Science news

• Epidural stimulation shown to normalize blood pressure following spinal cord injury

  22-03-2018 23:14
  Working with human research participants, researchers have found that spinal cord epidural stimulation can safely and effectively elevate blood pressure in individuals with SCI along with chronic hypotension.
  
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• Using light to turn yeast into biochemical factories

  22-03-2018 23:13
  Researchers have used a combination of light and genetic engineering to controlling the metabolism, or basic chemical process, of a living cell. Building on techniques that already have transformed the field of neuroscience, the researchers used light to control genetically-modified yeast and increase its output of commercially valuable chemicals.
  
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• Obesity surgery linked to positive outcomes in very obese teens with diabetes

  22-03-2018 23:13
  This study is the first to compare glycemic control in two groups of very obese adolescents with type 2 diabetes.
  
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• Direct evidence of exposure of pregnant women to herbicide ingredient

  22-03-2018 23:13
  The first birth cohort study of its kind has found more than 90 percent of a group of pregnant women in Central Indiana had detectable levels of glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, the most heavily used herbicide worldwide.
  
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• In a severe childhood neurodegeneration, novel mechanism found

  22-03-2018 23:12
  Neurology researchers investigating a rare but devastating neurological regression in infants have discovered the cause: gene mutations that severely disrupt crucial functions in mitochondria, the energy-producing structures within cells. The specific disease mechanism, in which mutations disrupt a critical mitochondrial enzyme, has not previously been implicated in a human disease.
  
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• Waterbirds affected by low water, high salt levels in lakes

  22-03-2018 23:11
  A recent study shows food sources for migratory birds decline with low water levels and high salt content in lakes.
  
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• Mystery mammoth tusks returned to Canada

  22-03-2018 21:14 via cbc.ca
  A pair of mammoth tusks that had been illegally acquired by an American collector in 1960 have been returned to Canada.
  
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• Home genetic tests should be interpreted by experts

  22-03-2018 20:03
  Results from at-home genetic tests are not always accurate. A new study now shows that up to 40 percent of direct-to-consumer (DTC) genetic tests provide incorrect readings in the raw data.
  
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• Deep impact: Deep-sea wildlife more vulnerable to extinction than first thought

  22-03-2018 20:03
  The existence of the unusual yeti crabs (Kiwaidae) -- a family of crab-like animals whose hairy claws and bodies are reminiscent of the abominable snowman -- since 2005, but already their future survival could be at risk. New Oxford University research suggests that past environmental changes may have profoundly impacted the geographic range and species diversity of this family. The findings indicate that such animals may be more vulnerable to the effects of human resource exploitation and clima
  
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• Bacteria eat greenhouse gas with a side of protein

  22-03-2018 20:03
  With the ability to leech heavy metals from the environment and digest a potent greenhouse gas, methanotrophic bacteria pull double duty when it comes to cleaning up the environment. But before researchers can explore potential conservation applications, they first must better understand the bacteria's basic physiological processes. New research has identified two never-before-studied proteins, called MbnB and MbnC, as partially responsible for the bacteria's inner workings.
  
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• Antimicrobial used in toiletries could become option against malaria

  22-03-2018 20:03
  Not only it inhibits enzymes essential to Plasmodium's survival in two key stages of its lifecycle in humans, but triclosan also performed well in tests against resistant parasites, an international study reveals. The efficiency of malaria treatment with mostly used drugs is undermined by resistant lineages and by the fact that patients present severe side effects in 10 percent of the cases.
  
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• Atacama mummy’s deformities were unduly sensationalized

  22-03-2018 19:54
  
  A malformed human mummy known as Ata has been sensationalized as alien. A DNA analysis helps overturn that misconception.
  
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• How bees defend against some controversial insecticides

  22-03-2018 19:41
  
  Some bees have enzymes that allow them to resist toxic compounds in some neonicotinoid pesticides.
  
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• Canadian teen tells UN 'warrior up' to protect water

  22-03-2018 19:39 via cbc.ca
  Autumn Peltier, a 13-year-old from Manitoulin Island on Georgian Bay, delivered a strong message to the United Nations General Assembly that the world needs to stop polluting its water.
  
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• Unusual blood clots in leprosy patients characterized

  22-03-2018 19:10
  For years, doctors have observed that some patients with leprosy develop unusual blood clots which can lead to stroke or heart attack. Now, researchers have for the first time characterized these blood clots, leading to a new understanding of how leprosy affects the circulatory system and potential new screening tests to predict leprosy reactions.
  
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• The mouse brain can prioritize hunger by suppressing pain when survival is at stake

  22-03-2018 19:10
  Different behaviors are often studied in isolation, leaving unanswered questions about how the brain processes needs and prioritizes behaviors to ensure survival. Now, researchers have shown that pain and hunger interact in complex ways in mice: extreme hunger suppresses less-urgent inflammatory pain, but leaves them able to feel and react to more life-and-death kinds of pain. The study pinpoints a highly specific neural circuit that creates this analgesic effect.
  
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• Mass treatment with azithromycin may decrease yaws cases in Ghana

  22-03-2018 19:10
  A single round of total-community treatment (TCT) with the antibiotic azithromycin applied to affected rural communities could significantly decrease yaws among the population one year later, according to a new study.
  
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• Earwigs take origami to extremes to fold their wings

  22-03-2018 19:10
  
  Stretchy joints let earwig wings flip quickly between folded and unfurled.
  
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• Early life experiences influence DNA in the adult brain

  22-03-2018 19:09
  In the perennial question of nature versus nurture, a new study suggests an intriguing connection between the two. Scientists report that the type of mothering a female mouse provides her pups actually changes their DNA. The work lends support to studies about how childhood environments affect brain development in humans and could provide insights into neuropsychiatric disorders such as depression and schizophrenia.
  
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• Origin of 'six-inch mummy' confirmed

  22-03-2018 19:03 via bbc.co.uk
  Scientists investigate an unusual, small, mummified skeleton from Chile to establish its medical history.
  
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• Primeval Salt Shakes Up Ideas on How the Atmosphere Got Its Oxygen

  22-03-2018 19:00 via rss.sciam.com
  Our planet may have gained breathable air in the geologic blink of an eye-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Mysterious skeleton shows molecular complexity of bone diseases

  22-03-2018 18:43
  A bizarre human skeleton, once rumored to have extraterrestrial origins, has gotten a rather comprehensive genomic work-up, the results of which are now in.
  
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• Kids from wealthier families feel more control over their lives

  22-03-2018 18:43
  Sociologists examined which measures of socioeconomic status -- parents' education, family income, race and parents' occupation -- have the greatest influence over a child's locus of control and why.
  
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• The microbiome in cancer immunotherapy: Diagnostic tools and therapeutic strategies

  22-03-2018 18:39
  The fine line between human health and disease can be driven by the interplay between host and microbial factors. This "metagenome" regulates cancer initiation, progression, and response to therapies. Besides the capacity of distinct microbial species to modulate the pharmacodynamics of chemotherapeutic drugs, symbiosis between epithelial barriers and their microbial ecosystems has a major impact on the local and distant immune system, markedly influencing clinical outcome in cancer patients. Ef
  
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• The biosynthesis of methanobactin

  22-03-2018 18:39
  Metal homeostasis poses a major challenge to microbes, which must acquire scarce elements for core metabolic processes. Methanobactin, an extensively modified copper-chelating peptide, was one of the earliest natural products shown to enable microbial acquisition of a metal other than iron. We describe the core biosynthetic machinery responsible for the characteristic posttranslational modifications that grant methanobactin its specificity and affinity for copper. A heterodimer comprising MbnB,
  
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• Phosphoric acid as a precursor to chemicals traditionally synthesized from white phosphorus

  22-03-2018 18:39
  White phosphorus, generated in the legacy thermal process for phosphate rock upgrading, has long been the key industrial intermediate for the synthesis of phosphorus-containing chemicals, including herbicides, flame-retardants, catalyst ligands, battery electrolytes, pharmaceuticals, and detergents. In contrast, phosphate fertilizers are made on a much larger scale from phosphoric acid, obtained by treating phosphate rock with sulfuric acid. Dehydration of phosphoric acid using sodium chloride g
  
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• Personalized vaccines for cancer immunotherapy

  22-03-2018 18:39
  Cancer is characterized by an accumulation of genetic alterations. Somatic mutations can generate cancer-specific neoepitopes that are recognized by autologous T cells as foreign and constitute ideal cancer vaccine targets. Every tumor has its own unique composition of mutations, with only a small fraction shared between patients. Technological advances in genomics, data science, and cancer immunotherapy now enable the rapid mapping of the mutations within a genome, rational selection of vaccine
  
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• Lymph node metastases can invade local blood vessels, exit the node, and colonize distant organs in mice

  22-03-2018 18:39
  Lymph node metastases in cancer patients are associated with tumor aggressiveness, poorer prognoses, and the recommendation for systemic therapy. Whether cancer cells in lymph nodes can seed distant metastases has been a subject of considerable debate. We studied mice implanted with cancer cells (mammary carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, or melanoma) expressing the photoconvertible protein Dendra2. This technology allowed us to selectively photoconvert metastatic cells in the lymph node and tr
  
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• Lymph node blood vessels provide exit routes for metastatic tumor cell dissemination in mice

  22-03-2018 18:39
  During metastasis, malignant cells escape the primary tumor, intravasate lymphatic vessels, and reach draining sentinel lymph nodes before they colonize distant organs via the blood circulation. Although lymph node metastasis in cancer patients correlates with poor prognosis, evidence is lacking as to whether and how tumor cells enter the bloodstream via lymph nodes. To investigate this question, we delivered carcinoma cells into the lymph nodes of mice by microinfusing the cells into afferent l
  
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• Locally translated mTOR controls axonal local translation in nerve injury

  22-03-2018 18:39
  How is protein synthesis initiated locally in neurons? We found that mTOR (mechanistic target of rapamycin) was activated and then up-regulated in injured axons, owing to local translation of mTOR messenger RNA (mRNA). This mRNA was transported into axons by the cell size–regulating RNA-binding protein nucleolin. Furthermore, mTOR controlled local translation in injured axons. This included regulation of its own translation and that of retrograde injury signaling molecules such as importin
  
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• Hyperglycemia drives intestinal barrier dysfunction and risk for enteric infection

  22-03-2018 18:39
  Obesity, diabetes, and related manifestations are associated with an enhanced, but poorly understood, risk for mucosal infection and systemic inflammation. Here, we show in mouse models of obesity and diabetes that hyperglycemia drives intestinal barrier permeability, through GLUT2-dependent transcriptional reprogramming of intestinal epithelial cells and alteration of tight and adherence junction integrity. Consequently, hyperglycemia-mediated barrier disruption leads to systemic influx of micr
  
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• Early life experience drives structural variation of neural genomes in mice

  22-03-2018 18:39
  The brain is a genomic mosaic owing to somatic mutations that arise throughout development. Mobile genetic elements, including retrotransposons, are one source of somatic mosaicism in the brain. Retrotransposition may represent a form of plasticity in response to experience. Here, we use droplet digital polymerase chain reaction to show that natural variations in maternal care mediate the mobilization of long interspersed nuclear element–1 (LINE-1 or L1) retrotransposons in the hippocampus
  
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• CAR T cell immunotherapy for human cancer

  22-03-2018 18:39
  Adoptive T cell transfer (ACT) is a new area of transfusion medicine involving the infusion of lymphocytes to mediate antitumor, antiviral, or anti-inflammatory effects. The field has rapidly advanced from a promising form of immuno-oncology in preclinical models to the recent commercial approvals of chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T cells to treat leukemia and lymphoma. This Review describes opportunities and challenges for entering mainstream oncology that presently face the CAR T field, with
  
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• Cancer immunotherapy using checkpoint blockade

  22-03-2018 18:39
  The release of negative regulators of immune activation (immune checkpoints) that limit antitumor responses has resulted in unprecedented rates of long-lasting tumor responses in patients with a variety of cancers. This can be achieved by antibodies blocking the cytotoxic T lymphocyte–associated protein 4 (CTLA-4) or the programmed cell death 1 (PD-1) pathway, either alone or in combination. The main premise for inducing an immune response is the preexistence of antitumor T cells that were
  
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• Bioinspired spring origami

  22-03-2018 18:39
  Origami enables folding of objects into a variety of shapes in arts, engineering, and biological systems. In contrast to well-known paper-folded objects, the wing of the earwig has an exquisite natural folding system that cannot be sufficiently described by current origami models. Such an unusual biological system displays incompatible folding patterns, remains open by a bistable locking mechanism during flight, and self-folds rapidly without muscular actuation. We show that these notable functi
  
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• A single fungal MAP kinase controls plant cell-to-cell invasion by the rice blast fungus

  22-03-2018 18:39
  Blast disease destroys up to 30% of the rice crop annually and threatens global food security. The blast fungus Magnaporthe oryzae invades plant tissue with hyphae that proliferate and grow from cell to cell, often through pit fields, where plasmodesmata cluster. We showed that chemical genetic inhibition of a single fungal mitogen-activated protein (MAP) kinase, Pmk1, prevents M. oryzae from infecting adjacent plant cells, leaving the fungus trapped within a single plant cell. Pmk1 regulates ex
  
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• A nonconjugated radical polymer glass with high electrical conductivity

  22-03-2018 18:39
  Solid-state conducting polymers usually have highly conjugated macromolecular backbones and require intentional doping in order to achieve high electrical conductivities. Conversely, single-component, charge-neutral macromolecules could be synthetically simpler and have improved processibility and ambient stability. We show that poly(4-glycidyloxy-2,2,6,6-tetramethylpiperidine-1-oxyl), a nonconjugated radical polymer with a subambient glass transition temperature, underwent rapid solid-state cha
  
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• 'Artificial magma' technology used to suppress Alberta oil and gas well leaks

  22-03-2018 17:56 via cbc.ca
  New technologies employing brute force as well as artificial volcanic action are being developed to better seal thousands of inactive oil and gas wells in Canada that are leaking methane, a greenhouse gas with an outsized impact on global warming.
  
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• Great Pacific Garbage Patch is 16 times bigger than previously estimated, study finds

  22-03-2018 16:34 via cbc.ca
  A new study suggests that the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an area spanning 1.6 million square kilometres, contains more than 79,000 tonnes of floating plastic — 16 times more than previous estimates.
  
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• Scientists develop brain scanner in a helmet

  22-03-2018 15:36
  (Reuters) - British scientists have developed a lightweight and highly sensitive brain imaging device that can be worn as a helmet, allowing the patient to move about naturally.
  
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• Why it’s great to have a geologist in the house

  22-03-2018 15:19
  Editor in Chief Nancy Shute enthuses about learning how ancient plans may have helped make Earth muddy.
  
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• Readers ponder children’s pretend play, planetary dust storms and more

  22-03-2018 15:18
  Readers had questions about children’s fantasy play, lasers creating 3-D images and dust storms on Mars.
  
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• Plastic patch in Pacific Ocean growing rapidly, study shows

  22-03-2018 15:12 via bbc.co.uk
  It is estimated some 80,000 tonnes of plastic is circulating in a patch between Hawaii and California.
  
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• The great Pacific garbage patch may be 16 times as massive as we thought

  22-03-2018 15:00
  
  The giant garbage patch between Hawaii and California weighs at least 79,000 tons, a new estimate suggests.
  
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• How oral vaccines could save Ethiopian wolves from extinction

  22-03-2018 14:00
  
  A mass oral vaccination program in Ethiopian wolves could pave the way for other endangered species and help humans, too.
  
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• If you want to find Nemo, you may need SoFi, the robotic fish

  22-03-2018 13:55
  WASHINGTON (Reuters) - When exploring marine environments, underwater robots tend to be a bull trout in a china shop, disturbing marine life with their bulk and disruptive propulsion. Enter SoFi, the soft, agile robotic fish with a delicate demeanor.
  
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• Long-term Gains: Pre-K Programs Lead to Furthered Education Later in Life

  22-03-2018 12:30 via rss.sciam.com
  Largest study to date of publicly funded early education program shows a major, sustained educational boost-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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• Distressed seabird rallies after dinner and a warm bed in Newfoundland home

  22-03-2018 12:30 via cbc.ca
  When Antje Springman spotted something huddled outside her home, she thought it was one of her chickens. It turned out to be a Great Cormorant.
  
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• 'Radical change' needed on countryside

  22-03-2018 12:20 via bbc.co.uk
  The UK government is failing rural communities and the natural environment, a report says.
  
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• Looking for Planet Nine, Astronomers Gaze into the Abyss

  22-03-2018 11:45 via rss.sciam.com
  Two years on, the search for our solar system’s missing world is as frenzied as ever—and the putative planet is running out of places to hide-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com
  
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