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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 13, 2021 at 12:03pm

Washing your clothes can create microplastic pollution

Households in Europe and North America are flooding the oceans with plastic pollution simply by washing their clothes, scientists said Tuesday after research found the majority of microplastics in Arctic seawater were polyester fibres.

Plastic particles have infiltrated even the most remote and seemingly-pristine regions of the planet.

These tiny fragments have been discovered inside fish in the deepest recesses of the ocean—the Mariana Trench—peppering Arctic sea ice and blanketing the snows on the Pyrenees mountains between France and Spain.

But questions remain over exactly where this plastic contamination is coming from.

In the new study by the Ocean Wise conservation group and Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans, researchers sampled seawater from across the Arctic and found synthetic fibres made up around 92 percent of microplastic pollution.

Of this, around 73 percent was found to be polyester, resembling the dimensions and chemical identities of synthetic textiles—particularly clothing.

"The striking conclusion here is that we now have strong evidence that homes in Europe and North America are directly polluting the Arctic with fibres from laundry (via wastewater discharge)

 Pervasive distribution of polyester fibres in the Arctic Ocean is driven by Atlantic inputs, Nature Communications, DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20347-1 , www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-20347-1

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-arctic-microplastic-pollution.html?ut...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 13, 2021 at 11:55am

Researchers develop oral insulin nanoparticles that could be an alternative to jabs

Scientists have developed insulin nanoparticles that may one day become the basis for an oral medicine, and an alternative to insulin injections for diabetic patients.
In a pre-clinical study, the scientist team fed insulin-containing nanoparticles to rats and found that insulin increased in their blood minutes later.
Insulin therapy is often an important part of treatment for diabetes, a metabolic disease that affects 422 million people globally .
Delivering insulin orally would be preferable over insulin jabs for patients because it causes less pain than jabs, and could thus lead to improved patient compliance. But oral dosage remains a challenge. As insulin is a protein, it gets broken down in the gastrointestinal tract before it can even reach the bloodstream to regulate blood glucose.
To overcome this challenge, the interdisciplinary team designed a nanoparticle loaded with insulin at the core, then coated with alternating layers of insulin and chitosan, a natural sugar. Dosing is achieved by controlling the number of layers in the nanoparticle.
Through lab experiments using cell cultures and rat models, the team demonstrated that this layer-by-layer coated nanoparticle is stable as it passes through the stomach into the small intestine with minimal insulin release, and is able to pass through the intestinal walls into the bloodstream.

 Yiming Zhang et al. Layer-by-layer coated nanoliposomes for oral delivery of insulin, Nanoscale (2020). DOI: 10.1039/D0NR06104B

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-oral-insulin-nanoparticles-alternativ...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 13, 2021 at 11:49am

Discovery of quantum behavior in insulators suggests possible new particle

In a surprising discovery, Princeton physicists have observed an unexpected quantum behavior in an insulator made from a material called tungsten ditelluride. This phenomenon, known as quantum oscillation, is typically observed in metals rather than insulators, and its discovery offers new insights into our understanding of the quantum world. The findings also hint at the existence of an entirely new type of quantum particle.

The discovery challenges a long-held distinction between metals and insulators, because in the established quantum theory of materials, insulators were not thought to be able to experience quantum oscillations.

If scientists' interpretations are correct, we are dealing with a fundamentally new form of quantum matter.

The observation of quantum oscillations has long been considered a hallmark of the difference between metals and insulators. In metals, electrons are highly mobile, and resistivity—the resistance to electrical conduction—is weak. Nearly a century ago, researchers observed that a magnetic field, coupled with very low temperatures, can cause electrons to shift from a "classical" state to a quantum state, causing oscillations in the metal's resistivity. In insulators, by contrast, electrons cannot move and the materials have very high resistivity, so quantum oscillations of this sort are not expected to occur, no matter the strength of magnetic field applied.

The discovery was made when the researchers were studying a material called tungsten ditelluride, which they made into a two-dimensional material. They prepared the material by using standard scotch tape to increasingly exfoliate, or "shave," the layers down to what is called a monolayer—a single atom-thin layer. Thick tungsten ditelluride behaves like a metal. But once it is converted to a monolayer, it becomes a very strong insulator.

This material has a lot of quantum properties.

 Pengjie Wang et al, Landau quantization and highly mobile fermions in an insulator, Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-03084-9

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-discovery-quantum-behavior-insulators...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 13, 2021 at 10:32am

Breakthrough technology promises earlier detection for Alzheimer’s disease

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 12, 2021 at 1:40pm

Why does ice float on water?

https://www.sciencefocus.com/science/why-does-ice-float-on-water/?u...

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Scientist develops method to find toxic chemicals in drinking water

Most consumers of drinking water in the United States know that chemicals are used in the treatment processes to ensure the water is safe to drink. But they might not know that the use of some of these chemicals, such as chlorine, can also lead to the formation of unregulated toxic byproducts.

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How does Wi-Fi work?

https://theconversation.com/how-does-wi-fi-work-an-electrical-engin...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 12, 2021 at 1:32pm

Most Covid-19 patients have at least one symptom 6 months on: study

More than three quarters of people hospitalised with Covid-19 still suffered from at least one symptom after six months, according to a study published Saturday that scientists said shows the need for further investigation into lingering coronavirus effects. The research, which was published in the Lancet medical journal and involved hundreds of patients in the Chinese city of Wuhan, is among the few to trace the long-term symptoms of Covid-19 infection. It found that fatigue or muscle weakness were the most common symptoms, while people also reported sleeping difficulties. "Because Covid-19 is such a new disease, we are only beginning to understand some of its long-term effects on patients' health," said lead author Bin Cao, of the National Center for Respiratory Medicine. The professor said the research highlighted the need for ongoing care for patients after they have been discharged from hospital, particularly those who have had severe infections.

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 12, 2021 at 1:29pm

Reasons to study science communication beyond the West

All cultures have communicated their knowledge in diverse and marvellous ways throughout time. Failing to see the significance of this is racist and lazy.

https://theconversation.com/3-reasons-to-study-science-communicatio...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 12, 2021 at 1:22pm

Bacterium produces pharmaceutical all-purpose weapon

Study should significantly facilitate research into the promising substance

Cornelia Hermes, René Richarz, Daniel A. Wirtz, Julian Patt, Wiebke Hanke, Stefan Kehraus, Jan Hendrik Voß, Jim Küppers, Tsubasa Ohbayashi, Vigneshwaran Namasivayam, Judith Alenfelder, Asuka Inoue, Peter Mergaert, Michael Gütschow, Christa E. Müller, Evi Kostenis, Gabriele M. König & Max Crüsemann:
Thioesterase-mediated side chain transesteri ?cation generates potent Gq signaling inhibitor FR900359; Nature Communications; DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20418-3

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-01/uob-bpp011121.php

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 12, 2021 at 1:15pm

Five ways to manage your screen time in a lockdown, according to tech experts

1. Setting limits

2. Online Support Groups

3. Self-reflection

4. Know your triggers

5. Prioritise the social

https://theconversation.com/five-ways-to-manage-your-screen-time-in...

https://techxplore.com/news/2021-01-ways-screen-lockdown-tech-exper...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 12, 2021 at 1:04pm

There's no way to measure the speed of light in a single direction

Special relativity is one of the most strongly validated theories humanity has ever devised. It is central to everything from space travel and GPS to our electrical power grid. Central to relativity is the fact that the speed of light in a vacuum is an absolute constant. The problem is, that fact has never been proven.

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Unveiling the double origin of cosmic dust in the distant Universe

Two billion years after the Big Bang, the Universe was still very young. However, thousands of huge galaxies, rich in stars and dust, were already formed. An international study, led by SISSA—Scuola Internazionale Superiore di Studi Avanzati, now explains how this was possible. Scientists combined observational and theoretical methods to identify the physical processes behind their evolution and, for the first time, found evidence for a rapid growth of dust due to a high concentration of metals in the distant Universe. The study, published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, offers a new approach to investigate the evolutionary phase of massive objects.

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