How to find a planet you can’t see

CAR-T cells hold cancer at bay

A last-resort cancer treatment called CAR-T cell therapy has kept two people leukaemia-free for 12 years. “We can now conclude that CAR T cells can actually cure patients with leukaemia,” says physician and study author Carl June. CAR-T cell therapies involve removing immune cells called T cells from a person with cancer, and genetically altering them so that they produce proteins — called chimeric antigen receptors, or CARs — that recognize cancer cells. The cells are then reinfused into the person, in the hope that they will seek out and destroy tumours. But the therapy is expensive, risky and technically demanding, and doesn’t work for everyone.

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First COVID human challenge trial

Initial results from the first COVID-19 human challenge study show that healthy, young people developed no or mild symptoms. Such trials intentionally expose participants to a disease, providing a unique opportunity to study viral infections in detail from start to finish — but they are controversial because of the risks they pose to volunteers. The UK study of 34 individuals, aged 18–30, shows that such trials can be done safely, say scientists, and lays the groundwork for more in-depth studies of vaccines, antivirals and immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

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Direct evidence of two types of water

Water is unlike most other liquids on Earth: it has at least 66 weird properties, including high surface tension, high heat capacity, high melting and boiling points and low compressibility. Some chemists have come to think of it as not being one liquid at all, but two distinct liquid phases that coexist in a mixture. Now, physicists might have made the first direct observation of the transformation between the two ..., in supercold water mixed with trehalose, a natural antifreeze that keeps the liquid from freezing.

There's a Bunch of Bacteria exchanging genetic material  in Your Gut, And It's Wilder Than We Thought

The human gut is the host of a rampant microscopic orgy. To survive, the microbes in our digestive tract are having 'sex' with each other on a regular basis, all in the name of swapping secrets on how to survive deadly doses of antibiotics.

A team of researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and University of California Riverside has now learned just how far this bacterial bump-and-grind goes, finding exchanges that go beyond what we knew previously.

Bacteria, of course, don't have genitals, but technically 'sex' in biology refers to any process that exchanges genetic material.

By forming a 'temporary union' with another bacterium in our gut, a microbe can therefore transfer its genes to another – it doesn't even have to be the same species.

All the microbe has to do is stick out a tube, called a pilus, and attach itself to another cell, shooting off a transferable package of DNA called a mobile genetic element when it's ready.

The discovery of bacterial sex was made over 70 years ago, when scientists realized this horizontal gene transfer was how microbes were sharing resistance genes for certain antibiotics, thereby spreading antibiotic resistance.

More recently, it's become clear that bacterial sex doesn't just occur when microbes are under attack. It happens all the time, and it's probably part of what keeps our microbiome fit and healthy.

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(21)01664-8?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2211124721016648%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

https://www.sciencealert.com/there-are-a-bunch-of-bacteria-having-s...

Three COVID-19 exposures needed for broad immunity

The immune system develops a high-quality antibody response after three encounters with the coronavirus spike protein. These antibodies are also capable of neutralizing omicron efficiently. This applies to people who are triple-vaccinated, to those having recovered and then received two vaccinations and to double-vaccinated individuals who have experienced a breakthrough infection. These are results of a study which tracked the antibodies of vaccinated and recovered individuals for two years.

Answers to the question how the immune systems can be "educated" to battle omicron and other immune escape variants of the virus are provided by a team of researchers. As they report in Nature Medicine, a total of three exposures to the viral spike protein leads to production of virus neutralizing antibodies not only in high quantity, but also high quality. These high-quality antibodies bind to the viral spike protein more vigorously and are also capable of effectively fighting the omicron variant. This applies to triple-vaccinated people, to people who have recovered from COVID-19 and then had two vaccinations, and to double-vaccinated people who then had a breakthrough infection.

In the new study the team now defined several parameters in the blood of study participants: the concentration of antibodies to the viral spike protein, the binding strength of these antibodies, and their ability to neutralize infection of SARS-CoV-2 variants in cell culture. For estimating the extent of protective immunity, the latter two parameters are particularly important. The study revealed that the ability of the immune system to neutralize the virus correlates only weakly with the antibody titer. Rather, it was critical how effectively these antibodies bind to the virus and thus disable infection.

As predicted from its many mutations, omicron exhibited the most pronounced evasion from neutralizing antibodies compared to all other viral variants tested. "For omicron, you need considerably more and better antibodies to prevent infection" . The researchers developed a new virus neutralization test, which allowed them to analyze antibodies in many serum samples and different variants of the virus at high throughput rates. A new finding of this study is that people require three separate exposures to the spike protein to build up high-level neutralizing activity against all viral variants, including omicron.

As the scientists report, various constellations are possible for these three spike encounters. Triple-vaccinated people without prior SARS-CoV-2 infection had almost the same titer and quality of neutralizing antibodies against omicron as vaccinated convalescents or people who had a breakthrough infection with delta or omicron.

In all cases, the neutralization activity reached similarly high levels and this was paralleled by an increased binding strength of the antibodies.

Paul R. Wratil et al, Three exposures to the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 by either infection or vaccination elicit superior neutralizing immunity to all variants of concern, Nature Medicine (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-022-01715-4

Nina Koerber et al, Dynamics of spike-and nucleocapsid specific immunity during long-term follow-up and vaccination of SARS-CoV-2 convalescents, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27649-y

https://researchnews.cc/news/11427/Three-COVID-19-exposures-needed-...

Mosquitoes are seeing red: These new findings about their vision could help you hide from these disease vectors

Beating the bite of mosquitoes this spring and summer could hinge on your attire and your skin. New research indicates that a common mosquito species—after detecting a telltale gas that we exhale—flies toward specific colors, including red, orange, black and cyan. The mosquitoes ignore other colours, such as green, purple, blue and white. The researchers think these findings help explain how mosquitoes find hosts, since human skin, regardless of overall pigmentation, emits a strong red-orange "signal" to their eyes.

Mosquitoes appear to use odours to help them distinguish what is nearby, like a host to bite. When they smell specific compounds, like CO2 from our breath, that scent stimulates the eyes to scan for specific colors and other visual patterns, which are associated with a potential host, and head to them.

The results, published Feb. 4 in Nature Communications, reveal how the mosquito sense of smell—known as olfaction—influences how the mosquito responds to visual cues. Knowing which colours attract hungry mosquitoes, and which ones do not, can help design better repellants, traps and other methods to keep mosquitoes at bay.

There are three major cues that attract mosquitoes: your breath, your sweat and the temperature of your skin. In this study, researchers found a fourth cue: the colour red, which can not only be found on your clothes, but is also found in everyone's skin. The shade of your skin doesn't matter, we are all giving off a strong red signature. Filtering out those attractive colours in our skin, or wearing clothes that avoid those colours, could be another way to prevent a mosquito biting.

In the experiments conducted, without any odour stimulus, mosquitoes largely ignored a dot at the bottom of the chamber they were locked in, regardless of colour. After a spritz of CO2 into the chamber, mosquitos continued to ignore the dot if it was green, blue or purple in colour. But if the dot was red, orange, black or cyan, mosquitoes would fly toward it!

The olfactory gating of visual preferences to human skin and visible spectra in mosquitoes, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28195-x

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-mosquitoes-red-vision-disease-vectors...

Mind-blowing mission to the early Universe

Your culture informs the emotions you feel when listening to music

https://theconversation.com/how-your-culture-informs-the-emotions-y...

Researchers report game-changing technology to remove 99% of carbon dioxide from air

Researchers have demonstrated a way to effectively capture 99% of carbon dioxide from air using a novel electrochemical system powered by hydrogen.

It is a significant advance for carbon dioxide capture and could bring more environmentally friendly fuel cells closer to market.

Fuel cells work by converting fuel chemical energy directly into electricity. They can be used in transportation for things like hybrid or zero-emission vehicles.

They found a way to embed the power source for the electrochemical technology inside the separation membrane. The approach involved internally short-circuiting the device.

It's risky, but they managed to control this short-circuited fuel cell by hydrogen. And by using this internal electrically shorted membrane, they were able to get rid of the bulky components, such as bipolar plates, current collectors or any electrical wires typically found in a fuel cell stack.

Now, the research team had an electrochemical device that looked like a normal filtration membrane made for separating out gases, but with the capability to continuously pick up minute amounts of carbon dioxide from the air like a more complicated electrochemical system.

In effect, embedding the device's wires inside the membrane created a short-cut that made it easier for the carbon dioxide particles to travel from one side to the other. It also enabled the team to construct a compact, spiral module with a large surface area in a small volume. In other words, they now have a smaller package capable of filtering greater quantities of air at a time, making it both effective and cost-effective for fuel cell applications. Meanwhile, fewer components mean less cost, and more importantly, provide a way to easily scale up for the market.

The research team's results showed that an electrochemical cell measuring 2 inches by 2 inches could continuously remove about 99% of the carbon dioxide found in air flowing at a rate of approximately two liters per minute. An early prototype spiral device about the size of a 12-ounce soda can is capable of filtering 10 liters of air per minute and scrubbing out 98% of the carbon dioxide, according to the researchers.

Lin Shi et al, A shorted membrane electrochemical cell powered by hydrogen to remove CO2 from the air feed of hydroxide exchange membrane fuel cells, Nature Energy (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41560-021-00969-5

https://researchnews.cc/news/11453/Researchers-report-game-changing...

A never-before-seen way bacteria infect cells

 A child is born into a world full of bacteria, starting with the birth process, where contact with the mother during vaginal birth introduces the infant to the first cultures, which are far different (and absent) during a Caesarian section. Nursing and breast-feeding provide additional early exposure to bacteria that will later contribute to the development of the immune system and influence the central nervous system.

Bacteria can enter the body through an opening in your skin, such as a cut or a surgical wound, or through your airway and cause infections like bacterial pneumonia. They also enter and colonize in our gastrointestinal tract mainly by food sources. Bacteria that are in dirt, in milk and on plant surfaces enter our body.

Bacteria are much larger than viruses, and they are too large to be taken up by receptor-mediated endocytosis. Cells engulf the larger objects and pull them in, which is generally called endocytosis. There are many different types of endocytosis, one of which is called phagocytosis.

 Biologists  have now identified a new way that one type of bacteria invades multiple cells within a living organism.

The study, published this week in Nature Communications, describes how a new species of bacteria, Bordetella atropi, invades its roundworm host.

And it is aptly named because the bacteria changes its shape into a long thread, growing up to 100 times the usual size of one bacterium in the span of 30 hours without dividing.

By altering the genes of Bordetella atropi, the research team discovered that this invasive threading relies on the same genes and molecules that other bacteria use when they are in a nutrient-rich environment. However, these other bacteria only use this pathway to make subtly larger cells, whereas the B. atropi bacteria grows continuously.

Other bacteria often transform into threads, called filamentation, in response to dangerous environments or damage to their DNA. This lets them continue to grow in size, but delay dividing into new bacterial cells until they fix the damage caused by the stress. 

Here, however, the researchers were the first to observe filamentation as a way of spreading from cell to cell in a living organism for a purpose other than the stress response. They think that instead the new species is invading the host cells, detecting this rich environment and triggering filamentation in order to quickly infect more cells and access additional nutrients for their growth. 

Although neither the bacteria nor the roundworm  infects humans, it is possible that the spreading mechanism may also be used by human pathogens. Separately, the nutrient-induced filamentation process might be used by other  bacteria to form biofilms, which can coat the tubing of catheters and lead to complications for patients.

Tuan D. Tran et al, Bacterial filamentation as a mechanism for cell-to-cell spread within an animal host, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28297-6

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-never-before-seen-bacteria-infect-cel...

New Discovery could help finetune immunity to fight infections, disease

New Research  by scientists supports a novel theory that the innate immune system people are born with can respond differently to specific pathogens. This quality, known as immunological specificity, was previously ascribed only to the adaptive immune system, which develops over time through disease exposure.

Published in the journal Cell Reports, the study suggests that this innate immune specificity is driven by the  nervous system and identifies a neuronal protein as a critical link in the process.

Based on an animal model, these findings hold early promise for the treatment of conditions such as sepsis, arthritis and inflammatory bowel disease, in which the innate immune system attacks the body and causes uncontrolled inflammation. They could also provide the basis for finetuning an experimental treatment that harnesses the nervous system to fight infection.

Clinical studies have shown that stimulating impaired neural circuits—either electrically or pharmacologically—can cure or alleviate many innate immune diseases. Knowing how the innate immune system generates a specific response to a particular pathogen enables us to manipulate neural circuits to adjust the intensity of the immune response as needed.

This would essentially help restore balance to the immune system, either by dialing back an excessive response that can cause prolonged inflammation, tissue damage and even death; or by boosting an insufficient response to keep an infection from getting worse. 

Jingru Sun, Neuronal GPCR NMUR-1 regulates distinct immune responses to different pathogens, Cell Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.110321. www.cell.com/cell-reports/full … 2211-1247(22)00032-8

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-discovery-finetune-immunity-...

New implant offers promise for the paralyzed

Mysterious Link Between Vitamin D And COVID-19 Reaffirmed in 'Striking' New Findings

Scientists found "striking" differences in the chances of getting seriously ill from COVID-19 when they compared patients who had sufficient vitamin D levels prior to contracting the disease, with those who didn't.

A study published recently  in research journal PLOS One found that about half of people who were vitamin D deficient before getting COVID-19 developed severe illness, compared to less than 10 percent of people who had sufficient levels of the vitamin in their blood.

We know vitamin D is vital for bone health, but its role in protecting against severe COVID-19 is less-well established. 

The latest research was the first to examine vitamin D levels in individuals prior to them contracting COVID-19, the study authors said.

The findings suggested vitamin D helped bolster the immune system to deal with viruses that attack the respiratory system.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0...

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As seed-hauling animals decline, some plants can’t keep up with climate change

Happy women scientists day!

The United Nations General Assembly declared 11 February as the International Day of Women and Girls in Science in 2015.

Just 14 cases: Guinea worm disease nears eradication

Less powerful black hole blows environment clean 

Until now, astronomers have always assumed that only blackholes with strong radiation stop star formation from within the galaxy. This is because these black holes blow away gas, which is the building block for stars. The question, however, is whether galaxies without strongly radiating black holes are also inhibited in their growth.

An international team of astronomers has discovered that even a weak jet stream from a low-active black hole can be a kind of leaf blower to clean parts of a galaxy. The observed black hole removes about 75% of the cold gas in the central regions of the galaxy in a few million years. This probably stops the formation of stars. The researchers publish their findings on Thursday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

This low-power black hole is found in the galaxy B2 0258+35 in the constellation of Perseus. It does not emit strong radiation but has radio plasma jets that are bright, as opposed to black holes that emit visible light, ultraviolet or X-rays.

The gas at B2 0258+35 is blown away steadily at a speed of about 500 kilometers per second. It is roughly five to ten solar masses per year and takes a few million years. The gas is not moving fast enough to escape from the reach of the galaxy. It eventually falls back and ends up at the edges of the galaxy. From there, it cannot properly form new stars.

Suma Murthy, Cold gas removal from the centre of a galaxy by a low-luminosity jet, Nature Astronomy (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-021-01596-6. www.nature.com/articles/s41550-021-01596-6

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-powerful-black-hole-environment.html?...

Making installed train windows permeable to mobile-phone signals

The chronic growing pains of communicating science online

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo0668

Lifetime of knowledge can clutter memories of older adults, researchers suggest

When a person tries to access a memory, their brain quickly sifts through everything stored in it to find the relevant information. But as we age, many of us have difficulty retrieving memories. In a review publishing in the journal Trends in Cognitive Sciences on February 11, researchers propose an explanation for why this might be happening: the brains of older adults allocate more space to accumulated knowledge and have more material to navigate when attempting to access memories. While this wealth of prior knowledge can make memory retrieval challenging, the researchers say it has its upsides—this life experience can aid with creativity and decision-making.

Researchers looked at several behavioral and neuroimaging studies, which show that older adults have difficulty suppressing information that is no longer relevant and that when searching for a specific memory, they often retrieve other, irrelevant memories along with it. The studies also showed that when given a cognitive task, older adults rely more heavily on previous knowledge than younger adults do.

While the researchers focus primarily on the difficulties that these cluttered memories may pose, they also highlight a few situations in which these crowded memoryscapes may be useful. "Evidence suggests that older adults show preserved, and at times enhanced, creativity as a function of enriched memories," the researchers write. They further hypothesize that older adults may be well served by their prior knowledge when it comes to decision-making, where they can pull on their accumulated wisdom.

With continued study and increased understanding of how memory works in older adults, researchers are hopeful that they may be able to find new ways to help them. It is possible that the increased binding and richer encodings of older adults can even be leveraged to improve older adults' learning and memory.

Trends in Cognitive Sciences, Amer: "Cluttered memory representations shape cognition in old age" www.cell.com/trends/cognitive- … 1364-6613(21)00310-7 , DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2021.12.002

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-lifetime-knowledge-clutter-m...

Space weather took out 40 SpaceX satellites, and it could get worse

SpaceX can mitigate the risk to its satellites my monitoring space weather in real time, but an increasingly active Sun and the large number of satellites in orbit won’t make it easy!

SpaceX just lost 40 of its newest satellites to a geomagnetic storm caused by solar radiation, a hazard that will only increase for Elon Musk’s company and other satellite operators over the coming few years.

SpaceX launched its latest batch of 49 Starlink satellites on 3 February, the latest in a constellation of more than 1900 small satellites providing broadband internet connectivity from low Earth orbit. On 4 February, a mass of charged particles ejected from the sun in late January reached Earth, dumping their energy into the planet’s magnetic field and increasing the density of the upper atmosphere.

Satellites launched into low Earth orbit always contend with some amount of atmospheric drag, but in a statement released 8 February, SpaceX noted the drag produced by the geomagnetic storm was 50% higher than in earlier launches. The company acknowledged that the drag was too much for 40 of the 49 satellites, which have reentered or will soon reenter the Earth’s atmosphere.

Reusable plastic bottles shown to release hundreds of chemicals

Researchers  have found several hundred different chemical substances in tap water stored in reusable plastic bottles. Several of these substances are potentially harmful to human health. There is a need for better regulation and manufacturing standards for manufacturers, according to the chemists behind the study.

Have you ever experienced the strange taste of water after it has been in a reusable plastic bottle for a while? It appears that there is a solid, yet worrying reason for this.

Chemists  have studied which chemical substances are released into liquids by popular types of soft plastic reusable bottles. The results were quite a surprise.

The researchers were taken aback by the large amount of chemical substances they found in water after 24 hours in the bottles. There were hundreds of substances in the water—including substances never before found in plastic, as well as substances that are potentially harmful to health. After a dishwasher cycle, there were several thousand.

They  detected more than 400 different substances from the bottle plastic and over 3,500 substances derived from dishwasher soap. A large portion of these are unknown substances that the researchers have yet to identify. But even of the identified chemicals, the toxicity of at least 70 % remains unknown.

Photo-initiators are among the toxic substances in the water which worry the researchers. These are known to have potentially harmful effects on health in organisms, such as being endocrine disruptors and carcinogens. Furthermore, the researchers found a variety of plastic softeners, antioxidants and release agents used in the manufacture of the plastic, as well as Diethyltoluamide (DEET), commonly known as the active substance in mosquito spray.

Machine washing adds more substances into the bottled water
In their experiments, the researchers mimicked the ways in which many people typically use plastic drinks bottles. People often drink water that has been kept in bottles for several hours. The researchers left ordinary tap water in both new and used drinking bottles for 24 hours, both before and after machine washing, as well as after the bottles had been in the dishwasher and rinsed thoroughly in tap water.

What is released most after machine washing are the soap substances from the surface. Most of the chemicals that come from the water bottle itself remain after machine washing and extra rinsing. The most toxic substances that we identified actually came after the bottle had been in the dishwasher—presumably because washing wears down the plastic and thereby increases leaching. In new reusable bottles, close to 500 different substances remained in the water after an additional rinse. Over 100 of these substances came from the plastic itself.

Just because these substances are in the water, doesn't mean that the water is toxic and affects us humans. But the problem is, is that we just don't know. And in principle, it isn't all that great to be drinking soap residues or other chemicals.

Part1

The researchers suspect that bottle manufacturers only add a small proportion of the substances found intentionally. The majority have inadvertently occurred either during the production process or during use, where substances may have been converted from other substances. This includes the presence of the mosquito repellent DEET, where the researchers hypothesize that as one of the plastic softeners degrades, it is converted into DEET.

But even of the known substances that manufacturers deliberately add, only a tiny fraction of the toxicity has been studied. So, as a consumer, you don't know if any of the others have a detrimental effect on your health.

The study results were published in the Journal of Hazardous Materials.

1. Selina Tisler, Jan H. Christensen. Non-target screening for the identification of migrating compounds from reusable plastic bottles into drinking water. Journal of Hazardous Materials, 2022; 429: 128331 DOI: 10.1016/j.jhazmat.2022.128331

https://researchnews.cc/news/11590/Reusable-plastic-bottles-shown-t...

Part2

Blood clot testing using smartphones

Two Simple Muscle Exercises Can Help Reduce Dizziness When Standing Up

Feeling dizzy or light-headed when standing is a common experience caused by a drop in blood pressure. When this blood pressure dip is very brief and rapid, and not tied to any other health problems, it's referred to as initial orthostatic hypotension or IOH.

New research suggests some simple muscle exercises before or after standing could limit the effects of IOH, bringing relief to those who experience it, with no cost and no drugs involved. The key, it seems, is activating the lower body muscles before or after standing.

While researchers tested the muscle-tensing idea before – after people already stood up – with some success, this new study looked at whether it could work as a pre-emptive measure.

These are simple, effective, and cost-free interventions that patients can use to prevent their symptoms from IOH

The study involved 22 young women with a history of IOH, and two exercises were tested: repeatedly raising the knees while sitting for 30 seconds before standing and crossing the legs for 30 seconds after standing.

Researchers monitored the participants' heart rate and blood pressure during the experiments, with intervals between each one. Participants were also asked to self-report on the symptoms of IOH, including feelings of dizziness.

Compared with no intervention measures – so simply standing up as normal – both exercises made a significant difference in limiting the temporary drop in blood pressure and relieving the symptoms of IOH.

Since it is a physical maneuver, it simply requires the lower body limbs, which patients can utilize at any time and from anywhere to combat their symptoms

It's thought that IOH is caused by an opening of the blood vessels, triggered by the process of standing up. What these exercises might be doing, then, is counteracting that response, and the researchers say the two exercises could also be used in tandem.

Right now, those who experience IOH – thought to be up to 40 percent of the general population in the US – don't have any specific treatments available. Up until now, the best advice has been to try to stand up as slowly and as gradually as possible.

Although the sample size in this study was a small one and only involved women, these exercises could potentially change that situation. A little light-headedness might not seem like a huge problem, but it impacts daily life and can, in some cases, lead to fainting and a loss of consciousness.

https://www.heartrhythmjournal.com/article/S1547-5271(21)02524-8/fulltext

https://www.sciencealert.com/simple-muscle-exercises-can-help-reduc...

Scientists discover how galaxies can exist without dark matter

In a new Nature Astronomy study, an international team led by astrophysicists from the University of California, Irvine and Pomona College report how, when tiny galaxies collide with bigger ones, the bigger galaxies can strip the smaller galaxies of their dark matter—matter that we can't see directly, but which astrophysicists think must exist because, without its gravitational effects, they couldn't explain things like the motions of a galaxy's stars.

It's a mechanism that has the potential to explain how galaxies might be able to exist without dark matter—something once thought impossible.

The team found seven galaxies devoid of dark matter. After several collisions with neighboring galaxies 1,000-times more massive, they were stripped of most of their material, leaving behind nothing but stars and some residual dark matter.

Jorge Moreno, Galaxies lacking dark matter produced by close encounters in a cosmological simulation, Nature Astronomy (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-021-01598-4. www.nature.com/articles/s41550-021-01598-4

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-scientists-galaxies-dark.html?utm_sou...

Global study finds the extent of pharmaceutical pollution in the world's rivers

A new study looking at the presence of pharmaceuticals in the world's rivers found concentrations at potentially toxic levels in more than a quarter of the locations studied.

The new study looked at 258 rivers across the globe to measure the presence of 61 pharmaceuticals, such as carbamazepine, metformin and caffeine. The researchers studied rivers in over half of the world's countries—with rivers in 36 of these countries having never previously been monitored for pharmaceuticals.

With their latest study, the researchers found that:

• pharmaceutical pollution is contaminating water on every continent
• strong correlations between the socioeconomic status of a country and higher pollution of pharmaceuticals in its rivers (with lower-middle income nations the most polluted)
• high levels of pharmaceutical pollution was most positively associated with regions of high median age as well as high local unemployment and poverty rates
• the most polluted countries and regions of the world are the ones that have been researched the least (namely sub-saharan Africa, South America and parts of southern Asia).
• the activities most associated with the highest levels of pharmaceutical pollution included rubbish dumping along river banks, inadequate wastewater infrastructure and pharmaceutical manufacturing, and the dumping of the contents of residual septic tanks into rivers.

The study revealed that a quarter of the sites contained contaminants (such as sulfamethoxazole, propranolol, ciprofloxacin and loratadine) at potentially harmful concentrations.

The researchers hope that by increasing the monitoring of pharmaceuticals in the environment, they can develop strategies to limit the effects potentially caused by the presence of pollutants.

 Pharmaceutical pollution of the world's rivers, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2113947119.

The data for specific rivers will be available in the supplemental information associated with the publication (via PNAS). It will also be published on the Global Monitoring of Pharmaceuticals Project website.

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-global-extent-pharmaceutical-pollutio...

Research team finds clue to possible extraterrestrial origin of peptides

Researchers have discovered a new clue in the search for the origin of life, by showing that peptides can form on dust under conditions such as those prevailing in outer space. These molecules, which are one of the basic building blocks of all life, may therefore not have originated on our planet at all, but possibly in cosmic molecular clouds.

All life as we know it consists of the same chemical building blocks. These include peptides, which perform various completely different functions in the body—transporting substances, accelerating reactions or forming stabilizing scaffolds in cells. Peptides consist of individual amino acids arranged in a specific order. The exact order determines a peptide's eventual properties.

How these versatile biomolecules came into being is one of the questions about the origin of life. Amino acids, nucleobases and various sugars found in meteoroids, for example, show that this origin could be extraterrestrial in nature. However, for a peptide to be formed from individual amino acid molecules requires very special conditions that were previously assumed to be more likely to exist on Earth.

Water plays an important role in the conventional way in which peptides are created. Quantum chemical calculations have now shown that the amino acid glycine can be formed through a chemical precursor—called an amino ketene—combining with a water molecule. Put simply: In this case, water must be added for the first reaction step, and water must be removed for the second.

With this knowledge, the researchers  has now been able to demonstrate a reaction pathway that can take place under cosmic conditions and does not require water.

In an ultra-high vacuum chamber, substrates that serve as a model for the surface of dust particles were brought together with carbon, ammonia and carbon monoxide at about one quadrillionth of normal air pressure and minus 263 degrees Celsius. Investigations showed that under these conditions, the peptide polyglycine was formed from the simple chemicals. In this experiment, the German team was also able to detect the suspected amino ketene.

Now that it is clear that not only amino acids, but also peptide chains, can be created under cosmic conditions, we may have to look not only to Earth but also more into space when researching the origin of life.

S. A. Krasnokutski, K.-J. Chuang, C. Jäger, N. Ueberschaar, Th. Henning, "A pathway to peptides in space through the condensation of atomic carbon", Nature Astronomy (2022), DOI: 10.1038/s41550-021-01577-9

https://researchnews.cc/news/11610/Research-team-finds-clue-to-poss...

Astronomers discovered a new type of star covered in helium burning ashes

 A team astronomers have discovered a strange new type of star covered in the by-product of helium burning. It is possible that the stars might have been formed by a rare stellar merger event. 

While normal stars have surfaces composed of hydrogen and helium, the stars discovered now have their surfaces covered with carbon and oxygen, the ashes of helium burning—an exotic composition for a star. The situation becomes more puzzling as the new stars have temperatures and radii that indicate they are still burning helium in their cores—a property typically seen in more evolved stars.

 Astronomers think the stars discovered now might have formed in a very rare kind of stellar merger event between two white dwarf stars. White dwarfs are the remnants of larger stars that have exhausted their nuclear fuel, and are typically very small and dense.

Stellar mergers are known to happen between white dwarfs in close binary systems due to the shrinking of the orbit caused by the emission of gravitational waves.

Usually, white dwarf mergers do not lead to the formation of stars enriched in carbon and oxygen. But researchers think that, for binary systems formed with very specific masses, a carbon- and oxygen-rich white dwarf might be disrupted and end up on top of a helium-rich one, leading to the formation of these stars.

Yet no current stellar evolutionary models can fully explain the newly discovered stars. The team need refined models in order to assess whether these mergers can actually happen. These models could not only help the team to better understand these stars, but could also provide a deeper insight into the late evolution of binary systems and how their stars exchange mass as they evolve. Until astronomers develop more refined models for the evolution of binary stars, the origin of the helium covered stars will be up for debate.

Klaus Werner, Nicole Reindl, Stephan Geier, Max Pritzkuleit. Discovery of hot subdwarfs covered with helium-burning ash. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 2022; 511 (1): L66 DOI: 10.1093/mnrasl/slac005

https://researchnews.cc/news/11627/Astronomers-discover-a-new-type-...

Studying clouds can provide deeper insight into climate change

Chewing sugar-free gum reduced preterm births in a large study

The idea was inspired by the connection between poor oral health and preterm birth

Chewing a sugar-free gum daily reduced preterm births in a large study in Malawi. The oral intervention was inspired by past research linking poor oral health and preterm birth. The gum contains xylitol — a chemical that can boost oral health — in place of regular sugar.

Among women who chewed the xylitol gum, 549 out of 4,349 pregnancies, or 12.6 percent, were preterm, researchers reported February 3 at the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine’s Annual Pregnancy Meeting. That’s a 24 percent reduction compared with the group who didn’t receive the gum. Among those women, 878 out of 5,321 pregnancies, or 16.5 percent, of the babies were born before 37 weeks.

The oral health of gum users also improved. About 4,000 of the women had an initial dental exam and a later checkup. The women who chewed the gum had less periodontal disease, a condition in which the tissue surrounding the teeth becomes infected and inflamed, compared with those who didn’t get the chewing gum.

Chewing xylitol gum appears to be a check on that shift in the oral microbial community. Previous studies have shown that chewing xylitol gum leads to fewer cavities and suggest it can reduce inflammation.

K.M. Aagaard et al. PPaX: Cluster randomized trial of xylitol chewing gum on prevention.... Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine Annual Pregnancy Meeting. February 3, 2022.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/preterm-birth-chewing-gum-sugar...

Plastic, chemical pollution beyond planet's safe limit: study

The torrent of man-made chemical and plastic waste worldwide has massively exceeded limits safe for humanity or the planet, and production caps are urgently needed, scientists have concluded for the first time.

There are an estimated 350,000 different manufactured chemicals on the market and large volumes of them end up in the environment.

The impacts that we're starting to see today are large enough to be impacting crucial functions of planet Earth and its systems.

Chemicals and plastics are affecting biodiversity, piling additional stress on already stressed ecosystems.

Pesticides kill living organisms indiscriminately and plastics are ingested by living things.

Some chemicals are interfering with hormone systems, disrupting growth, metabolism and reproduction in wildlife.

While greater efforts are needed to prevent these substances being released into the environment, scientists are now pushing for more drastic solutions, such as production caps.

Recycling has so far yielded only mediocre results.

Less than 10 percent of the world's plastic is currently recycled, even as production has doubled to 367 million tonnes since 2000.

Today, the total weight of plastic on Earth is now four times the biomass of all living animals, according to recent studies.

"What we're trying to say is that maybe we have to say, 'Enough is enough'. Maybe we can't tolerate more," the  researchers said. Maybe we have to put a cap on production. Maybe we need to say, 'We can't produce more than this'.

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-plastic-chemical-pollution-planet-saf...

Cord blood clears woman of HIV

A woman in the United States has become the third person to be curedof HIV. She was treated with a new method: a transplant with umbilical-cord blood. The woman stopped antiretroviral therapy 37 months after the transplant and, more than 14 months later, still shows no signs of HIV in blood tests. Two other people have been cleared of HIV after a cancer-treating bone-marrow transplant. Transplanting cord blood, instead of bone marrow, allowed researchers to use a partially matched donor for the woman, who is mixed race, while giving her immune system a boost with blood from a close relative. This fresh approach could offer the promise of treatment to more HIV-positive people, regardless of their race or ethnicity.

Microbes in gut might affect personality

There are thousands of types of bacteria living in the gut, comprising what is known as the gut microbiome. The number of each type of bacteria is determined by many factors, such as health status, dietary habits and even physical activity levels. Gut metabolomes are small molecules, such as amino acids, enzymes and co-factors, that are produced by gut microbiota.

The gut microbiome is known to stay stable through most of one's adult life, unless there is a gastrointestinal issue or a person is taking antibiotics, and personality traits can take years to change.

Researchers are working to determine if there are unique gut microbiome and metabolomic pathways that are associated with the four personality traits.

The preliminary findings, published in the journal Nutrients, found that there are distinct bacteria and metabolomes that are associated with each personality trait. One bacterium was associated with three of the four personality traits, but none between all four traits.

Earlier work showed that mental energy, mental fatigue, physical energy and physical fatigue are four distinct biological moods, but there may be some overlap—for example, you can be both physically fatigued and physically energetic at the same time.

The study also shows that bacteria and metabolome associated with metabolism were associated with either mental or physical energy, while bacteria associated with inflammation were associated with mental or physical fatigue.

The study shows feelings of energy are associated with metabolic processes, while feelings of fatigue are associated with inflammatory processes. Additionally, these findings may help explain some of the interpersonal differences that we see in response to the anti-fatiguing effects of nutritional interventions.

Although the researchers don't know whether this response is due to gut microbiota or epigenetic markers, the findings of the current study provide them with some insight into the role that the gut plays in the personality traits.

Ali Boolani et al, Trait Energy and Fatigue May Be Connected to Gut Bacteria among Young Physically Active Adults: An Exploratory Study, Nutrients (2022). DOI: 10.3390/nu14030466

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-microbes-gut-affect-personal...

**

Plants under anesthesia reveal surprising parallels with humans

When the carnivorous Venus flytrap was  anesthetized with ether, some surprising parallels to anesthesia in humans emerge.

Anesthetics  allow patients to better endure painful treatments or even sleep through them. 

Remarkably, anaesthetisation is also possible in plants. Claude Bernard proved in 1878 that the touch-sensitive plant Mimosa pudica did not react to touch under the influence of ether by closing its leaves. He concluded that plants and animals must have a common biological essence that is disturbed by anesthetics.

Ether anesthetics were used during surgery, childbirth and in palliative treatment to take away patients' pain. However, the exact mechanism of action has never been elucidated. Even with modern anesthetics, it is often unclear how and where they function. One reason for this is certainly that humans are a very delicate research subject.

Unlike most other plants, the Venus flytrap is particularly sensitive to touch. In response to such stimuli, electrical impulses are triggered and transmitted extremely quickly to catch animal prey.

The electrical impulses (action potentials, APs) of the flytrap are comparable to those of our nervous system. It is true that plants do not have a distinct nervous system. But they do transmit electrical information in their conductive tissue, for example to close the trap at lightning speed.

Researchers have found that the Venus flytrap can be anesthetized, similar to a human being, and that it does not react to touch during this time. Investigations of the trap memory even showed that the trap cannot "remember" touches during anesthesia. Thus, its reaction is not different from that of a patient, as they  reports in the journal Scientific Reports.

Researchers also found out that the anesthetized  traps can perceive touch locally, but cannot transmit it. 

In the plant, the researchers were able to make the calcium signal visible by expressing genetically encoded calcium sensors. They found that the calcium signal is still produced in the sensory hairs of anesthetized plants after a touch, but that it no longer leaves this touch sensor. Ether therefore interrupts the transmission of stimuli.

Now we finally knew in which tissue the ether acts.

Sönke Scherzer et al, Ether anesthetics prevents touch-induced trigger hair calcium-electrical signals excite the Venus flytrap, Scientific Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-06915-z

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-anesthesia-reveal-parallels-humans.ht...

Scientists characterize the imbalanced gut bacteria of patients with myocardial infarction, angina and heart failure

The human gut contains trillions of bacteria, collectively called the gut microbiome, which may have positive and negative effects on human health. When in balance they function as an inner chemistry factory producing numerous compounds that promote good health. However, an unhealthy lifestyle—poor diet, smoking, lack of physical activity or disease—can disrupt the balance, leading the microbiome to instead produce compounds that may trigger multiple non-communicable chronic disorders in people at high genetic risk, including myocardial infarction, angina or heart failure.

Scientists have already discovered that the gut microbiome is altered in people with chronic heart disease. They subsequently identified compounds that are produced by the diseased microbiome, for instance a bacterial compound called trimethylamine (TMA) that after modification in the liver of the human host  causes arteriosclerosis.

However, these findings of altered gut microbiome are challenged because they were achieved in studies of medicated patients. Patients with heart disease are given several different drugs, each of which are known to modify the gut microbiome. As a result, it was unclear whether  drugs or heart disease itself caused the disrupted gut microbiome of people with cardiovascular disorders.

A further complication lies in the fact that heart disease often develops alongside the early stages of overweight and type 2 diabetes, which are also characterized by having disrupted gut microbiomes. As a result, it remained to be shown whether an imbalanced gut microbiome is a feature of heart disease itself.

To answer these critical questions a European consortium of researchers established the EU-funded MetaCardis research project in 2012 to investigate the role of gut microbes in cardiometabolic disease. Now they published the consortium's findings in in the journal Nature Medicine.

Part 1

The researchers recruited 1,241 middle-aged people from Denmark, France and Germany including healthy individuals, individuals with obesity and type 2 diabetes but lacking a diagnosis of heart disease, and patients with either myocardial infarction, angina pectoris or heart failure. The investigators quantified about 700 different bacterial species and estimated their functions in the gut microbiome and compared these findings to more than 1,000 compounds circulating in blood with many of these compounds originating from the inner gut chemistry factory.

The researchers  found that about half of these gut bacteria and blood compounds were modified by drug treatment and not directly related to heart disease or the early disease stages like diabetes or obesity occurring prior to diagnosis of heart disease.

Among the remaining half, about 75 percent of the disturbances of the gut microbiome occurred in the early disease stages of overweight and type 2 diabetes, many years before patients noticed any symptoms of heart disease".

However, the early microbiome changes persisted in patients with heart disease who in addition showed specific heart disease related alterations in the composition and function of the gut microbiome. Both at the early dysmetabolic stage and at the later stages of diagnosed heart disease, the diseased microbiome was characterized by a loss of bacterial cells and bacterial competences. In addition, the patients showed a shift towards fewer types of bacteria known to produce health promoting compounds like short chain fatty acids and more bacteria types producing unhealthy compounds from the metabolism of certain dietary amino acids, choline and L-carnitine. Analyses of the blood compounds mirrored the imbalance of the gut microbiome.

Part 2

The findings of gut microbiome and blood compound changes in patients with one of the three heart disorders, acute myocardial infarction, was validated and extended in a study from Israel that is reported in the same issue of Nature Medicine.

It is now clear that major disturbances occur in the gut microbiome of patients suffering from heart disease and that these alterations may start many years before onset of heart disease symptoms and diagnosis. These microbiome changes are not explained by drug treatments.

The primary limitation of the studies is that the investigators report associations, rather than causal explanations for their observations. However,  in the past decade a number of cellular and animal experiments into specific microbiome-derived compounds—like the ones identified in the present studies—have demonstrated how the imbalanced gut microbiome may play a role in the development of heart disease.

Intervention in both humans and rodents have shown that an imbalanced gut microbiome at various stages of heart disease development can be modified and partly restored by eating a more plant-based and energy-controlled diet, avoidance of smoking and compliance with daily exercise. It is time for translating the accumulated evidence of the role of the gut microbiome to more focused public health initiatives in attempts to prevent or delay morbidity and mortality related to heart  disease.

Sebastien Fromentin et al, Microbiome and metabolome features of the cardiometabolic disease spectrum, Nature Medicine (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-022-01688-4

Yeela Talmor-Barkan et al, Metabolomic and microbiome profiling reveals personalized risk factors for coronary artery disease, Nature Medicine (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-022-01686-6

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-scientists-characterize-imba...

Part 3

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Research discovery could enable broad coronavirus vaccine

Mosquitos learn to avoid pesticides after single non-lethal exposure

Female mosquitoes learn to avoid pesticides after a single exposure, according to a study published in Scientific Reports. The authors suggest that this could make pesticides less effective against mosquitoes.

Pesticides are used to limit the spread of mosquito-transmitted diseases. Pesticide resistance has increased among mosquitoes in recent decades, however the extent to which this is due to mosquito behavior has been unclear.

Researchers exposed female Aedes aegypti and Culex quinquefasciastus mosquitoes—which transmit dengue, Zika and West Nile fever—to non-lethal doses of the common anti-mosquito pesticides malathion, propoxur, deltamethrin, permethrin and lambda-cyhalothrin. They then tested whether subsequent exposure to the same pesticide deterred mosquitoes from feeding and resting, and assessed whether this affected mosquito survival.

The researchers found that mosquitoes that had been pre-exposed to a pesticide avoided passing through a pesticide-treated net in order to reach a food source at a higher rate than those who had not been pre-exposed. Only 15.4% of A. aegypti and 12.1% of C. quinquefasciastus that had been pre-exposed passed through the net in order to feed, compared to 57.7% of A. aegypti and 54.4% of C. quinquefasciastus that had not been pre-exposed. Subsequently, the survival rate of pre-exposed mosquitoes was more than double that of mosquitoes that had not been pre-exposed. 38.3% of A. aegypti and 32.1% of C. quinquefasciastus that had been pre-exposed and 11.5% of A. aegypti and 12.9% C. quinquefasciastus that had not been pre-exposed survived exposure to the pesticide-treated net.

The researchers also found that pre-exposed mosquitoes were more likely than mosquitoes that had not been pre-exposed to a pesticide to rest in a container that smelt of a control substance, rather than in a container that smelt of a pesticide. 75.7% of A. aegypti and 83.1% of C. quinquefasciastus that had been pre-exposed to a pesticide rested in the pesticide-free container, compared to 50.2% of A. aegypti and 50.4% of C. quinquefasciastus that had not been pre-exposed.

The findings suggest that mosquitoes that have been exposed to non-lethal doses of pesticides learn to avoid these pesticides and, as a result, may seek out safer food sources and resting sites, allowing them to survive to reproduce.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-022-05754-2

https://researchnews.cc/news/11682/Mosquitos-learn-to-avoid-pestici...

Scientists Convert Donor Lungs to Universal Blood Type in a Medical First

Patients can wait a long time for potentially life-saving lung transplants, since the need to find close matches complicates the process. One of the characteristics that need to be matched is patient and donor blood type.

Now new research shows that the blood type of some donated lungs could be altered before transplant, which means there is a bigger pool of universal donor lungs and less time on the waiting list for those in need.

The process works via a pair of enzymes – specifically, FpGalNAc deacetylase and FpGalactosaminidase – that in combination remove the antigens that distinguish red blood cells, converting blood type A lungs into universal type O.

Under lab conditions, scientists treated eight blood type A lungs with the enzyme combination, reporting that 97 percent of blood type A antigens were removed within four hours. What's more, the conversion was achieved without any observable toxicity.

Three of the newly 'neutral' lungs were then placed in plasma to simulate an actual transplant. Observed antibody damage was minimal, meaning the converted lungs were accepted rather than rejected, at least in the crucial, early stages.

The team estimates that the procedure could eventually increase the number of blood group O donor lungs from the current 55 percent to more than 80 percent in the future.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.abm7190?adobe_mc=M...

https://www.sciencealert.com/lungs-converted-to-a-universal-blood-t...

Nano-sized plastics may enter and permeate cell membranes

The occurrence of microplastics in nature has been studied extensively. However, little is known about the health effects of microplastics, and understanding of their transport into the human body is also lacking. Any adverse health effects possibly associated with plastics may be caused by the plastic compound itself, or by the environmental toxins it carries. Many known fat-soluble environmental toxins and heavy metals are known to be able to attach to the surface of small plastic particles. This is why it is important to investigate the transport mechanisms of microplastics into the human body.

With the help of molecular modeling, researchers at the University of Eastern Finland's School of Pharmacy analyzed the behavior and transport of nano-sized microplastics in bilayer membranes which mimic cell membranes. The researchers performed simple molecular dynamics simulations using well-known and widely used polyethylene (PE) and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) particles.

The cell membrane permeability of pulverized PE and PET plastics was also examined using the Parallel Artificial Membrane Permeability Assay method, PAMPA. The method is usually used to investigate passive absorption of medicines, but it hasn't been used to study microplastics before. The PAMPA method was used to investigate the amount of matter permeating the membrane. The amount of plastic permeating the artificial membrane was measured by NMR spectroscopy at certain intervals.

In both experiments, the movement of molecules was controlled only by concentration differences on different sides of the membrane, and by occasional movement induced by heat. In other words, the methods provided information on the passive permeation of molecules through the membranes.

Part 1

In the computer simulations, PE particles were found to prefer the center of the lipid membrane as their location. In the PAMPA experiments, PE plastic partially permeated the membrane, but membrane permeability slowed down significantly over time, probably due to the accumulation of plastic in the membrane. In the simulations, the preferred location of PET particles was, to a certain degree, the surface part of the membrane, and in the experiments, they permeated the membrane fairly well. According to this study, the properties of the membrane structures were not significantly affected by individual plastics.

Joni Järvenpää et al, PE and PET oligomers' interplay with membrane bilayers, Scientific Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-06217-4

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-nano-sized-plastics-permeate-cell-mem...

Part 2

Researchers identify protein complex critical in helping control cell death

 Cell death plays an important role in normal human development and health but requires tightly orchestrated balance to avert disease. Too much can trigger a massive inflammatory immune response that damages tissues and organs. Not enough can interfere with the body's ability to fight infection or lead to cancer.

Researchers are studying the complex molecular processes underlying necroptosis, which combines characteristics of apoptosis (regulated or programmed cell death) and necrosis (unregulated cell death).

During necroptosis dying cells rupture and release their contents. This sends out alarm signals to the immune system, triggering immune cells to fight infection or limit injury. Excessive necroptosis can be a problem in some diseases like stroke or heart attack, when cells die from inadequate blood supply, or in severe COVID-19, when an extreme response to infection causes organ damage or even death.

A new preclinical study  identifies a protein complex critical for regulating apoptosis and necroptosis—known as protein phosphatase 1 regulatory subunit 3G/protein phosphatase 1 gamma (PPP1R3G/PP1γ, or PPP1R3G complex). The researchers' findings suggest that an inhibitor targeting this protein complex may help reduce or prevent excessive necroptosis.

Cell death is very complicated process, which requires layers upon layers of brakes to prevent too many cells from dying. If you want to protect cells from excessive death, then the protein complex  identified in this study is one of many steps you must control.

Part 1

Researchers conducted experiments using human cells and a mouse model mimicking the cytokine storm seen in some patients with severe COVID-19 infection. They applied CRISPR genome-wide screening to analyze how cell function, in particular cell death, changes when one gene is knocked out (inactivated).

Receptor-interacting protein kinase (RIPK1) plays a critical role in regulating inflammation and cell death. Many sites on this protein are modified when a phosphate is added (a process known as phosphorylation) to suppress RIPK1's cell death-promoting enzyme activity. How the phosphate is removed from RIPK1 sites (dephosphorylation) to restore cell death is poorly understood. This new work discovered that PPP1R3G recruits phosphatase 1 gamma (PP1γ) to directly remove the inhibitory RIPK1 phosphorylations blocking RIPK1's enzyme activity and cell death, thereby promoting apoptosis and necroptosis.

An  analogy of a car brake help explain what's happening with the balance of cell survival and death in this study: RIPK1 is the engine that drives the cell death machine (the car). Phosphorylation applies the brake (stops the car) to prevent cells from dying. The car (cell death machinery) can only move forward if RIPK1 dephosphorylation is turned on by the PPP1R3G protein complex, which releases the brake.

In this case, phosphorylation inhibits the cell death function of protein RIPK1, so more cells survive. Dephosphorylation takes away the inhibition, allowing RIPK1 to activate its cell death function.

The researchers showed that a specific protein-protein interaction—that is, PPP1R3G binding to PP1γ—activates RIPK1 and cell death. Furthermore, using a mouse model for "cytokine storm" in humans, they discovered knockout mice deficient in Ppp1r3g were protected against tumor necrosis factor-induced systemic inflammatory response syndrome. These knockout mice had significantly less tissue damage and a much better survival rate than wildtype mice with the same TNF-induced inflammatory syndrome and all their genes intact.

Overall, the study suggests that inhibitors blocking the PPP1R3G/PP1γ pathway can help prevent or reduce deaths and severe damage from inflammation-associated diseases, including heart disease, autoimmune disorders and COVID-19. They are working to screen and identify peptide compounds that most efficiently inhibit the PPP1R3G protein complex. They hope to pinpoint promising drug candidates that may stop the massive destruction of cardiac muscle cells caused by heart attacks.

Jingchun Du, Yougui Xiang, Hua Liu, Shuzhen Liu, Ashwani Kumar, Chao Xing, Zhigao Wang. RIPK1 dephosphorylation and kinase activation by PPP1R3G/PP1γ promote apoptosis and necroptosis. Nature Communications, 2021; 12 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27367-5

https://researchnews.cc/news/11713/Researchers-identify-protein-com...

Part 2

Tough and stretchable ionogels

Bacteria upcycle carbon waste into valuable chemicals

Bacteria are known for breaking down lactose to make yogurt and sugar to make beer. Now researchers have harnessed bacteria to break down waste carbon dioxide (CO₂) to make valuable industrial chemicals.

In a new pilot study, the researchers selected, engineered and optimized a bacteria strain and then successfully demonstrated its ability to convert CO₂ into acetone and isopropanol (IPA).

Not only does this new gas fermentation process remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere, it also avoids using fossil fuels, which are typically needed to generate acetone and IPA. After performing life-cycle analysis, the team found the carbon-negative platform could reduce greenhouse gas emissions  by 160% as compared to conventional processes, if widely adopted.

 Michael Jewett, Carbon-negative production of acetone and isopropanol by gas fermentation at industrial pilot scale, Nature Biotechnology (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41587-021-01195-w. www.nature.com/articles/s41587-021-01195-w

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-bacteria-upcycle-carbon-valuable-chem...