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

RNAs proofread themselves!
Molecular photographs of an enzyme bound to RNA reveal a new, inherent quality control mechanism
Building a protein is a complicated process. Information is passed along from one messenger to another, creating the potential for errors every step of the way. There are separate, specialized enzymatic machines that proofread at each step, ensuring that the instructions encoded in our DNA are faithfully translated into proteins. Scientists at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) have uncovered a new quality control mechanism along this path, but in a remarkable role reversal, the proofreading isn't done by an enzyme. Instead, one of the messengers itself has a built-in mechanism to prevent errors along the way.

The building blocks for proteins are carried by molecules known as transfer RNAs (tRNAs). tRNAs work with other cellular machinery to ensure that the building blocks - amino acids - are arranged in the proper order. But before a building block can be loaded onto a tRNA molecule, a three-part chemical sequence that scientists call "CCA" must be added to the tRNA. The letters are added by an appropriately named machine, the CCA-adding enzyme, and they mark the tRNA as a fully functional molecule.

If a tRNA is mutated, the CCA-adding enzyme duplicates its message. The letters now read "CCACCA," signaling that the tRNA is flawed. The cell rapidly degrades the aberrant tRNA, preventing the flawed message from propagating.

But how does the CCA-adding enzyme distinguish between normal and mutant tRNAs?

CSHL Professor and Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator Leemor Joshua-Tor led a team of researchers to investigate how the CCA-adding enzyme makes this distinction. "We used X-ray crystallography - a type of molecular photography - to observe the enzyme at work, and we were surprised to find that the enzyme doesn't discriminate at all," explains Joshua-Tor. "In fact, it is the RNA that is responsible for proofreading itself."

The team used two tRNA-like molecules, called noncoding RNAs, to study the error-correcting mechanism. In previous work, Jeremy Wilusz, PhD, a former CSHL Watson School of Biological Sciences graduate student and an author on this current publication, found a noncoding RNA that is modified with a single CCA group, making it both stable and abundant. Another RNA used in the current study is normally present at negligible levels in cells, and Wilusz and CSHL Professor David Spector found that it is modified with a CCACCA sequence and is rapidly degraded. The difference between the two noncoding RNAs is a simple mutation, and the question the team addressed is how the presence of the mutation affects the addition of "CCA" sequences.

In work published in Cell's on line edition.
http://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674%2815%2900006-9

New light on comets: Courtesy Rosetta:
The European Space Agency's Rosetta mission has now found that Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko's is even stranger than initially expected.
The new comet findings, detailed in a special issue of the journal Science this week, are even calling into question an old axiom of comet research.
1. Many scientists have dubbed comets "dirty snowballs," but now it might be more appropriate to call this comet a "snowy dustball" because of its dust-to-gas ration.
2. Researchers working with Rosetta have found that the comet harbors organic compounds, carbon-based molecules that are sometimes known as the chemical building blocks of life. This marks the first time organic molecules have been detected on the surface of a comet's nucleus, according to Fabrizio Capaccioni, the principal investigator of the VIRTIS instrument on Rosetta.
3. The northern hemisphere of the comet's nucleus is also filled with dunes and ripples that look somewhat like geological markings on Earth, Mars and Venus. Comet 67P/C-G doesn't have a robust atmosphere and high gravity like those planets, and yet it still has structures resembling sand dunes. It's possible that the comet's outgassing in the active region on the comet could cause the odd surface features. The high-speed gas flows from the regions, expanding into the vacuum of space, and potentially creating the features.
4. If a person were to stand on the surface of the comet, he or she could jump very high into space because of Comet 67P/C-G's low gravity. The composition of the comet is also very diverse. You might sink in into the smooth dust where we find the thick snow-field like layers, other areas might be robust enough to carry you.
5. Comet 67P/C-G is very dark—darker than charcoal—without much water-ice on its surface potentially because it has taken multiple trips around the sun, burning off much of its ice. Right now, most of the comet's jet-creating activity is happening from the cliffs and pit walls.
6. Another study in Science this week also details new research about the temperature of the comet. It was found that the northern hemisphere of the comet is relatively warm, while the southern hemisphere is somewhat colder, indicating seasonal changes on Comet 67P/C-G.
7. Rosetta's findings have also potentially upturned a theory about how water was delivered to the early Earth. Many scientists think that comets brought Earth its water; however, the type of water found in Comet 67P/C-G is sodifferent from terrestrial water that some researchers are starting to second-guess that claim, opting instead to look at asteroids as the objects that delivered water to Earth at first.

- Space.com

I always wondered about this and I got a few answers to my questions now on psychopathics: It seems Psychopathic violent offenders' brains can't understand punishment!

Psychopathic violent offenders have abnormalities in the parts of the brain related to learning from punishment, according to an MRI study led by Sheilagh Hodgins and Nigel Blackwood. “One in five violent offenders is a psychopath. They have higher rates of recidivism and don't benefit from rehabilitation programmes. their research reveals why this is and can hopefully improve childhood interventions to prevent violence and behavioural therapies to reduce recidivism”.

Psychopathic offenders are different from regular criminals in many ways. Regular criminals are hyper-responsive to threat, quick-tempered and aggressive, while psychopaths have a very low response to threats, are cold, and their aggressively is premeditated. Evidence is now accumulating to show that both types of offenders present abnormal, but distinctive, brain development from a young age.”

In order to develop programs that prevent offending and rehabilitation programs that reduce re-offending, it is essential to identify the neural mechanisms underlying psychopath's persistent violent behaviour. They have been using Magnetic Resonance Imaging to study brain structure and function in a sample of violent offenders in England, one group with psychopathy and one without, and a sample of healthy non-offenders. They have found structural abnormalities in both gray matter and specific white matter fiber tracts among the violent offenders with psychopathy. Grey matter is mostly involved with processing information and cognition, while white matter coordinates the flow of information between different parts of the brain.

The researchers observed reductions in gray matter volumes bilaterally in the anterior rostral prefrontal cortex and temporal poles relative to the other offenders and to the non-offenders. These brain regions are involved in empathy, the processing of pro-social emotions such as guilt and embarrassment, and moral reasoning. “Abnormalities were also found in white matter fiber tracts in the dorsal cingulum, linking the posterior cingulate cortex to the medial prefrontal cortex that were specifically associated with the lack of empathy that is typical of psychopathy. These same regions are involved in learning from rewards and punishment. In childhood, both psychopathic and non-psychopathic offenders alike are repeatedly punished by parents and teachers for breaking rules and for assaulting others, and from adolescence onwards, they are frequently incarcerated. Yet they persist in engaging in violent behaviour towards others. Thus, punishment does not appear to modify their behaviour. They found that the violent offenders with psychopathy, as compared to both the violent offenders without psychopathy and the non-offenders, displayed abnormal responding to punishment within the posterior cingulate and insula when a previously rewarded response was punished. Deciding on what to do involves generating a list of possible actions, weighing the negative and positive consequences of each, and hopefully choosing the behaviour most likely to lead to a positive outcome. Offenders with psychopathy may only consider the possible positive consequences and fail to take account of the likely negative consequences. Consequently, their behavior often leads to punishment rather than reward as they had expected. “Punishment signals the necessity to change behaviour. Clearly, in certain situations, offenders have difficulty learning from punishment to change their behaviour.”

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366%2814...

Norovirus, the most common cause of gastroenteritis in the world, can be killed with "cold plasma," researchers in Germany have reported.

The virus, which elicits vomiting and diarrhea, has gained international notoriety for causing outbreaks on cruise ships.

However, such incidents represent merely a fraction of the tens of millions of cases that occur around the world each year.

The research appears in mBio journal.

Preventing norovirus outbreaks is complicated by the fact that the virus is highly resistant to several different chemical disinfectants.

Bleach, a chlorine-based solution, is currently the most effective treatment, but researchers are seeking more convenient alternatives.

One such alternative is cold plasma, also known as non-thermal plasma. This "fourth state of matter" consists of ionized gas molecules at room temperature. These ions can destroy many kinds of microbes, but their effect on viruses was less clear.

Inactivation of a Foodborne Norovirus Outbreak Strain with Nonthermal Atmospheric Pressure Plasma
http://mbio.asm.org/content/6/1/e02300-14.full

The hepatitis-liver cancer connection...
Using whole genomic sequencing, scientists from RIKEN in Japan have for the first time demonstrated the profound effect that chronic hepatitis infection and inflammation can have on the genetic mutations found in tumors of the liver, potentially paving the way to a better understanding of the mechanisms through which these chronic infections can lead to cancer. Recent studies have shown that particularly in Asia, infection with either hepatitis B or C is often associated with such cancers.
For the study, which was published in Nature Communications, the group performed whole genomic sequencing on 30 individual tumors classified as liver cancer displaying a biliary phenotype. This type of cancer originates in the liver, but is different from hepatocellular carcinoma, the dominant form of primary liver cancer, and is generally more aggressive, with poorer prognosis. They compared the data with 60 of the more-common hepatocellular carcinoma tumors. To study gene expression, they then examined RNA sequencing data from 25 of the biliary-phenotype cancers and 44 hepatocellular cancers.
Surprisingly, they found that although the patterns of gene expression—as shown by the RNA sequencing—differed between the hepatocellular carcinomas and the liver cancers with biliary phenotype and depended on the histological type, the overall pattern of mutations in the cells was actually similar between the tumors—of either type—that had emerged in patients who had had infections with either hepatitis C or B, and were different in patients without such infections. This same kind of clustering is also found in cancers with well-understood etiologies, such as melanoma (UV light) and lung cancer (smoking). According to Hidewaki Nakagawa of the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, who led the team, "This is an interesting finding and could indicate that the cancers—even of different histological types—in patients with hepatitis infections could be derived from similar cells, perhaps hepatic progenitor cells. In patients without hepatitis, we did not find any clustering, and this indicates that their cancers might have a very different cellular origin."

Through the analysis, researchers were also able to identify changes in mutations that are associated with more aggressive biliary-type liver cancers. Specifically, they found that mutations of KRAS and IDHs, which are linked to more aggressive cancers, were less common in the cancers in patients with chronic hepatitis.
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150130/ncomms7120/full/ncomms7120...

Gravitational waves discovery now officially dead

Combined data from South Pole experiment BICEP2 and Planck probe point to Galactic dust as confounding signal.
A team of astronomers that last year reported evidence for gravitational waves from the early Universe has now withdrawn the claim. A joint analysis of data recorded by the team's BICEP2 telescope at the South Pole and by the European spacecraft Planck has revealed that the signal can be entirely attributed to dust in the Milky Way rather than having a more ancient, cosmic origin.

The European Space Agency (ESA) announced the long-awaited results on January 30, a day after a summary of it had been unintentionally posted online by French members of the Planck satellite team and then widely circulated before it was taken down.
http://www.nature.com/news/gravitational-waves-discovery-now-offici...

Is there a The Best Position For Birth?
The time honored tradition of elevating women 15 degrees during birth does not actually reduce venous compression, study says.
New research is challenging what many obstetricians and physician anesthesiologists believe is the best way to position women during labor. According to a study published in Anesthesiology, the traditional practice of positioning women on their side does not effectively reduce compression of the inferior vena cava, a large vein located near the abdominal area that returns blood to the heart, as previously thought. "It is widely believed that lying women flat on their back during labor can lead to dangerously low blood pressure caused by the compression of both the inferior vena cava and the aorta due to the weight of the fetus," said Dr. Hideyuki Higuchi, study author from Tokyo Women's Medical University. "It is accepted by many physicians that positioning women on their side, with hips tilted at 15 degrees, during childbirth reduces this complication. However, our research found no evidence of aortic compression in pregnant women in any position and the recommended degree of tilt that most physicians follow did not reduce compression of the inferior vena cava at all. This is the first study to challenge this antiquated practice." In the study, magnetic resonance images (MRI) of ten pregnant women at full term and ten non-pregnant women were obtained for measurement of the abdominal aorta, the largest artery in the abdominal cavity, and the inferior vena cava. Measurements were taken while the women laid flat on their back and while tilted at 15, 30, and 45 degrees. Foam was placed under the right side of the study participants to achieve the desired amount of tilt. The study found that abdominal aortic blood volume did not differ significantly between pregnant and non-pregnant women regardless of the position in which they were placed. Conversely, inferior vena cava blood volume was significantly lower in pregnant women than in non-pregnant women when the women were positioned flat on their back, indicating almost complete compression of the vein. Inferior vena cava blood volume did not increase at 15 degrees, but partially increased at 30 degrees. An accompanying editorial commented favorably on the study's results, but offered a word of caution: "Although it would be great to be able to conclude by saying all of our patients in the delivery room should be placed in at least 30 degrees left lateral tilt after regional anesthetic, I have serious doubts that our obstetric colleagues would find it a reasonable position for cesarean delivery, particularly in obese patients," said editorial author Dr. Craig Palmer from the University of Arizona College of Medicine. "There quite probably are patients for whom the modest (15 degree) tilt we apply has a salutary effect. However, I will have to be less dogmatic about the practice. Kudos to the authors of this study for revisiting an 'ancient' practice, applying current technology to the matter, and shedding new light on an old routine." The article can be found at: Higuchi et al. (2015) Effect of Lateral Tilt Angle on the Volume of the Abdominal Aorta and Inferior Vena Cava in Pregnant and Nonpregnant Women Determined by Magnetic Resonance Imaging.
Source: American Society of Anesthesiologists.

Mercury levels in Hawaiian Yellowfin tuna – known as ahi on the plate – are on the rise, scientists report February 2 in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry.

Data collected in 1998 and 2008 showed that mercury levels increased at a rate of about 3.8 percent per year, the researchers say. A tuna about 75 kilograms in size might have had about 0.4 parts per million of mercury in its body in 1998. In 2008, the same-sized fish would have had around 0.6 parts per million.

The tuna’s increase in toxic baggage mirrors increasing levels of mercury pollution from human activities, such as burning coal in power plants and mining.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/etc.2883/abstract

Scientists unlock one of Nature’s best-kept secrets: How plants make natural medicines
Scientists at the John Innes Centre have discovered how plants make valuable natural products we rely on today for use as medicines, flavours and scents. This discovery has the potential to pave the way for the creation of entirely new drugs, flavourings and cosmetic ingredients.

Most plant-derived drugs, scents and flavours contain hydrocarbon rings in their structures – and until now exactly how Nature makes them has remained a mystery.

Recent work by a team of scientists at the John Innes Centre, led by Dr Paul O'Maille, resulted in the discovery of the origins of these cyclic or ring forming reactions in plants – which yield medicines like artemisinin: the most potent antimalarial drug, as well as flavours such as ginger and scents like bergamot.

The key to their success was breeding enzymes, the protein machinery that catalyses chemical reactions in plants. In particular they focused on enzymes that catalysed the formation of terpenes: the most diverse class of predominantly cyclic (ring-containing) natural products. By breeding a pair of enzymes, one that makes linear, less complex terpenes with one that makes cyclic terpenes, Dr Melissa Salmon, the lead author on the paper, was able to localize the trait of cyclization in the protein structure.
This research was published recently in Nature Communications.

Unconscious thought not so smart after all

Study on decision-making stokes controversy over power of distracted mind.
If you have to make a complex decision, will you do a better job if you absorb yourself in, say, a crossword puzzle instead of ruminating about your options? The idea that unconscious thought is sometimes more powerful than conscious thought is attractive, and echoes ideas popularized by books such as writer Malcolm Gladwell’s best-selling Blink.

Science pours in from Rosetta comet mission
GM microbes created that can’t escape the lab
Crunch time for pet theory on dark matter

But within the scientific community, ‘unconscious-thought advantage’ (UTA) has been controversial. Now Dutch psychologists have carried out the most rigorous study yet of UTA — and find no evidence for it.

Their conclusion, published this week in Judgement and Decision Making, is based on a large experiment that they designed to provide the best chance of capturing the effect should it exist, along with a sophisticated statistical analysis of previously published data.
http://www.nature.com/news/unconscious-thought-not-so-smart-after-a...

A study, published in the journal Science recently, used a mathematical model to simulate the changes that take place during desertification and matched the theoretical results with real observations in termite-inhabited regions on the edge of deserts. And it was found that mounds of soil made by termites when they build their high-rise nests have been found to hold back the encroachment of deserts in dry, savannah grasslands threatened with desertification.
The ground surrounding termite mounds store nutrients and water better than it otherwise would, which allows plants to grow and flourish while the empty, termite-free land further away dries out, the researchers said.

A study discovered that the myriad of tiny underground tunnels created by termites when they build their multi-storey nests allow rainwater to penetrate the soil which helps to slow the spread of deserts in the dry grasslands of Africa, South America and Asia.

“The rain is the same everywhere, but because termites allow water to penetrate the soil better, the plants grow on or near the mounds as if there were more rain.
So, termites stop desertification! Termite mounds are a boon to ecology!

AVIAN INFLUENZA
Are Wild Birds to Blame?
Almost as soon as H5N1 avian influenza began its deadly sweep across Asia, people fingered migratory birds as likely culprits in its spread. Migrating birds offer an obvious way to connect the dots of H5N1 outbreaks along the east coast of Asia and, in just the past few months, its unexpected cross-continent jump to Siberia, Kazakhstan, and Turkey. Moreover, researchers have long known that these birds commonly harbor less virulent flu viruses, and many wild birds mingle with Asia's free-ranging domestic poultry, which have been decimated by H5N1.

But avian experts have been almost universally skeptical that wild birds are spreading the virus. One reason is that sampling of tens of thousands of birds has failed to turn up a single healthy wild bird carrying the pathogenic strain of H5N1, which has caused the death of more than 100 million domestic birds—and at least 60 humans—in Asia. Evidence so far suggests that H5N1 kills wild ducks and geese nearly as efficiently as it does chickens. “Dead ducks don't fly” has been the refrain, as avian experts point out that sick and dying birds simply can't spread viruses very far. Instead, epidemiologists investigating the virus's jump, even to geographically far-flung regions, keep turning up evidence suggesting that the poultry trade and other human activities are responsible.

Now, however, evidence implicating wild birds is starting to convince even some of the doubters. “Until about 2 months ago, I was pretty skeptical on whether wild birds were playing a role,” says David Suarez, a virologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA's) Southeast Poultry Research Laboratory in Athens, Georgia. “But now I feel that there is much stronger evidence that wild birds are spreading the virus.” What changed his mind, he says, was the death of 100 or so ducks, gulls, geese, and swans from H5N1 at a remote lake in Mongolia that he believes can't be explained by human activities. And, he and others add, in an unexpected twist, it's beginning to look as though the culprits might not be the long-suspected migratory waterfowl but another yet-unidentified wild species.

The implications are huge. If wild birds are carrying the disease, says Suarez, “it will be difficult or impossible to control the spread from country to country.” Nailing down the answer became even more urgent last week with the confirmation that H5N1 has now entered Europe.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/310/5747/426.full?sid=2cf74c06-2d...

Psychobiotics: How gut bacteria mess with your mind

WE HAVE all experienced the influence of gut bacteria on our emotions. Just think how you felt the last time you had a stomach bug. Now it is becoming clear that certain gut bacteria can positively influence our mood and behaviour. The way they achieve this is gradually being uncovered, raising the possibility of unlocking new ways to treat neurobehavioural disorders such as depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).

We acquire our intestinal microbes immediately after birth, and live in an important symbiotic relationship with them. There are far more bacteria in your gut than cells in your body, and their weight roughly equals that of your brain. These bacteria have a vast array of genes, capable of producing hundreds if not thousands of chemicals, many of which influence your brain.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22129530.400-psychobiotics-ho...|NSNS|2015-0702-AUS-febemi2_apac|evergreen&utm_medium=EMP&utm_source=NSNS&utm_campaign=FebEMi2_APAC&utm_content=evergreen

Recent infections may curb risk of rheumatism
Recent gut and urinary tract infections may curb the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis, suggests a new study from Karolinska Institutet published online in the journal Annals of the Rheumatic Diseases. According to the researchers, one possible explanation could lie in the way in which these infections alter the types of bacteria resident in the gut (microbiome).

The research team set out to look at the impact of different types of infection on the risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis in almost 6500 people living in south and central Sweden.
All participants were asked whether they had had any gut, urinary tract, or genital infections in the preceding two years. They were also asked if they had had prostatitis (inflamed prostate), or antibiotic treatment for sinusitis, tonsillitis/other throat infection, or pneumonia during this time.

Gut, urinary tract, and genital infections within the preceding two years were each associated with a significantly lowered risk of developing rheumatoid arthritis: 29 percent, 22 percent, and 20 percent, respectively. Further, having all three types of infection in the preceding two years was linked to a 50 percent lower risk, after taking account of influential factors.

By contrast, no such associations were found for recent respiratory infections and pneumonia. Factoring in smoking and socioeconomic background made no difference to the overall findings. However, since this is an observational study researchers point out that no definitive conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect.
Conclusions Gastrointestinal and urogenital infections, but not respiratory infections, are associated with a significantly lowered risk of RA. The results indicate that infections in general do not affect the risk for RA, but that certain infections, hypothetically associated with changes in the gut microbiome, could diminish the risk.
http://ard.bmj.com/content/early/2015/01/16/annrheumdis-2014-206493

Copper's link to Parkinson’s Disease

Tuna keep their hearts warm in cold depths - how this is done?
It may be a little odd sounding, but tuna are very cold hearted creatures. No, they aren't unnecessarily cruel or stoic in life. Instead, they just can literally have cold hearts, with the organ somehow able to keep functioning even when deep-diving chills it to temperatures that would stop a human heart. Now researcher think they know how the fish is capable of this amazing feat.

Bluefin tuna have increasingly been spotted in East Greenland waters, and scientists are mystified as to what is driving this northward movement.
Bluefin Tuna Mysteriously Move to East Greenland Waters
The Pacific Bluefin tuna, a fish popular among sushi eaters, is verging on the brink of extinction as the global food market places
Sushi Eaters Push Bluefin Tuna Towards Extinction

"Tunas are at a unique place in bony fish evolution" researcher Barbara Block at Stanford University explained in a recent statement. "Their bodies are almost like ours - endothermic (warm blooded/bodied), but their heart is running as all fish at ambient temperatures. How the heart keeps pumping as the fish moves into the colder water is the key to their expanded global range."

As detailed in a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Block and her colleagues looked to bluefin tuna to learn more about this fascinating ability. A top predator of the Pacific Ocean, the bluefin are renown for their epic migrations, traveling far in search of prey and diving chillingly deep - up to 1000 meters below the ocean surface.

"When tunas dive down to cold depths their body temperature stays warm but their heart temperature can fall by 15°C within minutes," added Holly Shiels, from the University of Manchester. "The heart is chilled because it receives blood directly from the gills which mirrors water temperature. This clearly imposes stress upon the heart but it keeps beating, despite the temperature change. In most other animals the heart would stop."

Shiels, Block, and Manchester researcher Gina Gali reportedly used electromagnetic tags to monitor bluefins in their lengthy migration from the waters of Japan all the way to the Californian coast. The tags allowed them to measure the depth at which each fish swam on its journey, its internal body temperature at any one point, and the ambient water temperature surrounding it. This data was then reapplied in lab simulations using single tuna heart cells to see how they beat.

The trio found out that rushes of adrenaline during dives helped keep essential calcium circulating in the tunas' hearts, which kept them pumping their chilled blood.

"We were recording the fish swimming down into colder depths only to resurface quickly into the warmer surface waters, a so called 'bounce' dive," said Block. " From work at sea and in the lab we now know the fish hearts slow as they cool and as they resurfaced it sped up. Our findings suggest adrenalin, activated by the stress of diving, plays a key role in maintaining the heart's capacity to supply the body with oxygen."

Now the researchers are wondering if this is a new and unique mechanic among only tuna, or if other species have taken on this adaptation as well.

New type of chemical bond discovered : vibrational bond.
This vibrational bond seems to break the law of chemistry that states if you increase the temperature, the rate of reaction will speed up. Back in 1989, a team from the University of British Columbia investigated the reactions of various elements to muonium (Mu) - a strange, hydrogen isotope made up of an antimuon and an electron. They tried chlorine and fluorine with muonium, and as they increased the heat, the reaction time sped up, but when they tried bromine (br), a brownish-red toxic and corrosive liquid, the reaction time sped up as the temperature decreased.

Perhaps, thought one of the team, chemist Donald Flemming, when the bromine and muonium made contact, they formed a transitional structure made up of a lightweight atom flanked by two heavier atoms. And the structure was joined not by van der Waal’s forces - as would usually be expected - but by some kind of temporary ‘vibrational’ bond that had been proposed several years earlier.
"In this scenario, the lightweight muonium atom would move rapidly between two heavy bromine atoms, 'like a Ping Pong ball bouncing between two bowling balls,' Fleming says. The oscillating atom would briefly hold the two bromine atoms together and reduce the overall energy, and therefore speed, of the reaction.”
"Fundamental Change in the Nature of Chemical Bonding by Isotopic Substitution"
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/anie.201408211/abstract
The research team watched as the light muonium and heavy bromine formed a temporary bond. “The lightest isotopomer, BrMuBr, with Mu the muonium atom, alone exhibits vibrational bonding in accord with its possible observation in a recent experiment on the Mu + Br2 reaction.
Accordingly, BrMuBr is stabilised at the saddle point of the potential energy surface due to a net decrease in vibrational zero point energy that overcompensates the increase in potential energy.”

In other words, the vibration in the bond decreased the total energy of the BrMuBr structure, which means that even when the temperature was increased, there was not enough energy to see an increase in the reaction time.

While the team only witnessed the vibrational bond occurring in a bromine and muonium reaction, they suspect it can also be found in interactions between lightweight and heavy atoms, where van der Waal’s forces are assumed to be at play.

"The work confirms that vibrational bonds - fleeting though they may be - should be added to the list of known chemical bonds

We are close to eradicating the second disease ever from the planet, the first one is small pox, now we have our sights set on Guinea worm disease.

There are only 126 cases of Guinea worm left in the world before the parasite is gone from humans forever. It is caused by the Guinea worm parasite, Dracunculiasis, and just happens to be one of the most horrible conditions. The Guinea worm infects people who drink water contaminated with its larvae, and it now only exists in four countries in Africa. But that wasn't always the case. In 1986, there were 3.5 million cases of infection reported across Africa and Asia.
A war was declared on the parasite by Carter Centre Foundation - and 30 years later, they are almost won. Thanks to their program, which uses filter technology and education to help disrupt the life cycle of the Guinea worm, the center has announced that there are now only 126 cases left of the parasite.
The life cycle of the Guinea worm is pretty terrifying in itself - once it's infected a host, the larvae develops into a pale worm that can stretch up to one metre long . This growth period lasts for around 12 months, during which time the host might not even know they're infected. And then a painful blister will suddenly appear somewhere on the host's body - usually the foot or another sensitive region. That's when the worst part begins - the worm starts to emerge out of its host's skin over an agonising 30-day period. In an attempt to ease this pain, the infected human often lays down in water to try to wash the worm out of their body or sooth the wounds - but this actually allows the worm to lay its eggs and start the whole cycle again.
The Carter Centre realised that although the disease was widespread, the fact that it was only caused by one parasite meant that it, effectively, could be stopped. They then worked with communities to explain the parasite's life cycle, and to keep them away from water while their worms exited their bodies.

But most importantly, they developed a simple and cheap straw filter to help eliminate parasites from drinking water. The "pipe filter" as it's called, involves a small piece of steel mesh inside a plastic drinking tube, and it ensures that the water being drunk is free of the tiny worms.

Of course, the parasites aren't gone just yet, and it's hard to know just how long it will take before we can say the disease is gone for good.

But it's inspiring to think that, simply by using education and very basic technology, we can stop a devastating disease in its track!

http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/carter-center-gui...

This sea slug ‘feeds’ on sunlight using photosynthesis

Part flora, part fauna, this pretty green sea slug has gained the ability to photosynthesise by stealing genes from the algae it feeds on.
After decades of searching, scientists have finally found direct evidence to show that the emerald green sea slug (Elysia chlorotica) takes genes from the algae it eats to perform photosynthetic processes, just like a plant. This means it can get all the energy it needs from sunlight, allowing it to survive without food for months.

“There is no way on earth that genes from an alga should work inside an animal cell”. And yet here, they do. They allow the animal to rely on sunshine for its nutrition. So if something happens to their food source, they have a way of not starving to death until they find more algae to eat.

Scientists have known for over 40 years that the emerald green sea slug takes chloroplasts - organelles found in plant and algal cells that facilitate photosynthesis - from the yellow-green algae it eats, called Vaucheria litorea. Referred to as ‘kleptoplasty’, this process allows the chloroplasts to continue photosynthesising in their new sea slug home for up to nine months after transferring from the algae. By photosynthesising, the sea slug produces lipids when the energy from the sunlight is combined with water and carbon dioxide, which gives it all the nourishment it needs, no additional food required.
But exactly how the emerald green sea slug manages to maintain these organelles in working order for so long has proven to be a complex puzzle - one that was not made easier by an experiment completed by researchers at the University of Dusseldorf in Germany in 2013. The team gave their emerald green sea slugs a drug that completely halted any photosynthetic activity in their cells, but the slugs still managed to survive for 55 days, without any food. They ended up a little smaller and paler, so food wouldn’t have gone astray if they were offered it, but it was proof that the organelles they 'stole' from their last algae meal were somehow still working for them.
"In order to photosynthesise, the chloroplasts inside an alga depend on many genes in the alga’s own nucleus and the proteins for which they code. Tearing chloroplasts out of algal cells and asking them to make food inside a slug’s gut is like expecting the bottom half of a blender to puree some carrots sans the blade and glass jar.”

So where are these genes that the chloroplasts depend on? Reported in The Biological Bulletin, fluorescent DNA markers were used to track the genes from the algae as they made their way into the genetic material of both juvenile and adult emerald green sea slugs. And for the first time, the research team watched as these genes produced an enzyme that’s critical to the proper photosynthetic function of the chloroplasts.

“This paper confirms that one of several algal genes needed to repair damage to chloroplasts, and keep them functioning, is present on the slug chromosome. The gene is incorporated into the slug chromosome and transmitted to the next generation of slugs.”

So while the young emerald green sea slugs still need to feed on the algae to get their supply of chloroplasts, the genes they need to turn these chloroplasts in to little photosynthetic machines have already been passed down to them from their parents.

"Importantly, this is one of the only known examples of functional gene transfer from one multicellular species to another, which is the goal of gene therapy to correct genetically based diseases in humans.
Sources: The Marine Biological Laboratory Blog, Scientific American, Smithsonian.com

Efficient solar-to-fuels production from a hybrid microbial–water-splitting catalyst system

A new way to make fuel from sunlight: starve a microbe nearly to death, then feed it carbon dioxide and hydrogen produced with the help of voltage from a solar panel. A newly developed bioreactor feeds microbes with hydrogen from water split by special catalysts connected in a circuit with photovoltaics. Such a batterylike system may beat either purely biological or purely technological systems at turning sunlight into fuels and other useful molecules.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/02/06/1424872112

For Precision, Two Clocks Are Better Than One The optical lattice clocks use lasers to create “egg box” structures that contain single atoms, leading to unprecedented precision.
Cryogenic optical lattice clocks
http://www.nature.com/nphoton/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nphoton.20...