Genes Common to Different Species Found to Be Connected to the Development of Depression

Affective disorders, also known as mood disorders, are a group of mental illnesses that involve changes in emotional states.
Photo Credit:: Christopher Lemercier

Russian scientists performed a cross-species analysis of brain gene expression in danio fish, rats and humans to identify new common molecular targets for the therapy of affective disorders of the central nervous system induced by chronic stress. The study was able to identify several key brain proteins that may play important roles in the pathogenesis of affective disorders.

The article was published in the journal Scientific Reports. Affective disorders, also known as mood disorders, are a group of mental illnesses that involve changes in emotional states. They include various forms of depression and mania, psychosis, and increased anxiety. They are widespread because they occur not only as independent mental pathologies, but also as complications of neurological and other somatic diseases.

This fact determines the difficulty of diagnosis: people classify low mood, anxiety and irritability as temporary, situational manifestations. According to statistics, emotional disorders of varying severity occur in 20% of people, but only a quarter of them receive qualified help.

A Quan­tum Video Reel

Using all of images from the video reel, the team could then estimate the quantum states of the atom.
Image Credit: University of Innsbruck

When it comes to creating ever more intriguing quantum systems, a constant need is finding new ways to observe them in a wide range of physical scenarios.  JILA Fellow Cindy Regal and JILA and NIST Fellow Ana Maria Rey have teamed up with Oriol Romero-Isart from the University of Innsbruck and IQOQI to show that a trapped particle in the form of an atom readily reveals its full quantum state with quite simple ingredients, opening up opportunities for studies of the quantum state of ever larger particles.

In the quantum realm an atom does not behave as point particle, instead it behaves more as a wave.  Its properties (e.g., its position and velocity) are described in terms of what is referred to as the wavefunction of the atom. One way to learn about the wavefunction of a particle is to let the atom fly and then capture its location with a camera. 

And with the right tricks, pictures can be taken of the particle’s quantum state from many vantage points, resulting in what is known as quantum tomography (‘tomo’ being Greek for slice or section, and ‘graphy’ meaning describing or recording).  In the work published in Nature Physics, the authors used a rubidium atom placed carefully in a specific state of its motion in a tightly focused laser beam, known as an optical tweezer.  And they were able to observe it from many vantage points by letting it evolve in the optical tweezer in time.  Like a ball rolling in a bowl, at different times the velocity and location of the particle interchange, and by snapping pictures at the right time during a video reel of the ball, many vantages of the particle’s state can be revealed.

Asteroid findings from specks of space dust could save the planet

Itokawa seen in close-up
Image Credit: JAXA

Curtin University-led research into the durability and age of an ancient asteroid made of rocky rubble and dust, revealed significant findings that could contribute to potentially saving the planet if one ever hurtled toward Earth.

The international team studied three tiny dust particles collected from the surface of ancient 500-metre-long rubble pile asteroid, Itokawa, returned to Earth by the Japanese Space Agency’s Hayabusa 1 probe.

The study’s results showed asteroid Itokawa, which is 2 million kilometers from Earth and around the size of Sydney Harbour Bridge, was hard to destroy and resistant to collision.

Lead author Professor Fred Jourdan, Director of the Western Australian Argon Isotope Facility, part of the John de Laeter Centre and the School of Earth and Planetary Sciences at Curtin, said the team also found Itokawa is almost as old as the solar system itself.

“Unlike monolithic asteroids, Itokawa is not a single lump of rock, but belongs to the rubble pile family which means it’s entirely made of loose boulders and rocks, with almost half of it being empty space,” Professor Jourdan said.

Scientists Unveil Least Costly Carbon Capture System to Date

Chemist Dave Heldebrant, a recently selected fellow of the American Chemical Society who holds a joint appointment with Washington State University, has helped design several solvents that can deftly capture carbon dioxide molecules before they reach Earth’s atmosphere. 
Photo Credit: Andrea Starr | Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

The need for technology that can capture, remove and repurpose carbon dioxide grows stronger with every CO2 molecule that reaches Earth’s atmosphere. To meet that need, scientists at the Department of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory have cleared a new milestone in their efforts to make carbon capture more affordable and widespread. They have created a new system that efficiently captures CO2—the least costly to date—and converts it into one of the world’s most widely used chemicals: methanol.

Snaring CO2 before it floats into the atmosphere is a key component in slowing global warming. Creating incentives for the largest emitters to adopt carbon capture technology, however, is an important precursor. The high cost of commercial capture technology is a longstanding barrier to its widespread use.

PNNL scientists believe methanol can provide that incentive. It has many uses as a fuel, solvent, and an important ingredient in plastics, paint, construction materials and car parts. Converting CO2 into useful substances like methanol offers a path for industrial entities to capture and repurpose their carbon.

Soft robots harness viscous fluids for complex motions

Soft Robot
Video Credit: Courtesy of Collective Embodied Intelligence Lab | Cornell University 

One of the virtues of untethered soft robots is their ability to mechanically adapt to their surroundings and tasks, making them ideal for a range of roles, from tightening bolts in a factory to conducting deep-sea exploration. Now they are poised to become even more agile and controlled.

A team of researchers led by Kirstin Petersen, assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering in the College of Engineering, designed a new – and surprisingly simple – system of fluid-driven actuators that enable soft robots to achieve more complex motions. The researchers accomplished this by taking advantage of the very thing – viscosity – that had previously stymied the movement of such robots.

The team’s paper, “Harnessing Nonuniform Pressure Distributions in Soft Robotic Actuators,” published Jan. 20 in Advanced Intelligent Systems. The paper’s lead author is postdoctoral researcher Yoav Matia.

How a 3 cm glass sphere could help scientists understand space weather

UCLA researchers effectively reproduced the type of gravity that exists on or near stars and other planets inside of a glass sphere 3 centimeters in diameter.
Photo Credit: John Koulakis/UCLA 

Solar flares and other types of space weather can wreak havoc with spaceflight and with telecommunications and other types of satellites orbiting the Earth. But, to date, scientists’ ability to research ways to overcome that challenge has been severely limited. That’s because experiments they conduct in laboratories here on Earth are affected by gravity in ways that are so different from conditions in space.

But a new study by UCLA physicists could, at last, help conquer that issue — which could be a big step toward safeguarding humans (and equipment) during space expeditions, and to ensuring the proper functioning of satellites. The paper is published in Physical Review Letters.

The UCLA researchers effectively reproduced the type of gravity that exists on or near stars and other planets inside of a glass sphere measuring 3 centimeters in diameter (about 1.2 inches). To do so, they used sound waves to create a spherical gravitational field and generate plasma convection — a process in which gas cools as it nears the surface of a body and then reheats and rises again as it nears the core — creating a fluid current that in turn generates a magnetic current.

The achievement could help scientists overcome the limiting role of gravity in experiments that are intended to model convection that occurs in stars and other planets.

A soybean protein blocks LDL cholesterol production, reducing risks of metabolic diseases

Graduate student Jennifer Kusumah, center; postdoctoral researcher Erick Damian Castañeda-Reyes, right; and undergraduate student Elen Huang, left; examine the antioxidant effects of soybean proteins that can decrease LDL cholesterol storage in human liver cells, potentially curtailing the development of metabolic diseases such as fatty liver disease and atherosclerosis. 
Photo Credit: Fred Zwicky

A protein in soybeans blocks the production of a liver enzyme involved in the metabolism of triglycerides and low-density lipoprotein, scientists found in a recent study.

Consuming soy flour rich in the protein B-conglycinin has the potential to reduce LDL cholesterol levels and lower the risk of metabolic diseases such as atherosclerosis and fatty liver disease, said Elvira de Mejia, a professor of food science and human nutrition at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the corresponding author of the study.

Published in the journal Antioxidants, the study was co-written by Neal A. Bringe, a food scientist with Benson Hill Company; and Miguel Rebollo Hernanz, who at the time of the research was a visiting scholar at the U. of I. Rebollo Hernanz is the first author of the paper.

Scientists have long known of soybeans’ cholesterol-lowering properties and lipid-regulating effects, and the current project investigated two soy proteins thought to be responsible for these outcomes – glycinin and B-conglycinin – and found the latter to be particularly significant.

A Rainbow of Force-Activated Pigments

A time-elapse video showing how color develops in areas of a specialized polymer that have been placed under strain.
Video Credit: Peter Holderness/Caltech

Stress isn't just the psychological pressure you feel in response to a looming deadline at work. It is also a description of the physical forces pushing, pulling, or twisting an object, structure, or material. Examples of stress include gravity dragging downward on a bridge, wind blowing against the side of a building, or even a waistband drawn taut by a big meal.

With stress affecting literally everything made and used by people, often in damaging ways, it is important to identify when and where it is happening and the extent to which it is occurring. This is not always easy, though, because many materials show no obvious signs of being under stress.

Caltech's Maxwell Robb, an assistant professor of chemistry, has been working to make stress easier to identify through the creation of polymers that change color when a force is applied to them. Now, in a paper published in Nature Chemistry, Robb shows how his team created a new type of these polymers that can be made to change to almost any colors the user wants. This is in contrast to the polymers he had previously developed, which could only change to a single, predetermined color.

Mutant with Counting Disability

Stimulation of the Venus flytrap by touch triggers electrical signals and calcium waves. The calcium signature is decoded; this causes the trap to shut quickly. The DYSC mutant has lost the ability to read and decode the calcium signature correctly.
Image Credit: Ines Kreuzer / Universität Würzburg

The newly discovered dyscalculia mutant of the Venus flytrap has lost its ability to count electrical impulses. Würzburg researchers reveal the cause of the defect.

The carnivorous Venus flytrap (Dionaea muscipula) can count to five: This discovery by Würzburg biophysicist Professor Rainer Hedrich caused worldwide excitement in 2016. How does the plant count? Hedrich's team from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria, Germany, has now described the key component in the journal Current Biology. The researchers found what they were looking for in a mutant of the Venus flytrap that has lost its counting abilities.

Pheasants at risk on unfamiliar ground

Male pheasant
Researchers assessed the performance of 126 captive-reared pheasant chicks on a range of cognitive puzzles
Photo Credit: Jan Temmel

Pheasants are most likely to be killed by predators on unfamiliar ground, according to new research involving the University of Plymouth. 

A new study showed most animals live within a certain area, known as their “home range”, and they know the central areas better than the edges.

To examine how this impacted their outcomes, researchers assessed the performance of 126 captive-reared pheasant chicks on a range of cognitive puzzles. They were then released into the wild and tracked using a high-precision tagging system.

About 40% were killed by predators during the six-month study period – almost all by foxes – and the pheasants were far more likely to die towards the edge of their range.

The findings show this was due to inexperience in these areas, because other birds that knew the same spots well were not likely to die there.