A pioneering longitudinal study reveals great ape cognition is highly individualized and structured completely differently than human intelligence.
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Scientists uncover hidden phosphorus reservoir vital for future food production
Researchers have developed a simpler, more cost-effective method to measure a biologically important form of phosphorus in soils, providing new insights into nutrient cycling that could help improve sustainable agricultural management.
Phosphorus is an essential nutrient for plant growth and global food production, yet its natural reserves are finite. Understanding how phosphorus is stored, transformed and made available in soils is critical for maintaining soil fertility while reducing environmental impacts.
In a study published in the Journal of Agricultural and Marine Sciences, an international research team, including scientists from Sultan Qaboos University, James Hutton Institute, the Environment Authority of Oman and others, optimized a laboratory method for measuring DNA-bound phosphorus (DNA-P) in soils. DNA-P is part of the organic phosphorus pool associated with living microorganisms and plays an important role in nutrient cycling.
Exploiting a common weakness in enzymes could lead to a single vaccine against diarrhea-causing gut pathogens
The bacteria enterotoxigenic E. coli and Shigella together cause hundreds of millions of infections each year and are among the leading causes of diarrheal death, especially in children. Decades of vaccine development efforts have come up short, in part because the usual vaccine targets vary too much from one strain to the next. Now, new research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis points to a shared biological feature of these gut pathogens that could lead to a vaccine that protects against both.
Researchers at WashU Medicine, along with collaborators at the University of Missouri and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research in Bangladesh, found that enterotoxigenic E. coli (the leading cause of travelers’ diarrhea), Shigella and other diarrhea-causing pathogens rely on three closely related enzymes to get through the gut’s protective mucus layer and cause infection. Based on samples from infected patients and volunteers exposed to the bugs, the team showed that antibodies targeting one shared region of these enzymes can neutralize all three biomolecules and block the bacteria from penetrating the mucus barrier of the intestines.
The results, which appear in PNAS, point to the potential for a single combination vaccine against these major causes of severe diarrhea.
Alzheimer’s Protein APP Acts as Vital Shield for Neurons
Author: Hideaki Matsui Source: Niigata University Contact: Hideaki Matsui – Niigata University Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News.
Original Research: Closed access. “A protective role for APP in nuclear waste clearance via lysosomal exocytosis” by Dougnon G, Otsuka T, Nakamura Y, Sakai A, Yamanaka T, Matsui N, Nakahara A, Ito A, Hatano A, Matsumoto M, Igarashi H, Kakita A, Ueno M, Matsui H. PNAS DOI:10.1073/pnas.
Abstract.
With neuronal data, AI models predict grammar, meaning and context of spoken sentences
By applying machine-learning models to single-cell brain recordings taken from humans in conversation, a research team identified both individual and collective neuronal activity that reflected key features of language. The work, published in Nature, offers unprecedented insight into how neurons encode linguistic information, suggesting that brain activity may one day be used to infer speech-related thoughts, which could be transformative for some patients.
“This level of granularity is necessary for us to more completely understand how the brain generates speech and, ultimately, how we can develop technologies to restore it for individuals with communication disorders,” said Debara Tucci, M.D., director of NIH’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD).
Electric ‘nose’ can smell when your food’s gone bad
Most of us have used the sniff test to decide whether a slightly expired bottle of milk or a week-old box of takeout is still good to eat. But while the human nose can be quite astute, it doesn’t always catch everything. Each year, millions of people in the U.S. are sickened by food-borne pathogens that thrive in undercooked or spoiled food.
Luckily for our collective stomachs, a new “electronic nose” developed at UC Berkeley can detect the scents associated with spoiled food much more accurately than the human nose. It can also sniff out the presence of common food allergens, like walnuts and peanuts, which can be deadly for those with sensitivities. The nose is described in a new study published in the journal Science Advances.
“I think ‘smart’ fridges—which come with sensors that you can control on your phone—would be a great application for this kind of technology,” said study lead author Carla Bassil, a Ph.D. student in electrical engineering and computer sciences at Berkeley and a member of the Javey Research Group. “How great would it be if your fridge could tell you, ‘Hey, your broccoli’s going to go bad soon, so you should probably eat that,’ Or, ” Your chicken is on its last day’?”
Reversible chirality switching in MoS₂ generates spin currents without magnets
A newly developed method allows researchers to dynamically switch chirality—a particular lack of mirror symmetry—to generate spin currents in semiconductors, researchers from Science Tokyo report. Their approach relies on the reversible insertion and removal of small chiral molecules from the interlayer gaps of a layered, nonchiral semiconductor material using electrochemistry.
The findings could pave the way for the development of novel chiral spintronic materials and technologies that do not rely on magnets or magnetic fields.