Quantum-secure authentication of a physical unclonable key

Credit cards and ID cards which could never be hacked? That's the promise of quantum cryptography, which harnesses peculiar properties of subatomic particles to thwart data thieves.

Now a team of Dutch researchers says we're closer to making such technology a practical reality.

Publishing in the current issue of Optica, scientists at the University of Twente and Eindhoven University of Technology describe what they call quantum-secure authentication (QSA) of a "classical multiple-scattering key."
Authentication of persons and objects is a crucial aspect of security. We experimentally demonstrate quantum-secure authentication (QSA) of a classical multiple-scattering key. The key is authenticated by illuminating it with a light pulse containing fewer photons than spatial degrees of freedom and verifying the spatial shape of the reflected light. Quantum-physical principles forbid an attacker to fully characterize the incident light pulse. Therefore, he cannot emulate the key by digitally constructing the expected optical response, even if all information about the key is publicly known. QSA uses a key that cannot be copied due to technological limitations and is quantum-secure against digital emulation. Moreover, QSA does not depend on secrecy of stored data, does not depend on unproven mathematical assumptions, and is straightforward to implement with current technology.
http://www.opticsinfobase.org/optica/abstract.cfm?uri=optica-1-6-421

Plants are changing their 'eating choices'
A carnivorous plant that is turning vegetarian
The bladderworts (Utricularia) is a species of carnivorous plant that catches and digests tiny animals.

Now, the plant is turning to algae and pollen grains for a balanced nutrition.
The species catches its prey with the help of suction bladders, trap doors and lightning speed.

Once captured by the bladderwort, the animal suffocates, and is then broken down by enzymes and digested.

This is how the plant worked until it discovered vegetarianism.

"Bladderworts are switching to algae and pollen grains," said researchers Marianne Koller-Peroutka and Wolfram Adlassnig from the University of Vienna in Austria.

When bladderworts lived in areas where algae was plenty and animals were scarce, the vegetarian plants were actually larger than the meat eaters.

Consuming animals gave the plants a higher nitrogen content which increased the development of hibernation buds which are critical to helping them survive over cold winters.
The bladderworts (Utricularia) are one of the largest genera (a principal taxonomic category that ranks above species and below family) in carnivorous plants with over 200 species.

The study appeared in the journal Annals of Botany.

Researchers at Montana State University and Brandenburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany have created a simple mathematical model based on optical measurements that explains the stunning colors of Yellowstone National Park's hot springs and can visually recreate how they appeared years ago, before decades of tourists contaminated the pools with make-a-wish coins and other detritus.
Using a relatively simple one-dimensional model for light propagation, the group was able to reproduce the brilliant colors and optical characteristics of Yellowstone National Park’s hot springs by accounting for each pool’s spectral reflection due to microbial mats, their optical absorption and scattering of water and the incident solar and diffuse skylight conditions present when measurements were taken.
While the basic physical phenomena that render these colorful delights have long been scientifically understood -- they arise because of a complicated interplay of underwater vents and lawns of bacteria -- no mathematical model existed that showed empirically how the physical and chemical variables of a pool relate to their optical factors and coalesce in the unique, stunning fashion that they do.
Using a relatively simple one-dimensional model for light propagation, the group was able to reproduce the brilliant colors and optical characteristics of Yellowstone National Park's hot springs by accounting for each pool's spectral reflection due to microbial mats, their optical absorption and scattering of water and the incident solar and diffuse skylight conditions present when measurements were taken. In the case of Morning Glory Pool, they were even able to simulate what the pool once looked like between the 1880s and 1940s, when its temperatures were significantly higher. During this time, its waters appeared a uniform deep blue. An accumulation of coins, trash and rocks over the intervening decades has partially obscured the underwater vent, lowering the pool's overall temperature and shifting its appearance to a terrace of orange-yellow-green. This change from blue was demonstrated to result from the change in composition of the microbial mats, as a result of the lower water temperature.
A general relationship between shallow water temperature (hence microbial mat composition) and observed colors was confirmed in this study. However, color patterns observed in deeper segments of the pool are caused more by absorption and scattering of light in the water. These characteristics - mats having greater effect on color in shallow water, and absorption and scattering winning out in the deeper areas - are consistent across all the measured pools.

Evening use of light-emitting eReaders negatively affects sleep, circadian timing, and next-morning alertness

Abstract

In the past 50 y, there has been a decline in average sleep duration and quality, with adverse consequences on general health. A representative survey of 1,508 American adults recently revealed that 90% of Americans used some type of electronics at least a few nights per week within 1 h before bedtime. Mounting evidence from countries around the world shows the negative impact of such technology use on sleep. This negative impact on sleep may be due to the short-wavelength–enriched light emitted by these electronic devices, given that artificial-light exposure has been shown experimentally to produce alerting effects, suppress melatonin, and phase-shift the biological clock. A few reports have shown that these devices suppress melatonin levels, but little is known about the effects on circadian phase or the following sleep episode, exposing a substantial gap in our knowledge of how this increasingly popular technology affects sleep. Here we compare the biological effects of reading an electronic book on a light-emitting device (LE-eBook) with reading a printed book in the hours before bedtime. Participants reading an LE-eBook took longer to fall asleep and had reduced evening sleepiness, reduced melatonin secretion, later timing of their circadian clock, and reduced next-morning alertness than when reading a printed book. These results demonstrate that evening exposure to an LE-eBook phase-delays the circadian clock, acutely suppresses melatonin, and has important implications for understanding the impact of such technologies on sleep, performance, health, and safety.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/12/18/1418490112

Clouds may be dining cars for some germs
Germs don’t just hitchhike on clouds, some also treat them as a cafeteria
Researchers have discovered that at least one cloud-dwelling microbe — a bacterium belonging to the Bacillus genus— may dine on sugars while riding the winds in clouds. And this is not just any microbe. It’s one of the types most frequently found in the air and cloud-water droplets, reports a team of European scientists.
Scientists had known for decades that clouds can host diverse communities of microbes. But researchers had suspected those germs, lofted into the air by winds, were just aimlessly hitchhiking rides, sometimes between continents. The new research shows that the germs are not just jetting long distances. Some may treat their cloud ferries like club cars, dining happily as they travel.
https://student.societyforscience.org/article/clouds-may-be-dining-...

Equivalence of wave–particle duality to entropic uncertainty
Bridging Two Mysteries At The Heart Of Quantum Physics It turns out that wave-particle duality is simply the quantum uncertainty principle in disguise.
Using novel techniques from information theory, researchers from the National University of Singapore have demonstrated a striking and fundamental relationship between two fundamental characteristics of quantum physics—wave-particle duality and the uncertainty principle. This research, published in Nature Communications, paves the way for more elegant tests of both phenomena in quantum systems. http://www.asianscientist.com/2014/12/in-the-lab/bridging-mysteries...

http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/141219/ncomms6814/full/ncomms6814...

When somebody loses weight, where does the fat go?
Despite a worldwide obsession with diets and fitness regimes, many health professionals cannot correctly answer the question of where body fat goes when people lose weight. A study published in the British Medical Journal has the surprising answer: we breathe it out.
Where Did The Fat Go? Fat burned during weight loss is breathed out as carbon dioxide and water, but breathing more won’t help you lose weight.
The correct answer is that most of the mass is breathed out as carbon dioxide. It goes into thin air!
In a study and a paper based on their work, the authors show that losing 10 kilograms of fat requires 29 kilograms of oxygen to be inhaled and that this metabolic process produces 28 kilograms of carbon dioxide and 11 kilograms of water.
http://www.bmj.com/content/349/bmj.g7257

Some science journals may publish papers after cursory or no peer review, despite claiming otherwise. Researchers may send their papers to predatory journals either knowingly or naively buying into the false claims made.
Find here a list of questionable, scholarly open-access standalone journals

Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access journals
http://scholarlyoa.com/individual-journals/
And the list of publishers: Potential, possible, or probable predatory scholarly open-access publishers
http://scholarlyoa.com/publishers/

Find more information here: http://www.scidev.net/global/publishing/practical-guide/target-jour...

--

There’s Something Really Wrong With Science These Days

http://brainblogger.com/2014/12/26/theres-something-really-wrong-wi...

Redesigning life

This year saw stunning new developments in the emerging field of synthetic biology. In May, scientists in California explained how they had extended the "alphabet of life". All of the planet's lifeforms use four chemical units, or bases, arranged in pairs within DNA. But the US team modified a an E. coli bug to incorporate two additional chemicals not present in nature. The science could eventually be used to make a range of novel drugs and materials.

The work followed hot on the heels of the announcement that scientists had created the first synthetic chromosome for yeast. The genes in the original chromosome were replaced with synthetic versions. It's hoped the work will enable a range of applications from the manufacture of vaccines to more sustainable forms of biofuel.

Televised medical talk shows—what they recommend and the evidence to support their recommendations: a prospective observational study
BMJ 2014; 349 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.g7346 (Published 17 December 2014) Cite this as: BMJ 2014;349:g7346
Abstract

Objective To determine the quality of health recommendations and claims made on popular medical talk shows.

Design Prospective observational study.

Setting Mainstream television media.

Sources Internationally syndicated medical television talk shows that air daily (The Dr Oz Show and The Doctors).

Interventions Investigators randomly selected 40 episodes of each of The Dr Oz Show and The Doctors from early 2013 and identified and evaluated all recommendations made on each program. A group of experienced evidence reviewers independently searched for, and evaluated as a team, evidence to support 80 randomly selected recommendations from each show.

Main outcomes measures Percentage of recommendations that are supported by evidence as determined by a team of experienced evidence reviewers. Secondary outcomes included topics discussed, the number of recommendations made on the shows, and the types and details of recommendations that were made.

Results We could find at least a case study or better evidence to support 54% (95% confidence interval 47% to 62%) of the 160 recommendations (80 from each show). For recommendations in The Dr Oz Show, evidence supported 46%, contradicted 15%, and was not found for 39%. For recommendations in The Doctors, evidence supported 63%, contradicted 14%, and was not found for 24%. Believable or somewhat believable evidence supported 33% of the recommendations on The Dr Oz Show and 53% on The Doctors. On average, The Dr Oz Show had 12 recommendations per episode and The Doctors 11. The most common recommendation category on The Dr Oz Show was dietary advice (39%) and on The Doctors was to consult a healthcare provider (18%). A specific benefit was described for 43% and 41% of the recommendations made on the shows respectively. The magnitude of benefit was described for 17% of the recommendations on The Dr Oz Show and 11% on The Doctors. Disclosure of potential conflicts of interest accompanied 0.4% of recommendations.

Conclusions Recommendations made on medical talk shows often lack adequate information on specific benefits or the magnitude of the effects of these benefits. Approximately half of the recommendations have either no evidence or are contradicted by the best available evidence. Potential conflicts of interest are rarely addressed. The public should be skeptical about recommendations made on medical talk shows.

On 27 August 1883, the Earth made the loudest noise in recorded history. Emanating from the island of Krakatoa, which sits between the islands of Java and Sumatra in Indonesia, the sound could be heard clearly almost 5,000 kilometres away and by people across 50 different geological locations around the world.

According to Aatish Bhatia at Nautilus, about 3,200 kilometres away from Krakatoa, residents of New Guinea and Western Australia reported hearing “a series of loud reports, resembling those of artillery in a north-westerly direction”, and over 4,800 kilometres away on the island of Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean, locals reported hearing what sounded to them like the distant roar of heavy gun fire.

The sound was caused by a record-breaking volcanic eruption that sent smoke up almost 80 kilometres into the air as ash fell into the ocean some 20 kilometres away. Burning hot debris was shot from the mouth of Krakatoa's volcano at speeds of up to 2,575 kilometres per hour, which is more than double the speed of sound.
The world's loudest sound caused shock waves 100,000 times that of a hydrogen bomb.
http://nautil.us/blog/the-sound-so-loud-that-it-circled-the-earth-f...

A mysterious phase of matter stands in the way of high-temperature superconductivity, new evidence shows

Scientists have just found the first direct evidence that a mysterious phase of matter known as the “pseudogap” is standing in the way of high-temperature superconductivity.
Earlier this month, researchers even managed to acheive the incredible feat of superconductivity at room temperature for the first time ever - but only for (literally) a split second.

Despite the advances, it's always felt as though there was something standing in the way high-temperature superconductivity. And now scientists think they may know what that is - a mysterious phase of matter known as the "pseudogap".
For the past 20 years, researchers at Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in the US have been trying to work out whether the pseudogap was helping or hindering high-temperature superconducitivty.

And they've finally found the first direct evidence that this phase of matter steals electrons that would otherwise pair up and allow a material to superconduct.

"Now we have clear, smoking-gun evidence that the pseudogap phase competes with and suppresses superconductivity," said Makoto Hashimoto, the lead author, in a press release. "If we can somehow remove this competition, or handle it better, we may be able to raise the operating temperatures of these superconductors."
The pseudogap was first spotted using a technique called angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (or ARPES), which knocks electrons out of a copper oxide material so that researchers can plot their behaviour and then work out how they would behave inside the material.

Researchers have been doing this for decades with copper oxides, one of the very few materials known to display superconductivity at relatively high temperatures of around -135 degrees Celsius.

During superconductivity, electrons leave their usual positions and pair up into something known as Cooper pairs, so that they can conduct electricity with zero resistance and 100 percent efficiency. The researchers were able to see this behaviour using ARPES as a clear gap in their plots of electron behaviour.

But the in the mid-1990s, they discovered another strange gap in their plots of copper oxide. It looked like the “superconducting” gap left by electrons moving into pairs, but it was being seen at temperatures far too high for superconductivity. They called this phase the pseudogap, and have been studying it ever since.

To finally work out what was happening, the team studied not only the energies and momenta of the electrons, but also the number of electrons of particular energies that come out of the material. They tested this over a wide range of temperatures and after altering the electronic properties of the material.

In their experiments, they found strong evidence that at the “transition temperature” of around -135 degrees Celsius, the pseudogap and superconductivity states in copper oxides are competing for electrons. Their results are published in Nature Materials.
http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/v14/n1/full/nmat4116.html

Artificial sweeteners bring on glucose intolerance and alter gut microbiota

Those who consume high amounts of artificial sweetener may be putting themselves at risk of developing glucose intolerance, according to new research.
The Weizman Institute team in Israel discovered that sweeteners are messing with our gut bacteria in a way that could lead to weight gain and diabetes. Continuing their research, they’ve now found that because most sweeteners pass through the gastrointestinal tract without being digested, they're directly impacting the composition of helpful bacterial colonies that live in our gut. These colonies are responsible for maintaining a number of crucial biological processes, including how the body metabolises sugar. The the sweetener-induced glucose intolerance is caused by changes in the gut flora and the different proportions of its bacterial representatives”, the team reports in the journal Nature.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v514/n7521/abs/nature13793.html

DDD project finds 12 new genetic causes of developmental disorders
The first results from a nationwide project to study the genetic causes of rare developmental disorders have revealed 12 causative genes that were unidentified before. The Deciphering Developmental Disorders (DDD) project, the world's largest, nationwide genome-wide diagnostic sequencing programme, sequenced DNA and compared the clinical characteristics of over a thousand children to find the genes responsible for conditions that include intellectual disabilities and congenital heart defects, among others.
http://www.sciencecodex.com/project_pinpoints_12_new_genetic_causes...

Optogenetics, two-photon microscopy observe neuronal transmission in live mouse brain
Using optogenetics, scientists at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL; Lausanne, Switzerland) have observed and measured synaptic transmission in a live animal for the first time. Synaptic transmission is critical for the brain and the spinal cord to quickly process the huge amount of incoming stimuli and generate outgoing signals. However, studying synaptic transmission in living animals is very difficult, and researchers normally have to use artificial conditions that don't capture the real-life environment of neurons.

http://www.bioopticsworld.com/articles/2014/12/optogenetics-two-pho...

http://www.firstpost.com/fwire/neuron-transmission-observed-live-fo...

Guides and supervisors

Imagine you're at the foot of a mountain. Initially, when you look up, all you can see is a part of the mountain, not even all of it. As you start climbing, the perspective changes. By the time you reach the peak, you can see a whole range in front of you. The point of climbing the mountain is to see the whole range, but that realization doesn't hit home until after you have climbed it. Doing a piece of research is exactly like that.

"Nothing is as easy as it sounds in research".

"PhD is a Marathon not a Sprint"!

Prediction of antibiotic resistance by gene expression profiles
Abstract:

Although many mutations contributing to antibiotic resistance have been identified, the relationship between the mutations and the related phenotypic changes responsible for the resistance has yet to be fully elucidated. To better characterize phenotype–genotype mapping for drug resistance, here we analyse phenotypic and genotypic changes of antibiotic-resistant Escherichia coli strains obtained by laboratory evolution. We demonstrate that the resistances can be quantitatively predicted by the expression changes of a small number of genes. Several candidate mutations contributing to the resistances are identified, while phenotype–genotype mapping is suggested to be complex and includes various mutations that cause similar phenotypic changes. The integration of transcriptome and genome data enables us to extract essential phenotypic changes for drug resistances.
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2014/141217/ncomms6792/full/ncomms6792...

Nest decorations: an ‘extended’ female badge of status?

A study suggests that ...
Nest ornamentation (feathers) by rock sparrows using experimental data has been studies in detail.

Males in the experimental group (feathers addition) invested more in nest defence.
Females spent more time guarding nests with experimental feathers.

Experimental nests were visited less by intruders.

the researchers propose that nest decoration can act as both a sexual and a status signal.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0003347214004102

India’s major science funders join open-access push
Two of India’s major science funding agencies are joining the push to make the results of the research they fund freely available to the public.

India’s Ministry of Science & Technology earlier this month announced it will require researchers who receive even just part of their funding from its biotechnology and science and technology departments to deposit copies of their papers in publicly accessible depositories. The two departments are the primary government sources for life science research funding in India.

Researchers are required to submit papers to a repository within 2 weeks of acceptance by a peer-reviewed journal. Some papers may not become freely available for 6 to 12 months, however, if the journal asks for a delay to protect its subscription revenue. In including such delays, India’s policy tracks similar policies adopted by many other public and private funding agencies around the world.

“[I]t is important that the information and knowledge generated through the use of [public] funds are made publicly available as soon as possible,” states the 12 December statement announcing the new policy.
Under the policy, any institution that receives funding from the two departments will be required to set up a digital repository that will archive papers written by researchers at that institution. The ministry, in turn, will maintain a “central harvester” linked to each of the institutional repositories; it will allow users to search for papers across the entire system. If an institution does not yet have its own institutional repository, researchers can temporarily use central repositories maintained by the two funding departments.

The policy is retroactive; it applies to all papers that are the products of funding awarded since fiscal year 2012 to 2013. “Authors are recommended to also deposit manuscripts of their earlier publications even if they are unrelated to current projects” funded by the departments, the policy states.

The policy also requires researchers to submit “metadata and supplementary materials” associated with a paper, but does not directly articulate a policy requiring the public posting and free use of all publicly funded data. “The current policy in India does not demand open data,” Jameel notes. “But the global mood today is shifting toward open data.”

Posting a paper in a repository is no substitute for publishing in a peer-reviewed journal, the policy suggests. Officials “expect that the recipients of funding will publish their research in high quality, peer-reviewed journals,” it states.

Institutions will also have to plan annual “Open Access Day” activities that promote the free sharing of research results, the policy states. The activities, which could include “sensitizing lectures, programmes, workshops and taking new open access initiatives,” should occur during International Open Access Week, which in 2015 is set for 19 to25 October.

Neuronal encoding of the switch from specific to generalized fear
Abstract:
Fear memories are crucial for survival. However, excessive generalization of such memories, characterized by a failure to discriminate dangerous from safe stimuli, is common in anxiety disorders. Neuronal encoding of the transition from cue-specific to generalized fear is poorly understood. We identified distinct neuronal populations in the lateral amygdala (LA) of rats that signaled generalized versus cue-specific associations and determined how their distributions switched during fear generalization. Notably, the same LA neurons that were cue specific before the behavioral shift to generalized fear lost their specificity afterwards, thereby tilting the balance of activity toward a greater proportion of generalizing neurons. Neuronal activity in the LA, but not the auditory cortex, was necessary for fear generalization. Furthermore, targeted activation of cAMP–PKA signaling in the LA increased neuronal excitability of LA neurons and led to generalized fear. These results provide a cellular basis in the amygdala for the alteration of emotional states from normal to pathological fear.
http://www.nature.com/neuro/journal/v18/n1/full/nn.3888.html

The loss of estrogen efficacy against cerebral ischemia in aged postmenopausal female mice
Physiological doses of E2 show neuroprotective effects in adult female mice but not in aged female mice.
ERα and ERβ expression in the cortex significantly decreased in the aged female mice.
Estrogen replacement treatment could not recover ERα and ERβ expression in the aged female mice.
Abstract

Estrogen has been shown to have neuroprotective effects in numerous experimental studies involving young and adult animals. However, several clinical trials have found that in aged postmenopausal women who received estrogen replacement therapy, there did not appear to be a reduction in the incidence of stroke. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of physiological dosages of estrogen on aged female mice subjected to ischemia-reperfusion injury. Adult ovariectomized (OVX) female mice and 22-month-old female mice received daily subcutaneous injections of 100 μg/kg or 300 μg/kg 17β-estradiol (E2) at the back of the neck for four weeks, and the expression levels of estrogen receptor (ER) α and β in the cerebral cortex were determined using real-time PCR and Western blotting analyses. To mimic ischemic stroke, the mice received middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) treatment for 1 h followed by a 24-h reperfusion period. The mice were then subjected to neurological deficit testing and infarct volume evaluation. The aged mice showed higher neurological deficit scores and larger infarct volumes compared with the adult mice. Both the lower and higher physiological dosages of E2 significantly improved the neurological test scores and decreased the infarct volume in the adult mice; however, E2 showed no neuroprotective effects in the aged mice. Furthermore, the protein expression of ERα and ERβ in the cerebral cortex was significantly decreased in the aged mice compared with the adult mice, and this decrease was not rescued by E2 treatment. These results indicate that the down-regulation of ERα and ERβ in the cerebral cortex may contribute to the loss of estrogen efficacy against ischemic injury in aged females and may point to new therapies for ischemic stroke in aged postmenopausal women.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0304394013009981

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCm4ZAOy6QTnN47cGI8PTnRQ

Feeling old? It might be from heavy metal.
High exposure to the toxic metal cadmium could prematurely age cells, potentially triggering a number of diseases as people age, according to a new study.
In a large national study, high exposure to cadmium was linked to shorter telomeres, "bits of DNA that act as caps" on chromosomes to help stabilize genes, said Ami Zota, a George Washington University assistant professor of environmental and occupational health who led the study. Shorten those caps too much, and cells weaken, leading to diseases.

Cadmium is used to make batteries.

The study is the largest to examine to examine links between cadmium and cell aging in people and suggests that exposure to the heavy metal could play a role in chronic illnesses, such as heart disease and kidney disease.

Cadmium is naturally occurring on Earth, but it is also produced to make batteries and coat iron and steel. People are exposed to cadmium through contaminated food, tobacco smoke and polluted air near industrial areas.
http://www.environmentalhealthnews.org/ehs/news/2015/jan/feeling-ol...

8th Science Communicators’ meet held at 102nd Indian Science Congress
http://www.dst.gov.in/whats_new/press-release15/pib_04-01-2015_2.html

Easter Island Extinction Blamed on Environment
Variation in Rapa Nui (Easter Island) land use indicates production and population peaks prior to European contact

Abstract

Many researchers believe that prehistoric Rapa Nui society collapsed because of centuries of unchecked population growth within a fragile environment. Recently, the notion of societal collapse has been questioned with the suggestion that extreme societal and demographic change occurred only after European contact in AD 1722. Establishing the veracity of demographic dynamics has been hindered by the lack of empirical evidence and the inability to establish a precise chronological framework. We use chronometric dates from hydrated obsidian artifacts recovered from habitation sites in regional study areas to evaluate regional land-use within Rapa Nui. The analysis suggests region-specific dynamics including precontact land use decline in some near-coastal and upland areas and postcontact increases and subsequent declines in other coastal locations. These temporal land-use patterns correlate with rainfall variation and soil quality, with poorer environmental locations declining earlier. This analysis confirms that the intensity of land use decreased substantially in some areas of the island before European contact.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/02/1420712112

Global mobility: Science on the move

The big picture of global migration shows that scientists usually follow the research money — but culture can skew this pattern.

http://www.nature.com/news/global-mobility-science-on-the-move-1.11602

Iron overload disease causes rapid growth of potentially deadly bacteria
Every summer, the news reports on a bacterium called Vibrio vulnificus found in warm saltwater that causes people to get sick, or die, after they eat raw tainted shellfish or when an open wound comes in contact with seawater.

People with a weakened immune system, chronic liver disease or iron overload disease are most at risk for severe illness. Vibrio vulnificus infections in high-risk individuals are fatal 50 percent of the time.

Now, researchers at UCLA have figured out why those with iron overload disease are so vulnerable. People with the common genetic iron overload disease called hereditary hemochromatosis have a deficiency of the iron-regulating hormone hepcidin and thus develop excess iron in their blood and tissue, providing prime growth conditions for Vibrio vulnificus.

The study also found that minihepcidin, a medicinal form of the hormone hepcidin that lowers iron levels in blood, could cure the infection by restricting bacterial growth.

The early findings were reported online Jan. 14 in the journal Cell Host and Microbe.
http://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/abstract/S1931-3128%2814%2900...

'At least two more planets' beyond Pluto, scientists think
At least two as-yet undiscovered planets as big as Earth or larger may be hiding in the outer fringes of the Solar System, according to space scientists

The secret worlds are thought to exist beyond the orbits of Neptune, the furthest true planet from the Sun, and the even more distant tiny ''dwarf planet'' Pluto.

The evidence comes from observations of a belt of space rocks known as ''extreme trans-Neptunion objects'' (Etnos).

Orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune, Etnos should be distributed randomly with paths that have certain defined characteristics.

But a dozen of the bodies have completely unexpected orbital values consistent with them being influenced by the gravitational pull of something unseen.
According to the scientists, this excess of objects with unexpected orbital parameters makes them believe that some invisible forces are altering the distribution of the orbital elements of the Etno, and they consider that the most probable explanation is that other unknown planets exist beyond Neptune and Pluto.
The new research, published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters, is based on analysis of an effect called the ''Kozai mechanism'', by which a large body disturbs the orbit of a smaller and more distant object.

The scientists wrote: ''In this scenario, a population of stable asteroids may be shepherded by a distant, undiscovered planet larger than the Earth ... ''

India launches “Pracheen Nek Puraskar,” an “Ancient Nobel Prize” for Ancient Indian Science!
Indian government has now launched Pracheen Nek Puraskar, an award to recognize the brilliance of ancient Indian minds.
http://www.fakingnews.firstpost.com/2015/01/india-launches-pracheen...

Promising antibiotic discovered in microbial ‘dark matter’

Potential drug kills pathogens such as MRSA — and was discovered by mining 'unculturable' bacteria.
http://www.nature.com/news/promising-antibiotic-discovered-in-micro...

New light on tectonic plate movement:

A Yale University-led study may have solved one of the biggest mysteries in geology - why do tectonic plates beneath the Earth's surface sometimes move abruptly.

Traditionally, scientists believed that all tectonic plates are pulled by subducting slabs which result from the colder, top boundary layer of the Earth's rocky surface becoming heavy and sinking slowly into the deeper mantle.

Yet that process does not account for sudden plate shifts.

Such abrupt movement requires that slabs detach from their plates but doing this quickly is difficult since the slabs should be too cold and stiff to detach.

According to the Yale study, there are additional factors at work.

Thick crust from continents or oceanic plateaux is swept into the subduction zone, plugging it up and prompting the slab to break off.

The detachment process is then accelerated when mineral grains in the necking slab start to shrink, causing the slab to weaken rapidly.

The result is tectonic plates that abruptly shift horizontally or continents suddenly bobbing up.

"Understanding this helps us understand how the tectonic plates change through the Earth's history. It adds to our knowledge of the evolution of our planet, including its climate and biosphere," said Yale geophysicist David Bercovici.

The study was published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Speed of light not so constant after all
Pulse structure can slow photons, even in a vacuum
Photons that travel in free space slower than the speed of light
That the speed of light in free space is constant is a cornerstone of modern physics. However, light beams have finite transverse size, which leads to a modification of their wavevectors resulting in a change to their phase and group velocities. We study the group velocity of single photons by measuring a change in their arrival time that results from changing the beam's transverse spatial structure. Using time-correlated photon pairs we show a reduction of the group velocity of photons in both a Bessel beam and photons in a focused Gaussian beam. In both cases, the delay is several microns over a propagation distance of the order of 1 m. Our work highlights that, even in free space, the invariance of the speed of light only applies to plane waves. Introducing spatial structure to an optical beam, even for a single photon, reduces the group velocity of the light by a readily measurable amount.
http://arxiv.org/abs/1411.3987

In a Cell Perspectives paper published in December, Deborah Muoio, PhD, a Duke University researcher investigating the impact of diet and exercise on metabolic health, explains how overeating can be detrimental to our health by contributing to cellular traffic jams—and ultimately to obesity and metabolic disease.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0092867414015116

The myths about glass was shattered by scientists:
There was a myth that glass not being a real solid. Old church windows, the story went, had become thicker on the bottom over time, as the glass, though appearing solid, continued to very, very slowly flow with gravity. It turns out the variation in the thickness of old windows was due to a quirk of how large panes were made in medieval times, and glass is, in fact, a true solid, although it takes a little time to get all the way there.

During solidification, the molecules in most substances settle into a crystalline structure. But under a microscope, scientists noticed that glass, when cooling from a malleable, heated state, never quite achieves this crystallization, and seems to keep flowing, albeit extremely slowly. For years, this puzzled researchers, and glass was referred to as an “amorphous solid.” While the “glass-never-truly-solidifies” concept has apparently been challenged for decades, a paper just published in Nature Communications journal combined research from the University of Bristol and Kyoto University to finally settle the issue.
Though under  a microscope, glass appears to keep moving even after it cools and feels solid to the touch, the atoms are actually very slowly arranging themselves into geometric shapes, like icosahedra, increasing the solid regions of the material over time.
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150122/ncomms7089/full/ncomms7089...

Why light rain brings sweet aromas:

The 50 most critical scientific & technological breakthroughs required for sustainable global development
https://www.ligtt.org/50-breakthroughs

Cancer uses a little-understood element of cell signaling to hijack the communication process and spread, according to Rice University researchers.

A new computational study by researchers at the Rice-based Center for Theoretical Biological Physics shows how cancer cells take advantage of the system by which cells communicate with their neighbors as they pass messages to “be like me” or “be not like me.”

Led by Rice biophysicists Eshel Ben-Jacob and José Onuchic, the researchers decode how cancer uses a cell-cell interaction mechanism known as notch signaling to promote metastasis. This mechanism plays a crucial role in embryonic development and wound healing and is activated when a delta or jagged ligand of one cell interacts with the notch receptor on an adjacent one.
Cancer cells have the ability to hijack the notch-signaling mechanism that cells use to communicate with each other, especially when “jagged” ligands allow for two-way signaling, according to Rice University scientists. Signals pass between cells when delta or jagged ligands on one bind to external notch proteins on the other.
http://news.rice.edu/2015/01/26/how-cancer-turns-good-cells-to-the-...

At the heart of our new understanding is that the primary agents of metastasis are clusters of hybrid epithelial (nonmobile) and mesenchymal (migrating) cells,” Ben-Jacob said. “These, and not the fully mesenchymal cells, are the ‘bad actors’ of cancer progression that pose the highest risk. By acting together, these hybrid cancer cells have a better chance to evade the immune system during migration and can better survive while circulating in blood vessels.”

The multifaceted mechanism by which notch-delta-jagged signaling promotes cancer progression has been a mystery until now, Ben-Jacob said, but recent experimental studies have revealed the jagged ligand plays a critical role in tumor progression.

The new study provides a fresh theoretical framework for scientists who study the fates of cells. It shows the presence of jagged ligands can give rise to sender/receiver hybrid cells that send a signal — “be like me” — that is useful for embryonic development and healing, but can also be hijacked by cancer cells.

Beating the clock: Researchers develop new treatment for rabies
Successfully treating rabies can be a race against the clock. Those who suffer a bite from a rabid animal have a brief window of time to seek medical help before the virus takes root in the central nervous system, at which point the disease is almost invariably fatal.

Now, researchers at the University of Georgia have successfully tested a new treatment on mice that cures the disease even after the virus has spread to the brain. They published their findings recently in the Journal of Virology.

"Basically, the best way to deal with rabies right now is simple: Don't get rabies," said study co-author Biao He, a professor of infectious diseases in the UGA College of Veterinary Medicine. "We have vaccines that can prevent the disease, and we use the same vaccine as a kind of treatment after a bite, but it only works if the virus hasn't progressed too far.

"Our team has developed a new vaccine that rescues mice much longer after infection than what was traditionally thought possible."

In their mouse experiments, the animals were exposed to a strain of the rabies virus that generally reaches the brain of infected mice within three days. By day six, mice begin to exhibit the telltale physical symptoms that indicate the infection has become fatal.

However, 50 percent of mice treated with the new vaccine were saved, even after the onset of physical symptoms on day six.

"This is the most effective treatment that has reported in the scientific literature till date"
The researchers developed their vaccine by inserting a protein from the rabies virus into another virus known as parainfluenza virus 5, or PIV5, which is thought to contribute to upper respiratory infections in dogs but is completely harmless to humans.

PIV5 acts as a delivery vehicle that carries the rabies protein to the immune system so it may create the antibodies necessary to fight off the virus.
Apart from being very effective in saving the infected mice, the researchers emphasized that their vaccine is much safer when compared to the best current treatment in mice, which uses a weakened version of the rabies virus.
http://jvi.asm.org/content/early/2014/12/26/JVI.03656-14.full.pdf+html
Parainfluenza virus 5 expressing the G protein of rabies virus protected mice after rabies virus infection J. Virol. JVI.03656-14

Immune response: new light
Recognition of rare “foreign” peptides by the alpha-beta T-cell receptor (TCR) on T lymphocytes is critical for the adaptive immune response that protects our bodies. T cell motions during immune surveillance generate forces that are detected by the mechanosensing action of the TCR.

Using single-molecule and single-cell optical tweezer assays, Matthew Lang, Ph.D., and colleagues at Vanderbilt and at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston demonstrate that the TCR uses force to enhance binding to foreign peptides and transitions to an extended conformation to release. They found that another part of the TCR complex controls the bond strength and extension transition in this “catch-and-release” model for TCR function.

The findings, reported this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, explain how T-cell receptors are able to seek out and bind to rare foreign peptides among many irrelevant interactions, all with low apparent binding affinity. The research sheds light on how T cells recognize their targets and on strategies for immunotherapies.

Force-dependent transition in the T-cell receptor β-subunit allosterically regulates peptide discrimination and pMHC bond lifetime. Dibyendu Kumar Das et al. PNAS, 2015.

Force-dependent transition in the T-cell receptor β-subunit allosterically regulates peptide discrimination and pMHC bond lifetime. Dibyendu Kumar Das et al. PNAS, 2015. doi:10.1073/pnas.1424829112

Climate, vocal folds, and tonal languages: Connecting the physiological and geographic dots
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/01/14/1417413112.abstract
The sound systems of human languages are not generally thought to be ecologically adaptive. We offer the most extensive evidence to date that such systems are in fact adaptive and can be influenced, at least in some respects, by climatic factors. Based on a survey of laryngology data demonstrating the deleterious effects of aridity on vocal cord movement, we predict that complex tone patterns should be relatively unlikely to evolve in arid climates. This prediction is supported by careful statistical sampling of climatic and phonological data pertaining to over half of the world’s languages. We conclude that human sound systems, like those of some other species, are influenced by environmental variables.
Extensive research on human physiology suggests that really dry air makes it hard for us to use our vocal cords very precisely.
Dry-throat-phenomenon in regards to complex tonal languages, like Cantonese <>, where various combinations of rising and falling tones can actually change the meaning of a word—as opposed to non-tonal languages, like English or Italian.
By mapping the distribution of more than 3,700 tonal and non-tonal languages, Everett and his colleagues found that tonal languages tend to cluster in warm, humid areas. And they're 10 times less prevalent in dry, sub-freezing climes, like Siberia, compared with non-tonal languages.
According to the researchers, language evolves in relation to where it’s spoken. It is not impervious to the effects of environment. Just as ecologies impact human behavior and the adaptive processes of human cultures in myriad ways, they seem to also influence the ways in which languages develop.

There are so many different genetic forms of autism that using the singular term, autism, is misleading, science researchers on the subject say.

A better term to use while referring to the condition is ‘the autisms,’ or ‘the autism spectrum disorders’ (that is, plural). There are many different forms of autism. In other words, autism is more of a collection of different disorders that have a common clinical manifestation.
The DNA of affected individuals varies remarkably, researchers found. Two-thirds of brothers and sisters with what’s still called autism spectrum disorder, or ASD, showed different genetic changes.
The research results were reported in Nature Medicine.

http://bit.ly/1rgBrwG Nature Medicine