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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 20, 2020 at 8:36am

Tropical cyclones moving faster in recent decades: study

Tropical cyclones, regionally known as hurricanes or typhoons, have been moving across ocean basins faster since 1982, according to a new study published in Environmental Research Letters.

If hurricanes move faster they would pose danger to coastal communities and emergency managers because they would have less time to prepare for evacuation and other measures.

The recent study suggests the reason for the observed changes is a combination of natural variations and human-induced climate change.

Sung-Hun Kim et al, An increase in global trends of tropical cyclone translation speed since 1982 and its physical causes, Environmental Research Letters (2020). DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ab9e1f

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-tropical-cyclones-faster-decades.html...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 20, 2020 at 8:06am

High levels of microplastics released from infant feeding bottles during formula prep

New research shows that high levels of microplastics (MPs) are released from infant-feeding bottles (IFBs) during formula preparation. The research also indicates a strong relationship between heat and MP release, such that warmer liquids (formula or water used to sterilise bottles) result in far greater release of MPs.

In response, the researchers involved have developed a set of recommendations for infant formula preparation when using plastic IFBs that minimise MP release.

Key findings

• PP-IFBs can release up to 16 million MPs and trillions of smaller nanoplastics per litre. Sterilisation and exposure to high temperature water significantly increase microplastic release from 0.6 million to 55 million particles/l when temperature increases from 25 to 95 °C
• Other polypropylene plastic-ware products (kettles, lunchboxes) release similar levels of MPs
• The team undertook a global survey and estimated the exposure of 12-month-old infants to microplastics in 48 regions. Following current guidelines for infant-feeding bottle sterilisation and feeding formula preparation the average daily exposure level for infants is in excess of 1 million MPs. Oceania, North America and Europe have the highest levels of potential exposure, at 2,100,000, 2,280,000, and 2,610,000 particles/day, respectively
• The level of microplastics released from PP-IFBs can be significantly reduced by following modified sterilisation and formula preparation procedures

Recommended sterilisation and formula preparation procedures

• Sterilising infant feeding bottles
• Sterilise the bottle following WHO recommended guidelines and allow to cool
• Prepare sterilised water by boiling in a non-plastic kettle/cooker (e.g. glass or stainless steel)
• Rinse the sterilised bottle using room temperature sterilised water at least 3 times

Preparing infant formula

• Prepare hot water using a non-plastic kettle/cooker
• Prepare infant formula in a non-plastic container using at least 70 C water. Cool to room temperature and transfer prepared formula into a high-quality plastic infant feeding bottle

Standard Precautions

• Do not reheat prepared formula in plastic containers and avoid microwave ovens
• Do not vigorously shake the formula in the bottle at any time
• Do not use sonication to clean plastic infant feeding bottles

Microplastic release from the degradation of polypropylene feeding bottles during infant formula preparation, Nature Food (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s43016-020-00171-y , www.nature.com/articles/s43016-020-00171-y

Kieran D. Cox et al. Human Consumption of Microplastics, Environmental Science & Technology (2019). DOI: 10.1021/acs.est.9b01517

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-high-microplastics-infant-bottles-for...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 20, 2020 at 7:52am

Scientists encapsulate quantum dots in salt

It's widely known that submerging a pared apple in saltwater prevents oxidation and browning, but did you know that saltwater can also protect fragile quantum dot (QD) materials? A research team led by Prof. Chen Hsueh-Shih of the Department of Materials Science & Engineering at National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan has recently developed the world's first inkjet technique for using saltwater to encapsulate QD materials, which not only resists water and oxygen corrosion, but can also be uniformly printed as a flexible plastic film on a micro LED array for use in high-resolution bendable screens for mobile phones, glasses, etc.

 Shih-Jung Ho et al. Inkjet-Printed Salt-Encapsulated Quantum Dot Film for UV-Based RGB Color-Converted Micro-Light Emitting Diode Displays, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces (2020). DOI: 10.1021/acsami.0c05646

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Researchers develop magnetically switchable mechano-chemotherapy to...

Prof. Wu Aiguo's team at the Cixi Institute of Biomedical Engineering, Ningbo Institute of Materials Technology and Engineering (NIMTE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) developed a novel therapeutic method termed mechano-chemotherapy, which can efficiently overcome tumor drug resistance. The study was published in Nano Today.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 20, 2020 at 6:42am

Coronavirus survives on skin five times longer than flu: study

The coronavirus remains active on human skin for nine hours, researchers have found, in a discovery they said showed the need for frequent hand washing to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

The findings ‘re published this month in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal.

The pathogen that causes the flu survives on human skin for about 1.8 hours by comparison. The nine-hour survival of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus strain that causes COVID-19) on human skin may increase the risk of contact transmission in comparison with IAV (influenza A virus), thus accelerating the pandemic.

The research team tested skin collected from autopsy specimens, about one day after death.

Both the coronavirus and the flu virus are inactivated within 15 seconds by applying ethanol, which is used in hand sanitisers.

"The longer survival of SARS-CoV-2 on the skin increases contact-transmission risk; however, hand hygiene can reduce this risk," the study said.

Clinical Infectious Diseases

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-coronavirus-survives-skin-lo...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 20, 2020 at 6:30am

'Classified knots': Researchers create optical framed knots to encode information

In a world first, scientists have been able to create optical framed knots in the laboratory that could potentially be applied in modern technologies. Their work opens the door to new methods of distributing secret cryptographic keys—used to encrypt and decrypt data, ensure secure communication and protect private information.

This is fundamentally important, in particular from a topology-focused perspective, since framed knots provide a platform for topological quantum computations. In addition, they used these non-trivial optical structures as information carriers and developed a security protocol for classical communication where information is encoded within these framed knots.

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The group tried to achieve the  result  within an optical beam, which presents a high level of difficulty. After a few tries (and knots that looked more like knotted strings), the group came up with what they were looking for: a knotted ribbon structure that is quintessential to framed knots.

In order to add this ribbon, the group relied on beam-shaping techniques manipulating the vectorial nature of light," explained Hugo Larocque. "By modifying the oscillation direction of the light field along an "unframed" optical knot, we were able to assign a frame to the latter by "gluing" together the lines traced out by these oscillating fields.

According to the researchers, structured light beams are being widely exploited for encoding and distributing information.

Hugo Larocque et al, Optical framed knots as information carriers, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18792-z

https://phys.org/news/2020-10-optical-encode.html?utm_source=nwlett...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 19, 2020 at 8:01am

Climate change likely drove early human species to extinction, mode...

Of the six or more different species of early humans, all belonging to the genus Homo, only we Homo sapiens have managed to survive. Now, a study reported in the journal One Earth on October 15 combining climate modeling and the fossil record in search of clues to what led to all those earlier extinctions of our ancient ancestors suggests that climate change—the inability to adapt to either warming or cooling temperatures—likely played a major role in sealing their fate.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 19, 2020 at 5:48am

Octopus-inspired thin tissue transfer

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 18, 2020 at 10:24am

India trusts the scientists the most says a survey

A recent report by the International Science Survey 2019-2020, say more than half of the Indians trust scientists and believe what they’re doing is right. when compared to few other countries around the globe, the degree of trust in India is higher than in many Western countries like the United States, Australia, United Kingdom, and Germany.

The Top 10 countries are given below:

1. India

59% of the respondents in India have “a lot” of trust in scientists to do what is right. 26% had “some” trust”, while 5% “not too much” trust.

2. Australia

48% responded with lot of trust, 34% responded with some trust. 

3. Spain

Similar to Australia 48% Spaniards believe in the goodwill of scientists, while 32% show only some trust and 17% claimed that they had no faith in scientists.

4. Netherlands

47% people have “a lot” of trust in scientists, while 38% had “some” degree of trust. 

5. Sweden

46% Swedes put their faith in scientists, while 44% exhibit some trust.

6. Canada

45% Canadians believe “a lot” in scientists, while 37% had “some” degree of faith.

7. Germany

43% exhibited “a lot” of trust in scientists, while 39% only trusted them to some degree.

8. Czech Republic

42% Czech believe in scientists and their goodwill.

9. United Kingdom

42% trust scientists and what they do, while 37% only trust them to some extent.

10. United States

The world’s No: 1 economy comes iat No 10 position, where 38% have a “lot of” faith in scientists, while 39% only had “some” faith.

whether the ancient healing methods or the Indian scientis community in research labs around the globe and the potential there is some factor which makes us to believe in the scientists. 

https://english.newstracklive.com/news/india-trusts-the-scientists-...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 18, 2020 at 8:59am

Fats fighting back against bacteria

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 18, 2020 at 8:53am

What fuels the beating heart? Study reveals nutrients used by normal and failing hearts

 A team led by scientists in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has produced a detailed picture of fuel and nutrient use by the human heart. The study, published this week in Science, was the first of its kind, involving the simultaneous sampling of blood from different parts of the circulatory system in dozens of human participants, in order to record the levels of related molecules going into and coming out of the beating heart.

The resulting data have revealed key features of fuel use in the normal heart as well as the failing heart, establishing a new framework for studying the heart in health and disease.

Understanding, at this level of detail, how the heart handles fuel and nutrients should inform the development of future treatments for heart failure and related conditions. Now that we have a clear picture of how the heart fuels itself, we can set our sights on devising ways to improve heart metabolism in heart failure.

For the study, Arany and his team simultaneously sampled blood going into the heart and coming out of the heart in 87 subjects—men and women who were already undergoing a procedure to treat a common condition called atrial fibrillation, but who did not have heart failure. The researchers performed a similar sampling in 23 atrial fibrillation patients who did have heart failure. In all patients, the researchers also sampled blood going into and out of the leg, for comparison.

The team then used state-of-the-art tools to quantify the levels of hundreds of different “metabolites”—molecules involved in fuel use and cell growth—in the blood samples. The main aim was to reveal in detail which metabolites the working heart consumes on balance, and which ones it yields as byproducts.

In all, the researchers detected 277 metabolites reliably in the blood of human participants, and found that for 65 of these, levels going out from the heart were significantly different from levels going in.

The team also made some initial comparisons to highlight what may be unique features of normal heart metabolism. For example, the data indicated that the heart, compared to the legs, relies much more heavily on the uptake, apparently as energy sources, of small organic molecules called fatty acids. At the same time, according to the analysis, the heart releases relatively large amounts of a different class of molecules called amino acids—the building blocks and breakdown products of proteins—hinting that a relatively intense breakdown of protein within the heart is one way the working heart muscle fuels its activity.

A big difference between healthy hearts and failing hearts in the study was that the latter consumed more ketones—molecules the body uses as intermediates in its conversion of stored fats to energy—although the researchers suspect that this disparity may have been due merely to the slower passage of blood through the heart, allowing a greater time for ketone uptake. Compared to normal hearts, the failing hearts also released more amino-acids, suggesting more protein breakdown and turnover.

“Whether this increased protein breakdown in heart failure is adaptive or maladaptive will require further studies

https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/what-fuels-beating-heart-zoltan-arany

https://researchnews.cc/news/3087/What-fuels-the-beating-heart--Stu...

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