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Science and Information / Google's next Wear OS update could go all-in on health features

« on: March 02, 2020, 01:22:00 PM »

We're still waiting to see exactly how Google's acquisition of Fitbit will affect its future wearables, but it seems increasingly likely that the next version of Wear OS is going to be a lot more focused on your health.

Google Fit already does a decent job of activity and stat tracking on Wear OS, but a user survey spotted by Droid Life suggests that lots more is on the way in the next version of the software that Google puts on its smartwatches.

The survey, sent out through the Google User Experience Research program, polls participants about what they'd like to see included in future Wear OS upgrades, whenever they might happen to arrive.
Included in the options are SPO2 (oxygenation) tracking, sleep apnea detection, sleep analysis, heartbeat alerts, recovery time monitoring, stress tracking, pairing for medical devices and gym equipment, rep detection and more.
source;https://www.techradar.com

The survey also mentions water, food and calorie tracking, as well as logging elevation and flights of stairs climbed. If all of these new features get included when the next version of Wear OS rolls around, we could be talking about some serious upgrades.

Wear OS doesn't currently track sleep, for example, though you can import this data from other apps. One new feature proposed by the user survey is a smart alarm setting that wakes you up when it best suits your natural circadian rhythms.

Of course just because these options are mentioned in a user survey doesn't mean that Google is going to include them in the next version of Wear OS – but it does at least give us a few clues about the areas that might be improved upon.

We could well hear more about the future of Wear OS and Google's wearables in general at Google IO 2020, the developer conference which is scheduled to take place between May 12-14 later this year.

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Science and Information / Trailblazing NASA Mathematician Katherine Johnson Dies at 101

« on: March 02, 2020, 01:17:47 PM »

The legendary NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson died Monday at the age of 101, the U.S. space agency has announced. Johnson developed mathematical equations that were essential to NASA’s early efforts to send astronauts into space and then to the moon—and the principles discovered in her work remain at the core of manned space travel today. Her trailblazing career was portrayed by Taraji P. Henson in the Oscar-nominated 2016 film Hidden Figures, which told the story of the black women whose work at NASA went uncelebrated at the time but was integral during the Space Race. She wasn’t well-known by the public until President Barack Obama awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom—the country’s highest civilian honor—in 2015. Bill Barry, NASA’s chief historian, said of Johnson: “She had a singular intellect, curiosity and skill set in mathematics that allowed her to make many contributions, each of which might be considered worthy of a single lifetime.” He went on to say that Johnson’s work was “critical to the success of the early U.S. space programs.”

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Science and Information / Microsoft starts rolling out new icons to all Windows 10 users

« on: March 02, 2020, 01:16:14 PM »

It is a few months since Microsoft first unveiled the new look icons for Windows 10 and various applications.

Now, having started the roll out of the new icons to Windows Insiders, the company is giving everyone access to the new designs. At the moment, it seems to be people running Windows 10 version 1909 that are affected, and this means they can enjoy new icons for Mail, Calendar, Calculator, Photos and more apps.

Back in December, Microsoft explained the aesthetic changes it was going to be making, saying: "With the newest wave of icon redesigns, we faced two major creative challenges. We needed to signal innovation and change while maintaining familiarity for customers. We also had to develop a flexible and open design system to span a range of contexts while still being true to Microsoft".

Initially it was only those involved in the Insider program that had access to the new icons but, as noted by Techdows -- and confirmed by BetaNews – the new look is now being delivered to non-Insiders.

While updates to the Calendar and Mail apps seem to have been pushed out automatically to everyone, in order to see the new icons for the Calculator and Movies & TV apps, you'll need to update the apps via the Microsoft Store.

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Science and Information / Poor quality Western diet kills sperm count and lowers male testosterone, study

« on: February 25, 2020, 12:31:26 PM »

If sperm was an animal, science might worry that it's heading toward extinction in Western nations.

Total sperm count in North America, Europe, Australia and New Zealand dropped by up to 60% in the 38 years between 1973 and 2011, research found -- an acceleration of a trend that began in the 1940s. More recent studies show the trend is continuing.

At the same time, studies show a concurrent decline in testosterone levels -- the hormone needed to build a man's muscle and bone mass and boost his sex drive. ame
Why? No one knows for sure. Debate rages about the role of radiation, air pollution and chemicals in our food, clothes and water. Smoking, alcohol consumption and obesity likely all play a role.
So could the lower nutritional quality of the typical Western diet, according to a new study published Friday in JAMA Urology.
"This study is the largest study to date to examine the diet pattern with men's testicular function," said study author Feiby Nassan, a research fellow at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health.
The study found that, on average, men who typically ate a Westernized diet of pizza, snacks, sweets and processed foods produced around 68 million fewer sperm upon ejaculation than men who ate a more healthy, balanced diet.
A man is considered to have a low sperm count if he has less than 39 million sperm per ejaculation or fewer than 15 million sperm per milliliter. A low sperm count can negatively impact a man's ability to get a partner pregnant, and it can be a key marker for overall male health.
"Fertility is not just important to make babies," Nassan said, adding that new research recently shows fertility is related to a man's general health and life expectancy.
A huge difference
The study looked at 2,935 Danish men of normal weight -- with a median age of 19 -- who were undergoing a physical to determine their fitness for military service (something all men in Denmark have to do after they turn 18).
Blood and semen samples were taken, and the men completed a questionnaire that asked how often they had eaten 136 food items in the prior three months.
The study looked at four food patterns:
The "prudent," healthy pattern, in which fish, chicken, vegetables, fruit and water were mostly consumed.
The "open-sandwich pattern," a more typically Danish diet with a greater intake of cold, processed meats, whole-grain breads, mayonnaise, cold fish, condiments and dairy.
The vegetarian-like pattern, with a high intake of vegetables, soy milk and eggs, with little to no red meat or chicken.
And the "unhealthy" Western pattern, with more pizza, snacks, french fries, sweets, sugar-sweetened drinks, processed and red meat, snacks and highly processed grains.
Men who closely followed the prudent pattern of eating -- characterized by lots of fish, chicken, vegetables, fruit and water -- were associated with the highest sperm counts. This was followed by the semi-vegetarian and then the "smørrebrød," or Danish, eating style.

"The median sperm count of men who had the highest adherence to the 'prudent' pattern was 68 million higher than men who had the highest adherence to the 'Western' pattern," Nassan said, with 95 percent confidence intervals of 43 and 93.
In addition, the median sperm count of men who had the highest adherence to the vegetarian-like pattern was nearly 33 million higher than men who mostly ate the less nutritious Western diet.
CNN wrote about the study's preliminary results last year. At the time, Charles Lindemann, a professor emeritus and researcher at Michigan's Oakland University who did not participate in the research, said the study's findings "could be an important clue if it holds up to scrutiny."

A diet high in processed foods, he said, "may be responsible for the known trend that has been recorded over the recent past of progressively decreasing sperm counts."
Nassan said her findings show eating seafood, poultry, nuts, whole grains, fruits and vegetables give the body the antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids " essential for good sperm production."
"Changing diet pattern may be a simple and inexpensive change" to protect a man's testicular function, Nassan said.
"I believe that it is not only 'you are what you eat' but it is also 'your sperm is what you eat.' "

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Science and Information / World’s First Plaque-Identifying Toothpaste Significantly Reduces Inflammation T

« on: February 25, 2020, 12:29:38 PM »

The world’s first toothpaste that identifies dental plaque could also help reduce rates of heart attack and stroke, says this new study.

The patented Plaque HD toothpaste was initially developed by an orthodontist in 2009 to provide a safe, at home plaque-reduction program for patients. Plaque HD utilizes Targetol Technology, a gluten-free coloring agent, to provide a more efficient way to highlight and clean harmful plaque from patients’ teeth and gums.

This unique plant-based concentrated combination of cleaning agents has been proven to remove more than twice the amount of plaque than conventional toothpastes.


Additionally, results published this week from a randomized trial of subjects with dental plaque confirms that Plaque HD produces statistically significant reductions in inflammation throughout the body.
For decades, researchers have suggested a link between oral health and inflammatory diseases affecting the entire body—in particular, heart attacks and strokes. Inflammation is measured by high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP). Hs-CRP is a sensitive marker of inflammation, but it is also an accurate predictor of future heart attacks and strokes.
These results are published online ahead of print in the American Journal of Medicine.



In this trial, all randomized subjects were given the same brushing protocol and received a 30-day supply of toothpaste containing either Plaque HD or an identical non-plaque identifying placebo toothpaste. To assess hs-CRP, levels were measured by Quest Diagnostics using an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay.
“The current findings show that Plaque HD significantly decreases hs-CRP in subjects with elevated levels at baseline, which is similar to the findings in our previous trial,” said Dr. Charles H. Hennekens, senior author and the First Sir Richard Doll Professor in Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine.

“These results provide a strong rationale to conduct a large-scale randomized trial whose results could have significant clinical and public health implications,” added Hennekens.

Two years ago, the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine ranked the original manuscript published in 1997 by Hennekens and colleagues on aspirin, inflammation and cardiovascular disease, as their most influential original report of the last 20 years.
The data derived from the landmark Physician’s Health Study, in which Hennekens was the founding Principal Investigator, indicated that hs-CRP predicted future heart attacks and strokes.

A report from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 47.2% of American adults aged 30 years and older have some form of periodontal disease, a pathological inflammatory condition of the gums and tissues surrounding the teeth.

Periodontal disease increases with age affecting more than 70% of adults 65 years and older. Prior research has suggested that periodontal disease may be connected to variety of other diseases, including heart disease and stroke and other inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. Inflammation throughout the body may be a crucial link between periodontal and other systemic diseases.
Based on the findings of this trial performed at the Marshfield Clinic Research Center, Hennekens and colleagues are drafting an investigator initiated research grant proposal to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

This randomized trial will test whether the reduction in inflammation throughout the body by Plaque HD leads to decreases in progression of atherosclerosis in the coronary and carotid arteries for which systemic inflammation is a crucial precursor.

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Science and Information / New Genomic Tests Aim to Diagnose Deadly Infections Faster

« on: February 25, 2020, 12:26:51 PM »

Rapid genomic tests are poised to change the way doctors diagnose and treat infections, but their cost may limit widespread use.


A lab worker prepared to sequence genomes at the University of California San Francisco. Across the country, researchers and engineers are racing to perfect new tests that could revolutionize how doctors diagnose and treat infections.Credit...James Tensuan for The New York Times
Ryan Springer’s mystery illness began last summer with a dull ache in his chest. Over the next few days, the symptoms grew more alarming: sharp pain with every breath, a rapid heartbeat and a spiking fever.

Emergency room doctors at Carle Foundation Hospital in Urbana, Ill., were stumped. They ordered up a lung biopsy and started Mr. Springer, 47, on a broad-spectrum antibiotic. But his condition worsened, and doctors feared he might not survive the five or more days it would take to get the lab results back.

There was one more option: a new genomic test that can offer much faster results by rapidly sorting through the DNA in a blood sample and picking out the pathogen most likely making a patient sick. It is part of a rapidly growing new generation of lab tests under development that could revolutionize the way doctors diagnose and treat infections.

The usual method, based on growing and analyzing germ cultures in a lab, has barely changed since the 1880s, when Julius Petri came up with a way to grow germs in a gelatinous bed of algae set between two nesting discs of glass.

The new genomic diagnostics work by matching the DNA or RNA of microbes in a patient’s bodily fluid against vast databases of all known bacteria, viruses or fungi that can sicken humans. Many of the tests produce results in hours, a marked contrast to traditional cultures, which can take days or even weeks to get results — when they work at all. The turnaround in getting test results has become even more urgent with the coronavirus epidemic in China that is spreading around the world.

“We’re still using 19th-century technology for most microbiology diagnostics and they just don’t work well for many patients,” said Kevin Outterson, a professor of health law at Boston University and the executive director of CARB-X, a nonprofit focused on combating antimicrobial resistance. “These new technologies advance what we do by more than a century.”

Dr. Amir Khan, an infectious disease specialist, sent Mr. Springer’s blood to Karius, a San Francisco-area company that is among a dozen American start-ups developing genomic diagnostic tests.

Less than 48 hours later, the results came back: Mr. Springer had tularemia, or rabbit fever, a rare bacterial infection transmitted by animals and ticks that sickens fewer than 200 Americans a year. It is tough to diagnose — and it can be fatal if untreated.
“The previous case I saw was three years earlier, and it was diagnosed after an autopsy,” Dr. Khan said.
The cure was simple: the antibiotic doxycycline. Mr. Springer took it and was discharged five days later.

The coronavirus outbreak has ratcheted up interest in rapid genomic tests. Developers of the some of the devices say that once the genetic sequence of a novel pathogen has been made publicly available, the information could be quickly uploaded and used to identify those infected.

“With a traditional reference lab, by the time a clinic takes a sample and ships it off, you’ve lost 12 to 24 hours,” said Dr. Jack Regan, the chief executive of LexaGene, a Massachusetts company that hopes to sell its coffee maker-size instrument to airports, schools and clinics. “We can get results in under an hour, which makes a huge difference during deadly outbreaks.”

A wider rollout of these tests faces a number of hurdles. Most of the tests identify a patient’s infection 80 to 90 percent of the time — regulators would like that figure to be closer to 100 percent — and many of them are still awaiting a green light from the F.D.A. But health experts say a larger impediment to their widespread use is economics: Most of the tests run $500 to $3,000 (the test used to diagnose Mr. Springer was $2,000) and because few private insurances companies cover them, the costs are largely borne by hospitals or patients.

“The technology is incredibly promising but the challenge right now is how to get insurers to pay for it,” said Prof. Outterson of Boston University. “We need a system in which hospitals can at least break even for doing the right thing.”

John A. Prendergass, associate director of digital health at Ben Franklin Technology Partners, who invests in medical device start-ups, said he was concerned by the high costs, false negatives and low sensitivity of the tests he had looked at.
The cure was simple: the antibiotic doxycycline. Mr. Springer took it and was discharged five days later.

The coronavirus outbreak has ratcheted up interest in rapid genomic tests. Developers of the some of the devices say that once the genetic sequence of a novel pathogen has been made publicly available, the information could be quickly uploaded and used to identify those infected.

“With a traditional reference lab, by the time a clinic takes a sample and ships it off, you’ve lost 12 to 24 hours,” said Dr. Jack Regan, the chief executive of LexaGene, a Massachusetts company that hopes to sell its coffee maker-size instrument to airports, schools and clinics. “We can get results in under an hour, which makes a huge difference during deadly outbreaks.”

A wider rollout of these tests faces a number of hurdles. Most of the tests identify a patient’s infection 80 to 90 percent of the time — regulators would like that figure to be closer to 100 percent — and many of them are still awaiting a green light from the F.D.A. But health experts say a larger impediment to their widespread use is economics: Most of the tests run $500 to $3,000 (the test used to diagnose Mr. Springer was $2,000) and because few private insurances companies cover them, the costs are largely borne by hospitals or patients.

“The technology is incredibly promising but the challenge right now is how to get insurers to pay for it,” said Prof. Outterson of Boston University. “We need a system in which hospitals can at least break even for doing the right thing.”

John A. Prendergass, associate director of digital health at Ben Franklin Technology Partners, who invests in medical device start-ups, said he was concerned by the high costs, false negatives and low sensitivity of the tests he had looked at.

In addition to saving lives, the new tests could also ameliorate the growing crisis of drug-resistant infections, because pinpointing infections quickly would show doctors which antibiotic to use, rather than resorting to the shot-in-the dark dispensing of broad-spectrum antibiotics for patients with hard to diagnose infections.

Broad-spectrum antibiotics that act on a wide array of bacteria are commonly used in emergency rooms and intensive care units to combat bloodstream infections, or sepsis, which kill 270,000 Americans a year, accounting for a third of all hospital deaths. Septic shock is also quick to kill, with mortality increasing 8 percent each hour an infection goes untreated.

But at least half of all antibiotics are wrongly prescribed, researchers have found, and some studies suggest that a third of antibiotics prescribed by doctors are unnecessary, many of them dispensed without having a diagnosed infection. Such overuse is one of the major causes of mounting antibiotic resistance as germs mutate to survive.

“We believe patients should be treated based on what they’re infected with, not what doctors think they might have,” said Tom Lowery, the chief scientific officer of T2 Biosystems, a Boston company whose bacteria panel test has been the first to pass muster with the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/24/health/genomic-diagnostic-tests.html

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Science and Information / Study: Eating a bigger breakfast, smaller dinner helps burn more calories

« on: February 25, 2020, 12:22:04 PM »

It’s not just what you eat, but when you eat that could be holding you back from your weight loss goals.

A new study, which was published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, said eating a big breakfast can help burn more calories throughout the day.

Scientists studied a group of healthy young men with normal body fat and found they burned twice as many calories when they ate a bigger breakfast and a smaller dinner, compared to the other way around.

According to the study, the amount of energy needed to process a meal is higher in the morning than at night. Health experts also said planning for breakfast is key to starting the day right.

For those trying to lose weight, a mix of carbs and protein is recommended. Carbs give the body energy and the brain the fuel it needs to tackle the day.

Experts said that one of the biggest mistakes is not eating enough protein. Protein keeps us feeling full until the next meal and also keeps muscle mass strong, and metabolism working.

The American Heart Association said people who eat breakfast have lower rates of heart disease. Despite that, one in four Americans say they don’t even eat breakfast, so this new study is likely to get the debate going again.

source:https://www.wave3.com/2020/02/24/study-eating-bigger-breakfast-smaller-dinner-helps-burn-more-calories/

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Science and Information / Washington pledges $1 billion for coronavirus vaccine as pandemic risks grow

« on: February 25, 2020, 12:20:41 PM »

 U.S. President Donald Trump will seek $2.5 billion from Congress to fight the coronavirus epidemic and U.S. and South Korean militaries are considering scaling back joint training as the virus spreads in Europe and the Middle East.
Countries around the world are stepping up efforts to prevent a pandemic of the flu-like virus that originated from China late last year and has now infected more than 80,000 people, 10 times more cases than the SARS coronavirus.

The White House said more than $1 billion of the requested virus budget would go toward developing a vaccine, while other funds would be used for therapeutics and the stockpiling of personal protective equipment such as masks.

The U.S. and South Korean militaries said on Monday they may cut back joint training due to mounting concerns about the spreading coronavirus, in one of the first concrete signs of the virus’s fallout on global U.S. military activities.

The disclosure came during a visit to the Pentagon by South Korean Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo, who acknowledged following talks with U.S. Defense Secretary Mark Esper that 13 South Korean troops had tested positive for the virus.

“We do regard this situation as a serious one,” Jeong told a news conference, adding he had suspended military vacations and off-base leave.

“We have also limited their movement across the nation.”

Earlier on Monday, the U.S. military said a 61-year-old woman in South Korea who tested positive for the virus had recently visited a U.S. military base in the southeastern city of Daegu.

The woman, who was the widow of a former U.S. servicemember, visited a store at Camp Walker on Feb. 12 and 15, the military said. It was the first infection connected to U.S. Forces Korea, which counts about 28,500 American troops on the peninsula.

U.S. Forces Korea said it was raising the risk level to “high” across the country. It urged U.S. troops to limit travel and “use extreme caution when traveling off-installation.”

South Korea - which remains technically at war with the nuclear-armed North - has the most virus cases in Asia outside China and reported 60 new cases on Tuesday, increasing the total number of infected patients in the country to 893.

Of the new cases, 16 were in the southeastern city of Daegu, where a church at the center of the outbreak is located, and 33 were from North Gyeongsang Province, health officials said.

Americans should avoid all nonessential travel to South Korea due to the coronavirus outbreak, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Monday.

Japanese Health Minister Katsunobu Kato said it was too early to talk about cancelling the Tokyo Summer Olympics, which start on July 24, due to the coronavirus. Japan has 850 cases, most from a cruise ship, and has recorded four deaths.

Questions have risen about whether the Olympics should be moved or canceled, with one London mayoral candidate saying London was ready to host the games if needed.

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PEAK IN CHINA
China reported a rise in new coronavirus cases in Hubei province, the epicenter of the outbreak, on Tuesday while the rest of the country saw a fourth-straight day of declines.

Hubei had 499 new confirmed cases on Feb. 24, the National Health Commission said, up from 398 a day earlier and driven mainly by new infections in the provincial capital of Wuhan.

Mainland China reported 508 new cases, up from 409 on Feb. 23, bringing the total number to 77,658.

The epidemic in China peaked between Jan. 23 and Feb. 2 and has been declining since, said the World Health Organization (WHO). China’s actions of locking down cities and severely restricting the movement of people has probably prevented hundreds of thousands of cases, it said.

“They’re at a point now where the number of cured people coming out of hospitals each day is much more than the sick going in,” said head of the WHO delegation in China, Bruce Aylward.

Italy on Monday became the new frontline in the fight against the coronavirus with 220 cases reported from just three on Friday. The death toll in Italy stands at seven.

Slideshow (14 Images)
Italian authorities have sealed off the worst-affected towns, closed schools and halted the carnival in Venice, where there were two cases.

Kuwait, Bahrain, Oman, Afghanistan and Iraq reported their first new coronavirus cases, all in people who had been to Iran where the toll was 12 dead and 61 infected. Most of the Iran infections were in the Shi’ite Muslim holy city of Qom.

Asian share markets were trying to stabilize on Tuesday after the surge of cases outside mainland China and fears of a pandemic sent global markets into a tailspin.

Some dealers cited a Wall Street Journal report on a possible vaccine as helping sentiment, though human tests of the drug might not start until the end of April.

European equities markets suffered their biggest slump since mid-2016 on Monday, gold soared to a seven-year high and oil tumbled 4%.

The Dow Jones Industrials and S&P 500 posted their biggest one-day percentage drops in over two years and Nasdaq had one of its worst days since December 2018.

Wall Street’s fear gauge, the CBOE Volatility Index , jumped to a one-year high.

WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said the word “pandemic” did yet not fit the facts.

“We must focus on containment while preparing for a potential pandemic,” he told reporters in Geneva, adding that the world was not witnessing an uncontained spread or large-scale deaths.

Outside mainland China, the outbreak has spread to about 29 countries and territories, with a death toll of about two dozen, according to a Reuters tally.

source: Reuters

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Science and Information / Arianespace begins stacking Vega ahead of March Return To Flight

« on: February 25, 2020, 12:18:32 PM »

Arianespace’s Vega rocket is on track to conduct its Return To Flight (RTF) mission in March after stacking operations began at the European Spaceport in French Guiana. Vega suffered the first failure of her career during the July 2019 launch of Falcon Eye-1.

Vega’s return will involve the lofting of numerous satellites, with the manifest of passengers growing as the mission heads towards a March 23 launch date.

The SSMS POC flight is a rideshare mission, involving tens of satellites ranging from 10 Astrocast 1 smallsats to a Royal Thai Air Force CubeSat and numerous Dove spacecraft.

Planet Labs was the latest to confirm their involvement with the launch.

“Following on the heels of the successful launch of Flock 4p in November of 2019, Planet’s first launch of 2020 will be on Arianespace’s European-made Vega rocket, a first for the Doves. The 26 SuperDoves, Flock 4v, are scheduled for lift-off on March 23, 2020 from the Guiana Space Centre in French Guiana,” noted the company.

The 26 Flock 4v SuperDoves will be split into two batches on the same launch, with 14 of them will be housed inside and deployed from ISL’s QuadPack deployers and the remaining 12 will be deployed from D-Orbit’s InOrbit Now (ION) free-flying deployment platform.

Planet Labs also noted over 200 Dove satellites have successfully deployed from ISL’s QuadPack system, although this will be the first flight of D-Orbit’s ION system, and those satellites will be deployed over a handful of weeks.

Signs the launch was on track came via photos showing stacking operations taking place at the launch center.

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Science and Information / Scientists use neutrons to try to develop better, less costly dental restoration

« on: February 25, 2020, 12:15:43 PM »

Teeth damaged by trauma or disease require treatment to look and feel as good as new, but the restorative materials available to dentists don't always last and can be costly for patients.

Fernando Luis Esteban Florez, an assistant professor at the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, College of Dentistry, is conducting research at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at the Department of Energy's (DOE's) Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) to try to change that.


Neutron scattering at ORNL’s High Flux Isotope Reactor was used to study the effectiveness of dental implants. Neutron imaging radiographs illustrate restorative materials bound to the tooth structure via Esteban Florez’s experimental adhesive resins, which contain differing concentrations of metal oxide nanoparticles. Credit: ORNL/Hassina Bilheux

Current dental biomaterials have limitations, according to Esteban Florez. New materials will not only be able to bond more tightly with the enamel structures they're designed to repair but also repel the bacteria that attack fillings and implants.

"In fact, the replacement of failed restorations accounts for 70% of dentists' chair time at a yearly cost of $298 billion worldwide," said Esteban Florez. "Our focus is to create smart restorative dental biomaterials that are less expensive and do not need to be replaced every five to seven years."

Neutron scattering research provides insights that may lead to the development of novel materials for implant dentistry, he said.

"A dental implant can cost as much as $4,500 per tooth. And that doesn't include the cost of repairs should the procedure fail; therefore, developing biocompatible polymer- or ceramic-based materials to replace those metals could greatly benefit patients," he said. "Creating novel materials that are more biocompatible with the human body would be a great asset to dentistry, and neutrons may be the perfect tool for assessing potential materials for this purpose."

Esteban Florez already has performed neutron scattering experiments at ORNL to explore the surface-modification and functionalization of metal oxide nanoparticles in experimental dental adhesive resins. The nanoparticles have long-term antibacterial and bioactive properties. Now, he wants to see if neutron scattering can help him better understand exactly how different restorative materials interact with enamel, dentin, and collagen within teeth.

Specifically, he used the IMAGING instrument at HFIR to study a small collection of human teeth that had been restored either with a dental amalgam, or a resin composite. These materials were bound to the sample tooth structures using his experimental dental adhesive resins, which contain varying concentrations of metal oxide nanoparticles.

He is now working with Hassina Bilheux, senior neutron imaging scientist at HFIR, to reconstruct his data into three-dimensional renderings he can use to observe the interactions between restorative dental biomaterials and tooth structures.

"Neutron tomography is a powerful technique for exploring the internal aspects of organic materials such as biological tissues. These samples contain a great deal of hydrogen; and since neutrons are particularly sensitive to hydrogen, we can generate very detailed images of their microstructures," said Bilheux.

"Neutrons can be used to probe structures within organic tissues in a nondestructive way and allow me to understand how restorative dental biomaterials interact with the entire tooth system," said Esteban Florez.

Esteban Florez said his research is focused on the development of polymer-based restorative materials with non-leaching and long-term antibacterial and bioactive properties that can be enhanced using visible light irradiation. Once fully developed, these materials hold the promise to kill penetrating bacteria, naturally bond to organic and inorganic components of teeth, and guide the growth of hydroxyapatite (the building blocks of bone and teeth) to seal the tooth/biomaterial interface.

If successful, they will increase the durability of current polymer-based restorative materials and decrease the costs of oral health care.

"There's still a great deal of research to be done on this topic, but we're hopeful that our work will have a significant and positive impact on the field of restorative dentistry," he said.

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Science and Information / This bird has been frozen for 46,000 years, and scientists just found it

« on: February 25, 2020, 12:03:17 PM »

Finding fossils of creatures that lived millions of years ago is one thing, but some parts of our planet offer scientists the unique opportunity to discover ancient creatures that are essentially frozen in time. Siberia is one such place, and researchers working in the region have discovered all manner of animals that have remained frozen for tens of thousands of years before being uncovered.

Recently, an incredibly well-preserved bird was found locked away in a layer of permafrost in north-eastern Siberia. Scientists analyzed the bird’s remains and found it to be around 46,000 years old. The research was published in
As CNN reports, the bird has been identified as a species of horned lark. By diving into the bird’s genetic information, the scientists studying the remains have linked it to species of lark that are still around today, one of which is often found in northern Russia.

As you might imagine, finding such a perfectly intact specimen after nearly 50,000 years locked away in frozen ground is a rare occurrence, and it gives scientists an exciting glimpse into what the planet was like during the Ice Age.

“The fact that such a small and fragile specimen was near intact also suggests that dirt/mud must have been deposited gradually, or at least that the ground was relatively stable so that the bird’s carcass was preserved in a state very close to its time of death,” Nicolas Dussex, lead author of the research, said in a statement. Going forward, the scientists plan to dig deeper into the bird’s genome and paint a clearer picture of how it relates to modern species.


If this story sounds somewhat familiar it’s probably because a similar discovery was made in late 2019 in the same region. In November, a tiny puppy was found frozen in the ground in Siberia, and researchers believed it was around 18,000 years old.

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Science and Information / Scientists discover first known animal that doesn't breathe

« on: February 25, 2020, 11:33:33 AM »

This is the first animal on Earth proven to have no mitochondrial genome and no way to breathe.


Spores of the parasite H. salminicola swim under a microscope. Those alien "eyes" are actually stinger cells, one of the few features this organism hasn't evolved away. (Image: © Stephen Douglas Atkinson)

When the parasitic blob known as Henneguya salminicola sinks its spores into the flesh of a tasty fish, it does not hold its breath. That's because H. salminicola is the only known animal on Earth that does not breathe.

If you spent your entire life infecting the dense muscle tissues of fish and underwater worms, like H. salminicola does, you probably wouldn't have much opportunity to turn oxygen into energy, either. However, all other multicellular animals on Earth whose DNA scientists have had a chance to sequence have some respiratory genes. According to a new study published today (Feb. 24) in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, H. salminicola's genome does not.

A microscopic and genomic analysis of the creature revealed that, unlike all other known animals, H. salminicola has no mitochondrial genome — the small but crucial portion of DNA stored in an animal's mitochondria that includes genes responsible for respiration.

While that absence is a biological first, it's weirdly in character for the quirky parasite. Like many parasites from the myxozoa class — a group of simple, microscopic swimmers distantly related to jellyfish — H. salminicola may have once looked a lot more like its jelly ancestors but has gradually evolved to have just about none of its multicellular traits.

"They have lost their tissue, their nerve cells, their muscles, everything," study co-author Dorothée Huchon, an evolutionary biologist at Tel Aviv University in Israel, told Live Science. "And now we find they have lost their ability to breathe."

That genetic downsizing likely poses an advantage for parasites like H. salminicola, which thrive by reproducing as quickly and as often as possible, Huchon said. Myxozoans have some of the smallest genomes in the animal kingdom, making them highly effective. While H. salminicola is relatively benign, other parasites in the family have infected and wiped out entire fishery stocks, Huchon said, making them a threat to both fish and commercial fishers.

When seen popping out of the flesh of a fish in white, oozing bubbles, H. salminicola looks like a series of unicellular blobs. (Fish infected with H. salminicola are said to have "tapioca disease.") Only the parasite's spores show any complexity. When seen under a microscope, these spores look like bluish sperm cells with two tails and a pair of oval, alien-like eyes.

Those "eyes" are actually stinging cells, Huchon said, which contain no venom but help the parasite latch onto a host when needed. These stinging cells are some of the only features that H. salminicola has not ditched on its journey of evolutionary downsizing.

"Animals are always thought to be multicellular organisms with lots of genes that evolve to be more and more complex," Huchon said. "Here, we see an organism that goes completely the opposite way. They have evolved to be almost unicellular."

So, how does H. salminicola acquire energy if it does not breathe? The researchers aren't totally sure. According to Huchon, other similar parasites have proteins that can import ATP (basically, molecular energy) directly from their infected hosts. H. salminicola could be doing something similar, but further study of the oddball organism's genome — what's left of it, anyway — is required to find out.

source:https://www.livescience.com/first-non-breathing-animal.html

13

Science and Information / When coronavirus is not alone: Team of complexity scientists present 'meme' mode

« on: February 25, 2020, 11:31:35 AM »

Laurent Hébert-Dufresne, a complexity scientist at the University of Vermont. He co-led new research, published in the journal Nature Physics, that shows how diseases such as Ebola, influenza, and coronavirus may interact with other diseases and social behavior in ways that makes predicting their path more complex than many current models would suggest. Credit: Joshua Brown/UVM

Interacting contagious diseases like influenza and pneumonia follow the same complex spreading patterns as social trends. This new finding, published in Nature Physics, could lead to better tracking and intervention when multiple diseases spread through a population at the same time.


"The interplay of diseases is the norm rather than the exception," says Laurent Hébert-Dufresne, a complexity scientist at the University of Vermont who co-led the new research. "And yet when we model them, it's almost always one disease in isolation."

When disease modelers map an epidemic like coronavirus, Ebola, or the flu, they traditionally treat them as isolated pathogens. Under these so-called "simple" dynamics, it's generally accepted that the forecasted size of the epidemic will be proportional to the rate of transmission.

But according to Hébert-Dufresne, professor of computer science at University of Vermont, and his co-authors, Samuel Scarpino at Northeastern University, and Jean-Gabriel Young at the University of Michigan, the presence of even one more contagion in the population can dramatically shift the dynamics from simple to complex. Once this shift occurs, microscopic changes in the transmission rate trigger macroscopic jumps in the expected epidemic size—a spreading pattern that social scientists have observed in the adoption of innovative technologies, slang, and other contagious social behaviors.

Star Wars and sneezing

The researchers first began to compare biological contagions and social contagions in 2015 at the Santa Fe Institute, a transdisciplinary research center where Hébert-Dufresne was modeling how social trends propagate through reinforcement. The classic example of social reinforcement, according to Hébert-Dufresne, is "the phenomenon through which ten friends telling you to go see the new Star Wars movie is different from one friend telling you the same thing ten times."

Like multiple friends reinforcing a social behavior, the presence of multiple diseases makes an infection more contagious that it would be on its own. Biological diseases can reinforce each other through symptoms, as in the case of a sneezing virus that helps to spread a second infection like pneumonia. Or, one disease can weaken the host's immune system, making the population more susceptible to a second, third, or additional contagion.


 
When diseases reinforce each other, they rapidly accelerate through the population, then fizzle out as they run out of new hosts. According to the researchers' model, the same super-exponential pattern characterizes the spread of social trends, like viral videos, which are widely shared and then cease to be relevant after a critical mass of people have viewed them.

Dengue and antivaxxers

A second important finding is that the same complex patterns that arise for interacting diseases also arise when a biological contagion interacts with a social contagion, as in the example of a virus spreading in conjunction with an anti-vaccination campaign. The paper details a 2005 Dengue outbreak in Puerto Rico, and Hébert-Dufresne cites an additional example of a 2017 Dengue outbreak in Puerto Rico where failure to accurately account for the interplay of Dengue strains reduced the effectiveness of a Dengue vaccine. This in turn sparked an anti-vaccination movement—a social epidemic—that ultimately led to the resurgence of measles—a second biological epidemic. It's a classic example of real-world complexity, where unintended consequences emerge from many interacting phenomena.

Although it is fascinating to observe a universal spreading pattern across complex social and biological systems, Hébert-Dufresne notes that it also presents a unique challenge. "Looking at the data alone, we could observe this complex pattern and not know whether a deadly epidemic was being reinforced by a virus, or by a social phenomenon, or some combination."

"We hope this will open the door for more exciting models that capture the dynamics of multiple contagions," he says. "Our work shows that it is time for the disease modeling community to move beyond looking at contagions individually."

And the new study may shed light on the spread of coronavirus. "When making predictions, such as for the current coronavirus outbreak occurring in a flu season, it becomes important to know which cases have multiple infections and which patients are in the hospital with flu—but scared because of coronavirus," Hébert-Dufresne says. "The interactions can be biological or social in nature, but they all matter."

14

Science and Information / Treasure Trove” of New Coral Species Discovered Along the Great Barrier Reef

« on: February 25, 2020, 11:30:07 AM »

Scientists discovered dozens of new coral species on a recent voyage along the length of the Great Barrier Reef.

A team of scientists completed a 21-day trip from the Capricorn Bunkers off Gladstone to Thursday Island in the Torres Strait late last year.

“On almost every dive we were finding species that aren’t in the books,” said Professor Andrew Baird from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University (Coral CoE at JCU).

Scientists from Queensland Museum (QM), University of Technology Sydney (UTS) and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia were also part of the expedition.

Prof Baird said the discoveries are timely as recent molecular advances reveal that much of the existing classification of corals is deeply flawed.

source:https://scitechdaily.com/treasure-trove-of-new-coral-species-discovered-along-the-great-barrier-reef/

“One hard coral species, Acropora hyacinthus, was previously thought to be found on almost every reef crest along the length of the reef,” Prof Baird said.

But the recent molecular advances plus a closer look at the morphology, or shape of the coral, has overturned this assumption.

“What we once thought was a single species is potentially five different species—some with a very limited geographical range,” Prof Baird said.

The team also found a number of species not previously seen on the reef.

“The new species we found means that the biodiversity of some groups is up to three times higher than we had thought,” said Dr Francesca Benzoni, from KAUST.

JCU PhD student Jeremy Horowitz was on the voyage. He said much of what they found was new.

“Despite the economic and ecological importance of black corals this is the first survey of this group on the reef. It’s amazing how much remains unknown and how much more work needs to be done,” Mr Horowitz said.

The end of the voyage is just the beginning of a lot of hard work to formally describe this treasure trove.

“The volume of new material is overwhelming,” Prof Baird said.

“We need more trained taxonomists—biologists who can group organisms into categories—and more funds to reassess the taxonomy of common groups found on the reef, including hard, soft and black corals.”

“Australia is the custodian of the world’s largest coral reef system and as a World Heritage-listed site it is the nation’s obligation to manage it well.”

“Understanding the diversity of species on the reef underpins virtually every area of research and conservation,” Prof Baird said.

“It is vital to ensure we have a robust understanding of species diversity and their distributions, but taxonomy isn’t currently a research priority. This has to change.”

“You can’t manage the Great Barrier Reef if you don’t know how many species you have, how common they are, or where they are found.”

15

Science and Information / Psychologists discover key to achieving goals Read more At: https://www.aninews

« on: February 25, 2020, 11:26:41 AM »

Psychologists discover key to achieving goalsThe belt on Melania Trump's chic jumpsuit has an Indian bond
Read more At:
https://www.aninews.in/news/lifestyle/fashion/the-belt-on-melania-trumps-chic-jumpsuit-has-an-indian-bond20200224164904