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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 21, 2025 at 9:34am

Acute and chronic pain are different

A new study reveals that when we experience short-term (acute) pain, the brain has a built‑in way to dial down pain signals—like pressing the brakes—to keep them from going into overdrive. But in long‑term (chronic) pain, this braking system fails, and the pain signals just keep firing. This discovery helps explain why some pain goes away while other pain lingers, and it opens the door to new treatments that could stop pain from becoming chronic in the first place.

In a study published in Science Advances, researchers reveal that our bodies respond to acute (short‑term) and chronic (long‑lasting) pain in surprisingly different ways at the cellular level. Their discovery sheds new light on how pain becomes chronic—and opens the door to better‑targeted treatments.

The team studied a small but crucial region in the brainstem called the medullary dorsal horn, home to neurons that act as a relay station for pain signals. These projection neurons help send pain messages from the body to the brain.

The scientists found that during acute inflammatory pain, these neurons actually dial down their own activity. This built‑in "braking system" helps limit the amount of pain‑related signals sent to the brain. Once the inflammation and pain subside, the neurons return to their normal state.

However, in chronic pain, this braking system fails. The neurons don't reduce their activity—in fact, they become more excitable and fire more signals, potentially contributing to the persistence of pain.

Using a combination of electrophysiology and computer modeling, the researchers identified a key mechanism: a specific potassium current known as the A‑type potassium current (IA). This current helps regulate the excitability of neurons.

In acute pain, IA increases—acting like a natural sedative for the pain pathways. But in chronic pain, this current doesn't ramp up, and the neurons become hyperactive. The absence of this regulation may be one of the biological switches that turns temporary pain into a long‑lasting condition.

This is the first time  the researchers have seen how the same neurons behave so differently in acute versus chronic pain. The fact that this natural 'calming' mechanism is missing in chronic pain suggests a new target for therapy. If we can find a way to restore or mimic that braking system, we might be able to prevent pain from becoming chronic.

Ben Title et al, Opposite regulation of medullary pain-related projection neuron excitability in acute and chronic pain, Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adr3467. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.adr3467

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 20, 2025 at 12:14pm

Chemical profile of fecal samples can help predict mortality in critically ill patients

The gut microbiome and the metabolites it produces offer promising insight into disease severity in critically ill patients. In a collaborative effort, researchers developed the metabolic dysbiosis score (MDS), a novel biomarker index based on the levels of 13 key fecal metabolites—the chemical byproducts of digestion. The designed index can identify high-risk patients early and guide timely interventions that could save the lives of critically ill hospitalized patients.

According to the research article published in Science Advances, the team collected fecal specimens from 196 critically ill patients admitted to the medical intensive care unit (MICU) for non-COVID-19 respiratory shock or failure. They analyzed the samples by mapping the microbiome's composition using shotgun metagenomic sequencing and measuring the gut-derived metabolites with high-precision mass spectrometry. The MDS assigned based on the results helped identify MICU patients who are at a higher risk of 30-day mortality.

Experts have long observed that the complex ecosystem of microorganisms residing in our digestive tract plays a crucial role in maintaining overall health, and its dysbiosis or imbalance in this microbiota has been linked to a range of metabolic and chronic illnesses.

Several studies have investigated possible links between fecal microbiome diversity profiles and mortality in critically ill patients in search of a potentially treatable trait. They found that ICU stays can reduce microbiome diversity, allowing harmful species such as Enterococcus and Enterobacterales to dominate over beneficial bacteria that support healthy gut function. These imbalances are often associated with serious outcomes, including an increased risk of infection and death.

Short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), bile acids, and tryptophan metabolites are key groups of metabolites produced by the gut microbiota. Admission to the ICU, particularly following antibiotic treatment, can cause significant disruptions in these metabolites, leading to fecal metabolic dysbiosis—a condition that may contribute to increased susceptibility to various diseases.

Upon scoring the fecal samples based on the MDS, researchers found that a high MDS (>7.5) increased the risk of 30-day mortality by a factor of 8.66 in critically ill patients. The researchers, however, found no independent association between traditional microbiome diversity profile (or Enterococcus abundance) and 30-day mortality.

The researchers noted that fecal metabolic dysbiosis may represent a treatable trait in critically ill patients, with the MDS serving as a potential biomarker to identify those who could benefit from targeted interventions to correct this imbalance and improve outcomes.

 Alexander P. de Porto et al, Fecal metabolite profiling identifies critically ill patients with increased 30-day mortality, Science Advances (2025). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.adt1466

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 19, 2025 at 11:21am

The researchers showed that humans greatly increased the breadth of habitats they were able to exploit within Africa before the expansion out of the continent. This increase in the human niche may have been a result of positive feedback of greater contact and cultural exchange, allowing larger ranges and the breakdown of geographic barriers.

Unlike previous humans dispersing out of Africa, those human groups moving into Eurasia after approximately 60–50,000 years ago were equipped with a distinctive ecological flexibility as a result of coping with climatically challenging habitats. This likely provided a key mechanism for the adaptive success of our species beyond their African homeland.

 Emily Hallett, Major expansion in the human niche preceded out of Africa dispersal, Nature (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-025-09154-0. www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-09154-0

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 19, 2025 at 11:20am

Before dispersing out of Africa, humans likely had to learn to thrive in diverse habitats

All non-Africans are known to have descended from a small group of people that ventured into Eurasia around 50,000 years ago. However, fossil evidence shows that there were numerous failed dispersals before this time that left no detectable traces in living people.

In a paper published in Nature, new evidence explains for the first time why those earlier migrations didn't succeed.

It was found that before expanding into Eurasia 50,000 years ago, humans began to exploit different habitat types in Africa in ways not seen before.

The results showed that the human niche began to expand significantly from 70,000 years ago, and that this expansion was driven by humans increasing their use of diverse habitat types, from forests to arid deserts.

Previous dispersals seem to have happened during particularly favorable windows of increased rainfall in the Saharo-Arabian desert belt, thus creating 'green corridors' for people to move into Eurasia. However, around 70,000–50,000 years ago, the easiest route out of Africa would have been more challenging than during previous periods, and yet this expansion was sizable and ultimately successful.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 19, 2025 at 8:53am

The researchers found that tracking occurred even when users cleared or deleted cookies. The results showed notable differences in bid values and a decrease in HTTP records and syncing events when fingerprints were changed, suggesting an impact on targeting and tracking.

Additionally, some of these sites linked fingerprinting behavior to backend bidding processes—meaning fingerprint-based profiles were being used in real time, likely to tailor responses to users or pass along identifiers to third parties.

Perhaps more concerning, the researchers found that even users who explicitly opt out of tracking under privacy laws like Europe's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and California's California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) may still be silently tracked across the web through browser fingerprinting.

Based on the results of this study, the researchers argue that current privacy tools and policies are not doing enough. They call for stronger defenses in browsers and new regulatory attention to fingerprinting practices. They hope that their FPTrace framework can help regulators audit websites and providers who participate in such activities, especially without user consent.

Zengrui Liu et al, The First Early Evidence of the Use of Browser Fingerprinting for Online Tracking, Proceedings of the ACM on Web Conference 2025 (2025). DOI: 10.1145/3696410.3714548

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 19, 2025 at 8:52am

Websites are tracking you via browser fingerprinting, researchers show

Clearing your cookies is not enough to protect your privacy online. New research  has found that websites are covertly using browser fingerprinting—a method to uniquely identify a web browser—to track people across browser sessions and sites.

The findings are published as part of the Proceedings of the ACM on Web Conference 2025.

Fingerprinting has always been a concern in the privacy community, but until now, we had no hard proof that it was actually being used to track users.

When you visit a website, your browser shares a surprising amount of information, like your screen resolution, time zone, device model and more. When combined, these details create a "fingerprint" that's often unique to your browser. Unlike cookies—which users can delete or block—fingerprinting is much harder to detect or prevent. Most users have no idea it's happening, and even privacy-focused browsers struggle to fully block it.

It is like a digital signature you didn't know you were leaving behind. You may look anonymous, but your device or browser gives you away.

This research marks a turning point in how computer scientists understand the real-world use of browser fingerprinting by connecting it with the use of ads.

To investigate whether websites are using fingerprinting data to track people, the researchers had to go beyond simply scanning websites for the presence of fingerprinting code. They developed a measurement framework called FPTrace, which assesses fingerprinting-based user tracking by analyzing how ad systems respond to changes in browser fingerprints.

This approach is based on the insight that if browser fingerprinting influences tracking, altering fingerprints should affect advertiser bidding—where ad space is sold in real time based on the profile of the person viewing the website—and HTTP records—records of communication between a server and a browser.

This kind of analysis lets the researchers go beyond the surface. They were  able to detect not just the presence of fingerprinting, but whether it was being used to identify and target users—which is much harder to prove.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 18, 2025 at 9:49am

Wildfires could be harming the oceans and disrupting their carbon storage

Wildfires pollute waterways and could affect their ability to sequester carbon, recent research shows.

When forests burn, they release ash, soil particles and chemicals into the environment. In a Science of The Total Environment study which analyzed water quality and wildfire data, researchers were able to link increases in the concentrations of compounds like arsenic and lead, as well as nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus, to fires which had burned within the river's basin months prior.

Using monitoring data collected by Environment Canada over the last 20 years, they calculated that up to 16.3% of the variation in water quality could be attributed to wildfires. 

Black carbon is formed when fires burn the carbon in trees. Black carbon cycles very slowly in the environment, especially the particulate form, and may sequester carbon from the atmosphere when it is buried in the ocean.

In a study earlier in 2025, researchers found that there is an important seasonal aspect to this. Most of the water in the northern rivers currently comes from snowmelt, but with climate change, this could shift to being more rain-driven in the future.

This change could lead to more rapidly degradable dissolved black carbon being exported to the ocean, which means that this carbon sequestration may lessen in the future and black carbon could become an additional source of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere.

Emily Brown et al, Cumulative effects of fire in the Fraser River basin on freshwater quality and implications for the Salish Sea, Science of The Total Environment (2025). DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.179416

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 18, 2025 at 9:38am

How chemical bonds are formed: Physicists observe energy flow in real time

For the first time, a research team  has tracked in real time how individual atoms combine to form a cluster and which processes are involved.

To achieve this, the researchers first isolated magnesium atoms using superfluid helium and then used a laser pulse to trigger the formation process. The researchers were able to observe this cluster formation and the involved energy transfer between individual atoms with a temporal resolution in the femtosecond range.

Normally, magnesium atoms instantaneously form tight bonds, which means that there is no defined starting configuration for observation of the bond-formation processes

The researchers have solved this problem, which often arises when observing chemical processes in real time, by conducting experiments with superfluid helium droplets. These droplets act like ultra-cold "nano-fridges" that isolate the individual magnesium atoms from each other at extremely low temperatures of 0.4 Kelvin (= -272.75 degrees Celsius or 0.4 degrees Celsius above absolute zero) at a distance of a millionth of a millimeter.

This configuration allowed them to initiate cluster formation with a laser pulse and track it precisely in real time.

The researchers observed the processes triggered by the laser pulse using photoelectron and photoion spectroscopy. While the magnesium atoms combined to form a cluster, they were ionized with a second laser pulse.

Researchers were able to reconstruct the processes involved in detail on the basis of the ions formed and electrons released.

A key discovery here is energy pooling. As they bind to each other, several magnesium atoms transfer the excitation energy received from the first laser pulse to a single atom in the cluster, so that it reaches a much higher energy state. This is the first time that energy pooling has been demonstrated with time resolution.

Michael Stadlhofer et al, Real-time tracking of energy flow in cluster formation, Communications Chemistry (2025). DOI: 10.1038/s42004-025-01563-6

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 18, 2025 at 6:57am

Waste can turn to rock within decades
Industrial waste is turning into solid rock in as little as 35 years. Researchers analysed a cliff made up of millions of cubic metres of slag produced by now-defunct iron and steel foundries along a stretch of the English coast. A coin from 1934 and an aluminium can tab manufactured after 1989 were embedded in the material, showing that it had lithified — essentially turning into rock — within that period. “All the activity we’re undertaking at the Earth’s surface will eventually end up in the geological record as rock, but this process is happening with remarkable, unprecedented speed,” said study co-author John MacDonald.

Industrial waste can turn into rock in as little as 35 years, new research reveals, instead of the thousands or millions of years previously assumed. The finding challenges what scientists know about rock formation, revealing an entirely new "anthropoclastic rock cycle."

The scientists found that waste from seaside industrial plants turns into rock especially rapidly due to the ocean water and air, which activate minerals such as calcium and magnesium in the waste, or slag, cementing it together faster than natural sediments.

Researchers dubbed this newly discovered process the "rapid anthropoclastic rock cycle." The findings challenge long-standing theories about how rocks form and suggest industries have far less time to dispose of their waste properly than previously thought

https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/doi/1...

Industrial waste is turning into a new type of rock at 'unprecedented' speed, new study finds

https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/geology/industrial-waste-i...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on June 17, 2025 at 2:52pm

Light Squeezed Out of Darkness in  Quantum Simulation

A careful alignment of three powerful lasers could generate a mysterious fourth beam of light that is throttled out of the very darkness itself.

What sounds like occult forces at work has been confirmed by a simulation of the kinds of quantum effects we might expect to emerge from a vacuum when ultra-high electromagnetic fields meet.

What we think of as empty space is – on a quantum level – an ocean of possibility. Fields representing all kinds of physical interactions hum with the promise of particles we'd recognize as the foundations of light and the building blocks of matter itself. These virtual particles essentially pop into and out of existence in fractions of a second.

All it takes for them to manifest longer-term is the right kind of physical persuasion that discourages them from canceling one another out; the kind of persuasion a series of strong electromagnetic fields might provide when arranged in a suitable fashion.

Using nothing but photons to generate the necessary electromagnetic fields, it's hoped the light being scattered out of the darkness won't be hidden in a fog of other particles, finally proving once and for all that it is possible in physics to squeeze something out of nothing.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s42005-025-02128-8

A team of researchers from the University of Oxford in the UK and the University of Lisbon in Portugal used a semi-classical equation solver to simulate quantum phenomena in real time and in three dimensions, testing predictions on what ought to occur when incredibly intense laser pulses combine in empty space.

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