Depending on your parents and very little on how you live, your longevity or, as our paper claims, your response to COVID-19 is a function of who you were when you were born," he said, "which is kind of a big deal."

To build this model the researchers used publicly available data on COVID-19 mortality from the Center for Disease Control and US Census Bureau and studies on telomeres, many of which were published by the co-authors over the past two decades.

Assembling telomere length information about a person or specific demographic, he said, could help doctors know who was less susceptible. And then they could allocate resources, such as booster shots, according to which populations and individuals may be more susceptible to COVID-19.

https://www.washington.edu/news/2022/05/06/model-finds-covid-19-dea...'s%20ability%20to,virus%20that%20causes%20the%20disease.

Part 2

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Combining certain meds with ibuprofen can permanently injure kidneys

Anyone who is taking a diuretic and a renin-angiotensin system (RSA) inhibitor for high blood pressure should be cautious about also taking ibuprofen, according to new research.

Diuretics and RSA inhibitors are commonly prescribed together for people with hypertension and are available under various pharmaceutical brand names. Painkillers such as ibuprofen are available over-the-counter in most pharmacies and stores in popular brands.

Researchers used computer-simulated drug trials to model the interactions of the three drugs and the impact on the kidney. They found that in people with certain medical profiles, the combination can cause acute kidney injury, which in some cases can be permanent.

It's not that everyone who happens to take this combination of drugs is going to have problems. But the research shows it's enough of a problem that you should exercise caution.

Computer-simulated drug trials can quickly produce results that would take much longer in human clinical trials.

The research, in this case, can also speak directly to the many people who are taking drugs for hypertension and may reach for a painkiller with ibuprofen without giving it much thought.

Diuretics are a family of drugs that make the body hold less water. Being dehydrated is a major factor in acute kidney injury, and then the RAS inhibitor and ibuprofen hit the kidney with this triple whammy.

So scientists advice: If you happen to be on these hypertension drugs and need a painkiller, consider acetaminophen instead.

Jessica Leete et al, Determining risk factors for triple whammy acute kidney injury, Mathematical Biosciences (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.mbs.2022.108809

Researchers invent chameleon metal that acts like many others

A team of energy researchers  has invented a device that electronically converts one metal so that it behaves like another for use as a catalyst in chemical reactions. The device, called a "catalytic condenser," is the first to demonstrate that alternative materials that are electronically modified to provide new properties can yield faster, more efficient chemical processing.

The invention opens the door for new catalytic technologies using non-precious metal catalysts for important applications such as storing renewable energy, making renewable fuels, and manufacturing sustainable materials.

In order to develop this method for tuning the catalytic properties of alternative materials, the researchers relied on their knowledge of how electrons behave at surfaces. The team successfully tested a theory that adding and removing electrons to one material could turn the metal oxide into something that mimicked the properties of another.

Tzia Ming Onn et al, Alumina Graphene Catalytic Condenser for Programmable Solid Acids, JACS Au (2022). DOI: 10.1021/jacsau.2c00114

What is watermelon snow?

Otherwise known as glacier blood, watermelon snow is found worldwide in mountains and polar regions. The pink-red snow has a faintly fruity smell but is reported to have laxative effects if eaten.

The watermelon colour comes from freshwater green algae called Chlamydomonas nivalis. In summer, the algae produce a red pigment to protect themselves from the Sun’s intense rays. This pigment belongs to a large group of carotenoid substances, many of which are found in brightly coloured fruits and vegetables such as tomatoes and carrots.

Unfortunately, the pigment reduces snow’s ability to reflect heat, leading to faster melting rates.

Only 3% of potential bacterial drug sources known
The emergence of antibiotic-resistant pathogens and the increasing difficulty in developing new drugs has contributed to global challenges in combating infectious diseases. An extensive bioinformatics survey of around 170,000 bacterial genomes indicates that only three percent of the genomic potential for microbial natural products—chemically diverse bacterial metabolites that form the basis of antibiotic drugs—have been discovered so far. Co-led by Prof Nadine Ziemert of the German Center for Infection Research (DZIF), the survey identified several bacterial genera as producers of highly diverse natural products that could help to overcome the bottleneck in drug development.

Bacterial producers of natural products as sources of drugs such as antibiotics have been studied for decades. However, the rate of new drug discovery has stagnated in recent years. There is uncertainty on how much chemical diversity exists in nature and how many new compounds can still be discovered. Additionally, assumptions that a large portion of natural product-producers and respective biosynthetic pathways have been discovered already have not been investigated.

To understand the true potential of useful biosynthetic pathways and natural products in the bacterial world, an international team of researchers from Germany, the Netherlands and the United States surveyed a large amount of genomic data—around 170,000 bacterial genomes and several thousands of so-called Metagenome Assembled Genomes representing individual microbial taxa from diverse environments. Using a genome mining strategy, the team identified so-called Biosynthetic Gene Clusters (BGCs)—clusters of genes in bacterial genomes that jointly encode the biosynthesis pathways of natural products. Grouping the BGCs into gene cluster families according to similarity, the researchers developed tools that allow the study of the biosynthetic diversity represented in the bacterial genome database.

This bioinformatics genome mining approach reveals that only three percent or even less of the genomic potential for the production of natural products has been discovered so far.

Based on the mined data, the researchers identified bacterial taxa that showed high biosynthetic potential, among them multiple unexplored taxonomic groups. 

Athina Gavriilidou et al, Compendium of specialized metabolite biosynthetic diversity encoded in bacterial genomes, Nature Microbiology (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41564-022-01110-2

Distantly related mushrooms gained the ability to make toxin via horizontal gene transfer
A team of researchers affiliated with several institutions in China and the U.S. has found evidence that suggests three distantly related types of mushrooms gained their ability to produce a dangerous toxin via horizontal gene transfer sometime in their past. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their genetic analysis of multiple species of mushrooms to determine which genes in three particular species were responsible for producing the same toxin and what it showed them about its origins.

Scientists have known for some time that the three mushrooms—the deadly dapperling, the destroying angel and the funeral bell—are not only toxic, but also have an identical toxin. Some scientists assumed they must have a common ancestor, but the researchers in this new effort suspected something else was afoot because the three species are so distantly related. To get to the bottom of the matter, they obtained samples of the three mushrooms along with samples from 12 others.

To find out which part of their genome was responsible for making the toxins, the researchers sequenced all of their samples. They found two genes that were responsible for creating the toxins and were identical in all three species. A closer look at the genes showed that they were, indeed, distantly related, but it also showed that the genes responsible for producing the toxins were not passed down from a common ancestor. That left just one other possibility—sometime in their past, all three had received a horizontal gene transfer from another, possibly extinct, mushroom.

A horizontal gene transfer occurs when a third party, such as a bacterium, absorbs some of the genome of a host it is infecting and then passes those cells into another host that it infects. The researchers note that horizontal gene transfer is common with bacteria. In many cases, they steal bits of host DNA, add it to their own, and then pass it on to their offspring. Those offspring can then add the new DNA to cells they infect in another host.

Hong Luo et al, Genes and evolutionary fates of the amanitin biosynthesis pathway in poisonous mushrooms, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2201113119

Unusual quantum state of matter observed for the first time

It's not every day that someone comes across a new state of matter in quantum physics. Yet this is exactly what an international team of physicists has done recently. 

In a recent article published in the scientific journal Physical Review X, the researchers document a "quantum spin liquid ground state" in a magnetic material created in  lab: Ce₂Zr₂O₇, a compound composed of cerium, zirconium and oxygen.

In quantum physics, spin is an internal property of electrons linked to their rotation. It is spin that gives the material in a magnet its magnetic properties.

In some materials, spin results in a disorganized structure similar to that of molecules in a liquid, hence the expression "spin liquid."

In general, a material becomes more disorganized as its temperature rises. This is the case, for example, when water turns into steam. But the principal characteristic of spin liquids is that they remain disorganized even when cooled to as low as absolute zero (–273°C).

Spin liquids remain disorganized because the direction of spin continues to fluctuate as the material is cooled instead of stabilizing in a solid state, as it does in a conventional magnet, in which all the spins are aligned.

Imagine an electron as a tiny compass that points either up or down. In conventional magnets, the electron spins are all oriented in the same direction, up or down, creating what is known as a "ferromagnetic phase." This is what keeps photos and notes pinned to your fridge.

But in quantum spin liquids, the electrons are positioned in a triangular lattice and form a "ménage à trois" characterized by intense turbulence that interferes with their order. The result is an entangled wave function and no magnetic order.

When a third electron is added, the electron spins cannot align because the two neighboring electrons must always have opposing spins, creating what we call magnetic frustration.

This generates excitations that maintain the disorder of spins and therefore the liquid state, even at very low temperatures."

So how did they add a third electron and cause such frustration?

Enter the frustrated magnet Ce₂Zr₂O₇ created by physicists in a  lab. 

Ce₂Zr₂O₇ is a cerium-based material with magnetic properties. The existence of this compound was known. This new breakthrough was creating it in a uniquely pure form. They used samples melted in an optical furnace to produce a near-perfect triangular arrangement of atoms and then checked the quantum state.

It was this near-perfect triangle that enabled this team  to create magnetic frustration in Ce₂Zr₂O₇.

Their  measurements showed an overlapping particle function—therefore no Bragg peaks—a clear sign of the absence of classical magnetic order. They also observed a distribution of spins with continuously fluctuating directions, which is characteristic of spin liquids and magnetic frustration. This indicates that the material they created behaves like a true spin liquid at low temperatures.

After corroborating these observations with computer simulations, the team concluded that they were indeed witnessing a never-before-seen quantum state.

Part 1

Magnetism is a collective phenomenon in which the electrons in a material all spin in the same direction. An everyday example is the ferromagnet, which owes its magnetic properties to the alignment of spins. Neighboring electrons can also spin in opposite directions. In this case, the spins still have well-defined directions but there is no magnetization. Frustrated magnets are frustrated because the neighboring electrons try to orient their spins in opposing directions, and when they find themselves in a triangular lattice, they can no longer settle on a common, stable arrangement. The result: a frustrated magnet.

E. M. Smith et al, Case for a U(1)π Quantum Spin Liquid Ground State in the Dipole-Octupole Pyrochlore Ce₂Zr₂O₇, Physical Review X (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.12.021015

Part 2

For the first time, researchers have observed an X-ray explosion on...

When stars like our sun use up all their fuel, they shrink to form white dwarfs. Sometimes such dead stars flare back to life in a super-hot explosion and produce a fireball of X-ray radiation. A research team  has now been able to observe such an explosion of X-ray light for the very first time.

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Scientists solve problem of industrial waste from sugarcane process... Scientists have discovered how to significantly improve the sustainability of the sugarcane industry by turning a major by-product into a valuable chemical used in food, medicines and cosmetics. -- A nontoxic glue for plywood—from glucose, citric acid The go-to materials for building home furniture, décor and floors are composite wood products that come in large sheets. But the glues and resins holding together particleboard, fiberboard and plywood usually contain formaldehyde and could release this probable carcinogen into the air. To develop a nontoxic adhesive, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces have combined glucose and citric acid—sugar and an orange juice ingredient—into a strong, water-resistant wood glue for plywood.

Scientists transform beating heart stem cells into brain cells

By turning off a single gene,  researchers  caused stem cells already becoming heart cells to change course and become future brain cells. And that could help scientists understand how specific genes affect the development of your body and the role they play in developmental diseases, potentially leading to new therapies.

Previously, it’s been thought that the paths that cells take towards becoming a heart cell or a nerve cell are very rigid. This study is showing that this process is actually much more fluid.

Stem cells are kind of a blank slate. They’re “pluripotent,” meaning that they can transform into any type of cell in the body. There are a series of steps involved in this transformation process, called canalization. Until now, it was thought that once stem cells start undergoing canalization, they can’t change course to become other, different cell types.

Scientists now used CRISPR genome-editing approaches to turn off the Brm gene in mouse stem cells undergoing canalization into heart cells. This resulted in the mouse cells lacking a protein called Brahma.

Turning off Brm prevented stem cells from becoming beating heart cells. Additionally, they had switched from being heart precursors to become precursors for brain cells.

This study was the first to explore the effect of Brahma on cardiac differentiation

1. Nan Cao, Yu Huang, Jiashun Zheng, C. Ian Spencer, Yu Zhang, Ji-Dong Fu, Baoming Nie, Min Xie, Mingliang Zhang, Haixia Wang, Tianhua Ma, Tao Xu, Guilai Shi, Deepak Srivastava, Sheng Ding. Conversion of human fibroblasts into functional cardiomyocytes by small molecules. Science, 2016 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaf1502
2. Mingliang Zhang , Yuan-Hung Lin , Yujiao Jennifer Sun , Saiyong Zhu10 , Jiashun Zheng , Kai Liu , Nan Cao , Ke Li , Yadong Huang , Sheng Ding. Pharmacological Reprogramming of Fibroblasts into Neural Stem Cells by Signaling-Directed Transcriptional Activation. Cell Stem Cell, 2016 DOI: 10.1016/j.stem.2016.03.020

Exoskeleton device helps stroke victims regain hand function

Simulation Suggests Some Volcanoes Might Warm Climate, Destroy Ozone Layer

What it Takes to Image a Black Hole

How cholesterol plays a part in the life cycle process and death

For all their uncanny intelligence and seemingly supernatural abilities to change color and regenerate limbs, octopuses often suffer a tragic death. After a mother octopus lays a clutch of eggs, she quits eating and wastes away; by the time the eggs hatch, she is dead. Some females in captivity even seem to speed up this process intentionally, mutilating themselves and twisting their arms into a tangled mess.

The source of this bizarre maternal behavior seems to be the optic gland, an organ similar to the pituitary  in mammals. For years, just how this gland triggered the gruesome death spiral was unclear, but a new study by researchers 

shows that the optic gland in maternal octopuses undergoes a massive shift in cholesterol metabolism, resulting in dramatic changes in the steroid hormones produced. Alterations in cholesterol metabolism in other animals, including humans, can have serious consequences on longevity and behavior, and the study's authors believe this reveals important similarities in the functions of these steroids across the animal kingdom, in soft-bodied cephalopods and vertebrates alike.

Cholesterol is important from a dietary perspective, and within different signaling systems in the body too. It's involved in everything from the flexibility of cell membranes to production of stress hormones, but it was a big surprise to see it play a part in this life cycle process as well.

In 1977, Brandeis University psychologist Jerome Wodinsky showed that if he removed the optic gland from Caribbean two-spot octopus (Octopus hummelincki) mothers, they abandoned their clutch of eggs, resumed feeding, and lived for months longer. At the time, cephalopod biologists concluded that the optic gland must secrete some kind of "self-destruct" hormone, but just what it was and how it worked was unclear.

Part 1

Later researchers sequenced the RNA transcriptome of the optic gland at different stages of their maternal decline. RNA carries instructions from DNA about how to produce proteins, so sequencing it is a good way to understand the activity of genes and what's going on inside cells at a given time. As the animals began to fast and decline, there were higher levels of activity in genes that metabolize cholesterol and produce steroids, the first time the optic gland had been linked to something other than reproduction.

In the new paper, published this week in Current Biology, scientists took their studies a step further and analyzed the chemicals produced by the maternal octopus optic gland, specifically cholesterol. 

The new research shows that the maternal optic gland undergoes dramatic changes to produce more pregnenolone and progesterone, maternal cholestanoids, and 7-DHC during the stages of decline. While the pregnancy hormones are to be expected, this is the first time anything like the components for bile acids or cholesterol have been linked to the maternal octopus death spiral.

Some of these same pathways are used for producing cholesterol in mice and other mammals as well. 

A first: Scientists grow plants in soil from the Moon

Scientists have grown plants in soil from the Moon, a first in human history and a milestone in lunar and space exploration.

In a new paper published in the journal Communications Biology, University of Florida researchers showed that plants can successfully sprout and grow in lunar soil. Their study also investigated how plants respond biologically to the Moon's soil, also known as lunar regolith, which is radically different from soil found on Earth.

This work is a first step toward one day growing plants for food and oxygen on the Moon or during space missions. More immediately, this research comes as the Artemis Program plans to return humans to the Moon.

Anna-Lisa Paul, Plants grown in Apollo lunar regolith present stress-associated transcriptomes that inform prospects for lunar exploration, Communications Biology (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-03334-8. www.nature.com/articles/s42003-022-03334-8

Solid tumors use a type of T cell as a shield against immune attack

An unexpected trick in cancer's playbook may fool an important component of our immune systems into knocking down our natural defenses against solid tumors.

This newfound vulnerability involves a misuse of a type of T cell, part of a large family of blood cells that are essential to a functioning immune system.

Researchers identified a subset of T cells that show up in great numbers in head and neck tumors, but not in similar tissues of the mouth inflamed by common ailments such as gum disease.

It seems that this odd group of T cells have mixed up their highly specialized assignments within our immune systems and are now working to protect tumour cells. 

The evidence the researchers uncovered now might help explain why cutting-edge immunotherapies that work against blood cancers are less effective against solid tumours (such as breast, prostate, kidney and colorectal cancers), which are responsible for most cancer deaths. Researchers say it points the way for future drugs that might strip away that protection, making current therapies work better for more people.

 These 'T-regs'  are immune-suppressing cells, swarming in the tumor-environment specimens, were different from T-regs found elsewhere in the body. Their cell surfaces are marked by two distinct protein receptors. These specially marked T-regs were particularly good at tamping down inflammation, expanding in number and protecting the tumor cells from attack by other types of T cells.

A very large fraction of these critical, immunosuppressive cells in the tumor have this trait. These human tumor-related T-regs were clustered in the thicket of blood cells and connective tissues in and around the malignant mass—a site of biological territory known as the tumour micro environment. And because these cells are easy to spot, in theory they also can be easily targeted by anticancer drugs.

Florian Mair et al, Extricating human tumour immune alterations from tissue inflammation, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04718-w

Antibiotics can lead to fungal infection because of disruption to the gut's immune system

Patients prescribed antibiotics in hospital are more likely to get fungal infections because of disruption to the immune system in the gut, according to a new study .

Using immune-boosting drugs alongside the antibiotics could reduce the health risks from these complex infections say the researchers.

The life-threatening fungal infection invasive candidiasis is a major complication for hospitalized patients who are given antibiotics to prevent sepsis and other bacterial infections that spread quickly around hospitals (such as C. diff). Fungal infections can be more difficult to treat than bacterial infections, but the underlying factors causing these infections are not well understood.

This new study demonstrates the potential for immune-boosting drugs, but the researchers also say their work also highlights how antibiotics can have additional effects on our bodies that affect how we fight infection and disease. This in turn underscores the importance of careful stewardship of available antibiotics.

We knew that antibiotics make fungal infections worse, but the discovery that bacterial co-infections can also develop through these interactions in the gut was surprising. These factors can add up to a complicated clinical situation—and by understanding these underlying causes, doctors will be better able to treat these patients effectively.

Long-term Antibiotics Promote Mortality After Systemic Fungal Infection by Driving Lymphocyte Dysfunction and Systemic Escape of Commensal Bacteria, Cell Host & Microbe (2022).

Paper or plastic? Rigid waterproof coating for paper aims to reduce...

There is a considerable amount of research into the reduction of plastic for many and various applications. For the first time, researchers have found a way to imbue relatively sustainable paper materials with some of the useful properties of plastic. This can be done easily, cost effectively, and efficiently. A coating called Choetsu not only waterproofs paper, but also maintains its flexibility and degrades safely as well.

Life after death for the human eye: Vision scientists revive light-sensing cells in organ donor eyes

Scientists have revived light-sensing neuron cells in organ donor eyes and restored communication between them as part of a series of discoveries that stand to transform brain and vision research.

Billions of neurons in the central nervous system transmit sensory information as electrical signals; in the eye, specialized neurons known as photoreceptors sense light.

Publishing in Nature, a team of researchers  describe how they used the retina as a model of the central nervous system to investigate how neurons die—and new methods to revive them.

They  were able to wake up photoreceptor cells in the human macula, which is the part of the retina responsible for our central vision and our ability to see fine detail and color. In eyes obtained up to five hours after an organ donor's death, these cells responded to bright light, colored lights, and even very dim flashes of light.

Part 1

While initial experiments revived the photoreceptors, the cells appeared to have lost their ability to communicate with other cells in the retina. The team identified oxygen deprivation as the critical factor leading to this loss of communication.

To overcome the challenge, researchers procured organ donor eyes in under 20 minutes from the time of death. They designed a special transportation unit too to restore oxygenation and other nutrients to the organ donor eyes.

 They also built a device to stimulate the retina and measure the electrical activity of its cells. With this approach, the team was able to restore a specific electrical signal seen in living eyes, the "b wave." It is the first b wave recording made from the central retina of postmortem human eyes.

They were able to make the retinal cells talk to each other, the way they do in the living eye to mediate human vision. Past studies have restored very limited electrical activity in organ donor eyes, but this has never been achieved in the macula, and never to the extent they have now demonstrated.

The process demonstrated by the team could be used to study other neuronal tissues in the central nervous system. It is a transformative technical advance that can help researchers develop a better understanding of neurodegenerative diseases, including blinding retinal diseases such as age-related macular degeneration.

Fatima Abbas, Silke Becker, Bryan W. Jones, Ludovic S. Mure, Satchidananda Panda, Anne Hanneken, Frans Vinberg. Revival of light signalling in the postmortem mouse and human retina. Nature, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04709-x

Part 2

CRISPR now possible in cockroaches

Researchers have developed a CRISPR-Cas9 approach to enable gene editing in cockroaches, according to a study published by Cell Press on May 16th in the journal Cell Reports Methods. The simple and efficient technique, named "direct parental" CRISPR (DIPA-CRISPR), involves the injection of materials into female adults where eggs are developing rather than into the embryos themselves.

Insect researchers have been freed from the annoyance of egg injections. They  can now edit insect genomes more freely and at will. In principle, this method should work for more than 90% of insect species.

Current approaches for insect gene editing typically require microinjection of materials into early embryos, severely limiting its application to many species.

Takaaki Daimon, DIPA-CRISPR is a simple and accessible method for insect gene editing, Cell Reports Methods (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.crmeth.2022.100215. www.cell.com/cell-reports-meth … 2667-2375(22)00078-9

A strategy to discern between real and virtual video conferencing backgrounds

Video-conferencing platforms such as Skype, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Meet allow people to communicate remotely with others in different parts of the world. The COVID-19 pandemic and the social distancing measures that followed led to a further rise in the use of these platforms, as it increased remote working and virtual collaborations.

Most video-conferencing platforms now also allow users to use virtual backgrounds, so that they don't need to show their home environments to their co-workers and to reduce the risk of distractions. These virtual background can be i) real (current), ii) virtual (e.g., a seaside landscape or outer space), and iii) fake, which is a real but not current background. While being able to change the background increases users' privacy, fake backgrounds can also be used with malicious intent, to give the impression of a false location, for instance suggesting that a user is at the office when he is actually at home.

Researchers  have recently developed a tool that could be used to distinguish between real and virtual backgrounds in video-conferencing platforms. Their method, introduced in a paper pre-published on arXiv, was found to successfully discern between real and "artificial backgrounds" in two distinct and common attack scenarios.

Part 1

Ehsan Nowroozi et al, Real or virtual: a video conferencing background manipulation-detection system. arXiv:2204.11853v1 [cs.CV]. arxiv.org/abs/2204.11853

Machine learning techniques for image forensics in adversarial setting. Ph.D. Thesis (2020). theses.eurasip.org/theses/859/ … for-image-forensics/

Ehsan Nowroozi et al, A survey of machine learning techniques in adversarial image forensics. arXiv:2010.09680v1 [cs.CR], arxiv.org/abs/2010.09680

Shijing He, Yaxiong Lei, The privacy protection effectiveness of the video conference platforms' virtual background and the privacy concerns from the end-users. arXiv:2110.12493v1 [cs.HC], arxiv.org/abs/2110.12493

Jan Malte Hilgefort et al, Spying through Virtual Backgrounds of Video Calls, Proceedings of the 14th ACM Workshop on Artificial Intelligence and Security (2021). DOI: 10.1145/3474369.3486870

Information Leakage in Encrypted IP Video Traffic. Proceedings of the IEEE Global Communications (GLOBECOM)(2015).

Mauro Barni et al, CNN Detection of GAN-Generated Face Images based on Cross-Band Co-occurrences Analysis, 2020 IEEE International Workshop on Information Forensics and Security (WIFS) (2021). DOI: 10.1109/WIFS49906.2020.9360905

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-05-strategy-discern-real-virtual-v...

Part 2

For large bone injuries, it's Sonic hedgehog to the rescue

A  Stem Cell study in npj Regenerative Medicine presents intriguing evidence that large bone injuries might trigger a repair strategy in adults that recapitulates elements of skeletal formation in utero. Key to this repair strategy is a gene with a fittingly heroic name: Sonic hedgehog.

Rocket engine exhaust pollution extends high into Earth's atmosphere

Reusable space technology has led to a rise in space transportation at a lower cost, as popularized by commercial spaceflights of companies like SpaceX and Virgin Galactic. What is poorly understood, however, is rockets' propulsion emissions creating significant heating and compositional changes in the atmosphere.

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'Night-time solar' technology can now deliver power in the dark UNSW researchers have made a major breakthrough in renewable energy technology by producing electricity from so-called "night-time" solar power.

Scientists Just Measured a Mechanical Quantum System Without Destroying It

There's a key aspect of quantum computing you may not have thought about before. Called 'quantum non-​demolition measurements', they refer to observing certain quantum states without destroying them in the process.

If we want to put together a functioning quantum computer, not having it break down every second while calculations are made would obviously be helpful. Now, scientists have described a new technique for recording quantum non-demolition measurements that shows a lot of promise.

In this case, the research involved mechanical quantum systems – objects that are relatively large in quantum computing terms, but exceedingly tiny for us. They use mechanical motion (such as vibration) to handle the necessary quantum magic, and they can be combined with other quantum systems too.

For the purposes of this study, the team put together a thin strip of high-​quality sapphire, just under half a millimeter thick. A thin piezoelectrical transducer was used to excite acoustic waves, moving energy units such as phonons which can, in theory, be put through quantum computing processes. Technically, this device is known as an acoustic resonator.

That was the first part of the setup. To do the measuring, the acoustic resonator was coupled with a superconducting qubit – those basic quantum computer building blocks that can simultaneously hold both a 1 and a 0 value, and upon which companies such as Google and IBM have already built rudimentary quantum computers.

By making the status of the superconducting qubit dependent on the number of phonons in the acoustic resonator, the scientists could read that number of phonons without actually interacting with them or transferring any energy.

They describe it as similar to playing a theremin, the strange musical instrument that doesn't need to be touched to produce sound.

By interfacing mechanical resonators with superconducting circuits, circuit quantum acoustodynamics can make a variety of important tools available for manipulating and measuring motional quantum states.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-022-01591-2

Wood-based foam to keep buildings cooler

Running air conditioners constantly in summer can be expensive and wasteful. Now, researchers reporting in the ACS journal Nano Letters have designed a lightweight foam made from wood-based cellulose nanocrystals that reflects sunlight, emits absorbed heat and is thermally insulating. They suggest that the material could reduce buildings' cooling energy needs by more than a third.

Although scientists have developed cooling materials, they have disadvantages. Some materials that passively release absorbed heat let a lot of heat through to buildings under the direct, midday sun of the summer months. And other materials that reflect sunlight don't work well in hot, humid or cloudy weather. So researchers wanted to develop a robust material that could reflect sunlight, passively release heat and keep wayward heat from passing through.

To generate a cooling material, the researchers connected cellulose nanocrystals together with a silane bridge, before freezing and freeze-drying the material under a vacuum. This process vertically aligned the nanocrystals, making a white, lightweight foam, which reflected 96% of visible light and emitted 92% of absorbed infrared radiation. When placed over an aluminum foil-lined box sitting outdoors at noon, the material kept the temperature inside the box 16 degrees F cooler than the temperature outside it. Also, the material kept the inside of the box 13 degrees F cooler when the air was humid. As the cellulose-based foam was compressed, its cooling ability decreased, revealing tunable cooling properties. The team calculated that placing the foam on the roof and exterior walls of a building could reduce its cooling energy needs by an average of 35.4%. Because the wood-based cellulose foam's performance can be tuned depending on weather conditions, the researcher say that the technology could be applied in a wide range of environments.

Chenyang Cai et al, Dynamically Tunable All-Weather Daytime Cellulose Aerogel Radiative Supercooler for Energy-Saving Building, Nano Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.2c00844

Climate change indicators hit record highs in 2021: UN

Four key climate change indicators all set new record highs in 2021, the United Nations said Wednesday, warning that the global energy system was driving humanity towards catastrophe.

Greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, ocean heat and ocean acidification all set new records last year, the UN's World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said in its "State of the Global Climate in 2021" report.

The annual overview is "a dismal litany of humanity's failure to tackle climate disruption".

"The global energy system is broken and bringing us ever closer to climate catastrophe."

The WMO said human activity was causing planetary-scale changes on land, in the ocean and in the atmosphere, with harmful and long-lasting ramifications for ecosystems.

https://phys.org/news/2022-05-climate-indicators-highs.html?utm_sou...

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'Polluted' babies, millions dead: Scientists sound alarm on global ...

By many measures, modern science has greatly improved the American way of life. Advances in chemistry and other technologies over the past century have made food more affordable and transportation more convenient and paved the way for a plethora of consumer goods. About 4 in 5 U.S. households own a computer and smartphone.

Climate change boosts extreme heat in India

In India and Pakistan, climate change has made record-breaking heatwaves 100 times more likely to happen, according to an analysis by the UK Met Office. The modelling study assessed the heatwave that gripped the region in April and May 2010 to determine how climate change has affected the probability of these events and found that, by the end of the century, India and Pakistan could face extreme temperatures every year. Pre-monsoon heatwaves in recent weeks have seen temperatures reach as high as 51 ℃ in Pakistan, and the heat looks set to worsen later this week.

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Ghostly 'mirror world' might be cause of cosmic controversy

New research suggests an unseen "mirror world" of particles that interacts with our world only via gravity that might be the key to solving a major puzzle in cosmology today—the Hubble constant problem.

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Under anaerobic conditions, common microbial communities can break ...

Engineers at University of California Riverside are the first to report selective breakdown of a particularly stubborn class of PFAS, called fluorinated carboxylic acids (FCAs), by common microorganisms.

Magnetic resonance makes the invisible visible

A small group of researchers just published in Nature Protocols an advanced NMR (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance) method to monitor fast and complicated biomolecular events such as protein folding.

Protein folding was long considered as one of the great mysteries of modern research. This crucial process during which amino acid chains adopt a 3D structure and functionality takes place within milliseconds. Being this fast, protein folding events could often not be characterized by NMR spectroscopy, which is the standard method for studying molecular structures. Employing hyperpolarized water, researchers have now developed a method that dramatically enhances the signals of the proteins, nucleic acids, and other biomolecules. This renders monitoring of processes such as protein folding possible.

With NMR spectroscopy, researchers can measure the magnetic properties of atoms and thus analyze the atomic structure of molecules in solution. This new method is based on NMR and enables the monitoring of biological processes in real-time. By using hyperpolarized water, the researchers significantly enhanced NMR signals of the investigated samples and therefore boost the method's sensitivity.

With hyperpolarization methods, more precisely dissolution DNP (D-DNP), a signal enhancement of over 10,000-fold is possible. The hyperpolarized water acts as a booster for the NMR signals of a protein during the measurement. The hydrogen nuclei of the hyperpolarized water are exchanged with those of the proteins, thus transferring the signal strength to the latter.

With the new method, the researchers can record an NMR spectrum every 100 milliseconds and use it to track the 3D coordinates of individual amino acids and how they change over time. This allows researchers to monitor processes that occur in milliseconds and distinguish individual atoms.

In their study the authors describe their technique in detail, from hyperpolarization to the transfer of the hyperpolarized water to the NMR spectrometer, to the mixing of the hyperpolarized water with the sample solution, and the NMR measurement.

In addition, they present six examples for method application, including the observation of protein folding or even the interactions of RNA (nucleic acids) and RNA-binding proteins as the basis for gene expressions in the cell. According to the scientists, the new method can be used for specific studies of RNA, DNA and polypeptides, especially when signal enhancement reaches the "magic" number of 1,000-fold.

An NMR spectrometer equipped with a hyperpolarization prototype is a prerequisite for NMR boosted by hyperpolarized water. However, this kind of infrastructure is not common yet.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41596-022-00693-8

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42004-021-00587-y

https://www.inar.de/magnetic-resonance-makes-the-invisible-visible/

Chemists skew the odds to prevent cancer

The path to cancer prevention is long and arduous for legions of researchers, but new work by  scientists shows that there may be shortcuts.

They are developing a theoretical framework to explain how cancers caused by more than one genetic mutation can be more easily identified and perhaps stopped.

Essentially, it does so by identifying and ignoring transition pathways that don’t contribute much to the fixation of mutations in a cell that goes on to establish a tumor.

A study in the Biophysical Journal describes their analysis of the effective energy landscapes of cellular transformation pathways implicated in a variety of cancers. The ability to limit the number of pathways to the few most likely to kick-start cancer could help to find ways to halt the process before it ever really starts.

Sometimes cancer is just a probability coming true. These researchers  think they can decrease the probability by looking for low-probability collections of mutations that typically lead to cancer. Depending on the type of cancer, this can range between two mutations and 10.

Calculating the effective energies that dictate interactions in biomolecular systems can predict how they behave. The theory is commonly used to predict how a protein will fold, based on the sequence of its constituent atoms and how they interact.

The research team is applying the same principle to cancer initiation pathways that operate in cells but sometimes carry mutations missed by the body’s safeguards. When two or more of these mutations are fixed in a cell, they are carried forward as the cells divide and tumors grow.

Part 1

By their calculations, the odds favor the most dominant pathways, those that carry mutations forward while expending the least amount of energy

Instead of looking at all possible chemical reactions, they identify the few that they might need to look at. They think that most tissues involved in the initiation of cancer are trying to be as homogenous as possible. The rule is a pathway that decreases heterogeneity is always going to be the fastest on the road to tumor formation.

The huge number of possible pathways seems to make narrowing them down an intractable problem. But it turned out that using their chemical intuition and building an effective free-energy landscape helped by allowing them to calculate where in the process a mutation is likely to become fixated in a cell.

The team simplified calculations by focusing initially on pathways involving only two mutations that, when fixed, initiate a tumor. Mechanisms involving more mutations will complicate calculations, but the procedure remains the same.

Hamid Teimouri, Cade Spaulding, Anatoly B. Kolomeisky. Optimal pathways control fixation of multiple mutations during cancer initiation. Biophysical Journal, 2022; DOI: 10.1016/j.bpj.2022.05.011

Part 2

A Black Hole's Magnetic Reversal

Genetic predictability steadily erodes during evolution, new study shows

A critical goal in genetics and evolution is predicting the effects of mutations that may happen in the future and inferring the effects of those that happened in the past. To make these predictions, scientists generally assume that a mutation's effects tested in the present apply to past and future versions of the same gene.

This assumption turns out to be wrong for most mutations, a new study by University of Chicago scientists shows. By combining cutting-edge techniques in experimental biochemistry and evolutionary reconstruction of ancient proteins, the study directly measured how the effects of every possible mutation in a biologically essential gene changed across 700 million years of evolution. As the gene evolved, the effects of most mutations changed steadily and randomly, often switching from highly detrimental to inconsequential, or vice versa.

This constant drift makes it impossible to reliably predict the effects of most mutations into the future or back into the past. The findings also imply that the potential fate of a mutation during evolution is determined not only by natural selection, but also by the particular set of chance events that happened to unfold during the gene's history. These events determine the effect each mutation has at each timepoint and therefore the probability that it will be incorporated into the gene during evolution.

Yeonwoo Park et al, Epistatic drift causes gradual decay of predictability in protein evolution, Science (2022). DOI: 10.1126/science.abn6895. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn6895

https://phys.org/news/2022-05-genetic-steadily-erodes-evolution.htm...

How one of the X chromosomes in female embryonic stem cells is silenced

In most mammals, females have two X chromosomes and males have one X and one Y chromosome in each of their cells. To avoid a double dose of X-linked genes in females, one of the Xs is silenced early in the developmental process. This silencing is critical, yet how it happens has been relatively mysterious. Two new  studies reveal more about this silencing process and insights that could improve stem cell research.

Human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) hold enormous promise for research into early development as well as for regenerative medicine for diseases ranging from type 1 diabetes to Parkinson's disease. Yet, biologists working with female hESCs in the lab often run into a phenomenon wherein the normally inactivated X chromosome loses this suppression while growing in a culture dish.

If you can't maintain hESCs exactly as such in culture then you can't use them for any downstream application. Researchers set out to determine why X-inactivation erodes under certain experimental conditions over time.

Their primary suspect was the substance used to grow the cells in culture, called media. Cells are grown in media that supply them with chemical instructions called growth factors. These growth factors signal stem cells to keep dividing. One popular medium, called mTeSR1, appeared to be correlated with the loss of a key regulator of X-inactivation, a non-coding strand of RNA called XIST. Another medium, called Xenofree, did not lead to a loss of X-inactivation.

Researchers looked at the differences in the composition of these two media and identified lithium chloride as being present in mTeSR1 but not in Xenofree.

Lithium chloride is sometimes included in media to promote stem cell proliferation, however, it is known to interfere with many cell-signaling pathways by inhibiting GSK-3 proteins. (Inhibitors of GSK-3 proteins have been used to treat several diseases, and lithium, used to treat bipolar disorder, was one of the first natural GSK-3 inhibitors discovered.)

To confirm lithium chloride as the culprit, they added the compound to the Xenofree medium and saw a loss of X-inactivation.

This study suggests that researchers need to be a little more cautious about the use of GSK-3 inhibitors like lithium. They may not only interfere with X inactivation, but other modes of epigenetic transcriptional regulation across the genome.

 Marissa Cloutier et al, Preventing erosion of X-chromosome inactivation in human embryonic stem cells, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30259-x

Milan Kumar Samanta et al, Activation of Xist by an evolutionarily conserved function of KDM5C demethylase, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30352-1

New method to kill cyberattacks in less than a second

A new method that could automatically detect and kill cyberattacks on our laptops, computers and smart devices in under a second has been created by researchers.

Using artificial intelligence in a completely novel way, the method has been shown to successfully prevent up to 92 percent of files on a computer from being corrupted, with it taking just 0.3 seconds on average for a piece of malware to be wiped out.

The new approach is based on monitoring and predicting the behavior of malware as opposed to more traditional antivirus approaches that analyze what a piece of malware looks like.

By training computers to run simulations on specific pieces of malware, it is possible to make a very quick prediction in less than a second of how the malware will behave further down the line.

Once a piece of software is flagged as malicious the next stage is to wipe it out, which is where the new research comes into play.

Once a threat is detected, due to the fast-acting nature of some destructive malware, it is vital to have automated actions to support these detections.

Matilda Rhode et al, Real-Time Malware Process Detection and Automated Process Killing, Security and Communication Networks (2021). DOI: 10.1155/2021/8933681

https://techxplore.com/news/2022-05-method-cyberattacks.html?utm_so...

Mars Has Auroras Without a Global Magnetic Field

Earth's auroras are a glorious wonder, but our planet isn't the only place in the Solar System where these phenomena can be found. An atmospheric glow, albeit sometimes in invisible wavelengths, has been spotted at every planet except Mercury, and even some moons of Jupiter... and even a comet. But Mars is where it gets interesting. The red planet is famous for its lost global magnetic field, an ingredient that plays a crucial role in the formation of aurora elsewhere.

But that doesn't mean Mars is totally magnetism-free. Regions of localized magnetic fields sprout from some regions of the crust, particularly in the southern hemisphere. New analysis has confirmed that these small, local magnetic fields interact with the solar wind in interesting ways to produce Mars's discrete (or structured) ultraviolet auroras.

The new main finding is that inside the strong crustal field region, the aurora occurrence rate depends mostly on the orientation of the solar wind magnetic field, while outside the strong crustal field region, the occurrence rate depends mostly on the solar wind dynamic pressure.

But Mars's global magnetic field decayed fairly early on in the planet's history, leaving behind only patches of magnetism preserved in magnetized minerals in the crust. Ultraviolet images of Mars at night have revealed that auroras tend to form near these crustal magnetic fields, which makes sense if magnetic field lines are required for particle acceleration.  Outside the crustal magnetic field regions, the dynamic pressure of the solar wind plays a significant role in the detection frequency of auroras.

Part 1

However, the pressure of the solar wind seems to play little role in the brightness of said auroras. This suggests that space weather events, such as coronal mass ejections, where masses of charged particles are ejected from the Sun and are associated with higher solar wind pressure, may trigger Martian auroras.

Inside the crustal magnetic field regions, the orientation of the magnetic field and the solar wind seems to play a significant role in the formation of auroras on Mars. At certain orientations, the solar wind seems to be favorable to the magnetic reconnection events or particle acceleration required to produce the ultraviolet glow.

These results, the researchers said, reveal new information on how interactions with the solar wind can generate auroras on a planet stripped of its global magnetic field. This information can be used to help better understand the formation of discrete auroras on very different worlds.

https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021JA030238

Part 2

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Exoskeleton device helps stroke victims regain hand function

Scientists devise method to prevent deadly hospital infections without antibiotics

 A hospital or medical clinic might be the last place you’d expect to pick up a nasty infection, but that is what happens usually resulting in hundreds of deaths from infection-related complications and billions in direct medical costs.

The biggest culprits, experts say — accounting for two-thirds of these infections — are medical devices like catheters, stents, heart valves and pacemakers, whose surfaces often become covered with harmful bacterial films. But a novel surface treatment developed by a  team of scientists could help improve the safety of these devices and ease the economic burden on the health care system.

The new approach, tested in both laboratory and clinical settings, involves depositing a thin layer of what is known as zwitterionic material on the surface of a device and permanently binding that layer to the underlying substrate using ultraviolet light irradiation. The resulting barrier prevents bacteria and other potentially harmful organic materials from adhering to the surface and causing infection.

In the laboratory, researchers applied the surface treatment to several commonly used medical device materials, then tested the modified materials’ resistance to various types of bacteria, fungi and proteins. They found that the treatment reduced biofilm growth by more than 80% — and in some cases up 93%, depending on the microbial strain.

The modified surfaces exhibited robust resistance against microorganisms and proteins. The surfaces greatly reduced or even prevented biofilm formation.

Brian McVerry, Alexandra Polasko, Ethan Rao, Reihaneh Haghniaz, Dayong Chen, Na He, Pia Ramos, Joel Hayashi, Paige Curson, Chueh‐Yu Wu, Praveen Bandaru, Mackenzie Anderson, Brandon Bui, Aref Sayegh, Shaily Mahendra, Dino Di Carlo, Evgeniy Kreydin, Ali Khademhosseini, Amir Sheikhi, Richard B. Kaner. A Readily Scalable, Clinically Demonstrated, Antibiofouling Zwitterionic Surface Treatment for Implantable Medical Devices. Advanced Materials, 2022; 2200254 DOI: 10.1002/adma.202200254

https://newsroom.ucla.edu/releases/surface-treatment-for-medical-de...

Male pheromones improve health of females' eggs

Male pheromones just might be the fountain of youth for aging female animals’ eggs, according to a new study.

In the new study, researchers used the tiny transparent roundworm C. elegans, a well-established model organism commonly used in biology research. Exposure of female roundworms to male pheromones slowed down the aging of the females’ egg cells, resulting in healthier offspring.

Not only did the exposure decrease embryonic death by more than twofold, it also decreased chromosomal abnormalities in surviving offspring by more than twofold. Under the microscope, egg cells also looked younger and healthier, rather than tiny and misshapen, which is common with aging.

To conduct the study, the team aged female roundworms in the presence of a pheromone that is normally produced by male roundworms. The researchers saw that egg quality in females exposed to the pheromone was higher than in control roundworms that did not encounter the pheromone.

Although continuous exposure to male pheromones worked best, even shorter exposure improved overall egg quality. Researchers think this result can be explained by the animals’ “shifting energy budgets.”

Acting outside the body, pheromones are chemicals that animals produce and release to elicit social responses from other members of their species. Pheromones also inform animals about how to budget their finite energy.

When conditions are not conducive to reproduction, female animals will spend resources and energy maintaining their overall body health, including muscles, neurons, intestines and other nonreproductive organs. Sensing male pheromones triggers downstream signaling from the nervous system to the rest of the body, causing the female animals to shift their energy and resources to increasing reproductive health instead. The result? Better eggs but faster decay of the body.

The pheromone tricks the female into sending help to her eggs and shortchanging the rest of her body. It’s not all or nothing, but it’s shifting the balance.

The researchers think this finding potentially could lead to pharmacological interventions that combat infertility issues in humans by improving egg cell quality and delaying the onset of reproductive aging.

Reproductive aging affects everyone. One of the first signs of biological aging is the decreased quality of reproductive cells, which causes reduced fertility, increased incidence of fetal defects including miscarriages, and eventually loss of fertility. By all criteria scientists could think of, male pheromones made the eggs better.

Of course, there are unfortunate trade-offs. When female roundworms neglected the rest of their body to focus their energy on reproductive health, they were more likely to experience early death.

Erin Z. Aprison, Svetlana Dzitoyeva, David Angeles-Albores, Ilya Ruvinsky. A male pheromone that improves the quality of the oogenic germline. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022; 119 (21) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2015576119

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2022/05/male-pheromones-impro....

Drug treatment for cataracts moves a step closer

A revolutionary new treatment for cataracts has shown extremely positive results in laboratory tests, giving hope that the condition, which currently can only be cured with surgery, could soon be treated with drugs.

Cataract is a clouding of the eye lens that develops over time and affects the quality of vision. It is caused by a disorganization of the proteins in the lens that leads to clumps of protein forming, which scatter light and severely reduce transmission to the retina. Cataracts cause vision loss  and blindness for millions of people worldwide.

Scientists have  been carrying out advanced optical tests on an oxysterol compound that had been proposed as an anti-cataract drug.  In laboratory trials, treatment with the oxysterol compound VP1-001 showed an improvement in refractive index profiles—a key optical parameter that is needed to maintain high focusing capacity—in 61% of lenses. This means that the protein organization of the lens is being restored, resulting in the lens being better able to focus. This was supported by a reduction in lens opacity in 46% of cases.

It has shown that there is a remarkable difference and improvement in optics between eyes with the same type of cataract that were treated with the compound compared to those that were not.

"Improvements occurred in some types of cataract but not in all, indicating that this may be a treatment for specific cataracts. This suggests distinctions may need to be made between cataract types when developing anti-cataract medications. It is a significant step forward towards treating this extremely common condition with drugs rather than surgery.

Oxysterol compounds in mouse mutant αA- and αB-crystallin lenses 2 can improve the optical properties of the lens, Investigative Ophthalmology & Visual Science (2022).

'Next generation wonder material' created for first time

For over a decade, scientists have attempted to synthesize a new form of carbon called graphyne with limited success. That endeavor is now at an end.

Graphyne has long been of interest to scientists because of its similarities to the "wonder material" graphene—another form of carbon that is highly valued by industry . 

However, despite decades of work and theorizing, only a few fragments have ever been created before now.

This research, announced last week in Nature Synthesis, fills a longstanding gap in carbon material science, potentially opening brand-new possibilities for electronics, optics and semiconducting material research.

Scientists have long been interested in the construction of new or novel carbon allotropes, or forms of carbon, because of carbon's usefulness to industry, as well as its versatility.

There are different ways carbon allotropes can be constructed depending on how sp2, sp3 and sp hybridized carbon (or the different ways carbon atoms can bind to other elements), and their corresponding bonds, are utilized. The most well-known carbon allotropes are graphite (used in tools like pencils and batteries) and diamonds, which are created out of sp2 carbon and sp3 carbon, respectively.

Using traditional chemistry methods, scientists have successfully created various allotropes over the years, including fullerene and graphene.

However, these methods don't allow for the different types of carbon to be synthesized together in any sort of large capacity, like what's required for graphyne, which has left the theorized material—speculated to have unique electron conducting, mechanical and optical properties—to remain that: a theory.

Part 1

Some researchers are now  studying reversible chemistry, which is chemistry that allows bonds to self-correct, allowing for the creation of novel ordered structures, or lattices, such as synthetic DNA-like polymers.

Using a process called alkyne metathesis—which is an organic reaction that entails the redistribution, or cutting and reforming, of alkyne chemical bonds (a type of hydrocarbon with at least one carbon-carbon triple covalent bond)—as well as thermodynamics and kinetic control, the researchers were able to successfully create what had never been created before: A material that could rival the conductivity of graphene but with control.

This could be the next generation wonder material. 

While the material has been successfully created, the scientists still want to look into the particular details of it, including how to create the material on a large scale and how it can be manipulated.

Yiming Hu et al, Synthesis of γ-graphyne using dynamic covalent chemistry, Nature Synthesis (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s44160-022-00068-7

Part 2

Low-cost gel film can pluck drinking water from desert air

More than a third of the world's population lives in drylands, areas that experience significant water shortages. Scientists and engineers have developed a solution that could help people in these areas access clean drinking water.

Researchers now developed a low-cost gel film made of abundant materials that can pull water from the air in even the driest climates. The materials that facilitate this reaction cost a mere $2 per kilogram, and a single kilogram can produce more than 6 liters of water per day in areas with less than 15% relative humidity and 13 liters in areas with up to 30% relative humidity.

The research builds on previous breakthroughs from the team, including the ability to pull water out of the atmosphere and the application of that technology to create self-watering soil. However, these technologies were designed for relatively high-humidity environments.

This new work is about practical solutions that people can use to get water in the hottest, driest places on Earth. This could allow millions of people without consistent access to drinking water to have simple, water generating devices at home that they can easily operate.

The researchers used renewable cellulose and a common kitchen ingredient, konjac gum, as a main hydrophilic (attracted to water) skeleton. The open-pore structure of gum speeds the moisture-capturing process. Another designed component, thermo-responsive cellulose with hydrophobic (resistant to water) interaction when heated, helps release the collected water immediately so that overall energy input to produce water is minimized.

The film is flexible and can be molded into a variety of shapes and sizes, depending on the need of the user. Making the film requires only the gel precursor, which includes all the relevant ingredients poured into a mold.

The gel takes 2 minutes to set simply. Then, it just needs to be freeze-dried, and it can be peeled off the mold and used immediately after that.

Youhong Guo et al, Scalable super hygroscopic polymer films for sustainable moisture harvesting in arid environments, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-30505-2

Study reveals evidence that bacteria can live in snake and spider venoms

Newly published research  shows that, contrary to what is commonly believed, the venom of snakes and spiders is actually populated with microbes, including bacteria that could cause infection in people who have suffered a bite.

For decades scientists have thought that animal venom is an entirely sterile environment due to it being full of antimicrobial substances—materials that can kill bacteria.

However, new scientific evidence from research has shown that this is not the case. 

The work, published today in scientific journal Microbiology Spectrum demonstrates how adaptable microorganisms are. The study provides strong genetic and culture evidence that bacteria can not only survive in the venom glands of several species of snakes and spiders, but can also mutate to resist the notoriously toxic liquid that is venom.

The findings also suggest that victims of venomous animal bites may therefore also need to be treated for infections, not just antivenom to tackle the toxins deposited through the bite.

Common diagnostic tools failed to identify these bacteria correctly—if you were infected with these, a doctor would end up giving you the wrong antibiotics, potentially making matters worse.

When researchers sequenced their DNA recently they clearly identified the bacteria and discovered they had mutated to resist the venom. This is extraordinary because venom is like a cocktail of antibiotics, and it is so thick with them, you would have thought the bacteria would not stand a chance. Not only did they stand a chance, they had done it twice, using the same mechanisms.

They also directly tested the resistance of Enterococcus faecalis, one of the species of bacteria they found in the venom of black-necked spitting cobras, to venom itself and compared it to a classic hospital isolate: the hospital isolate did not tolerate the venom at all, but the two isolates from venom  happily grew in the highest concentrations of venom researchers could throw at them.

The researchers say that their study shows the need for clinicians to consider treating snakebite victims not just for tissue destruction, but for infection too, as quickly as possible.

 Elham Esmaeilishirazifard et al, Bacterial Adaptation to Venom in Snakes and Arachnida, Microbiology Spectrum (2022). DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.02408-21. journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/spectrum.02408-21

Nuclear pasta, the hardest known substance in the universe

A team of scientists has calculated the strength of the material deep inside the crust of neutron stars and found it to be the strongest known material in the universe.

Neutron stars are born after supernovas, an implosion that compresses an object the size of the sun to about the size of Montreal, making them "a hundred trillion times denser than anything on earth." Their immense gravity makes their outer layers freeze solid, making them similar to earth with a thin crust enveloping a liquid core.

This high density causes the material that makes up a neutron star, known as nuclear pasta, to have a unique structure. Below the crust, competing forces between the protons and neutrons cause them to assemble into shapes such as long cylinders or flat planes, which are known in the literature as 'lasagna' and 'spaghetti,' hence the name 'nuclear pasta.' Together, the enormous densities and strange shapes make nuclear pasta incredibly stiff.

Thanks to their computer simulations, which required 2 million hours worth of processor time or the equivalent of 250 years on a laptop with a single good GPU, Caplan and his colleagues were able to stretch and deform the material deep in the crust of neutron stars.

M. E. Caplan, A. S. Schneider, C. J. Horowitz. The Elasticity of Nuclear Pasta. Physical Review Letters, 2018 [abstract]

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180918110836.htm#:~:t....

First Patient Injected With Experimental Cancer-Killing Virus in New Clinical Trial

An experimental cancer-killing virus has been administered to a human patient for the first time, with hopes the testing will ultimately reveal evidence of a new means of successfully fighting cancer tumors in people's bodies.

The drug candidate, called CF33-hNIS (aka Vaxinia), is what's called an oncolytic virus, a genetically modified virus designed to selectively infect and kill cancer cells while sparing healthy ones. In the case of CF33-hNIS, the modified pox virus works by entering cells and duplicating itself. Eventually, the infected cell bursts, releasing thousands of new virus particles that act as antigens, stimulating the immune system to attack nearby cancer cells. Previous research in animal models has shown the drug can harness the immune system in this way to hunt and destroy cancer cells, but up until now no testing has been done in humans. That's just changed, with co-developers of the drug – the City of Hope cancer care and research center in Los Angeles, and Australia-based biotech company Imugene – now announcing that the first clinical trial in human patients is underway.

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05346484

https://www.sciencealert.com/first-patient-injected-with-experiment...

A candlelight-like glow from a flexible organic LED

Giving off a comfortable glow, candles set the ambiance for a special dinner or just a quiet evening at home. However, some lighting alternatives, such as electronic candles, give off unwanted blue wavelengths that interfere with the body's circadian rhythm. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Electronic Materials have fabricated an improved bendable organic LED that releases candlelight-like light for flexible lighting and smart displays that people can comfortably use at night.

researchers developed organic LEDs that released warm-white light, similar to that produced by candles. However, the devices still emitted some blue wavelength light, which can interfere with sleep because it dampens the body's production of melatonin. These devices were made of solid materials and weren't flexible.

One option for making them bendable is to use a plastic backing, as has been done for other organic LEDs. But plastics don't stand up well to repeated bending. Another option for the backing is mica—a natural mineral with extreme temperature tolerance that can be split into bendable, transparent sheets. So, Jou, Ying-Hao Chu and colleagues wanted to develop an even better organic LED and apply it to a mica backing, creating a bendable candle-like light with a long lifespan.

The researchers deposited a clear indium tin oxide film onto a transparent mica sheet as the LED's anode, which could bend 50,000 times without breaking. Next, the team mixed the luminescent substance N,N'-dicarbazole-1,1'-biphenyl with red and yellow phosphorescent dyes to produce a light-emitting layer. This layer was then placed between electrically conductive solutions with the anode on one side and an aluminum layer on the other side, creating a flexible organic LED.

When a constant current was applied to the device, it produced a bright, warm light with even less blue wavelength emissions than natural candlelight. Calculations showed that exposure to the LED for 1.5 hours would suppress a person's melatonin production by about 1.6%, whereas light from a cold-white compact fluorescent lamp would suppress melatonin production by 29%. The researchers say that the flexibility of their candlelight-like organic LED opens up the design opportunities for blue-light-free nighttime devices.

Tun-Hao Chen et al, Flexible Candlelight Organic LED on Mica, ACS Applied Electronic Materials (2022). DOI: 10.1021/acsaelm.2c00123