Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 6, 2025 at 9:26am

Top climate scientists declare 2C climate goal 'dead'

Pathetic! The world is failing to recognize this catastrophe, acting on the warning of climate scientists and stopping it. 

Holding long-term global warming to two degrees Celsius—the fallback target of the Paris climate accord—is now "impossible," according to a stark new analysis published by leading scientists.

Led by renowned climatologist James Hansen, the paper appears in the journal Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development and concludes that Earth's climate is more sensitive to rising green house gas emissions than previously thought.

Compounding the crisis, Hansen and colleagues argued, is a recent decline in sunlight-blocking aerosol pollution from the shipping industry, which had been mitigating some of the warming.

An ambitious climate change scenario outlined by the UN's climate panel, which gives the planet a 50 percent chance of keeping warming under 2C by the year 2100, "is an implausible scenario," the scientists say.

"That scenario is now impossible, the two degree target is dead."

Instead, the scientists argued, the amount of greenhouse gases already pumped into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels meant increased warming is now guaranteed.

Temperatures will stay at or above 1.5C in the coming years—devastating coral reefs and fueling more intense storms—before rising to around 2.0C by 2045, they forecast.

They estimated polar ice melt and freshwater injection into the North Atlantic will trigger the shutdown of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) within the next 20-30 years.

The current brings warmth to various parts of the globe and also carries nutrients necessary to sustain ocean life.

Its end "will lock in major problems including sea level rise of several meters—thus, we describe AMOC shutdown as the 'point of no return,'" the scientists argued in their paper.

The world's nations agreed during the landmark Paris climate accord of 2015 to try to hold end-of-century warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

Scientists identified the threshold as critical to preventing the breakdown of major ocean circulation systems, the abrupt thawing of boreal permafrost, and the collapse of tropical coral reefs.

The 1.5C target has already been breached over the past two years, according to data from the EU's climate monitoring system Copernicus, though the Paris Agreement referred to a long-term trend over decades.

At 2C, the impacts would be even greater, including irreversible loss to Earth's ice sheets, mountain glaciers and snow, sea ice and permafrost.

The authors acknowledged the findings appeared grim, but argued that honesty is a necessary ingredient for change.

Failure to be realistic in climate assessment and failure to call out the fecklessness of current policies to stem global warming is not helpful to young people," they said.

But is the world listening?

James E. Hansen et al, Global Warming Has Accelerated: Are the United Nations and the Public Well-Informed?, Environment: Science and Policy for Sustainable Development (2025). DOI: 10.1080/00139157.2025.2434494

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 6, 2025 at 8:27am

Compact camera can identify objects at the speed of light

Researchers recently  have produced some eye-popping research, including shrinking a camera down to the size of a grain of salt while still capturing crisp, clear images.

Building on this work they, published a paper in Science Advances that describes a new kind of compact camera engineered for computer vision—a type of artificial intelligence that allows computers to recognize objects in images and video.

Their research prototype uses optics for computing, significantly reducing power consumption and enabling the camera to identify objects at the speed of light. Their device also represents a new approach to the field of computer vision.

Instead of using a traditional camera lens made out of glass or plastic, the optics in this camera relies on layers of 50 meta-lenses—flat, lightweight optical components that use microscopic nanostructures to manipulate light. The meta-lenses also function as an optical neural network, which is a computer system that is a form of artificial intelligence modeled on the human brain.

This unique approach has a couple of key advantages. First, it's fast. Because much of the computation takes place at the speed of light, the system can identify and classify images more than 200 times faster than neural networks that use conventional computer hardware, and with comparable accuracy. Second, because the optics in the camera rely on incoming light to operate, rather than electricity, the power consumption is greatly reduced.

Kaixuan Wei et al, Spatially varying nanophotonic neural networks, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adp0391

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 6, 2025 at 7:15am

Kids use different math skills at work vs. school, India study shows

In India, many kids who work in retail markets have good math skills. They can quickly perform a range of calculations to complete transactions. But as a new study shows, these kids often perform much worse on the same kinds of problems as they are taught in the classroom. This happens even though many of these students still attend school or attended school through 7th or 8th grades.

Conversely, the study also finds, Indian students who are still enrolled in school and don't have jobs do better on school-type math problems, but they often fare poorly at the kinds of problems that occur in marketplaces.

Overall, both the "market kids" and the "school kids" struggle with the approach the other group is proficient in, raising questions about how to help both groups learn math more comprehensively.

For the school kids, they do worse when you go from an abstract problem to a concrete problem. For the market kids, it's the opposite.

Indeed, the kids with jobs who are also in school "underperform despite being extraordinarily good at mental math".

The paper, "Children's arithmetic skills do not transfer between applied and ac...," is published in Nature.

So why might the performance of the nonworking students decline when given a problem in market conditions?

"They learned an algorithm but didn't understand it!"

Meanwhile, the market kids seemed to use certain tactics to handle retail transactions. For one thing, they appear to use rounding well. Take a problem like 43 times 11. To handle that intuitively, you might multiply 43 times 10, and then add 43, for the final answer of 473. This appears to be what they are doing.

The market kids are able to exploit base 10, so they do better on base 10 problems.

The school kids have no idea. It makes no difference to them. The market kids may have additional tricks of this sort.

 On the other hand, the school kids had a better grasp of formal written methods of division, subtraction, and more.

Finding a way to cross the divide between informal and formal ways of tackling math problems, then, could notably help some Indian children.

The fact that such a divide exists, meanwhile, suggests some new approaches could be tried in the classroom, say the researchers.These findings highlight the importance of educational curricula that bridge the gap between intuitive and formal mathematics.

Now I know why I  get confused with calculations when I visit the markets.

Esther Duflo, Children's arithmetic skills do not transfer between applied and academic mathematics, Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08502-w. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08502-w

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 6, 2025 at 7:06am

Generally, things really do seem better in the morning, large study suggests

Generally, things really do seem better in the morning, with clear differences in self-reported mental health and well-being across the day, suggest the findings of a large study published in the open access journal BMJ Mental Health.

People generally wake up feeling in the best frame of mind in the morning, but in the worst around midnight, the findings indicate, with day of the week and season of the year also playing their part.

Mental health and well-being are dynamic in nature, and subject to change over both short and extended periods, note the researchers. But relatively few studies have looked at how these might change over the course of the day, and those studies that have, have included particular, or only small, groups.

The researchers therefore wanted to explore whether time of day was associated with variations in mental health (depressive and/or anxiety symptoms), happiness (hedonic well-being), life satisfaction, sense of life being worthwhile (eudemonic well-being) and loneliness (social well-being). They also wanted to find out if these associations varied by day, season, and year. They analyzed data from the University College London COVID-19 Social Study, which began in March 2020, and involved regular monitoring until November 2021, and then additional monitoring up to March 2022.

All studied aspects were measured via questionnaires using validated assessment tools or through single direct questions.

Analysis of the data revealed a clear pattern in self-reported mental health and well-being across the day, with people generally waking up in the morning feeling best—lowest depressive/anxiety symptoms and loneliness and highest happiness, life satisfaction, and worthwhile ratings—and feeling worst around midnight.

The influence of day of the week was less clear-cut, with more variation in mental health and well-being during weekends than on weekdays.

Happiness, life satisfaction, and worthwhile ratings were all higher on Mondays and Fridays than on Sundays, and happiness was also higher on Tuesdays. But there was no evidence that loneliness differed across days of the week.

There was clear evidence of a seasonal influence on mood, however. Compared with winter, people tended to have lower levels of depressive and anxiety symptoms and loneliness, and higher levels of happiness, life satisfaction, and feeling that life was worthwhile in other seasons.

And mental health was best in the summer across all outcomes. But the season didn't affect the associations observed across the day, however.

Mental health and well-being also steadily improved from 2020, the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This is an observational study, and as such, can't establish cause. 

Will things feel better in the morning? A time-of-day analysis of mental health and wellbeing from nearly 1 million observations, BMJ Mental Health (2025). DOI: 10.1136/bmjment-2024-301418

**

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 6, 2025 at 6:59am

The two OCD subtypes uncovered by the researchers are characterized by distinct patterns in gray matter volumes within specific brain regions. People in subtype 1 presented more gray matter in brain areas supporting decision-making (e.g., the frontal gyrus) and emotional processing (i.e., the amygdala).

In contrast, those in subtype 2 were found to present lower gray matter volumes in areas linked to self-referential thinking (i.e., the precuneus) and cognitive function (i.e., the striatum).

Notably, the newly unveiled subtypes were also found to be associated with different disease epicenters and distinct links to neurotransmitter receptors in the brain. This essentially means that the brain regions and receptors most affected by or implicated in the disorder also differed significantly between the two subtypes.
Subtype 1 showed disease epicenters in the middle frontal gyrus, while subtype 2 displayed disease epicenters in the striatum, thalamus and hippocampus," wrote the researchers. "Furthermore, structural brain abnormalities in these subtypes displayed distinct associations with neurotransmitter receptors/transporters."

The findings of this recent study could help to partially explain the differences between patients diagnosed with OCD that have often been observed .

 Baohong Wen et al, Individualized gray matter morphological abnormalities unveil two neuroanatomical obsessive-compulsive disorder subtypes, Translational Psychiatry (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41398-025-03226-5

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 6, 2025 at 6:57am

Gray matter study uncovers two neuroanatomically different OCD subtypes

Obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD) is a mental health disorder associated with persistent, intrusive thoughts (i.e., obsessions), accompanied by repetitive behaviors (i.e., compulsions) aimed at reducing the anxiety arising from obsessions. Past studies have showed that people diagnosed with OCD can present symptoms that vary significantly, as well as distinct brain abnormalities.

A team of researchers  recently carried out a study aimed at further exploring the well-documented differences among patients with OCD. Their findings, published in Translational Psychiatry, allowed them to identify two broad OCD subtypes, which are associated with different patterns in gray matter volumes and disease epicenters.

OCD is a highly heterogeneous disorder, with notable variations among cases in structural brain abnormalities.

The researchers recruited 100 individuals who had just been diagnosed with OCD for the first time and had not yet started treatment, along with 106 healthy individuals who received no psychiatric and medical diagnoses. They then used magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to collect to collect structural imaging scans of all the participants' brains.

Utilizing normative models of gray matter volume, the researchers identified subtypes based on individual morphological abnormalities.

Subtype 1 displayed significantly increased gray matter volume in regions including the frontal gyrus, precuneus, insula, hippocampus, parahippocampal gyrus, amygdala, and temporal gyrus, while subtype 2 exhibited decreased gray matter volume in the frontal gyrus, precuneus, insula, superior parietal gyrus, temporal gyrus, and fusiform gyrus," wrote the researchers in their paper. "When considering all patients collectively, structural brain abnormalities nullified."

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 5, 2025 at 1:00pm

Juicing may harm your health in just 3 days, study finds

Think your juice cleanse is making you healthier? A new  study suggests it might be doing the opposite. The study, recently published in Nutrients, found that a vegetable and fruit juice-only diet—even for just three days—can trigger shifts in gut and oral bacteria linked to inflammation and cognitive decline.

Scientists studied three groups of healthy adults. One group consumed only juice, another had juice with whole foods and a third ate only whole plant-based foods. Scientists collected saliva, cheek swabs and stool samples before, during and after the diets to analyze bacterial changes using gene-sequencing techniques.

The juice-only group showed the most significant increase in bacteria associated with inflammation and gut permeability, while the plant-based whole food group saw more favorable microbial changes. The juice plus food group had some bacterial shifts but less severe than the juice-only group. These findings suggest that juicing without fiber may disrupt the microbiome, potentially leading to long-term health consequences.

Most people think of juicing as a healthy cleanse, but this study offers a reality check, say the researchers.

Consuming large amounts of juice with little fiber may lead to microbiome imbalances that could have negative consequences, such as inflammation and reduced gut health.

Fiber matters

Juicing strips away much of the fiber in whole fruits and vegetables, which feeds beneficial bacteria that produce anti-inflammatory compounds such as butyrate.

Without fiber, sugar-loving bacteria can multiply. The high sugar content in juice further fuels these harmful bacteria, disrupting the gut and oral microbiome. The study also suggests that reduced fiber intake may impact metabolism, immunity and even mental health.

Unlike the gut microbiota, which remained relatively stable, the oral microbiome showed dramatic changes during the juice-only diet. Scientists found a reduction in beneficial Firmicutes bacteria and an increase in Proteobacteria, a bacterial group associated with inflammation.

This highlights how quickly dietary choices can influence health-related bacterial populations. The oral microbiome appears to be a rapid barometer of dietary impact.

So don't just drink juices, eat whole fruits and vegetables, with their fibre intact.

Maria Luisa Savo Sardaro et al, Effects of Vegetable and Fruit Juicing on Gut and Oral Microbiome Composition, Nutrients (2025). DOI: 10.3390/nu17030458

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 5, 2025 at 12:45pm

What is brown fat?

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 5, 2025 at 12:39pm

They used CRISPR to activate genes that are dormant in white fat cells but are active in brown fat cells, in the hopes of finding the ones that would transform the white fat cells into the hungriest of beige fat cells.

A gene called UCP1 rose to the top.

Then, the researchers grew UCP1 beige fat cells and cancer cells in a "trans-well" petri dish. The cancer cells were on the bottom and the fat cells were above them in separate compartments that kept the cells apart but forced them to share nutrients.

The results were shocking.
In their very first trans-well experiment, very few cancer cells survived.
The beige fat cells held sway over two different types of breast cancer cells, as well as colon, pancreatic and prostate cancer cells.

But the researchers still didn't know if the implanted beige fat cells would work in a more realistic context.
So, the scientists turned to fat organoids, which are coherent clumps of cells grown in a dish, to see if they could beat tumor cells when they were implanted next to tumors in mice.

The approach worked against breast cancer, as well as pancreatic and prostate cancer cells. The cancer cells starved as the fat cells gobbled up all the available nutrients.

The implanted beige fat cells were so powerful that they suppressed pancreatic and breast tumors in mice that were genetically predisposed to develop cancer. It even worked when the beige fat cells were implanted far away from the breast cancer cells.
When tested with removed cancer breasts, these same-patient beige fat cells outcompeted breast cancer cells in petri dishes—and when they were implanted together in mouse models.

Knowing that cancers have preferred diets, the researchers engineered fat just to eat certain nutrients. Certain forms of pancreatic cancer, for example, rely on uridine when glucose is scarce.

So, they programmed the fat to eat just uridine, and they easily outcompeted these pancreatic cancer cells. This suggests that fat could be adapted to any cancer's dietary preferences.
Fat cells have many advantages when it comes to living cell therapies.

Hai P. Nguyen et al, Implantation of engineered adipocytes suppresses tumor progression in cancer models, Nature Biotechnology (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41587-024-02551-2

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 5, 2025 at 12:34pm

Hungry fat cells could  starve cancer to death

Liposuction and plastic surgery aren't often mentioned in the same breath as cancer. But they are the inspiration for a new approach to treating cancer that uses engineered fat cells to deprive tumors of nutrition.

Researchers  used the gene editing technology CRISPR to turn ordinary white fat cells into "beige" fat cells, which voraciously consume calories to make heat.

Then, they implanted them near tumors the way plastic surgeons inject fat from one part of the body to plump up another. The fat cells scarfed up all the nutrients, starving most of the tumor cells to death. The approach even worked when the fat cells were implanted in mice far from the sites of their tumors. Relying on common procedures could hasten the approach's arrival as a new form of cellular therapy.

Doctors already routinely remove fat cells with liposuction and put them back via plastic surgery. These fat cells can be easily manipulated in the lab and safely placed back into the body, making them an attractive platform for cellular therapy, including for cancer.

Beige fat cells outcompete cancer cells for nutrients. That is why exposure to cold could suppress cancer in mice.

One remarkable experiment even showed it could help a patient with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Scientists concluded that the cancer cells were starving because the cold was activating brown fat cells, which use nutrients to produce heat.

But cold therapy isn't a viable option for cancer patients with fragile health.

So the researchers turned to the idea of using beige fat, wagering that they could engineer it to burn enough calories, even in the absence of cold, to deprive tumors of the fuel they needed to grow.

Part 1

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