Lawyers used sheepskin as anti-fraud device for hundreds of years to stop fraudsters

Medieval and early modern lawyers chose to write on sheepskin parchment because it helped prevent fraud, new analysis suggests.

Experts have identified the species of animals used for British legal documents dating from the 13th to 20th century, and have discovered they were almost always written on sheepskin, rather than goatskin or calfskin vellum.

This may have been because the structure of sheepskin made attempts to remove or modify text obvious.

Sheep deposit fat in-between the various layers of their skin. During parchment manufacture, the skin is submerged in lime, which draws out the fat leaving voids between the layers. Attempts to scrape off the ink would result in these layers detaching—known as delamination—leaving a visible blemish highlighting any attempts to change any writing.

Sheepskin has a very high fat content, accounting for as much as 30 to 50 percent, compared to 3 to 10 percent in goatskin and just 2 to 3 percent in cattle. Consequently, the potential for scraping to detach these layers is considerably greater in sheepskin than those of other animals.

The continuing use of sheepskin over goat or calfskin in later centuries was likely influenced by their greater availability and lower cost.

 Scratching the surface: the use of sheepskin parchment to deter textual erasure in early modern legal deeds, Doherty et al. Heritage Science 2021, DOI: 10.1186/s40494-021-00503-6

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-lawyers-sheepskin-anti-fraud-device-h...

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Frequent consumption of meals prepared away from home associated with an increased risk of death

Dining out is a popular activity worldwide, but there has been little research into its association with health outcomes. Investigators looked at the association between eating out and risk of death and concluded that eating out very frequently is significantly associated with an increased risk of all-cause death, which warrants further investigation. Their results appear in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics.

Although some restaurants provide high-quality foods, the dietary quality for meals away from home, especially from fast-food chains, is usually lower compared with meals cooked at home. Evidence has shown that meals away from home tend to be higher in energy density, fat, and sodium, but lower in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, and protective nutrients such as dietary fiber and antioxidants.

Emerging, although still limited, evidence suggests that eating out frequently is associated with increased risk of chronic diseases, such as obesity and diabetes and biomarkers of other chronic diseases. This new research shows  that frequent consumption of meals prepared away from home is significantly associated with increased risk of all-cause mortality.

 "Association Between Frequency of Eating Away-From-Home Meals and Risk of All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality," Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.jand.2021.01.012

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-03-frequent-consumption-meals-h...

Engineers make filters from tree branches to purify drinking water

The interiors of nonflowering trees such as pine and ginkgo contain sapwood lined with straw-like conduits known as xylem, which draw water up through a tree's trunk and branches. Xylem conduits are interconnected via thin membranes that act as natural sieves, filtering out bubbles from water and sap.

Engineers have been investigating sapwood's natural filtering ability, and have previously fabricated simple filters from peeled cross-sections of sapwood branches, demonstrating that the low-tech design effectively filters bacteria.

Now they have advanced the technology and shown that it works in real-world situations. They have fabricated new xylem filters that can filter out pathogens such as E. coli and rotavirus in lab tests, and have shown that the filter can remove bacteria from contaminated spring, tap, and groundwater. They also developed simple techniques to extend the filters' shelf-life, enabling the woody disks to purify water after being stored in a dry form for at least two years.

The researchers took their techniques to India, where they made xylem filters from native trees and tested the filters with local users. Based on their feedback, the team developed a prototype of a simple filtration system, fitted with replaceable xylem filters that purified water at a rate of one liter per hour.

Their results, published today in Nature Communications, show that xylem filters have potential for use in community settings to remove bacteria and viruses from contaminated drinking water.

Krithika Ramchander, Megha Hegde, Anish Paul Antony, Luda Wang, Kendra Leith, Amy Smith, Rohit Karnik. Engineering and characterization of gymnosperm sapwood toward enabling the design of water filtration devices. Nature Communications, 2021; 12 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22055-w

https://techxplore.com/news/2021-03-filters-tree-purify.html?utm_so...

Scientists find evidence that novel coronavirus infects the mouth's cells

An international team of scientists has found evidence that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, infects cells in the mouth. While it's well known that the upper airways and lungs are primary sites of SARS-CoV-2 infection, there are clues the virus can infect cells in other parts of the body, such as the digestive system, blood vessels, kidneys and, as this new study shows, the mouth. The potential of the virus to infect multiple areas of the body might help explain the wide-ranging symptoms experienced by COVID-19 patients, including oral symptoms such as taste loss, dry mouth and blistering. Moreover, the findings point to the possibility that the mouth plays a role in transmitting SARS-CoV-2 to the lungs or digestive system via saliva laden with virus from infected oral cells. A better understanding of the mouth's involvement could inform strategies to reduce viral transmission within and outside the body.

In salivary gland tissue from one of the people who had died, as well as from a living person with acute COVID-19, the scientists detected specific sequences of viral RNA that indicated cells were actively making new copies of the virus—further bolstering the evidence for infection.

Once the team had found evidence of oral tissue infection, they wondered whether those tissues could be a source of the virus in saliva. This appeared to be the case. In people with mild or asymptomatic COVID-19, cells shed from the mouth into saliva were found to contain SARS-CoV-2 RNA, as well as RNA for the entry proteins.

To determine if virus in saliva is infectious, the researchers exposed saliva from eight people with asymptomatic COVID-19 to healthy cells grown in a dish. Saliva from two of the volunteers led to infection of the healthy cells, raising the possibility that even people without symptoms might transmit infectious SARS-CoV-2 to others through saliva.

the study's findings suggest that the mouth, via infected oral cells, plays a bigger role in SARS-CoV-2 infection than previously thought.

Nature Medicine (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-021-01296-8

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-03-scientists-evidence-coronavi...

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Researchers develop 15-minute test to assess immune response

Researchers from Critical Analytics for Manufacturing Personalized-Medicine (CAMP) have developed a new label-free immune profiling assay that profiles the rapidly changing host immune response in case of infection, in a departure from existing methods that focus on detecting the pathogens themselves, which can often be at low levels within a host. This novel technology presents a host of advantages over current methods, being both much faster, more sensitive and accurate.

In many cases, the main culprit behind disease manifestation, severity of infection, and patient mortality is an overly aggressive host immune response.

For instance, the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918 resulted in a disproportionately high number of deaths among otherwise healthy young adults. This has been attributed to the now well-studied phenomenon of cytokine storms, which precipitate the rapid release of immune cells and inflammatory molecules and are brought on by a hyper-aggressive host immune response. In a more recent example, cases of severe COVID-19 infection often result in death via sepsis and a dysregulated immune response, while current risk stratification methods based on age and comorbidity remain a significant challenge and can be inaccurate. Moreover, current COVID-19 testing does not prognose the severity of the immune response and can thus lead to inefficient deployment of resources in healthcare settings.

In cases of acute infection, the status of a patient's immune response can often be volatile and may change within minutes. Hence, there exists a pressing need for assays that are able to rapidly and accurately inform on the state of the immune system. This is particularly vital in early triage among patients with acute infection and prediction of subsequent deterioration of disease. In turn, this will better empower medical personnel to make more accurate initial assessments and deliver the appropriate medical response. This can ensure timely intervention in the emergency department (ED) and prevent admission to the intensive care unit (ICU).

The new assay developed by SMART researchers focuses on profiling the rapidly changing host inflammatory response, which in a hyper-aggressive state, can lead to sepsis and death. A 15-minute label-free immune profiling assay from 20 µL of unprocessed blood using unconventional L and inverse-L shaped pillars of DLD microfluidic technology was developed, functioning as a sensitive and quantitative assay of immune cell biophysical signatures in relation to real-time activation levels of WBCs. As WBCs are activated by various internal or external triggers, the assay can sensitively measure both the extent and direction of these changes, which in turn reflect a patient's current immune response state. As such, the new assay developed by SMART researchers is able to accurately and quickly assess patients' immune response states by profiling immune cell size, deformability, distribution, and cell counts.

Significantly, the new assay provides considerable advantages over existing methods of profiling the immune system and its activity. These include measuring leukocyte gene expression, cell-surface biochemical markers, and blood serum cytokine profile.

Kerwin Kwek Zeming et al. Label‐Free Biophysical Markers from Whole Blood Microfluidic Immune Profiling Reveal Severe Immune Response Signatures, Small (2021). DOI: 10.1002/smll.202006123

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-minute-immune-response.html?utm_sourc...

Scientist discovers a new type of 'bi-molecule' with applications for quantum sensors

Researchers found a new type of bi-molecule formed from two nitric oxide (NO) molecules, both in their ground state and in the Rydberg electronic state.

This new type of bi-molecule is the result of the union of two molecules of nitric oxide (NO) whose structure is arranged in such a way that the NO and NO⁺ ion are located in opposite poles. The electron orbits around both, acting like a "glue" that binds the bi-molecule. In addition, its size corresponds to between 200 and 1,000 times that of NO, and its lifetime is long enough to enable its observation and experimental control, as these fragile systems are easily manipulated by means of very weak electric fields.

This type of bi-molecule enables researchers to implement and study chemical reactions at low temperatures from a quantum perspective and facilitates the investigation of intermolecular interactions at large distances, since they coexist at low temperatures.

Rosario González-Férez et al. Ultralong-Range Rydberg Bimolecules, Physical Review Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.043401

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scientist-bi-molecule-applications-qu...

New Way of Identification of a Place and Tracking

Meet the zeptosecond, the shortest unit of time ever measured

Scientists have measured the shortest unit of time ever: the time it takes a light particle to cross a hydrogen molecule. 

That time, for the record, is 247 zeptoseconds. A zeptosecond is a trillionth of a billionth of a second, or a decimal point followed by 20 zeroes and a 1. Previously, researchers had dipped into the realm of zeptoseconds; in 2016, researchers reporting in the journal Nature Physics used lasers to measure time in increments down to 850 zeptoseconds. This accuracy is a huge leap from the 1999 Nobel Prize-winning work that first measured time in femtoseconds, which are millionths of a billionths of seconds. 

It takes femtoseconds for chemical bonds to break and form, but it takes zeptoseconds for light to travel across a single hydrogen molecule (H2).

https://www.space.com/zeptosecond-shortest-time-unit-measured.html

A technique to track Earth’s subtle movements with orbiting radars is heating up

Scientists Created an Artificial Early Embryo From Human Skin Cells

We all know how human reproduction works: sperm meets egg, fertilized egg kicks off its journey, transforms into a human embryo, then becomes a fetus and ultimately a baby.

But what if boy meets girl isn’t the only way?

Last week, two studies in Nature torpedoed the classic narrative of the beginning of life. Two independent teams coaxed ordinary skin cells into a living cluster that resembled a fertilized human egg—and the very first stages of a developing human embryo.

To be clear, the teams did not engineer an artificial embryo that could develop into a viable baby. Rather, they replicated what happens during the first four days after an egg has been fertilized; it develops into a ball of cells called a blastocyst, the first station towards a full-formed baby.

Though they didn’t get beyond the blastocyst stage, both models are by far the most complete replicas of an early human embryo to date. They don’t just contain cells that grow into a baby, but also all of the supporting structures. Within just 10 days inside a Jello-like incubator, the reverse-engineered cells showed traits astonishingly similar to their natural counterparts. For example, the artificial embryos generated cells that form the placenta, which is critical for a viable embryo that could, in theory, develop further or even until birth.

It’s the first complete model of the human early embryo. 

These studies offer a new window into the first days of pregnancy, and may provide insight into previously inexplicable infertility or pregnancy loss without experimenting on human embryos.

Yet the sophistication of these cells is raising concerns. For now, because the artificial embryos differ from natural ones in several ways, scientists don’t expect them to have the ability to grow into complete embryos. As the technologies further refine, however, it may become possible to grow artificial human embryos for longer periods, putting the technology on a collision course with debates about the beginning of life.

The first 14 days of building a human are a mystery.

Scientists know that during a pregnancy, a fertilized egg develops into a blastocyst around day four, and it then implants around day eight. Around this time, something “magical” happens within the blastocyst, such that it churns out cells that eventually develop into the placenta, and others that give rise to a fetus.

The problem? This initial stage is incredibly hard to study. Thus far, scientists have relied on discarded human embryos in the lab—often from IVF outcasts—which can be grown to 13 days according to ethics guidelines

https://singularityhub.com/2021/03/23/scientists-created-an-artific...

How teeth sense the cold

For people with sensitive teeth, eating cold foods is hell. It's a unique kind of pain. It's just excruciating. an international team of scientists have figured out how teeth sense the cold and pinpointed the molecular and cellular players involved. In both mice and humans, tooth cells called odontoblasts contain cold-sensitive proteins that detect temperature drops, the team reports March 26, 2021, in the journal Science Advances. Signals from these cells can ultimately trigger a jolt of pain to the brain.

The work offers an explanation for how one age-old home remedy eases toothaches. The main ingredient in clove oil, which has been used for centuries in dentistry, contains a chemical that blocks the "cold sensor"protein.

Developing drugs that target this sensor even more specifically could potentially eliminate tooth sensitivity to cold. Once you have a molecule to target, there is a possibility of treatment.

 L. Bernal el al., "Odontoblast TRPC5 channels signal cold pain in teeth," Science Advances (2021). advances.sciencemag.org/lookup … .1126/sciadv.abf5567

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Teeth decay when films of bacteria and acid eat away at the enamel, the hard, whitish covering of teeth. As enamel erodes, pits called cavities form. Roughly 2.4 billion people—about a third of the world's population—have untreated cavities in permanent teeth, which can cause intense pain, including extreme cold sensitivity.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-03-teeth-cold.html?utm_source=n...

The cell signal of death

Scientists have revealed molecular mechanisms involved in eliminating unwanted cells in the body. A nuclear protein fragment released into the cytoplasm activates a plasma membrane protein to display a lipid on the cell surface, signaling other cells to get rid of it. The findings were published in the journal Molecular Cell.

Every day, 10 billion cells die and are engulfed by blood cells called phagocytes. If this didn't happen, dead cells would burst, triggering an auto-immune reaction. It is important to understand how dead cells are eliminated as part of our body's maintenance.

Scientists already know that dead cells display an 'eat me' signal on their surface that is recognized by phagocytes. During this process, lipids are flipped between the inner and outer parts of the cell membrane via a variety of proteins called scramblases, mostly using a protein called Xkr4. It was found that found that a nuclear protein fragment activates Xkr4 to display the 'eat me' signal to phagocytes.

Specifically, the scientists found that cell death signals lead to an enzyme cutting a nuclear protein called XRCC4. A fragment of XRCC4 leaves the nucleus, activating Xkr4, which forms a dimer: the linking of identical pieces into configurations. Both XRCC4 binding and dimer formation are necessary for Xkr4 to ultimately transfer lipids on the cell surface to alert phagocytes.

Xkr4 is only one of the scrambling proteins. Others are activated much faster during cell death. 

Masahiro Maruoka et al, Caspase cleavage releases a nuclear protein fragment that stimulates phospholipid scrambling at the plasma membrane, Molecular Cell (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2021.02.025

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-cell-death.html?utm_source=nwletter&a...

Direct observations confirm that humans are throwing Earth's energy budget off balance

Earth is on a budget—an energy budget. Our planet is constantly trying to balance the flow of energy in and out of Earth's system. But human activities are throwing that off balance, causing our planet to warm in response.

Radiative energy enters Earth's system from the sunlight that shines on our planet. Some of this energy reflects off of Earth's surface or atmosphere back into space. The rest gets absorbed, heats the planet, and is then emitted as thermal radiative energy the same way that black asphalt gets hot and radiates heat on a sunny day. Eventually this energy also heads toward space, but some of it gets re-absorbed by clouds and greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The absorbed energy may also be emitted back toward Earth, where it will warm the surface even more.

Adding more components that absorb radiation—like greenhouse gases—or removing those that reflect it—like aerosols—throws off Earth's energy balance, and causes more energy to be absorbed by Earth instead of escaping into space. This is called a radiative forcing, and it's the dominant way human activities are affecting the climate.

Climate modeling predicts that human activities are causing the release of greenhouse gases and aerosols that are affecting Earth's energy budget. Now, a NASA study has confirmed these predictions with direct observations for the first time: radiative forcings are increasing due to human actions, affecting the planet's energy balance and ultimately causing climate change. The paper was published online March 25, 2021, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

It was found that  human activities have caused the radiative forcing on Earth to increase by about 0.5 Watts per square meter from 2003 to 2018. The increase is mostly from greenhouse gases emissions from things like power generation, transport and industrial manufacturing. Reduced reflective aerosols are also contributing to the imbalance.

 Ryan J. Kramer et al. Observational evidence of increasing global radiative forcing, Geophysical Research Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1029/2020GL091585

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-humans-earth-energy.html?utm_source=n...

How microorganisms can help us get to net negative emissions

Many of the common items we use in our everyday lives—from building materials to plastics to pharmaceuticals—are manufactured from fossil fuels. To reduce our reliance on fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, society has increasingly tried turning to plants to make the everyday products we need. For example, corn can be turned into corn ethanol and plastics, lignocellulosic sugars can be turned into sustainable aviation fuels, and paints can be made from soy oil.

But what if plants could be removed from the picture, eliminating the need for water, fertilizer, and land? What if microbes could instead be harnessed to make fuels and other products? And what if these microbes could grow on carbon dioxide, thus simultaneously producing valuable goods while also removing a greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, all in one reactor? 

Scientists have made good progress in turning this technology into reality. A project developed by them project combines biology and electrochemistry to produce complex molecules, all powered by renewable energy. With carbon dioxide as one of the inputs, the system has potential to remove heat-trapping gases from the atmosphere, or in other words, a negative emissions technology (NET).

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-microorganisms-net-negative-emissions...

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Cooling homes without warming the planet

As global temperatures are increasing, demand for air conditioners is expected to triple by 2050. The surge will multiply what is already a major source of greenhouse gas emissions: Air conditioning is currently responsible for almost 20 percent of electricity use in buildings around the world.

Now the startup Transaera is working to curb those energy demands with a more efficient air conditioner that uses safer refrigerants to cool homes. The company believes its machine could have one-fifth the impact on the climate when compared to traditional ACs. 

The thing about air conditioning is the basic technology hasn't changed much since it was invented 100 years ago. 

That will change rapidly if Transaera's small team is successful. The company is currently a finalist in a global competition to redesign the air conditioner. The winner of the competition, named the Global Cooling Prize, will get $1 million to commercialize their machines.

At the heart of Transaera's design is a class of highly porous materials called metal organic frameworks, or MOFs, that passively pull moisture from the air as the machine works. MOFs have a lot of potential applications, but the thing that's held them back is unit economics and the inability to make them in a cost-effective way at scale. What Transaera aims to do is be the first to commercialize MOFs at scale and lead the breakthrough that brings MOFs into the public domain.

Most people think air conditioners only cool the air in a space, but they also dry the air they're cooling. Traditional machines use something called an evaporator, a cold coil to pull water out of the air through condensation. The cold coil must be made much colder than the desired temperature in the room in order to collect moisture. Pulling moisture out of the air takes up about half of the electricity used by traditional air conditioners.

Transaera's MOFs passively collect moisture as air enters the system. The machine's waste heat is then used to dry the MOF material for continuous reuse.

https://news.mit.edu/2021/transaera-air-conditioner-0326

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-cooling-homes-planet.html?utm_source=...

Molecule attacks coronavirus in a novel way

Scientists at the University of Bonn and the caesar research center have isolated a molecule that might open new avenues in the fight against SARS coronavirus 2. The active ingredient binds to the spike protein that the virus uses to dock to the cells it infects. This prevents them from entering the respective cell, at least in the case of model viruses. It appears to do this by using a different mechanism than previously known inhibitors. The researchers therefore suspect that it may also help against viral mutations. The study will be published in the journal Angewandte Chemie but is already available online.

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Differences in snake venom composition raise questions about treatment

Snakebite kills around 58,000 Indians annually, and a majority of snakebites that lead to death or disability are attributed to the 'big four' of Indian snakes—the Russell's viper (Daboia russelii), one of the deadliest snake species in the world, the spectacled cobra (Naja naja), the common krait (Bungarus caeruleus) and the saw-scaled viper (Echis carinatus). Commercial antivenom treatment for snakebite does not always prove effective, and despite the severity of the problem in India, few efforts have been made to understand why this is so.

Octopuses, like humans, sleep in two stages

When researchers filmed captive Octopus insularis octopuses sleeping in their tanks, they recorded alternating phases of “quiet sleep”, in which the creatures were pale and still, followed by short spurts of “active sleep”, in which their skin turned darker and stiffened, they moved their eyes, and muscular twitches contracted their suckers. In mammals, birds and perhaps in reptiles, this two-stage sleep pattern is thought to help consolidate memories and clear waste from the brain. Because our last common ancestor with octopuses lived more than 500 million years ago, it seems that the molluscs evolved this sleeping pattern separately, so its function remains unclear.

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/03/octopuses-humans-sleep-two-...

The physics of the stuck Suez ship

High winds combined with ship–bank interaction effects might have sent the huge container ship Ever Given into a spin in the shallow waters of the Suez Canal, suggests hydrodynamicist Evert Lataire. The boat has been wedged fast in the essential shipping route since Tuesday. Bank effects occur in restricted navigation areas, where water displaced by a ship has nowhere to go. As a ship passes close to the side of a shallow channel, the water in the gap must speed up, causing the stern to pull into the bank and the bow to be pushed away. In the case of the Ever Given, the effect could have caused the ship to veer into the opposite bank, as shown in this VesselFinder video.

Excess blood sugar promotes clogging of arteries: study

Excess sugar in the blood, the central feature of diabetes, can react with immune proteins to cause myriad changes in the immune system, including inflammatory changes that promote atherosclerosis, according to a new study from scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and University of Massachusetts Medical School. The study, published March 15 in the journal Immunity, advances the field of diabetes research by revealing molecular pathways through which the disorder may cause other serious health problems for patients. In principle, these newly revealed pathways could be targeted with future diabetes drugs.

Testing the Best Bomb Detectors

It's snowing plastic

The snow may be melting, but it is leaving pollution behind in the form of micro- and nano-plastics according to a McGill study that was recently published in Environmental Pollution. The pollution is largely due to the relatively soluble plastics found in antifreeze products (polyethylene glycols) that can become airborne and picked up by the snow.

The researchers used a new technique that they have developed to analyze snow samples collected in April 2019 in Montreal for both micro- and nano-sized particles of various plastics. The McGill technique is orders of magnitude more sensitive than any of the other current methods used for tracing plastic in the environment. It allows scientists to detect ultra-trace quantities of many of the most common soluble and insoluble plastics in snow, water, rainfall, and even in soil samples once they have been separated – down to the level of a picogram (or one trillionth of a gram). It is based on using nano-structured mass spectrometry and, unlike other techniques currently in use, the new technique is both recyclable and based on sustainable practices.

https://researchnews.cc/news/5835/It-s-snowing-plastic#.YF7xN68zbIU

First Report of Horizontal Gene Transfer Between Plant and Animal

Whiteflies overcome a toxin in plants they eat through the use of the plant’s own genetic protection, likely ferried from plant to insect millions of years ago by a virus.

In the first known example of horizontal gene transfer between a plant and an animal, a common pest known as the whitefly (Bemisia tabaci) acquired a gene from the one of the various plants it feeds on, researchers reported today (March 25) in Cell. The gene, BtPMaT1, protects the insects from phenolic glycosides, toxins that many plants produce to defend themselves against such pests, thus allowing the whiteflies to feast.

J. Xia et al., “Whitefly hijacks a plant detoxification gene that neutralizes plant toxins,” Cell, doi:10.1016/j.cell.2021.02.014, 2021.

Corals may need their predators' poop

Scientists Discover Deep-Sea Microbes That Are Invisible to Our Immune System

Bacteria collected from more than a mile below the surface of the Pacific Ocean may have just blown one of immunology's longest-held assumptions clean out of the water.

The bacteria are so alien to humans that our immune cells do not even register that they exist, making them completely invisible to our immune systems.

This totally contradicts one of the classic tenets of immunology – that the human immune system evolved to be able to sense every single microbe so it could catch the infectious ones.

"The idea was that the immune system is a generalist, it doesn't care if something was a threat or not, it just got rid of it. But no one had really pressure tested that assumption until now.

To test this, the researchers had to find bacteria that were unlikely to have ever had previous contact with mammalian immune systems. They chose a spot deep in the central Pacific Ocean, in the Phoenix Islands Protected Area in Kiribati, 1,650 miles (2,655 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii.

"It's not just the deep ocean, but the most deep, ancient, remote, and protected part of the ocean. It's 4,000 meters (13,100 feet) deep; there are no resident mammals; and it's on the equatorial space where there wouldn't even be any whales for there to be any whale falls. 

Once there, researchers used a remote submarine to collect marine bacteria from samples of water, sponge, sea star, and sediment, before growing them into 117 culturable species.

After identifying the features of their bacteria, the researchers introduced 50 of the strains to mouse and human immune cells. To their surprise, they found that 80 percent of the microbes, mostly belonging to the genus Moritella, escaped detection. The receptors on the mammalian bone marrow immune cells used in the study were incapable of seeing them.

To try to narrow down which features of the marine bacteria made them invisible to our immune receptors, the team also exposed the mouse and human cells to just one specific part of the bacterial cell wall, called the lipopolysaccharide (LPS). Mammalian immune systems are known to use this outermost part of the bacterial cell wall to recognize so-called gram-negative bacteria and put up a fight.

The researchers found that the mammal cells' receptors were blind to the LPS on its own, too.

"The LPS molecules looked similar to what you'd find in bacteria on land, but many of them were completely silent," Kagan said. "This is because the lipid chains on the LPS turned out to be much longer than the ones we're used to on land, but we still don't know why that means they can go undetected."

Despite their spooky ability to evade detection, the researchers said that deep-sea bacteria don't pose any risk of infecting people. 

Firstly, they haven't evolved to evade mammalian immune systems, so if there was any pathogenicity it would be accidental. The second reason it's highly unlikely is that the temperatures, pressures, and the chemical environments inside our bodies are so different to what you'd find at the bottom of the ocean. These bacteria aren't happy for more than a few minutes outside of their normal habitat.

https://immunology.sciencemag.org/content/6/57/eabe0531

https://www.sciencealert.com/scientists-discover-deep-sea-microbes-...

Study confirms evolutionary link between social structure and selfishness

Researchers revealed that less selfish behavior evolved under living conditions that forced individuals to interact more frequently with siblings. More selfishness makes you not to interact with your siblings. While the finding was verified with insect experiments,  the evolutionary principle could be applied to study any species, including humans.

In laboratory tests, researchers showed they could predictably increase or decrease rates of cannibalism in Indian meal moths by decreasing how far individuals could roam from one another, and thus increasing the likelihood of "local" interactions between sibling larvae. In habitats where caterpillars were forced to interact more often with siblings, less selfish behavior evolved within 10 generations.

In societies or cultures that live in big family groups among close relatives, for example, you might expect to see less selfish behavior, on average, than in societies or cultures where people are more isolated from their families and more likely to be surrounded by strangers because they have to move often for jobs or other reasons.

Mike Boots et al, Experimental evidence that local interactions select against selfish behaviour, Ecology Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1111/ele.13734

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-evolutionary-link-social-selfishness....

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Scientists create simple synthetic cell that grows and divides normally

Five years ago, scientists created a single-celled synthetic organism that, with only 473 genes, was the simplest living cell ever known. However, this bacteria-like organism behaved strangely when growing and dividing, producing cells with wildly different shapes and sizes.

Now, scientists have identified seven genes that can be added to tame the cells' unruly nature, causing them to neatly divide into uniform orbs. This achievement

was described in the journal Cell.

Identifying these genes is an important step toward engineering synthetic cells that do useful things. Such cells could act as small factories that produce drugs, foods and fuels; detect disease and produce drugs to treat it while living inside the body; and function as tiny computers.

But to design and build a cell that does exactly what you want it to do, it helps to have a list of essential parts and know how they fit together.

Cell (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.03.008

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Scientists at JCVI constructed the first cell with a synthetic genome in 2010. They didn't build that cell completely from scratch. Instead, they started with cells from a very simple type of bacteria called a mycoplasma. They destroyed the DNA in those cells and replaced it with DNA that was designed on a computer and synthesized in a lab. This was the first organism in the history of life on Earth to have an entirely synthetic genome. They called it JCVI-syn1.0.

Since then, scientists have been working to strip that organism down to its minimum genetic components. The super-simple cell they created five years ago, dubbed JCVI-syn3.0, was perhaps too minimalist. The researchers have now added 19 genes back to this cell, including the seven needed for normal cell division, to create the new variant, JCVI-syn3A. This variant has fewer than 500 genes. To put that number in perspective, the E. coli bacteria that live in your gut have about 4,000 genes. A human cell has around 30,000.

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scientists-simple-synthetic-cell.html...

A third of global farmland at 'high' pesticide pollution risk

A third of the planet's agricultural land is at "high risk" of pesticide pollution from the lingering residue of chemical ingredients that can leach into water supplies and threaten biodiversity, according to research published recently.

The use of pesticides has soared globally as agricultural production has expanded, prompting growing fears over environmental damage and calls to cut hazardous chemical use.

Researchers in Australia modelled pollution risk across 168 countries with data on the usage of 92 active pesticide ingredients and found "widespread global pesticide pollution risk".

They highlighted several acutely vulnerable ecosystems in South Africa, China, India, Australia and Argentina, at the nexus of high pollution risk, high water scarcity and high biodiversity.

The study, published in Nature Geoscience, found that overall 64 percent of global agricultural land —approximately 24.5 million square kilometres (9.4 million sq miles)—was at risk of pesticide pollution from more than one active ingredient, and 31 percent is at high risk.

It is significant because the potential pollution is widespread and some regions at risk also bear high biodiversity and suffer from water scarcity.

Risk of pesticide pollution at the global scale, Nature Geoscience (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-021-00712-5

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-global-farmland-high-pesticide-pollut...

New drug to regenerate lost teeth

Antibody for USAG-1 shown to stimulate tooth growth

A new study by scientists at Kyoto University and the University of Fukui, however, may offer some hope. The team reports that an antibody for one gene -- uterine sensitization associated gene-1 or USAG-1 -- can stimulate tooth growth in mice suffering from tooth agenesis, a congenital condition. The paper was published in Science Advances.

Although the normal adult mouth has 32 teeth, about 1% of the population has more or fewer due to congenital conditions. Scientists have explored the genetic causes for cases having too many teeth as clues for regenerating teeth in adults.

According to researchers the fundamental molecules responsible for tooth development have already been identified. The morphogenesis of individual teeth depends on the interactions of several molecules including BMP, or bone morphogenetic protein, and Wnt signaling.

The paper "Anti-USAG-1 therapy for tooth regeneration through enhanced BMP signaling" appeared 12 February 2021 in the journal Science Advances, with doi: 10.1126/sciadv.abf1798

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-03/ku-ndt032921.php

Self healing robots

Physicists flip particle accelerator setup to gain a clearer view of atomic nuclei

Physicists at MIT and elsewhere are blasting beams of ions at clouds of protons —like throwing nuclear darts at the speed of light—to map the structure of an atom's nucleus.

The experiment is an inversion of the usual particle accelerators, which hurl electrons at atomic nuclei to probe their structures. The team used this "inverse kinematics" approach to sift out the messy, quantum mechanical influences within a nucleus, to provide a clear view of a nucleus' protons and neutrons, as well as its short-range correlated (SRC) pairs. These are pairs of protons or neutrons that briefly bind to form super-dense droplets of nuclear matter and that are thought to dominate the ultradense environments in neutron stars.

The results, published today in Nature Physics, demonstrate that inverse kinematics may be used to characterize the structure of more unstable nuclei—essential ingredients scientists can use to understand the dynamics of neutron stars and the processes by which they generate heavy elements.

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Particle accelerators typically probe nuclear structures through electron scattering, in which high-energy electrons are beamed at a stationary cloud of target nuclei. When an electron hits a nucleus, it knocks out protons and neutrons, and the electron loses energy in the process. Researchers measure the energy of the electron beam before and after this interaction to calculate the original energies of the protons and neutrons that were kicked away.

While electron scattering is a precise way to reconstruct a nucleus' structure, it is also a game of chance. The probability that an electron will hit a nucleus is relatively low, given that a single electron is vanishingly small in comparison to an entire nucleus. To increase this probability, beams are loaded with ever-higher electron densities.

Scientists also use beams of protons instead of electrons to probe nuclei, as protons are comparably larger and more likely to hit their target. But protons are also more complex, and made of quarks and gluons, the interactions of which can muddy the final interpretation of the nucleus itself.

To get a clearer picture, physicists in recent years have inverted the traditional setup: By aiming a beam of nuclei, or ions, at a target of protons, scientists can not only directly measure the knocked out protons and neutrons, but also compare the original nucleus with the residual nucleus, or nuclear fragment, after it has interacted with a target proton.

"With inverted kinematics, we know exactly what happens to a nucleus when we remove its protons and neutrons.

Unperturbed inverse kinematics nucleon knockout measurements with a carbon beam, Nature Physics (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-021-01193-4

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-physicists-flip-particle-setup-gain.h...

Researchers discover how animals grow their pointy body parts

An interdisciplinary research team  discovered a new universal rule of biological growth that explains surprising similarities in the shapes of sharp structures across the tree of life, including teeth, horns, claws, beaks, animal shells, and even the thorns and prickles of plants.

Animals and plants often grow in specific patterns, like logarithmic spirals following the golden ratio. There are very simple processes that generate these patterns—a logarithmic spiral is produced when one side of a structure grows faster than another at a constant ratio. We can call these 'rules of growth', and they help us understand why organisms are certain shapes.

In the new study published today in BMC Biology, the research team demonstrates a new rule called the 'power cascade' based on how the shape 'cascades' down a tooth following a power law.

When an elephant tusk grows longer, it grows wider at a very specific rate following a 'power law'—a mathematical pattern where there is a straight-line relationship between the logarithm of the tooth's width and length. Power laws are found throughout nature, such as in the magnitudes of earthquakes, the sizes of cities, and the movement of the stock market.

This pattern applies across many animals, in the teeth of giant sharks, Tyrannosaurus rex, mammoths, and even humans. Remarkably, this power law works for claws, hooves, horns, spider fangs, snail shells, antlers, and the beaks of mammals, birds, and dinosaurs. Beyond animals, the team also observed it in the thorns of the rose bush and lemon tree. This was found   almost everywhere researchers looked across the kingdoms of life—in living animals and those extinct for millions of years.

The new study shows that shells and other shapes such as teeth and horns are in fact the power cascade shape (called a 'power cone').

Because so many structures follow this growth pattern, we can use it to predict the likely pattern of evolution. Whenever animals evolve teeth, horns, or claws, it seems most likely that they will be this shape. It even allows us to predict what mythical animals would look like if they follow the same patterns of nature.

BMC Biology (2021). DOI: 10.1186/s12915-021-00990-w

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-animals-pointy-body.html?utm_source=n...

Scientists identify molecular pathway that helps moving cells avoid aimless wandering

Working with fruit flies, scientists  have identified a new molecular pathway that helps steer moving cells in specific directions. The set of interconnected proteins and enzymes in the pathway act as steering and rudder components that drive cells toward an "intended" rather than random destination.

These same molecular pathways, according to the scientists, may drive cancer cells to metastasize or travel to distant areas of the body and may also be important for understanding how cells assemble and migrate in an embryo to form organs and other structures.

Scientists more specifically pin pointed gene called Tre1 and its role. 

In experiments with fruit fly embryos carrying an intact Tre1 gene, cells that produce future generations of the organism, called germ cells, migrate correctly to the sex organ, known as the gonad.

Without the Tre1 gene, however, most of the germ cells failed to meet up with other nongerm cells, or somatic cells, of the gonad.

Ji Hoon Kim et al, Hedgehog signaling and Tre1 regulate actin dynamics through PI(4,5)P2 to direct migration of Drosophila embryonic germ cells, Cell Reports (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.108799

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This is not the first time that scientists noted Tre1's importance in germ cell navigation. Two research teams from Indiana University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology had previously made the link.

It was already known that the Tre1 gene encodes a protein that spans the cell membrane multiple times and pokes out onto the cell's surface. It's a member of a large family of proteins called G protein-coupled receptors, which enable cells to communicate and respond to signals from other cells and light and odor cues. Nearly 35% of  approved medicines target G protein-coupled receptors.

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-scientists-molecular-pathway-cells-ai...

New physics at the Large Hadron Collider? Scientists are excited, but it's too soon to be sure

https://theconversation.com/new-physics-at-the-large-hadron-collide...

https://sciencex.com/news/2021-03-physics-large-hadron-collider-sci...

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Oil-eating bacteria could help to tackle spills

A team of scientists from Heriot-Watt University has created an underwater observatory in the Faroe-Shetland Channel—and found its waters are teeming with oil-eating bacteria that could help deal with future oil spills.

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How to talk to people about climate change

As our planet warms, seas rise and catastrophic weather events become more frequent, action on climate change has never been more important. But how do you convince people who still don't believe that humans contribute to the warming climate?

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Satellite light pollution is everywhere

There seems to be nowhere left on Earth to view the stars without encountering light pollution from space stuff. After analysing light scattered off the collective cloud of satellites and debris above Earth, researchers found that human-made objects cast a background glow on the night sky even whe.... Stargazers might not be able to notice the difference with the naked eye, but astronomers worry that the pervasive glare of debris orbiting Earth could obscure our view of distant galaxies. “As space gets more crowded, the magnitude of this effect will only be more, not less,” says astronomer John Barentine.

 A rapid, sensitive test for detection of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2

Neuroscientists have identified a brain circuit that stops mice from mating with others that appear to be sick

When someone is sick, it's natural to want to stay as far from them as possible. It turns out this is also true for mice, according to an MIT study that also identified the brain circuit responsible for this distancing behaviour.

In a study that explores how otherwise powerful instincts can be overridden in some situations, researchers from MIT's Picower Institute for Learning and Memory found that when male mice encountered a female mouse showing signs of illness, the males interacted very little with the females and made no attempts to mate with them as they normally would. The researchers also showed that this behavior is controlled by a circuit in the amygdala, which detects distinctive odors from sick animals and triggers a warning signal to stay away.

Earlier  studies have shown that mice can distinguish between healthy mice and mice that have been injected with a bacterial component called LPS, which induces mild inflammation when given at a low dose. These studies suggested that mice use odor, processed by their vomeronasal organ, to identify sick individuals.

To explore whether mice would change their innate behavior when exposed to sick animals, the researchers placed male mice in the same cage with either a healthy female or a female that was showing LPS-induced signs of illness. They found that the males engaged much less with the sick females and made no effort to mount them.

The researchers then tried to identify the brain circuit underlying this behavior. The vomeronasal organ, which processes pheromones, feeds into a part of the amygdala called the COApm, and the MIT team found that this region is activated by the presence of LPS-injected animals.

Further experiments revealed that activity in the COApm is necessary to suppress the males' mating behavior in the presence of sick females. When COApm activity was turned off, males would try to mate with sick females. Additionally, artificially stimulating the COApm suppressed mating behavior in males even when they were around healthy females.

 An amygdala circuit that suppresses social engagement, Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03413-6

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-neuroscientists-brain-circuit-mice-si...

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Here’s why humans chose particular groups of stars as constellations

Scientists simulate how humans trace patterns in the night sky

Stargazers can easily pick out the shape of a constellation. Now, scientists have shown that three factors can explain why certain groups of stars form such recognizable patterns.

To replicate how humans perceive the celestial sphere, a team of researchers considered how the eye might travel randomly across this night sky. Human eyes tend to move in discrete jumps, called saccades (SN: 10/31/11), from one point of interest to another. Scientists created a simulation that incorporated the distribution of lengths of those saccades, combined that with basic details of the night sky as seen from Earth — namely the apparent distances between neighboring stars and their brightnesses. The technique could reproduce individual constellations.

Ancient people from various cultures connected similar groupings of stars independently of each other. this indicates that there are some fundamental aspects of human learning … that influence the ways in which we organize information.

S. David et al. Free energy model of the human perception of a starry sky. American Physical Society March Meeting. March 18, 2021.

DNA can be collected from air, scientists show for first time

Scientists have shown for the first time that DNA can be collected from the air. The finding could provide new techniques for forensics researchers, anthropologists, and even help in the understanding of the transmission of airborne diseases like COVID-19, they say.

The team looked at whether environmental DNA (eDNA) could be collected from air samples and used to identify animal species. Most similar studies to date have focused on the collection of eDNA from water.

But the new proof-of-concept study, published in the journal PeerJ, showed that airDNA sampling could successfully detect naked mole rat DNA and human DNA in the air.

They first took air samples from a room which had housed naked mole-rats, and then used existing techniques to check for DNA sequences within the sampled air.

Using this approach, the research team showed that airDNA sampling could successfully detect mole rat DNA within the animals’ housing and from the room itself. They also found human DNA in the air samples, suggesting a potential use of this sampling technique for forensic applications.

https://peerj.com/articles/11030/

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/dna-can-be-collected-from-air-sci...

How brain cells repair their DNA reveals 'hot spots' of aging and disease

Neurons lack the ability to replicate their DNA, so they're constantly working to repair damage to their genome. Now, a new study by Salk scientists finds that these repairs are not random, but instead focus on protecting certain genetic "hot spots" that appear to play a critical role in neural identity and function.

The findings, published in the April 2, 2021, issue of Science, give novel insights into the genetic structures involved in aging and neurodegeneration, and could point to the development of potential new therapies for diseases such Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and other age-related dementia disorders.

"This research shows for the first time that there are sections of genome that neurons prioritize when it comes to repair.

Unlike other cells, neurons generally don't replace themselves over time, making them among the longest-living cells in the human body. Their longevity makes it even more important that they repair lesions in their DNA as they age, in order to maintain their function over the decades of a human life span. As they get older, neurons' ability to make these genetic repairs declines, which could explain why people develop age-related neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.

To investigate how neurons maintain genome health, the study authors developed a new technique they term Repair-seq. The team produced neurons from stem cells and fed them synthetic nucleosides—molecules that serve as building blocks for DNA. These artificial nucleosides could be found via DNA sequencing and imaged, showing where the neurons used them to make repairs to DNA that was damaged by normal cellular processes. While the scientists expected to see some prioritization, they were surprised by just how focused the neurons were on protecting certain sections of the genome.

"Incorporation of a nucleoside analog maps genome repair sites in postmitotic human neurons" Science (2021). science.sciencemag.org/cgi/doi … 1126/science.abb9032

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-brain-cells-dna-reveals-hot....

Physicists observe new phase in Bose-Einstein condensate of light pa...

About 10 years ago, researchers at the University of Bonn produced an extreme aggregate photon state, a single "super-photon" made up of many thousands of individual light particles, and presented a completely new light source. The state is called an optical Bose-Einstein condensate and has captivated many physicists ever since, because this exotic world of light particles is home to its very own physical phenomena. Researchers led by Prof. Dr. Martin Weitz, who discovered the super photon, and theoretical physicist Prof. Dr. Johann Kroha now report a new observation: a so-called overdamped phase, a previously unknown phase transition within the optical Bose-Einstein condensate. The study has been published in the journal Science.

Hubble Shows Torrential Outflows from Infant Stars May Not Stop Them from Growing

A Visual Guide to the New Coronavirus Variants

Butterflies Behaving Badly: What They Don’t Want You to Know

Butterflies have had us fooled for centuries. They bobble around our gardens, all flappy and floppy, looking so pretty with their shimmering colors.

But butterflies have a dark side. For one thing, those gorgeous colors: They’re often a warning. And that’s just the beginning. All this time, butterflies been living secret lives that most of us never notice.

Take this zebra longwing, Heliconius charithonia. It looks innocent enough. 

But it’s also famously poisonous, and its caterpillars are cannibals that eat their siblings. And that’s hardly shocking compared with its propensity for something called pupal rape.

Once you know that a pupa is the butterfly in its chrysalis—in between being a larva and an adult—then pupal rape is pretty much what it sounds like. As a female gets ready to emerge from her chrysalis, a gang of males swarms around her, jostling and flapping wings to push each other aside. The winner of this tussle mates with the female, but he’s often so eager to do so that he uses his sharp claspers to rip into the chrysalis and mate with her before she even emerges. Since the female is trapped in the chrysalis and has no choice in the matter, the term pupal rape came about, though some biologists refer to it more charitably as “forced copulation” or simply pupal mating.

One day in Kenya’s North Nandi forest, Dino Martins, an entomologist, watched a spectacular battle between two white-barred Charaxes. A fallen log was oozing fermenting sap, and while a fluffy pile of butterflies was sipping and slowly getting drunk, the two white-barred butterflies showed up and started a bar fight. Spiraling and slicing at one another with serrated wings, the fight ended with the loser’s shredded wings fluttering gently to the forest floor.

Butterflies -2

Martins, a former National Geographic Emerging Explorer, wrote about Charaxes, or emperor butterflies, in Swara magazine, published in East Africa where he is now Director of Kenya’s Mpala Research Centre.

“They are fast and powerful,” he writes. “And their tastes run to stronger stuff than nectar: fermenting sap, fresh dung and rotting carrion are all particular favourites.”

That’s right; don’t get between a butterfly and a freshly dropped pile of dung. It drives them wild. They uncoil their probosces and slurp away, lapping up the salts and amino acids they can’t get from plants.

It’s called mud-puddling, and it’s very common butterfly behavior. It doesn’t have to be dung, although that’s always nice; you may see flocks of butterflies having a nip of a dead animal (as depicted in this diorama of butterflies eating a piranha), drinking sweat or tears, or just enjoying a plain old mud puddle.

Butterflies start life as caterpillars, which are far from harmless if you’re a tasty plant, and can be carnivorous. Some are even parasites: Maculinea rebeli butterflies trick ants into raising their young. The caterpillars make sounds that mimic queen ants, which pick them up and carry them into their colonies like the well-to-do being toted in sedan chairs. Inside, they are literally treated as royalty, with worker ants regurgitating meals to them and nurse ants occasionally sacrificing ant babies to feed them when food is scarce. Butterflies invented the ultimate babysitting con.

So, let’s review. Here are seven not-so-nice things butterflies are into:

• Getting drunk
• Fighting
• Eating meat
• Eating poop
• Drinking tears
• Tricking ants
• Raping pupae

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/article/butterflies-beha...

Don’t go near water bodies that are coloured because study found airborne release of toxin from algal scum

A dangerous toxin has been witnessed—for the first time—releasing into the air from pond scum, research published in the peer-reviewed journal Lake and Reservoir Management recently shows.

Not only is pond scum—otherwise known as algal bloom—an unsightly formation which can occur on still water across the world, it can also prove dangerous to wildlife and humans.

For the first time, scientists have now detected the presence of the algal toxin anatoxin-a (ATX)which is also known as 'Very Fast Death Factor', in the air near ponds with large algal blooms. ATX can cause a range of symptoms at acute doses, including loss of coordination, muscular twitching and respiratory paralysis, and has been linked to the deaths of livestock, waterfowl and dogs from drinking contaminated water.

ATX is produced by single celled organisms known as cyanobacteria, which can form harmful algal blooms—when huge amounts of cyanobacteria grow in lake surface waters. Blooms are exacerbated by fertilizer run-off entering lakes or ponds from nearby fields or improperly treated wastewater, and can stimulate growth and high water temperatures. Cyanobacteria, which also are known as blue-green algae, are actually a type of bacteria that can photosynthesize.

Cyanobacterial blooms can also lead to low oxygen conditions, further degrading water quality. This is because when the algae in these large blooms die, they sink to the lake bottom and decompose, which can use up all the oxygen in the water, killing fish and other animals. The blooms also can release toxins into the water that can prove fatal for these animals.

ATX is one of the more dangerous cyanotoxins produced by harmful algal blooms, which are becoming more predominant in lakes and ponds worldwide due to global warming and climate change.People often recreate around these lakes and ponds with algal blooms without any awareness of the potential problems. Direct contact or inhalation of these cyanotoxins can present health risks for individuals, and researchers have reported a potential human health exposure not previously examined.

The detection of airborne anatoxin-a (ATX) on glass fiber filters during a harmful algal bloom, Lake and Reservoir Management (2021). DOI: 10.1080/10402381.2021.1881191

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-airborne-toxin-algal-scum.html?

utm_so...

Microplastics are affecting melt rates of snow and ice

Microplastics have reached the farthest corners of the Earth, including remote fjords and even the Mariana Trench, one of the deepest parts of the ocean. Recently, yet another distant area of our planet has been found to contain these pollutants: glaciers and ice sheets. An Eos article published in March examines how microplastics create changes in these icy ecosystems, and underscores the importance of properly distinguishing them from another form of pollution in snow, black carbon.

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How pathogenic bacteria weather the slings and arrows of infection

Infectious diseases are a leading cause of global mortality. During an infection, bacteria experience many different stresses—some from the host itself, some from co-colonizing microbes and others from therapies employed to treat the infection. In this arms race to outwit their competition, bacteria have evolved mechanisms to stay alive in the face of adversities. One such mechanism is the stringent response pathway. Understanding how the activation of the stringent response pathway is controlled can provide clues to treat infection.

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Understanding itch: New insights at the intersection of the nervous...

Eczema, or atopic dermatitis (AD), is sometimes called "the itch that rashes." Often, the itch begins before the rash appears, and, in many cases, the itchiness of the skin condition never really goes away. Although much has been learned about the uncomfortable sensation that triggers the desire to scratch, many mysteries remain about chronic itch, making it a challenge to treat. A paper by authors from Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School published in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, offers new clues about the underlying mechanisms of itch. Findings suggest a key molecular player known as cysteine leukotriene receptor 2 (CysLT2R) that may be a new target for intractable chronic itch.

Fungi could manipulate bacteria to enrich soil with nutrients

A team of researchers from the Boyce Thompson Institute (BTI) has discovered a distinct group of bacteria that may help fungi and plants acquire soil nutrients. The findings could point the way to cost-effective and eco-friendly methods of enriching soil and improving crop yields, reducing farmers' reliance on conventional fertilizers.

Cells Form Into ‘Xenobots’ on Their Own

How life-span shifting insects are reshaping aging research

Researchers achieve world's first manipulation of antimatter by laser

Researchers with the CERN-based ALPHA collaboration have announced the world's first laser-based manipulation of antimatter, leveraging a made-in-Canada laser system to cool a sample of antimatter down to near absolute zero. The achievement, detailed in an article published today and featured on the cover of the journal Nature, will significantly alter the landscape of antimatter research and advance the next generation of experiments.