I was thinking about wader as I pulled together this OND edition and decided to include a hump point rest break. Seeing as it’s Science Saturday, though, I went with something suited to the theme instead of wader’s musical interlude. Tonight’s news ranges from dinosaurs to prairie dogs, exoplanets to mitochondria, herpes to maple trees.
For the first time, NASA has conducted a genomic study of potential risks to humans in space. If you are considering going to Mars with Musk, you’ll want to follow the Human Research Program and stay on top of space genes.
The Twin Study propelled NASA into the genomics era of space travel. It was a ground-breaking study comparing what happened to astronaut Scott Kelly, in space, to his identical twin brother, Mark, who remained on Earth. The perfect nature versus nurture study was born….
After returning to Earth, Scott started the process of readapting to Earth’s gravity. Most of the biological changes he experienced in space quickly returned to nearly his preflight status. Some changes returned to baseline within hours or days of landing, while a few persisted after six months….
Another interesting finding concerned what some call the “space gene”, which was alluded to in 2017. Researchers now know that 93% of Scott’s genes returned to normal after landing. However, the remaining 7% point to possible longer term changes in genes related to his immune system, DNA repair, bone formation networks, hypoxia, and hypercapnia.
Welcome to the Overnight News Digest with a crew consisting of founder Magnifico, current leader Neon Vincent, regular editors side pocket, maggiejean, Chitown Kev, Doctor RJ, Magnifico, annetteboardman and Besame.
Editors of OND impart their own presentation styles and content choices, typically publishing each day near 12:00 AM Eastern Time.
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Science mag: Most ankylosaurs were fossilized belly up. Now, scientists think they know why
68,000 million years later, scientists go with the bloat and float model.
Ankylosaurs are odd-looking, even by dinosaur standards: They’re squat and fat, with armored backs and, usually, tail clubs. But for many scientists, there’s another reason these creatures stand out—most are fossilized upside-down. The reason for this strange orientation was a mystery for decades, but thanks to an unusual collaboration between paleontologists and armadillo experts, we may finally have an answer—and it all comes down to bloated, floating dinosaur carcasses. [...]
Finally, the researchers examined the “bloat-and-float” model, which proposes that the bodies of ankylosaurs got washed into rivers or the sea, where they bloated and became unstable, flipping upside-down and eventually sinking or being deposited in the river bank. Mallon’s co-author Donald Henderson at the Royal Tyrrell Museum in Drumheller, Canada, created 3D digital models representing the two families of ankylosaur, the ankylosaurids and the nodosaurids. The team fleshed these out with estimations of the dinosaurs’ physical characteristics like lung capacity and bone density. They also created bloated versions of the same dinosaurs, inflating the animals’ stomachs like balloons. They then placed the models in virtual water, and looked at how easily they tipped over.
The nodosaurid model was very unstable: Tipping it merely 1° caused it to turn upside-down, whether it was bloated or not. The ankylosaurid was more resistant, requiring a much larger tilt before it would flip over. Still, says Mallon, a big wave or a predator could easily be enough to force the dinosaur onto its back, especially after bloating. That meant the bloat-and-float model was the only theory that held any water, the team reports this month in the journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology.
Medical xPress: DNA gets away: Scientists catch the rogue molecule that can trigger autoimmunity
I’m not at all sanguine about the presence of “professional killer proteins” in my body although I guess they are necessary. At least they’re professionals and not bumbling amateurs.
A research team has discovered the process - and filmed the actual moment - that can change the body's response to a dying cell. Importantly, what they call the 'Great Escape' moment may one day prove to be the crucial trigger for autoimmune diseases like arthritis . . . the exact moment when DNA escapes out of the mitochondria (the organelles inside cells that produce energy) during cell death. [...]
...when a cell commits suicide (a normal part of the human body's balancing act to control blood cell numbers), two proteins called BAK and BAX are triggered.
"What we witnessed - in real time - was these professional killer proteins opening up huge 'macropores' in the outer membrane of the mitochondria, leading the inner contents to herniate out, bringing the mtDNA with it," Professor Kile said.
"BAK and BAX deliver the 'kill shot' designed to permanently disable the cell. But in doing that, mtDNA is lost from the mitochondria. In essence, this is collateral damage, which, if it isn't controlled properly, triggers the immune system to drive pathological inflammation," he said.
Genomeweb: Search of Soil Microbiome Turns Up New Class of Antibiotics Called Malacidins
We’re going to need new treatments for drug-resistant infections and for the mysterious pathogens released as the permafrost melts.
By scouring the content of soil microbiomes, researchers have uncovered a new class of antibiotic.
As they reported today in Nature Microbiology, Rockefeller's Sean Brady and his colleagues uncovered and characterized a class of antibiotics they dubbed malacidins that are active against multi-drug resistant pathogens.
"While metagenome-based antibiotic discovery methods are still in their infancy, the scaling and automation of the pipeline described here should permit the systematic discovery of [natural product] antibiotics that have until now remained hidden in the global metagenome, providing a potentially powerful approach for combating antibiotic resistance," the researchers wrote in their paper.
Mid way through, let’s have a rest break to consider what other animals find fashionable.
Back to the news
Take all the time you need to contemplate a life spent mimicking caterpillar poop.
PhysOrg: Damage encourages maple species to become female
Gotta tell ya, guys, you are so lucky humans don’t do this. Given the rate and span of time the patriarchy has been damaging people, we’d not have many men left. The article doesn’t speculate on what is the advantage to the maple species by this fast sex change. I wonder if it’s because a female maple flower will produce two seeds max but a male flower can release lots of pollen. So we don’t need as many males, just enough for fertilization. Keep that thought in mind.
...striped maples not only change their sex periodically, but that they can wait until the last minute - three weeks before flowering - to do it. The switch appears to be triggered by physical damage, which can prompt a branch to flower female if it's cut off a male tree.
Blake-Mahmud, a doctoral student in the School of Graduate Studies at Rutgers University-New Brunswick, cut branches from healthy, mature striped maples from state forests in northern New Jersey. She took the samples to her lab, where she let them flower.
She expected that striped maples, like most trees, would prepare themselves for reproduction by fashioning the tiny flower sex parts many months before they flowered. Apple trees, for instance, have already made their buds for the next year just six-weeks after flowering finishes for this year. Surprisingly, the cuttings from her striped maples waited...and waited...and waited to finish developing. Even three weeks before natural blooming time, the buds were still flexible and could bloom female if cut off the tree or male if left untouched. This means that the tree can wait until very late to make up its mind about which kind of flowers - male or female - to have….
The trigger turned out to be the act of cutting a branch off the tree - physical damage. And most of the branches taken from male trees expressed themselves as female when they bloomed in the greenhouse.
NPR: New Language Discovered: Prairiedogese
When Slobodchikoff first started studying the prairie dogs, he couldn't really tell the difference between the calls for, say, a coyote or a hawk. But the prairie dogs responded to the different calls with specific behaviors, like dropping into their burrows or standing up to get a better view. Slobodchikoff started to think there might be something in those "chees" that he wasn't hearing. So he decided to investigate. [...]
During his analysis, Slobodchikoff noticed something: Even though the human call was consistently different from the other calls, there was still significant variation between the individual human calls. He began to wonder whether the little rodents could possibly be describing their predators — not just differentiating hawk from human, but actually saying something about the particular human or coyote or hawk that was approaching.
So he devised a test. He had four (human) volunteers walk through a prairie dog village, and he dressed all the humans exactly the same — except for their shirts. Each volunteer walked through the community four times: once in a blue shirt, once in a yellow, once in green and once in gray.
He found, to his delight, that the calls broke down into groups based on the color of the volunteer's shirt. "I was astounded," says Slobodchikoff. But what astounded him even more, was that further analysis revealed that the calls also clustered based on other characteristics, like the height of the human. "Essentially they were saying, 'Here comes the tall human in the blue,' versus, 'Here comes the short human in the yellow,' " says Slobodchikoff.
Science Daily: Domestic goat dating back to the Neolithic Corded Ware period identified in Finland
I love that the study shows when we look closer we find truths buried in the past. Also the idea that the animals with whom we share our lives are leaving behind bits of floof that help explain us 5,000 years later on.
"Our study proves that completely new knowledge of our past can be gained by using microscopes to study organic material in advanced states of degradation. Now that we know to look for them, hairs have been found in other soil samples as well," explains Tuija Kirkinen.
In the light of these new findings, it is reasonable to assume that domestic animals and a herder identity have constituted a significant part of the belief system of the Corded Ware culture. This interpretation is also supported by objects made of domestic animal bones and pottery that might have been used for storing and drinking milk found in Corded Ware graves.
Nature: Doubts raised over Australia’s plan to release herpes to wipe out carp
Ya think? “This is potentially a big ecological move that’s being made on not enough data,” says Philip Stevenson, a virologist at the University of Queensland in Brisbane and a co-author of the letter. Researcher warnings have varied from rivers full of decaying fish corpses to to zip, nada, nothing happens. We should know what is realistically possible before releasing the Kraken. We haven’t done a good job of this kind of advance conceptualizing and now have global warming and kudzu.
An Australian plan to kill invasive carp by releasing a virus into waterways has come under fire from researchers who argue that the tactic will not eradicate enough fish.
Australia has fought for decades to control populations of the common carp (Cyprinus carpio), and in 2016 the government invested Aus$15 million (US$11.7 million) in a plan to investigate the virus approach. The proposal is to infect carp with a strain of herpes called CyHV-3, which has caused mass fish deaths in the United States and Japan.
Many researchers have previously warned of possible far-reaching consequences of the plan, including rivers clogged with decaying fish corpses and further disruption to native ecosystems. Now, six researchers argue in a letter published in Science1 on 22 February that the virus is unlikely to be effective.
I don’t know if it is true (keeping an open mind here) but what a lovely thought.
If it isn’t hurting anyone, have lots of nice thoughts.