Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 28, 2024 at 8:07am

How much microplastic are you drinking? New tool can tell you in minutes

Micro- and nanoplastics are in our food, water and the air we breathe. They are showing up in our bodies, from testicles to brain matter. Now,  researchers have developed a low-cost, portable tool to accurately measure plastic released from everyday sources like disposable cups and water bottles.

The device, paired with an app, uses fluorescent labeling to detect plastic particles ranging from 50 nanometers to 10 microns in size—too small to be detected by the naked eye—and delivers results in minutes.

The method and findings are detailed in ACS Sensors.

The breakdown of larger plastic pieces into microplastics and nanoplastics presents significant threats to food systems, ecosystems, and human health.

This new technique allows quick, cheap detection of these plastics, which could help protect our health and ecosystems.

Nano and microplastics are byproducts of degrading plastic materials such as lunchboxes, cups and utensils. As very small particles with a large surface area, nanoplastics are particularly concerning to human health due to their increased ability to absorb toxins and penetrate biological barriers within the human body.

Detecting these plastics typically requires skilled personnel and expensive equipment.

They created a small, biodegradable, 3D-printed box containing a wireless digital microscope, green LED light and an excitation filter. To measure the plastics, they customized MATLAB software with machine-learning algorithms and combined it with image capture software.

The result is a portable tool that works with a smartphone or other mobile device to reveal the number of plastic particles in a sample. The tool only needs a tiny liquid sample—less than a drop of water—and makes the plastic particles glow under the green LED light in the microscope to visualize and measure them. The results are easy to understand, whether by a technician in a food processing lab or just someone curious about their morning cup of coffee.

To reduce plastic ingestion, it is important to consider avoiding petroleum-based plastic products by opting for alternatives like glass or stainless steel for food containers. The development of biodegradable packaging materials is also important for replacing traditional plastics and moving towards a more sustainable world, say the researchers.

Haoxin Ye et al, Cost-Effective and Wireless Portable Device for Rapid and Sensitive Quantification of Micro/Nanoplastics, ACS Sensors (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acssensors.4c00957

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 28, 2024 at 7:55am

The physics of paper cuts. Credit: Physical Review E (2024). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.110.025003

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 28, 2024 at 7:53am

Paper types ranked by likelihood of paper cuts

Via testing with a skin stand-in, a trio of physicists has ranked the types of paper that are the most likely to cause a paper cut. In an article published in Physical Review E, they tested the cutting ability and circumstances involved in paper cuts to compile their rankings.

Paper cuts occur through the handling of paper products. In addition to the nuisance factor due to the sudden flow of blood, there is also often a great deal of pain involved. In this new effort, the researchers noted that most research done on the topic revolves around infection factors. They chose instead to focus on the types of paper most likely to cause a cut, thereby allowing paper users a means to reduce their chances of an injury.

To test the cutting ability of different types of paper, the researchers used ballistics gelatin as a stand-in for skin. They then attempted to cut the gelatin using multiple types of paper. They noted the sturdiness and thickness of the paper, and the angles that were involved when cutting occurred.

The research team found that paper that was the most thin was unlikely to cause a cut because it tended to buckle instead. Also, thick paper rarely led to a cut because its surface was spread over too large an area. That left paper that is neither too thick nor too thin, like the kind that is used in newspapers or dot-matrix printers—the two types tied for the title "Most likely to cut skin."

Other culprits were Post-It notes, printed magazines and office paper. Some that were less likely to cut include tissue and photo paper. They noted that to cause cuts, the paper had to be angled slightly.

The researchers also noted that some papers, such as those used in dot-matrix printers, are exceptionally good at cutting. They proved this to be the case by connecting a small piece of it to a scalpel and using the results as a "papermachete." They found their little knife was capable of slicing through vegetable skin and even some meats.

 Sif Fink Arnbjerg-Nielsen et al, Competition between slicing and buckling underlies the erratic nature of paper cuts, Physical Review E (2024). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.110.025003

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 27, 2024 at 10:44am

The report said climate-driven disturbances are compounding the effects of other chronic damage to the reef from:

unsustainable fishing
pollution
sediment runoff
outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish.
Among other key findings of the report were that:

most populations of marine turtles have declined
species such as seabirds, sharks, rays, dugongs and seagrasses have recovered in some areas and plateaued or declined in others
populations of estuarine crocodiles are recovering
many species in declines are listed as threatened or protected.
Humanity must take urgent action to limit global temperature rise. But we are failing. We are failing the Great Barrier Reef and indeed, coral reefs across the planet.
2024 opens a new chapter for the reef. Future warming already locked into the climate system means that further degradation is inevitable. This is the sobering calculus of climate change.
Humanity has all the facts in front of us. Earth is in an uncharted time of very rapid change. If we don't respond, we will lose the Great Barrier Reef and corals across the world's oceans.

https://theconversation.com/humanity-is-failing-official-report-war...

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 27, 2024 at 10:42am

'Humanity is failing': Official report warns our chance to save the Great Barrier Reef is fast closing

The Great Barrier Reef will continue to deteriorate, largely due to climate change, and the window to secure its future is rapidly closing. That is the sobering conclusion of a major new report into the state of the reef.

The report was released by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority. It confirms what scientists have long known: humanity is killing the Great Barrier Reef, and other reefs around the world, by failing to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. 

Unless humanity takes dramatic action to halt climate change, we will lose the beautiful, complex reefs that have existed on Earth for millennia. As this latest report shows, even governments and officials now acknowledge this fact.

Warming oceans and severe tropical cyclones are compounding other threats such as crown-of-thorns starfish outbreaks, poor water quality and unsustainable fishing.

While recent recovery in some ecosystem values demonstrates that the reef is still resilient, its capacity to tolerate and recover is jeopardized by a rapidly changing climate.

Bleaching occurs when corals become so heat-stressed they eject the tiny algae living inside their tissues. These organisms give coral some of its color and help power its metabolism. In mild bleaching events, corals can recover. But in the severe events that are becoming more common, corals do not survive.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 27, 2024 at 8:39am

Qunnect's GothamQ loop demonstration was especially noteworthy for its duration, the hands-off nature of the operation time, and its uptime percentage. It showed, they wrote, "progress toward a fully automated practical entanglement network" that would be required for a quantum internet.

Alexander N. Craddock et al, Automated Distribution of Polarization-Entangled Photons Using Deployed New York City Fibers, PRX Quantum (2024). DOI: 10.1103/PRXQuantum.5.030330

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 27, 2024 at 8:31am

Test of a prototype quantum internet runs under New York City for half a month

To introduce quantum networks into the marketplace, engineers must overcome the fragility of entangled states in a fiber cable and ensure the efficiency of signal delivery. Now, scientists at Qunnect Inc. in Brooklyn, New York, have taken a large step forward by operating just such a network under the streets of New York City.

While others have transmitted entangled photons before, there has been too much noise and polarization drift in the fiber environment for entanglement to survive, particularly in a long-term stable network.

Now  this team's new network design, methods and results are published in PRX Quantum.

For their prototype network, the Qunnect researchers used a leased 34-kilometer-long fiber circuit they called the GothamQ loop. Using polarization-entangled photons, they operated the loop for 15 continuous days, achieving an uptime of 99.84% and a compensation fidelity of 99% for entangled photon pairs transmitted at a rate of about 20,000 per second. At a half-million entangled photon pairs per second, the fidelity was still nearly 90%.

The polarization of a photon is the direction of its electric field. (This may be easier to understand in the wave picture of light.) You're perhaps familiar with the phenomenon from polarized sunglasses, which are filters that let light from one polarization direction through but block others, thus cutting down on glare reflected off water, snow and glass, for instance.

Polarized photons are useful because they are easy to create, simple to manipulate (with polarized filters) and to measure.

They sent 1,324 nm polarization-entangled photon pairs in quantum superpositions through the fiber, one state with both polarizations horizontal and the other with both vertical—a two-qubit configuration more generally known as a Bell state. In such a superposition, the quantum mechanical photon pairs are in both states at the same time.
However, in optical cables, such photon systems are more prone to disturbances of their polarization by vibrations, bending and fluctuations in pressure and temperature in the cable and can require frequent recalibrations. Because these types of disturbances can be almost impossible to detect and isolate, let alone mitigate, the Qunnect team built automated polarization compensation (APC) devices to electronically compensate for them.

By sending classical, not entangled, photon pairs of 1,324 nm with known polarizations down the fiber, they could measure how much their polarization drifted or was modified. Polarization drift was measured at four transmission distances: zero, 34, 69 and 102 km, by sending the classical photons zero, one, two or three times around the metropolitan loop under the streets of Brooklyn and Queens. They then used the APCs to correct the polarization of the entangled pairs.
Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 27, 2024 at 6:25am

Autologous platelet-gel (APG) is the process of harvesting ones own cells (platelets), concentrating them most often through centrifugation, exposing them to an agonist which induces activation which releases intrinsic substances, and applying them to a target area to accelerate wound healing. APG is attractive because it concentrates a large number of biologically active substances, which are primarily proteins that participate in complex series of mechanisms involved in inflammation and wound healing. It has been used in numerous applications including sports medicine, dermatology, and surgery.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4813532/

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 26, 2024 at 10:49am

Thirty adults, aged 55–80, with a body mass index over 25, participated in the study. Participants took either DailyColors or a placebo for one week, then switched after a break.

During the placebo phase, a blood marker called CD38, which is linked to poor cell function and inflammation, increased. This didn't happen when participants took DailyColors. There was also a trend showing reduced oxidative stress (a process that can damage cells) after taking the supplement.

This nutraceutical clinical study highlights the strengths at King's in academic-industry collaborations, involving researchers from across four continents in nine institutions and two companies.
This study is the first to show that a novel supplement containing plant compounds found in the Mediterranean diet can alter blood biomarkers and epigenetic profiles that are associated with healthy aging.

In a follow-up study with 26 participants who continued to take DailyColors for a month, the study found changes in the way DNA is marked, which might slow down some of the negative effects of aging. Although the effects observed were minimal, the study suggests that DailyColors could help slow down certain aging processes. However, more extensive studies are needed to confirm these benefits.

The work is published in the journal Antioxidants.

 Joyce Ruifen Chong et al, A Randomised, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Cross-Over Clinical Trial to Evaluate the Biological Effects and Safety of a Polyphenol Supplement on Healthy Ageing, Antioxidants (2024). DOI: 10.3390/antiox13080995

Part 2

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on August 26, 2024 at 10:47am

Mediterranean diet supplement can affect epigenetics associated with healthy aging

As life expectancy increases, the attention and interest in safe and effective lifestyle interventions to promote healthy aging are growing rapidly. One of the elements explored is that of unhealthy diets, with poor nutritional value. Therefore, lifestyle changes which include dietary interventions could promote positive effects, and potentially reduce the risk of developing aging-related diseases.

Previous studies showed that phytonutrients, natural compounds found in vegetables, fruits and berries, support health and lower the risk of age-related conditions such as cardiovascular disease and dementia.

The Mediterranean diet is mainly based on abundant phytonutrients. The Mediterranean diet consists of olive oil as the primary source of fat, fresh fruit, low to moderate amounts of seafood, poultry, dairy products, wine and eggs. Sweets containing sugar or honey and red meat are consumed sparingly. Adhering to this diet could be protective against several conditions.

DailyColors is a dietary supplement designed to mimic the benefits of the Mediterranean diet by providing important nutrients found in fruits, berries, and vegetables. These nutrients, like Quercetin and Anthocyanins, are known for their potential health benefits, particularly in aging.

A collaborative study between the Center for Healthy Brain Aging at King's and Center for Age-related Medicine, Stavanger University Hospital, Norway, aimed to explore how DailyColors affects certain blood markers linked to aging and related diseases, such as how our cells produce energy, inflammation, and stress in the body.

The study also looked at changes in DNA methylation in saliva, which can provide indicators of biological aging.

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