Quantum math makes human irrationality more sensible
https://www.sciencenews.org/blog/context/quantum-math-makes-human-i...

Using spider toxins to study the proteins that let nerve cells send out electrical signals, Johns Hopkins researchers say they have stumbled upon a biological tactic that may offer a new way to protect crops from insect plagues in a safe and environmentally responsible way. Their finding -- that naturally occurring insect toxins can be lethal for one species and harmless for a closely related one -- suggests that insecticides can be designed to target specific pests without harming beneficial species like bees. A summary of the research, led by Frank Bosmans, Ph.D., an assistant professor of physiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, will be published July 11 in the journal Nature Communications.

How researchers unearthed the saga of a tiny fern that may have saved the planet
55 million years ago, our planet had no polar ice caps; in fact, it nearly became a steamy, runaway greenhouse world, with CO2 levels exceeding 2,500 ppm. Then, all of a sudden, something intervened, causing a shift.
Atmospheric carbon dioxide began to drop, steadily generating today's world, with ice caps at both poles. But why did this happen? And better yet, could whatever triggered this drastic switch be used to temper today's climate?
Encompassing the period of time in question was a 26-foot-thick column of fossilized ferns, a species so small it can fit on your fingernail but is capable of doubling its mass in two days. It is called Azolla.
In 1878, German naturalist Heinrich Aton de Bary used Azolla to first illustrate his definition of the term symbiosis, or two unlike biological identities living together in unison. He used the example of Azolla paired with lichen to exemplify his new term but also noted a bacteria that seemed to be inherent to the fern, serving as an even more extreme example of symbiosis.
With their spongy, lobe-like leaves only a fraction of an inch long, Azolla float on the surface of bodies of fresh water, dangling long tendrils below. In these leaves, Azolla have created a microenvironment, co-evolving with tiny bacteria called cyanobacteria for an estimated 100 million years.

Over time, the bacteria lost the ability to live independently of the fern, but their photosynthetic machinery increased its nitrogen-fixing capability by a factor of between 12 and 20. The bacteria became the powerhouse of the fern leaf, super-concentrating its photosynthetic power, while gaining shelter and a continuous food source from the fern.
Being able to fix nitrogen so well also makes the fern a fantastic carbon sequesterer.
The researchers remained dumbfounded -that was, until one of them piped up that they also needed to consider the fern's carbon-capturing power in the context of this time period.

Researchers hadn't considered this property a likely factor in the fern's Arctic success, and for good reason. Even with abundant carbon and nitrogen to consume, the size of the plant and its limited access to fresh water make it almost inconceivable that it could even survive in the Arctic, let alone muster up enough power and mass to change the Earth's entire climate, saving our planet, perhaps, from a Venus-like, overheated oblivion.
If Azolla had grown to such proportions that it could have affected the climate to such a degree, what had stopped the so-far invincible fern in its tracks and led to the initial climate plunge? The more the team looked, the more they found evidence that made the Azolla saga even more unbelievable.
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060002785

Can the Fern That Cooled the Planet Do It Again?
Researchers hope to use the fernlike Azolla to reverse the global warming effects of burning fossil fuels
Azolla decreased half of the CO2 present at that time according to scientists some 55 million years ago when the Earth was dangerously overheated because of green house gases.
Can the fern do it again when the Earth is getting hot all over again because of acts of human beings?
Scientists are trying to find out.
http://www.eenews.net/stories/1060002833

Art helping science:

DNA Origami (the art of paper folding was taken as inspiration here ) Delivers Anti-Cancer Drug
DNA origami could be used to deliver harmful anti-cancer drugs in a more targeted fashion, study shows.
Scientists have shown that DNA origami can be used for the targeted delivery of cancer drugs to tumor cells in mice. The study documenting these findings has been published in the journal ACS Nano.
http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/nn502058j
Abstract: Many chemotherapeutics used for cancer treatments encounter issues during delivery to tumors in vivo and may have high levels of systemic toxicity due to their nonspecific distribution. Various materials have been explored to fabricate nanoparticles as drug carriers to improve delivery efficiency. However, most of these materials suffer from multiple drawbacks, such as limited biocompatibility and inability to engineer spatially addressable surfaces that can be utilized for multifunctional activity. Here, we demonstrate that DNA origami possessed enhanced tumor passive targeting and long-lasting properties at the tumor region. Particularly, the triangle-shaped DNA origami exhibits optimal tumor passive targeting accumulation. The delivery of the known anticancer drug doxorubicin into tumors by self-assembled DNA origami nanostructures was performed, and this approach showed prominent therapeutic efficacy in vivo. The DNA origami carriers were prepared through the self-assembly of M13mp18 phage DNA and hundreds of complementary DNA helper strands; the doxorubicin was subsequently noncovalently intercalated into these nanostructures. After conducting fluorescence imaging and safety evaluation, the doxorubicin-containing DNA origami exhibited remarkable antitumor efficacy without observable systemic toxicity in nude mice bearing orthotopic breast tumors labeled with green fluorescent protein. Our results demonstrated the potential of DNA origami nanostructures as innovative platforms for the efficient and safe drug delivery of cancer therapeutics in vivo.

The Case for Inheritance of Epigenetic Changes in Chromosomes
Harmful chemicals, stress and other influences can permanently alter which genes are turned on without changing any of the genes' code. Now, it appears, some of these “epigenetic” changes are passed down to—and may cause disease in— future generations
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-case-for-inheritance-...

Science journals weigh up double-blind peer review

Staying up late could hurt a woman's fertility
Women who want to become pregnant or are expecting a baby should avoid light during the night, a new report suggests.

Darkness is important for optimum reproductive health in women, and for protecting the developing fetus, said study researcher Russel J. Reiter, a professor of cellular biology at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio.
- Live science.com

In a review of studies published online July 1 in the journal Fertility and Sterility, Reiter and his colleagues evaluated previously published research, and summarized the role of melatonin levels and circadian rhythms on successful reproduction in females.
Melatonin, a hormone secreted by the pineal gland in the brain in response to darkness, is important when women are trying to conceive, because it protects their eggs from oxidative stress, Reiter said. Melatonin has strong antioxidant properties that shield the egg from free-radical damage, especially when women ovulate, the findings reveal.

"If women are trying to get pregnant, maintain at least eight hours of a dark period at night," he advised. "The light-dark cycle should be regular from one day to the next; otherwise, a woman's biological clock is confused."
Eight hours of darkness every night is also optimal during pregnancy, and ideally, there should be no interruption of nighttime darkness with light, especially during the last trimester of a pregnancy, Reiter said.

Turning on the light at night suppresses melatonin production in women, and means the fetal brain may not get the proper amount of melatonin to regulate the function of its biological clock, he said.

Good News: Scientists find a way to kill Malarial parasites
Scientists may be able to entomb the malaria parasite in a prison of its own making, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis report July 16 in Nature. As it invades a red blood cell, the malaria parasite takes part of the host cell's membrane to build a protective compartment. To grow properly, steal nourishment and dump waste, the parasite then starts a series of major renovations that transform the red blood cell into a suitable home.

But the new research reveals the proteins that make these renovations must pass through a single pore in the parasite's compartment to get into the red blood cell. When the scientists disrupted passage through that pore in cell cultures, the parasite stopped growing and died.

A separate study by researchers at the Burnet Institute and Deakin University in Australia, published in the same issue of Nature, also highlights the importance of the pore to the parasite's survival. Researchers believe blocking the pore leaves the parasite fatally imprisoned, unable to steal resources from the red blood cell or dispose of its wastes.

Aids conference says 100 researchers may have been on flight MH17

Session held ahead of Aids 2014 conference told email exchanges show about 100 attendees booked on flight MH17.
As many as 100 of the world’s leading HIV/Aids researchers and advocates may have been on the Malaysia Airlines flight that crashed in Ukraine, in what has been described as a “devastating” blow to efforts to tackle the virus.

Delegates to a plenary session held ahead of the Aids 2014 conference were told that email exchanges showed about 100 attendees were booked on the MH17 flight. The plane was downed in eastern Ukraine by what the US and Australian governments have described as a surface-to-air missile.
“These people were the best and the brightest, the ones who had dedicated their whole careers to fighting this terrible virus. It’s devastating.”
There were some serious HIV leaders on that plane. This will have ramifications globally because whenever you lose a leader in any field, it has an impact. That knowledge is irreplaceable.

"We've lost global leaders and also some bright young people who were coming through. It's a gut-wrenching loss. The scientific community is very sad.
But the community is very close-knit, like a family. They will unite and this will galvanise people to strive harder to find a breakthrough. Let's hope that, out of this madness, there will be new hope for the world.

Losing one expert is tragedy. Losing several of them at a time is the mother of all tragedies. It is sad times for the world of science.

Food Used to Fatten Animals Could Feed 3 Billion: Study
If all the food used to fatten up cows, chickens and pigs went straight to people instead, it would feed several billion more people than the food does today, according to a new study. "We've taken 10,000 years to get to the point of growing as much food as we are doing now," said Paul West, a food expert at the University of Minnesota in St. Paul.
''Leverage points for improving global food security and the environment''
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/345/6194/325

The plastics in your food:
The next time you ask for a plate of sea food you may have unknowingly ordered plastic as a side dish in it!

According to an alarming study by University of Exeter, tiny plastic particles polluting our seas are entering the bodies of marine creatures through their gills.

These microplastics take over six times longer to leave the body compared to standard digestion.

"About one 10th of the plastic we throw away ends up in the marine environment. In 2013, 11 million tonnes of plastic entered the seas. Wave action, heat and ultra-violet (UV) damage then break it up into microplastic," explained lead researcher Andrew Watts.

The research showed how these microplastics get into the body of the common shore crab, after sticking to hair-like 'setae' structures in the crabs.

"Many studies on microplastics only consider ingestion as a route of uptake into animals. The results we have just published stress other routes such as ventilation," Watts added.

The same could apply for other crustaceans, molluscs and fish - simply any animal which draws water into a gill-like structure to carry out gas exchange, researchers noted.

The longer these plastics are retained within the animal the more the chances are of being passed up the food chain.

"This is a human issue. We have put this plastic there, mostly accidently but it is our problem to solve. The best way to do this is to reduce our dependency on plastic. It comes back to the old phrase: reduce, reuse and recycle," Watts concluded.

The study was published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology.

How media people are twisting and spinning things to mislead people to make them believe in what they beleive:
''Aliens on the Moon' TV Show Adds Weird UFO Twists to Apollo Tales''
What one person sees as a overly magnified image with distortions that merely form strange patterns, another person sees as incontrovertible proof that extraterrestrials have left giant antennas, spaceships and industrial complexes on the moon.
The footage was later proven to be fake.
The Story Behind the 'Alien Autopsy' Hoax
The film—purporting to depict the post mortem of an extraterrestrial who died in a UFO crash at Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947—was part of a "documentary" that aired on the Fox television network.
http://www.livescience.com/742-story-alien-autopsy-hoax.html
The heart of "Aliens on the Moon" is a review of decades-old photographs from the Apollo missions, with commentary by sources ranging from former Apollo astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Edgar Mitchell to old standbys on the UFO scene (MUFON analyst Marc D'Antonio, "Dark Mission" co-author Mike Bara and physicist John Brandenburg, plus photo lab workers Donna Hare and Ken Johnston).
many of the show's seemingly baffling mysteries can be resolved much more easily, by looking at higher-resolution imagery from NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter. For example, straight-line tracks that UFO fans might interpret as evidence of massive machines on the moon are more clearly seen as the result of rolling boulders.
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/aliens-moon-tv-show-adds-weird...

Myopia and Level of Education
Main Outcome Measures

Prevalence and magnitude of myopia in association with years spent in school and level of post-school professional education.
Results

Individuals who graduated from school after 13 years were more myopic (median, −0.5 diopters [D]; first quartile [Q1]/third quartile [Q3], −2.1/0.3 D) than those who graduated after 10 years (median, −0.2 D; Q1/Q3, −1.3/0.8 D), than those who graduated after 9 years (median, 0.3 D; Q1/Q3, −0.6/1.4 D), and than those who never finished secondary school (median, 0.2 D; Q1/Q3, −0.5/1.8 D; P<0.001, respectively). The same holds true for persons with a university degree (median, −0.6 D; Q1/Q3, −2.3/0.3 D) versus those who finished secondary vocational school (median, 0 D; Q1/Q3, −1.1/0.8 D) or primary vocational school (median, 0 D; Q1/Q3, −0.9/1.1 D) versus persons without any post-school professional qualification (median, 0.6 D; Q1/Q3, −0.4/1.7 D; P<0.001, respectively). Of persons who graduated from school after 13 years, 50.9% were myopic (SE, ≤−0.5 D) versus 41.6%, 27.1%, and 26.9% after 10 years, in those who graduated after 9 years, and in those who never graduated from secondary school, respectively (P<0.001). In university graduates, the proportion of myopic persons was higher (53%) than that of those who graduated from secondary (34.8%) or primary (34.7%) vocational schools and than in those without any professional training (23.9%; P<0.001, respectively). In multivariate analyses: higher school and professional levels of education were associated with a more myopic SE independent of gender. There was a small effect of age and SNPs. Conclusions Higher levels of school and post-school professional education are associated with a more myopic refraction. Participants with higher educational achievements more often were myopic than individuals with less education. http://www.aaojournal.org/article/S0161-6420%2814%2900364-9/abstract

Kidney Stone Risk Creeps North as Climate Changes
A link between heat and the painful stones
As ambient temperatures increase, your fluid losses through skin increase. With more water coming out as sweat and less coming out as urine, minerals can build up and form stones. In cold weather, researchers suspect, people dehydrate in warm, dry indoor air.

And you might have this effect without even realizing the fluid loss through your skin is increasing.

Not realizing you're dehydrated is a big part of the problem. In drier climates, people may not have puddles of sweat to gauge how much water they're losing. This is especially important when people migrate to warmer areas and aren't used to drinking more water.
- http://www.eenews.net/

Cancer treatment clears two Australian patients of HIV

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

- SA

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

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

Abstract:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

New blood test could detect cancer early

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bio-degradable plastic from rice starch:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A study was conducted

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

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

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

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

Abstract of a study:

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

Right to Research Foundation to promote Indian researchers started by scientists

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

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

MIT creates magnetic microhair that lets water defy gravity

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

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

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

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

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

Crows aren’t alone in their behavio

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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