Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
Toggle light / dark theme

Blog

Category: biotech/medical – Page 39

Hidden mitochondrial genes emerge as mealybugs encode two genes on one DNA stretch

What if a single sentence could carry two completely different meanings, one when read forward and another when read backward? In a new study, researchers at Arizona State University have discovered a biological version of this idea. Working with the mitochondria of a tiny insect called the citrus mealybug, the team found that the same stretch of DNA can carry two different genes—sets of genetic instructions used by the cell—with one encoded on each strand of the DNA’s ladder-like structure.

The finding expands scientists’ understanding of how DNA can store genetic information and helps solve a mystery that has puzzled researchers for years. The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

“This kind of paper is what makes running a lab so fun. Born from a spark of individual brilliance—not mine—but accomplished as a collective effort,” says John McCutcheon. “The idea that these two critically important genes could be mirrored on the same piece of DNA has been around a long time, and so it’s a thrill to be part of the team that proved this speculative idea was, in fact, reality.”

Flipped quantum interference unlocks clearer gluon maps from near-miss nuclear encounters

Scientists studying particle collisions at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) usually capture what happens when atomic nuclei smash into one another at nearly the speed of light. But even when the nuclei don’t collide, interesting things can happen. In a new paper just published in Physical Review Letters, members of RHIC’s STAR collaboration describe a new way to use near-miss collisions at RHIC to study what’s going on inside the nucleus. The approach advances the reach of RHIC, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science user facility at DOE’s Brookhaven National Laboratory, into the next frontier in nuclear physics—a journey into the inner workings of the building blocks of matter.

The technique relies on particles of light, known as photons, that surround the nuclei as they speed around the 2.4-mile (3.9-kilometer) RHIC racetrack. Acting something like the beam of a giant X-ray machine, the photons around one nucleus can interact with particles called gluons inside a nucleus whizzing by in the opposite direction. By tracking the signals produced by those interactions, scientists can map out the distribution of the gluons—the glue-like particles that hold the nucleus together.

“This is an extension of the many ways people have used light to probe hidden structures in our world—from using X-rays to see broken bones and reveal the 3D atomic structures of proteins, to capturing signals from the cosmic microwave background to study the evolution of the universe,” said Ashik Ikbal, a STAR collaborator from Kent State University who carried out this work as a major component of his postdoctoral research. “In this case, we’re using light to map out features at a scale much smaller than atoms to study the gluons that hold quarks together inside the protons and neutrons of atomic nuclei.”

Colorectal tumors use mitochondrial complex II to stockpile iron, but eliminating it causes cell death

Scientists know that colorectal cancer cells require large amounts of iron and that as cancer becomes more aggressive, the cells have even higher amounts of iron. Normal cells with high levels of iron would undergo a type of iron-related cell death called ferroptosis. But in cancer cells, the iron continues to accumulate well beyond normal levels without succumbing to expected cell death processes.

Researchers from the University of Michigan Health Rogel Cancer Center have now discovered a key metabolic pathway that allows colorectal cancer cells to accumulate large quantities of iron. Blocking that pathway reduced iron levels and caused the cancer cells to die.

In this new study, published in Cell Metabolism, researchers started by looking at the known pathways involved in ferroptosis, assuming something in this process was awry. But knocking out these typical ferroptotic enzymes had no impact on tumor growth. So they dug deeper into mitochondrial metabolism.

AI model proves to be a heavyweight in tumor assessment: Mesothelioma patients and physicians benefit

Physicians and researchers at the Netherlands Cancer Institute have developed an AI model that outperforms physicians in evaluating treatment response in pleural mesothelioma. Far more accurate than the current international standard criteria (RECIST), the model provides patients with greater certainty and tailored treatments. It changes how physicians assess tumors and could accelerate the development of new treatments by making clinical trials more reliable and efficient.

Physicians evaluate treatment response by measuring tumor growth. The current diameter-based RECIST criteria are of limited use for pleural mesothelioma because this cancer type grows in a thin, irregular layer along the lung wall. Where, then, do you measure the diameter to determine whether the therapy is working? This leads to uncertainty and frustration among patients and physicians.

AI experts, radiologists and pulmonologists from the Netherlands Cancer Institute (NKI) have now solved this problem. Together, they developed the AI model ARTIMES, which can measure the entire volume of a tumor and compare it with previous scans.

Building Brains: The Molecular Logic of Neural Circuits

Thomas M. Jessel, Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator, explores the human brain, the sophisticated product of 500 million years of vertebrate evolution, assembled during just nine months of embryonic development. The functions encoded by its trillion nerve cells direct all human behavior. Yet the brain is a biological organ made from the same building blocks as skin, liver and lung. How does the brain acquire its remarkable computational power? Answers lie in the details of its construction — the cellular and molecular mechanisms that drive the formation of thousands of neural circuits, each wired for a specific behavior.

Developing brain cells routinely repair severe DNA damage during migration

Newborn nerve cells must squeeze through crowded, narrow spaces-through dense tissue, past other cells, between fibers-to reach the areas where they form neural circuits in the brain cortex.

In a new study published in Nature, researchers at Kyoto University’s Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (WPI-iCeMS) and their collaborators report that this journey causes widespread DNA damage in neurons, resulting in double-strand breaks where both strands of the double helix are completely severed. While this is the most severe type of DNA damage-capable of causing mutations and cell death-the team surprisingly found that it is a normal, routine feature of brain cortex formation, and a healthy brain quickly repairs it before harm occurs.

“The developing brain appears to have evolved to tolerate and repair the neuronal damage efficiently,” says Professor Mineko Kengaku, of WPI-iCeMS, who led the study. “But understanding the limits of that tolerance-and what happens when repair is incomplete-brings us closer to understanding a range of neurological conditions.”

Is Quantum Information More Fundamental Than Reality? | Vlatko Vedral

What if quantum information is more fundamental than space, time, matter, or even quantum mechanics itself?

Vlatko Vedral explores the implications of a Q-number-based reality for quantum gravity, pre-Big-Bang cosmology, the nature of time, and the possibility that quantum information lies beneath our deepest physical theories.

1:25 Quantum Gravity and Q Numbers.
4:30 Before the Big Bang.
7:42 Time, the Block Universe, and Q Numbers.
11:56 Quantum Mechanics at All Scales.
14:01 The Next Revolution in Physics.

Vlatko Vedral is a Serbian-born British physicist. He is best known for his contributions to quantum information theory, quantum mechanics, and quantum entanglement. He earned his Bachelor of Science and Doctor of Philosophy degrees from Imperial College London, where he graduated with a PhD.

More from Vlatko Vedral on Closer To Truth:
Closer To Truth: The Podcast: • Closer To Truth: The Podcast.
Closer To Truth contributors: https://closertotruth.com/contributor… to Closer To Truth: / @closertotruthtv Join the Community:

Follow Us:

Closer To Truth, hosted by Robert Lawrence Kuhn and directed by Peter Getzels, presents the world’s greatest thinkers exploring humanity’s deepest questions. Discover fundamental issues of existence. Engage new and diverse ways of thinking. Appreciate intense debates. Share your own opinions. Seek your own answers. #CloserToTruth #Cosmos #VlatkoVedral #QuantumInformation #QuantumGravity.

/* */