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.

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  laser system to cool a sample of antimatter down to near absolute zero. The achievement, detailed in an article published recently and featured on the cover of the journal Nature, will significantly alter the landscape of antimatter research and advance the next generation of experiments.

Antimatter is the otherworldly counterpart to matter; it exhibits near-identical characteristics and behaviors but has opposite charge. Because they annihilate upon contact with matter, antimatter atoms are exceptionally difficult to create and control in our world and had never before been manipulated with a laser.

These results are the culmination of a years-long program of research and engineering.

Laser cooling of antihydrogen atoms , Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03289-6

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-canadian-built-laser-chills-antimatte...

Female monkeys use males as 'hired guns' for defense against predators, study says

Researchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Congo Program and the Nouabalé-Ndoki Foundation found that female putty-nosed monkeys (Cercopithecus nictitans) use males as "hired guns" to defend from predators such as leopards.

Publishing their results in the journal Royal Society Open Science, the team discovered that female monkeys use alarm calls to recruit males to defend them from predators. The researchers conducted the study among 19 different groups of wild putty-nosed monkeys, a type of forest guenon, in Mbeli Bai, a study area within the forests in Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Northern Republic of Congo.

The results promote the idea that females' general alarm requires males to assess the nature of the threat and that it serves to recruit males to ensure group defense. Females only cease the alarm call when males produce calls associated with anti-predator defense. Results suggest that alarm-calling strategies depend on the sex of the signaler. Females recruit males, who identify themselves while approaching, for protection. Males reassure their female of their quality in predation defense, probably to assure future reproduction opportunities.

Males advertise their commitment to serve as hired guns by emitting general "pyow" calls while approaching the rest of their group—a call containing little information about ongoing events, but cues to male identity, similar as to a signature call. Hearing his "pyow" call during male approaches enables females to identify high quality group defenders already from a distance. This might contribute to long-term male reputation in groups, which would equip females to choose males that ensure their offspring's survival most reliably.

Frederic Gnepa Mehon et al, Female putty-nosed monkeys ( Cercopithecus nictitans ) vocally recruit males for predator defense, Royal Society Open Science (2021). DOI: 10.1098/rsos.202135

https://phys.org/news/2021-03-female-monkeys-males-hired-guns.html?...

Climate Change is affecting you personally. Here's how

A sun reflector for Earth? Scientists explore the potential risks and benefits

Nine of the hottest years in human history have occurred in the last decade. Without a major shift in this climate trajectory, the future of life on Earth is in question. Should humans, whose fossil-fueled society is driving climate change, use technology to put the brakes on global warming?

Every month since September 2019 the Climate Intervention Biology Working Group, a team of internationally recognized experts in climate science and ecology, has gathered remotely to bring science to bear on that question and the consequences of geoengineering a cooler Earth by reflecting a portion of the sun's radiation away from the planet—a climate intervention strategy known as solar radiation modification (SRM).

The group's seminal paper, "Potential ecological impacts of climate intervention by reflecting sunlight to cool Earth," was published in the most recent Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

The costs and technology needed to reflect the Sun's heat back into space are currently more attainable than other climate intervention ideas like absorbing carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the air. 

Scientific investigation into how a climate intervention strategy known as solar radiation modification (SRM), in tandem with greenhouse gas emissions reduction, would affect the natural world is being studied.

The feasibility of planetary-wide SRM efforts hinge on accurate predictions of its myriad outcomes provided by the well-established computer simulations of the Geoengineering Model Intercomparison Project (GeoMIP).

While climate models have become quite advanced in predicting climate outcomes of various geoengineering scenarios, we have very little understanding of what the possible risks of these scenarios might be for species and natural systems. Are the risks for extinction, species community change, and the need for organisms to migrate to survive under SRM greater than those of climate change, or does SRM reduce the risks caused by climate change?

Most of the GeoMIP models only simulate abiotic variables, but what about all of the living things that are affected by climate and rely on energy from the sun?

"We need to better understand the possible impacts of SRM on everything from soil microorganisms to monarch butterfly migrations to marine systems."

Phoebe L. Zarnetske el al., "Potential ecological impacts of climate intervention by reflecting sunlight to cool Earth," PNAS (2021). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1921854118

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-sun-reflector-earth-scientists-explor...

Geoengineering is just a partial solution to fight climate change

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Study reveals uncertainty in how much carbon the ocean absorbs over...

The ocean's "biological pump" describes the many marine processes that work to take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and transport it deep into the ocean, where it can remain sequestered for centuries. This ocean pump is a powerful regulator of atmospheric carbon dioxide and an essential ingredient in any global climate forecast.

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Making cleaner, greener plastics from waste fish parts

Polyurethanes, a type of plastic, are nearly everywhere—in shoes, clothes, refrigerators and construction materials. But these highly versatile materials can have a major downside. Derived from crude oil, toxic to synthesize, and slow to break down, conventional polyurethanes are not environmentally friendly. Today, researchers discuss devising what they say should be a safer, biodegradable alternative derived from fish waste—heads, bones, skin and guts—that would otherwise likely be discarded.

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Paleopharmaceuticals from Baltic amber might fight drug-resistant i...

For centuries, people in Baltic nations have used ancient amber for medicinal purposes. Even today, infants are given amber necklaces that they chew to relieve teething pain, and people put pulverized amber in elixirs and ointments for its purported anti-inflammatory and anti-infective properties. Now, scientists have pinpointed compounds that help explain Baltic amber's therapeutic effects and that could lead to new medicines to combat antibiotic-resistant infections.

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Doping by athletes could become tougher to hide with new detection ...

As the world awaits the upcoming Olympic games, a new method for detecting doping compounds in urine samples could level the playing field for those trying to keep athletics clean. Today, scientists report an approach using ion mobility-mass spectrometry to help regulatory agencies detect existing dopants and future "designer" compounds.

Scientists develop a safe, cheap technology for disinfection of pac...

Russian researchers have developed an inexpensive, safe, and reliable surface disinfection technology for packed eggs. This technology helps to kill bacteria, including salmonella, on eggshells. Also, it allows growing broiler chickens with strong immunity to viral diseases. Packed eggs are disinfected with an electron beam for 50 nanoseconds (one-billionth of a second). Disinfection takes place in plastic containers. The description of the technology was published in Food and Bioproducts Processing.

The problems we face with

Forever chemicals are used in everything from rain jackets to jet fuel. But the chemistry behind what makes them useful also makes them stick around in the environment and us...forever?

Could microbes save us from PFAS? You can read about the study we mention here: https://cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/microbes-save...

A safer way to deploy bacteria as environmental sensors

In recent years, scientists have developed many strains of engineered bacteria that can be used as sensors to detect environmental contaminants such as heavy metals. If deployed in the natural environment, these sensors could help scientists track how pollutant levels change over time, over a wide geographic area.

MIT engineers have now devised a way to make this kind of deployment safer, by encasing bacterial sensors in a tough hydrogel shell that prevents them from escaping into the environment and potentially spreading modified genes to other organisms.

"Right now there are a lot of whole-cell biosensors being developed, but applying them in the real world is a challenge because we don't want any genetically modified organisms to be able to exchange genetic material with wild-type microbes.

Researchers showed that they could embed E. coli into hydrogel spheres, allowing them to detect the contaminants they're looking for while remaining isolated from other organisms. The shells also help to protect the sensors from environmental damage.

Tzu-Chieh Tang et al. Hydrogel-based biocontainment of bacteria for continuous sensing and computation, Nature Chemical Biology (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41589-021-00779-6

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-safer-deploy-bacteria-environmental-s...

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Rise of the 'robo-plants', as scientists fuse nature with tech

Remote-controlled Venus flytrap "robo-plants" and crops that tell farmers when they are hit by disease could become reality after scientists developed a high-tech system for communicating with vegetation.

Researchers in Singapore linked up plants to electrodes capable of monitoring the weak electrical pulses naturally emitted by the greenery.

The scientists used the technology to trigger a Venus flytrap to snap its jaws shut at the push of a button on a smartphone app.

They then attached one of its jaws to a robotic arm and got the contraption to pick up a piece of wire half a millimetre thick, and catch a small falling object.

The technology is in its early stages, but researchers think it could eventually be used to build advanced "plant-based robots" that can pick up a host of fragile objects which are too delicate for rigid, robotic arms. These kinds of nature robots can be interfaced with other artificial robots (to make) hybrid systems.

The system can also pick up signals emitted by plants, raising the possibility that farmers will be able to detect problems with their crops at an early stage.

"By monitoring the plants' electrical signals, we may be able to detect possible distress signals and abnormalities. Farmers may find out when a disease is in progress, even before full-blown symptoms appear on the crops.

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-robo-plants-scientists-fuse-nature-te...

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Researchers develop materials for oral delivery of insulin medication

A revolutionary technology developed  could dramatically improve the wellbeing of diabetic patients: an insulin oral delivery system that could replace traditional subcutaneous injections without the side effects caused by frequent injections.

Using prepared layers of nanosheets with insulin loaded in between layers to protect it, the researchers developed gastro-resistant imine-linked-covalent organic framework nanoparticles (nCOFs) that exhibited insulin protection in the stomach as well in diabetic test subjects whose sugar levels completely returned to normal within two hours after swallowing the nanoparticles.

Farah Benyettou et al. In vivo oral insulin delivery via covalent organic frameworks, Chemical Science (2021). DOI: 10.1039/D0SC05328G

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-materials-oral-delivery-insulin-medic...

Scientists Reverse Engineer mRNA Sequence of Moderna Vaccine

Complete chromosome 8 sequence reveals novel genes and disease risks

The full assembly of human chromosome 8 is reported this week in Nature. While on the outside this chromosome looks typical, being neither short nor long or distinctive, its DNA content and arrangement are of interest in primate and human evolution, in several immune and developmental disorders, and in chromosome sequencing structure and function generally.

This linear assembly is a first for a human autosome—a chromosome not involved in sex determination. The entire sequence of chromosome 8 is 146,259,671 bases. The completed assembly fills in the gap of more than 3 million bases missing from the current reference genome.

One of several intriguing characteristics of chromosome 8 is a fast-evolving region, where the mutation rate appears to be highly accelerated in humans and human-like species, in contrast to the rest of the human genome.

While chromosome 8 offers some insights into evolution and human biology, the researchers point out that the complete assembly of all human chromosomes would be necessary to acquire a fuller picture.

Glennis A. Logsdon et al, The structure, function and evolution of a complete human chromosome 8, Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03420-7

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-chromosome-sequence-reveals-genes-dis...

Yawning helps lions synchronize their groups' movements

A lion yawn is contagious, and when lions start yawning together, they start moving together. Synchronization may be key for group hunters like lions.

Subtle social cues may be embedded in a lion's lazy gape, new research suggests

Watch a group of lions yawn, and it may seem like nothing more than big, lazy cats acting sleepy, but new research suggests that these yawns may be subtly communicating some important social cues. Yawning is not only contagious among lions, but it appears to help the predators synchronize their movements, researchers report March 16 in Animal Behaviour. 

Lions yawn when they are relaxed and engage in social affiliation.

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The arousal state seems to inhibit yawning in wild lions.

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Wild lions are infected by others' yawns.

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Yawn contagion facilitates motor convergence thus favouring lion group synchrony.

G. Casetta, A.P. Nolfo and E. Palagi. Yawn contagion promotes motor synchrony in wild lions, Panthera leo. Animal Behaviour. Vol. 174, April 2021, p. 149. doi: 10.1016/j.anbehav.2021.02.010.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000334722100...

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lion-yawn-contagious-synchroniz...

New, reversible CRISPR method can control gene expression while leaving underlying DNA sequence unchanged

Over the past decade, the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system has revolutionized genetic engineering, allowing scientists to make targeted changes to organisms' DNA. While the system could potentially be useful in treating a variety of diseases, CRISPR-Cas9 editing involves cutting DNA strands, leading to permanent changes to the cell's genetic material.

Now, in a paper published online in Cell on April 9, researchers describe a new gene editing technology called CRISPRoff that allows researchers to control gene expression with high specificity while leaving the sequence of the DNA unchanged. 

The method is stable enough to be inherited through hundreds of cell divisions, and is also fully reversible. It can be done for multiple genes at the same time without any DNA damage, with great deal of homogeneity, and in a way that can be reversed. It's a great tool for controlling gene expression.

Cell (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2021.03.025

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-reversible-crispr-method-gene-underly...

Biodiversity 'hot spots' devastated in warming world

Unless nations dramatically improve on carbon cutting pledges made under the 2015 Paris climate treaty, the planet's richest concentrations of animal and plant life will be irreversibly ravaged by global warming, scientists warned Friday, 9th April, 2021.

An analysis of 8,000 published risk assessments for species showed a high danger for extinction in nearly 300 biodiversity "hot spots", on land and in the sea, if temperatures rise three degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, they reported in the journal Biological Conservation.

From snow leopards in the Himalayas and the vaquita porpoise in the Gulf of California to lemurs in Madagascar and forest elephants in central Africa, many of the planet's most cherished creatures will wind up on a path to extinction unless humanity stops loading the atmosphere with CO₂ and methane, the study found. Endemic land species in biodiverse hot spots are nearly three times as likely to suffer losses due to climate change than more widespread flora and fauna, and 10 times more likely than invasive species.

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-biodiversity-hot-devastated-world.htm...

How we found hints of new particles or forces of nature – and why i...

Seven years ago, a huge magnet was transported over 3,200 miles (5,150km) across land and sea, in the hope of studying a subatomic particle called a muon.

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Methane-eating bacteria found in a common tree is possible game-cha...

Trees are the Earth's lungs—it's well understood they drawdown and lock up vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. But emerging research is showing trees can also emit methane, and it's currently unknown just how much.

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Antibody binding-site conserved across COVID-19 virus variants

A tiny protein of SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that gives rise to COVID-19, may have big implications for future treatments, according to a team of Penn State researchers.

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Scientists successfully breed corals in the lab

Scientists at the University of Oldenburg's Institute for Chemistry and Biology of the Marine Environment (ICBM) have scored a success: in the aquariums at the ICBM's Wilhelmshaven site they were able to induce sexual reproduction in stony corals for the first time ever in Germany.

Honey bees rally to their queen via ‘game of telephone’

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Buzz. Buzz. The queen is that way,” said one honey bee to another. “Pass it on.”

Honey bees can’t speak, of course, but scientists have found that the insects combine teamwork and odor chemicals to relay the queen’s location to the rest of the colony, revealing an extraordinary means of long distance, mass communication.

Honey bees communicate with chemicals called pheromones, which they sense through their antennae. Like a monarch pressing a button, the queen emits pheromones to summon worker bees to fulfill her needs. But her pheromones only travel so far. Busy worker bees, however, roam around, and they, too, can call to each other by releasing a pheromone called Nasanov, through a gesticulation known as “scenting; they raise their abdomens to expose their pheromone glands and fan their wings to direct the smelly chemicals backward .

The scientists then recorded the insects’ movements from above with a camera; artificial intelligence software tracked bees that were releasing Nasanov pheromones.

Once the first worker honey bees located the queen, they began to assemble chains of evenly spaced bees that extended outward from the queen, with each bee wafting Nasanov to its neighbor down the line. The findings, reported this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, are the first direct observations of this collective communication in h.... 

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/13/e2011916118

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2021/04/honey-bees-rally-their-quee...

Vanishing Glaciers

Pager, a nine year old Macaque, plays MindPong with his Neuralink.

'Tantalizing' results of 2 experiments defy physics rulebook

Preliminary results from two experiments suggest something could be wrong with the basic way physicists think the universe works, a prospect that has the field of particle physics both baffled and thrilled.

Tiny particles called muons aren't quite doing what is expected of them in two different long-running experiments. The confounding results—if proven right—reveal major problems with the rulebook physicists use to describe and understand how the universe works at the subatomic level.

The rulebook, called the Standard Model, was developed about 50 years ago. Experiments performed over decades affirmed over and again that its descriptions of the particles and the forces that make up and govern the universe were pretty much on the mark. Until now.

Now it 's observed that the muons' magnetic fields don't seem to be what the Standard Model says they should be. If confirmed, the results would be the biggest finding in the bizarre world of subatomic particles in nearly 10 years.

The secrets don't just live in matter. They live in something that seems to fill in all of space and time. These are quantum fields.

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The results involve the strange, fleeting particle called the muon. The muon is the heavier cousin to the electron that orbits an atom's center. But the muon is not part of the atom, it is unstable and normally exists for only two microseconds. 

Preliminary results suggest that the magnetic "spin" of the muons is 0.1% off what the Standard Model predicts. That may not sound like much, but to particle physicists it is huge—more than enough to upend current understanding.

The observations and the experiment  are not being called an official discovery yet because there is still a tiny chance that the results are statistical quirks.

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-tantalizing-results-defy-physics-rule...

Scientists discover three liquid phases in aerosol particles

Researchers at the University of British Columbia have discovered three liquid phases in aerosol particles, changing our understanding of air pollutants in the Earth's atmosphere.

While aerosol particles were known to contain up to two liquid phases, the discovery of an additional liquid phase may be important to providing more accurate atmospheric models and climate predictions. The study was published today in PNAS.

Jeffrey S. Kwang el al., "The role of lateral erosion in the evolution of nondendritic drainage networks to dendricity and the persistence of dynamic networks," PNAS (2021). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2102512118

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-scientists-liquid-phases-aerosol-part...

Researchers discover new way to starve brain tumors

Scientists have found a new way to starve cancerous brain tumor cells of energy in order to prevent further growth.

Medulloblastoma is the most common high-grade brain tumor in children. Survival rate is 70 percent for those whose tumor has not spread but it is almost always fatal in cases of recurrent tumor.

The research, published in the high impact journal Nature Communications, looks at inositol hexaphosphate (IP6), a naturally occurring compound present in almost all plants and animals, and showed how it inhibits medulloblastoma and can be combined with chemotherapy to kill tumor cells.

Inositol treatment inhibits medulloblastoma through suppression of epigenetic-driven metabolic adaptation, Nature Communications (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22379-7

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-starve-brain-tumors.html?utm...

Upward lightning takes its cue from nearby lightning events

In the chaos of a thunderstorm, upward moving lightning occasionally springs from the tops of tall structures. Scientists don't fully understand how upward lightning is triggered; it is likely a combination of multiple environmental factors, such as the background electric field and the structure's height. In a new study, Sunjerga et al. investigate how ambient lightning events near tall structures may trigger upward lightning.

Scientists Create the Next Generation of Living Robots

In a first, scientists watch 2D puddles of electrons spontaneously emerge in a 3D superconducting material

Creating a two-dimensional material, just a few atoms thick, is often an arduous process requiring sophisticated equipment. So scientists were surprised to see 2D puddles emerge inside a three-dimensional superconductor—a material that allows electrons to travel with 100% efficiency and zero resistance—with no prompting.

Within those puddles, superconducting electrons acted as if they were confined inside an incredibly thin, sheet-like plane, a situation that requires them to somehow cross over to another dimension, where different rules of quantum physics apply.

"This is a tantalizing example of emergent behavior, which is often difficult or impossible to replicate by trying to engineer it from scratch.

It's as if when given the power to superconduct,  the 3D electrons choose for themselves to live in a 2D world.

The research team calls this new phenomenon "inter-dimensional superconductivity,"  in a report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This is how 3D superconductors reorganize themselves just before undergoing an abrupt shift into an insulating state, where electrons are confined to their home atoms and can't move around at all.

Carolina Parra el al., "Signatures of two-dimensional superconductivity emerging within a three-dimensional host superconductor," PNAS (2021). www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.2017810118

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-scientists-2d-puddles-electrons-spont...

Superbug killer: New nanotech destroys bacteria and fungal cells

Researchers have developed a new superbug-destroying coating that could be used on wound dressings and implants to prevent and treat potentially deadly bacterial and fungal infections.

The material is one of the thinnest antimicrobial coatings developed to date and is effective against a broad range of drug-resistant bacteria and fungal cells, while leaving human cells unharmed.

The new coating from a team led by RMIT University is based on an ultra-thin 2D material that until now has mainly been of interest for next-generation electronics.

Studies on black phosphorus (BP) have indicated it has some antibacterial and antifungal properties, but the material has never been methodically examined for potential clinical use.

The new research, published in the American Chemical Society's journal Applied Materials & Interfaces, reveals that BP is effective at killing microbes when spread in nanothin layers on surfaces like titanium and cotton, used to make implants and wound dressings.

Broad-spectrum solvent-free layered black phosphorus as a rapid action antimicrobial, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c01739.

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-superbug-killer-nanotech-bacteria-fun...

Wildfires launch microbes into the air. How big of a health risk is that?

Now that they know bacteria and fungi can survive in wildfire smoke, a small group of researchers is trying to figure out the implications

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/wildfire-smoke-microbes-air-hea...

Water and quantum magnets share critical physics

In physics, things exist in phases, such as solid, liquid and gas states. When something crosses from one phase to another, we talk about a phase transition—like water boiling into steam, turning from liquid to gas.

Water boils at 100 degrees C, and its density changes dramatically, making a discontinuous jump from liquid to gas. However, if we turn up the pressure, the boiling point of water also increases, until a pressure of 221 atmospheres where it boils at 374 degrees C. Here, something strange happens: the liquid and gas merge into a single phase. Above this "critical point," there is no longer a phase transition at all, and so by controlling its pressure, water can be steered from liquid to gas without ever crossing one.

Is there a quantum version of a water-like phase transition? The current directions in quantum magnetism and spintronics require highly spin-anisotropic interactions to produce the physics of topological phases and protected qubits, but these interactions also favor discontinuous quantum phase transitions.

Previous studies have focused on smooth, continuous phase transitions in quantum magnetic materials. Now researchers have studied a discontinuous phase transition to observe the first ever critical point in a quantum magnet, similar to that of water. The work is now published in Nature.

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The scientists used a quantum antiferromagnet, known in the field as SCBO (from its chemical composition: SrCu₂(BO₃)₂). Quantum antiferromagnets are especially useful for understanding how the quantum aspects of a material's structure affect its overall properties—for example, how the spins of its electrons interact to give its magnetic properties. SCBO is also a "frustrated" magnet, meaning that its electron spins can't stabilize in some orderly structure, and instead they adopt some uniquely quantum fluctuating states.

In a complex experiment, the researchers controlled both the pressure and the magnetic field applied to milligram pieces of SCBO. "This allowed us to look all around the discontinuous quantum phase transition and that way we found critical-point physics in a pure spin system.

Researchers 

performed high-precision measurements of the specific heat of SCBO, which showed its readiness to absorb energy. For example, water absorbs only small amounts of energy at -10 degrees C, but at 0 degrees C and 100 degrees C, it can take up huge amounts as every molecule is driven across the transitions from ice to liquid and liquid to gas. Just like water, the pressure-temperature relationship of SCBO forms a phase diagram showing a discontinuous transition line separating two quantum magnetic phases, with the line ending at a critical point.

Now, when a magnetic field is applied, the problem becomes richer than water. Neither magnetic phase is strongly affected by a small field, so the line becomes a wall of discontinuities in a three-dimensional phase diagram—but then one of the phases becomes unstable and the field helps push it towards a third phase."

A quantum magnetic analogue to the critical point of water, Nature (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03411-8

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-quantum-magnets-critical-physics.html...

Social wasps lose face recognition abilities in isolation

Just as humans are challenged from the social isolation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, a new study finds that a solitary lifestyle has profound effects on the brains of a social insect: paper wasps.

Paper wasps (Polistes fuscatus) recognize the brightly colored faces of other paper wasps, an ability they lose when reared in isolation. The wasps' ability to remember faces is similar to primates and humans, but unlike other social insects.

The study revealed that when adult wasps are housed in solitude, visual areas of their brains—especially those involved with identifying nuanced color patterns and shapes—are smaller and less developed than their peers who lived with other wasps.

Christopher M. Jernigan et al. Age and social experience induced plasticity across brain regions of the paper wasp Polistes fuscatus, Biology Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2021.0073

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-social-wasps-recognition-abilities-is...

Power of light and oxygen clears Alzheimer's disease protein in live mice

A small, light-activated molecule recently tested in mice represents a new approach to eliminating clumps of amyloid protein found in the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients. If perfected in humans, the technique could be used as an alternative approach to immunotherapy and used to treat other diseases caused by similar amyloids.

Researchers injected the molecule directly into the brains of live mice with Alzheimer's disease and then used a specialized probe to shine light into their brains for 30 minutes each day for one week. Chemical analysis of the mouse brain tissue showed that the treatment significantly reduced amyloid protein. Results from additional experiments using human brain samples donated by Alzheimer's disease patients supported the possibility of future use in humans.

The importance of this study is developing the technique to target the amyloid protein to enhance clearance of it by the immune system.

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The small molecule that the research team developed is known as a photo-oxygenation catalyst. It appears to treat Alzheimer's disease via a two-step process.

First, the catalyst destabilizes the amyloid plaques. Oxygenation, or adding oxygen atoms, can make a molecule unstable by changing the chemical bonds holding it together. Laundry detergents or other cleaners known as oxygen bleach use a similar chemical principle.

The catalyst is designed to target the folded structure of amyloid and likely works by cross-linking specific portions called histidine residues. The catalyst is inert until it is activated with near-infrared light, so in the future, researchers imagine that the catalyst could be delivered throughout the body by injection into the bloodstream and targeted to specific areas using light.

Second, the destabilized amyloid is then removed by microglia, immune cells of the brain that clear away damaged cells and debris outside healthy cells.

Photo-oxygenation by a biocompatible catalyst reduces amyloid-β levels in Alzheimer's disease model, Brain (2021). DOI: 10.1093/brain/awab058

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-power-oxygen-alzheimer-disea...

Climate change makes Indian monsoon stronger, more erratic: study

Climate change is making India's monsoon stronger and more chaotic, scientists said recently, warning of potential severe consequences for food, farming and the economy affecting nearly a fifth of the world's population.

A new analysis comparing more than 30 climate models from around the world predicts more extremely wet rainy seasons, which sweep in from the sea from roughly June to September each year.

Researchers at the Potsdam-Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) found strong evidence that every degree Celsius of warming would likely increase monsoon rainfall by about five percent.

The study not only confirmed trends seen in previous research, but found "global warming is increasing monsoon rainfall in India even more than previously thought.

This raises the possibility that key crops—including rice—could be swamped during crucial growing stages.

Moreover, the monsoon is likely to become more erratic as warming increases, according to the study, published in the journal Earth System Dynamics.

Anja Katzenberger, Jacob Schewe, Julia Pongratz, Anders Levermann: Robust increase of Indian monsoon rainfall and its variability under future warming in CMIP-6 models. Earth System Dynamics. DOI: 10.5194/esd-2020-80.

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-climate-indian-monsoon-seasons-chaoti...

3D-printed material to replace ivory for restoration of artifacts

For centuries, ivory was often used to make art objects. But to protect elephant populations, the ivory trade was banned internationally in 1989. To restore ivory parts of old art objects, one must therefore resort to substitute materials—such as bones, shells or plastic. However, there has not been a really satisfactory solution so far.

Researchers have now developed a high-tech substitute:  the novel material "Digory" consists of synthetic resin and calcium phosphate particles. It is processed in a hot, liquid state and hardened in the 3D printer with UV rays, exactly in the desired shape. It can then be polished and color-matched to create a deceptively authentic-looking ivory substitute.

 With the new material "Digory," not only is a better, more beautiful and easier to work with substitute for ivory available than before, the 3D technology also makes it possible to reproduce the finest details automatically. Instead of painstakingly carving them out of ivory substitute material, objects can now be printed in a matter of hours.

Thaddäa Rath et al. Developing an ivory-like material for stereolithography-based additive manufacturing, Applied Materials Today (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.apmt.2021.101016

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-3d-printed-material-ivory-artifacts.h...

Microplastics rain from the sky

The atmosphere is laden with tiny plastic fragments. Researchers modelled the air above the western United States and found that it contains almost 1,000 tonnes of microplastic. Most — 84% — comes from roads, much of it from car tyres that constantly produce microplastics as they wear down. And 11% blows in from the ocean — which has so much plastic in it that most continents receive more from the marine environment than they put in.

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/16/e2020719118

Plastic Is Falling From the Sky. But Where’s It Coming From?

plastic rain is the new acid rain. But where is it all coming from?

New modeling published yesterday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that 84 percent of airborne microplastics in the American West actually comes from the roads outside of major cities. Another 11 percent could be blowing all the way in from the ocean. (The researchers who built the model reckon that microplastic particles stay airborne for nearly a week, and that’s more than enough time for them to cross continents and oceans.)

Microplastics—particles smaller than 5 millimeters—come from a number of sources. Plastic bags and bottles released into the environment break down into smaller and smaller bits. Your washing machine is another major source: When you launder synthetic clothing, tiny microfibers slough off and get flushed to a wastewater treatment plant. That facility filters out some of the microfibers, trapping them in “sludge,” the treated human waste that’s then applied to agricultural fields as fertilizer. That loads the soil with microplastic. A wastewater plant will then flush the remaining microfibers out to sea in the treated water. This has been happening for decades, and because plastics disintegrate but don’t ever really disappear, the amount in the ocean has been skyrocketing.

In fact, this new research shows there may now be more microplastic blowing out of the ocean at any given time than there is going into it. Put another way: So much has accumulated in the ocean that the land may now be a net importer of microplastic from the sea. These microplastics aren’t just washing ashore and accumulating on beaches. When waves crash and winds scour the ocean, they launch seawater droplets into the air. These obviously contain salt, but also organic matter and microplastics. Then the water evaporates, and you're left just with the aerosols or tiny floating bits of particulate matter.  last year, a group of researchers demonstrated this phenomenon with microplastics, showing that they turn up in sea breezes.

https://www.wired.com/story/plastic-is-falling-from-the-sky/?utm_so...

Starving tuberculosis of sugars may be a new way to fight it

Tuberculosis is a devastating disease that claims over 1.5 million lives each year. The increase in TB cases that are resistant to the current antibiotics means that novel drugs to kill Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) are urgently needed. Researchers now have successfully discovered how Mycobacterium tuberculosis uses an essential sugar called trehalose, which provides a platform to design new and improved TB drugs and diagnostic agents.

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Tuberculosis (TB), caused by the bacterial pathogen Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is the leading cause of death from a single infectious agent world-wide claiming over 1.5 million lives each year.

Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb) is a very unique pathogen and is able to survive in the human body for decades. One way that Mtb survives is by 'eating' scarce energy sources for nutrition, whilst at the same time the human host attempts to limit the food that is available.

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However, we need a better understanding of Mtb's intracellular diet because inhibiting the pathways that allow Mtb to access and use essential food sources could be good targets for the development of new anti-tubercular agents.

One source of energy that Mtb uses is a sugar that is found in its own cell wall, called trehalose. It appears that Mtb has evolved a unique strategy to recycle and reuse this sugar to ensure that it does not waste any potential energy sources, which are in short supply.

The transport protein, which is responsible for the uptake of trehalose, called LpqY, is essential for Mtb to establish infection. If the LpqY protein is deleted and no longer able to function then Mtb can no longer supply itself with trehalose and becomes less pathogenic.

In the paper, "Structural basis of trehalose recognition by the mycobacterial LpqY-SugABC transporter," published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, researchers from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick, have unraveled the molecular basis of how Mtb uses and transports trehalose, a process which is specific to Mtb and does not occur in humans.

The team used X-ray crystallography to determine the 3-dimensional structure of LpqY and analyzed how this important transport protein is able to bind and recognize trehalose. They then went on to use a number of experimental techniques which showed that LpqY is highly specific for trehalose, is also able to recognize sugars that are similar to trehalose with small modifications and map key recognition features.

 Christopher M. Furze et al. Structural basis of trehalose recognition by the mycobacterial LpqY-SugABC transporter, Journal of Biological Chemistry (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.jbc.2021.100307

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-starving-tuberculosis-sugars.html?utm...

Ants shrink their brains for motherhood — but can enlarge them when egg-laying ends

How the humble woodchip is cleaning up water worldwide

Australian pineapple, Danish trout, and Midwestern U.S. corn farmers are not often lumped together under the same agricultural umbrella. But they and many others who raise crops and animals face a common problem: excess nitrogen in drainage water. Whether it flows out to the Great Barrier Reef or the Gulf of Mexico, the nutrient contributes to harmful algal blooms that starve fish and other organisms of oxygen.

But there's a simple solution that significantly reduces the amount of nitrogen in drainage water, regardless of the production system or location: denitrifying bioreactors.

Denitrifying bioreactors come in many shapes and sizes, but in their simplest form, they're trenches filled with wood chips. Water from fields or aquaculture facilities flows through the trench, where bacteria living in wood chip crevices turn nitrate into a harmless gas that escapes into the air.

After gathering all the data, the message is bioreactors work.

, "Effectiveness of denitrifying bioreactors on water pollutant reduction from agricultural areas," is published in Transactions of the ASABE [DOI: 10.13031/trans.14011].

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-04/uoic-hth041521.php

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