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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 6, 2014 at 9:20am

Oil Pollution is Making Gulf Dolphins Sick
http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/thoughtful-animal/2014/03/04/oi...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 6, 2014 at 9:19am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 6, 2014 at 7:33am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 6, 2014 at 7:30am

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 5, 2014 at 9:54am

Scientists have confirmed hot headed people with outbursts of anger are more prone to heart attacks, strokes and other cardiovascular problems in the two hours immediately afterwards.

Five episodes of anger a day would result in around 158 extra heart attacks per 10,000 people with a low cardiovascular risk per year, increasing to about 657 extra heart attacks per 10,000 among those with a high cardiovascular risk.

The Harvard School of Public Health researchers say the risk with a single outburst of anger is relatively low - one extra heart attack per 10,000 people per year could be expected among people with low cardiovascular risk who were angry only once a month, increasing to an extra four per 10,000 people with a high cardiovascular risk.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 5, 2014 at 9:49am

The pollution in the sea is taking a heavy toll on the marine life along the coast. Latest in the series of tragedies is death of the 14-foot-long dolphin that choked to death after swallowing plastic.

Prakruti Nature Club's Jignesh Gohil, who was present in the rescue attempt, said, "During the postmortem we found that the dolphin, which was about 20 years old, had died because of chocking. In autopsy, we found four thick plastic bags.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/wild-wacky/Dolp...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 5, 2014 at 9:44am

Immune cells undergo ‘spontaneous’ changes on a daily basis that could lead to cancers if they were not destroyed by our immune system, scientists have found.
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/abs/nm.3442.html
The research team in Australia found that the immune system was responsible for eliminating potentially cancerous immune B cells in their early stages, before they developed into B-cell lymphomas (also known as non-Hodgkin’s lymphomas).

This immune surveillance accounts for the surprising rarity of B-cell lymphomas in the population, given how often these spontaneous changes occur. The discovery could lead to the development of an early-warning test that identifies patients at high risk of developing B-cell lymphomas, enabling proactive treatment to prevent tumors from growing.

Dr Axel Kallies, the senior author of the study, said the discovery provided an answer to why B-cell lymphomas occur in the population less frequently than expected. “Each and every one of us has spontaneous mutations in our immune B cells that occur as a result of their normal function,” Dr Kallies said.

“It is then somewhat of a paradox that B cell lymphoma is not more common in the population.”

“Our finding that immune surveillance by T cells enables early detection and elimination of these cancerous and pre-cancerous cells provides an answer to this puzzle, and proves that immune surveillance is essential to preventing the development of this blood cancer.”

The research team made the discovery while investigating how B cells change when lymphoma develops.

“As part of the research, we ‘disabled’ the T cells to suppress the immune system and, to our surprise, found that lymphoma developed in a matter of weeks, where it would normally take years,” Dr Kallies said.

“It seems that our immune system is better equipped than we imagined to identify and eliminate cancerous B cells, a process that is driven by the immune T cells in our body.”

According to the scientists, the research would enable scientists to identify pre-cancerous cells in the initial stages of their development, allowing early intervention for patients at risk of developing B-cell lymphoma.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 5, 2014 at 7:33am

Jurassic park all over again?

Giant Virus Resurrected from 30,000-Year-Old Ice

The discovery of the largest virus yet, still infectious, hints at the viral diversity trapped in permafrost

scientists have revived a giant virus that was buried in Siberian ice for 30,000 years — and it is still infectious. Its targets, fortunately, are amoebae, but the researchers suggest that as Earth's ice melts, this could trigger the return of other ancient viruses, with potential risks for human health.

The newly thawed virus is the biggest one ever found. At 1.5 micrometers long, it is comparable in size to a small bacterium. Evolutionary biologists Jean-Michel Claverie and Chantal Abergel, the husband-and-wife team at Aix-Marseille University in France who led the work, named it Pithovirus sibericum, inspired by the Greek word 'pithos' for the large container used by the ancient Greeks to store wine and food. “We’re French, so we had to put wine in the story,” says Claverie. The results are published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Abstract: The largest known DNA viruses infect Acanthamoeba and belong to two markedly different families. The Megaviridae exhibit pseudo-icosahedral virions up to 0.7 μm in diameter and adenine–thymine (AT)-rich genomes of up to 1.25 Mb encoding a thousand proteins. Like their Mimivirus prototype discovered 10 y ago, they entirely replicate within cytoplasmic virion factories. In contrast, the recently discovered Pandoraviruses exhibit larger amphora-shaped virions 1 μm in length and guanine–cytosine-rich genomes up to 2.8 Mb long encoding up to 2,500 proteins. Their replication involves the host nucleus. Whereas the Megaviridae share some general features with the previously described icosahedral large DNA viruses, the Pandoraviruses appear unrelated to them. Here we report the discovery of a third type of giant virus combining an even larger pandoravirus-like particle 1.5 μm in length with a surprisingly smaller 600 kb AT-rich genome, a gene content more similar to Iridoviruses and Marseillevirus, and a fully cytoplasmic replication reminiscent of the Megaviridae. This suggests that pandoravirus-like particles may be associated with a variety of virus families more diverse than previously envisioned. This giant virus, named Pithovirus sibericum, was isolated from a >30,000-y-old radiocarbon-dated sample when we initiated a survey of the virome of Siberian permafrost. The revival of such an ancestral amoeba-infecting virus used as a safe indicator of the possible presence of pathogenic DNA viruses, suggests that the thawing of permafrost either from global warming or industrial exploitation of circumpolar regions might not be exempt from future threats to human or animal health.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/02/26/1320670111

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2014 at 9:10am

India is home to the largest number of bird species in the world. Preliminary findings of a recent global event — Great Backyard Bird Count — have put India on top of the list of 127 countries which sent their entries through pictures and videos.
In its report, 'Want to see a wide variety of birds? Head to India', the daily said, "India's emergence as a bird-watching hot spot underscores the rising worldwide popularity of the pastime." It put India on top with 765 species. The US came second with 637 species (till February 22).

The GBBC is jointly organized by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the National Audubon Society and the Bird Studies Canada. Though the US and Canada have been participating in the event since 1998, the first ever such 'global' bird count was organized in 2013 when participants from 110 countries sent their entries during February 15-18 last year.

Bird watchers from all seven continents had last year reported and documented 4,258 species from about 180 bird families. Mexico had topped the 2013 GBBC list with 645 species followed by the US (638), India (544), Costa Rica (508), Colombia (424), Australia (383), Panama (371) and Peru (325).

The second version of the global bird count, updated till February 28, however, showed that participants from 127 counties this time found 4,296 species with India reporting the highest number of 819 species followed by Mexico (683), USA (644), Costa Rica (609), Australia (501), Colombia (397), Panama (278) and Peru (138).

The event was launched in 1998 as the first online citizen-science project to collect data on wild birds and to display results in near real-time. Participants during the event period send snapshots of birds as their entries which are subsequently analyzed and documented by the organizers before displaying final results of the GBBC.

The participants will unite once again next year during February 13-16 to see how many of the world's 10,240 bird species can be found.

Final results of the four-day Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC), held between February 14 and 17, are yet to be announced but the data analyzed and updated till February 28 shows that the final order may not change India's position.

A US newspaper, The Kansas City Star, flagged the preliminary findings of the global bird count first on February 22.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 4, 2014 at 8:50am

Bio-batteries that run on sugar to power smartphones for 10 days
Scientists have developed a new battery that consumes sugar to generate electricity enough to power a smartphone for 10 days at a time.

The bio-battery designed by researchers at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University has a greater output per weight than the typical lithium-ion batteries used in most electronics.

The prototype version has the potential to be lighter and more powerful than the batteries typically found in today's portable electronic devices, including smartphones.

In the body, sugar is converted into energy in a process called metabolism, which decomposes sugar into carbon dioxide and water while releasing electrons.

Bio-batteries produce energy though the same conversion process by capturing the electrons that are generated in the decomposition of sugar with the same tools that the body uses.

As bio-batteries use materials that are biologically based, they are renewable and non-toxic, making them an attractive alternative to traditional batteries that need metals and chemicals to operate.

"By using the lithium-ion battery, for example, your phone can only last for one day, but in the future it will use sugar as the fuel then the phone could last 10 days," said Zhiguang Zhu, a researcher at Virginia Tech.

The new bio-battery gets its efficiency by using a novel system of enzymes, which are proteins that help the reaction to take place, Inside Science News Service (ISNS) reported.

The system uses two active enzymes that liberate two pairs of electrons from the sugar, while 10 other enzymes help to reset the reaction inside the bio-battery.

Once the reaction is reset, the active enzymes release another quartet of electrons.

After six cycles, the bio-battery extracts all of the energy bound in the sugar molecule, along with carbon dioxide and water.

The research was published in the journal Nature Communications.

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