Irisin – a myth rather than an exercise-inducible myokine

The myth of Irisin - the exercise hormone:

The discovery of the "exercise hormone" irisin three years ago and more than 170 related papers about it since have been called into question by recent research showing they were based on flawed testing kits.

Previous studies suggested that the hormone irisin -- named for the Greek messenger goddess Iris -- travels from muscle to fat tissue after exercise to tell fat cells to start burning energy instead of storing it. The finding ignited hope and press coverage that irisin could hold the key to fighting diabetes and obesity, perhaps one day taking the form of a pill that could melt away the pounds without the hassle of a workout.

But new research from an international team of scientists has found that the antibodies used to measure levels of irisin in blood were poorly vetted and nonspecific. These researchers argue that the irisin levels reported by commercial kits were actually due to unknown blood proteins, misconstruing the role of the hormone in human metabolism.

The study, appearing March 9 in the journal Scientific Reports, directly tested the antibodies used in previous analyses and showed that they cross-reacted with proteins other than irisin, yielding a false positive result. Furthermore, none of the proteins detected by these test kits in any human or animal blood samples were the correct size to be irisin.

http://www.nature.com/srep/2015/150309/srep08889/full/srep08889.html

"From the start, the study of irisin has been complicated by unvalidated reagents and contradictory data that have raised flags about the existence of irisin and its role in humans and other species," said Harold P. Erickson, Ph.D., an author of the study and professor of cell biology and biochemistry at Duke University School of Medicine. "We provide compelling evidence that the signals reported by previous studies were due to non-specific blood proteins, not irisin. Hopefully, our findings will finally convince other researchers to stop chasing a myth."

Research reported today by Tufts University biologists shows for the first time that bioelectrical signals among cells control and instruct embryonic brain development and manipulating these signals can repair genetic defects and induce development of healthy brain tissue in locations where it would not ordinarily grow.

The research reveals that bioelectric signaling regulates the activity of two cell reprogramming factors (proteins that can turn adult cells into stem cells), which for the first time were analyzed in Xenopus laevis embryos, which share many evolutionary traits with humans. Results appear in the March 11, 2015, edition of the Journal of Neuroscience.

http://www.jneurosci.org/content/35/10/4366.short

Stem cells lurking in tumors can resist treatment​​​​
Till now we have heard about the good side of stem cells. Now time for some not-so-good news about these angels:
Scientists are eager to make use of stem cells’ extraordinary power to transform into nearly any kind of cell, but that ability also is cause for concern in cancer treatment. Malignant tumors contain stem cells, prompting worries among medical experts that the cells’ transformative powers help cancers escape treatment.
New research proves that the threat posed by cancer stem cells is more prevalent than previously thought. Until now, stem cells had been identified only in aggressive, fast-growing tumors. But a mouse study at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis shows that slow-growing tumors also have treatment-resistant stem cells. The low-grade brain cancer stem cells identified by the scientists also were less sensitive to anticancer drugs. By comparing healthy stem cells with stem cells from these brain tumors, the researchers discovered the reasons behind treatment resistance, pointing to new therapeutic strategies.
The research results appear online March 12 in Cell Reports.
http://www.cell.com/cell-reports/abstract/S2211-1247%2815%2900199-0...

According to science, practice doesn't make you perfect!

So forget what you've been told, 10,000 hours of practice isn't guaranteed to turn you into an expert. Here is why:

There's a long-standing myth that, in order to master a skill, all it takes is roughly 10,000 hours of practice. Scientists have debunked the myth once and for all, and shown that, while some people can become an expert with 10,000 hours of practice - or less - many can't, and there's a whole lot more involved than just hard work. In fact, an international team of psychologists found that deliberate practice can only explain around one-third of the difference in skill levels in chess players and musicians.

This leaves "the majority of the reliable variance unexplained and potentially explainable by other factors". Those factors, we're assuming, are natural talent and genetic ability.

-Journal "Intelligence"

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289614000087

The researchers came to this conclusion after analysing data taken across six previous studies of chess competitions (1,082 subjects in total) and eight studies of musicians (628 subjects), and looking for any kind of correlation between practice and success. What they found was that, well, there kinda wasn't one, and there were huge variations in how much of a role practice seemed to have played in success.

One chess player, for example, had taken 26 years to reach a level that another reached in a mere two years. Clearly, there's more at work than just the sheer volume of hours practiced, the study (and a similar one by the same authors published in May [2014]) argues.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160289613000421

"The evidence is quite clear," wrote lead author David Hambrick from Michigan State University in the US in a press release in 2013, "that some people do reach an elite level of performance without copious practice, while other people fail to do so despite copious practice."

How wounds are healed....
In recent years, researchers have gained a better understanding of the molecular machinery of cell migration, but not what directs it to happen in the first place. What, exactly, is orchestrating this system common to all living organisms?

The answer, it turns out, involves delicate interactions between biomechanical stress, or force, which living cells exert on one another, and biochemical signaling.
The University of Arizona researchers discovered that when mechanical force disappears -- for example at a wound site where cells have been destroyed, leaving empty, cell-free space -- a protein molecule, known as DII4, coordinates nearby cells to migrate to a wound site and collectively cover it with new tissue. What's more, they found, this process causes identical cells to specialize into leader and follower cells. Researchers had previously assumed leader cells formed randomly.
The team observed that when cells collectively migrate toward a wound, leader cells expressing a form of messenger RNA, or mRNA, genetic code specific to the DII4 protein emerge at the front of the pack, or migrating tip. The leader cells, in turn, send signals to follower cells, which do not express the genetic messenger. This elaborate autoregulatory system remains activated until new tissue has covered a wound.

The same migration processes for wound healing and tissue development also apply to cancer spreading, the researchers noted. The combination of mechanical force and genetic signaling stimulates cancer cells to collectively migrate and invade healthy tissue.
With this new knowledge, researchers can re-create, at the cellular and molecular levels, the chain of events that brings about the formation of human tissue. Bioengineers now have the information they need to direct normal cells to heal damaged tissue, or prevent cancer cells from invading healthy tissue.
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2015/150313/ncomms7556/full/ncomms7556...

A small success for scientists in antibiotic search: European biologists have discovered a bacteria-killing compound in common mushrooms that grow in horse dung. Unusually for an antibiotic, copsin is a protein; but laboratory trials showed it to have the same effect on bacteria as traditional antibiotics.

Chemists around the world are involved in a race against time to find a solution to the growing problem of bacteria becoming resistant to antibiotics. It's a major threat to the health of the global population, which had long assumed that antibiotics would always be available to cure bacterial illness.
copsin in the common inky cap mushroom Coprinopsis cinerea that grows on manure, while researching how the fungus and various bacteria affected each other's growth. According to lead researcher, post-doc Andreas Essig, horse manure's rich substrate is key.

"Horse dung is a very rich substrate that harbours a diversity of micro-organisms, including fungi and bacteria," said Essig. "Now these micro-organisms are in a constant competition for nutrients and space and it's therefore very likely to find potent antibiotics in such an environment, which are used by the different organisms to inhibit the growth of the competitors."
"Horse dung is a very rich substrate that harbours a diversity of micro-organisms, including fungi and bacteria," said Essig. "Now these micro-organisms are in a constant competition for nutrients and space and it's therefore very likely to find potent antibiotics in such an environment, which are used by the different organisms to inhibit the growth of the competitors."
Essig and his colleagues from ETH Zurich and the University of Bonn cultivated the fungus in a laboratory, along with several different types of bacteria, and found that C. cinerea killed certain bacteria. Further research demonstrated that the copsin produced by the mushroom was responsible for this antibiotic effect.

"Now copsin kills bacteria by binding to an essential cell wall building block".
When you disrupt the cell wall synthesis bacteria usually dies rapidly. The binding pattern of copsin on this building block is very unique and therefore copsin is active against bacteria resistant to conventional antibiotics."
Copsin is a protein, whereas traditional antibiotics are often non-protein organic compounds. It belongs to the group of defensins, a class of small proteins produced by numerous to counter disease-causing micro-organisms. In fact, the human body produces defensins in the skin and mucous membranes to protect itself against infections.

http://www.jbc.org/content/early/2014/10/23/jbc.M114.599878

BIOENGINEERING
A synthetic fibrin cross-linking polymer for modulating clot properties and inducing hemostasis

New gel can stop wounds from bleeding

And could find applications on the battlefield, or in the toolkits of emergency response teams.
Traumatic injuries resulting from gunshot wounds or traffic accidents, can often be fatal if the injured person doesn’t receive prompt medical care.

Now, an injectable polymer material that encourages faster, more durable blood clotting at wound sites, could stop bleeding following these life-threatening injuries.
The material, known as PolySTAT, was developed by engineers at the University of Washington in the US, and mimics a natural protein in our body that helps strengthen blood clots.

The team says that following injection, their wound healing polymer “circulates innocuously in the blood, identifies sites of vascular injury, and promotes clot formation to stop bleeding”.

So far they have only tested their polymer on rats, but report in the press release that 100 percent of the animals injected survived “a typically-lethal injury to the femoral artery”.
The results have been published in the journal Science Translational Medicine
http://stm.sciencemag.org/content/7/277/277ra29

Origins of life: A new study has shown you can create the most simple building blocks of life using three things that would have been present in abundance on early Earth - hydrogen cyanide (HCN), hydrogen sulphide (H2S), and ultraviolet (UV) light.
In order for life to have gotten started, there must have been a genetic molecule - something like DNA or RNA - capable of passing along blueprints for making proteins, the workhorse molecules of life. But modern cells can’t copy DNA and RNA without the help of proteins themselves.

To make matters more vexing, none of these molecules can do their jobs without fatty lipids, which provide the membranes that cells need to hold their contents inside. And in yet another chicken-and-egg complication, protein-based enzymes (encoded by genetic molecules) are needed to synthesise lipids.
A team led by chemist John Sutherland from the University of Cambridge in the UK has made a discovery that just might resolve this problem. Six years ago, they figured out that simple and very common carbon-rich molecules, acetylene and formaldehyde, can be put through a series of reactions to produce some of the precursors for RNA. So perhaps billions of reactions between acetylene and formaldehyde over billions of years could have randomly given rise to the first RNA molecules. But, says Service, this doesn’t answer the question of where the acetylene and formaldehyde came from.
Sutherland and his team investigated, and came up with even simpler ingredients for RNA, and these ones we know were abundant when Earth was only newly formed - hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen sulphide, and ultraviolet light. Together, these three ingredients can not only produce ribonucleotides, which are the basic building blocks for RNA, but more importantly, they can also produce amino acids and lipids at the same time, which helps solve the conundrum outlined by Service above. The lipids are there to provide the materials for the cell membranes, and the amino acids are needed to form the proteins that help replace and pass on DNA and RNA. So where did these chemicals come from? Meteorites could have converted hydrogen cyanide from some of the simplest molecules you can get - carbon, hydrogen, and nitrogen - right near early Earth. "Evidence suggests that life started during, or shortly after the abatement of, the Late Heavy Bombardment, and processes associated with meteorite impact have been implicated in the generation of hydrogen cyanide and phosphate on the Hadean [early] Earth,” the team writes.

And hydrogen sulphide and ultraviolet light were already in the area, so it wouldn’t have taken much for the various molecules to eventually make contact with each other.
http://www.nature.com/nchem/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nchem.2202.html

Humans may harbor more than 100 genes from other organisms
You’re not completely human, at least when it comes to the genetic material inside your cells. You—and everyone else—may harbor as many as 145 genes that have jumped from bacteria, other single-celled organisms, and viruses and made themselves at home in the human genome. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which provides some of the broadest evidence yet that, throughout evolutionary history, genes from other branches of life have become part of animal cells.
Scientists knew that horizontal gene transfer—the movement of genetic information between organisms other than parent-to-offspring inheritance—is commonplace in bacteria and simple eukaryotes. The process lets the organisms quickly share an antibiotic-resistance set of genes to adapt to an antibiotic, for instance. But whether genes have been horizontally transferred into higher organisms—like primates—has been disputed. Like in bacteria, it’s been proposed that animal cells could integrate foreign genetic material that’s introduced as small fragments of DNA or carried into cells by viruses. But proving that a bit of DNA in the human genome originally came from another organism is tricky.
A group of researchers now pinpointed hundreds of genes that appeared to have been transferred from bacteria, archaea, fungi, other microorganisms, and plants to animals, they report online today in Genome Biology. In the case of humans, they found 145 genes that seemed to have jumped from simpler organisms, including 17 that had been reported in the past as possible horizontal gene transfers.
http://news.sciencemag.org/biology/2015/03/humans-may-harbor-more-1...

http://genomebiology.com/2015/16/1/50

Expression of multiple horizontally acquired genes is a hallmark of both vertebrate and invertebrate genomes

Folic acid supplementation cuts risk of stroke in hypertensive adults
Use of folic acid therapy results in significant reduction of risk of stroke among adults with hypertension (high blood pressure). This is the main finding of a new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). The study from the China Stroke Primary Prevention Trial (CSPPT), included data on 20,702 adults in China and has been published to coincide with its presentation at the American College of Cardiology Annual Scientific Session.
The results of the study showed that for the primary outcome, which was first stroke, the folic acid plus enalapril supplement resulted in significant reduction in risk compared to enalapril alone (2.7% of participants in the enalapril–folic acid group vs 3.4% in the enalapril alone group). Relative risk of first ischemic stroke (2.2% with enalapril–folic acid vs 2.8% with enalapril alone) and composite cardiovascular events consisting of cardiovascular death, mycocardial infarction and stroke (3.1% with enalapril–folic acid vs 3.9% with enalapril alone) was also significantly reduced. The beneficial effect of folic acid supplementation was most pronounced in participants with lower baseline folate levels. With respect to the MTHFR genotype and baseline folate level, among individuals with CC or CT genotypes, both highest risk of stroke and greatest benefit of folic acid therapy were in participants with the lowest baseline folate levels. For those with the TT genotype, the results indicated that the biological level of folate insufficiency may necessitate higher dosage of folic acid supplementation.
Efficacy of Folic Acid Therapy in Primary Prevention of Stroke Among Adults With Hypertension in China
http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2205876

Darbha (Desmotachya bipinnata) is a tropical grass considered a sacred material in Vedic scriptures and is said to purify the offerings during such rituals.

At the time of eclipse, people place that grass in food items that could ferment and once the eclipse ends the grass is removed.

A systematic research was conducted by the SASTRA University researchers, in which cow’s curd was chosen as a food item that could ferment easily.

Five other tropical grass species, including lemon grass, Bermuda grass, and bamboo were chosen for comparison based on different levels of antibiotic properties and hydro phobicity.

Electron microscopy of different grasses revealed stunning nano-patterns and hierarchical nano or micro structures in darbha grass while they were absent in other grasses.

On studying the effect of various grasses on the microbial community of the curd, darbha grass alone was found to attract enormous number of bacteria into the hierarchical surface features.

These are the bacteria responsible for fermentation of cow’s curd.

During eclipse, the wavelength and intensity of light radiations available on the earth’s surface is altered. Especially, the blue and ultraviolet radiations, which are known for their natural disinfecting property, are not available in sufficient quantities during eclipse.

This leads to uncontrolled growth of micro-organisms in food products during eclipse and the food products are not suitable for consumption. Darbha was thus used as a natural disinfectant on specific occasions, say researchers at SASTRA University.

Further, the scientists say that darbha could be used as a natural food preservative in place of harmful chemical preservatives and the artificial surfaces mimicking the hierarchical nano patterns on the surface of darbha grass could find applications in health care where sterile conditions were required.

The latest Research advance published by eLife is a study by Syenina et al. The authors have discovered that, when a person is infected by the dengue virus for a second time, antibodies specific to the dengue virus interact with mast cells lining our blood vessels and enhance vascular leakage. The study builds upon earlier research looking into why a small percentage of infected individuals go on to suffer from dengue hemorrhagic fever. They find that the vascular leakage triggered by this hemorrhagic fever is triggered by mast cells indicating a potential new treatment target.
http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e05291#sthash.LI0mDyAD.dpuf?utm_...

Look, your eyes are wired backwards: here’s why
The human eye is optimised to have good colour vision at day and high sensitivity at night. But until recently it seemed as if the cells in the retina were wired the wrong way round, with light travelling through a mass of neurons before it reaches the light-detecting rod and cone cells. New research presented at a meeting of the American Physical Society has uncovered a remarkable vision-enhancing function for this puzzling structure.
Researchers in Leipzig found that glial cells, which also span the retinal depth and connect to the cones, have an interesting attribute. These cells are essential for metabolism, but they are also denser than other cells in the retina. In the transparent retina, this higher density (and corresponding refractive index) means that glial cells can guide light, just like fibre-optic cables.
These results mean that the retina of the eye has been optimised so that the sizes and densities of glial cells match the colours to which the eye is sensitive (which is in itself an optimisation process suited to our needs). This optimisation is such that colour vision during the day is enhanced, while night-time vision suffers very little. The effect also works best when the pupils are contracted at high illumination, further adding to the clarity of our colour vision.
https://theconversation.com/look-your-eyes-are-wired-backwards-here...

Long-term decline of the Amazon carbon sink
Amazon rainforest losing capacity to soak up CO2
The Amazon rainforest may be approaching the limit of how much excess carbon dioxide it can capture from the atmosphere.

A global research effort, led by scientists from the University of Leeds, has revealed a one-third decline in the rainforest' growth overall, according to a paper published today in Nature.

This could have significant implications for global carbon dioxide levels, as the rainforest previously absorbed up to two billion tonnes of carbon dioxide each year, converting it into biomass.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v519/n7543/full/nature14283.html

Language of gene switches unchanged across the evolution
The language used in the switches that turn genes on and off has remained the same across millions of years of evolution, according to a new study led by researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. The findings, which are published in the scientific journal eLife , indicate that the differences between animals reside in the content and length of the instructions that are written using this conserved language.
Each gene has a regulatory region that contains the instructions controlling when and where the gene is expressed. These instructions are written in a language often referred to as the 'gene regulatory code'. This code is read by proteins called transcription factors that bind to specific ‘DNA words’ and either increase or decrease the expression of the associated gene.

The gene regulatory regions differ between species. However, until now, it has been unclear if the instructions in these regions are written using the same gene regulatory code, or whether transcription factors found in different animals recognise different DNA words.

In the current study, the researchers used high throughput methods to identify the DNA words recognised by more than 240 transcription factors of the fruit fly, and then developed computational tools to compare them with the DNA words of humans.
Tiny fruit flies look very different from humans, but both are descended from a common ancestor that existed over 600 million years ago. Differences between animal species are often caused by the same or similar genes being switched on and off at various times and in different tissues in each species.
In the new study, it has been observed that, in spite of more than 600 million years of evolution, almost all known DNA words found in humans and mice were recognised by fruit fly transcription factors.
The researchers also noted that both fruit flies and humans have a few transcription factors that recognise unique DNA words and confer properties that are specific to each species, such as the fruit fly wing. Likewise, transcription factors that exist only in humans operate in cell types that do not exist in fruit flies. The findings suggest that changes in transcription factor specificities contribute to the formation of new types of cells.

The study of fundamental properties of gene switches is important in medicine, as faulty gene switches have been linked to many common diseases, including cancer, diabetes and heart disease.

http://elifesciences.org/content/4/e04837

'survival of the fittest' no more?
According to a new study it is the wealth that is behind the decline in number of reproducing males!
Researchers have discovered a dramatic decline in genetic diversity in male lineages four to eight thousand years ago -- likely the result of the accumulation of material wealth.

This male-specific decline occurred during the mid- to late-Neolithic period while, in contrast, female genetic diversity was on the rise.

"Instead of 'survival of the fittest' in biological sense, the accumulation of wealth and power may have increased the reproductive success of a limited number of 'socially fit' males and their sons," said lead study author Melissa Wilson Sayres from Arizona State University.

It is the survival of the richest  not the fittest!

“Having a high level of genetic diversity is beneficial to humans for several reasons”. “… When the genes of individuals in a population vary greatly, the group has a greater chance of thriving and surviving – particularly against disease.  This trend may also reduce the likelihood of passing along unfavorable genetic traits, which can weaken a species over time.”

The study was published online in the journal Genome Research.

A recent bottleneck of Y chromosome diversity coincides with a global change in culture

http://genome.cshlp.org/content/early/2015/03/13/gr.186684.114#fn-1

Biodegrading of plastics is not working!
When the late Arizona paleontologist William Rathje dug up garbage from deep in landfill sites, he discovered that, even after many years of being buried underground, chicken bones still had meat on them, grass was still green, and that carrots still retained their orange color. If all that organic material had survived the landfill process, what chance is there of plastics biodegrading?
This is a big problem for the management of garbage disposal facilities, landfills, and composting sites around the world. In recent years several companies have being marketing additives which they claim will accelerate the decomposition process. A new study from Michigan State University has evaluated the claims and came to a simple and very blunt conclusion; additives to biodegrade plastics just don’t work.
These additives are supposedly able to break down polyethylene, a common constituent of plastic bags, and polyethylene terephthalate, used in the manufacturing of soda bottles. But the MSU tests found that in normal disposal situations, these additives are completely ineffective.
The three-year study concentrated on five specific additives. Three different types of biodegradation were examined: biodegradation with oxygen, such as composting, biodegradation without oxygen, such as in an anaerobic digester or a landfill, and simply burying the plastics.
According to the researchers, recycling, tighter legislation, and improved production methods are more preferred alternatives.

The results have been published in the current issue of Environmental Science and Technology.

People who have suffered serious head injuries show changes in brain structure resembling those seen in older people, according to a new study. Researchers at Imperial College London analysed brain scans from over 1,500 healthy people to develop a computer program that could predict a person's age from their brain scan. Then they used the program to estimate the "brain age" of 113 more healthy people and 99 patients who had suffered traumatic brain injuries.

The brain injury patients were estimated to be around five years older on average than their real age.

Head injuries are already known to increase the risk of age-related neurological conditions such as dementia later in life. The age prediction model may be useful as a screening tool to identify patients who are likely to develop problems and to target strategies that prevent or slow their decline.
There was also a correlation between time since injury and predicted age difference, suggesting that these changes in brain structure do not occur during the injury itself, but result from ongoing biological processes, potentially similar to those seen in normal ageing, that progress more quickly after an injury.

"Traumatic brain injury is not a static event. It can set off secondary processes, possibly related to inflammation, that can cause more damage in the brain for years afterwards, and may contribute to the development of Alzheimer's or other forms of dementia" according to the researchers.
"Prediction of brain age suggests accelerated atrophy after traumatic brain injury"
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ana.24367/abstract;jsess...

Smartphone Use Appears to Change How Brains and Thumbs Interact
Tapping a handheld device for emails and texts may lead to alterations in neurological activity
Typing text messages, scrolling web pages, and checking your email on your smartphone could be changing the way your thumbs and brain interacts, new research hints.

Dr. Arko Ghosh, of the University of Zurich and ETH Zurich, Switzerland, led the research which involved using electroencephalography (EEG) to measure the cortical brain activity in 37 right-handed people, 26 of whom were touchscreen Smartphone users and 11 users of old-fashioned cellphones.
Electrical activity in the brains of smartphone users was shown to be enhanced when all three fingertips were touched, the researchers report in a paper online now in Current Biology.
According to research student Magali Chytiris, activity in the cortex of the brain associated with the thumb and index fingertips was directly proportional to the intensity of phone use, as quantified by built-in battery logs. The results suggest that repetitive movements over the touchscreen surface reshape sensory processing from the hand, with daily updates in the brain's representation of the fingertips. Cortical sensory processing in the contemporary brain is continuously shaped by personal digital technology..

Editor quits journal over pay-for-expedited peer-review offer
With a tweet yesterday, an editor of Scientific Reports, one of Nature Publishing Group’s (NPG’s) open-access journals, has resigned in a very public protest of NPG’s recent decision to allow authors to pay money to expedite peer review of their submitted papers. “My objections are that it sets up a two-tiered system and instead of the best science being published in a timely fashion it will further shift the balance to well-funded labs and groups,” Mark Maslin, a biogeographer at University College London, tells ScienceInsider. “Academic Publishing is going through a revolution and we should expect some bumps along the way. This was just one that I felt I could not accept.”
consideration and a well thought out review is much more important than its speed. I have had brilliant reviews which have considerably improved my papers and I really appreciated all the time taken.”

http://news.sciencemag.org/scientific-community/2015/03/editor-quit...

A plasma ‘force field’ to protect against shock waves :
It could protect military vehicles from energy emitted by nearby blasts.
Researchers are trying to build defence systems that can keep pace with sophisticated weapons, and what’s better than a force field?

Aerospace and defence giant Boeing has been awarded a patent to develop a force field-like system that could protect military vehicles from shockwaves following explosions from missiles or improvised explosive devices.
Boeing’s proposed system involves using a combination of lasers, electricity and microwaves to rapidly heat up the air between the vehicle and a blast. This heat creates a plasma shield that's denser than the surrounding air and able to deflect or absorb the energy from the incoming shockwave.

Boeing’s system is designed to protect a target - which could be a vehicle carrying troops, or a building such as a command centre or a hospital - from the after-effects of nearby explosions.

The system, which would likely be mounted on a military vehicle, or some other target, would have sensors that can detect the velocity and shape of an incoming threat. The system would also be able to determine the size and force of the resulting explosion.

Its sensors and computers would be able to calculate the time it would take the shock wave from an explosion to reach the target, and from what direction. This is important, as the generated force field would only protect a small region of the target, rather than enveloping the entire thing.

Once it has determined the timing of the shock wave, the system’s objective is to somehow heat the air around the target, generating what Boeing terms a “transient medium” that intercepts the shock wave and reduces the energy density.

But till now it is at the stage of patent application. It means that the company thinks enough of the idea to try and protect it.
http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/aerospace/military/boeing-files-...

Scientists successfully produce highly effective medication for malaria from plant waste material
Professor Peter H. Seeberger, Professor Andreas Seidel-Morgenstern and their team are successful in producing a low-cost but highly effective medication for malaria from plant waste material. For their findings, they received the $25,000 award “Humanity in Science” during Pittcon 2015 in New Orleans.
The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends artemisinin as the most effective base material for medication against malaria. The two scientists produced artemisinin in a continuous process in a very short time and very high yield. This process can substantially reduce the price for the production of effective anti- malaria drugs and can make the combat against malaria affordable for people in need. The scientists have been using, among others, KNAUER technology for their processes.
http://www.news-medical.net/news/20150330/Scientists-successfully-p...

Ancient onion and garlic remedy kills antibiotic-resistant bugs ... and it is 1000 years old!
A 1,000-year-old Anglo-Saxon ‘eye salve’ made from onion, garlic, wine and part of a cow’s stomach has been shown to wipe out 90 percent of antibiotic-resistant Staphylococcus aureus, otherwise known as MRSA. And it works better than modern antibiotics in both lab and mouse models.

The 9th Century ‘eye salve’ recipe was originally found in Bald’s Leechbook - an old English manuscript held by the British Library.
It was translated from ancient Anglo-Saxon by researchers at the University of Nottingham in the UK, in the hopes of finding new solutions to the growing problem of antibiotic resistance - which a recent report has predicted will kill 300 million people by 2050. But the team wasn't expecting to find something so potent.
To find out whether the ancient eye salve worked, they made the recipe as faithfully as possible - even using wine from a vineyard that existed back in the 9th Century - and then tested it against large MRSA cultures in the lab. They also tested each individual ingredient on its own against the superbugs, as well as a control solution.

Incredibly, they found that the eye salve killed up to 90 percent of MRSA bacteria, but only when all the ingredients were used together.
The team then went on to test the salve on biofilms of MRSA - sticky colonies of bacteria that are notoriously difficult for antibiotics to penetrate, and which pose a particular problem on hospital equipment. The results were the same.

The next step was to ship the eye salve off to the United States where it was tested on in vivo mouse wounds as a topical treatment. Again, it wiped out most of the MRSA cells after just 24 hours and was more efficient than modern antibiotics.
The team presented their findings at the Annual Conference of the Society for General Microbiology, in Birmingham recently. However they're still not sure exactly how the remedy works, and finding that out will be the next step.
Bald's eye salve

- Equal amounts of garlic and another allium (onion or leek), finely chopped and crushed in a mortar for two minutes.

- Add 25ml (0.87 fl oz) of English wine - in this case, taken from a historic vineyard near Glastonbury.

- Dissolve bovine salts in distilled water, add and then keep chilled for nine days at 4 degrees Celsius before straining through a cloth to remove particulates.

A one thousand year old Anglo-Saxon remedy for eye infections which originates from a manuscript in the British Library has been found to kill the modern-day superbug MRSA in an unusual research collaboration at The University of Nottingham.

Dr Christina Lee, an Anglo-Saxon expert from the School of English has enlisted the help of microbiologists from University’s Centre for Biomolecular Sciences to recreate a 10th century potion for eye infections from Bald’s Leechbook an Old English leatherbound volume in the British Library, to see if it really works as an antibacterial remedy. The Leechbook is widely thought of as one of the earliest known medical textbooks and contains Anglo-Saxon medical advice and recipes for medicines, salves and treatments.

Early results on the 'potion', tested in vitro at Nottingham and backed up by mouse model tests at a university in the United States, are, in the words of the US collaborator, “astonishing”. The solution has had remarkable effects on Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) which is one of the most antibiotic-resistant bugs costing modern health services billions.

New research: The location of memories: Individual neurons
Scientists have shown, for the first time ever, that memories are stored in specific brain cells. By triggering a small cluster of neurons, the researchers were able to force the subject to recall a specific memory. By removing these neurons, the subject would lose that memory.
In the experiment, scientists gave mice an electric shock to create a fear memory in the hippocampus region of the brain and then later, using laser light, activated the neurons where the memory was stored. The mice “quickly entered a defensive, immobile crouch,” strongly suggesting the fear memory was being recalled.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7394/full/nature11028.html
A similar work published in e-Life also says the same!

Super-efficient graphene lightbulbs:
A lightbulb made from wonder-material graphene will reportedly go on sale later this year, and it's promising to be brighter, cheaper, longer-lasting and use 10 percent less energy than even the best LEDs.

The dimmable lightbulb contains a filament-shaped LED that's coated in graphene, a one-atom-thick material that's 200 times stronger than steel, super flexible and also extremely conductive. If all goes to plan, this will be the first commercial graphene product to hit the market.
It's the conductive ability of graphene that makes the light bulbs so efficient, according to the developers at the University of Manchester in the UK, where the material was first discovered in 2004.

Poverty Shrinks Brains from Birth
Studies show that children from low-income families have smaller brains and lower cognitive abilities
The stress of growing up poor can hurt a child’s brain development starting before birth, research suggests—and even very small differences in income can have major effects on the brain.
The brains of children from the lowest income bracket—less than US$25,000—had up to 6% less surface area than did those of children from families making more than US$150,000, the researchers found. In children from the poorest families, income disparities of a few thousand dollars were associated with major differences in brain structure, particularly in areas associated with language and decision-making skills. Children's scores on tests measuring cognitive skills, such as reading and memory ability, also declined with parental income.
http://www.nature.com/news/poverty-shrinks-brains-from-birth-1.17227

People say body odour is one of the most annoying things they face. Now science is providing a solution to the problem of body odour: Sweaty people around the world may one day sing the praises of science now.

Researchers in England have made a groundbreaking genetic discovery about bacteria called Staphylococcus hominis. They are some of the bacteria that live in your underarm microbiome. They make body odor smell less than pleasant by breaking down naturally secreted molecules that are in sweat.
The scientists -- Daniel Bawdon and Gavin Thomas of York, along with Gordon James and Diana Cox of Unilever, which makes personal care products -- presented their research this week at the Society for General Microbiology's annual conference in Birmingham, England.
They've identified the genes encoding the proteins responsible for producing free thioalcohols, an important component of what makes people stinky when they sweat. It's part of the reason unwashed gym clothes smell worse on a second day. These bacteria have had a longer time to lunch on sweat and produce more thioalcohols.

One gene the researchers found was not just in Staphylococcus hominis, but also in two other Staphylococcus species that produce thioalcohols. It turns out you only need a tiny number of these bacteria to create an "extremely smelly amount" of this odor, often described as having an oniony smell or the smell of rotten eggs, according to the researchers. They may now know what path to travel to stop this chemical process from happening.
Good hygiene helps only little. Your genes can also play a big role in how good or bad you smell. In fact some people, no matter how much they shower, still smell bad. These individuals have a larger amount of "bad" bacteria.

The approach now is to replace the "bad" bacteria that produce the smell with "good" bacteria. And it worked in lab conditions.

Shift to LGB identity in early adulthood tied to depressive symptoms
People whose sexual identity changed toward same-sex attraction in early adulthood reported more symptoms of depression in a nationwide survey than those whose sexual orientations did not change or changed in the opposite direction, according to a new study by a University of Illinois at Chicago sociologist.

“Sexual Orientation Identity Change and Depressive Symptoms: A Longitudinal Analysis,” published in the current issue of the Journal of Health and Social Behavior, found that gay, lesbian and bisexual people who initially identified as heterosexual or who had not reported same-sex romantic attraction or relationships were more likely to experience depressive symptoms than others.

Individuals who reported stable sexual identities throughout the survey period – whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, or heterosexual – had no change in depressive symptoms over time. Similarly, individuals who reported identities that were less same-sex-oriented did not experience increases in depression.
The findings suggest that a sexual identity change toward same-sex attraction may continue to be a stressful life event.
Sexual Orientation Identity Change and Depressive Symptoms
A Longitudinal Analysis
http://hsb.sagepub.com/content/56/1/37

Loneliness might drive elders to physicians more frequently according to a study:
Experiences of loneliness and social isolation can lead to increased health care use among older adults, according to new research from the University of Georgia College of Public Health. The study, published online in the American Journal of Public Health, found that the frequency of physician visits was particularly influenced by chronic loneliness—and suggests that the identification and targeting of interventions for lonely elders may significantly decrease physician visits and health care costs.
Loneliness as a Public Health Issue: The Impact of Loneliness on Health Care Utilization Among Older Adults

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2014.302427

High-fat dairy products linked to reduced type 2 diabetes risk
Consumption of high-fat yogurt and cheese are linked to a reduction in the risk of type 2 diabetes by as much as a fifth, according to new research from Lund University in Sweden. High meat consumption, on the other hand, is linked to a higher risk. The findings, which have been published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, are in line with previous studies of eating habits that indicated a link between high consumption of dairy products and a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes.

However, the new study indicates that it is high-fat dairy products specifically that are associated with reduced risk.

“Those who ate the most high-fat dairy products had a 23 per cent lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes than those who ate the least. High meat consumption was linked to an increased risk of type 2 diabetes regardless of the fat content of the meat”, said Ulrika Ericson, who conducted the study.
The researchers studied the eating habits of 27 000 individuals aged 45 to 74. The participants took part in the Malmö Diet and Cancer study in the early 1990s, in which they provided details of their eating habits. Twenty years on, over ten per cent – 2 860 people – had developed type 2 diabetes.

The aim of the study has been to clarify the significance of fat in food for the risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Instead of focusing on the total intake of saturated fat, the researchers looked at different sources of saturated fat.

Both meat and dairy products contain saturated fat, but certain saturated fatty acids are particularly common in dairy products. This difference could be one of the reasons why most studies show that those who eat meat are at higher risk of type 2 diabetes, whereas those who eat a lot of dairy products appear to have a lower risk.

“When we investigated the consumption of saturated fatty acids that are slightly more common in dairy products than in meat, we observed a link with a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes. However, we have not ruled out the possibility that other components of dairy products such as yoghurt and cheese may have contributed to our results. We have taken into account many dietary and lifestyle factors in our analysis, such as fermentation, calcium, vitamin D and physical activity. However, there may be other factors that we have not been able to measure that are shared by those who eat large quantities of high-fat dairy products. Moreover, different food components can interact with each other. For example, in one study, saturated fat in cheese appeared to have less of a cholesterol-raising effect than saturated fat in butter.

“Our results suggest that we should not focus solely on fat, but rather consider what foods we eat. Many foodstuffs contain different components that are harmful or beneficial to health, and it is the overall balance that is important.”
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/early/2015/04/01/ajcn.114.103010

A new exciting approach to cancer treatment : personalised cancer vaccines
Two of the most promising recent approaches to cancer treatment are immunotherapy, which harnesses the body’s own immune system to fight cancer, and personalised medicine, which involves therapeutics that are targeted to the genome of a particular patient and that patient’s cancer.

Now scientists have combined those two strategies to create a novel treatment: a vaccine developed for a single patient that triggers an immune system attack that is laser-focused on that patient’s tumours.
In the very first human trial testing this approach, the personalised vaccines successfully activated an immune response in three patients with melanoma.

The research is in its earliest stages - it’s too soon to say if the treatment actually improved survival in the patients or whether it will work in others at all. Still, scientists are excited about the idea and the proof-of-concept results, which were published in the journal Science on April 2.
In cancer, each tumour is unique, which is one reason that they can be so hard to treat. In this new approach, scientists have used that to their advantage. The broken genes that make a tumour grow out of control "can also be targeted by the immune system to control malignancies," researchers from the Netherlands Cancer Institute and Washington University School of Medicine explained.
To create the personalised treatments, scientists determined the unique genetic make-up of each patient’s melanoma tumours, which had been surgically removed. They then identified special targets, called neoantigens, on the surface of each patient’s cancer cells. Using those targets, they developed a personalised vaccine for each patient that would hopefully encourage their immune system to attack these specific neoantigens on that patient’s cancer cells.

Selecting those unique-to-the-tumour targets "helps to minimise adverse events or side effects," explained Elaine Mardis, a study co-author and researcher at the Genome Institute at the Washington University School of Medicine, on a call with reporters. The immune response triggered by the personalised vaccines is designed to behave more like a sniper than a bomb - using the neoantigens as "flags" so it can specifically taking out the cancerous cells.

Still, the process is complicated: developing each vaccine took the research team about three months - too long to wait for many cancer patients. They’re hoping a timeline of four to six weeks will become possible as they refine the process.

Even at this early and uncertain stage, scientists are encouraged by this approach because there’s a chance it could prove effective in patients who don’t respond to existing treatments. And while the trial was in melanoma, the researchers are eager to try it out on other cancers that are associated with carcinogens, like bladder, lung, and colorectal cancers.
A dendritic cell vaccine increases the breadth and diversity of melanoma neoantigen-specific T cells

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2015/04/01/science.aaa3828

Changing human DNA permanently... well science is moving faster than ethics can catch it...

Scientists around the world are anticipating the results of a Chinese study that would mark the first time DNA in a human embryo has been modified in a way that would carry into future generations.

Although the embryos would be for study only, and not intended for implantation, the research would mark a significant milestone: the first time human DNA had been altered so substantially that it would change the “germ line” — the eggs or sperm of any child produced from the embryo.

Theoretically that could allow parents in the not-too-distant future to essentially clean their own eggs and sperm of undesired genes — such as ones known to cause cancer — and prevent those genes from being passed on to grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Genetics research is already improving medicine, for example, informing women if they are more likely to develop breast or ovarian cancer. Scientists can sequence the human genome and parse it, find out where it goes wrong, and use that information to prevent, treat and even cure certain diseases, with implications for everything from autism to ALS.

But there’s a big difference between gene therapy — a growing field of largely clinical research that uses genes in treatment — and altering the germ line. That’s because current gene therapies make “somatic” changes to DNA, or ones that don’t affect eggs and sperm or embryos.

There are about 2,000 gene-therapy studies underway around the world. One clinical trial is seeking to turn off the genes that make the body susceptible to the HIV virus. Another pending trial out of the University of Alberta seeks to alter genes in men to stop the progression of a degenerative eye disease that leaves sufferers legally blind by middle age.

Germ-line research does get into deeper questions of eugenics, especially with spectrum disorders. We’ve got to take a deep breath because we’re about to alter the human genetic code in a way that it’s never been altered before.

However, some scientists say the fear about this kind of research is the one like we had in 1970's 'test tube babies'. Now the thing has become common. The same thing will happen to this one too.

Well...wait and watch

One can develop allergies a few weeks after receiving blood transfusions
'Peanut and fish allergy due to platelet transfusion in a child'
http://www.cmaj.ca/content/early/2015/04/07/cmaj.141407
Although this is rare, an eight year old boy developed allergy toward salmon and peanut butter after the blood transfusion because the donor had these allergies. However, these allergies are short lived and dissipate after some months because the recipients themselves don't produce the allergen antibodies.
The principle behind it is Clinicians purposefully transfer antibodies to give patients protection against infections, so it is not surprising that other antibodies could be transferred and cause ripple effects. Large amounts of immunoglobulin-E (IgE) antibodies remain in blood products even after storage of more than a month. Typically, fresh frozen plasma will contain the largest amount of the antibodies, followed by platelets and then red cells because all three blood components contain plasma, which can contain antibodies.
Multiple events must come together for a patient to have this rare allergic reaction. First, the blood donor must have high levels of IgE antibodies—those that react against allergens. Second, a substantial amount of blood product must be given to the patient. Then, in order to detect the new allergy, the patient would have to be exposed to the specific allergen the antibodies would react against within a few months of receiving the transfusion. That window is tight, because passively acquired antibodies will naturally fade after a few months and the transient allergy will disappear. IgE is estimated to have a half-life of just a few hours or days, but once it enters the body and binds to cells, it can remain detectable for weeks or months and cause allergic reactions

This topic always fascinates me... understanding the death dance...another step towards it...
Asphyxia-activated corticocardiac signaling accelerates onset of cardiac arrest
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/04/02/1423936112
Death Brain Signaling Accelerates Demise of the Heart...
What happens in the moments just before death is widely believed to be a slowdown of the body’s systems as the heart stops beating and blood flow ends. For the study, performed in rats, researchers simultaneously examined the heart and brain during experimental asphyxiation and documented an immediate release of more than a dozen neurochemicals, along with an activation of brain-heart connectivity. This new laboratory study by the University of Michigan Medical School reveals a storm of brain activity that erupts as the heart deteriorates and plays a surprising destabilizing role in heart function.

This near-death brain signaling may be targeted to help cardiac arrest patients survive.
Despite the loss of consciousness and absence of signs of life, internally the brain exhibits sustained, organized activity and increased communication with the heart, which one may guess is an effort to save the heart.
However the brain signaling at near-death may, in fact, accelerate cardiac demise, according to the study published in this week’s PNAS Early Edition.

Researchers with backgrounds in engineering, neuroscience, physiology, cardiology, chemistry, and pharmacology looked at the mechanism by which the heart of a healthy person ceases to function within just a few minutes without oxygen.

While the animal study examined asphyxia-induced cardiac arrest, sudden cardiac death can also follow fatal cardiac arrhythmias, ischemic stroke, traumatic brain injury, brain hemorrhage and epilepsy.

Following a steep fall of the heart rate, brain signals strongly synchronized with the heart rhythm, as visualized beat-by-beat using a new technology developed in the Borjigin laboratory called electrocardiomatrix.

According to the study, blocking the brain’s outflow significantly delayed ventricular fibrillation, in which the lower chambers of the heart quiver and the heart cannot pump any blood. It’s the most serious cardiac rhythm disturbance.

The study suggests that a pharmacological blockade of the brain’s electrical connections to the heart during cardiac arrest may improve the chances of survival in cardiac arrest patients.
This new study provides a neurochemical foundation for the surge in brain activity and a brain-heart connectivity that may be targeted to lengthen detectable brain activity.

How neuro-scientists think they can do the head transplants...

The procedure starts with cooling both the body and head right down so the cells won’t die when deprived of oxgyen through the process. Next, the neck is severed and all the crucial blood vessels are hooked up to tubes while the spinal cord on both the head and the body are severed.

"The recipient's head is then moved onto the donor body and the two ends of the spinal cord – which resemble two densely packed bundles of spaghetti – are fused together,” says Thomson. "To achieve this, scientists intend to flush the area with a chemical called polyethylene glycol, and follow up with several hours of injections of the same stuff. Just like hot water makes dry spaghetti stick together, polyethylene glycol encourages the fat in cell membranes to mesh.”

Canavero told Thomson the final step would be to stitch up the muscles and blood supply, and to induce a three- or four-hour coma to let the body heal itself while embedded electrodes stimulate the spinal cord to strengthen the new nerve connections.

The recipient won’t be able to get up and walk around soon after the surgery because the damage to the spinal cord would take about 12 months to heal fully. The recipient would retain their old voice though.
But... we don’t even know if the plan to use polyethylene glycol to fuse the spinal cords is even going to work, in which case scientists will be forced to use one of their other options. There is no evidence that the connectivity of cord and brain would lead to useful sentient or motor function following head transplantation.
And... how do you get the body to stop automatically rejecting the head?

There’s no telling what the transplant - and all the new connections and foreign chemicals that the head and brain will have to suddenly deal with - will do to person’s psyche, could result in a hitherto never experienced level and quality of insanity. Scary!

- The New Scientist

Why do people do what they do? It is the brain chemistry that decides!
The function of two chemical signals critical to human behavior: Dopamine–responsible for reward and risk-taking–and CREB–needed for learning.
We can now predict future animal behaviors based on past sensory experience, independent of the influence of genetic factors using this information.
Dumping dopamine onto a brain–human or otherwise–makes one more willing to take risks.
Stimulated by large varieties in its environment, dopamine surges in the organism's system and activates four other neurons in the learning circuit, giving them a greater response range. This prompts the it to search more actively in a wider area (risk-taking) until it hits a more consistent environment. The amount of dopamine in its system serves as its memory of the past experience: about 30 minutes or so and it forgets information gathered in the time before that.
While it’s been known that the presence of dopamine is tied to risk-taking behavior, how exactly dopamine does this hasn’t been well understood. With a new work, scientists now have a fundamental model of how dopamine signaling leads the organism to take more risks and explore new environments.
The connection between dopamine and risk is conserved across animals and is already known, but the new work showed mechanistically how it works. Interestingly, the scientists found that the high-threshold neurons also lead to increased signaling from a protein called CREB, known in humans and other animals to be essential to learning and retaining new memories. The researchers showed that not only are the presence of CREB important to learning, but the amount of CREB protein determines how quickly an animal learns. This surprising connection could lead to new avenues of research for brain enhancements.
When the protein CREB was present in larger amounts, the team found that the organisms took far less time to learn.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0896627315002500
Neural Mechanisms for Evaluating Environmental Variability in Caenorhabditis elegans
C. elegans learn variability in their food environment and modify future behavior
•

The authors describe the minimal circuit that evaluates environmental variability
•

Dopamine levels store information about variability to regulate behavior
•

The amount of CREB determines the rate of learning variability

Preliminary studies by neuro-scientists tell an interesting story:

Birth control pills taken by women effects brain structure and activity...

 Birth control pills have structural effects on regions of the brain that govern higher-order cognitive activities, suggesting that a woman on birth control pills may literally not be herself -- or is herself, on steroids.

Neuroscientists from the University of California, Los Angeles in the US took brain scans of 90 women who were either currently using the pill or not, and found that two key brain regions were thinner in pill users - the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex.

New research suggests that the synthetic steroids delivered by the female contraceptive pill can shrink certain regions of the female brain and could also be altering their function.

Neuroscientists from the University of California, Los Angeles in the US took brain scans of 90 women who were either currently using the pill or not, and found that two key brain regions were thinner in pill users - the lateral orbitofrontal cortex and the posterior cingulate cortex.

These two regions are involved in emotion regulation, decision-making and reward response, and the researchers believe that their findings could help explain why some women become anxious or depressed when taking the contraceptive pill. It's possible that this change in the lateral orbitofrontal cortex may be related to the emotional changes that some women experience when using birth control pills.

Scientists have previously shown that the pill can affect to whom a woman is attracted, and can halve the size of their ovaries. And in 2010, a team from Austria also found that the contraceptive pill could change the shape of the brain regions associated with learning, memory and emotion regulation. But their research suggested that it thickened those regions, rather than thinning them, a result that this new study contradicts.

However, it's important to note that the research is in the very early stages, and didn't look into whether going on or off the pill changed brain shape within the same women. The researchers also haven't studied whether the effects are permanent or temporary.

:"Oral contraceptive pill use is associated with localized decreases in cortical thickness":

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/hbm.22797/abstract?campa...

Researchers have found that inhibiting DNA recombination at the telomeres can promote longevity, at least in yeast. Their results have been published in PLOS Genetics. Homologous recombination is a process used to repair double stranded breaks in DNA, thereby preventing genome instability which is believed to cause aging. The shortening of telomeres, the physical ends of eukaryotic linear chromosomes, has also implicated in aging. However, due to the resemblance of telomeres to DNA double strand breaks (DSBs), homologous recombination can not be eliminated from telomeres. Professor Zhou Jinqiu and his group at the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, Shanghai Institutes for Biological Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, has now identified a telomere recombination regulator, the yeast KEOPS subunit Cgi121, as a novel longevity regulator. They showed that inactivation of Cgi121 inhibited telomere recombination and significantly extended the lifespan of yeast.

''Inhibition of Telomere Recombination by Inactivation of KEOPS Subunit Cgi121 Promotes Cell Longevity''
http://journals.plos.org/plosgenetics/article?id=10.1371/journal.pg...

Physicists are able to make cylindrical objects completely invisible in the microwave range, without using any metamaterial coating layers, ushering in new era of electromagnetic wave scattering.

The scientists from ITMO University, Ioffe Institute and Australian National University achieved the unique result based on light scattering from a glass cylinder filled with water, representing a two-dimensional analog of a classical scattering from a homogenous sphere (Mie scattering).

Using ordinary water whose refractive index can be regulated by reducing temperature, they applied two scattering methods —
resonant and non-resonant scattering. Resonant scattering is related to localization of light inside the cylinder and in non-resonant it is reflected by smooth dependence on the wave frequency, they explained. And interaction between the two mechanisms is called Fano resonances.
In their xperiment, the researchers discovered that at certain frequencies waves scattered via both mechanisms in opposite
phases and are mutually destroyed, making the object invisible. By the cancellation of scattering, they were able to develop a new technique to switch from visibility to invisibility at the same freequency of 1.9GHz by reducing the temperature of water in a cylinder from 90°C to 50°C.

“Our theoretical calculations were successfully tested in microwave experiments. What matters is that the invisibility idea we implemented in our work can be applied to other electromagnetic wave ranges, including to the visible range,” said Mikhail Rybin, lead author of the paper at the Metamaterials Laboratory in ITMO University.

The discovery can help develop nanoantennas, wherein invisible rods could be used as supports for a miniature antenna complex connecting two optical chips. Since the new discovery of invisibility phenomenon in a homogenous object and not an object covered with additional coating layers makes it deviate from conventional ideas of invisibility.

Nevertheless, coating layers based on metamaterials are extremely hard to fabricate and are not compatible with many other invisibility ideas. The new method based on scattering processes leaves behind the existing mechanisms both in simplicity and cost-effectiveness, they said.

Wearing an invisibility cloak is every fantasy-lovers dream. It has caught the attention of physicists for centuries and even films like ‘Mr India’ with an invisibility watch had an exciting viewership, while epics are aplenty about the examples of ancient sages going invisible or making objects invisible.
- http://www.microfinancemonitor.com/2015/04/14/physicists-create-hom...