Cancer treatment clears two Australian patients of HIV

Patients' virus levels became undetectable after bone-marrow therapy with stem cells.
http://www.nature.com/news/cancer-treatment-clears-two-australian-p...

Cheap Nasal Spray May Save Snakebite Victims
A novel, nasal spray-based approach may help reduce the toll, according to researchers.
A team of researchers, led by Matthew Lewin, from the California Academy of Sciences, United States, and Stephen Samuel, from Trinity College Dublin in Ireland, says a simple nasal spray containing a substance called neostigmine can reduce snakebite fatalities.

“It would be one ingredient primarily directed against rapid onset paralysis—one of the causes of fast death following snakebite,” Lewin tells SciDev.Net. “It is inexpensive and available everywhere in the world.”

If combined with atropine, a substance that is absorbed through the nose, neostigmine would have few ill effects, according to Lewin.

The team tested the nasal spray on mice injected with fatal doses of venom from the Indian cobra. Mice treated with the spray outlived those that were not given it and, in many cases, survived, according to a study they published in the Journal of Tropical Medicine.
The nasally administrated drug is an alternative to antivenoms, Lewin says. He argues that, besides being expensive, antivenoms can vary in effectiveness depending on factors including the snake’s diet, the time of year and the geographic location.

Furthermore, a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences last month reports that it may be harder than originally thought to develop an antivenom that works against many snakebites.

“We discovered that the genetics of the animals can be very similar, yet their venoms very different,” the lead author, Nicholas Casewell, from Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, United Kingdom.
Using six related snakes—the Saharan horned viper, the puff adder and four species of saw-scaled vipers—Casewell and colleagues discovered that various genetic regulatory processes act at different stages of toxin production.

These processes result in major differences in toxin composition, and these different toxins cause different pathologies or levels of toxicity when they are injected, and they also undermine antivenom treatment.
There are about 500 species of dangerous, venomous snakes worldwide.
Antivenom is necessary, but not sufficient to manage this problem. Its limitations are fairly well known at this point and we need a better bridge to survival.

The nasal spray could be a cheap, fast and easy method to treat the paralysis caused by snakebites.
In 2013, to see if neostigmine could be absorbed through the human nose, Lewin tried the spray on himself, after being infused with a drug to induce awake paralysis in a manner similar to cobra venom. He made a completely recovery in a little over two hours, as described in Clinical Case Reports. Clinical trials of the spray are now planned in India.
http://www.hindawi.com/journals/jtm/2014/131835/

Parts of the primordial soup in which life arose have been maintained in our cells today according to scientists at the University of East Anglia. Research published today in the Journal of Biological Chemistry reveals how cells in plants, yeast and very likely also in animals still perform ancient reactions thought to have been responsible for the origin of life -- some four billion years ago.
The new research shows how small pockets of a cell -- known as mitochondria -- continue to perform similar reactions in our bodies today. These reactions involve iron, sulfur and electro-chemistry and are still important for functions such as respiration in animals and photosynthesis in plants.
For example small pockets of a cell called mitochondria deal with electrochemistry and also with toxic sulfur metabolism. These are very ancient reactions thought to have been important for the origin of life.

The new research has shown that a toxic sulfur compound is being exported by a mitochondrial transport protein to other parts of the cell. We need sulfur for making iron-sulfur catalysts, again a very ancient chemical process.

The work shows that parts of the primordial soup in which life arose has been maintained in our cells today, and is in fact harnessed to maintain important biological reactions.
The research was carried out at UEA and JIC in collaboration with Dr Hendrik van Veen at the University of Cambridge.
Source: http://www.uea.ac.uk/mac/comm/media/press/2014/July/primordial-soup

Not enough funding for basic science in India: Kalam (Scientist and former President of India)
He called for 'big' investment to promote researches in higher education
Former President A P J Abdul Kalam today said there is not enough funding for basic science in India and called for 'big' investment to promote researches in higher education.

"There is not enough funding for basic sciences in India. We have to invest in a big way and I am pushing that idea," Kalam told PTI on the sidelines of a lecture at the IIM-Shillong here.
- PTI

Carbs and gut microbes fuel colon cancer
Sugar-loving bacteria support the emergence of tumors in mice
http://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674%2814%2900736-3

Gut Microbial Metabolism Drives Transformation of Msh2-Deficient Colon Epithelial Cells
The etiology of colorectal cancer (CRC) has been linked to deficiencies in mismatch repair and adenomatous polyposis coli (APC) proteins, diet, inflammatory processes, and gut microbiota. However, the mechanism through which the microbiota synergizes with these etiologic factors to promote CRC is not clear. We report that altering the microbiota composition reduces CRC in APCMin/+MSH2−/− mice, and that a diet reduced in carbohydrates phenocopies this effect. Gut microbes did not induce CRC in these mice through an inflammatory response or the production of DNA mutagens but rather by providing carbohydrate-derived metabolites such as butyrate that fuel hyperproliferation of MSH2−/− colon epithelial cells. Further, we provide evidence that the mismatch repair pathway has a role in regulating β-catenin activity and modulating the differentiation of transit-amplifying cells in the colon. These data thereby provide an explanation for the interaction between microbiota, diet, and mismatch repair deficiency in CRC induction.

•Gut microbiota induce colon cancer in genetically sensitized MSH2-deficient mice
•Reduced dietary carbohydrates decreased polyp frequency in APCMin/+MSH2−/− mice
•The carbohydrate metabolite butyrate induces colon cancer in APCMin/+MSH2−/− mice
•MSH2 regulates β-catenin activity and/or transit-amplifying cell differentiation

Swimmers have to be careful about not only the infections they get from bacteria and virus but also harm caused by brain eating amoeba  Naegleria fowleri that dwells in dwells in warm freshwater lakes and rivers and usually targets children and young adults. Once in the brain it causes a swelling called primary meningoencephalitis. The infection is almost universally fatal.

The amoeba has strategies to evade the immune system, and treatment options are meager partly because of how fast the infection progresses.

But research suggests that the infection can be stopped if it is caught soon enough. So what happens during an N. fowleri infection?

The microscopic amoebae, which can be suspended in water or nestled in soil, enter the body when water goes up the nose. After attaching to the mucous membranes in the nasal cavity, N. fowleri burrows into the olfactory nerve, the structure that enables our sense of smell and leads directly to the brain. It probably takes more than a drop of liquid to trigger a Naegleria infection; infections usually occur in people who have been engaging in water sports or other activities that may forcefully suffuse the nose with lots of water—diving, waterskiing, wakeboarding, and in one case a baptism dunking.

It turns out that "brain eating" is actually a pretty accurate description for what the amoeba does. After reaching the olfactory bulbs, N. fowleri feasts on the tissue there using suction-cup-like structures on its surface. This destruction leads to the first symptoms—loss of smell and taste—about five days after the infection sets in.

From there the organisms move to the rest of the brain, first gobbling up the protective covering that surrounds the central nervous system. When the body notices that something is wrong, it sends immune cells to combat the infection, causing the surrounding area to become inflamed. It is this inflammation, rather than the loss of brain tissue, that contributes most to the early symptoms of headache, nausea, vomiting and stiff neck. Neck stiffness in particular is attributable to the inflammation, as the swelling around the spinal cord makes it impossible to flex the muscles.

As N. fowleri consumes more tissue and penetrates deeper into the brain, the secondary symptoms set in. They include delirium, hallucinations, confusion and seizures. The frontal lobes of the brain, which are associated with planning and emotional control, tend to be affected most because of the path the olfactory nerve takes. But after that there’s kind of no rhyme or reason—all of the brain can be affected as the infection progresses.

Ultimately what causes death is not the loss of grey matter but the extreme pressure in the skull from the inflammation and swelling related to the body’s fight against the infection. Increasing pressure forces the brain down into where the brain stem meets the spinal cord, eventually severing the connection between the two. Most patients die from the resulting respiratory failure less than two weeks after symptoms begin.

- SA

Depleted Uranium Could Turn Carbon Dioxide into Valuable Chemicals
New reactions could convert excessive CO2 into building blocks for materials like nylon
European scientists have synthesised uranium complexes that take them a step closer to producing commodity chemicals from carbon dioxide.
http://www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/2014/07/uranium-carbon-dioxide-ox...

Observation of a quantum Cheshire Cat in a matter-wave interferometer experiment

Abstract:

From its very beginning, quantum theory has been revealing extraordinary and counter-intuitive phenomena, such as wave-particle duality, Schrödinger cats and quantum non-locality. Another paradoxical phenomenon found within the framework of quantum mechanics is the ‘quantum Cheshire Cat’: if a quantum system is subject to a certain pre- and postselection, it can behave as if a particle and its property are spatially separated. It has been suggested to employ weak measurements in order to explore the Cheshire Cat’s nature. Here  scientists report an experiment in which they send neutrons through a perfect ​silicon crystal interferometer and perform weak measurements to probe the location of the particle and its magnetic moment. The experimental results suggest that the system behaves as if the neutrons go through one beam path, while their magnetic moment travels along the other.

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/140729/ncomms5492/full/ncomms5492...

The phenomenon is named after the curious feline in Alice in Wonderland, who vanishes leaving only its grin.

Researchers took a beam of neutrons and separated them from their magnetic moment, like passengers and their baggage at airport security.

The same separation trick could in principle be performed with any property of any quantum object, say researchers from Vienna University of Technology.

Their technique could have a useful application in metrology - helping to filter out disturbances during high-precision measurements of quantum systems.

In Australia, money for science is cut, money for religious programs increased
http://doubtfulnews.com/2014/07/in-australia-money-for-science-is-c...

New blood test could detect cancer early

British scientists claim they’ve developed a simple blood test that could detect cancer and prompt early, life-saving measures.

The tests are aimed at analyzing white blood cell which are “under stress” when there’s cancer or precancerous growth in the body, researchers wrote in the journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology.

“We know that they are under stress when they are fighting cancer or other diseases, so I wondered whether anything measurable could be seen if we put them under further stress with UVA light,” according to lead researcher Diana Anderson, from the University of Bradford’s School of Life Sciences.

“We found that people with cancer have DNA which is more easily damaged by ultraviolet light than other people.”

The Lymphocyte Genome Sensitivity (LGS) tests looked at blood samples from 208 people — including healthy university staff and students and patients at the Bradford Royal Infirmary.

UVA light was shined on all blood samples, and DNA damage perfectly correlated to conditions of each subject, according to researchers.

The 58 subjects with the most damaged DNA samples turned out to be cancer patients, while 56 with precancerous conditions showed moderate DNA damage, researchers said.

The 94 cancer-free samples similarly showed minimal DNA damage after being exposed to UVA light, according to findings.

Scientists have developed nanomaterials capable of simultaneous photodynamic therapy and photothermal therapy to treat tumors. When illuminated under specific wavelengths, these nanomaterials are able to produce reactive oxygen species and heat at the same time, killing tumor cells. This research has been published in the journal Advanced Materials.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1002/adma.201400703/
Gold nanoechinus can sensitize formation of singlet oxygen in the first and the second near-infra red (NIR) biological windows and exert in vivo dual modal photodynamic (PDT) and photothermal therapeutic effects (PDT) to destruct the tumors completely. This is the first literature example of the dual modal nanomaterial-mediated photodynamic and photothermal therapy (NmPDT & NmPTT) induced destruction of tumors in NIR window II.

Two men who were HIV-positive appear to have cleared the virus, registering undetectable levels after bone marrow transplants in Sydney. The research was presented at the Towards an HIV Cure Symposium, which is part of the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne.
https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/sites/default/files/documents/Abstract...

Bio-degradable plastic from rice starch:

Researchers in Finland have transformed rice starch into a temporally stable, optically transpa... with a high degree of mechanical strength and good thermal resistance. This important step towards bioplastics made from simple and sustainable resources has potential applications in food packaging and biomedical materials.

http://pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/ArticleLanding/2014/GC/c4gc00794h#!divAbstract

A virus that lives in the human gut has just been discovered, and to the surprise of scientists, it can be found in about half the world's population, according to a new study.
The new virus, which the researchers have named crAssphage, is a type of virus known as a bacteriophage that infects bacteria.
While it's not yet clear exactly what the virus does, scientists are eager to find out whether it promotes health or influences susceptibility to certain conditions.
The study is published on July 24, 2014 in the journal Nature Communications.

Vision-correcting display
UC Berkeley computer and vision scientists are developing computer algorithms to compensate for an individual's visual impairment, and creating vision-correcting displays that enable users to see text and images clearly without wearing eyeglasses or contact lenses. The technology could potentially help hundreds of millions of people who currently need corrective lenses to use their smartphones, tablets and computers. One common problem, for example, is presbyopia, a type of farsightedness in which the ability to focus on nearby objects is gradually diminished as the aging eyes' lenses lose elasticity.

More importantly, the displays could one day aid people with more complex visual problems, known as high order aberrations, which cannot be corrected by eyeglasses, said Brian Barsky, UC Berkeley professor of computer science and vision science, and affiliate professor of optometry.

Pune's landslide : what the environmentalists say:
Environmentalists have expressed concern over the uncontrolled deforestation of private forests in southern Maharashtra. They said the trend of hilltop farming, developing farm houses, roads, installing wind mills and mining is causing deforestation in Kolhapur, Sangli and Satara districts.
Experts have also said that razing tree cover in the Sahyadri mountain ranges will invite landslides in southern Maharashtra.
A disaster like the massive landslide that buried Malin village in Pune district on Wednesday is waiting to happen in the region if forests are repeatedly encroached up, warned people who have been working towards protecting the environment for more than two decades.

landslide in Maharashtra's Ambegaon and last year's flash floods and landslides in Uttarakhand may in reality indicate a trend likely to recur across the country - as over the years huge tracts of 'dense' forests having the capacity to hold soil and protect slopes have been lost.

Most of the increase in forest cover has been in 'open forest area'. This is non-dense forest, barely enough to be considered a green patch that may reap ecological benefits decades later.  Environmentalists call it a recipe for disaster as India keeps clearing 'dense' forest cover having the capacity to hold soil/ protect the slopes for various projects.

Life-Threatening Events During Endurance Sports : Is Heat Stroke More Prevalent Than Arrhythmic Death?

A study was conducted

Overall, 137,580 runners participated in long distance races during the study period. There were only 2 serious cardiac events (1 myocardial infarction and 1 hypotensive supraventricular tachyarrhythmia), neither of which were fatal or life threatening. In contrast, there were 21 serious cases of heat stroke, including 2 that were fatal and 12 that were life threatening. One of the heat stroke fatalities presented with cardiac arrest without previous warning.

In the study cohort of athletes participating in endurance sports, for every serious cardiac adverse event, there were 10 serious events related to heat stroke. One of the heat stroke–related fatalities presented with unheralded cardiac arrest. The results put in a different perspective the ongoing debate about the role of pre-participation electrocardiographic screening for the prevention of sudden death in athletes.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0735109714027533

Elaborate visual and acoustic signals evolve independently in a large, phenotypically diverse radiation of songbirds

Abstract of a study:

The concept of a macroevolutionary trade-off among sexual signals has a storied history in evolutionary biology. Theory predicts that if multiple sexual signals are costly for males to produce or maintain and females prefer a single, sexually selected trait, then an inverse correlation between sexual signal elaborations is expected among species. However, empirical evidence for what has been termed the ‘transfer hypothesis’ is mixed, which may reflect different selective pressures among lineages, evolutionary covariates or methodological differences among studies. Here, we examine interspecific correlations between song and plumage elaboration in a phenotypically diverse, widespread radiation of songbirds, the tanagers. The tanagers (Thraupidae) are the largest family of songbirds, representing nearly 10% of all songbirds. We assess variation in song and plumage elaboration across 301 species, representing the largest scale comparative study of multimodal sexual signalling to date. The researchers consider whether evolutionary covariates, including habitat, structural and carotenoid-based coloration, and subfamily groupings influence the relationship between song and plumage elaboration. They find that song and plumage elaboration are uncorrelated when considering all tanagers, although the relationship between song and plumage complexity varies among subfamilies. Taken together, they find that elaborate visual and vocal sexual signals evolve independently among tanagers.
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/281/1788/20140967.ab...

Right to Research Foundation to promote Indian researchers started by scientists

A group of scientists and academicians have started the Right to Research (R2R) Foundation to support foreign-educated and trained Indian researchers to help them find suitable jobs, upon their return to the country.

To start with, R2R Foundation has set up dry lab facilities, to engage around 25 researchers. The researchers will be engaged in research thought process across inter-disciplines, and find good avenues in India

India 's First Ocean Moored Observatory in Arctic
In a big boost to India’s scientific endeavours in the Arctic region, a team of scientists have successfully deployed IndARC, the country’s first multi-sensor moored observatory in the North Pole, which will provide for an increased understanding of the response of the Arctic to climatic variabilities and their influence on the Indian Monsoon system.

Designed and developed by scientists from the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR) and National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT), the observatory has been deployed in the Kongsfjorden fjord of the Arctic, roughly halfway between Norway and the North Pole. It was deployed from the Norwegian Polar Institute’s research vessel R V Lance.

The observatory is presently anchored about 1,100 km away from the North Pole at a depth of 192 m and has an array of ten state-of-the-art oceanographic sensors strategically positioned at discrete depths in the water column. These sensors are programmed to collect real-time data on seawater temperature, salinity, current and other vital parameters of the fjord.

According to the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the data acquired would be of vital importance to the Indian climate researchers as well as to the international fraternity. In addition to providing for an increased understanding of the response of the Arctic to climatic variabilities, the data would also provide a good handle in our understanding of the Arctic processes and their influence on the Indian monsoon system through climate modelling studies.

The Kongsfjorden is an established reference site for the Arctic marine studies and has been considered as a natural laboratory for studying the Arctic climate variability, as it receives varying climatic signals from the Arcitc/Atlantic in the course of an annual seasonal cycle. “India has been continuously monitoring the Kongsfjorden since 2010 for understanding response of the fjord to climate variability at different time scales. The temperature and salinity profiles of the fjord, water column nutrients and diversity of biota are being monitored throughout the spring-summer-fall seasons,” a statement from the ministry said.

There exists a great need to know on how the fjord system is influenced by, or responds to exchanges with the water on the shelf and in the deep sea outside during an entire annual seasonal cycle. In particular, there is a need for continuous observations of the water transport into the interior part of the fjord.

“One of the major constraints in such a study has been the difficulty in reaching the location during the harsh Arctic winter and obtaining near-surface data. The IndARC observatory is an attempt to overcome this lacuna and collect continuous data from depths very close to the water surface as well as at different discrete depths,” it said.

The statement said the deployment is a testimony to the capabilities in installing underwater observatories.

Sunderbans mangrove trees losing capacity to absorb CO2: Study
The vast mangrove forest in the Sunderbans is fast losing its capacity to absorb carbon dioxide, one of the main greenhouse gases, from the atmosphere due to rise in the salinity of water, rampant deforestation and pollution, a study has found.

The mangrove forest, marsh grass, phytoplanktons, molluscus and other coastal vegetation in the world's largest delta are the natural absorbers of carbon dioxide (CO2), according to the study.

The stored carbon in the plants is known as "Blue Carbons". The absorption of CO2 is a process which contributes to reduction of the warming of the earth and other ill effects of climate change.
The research study, "Blue Carbon Estimation in Coastal Zone of Eastern India - Sunderbans", was financed by the Union government and headed by noted marine scientist Abhijit Mitra.

The report took three years to prepare and it was submitted to the government last year.

The scientists involved in the study have sounded an alarm bell, especially in the central Sunderbans, one of the three zones into which the forest was divided for the study, the other two being western and eastern.

"The situation is quite alarming, especially in the central part. The capacity of the mangrove forest, especially the Byne species, to absorb carbon dioxide has eroded to a large extent. This will effect the entire ecosystem of the area," Sufia Zaman, a senior marine biologist who was a part of the team.
-PTI

Prof Sir Alec Jeffreys, who discovered DNA fingerprinting, win's the world’s oldest science prize
The man who discovered DNA fingerprinting has won the world's oldest science prize — Royal Society's Copley Medal.

In 1984, Prof Sir Alec Jeffreys stumbled on a method for distinguishing individuals based on their DNA. It was a discovery that went on to transform forensic science and resolve questions of identity and kinship.

He received the medal "for his pioneering work on variation and mutation in the human genome".

The Copley medal was first awarded by the Royal Society in 1731, 170 years before the first Nobel Prize. It is awarded for outstanding achievements in scientific research and has been awarded to eminent scientists such as Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking.

In 1984 Jeffreys discovered a method of showing the variation between individuals' DNA, a technique which he developed and became known as genetic fingerprinting.

Himalayas ‘Too Seismic’ For Big Dams
Scientists have raised concerns that the ambitious dam projects planned in the Himalayan region do not adequately account for seismic activity
http://www.currentscience.ac.in/Volumes/106/12/1658.p

Elderly patients could benefit from pretreatment with imiquimod before seasonal influenza vaccination.
Scientists have found that treating elderly patients with imiquimod before immunizing them against influenza improved the protective effects of the vaccine. This study has been published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.
In a study, a team led by Professor Yuen Kwok-yung, Chair Professor of Department of Microbiology, Li Ka Shing Faculty of Medicine of The University of Hong Kong (HKU) has discovered a simple and practical way of protecting elderly patients with medical illness from seasonal influenza. By applying the Toll-like receptor 7 agonist imiquimod before intradermal injection, the protection by flu vaccine is enhanced, thus decreasing the risk of hospitalization. Imiquimod is a safe immune-stimulatory drug, which has used topically to treat skin warts for many years.
http://cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2014/07/20/cid.ciu582

Unmanned aerial vehicles or drones will soon fly over India's forests to monitor poaching, track wildlife and even count the population of tigers.

Scientists at the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) are coming up with a series of such drones which are being customised indigenously to suit different types of forest landscape.
Under a joint collaboration with the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and international environment body WWF, they are preparing a detailed project report for introducing drone monitoring in 10 wildlife-rich areas across the country.

The primary objectives of these drones would be to track the movements of wildlife and monitor poaching.

They may also be used in counting the population of animals like tiger.
A drone can be put on autopilot mode and sent as far as 40-50 km deep into the forest where it can record images and videos and transmit them on a realtime basis. Its movement can also be controlled through a GPS-based system.

Such drones were recently tested successfully in Panna Tiger Reserve and Kaziranga.
Drones can also be used for night surveillance and tracking of many elusive and shy animals like the red panda and snow leopard, which are very rarely seen by the human eye in their natural wild habitat.

Travelling at a speed of 40 -100km per hour, the drones can be used for around 40-50 minutes.

Scientists turn a brown butterfly purple—in just six generations
Structural and pigment changes combine to turn brown into purple.
The results show that, although the individual structures are tiny and delicate, the butterfly's wing as a whole is remarkably robust and can easily undergo rearrangements that radically change its optical properties. In fact, as the authors point out, a bit of variability in these properties appears to be a normal part of the genetic background of these species. This natural variability means that evolution doesn't have to wait for a fortunate mutation to get to work.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2014/08/scientists-turn-a-brown-butt...

Bugs that can co-operate best with each other are most likely to be able to infect new species, including humans, a new study has found.

Scientists have discovered that bacteria co-operate with each other when causing infection, a finding that may help identify animal diseases that transmit to people such as anthrax and the superbug MRSA.

Bacteria interact by releasing molecules to help them adapt to their environment - for example, when killing competing infections in their victim. They co-ordinate these actions by releasing tiny amounts of chemicals as signals.

Bacteria that can co-operate to create an environment in which they can thrive are potentially able to infect lots of different species, including humans, researchers said.

Discovering why some diseases are better equipped to infect more species than others - and therefore could affect humans - could be valuable in predicting and managing health threats.

Most new human infections arise from diseases that transmit from animals to humans. Many of these cause serious infections and are difficult to control, such as anthrax and the superbug MRSA.

Research led by the University of Edinburgh used a combination of mathematical models and scientific analysis of genetic code in almost 200 types of bacteria.

They found that those bugs that carry lots of genes that help them to co-operate are best equipped to adapt to various environments.

"Humans have been able to colonise almost all of their planet by collectively modifying the environment to suit themselves. Our study shows bugs try to do the same - co-operation is important for the spread of bacteria to new species," Dr Luke McNally of the University of Edinburgh' School of Biological Sciences, who led the study, said.

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Why Can’t You Remember Being a Baby?
The fast growth of young brains may come at the expense of infant memories
The results of a study , published in May in the journal Science, neuro-scientists Frankland and Josselyn think that rapid neuron growth during early childhood disrupts the brain circuitry that stores old memories, making them inaccessible. Young children also have an underdeveloped prefrontal cortex, another region of the brain that encodes memories, so infantile amnesia may be a combination of these two factors.

MIT creates magnetic microhair that lets water defy gravity

Researchers have created an elastic material bristling with microscopic strands of nickel that can direct the flow of liquids and light.

Two species of birds — carrion crows, which predominate in western Germany, and the closely related hooded crows that prevail further to the east, in Sweden and Poland can mate with each other, but they look very different — carrion crows are black, and hooded crows have black-and-gray bodies — and the birds strongly prefer mates of their own kind. For a long as anyone can remember, the two groups have remained distinct, save for a narrow band of habitat stretching from Denmark through eastern Germany to northern Italy where they sometimes intermingle.

The crows present a puzzling question to biologists, which gets to the heart of what it means to be a species: Given that hooded and carrion crows can mate and swap genes, how do the two groups maintain their individual identities? It’s as if you mixed red and yellow paint in a bucket but the two colors stubbornly refused to make orange.

In new research published in June in the journal Science, Wolf’s ( an Evolutionary Biologist) team has found that a surprisingly small chunk of DNA may hold the answer. A comparison of the carrion and hooded-crow genomes showed that the sequences are almost identical. Differences in just 82 DNA letters, out of a total of about 1.2 billion, appear to separate the two groups. Almost all of them are clustered in a small part of one chromosome. “Maybe just a few genes make a species what they are,” said Chris Jiggins, a biologist at the University of Cambridge in England, who was not involved in the study. “Maybe the rest of genome can flow, so species are much more fluid than we imagined before.”

The findings are striking because they suggest that just a few genes can keep two populations apart. Something within that segment of DNA stops black crows from mating with gray ones and vice versa, creating a tenuous mating barrier that could represent one of the earliest steps in the formation of new species. “They look very different and prefer to mate with their own kind, and all of that must be controlled by these narrow regions,” Jiggins said.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24948738
http://www.simonsfoundation.org/quanta/20140805-as-animals-mingle-a...

Crows aren’t alone in their behavio

Partial Recovery From Disorders of Consciousness
Traumatic Brain Injury Patients Treated with Anti-Spasm Agent Partially Recover from Disorders of Consciousness

At the International Neuromodulation Society’s 11th World Congress, Dr. Stefanos Korfias of the Department of Neurosurgery at the University of Athens will present the results of a clinical study led by Professor Damianos Sakas, which showed that two of six in-patients studied at Evangelismos Hospital in Athens steadily emerged from minimally conscious state after receiving intrathecal baclofen (ITB) after traumatic brain injury.

The drug relaxes spasticity that can result from brain injury and may be used to facilitate care, but is not normally used to restore function. The patients, a 24-year-old man and a 29-year-old man, had been in minimally conscious states for three years and 18 months, respectively. Their scores on a revised coma recovery scale (with a maximum of 23) increased from 10 – 19 and 11 – 22, respectively
http://www.newswise.com/articles/partial-recovery-from-disorders-of...
Electrical Brain Stimulation Can Restore Consciousness
Mild electrical stimulation might help brain-damaged patients communicate
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/electrical-brain-stimulat...

Releasing genetically engineered fruit flies into the wild could prove to be a cheap, effective and environmentally friendly way of pest control, a new study has found.

New research by scientists at the University of East Anglia and Oxitec Ltd shows the release of genetically engineered male flies could be used as an effective population suppression method - saving crops around the world.

The Mediterranean fruit fly is a serious agricultural pest which causes extensive damage to crops.
The genetically engineered flies are not sterile, but they are only capable of producing male offspring after mating with local pest females - which rapidly reduces the number of crop-damaging females in the population.
This method presents a cheap and effective alternative to irradiation. This is a promising new tool to deal with insects which is both environmentally friendly and effective.
The method works by introducing a female-specific gene into the insects that interrupts development before females reach a reproductive stage.

Populations of healthy males and females can be produced in controlled environments by the addition of a chemical repressor.

If the chemical repressor is absent in the genetically engineered flies' diet, only males survive.

The surviving males are released, mate with local wild pest females and pass the female specific self-limiting trait onto the progeny resulting in no viable female offspring.

The research was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Genomic-scale exchange of mRNA between a parasitic plant and its hosts
Abstract: Movement of RNAs between cells of a single plant is well documented, but cross-species RNA transfer is largely unexplored. Cuscuta pentagona (dodder) is a parasitic plant that forms symplastic connections with its hosts and takes up host messenger RNAs (mRNAs). We sequenced transcriptomes of Cuscuta growing on Arabidopsis and tomato hosts to characterize mRNA transfer between species and found that mRNAs move in high numbers and in a bidirectional manner. The mobile transcripts represented thousands of different genes, and nearly half the expressed transcriptome of Arabidopsis was identified in Cuscuta. These findings demonstrate that parasitic plants can exchange large proportions of their transcriptomes with hosts, providing potential mechanisms for RNA-based interactions between species and horizontal gene transfer.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6198/808
What this means: A vampire-like parasitic plant could reveal new secrets of plant communication. According to a study published Thursday in Science, species of the strangleweed plant are able to share genetic information in the form of messenger RNA molecules (mRNA) with the plants they invade. It's possible that this RNA shuffling is allowing for communication between the parasite and the host, and if we crack their codes we could exploit them to protect crops.

All babies lack sufficient vitamin K at birth, putting them at risk for severe bleeding in the brain or intestines until they get the vitamin by eating solid foods, typically around six months of age. The vitamin is essential for blood clotting, and a vitamin K injection after birth eliminates this bleeding risk.
Therefore, Vitamin K injections are recommended at birth in some countries because the vitamin does not cross the placenta well during pregnancy. The shot provides infants with enough vitamin K to last until they get sufficient amounts through diet. Vitamin K deficiency bleeding has always occurred but for years the condition was less common than other causes of infant death.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/112/1/191.full

Asthma and odors: The role of risk perception in asthma exacerbation
Fragrances and strong odors have been characterized as putative triggers that may exacerbate asthma symptoms and many asthmatics readily avoid odors and fragranced products. However, the mechanism by which exposure to pure, non-irritating odorants can elicit an adverse reaction in asthmatic patients is still unclear and may involve both physiological and psychological processes. The aim of this study was to investigate how beliefs about an odor's relationship to asthmatic symptoms could affect the physiological and psychological responses of asthmatics.
Results

Predictably, manipulations of perceived risk altered both the quality ratings of the fragrance as well as the reported levels of asthma symptoms. Perceived risk also modulated the inflammatory airway response.
Conclusions

Expectations elicited by smelling a perceived harmful odor may affect airway physiology and impact asthma exacerbations.
Highlights

•Asthmatics were exposed to an odor characterized as ‘asthmogenic’ or ‘therapeutic’.

•Irritation and annoyance ratings were elevated in the asthmogenic group.

•The asthmogenic group showed a rapid and persistent increase in airway inflammation.
http://www.jpsychores.com/article/S0022-3999%2814%2900252-9/abstract

Bypassing The Brain To Walk Again
Bypassing the spinal cord with an artificial neural connection enables subjects to control their legs by swinging their arms.
A Japanese research group has successfully made an artificial connection from the brain to the locomotion center, bypassing the spinal cord with a computer interface. This research, published in the Journal of Neuroscience, allowed subjects to perform a walking-like behavior in their legs by swinging their arms.
Neural networks in the locomotion center of the spinal cord are capable of producing rhythmic movements, such as swimming and walking, even when isolated from the brain. The brain controls the spinal locomotion center by sending commands to the spinal locomotion center to start, stop and change waking speed. In most cases of spinal cord injury, the loss of this link from the brain to the locomotion center causes problems with walking.
Although gait disturbance in individuals with spinal cord injury is attributed to the interruption of neural pathways from brain to the spinal locomotor center, neural circuits located above and below the lesion maintain most of their functions. An artificial connection that bridges the lost pathway and connects brain to spinal circuits has potential to ameliorate the functional loss.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25122909

How You Meditate Matters
Research shows that Vajrayana meditation can enhance cognitive performance, while Theravada meditation is relaxing.
not all meditation techniques produce similar effects of body and mind. Indeed, a study published in PLoS One demonstrates that different types of Buddhist meditation—namely the Vajrayana and Theravada styles of meditation—elicit qualitatively different influences on human physiology and behaviour, producing arousal and relaxation responses respectively.
The researchers had also observed an immediate dramatic increase in performance on cognitive tasks following only Vajrayana styles of meditation. They noted that such dramatic boost in attentional capacity is impossible during a state of relaxation. Their results show that Vajrayana and Theravada styles of meditation are based on different neurophysiological mechanisms, which give rise to either an arousal or relaxation response.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone....

A new study shows that weak electromagnetic stimulation could reorganize the brain with few side effects.
Researchers have shown that electromagnetic stimulation can alter brain organization which may make your brain work better.

In results from a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience, researchers from The University of Western Australia and the Université Pierre et Marie Curie in France demonstrated that weak sequential electromagnetic pulses (repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation, or rTMS) on mice can shift abnormal neural connections to more normal locations.

The discovery has important implications for treatment of many nervous system disorders related to abnormal brain organisation such as depression, epilepsy and tinnitus.

http://www.researchgate.net/publication/264545425_Low-Intensity_Rep...

At higher levels, fluoride in drinking water can lead to pitted teeth and discoloration. It also makes bones brittle and more prone to fractures. And recent studies have also linked high levels of fluoride exposure with IQ deficits.

Mapping the Mind: An Interview with Eric Kandel from Imaginal Disc on Vimeo.

Forces driving epithelial wound healing
Abstract of the research paper:
A fundamental feature of multicellular organisms is their ability to self-repair wounds through the movement of epithelial cells into the damaged area. This collective cellular movement is commonly attributed to a combination of cell crawling and ‘purse-string’ contraction of a supracellular actomyosin ring. Here we show by direct experimental measurement that these two mechanisms are insufficient to explain force patterns observed during wound closure. At early stages of the process, leading actin protrusions generate traction forces that point away from the wound, showing that wound closure is initially driven by cell crawling. At later stages, we observed unanticipated patterns of traction forces pointing towards the wound. Such patterns have strong force components that are both radial and tangential to the wound. We show that these force components arise from tensions transmitted by a heterogeneous actomyosin ring to the underlying substrate through focal adhesions. The structural and mechanical organization reported here provides cells with a mechanism to close the wound by cooperatively compressing the underlying substrate.
http://www.nature.com/nphys/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphys3040.html

First Global Conference on Science Advice to Governments
Responding to the increasingly global nature of societal challenges, practitioners of science advice to governments formed a global network to share practice and strengthen their ties, at the first global conference on science advice to governments, which was held in Auckland, New Zealand on 28-29 August, 2014.
This Science Advice to Governments meeting had its origin in an editorial in Nature two years ago by James Wilsdon and Robert Doubleday
Summary of Panel 3: Science advice in the context of opposing political/ideological positions
Posted on August 28, 2014

One of the most difficult situations for science advisors to government is when evidence contradicts entrenched political (ideological) positions, whether these are within national, regional or local governments. Well established examples are seen in debates around controlled substances and public health.

Panellists discussed what models of science advice giving (ex: individual experts; commissioned reports; representative committees) have worked best in participating countries.
For more details please visit:
http://www.globalscienceadvice.org/

Micromagnetic resonance relaxometry for rapid label-free malaria diagnosis
http://www.nature.com/nm/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nm.3622.html
A quick method detects by-products of the parasite's growth in the blood and is more portable and less error-prone than conventional tests
Jongyoon Han, a bioengineer at the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research and Technology Centre, and his colleagues, have devised a diagnostic test that avoids many of the problems faced by today's anlysts. Their method, described in a paper published on 31 August in Nature Medicine, works with a tiny droplet — as little as 10 microlitres — of blood, and can provide a diagnosis in just a few minutes. In addition, it does not rely on the expertise of a technician.

When P. falciparum invades red blood cells and feeds on their contents, it breaks down haemoglobin into amino acids and haem, a chemical compound that contains iron. Free haem is toxic, so the parasite quickly converts it into an insoluble crystal known as haemozoin.

“Haemozoin crystals behave like little magnets,” explains Han. He and his team used a technique called magnetic resonance relaxometry (MRR) to detect the magnetic signal of haemozoin in human blood samples that they infected with P. falciparum, and in samples from mice infected withPlasmodium berghei, a mouse model of the disease.

MRR is a type of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, a workhorse of chemical analysis. Although NMR machines are notoriously bulky, in recent years researchers have scaled them down to sizes small enough to fit on a benchtop. Another important step towards bringing the technique to the field, Han says, was that his team was able to detect haemozoin directly in the blood sample without first processing it in the lab.