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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 18 hours ago

Turtle Dance
Researchers found that the turtles exhibited significantly higher levels of ‘turtle dance’ behaviour when they were in their designated feeding fields, strongly suggesting that they could distinguish between the two magnetic fields.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 18 hours ago

A 'Yellow Brick Road' at The Bottom of The Pacific Ocean

An example of ancient active volcanic geology!

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 18 hours ago

Coma brain waves hint at who’s waking up

A pattern of brain waves that occurs during sleep might help to predict whether an unresponsive person who experienced severe brain.... Researchers recorded the electrical activity in the brains of 226 people in a coma who had experienced recent brain injury, and homed in on a specific patterns of brain activity called sleep spindles. They found that 28% of people who had well-defined sleep spindles recovered consciousness, compared with only 14% of those who lacked this pattern. “We're starting to lift the lid a little bit and find some signs of recovery as it's happening,” says neurologist and study co-author Jan Claassen.

ScienceAlert
Reference: Nature Medicine paper

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 19 hours ago

bioRxiv and medRxiv make it official

A new chapter has begun for two of the world’s most popular preprint platforms, bioRxiv and medRxiv, with the launch of a non-profit organization that will manage them. openRxiv, which will have a board of directors and a scientific and medical advisory board, takes over from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. It has “become so important that they should have their own organization running them, which is focused on the long-term sustainability of the servers, as opposed to being a side project within a big research institution,” says Richard Sever, the co-founder of both servers.

Nature | 

Preprint sites bioRxiv and medRxiv launch new era of independence

The popular repositories, where life scientists post research before peer review, will be managed by a new organization called openRxiv.

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-00762-4?utm_source=Live+...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 20 hours ago

Microplastics may threaten global food supply by disrupting photosynthesis

A team of environmental researchers, Earth scientists and pollution specialists  has found evidence that microplastics have a negative impact on photosynthesis in terrestrial, marine, and freshwater ecosystems.

In their study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the group conducted a meta-analysis of data from more than 150 studies involving the impact of microplastics on plants.

Prior research has shown that microplastics have made their way to nearly every ecosystem on the planet, and now contaminate plants and animals, including humans. For this new study, the research team wondered if microplastics might have an unknown impact on plants living in the ocean, in fresh water or growing on land, and they conducted a study of prior research to find out.

The team suspected that microplastics might have a direct impact on the ability of plants to engage in photosynthesis. To that end, they searched the literature using an AI app and found 157 studies that mentioned both microplastics and impacts on photosynthesis, which included 3,286 observations.

Combining the results, the researchers calculated that microplastics reduced photosynthetic efficiency across all three plant types by 7% to 12% and caused reductions in production of chlorophyll. Such percentages, they suggest, result in approximately 4% to 14% harvest yield losses of maize, wheat and rice around the globe. They also suggest that microplastics account for up to 7% of losses in global aquatic net primary productivity.

The research team notes that the problem appears to be worsening, which will impact crop production even more. They further suggest that if the problem is not reversed, the result could be a major increase in the number of people at risk of starvation over the next two decades.

 Ruijie Zhu et al, A global estimate of multiecosystem photosynthesis losses under microplastic pollution, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2025). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2423957122

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 20 hours ago

The same principle applies beyond neuroscience. Imagine a landscape where temperatures and rainfall vary gradually over a space. You might expect species to be spread, and also to vary, smoothly over this region. But in reality, ecosystems often form species clusters with sharp boundaries—distinct ecological "neighborhoods" that don't overlap.

The new study suggests why local competition, cooperation, and predation between species interact with the global environmental gradients to create natural separations, even when the underlying conditions change gradually. This phenomenon can be explained using peak selection and suggests that the same principle that shapes brain circuits could also be at play in forests and oceans.

One of the researchers' most striking findings is that modularity in these systems is remarkably robust. Change the size of the system, and the number of modules stays the same—they just scale up or down. That means a mouse brain and a human brain could use the same fundamental rules to form their navigation circuits, just at different sizes.

The model also makes testable predictions. If it's correct, grid cell modules should follow simple spacing ratios. In ecosystems, species distributions should form distinct clusters even without sharp environmental shifts.

The work adds another conceptual framework to biology. "Peak selection can inform future experiments, not only in grid cell research but across developmental biology.

Mikail Khona et al, Global modules robustly emerge from local interactions and smooth gradients, Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-024-08541-3

Part 3

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 20 hours ago

The authors of the research paper propose a simple mathematical principle called peak selection, showing that when a smooth gradient is paired with local interactions that are competitive, modular structures emerge naturally. In this way, biological systems can organize themselves into sharp modules without detailed top-down instruction.

The researchers tested their idea on grid cells, which play a critical role in spatial navigation as well as the storage of episodic memories. Grid cells fire in a repeating triangular pattern as animals move through space, but they don't all work at the same scale—they are organized into distinct modules, each responsible for mapping space at slightly different resolutions.

No one knows how these modules form, but the new model shows that gradual variations in cellular properties along one dimension in the brain, combined with local neural interactions, could explain the entire structure. The grid cells naturally sort themselves into distinct groups with clear boundaries, without external maps or genetic programs telling them where to go.

The new  work explains how grid cell modules could emerge. The explanation tips the balance toward the possibility of self-organization. It predicts that there might be no gene or intrinsic cell property that jumps when the grid cell scale jumps to another module.

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 20 hours ago

How nature organizes itself, from brain cells to ecosystems

You'll see it everywhere: the way trees form branches, the way cities divide into neighborhoods, the way the brain organizes into regions. Nature loves modularity—a limited number of self-contained units that combine in different ways to perform many functions. But how does this organization arise?

In findings published in Nature, researchers report that a mathematical model called peak selection can explain how modules emerge without strict genetic instructions. The findings, which apply to brain systems and ecosystems, help explain how modularity occurs across nature, no matter the scale.

Scientists have debated how modular structures form. One hypothesis suggests that various genes are turned on at different locations to begin or end a structure. This explains how insect embryos develop body segments, with genes turning on or off at specific concentrations of a smooth chemical gradient in the insect egg.

Another idea, inspired by mathematician Alan Turing, suggests that a structure could emerge from competition—small-scale interactions can create repeating patterns, like the spots on a cheetah or the ripples in sand dunes.

Both ideas work well in some cases, but fail in others. The new research suggests that nature need not pick one approach over the other.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 20 hours ago

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa 20 hours ago

Majority of the world's population breathes dirty air, report says

Most of the world has dirty air, with just 17% of cities globally meeting air pollution guidelines, a recent report found.

Switzerland-based air quality monitoring database IQAir analyzed data from 40,000 air quality monitoring stations in 138 countries and found that Chad, Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan and India had the dirtiest air. India had six of the nine most polluted cities with the industrial town of Byrnihat in northeastern India the worst.

Experts said the real amount of air pollution might be far greater as many parts of the world lack the monitoring needed for more accurate data.

More air quality monitors are being set up to counter the issue, the report said. This year, report authors were able to incorporate data from 8,954 new locations and around a thousand new monitors as a result of efforts to better monitor air pollution.

But last week, data monitoring for air pollution was dealt a blow when the U.S. State Department announced it would no longer make public its data from its embassies and consulates around the world.

Breathing in polluted air over a long period of time can cause respiratory illness, Alzheimer's disease and cancer. The World Health Organization estimates that air pollution kills around 7 million people each year.

Experts say that much more needs to be done to cut air pollution levels. The WHO had earlier found that 99% of the world's population lives in places that do not meet recommended air quality levels.

And the problem is if you have bad water, no water, you can tell people to wait for half an hour a day, the water will come. But if you have bad air, you cannot tell people to pause breathing.

Several cities like Beijing, Seoul, South Korea, and Rybnik in Poland have successfully improved their air quality through stricter regulations on pollution from vehicles, power plants and industry. They've also promoted cleaner energy and invested in public transportation.

Source: News agencies

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