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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 29, 2016 at 6:29am

The continuing promotion of cranberry use to prevent recurrent UTI in the popular press or online advice seems inconsistent with the reality of repeated negative studies or positive studies compromised by methodological shortcomings.

Cranberries Don’t Prevent Urinary Tract Infections

Many think the fruit raises urine acidity and has a bacteria-battling compound 

Over the course of a year, taking cranberry capsules did nothing to stave off urinary tract infections (UTIs) among older women living in nursing homes, a U.S. study finds. There was no significant difference in the presence of bacteriuria plus pyuria in those who took cranberry capsules and those who took placebo capsules, the researchers found.

Originally, it was thought that eating or drinking cranberry products increased the acidity of urine and prevented UTIs. There was also speculation that proanthocyanidin in cranberries prevented bacteria from adhering to the bladder wall.

The results were published online October 27th in JAMA to coincide with presentation at Infectious Disease Week.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 26, 2016 at 8:35am

A titanic volcano stopped a mega-sized earthquake in its tracks.

In April, pent-up stress along the Futagawa-Hinagu Fault Zone in Japan began to unleash a magnitude 7.1 earthquake. The rupture traveled about 30 kilometers along the fault until it reached Mount Aso, one of Earth’s largest active volcanoes. That’s where the quake met its demise, geophysicist Aiming Lin of Kyoto University in Japan and colleagues report online October 20 in Science. The quake moved across the volcano’s caldronlike crater and abruptly stopped, the researchers found.

Geophysical evidence suggests that a region of rising magma lurks beneath the volcano. This magma chamber created upward pressure plus horizontal stresses that acted as an impassable roadblock for the seismic slip powering the quake, the researchers propose. This rare meetup, the researchers warn, may have undermined the structural integrity surrounding the magma chamber, increasing the likelihood of an eruption at Aso.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/10/19/science.aah4629

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 26, 2016 at 8:30am

Scientists have found the first experimental evidence that an atomic nucleus can harbor bubbles. The unstable isotope silicon-34 has a bubblelike center with a paucity of protons. This unusual “bubble nucleus” could help scientists understand how heavy elements are born in the universe, and help scientists find new, ultraheavy stable isotopes.

In their quirky quantum way, protons and neutrons in a nucleus refuse to exist in only one place at a time. Instead, they are spread out across the nucleus in nuclear orbitals, which describe the probability that each proton or neutron will be found in a particular spot. Normally, due to the strong nuclear force that holds the two types of particles together, nuclei have a fairly constant density in their centers, regardless of the number of protons and neutrons they contain. In silicon-34, however, some scientists predicted that one of the proton orbitals that fills the center of the nucleus would be almost empty, creating a bubble nucleus. But not all theories agreed. “This was the reason for doing the experiment” .

In pursuit of the bubble nucleus, the scientists smashed silicon-34 nuclei into a beryllium target, which knocked single protons out of the nuclei to create aluminum-33. The resulting aluminum-33 nuclei were in excited, or high-energy, states and quickly dropped down to a lower energy by emitting photons, or light particles. By observing the energy of those photons, Sorlin and colleagues could reconstruct the orbital of the proton that had been kicked out of the nucleus.

The scientists found that they ejected few protons from the central orbital that theorists had predicted would be empty. While the orbital can theoretically hold up to two protons, it held only 0.17 protons on average. In silicon-34, the central proton density is about half that of a comparable nucleus, the scientists calculated, after taking into account other central orbitals that contain normal numbers of protons. (The density of neutrons in silicon-34’s center, however, is normal.)

As protons are added to nuclei, they fill orbitals in a sequential manner, according to the energy levels of the orbitals. Silicon-34 is special — it has a certain “magic” number of protons and neutrons in its nucleus. There are a variety of such magic numbers, which enhance the stability of atomic nuclei. A magic number of protons means that the energy needed to boost a proton into the next orbital is particularly high. This explains the bubble’s origin. For a proton to jump into the unfilled central orbital, it needs significantly more energy. So silicon-34’s center remains sparsely populated.  

It’s an interesting paper and indeed provides evidence for a bubble nucleus.  The research could help scientists understand the spin-orbit interaction, the interplay between a proton’s angular momentum in its orbital and its intrinsic angular momentum, or spin. The effect is important for keeping heavy nuclei stable. Figuring out the impact of that interaction in this unusual nucleus could help scientists better predict the potential location of the “island of stability,” a theorized region of the periodic table with heavy elements that may be stable for long periods of time.

A better grasp of the spin-orbit interaction could also help scientists learn how elements are forged in rare cosmic cataclysms such as the merging of two neutron stars. There, nuclei undergo a complex chain of reactions, swallowing up neutrons and undergoing radioactive decay. Modeling this process requires a precise understanding of the stability of various nuclei — a property affected by the spin-orbit interaction.

http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphys3916.html

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 22, 2016 at 1:30pm

Reading old books without opening them 

Scientists have devised a way to read without cracking a volume’s spine or risking paper cuts (and no, we’re not talking about e-books). The new method uses terahertz radiation — light with wavelengths that are between microwave and infrared waves — to view the text of a closed book. The technique is not meant for your average bookworm, but for reading rare books that are too fragile to open.

Barmak Heshmat of MIT and colleagues started small, with a nine-page book of thick paper that had one letter inked on each page. By hitting the book with terahertz radiation and looking at the reflected waves, the scientists could read the letters within.

Letters on pages 7 through 9 of a closed book are decoded using terahertz radiation. After isolating the reflected radiation from each page, the technique selects the frequency of radiation that provides the best contrast between ink and paper. An algorithm decodes the letters and then their locations inside the book. 

Differences in the way the radiation interacts with ink and paper allowed the researchers to pick out shadowy outlines of the letters, and a letter-recognition algorithm automatically decoded the characters. The scientists could tell one page from another by using precise timing information: On the later pages, the waves penetrated deeper before reflecting and, therefore, took longer to return.

Historians also may be able to use the technique to find an artist’s signature hidden beneath layers of a painting. 

http://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms12665

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 22, 2016 at 1:14pm

AT LEAST two trillion galaxies — 10 times more than scientists thought — exist within the observable universe. And we can’t even see most of them.

 

A group of international astronomers compiled 20 years of images from the Hubble Space Telescope and other international observatories to create a 3D model of the 200 billion galaxies already estimated to exist.

But the model instead revealed that there are at least one trillion eight hundred billion more out there. Only 10 per cent of these are visible to us even with our strongest telescopes.

“It boggles the mind that over 90 per cent of the galaxies in the universe have yet to be studied,” said Christopher Conselice, who led the study published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal.

Since the scientists were observing deep space, they essentially gazed 13 billion light-years into the past and discovered that the early universe contained more galaxies than it does today. Many of those galaxies have since merged to form larger celestial objects.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 22, 2016 at 1:02pm

Extreme microbes living in hostile locations on Earth may be munching on cosmic rays that zip through space, says a study of a peculiar bacterium thriving in a dark gold mine.

If there is an existence of life on other planets, say, Mars, it too may be feeding off of cosmic rays in order to survive, the new research suggests, as reported.

in Space.

 organisms that munch on galactic cosmic rays could even survive on rogue planets which are not bound to any star and drift throughout interstellar space.

Life on Earth relies primarily on light from the sun. Photosynthesis takes place in the presence of sunlight, which, in turn, supplies the energy and nutrients that are used by other organisms in order to survive. Still, in the absence of light, organisms can use other sources of energy, such as chemical energy or heat energy, as suggested by previous studies.

Prior researches have even shown that life-forms can feed off the ionizing radiation - which has sufficient energy to charge or ionize atoms from radioactive materials.

"Most research on ionizing radiation concerns its potentially harmful effects, such as damage to DNA," Atri told. "But a bacterium that is cut off completely from sunlight and the rest of the biosphere can survive completely off of ionizing radiation."

The galactic cosmic rays hold much higher energy than other radiation sources on Earth. When they strike the atmosphere or a planet's surface, they generate a gush of particles such as neutrons, positrons, and electrons along with the dangerous gamma rays. Atri said galactic cosmic rays could be found everywhere and they have an enormous amount of energy that helps them to penetrate even through the surfaces of planets.

Using computer simulations, Atri concluded that galactic cosmic rays could account for a steady flow of energy for organisms living underground. The energy flow might extend to potential life on other planets.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 22, 2016 at 12:57pm

To avoid distortion of facts, govt mulls grading science literature

In order to prevent distortion of facts and makescientific literature more credible, the Ministry of Science and Technology is considering a plan under which books related to science could be graded and validated by experts.

The experts will comprise scientists from several laboratories under the Ministry of Science and Technology, which has three departments and over 50 institutes researching on a wide range of topics.

The exercise would be voluntary and is aimed at making science literature more credible.

"We have realised that a lot of distortion takes place while presenting scientific facts and concepts. For example, we came across a book under which the concept of osmosis was fundamentally wrong.

"There are several such instances where facts are distorted," said Manoj Kumar Patairiya, Director of National Institute of Science Communication and Information Resources (NISCAIR).

NISCAIR, is an institute under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), a department under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Patairiya said scientific journals, newspapers and regular journals have some level of quality control but same is not the case when someone publishes a book on science.

Referring to new discoveries pertaining to the formation of universe and earth, Patairiya said, several books still carry the age-old concepts on how earth came into existence.

"At a time when we have a system of quality control for everything, then why not for science literature. The plan is to validate, accredit science books by a core team of experts. We have resources comprising experts from various institutes under the Ministry of Science and Technology.

"The publishers can approach us and we can vet the material before it goes for publishing. This move will also help the publishers and authors," Patairiya said.

He said NISCAIR is working on the plan and intends to start it by the next financial year.

"We are planning to start it for Hindi and English and extend it to other regional languages later," Patairiya said.

-PTI

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 6, 2016 at 7:15am

Molecular Machine-Makers get the 2016 Nobel Prize in Chemistry

A three people who built motors and devices a fraction the size of a human hair has set the stage for a new type of industry

Bernard Feringa, Jean-Pierre Sauvage and Sir J. Fraser Stoddart got it for building machines on the tiniest of scales—the nanometer scale, a thousand times smaller than the width of a hair, or a billionth of a meter. Molecular motors and elevators and muscles, and even miniature four-wheel-drive cars, were cited by the Nobel Committee as some of the inventions of the three scientists, who mastered construction techniques and the ability to create energy to make things move.

Nanoscale machines based on these design principles have already begun to shape the future of medicine - nanobots that can be sent through blood vessels and nanomaterials that can monitor vital organ health. 

 

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 5, 2016 at 6:10am

Strange phenomena explanations get Nobel Physics prizes

 The 2016 Nobel Prize for Physics went to work explaining the topological underpinnings of superconductivity and other strange phenomena.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016 was split, with one half going to David J. Thouless at the University of Washington, and the other half going to F. Duncan M. Haldane at Princeton University and J. Michael Kosterlitz at Brown University. The Prize was awarded for the theorists’ research in condensed matter physics, particularly their work on topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter, phenomena underlying exotic states of matter such as superconductors, superfluids and thin magnetic films. Their work has given new insights into the behavior of matter at low temperatures, and has laid the foundations for the creation of new materials called topological insulators, which could allow the construction of more sophisticated quantum computers.

Topology is a branch of mathematics that studies properties that only change incrementally, in integer steps, rather than continuously. 

This work “has told us that quantum mechanics can behave far more strangely than we could have guessed, and we really haven’t understood all the possibilities yet".

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on October 4, 2016 at 6:02am

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to pioneering work on autophagy

The 2016 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology was given to Yoshinori Ohsumi

 of the Tokyo Institute of Technology for basic research describing a fundamental housekeeping function of the cell—a process called autophagy. From the Greek for "self-eating," autophagy is the straightforward mechanism by which a cell digests certain large internal structures and semi-permanent proteins in a continual cleanup process. The process may have evolved as a response to starvation, in which cells cannibalized some of their own parts in order to continue living. But over the eons it has become an essential tool used by cells to maintain their own health, resist infection and possibly even fight cancer.

Autophagy is particularly important in cells such as neurons, which tend to live a long time and thus need to be constantly renewed and refurbished. The process takes place in the cytoplasm, the jelly-like fluid that fills the cell outside the nucleus. The workings of the cytoplasm are so complex . . . that it is constantly becoming gummed up with the detritus of its ongoing operations. Autophagy is, in part, a cleanup process: the trash hauling that enables a cell whose cytoplasm is clotted with old bits of protein and other unwanted sludge to be cleaned out." Problems with autophagy may contribute to neuronal damage in Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Ohsumi chose the transport of materials to the yeast vacuoles as his research project and got several awards for his pioneering work. Autophagy is fundamental to a cell's continued good health and have even specialized in describing particular types of autophagy—such as the digestion and degradation of worn-out mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell) and the endoplasmic reticulum, which assembles, folds and delivers proteins to the rest of the cell.

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