Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 27, 2024 at 10:44am

The report said climate-driven disturbances are compounding the effects of other chronic damage to the reef from:

unsustainable fishing
pollution
sediment runoff
outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish.
Among other key findings of the report were that:

most populations of marine turtles have declined
species such as seabirds, sharks, rays, dugongs and seagrasses have recovered in some areas and plateaued or declined in others
populations of estuarine crocodiles are recovering
many species in declines are listed as threatened or protected.
Humanity must take urgent action to limit global temperature rise. But we are failing. We are failing the Great Barrier Reef and indeed, coral reefs across the planet.
2024 opens a new chapter for the reef. Future warming already locked into the climate system means that further degradation is inevitable. This is the sobering calculus of climate change.
Humanity has all the facts in front of us. Earth is in an uncharted time of very rapid change. If we don't respond, we will lose the Great Barrier Reef and corals across the world's oceans.

https://theconversation.com/humanity-is-failing-official-report-war...

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 27, 2024 at 10:42am

'Humanity is failing': Official report warns our chance to save the Great Barrier Reef is fast closing

The Great Barrier Reef will continue to deteriorate, largely due to climate change, and the window to secure its future is rapidly closing. That is the sobering conclusion of a major new report into the state of the reef.

The report was released by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. It confirms what scientists have long known: humanity is killing the Great Barrier Reef, and other reefs around the world, by failing to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. 

Unless humanity takes dramatic action to halt climate change, we will lose the beautiful, complex reefs that have existed on Earth for millennia. As this latest report shows, even governments and officials now acknowledge this fact.

Warming oceans and severe tropical cyclones are compounding other threats such as crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks, poor water quality and unsustainable fishing.

While recent recovery in some ecosystem values demonstrates that the reef is still resilient, its capacity to tolerate and recover is jeopardized by a rapidly changing climate.

Bleaching occurs when corals become so heat-stressed they eject the tiny algae living inside their tissues. These organisms give coral some of its color and help power its metabolism. In mild bleaching events, corals can recover. But in the severe events that are becoming more common, corals do not survive.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 27, 2024 at 8:39am

Qunnect's GothamQ loop demonstration was especially noteworthy for its duration, the hands-off nature of the operation time, and its uptime percentage. It showed, they wrote, "progress toward a fully automated practical entanglement network" that would be required for a quantum internet.

Alexander N. Craddock et al, Automated Distribution of Polarization-Entangled Photons Using Deployed New York City Fibers, PRX Quantum (2024). DOI: 10.1103/PRXQuantum.5.030330

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 27, 2024 at 8:31am

Test of a prototype quantum internet runs under New York City for half a month

To introduce quantum networks into the marketplace, engineers must overcome the fragility of entangled states in a fiber cable and ensure the efficiency of signal delivery. Now, scientists at Qunnect Inc. in Brooklyn, New York, have taken a large step forward by operating just such a network under the streets of New York City.

While others have transmitted entangled photons before, there has been too much noise and polarization drift in the fiber environment for entanglement to survive, particularly in a long-term stable network.

Now  this team's new network design, methods and results are published in PRX Quantum.

For their prototype network, the Qunnect researchers used a leased 34-kilometer-long fiber circuit they called the GothamQ loop. Using polarization-entangled photons, they operated the loop for 15 continuous days, achieving an uptime of 99.84% and a compensation fidelity of 99% for entangled photon pairs transmitted at a rate of about 20,000 per second. At a half-million entangled photon pairs per second, the fidelity was still nearly 90%.

The polarization of a photon is the direction of its electric field. (This may be easier to understand in the wave picture of light.) You're perhaps familiar with the phenomenon from polarized sunglasses, which are filters that let light from one polarization direction through but block others, thus cutting down on glare reflected off water, snow and glass, for instance.

Polarized photons are useful because they are easy to create, simple to manipulate (with polarized filters) and to measure.

They sent 1,324 nm polarization-entangled photon pairs in quantum superpositions through the fiber, one state with both polarizations horizontal and the other with both vertical—a two-qubit configuration more generally known as a Bell state. In such a superposition, the quantum mechanical photon pairs are in both states at the same time.
However, in optical cables, such photon systems are more prone to disturbances of their polarization by vibrations, bending and fluctuations in pressure and temperature in the cable and can require frequent recalibrations. Because these types of disturbances can be almost impossible to detect and isolate, let alone mitigate, the Qunnect team built automated polarization compensation (APC) devices to electronically compensate for them.

By sending classical, not entangled, photon pairs of 1,324 nm with known polarizations down the fiber, they could measure how much their polarization drifted or was modified. Polarization drift was measured at four transmission distances: zero, 34, 69 and 102 km, by sending the classical photons zero, one, two or three times around the metropolitan loop under the streets of Brooklyn and Queens. They then used the APCs to correct the polarization of the entangled pairs.
Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 27, 2024 at 6:25am

Autologous platelet-gel (APG) is the process of harvesting ones own cells (platelets), concentrating them most often through centrifugation, exposing them to an agonist which induces activation which releases intrinsic substances, and applying them to a target area to accelerate wound healing. APG is attractive because it concentrates a large number of biologically active substances, which are primarily proteins that participate in complex series of mechanisms involved in inflammation and wound healing. It has been used in numerous applications including sports medicine, dermatology, and surgery.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4813532/

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 26, 2024 at 10:49am

Thirty adults, aged 55–80, with a body mass index over 25, participated in the study. Participants took either DailyColors or a placebo for one week, then switched after a break.

During the placebo phase, a blood marker called CD38, which is linked to poor cell function and inflammation, increased. This didn't happen when participants took DailyColors. There was also a trend showing reduced oxidative stress (a process that can damage cells) after taking the supplement.

This nutraceutical clinical study highlights the strengths at King's in academic-industry collaborations, involving researchers from across four continents in nine institutions and two companies.
This study is the first to show that a novel supplement containing plant compounds found in the Mediterranean diet can alter blood biomarkers and epigenetic profiles that are associated with healthy aging.

In a follow-up study with 26 participants who continued to take DailyColors for a month, the study found changes in the way DNA is marked, which might slow down some of the negative effects of aging. Although the effects observed were minimal, the study suggests that DailyColors could help slow down certain aging processes. However, more extensive studies are needed to confirm these benefits.

The work is published in the journal Antioxidants.

 Joyce Ruifen Chong et al, A Randomised, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Cross-Over Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Biological Effects and Safety of a Polyphenol Supplement on Healthy Ageing, Antioxidants (2024). DOI: 10.3390/antiox13080995

Part 2

**

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 26, 2024 at 10:47am

Mediterranean diet supplement can affect epigenetics associated with healthy aging

As life expectancy increases, the attention and interest in safe and effective lifestyle interventions to promote healthy aging are growing rapidly. One of the elements explored is that of unhealthy diets, with poor nutritional value. Therefore, lifestyle changes which include dietary interventions could promote positive effects, and potentially reduce the risk of developing aging-related diseases.

Previous studies showed that phytonutrients, natural compounds found in vegetables, fruits and berries, support health and lower the risk of age-related conditions such as cardiovascular disease and dementia.

The Mediterranean diet is mainly based on abundant phytonutrients. The Mediterranean diet consists of olive oil as the primary source of fat, fresh fruit, low to moderate amounts of seafood, poultry, dairy products, wine and eggs. Sweets containing sugar or honey and red meat are consumed sparingly. Adhering to this diet could be protective against several conditions.

DailyColors is a dietary supplement designed to mimic the benefits of the Mediterranean diet by providing important nutrients found in fruits, berries, and vegetables. These nutrients, like Quercetin and Anthocyanins, are known for their potential health benefits, particularly in aging.

A collaborative study between the Center for Healthy Brain Aging at King's and Center for Age-related Medicine, Stavanger University Hospital, Norway, aimed to explore how DailyColors affects certain blood markers linked to aging and related diseases, such as how our cells produce energy, inflammation, and stress in the body.

The study also looked at changes in DNA methylation in saliva, which can provide indicators of biological aging.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 26, 2024 at 10:39am

Hara, T. et al. Unveiling the Nature of Chemical Bonds in Real Space, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2024). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.4c05673

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 26, 2024 at 10:38am

First visualization of valence electrons reveals fundamental nature of chemical bonding

The distribution of outermost shell electrons, known as valence electrons, of organic molecules was experimentally observed for the first time by a team led by Nagoya University in Japan. As the interactions between atoms are governed by the valence electrons, their findings shine light on the fundamental nature of chemical bonds, with implications for pharmacy and chemical engineering. The results were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

The behavior of the electrons in atoms is complex, forming electron orbitals that have different functions depending on their closeness to the nucleus. The inner shell electrons, called core electrons, are used for self-stabilization and do not interact with other atoms. On the other hand, the outer electrons, or valence electrons, define most of the material's properties, especially during bonding with other atoms.

Understanding a material's properties requires extracting information about its valence electrons. However, it has been difficult to experimentally isolate only the valence electron information, leading to researchers having to rely on theoretical models and spectroscopy to estimate it. By conducting world-class synchrotron X-ray diffraction experiments at SPring-8, the research group discovered that it is possible to selectively extract only the valence electron density of atoms in a crystal.

They named this method the CDFS method. Using this method, they observed the electron state of the glycine molecule, a type of amino acid.

Although the method was relatively simple to perform, the result was impressive. The observed electron cloud did not exhibit the smooth, enveloping shape that many predicted, but rather a fragmented, discrete state.

To understand the nature of the results, the group made a colour map of their observations. In chemistry, a color map uses colors to display variations in datasets across a specific range. Such maps are often used in conjunction with spectroscopic techniques, imaging, and chemical analysis to provide an intuitive way to interpret complex datasets. The map of the cross-sectional view in the enlarged diagram clearly showed interruptions in the electron distribution surrounding the carbon atoms.

"When carbon forms bonds with surrounding atoms, it reconstructs its electron cloud to create hybridized orbitals. In this case, the outermost L-shell electrons have nodes based on their wave nature known as wave functions.
This means that due to the wave nature of electrons, there are parts of the hybrid orbitals where electrons are absent, much different to the image that many people have of a continuous 'cloud' of electrons.
The fragmented electron cloud distribution observed in the experiment demonstrates the quantum mechanical wave nature of electrons, as predicted by physics. To confirm whether the observed electron cloud accurately captures the true state, they conducted advanced quantum chemical calculations in collaboration with Hokkaido University that confirmed that the experimental and theoretical results matched perfectly.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 26, 2024 at 10:21am

Sustainable solution to vitamin B12 deficiency

In new research published in the journal Discover Food, researchers report the use of state-of-the-art biotechnology to cultivate photosynthetically-controlled Spirulina, and produce carbon–neutral and nutritious biomass containing unopposed, biologically active vitamin B₁₂, in levels comparable to beef meat. This is the first time biologically active vitamin B₁₂ has been reported in Spirulina.

Their new study reveals a potential solution to one of the most widespread micronutrient deficiencies: vitamin B₁₂. With more than a billion individuals worldwide suffering from low levels of this essential vitamin, the reliance on meat and dairy products for adequate B₁₂ intake (2.4 µg/day) presents significant environmental challenges.

While Spirulina blue-green algae (Arthrospira platensis) has been proposed as a healthier and more sustainable substitute for meat and dairy, the so-called traditional Spirulina has fallen short as a viable alternative due to its content of pseudo-vitamin B₁₂, a form not bioavailable to humans. This limitation has hindered its potential to address vitamin B₁₂ deficiencies, and fully replace beef meat in human diets.

In the present study, the research team evaluated a biotechnology system developed by VAXA Technologies in Iceland, focusing on its engineering components, inputs (such as energy), and outputs, including biomass composition. The system employs photonic management (modified light conditions) to enhance active vitamin B₁₂ production in Spirulina, along with other bioactive  compounds with antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and immune-boosting properties.

This innovative approach yielded carbon-neutral, nutritious biomass containing biologically active vitamin B12 at levels comparable to beef (1.64 µg/100g in PCS vs. 0.7–1.5 μg/100g in beef).

The findings demonstrate that photosynthetically controlled Spirulina can produce desirable levels of active vitamin B12, offering a sustainable alternative to traditional animal-source foods.

This breakthrough marks a significant step towards addressing global vitamin B12 deficiency sustainably, reducing reliance on environmentally taxing meat and dairy production.

A. Tzachor et al, Photonic management of Spirulina (Arthrospira platensis) in scalable photobioreactors to achieve biologically active unopposed vitamin B12, Discover Food (2024). DOI: 10.1007/s44187-024-00152-1

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• …
• 79
• 80
• 81
• 82
• 83
• …
• 999
• Next ›
• Page