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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 25, 2020 at 6:15am

Faulty brain processing of new information underlies psychotic delusions, finds new research

Problems in how the brain recognizes and processes novel information lie at the root of psychosis, researchers from the University of Cambridge and King's College London have found. Their discovery that defective brain signals in patients with psychosis could be altered with medication paves the way for new treatments for the disease.

The results describe how a chemical messenger in the brain called dopamine 'tunes' the brain to the level of novelty in a situation, and helps us to respond appropriately—by either updating our model of reality or discarding the information as unimportant.

The researchers found that a brain region called the superior frontal cortex is important for signaling the correct degree of learning required, depending on the novelty of a situation. Patients with psychosis have faulty brain activation in this region during learning, which could lead them to believe things that are not real.

"Novelty and uncertainty signals in the brain are very important for learning and forming beliefs. When these signals are faulty, they can lead people to form mistaken beliefs, which in time can become delusions.

In novel situations, our brain compares what we know with the new information it receives, and the difference between these is called the 'prediction error'*. The brain updates beliefs according to the size of this prediction error: large errors signal that the brain's model of the world is inaccurate, thereby increasing the amount that is learned from new information.

Psychosis is a condition where people have difficulty distinguishing between what is real and what is not. It involves abnormalities in a brain chemical messenger called dopamine.

Normally, the activity of the superior frontal cortex is finely tuned to signal the level of uncertainty during learning. But by altering dopamine signaling with medication, we can change the reactivity of this region. When we integrate this finding with the results from patients with psychosis, it points to new treatment development pathways.

Source: Molecular Psychiatry (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41380-020-0803-8

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-faulty-brain-underlies-psych...

* https://www.neuroscience.cam.ac.uk/research/cameos/DeludedBrain.php : Prediction error alludes to mismatches that occur when there are differences between what is expected and what actually happens. 

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 25, 2020 at 6:05am

New research reveals how water in the deep Earth triggers earthquakes and tsunamis

https://phys.org/news/2020-06-reveals-deep-earth-triggers-earthquak...

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https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-one-time-treatment-neurons-p...

One-time treatment generates new neurons, eliminates Parkinson's disease in mice

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https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1121900/

Funny science actually tested in a lab! (Farts) Flatus can cause infection if the emitter is naked, but not if he or she is clothed. Final conclusion? Don't fart naked near food. $$

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https://phys.org/news/2020-06-arctic-siberian-alarms-scientists.htm...

The Arctic is on fire: Siberian heat wave alarms scientists

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https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-blocking-unleash-immune-tumo...

Blocking a 'jamming signal' can unleash immune system to fight tumors

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https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-cancer-chemicals-complex-cel...

Cancer study shows how chemicals cause complex cell mutations

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https://theconversation.com/affluence-is-killing-the-planet-warn-sc...

Affluence is killing the planet, warn scientists

Affluence trashes our planetary life support systems. What’s more, it also obstructs the necessary transformation towards sustainability by driving power relations and consumption norms. To put it bluntly: the rich do more harm than good.

The most affluent are most responsible

The facts are clear: the wealthiest 0.54%, about 40 million people, are responsible for 14% of lifestyle-related greenhouse gas emissions, while the bottom 50% of income earners, almost 4 billion people, only emit around 10%. The world’s top 10% income earners are responsible for at least 25% and up to 43% of our environmental impact.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 24, 2020 at 9:48am

In many countries the coronavirus pandemic is accelerating, not slowing

https://theconversation.com/in-many-countries-the-coronavirus-pande...

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Preventing dangerous blood clots from COVID-19 is proving tricky

Anti-clotting medicines may help stem excessive blood clotting, but the best dose isn’t clear **

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/covid-19-coronavirus-preventing...

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https://www.asianscientist.com/2020/06/in-the-lab/volcanic-eruption...

Why Volcanic Eruptions Reduce Rainfall

The stronger the El Niño warming triggered by a volcanic eruption, the greater the subsequent reduction in global rainfall, researchers say.

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https://www.asianscientist.com/2020/06/in-the-lab/entanglement-base...

Quantum Satellite Sends ‘Secret Key’ Over 1,000km
They were able to exchange a cryptographic key over 1,000 kilometers, illustrating the possibility of a future global quantum communication network.

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** https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-ldquo-superspreading...

How ‘Superspreading’ Events Drive Most COVID-19 Spread

As few as 10 percent of infected people may drive a whopping 80 percent of cases, in specific types of situations

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 24, 2020 at 9:25am

Women Get Overmedicated Because Drug Dosages Are Determined By Tria...

Women end up being overmedicated because drug dosages are calculated based on studies predominantly conducted on men, new research has suggested. One direct implication of this, researchers say, is that women end up suffering from excess side effects.

Researchers from the University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley, analyzed 5,000 publicly available clinical drug studies and identified 86 drugs that reacted differently in men and women. These included common drugs such as aspirin, morphine, and heparin, and widely prescribed antidepressants such as sertraline and bupropion.

For all these drugs, researchers found, women metabolized them more slowly than men, ultimately resulting in higher levels of exposure to the drug and in 96% of cases, also in higher rates of adverse side effects such as headaches, nausea, bleeding, and seizures.

It has been common practice to exclude women from biomedical research and drug trials because it was believed that the influence of female hormones could complicate findings or interrupt study designs, an assumption that has been proven wrong multiple times. Therefore, a large proportion of studies underrepresent women and even if they get included, the data is not analyzed taking differences in sex into consideration. This leads to a problem in understanding how diseases, drugs, and vaccines affect men and women differently.

Source: Sex differences in pharmacokinetics predict adverse drug reactions ...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 24, 2020 at 9:16am

Biomedical researchers get closer to why eczema happens

One result of atopic dermatitis is a decreased level of skin oils known as lipids, particularly one group called ceramides. Lipids on the surface of the skin function to regulate hydration and also help defend the skin from foreign invaders either indirectly through immune signaling or directly through their inherent antimicrobial activity.

Another result of eczema is an increase in staph bacteria in the skin, which can cause irritation and infection.

Genetics can play a part in whether someone has eczema, but people in certain occupations have also been shown to be more likely to get the skin condition, such as healthcare professionals, metalworkers, hairdressers and food processing workers. The connection? An increased amount of handwashing or regular contact with detergents for your job.

"What happens if, either through a mutation or through occupational risks, there's a decreased presence of lipids on the skin? In normal, healthy conditions, bacteria do not penetrate the skin barrier. In atopic dermatitis conditions or lipid levels consistent with AD, it does -- and it consistently takes nine days.

Because the staph bacteria are immobile, they need to multiply in number to grow through the protective outer skin layer known as the stratum corneum. The  researchers believe the bacteria don't grow around the skin cells but actually through them. With lipid depletion -- either through genetics or occupational risks -- the skin appears to become more vulnerable to bacterial invasion and infection of underlying skin tissue.

When we usually think about the oils in our skin, we think about water retention and moisturizing -- things like that. Now researchers are looking at how these lipids are important for protection against these microorganisms that can come in and cause disease.

Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/21688370.2020.1754706

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 24, 2020 at 9:04am

Communicate from the start - The EU Guide to Science Communication

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 24, 2020 at 8:27am

Life in the galaxy: maybe this is as good as it gets?

Researchers have found that rocky exoplanets which formed early in the life of the galaxy seem to have had a greater chance of developing a magnetic field and plate tectonics than planets which formed later. As both these conditions are considered favorable to the development of life, this means that if life exists in the Galaxy, it may have developed earlier than later, and that planets formed more recently may have less chance of developing life.

Plate tectonics is important for habitability, and it looks like the optimum conditions plate tectonics existed for planets forming early in the galaxy's lifespan, and may be unlikely to easily recur. For life, maybe that was as good as it gets.

Plate tectonics act as a kind of thermostat for the Earth creating the conditions which allow life to evolve. The Earth has a lot of iron in its core, and we had assumed that this would be necessary for tectonic development. However we found that even planets with little iron may develop plate tectonics if the timing is right. This was completely unexpected.

The development of plate tectonics has a major knock-on effect. "Planets which formed later may not have developed plate tectonics, which means that they don't have this built in thermostat. This doesn't just affect the surface temperature, this means that the core stays hot, which inhibits the development of a magnetic field. If there's no magnetic field, the planet is not shielded from solar radiation, and will tend to lose its atmosphere. So life becomes difficult to sustain. A planet needs   to have the right position and the right geochemistry at the right time if it's going to sustain life.

Researchers know that the overall chemical balance of the Galaxy has changed over time for diverse reasons, such as material coalescing into stars and planetary bodies, or being expelled through supernova. This means that the interstellar material available to form planets is significantly different to that available in the early galaxy.

So the planets which formed earlier did so in conditions favorable to allow the development of life. These conditions are becoming increasingly rarer in our galaxy.

https://phys.org/news/2020-06-life-galaxy-good.html?utm_source=nwle...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 24, 2020 at 7:44am

Nanomaterials used as broad-spectrum antimicrobial agents for first time

In a significant breakthrough in the battle against antibiotic resistance, a research team from the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has synthesized a nanomaterial that mimics an enzyme and can disintegrate the cell membranes of a range of disease-causing bacteria.

Antibiotics typically work by interfering with the cellular activities of the bacteria. Over many generations, thanks in large part to misuse and overuse of antibiotics, several bacteria have developed resistance to antibiotics by producing their own enzymes that target the drugs.

The cell membranes of all organisms, including bacteria, have two layers of lipids containing phosphate molecules. "Phospholipid is an essential component of the cell membrane.

Therefore, the researchers decided to target these phospholipids with the help of nanomaterials that would break the bonds holding the membrane bilayer together. These nanomaterials are known as nanozymes. According to the authors, since the nanozymes directly target the chemical integrity of the phospholipids to destroy the cell membrane, bacteria are less likely to be able to develop resistance against them.

To develop this novel compound, the team synthesized a cerium oxide based nanozyme using what is known as a chemical co-precipitation method. In the next step, they carried out a reaction between cerium oxide and sodium polyacrylate in a basic solution to coat the nanoparticles with polymers. The polymer coating allows the nanozyme to disperse onto any surface or material and boosts its activity.

The nanomaterial was then tested in the lab on several potentially pathogenic bacteria such as Salmonella Typhi, Shigella flexneri, Escherichia coli, Vibrio cholerae and Klebsiella pneumoniae, which cause typhoid, gastroenteritis, dysentery, cholera and pneumonia respectively. What the team found was that the nanozyme stopped their growth and subsequently inhibited the formation of biofilm—a densely packed community of bacteria.nanomaterials were able to penetrate even a 10-day old, well-developed biofilm and showed anti-bacterial activity inside the biofilm because of their small size

 Kritika Khulbe et al. Nanoceria-Based Phospholipase-Mimetic Cell Membrane Disruptive Antibiofilm Agents, ACS Applied Bio Materials (2020). DOI: 10.1021/acsabm.0c00363

https://phys.org/news/2020-06-nanomaterials-broad-spectrum-antimicr...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 24, 2020 at 7:26am

Shock and kill approach: New drug candidate reawakens sleeping HIV in hopes of functional cure

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-drug-candidate-reawakens-hiv...

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https://phys.org/news/2020-06-janus-nanorods-pollutants.html?utm_so...

'Janus' nanorods convert light to heat that can destroy pollutants in water

With a new nanoparticle that converts light to heat, a team of researchers has found a promising technology for clearing water of pollutants.

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https://phys.org/news/2020-06-microscopic-wires-future-molecules.ht...

Microscopic computers: The wires of the future may be made of molecules

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https://phys.org/news/2020-06-fifty-photons-quantum-supremacy.html?...

Fifty perfect photons for 'quantum supremacy'

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**  https://phys.org/news/2020-06-volcanic-eruption-alaska-roman-republ...

Did a volcanic eruption in Alaska help end the Roman republic?

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NASA simulation shows kaleidoscope of sunsets on other worlds

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 24, 2020 at 7:19am

Immune system works differently between first and later pregnancies

A mother's immune system is altered during pregnancy to prevent a fetus from being rejected by the body. It is a delicate immunological balance that, if disrupted, could cause a miscarriage or multiple miscarriages. And unfortunately, that balance does too often become disrupted by environmental exposures or physiological changes leading to pregnancy complications.

Researchers now found that a woman's immune system behaves very differently between a first and second pregnancy. First and subsequent pregnancies work very differently and understanding these differences can lead to improved therapies that target the unique immunological perturbations that occur in first and later pregnancies.

The study shows the immune pathways that promote a healthy first pregnancy are not the same pathways that promote later pregnancies.

The authors discuss how pregnancy causes physiological exposure, and often re-exposure, to foreign fetal allo-antigens, which are expressed by the developing fetus. These allo-antigens interact directly with the mother's immune system. The consequences after pregnancy are highly varied, they note.

The researchers found evidence of both alloimmunization (where the immune system attacks) and expanded tolerance phenotypes where it does not. Their data show that pregnancy primes accumulation of fetal-specific maternal CD8+ T cells, and that mothers remember their babies immunologically in that these cells persists as an activated memory pool after she gives birth.

Expression to two proteins, PD-1 and LAG-3 by what are called memory T cells, reminds the cells to again be tolerant of the developing fetus again during subsequent pregnancies. But molecular disruptions that neutralize expression of these proteins unleash the activation of fetal-specific CD8+ T cells, causing miscarriage selectively during subsequent, but not first pregnancies, according to the study

Cell Reports (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2020.107784 , www.cell.com/cell-reports/full … 2211-1247(20)30764-6

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-06-immune-differently-pregnanci...

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