Major discovery about mammalian brains

In a new breakthrough to understand more about the mammalian brain, University of Copenhagen researchers have made an incredible discovery. Namely, a vital enzyme that enables brain signals is switching on and off at random, even taking hours-long "breaks from work". These findings may have a major impact on our understanding of the brain and the development of pharmaceuticals.

Millions of neurons are constantly messaging each other to shape thoughts and memories and let us move our bodies at will. When two neurons meet to exchange a message, neurotransmitters are transported from one neuron to another with the aid of a unique enzyme.

This process is crucial for neuronal communication and the survival of all complex organisms. Until now, researchers worldwide thought that these enzymes were active at all times to convey essential signals continuously. But this is far from the case.

Using an innovative method, researchers  have closely studied the enzyme and discovered that its activity is switching on and off at random intervals, which contradicts our previous understanding.

This is the first time anyone has studied these mammalian brain enzymes one molecule at a time, and we are awed by the result. Contrary to popular belief, and unlike many other proteins, these enzymes could stop working for minutes to hours. Still, the brains of humans and other mammals are miraculously able to function.

Dimitrios Stamou, Regulation of the mammalian-brain V-ATPase through ultraslow mode-switching, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05472-9

World's heaviest flying bird may be self-medicating on plants used in traditional medicine

Do you think only humans can use plant based medicines based on experience? Then think again. Even animals can do this. Humans aren't the only species that self-medicates.

If you see a great bustard (Otis tarda) in the wild, you're unlikely to forget it. Massive, colorful, and impossible to mistake, they are the heaviest birds living today capable of flight, with the greatest size difference between the sexes. They are also "lek breeders," where males gather at chosen sites to put on an audiovisual show for the visiting females, who choose a mate based on his appearance and the quality of his showbirdship.

But now, a study in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution suggests that great bustards have another claim to our interest: they actively seek out two plants with compounds that can kill pathogens. They may thus be a rare example of a bird that uses plants against disease—that is, self-medication.

Self-medication in animals is suspected to occur, with a lesser or greater degree of confidence, in animals as diverse as primates, bears, deer, elk, macaws, honeybees, and fruit flies. But it's tricky to prove beyond doubt in wild animals.

We can't compare between control and experimental treatments. And double-blind trials or dose-effect studies, obligatory steps in human or veterinary medicine, are obviously impossible in wild animals.

Great bustards breed on grasslands from western Europe and northwest Africa to central and eastern Asia. Approximately 70% of the world's population live in the Iberian peninsula. Females typically remain faithful to the home range where they hatched for life—10 to 15 years—while after dispersal, males revisit the same lake site year after year. By staying (and importantly, pooping) in the same area for prolonged periods, they risk re-infecting themselves. And males need exceptional stamina during the mating season, which is expected to cause their immune defenses to nose-dive.

In theory, both sexes of great bustards might benefit from seeking out medicinal plants in the mating season when sexually transmitted diseases are common—while males that use plants with compounds active against diseases might appear more healthy, vigorous, and attractive to females.

The  research team have studied great bustards since since the early 1980s, mainly in the regions of Madrid and Castille-Leon, Spain. They collected a total of 623 droppings from female and male great bustards, including 178 during the mating season in April. Under a microscope, they counted the abundance of recognizable remains (tissue from stems, leaves, and flowers) of 90 plant species that grow locally and are known to on the bustards' menu.

The results showed that two species are eaten by great bustards more often than expected from their abundance: corn poppies, Papaver rhoeas and purple viper's bugloss, Echium plantagineum.

"Great bustards select corn poppies and purple viper's bugloss mainly in the mating season , in April, when their energy expenditure is greatest. And males, who during these months spend much of their time and energy budgets on sexual display, prefer them more than females.

Part 1

Of these two species, the first is avoided by cattle and is used in traditional medicine as a pain reliever, sedative, and immune booster. The second is toxic for humans and cattle if eaten in great quantities. They also have nutritional value: fatty acids abound in corn poppy seeds, while the seeds of purple viper's bugloss are rich in edible oils.

The authors isolated water- and fat-soluble compounds from both species and determined their chemical identity with gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (HPLC-MS). They focused on lipids, volatile essential oils, and alkaloids, produced by many plants as defense against herbivores. For example, they found that corn poppies are rich in bioactive alkaloids like rhoeadine, rhoeagenine, epiberberine, and canadine.

The authors then tested the activity of the isolated molecular fractions against three common parasites of birds: the protozoon Trichomonas gallinae, the nematode (parasitic worm) Meloidogyne javanica, and the fungus Aspergillus niger.

The results show that extracts from both plants are highly effective at inhibiting or killing protozoa and nematodes in vitro, while purple viper's bugloss is also moderately active against fungi.

The authors conclude that great bustards are prime candidates for birds that seek out specific plants to self-medicate. But more research is needed, they caution.The ultimate proof of self-medication requires experimental protocols developed in the biomedical, veterinary, and pharmacological sciences.

Luis M. Bautista-Sopelana et al, Bioactivity of plants eaten by wild birds against laboratory models of parasites and pathogens, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution (2022). DOI: 10.3389/fevo.2022.1027201

Part 2

**

Zombie viruses on a hijacking trip: Retroviral gene fragments affect embryonic cells

Ancient, dormant sequences in the genome impact embryonic development in unexpected ways. The mammalian genome contains retroviral sequences that are in an undead but mostly "harmless" state. An international research team recently discovered how some of these retroviral gene fragments affect embryonic cells if they are unleashed. Unexpectedly, not the viral proteins, but rather copies of the genetic material itself generate an imbalance in the cell.

Over thousands of years of evolution, countless viruses have embedded themselves in our genome. A staggering ten percent of mammalian genomes consist of ancient retroviral sequences. These no longer seem to pose any danger, because most of them have mutated beyond recognition. Additionally, these genes have been epigenetically silenced by the cell. But as the silencing of the viral remains fails, they will rise from their graves, causing chaos in the cell.

Researchers found that the messenger copies of some of the viral genes, the RNA, have an important impact on embryonic cells. The viral sequences seem to remember their original mission of hijacking the molecular machinery that ensures the flow of information from DNA to RNA to protein. Interestingly, the messenger RNA itself seems to be responsible.

Scientists  described that the RNA of the resurrected viruses exerts attractive forces on the enzymes that read the information from the DNA. The tasks of the embryonic cell—such as reading important embryonic genes—are neglected and a fatal imbalance develops. This unleashed state occurs, for example, in some types of cancer and neurological diseases.

Viruses are cleverly constructed snippets of genetic information. Some of them incorporate themselves into the genome of their hosts and persist there. Thousands of copies of Endogenous Retroviruses (ERVs) have spread throughout mammalian genomes, often in droves of hundreds of repetitive copies.

As retroviruses jump from one section of DNA to the next during their life cycle, they can alter genes and even recombine them. This makes them an important tool for evolution to create new genes. For an individual organism however, uncontrolled gene modification does not bode well, especially during embryonic development. 

Part 1

This is why the cell will identify ERV sequences and recruit dedicated repressive machinery to their sites and keep them silent. Additionally, the chromosome is getting compacted at these sites.

But what happens if you turn off these protective mechanisms? Chaos!

Vahid Asimi et al, Hijacking of transcriptional condensates by endogenous retroviruses, Nature Genetics (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41588-022-01132-w

Plastic in foraminifera and possible consequences for the environment

Single-celled organisms with calcareous shells, called foraminifera, contribute significantly to the formation of sand deposited on beaches, islands and coastal areas. Researchers  have now found for the first time that foraminifera can take up tiny plastic particles and incorporate them into their calcareous shells. The results were published in Scientific Reports and Limnology and Oceanography Letters.

Gleaming white tropical beaches are coveted destinations for many recreation-seekers. But how do we perceive such beaches if we have to fear that they consist to a not inconsiderable extent of micro- and nanoplastics—invisible to our eyes?

Tropical beaches are mainly formed by calcifying marine animals such as corals, mussels and snails. The fact that corals incorporate microplastics into their calcareous skeleton has already been proven in studies. In some regions of the world, however, such as Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia, many beaches consist largely of the calcareous shells of foraminifera. These are single-celled organisms, a few millimeters in size and with a protective calcareous shell, that can be found in warm, shallow coastal areas worldwide.

Foraminifera feed on, among other things, microalgae or organic material particles they find on the seafloor. Micro- and nanoplastic particles have similar sizes and could easily be mistaken for potential food.

In a series of experiments, the team exposed several hundred foraminifera to seawater tanks for several weeks. They fed them partly with tiny micro- or nanoplastic particles, partly with natural food particles or a mixture of both. They observed that while the foraminifera preferred the natural food, when both were available at the same time, they frequently ate plastic pieces.

Using a fluorescence microscope, the researchers were able to observe a large number of yellow glowing nanoplastic particles in the foraminifera. Although some of the unicellular organisms rejected the plastic after the feeding experiments, about half of the foraminifera retained the plastic load inside the cell.

After eight weeks, a scanning electron microscope with 80,000x magnification revealed that many of the single-celled organisms had already encrusted the plastic particles with a layer of calcium carbonate and were apparently in the process of incorporating them into their shell.

So if the plastic particles are small enough, the foraminifera will take them in as food. For the environment, this could have advantages and disadvantages. For example, the trillions of foraminifera on the seafloor could be a sink for nanoplastics, a system that removes plastic from the ocean.

One problem the researcher sees, however, is potential impacts on the health of the foraminifera. On beaches and in shallow marine areas, the shells of foraminifera are often deposited at high densities of more than 1 kg per m2. However, if the protozoa interchange plastic particles with their natural food and incorporate them into their calcareous shells, their fitness, shell formation and stability could be disrupted—with consequences for their population as a whole.
Part 1

This, in turn, could have a long-term impact on coasts and islands, which are already suffering greatly under the weight of sea-level rise and erosion from increasingly frequent and powerful storm surges.

Marlena Joppien et al, Nanoplastic incorporation into an organismal skeleton, Scientific Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-18547-4

Marlena Joppien et al, Microplastics alter feeding strategies of a coral reef organism, Limnology and Oceanography Letters (2022). DOI: 10.1002/lol2.10237

Part2

Researchers suggest that wormholes may look almost identical to black holes

A group of researchers  has found evidence that suggests the reason that a wormhole has never been observed is that they appear almost identical to black holes.

They describe studying theoretical linear polarization from an accretion disk that would be situated around a class of static traversable wormholes and compared the findings to images of black holes.

For many years, scientists and science fiction writers have considered the theoretical possibility of a wormhole. Such an object, theory suggests, would take the form of a tunnel of sorts that connects two different parts of the universe. Moving through the tunnel would allow for travel to distant destinations in ways not available to spaceships incapable of moving faster than the speed of light—by taking a shortcut.

Unfortunately, no one has ever observed a worm hole or even any physical evidence that they actually exist. Still, because the theory for their existence is so strong, astrophysicists assume they do exist. The problem is that we either lack the technology to see them, or we have not been looking for them in the right way.

In this new effort, the researchers suggest that the latter is the problem. They have found evidence, via theory, that suggests that they might be sitting out there in the night sky in plain sight, and that the reason we are not seeing them is because we are mistaking them for black holes.

The work involved studying wormhole theories and then applying findings to the creation of simulations, with an emphasis on the polarity of the light that would be emitted by such an object—and by also taking account of the characteristics of an assumed disk surrounding its mouth. They then created both direct and indirect images to depict what a wormhole would look like and compared them to black holes; they found them to look remarkably similar.

The researchers noted that it should be possible to tell wormholes and black holes apart by noting subtle differences between them, such as polarization patterns and intensities and also their radii.

New CRISPR-based tool inserts large DNA sequences at desired sites in cells

Building on the CRISPR gene-editing system, researchers have designed a new tool that can snip out faulty genes and replace them with new ones, in a safer and more efficient way.

Using this system, the researchers showed that they could deliver genes as long as 36,000 DNA base pairs to several types of human cells, as well as to liver cells in mice. The new technique, known as PASTE, could hold promise for treating diseases that are caused by defective genes with a large number of mutations, such as cystic fibrosis.

The new tool combines the precise targeting of CRISPR-Cas9, a set of molecules originally derived from bacterial defense systems, with enzymes called integrases, which viruses use to insert their own genetic material into a bacterial genome.

Just like CRISPR, these integrases come from the ongoing battle between bacteria and the viruses that infect them. 

--

The CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system consists of a DNA-cutting enzyme called Cas9 and a short RNA strand that guides the enzyme to a specific area of the genome, directing Cas9 where to make its cut. When Cas9 and the guide RNA targeting a disease gene are delivered into cells, a specific cut is made in the genome, and the cells' DNA repair processes glue the cut back together, often deleting a small portion of the genome.

If a DNA template is also delivered, the cells can incorporate a corrected copy into their genomes during the repair process. However, this process requires cells to make double-stranded breaks in their DNA, which can cause chromosomal deletions or rearrangements that are harmful to cells. Another limitation is that it only works in cells that are dividing, as nondividing cells don't have active DNA repair processes.

This new work deals with a tool that could cut out a defective gene and replace it with a new one without inducing any double-stranded DNA breaks. To achieve this goal, they turned to a family of enzymes called integrases, which viruses called bacteriophages use to insert themselves into bacterial genomes.

For this study, the researchers focused on serine integrases, which can insert huge chunks of DNA, as large as 50,000 base pairs. These enzymes target specific genome sequences known as attachment sites, which function as "landing pads." When they find the correct landing pad in the host genome, they bind to it and integrate their DNA payload. Combining these enzymes with a CRISPR-Cas9 system that inserts the correct landing site would enable easy reprogramming of the powerful insertion system.

The new tool, PASTE (Programmable Addition via Site-specific Targeting Elements), includes a Cas9 enzyme that cuts at a specific genomic site, guided by a strand of RNA that binds to that site. This allows them to target any site in the genome for insertion of the landing site, which contains 46 DNA base pairs. This insertion can be done without introducing any double-stranded breaks by adding one DNA strand first via a fused reverse transcriptase, then its complementary strand.

Once the landing site is incorporated, the integrase can come along and insert its much larger DNA payload into the genome at that site.

Omar Abudayyeh, Drag-and-drop genome insertion of large sequences without double-strand DNA cleavage using CRISPR-directed integrases, Nature Biotechnology (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41587-022-01527-4. www.nature.com/articles/s41587-022-01527-4

Scientists reveal first close-up look at bats' immune response to live infection

In a world first, scientists  have sequenced the response to viral infection in colony-bred cave nectar bats (Eonycteris spelaea) at single-cell resolution. Published in the journal Immunity, the findings contribute to insights into bat immunity that could be harnessed to protect human health.

Bats harbor many types of viruses. Even when they are infected with viruses deadly to humans, they show no notable signs or symptoms of disease. By understanding how bats' immune responses protect them from infections, we may find clues that will help humans to better combat viral infections.

And knowing how to better fight viral infections can aid in the development of treatments that will help us to be more bat-like—by falling sick less and aging better.

In this study, the scientists investigated bat immune responses to Malacca virus, a double-stranded RNA virus that uses bats as its natural reservoir. This virus also causes mild respiratory disease in humans.

The team used single-cell transcriptome sequencing to study lung immune responses to infections at the cellular level, identifying the different types of immune cells in bats—some of which are different from those in other mammals, including humans—and uncovering what they do in response to such viral infections.

They found that a type of white blood cell, called neutrophils, showed a very high expression of a gene called IDO1, which is known to play a role in mediating immune suppression in humans. The scientists think that IDO1 expression in cave nectar bats could play an important role in limiting inflammation following infection.

Researchers also found marked anti-viral gene signatures in white blood cells known as monocytes and alveolar macrophages, which—in a sense—consume viral particles and then teach T cells how to recognize the virus. This observation is interesting as it shows that bats clearly activate an immune response following infection despite showing few outward symptoms or pathology. The team also identified an unusual diversity and abundance of T cells and natural killer cells—named for their ability to kill tumor cells and cells infected with a virus—in the cave nectar bat, which are broadly activated to respond to the infection.

Akshamal M. Gamage et al, Single-cell transcriptome analysis of the in vivo response to viral infection in the cave nectar bat Eonycteris spelaea, Immunity (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.immuni.2022.10.008

Bacteria that break down nicotine found in the guts of mice

A team of researchers, has isolated a type of bacteria in the guts of mice that break down nicotine. In their paper published in the journal Nature, the group describes how they isolated the bacteria and why their finding could reduce incidences of fatty liver disease in humans.

Prior research has shown that smoking cigarettes is the leading cause of preventable deaths around the world. In addition to its association with lung disease, smoking cigarettes has also been linked to fatty liver disease. In this new effort, the researchers have found that a certain kind of bacteria breaks down nicotine in the guts of mice (due to forced smoking), and thereby reduces the likelihood of developing fatty liver disease.

When people (or mice) smoke cigarettes, it has been found, some of the nicotine makes its way into the gut, leading to an increased risk of fatty liver disease, associated with scarring, and in some cases, liver cancer.

In this new work, the researchers measured the amount of nicotine that makes its way to the gut by comparing stool samples of 30 human smokers and 30 nonsmokers. They then did the same with mice and found the results to be similar.

Next, they sterilized the guts of several lab mice and ran the nicotine experiment again. They found that the mice with the sterilized guts had more nicotine in their systems, indicating that at least one type of gut bacteria was breaking down the nicotine. Then, by process of elimination, they were able to track down the bacteria (Bacteroides xylanisolvens) that was responsible for the breakdown—it was producing a type of enzyme that breaks down nicotine.

Prior research has shown that B xylanisolven also live in the human gut. The researchers next plan to study it and the enzymes it produces to find out if the enzyme can be produced commercially and given to smokers to reduce their chances of developing fatty liver disease and by extension, liver cancer.

To stop new viruses jumping across to humans, we must protect and r...

Bats have lived with coronaviruses for millennia. Details are still hazy about how one of these viruses evolved into SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID in humans. Did it go directly from bats to humans or via another animal species? When? And why? If we can't answer these questions for this now-infamous virus, we have little hope of preventing the next pandemic.

--

Researchers explain how lipids can control immune response

When we consume fats (also called lipids) in our diet, they can be metabolized or stored to provide energy for the body. But they are also involved in regulating the genes expressed within—and the signaling between—cells. Lipids influence how our cells behave and function, which affects many processes in the body including the immune system.

--

Artificial sweeteners found to kill off antibiotic-resistant bacteria

Sugar substitutes found in many supermarket foods have been shown to kill off antibiotic-resistant bacteria that cause pneumonia and sepsis. Three artificial sweeteners used in products such as diet drinks, yogurts and desserts dramatically halt the growth of multidrug-resistant priority pathogens.

To stop new viruses jumping across to humans, we must protect and restore bat habitat

Bats have lived with coronaviruses for millennia. Details are still hazy about how one of these viruses evolved into SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID in humans. Did it go directly from bats to humans or via another animal species? When? And why? If we can't answer these questions for this now-infamous virus, we have little hope of preventing the next pandemic.

Some bat species are hosts for other viruses lethal to humans, from rabies to Nipah to Hendra. But their supercharged immune systems allow them to co-exist with these viruses without appearing sick.

So what can we do to prevent these viruses emerging in the first place? Researchers found one surprisingly simple answer in their new research on flying foxes in Australia: protect and restore native bat habitat to boost natural protection.

When we destroy native forests, we force nectar-eating flying foxes into survival mode. They shift from primarily nomadic animals following eucalypt flowering and forming large roosts to less mobile animals living in a large number of small roosts near agricultural land where they may come in contact with horses.

Hendra virus is carried by bats and can spill over to horses. It doesn't often spread from horses to humans, but when it does, it's extremely dangerous.

Now we know how habitat destruction and spillover are linked, we can act. Protecting the eucalyptus species flying foxes rely on will reduce the risk of the virus spreading to horses and then humans. The data scientists gathered also makes it possible to predict times of heightened Hendra virus risk—up to two years in advance.

By restoring and protecting the natural barriers which for so long kept us safe from bat-borne viruses. It is far better to prevent viruses from spilling over in the first place than to scramble to stop a possible pandemic once it's begun.

Planting trees can help stop dangerous new viruses reaching us. It really is as simple as that.

 Peggy Eby et al, Pathogen spillover driven by rapid changes in bat ecology, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05506-2

https://phys.org/news/2022-11-viruses-humans-habitat.html?utm_sourc...

Honeypot ants

Bees aren’t the only insects to make honey, some ants can make the sweet treat too.

The honeypot ant, Camponotus inflatus, lives in the deserts of Australia where worker bees harvest nectar from the flowers of the mulga tree. The bees carry it underground and feed it to specialised workers known as ‘rotunds’ whose job it is to dangle upside down and eat.

Indeed, the tubby little insects are fed so much nectar that their abdomens swell up to the size of a small grape, and the abdomen wall is stretched so thin that the honey can be seen inside.

The rotunds form roughly 50 per cent of the colony, and live in cool, underground galleries. They are highly prized by Indigenous Australians who have been excavating and eating them for thousands of years. In the 1990 documentary, Trials Of Life, David Attenborough was filmed quaffing one.

The honey is said to be runnier and less sweet than the better-known bee alternative, but remains rich in antioxidants.

These literal honeypots are an insurance policy against hard times. When the regular workers run out of food, they stroke the rotunds’ antennae, causing the ants to regurgitate the stored honey. They also groom and clean the honeypots to keep the living larders in good condition.

Wolves infected with a common parasite may be much more likely to become pack leaders

A team of researchers with the Yellowstone Wolf Project at the Yellowstone Center for Resources, in Yellowstone National Park, in Wyoming, has found that wolves in the park who become infected with Toxoplasma gondii, a common parasite, are much more likely to become leaders of their pack. In their study, reported in the journal Communications Biology, the group analyzed data from studies of the wolves in the park over a 26-year period.

T. gondii is an obligate parasite that infects the protozoa in cells of infected animals. Such infections are known as toxoplasmosis, and they occur in almost all warm-blooded animals, including humans. Prior research has shown that in most cases, symptoms are few, through there is some evidence that suggests that they can lead to an increase in erratic or aggressive behaviour.

In this new effort, the researchers wondered what sort of impact of T. gondii infections might have on wild wolves. To find out, they conducted an extensive study of wolves living in Yellowstone National Park.

The work involved studying data from blood samples taken from over 200 wolves living in the park over the years 1995–2020, while looking for evidence of infection. The researchers also looked at the notes made by research observers to learn more about any behavior changes that might have been evident in the wolves.

The researchers found that young, infected wolves tended to leave their packs earlier than those uninfected. Infected males were 50% more likely to leave their pack as early as six months after birth. Males normally stay for up to 21 months. And infected females were 25% more likely to leave their pack at 30 months, rather than the normal 48.

The researchers also found that infected males were more than 46 times more likely to become pack leaders than uninfected males. The researchers also found that infection rates were higher in wolves that mingled with cougars. The researchers suggest the differences in behavior were likely due to the impact of the parasite on the brains of wolves, making them bolder and less likely to back down when challenged by others.

Connor J. Meyer et al, Parasitic infection increases risk-taking in a social, intermediate host carnivore, Communications Biology (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s42003-022-04122-0

'SuperGPS' Technology Accurately Pinpoints Your Position Within Inches

Many of us rely on GPS (Global Positioning System) to estimate travel times, find our way to new places, avoid traffic congestion, keep track of the kids, and generally avoid getting lost.

But it's not always the most reliable of systems, especially in built-up areas where it's difficult to get a straight line of sight to and from a satellite.

Now researchers have come up with a new and improved technology that could eventually replace GPS in some scenarios. Called SuperGPS, it's accurate within 10 centimeters (or 3.9 inches) and doesn't rely on navigation satellite systems.

The new approach makes use of networks similar to cell networks, but instead of streaming data to our phones the network gets a precise fix on the device.

A combination of radio transmitters and fiber-optic networks form the foundation of the system, with some smart tweaks on top.

In a test site with six radio transmitters, the researchers were able to demonstrate their system in action across an area of 660 square meters (7,104 square feet). The timings of the transmitted radio signals can be measured and interpreted to gauge distance, which then reveals the position of individual devices.

One of the key components of the new network positioing system is a synchronized atomic clock: perfect timing means more precise positioning. Essentially, the fiber optic cables act as connections that keep everything in sync, and accurate to one billionth of a second. The system also deploys a radio signal bandwidth that's much larger than normal.

Developers used several small bandwidth radio signals combined together to form a larger virtual bandwidth for the network communication.

This additional bandwidth overcomes one of the biggest problems with standard GPS, which is that radio signals get reflected off buildings and can quickly become confused.

"This can make GPS unreliable in urban settings, for instance, which is a problem if we ever want to use automated vehicles.As well as automated vehicles, the new system could be useful in planning quantum communication networks and next-generation networks for mobile devices, according to the researchers who developed it.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05315-7

Mars Sample Return: Bringing Mars Rock Samples Back to Earth

NASA and the European Space Agency are developing plans for one of the most ambitious campaigns ever attempted in space: bringing the first samples of Mars material safely back to Earth for detailed study. The diverse set of scientifically curated samples now being collected by NASA’s Mars Perseverance rover could help scientists answer the question of whether ancient life ever arose on the Red Planet. Bringing samples of Mars to Earth for future study would happen in several steps with multiple spacecraft, and in some ways, in a synchronized manner. This short animation features key moments of the Mars Sample Return campaign: from landing on Mars and securing the sample tubes to launching them off the surface and ferrying them back to Earth.

Researchers recreate the adrenal gland in a petri dish

 Sitting atop the kidneys, the adrenal gland plays a pivotal role in maintaining a healthy body. Responding to signals from the brain, the gland secretes hormones that support critical functions like blood pressure, metabolism, and fertility.

People with adrenal gland disorders—such as primary adrenal insufficiency, in which the gland does not release sufficient hormones—can suffer fatigue, dangerously low blood pressure, coma, and even death if untreated. No cure for primary adrenal insufficiency exists, and the lifelong hormone-replacement therapy used to treat it carries significant side effects.

A preferable alternative would be a regenerative medicine approach, regrowing a functional adrenal gland capable of synthesizing hormones and appropriately releasing them in tune with the brain's feedback. In a new study in the journal Developmental Cell, researchers have coaxed stem cells in a petri dish to divide, mature, and take on some of the functions of a human fetal adrenal gland, bringing that goal one step closer.

To begin, the researchers used what's known as an "organoid culture" system, in which cells grow first as a floating aggregate for three weeks, then on a membrane exposed to air on one side, promoting better survival and allowing them to proliferate in three dimensions. Utilizing a carefully selected growth medium, they prompted the iPSCs to elicit an intermediate tissue type in the adrenal development process, the posterior intermediate mesoderm (PIM).

After verifying they had cultured PIM-like cells, the researchers embarked on directing those cells to transition to the next stage, adrenocortical progenitor-like cells, during which cells turn on markers indicating they have "committed" to becoming adrenal gland cells.

Molecular assays to check for adrenal markers, as well as transmission electron microscope analyses, all told the researchers they were on the right track to recreating a tissue that resembled the early adrenal gland.

The process we developed was highly efficient, with around 50% of cells in organoids acquiring adrenocortical cell fate. They also showed that the cells they grew could respond to what's known as the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis, a feedback loop that governs communication from the brain to the adrenal gland and back again.

Yuka Sakata, Keren Cheng, Michinori Mayama, Yasunari Seita, Andrea J. Detlefsen, Clementina A. Mesaros, Trevor M. Penning, Kyosuke Shishikura, Wenli Yang, Richard J. Auchus, Jerome F. Strauss, Kotaro Sasaki. Reconstitution of human adrenocortical specification and steroidogenesis using induced pluripotent stem cells. Developmental Cell, 2022; 57 (22): 2566 DOI: 10.1016/j.devcel.2022.10.010

Study shows prestigious institutions produce more published manuscripts because they have a bigger labour pool

A quartet of researchers  has found that the reason more prestigious universities are able to publish more scientific papers than lesser institutions is that they have a larger pool of undergrads, fellows and postdocs to assist with such efforts.

In their paper, published in the journal Science Advances, Sam Zhang, Hunter Wapman, Daniel Larremore and Aaron Clauset describe analyzing massive amounts of data in the Web of Science database to learn more about publishing by institutions in the U.S.

Most of the prestigious science paper publishing institutions in the U.S. are college- or university-based. Some of the most well known are MIT, Harvard, Stanford and the University of California. Researchers at these institutions conduct a lot of science research and publish a corresponding number of science-research based papers in peer-reviewed journals.

In this new effort, the research group sought to better understand the factors underlying the tendency of prestigious institutions to produce more published manuscripts than other, less-prestigious institutions.

The work involved sifting data from the Web of Science database, which is actually a portal to several other databases, all of which contain massive amounts of data related to science research efforts. In their effort, the researchers included data from 1.6 million published articles, written by 78,802 authors, all of whom were either tenured or on a tenure track.

The data involved research efforts at 26 U.S. universities that grant Ph.Ds. The researchers focused on data describing productivity of both the authors involved in research efforts and publishing groups as a whole.

The researchers found a pattern—more prestigious schools tend to produce more papers because they have more people available to work on research teams. They noted that neither the senior- nor junior-level people working on the papers were more productive than others working at less-prestigious institutions; it was just more people working and getting more done.

The researchers suggest the possibility that less-prestigious institutions could increase their publication rates if they chose to increase the number of qualified people available to work on research and publishing efforts.

 Sam Zhang et al, Labor advantages drive the greater productivity of faculty at elite universities, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abq7056

**

New kind of tropical cyclone identified in the Indian Ocean

Oceanography experts have described a new kind of cyclone in the Indian Ocean near Sumatra after observing satellite surface winds in the region.

The experts' search for the trigger mechanisms of the Indian Ocean Dipole has led to the discovery of the new type of atmospheric tropical cyclone forming in the South-East Tropical Indian Ocean (SETIO) that they call SETIO Cyclone.

The Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD) is a coupled atmosphere-ocean interaction in the tropical Indian Ocean that strongly affects the climate and rainfall variability of surrounding countries including Australia.

Researchers  found that SETIO cyclones are short-lived weather-like events that develop frequently during austral winter/spring and operate to maintain a warm surface ocean in the region.

Dramatic changes happen in some years when SETIO cyclones fail to develop, and ambient winds trigger the appearance of cold seawater in a vast area strongly disturbing both winds and rainfall patterns over the Indian Ocean.

In the natural sciences, it is of uttermost importance to identify so-called trigger processes, such as SETIO cyclones, that link the cause to an effect.

This is a rare new discovery that sheds new light into the functioning of the IOD.

Ankit Kavi et al, Synoptic-scale atmospheric cyclones in the South-East Tropical Indian Ocean (SETIO) and their relation to IOD variability, Journal of Southern Hemisphere Earth Systems Science (2022). DOI: 10.1071/ES22020

The largest source of abiotic methane gas on Earth

Methane (CH₄), the chief constituent of natural gas, is one of the most widely used "clean" fuels. Although methane is usually considered to originate from organic matter, recently, more and more evidence shows that methane can be produced by abiotic processes.

Researchers demonstrated that large amounts of methane gas can form during prograde metamorphism in a cold subduction zone, evidenced by the massive CH₄-rich fluid inclusions in eclogites from Western Tianshan, China.

Based on their calculation, the potential CH₄ flux from worldwide modern subduction zones is estimated to be as much as ~10.8 Mt/y. Consequently, the subducted cold oceanic crust may produce the largest amount of abiotic methane, along with other abiotic methane sources such as that from mid-ocean ridges or that from by high-pressure serpentinization.

Massive CH₄-rich fluid inclusions have been found in garnet and omphcite, which are the main constituent minerals of eclogite in the West Tianshan subduction zone (eclogite is the most important high grade metamorphic rock during cold subduction). Isotopic analyses and petrological studies both demonstrated that this methane was of abiotic origin and formed by water-rocks reactions during the prograde high-pressure to ultrahigh-pressure metamorphism.

 Lijuan Zhang et al, Massive abiotic methane production in eclogite during cold subduction, National Science Review (2022). DOI: 10.1093/nsr/nwac207

Blood Thinner Ineffective for COVID-19 Patients: Study

A clinical trial finds that the anticoagulant apixaban, which has been prescribed to help COVID-19 patients recover, is ineffective and in rare instances dangerous.

N

ew data from a clinical trial suggest that apixaban, an anticoagulant that’s widely been prescribed to promote recovery in patients with severe cases of COVID-19, doesn’t offer any discernable benefit for people with the disease.

The UK-wide trial, which is run by Addenbrooke’s Hospital and the University of Cambridge, involved more than 1,000 hospitalized COVID-19 patients and compared the outcomes of those who had been randomly assigned to receive apixaban to those who had not, according to Financial Times. It found that 29.1 percent of those who received the blood thinner either ended up back in the hospital or died within a year, compared to 30.8 percent of people who weren’t given the drug. That finding doesn’t support apixaban as an effective treatment for COVID-19, and the researchers conclude that doctors ought to stop prescribing it to their coronavirus patients. Meanwhile, BBC News reports that a “small number” of the 402 patients who took apixaban had to discontinue treatment due to severe bleeding.

The trial will continue with other drugs thought to help against COVID-19, according to BBC News, including a statin called atorvastatin that may help lessen the inflammatory response launched by COVID-19 patients’ immune systems and so prevent tissue damage.

https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04801940

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/blood-thinner-ineffectiv...

A secret of developing life: In some instances the fetus helps repair a ruptured amniotic sac

Premature rupture of the amniotic sac can have devastating consequences, but scientists are studying instances when the damaged sac repairs itself—a phenomenon that requires cooperation of the developing fetus.

A new investigation of the amnion, the innermost layer of epithelial cells in the amniotic sac reveals a cascade of cellular events that result in sac repair. The new research helps lay the groundwork for a keener understanding of both healthy pregnancies and when things go awry.

Aware that premature rupture of the amniotic membranes can lead to premature birth, researchers are asking what causes the sac to reseal. Producing a definitive answer to that question may ultimately lead to interventions that prevent premature birth for those whose membranes don't reseal. The biggest potential benefit down the road is guarding against the sometimes lethal outcomes when babies are born too small, too soon.

The premature rupture of the amniotic sac, a condition referred to as a preterm prelabour rupture of membranes (pPROM) is a leading cause of preterm birth. In some cases, these ruptured membranes heal spontaneously. Researchers investigated repair mechanisms of the amnion, a layer of epithelial cells in the amniotic sac closest to the fetus.

Amniotic membranes normally remain intact until the onset of active labor or within 24 hours before labor starts. pPROM may not be easy to detect. For some women, fluid leaks slowly and may be mistaken for urine. Obstetricians say it's important to note that amniotic fluid usually has no color and doesn't smell like urine. They also underscore that premature membrane rupture can occur for a variety of reasons.

In some women the amnion can rupture early for reasons ranging from infections of the uterus, cervix, or vagina to too much stretching of the amniotic sac. The latter may occur as a direct result of too much fluid in the sac, or more than one baby putting pressure on the membranes. Other causes of membrane rupture include conditions such as malnutrition, or intrauterine bleeding. Smoking is another factor that can cause rupture.

In this new study the research  team found that fetal macrophages are recruited to rupture sites in both the human and mouse amnion and assist in the repair of torn membranes.

Macrophages migrated to and resided at rupture sites in both human and mouse amnion. A process called epithelial-mesenchymal transition,  in which epithelial cells acquire a mesenchymal phenotype and which is implicated in tissue repair, was observed at rupture sites.

In short, epithelial cells took on the role of mesenchymal cells and helped begin the process of resealing. None of the cascade of biological events would have occurred without macrophages first migrating to and taking up residence at the rupture site. This shows that ruptures are reversible with repairs

The membrane repair is highly reliant on signaling molecules: in this case, transformation growth factor-β/Smad—TGF-β/Smad—signaling. TGF-β/Smad was prominent in both mouse and human samples. 

This  study's findings could potentially inform research into treatments for preterm membrane ruptures to prevent preterm birth.

Yosuke Kawamura et al, Fetal macrophages assist in the repair of ruptured amnion through the induction of epithelial-mesenchymal transition, Science Signaling (2022). DOI: 10.1126/scisignal.abi5453

The effects of climate change on body size evolution

The Northern Treeshrew, a small, bushy-tailed mammal native to South and Southeast Asia, defies two of the most widely tested ecological "rules" of body size variation within species, according to a new study.

The unexpected finding, researchers say, may be attributable to climate change—the body size rules reversed in Northern Treeshrews as average temperatures climbed—and likely exists in other species.

The first-of-its-kind study, published Nov. 29 in the journal Scientific Reports, found that the Northern Treeshrew (Tupaia belangeri) breaks both Bergmann's rule and the island rule. The former describes a common pattern wherein individuals of a warm-blooded species inhabiting colder climates—generally located at higher latitudes—have larger average body sizes than those in warmer climates, which are usually at lower latitudes. The latter predicts that small mammal species evolve larger body sizes on islands than their mainland counterparts, whereas island-bound large mammals evolve smaller body sizes.

Although both rules have been repeatedly tested from a strictly geographic standpoint, how they interact—and possibly even change over shorter timescales amidst rapid climate change—has never been rigorously examined.

In the first published study to do so, researchers analyzed 839 museum specimens of adult Northern Treeshrews collected over 130 years from across their entire geographic range, including mainland and island populations, along with historical climate data.

They found that, contrary to Bergmann's rule, body size of the Northern Treeshrew increased in warmer climates closer to the equator. More importantly—and quite unexpectedly—they discovered that both rules have reversed over a remarkably brief period between the late 19th and 20th centuries, with the reversal accelerating as average temperatures rose.

This study highlights that body size is linked to complex, dynamic and potentially interdependent ecological factors. This is the first time a rule reversal like this has been found in any species. The study also found that the two rules are intertwined. 

Maya M. Juman et al, Recent and rapid ecogeographical rule reversals in Northern Treeshrews, Scientific Reports (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-022-23774-w

Time slows down on crowded train!

Testing time perception in an unusually lifelike setting—a virtual reality ride on a New York City subway train—an interdisciplinary Cornell research team found that crowding makes time seem to pass more slowly.

As a result, rush-hour commutes on public transit may feel significantly longer than other rides that objectively take the same amount of time.

The research adds to evidence that social context and subjective feelings distort our sense of the passage of time, and may have practical implications for people's willingness to use public transit, particularly after the pandemic.

It's a new way of thinking about social crowding, showing that it changes how we perceive time. Crowding creates stressful feelings, and that makes a trip feel longer.

: Saeedeh Sadeghi et al, Affective experience in a virtual crowd regulates perceived travel time, Virtual Reality (2022). DOI: 10.1007/s10055-022-00713-8 Saeedeh

Saeedeh Sadeghi et al, Crowding and Perceived Travel Time in Public Transit: Virtual Reality Compared With Stated Choice Surveys, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board (2022). DOI: 10.1177/03611981221130346

A targeted approach to reducing the health impacts of crop residue burning in India

To clear the way for planting wheat in November, a farmer in Punjab, India, sets aflame the leftover straw, or stubble, of a harvested rice paddy crop in October. The burning residue fills the air with carbon monoxide, ozone, and fine particulate matter (PM_2.5) that will make it harder to breathe for days afterward and for miles around. It's a scene that's replicated on about 2 million farms in the Punjab and Haryana states of northwest India every autumn (and every spring after the wheat harvest), raising health risks—particularly of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases—and premature death rates downwind in India and throughout South Asia.

To date, government regulations, largely imposed at the state and national level, have been ineffective in curtailing crop residue burning in India. The practice continues apace, driven by the limited economic value of rice and wheat residues, and the ongoing need for cheap, ultrafast disposal of residues between harvesting and planting of the rotating crops. Such attempted bans are also deeply unpopular. A national ban on burning was repealed last year due to pressure from farmers, who see such legislation as further increasing the already-significant economic hardships faced by small-scale landowners.

In search of more effective solutions, a team of researchers at MIT and Harvard University estimated which burning events, in what locations and at what times, produced the greatest increases in population exposure, premature deaths, and economic losses in India during the years 2003–09. Then they quantified how small-scale and targeted actions could reduce air pollution and health risks for the entire population. Their findings appear in the journal Nature Communications.

Based on computer models of the seven-year study period, the researchers attributed between 44,000 and 98,000 PM_2.5-exposure-related premature deaths annually to crop residue burning, with 67–90% occurring as a result of burning that took place in the Punjab, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh states. They also found that six districts within Punjab—each with relatively high cultivation of residue-intensive crops and downwind population density—contributed 40% of India's annual air-quality impacts from the practice.

The research team next identified several opportunities to reduce crop residue burning and its attendant health effects. First, if farmers in Punjab were to burn crop residues two hours earlier in the day, they could avert up to 14% of air-quality impacts and about 10,000 deaths each year. They could achieve further reductions by adopting rice varieties such as basmati that require less residue burning. Finally, such targeted actions could achieve most of their benefits if adopted in just a few regions, given the large contribution from the aforementioned six districts in Punjab.

Ruoyu Lan et al, Air quality impacts of crop residue burning in India and mitigation alternatives, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34093-z

Mom's dietary fat rewires male and female brains differently

More than half of all women in the United States are overweight or obese when they become pregnant. While being or becoming overweight during pregnancy can have potential health risks for moms, there are also hints that it may tip the scales for their kids to develop psychiatric disorders like autism or depression, which often affects one gender more than the other.

What hasn’t been understood however is how the accumulation of fat tissue in mom might signal through the placenta in a sex-specific way and rearrange the developing offspring’s brain.

To fill this gap researchers studied pregnant mice on a high-fat diet. In findings appearing November 28 in the journal Nature Metabolism, they found that mom’s high-fat diet triggers immune cells in the developing brains of male but not female mouse pups to overconsume the mood-influencing brain chemical serotonin, leading to depressed-like behaviour.

The researchers said a similar thing may be happening in humans, too.

They are now starting to work out how and why female offspring are impacted differently when mom amasses high levels of fat during pregnancy. Fat doesn’t lead to depression in female mice, but it does make them less social, perhaps due to an overconsumption of the pro-social hormone oxytocin, instead of serotonin.

For now, this research highlights that not all placentas are created equally. This work may one day help guide clinicians and parents in better understanding and possible treatment or prevention of the origins of some mood disorders by considering early environmental factors, like fat accumulation during gestation.

“Maternal Diet Disrupts the Placenta-Brain Axis in a Sex-Specific Manner,” Alexis M. Ceasrine, Benjamin A. Devlin, Jessica L. Bolton, Lauren A. Green, Young Chan Jo, Carolyn Huynh, Bailey Patrick, Kamryn Washington, Cristina L. Sanchez, Faith Joo, A. Brayan Campos-Salazar, Elana R. Lockshin, Cynthia Kuhn, Susan K. Murphy, Leigh Ann Simmons, Staci D. Bilbo. Nature Metabolism, Nov. 28, 2022. DOI: 10.1038/s42255-022-00693-8

To track disease-carrying mosquitoes, researchers tag them with DNA barcodes

West Nile, Zika, dengue and malaria are all diseases spread by bites from infected mosquitoes. To track the threat of such diseases over large populations, scientists need to know where the mosquitoes are, where they've been, and where they might go.

But  tracking mosquitoes is no easy task. The capture, tagging and release of single mosquitoes—as is commonly done with bats and other disease carriers—would be ridiculous, if not impossible. A common mosquito-tracking technique involves dousing the insects in fluorescent powder and letting them fly away, but the practice is error-prone and unreliable.

So scientists are now introducing a better way to perform mosquito-tracking for disease applications. Their new method, which involves getting larval mosquitoes to eat harmless particles made entirely of DNA and proteins, has the potential to revolutionize how people study mosquito-borne diseases.

The edible mosquito marker particles are porous protein crystals that self-assemble from a protein originally found in Camplyobacter jejuni bacteria. Since inventing these very small, non-toxic protein crystals that feature highly precise arrays of pores, researchers have been exploring diverse applications for them, like capturing virus particles to facilitate wastewater testing. They discovered they could insert fluorescent dyes or synthetic DNA into their crystals very easily, and the DNA wouldn't budge even after multiple washes and exposure to solvents.

They also performed a series of experiments that demonstrate the utility of these barcodes as tags capable of labeling millions of individual mosquitoes. So far, results are promising.

Here's how they do it: mosquito larvae ingest tasty biomass that's pre-loaded with the DNA crystals in solution. As the mosquitoes grow into adults, the DNA crystals remain intact in their guts, creating a code that can be later read through laboratory techniques like quantitative polymerase chain reaction.

The method the researchers are demonstrating is unique in one important way: Unlike conventional mosquito-tagging in which adult mosquitoes are extracted from traps and analyzed for disease, the DNA barcodes are ingested by the mosquitoes in their larval states, persisting with them as they become adults. In this way, researchers can not only track where the mosquitoes ended up, but where they started, and how they moved. Such insights could prove critical for disease-surveillance applications in the future.

Julius D Stuart, Daniel A Hartman, Lyndsey I Gray, Alec A Jones, Natalie R Wickenkamp, Christine Hirt, Aya Safira, April R Regas, Therese M Kondash, Margaret L Yates, Sergei Driga, Christopher D Snow, Rebekah C Kading. Mosquito tagging using DNA-barcoded nanoporous protein microcrystals. PNAS Nexus, 2022; 1 (4) DOI: 10.1093/pnasnexus/pgac190

Gut microbes influence binge-eating of sweet treats in mice

You just meant to have a single Oreo as a snack, but then you find yourself going back for another, and another, and before you know it, you have finished off the entire package even though you were not all that hungry to begin with.

But before you start feeling too guilty for your gluttony, consider this: It might not be entirely your fault. Now, new research in mice shows that specific gut bacteria may suppress binge eating behavior.

Oreos and other desserts are examples of so-called "palatable foods"—food consumed for hedonistic pleasure, not simply out of hunger or nutritional need. Humans are not alone in enjoying this kind of hedonism: Mice like to eat dessert, too. Even when they have just eaten, they will still consume sugary snacks if available.

The new  study shows that the absence of certain gut bacteria causes mice to binge eat palatable foods: Mice with microbiotas disrupted by oral antibiotics consumed 50 percent more sugar pellets over two hours than mice with gut bacteria. When their microbiotas were restored through fecal transplants, the mice returned to normal feeding behavior. Further, not all bacteria in the gut are able to suppress hedonic feeding, but rather specific species appear to alter the behavior. Bingeing only applies to palatable foods; mice with or without gut microbiota both still eat the same amount of their regular diet. The findings show that the gut microbiota has important influences on behavior and that these effects can be modulated when the microbiota is manipulated.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(22)01750-X

Scientists Prepare to Set Sail for NASA’s S-MODE Mission

In early October, the research vessel Bold Horizon set sail from Newport, Oregon, and joined a small fleet of planes, drones, and other high-tech craft chasing the ocean’s shapeshifting physics. NASA’s Sub-Mesoscale Ocean Dynamics Experiment (S-MODE) looks at whirlpools, currents, and other dynamics at the air-sea boundary. The goal is to understand how these dynamics drive the give-and-take of nutrients and energy between the ocean and atmosphere and, ultimately, help shape Earth’s climate.

Two new minerals discovered in meteorite

Researchers have identified two, possibly even three, new minerals in a huge iron-ba.... The minerals have been named elaliite, after the meteorite’s location near the town of El Ali, and elkinstantonite after Lindy Elkins-Tanton, lead investigator of a NASA mission to a metal-rich asteroid. The 2-metre-wide meteorite has been well known to generations of people who live in the area, where it was named Nightfall.

--

Pupating ants make milk for baby ants

During their pupal stage, between larva and adult, ants are immobile and were previously thought to be pretty much useless to the rest of the colony. Now researchers have discovered that they have a pivotal role, secreting a nutritious fluid that is drunk by adult ants and fed to.... Analogous to mammalian milk, the secretion seems to be essential for young larvae to grow strong and healthy. The pupae also receive parental care: if the secretion is not removed, it can hurt them. “It is really surprising that nobody else noticed this before,” says ethologist Patrizia d’Ettorre.

 Let’s stand up for life:Scientists in rebellion

The members of the movement Scientist Rebellion, call on life scien...

Our current economic and political structures have an increasingly devastating impact on the Earth’s climate and ecosystems: we are facing a biospheric emergency, with catastrophic consequences for both humans and the natural world on which we depend. Life scientists – including biologists, medical scientists, psychologists and public health experts – have had a crucial role in documenting the impacts of this emergency, but they have failed to drive governments to take action in order to prevent the situation from getting worse. Here we, as members of the movement Scientist Rebellion, call on life scientists to re-embrace advocacy and activism – which were once hallmarks of academia – in order to highlight the urgency and necessity of systemic change across our societies. We particularly emphasise the need for scientists to engage in nonviolent civil resistance, a form of public engagement which has proven to be highly effective in social struggles throughout history.

The consequences of the failure of scientific engagement

An architecture that gives users full control of their smartphones

In recent years, many smartphone users have become concerned about the privacy of their data and the extent to which companies might have access to this data. As things stand today, the applications that users can run on their phone and what they can do with these applications is determined by a few big tech companies.

Researchers have recently set out on a quest to change this current trend, through the development of a new smartphone architecture called TEEtime. This architecture, introduced in a paper pre-published on arXiv, allows users to flexibly choose what resources on their smartphone they will dedicate to legacy operating systems, such as Android or iOS, and which they wish to keep for their own proprietary software and data.

Essentially, TEEtime isolates different domains, allowing users to decide the extent to which each of these domains has access to resources on their phone. This means that users could, for instance, run a navigation application in their own isolated domain, giving GPS access only to this domain and thus preventing Android/iOS from accessing their GPS data. The same could also be done with other peripherals, such as Bluetooth or the phone's in-built microphone and camera.

The introduction of domains has two main advantages in terms of giving users control over their devices. Firstly, it gives users full control of the privacy of their data, for instance allowing them to store their photos in a separate domain, where the user can make sure that no client-side scanning is performed. Note that in current phone ecosystems these features can be silently introduced without the user even noticing or having the possibility to opt-out.

The second advantage of the TEEtime architecture is that it can prevent censorship or increase resistance to it. In other words, if their operating service providers blocks an application or prevents them from installing it, they can still run it in a separate domain.

So far, the researchers tested a prototype of their architecture on an ARM emulator, a software tool often used to test operating systems and other smartphone software. These initial evaluations were promising, as they suggested that TEEtime works well and does not impact a system's security.

Friederike Groschupp et al, It's TEEtime: Bringing User Sovereignty to Smartphones, arXiv (2022). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2211.05206

Short term memory problems can be improved with laser therapy, according to new study

Laser light therapy has been shown to be effective in improving short term memory in a study published in Science Advances.

Scientists 

demonstrated that the therapy, which is non-invasive, could improve short term, or working memory in people by up to 25%.

The treatment, called transcranial photobiomodulation (tPBM), is applied to an area of the brain known as the right prefrontal cortex. This area is widely recognized as important for working memory. In their experiment, the team showed how working memory improved among research participants after several minutes of treatment. They were also able to track the changes in brain activity using electroencephalogram (EEG) monitoring during treatment and testing.

Previous studies have shown that laser light treatment will improve working memory in mice, and human studies have shown tPBM treatment can improve accuracy, speed up reaction time and improve high-order functions such as attention and emotion.

This is the first study, however, to confirm a link between tPBM and working memory in humans.

Chenguang Zhao et al, Transcranial photobiomodulation enhances visual working memory capacity in humans, Science Advances (2022). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abq3211. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abq3211

Astronomers See Stellar Self-Control in Action

Stars can regulate their growth when they are part of a bigger group called a cluster. Once stars get very big and bright, they can blow most of the gas out of the cluster. This prevents too many new stars from forming, controlling the stellar family’s size. NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and other telescopes examined a large gas cloud for this finding.

Wormhole inside a quantum computer

Physicists have sent quantum information through a simulated wormhole in a ‘toy’ universe that exists only inside a quantum computer. The tunnel is analogous to passages through space-time that might connect the centres of black holes in the real Universe. “The surprise is not that the message made it across in some form, but that it made it across unscrambled,” write the authors of an analysis published alongside the study in Nature. Some scientists think that such experiments could help to unite the theories of quantum mechanics and gravity in the simplified realm of toy universes, leading ultimately to the answer to one of the biggest problems in physics: a real-world quantum theory of gravity.

Researchers discover new form of antimicrobial resistance

Researchers have uncovered a new form of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), undetectable using traditional laboratory testing methods, in a discovery set to challenge existing efforts to monitor and tackle one of the world's greatest health threats.

In research published today in Nature Communications, the researchers revealed a new mechanism that enables bacteria to take up nutrients from their human host and bypass antibiotic treatment. The researchers made the discovery while investigating antibiotic susceptibility of group A. streptococcus—a potentially deadly bacteria often found in the throat and on the skin.

Bacteria need to make their own folates to grow, and in turn, cause disease. Some antibiotics work by blocking this folate production to stop bacteria growing and treat the infection. When looking at an antibiotic commonly prescribed to treat group A. strep skin infections, researchers found a mechanism of resistance, where for the first time ever, the bacteria demonstrated the ability to take folates directly from its human host when blocked from producing their own. This makes the antibiotic ineffective and the infection would likely worsen when the patient should be getting better.

This new form of resistance is undetectable under conditions routinely used in pathology laboratories, making it very hard for clinicians to prescribe antibiotics that will effectively treat the infection, potentially leading to very poor outcomes and even premature death.

Researchers  suspect that this is just the tip of the iceberg—they have identified this mechanism in group A. strep but it's likely it will be a broader issue across other bacterial pathogens.

Host-dependent resistance of Group A Streptococcus to sulfamethoxazolemediated by a horizontally-acquired reduced folate transporter, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34243-3

Brain cells use a telephone trick to report what they see

"How many fingers am I holding up?”

For vision-sensing brain cells in a monkey’s visual cortex, that answer depends on whether the digits are next to each other or partially overlapping.

A new study from Duke University finds that single neurons conveying visual information about two separate objects in sight do so by alternating signals about one or the other. When two objects overlap, however, the brain cells detect them as a single entity.

The new report is out Nov. 28 in the journal eLife.

The findings help expand what is known about how the brain makes sense of its complicated and busy world. Most research on sensory processing, be it sounds or sights, sets the bar too low by testing how brain cells react to a single tone or image.

This study is the first one  to show that single auditory brain cells efficiently transmit information about two different sounds by using something called multiplexing.

Multiplexing is an idea that comes from engineering. When you have one wire and a lot of signals, you can swap the signals out, kind of like a telephone party line.

The telecommunications technology works by rapidly switching back-and-forth between relaying information from one phone call and the other using just one wire. In the brain, the switching is probably happening much more slowly but the general idea is similar.

“Coordinated Multiplexing of Information About Separate Objects in Visual Cortex,” Na Young Jun, Douglas A. Ruff, Lily E. Kramer, Brittany Bowes, Surya T. Tokdar, Marlene R. Cohen, Jennifer M. Groh. eLife, Nov. 29, 2022. DOI: 10.7554/eLife.76452.sa0

Janavis: new species of toothed bird from the Age of Dinosaurs

Mapping the hidden connections between diseases

A new study by  researchers has identified patterns in how common health conditions occur together in the same individuals, using data from 4 million patients.

With advancing age, millions of people live with multiple conditions—sometimes referred to as multimorbidity—and the proportion of people affected in this way is expected to rise over the next decades. However, medical education and training, health care delivery, clinical guidelines and research have evolved to focus on one disease at a time.

The Academy of Medical Sciences and the UK Chief Medical Officer (CMO) have recognized this problem and set out a challenge of investigating which diseases co-occur in the same individuals and why.

In the new study, published in The Lancet Digital Health, the team used routine health records data to systematically identify patterns of clustering of 308 common mental and physical health conditions of men and women of different ages and with different ethnicities.

Some patterns found include: heart failure often co-occurred with hypertension, atrial fibrillation, osteoarthritis, stable angina, myocardial infarction, chronic kidney disease, type 2 diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

Hypertension was most strongly associated with kidney disorders in those aged 20–29 years, but with dyslipidaemia, obesity, and type 2 diabetes in individuals aged 40 years and older.

Breast cancer was associated with different comorbidities in individuals from different ethnicities, asthma with different comorbidities between the sexes, and bipolar disorder with different comorbidities in younger ages compared with older ages.

Millions of people live with multiple diseases, yet our understanding of how and when these transpire is limited. This research project is the first step towards understanding how these diseases co-occur and identifying how to best treat them.

The study includes accessible tools to help users visualize patterns of disease co-occurrence, including for diseases that cluster more commonly than expected by chance, providing an entry point to investigate common risk factors and treatments.

The findings should help patients better understand their illness, doctors better plan management of patients with multimorbidity, health care providers optimize service delivery, policy makers plan resource allocation, and researchers to develop new or use existing medicines to treat several diseases together.

Valerie Kuan et al, Identifying and visualising multimorbidity and comorbidity patterns in patients in the English National Health Service: a population-based study, The Lancet Digital Health (2022). DOI: 10.1016/S2589-7500(22)00187-X

The findings, the researchers say, provide the data and resources to help improve health and care planning for patients in England living with more than one condition.

Study hints at the potentially crucial role of shear stress in the activation of pain sensing neurons

Feelings of pain and discomfort are crucial to the survival and evolution of animals, as they help to detect injuries or existential threats and pinpoint their location in the body. Pain signals are produced by nociceptors, sensory neurons that respond to damage to the body and send "threat" signals to the spinal cord.

Nociceptors (i.e., neurons sensing pain) are essentially bare nerve endings that can be found in all parts of the body, including the skin, muscles, bones and viscera. While many neuroscience studies have investigated their structure and function, the mechanisms underpinning their activation remain poorly understood.

Researchers have recently set out to better understand these mechanisms by conducting experiments on fruit fly larvae. Their findings, published in Neuron, suggest that these neurons specifically respond to shear stress (i.e., stress caused by two forces of similar strength acting on opposite sides of a body and moving in opposite directions), but do not respond to stretch.

The key goal of the recent work was to identify the specific forces that lead to the activation of these pain sensing neurons and elucidate the underlying transduction mechanisms. To do this, the researchers first conducted behavioral experiments, where they poked a fruit fly larva using a calibrated fishing line. "In the absence of stimulation, larvae tend to move forward with frequent changing of direction. However, when they poked a larva, it stopped moving and displayed a 360-degree body rotation. This rolling was interpreted as nocifensive behaviour (i.e., animal behavior aimed at withdrawing from danger). The strength of response was measured as a percentage of animals that rolled in response to poking. Using computer modeling, the team found that poking a fruit fly larva could elicit two different kinds of forces, stretch and shear stress to stimulate nociceptors. In the following calcium imaging experiments to explore which forces are responsible for nociceptor activation, the researchers stretched the larvae's nociceptors or apply a shear force to them. They found that the larvae's nociceptors were activated by shear stress, but not by stretch. They were also able to identify the specific type of ion channel that is found in nociceptors and is activated by shear stress, called transient receptor potential A1 (TrpA1). Interestingly, shear stress appeared to be able to activate TrpA1 in a small patch of cell membrane devoid of cellular environment, providing evidence of TrpA1 as a molecular sensor of shear stress. They further show the effect of shear stress was through modulation of membrane's fluidity.

This study has two notable findings:First, the researchers showed that shear stress could be a physiologically relevant force that is critical for activation of nociceptors. Second, it provided evidence that TrpA1 is a shear stress sensor and this property is conserved for TrpA1 derived from Drosophila, mice and humans.

Jiaxin Gong et al, Shear stress activates nociceptors to drive Drosophila mechanical nociception, Neuron (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.neuron.2022.08.015

Researchers harness bacteria-eating viruses to create powerful food decontamination spray

Researchers  have created a powerful new weapon against bacterial contamination and infection.

They have developed a way to coax bacteriophages—harmless viruses that eat bacteria—into linking together and forming microscopic beads. Those beads can safely be applied to food and other materials to rid them of harmful pathogens such as E. coli 0157. Each bead is about 20 microns, (one 50th of a millimeter) in diameter and is loaded with millions of phages.

The researchers' sprayable new super-disinfectant is food-safe and highly effective, as they describe in an article  published recently in the journal Nature Communications.

Self-assembling nanofibrous bacteriophage microgels as sprayable antimicrobials targeting multidrug-resistant bacteria, Nature Communications (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-022-34803-7

Using a green algae capsule to deliver chemotherapeutic drugs to a ...

A team of researchers at the University of California, San Diego, has developed a green algae capsule for delivering chemotherapy drugs to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. In their study, published in the journal Science Robotics, the group delivered drugs via the capsule, which passed through the stomach without being digested.

--

Signs of brain ageing after severe COVID

Severe COVID-19 has been linked to changes in the brain similar to those seen in old age. Scientists studied brain samples from 21 people who had severe SARS-CoV-2 infections when they died. Inflammation and stress genes in the frontal cortex — a brain region essential for cognition — were more active in infected people than in uninfected people, and genes linked to forming connections between brain cells were less active. Proteomics researcher Daniel Martins-de-Souza says the work is preliminary but could ultimately help people who have lingering cognitive difficulties after COVID-19.

Insulin sensitivity is preserved in mice made obese by feeding a high starch diet

Abstract: Obesity is generally associated with insulin resistance in liver and muscle and increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes, however there is a population of obese people that remain insulin sensitive. Similarly, recent work suggests that mice fed high carbohydrate diets can become obese without apparent glucose intolerance. To investigate this phenomenon further, we fed mice either a high fat (Hi-F) or high starch (Hi-ST) diet and measured adiposity, glucose tolerance, insulin sensitivity, and tissue lipids compared to control mice fed a standard laboratory chow. Both Hi-ST and Hi-F mice accumulated a similar amount of fat and tissue triglyceride compared to chow-fed mice. However, while Hi-F diet mice developed glucose intolerance as well as liver and muscle insulin resistance (assessed via euglycaemic/hyperinsulinaemic clamp), obese Hi-ST mice maintained glucose tolerance and insulin action similar to lean, chow-fed controls. This preservation of insulin action despite obesity in Hi-ST mice was associated with differences in de novo lipogenesis and levels of C22:0 ceramide in liver and C18:0 ceramide in muscle. This indicates that dietary manipulation can influence insulin action independently of the level of adiposity and that the presence of specific ceramide species correlates with these differences.

https://elifesciences.org/articles/79250?utm_source=content_alert&a...

This is what we wanted: EU agrees ban on imports driving deforestation

The European Union reached an agreement yesterday to ban the import of products including coffee, cocoa and soy in cases where they are deemed to contribute to deforestation.

The draft law, which aims to ensure "deforestation-free supply chains" for the 27-nation EU, was hailed by environmental groups as "groundbreaking".

It requires companies importing into the EU to guarantee products are not produced on land that suffered deforestation after December 31, 2020, and that they comply with all laws of the source country.

The scope encompasses palm oil, cattle, soy, coffee, cocoa, timber and rubber as well as derived products such as beef, furniture and chocolate.

Illegal production has spurred massive deforestation in countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Mexico and Guatemala.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that an aggregate area of land bigger than the European Union, or some 420 million hectares (more than one billion acres), has been deforested around the world over the past three decades.

The law opened the way for technology such as satellite monitoring and DNA analysis to verify the provenance of targeted imports. The legislation would be reviewed one year after coming into force, to see whether it should be extended to other wooded land. Another review at the two-year mark would have the commission considering whether to expand it to cover other ecosystems and commodities, as well as financial institutions.

WWF, called the agreement "groundbreaking" and "historic".

source: AFP

Discovery of world's oldest DNA breaks record by one million years

Two-million-year-old DNA has been identified for the first time—opening a 'game-changing' new chapter in the history of evolution.

Microscopic fragments of environmental DNA were found in Ice Age sediment in northern Greenland. Using cutting-edge technology, researchers discovered the fragments are one million years older than the previous record for DNA sampled from a Siberian mammoth bone.

The ancient DNA has been used to map a two-million-year-old ecosystem which weathered extreme climate change. Researchers hope the results could help to predict the long-term environmental toll of today's global warming.

Extensive work by 40 researchers from several countries  unlocked the secrets of the fragments of DNA. The process was painstaking—first they needed to establish whether there was DNA hidden in the clay and quartz, and if there was, could they successfully detach the DNA from the sediment to examine it? The answer, eventually, was yes. The researchers compared every single DNA fragment with extensive libraries of DNA collected from present-day animals, plants and microorganisms. A picture began to emerge of the DNA from trees, bushes, birds, animals and microorganisms.

Some of the DNA fragments were easy to classify as predecessors to present-day species, others could only be linked at genus level, and some originated from species impossible to place in the DNA libraries of animals, plants and microorganisms still living in the 21st century.

The two-million-year-old samples also help academics build a picture of a previously unknown stage in the evolution of the DNA of a range of species still in existence today.

Eske Willerslev, A 2-million-year-old ecosystem in Greenland uncovered by environmental DNA, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05453-y. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05453-y

New branch on tree of life includes 'lions of the microbial world'

There's a new branch on the tree of life and it's made up of predators that nibble their prey to death.

These microbial predators fall into two groups, one of which researchers have dubbed "nibblerids" because they, well, nibble chunks off their prey using tooth-like structures. The other group, nebulids, eat their prey whole. And both constitute a new ancient branch on the tree of life called Provora, according to a paper published today in Nature.

Like lions, cheetahs, and more familiar predators, these microbes are numerically rare but important to the ecosystem. Using water samples from marine habitats around the world, including the coral reefs of Curaçao, sediment from the Black and Red seas, and water from the northeast Pacific and Arctic oceans, the researchers discovered new microbes.

Culturing these microbial predators was no mean feat, since they require a mini-ecosystem with their food and their food's food just to survive in the lab.

Denis Tikhonenkov, Microbial predators form a new supergroup of eukaryotes, Nature (2022). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05511-5. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-05511-5

Governments and people around the world, please listen: It is risky bet on forests and soils to reach net zero emissions

New research  highlights the risks of countries relying on nature-based solutions to achieve net zero.

National climate strategies set out how countries plan to reduce emissions, for example by phasing out fossil fuel use, to get to net zero in 2050. The study found that once the bulk of emissions have been reduced, countries plan to "cancel out" the leftover difficult-to-decarbonize emissions, such as those from agriculture, by using forests and soils to remove carbon from the atmosphere.

However, this may prove risky because forests and soils are also threatened by a range of impacts, such as fire, disease, changes in farming practices, and deforestation. These threats mean that forests and soils could lose their stored carbon back to the atmosphere.

There is also a risk of being overly optimistic about the amount of carbon that forests and soils can remove to reach net zero, especially if combined with delays to reducing emissions from coal, oil, and gas.

The findings, published in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, show that most of the strategies submitted to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) do not quantify the amount of carbon "removals" needed in 2050.

With progress on reducing emissions stalling at COP27, the researchers call for the reporting requirements on long-term national climate plans to be urgently strengthened.

The deployment of carbon dioxide removal is essential to reach global and national net zero emissions targets, but little attention has been paid to its practical deployment by countries. 

Nature-based removals, such as using forests and soils, remain vital to address challenges in biodiversity and climate adaptation, but may be risky if used as the only way to remove carbon. Countries should also explore engineered carbon removal methods. To meet the challenge of net zero, we need both.

'Long-term National Climate Strategies Bet on Forests and Soils to Reach Net-Zero', Communications Earth & Environment (2022).

Scientists confirm smallpox vaccine also teaches T cells to fight mpox

There's even more reason to think a vaccine developed against smallpox can help the body fight against mpox (monkeypox virus disease) as well, according to researchers. A new study, published in Cell Host & Microbe, is the first to provide evidence that the vaccinia vaccine MVA-BN (brand name JYNNEOS) should also train virus-fighting T cells to recognize mpox sequences.

This study gives us confidence that T cell response induced by the JYNNEOS vaccine should be able to also recognize mpox virus.

Although the JYNNEOS vaccine, based on a non-live attenuated orthopox virus called modified vaccine ankara (MVA), is approved to prevent mpox infection and severe disease, researchers don't yet have clinical efficacy data from human trials. Still, researchers know that mpox virus is similar enough to other orthopoxviruses that immunization against an orthopoxvirus called vaccinia (VACV) can also train the immune system to fight mpox.

Mpox (termed "monkeypox" until recently) is a member of the orthopox family of viruses. The deadliest, of course, was variola virus,causing the disease known as smallpox. Smallpox was eradicated worldwide in 1980 thanks to a massive and successful vaccination campaign to administer the Dryvax vaccine, based on VACV.

VACV and variola virus have a lot of immune system targets (called antigens), in common. This means training the body to recognize VACV also taught immune cells to recognize variola virus. But there was a downside—Dryvax (and a newer version called Acambis 2000) had harmful side effects, especially in immunocompromised people.

JYNNEOS was designed to have a better safety profile. While the vaccine performed well in pre-clinical tests, the eradication of smallpox meant scientists couldn't see how JYNNEOS performed in human patients in real-world infection scenarios, such as a smallpox outbreak or possible case of smallpox-based biological warfare.

Part 1

For the new study, researchers set out to study if the viral proteins known to be targeted by T cells induced by VACV vaccination, would also be conserved in JYNNEOS and in mpox.

While antibodies are key for vaccine efficacy and preventing reinfections, T cells are essential for both preventing severe infections and "remembering" past infections.

By recognizing infected cells, T cells are able to limit how much viruses can spread inside the body modulate disease severity, and ultimately terminate the infection. T cell responses also tend to be long lasting, and resilient to viral mutations to escape immune recognition. What we have seen in the context of SARS-CoV-2 is that even if the virus mutates somewhat, T cells reactivity is still largely preserved.

The researchers demonstrated that the known targets of T cell responses seen in the VACV proven -efficacy vaccine, are also found in JYNNEOS and mpox, suggesting that the JYNNEOS vaccine can indeed trigger an effective T cell response against mpox infection. The initial test of their hypothesis was based on developing viral peptide "megapools," or reagents designed to detect T cell reactivity to mpox antigens. The experiments further showed that these megapools can be used to accurately detect specific T cells.

Vaccines such as JYNNEOS should be able to induce T cells that also recognize mpox and can provide protection from severe disease. 

 Alba Grifoni et al, Defining antigen targets to dissect vaccinia virus and monkeypox virus-specific T cell responses in humans, Cell Host & Microbe (2022). DOI: 10.1016/j.chom.2022.11.003

Part 2

**