Bioengineered cornea restores sight to the blind and visually impaired

Researchers and entrepreneurs have developed an implant made of collagen protein from pig's skin, which resembles the human cornea. In a pilot study, the implant restored vision to 20 people with diseased corneas, most of whom were blind prior to receiving the implant. The study has been published in Nature Biotechnology. The promising results bring hope to those suffering from corneal blindness and low vision by providing a bioengineered implant as an alternative to the transplantation of donated human corneas, which are scarce in countries where the need for them is greatest.

The results show that it is possible to develop a biomaterial that meets all the criteria for being used as human implants, which can be mass-produced and stored up to two years and thereby reach even more people with vision problems. This gets us around the problem of shortage of donated corneal tissue and access to other treatments for eye diseases.

The cornea consists mainly of the protein collagen. To create an alternative to human cornea, the researchers used collagen molecules derived from pig skin that were highly purified and produced under strict conditions for human use. The pig skin used is a byproduct of the food industry, making it easy to access and economically advantageous. In the process of constructing the implant, the researchers stabilized the loose collagen molecules forming a robust and transparent material that could withstand handling and implantation in the eye. While donated corneas must be used within two weeks, the bioengineered corneas can be stored for up to two years before use.

 Mehrdad Rafat, Bioengineered corneal tissue for minimally invasive vision restoration in advanced keratoconus in two clinical cohorts, Nature Biotechnology (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41587-022-01408-w. www.nature.com/articles/s41587-022-01408-w

Nanoparticles train immune cells to fight cancer

Scientists in the department of Advanced Organ Bioengineering and Therapeutics (Faculty of S&T, TechMed Centre) recently published a novel cancer immune therapy in the scientific journal Nature Communications. In their research, scientists developed newly designed nanoparticles which can target the body's immune cells to turn them against cancer.

In cancer research, it has been increasingly known that tumor cells can change the alliance of some specific macrophages to help the tumor grow. "Macrophages are cells that act like the vacuum cleaners of your immune system. Normally they catch intruders and destroy them, but tumor cells can hijack these cells to help them spread throughout the body.

Scientists now designed nanoparticles that train these tumor-supporting "bad" macrophages into cells that will fight tumors. However, these tiny (100–200 nanometer diameter) cell-like structures first have to find the macrophages before they can start the training. 

To solve this challenge, the researchers had to alter the nanoparticles. The nanoparticles consist of a double layer of specific lipids (phospholipids) called nanoliposomes. These lipids have long tails that like to stick together in between the double layer. Researchers replaced some of the lipids to ones with a slightly shorter charged tail that can 'flip' to the outer surface. The bad macrophages can recognize these flipped tails and then eat up the whole particle.

When scientists knew how to target the bad macrophages, it became time to train them into fighting the tumor again. The researchers added a small component of the bacterial cell wall, which can train macrophages, to the "tail-flipping" nanoliposomes in the double layer wall of these nanoparticles. These molecules are then also taken up by the bad macrophages which subsequently train them to kill cancer cells. Targeting this compound this way prevents it from being recognized by the wrong cells and thus prevents damage to other parts of the body.

In the publication, the researchers not only show that the hijacked macrophages can be retrained to fight the cancer cells again, inhibiting the tumor growth by 70% in breast tumor mouse models. In the mice, the therapy prevented metastasis, the ability of cancer cells to spread through the body. The trained macrophages prevented the tumor cells from "preparing" lung tissue to host tumor cells—a process before metastasis. When a tumor cell arrived in the lungs, the tissue wasn't ready and the tumor cell couldn't start a new tumor.

 Praneeth R. Kuninty et al, Cancer immune therapy using engineered 'tail-flipping' nanoliposomes targeting alternatively activated macrophages, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32091-9

Climate change and extreme heat are making us more anxious

Globally, heat waves have become an increasingly frequent summer affair, as much of the world faces extremely high temperatures. The rising frequency and intensity of heat waves can trigger various forms of emotional distress affecting people's mental health. One such emerging form of distress is eco-anxiety, which is defined by the American Psychological Association as the chronic fear of environmental doom that comes from observing climate change. In other words, people are worried about what a changing planet means for them and future generations. According to a landmark survey on eco-anxiety, 68% of adults reported experiencing "at least a little eco-anxiety" and 48% of young people report that climate change negatively affects their daily life and functioning. These worries are normal and even rational. We are connected to the land, air and water around us. So when our environments change, a primal sadness and worry is perfectly appropriate and perhaps even advantageous for survival. For millennia, people have relied on their ability to monitor, adapt to and migrate within their environment in order to survive. However, what we're facing with climate change is a whole new level of change. As highlighted by last year's IPCC report, the evidence showing that climate change causes greater frequency and intensity of extreme heat events is more certain than any other documented effect of climate change. Unfortunately, the same report predicts that global temperatures will continue to rise and their effects will worsen. It remains unclear what treatments and prevention strategies for eco-anxiety may be most effective, as public health and therapeutic research in this area is an emerging field. However, one thing is for certain: none of us can fix climate change, at least not alone. Climate change is a collective problem, not an individual one. Mitigating and adapting to it will require investments to build happier and healthier communities that will ensure that during extreme heat and other weather events people are not left to fend for themselves.

https://theconversation.com/climate-change-and-extreme-heat-are-mak...

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Matter at extreme conditions of very high temperature and pressure turns out to be remarkably simple and universal

Scientists at Queen Mary University of London have made two discoveries about the behavior of "supercritical matter"—matter at the critical point where the differences between liquids and gases seemingly disappear.
While the behavior of matter at reasonably low temperature and pressure was well understood, the picture of matter at high temperature and pressure was blurred. Above the critical point, differences between liquids and gases seemingly disappear, and the supercritical matter was thought to become hot, dense and homogeneous.

The researchers believed there was new physics yet to be uncovered about this matter at the supercritical state.

By applying two parameters—the heat capacity and the length over which waves can propagate in the system, they made two key discoveries. First, they found that there is a fixed inversion point between the two where matter changes its physical properties—from liquid-like to gas-like. They also found that this inversion point is remarkably close in all systems studied, telling us that the supercritical matter is intriguingly simple and amenable to new understanding.

As well as fundamental understanding of the states of matter and the phase transition diagram, understanding supercritical matter has many practical applications; hydrogen and helium are supercritical in gas giant planets such as Jupiter and Saturn, and therefore govern their physical properties. In green environmental applications, supercritical fluids have also proved to be very efficient at destroying hazardous wastes, but engineers increasingly want guidance from theory in order to improve efficiency of supercritical processes.

The asserted universality of the supercritical matter opens a way to a new physically transparent picture of matter at extreme conditions. This is an exciting prospect from the point of view of fundamental physics as well as understanding and predicting supercritical properties in green environmental applications, astronomy and other areas.

C. Cockrell et al, Double universality of the transition in the supercritical state, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abq5183. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq5183

Weird and wonderful world of fungi shaped by evolutionary bursts, study finds

Scientists  have discovered that the vast anatomical variety of fungi stems from evolutionary increases in multicellular complexity.

Most people recognize that fungi come in an assortment of shapes and sizes.

We didn't know till now how this variety was distributed across the different types of fungi. Which groups are the most varied when considering all parts of the fungal body plan? Which are the least? How has this variety accumulated and diminished through time? What has shaped these patterns in disparity?

What scientists now found  was that fungal disparity has evolved episodically through time, and that the evolution of multicellularity in different fungi appears to open the door for greater morphological variety. They saw increases in disparity associated with both the emergence of the first multicellular fungi, and then the evolution of complex fruiting bodies such as mushrooms and saddles in dikaryotic species. These fungi are defined by the inclusion of a dikaryon, a cell with two separate nuclei, in their life cycles.

The main implication is that these results align with those of analyses of animal disparity. Both kingdoms present clumpy distributions of anatomical variety which have evolved intermittently through time.

The world of fungi is defined by bright colors, strange shapes, and stranger anatomies. This study analyses demonstrate that this breath-taking anatomical variety has evolved in bursts, driven by evolutionary increases in multicellular complexity.

Thomas Smith, Evolution of fungal phenotypic disparity, Nature Ecology & Evolution (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41559-022-01844-6. www.nature.com/articles/s41559-022-01844-6

Nuclear war would cause a global famine and kill billions, study finds

More than 5 billion people would die of hunger following a full-scale nuclear war between the U.S. and Russia, according to a global study led by Rutgers climate scientists that estimates post-conflict crop production.

Building on past research, researchers now worked to calculate how much sun-blocking soot would enter the atmosphere from firestorms that would be ignited by the detonation of nuclear weapons. Researchers calculated soot dispersal from six war scenarios—five smaller India-Pakistan wars and a large U.S.-Russia war—based on the size of each country's nuclear arsenal.

These data then were entered into the Community Earth System Model, a climate forecasting tool supported by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). The NCAR Community Land Model made it possible to estimate productivity of major crops (maize, rice, spring wheat and soybean) on a country-by-country basis. The researchers also examined projected changes to livestock pasture and in global marine fisheries.

Under even the smallest nuclear scenario, a localized war between India and Pakistan, global average caloric production decreased 7% within five years of the conflict. In the largest war scenario tested—a full-scale U.S.-Russia nuclear conflict—global average caloric production decreased by about 90% three to four years after the fighting.

Crop declines would be the most severe in the mid-high latitude nations, including major exporting countries such as Russia and the U.S., which could trigger export restrictions and cause severe disruptions in import-dependent countries in Africa and the Middle East.

These changes would induce a catastrophic disruption of global food markets, the researchers conclude. Even a 7% global decline in crop yield would exceed the largest anomaly ever recorded since the beginning of Food and Agricultural Organization observational records in 1961. Under the largest war scenario, more than 75% of the planet would be starving within two years.

Researchers considered whether using crops fed to livestock as human food or reducing food waste could offset caloric losses in a war's immediate aftermath, but the savings were minimal under the large injection scenarios.

Moreover, the ozone layer would be destroyed by the heating of the stratosphere, producing more ultraviolet radiation at the surface, and we need to understand that impact on food supplies too.

The data tell us one thing: We must prevent a nuclear war from ever happening.

Lili Xia, Global food insecurity and famine from reduced crop, marine fishery and livestock production due to climate disruption from nuclear war soot injection, Nature Food (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s43016-022-00573-0. www.nature.com/articles/s43016-022-00573-0

Potential anti-aging components of Moringa oleifera leaf

Moringa oleifera Lam., also known as drum stick and Miracle Tree, primarily derived from India, is now widely distributed in tropical and subtropical regions. Previous studies have showed that M. oleifera has anti-aging effects, but there is a lack of in-depth research on the specific active ingredients and mechanisms of this anti-aging activity. Researchers are working to screen out the most effective active components of M. oleifera leaves.

Scientists in China conducted in vitro elastase and collagenase enzyme inhibitory assays to evaluate the activities of M. oleifera leaf extracts.

They found that M. oleifera leaf extracts possessed promising anti-elastase and anti-collagenase activities. Then, 10, 8, and 14 potential bioactive phytochemicals were screened out from M. oleifera leaf extracts against elastase, collagenase and hyaluronidase using the multi-target bio-affinity ultrafiltration coupled to high-performance liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (AUF-HPLC-MS), respectively. In addition, further verification of representative active components was completed with molecular docking analysis. Results showed that these potentially active compounds could form hydrogen bonds with amino acid residues Asn112, Trp115, Glu141, Glu164, and Asp221 of elastase, Arg214, Val215, Glu219, and Pro238 of collagenase, Arg47, Asp56, Gly58, Asp111, Glu113, and Ser304 of hyaluronidase, respectively. These hydrogen bonds enhanced the binding ability of active small molecules to biological target molecules. This is the first study to comprehensively demonstrate M. oleifera leaves possess the significant elastase and collagenase inhibitory activities in vitro and reveal its potential bioactive components as well as the mechanism of anti-aging activity.

This work provides a theoretical basis for its further development into functional anti-aging products in the cosmetics and cosmeceutical industries combating aging and skin wrinkling.

Yongbing Xu et al, Potential Anti-aging Components From Moringa oleifera Leaves Explored by Affinity Ultrafiltration With Multiple Drug Targets, Frontiers in Nutrition (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fnut.2022.854882

The entanglement of two quantum memory systems 12.5 km apart from each other

Quantum computing technology could have notable advantages over classical computing technology, including a faster speed and the ability to tackle more complex problems. In recent years, some researchers have also been exploring the possible establishment of a "quantum internet," a network that would allow quantum devices to exchange information, just like classical computing devices exchange information today.

The quantum internet could open fascinating possibilities for numerous quantum technology applications. For instance, it could enable more secure communications, more precise remote sensing and distributed quantum computing networks.

Researchers at the University of Science and Technology of China and Jinan Institute of Quantum Technology have recently demonstrated quantum entanglement  between two memory devices located at 12.5 km apart from each other within an urban environment. Their paper, published in Physical Review Letters, could be a further step towards the development of a quantum internet.

In their experiment, researchers  introduced two quantum nodes in different locations in an urban environment, placing them at a 12.5 km distance from one another. In the first node, dubbed node A, they entangled their first quantum memory with a single photon. This single photon was then sent to node B and stored within the second quantum memory.

In this way they entangled the two remote quantum memories.

Xi-Yu Luo et al, Postselected Entanglement between Two Atomic Ensembles Separated by 12.5 km, Physical Review Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.129.050503

Yong Yu et al, Entanglement of two quantum memories via fibres over dozens of kilometres, Nature (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-1976-7

Young mice transfused with blood from old mice became fatigued faster and ran shorter distances

A team of researchers from Korea University College of Medicine, the University of California and the Buck Institute for Research on Aging reports that transfusing young mice with blood from older mice makes them grow fatigued and unable to run long distances. The study is published in the journal Nature Metabolism. In 2005, a team of researchers at the University of California stitched pairs of old/young mice together to learn more about the aging process—in that effort, the mice were conjoined; they shared not only blood, but some organs. Testing of the older mice showed that the infusion of younger blood resulted in the reversal of some signs of aging. In this new effort, the researchers tested the process in reverse without resorting to conjoining. The work involved transfusing blood from an aged, two-year-old mouse into mice that were just three months old every day for a week, and then studying the young mice to measure the impact. Putting the mice on a treadmill and getting them to run showed that the young mice became fatigued faster and were not able to run as far as a control group (young mice transfused with blood from other young mice.) The young mice transfused with the blood of older mice showed markers for aging of the liver and kidney damage. The researchers also ran the experiment in reverse, giving old mice young blood, which resulted in reductions in fibrosis and lipids—and also fatigue. There was also an increase in endurance. The researchers suggest that it is likely that cells in the blood of older mice held a senescence-associated secretory phenotype, leading to muscle weakness, tissue damage and other signs of aging in the transfused younger mice. They suggest it also seems possible that cells in the blood from the older mice had ceased reproducing and were having an impact on the younger cells. The researchers also took an indirect approach to testing whether similar results might be observed in humans—they placed cells taken from an older person into plasma from a younger person. Six days later, they found biomarkers of aging.

Ok Hee Jeon et al, Systemic induction of senescence in young mice after single heterochronic blood exchange, Nature Metabolism (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s42255-022-00609-6

Pre-fertilization DNA transfer to avoid mitochondrial disease inheritance appears safe

Transferring the nuclear genome from one egg into the cytoplasm of a donor egg is a strategy to enable women carrying mutations in their mitochondrial DNA to have healthy babies. A new study  published August 16 in the open-access journal PLOS Biology, uses multiple "omics" techniques to show that this strategy, called spindle transfer, is likely to be safe, with little evidence of genetic or functional difference between the resulting embryos and healthy control in vitro fertilization (IVF) embryos. The results are likely to spur further adoption of spindle transfer for IVF when there is a risk of mitochondrial disease.

Mitochondria, the energy powerhouses of the cell, contain their own DNA, mutations in which can cause a variety of inherited diseases, including metabolic, muscular, and neurologic disorders. In human reproduction, only maternal mitochondria, contained in the egg, are inherited. To interrupt that inheritance, techniques have been developed to place parental nuclear DNA into cytoplasm from donor cells carrying healthy mitochondria, either just before fertilization (spindle transfer), or just after (pronuclear transfer).

The "spindle" refers to the division apparatus that holds the nuclear chromosomes in suspension until fertilization. During spindle transfer, the maternal spindle is removed from an unfertilized egg and placed into a donor egg that has had its own spindle removed. (Pronuclear transfer removes the pronucleus, containing both egg and sperm DNA, and places it in a donor embryo whose pronucleus has been removed.) Spindle transfer has been used clinically, but there remain questions about its safety.

To shed light on this question, the authors performed three different types of analyses on single cells from 23 blastocysts following spindle transfer and compared them to 23 control IVF blastocysts. (The blastocyst is the multicellular ball that forms about 5 or 6 days after fertilization, ready for implantation into the uterine wall.) They found no difference in DNA copy number, a measure of genomic integrity, between spindle transfer and control blastocysts. RNA expression profiles were also similar between the two blastocyst types, regardless of which layer of the blastocyst the cells were taken from.

The authors did find a small but significant reduction in the level of DNA demethylation in spindle transfer blastocysts in one layer, the trophectoderm, though not in two other layers. DNA demethylation is one of the processes used to increase gene expression during development, and their analysis suggested that the reduction was evidence of a slight delay in the process, rather than a permanent inability to upregulate the affected genes. It is quite possible that after the blastocyst stage, the spindle transfer embryos can catch up to complete DNA demethylation before implantation.

The researchers concluded that the spindle transfer seems generally safe and does not severely disturb embryonic development. However, given the limitation of the study, more dimensions and larger-scale evaluations are still needed to determine whether this technique can be applied to a wider set of clinical trials.

Single-cell multiomics analyses of spindle-transferred human embryos suggest a mostly normal embryonic development, PLoS Biology (2022). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001741

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Adults who, as children, had half their brain removed still able to score well with face and word recognition

A team of researchers at Carnegie Mellon University's Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Institute has found that adults who had a hemispherectomy as a child scored surprisingly well on face and word recognition tests. Their paper is posted on the bioRxiv preprint server. In epilepsy, abnormal brain activity results in chronic seizures. Some people respond well to medication and others due not; for example, some people experience seizures so often that they become incapacitating. Some young patients in these circumstances are given the option of undergoing a hemispherectomy, the complete removal of the left or right hemisphere of the brain. Prior research has shown that these procedures, when done at a very young age, allow most patients to retain their IQ and their ability to communicate and live relatively normal lives. In sharp contrast, damage to either hemisphere, much less removal of one or the other in adults, leads to severe symptoms or death. In this new effort, the researchers sought to learn more about the cognitive abilities of adults who had undergone a hemispherectomy. Forty subjects were shown grayscale pictures of human faces without hair for 750 milliseconds, followed by a pause of 150 milliseconds. Then another face was shown for 150 milliseconds after which the volunteer reported whether it was the same face or not. The whole process was then repeated several times with different faces. The researchers then repeated the entire exercise but used simple, four-letter words. The researchers expected that those volunteers who had only their right hemisphere would do well at face recognition but not as well at word recognition, since the right hemisphere is generally used to process images while the left hemisphere processes words; they expected the opposite results for those who still had just their left hemisphere. Instead, the researchers found that both groups performed nearly equally well and both were on average 86% accurate on the tests compared to a control group consisting of people who had not undergone an hemispherectomy, with average 96% accuracy. The researchers also conducted a nearly identical experiment in which the faces and words were shown off to the left or right; both groups still did surprisingly well—but there was one interesting difference. In comparing their results with the control group, those who had undergone a hemispherectomy did as well as the control group in identifying images or words in two instances—when a word was placed on the left side, or a face on the right.

Michael C. Granovetter et al, With Childhood Hemispherectomy, One Hemisphere Can Support—But is Suboptimal for—Word and Face Recognition (2020). DOI: 10.1101/2020.11.06.371823

Modern pesticides damage the brain of bees so they can't move in a straight line

The challenge to let people walk back and forth in a straight line isn't just used by police to test if drivers are intoxicated: it's also used by neurologists to diagnose neurological disorders like ataxia, where parts of the brain that coordinate movement are impaired. Now, researchers use an insect version of this challenge to show for the first time that modern pesticides damage the nervous system of honeybees so that it becomes hard for them to walk in a straight line. The results are published in Frontiers in Insect Science.

The commonly used insecticides like sulfoxaflor and the neonicotinoid imidacloprid can profoundly impair the visually guided behavior of honeybees. New research results are reason for concern because the ability of bees to respond appropriately to visual information is crucial for their flight and navigation, and thus their survival.

The results add to what the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and the World Health Organization have called the "rapidly growing body of evidence [which] strongly suggests that the existing levels of environmental contamination [from neonicotinoid pesticides] are causing large-scale adverse effects on bees and other beneficial insects."

The researchers also show with molecular techniques that pesticide-exposed bees tended to have elevated proportion of dead cells in parts of the brain's optic lobes, important for processing visual input. Likewise, key genes for detoxification were dysregulated after exposure.

Rachel H. Parkinson et al, Honeybee optomotor behaviour is impaired by chronic exposure to insecticides, Frontiers in Insect Science (2022). DOI: 10.3389/finsc.2022.936826

'Forever chemicals' destroyed by simple new method

PFAS, a group of manufactured chemicals commonly used since the 1940s, are called "forever chemicals" for a reason. Bacteria can't eat them; fire can't incinerate them; and water can't dilute them. And, if these toxic chemicals are buried, they leach into surrounding soil, becoming a persistent problem for generations to come.

Now chemists have done the seemingly impossible. Using low temperatures and inexpensive, common reagents, the research team developed a process that causes two major classes of PFAS compounds to fall apart, leaving behind only benign end products. The simple technique potentially could be a powerful solution for finally disposing of these harmful chemicals, which are linked to many dangerous health effects in humans, livestock and the environment.

Even just a tiny, tiny amount of PFAS causes negative health effects, and it does not break down. We can't just wait out this problem.

The secret to PFAS's indestructibility lies in its chemical bonds. PFAS contains many carbon-fluorine bonds, which are the strongest bonds in organic chemistry. As the most electronegative element in the periodic table, fluorine wants electrons, and badly. Carbon, on the other hand, is more willing to give up its electrons.

"When you have that kind of difference between two atoms—and they are roughly the same size, which carbon and fluorine are—that's the recipe for a really strong bond.

Scientists now  found a weakness. PFAS contains a long tail of unyielding carbon-fluorine bonds. But at one end of the molecule, there is a charged group that often contains charged oxygen atoms. Researchers targeted this head group by heating the PFAS in dimethyl sulfoxide—an unusual solvent for PFAS destruction—with sodium hydroxide, a common reagent. The process decapitated the head group, leaving behind a reactive tail.

That triggered all these reactions, and it started spitting out fluorine atoms from these compounds to form fluoride, which is the safest form of fluorine.

After discovering the PFAS degradation conditions, researchers also discovered that the fluorinated pollutants fall apart by different processes than generally assumed. A simulation showed that PFAS actually falls apart two or three carbons at a time—a discovery that matched the researchers' experiments. By understanding these pathways, researchers can confirm that only benign products remain. This new knowledge also could help guide further improvements to the method.

Brittany Trang et al, Low-temperature mineralization of perfluorocarboxylic acids, Science (2022). DOI: 10.1126/science.abm8868. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abm8868

Swarms of microrobots could be solution to unblocking medical devices in body

Swarms of microrobots injected into the human body could unblock internal medical devices and avoid the need for further surgery, according to new research .

The study is the first-time scientists have developed magnetic microrobotics to remove deposits in shunts—common internal medical devices used to treat a variety of conditions by draining excess fluid from organs.

Shunts are prone to malfunctioning, often caused by blockages due to a build-up of sediment. The sediment not only narrows and obstructs liquid passing through the shunt, but it also affects the shunt's flexibility. This leads to patients needing repeated, invasive surgeries throughout their lives either to replace the shunt or use a catheter to remove the blockage.

However, this new research  has shown there could be a wireless, non-invasive alternative to clearing the blockage in a shunt. It has shown that a swarm of hundreds of microrobots—made of nano size magnetic nanoparticles—injected into the shunt could remove the sediment instead.

Once the magnetic microrobots are injected into the shunt they can be moved along the tube to the affected area using a magnetic field, generated by a powerful magnet on the body's surface. The swarm of microrobots can then be moved so they scrape away the sediment, clearing the tube.

"The non-invasive nature of this method is a considerable advantage to existing methods as it will potentially eliminate the risk of surgery and a surgery-related infection, thereby decreasing recovery time.

With each microrobot smaller than the width of a human hair, once the swarm has done its job, it can either be guided to the stomach via a magnetic field or bodily fluid, so they leave the body naturally. Because the microrobots have very high biocompatibility they will not cause toxicity.

The research also found a direct relation between the strength of the magnetic field and the success of scraping away the sediment in the shunt.

This is the first proof-of-concept experiment using microswarms for opening a blockage in a shunt.

A. Moghanizadeh et al, A novel non-invasive intervention for removing occlusions from shunts using an abrading magnetic microswarm, IEEE Transactions on Biomedical Engineering (2022). DOI: 10.1109/TBME.2022.3192807

Turning to the laws of physics to study how cells move

Scientists have long been concerned with trying to understand how cells move, for example in pursuit of new ways to control the spread of cancer. The field of biology continues to illuminate the infinitely complex processes by which collections of cells communicate, adapt, and organize along biochemical pathways.

Turning to the laws of physics, researchers have taken a fresh look at how cells move, revealing similarities between the behaviour of cell tissue and the simplest water droplets. They have taken a different perspective on how cell motion is determined by the properties of the tissues they're in rather than how they act individually.

Published in Physical Review Letters, the researchers’ initial experiments used mechanical techniques to measure the surface tension of a simple "ball" of cell tissue to reveal similarities with the thermo-dynamic properties of water droplets, but with noticeable differences.

With a water droplet the surface tension is constant and doesn't change with droplet size.

However, the scientists found that in the case of a "droplet" of cancer cells surface tension was size dependent—the smaller the tissue the higher the surface tension, and the higher the pressure within the tissue.

Next, they applied a surface tension gradient to show that cells within the tissue moved rapidly and collectively, much like the way the surface of water moves when detergent is added. Their findings were published in Physical Review Fluids.

This so called "Marangoni" effect occurs when the forces at the surface of a tissue drive the motion of cells inside.

To complete the puzzle, the scientists allowed the tissue to adhere to a surface, mimicking the way a tumor grows and spreads. Cells emerged from the ball of tissue like water droplets "wetting" a receptive—or hydrophilic—surface. In some conditions, the wetting increased the internal pressure of the tissue, helping to push cells out.

Published today in Physical Review X, these findings cast new light on the degree to which cells "migrate" or whether pressure from surface tension promotes cell movement.

This new work shows that the bulk properties of tissue, including the surface tension and pressure, matter when it comes to the ability of cells to migrate out of a model tumor.

M. S. Yousafzai et al, Active Regulation of Pressure and Volume Defines an Energetic Constraint on the Size of Cell Aggregates, Physical Review Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.048103

Vikrant Yadav et al, Gradients in solid surface tension drive Marangoni-like motions in cell aggregates, Physical Review Fluids (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevFluids.7.L031101

Muhammad Sulaiman Yousafzai et al, Cell-Matrix Elastocapillary Interactions Drive Pressure-Based Wetting of Cell Aggregates, Physical Review X (2022). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevX.12.031027

Can a human with a spinal cord injury walk and run? Discovering clues with neuromorphic technology

 An international research team  has succeeded in recovering muscle movements in a model of paralyzed mice through organic artificial nerves. The result was published in Nature Biomedical Engineering.

The nerves, which are essential for life activities as well as having a significant impact on quality of life, are easily damaged by various causes such as physical injury, genetic causes, secondary complications, and aging. In addition, once nerves are damaged they are difficult to reconstruct, and some or all their bodily functions are permanently lost due to poor bio-signaling.

Among the various methods for rehabilitation in patients with neurological damage, Functional Electrical Stimulation (FES), which is currently actively used in clinical practice, uses computer-controlled signals. Through this setup, electrical stimulation is applied to muscles that are no longer arbitrarily controllable in patients with neuropathy to induce muscle contraction, resulting in functionally useful movements in the biological body even though they are confined in a specific space. However, this conventional approach has limitations that are not suitable for long-term use in patients' daily lives because they involve complex digital circuits and computers for signal processing to stimulate muscles, consuming a lot of energy and poor biocompatibility in the process.

To solve the problem, the research team succeeded in controlling the leg movement of mice only with artificial nerves without a complex and bulky external computer using stretchable, low-power organic nanowire neurormorphic devices that emulate the structure and function of bio nerve fibers. The stretchable artificial nerve consists of a strain sensor that simulates a proprioceptor which detects muscle movements, an organic artificial synapse that simulates a biological synapse, and a hydrogel electrode for transmitting signals to the leg muscles.

The researchers adjusted the movement of the mouse legs and the contraction force of the muscles according to the firing frequency of the action potential transmitted to the artificial synapse with a principle similar to that of the biological nerve, and the artificial synapse implements smoother and more natural leg movements than the usual FES.

In addition, the artificial proprioceptor detects the leg movement of the mouse and gives real-time feedback to the artificial synapse to prevent muscle damage due to excessive leg movement.

The researchers succeeded in allowing a paralyzed mouse to kick the ball or walk and run on the treadmill. Furthermore, the research team showed the applicability of artificial nerves in the future for voluntary movement by sampling pre-recorded signals from the motor cortexes of moving animals and moved the legs of mice through artificial synapses.

The researchers discovered a new application feasibility in the field of neuromorphic technology, which is attracting attention as a next-generation computing device by emulating the behavior of a biological neural network.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41551-022-00918-x

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/961673

How the brain gathers threat cues and turns them into fear

Scientists have uncovered a molecular pathway that distills threatening sights, sounds and smells into a single message: Be afraid. A molecule called CGRP enables neurons in two separate areas of the brain to bundle threatening sensory cues into a unified signal, tag it as negative and convey it to the amygdala, which translates the signal into fear.

The research, published in Cell Reports on August 16, 2022, may lead to new therapies for fear-related disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or hypersensitivity disorders such as autism, migraines and fibromyalgia.

The brain pathway researchers now discovered works like a central alarm system. The CGRP neurons are activated by negative sensory cues from all five senses—sight, sound, taste, smell and touch. Identifying new threat pathways provides insights into treating fear-related disorders.

Most external threats involve multisensory cues, such as the heat, smoke and smell of a wildfire. Previous research showed that different pathways independently relay sound, sight, and touch threat cues to multiple brain areas. A single pathway that integrates all these cues would be beneficial to survival, but no one had ever found such a pathway.

Previous research also showed that the amygdala, which initiates behavioral responses and forms fear memories to environmental and emotional stimuli, receives heavy input from brain regions that are laden with a chemical associated with aversion, the neuropeptide CGRP (calcitonin gene-related peptide).

Based on these two pools of research,  researchers now proposed that CGRP neurons, found especially in subregions of the thalamus and the brainstem, relay multisensory threat information to the amygdala. These circuits may both generate appropriate behavioral responses and help form aversive memories of threat cues.

The researchers conducted several experiments to test their hypotheses. They recorded CGRP neuron activity using single-cell calcium imaging while presenting mice with multisensory threat cues, enabling the researchers to pinpoint which sensory modality involved which sets of neurons. They determined the path the signals took after leaving the thalamus and brainstem using different colored fluorescent proteins. And they conducted behavioral tests to gauge memory and fear.

Taken together, their findings show that two distinct populations of CGRP neurons—one in the thalamus, one in the brainstem—project to nonoverlapping areas of the amygdala, forming two distinct circuits. Both populations encode threatening sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touches by communicating with local brain networks. Finally, they discovered that both circuits are necessary for forming aversive memories—the kind that tell you, "Stay away."

While mice were used in this study, the same brain regions also abundantly express CGRP in humans. This suggests that the circuits reported here may also be involved in threat perception-related psychiatric disorders.

https://www.cell.com/cell-reports/fulltext/S2211-1247(22)01039-7?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS2211124722010397%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

Non-nutritive sweeteners affect human microbiomes and can alter glycemic responses

Since the late 1800s non-nutritive sweeteners have promised to deliver all the sweetness of sugar with none of the calories. They have long been believed to have no effect on the human body, but researchers publishing in the journal Cell on August 19 challenge this notion by finding that these sugar substitutes are not inert, and, in fact, some can alter human consumers' microbiomes in a way that can change their blood sugar levels.

In 2014 researchers found that non-nutritive sweeteners affected the microbiomes of mice in ways that could impact their glycemic responses. They were interested in whether these results would also be found in humans.

To address this important question, the researchers  carefully screened over 1,300 individuals for those who strictly avoid non-nutritive sweeteners in their day-to-day lives, and identified a cohort of 120 individuals. These participants were broken into six groups: two controls and four who ingested well below the FDA daily allowances of either aspartame, saccharin, stevia, or sucralose.

In subjects consuming the non-nutritive sweeteners, scientists could identify very distinct changes in the composition and function of gut microbes, and the molecules they secret into peripheral blood. This seemed to suggest that gut microbes in the human body are rather responsive to each of these sweeteners.

When they looked at consumers of non-nutritive sweeteners as groups, they found that two of the non-nutritive sweeteners, saccharin and sucralose, significantly impacted glucose tolerance in healthy adults. Interestingly, changes in the microbes were highly correlated with the alterations noted in people's glycemic responses.

To establish causation, the researchers transferred microbial samples from the study subjects to germ-free mice—mice that have been raised in completely sterile conditions and have no microbiome of their own.

The results were quite striking. In all of the non-nutritive sweetener groups, but in none of the controls, when the researchers transferred into these sterile mice the microbiome of the top responder individuals collected at a time point in which they were consuming the respective non-nutritive sweeteners, the recipient mice developed glycemic alterations that very significantly mirrored those of the donor individuals. In contrast, the bottom responders' microbiomes were mostly unable to elicit such glycemic responses. These results suggest that the microbiome changes in response to human consumption of non-nutritive sweetener may, at times, induce glycemic changes in consumers in a highly personalized manner.

The effects of the sweeteners will vary person to person because of the incredibly unique composition of our microbiome.

 Eran Elinav, Personalized microbiome-driven effects of non-nutritive sweeteners on human glucose tolerance, Cell (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2022.07.016. www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(22)00919-9

How Quinine Fights Malaria

Researchers discover a material that can learn like the brain

Researchers have discovered that Vanadium Dioxide (VO₂), a compound used in electronics, is capable of "remembering" the entire history of previous external stimuli. This is the first material to be identified as possessing this property, although there could be others.

A PhD student made a chance discovery during his research on phase transitions in Vanadium Dioxide (VO₂). VO₂ has an insulating phase when relaxed at room temperature, and undergoes a steep insulator-to-metal transition at 68 °C, where its lattice structure changes. Classically, VO₂ exhibits a volatile memory: "the material reverts back to the insulating state right after removing the excitation" . For his thesis, he set out to discover how long it takes for VO₂ to transition from one state to another. But his research led him down a different path: after taking hundreds of measurements, he observed a memory effect in the material's structure.

In his experiments, the student applied an electric current  to a sample of VO₂. The current moved across the material, following a path until it exited on the other side. As the current heated up the sample, it caused the VO₂ to change state. And once the current had passed, the material returned to its initial state.

He then applied a second current pulse to the material, and saw that the time it took to change state was directly linked to the history of the material. The VO₂ seemed to 'remember' the first phase transition and anticipate the next. The researchers didn't expect to see this kind of memory effect, and it has nothing to do with electronic states but rather with the physical structure of the material. It's a novel discovery: no other material behaves in this way.

The researchers went on to find that VO₂ is capable of remembering its most recent external stimulus for up to three hours. The memory effect could in fact persist for several days, but we don't currently have the instruments needed to measure that.

The research team's discovery is important because the memory effect they observed is an innate property of the material itself. Engineers rely on memory to perform calculations of all kinds, and materials that could enhance the calculation process by offering greater capacity, speed and miniaturization are in high demand. VO₂ ticks all three of these boxes. What's more, its continuous, structural memory sets it apart from conventional materials that store data as binary information dependent on the manipulation of electronic states.

The researchers performed a host of measurements to arrive at their findings. They also corroborated their results by applying the new method to different materials at other laboratories around the world. This discovery replicates well what happens in the brain, as VO₂ switches act just like neurons.

Mohammad Samizadeh Nikoo, Electrical control of glass-like dynamics in vanadium dioxide for data storage and processing, Nature Electronics (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41928-022-00812-z. www.nature.com/articles/s41928-022-00812-z

Your Next Wooden Chair Could Arrive Flat, Then Dry Into a 3D Shape

Study shows 90% of marine species at risk of extinction by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed

An international team of researchers has found that approximately 90% of all marine life on Earth will be at risk of extinction by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not curbed. In their paper published in the journal Nature Climate Change, the group outlines their study of thousands of marine species and how greenhouse gas emissions might impact them in the future.

Greenhouse gas emissions impact the world's climate in two ways. They raise the temperature of the atmosphere (and by extension, Earth's surfaces and bodies of water) by holding in heat, and in the case of CO₂ emissions, they make water more acidic, like carbonated soft drinks. And as emissions continue to be pumped into the atmosphere despite dire warnings from scientists around the world, more research is being conducted to learn about its possible impact. In this new effort, the researchers took a broad look at the impact of greenhouse gas emissions on ocean life.

The work involved estimating the impact of certain levels of greenhouse gas emissions on marine life in the future. They looked specifically at 25,000 species, including fish, bacteria, plants and protozoans living in the top 100 meters of the world's oceans. They found that under the worst scenario, in which emissions lead to global atmospheric temperature increases of 3 to 5 degrees Celsius, approximately 90% of all marine life will disappear. They also found that if emissions are cut to the extent outlined by the Paris Climate Agreement, which would keep global temperature increases to below 2 degrees Celsius, then the risk of extinction would be reduced by approximately 98%.

The researchers also found that larger top predators are more at risk than smaller predators, as are fish species  in areas where they are heavily fished by humans. Those at lowest risk, on the other hand, include small, short-lived species. Notably, Earth has not seen a die-off as great as these projections since the Great Dying 252 million years ago.

Daniel G. Boyce et al, A climate risk index for marine life, Nature Climate Change (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41558-022-01437-y

Experiment on YouTube reveals potential to 'inoculate' users against misinformation

Fact-checkers can only rebut a fraction of the falsehoods circulating online. We need to teach people to recognize the misinformation playbook, so they understand when they are being misled.

https://phys.org/news/2022-08-youtube-reveals-potential-inoculate-m...

Here's what a black hole sounds like, according to NASA.

Data Sonification: Black Hole at the Center of the Perseus Galaxy Cluster (X-ray)

New research on the risks of lead exposure from bullets used in big game hunting

The lead in some bullets used for hunting deer, moose, and elk is toxic to the humans who eat the harvested meat and to scavenger animals that feast on remains left in the field.

Physicists entangle more than a dozen photons efficiently

.Physicists  have managed to entangle more than a dozen photons efficiently and in a defined way. They are thus creating a basis for a new type of quantum computer. 

The phenomena of the quantum world, which often seem bizarre from the perspective of the common everyday world, have long since found their way into technology. For example, entanglement: a quantum-physical connection between particles that links them in a strange way over arbitrarily long distances. It can be used, for example, in a quantum computer—a computing machine that, unlike a conventional computer, can perform numerous mathematical operations simultaneously. However, in order to use a quantum computer profitably, a large number of entangled particles must work together. They are the basic elements for calculations, so-called qubits.

Photons, the particles of light, are particularly well suited for this because they are robust by nature and easy to manipulate. Researchers  have now succeeded in taking an important step towards making photons usable for technological applications such as quantum computing: For the first time, a research team generated up to 14 entangled photons in a defined way and with high efficiency.

The trick to this experiment was that they used a single atom to emit the photons and interweave them in a very specific way. To do this, the researchers placed a rubidium atom at the center of an optical cavity—a kind of echo chamber for electromagnetic waves. With laser light of a certain frequency, the state of the atom could be precisely addressed. Using an additional control pulse, the researchers also specifically triggered the emission of a photon that is entangled with the quantum state of the atom.

They  repeated this process several times and in a previously determined manner.

In between, the atom was manipulated in a certain way—in technical jargon: rotated. In this way, it was possible to create a chain of up to 14 light particles that were entangled with each other by the atomic rotations and brought into a desired state.

Because the chain of photons emerged from a single atom, it could be produced in a deterministic way. This means: in principle, each control pulse actually delivers a photon with the desired properties.

 Philip Thomas et al, Efficient generation of entangled multiphoton graph states from a single atom, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-04987-5

Eye movements in REM sleep mimic gazes in the dream world

When our eyes move during REM sleep, we’re gazing at things in the dream world our brains have created, according to a new study by researchers.

REM sleep — named for the rapid eye movements associated with it — has been known since the 1950s to be the phase of sleep when dreams occur. But the purpose of the eye movements has remained a matter of much mystery and debate. 

This new work showed that these eye movements aren’t random. They’re coordinated with what's happening in the virtual dream world of the mouse.This work gives us a glimpse into the ongoing cognitive processes in the sleeping brain and at the same time solves a puzzle that’s triggered the curiosity of scientists for decades.

some experts hypothesized that these REM movements may be following scenes in the dream world, but there was little way to test it, and the experiments that could be done (noting a dreamers’ eye direction and then waking them up to ask where they were looking in the dream) provided contradictory results. Many researchers wrote off REM movements as random actions, perhaps to keep the eyelids lubricated.

Given much more advanced technology, researchers now were able to look at “head direction” cells in the brains of mice, who also experience REM sleep. These cells act something like a compass, and their activity shows researchers which direction the mouse perceives itself as heading. 

The team simultaneously recorded data from these cells about the mouse’s heading directions while monitoring its eye movements. Comparing them, they found that the direction of eye movements and of the mouse’s internal compass were precisely aligned during REM sleep, just as they do when the mouse is awake and moving around.  

The research team found that the same parts of the brain — and there are many of them — coordinate during both dreaming and wakefulness, lending credence to the idea that dreams are a way of integrating information gathered throughout the day. 

How those brain regions work together to produce this generative ability is the mystery .

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abp8852

A battery powered by moisture from the air

Autoimmune disorders increase risk of cardiovascular disease

About 5% of the population in the world suffer from multiple autoimmune disorders. Examples are rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, systemic sclerosis, lupus erythematosus and type I diabetes. Although earlier research has suggested associations between some of these disorders and a higher risk of cardiovascular disease, these studies were often too small and limited to selected autoimmune or selected cardiovascular conditions to draw conclusive evidence on the necessity of cardiovascular disease prevention among patients with autoimmune disease, until now.

An international research team now presented the outcome of a thorough epidemiological investigation into possible links between 19 of the most common autoimmune disorders and cardiovascular disease. The results of the study show that patients with autoimmune disease have a substantially higher risk (between 1.4 and 3.6 times depending on which autoimmune condition) of developing cardiovascular disease than people without an autoimmune disorder. This excess risk is comparable to that of type 2 diabetes, a well-known risk factor for cardiovascular disease. The research shows for the first time that cardiovascular risks affect autoimmune disease as a group of disorders, rather than selected disorders individually.

In the research paper, which will be published in The Lancet, the authors show that the group of 19 autoimmune disorders they have studied accounts for about 6% of cardiovascular events. Importantly, excess cardiovascular risk was visible across the whole cardiovascular disease spectrum, beyond classical coronary heart disease, including infection-related heart disorders, heart inflammation, as well as thromboembolic and degenerative heart disorders, suggesting the implications of autoimmunity on cardiovascular health are likely to be much broader than originally thought.

Furthermore, the excess risk was not explained by traditional cardiovascular risk factors such as age, sex, socioeconomic status, blood pressure, BMI, smoking, cholesterol and type 2 diabetes. Another noteworthy finding: the excess risk is particularly high among patients with autoimmune disorders under 55 years and suggests that autoimmune disease is particularly important in causing premature cardiovascular disease, with the potential to result in a disproportionate loss of life years and disability.

 Autoimmune diseases and cardiovascular risk: a populationbased study on 19 autoimmune diseases and 12 cardiovascular diseases in 22 million individuals in the UK, The Lancet (2022). DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(22)01349-6

How light and temperature work together to affect plant growth

Plants lengthen and bend to secure access to sunlight. Despite observing this phenomenon for centuries, scientists do not fully understand it. Now, Salk scientists have discovered that two plant factors—the protein PIF7 and the growth hormone auxin—are the triggers that accelerate growth when plants are shaded by canopy and exposed to warm temperatures at the same time.

The findings, published in Nature Communications on August 29, 2022, will help scientists predict how plants will respond to climate change—and increase crop productivity despite the yield-harming global temperature rise.

Right now, we grow crops in certain densities, but our findings indicate that we will need to lower these densities to optimize growth as our climate changes. Understanding the molecualr basis of how plants respond to light and temperature will allow us to fine-tune crop density in a specific way that leads to the best yields.

Part 1

During sprouting, seedlings rapidly elongate their stems to break through the covering soil to capture sunlight as fast as possible. Normally, the stem slows down its growth after exposure to sunlight. But the stem can lengthen rapidly again if the plant is competing with surrounding plants for sunlight, or in response to warm temperatures to increase distance between the hot ground and the plant's leaves. While both environmental conditions—canopy shade and warm temperatures—induce stem growth, they also reduce yield.

In this study, the scientists compared plants growing in canopy shade and warm temperatures at the same time—a condition that mimics high crop density and climate change. The scientists used the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana, as well as tomato and a close relative of tobacco, because they were interested to see if all three plant species were affected similarly by this environmental condition.

Across all three species, the team found that the plants grew extremely tall when simultaneously trying to avoid the shade created by neighboring plants and being exposed to warmer temperatures. On a molecular level, the researchers discovered that transcription factor PIF7, a protein that helps turn genes "on" and "off," was the dominant player driving the increased rapid growth. They also found that the growth hormone auxin increased when the crops detected neighboring plants, which fostered growth in response to simultaneous warmer temperatures. This synergistic PIF7-auxin pathway allowed the plants to respond to their environments and adapt to seek the best growing conditions.

A related transcription factor, PIF4, also stimulated stem elongation during warm temperatures. However, when shade and increased temperatures were combined, this factor no longer played an important role.

The researchers think that there is another player, yet to be discovered, that is boosting the effect of PIF7 and auxin. They hope to explore this unknown factor in future studies.

Global temperatures are increasing, so we need food crops that can thrive in these new conditions.

Scientists now  identified key factors that regulate plant growth during warm temperatures, which will help us to develop better-performing crops to feed future generations.

 PIF7 is a master regulator of thermomorphogenesis in shade, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-32585-6

Part 2

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OPEN Access: The US has ruled all taxpayer-funded research must be free to read.

Last week, the United States announced an updated policy guidance on open access that will substantially expand public access to science not just in America, but worldwide.

As per the guidance, all US federal agencies must put in place policies and plans so anyone anywhere can immediately and freely access the peer-reviewed publications and data arising from research they fund.

The policies need to be in place by the end of 2025, according to President Biden’s White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).

https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/08/25/breakthroug...

Mars' Moon Phobos Eclipses the Sun, as Seen by Curiosity

This video clip shows the larger of the two moons of Mars, Phobos, passing directly in front of the sun, in an eclipse photographed by NASA's Mars rover Curiosity.

Khufu branch of Nile River once flowed close enough to Giza to carry the stones needed to build the pyramids

A team of researchers  has found evidence that shows the Khufu branch of the Nile River once ran so close to Giza that it could have been used to carry the stones that were used to build the famous pyramids. In their paper published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group describes their study of fossilized pollen grains found in the sediments around Giza and what it showed them about the history of the Khufu branch.

In their work, the researchers obtained core sediment samples that have been collected from several sites in and around Giza over the years and then took a close look at the fossilized pollen grains trapped in them for thousands of years.

By combining results from prior studies that involved studying the rock layers surrounding the pyramids, they found that they were able to reconstruct the history of the Khufu branch as it flowed and ebbed in the area over the prior 8,000 years. Then, looking at the timeline and flow of the branch, they found its levels were high enough that it reached nearly all the way to Giza—7 kilometers from the Nile—during the times when three of the major pyramids (Menkaure, Khafre and Khufu) were built—approximately 4,000 years ago.

The researchers note that the pollen grain fossils they found were mostly from flowering grasses like the ones that line the Nile River today. They also found evidence of a few marsh plants, which typically grow on the edges of lakes—and that showed that the Khufu branch remained at high levels in the area long enough for nature to consider it permanent.

The researchers also found that not long after the reign of King Tutankhamun, levels of the branch began to drop, leading to a much more arid environment. Other studies of bones and teeth from mummies of the time also showed the area becoming much drier. The researchers suggest that others using the same techniques could learn more about how changing river flow impacted other ancient civilizations.

 Hader Sheisha et al, Nile waterscapes facilitated the construction of the Giza pyramids during the 3rd millennium BCE, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2022). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2202530119

Breakthrough results in developing an oral insulin tablet

A team of researchers working on developing oral insulin tablets as a replacement for daily insulin injections have made a game-changing discovery.

Researchers have discovered that insulin from the latest version of their oral tablets is absorbed by rats in the same way that injected insulin is.

These exciting results show that scientists are on the right track in developing an insulin formulation that will no longer need to be injected before every meal, improving the quality of life, as well as mental health, of more than nine million type 1 diabetics around the world.

Researchers  are now seeing nearly 100 percent of the insulin from their tablets go straight into the liver. In previous attempts to develop a drinkable insulin, most of the insulin would accumulate in the stomach.

Even after two hours of delivery, researchers did not find any insulin in the stomachs of the rats they tested now. It was all in the liver and this is the ideal target for insulin—it's really what they wanted to see.

The team developed a different kind of tablet that isn't made for swallowing, but instead dissolves when placed between the gum and cheek.

This method makes use of the thin membrane found within the lining of the inner cheek and back of the lips (also known as the buccal mucosa). It delivered all the insulin to the liver without wasting or decomposing any insulin along the way.

Similar to the rapid-acting insulin injection, this new oral delivery tablet absorbs after half an hour and can last for about two to four hours long.

Now human trials are awaited. 

Yigong Guo et al, Production of high loading insulin nanoparticles suitable for oral delivery by spray drying and freeze drying techniques, Scientific Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-13092-6

Living in timber cities could avoid emissions, without using farmla...

Housing a growing population in homes made out of wood instead of conventional steel and concrete could avoid more than 100 billion tons of emissions of the greenhouse gas CO2 until 2100, a new study by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research shows. These are about 10% of the remaining carbon budget for the 2°C climate target. Besides the harvest from natural forests, newly established timber plantations are required for supplying construction wood. While this does not interfere with food production, a loss of biodiversity may occur if not carefully managed, according to the scientists. The study is the first to analyze the impacts of a large-scale transition to timber cities on land use, land-use change emissions, and long-term carbon storage in harvested wood products.

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Researchers reveal how salt may play into climate warming

A team of Skoltech researchers has published a series of three papers dealing with various aspects of how salt from the ocean water and other salts penetrate into frozen soil that contains gas hydrates—icelike crystals composed of water and gas, mostly methane. This so-called salt migration affects the rate at which permafrost melts as global warming advances. Taking that process into account is therefore necessary for accurate climate change modeling. The research findings are reported in papers dated June 27 and July 9 in the journal Geosciences, and in the July 5 paper in Energy & Fuels.

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Shape of coronavirus affects its transmission, study finds

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, images of the coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, have been seared in our minds. But the way we picture the virus, typically as a sphere with spikes, is not strictly accurate. Microscope images of infected tissues have revealed that coronavirus particles are actually ellipsoidal, displaying a wide variety of squashed and elongated shapes.

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Compound found in trees has potential to kill drug-resistant bacteria

University of Portsmouth researchers have found a naturally occurring compound, known as hydroquinine, has bacterial killing activity against several microorganisms.

New research in mice offers clues into how the brain processes sensory information from internal organs

Most of us think little of why we feel pleasantly full after eating a big holiday meal, why we start to cough after accidentally inhaling campfire smoke, or why we are hit with sudden nausea after ingesting something toxic. However, such sensations are crucial for survival: they tell us what our bodies need at any given moment so that we can quickly adjust our behavior.

Yet historically, very little research has been devoted to understanding these basic bodily sensations—also known as internal senses—that are generated when the brain receives and interprets input from internal organs.

Now, a team led by researchers at Harvard Medical School has made new strides in understanding the basic biology of internal organ sensing, which involves a complicated cascade of communication between cells inside the body.

In a study conducted in mice and published Aug. 31 in Nature, the team used high-resolution imaging to reveal spatial maps of how neurons in the brain stem respond to feedback from internal organs.

They found that feedback from different organs activates discrete clusters of neurons, regardless of whether this information is mechanical or chemical in nature—and these groups of neurons representing different organs are topographically organized in the brain stem. Moreover, they discovered that inhibition within the brain plays a key role in helping neurons selectively respond to organs.

The research is only a first step in elucidating how internal organs communicate with the brain. However, if the findings are confirmed in other species, including humans, they could help scientists develop better therapeutic strategies for diseases such as eating disorders, overactive bladder, diabetes, pulmonary disorders, and hypertension that arise when internal sensing goes awry.

Stephen Liberles, A brainstem map for visceral sensations, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05139-5. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05139-5

Researchers find spaceflight may be associated with DNA mutations, increased risk of heart disease and cancer

Astronauts are at higher risk for developing mutations—possibly linked to spaceflight—that can increase the risk of developing cancer and heart disease during their lifetimes, according to a first-of-its kind study from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.

A team of researchers collected blood samples from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronauts who flew space shuttle missions between 1998 and 2001. They discovered DNA mutations, known as soamtic mutations, in the blood-forming system ( hematopoietic stem cells)  in all 14 astronauts studied.

Their findings, published in the August issue of Communications Biology, suggest that spaceflight could be associated with these mutations and emphasize the importance of ongoing blood screening of astronauts throughout their careers and during their retirement to monitor their health.

Somatic mutations are mutations that occur after a person is conceived and in cells other than sperm or egg cells, meaning they cannot be passed on to offspring. The mutations identified in this study were characterized by the overrepresentation of blood cells derived from a single clone, a process called clonal hematopoiesis (CH).

Such mutations are frequently caused by environmental factors, such as exposure to ultraviolet radiation or certain chemicals, and may be a result of cancer chemo- or radiotherapy. There are few signs or symptoms associated with CH; most patients are identified after genetic testing of their blood for other diseases. Although CH is not necessarily an indicator of disease, it is associated with a higher risk for cardiovascular disease and blood cancer.

Astronauts work in an extreme environment where many factors can result in somatic mutations, most importantly space radiation, which means there is a risk that these mutations could develop into clonal hematopoiesis. Given the growing interest in both commercial spaceflights and deep space exploration, and the potential health risks of exposure to various harmful factors that are associated with repeated or long-duration exploration space missions.

 Agnieszka Brojakowska et al, Retrospective analysis of somatic mutations and clonal hematopoiesis in astronauts, Communications Biology (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-03777-z

Excessive blue light from our gadgets may accelerate the aging process

Too much screen use has been linked to obesity and psychological problems. Now a new study has identified a new problem—a study in fruit flies suggests our basic cellular functions could be impacted by the blue light emitted by these devices. These results are published in Frontiers in Aging.

Excessive exposure to blue light from everyday devices, such as TVs, laptops, and phones, may have detrimental effects on a wide range of cells in our body, from skin and fat cells, to sensory neurons. 

This work is the first to show that the levels of specific metabolites—chemicals that are essential for cells to function correctly—are altered in fruit flies exposed to blue light. This study suggests that avoidance of excessive blue light exposure may be a good anti-aging strategy. 

Highlights of this work:

Blue light exposure caused significant differences in the levels of metabolites measured by the researchers in the cells of fly heads. In particular, they found that the levels of the metabolite succinate were increased, but glutamate levels were lowered.

Succinate is essential for producing the fuel for the function and growth of each cell. High levels of succinate after exposure to blue light can be compared to gas being in the pump but not getting into the car.

Another troubling discovery was that molecules responsible for communication between neurons, such as glutamate, are at the lower level after blue light exposure.

The changes recorded by the researchers suggest that the cells are operating at suboptimal level, and this may cause their premature death, and further, explain their previous findings that blue light accelerates aging.

"LEDs have become the main illumination in display screens such as phones, desktops and TVs, as well as ambient lighting, so humans in advanced societies are exposed to blue light through LED lighting during most of their waking hours. The signaling chemicals in the cells of flies and humans are the same, so the there is potential for negative effects of blue light on humans too, according to researchers.

Jun Yang et al, Chronic blue light leads to accelerated aging in Drosophila by impairing energy metabolism and neurotransmitter levels, Frontiers in Aging (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fragi.2022.983373

Scientists eavesdrop on communication between fat and brain

For years, it was assumed that hormones passively floating through the blood were the way that a person's fat—called adipose tissue—could send information related to stress and metabolism to the brain. Now,  Research scientists report in Nature that newly identified sensory neurons carry a stream of messages from adipose tissue to the brain.

The discovery of these neurons suggests for the first time that your brain is actively surveying your fat, rather than just passively receiving messages about it. The implications of this finding are profound.

This is yet another example of how important sensory neurons are to health and disease in the human body.

In mammals, adipose tissue stores energy in the form of fat cells and, when the body needs energy, releases those stores. It also controls a host of hormones and signaling molecules related to hunger and metabolism. In diseases including diabetes, fatty liver disease, atherosclerosis and obesity, that energy storage and signaling often goes awry. Researchers have long known that nerves extend into adipose tissue, but suspected they weren't sensory neurons that carry data to the brain. Instead, most hypothesized that the nerves in fat belonged mostly to the sympathetic nervous system—the network responsible for our fight-or-flight response, which switches on fat-burning pathways during times of stress and physical activity. Attempts to clarify the types and functions of these neurons have been difficult; methods used to study neurons closer to the surface of the body or in the brain don't work well deep in adipose tissue, where nerves are hard to see or to stimulate.

Part 1

The experiments revealed that when the brain doesn't receive sensory messages from adipose tissue, programs triggered by the sympathetic nervous system—related to the conversion of white fat to brown fat—become overly active in fat cells, resulting in a larger than normal fat pad with especially high levels of brown fat, which breaks down other fat and sugar molecules to produce heat. Indeed, the animals with blocked sensory neurons—and high levels of sympathetic signaling—had increased body temperatures.

The findings suggest that the sensory neurons and sympathetic neurons might have two opposing functions, with sympathetic neurons needed to turn on fat burning and the production of brown fat, and sensory neurons required to turn these programs down.

This tells us that there's not just a one-size-fits-all instruction that brain sends adipose tissue. It's more nuanced than that; these two types of neurons are acting like a gas pedal and a brake for burning fat.

Li Ye, The role of somatosensory innervation of adipose tissues, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05137-7. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05137-7

Part 2

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How the brain generates rhythmic behaviour

Many of our bodily functions, such as walking, breathing, and chewing, are controlled by brain circuits called central oscillators, which generate rhythmic firing patterns that regulate these behaviours.

neuroscientists have now discovered the neuronal identity and mechanism underlying one of these circuits: an oscillator that controls the rhythmic back-and-forth sweeping of tactile whiskers, or whisking, in mice. This is the first time that any such oscillator has been fully characterized in mammals.

The research team found that the whisking oscillator consists of a population of inhibitory neurons in the brainstem that fires rhythmic bursts during whisking. As each neuron fires, it also inhibits some of the other neurons in the network, allowing the overall population to generate a synchronous rhythm that retracts the whiskers from their protracted positions.

 Shwetha Srinivasan et al, Ligand-induced transmembrane conformational coupling in monomeric EGFR, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-31299-z

Climate change: 

This Hot Summer Is One of the Coolest of the Rest of Our Lives

Heat waves broke temperature records around the world this past summer, but it will still be one of the coolest summers of the next few decades!

Physicists on Earth are experimenting with matter which is about 3 billion times colder than deep space!

Physicists have used atoms about 3 billion times colder than interstellar space to open a portal to an unexplored realm of quantum magnetism.

Unless an alien civilization is doing experiments like these right now, anytime this experiment is running at Kyoto University, Japan,  it is making the coldest fermions in the universe. Fermions are not rare particles. They include things like electrons and are one of two types of particles that all matter is made of.

Fermions are not rare particles. They include things like electrons and are one of two types of particles that all matter is made of.

Researchers used lasers to cool its fermions, atoms of ytterbium, within about one-billionth of a degree of absolute zero, the unattainable temperature where all motion stops. That's about 3 billion times colder than interstellar space, which is still warmed by the afterglow from the Big Bang.

The payoff of getting this cold is that the physics really changes. The physics starts to become more quantum mechanical, and it lets you see new phenomena.

 Shintaro Taie, Observation of antiferromagnetic correlations in an ultracold SU(N) Hubbard model, Nature Physics (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41567-022-01725-6. www.nature.com/articles/s41567-022-01725-6

Mice grow bigger on the rainier sides of mountains: It might be a new rule of nature.

Scientists studying mice from the Andes Mountains in Patagonia noticed something they couldn't explain: the mice from the western side of the mountains were bigger than the ones from the east, but DNA said that they were all from the same species. The researchers examined the skulls of 450 mice from the southern tip of South America, and found that existing biological laws didn't explain the size differences. Instead, in a new paper in the Journal of Biogeography, the scientists put forth a new hypothesis: the mice on the western slopes were bigger because that side of the mountain range gets more rain, which means there's more plentiful food for the mice to eat.

There are a bunch of ecogeographic rules that scientists use to explain trends that we see again and again in nature. With this paper, researchers might have found a new one: the rain shadow effect can cause changes of size and shape in mammals.

Some individuals of the mice species were really big, and some were really small. Researchers thought they were different species. But their mitochondrial DNA suggested that they were one species, even though they're so different.

Part 1

There are lots of "rules" of nature explaining patterns that we see in life. For instance, Bergmann's rule explains why animals of the same species are bigger in higher latitudes. White-tailed deer in Canada are larger and bulkier than their skinny Floridian cousins. Bergmann's rule explains that this is because having a thicker body in relation to your surface area helps you retain heat better, the same way that big pieces of food take longer to cool down than smaller bites.

To try to find a pattern to explain the differences in size, the researchers used statistical analyses to compare measurements of 450 mouse skulls. They then tried to map their findings onto different biological rules to see if any fit. Bergmann's rule didn't work; there wasn't a strong correlation between mouse size and how far north or south the specimen lived. Other rules emphasize the role of temperature or precipitation, with mixed results for different groups and situations. This team did not find that latitude, or one of 19 other bioclimatic, temperature, or precipitation variables, best described the mice's varying shapes and sizes. However, there did seem to be a pattern with longitude— how far east or west the mice lived.

This might be related to what biologists call the "resource rule." This rule suggests that where there are more resources, individuals from the same species tend to be larger than where there are fewer resources. For instance, some deer mice that are found in deserts and other habitats tend to be smaller in drier portions of their habitats. Another hypothesis suggests that some animals tend to be smaller in mountains versus adjacent plains in North America. This new study found a mixed result of these rules.

 Noé de la Sancha et al, Andean rain shadow effect drives phenotypic variation in a widely distributed Austral rodent, Journal of Biogeography (2022).

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Carbon dioxide should cost 3.6 times more than US price, study says

Each ton of carbon dioxide that exits a smokestack or tailpipe is doing far more damage than what governments take into account, researchers conclude in a scientific paper published recently. 

Major hurricanes pack more rain, while extremes of wildfire, drought and downpours are all happening more often and with more intensity due to climate change, causing loss of communities, homes and lives all over the world. But what is the actual cost in dollar terms of the carbon emissions driving climactic change?

That's what researchers from a variety of fields—science, economics, medicine—are trying to figure out through a metric called the social cost of carbon, a price that represents the total climate damage caused to society through carbon emissions. It's been used in the past to justify tougher limits on carbon emissions and more spending on climate solutions, like transitioning to renewable energy and natural flood protection.

Currently, the United States government uses a price of $51 per ton of carbon dioxide emitted, but the researchers wrote in the journal Nature that the price should be $185 per ton—3.6 times higher than the current U.S. standard.

David Anthoff, Comprehensive Evidence Implies a Higher Social Cost of CO₂, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05224-9. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05224-9

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Europe's fiery summer: a climate 'reality check'? Wildfires and storms. Rivers at record lows. Parched crops withering in the fields. For many Europeans, this year's scorching summer means climate change is increasingly hard to ignore.

Circadian rhythm disruption found to be common among mental health disorders

Anxiety, autism, schizophrenia and Tourette syndrome each have their own distinguishing characteristics, but one factor bridging these and most other mental disorders is circadian rhythm disruption, according to a team of neuroscience, pharmaceutical sciences and computer science researchers .

In an article published recently in the Nature journal Translational Psychiatry, the scientists hypothesize that CRD is a psychopathology factor shared by a broad range of mental illnesses and that research into its molecular foundation could be key to unlocking better therapies and treatments.

Circadian rhythms regulate our bodies' physiological activity and biological processes during each solar day. Synchronized to a 24-hour light/dark cycle, circadian rhythms influence when we normally need to sleep and when we're awake. They also manage other functions such as hormone production and release, body temperature maintenance and consolidation of memories. Effective, nondisrupted operation of this natural timekeeping system is necessary for the survival of all living organisms.

Circadian rhythms are intrinsically sensitive to light/dark cues, so they can be easily disrupted by light exposure at night, and the level of disruption appears to be sex-dependent and changes with age. One example is a hormonal response to CRD felt by pregnant women; both the mother and the fetus can experience clinical effects from CRD and chronic stress.

Circadian rhythms play a fundamental role in all biological systems at all scales, from molecules to populations. This new work analysis found that circadian rhythm disruption is a factor that broadly overlaps the entire spectrum of mental health disorders.

The telltale sign of circadian rhythm disruption—a problem with sleep—was present in each disorder.While  the focus was on widely known conditions including autism, ADHD and bipolar disorder, researchers argue that the CRD psychopathology factor hypothesis can be generalized to other mental health issues, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, food addiction and Parkinson's disease. The researchers found ample evidence of the connection by thoroughly examining peer-reviewed literature on the most prevalent mental health disorders.

Amal Alachkar et al, The hidden link between circadian entropy and mental health disorders, Translational Psychiatry (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41398-022-02028-3

Researcher unlocks mystery of 'chemo-brain,' identifies possible treatment

Though chemotherapy can be lifesaving, the cancer treatment often leaves patients suffering from debilitating side effects, including cognitive impairments in processing speed, memory, executive function and attention. Dubbed "chemo brain," these lingering symptoms can dramatically impact patients' quality of life long after they have completed their cancer treatments.

This is the first evidence that chemotherapy alters an important cellular pathway called sphingolipid metabolism in critical areas of the brain linked to cognitive function.

Currently, there are no FDA-approved drugs to mitigate these deficits. In breakthrough findings, researchers have uncovered some of the molecular events that happen when chemotherapy drugs cause these deficits. More promising still, they've found that an already-approved FDA drug designed to treat multiple sclerosis also appears to work to reduce chemotherapy-related cognitive impairment (CRCI).

 Silvia Squillace et al, Sphingosine-1-phosphate receptor 1 activation in the central nervous system drives cisplatin-induced cognitive impairment, Journal of Clinical Investigation (2022). DOI: 10.1172/JCI157738