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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 13, 2020 at 9:17am

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013/04/when-does-your-baby-become-...

When Does Your Baby Become Conscious?

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Why the h-index is a bogus measure of academic impact

$$ https://theconversation.com/why-the-h-index-is-a-bogus-measure-of-a...

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https://phys.org/news/2020-07-scientists-theorized-neutrinoless-pro...

Scientists demonstrate a new experiment in the search for theorized 'neutrinoless' proc

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https://phys.org/news/2020-07-junk-dna-free-stem-cells.html?utm_sou...

Turning off 'junk DNA' may free stem cells to become neurons

For every cell in the body there comes a time when it must decide what it wants to do for the rest of its life. In an article published in the journal PNAS, NIH researchers report for the first time that ancient viral genes that were once considered "junk DNA" may play a role in this process. The article describes a series of preclinical experiments that showed how some human endogenous retrovirus (HERV-K) genes inscribed into chromosomes 12 and 19 may help control the differentiation, or maturation, of human stem cells into the trillions of neurons that are wired into our nervous systems.

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https://phys.org/news/2020-07-power-dna.html?utm_source=nwletter&am...

Power of DNA to store information gets an upgrade

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 13, 2020 at 8:43am

People with high cholesterol should eliminate carbs, not saturated fat

** For decades, people diagnosed with familial hypercholesterolemia have been instructed to minimize their consumption of saturated fats to lower cholesterol and reduce their risks of heart disease. But a new study published in the prestigious journal BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine found no evidence to support those claims.

Familial hypercholesterolemia is a genetic disorder that causes people to have cholesterol levels 2-4 times higher than the average person. Organizations, including the American Heart Association, have suggested they avoid eating food from animal sources, such as meat, eggs and cheese, and to avoid coconut oil. An international team of experts on heart disease and diet, including five cardiologists, reviewed dietary guidelines for people with familial hypercholesterolemia. They say they couldn't find any justification for health experts to recommend a low saturated fat diet.

Following a low-carb diet is most effective for people at increased risk of heart disease, such as those who are overweight, hypertensive and diabetic. Their findings are consistent with another paper recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, which provided strong evidence that food that raises blood sugar, such as bread, potatoes and sweets, should be minimized, rather than tropical oils and animal-based food.

David M Diamond et al, Dietary Recommendations for Familial Hypercholesterolaemia: an Evidence-Free Zone, BMJ Evidence-Based Medicine (2020). DOI: 10.1136/bmjebm-2020-111412

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-people-high-cholesterol-carb...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 12, 2020 at 1:01pm

Exaggerated risk of transmission of COVID-19 by fomites

Disinfecting surfaces 'not as necessary as we thought'

https://www.cbc.ca/news/health/coronavirus-surfaces-groceries-packa...

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)...

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https://www.businessinsider.in/science/environment/news/pink-climat...

Pink is the shade of climate change with mountains and lakes changing colour across the globe

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https://theconversation.com/death-by-irony-the-mystery-of-the-mouse...

‘Death by irony’: The mystery of the mouse that died of smoke inhalation, but went nowhere near a fire

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https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/campaign-begins-to-derai...

Campaign begins to derail COVID-19 vaccination before it’s even developed

Thousands of scientists are working around the clock to find a coronavirus vaccine. At the same time, groups are already trying to derail it.

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https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-complications-covid-von-will...

Complications from COVID-19 may depend on von Willebrand factor in the blood

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** https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-covid-ten-meters.html?utm_so...

Researchers: COVID-19 spreads ten meters or more by breathing

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 12, 2020 at 6:29am

Neptune's Moons Are Caught in One of The Strangest Orbits Ever Seen

https://www.sciencealert.com/neptune-s-moons-are-caught-in-one-of-t...

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https://www.sciencealert.com/our-atmosphere-chimes-in-time-with-ast...

Scientists Detect Earth's Atmosphere 'Ringing' Like a Bell

Just as the Moon tugs at our planet's seas, contributing to oceanic tidal waves, it also pulls at our atmosphere along with the Sun, creating waves in the sky.

A new study now demonstrates how some types of 'sky waves' resonate around Earth, much like how sound waves resonate inside a bell.

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https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-are-planning-to-make-a-sing...

Scientists Are Planning How to Make a Single Authoritative List of All Species

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https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/saliva-tests-how-they-wo...

Saliva Tests: How They Work and What They Bring to COVID-19

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https://www.quantamagazine.org/how-your-heart-influences-what-you-p...

How Your Heart Influences What You Perceive and Fear

The heartbeat and other bodily processes play a surprising role in shaping perception and cognition.

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https://theconversation.com/type-2-diabetes-eating-a-diet-rich-in-f...

Type 2 diabetes: eating a diet rich in fruit and vegetables daily lowers risk, study shows

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2020 at 10:54am

$$The mathematical strategy that could transform coronavirus testing

Four charts show how pooling samples from many people can save time or resources.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02053-6?utm_source=Natur...

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https://massivesci.com/articles/hydrothermal-vent-reactor-geology-m...

Scientists recreated ancient Earth’s ocean hell to figure out how life began

The experiment also suggests that extraterrestrial life could also emerge on Mars, Europa, and Enceladus

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https://massivesci.com/articles/gingko-tree-longevity-gene-activity...

The genes of 600-year-old ginkgo trees are just as active as their teenage counterparts 

Ancient trees reveal the secret to their virtual immortality

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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/climate-denial-spreads-o...

Climate Denial Spreads on Facebook as Scientists Face Restrictions

The company recently overruled its scientific fact-checking group, which had flagged information as misleading

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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/stingers-have-achieved-o...

Stingers Have Achieved Optimal Pointiness, Physicists Show

A single equation describes the shapes of stingers, spikes and spines throughout the natural world

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2020 at 10:15am

AMAZING ROBOTIC ANIMALS

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2020 at 8:59am

Scientists discover extraordinary regeneration of neurons

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-scientists-extraordinary-regeneration...

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https://phys.org/news/2020-07-oversized-placentas-cloning-decades.h...

Cause of oversized placentas in cloning found after two decades

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https://phys.org/news/2020-07-viral-dark-exposed-metagenome-databas...

Viral dark matter exposed: Metagenome database detects phage-derived antibacterial enzyme

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How the coronavirus pandemic is changing virtual science communication

Researchers flocked to join Skype a Scientist after COVID-19 closed their labs. The squid biologist who founded it explains how the science-communication platform has adapted.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02075-0

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https://www.livescience.com/new-coronavirus-mutation-explained.html

A new coronavirus mutation is taking over the world. Here's what that means.

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https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/antibody-tests-around-t...

Antibody tests around the world suggest very, very few people have built immunity to the coronavirus

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https://www.sciencefocus.com/nature/de-extinction-can-we-bring-exti...

De-extinction: Can we bring extinct animals back from the dead?

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2020 at 8:27am

Radiation can slow corrosion of some materials

Radiation nearly always degrades the materials exposed to it, hastening their deterioration and requiring replacement of key components in high-radiation environments such as nuclear reactors. But for certain alloys that could be used in fission or fusion reactors, the opposite turns out to be true: Researchers have now found that instead of hastening the material's degradation, radiation actually improves its resistance, potentially doubling the material's useful lifetime.

The finding could be a boon for some new, cutting-edge reactor designs, including molten-salt-cooled fission reactors, and new fusion reactors such as the ARC.

Researchers  repeated it dozens of times, with different conditions and every time they got the same results showing delayed corrosion.

The kind of reactor environment the team simulated in their experiments involves the use of molten sodium, lithium, and potassium salt as a coolant for both the nuclear fuel rods in a fission reactor and the vacuum vessel surrounding a superhot, swirling plasma in a future fusion reactor. Where the hot molten salt is in contact with the metal, corrosion can take place rapidly, but with these nickel-chromium alloys they found that the corrosion took twice as long to develop when the material was bathed in radiation from a proton accelerator, producing a radiation environment similar to what would be found in the proposed reactors.

Careful analysis of images of the affected alloy surfaces using transmission electron microscopy, after irradiating the metal in contact with molten salt at 650 degrees Celsius, (a typical operating temperature for salt in such reactors), helped to reveal the mechanism causing the unexpected effect. The radiation tends to create more tiny defects in the structure of the alloy, and these defects allow atoms of the metal to diffuse more easily, flowing in to quickly fill the voids that get created by the corrosive salt. In effect, the radiation damage promotes a sort of self-healing mechanism within the metal.

Weiyue Zhou et al. Proton irradiation-decelerated intergranular corrosion of Ni-Cr alloys in molten salt, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-17244-y

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-corrosion-materials.html?utm_source=n...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2020 at 8:21am

Rock-breathing bacteria are electron spin doctors, study shows

**Electrons spin. It's a fundamental part of their existence. Some spin "up" while others spin "down." Scientists have known this for about a century, thanks to quantum physics.

They've also known that magnetic fields can affect the direction of an electron's quantum spin, flipping it from up to down and vice versa. And it doesn't take much: Even a bacterial cell can do it.

Researchers  have found that protein "wires" connecting a bacterial cell to a solid surface tend to transmit electrons with a particular spin.

This ability to select an electron's quantum spin could have implications for the use of bacteria in the biotechnology industry and in burgeoning efforts to create bacteria-based energy cells, as well as future electronic technologies.

 Scientists have been studying certain bacteria that can use solid surfaces in the same way animals use oxygen to breathe. Instead of dumping electrons generated during metabolism onto inhaled oxygen molecules, the bacteria send the electrons down specialized proteins that plug into an external surface.

Unlike most organisms that are able to use oxygen as the electron acceptor. These bacteria transfer the electrons to a solid mineral or, as they do in our lab, to electrodes that are outside the cell.

In terms of metabolism, they "breathe" the minerals or electrodes.

To reach the external surface, the electrons are shuttled through various protein molecules that form electrical conduits. These proteins have magnetic fields that can favor a particular spin as the electrons shuttle through.

Scientists found that these magnetic fields are affected by a characteristic of the proteins called "chirality."

Many molecules, especially biological molecules, appear in two versions, each a mirror image of the other. Scientists call this "chirality." It's similar to human hands. Left and right hands have four fingers and a thumb, but they're not exactly the same. They're both hands, but they're mirror images of each other, oriented in opposite directions. Molecules can be the same way, and in fact, scientists refer to chiral molecules as being either left-handed or right-handed.

The left- or right-handedness of a protein may affect the polarity of the magnetic fields experienced by the electrons as they shuttle through the protein. That's what happens to those electrons that travel along a protein wire to get to the outside of a rock-breathing bacterium.

 These "rock-breathing" bacteria one day might be used to produce sustainable energy, for years. Finding that the electron-conducting proteins in these bacteria can select for a particular electron spin based on their chirality could be useful in developing certain electronic devices called "spintronics" . Spintronics use not only the charge of electrons but also their quantum spin and may be especially useful in quantum computing.

This work shows that bacterial cytochromes may be interesting candidates for spintronics."

Suryakant Mishra et al. Spin-Dependent Electron Transport through Bacterial Cell Surface Multiheme Electron Conduits, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2019). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b09262

https://phys.org/news/2020-07-rock-breathing-bacteria-electron-doct...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on July 11, 2020 at 7:47am

Study finds fatty acid that kills cancer cells

Researchers have demonstrated that a fatty acid called dihomogamma-linolenic acid, or DGLA, can kill human cancer cells. The study found that DGLA can induce ferroptosis in an animal model and in actual human cancer cells. Ferroptosis is an iron-dependent type of cell death that was discovered in recent years and has become a focal point for disease research as it is closely related to many disease processes.

Implications of this work: If you could deliver DGLA precisely to a cancer cell, it could promote ferroptosis and lead to tumor cell death. Also, just knowing that this fat promotes ferroptosis might also affect how we think about conditions such as kidney disease and neurodegeneration where we want to prevent this type of cell death.

DGLA is a polyunsaturated fatty acid found in small amounts in the human body, though rarely in the human diet. 

It was discovered that feeding nematodes ( Caenorhabditis elegans ) a diet of DGLA-laden bacteria killed all the germ cells in the worms as well as the stem cells that make the germ cells. The way the cells died carried many signs of ferroptosis.

Researchers also showed that DGLA could induce ferroptosis in human cancer cells. They also found an interaction with another fatty acid class, called an ether lipid, that had a protective effect against DGLA. When they took out the ether lipids, the cells died faster in the presence of DGLA. The study also demonstrated that C. elegans can be a useful animal research model in the study of ferroptosis, a field that has had to rely mostly on cell cultures.

Source:  Developmental Cell (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2020.06.019

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-fatty-acid-cancer-cells.html...

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-07-fatty-acid-cancer-cells.html...

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