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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 23, 2019 at 8:56am

Measles erases the immune system’s memory

Beyond the rash, the infection makes it harder for the body to remember and attack other invaders

The most iconic thing about measles is the rash — red, livid splotches that make infection painfully visible.

But that rash, and even the fever, coughing and watery, sore eyes, are all distractions from the virus’s real harm — an all-out attack on the immune system.

Measles silently wipes clean the immune system’s memory of past infections. In this way, the virus can cast a long and dangerous shadow for months, or even years, scientists are finding. The resulting “immune amnesia” leaves people vulnerable to other viruses and bacteria that cause pneumonia, ear infections and diarrhea. It really puts you at increased susceptibility for everything else. And that has big consequences, recent studies show.

Wherever you introduce measles vaccination, you always reduce childhood mortality. Always. The shot prevents deaths, and more than just those caused by measles. By shielding the immune system against one virus’s attack, the vaccine may create a kind of protective halo that keeps other pathogens at bay, some researchers suspect.

M. Rosen. Kids who have had measles are at higher risk of fatal infections. Science News. Vol. 187, May 30, 2015, p. 10.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 23, 2019 at 8:37am

Hypertension found in children exposed to flower pesticides

In Ecuador, roses for Mother's Day sold around the world is major export crop, but pesticides used to grow and treat those flowers may be affecting health of children living nearby

In a study published online May 21, 2019 in the journal Environmental Research, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine found higher blood pressure and pesticide exposures in children associated with a heightened pesticide spraying period around the Mother's Day flower harvest. This study involved boys and girls living near flower crops in Ecuador.

Researchers assessed 313 boys and girls, ages 4 to 9, residing in floricultural communities in Ecuador. The children were examined up to 100 days after the Mother's Day harvest. The analyses are part of a long-term study of environmental pollutants and child development in Ecuador.

Researchers  observed that children examined sooner after the Mother's Day harvest had higher pesticide exposures and higher systolic and diastolic blood pressures compared to children examined later. In addition, children who were examined within 81 days after the harvest were three times more likely to have hypertension than children examined between 91 and 100 days.

There is some evidence that insecticides, such as organophosphates, can increase blood pressure. Organophosphates and several other classes of insecticides and fungicides are commonly used to treat flowers for pests before export.

In a previous study, the same people had reported that children examined sooner after the harvest displayed lower performances in tasks of attention, self-control, visuospatial processing and sensorimotor than children examined later.

"These new findings build upon a growing number of studies describing that pesticide spray seasons may be affecting the development of children living near agricultural spray sites. They highlight the importance of reducing the exposures to pesticides of children and families living near agriculture."

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0013935119302889

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 19, 2019 at 10:34am

Researchers from England’s Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology have successfully created E. coli bacteria with entirely human-made DNA, marking a milestone in the burgeoning field of synthetic biology and paving the way for future innovation built on so-called “designer” bacteria.
According to a new study published in the journal Nature, the synthetic genome is by far the largest of its kind. The product of a two-year research campaign, the redesigned DNA consists of four million segments—four times more than the previous record holder. Perhaps most impressively, the bacteria contain just 61 codons, as opposed to the 64 found in nearly all living creatures. Despite this seeming disparity, the synthetic bacteria appear to function much like normal E. coli. The main differences are a slower growth rate and longer length.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-019-1192-5

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 9, 2019 at 9:10am

Teenager recovers from near death in world-first GM virus treatment

Bacteria-killing viruses known as phages offer hope of solution to antibiotic resistance

A British teenager has made a remarkable recovery after being the first patient in the world to be given a genetically engineered virus to treat a drug-resistant infection.

Isabelle Holdaway, 17, nearly died after a lung transplant left her with an intractable infection that could not be cleared with antibiotics. After a nine-month stay at Great Ormond Street hospital, she returned to her home in Kent for palliative care, but recovered after her consultant teamed up with a US laboratory to develop the experimental therapy.

The scientists behind the breakthrough have said bacteria-killing viruses, known as phages, have the potential to be used as an alternative treatment to counter the antibiotic resistance.

Isabelle has cystic fibrosis, a genetic disease that results in frequent infections clogging up the lungs with mucus. By summer 2017, her lungs had less than a third of their normal function and she had been plagued by two stubborn bacterial strains for eight years. She and her doctors decided a double lung transplant was the best option, even though it meant her existing infections could spread.

After the transplant, this fear became a reality: a bacterial strain similar to TB took hold, colonising her surgical wound, then her liver, until eventually pockets of bacteria known as nodules began pushing through the skin on her arms, legs and buttocks. Phages work by infecting bacteria cells and killing them, but they are very specific in which infections they can target. Scientists identified dozens of phages known to infect bacterial relatives of the patients’ strains, and tested thousands of combinations of them in petri dishes to see which wiped out the patients’ bacteria.Finally, they found a phage that could hit the strain that infected one of the teenagers. Each experiment took a week because the bacteria grow slowly. Shortly after Isabelle was sent home on a palliative care plan, Hatfull’s lab identified a phage that wiped out the infection, and another two phages that could infect it but not kill it efficiently. By removing a single gene, they were able to increase the efficiency of these two phages, making a cocktail that they believed could kill the infection. A combination was used to avoid the possibility of the infection becoming resistant to the phage. In June 2018, Isabelle returned to Great Ormond Street and after some safety tests, was given the cocktail twice daily via an intravenous drip and on her skin. Six weeks later a liver scan revealed the infection had essentially disappeared. And there were no side effects!

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-019-0437-z

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on May 8, 2019 at 9:54am

Rice husks can remove microcystin toxins from water

Scientists at The University of Toledo have discovered that rice husks can effectively remove microcystin from water, a finding that could have far-reaching implications for communities along the Great Lakes and across the developing world.

An abundant and inexpensive agricultural byproduct, rice husks have been investigated as a water purification solution in the past. However, this is the first time they have been shown to remove microcystin, the toxin released by harmful algal blooms.

The results of the study were recently published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

Researchers found the rice husks removed more than 95 percent of microcystin MC-LR -- the most common type found in Lake Erie -- in concentrations of up to 596 parts-per-billion (ppb). Even in concentrations approaching 3,000 ppb, more than 70 percent of the MC-LR was removed, and other types of MCs were removed as well.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 26, 2019 at 8:57am

Scientists have discovered a powerful new strain of fact-resistant humans who are threatening the ability of Earth to sustain life, a sobering new study reports.

The research, conducted by the University of Minnesota, identifies a virulent strain of humans who are virtually immune to any form of verifiable knowledge, leaving scientists at a loss as to how to combat them.

“These humans appear to have all the faculties necessary to receive and process information. And yet, somehow, they have developed defenses that, for all intents and purposes, have rendered those faculties totally inactive. As facts have multiplied, their defenses against those facts have only grown more powerful.” Davis Logsdon, one of the scientists who contributed to the study, said.

While scientists have no clear understanding of the mechanisms that prevent the fact-resistant humans from absorbing data, they theorize that the strain may have developed the ability to intercept and discard information enroute from the auditory nerve to the brain.

“The normal functions of human consciousness have been completely nullified,” Logsdon said.

While reaffirming the gloomy assessments of the study, Logsdon held out hope that the threat of fact-resistant humans could be mitigated in the future.

“Our research is very preliminary, but it’s possible that they will become more receptive to facts once they are in an environment without food, water, or oxygen,” he said.

https://www.thescinewsreporter.com/2019/04/scientists-earth-endange...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 11, 2019 at 11:19am

A Danish study of 657,461 children showed that children who were not vaccinated for MMR had a higher rate of autism than the children who were vaccinated with MMR. Large Danish Study: Autism Not Linked to MMR Vaccine

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on April 11, 2019 at 11:14am

A common food additive may make the flu vaccine less effective

A common food additive may make it more difficult to fight the flu.

Vaccinated mice that got food containing the additive, tert-butylhydroquinone (tBHQ), took three days longer to recover from the flu than mice that ate tBHQ-free food. The unpublished result suggests the common additive may make flu vaccines less effective, toxicologist Robert Freeborn of Michigan State University in East Lansing reported April 7 at the 2019 Experimental Biology meeting.  

The additive helps stabilize fats and is used as a preservative for a wide variety of foods, including some cooking oils, frozen meat products — especially fish fillets — and processed foods such as crackers, chips and other fried snacks. Food manufacturers aren’t required to put the ingredient on labels, so “it’s hard to know everything it’s in,” says Freeborn.

In separate experiments, unvaccinated mice eating tBHQ in their food had more virus RNA in their lungs than mice that didn’t eat it. The tBHQ eaters also had inflammation and increased mucus production deeper in their lungs than usual, Freeborn and colleagues found.  

The researchers don’t know exactly how the additive hampers flu fighting, but it may be because it increases activity of an immune system protein called Nrf2. Increased activity of that protein might reduce the number of virus-fighting immune cells in the mice. That possibility remains to be tested.

R. Freeborn et al. The immune response to influenza is suppressed by the synthetic food additive and Nrf2 activator, tert-butylhydroquinone (tBHQ). 2019 Experimental Biology, Orlando, April 7, 2019.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 23, 2019 at 8:05am

Scientists Watched  as Heat Moved at the Speed of Sound!

A rare phenomenon seen in just a handful of materials at forbidding temperatures has been detected within “warm” graphite—a finding that could aid future microelectronics.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2019/03/13/science.aav3548

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 2, 2019 at 11:53am

Night-vision ‘super-mice’ created using light-converting nanoparticles

The particles bind to photoreceptors in the eyes and convert infrared wavelengths to visible light.

Mice with vision enhanced by nanotechnology were able to see infrared light as well as visible light, reports a study published February 28 in the journal Cell. A single injection of nanoparticles in the mice's eyes bestowed infrared vision for up to 10 weeks with minimal side effects, allowing them to see infrared light even during the day and with enough specificity to distinguish between different shapes. These findings could lead to advancements in human infrared vision technologies, including potential applications in civilian encryption, security, and military operations.
Humans and other mammals are limited to seeing a range of wavelengths of light called visible light, which includes the wavelengths of the rainbow. But infra red variation, which has a longer wavelength, is all around us. People, animals and objects emit infrared light as they give off heat, and objects can also reflect infrared light.

"When light enters the eye and hits the retina, the rods and cones—or photoreceptor cells—absorb the photons with visible light wavelengths and send corresponding electric signals to the brain," says Han. "Because infra resd wavelengths are too long to be absorbed by photoreceptors, we are not able to perceive them."

In this study, the scientists made nanoparticles that can anchor tightly to photo receptor cells and act as tiny infrared light transducers. When infrared light hits the retina, the nanoparticles capture the longer infrared wavelengths and emit shorter wavelengths within the visible light range. The nearby rod or cone then absorbs the shorter wavelength and sends a normal signal to the brain, as if visible light had hit the retina.

The researchers tested the nanoparticles in mice, which, like humans, cannot see infrared naturally. Mice that received the injections showed unconscious physical signs that they were detecting infrared light, such as their pupils constricting, while mice injected with only the buffer solution didn't respond to infrared light.

To test whether the mice could make sense of the infrared light, the researchers set up a series of maze tasks to show the mice could see infrared in daylight conditions, simultaneously with visible light.

"In our study, we have shown that both rods and cones bind these nanoparticles and were activated by the near infrared light," say the researchers. "So we believe this technology will also work inhuman eyes not only for generating super vision but also for therapeutic solutions in human red color vision deficits."

Cell, Ma et al.: "Mammalian Near-Infrared Image Vision through Injectable and Self-Powered Retinal Nanoantennae." https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(19)30101-1 , DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2019.01.038 

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