Altruism in birds? Magpies have outwitted scientists by helping each other remove tracking devices

But these poor birds didn't know that scientists are only trying to help them!

When scientists attached tiny, backpack-like tracking devices to five Australian magpies for a pilot study, they didn’t expect to discover an entirely new social behaviour rarely seen in birds.

Scientists' goal was to learn more about the movement and social dynamics of these highly intelligent birds, and to test these new, durable and reusable devices. Instead, the birds outsmarted them!

the magpies began showing evidence of cooperative “rescue” behaviour to help each other remove the tracker.

While we’re familiar with magpies being intelligent and social creatures, this was the first instance we knew of that showed this type of seemingly altruistic behaviour: helping another member of the group without getting an immediate, tangible reward.

During a pilot study, scientists found out how quickly magpies team up to solve a group problem. Within ten minutes of fitting the final tracker, they witnessed an adult female without a tracker working with her bill to try and remove the harness off of a younger bird.

Within hours, most of the other trackers had been removed. By day 3, even the dominant male of the group had its tracker successfully dismantled. We don’t know if it was the same individual helping each other or if they shared duties, but we had never read about any other bird cooperating in this way to remove tracking devices.

The only other similar example of this type of behaviour we could find in the literature was that of Seychelles warblers helping release others in their social group from sticky Pisonia seed clusters. This is a very rare behaviour termed “rescuing”.

Tracking magpies is crucial for conservation efforts, as these birds are vulnerable to the increasing frequency and intensity of heatwaves under climate change.

Now scientists are scratching their heads to figure out how to save these birds without using trackers! 

https://www.birdlife.org.au/afo/index.php/afo/article/view/2247

https://www.birdlife.org.au/afo/index.php/afo

https://theconversation.com/altruism-in-birds-magpies-have-outwitte...

Tick saliva may offer a path to new therapies for inflammatory diseases

A recent study  has found that proteins found naturally in tick saliva, called evasins, can be modified to block the activity of important proteins in human inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, asthma and multiple sclerosis.

The study showed it was possible to modify evasins so that they bind to the exact group of disease-promoting human proteins (chemokines), helping to suppress inflammation.

This new discovery opens the door to the development of much needed new therapies for inflammatory diseases. 

Inflammatory diseases, such as atherosclerosis, arthritis, psoriasis, asthma and multiple sclerosis, all involve the same underlying phenomenon in which the body's white blood cells attack certain tissues. The white blood cells are attracted to these tissues by a class of proteins (chemokines) that are produced in the affected tissues (e.g. blood vessel wall in atherosclerosis, joints in arthritis). By targeting chemokines, evasins block the movement of white blood cells  and the resulting tissue damage.

Typically, each tick species secretes a cocktail of evasins, thereby accomplishing broad-spectrum suppression of the host inflammatory response, presumably enabling the tick to feed for extended periods while not alerting the host to the tick's presence.

However, some chemokines are involved in inflammatory diseases while others are needed for the body's normal immune function. Therefore, for therapeutic applications, it is essential to modify the evasins so they only target the disease-causing chemokines.

 Structure-guided engineering of tick evasins for targeting chemokines in inflammatory diseases, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2122105119.

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-saliva-path-therapies-inflam...

 Artificial nerve cells!

For the first time, researchers have demonstrated an artificial organic neuron, a nerve cell, that can be integrated with a living plant and an artificial organic synapse. Both the neuron and the synapse are made from printed organic electrochemical transistors.

On connecting to the carnivorous Venus flytrap, the electrical pulses from the artificial nerve cell can cause the plant's leaves to close, although no fly has entered the trap. Organic semiconductors can conduct both electrons and ions, thus helping mimic the ion-based mechanism of pulse (action potential) generation in plants. In this case, the small electric pulse of less than 0.6 V can induce action potentials in the plant, which in turn causes the leaves to close.

Simone Fabiano, Organic electrochemical neurons and synapses with ion mediated spiking, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28483-6. www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-28483-6

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-artificial-nerve-cells.html?utm_sourc...

Galaxy Collision Creates “Space Triangle”

Scientists Can Now Turn Stem Cells Into Bone!

 Stem cells have the superpower of turning into any other kind of cell – a superpower that some animals use to regrow limbs; for medicine, they yield the potential to help us repair parts of the human body that have been damaged by injury or disease. Carrying out those repairs requires the ability to manipulate stem cells on demand, and a new study outlines an innovative way of doing just that: by using high-frequency sound waves to turn stem cells into bone cells in as little as five days, with 10 minutes of stimulating treatment per day. Further down the line, the researchers hope this technique – which has several advantages over the processes that are in use today – could be used to regrow bone that has been lost to cancer or other types of degenerative disease.

The sound waves cut the treatment time usually required to get stem cells to begin to turn into bone cells by several days. This method also doesn't require any special 'bone-inducing' drugs and it's very easy to apply to the stem cells.

The approach builds on years of work into modifying materials with sound waves above frequencies of 10 MHz, which are much higher frequencies than researchers have previously used in these kinds of experiments. Here, a microchip was used to transform stem cells put in silicon oil and placed on a culture plate. The researchers have shown that it works with multiple types of stem cells, including fat-derived stem cells that aren't as painful to pull out of the body.

Researchers can  now use the sound waves to apply just the right amount of pressure in the right places to the stem cells, to trigger the change process.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/smll.202106823

https://www.sciencealert.com/sonic-breakthrough-uses-sound-waves-to...

Researchers create largest ever human family tree

Researchers from the University of Oxford's Big Data Institute have taken a major step towards mapping the entirety of genetic relationships among humans: a single genealogy that traces the ancestry of all of us. The study has been published recently in Science.

The past two decades have seen extraordinary advancements in human genetic research, generating genomic data for hundreds of thousands of individuals, including from thousands of prehistoric people. This raises the exciting possibility of tracing the origins of human genetic diversity to produce a complete map of how individuals across the world are related to each other.

Until now, the main challenges to this vision were working out a way to combine genome sequences from many different databases and developing algorithms to handle data of this size. However, a new method published today by researchers from the University of Oxford's Big Data Institute can easily combine data from multiple sources and scale to accommodate millions of genome sequences.

This genealogy allows us to see how every person's genetic sequence relates to every other, along all the points of the genome. Since individual genomic regions are only inherited from one parent, either the mother or the father, the ancestry of each point on the genome can be thought of as a tree. The set of trees, known as a "tree sequence" or "ancestral recombination graph," links genetic regions back through time to ancestors where the genetic variation first appeared.

Part 1

The study integrated data on modern and ancient human genomes from eight different databases and included a total of 3,609 individual genome sequences from 215 populations. The ancient genomes included samples found across the world with ages ranging from 1,000s to over 100,000 years. The algorithms predicted where common ancestors must be present in the evolutionary trees to explain the patterns of genetic variation. The resulting network contained almost 27 million ancestors.

After adding location data on these sample genomes, the authors used the network to estimate where the predicted common ancestors had lived. The results successfully recaptured key events in human evolutionary history, including the migration out of Africa.

Although the genealogical map is already an extremely rich resource, the research team plans to make it even more comprehensive by continuing to incorporate genetic data as it becomes available. Because tree sequences store data in a highly efficient way, the dataset could easily accommodate millions of additional genomes.

Anthony Wilder Wohns et al, A unified genealogy of modern and ancient genomes, Science (2022). DOI: 10.1126/science.abi8264. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abi8264

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-largest-human-family-tree.html?utm_so...

Part 2

Unravelling the mysteries around type 2 diabetes

For more than 30 years, scientists have been trying to unravel the mystery of how a key biological molecule self assembles into a rogue protein-like substance known as amyloid, which is thought to play a role in the development of type 2 diabetes.

A team of scientists at the University of Leeds has, for the first time, been able to identify the step-by-step changes that take place in the molecule known as human islet amyloid polypeptide, or hIAPP, as it changes into amyloid.

They have also discovered new compounds that are able to speed up or slow down the process.

In healthy people, hIAPP is secreted by islets in the pancreas alongside the hormone insulin and it helps to regulate blood glucose levels and the amount of food in the stomach. When hIAPP malfunctions, it forms clumps of a protein-like substance called amyloid fibrils that kill the insulin-producing islets in the pancreas.

The build-up of amyloid fibrils is seen in people with type 2 diabetes although the exact mechanism of how it triggers disease is not known.

The research findings—Tuning the rate of aggregation of hIAPP into amyloid using small-molecule modulators of assembly—are published today in the journal Nature Communications.

The paper not only describes the complex molecular changes seen in hIAPP molecules as they transform into amyloid fibrils, but the scientists also announce that they have discovered two compounds, described as molecule modulators, which can control the process: one of the compounds delays it, the other accelerates it.

These molecule modulators can be used as "chemical tools" to help scientists investigate the way amyloid fibrils grow and how and why they become toxic.

Significantly they offer "starting points" for the development of drugs that could halt or control amyloid fibril formation and help in the urgent search to find ways to treat type 2 diabetes.

Understanding amyloid fibril formation is a key area of health research. The formation of fibrils is believed to be a factor in a range of life-limiting illnesses including Alzheimer's Disease and Parkinson's Disease, as well as type 2 diabetes.

Tuning the rate of aggregation of hIAPP into amyloid using small-molecule modulators of assembly, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28660-7

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-02-unravelling-mysteries-diabet...

Drug Development and Testing - Clinical Trials 

Diseased male livers undergo sex-change

The livers of men diagnosed with hepatic diseases change sex as part of a potential self-protective mechanism, according to new research.

The surprise discovery was made during an investigation into why disruption of the body’s circadian clock is associated with obesity, type 2 diabetes and liver diseases.

When a high-fat diet was fed to mice that had their circadian clock gene turned off, researchers  expected them to develop diabetes or non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) like the control mice, but they didn’t! Instead they found that the liver of the obese male mice had been feminised probably due in part to the protective nature of the female sex hormone, oestrogen.

Like reproductive organs, the liver is sexually dimorphic, which means there are significant differences between the metabolic function of male and female livers.

The research team then went on to study human samples and got the same results. The more advanced the disease, the more feminisation they saw in the liver tissue.

It appears that the disruption of circadian rhythms might be protecting the liver by influencing the levels of hormones such as growth hormone, oestrogen and testosterone.

The internal body clock controls many biological functions including sleep, hormone secretion, body temperature and metabolism. This study suggests that the disruption of the circadian clock gives the body flexibility in metabolic pathways that can help to slow down disease progression.

Disruption of the circadian clock component BMAL1 elicits an endocrine adaption impacting on insulin sensitivity and liver disease, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2200083119.

Largest bacterium ever discovered

A newly discovered bacterium, Thiomargarita magnifica, challenges the definition of a microbe: its filament-like single cell is up to 2 centimetres long. T. magnifica achieves its unprecedented size by having unique cellular features: two membrane sacs. One is filled with its genetic material; the other, which is much larger, helps to keep its cellular contents pressed up against its outer cell wall so that the molecules it needs can diffuse in and out. Researchers have dubbed these sacs ‘pepins’ — inspired by the pips in fruit — and note that they blur the line between single-celled prokaryotes and eukaryotes (the group that includes humans), which pack their DNA into a nucleus.

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.02.16.480423v1.full.pd...

Entering danger zones to avoid them! Planes Fly into Snowstorms to Study Snowfall

Nanocarrier spray: Better crops without genetic modification

Researchers  have developed a way to improve crop quality without needing to create special genetically modified plants. Rather that changing plant genomes, the new technique relies on a spray that introduces bioactive molecules into plant cells through their leaves. The new technology could be used to help crops resist pests or become more resistant to drought—in less time and at less cost than making lines of genetically modified crops. The study was reported in the scientific journal ACS Nano.

Making transgenic plants  takes time, money, and still has not gained widespread public support. So an alternative to GM food that can overcome these problems have to be looked into. For example, rather than changing a plant's genome so that it doesn't express a particular gene, the same gene can be suppressed on the go by inserting a specific bioactive compound into the plant. In this scenario, the bioactive compound is taken into the plant's cells by a carrier that can penetrate the cell walls of plant cells.

While the concept might be simple, making it happen was a challenge. "In addition to designing a way to introduce bioactive molecules into the plants. Researchers have to consider a delivery method that would be practical for cultivated crops under real agricultural conditions. The best method would be through a spray that could be deployed over large fields relatively easily.

Many types of nanoparticles can penetrate plant cells. The researchers focused on cell-penetrating peptides (CPPs) because they can also target specific structures inside plants cells, such as chloroplasts. The first challenge was to determine which CPPs are best when using a spray. They tagged natural and synthetic CPPs with fluorescent yellow, sprayed them on plant leaves, and measured the amount of fluorescence in the leaves with a confocal laser-scanning microscope at different time points. After performing this procedure in typical laboratory Arabidopsis thaliana, as well as in several types of soybeans and tomatoes, they found several natural CPPs that were able to penetrate into the outer layer of the leaves, and in some cases even deeper.

Further experiments showed that this technique worked well when plasmid DNA was attached to the CPPs, and analysis showed that genes were effectively expressed in the leaves of both A. thaliana and soybeans after being carried into the cells through an aqueous spray. The researchers also found that by including other biomolecules and nanostructures in the spray solution, they could temporarily increase the number of pores in the leaves, which increased how much spray was taken up by the plant.

Often, crop yield can be improved by inserting or knocking out genes. After creating a transgenic plant that overexpresses yellow fluorescence in the leaves, the team attached RNA that interferes with fluorescent protein expression to a CPP. As hoped, spraying the leaves with this complex silenced yellow florescence expression.

Chonprakun Thagun et al, Non-transgenic Gene Modulation via Spray Delivery of Nucleic Acid/Peptide Complexes into Plant Nuclei and Chloroplasts, ACS Nano (2022). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.1c07723

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-nanocarrier-crops-genetic-modificatio...

I

This result was critical, because it is important that any alternative to genetic modification be able to achieve the same functional outcome.

Lastly, the researchers were able to similarly silence genes specific to chloroplasts when they included a chloroplast-targeting peptide to a specific CPP-RNA complex.

Mitochondria and chloroplasts regulate much of a plant's metabolic activity. Targeting these structures with bioactive molecules delivered via spray could effectively improve economically desirable quality traits in crops. 

II

AeroSHARK thin film reduces drag on airplanes

A collaboration between engineers at Lufthansa Technik and chemicals and coatings manufacturer BASF has resulted in the creation of AeroSHARK—a thin film coating that can be applied to an aircraft's outer skin to reduce drag and thus fuel consumption and carbon emissions. 

The thin film was developed as part of an effort kicked off by engineers at Lufthansa looking for ways to reduce the cost of fuel for their planes. To that end, they looked to nature, and more specifically, sharks—creatures who have been streamlined over millions of years of evolution. The researchers found that shark skin is covered with millions of "riblets," which are protrusions that run the length of their bodies. The engineers then teamed up with a group at BASF to create a similar type of skin for aircraft. The result was the creation of AeroSHARK, a clear, thin skin with millions of riblets, each just 50 micrometers high. Testing showed that the material reduces drag.

The researchers found that by applying the skin to the entire fuselage and engines of a Boeing 777, they could reduce fuel consumption by 1.1%. Swiss estimates that the skin will result in reductions in fuel consumption across its fleet by 4,800 metric tons a year, which, in turn, will result in reducing carbon emissions by 15,200 metric tons.

Part 1

Cutting emissions with sharkskin technology

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-02-aeroshark-thin-airplanes.html?u...

blog.swiss.com/en/2022/02/aero … -reduzieren-english/

www.lufthansa-technik.com/aeroshark

Touch sensitive brain cells controlled by micromagnets

Scientists have developed a new technique that uses microscopic magnetic particles to remotely activate brain cells; researchers say the discovery in rats could potentially lead to the development of a new class of non-invasive therapies for neurological disorders.

Published in Advanced Science, the pioneering technique called "magnetomechanical stimulation" or , allows touch sensitive brain glial cells called astrocytes to be stimulated with a magnetic device outside the body.

Microscopic magnetic particles, or micromagnets, are attached to astrocytes, and used as miniature mechanical switches that can turn "on" the cells when a strong magnet is placed near the head.

Astrocytes are star-shaped cells found throughout the brain. They are strategically positioned between the brain blood vessels and nerve cells. These cells provide neurons with essential metabolic and structural support, modulate neuronal circuit activity and may also function as versatile surveyors of brain milieu, tuned to sense conditions of potential metabolic insufficiency.

The ability to control brain astrocytes using a magnetic field gives the researchers a new tool to study the function of these cells in health and disease that may be important for future development of novel and effective treatments for some common neurological disorders, such as epilepsy and stroke.

Because astrocytes are sensitive to touch, decorating them with magnetic particles means you can give the cells a tiny prod from outside the body using a magnet, and as such, control their function. This ability to remotely control astrocytes provides a new tool for understanding their function and may have the potential to treat brain disorders.

The  new technology uses magnetic particles and magnets to remotely and precisely control brain cell activity and, importantly, does this without introducing any device or foreign gene into the brain.

In the laboratory-based study, researchers coated microscopic magnetic particles with an antibody that enables them to bind specifically to astrocytes. The particles were then delivered to the target brain region in the rat via injection.

Another advantage of using micromagnets is that they light up on an MRI scan so we can track their location and target very particular parts of the brain to get precise control of brain function. 

Yichao Yu, Christopher Payne, Nephtali Marina, Alla Korsak, Paul Southern, Ana García‐Prieto, Isabel N. Christie, Rebecca R. Baker, Elizabeth M. C. Fisher, Jack A. Wells, Tammy L. Kalber, Quentin A. Pankhurst, Alexander V. Gourine, Mark F. Lythgoe. Remote and Selective Control of Astrocytes by Magnetomechanical Stimulation. Advanced Science, 2021; 2104194 DOI: 10.1002/advs.202104194

https://researchnews.cc/news/11846/Touch-sensitive-brain-cells-cont...

Indian Ocean warming could weaken summer monsoon rainfall in South Asia

The South Asian monsoon, also known as Indian summer monsoon (ISM), is crucial for the food security and socioeconomic well-being of 40% of the world's population. From a historical perspective, fluctuations in monsoon rainfall have been linked to the rise and fall of civilizations in the Indian subcontinent. Now researchers are increasingly concerned that global warming may threaten the stability of the monsoon system, but accurate predictions have been hampered by the lack of long-term climate data in the Indian subcontinent.

A new study in the journal PNAS by a team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, Kiel University and the Alfred Wegener Institute of the Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research, seeks to strengthen climate predictions by reconstructing Indian summer monsoon rainfall changes during the past 130,000 years.

The study reports for the first time that the Indian summer monsoon during the Last Interglacial was weakened by sustained high sea surface temperatures in the equatorial and tropical Indian Ocean, indicating that modern rises in sea temperature could increase droughts in South Asia.

 Higher sea surface temperature in the Indian Ocean during the Last Interglacial weakened the South Asian monsoon, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2107720119

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-indian-ocean-weaken-summer-monsoon.ht...

Scientists discover new DNA modification system in animals, captured from bacteria more than 60 million years ago

Your DNA holds the blueprint to build your body, but it's a living document: Adjustments to the design can be made by epigenetic marks.

Epigenetic marks are modifications to DNA bases that don't change the underlying genetic code, but "write" extra information on top of it that can be inherited along with your genome. Epigenetic marks usually regulate gene expression—turn genes on or off—particularly during early development or when your body is under stress. They can also suppress "jumping genes"—transposable elements that threaten the integrity of your genome.

In humans and other eukaryotes, two principal epigenetic marks are known. A team from the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) has discovered a third, novel epigenetic mark—one formerly known only in bacteria—in bdelloid rotifers, small freshwater animals. This fundamental and surprising discovery is reported this week in Nature Communications.

Part 1

Researchers discovered  in 2008 that bdelloid rotifers are very good at capturing foreign genes. What was found now is that rotifers, about 60 million years ago, accidentally captured a bacterial gene that allowed them to introduce a new epigenetic mark that was not there before." This is the first time that a horizontally transferred gene has been shown to reshape the gene regulatory system in a eukaryote.

Horizontally transferred genes are thought to preferentially be operational genes, not regulatory genes. It is hard to imagine how a single, horizontally transferred gene would form a new regulatory system, because the existing regulatory systems are already very complicated.

Somewhere back in time, a piece of bacterial DNA happened to be fused to a piece of eukaryotic DNA. Both of them became joined in the rotifer's genome and they formed a functional enzyme. That's not so easy to do, even in the lab, and it happened naturally. And then this composite enzyme created this amazing regulatory system, and bdelloid rotifers were able to start using it to control all these jumping transposons.

 Bacterial N4-methylcytosine as an epigenetic mark in eukaryotic DNA, Nature Communications (2022).

https://phys.org/news/2022-02-scientists-dna-modification-animals-c...

Part 2

UN climate report: 'Atlas of human suffering' worse, bigger

Deadly with extreme weather now, climate change is about to get so much worse. It is likely going to make the world sicker, hungrier, poorer, gloomier and way more dangerous in the next 18 years with an "unavoidable" increase in risks, a new United Nations science report says.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report said Monday that if human-caused global warming isn't limited to just another couple tenths of a degree, an Earth now struck regularly by deadly heat, fires, floods and drought in future decades will degrade in 127 ways, with some being "potentially irreversible."

"The cumulative scientific evidence is unequivocal: Climate change is a threat to human well-being and planetary health," says the major report designed to guide world leaders in their efforts to curb climate change. Delaying cuts in heat-trapping carbon emissions and waiting on adapting to warming's impacts, it warns, "will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a liveable and sustainable future for all.

part1

Climate change is outpacing adaptation

Rising greenhouse-gas emissions could soon outstrip the ability of many communities to adapt. A report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), authored by more than 270 researchers from 67 countries, finds that the negative impacts of climate change are mounting far faster than.... Many effects are unavoidable and will hit the world’s most vulnerable populations hardest, it warns. “Any further delay in global action on adaptation and mitigation will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all,” says climate scientist and co-author Maarten van Aalst.

What If We Have A Nuclear War?

New epigenetic biomarkers found that potentially predict preterm birth

A signature found in the cheek cells of mothers and fathers of preterm infants may help develop a test to determine whether a pregnancy may end too early. Such a test could help prevent premature births and the many resulting health impacts on infants by alerting medical providers to the need for early intervention measures.

In a study published in Scientific Reports on March 1, researchers documented more than 100 epigenetic biomarkers in mothers of preterm babies that were distinct from mothers of babies carried to term. Fathers had fewer biomarkers but enough to indicate a likely paternal role in preterm birth.

The signature they found was present in all the parents they analyzed. This is likely to lead eventually to a very useful test. They used buccal cells, which are collected by a cheek swab. It's very non-invasive and easy to do.

Epigenetics are molecular factors and processes around DNA that determine how genes behave. While independent of DNA sequence, epigenetic modifications, which can be caused by things such as toxicant exposure, poor nutrition and alcohol use, can also be inherited.

In this study, researchers found that the preterm female babies carried more than 100 of these biomarkers, indicating the propensity to have a preterm baby may be passed down. That transgenerational capacity is also supported by the fact the signature is found in cheek cells. If an epigenetic modification is present in both sperm and ovum, the resulting baby will have that modification present in every cell of their body—including their cheek cells.

 Preterm birth buccal cell epigenetic biomarkers to facilitate preventative medicine, Scientific Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-07262-9

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-epigenetic-biomarkers-potent...

Solar panels developed to pull in water vapour to grow crops in the desert

Using a unique hydrogel, scientists created a solar-driven system that successfully grows spinach by using water drawn from the air while producing electricity. The proof-of-concept design, described March 1 in the journal Cell Reports Physical Science, offers a sustainable, low-cost strategy to improve food and water security for people living in dry-climate regions.

The system, called WEC²P, is composed of a solar photovoltaic panel placed atop a layer of hydrogel, which is mounted on top of a large metal box to condense and collect water. The researchers  developed the hydrogel in their prior research, and the material can effectively absorb water vapour from ambient air and release the water content when heated.

The researchers used the waste heat from solar panels when generating electricity to drive absorbed water out of the hydrogel. The metal box below collects the vapor and condenses the gas into water. Alternatively, the hydrogel increases the efficiency of solar photovoltaic panels by as much as 9% by absorbing the heat and lowering the panels' temperature.

Peng Wang, An Integrated Solar Driven System Produces Electricity with Freshwater and Crops in Arid Regions, Cell Reports Physical Science (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.xcrp.2022.100781. www.cell.com/cell-reports-phys … 2666-3864(22)00048-0

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-03-solar-panels-vapor-crops.html?u...

 “Vigyan Sarvatra Pujyate”  = Science is revered everywhere

No, you cannot ‘devaccinate’ yourself with snake venom kits, bleach or cupping

Claims you can “devaccinate” yourself have been circulating on social media, another example of extreme and dangerous misinformation about COVID vaccines.

Methods said to remove COVID vaccines from the body include using snake venom extractors or a type of traditional therapy known as “wet cupping”.

If you encounter claims like this online, you need to ask yourself four questions, to figure out whether these claims really are too good to be true.

https://theconversation.com/no-you-cannot-devaccinate-yourself-with...

Cas9 protein redesigned to make 

Gene editing safer

One of the grand challenges with using CRISPR-based gene editing on humans is that the molecular machinery sometimes makes changes to the wrong section of a host's genome, creating the possibility that an attempt to repair a genetic mutation in one spot in the genome could accidentally create a dangerous new mutation in another.

CRISPR-based gene-editing tools are adapted from naturally occurring systems in bacteria. In nature, a Cas9 protein floats around in the environment, searching for DNA with a very specific sequence of 20 letters, like the X on a pirate map that indicates "dig here." Sometimes, when most of the letters are correct, except those in spots 18 through 20, Cas9 still goes ahead and digs in. This is called a mismatch, and it can have disastrous consequences in gene editing.

But now, scientists  have redesigned a key component of a widely used CRISPR-based gene-editing tool, called Cas9, to be thousands of times less likely to target the wrong stretch of DNA while remaining just as efficient as the original version, making it potentially much safer. The work is described in a paper published today in the journal Nature.

So far, the researchers have demonstrated the use of SuperFi-Cas9 on DNA in test tubes. They're now collaborating with other researchers who plan to test SuperFi-Cas9 for gene editing in living cells. They're also working to develop still safer and more active versions of Cas9.

David Taylor, Structural basis for mismatch surveillance by CRISPR–Cas9, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04470-1. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04470-1

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-gene-safer-redesigned-cas9-protein.ht...

Gradual evolution is back: Darwinian theory of gradual process explained in new research

Abrupt shifts in the evolution of animals—short periods of time when an organism rapidly changes size or form—have long been a challenge for theorists including Darwin. Now a newly published research paper supports the idea that even these abrupt changes are underpinned by a gradual directional process of successive incremental changes, as Darwin's theory of evolution assumes.

Published in Nature Communications recently, evolutionary biologists propose a new statistical model which seeks to explain these sudden changes and long periods of stasis that have been seen in the evolutionary history of some species.

Researchers developed a statistical model that reconstructed the body-size changes which occurred throughout the 170-million-year history of more than 2800 mammal species.

The authors found that despite there being periods for some mammals during which abrupt changes in size occur, these occurrences can be understood as 'normal' changes that draw on the natural variability that evolution routinely adds to natural populations.

Part 1

This statistical model provides a basis for accommodating what has previously been a thorn in the side of theorists such as Darwin.

Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection predicts gradual and incremental changes to organisms occurring over very long timespans. But the fossil record  frequently shows very abrupt changes in the sizes, shapes, colors and other features of organisms, and these have been used for at least fifty years to challenge the Darwinian orthodoxy.

--

Many of these abrupt changes occurred around 60-70 million years ago, a period that saw the rise of many different mammal groups from earlier forms. For example, over a 100,000 year period an early small grazing animal (Conacodon entoconus), ancestral to today's modern cows, antelopes, and giraffes, increased in size over 70-fold. More recently, the baleen whales (e.g., humpback, blue and sperm whales) have increased over 100-fold in size from a small dolphin-like ancestor in the same amount of time (~ 7 million years) that separates modern humans from their common ancestor with the chimpanzees.

General statistical model shows that macroevolutionary patterns and processes are consistent with Darwinian gradualism, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28595-z

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-gradual-evolution-darwinian-theory.ht...

Researchers show in this paper that even these abrupt changes are easily explained as cases of what is known as 'directional selection'—when natural selection strongly pulls a trait in one direction. No special extra-Darwinian mechanisms are required.

Discovery may explain why more females than males get knee osteoarthritis

Knee osteoarthritis is the most common joint problem, affecting an estimated 250 million people worldwide, including 14 per cent of females older than 60 and 10 per cent of males in the same age group.

Female astronauts could avoid knee injuries during space flight — and better tests, prevention and treatments could be developed for knee osteoarthritis in women here on Earth — based on newly published research on the sex differences in knee meniscus tissue.

Knee osteoarthritis is more common in females than in males, but hormones alone are not enough to explain the difference. The new research identifies a genetic difference in the meniscus that makes about 50 per cent of females more vulnerable to developing osteoarthritis than males or other females.

Researchers carried out the experiments in part by simulating low-gravity conditions in space, which mimics the damage that can happen to the meniscus due to lack of exercise.

Some of the genes that were found in the females that responded more to simulated space microgravity were also associated with the development of knee osteoarthritis.

Meniscus is a kind of cartilage in the knee that acts as a load distributor for the body’s full weight. At one time, it was thought to be like the appendix: you wouldn’t miss it if it were gone. But now it’s known that just a small tear in the meniscus — usually caused by a sports injury — increases the risk of osteoarthritis later in life, even if the damaged tissue has been removed.

On the other hand, lack of use can also lead to deconditioning of the meniscus and increase arthritis risk. You’ll notice the short-term effect of deconditioning when you get out of bed in the morning and feel stiff, but then your joints loosen up once you’ve moved around for a while. It’s the same thing that happens to astronauts in space, unless they use specially designed resistance equipment to make up for the lack of weight-bearing exercise in microgravity.

Zhiyao Ma et al, Engineered Human Meniscus in Modeling Sex Differences of Knee Osteoarthritis in Vitro, Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fbioe.2022.823679

https://researchnews.cc/news/11920/Discovery-may-explain-why-more-f...

Scientists are 'training' corals to make them tolerate heat stress

A new study  researchers found that corals that underwent a stressful temperature treatment in the laboratory for 90 days were more tolerant to increased water temperatures.

These findings offer coral restoration scientists with a new approach to potentially increase the success rate of planting nursery-raised staghorn coral onto degraded reefs as climate change continues to warm ocean temperatures, resulting in more frequent coral bleaching events. Researchers were able to demonstrate that this temperature treatment can boost the corals' stamina to heat stress.

Allyson DeMerlis et al, Pre-exposure to a variable temperature treatment improves the response of Acropora cervicornis to acute thermal stress, Coral Reefs (2022). DOI: 10.1007/s00338-022-02232-z

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-corals-tolerate-stress.html?utm_sourc...

Putting stem cells on pause

People now are having children later than ever before.

But time is tough on our bodies and our reproductive systems. For instance, as animals age, our stem cells are less effective at renewing our tissues. This is particularly true for germline stem cells, which turn into sperm and eggs.

What if there were a way to pause this process?

Biologists  have published a study on the ability of fruit flies to extend the longevity of their germline stem cells. The paper, released in Nature Communications, describes a process that halts egg production in female flies. The scientists found that nearly every step was put on hold, extending the stem cells' viability. The insights could inform future medical discoveries.

When fruit flies emerge in their adult form into cold, dark conditions, they enter a dormancy called diapause. It's a seasonal response to save energy for reproduction when success is more likely: in warmer times of the year. Diapause can double a fly's lifespan and significantly extend their reproductive period. Flies in diapause eat less, are less active and suspend their reproductive processes; however, they don't actually hibernate.

Scientists have investigated this phenomenon before, but mostly from a behavioral perspective. Female flies under stress will pause oogenesis—the production of egg cells—at a specific stage of egg development. Scientists found this during diapause as well, but it went beyond just this stage. The arrest of oogenesis was much more complete during diapause than under other stressful situations, like when predators were present or protein was scarce. Not only was the arrest more complete, but recovery of reproductive capacity was stronger as well.

If growing egg cells is like installing new software, then the stress response is like pausing the download to take care of an errand. In contrast, diapause is like quitting the installation and restarting the process at a later point.

 Sreesankar Easwaran et al, Enhanced germline stem cell longevity in Drosophila diapause, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28347-z

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-stem-cells.html?utm_source=nwletter&a...

p53: meet the anticancer protein

The tumour-suppressing protein p53 acts as the guardian of the genome by providing important protection against cancer — when it is active, that is. Many malignant cells exhibit p53 dysfunction, and several clinical trials of agents intended to restore p53 to working order are now underway.

Seaspiracy

Mucus could explain why SARS-CoV-2 doesn't spread easily from surfaces

Early in the pandemic, many people fastidiously disinfected surfaces because laboratory studies predicted that SARS-CoV-2 could be easily transmitted in this way. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have found a possible explanation for why the predictions didn’t pan out: Sugar-decorated proteins in mucus could bind to the coronavirus on surfaces, keeping it from infecting cells. The findings could also hint at why some people are more vulnerable to COVID-19 than others.

Although experiments have shown that coronaviruses can persist on surfaces for days or weeks, it is now apparent that SARS-CoV-2 is much more likely to infect people through airborne droplets carrying the virus. The surface studies typically used viruses suspended in buffers or growth media, whereas in the real world, SARS-CoV-2 is coated in mucus when someone coughs or sneezes. With this in mind,  researchers wondered if mucus components could explain the discrepancy between the lab predictions and reality. In addition to water, salts, lipids, DNA and other proteins, mucus contains proteins called mucins, which are heavily modified with sugar molecules known as glycans. To infect cells, the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein binds glycan molecules with sialic acid at their ends on the cell surface. So, the researchers wondered if the coronavirus also recognizes sialic acid-containing glycans in mucins. If the spike protein is already bound to glycans in mucus, perhaps it couldn’t bind to the ones on cells, they reasoned.

For safety reasons, the researchers chose to study a human coronavirus called OC43, which evolved relatively recently from a cow coronavirus and causes mostly mild respiratory infections. The team deposited droplets of the virus in buffer or growth medium supplemented with 0.1–5% mucins, which corresponds to the concentration range of mucins found in nasal mucus and saliva, onto a plastic surface and let the drops dry. Then, they rehydrated the viral residue and measured its ability to infect cells. In comparison to the buffer or growth medium alone, the solutions supplemented with mucins were dramatically less infectious. The team also tested steel, glass and surgical mask surfaces, finding similar results.

The researchers showed that, as the droplets dried, mucins moved to the edge and concentrated there in a coffee-ring effect, bringing the virus with them. This brought mucins and virus particles close together, where they could more easily interact. Cutting off sialic acid glycans from mucins with an enzyme eliminated viral binding and destroyed the glycoproteins’ protective effect. Because SARS-CoV-2, like OC43, binds to sialic acid glycans on cell surfaces, mucins would also likely reduce its infectivity, the researchers suspect. The levels and types of sugar molecules on mucins can vary with diet and certain diseases, which could possibly explain the vulnerability of certain people to COVID-19, they say.

Casia L. Wardzala, Amanda M. Wood, David M. Belnap, Jessica R. Kramer. Mucins Inhibit Coronavirus Infection in a Glycan-Dependent Manner. ACS Central Science, 2022; DOI: 10.1021/acscentsci.1c01369

https://researchnews.cc/news/11925/Mucus-could-explain-why-SARS-CoV...

How a widely used diabetes medicine metformin

actually works

Physicians have used the drug metformin to treat type 2 diabetes for more than half a century, but despite its prevalence, researchers have lacked a clear understanding of how it works. Now, Yale researchers have elucidated the mechanism behind metformin and related type 2 diabetes drugs, and debunked a previously held theory on how they work. The team, including senior author Gerald Shulman, MD, Ph.D., George R. Cowgill Professor of Medicine (Endocrinology) and professor of cellular and molecular physiology, and first author Traci LaMoia, a graduate student in Shulman's lab, published their findings in PNAS on March 1.

"Metformin is the most commonly used drug to treat diabetes," says Shulman. "It's important to understand how it works so we can potentially develop even better drugs to treat type 2 diabetes."

Studies in humans have shown that metformin inhibits the process of gluconeogenesis, which is how the liver makes glucose from non-glucose precursors such as amino acids and lactate. How it accomplishes this, however, has been a mystery.

Mitochondria in cells generate energy through the electron transport chain, which consists of four protein complexes that release energy through a series of reactions. Most scientists previously believed that metformin works by inhibiting complex I, the first and largest of the mitochondrial complexes that creates the hydrogen ion gradient. However, Shulman's group has previously demonstrated that metformin only inhibits complex I at much higher pharmacological concentrations than what is typically prescribed.

To further test this hypothesis, the team performed a series of experiments both in liver slices and in mice. Using a complex I inhibitor known as piercidin A, they found that this mechanism failed to reduce liver gluconeogenesis. "Using a very specific inhibitor of complex I, we show that complex I inhibition doesn't reduce blood glucose in both in vitro and in vivo studies," says Shulman.

Part 1

Progress through research
Through earlier studies, Shulman's lab team had identified the inhibition of the mitochondrial-associated enzyme glycerol phosphate dehydrogenase, which converts glycerol to glucose, as a potential mechanism for metformin action. Now, in the current study, they were able to show through another series of experiments that metformin, as well as the related drugs phenformin and galegine, did in fact inhibit glycerol conversion to glucose both in vitro and in vivo and that they did so through an indirect mechanism by inhibiting complex IV activity.

"Taken together these studies show that metformin does not lower blood glucose by inhibition of complex I activity, but instead it reduces blood glucose through inhibition of complex IV activity which in turn leads to inhibition of glycerol phosphate dehydrogenase activity and reductions in glycerol conversion to glucose" says Shulman.

Why it matters to know
It is not uncommon for drugs to be approved for clinical use despite researchers not understanding how they work, if they are shown to be safe and effective. But Shulman says research on poorly understood medications like metformin allows scientists to develop more beneficial treatments. Taking metformin, for example, can lead to unpleasant side effects such as gastrointestinal distress, leading many patients to stop taking it. Shulman hopes his team's research can lead to the development of diabetes drugs with the safe efficacy of metformin but higher tolerability.

https://medicine.yale.edu/news-article/how-a-widely-used-diabetes-m...

https://researchnews.cc/news/11938/How-a-widely-used-diabetes-medic...

Part 2

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SARS-CoV-2-infected individuals could have different variants hidden in different parts of the body

People suffering from COVID-19 could have several different SARS-CoV-2 variants hidden away from the immune system in different parts of the body, finds new research published in Nature Communications by an international research team. The study's authors say that this may make complete clearance of the virus from the body of an infected person, by their own antibodies, or by therapeutic antibody treatments, much more difficult.

In new research, comprising two studies published in parallel in Nature Communications, an international team led by Professor Imre Berger at the University of Bristol and Professor Joachim Spatz at the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg , both Directors of the Max Planck Bristol Centre of Minimal Biology, show how the virus can evolve distinctly in different cell types, and adapt its immunity, in the same infected host.

The team sought to investigate the function of a tailor-made pocket in the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in the infection cycle of the virus. The pocket, discovered by the Bristol team in an earlier breakthrough, played an essential role in viral infectivity.

These results showed that one can have several different virus variants in one's body. Some of these variants may use kidney or spleen cells as their niche to hide, while the body is busy defending against the dominant virus type. This could make it difficult for the infected patients to get rid of SARS-CoV-2 entirely.

Using these artificial virions, they were able to study the exact mechanism of the pocket in viral infection. They demonstrated that upon binding of a fatty acid, the spike protein decorating the virions changed their shape. This switching 'shape' mechanism effectively cloaks the virus from the immune system. "By 'ducking down' of the spike protein upon binding of inflammatory fatty acids, the virus becomes less visible to the immune system. This could be a mechanism to avoid detection by the host and a strong immune response for a longer period of time and increase total infection efficiency.

Part 1

It appears that this pocket, specifically built to recognize these fatty acids, gives SARS-CoV-2 an advantage inside the body of infected people, allowing it to multiply so fast. This could explain why it is there, in all variants, including Omicron. Intriguingly, the same feature also provides us with a unique opportunity to defeat the virus, exactly because it is so conserved—with a tailormade antiviral molecule that blocks the pocket.

Kapil Gupta et al, Structural insights in cell-type specific evolution of intra-host diversity by SARS-CoV-2, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27881-6

Oskar Staufer et al, Synthetic virions reveal fatty acid-coupled adaptive immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 spike glycoprotein, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-28446-x

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2022-03-sars-cov-infected-individual...

Part 2

Tiny 'skyscrapers' help bacteria convert sunlight into electricity

Researchers have made tiny 'skyscrapers' for communities of bacteria, helping them to generate electricity from just sunlight and water.

The researchers used 3D printing to create grids of high-rise 'nano-housing' where sun-loving bacteria can grow quickly. The researchers were then able to extract the bacteria's waste electrons, left over from photosynthesis, which could be used to power small electronics.

Other research teams have extracted energy from photosynthetic bacteria, but now the researchers have found that providing them with the right kind of home increases the amount of energy they can extract by over an order of magnitude. The approach is competitive against traditional methods of renewable bioenergy generation and has already reached solar conversion efficiencies that can outcompete many current methods of biofuel generation.

Their results, reported in the journal Nature Materials, open new avenues in bioenergy generation and suggest that 'biohybrid' sources of solar energy could be an important component in the zero-carbon energy mix.

Jenny Zhang, 3D-printed hierarchical pillar array electrodes for high-performance semi-artificial photosynthesis, Nature Materials (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41563-022-01205-5. www.nature.com/articles/s41563-022-01205-5

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-03-tiny-skyscrapers-bacteria-sunli...

Traces of life in the Earth's deep mantle

The rapid development of fauna 540 million years ago has permanently changed the Earth—deep into its lower mantle. A team of researchers now found traces of this development in rocks from this zone.

It is easy to see that the processes in the Earth's interior influence what happens on the surface. For example, volcanoes unearth magmatic rocks and emit gases into the atmosphere, and thus influence the biogeochemical cycles on our planet.

What is less obvious, however, is that the reverse is also true: what happens on the Earth's surface effect the Earth's interior—even down to great depths. This is the conclusion reached by an international group of researchers  in a new study published in the journal Science Advances. According to this study, the development of life on our planet affects parts of Earth's lower mantle.

In their study, the researchers examined rare diamond-bearing volcanic rocks called kimberlites from different epochs of the Earth's history. These special rocks are messengers from the lowest regions of the Earth's mantle. Scientists measured the isotopic composition of carbon in about 150 samples of these special rocks. They found that the composition of younger kimberlites, which are less than 250 million years old, varies considerably from that of older rocks. In many of the younger samples, the composition of the carbon isotopes is outside the range that would be expected for rocks from the mantle.

The researchers see a decisive trigger for this change in composition of younger kimberlites in the Cambrian Explosion. This relatively short phase—geologically speaking—took place over a period of few tens of million years at the beginning of the Cambrian Epoch, about 540 million years ago. During this drastic transition, almost all of today's existing animal tribes appeared on Earth for the first time. The enormous increase in life forms in the oceans decisively changed what was happening on the Earth's surface. And this in turn affected the composition of sediments at the bottom of the ocean.

Part 1

For the Earth's lower mantle, this changeover is relevant because some of the sediments on the seafloor, in which material from dead living creatures is deposited, enter the mantle through plate tectonics. Along the subduction zones, these sediments—along with the underlying oceanic crust—are transported to great depths. In this way, the carbon that was stored as organic material in the sediments also reaches the Earth's mantle. There the sediments mix with other rock material from the Earth's mantle and after a certain time, estimated to at least 200–300 million years, rise to the Earth's surface again in other places—for example in the form of kimberlite magmas.

It is remarkable that changes in marine sediments leave such profound traces, because overall, only small amounts of sediment are transported into the depths of the mantle along a subduction zone. This confirms that the subducted rock material in the Earth's mantle is not distributed homogeneously, but moves along specific trajectories.

In addition to carbon, the researchers also examined the isotopic composition of other chemical elements. For example, the two elements strontium and hafnium showed a similar pattern to carbon.

Andrea Giuliani et al, Perturbation of the deep-Earth carbon cycle in response to the Cambrian Explosion, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abj1325

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-life-earth-deep-mantle.html?utm_sourc...

Part 2

AI can detect the sound of healthy machines. Can you?

Astronomers discover largest molecule yet in a planet-forming disc

Using the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, researchers  have for the first time detected dimethyl ether in a planet-forming disc. With nine atoms, this is the largest molecule identified in such a disc to date. It is also a precursor of larger organic molecules that can lead to the emergence of life.

Dimethyl ether is an organic molecule commonly seen in star-forming clouds, but had never before been found in a planet-forming disc. The researchers also made a tentative detection of methyl formate, a complex molecule similar to dimethyl ether that is also a building block for even larger organic molecules.

The molecules were found in the planet-forming disc around the young star IRS 48 (also known as Oph-IRS 48) with the help of ALMA, an observatory co-owned by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). IRS 48, located 444 light-years away in the constellation Ophiuchus, has been the subject of numerous studies because its disc contains an asymmetric, cashew-nut-shaped "dust trap". This region, which likely formed as a result of a newly born planet or small companion star located between the star and the dust trap, retains large numbers of millimetre-sized dust grains that can come together and grow into kilometre-sized objects like comets, asteroids and potentially even planets.

Many complex organic molecules, such as dimethyl ether, are thought to arise in star-forming clouds, even before the stars themselves are born. In these cold environments, atoms and simple molecules like carbon monoxide stick to dust grains, forming an ice layer and undergoing chemical reactions, which result in more complex molecules. Researchers recently discovered that the dust trap in the IRS 48 disc is also an ice reservoir, harbouring dust grains covered with this ice rich in complex molecules. It was in this region of the disc that ALMA has now spotted signs of the dimethyl ether molecule: as heating from IRS 48 sublimates the ice into gas, the trapped molecules inherited from the cold clouds are freed and become detectable.

N. G.C. Brunken et al, A major asymmetric ice trap in a planet-forming disk. III. First detection of dimethyl ether, Astronomy & Astrophysics (2022). DOI: 10.1051/0004-6361/202142981

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-astronomers-largest-molecule-planet-f...

Mammalian offspring derived from a single unfertilized egg

A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in China and one in the U.S. has successfully derived offspring from a single unfertilized mammalian egg—in a mouse. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their technique when tested in mice.

Parthenogenesis is the development of embryos from a single unfertilized egg. In nature, it occurs in aphids, fish, reptiles, scorpions, mites and some bees—but not in mammals. In mammals, sexual reproduction involves a fusion of male DNA with female DNA, with the resulting offspring having genetic material from both parents. Prior research has shown that most of the cells in mammals express copies of genes from both parents—but a few do not, instead expressing genes from only the mother or the father. In their work, the researchers took advantage of such exceptions.

Prior research efforts aimed at forcing parthenogenesis in mammals have failed, the researchers note, due to genomic imprinting. They overcame this problem by taking a different approach. Their work involved removing an egg from a mouse and then using CRISPR to edit its genes to mimic the genes a male parent would have contributed during normal fertilization. They then injected an enzyme into the egg to switch on some genes and switch others off to make the genes in the egg resemble those of an egg that has been fertilized by a father. The egg was then implanted into the female's uterus, where it was allowed to grow into a fetus. The researchers repeated this process with several eggs, implanting them all together into a single mouse uterus—mice typically give birth to between eight and 12 pups at a time. All of the pups survived the birth, but only one of them survived to adulthood—and it did well enough to produce offspring as well.

The researchers suggest that parthenogenesis in mammals is achievable, though they acknowledge much more work is required before it can be used in real-world applications. 

Yanchang Wei et al, Viable offspring derived from single unfertilized mammalian oocytes, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2115248119

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-mammalian-offspring-derived-unfertili...

Biologists observe a molecular 'hand-off' that plays a key role in reproduction

Everyone considers sperm to be made exclusively by males. Well, it turns out that females also contribute to what makes a sperm a sperm.

In species with internal fertilization, such as humans, the ability for a female to become pregnant and carry a pregnancy to term is dependent upon effective interactions between sperm  and the female reproductive  tract(FRT). When those interactions are defective, the result can be a failed pregnancy. Therefore, understanding the factors that contribute to sperm viability between copulation and fertilization is crucial.

Researchers have been studying the life history of fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster) sperm to better understand molecular continuity between male and female reproductive tracts—in other words, how the male and female reproductive tracts provide support to keep the sperm viable before fertilization. Their results, published on March 7, 2022 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), shed light on important events that may play a role in infertility that up until now have been poorly understood.

Scientists explored the compositional changes in fruit fly sperm, beginning shortly after they leave the testis, following insemination and finally after protracted storage within the FRT. Fruit flies are powerful model organisms for investigations such as this one because they are easy to culture in the laboratory, have a short generation time and their genetics are richly understood. In their study, the group uncovered that the proteome, or protein makeup, of the sperm undergoes substantial changes after being transferred to the FRT.

For species with internal fertilization, a sperm's developmental "journey"—on the way to its final destination of fertilizing an egg and beginning a new life—transcends both male and female reproductive tracts. After leaving the testis, sperm travel through the male's seminal vesicles and descend through the ejaculatory duct, where they mix with seminal fluid proteins. The team found that many of these seminal proteins are progressively lost after sperm migrate beyond the site of insemination within the FRT.

Part 1

Conversely, female-derived proteins that may help the sperm with functions such as energy metabolism, begin to associate with the sperm immediately after mating, signifying a changing of the guard of proteins. After several days of storage within the FRT, the research team was surprised to discover that nearly 20% of the sperm's proteins had been replaced by female-derived proteins. The female contributions support sperm viability during the prolonged period between copulation and fertilization. This "hand-off" in the maintenance of sperm viability from males to females means that sperm are materially the product of both sexes, and this may be a crucial aspect of reproduction in all internally-fertilizing species, including humans.

By studying the intimate ways in which sperm interact with the FRT during the final stages of functional maturation, the team's research advances understanding of animal fertility and the contributions of each sex to reproductive success.

Erin L. McCullough et al, The life history of Drosophila sperm involves molecular continuity between male and female reproductive tracts, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2119899119

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-biologists-molecular-hand-off-key-rol...

Part 2

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How genes from Mom or Dad shape behaviour

Parenting is not the only way moms and dads impact the behavior of their offspring. Genes matter, too. And although most of our genes are inherited in pairs—one copy from each parent—moms and dads exert their genetic influence in different ways. According to new research  by scientists, each parent has their own impact on hormones and other chemical messengers that control mood and behaviour.

The research team reports that certain groups of cells in the brains of mice rely exclusively on the mother's copy of a gene that is needed to produce essential chemical messengers in the brain called neurotransmitters. In those cells, the father's copy of the gene remains switched off. However, in a different organ, the adrenal gland, certain cells favor the father's copy of the same gene. There, the gene is involved in producing the stress hormone, adrenaline.

After identifying this unexpected switch in parental control of a single gene, the research team went on to demonstrate that it had consequences for behaviour. They found that each parent's gene affected sons and daughters differently: certain decisions in sons were controlled by their mother's gene, whereas fathers had control over some decision-making in daughters.

Evolutionarily speaking, this form of genetic regulation may reflect different parental priorities. The revelation that maternal and paternal alleles of the same gene along the brain-adrenal axis could have disparate, or possibly even antagonistic, phenotypic consequences on behavior is an intriguing observation.

The brain-adrenal axis is a very important part of mammalian biology that controls behavior and affects stress, mood, metabolism and decision-making. This finding is a first step toward understanding how a parent's genes may affect more routine behaviours and related health conditions in people, from mental illnesses and addiction to cancer and Alzheimer's disease.

Christopher Gregg, Noncanonical genomic imprinting in the monoamine system determines naturalistic foraging and brain-adrenal axis functions, Cell Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.celrep.2022.110500. www.cell.com/cell-reports/full … 2211-1247(22)00236-4

https://phys.org/news/2022-03-parental-genes-mom-dad-behavior.html?...

The Toxic Gas That Provides (Almost) All of Our Food