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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 17, 2021 at 12:10pm

A Man Injected Magic Mushroom 'Tea' Into His Veins, And Fungus Grew Inside Him

A man brewed a tea from "magic mushrooms" and injected the concoction into his veins; several days later, he ended up at the emergency department with the fungus growing in his blood.

The man spent 22 days in the hospital, with eight of those days in the intensive care unit (ICU), where he received treatment for multisystem organ failure.

Now released, he is still being treated with a long-term regimen of antibiotic and antifungal drugs, according to a description of the case published January 11 in the Journal of the Academy of Consultation-Liaison Psychiatry. 

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S266729602030015X

The case didn't reveal whether injecting shroom tea can cause persistent psychoactive effects, as sometimes seen when people ingest the fungus orally, the doctors wrote in the report.

For example, in rare cases, people can develop a condition called hallucinogen-induced persisting perception disorder (HPPD), where they experience vivid flashbacks of their trip long after the fact, according to the National Institute on Drug Abuse. 

The case "underscores the need for ongoing public education regarding the dangers attendant to the use of this, and other drugs, in ways other than they are prescribed," the doctors wrote. 

https://www.livescience.com/magic-mushroom-injection-case-report.html

https://www.sciencealert.com/patient-grows-magic-mushrooms-in-his-b...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 17, 2021 at 11:56am

Extremely Rare Phenomenon Sees Babies Inhale Cancer Cells During Va...

Transmitting cancer from mother to child is rare, but it does happen.

It's not impossible for an infant to get cancer from their mother, but it doesn't happen very often.

Researchers estimate transmission of maternal cancer to offspring occurs perhaps only twice in every million births for mothers with cancer, with the diseased cells being delivered to the infant via the placenta in these exceedingly rare and unfortunate cases.

But that's not the only way a mother with cancer might unknowingly infect her child, scientists say.

In a new case study published by researchers in Japan, doctors report what appears to be a medical first: vaginal transmission of cancer cells from mothers with cervical cancer to infants at the moment of their birth.

"Mother-to-infant transmission of tumour in the birth canal during vaginal delivery is also theoretically possible.

If the mother has cervical cancer, the infant can be exposed to tumour cells in fluids in the birth canal and could aspirate tumour cells into the lungs.

This obscure and previously unknown vector – inhaling cancer in your very first breaths, ostensibly – appears to be responsible for two otherwise unlinked cases of paediatric lung cancer diagnosed in a pair of young male patients: a 23-month-old and a six-year-old.

In both cases, the patients presented to hospital with symptoms of their illness, the 23-month-old experiencing coughing, and the six-year-old experiencing chest pain.

In each instance, CT scans revealed what eventually turned out to be cancerous tumours in the boys' lungs, which were successfully treated in both cases – although not easily.

The peribronchial [relating to airways of the respiratory system] pattern of tumour growth in both children suggested that the tumours arose from mother-to-infant vaginal transmission through aspiration of tumour-contaminated vaginal fluids during birth

In most cases involving mother-to-foetus transmission of cancer, the placental delivery of cancerous cells tends to result in the spreading of cancers to the brain, bones, liver, and other tissues, including the lungs. Here, it was just the lungs – which offers a strong clue as to how the disease could have been delivered to the boys' own bodies.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2030391

https://www.sciencealert.com/extremely-rare-phenomenon-sees-babies-...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 17, 2021 at 11:34am

Neon-green flourescence in the desert gecko Pachydactylus rangei

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 17, 2021 at 11:30am

Seagrass Is Doing Us All a Favor And Trapping Our Plastic in Balls

KELLY MACNAMARA & MARLOWE HOOD, AFP

16 JANUARY 2021

Underwater seagrass in coastal areas appear to trap bits of plastic in natural bundles of fibre known as 'Neptune balls', researchers said Thursday.

With no help from humans, the swaying plants – anchored to shallow seabeds – may collect nearly 900 million plastic items in the Mediterranean alone every year, they reported in the journal Scientific Reports.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-79370-3

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 16, 2021 at 11:11am

New treatment target discovered that halts osteoarthritis-like knee...

There is currently no cure for osteoarthritis, but a group of scientists believe they've discovered a method through which a simple knee injection could potentially stop the disease's effects. These researchers showed that they could target a specific protein pathway in mice, put it into overdrive and halt cartilage degeneration over time. Building on that finding, they were able to show that treating mice with surgery-induced knee cartilage degeneration through the same pathway via the state of the art of nanomedicine could dramatically reduce the cartilage degeneration and knee pain. These findings were published in Science Translational Medicine.   
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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 16, 2021 at 8:56am

Scientists identify nutrient that helps prevent bacterial infection

Scientists studying the body's natural defenses against bacterial infection have identified a nutrient—taurine—that helps the gut recall prior infections and kill invading bacteria, such as Klebsiella pneumoniae (Kpn). The finding, published in the journal Cell by scientists could aid efforts seeking alternatives to antibiotics.

Scientists know that microbiota—the trillions of beneficial microbes living harmoniously inside our gut—can protect people from bacterial infections, but little is known about how they provide protection. Scientists are studying the microbiota with an eye to finding or enhancing natural treatments to replace antibiotics, which harm microbiota and become less effective as bacteria develop drug resistance. 

The scientists observed that microbiota that had experienced prior infection and transferred to germ-free mice helped prevent infection with Kpn. They identified a class of bacteria—Deltaproteobacteria—involved in fighting these infections, and further analysis led them to identify taurine as the trigger for Deltaproteobacteria activity.

Taurine helps the body digest fats and oils and is found naturally in bile acids in the gut. The poisonous gas hydrogen sulfide is a byproduct of taurine. The scientists believe that low levels of taurine allow pathogens to colonize the gut, but high levels produce enough hydrogen sulfide to prevent colonization. During the study, the researchers realized that a single mild infection is sufficient to prepare the microbiota to resist subsequent infection, and that the liver and gallbladder—which synthesize and store bile acids containing taurine—can develop long-term infection protection.

The study found that taurine given to mice as a supplement in drinking water also prepared the microbiota to prevent infection. However, when mice drank water containing bismuth subsalicylate—a common over-the-counter drug used to treat diarrhea and upset stomach—infection protection waned because bismuth inhibits hydrogen sulfide production.

A Stacy et al. Infection trains the host for microbiota-enhanced resistance to pathogens. Cell, DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2020.12.011 (2021).

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-scientists-nutrient-bacterial-infecti...

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 16, 2021 at 8:42am

Snakes evolve a magnetic way to be resistant to venom

Certain snakes have evolved a unique genetic trick to avoid being eaten by venomous snakes, according to new research. the technique worked in a manner similar to the way two sides of a magnet repel each other.

The target of snake venom neurotoxins is a strongly negatively charged nerve receptor.

This has caused neurotoxins to evolve with positively charged surfaces, thereby guiding them to the neurological target to produce paralysis.

"But some snakes have evolved to replace a negatively charged amino acid on their receptor with a positively charged one, meaning the neurotoxin is repelled.

It's an inventive genetic mutation and it's been completely missed until now. this trait has evolved at least 10 times in different species of snakes. 

The researchers found that the Burmese python—a slow-moving terrestrial species vulnerable to predation by cobras—is extremely neurotoxin resistant. Similarly, the South African mole snake, another slow-moving snake vulnerable to cobras, is also extremely resistant. 

But Asian pythons which live in trees as babies, and Australian pythons which do not live alongside neurotoxic snake-eating snake, do not have this resistance.

We've long known that some species—like the mongoose—are resistant to snake venom through a mutation that physically blocks neurotoxins by having a branch-like structure sticking out of the receptor, but this is the first time the magnet-like effect has been observed.

It has also evolved in venomous snakes to be resistant to their own neurotoxins on at least two occasions.

 Richard J. Harris et al. Electrostatic resistance to alpha-neurotoxins conferred by charge reversal mutations in nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2020.2703

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-snakes-evolve-magnetic-resistant-veno...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 16, 2021 at 8:16am

Future homes could be made of living fungus

Mushroom house: a 'tiny house' out of mushrooms - Mushroom Tiny House, a 64-square-foot home designed by Ecovative Design that uses mycelium -- a type of fungi -- to literally grow the structure from the inside out.

There are two principal advantages to this. First, living fungus might behave as a self-healing material, simply re-growing if it becomes damaged. Second, mycelium networks are capable of information processing. Electrical signals run through them and change over time in a manner almost akin to a brain. Fungal materials respond to tactile stimulation and illumination by changing their patterns of electrical activity.

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-future-homes-fungus.html?utm_source=n...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 15, 2021 at 12:42pm

Cellular autofluorescence is magnetic field sensitive

How cells might sense Earth’s magnetic field

Glowing cells offer clues to the mysterious mechanism that animals such as birds, bats, eels and whales might use to navigate using Earth’s magnetic field. Cryptochrome, a protein found in plants and animals that can absorb light and emit an electromagnetic signal, has been a prime suspect for the source of magnetoreception — the ability to detect magnetic fields. Using a specialized microscope, scientists irradiated human cells, which caused cryptochromes to fluoresce. But when the researchers passed magnets over the cells, the fluorescence dropped. It’s the first time that cryptochromes have been observed responding to magnetic fields in a living cell.

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/3/e2018043118?utm_source=Nature+Br...

The radical pair mechanism is the favored hypothesis for explaining biological effects of weak magnetic fields, such as animal magnetoreception and possible adverse health effects. To date, however, there is no direct experimental evidence for magnetic effects on radical pair reactions in cells, the fundamental building blocks of living systems. In this paper, using a custom-built microscope, we demonstrate that flavin-based autofluorescence in native, untreated HeLa cells is magnetic field sensitive, due to the formation and electron spin–selective recombination of spin-correlated radical pairs. This work thus provides a direct link between magnetic field effects on chemical reactions measured in solution and chemical reactions taking place in living cells.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 15, 2021 at 9:58am

How aerosols are formed

Researchers recently conducted an experiment to investigate the initial steps in the formation of aerosols. Their findings are now aiding efforts to better understand and model that process—for example, the formation of clouds in the atmosphere.

Aerosols are suspensions of fine solid particles or liquid droplets in a gas. Clouds, for example, are aerosols because they consist of water droplets dispersed in the air. Such droplets are produced in a two-step process: first, a condensation nucleus forms, and then volatile molecules condense onto this nucleus, producing a droplet. Nuclei frequently consist of molecules different to those that condense onto them. In the case of clouds, the nuclei often contain sulphuric acids and organic substances. Water vapor from the atmosphere subsequently condenses onto these nuclei.

Scientists l have now gained new insights into the first step of aerosol formation, nucleation. Observations have shown that the volatile components can also influence the nucleation process but what was unclear was how this was happening at the molecular level. Previously it was impossible to observe the volatile components during nucleation in an experimental setting. Even in a famous CERN experiment on cloud formation, certain volatile components could not be directly detected.

The ETH researchers developed an experiment aimed at the first microseconds of the nucleation process. In the experiment, the particles formed remain intact during this time and can be detected using mass spectrometry. The scientists looked at nucleation in various gas mixtures containing CO₂ and for the first time, they were able to detect the volatile components as well—in this case, the CO₂. The researchers could show that the volatile components were essential for the formation of nuclei and also accelerated this process.

An analysis of the experimental data revealed that this acceleration is the result of the volatile components catalyzing the nucleation of other, less volatile components. They do this by forming short-lived, heterogeneous molecular aggregates, known as chaperon complexes. Because temperature determines the volatility of gas components, it also plays a decisive role in these processes.

Chenxi Li et al. How volatile components catalyze vapor nucleation, Science Advances (2021). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd9954

https://phys.org/news/2021-01-aerosols.html?utm_source=nwletter&...

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