Discovery of the secrets that enable plants near Chernobyl to shrug off radiation

Michael Bernstein – American Chemical Society

Scientists are reporting discovery of the biological secrets that enable plants growing near the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant to adapt and flourish in highly radioactive soil — legacy of the 1986 nuclear disaster in the Ukraine. Their study, which helps solve a long-standing mystery, appears in ACS’ Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.

Martin Hajduch and colleagues note that plants have an unexpected ability to adapt to an environment contaminated with radiation following the April 26, 1986 accident at the Chernobyl. Their previous research, for example, showed that soybean plants in the area have adapted to the contaminated soil with certain changes in their proteome. A proteome is the full complement of proteins produced by the genes in a plant or animal. But the broader range of biochemical changes in plants that allow them to thrive in this harsh environment remained unclear.

The scientists grew flax seeds in radiation-contaminated soil in the Chernobyl region and compared their growth to those of seeds grown in non-radioactive soil. Radiation exposure had relatively little effect on the protein levels in the plants, with only about five percent of the proteins altered, they note. Among them were certain proteins involved in cell signaling, or chemical communication, which might help the plants shrug-off radioactivity, the scientists suggest.

via Discovery of the secrets that enable plants near Chernobyl to shrug off radiation.

If a disaster strikes, plants cannot move to better conditions – they either adapt, or die.

When, on 26 April, 1986, one of the reactors at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant exploded, the accident was said to be the worst nuclear disaster in human history.

Scores of people died, hundreds became ill with acute radiation sickness.

The entire population of the industrial city of Pripyat that housed the power plant’s workforce was evacuated.

Many believed that the area would remain lifeless for generations.

Almost a quarter of a century later, Pripyat remains a ghost town. But despite deserted streets, the soil is not bare – plants have sprung back to life. …

The scientist noted that there were probably historic reasons why it was a lot easier for plants to get used to living in increased levels of radiation.

“It is just unbelievable how quickly this ecosystem has been able to adapt,” he said.

“[There must be] some kind of mechanism that plants already have inside them. Radioactivity has always been present here on Earth, from the very early stages of our planet’s formation.

“There was a lot more radioactivity on the surface back then than there is now, so probably when life was evolving, these plants came across radioactivity and they probably developed some mechanism that is now in them.”

via BBC

What Zen meditators don’t think about won’t hurt them

Zen meditation has many health benefits, including a reduced sensitivity to pain. According to new research from the Université de Montréal, meditators do feel pain but they simply don’t dwell on it as much. These findings, published in the month’s issue of Pain, may have implications for chronic pain sufferers, such as those with arthritis, back pain or cancer.

“Our previous research found that Zen meditators have lower pain sensitivity. The aim of the current study was to determine how they are achieving this,” says senior author Pierre Rainville, researcher at the Université de Montréal and the Institut universitaire de gériatrie de Montréal. “Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we demonstrated that although the meditators were aware of the pain, this sensation wasn’t processed in the part of their brains responsible for appraisal, reasoning or memory formation. We think that they feel the sensations, but cut the process short, refraining from interpretation or labelling of the stimuli as painful.” …

“Our findings lead to new insights into mind/brain function,” says first author, Joshua Grant, a doctoral student at the Université de Montréal. “These results challenge current concepts of mental control, which is thought to be achieved by increasing cognitive activity or effort. Instead, we suggest it is possible to self-regulate in a more passive manner, by ‘turning off’ certain areas of the brain, which in this case are normally involved in processing pain.”

“The results suggest that Zen meditators may have a training-related ability to disengage some higher-order brain processes, while still experiencing the stimulus,” says Rainville. “Such an ability could have widespread and profound implications for pain and emotion regulation and cognitive control. This behaviour is consistent with the mindset of Zen and with the notion of mindfulness.” …

via What Zen meditators don’t think about won’t hurt them – UdeMNouvelles.

Reproductive scientists create mice from 2 fathers

Photo:  Stuart-Lee

Using stem cell technology, reproductive scientists in Texas, led by Dr. Richard R. Berhringer at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, have produced male and female mice from two fathers.

The study was posted today (Wednesday, December 8) at the online site of the journal Biology of Reproduction.

The achievement of two-father offspring in a species of mammal could be a step toward preserving endangered species, improving livestock breeds, and advancing human assisted reproductive technology (ART). It also opens the provocative possibility of same-sex couples having their own genetic children, the researchers note.

In the work reported today, the Behringer team manipulated fibroblasts from a male (XY) mouse fetus to produce an induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell line. About one percent of iPS cell colonies grown from this XY cell line spontaneously lost the Y chromosome, resulting in XO cells. The XO iPS cells were injected into blastocysts from donor female mice. The treated blastocysts were transplanted into surrogate mothers, which gave birth to female XO/XX chimeras having one X chromosome from the original male mouse fibroblast.

The female chimeras, carrying oocytes derived from the XO cells, were mated with normal male mice. Some of the offspring were male and female mice that had genetic contributions from two fathers.

According to the authors, “Our study exploits iPS cell technologies to combine the alleles from two males to generate male and female progeny, i.e. a new form of mammalian reproduction.”

The technique described in this study could be applied to agriculturally important animal species to combine desirable genetic traits from two males without having to outcross to females with diverse traits.

“It is also possible that one male could produce both oocytes and sperm for self-fertilization to generate male and female progeny,” the scientists point out. Such a technique could be valuable for preserving species when no females remain. …

via Reproductive scientists create mice from 2 fathers.

 

Note to future scientists: If ever no human females remain, please don’t preserve the species. Just let it go.

Elusive spintronics success could lead to single chip for processing and memory

Researchers from Queen Mary, University of London (UK) and the University of Fribourg (Switzerland) have shown that a magnetically polarised current can be manipulated by electric fields.

Published this week in the journal Nature Materials, this important discovery opens up the prospect of simultaneously processing and storing data on electrons held in the molecular structure of computer chips – combining computer memory and processing power on the same chip.

“This is especially exciting, as this discovery has been made with flexible organic semiconductors, which are set to be the new generation of displays for mobile devices, TVs and computer monitors, and could offer a step-change in power efficiency and reduced weight of these devices,” said Dr Alan Drew, from Queen Mary’s School of Physics, who led the research.

‘Spintronics’ – spin transport electronics – has rapidly become the universally used technology for computer hard disks. Designed in thin layers of magnetic and non-magnetic materials, Giant Magnetoresistive (GMR) spin valves use the magnetic properties, or ‘spin’, of electrons to detect computer data stored in magnetic bits. In contrast, computer processing relies on streams of electrically charged electrons flowing around a tiny circuit etched into a microchip.

Dr Drew and his team have investigated how layers of Lithium Fluoride (LiF) – a material that has an intrinsic electric field – can modify the spin of electrons transported through these spin valves. …

via Elusive spintronics success could lead to single chip for processing and memory, Queen Mary, University of London.

Texas Woman Jessekah Few Jailed for Overdue Library Books

Authorities threw the book at a woman who had a few overdue library books.

Police in Baytown, Texas, say they locked up Jessekah Few last month after the 25-year-old failed to show up in court for a hearing about unreturned library books.

“It’s not a very common charge,” Baytown Police Department Detective Alan Cliburn told WSAV.com.”It’s part of the deal, part of the agreement that you enter into. It’s just like anything else — you can’t take something that doesn’t belong to you and just hold onto it.”

Library officials say they only pursue charges against members who haven’t returned more than $200 of property after multiple requests.

Few — who was charged with a class-C misdemeanor — has reportedly stated that the books were destroyed in a house fire seven years ago. She says her landlord, the fire department and even the Red Cross can attest to the blaze.

Contrary to reports indicating that Few was arrested on Thanksgiving Day, Baytown police told AOL News that she was apprehended the day before the holiday.

via Texas Woman Jessekah Few Jailed for Overdue Library Books.

The Texas governor is reportedly considering an exception to the death penalty. 

Wikileaks: Australia FM blames US, not Julian Assange

Australia’s foreign minister has said the US is to blame for the release of thousands of diplomatic cables on Wikileaks, not its Australian founder, Julian Assange.

Kevin Rudd said the release raised questions about US security.

Mr Rudd said he did not “give a damn” about criticism of him in the cables.

Mr Assange, arrested in the UK over sex crime allegations in Sweden, has accused the Australian government of “disgraceful pandering” to the US.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard had earlier called Mr Assange’s release of the cables “grossly irresponsible”.

Over the past two weeks, Wikileaks has released thousands of classified messages from US envoys around the world, from more than 250,000 it has been given.

Washington has called their publication “irresponsible” and an “attack on the international community”. …

In an interview with Reuters news agency, Mr Rudd said: “Mr Assange is not himself responsible for the unauthorised release of 250,000 documents from the US diplomatic communications network. The Americans are responsible for that.” …

via BBC News – Wikileaks: Australia FM blames US, not Julian Assange.

Evolutionary Secret of the Female Orgasm

... Darwinian theorists who made early attempts to address female orgasm proposed that orgasm keeps a woman lying down after sex, passively retaining sperm and increasing her probability of conception. Others suggested that it evolved to create a stronger pair bond between lovers, inspiring in women feelings of intimacy and trust toward mates. Some reasoned that orgasm communicates a woman’s sexual satisfaction and devotion to a lover.

Most recently, evolutionary psychologists have been exploring the proposition that female orgasm is a sophisticated adaptation that allows women to manipulate–even without their own awareness–which of their lovers will be allowed to fertilize their eggs. …

Clues for a reasonable adaptation hypothesis were readily available by the late 1960s, when The British Medical Journal published an exchange of letters about the muscular contractions and uterine suction associated with women’s orgasm. In one letter, a doctor reported that a patient’s uterine and vaginal contractions during sex with a sailor had pulled off his condom. Upon inspection, the condom was found in her cervical canal! The doctor concluded that female orgasms pull sperm closer to the egg as well.

Yet, it was only three years ago that two British biologists, Robin Baker and Mark Bellis, tested the so-called upsuck hypothesis. They were building upon ideas articulated by evolutionary biologist Robert Smith, who suggested that since women don’t have orgasms every time out, female orgasm favors some sperm over others. Baker and Bellis sought to learn just how female orgasms might affect which of a lover’s sperm is used to fertilize a woman’s eggs. …

They discovered that when a woman climaxes any time between a minute before to 45 minutes after her lover ejaculates, she retains significantly more sperm than she does after nonorgasmic sex. When her orgasm precedes her male’s by more than a minute, or when she does not have an orgasm, little sperm is retained. Just as the doctors’ letters suggested decades earlier, the team’s results indicated that muscular contractions associated with orgasm pull sperm from the vagina to the cervix, where it’s in better position to reach an egg.

Baker and Bellis proposed that by manipulating the occurrence and timing of orgasm–via subconscious processes–women influence the probability of conception. So while a man worries about a woman’s satisfaction with him as a lover out of fear she will stray, orgasmic females may be up to something far more clever–deciding which partner will sire her children. …

via The Orgasm Wars | Psychology Today.

Bizarre hairy fly is rediscovered

Scientists have rediscovered a bizarre insect in Kenya, collecting the first Terrible Hairy Fly specimen since 1948.

Since then, at least half a dozen expeditions have visited its only known habitat – a rock cleft in an area east of Nairobi – in search of the fly.

Two insect specialists recently spotted the 1cm-long insect, known as Mormotomyia hirsuta, living on the 20m-high rock.

They point out that it looks more like a spider with hairy legs.

The fly was found by Dr Robert Copeland and Dr Ashley Kirk-Spriggs during an expedition led by the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE).

“The rediscovery of the species, which has been collected on only two occasions before, in 1933 and 1948, has caused excitement in insect museums world-wide,” the team members said in a statement. …

via BBC News – Bizarre hairy fly is rediscovered.

‘Lightfoil’ idea shows light can provide lift

Just as air causes lift on the wings of an aeroplane, light can do the same trick, researchers have said.

The effect, first shown in simulations, was proven by showing it in action on tiny glass rods.

Like the aerofoil concept of wings, the approach, published in Nature Photonics, works by making use of the radiation pressure of light.

The results are of interest for steering “solar sails”, a spacecraft propulsion based on the same force.

Each photon – or packet of light – carries its own momentum, and this “lightfoil” works by gathering the momentum of light as it passes through a material.

This radiation pressure has been considered as a fuel-free source of propulsion for long-distance space missions; a “solar sail” gathering up the momentum of the Sun’s rays can get a spacecraft up to a significant fraction of the speed of light.

But until now, no one thought to use the pressure in an analogue of an aerofoil, said Grover Swarzlander of the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). …

via BBC News – ‘Lightfoil’ idea shows light can provide lift.

The teenager who sleeps for 10 days

While most teenagers struggle to get out of bed in a morning, Louisa Ball might take 10 days to fully wake from her slumber, due to a very rare neurological disorder. So what’s it like living with Kleine-Levin Syndrome?

Louisa has slept through holidays, friends’ birthdays and half of her GCSEs.

In 2008, aged 14, she had been suffering from flu-like symptoms. She was at her school in Sussex when she started nodding off in class and behaving strangely.

“I didn’t know what I was doing, what I was saying, everyone thought ‘hey this isn’t right,’” she recalls.

“I was hallucinating and after that I don’t remember anything. All of a sudden it just went blank and I just slept for 10 days. I woke up and I was fine again.”

Her parents Rick and Lottie watched their daughter becoming fidgety and with unusual facial expressions as she sank into sleep. The first time was a frightening experience for them, although Louisa herself says she wasn’t scared by the episode, more puzzled.

“It was really weird, no one knew what was wrong, we just thought it wasn’t going to happen again. And then four weeks later it happened again.”

She was finally diagnosed with Kleine-Levin Syndrome (KLS). There is no known cause or cure but Louisa says it was good to know what it was and that it wasn’t life threatening.

The average time it takes to diagnose the condition is four years, because there is no test and so it requires a process of elimination of other disorders. …

via BBC News – The teenager who sleeps for 10 days.