How can you generate electricity from living plants?

In simple terms, electrons are a waste product of bacteria living around plant roots – plants excrete organic matter into the soil, which is broken down by bacteria. In the breakdown process electrons are released. It is possible to harvest them using inert electrodes and turn them into electricity, without affecting the plant’s growth in any way.

Dry Cleaning Chemical Could Be Major Cause of Parkinson's, Scientists Warn

The chemical trichloroethylene (TCE), once used widely in everything from producing decaf coffee to typewriter correction fluids, has been highlighted in a new study as potentially being a significant cause of many cases of Parkinson's disease.

Having already been associated with increased risks of cancer and miscarriages, TCE isn't used as widely as it once was, but the researchers behind the new report suggest that its role in Parkinson's disease has been largely overlooked.

They pull together evidence of the extent to which TCE has been used in industrial processes, review previous studies linking the chemical with Parkinson's, and investigate several cases where TCE and the disease could well be linked.

TCE is a simple, six-atom molecule that can decaffeinate coffee, degrease metal parts, and dry clean clothes. It was being used to do everything from clean engines to anesthetize patients. The colorless chemical was first linked to Parkinsonism in 1969.

While TCE use is now much more restricted in the EU and certain US states, globally it continues to be in demand, particularly from China. Even in areas where the chemical is banned, the researchers argue, we're still being exposed to it due to the ongoing contamination of water and soil.

The time between exposure and disease onset may be decades," write the researchers. Individuals, if they were aware of their exposure to the chemical, may have long since forgotten about it.

Those who worked with the solvent or who lived near a contaminated site may have changed jobs or moved, making retrospective evaluation of potential clusters challenging.

The team behind the new study now wants to see a complete ban on TCE and the closely related perchloroethylene (PCE), as well as the decontamination of sites where TCE exposure is known to have happened in the past.

https://content.iospress.com/articles/journal-of-parkinsons-disease...

Gut Bacterium Linked to Depression in Premenopause

The opportunistic pathogen Klebsiella aerogenes degrades estradiol and induces depressive-like behavior in mice, a study finds.

Klebsiella aerogenes, a bacterium associated with poor clinical outcomes in hospitals, is more prevalent in the gut of premenopausal women with depression than in premenopausal women without it, reports a study published today (March 17) in Cell Metabolism. The authors identified a key enzyme in the bacterium’s genome that degrades the ovarian hormone estradiol. Mice fed this bacterium or a different one engineered to carry the enzyme had lower estradiol levels and evidence of depressive-like behaviors compared to control mice.

Declining estradiol levels have been linked to female depression in humans.

While studies like this one certainly provide indications that [alterations of] gut bacteria can have quite striking phenotypic effects, for humans, there is at this time more smoke than fire. Yet, these data will encourage further studies of the [role of the] microbiome in affective disorders.

https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(23)00053-0

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Scientists use tardigrade proteins for human health breakthrough

Researchers' study of how microscopic creatures called tardigrades survive extreme conditions has led to a major breakthrough that could eventually make life-saving treatments available to people where refrigeration isn't possible. They have shown that natural and engineered versions of tardigrade proteins can be used to stabilize an important pharmaceutical used to treat people with hemophilia and other conditions without the need for refrigeration—even amid high temperatures and other difficult conditions.

The pharmaceutical known as human blood clotting Factor VIII is an essential therapeutic used to treat genetic disease and instances of extreme bleeding. Despite being critical and effective in treating patients in these circumstances, Factor VIII has a serious shortcoming, in that it is inherently unstable. Without stabilization within a precise temperature range, Factor VIII will break down.

In underdeveloped regions, during natural disasters, during space flight or on the battlefield, access to refrigerators and freezers, as well as ample electricity to run this infrastructure, can be in short supply. This often means that people who need access to Factor VIII do not get it. 

This new work provides a proof of principle that we can stabilize Factor VIII, and likely many other pharmaceuticals, in a stable, dry state at room or even elevated temperatures using proteins from tardigrades—and, thus, provide critical lifesaving medicine to everyone everywhere. 

Measuring less than half a millimeter long,  tardigrades- also known as water bears—can survive being completely dried out; being frozen to just above absolute zero (about minus 458 degrees Fahrenheit, when all molecular motion stops); heated to more than 300 degrees Fahrenheit; irradiated several thousand times beyond what a human could withstand; and even survive the vacuum of outer space. They are able to do so, in part, by manufacturing a sugar called trehalose and a protein called CAHS D.

According to the research paper published, researchers fine-tuned the biophysical properties of both trehalose and CAHS D to stabilize Factor VIII, noting that CAHS D is most suitable for the treatment. The stabilization allows Factor VIII to be available in austere conditions without refrigeration, including repeated dehydration/rehydration, extreme heat and long-term dry storage.

The researchers think the same thing can be done with other biologics—pharmaceuticals containing or derived from living organisms—such as vaccines, antibodies, stem cells, blood and blood products.

Maxwell H. Packebush et al, Natural and engineered mediators of desiccation tolerance stabilize Human Blood Clotting Factor VIII in a dry state, Scientific Reports (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-31586-9. www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-31586-9

Researchers discover molecular basis for alkaline taste

Whether or not animals can taste basic or alkaline food and how they do it has remained a mystery until now. A research group recently addressed this question, as they similarly did for sour taste in 2021 on the lower end of the pH scale. Their work, published recently in Nature Metabolism, identified a previously unknown chloride ion channel, which they named alkaliphile (Alka), as a taste receptor for alkaline pH.

The level of pH, which is a scale of how acidic or basic a substance is, must be just right to instigate many biological processes, such as breaking down food and creating enzymatic reactions. While researchers are familiar with sour taste, which is associated with acids and allows people to sense the acidic end of the pH scale, little is known about how animals perceive bases on the opposite end of the pH spectrum. Detecting both acids and bases, which are commonly present in food sources, is important because they can significantly impact the nutritional properties of what animals consume.

Researchers now found that Alka is expressed in the fly's gustatory receptor neurons (GRNs), the counterpart of taste receptor cells of mammals. When facing neutral food versus alkaline food, wild-type flies normally choose neutral foods because of the toxicity of high pH. In contrast, flies lacking Alka lose the ability to discriminate against alkaline food when presented with it. If the pH of a food is too high, it can be harmful and cause health concerns in humans such as muscle spasms, nausea, and numbness. Likewise, after fruit flies eat food with high pH, their lifespan can be shortened.

This work demonstrates that Alka is critical for flies to stay away from harmful alkaline environments. Detecting the alkaline pH of food is an advantageous adaptation that helps animals avoid consuming toxic substances. 

To understand how Alka senses high pH, the researchers performed electrophysiological analyses and found that Alka forms a chloride ion (Cl-) channel that is directly activated by hydroxide ions (OH-). Like olfactory sensory neurons in mammals, the concentration of Cl- inside the fly's GRN is typically higher than outside this nerve cell. The researchers propose that when exposed to high-pH stimuli, the Alka channel opens, leading to negatively charged Cl- flowing from inside to outside the fly's GRN. This efflux of Cl- activates the GRN, ultimately signaling to the fly brain that the food is alkaline and should be avoided.

In addition, the scientists studied how flies detect the taste of alkaline substances using light-based optogenetic tools. They found that when they turned off alkaline GRNs, the flies were no longer bothered by the taste of alkaline food. Conversely, they activated these alkaline GRNs by shining red light on them. Interestingly, when these flies were given sweet food and exposed to red light at the same time, the flies did not want to eat the sweet food anymore. Alkaline taste can make a big impact on what flies choose to eat.

Overall, they have established that Alka is a new taste receptor dedicated to sensing the alkaline pH of food.

Yali Zhang, Alkaline taste sensation through the alkaliphile chloride channel in Drosophila, Nature Metabolism (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s42255-023-00765-3. www.nature.com/articles/s42255-023-00765-3

Bacteria-killing viruses deploy genetic code-switching to deceive hosts

Scientists have confirmed that bacteria-killing viruses called bacteriophages deploy a sneaky tactic when targeting their hosts: They use a standard genetic code when invading bacteria, then switch to an alternate code at later stages of infection.

Their study provides crucial information on the life cycle of phages. It could be a key step toward the development of new technologies such as therapeutics targeting human pathogens or of methods to control phage-bacterial interactions in applications ranging from plant production to carbon sequestration.

Scientists have predicted since the mid-1990s that some organisms may use an alternate genetic code, but the process had never been observed experimentally in phages.

Researchers now obtained the first experimental validation of this theory using uncultivated phages in human fecal samples and the lab's high-performance mass spectrometry to reveal the intricacies of how phage proteins are expressed in the host organism. The work is detailed in Nature Communications.

The scientists confirmed that the phages convert a genome-coding signal that usually halts protein production to instead express a different amino acid entirely, one that supports replication of the phage. That code switch allows the phage to take over the bacteria's biological processes.

These phages use a standard genetic code early on as they infect bacteria, one that's compatible with the bacterial host. Once the phages are integrated into the host, they hijack the machinery and begin pumping out phage proteins. By the late stage of infection, the host bacterium is unable to stop producing phages and dies.

Recognizing this change to an alternate genetic code helps ensure that scientists' assumptions about phage protein structure and function are correct.

Samantha L. Peters et al, Experimental validation that human microbiome phages use alternative genetic coding, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32979-6

How our native language shapes our brain wiring

Scientists have found evidence that the language we speak shapes the connectivity in our brains that may underlie the way we think. With the help of magnetic resonance tomography, they looked deep into the brains of native German and Arabic speakers and discovered differences in the wiring of the language regions in the brain.

Researchers  compared the brain scans of 94 native speakers of two very different languages and showed that the language we grow up with modulates the wiring in the brain. Two groups of native speakers of German and Arabic respectively were scanned in a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machine.

The high-resolution images not only show the anatomy of the brain, but also allow to derive the connectivity between the brain areas using a technique called diffusion-weighted imaging. The data showed that the axonal white matter connections of the language network adapt to the processing demands and difficulties of the mother tongue.
Arabic native speakers showed a stronger connectivity between the left and right hemispheres than German native speakers. This strengthening was also found between semantic language regions and may be related to the relatively complex semantic and phonological processing in Arabic.

Native German speakers showed stronger connectivity in the left hemisphere language network. They argue that their findings may be related to the complex syntactic processing of German, which is due to the free word order and greater dependency distance of sentence elements.

Brain connectivity is modulated by learning and the environment during childhood, which influences processing and cognitive reasoning in the adult brain. This study provides new insights how the brain adapts to cognitive demands, that is, the structural language connectome is shaped by the mother tongue.

Mechanical engineers explore kitchen uses for 3D printing

Cooking devices that incorporate three-dimensional (3D) printers, lasers, or other software-driven processes may soon replace conventional cooking appliances such as ovens, stovetops, and microwaves. But will people want to use a 3D printer—even one as beautifully designed as a high-end coffee maker—on their kitchen counters to calibrate the exact micro- and macro-nutrients they need to stay healthy? Will 3D food printing improve the ways we nourish ourselves? What sorts of hurdles will need to be overcome to commercialize such a technology?

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COVID origin linked to raccoon dogs

There’s more evidence supporting the hypothesis that SARS-CoV-2 first spilled over from animals to humans at a market in Wuhan, China. An analysis looked at publicly posted genetic data from COVID-positive swabs taken from drains, stalls and the ground at the market in early 2020. Six samples contained DNA from racoon dogs (Nyctereutes procyonoides), which can catch SARS-CoV-2 and spread it to others of their species, even if they don’t have symptoms. “The most logical hypothesis is that raccoon dogs were infected by SARS-CoV-2 and shed the virus,” says virologist Leo Poon. It’s not the final word on the pandemic’s origin, because the study doesn’t confirm whether the animals were actually infected or whether viral RNA in the swabs came from other sources.

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How to defuse the climate time bomb

Global temperatures will reach 1.5 °C above pre-industrial levels in the early 2030s, according to estimates in a new report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that United Nations secretary-general António Guterres called a “how-to guide to defuse the climate time bomb”. To stop warming from crossing a dangerous threshold, industrialized nations will need to cut greenhouse-gas emissions in half by 2030 and achieve net zero b.... Cost-effective ways of doing this, such as solar and wind energy, already exist. The report also suggests that large-scale carbon dioxide removal will be needed, which has raised doubt among some scientists because the technology still barely exists.

 Most life on Earth is based on polymers of 20 amino acids that have evolved into hundreds of thousands of different, highly specialized proteins. They catalyze reactions, form backbone and muscle and even generate movement.

But is all that variety necessary? Could biology work just as well with fewer building blocks and simpler polymers?

Some polymer scientists, think so. Thye have developed a way to mimic specific functions of natural proteins using only two, four or six different building blocks—ones currently used in plastics—and found that these alternative polymers work as well as the real protein and are a lot easier to synthesize than trying to replicate nature's design.

As a proof of concept, they used their design method, which is based on machine learning or artificial intelligence, to synthesize polymers that mimic blood plasma. The artificial biological fluid kept natural protein biomarkers intact without refrigeration and even made the natural proteins more resistant to high temperatures—an improvement over real blood plasma.

The protein substitutes, or random heteropolymers (RHP), could be a game-changer for biomedical applications, since a lot of effort today is put into tweaking natural proteins to do things they were not originally designed to do, or trying to recreate the 3D structure of natural proteins. Drug delivery of small molecules that mimic natural human proteins is one hot research field.

Instead, AI could pick the right number, type and arrangement of plastic building blocks—similar to those used in dental fillings, for example—to mimic the desired function of a protein, and simple polymer chemistry could be used to make it.

In the case of blood plasma, for example, the artificial polymers were designed to dissolve and stabilize natural protein biomarkers in the blood. Xu and her team also created a mix of synthetic polymers to replace the guts of a cell, the so-called cytosol. In a test tube filled with artificial biological fluid, the cell's nanomachines, the ribosomes, continued to pump out natural proteins as if they didn't care whether the fluid was natural or artificial.

Basically, all the data shows that we can use this design framework, this philosophy, to generate polymers to a point that the biological system would not be able to recognize if it is a polymer or if it is a protein.

This in a way  fooling the biology. The whole idea is that if you really design it and inject your plastics as a part of an ecosystem, they should behave like a protein. If the other proteins are like, 'Okay, you are part of us,' then that's OK.

The design framework also opens the door to designing hybrid biological systems, where plastic polymers interact smoothly with natural proteins to improve a system, such as photosynthesis. And the polymers could be made to naturally degrade, making the system recyclable and sustainable.

Zhiyuan Ruan, Shuni Li, Alexandra Grigoropoulos, Hossein Amiri, Shayna L. Hilburg, Haotian Chen, Ivan Jayapurna, Tao Jiang, Zhaoyi Gu, Alfredo Alexander-Katz, Carlos Bustamante, Haiyan Huang, Ting Xu. Population-based heteropolymer design to mimic protein mixtures. Nature, 2023; 615 (7951): 251 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05675-0

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Nanoplastics Interfere With Developing Chicken Embryos in Terrifying Ways

A new study of chicken embryos suggests that sufficient concentrations of teensy nanoplastics speckles could interfere with the earliest stages of development, glugging up stem cells from which tissues and organs usually emerge.

These tissue defects, the study authors say, are "far more serious and extensive than has been previously reported" and include heart defects, which have not been described before in animal studies of microplastics.

Under the focused gaze of fluorescent microscopes, biologists  watched injected samples of nanometer-scale glowing plastic particles cross the embryonic gut wall and circulate into multiple organs of the chick embryos.

They used a high concentration of polystyrene particles, that would normally not be present in an organism. But it shows what nanoplastics can do in extreme cases on very young [chicken] embryos.

Nanoplastics are a fraction smaller than microplastics; both are typically produced when synthetic clothes shed plastic microfibers or larger plastics break down into ever smaller pieces under the glare of UV rays or mechanical weathering.

Past animal studies have tried to investigate the potential health risks of polystyrene microplastics, finding biochemical signs of potentially toxic effects as they accumulate in the livers, kidneys, and guts of laboratory mice. While results like those only hint at what might be happening in humans, we have good reason to be concerned. Our dependency on cheaply made plastic goods and synthetic materials is polluting our oceans and air with microscopic shards of plastic polymers making their way into our bodies and out the other side. Studies have found microplastics lodged deep in human lungs, circulating in our blood, and entering the placenta – the vital organ that shields unborn babies from pathogens and other potentially hazardous materials lurking in the mother's blood. But the possible effects of microplastics on the early development of cells and tissues that go on to form organs and bodies are largely unknown. Most studies of that kind have been in aquatic organisms, such as zebrafish.

In these latest lab experiments, the polystyrene nanoplastics (25 nanometers in size) seemed to get stuck on stem cells called neural crest cells, stopping them from migrating into place where they would normally form important tissues and organs.

In all vertebrates, neural crest cells give rise to parts of the heart, arteries, facial structures, and nervous system.

Part 1

A quarter of the chick embryos had one or two abnormally small eyes, while others showed facial deformities, thinning heart muscles, and slow heart rates.

Neural tube defects were also noted, which occur when the neural folds that form the early brain and spinal cord fail to meet and close properly. This all links back to those neural crest cells, the researchers suspect.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412023001381...

Part 2

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Photosynthesis 'hack' could lead to new ways of generating renewable energy

Researchers have 'hacked' the earliest stages of photosynthesis, the natural machine that powers the vast majority of life on Earth, and discovered new ways to extract energy from the process, a finding that could lead to new ways of generating clean fuel and renewable energy.

An international team of physicists, chemists and biologists was able to study photosynthesis—the process by which plants, algae and some bacteria convert sunlight into energy—in live cells at an ultrafast timescale: a millionth of a millionth of a second.

Despite the fact that it is one of the most well-known and well-studied processes on Earth, the researchers found that photosynthesis still has secrets to tell. Using ultrafast spectroscopic techniques to study the movement of energy, the researchers found the chemicals that can extract electrons from the molecular structures responsible for photosynthesis do so at the initial stages, rather than much later, as was previously thought.

This 'rewiring' of photosynthesis could improve ways in which it deals with excess energy, and create new and more efficient ways of using its power. The results are reported in the journal Nature.

While photosynthesis is a natural process, scientists have also been studying how it could be used as to help address the climate crisis, by mimicking photosynthetic processes to generate clean fuels from sunlight and water, for example.

Researchers were originally trying to understand why a ring-shaped molecule called a quinone is able to 'steal' electrons from photosynthesis. Quinones are common in nature, and they can accept and give away electrons easily. The researchers used a technique called ultrafast transient absorption spectroscopy to study how the quinones behave in photosynthetic cyanobacteria.

No one had properly studied how this molecule interplays with photosynthetic machineries at such an early point of photosynthesis: so now some scientists thought they were just using a new technique to confirm what they already knew. Instead, they found a whole new pathway, and opened the black box of photosynthesis a bit further.

Using ultrafast spectroscopy to watch the electrons, the researchers found that the protein scaffold where the initial chemical reactions of photosynthesis take place is 'leaky', allowing electrons to escape. This leakiness could help plants protect themselves from damage from bright or rapidly changing light.

Part 1

The physics of photosynthesis is seriously impressive. Observing charge transport through cells opens up remarkable opportunities for new discoveries on how nature operates.

Since the electrons from photosynthesis are dispersed through the whole system, that means we can access them. The fact that we didn't know this pathway existed is exciting, because we could be able to harness it to extract more energy for renewables.

The researchers say that being able to extract charges at an earlier point in the process of photosynthesis, could make the process more efficient when manipulating photosynthetic pathways to generate clean fuels from the Sun. In addition, the ability to regulate photosynthesis could mean that crops could be made more able to tolerate intense sunlight.

Jenny Zhang, Photosynthesis re-wired on the pico-second timescale, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05763-9. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05763-9

Part 2

Vision: The first molecular processes in the eye when light hits the retina

Researchers have deciphered the molecular processes that first occur in the eye when light hits the retina. The processes—which take only a fraction of a trillionth of a second—are essential for human sight.

It only involves a microscopic change of a protein in our retina, and this change occurs within an incredibly small time frame: it is the very first step in our light perception and ability to see. It is also the only light-dependent step. Researchers have established exactly what happens after the first trillionth of a second in the process of visual perception, with the help of the SwissFEL X-ray free-electron laser of the PSI.

At the heart of the action is our light receptor, the protein rhodopsin. In the human eye it is produced by sensory cells, the rod cells, which specialize in the perception of light. Fixed in the middle of the rhodopsin is a small kinked molecule: retinal, a derivative of vitamin A. When light hits the protein, retinal absorbs part of the energy. With lightning speed, it then changes its three-dimensional form so the switch in the eye is changed from "off" to "on." This triggers a cascade of reactions whose overall effect is the perception of a flash of light.

But what happens in detail when retinal transforms from what is known as the 11-cis form into the all-trans form? This is what the scientists observed now:

The protein absorbs part of the light energy to briefly inflate a tiny amount—"like our chest expanding when we breathe in, only to contract again shortly afterwards."

During this "breathing in" stage, the protein temporarily loses most of its contact with the retinal that sits in its middle. "Although the retinal is still connected to the protein at its ends through chemical bonds, it now has room to rotate." At that moment, the molecule resembles a dog on a loose leash that is free to give a jerk.

Shortly afterwards the protein contracts again and has the retinal firmly back in its grasp, except now in a different more elongated form. "In this way the retinal manages to turn itself, unimpaired by the protein in which it is held."

The transformation of the retinal from 11-cis kinked form into the all-trans elongated form only takes a picosecond, or one trillionth (10-12) of a second, making it one of the fastest processes in all of nature.

The only way of recording and analyzing such rapid biological processes is with an X-ray free-electron laser like the SwissFEL. The SwissFEL allows us to study in detail the fundamental processes of the human body, such as vision.

Valerie Panneels, Ultrafast structural changes direct the first molecular events of vision, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05863-6. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05863-6

'Vampiric' water use leading to 'imminent' global crisis, UN warns

Humanity's "lifeblood"—water—is increasingly at risk around the world due to "vampiric overconsumption and overdevelopment," the UN warned in a report, published hours ahead of a major summit on the issue was set to begin 0n 22nd March, '23.

The world is "blindly traveling a dangerous path" as "unsustainable water use, pollution and unchecked global warming are draining humanity's lifeblood": United Nations.

If nothing is done, it will be a business-as-usual scenario—it will keep on being between 40 percent and 50 percent of the population of the world that does not have access to sanitation and roughly 20-25 percent of the world will not have access to safe water supply. With the global population increasing every day, in absolute numbers, there'll be more and more people that don't have access to these services.

At the UN conference, governments and actors in the public and private sectors are invited to present proposals for a so-called water action agenda to reverse that trend and help meet the development goal, set in 2015, of ensuring "access to water and sanitation for all by 2030."

Source: AFP

Bats’ weird immunity could stop pandemics

The COVID-19 pandemic has propelled a niche research field to prominence: bat immunology. Bats are a possible source of catastrophic viral outbreaks in people because the animals can tolerate an exceptionally diverse array of viruses, including coronaviruses, rabies and Ebola. The biological mechanisms behind bats’ weird immune systems are slowly emerging: “There’s kind of a peace treaty,” between bats and the pathogens they host, explains virologist Joshua Hayward. Bats’ genomes seem to suck up viral information like a sponge. It is possible that this protects bats from the negative outcomes of viral infections, just as a vaccine would.

'Ghost Particles': Scientists Finally Detect Neutrinos in Particle Collider

The ghost, at long last, is actually in the machine: For the first time, scientists have created neutrinos in a particle collider.

Those abundant yet enigmatic subatomic particles are so removed from the rest of matter that they slide through it like specters, earning them the nickname "ghost particles".

The researchers say this work represents the first direct observation of collider neutrinos and will help us to understand how these particles form, what their properties are, and their role in the evolution of the Universe.

The results, achieved using the FASERnu detector at the Large Hadron Collider, were presented at the 57th Rencontres de Moriond Electroweak Interactions and Unified Theories conference in Italy.

Neutrinos are among the most abundant subatomic particles in the Universe, second only to photons. But they have no electric charge, their mass is almost zero, and they barely interact with other particles they encounter. Hundreds of billions of neutrinos are streaming through your body right now.

Neutrinos are produced in energetic circumstances, such as the nuclear fusion that takes place inside stars, or supernova explosions. And while we may not notice them on a day-to-day basis, physicists think that their mass – however slight – probably affects the Universe's gravity (although neutrinos have pretty much been ruled out as dark matter).

Although their interaction with matter is small, it's not completely nonexistent; now and again, a cosmic neutrino collides with another particle, producing a very faint burst of light.

Underground detectors, isolated from other sources of radiation, can detect these bursts. IceCube in Antarctica, Super-Kamiokande in Japan, and MiniBooNE at Fermilab in Illinois are three such detectors.

Neutrinos produced in particle colliders, however, have long been sought by physicists because the high energies involved are not as well studied as low-energy neutrinos.

Part 1

They can tell us about deep space in ways we can't learn otherwise.

These very high-energy neutrinos in the LHC are important for understanding really exciting observations in particle astrophysics.

FASERnu is an emulsion detector consisting of millimeter-thick tungsten plates alternated with layers of emulsion film. Tungsten was chosen because of its high density, which increases the likelihood of neutrino interaction; the detector consists of 730 emulsion films and a total tungsten mass of around 1 ton.

During particle experiments at the LHC, neutrinos can collide with nuclei in the tungsten plates, producing particles that leave tracks in the emulsion layers, a bit like the way ionizing radiation makes tracks in a cloud chamber.

These plates need to be developed, like photographic film, before the physicists can analyze the particle trails to find out what produced them.

Six neutrino candidates were identified and published back in 2021. Now, the researchers have confirmed their discovery, using data from the third run of the upgraded LHC that began last year, with a significance level of 16 sigma.

That means that the likelihood that the signals were produced by random chance is so low as to be almost nothing; a significance level of 5 sigma is sufficient to qualify as a discovery in particle physics.

The team's results have been presented at the 57th Rencontres de Moriond Electroweak Interaction....

Part 2

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Deceptive daisy's ability to create fake flies explained

A male fly approaches a flower, lands on top of what he thinks is a female fly, and jiggles around. He's trying to mate, but it isn't quite working. He has another go. Eventually he gives up and buzzes off, unsuccessful. The plant, meanwhile, has got what it wanted: pollen.

A South African daisy, Gorteria diffusa, is the only daisy known to make such a complicated structure resembling a female fly on its petals. The mechanism behind this convincing three-dimensional deception, complete with hairy bumps and white highlights, has intrigued people for decades.

Now researchers have identified three sets of genes involved in building the fake fly on the daisy's petals. The big surprise is that all three sets already have other functions in the plant: one moves iron around, one makes root hairs grow, and one controls when flowers are made.

The study found that the three sets of genes have been brought together in the daisy petals in a new way to build fake lady flies. The "iron moving" genes add iron to the petal's normally reddish-purple pigments, changing the color to a more fly-like blue-green. The root hair genes make hairs expand on the petal to give texture. And the third set of genes make the fake flies appear in apparently random positions on the petals.

"This daisy didn't evolve a new 'make a fly' gene. Instead it did something even cleverer—it brought together existing genes, which already do other things in different parts of the plant, to make a complicated spot on the petals that deceives male flies.

The researchers say the daisy's petals give it an evolutionary advantage, by attracting more male flies to pollinate it. The plants grow in a harsh desert environment in South Africa, with only a short rainy season in which to produce flowers, get pollinated, and set seed before they die. This creates intense competition to attract pollinators—and the petals with fake lady flies make the South African daisy stand out from the crowd.

 Beverley J. Glover, Multiple gene co-options underlie the rapid evolution of sexually deceptive flowers in Gorteria diffusa, Current Biology (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.03.003. www.cell.com/current-biology/f … 0960-9822(23)00270-1

SARS-CoV-2 can alter genome structure of our cells

People infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may experience genome structure changes that not only may explain our immunological symptoms after infection, but also potentially link to long COVID, according to a new study by researchers.

This particular finding is quite unique and has not been seen in other coronaviruses before. It is a  unique mechanism of SARS-CoV-2 that is associated with its severe impacts on human health.

The genetic materials in our cells are stored in a structure called chromatin. Some viruses of other categories have been reported to hijack or change our chromatin so that they can successfully reproduce in our cells. Whether and how SARS-CoV-2 may affect our chromatin was not known. In this study, researchers used leading-edge methods and comprehensively characterized the chromatin architecture in human cells after a COVID-19 infection.

Researchers found that many well-formed chromatin architectures of a normal cell become de-organized after infection. For example, there is one type of chromatin architecture termed A/B compartments that can be analogous to the yin and yang portions of our chromatin. After SARS-CoV-2 infection, they found that the yin and yang portions of the chromatin lose their normal shapes and start to mix together. Such mixing may be a reason for some key genes to change in infected cells, including a crucial inflammation gene, interleukin-6,  that can cause cytokine storm in severe COVID-19 patients.

In addition, this work found that chemical modifications on chromatin were also altered by SARS-CoV-2. The changes of chemical modifications of chromatin were known to exert long-term effects on gene expression and phenotypes. Therefore, this finding may provide an unrealized new perspective to understand the viral impacts on host chromatin that can associate with long COVID.

Finding the mechanisms will offer therapeutic strategies to safeguard our chromatin and to better fight this virus.

 Ruoyu Wang et al, SARS-CoV-2 restructures host chromatin architecture, Nature Microbiology (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41564-023-01344-8

New study finds co-infection with 'superbug' bacteria increases SARS-CoV-2 replication

Global data shows nearly 10 percent of severe COVID-19 cases involve a secondary bacterial co-infection—with Staphylococcus aureus, also known as staph A, being the most common organism responsible for co-existing infections with SARS-CoV-2. Researchers  have found that the addition of a "superbug"—methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA)—into the mix could make the COVID-19 outcome even more deadly.

The mystery of how and why the combination of these two pathogens contributes to the severity of the disease remains unsolved. However,  researchers have made significant progress toward solving this "whodunit."

New research  has revealed that IsdA, a protein found in all strains of staph A, enhanced SARS-CoV-2 replication by 10- to 15-fold. The findings of this study are significant and could help inform the development of new therapeutic approaches for COVID-19 patients with bacterial co-infections.

Interestingly, the study, which was recently published in iScience, also showed that SARS-CoV-2 did not affect the bacteria's growth. This was contrary to what the researchers had initially expected.

https://www.cell.com/iscience/fulltext/S2589-0042(23)00052-4?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2589004223000524%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Revealing Atomic Structures with a "Neutron" Camera

Researchers have developed a new kind of "camera" that sees the local disorder in materials. Its key feature is a variable shutter speed: because the disordered atomic clusters are moving, when the team used a slow shutter, the dynamic disorder blurred out, but when they used a fast shutter, they could see it. The new method doesn't work like a conventional camera--it uses neutrons to measure atomic positions with a shutter speed of around one picosecond, a trillion times faster than normal camera shutters.

Novel drug makes mice skinny even on sugary, fatty diet

Researchers have developed a small-molecule drug that prevents weight gain and adverse liver changes in mice fed a high-sugar, high-fat Western diet throughout life.

When  this drug is given to the mice for a short time, they start losing weight. They all become slim.

The research team discovered the drug by first exploring how magnesium impacts metabolism, which is the production and consumption of energy in cells. This energy, called ATP, fuels the body's processes.

Magnesium plays many key roles in good health, including regulating blood sugar and blood pressure and building bones. But the researchers found that too much magnesium slows energy production in mitochondria, which are cells' power plants. It puts the brake on, it just slows down.

Deleting MRS2, a gene that promotes magnesium transport into the mitochondria, resulted in more efficient metabolism of sugar and fat in the power plants. The result: skinny, healthy mice.

Liver and adipose (fat) tissues in the rodents showed no evidence of fatty liver disease, a complication related to poor diet, obesity and type 2 diabetes.

The drug, which the researchers call CPACC, accomplishes the same thing. It restricts the amount of magnesium transfer into the power plants. In experiments, the result was again: skinny, healthy mice. 

Lowering the mitochondrial magnesium mitigated the adverse effects of prolonged dietary stress.

A drug that can reduce the risk of cardiometabolic diseases such as heart attack and stroke, and also reduce the incidence of liver cancer, which can follow fatty liver disease, will make a huge impact. 

Travis R. Madaris, Manigandan Venkatesan, Soumya Maity, Miriam C. Stein, Neelanjan Vishnu, Mridula K. Venkateswaran, James G. Davis, Karthik Ramachandran, Sukanthathulse Uthayabalan, Cristel Allen, Ayodeji Osidele, Kristen Stanley, Nicholas P. Bigham, Terry M. Bakewell, Melanie Narkunan, Amy Le, Varsha Karanam, Kang Li, Aum Mhapankar, Luke Norton, Jean Ross, M. Imran Aslam, W. Brian Reeves, Brij B. Singh, Jeffrey Caplan, Justin J. Wilson, Peter B. Stathopulos, Joseph A. Baur, Muniswamy Madesh. Limiting Mrs2-dependent mitochondrial Mg2+ uptake induces metabolic programming in prolonged dietary stress. Cell Reports, 2023; 42 (3): 112155 DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2023.112155

'Forever Chemicals' May Reduce Fertility in Women by Up to 40%, Study Finds

Robust chemicals once used in everything from cosmetics to waterproofing to food containers to firefighting foam could have a significant impact on the fertility of women worldwide.

A new study led by researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in the US uncovered evidence in a sample of women in Singapore linking plasma concentrations of perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) with an increase in the difficulty of becoming pregnant.

Though the nature of this connection isn't clear, the results add to growing concerns that concentrations of so-called 'forever chemicals' across Earth's surface are silently putting our health at risk and could do for some time to come.

Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances such as PFAS are synthetic compounds that have found a wide range of applications in different consumer products since the mid-20th century. Useful as a barrier against water or oily substances, they're commonly encountered as non-stick and stain-resistant coatings.

One of their perks is the strength of the carbon-fluoride bond, which resists degradation. Unfortunately, this also happens to be one of their liabilities, allowing them to persist for years in the environment in ever-increasing concentrations.

Given that these materials are so widespread and encompass a vast catalog of thousands of variants, the chances of potential toxins hiding out in their midst have become too great to ignore.

"PFAS can disrupt our reproductive hormones and have been linked with delayed puberty onset and increased risks for endometriosis and polycystic ovary syndrome in few previous studies," says the new study's senior author.

What this study adds is that PFAS may also decrease fertility in women who are generally healthy and are naturally trying to conceive.

Just why this is the case is still a matter of speculation, though it's a good bet PFAS might interrupt the typical functioning of reproductive hormones in some way.

This study strongly implies that women who are planning pregnancy should be aware of the harmful effects of PFAS and take precautions to avoid exposure to this class of chemicals, especially when they are trying to conceive.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S004896972300...

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Tiny nanoparticle could have big impact on patients receiving corneal transplants

Corneal transplants can be the last step to returning clear vision to many patients suffering from eye disease. Each year  more than 184,000 corneal transplantation surgeries are performed annually in the world.

However, rejection rates for the corneal grafts can be as high as 10%. This is largely due to poor patient compliance to the medications, which require frequent administrations of topical eyedrops over a long period of time.

This becomes especially acute when patients show signs of early rejection of the transplanted corneas. When this occurs, patients need to apply topical eyedrops hourly to rescue the corneal grafts from failure.

The tedious process of eyedrop dosing causes a tremendous burden for patients. The resulting noncompliance to medical treatment can lead to even higher graft-rejection rates.

Research by a team  may make the corneal grafts more successful by using nano particles to encapsulate the medication. The novel approach could significantly improve patient compliance, according to a paper recently published in Science Advances titled "Six-month effective treatment of corneal graft rejection."

Each nanoparticle encapsulates a drug called dexamethasone sodium phosphate, one of the most commonly used corticosteroids for various ocular diseases treatment such as ocular inflammation, non-infectious uveitis, macular edema and corneal neovascularization. By using the nanoparticles to control the release of the medicine over time, patients would require only one injection right after the corneal transplantation surgery without the frequent eye drops. These studies have shown that using this method the medication maintains its efficacy for six months on a corneal graft rejection model.

In addition, because the medicine is released slowly and directly where it is most needed, the approach requires much lower doses than current standard eyedrop treatment while providing better efficacy and safety profiles.

Tuo Meng et al, Six-month effective treatment of corneal graft rejection, Science Advances (2023). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adf4608

The fast and the fibrous: Developing the muscles you need for speed

Different types of exercise encourage the formation of different types of muscle fibers, or the cells that make up your muscles. Slow twitch muscle fibers support endurance activities like long-distance running, while fast twitch fibers are needed for short, powerful movements such as those involved in heavy weight lifting. Now, researchers in Japan have shed new light on a family of proteins involved in the development of these muscle fiber types.

Research team finds indirect evidence for existence of dark matter surrounding black holes

Dark matter does not emit or reflect light, nor does it interact with electromagnetic forces, making it exceptionally difficult to detect. Nevertheless, a research team has proven that there is a substantial amount of dark matter surrounding black holes. The study results are published in the journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

The team selected two nearby black holes (A0620-00 and XTE J1118+480) as research subjects, with both considered as binary systems. That is, each of the black holes has a companion star orbiting it. Based on the orbits of the companion stars, observations indicate that their rates of orbital decay are approximately one millisecond (1ms) per year, which is about 50 times greater than the theoretical estimation of about 0.02ms annually.

To examine whether dark matter exists around black holes, the team applied the "dark matter dynamical friction model"—a theory widely held in academia—to the two chosen binary systems, through computer simulations. The team found that the fast orbital decay of the companion stars precisely matches the data observed.

Notably, this is indirect evidence that dark matter around black holes can generate significant dynamical friction, slowing down the orbital speed of the companion stars.

Man Ho Chan et al, Indirect Evidence for Dark Matter Density Spikes around Stellar-mass Black Holes, The Astrophysical Journal Letters (2023). DOI: 10.3847/2041-8213/acaafa

The findings, which verified a theoretical hypothesis formulated in the late 20th century, represent a breakthrough in dark matter research. According to the hypothesis, dark matter close enough to black holes would be swallowed, leaving the remnants to be redistributed. The process ends up forming a "density spike" around the black holes.

ARTEMIS: Advanced Robotic Technology for Enhanced Mobility and Improved Stability

From mutation to arrhythmia: Desmosomal protein breakdown as an underlying mechanism of cardiac disease

Mutations in genes that form the desmosome are the most common cause of the cardiac disease arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy (ACM), which affects one in 2,000 to 5,000 people worldwide. Researchers  now discovered how a mutation in the desmosomal gene plakophilin-2 leads to ACM. They found that the structural and functional changes in ACM hearts caused by a plakophilin-2 mutation are the result of increased desmosomal protein degradation. The findings of this study, published in Science Translational Medicine on March 22, 2023, further our understanding of ACM and could contribute to the development of new therapies for this disease.

ACM is a progressive and inheritable cardiac disease for which currently no treatments exist to halt its progression. Although patients initially do not experience any symptoms, they are at a higher risk of arrhythmias and resulting sudden cardiac arrest. As the disease progresses, patches of fibrotic and fat tissue form in the heart which can lead to heart failure. At this stage, patients require a heart transplantation as treatment.

More than 50% of all ACM cases are caused by a mutation in one of the desmosomal genes, which together form complex protein structures known as desmosomes. Desmosomes form "bridges" between individual heart muscle cells, allowing the cells to contract in a coordinated manner. Most of the desmosomal mutations that cause ACM occur in a gene called plakophilin-2.

The researchers used the genetic tool  CRISPR/Cas9 to introduce the human plakophilin-2 mutation in mice to mimic ACM. This allowed them to study progression of the disease in more detail. They observed that old ACM mice carrying this mutation had lower levels of desmosomal proteins and heart relaxation issues, similar to ACM patients.

Strikingly, the researchers discovered that the mutation lowered levels of desmosomal proteins even in young, healthy mice of which the heart contracted normally. From this they concluded that a loss of desmosomal proteins could underlie the onset of ACM caused by a plakophilin-2 mutation.

The researchers then moved on to explain the loss of desmosomal proteins. For this they studied both RNA and protein levels in their ACM mice. "The levels of desmosomal proteins were lower in our ACM mice compared to healthy control mice. However, the RNA levels of these genes were unchanged. They discovered that these surprising findings are the result of increased protein degradation in ACM hearts.

When the researchers treated their ACM mice with a drug that prevents protein degradation, the levels of desmosomal proteins were restored. More importantly, the restored levels of desmosomal proteins improved calcium handling of heart muscle cells, which is vital for their normal function.

The results of this study raise new insights into ACM development and indicate that protein degradation could be an interesting target for future therapies.

 Desmosomal protein degradation as an underlying cause of arrhythmogenic cardiomyopathy. Science Translational Medicine, 2023; 15 (688) DOI: 10.1126/scitranslmed.add4248

How football-shaped molecules occur in the universe

For a long time it has been suspected that fullerene and its derivatives could form naturally in the universe. These are large carbon molecules shaped like a football, salad bowl or nanotube. An international team of researchers using the Swiss SLS synchrotron light source at PSI has shown how this reaction works. The results have just been published in the journal Nature Communications.

The planets and  human beings and all the life forms  are actually made up of dust from burnt-out supernovae and carbon compounds billions of years old. The universe is a giant reactor and understanding these reactions means understanding the origins and development of the universe—and where life - especially humans come from.

In the past, the formation of fullerenes and their derivatives in the universe has been a puzzle. These carbon molecules, in the shape of a football, bowl or small tube, were first created in the laboratory in the 1980s. In 2010 the infrared space telescope Spitzer discovered the C₆₀ molecules with the characteristic shape of a soccer ball, known as buckyballs, in the planetary nebula Tc 1. They are therefore the biggest molecules to have been discovered to date known to exist in the universe beyond our solar system.

But how do they actually form there? A team of researchers has now completed an important reaction step in the formation of the molecules, with active support from PSI and the vacuum ultraviolet (VUV) beamline of the synchrotron light source Swiss SLS.

Scientists working on the VUV beamline at PSI, has built a mini reactor for observing the formation of fullerene in real time. A corannulene radical (C₂₀H₉) is created in a reactor at a temperature of 1,000 degrees Celsius. This molecule looks like a salad bowl, as if it had been dissected from a C₆₀ buckyball. This radical is highly reactive. It reacts with vinyl acetylene (C₄H₄), which deposits a layer of carbon onto the rim of the bowl.

By repeating this process many times, the molecule would grow into the end cap of a nanotube. We have managed to demonstrate this phenomenon in computer simulations.

Part 1

The reaction produces different isomers—molecules that all have the same mass, but slightly different structures. With standard mass spectrometry, all these variants produce the same signal. But the outcome is different when using photoelectron photoion coincidence spectroscopy, the method adopted by the team. With this technique, the structure of the measurement curve allows conclusions to be drawn about each individual isomer.

The universe contains a wild jungle of molecules and chemical reactions—not all of them can be distinctly classified in the signals from telescopes.

Scientists already know from models that both corannulene and vinylacetylene exist in the universe. Now it has been possible to confirm that these molecules actually form the building blocks to fullerene.

 The researchers want to conduct more experiments in order to understand how the classic buckyballs form in the universe, along with the football-shaped fullerene molecules with 60 carbon atoms and the minute nanotubes with even more atoms.

Lotefa B. Tuli et al, Gas phase synthesis of the C₄₀ nano bowl C₄₀H₁₀, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-37058-y

Part 2

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Human body is a breeding ground for antimicrobial resistance genes, shows new study

The community of microbes living in and on our bodies may be acting as a reservoir for antibiotic resistance, according to new research.

The use of antibiotics leads to "collateral damage" to the microbiome, ramping up the number of resistance genes being passed back and forth between strains in the microbiome. The findings also suggest these genes spread so easily through a population, that regardless of your own health and habits, the number of resistance genes in your gut is heavily influenced by national trends in antibiotic consumption.

The rise of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among human pathogens is widely seen as one of the most serious threats to global health in the coming decades. AMR is already believed to be contributing to tens of thousands of deaths in the world each year.

Tracking the emergence and spread of genes that help these pathogens to shrug off antibiotics has generally been limited to samples taken from infected individuals. The majority of microbes living in the human body, however, are not pathogenic.

The human microbiome is a complex and dynamic community of millions of species of microbes, primarily living in the gut and coexisting with us. Microbiomes play an important role in health and disease, with the gut microbiome known to help with the digestion of food and the development of our immune system.

Even a healthy individual who hasn't taken antibiotics recently is constantly bombarded by microbes from people or even pets they interact with, which leads to resistance genes becoming embedded in their own microbiota. If they exist in a population with a heavy burden of antibiotic consumption, it leads to more resistance genes in their microbiome.

To better understand the impact of antimicrobials on the gut microbiome, researchers analyzed over 3,000 gut microbiome samples, collected from healthy individuals across 14 countries. They then compared the resistance genes identified in samples to those found in large genome collections in order to understand the movement of AMR genes between microbe and pathogen species.

They carefully catalogued and recorded the number of antimicrobial resistance genes found in the samples by comparing data to the Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database, a public health resource where resistance genes are documented.

The team identified a median of 16 AMR genes per stool sample analyzed. They also found that the median number of genes varied across the 14 countries for which they had data. For example, they saw a five-fold variation in median resistance levels between the lowest in the Netherlands and the highest in Spain.

Using World Health Organization and ResistanceMap data, the team were able to show a strong correlation between the frequency of resistance genes present in a country and national antibiotic consumption levels.

Part 1

The researchers found that in countries where antibiotics are taken more regularly, their populations also have higher numbers of resistance genes in their gut microbiome.

The reason this collateral damage is such a major problem is that microbes are constantly sharing genes with each other. Known as horizontal gene transfer, this process helps AMR genes to spread back and forth between species. Our bodies are continually importing and exporting microbes and pathogen strains. These strains are themselves passing genes back and forth, which means the challenge of AMR has to be tackled at both the micro and macro level. Given our complex relationship with microbes, we need to do more research to understand how we maximize the benefits and minimize the risks when it comes to guiding treatment decisions and developing new medicines.

We've known for some years that antimicrobial resistance genes can spread incredibly fast between gut bacteria. This study is so important because it can, for the first time, quantify the impact national antibiotic usage has on our commensal bacteria, as well as giving us insights into the common types of resistance we can expect to evolve.

Kihyun Lee et al, Population-level impacts of antibiotic usage on the human gut microbiome, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-36633-7

Part 2

Methane cools even as it heats

Most climate models do not yet account for a new  discovery: methane traps a great deal of heat in Earth's atmosphere, but also creates cooling clouds that offset 30% of the heat!

Greenhouse gases like methane create a kind of blanket in the atmosphere, trapping heat from Earth's surface, called longwave energy, and preventing it from radiating out into space. This makes the planet hotter.

A blanket doesn't create heat, unless it's electric. You feel warm because the blanket inhibits your body's ability to send its heat into the air. This is the same concept.

In addition to absorbing longwave energy, it turns out methane also absorbs incoming energy from the sun, known as shortwave energy. This should warm the planet. But counterintuitively, the shortwave absorption encourages changes in clouds that have a slight cooling effect.

This effect is detailed in the journal Nature Geoscience, alongside a second finding that the researchers did not fully expect. Though methane generally increases the amount of precipitation, accounting for the absorption of shortwave energy suppresses that increase by 60%.

Both types of energy—longwave (from Earth) and shortwave (from sun)—escape from the atmosphere more than they are absorbed into it. The atmosphere needs compensation for the escaped energy, which it gets from heat created as water vapour condenses into rain, snow, sleet, or hail.

Essentially, precipitation acts as a heat source, making sure the atmosphere maintains a balance of energy.

Part 1

Methane changes this equation. By holding on to energy from the sun, methane is introducing heat the atmosphere no longer needs to get from precipitation.

Additionally, methane shortwave absorption decreases the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth's surface. This in turn reduces the amount of water that evaporates. Generally, precipitation and evaporation are equal, so a decrease in evaporation leads to a decrease in precipitation.

This has implications for understanding in more detail how methane and perhaps other greenhouses gases can impact the climate system. Shortwave absorption softens the overall warming and rain-increasing effects but does not eradicate them at all.

Robert J. Allen et al, Surface warming and wetting due to methane's long-wave radiative effects muted by short-wave absorption, Nature Geoscience (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-023-01144-z

Part 2

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Are Air Fryers Healthy For Us?

Researchers identify specific regions of the brain damaged by high blood pressure, involved in mental decline, dementia

For the first time, researchers have identified specific regions of the brain that are damaged by high blood pressure and may contribute to a decline in mental processes and the development of dementia.

High blood pressure is known to be involved in causing dementia and damage to brain function. The study, which is published in the European Heart Journal recently, shows how this happens. It gathered information from a combination of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) of brains, genetic analyses and observational data from thousands of patients to look at the effect of high blood pressure on cognitive function.

The researchers then checked their findings in a separate, large group of patients in Italy who had high blood pressure, and found that the parts of the brain the researchers had identified were indeed affected. Further research also found that genes that cause high BP and other factors are not involved in these changes.

The researchers found changes to nine parts of the brain were related to higher blood pressure and worse cognitive function. These included the putamen, which is a round structure in the base of the front of the brain, responsible for regulating movement and influencing various types of learning. Other areas affected were the anterior thalamic radiation, anterior corona radiata and anterior limb of the internal capsule, which are regions of white matter that connect and enable signaling between different parts of the brain. The anterior thalamic radiation is involved in executive functions, such as the planning of simple and complex daily tasks, while the other two regions are involved in decision-making and the management of emotions.

The changes to these areas included decreases in brain volume and the amount of surface area on the brain cortex, changes to connections between different parts of the brain, and changes in measures of brain activity.

Tomasz J Guzik et al, Genetic analyses identify brain structures related to cognitive impairment associated with elevated blood pressure, European Heart Journal (2023). DOI: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehad101

Ernesto L. Schiffrin et al, Hypertension, brain imaging phenotypes and cognitive impairment: lessons from Mendelian randomisation, European Heart Journal (2023). DOI: 10.1093/eurheartj/ehad187

Using bacteria to convert CO2 in the air into a polyester

A team of chemical and biomolecular engineers at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology has developed a scalable way to use bacteria to convert CO2 in the air into a polyester. In their paper, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their technique and outline its performance when tested over a several-hour period.

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How scientists cut their carbon footprints

As the effects of climate change grow, scientists from fields spanning astronomy to biology are trying to decarbonize their research. They say that the time for carbon-footprint assessments is over — we must take action, and that needs institutional support. “The situation is not that different from the one you can experience as a citizen,” says Pierrick Martin, an astrophysicist at an institute that is trying to reduce the heavy toll of its observatory. “There are things you can do yourself, at your level, in your local environment, that are worth something. But this has limits, and you can’t escape from political decisions at some point.”

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Light-bending gravity reveals one of the biggest black holes ever found

A video showing how Astronomers used gravitational lensing to discover a black hole 30 billion times the mass of the sun in a galaxy 2 billion light years away. 

Severe hepatitis outbreak linked to common childhood viruses

A new  study brings scientists closer to understanding the causes of a mysterious rash of cases of acute severe hepatitis that began appearing in otherwise healthy children after COVID-19 lockdowns eased in several countries in the spring of 2022.

Pediatric hepatitis  is rare, and doctors were alarmed when they started seeing outbreaks of severe unexplained hepatitis. There have been about 1,000 cases to date; 50 of these children needed liver transplants and at least 22 have died.

In the study, published on March 30 in Nature, researchers linked the disease to co-infections from multiple common viruses, in particular a strain of adeno-associated virus type2 (AAV2). AAVs are not known to cause hepatitis on their own. They need "helper" viruses, such as adenoviruses that cause colds and flus, to replicate in the liver.

Once they returned to school, children were more susceptible to infections with these common pathogens. The study suggests that for a small subset of these children, getting more than one infection at the same time may have made them more vulnerable to severe hepatitis.

 The infections researchers detected in these children were caused not by an unusual, emerging virus, but by common childhood viral pathogens. 

Charles Chiu, Adeno-associated virus type 2 in US children with acute severe hepatitis, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05949-1. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05949-1

Emma Thomson, Adeno-associated virus 2 infection in children with non-A-E hepatitis, Nature (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-05948-2. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05948-2

New nanoparticles can perform gene-editing in the lungs

Chemical Engineers have designed a new type of nanoparticle that can be administered to the lungs, where it can deliver messenger RNA encoding useful proteins.

With further development, these particles could offer an inhalable treatment for cystic fibrosis and other diseases of the lung, the researchers say.

This is the first demonstration of highly efficient delivery of RNA to the lungs in mice. Scientists are hopeful that it can be used to treat or repair a range of genetic diseases, including cystic fibrosis.

This is the first demonstration of highly efficient delivery of RNA to the lungs in mice. Researchers are hopeful that it can be used to treat or repair a range of genetic diseases, including cystic fibrosis.

Messenger RNA holds great potential as a therapeutic for treating a variety of diseases caused by faulty genes. One obstacle to its deployment thus far has been difficulty in delivering it to the right part of the body, without off-target effects. Injected nanoparticles often accumulate in the liver, so several clinical trials evaluating potential mRNA treatments for diseases of the liver are now underway. RNA-based COVID-19 vaccines, which are injected directly into muscle tissue, have also proven effective. In many of those cases, mRNA is encapsulated in a lipid nanoparticle—a fatty sphere that protects mRNA from being broken down prematurely and helps it enter target cells.

In their new study, the researchers set out to develop lipid nanoparticles that could target the lungs. The particles are made up of molecules that contain two parts: a positively charged headgroup and a long lipid tail. The positive charge of the headgroup helps the particles to interact with negatively charged mRNA, and it also help mRNA to escape from the cellular structures that engulf the particles once they enter cells.

The lipid tail structure, meanwhile, helps the particles to pass through the cell membrane. The researchers came up with 10 different chemical structures for the lipid tails, along with 72 different headgroups. By screening different combinations of these structures in mice, the researchers were able to identify those that were most likely to reach the lungs.

In further tests in mice, the researchers showed that they could use the particles to deliver mRNA encoding CRISPR/Cas9 components designed to cut out a stop signal that was genetically encoded into the animals' lung cells. When that stop signal is removed, a gene for a fluorescent protein turns on. Measuring this fluorescent signal allows the researchers to determine what percentage of the cells successfully expressed the mRNA.

After one dose of mRNA, about 40 percent of lung epithelial cells were transfected, the researchers found. Two doses brought the level to more than 50 percent, and three doses up to 60 percent. The most important targets for treating lung disease are two types of epithelial cells called club cells and ciliated cells, and each of these was transfected at about 15 percent.

This means that the cells we were able to edit are really the cells of interest for lung disease. This lipid can enable us to deliver mRNA to the lung much more efficiently than any other delivery system that has been reported so far.

Wen Xue, Combinatorial design of nanoparticles for pulmonary mRNA delivery and genome editing, Nature Biotechnology (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41587-023-01679-x. www.nature.com/articles/s41587-023-01679-x

Part 2

Can a solid be a superfluid? Engineering a novel supersolid state from layered 2D materials

A collaboration of Australian and European physicists predict that layered electronic 2D semiconductors can host a curious quantum phase of matter called the "supersolid."

The supersolid is a very counterintuitive phase indeed. It is made up of particles that simultaneously form a rigid crystal and yet at the same time flow without friction since all the particles belong to the same single quantum state.

A solid becomes "super" when its quantum properties match the well-known quantum properties of superconductors. A supersolid simultaneously has two orders, solid and super:

• Solid because of the spatially repeating pattern of particles.
• Super because the particles can flow without resistance.

Although a supersolid is rigid, it can flow like a liquid without resistance.

The new Australia-Europe study predicts that a state could  be engineered in two-dimensional (2D) electronic materials in a semiconductor structure, fabricated with two conducting layers separated by an insulating barrier of thickness d.

One layer is doped with negatively-charged electrons and the other with positively-charged holes. The particles forming the supersolid are interlayer excitons, bound states of an electron and hole tied together by their strong electrical attraction. The insulating barrier prevents fast self-annihilation of the exciton bound pairs. Voltages applied to top and bottom metal "gates" tune the average separation r0 between excitons. The research team predicts that excitons in this structure will form a supersolid over a wide range of layer separations and average separations between the excitons. The electrical repulsion between the excitons can constrain them into a fixed crystalline lattice. "A key novelty is that a supersolid phase with Bose-Einstein quantum coherence appears at layer separations much smaller than the separation predicted for the non-super exciton solid that is driven by the same electrical repulsion between excitons.

In this way, the supersolid pre-empts the non-super exciton solid. At still larger separations, the non-super exciton solid eventually wins, and the quantum coherence collapses.

This is an extremely robust state, readily achievable in experimental setups.

Sara Conti et al, Chester Supersolid of Spatially Indirect Excitons in Double-Layer Semiconductor Heterostructures, Physical Review Letters (2023). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.130.057001

Water is getting scarce. And experts are advising to conserve it ane reduce your water footprint. 

Steps to reduce your water footprint

Meriano offers the following tips for saving water inside and outside the home:

• Fix leakages or dripping immediately from toilets, hot water heaters or other pipes and make sure to turn taps off all the way.
• Showers use less water than baths but if you need to take a soak, don't fill the tub all the way.
• When opportunity arises, choose a new washing machine, toilet, showerhead or dishwasher that uses less water.
• Rainwater that flows down gutters can be collected and used to water plants and gardens.
• Water lawns when it's not hot so water doesn't evaporate, and don't water them on windy days.
• Keeping blades of grass longer can also shelter the roots and cause lawns to need less water.

All health is reliant and dependent on clean water. "You can't have healthy populations without having access to clean water."

Moths are more efficient pollinators than bees, shows new research

Moths are more efficient pollinators at night than day-flying pollinators such as bees, finds new research, published March 29 in PLOS ONE.

Amid widespread concern about the decline of wild pollinating insects like bees and butterflies,  researchers have discovered that moths are particularly vital pollinators for nature.  They found that 83% of insect visits to bramble flowers were made during the day. While the moths made fewer visits during the shorter summer nights, notching up only 15% of the visits, they were able to pollinate the flowers more quickly.

As a result, the researchers concluded that moths are more efficient pollinators than day-flying insects such as bees, which are traditionally thought of as "hard-working." While day-flying insects have more time available to transfer pollen, moths were making an important contribution during the short hours of darkness.

This research shows that both night-flying and day-flying pollinators need to be protected in order to allow natural ecosystems to flourish.

 Max Anderson et al, Marvellous moths! pollen deposition rate of bramble (Rubus futicosus L. agg.) is greater at night than day, PLOS ONE (2023). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281810

 Poisonous Birds: Researchers discover birds with neurotoxin-laden feathers in New Guinea

An expedition into the jungle of New Guinea has resulted in the discovery of two new species of poisonous birds by researchers. The poisonous birds inhabit one of Earth's most pristine rainforests, a place as exotic as no other in the world. Hearing the words poisonous and bird coupled will be an eye-opener for most. But poisonous birds actually exist. And now, more species have been discovered in New Guinea's jungles. These birds contain a neurotoxin that they can both tolerate and store in their feathers.

These birds contain a neurotoxin that they can both tolerate and store in their feathers

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