Want fewer microplastics in your tap water? Try boiling it first

Nano- and microplastics are seemingly everywhere—water, soil and the air. While many creative strategies have been attempted to get rid of these plastic bits, one unexpectedly effective solution for specifically cleaning up drinking water might be as simple as brewing a cup of tea or coffee.

As reported in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, boiling and filtering calcium-containing tap water could help remove nearly 90% of the nano- and microplastics present.

Contamination of water supplies with nano- and microplastics (NMPs), which can be as small as one-thousandth of a millimeter in diameter or as large as 5 millimeters, has become increasingly common. The effects of these particles on human health are still under investigation, though current studies suggest that ingesting them could affect the gut microbiome. Some advanced drinking water filtration systems capture NMPs, but simple, inexpensive methods are needed to substantially help reduce human plastic consumption.

So researchers wanted to see whether boiling could be an effective method to help remove NMPs from both hard and soft tap water.

The researchers collected samples of hard tap water. 

Samples were boiled for five minutes and allowed to cool. Then, the team measured the free-floating plastic content. Boiling hard water, which is rich in minerals, will naturally form a chalky substance known as limescale, or calcium carbonate (CaCO3). Results from these experiments indicated that as the water temperature increased, CaCO3 formed incrustants, or crystalline structures, which encapsulated the plastic particles.

Researchers say that over time, these incrustants would build up like typical limescale, at which point they could be scrubbed away to remove the NMPs. They suggest any remaining incrustants floating in the water could be removed by pouring it through a simple filter such as a coffee filter.

In the tests, the encapsulation effect was more pronounced in harder water—in a sample containing 300 milligrams of CaCO₃ per liter of water, up to 90% of free-floating MNPs were removed after boiling. However, even in soft water samples (less than 60 milligrams CaCO₃ per liter), boiling still removed around 25% of NMPs. The researchers say that this work could provide a simple, yet effective, method to reduce NMP consumption.

Drinking Boiled Tap Water Reduces Human Intake of Nanoplastics and Microplastics, Environmental Science & Technology Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.4c00081

Study identifies multi-organ response to seven days without food

New findings reveal that the body undergoes significant, systematic changes across multiple organs during prolonged periods of fasting. The results demonstrate evidence of health benefits beyond weight loss, but also show that any potentially health-altering changes appear to occur only after three days without food.

The study, published in Nature Metabolism, advances our understanding of what's happening across the body after prolonged periods without food.

By identifying the potential health benefits from fasting and their underlying molecular basis, researchers provide a road map for future research that could lead to therapeutic interventions—including for people that may benefit from fasting but cannot undergo prolonged fasting or fasting-mimicking diets, such as ketogenic diets.

Over millennia, humans have developed the ability to survive without food for prolonged periods of time. Fasting is practiced by millions of people throughout the world for different medical and cultural purposes, including health benefits and weight loss. Since ancient times, it has been used to treat diseases such as epilepsy and rheumatoid arthritis.

During fasting, the body changes its source and type of energy, switching from consumed calories to using its own fat stores. However, beyond this change in fuel sources, little is known about how the body responds to prolonged periods without food and any health impacts—beneficial or adverse—this may have. New techniques allowing researchers to measure thousands of proteins circulating in our blood provide the opportunity to systematically study molecular adaptions to fasting in humans in great detail.

The researchers observed the body switching energy sources—from glucose to fat stored in the body—within the first two or three days of fasting. The volunteers lost an average of 5.7 kg of both fat mass and lean mass. After three days of eating after fasting, the weight stayed off—the loss of lean was almost completely reversed, but the fat mass stayed off.

For the first time, the researchers observed the body undergoing distinct changes in protein levels after about three days of fasting—indicating a whole-body response to complete calorie restriction. Overall, one in three of the proteins measured changed significantly during fasting across all major organs. These changes were consistent across the volunteers, but there were signatures distinctive to fasting that went beyond weight loss, such as changes in proteins that make up the supportive structure for neurons in the brain.

For the first time, scientists were able to see what's happening on a molecular level across the body when people fast. Fasting, when done safely, is an effective weight loss intervention. Popular diets that incorporate fasting—such as intermittent fasting—claim to have health benefits beyond weight loss.

The new results provide evidence for the health benefits of fasting beyond weight loss, but these were only visible after three days of total caloric restriction—later than scientists previously thought.

While fasting may be beneficial for treating some conditions, oftentimes, fasting won't be an option to patients suffering from ill health. Scientists hope that these findings can provide information about why fasting is beneficial in certain cases, which can then be used to develop treatments that patients are able to do.

Systemic proteome adaptions to 7-day complete caloric restriction in humans, Nature Metabolism (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s42255-024-01008-9

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New microbiome insights could help boost immunotherapy for a range of rare cancers

The microbiome can identify those who benefit from combination immunotherapy across multiple different cancers, including rare gynecological cancers, biliary tract cancers and melanoma.

Researchers have identified specific strains of bacteria that are linked with a positive response to combination immunotherapy in the largest study of its kind.

The study, published in Nature Medicine, details a signature collection of microorganisms in an individual's gut bacteria that may help identify those who would benefit from combination immunotherapy and help explain why the efficacy of this treatment is otherwise hard to predict.

In the future, understanding more about these bacteria strains can help drive the development of next-generation probiotics, known as "live biotherapeutic products," that focus on modulating the microbiome to support combination immunotherapy from the inside.

Immunotherapy is a type of treatment that harnesses the body's immune system to target the cancer. While it can be very effective, it only works in a proportion of recipients across a wide range of cancers. As with all cancer treatments, immunotherapy can have multiple side effects. Therefore, being able to predict who is most likely to respond to treatment helps ensure that patients do not endure these unnecessary side effects for no medical benefit.

This study used samples collected in a large, multi-center Australian clinical trial where combination immunotherapy was effective in 25% of people with a broad range of advanced rare cancers, including rare gynecological cancers, neuroendocrine neoplasms, and upper gastrointestinal and biliary cancers.

The clinical trial focused on a type of combination immunotherapy known as immune checkpoint inhibitors. These anti-cancer agents block the body's immune checkpoint proteins, allowing the immune cells to destroy cancer cells. In this case, the immunotherapy blocked the PD-1 and CTLA-4 checkpoints.

Researchers used stool samples from clinical trial patients and performed deep shotgun metagenomic sequencing to map all the organisms within the participants' microbiomes, down to the strain level.

They discovered multiple strains of bacteria in those who responded well to treatment, many of which had not been cultivated before. This allowed them to identify a microbiome signature that was found in patients who responded well to treatment.

In addition to this, the team used this signature to train a machine learning model that could predict who would benefit from combination immunotherapy. They conducted a meta-analysis of previous studies and found that their signature could be applied to different cancers, such as melanoma; and across countries, to predict individuals whose cancer would likely respond to combination immunotherapy.

Part 1

However, when applied to patients who received just one of the immunotherapy drugs, targeting the immune checkpoint receptor PD-1 only, the machine learning model could not identify those who would respond to treatment.

This suggests that the relationship between gut microbiota and treatment response is specific for particular therapeutic combinations. The researchers therefore suggest that future development of diagnostics tests or therapeutics that rely on the gut microbiome should be tailored to the immunotherapy regimen, regardless of cancer type.

This step towards personalized medicine may help extend cancer treatments to more people and can match individuals to therapies that would benefit them the most.

 A gut microbial signature for combination immune checkpoint blockade across cancer types, Nature Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41591-024-02823-z

Part 2

An overgrowth of nerve cells appears to cause lingering symptoms after recurrent UTIs

A perplexing problem for people with recurring urinary tract infections (UTIs) is persistent pain, even after antibiotics have successfully cleared the bacteria.

researchers have identified the likely cause—an overgrowth of nerve cells in the bladder.

The finding, appearing  in the journal Science Immunology on March 1, provides a potential new approach to managing symptoms of recurring UTIs that would more effectively target the problem and reduce unnecessary antibiotic usage.

Urinary tract infections account for almost 25% of infections in women. Many are recurrent UTIs, with patients frequently complaining of chronic pelvic pain and urinary frequency, even after a round of antibiotics. 

This new study, for the first time, describes an underlying cause and identifies a potential new treatment strategy.

Researchers collected bladder biopsies from recurrent UTI patients who were experiencing pain despite no culturable bacteria in their urine. Using biopsies from people without UTIs as a comparison, they found evidence that sensory nerves were highly activated in the UTI patients, explaining the persistent sense of pain and urinary frequency.

Further studies in mice revealed the underlying events, with unique conditions in the bladder that prompt activated nerves in the lining to bloom and grow with each infection.

Typically, during every bout of UTI, epithelial cells  laden with bacteria are sloughed off, and significant destruction of nearby nerve tissue occurs. These events trigger a rapid repair program in the damaged bladder involving massive regrowth of destroyed nerve cells.

This immune response, including repair activities, is led by mast cells—which are immune cells that fight infection and allergens. Mast cells release chemicals called nerve growth factor, which drive overgrowth and increase sensitivity of nerves. The result is pain and urgency.

The researchers were able to address these symptoms by treating study mice with molecules that suppress production of the mast-cell generated nerve growth factor.

 Byron Hayes et al, Recurrent infections drive persistent bladder dysfunction and pain via sensory nerve sprouting and mast cell activity, Science Immunology (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciimmunol.adi5578. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.adi5578

Asian elephants mourn, bury their dead calves: Study

Asian elephants loudly mourn and bury their dead calves, according to a study by Indian scientists that details animal behavior reminiscent of human funeral rites.

Researchers identified five calf burials conducted by the giant mammals in the north of India's Bengal region in 2022 and 2023, according to the study published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa this week.

They found in each case that a herd carried the deceased calf by the trunk and legs before burying it in the earth with its legs facing upward.

In one instance the herd loudly roared and trumpeted around the buried calf, the authors wrote.

The study found only calves are carried away for burial, owing to the "non-feasibility" of transporting heavier adult elephants by the rest of their herds.

The elephants buried the calves in irrigation canals on tea estates, hundreds of meters away from the nearest human settlements.

Elephants are known for their social and cooperative behavior but calf burial had previously only been "briefly studied" in African elephants—remaining unexplored among their smaller Asian cousins, the study said.

Wild elephants in both Africa and Asia are known to visit carcasses at different stages of decomposition, but this study found different behaviors from the herds it studied.

In all five cases the  herd "fled the site within 40 minutes of burial" and later avoided returning to the area, instead taking different parallel routes for migration.

Parveen Kaswan et al, Unearthing calf burials among Asian Elephants Elephas maximus Linnaeus, 1758 (Mammalia: Proboscidea: Elephantidae) in northern Bengal, India, Journal of Threatened Taxa (2024). DOI: 10.11609/jott.8826.16.2.24615-24629

Can volcanic super eruptions lead to major cooling? Study suggests no

New research suggests that sunlight-blocking particles from an extreme eruption would not cool surface temperatures on Earth as severely as previously estimated.

Some 74,000 years ago, the Toba volcano in Indonesia exploded with a force 1,000 times more powerful than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens. The mystery is what happened after that—namely, to what degree that extreme explosion might have cooled global temperatures.

When it comes to the most powerful volcanoes, researchers have long speculated how post-eruption global cooling—sometimes called volcanic winter—could potentially pose a threat to humanity. Previous studies agreed that some planet-wide cooling would occur but diverged on how much. Estimates have ranged from 3.6°F to 14°F (2°C to 8°C).

In a new study published in the Journal of Climate, a team from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) and Columbia University in New York used advanced computer modeling to simulate super-eruptions like the Toba event. They found that post-eruption cooling would probably not exceed 2.7°F (1.5°C) for even the most powerful blasts.

The relatively modest temperature changes scientists found most compatible with the evidence could explain why no single super-eruption has produced firm evidence of global-scale catastrophe for humans or ecosystems.

To qualify as a super eruption, a volcano must release more than 240 cubic miles (1,000 cubic kilometers) of magma. These eruptions are extremely powerful—and rare. The most recent super-eruption occurred more than 22,000 years ago in New Zealand. The best-known example may be the eruption that blasted Yellowstone Crater in Wyoming about 2 million years ago.

The researchers showed to what extent the diameter of the volcanic aerosol particles influenced post-eruption temperatures. The smaller and denser the particles, the greater their ability to block sunlight.

By simulating super-eruptions over a range of particle sizes, the researchers found that super-eruptions may be incapable of altering global temperatures dramatically more than the largest eruptions of modern times. For instance, the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines caused about a half-degree drop in global temperatures for two years.

This is another example of why geoengineering via stratospheric aerosol injection is a long, long way from being a viable option.

Zachary McGraw et al, Severe Global Cooling After Volcanic Super-Eruptions? The Answer Hinges on Unknown Aerosol Size, Journal of Climate (2023). DOI: 10.1175/JCLI-D-23-0116.1

Rich countries found to use six times more resources, generate 10 times the climate impact: Report

The extraction of the Earth's natural resources tripled in the past five decades, related to the massive build-up of infrastructure in many parts of the world and the high levels of material consumption, especially in upper-middle and high-income countries.

Material extraction is expected to rise by 60% by 2060 and could derail efforts to achieve not only global climate, biodiversity, and pollution targets but also economic prosperity and human well-being, according to a report published today by the UN Environment Program (UNEP)-hosted International Resource Panel.

The 2024 Global Resource Outlook, developed by the International Resource Panel with authors from around the globe and launched during the sixth session of the UN Environment Assembly, calls for sweeping policy changes to bring humanity to live within its means and reduce this projected growth in resource use by one third while growing the economy, improving well-being, and minimizing environmental impacts.

The triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss and pollution is driven from a crisis of unsustainable consumption and production. We must work with nature instead of merely exploiting it, say the experts.

Specific recommendations include:

Institutionalizing resource governance and defining resource use paths especially the consideration of sustainable resource use in strategies to implement Multilateral Environmental Agreements (MEAs) and improving the ability of countries to benchmark and set targets for resource consumption and productivity. Directing finance towards sustainable resource use by reflecting the true costs of resources in the structure of the economy (i.e., subsidies, regulation, taxes, nudges, infrastructure, and planning). Additional recommendations include channeling private finance towards sustainable resource use and incorporating resource-related risk into Public and Central Bank mandates.
Mainstreaming sustainable consumption options by making sure consumers have the right information, have access to and are able to afford sustainable goods and services. Such measures must be coupled with regulation to disincentivize or ban resource-intensive options (like non-essential single-use plastic products).
Making trade an engine of sustainable resource use by creating a level playing field where the true environmental and social costs of goods are reflected in prices by introducing MEAs into trade agreements, for example.
Creating circular, resource-efficient and low impact solutions, and business models to include refuse, reduce, eco-design, reuse, repair, and recycling, as well as supportive regulation and evaluation of existing systems.
Implemented together, these policies can transform the built environment, mobility, food, and energy systems, resulting in an upsurge in renewable energies and energy efficiency, decarbonization of material production, more walkable and cyclable cities with better public transportation and remote work opportunities, as well as reduced food loss and waste. High- and upper-middle-income countries would see a dietary shift away from animal protein and more compact cities, while lower-income economies would experience a rise in resource use to enable dignified living.
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Such systemic shifts are projected to peak resource extraction by 2040 and then decrease use to only 20% above 2020 levels by 2060. Greenhouse gas emissions would drop by over 80%, stocks of transport-related materials and building materials would fall by 50 and 25% respectively, and land used-use for agriculture would fall by 5%. Concurrently, food production would increase by 40% to support populations; even where there is growth and food security, the global economy would grow by 3%, and the Human Development Index would improve by 7%, boosting incomes and well-being.

Given the failure so far to deliver on many policy commitments in MEAs and the urgency of the triple planetary crisis, the report supports immediate actions, following the principle of "best available science."

Millions of online research  papers have disappeared

A check on more than 7 million scholarly publications labelled with unique digital object identifiers (DOIs) reveals that 28% are missing from online archives. “Many people have the blind assumption that if you have a DOI, it’s there forever,” says Mikael Laakso, who studies scholarly publishing. But it costs money to preserve digital content, and archiving involves infrastructure, technology and expertise that many smaller organizations do not have access to.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00616-5?utm_source=Live+...

The windshield phenomenon (or windscreen phenomenon) is the observation that fewer dead insects accumulate on the windshields and front bumpers of people's cars since the early 2000s. It has been attributed to a global decline in insect populations caused by human activity, e.g. use of pesticides.

Tiny worms can tolerate Chornobyl radiation

The 1986 disaster at the Chornobyl nuclear power plant transformed the surrounding area into the most radioactive landscape on Earth. Humans were evacuated, but many plants and animals continue to live in the region, despite the high levels of radiation that persist nearly four decades later.

A new study by researchers appearing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds that exposure to chronic radiation from Chornobyl has not damaged the genomes of microscopic worms living there today—which doesn't mean that the region is safe, the scientists caution, but suggests that these worms are exceptionally resilient.

In recent years, researchers have found that some animals living in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone—the region in northern Ukraine within an 18.6-mile radius of the power plant—are physically and genetically different from their counterparts elsewhere, raising questions about the impact of chronic radiation on DNA.

Did the sudden environmental shift select for species, or even individuals within a species, that are naturally more resistant to ionizing radiation?

To find the answer researchers  turned to nematodes, tiny worms with simple genomes and rapid reproduction, which makes them particularly useful for understanding basic biological phenomena. These worms live everywhere, and they live quickly, so they go through dozens of generations of evolution.

Part 1

With Geiger counters in hand to measure local levels of radiation and personal protective gear to guard against radioactive dust, they gathered worms from samples of soil, rotting fruit, and other organic material. Worms were collected from locations throughout the zone with different amounts of radiation.

After collecting samples in the field, the team brought them to Mousseau's field lab in a former residential home in Chornobyl, where they separated hundreds of nematodes from the soil or fruit. From there, they headed to a Kyiv hotel, where—using travel microscopes—they isolated and established cultures from each worm.

Back in the lab,  the researchers continued studying the worms—part of which involved freezing them.

They can cryopreserve worms, and then thaw them for study later. That means that they can stop evolution from happening in the lab, something impossible with most other animal models, and very valuable when they want to compare animals that have experienced different evolutionary histories.

They focused their analyses on 15 worms of a nematode species called Oscheius tipulae, which has been used in genetic and evolutionary studies. They sequenced the genomes of the 15 O. tipulae worms from Chornobyl and compared them with the genomes of five O. tipulae from other parts of the world.

The researchers were surprised to find that using several different analyses, they could not detect a signature of radiation damage on the genomes of the worms from Chornobyl.

This doesn't mean that Chornobyl is safe—it more likely means that nematodes are really resilient animals and can withstand extreme conditions, according to the scientists.  They also don't know how long each of the worms we collected was in the Zone, so they can't be sure exactly what level of exposure each worm and its ancestors received over the past four decades.

Wondering whether the lack of genetic signature was because the worms living in Chornobyl are unusually effective at protecting or repairing their DNA, the researchers designed a system to compare how quickly populations of worms grow and used it to measure how sensitive the descendants of each of the 20 genetically distinct worms were to different types of DNA damage.

While the lineages of worms were different from each other in how well they tolerated DNA damage, these differences didn't correspond to the levels of radiation at each collection site. Their findings suggest that worms from Chornobyl are not necessarily more tolerant of radiation and the radioactive landscape has not forced them to evolve.

The results give researchers clues into how DNA repair can vary from individual to individual—and despite the genetic simplicity of O. tipulae, could lead to a better understanding of natural variation in humans.

Sophia C. Tintori et al, Environmental radiation exposure at Chornobyl has not systematically affected the genomes or chemical mutagen tolerance phenotypes of local worms, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2314793121

Part 2

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To improve a fusion reaction, use weaknesses as strengths

In the Japanese art of Kintsugi, an artist takes the broken shards of a bowl and fuses them back together with gold to make a final product more beautiful than the original.

That idea is inspiring a new approach to managing plasma, the super-hot state of matter, for use as a power source. Scientists are using the imperfections in magnetic fields that confine a reaction to improve and enhance the plasma in an approach outlined in a paper in the journal Nature Communications.

This approach allows you to maintain a high-performance plasma, controlling instabilities in the core and the edge of the plasma simultaneously. That simultaneous control is particularly important and difficult to do. That's what makes this work special.

This is the first time any research team has validated a systematic approach to tailoring magnetic field imperfections to make the plasma suitable for use as a power source. These magnetic field imperfections are known as error fields.

This method was proven to enhance plasma stability under different plasma conditions, for example, when the plasma was under conditions of high and low magnetic confinement.

It's quite difficult to eliminate existing error fields, so instead of fixing these coil irregularities, researchers can apply additional magnetic fields surrounding the fusion vessel in a process known as error field correction.
In the past, this approach would have also hurt the plasma's core, making the plasma unsuitable for fusion power generation. This time, the researchers were able to eliminate instabilities at the edge of the plasma and maintain the stability of the core. The research is a prime example of how PPPL researchers are bridging the gap between today's fusion technology and what will be needed to bring fusion power to the electrical grid.

"This is actually a very effective way of breaking the symmetry of the system, so humans can intentionally degrade the confinement. It's like making a very tiny hole in a balloon so that it will not explode.
One of the toughest parts of managing a fusion reaction is getting both the core and the edge of the plasma to behave at the same time. There are ideal zones for the temperature and density of the plasma in both regions and hitting those targets while eliminating instabilities is tough.

This study demonstrates that adjusting the error fields can simultaneously stabilize both the core and the edge of the plasma. By carefully controlling the magnetic fields produced by the tokamak's coils, the researchers could suppress edge instabilities, also known as edge localized modes (ELMs), without causing disruptions or a substantial loss of confinement.

 SeongMoo Yang et al, Tailoring tokamak error fields to control plasma instabilities and transport, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45454-1

The Arctic could become 'ice-free' within a decade, say scientists

The Arctic could see summer days with practically no sea ice as early as the next couple of years, according to a new study .

The findings, published in the journal Nature Reviews Earth & Environment, suggest that the first ice-free day in the Arctic could occur over 10 years earlier than previous projections, which focused on when the region would be ice-free for a month or more. The trend remains consistent under all future emission scenarios.

By mid-century, the Arctic is likely to see an entire month without floating ice during September, when the region's sea ice coverage is at its minimum. At the end of the century, the ice-free season could last several months a year, depending on future emissions scenarios. For example, under a high-emissions, or business-as-usual, scenario, the planet's northernmost region could become consistently ice-free even in some winter months.

For scientists, an ice-free Arctic doesn't mean there would be zero ice in the water.

Instead, researchers say the Arctic is ice-free when the ocean has less than 1 million square kilometers (386,000 square miles) of ice. The threshold represents less than 20% of what the region's seasonal minimum ice cover was in the 1980s. In recent years, the Arctic Ocean had around 3.3 million square kilometers of sea ice area at its minimum in September.

Projections of an ice-free Arctic Ocean, Nature Reviews Earth & Environment (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s43017-023-00515-9

Organoids grown from amniotic fluid
For the first time, researchers have grown organoids — 3D bundles of cells that mimic tissue — directly from cells taken from ongoing pregnancies. The cells were extracted from amniotic fluid around growing fetuses between the 16th and 34th weeks of gestation during standard procedures independent of the study. The team grew organoids from three organs — the small intestines, kidneys and lungs — and also modelled congenital diaphragmatic hernia, a disorder where the diaphragm fails to develop correctly, using cells from samples affected by the disorder. Unlike organoids made from pluripotent stem cells, the amniotic fluid cells already have an organ identity. “There is no reprogramming, no manipulation,” says stem-cell biologist and study co-author Mattia Gerli, “we’re just allowing the cells to express their potential.”

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00656-x?utm_source=Live+...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-024-02807-z?utm_source=Live+...

Physicists Reveal a Strange Form of Crystal Where Electrons Can't Move

In a search for novel materials that can contain bizarre new states of matter, physicists led an experiment that forced free-roaming electrons to stay in place. While the phenomenon has been seen in materials where electrons are constrained to just two dimensions, this is the first time it's been observed in a three-dimensional crystal metal lattice, known as a pyrochlore. The technique gives researchers a new tool for studying the less conventional activities of plucky, charge-carrying particles.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41567-023-02362-3

New 'Water Batteries' Are Cheaper, Recyclable, And Won't Explode

Water and electronics don't usually mix, but as it turns out, batteries could benefit from some H₂O.

By replacing the hazardous chemical electrolytes used in commercial batteries with water, scientists have developed a recyclable 'water battery' – and solved key issues with the emerging technology, which could be a safer and greener alternative.

'Water batteries' are formally known as aqueous metal-ion batteries. These devices use metals such as magnesium or zinc, which are cheaper to assemble and less toxic than the materials currently used in other kinds of batteries.

Batteries store energy by creating a flow of electrons that move from the positive end of the battery (the cathode) to the negative end (the anode). They expend energy when electrons flow the opposite way. The fluid in the battery is there to shuttle electrons back and forth between both ends.

In a water battery, the electrolytic fluid is water with a few added salts, instead of something like sulfuric acid or lithium salt.

Crucially, the team behind this latest advancement came up with a way to prevent these water batteries from short-circuiting. This happens when tiny spiky metallic growths called dendrites form on the metal anode inside a battery, busting through battery compartments.

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202400237

Scientists CT scanned thousands of natural history specimens, which you can access for free

Natural history museums have entered a new stage of scientific discovery and accessibility with the completion of openVertebrate (oVert), a five-year collaborative project among 18 institutions to create 3D reconstructions of vertebrate specimens and make them freely available online.

Researchers published a summary of the project in the journal BioScience in which they review the specimens that have been scanned to date and offer a glimpse of how the data might be used to ask new questions and spur the development of innovative technology.

Scientists, teachers, students and artists around the world are using these data remotely now.

David Blackburn et al, Increasing the impact of vertebrate scientific collections through 3D-imaging: the openVertebrate (oVert) Thematic Collections Network, BioScience (2023). DOI: 10.1093/biosci/biad120. academic.oup.com/bioscience/ad … osci/biad120/7615104

Birds, beetles, bugs could help replace pesticides

Natural predators like birds, beetles and bugs might be an effective alternative to pesticides, keeping crop-devouring pests populations down while boosting crop yields, researchers say.

Pests are responsible for around 10 percent—or 21 million metric tons—of crop losses every year, but controlling them has led to the widespread use of chemical pesticides. Could birds, spiders and beetles among other invertebrate predators do the job as well?

Researchers in Brazil, the United States and the Czech Republic analyzed past research on predator pest control and found that they helped reduce pest populations by more than 70 percent, while increasing crop yields by 25 percent.

Natural predators are good pest control agents, and their maintenance is fundamental to guaranteeing pest control in a future with imminent climate change, according to scientists.

Although the researchers did not directly compare the effectiveness of invertebrates versus pesticides, he said, the damage that pesticides cause to ecosystems and biological control was well documented, from biodiversity loss and water and soil pollution to human health risks.
The researchers found that predators were more effective at pest control in regions with greater rain variability—which is expected to increase because of climate change.

The researchers were also surprised to find that having a single species of natural predator was as effective as having multiple species.
Generally speaking, the more species there are, the better ecosystems function. But there are exceptions: a single species could do the job just as well.
Climate change and rising carbon dioxide levels affect both crop yield and pest dynamics by expanding the distribution of pests and increasing their survival rates.

Meanwhile, other studies have shown that invertebrates vital for ecosystem health are suffering a rapid decline globally.
The conservation of invertebrates "guarantees pest control and increased productivity, without damaging ecosystems".
Source: AFP and other news agencies
https://phys.org/news/2024-03-birds-beetles-bugs-pesticides.html?ut...

https://phys.org/tags/biological+control/

Model estimates who benefits most from frequent COVID-19 boosters

Patients keep asking a question : How often should I get my booster shot for COVID-19?

So scientists built a model to answer that question. They published a study describing that model and its results in the journal Nature Communications.

The model's results largely square with data on who is most at risk of bad outcomes from COVID-19: For those older than 65 or who are immunocompromised, more frequent boosters—at least annually—go further to protect against hospitalization or death. For younger populations, the benefit of frequent boosting against severe disease is more modest.

The researchers hope this model can help inform both individuals making decisions about when to get boosters as well as public health policy makers.

For those over 75 years, receiving a yearly booster reduced annual severe infections from around 1,400 cases per 100,000 people to about 1,200 cases. Bumping the booster up to twice a year dropped severe infections to just over 1,000 per 100,000.

The numbers are similar for those who are moderately or severely immunocompromised, and about half that reduction for those aged 65 to 74. For younger, healthy people, the drop is much smaller: Annual or twice-yearly boosters reduced severe infections in people aged 18 to 49 by only 14 to 26 cases per 100,000 people.

These high-risk populations benefit from more frequent boosters relative to younger and healthier individuals.

Hailey J. Park et al, Comparing frequency of booster vaccination to prevent severe COVID-19 by risk group in the United States, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-45549-9

Scientists use a new type of nanoparticle that can both deliver vaccines and act as an adjuvant

Many vaccines, including vaccines for hepatitis B and whooping cough, consist of fragments of viral or bacterial proteins. These vaccines often include other molecules called adjuvants, which help to boost the immune system's response to the protein.

Most of these adjuvants consist of aluminum salts or other molecules that provoke a nonspecific immune response. A team of  researchers has now shown that a type of nanoparticle called a metal organic framework (MOF) can also provoke a strong immune response, by activating the innate immune system—the body's first line of defense against any pathogen—through cell proteins called toll-like receptors.

In a study of mice, the researchers showed that this MOF could successfully encapsulate and deliver part of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein,  while also acting as an adjuvant once the MOF is broken down inside cells.

While more work would be needed to adapt these particles for use as vaccines, the study demonstrates that this type of structure can be useful for generating a strong immune response, the researchers say.

Understanding how the drug delivery vehicle can enhance an adjuvant immune response is something that could be very helpful in designing new vaccines.

Shahad Alsaiari et al, Zeolitic Imidazolate Frameworks Activate Endosomal Toll-like Receptors and Potentiate Immunogenicity of SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Trimer, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adj6380. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adj6380

Nanodevices can produce energy from evaporating tap or seawater

Evaporation is a natural process so ubiquitous that most of us take it for granted. In fact, roughly half of the solar energy that reaches the Earth drives evaporative processes. Since 2017, researchers have been working to harness the energy potential of evaporation via the hydrovoltaic (HV) effect, which allows electricity to be harvested when fluid is passed over the charged surface of a nanoscale device.

Evaporation establishes a continuous flow within nanochannels inside these devices, which act as passive pumping mechanisms. This effect is also seen in the microcapillaries of plants, where water transport occurs thanks to a combination of capillary pressure and natural evaporation.

Although hydrovoltaic devices currently exist, there is very little functional understanding of the conditions and physical phenomena that govern HV energy production at the nanoscale.

To bridge that gap, researchers now leveraged a combination of experiments and multiphysics modeling to characterize fluid flows, ion flows, and electrostatic effects due to solid-liquid interactions, with the goal of optimizing HV devices.

 In the process, they also made a major finding: that hydrovoltaic devices can operate over a wide range of salinities, contradicting prior understanding that highly purified water was required for best performance.

Part 1

The researchers' device represents the first hydrovoltaic application of a technique called nanosphere colloidal lithography, which allowed them to create a hexagonal network of precisely spaced silicon nanopillars. The spaces between the nanopillars created the perfect channels for evaporating fluid samples and could be finely tuned to better understand the effects of fluid confinement and the solid/liquid contact area.

In most fluidic systems containing saline solutions, you have an equal number of positive and negative ions. However, when you confine the liquid to a nanochannel, only ions with a polarity opposite to that of the surface charge will remain. This means that if you allow liquid to flow through the nanochannel, you will generate current and voltages.

As the fluid ion concentration increases, so does the surface charge of the nanodevice. As a result, we can use larger fluid channels while working with higher-concentration fluids. This makes it easier to fabricate devices for use with tap or seawater, as opposed to only purified water.

Because evaporation can occur continuously over a wide range of temperatures and humidities—and even at night—there are many exciting potential applications for more efficient HV devices.

Tarique Anwar et al, Salinity-dependent interfacial phenomena toward hydrovoltaic device optimization, Device (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.device.2024.100287

Part 2

COVID protections wiped out a strain of flu
For the first time, an influenza virus has been eliminated from the human population through non-pharmaceutical interventions. The public-health protections brought in during the COVID-19 pandemic — such as wearing a mask, social distancing and better ventilation — seem to have eliminated the influenza B/Yamagata lineage; no cases have been confirmed since March 2020. In September, the World Health Organization recommended that countries no longer include Yamagata-lineage antigens in flu vaccines, and US Food and Drug Administration advisors have now voted to remove it from flu jabs in the United States.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(23)00697-7/fulltext?utm_source=Live+Audience&utm_campaign=c98e4d006c-briefing-dy-20240306&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b27a691814-c98e4d006c-50323416

https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/05/health/flu-vaccine-yamagata-stra...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41380-023-02382-8

For childhood cancer survivors, inherited genetic factors influence risk of cancers later in life

Common inherited genetic factors that predict cancer risk in the general population may also predict elevated risk of new cancers among childhood cancer survivors, according to a study  by researchers .

The findings, published in Nature Medicine, provide additional evidence that genetics may play an important role in the development of subsequent cancers in survivors of childhood cancer and suggest that common inherited variants could potentially inform screening and long-term follow-up of those at greatest risk. Childhood cancer survivors are known to have a higher risk of developing a new cancer later in life due to adverse effects of cancer treatment or rare inherited genetic factors.

In the new study, the researchers evaluated the combined effect of common variants with history of radiation treatment and found the resulting elevated cancer risk was greater than the sum of the individual associations for treatment and genetic factors alone.

Polygenic risk scores, radiation treatment exposures and subsequent cancer risk in childhood cancer survivors, Nature Medicine (2024).

Plastic pollution's effect on heart health

We breathe, eat and drink tiny particles of plastic. But are these minuscule specks in the body harmless, dangerous or somewhere in between?

A small study published recently in the New England Journal of Medicine raises more questions than it answers about how these bits—microplastics and the smaller nanoplastics—might affect the heart. The Italian study has weaknesses, but is likely to draw attention to the debate over the problem of plastic pollution. Most plastic waste is never recycled and breaks down into these particles.

It's a wake-up call that perhaps we need to take the problem of microplastics more seriously. As a cause for heart disease? Not proven. As a potential cause? Maybe!

The study involved 257 people who had surgery to clear blocked blood vessels in their necks. Italian researchers analyzed the fatty buildup that the surgeons removed from the carotid arteries, which supply blood and oxygen to the brain.

Using two methods, they found evidence of plastics—mostly invisible nanoplastics—in the artery plaque of 150 patients and no evidence of plastics in 107 patients.

They followed these people for three years. During that time, 30 or 20% of those with plastics had a heart attack, stroke or died from any cause, compared to eight or about 8% of those with no evidence of plastics.

The researchers also found more evidence of inflammation in the people with the plastic bits in their blood vessels. Inflammation is the body's response to injury and is thought to raise the risk of heart attacks and strokes.

It's very small and looked only at people with narrowed arteries, who were already at risk for heart attack and stroke. The patients with the plastics had more heart disease, diabetes and high cholesterol than the patients without plastics. They were more likely to be men and more likely to be smokers.

The researchers tried to adjust for these risk factors during their statistical analysis, but they may have missed important differences between the groups that could account for the results. This kind of study cannot prove that the plastics caused their problems.

The researchers had no information on what the people consumed or breathed that might account for the plastics.

The specimens could have been contaminated in the lab. The researchers acknowledge as much in their paper and suggest that future studies be done in clean rooms where air is filtered for pollutants.

The researchers suggest the risk of heart attack, stroke or death was four times greater in the people with the plastics. That seems high.

More research is needed as it does not prove cause and effect, but it suggests cause and effect. And it needs urgently to be either replicated or disproven by other studies done by other investigators in other populations.

This just makes us more alert to the problem.

Raffaele Marfella et al, Microplastics and Nanoplastics in Atheromas and Cardiovascular Events, New England Journal of Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2309822

Philip J. Landrigan, Plastics, Fossil Carbon, and the Heart, New England Journal of Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1056/NEJMe2400683

**

Bull's-Eye Cancer Treatment
A promising new class of cancer drugs is gaining momentum. Antibody-drug conjugates, or ADCs, target specific hormone receptors on cancer cells and deliver growth-stopping drugs directly to tumors. Fourteen ADCs have been approved for breast, bladder, ovarian, blood, and other cancers, some difficult to treat with traditional tactics. About 100 other ADCs are in the preclinical pipeline.

How these drugs are different: Traditional chemotherapeutic drugs kill cancer cells, but also kill healthy cells in the process, leading to severe side effects in the patient. Because of the debilitating side effects, most patients cannot endure a maximum dose of chemotherapy. ADC technology could also be used to deliver radiation therapy directly to tumor cells, or deliver drugs that activate the patient’s immune system to eradicate the cancer.

What the experts say: Enhertu, a new ADC treatment for breast cancer that uses special molecules to link the antibody to the drug that targets cancer cells, has been shown to stop cancer growth for four times longer than a compound without the linker molecules. “It was a landslide in terms of how much better it was,” says oncologist Sara M. Tolaney of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston. “It's a really nice example of how ADC technology leads to dramatic differences in outcomes.”

deliver growth-stopping drugs directly to tumors.

'Double life' of key immune protein reveals new strategies for treating cancer and autoimmune diseases

Insights into the workings of an immune cell surface receptor, called PD-1, reveal how treatments that restrict its action can potentially be strengthened to improve their anticancer effect, a new study shows. The same findings also support experimental treatment strategies for autoimmune diseases, in which the immune system attacks the body, because stimulating the action of PD-1, as opposed to restricting it, can potentially block an overactive immune response.

The study is published  in the journal Science Immunology.

The study results revolve around the body's immune system, which is primed to attack virally infected and cancerous cells while leaving normal cells alone. To spare normal cells from immune attack, the system uses "checkpoints," sensors on the surface of immune cells, including T cells, which turn them off or dampen activation when they receive the right signal. The immune system recognizes tumors as abnormal, but cancer cells can hijack checkpoints to turn off immune responses.

Among the most important checkpoints is a protein called programmed cell death receptor 1 (PD-1), which is shut down by a relatively new drug class called checkpoint inhibitors to make tumors "visible" again to immune attack. Such drugs are at least somewhat effective in a third of patients with a variety of cancers, say the study authors, but the field is urgently seeking ways to improve their performance and scope.

Many immune checkpoints are receptors on the surface of T cells that act to translate docking information from the outside of the cell to the signaling portion of the receptor inside the cell. Connecting the outside-of-the-cell portion of PD-1 with the inside portion is the transmembrane segment. Many immune receptors function in pairs called dimers, but to date, PD-1 has been thought to function alone, not in the dimer form.

Study results showed that PD-1 forms a dimer through interactions of its transmembrane segment. Researchers say this finding is in sharp contrast to other immune receptors, which typically form dimers through the segment of the receptor that is outside the cell.

Further immune cell testing in mice showed that encouraging PD-1 to form dimers, specifically in the transmembrane domain but not in its outer or inner regions, increased its ability to suppress T cell activity, while decreasing transmembrane dimerization lowered PD-1's ability to inhibit immune cell activity.

The study reveals that the PD-1 receptor functions optimally as dimers driven by interactions within the transmembrane domain on the surface of T cells, contrary to the dogma that PD-1 is a monomer.

These findings offer new insights into the molecular workings of the PD-1 immune cell protein that have proven pivotal to the development of the current generation of anticancer immunotherapies, and which are proving essential in the design and developing of the next generation of immunotherapies for autoimmune diseases.

Among the study's other findings was that a single change in the amino acid structure of the transmembrane segment can act to either enhance or diminish the inhibitory function of PD-1 in immune responses.

The team plans further investigations of PD-1 inhibitors and agonists to see if they can tailor what they say are more effective, "rationally designed" therapies for both cancer and autoimmune disorders.

Elliot Philips et al, Transmembrane Domain Driven PD-1 Dimers Mediate T Cell Inhibition, Science Immunology (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciimmunol.ade6256. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.ade6256

Part 2

Water guides the assembly of collagen, the building block of all humans

Water determines life: humans are three-quarters water. An international research team  has now discovered how water also determines the structure of the material that holds us together: collagen.

In a paper published in PNAS, the researchers elucidate the role of water in the molecular self-assembly of collagen. They show that by replacing water with its 'twin molecule' heavy water (D₂O), one can 'tune' the interaction between collagen molecules, and thus influence the process of collagen self-assembly. The findings will help to better understand the tissue failures resulting from heritable collagen-related diseases, such as brittle bone disease (osteogenesis imperfecta).

Collagen is to a large extent 'the stuff we're made of'—around a third of all protein in our body is collagen which ensures the mechanical integrity of all human connective tissue.

For instance, our skin and arteries stretch without tearing and our bones can resist high stress without breaking. Collagen is produced by our cells as single proteins that assemble into larger structures called fibrils. These fibrils further assemble into networks that form the scaffolds for our tissues.

Since collagen is formed in the aqueous environment of human cells, water plays a crucial role in its assembly. The interaction of water molecules with proteins results in collagen that is best suited for its function. But what exactly is behind this collagen-optimizing role of water? How does water do it? And will understanding this mechanism offer insights into conditions where something is wrong with collagen, such as osteogenesis imperfecta? These were the central questions of the research published in PNAS.

Part 1

To investigate the role of water in collagen formation, researchers decided to replace water with its heavier 'twin molecule' D₂O. 

However, in interaction with proteins, D₂O is less potent than H₂O. This is because bonds between D₂O molecules (so-called hydrogen-bonds) are stronger than those between H₂O molecules. This affects the interaction with proteins such as collagen.

Researchers were keen to study the effect this would have on collagen assembly. Together with a multi-disciplinary collaborative research network, they were able to establish that the use of heavy water results in ten times faster collagen formation, and ultimately a less homogeneous, softer and less stable collagen-fiber network.

The explanation is that the reduced interaction of the heavy water with the collagen protein makes it easier for the protein to 'shake off' the D₂O molecules and reorganize itself.

This boosts the formation of the collagen network, but also results in a sloppier, less optimal collagen network. Water thus acts as a mediator between collagen molecules, slowing down the assembly to guarantee the functional properties of living tissues.

This discovery offers fresh perspectives on how water influences the characteristics of collagen, allowing for precise adjustments in the mechanical properties of living tissues. It also creates novel avenues for creating collagen-based materials where macroscopic properties can be controlled and fine-tuned by subtle variations in the composition of the solvent, rather than making significant changes to the chemical structure of the molecular building blocks.

 Giulia Giubertoni et al, Elucidating the role of water in collagen self-assembly by isotopically modulating collagen hydration, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2313162121

Part 2

**

Altered protein folding drives multicellular evolution

Researchers have discovered a mechanism steering the evolution of multicellular life. They identified how altered protein folding drives multicellular evolution.

In a new study led by researchers, they turned to a tool called experimental evolution. In the ongoing Multicellularity Long Term Evolution Experiment (MuLTEE), laboratory yeast are evolving novel multicellular functions, enabling researchers to investigate how they arise.

The study, published in Science Advances, puts the spotlight on the regulation of proteins in understanding evolution.

By demonstrating the effect of protein-level changes in facilitating evolutionary change, this work highlights why knowledge of the genetic code in itself does not provide a full understanding of how organisms acquire adaptive behaviours. Achieving such understanding requires mapping the entire flow of genetic information, extending all the way to the actionable states of proteins that ultimately control the behaviour of cells.

Among the most important multicellular innovations is the origin of robust bodies: over 3,000 generations, these 'snowflake yeast' started out weaker than gelatin but evolved to be as strong and tough as wood.

Researchers identified a non-genetic mechanism at the base of this new multicellular trait, which acts at the level of protein folding. The authors found that the expression of the chaperone protein Hsp90, which helps other proteins acquire their functional shape, was gradually turned down as snowflake yeast evolved larger, tougher bodies.

It turns out Hsp90 acted as a critically-important tuning knob, destabilizing a central molecule that regulates the progression of the cell cycle, causing cells to become elongated. This elongated shape, in turn, allows cells to wrap around one another, forming larger, more mechanically tough multicellular groups.

From an evolutionary perspective, this work highlights the power of non-genetic mechanisms in rapid evolutionary change.

 Kristopher Montrose et al, Proteostatic tuning underpins the evolution of novel multicellular traits, Science Advances (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adn2706. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adn2706

Horizontal gene transfer: How fungi improve their ability to infect insects

Researchers have investigated for the first time in detail how a fungus important for biological plant protection can pass on an advantageous chromosome horizontally, using a previously little-studied way of exchanging genetic information.

Sustainable plant protection measures that are not based on chemical pesticides rely on various organisms and biological agents to protect crops from pests. Such organisms used for biological plant protection are, for example, microscopic fungi of the genus Metarhizium, which can attack and kill a variety of plant-pathogenic insects and are used, for example, in South American sugar cane cultivation.

The molecular mechanisms of fungal infection and the immune response of insects are in an ongoing process of mutual evolutionary adaptation.

The researchers examined the genomes of different strains of the fungi Metarhizium robertsii and Metarhizium brunneum from an earlier co-infection experiment in which ants had been infected with the fungus mix.

In the study, the outgrowing spores were used to infect new ants over 10 consecutive infection cycles. When analyzing the fungal genomes from these infection series, researchers made an exciting observation:  the analyses showed that a single chromosome was very frequently exchanged horizontally between two different strains.

This chromosome contains certain genes that the scientists suspect may give the fungus an advantage in infecting its hosts. The horizontal transfer of entire chromosomes has rarely been described scientifically and has now been studied in detail for the first time. The researchers from the Kiel Evolution Center (KEC) and ISTA published their results in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Part 1

Scientists use the term horizontal gene transfer to describe how living organisms can transfer genetic material between different individuals, including those of other species. In this way, bacteria exchange extensive genetic information, often in the form of plasmids, in order to quickly adapt to changing environmental conditions or to adapt to the host. The rapid evolution of various pathogens is based on such mechanisms, among other things.

In fungi and many other so-called eukaryotic organisms, however, horizontal gene transfer in the form of entire chromosomes is very rare.

The analysis of the genetic information of the fungal strains shows that M. robertsii independently transferred a single chromosome a total of five times during the co-infection experiments, but no other genetic information from one strain to another via horizontal transfer.

Further analyses also indicated that the same chromosome can also be found in the distantly related, also insect-damaging fungus species Metarhizium guizhouense, whose common evolutionary origin with M. robertsii dates back around 15 million years.

The chromosome in M. guizhouense is significantly less altered than would be assumed for the long period of separate evolution of the two fungal species. The chromosome therefore also appears to have been passed on naturally between these different fungal species—and probably horizontally.

The experiments showed that, under certain conditions, the fungus that had received the accessory chromosome had competitive advantages over fungi of the same strain that had not received the chromosome and were able to prevail against them.

The transfer of the chromosome may therefore have advantages for the fungus, the functional basis of which is still unclear. However, one plausible possibility is the transfer of certain genes that produce chitin-cleaving enzymes and can thus improve the ability to infect the insects.

Michael Habig et al, Frequent horizontal chromosome transfer between asexual fungal insect pathogens, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2024). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2316284121

Egg-laying caecilian amphibians produce milk for their young, find scientists

Parental care for offspring occurs in many animals and is an essential part of the reproduction, propagation and development of an organism. An international research team has revealed for the first time how egg-laying female caecilian amphibians successfully raise their offspring in the nest.

Caecilian amphibians are one of the least known vertebrate groups. The researchers were able to observe that the females of egg-laying amphibians, such as the species Siphonops annulatus, provide their young a similarly high-fat milk in the nest as, for example, egg-laying mammals. This discovery demonstrates the complexity of the evolution of reproductive strategies in vertebrates and expands our knowledge of brood care and communication in amphibians.

The research is published in the journal Science.

In most vertebrates, the yolk is usually the only form of nutrition females provide to the growing embryo. The research team observed that the young of the Brazilian caecilian Siphonops annulatus consumed milk for over two months, which appears to be secreted in response to tactile and acoustic stimulation from the mother's cloaca. The milk consists mainly of fats and carbohydrates and is produced in the glands of the female's oviduct.

Scientists have now discovered a vertebrate system in amphibians that has developed similarly comprehensive brood care mechanisms as known for mammals. This includes the production of fat-rich mother's milk and the release of milk to the young in the nest, known as lactation. This tells us a lot about the evolution and reproductive strategies of this still little-known vertebrate order.

Caecilian amphibians are legless, snake-like amphibians that are widespread in the tropical regions of the world. All caecilian amphibians provide brood care. The female of the Brazilian amphibian Siphonops annulatus lays eggs and raises its hatchlings in the nest with fat-rich "milk" as well as its skin. Parental brood care is therefore similar to that of egg-laying mammals such as echidnas and platypuses.

Pedro L. Mailho-Fontana et al, Milk provisioning in oviparous caecilian amphibians, Science (2024). DOI: 10.1126/science.adi5379

Ebola-fighting potential of engineered bacteria

The  Ebola virus has proven an especially lethal contagion, killing roughly 50% of the people who contract it. The 2019 FDA approval of a vaccine, combined with the subsequent development of two antibody-based drugs, marked unprecedented progress against one species of the virus. Yet the continuing threat posed by several other types of Ebola has left researchers in pursuit of additional treatments—particularly in developing regions of Africa, where limited infrastructure can impede the storage and deployment of vaccines.

One approach to combating viral threats has come in the form of a microbial counterpart: bacteria. In researching inhibitors of HIV, for instance, some researchers identified the promise of lectins, or bacteria-generated proteins that can selectively bind to the surfaces of viral particles, thereby neutralizing them.

Scientists took a special interest in scytovirin, a type of lectin produced by cyanobacteria, likely the Earth's first oxygen-producing organisms. Because scytovirin had shown some early success in inhibiting Ebola, they went about engineering two strains of lactic acid bacteria, which can safely colonize the human body, to display scytovirin on their own surfaces. The study is published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology.

After constructing research-safe shells of Ebola particles, the virologists introduced them to the two bacterial strains. Their experiments revealed that one of the engineered strains, Lactococcus lactis, could neutralize roughly 54% of the Ebola particles—more than twice the rate of scytovirin-free L. lactis.

The research team  is now testing the bacteria-delivered antiviral in mice, where the virologists are determining whether the engineered L. lactis can neutralize Ebola the way it did in cell cultures. Passing that test could eventually lead to human trials.

If it does continue to perform, L. lactis—which is already used to make cheese and buttermilk—could become a relatively simple, inexpensive, long-term way to protect vulnerable populations against the devastating virus, the team said.

Joshua Wiggins et al, Lactic acid bacterial surface display of scytovirin inhibitors for anti-ebolavirus infection, Frontiers in Microbiology (2023). DOI: 10.3389/fmicb.2023.1269869

Researchers develop artificial building blocks of life

For the first time, scientists  have developed artificial nucleotides, the building blocks of DNA, with several additional properties in the laboratory, which could be used as artificial nucleic acids for therapeutic applications.

DNA carries the genetic information of all living organisms and consists of only four different building blocks, the nucleotides. Nucleotides are composed of three distinctive parts: a sugar molecule, a phosphate group, and one of the four nucleobases adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine.

The nucleotides are lined up millions of times and form the DNA double helix, similar to a spiral staircase. Scientists have now shown that the structure of  nucleotides can be modified to a great extent in the laboratory. The researchers developed so-called threofuranosyl nucleic acid (TNA) with a new, additional base pair.

But artificial nucleic acids differ in structure from their originals. These changes affect their stability and function.  However,  threofuranosyl nucleic acid is more stable than the naturally occurring nucleic acids DNA and RNA, which brings many advantages for future therapeutic use.

These are the first steps on the way to fully artificial nucleic acids with enhanced chemical functionalities. The study "Expanding the Horizon of the Xeno Nucleic Acid Space: Threose Nucleic Acids with Increased Information Storage' was published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

part1

For the study, the 5-carbon sugar deoxyribose, which forms the backbone of DNA, was replaced by a 4-carbon sugar. In addition, the number of nucleobases was increased from four to six. By exchanging the sugar, the TNA is not recognized by the cell's own degradation enzymes. This has been a problem with nucleic acid-based therapeutics, as synthetically produced RNA that is introduced into a cell is rapidly degraded and loses its effect.

The introduction of TNAs into cells that remain undetected could now maintain the effect for longer. "In addition, the built-in unnatural base pair enables alternative binding options to target molecules in the cell.

TNAs could also be used for the targeted transport of drugs to specific organs in the body (targeted drug delivery) as well as in diagnostics; they could also be useful for the recognition of viral proteins or biomarkers.

Hannah Depmeier et al, Expanding the Horizon of the Xeno Nucleic Acid Space: Threose Nucleic Acids with Increased Information Storage, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2024). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.3c14626

part2

Australia's Great Barrier Reef in grip of 'mass bleaching event'

A "mass bleaching event" is unfolding on Australia's famed Great Barrier Reef, authorities said recently, as warming seas threaten the spectacular home to thousands of marine species.

Listen to a star ‘twinkle’

A look inside the Harvard Herbaria

For people who speak many languages, there's something special about their native tongue

A new study of people who speak many languages has found that there is something special about how the brain processes their native language.

In the brains of these polyglots—people who speak five or more languages ( I am one of them too!)—the same language regions light up when they listen to any of the languages that they speak. In general, this network responds more strongly to languages in which the speaker is more proficient, with one notable exception: the speaker's native language. When listening to one's native language, language network activity drops off significantly.

The findings suggest there is something unique about the first language one acquires, which allows the brain to process it with minimal effort, the researchers say.

Something makes it a little bit easier to process—maybe it's that you've spent more time using that language—and you get a dip in activity for the native language compared to other languages that you speak proficiently.

The brain's language processing network, located primarily in the left hemisphere, includes regions in the frontal and temporal lobes. In a 2021 study, researchers found that in the brains of polyglots, the language network was less active when listening to their native language than the language networks of people who speak only one language.

In the new study, the researchers wanted to expand on that finding and explore what happens in the brains of polyglots as they listen to languages in which they have varying levels of proficiency. Studying polyglots can help researchers learn more about the functions of the language network, and how languages learned later in life might be represented differently than a native language or languages.

With polyglots, you can do all of the comparisons within one person. You have languages that vary along a continuum, and you can try to see how the brain modulates responses as a function of proficiency.

Saima Malik-Moraleda et al, Functional characterization of the language network of polyglots and hyperpolyglots with precision fMRI, Cerebral Cortex (2024). DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhae049

False GPS signal surge makes life hard for pilots

False GPS signals that deceive on-board plane systems and complicate the work of airline pilots are surging near conflict zones.

A ground collision alert sounds in the cockpit, for instance, even though the plane is flying at high altitude—a phenomenon affecting several regions and apparently of military origin.

This includes the vicinity of Ukraine following the Russian invasion two years ago, the eastern Mediterranean and the air corridor running above Iraq, according to pilots and officials.

Disruptions which were previously limited to jamming preventing access to signals from geolocation satellites are now also taking a more dangerous form making it difficult to counter spoofing.

This sees a plane receive false coordinates, times and altitudes.

By comparing this data to the geographical maps in its memory banks, its systems can conclude there is imminent danger ahead. There were some untimely alarms ordering people to pull back as far as possible on the stick and apply full power to avoid an obstacle, while the plane was in cruise... and in any case no mountain reaches so high.

The problem  is that this adulterated information enters the navigation system and can cause false alerts hours afterwards as the flight nears its destination.

At first, crews quickly see that it is a false alarm. But as it is an alarm warning of immediate danger, control towers ask the crews to still carry out the emergency maneuver, to make a return and an analysis. If the problem occurs a second time and the analysis has not revealed any danger, then the only way is to turn off this alarm, knowing other systems remain active to detect possible risk.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) has been warning that GNSS signal disruptions have intensified, affecting relatively remote regions beyond the conflict zone such as Finland and the Mediterranean.

In certain cases, this can lead to a modified trajectory or even a changed destination as it was impossible to carry out a landing in secure conditions, the EASA says.

Source: AFP and other news agencies