Self-suppression associated with exercise dependence
The team recruited 227 recreational runners, half men and half women, with widely varying running practices. They were asked to fill out questionnaires which investigated three different aspects of escapism and exercise dependence: an escapism scale which measured preference for self-expansion or self-suppression, an exercise dependence scale, and a satisfaction with life scale designed to measure the participants' subjective well-being.

The scientists found that there was very little overlap between runners who favored self-expansion and runners who preferred self-suppression modes of escapism. Self-expansion was positively related with well-being, while self-suppression was negatively related to well-being. Self-suppression and self-expansion were both linked to exercise dependence, but self-suppression was much more strongly linked to it. Neither escapism mode was linked to age, gender, or amount of time a person spent running, but both affected the relationship between well-being and exercise dependence. Whether or not a person fulfilled criteria for exercise dependence, a preference for self-expansion would still be linked to a more positive sense of their own well-being.

Although exercise dependence corrodes the potential well-being gains from exercise, it seems that perceiving lower well-being may be both a cause and an outcome of exercise dependency: the dependency might be driven by lower well-being as well as promoting it.

Similarly, experiencing positive self-expansion might be a psychological motive that promotes exercise dependence.

These findings may enlighten people in understanding their own motivation, and be used for therapeutical reasons for individuals striving with a maladaptive engagement in their activity.

 Frode Stenseng et al, Running to Get "Lost"? Two Types of Escapism in Recreational Running and Their Relations to Exercise Dependence and Subjective Well-Being, Frontiers in Psychology (2023). DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1035196

Part 2

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Cancer cells may shrink or super-size to survive

Cancer cells can shrink or super-size themselves to survive drug treatment or other challenges within their environment, researchers have discovered.

Scientists combined biochemical profiling technologies with mathematical analyses to reveal how genetic changes lead to differences in the size of cancer cells—and how these changes could be exploited by new treatments.

The researchers think smaller cells could be more vulnerable to DNA-damaging agents like chemotherapy combined with targeted drugs, while larger cancer cells might respond better to immunotherapy. The study combines innovative high-powered image analysis with examination of DNA and proteins to study size control in millions of skin cancer cells.

The skin cancer melanoma is driven by two different genetic mutations—60% of cases are caused by a BRAF gene mutation, while 20% to 30% of cases are caused by an NRAS mutation. The researchers set out to investigate the differences in size and shape of skin cancer cells harboring the two mutations, by using mathematical algorithms to analyze huge amounts of data on DNA and proteins. The major difference was cell size.

BRAF-mutant cancer cells were very small whereas NRAS-mutant cancer cells were much bigger. Drug resistant NRAS cells were even bigger. Smaller cells appear to be able to tolerate higher levels of DNA damage, as they are very concentrated with proteins that repair DNA—like PARP, BRCA1, or ATM1 proteins. The researchers think that this could make them more vulnerable to drugs like PARP inhibitors—drugs blocking proteins responsible for repairing DNA damage—especially when combined with DNA-damaging agents such as chemotherapy.

In contrast, the larger NRAS-mutant cancer cells contained damage to their DNA instead of repairing it, accumulating mutations and enlarging. These larger cells were not as reliant on DNA repair machinery, so using chemotherapy and PARP inhibitors against them might not be as effective. Scientists think larger cells could be more responsive to immunotherapy—because their larger number of mutations could make them look more alien to the body.

They are already exploring this theory with further studies. The researchers think BRAF and NRAS mutations may be driving the differences in cell size by regulating levels of a protein known as CCND1—which is involved in cell division, growth and maintaining the cytoskeleton—and its interactions with other proteins.

While the study focused on skin cancer cells, researchers suspect that this size-shifting ability and its impact on treatment response is common to multiple cancer types. They have already identified similar mechanisms in breast cancer and are now investigating whether the findings could apply to head and neck cancers.

The discovery provides new insight into how the size of cancer cells affects the overall disease, allowing for better predictions of how people with cancer will respond to different treatments simply by analyzing cell size.

Existing drugs could even be used to force cancer cells into a desired size prior to treatments like immunotherapy or radiotherapy, which could improve their effectiveness.

Ian Jones et al, Characterization of proteome-size scaling by integrative omics reveals mechanisms of proliferation control in cancer, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.add0636. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add0636

Scientists discover evolutionary secret behind different animal life cycles

Why do some animals become larvae before growing into adults while some embryos directly  develop into miniature version of the adult?

In a new paper, scientists prove that the timing of activation of essential genes involved in embryogenesis—the transformation of a fertilized egg into an organism—correlates with the presence or absence of a larval stage and with whether the larva feeds from their surroundings or relies on nourishment the mother deposited in the egg.

It's impressive to see how evolution shaped the way animal embryos 'tell the time' to activate important groups of genes earlier or later in development. Suppose a larval stage is no longer essential for your survival. In that case, it might be evolutionarily advantageous to, for example, activate the genes to form the trunk earlier and develop straight into an adult instead.

This new study used state-of-the-art approaches to decode the genetic information, activity, and regulation in three species of marine invertebrate worms called annelids. They combined these with public datasets from other species in a large-scale study involving more than 600 datasets of more than 60 species separated by more than 500 million years of evolution.

Only by combining experimental datasets generated in the lab and systematic computational analyses were we able to unravel this new undiscovered biology.

José Martín-Durán, Annelid functional genomics reveal the origins of bilaterian life cycles, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05636-7. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05636-7

Drug pollution: What happens to drugs after they leave your body?

Swallowing a pill only seems to make it disappear. In reality, the drug eventually leaves your body and flows into waterways, where it can undergo further chemical transformations. And these downstream products aren't dead in thewater.

Many pharmaceuticals, for example, are designated as contaminants of emerging concern, or CECs, because they alter hormone levels or otherwise harm wildlife. Some downstream products formed during drug breakdown are even more harmful than their parent molecule. It's critical, then, to chart out the chemical course of drugs to assess risk, but this is a daunting task because it depends on myriad hard-to-predict reaction patterns that are difficult to observe.

In a new study published in Water Resources Research, researchers devise a new method to chart these reaction possibilities. The newly proposed method is based on a multimodel global sensitivity analysis. This balances model fit and mathematical complexity: It generates a well-fitting model by simplifying it.

The researchers estimated how the arthritis drug diclofenac breaks down upon entering groundwater. First, using existing chemical transformation data, they built a comprehensive model of breakdown that included the gamut of possible chemical reactions. However, the estimates from this model were highly uncertain.

To adjust the model to better fit their data, the researchers quantified the relative importance of each possible chemical process and removed the least relevant ones.

This led to three simplified yet plausible models of drug breakdown. They ranked these models on the basis of their fit with the data and showed that a simplified model outperformed the most complex one.

The method yielded a flexible and accurate model. The team says their new method is especially useful when data are limited. Applying it to other drugs, they say, could reveal the full toll that pharmaceutical pollution takes on the planet.

Experimental vaccine for deadly Marbug virus guards against infection with just a single dose

An experimental vaccine for Marburg virus—a deadly cousin of the infectious agent that causes Ebola—can protect large animals from severe infections for up to a year with a single shot, scientists have found in a new study.

Developed by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, along with collaborators at other institutions, the vaccine produces durable protection, a factor that underlines its promise for clinical translation and pandemic preparedness. So far its safety profile suggests that investigators may be on the brink of a vaccine that, in the not-too-distant future, may help control a Marburg virus outbreak.

The pathogen is extraordinarily virulent, one of the most lethal in the world—an infectious agent so dangerous that it's on lists of viruses with potential to be exploited in devastating acts of bioterrorism. It causes a severe infection that once was known as Marburg hemorrhagic fever, but now is widely referred to as Marburg virus disease. The pathogen belongs to the Filovirdae family, the same viral family as Ebolavirus.

As with Ebolavirus, it's posited that the Marburg infectious agent jumped the species barrier from bats to people and nonhuman primates. While bats live without harm from the pathogen, scientists at the World Health Organization estimate human mortality at 90%.

The authors of the research paper report that in nonhuman primates
 a single shot of the vaccine generated protective immunity within seven days of vaccination. Additionally—and perhaps more important—the investigational vaccine protected nonhuman primates when they were challenged with exposure to the lethal Marburg virus.

 Ruth Hunegnaw et al, A single-shot ChAd3-MARV vaccine confers rapid and durable protection against Marburg virus in nonhuman primates, Science Translational Medicine (2022). DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.abq6364

New spray fights infections and antibiotic resistance

Antibiotic resistance as one of the top ten threats to global health. There is therefore a great need for new solutions to tackle resistant bacteria and reduce the use of antibiotics. A group of researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden are now presenting a new spray that can kill even antibiotic-resistant bacteria, and that can be used for wound care and directly on implants and other medical devices.

This innovation  can have a dual impact in the fight against antibiotic resistance. The material has been shown to be effective against many different types of bacteria, including those that are resistant to antibiotics, such as Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), while also having the potential to prevent infections and thus reduce the need for antibiotics.

The material consists of small hydrogel particles equipped with a type of peptide that effectively kills and binds bacteria. Attaching the peptides to the particles provides a protective environment and increases the stability of the peptides. This allows them to work together with body fluids such as blood, which otherwise inactivates the peptides, making them difficult to use in health care. In previous studies, the researchers showed how the peptides can be used for  wound care materials such as wound dressings.

They have now published two new studies in which the bactericidal material is used in the form of a wound spray and as a coating on medical devices that are introduced into our bodies. This new step in the research means that the innovation can be used in more ways and be of even greater benefit in health care.

Edvin Blomstrand et al, Cross-linked lyotropic liquid crystal particles functionalized with antimicrobial peptides, International Journal of Pharmaceutics (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.ijpharm.2022.122215

Annija Stepulane et al, Multifunctional Surface Modification of PDMS for Antibacterial Contact Killing and Drug-Delivery of Polar, Nonpolar, and Amphiphilic Drugs, ACS Applied Bio Materials (2022). DOI: 10.1021/acsabm.2c00705

E. coli: Lab discovers evidence of multicellularity in single cell organism

Researchers have uncovered something new in one of the most studied organisms on Earth, and their discoveries could impact the treatment and prevention of devastating bacterial diseases.

Escherichia coli, or E. coli, gets a bad rap, and for good reason. This diverse group of bacteria that live in our intestines are mostly harmless and play an important role in sustaining a healthy digestive system. But some E. coli are among the most virulent disease-causing micro-organisms.

Pathogenic E. coli takes a deadly, costly toll on humanity, costing billions of dollars to treat and killing millions of people worldwide each year. It's responsible for diarrheal diseases, peritonitis, colitis, respiratory illness and pneumonia, and other illnesses, and is the main cause in 80% of urinary tract infections, which are the most common bacterial infection.

Consequently, researchers have been keen to learn everything they can about E. coli for the past century or so. They have probed it from every angle, synthesized it, scrutinized it to the extent that, many people believe, there isn't much else to learn.

But some researchers have taken a closer look at E. coli and their research is yielding novel insights, and raising new questions, about this prevalent unicellular organism. For one thing, it appears that E. coli may not always be unicellular. The research team explained it all in their study, "Evidence of a possible multicellular life cycle in Escherichia coli," published in the journal iScience.

In nature, bacteria live in communities called biofilms, which are clusters of microbes encased in a self-made, self-sustaining slime matrix, and attached to many kinds of wet surfaces. They're everywhere around us and inside of us. Common, everyday examples of biofilms include dental plaque and pond scum. They can grow on plant and animal tissue, like the inside of our digestive tract, and cause serious infections. On top of that, the bacteria living inside a biofilm's protective matrix are less likely to be affected by antibiotics. Biofilms are clinically important, particularly in relation to infection.

Approximately 80% of all bacterial infections have a biofilm component. "And almost any bacteria that's ever been studied can make them."

Researchers now 

discovered something new—a multicellular self-assembly process in E. coli. Researchers observed unattached, single-celled organisms combining into four-cell rosettes, a natural multicellular formation thought to be uncommon in bacteria.

Rosettes are rather significant in higher organisms, like mammals, because they initiate developmental processes like embryogenesis.

They observed E. coli rosettes grow into constant-width chains, which continue growing for 10 generations before attaching to a surface and creating a biofilm. They saw and recorded the bacterial processes that had never been seen or recorded before.

Devina Puri et al, Evidence of a possible multicellular life cycle in Escherichia coli, iScience (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.isci.2022.105795

Liquid-metal robots can melt and re-form

Researchers have created a material that can move, soften and re-harden under the influence of magnetic fields. To demonstrate the material’s promise, researchers showed how it could be manipulated to pass through barriers, extract an object from an artificial stomach, and move a tiny light bulb into place and then melt into the solder required to make it work.

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How much greenhouse gas do tropical soils emit?

Nitrogen changes form as it cycles between air, soil, and life. Soils, for example, emit nitrogen either as inert dinitrogen (N2), which dominates our atmosphere, or as nitric oxide (NO) or nitrous oxide (N2O), the greenhouse gases that warm it.

One of the causes of aggressive liver cancer discovered: A 'molecular staple' that helps repair broken DNA

Error-correcting mechanisms are very important for cells, because with all the cellular activity constantly going on, malfunctions arise all the time. But when it comes to killing cancer cells, it is in the cells' best interest to induce errors. Radiotherapy and chemotherapy can cause cellular defects by breaking the DNA of the cells. However, some tumor cells have an exceptionally efficient DNA repair machinery that allows them to evade cancer treatment. Researchers have now revealed the workings of one of these extraordinary repair systems: a molecular staple that has been shown in action for the first time using a new nanotechnology technique.

A few years ago, scientists discovered that about half of patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (the most common type of liver cancer) produce an RNA molecule called NIHCOLE, which is found mainly in the most aggressive tumors and is associated with a poor prognosis.

NIHCOLE is not a protein synthesized by a gene, but an RNA molecule. It is part of what biologists dubbed junk DNA two decades ago when the human genome was being sequenced. At the time, they mistakenly believed that this DNA was useless.

Cancer researchers concluded that NIHCOLE is very effective at helping repair broken DNA, which is why radiotherapy is less effective in tumors where it is present. By eliminating NIHCOLE, cancer cells treated with radiotherapy die more easily. However, the molecular mechanism by which NIHCOLE facilitates the repair of DNA breaks was not known. The paper just published in Cell Reports explains this: NIHCOLE forms a bridge that binds the broken DNA fragments together. It interacts simultaneously with proteins that recognize the two ends of a fragmented DNA, as if stapling them together. Only a small piece of NIHCOLE is required for it to act as a molecular staple.

Understanding this mechanism may help in the development of strategies to combat liver cancers with the worst prognosis. 

Sara De Bragança et al, APLF and long non-coding RNA NIHCOLE promote stable DNA synapsis in non-homologous end joining, Cell Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.111917

Harvesting energy from moving trains

Researchers  want to harness the energy created by moving trains and transform that energy into usable electricity. And they are conducting various experiments to do the same. 

After several years of design review,  researchers created a new kind of tie that replaces the conventional wooden variety and is equipped to generate power. Their high-tech tie, placed underneath the rail, is topped with a heavy metal bar mounted on a spring. As the wheels of the train pass over the rail, the train’s weight pushes down on that bar, triggering a series of gears. Those gears rotate a generator, creating electricity, which can then be stored in a battery.

As trains passed over the rail, researchers got a clearer picture of how much power it might produce and how that power might be put into use. For every wheel of the train that goes by, they are harvesting 15 to 20 watts of power.

 A long train with maybe 200 railcars, that’s 800 wheels, makes 1.6 kilowatts. Once that energy is stored,  they are able to use it to make the tracks more intelligent by embedding sensors in them.

Deploying their energy harvesting system could mean greater expansion of the vital sensor systems that keep railways safe.

Yu Pan et al, A half-wave electromagnetic energy-harvesting tie towards safe and intelligent rail transportation, Applied Energy (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.apenergy.2022.118844

Robot clears foreign body from stomach

Study of 500,000 Medical Records Links Viruses to Alzheimer's Again And Again

A study of around 500,000 medical records has suggested that severe viral infections like encephalitis and pneumonia increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases like Parkinson's and Alzheimer's.

Researchers found 22 connections between viral infections and neurodegenerative conditions in the study of around 450,000 people.

People treated for a type of inflammation of the brain called viral encephalitis were 31 times more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. (For every 406 viral encephalitis cases, 24 went on to develop Alzheimer's disease – around 6 percent.)

Those who were hospitalized with pneumonia after catching the flu seemed to be more susceptible to Alzheimer's disease, dementia, Parkinson's disease, and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Intestinal infections and meningitis (both often caused by a virus), as well as the varicella-zoster virus, which causes shingles, were also implicated in the development of several neurodegenerative diseases.

The impact of viral infections on the brain persisted for up to 15 years in some cases. And there were no instances where exposure to viruses was protective.

Around 80 percent of the viruses implicated in brain diseases were considered 'neurotrophic', which means they could cross the blood-brain barrier.

"Strikingly, vaccines are currently available for some of these viruses, including influenza, shingles (varicella-zoster), and pneumonia," the researchers write.

"Although vaccines do not prevent all cases of illness, they are known to dramatically reduce hospitalization rates. This evidence suggests that vaccination may mitigate some risk of developing neurodegenerative disease.

https://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(22)01147-3?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0896627322011473%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

A fairy-like robot flies by the power of wind and light

The development of stimuli-responsive polymers has brought about a wealth of material-related opportunities for next-generation small-scale, wirelessly controlled soft-bodied robots. For some time now, engineers have known how to use these materials to make small robots that can walk, swim and jump. 

Researchers are now trying how to make smart material fly. They have come up with a new design for their project called FAIRY—Flying Aero-robots based on Light Responsive Materials Assembly. They have developed a polymer-assembly robot that flies by wind and is controlled by light.

The artificial fairy developed by them has several biomimetic features. Because of its high porosity (0.95) and lightweight (1.2 mg) structure, it can easily float in the air directed by the wind. What is more, a stable separated vortex ring generation enables long-distance wind-assisted traveling. The fairy can be powered and controlled by a light source, such as a laser bean or LED.

This means that light can be used to change the shape of the tiny dandelion seed-like structure. The fairy can adapt manually to wind direction and force by changing its shape. A light beam can also be used to control the take-off and landing actions of the polymer assembly.

Jianfeng Yang et al, Dandelion‐Inspired, Wind‐Dispersed Polymer‐Assembly Controlled by Light, Advanced Science (2022). DOI: 10.1002/advs.202206752

 Muscle-kidney cross talk might be an essential piece in the puzzle of potassium regulation.

Having levels of potassium that are too high or too low can be fatal. A new mathematical model sheds light on the often mysterious ways the body regulates this important electrolyte. Potassium, a common mineral abundant in food like bananas and leafy greens, is essential to normal cellular function. It helps the cardiac muscle work correctly and aids in the transmission of electrical signals within cells.

Using existing biological data, researchers built a mathematical model that simulates how an average person's body regulates potassium, both in times of potassium depletion and during potassium intake. Because so many foods contain abundant potassium, our bodies constantly store, deploy, and dispose of potassium to maintain healthy levels—a process known as maintaining potassium homeostasis. Understanding potassium homeostasis is essential in helping diagnose the source of the problem when something goes wrong—for example, when kidney disease or medication leads to dysregulation.
Too much potassium in the body, or hyperkalemia, can be just as dangerous as hypokalemia, or too little. Dysregulation of potassium can lead to dangerous and potentially fatal consequences.
Part 1

The model could be used for a virtual patient trial, allowing researchers to generate dozens of patients and then predict which ones would have hyper- or hypokalemia based on different controls.

"A lot of our models are pieces of a bigger picture," said Anita Layton, professor of applied mathematics and Canada 150 Research Chair in mathematical biology and medicine. "This model is one new and exciting piece in helping us understand how our incredibly complex internal systems work."

The model is especially exciting because it allows scientists to test something called the muscle-kidney cross-talk signal hypothesis. Scientists have hypothesized that skeletal muscles, which are responsible for most of the potassium storage in the body, can directly signal to the kidneys that it's time to excrete excess when too much potassium is stored, and vice versa. When the math researchers tested the hypothesis in their model, it more accurately reflected existing biological data regarding potassium homeostasis, suggesting that muscle-kidney cross talk might be an essential piece in the puzzle of potassium regulation.

The study was published in PLOS Computational Biology.

The cognitive effects of air pollution- Even chess experts perform worse when air quality is lower, suggesting a negative effect on cognition

Here's something else chess players need to keep in check: air pollution.

That's the bottom line of a newly published study co-authored by an MIT researcher, showing that chess players perform objectively worse and make more suboptimal moves, as measured by a computerized analysis of their games, when there is more fine particulate matter in the air.

Fine particulate matter refers to tiny particles 2.5 microns or less in diameter, notated as PM_2.5. They are often associated with burning matter—whether through internal combustion engines in autos, coal-fired power plants, forest fires, indoor cooking through open fires, and more. The World Health Organization estimates that air pollution leads to over 4 million premature deaths worldwide every year, due to cancer, cardiovascular problems, and other illnesses.

More specifically, given a modest increase in fine particulate matter, the probability that chess players will make an error increases by 2.1 percentage points, and the magnitude of those errors increases by 10.8%. In this setting, at least, cleaner air leads to clearer heads and sharper thinking.

When individuals are exposed to higher levels of air pollution, they make more more mistakes, and they make larger mistakes, this study finds. Moreover, air pollution may affect people in settings where they might not think it makes a difference. It's not like you have to live next to a power plant. You can live miles away and be affected.

And while the focus of this particular study is tightly focused on chess players, the authors write in the paper that the findings have "strong implications for high-skilled office workers," who might also be faced with tricky cognitive tasks in conditions of variable air pollution. 

Steffen Künn et al, Indoor Air Quality and Strategic Decision Making, Management Science (2023). DOI: 10.1287/mnsc.2022.4643

Why do the cores of stars spin more slowly than expected?

Under certain conditions, the cores of stars contract. When this happens, they start to spin faster than the external layers of the star. However, the study of oscillations in stars, asteroseismology, has uncovered an astonishing phenomenon: The cores of such stars actually rotate more slowly than calculations predict. Why is this so?

Three  scientists from CNRS, INRIA and ENS-PSL have studied this question and report their findings in an article published in Science on January 19, 2023. Their numerical stimulations, which model plasma flow in the deep layers of a star, have shown that the slowing down of the core can be produced by an internal magnetic field. More specifically, plasma flow can amplify a magnetic field to the point where it generates strong turbulent motions. Such turbulence may further amplify the magnetic field until it causes the star's core to spin down.

The results obtained with the research team's simulations are also in agreement with asteroseismological observations of many stars. In addition, the simulations show that the magnetic field would be hidden by the outer layers of the star, which explains why no magnetic field of this kind has yet been measured with current techniques.

Voles fall in love, even without oxytocin

Gene-edited prairie voles that can’t detect the ‘love hormone’ oxytocin still form monogamous relationships and care for their pups. The study challenges decades of research suggesting that prairie vo.... The study might help scientists to understand oxytocin’s role in humans. It has been trialled as a treatment for conditions that can affect social attachment. “There’s a sort of eerie similarity between prairie vole social behaviours and human social behaviours,” says neuroscientist Nirao Shah. “Prairie voles are one of the few mammalian species that exhibit social attachment.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00197-9?utm_source=Natur...

Berendzen, K. M. et al. Neuron https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2022.12.011 (2023)

Scientists couple terahertz radiation with spin waves

An international research team has developed a new method for the efficient coupling of terahertz waves with much shorter wavelengths, so-called spin waves. As the experts report in the journal Nature Physics, their experiments, in combination with theoretical models, clarify the fundamental mechanisms of this process previously thought impossible. The results are an important step for the development of novel, energy-saving spin-based technologies for data processing.

Ruslan Salikhov et al, Coupling of terahertz light with nanometre-wavelength magnon modes via spin–orbit torque, Nature Physics (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-022-01908-1

Scientists release new map of all the matter in the universe

When the universe began, matter was flung outward and gradually formed the planets, stars and galaxies that we know and love today. Scientists are very interested in tracing the path of this matter; by seeing where all the matter ended up, they can try to recreate what happened and what forces would have had to have been in play. By carefully assembling a map of that matter today, scientists can try to understand the forces that shaped the evolution of the universe.

A group of scientists have released one of the most precise measurements ever made of how matter is distributed across the universe today.

Combining data from two major telescope surveys of the universe, the Dark Energy Survey and the South Pole Telescope, the analysis involved more than 150 researchers and is published as a set of three articles Jan. 31 in Physical Review D.

Among other findings, the analysis indicates that matter is not as "clumpy" as we would expect based on our current best model of the universe, which adds to a body of evidence that there may be something missing from our existing standard model of the universe.

Combining two different methods of looking at the sky reduces the chance that the results are thrown off by an error in one of the forms of measurement. "It functions like a cross-check, so it becomes a much more robust measurement than if you just used one or the other. In both cases, the analysis looked at a phenomenon called "gravitational lensing." As light travels across the universe, it can be slightly bent as it passes objects with lots of gravity, like galaxies.

This method catches both regular matter and dark matter—the mysterious form of matter that we have only detected due to its effects on regular matter—because both regular and dark matter exert gravity.
By rigorously analyzing these two sets of data, the scientists could infer where all the matter ended up in the universe. It is more precise than previous measurements—that is, it narrows down the possibilities for where this matter wound up—compared to previous analyses.
Part 1

The majority of the results fit perfectly with the currently accepted best theory of the universe.

But there are also signs of a crack—one that has been suggested in the past by other analyses, too.

It seems like there are slightly less fluctuations in the current universe, than we would predict assuming our standard cosmological model anchored to the early universe.

That is, if you make a model incorporating all the currently accepted physical laws, then take the readings from the beginning of the universe and extrapolate it forward through time, the results look slightly different from what we actually measure around us today.

Specifically, today's readings find the universe is less "clumpy"—clustering in certain areas rather than evenly spread out—than the model would predict.

If other studies continue to find the same results, scientists say, it may mean there is something missing from our existing model of the universe, but the results are not yet to the statistical level that scientists consider to be ironclad. That will take further study.

 Y. Omori et al, Joint analysis of Dark Energy Survey Year 3 data and CMB lensing from SPT and Planck . I. Construction of CMB lensing maps and modeling choices, Physical Review D (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.107.023529

C. Chang et al, Joint analysis of Dark Energy Survey Year 3 data and CMB lensing from SPT and Planck . II. Cross-correlation measurements and cosmological constraints, Physical Review D (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.107.023530

T. M. C. Abbott et al, Joint analysis of Dark Energy Survey Year 3 data and CMB lensing from SPT and Planck . III. Combined cosmological constraints, Physical Review D (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.107.023531

Part 2

Tuning into brainwave rhythms speeds up learning in adults, study finds

Scientists have shown for the first time that briefly tuning into a person's individual brainwave cycle before they perform a learning task dramatically boosts the speed at which cognitive skills improve.

Calibrating rates of information delivery to match the natural tempo of our brains increases our capacity to absorb and adapt to new information, according to the team behind the study.

The researchers say that these techniques could help us retain "neuroplasticity" much later in life and advance lifelong learning.

Each brain has its own natural rhythm, generated by the oscillation of neurons working together. Scientists simulated these fluctuations so the brain is in tune with itself—and in the best state to flourish. 

The brain's plasticity is the ability to restructure and learn new things, continually building on previous patterns of neuronal interactions. By harnessing brainwave rhythms, it may be possible to enhance flexible learning across the lifespan, from infancy to older adulthood.

Part 1

The neuroscientists used electroencephalography—or EEG—sensors attached to the head to measure electrical activity in the brain of 80 study participants, and sample brainwave rhythms.

The team took alpha waves readings. The mid-range of the brainwave spectrum, this wave frequency tends to dominate when we are awake and relaxed.

Alpha waves oscillate between eight to twelve hertz: a full cycle every 85-125 milliseconds. However, every person has their own peak alpha frequency within that range.

Scientists used these readings to create an optical "pulse": a white square flickering on a dark background at the same tempo as each person's individual alpha wave.

Participants got a 1.5-second dose of personalized pulse to set their brain working at its natural rhythm—a technique called "entrainment"—before being presented with a tricky quick-fire cognitive task: trying to identify specific shapes within a barrage of visual clutter.

A brainwave cycle consists of a peak and trough. Some participants received pulses matching the peak of their waves, some the trough, while some got rhythms that were either random or at the wrong rate (a little faster or slower). Each participant repeated over 800 variations of the cognitive task, and the neuroscientists measured how quickly people improved.

The learning rate for those locked into the right rhythm was at least three times faster than for all the other groups. When participants returned the next day to complete another round of tasks, those who learned much faster under entrainment had maintained their higher performance level.

The intervention itself is very simple, just a brief flicker on a screen, but when we hit the right frequency plus the right phase alignment, it seems to have a strong and lasting effect.

Importantly, entrainment pulses need to chime with the trough of a brainwave. Scientists think this is the point in a cycle when neurons are in a state of "high receptivity".

Elizabeth Michael et al, Learning at your brain's rhythm: individualized entrainment boosts learning for perceptual decisions, Cerebral Cortex (2022). DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhac426

Part 2

An illuminated water droplet creates an 'optical atom'

Shining light on a water droplet creates effects analogous to what happens in an atom. This can help us understand how atoms work, write researchers from the  in a new journal article published in Physical Review Letters.

If you whisper by the wall in the dome of St Paul's Cathedral in London, you'll discover that the sound bounces off the dome's walls all the way around and is audible on the opposite side. Which is why the Cathedral's dome has been dubbed "the whispering gallery."

The same effect is achieved when a beam of light is shone into a water droplet. Rays of light bounce off the inner wall of the water droplet over and over again, going around and around inside the droplet. When its circumference is a multiple of the light's wavelength, a resonance phenomenon occurs, just like the sound inside the Cathedral's dome, making the droplet shine brighter.

In their  experiments with laser light, we could see that the light is trapped inside the water droplet. When the droplet shrinks due to evaporation, it appears to flash every time its size is right to create the resonance phenomenon.

You cannot change the size of the dome in St. Paul's Cathedral, but a water droplet changes size as it evaporates. The researchers then discovered how the droplet flashed in a way similar to what occurs when an electron is emitted from an atom when illuminated by light of varying wavelengths. They were also able to use a quantum mechanics analogy to explain how the resonances—the size of the droplet when the scattering was greatest—correspond to the energy levels of an atom. This makes the droplet a model of an atom with the added bonus that its size can be varied. It provides deeper insights into how light scatters while being a model for understanding how atoms work.

Javier Tello Marmolejo et al, Fano Combs in the Directional Mie Scattering of a Water Droplet, Physical Review Letters (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.043804

Physicists observe rare resonance in molecules for the first time

If s/he hits just the right pitch, a singer can shatter a wine glass. The reason is resonance. While the glass may vibrate slightly in response to most acoustic tones, a pitch that resonates with the material's own natural frequency can send its vibrations into overdrive, causing the glass to shatter.

Resonance also occurs at the much smaller scale of atoms and molecules. When particles chemically react, it's partly due to specific conditions that resonate with particles in a way that drives them to chemically link. But atoms and molecules are constantly in motion, inhabiting a blur of vibrating and rotating states. Picking out the exact resonating state that ultimately triggers molecules to react has been nearly impossible. MIT physicists may have cracked part of this mystery with a new study appearing in the journal Nature. The team reports that they have for the first time observed a resonance in colliding ultracold molecules. They found that a cloud of super-cooled sodium-lithium (NaLi) molecules disappeared 100 times faster than normal when exposed to a very specific magnetic field. The molecules' rapid disappearance is a sign that the magnetic field tuned the particles into a resonance, driving them to react more quickly than they normally would. The findings shed light on the mysterious forces that drive molecules to chemically react. They also suggest that scientists could one day harness particles' natural resonances to steer and control certain chemical reactions.

Juliana Park, A Feshbach resonance in collisions between triplet ground-state molecules, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05635-8. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05635-8

Study examines how reflecting on your values before opening your mouth makes for happier relationships

Ever found yourself angry at a situation and in desperate need to tell the world about it by ranting to anyone who'll listen? Maybe it's time to pause; inhale and reflect on what values you hold dear.

A new interdisciplinary study, conducted by philosophers,  linguists and  psychologists  has found that a process of reflecting on life values before a debate can enhance people's willingness to listen to others and engage with them in a civil dialogue.

The analysis revealed that the process of reflecting on values first helped to inspire individuals' "intellectual humility" (their awareness of their own fallibility and openness to others' views): 60.6% of participants who reflected on their values first showed more humility compared to the average person who was not given this task. In a seemingly ever-distant world where opinions appear increasingly polarized, the researchers suggest their results show grounds for optimism. If people were to stop and reflect on the values which are important to them, debates in the online and offline world could be far more harmonious, they think.

Using Self-Affirmation to Increase Intellectual Humility in Debate, Royal Society Open Science (2023). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.220958. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.220958

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Using CRISPR to detect cancer biomarkers

Most cancer diagnostic techniques rely on uncomfortable and invasive procedures, such as biopsies, endoscopies or mammograms. Blood samples could be a less unpleasant option, though only a few forms of the disease can currently be diagnosed this way. But now, researchers reporting in ACS Sensors have developed an easy-to-use method that can detect small amounts of cancer-related molecules in exosomes in plasma and effectively distinguish between malignant and benign samples.

Exosomes are small vesicles that pinch off from a host cell, carrying cargo, such as nucleic acids, lipids and proteins, inside. This means that they provide a window into the condition of the cell they originated from. Accordingly, the unique intracellular environment of cancerous cells will be reflected in their exosomes through biomarkers such as micro RNAs (miRNAs). These are very small nucleic acids, only a few nucleotides in length, that regulate protein expression in cells and can become dysregulated in tumors. Therefore, it's possible that a blood test could someday detect cancerous cells simply by targeting these exosomal miRNAs.

But quantifying miRNAs has been difficult because they are present at very low levels in exosomes, requiring laborious processes that can introduce contamination and report unreliable results. So, some researchers have analyzed RNA and proteins in vesicles with the gene-editing tool CRISPR. Butother scientists wanted to develop a way to detect the small numbers of cancer-related exosomal miRNAs using a different CRISPR system with a unique RNase activity that was sensitive, reliable and effective. To create the detection method, the team designed a CRISPR/Cas13a system to cut apart a fluorophore and quencher-labeled reporter molecule, then packed it into a liposome—essentially a manufactured version of an exosome. When the two types of compartments fused together, the CRISPR cargo would then interact with the exosomal genetic material. If the target miRNA sequence was present, the Cas13a protein became activated and cut apart the reporter molecule, producing a fluorescent signal. In these experiments, the team targeted miRNA-21, which is involved in the development of several diseases, including breast cancer. The method successfully detected this miRNA within a mixture of similar sequences with high sensitivity. In other experiments, the researchers tested the method on a group of exosomes from healthy human cells and groups derived from breast cancer cells. The system consistently differentiated the cancer-related exosomes from those derived from healthy cells, showing it could be useful as a cancer diagnostic. The researchers say that this method has the potential to make cancer diagnosis and monitoring quicker and easier by analyzing blood samples.

Highly effective detection of exosomal miRNAs in plasma using liposome-mediated transfection CRISPR/Cas13a, ACS Sensors (2023). pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acssensors.2c01683

Light-activated nanoscale drills can kill pathogenic fungi

That stubborn athlete's foot infection an estimated 70% of people get at some point in their life could become much easier to get rid of thanks to nanoscale drills activated by visible light.

Proven effective against antibiotic-resistant infectious bacteria and cancer cells, the molecular machines developed by researchers are just as good at combating infectious fungi, according to a new study published in Advanced Science.

The molecular machines developed by them are nanoscale compounds whose paddlelike chain of atoms moves in a single direction when exposed to visible light. This causes a drilling motion that allows the machines to bore into the surface of cells, killing them. This study is the first to show that, indeed, these molecules can also be effective against fungi.

In contrast to most antifungals, development of resistance to the visible-light activated nanoscale drills was not detected. Spinning at 2-3 million times per second, their rotors cause fungal cells to disintegrate by disrupting their metabolism.

By targeting the mitochondria,  these molecules disrupt the cell's metabolism, resulting in an overall energy imbalance that leads to an uncontrolled flow of water and ions such as calcium into the cell, eventually causing the cell to explode.

Ana L. Santos et al, Visible‐Light‐Activated Molecular Machines Kill Fungi by Necrosis Following Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Calcium Overload, Advanced Science (2023). DOI: 10.1002/advs.202205781

A Mysterious Whirlpool Appeared Over Hawaii, And It Could Be Because of SpaceX

A ghostly blue spiral spotted in the sky over Hawaii could be related to a SpaceX satellite launch.

The National Astronomical Observatory of Japan spotted the mysterious spiral through its Subaru Telescope on Janua..., just after SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket carrying a large military satellite for the US Space Force.

https://www.sciencealert.com/a-mysterious-whirlpool-appeared-over-h...

Network science is the study of physical, biological, social and other phenomena through the creation of network representations. These representations can sometimes offer very valuable insight, unveiling interesting patterns in data and relationships between connected entities.

  Network science and network visualizations are superb in summarizing and explaining complex systems in one image in a quick and objective way.

A network is essentially an object that consists of several nodes and links that connect these nodes. Network scientists  build these networks using data that relates to specific phenomena involving different interconnected parties or entities.

Two data scientists working at Central European University, Baoba Inc. and Revolut recently used network science to examine the FIFA World Cup 2022. The network representations they created, outlined in a paper published on Research Gate, allowed them to shed some new light on the fascinating interconnected world of soccer stars and clubs.

To build a network, researchers need a data source that shows relationships between the entities they are studying. In the example of soccer, this could be a team just as much as individual players. So, first things first—researchers needed data. This is where expert knowledge is required.

So the researchers collected the data necessary to build their FIFA World Cup 2022 Networks from transfermarkt.com, a soccer-related website owned by Axel Springer SE. This website contains a vast amount of information about soccer players and clubs, including players' team memberships and transfer histories, as well as both ongoing and past championship results.

So they came up with this: 

 Milan Janosov et al, FIFA World Cup 2022—The Network Edition, Unpublished (2023). DOI: 10.13140/rg.2.2.20650.29129

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Discovery of new ice may change our understanding of water

Researchers  have discovered a new type of ice that more closely resembles liquid water than any other known ices and that may rewrite our understanding of water and its many anomalies.

The newly discovered ice is amorphous—that is, its molecules are in a disorganized form, not neatly ordered as they are in ordinary, crystalline ice. Amorphous ice, although rare on Earth, is the main type of ice found in space. That is because in the colder environment of space, ice does not have enough thermal energy to form crystals.

For the study, published in the journal Science, the research team used a process called ball milling, vigorously shaking ordinary ice together with steel balls in a jar cooled to -200 degrees Centigrade.

They found that, rather than ending up with small bits of ordinary ice, the process yielded a novel amorphous form of ice that, unlike all other known ices, had the same density as liquid water and whose state resembled water in solid form. They named the new ice "medium-density amorphous ice" (MDA).

The team suggested that MDA (which looks like a fine white powder) may exist inside ice moons of the outer solar system, as tidal forces from gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn may exert similar shear forces on ordinary ice as those created by ball milling. In addition, the team found that when MDA was warmed up and recrystallized, it released an extraordinary amount of heat, meaning it could trigger tectonic motions and "icequakes" in the kilometers-thick covering of ice on moons such as Ganymede.

 Alexander Rosu-Finsen et al, Medium-density amorphous ice, Science (2023). DOI: 10.1126/science.abq2105. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq2105

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-discovery-ice.html?utm_source=nwlette...

Here is another reason to stop wars and voilence : Life in a violent country can be years shorter and much less predictable, even for those not involved in conflict

How long people live is less predictable and life expectancy for young people can be as much as 14 years shorter in violent countries compared to peaceful countries, according to a new study today from an international team. It reveals a direct link between the uncertainty of living in a violent setting, even for those not directly involved in the violence, and a "double burden" of shorter and less predictable lives.

According to the research, violent deaths are responsible for a high proportion of the differences in lifetime uncertainty between violent and peaceful countries. But, the study says, "The impact of violence on mortality goes beyond cutting lives short. When lives are routinely lost to violence, those left behind face uncertainty as to who will be next."

What the researchers found most striking is that lifetime uncertainty has a greater association with violence than life expectancy. Lifetime uncertainty, therefore, should not be overlooked when analyzing changes in mortality patterns.

Using mortality data from 162 countries, and the Internal Peace Index between 2008–2017, the study shows the most violent countries are also those with the highest lifetime uncertainty. It also says, in the most violent societies, lifetime uncertainty is even experienced by those not directly involved in violence. The report states, "Poverty-insecurity-violence cycles magnify pre-existing structural patterns of disadvantage for women and fundamental imbalances in gender relations at young ages."

Whilst men are the major direct victims of violence, women are more likely to experience non-fatal consequences in violent contexts. These indirect effects of violence should not be ignored as they fuel gender inequalities, and can trigger other forms of vulnerability and causes of death.

According to the report, lower life expectancy is usually associated with greater lifetime uncertainty. In addition, living in a violent society creates vulnerability and uncertainty—and that, in turn, can lead to more violent behavior.

Therefore, countries with high levels of violence experience lower levels of life expectancy than more peaceful ones.

José Aburto, A global assessment of the impact of violence on lifetime uncertainty, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.add9038. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.add9038

Genetic analysis can reduce adverse drug reactions by 30%

Patients can experience 30% fewer serious adverse reactions if their drugs are tailored to their genes, reports a study published in The Lancet. A European collaboration research suggests that a genetic analysis prior to drug therapy could significantly reduce suffering and health care costs.

A significant proportion of patients experience adverse reactions to their medication. Since we each carry a unique set of genes, we react differently to the same drugs. For example, some people break them down faster, meaning that they require a higher dose to obtain the desired effect.

To overcome this problem, researchers have developed the principle for a "DNA pass" that has been clinically validated in the recently published study.

It's basically a credit card-sized card with a magnetic strip containing all the important genetic data on a particular patient. When a patient's card is scanned, doctors and pharmacists can work out the optimal dose of a drug for that particular individual.

The study included almost 7,000 patients from seven European countries between March 2017 and June 2020 all of whom were genotyped with respect to variations in twelve specific genes of significance to drug metabolism, transport and side-effects. All participants then received their drugs either conventionally or with a genotype-based modification.

Twelve weeks after their drug regimen began, the patients were contacted by a specialist nurse about any adverse reactions, such as diarrhea, pain or loss of taste. The study concluded that such adverse reactions to drugs can be greatly reduced by analyzing the genes that code for enzymes that metabolize them.

The patients who'd received genotype-driven treatment had, on average, 30% fewer adverse reactions than the controls in the study.

Jesse J Swen et al, A 12-gene pharmacogenetic panel to prevent adverse drug reactions: an open-label, multicentre, controlled, cluster-randomised crossover implementation study, The Lancet (2023). DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(22)01841-4

Coffee can pollute too!

Caffeine is an emerging global pollutant. It enters our waterways through the wastewater system, and impacts water quality and marine life. And while coffee grounds are often used as a soil amendment, caffeine is a killer for emerging seedlings.

But there are things consumers can do to reduce the pollution; some are listed  below. And scientists are looking at innovative strategies for removing the contamination.

Five ways to clean up your caffeine habit

1. Stop drinking caffeinated beverages

Since at least 90% of adults drink coffee, tea or energy drinks regularly, I imagine some of you are laughing (or crying) right now. So consider reducing your consumption, and move on to No. 2.

2. Reuse and recycle

Some businesses, artists and engineers are finding creative ways to reuse and recycle grounds. For example, companies in the United Kingdom are collecting coffee pulp and spent grounds to use in textiles, ink, aromatics, and biofuels. Coffee shops and manufacturers could partner with such companies to reuse their coffee waste.

3. Don't dump spent grounds or leftover drink down the sink

Compost or dispose of grounds in the trash rather than send caffeine down the drain and into the wastewater system.

4. Reduce plastic pollution, too

The plastic and disposable cups that often go with caffeine habits is a different but related type of pollution we can reduce. Remember to bring your own cup to the café, or use one of the many low-waste techniques of brewing at home.

5. Support government funding to update sewage facilities

"Investing in outdated treatment plants is how we can actually solve it," Subuyuj said. "In the U.S., outdated water treatment plants, especially in bigger cities, is the main source of caffeine entering waterways. That would also reduce other contaminants to the environment, like heavy metals and microplastics."

Rocket industry could undo decades of work to save the ozone layer

The ozone layer is on track to heal within four decades, according to a recent UN report, but this progress could be undone by an upsurge in rocket launches expected during the same period.

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Rates of hatching failure in birds almost twice as high as previous...

Hatching failure rates in birds are almost twice as high as experts previously estimated, according to the largest ever study of its kind by researchers 

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How long does COVID immunity last?

How quickly does immunity from vaccination, infection with SARS-CoV-2, or a combination of the two, wane? Studies from Portugal, Israel, Sweden and Qatar have offered clues, but the real answer is: it’s complicated. ‘Hybrid’ immunity gained from vaccination and infection provides some protection against reinfection for around eight months, longer than immunity acquired from a booster alone. But the emergence of new variants makes it hard to determine the role of immune evasion. One study suggests that immunity against reinfection could last up to three years — if the virus does not mutate. The data make it difficult to predict when new surges of infections might occur — or when to schedule booster shots.

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Using muon detectors to remotely create a 3D image of the inside of...

A team of physicists affiliated with several institutions in France has developed a way to use muon detectors to create 3D images of difficult-to-access objects, such as a reactor inside a nuclear plant. The research is published in the journal Science Advances.

Bird flu detected in mammals but risk to humans low: experts

Experts have warned that the recent detection of bird flu in mammals including foxes, otters, minks, seals and even grizzly bears is concerning but emphasized that the virus would have to significantly mutate to spread between humans.

It is rare that bird flu jumps over into mammals—and rarer still that humans catch the potentially deadly virus.

However two recent larger scale infections have raised concerns that bird flu has the potential to spread between mammals.

One was an outbreak of H5N1 with the PB2 mutation at a Spanish farm in October that led to the culling of more than 50,000 minks.

Transmission between the minks has not been confirmed, with further research ongoing.

The mass death of some 2,500 endangered seals found along Russia's Caspian Sea coast last month has also raised concern.

But it was always concerning when a flu virus enters mammals "because they're often the mixing point of influenza viruses, or they create an environment where mutations can occur and then can become adapted in humans".

If H5N1 did mutate into a strain that could circulate among humans, the current seasonal flu vaccine could be fairly easily updated to include it.

Over the last two decades, there have been 868 confirmed H5N1 cases in humans with 457 deaths, according to the World Health Organization. There were four confirmed cases and one death last year.

Last month, Ecuador reported South America's first case of the A(H5) bird flu virus in a human—a nine-year-old girl who was in contact with backyard poultry.

The experts called for continued surveillance of avian influenza in wild birds, poultry and mammals, in order for humans to limit their exposure.

source: AFP

Will revitalizing old blood slow aging?

Young blood has a rejuvenating effect when infused into older bodies, according to recent research: Aging hearts beat stronger, muscles become stronger, and thinking becomes sharper.

Many scientists are looking for the elements of young blood that can be captured or replicated and put into a pill. But what if the best way to get the benefits of young blood is to simply rejuvenate the system that makes blood?

An aging blood system, because it's a vector for a lot of proteins, cytokines, and cells, has a lot of bad consequences for the organism. A 70-year-old with a 40-year-old blood system could have a longer healthspan, if not a longer lifespan. Rejuvenating an older person's blood may now be within reach, based on recent findings according to a paper published in Nature Cell Biology.

According to new research ,  an anti-inflammatory drug, already approved for use in rheumatoid arthritis, can turn back time in mice and reverse some of the effects of age on the hematopoietic system. These results indicate that such strategies hold promise for maintaining healthier blood production in the elderly.

The researchers only identified the drug after a comprehensive investigation of the stem cells that create all blood cells and the niches where they reside in the center of the bones.

All blood cells in the body are created by a small number of stem cells that reside in bone marrow. Over time, these hematopoietic stem cells start to change: They produce fewer red blood cells (leading to anemia) and fewer immune cells (which raises the risk of infection and impedes vaccination efforts), and they have trouble maintaining the integrity of their genomes (which can lead to blood cancers).

The researchers first tried to rejuvenate old hematopoietic stem cells, in mice, with exercise or calorie-restricting diet, both generally thought to slow the aging process. Neither worked. Transplanting old stem cells into young bone marrow also failed. Even young blood had no effect on rejuvenating old blood stem cells.

They then took a closer look at the stem cells' environment, the bone marrow. Blood stem cells live in a niche; they thought what happens in this specialized local environment could be a big part of the problem. 

With new techniques developed  that enable detailed investigation of the bone marrow milieu, the researchers found that the aging niche is deteriorating and overwhelmed with inflammation, leading to dysfunction in the blood stem cells. One inflammatory signal released from the damaged bone marrow niche, IL-1B, was critical in driving these aging features, and blocking it with the drug anakinra remarkably returned the blood stem cells to a younger, healthier state. Even more youthful effects on both the niche and the blood system occurred when IL-1B was prevented from exerting its inflammatory effects throughout the animal's life.

The researchers are now trying to learn if the same processes are active in humans and if rejuvenating the stem cell niche earlier in life, in middle age, would be a more effective strategy. Meanwhile, "treating elderly patients with anti-inflammatory drugs blocking IL-1B function should help with maintaining healthier blood production".

Carl A. Mitchell et al, Stromal niche inflammation mediated by IL-1 signalling is a targetable driver of haematopoietic ageing, Nature Cell Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41556-022-01053-0

Genes decide the willow warbler's migration routes

Since antiquity, humans have been fascinated by birds’ intercontinental migratory journeys. A new study shows that two areas in their genome decide whether a willow warbler flies across the Iberian Peninsula to western Africa, or across the Balkans to eastern and southern Africa.

Researchers have long known that the behaviour that causes songbirds to migrate in a specific direction towards a remote winter location is something they are born with. The recent study aims to further understanding of the genetics behind this behaviour. With the help of modern technology, and 20 years of research into the genetics of songbirds and their migration routes, the researchers managed to identify which parts of the genome that determine the songbirds’ routes.

“The songbirds’ direction of travel is determined by two areas in the genome. Genes from the southern subspecies take the bird towards the southwest, across the Iberian peninsula to their wintering grounds in western Africa. Genes belonging to the northern subspecies instead lead the willow warblers towards the southeast, over the Balkans, to locations in eastern and southern Africa, according to the study.

Researchers have previously assumed that interbreeding between subspecies that move in different directions would result in offspring that migrate in a direction in between these two. For willow warblers, this would mean a route straight over the Mediterranean and the Sahara, with probable higher mortality than if they flew west or east of that route. Instead, researchers discovered that crosses between northern and southern willow warblers usually migrate like one or other of the subspecies. The price of interbreeding, then, is lower than researchers previously thought. 

Researchers are surprised that such complex behaviour as variations in migratory patterns can to such a large extent be explained by just two genetic areas.

Knowledge of the willow warbler’s behaviour also helps us to understand how different species’ spectacular migratory patterns have developed through evolution. Climate change means that many species are being forced to alter their routes when the habitats they are adapted to change. The more we know about the genetics of migration, the better understanding we will gain of the birds’ capacity to adapt their migration patterns in response to climate change.

Kristaps Sokolovskis et al, Migration direction in a songbird explained by two loci, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-35788-7

Why lung cancer doesn't respond well to immunotherapy

Immunotherapy — drug treatment that stimulates the immune system to attack tumors — works well against some types of cancer, but it has shown mixed success against lung cancer.

A new study helps to shed light on why the immune system mounts such a lackluster response to lung cancer, even after treatment with immunotherapy drugs. In a study of mice, the researchers found that bacteria naturally found in the lungs help to create an environment that suppresses T-cell activation in the lymph nodes near the lungs.

The researchers did not find that kind of immune-suppressive environment in lymph nodes near tumours growing near the skin of mice. They hope that their findings could help lead to the development of new ways to rev up the immune response to lung tumours.

There is a functional difference between the T-cell responses that are mounted in the different lymph nodes. Researchers are hoping to identify a way to counteract that suppressive response, so that they can reactivate the lung-tumor-targeting T cells.
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For many years, scientists have known that cancer cells can send out immunosuppressive signals, which leads to a phenomenon known as T-cell exhaustion. The goal of cancer immunotherapy is to rejuvenate those T cells so they can begin attacking tumors again.

One type of drug commonly used for immunotherapy involves checkpoint inhibitors, which remove the brakes on exhausted T cells and help reactivate them. This approach has worked well with cancers such as melanoma, but not as well with lung cancer.

Recent research work has offered one possible explanation for this: Researchers found that some T cells stop working even before they reach a tumor, because of a failure to become activated early in their development. In a 2021 paper, they identified populations of dysfunctional T cells that can be distinguished from normal T cells by a pattern of gene expression that prevents them from attacking cancer cells when they enter a tumor.

“Despite the fact that these T cells are proliferating, and they’re infiltrating the tumor, they were never licensed to kill”.
Part 1

In the new study, teh researchers delved further into this activation failure, which occurs in the lymph nodes, which filter fluids that drain from nearby tissues. The lymph nodes are where “killer T cells” encounter dendritic cells, which present antigens (tumor proteins) and help to activate the T cells.

To explore why some killer T cells fail to be properly activated, researchers studied mice that had tumors implanted either in the lungs or in the flank. All of the tumors were genetically identical.

The researchers found that T cells in lymph nodes that drain from the lung tumors did encounter dendritic cells and recognize the tumor antigens displayed by those cells. However, these T cells failed to become fully activated, as a result of inhibition by another population of T cells called regulatory T cells.

These regulatory T cells became strongly activated in lymph nodes that drain from the lungs, but not in lymph nodes near tumors located in the flank, the researchers found. Regulatory T cells are normally responsible for making sure that the immune system doesn’t attack the body’s own cells. However, the researchers found that these T cells also interfere with dendritic cells’ ability to activate killer T cells that target lung tumors.

The researchers also discovered how these regulatory T cells suppress dendritic cells: by removing stimulatory proteins from the surface of dendritic cells, which prevents them from being able to turn on killer-T-cell activity.

Further studies revealed that the activation of regulatory T cells is driven by high levels of interferon gamma in the lymph nodes that drain from the lungs. This signaling molecule is produced in response to the presence of commensal bacterial — bacteria that normally live in the lungs without causing infection.

The researchers have not yet identified the types of bacteria that induce this response or the cells that produce the interferon gamma, but they showed that when they treated mice with an antibody that blocks interferon gamma, they could restore killer T cells’ activity.

Interferon gamma has a variety of effects on immune signaling, and blocking it can dampen the overall immune response against a tumor, so using it to stimulate killer T cells would not be a good strategy to use in patients.

Researchers are now exploring other ways to help stimulate the killer T cell response, such as inhibiting the regulatory T cells that suppress the killer-T-cell response or blocking the signals from the commensal bacteria, once the researchers identify them.

Maria Zagorulya, Leon Yim, et al. Tissue-specific abundance of interferon-gamma drives regulatory T cells to restrain DC1-mediated priming of cytotoxic T cells against lung cancer. Immunity. DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2023.01.010

Part 2

Scientists detect molten rock layer hidden under Earth's tectonic plates

Scientists have discovered a new layer of partly molten rock under the Earth's crust that might help settle a long-standing debate about how tectonic plates move.

Researchers had previously identified patches of melt at a similar depth. But a new study  revealed for the first time the layer's global extent and its part in plate tectonics.

The molten layer is located about 100 miles from the surface and is part of the asthenosphere, which sits under the Earth's tectonic plates in the upper mantle. The asthenosphere is important for plate tectonics because it forms a relatively soft boundary that lets tectonic plates move through the mantle.

The reasons why it is soft, however, are not well understood. Scientists previously thought that molten rocks might be a factor. But this study shows that melt, in fact, does not appear to notably influence the flow of mantle rocks.

The convection of heat and rock in the mantle are the prevailing influence on the motion of the plates. Although the Earth's interior is largely solid, over long periods of time, rocks can shift and flow like honey.

Showing that the melt layer has no influence on plate tectonics means one less tricky variable for computer models of the Earth.

Junlin Hua, Asthenospheric low-velocity zone consistent with globally prevalent partial melting, Nature Geoscience (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-022-01116-9. www.nature.com/articles/s41561-022-01116-9

Why icicles are rippled

When you look at these icicles carefully, you may notice that they show a characteristic pattern of ripples—always around one centimeter wide. What causes these ripples? Using an icicle machine of their own design, physicists and chemists investigated this question, and discovered that salt plays an important part in the formation process of the ripples.

 It was discovered that the flow of liquid water caused the ripples to appear. Using pure water, the layer of salty liquid water around the icicle was absent, and the formation process looked more like a dripping candle. When saltier water was used, the icicle was surrounded by a thin film of liquid, salty water, and the flow of that water created the regular ripples. The more salt the water contained, the stronger the process, causing thicker ripples to eventually form.

In nature, water always contains a small concentration of salt. This explains the beautiful structures we find on our gutters and car bumpers in the morning—rippled by a thin layer of slightly salty water that was at work throughout the night.

 Menno Demmenie et al, Growth and Form of Rippled Icicles, Physical Review Applied (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevApplied.19.024005

Global study shows influences of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems

In a study published in Nature Geoscience, plant ecologistshave shown how global climate change is impacting the Earth's terrestrial ecosystems. Changes in vegetation activity could in most cases be explained by temperature and soil moisture changes, while changes in solar radiation and atmospheric CO₂ levels seldom played a dominant role.

In some of the ecosystems studied, years of increased vegetation activity have been followed by decreases. Such trend reversals raise the question of whether terrestrial ecosystems will continue to make large contributions to the sequestration of atmospheric carbon.

Researchers 

 linked global remote sensing data from the past 40 years to a novel dynamic model of plant growth. This model allows the identification of the climate factors involved in global climate change that are driving vegetation change.

These factors include air temperature, soil temperature, soil moisture, solar radiation, and atmospheric CO₂ levels. The method allows, for the first time, the attribution of measured changes in vegetation activity to individual climate factors.

Steven I. Higgins et al, Shifts in vegetation activity of terrestrial ecosystems attributable to climate trends, Nature Geoscience (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-022-01114-x

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Bacteria use dogma-defying DNA packaging

Some bacteria have a bizarre way of packaging chromosomes and regulating gene expression: they use proteins that weren’t thought to exist in bacteria at all. Researchers report that proteins called histones seem to coat regions of the bacterial chro... in two species. This is a marked difference from histones’ function in eukaryotes (which includes animals, plants and fungi), in which the proteins form a spool for DNA to wind around. The researchers surveyed thousands of bacterial genomes and found histone-like proteins in about 2%. For now, it’s unclear what the histones might be doing, and how their unusual mode of action might help the bacteria to survive.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.01.26.525422v1?utm_sou...

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Driving culture gives us ‘car brain’

People seem to be more likely to excuse the negative effects of driving — such as pollution and accidents — than those in other areas of life. In a survey of 2,157 drivers and non-drivers in the United Kingdom, roughly half were asked to rate a statement about cars. The others were given an almost identical sentence about another issue. For example, 75% agreed that people shouldn’t smoke in highly populated areas where others have to breathe in the fumes — but only 17% agreed that people shouldn’t drive in highly populated areas. The researchers suggest that this ‘motonormativity’ inhibits our ability to think objectively about how we use cars.

https://psyarxiv.com/egnmj/

Scientists first in the world to regenerate diseased kidney cells

In a world first, scientists at Duke-NUS Medical School, the National Heart Center Singapore (NHCS) and colleagues in Germany have shown that regenerative therapy to restore impaired kidney function may soon be a possibility.

In a preclinical study reported in Nature Communications, the team found that blocking a damaging and scar-regulating protein called interleukin-11 (IL-11) enables damaged kidney cells to regenerate, restoring impaired kidney function due to disease and acute injuries.

Searching for ways to restore the kidney's ability to regenerate damaged cells, researchers investigated the role of IL-11, which is known to trigger scarring in other organs, including the liver, lungs and heart, in acute and chronic kidney disease.

Their findings implicate the protein in triggering a cascade of molecular processes in response to kidney injury that leads to inflammation, fibrosis (scarring) and loss of function. They also discovered that inhibiting IL-11 with a neutralizing antibody can prevent and even reverse kidney damage in this setting.

They found that IL-11 is detrimental to kidney function and triggers the development of chronic kidney disease. They also showed that anti-IL11 therapy can treat kidney failure, reverse established chronic kidney disease, and restore kidney function by promoting regeneration in mice, while being safe for long term use.

More specifically, the researchers showed that renal tubular cells, which line the tiny tubes inside kidneys, release IL-11 in response to kidney damage. This turns on a signaling cascade that ultimately leads to increased expression of a gene, called Snail Family Transcriptional Repressor 1 (SNAI1), which arrests cellular growth and promotes kidney dysfunction.

In a preclinical model of human diabetic kidney disease, turning off this process by administering an antibody that binds to IL-11 led to proliferation of the kidney tubule cells and reversal of fibrosis and inflammation, resulting in the regeneration of the injured kidney and the restoration of renal function.

While clinical trials of an antibody that binds to another pro-fibrotic molecule called transforming growth factor beta have been unsuccessful, this new approach brings hope of a new target.  This work has shown that scientists  can restore function to a damaged kidney.

This discovery could be a real game-changer in the treatment of chronic kidney disease—which is a major public health concern globally—bringing us one step closer to delivering the benefits promised by regenerative medicine.

Anissa A. Widjaja et al, Targeting endogenous kidney regeneration using anti-IL11 therapy in acute and chronic models of kidney disease, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-35306-1

Harmful bacteria can elude predators when in mixed colonies

 Efforts to fight disease-causing bacteria by harnessing their natural predators could be undermined when multiple species occupy the same space, according to a new study.

When growing in mixed colonies, some harmful bacteria may be able to withstand attacks from the bacteria and viruses that target them by finding protection inside groups of rival species, according to a report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The researchers found that the intestinal bacterium Escherichia coli became surrounded by tightly packed colonies of Vibrio cholerae—which causes the deadly disease cholera—when the species were grown together. These clusters protected E. coli from the bacteria Bdellovibrio bacteriovorus that preys on both species individually, but in the study could only kill the outer layer of V. cholerae. This left the unscathed cells of E. coli and V. cholerae insulated within the colonies free to multiply.

The findings add a new layer of complication to the development of biological antimicrobials, wherein bacteria-killing bacteria or viruses—known as bacteriophages—are deployed to fight infections.

For E. coli, if it grew with V. cholerae, it could do better than on its own, but V. cholerae did worse. It's fascinating that growing together had opposite effects on each species' chances of survival. This new research shows that the way prey populations can resist or not resist predators can be very different in multispecies conditions. The efficacy of bacteriophages and predatory bacteria to kill off harmful bacteria might depend on the other species their prey are living with, and on the biofilm structures they produce alone versus together.

These organisms can be more effective than antibiotics at penetrating bacterial colonies, or biofilms, and have emerged as a possible supplement or alternative to antibiotics. Bacteria worldwide have become more resistant to antibiotics due to the drugs' overuse.

Most of earlier research on predatory bacteria and phages, however, has focused on liquid cultures or single-species biofilms, not on mixed colonies like we see in human eco-systems. 

This work highlights the importance of studying other examples of multispecies biofilm structures. What the scientists  saw in this work will apply to other cases, but it's a question of when and to what extent.

Benjamin R. Wucher et al, Breakdown of clonal cooperative architecture in multispecies biofilms and the spatial ecology of predation, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2023). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2212650120

James B. Winans et al, Multispecies biofilm architecture determines bacterial exposure to phages, PLOS Biology (2022). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001913

Scientists Create Semi-Living 'Cyborg' Cells That Could Transform Medicine

Through a complex chemical process, scientists have been able to develop versatile, synthetic 'cyborg' cells in the lab. They share many characteristics of living cells while lacking the ability to divide and grow.

That non-replication part is important. For artificial cells to be useful, they need to be carefully controlled, and that can't happen as easily if they're propagating in the same way that actual cells do.

The researchers behind the new development think these cyborgs could have a huge variety of applications, from improving treatments for diseases like cancer to cleaning up pollution through targeted chemical processes.

The cyborg cells are programmable, do not divide, preserve essential cellular activities, and gain nonnative abilities.

Cell engineering is currently based on two key approaches: genetically remodeling existing cells to give them new functions (more flexible but also able to reproduce) and building synthetic cells from scratch (which can't replicate but have limited biological functions).

These cyborg cells are the result of a new, third strategy. The researchers took bacterial cells as their foundation and added elements from an artificial polymer. Once inside the cell, the polymer was exposed to ultraviolet light to build it into a hydrogel matrix by cross-linking, mimicking a natural extracellular matrix.

While able to maintain much of their normal biological functions, these cyborg cells proved to be more resistant to stressors like high pH and antibiotic exposure – stressors that would kill off normal cells. Much like actual cyborgs, they're tough.

Cyborg cells preserve essential functions, including cellular metabolism, motility, protein synthesis, and compatibility with genetic circuits.

Lab tests on tissue samples showed that the newly developed cells were able to invade cancer cells, highlighting the potential of these modified biological building blocks for health treatments further down the line – they could one day be used to deliver drugs to very specific parts of the body.

he researchers say they now want to experiment with the use of different materials to create these cells, as well as investigate how they could be used.

It's also not clear exactly what is stopping the cells from replicating, which needs to be determined. The authors think the hydrogel matrix may stop cell division by inhibiting cell growth or DNA replication, or both.

The blending of the natural and the artificial demonstrated here in some ways takes the best elements of both, opening up new possibilities – a state of "quasi vita" or "almost life", as the researchers put it.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202204175

New way climate change is fueling itself

Healthy, undisturbed soil sinks carbon, storing what's generated when plants and other living things decompose so it doesn't get released as a planet-warming greenhouse gas.

But a new study  suggests nitrogen pollution from cars and trucks and power plants might make soil release that carbon in dry places—worsening, rather than helping to fight, climate change.

In places that get more regular rain and snow, other studies have shown that adding nitrogen to soil can increase carbon storage. Nitrogen fuels plant growth, which captures carbon and draws it down into the soil. It also helps slow decomposition of whatever is in the soil.

Dryland ecosystems cover roughly 45% of land on Earth. They also store 33% of the carbon found in the top layer of soil worldwide. So if nitrogen pollution is making the carbon stored in these soils vulnerable, that definitely rings some alarm bells.

The findings offer new motivation, then, to speed the transition away from fossil fuels and cut back on nitrogen-rich fertilizer if we want to slow global warming that's already creating climate refugees due to worsening heat waves, droughts, floods and wildfires.

https://phys.org/news/2023-02-dirty-truth-climate-fueling.html?utm_...

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What generative AI means for science

Some scientists now frequently use generative artificial-intelligence (AI) systems, such as ChatGPT, to help them write and edit manuscripts, check their code and brainstorm ideas. But the excitement about the use of such tools is tempered with apprehe..., because of their propensity to make factual errors, reproduce biases in training data and provide fuel for fakery. They also rely on humans to tag reams of violent, abusive and other horrific content so that it can be filtered out, and require a huge amount of energy to train. Researchers are grappling with these issues, in part by urging more regulation and transparency.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00340-6?utm_source=Natur...

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If wormholes exist, they might magnify light by 100,000 times

A small team of astrophysicists affiliated with several institutions in China has found evidence that suggests if wormholes are real, they might magnify light by 100,000 times. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the group describes the theories they have developed and possible uses for them.

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This exoplanet orbits around its star's poles

In 1992, humanity's effort to understand the universe took a significant step forward. That's when astronomers discovered the first exoplanets. They're named Poltergeist (Noisy Ghost) and Phobetor (Frightener), and they orbit a pulsar about 2300 light-years away.