Scientists set out to try to learn more about those lesser-known structures. They embedded the proteins in a special type of self-assembling membrane called a nanodisc, which mimics the cell membrane. Then, they used single molecule FRET (fluorescence resonance energy transfer) to study how the conformation of the receptor changes when it binds to EGF.

FRET is commonly used to measure tiny distances between two fluorescent molecules. The researchers labeled the nanodisc membrane and the end of the intracellular tail of the protein with two different fluorophores, which allowed them to measure the distance between the protein tail and the cell membrane, under a variety of circumstances.

To their surprise, the researchers found that EGF binding led to a major change in the conformation of the receptor. Most models of receptor signaling involve interaction of multiple transmembrane helices to bring about large-scale conformational changes, but the EGF receptor, which has only a single helical segment within the membrane, appears to undergo such a change without interacting with other receptor molecules.

To learn more about how this shape change would affect the receptor's function,  they did computer simulations of molecular interactions. This kind of modeling, known as molecular dynamics, can model how a molecular system changes over time.

The modeling showed that when the receptor binds to EGF, the extracellular segment of the receptor stands up vertically, and when the receptor is not bound, it lies flat against the cell membrane. Similar to a hinge closing, when the receptor falls flat, it tilts the transmembrane segment and pulls the intracellular segment closer to the membrane. This blocks the intracellular region of the protein from being able to interact with the machinery needed to launch cell growth. EGF binding makes those regions more available, helping to activate growth signaling pathways.

The researchers also used their model to discover that positively charged amino acids in the intracellular segment, near the cell membrane, are key to these interactions. When the researchers mutated those amino acids, switching them from charged to neutral, ligand binding no longer activated the receptor.

The researchers also found that cetuximab, a drug that binds to the EGF receptor, prevents this conformational change from occurring. 

 Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6564353

Part 2

**

New study appears to answer one of Formula 1's oldest questions: Which is more important—car and team, or driver?

Which is more important to driving success in Formula 1, driver, or team and machine? A new eight-season-long study out recently, following this weekend's exciting British Grand Prix, finds surprisingly the answer is not as much to do with the car as you might expect.

There is a long-held belief, the so-called '80-20 rule' in F1 that the car/team are responsible for 80% of race success, while the skill of the driver only accounts for 20%.

What the researchers found, however, is that the car and team's input has been greatly overestimated. Rather than 80%, it is closer to 20%. The driver's input accounts for roughly 15%.

The biggest factor is more nuanced and it's the interaction between the driver and team which accounts for 30-40%. Random factors that occur during the race make up the rest.

These findings are particularly validating for drivers, as it shows they do not just drive the cars but also provide valuable input and feedback on the development of the cars. More skilled drivers improve the return to team technology and vice-versa. After all, F1 cars do not drive themselves and drivers cannot ply their trade without an F1 car. The 80-20 rule vastly underestimates the role of the driver, given the critical complementarity between driver and team.

 Race to the Podium: Separating and Conjoining the Car and Driver in F1 Racing, Applied Economics (2022). DOI: 10.1080/00036846.2022.2083068

Chemists find a contrary effect: How diluting with water makes a solution firm

In Science, researchers have published a study on new phase transitions of solutions and gels in water, which seem to go against the basic principles of chemistry.

In chemistry, a hydrogel changes to a liquid by diluting it with water. For the reverse transition, you increase the hydrogel concentration. However,  researchers accidentally discovered that their liquid solution turned into a hydrogel when diluted. This phenomenon hadn't been researched or described before and could have consequences in many areas in chemistry and biology.

The research focuses on the formation of certain hydrogels. This means that it starts with an aqueous solution of, in this case, two substances (a surfactant and a monomer). The research shows that a gel is formed at a specific ratio of these two substances in water. This gel is formed by long, supramolecular networks composed of both substances. The amounts of these substances in water (the concentrations) also determine where the phase transition of the gel formation is located. When decreasing the concentration without changing the ratio between the two components, the gel dissolves and becomes liquid. So far, this is familiar territory.

What is extraordinary, however, is that if the solution is diluted even further, a gel once again forms. Other supramolecular structures now form and it becomes a hydrogel again. And if it is then diluted even further, it becomes a liquid again. The paper carefully examined what the correct proportions of the active substances should be and at which concentrations the phase transitions take place. These transitions are also fully reversible. If concentrations are increased, the transitions from liquid to gel to liquid to gel occur at the same points. This phenomenon should be present in other fields, such as biology, but has never been researched and documented before.

Lu Su et al, Dilution-induced gel-sol-gel-sol transitions by competitive supramolecular pathways in water, Science (2022). DOI: 10.1126/science.abn3438. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn3438

Matthew J. Webber, Less is more when forming gels by dilution, Science (2022). DOI: 10.1126/science.abo7656 , www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo7656

Researchers discover brain pathway that helps to explain light's effect on mood

From changes in daylight across seasons to the artificial lighting choices in workplaces, it's clear that the quantity and quality of light that a person encounters can significantly impact mood. Now scientists know why.

In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science, a  research team used functional MRI to reveal how light-intensity signals reach the brain, and how brain structures involved in mood process those signals. The study demonstrated that some regions of the cerebral cortex involved in cognitive processing and mood show sensitivity for light intensity.

The discovery has implications for understanding mood problems like seasonal affective disorder and major depressive disorders, as well as how to treat them.

Identifying this pathway and understanding its function might directly promote development of approaches to treat depression, either by pharmacological manipulations or non-invasive brain stimulation in selected nodes of the pathway or with targeted bright-light therapy.

Shai Sabbah et al, Luxotonic signals in human prefrontal cortex as a possible substrate for effects of light on mood and cognition, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2118192119

Scientists see life-saving potential in spider venom

Building blocks for RNA-based life abound at center of our galaxy

Nitriles, a class of organic molecules with a cyano group—that is, a carbon atom bound with a triple unsaturated bond to a nitrogen atom—are typically toxic. But paradoxically, they are also a key precursor for molecules essential for life, such as ribonucleotides, composed of the nucleobases or "letters" A, U, C, and G joined to a ribose and phosphate group, which together make up RNA. Now, an international team of researchers  show that a wide range of nitriles occurs in interstellar space within the molecular cloud G+0.693-0.027, near the center of the Milky Way.

The researchers show that the chemistry that takes place in the interstellar medium is able to efficiently form multiple nitriles, which are key molecular precursors of the 'RNA World' scenario.

According to this scenario, life on Earth was originally based on RNA only, and DNA and protein enzymes evolved later. RNA can fulfill both their functions: storing and copying information like DNA, and catalyzing reactions like enzymes. According to the "RNA World" theory, nitriles and other building blocks for life needn't necessarily all have arisen on Earth itself: They might also have originated in space and "hitchhiked" to the young Earth inside meteorites and comets during the "Late Heavy Bombardment" period, between 4.1 and 3.8 billion years ago. In support, nitriles and other precursor molecules for nucleotides, lipids, and amino acids have been found inside contemporary comets and meteors.

But from where in space could these molecules have come? Prime candidates are molecular clouds, which are dense and cold regions of the interstellar medium, and are suitable for the formation of complex molecules. For example, the molecular cloud G+0.693-0.027 has a temperature of around 100 K and is approximately three light years across, with a mass approximately one thousand times that of our sun. There's no evidence that stars are currently forming inside G+0.693-0.027, although scientists suspect that it might evolve to become a stellar nursery in the future.

The chemical content of G+0.693-0.027 is similar to those of other star-forming regions in our galaxy, and also to that of solar system objects like comets. This means that its study can give us important insights about the chemical ingredients that were available in the nebula that give rise to our planetary system.

Thanks to the observations over the past few years, including the present results, we now know that nitriles are among the most abundant chemical families in the universe. We have found them in molecular clouds in the center of our galaxy, protostars of different masses, meteorites and comets, and also in the atmosphere of Titan, the largest moon of Saturn.

Molecular precursors of the RNA-world in space: new nitriles in the G+0.693-0.027 molecular cloud, Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fspas.2022.876870, www.frontiersin.org/articles/1 … pas.2022.876870/full

Researchers discover how sound reduces pain in mice

An international team of scientists has identified the neural mechanisms through which sound blunts pain in mice. The findings, which could inform development of safer methods to treat pain, were published in Science.

By uncovering the circuitry that mediates the pain-reducing effects of sound in mice, this study adds critical knowledge that could ultimately inform new approaches for pain therapy.

Dating back to 1960, studies in humans have shown that music and other kinds of sound can help alleviate acute and chronic pain, including pain from dental and medical surgery, labor and delivery, and cancer. However, how the brain produces this pain reduction, or analgesia, was less clear.

Human brain imaging studies have implicated certain areas of the brain in music-induced analgesia, but these are only associations. Now  researchers first exposed mice with inflamed paws to three types of sound: a pleasant piece of classical music, an unpleasant rearrangement of the same piece, and white noise. Surprisingly, all three types of sound, when played at a low intensity relative to background noise (about the level of a whisper) reduced pain sensitivity in the mice. Higher intensities of the same sounds had no effect on animals' pain responses.

So the intensity of sound, and not the category or perceived pleasantness of sound would matter.

To explore the brain circuitry underlying this effect, the researchers used non-infectious viruses coupled with fluorescent proteins to trace connections between brain regions. They identified a route from the auditory cortex, which receives and processes information about sound, to the thalamus, which acts as a relay station for sensory signals, including pain, from the body. In freely moving mice, low-intensity white noise reduced the activity of neurons at the receiving end of the pathway in the thalamus.

In the absence of sound, suppressing the pathway with light- and small molecule-based techniques mimicked the pain-blunting effects of low-intensity noise, while turning on the pathway restored animals' sensitivity to pain.

 It is unclear if similar brain processes are involved in humans, or whether other aspects of sound, such as its perceived harmony or pleasantness, are important for human pain relief.
We don't know if human music means anything to rodents, but it has many different meanings to humans—you have a lot of emotional components.

The results could give scientists a starting point for studies to determine whether the animal findings apply to humans, and ultimately could inform development of safer alternatives to opioids for treating pain.

Zhou W, et al. Sound induces analgesia via corticothalamic circuits. Science. July 7, 2022. DOI: science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn4663

 Artificial ventricle is a major step forward for organ biofabrication

Scientists hijack bacteria to ease drug manufacturing

Many of the medicines we take are made with ingredients extracted from plants (think, for example, morphine, the narcotic painkiller that comes from poppies, or galantamine, a drug treatment for dementia that comes from daffodils). Extracting drugs from these plants is complicated and resource-intensive, requiring water and acreage to grow the crops. Supply chains are easily disrupted. And crops can be damaged by floods, fires and drought. Deriving similar therapeutic components using synthetic chemistry brings problems, too, since the process depends on petroleum and petroleum-based products linked to waste and expense.

Enter the humble bacteria, a cheap, efficient and sustainable alternative. The genetic code of bacteria can be easily manipulated to become factories for drug production. In a process called biosynthesis, the bacteria’s biological systems are harnessed to produce specific molecules as part of the natural cellular process. And bacteria can replicate at high speed. All they need to do the job is sugar.

For more affordable, sustainable drug options than we have today, the medication we take to treat high blood pressure, pain or memory loss may one day come from engineered bacteria, cultured in a vat like yogurt. And thanks to a new bacterial tool developed by scientists , the process of improving drug manufacturing in bacterial cells may be coming sooner than we thought.

For decades, researchers have been eyeing ways to make drug manufacturing more affordable and sustainable than pharmaceutical makers’ current processes, many of which depend on either plant crops or petroleum. Using bacteria has been suggested as a good organic alternative, but detecting and optimizing the production of therapeutic molecules is difficult and time-consuming, requiring months at a stretch. In a new paper out this week in Nature Chemical Biology, researchers introduce a biosensor system, derived from E. coli bacteria, that can be adapted to detect all kinds of therapeutic compounds accurately and in mere hours.

Unfortunately, manufacturers have not had a way to quickly analyze different strains of engineered bacteria to identify the ones capable of producing quantities of a desired drug at commercial volumes — until now. Accurately analyzing the thousands of engineered strains on the way to a good producer can take weeks or months with current technology, but only a day with the new biosensors.

The biosensors developed now quickly and accurately determine the amount of a given molecule that a strain of bacteria is producing. The researchers developed the biosensors for several types of common drugs, such as cough suppressants and vasodilators, which are used to treat muscle spasms. Molecular images of the biosensors taken by X-ray crystallographers now show exactly how they tightly grab onto their partner drug. When the drug is detected by the biosensor, it glows. Additionally, the team engineered their own bacteria to produce a compound found in several FDA-approved drugs and used the biosensors to analyze product output, in essence showing how industry might adopt biosensors to quickly optimize chemical manufacturing.

This technique allows them to be developed faster and more efficiently. In turn, that opens the door to more medicines being produced using biosynthesis.

Simon d’Oelsnitz, Wantae Kim, Nathaniel T. Burkholder, Kamyab Javanmardi, Ross Thyer, Yan Zhang, Hal S. Alper, Andrew D. Ellington. Using fungible biosensors to evolve improved alkaloid biosyntheses. Nature Chemical Biology, 2022; DOI: 10.1038/s41589-022-01072-w

Mathematical calculations show that quantum communication across interstellar space should be possible

A team of physicists  has used mathematical calculations to show that quantum communications across interstellar space should be possible. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review D, the group describes their calculations and also the possibility of extraterrestrial beings attempting to communicate with us using such signaling.

Over the past several years, scientists have been investigating the possibility of using quantum communications as a highly secure form of message transmission. Prior research has shown that it would be nearly impossible to intercept such messages without detection. In this new effort, the researchers wondered if similar types of communications might be possible across interstellar space. To find out, they used math that describes that movement of X-rays across a medium, such as those that travel between the stars. More specifically, they looked to see if their calculations could show the degree of decoherence that might occur during such a journey.

With quantum communications, engineers are faced with quantum particles that lose some or all of their unique characteristics as they interact with obstructions in their path—they have been found to be quite delicate, in fact. Such events are known as decoherence, and engineers working to build quantum networks have been devising ways to overcome the problem. Prior research has shown that the space between the stars is pretty clean. But is it clean enough for quantum communications? The math shows that it is. Space is so clean, in fact, that X-ray photons could travel hundreds of thousands of light years without becoming subject to decoherence—and that includes gravitational interference from astrophysical bodies. They noted in their work that optical and microwave bands would work equally well.

The researchers noted that because quantum communication is possible across the galaxy, if other intelligent beings exist in the Milky Way, they could already be trying to communicate with us using such technology and we could begin looking for them. They also suggest that quantum teleportation across interstellar space should be possible.

Arjun Berera et al, Viability of quantum communication across interstellar distances, Physical Review D (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.105.123033

What happens to your brain during a migraine 

Wearable Muscles

How stressed-out plants produce their own aspirin

Plants protect themselves from environmental hazards like insects, drought and heat by producing salicylic acid, also known as aspirin. A new understanding of this process may help plants survive increasing stress caused by climate change.

Scientists recently published a seminal paper in the journal Science Advances reporting how plants regulate the production of salicylic acid.

The researchers studied a model plant called Arabidopsis, but they hope to apply their understanding of stress responses in the cells of this plant to many other kinds of plants, including those grown for food. They'd like to be able to use the gained knowledge to improve crop resistance. That will be crucial for the food supply in our increasingly hot, bright world.

Environmental stresses result in the formation of reactive oxygen species or ROS in all living organisms. High levels of ROS in plants are lethal. 

As with many substances, the poison is in the amount. At low levels, ROS have an important function in plant cells. At non-lethal levels, ROS are like an emergency call to action, enabling the production of protective hormones such as salicylic acid. 

The research team discovered that heat, unabated sunshine, or drought cause the sugar-making apparatus in plant cells to generate an initial alarm molecule known as MEcPP.

Going forward, the researchers want to learn more about MEcPP, which is also produced in organisms such as bacteria and malaria parasites. Accumulation of MEcPP in plants triggers the production of salicylic acid, which in turn begins a chain of protective actions in the cells.

It's like plants use a painkiller for aches and pains, just like we do. The acid protects plants' chloroplasts, which are the site of photosynthesis, a process of using light to convert water and carbon dioxide into sugars for energy.

Because salicylic acid helps plants withstand stresses becoming more prevalent with climate change, being able to increase plants' ability to produce it represents a step forward in challenging the impacts of climate change on everyday life. 

 Jin-Zheng Wang et al, Reciprocity between a retrograde signal and a putative metalloprotease reconfigures plastidial metabolic and structural states, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abo0724

Crew aboard private yacht confirm sighting of bioluminescent 'milky sea'

An atmospheric scientist has gained confirmation of his discovery of a bioluminescent "milky sea" event through testimony of a crew aboard a private yacht. In his paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the scientist describes how he discovered the event while studying satellite images and then gained confirmation from a crew aboard a yacht that happened to be sailing through the area.

Prior incidents have suggested that large bioluminescent events sometimes occur in parts of the ocean, but such events are rare and there is little photographic evidence of them. One of the more notorious was Charles Darwin and crew sailing over such an event just below the tip of South America. Ocean scientists think they are created by millions of tiny bioluminescent creatures all glowing together. Only one test has been confirmed, a research vessel sailing through such an event collected water samples and found them filled with glowing bacteria.

Researchers now pored over old sailor logs looking for descriptions of bioluminescent events and found a lot of them, most describing them as traveling through a milky sea. They noted that the events were seen most commonly in the Indian Ocean and the waters around Java.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFkaGM8rDGw&t=9s

A  private yacht, had sailed in the area and had documented what they saw. They described the sea as glowing at night, from below the surface, with a description of it appearing as if sailing on snow. 

Steven D. Miller, Boat encounter with the 2019 Java bioluminescent milky sea: Views from on-deck confirm satellite detection, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2207612119

A glove that mimics the arm of an octopus

Researchers find the missing photonic link to enable an all-silicon quantum internet

Researchers have made a crucial breakthrough in the development of quantum technology.

Their research, published in Nature today, describes their observations of more than 150,000 silicon "T center" photon-spin qubits, an important milestone that unlocks immediate opportunities to construct massively scalable quantum computers and the quantum internet that will connect them.

Quantum computing has enormous potential to provide computing power well beyond the capabilities of today's supercomputers, which could enable advances in many other fields, including chemistry, materials science, medicine and cybersecurity.

In order to make this a reality, it is necessary to produce both stable, long-lived qubits that provide processing power, as well as the communication technology that enables these qubits to link together at scale.

Past research has indicated that silicon can produce some of the most stable and long-lived qubits in the industry. Now this new research   provides proof of principle that T centers, a specific luminescent defect in silicon, can provide a "photonic link" between qubits. 

This work is the first measurement of single T centers in isolation, and actually, the first measurement of any single spin in silicon to be performed with only optical measurements.

Stephanie Simmons, Optical observation of single spins in silicon, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04821-y. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04821-y

Turning white blood cells into medicinal microrobots with light

Medicinal microrobots could help physicians better treat and prevent diseases. But most of these devices are made with synthetic materials that trigger immune responses in vivo. Now, for the first time, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science have used lasers to precisely control neutrophils—a type of white blood cell—as a natural, biocompatible microrobot in living fish. The "neutrobots" performed multiple tasks, showing they could someday deliver drugs to precise locations in the body.

Microrobots currently in development for medical applications would require injections or the consumption of capsules to get them inside an animal or person. But researchers have found that these microscopic objects often trigger immune reactions in small animals, resulting in the removal of microrobots from the body before they can perform their jobs. Using cells already present in the body, such as neutrophils, could be a less invasive alternative for drug delivery that wouldn't set off the immune system. These white blood cells already naturally pick up nanoparticles and dead red blood cells and can migrate through blood vessels into adjacent tissues, so they are good candidates for becoming microrobots.

Previously, researchers have guided neutrophils with lasers in lab dishes, moving them around as "neutrobots." However, information on whether this approach will work in living animals was lacking. So the

researchers manipulated and maneuvered neutrophils in zebrafish tails, using focused laser beams as remote optical tweezers. The light-driven microrobot could be moved up to a velocity of 1.3 µm/s, which is three times faster than a neutrophil naturally moves. In their experiments, the researchers used the optical tweezers to precisely and actively control the functions that neutrophils conduct as part of the immune system. For instance, a neutrobot was moved through a blood vessel wall into the surrounding tissue. Another one picked up and transported a plastic nanoparticle, showing its potential for carrying medicine. And when a neutrobot was pushed toward red blood cell debris, it engulfed the pieces. Surprisingly, at the same time, a different neutrophil, which wasn't controlled by a laser, tried to naturally remove the cellular debris.

Because they successfully controlled neutrobots in vivo, the researchers say this study advances the possibilities for targeted drug delivery and precise treatment of diseases.

Optically Manipulated Neutrophils as Native Microcrafts In Vivo, ACS Central Science (2022). DOI: 10.1021/acscentsci.2c00468

Sun Exposure Triggers Hunger in Men but Not Women, Study Suggests

Ultraviolet radiation leads to secretion of an appetite-boosting hormone in male mice, but experts say it’s not yet clear whether the mechanism applies to humans.

Millions more at risk from dangerous summer temperatures if climate goals aren't met

Health-threatening heatwaves will become more intense due to climate change, putting millions more people at risk from dangerous summer temperatures, new research has revealed.

The analysis, released recently by researchers, identifies the areas and communities set to be hardest hit by extreme heat.

Communities most vulnerable to the dangerous health impacts of soaring temperatures are those with a high number of older people and children, those without green space to shelter from the heat, and those where the type of housing, such as high rise buildings and mobile homes, is most susceptible to overheating.

According to experts, hot weather can place particular strain on the heart and lungs, meaning that the majority of serious illness and deaths caused by heat are respiratory and cardiovascular. Older people, those with pre-existing health conditions and young children are especially at risk.

In all scenarios, the communities set to be most affected by global heating are those with below average carbon footprints—those less responsible for the climate crisis.

Global temperatures are already 1.1°C above pre-industrial levels. Under the Paris Agreement, governments have agreed to limit warming to 1.5°C to avoid catastrophic climate change.

According to estimates based on current climate pledges, the world is heading towards 2.4°C of warming, but these commitments are not being met.

https://policy.friendsoftheearth.uk/sites/default/files/documents/2...

Obesity: neither genetics nor social background are very good predictors of your body weight – new research

There’s long been debate about whether genetics or the environment people are raised in is the biggest cause of obesity.

Obesity rates have tripled since the 1980s. This is far faster than our genetics could change, suggesting there’s an important environmental element to obesity.

But we also have studies which show that identical twins tend to be more similar in their body weight than non-identical twins, suggesting there’s a genetic element to weight.

Further complicating this debate is the fact that there’s evidence that the influence of genetics may change as people age. For example, when it comes to intelligence, genes seems to be more powerful predictors of intelligence in adults than in children.

A recent study has shown that this is also true of body weight. Researchers found that the amount of influence your environment or genetics may have on whether a person became obese changed throughout their lifetime.

This study showed that genetics had little link with obesity rates during childhood, but strengthened as people got older (from adolescence to age 69).

A similar pattern was also found when it came to a person’s body weight and social background. It was found that people from disadvantaged backgrounds had higher weight from adolescence onwards. However, there was almost no difference in infancy or childhood.

But, as people got older, we also noticed differences in their weight that couldn’t be explained with genetics or social background. This meant that neither of those factors were good predictors of any particular person’s body weight.

Part 1

It was found that  those with a greater number of obesity-related genes had higher body weight. Those in the top 25% for genetic risk of obesity were 11.2kg heavier at age 63 than those in the bottom 25% of genetic risk. People who were from the most disadvantaged homes in childhood were 7.4kg heavier on average than those from the most advantaged backgrounds by age 63.

While these are large differences in body weight, these results suggest that neither genetics nor social background are good predictors of whether or not a person will become obese. While weight differences increased substantially as participants got older, genetic risk only predicted 10% and social background 4% of these differences.

This shows us that there’s still much about body weight that we can’t explain with genetics or social disadvantage, suggesting other factors also have an important influence on our body weight.

It’s important to note the limitations of this work. Researchers focused on only one generation, and their experiences are very different from other generations.

A person’s genetic risk – and the most common genes linked with body weight. However, some rare genes may have a big effect on a person’s body weight.

https://theconversation.com/obesity-neither-genetics-nor-social-bac...

**

Part 2

Watch starfish embryos become living crystals!

Watch this shape-shifting magnetic material catch a ball on command

Bacteria-based biohybrid microrobots on a mission to one day battle cancer

A team of scientists in the Physical Intelligence Department at the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems have combined robotics with biology by equipping E. coli bacteria with artificial components to construct biohybrid microrobots. First, as can be seen in Figure 1, the team attached several nanoliposomes to each bacterium. On their outer circle, these spherical-shaped carriers enclose a material (ICG, green particles) that melts when illuminated by near infrared light. Further towards the middle, inside the aqueous core, the liposomes encapsulate water soluble chemotherapeutic drug molecules (DOX).

The second component the researchers attached to the bacterium is magnetic nano particles. When exposed to a magnetic field, the iron oxide particles serve as an on-top booster to this already highly motile microorganism. In this way, it is easier to control the swimming of bacteria—an improved design toward an in vivo application. Meanwhile, the rope binding the liposomes and magnetic particles to the bacterium is a very stable and hard to break streptavidin and biotin complex, which was developed a few years prior and reported in a Nature article, and comes in useful when constructing biohybrid microrobots.

E. coli bacteria are fast and versatile swimmers that can navigate through material ranging from liquids to highly viscous tissues. But that is not all, they also have highly advanced sensing capabilities. Bacteria are drawn to chemical gradients such as low oxygen levels or high acidity—both prevalent near tumor tissue. Treating cancer by injecting bacteria in proximity is known as bacteria mediated tumor therapy. The microorganisms flow to where the tumor is located, grow there and in this way activate the immune system of patients. Bacteria mediated tumor therapy has been a therapeutic approach for more than a century.

For the past few decades, scientists have looked for ways to increase the superpowers of this microorganism even further. They equipped bacteria with extra components to help fight the battle. However, adding artificial components is no easy task. Complex chemical reactions are at play, and the density rate of particles loaded onto the bacteria matters to avoid dilution. The team in Stuttgart has now raised the bar quite high. They managed to equip 86 out of 100 bacteria with both liposomes and magnetic particles.

The scientists showed how they succeeded in externally steering such a high-density solution through different courses.

Once the microrobots are accumulated at the desired point (the tumor spheroid), a near infrared laser generates rays with temperatures of up to 55 degrees Celsius, triggering a melting process of the liposome and a release of the enclosed drugs. A low pH level or acidic environment also causes the nanoliposomes to break open—hence the drugs are released near a tumor automatically.

Bacteria-based biohybrid microrobots with medical functionalities could one day battle cancer more effectively. It is a new therapeutic approach not too far away.

Mukrime Birgul Akolpoglu et al, Magnetically steerable bacterial microrobots moving in 3D biological matrices for stimuli-responsive cargo delivery, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abo6163. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abo6163

Whole blood exchange could offer disease-modifying therapy for Alzheimer's disease, study finds

A novel, disease-modifying therapy for Alzheimer's disease may involve the whole exchange of blood, which effectively decreased the formation of amyloid plaque in the brains of mice, according to a new study.

A research team performed a series of whole blood exchange treatments to partially replace blood from mice exhibiting Alzheimer's disease-causing amyloid precursor proteins with complete blood from healthy mice of the same genetic background. The results of the study were published today in Molecular Psychiatry.

This article provides a proof-of-concept for the utilization of technologies commonly used in medical practice, such as plasmapheresis or blood dialysis, to 'clean' blood from Alzheimer's patients, reducing the buildup of toxic substances in the brain. This approach has the advantage that the disease can be treated in the circulation instead of in the brain.

Previous studies  have shown that the misfolding, aggregation, and buildup of amyloid beta proteins in the brain plays a central role in Alzheimer's disease. Therefore, preventing and removing misfolded protein aggregates is considered a promising treatment for the disease.

However, the treatment of Alzheimer's disease has long been complicated, due to the difficulty in delivering therapeutic agents across the blood-brain barrier. In this latest research, scientists have  discovered that manipulating circulating components in Alzheimer's disease could be the key to solving this issue.

After multiple blood transfusions, the researchers found that the development of cerebral amyloid plaques in a transgenic mice model of Alzheimer's disease was reduced by 40% to 80%. This reduction also resulted in improved spatial memory performance in aged mice with the amyloid pathology, and lowered the rates of plaque growth over time.

While the exact mechanism by which this blood exchange reduces amyloid pathology and improves memory is currently unknown, there are multiple possibilities. One possible explanation is that lowering amyloid beta proteins in the bloodstream may help facilitate the redistribution of the peptide from the brain to the periphery. Another theory is that blood exchange somehow prevents amyloid beta influx, or inhibits the re-uptake of cleared amyloid beta, among other potential explanations.

However, regardless of the mechanisms of action associated with the blood exchange treatment, the study shows that a target for Alzheimer's disease therapy may lie in the periphery.

 Preventive and therapeutic reduction of amyloid deposition and behavioral impairments in a mice model of Alzheimer's disease by whole blood exchange, Molecular Psychiatry (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41380-022-01679-4

Smart thermostats inadvertently strain electric power grids

Smart thermostats – those inconspicuous wall devices that help homeowners govern electricity usage and save energy – may be falling into a dumb trap.

Set by default to turn on before dawn, the smart thermostats unintentionally work in concert with other thermostats throughout neighborhoods and regions to prompting inadvertent, widespread energy-demand spikes on the grid.

The smart thermostats are saving homeowners money, but they are also initiating peak demand throughout the network at a bad time of day, according to  engineers in a forthcoming paper in Applied Energy (September 2022.)

https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2022/07/smart-thermostats-inadvert...

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S030626192200...

Two different white blood cell types play opposing roles in affecting heartbeat irregularities after heart attack

Patients with heart disease are at risk of experiencing a potentially lethal "electrical storm" involving recurrent episodes of a type of irregular heartbeat called ventricular tachycardia (VT).

Electric shock therapy is used to treat VT following a heart attack, but unfortunately, options to prevent VT recurrence are limited.

New research led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital reveals that two different white blood cell types influence VT in the heart, suggesting that treatments that influence these cells may help reduce patients' risk of sudden cardiac death.

The work, which is published in Nature Cardiovascular Research, is based on the knowledge that cardiac conditions (such as heart attacks) that increase the risk of VT and other heartbeat irregularities lead to massive changes in the white blood cell populations surrounding the heart.

To study the mechanisms involved, MGH scientists developed a new research model. "It was believed that mice don't get VT after a heart attack, but we discovered a surprisingly simple trick to induce it—feeding mice food with low potassium levels," says senior author Matthias Nahrendorf, MD, Ph.D., an investigator in MGH's Center for Systems Biology, Professor of Radiology at Harvard Medical School, and the Richard Moerschner Endowed MGH Research Institute Chair in Men's Health

"This is a major step forward because now we can study how different white blood cell subclasses influence heart rhythms. It is also clinically relevant because every fifth patient who experiences a heart attack has low blood potassium levels, and these patients are known to be particularly likely to develop heartbeat irregularities, or arrhythmia."

The team's experiments demonstrated that among the different white blood cell types, neutrophils promote VT while macrophages protect against it. "Inflammatory neutrophils give rise to arrhythmia by compromising the electrical function of heart muscle cells called cardiomyocytes," explains Nahrendorf.

"Macrophages, which take up debris, are protective, and deleting them gave rise to electrical storm in mice with low potassium levels who experienced a heart attack. Indeed, these mice were more likely to die from arrhythmia."

The findings indicate that additional research into the roles of white blood cells in arrhythmia could lead to new targeted therapies for irregular heart rhythms.

https://researchnews.cc/news/14300/Two-different-white-blood-cell-t...

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One coronavirus infection wards off another

Data from Qatar suggest that natural immunity induced by infection with SARS-CoV-2 provides a strong shield against reinfection by a pre-Omicron variant for 16 months or longer. This protection against catching the virus dwindles over time, but immunity triggered by previous infection also thwarts the developme... — and this safeguard shows no signs of waning. Scientists also warn that the study’s results do not mean that infected people can skip vaccination. A separate study by many of the same authors found that people who had both natural immunity and vaccine immunity were substantially more protected against the virus than people who had only one of the two.

Reference: medRxiv preprint (not peer reviewed) & The New England Journal of Medicine paper

Woodpeckers don’t have shock absorbers

Woodpeckers regularly smack their heads into trees at a rate of 20 times per second, seemingly without doing damage to their brains. Researchers have long thought the birds were somehow cushioning these blows to their brains with a spongy skull bone or elongated tongue. But researchers analysed high-speed footage of six woodpeckers and found that their heads moved just as fast as their beaks, and simulations found that they probably didn’t use shock absorption because it would require them to bang their heads harder. The study suggests that woodpeckers instead avoid concussions because of their brain’s small size and positioning.

Reference: Current Biology paper

What is the difference between reproducibility and replicability?

 “Reproducibility” refers to instances in which the original researcher's data and computer codes are used to regenerate the results, while “replicability” refers to instances in which a researcher collects new data to arrive at the same scientific findings as a previous study.

Study: Sentences have their own connection in the brain

A new study finds that incoming speech sounds are connected by our brain to our knowledge of grammar, which is quite abstract in nature. But the big question is how does the brain process complex grammatical structures?

A group of researchers from the Max Planck Institute of Psycholinguistics and Radboud University in Nijmegen discovered that the brain encodes the structure of sentences (‘the vase is red’) and phrases (‘the red vase’) into various neural firing patterns.

The findings of the neuroimaging study were published in the PLOS Biology.

How does the brain represent sentences? This is one of the fundamental questions in neuroscience, because sentences are an example of abstract structural knowledge that is not directly observable from speech. While all sentences are made up of smaller building blocks, such as words and phrases, not all combinations of words or phrases lead to sentences.

In fact, listeners need more than just knowledge of which words occur together: they need abstract knowledge of language structure to understand a sentence. So how does the brain encode the structural relationships that make up a sentence?

The researchers created sets of spoken Dutch phrases (such as de rode vaas ‘the red vase’) and sentences (such as de vaas is rood ‘the vase is red’), which were identical in duration and number of syllables, and highly similar in meaning. They also created pictures with objects (such as a vase) in five different colours. Fifteen adult native speakers of Dutch participated in the experiment.

For each spoken stimulus, they were asked to perform one of three tasks in random order. The first task was structure-related, as participants had to decide whether they had heard a phrase or a sentence by pushing a button. The second and third task were meaning-related, as participants had to decide whether the colour or object of the spoken stimulus matched the picture that followed.

As expected from computational simulations, the activation patterns of neurons in the brain were different for phrases and sentences, in terms of both timing and strength of neural connections. These findings show how the brain separates speech into linguistic structure by using the timing and connectivity of neural firing patterns. These signals from the brain provide a novel basis for future research on how our brains create language.

https://theprint.in/science/study-sentences-have-their-own-connecti...

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A tear-soluble contact lens with silicon nanoneedles to treat eye diseases

a team of researchers  has developed a type of contact lens with embedded nanoneedles for treating eye diseases. In their paper published in the journal Science Advances, the group describes how they made their contact lens and how well it worked when tested on rabbits.

Current methods of delivering medications to the eye involve therapies that are applied directly to the outer eye or are injected into it. Neither method is optimal—applied medicines do not penetrate deep enough into the eye and injected medicines are painful and often lead to inflammation. In this new effort, the researchers have come up with a new approach—application of a nanoneedle infused contact lens.

The researchers began with the notion of imbedding nanoneedles into the eye that degrade over time, releasing medication—and the nanoneedles would be so small that they would not cause pain or discomfort. To get the nanoneedles into the eye, they would attach them to a contact lens that would dissolve soon after application to the eye.

The researchers began with the nanoneedles—they grew them using a silicon base, which ensured they would take a long time to dissolve in the eye. They also made them very small—10 times smaller than any that had been tried before. They also developed a unique way to make them, it involved growing the nanoneedles from a silicon and medication mix, then applying a polymer layer to crack them where they joined the silicon base. This involved coating the tiny needles with polymethyl methacrylate. Then the polymer was peeled off the wafer base. The researchers next coated the base of the nanoneedles with another polymer and then removed the first layer. That left the needles embedded in the second polymer material. Once the design was confirmed, the researchers repeated the process in a way that resulted in the base being formed into a contact-lens shape. The final step involved adding a second medication to the lens—one that would be applied to the eye all-at-once as the base dissolved.

The researchers tested their product on rabbit-models and found an almost complete reduction in corneal neovascularization after just 28 days. The group notes that much more work will need to be done before their nanoneedle-based therapy could be used to treat human patients. It will first have to be tested both for efficacy and safety, and also a means for storing the lens once created will need to be developed.

Woohyun Park et al, Biodegradable silicon nanoneedles for ocular drug delivery, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abn1772

How blood vessels remember a stroke

The vascular system within our body provides a constant flow of nutrients, hormones and other resources, thus ensuring efficient transport. Researchers now  investigated in which way such a network is able to adapt and change over time. Using computer simulations, they modeled the network and identified adaptation rules for its connections.

They found that the strength of a connection within a network depends on the local flow. This means that links with a low flow below a certain threshold will decay more and more until they eventually vanish.

 As the amount of biological material to build the vascular system is limited and should be used in an efficient way, this mechanism offers an elegant way to streamline the vascular system.

Changes in the network are persistent

Once a connection has become very weak due to a low flow rate, it is very difficult to recover that connection. A common example for this is the blockage of a blood vessel, which in a bad case even might lead to a stroke. During a stroke, some blood vessels in a certain brain region become very weak due of the blockage of blood flow.

The researchers found that in such a case, adaptations in the network are permanent and are maintained after the obstacle is removed. One can say that the network prefers to reroute the flow through existing stronger connections instead of re-growing weaker connections—even if the flow would require the opposite.

With this new understanding of network memory, the researchers can now explain that blood flow permanently changes even after successful removal of the clot. 

Komal Bhattacharyya et al, Memory Formation in Adaptive Networks, Physical Review Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.028101

SPACE TRASH! ft. Chemistry

Chemists Just Rearranged Atomic Bonds in a Single Molecule For The First Time

Chemical engineering has taken a step forward, with researchers from the University of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, the University of Regensburg in Germany, and IBM Research Europe forcing a single molecule to undergo a series of transformations with a tiny nudge of voltage.

Ordinarily, chemists gain precision over reactions by tweaking parameters such as the pH, adding or removing available proton donors to manage the way molecules might share or swap electrons to form their bonds.

"By these means, however, the reaction conditions are altered to such a degree that the basic mechanisms governing selectivity often remain elusive," the researchers note in their report, published in the journal Science.

In other words, the complexity of forces at work pushing and pulling across a large organic molecule can make it hard to get a precise measure on what's occurring at each and every bond.

The team started with a substance called 5,6,11,12-tetrachlorotetracene (with the formula C18H8Cl4) – a carbon-based molecule that looks like a row of four honeycomb cells flanked by four chlorine atoms hovering around like hungry bees.

Sticking a thin layer of the material to a cold, salt-crusted piece of copper, the researchers drove the chlorine-bees away, leaving a handful of excitable carbon atoms holding onto unpaired electrons in a range of related structures.

Two of those electrons in some of the structures happily reconnected with each other, reconfiguring the molecule's general honeycomb shape. The second pair were also keen to pair up not just with each other, but with any other available electron that might buzz their way.

Ordinarily, this wobbly structure would be short-lived as the remaining electrons married up with each other as well. But the researchers found this particular system wasn't an ordinary one.

With a gentle push of voltage from an atom-sized cattle prod, they showed they could force a single molecule to connect that second pair of electrons in such a fashion that the four cells were pulled out of alignment in what's known as a bent alkyne.

Shaken a little less vigorously, those electrons paired up differently, distorting the structure in a completely different fashion into what's known as a cyclobutadiene ring.

Each product was then reformed back into the original state with a pulse of electrons, ready to flip again at a moment's prompting.

By forcing a single molecule to contort into different shapes, or isomers, using precise voltages and currents, the researchers could gain insight into the behaviors of its electrons and the stability and preferable configurations of organic compounds.

From there it could be possible to whittle down the search for catalysts that could push a large-scale reaction of countless molecules in one direction, making the reaction more specific.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo6471

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Scientifically proven tips on how to keep cool in the heat

If you're unable to take up residence inside air-conditioned buildings here are a few tips, backed by science, that can help you to stay cool.

1) Shed a few layers

Our bodies have cooling all sussed out. When we get hot, we sweat, and as that sweat evaporates it draws heat energy from the skin, cooling us down in the process. So the best way to stay cool if you're out of direct sunlight (and in sympathetic company) is to wear as little as possible.

If you do need to cover up, however, wear loose-fitting clothes that allow air to flow over the skin, speeding up evaporation. Also try to wear light-coloured garments, as these absorb less of the Sun's radiation than darker clothing.

If you're exercising, meanwhile, don some high-tech sportswear that uses 'moisture-wicking' fabrics. These fabrics transport sweat away from the skin to the outer layers of the material, where it can spread out and evaporate away.

2) Have a drink...

As you sweat, you'll need to replace all that water you're losing. One way to figure out how hydrated you are is to check the colour of your urine. If it's light like lemonade, then you're probably fine; if it's dark like apple juice then you're dehydrated.

When you become dehydrated, the body slows down its sweat rate to conserve fluid, making you even hotter. So a drink can rehydrate you and help you cool down.

But while an ice-cold cider may seem like a good idea, alcohol is actually a diuretic (it causes you to pee more), which can make you dehydrated. It also causes the blood vessels in your skin to dilate, making you feel hotter. So if you want to stay cool, go easy on the booze.

3) Don't open all the windows

To create a refreshing breeze on a stifling summer's day, don't haphazardly throw open the windows. Instead, generate a draught by opening downstairs windows that are in the shade, and upstairs windows that are in the Sun.

Because hot air rises, sunny upstairs rooms will be warmer than those that are downstairs in the shade. This sets up a pressure difference, and by strategically opening windows in these rooms you'll create a breeze that draws in cool, fresh air from downstairs and forces warm air out of the house. You can increase this effect by using window-mounted fans to suck in air downstairs and blow out air upstairs.

Scientists develop new method and device to isolate single cells using electric fields

In cancer research, it all comes down to a single cell. Over the last decade, cancer researchers have homed in on the fact that an individual cell from a tumor can be used to perform molecular analyses that reveal important clues about how the cancer developed, how it spreads and how it may be targeted. With this in mind, a team of researchers  has developed an advanced way to isolate single cells from complex tissues. In a study published in Scientific Reports, they show how the approach not only results in high-quality, intact single cells, but is also superior to standard isolation methods in terms of labor, cost and efficiency. The challenge was to develop a technology to enable researchers to more quickly and easily isolate cells from biopsied cancer tissue to ready it for analysis.

In the new process, a tissue biopsy is placed in a liquid-filled receptacle between two parallel plate electrodes. Instead of enzymes, electric field fluctuations are applied to create opposing forces within the liquid. These forces cause the tissue cells to move in one direction and then in the opposite direction, which leads them to cleanly separate, or disassociate from one another.

The new process resulted in dissociation of biopsy tissue in as little as 5 minutes -- three times faster than leading enzymatic and mechanical techniques described  in a previous study. The approach also resulted in "good dissociation of tissues into single cells while preserving cell viability, morphology and cell cycle progression, suggesting utility for sample preparation of tissue specimens for direct single-cell analysis.

According to the researchers, the new approach is, at minimum, 300% more effective than even the most optimized techniques using simultaneous chemical and mechanical dissociation.

E. Celeste Welch, Harry Yu, Gilda Barabino, Nikos Tapinos, Anubhav Tripathi. Electric-field facilitated rapid and efficient dissociation of tissues Into viable single cells. Scientific Reports, 2022; 12 (1) DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-13068-6

Gas Entrapping Materials to control inflammation

Malarial Host-Parasite Clash Causes Deadly Blood Sugar Drop

Scientists say they have finally figured out why some people with severe malaria end up with dangerous hypoglycemia, also reporting that the condition starves the parasite into changing tactics from virulence to transmission.

Malaria is one of the world's deadliest diseases, responsible for 627,000 deaths worldwide in 2020 alone. In severe cases, patients develop dangerously low blood sugar levels. This complication is especially perilous in children and can be fatal if left untreated, but why it develops in the first place has been a long-standing mystery.

Now, in a study published recently (July 15) in Cell Metabolism, researchers describe the complicated tug-of-war between host and parasite that appears to explain malaria-associated hypoglycemia. According to the study, the host’s blood sugar drops to dangerously low levels as the malaria parasite destroys blood cells. This starves the parasite, which responds by becoming less likely to kill the already-fragile host—but more likely to spread to others.

The researchers explain that both the host and the parasite are demonstrating adaptive behaviors during this process. The host is ridding itself of the parasite by lowering its blood sugar, they say, and the parasite is becoming less virulent to try and keep both itself and the host alive long enough to seed the next generation.  

https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(22)00231-5

Strange new phase of matter created in quantum computer acts like it has two time dimensions

By shining a laser pulse sequence inspired by the Fibonacci numbers at atoms inside a quantum computer, physicists have created a remarkable, never-before-seen phase of matter. The phase has the benefits of two time dimensions despite there still being only one singular flow of time, the physicists report July 20 in Nature.

This mind-bending property offers a sought-after benefit: Information stored in the phase is far more protected against errors than with alternative setups currently used in quantum computers. As a result, the information can exist without getting garbled for much longer, an important milestone for making quantum computing viable.

The approach's use of an "extra" time dimension "is a completely different way of thinking about phases of matter.

The workhorses of the team's quantum computer are 10 atomic ions of an element called ytterbium. Each ion is individually held and controlled by electric fields produced by an ion trap, and can be manipulated or measured using laser pulses.

Each of those atomic ions serves as what scientists dub a quantum bit, or "qubit." Whereas traditional computers quantify information in bits (each representing a 0 or a 1), the qubits used by quantum computers leverage the strangeness of quantum mechanics to store even more information. Just as Schrödinger's cat is both dead and alive in its box, a qubit can be a 0, a 1 or a mashup—or "superposition"—of both. That extra information density and the way qubits interact with one another promise to allow quantum computers to tackle computational problems far beyond the reach of conventional computers.

Though the findings demonstrate that the new phase of matter can act as long-term quantum information storage, the researchers still need to functionally integrate the phase with the computational side of quantum computing. 

Philipp Dumitrescu, Dynamical topological phase realized in a trapped-ion quantum simulator, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04853-4. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04853-4

Human eggs remain healthy for decades by putting 'batteries on standby mode'

Immature human egg cells skip a fundamental metabolic reaction thought to be essential for generating energy, according to the findings of a study by researchers at the Center for Genomic Regulation (CRG) published recently in the journal Nature.

By altering their metabolic activity, the cells avoid creating reactive oxygen species, harmful molecules that can accumulate, damage DNA and cause cell death. The findings explain how human egg cells remain dormant in ovaries for up to 50 years without losing their reproductive capacity.

Humans are born with all the supply of egg cells they have in life. As humans are also the longest-lived terrestrial mammal, egg cells have to maintain pristine conditions while avoiding decades of wear-and-tear. This new work shows this problem is solved by skipping a fundamental metabolic reaction that is also the main source of damage for the cell. As a long-term maintenance strategy, its like putting batteries on standby mode. This represents a brand new paradigm never before seen in animal cells.

Human eggs are first formed in the ovaries during fetal development, undergoing different stages of maturation. During the early stages of this process, immature egg cells known as oocytes are put into cellular arrest, remaining dormant for up to 50 years in the ovaries. Like all other eukaryotic cells, oocytes have mitochondria—the batteries of the cell—which they use to generate energy for their needs during this period of dormancy.

Using a combination of live imaging, proteomic and biochemistry techniques, the authors of the study found that mitochondria in both human and Xenopus oocytes use alternative metabolic pathways to generate energy never before seen in other animal cell types.

A complex protein and enzyme known as complex I is the usual "gatekeeper" that initiates the reactions required to generate energy in mitochondria. This protein is fundamental, working in the cells that constitute living organisms ranging from yeast to blue whales. However, the researchers found that complex I is virtually absent in oocytes. 

The findings could also lead to new strategies that help preserve the ovarian reserves of patients undergoing cancer treatment.

 Elvan Böke, Oocytes maintain ROS-free mitochondrial metabolism by suppressing complex I, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04979-5. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04979-5

With just a tablespoon of blood, researchers aim to transform cancer treatment

Researchers  have developed a new blood test that provides unprecedented insight into a patient's cancer make-up, potentially allowing doctors to better select treatment options that will improve patient outcomes.

The technology was outlined in a study published recently in Nature.

The first-of-its-kind blood test analyzes the DNA that metastatic cancers shed into the bloodstream, known as circulating tumor DNA or ctDNA. By sequencing the entire genome of this ctDNA, the test reveals characteristics that are unique to each patient's cancer, giving physicians new tools to develop more personalized treatment plans.

With only a few drops of blood, we can now uncover critical information about a person's overall disease and how best to manage their cancer. This test has the potential to help clinicians choose better tailored treatment options and to more efficiently detect treatment resistance, allowing clinicians to adjust clinical care as needed.

 Alexander Wyatt, Deep whole-genome ctDNA chronology of treatment-resistant prostate cancer, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04975-9. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04975-9

Mouse study shows dopamine released in brain in response to hydration

A team of researchers  has found that a certain part of the brain releases dopamine in response to hydration. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes experiments they conducted with thirsty mice.

Prior research has shown that certain parts of the brain release dopamine, a chemical compound, as a means of providing pleasurable feedback to other parts of the brain. It is released during sex, for example, or when a person eats something they like, particularly foods that are sweet or fatty. In this new effort, the researchers have found that another part of the brain releases dopamine—this time when the brain is hydrated.

Noting that many animals have learned to determine which foods contain more water, the researchers wondered if there was a feedback mechanism in the brain prompting them to eat those foods that would provide more water, leading to more hydration in their brains. To find out, they turned to mice.

The experiments involved restricting water in test mice and using technology that allowed them to focus on the ventral tegmental area (VTA) in the brain. In one experiment, thirsty mice were given unlimited access to water for five minutes while the researchers monitored brain waves emanating from the VTA—a means of measuring how much, if any, dopamine was being produced. As expected, dopamine production levels rose as soon as the mice began drinking. But the researchers were then surprised to find that 10 minutes later, the dopamine levels rose again—coinciding with the amount of time it took for the water they had been drinking to reach their brain. The researchers then repeated the experiment but added salt to the water—the second bump in dopamine was much smaller due to the dehydrating impact of the salt.

James C. R. Grove et al, Dopamine subsystems that track internal states, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04954-0

Nanomembrane system could help diagnose diseases by isolating biomarkers in tears

Going to the doctor might make you want to cry, and according to a new study, doctors could someday put those tears to good use. In ACS Nano, researchers report a nanomembrane system that harvests and purifies tiny blobs called exosomes from tears, allowing researchers to quickly analyze them for disease biomarkers. Dubbed iTEARS, the platform could enable more efficient and less invasive molecular diagnoses for many diseases and conditions, without relying solely on symptoms.

Diagnosing diseases often hinges on assessing a patient's symptoms, which can be unobservable at early stages, or unreliably reported. Identifying molecular clues in samples from patients, such as specific proteins or genes from vesicular structures called exosomes, could improve the accuracy of diagnoses. However, current methods for isolating exosomes from these samples require long, complicated processing steps or large sample volumes. Tears are well-suited for sample collection because the fluid can be collected quickly and non-invasively, though only tiny amounts can be harvested at a time. So,  researchers wondered if a nanomembrane system, which they originally developed for isolating exosomes from urine and plasma, could allow them to quickly obtain these vesicles from tears and then analyze them for disease biomarkers.

The researchers successfully distinguished between healthy controls and patients with various types of dry eye disease based on a proteomic assessment of extracted proteins. Similarly, iTEARS enabled researchers to observe differences in microRNAs between patients with diabetic retinopathy and those that didn't have the eye condition, suggesting that the system could help track disease progression. The team says that this work could lead to a more sensitive, faster and less invasive molecular diagnosis of various diseases—using only tears.

Liang Hu et al, Discovering the Secret of Diseases by Incorporated Tear Exosomes Analysis via Rapid-Isolation System: iTEARS, ACS Nano (2022). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.2c02531

Nanomembrane system could help diagnose diseases by isolating biomarkers in tears

Going to the doctor might make you want to cry, and according to a new study, doctors could someday put those tears to good use. In ACS Nano, researchers report a nanomembrane system that harvests and purifies tiny blobs called exosomes from tears, allowing researchers to quickly analyze them for disease biomarkers. Dubbed iTEARS, the platform could enable more efficient and less invasive molecular diagnoses for many diseases and conditions, without relying solely on symptoms.

Diagnosing diseases often hinges on assessing a patient's symptoms, which can be unobservable at early stages, or unreliably reported. Identifying molecular clues in samples from patients, such as specific proteins or genes from vesicular structures called exosomes, could improve the accuracy of diagnoses. However, current methods for isolating exosomes from these samples require long, complicated processing steps or large sample volumes. Tears are well-suited for sample collection because the fluid can be collected quickly and non-invasively, though only tiny amounts can be harvested at a time. So, researchers wondered if a nanomembrane system, which they originally developed for isolating exosomes from urine and plasma, could allow them to quickly obtain these vesicles from tears and then analyze them for disease biomarkers.

The team modified their original system to handle the low volume of tears. The new system, called "Incorporated Tear Exosomes Analysis via Rapid-isolation System" (iTEARS), separated out exosomes in just 5 minutes by filtering tear solutions over nanoporous membranes with an oscillating pressure flow to reduce clogging. Proteins from the exosomes could be tagged with fluorescent probes while they were still on the device and then transferred to other instruments for further analysis. Nucleic acids were also extracted from the exosomes and analyzed.

The researchers successfully distinguished between healthy controls and patients with various types of dry eye disease based on a proteomic assessment of extracted proteins. Similarly, iTEARS enabled researchers to observe differences in microRNAs between patients with diabetic retinopathy and those that didn't have the eye condition, suggesting that the system could help track disease progression. The team says that this work could lead to a more sensitive, faster and less invasive molecular diagnosis of various diseases—using only tears.

Liang Hu et al, Discovering the Secret of Diseases by Incorporated Tear Exosomes Analysis via Rapid-Isolation System: iTEARS, ACS Nano (2022). DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.2c02531

Woodpeckers' heads act more like stiff hammers than safety helmets

Scientists had long wondered how woodpeckers can repeatedly pound their beaks against tree trunks without doing damage to their brains. This led to the notion that their skulls must act like shock-absorbing helmets. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on July 14 have refuted this notion, saying that their heads act more like stiff hammers. In fact, their calculations show that any shock absorbance would hinder the woodpeckers' pecking abilities.

Sam Van Wassenbergh, Erica J. Ortlieb, Maja Mielke, Christine Böhmer, Robert E. Shadwick, Anick Abourachid. Woodpeckers minimize cranial absorption of shocks. Current Biology, 2022; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2022.05.052

Quantum computer works with more than zero and one

Computers work with zeros and ones, also known as binary information. This approach has been so successful that computers now power everything from ATMs to self-driving cars and planes and it is hard to imagine a life without them.

Building on this success, today's quantum computers are also designed with binary information processing in mind. The building blocks of quantum computers, however, are more than just zeros and ones. However, restricting them to binary systems prevents these devices from living up to their true potential.

A research team  now succeeded in developing a quantum computer that can perform arbitrary calculations with so-called quantum digits (qudits), thereby unlocking more computational power with fewer quantum particles. Their study is published in Nature Physics.

Although storing information in zeros and ones is not the most efficient way of doing calculations, it is the simplest way. Simple often also means reliable and robust, so binary information has become the unchallenged standard for classical computers.

In the quantum world, the situation is quite different. In the Innsbruck quantum computer, for example, information is stored in individual trapped Calcium atoms. Each of these atoms naturally has eight different states, of which typically only two are used to store information. Indeed, almost all existing quantum computers have access to more quantum states than they use for computation.

The physicists from Innsbruck have now developed a quantum computer that can make use of the full potential of these atoms, by computing with qudits. Contrary to the classical case, using more states does not make the computer less reliable. Quantum systems naturally have more than just two states and the researchers showed that they can control them all equally well.

Martin Ringbauer, A universal qudit quantum processor with trapped ions, Nature Physics (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-022-01658-0. www.nature.com/articles/s41567-022-01658-0

Horizontal Gene Transfer Happens More Often Than Anyone Thought

DNA passed to and from all kinds of organisms, even across kingdoms, has helped shape the tree of life, to a large and undisputed degree in microbes and also unexpectedly in multicellular fungi, plants, and animals.

https://www.the-scientist.com/features/horizontal-gene-transfer-hap...

SARS-CoV-2 Could Use Nanotubes to Infect the Brain

While the study did show a potential way that neurons could be infected, the researchers didn’t show evidence that ACE2-positive cells could infect the types of epithelial cells that compose the blood-brain barrier. They also didn’t directly show that blood-brain barrier cells could form TNTs and transfer the virus to neurons. “Are blood-brain barrier cells capable of inducing these bridges?” scientists now will have to answer this Q.

Tunneling nanotubes provide a route for SARS-CoV-2 spreading

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abo0171

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/sars-cov-2-could-use-nan...

Part 2

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