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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 28, 2017 at 7:16am

WHO releases list of world’s most dangerous superbugs

For the first time ever, the World Health Organization has drawn up a list of the highest priority needs for new antibiotics.

The list, which was released 27th Feb., 2017, enumerates 12 bacterial threats, grouping them into three categories: critical, high, and medium.

The full list is:

Priority 1: Critical
1. Acinetobacter baumannii, carbapenem-resistant
2. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, carbapenem-resistant
3. Enterobacteriaceae, carbapenem-resistant, ESBL-producing

Priority 2: High
4. Enterococcus faecium, vancomycin-resistant
5. Staphylococcus aureus, methicillin-resistant, vancomycin-intermediate and resistant
6. Helicobacter pylori, clarithromycin-resistant
7. Campylobacter spp., fluoroquinolone-resistant
8. Salmonellae, fluoroquinolone-resistant
9. Neisseria gonorrhoeae, cephalosporin-resistant, fluoroquinolone-resistant

Priority 3: Medium
10. Streptococcus pneumoniae, penicillin-non-susceptible
11. Haemophilus influenzae, ampicillin-resistant
12. Shigella spp., fluoroquinolone-resistant

http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2017/bacteria-antibiot...

 

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 28, 2017 at 7:12am

A giant neuron found wrapped around entire mouse brain

3D reconstructions show a 'crown of thorns' shape stemming from a region linked to consciousness.

http://www.nature.com/news/a-giant-neuron-found-wrapped-around-enti...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 27, 2017 at 7:31am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 17, 2017 at 7:16am

When pollution becomes too high to negate the goodness of exercise? A disaster!

Air pollution is just one of the many crises we’re dealing with across the world. The health impact of air pollution continues to astound us and if you’re the health conscious sort, a new study is bound to upset you. It states that some cities are so polluted that 30 minutes of exercise does more harm than good.

The study was published in the journal Preventive Medicine and it used cycling as the sample activity to simulate exercise. The study assumed an average cycling speed of 12-14 kilometres an hour to check its impact on the body. The results are shocking.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0091743516000402

In north Indian cities such as Allahabad and Gwalior, cycling for more than 30 minutes is bad for health, the study said. In New Delhi, one hour is when the 'breakeven point' is reached. If PM2.5 levels are above a certain level, then any kind of outdoor activity could lead to serious health problems even without exercise. It's not hard to see why the effect will be severe on those who run or cycle outdoors in that kind of weather.

The study did use cycling as a way to measure impact of pollution on exercise but it says that the same numbers apply to similar activities such as slow jogging. If you are training for half marathon, you might want to consider alternatives such as training indoors. The report claims that breathing polluted air has been linked with heart disease, stroke, and even some cancers.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 16, 2017 at 7:32am

The threat of invasive species...

Invasive species can devastate ecosystems. They damage crops, clog rivers, threat native animals and cost farmers and homeowners billions of dollars to control each year. People aren’t the only ones suffering: The invaders have been linked to the decline of some four in every 10 endangered or threatened species.

 Since 1800, the rate at which alien species have been reported around the world has skyrocketed, with almost 40% of them discovered since 1970. Not all nonnative or “alien” species are a problem to a particular environment only those that adversely affect the environment, which are known as “invasive.”

Altogether, the scientists found 16,926 records of alien species of plant, mamm..., they report in Nature Communications.

http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms14435

The introduction of nonnative plants exploded in the 1800s thanks to the growth of globalized trade, and it has remained high ever since. Mammals and fish peaked around 1950. But other groups, including algae, mollusks, and insects rose steeply after 1950, thanks to climate change and the post–World War II wave of global trade. For those plants and animals that can easily stow away in the ballast of ships, there is a strong correlation between the spread of nonnative species and the market value of goods imported into each region.

How can we control them? Biosecurity and quarantine measures have worked for some more obvious taxa, so we know we can take actions that have positive outcomes. Conservationists hope that better awareness of the threats of species, coupled with improved global biosecurity, will continue to slow the spread of nonnative species. Some researchers predict the rate of spread will reach a saturation point before tailing off. Unfortunately, recent data suggest that may be a long way off.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 13, 2017 at 6:50am

New artificial pollinators!

With bee population getting dwindled in some areas of the world, pollination is becoming difficult endangering agricultural production. But now scientists have found a solution! 

Sticky, insect-sized drones could act as pollinators

Japanese scientists have developed tiny insect-sized drones coated with horse hair and a sticky gel that may help pollinate crops in future and offset the costly decline of bee populations worldwide.

The undersides of these artificial pollinators are coated with horse hairs and an ionic gel just sticky enough to pick up pollen from one flower and deposit it onto another.

“The findings, which will have applications for agriculture and robotics, could lead to the development of artificial pollinators and help counter the problems caused by declining honeybee populations,” said Eijiro Miyako, a chemist at the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST) Nanomaterial Research Institute in Japan.

“We believe that robotic pollinators could be trained to learn pollination paths using global positioning systems and artificial intelligence,” said Miyako.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 13, 2017 at 6:46am

LIGO Can Also Make Gravitational Waves

It's been almost a year now since the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) announced the greatest scientific discovery of 2016.

Though the first gravitational waves were actually detected in September 2015, it was only after additional detections were made in June 2016 that LIGO scientists finally confirmed that the elusive waves exist, solidifying Albert Einstein's major prediction in his theory of relativity.

Now, the most sensitive detector of spacetime ripples in the world turns out to also be the best producer of gravitational waves.

"When we optimise LIGO for detection, we also optimise it for emission [of gravitational waves]," said physicist Belinda Pang from the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena according to a report in Science.

Pang was speaking at a meeting of the American Physical Society last week, representing her team of physicists.

Gravitational waves are ripples that are produced when massive objects warp spacetime.

They essentially stretch out space, and according to Einstein, they can be produced by certain swirling configurations of mass. Using uber-sensitive twin detectors in Hanford, Washington, and Livingston, Louisiana, LIGO is able to detect this stretching of space.

Once they realised they could detect gravitational waves, the physicists posited that the sensitivity of their detectors would enable them to efficiently generate these ripples, too.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 3, 2017 at 6:48am

Health effects of long-duration spaceflight can have on the human body: A new study has found that space travel can change the volume of gray matter in different parts of the brain, which may be a result of fluids shifting due to a lack of gravity, and the brain working overtime to relearn the basics of movement in a strange new environment.

Humans evolved to thrive in conditions here on Earth, so it's not surprising that once taken beyond our home turf, we're subjected to a range of health issues. Without gravity constantly pushing down on the body, bones and muscles can lose mass over time, an issue that astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS) try to mitigate through rigorous exercise regimes. Cosmic radiation can also be a serious hazard once we leave the protection of the Earth's electromagnetic field, and early results from an ongoing NASA study has found that long stays in space can actually alter a person's DNA.

This new study, conducted by researchers at the University of Michigan, focused on the brain. The team took MRI scans of 26 astronauts – 12 of which stayed just two weeks as shuttle crew members, while the other 14 lived on the ISS for six months. In all cases, the volume of gray matter increased and decreased in different parts of the brain, and the longer the astronauts spent in space, the more dramatic those changes were.

Researchers found large regions of gray matter volume decreases, which could be related to redistribution of cerebrospinal fluid in space. Gravity is not available to pull fluids down in the body, resulting in so-called puffy face in space. This may result in a shift of brain position or compression. Fluid displacement due to a lack of gravity has been known to cause all sorts of health issues for space travellers, most notably blurry vision. But on the plus side, one of the most marked increases in gray matter occurred in the parts of the brain responsible for controlling and sensing the legs. This, the researchers propose, could be due to the fact that moving in zero gravity is a completely different experience to getting around on Earth, meaning the astronauts are essentially learning to walk all over again. The researchers aren't sure exactly what's going on in the brain when the changes occur, but it may be the result of neurons creating new connections. A follow-up study will examine what effects these changes may have on a person's cognition and brain function, as well as how long these changes may last after returning to Earth.

The research was published in the journal Nature Microgravity.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 31, 2017 at 8:14am

RNA clay offers green alternative to plant pesticides

• RNA clay is a promising non-GM technology that may replace pesticides

• Virus-specific RNA only kills the targeted pathogen when sprayed onto plants

• Several companies are already working on commercialising RNA clay

A nano-sized bio-degradable clay-comprising double stranded ribonucleic acid (dsRNA) could offer a cost-effective, clean and green alternative to chemical-based plant pesticides.
 
Australian researchers from the University of Queensland have successfully used a gene-silencing spray, named BioClay, a combination of biomolecules and clay, to protect tobacco plants from a virus for 20 days with a single application. Their study has been published in Nature Plants.
 
“When BioClay is sprayed onto a plant, the virus-specific dsRNA is slowly released from the clay nanosheets into the plant. This activates a pathway in the plant that is a natural defence mechanism. The dsRNA is chopped up into small bits of RNA by enzymes of this pathway. These small bits attack the virus when it infects the plant without altering the plant genome”. 

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on January 31, 2017 at 6:04am

Rising temperatures could boost toxic mercury levels in fish by up to seven times the current rates, say Swedish researchers.

They’ve discovered a new way in which warming increases levels of the toxin in sea creatures.

In experiments, they found that extra rainfall drives up the amount of organic material flowing into the seas.

This alters the food chain, adding another layer of complex organisms which boosts the concentrations of mercury up the line. The study has been published in the journal, Science Advances.

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