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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 7, 2025 at 10:27am

The two species diverged from each other more than 5 million years ago, and yet today, M. structor is a sort of parasite living in the queen's colony. But she is hardly a victim.

The Iberian harvester queen ant controls what happens to the DNA of her clones. When she reproduces, she can do so asexually, producing a clone of herself. She can also fertilize her egg with the sperm of her own species or M. structor, or she can 'delete' her own nuclear DNA and use her egg as a vessel solely for the DNA of her male M. structor clones.
This means her offspring can either be related to her, or to another species. The only similarity is that both groups contain the queen's mitochondrial DNA. The result is greater diversity in the colony without the need for a wild neighboring species to mate with.

It also means that Iberian harvester ants belong to a 'two-species superorganism' – which the researchers say "challenges the usual boundaries of individuality."

The M. structor males produced by M. ibericus queens don't look exactly the same as males produced by M. structor queens, but their genomes match.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09425-w

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 7, 2025 at 10:26am

Ant Queens Produce Offspring of Two Different Species

Some ant queens can produce offspring of more than one species – even when the other species is not known to exist in the nearby wild.

No other animal on Earth is known to do this, and it's hard to believe.

This is bizarre story of a system that allows things to happen that seem almost unimaginable.

Some queen ants are known to mate with other species to produce hybrid workers, but Iberian harvester ants (Messor ibericus) on the island of Sicily go even further, blurring the lines of species-hood. These queens can give birth to cloned males of another species entirely (Messor structor), with which they can mate to produce hybrid workers.

Their reproductive strategy is akin to "sexual domestication", the researchers say. The queens have come to control the reproduction of another species, which they exploited from the wild long ago – similar to how humans have domesticated dogs.

In the past, the Iberian ants seem to have stolen the sperm of another species they once depended on, creating an army of male M. structor clones to reproduce with whenever they wanted.

According to genetic analysis, the colony's offspring are two distinct species, and yet they share the same mother.

Some are the hairy M. ibericus, and the others the hairless M. structor – the closest wild populations of which live more than a thousand kilometers away.

The queen can mate with males of either species in the colony to reproduce. Mating with M. ibericus males will produce the next generation of queen, while mating with M. structor males will result in more workers. As such, all workers in the colony are hybrids of M. ibericus and M. structor.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 6, 2025 at 10:13am

Physicists create a new kind of time crystal that humans can actually see

Imagine a clock that doesn't have electricity, but its hands and gears spin on their own for all eternity. In a new study, physicists  have used liquid crystals, the same materials that are in your phone display, to create such a clock—or, at least, as close as humans can get to that idea. The team's advancement is a new example of a "time crystal." That's the name for a curious phase of matter in which the pieces, such as atoms or other particles, exist in constant motion.

The researchers aren't the first to make a time crystal, but their creation is the first that humans can actually see, which could open a host of technological applications. They can be observed directly under a microscope and even, under special conditions, by the naked eye.

In the study, the researchers designed glass cells filled with liquid crystals—in this case, rod-shaped molecules that behave a little like a solid and a little like a liquid. Under special circumstances, if you shine a light on them, the liquid crystals will begin to swirl and move, following patterns that repeat over time.

Time Crystal in motion

Under a microscope, these liquid crystal samples resemble psychedelic tiger stripes, and they can keep moving for hours—similar to that eternally spinning clock.

Hanqing Zhao et al, Space-time crystals from particle-like topological solitons, Nature Materials (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41563-025-02344-1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 6, 2025 at 9:57am

Macaws learn by watching interactions of others, a skill never seen in animals before

One of the most effective ways we learn is through third-party imitation, where we observe and then copy the actions and behaviors of others. Until recently, this was thought to be a unique human trait, but a new study published in Scientific Reports reveals that macaws also possess this ability.

Second-party imitation is already known to exist in the animal kingdom. Parrots are renowned for their ability to imitate human speech and actions, and primates, such as chimpanzees, have learned to open a puzzle box by observing a human demonstrator. But third-party imitation is different because it involves learning by observing two or more individuals interact rather than by direct instruction.

Scientists chose blue-throated macaws for this study because they live in complex social groups in the wild, where they need to learn new behaviors to fit in quickly. Parrots, like macaws, are also very smart and can do things like copy sounds and make tools.

To find out whether macaws could learn through third-party imitation, researchers worked with two groups of them, performing more than 4,600 trials. In the test group, these birds watched another macaw perform one of five different target actions in response to a human's hand signals. These were fluffing up feathers, spinning its body, vocalizing, lifting a leg or flapping its wings. In the control group, macaws were given the same hand signals without ever seeing another bird perform the actions.

The results were clear. The test group learned more actions than the control group, meaning the interactions between the single macaw and the human experimenter helped them learn specific behaviors. They also learned these actions faster and performed them more accurately than the control group. The study's authors suggest that this ability to learn from passively observing two or more individuals helps macaws adapt to new social situations and may even contribute to their own cultural traditions.

The research shows that macaws aren't just smart copycats. They may also have their own complex social lives and cultural norms, similar to humans.

Esha Haldar et al, Third-party imitation is not restricted to humans, Scientific Reports (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-025-11665-9

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 5, 2025 at 1:18pm

Is this the future of food? 'Sexless' seeds that could transform farming
Scientists are tinkering with plant genes to create crops that seed their own clones, with a host of benefits for farmers.
Sacks of seeds without the sex
Agriculture is on the brink of a revolution: grain crops that produce seeds asexually. The technology — trials of which could start sprouting as early as next month — exploits a quirk of nature called apomixis, in which plants create seeds that produce clones of the parent. Apomixis could slash the time needed to create new varieties of crops, and give smallholder farmers access to affordable high-yielding sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) and cowpea (Vigna unguiculata). But before self-cloning crops can be commercialized, the technology must run the regulatory gauntlet.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-02753-x?utm_source=Live+...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 5, 2025 at 12:34pm

After early-life stress, astrocytes can affect behaviour

Astrocytes in the lateral hypothalamus region of the brain, an area involved in the regulation of sleep and wakefulness, play a key role in neuron activity in mice and affect their behavior,  researchers have found.

By broadening medical science's understanding of cerebral mechanisms, the discovery could someday help in the treatment and prevention of depression in humans, the researchers say.

According to the scientific literature, early-life stress leads to a five-fold increase in the risk of developing a mental-health disorder as an adult, notably causing treatment-resistant disorders.

As brain cells, astrocytes are sensitive to variations in the blood concentration of metabolites and, in response to changes in the blood, astrocytes can modulate the extent of their interaction with neurons, their neighboring cells.

In mice, those changes are particularly responsive to the level of corticosterone, the stress hormone in the rodents' blood.

In adult mice who experienced early-life stress, researchers saw abnormally high levels of corticosterone. The impact of stress on behavior also differed according to sex. Females were less active at night, while males were hyperactive during the day.

In people with depression who have experienced a similar type of stress, these sex differences have also been observed.

 Lewis R. Depaauw-Holt et al, A divergent astrocytic response to stress alters activity patterns via distinct mechanisms in male and female mice, Nature Communications (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-025-61643-y

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 5, 2025 at 12:29pm

Fetal brain harm linked to pregnancy infection

A specific bacterial infection during pregnancy that can cause severe harm to the unborn brain has been identified for the first time, in a finding that could have huge implications for prenatal health.

Previous studies have disagreed on whether fetal exposure to Ureaplasma parvum has a detrimental effect on brain development, so newborn health specialists of Medical Research set out to determine the answer, once and for all.

Ureaplasma parvum Serovars 3 and 6 are among the most common types that are isolated in pregnancies complicated by infection/inflammation, so they tested them individually in a pre-clinical model and the results were clear.

They showed that long-term exposure to a specific subtype of Ureaplasma (parvum 6) resulted in loss of cells that are responsible for the production of myelin (the fatty sheath that insulates nerve cells in the brain).

This resulted in less myelin production and a disruption to the architecture of myelin in the brain. This sort of disruption to myelin production can have a devastating and lifelong impact on neurodevelopment, cognition and motor function.

By contrast, they also showed that exposure to another subtype of Ureaplasma (parvum 3) had little effect on neurodevelopment.

Many of the babies affected by this infection in utero are at a much higher risk of preterm birth and the chronic intensive care and inflammation associated with being born too early, the researchers say.

Dima Abdu et al, Intra-amniotic infection with Ureaplasma parvum causes serovar-dependent white matter damage in preterm fetal sheep, Brain Communications (2025). DOI: 10.1093/braincomms/fcaf182

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 5, 2025 at 11:22am

Why we slip on ice: Physicists challenge centuries-old assumptions

For over a hundred years, schoolchildren around the world have learned that ice melts when pressure and friction are applied. When you step out onto an icy pavement in winter, you can slip up because of the pressure exerted by your body weight through the sole of your (still warm) shoe. But it turns out that this explanation misses the mark.

New research  reveals that it's not pressure or friction that causes ice to become slippery, but rather the interaction between molecular dipoles in the ice and those on the contacting surface, such as a shoe sole.

The work is published in the journal Physical Review Letters. This insight overturns a paradigm established nearly two centuries ago by the brother of Lord Kelvin, James Thompson, who proposed that pressure and friction contribute to ice melting alongside temperature.

It turns out that neither pressure nor friction plays a particularly significant part in forming the thin liquid layer on ice.

Instead,computer stimulations by researchers reveal that molecular dipoles are the key drivers behind the formation of this slippery layer, which so often causes us to lose our footing in winter. But what exactly is a dipole? A molecular dipole arises when a molecule has regions of partial positive and partial negative charge, giving the molecule an overall polarity that points in a specific direction.

Achraf Atila et al, Cold Self-Lubrication of Sliding Ice, Physical Review Letters (2025). DOI: 10.1103/1plj-7p4z

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 5, 2025 at 10:49am

Cooling pollen sunscreen can block UV rays without harming corals

Materials scientists have invented the world's first pollen-based sunscreen derived from Camellia flowers.

In experiments, the pollen-based sunscreen absorbed and blocked harmful ultraviolet (UV) rays as effectively as commercially available sunscreens, which commonly use minerals like titanium dioxide (TiO2) and zinc oxide (ZnO).
In laboratory tests on corals, commercial sunscreen induced coral bleaching in just two days, leading to coral death by day six. Each year, an estimated 6,000 to 14,000 tons of commercial sunscreen make their way into the ocean, as people wash it off in the sea or it flows in from wastewater.

In contrast, the pollen-based sunscreen did not affect the corals, which remained healthy even up to 60 days.

In other tests, the pollen-based sunscreen also demonstrated its ability to reduce surface skin temperature, thereby helping to keep the skin cool in the presence of simulated sunlight.

Nature's Guard: UV Filter from Pollen, Advanced Functional Materials (2025). DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202516936. advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.c … .1002/adfm.202516936

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 4, 2025 at 12:20pm

How aging drives neurodegenerative diseases

A research team has identified a direct molecular link between aging and neurodegeneration by investigating how age-related changes in cell signaling contribute to toxic protein aggregation.

Although aging is the biggest risk factor for neurodegenerative diseases, scientists still don't fully understand which age-associated molecular alterations drive their development.

Using the small nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans, a research team studied a signaling pathway that leads to pathological protein accumulation with age. Their new paper is published in Nature Aging.

The team focused on the aging-associated protein EPS8 and the signaling pathways it regulates. This protein is known to accumulate with age and to activate harmful stress responses that lead to a shorter lifespan in worms.

Researchers found that increased levels of EPS8, and the activation of its signaling pathways, drive pathological protein aggregation and neurodegeneration—typical features of age-associated neurodegenerative diseases such as Huntington's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). By reducing EPS8 activity, the group was then able to prevent the build-up of the toxic protein aggregates and preserve neuronal function in worm models of these two diseases.

Importantly, EPS8 and its signaling partners are evolutionarily conserved and also present in human cells. Similar to what they achieved in the worms, the team was able to prevent the accumulation of toxic protein aggregates in human cell models of Huntington's disease and ALS by reducing EPS8 levels.

Seda Koyuncu et al, The aging factor EPS8 induces disease-related protein aggregation through RAC signaling hyperactivation, Nature Aging (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s43587-025-00943-w

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