Cancer risk from obesity differs for men and women

 large study, published in BMC Medicine, included over 100,000* people. They found that a higher BMI (body mass index; a measure of total fat) is more dangerous for men, whereas a higher waist-to-hip ratio (your waist circumference divided by your hip circumference; a measure of abdominal fat) is more dangerous for women. To discover this, they used an approach, called Mendelian randomisation, that uses genetic information as a proxy measure for weight to investigate the effect of different body fat measures on colorectal cancer risk in men and women. An increase in BMI of about five kg/m2 raised the risk of colorectal cancer by 23 per cent for men, but only nine per cent for women. Whereas an equivalent increase in waist-to-hip ratio raised the risk for women by 25 per cent, this was only five per cent for men. 

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2020/december/obesity-cancer.html

https://researchnews.cc/news/4229/Cancer-risk-from-obesity-differs-...

Gravity Assist: The Bright Spot of the Asteroid Belt

Researchers to resuscitate eyes, speed up clinical research for vision impairment

Researchers to resuscitate eyes, speed up clinical research for vision impairment

Researchers are developing a new method to bring eyes back to life from deceased body donors for clinical research purposes.

They are creating a device that resuscitates eyes from the dead.Vision impairment affects over 250 million people worldwide, with thirty-six million people being blind. Retinal degeneration is often incurable, and ageing populations worldwide are major social and economic challenges.

The device, codenamed ECaBox, will be a transparent, cubic box that mimics conditions in the living human eye, maintaining the eye’s temperature and pH levels while avoiding blood clots and removing metabolic waste and toxins. Inside the ECaBox will be donor human eyeballs. The immediate goal is to test novel stem cell therapies without fear of risking patient harm on this platform.

Artificial blood will also be developed to provide cells with oxygen and nutrients, kick-starting the activity of nerve cells and restoring total eye function. Artificial vitreous humour will maintain the eye’s ocular pressure.

The health of the eyeball will be continuously monitored to confirm retinal function and regeneration. Beyond this scope, this technology can be extended to keep donor eyes intact for transplantation purposes, extending the current 48-hour window limit.

For many patients whose hope to restore their vision rests on emerging therapeutics, this research will mean a quicker and safer development cycle that will lead to the treatments becoming available sooner

Current technological limitations mean that eyes can only be kept at 4ºC for a period of 48 hours before irreversible degradation. This greatly limits their use for experiments, particularly to test the effectiveness of new drugs and treatments.

While advances in human organoids, growing tissues in a petri dish, are successfully mimicking the function of the eye, they fail to encapsulate the eye’s physiological complexity, such as its immune, vasculature, and metabolism systems.

There are a huge number of potential new treatments and therapies for eye damage and vision loss, but the eyewatering cost of running a clinical trial can mean they never reach the market.”

This new method can greatly improve the preclinical validation steps for these treatments, supporting the screening of a larger number of candidates and helping promising drugs escape the ‘valley of death’ imposed by cost-benefit analyses in the pharmaceutical industry.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/researchers-to-resuscitate-eyes-speed-up...

https://researchnews.cc/news/4226/Researchers-to-resuscitate-eyes--...

Octopuses punch fishes during collaborative interspecific hunting events

Octopuses Observed Punching Fish, Perhaps Out of Spite, Scientists Say

In new proof that 2020 has been a crappy year basically everywhere, scientists have captured video evidence of octopuses randomly punching at fish, possibly for no reason other than being spiteful.

While this remarkable, rather nasty-sounding behaviour might seem like it comes from a place of direct conflict between different animal species, that's not the whole story, researchers say.

In fact, this antisocial fish-punching phenomenon – which scientists term "active displacement" of fish – occurs in the midst of collaborative hunting efforts, in which octopuses and fish team up to chase and trap prey together.

https://twitter.com/OctoEduardo/status/1340076579108646913

https://twitter.com/ESAEcology/status/1341125791359373313?s=20

https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ecy.3266

Researchers find hydrogen-supported life beneath glaciers

Using years of data collected from ice-covered habitats all over the world, a research team has discovered new insights into the processes that support microbial life underneath ice sheets and glaciers, and the role those organisms play in perpetuating life through ice ages and, perhaps, in seemingly inhospitable environments on other planets.

The work examines the ways water and microbes interact with the bedrock beneath glaciers, using samples of sediment taken from glacial sites in Canada and Iceland. 

The researchers found organisms in these systems that were supported by hydrogen gas. 

A team of researchers later discovered that through a series of physical and chemical processes, hydrogen gas is produced as the silica-rich bedrock underneath glaciers is ground into tiny mineral particles by the weight of the ice on top of it. When those mineral particles combine with glacial meltwater, they let off hydrogen.

What became even more fascinating was that microbial communities under the glaciers could combine that hydrogen gas with carbon dioxide to generate more organic matter, called biomass, through a process called chemosynthesis. Chemosynthesis is similar to how plants generate biomass from carbon dioxide through photosynthesis, although chemosynthesis does not require sunlight.

As they use hydrogen  gas to generate energy the microbes also pull CO2out of the air to create biomass, replicate and grow. That ability to "fix" carbon is a critical climate regulation process, another similarity to photosynthesis in plants.

The newfound knowledge that self-sustaining microbial communities can flourish in icy environments through the generation of hydrogen gas is a critical step toward identifying potentially habitable environments on other planets.

Lithogenic hydrogen supports microbial primary production in subglacial and proglacial environments PNAS; doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2007051117

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It was also found that not only was it possible to track the communities' growth in the lab environment but also that the type of bedrock underlying a glacier influenced how much hydrogen gas was produced, which in turn led to the presence of microbial communities that were better adapted to metabolizing hydrogen.

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-hydrogen-supported-life-beneath-glaci...

Regulatory RNAs promote breast cancer metastasis

Scientists have discovered a gene-regulating snippet of RNA that may contribute to the spread of many breast cancers. In animal experiments, the researchers could reduce the growth of metastatic tumours with a molecule designed to target that RNA and trigger its destruction. The same strategy, they say, could be used to develop a new breast cancer treatment for patients.

They  identified dozens of RNA molecules that were more prevalent in breast cancer cells than in noncancerous cells of the same type. All were long, non-coding RNAs (lncRNAs)—RNA molecules that do not encode proteins and are thought to play various regulatory roles inside cells. The current study investigated how one of these, Mammary Tumor-Associated RNA 25 (MaTAR 25), impacted breast cancer cells' behavior in mice.

Experiments  indicate the molecule contributes to cancer's progression in several ways—revving up cells' growth as well as their ability to migrate and invade tissue. These effects may be due to changes in the activity of the tensin1 gene, which the team found is one of MaTAR 25's targets. Tensin1 helps connect a cell's internal cytoskeleton to the external matrix that surrounds it and is therefore positioned to influence a cell's movement as well as its growth-regulating pathways.

Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20207-y

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-regulatory-rnas-breast-cance...

Scientists discover mutations associated with early onset dementia

Scientists recently announced a significant advance in our understanding of an early onset form of dementia that may also progress our understanding of conditions such as Alzheimer's disease.

Adult onset Leukoencephalopathy with axonal Spheroids and Pigmented glia (ALSP) is an ultra-rare condition characterized by mutations in a gene called Colony stimulating factor-1 receptor (CSF1R). The condition manifests initially with psychiatric and behavioral changes in patients followed by a rapid progression of dementia in the third or fourth decade of life. While the condition is very rare, for affected families it can represent a devastating diagnosis.

As the condition involves the degeneration of white matter in the brain, scientists previously thought that immune cells within the brain termed microglia were the primary culprits in driving pathology observed in this condition.

However, the Trinity team, working with patient samples as well as pre-clinical models, were able to show that dysfunctional circulating white blood cells were the key driver of neurodegeneration.

These findings have shed light on a novel mechanism of neurodegeneration that may ultimately teach us more about common forms of dementia. Importantly, the work has identified that a disruption in CSF1R function in patients, as well as in pre-clinical models, induces damage to the so-called blood-brain barrier (BBB). This damage can subsequently change the integrity of capillaries in the brain, causing them to leak and spark the deterioration of the brain. Intriguingly, dysfunctional white blood cells seem to be the main driver of this BBB breakdown.

EMBO Molecular Medicine (2020). DOI: 10.15252/emmm.202012889

Researchers discover how the brain 're-wires' after disease

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-scientists-mutations-early-o...

Detecting COVID-19 antibodies in 10 seconds

Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University report findings on an advanced nanomaterial-based biosensing platform that detects, within seconds, antibodies specific to SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition to testing, the platform will help to quantify patient immunological response to the new vaccines with precision.

--

Visible hydrogels for rapid hemorrhage control and monitoring

There are many different events which may lead to excessive and uncontrolled bleeding within the body. This can occur as a result of inflammation and ulcerations, abnormalities in the blood vessels or trauma-related injuries. Individuals with predisposing conditions, such as cardiac patients, are at particular risk of internal bleeding due to the anticoagulants they are often prescribed as a preventive measure. They are also prone to gastrointestinal bleeds, affecting 40% of patients who are on cardiac assistance devices. In addition to the need for an effective treatment for these conditions, there are also indications for controlling the blood flow that contribute to aneurysms and tumor cell vascularization.

**

Masks not enough to stop COVID-19's spread without distancing: study

Simply wearing a mask may not be enough to prevent the spread of COVID-19 without social distancing.

In Physics of Fluids, researchers tested how five different types of mask materials impacted the spread of droplets that carry the coronavirus when we cough or sneeze.

Every material tested dramatically reduced the number of droplets that were spread. But at distances of less than 6 feet, enough droplets to potentially cause illness still made it through several of the materials.

"A mask definitely helps, but if the people are very close to each other, there is still a chance of spreading or contracting the virus".

Without a face mask, it is almost certain that many foreign droplets will transfer to the susceptible person. "Wearing a mask will offer substantial, but not complete, protection to a susceptible person by decreasing the number of foreign airborne sneeze and cough droplets that would otherwise enter the person without the mask. Consideration must be given to minimize or avoid close face-to-face or frontal human interactions, if possible."

The study also did not account for leakage from masks, whether worn properly or improperly, which can add to the number of droplets that make their way into the air.

"Can face masks offer protection from airborne sneeze and cough droplets in close-up, face-to-face human interactions? A quantitative study," Physics of Fluids, aip.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/5.0035072

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-masks-covid-distancing.html?utm_sourc...

**

Chemists describe a new form of ice

Scientists have described the structure and properties of a novel hydrogen clathrate hydrate that forms at room temperature and relatively low pressure. Hydrogen hydrates are a potential solution for storage and transportation of hydrogen, the most environmentally friendly fuel.
Ice is a highly complex substance that has multiple polymorphic modifications that keep growing in number as scientists make new discoveries. The physical properties of ice vary greatly, too: for example, hydrogen bonds become symmetric at high pressures, making it impossible to distinguish a single water molecule, whereas low pressures cause proton disorder, placing water molecules in many possible spatial orientations within the crystal structure. Ice around us, including snowflakes, is always proton-disordered. Ice can incorporate xenon, chlorine, carbon dioxide or methane molecules and form gas hydrates which often have a different structure from pure ice. The vast bulk of Earth's natural gas exists in the form of gas hydrates.
In their new study, the chemists focused on hydrogen hydrates. Gas hydrates hold great interest both for theoretical research and practical applications, such as hydrogen storage. If stored in its natural form, hydrogen poses an explosion hazard, whereas density is way too low even in compressed hydrogen. That is why scientists are looking for cost-effective hydrogen storage solutions.
This is not the first time we turn to hydrogen hydrates. In our previous research, we predicted a novel hydrogen hydrate with 2 hydrogen molecules per water molecule. Unfortunately, this exceptional hydrate can only exist at pressures above 380,000 atmospheres, which is easy to achieve in the lab, but is hardly usable in practical applications. The new paper describes hydrates that contain less hydrogen but can exist at much lower pressures.

Yu Wang et al. Novel Hydrogen Clathrate Hydrate, Physical Review Letters (2020). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.125.255702

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-chemists-ice.html?utm_source=nwletter...

Scientists invent glue activated by magnetic field

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore), have developed a new way to cure adhesives using a magnetic field.

Conventional adhesives like epoxy which are used to bond plastic, ceramics and wood are typically designed to cure using moisture, heat or light. They often require specific curing temperatures, ranging from room temperature up to 80 degrees Celsius.

The curing process is necessary to cross-link and bond the glue with the two secured surfaces as the glue crystallizes and hardens to achieve its final strength.

NTU's new 'magnetocuring' glue can cure by passing it through a magnetic field. This is very useful in certain environmental conditions where current adhesives do not work well. Also, when the adhesive is sandwiched between insulating material like rubber or wood, traditional activators like heat, light and air cannot easily reach the adhesive.

The new adhesive is made of two main components—a commercially available epoxy that is cured through heat, and oxide nanoparticles made from a chemical combination including manganese, zinc and iron (MnxZn_1-xFe₂O₄).

These nanoparticles are designed to heat up when electromagnetic energy is passed through them, activating the curing process. The maximum temperature and rate of heating can be controlled by these special nanoparticles, eliminating overheating and hotspot formation.

Richa Chaudhary et al, Magnetocuring of temperature failsafe epoxy adhesives, Applied Materials Today (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.apmt.2020.100824

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-scientists-magnetic-field.html?utm_so...

How Does SpaceX Build Their Rockets

We Just Got Closer to Smartphone Screens That Can 'Heal' Their Own Cracks

Dropping your smartphone often means living with a cracked screen until your next upgrade, or footing an expensive repair bill – but researchers have been busy bringing self-healing display technology closer to a practical reality.

A team from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) has developed a self-healing electronic material that can repair its own cracks and other physical damage, and it has one secret ingredient: linseed oil.

Linseed oil is made from flax plant seeds, and these same seeds were adapted by the researchers in a similar way in order to add them to colourless polyimide (CPI) – an alternative to glass that's already finding uses in folding smartphone screens.

That added oil ingredient is able to seep into cracks made when the CPI is fractured, and – if the scientists are able to get it working reliably at scale, could mean screens that are able to bandage their own wounds after a smash.

Researchers were able to develop a self-healing, colourless polyimide that can radically solve the physical properties and lifespan of damaged polymer materials.

The linseed oil that aids this self-healing was first loaded into microcapsules which were then mixed with a silicone material. That material was then used as a coating on top of CPI in the experiments the researchers ran.

The way that the material is designed means that breaks in the CPI also lead to breaks in the microcapsules, releasing the stored oil to repair the damage. When the oil substance hits the air, it hardens, and the material is almost as good as new.

Even better, this all works at room temperature and without the need for external pressure, unlike similar self-healing materials that have been explored before. Higher temperatures, greater humidity and ultraviolet light can speed up the healing process, the researchers report.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S135983682033...

https://www.sciencealert.com/we-re-another-step-towards-smartphone-...

Research team reports new class of antibiotics active against a wide range of bacteria

 Scientists have discovered a new class of compounds that uniquely combine direct antibiotic killing of pan drug-resistant bacterial pathogens with a simultaneous rapid immune response for combatting antimicrobial resistance (AMR).

Existing antibiotics target essential bacterial functions, including nucleic acid and protein synthesis, building of the cell membrane, and metabolic pathways. However, bacteria can acquire drug resistance by mutating the bacterial target the antibiotic is directed against, inactivating the drugs or pumping them out.

However, harnessing the immune system to simultaneously attack bacteria on two different fronts makes it hard for them to develop resistance. 

So researchers focused on a metabolic pathway that is essential for most bacteria but absent in humans, making it an ideal target for antibiotic development. This pathway, called methyl-D-erythritol phosphate (MEP) or non-mevalonate pathway, is responsible for biosynthesis of isoprenoids—molecules required for cell survival in most pathogenic bacteria. The lab targeted the IspH enzyme, an essential enzyme in isoprenoid biosynthesis, as a way to block this pathway and kill the microbes. Given the broad presence of IspH in the bacterial world, this approach may target a wide range of bacteria.

Researchers used computer modeling to screen several million commercially available compounds for their ability to bind with the enzyme, and selected the most potent ones that inhibited IspH function as starting points for drug discovery.

The team demonstrated that the IspH inhibitors stimulated the immune system with more potent bacterial killing activity and specificity than current best-in-class antibiotics when tested in vitro on clinical isolates of antibiotic-resistant bacteria, including a wide range of pathogenic gram negative and gram positive bacteria. In preclinical models of gram negative bacterial infection, the bactericidal effects of the IspH inhibitors outperformed traditional pan antibiotics. All compounds tested were shown to be nontoxic to human cells.

IspH inhibitors kill Gram-negative bacteria and mobilize immune clearance, Nature (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-03074-x , www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03074-x

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-team-class-antibiotics-wide-...

** Highest levels of microplastics found in molluscs, new study says

Mussels, oysters and scallops have the highest levels of microplastic contamination among seafood, a new study reveals.

The research looked at more than 50 studies between 2014 and 2020 to investigate the levels of microplastic contamination globally in fish and shellfish.

Scientists are still trying to understand the health implications for humans consuming fish and shellfish contaminated with these tiny particles of waste plastic, which finds its ways into waterways and oceans through waste mismanagement.

The paper, "Microplastic contamination of seafood intended for human consumption: a systematic review and meta-analysis" is published in Environmental Health Perspectives.

Plastic is blowing in the wind

As the plastic in our oceans breaks up into smaller and smaller bits without breaking down chemically, the resulting microplastics are becoming a serious ecological problem. A new study at the Weizmann Institute of Science reveals a troubling aspect of microplastics—defined as particles smaller than 5 mm across. They are swept up into the atmosphere and carried on the wind to far-flung parts of the ocean, including those that appear to be clear. Analysis reveals that such minuscule fragments can stay airborne for hours or days, spreading the potential to harm the marine environment and, by climbing up the food chain, to affect human health.

A handful of studies have found microplastics in the atmosphere right above the water near shorelines.

 Trainic, M., Flores, J.M., Pinkas, I. et al. Airborne microplastic particles detected in the remote marine atmosphere. Commun Earth Environ 1, 64 (2020). doi.org/10.1038/s43247-020-00061-

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-plastic.html?utm_source=nwletter&...

Play sport or watch it? You’re probably emitting an astonishing amount of CO₂!

Few people would stop to consider if their sporting activities damage the environment. But research shows people in some places use a huge chunk of their “personal carbon budget” driving to and from sport events each year – either to watch or participate, or to transport children. Travel for soccer, swimming, cricket, football, basketball and tennis featured most commonly, followed by gym, jogging, walking and golf. The analysis assumed walking and biking to an activity emits no greenhouse gases. Public transport accounts for less than 0.02 kilograms per kilometre (kg/km). A combustion engine car produces an average 0.29 kg/km. Such sport-related travel behaviour may be due to various factors, including: a long distance to sporting facilities sports facilities not served by public transport and not connected to safe cycle paths lifestyle choice and convenience persistent habits due to lack of awareness and role models. So now it’s time sports organisations turned their collective minds to better understanding the costs and damage caused by CO₂ emissions – and finding solutions.

https://theconversation.com/drive-to-football-take-your-kids-to-the...

Four ways microbial fuel cells might revolutionize electricity production in the future

The world population is estimated to reach 9.5 billion by 2050. Given that most of our current energy is generated from fossil fuels, this creates significant challenges when it comes to providing enough sustainable electricity while mitigating climate change.

One idea that has gained traction over recent years is generating electricity using bacteria in devices called microbial fuel cells (MFCs). These fuel cells rely on the ability of certain naturally occurring microorganisms that have the ability to "breathe" metals, exchanging electrons to create electricity. This process can be fuelled using substances called substrates, which include organic materials found in wastewater.

At the moment microbial fuel cells are able to generate electricity to power small devices such as calculators, small fans and LEDs.

Making jet fuel out of carbon dioxide

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in the U.K. and one in Saudi Arabia has developed a way to produce jet fuel using carbon dioxide as a main ingredient. In their paper published in the journal Nature Communications, the group describes their process and its efficiency.

The researchers used a process called the organic combustion method to convert carbon dioxide in the air into jet fuel and other products. It involved using an iron catalyst (with added potassium and manganese) along with hydrogen, citric acid and carbon dioxide heated to 350 degrees C. The process forced the carbon atoms apart from the oxygen atoms in CO₂ molecules, which then bonded with hydrogen atoms, producing the kind of hydrocarbon molecules that comprise liquid jet fuel. The process also resulted in the creation of water molecules and other products.

Testing showed that over 20 hours, the process converted 38% of the carbon dioxide in a pressurized chamber into jet fuel and other products. The jet fuel made up 48% of the produced products—the others were water, propylene and ethylene. The researchers also note that using this fuel in aircraft would be carbon-neutral because burning it would release the same amount of carbon dioxide that was used to make it.

The researchers also claim their process is less expensive than other methods used to produce fuel for airplanes, such as those that convert hydrogen and water into fuel—primarily because it uses less electricity. They also point out that conversion systems could be installed in plants that currently emit a lot of carbon dioxide, such as coal fired power plants.

Benzhen Yao et al. Transforming carbon dioxide into jet fuel using an organic combustion-synthesized Fe-Mn-K catalyst, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-20214-z

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-jet-fuel-carbon-dioxide.html?utm_sour...

Tiny Medical Devices with Shape Memory Polymers

We Now Have Shocking Evidence That Microplastic Particles Can Enter The Placenta

First evidence of microplastics in human placenta

The 21st century human is born into a world coated in a fine dust of petrochemical waste.

Our personal connection with microscopic fragments of plastic might even stretch back to the womb, with traces of the material recently found in the human placenta.

Placentas collected in a plastic-free environment from six mothers were sectioned, dissolved, and filtered to reveal 12 small pieces of coloured plastic, all somewhere between 5 and 10 micrometres in size. All came from just four of the placentas.

While four of the fragments were found in tissues belonging on the mother's side of the placenta, five were identified closer to the developing foetus. The last three were found embedded in the fine membrane that forms a wall around the amniotic fluid.

It might not seem like a huge number of particles, especially given their size. But it's important to remember the amount of tissue removed for analysis represents just a few percent of the organ's mass, hinting at far more microplastic fragments in total.

The placenta is an insanely complex aggregation of tissues shaped by millions of years of evolution to isolate an emerging life at the most crucial stage of its development.

Its function involves filtering pathogens and other potentially hazardous materials from the mother's bloodstream, while permitting various nutrients, antibodies, and oxygen to pass.

More than just a protective wall of meat, the organ also comprises diverse and dynamic systems of cells managed by a delicate balance of hormones and carefully timed biochemical reactions.

Whether any of the intrusive particles pose some kind of health risk to an unborn baby isn't yet clear. We'll need a lot more research before we can conclusively draw any firm links.

Since many plastic additives like the endocrine disruptor bisphenol A are known to interfere with our body's functions, their presence alone in such a sensitive part of the human body is deeply concerning.

"Due to the crucial role of placenta in supporting the foetus's development and in acting as an interface with the external environment, the presence of potentially harmful plastic particles is a matter of great concern," the team writes in their report.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0160412020322297

https://www.sciencealert.com/we-now-have-shocking-evidence-that-mic...

Scientists pioneer new method of measuring electricity in cells

Electricity is a key ingredient in living bodies. We know that voltage differences are important in biological systems; they drive the beating of the heart and allow neurons to communicate with one another. But for decades, it wasn't possible to measure voltage differences between organelles—the membrane-wrapped structures inside the cell—and the rest of the cell.

A pioneering technology now developed  allows researchers to peer into cells to see how many different organelles use voltages to carry out functions.

Tiny sensors were built to travel inside cells and report back on what's happening, so that researchers can understand how cells work—and how they break down in disease or disorders. Previously, they have built such machines to study neurons and lysosomes, among others.

In this case, they decided to use the technique to investigate the electric activities of the organelles inside live cells.

In the membranes of neurons, there are proteins called ion channels which act as gateways for charged ions to enter and exit the cell. These channels are essential for neurons to communicate. Previous research had shown that organelles have similar ion channels, but we weren't sure what roles they played.

The researchers' new tool, called Voltair, makes it possible to explore this question further. It works as a voltmeter measuring the voltage difference of two different areas inside a cell. Voltair is constructed out of DNA, which means it can go directly into the cell and access deeper structures.

In their initial studies, the researchers looked for membrane potentials—a difference in voltage inside an organelle versus outside. They found evidence for such potentials in several organelles, such as trans-Golgi networks and recycling endosomes, that were previously thought not to have membrane potentials at all.

The membrane potential in organelles could play a larger role—maybe it helps organelles communicate.

Anand Saminathan et al. A DNA-based voltmeter for organelles, Nature Nanotechnology (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41565-020-00784-1

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-scientists-method-electricity-cells.h...

Can't draw a mental picture? Aphantasia causes blind spots in the mind's eye

If you were asked to draw a picture of your grandparents' living room from memory, could you do it? For most people, certain details are easy to visualize: "There's a piano in the corner, a palm by the window and two seashells on the coffee table."

But for others, such a task would be almost impossible. These individuals have a rare condition called aphantasia, which prevents them from easily recreating images in their mind's eye—in fact, the phrase "mind's eye" may be meaningless to them.

"Some individuals with aphantasia have reported that they don't understand what it means to 'count sheep' before going to bed." They thought it was merely an expression, and had never realized until adulthood that other people could actually visualize sheep without seeing them.

The differences in the memory experiment were striking: Individuals with typical imagery usually drew the most salient objects in the room with a moderate amount of detail, like color and key design elements (a green carpet, rather than a rectangle).

Individuals with aphantasia had a harder time—they could place a few objects in the room, but their drawings were often simpler, and relied at times on written descriptions. For example, some wrote the word "window" inside an outline of a window rather than drawing the windowpanes.

While people with aphantasia lack visual imagery, they appear to have intact spatial memory, which is distinct from imagery and may be stored differently . People who are congenitally blind, for example, can still describe the layout of a familiar room.

even though people with aphantasia remembered fewer objects overall, they also made fewer mistakes: They didn't create any false memories of objects that hadn't been in any of the rooms, and placed objects in the correct location—but the wrong room—only three times.

"One possible explanation could be that because aphantasics have trouble with this task, they rely on other strategies like verbal-coding of the space. Their verbal representations and other compensatory strategies might actually make them better at avoiding false memories."

Wilma A. Bainbridge et al. Quantifying aphantasia through drawing: Those without visual imagery show deficits in object but not spatial memory, Cortex (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2020.11.014

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-mental-picture-aphantasia-mi...

**

Study on health effects and citizen resistance during the lockdown

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-publish-health-effects-citiz...

There’s no magic way to boost your energy. But ‘perineum sunning’ isn’t the answer

Perineum sunning is said to have roots in an ancient Taoist practice, where the perineum, or “Hui Yin”, is regarded as a gateway where energy enters and exits the body.

It’s probably also related to the idea that the sun has healing powers. Many years ago sun exposure was recommended after childbirth, and sunlamps were used in labour wards to ostensibly aid healing. But there was no evidence for this.

Some of the appeal of the trend might also lie in the fact many pale-skinned people like to be tanned.

That said, tanning is not the motivation behind the perineum sunning wellness trend. People who do it say it gives their body an intense dose of vitamin D, and therefore a significant energy boost.

It can also supposedly increase creativity, improve sleep, and even promote a healthy libido, among other reported benefits.

Read more: Your vagina cleans itself: why vagina cleaning fads are unnecessary...

But there’s no evidence to support any of these supposed benefits. Although there have been no scientific studies on perineum sunning to date. 

However, we can’t dismiss the placebo effect. For example, if someone thinks sunning their perineum will improve their libido, it probably will.

The main risk of perineum sunning is sunburn. Sun-exposed skin adapts to exposure to ultraviolet (UV) light by forming melanin, the natural protective pigment in skin that reduces the risk of sunburn. So when you get UV light on a part of your skin that’s not accustomed to sun exposure, you’re much more likely to get burnt.

If you do get sunburnt in this sensitive area, it’s likely to be very sore. You won’t be able to have sex for about a week, and it might sting to urinate.

And of course, UV is a known carcinogen, which is why nowadays we discourage any kind of tanning. Sunburn can increase your risk of skin cancer, and chronic UV exposure can raise skin cancer risk even without causing sunburn.

https://theconversation.com/theres-no-magic-way-to-boost-your-energ...

How could stars help us detect life on other planets?

The Year's Biggest Breakthroughs in Biology

The Year's Biggest Breakthroughs in Physics

Different people will show different views on the best science breakthroughs of the year. We present some of them here.

One such view: The biggest and most important scientific breakthroughs of 2020

https://au.news.yahoo.com/most-important-scientific-breakthroughs-o...

When light and atoms share a common vibe

An especially counter-intuitive feature of quantum mechanics is that a single event can exist in a state of superposition – happening both here and there, or both today and tomorrow.

Such superpositions are hard to create, as they are destroyed if any kind of information about the place and time of the event leaks into the surrounding – and even if nobody actually records this information. But when superpositions do occur, they lead to observations that are very different from that of classical physics, questioning down to our very understanding of space and time.

Scientists demonstrated a state of vibration that exists simultaneously at two different times, and evidence this quantum superposition by measuring the strongest class of quantum correlations between light beams that interact with the vibration.

The researchers used a very short laser-pulse to trigger a specific pattern of vibration inside a diamond crystal. Each pair of neighboring atoms oscillated like two masses linked by a spring, and this oscillation was synchronous across the entire illuminated region. To conserve energy during this process, a light of a new color is emitted, shifted toward the red of the spectrum.

This classical picture, however, is inconsistent with the experiments. Instead, both light and vibration should be described as particles, or quanta: light energy is quantized into discrete photons while vibrational energy is quantized into discrete phonons (named after the ancient Greek “photo = light” and “phono = sound”).

The process described above should therefore be seen as the fission of an incoming photon from the laser into a pair of photon and phonon – akin to nuclear fission of an atom into two smaller pieces.

But it is not the only shortcoming of classical physics. In quantum mechanics, particles can exist in a superposition state, like the famous Schrödinger cat being alive and dead at the same time.

Even more counterintuitive: two particles can become entangled, losing their individuality. The only information that can be collected about them concerns their common correlations. Because both particles are described by a common state (the wavefunction), these correlations are stronger than what is possible in classical physics. It can be demonstrated by performing appropriate measurements on the two particles. If the results violate a classical limit, one can be sure they were entangled.

In the new study, EPFL researchers managed to entangle the photon and the phonon (i.e., light and vibration) produced in the fission of an incoming laser photon inside the crystal. To do so, the scientists designed an experiment in which the photon-phonon pair could be created at two different instants. Classically, it would result in a situation where the pair is created at time t1 with 50% probability, or at a later time t2 with 50% probability.

But here comes the “trick” played by the researchers to generate an entangled state. By a precise arrangement of the experiment, they ensured that not even the faintest trace of the light-vibration pair creation time (t1 vs. t2) was left in the universe. In other words, they erased information about t1 and t2. Quantum mechanics then predicts that the phonon-photon pair becomes entangled, and exists in a superposition of time t1andt2. This prediction was beautifully confirmed by the measurements, which yielded results incompatible with the classical probabilistic theory.

By showing entanglement between light and vibration in a crystal that one could hold in their finger during the experiment, the new study creates a bridge between our daily experience and the fascinating realm of quantum mechanics.

https://researchnews.cc/news/4299/When-light-and-atoms-share-a-comm...

https://actu.epfl.ch/news/when-light-and-atoms-share-a-common-vibe/

When light and atoms share a common vibe- explained below

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When light and atoms share a common vibe

1. A laser generates a very short pulse of light 2. A fraction of this pulse is sent to a nonlinear device to change its color 3. The two laser pulses overlap on the same path again, creating a “write & read” pair of pulses. 4. Each pair is split into a short and a long path, 5. yielding an “early” and a “late” time slot, overlapping once again 6. Inside the diamond, during the “early” time slot, one photon from the “write” pulse may generate a vibration, while one photon from the “read” pulse converts the vibration back into light. 7. The same sequence may also happen during the “late” slot. But in this experiment, the scientists made sure that only one vibration is excited in total (in both early and late time slots). 8. By overlapping the photons in time again it becomes impossible to discriminate the early vs. late moment of the vibration. The vibration is now in a quantum superposition of early and late time. 9. In the detection apparatus, “write” and “read” photons are separated according to their different colors, and analyzed with single-photon counters to reveal their entanglement. Full article: https://actu.epfl.ch/news/when-light-...

Breaking bad: How shattered chromosomes make cancer cells drug-resi...

Researchers recently described how a phenomenon known as chromothripsis breaks up chromosomes, which then reassemble in ways that ultimately promote cancer cell growth. Chromothripsis is a catastrophic mutational event in a cells history that involves massive rearrangement of its genome, as opposed to a gradual acquisition of rearrangements and mutations over time. Genomic rearrangement is a key characteristic of many cancers, allowing mutated cells to grow or grow faster, unaffected by anti-cancer  therepies.

These rearrangements can occur in a single step. During chromothripsis, a chromosome in a cell is shattered into many pieces, hundreds in some cases, followed by reassembly in a shuffled order. Some pieces get lost while others persist as extra-chromosomal DNA (ecDNA). Some of these ecDNA elements promote cancer cell growth and form minute-sized chromosomes called ‘double minutes.

Research found that up to half of all cancer cells in many types of cancers contain ecDNA carrying cancer-promoting genes. The scientists also identified how chromothripsis drives ecDNA formation after gene amplification inside a chromosome.

Chromothripsis converts intra-chromosomal amplifications (internal) into extra-chromosomal (external) amplifications and that amplified ecDNA can then reintegrate into chromosomal locations in response to DNA damage from chemotherapy or radiotherapy. The new work highlights the role of chromothripsis at all critical stages in the life cycle of amplified DNA in cancer cells, explaining how cancer cells can become more aggressive or drug-resistant.

https://health.ucsd.edu/news/releases/Pages/breaking-bad-how-shatte...

https://researchnews.cc/news/4292/Breaking-bad--How-shattered-chrom...

Putting The History Of Earth Into Perspective

The first endovascular technology that can explore capillaries

 The cardiovascular system is astonishing. It uses the blood that circulates in our veins and arteries to transport oxygen and nutrients to every tissue in the body.

Researchers  have decided to harness hydrokinetic energy (mechanical energy resulting from the motion of liquids) to get to places in the human body without resorting to invasive methods. “Large proportions of the brain remain inaccessible because the existing tools are unwieldy, and exploring the tiny, intricate cerebral vascular system without causing tissue damage is extremely difficult.

Doctors can access patients’ arteries by pushing and rotating guidewires, and later sliding hollow tubes called catheters. However, when arteries begin to narrow, especially in the brain, this advancement technique reveals its limits. Scientists now engineered tethered microscopic devices that could be introduced into capillaries with unprecedented speed and ease. The devices consist of a magnetic tip and an ultraflexible body made of biocompatible polymers. Since no mechanical force is applied directly at the vessel wall, the risk of causing any damage is very low. Moreover, harnessing blood flow could reduce the operation time from several hours to a couple of minutes. Both the release of the device and magnetic steering are under computer control. Furthermore, there is no need for force feedback as the tip of the device does not push against the vessel walls. 

Researchers at EPFL’s School of Engineering tested the device inside artificial microvasculature systems. The next phase will involve tests on animals with state-of-the-art medical imaging systems. Scientists are also hoping to develop other devices with a range of on-board actuators and sensors.

https://actu.epfl.ch/news/the-first-endovascular-technology-that-ca...

https://researchnews.cc/news/4309/The-first-endovascular-technology...

Harnessing blood flow to navigate endovascular microrobots

10 times science made a sucky year suck less

Clapping seals, Great conjunction, COVID-19 vaccines, stink flirting...here's the amazing science of 2020.

https://www.livescience.com/10-times-science-made-sucky-year-suck-l...

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Top science and technology achievements of India in 2020

New SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody enters clinical phase

Cologne University Hospital (UKK), University of Marburg (UMR), the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF) and Boehringer Ingelheim announced the initiation of Phase 1/2a clinical investigation of BI 767551, a new SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibody. By combining UKK, UMR and DZIFs expertise in virology, immunology and clinical investigation with Boehringer Ingelheims expertise in developing and manufacturing therapeutic antibodies, the partners developed BI 767551 as a potential new therapeutic and preventive/prophylactic option for fighting COVID-19. Virus neutralizing antibodies are expected to become an important line of defense against SARS-CoV-2, complementing vaccines and nonpharmaceutical interventions. They are being investigated as a therapy option for individuals with mild or severe infections, but also as prevention or prophylaxis in non-infected people with a high risk of infection or at risk .

Anti-diarrhea drug drives cancer cells to cell death

Scientists two years ago found evidence indicating that the anti-diarrhea drug loperamide could be used to induce cell death in glioblastoma cell lines. They have now deciphered its mechanism of action and, in doing so, are opening new avenues for the development of novel treatment strategies.

In certain types of tumor cells, administration of loperamide leads to a stress response in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), the cell organelle responsible for key steps in protein synthesis in the body. The stress in the ER triggers its degradation, followed by self-destruction of the cells. This mechanism, known as autophagy-dependent cell death occurs when cells undergo hyperactivated autophagy. Normally, autophagy regulates normal metabolic processes and breaks down and recycles the valuable parts of damaged or superfluous cell components thus ensuring the cell's survival, for example in the case of nutrient deficiency. In certain tumor cells, however, hyperactivation of autophagy destroys so much cell material that they are no longer capable of surviving.

The loperamide-induced death of glioblastoma cells could help in the development of new therapeutic approaches for the treatment of this severe form of cancer.

Svenja Zielke et al, ATF4 links ER stress with reticulophagy in glioblastoma cells, Autophagy (2020). DOI: 10.1080/15548627.2020.1827780

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-anti-diarrhea-drug-cancer-ce...

Gut cells sound the alarm when parasites invade

To effectively combat an infection, the body first has to sense it's been invaded, then the affected tissue must send out signals to corral resources to fight the intruder. Knowing more about these early stages of pathogen recognition and response may provide scientists with crucial clues when it comes to preventing infections or treating inflammatory diseases resulting from overactive immunity.

When scientists looked for the very first "danger" signals emitted by a host infected with the parasite, they traced them not to an immune cell, as might have been expected, but to epithelial cells lining the intestines, where Cryptosporidium sets up shop during an infection. Known as enterocytes, these cells take up nutrients from the gut, and here they were shown to alert the body to danger via the molecular receptor NLRP6, which is a component of what's known as the inflammasome.

You can think about the inflammasome as an alarm system in a house.

Earlier researchers have focused on immune cells, like macrophages and dendritic cells, as being the first to detect foreign invaders, but this new finding underscores that cells not normally thought of as part of the immune system—in this case intestinal epithelial cells—are playing key roles in how how an immune response gets launched.

There is a growing body of literature that is really appreciating what epithelial cells are doing to help the immune system sense pathogens. They seem to be a first line of defense against infection.

Adam Sateriale el al., "The intestinal parasite Cryptosporidium is controlled by an enterocyte intrinsic inflammasome that depends on NLRP6," PNAS (2020). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2007807118

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-gut-cells-alarm-parasites-in...

German care home workers accidentally given five times covid vaccine dose

Eight care home workers in Germany were accidentally injected with five doses of the COVID-19 vaccine, local authorities said Monday—but are suffering no serious ill effects so far.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-german-home-workers-vaccine-...

https://www.thelocal.de/20201228/german-care-home-workers-accidenta...

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The triumph of science

Number of americans willing to get COVID-19 vaccine continues to rise

When queried in polls conducted earlier this year, only about half of American adults said they planned to get any vaccine against the new coronavirus. But after a largely successful rollout this month of two safe and effective shots, many of those initial doubters now say they'll line up to get their vaccine doses when their turn comes.

Vaccine  polls earlier showed vaccine  acceptance rates rising from about 50% this summer to more than 60% and, in one poll, 73%. Resistance is fading slowly among most groups.

That last number approaches the threshold scientists have deemed necessary for herd immunity, where enough of a population is immune and the spread of the coronavirus begins to recede.

This change is due to the fantastic stats associated with the vaccines, according to skeptics. Media campaigns, including on-camera moments with politicians and scientists—such as Vice President Mike Pence, President-Elect Joe Biden and Dr. Anthony Fauci—all rolling up their sleeves for the shots may have also helped boost acceptance.

People say ... "the news that it was 95% effective sold me". The side effects sound like what you get after a bad night of drinking and you hurt the next day. Well, we've had many of those and can deal with that to get rid of the face masks and covid infection nightmare.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-americans-covid-vaccine-1.ht...

Anti-counterfeiting tech by NUS researchers does reliable AI authentication under extreme conditions

Albert Einstein's brain was removed within seven and a half hours of his death. His brain has attracted attention because of his supposed reputation as one of the foremost geniuses of the 20th century.
Einstein's autopsy was conducted in the lab of Thomas Stoltz Harvey. The story is interesting. Einstein did not want his brain or body to be studied. Harvey took the brain anyway, without permission from Einstein or his family, dissected and studied it.
Although several things were attributed to his brain structure, experts say these studies are flawed. Because all human brains are unique and different from others in some ways. Therefore, assuming unique features in Einstein's brain were connected with his genius goes beyond the evidence. Moreover, correlating unusual brain features with any characteristic requires studying many brains with those features, and scanning the brains of many very capable scientists would be better research than investigating the brains of just one or two geniuses.

So we don't give much importance to any of the things mentioned about Einstein's brain. Flawed research doesn't need our attention.

The strange afterlife of Einstein's brain

Did you know that in 1110, the Moon Vanished from our view. Here are the answers to the Q why:

We know this event happened because researchers have drilled and analysed ice cores - samples taken from deep within ice sheets or glaciers, which have trapped sulphur aerosols produced by volcanic eruptions reaching the stratosphere and settling back on the surface.

Ice can thus preserve evidence of volcanism over incredibly long timescales, but pinpointing the precise date of an event that shows up in the layers of an ice core is still tricky business.

In this case, scientists had assumed the sulphurous deposit was left by a major eruption unleashed in 1104 by Iceland's Hekla, a volcano sometimes called the 'Gateway to Hell'. Since the thin strip of ice ranks among the largest sulfate deposition signals of the last millennium, it sounds plausible.

All the evidence, taken together, suggests a 'forgotten' cluster of volcanic eruptions in 1108 to 1110 unleashed terrible consequences on humanity. We're only rediscovering them now.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-63339-3

https://www.sciencealert.com/in-1110-the-moon-vanished-from-the-sky...

**Using wood to build satellites

Japanese company Sumitomo Forestry has announced a joint development project with Kyoto University to test the idea of using wood as a component in satellite construction. As part of the announcement, officials with Sumitomo Forestry told reporters that work on the project will begin with experiments designed to test different types of wood in extreme environments.

Some of the major components in most satellites include aluminum, Kevlar and aluminum alloys, which are able to withstand both temperature extremes and constant bombardment by radiation—all in a vacuum. Unfortunately, these characteristics also allow satellites to remain in orbit long after their usefulness has ended, resulting in constant additions to the space junk orbiting the planet.

https://techxplore.com/news/2020-12-japanese-pairing-wood-satellite...

Quadriplegic patient uses brain signals to feed himself with two advanced prosthetic arms

**Switching DNA functions on and off with light

DNA is the basis of life on earth. The function of DNA is to store all the genetic information an organism needs to develop, function and reproduce. It is essentially a biological instruction manual found in every cell. Biochemists at the University of Münster have now developed a strategy for controlling the biological functions of DNA with the aid of light. This enables researchers to better understand and control the processes that take place in the cell—for example, epigenetics, the key chemical change and regulatory lever in DNA.

The cell's functions depend on enzymes. Enzymes are proteins that carry out chemical reactions in the cell. They help to synthesize metabolic products, make copies of the DNA molecules, convert energy for the cell's activities, change DNA epigenetically and break down certain molecules. A team of researchers headed by Prof. Andrea Rentmeister from the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of Münster used a so-called enzymatic cascade reaction to understand and track these functions better. This sequence of successive reaction steps involving different enzymes makes it possible to transfer so-called photocaging groups—chemical groups that can be removed by means of irradiation with light—to DNA. Previously, studies had shown that only small residues (small modifications such as methyl groups) could be transferred selectively to DNA, RNA (ribonucleic acid) or proteins.

 Freideriki Michailidou et al, Maßgeschneiderte SAM‐Synthetasen zur enzymatischen Herstellung von AdoMet‐Analoga mit Photoschutzgruppen und zur reversiblen DNA‐Modifizierung in Kaskadenreaktionen, Angewandte Chemie (2020). DOI: 10.1002/ange.202012623

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-dna-functions.html?utm_source=nwlette...

Crops grown in Bangalore high on toxic heavy metals

Scientists in Bangalore, India have found toxic levels of four heavy metals, chromium, nickel, cadmium and lead, in crops and vegetables grown on soil irrigated with water from six lakes in the city, reports a study published December in Current Science.

According to the study, the 17 lakes in and around Bangalore, a bustling city of more than 12 million people, have become part of the city's drainage system, into which flow untreated sewage and industrial effluents from garment factories, electroplating industries, distilleries and other small-scale but polluting units. However, many farmers are now using water from these lakes to irrigate and water vegetable crops.

Researchers analysed the soil and vegetable crops such as spinach, coriander greens, amaranth and kohlrabi, irrigated with water from six of these lakes—Margondanahalli, Yele Mallappa Shetty, Hoskote, Varthur, Byramangala and Jigani.

Soils irrigated by these lakes accumulate heavy metals to varying degrees depending on their concentration in the water and the frequency of irrigation, said the authors of the study. "The heavy metals are absorbed by the crops along with other essential plant nutrients."

Heavy metal contamination in soils and crops irrigated with lakes of Bengaluru, Current Science.
DOI: 10.18520/cs/v119/i11/1845-1849

https://phys.org/news/2020-12-crops-grown-bangalore-high-toxic.html...

Provided by SciDev.Net

Scientists turn toxic pesticide into treatment against antibiotic-r...

N-Aryl-C-nitroazoles are an important class of heterocyclic compounds. They are used as pesticides and fungicides. However, these substances could be toxic to humans and cause mutations. As they are not frequently used, there is little data about them in the medicinal chemistry literature. However, it has been suggested recently that the groups of compounds that are traditionally avoided can help to fight pathogenic bacteria.

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The puzzle of nonhost resistance: why do pathogens harm some plants...

People have puzzled for years why pathogen Phytophthora infestens causes the devastating late blight disease, source of the Irish Potato famine, on potatoes, but has no effect at all on plants like apple or cucumber. How are apple trees and cucumber plants able to completely shake off this devastating pathogen? Agricultural scientists have wondered for years: if this resistance is so complete and persists over so many generations, is there some way we could transfer it to susceptible plants like wheat and thereby stop disease?

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Condition causes loss of vertigo perception and imbalance in TBI patients

A condition that causes loss of vertigo perception and imbalance has been diagnosed in traumatic brain injury patients for the first time.

In a clinical study led by researchers at Imperial College London and clinicians at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, out of 37 patients with acute traumatic brain injury (TBI), fifteen were diagnosed with a newly characterized neurological diagnosis called vestibular agnosia—a condition in the brain which results in loss of vertigo perception and imbalance.

The team also found that these patients have worse balance problems than TBI patients without vestibular agnosia and are unlikely to experience dizziness—one of the main criteria to assess balance problems in TBI patients. As a result doctors are seven times more likely to miss cases of balance dysfunction in TBI patients with vestibular agnosia than in those without.

Elena Calzolari et al. Vestibular agnosia in traumatic brain injury and its link to imbalance, Brain (2020). DOI: 10.1093/brain/awaa386

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-12-condition-loss-vertigo-perce...

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