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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2020 at 8:59am

Scientists discover extraordinary regeneration of neurons

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-scientists-extraordinary-regeneration...

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https://phys.org/news/2020-07-oversized-placentas-cloning-decades.h...

Cause of oversized placentas in cloning found after two decades

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https://phys.org/news/2020-07-viral-dark-exposed-metagenome-databas...

Viral dark matter exposed: Metagenome database detects phage-derived antibacterial enzyme

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How the coronavirus pandemic is changing virtual science communication

Researchers flocked to join Skype a Scientist after COVID-19 closed their labs. The squid biologist who founded it explains how the science-communication platform has adapted.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02075-0

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https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-mutation-explained.html

A new coronavirus mutation is taking over the world. Here's what that means.

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https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/antibody-tests-around-t...

Antibody tests around the world suggest very, very few people have built immunity to the coronavirus

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https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/de-extinction-can-we-bring-exti...

De-extinction: Can we bring extinct animals back from the dead?

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2020 at 8:27am

Radiation can slow corrosion of some materials

Radiation nearly always degrades the materials exposed to it, hastening their deterioration and requiring replacement of key components in high-radiation environments such as nuclear reactors. But for certain alloys that could be used in fission or fusion reactors, the opposite turns out to be true: Researchers have now found that instead of hastening the material's degradation, radiation actually improves its resistance, potentially doubling the material's useful lifetime.

The finding could be a boon for some new, cutting-edge reactor designs, including molten-salt-cooled fission reactors, and new fusion reactors such as the ARC.

Researchers  repeated it dozens of times, with different conditions and every time they got the same results showing delayed corrosion.

The kind of reactor environment the team simulated in their experiments involves the use of molten sodium, lithium, and potassium salt as a coolant for both the nuclear fuel rods in a fission reactor and the vacuum vessel surrounding a superhot, swirling plasma in a future fusion reactor. Where the hot molten salt is in contact with the metal, corrosion can take place rapidly, but with these nickel-chromium alloys they found that the corrosion took twice as long to develop when the material was bathed in radiation from a proton accelerator, producing a radiation environment similar to what would be found in the proposed reactors.

Careful analysis of images of the affected alloy surfaces using transmission electron microscopy, after irradiating the metal in contact with molten salt at 650 degrees Celsius, (a typical operating temperature for salt in such reactors), helped to reveal the mechanism causing the unexpected effect. The radiation tends to create more tiny defects in the structure of the alloy, and these defects allow atoms of the metal to diffuse more easily, flowing in to quickly fill the voids that get created by the corrosive salt. In effect, the radiation damage promotes a sort of self-healing mechanism within the metal.

Weiyue Zhou et al. Proton irradiation-decelerated intergranular corrosion of Ni-Cr alloys in molten salt, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17244-y

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-corrosion-materials.html?utm_source=n...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2020 at 8:21am

Rock-breathing bacteria are electron spin doctors, study shows

**Electrons spin. It's a fundamental part of their existence. Some spin "up" while others spin "down." Scientists have known this for about a century, thanks to quantum physics.

They've also known that magnetic fields can affect the direction of an electron's quantum spin, flipping it from up to down and vice versa. And it doesn't take much: Even a bacterial cell can do it.

Researchers  have found that protein "wires" connecting a bacterial cell to a solid surface tend to transmit electrons with a particular spin.

This ability to select an electron's quantum spin could have implications for the use of bacteria in the biotechnology industry and in burgeoning efforts to create bacteria-based energy cells, as well as future electronic technologies.

 Scientists have been studying certain bacteria that can use solid surfaces in the same way animals use oxygen to breathe. Instead of dumping electrons generated during metabolism onto inhaled oxygen molecules, the bacteria send the electrons down specialized proteins that plug into an external surface.

Unlike most organisms that are able to use oxygen as the electron acceptor. These bacteria transfer the electrons to a solid mineral or, as they do in our lab, to electrodes that are outside the cell.

In terms of metabolism, they "breathe" the minerals or electrodes.

To reach the external surface, the electrons are shuttled through various protein molecules that form electrical conduits. These proteins have magnetic fields that can favor a particular spin as the electrons shuttle through.

Scientists found that these magnetic fields are affected by a characteristic of the proteins called "chirality."

Many molecules, especially biological molecules, appear in two versions, each a mirror image of the other. Scientists call this "chirality." It's similar to human hands. Left and right hands have four fingers and a thumb, but they're not exactly the same. They're both hands, but they're mirror images of each other, oriented in opposite directions. Molecules can be the same way, and in fact, scientists refer to chiral molecules as being either left-handed or right-handed.

The left- or right-handedness of a protein may affect the polarity of the magnetic fields experienced by the electrons as they shuttle through the protein. That's what happens to those electrons that travel along a protein wire to get to the outside of a rock-breathing bacterium.

 These "rock-breathing" bacteria one day might be used to produce sustainable energy, for years. Finding that the electron-conducting proteins in these bacteria can select for a particular electron spin based on their chirality could be useful in developing certain electronic devices called "spintronics" . Spintronics use not only the charge of electrons but also their quantum spin and may be especially useful in quantum computing.

This work shows that bacterial cytochromes may be interesting candidates for spintronics."

Suryakant Mishra et al. Spin-Dependent Electron Transport through Bacterial Cell Surface Multiheme Electron Conduits, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2019). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b09262

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-rock-breathing-bacteria-electron-doct...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2020 at 7:47am

Study finds fatty acid that kills cancer cells

Researchers have demonstrated that a fatty acid called dihomogamma-linolenic acid, or DGLA, can kill human cancer cells. The study found that DGLA can induce ferroptosis in an animal model and in actual human cancer cells. Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent type of cell death that was discovered in recent years and has become a focal point for disease research as it is closely related to many disease processes.

Implications of this work: If you could deliver DGLA precisely to a cancer cell, it could promote ferroptosis and lead to tumor cell death. Also, just knowing that this fat promotes ferroptosis might also affect how we think about conditions such as kidney disease and neurodegeneration where we want to prevent this type of cell death.

DGLA is a polyunsaturated fatty acid found in small amounts in the human body, though rarely in the human diet. 

It was discovered that feeding nematodes ( Caenorhabditis elegans ) a diet of DGLA-laden bacteria killed all the germ cells in the worms as well as the stem cells that make the germ cells. The way the cells died carried many signs of ferroptosis.

Researchers also showed that DGLA could induce ferroptosis in human cancer cells. They also found an interaction with another fatty acid class, called an ether lipid, that had a protective effect against DGLA. When they took out the ether lipids, the cells died faster in the presence of DGLA. The study also demonstrated that C. elegans can be a useful animal research model in the study of ferroptosis, a field that has had to rely mostly on cell cultures.

Source:  Developmental Cell (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2020.06.019

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-fatty-acid-cancer-cells.html...

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-fatty-acid-cancer-cells.html...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2020 at 7:14am

Plant communication:Detection of electrical signaling between tomato plants raises interesting questions

Plants can communicate with other plants using wireless pathways above and underground.  Some examples of these underground communication pathways are: (1) mycorrhizal networks in the soil; (2) the plants’ rhizosphere; (3) acoustic communication; (4) naturally grafting of roots of the same species; (5) signaling chemicals exchange between roots of plants; and (6) electrical signal transmission between plants through the soil. 

Plants have developed complex systems of communication. Electrical, mechanical, and chemical signals induced by above-ground stresses in plants can affect below ground communication between roots of neighboring plants. There are different electrical, chemical and electrochemical pathways for underground signaling between plants. Electrical signal transmission is fast in comparison with chemical signaling which is controlled by a slow diffusion. Electrostimulation of plants induces electrotonic potentials transmission in the electro-stimulated plants as well as the neighboring plants located in different pots regardless if plants are the same or different types.

The soil beneath our feet is alive with electrical signals being sent from one plant to another, according to new research. A paper published recently  used physical experiments and mathematical modeling to study transmission of electrical signals between tomato plants. It was found that electrical signal propagation within a plant and also between plants through a network of Mycorrhizal fungi that's ubiquitous in soil appears to act as circuitry.

Plants generate electric signals that propagate through their parts. When the roots of tomatoes are experimentally isolated from each other with an air gap, the electrical impedance of the gap is very large.

"The electrical signals won't go through this gap. However, when the plants are living in common soil, experiments conducted  found that the ground impedance is not very large and they can communicate by passing electrical signals to each other through the Mycorrhizal network in the soil.

The tomato research, which focused on experimental study and mathematical modeling of electrical signal propagation between plants of the same species, opens new doors to questions about whether plants communicate across species through fungi. The soil plays the role of a conductor.

Another issue is to study the plants' communications via electric waves through the air.

Alexander G. Volkov et al. Underground electrotonic signal transmission between plants, Communicative & Integrative Biology (2020). DOI: 10.1080/19420889.2020.1757207

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-electrical-tomato.html?utm_source=nwl...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2020 at 7:02am

Sea surface temperature has a big impact on coral outplant survival

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-sea-surface-temperature-big-impact.ht...

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https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-scientists-alzheimer-gene-ra...

Scientists discover protective Alzheimer's gene and develop rapid drug-testing platform

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https://phys.org/news/2020-07-scientists-planet-primordial-black-ho...

Scientists propose plan to determine if Planet Nine is a primordial black hole

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 10, 2020 at 7:16am

Astronomers Detect Unexpected Class of Mysterious Circular Objects in Space

https://www.sciencealert.com/mysterious-unidentified-circles-have-b...

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https://www.sciencealert.com/hundreds-of-years-of-tree-rings-reveal...

Hundreds of Years of Tree Rings Reveal a Grim Anomaly That Began in The 20th Century

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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/animals-use-social-dista...

Animals Use Social Distancing to Avoid Disease

Lobsters, birds and some primates use quarantine to ward off infections

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 10, 2020 at 6:32am

Reducing noise transmitted through an open window

A new device that can reduce the intensity of sound passing through open windows is presented in a proof-of-principle study in Scientific Reports. It fits into a two-panel sliding window and can decrease the perceived loudness of urban transportation noises by up to half (10 decibel reduction).

The device, assembled by Bhan Lam and colleagues, consists of 24 loudspeakers (each 4.5 cm in diameter), fixed in a grid pattern to bars attached to the inside of a window and one sensor located outside the window. If the sensor detects noise outside the building, the loudspeakers emit "anti-noise" at the same frequency as the detected noise but with inverted sound waves. This "anti-noise" cancels out the detected noise and reduces the volume of noise pollution entering the room, even when the window is open.

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-07-noise-transmitted-window.html?u...

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https://phys.org/news/2020-07-dark-discovery-microscopic-imaging-co...

Shining light into the dark: New discovery makes microscopic imaging possible in dark conditions

researchers have discovered a new way to more accurately analyze microscopic samples by essentially making them glow in the dark through the use of chemically luminescent molecules.

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https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/researchers-from-all-ove...

Researchers from All Over the World Pitch In to Fight COVID-19

Scientists are lending their expertise—whatever it may be—to help develop tests, medical devices, and other tools to try to save lives during the pandemic.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 10, 2020 at 6:25am

CERN: physicists report the discovery of unique new particle

The LHCb collaboration at CERN has announced the discovery of a new exotic particle: a so-called "tetraquark".

Many physicists struggled to accept that so many elementary particles could exist in the universe, in what had become known as the "particle zoo". George Zweig from Caltech and Murray Gell-Mann from CERN had struck upon the same solution. What if all these different particles were really made of smaller, unknown building blocks, in the same way that the hundred-odd elements in the periodic table are made of protons, neutrons and electrons? Zweig called these building blocks "aces", while Gell-Mann chose the term that we still use today: "quarks".

We now know that there are six different kinds of quarks—up, down, charm, strange, top, bottom. These particles also have respective antimatter companions with opposite charge, which can bind together according to simple rules based on symmetries. A particle made of a quark and an antiquark is called a "meson"; while three quarks bound together form "baryons". The familiar protons and neutrons that make up the atomic nucleus are examples of baryons.

This classification scheme beautifully described the particle zoo of the 1960s. However, even in his original paper, Gell-Mann realised that other combinations of quarks might be possible. For example, two quarks and two antiquarks might stick together to form a "tetraquark", while four quarks and an antiquark would make a "pentaquark".

"Exotic" properties are quite different from ordinary mesons. 

All tetraquarks and pentaquarks that have been discovered so far contain two charm quarks, which are relatively heavy, and two or three light quarks—up, down or strange. This particular configuration is indeed the easiest to discover in experiments.

But the latest tetraquark discovered by LHCb, which has been dubbed X(6900), is composed of four charm quarks. Produced in high-energy proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, the new tetraquark was observed via its decay into pairs of well-known particles called J/psi mesons, each made of a charm quark and a charm antiquark. This makes it particularly interesting as it is not only composed entirely of heavy quarks, but also four quarks of the same kind—making it a unique specimen to test our understanding on how quarks bind together.

https://theconversation.com/cern-physicists-report-the-discovery-of...

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-cern-physicists-discovery-unique-part...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 10, 2020 at 5:51am

Lung cancer in non-smokers likely to respond differently to treatment

Lung cancer in non-smokers is a diverse and distinct disease from that in smokers, and is likely to respond differently to targeted treatments, a major new study shows.

Scientists studied a population in Taiwan with high rates of lung cancer among non-smokers—and found a range of genetic changes which varied depending on a patient's age or sex.

Many non-smokers with lung cancer had signs of DNA damage from environmental carcinogens, with young women in particular having particular genetic changes which are known to drive cancer to evolve aggressively.

The study could lead to new treatments for non-smokers with lung cancer tailored to the newly identified genetic changes.

The researchers conducted a detailed analysis of genetic changes, gene activation, protein activity and cellular 'switches' in lung cancer to develop the most comprehensive overview of the biology of disease in non-smokers to date.

Looking at the genetics and the related proteins produced by cancer cells in the tumour samples, scientists found that some early-stage lung tumours in non-smokers were biologically similar to more advanced disease in smokers.

Tumours in women often had a particular fault in the well-known lung cancer gene EGFR, whereas in men the most common faults were in the KRAS and APC genes. These differences could affect the response to targeted drugs in men and women.

Picking out people with 'late-like' early-stage lung tumours could help guide treatment decisions, and patients could be monitored more closely for signs of their disease progressing.

The study found a pattern of genetic changes involving the APOBEC gene family in three-quarters of tumours of female patients under the age of 60, and in all women without faults in the EGFR gene.

APOBEC proteins play an important role in the function of the immune system—but they can be hijacked by cancers, speeding up evolution and the emergence of drug resistance, a key area of study in the ICR's new Centre for Cancer Drug Discovery.

Patients without EGFR faults tend to do better on immunotherapy, and so testing for APOBEC could help pick out women more likely to respond to this form of treatment.

The team also picked out groups of patients—particularly among older women—whose cancers had mutation patterns linked to cancer-causing substances in their environment such as pollutants.

Finally, the team identified 65 proteins that were overactive in lung tumours that matched with existing candidate drugs. They found that one protein that cuts away at the surrounding tissue, called MMP11, was linked to poorer survival—and could be explored as a marker for early detection.

This new study offers a deep dive into the biology of lung cancer in people who have never smoked. It reveals new ways of telling apart patients with different tumour characteristics that could be exploited with tailored treatment strategies.

Cell (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.06.012

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-lung-cancer-non-smokers-diff...

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