Journal Reference: Aaron P. Ragsdale, Timothy D. Weaver, Elizabeth G. Atkinson, Eileen G. Hoal, Marlo Möller, Brenna M. Henn, Simon Gravel. A weakly structured stem for human origins in Africa. Nature, 2023; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06055-y Although it is widely understood that Homo sapiens originated in Africa, uncertainty surrounds how branches of human evolution diverged and how ... Read more
The post Homo sapiens likely arose from multiple closely related populations first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:3942:"Journal Reference:
Although it is widely understood that Homo sapiens originated in Africa, uncertainty surrounds how branches of human evolution diverged and how people migrated across the continent, said Brenna Henn, professor of anthropology and the Genome Center at UC Davis, corresponding author of the research.
“This uncertainty is due to limited fossil and ancient genomic data, and to the fact that the fossil record does not always align with expectations from models built using modern DNA,” she said. “This new research changes the origin of species.”
Research co-led by Henn and Simon Gravel of McGill University tested a range of competing models of evolution and migration across Africa proposed in the paleoanthropological and genetics literature, incorporating population genome data from southern, eastern and western Africa.
The authors included newly sequenced genomes from 44 modern Nama individuals from southern Africa, an Indigenous population known to carry exceptional levels of genetic diversity compared to other modern groups. Researchers generated genetic data by collecting saliva samples from modern individuals going about their everyday business in their villages between 2012 and 2015.
The model suggests the earliest population split among early humans that is detectable in contemporary populations occurred 120,000 to 135,000 years ago, after two or more weakly genetically differentiated Homo populations had been mixing for hundreds of thousands of years. After the population split, people still migrated between the stem populations, creating a weakly structured stem. This offers a better explanation of genetic variation among individual humans and human groups than do previous models, the authors suggest.
“We are presenting something that people had never even tested before,” Henn said of the research. “This moves anthropological science significantly forward.”
“Previous more complicated models proposed contributions from archaic hominins, but this model indicates otherwise,” said co-author Tim Weaver, UC Davis professor of anthropology. He has expertise in what early human fossils looked like and provided comparative research for the study.
The authors predict that, according to this model, 1-4% of genetic differentiation among contemporary human populations can be attributed to variation in the stem populations. This model may have important consequences for the interpretation of the fossil record. Owing to migration between the branches, these multiple lineages were probably morphologically similar, which means morphologically divergent hominid fossils (such as Homo naledi) are unlikely to represent branches that contributed to the evolution of Homo sapiens, the authors said.
Additional co-authors include Aaron Ragsdale, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Elizabeth Atkinson, Baylor College of Medicine; and Eileen Hoal and Marlo Möller, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
Homo sapiens likely arose from multiple closely related populations
The post Homo sapiens likely arose from multiple closely related populations first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";}s:7:"summary";s:975:"Journal Reference: Aaron P. Ragsdale, Timothy D. Weaver, Elizabeth G. Atkinson, Eileen G. Hoal, Marlo Möller, Brenna M. Henn, Simon Gravel. A weakly structured stem for human origins in Africa. Nature, 2023; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06055-y Although it is widely understood that Homo sapiens originated in Africa, uncertainty surrounds how branches of human evolution diverged and how ... Read more
The post Homo sapiens likely arose from multiple closely related populations first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:12:"atom_content";s:3942:"Journal Reference:
Although it is widely understood that Homo sapiens originated in Africa, uncertainty surrounds how branches of human evolution diverged and how people migrated across the continent, said Brenna Henn, professor of anthropology and the Genome Center at UC Davis, corresponding author of the research.
“This uncertainty is due to limited fossil and ancient genomic data, and to the fact that the fossil record does not always align with expectations from models built using modern DNA,” she said. “This new research changes the origin of species.”
Research co-led by Henn and Simon Gravel of McGill University tested a range of competing models of evolution and migration across Africa proposed in the paleoanthropological and genetics literature, incorporating population genome data from southern, eastern and western Africa.
The authors included newly sequenced genomes from 44 modern Nama individuals from southern Africa, an Indigenous population known to carry exceptional levels of genetic diversity compared to other modern groups. Researchers generated genetic data by collecting saliva samples from modern individuals going about their everyday business in their villages between 2012 and 2015.
The model suggests the earliest population split among early humans that is detectable in contemporary populations occurred 120,000 to 135,000 years ago, after two or more weakly genetically differentiated Homo populations had been mixing for hundreds of thousands of years. After the population split, people still migrated between the stem populations, creating a weakly structured stem. This offers a better explanation of genetic variation among individual humans and human groups than do previous models, the authors suggest.
“We are presenting something that people had never even tested before,” Henn said of the research. “This moves anthropological science significantly forward.”
“Previous more complicated models proposed contributions from archaic hominins, but this model indicates otherwise,” said co-author Tim Weaver, UC Davis professor of anthropology. He has expertise in what early human fossils looked like and provided comparative research for the study.
The authors predict that, according to this model, 1-4% of genetic differentiation among contemporary human populations can be attributed to variation in the stem populations. This model may have important consequences for the interpretation of the fossil record. Owing to migration between the branches, these multiple lineages were probably morphologically similar, which means morphologically divergent hominid fossils (such as Homo naledi) are unlikely to represent branches that contributed to the evolution of Homo sapiens, the authors said.
Additional co-authors include Aaron Ragsdale, University of Wisconsin, Madison; Elizabeth Atkinson, Baylor College of Medicine; and Eileen Hoal and Marlo Möller, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.
Homo sapiens likely arose from multiple closely related populations
The post Homo sapiens likely arose from multiple closely related populations first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684456642;}i:1;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:44:"Can a city store as much carbon as a forest?";s:4:"link";s:73:"https://genesisblocknews.com/can-a-city-store-as-much-carbon-as-a-forest/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:14:"Maureen Willis";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 18 May 2023 23:31:27 +0000";s:8:"category";s:28:"sciencecarbonCityForestStore";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://genesisblocknews.com/?p=86061";s:11:"description";s:865:"Journal Reference: Ilmari Talvitie, Antti Kinnunen, Ali Amiri, Seppo Junnila. Can future cities grow a carbon storage equal to forests? Environmental Research Letters, 2023; 18 (4): 044029 DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/acc677 Urban growth commonly encroaches on forested areas and agricultural land. This means that cities consume carbon sinks as they grow, which makes it harder for municipalities ... Read more
The post Can a city store as much carbon as a forest? first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:3148:"Journal Reference:
Urban growth commonly encroaches on forested areas and agricultural land. This means that cities consume carbon sinks as they grow, which makes it harder for municipalities and countries to reach the net-zero emissions targets that are vital to avoid a climate catastrophe. The new metric, called the carbon storage (CS) factor, reflects how much carbon can be captured in planned urban developments. It is described in a paper published in Environmental Research Letters.
The CS factor enables urban planners to evaluate how a new development will affect the city’s carbon balance. By comparing the amount of storage capacity lost (for example, from deforestation) with the CS factor of development plans that use different approaches and technologies, planners can ensure that urban development maintains or even restores the region’s natural carbon storage capacity.
‘There are many tools available to increase the CS factor. Increasing wooden construction is a good option in some regions, but it’s also possible to store carbon in the soil using biochar and other tools, or to include new fast-growing plants in the landscape, or even through direct carbon capture and storage technologies. We hope planners will adopt this mindset and use the CS factor to help them plan sustainable urban growth,’ says Aalto Professor Seppo Junnila, who led the study.
The researchers used the CS factor to evaluate how wooden construction in Finland’s capital region could compensate for deforestation from urban growth. They found that using the right kind of wooden construction technologies would mean that as much as 70% of future construction could preserve the lost forest’s carbon storage capacity. This would require using methods that store significant amounts of carbon, such as log or cross-laminated timber.
The study also showed that similar results could be obtained using wooden construction elsewhere in Europe, Asia and Oceania. However, the researchers stress that increased wooden construction is only a sustainable choice if forests are sustainably managed.
‘Our goal isn’t to encourage cities to expand into new areas but to provide planners with tools to mitigate the impact of development on carbon storage when forest clearing is unavoidable,’ says Junnila.
Can a city store as much carbon as a forest?
The post Can a city store as much carbon as a forest? first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";}s:7:"summary";s:865:"Journal Reference: Ilmari Talvitie, Antti Kinnunen, Ali Amiri, Seppo Junnila. Can future cities grow a carbon storage equal to forests? Environmental Research Letters, 2023; 18 (4): 044029 DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/acc677 Urban growth commonly encroaches on forested areas and agricultural land. This means that cities consume carbon sinks as they grow, which makes it harder for municipalities ... Read more
The post Can a city store as much carbon as a forest? first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:12:"atom_content";s:3148:"Journal Reference:
Urban growth commonly encroaches on forested areas and agricultural land. This means that cities consume carbon sinks as they grow, which makes it harder for municipalities and countries to reach the net-zero emissions targets that are vital to avoid a climate catastrophe. The new metric, called the carbon storage (CS) factor, reflects how much carbon can be captured in planned urban developments. It is described in a paper published in Environmental Research Letters.
The CS factor enables urban planners to evaluate how a new development will affect the city’s carbon balance. By comparing the amount of storage capacity lost (for example, from deforestation) with the CS factor of development plans that use different approaches and technologies, planners can ensure that urban development maintains or even restores the region’s natural carbon storage capacity.
‘There are many tools available to increase the CS factor. Increasing wooden construction is a good option in some regions, but it’s also possible to store carbon in the soil using biochar and other tools, or to include new fast-growing plants in the landscape, or even through direct carbon capture and storage technologies. We hope planners will adopt this mindset and use the CS factor to help them plan sustainable urban growth,’ says Aalto Professor Seppo Junnila, who led the study.
The researchers used the CS factor to evaluate how wooden construction in Finland’s capital region could compensate for deforestation from urban growth. They found that using the right kind of wooden construction technologies would mean that as much as 70% of future construction could preserve the lost forest’s carbon storage capacity. This would require using methods that store significant amounts of carbon, such as log or cross-laminated timber.
The study also showed that similar results could be obtained using wooden construction elsewhere in Europe, Asia and Oceania. However, the researchers stress that increased wooden construction is only a sustainable choice if forests are sustainably managed.
‘Our goal isn’t to encourage cities to expand into new areas but to provide planners with tools to mitigate the impact of development on carbon storage when forest clearing is unavoidable,’ says Junnila.
Can a city store as much carbon as a forest?
The post Can a city store as much carbon as a forest? first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684452687;}i:2;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:83:"Physicists take the temperature of fluid flows and discover new role for turbulence";s:4:"link";s:113:"https://genesisblocknews.com/physicists-take-the-temperature-of-fluid-flows-and-discover-new-role-for-turbulence/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:14:"Maureen Willis";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 18 May 2023 22:26:22 +0000";s:8:"category";s:60:"sciencediscoverFlowsfluidPhysicistsroletemperatureturbulence";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://genesisblocknews.com/?p=86059";s:11:"description";s:1052:"Journal Reference: Kaizhe Wang, Jun Zhang. Persistent corotation of the large-scale flow of thermal convection and an immersed free body. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023; 120 (21) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2217705120 The research, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, centered on turbulent convection — the movement of fluid ... Read more
The post Physicists take the temperature of fluid flows and discover new role for turbulence first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:2995:"Journal Reference:
The research, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, centered on turbulent convection — the movement of fluid when heated from below.
“Our experiments reveal intricate movements between a free-moving body and thermal convective flows,” says Jun Zhang, a professor of mathematics and physics at New York University and NYU Shanghai, the paper’s senior author.
The study, which also included Kaizhe Wang, a researcher in NYU’s Department of Physics, focused specifically on Rayleigh-Bénard convection — a type of convection driven by temperature differences.
In their experiments, conducted in the Joint Research Institute of NYU Shanghai, the paper’s authors used a cylindrical container filled with water, then heated it from the bottom, creating convective flows. The resulting turbulent flows interacted with a suspended solid (a rectangular panel) that moved freely inside the container — a setting that allowed the researchers to better study how turbulent flows interact with solid structures within.
“Surprisingly, the system becomes somewhat well-behaved,” notes Zhang. “We observed a smooth rotation of the flows and the free solid.”
Their results showed that turbulent convection powered flows, together with the solid, can move in two directions — one clockwise and the other counterclockwise — with the co-rotational speed increasing with the intensity of the convection. More than that, their rotation can sometimes switch directions, caused by the turbulence.
“The research, inspired by the rotation of Earth’s inner core as it interacts with the convective liquid core, captures the interaction between a turbulent flow and a freely moving body within the flow,” explains Zhang. “The findings confirm that turbulence can be tamed by interacting with solids. It also reminds us that the power of thermal convection might play more important roles inside our planet Earth.”
Physicists take the temperature of fluid flows and discover new role for turbulence
The post Physicists take the temperature of fluid flows and discover new role for turbulence first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";}s:7:"summary";s:1052:"Journal Reference: Kaizhe Wang, Jun Zhang. Persistent corotation of the large-scale flow of thermal convection and an immersed free body. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2023; 120 (21) DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2217705120 The research, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, centered on turbulent convection — the movement of fluid ... Read more
The post Physicists take the temperature of fluid flows and discover new role for turbulence first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:12:"atom_content";s:2995:"Journal Reference:
The research, which appears in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, centered on turbulent convection — the movement of fluid when heated from below.
“Our experiments reveal intricate movements between a free-moving body and thermal convective flows,” says Jun Zhang, a professor of mathematics and physics at New York University and NYU Shanghai, the paper’s senior author.
The study, which also included Kaizhe Wang, a researcher in NYU’s Department of Physics, focused specifically on Rayleigh-Bénard convection — a type of convection driven by temperature differences.
In their experiments, conducted in the Joint Research Institute of NYU Shanghai, the paper’s authors used a cylindrical container filled with water, then heated it from the bottom, creating convective flows. The resulting turbulent flows interacted with a suspended solid (a rectangular panel) that moved freely inside the container — a setting that allowed the researchers to better study how turbulent flows interact with solid structures within.
“Surprisingly, the system becomes somewhat well-behaved,” notes Zhang. “We observed a smooth rotation of the flows and the free solid.”
Their results showed that turbulent convection powered flows, together with the solid, can move in two directions — one clockwise and the other counterclockwise — with the co-rotational speed increasing with the intensity of the convection. More than that, their rotation can sometimes switch directions, caused by the turbulence.
“The research, inspired by the rotation of Earth’s inner core as it interacts with the convective liquid core, captures the interaction between a turbulent flow and a freely moving body within the flow,” explains Zhang. “The findings confirm that turbulence can be tamed by interacting with solids. It also reminds us that the power of thermal convection might play more important roles inside our planet Earth.”
Physicists take the temperature of fluid flows and discover new role for turbulence
The post Physicists take the temperature of fluid flows and discover new role for turbulence first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684448782;}i:3;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:58:"The brain reacts differently to touch depending on context";s:4:"link";s:88:"https://genesisblocknews.com/the-brain-reacts-differently-to-touch-depending-on-context/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:14:"Maureen Willis";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 18 May 2023 20:12:38 +0000";s:8:"category";s:50:"sciencebraincontextdependingdifferentlyreactstouch";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://genesisblocknews.com/?p=86057";s:11:"description";s:917:"Journal Reference: Giovanni Novembre, Linda Handlin, Helene Lindholm, Robin Kämpe, Elisabeth Paul, India Morrison. Human endogenous oxytocin and its neural correlates show adaptive responses to social touch based on recent social context. eLife, 2023; 12 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.81197 An embrace from a parent, a warm hand on your shoulder or a caress from a romantic partner ... Read more
The post The brain reacts differently to touch depending on context first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:4025:"Journal Reference:
An embrace from a parent, a warm hand on your shoulder or a caress from a romantic partner are examples of how touch can strengthen social bonds between people and influence emotions. But although touch and the sense of touch have a very important function, knowledge of how this actually works is still lacking.
Studies in animals have shown that the hormone oxytocin is linked to touch and social bonding. However, many questions remain unanswered when it comes to oxytocin’s role in human social interactions and how this hormone can influence and be influenced by the brain. To study this closer, researchers have examined what happens in the body when we feel a soft touch.
“We saw that the body’s oxytocin response to touch was influenced by the situation: what had happened a few moments earlier and with whom the interaction takes place. The hormone does not function like an on/off button, but more like a dimmer switch,” says India Morrison, senior associate professor at the Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences at Linköping University.
42 women took part in the study, published in eLife. The actual experiment consisted of the woman’s male partner stroking her arm with his hand, while her brain activity was monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI.
The experiment also involved repeatedly taking blood tests to see whether oxytocin levels in the woman’s blood changed over time. Combining the various measurements allowed the researchers to examine whether hormone levels were linked to brain activity.
The measurements from the social interaction between the woman and her partner were compared with what happened when instead an unknown, non-threatening man touched her arm in the same way. In half of the experiments, her partner was the first to stroke her arm, and in the other half it was the stranger. The participating women were informed of who was stroking their arm.
“Our basic question was whether oxytocin levels would be higher when the woman’s partner touched her arm than when a stranger did it. The answer was yes, but only when her partner was the first to stroke her arm,” says India Morrison.
The researchers found that when her partner was first, the women’s oxytocin levels increased during the social interaction, then fell, only to increase again when the stranger did the same thing. However, when the stranger touched her first, there was no change in oxytocin levels. And when her partner then stroked her arm, there was only a slight increase. The changes in oxytocin levels were linked to activity in regions of the brain important for the contextualisation of events.
Oxytocin is released in a variety of situations and has several functions in the body.
“It might be good to bear in mind that context matters, for instance when providing synthetic oxytocin in the form of a nasal spray as part of the treatment of mood-affecting conditions,” says India Morrison.
The study was supported by the Swedish Research Council.
The brain reacts differently to touch depending on context
The post The brain reacts differently to touch depending on context first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";}s:7:"summary";s:917:"Journal Reference: Giovanni Novembre, Linda Handlin, Helene Lindholm, Robin Kämpe, Elisabeth Paul, India Morrison. Human endogenous oxytocin and its neural correlates show adaptive responses to social touch based on recent social context. eLife, 2023; 12 DOI: 10.7554/eLife.81197 An embrace from a parent, a warm hand on your shoulder or a caress from a romantic partner ... Read more
The post The brain reacts differently to touch depending on context first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:12:"atom_content";s:4025:"Journal Reference:
An embrace from a parent, a warm hand on your shoulder or a caress from a romantic partner are examples of how touch can strengthen social bonds between people and influence emotions. But although touch and the sense of touch have a very important function, knowledge of how this actually works is still lacking.
Studies in animals have shown that the hormone oxytocin is linked to touch and social bonding. However, many questions remain unanswered when it comes to oxytocin’s role in human social interactions and how this hormone can influence and be influenced by the brain. To study this closer, researchers have examined what happens in the body when we feel a soft touch.
“We saw that the body’s oxytocin response to touch was influenced by the situation: what had happened a few moments earlier and with whom the interaction takes place. The hormone does not function like an on/off button, but more like a dimmer switch,” says India Morrison, senior associate professor at the Department of Biomedical and Clinical Sciences at Linköping University.
42 women took part in the study, published in eLife. The actual experiment consisted of the woman’s male partner stroking her arm with his hand, while her brain activity was monitored using functional magnetic resonance imaging, fMRI.
The experiment also involved repeatedly taking blood tests to see whether oxytocin levels in the woman’s blood changed over time. Combining the various measurements allowed the researchers to examine whether hormone levels were linked to brain activity.
The measurements from the social interaction between the woman and her partner were compared with what happened when instead an unknown, non-threatening man touched her arm in the same way. In half of the experiments, her partner was the first to stroke her arm, and in the other half it was the stranger. The participating women were informed of who was stroking their arm.
“Our basic question was whether oxytocin levels would be higher when the woman’s partner touched her arm than when a stranger did it. The answer was yes, but only when her partner was the first to stroke her arm,” says India Morrison.
The researchers found that when her partner was first, the women’s oxytocin levels increased during the social interaction, then fell, only to increase again when the stranger did the same thing. However, when the stranger touched her first, there was no change in oxytocin levels. And when her partner then stroked her arm, there was only a slight increase. The changes in oxytocin levels were linked to activity in regions of the brain important for the contextualisation of events.
Oxytocin is released in a variety of situations and has several functions in the body.
“It might be good to bear in mind that context matters, for instance when providing synthetic oxytocin in the form of a nasal spray as part of the treatment of mood-affecting conditions,” says India Morrison.
The study was supported by the Swedish Research Council.
The brain reacts differently to touch depending on context
The post The brain reacts differently to touch depending on context first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684440758;}i:4;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:35:"ChatGPT passes radiology board exam";s:4:"link";s:65:"https://genesisblocknews.com/chatgpt-passes-radiology-board-exam/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:14:"Maureen Willis";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 18 May 2023 19:07:41 +0000";s:8:"category";s:38:"scienceboardChatGPTexamPassesradiology";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://genesisblocknews.com/?p=86055";s:11:"description";s:877:"Journal References: Rajesh Bhayana, Satheesh Krishna, Robert R. Bleakney. Performance of ChatGPT on a Radiology Board-style Examination: Insights into Current Strengths and Limitations. Radiology, 2023; DOI: 10.1148/radiol.230582 Rajesh Bhayana, Robert R. Bleakney, Satheesh Krishna. GPT-4 in Radiology: Improvements in Advanced Reasoning. Radiology, 2023; DOI: 10.1148/radiol.230987 ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that uses a ... Read more
The post ChatGPT passes radiology board exam first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:6120:"Journal References:
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that uses a deep learning model to recognize patterns and relationships between words in its vast training data to generate human-like responses based on a prompt. But since there is no source of truth in its training data, the tool can generate responses that are factually incorrect.
“The use of large language models like ChatGPT is exploding and only going to increase,” said lead author Rajesh Bhayana, M.D., FRCPC, an abdominal radiologist and technology lead at University Medical Imaging Toronto, Toronto General Hospital in Toronto, Canada. “Our research provides insight into ChatGPT’s performance in a radiology context, highlighting the incredible potential of large language models, along with the current limitations that make it unreliable.”
ChatGPT was recently named the fastest growing consumer application in history, and similar chatbots are being incorporated into popular search engines like Google and Bing that physicians and patients use to search for medical information, Dr. Bhayana noted.
To assess its performance on radiology board exam questions and explore strengths and limitations, Dr. Bhayana and colleagues first tested ChatGPT based on GPT-3.5, currently the most commonly used version. The researchers used 150 multiple-choice questions designed to match the style, content and difficulty of the Canadian Royal College and American Board of Radiology exams.
The questions did not include images and were grouped by question type to gain insight into performance: lower-order (knowledge recall, basic understanding) and higher-order (apply, analyze, synthesize) thinking. The higher-order thinking questions were further subclassified by type (description of imaging findings, clinical management, calculation and classification, disease associations).
The performance of ChatGPT was evaluated overall and by question type and topic. Confidence of language in responses was also assessed.
The researchers found that ChatGPT based on GPT-3.5 answered 69% of questions correctly (104 of 150), near the passing grade of 70% used by the Royal College in Canada. The model performed relatively well on questions requiring lower-order thinking (84%, 51 of 61), but struggled with questions involving higher-order thinking (60%, 53 of 89). More specifically, it struggled with higher-order questions involving description of imaging findings (61%, 28 of 46), calculation and classification (25%, 2 of 8), and application of concepts (30%, 3 of 10). Its poor performance on higher-order thinking questions was not surprising given its lack of radiology-specific pretraining.
GPT-4 was released in March 2023 in limited form to paid users, specifically claiming to have improved advanced reasoning capabilities over GPT-3.5.
In a follow-up study, GPT-4 answered 81% (121 of 150) of the same questions correctly, outperforming GPT-3.5 and exceeding the passing threshold of 70%. GPT-4 performed much better than GPT-3.5 on higher-order thinking questions (81%), more specifically those involving description of imaging findings (85%) and application of concepts (90%).
The findings suggest that GPT-4’s claimed improved advanced reasoning capabilities translate to enhanced performance in a radiology context. They also suggest improved contextual understanding of radiology-specific terminology, including imaging descriptions, which is critical to enable future downstream applications.
“Our study demonstrates an impressive improvement in performance of ChatGPT in radiology over a short time period, highlighting the growing potential of large language models in this context,” Dr. Bhayana said.
GPT-4 showed no improvement on lower-order thinking questions (80% vs 84%) and answered 12 questions incorrectly that GPT-3.5 answered correctly, raising questions related to its reliability for information gathering.
“We were initially surprised by ChatGPT’s accurate and confident answers to some challenging radiology questions, but then equally surprised by some very illogical and inaccurate assertions,” Dr. Bhayana said. “Of course, given how these models work, the inaccurate responses should not be particularly surprising.”
ChatGPT’s dangerous tendency to produce inaccurate responses, termed hallucinations, is less frequent in GPT-4 but still limits usability in medical education and practice at present.
Both studies showed that ChatGPT used confident language consistently, even when incorrect. This is particularly dangerous if solely relied on for information, Dr. Bhayana notes, especially for novices who may not recognize confident incorrect responses as inaccurate.
“To me, this is its biggest limitation. At present, ChatGPT is best used to spark ideas, help start the medical writing process and in data summarization. If used for quick information recall, it always needs to be fact-checked,” Dr. Bhayana said.
ChatGPT passes radiology board exam
The post ChatGPT passes radiology board exam first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";}s:7:"summary";s:877:"Journal References: Rajesh Bhayana, Satheesh Krishna, Robert R. Bleakney. Performance of ChatGPT on a Radiology Board-style Examination: Insights into Current Strengths and Limitations. Radiology, 2023; DOI: 10.1148/radiol.230582 Rajesh Bhayana, Robert R. Bleakney, Satheesh Krishna. GPT-4 in Radiology: Improvements in Advanced Reasoning. Radiology, 2023; DOI: 10.1148/radiol.230987 ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that uses a ... Read more
The post ChatGPT passes radiology board exam first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:12:"atom_content";s:6120:"Journal References:
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot that uses a deep learning model to recognize patterns and relationships between words in its vast training data to generate human-like responses based on a prompt. But since there is no source of truth in its training data, the tool can generate responses that are factually incorrect.
“The use of large language models like ChatGPT is exploding and only going to increase,” said lead author Rajesh Bhayana, M.D., FRCPC, an abdominal radiologist and technology lead at University Medical Imaging Toronto, Toronto General Hospital in Toronto, Canada. “Our research provides insight into ChatGPT’s performance in a radiology context, highlighting the incredible potential of large language models, along with the current limitations that make it unreliable.”
ChatGPT was recently named the fastest growing consumer application in history, and similar chatbots are being incorporated into popular search engines like Google and Bing that physicians and patients use to search for medical information, Dr. Bhayana noted.
To assess its performance on radiology board exam questions and explore strengths and limitations, Dr. Bhayana and colleagues first tested ChatGPT based on GPT-3.5, currently the most commonly used version. The researchers used 150 multiple-choice questions designed to match the style, content and difficulty of the Canadian Royal College and American Board of Radiology exams.
The questions did not include images and were grouped by question type to gain insight into performance: lower-order (knowledge recall, basic understanding) and higher-order (apply, analyze, synthesize) thinking. The higher-order thinking questions were further subclassified by type (description of imaging findings, clinical management, calculation and classification, disease associations).
The performance of ChatGPT was evaluated overall and by question type and topic. Confidence of language in responses was also assessed.
The researchers found that ChatGPT based on GPT-3.5 answered 69% of questions correctly (104 of 150), near the passing grade of 70% used by the Royal College in Canada. The model performed relatively well on questions requiring lower-order thinking (84%, 51 of 61), but struggled with questions involving higher-order thinking (60%, 53 of 89). More specifically, it struggled with higher-order questions involving description of imaging findings (61%, 28 of 46), calculation and classification (25%, 2 of 8), and application of concepts (30%, 3 of 10). Its poor performance on higher-order thinking questions was not surprising given its lack of radiology-specific pretraining.
GPT-4 was released in March 2023 in limited form to paid users, specifically claiming to have improved advanced reasoning capabilities over GPT-3.5.
In a follow-up study, GPT-4 answered 81% (121 of 150) of the same questions correctly, outperforming GPT-3.5 and exceeding the passing threshold of 70%. GPT-4 performed much better than GPT-3.5 on higher-order thinking questions (81%), more specifically those involving description of imaging findings (85%) and application of concepts (90%).
The findings suggest that GPT-4’s claimed improved advanced reasoning capabilities translate to enhanced performance in a radiology context. They also suggest improved contextual understanding of radiology-specific terminology, including imaging descriptions, which is critical to enable future downstream applications.
“Our study demonstrates an impressive improvement in performance of ChatGPT in radiology over a short time period, highlighting the growing potential of large language models in this context,” Dr. Bhayana said.
GPT-4 showed no improvement on lower-order thinking questions (80% vs 84%) and answered 12 questions incorrectly that GPT-3.5 answered correctly, raising questions related to its reliability for information gathering.
“We were initially surprised by ChatGPT’s accurate and confident answers to some challenging radiology questions, but then equally surprised by some very illogical and inaccurate assertions,” Dr. Bhayana said. “Of course, given how these models work, the inaccurate responses should not be particularly surprising.”
ChatGPT’s dangerous tendency to produce inaccurate responses, termed hallucinations, is less frequent in GPT-4 but still limits usability in medical education and practice at present.
Both studies showed that ChatGPT used confident language consistently, even when incorrect. This is particularly dangerous if solely relied on for information, Dr. Bhayana notes, especially for novices who may not recognize confident incorrect responses as inaccurate.
“To me, this is its biggest limitation. At present, ChatGPT is best used to spark ideas, help start the medical writing process and in data summarization. If used for quick information recall, it always needs to be fact-checked,” Dr. Bhayana said.
ChatGPT passes radiology board exam
The post ChatGPT passes radiology board exam first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684436861;}i:5;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:47:"Monkeypox viruses relatively stable on surfaces";s:4:"link";s:77:"https://genesisblocknews.com/monkeypox-viruses-relatively-stable-on-surfaces/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:14:"Maureen Willis";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 18 May 2023 18:01:23 +0000";s:8:"category";s:37:"sciencemonkeypoxstablesurfacesviruses";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://genesisblocknews.com/?p=86053";s:11:"description";s:899:"Journal Reference: Toni Lusie Meister, Yannick Brüggemann, Daniel Todt, Ronny Tao, Lisa Müller, Jochen Steinmann, Joerg Steinmann, Joerg Timm, Ingo Drexler, Eike Steinmann. Stability and inactivation of monkeypox virus on inanimate surfaces. The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2023; DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiad127 Smallpox viruses are notorious for their ability to remain infectious in the environment for a ... Read more
The post Monkeypox viruses relatively stable on surfaces first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:4107:"Journal Reference:
Smallpox viruses are notorious for their ability to remain infectious in the environment for a very long time. A study conducted by the Department of Molecular and Medical Virology at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, has shown that temperature is a major factor in this process: at room temperature, a monkeypox virus that is capable of replicating can survive on a stainless steel surface for up to eleven days, and at four degrees Celsius for up to a month. Consequently, it’s very important to disinfect surfaces. According to the study, alcohol-based disinfectants are very effective against monkeypox viruses, whereas hydrogen peroxide-based disinfectants have proved inadequate. The team published their findings in the Journal of Infectious Diseases on 2 May 2023.
Weeks of monitoring
Since 2022, the monkeypox virus has been transmitted more and more frequently from one human host to another. Although infections primarily result from direct physical contact, it’s also possible to contract the virus through contaminated surfaces, for example in the household or in hospital rooms. “Smallpox viruses are notorious for their ability to remain infectious in the environment for a very long time,” explains Dr. Toni Meister from the Department for Molecular and Medical Virology at Ruhr University Bochum. “For monkeypox, however, we didn’t know the exact time frames until now.”
The researchers therefore studied them by applying the virus to sanitised stainless steel plates and storing them at different temperatures: at four degrees, at 22 degrees, which roughly corresponds to room temperature, and at 37 degrees. They determined the amount of infectious virus after different periods of time, ranging from 15 minutes to several days to weeks.
Viruses remain infectious for a long time
Regardless of the temperature, there was little change in the amount of infectious virus during the first few days. At 22 and 37 degrees, the virus concentration dropped significantly only after five days. At 37 degrees, no virus capable of reproducing was detected after six to seven days, at 22 degrees it took ten to eleven days until infection was no longer possible. At four degrees, the amount of virus only dropped sharply after 20 days, and after 30 days there was no longer any danger of infection. “This is consistent with our experience that people can still contract monkeypox from surfaces in the household after almost two weeks,” points out Professor Eike Steinmann, Head of the Department for Molecular and Medical Virology.
In order to reduce the risk of infection in the event of an outbreak, it is therefore extremely important to disinfect surfaces. This is why the researchers tested the effectiveness of five common disinfectants. They found that alcohol-based or aldehyde-based disinfectants reliably reduced the risk of infection. A hydrogen peroxide-based disinfectant, however, didn’t inactivate the virus effectively enough in the study. “Our results support the WHO’s recommendation to use alcohol-based surface disinfectants,” concludes Toni Meister.
Monkeypox viruses relatively stable on surfaces
The post Monkeypox viruses relatively stable on surfaces first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";}s:7:"summary";s:899:"Journal Reference: Toni Lusie Meister, Yannick Brüggemann, Daniel Todt, Ronny Tao, Lisa Müller, Jochen Steinmann, Joerg Steinmann, Joerg Timm, Ingo Drexler, Eike Steinmann. Stability and inactivation of monkeypox virus on inanimate surfaces. The Journal of Infectious Diseases, 2023; DOI: 10.1093/infdis/jiad127 Smallpox viruses are notorious for their ability to remain infectious in the environment for a ... Read more
The post Monkeypox viruses relatively stable on surfaces first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:12:"atom_content";s:4107:"Journal Reference:
Smallpox viruses are notorious for their ability to remain infectious in the environment for a very long time. A study conducted by the Department of Molecular and Medical Virology at Ruhr University Bochum, Germany, has shown that temperature is a major factor in this process: at room temperature, a monkeypox virus that is capable of replicating can survive on a stainless steel surface for up to eleven days, and at four degrees Celsius for up to a month. Consequently, it’s very important to disinfect surfaces. According to the study, alcohol-based disinfectants are very effective against monkeypox viruses, whereas hydrogen peroxide-based disinfectants have proved inadequate. The team published their findings in the Journal of Infectious Diseases on 2 May 2023.
Weeks of monitoring
Since 2022, the monkeypox virus has been transmitted more and more frequently from one human host to another. Although infections primarily result from direct physical contact, it’s also possible to contract the virus through contaminated surfaces, for example in the household or in hospital rooms. “Smallpox viruses are notorious for their ability to remain infectious in the environment for a very long time,” explains Dr. Toni Meister from the Department for Molecular and Medical Virology at Ruhr University Bochum. “For monkeypox, however, we didn’t know the exact time frames until now.”
The researchers therefore studied them by applying the virus to sanitised stainless steel plates and storing them at different temperatures: at four degrees, at 22 degrees, which roughly corresponds to room temperature, and at 37 degrees. They determined the amount of infectious virus after different periods of time, ranging from 15 minutes to several days to weeks.
Viruses remain infectious for a long time
Regardless of the temperature, there was little change in the amount of infectious virus during the first few days. At 22 and 37 degrees, the virus concentration dropped significantly only after five days. At 37 degrees, no virus capable of reproducing was detected after six to seven days, at 22 degrees it took ten to eleven days until infection was no longer possible. At four degrees, the amount of virus only dropped sharply after 20 days, and after 30 days there was no longer any danger of infection. “This is consistent with our experience that people can still contract monkeypox from surfaces in the household after almost two weeks,” points out Professor Eike Steinmann, Head of the Department for Molecular and Medical Virology.
In order to reduce the risk of infection in the event of an outbreak, it is therefore extremely important to disinfect surfaces. This is why the researchers tested the effectiveness of five common disinfectants. They found that alcohol-based or aldehyde-based disinfectants reliably reduced the risk of infection. A hydrogen peroxide-based disinfectant, however, didn’t inactivate the virus effectively enough in the study. “Our results support the WHO’s recommendation to use alcohol-based surface disinfectants,” concludes Toni Meister.
Monkeypox viruses relatively stable on surfaces
The post Monkeypox viruses relatively stable on surfaces first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684432883;}i:6;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:53:"Nature favors creatures in largest and smallest sizes";s:4:"link";s:83:"https://genesisblocknews.com/nature-favors-creatures-in-largest-and-smallest-sizes/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:14:"Maureen Willis";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 18 May 2023 14:42:17 +0000";s:8:"category";s:48:"scienceCreaturesfavorslargestnaturesizessmallest";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://genesisblocknews.com/?p=86051";s:11:"description";s:869:"Journal Reference: Eden W. Tekwa, Katrina A. Catalano, Anna L. Bazzicalupo, Mary I. O’Connor, Malin L. Pinsky. The sizes of life. PLOS ONE, 2023; 18 (3): e0283020 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0283020 The researchers spent five years compiling and analyzing data about the size and biomass of every type of living organism on the planet — from tiny ... Read more
The post Nature favors creatures in largest and smallest sizes first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:3130:"Journal Reference:
The researchers spent five years compiling and analyzing data about the size and biomass of every type of living organism on the planet — from tiny one-celled organisms like soil archaea and bacteria to large organisms like blue whales and sequoia trees.
They found that the pattern favouring large and small organisms held across all types of species and was more pronounced in land-based organisms than in marine environments. Interestingly, maximum body size seemed to reach the same upper limits across multiple species and environments.
“Trees, grasses, underground fungi, mangroves, corals, fish, and marine mammals all have similar maximum body sizes. This might suggest that there is a universal upper size limit due to ecological, evolutionary, or biophysical limitations,” says lead author Eden Tekwa, a former postdoctoral fellow at University of British Columbia and now a research associate with McGill University’s department of biology.
“Life constantly amazes us, including the incredible range of sizes that it comes in,” says co-author Malin Pinsky, an associate professor in the department of ecology, evolution, and natural resources at Rutgers University. “If the tiniest microbe was the size of the period at the end of this sentence, the largest living organism, a sequoia tree, would be the size of the Panama Canal.”
“As for humans, we already know we comprise a relatively small biomass, but our size among all living things reveals our place in the global biome. We belong to the size range that comprises the highest biomass, which is a relatively large body size,” says Tekwa.
Predicting the effects of climate change
Cataloguing which body sizes are most common is a key step towards understanding the world around us, say the authors. These results also have important implications for predicting the impacts of climate change and human activity on the planet’s biomass.
“For example, fish biomass is probably half of what it was before humans arrived, but it gets harder and harder to infer those patterns as we go farther back in time,” says Tekwa. “We need to think about how the distribution of body size biomass will change under environmental pressures.”
Nature favors creatures in largest and smallest sizes
The post Nature favors creatures in largest and smallest sizes first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";}s:7:"summary";s:869:"Journal Reference: Eden W. Tekwa, Katrina A. Catalano, Anna L. Bazzicalupo, Mary I. O’Connor, Malin L. Pinsky. The sizes of life. PLOS ONE, 2023; 18 (3): e0283020 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0283020 The researchers spent five years compiling and analyzing data about the size and biomass of every type of living organism on the planet — from tiny ... Read more
The post Nature favors creatures in largest and smallest sizes first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:12:"atom_content";s:3130:"Journal Reference:
The researchers spent five years compiling and analyzing data about the size and biomass of every type of living organism on the planet — from tiny one-celled organisms like soil archaea and bacteria to large organisms like blue whales and sequoia trees.
They found that the pattern favouring large and small organisms held across all types of species and was more pronounced in land-based organisms than in marine environments. Interestingly, maximum body size seemed to reach the same upper limits across multiple species and environments.
“Trees, grasses, underground fungi, mangroves, corals, fish, and marine mammals all have similar maximum body sizes. This might suggest that there is a universal upper size limit due to ecological, evolutionary, or biophysical limitations,” says lead author Eden Tekwa, a former postdoctoral fellow at University of British Columbia and now a research associate with McGill University’s department of biology.
“Life constantly amazes us, including the incredible range of sizes that it comes in,” says co-author Malin Pinsky, an associate professor in the department of ecology, evolution, and natural resources at Rutgers University. “If the tiniest microbe was the size of the period at the end of this sentence, the largest living organism, a sequoia tree, would be the size of the Panama Canal.”
“As for humans, we already know we comprise a relatively small biomass, but our size among all living things reveals our place in the global biome. We belong to the size range that comprises the highest biomass, which is a relatively large body size,” says Tekwa.
Predicting the effects of climate change
Cataloguing which body sizes are most common is a key step towards understanding the world around us, say the authors. These results also have important implications for predicting the impacts of climate change and human activity on the planet’s biomass.
“For example, fish biomass is probably half of what it was before humans arrived, but it gets harder and harder to infer those patterns as we go farther back in time,” says Tekwa. “We need to think about how the distribution of body size biomass will change under environmental pressures.”
Nature favors creatures in largest and smallest sizes
The post Nature favors creatures in largest and smallest sizes first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684420937;}i:7;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:108:"Researchers discovered that various species share a similar mechanism of molecular response to nanoparticles";s:4:"link";s:138:"https://genesisblocknews.com/researchers-discovered-that-various-species-share-a-similar-mechanism-of-molecular-response-to-nanoparticles/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:14:"Maureen Willis";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 18 May 2023 13:36:31 +0000";s:8:"category";s:86:"sciencediscoveredmechanismmolecularNanoparticlesResearchersresponsesharesimilarspecies";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://genesisblocknews.com/?p=86049";s:11:"description";s:1126:"Journal Reference: G. del Giudice, A. Serra, L. A. Saarimäki, K. Kotsis, I. Rouse, S. A. Colibaba, K. Jagiello, A. Mikolajczyk, M. Fratello, A. G. Papadiamantis, N. Sanabria, M. E. Annala, J. Morikka, P. A. S. Kinaret, E. Voyiatzis, G. Melagraki, A. Afantitis, K. Tämm, T. Puzyn, M. Gulumian, V. Lobaskin, I. Lynch, A. Federico, ... Read more
The post Researchers discovered that various species share a similar mechanism of molecular response to nanoparticles first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:5428:"Journal Reference:
The results of the research coordinated by Professor Dario Greco of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technologies are presented in the scientific article An Ancestral Molecular Response to Nanomaterial Particulates, recently published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
“We have demonstrated for the first time that there is a specific response to nanoparticles, and it is interlinked to their nano-properties. This study sheds light on how various species respond to particulate matters in a similar manner. It proposes a solution to the one-chemical-one-signature problem, currently limiting the use of toxicogenomic in chemical safety assessment,” Director of the FHAIVE,Professor of Bioinformatics at Tampere University Dario Greco says.
Linking nanoparticles and immunity
The implications of this study go beyond the field of toxicology. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of immune activation in predicting the clinical outcome of a viral infection. In more polluted areas, COVID-19 had a more severe impact on the human population.
“Our results uncover an important link between understanding the basic defence mechanisms in living organisms and their immune functions,” Greco points out.
“When it comes to drugs or viruses, we have understood that any exposure or infection leaves a trace on our immune system, and that this trace will affect the way we respond to future agents. Now, we have evidence that even particulate matter primes our immunity,” says Giusy del Giudice, the first author of the scientific publication.
The detrimental effects of air pollution on respiratory functions have been long known, but only recently scientists from The Francis Crick Institute proved it to be among the driving causes of lung cancer in non-smokers. In both cases, COVID-19 and lung cancer, the impact of particulate on the immune system contributed to these effects.
“The association between particulate matter and immune activation is of utmost importance and may lead to crucial epidemiological implications,” del Giudice says.
A step closer to planetary health
Another important lesson learned from the COVID-19 pandemic concerns the concept of planetary health: all living organisms on the Earth are interconnected, and the effects on one specie will eventually propagate to others. In this regard, the results of this study open also new avenues to formulate integrated models that predict the effects of chemical exposures on many species at a time.
“Our results move in this direction by describing fundamental defence mechanisms common to many species throughout the tree of life,” del Giudice says.
Nanotechnology plays an important part in many fields, from biomedicine to energy and climate. Engineered nanomaterials are chemical substances or materials with particle sizes just between 1 to 100 nanometres, one third of a human hair.
Currently, thousands of consumer products contain nanomaterials, which requires testing their possible health and environmental effects. Because traditional toxicology relies on animal or in vitro tests to monitor phenotypic changes in response to exposures, it cannot keep in pace with this technological development.
“We cannot test every new nanomaterial on every possible species on Earth. We need innovative ways to reliably assess possible dangerous products as quickly as possible. Scientific evidence such as the one generated in this study can help to develop new models that do not require large amounts of animal experiments,” Grego says.
This research was carried out within the EU project NanoSolveIT that establishes computational models to test environmental health and safety of engineered nanomaterials. The study was led by FHAIVE, and it involved researchers from universities across Europe, as well as in the United States, Australia, South Africa, Japan and South Korea. Moreover, FHAIVE also develops alternatives to animal testing at a national level.
The post Researchers discovered that various species share a similar mechanism of molecular response to nanoparticles first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";}s:7:"summary";s:1126:"Journal Reference: G. del Giudice, A. Serra, L. A. Saarimäki, K. Kotsis, I. Rouse, S. A. Colibaba, K. Jagiello, A. Mikolajczyk, M. Fratello, A. G. Papadiamantis, N. Sanabria, M. E. Annala, J. Morikka, P. A. S. Kinaret, E. Voyiatzis, G. Melagraki, A. Afantitis, K. Tämm, T. Puzyn, M. Gulumian, V. Lobaskin, I. Lynch, A. Federico, ... Read more
The post Researchers discovered that various species share a similar mechanism of molecular response to nanoparticles first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:12:"atom_content";s:5428:"Journal Reference:
The results of the research coordinated by Professor Dario Greco of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Technologies are presented in the scientific article An Ancestral Molecular Response to Nanomaterial Particulates, recently published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.
“We have demonstrated for the first time that there is a specific response to nanoparticles, and it is interlinked to their nano-properties. This study sheds light on how various species respond to particulate matters in a similar manner. It proposes a solution to the one-chemical-one-signature problem, currently limiting the use of toxicogenomic in chemical safety assessment,” Director of the FHAIVE,Professor of Bioinformatics at Tampere University Dario Greco says.
Linking nanoparticles and immunity
The implications of this study go beyond the field of toxicology. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the importance of immune activation in predicting the clinical outcome of a viral infection. In more polluted areas, COVID-19 had a more severe impact on the human population.
“Our results uncover an important link between understanding the basic defence mechanisms in living organisms and their immune functions,” Greco points out.
“When it comes to drugs or viruses, we have understood that any exposure or infection leaves a trace on our immune system, and that this trace will affect the way we respond to future agents. Now, we have evidence that even particulate matter primes our immunity,” says Giusy del Giudice, the first author of the scientific publication.
The detrimental effects of air pollution on respiratory functions have been long known, but only recently scientists from The Francis Crick Institute proved it to be among the driving causes of lung cancer in non-smokers. In both cases, COVID-19 and lung cancer, the impact of particulate on the immune system contributed to these effects.
“The association between particulate matter and immune activation is of utmost importance and may lead to crucial epidemiological implications,” del Giudice says.
A step closer to planetary health
Another important lesson learned from the COVID-19 pandemic concerns the concept of planetary health: all living organisms on the Earth are interconnected, and the effects on one specie will eventually propagate to others. In this regard, the results of this study open also new avenues to formulate integrated models that predict the effects of chemical exposures on many species at a time.
“Our results move in this direction by describing fundamental defence mechanisms common to many species throughout the tree of life,” del Giudice says.
Nanotechnology plays an important part in many fields, from biomedicine to energy and climate. Engineered nanomaterials are chemical substances or materials with particle sizes just between 1 to 100 nanometres, one third of a human hair.
Currently, thousands of consumer products contain nanomaterials, which requires testing their possible health and environmental effects. Because traditional toxicology relies on animal or in vitro tests to monitor phenotypic changes in response to exposures, it cannot keep in pace with this technological development.
“We cannot test every new nanomaterial on every possible species on Earth. We need innovative ways to reliably assess possible dangerous products as quickly as possible. Scientific evidence such as the one generated in this study can help to develop new models that do not require large amounts of animal experiments,” Grego says.
This research was carried out within the EU project NanoSolveIT that establishes computational models to test environmental health and safety of engineered nanomaterials. The study was led by FHAIVE, and it involved researchers from universities across Europe, as well as in the United States, Australia, South Africa, Japan and South Korea. Moreover, FHAIVE also develops alternatives to animal testing at a national level.
The post Researchers discovered that various species share a similar mechanism of molecular response to nanoparticles first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684416991;}i:8;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:57:"A channel involved in pain sensation can also suppress it";s:4:"link";s:87:"https://genesisblocknews.com/a-channel-involved-in-pain-sensation-can-also-suppress-it/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:14:"Maureen Willis";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 18 May 2023 10:12:34 +0000";s:8:"category";s:43:"sciencechannelinvolvedpainsensationsuppress";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://genesisblocknews.com/?p=86047";s:11:"description";s:929:"Journal Reference: Jiangqu Liu, Weiwei Liu, Dhananjay Thakur, John Mack, Aidin Spina, Craig Montell. Alleviation of thermal nociception depends on heat-sensitive neurons and a TRP channel in the brain. Current Biology, 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.055 Researchers at UC Santa Barbara identified the pathway in fruit flies that reduces the sensation of pain from heat. Remarkably, just ... Read more
The post A channel involved in pain sensation can also suppress it first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:7086:"Journal Reference:
Researchers at UC Santa Barbara identified the pathway in fruit flies that reduces the sensation of pain from heat. Remarkably, just a single neuron on each side of the animal’s brain controls the response. What’s more, the molecule responsible for suppressing this sensation in adult flies has the opposite role in fly larvae. The surprising results appear in Current Biology.
The brain of a fruit fly has about a million-fold fewer neurons than our own. “Yet we didn’t anticipate that a single pair of neurons would have such an important role in pain suppression,” said senior author Craig Montell, Duggan professor and distinguished professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology.
“We call them ‘Epione,’ or Epi neurons, for the Greek goddess of soothing pain,” said first author Jiangqu Liu, a postdoctoral fellow in the Montell lab.
The authors are quick to clarify a point. “Pain is an interpretation,” Montell said. “A hardy smack on the back from a teammate after a win might feel great, but not from a bully on the playground. Since we can’t ask fruit flies about their interpretation of hot temperatures, a more accurate term is ‘nociception,’ which refers to how the body senses a potentially harmful stimulus, and then relays the information to induce an avoidance response.”
Humans are well known to be able to suppress pain under some situations. However, scientists don’t know much about suppression of nociception in flies, which are workhorses for sensory research. Montell and his lab wanted to determine if flies have such a system, and if so, locate the neurons involved and understand the mechanism.
The researchers focused on nociception in response to heat. They first needed a way to measure how the animals responded to hot temperatures. They placed flies on a hot plate and measured the number that jumped off within 10 seconds. Nearly all the flies jumped between 38° and 44° Celsius (roughly 100° to 111° Fahrenheit). Now the team set out to see if they could identify neurons that suppress their aversion to high temperatures, and reduce the jump response.
Locating the neurons
The authors wondered whether the neurons involved in suppressing thermal pain might express a particular neuropeptide. Neuropeptides are a bit like neurotransmitters, except that neurotransmitters mediate between adjacent neurons, while neuropeptides can have a more systemic effect. As a result they impact many behaviors. Different sets of neurons tend to express different neuropeptides. Liu, Montell and their co-authors used the DNA segments that control the expression of 35 different neuropeptide genes to drive expression of a protein that activates neurons.
Out of the 35 different groups of neurons, one clearly reduced the flies’ tendency to jump from the hot plate. These neurons produce the neuropeptide AstC, which is related to a mammalian compound that contributes to pain suppression in humans.
The researchers then expressed the gene coding for a light-sensitive channel in this group of neurons. This enabled them to activate the neurons using light. As expected, stimulating these neurons reduced the flies’ tendency to jump off the hot plate.
The authors then used the section of DNA that controls expression of AstC to instead control a gene for green fluorescent protein. Now they could finally see which neurons were activating. That’s when they discovered that triggering just a single neuron on each side of the brain (the Epi neurons) suppressed the nociceptive response.
Finding the trigger
Once the team found the neurons responsible for suppressing thermal pain, they were curious whether Epi neurons were thermosensitive themselves, or were receiving a signal from some other neurons.
The researchers expressed a gene coding for a protein that would fluoresce when calcium ions flooded into Epi neurons. They found that calcium levels increased as the temperature rose, even when they used a chemical to block communication between neurons. These findings indicated that the Epi neurons were directly sensing the high temperature.
The researchers determined that a specific ion channel in the cell membrane of Epi neurons was responsible for detecting the heat. This channel, called “Painless,” is a member of the TRP family of channels. TRP channels have broad roles in sensation, including temperature sensation. In fact, Painless is also required for thermal nociception in fly larvae. “So Painless can have opposite roles in the response to noxious heat,” Montell said. “In some neurons, the channel is required for the animal to escape from hot temperatures, while in Epi neurons, Painless is needed to suppress nociception. That is an interesting and surprising twist.”
“This is the first time, to my knowledge, that a TRP channel is found to sense noxious heat not to induce a nociceptive response, but to suppress it,” Montell added.
To recap: the authors found that there is a mechanism to suppress thermal nociception in flies, and they discovered that it is mediated by a single pair of neurons, called Epi neurons. They also found that Epi neurons respond directly to heat, and that this ability depends on a previously known TRP channel called Painless, which can actually trigger nociception in fly larvae. The team also found that heat activates Epi neurons directly, causing them to release the neuropeptide AstC. This compound then binds to the AstC-R1 receptor in other neurons that is related to mammalian opiod receptors.
The team plans to further investigate the pathways involved in this anti-nociception response. For instance, they hope to identify the neurons that function downstream of those that express AstC-R1. Their work raises the question as to whether a thermally-activated TRP channel might suppress nociception in mammals as well. If so, Montell suspects it would be found in our extremities rather than the brain, since mammals maintain a constant internal temperature, unlike fruit flies.
A channel involved in pain sensation can also suppress it
The post A channel involved in pain sensation can also suppress it first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";}s:7:"summary";s:929:"Journal Reference: Jiangqu Liu, Weiwei Liu, Dhananjay Thakur, John Mack, Aidin Spina, Craig Montell. Alleviation of thermal nociception depends on heat-sensitive neurons and a TRP channel in the brain. Current Biology, 2023; DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.04.055 Researchers at UC Santa Barbara identified the pathway in fruit flies that reduces the sensation of pain from heat. Remarkably, just ... Read more
The post A channel involved in pain sensation can also suppress it first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:12:"atom_content";s:7086:"Journal Reference:
Researchers at UC Santa Barbara identified the pathway in fruit flies that reduces the sensation of pain from heat. Remarkably, just a single neuron on each side of the animal’s brain controls the response. What’s more, the molecule responsible for suppressing this sensation in adult flies has the opposite role in fly larvae. The surprising results appear in Current Biology.
The brain of a fruit fly has about a million-fold fewer neurons than our own. “Yet we didn’t anticipate that a single pair of neurons would have such an important role in pain suppression,” said senior author Craig Montell, Duggan professor and distinguished professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology.
“We call them ‘Epione,’ or Epi neurons, for the Greek goddess of soothing pain,” said first author Jiangqu Liu, a postdoctoral fellow in the Montell lab.
The authors are quick to clarify a point. “Pain is an interpretation,” Montell said. “A hardy smack on the back from a teammate after a win might feel great, but not from a bully on the playground. Since we can’t ask fruit flies about their interpretation of hot temperatures, a more accurate term is ‘nociception,’ which refers to how the body senses a potentially harmful stimulus, and then relays the information to induce an avoidance response.”
Humans are well known to be able to suppress pain under some situations. However, scientists don’t know much about suppression of nociception in flies, which are workhorses for sensory research. Montell and his lab wanted to determine if flies have such a system, and if so, locate the neurons involved and understand the mechanism.
The researchers focused on nociception in response to heat. They first needed a way to measure how the animals responded to hot temperatures. They placed flies on a hot plate and measured the number that jumped off within 10 seconds. Nearly all the flies jumped between 38° and 44° Celsius (roughly 100° to 111° Fahrenheit). Now the team set out to see if they could identify neurons that suppress their aversion to high temperatures, and reduce the jump response.
Locating the neurons
The authors wondered whether the neurons involved in suppressing thermal pain might express a particular neuropeptide. Neuropeptides are a bit like neurotransmitters, except that neurotransmitters mediate between adjacent neurons, while neuropeptides can have a more systemic effect. As a result they impact many behaviors. Different sets of neurons tend to express different neuropeptides. Liu, Montell and their co-authors used the DNA segments that control the expression of 35 different neuropeptide genes to drive expression of a protein that activates neurons.
Out of the 35 different groups of neurons, one clearly reduced the flies’ tendency to jump from the hot plate. These neurons produce the neuropeptide AstC, which is related to a mammalian compound that contributes to pain suppression in humans.
The researchers then expressed the gene coding for a light-sensitive channel in this group of neurons. This enabled them to activate the neurons using light. As expected, stimulating these neurons reduced the flies’ tendency to jump off the hot plate.
The authors then used the section of DNA that controls expression of AstC to instead control a gene for green fluorescent protein. Now they could finally see which neurons were activating. That’s when they discovered that triggering just a single neuron on each side of the brain (the Epi neurons) suppressed the nociceptive response.
Finding the trigger
Once the team found the neurons responsible for suppressing thermal pain, they were curious whether Epi neurons were thermosensitive themselves, or were receiving a signal from some other neurons.
The researchers expressed a gene coding for a protein that would fluoresce when calcium ions flooded into Epi neurons. They found that calcium levels increased as the temperature rose, even when they used a chemical to block communication between neurons. These findings indicated that the Epi neurons were directly sensing the high temperature.
The researchers determined that a specific ion channel in the cell membrane of Epi neurons was responsible for detecting the heat. This channel, called “Painless,” is a member of the TRP family of channels. TRP channels have broad roles in sensation, including temperature sensation. In fact, Painless is also required for thermal nociception in fly larvae. “So Painless can have opposite roles in the response to noxious heat,” Montell said. “In some neurons, the channel is required for the animal to escape from hot temperatures, while in Epi neurons, Painless is needed to suppress nociception. That is an interesting and surprising twist.”
“This is the first time, to my knowledge, that a TRP channel is found to sense noxious heat not to induce a nociceptive response, but to suppress it,” Montell added.
To recap: the authors found that there is a mechanism to suppress thermal nociception in flies, and they discovered that it is mediated by a single pair of neurons, called Epi neurons. They also found that Epi neurons respond directly to heat, and that this ability depends on a previously known TRP channel called Painless, which can actually trigger nociception in fly larvae. The team also found that heat activates Epi neurons directly, causing them to release the neuropeptide AstC. This compound then binds to the AstC-R1 receptor in other neurons that is related to mammalian opiod receptors.
The team plans to further investigate the pathways involved in this anti-nociception response. For instance, they hope to identify the neurons that function downstream of those that express AstC-R1. Their work raises the question as to whether a thermally-activated TRP channel might suppress nociception in mammals as well. If so, Montell suspects it would be found in our extremities rather than the brain, since mammals maintain a constant internal temperature, unlike fruit flies.
A channel involved in pain sensation can also suppress it
The post A channel involved in pain sensation can also suppress it first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:14:"date_timestamp";i:1684404754;}i:9;a:11:{s:5:"title";s:42:"Joro spiders aren’t scary: They’re shy";s:4:"link";s:65:"https://genesisblocknews.com/joro-spiders-arent-scary-theyre-shy/";s:2:"dc";a:1:{s:7:"creator";s:14:"Maureen Willis";}s:7:"pubdate";s:31:"Thu, 18 May 2023 09:06:47 +0000";s:8:"category";s:37:"sciencearentJoroscaryshySpidersTheyre";s:4:"guid";s:37:"https://genesisblocknews.com/?p=86045";s:11:"description";s:821:"Journal Reference: Andrew K. Davis, Amitesh V. Anerao. Startle Responses of Jorō Spiders (Trichonephila clavata) to Artificial Disturbance. Arthropoda, 2023; 1 (2): 60 DOI: 10.3390/arthropoda1020009 According to a new study from the University of Georgia, the Joro spider may be the shyest spider ever documented. “One of the ways that people think this spider could ... Read more
The post Joro spiders aren’t scary: They’re shy first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:7:"content";a:1:{s:7:"encoded";s:5379:"Journal Reference:
According to a new study from the University of Georgia, the Joro spider may be the shyest spider ever documented.
“One of the ways that people think this spider could be affecting other species is that it’s aggressive and out-competing all the other native spiders,” said Andy Davis, lead author of the study and a research scientist in UGA’s Odum School of Ecology. “So we wanted to get to know the personality of these spiders and see if they’re capable of being that aggressive.
“It turns out they’re not.”
The researchers compared more than 450 spiders’ responses to a brief and harmless disturbance across 10 different species.
While most spiders froze for less than a minute before resuming their normal activities, the Joro spiders remained motionless for more than an hour.
“They basically shut down and wait for the disturbance to go away,” Davis said. “Our paper shows that these spiders are really more afraid of you than the reverse.”
In fact, Joros are relatively harmless to people and pets. Joros won’t bite unless cornered. And even if you did manage to somehow annoy a Joro into biting you, its fangs likely wouldn’t be large enough to pierce your skin.
Most spiders begin moving quickly after stress, Joros remain immobile for 60+ minutes
To examine the spiders’ reaction to stress, the researchers used a turkey baster to gently blow two rapid puffs of air onto individual spiders. This minor disturbance causes the spiders to “freeze” for a period of time, going absolutely still.
The researchers tested more than 30 garden spiders, banded garden spiders and marbled orb weavers. They also analyzed similar data from previously published, peer-reviewed papers that assessed the response of 389 more spiders, comprising five additional species.
All of those spiders began moving again after an average of about a minute and half of stillness.
The Joros, however, stayed frozen with no body or leg movement for over an hour in most cases.
The only other spider species that exhibited a similarly extended response was the Joro spider’s cousin, the golden silk spider. Known as Trichonephila clavipes, the golden silk spider and the Joro spider are from the same genus.
Joros may be invasive, but they’re not aggressive
Officially known as Trichonephila clavata, the East Asian Joro spider first arrived in Georgia around 2013. The species is native to Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China, and likely hitched a ride stateside on a shipping container.
The species has since rapidly spread across the state and much of the Southeast. Joro spiders easily number in the millions now. And there’s not much we can do to stop them from increasing their range.
Davis’ previous research even suggested the invasive arachnids could spread beyond their current habitats and through most of the Eastern Seaboard.
“Most people think ‘invasive’ and ‘aggressive’ are synonymous,” said Amitesh Anerao, co-author of the study and an undergraduate researcher at the university. “People were freaking out about the Joro spiders at first, but maybe this paper can help calm people down.”
Joro spiders built to withstand human activity
Joros are regularly spotted in areas native Georgia spiders don’t typically inhabit.
They build their golden webs between powerlines, on top of stoplights and even above the pumps at local gas stations — none of which are particularly peaceful spots.
The researchers believe the Joro spiders’ shyness may help them better endure the barrage of noise, vibrations and visual stimuli they consistently encounter in urban settings. Their prolonged freeze response to being startled could help conserve the Joro spiders’ energy.
If you’re wondering how something so mild-mannered could spread the way Joro spiders have, you aren’t the only one.
“One thing this paper tells me is that the Joros’ rapid spread must be because of their incredible reproductive potential,” Davis said. “They’re simply outbreeding everybody else. It’s not because they’re displacing native spiders or kicking them out of their own webs.”
Arachnophobes can take solace in the Joro spiders’ meek and gentle temperament. But the spiders are likely here to stay.
“They’re so good at living with humans,” Anerao said, “that they’re probably not going away anytime soon.”
Joro spiders aren’t scary: They’re shy
The post Joro spiders aren’t scary: They’re shy first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";}s:7:"summary";s:821:"Journal Reference: Andrew K. Davis, Amitesh V. Anerao. Startle Responses of Jorō Spiders (Trichonephila clavata) to Artificial Disturbance. Arthropoda, 2023; 1 (2): 60 DOI: 10.3390/arthropoda1020009 According to a new study from the University of Georgia, the Joro spider may be the shyest spider ever documented. “One of the ways that people think this spider could ... Read more
The post Joro spiders aren’t scary: They’re shy first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
";s:12:"atom_content";s:5379:"Journal Reference:
According to a new study from the University of Georgia, the Joro spider may be the shyest spider ever documented.
“One of the ways that people think this spider could be affecting other species is that it’s aggressive and out-competing all the other native spiders,” said Andy Davis, lead author of the study and a research scientist in UGA’s Odum School of Ecology. “So we wanted to get to know the personality of these spiders and see if they’re capable of being that aggressive.
“It turns out they’re not.”
The researchers compared more than 450 spiders’ responses to a brief and harmless disturbance across 10 different species.
While most spiders froze for less than a minute before resuming their normal activities, the Joro spiders remained motionless for more than an hour.
“They basically shut down and wait for the disturbance to go away,” Davis said. “Our paper shows that these spiders are really more afraid of you than the reverse.”
In fact, Joros are relatively harmless to people and pets. Joros won’t bite unless cornered. And even if you did manage to somehow annoy a Joro into biting you, its fangs likely wouldn’t be large enough to pierce your skin.
Most spiders begin moving quickly after stress, Joros remain immobile for 60+ minutes
To examine the spiders’ reaction to stress, the researchers used a turkey baster to gently blow two rapid puffs of air onto individual spiders. This minor disturbance causes the spiders to “freeze” for a period of time, going absolutely still.
The researchers tested more than 30 garden spiders, banded garden spiders and marbled orb weavers. They also analyzed similar data from previously published, peer-reviewed papers that assessed the response of 389 more spiders, comprising five additional species.
All of those spiders began moving again after an average of about a minute and half of stillness.
The Joros, however, stayed frozen with no body or leg movement for over an hour in most cases.
The only other spider species that exhibited a similarly extended response was the Joro spider’s cousin, the golden silk spider. Known as Trichonephila clavipes, the golden silk spider and the Joro spider are from the same genus.
Joros may be invasive, but they’re not aggressive
Officially known as Trichonephila clavata, the East Asian Joro spider first arrived in Georgia around 2013. The species is native to Japan, Korea, Taiwan and China, and likely hitched a ride stateside on a shipping container.
The species has since rapidly spread across the state and much of the Southeast. Joro spiders easily number in the millions now. And there’s not much we can do to stop them from increasing their range.
Davis’ previous research even suggested the invasive arachnids could spread beyond their current habitats and through most of the Eastern Seaboard.
“Most people think ‘invasive’ and ‘aggressive’ are synonymous,” said Amitesh Anerao, co-author of the study and an undergraduate researcher at the university. “People were freaking out about the Joro spiders at first, but maybe this paper can help calm people down.”
Joro spiders built to withstand human activity
Joros are regularly spotted in areas native Georgia spiders don’t typically inhabit.
They build their golden webs between powerlines, on top of stoplights and even above the pumps at local gas stations — none of which are particularly peaceful spots.
The researchers believe the Joro spiders’ shyness may help them better endure the barrage of noise, vibrations and visual stimuli they consistently encounter in urban settings. Their prolonged freeze response to being startled could help conserve the Joro spiders’ energy.
If you’re wondering how something so mild-mannered could spread the way Joro spiders have, you aren’t the only one.
“One thing this paper tells me is that the Joros’ rapid spread must be because of their incredible reproductive potential,” Davis said. “They’re simply outbreeding everybody else. It’s not because they’re displacing native spiders or kicking them out of their own webs.”
Arachnophobes can take solace in the Joro spiders’ meek and gentle temperament. But the spiders are likely here to stay.
“They’re so good at living with humans,” Anerao said, “that they’re probably not going away anytime soon.”
Joro spiders aren’t scary: They’re shy
The post Joro spiders aren’t scary: They’re shy first appeared on Genesisblocknews.
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