Natural GM: how plants and animals steal genes from other species to accelerate evolution

If species already modify their genes, why shouldn't we?

https://theconversation.com/natural-gm-how-plants-and-animals-steal...

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Most Women at High-Risk of Breast Cancer Are Unaware of Preventative Medicines

Many women who are genetically susceptible to breast cancer have no idea they can take preventative medication to reduce their risk of developing the disease, according to new research from Australia.

https://cancerpreventionresearch.aacrjournals.org/content/14/1/131

https://www.sciencealert.com/many-women-at-high-risk-of-breast-canc...

Widespread lateral gene transfer among grasses

Climate-friendly microbes chomp dead plants without releasing heat-trapping methane

A team of scientists  has identified an entirely new group of microbes quietly living in hot springs, geothermal systems and hydrothermal sediments around the world. The microbes appear to be playing an important role in the global carbon cycle by helping break down decaying plants without producing the greenhouse gas methane.

The new group, which biologists call a phylum, is named Brockarchaeota.

So far, Brockarchaeota have not been successfully grown in a laboratory or imaged under a microscope. Instead, they were identified by painstakingly reconstructing their genomes from bits of genetic material collected in samples from hot springs in China and hydrothermal sediments in the Gulf of California. The team used high-throughput DNA sequencing and innovative computational approaches to piece together the genomes of the newly described organisms. The scientists also identified genes that suggest how they consume nutrients, produce energy and generate waste.

The Brockarchaeota are part of a larger, poorly studied group of microbes called archaea. Until now, scientists thought that the only archaea involved in breaking down methylated compounds—that is, decaying plants, phytoplankton and other organic matter—were those that also produced the greenhouse gas methane.

They are using a novel metabolism that we didn't know existed in archaea. And this is very important because marine sediments are the biggest reservoir of organic carbon on Earth. These archaea are recycling carbon without producing methane. This gives them a unique ecological position in nature.

In addition to breaking down organic matter, these newly described microbes have other metabolic pathways that scientists speculate might someday be useful in applications ranging from biotechnology to agriculture to biofuels.

Nature Communications (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-22736-6

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-climate-friendly-microbes-chomp-dead-...

Ingredient in Indian Long Pepper shows promise against brain cancer in animal models

Piperlongumine, a chemical compound found in the Indian Long Pepper plant (Piper longum), is known to kill cancerous cells in many tumor types, including brain tumors. Now an international team including researchers from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania has illuminated one way in which the piperlongumine works in animal models — and has confirmed its strong activity against glioblastoma, one of the least treatable types of brain cancer. The researchers, whose findings were published this month in ACS Central Science, showed in detail how piperlongumine binds to — and hinders the activity of — a protein called TRPV2, which is overexpressed in glioblastoma in a way that appears to drive cancer progression. The scientists found that piperlongumine treatment radically shrank glioblastoma tumors and extended life in two mouse models of this cancer, and also selectively destroyed glioblastoma

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acscentsci.1c00070

https://researchnews.cc/news/6316/Ingredient-in-Indian-Long-Pepper-...

IceCube Neutrino Observatory Detects New High-Energy Particle

In December 2016, a high-energy particle hurtled to Earth from outer space at close to the speed of light. Deep inside the ice sheet of the South Pole, it smashed into an electron, producing a shower of secondary particles. The interaction was captured by a massive telescope buried in the Antarctic glacier, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory. To enable this discovery, a multinational team of scientists used millions of hours on multiple supercomputers, including SDSC's _Comet_.

'Undruggable' cancer protein becomes druggable, thanks to shrub

A chemist  has found a way to synthesize a compound to fight a previously "undruggable" cancer protein with benefits across a myriad of cancer types.

Inspired by a rare compound found in a shrub native to North America, a scientist  studied the compound and discovered a cost-effective and efficient way to synthesize it in the lab. The compound—curcusone D—has the potential to help combat a protein found in many cancers, including some forms of breast, brain, colorectal, prostate, lung and liver cancers, among others. The protein, dubbed BRAT1, had previously been deemed "undruggable" for its chemical properties. In collaboration with Alexander Adibekian's group at the Scripps Research Institute, they linked curcusone D to BRAT1 and validated curcusone D as the first BRAT1 inhibitor.

Curcusones are compounds that come from a shrub named Jatropha curcas, also called the purging nut. Native to the Americas, it has spread to other continents, including Africa and Asia. The plant has long been used for medicinal properties—including the treatment of cancer—as well as being a proposed inexpensive source of biodiesel.

Researchers tested the compounds on breast cancer cells and found curcusone D to be extremely effective at shutting down cancer cells. The protein they were targeting, BRAT1, regulates DNA damage response and DNA repair in cancer cells. Cancer cells grow very fast and make a lot of DNA. If scientists can damage cancer cells' DNA and keep them from repairing it, they can stop cancer cells from growing.

This compound can not only kill these cancer cells, it can stop their migration.

 Chengsen Cui et al, Total Synthesis and Target Identification of the Curcusone Diterpenes, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2021). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.1c00557

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-undruggable-cancer-protein-druggable-...

Body's natural pain killers can be enhanced

Fentanyl, oxycodone, morphine—these substances are familiar to many as a source of both pain relief and the cause of a painful epidemic of addiction and death.

Scientists have attempted for years to balance the potent pain-relieving properties of opioids with their numerous negative side effects—with mostly mixed results. Now scientists seek to side-step these problems by harnessing the body's own ability to block pain.

All opioid drugs—from poppy-derived opium to heroin—work on receptors that are naturally present in the brain and elsewhere in the body. One such receptor, the mu-opioid receptor, binds to natural pain-killers in the body called endogenous endorphins and enkephalins. Drugs acting on the mu-opioid receptor can cause addiction as well as unwanted side effects like drowsiness, problems with breathing, constipation and nausea.

Normally, when you are in pain, you are releasing endogenous opioids, but they're just not strong enough or long lasting enough. Researchers had long hypothesized that substances called positive allosteric modulators could be used to enhance the body's own endorphins and enkephalins. In a new paper published in PNAS, they demonstrate that a positive allosteric modulator known as BMS-986122 can boost enkephalins' ability to activate the mu-opioid receptor.

What's more, unlike opioid drugs, positive allosteric modulators only work in the presence of endorphins or enkephalins, meaning they would only kick in when needed for pain relief. They do not bind to the receptor in the way that opioids do instead binding in a different location that enhances its ability to respond to the body's pain-relieving compounds.

When you need enkephalins, you release them in a pulsatile fashion in specific regions of the body, then they are metabolized quickly. In contrast, a drug like morphine floods the body and brain and sticks around for several hours.

Contd. part 2

part 2 

The team demonstrated the modulator's ability to stimulate the mu-opioid receptor by isolating the purified receptor and measuring how it responds to enkephalins. "If you add the positive allosteric modulator, you need a lot less enkephalin to get the response."

Additional electrophysiology and mouse experiments confirmed that the opioid receptor was more strongly activated by the body's pain-relieving molecules leading to pain relief. In contrast the modulator showed much reduced side effects of depression of breathing, constipation and addiction liability.

Ram Kandasamy et al, Positive allosteric modulation of the mu-opioid receptor produces analgesia with reduced side effects, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2000017118

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-body-natural-pain-killers.ht...

Hot spring microbes

Nanobodies inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection, including emergent variants

Researchers have identified neutralizing nanobodies that block the SARS-CoV-2 virus from entering cells in preclinical models.

The discovery paves the way for further investigations into nanobody-based treatments for COVID-19.

Using alpaca 'nanobodies' to block COVID-19 infection

Antibodies are key infection-fighting proteins in our immune system. An important aspect of antibodies is that they bind tightly and specifically to another protein.

Antibody-based therapies, or biologics, harness this property of antibodies, enabling them to bind to a protein involved in disease.

Nanobodies are unique antibodies—tiny immune proteins—produced naturally by alpacas in response to infection.

As part of the research, a group of alpacas in regional Victoria were immunized with a synthetic, non-infectious part of the SARS-CoV-2 'spike' protein to enable them to generate nanobodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The synthetic spike protein is not infectious and does not cause the alpacas to develop disease—but it allows the alpacas to develop nanobodies.

Researchers can then extract the gene sequences encoding the nanobodies and use this to produce millions of types of nanobodies in the laboratory, and then select the ones that best bind to the spike protein. 

the leading nanobodies that block virus entry were then combined into a 'nanobody cocktail."

"By combining the two leading nanobodies into this nanobody cocktail, we were able to test its effectiveness at blocking SARS-CoV-2 from entering cells and reducing viral loads in preclinical models.

 Phillip Pymm et al. Nanobody cocktails potently neutralize SARS-CoV-2 D614G N501Y variant and protect mice, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2101918118

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-nanobodies-inhibit-sars-cov-infection...

Warp drives: Physicists give chances of faster-than-light space tra...

The closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri. It is about 4.25 light-years away, or about 25 trillion miles (40 trillion km). The fastest ever spacecraft, the now- in-space Parker Solar Probe will reach a top speed of 450,000 mph. It would take just 20 seconds to go from Los Angeles to New York City at that speed, but it would take the solar probe about 6,633 years to reach Earth's nearest neighboring solar system.

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New study shows microbes trap massive amounts of carbon

Violent continental collisions and volcanic eruptions are not things normally associated with comfortable conditions for life. However, a new study, involving University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Associate Professor of Microbiology Karen Lloyd, unveils a large microbial ecosystem living deep within the earth that is fueled by chemicals produced during these tectonic cataclysms.

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Forensic scientists unlocking unique chemical signatures in tires

Skid marks left by cars are often analyzed for their impression patterns, but they often don't provide enough information to identify a specific vehicle. UCF Chemistry Associate Professor Matthieu Baudelet and his forensics team at the National Center for Forensic Science, which was established at UCF in 1997, may have just unlocked a new way to collect evidence from those skid marks.

Forensic scientists unlocking unique chemical signatures in tires

Skid marks left by cars are often analyzed for their impression patterns, but they often don't provide enough information to identify a specific vehicle. Forensic scientists may have just unlocked a new way to collect evidence from those skid marks.

The team recently published a study in the journal Applied Spectroscopy that details how they are classifying the chemical profile of tires to link vehicles back to potential crime scenes.

Tire evidence is often overlooked in forensics. In cases of hit and runs or accidents involving multiple cars the chemical signature of the tires have the potential to be integral information to the investigation."

The team used laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) on each sample. The technique focuses a laser onto the tire sample, which creates a microscopic plasma that emits light according to the chemical elements present. The spectroscopy comes in because it analyzes this light and matches it to the corresponding chemicals. It's the same technique that instruments aboard the Mars rovers (Curiosity and Perseverance) use to determine what kinds of elements are found within the rocks of Mars.

Every tire is expected to have its own chemical signature, and as such, a unique, corresponding skid mark. One current challenge is identifying how elements on the road like oil, rainwater, and other cars interfere and change that signature. 

https://www.ucf.edu/news/ucf-forensic-scientists-unlocking-unique-c...

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-forensic-scientists-unique-chemical-s...

Bioprinted mini pancreas will help in the fight against diabetes

IMMUNE SYSTEM MADE EASY- IMMUNOLOGY INNATE AND ADAPTIVE IMMUNITY SIMPLE ANIMATION

Robot guide dog could help people who are blind navigate

Skin and bones repaired by bioprinting during surgery

Fixing traumatic injuries to the skin and bones of the face and skull is difficult because of the many layers of different types of tissues involved, but now, researchers have repaired such defects in a rat model using bioprinting during surgery, and their work may lead to faster and better methods of healing skin and bones.

Currently, fixing a hole in the skull involving both bone and soft tissue requires using bone from another part of the patient's body or a cadaver. The bone must be covered by soft tissue with blood flow, also harvested from somewhere else, or the bone will die. Then surgeons need to repair the soft tissue and skin.

The researchers attacked the problem of bone replacement first, beginning in the laboratory and moving to an animal model. They needed something that was printable and nontoxic and could repair a 5-millimeter hole in the skull. The "hard tissue ink" consisted of collagen, chitosan, nano-hydroxyapatite and other compounds and mesenchymal stem cells—multipotent cells found in bone marrow that create bone, cartilage and bone marrow fat.

The hard tissue ink extrudes at room temperature but heats up to body temperature when applied. This creates physical cross-linkage of the collagen and other portions of the ink without any chemical changes or the necessity of a crosslinker additive.

The researchers used droplet printing to create the soft tissue with thinner layers than the bone. They used collagen and fibrinogen in alternating layers with crosslinking and growth enhancing compounds. Each layer of skin including the epidermis and dermis differs, so the bioprinted soft tissue layers differed in composition.

Experiments repairing 6 mm holes in full thickness skin proved successful. Once the team understood skin and bone separately, they moved on to repairing both during the same surgical procedure.

After careful imaging to determine the geometry of the defect, the researchers laid down the bone layer. They then deposited a barrier layer mimicking the periosteum, a heavily vascularized tissue layer that surrounds the bone on the skull.

Kazim K. Moncal et al, Intra‐Operative Bioprinting of Hard, Soft, and Hard/Soft Composite Tissues for Craniomaxillofacial Reconstruction, Advanced Functional Materials (2021). DOI: 10.1002/adfm.202010858

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-skin-bones-bioprinting-surge...

Benefits of AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine outweigh its risks, modeling study suggests

The AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine is suspected of being linked to a small number of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) cases, which recently emerged within Europe as millions of people received vaccinations. This led several countries to suspend AstraZeneca injections and investigate the causal links to DVT.

Researchers discover two-dimensional material using high-pressure technology

An international team of researchers has succeeded for the first time in discovering a previously unknown two-dimensional material by using modern high-pressure technology. The new material, beryllonitrene, consists of regularly arranged nitrogen and beryllium atoms. It has an unusual electronic lattice structure that shows great potential for applications in quantum technology. Its synthesis required a compression pressure that is about one million times higher than the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere. The scientists have presented their discovery in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Researchers  have now produced novel compunds composed of nitrogen and beryllium atoms. These are beryllium polynitrides, some of which conform to the monoclinic, others to the triclinic crystal system. The triclinic beryllium polynitrides exhibit one unusual characteristic when the pressure  drops. They take on a crystal structure made up of layers. Each layer contains zigzag nitrogen chains connected by beryllium atoms. It can therefore be described as a planar structure consisting of BeN₄ pentagons and Be₂N₄ hexagons. Thus, each layer represents a two-dimensional material, beryllonitrene.

Maxim Bykov et al. High-Pressure Synthesis of Dirac Materials: Layered van der Waals Bonded BeN4 Polymorph, Physical Review Letters (2021). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.126.175501

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-two-dimensional-material-high-pressur...

Scientists design 'nanotraps' to catch, clear coronavirus

Researchers have designed a completely novel potential treatment for COVID-19: nanoparticles that capture SARS-CoV-2 viruses within the body and then use the body's own immune system to destroy it.

These "Nanotraps" attract the virus by mimicking the target cells the virus infects. When the virus binds to the Nanotraps, the traps then sequester the virus from other cells and target it for destruction by the immune system.

In theory, these Nanotraps could also be used on variants of the virus, leading to a potential new way to inhibit the virus going forward. Though the therapy remains in early stages of testing, the researchers envision it could be administered via a nasal spray as a treatment for COVID-19.

The results were published April 19 in the journal Matter.

Min Chen et al, Nanotraps for the containment and clearance of SARS-CoV-2, Matter (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.matt.2021.04.005

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-scientists-nanotraps-coronavirus.html...

Five new insights in the fight against COVID-19

Researchers announce new findings on treatments, health impacts and repercussions for science education

Scientists from around the world are gathering to share the latest research at the forefront of biology during the Experimental Biology (EB) 2021 meeting. Many sessions focus on the year's most pressing priorities in bioscience: COVID-19 and the virus that causes it, SARS-CoV-2. 

Five new insights in the fight against COVID-19

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2021-04/eb-fni041621.php

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Farming without disturbing soil could cut agriculture’s climate impact by 30% – new research

agriculture accounts for a staggering 26% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Tractors running on diesel release carbon dioxide (CO₂) from their exhausts. Fertilisers spread on fields produce nitrous oxide. And cattle generate methane from microbes in their guts.

Even tilling the soil – breaking it up with ploughs and other machinery – exposes carbon buried in the soil to oxygen in the air, allowing microbes to convert it to CO₂. Farmers usually do this before sowing crops, but what if they could avoid this step?

In newly published research from farms across the UK, we discovered that an alternative approach called no-till farming, which does not disturb soils and instead involves placing seeds in drilled holes in the earth, could slash greenhouse gas emissions from crop production by nearly a third and increase how much carbon soils can store.

https://theconversation.com/farming-without-disturbing-soil-could-c...

One dose of COVID vaccine cuts household spread by up to 50%:  study

One dose of the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines reduces the chances of someone infected with coronavirus from spreading it to other household members by up to 50 percent, according to a  study published Wednesday.

The Public Health England (PHE) research found that those who became infected three weeks after receiving their first jab were between 38 and 49 percent less likely to pass the virus on to their household contacts than those who were unvaccinated.

We already know vaccines save lives and this study is the most comprehensive real-world data showing they also cut transmission of this deadly virus. It further reinforces that vaccines are the best way out of this pandemic as they protect you and they may prevent you from unknowingly infecting someone in your household.

Studies have already shown that being vaccinated reduces the risk of a person developing symptomatic infection in the first place by up to 65 percent, four weeks after one dose.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-dose-covid-vaccine-household...

Earth has been knocked off its axis over the last 25 years, changing the locations of the north and south poles

• Earth's axis - the invisible line around which it spins - is bookended by the north and south poles.
• The axis, and thus the poles too, shift depending on how weight is distributed across Earth's surface.
• Melting glaciers have changed that distribution enough to knock Earth off its axis, research shows.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2020GL092114

https://www.businessinsider.in/science/news/earth-has-been-knocked-...

4 women whose work won the Nobel Prize for their male colleagues

Throughout history, female scientists have made groundbreaking discoveries that have contributed to the betterment of humankind. To celebrate Women’s History Month, this Special Feature looks at some of the most influential female scientists who never received a Nobel Prize for their work. Instead, the Prize landed in the hands of their male colleagues.

Physicist Lise Meitner (1878–1968)

Physicist Chien-Shiung Wu (1912–1997)

Chemist Rosalind Franklin (1920–1958)

Microbiologist Esther Lederberg (1922–2006)

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/4-women-whose-work-won-th...

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/its-time-to-change-the-na...

New law of physics helps humans and robots grasp the friction of touch

Although robotic devices are used in everything from assembly lines to medicine, engineers have a hard time accounting for the friction that occurs when those robots grip objects—particularly in wet environments. Researchers have now discovered a new law of physics that accounts for this type of friction, which should advance a wide range of robotic technologies.

At issue is something called elastohydrodynamic lubrication (EHL) friction, which is the friction that occurs when two solid surfaces come into contact with a thin layer of fluid between them. This would include the friction that occurs when you rub your fingertips together, with the fluid being the thin layer of naturally occurring oil on your skin. But it could also apply to a robotic claw lifting an object that has been coated with oil, or to a surgical device that is being used inside the human body.

One reason friction is important is because it helps us hold things without dropping them.

Understanding friction is intuitive for humans—even when we're handling soapy dishes. But it is extremely difficult to account for EHL friction when developing materials that controls grasping capabilities in robots.

To develop materials that help control EHL friction, engineers would need a framework that can be applied uniformly to a wide variety of patterns, materials and dynamic operating conditions. And that is exactly what the researchers have discovered.

In this context, surface patterns could be anything from the slightly raised surfaces on the tips of our fingers to grooves in the surface of a robotic tool.

The new physical principle makes use of four equations to account for all of the physical forces at play in understanding EHL friction. In the paper, the research team demonstrated the law in three systems: human fingers; a bio-inspired robotic fingertip; and a tool called a tribo-rheometer, which is used to measure frictional forces. 

It has obvious applications in the realm of telesurgery, in which surgeons remotely control robotic devices to perform surgical procedures.

Elastohydrodynamic friction of robotic and human fingers on soft micropatterned substrates, Nature Materials (2021). DOI: 10.1038/s41563-021-00990-9

https://phys.org/news/2021-04-law-physics-humans-robots-grasp.html?...

Geoengineering: 'Plan B' for the planet

Dismissed a decade ago as far-fetched and dangerous, schemes to tame the effects of global warming by engineering the climate have migrated from the margins of policy debates towards centre stage.

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Humanity taking 'colossal risk' with our future: Nobels

The failure to halt climate change, the destruction of nature and other intertwined global crises poses an existential risk to humanity, ten Nobel laureates said Thursday following the first-ever Nobel Prize Summit.

Lightning may be an important source of air-cleaning chemicals

A storm-chasing airplane caught thunderstorms producing extremely high concentrations of two important oxidants

Lightning could play an important role in flushing pollutants out of the atmosphere.

Observations from a storm-chasing airplane reveal that lightning can forge lots of air-cleansing chemicals called oxidants, researchers report online April 29 in Science. Oxidants help clear the air by reacting with contaminants like methane to form molecules that are more water soluble or stickier, allowing them to more easily rain out of Earth’s atmosphere or stick to its surface.

Researchers knew lightning produces nitric oxide, which can lead to the formation of oxidants such as hydroxyl radicals. But no one had seen lightning directly create lots of these oxidants.

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In May and June 2012, a NASA jet measured two oxidants in storm clouds over Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas. One was the hydroxyl radical, OH. The other was a similar oxidant called the hydroperoxyl radical, HO₂. The combined concentration of OH and HO₂ molecules, generated by lightning and other electrified regions of air, reached up to thousands of parts per trillion in some parts of these clouds. The highest concentration of OH previously observed in the atmosphere was a few parts per trillion. The most HO₂ observed was about 150 parts per trillion.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/lightning-storm-chemicals-air-c...

The mystery of sleep: Why can’t we stay awake indefinitely?

How SARS-CoV-2 hijacks human cells to evade immune system

Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine have discovered one way in which SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, hijacks human cell machinery to blunt the immune response, allowing it to establish infection, replicate and cause disease. In short, the virus genome gets tagged with a special marker by a human enzyme that tells the immune system to stand down, while at the same time ramping up production of the surface proteins that SARS-CoV-2 uses as a doorknob to enter cells. The study, published April 22, 2021 in Cell Reports, helps lay the groundwork for new anti-viral immunotherapies  treatments that work by boosting a patients immune system, rather than directly killing the virus. Its very smart of this virus to use host machinery to simultaneously go into stealth mode and get inside more cells

The Wave Beneath Their Wings

These cellular clocks help explain why elephants are bigger than mice

A clock’s accuracy may be tied to the entropy it creates

A clock made from a wiggling membrane produces more disorder as it becomes more accurate

Today’s most advanced clocks keep time with an incredibly precise rhythm. But a new experiment suggests that clocks’ precision comes at a price: entropy.

Entropy, or disorder, is created each time a clock ticks. Now, scientists have measured the entropy generated by a clock that can be run at varying levels of accuracy. The more accurate the clock’s ticks, the more entropy it emitted, physicists report in a paper accepted to Physical Review X.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/clock-time-accuracy-entropy-dis...

The Evolution of Bacteria on a “Mega-Plate” Petri Dish

Three new studies suggest Z-genome is much more widespread in bacte...

Three teams working independently have found evidence that suggests the Z-genome in bacteria-invading viruses is much more widespread than thought. All three of the groups have used a variety of genomic techniques to identify parts of the pathways that lead development of the Z-genome in bacteria-invading viruses known as bacteriophages. The first team was made up of researchers from several institutions in China and one in Singapore, the second with members from several institutions in France; the third was an international effort. All three teams have published their results in the journal Science. Michael Grome and Farren Isaacs with Yale University have also published a Perspectives piece in the same journal issue outlining the work of all three teams.

In long-awaited breakthrough,  scientists harness molecules into single quantum state

 Researchers have big ideas for the potential of quantum technology, from unhackable networks to earthquake sensors. But all these things depend on a major technological feat: being able to build and control systems of quantum particles, which are among the smallest objects in the universe.

That goal is now a step closer with the publication of a new method by  scientists. Published April 28 in Nature, the paper shows how to bring multiple molecules at once into a single quantum state—one of the most important goals in quantum physics.

One of the essential states of matter is called a Bose-Einstein condensate: When a group of particles cooled to nearly absolute zero share a quantum state, the entire group starts behaving as though it were a single atom. It’s a bit like coaxing an entire band to march entirely in step while playing in tune—difficult to achieve, but when it happens, a whole new world of possibilities can open up.

Scientists have been able to do this with atoms for a few decades, but what they’d really like to do is to be able to do it with molecules. Such a breakthrough could serve as the underpinning for many forms of quantum technology.

But because molecules are larger than atoms and have many more moving parts, most attempts to harness them have dissolved into chaos. “Atoms are simple spherical objects, whereas molecules can vibrate, rotate, carry small magnets. Because molecules can do so many different things, it makes them more useful, and at the same time much harder to control.

So the scientists first  cooled the entire system down —down to 10 nanokelvins, a split hair above absolute zero. Then they packed the molecules into a crawl space so that they were pinned flat. Typically, molecules want to move in all directions, and if you allow that, they are much less stable. The researchers confined the molecules so that they are on a 2D surface and can only move in two directions.

The result was a set of virtually identical molecules—lined up with exactly the same orientation, the same vibrational frequency, in the same quantum state.

The scientists described this molecular condensate as like a pristine sheet of new drawing paper for quantum engineering. So far, they’ve been able to link up to a few thousand molecules together in such a state, and are beginning to explore its potential.

Zhang, Chen, Yao and Chin. Atomic Bose-Einstein condensate to molecular Bose-Einstein condensate transition. Nature, 2021 DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-03443-0

SARS-CoV-2 spike protein alone may cause lung damage

Using a newly developed mouse model of acute lung injury, researchers found that exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein alone was enough to induce COVID-19-like symptoms including severe inflammation of the lungs.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is covered in tiny spike proteins. These proteins bind with receptors on our cells, starting a process that allows the virus to release its genetic material  into a healthy cell. The study findings show that the SARS-CoV2 spike protein causes lung injury even without the presence of intact virus.

The researchers found that the genetically modified mice injected with the spike protein exhibited COVID-19-like symptoms that included severe inflammation, an influx of white blood cells into their lungs and evidence of a cytokine storm—an immune response in which the body starts to attack its own cells and tissues rather than just fighting off the virus. The mice that only received saline (control group) remained normal.

https://www.eventscribe.net/2021/EB2021/index.asp?presTarget=1644160

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-04-sars-cov-spike-protein-lung....

And the spike protein in vaccines is not dangerous. Read here why:

https://blogs.sciencemag.org/pipeline/archives/2021/05/04/spike-pro...

Bats found to have innate sense of speed of sound

A pair of researchers with Tel Aviv University's School of Zoology has found that bats have an innate sense of the speed of sound. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Eran Amichai and Yossi Yovel describe experiments they conducted with both wild and lab raised bats and what they learned from them.

Scientists have known for some time that many species of bats use echolocation to determine how far away an object is from them. They send out a signal and then measure its distance by the amount of time that it takes for the signal to bounce back to them. What is not known is whether this ability is something they are born with or if it is learned. To answer that question, the researchers conducted two kinds of experiments—one with bats reared in the lab, the other with captured wild bats.

The first experiment involved raising bats from when they were pups until they were old enough to find food on their own. Each was trained to eat from a certain target placed 130 cm away from a starting perch. Some of the bats were raised in an environment with added helium in the air—helium is thinner than air, thus sound travels faster when passing through it. Each of the bats were then tested under two scenarios. In the first, the bats were tested on their ability to reach the target under normal conditions—they were also timed. In the second scenario, the bats were tested in the same ways as they flew in helium-enriched air.

The researchers found that those flying in helium-enhanced air tended to underestimate the distance to the target—and it did not matter if they were raised in a helium-rich environment or not.

In the second experiment, the researchers caught and trained several wild bats and taught them to eat from the same target as the bats in the first experiment. They then ran the same tests as they did in the first experiment and obtained the same results. The bats flying in helium-enriched air tended to underestimate the distance to the target. The researchers therefore suggest that bats have an innate sense of the speed of sound.

Eran Amichai et al. Echolocating bats rely on an innate speed-of-sound reference, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2021). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2024352118

https://phys.org/news/2021-05-innate.html?utm_source=nwletter&u...

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'Last resort' antibiotic pops bacteria like balloons

Scientists have revealed how an antibiotic of 'last resort' kills bacteria. The findings may also reveal a potential way to make the antibiotic more powerful.

The antibiotic colistin has become a last resort treatment for infections caused by some of the world's nastiest superbugs. However, despite being discovered over 70 years ago, the process by which this antibiotic kills bacteria has, until now, been something of a mystery.

Now, researchers have revealed that colistin punches holes in bacteria, causing them to pop like balloons.

Colistin was first described in 1947, and is one of the very few antibiotics that is active against many of the most deadly superbugs, including E. coli, which causes potentially lethal infections of the bloodstream, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Acinetobacter baumannii, which frequently infect the lungs of people receiving mechanical ventilation in intensive care units.

These superbugs have two 'skins', called membranes. Colistin punctures both membranes, killing the bacteria. However, whilst it was known that colistin damaged the outer membrane by targeting a chemical called lipopolysaccharide (LPS), it was unclear how the inner membranewas pierced.

This work has shown that colistin also targets LPS in the inner membrane, even though there's very little of it present.

Akshay Sabnis, Katheryn LH Hagart, Anna Klöckner, Michele Becce, Lindsay E Evans, R Christopher D Furniss, Despoina AI Mavridou, Ronan Murphy, Molly M Stevens, Jane C Davies, Gérald J Larrouy-Maumus, Thomas B Clarke, Andrew M Edwards. Colistin kills bacteria by targeting lipopolysaccharide in the cytoplasmic membrane. eLife, 2021; 10 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.65836

https://phys.org/news/2021-05-resort-antibiotic-bacteria-balloons.h...

 The gateway to conscious awareness

During our waking hours, the brain is receiving a near-constant influx of sensory signals of various strengths. For decades, scientists have wondered why some signals rise to the light of conscious awareness while other signals of a similar strength remain in the dark shadows of unconsciousness. What controls the gate that separates the shadows and the light?

In a new study  published in  Cell Reports, researchers identify a key area in the cortex that appears to be the gate of conscious awareness.

Information processing in the brain has two dimensions: sensory processing of the environment without awareness and the type that occurs when a stimulus reaches a certain level of importance and enters conscious awareness.

Researchers attempted to confirm that this switch occurs in a part of the brain called the anterior insular cortex, acting as a type of gate between low level sensory information and higher level awareness.

Looking for the correlation across different states of consciousness revealed activation of the anterior insular cortex played a role in the successful switch between these activations and deactivations.

Anterior insular cortex has continuously fluctuating activity. Whether you can detect a stimulus depends upon the state of the anterior insula when the information arrives in your brain: if the insula's activity is high at the point of stimulus, you will see the image. Based on evidence from the present  experiments, researchers concluded that the anterior insular cortex could be a gate for conscious awareness. 

"Anterior insula regulates brain network transitions that gate conscious access," Cell Reports (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2021.109081

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-05-reveals-gateway-conscious-aw...

The anterior insular cortex (AIC) is implicated in a wide range of conditions and behaviours, from bowel distension and orgasm, to cigarette craving and maternal love, to decision making and sudden insight. Its function in the re-representation of interoception offers one possible basis for its involvement in all subjective feelings. New findings suggest a fundamental role for the AIC (and the von Economo neurons it contains) in awareness, and thus it needs to be considered as a potential neural correlate of consciousness.

https://www.nature.com/articles/nrn2555

A cold soak lowers the risk of salmonella growth on 'sprouted' foods

Soaking "sprouted" foods in cold water, rather than the more common practice of soaking at ambient temperature, lowers the risk of salmonella growth on these increasingly popular healthy snack foods, according to a new study.

Making these foods involves soaking raw ingredients—usually grains, nuts or seeds—in water overnight, often at room temperature. Soaking softens the hulls and leads to swelling that initiates the activation of enzymes and reduction of antinutrients, which are plant compounds that reduce the body's ability to absorb essential nutrients.

Following soaking, these ingredients are typically dried under low temperature and low humidity to maintain their "raw" label, then packaged as either single-ingredient snacks, incorporated into a complex snack—such as granola, bars or trail mix—or pureed into nut or seed butters or as a base for fermented non-dairy "cheeses."

The study, published in Food Protection Trends, demonstrates the risk of "sprouting" practices and presents practical strategies to improve safety of these raw foods

https://phys.org/news/2021-05-cold-lowers-salmonella-growth-foods.h...

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A few simple tricks make fake news stories stick in the brain

People are more likely to buy in if the misinformation is surprising, emotional or on repeat

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/misinformation-fake-news-storie...

Countering Science Misinformation through sci-com

Myths, false claims and reports of bad science can spread like wildfire on social media and by word of mouth, but scientists affiliated with AAAS programs are working strategically to combat science misinformation. In the video series “AAAS Voices: Countering Science Misinformation,” experts explain the challenges of misinformation on addressing timely topics such as climate change, technology and health, including the COVID-19 pandemic. Scientists share how they combat misinformation and offer strategies for how their fellow scientists can productively address and correct the inaccuracies they encounter. As a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists, Astrid Caldas communicates the facts about climate change to a wide range of audiences in person, on social media and through media appearances. To get the facts across and effectively clarify misinformation, Caldas recommended several strategies to fellow climate change communicators who want to best connect with their audience. For instance, tie your message to your particular audience’s values and encourage listeners to challenge their own assumptions by asking questions, said Caldas, a 2013-2014 AAAS Science & Technology Policy Fellow. “It’s never a lecture. It’s a conversation,” said Caldas.

https://blog.ucsusa.org/astrid-caldas/dont-let-them-fool-you-disinf...

GM grass cleanses soil of toxic pollutants left by military explosi...

GM grass cleanses soil of toxic pollutants left by military explosives, new research shows

A new study  demonstrates that genetically modified switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) can detoxify residues of the military explosive, RDX, left behind on live-fire training ranges, munitions dumps and minefields. RDX has been a major component of munitions since WW2 which are still used extensively on military training grounds. This use has now resulted in widespread pollution of groundwater. Researchers generated the plants by inserting two genes from bacteria able to breakdown RDX. The plants were then grown in RDX contaminated soil on a US military site. The genetically modified grass grew well and successfully degraded RDX to non-detectable levels in their plant tissues.

https://www.york.ac.uk/news-and-events/news/2021/research/gm-grass-...

If you are not making any silly mistakes, your brain is not working hard enough.