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This Fungus Turns Bark Beetles’ Defenses Against Them

Spruce bark beetles hijack their host tree’s chemical defenses, transforming them into potent weapons against fungal threats. But a fungus has evolved a way to deactivate those defenses, tipping the balance back in the tree’s favor.

Spruce trees are packed with phenolic compounds, natural chemicals that help protect them from harmful fungi. Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena set out to understand how these defenses move through the forest food web. Their focus was the spruce bark beetle (Ips typographus), an insect that consumes these compounds while feeding on tree tissue. The researchers asked an intriguing question: could the beetles reuse the tree’s own chemical defenses to protect themselves from fungal infections?

Bark beetles strengthen tree defenses for their own use.

Identification and Characterization of Alamandine-(1−5), a New Component of the Renin-Angiotensin System

The nitrogenase-like enzyme superfamily.

Nitrogenases are the only enzymes that reduce dinitrogen to ammonia, a reaction essential for all life on Earth.

Recent work demonstrates that nitrogen fixation‐like (Nfl) enzymes have extensive functions beyond nitrogen fixation, including reducing C=C double bonds of tetrapyrroles and breaking C–S bonds to support bacterial sulfur scavenging.

All nitrogenase-like enzymes consist of a reductase component containing an [Fe4S4]-cluster, and a catalytic component containing diverse metalloclusters.

The catalytic components of the nitrogenase-like enzymes contain simpler FeSclusters than nitrogenases, including [Fe4S4]-clusters and nitrogenase cluster precursors. https://sciencemission.com/nitrogenase-like-enzym

Nitrogenases are the only enzymes capable of converting atmospheric nitrogen into bioavailable ammonia, an essential process for all life on Earth. Early ancestors of bona fide nitrogenases and their maturases gave rise to several structural homologues with diverse functions. The nitrogen fixation-like enzyme superfamily comprises ancient metalloproteins involved in elemental processes that range from the biosynthesis of bacteriochlorophyll in bacterial photosynthesis to the biosynthesis of cofactor F430 in archaeal methanogenesis. Recently, new functions of nitrogenase-like enzymes in sulfur scavenging were discovered and have spurred interest due to the simultaneous production of small hydrocarbons.

Continue reading “Identification and Characterization of Alamandine-(1−5), a New Component of the Renin-Angiotensin System” | >

NVIDIA Reportedly Plans to Bring Back RTX 3060 Due to DRAM Shortages

With the AI industry effectively crippling PC gaming – and, to a lesser extent, gaming overall – by driving hardware prices to some absurd levels, it appears that NVIDIA, undeniably one of, if not the biggest beneficiary of the AI boom, is looking to ease a crisis it itself has inadvertently helped create by rewinding the clock half a decade and bringing back the GeForce RTX 3,060 GPU, discontinued in August 2024.

Huge genetic study reveals hidden links between psychiatric conditions

Exciting to see this modern genomic approach to classification of psychiatric disorders! Hopefully this will eventually lead to potential new gene therapy targets for treatment.

Analysis of more than one million people shows that mental-health disorders fall into five clusters, each of them linked to a specific set of genetic variants.

A New Theory Says Hidden Dimensions May Create Mass. That Would Rewrite Particle Physics

This theoretical explanation could also help explain some of the outstanding questions about the accelerating expansion of the universe. The team explains the possible existence of a particle known as the “torstone,” which would be linked to torsion that could be detected in future experience—if this theory proves out.

Of course, that’s a pretty big if. With the Nobel Prize-winning discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012, the idea of a Higgs scalar field is a strong theory in the standard model. And as with every incredible theoretical idea, this new proposal requires equally incredible evidence. Luckily, scientists are developing ever more-sensitive detectors for probing these very questions. But until scientists can glimpse some semblance of a “torstone,” or other piece pointing to the complicated interaction between higher-dimensional space time and mass, this idea will remain just that—an idea.

Smartphone Assessment of Daytime Insomnia Symptoms During Pharmacotherapy

RCT: Smartphone-based ecological momentary assessment found greater morning fatigue but reduced afternoon and evening fatigue in patients with Insomnia treated with suvorexant vs placebo.

Question What is the effect of insomnia suvorexant pharmacotherapy on daytime insomnia symptoms as assessed via smartphone ecological momentary assessment (EMA)?

Findings In this randomized clinical trial that included 40 older adults with insomnia, traditional outcomes assessments detected differences between suvorexant and placebo groups in daytime insomnia symptoms; however, EMA was sensitive to detect effects of insomnia pharmacotherapy at various times of day.

Meaning These findings suggest that EMA warrants further refinement in sleep and psychiatric research and clinical care.

Small RNA coded by phage controls infection

A new study reveals how viruses that infect bacteria, called bacteriophages or “phages,” use a tiny piece of genetic material to hijack bacterial cells and make more copies of themselves.

The research shows that a very small RNA molecule, called PreS, acts like a hidden “switch” inside the bacterial cell. By flipping this switch, the virus can change how the bacterial cell works and push the infection forward.

Until now, most phage research has focused on viral proteins. This study shows that phages also use RNA molecules to quickly reprogram the host cell after the bacterial genes have already been read and bacterial messages (mRNAs) were made, adding an extra layer of control during infection.

PreS attaches to these important bacterial messages and tweaks them in a way that helps the virus copy its DNA and move more efficiently toward the stage where new viruses are produced and burst out of the cell, killing the bacterium.

Using advanced methods to map RNA–RNA interactions (termed RIL-seq), the researchers found that one of PreS’s key targets is a bacterial message that makes DnaN, a protein that plays a central role in copying DNA. By helping the cell make more DnaN, PreS gives the virus a strong head start in the infection process.

Interestingly, PreS works by changing the shape of the bacterial dnaN message.

Normally, part of this message is tightly folded, which makes it hard for the cell’s protein-making machines (ribosomes) to access. PreS binds to this folded region, opens it up, and allows ribosomes to read and translate the message more efficiently.

Continue reading “Small RNA coded by phage controls infection” | >

Chemogenetic attenuation of cortical seizures in nonhuman primates

A great paper where Miyakawa et al. show attenuation of seizures using chemogenetics for the first time in a nonhuman primate model of epilepsy. I hope chemogenetics moves into clinical trials soon (this paper was published in 2023), it seems very promising as a therapeutic modality. [ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36642-6](https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36642-6)

Pharmacological and surgical treatments of epilepsy can have unsatisfactory outcomes, so a more targeted and on-demand approach is desirable. Here, the authors demonstrate the usage of inhibitory chemogenetics in male nonhuman primates to attenuate the magnitude and spread of cortical seizures and subsequent body convulsions.

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