

Scientists have long queried the causes of immune disorders in only one of two identical twins with identical genes. New research  has found the answer lies in both alterations in immune cell-cell communication and the epigenome, the host of biological processes that regulate how our genes function.

The study, published today in Nature Communications, is the first cell atlas to categorize common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) at the single-cell resolution. Researchers found that 'communication problems' resulting from defects in B cells and other immune cell types impaired immune response, highlighting a number of pathways that are promising targets for epigenetic treatments. In addition, they also identified major defects in the epigenome.

Common variable immunodeficiency (CVID) encompasses a range of immune disorders caused by a reduced ability to produce protective antibodies, which leaves the individual vulnerable to persistent or repeated infection. These individuals usually have low levels of immunoglobulin, more commonly known as antibodies, due to problems with the B cells that create them.

Though identical twins share the same genome, most will be born with a small number of genetic and epigenetic differences and the number of variations will increase over their lifetime. But where one twin experiences a health problem that their sibling does not, in most cases genetic differences alone cannot explain why this has occurred.

Around 20 percent of CVID cases can be attributed to a defect in a gene associated with the condition. But with four in five cases remaining largely unexplained, scientists have predicted that other factors must be involved. This was confirmed by a recent study, which linked CVID to DNA methylation, an epigenetic process that turns the level of a particular gene up or down.

Part1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 1, 2022 at 9:59am

Researchers identify compound with potent antiseizure effects

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 1, 2022 at 9:50am

Air pollution dims India's solar energy potential

Prospects for India achieving the target of generating 100 gigawatts of solar power in 2022 have waned because of high levels of atmospheric pollution.

Atmospheric pollution reduces solar power generation in two main ways: by absorbing and scattering the sun's rays and by soiling solar panels.

A study carried out by IIT Delhi and published March in Environmental Research Letters, calculates that between 2001 and 2018 India lost 29 percent of its solar energy potential as a result of atmospheric pollution—equivalent to an annual loss of US$835 million. As of March this year, India had only reached the halfway mark of 50 gigawatts of installed solar capacity, according to the research group, Mercom India.

Put simply, aerosols, which include fine particulate matter, dust, mist and fumes suspended in the air, significantly reduce incoming solar radiation in what we call the 'atmospheric attenuation effect. This needs to be factored in when undertaking large solar energy projects.

Such projects are also failing to account for the "soiling effect" of aerosols depositing on solar panels, blocking solar radiation from reaching the photovoltaic cells. Since air pollution over South Asia has been on the rise, both effects need to be addressed and mitigation steps taken to maximize benefits from solar power installations.

In heavily polluted regions particulate matter can cause a drop in photovoltaic solar power generation by more than 50 percent, most of it caused the soiling of panels, according to a previous study. Aerosols in the atmosphere also work against solar power generation by increasing cloudiness and interfering with rainfall which could wash out particles.

Acid rain can also corrode solar power equipment and support structures, adding to maintenance costs.

Sushovan Ghosh et al, Cleaner air would enhance India's annual solar energy production by 6-28 TWh, Environmental Research Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ac5d9a

Xiaoyuan Li et al, Global reduction of solar power generation efficiency due to aerosols and panel soiling, Nature Sustainability (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41893-020-0553-2

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-air-pollution-dims-india-solar.html?u...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 31, 2022 at 10:26am

Metformin Prescriptions Linked to Sons’ Birth Defects

A new cohort study finds that boys whose fathers took the type 2 diabetes drug metformin three months before their conception were more likely to have a birth defect.

Men who took the type 2 diabetes drug metformin three months before conceiving their children seem to have an increased risk of having sons with birth defects, new research finds.

The study, a retroactive analysis of Denmark’s federal registry of healthcare data that was published Tuesday (March 29) in Annals of Internal Medicine, found a significantly increased risk of genital birth defects among boys whose fathers had filled a prescription for metformin—commonly branded as Glucophage, Riomet, and Glumetza—about three months prior to conception, roughly the duration of time it takes for sperm to mature. A correlation between birth defects and paternal metformin prescriptions was not seen in girls, according to the study.

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M21-4389

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/metformin-prescriptions-...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 31, 2022 at 8:51am

Concert hall acoustics for non-invasive ultrasound brain treatments

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 31, 2022 at 8:40am

Oxytocin treatment can take lions from ferocious to friendly

Lions typically aren't keen on making new friends. The giant cats guard their territory fiercely and can mortally wound a foe with a single swipe. While aggression is an advantage for apex predators in the wild, it poses real challenges for lions on reserves or in captivity, a number that is growing due to habitat loss. Researchers working on a wildlife reserve in Dinokeng, South Africa found that an intranasal application of the "love hormone" oxytocin could make lion meet-cutes less life-threatening. Their work appears March 30 in the journal iScience.

By spraying the oxytocin directly up the nose, we know it can travel up the trigeminal nerve and the olfactory nerve straight up into the brain. Otherwise the blood brain barrier could filter it out.

After these treatments researchers observed that the 23 lions who were given oxytocin were more tolerant of other lions in their space and displayed less vigilance towards intruders. 

The hope is that this will translate to animals being relocated in the wild, helping them to become more inclined to their new social environment so they're more curious and less fearful, leading to more successful bonding.

Jessica C. Burkhart, Oxytocin promotes social proximity and decreases vigilance in groups of African lions, iScience (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.104049. www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext … 2589-0042(22)00319-4

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-oxytocin-treatment-lions-ferocious-fr...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 31, 2022 at 8:09am

Hubble spots most distant single star ever seen, at a record distance of 28 billion lightyears

With a fortuitous lineup of a massive cluster of galaxies, astronomers discovered a single star across most of the entire observable Universe. This is the farthest detection of a single star ever. The star may be up to 500 times more massive than the Sun. The discovery has been published recently in the journal Nature.

Gazing at the night sky, all the stars that you see lie within our own galaxy, the Milky Way. Even with the most powerful telescopes, under normal circumstances individual stars can only be resolved in our most nearby galactic neighbors. In general, distant galaxies are seen as the blended light from billions of stars.

But with the marvelous natural phenomenon known as "gravitational lensing," astronomers  were nevertheless able to detect a distance where even detecting entire galaxies is challenging.

Among the wonders predicted by Einstein's theory of relativity is the ability of mass to "curve" space itself. As light passes close to massive objects, its path follows the curved space and changes direction. If a massive object happens to lie between us and a distant background source of light, the object may deflect and focus the light toward us as a lens, magnifying the intensity.

Galaxies magnified several times are routinely discovered by way of this method. But in an astounding cosmic coincidence, the galaxies in a cluster named WHL0137-08 happened to line up in such a way as to focus the light of a single star toward us, magnifying its light thousands of times.

A combination of this gravitational lens and nine hours of exposure time with the Hubble Space Telescope enabled an international team of astronomers to detect the star.

The astronomers nicknamed the star Earendel, from the Old English word meaning "morning star," or "rising light." They calculate that the star it at least 50 times as massive as our Sun, possibly up to 500, and millions of times as bright.

Brian Welch, A highly magnified star at redshift 6.2, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04449-y. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04449-y

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-hubble-distant-star-distance-billion....

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 30, 2022 at 9:13am

If this title is funny, will you cite me? Citation impacts of humour and other features of article titles in ecology and evolution

Titles of scientific papers pay a key role in their discovery, and “good” titles engage and recruit readers. A particularly interesting aspect of title construction is the use of humour, but little is known about whether funny titles boost or limit readership and citation of papers. We used a panel of volunteer scorers to assess title humour for 2,439 papers in ecology and evolution, and measured associations between humour scores and subsequent citation (both self-citation and citation by others). Papers with funnier titles were cited less often, but this appears to result from a confound with paper importance. Self-citation data suggest that authors give funnier titles to papers they consider less important. After correction for this confound, papers with funny titles have significantly higher citation rates, suggesting that humour recruits readers. We also examined associations between citation rates and several other features of titles. Inclusion of acronyms and taxonomic names was associated with lower citation rates, while assertive-statement phrasing and presence of colons, question marks, and political regions were associated with somewhat higher citation rates. Title length had no effect on citation. Our results suggest that scientists can use creativity with titles without having their work condemned to obscurity.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.18.484880v1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 30, 2022 at 9:01am

The new method devised now  uses a sequential combination of organic solvents and water-based detergents, and makes use of water-based hydrogels to protect those molecules within the tissue that need to be preserved. It often does not require the pumping of solvents through the sample.In many cases, you can just put the whole thing in a jar and keep it in a shaker on your benchtop until it's done.

Victoria Nudell et al, HYBRiD: hydrogel-reinforced DISCO for clearing mammalian bodies, Nature Methods (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41592-022-01427-0

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-method-tissue-transparent-diseases.ht...

Part 2

**

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 560
• 561
• 562
• 563
• 564
• …
• 1134
• Next ›
• Page