These results highlight the immense potential of silicified erythrocytes [red blood cells] as a safe and efficient transfusion alternative, which effectively meets the growing clinical demand for blood," the researchers conclude.

Of course, this new blood technology is still in its infancy so it has many more challenges to endure before it can be determined safe for humans.

Meanwhile, for those of us in good health, donating blood remains a valuable way to help address current shortages and potentially save lives.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2322418121

Part 2

Astronomers detect black hole 'starving' its host galaxy to death

Astronomers have used the NASA/ESA James Webb Space Telescope to confirm that supermassive black holes can starve their host galaxies of the fuel they need to form new stars. The results are reported in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The astronomers used Webb to observe a galaxy roughly the size of the Milky Way in the early universe, about two billion years after the Big Bang. Like most large galaxies, it has a supermassive black hole at its center. However, this galaxy is essentially 'dead': it has mostly stopped forming new stars.

This galaxy  is massive for such an early period in the universe: its total mass is about 200 billion times the mass of our sun, and most of its stars formed between 12.5 and 11.5 billion years ago.

In the early universe, most galaxies are forming lots of stars, so it's interesting to see such a massive dead galaxy at this period in time. If it had enough time to get to this massive size, whatever process that stopped star formation likely happened relatively quickly.

Using Webb, the researchers detected that this galaxy is expelling large amounts of gas at speeds of about 1,000 kilometers per second, which is fast enough to escape the galaxy's gravitational pull. These fast-moving winds are being 'pushed' out of the galaxy by the black hole.

Like other galaxies with accreting black holes, "Pablo's Galaxy" has fast outflowing winds of hot gas, but these gas clouds are tenuous and have little mass. Webb detected the presence of a new wind component, which could not be seen with earlier telescopes. This gas is colder, which means it's denser and—crucially—does not emit any light. Webb, with its superior sensitivity, can see these dark gas clouds because they block some of the light from the galaxy behind them.

The mass of gas being ejected from the galaxy is greater than what the galaxy would require to keep forming new stars. In essence, the black hole is starving the galaxy to death.

 A fast-rotator post-starburst galaxy quenched by supermassive black-hole feedback at z=3, Nature Astronomy (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-024-02345-1. www.nature.com/articles/s41550-024-02345-1

Scientists discover key features of language sites that could help preserve function after brain surgery

When surgeons perform brain surgery on people with brain tumors or epilepsy, they need to remove the tumor or abnormal tissue while preserving parts of the brain that control language and movement.

A new Medicine study may better inform doctors' decisions about which brain areas to preserve, thereby improving patients' language function after brain surgery. The study expands the understanding of how language is encoded in the brain and identifies key features of critical sites in the cerebral cortex that work together to produce language.

If you think of the brain's language network as a social network, scientists have essentially found the person who is the link between lots of subnetworks of people. They wouldn't know each other if not for this single person. In the brain, these "connectors" serve the same function for language. If the connector sites were removed, the patient would make more language errors after surgery—such as difficulty naming objects—because the subnetworks couldn't work together.

https://news.northwestern.edu/stories/2024/september/vital-language...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-51839-zNature Communications (2024).

AI is 'accelerating the climate crisis,' experts warn

If you care about the environment, think twice about using AI. Generative artificial intelligence uses 30 times more energy than a traditional search engine, warn researchers.

The language models on which the programs are based require enormous computing capacities to train on billions of data points, necessitating powerful servers.

Then there's the energy used to respond to each individual user's requests.

Instead of simply extracting information, "like a search engine would do to find the capital of a country, for example," AI programs "generate new information," making the whole thing "much more energy-intensive," they explain.

According to the International Energy Agency, the combined AI and the cryptocurrency sectors consumed nearly 460 terawatt hours of electricity in 2022—two percent of total global production.

Although Microsoft and Google have committed to achieving carbon neutrality by the end of the decade, the US tech giants saw their greenhouse gas emissions soar in 2023 because of AI: up 48 percent for Google compared to 2019 and 29 percent for Microsoft compared to 2020.

"We are accelerating the climate crisis," say the experts, calling for more transparency from tech companies.

The solution, they say, could come from governments that, for the moment, are "flying blindly," without knowing what is "in the data sets or how the algorithms are trained."

"Once we have transparency, we can start legislating".

It is also necessary to explain to people what generative AI can and cannot do, and at what cost.

 The researchers demonstrated that producing a high-definition image using artificial intelligence consumes as much energy as fully recharging the battery of your cell phone.

The idea here is not to oppose AI, they emphasize, but rather to choose the right tools—and use them judiciously.

Source: AFP and other news agencies

More than 39 million deaths from antibiotic-resistant infections estimated between now and 2050, suggests analysis

More than 39 million people around the world could die from antibiotic-resistant infections over the next 25 years, according to a study published in The Lancet.

The new study by the Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) Project is the first global analysis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) trends over time.

It reveals that more than one million people died each year as a result of AMR between 1990 and 2021. The study also estimates 1.91 million people could potentially die as a direct result of AMR in 2050, an increase of almost 70% per year compared to 2022. Over the same period, the number of deaths in which AMR bacteria play a role will increase by almost 75% from 4.71 million to 8.22 million per year.

Between 1990 and 2021, AMR deaths among children under five years old declined by 50%, while those among people aged 70 years and older increased by more than 80%. These trends are predicted to continue in the coming decades, with AMR deaths among children under five projected to halve by 2050 globally, as deaths among people 70 years and older more than double.

The findings highlight a vital need for interventions that incorporate infection prevention, vaccination, minimizing inappropriate antibiotic use, and research into new antibiotics to mitigate the number of AMR deaths that are forecasted for 2050.

Antimicrobial medicines are one of the cornerstones of modern health care, and increasing resistance to them is a major cause for concern. These findings highlight that AMR has been a significant global health threat for decades and that this threat is growing. Understanding how trends in AMR deaths have changed over time, and how they are likely to shift in future, is vital to make informed decisions to help save lives, say the authors of the study.

Global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance 1990–2021: a systematic analysis with forecasts to 2050, The Lancet (2024). DOI: 10.1016/S0140-6736(24)01867-1

People think in many dimensions at a time

Until now the dominant view  has been that a central goal of human perception is to recognize objects and assign them to different categories—for example, this observed object is a dog and dogs belong to the category of animals.

But researchers  have now shown that this view is incomplete.

In a recent study published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, they demonstrate that brain activity when seeing objects can be much better explained by a variety of behaviorally relevant dimensions.

Until now, it was thought that our brain's visual system breaks down the objects we see into very basic features and then gradually reassembles them with the aim of enabling their recognition.

The research  results have shown that recognition and categorization are important goals of our vision, but by no means the only ones.

In fact, the researchers found behaviorally relevant signals at all processing stages in the visual system. they were able to show this based on the behaviorally relevant dimensions they had previously discovered.

The researchers used a computer model to identify 66 object dimensions from behavioral data of more than 12,000 study participants. These dimensions not only explain categorization, i.e., whether a dog is an animal, but also cover other characteristics, such as colors and shapes, as well as gradual values, for example, how typical a dog is of an animal.

Part 1

This allowed them to explain much better how our brain enables us to perceive the objects in our environment and understand their meaning.
The researchers looked at the data of three study participants whose brain activity was measured in the MRI scanner over 15 sessions while they looked at more than 8,000 different images of 720 objects.

When the participants saw a rocket, for example, the researchers were able to measure from the brain activity that their visual system not only recognized that it was a rocket or that a rocket is a vehicle, but also that it is gray and elongated, has to do with fire, can fly, or sparkles.
All processing stages of our perceptual system are therefore involved in capturing a broad spectrum of behaviorally relevant properties that together make up our perception, say the researchers.
This work reveals a multidimensional framework that is consistent with the rich and diverse behavioral relevance of objects. This ultimately explains our broad range of human behaviors better than the categorization-focused approach, and this in turn is crucial for understanding how we perceive and interact with our visual world in a meaningful way.

Oliver Contier et al, Distributed representations of behaviour-derived object dimensions in the human visual system, Nature Human Behaviour (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41562-024-01980-y

Part 2

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Researchers discover new blood group system

The discovery of a new blood group, MAL, has solved a 50-year-old mystery. Researchers from NHS Blood and Transplant (Bristol), NHSBT's International Blood Group Reference Laboratory (IBGRL) and the University of Bristol identified the genetic background of the previously known but mysterious AnWj blood group antigen. The findings allow identification and treatment of rare patients lacking this blood group.

Some people can lack this blood group due to the effect of illness, but the rare inherited form of the AnWj-negative phenotype has only been found in a handful of individuals—though due to this discovery it will now be easier to find others in the future.

The two best known blood group systems are ABO and Rh but blood is more complex, and matching across the other groups can be lifesaving.

If people who are AnWj-negative receive AnWj-positive blood they could have a transfusion reaction, and this research allows development of new genotyping tests for detecting such rare individuals and reducing the risk of transfusion-associated complications.

The AnWj antigen—an antigen is a surface marker—was discovered in 1972 but its genetic background was unknown until now. The new research, published in Blood, establishes a new blood group system (MAL), the 47th ever to be discovered, as home to the AnWj antigen.

The research team established that AnWj is carried on the Mal protein. More than 99.9% of people are AnWj-positive, and such individuals were shown to express full-length Mal protein on their red cells, which was not present on the cells of AnWj-negative individuals. The team identified homozygous deletions in the MAL gene associated with the inherited AnWj-negative phenotype.

The most common reason for being AnWj-negative is due to suffering from a hematological disorder or some types of cancer which suppress antigen expression. Only a very small number of people are AnWj-negative due to a genetic cause. There were five genetically AnWj negative individuals in the study including a family of Arab-Israelis. The blood tested included a sample given by a lady in 2015 who was the first AnWj negative person to be discovered in the 1970s.

The research team used whole exome sequencing—the genetic sequencing of all DNA that encodes proteins—to show that these rare inherited cases were caused by homozygous DNA sequence deletions in the MAL gene, which codes for Mal protein.

Proof that Mal is responsible for binding of AnWj antibodies isolated from these rare patients was provided by experiments showing the appearance of specific reactivity with cells in which researchers introduced the normal MAL gene but not the mutant gene.

Louise A Tilley et al, Deletions in the MAL gene result in loss of Mal protein, defining the rare inherited AnWj-negative blood group phenotype, Blood (2024). DOI: 10.1182/blood.2024025099.

Scientists mix sky's splendid hues to reset circadian clocks

Like sunrise, colours rest circadian rhythms

Those mesmerizing blue and orange hues in the sky at the start and end of a sunny day might have an essential role in setting humans' internal clocks.

In new research , a novel LED light that emits alternating wavelengths of orange and blue outpaced two other light devices in advancing melatonin levels in a small group of study participants.

Published in the Journal of Biological Rhythms, the finding appears to establish a new benchmark in humans' ability to influence their circadian rhythms, and reflects an effective new approach to counteract seasonal affective disorder (SAD).

Alexandra Neitz et al, Toward an Indoor Lighting Solution for Social Jet Lag, Journal of Biological Rhythms (2024). DOI: 10.1177/07487304241262918

Kleptoparasitism is spreading avian flu

Most seabirds take fish, squid, or other prey from the first few metres of seawater. Scavenging is common.

But there are other tactics. Frigatebirds, skuas, and gulls rely on the success of other seabirds. These large, strong birds chase, harry, and attack their targets until they regurgitate or drop the prey they’ve just caught. They’re the pirates of the seabird world, stealing hard-earned meals from other species. This behaviour is known as kleptoparasitism, from the Ancient Greek word kléptēs, thief.

The strategy is brutal, effective, and a core behaviour for these important seabirds. But as new research shows, it comes with major risks for the thieves. The new strain of avian flu is killing birds by their millions – and researchers found that kleptoparasitism could spread the virus very easily.

https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/conl.13052

Quantum tech breakthrough could enable precision sensing at room temperature

A breakthrough in quantum technology research could help realize a new generation of precise quantum sensors that can operate at room temperature.

The research—carried out by an international team of researchers shows how the quantum states of molecules can be controlled and sensitively detected under ambient conditions.

The findings could help unlock a new class of quantum sensors which could be used to probe biological systems, novel materials, or electronic devices by measuring magnetic fields with high sensitivity and spatial resolution.

Enabled by using molecules as the quantum sensor, future devices which build on the team's research could measure magnetic fields down to nanometer-length scales in a way which is convenient to deploy.

In a paper, titled "Room-temperature optically detected coherent control of molecular s..." published in the journal Physical Review Letters, the researchers show how they could manipulate a specific quantum property known as 'spin' in organic molecules and measure it with visible light, all at room temperature.

The team used lasers to align the spins of electrons in the molecules, which can be thought of as tiny quantum-mechanical magnets. Using carefully-directed pulses of microwave radiation, they could control these spin states into desired quantum states. They could then measure the state of the spins using the amount of visible light emitted from the molecules from a second laser pulse, which varies according to the quantum state of the spins.

In their proof-of-principle demonstration, the team used an organic molecule called pentacene incorporated in two forms of a material called para-terphenyl, both in crystals and a thin film, which could open new applications in future devices.

The team showed that they could optically detect the quantum coherence—the timescale over which quantum states live—of the molecules for up to a microsecond at room temperature, much longer than the time needed to manipulate the states.

The longer quantum states can be maintained, the more information future sensors could collect about their interactions with the properties they are measuring.

part1 

Quantum sensing offers an exciting opportunity to probe the world around us in new ways, and holds promise to measure quantities such as magnetic and electric fields or temperature in ways which classical systems could not.
By showing that we can optically detect quantum coherence in molecules at room temperature, this work provides a proof-of-principle that the key properties needed for room-temperature quantum sensing can be achieved in a system which can be chemically synthesized.

Adrian Mena et al, Room-Temperature Optically Detected Coherent Control of Molecular Spins, Physical Review Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.133.120801

part 2

Over 3,600 food packaging chemicals found in human bodies

More than 3,600 chemicals used in food packaging or preparation have been detected in human bodies, some of which are hazardous to health, while little is known about others, a study said this week.

Around 100 of these chemicals are considered to be of "high concern" to human health.

Some of these chemicals are relatively well-studied and have already been found in human bodies, such as PFAS "forever chemicals" and bisphenol A—both of which are the target of bans.

But little is known about the health effects of others.

The researchers had previously catalogued around 14,000 food contact chemicals (FCCs), which are capable of "migrating" into food from packaging made of plastic, paper, glass, metal or other materials.

They can also come from other parts of the food-making process, such as from conveyer belts or kitchen utensils.

The researchers then searched for these chemicals in existing biomonitoring databases, which track chemicals in human samples.

The team was expecting to find a few hundred FCCs. Instead, they were surprised to find 3,601—a quarter of all the known FCCs.

However, this study could not show that all these chemicals necessarily ended up in bodies from food packaging, as "other exposure sources are possible".

Among the "high concern" chemicals were numerous PFAS, also known as forever chemicals, which have been detected in many parts of the human body in recent years and linked to a range of health problems.

Also detected was bisphenol A, a hormone-disrupting chemical used to make plastics that has already been banned from baby bottles in many countries.

Another hormone-disrupting chemical was phthalates, which has been linked to infertility.

Less is known about oligomers, which are also byproducts of plastic production.

When it comes to toxicology, an old saying is that "the dose makes the poison".

A limitation of the study was that it could not say whether there were particularly high concentrations of any of the chemicals.

Experts warned that  these chemicals can interact with each other, pointing to a single sample that had up to 30 different PFAS.

They recommended that people reduce their contact time with packaging—and to avoid heating up food in the packaging it came in.

This work is to raise awareness that the way we package our food is... going in a direction which is not good for the environment and human health.

Evidence for widespread human exposure to food contact chemicals, Journal of Exposure Science & Environmental Epidemiology (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41370-024-00718-2

How bacteria age

Any organism that lives, grows and reproduces must also age. People often think of aging in the physical sense—gray hair, slowed movements and wrinkles—but aging fundamentally occurs on a molecular level, inside of cells.

As organisms age, their cells accumulate damage that impairs functioning. Molecular damage is implicated in many age-related conditions in humans and is equally relevant for single-celled organisms. While they may not "look" their age, bacteria feel the passage of time too.

Bacteria differ from us in many ways, including in their modes of growth and reproduction. Unlike humans and other animals, single-celled organisms, such as bacteria and some fungi, can undergo a process called binary fission to reproduce, meaning that they duplicate their DNA and then split in two. Replication via binary fission can be very fast—the fastest-growing bacterium we know of can divide in less than 10 minutes.

Considering our very different ways of life, it might seem difficult to apply the concept of aging to bacteria. Indeed, it was long thought that bacteria and other organisms that reproduce via binary fission do not age at all. This was because binary fission was thought to be a symmetrical division, producing a parent and offspring identical in age, thus leading to what scientists call 'functional immortality' for the population.

On the other hand, asymmetric division, whereby the parent is older than the offspring, was thought to be required for an organism to be able to age at all.

Evidence against the accepted immortality paradigm first came in 2005, when scientists showed that Escherichia coli actually exhibits differences between "old" and "new" in parent and offspring cells, respectively. By following dividing cells with a microscope, the researchers could show that the older cells' growth rate and offspring production decline over time, and that they die more frequently than their younger offspring cells. Thus, despite looking the same, the cells undergo divisions that leave them functionally asymmetric, causing cells to age over time.

Part 1

Asymmetric division does damage control
Using mathematical models and data from the 2005 study, other scientists later showed that asymmetry is important for the whole population, as it elevates the population's fitness by maintaining variance. Variance is what natural selection acts upon, and more variation in a population generally equates with a better chance of survival in changeable conditions.

This study was important for reconciling previously conflicting views about bacterial aging and showing how important aging can be on an evolutionary level.

But how does asymmetric division help to keep populations fit? Part of the answer lies in protein aggregation, a contributor to aging in both bacteria and eukaryotic cells. Protein aggregation is implicated in many age-related diseases in humans, including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, as these aggregates can be toxic and cause cells to die.
Proteins also aggregate in E. coli, as researchers showed using fluorescent molecules that attach to aggregates, but are cleverly dealt with to minimize damage. As a feature of asymmetric division, older cells accumulate proteins to segregate the age-related damage, keeping their offspring looking "younger," molecularly speaking.
Stress ages bacteria and humans alike
Stress is another factor that is thought to contribute to aging in humans, and a 2024 paper suggests that the same is true for our bacterial companion, E. coli. Like any kind of cells, E. coli cells accumulate mutations throughout their lifetimes.
Some of these mutations may be nonlethal but still negatively impact the cell's fitness, for example, causing an important protein to lose its function. Such deleterious loss-of-function mutations can kickstart a stress state inside the cell that ultimately helps it to survive the mutation.

The researchers analyzed the effects of over 60 different nonlethal loss-of-function mutations in E. coli, focusing on mutants with non-functional ATP synthases, large protein complexes that allow cells to generate energy in the form of ATP.

These mutants were found to increase their metabolic activity to compensate for the mutation, which comes at a cost—they grow slower, and some enter a purgatory-like, "postreplicative" state faster than non-mutants, especially if their surroundings are nutrient-poor.
Part 2

Considering their findings, the researchers suggested that there is an "aging cost" that comes with maintaining resistance to stress on a population level. Besides shedding light on a potentially ancient mechanism of aging, the factors that contribute to bacterial aging could be investigated as new antibiotic targets.

Additionally, some human diseases are also perpetuated through cellular stress states, and understanding how these work on a molecular level could lead to the development of new treatments.

Time waits for no one, not even bacteria—and that's a good thing. Far from immortal beings beyond the reaches of aging, bacteria are an interesting system in which to study the molecular mechanisms that contribute to age-related decline.

Their rapid and robust growth means we can observe many generations in a relatively short experiment and test the effects of all kinds of environmental and genetic factors on the complex process of aging.

Source:  American Society for Microbiology
Part 3
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Why some organs age faster than others: Scientists discover hidden mutations in non-coding DNA

The accumulation of mutations in DNA is often mentioned as an explanation for the aging process, but it remains just one hypothesis among many. A team of researchers has identified a mechanism that explains why certain organs, such as the liver, age more rapidly than others.

The mechanism reveals that damages to non-coding DNA, which are often hidden, accumulate more in slowly proliferating tissues, such as those of the liver or kidneys. Unlike in organs that regenerate frequently, these damages remain undetected for a long time and prevent cell division. These results, published in the journal Cell, open new avenues for understanding cellular aging and potentially slowing it down.

Our organs and tissues do not all age at the same rate. Aging, marked by an increase in senescent cells—cells that are unable to divide and have lost their functions—affects the liver or kidneys more rapidly than the skin or intestine.

The mechanisms that contribute to this process are the subject of much debate within the scientific community. While it is widely accepted that damage to the genetic material (DNA), which accumulates with age, is at the root of aging, the link between the two phenomena remains unclear.

DNA molecules contain coding regions—the genes that code for proteins—and non-coding regions that are involved in the mechanisms that regulate or organize the genome. Constantly damaged by external and internal factors, the cell has DNA repair systems that prevent the accumulation of errors.

Errors located in the coding regions are detected when genes are transcribed, i.e. when they are activated. Errors in non-coding regions are detected during cell renewal, which requires the creation of a new copy of the genome each time, via the process of DNA replication. However, cell renewal does not occur with the same frequency depending on the type of tissue or organ.

Tissues and organs that are in constant contact with the outside environment, such as the skin or intestine, renew their cells (and therefore replicate their DNA) more often—once or twice a week—than internal organs, such as the liver or kidneys, whose cells proliferate only a few times per year.

Part 1

By mapping for the first time the sites at which DNA replication starts in liver cells that regenerate after ablation, the scientists discovered that these are always located in non-coding regions. It was also observed that replication initiation was much more efficient in young mice than in old mice.

"These non-coding regions are not subject to regular error checking and therefore accumulate damage over time. After removal of the liver in young mice there is still little damage and DNA replication is possible. On the contrary, when the experiment is carried out in old mice, the excessive number of errors accumulated over time triggers an alarm system that prevents DNA replication.

This block of DNA replication prevents cells from proliferating, leading to degradation of cell functions and tissue senescence.

These observations could help explain why slowly proliferating tissues, such as the liver, age faster than rapidly proliferating tissues, such as the intestine. In cells that have remained dormant for long periods, too many cryptic DNA lesions have accumulated in the non-coding regions, which contain the origins of replication, and prevent replication from being triggered. In rapidly proliferating tissues, on the other hand, little damage accumulates thanks to frequent cell renewal, and the origins of replication retain their efficiency.

 In vivo DNA replication dynamics unveil aging-dependent replication stress, Cell (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2024.08.034. www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00963-2

Part 2

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Surprising sounds could cause riskier decision-making

When you make a decision, certain neurons in your brain emit short bursts of the neurotransmitter dopamine. A new  study shows that when other factors wholly unrelated to the decision at hand—such as an unexpected sound—trigger these dopamine bursts it can lead to riskier decision-making.

The findings demonstrate how sounds around us may affect our choices and could also help researchers better understand dopamine systems in the brain and how they contribute to conditions like schizophrenia and depression.

Gloria W. Feng et al, Surprising sounds influence risky decision making, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51729-4

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Why petting your cat leads to static electricity

Anyone who has ever pet a cat or shuffled their feet across the carpet knows that rubbing objects together generates static electricity. 

Scientists  have  uncovered the mechanics at play now. 

When an object slides, the front and back parts of that object experience different forces, researchers found. This difference in forces causes different electrical charges to build up on the front and back parts of the object. And the difference in electrical charges creates a current, leading to a light zap.

The study was published in the journal Nano Letters.

The  answer is surprisingly simple. Just having different deformations—and therefore different charges—at the front and back of something sliding leads to current.

Karl P. Olson et al, What Puts the "Tribo" in Triboelectricity?, Nano Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acs.nanolett.4c03656

Earth may once have had a ring like Saturn

The rings of Saturn are among the most famous and spectacular features in the solar system. Earth may once have had something similar, say researchers.

The existence of such a ring, forming around 466 million years ago and persisting for a few tens of millions of years, could explain several puzzles in our planet's past.

Around 466 million years ago, a lot of meteorites started hitting Earth. We know this because many impact craters formed in a geologically brief period.
In the same period we also find deposits of limestone across Europe, Russia and China containing very high levels of debris from a certain type of meteorite. The meteorite debris in these sedimentary rocks show signs that they were exposed to space radiation for much less time than we see in meteorites that fall today.

Many tsunamis also occurred at this time, as can be seen from other unusual jumbled up sedimentary rocks.

We think all these features are likely related to one another. But what links them together?
Part 1

Using models of how Earth's tectonic plates moved in the past, researchers mapped out where all these craters were when they first formed. We found all of the craters are on continents that were close to the equator in this period, and none are in places that were closer to the poles.
They measured how much of Earth's land surface suitable for preserving a crater was near the equator at that time. Only about 30% of the suitable land was close to the equator, with 70% at higher latitudes.
Under normal circumstances, asteroids hitting Earth can hit at any latitude, at random, as we see in craters on the moon, Mars and Mercury.

So it's extremely unlikely that all 21 craters from this period would form close to the equator if they were unrelated to one another. We would expect to see many other craters at higher latitudes as well.

The researchers think the best explanation for all this evidence is that a large asteroid broke up during a close encounter with Earth. Over several tens of millions of years, the asteroid's debris rained down onto Earth, creating the pattern of craters, sediments and tsunamis described above.
You may know that Saturn isn't the only planet with rings. Jupiter, Neptune and Uranus have less obvious rings, too. Some scientists have even suggested that Phobos and Deimos, the small moons of Mars, may be remnants of an ancient ring.

So we know a lot about how rings form. Here's how it works.
Part 2

When a small body (like an asteroid) passes close to a large body (like a planet), it gets stretched by gravity. If it gets close enough (inside a distance called the Roche limit), the small body will break apart into lots of tiny pieces and a small number of bigger pieces.

All those fragments will be jostled around and gradually evolved into a debris ring orbiting the equator of the larger body. Over time, the material in the ring will fall down to the larger body, where the larger pieces will form impact craters. These craters will be located close to the equator.

So if Earth destroyed and captured a passing asteroid around 466 million years ago, it would explain the anomalous locations of the impact craters, the meteorite debris in sedimentary rocks, craters and tsunamis, and the meteorites' relatively brief exposure to space radiation.
Back then, the continents were in different positions due to continental drift. Much of North America, Europe and Australia were close to the equator, whereas Africa and South America were at higher southern latitudes.

The ring would have been around the equator. And since Earth's axis is tilted relative to its orbit around the sun, the ring would have shaded parts of Earth's surface.

This shading in turn might have caused global cooling, as less sunlight reached the planet's surface.

This brings us to another interesting puzzle. Around 465 million years ago, our planet began cooling dramatically. By 445 million years ago it was in the Hirnantian Ice Age, the coldest period in the past half a billion years.

Was a ring shading Earth responsible for this extreme cooling? The next step in our scientific sleuthing is to make mathematical models of how asteroids break up and disperse, and how the resulting ring evolves over time. This will set the scene for climate modeling that explores how much cooling could be imposed by such a ring.

 Andrew G. Tomkins et al, Evidence suggesting that earth had a ring in the Ordovician, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.epsl.2024.118991

Part 3

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Metals in the body from pollutants associated with progression of harmful plaque buildup in the arteries

Metal exposure from environmental pollution is associated with increased buildup of calcium in the coronary arteries at a level that is comparable to traditional risk factors like smoking and diabetes, according to a study.

The findings support the fact that metals in the body are associated with the progression of plaque buildup in the arteries and potentially provide a new strategy for managing and preventing atherosclerosis. The results are published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

These findings highlight the importance of considering metal exposure as a significant risk factor for atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease

Atherosclerosis is a condition where the arteries become narrowed and hardened due to a buildup of plaque, which can restrict blood flow and cause clots to form. It's an underlying cause of heart attacks, strokes and peripheral artery disease (PAD), the most common forms of cardiovascular disease (CVD). Atherosclerosis causes coronary artery calcium (CAC), which can be measured non-invasively over time to predict future cardiac events.

Widespread cadmium, tungsten, uranium, cobalt, copper, and zinc pollution occurs from agricultural and industrial uses such as fertilizers, batteries, oil production, welding, mining, and nuclear energy production. Tobacco smoke is the main source of cadmium exposure.

Results provided evidence that metal exposure may be associated with atherosclerosis over 10 years by increasing coronary calcification.

Urinary Metal Levels and Coronary Artery Calcification: Longitudinal Evidence in the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis, Journal of the American College of Cardiology (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.jacc.2024.07.020

Ocean waves grow way beyond known limits, new research finds

Scientists have discovered that ocean waves may become far more extreme and complex than previously imagined.

The new study, published in Nature recently, reveals that under specific conditions, where waves meet each other from different directions, waves can reach heights four times steeper than what was once thought possible.

It has often been assumed that waves are two-dimensional and understanding of wave breaking to-date has been based on these assumptions. Yet in the ocean, waves can travel in many directions and rarely fit this simplified model.

This new research  reveals that three-dimensional waves, which have more complex, multidirectional movements, can be twice as steep before breaking compared to conventional two-dimensional waves, and even more surprisingly, continue to grow even steeper even after breaking has occurred.

The findings could have implications for how offshore structures are designed, weather forecasting and climate modeling, while also affecting our fundamental understanding of several ocean processes.

 Mark McAllister, Three-dimensional wave breaking, Nature (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-07886-z. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07886-z

"Scuba-diving'' lizards use bubble to breathe underwater and avoid predators

Presenting the world's smallest (and scrappiest) scuba diver: A species of semi-aquatic lizard produces a special bubble over its nostrils to breathe underwater and avoid predators, according to new research.

Water anoles is a type of semi-aquatic lizard found in the tropical forests of southern Costa Rica.

They can stay underwater for a really long time. We also know that they're pulling oxygen from this bubble of air.

“Scuba diving” lizard can stay underwater for 16 to 20 minutes

Lizard skin is hydrophobic. Typically, that allows air to stick very tightly to the skin and permits this bubble to form. But when you cover the skin with an emollient, air no longer sticks to the skin surface, so the bubbles can't form.

This is really significant because this is the first experiment that truly shows the adaptive significance of bubbles. Rebreathing bubbles allows lizards to stay underwater longer.

Part 1

The study confirmed that the bubble helps lizards stay underwater for longer periods, providing them with a refuge from predators.

So by jumping in the water, they can escape a lot of their predators, and they remain very still underwater. They're pretty well camouflaged underwater as well, and they just stay underwater until that danger passes. We know that they can stay underwater at least about 20 minutes, but probably longer.

Novel rebreathing adaptation extends dive time in a semi-aquatic lizard, Biology Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2024.0371. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi … .1098/rsbl.2024.0371

Part 2

Highly-sensitive beaks could help albatrosses and penguins find their food

Researchers have discovered that seabirds, including penguins and albatrosses, have highly-sensitive regions in their beaks that could be used to help them find food. This is the first time this ability has been identified in seabirds.

An international team of researchers, led by the University of Cambridge, studied over 350 species of modern birds and found that seabirds have a high density of sensory receptors and nerves at the tip of their beaks, which has been previously identified in specialized tactile foragers such as ducks.

The researchers say this touch-sensitive region could have come from a common ancestor, and further work is needed to determine whether it serves a specific function in modern birds. Further study of their beaks and food-gathering behavior could help conserve some of these birds, many of which are at threat of extinction. The results are reported in the journal Biology Letters.

Tactile bill-tip organs in seabirds suggests conservation of a deep avian symplesiomorphy, Biology Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1098/rsbl.2024.0259. royalsocietypublishing.org/doi … .1098/rsbl.2024.0259

Discarding the placenta after birth leads to loss of valuable information, pathologists say

In an article published September 18 in Trends in Molecular Medicine, physician-scientists argue that with most placentas discarded after birth, placental pathology is underutilized clinically, should be a routine part of obstetric and neonatal care, and also deserves more research attention.

Placentas should not be considered a waste tissue, they say, because they can teach us a lot about not just what went wrong in a pregnancy, but also inform about subsequent pregnancies for the health of the pregnant person and baby.

The placenta is critical for the exchange of nutrients and waste products between the developing offspring and the pregnant person. If the placenta becomes diseased, it can impact the parent and offspring, both during pregnancy and later in life.

At its most severe, placental pathology can cause stillbirths, and this is the medical scenario in which placentas are most often examined clinically. However, different types of placental pathology are also associated with small birth size and neurological issues in infants, and with hypertension (preeclampsia) and other cardiovascular issues in the parent.

Placental pathology can potentially identify not just the cause of an adverse outcome in the baby, but also insight into why something happened in the mom, and what that means for their health in the future.

Incorporating placental pathology into clinical care and research, Trends in Molecular Medicine (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.molmed.2024.08.002

Iron given through the vein found to correct anemia in pregnant women faster than iron taken orally

A sizable proportion of pregnant women in proceed to give birth while still anemic despite taking iron tablets for prevention during pregnancy. Some reasons for this are that some women do not tolerate the tablets because of side effects like diarrhea, nausea, or vomiting, or they forget to take the tablets.

Available iron preparations given through drip in some countries like iron dextran have been associated with high risk of severe side effects, while iron sucrose needs repeat dosing. There is a need for an effective and safer alternative to overcome these problems.

Anemia (low blood level) is a common cause of ill-health or death in mothers and their babies, especially in sub-Saharan Africa and South-East Asia where more than four out of 10 pregnant women have the condition.

Researchers found that a medicine called ferric carboxymaltose given in drip through the vein works faster and better than an iron tablet taken by mouth for the treatment of anemia—and it is as safe as the tablet. The findings were published in Lancet Global Health in a paper titled "Intravenous versus oral iron for anemia among pregnant Nigerian women (IVON): an open label randomised controlled trial."

 Intravenous versus oral iron for anaemia among pregnant Nigerian women (IVON): an open label randomised controlled trial, The Lancet Global Health (2024). DOI: 10.1016/S2214-109X(24)00239-0. www.thelancet.com/journals/lan … (24)00239-0/fulltext

How AI can help researchers make esophageal cancer less deadly

Approximately 600 times a day, the esophagus ferries whatever is in your mouth down to your stomach. It's usually a one-way route, but sometimes acid escapes the stomach and travels back up. That can damage the cells lining the esophagus, prompting them to grow back with genetic mistakes. Sometimes those mistakes culminate in cancer.

Esophageal cancer can be cured if it's discovered and treated before it burrows in deep or spreads to other organs. But that's rarely the case.

To improve on that situation, doctors say they don't necessarily need better medicines. What they need are better ways to find the cancer while it's still in its earliest, highly treatable stages.

And to do that, they need a breakthrough in screening for the disease.

Screening someone for esophageal cancer is not a trivial procedure.

The standard method involves inserting an endoscope—a flexible tube with a camera on one end—into a patient's throat and threading it down to the stomach. The camera allows doctors to inspect the esophagus up close and check for abnormal cells that could become cancerous.

The tube also serves as a conduit for tools that can collect tissue samples, which can be sent to a pathology lab for diagnostic analysis. If a doctor sees a growth that looks like early-stage cancer, it can be removed on the spot.

Part 1

It sounds straightforward, but patients must be sedated for the procedure, which means they lose a day of work. Endoscopy is also expensive, and there's a shortage of doctors who can do it.

We're only catching 7% of cancers through endoscopy.

Doctors are turning to  artificial intelligence to identify additional characteristics that can improve their ability to identify those most likely to have Barrett's and esophageal cancer.

Researchers are developing an AI tool that scours the electronic medical records of  patients to find those who should be screened for Barrett's. The tool considers more than 7,500 distinct data points, including past medical procedures, lab test results, prescriptions and more. (Among the surprises: A patient's triglycerides and electrolytes had predictive value.)

This is probably something a human would not be able to do efficiently.

In tests, the overall accuracy of the tools was 84%. While those are substantial improvements, the team would like to bump that up to 90% .

Source: LA times

**

Part 2

Bacterial infections could be trigger for type 1 diabetes, new research suggests

For the first time, scientists have found that proteins from bacteria can trigger the immune system to attack insulin-producing cells, leading to the development of type 1 diabetes.

The new research showed that killer T-cells—a type of white blood cell that's involved in tackling bacterial infections—can cause type 1 diabetes when activated by bacteria. The researchers showed that proteins from bacterial species known to infect humans could generate killer T-cells that could kill insulin-producing cells.

This research expands on their previous studies, which demonstrated that killer T-cells play a major role in initiating type 1 diabetes by killing insulin producing cells. 

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that usually affects children and young adults, where the cells that produce insulin are attacked by the patient's own immune system. This leads to a lack of insulin, meaning that people living with type 1 diabetes need to inject insulin multiple times a day to control their blood sugar levels.

There is currently no cure for type 1 diabetes and patients require life-long treatment. People living with type 1 diabetes may also develop medical complications later in life, so there is an urgent need to understand the underlying causes of the condition to help us find better treatments.

In laboratory experiments, the researchers introduced bacterial proteins into cell lines from healthy donors and monitored the reaction of killer T-cells from these donors. They found that strong interaction with the bacterial proteins triggered killer T-cells to attack cells that make insulin.

The research, published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, provides the first evidence of how proteins from bacterial germs can trigger the type of killer T-cells seen in patients with type 1 diabetes. The team hopes that knowing more about this process, will allow new ways to diagnose, prevent, or even halt the development of type 1 diabetes.

 Garry Dolton et al, HLA A*24:02–restricted T cell receptors cross-recognize bacterial and preproinsulin peptides in type 1 diabetes, Journal of Clinical Investigation (2024). DOI: 10.1172/JCI164535

What is the microbiome?

The hidden health risks of styrene and ethylbenzene exposure

Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a critical public health issue, with its prevalence expected to rise sharply worldwide. Recent evidence points to environmental pollution, specifically exposure to hazardous chemicals like styrene and ethylbenzene, as a contributing factor for the disease.

Found in plastics, synthetic rubbers, and resins, these pollutants are pervasive in the environment and pose significant health threats. Addressing these challenges requires a deeper understanding of how environmental and genetic factors combine to influence T2DM risk.

A new study,  published  in Eco-Environment & Health, followed 2,219 adults from the Wuhan-Zhuhaicohort over six years to investigate the effects of styrene and ethylbenzene exposure on T2DM development. Using urinary biomarkers and genetic risk scores, the study assessed the combined impact of environmental exposure and genetic predisposition.

The findings demonstrate that exposure to styrene and ethylbenzene significantly elevates the risk of T2DM. The research highlights that individuals with high exposure levels had a substantially increased risk, which was further intensified by genetic susceptibility. Participants with both high exposure and high genetic risk faced the greatest likelihood of developing T2DM, illustrating a potent additive interaction.

This suggests that the joint impact of environmental pollutants and genetic factors on T2DM is more severe than their individual contributions, underscoring the need to control environmental exposures, particularly for those with genetic vulnerabilities.

Linling Yu et al, Styrene and ethylbenzene exposure and type 2 diabetes mellitus: A longitudinal gene-environment interaction study, Eco-Environment & Health (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.eehl.2024.07.001

**

Brain region that controls eye movements found to also play important role in higher cognitive functions

The superior colliculus is a midbrain region that is traditionally thought to help animals orient themselves toward important locations in space, like directing their eyes and head toward a bright flash of light. New research shows that this part of the brain also plays a role in complex cognitive tasks like visual categorization and decision making.

In the study, published in Nature Neuroscience, scientists measured the information contained in patterns of brain cell activity across multiple brain regions involved in visual category decisions. The researchers monitored activity in the superior colliculus (SC) and part of the posterior parietal cortex (PPC), a region of the cerebral cortex that is important for visual categorical decisions.

The researchers saw that activity in the SC was even more involved than the PPC in guiding the subjects' category decisions, suggesting that it helps coordinate higher-order cognitive processes traditionally thought to take place in the neocortex.

This evolutionarily ancient brain structure that seems to be even more involved in complex cognitive decisions than the cortical areas the researchers studied in their experiments.

All animals, from fish and reptiles to mammals like primates and humans, need to quickly distinguish and categorize objects in their field of vision. Is the object moving toward them an obstacle or a threat? Is that thing darting by a predator or prey?

The SC is a region in the brain that is evolutionarily conserved across all vertebrates, even those without a more sophisticated neocortex. It helps orient movements of the head and eyes toward visual stimuli, and it was traditionally believed to kick off reflexive motor actions by relaying inputs from upstream brain regions.

However, recent research has shown that it is also involved in complex tasks like selecting an orientation point and paying attention to stimuli at different spatial locations.

Part 1

It's not just surprising to find this activity in the SC; it could mean something about why this brain region is being recruited to solve such complex tasks. Since it is present across all vertebrates, from primitive sharks to modern humans, it was one of the earliest brain regions that evolved to help process visual inputs and generate corresponding movements.

But in this new study, it's also involved in decidedly non-spatial functions. Could this be a sign that spatial processing provides a special "oomph" to problem-solving?

The researchers pointed out the kind of eye movements and hand gestures that humans make when we're asked to recall something or make decisions. If someone asks what you had for dinner last night, for example, your eyes often drift upward, as if the answer were written on the ceiling. Or when weighing a decision between two choices, you might move your hands up and down like two sides of a balance scale.
Some of this data might be telling us is that the reason we're making these kinds of spatial gestures and eye movements is because the spatial parts of the brain are getting recruited into helping us perform these non-spatial cognitive functions,
We've all had the experience of struggling to understand something written in text—like a long press release about a neuroscience study—but having it instantly click into place when the same information is presented in a graphic.
They say a picture is worth 1,000 words—even a very simple spatial diagram can rapidly convey so much more information than you can possibly describe. It's like the brain has created this beautiful mental graph paper which it can use to solve both spatial and non-spatial problems.

 Barbara Peysakhovich et al, Primate superior colliculus is causally engaged in abstract higher-order cognition, Nature Neuroscience (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41593-024-01744-x

Part 2

**

The mystery of human wrinkles

A research team successfully recreated the structure of wrinkles in biological tissue in vitro, uncovering the mechanisms behind their formation. Their findings were published on August 19 in the journal Nature Communications.

While wrinkles are often associated with skin aging, many organs and tissues, including the brain, stomach, and intestines, also have distinct wrinkle patterns. These structures play a key role in regulating cellular states and differentiation, contributing to the physiological functions of each organ.

Understanding how biological tissues fold and form wrinkles is vital for understanding the complexity of living organisms beyond cosmetic concerns. This knowledge can be central to advancing research in areas such as skin aging, regenerative therapies, and embryology.

Researchers tried  to replicate both the hierarchical deformation of a single deep wrinkle caused by a strong compressive force and the formation of numerous small wrinkles under lighter compression.

In the process the team also discovered that factors such as the porous structure of the underlying ECM, dehydration, and the compressive force applied to the epithelial layer are crucial to the wrinkle formation process. Their experiments revealed that compressive forces deforming the epithelial cell layer caused mechanical instability within the ECM layer, resulting in the formation of wrinkles.

Additionally, they found that dehydration of the ECM layer was a key factor in the wrinkle formation process. These observations closely mirrored the effects seen in aging skin where dehydration of the underlying tissue layer leads to wrinkle development, providing a mechanobiological model for understanding wrinkle formation.

 Jaeseung Youn et al, Tissue-scale in vitro epithelial wrinkling and wrinkle-to-fold transition, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-51437-z

Human genome stored on 'everlasting' memory crystal

Scientists have stored the full human genome on a 5D memory crystal—a revolutionary data storage format that can survive for billions of years.

 They hope that the crystal could provide a blueprint to bring humanity back from extinction thousands, millions or even billions of years into the future, should science allow.

The technology could also be used to create an enduring record of the genomes of endangered plant and animal species faced with extinction.

The 5D memory crystal was developed by the University of Southampton's Optoelectronics Research Center (ORC).

Unlike other data storage formats that degrade over time, 5D memory crystals can store up to 360 terabytes of information (in the largest size) without loss for billions of years, even at high temperatures. It holds the Guinness World Record (awarded in 2014) for the most durable data storage material.

The crystal is equivalent to fused quartz, one of the most chemically and thermally durable materials on Earth. It can withstand the high and low extremes of freezing, fire and temperatures of up to 1,000°C. The crystal can also withstand direct impact force of up to 10 tons per cm² and is unchanged by long exposure to cosmic radiation.

The longevity of the crystals means they will outlast humans and other species.

The crystal is stored in the Memory of Mankind archive—a special time capsule within a salt cave in Hallstatt, Austria.

Symmetry in nature: 

there is symmetry in nature, especially in Biology, and it's present in many forms:

• Animals: The right and left halves of butterflies and elephants are mirror images of each other.
• Flowers: The petals of flowers repeat in a pattern.
• Starfish: The arms of starfish repeat around a central point.
• Leaves: Plant leaves are considered symmetrical, but they rarely match up exactly when folded in half.
• Proteins and RNA: The structures of these tiny things exhibit symmetry.
• Snowflakes: Snowflakes are symmetrical.
• Sunflowers: Sunflowers are symmetrical.

Some scientists believe that nature prefers symmetry and simplicity. For example, a simulation of 13,079,255 different possible protein cluster shapes found that only five had the symmetry of a square.

Symmetry is important in biology, and is used to define and classify groups of animals. For example, animals with radial symmetry are classified as Radiata, and animals with embryonic bilateral symmetry are classified as Bilateria.

And AI told me this: ( I am not a physicist and therefore, cannot confirm or deny this)

Symmetry is an important concept in physics that helps us understand the universe and matter:

Definition

Symmetry is how particles behave when space, time, or quantum numbers are reversed. It can also refer to changes in the mathematical descriptions of nature.

Types

There are three types of symmetry: charge (C), parity (P), and time (T).

Importance

Symmetry is important for understanding the physical properties of matter and the universe. It also helps derive the general theory of relativity and quantum mechanics.

Applications

Symmetry is used in particle physics to derive conservation laws and determine which particle interactions can occur. It's also used to classify crystals and define types of entities.

Symmetry breaking

Symmetry can be exact, approximate, or broken. Exact symmetry is always valid, while approximate symmetry is only valid under certain conditions. Broken symmetry can have different meanings depending on the object and its context.

Why communication is becoming difficult: 

Harassment and  Intimidation

Intimidation and harassment have become an occupational hazard for scholars studying phenomena linked to politics, including climate change, disinformation and virology. Now, researchers have united to create a defence playbook that offers tactics for dealing with this reality. Their message is clear: scientists can take steps to protect themselves, but their institutions also need to have a support plan in place.

Climate scientists have been grappling with harassment and threats over their work for more than a decade. In recent years, however, attacks have spread more widely, to biomedical researchers and social scientists. For instance, in 2021 Nature surveyed 300 scientists who had given media interviews about the COVID-19 pandemic and found that two-thirds of respondents had negative experiences because of their public interactions; 22% had received threats of physical or sexual violence. And within the past two years, researchers who study the spread of election and vaccine misinformation on social media have been at the centre of US congressional investigations and laws....

The consortium’s advice for researchers who think they are at risk starts with simple steps such as removing personal contact information and office locations from publicly available websites. But the organization also points to more sophisticated strategies, such as applying for a ‘Certificate of Confidentiality’.

Now should science communicators use incognito mode?
No, I won’t. Even If I get death threats like it happened before.
Why should we be afraid of these morons?

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03104-y

Anti-vaxxers: Even ants take precautions. Why can't some human beings?

Black garden ants modify the structure of their nests to mitigate fungal infection spread

A small team of biologists  has found that black garden ants modify the physical structure of their nests to mitigate infection spread. The group has written a paper describing the experiments they conducted with black garden ants and fungal infections in their lab and posted it on the bioRxiv preprint server.

Prior research has shown that some animals change their behaviour to avoid spreading infections, whether they be viral, bacterial or fungal. Among those, only humans have been found to alter their surroundings as a way to further protect themselves— smart people might close off parts of their house, for example, or establish quarantine zones within hospital areas.

In this new study, the research team found an instance of an insect altering its nest to deter the spread of an infecting fungus.

To learn more about how insects, such as ants, attempt to prevent the spread of an infection among members of a nest, the research team went into the field and collected black garden ants—enough to set up 20 colonies in their lab, each in its own glass enclosure. After giving the ants a single day to acclimate themselves to their new environment, the researchers added 20 more ants to each colony—half of which were infected with a fungus known to spread among the ants. The research team then set up cameras to record the behavior of the ants and micro-CT scanners to study the nature of the nest tunnels that the ants dug beneath the soil.

The team found that in the colonies with the infected ants, new tunnels were dug faster than in those not infected. After six days, the spacing between the tunnels was farther apart in the infected nest as well.

The ants in the exposed colonies also placed their queen, food and brooding area in a less central location. And finally, those ants that were infected tended to spend most of their time on the surface, rather than underground with their nestmates.

The researchers next used disease transmission simulations to speed up the process of disease spread and found that the techniques used by the ants did indeed reduce the fungal load in the colony, helping the nest survive.

Luke Leckie et al, Architectural Immunity: ants alter their nest networks to fight epidemics, bioRxiv (2024). DOI: 10.1101/2024.08.30.610481. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.110 … /2024.08.30.610481v1

Oceanic life found to be thriving thanks to Saharan dust blown from thousands of kilometers away

Iron is a micronutrient indispensable for life, enabling processes such as respiration, photosynthesis, and DNA synthesis. Iron availability is often a limiting resource in today's oceans, which means that increasing the flow of iron into them can increase the amount of carbon fixed by phytoplankton, with consequences for the global climate.

Iron ends up in oceans and terrestrial ecosystems through rivers, melting glaciers, hydrothermal activity, and especially wind. But not all its chemical forms are "bioreactive," that is, available for organisms to take up from their environment.

Researchers have now shown that iron bound to dust from the Sahara blown westward over the Atlantic has properties that change with the distance traveled: the greater this distance, the more bioreactive the iron.

This relationship suggests that chemical processes in the atmosphere convert less bioreactive iron to more accessible forms.

 The results suggest that during long distance atmospheric transport, the mineral properties of originally non-bioreactive dust-bound iron change, making it more bioreactive. This iron then gets taken up by phytoplankton, before it can reach the bottom of the oceans.

The researchers conclude that dust that reaches regions like the Amazonian basin and the Bahamas may contain iron that is particularly soluble and available to life, thanks to the great distance from North Africa, and thus a longer exposure to atmospheric chemical processes.

The transported iron seems to be stimulating biological processes much in the same way that iron fertilization can impact life in the oceans and on continents. This study is a proof of concept confirming that iron-bound dust can have a major impact on life at vast distances from its source.

 Long-range transport of dust enhances oceanic iron bioavailability, Frontiers in Marine Science (2024). DOI: 10.3389/fmars.2024.1428621. www.frontiersin.org/journals/m … rs.2024.1428621/full

Fever drives enhanced activity and mitochondrial damage in a subset of T cells, study finds

Fever temperatures rev up immune cell metabolism, proliferation and activity, but they also—in a particular subset of T cells—cause mitochondrial stress, DNA damage and cell death,  researchers have discovered.

The findings, published in the journal Science Immunology, offer a mechanistic understanding of how cells respond to heat and could explain how chronic inflammation contributes to the development of cancer.

Researchers' cultured immune system T cells at 39 degrees Celsius (about 102 degrees Fahrenheit). showed  that heat increased helper T cell metabolism, proliferation and inflammatory effector activity and decreased regulatory T cell suppressive capacity.

 The researchers also made an unexpected discovery—that a certain subset of helper T cells, called Th1 cells, developed mitochondrial stress and DNA damage, and some of them died. The finding was confusing, the researchers said, because Th1 cells are involved in settings where there is often fever, like viral infections. Why would the cells that are needed to fight the infection die?

The researchers discovered that only a portion of the Th1 cells die, and that the rest undergo an adaptation, change their mitochondria, and become more resistant to stress.

There's a wave of stress, and some of the cells die, but the ones that adapt and survive are better—they proliferate more and make more cytokine (immune signaling molecules).

Par t1

The molecular events of the cell response to fever temperatures: The researchers found that heat rapidly impaired electron transport chain complex 1 (ETC1), a mitochondrial protein complex that generates energy. ETC1 impairment set off signaling mechanisms that led to DNA damage and activation of the tumor suppressor protein p53, which aids DNA repair or triggers cell death to maintain genome integrity. Th1 cells were more sensitive to impaired ETC1 than other T cell subtypes.

The researchers found Th1 cells with similar changes in sequencing databases for samples from patients with Crohn's disease and rheumatoid arthritis, adding support to the molecular signaling pathway they defined.
Scientists think this response is a fundamental way that cells can sense heat and respond to stress.
The findings suggest that heat can be mutagenic—when cells that respond to mitochondrial stress don't properly repair the DNA damage or die.
Chronic inflammation with sustained periods of elevated tissue temperatures could explain how some cells become tumorigenic and that 's why up to 25% of cancers are linked to chronic inflammation.
'Is fever good or bad?'The short answer is: A little bit of fever is good, but a lot of fever is bad. We already knew that, but now we have a mechanism for why it's bad."

Darren Heintzman et al, Subset-specific mitochondrial stress and DNA damage shape T cell responses to fever and inflammation, Science Immunology (2024). DOI: 10.1126/sciimmunol.adp3475. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciimmunol.adp3475

Part 2

The first known outbreak of rabies in seals

Scientists in South Africa say they have identified an outbreak of rabies in seals that is thought to be the first time the virus has spread in sea mammals.

At least 24 Cape fur seals that were found dead or euthanized in various locations on South Africa's west and south coast had rabies.

Rabies, which affects mammals and can be passed to people, is almost always fatal once symptoms appear. Rabies spreads via saliva, usually through bites but also sometimes when animals lick and groom each other.

The virus has long been seen in wild animals such as raccoons, coyotes, foxes, jackals and in domestic dogs. But it had never been recorded spreading among marine mammals until now.

The only other known case of rabies in a sea mammal was in a ringed seal in Norway's Svalbard islands in the early 1980s. That seal had likely been infected by a rabid arctic fox, researchers said, and there was no evidence of rabies spreading among seals there.

Authorities in South Africa first discovered rabies in Cape fur seals in June after a dog was bitten by a seal on a Cape Town beach. The dog became infected with rabies, prompting rabies tests on brain samples from 135 seal carcasses that researchers had already collected since 2021. Around 20 new samples also were collected and more positives have come back on subsequent tests.

Scientists are trying to work out how rabies was passed to the seals, whether it is spreading widely among their large colonies and what can be done to contain it.

Source : NEWS agencies

Microplastics in coral skeletons

Researchers investigating microplastics in coral have found that all three parts of the coral anatomy—surface mucus, tissue, and skeleton—contain microplastics. The findings were made possible thanks to a new microplastic detection technique developed by the team and applied to coral for the first time.

These findings may also explain the "missing plastic problem" that has puzzled scientists, where about 70% of the plastic litter that has entered the oceans cannot be found. The team hypothesizes that coral may be acting as a "sink" for microplastics by absorbing it from the oceans. Their findings were published in the journal Science of the Total Environment.

 Suppakarn Jandang et al, Possible sink of missing ocean plastic: Accumulation patterns in reef-building corals in the Gulf of Thailand, Science of The Total Environment (2024). DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.176210

Researchers discover the deadly genetics of cholera, which could be key to its prevention

Experts have used a cutting-edge computational approach to discover the genetic factors that make the bacteria behind cholera so dangerous—which could be key to preventing this deadly disease.

The innovative research combines machine learning, genomics, genome-scale metabolic modeling (GSMM), and 3D structural analysis to uncover the genetic secrets of Vibrio cholerae—the bacteria behind cholera.

Cholera is a deadly diarrheal disease that continues to threaten millions worldwide, with up to 4 million cases and as many as 143,000 deaths each year.

Vibrio cholerae, is evolving in ways that make the disease more severe and harder to control.

There is even less knowledge about the genomic traits responsible for the severity of cholera resulting from these lineages. About 1 in 5 people with cholera will experience a severe condition owing to a combination of symptoms (primarily diarrhea, vomiting, and dehydration).

In this new study the  research team analyzed bacterial samples from cholera patients across six regions in Bangladesh, collected between 2015 and 2021. They identified a set of unique genes and mutations in the most recent and dominant strain of Vibrio cholerae responsible for the devastating 2022 outbreak.

These genetic traits are linked to the bacteria's ability to cause severe symptoms like prolonged diarrhea, intense abdominal pain, vomiting, and dehydration—symptoms that can lead to death in severe cases.

The findings of the study also revealed that some of these disease-causing traits overlap with those that help the bacteria spread more easily. The findings show how these genetic factors enable Vibrio cholerae to survive in the human gut, making it more resilient to environmental stress and more efficient at causing disease. This research highlights the complex interactions between the bacteria's genetic makeup and its ability to cause severe illness.

This new computational framework is a major step forward in the fight against cholera. By identifying the key genetic factors that make Vibrio cholerae more dangerous, scientists can develop better treatments and more targeted strategies to control and prevent future outbreaks.

 Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52238-0. www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-52238-0

 Experts suggest possibility of updating fundamental physics concepts

An unexpected finding about how our universe formed is again raising the question: do we need new physics? The answer could fundamentally change what physics students are taught in classes around the world.

A study from SMU and three other universities, available on the arXiv preprint server, delved into the possibility of updating fundamental physics concepts.

SMU played a significant part in the analysis, using the university's high-performance computing capabilities to explore different scenarios that could explain the findings.

The data from what's known as DESI, or Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument, combined with what we already had, is the most precise data we've seen so far, and it is hinting at something unlike what we would have expected.

DESI is creating the largest, most accurate 3D map of our universe, providing a key measurement that enables cosmologists to calculate what they call the absolute mass scale of neutrinos. This absolute mass scale was determined based on new measurements from the so-called baryonic acoustic oscillations from DESI, plus information physicists already had from the "afterglow" of the Big Bang—when the universe was created—known as the cosmic microwave background.

Part 1