Human-made objects orbiting Earth that no longer serve a purpose are considered orbital debris. Such “space junk” includes mission-related and fragmentation debris, abandoned rocket stages, and nonfunctional spacecraft.

The threat of orbital debris is taken seriously by NASA as these objects can endanger spacecraft and jeopardize access to space. Furthermore, it can impede the development of a low-Earth orbit economy, including commercial participation. These new awards will fund research that supports NASA’s commitment to addressing the problem.

“Orbital debris is one of the great challenges of our era,” said Bhavya Lal. She is associate administrator for the Office of Technology, Policy, and Strategy (OTPS) at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “Maintaining our ability to use space is critical to our economy, our national security, and our nation’s science and technology enterprise. These awards will fund research to help us understand the dynamics of the orbital environment and show how we can develop policies to limit debris creation and mitigate the impact of existing debris.”

A panel of experts evaluated and selected the following three proposals:

• “Communication and Space Debris: Connecting with Public Knowledges and Identities,” submitted by Patrice Kohl, Sergio Alvarez, and Philip Metzger of the University of Central Florida.
• “An Integrated Assessment Model for Satellite Constellations and Orbital Debris,” submitted by Akhil Rao of Middlebury College, Daniel Kaffine of the University of Colorado-Boulder, and Brian Weeden of the Secure World Foundation.
• “Adaptive Space Governance and Decision-Support using Source-Sink Evolutionary Environmental Models,” submitted by Richard Linares and Danielle Wood of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Moriba Jah of the University of Texas-Austin; Privateer Space of Maui, Hawaii, and The Aerospace Corporation of El Segundo, California, will support verification and validation of the project’s modeling tool.

NASA’s OTPS will make the teams’ results publicly available on the agency’s website. Selected teams also can work with the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development as part of an international call for research proposals focused on orbital debris and space sustainability.

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As the sun began to set on Delhi, 45-year-old Rani hiked up her salwar pants, squatted next to the iron pan just outside her home, and lit a match. The plastic grocery bags were the first items to catch fire. Soon the cow-dung cakes ignited, their chocolate-brown edges glowing in the dusk. Rani coughed as smoke rose from the pan.

All around, Rani’s neighbors performed a similar drill. Some substituted egg trays for cow dung, or omitted the plastic bags, but no matter the kindling, the goal was the same: to repel mosquitoes by means of smoke and other toxic fumes. Indians have long employed this do-it-yourself approach to insect control, but over the past couple of years, as the city’s mosquito population has exploded, the burning has become a nightly ritual in low-income housing developments across this city of more than 30 million people.

According to a recent survey conducted by the South Delhi Municipal Corporation, Delhi’s mosquito density was almost nine times higher than normal this past March and April, a 50 percent increase over the previous year. Yet local authorities did not mount a vigorous response because the insects belonged to the Culex genus, which is not known to transmit the well-known diseases—malaria, dengue, chikungunya—that are at the forefront of India’s public health initiatives.

When it comes to malaria, in particular, India has achieved success in reducing disease. But even as malaria deaths are on the decline, the sheer number of mosquitoes, particularly in urban areas, has shot up. This is partly due to climate change, said Ramesh C Dhiman, an expert in malaria epidemiology who spent three decades as a government researcher at the Indian Council of Medical Research before becoming an independent consultant. Mosquito populations are on the rise in other countries, too, fueled not just by climate change, but by increased urbanization and the decay of residual DDT in the environment.

A spokesperson for Delhi’s municipal government, Amit Kumar, told Undark that the local government has taken a number of actions to combat the problem, including spraying insecticides on public drains and other water bodies, which serve as breeding grounds for mosquitoes.

These measures were temporary and did not address the severity of the issue, said a Delhi public health official who asked not to be named for fear of retribution from his employer.

The mosquitoes in Rani’s neighborhood are so insufferable that children and adults struggle to sleep through the night. While it’s not yet much of a problem in Delhi, residents could also face some risk of diseases that are transmitted by Culex mosquitoes, including West Nile and Japanese encephalitis. According to experts, this risk may increase as mosquitoes evolve in response to changing climatic conditions. For the moment, low-cost do-it-yourself remedies like smoke and insecticides offer some measure of relief. But researchers note that these approaches pose a risk to human health and fail to address the underlying problems that allowed the mosquitoes to flourish in the first place.

Delhi's surge of Culex mosquitoes comes at a time when public health officials are declaring notable victories against other kinds of mosquitoes, including the Anopheles genus that transmits malaria. While those gains have saved lives, the situation, mosquito experts say, is complicated: The very changes that have reduced Anopheles’ numbers may be allowing other species to thrive. And amid a changing climate, mosquitoes have found new niches to exploit, especially in urban areas.

Over the past few decades, malaria’s global footprints have diminished, thanks in part to interventions such as mosquito nets and insecticides used to target Anopheles. In India, such interventions have been implemented with the help of a government agency called the National Center for Vector Borne Diseases Control. The program’s efforts helped dramatically reduce malaria deaths in recent years.

A retired government official who worked in northeast India at the ICMR for nearly three decades, Vas Dev, said deforestation likely contributed to declining malaria rates in India, but it came at a cost. Increased urbanization creates more habitat for mosquitoes that prefer urban and suburban landscapes, including Culex and Aedes, the mosquito genus that transmits dengue, Zika, and chikungunya. Since 1970, dengue has spread dramatically in poor countries, killing thousands of people each year, mostly children.

Scientists are working to better understand how changing landscapes and climate will affect mosquito populations in the future. In Delhi, climate change has already extended the breeding season by bringing higher temperatures to months that were formerly too cool for reproduction. Untimely rains have also fueled the mosquito population by increasing humidity levels and contributing to standing water in the environment. As a result, said Dhiman, areas that might have once experienced a one-month mosquito season are now experiencing seasons that stretch for six to eight months.

The insects are known to adapt quickly to changes in their local environment. Anopheles mosquitoes provide an interesting example, said ‪Karthikeyan Chandrasegaran, a postdoctoral researcher at Virginia Tech who has expertise in evolutionary ecology and mosquito biology. The malaria-transmitting insect is known to bite between dusk and dawn, so public health organizations working in sub-Saharan Africa invested in bed nets for the local residents there. Initially, these interventions proved effective, but within less than a decade, cases spiked. It turned out the mosquitoes were feeding in the early morning—after people had gotten out of bed. Mosquitoes can also evolve resistance against commonly used insecticides.

City-dwellers are likely to experience the brunt of any problems, said Chandrasegaran. Poor waste management, lack of sanitation, and irrigation all create opportunities for the insects to thrive. Some cities, like Delhi, are also contending with water shortages, a situation that has led residents to hoard scarce supplies in buckets that can become breeding sites. These conditions are less acute in rural areas, which also harbor greater numbers of mosquito predators, including certain fish and frogs.

But rural areas have challenges, too, including limited health care infrastructure and poor awareness of vector-borne diseases. “So, you’ll have to probably tailor your solution differently to urban areas, tailor your solution differently to suburban areas, rural areas, forested areas,” said Chandrasegaran. “If you do not identify the pain points exactly, you are going to spend a lot of time and effort and money trying to implement one scheme across the entire country, which is going to waste a lot of things.”

Rani, who like many Indians goes by one name, sat outside with her children on a high cot not far from the iron pan and its steady smoke. They chatted about the day, and one of Rani’s daughters, Meenakshi, mentioned how her teacher had asked the class to participate in a mindfulness activity. The children were to keep their eyes closed and their bodies calm. Unlike her wiggly classmates, Meenakshi excelled at the task. In reality, she told her mother, she had fallen asleep.

Rani took this news in stride. The previous night, the mosquitoes made it hard to sleep, she explained. Many children skipped school because they were exhausted in the morning—a common occurrence that keeps low-income children out of classrooms. Adults struggle to sleep during mosquito season, too. One woman told Undark that her blood pressure rises when the mosquitoes get really dense. Other residents reported sleeping on busses, rickshaws, and trains while commuting to and from work.

Some families leave their pans burning all night, but when Rani is ready for bed, she douses hers with water so she won’t feel suffocated by smoke as she tries to sleep. Rani and her children do use mosquito netting, but they rarely spend the whole night behind its protective shield. Sometimes the children need to get up to use the toilet or get a drink of water, she said, or they get too hot inside. And even a small opening in the netting allows the mosquitoes to enter.

Research indicates that mosquito nets can protect the individual user while also reducing disease transmission within the wider community. Despite this, many individuals who own nets do not use them consistently. A small study conducted in homes in Asia and Africa found that the nets decrease airflow, and researchers have hypothesized that this could explain the spotty uptake. In homes like Rani’s, which lack regular electricity for fans or air conditioning, the reduced airflow can make it even harder to sleep at night.

But the DIY remedies that have become popular across various parts of India bring their own set of problems. Palak Balyan, a scientist in New Delhi who works for the U.S.-based nonprofit Health Effects Institute, said that burning of any kind of material produces the tiny particles known as PM2.5, a type of air pollution that is responsible for millions of premature deaths each year. Research suggests that emissions of PM2.5 have shortened the average Delhi resident’s lifespan by up to 10 years. While the biggest source of this pollution in Delhi is transportation, experts worry that DIY mosquito control is worsening the problem.

In addition to burning cow dung and plastic, Delhi residents also use coils, liquids, and incense sticks to repel insects with odor and fumes. The repellants’ effects on human health have not been well-documented, but the available research suggests that caution may be warranted. One study found that burning a coil releases the same amount of PM2.5 as burning 75 to 137 cigarettes. Another study found heavy metals like zinc, cadmium, and lead in popular coil brands. “Carcinogenic risk is there for 350 people per million population,” said the study’s lead author, S.N. Tripathy, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur.

On its website, the National Center for Vector Borne Diseases Control lists the use of these mosquito repellents as one of several strategies for vector control. But the Delhi public health official characterized the repellants as a short-term strategy of dubious effectiveness. In India, they are part of a 50-billion-rupee business—over half a billion dollars—but they are not a solution. For one thing, the repellants don’t even kill the mosquitoes; they merely prompt the insects to go elsewhere. The mosquitoes, the official said, “just move from one place to another, but they do not die.”

The Delhi public health official and other experts interviewed by Undark said they were unaware of the extent of the outdoor burning in Rani’s neighborhood and beyond. The city’s low-income neighborhoods tend to be isolated, overlooked by the city, and looked down upon by other Delhi residents.

Several researchers said that municipalities need to step up and address mosquitoes so the burden doesn’t fall on individuals. This means better insect surveillance, as well as improvements to sanitation and drainage systems. In Rani’s neighborhood, for example, the homes do not have indoor plumbing, so wastewater flows directly into the streets, creating a breeding habitat for mosquitoes. The city’s biggest drain, which carries sewage into a local river, passes about 10 feet from Rani’s one-room house.

Housing quality is important, too. Mosquitoes love the dark, humid, and unventilated spaces so often inhabited by India’s poorest residents, said Dhiman. Rani’s house has just one window, often open so that air can circulate. Even so, moisture lingers on the mud floors and cement walls. A small light bulb hangs from a wire in the ceiling, providing minimal lighting.

Outside that house, as the evening wears on, Meenakshi turns to her homework. She’s still sitting on the cot, her hands kept busy, turning book pages, fanning the air to scatter smoke. She swats mosquitoes, scratches the bites. Rani is thinking of buying a topical repellant, but the ointment is expensive, and who knows if it will work? Perhaps tonight Rani will leave the pan burning, just to see if it helps her fall asleep.

Why India's Capital Is Teeming With Mosquitoes

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The launch of 'LVM3 - M2/OneWeb India-1 Mission' is scheduled at 12:07am IST on October 23 (midnight of October 22), the Bengaluru-headquartered Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said.

"Cryo stage, equipment bay (EB) assembly completed. Satellites are encapsulated and assembled in the vehicle. Final vehicle checks are in progress," it said.

Earlier this month, ISRO said that NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), a central public sector enterprise (CPSE) under the Department of Space and the commercial arm of the space agency, had signed two launch service contracts with the UK-based Network Access Associates Limited (OneWeb) for launching OneWeb LEO (low earth orbit) broadband communication satellites on-board ISRO's LVM3.

"It is the first LVM3-dedicated commercial launch on demand through NSIL," ISRO had said.

"This contract with M/s OneWeb is a historic milestone for NSIL and ISRO, as LVM3, is making its entry into the global commercial launch service market," it had said.

The newest rocket is capable of launching a four-tonne class of satellites into a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO).

LVM3 is a three-stage vehicle with two solid motor strap-ons, a liquid propellant core stage and a cryogenic stage.

India's Bharti Enterprises is a major investor and shareholder in OneWeb.

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The US-based satellite internet company is known to be in talks with the Indian regulatory authorities for application of a license to offer satellite communication services in the country.

This comes after the Elon Musk-led Starlink had received backlash from the Indian telecom regulator, Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) earlier this year, for conducting operations in the country without having generated a proper license.

It must be noted that the satcom company has begun conversation with Indian authorities to issue a proper license to begin spreading its reach to the Indian markets.

SpaceX-Owned Starlink Looks Out for Indian Licence

According to Reuters data, the SpaceX-led satellite internet service provider Starlink has begun conversations with the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for the application of a licence which would allow the company to offer satellite-based communication services in the country.

This makes Elon Musk’s SpaceX the third company to apply for a satellite internet services launching permit in India, after OneWeb backed by the Bharti Group and the satellite unit of Reliance Jio.

As per the report, SpaceX will seek statutory approvals from the Indian government for landing rights and market access and will look out for approvals to set up local gateways, from the DoT.

Companies (satellite services providers) are required to get a Global Mobile Personal Communication by Satellite or GMPCS license from the government, and according to sources privy of the matter, Starlink is likely to apply for this license within a month.

Even though DoT has the authority to grant SpaceX the required license, it is expected that spectrum allocation of the same shall only be done after the regulatory body TRAI and the government decide upon the need for airwaves to be auctioned or allocated administratively.

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A year ago, Praveen Mishra, the co-founder of Tohands, thought making a ‘smart’ calculator would be a stupid idea and nobody would want it.

But when he saw a woman running a small store in Sarjapura, Bengaluru, struggling to keep track of all the transactions, Mishra realised the importance of a ‘smart’ calculator that also records the data.

“When I met the lady, I found that she used to calculate the final amount on the calculator and write it on the paper and then at the end of the day she will again calculate the final amount using a calculator,” Mishra told indianexpress.com in a video interview.

“Calculators have a basic use case but we can do a lot of things on top of the calculation part, which is where we think the smart calculator will be a really good tool for the shopkeepers,” said Mishra explaining the idea behind turning a humble calculator into ‘connected’ one.

Mishra, who is from Pratapgarh, Uttar Pradesh, started Tohands in 2017 along with Satyam Sahu and Shanmuga Vadival. All three co-founders handle different domains of the business, with Mishra looking at the product side of things, Sahu taking care of the app and software and Vadival in charge of hardware.

The ‘Made-in-India’ smart calculator supports Wi-Fi and a companion mobile app. (Image credit: Praveen Mishra)

Backbone of small businesses

Mishra observed that small business owners are neither comfortable using the digital khata cash book mobile apps nor do they have the resources to invest in expensive billing machines. What they prefer is a simple calculator to perform the regular computations that are involved in everyday life. “The backbone of small businesses in India is still a calculator, whether you go from a jewellery store to a Kirana store,” he said.

This was when Mishra, 21, decided to reimagine the calculator but the challenge was how to make it better. After all, calculators have already proven to be devices that are a fast and convenient way to do calculations in minutes, all at the push of a few buttons.

The first version of the ‘smart’ calculator Mishra developed was a Raspberry Pi-powered prototype of a device, featuring a keyboard and two buttons—one for credit and another for debit. Mishra then went to a few shopkeepers and showed the prototype device to gauge their interest in the smart calculator. Initially, they managed to take seven pre-orders of the device but Mishra and team soon started work on version two of the calculator.

The second version was a much more polished product and featured the calculation functionality as well as the credit and debit feature but the screen was small and the device used a membrane keyboard. It was after only the startup got selected at T-hub, an incubation centre for IT startups at Raidurgam in Hyderabad, Mishra and team got motivated to take another shot at hardware and level up the design to make a smart calculator a reality.  The third version of the smart calculator, which is now available for pre-order on the company’s website, is more user-friendly and can do a lot more than the first and second versions combined.

Mishra is selling the calculator for Rs 3000.

The second version of the smart calculator was developed for testing purposes. (Image credit: Praveen Mishra)

Emphasis on small things

He said they applied the principle of MAYA (Most Advanced, Yet Acceptable). For instance, the button pattern on this smart calculator reminds you of what you see on a Casio or Citizen calculator. “If I replace your Casio calculator with my calculator, you should not feel the difference,” he said. However, there are subtle changes that are unique to this calculator. The memory buttons on the calculator have been made small to accommodate the cash-in and cash-out buttons, for which Mishra’s startup has applied for a patent.

“The size of the calculator is big and not a small one and it was by choice because we do not want our calculator to be thrown around in the shop. We wanted it to be a countertop calculator,” he said.

While designing the product, Mishra said a lot of emphasis was put on little things, like bigger buttons keeping the shopkeeper’s preference in mind. The cash-in and cash-out buttons, for instance, come in green and red so that a shopkeeper knows when they press the green button it means the sale has been completed and the red colour symbolises the expense.

The basic idea behind the smart calculator isn’t any different from a traditional calculator. Like a regular calculator, you can do basic calculations.

The difference comes when you can record those calculations and here’s where the ‘smart’ angle comes in. The connected calculator supports Wi-Fi and there is a mobile app that shows the transaction on your smartphone. There is a 16MB built-in memory, which can store 5 million transactions. The device comes with a 2400mAh rechargeable battery, a USB-C port for charging, and a dot-matrix display.

An early prototype of the smart calculator made by Mishra and team. (Image credit: Praveen Mishra)

Future plans

Although it’s a calculator, Mishra said it plans to roll out new features and improve capabilities via OTA updates. Think of how Apple or Google push out new software updates on their smartphones. In the future, the smart calculator will have the ability to record who you paid to or who you got paid from, essentially capturing the details of the customer. This will help the shopkeeper record the name and mobile numbers of their customers. Having access to data of their customers means the shopkeeper can record transactions and remember who has taken udhaar and when is the due date to repay the loan.

The smart calculator has been designed and manufactured in India. The current plan is to build 2000 units per month and gradually expand it to 1 lakh units by next year. To reach out to a broad base of consumers, especially in rural areas of India, Mishra is looking at three types of distribution channels that include reselling, partnering with companies like PayNearby and selling the device directly to consumers through its own website and listing on e-commerce platforms like Amazon. The startup has so far received Rs 30 lakh as investment from the T-hub Startup India Seed Fund and another Rs 20 lakh from angel investors. Mishra will use the money to manufacture the smart calculator.

Mishra (right) with a customer (left) holding the smart calculator at a shop.

(Image credit: Praveen Mishra/LinkedIn)

Mishra’s company is one of the few active startups that is making an attempt at hardware. Designing and building a hardware product has never been easy in India, which is the reason why a country with a population of over a billion people lacks specialised hardware startups.

“To be really honest, it’s very hard,” Mishra said, adding that in hardware, it requires an early adapter and in India, customers are not early adapters.” “They want finished products because our expectations are really high and when a local company doesn’t live up to their expectations, they prefer to get a good quality product from the outside market,” he added.

Part of the problem is the nonexistent ecosystem that supports hardware innovations, blamed Mishra. “It’s a chicken and egg problem. In the early stage, if you don’t get customers because the quality is not good and the investor won’t fund you since you don’t have the customer traction.”

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The crew launched for the space station in April this year, working in orbit for almost six months before handing over duties to the recently launched Crew-5. Following splashdown, the four were taken to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.

“Welcome home Crew-4! This international crew has spent nearly six months on the International Space Station conducting science for the benefit of all. Their work aboard the orbiting laboratory will help prepare future explorers for future space missions,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a statement. “Working and living on the space station is the opportunity of a lifetime, but it also requires these explorers to make sacrifices, especially time away from loved ones. Kjell, Bob, Jessica, and Samantha, thank you for your contributions over the past six months to science, innovation, and discovery!”

Some of the work done by the crew during their stay on the space station includes performing spacewalks to maintain and upgrade the station, as well as working on scientific research. These projectors included working on human health issues like researching improvements to astronaut diets and testing their hearing, as well as seeing the effects of microgravity conditions on aging, plus research into technologies such as working on a concrete-like material made from lunar soil and looking at how fuels burn in microgravity.

With the four Crew-4 members returned to Earth, the current crew on the ISS includes the four Crew-5 members, plus two Russian cosmonauts and one more NASA astronaut who arrived at the space station in a Soyuz MS-22 spacecraft last month.

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The issue began on Wednesday, October 12, when a problem with the satellite’s computer arose. “The spacecraft is in a stable configuration that suspends science observations. Preliminary investigation revealed that the TESS flight computer experienced a reset,” NASA wrote in an update at the time. “The TESS operations team reported that science data not yet sent to the ground appears to be safely stored on the satellite. Recovery procedures and investigations are underway to resume normal operations, which could take several days.”

Fortunately, the problem was quickly resolved. The NASA team overseeing TESS powered it back up and the spacecraft was able to orient itself correctly. The data it collected recently appears to be intact and will be downloaded soon, and the satellite should be able to resume its operations. However, the team does not yet know the underlying cause of the computer reset. NASA says that the team will continue investigating to try to identify what caused the problem.

TESS launched in 2018 and is orbiting around the Earth in a highly elliptical orbit which allows it to see the sky of both the northern and southern hemispheres. It uses the transit method to detect exoplanets. Because exoplanets are relatively small and very distant, they generally cannot be directly imaged. Instead, their presence is inferred by their effects on their host stars. A transit occurs when a planet passes in front of its star, which reduces that star’s apparent brightness for a short time. By detecting these transit events, TESS can identify new exoplanets.

TESS has discovered over 5,000 exoplanet candidates in its mission so far, lasting just over four years. Many of these are considered candidates rather than confirmed planets because multiple observations are required to confirm a potential planet’s status. Some of the planets or planetary candidates which TESS has discovered include a planet where a year lasts only eight hours, several potentially habitable worlds, and a strange planet that should have been engulfed by its star.

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The gamma-ray burst lasted hundreds of seconds and astrophysicist Brendan O'Connor told AFP that such occurrences are thought to be caused by dying massive stars, greater than 30 times bigger than our Sun.

The star explodes in a supernova, collapses into a black hole, then matter forms in a disk around the black hole, falls inside, and is spewed out in a jet of energy that travels at 99.99 per cent the speed of light.

The source of origin was from the constellation Sagitta and the flash of light travelled an estimated 1.9 billion years to reach Earth. This is actually less than the current distance of the starting point since the universe is expanding. It is like watching a 1.9 billion-year-old recording of those events unfold before us.

The photons released by the blast carried a record 18 teraelectronvolts of energy (18 with 12 zeros behind it), and impacted long wave radio communications in Earth's ionosphere.

"It's really breaking records, both in the amount of photons, and the energy of the photons that are reaching us," said O'Connor.

"Something this bright, this nearby, is really a once-in-a-century event," he added.

Gamma-ray research started in the 1960s and astronomers happened to stumble upon it by chance. US satellites were trying to detect whether the Soviet Union was detonating bombs in space, but in fact ended up finding such bursts originating from outside the Milky Way.

"Gamma-ray bursts in general release the same amount of energy that our Sun produces over its entire lifetime in the span of a few seconds, and this event is the brightest gamma ray burst," said O'Connor.

This gamma-ray burst, known as GRB 221009A, was first spotted by telescopes including NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, and Wind spacecraft on Sunday morning Eastern time.

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Hell Off-Earth

Astronomers using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope were surprised to discover barium in the atmospheres of two exo-planets, making it the heaviest element yet to be found in an exoplanet's atmosphere.

The planets, designated WASP-76b and WASP-121b, are what's known as Hot Jupiters — or ultra-hot, in this case — since they're gas giants comparable in size to the original Jupiter here in our solar system.

According to a paper about the work, published this week in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, equilibrium temperatures on both worlds rise to nearly 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The planets are close enough to their system's star that they only have an orbit of two days. Because of that proximity, it's so scaldingly hot that the researchers believe it rains liquid iron and precious gems on 76b, while the clouds are thought to be made of metal on 121b.

Double Take

The astronomers made the discovery almost by accident and had to double check that their findings were actually coming from the planets, according to a press release.

To detect and then confirm the presence of barium, the team used the Echelle Spectrograph for Rocky Exoplanets and Stable Spectroscopic Observations, or ESPRESSO, a so-called "planet hunter" instrument aboard the VLT.

Planetary Puzzle

As exotic as the exoplanets may be, it doesn't explain what an element as heavy as barium — which is 2.5 times heavier than iron — is doing in their atmospheres.

"Given the high gravity of the planets, we would expect heavy elements like barium to quickly fall into the lower layers of the atmosphere," said paper co-author Olivier Demangeon, a researcher from the University of Porto and the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences, in the release.

"At the moment, we are not sure what the mechanisms are," Demangeon conceded.

It's a stunning discovery, not to mention one that demonstrates how much more we have to learn about these fascinating alien worlds.

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[Help:  What is an exoplanet?: An exoplanet is any planet beyond our solar system. Most orbit other stars, but free-floating exoplanets, called rogue planets, orbit the galactic center and are untethered to any star.]

Earlier this month, Lauren Meehan arrived at the Rose Medical Center to deliver her two baby girls.

“Our twins decided to make an early and quick arrival in the middle of the night,” Meehan, who in addition to being a patient is also the Cath Lab Director at Rose Medical, said.

As many expecting parents do, Meehan and her partner arrived at the hospital with her soon-to-be newborns’ names picked out and ready to pen to their birth certificates.

Being prepared, especially when expecting, is a wise move, but what she couldn’t have prepared for was the undeniable parallels between the names she picked and the names of the two labor and delivery nurses who entered her room that day.

When the delivery team asked Meehan if she had picked her incoming twins’ names, the mood changed drastically.

“We told the room that we loved the names Emma and Julia. The room all broke out in laughter as the two nurses that would be taking care of my babies were both named Emma and Julia!” Meehan said. “At that moment, in all the chaos, we were able to stop for a second and enjoy that moment knowing that those names were meant to be.”

After the laughter calmed, Meehan’s second and third children, Emma and Julia, entered the world.

“I am so lucky to now be able to say that I have three Rose Babies!” she said.

Credit: HealthONEcares

“Those two nurses will always be special to us and the entire team that took care of us that day with hold a special place in our hearts. It will be a funny story to tell our girls!” Meehan guaranteed.

Now, it may not be a solid idea to go out looking for surprises when delivering twins, but it’s safe to say that this happy coincidence was a welcome one that will be cherished by the Meehans from here on out.

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How often did prehistoric human societies engage in violence? Investigating the presence of trauma in early human remains is one way to assess this. For instance, a recent analysis of pre-Columbian remains revealed that 21% of the men had signs of violence-related trauma. The majority of research of this kind has currently concentrated on skulls and other parts of the skeleton, but mummies, with their preserved soft tissues, could be a richer source of information.

In a recent study published in Frontiers in Medicine, researchers examined three pre-Columbian South American mummies that have been preserved in European museums since the late 19th century using 3D computed tomography (3D CT).

“Here we show lethal trauma in two out of three South American mummies that we investigated with 3D CT. The types of trauma we found would not have been detectable if these human remains had been mere skeletons,” said Dr. Andreas G Nerlich, a professor at the Department of Pathology of Munich Clinic Bogenhausen in Germany, the study’s corresponding author.

3D CT scan of the skull of the Délémont male mummy. (a-d): Features of perimortem skull trauma to the left side of the skull with a large perforating lesion at the left temporal region (arrow) and a fracture running into the skull. (d) shows the zygoma’s fracture of the left side (arrows). Credit: A-M Begerock, R Loynes, OK Peschel, J Verano, R Bianucci, I Martinez Armijo, M González, AG Nerlich

 

Nerlich and colleagues examined a male mummy at the Philipps University Marburg’s “Museum Anatomicum,” as well as a female and a male mummy at the Delémont Art and History Museum in Switzerland. Mummies may form naturally in dry environments, such as deserts, when a decaying body’s fluids are absorbed quicker than decomposition can occur. These circumstances are common in the southern regions of South America.

Died between 740 and 1120 years ago

The Marburg mummy belonged to the Arica civilization in today’s northern Chile, and based on the burial goods discovered with him, he likely resided in a fishing community. He was buried squatting, with well-preserved but misaligned teeth and some abrasions, as is typical of pre-Columbian individuals who ate maize as a staple food. Scars from past severe tuberculosis were observed in his lungs. The investigators estimated his age to be between 20 and 25 years old and 1.72 meters tall based on the features of the bones. According to radiocarbon dating, he died between 996 and 1147 CE.

The “Delémont man” (right) and the “Delémont woman” (left) – overview of the two mummies in their repository case. Credit: A-M Begerock, R Loynes, OK Peschel, J Verano, R Bianucci, I Martinez Armijo, M González, AG Nerlich

 

The Delémont mummies probably came from the region of Arequipa in today’s southwestern Peru, based on the ceramics among the grave goods. Both were buried lying face up, which is unusual for mummies from the highlands of South America.

Radiocarbon data showed that the man died between 902 and 994 CE, and the woman between 1224 and 1282 CE. They wore textiles woven from cotton and hairs of llamas or alpacas as well as vizcachas, rodents related to chinchillas. The state of the aorta and large arteries showed that the man suffered from calcifying arteriosclerosis in life.

Two murder victims

The results show that both male mummies had died on the spot from extreme intentional violence. The authors reconstructed that the Marburg mummy had died because either “one assaulter hit the victim with full force on the head and [a] second assaulter stab[bed] the victim (who still was standing or kneeing) in the back. Alternatively, the same or another assaulter standing on the right side of the victim struck the head and then turned to the back of the victim and stabbed him.”

Similarly, the male mummy from Delémont showed “massive trauma against the cervical spine which represents most likely the cause of death. The significant dislocation of the two cervical vertebral bodies itself is lethal and may have led to immediate death.”

Only the female mummy had died of natural causes. She also showed extensive damage to the skeleton, but this occurred after death, probably during burial and not on purpose.

Nerlich said: “The availability of modern CT scans with the opportunity for 3D reconstructions offers unique insight into bodies that would otherwise not have been detected. Previous studies would have either destroyed the mummy, while X-rays or older CT scans without three-dimensional reconstruction functions could not have detected the diagnostic key features we found here.”

“Importantly, the study of human mummified material can reveal a much higher rate of trauma, especially intentional trauma, than the study of skeletons. There are dozens of South American mummies which might profit from a similar investigation as done here we did here.”

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Researchers make cyborg cockroaches that carry their own power packs

According to a recent study done by experts at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, the way a tiny marine invertebrate differentiates its own cells from competitors has striking similarities to the human immune system.

The research, which was recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, suggests that the building blocks of our immune system evolved much earlier than previously believed. This new information may help us better understand transplant rejection and, potentially help develop new immunotherapies.

“For decades, researchers have wondered whether self-recognition in a marine creature called Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus was akin to the processes that control whether a piece of skin can be successfully grafted from one person to another,” said senior author Matthew Nictora, Ph.D., assistant professor of surgery and immunology at the Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute.

“Our study shows for the first time that a special group of proteins called the immunoglobulin superfamily— which are important for adaptive immunity in mammals and other vertebrates — are found in such a distantly- related animal.”

When incompatible Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus colonies identify each other as non-self via Alr genes, they fight. As a result, the colony on the left started to grow over the colony on the right. Credit: Huene, A. L. et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022

 

Sea anemones, corals, and jellyfish are all members of the same group as Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus. The animals, which have tube-like bodies and tentacles for catching prey, resemble miniature versions of wacky inflatable tube men dancing outside a car dealership. They grow in colonies and cover hermit crab shells like moss on a rock.

“As colonies grow and compete for space on crab shells, they often bump into each other,” explained Nicotra, who is also associate director of the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine in Pitt’s School of Medicine. “If two colonies recognize each other as self, they fuse together. But if they identify each other as non-self, the colonies fight by releasing harpoon-like structures from special cells.”

Matthew Nictora, Ph.D., assistant professor of surgery and immunology at the University of Pittsburgh Thomas E. Starzl Transplantation Institute and associate director of the Center for Evolutionary Biology and Medicine. Credit: Matthew Nicotra

 

Nicotra and his colleagues had previously identified two genes, Alr1 and Alr2, that were involved in Hydractinia’s fuse-or-fight system, but they hypothesized that there was more to the story.

“If you imagine that the genome of the animal is spread out in front of us, we had a flashlight on these two little points, but we didn’t know what else was there,” said Nicotra. “Now we’ve been able to sequence the whole genome and illuminate the whole region around these genes. It turns out that Alr1 and Alr2 are part of a huge family of genes.”

In the new study, the researchers identified and sequenced 41 Alr genes, which form a complex that likely controls self- versus non-self-recognition in Hydractinia.

Next, the team wanted to see how the proteins that Alr genes encode compared to those found in vertebrates. Until recently, it was nearly impossible to accurately predict the 3D structure of proteins based on a gene’s sequence, but in 2021, the release of a tool called AlphaFold changed that.

When compatible Hydractinia symbiolongicarpus colonies recognize each other as “self,” via Alr genes, they fuse together. Credit: Huene, A. L. et al., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2022

 

Using this tool, the researchers compared the structure of Alr proteins to immunoglobulin superfamily (IgSF) proteins, an important group that includes antibodies and receptors on B and T cells of the immune system. IgSF proteins have three characteristic regions, or domains, including the V-set domain.

“The ‘V’ stands for variable,” said Nicotra. “When a B or T cell becomes specialized to fight a particular pathogen, V-set domains are rearranged to make a variable sequence, which the immune system uses to recognize specific pathogens or cells.”

Nicotra was surprised to find that the domains in Alr proteins had 3D structures remarkably similar to V-set domains, even though they lacked telltale features usually found in IgSF proteins.

“Unmistakably, these are V-set domains,” he explained. “They’re just very, very strange.”

Until now, it was thought that V-set domains had arisen in the branch of the animal kingdom known as Bilateria. This group originated about 540 million years ago and includes most familiar animals, including mammals, insects, fish, mollusks and all others with right and left sides.

The finding of V-set domains in Hydractinia — which is part of a group that appeared earlier in the evolution of animals — suggests that V-set domains arose further back in the evolutionary tree than previously thought.

Several Alr proteins also had signatures associated with immune signaling in other animals, another clue that this protein complex is involved in self-recognition.

“We know lots about the immune systems of mammals and other vertebrates, but we’ve only scratched the surface of immunity in invertebrates,” said Nicotra. “We think that a better understanding of immune signaling in organisms like Hydractinia could ultimately point to alternative ways to manipulate those signaling pathways in patients with transplanted organs.”

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Rocket Report: Amazing view of Falcon 9 landing, spaceport suit Down Under

According to a study of over 200,000 people, intentionally losing weight can bring long-term health benefits for individuals with obesity regardless of the approach or strategy used. Those who dropped more than 4.5kg (10 pounds) gained less weight long-term and had a reduced risk of type 2 diabetes than those who did not lose weight. However, lean people did not benefit, with weight loss attempts linked to longer-term weight gain and greater risks of type 2 diabetes. The study was recently published in the journal PLOS Medicine.

Obesity may increase the risk of diseases such as type 2 diabetes. Although long-term weight change and the likelihood of acquiring type 2 diabetes are not fully understood, controlling weight may be a useful strategy for preventing and managing obesity and associated disorders.

Qi Sun and colleagues from the TH Chan Harvard School of Public Health in the United States analyzed healthy individuals from three prospective cohort studies conducted between 1988 and 2017. They ranged in age from 24 to 78, with 11.6% and 14.2% of the cohorts’ members being male. They classified weight reduction techniques that resulted in a loss of more than 4.5 kg into seven groups: low-calorie diet, exercise, low-calorie diet + exercise, fasting, commercial weight loss program, diet pills, and a combination of fasting, commercial, and diet pills (FCP).

Exercise was most effective for long-term weight control and prevention in individuals with obesity and associated with the least weight gain after four years — 4.2% overall average less weight than at the start in individuals with obesity, 2.5% weight loss in overweight, and 0.4% in lean people. This was inverted for FCP, which saw individuals with obesity sustaining 0.3% weight loss, overweight people sustaining 2% more weight gain, and lean individuals with 3.7% more weight gain.

24 years later, the risk of diabetes was reduced for individuals with obesity irrespective of weight loss strategy – ranging from a 21% reduction for exercise to a 13% reduction for diet pills. For overweight individuals, the researchers saw a range of 9% reduction in type 2 diabetes risk for exercise to an increase of 42% risk for those who took pills, and in lean individuals, all weight loss was associated with an increased risk of type 2 diabetes — ranging from a 9% increase for exercise and a 54% increase for pills or FCP.

The authors conclude that while weight loss can be beneficial for those who are overweight and obese, weight loss strategies do not bring the same gains for lean individuals and weight loss strategies should be used only by those who medically need them.

“We were a bit surprised when we first saw the positive associations of weight loss attempts with faster weight gain and higher type 2 diabetes risk among lean individuals,” Sun adds. “However, we now know that such observations are supported by biology that unfortunately entails adverse health outcomes when lean individuals try to lose weight intentionally. The good news is that individuals with obesity will clearly benefit from losing a few pounds and the health benefits last even when the weight loss is temporary.”

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BA.5 is finally fading—sublineages BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 rise from variant stew

Children have a secret power that allows them to escape a “learning trap” that adults might often fall into: they simply cannot focus their attention.

Recent research employed eye-tracking technology to demonstrate that children’s attention roamed all over a computer screen while attempting to perform a task – even though adults immediately realized they could finish the assignment more efficiently by concentrating on certain things.

But having a wandering eye helped 4- and 5-year-olds when the task suddenly shifted – and they noticed critical details on the screen that adults were missing.

“The ability of adults to focus their attention is usually very helpful in everyday life,” said Vladimir Sloutsky, co-author of the study and professor of psychology at The Ohio State University.

“But sometimes it helps to see the world more as a kid and to notice things that may not seem that important or relevant at the time.”

Sloutsky collaborated on the study alongside Nathaniel Blanco, a postdoctoral researcher, and Brandon Turner, a professor of psychology at Ohio State. The study was recently published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

The research involved 30 4- and 5-year-old children and 38 adults who were equipped with eye trackers that could indicate where they gazed on a computer screen.

They were then presented with colorful images of creatures with seven identifiable traits, including a head, tail, and antennae. The participants were informed that there were two kinds of creatures called Flurps and Jalets, and they had to figure out which one was which.

One feature was always different on the two types of creatures – for example, the Jalets may have a blue tail and the Flurps an orange tail. In addition, the children and adults were told that most (but not all) of the Flurps had a certain type of feature, such as pink antennae.

One of the features was never mentioned in the instructions and it did not differ between the types of creatures. This was what the researchers called the “irrelevant feature.”

After training, participants were shown a series of images of the creatures on the computer screen and were told to indicate which type of creature each one was.

During the first part of the experiment, adults quickly learned which feature always determined whether the creature was a Flurp or Jalet, and the eye-tracker showed that they then concentrated nearly all of their attention on that feature.

Children were slower to learn which feature was most important in determining which creature was which – and the eye-tracker showed they continued to look at all the features of the two creatures, even the ones that were not relevant.

“The kids were not as efficient as adults at learning quickly,” Sloutsky said. “They kept looking around even when they didn’t need to.”

But halfway through the experiment, the researchers made an unannounced switch: The irrelevant feature – the body part that previously had no bearing on what type of creature it was – became the feature that would determine whether it was a Flurp or a Jalet. This feature, which had been the same for both creatures before the switch, was now different for each.

After the switch, the adults were more oblivious to the importance of the new feature than the children were. Instead, they were relying on the previously learned less-important features.

Children, on the other hand, had been paying attention to everything, so they noticed more swiftly that the rules had changed.

“The adults were suffering from learned inattention,” Sloutsky said. “They weren’t paying attention to features that weren’t important during the first part of the experiment, so they missed when those features did become important.”

Sloutsky said the brains of 4- and 5-year-olds aren’t mature enough to focus attention in the way adults do. That fact may help them learn more as they explore the world.

And adults certainly have the ability to distribute their attention broadly as the children did in this study – but they often choose selective attention because it is helpful in achieving efficiency, he said.

The lesson for adults, though, is to realize that selective attention, while increasing the efficiency of learning and performance, can also lead to a learning trap in some situations, Sloutsky said.

“When you know something really well or a solution to a problem seems obvious, it may help to broaden your attention, to look for clues that may not seem relevant at first – to think like a kid again.”

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Published today (October 14) in the journal Science Advances, the study is from North Carolina State University.

The scientists bioprinted cells from the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana and from soybeans. They wanted to study whether plant cells would live after being bioprinted – and for how long. Moreover, they also wanted to examine how they acquire and change their identity and function.

“A plant root has a lot of different cell types with specialized functions,” said Lisa Van den Broeck, an NC State postdoctoral researcher who is the first author of a paper describing the work. “There are also different sets of genes being expressed; some are cell-specific. We wanted to know what happens after you bioprint live cells and place them into an environment that you design: Are they alive and doing what they should be doing?”

The process of 3D bioprinting plant cells is mechanically similar to printing ink or plastics, with a few necessary tweaks.

Plant cells are bioprinted by a 3D printer that has a few necessary tweaks. Credit: Lisa Van den Broeck, NC State University

 

“Instead of 3D printing ink or plastic, we use ‘bioink,’ or living plant cells,” Van den Broeck said. “The mechanics are the same in both processes with a few notable differences for plant cells: an ultraviolet filter used to keep the environment sterile and multiple print heads – rather than just one – to print different bioinks simultaneously.”

Live plant cells without cell walls, or protoplasts, were bioprinted along with nutrients, growth hormones and a thickening agent called agarose – a seaweed-based compound. Agarose helps provide cells strength and scaffolding, similar to mortar that supports bricks in the wall of a building.

“We found that it is critical to use proper scaffolding,” said Ross Sozzani, professor of plant and microbial biology at NC State and a co-corresponding author of the paper. “When you print the bioink, you need it to be liquid, but when it comes out, it needs to be solid. Mimicking the natural environment helps keep cellular signals and cues occurring as they would in soil.”

The research showed that more than half of the 3D bioprinted cells were viable and divided over time to form microcalli, or small colonies of cells.

“We expected good viability on the day the cells were bioprinted, but we had never maintained cells past a few hours after bioprinting, so we had no idea what would happen days later,” Van den Broeck said. “Similar viability ranges are shown after manually pipetting cells, so the 3D printing process doesn’t seem to do anything harmful to cells.”

“This is a manually difficult process, and 3D bioprinting controls the pressure of the droplets and the speed at which the droplets are printed,” Sozzani said. “Bioprinting provides better opportunity for high throughput processing and control over the architecture of the cells after bioprinting, such as layers or honeycomb shapes.”

The researchers also bioprinted individual cells to test whether they could regenerate, or divide and multiply. The findings showed that Arabidopsis root and shoot cells needed different combinations of nutrients and scaffolding for optimal viability.

Meanwhile, more than 40% of individual soybean embryonic cells remained viable two weeks after bioprinting and also divided over time to form microcalli.

“This shows that 3D bioprinting can be useful to study cellular regeneration in crop plants,” Sozzani said.

Finally, the researchers studied the cellular identity of the bioprinted cells. Arabidopsis root cells and embryonic soybean cells are known for high proliferation rates and a lack of fixed identities. In other words, like animal or human stem cells, these cells can become different cell types.

“We found that bioprinted cells can take on the identity of stem cells; they divide and grow and express specific genes,” Van den Broeck said. “When you bioprint, you print a whole population of cell types. We were able to examine the genes expressed by individual cells after 3D bioprinting to understand any changes in cell identity.”

The researchers plan to continue their work studying cellular communication after 3D bioprinting, including at the single-cell level.

“All told, this study shows the powerful potential of using 3D bioprinting to identify the optimal compounds needed to support plant cell viability and communication in a controlled environment,” Sozzani said.

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The universe was filled with equal numbers of matter and “antimatter” – particles that are matter counterparts but have opposite charges — early in its existence, shortly after the Big Bang. The universe then cooled as space expanded. Today’s universe is filled with matter-based galaxies and stars. How did matter come to dominate the universe, and where did antimatter go? Scientists are still perplexed by the cosmic origin of matter.

By invoking the “cosmological collider,” physicists from the University of California, Riverside, and Tsinghua University in China have now opened a new pathway for studying the cosmic origin of matter.

Yanou Cui is an associate professor of physics and astronomy at UC Riverside. Credit: I. Pittalwala/UC Riverside.

Not just any collider

High-energy colliders, such as the Large Hadron Collider, have been designed to generate very heavy subatomic elementary particles that might reveal new physics. However, certain new physics, such as those explaining dark matter and the origin of matter, can involve far heavier particles, necessitating much more energy than a human-made collider can deliver. It turns out that the early universe may have acted as a super-collider.

Yanou Cui, an associate professor of physics and astronomy at UCR, explained that cosmic inflation, a period when the universe expanded at an exponentially increasing pace, is commonly thought to have preceded the Big Bang.

“Cosmic inflation provided a highly energetic environment, enabling the production of heavy new particles as well as their interactions,” Cui said. “The inflationary universe behaved just like a cosmological collider, except that the energy was up to 10 billion times larger than any human-made collider.”

According to Cui, when the universe expanded, tiny structures formed by energetic events during inflation were stretched, resulting in areas of varying density in an otherwise homogeneous universe. These microscopic structures then seeded the large-scale structure of our universe, which is seen today as the distribution of galaxies throughout the sky. Cui noted that analyzing the imprint of the cosmological collider in today’s cosmos’ contents, such as galaxies and the cosmic microwave background, may reveal new subatomic particle physics.

Cui and Zhong-Zhi Xianyu, an assistant professor of physics at Tsinghua University, report in the journal Physical Review Letters that by applying the physics of the cosmological collider and using precision data for measuring the structure of our universe from upcoming experiments such as SPHEREx and 21 cm line tomography, the mystery of the cosmic origin of matter may be unraveled.

“The fact that our current-day universe is dominated by matter remains among the most perplexing, longstanding mysteries in modern physics,” Cui said. “A subtle imbalance or asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the early universe is required to achieve today’s matter dominance but cannot be realized within the known framework of fundamental physics.”

Leptogenesis to the rescue

Cui and Xianyu propose testing leptogenesis, a well-known mechanism that explains the origin of the baryon — visible gas and stars — asymmetry in our universe. Had the universe begun with equal amounts of matter and antimatter, they would have annihilated each other into photon radiation, leaving nothing. Since matter far exceeds antimatter today, asymmetry is required to explain the imbalance.

“Leptogenesis is among the most compelling mechanisms generating the matter-antimatter asymmetry,” Cui said. “It involves a new fundamental particle, the right-handed neutrino. It was long thought, however, that testing leptogenesis is next to impossible because the mass of the right-handed neutrino is typically many orders of magnitudes beyond the reach of the highest energy collider ever built, the Large Hadron Collider.”

The new work proposes to test leptogenesis by decoding the detailed statistical properties of the spatial distribution of objects in the cosmic structure observed today, reminiscent of the microscopic physics during cosmic inflation. The cosmological collider effect, the researchers argue, enables the production of the super-heavy right-handed neutrino during the inflationary epoch.

“Specifically, we demonstrate that essential conditions for the asymmetry generation, including the interactions and masses of the right-handed neutrino, which is the key player here, can leave distinctive fingerprints in the statistics of the spatial distribution of galaxies or cosmic microwave background and can be precisely measured,” Cui said. “The astrophysical observations anticipated in the coming years can potentially detect such signals and unravel the cosmic origin of matter.”

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The Denman ice shelf in east Antarctica is melting at a rate of 70.8bn tonnes a year, according to researchers from Australia’s national science agency, thanks to the ingress of warm sea water.

The CSIRO researchers, led by senior scientist Esmee van Wijk, said their observations suggested the Denman glacier was potentially at risk of unstable retreat.

The glacier, in remote east Antarctica, sits atop the deepest land canyon on Earth. It holds a volume of ice equivalent to 1.5m of sea level rise.

Until relatively recently, it was thought east Antarctica would not experience the same rapid ice loss that is occurring in the west. But some recent studies have shown warm water is reaching that part of the continent too.

The Australian scientists used profiling float measurements to show how much warm water was reaching the deep trough that extends beneath the glacier. They had been intending to study another glacier – the Totten – but when the float drifted away it approached the Denman.

The float collected observations every five days over four months from December 2020. From that data, the scientists made the estimate of how quickly warm water was causing the ice shelf – the front part of the glacier that floats in the ocean – to melt.

Melting of the floating part of the glacier does not add to sea level rise. But Stephen Rintoul, a CSIRO fellow and one of the paper’s authors, said as the ice shelf became thinner or weaker it provided less resistance to the flow of ice from Antarctica into the ocean.

“It’s the ice that flows from Antarctica to the ocean that raises sea level,” he said.

Rintoul said the retrograde slope beneath the Denman made it potentially unstable and at risk of irreversible retreat.

He said the data – the first using measurements taken from the ocean – contributed to a growing body of scientific work suggesting east Antarctica “is likely to contribute more to sea level rise than we thought”.

“One of the take-home messages is when we’re looking at how much sea level is going to rise into the future, we do need to take east Antarctica into account, as well as west Antarctica,” he said.

The scientists calculated only the amount of mass the ice shelf was losing each year. It did not include any mass added to the glacier by snowfall.

Other recent research found that with snowfall factored in, the Denman had still lost about 268bn tonnes of ice – about 7bn tonnes a year – between 1979 and 2017.

Rintoul said the researchers hoped to collect further data using Australia’s new icebreaker, RSV Nuyina, on a trip planned for early 2025.

Sue Cook, an ice shelf glaciologist at the University of Tasmania, said until relatively recently east Antarctica was not considered likely to experience rapid ice loss because the water in that region was mainly cold.

“But recently we’ve realised that in some locations relatively warm water can reach the east Antarctic ice sheet and this paper confirms that one of those locations is the Denman glacier,” Cook said.

She said the Denman glacier would be a research focus for the Australian Antarctic program in coming years, which would increase scientific knowledge about the region.

“The Denman glacier is in a very remote region of east Antarctica, which has historically been hard to access, so it’s fantastic to see direct observations coming out of this region,” Cook said.

“They can tell us a huge amount about the current state of the ice sheet and how it might be changing.”

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The 45-year-old Arnold man told Maryland Lottery officials he bought his $100,000 Crossword 6th Edition scratch-off ticket for $10 from Chesapeake Market Citgo in Annapolis and used the store's scanner to reveal it was a $100,000 winner.

"I was excited and happy, but I wasn't getting too excited since I was at the gas station," the man said.

The player previously won a $77,777 top prize from a Lucky 7 scratch-off ticket in 2015.

"I really don't play that much. I guess I am lucky," he said.

The winner said his previous jackpot went toward college funds for his children, and he is now planning to share his latest winnings with his adult children.

"I like to spend time with family and like to help out family members," the man said.

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Oct. 13 (UPI) -- A martial artist from India broke a Guinness World Record by using nunchaku to smash 42 coconuts in one minute -- while the fruits were on volunteers' heads.

A video posted to YouTube by Guinness World Records shows martial artist KV Saidalavi standing in the center of a circle formed by six volunteers with coconuts balanced on their heads.

Saidalavi uses his nunchaku -- a weapon also commonly known as nunchucks -- to smash one coconut at a time, with each volunteer putting a new coconut on his head after the previous one was destroyed.

Saidalavi, who holds five other world records for his martial arts skills, managed to smash 42 coconuts in the one-minute time period.

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Dr. Howard Tucker of Cleveland was initially certified as the world's oldest practicing doctor in February 2021, when he was 98 years and 231 days old.

Tucker, now 100, said he continues to work full time, with his typical day lasting from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m.

The doctor said he caught COVID-19 shortly after his 100th birthday in July, but he continued to teach his residents via Zoom while recovering.

"I regard this Guinness World Records title as a singular honor and look upon it as another achievement in a long, satisfying and happy life," Tucker told Guinness World Records.

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But what if pain is more than just a mere alarm bell? What if pain is in itself a form of protection?

A new study led by researchers at Harvard Medical School suggests that may well be the case in mice. The research, published Oct. 14 in Cell, shows that pain neurons in the mouse gut regulate the presence of protective mucus under normal conditions and stimulate intestinal cells to release more mucus during states of inflammation.

The work details the steps of a complex signaling cascade, showing that pain neurons engage in direct crosstalk with mucus-containing gut cells, known as goblet cells. "It turns out that pain may protect us in more direct ways than its classic job to detect potential harm and dispatch signals to the brain. Our work shows how pain-mediating nerves in the gut talk to nearby epithelial cells that line the intestines," said study senior investigator Isaac Chiu, associate professor of immunobiology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS. "This means that the nervous system has a major role in the gut beyond just giving us an unpleasant sensation and that it's a key player in gut barrier maintenance and a protective mechanism during inflammation."

Harvard Medical School researchers have analyzed the molecular crosstalk between pain fibers in the gut and goblet cells that line the walls of the intestine. The work shows that chemical signals from pain neurons induce goblet cells to release protective mucus that coats the gut and shields it from damage. The findings show that intestinal pain is not a mere detection-and-signaling system, but plays a direct protective role in the gut. Credit: Chiu Lab/Harvard Medical School

A direct conversation

Our intestines and airways are studded with goblet cells. Named for their cup-like appearance, goblet cells contain gel-like mucus made of proteins and sugars that acts as protective coating that shields the surface of organs from abrasion and damage. The new research found that intestinal goblet cells release protective mucus when triggered by direct interaction with pain-sensing neurons in the gut.

In a set of experiments, the researchers observed that mice lacking pain neurons produced less protective mucus and experienced changes in their intestinal microbial composition—an imbalance in beneficial and harmful microbes known as dysbiosis. To clarify just how this protective crosstalk occurs, the researchers analyzed the behavior of goblet cells in the presence and in the absence of pain neurons.

They found that the surfaces of goblet cells contain a type of receptor, called RAMP1, that ensures the cells can respond to adjacent pain neurons, which are activated by dietary and microbial signals, as well as mechanical pressure, chemical irritation or drastic changes in temperature. The experiments further showed that these receptors connect with a chemical called CGRP, released by nearby pain neurons, when the neurons are stimulated. These RAMP1 receptors, the researchers found, are also present in both human and mouse goblet cells, thus rendering them responsive to pain signals.

Experiments further showed that the presence of certain gut microbes activated the release of CGRP to maintain gut homeostasis.

"This finding tells us that these nerves are triggered not only by acute inflammation, but also at baseline," Chiu said. "Just having regular gut microbes around appears to tickle the nerves and causes the goblet cells to release mucus." This feedback loop, Chiu said, ensures that microbes signal to neurons, neurons regulate the mucus, and the mucus keeps gut microbes healthy.

In addition to microbial presence, dietary factors also played a role in activating pain receptors, the study showed. When researchers gave mice capsaicin, the main ingredient in chili peppers known for its ability to trigger intense, acute pain, the mice's pain neurons got swiftly activated, causing goblet cells to release abundant amounts of protective mucus.

By contrast, mice lacking either pain neurons or goblet cell receptors for CGRP were more susceptible to colitis, a form of gut inflammation. The finding could explain why people with gut dysbiosis may be more prone to colitis. When researchers gave pain-signaling CGRP to animals lacking pain neurons, the mice experienced rapid improvement in mucus production. The treatment protected mice against colitis even in the absence of pain neurons.

The finding demonstrates that CGRP is a key instigator of the signaling cascade that leads to the secretion of protective mucus.

"Pain is a common symptom of chronic inflammatory conditions of the gut, such as colitis, but our study shows that acute pain plays a direct protective role as well," said study first author Daping Yang, a postdoctoral researcher in the Chiu Lab.

A possible downside to suppressing pain

The team's experiments showed that mice lacking pain receptors also had worse damage from colitis when it occurred. Given that pain medications are often used to treat patients with colitis, it may be important to consider the possible detrimental consequences of blocking pain, the researchers said.

"In people with inflammation of the gut, one of the major symptoms is pain, so you might think that we'd want to treat and block the pain to alleviate suffering," Chiu said. "But some part of this pain signal could be directly protective as a neural reflex, which raises important questions about how to carefully manage pain in a way that does not lead to other harms."

Additionally, a class of common migraine medications that suppress the secretion of CGRP may damage gut barrier tissues by interfering with this protective pain signaling, the researchers said.

"Given that CGRP is a mediator of goblet cell function and mucus production, if we are chronically blocking this protective mechanism in people with migraine and if they are taking these medications long-term, what happens?" Chiu said. "Are the drugs going to interfere with the mucosal lining and people's microbiomes?"

Goblet cells have multiple other functions in the gut. They provide a passage for antigens—proteins found on viruses and bacteria that initiate a protective immune response by the body—and they produce antimicrobial chemicals that protect the gut from pathogens. "One question that arises from our current work is whether pain fibers also regulate these other functions of goblet cells," Yang said.

Another line of inquiry, Yang added, would be to explore disruptions in the CGRP signaling pathway and determine whether malfunctions are at play in patients with genetic predisposition to inflammatory bowel disease.

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A team of Vanderbilt researchers recently reported in the American Journal of Gastroenterology that reduced consumption of simple sugars improved esophageal acid pH, the number of reflux episodes, and the hallmark symptoms of GERD: heartburn and regurgitation.

"The findings support a recommendation for patients suffering from GERD to reduce their simple sugar intake," said Heidi Silver, RD, MS, Ph.D., research professor of Medicine in the Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Nutrition and senior author of the study.

"My intention is that the study findings will inform routine clinical practice for patients with GERD," Silver said.

Simple sugars are a type of carbohydrate with only one or two saccharide molecules, like glucose and fructose. In contrast, complex carbohydrates have three or more monosaccharide units. Simple sugars are the teaspoons of sugar stirred into your morning coffee as well as the "added sugars" that are used in food manufacturing to sweeten drinks, desserts and many processed foods.

National data shows that Americans consume an average of 28 teaspoons of simple sugars per day. "This is more than double the amount recommended in the Dietary Guidelines," Silver noted.

"Excess simple sugar intake is so prevalent in our society that even if a reduction doesn't improve GERD symptoms, it may have other beneficial effects on body weight and reducing risk for chronic diseases, which would improve overall health. There's no potential harm," she said.

About 30–40% of Americans experience typical symptoms of GERD: heartburn, reflux or regurgitation, nausea, pain in the throat or chest, and sleep disturbances.

"Patients are often told to avoid certain foods or ingredients, but very few studies have rigorously examined the relationship between dietary factors and GERD," Silver said.

Silver and her colleagues had made a serendipitous discovery in a previous diet intervention study that provided study participants with a moderately high fat, lower carbohydrate diet for 16 weeks. At the nine-week timepoint, all the participants who had GERD were no longer having symptoms and had discontinued taking their GERD medications.

"The purpose of that study was to investigate the effects of dietary fats on energy metabolism and weight loss, but we had a very intriguing finding that warranted further exploration," Silver said.

To study the effects of carbohydrates on GERD, Silver and her colleagues conducted a randomized controlled trial in which 98 veterans with GERD were divided into four dietary intervention groups that varied in the amount and type of carbohydrates (high total/high simple; high total/low simple; low total/high simple; low total/low simple).

The group consuming high total carbohydrates and high simple sugars—which was designed to mimic a typical American diet—was considered the control group.

Menus were developed that met individual energy (calorie) needs for weight maintenance, and foods were prepared in the Metabolic Kitchen Core and provided to participants weekly. The researchers used 24-hour pH monitoring (via intranasal catheter) to measure esophageal acid exposure time and number of reflux episodes at baseline and after nine weeks of diet intervention. Participants also completed two validated questionnaires to assess GERD symptoms.

All the carbohydrate modification groups had improvements in GERD symptoms after nine weeks. In addition, participants reported a significant decrease in the use of over-the-counter medications, which patients often use because prescription GERD medications are not completely effective, Silver said.

For the pH monitoring results, the high total/low simple carb group and the low total/high simple carb group had significant reductions in acid exposure time and total number of reflux episodes during the 24-hour monitoring period. Unexpectedly, the low total/low simple carb group, which the researchers expected to have the largest impact, did not differ significantly from the control group, "most likely due to high variability among the participants in that group and/or lack of compliance with the diet or monitoring equipment," Silver said.

Overall, the study findings support a recommendation that patients with GERD reduce their intake of simple sugars. The two groups with low simple sugars consumed about 15 teaspoons less sugar per day compared to the high simple sugar groups.

"I hope clinicians will include this information in their discussion with patients on how to manage GERD. If a patient only reduces the number of cans of soda or glasses of sweet tea that are consumed each day, that will make a substantial impact," Silver said. "It's important to understand that a person does not need to completely eliminate all simple sugars, but to reduce them."

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