Quantum communication...

A successful quantum communication network will rely on the ability to distribute entangled photons over large distances between receiver stations. So far, free-space demonstrations have been limited to line-of-sight links across cities or between mountaintops. Scattering and coherence decay have limited the link separations to around 100 km. Yin et al. used the Micius satellite, which was launched last year and is equipped with a specialized quantum optical payload. They successfully demonstrated the satellite-based entanglement distribution to receiver stations separated by more than 1200 km. The results illustrate the possibility of a future global quantum communication network.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/356/6343/1140

--

Scientists have solved a centuries-old mystery of "bright nights" - an unusual glow that appears in the sky after dark and lets observers see distant mountains, read a newspaper or check their watch.

Researchers suggest that when waves in the upper atmosphere converge over specific locations on Earth, it amplifies naturally occurring airglow, a faint light in the night sky that often appears green due to the activities of atoms of oxygen in the high atmosphere.

Normally, people do not notice airglow, but on bright nights it can become visible to the naked eye, producing the unexplained glow detailed in historical observations.

Modern observations of bright nights from Earth are practically nonexistent light pollution. Even devoted airglow researchers have never seen a true bright night.

However, even before the advent of artificial lighting, bright nights were rare and highly localised.

Researchers could see bright night events reflected in airglow data from the Wind Imaging Interferometer (WINDII), an instrument once carried by NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (1991-2005).

They searched for mechanisms that would cause airglow to increase to visible levels at specific locations.

Airglow comes from emissions of different colors of light from chemical reactions in the upper reaches of the atmosphere. The green portion of airglow occurs when light from the sun splits apart molecular oxygen into individual oxygen atoms.

When the atoms recombine, they give off the excess energy as photons in the green part of the visible light spectrum, giving the sky a greenish tinge.

To find factors that would cause peaks in airglow and create bright nights, researchers searched two years of WINDII data for unusual airglow profiles.

They identified 11 events where WINDII detected a spike in airglow levels that would be visible to the human eye, two of which they describe in detail in the study.

Finally, the researchers matched up the events with the ups and downs of zonal waves, large waves in the upper atmosphere that circle the globe and are impacted by weather.

Potent Inhibitor of Drug-Resistant HIV-1 Strains Identified from the Medicinal Plant Justicia gendarussa

Justicia gendarussa, a medicinal plant collected in Vietnam, was identified as a potent anti-HIV-1 active lead from the evaluation of over 4500 plant extracts. Bioassay-guided separation of the extracts of the stems and roots of this plant led to the isolation of an anti-HIV arylnaphthalene lignan (ANL) glycoside, patentiflorin A (1). Evaluation of the compound against both the M- and T-tropic HIV-1 isolates showed it to possess a significantly higher inhibition effect than the clinically used anti-HIV drug AZT. Patentiflorin A and two congeners were synthesized, de novo, as an efficient strategy for resupply as well as for further structural modification of the anti-HIV ANL glycosides in the search for drug leads. Subsequently, it was determined that the presence of a quinovopyranosyloxy group in the structure is likely essential to retain the high degree of anti-HIV activity of this type of compounds. Patentiflorin A was further investigated against the HIV-1 gene expression of the R/U5 and U5/gag transcripts, and the data showed that the compound acts as a potential inhibitor of HIV-1 reverse transcription. Importantly, the compound displayed potent inhibitory activity against drug-resistant HIV-1 isolates of both the nucleotide analogue (AZT) and non-nucleotide analogue (nevaripine). Thus, the ANL glycosides have the potential to be developed as novel anti-HIV drugs.

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/acs.jnatprod.7b00004

Metagenomic sequencing study:

The test is the brainchild of researchers at the  University of California, San Francisco, led by neurologist Michael Wilson, biochemist Joseph DeRisi and infectious disease expert Charles Chiu. The group uses genetic-sequencing technology to identify mystery illnesses in people with encephalitis or meningitis (inflammation of the meninges, the membranes around the brain and spinal cord). This so-called metagenomic test analyzes all the DNA and RNA found in a sample of cerebrospinal fluid (meta means “beyond” in Greek). So any DNA or RNA that does not belong to the patient—including that from viruses, bacteria, parasites or fungi—shows up in the results.

Done correctly, metagenomic testing could radically change the way infections of the brain are diagnosed. An element of circular logic underlies most standard infectious disease tests. Doctors order individual tests for each bug they suspect might be causing the problem. But how do they know what is causing the problem if they have not yet done the test? Metagenomic sequencing, in contrast, casts the broadest possible net, which allows it to pick up unexpected or previously unknown pathogens. Scientists and doctors are looking at everything at once, which has the potential of replacing the myriad of lab tests with a single test.

Genetic sequencing of Cerebro-spinal fluid hailed as an advance over standard procedures for diagnosing brain infections

Hormones made by brain...

Bones give us structural support to out bodies. We all know that. Apart from that function, bones also make hormones. Do you know this fact?

Yes, there’s so much going on between bone and brain and all the other organs, it has become one of the most prominent tissues being studied at the moment.

At least four bone hormones found working in living systems, recent studies show, and there could be more. Scientists have only just begun to decipher what this messaging means for health. But cataloging and investigating the hormones should offer a more nuanced understanding of how the body regulates sugar, energy and fat, among other things.

Of the hormones on the list of bones’ messengers — osteocalcin, sclerostin, fibroblast growth factor 23 and lipocalin 2 — the last is the latest to attract attention. Lipocalin 2, which bones unleash to stem bacterial infections, also works in the brain to control appetite, physiologist Stavroula Kousteni of Columbia University Medical Center and colleagues reported in the March 16 Nature.

After mice eat, their bone-forming cells absorb nutrients and release a hormone called lipocalin 2 (LCN2) into the blood. LCN2 travels to the brain, where it gloms on to appetite-regulating nerve cells, which tell the brain to stop eating, a recent study suggests.

Geneticist Gerard Karsenty of Columbia University Medical Center found that osteocalcin — made by osteoblasts — helps regulate blood sugar. Osteocalcin circulates through the blood, collecting calcium and other minerals that bones need. When the hormone reaches the pancreas, it signals insulin-making cells to ramp up production, mouse experiments showed. Osteocalcin also signals fat cells to release a hormone that increases the body’s sensitivity to insulin, the body’s blood sugar moderator, Karsenty and colleagues reported in Cell in 2007. If it works the same way in people, Karsenty says, osteocalcin could be developed as a potential diabetes or obesity treatment.

Bad news for coral reef lovers...the 3 successive years of bleaching conditions damaged all but three of the 29 reefs that are or are contained within United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage sites. And the prognosis is grim: Without dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, all these reefs "will cease to host functioning coral reef ecosystems by the end of the century," predicts the report from UNESCO’s World Heritage Center in Paris.

Feel sad, because I love corals :(

Researchers have found material that removes synthetic pollutant dyes from water...

Researchers from Energy Safety Research Institute (ESRI) at Swansea University, U.K hold the key to the problem in the form of a novel, non-hazardous photocatalytic material.

The said material effectively removes dye pollutants from water, adsorbing more than 90 % of the dye and enhancing the rate of dye breakdown by almost ten times using visible light. The composite material as a combination of tungsten oxide and tantalum nitride, also provides a huge surface area for dye capture, being less than 40 billionths of a metre in diameter. The material was synthesized by heating the reaction mixture at high pressures inside a sealed container which involved growing ultra-thin “nanowires” of tungsten oxide on the surface of tiny particles of tantalum nitride. It further proceeded to break the dye down into smaller, harmless molecules using the energy provided by sunlight, in a process known as ‘photocatalytic degradation’. 

Having removed the harmful dyes, the catalyst can be simply filtered from the cleaned water and reused. Due to the exchange of electrons between the two materials, the test dye used within the study was broken down by the composite at around double the rate achieved by tantalum nitride on its own, while tungsten oxide alone was shown to be incapable of dye degradation.

The research is published in the journal Scientific Reports.

Praying mantises are posing threat  to small birds...

A study by zoologists from Switzerland and the US shows: praying mantises all over the globe also include birds in their diet. The Wilson Journal of Ornithology has just published the results.

he researchers gathered and documented numerous examples of bird-eating mantises. In a systematic review, they were able to show that praying mantises from twelve species and nine genera have been observed preying on small birds in the wild. This remarkable feeding behavior has been documented in 13 different countries, on all continents except Antarctica. There is also great diversity in the victims: birds from 24 different species and 14 families were found to be the prey of mantises. "The fact that eating of birds is so widespread in praying mantises, both taxonomically as well as geographically speaking, is a spectacular discovery," comments Martin Nyffeler from the University of Basel and lead author of the study.

http://www.bioone.org/doi/10.1676/16-100.1

Role of uterine fluid: New light...

Once considered a simple medium for sperm and embryo transport, the functional spectrum of uterine fluid is now expanding. Novel molecular players, such as extracellular vesicles and mobile RNAs, have been detected in the uterine fluid of livestock, rodents, and humans. These novel molecules, together with previously known ions and proteins, ensure uterine fluid homeostasis and facilitate embryo–maternal interactions. 

These molecules may also carry information that mirrors maternal environmental exposure and possibly relay such information to the embryo via uterine fluid, generating long-term epigenetic effects on the offspring via embryonic and placental programming. Moreover, the development of systematic profiling of uterine fluid molecular signatures may now hold promise, relying on high-throughput methods and non-invasive biomarkers for clinical use.

http://www.cell.com/trends/molecular-medicine/fulltext/S1471-4914(17)30080-1?_returnURL=http%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1471491417300801%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Canadian researchers reconstituted an extinct poxvirus for $100,000 using mail-order DNA

A group led by virologist David Evans of the University of Alberta in Edmonton, Canada, says it has synthesized the horsepox virus, a relative of smallpox, from genetic pieces ordered in the mail. Horsepox is not known to harm humans—and like smallpox, researchers believe it no longer exists in nature; nor is it seen as a major agricultural threat. But the technique Evans used could be used to recreate smallpox, a horrific disease that was declared eradicated in 1980. 

Scientifically, the achievement isn't a big surprise. Researchers had assumed it would one day be possible to synthesize poxviruses since virologists assembled the much smaller poliovirus from scratch in 2002. But the new work—like the poliovirus reconstitutions before it—is raising troubling questions about how terrorists or rogue states could use modern biotechnology. Given that backdrop, the study marks an important milestone, a proof of concept of what can be done with viral synthesis.

- Sciencemag.org

How climate change impacts flying...

Rising temperatures due to global warming will make it harder for many aircraft around the world to take off in coming decades, says a new study. During the hottest parts of the day, 10 to 30 percent of fully loaded planes may have to remove some fuel, cargo or passengers, or else wait for cooler hours to fly, the study concludes. The study, which is the first such global analysis, appeared recently in the journal Climatic Change.

As air warms, it spreads out, and its density declines. In thinner air, wings generate less lift as a plane races along a runway. Thus, depending on aircraft model, runway length and other factors, at some point a packed plane may be unable to take off safely if the temperature gets too high. Weight must be dumped, or else the flight delayed or canceled.

Average global temperatures have gone up nearly 1 degree Centigrade (1.8 Fahrenheit) since about 1980, and this may already be having an effect.

"This points to the unexplored risks of changing climate on aviation

A solution to reverse the worrying antibiotic resistance crisis may have been found...

 Salford University scientists claim they may have stumbled across a very simple way forward – even though they weren't looking for antibiotics.

They were looking into ways of inhibiting mitochondria, the 'powerhouse' of cells which fuel fatal tumours, when they made the discovery. 

The team sorted through 45,000 compounds, using a three-dimensional structure of the mitochondria. 

Using it, they identified 800 small molecules which may inhibit mitochondria based on their structural characteristics.

This was then whittled down into the most promising 10 compounds, according to the research published in the journal Oncotarget.

Their results showed that these synthetic compounds - without any additional chemical engineering - inhibited a broad spectrum of five types of common bacteria.

This included Streptococcus, Pseudomonas, E. coli and methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). They also killed the pathogenic yeast, Candida albicans. 

Dubbed as 'mito-riboscins', they are equally, if not more, potent than standard antibiotics, the researchers said. 

http://www.impactjournals.com/oncotarget/index.php?journal=oncotarg...[]=19084&path[]=61161

Motivational switch in the brain identified!

A research team in China may have done just that. The group isolated a small group of neurons in the brains of mice that play a critical role in persistent behavior, according to a study published today in Science. This handful of brain cells is known as the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex, or dmPFC, and it sits in a region integral for learning appropriate social behavior. When the team fired up the neurons using light, the dmPFC motivated the mice to win competitions in which they had previously lacked the will to succeed. In other words, “this might provide a new biological basis for what people call ‘grit,’” says Hailan Hu, a neuroscientist at Zhejiang University who led the research.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/357/6347/162

Mental strength and history of winning play an important role in the determination of social dominance. However, the neural circuits mediating these intrinsic and extrinsic factors have remained unclear. Working in mice, we identified a dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) neural population showing “effort”-related firing during moment-to-moment competition in the dominance tube test. Activation or inhibition of the dmPFC induces instant winning or losing, respectively. In vivo optogenetic-based long-term potentiation and depression experiments establish that the mediodorsal thalamic input to the dmPFC mediates long-lasting changes in the social dominance status that are affected by history of winning. The same neural circuit also underlies transfer of dominance between different social contests. These results provide a framework for understanding the circuit basis of adaptive and pathological social behaviors.

Indian scientists are marching for science...

Scientists and science activists will take out a 'March for Science' in several states in India on August 9. The march is being organized in protest against the Centre's move to slash funds for science and technology research institutes. The scientists are demanding that at least three percent of the country's GDP be set apart for scientific growth and for government policy to promote scientific research instead of promoting superstitious beliefs.

Ahead of the march, a reception committee of 'India March for Science' will be constituted at the Library hall of Kerala State Science and Technology Museum here on July 14, said Rajeevan P P, faculty, Indian Institute of Space Science and Technology (IIST) and secretariat member of Breakthrough Science Society (BSS). The march is being organized on the lines of the previous  March for science taken out in 160 cities across the world on April 22 this year.

"Science in India is facing the danger of being eclipsed by a rising wave of unscientific beliefs and religious bigotry. Scientific research is suffering serious setback due to dwindling governmental support," Rajeevan said. This is despite the fact that scientists from India have played a commendable role in developing science.

The organizers said financial support to even premier institutions like Indian Institute of Technology (IITs), National Institute of Technology, and Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISERs) were slashed. Universities are facing shortage of funds to adequately support scientific research. Research funding agencies like DST, DBT and CSIR are reportedly impacted by reduced governmental support. Scientists in government laboratories are being asked to generate a part of their salary by commercialising their scientific output and from other sources.

The scientists have made an appeal for participation in the march by all who agree to four demands raised by them. They are allocation of at least 3% of GDP to scientific research and 10% towards education; stopping the propagation of unscientific, obscurantist ideas and religious intolerance and developing scientific temper, human values and spirit of inquiry in conformance with Article 51A of the Constitution; ensuring that the education system imparts only ideas that are supported by scientific evidence and enactment of policies based on evidence-based science.

Bright light at night stops or mostly controls mosquito bites

Exposing malaria-transmitting mosquitoes to light at two-hour intervals during the night or at late daytime could inhibit their biting behaviour and reducemalaria transmission, says a study.

The team behind the research, from the university of Notre Dame in the United States, note that the development of resistance to insecticides requires innovative approaches for controlling the malaria vector. 

Therefore, they explored the potential of using light to control mosquitoes’ feeding behaviour by exposing Anopheles gambiaemosquitoes — a key vector of malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa — to multiple pulses of bright light, especially in the night, when they are most likely to feed on human blood.
 
“When we subjected the mosquitoes to a series of pulses of light with a two-hour interval and presented throughout the entire night, we observed suppression of biting activity during most of the night,” says Giles Duffield, a co-author of the study published in the journal Parasites & Vectors last month (16 June).

The finding was most prominent during the early to middle of the night and at dawn, when people are least protected by the barrier of a bed net.
 
“Conversely, biting levels were significantly elevated when mosquitoes were exposed to a dark treatment during the late day, suggesting that light suppresses biting behaviour even during the late daytime,” the researchers note in the paper.

WE ARE MARCHING FOR SCIENCE ON 9th AUG., 2017. COME, JOIN US!

An appeal by scientists

India is marching for science.

Science in India is facing the danger of being eclipsed by a rising wave of unscientific beliefs and religious bigotry, and scientific research is suffering serious setback due to dwindling governmental support.

 Financial support to even premier institutions like IITs, NITs, and IISERs has been slashed. Universities are facing shortage of funds to adequately support scientific research. Research funding agencies like DST, DBT and CSIR are reportedly impacted by reduced governmental support. Scientists in government laboratories are being asked to generate a part of their salary by selling their inventions and from other sources.

We feel that the situation demands the members of scientific community to stand in defence of science and scientific attitude in an open and visible manner as done by scientists and science enthusiasts worldwide. Scientists, researchers, teachers, students, as well as all concerned citizens are participating in 'India March for Science' events throughout the country, particularly in the state capitals, on 9th August 2017, with the following demands:

• 1. Allocate at least 3% of GDP to scientific and technological research and 10% towards education

• 2. Stop propagation of unscientific, obscurantist ideas and religious intolerance, and develop scientific temper, human values and spirit of inquiry in conformance with Article 51A of the Constitution.

• 3. Ensure that the education system imparts only ideas that are supported by scientific evidence.

• 4. Enact policies based on evidence-based science.

In Hyderabad, my home city, we are marching from Press club, Basheerbagh to Nizam college. Please join us at 10.30 am.

Thank you!

 “Research should not be used for validation of prejudices and ideology.”

Thousands across India march in support of science

http://www.nature.com/news/thousands-across-india-march-in-support-...

http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/bengaluru/2017/aug/09/forget...

India March for science, Hyderabad, Aug., 9th 2017

New fluorescent dyes for advance biological imaging

Specific chemical building blocks in fluorescent molecules called rhodamines can generate nearly any color scientists desire - ROYGBIV and beyond, researchers report September 4, 2017 in the journal Nature Methods.

The work offers scientists a way to adjust the properties of existing dyes deliberately, making them bolder, brighter, and more cell-permeable too. Such an expanded palette of dyes could help researchers better illuminate the inner workings of cells.

The research team lit up cell nuclei, made larval fruit fly brains shine, and highlighted visual cortex neurons in mice that had tiny glass windows fitted into their skulls.

Jonathan B. Grimm, Anand K. Muthusamy, Yajie Liang, Timothy A. Brown, William C. Lemon, Ronak Patel, Rongwen Lu, John J. Macklin, Philip J. Keller, Na Ji, and Luke D. Lavis, "A general method to fine-tune fluorophores for live-cell and in vivo imaging," Nature Methods. Published online September 4, 2017. doi: 10.1038/nmeth.4403

Indian uranium mine becomes dark matter lab

India’s very first uranium mine, the Jaduguda mine located in the state of Jharkhand, now hosts a laboratory for conducting experiments in fundamental physics.

The Jaduguda Underground Science Laboratory 550, built in a 37-square-meter cavern buried 905 metres and formerly used for storage, will focus on the search for dark matter. It was built by the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics and it is expected to gather the country’s brightest experimental scientists interested in cutting-edge research.

Repurposing the cave in the 50-year-old mine managed by the Uranium Corporation of India required an initial investment of $32,000. Scientists considered this to be the best place to install a low-temperature cesium iodide detector because its depth would shield the device from other particles.

The site’s uranium deposits, which produce 25 per cent of the raw materials needed to fuel India’s nuclear reactors, are located some 300 metres away from the lab. Thus, physicists working there are not concerned about background radiation.

source.. mining.com

Climate change threatens 33% of all parasites. Good news? Bad news, according to scientists! Read why...

Because parasites play an important part in our Eco-system!

The study published in the journal Science Advances was completed with the help of the U.S. National Parasite Collection, as well as specialized databases of ticks, fleas, bee mites, and feather mites. What's more, 17 researchers from eight countries spent years tracking down different parasite specimens in order to understand the species' habitat and needs.

By using climate forecasts to determine how the 457 parasite species will react to the changing climate, researchers found they are evidently among the most threatened life forms on Earth with regards to climate change, even more so than their hosts. In fact, models show that about a third of parasites could go extinct by 2070 from the effects of habitat loss alone, with the more conservative models showing instead a 5 to 10 percent loss.

Why is it bad?

Parasites don't often good reputations as they are often responsible for diseases and infections. By definition, parasites are organisms that live and thrive at the expense of its host. But did you know that they are also important members of the ecosystem?

As small as they are and despite their negative reputations, parasites actually contribute to keeping wildlife populations in check, and in providing a large percentage of food chain links. Many parasites have complex life cycles that require being passed from one host to another. Because of this, having strong populations of parasites are often indicators of a healthy ecosystem.

"It means the system has a diversity of animals in it and that conditions have been consistent long enough for these complex associations to develop," said Anna J. Phillips of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History. What's more, a wide range of parasites in an ecosystem means that they could compete with one another, therefore slowing down the spread of diseases. Without them, the ecosystem could be seriously affected.

Unfortunately, because of their bad reputation, they are often overlooked in studies regarding climate change and its impacts. It is only now that we see that they, too, are affected by the climate change. Because of the current study, scientists can look further into the implications of changing parasite populations. This is especially important as it could also lead to the thriving of other, possibly more invasive parasites as a result of the lack of competition.

Tropical forests have flipped from sponges to sources of carbon dioxide

The world’s tropical forests are exhaling — and it’s not a sigh of relief. Instead of soaking up climate-warming gases on balance, these so-called “lungs of the planet” are beginning to release them.

A new study based on analyses of satellite imagery of tropical Asia, Africa and the Americas suggests that tropical forests contribute more carbon dioxide to the atmosphere than they remove. Much of that carbon contribution is due to deforestation, the conversion of forests to urban spaces such as farms or roads. But more than two-thirds comes from a less visible source: a decline in the number and diversity of trees in remaining forests, researchers report online September 28 in Science.

Intact forests can be degraded or disturbed by selective logging, environmental change, wildfires or disease.

In total, the researchers found, tropical forests emit 862 teragrams of carbon to the atmosphere annually — more than all cars in the United States did in 2015 — and absorb only 436 teragrams of carbon each year. Of that net loss of carbon to the atmosphere, 69 percent is from degraded forests and the rest from deforestation.

Some 60 percent of those carbon emissions came from tropical America, including the Amazon Basin. Africa’s tropical forests were responsible for about 24 percent of the carbon loss, and Asia’s forests for 16 percent.

The results are a wake-up call that there is an opportunity for improvement.

Quantum video chat links scientists

Ultrasecure quantum video chats are now possible across the globe.

In a demonstration of the world’s first intercontinental quantum link, scientists held a long-distance videoconference on September 29 between Austria and China. To secure the communication, a Chinese satellite distributed a quantum key, a secret string of numbers used to encrypt the video transmission so that no one could eavesdrop on the conversation. In the call, chemist Chunli Bai, president of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, spoke with quantum physicist Anton Zeilinger, president of the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna.

“It’s a huge achievement,” says quantum physicist Thomas Jennewein of the University of Waterloo in Canada, who was not involved with the project. “It’s a major step to show that this approach could be viable.”

Using a technique known as quantum key distribution, scientists share secret strings of numbers while ensuring that no eavesdroppers can intercept the code undetected. Those quantum keys are then used to encrypt information sent via traditional internet connections. Decoding the transmission requires the same key used for encryption, foiling would-be snoops.

- Science news.org

A team in China has taken a new approach to fixing disease genes in human embryos. The researchers created cloned embryos with a genetic mutation for a potentially fatal blood disorder, and then precisely corrected the DNA to show how the condition might be prevented at the earliest stages of development.

The report, published on 23 September in Protein & Cell, is the latest in a series of experiments to edit genes in human embryos. And it employs an impressive series of innovations, scientists say. Rather than replacing entire sections of genes, the team, led by Junjiu Huang at Sun Yat-sen University in Guangzhou, China, tweaked individual DNA letters, or bases, using a precision gene-editing technology developed in the United States.

Liang, P. et al. Protein Cell https://doi.org/10.1007/s13238-017-0475–6 (2017)

Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash and Michael W. Young are the joint winners of the 2017 Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine, winning for their discoveries about how internal clocks and biological rhythms govern human life.

The three Americans won "for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm," the Nobel Foundation says

    "Using fruit flies as a model organism, this year's Nobel laureates isolated a gene that controls the normal daily biological rhythm. They showed that this gene encodes a protein that accumulates in the cell during the night, and is then degraded during the day. Subsequently, they identified additional protein components of this machinery, exposing the mechanism governing the self-sustaining clockwork inside the cell. We now recognize that biological clocks function by the same principles in cells of other multicellular organisms, including humans.

    "With exquisite precision, our inner clock adapts our physiology to the dramatically different phases of the day. The clock regulates critical functions such as behavior, hormone levels, sleep, body temperature and metabolism."

Three scientists who laid the groundwork for the first direct detection of gravitational waves have won the Nobel Prize in physics. Rainer Weiss of MIT, and Kip Thorne and Barry Barish, both of Caltech, will share the 9-million-Swedish-kronor (about $1.1 million) prize, with half going to Weiss and the remainder split between Thorne and Barish.

Weiss, Thorne and Barish are pioneers of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, or LIGO. On February 11, 2016, LIGO scientists announced they had spotted gravitational waves produced by a pair of merging black holes. This first-ever detection generated a frenzy of excitement among physicists and garnered front-page headlines around the world.

LIGO’s observation of gravitational waves directly confirmed a 100-year-old prediction of Einstein’s general theory of relativity — that rapidly accelerating massive objects stretch and squeeze spacetime, producing ripples  that travel outward from the source.

--

An imaging technique that freezes tiny biological objects such as proteins and viruses in place so that scientists can peer into their structures at the scale of atoms has won its developers the 2017 Nobel Prize in chemistry.

Jacques Dubochet of the University of Lausanne in Switzerland, Joachim Frank of Columbia University and Richard Henderson of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England, won for their contributions to the development of the technique, called cryo-electron microscopy, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced October 4. 

Pesticides in natural honey!

WHEN researchers collected honey samples from around the world, they found that three-quarters of them had a common type of pesticide suspected of playing a role in the decline of bees.

5000 years of science development in India is being shown in an exhibition in London, UK

• First written zero on a 1700-year-old birch bark manuscript

• Oldest artefact is set of weights that standardised mud brick production

• Exhibition at UK’s Science Museum in London

When the courts here banned bursting of Diwali fire crackers, several people , criticized it protested and disregarded the ban. But at what cost? Read this:

Pollution is the largest environmental cause of disease and death in the world today, responsible for an estimated 9 million premature deaths according to The Lancet Commission on pollution and health.

The new study, published in the journal The Lancet and written by more than 40 international health and environmental experts, uses data from the the Global Burden of Disease, an international study that examines trends across populations and estimates mortality from major diseases and their causes. It i t looked at the effects of air pollution, or air contaminated with things like gases and the burning of wood, charcoal and coal; water pollution, which includes contamination by things like unhygienic sanitation; and workplace pollution, where employees are exposed to toxins and carcinogens like coal or asbestos.

Air pollution was linked to 6.5 million deaths in 2015, water pollution was linked to 1.8 million deaths and workplace pollution was linked to nearly one million deaths. Deaths from pollution-linked diseases, like heart disease and cancer, were three times higher than deaths from AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria combined, the researchers found.

The authors also found that 92% of pollution-related deaths happen in low- and middle-income countries. In growing countries like India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Madagascar and Kenya, the researchers say that up to one in four deaths can be tied to pollution. China and India had the greatest number of pollution-related deaths in 2015. That year, pollution in China was linked to 1.8 million deaths, and pollution in India was linked to 2.5 million deaths. 

The researchers note that their data are likely underestimates and do not reflect the entire burden of disease from pollution. For instance, the researchers didn't look at other contaminants, like the effects of endocrine disruptors, flame retardants and pesticides on human health and early deaths. Fuller says there isn't data of high enough quality or quantity on those health issues.

The time of day of your surgery could have long-term impacts on your health. That’s according to researchers who looked at the way circadian rhythm—the body’s internal clock—affects  the outcomes of a patient recovering from a complex heart procedure.

Patients who underwent open-heart surgery in the afternoon experienced better health outcomes compared to those who got operated on in the morning, study authors found after six years of observing nearly 600 patients who underwent heart valve replacement. In the subsequent 500 days after surgery, researchers found, those patients who had surgery after noon had half the risk of a major cardiac event—for instance myocardial infarction, acute heart failure, or death—as those who had surgeries before then.

University of Lille-France professor David Montaigne, the study’s lead author, suggests that the study’s findings indicate that scheduling changes could decrease injury or death.

“There are few other surgical options to reduce the risk of post-surgery heart damage, meaning new techniques to protect patients are needed,” Montaigne said in a statement. “Our findings suggest this is because part of the biological mechanism behind the damage is affected by a person’s circadian clock and the underlying genes that control it.”

The findings are the latest in a growing body of evidence suggesting that time of day plays an important role in how well various medical treatments work. Studies show that the efficacy of some vaccines and cancer treatments may be affected by the time of day when a therapy is administered or medicine is taken. For example, research has found that patients who received a seasonal flu vaccination before 11 a.m. produced more antibodies than those who had one after 3 p.m.

“This study underscores the importance of the circadian rhythm biology that’s finally starting to gain recognition in science. This could potentially save a lot of lives. 

http://www.thelancet-press.com/embargo/heartsurgery.pdf

Earth’s multiscale microbial diversity Catalogue

A meta-analysis of microbial community samples collected by hundreds of researchers for the Earth Microbiome Project. Coordinated protocols and new analytical methods, particularly the use of exact sequences instead of clustered operational taxonomic units, enable bacterial and archaeal ribosomal RNA gene sequences to be followed across multiple studies and allow us to explore patterns of diversity at an unprecedented scale. The result is both a reference database giving global context to DNA sequence data and a framework for incorporating data from future studies, fostering increasingly complete characterization of Earth’s microbial diversity.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nature24621

Nov. 10th: World Science Day for Peace and Development
An internationally celebrated day to highlight the importance of science in and for society and that science, peace and development are interlinked

Celebrated every 10 November, World Science Day for Peace and Development highlights the important role of science in society and the need to engage the wider public in debates on emerging scientific issues. It also underlines the importance and relevance of science in our daily lives.

How science is saving lives....

A team of researchers from Germany, Austria, and Italy gave a young boy with the genetic disease junctional epidermolysis bullosa (JEB) new skin cells that saved his life. The work is detailed in the Nature paper "Regeneration of the entire human epidermis using transgenic stem ce..."

JEB is caused by genetic mutations in the genes LAMA3, LAMB3 or LAMC2. These three genes are required to form the protein laminin - a key component of the extracellular matrix which acts like the glue that holds cells together. When one of these genes is mutated, the extracellular matrix is disrupted and the skin blisters, erodes, and has recurrent infections. This disease is a nightmare - resulting in pain while living and an early death.  

Altering a gene (in this case, making a correction) is done in labs all around the world every day. This team of scientists had talent to do this. They worked with a genetic disease with known mutations in cells that could be modified in cells that could then grafted back onto the patient.

The first step in the process was the correction of the genetic mutation.

This is potentially the least complicated step in this process. The scientists had all of the information and tools necessary to make this happen. The DNA was constructed and put into a virus that infects skin cells. This viral vector is an incredibly useful way to place DNA into cells. The new DNA then becomes part of the genome of the skin cell. In this process, the skin cell now has a corrected version of the mutated gene in their genome. 

The second step of the process was making more of the corrected cells. In this particular part of the process - as our skin is one of the few organs that have stem cells positioned in and amongst our normal skin cells (called keratinocytes)- these are not the frequently discussed pluripotent stem cells; instead, these stem cells are dedicated to making more skin. This is important for the normal wear and tear that happens to our skin. When the mutated gene was corrected in one of these cells, it would make more cells with the corrected gene. Over time, there were enough cells to graft onto the patient. 

Both of these two major steps are events that happen in labs across the world every day. But, like many significant advancements, this was made possible by a combination of the right problem, the right tools and good hands of motivated scientists. So, some good old fashioned genetic sequencing and cell culture have saved a boys life - and that is the most amazing scientific story of the year.  

More than 15,000 scientists from 184 countries issue 'warning to humanity'

More than 15,000 scientists around the world have issued a global warning: there needs to be change in order to save Earth.

It comes 25 years after the first notice in 1992 when a mere 1,500 scientists issued a similar warning. 

This new cautioning — which gained popularity on Twitter with #ScientistsWarningToHumanity — garnered more than 15,000 signatures. 

What is it about? Read the article here:

http://scientistswarning.forestry.oregonstate.edu/sites/sw/files/Wa...

--

A team of researchers in Singapore has identified a molecular pathway that suppresses virus-induced cancers. They published their findings in PLOS Pathogens. Some cancers are known to be caused by viral infections. For example, two strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV) are responsible for up to 70 percent of cervical cancer cases. The virus causes abnormal cell growth by inserting its genetic material into the cells of the cervix. Uncontrolled cell growth is typically prevented by the shortening of telomeres—protective caps on the ends of chromosomes. Each time a cell divides into two, the telomeres get shortened, and the cell eventually stops dividing. Cancer cells, however, are known to bypass this limit by producing telomerase, an enzyme that extends the length of telomeres. In HPV-infected cells, the protein TIP60 is known to prevent progression to cervical cancer, but the interactions between TIP60 and telomerase remain unknown. In this study, researchers at the Cancer Science Institute of Singapore (CSI Singapore) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) examined the regulation of telomerase by TIP60 in virus-induced cancer cells. The team discovered that TIP60 inhibits telomerase by interacting with and modifying a partner molecule, Sp1. When TIP60 modifies Sp1, Sp1 can no longer bind to the regulatory sequences of the telomerase gene to activate it. This results in less production of telomerase, which prevents the cancer cells from continuous division. The identification of this molecular pathway opens a new window of hope for therapeutic interventions against cancers. “Our findings hold exciting potential in the fight against a range of virus-induced cancers, including cervical cancer, liver cancer and Burkitt’s Lymphoma,” said study corresponding author Dr. Sudhakar Jha, a principal investigator at CSI Singapore. “Given that 85 percent of cancers are triggered by high amounts of telomerase, our study, which lends a deeper insight into the inhibition of telomerase by TIP60, could also be applied to other groups of cancer such as breast, colorectal and ovarian cancer. Our next step is therefore to investigate the influence of this new pathway in these other groups of cancer,” he added. The article can be found at: Rajagopalan et al. (2017) TIP60 Represses Telomerase Expression by Inhibiting Sp1 Binding to the TERT Promoter.

Pollution might increase lightening strikes

Scientists have already linked aerosol emissions to increases in lightning over areas of the Amazon prone to forest fires (pdf) as well as regions of China with thick air pollution. The clearest example yet of humanity’s influence on atmospheric electrostatic discharges, however, surfaced recently when researchers discovered dense trails of lightning in the soot-filled skies over two of the world’s busiest shipping routes in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea.

Poring over 12 years of detailed data, atmospheric scientists Joel Thornton  at the University of Washington, postdoc Katrina Virts of NASA Marshall Space Flight Center and their colleagues found lightning flashes occur nearly twice as often directly above heavily trafficked shipping lanes as they do elsewhere over the ocean. The increased frequency of lightning follows the exhaust from ships and cannot be explained by meteorological factors such as winds or the atmosphere’s temperature structure, according to a study, published in Geophysical Research Letters in September.

The team noticed a greater density of lightning in locations where ships blast emissions, including sulfur and nitrogen oxides, into the air. Then the researchers tracked instances of lightning using the World Wide Lightning Location Network (WWLLN)—a system of acoustic sensors that detect electrical disturbances all around the globe.

Lightning is a natural feature of storms that occurs when certain conditions are met. Particles in a cloud rub together, gathering opposite charges that eventually separate into positive and negative regions. These two poles create a space across which a transfer of charge—or lightning bolt—may then occur. Sometimes the bolts transmit the charge to the ground and lightning strikes.

But we are now learning the amount of lightning generated may be influenced by factors that go beyond natural meteorology, including aerosols. Other recent studies have given credence to the idea aerosols are linked to more lightning. 

New solution to antibiotic resistance

One of the ways antibiotic resistance genes spread in hospitals and in the environment is that the genes are coded on plasmids that transfer between bacteria. A plasmid is a DNA fragment found in bacteria or yeasts. It carries genes useful for bacteria, especially when these genes encode proteins that can make bacteria resistant to antibiotics.Now a team of scientists at UdeM's Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Medicine has come up with a novel approach to block the transfer of resistance genes. The study by Bastien Casu, Tarun Arya, Benoit Bessette and Christian Baron was published in early November in Scientific Reports.

The researchers screened a library of small chemical molecules for those that bind to the TraE protein, an essential component of the plasmid transfer machinery. Analysis by X-ray crystallography revealed the exact binding site of these molecules on TraE. Having precise information on the binding site enabled the researchers to design more potent binding molecules that, in the end, reduced the transfer of antibiotic-resistant, gene-carrying plasmids.

Building on their encouraging new data, Baron and his colleagues are now working with the medicinal chemists at UdeM's IRIC (Institut de recherche en immunologie et cancérologie) to develop the new molecules into powerful inhibitors of antibiotic resistance gene transfer. Such molecules could one day be applied in clinics in hospitals that are hotbeds of resistance, the researchers hope.

Ultimately, reducing the transfer of antibiotic-resistance plasmids could help preserve the potency of antibiotics, contributing to an overall strategy to help improve human health

The existence of Yeti as described in the folklore and mythology in the Tibetan Plateau–Himalaya region has been shrouded in mystery. According to the stories in the Himalayan region, Yeti, or the Abominable Snowman is an ape-like creature taller than a human being.

Though previous attempts in the biological identification of Yeti were not successful, a recent research report published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B suggests that Yeti is a bear. A multinational team of investigators led by Dr. Charlotte Lindqvist of the University of Buffalo at New York, report on new analyses of 24 field-collected and museum specimens, including hair, bone, skin and fecal samples, collected from bears or purported yetis in the Tibetan Plateau–Himalaya region. Of the nine samples of ostensibly "yeti" origin, eight turned out to be from bears native to the area.

The investigators used a set of genetic elements called mitochondria to characterize the genetic identify of the animal. The bulk of the genetic information in a cell is stored in the DNA which is contained in the nucleus. All nucleated cells also have a small circular DNA outside of the nucleus, within another cytoplasmic organelle called mitochondria. These DNA copies are therefore called mitochondrial DNA or mtDNA. As these mtDNAs are outside of the nucleus, only the maternal mtDNAs will be transferred to the offsprings. Therefore, mtDNA serves as a marker of ancestry.

Based on both amplified mtDNA loci as well as complete mitogenomes, they reconstructed maternal phylogenies to increase knowledge about the phylogenetic relationships and evolutionary history of Himalayan and Tibetan bears. The scientists were able to determine the clade affinities of all the purported yeti samples in this study and inferred their well-supported and resolved phylogenetic relationships among extant bears in the Tibetan Plateau and surrounding Himalayan Mountains.

Tianying Lan, Stephanie Gill, Eva Bellemain, Richard Bischof, Muhammad Ali Nawaz, Charlotte LindqvistEvolutionary history of enigmatic bears in the Tibetan Plateau–Himalaya region and the identity of the yeti. Proceedings of the Royal Society B Published 29 November 2017.DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2017.1804 

Antibiotic weakness: When the medicines you take themselves help microbes survive?

A new study has found that medications can change body chemistry to make it more hospitable to invading microbes! 

Antibiotics save lives, but they are not fail-safe. Even when microbes haven’t acquired drug-evading genetic mutations—a hallmark of antibiotic resistance—the medications don’t always clear infections. A new study identifies a surprising reason why: At infection sites, antibiotics change the natural mixture of chemicals made by the body in ways that protect infecting bacteria. They also thwart the ability of the host’s immune cells to fight off the intruders.

These chemical changes were incited not by bacterial cells, but by the animals’ own cells. The researchers learned this after giving antibiotics to so-called “germ-free” mice that had no bacteria and saw the same chemical changes. 

Scientists are not sure how the chemicals elicit these effects. But they note some of the compounds slow down aspects of bacterial metabolism, making the antibiotics less lethal. Most antibiotics speed up bacterial metabolism while also de-stabilizing the metabolic process, leading to the build-up of toxic molecules inside the bacteria that help to kill them. With this process dampened, bacteria more easily survive.

The findings do suggest infections are complicated environments, and that antibiotics influence more than just bacterial cells, often in unexpected ways. And it is important to understand these complications for effective treatments.

These findings, published recently in Cell Host & Microbe, could help scientists “build more effective treatments''.

http://www.cell.com/cell-host-microbe/fulltext/S1931-3128(17)30455-9

A new wave of thought to fight super bugs

For the first time, China has overtaken the United States in terms of the total number of science publications, according to statistics compiled by the US National Science Foundation (NSF).

The agency’s report, released on January 18, documents the United States’ increasing competition from China and other developing countries that are stepping up their investments in science and technology. Nonetheless, the report suggests that the United States remains a scientific powerhouse, pumping out high-profile research, attracting international students and translating science into valuable intellectual property.

Sunday, 11 February, is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

In order to achieve full and equal access to and participation in science for women and girls, and further achieve gender equality and the empowerment of women and girls, the United Nations General Assembly adopted resolution A/RES/70/212 declaring 11 February as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

http://www.un.org/en/events/women-and-girls-in-science-day/

Lichens redefined...

For 150 years, scientists believed lichen were defined by a symbiotic relationship between a fungus and algae. The fungus provides structure and support for the organism, while the algae produces food through photosynthesis. However, researchers recently discovered that certain lichen have an additional fungus in the mix. This threesome was revealed after a team set out to explain what made one type of lichen toxic versus another that was seemingly identical.

Lichens may be a symbiosis of three organisms!

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2016/07/20/science.aaf8287