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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 1, 2021 at 8:04am

Toxic DNA buildup in eyes may drive blinding macular degeneration

Common HIV drugs could stop vision loss, research suggests

Damaging DNA builds up in the eyes of patients with geographic atrophy, an untreatable, poorly understood form of age-related macular degeneration that causes blindness, new research reveals. Based on the discovery, the researchers think it may be possible to treat the disease with common HIV drugs or an even safer alternative.

Geographic atrophy is an advanced form of age-related macular degeneration, a potentially blinding disease estimated to affect 200 million people around the world. The disease ultimately destroys vital cells in the retina, the light-sensing portion of the eye

A harmful DNA, known as Alu cDNA, was previously discovered to be manufactured in the cytoplasm. The new findings offer insights into how geographic atrophy progresses over time. This finding in human eyes that the levels of toxic Alu cDNA are highest at the leading edge of the geographic atrophy lesion provides strong evidence that it is responsible for this expansion over time that leads to vision loss.

As Alu DNA accumulates in the eye, it triggers harmful inflammation via a part of the immune system called the inflammasome. The researchers identified how this happens, discovering a previously unknown structural facet of Alu that triggers the immune mechanism that leads to the death of the vital retinal cells.

That's where HIV drugs called nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, or NRTIs, could come in. The researchers' new work in lab mice suggests these drugs, or safer derivatives known as Kamuvudines, could block the harmful inflammation and protect against retinal cell death.

Alu complementary DNA is enriched in atrophic macular degeneration and triggers retinal pigmented epithelium toxicity via cytosolic innate immunity. Science Advances, 2021; 7 (40) DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abj3658

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/09/210930101425.htm

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 30, 2021 at 9:57am

Breath tests could sniff out COVID-19

Since May 2021, drivers crossing into Singapore at the Tuas Checkpoint have been required to breathe into a cigar-sized mouthpiece connected to a mass spectrometer. In less than a minute, the device analyzes the breath samples for COVID-19. According to a new feature article in Chemical & Engineering News, such breath-based diagnostics might be a fast, cheap way to detect infection, although challenges exist.

More than a year into the pandemic, PCR-based assays—which require samples to be collected from patients' nasal passages with a long cotton swab—remain the gold standard for COVID-19 diagnosis. However, such tests are uncomfortable, slow and relatively expensive.

That's why several companies have launched breathalyzer-like tests to detect SARS-CoV-2 infection. These tests rely on altered ratios of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in exhaled breath, which reflect metabolic changes triggered by the virus. But questions about whether the technology is sufficiently sensitive and reproducible are still unanswered. 

One challenge is that researchers haven't sufficiently defined the levels of VOCs in the breath of healthy people, which makes it difficult to accurately measure when someone's exhalation deviates from the norm. As a result, some breath-based tests have had disappointing results when used in real life. Also, some VOCs change similarly in response to different viruses or conditions, making it important to identify unique patterns or ratios of biomarkers that change only upon infection with SARS-CoV-2. Scientists in the field are hopeful that continued standardization and validation will eventually create a robust breath-based diagnostic that might even be able to detect infection earlier than PCR-based tests, before a person begins shedding the virus.

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-covid-.html?utm_source=nwletter&u...

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 30, 2021 at 9:52am

How mercury gets into the sea

Mercury released into the atmosphere by industry enters the sea and from there makes its way into the food chain. Now, an analysis by researchers has revealed how the harmful substance enters seawater in the first place. This is not primarily via rainfall, as previously assumed, but rather also involves gas exchange. Measures to reduce mercury emissions could therefore take effect faster than previously thought.

Every year, 2,000 metric tons of gaseous mercury are released into the atmosphere by coal-fired power stations and mining activities. The harmful substance then adopts various chemical forms as it circulates between the air, soil and water in a complex cycle. Mercury is particularly dangerous in the sea, where it accumulates in fish in the form of highly toxic methylmercury. When this compound enters the human body due to the consumption of fish, it can have an adverse effect on brain development in children and cause cardiovascular diseases in adults.

It's estimated that human activities have tripled the amount of mercury in the surface ocean  since the onset of industrialization. Those are just assumptions, however, as there are no collector stations for precipitation over the sea.

The gap was closed by analyzing seawater samples using a new method that allows researchers to distinguish whether mercury originates from precipitation or entered the sea via gas exchange, . Known as "fingerprinting," this technique is based on the measurement of tiny weight differences between naturally occurring mercury atoms, known as isotopes.

The analyses revealed that—contrary to previous assumptions—only about half of the mercury in the sea originates from precipitation, while the other half enters the oceans due to the uptake of gaseous mercury.

Researchers suspect  that mercury uptake by plants drives more of the heavy metal to be deposited on land, where it is safely sequestered in soils and poses less of a risk to humans.

The new findings are also important for the implementation of the Minamata Convention of 2013, whereby 133 countries committed to reducing mercury emissions: "If less mercury enters the sea via rainfall, a reduction in emissions could cause mercury levels in seawater to drop faster than anticipated."

Mercury stable isotopes constrain atmospheric sources to the Ocean, Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03859-8 , www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03859-8

https://phys.org/news/2021-09-mercury-sea.html?utm_source=nwletter&...

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 30, 2021 at 9:43am

Making Music from Proteins

Researchers reporting in ACS Nano have found a way to represent a protein’s structure as music.

A Self-Consistent Sonification Method to Translate Amino Acid Sequences into Musical Compositions and Application in Protein Design using Artificial Intelligence.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 30, 2021 at 8:33am

Unbelievable DRONE display - Guinness World Records

The longest animation performed by unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) is 26 min 19 sec and was achieved by EFYI Group (China) and supported by Tianjin University (China) in Tianjin, China, on 18 December 2020. They depicted the life of Dutch artist Vincent Van Gogh.

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

Update

Scientists are still sorting out how aspirin and other nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, collectively known as NSAIDs, affect pregnancy at every stage. Taking NSAIDs during the first trimester is known to increase the risk of miscarriage . In 2020, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned that people who are 20 weeks or more into a pregnancy should avoid using NSAIDs altogether because the drugs can cause rare but serious kidney problems as well as heart problems for fetuses. However, exceptions can be made for pregnant people at risk of preeclampsia , clotting and preterm delivery. In such cases, the FDA recommends that doctors prescribe the lowest effective dose of aspirin.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/50-years-ago-scientists-found-l...

Part 2

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?...

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