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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 20, 2024 at 9:30am

They then used X-ray crystallography to investigate how certain drugs, including one published in Nature by the UIC/Harvard collaboration in 2021, circumvent this common form of bacterial resistance.

By determining the actual structure of antibiotics interacting with two types of drug-resistant ribosomes, the researchers saw what could not have been predicted by the available structural data or by computer modeling.

Cresomycin, the new antibiotic, is synthetic. It's preorganized to avoid the methyl-group interference and attach strongly to ribosomes, disrupting their function. This process involves locking the drug into a shape that is pre-optimized to bind to the ribosome, which helps it get around bacterial defenses.

It simply binds to the ribosomes and acts as if it doesn't care whether there was this methylation or not. It overcomes several of the most common types of drug resistance easily.

In animal experiments conducted at Harvard, the drug protected against infections with multidrug-resistant strains of common disease drivers including Staphylococcus aureus, Escherichia coli and Pseudomonas aeruginosa. Based on these promising results, the next step is to assess the effectiveness and safety of cresomycin in humans.

But even at this early stage, the process demonstrates the critical role that structural biology plays in designing the next generation of antibiotics and other life-saving medicines.

Elena V. Aleksandrova et al, Structural basis of Cfr-mediated antimicrobial resistance and mechanisms to evade it, Nature Chemical Biology (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41589-023-01525-w

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 20, 2024 at 9:27am

The antibiotic that evades bacterial resistance

Scientists have developed an antibiotic that could give medicine a new weapon to fight drug-resistant bacteria and the diseases they cause.

The antibiotic, cresomycin, described in Science, effectively suppresses pathogenic bacteria that have become resistant to many commonly prescribed antimicrobial drugs.

In developing the new antibiotic, the researchers focused on how many antibiotics interact with a common cellular target—the ribosome—and how drug-resistant bacteria modify their ribosomes to defend themselves.

More than half of all antibiotics inhibit growth of pathogenic bacteria by interfering with their protein biosynthesis—a complex process catalyzed by the ribosome, which is akin to a 3D printer that makes all the proteins in a cell. Antibiotics bind to bacterial ribosomes and disrupt this protein-manufacturing process, causing bacterial invaders to die.

But many bacterial species evolved simple defenses against this attack. In one defense, they interfere with antibiotic activity by adding a single methyl group of one carbon and three hydrogen atoms to their ribosomes. Scientists speculated that this defense was simply bacteria physically blocking the site where drugs bind to the ribosome, like putting a push pin on a chair.

But the researchers found a more complicated story, as they described in a paper published last month in Nature Chemical Biology.

By using a method called X-ray crystallography to visualize drug-resistant ribosomes with nearly atomic precision, they discovered two defensive tactics. The methyl group, they found, physically blocks the binding site, but it also changes the shape of the ribosome's inner "guts," further disrupting antibiotic activity.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 20, 2024 at 9:15am

Study discovers link between high levels of niacin and heart disease

Clinic researchers have identified a new pathway that contributes to cardiovascular disease associated with high levels of niacin, a common B vitamin previously recommended to lower cholesterol.

The researchers discovered a link between 4PY, a breakdown product from excess niacin, and heart disease. Higher circulating levels of 4PY were strongly associated with development of heart attack, stroke and other adverse cardiac events in large-scale clinical studies. The researchers also showed in preclinical studies that 4PY directly triggers vascular inflammation which damages blood vessels and can lead to atherosclerosis over time.

The study, published in Nature Medicine, also details genetic links between 4PY and vascular inflammation. The findings provide a foundation for potential new interventions and therapeutics to reduce or prevent that inflammation.

What's exciting about these results is that this pathway appears to be a previously unrecognized yet significant contributor to the development of cardiovascular disease. What's more, we can measure it, meaning there is potential for diagnostic testing. These insights set the stage for developing new approaches to counteract the effects of this pathway.

 Stanley Hazen, A terminal metabolite of niacin promotes vascular inflammation and contributes to cardiovascular disease risk, Nature Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-023-02793-8. www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02793-8

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 19, 2024 at 10:37am

Don’t let ‘FDA-approved’ or ‘patented’ in ads give you a false sense of security

"FDA approved"  means a product's benefits have been found to outweigh its risks for a specific purpose – not that it's of high quality or low risk in general.

But  advertisers throw these terms around in confusing ways.

Researchers, for instance, found an ad for a probiotic supplement stating, "The proof is in the patent"; an ad for an earwax removal product stating its "patented formula is safe, effective, and clinically proven"; and an ad for a headache remedy that made the words "FDA approved" a bold visual focal point.

And these terms appear most often in ads for things you eat or rub onto your skin, such as supplements, insecticides, toothpaste and lotions. That's probably no coincidence. Products like this aren't tightly regulated, yet consumers want to know they're safe. It seems likely that advertisers are name-dropping the government to make people think just that.

One danger is clear: Ads with vague references to government authorities could dupe consumers into thinking products are safer or more effective than they actually are. In fact, there's some evidence this is already happening.

Another risk is that this creates perverse incentives for business. Companies could chose to forgo actual innovation, focusing instead on securing dubious patents or regulatory nods to keep up in the advertising race.

These practices could distort competition, burden government agencies with frivolous patent applications and deter new entrants from competing in markets where they can't employ similar advertising tactics.

https://theconversation.com/dont-let-fda-approved-or-patented-in-ad...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 19, 2024 at 10:26am

New study on decomposing microbes could help transform forensic science

For the first time, researchers have identified what appears to be a network of approximately 20 microbes that universally drive the decomposition of animal flesh. The findings have significant implications for the future of forensic science, including the potential to provide crime scene investigators with a more precise way to determine a body's time of death.

Decomposition of dead biological material is one of Earth's most fundamental processes. Organic plant waste accounts for the vast majority of matter that is decomposed, a process that is relatively well understood. Comparatively little, however, is known about the ecology of vertebrate decomposition, including humans, and better understanding how humans decompose has the potential to advance forensic science.

This new study, a multi-year undertaking, involved decomposing 36 cadavers at three different forensic anthropological facilities.

The bodies were decomposed in different climates and during all four seasons. The research team then collected skin and soil samples during the first 21 days for each decomposing body.

Researchers generated a significant amount of molecular and genomic information from the samples. They then used that information to construct an overall picture of the "microbial community," or microbiome, present at each site. They are also collected other details like what microbes are there, how did they get there, how does that change over time and what are they doing.

Regardless of climate or soil type, researchers found the same set of approximately 20 specialist decomposing microbes on all 36 bodies. What's more, those microbes arrived like clockwork at certain points throughout the 21-day observation period, and insects played a key role in their arrival.

They saw similar microbes arrive at similar times during decomposition, regardless of any number of outdoor variables you can think of.

Identifying the decomposing microbiome's consistent makeup and timing has important implications for forensic science. So researchers built a tool that can accurately predict a body's time since death, also known as the postmortem interval.

 Jessica Metcalf, A conserved interdomain microbial network underpins cadaver decomposition despite environmental variables, Nature Microbiology (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41564-023-01580-y. www.nature.com/articles/s41564-023-01580-y

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 18, 2024 at 10:27am

https://youtube.com/shorts/OGsK_whhaeE?si=jxpopKFLQJmPw5aR

https://www.youtube.com/source/OGsK_whhaeE/shorts?bp=8gVDCjYSJwoLT0...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 18, 2024 at 8:15am

New theory for gravastars

The interior of black holes remains a conundrum for science. In 1916, German physicist Karl Schwarzschild outlined a solution to Albert Einstein's equations of general relativity, in which the center of a black hole consists of a so-called singularity, a point at which space and time no longer exist. Here, the theory goes, all physical laws, including Einstein's general theory of relativity, no longer apply; the principle of causality is suspended.

This constitutes a great nuisance for science—after all, it means that no information can escape from a black hole beyond the so-called event horizon. This could be a reason why Schwarzschild's solution did not attract much attention outside the theoretical realm—that is, until the first candidate for a black hole was discovered in 1971, followed by the discovery of the black hole in the center of our Milky Way in the 2000s, and finally the first image of a black hole, captured by the Event Horizon Telescope Collaboration in 2019.

In 2001, Pawel Mazur and Emil Mottola proposed a different solution to Einstein's field equations that led to objects that they called gravitational condensate stars, or gravastars. Contrary to black holes, gravastars have several advantages from a theoretical astrophysics perspective.

On the one hand, they are almost as compact as black holes and also exhibit a gravity at their surface that is essentially as strong as that of a black hole, hence resembling a black hole for all practical purposes. On the other hand, gravastars do not have an event horizon, that is, a boundary from within which no information can be sent out, and their core does not contain a singularity.

Instead, the center of a gravastar is made up of an exotic (dark) energy that exerts a negative pressure to the enormous gravitational force compressing the star. The surface of a gravastar is represented by a wafer-thin skin of ordinary matter, the thickness of which approaches zero.

Theoretical physicists Daniel Jampolski and Prof. Luciano Rezzolla of Goethe University Frankfurt have now presented a solution to the field equations of general realtivity that describes the existence of a gravastar inside another gravastar. They have given this hypothetical celestial object the name "nestar" (from the English "nested"). The study is published in Classical and Quantum Gravity.

The nestar is like a matryoshka doll. The solution to the field equations allows for a whole series of nested gravastars. It's a little easier to imagine that something like this could exist.

It's great that even 100 years after Schwarzschild presented his first solution to Einstein's field equations from the general theory of relativity, it's still possible to find new solutions. It's a bit like finding a gold coin along a path that has been explored by many others before. Unfortunately, we still have no idea how such a gravastar could be created. But even if nestars don't exist, exploring the mathematical properties of these solutions ultimately helps us to better understand black holes.

 Daniel Jampolski et al, Nested solutions of gravitational condensate stars, Classical and Quantum Gravity (2024). DOI: 10.1088/1361-6382/ad2317

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 17, 2024 at 9:41am

These microbes, or extremophiles, were found inside SURF located in the former Black Hills mining town of Lead, SD. The team has spent years hunting for these extremophiles that grow thousands of feet below ground inside water-filled rock fractures with unique properties that enable them to thrive in extreme environments.

Researchers were able to isolate four types of microbes found at SURF and show, through a series of laboratory experiments, that they can turn large quantities of carbon dioxide into rocks that will remain stable and out of atmospheric circulation for thousands of years. 

The findings may lead to new ways to permanently capture CO₂ emissions, reducing the impacts of climate change.

The team has presented this research at multiple scientific conferences in the United States and Europe, including the Dec. 2023 meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Chicago and the July 2023, Goldschmidt Conference in Lyon, France.

https://sanfordlab.org/article/university-researchers-discover-micr...

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 17, 2024 at 9:40am

Researchers discover microbes that turn CO2 gas into rocks in major advance for carbon sequestration

The microbes, discovered by researchers deep inside SURF, could help reduce carbon emissions.

At room temperature, carbon dioxide, or CO₂, is a gas, which makes it hard to store for long periods of time. One idea to reduce carbon emissions involves pumping this greenhouse gas underground into deep caverns or rock layers in a process called geologic sequestration.

When injected as a gas, CO₂ has the potential to leak back to the atmosphere. For example, if a geologic fault occurs or when there are changes in pressure following the initial pumping on the surface, stored gas will be looking for a way to escape.

To solve this problem, scientists are exploring efforts to bind CO₂ gas underground by pumping it into rock layers with specific geochemical properties that will dissolve the gas and turn it into a carbonate mineral in a process called in-situ mineralization. However, this process takes a long time, between 7 to 10 years, in nature. But an innovation discovered by researchers working at the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) could change this.

The team of researchers found a set of naturally occurring microbes inside SURF that eat carbon dioxide gas and turn it into solid rock through a process called carbon mineralization. 

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on February 17, 2024 at 9:36am

Earth Receives First Beams of Solar Power From Space!

For the first time ever, Earth has received a tangible zap of solar energy beamed directly from space, marking a historic moment in our quest for clean, limitless power thanks to the Space Solar Power Demonstrator (SSPD).

SSPD's MAPLE experiment has used a satellite called DOLCE and beamed 100 milliwatts of power from space, with 1 milliwatt reaching Earth — a small but mighty first step.

Unlike here on Earth, solar energy in space is unencumbered by factors like day and night, or obstruction by clouds and weather on our planet. This makes space-based solar harvesters ideal as they could potentially yield roughly eight times more power than even the most efficient solar panels on the Earth’s surface.

https://www.space.com/space-solar-power-satellite-beams-energy-1st-...

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