- Jellyfish are not the ‘simple creatures’ once thought: New study may change an understanding of our own brains Fox News
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Tag Archives: understanding
Understanding Nuh, site of Hindu-Muslim clashes on Delhi doorstep: Haryana’s ‘Meo enclave’ – ThePrint
- Understanding Nuh, site of Hindu-Muslim clashes on Delhi doorstep: Haryana’s ‘Meo enclave’ ThePrint
- Watch: Bulldozer Action Near Haryana’s Nuh After Clashes, ‘Illegal’ Shanties Razed India Today
- Pakistani social media accounts fanning violence in Nuh: Intel alert The Tribune India
- Fact-Check | Old, Unrelated Video From Bangladesh Peddled as Visuals of Violence in Haryana The Quint
- Haryana Nuh Violence Live Updates: Demolition drive in violence-hit Nuh continues; illegal structures on 2.6 acres of land razed Times of India
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New map of the universe’s matter reveals a possible hole in our understanding of the cosmos
Scientists have made one of the most precise maps of the universe’s matter, and it shows that something may be missing in our best model of the cosmos.
Created by pooling data from two telescopes that observe different types of light, the new map revealed that the universe is less “clumpy” than previous models predicted — a potential sign that the vast cosmic web that connects galaxies is less understood than scientists thought.
According to our current understanding, the cosmic web is a gigantic network of crisscrossing celestial superhighways paved with hydrogen gas and dark matter. Taking shape in the chaotic aftermath of the Big Bang, the web’s tendrils formed as clumps from the roiling broth of the young universe; where multiple strands of the web intersected, galaxies eventually formed. But the new map, published Jan. 31 as three (opens in new tab) separate (opens in new tab) studies (opens in new tab) in the journal Physical Review D, shows that in many parts of the universe, matter is less clumped together and more evenly spread out than theory predicts it should be.
Related: How dark is the cosmic web?
“It seems like there are slightly less fluctuations in the current universe than we would predict assuming our standard cosmological model anchored to the early universe,” co-author Eric Baxter, an astrophysicist at the University of Hawaii, said in a statement (opens in new tab).
Spinning the cosmic web
According to the standard model of cosmology, the universe began taking shape after the Big Bang, when the young cosmos swarmed with particles of both matter and antimatter, which popped into existence only to annihilate each other upon contact. Most of the universe’s building blocks wiped themselves out this way, but the rapidly expanding fabric of space-time, along with some quantum fluctuations, meant that some pockets of the primordial plasma survived here and there.
The force of gravity soon compressed these plasma pockets in on themselves, heating the matter as it was squeezed closer together to such an extent that sound waves traveling at half the speed of light (called baryon acoustic oscillations) rippled outward from the plasma clumps. These ripples pushed away the matter that hadn’t already been drawn into the center of a clump, where it came to rest as a halo around it. At that point, most of the universe’s matter was distributed as a series of thin films surrounding countless cosmic voids, like a nest of soap bubbles in a sink.
Once this matter, primarily hydrogen and helium, had sufficiently cooled, it clotted further to birth the first stars, which, in turn, forged heavier and heavier elements through nuclear fusion.
To map out how the cosmic web was spun, the researchers combined observations taken with the Dark Energy Survey in Chile — which scanned the sky in the near-ultraviolet, visible and near-infrared frequencies from 2013 to 2019 — and the South Pole Telescope, which is located in Antarctica and studies the microwave emissions that make up the cosmic microwave background — the oldest light in the universe.
Though they look at different wavelengths of light, both telescopes use a technique called gravitational lensing to map the clumping of matter. Gravitational lensing occurs when a massive object sits between our telescopes and its source; the more that light coming from a given pocket of space appears warped, the more matter there is in that space. This makes gravitational lensing an excellent tool for tracking both normal matter and its mysterious cousin dark matter, which, despite making up 85% of the universe, doesn’t interact with light except by distorting it with gravity.
With this approach, the researchers used data from both telescopes to pinpoint the location of matter and weed out errors from one telescope’s data set by comparing it to the other’s.
“It functions like a cross-check, so it becomes a much more robust measurement than if you just used one or the other,” co-lead author Chihway Chang (opens in new tab), an astrophysicist at the University of Chicago, said in the statement.
The cosmic matter map the researchers produced closely fitted our understanding of how the universe evolved, except for a key discrepancy: It was more evenly distributed and less clumped than the standard model of cosmology would suggest.
Two possibilities exist to explain this discrepancy. The first is that we’re simply looking at the universe too imprecisely, and that the apparent deviation from the model will disappear as we get better tools to peer at the cosmos with. The second, and more significant, possibility is that our cosmological model is missing some seriously big physics. Finding out which one is true will take more cross-surveys and mappings, as well as a deeper understanding of the cosmological constraints that bind the universe’s soap suds.
“There is no known physical explanation for this discrepancy,” the researchers wrote in one of the studies. “Cross-correlations between surveys … will enable significantly more powerful cross-correlation studies that will deliver some of the most precise and accurate cosmological constraints, and that will allow us to continue stress-testing the [standard cosmological] model.”
A Better Understanding of How the Most Commonly Used ADHD Medication Works
Summary: Study reveals how methylphenidate interacts with cognitive control networks and attention behaviors. Methylphenidate changes spontaneous neural activity in reward and cognitive control systems in children with ADHD. The changes result in more stable sustained attention.
Source: Elsevier
For decades, doctors have treated kids with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) with methylphenidate, a stimulant drug sold as Ritalin and Concerta, making it one of the most widely prescribed medications aimed at the central nervous system. One might expect that researchers would know how methylphenidate works in the brain by now, but little is known about the drug’s mechanism of action.
Now, a new study seeks to close this gap and understand how methylphenidate interacts with cognitive control networks and attentional behavior.
The new study appears in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.
What researchers do know is that individuals with ADHD have lower dopamine signaling activity than neurotypical individuals in the interconnected brain networks that control attention and goal-directed behaviors.
Specifically, methylphenidate is hypothesized to ameliorate ADHD symptoms by increasing dopamine levels in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), a hub for dopamine signaling.
In the new study, researchers led by Yoshifumi Mizuno, MD, Ph.D., Weidong Cai, Ph.D., and Vinod Menon, Ph.D., used brain imaging to explore the effects of methylphenidate on the NAc and a so-called triple network system that plays a key role in behaviors that require adaptive control of attention.
The three networks include the salience, frontoparietal, and default mode networks. Aberrant activity was detected in the NAc and in multiple brain networks in children with ADHD, suggesting that dysregulation in the system may underlie ADHD symptoms, and that correcting the dysfunction might alleviate those symptoms.
“Our findings demonstrate in two independent cohorts that methylphenidate changes spontaneous neural activity in reward and cognitive control systems in children with ADHD. Medication-induced changes in cognitive control networks result in more stable sustained attention.
“Our findings reveal a novel brain mechanism underlying methylphenidate treatment in ADHD and inform biomarker development for evaluating treatment outcomes,” noted Dr. Menon, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Stanford University School of Medicine.
The researchers used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to measure the effects of methylphenidate on spontaneous brain activity in 27 children with ADHD and 49 typically developing controls. Children with ADHD were scanned during two different visits one to six weeks apart—once while receiving methylphenidate and once while receiving a placebo. (Typically developing children did not receive medication or placebo.)
Outside the scanner, children with ADHD also performed a standardized task to assess sustained attention. Additionally, the researchers tested the replicability of methylphenidate’s effects on spontaneous brain activity in a second independent cohort.
Not surprisingly, children performed better on the attention tasks when they were medicated. And as the researchers hypothesized, they also saw greater spontaneous neural activity in the NAc and the salience and default mode networks when methylphenidate was administered.
Children with ADHD who displayed enhanced changes in brain activity patterns in the default mode network with medication performed better on the attention tasks with medication.
Findings were replicated across two independent cohorts, providing further evidence that methylphenidate may alleviate ADHD symptoms by its actions on the NAc and the triple network cognitive system.
Cameron Carter, MD, editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, said of the study, “The findings, which used the widely available technique of resting-state functional MRI, confirm the positive effects of methylphenidate on attention in children with ADHD and reveal the likely mechanism of action, through improved coordinated brain network activity and a likely key role for enhanced dopamine effects in the NAc region of the brain.”
The work advances researchers’ understanding of how ADHD affects cognitive control networks in the brain and how methylphenidate interacts with these networks to shift behavior. The findings could guide future work using brain imaging as a clinically useful biomarker of response to treatments.
See also
About this ADHD and neuropsychopharmacology research news
Author: Press Office
Source: Elsevier
Contact: Press Office – Elsevier
Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: Open access.
“Methylphenidate enhances spontaneous fluctuations in reward and cognitive control networks in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder” by Yoshifumi Mizuno et al. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging
Abstract
Methylphenidate enhances spontaneous fluctuations in reward and cognitive control networks in children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder
Background
Methylphenidate, a first-line treatment for attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), is thought to influence dopaminergic neurotransmission in the nucleus accumbens (NAc), and its associated brain circuitry, but this hypothesis has yet to be systematically tested.
Methods
We conducted a randomized, placebo-controlled double-blind crossover trial with 27 children with ADHD. Children with ADHD were scanned twice with resting-state functional MRI under methylphenidate and placebo conditions, along with assessment of sustained attention. We examined spontaneous neural activity in the NAc and the salience, frontoparietal, and default mode networks, and their links to behavioral changes. Replicability of methylphenidate effects on spontaneous neural activity was examined in a second independent cohort.
Results
Methylphenidate increased spontaneous neural activity in the NAc, and the salience and default mode networks. Methylphenidate-induced changes in spontaneous activity patterns in the default mode network were associated with improvements in intra-individual response variability during a sustained attention task. Critically, despite differences in clinical trial protocols and data acquisition parameters, the NAc, and the salience and default mode networks showed replicable patterns of methylphenidate-induced changes in spontaneous activity across two independent cohorts.
Conclusions
We provide reproducible evidence demonstrating that methylphenidate enhances spontaneous neural activity in NAc and cognitive control networks in children with ADHD, resulting in more stable sustained attention. Findings identify a novel neural mechanism underlying methylphenidate treatment in ADHD and inform the development of clinically useful biomarkers for evaluating treatment outcomes.
‘Ghostly glow’ in the solar system could be ‘new addition’ to our understanding of its structure
‘Ghostly glow’ in the solar system could be ‘new addition’ to our understanding of its structure – but the source remains a mystery
- NASA’s Hubble telescope has discovered a glow surrounding the solar system
- Scientists are baffled by this glow that is equivalent to 10 fireflies
- The team theorizes it could be dust from comets that fall into the solar system
A mysterious ‘ghostly glow’ equivalent to 10 fireflies has been found around our solar system that persists even when other light sources like stars and planets are subtracted.
The discovery was made when astronomers set out to see just how dark space can be, which they did by sifting through 200,000 images snapped by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and eliminating the expected glow – but a tiny excess of light prevailed.
Scientists cannot be sure where the light is coming from but hypothesize the source is a previously unknown sphere made up of dust from comets, which is reflecting sunlight.
If confirmed, researchers said this dust shell would be a new addition to the known architecture of the solar system.
Scientists have discovered a ‘ghostly glow’ surrounds our solar system while analyzing pictures snapped by NASA’s Hubble telescope
This discovery builds on research conducted in 2021 when another group of astronomers used data from NASA’s interplanetary space probe New Horizon to measure the sky background.
New Horizon also detected a glow around the solar system, but the probe was more than four billion miles from the sun, and what caused it remains a mystery to this day.
Numerous theories range from the decay of dark matter to a huge unseen population of remote galaxies.
Tim Carleton of Arizona State University (ASU) said in a statement: ‘If our analysis is correct, there’s another dust component between us and the distance where New Horizons made measurements.
The team was measuring the darkness of the sky, in which they needed to subtract the zodiacal light, which is the glow given off by stars planets
‘That means this is some kind of extra light coming from inside our solar system.’
Carleton continued to explain that since the light appeared faint in New Horizons’ data due to its distance, the glow must be coming from within the limits of the solar system.
‘It may be a new element to the contents of the solar system that has been hypothesized but not quantitatively measured until now,’ he said.
This led the recent work to use Hubble, which sits about 340 miles above Earth’s surface.
Hubble veteran astronomer Rogier Windhorst, also of ASU, said in a statement: ‘More than 95 percent of the photons in the images from Hubble’s archive come from distances less than 3 billion miles from Earth.
‘Since Hubble’s very early days, most Hubble users have discarded these sky-photons, as they are interested in the faint discrete objects in Hubble’s images such as stars and galaxies.
Hubble (pictured) captured the glow as it around 340 miles above Earth’s surface. Astronomers who analyzed the images suggest the glow could come from a dust sphere made of comets
‘But these sky-photons contain important information which can be extracted thanks to Hubble’s unique ability to measure faint brightness levels to high precision over its three decades of lifetime.’
Hubble, a joint project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Canadian Space Agency, has been observing the universe for over three decades.
It has taken more than 1.5 million observations of the universe, and over 18,000 scientific papers have been published based on its data.
The telescope orbits Earth at a speed of about 17,000mph in low Earth orbit at about 340 miles in altitude, slightly higher than the International Space Station.
Launched in April 1990 from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Hubble is showing more and more signs of aging, despite a series of repairs and updates by spacewalking astronauts during NASA’s shuttle era.
The telescope is named after famed astronomer Edwin Hubble who was born in Missouri in 1889 and discovered that the universe is expanding, as well as the rate at which it is doing so.
Colossal Explosion Challenges Our Understanding of Gamma-Ray Bursts
This artist’s impression shows a kilonova produced by two colliding neutron stars. While studying the aftermath of a long gamma-ray burst (GRB), two independent teams of astronomers using a host of telescopes in space and on Earth, including the Gemini North telescope on Hawai‘i and the Gemini South telescope in Chile, have uncovered the unexpected hallmarks of a kilonova, the colossal explosion triggered by colliding neutron stars. Credit: NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine
International Gemini Observatory uncovers surprising evidence of colliding neutron stars after probing aftermath of gamma-ray burst.
While investigating the aftermath of a long gamma-ray burst (GRB), two independent teams of astronomers using a host of telescopes in space and on Earth have uncovered the unexpected hallmarks of a kilonova. This is the colossal explosion triggered by colliding neutron stars. This discovery challenges the prevailing theory that long GRBs exclusively come from supernovae, the end-of-life explosions of massive stars.
Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic explosions in the Universe. They come in two varieties, long and short. Long GRBs, which last a couple of seconds to one minute, form when a star at least 10 times the mass of our Sun explodes as a supernova. Short GRBs, which last less than two seconds, occur when two compact objects, like two neutron stars or a neutron star and a black hole, collide to form a kilonova.
While observing the aftermath of a long GRB detected in 2021, two independent teams of astronomers found the surprising signs of a neutron-star merger rather than the expected signal of a supernova. This surprising result marks the first time that a kilonova has been associated with a long GRB and challenges our understanding of these phenomenally powerful explosions.
This Gemini North image, superimposed on an image taken with the Hubble Space Telescope, shows the telltale near-infrared afterglow of a kilonova produced by a long GRB (GRB 211211A). This discovery challenges the prevailing theory that long GRBs exclusively come from supernovae, the end-of-life explosions of massive stars. Credit: International Gemini Observatory/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/M. Zamani; NASA/ESA
The first team to announce this discovery was led by Jillian Rastinejad, a PhD student at 
Interview with Eleonora Troja, an astronomer at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, who studied the afterglow of the GRB using a series of observations, including the Gemini South telescope in Chile, and independently concluded that the long GRB came from a kilonova.
Most GRBs originate in the distant, early Universe. Typically, these objects are so ancient and far flung that their light would have had to travel for more than six billion years to reach Earth. Light from the most-distant GRB ever recorded traveled for nearly 13 billion years before being detected here on Earth.[2] The relative proximity of this newly discovered GRB enabled astronomers to make remarkably detailed follow-up studies with a variety of ground- and space-based telescopes.
“Astronomers usually investigate short GRBs when hunting for kilonovae,” said Rastinejad. “We were drawn to this longer-duration burst because it was so close that we could study it in detail. Its gamma rays also resembled those of a previous, mysterious supernova-less long GRB.”
A unique observational signature of kilonovae is their brightness at near-infrared wavelengths compared to their brightness in visible light. This difference in brightness is due to the heavy elements ejected by the kilonova, which effectively block visible light but allow the longer-wavelength infrared light to pass unimpeded. Observing in the near-infrared, however, is technically challenging and only a handful of telescopes on Earth, like the twin Gemini telescopes, are sensitive enough to detect this kilonova at these wavelengths.
Jillian Rastinejad, a PhD student at Northwestern University, and her colleagues used the Gemini North telescope to reveal a telltale near-infrared afterglow at the precise location of the GRB, providing the first compelling evidence of a kilonova associated with this event.
“Thanks to its sensitivity and our rapid-response, Gemini was the first to detect this kilonova in the near-infrared, convincing us that we were observing a neutron-star merger,” said Rastinejad. “Gemini’s nimble capabilities and variety of instruments let us tailor each night’s observing plan based on the previous night’s results, allowing us to make the most of every minute that our target was observable.”
Another team, led by Eleonora Troja, an astronomer at the University of Rome Tor Vergata, independently studied the afterglow using a different series of observations, including the Gemini South telescope in Chile,[3] and independently concluded that the long GRB came from a kilonova.
”We were able to observe this event only because it was so close to us,” said Troja. “It is very rare that we observe such powerful explosions in our cosmic backyard, and every time we do we learn about the most extreme objects in the Universe.”
The fact that two different teams of scientists working with independent datasets both arrived at the same conclusion about the kilonova nature of this GRB provides confidence in this interpretation.
“The kilonova interpretation was so far off from everything we knew about long GRBs that we could not believe our own eyes and spent months testing all the other possibilities,” said Troja. “It is only after ruling out everything else that we realized our decade-long paradigm had to be revised.”
As well as contributing to our understanding of kilonovae and GRBs, this discovery provides astronomers with a new way to study the formation of gold and other heavy elements in the Universe. The extreme physical conditions in kilonovae produce heavy elements such as gold, platinum, and thorium. Astronomers can now identify the sites that are creating heavy elements by searching for the signature of a kilonova following a long-duration gamma-ray burst.
“This discovery is a clear reminder that the Universe is never fully figured out,” said Rastinejad. “Astronomers often take it for granted that the origins of GRBs can be identified by how long the GRBs are, but this discovery shows us there’s still much more to understand about these amazing events.”
“NSF congratulates the science teams for this new and exciting discovery, opening a new window onto cosmic evolution,” said National Science Foundation Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. “The International Gemini Observatory continues to deliver powerful and nimble resources open to the whole scientific community through innovation and partnership.”
For more on this research, see Undetected Hybrid Neutron-Star Merger Event Revealed by Unusual Gamma-Ray Burst.
The International Gemini Observatory is operated by a partnership of six countries, including the United States through the National Science Foundation, Canada through the National Research Council of Canada, Chile through the Agencia Nacional de Investigación y Desarrollo, Brazil through the Ministério da Ciência, Tecnologia e Inovações, Argentina through the Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnología e Innovación, and Korea through the Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute. These Participants and the University of Hawaii, which has regular access to Gemini, each maintain a National Gemini Office to support their local users.
Notes
- Rastinejad and her colleagues made initial follow-up observations of the burst using the Nordic Optical Telescope. Following the critical Gemini North observations, they continued their observations of the fading kilonova with the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array, the Calar Alto Observatory, and the MMT Observatory, and obtained later observations with the Large Binocular Telescope, the W. M. Keck Observatory, the Gran Telescopio Canarias, and the NASA/ESA
“A kilonova following a long-duration gamma-ray burst at 350 Mpc” by Jillian C. Rastinejad, Benjamin P. Gompertz, Andrew J. Levan, Wen-fai Fong, Matt Nicholl, Gavin P. Lamb, Daniele B. Malesani, Anya E. Nugent, Samantha R. Oates, Nial R. Tanvir, Antonio de Ugarte Postigo, Charles D. Kilpatrick, Christopher J. Moore, Brian D. Metzger, Maria Edvige Ravasio, Andrea Rossi, Genevieve Schroeder, Jacob Jencson, David J. Sand, Nathan Smith, José Feliciano Agüí Fernández, Edo Berger, Peter K. Blanchard, Ryan Chornock, Bethany E. Cobb, Massimiliano De Pasquale, Johan P. U. Fynbo, Luca Izzo, D. Alexander Kann, Tanmoy Laskar, Ester Marini, Kerry Paterson, Alicia Rouco Escorial, Huei M. Sears and Christina C. Thöne, 7 December 2022, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05390-w“A nearby long gamma-ray burst from a merger of compact objects” by E. Troja, C. L. Fryer, B. O’Connor, G. Ryan, S. Dichiara, A. Kumar, N. Ito, R. Gupta, R. Wollaeger, J. P. Norris, N. Kawai, N. Butler, A. Aryan, K. Misra, R. Hosokawa, K. L. Murata, M. Niwano, S. B. Pandey, A. Kutyrev, H. J. van Eerten, E. A. Chase, Y.-D. Hu, M. D. Caballero-Garcia, A. J. Castro-Tira, 7 December 2022, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-022-05327-3
Earth has been hit by an ‘unusual, intense blast of energy’ from nearby galaxy that could change our understanding of the universe
© Aaron M. Geller/Northwestern/CIERA and IT Research Computing Services
Low-Res_Unknown.png.png
Earth has been hit by an intense, unusual blast of light that could change our understanding of the universe, scientists have said.
Late last year, scientists spotted a 50-second-long blast of energy coming towards Earth, known as a gamma-ray burst or GRB, which are the most powerful explosions in the universe. Immediately, researchers started looking for the afterglow that such blasts leave behind, with that visible light being useful to find where the blast has come from.
UP NEXT
But those researchers instead found something else entirely: that the blast appeared to have come from a kilonova. Those rare events only happen when a neutron star merges with another very compact object – either another neutron star or a black hole.
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The study challenges our understanding of where such long-lasting GRBs come from. But it could also provide an exciting way to answer other questions about the universe, such as where its heaviest elements come from, which still remains a mystery.
And the galaxy from which the GRB came from is also strange. It is young and still forming stars – the opposite of the only other known nearby galaxy that has played host to such an event.
“This event looks unlike anything else we have seen before from a long gamma-ray burst,” said Jillian Rastinejad, from Northwestern University, who led the study. “Its gamma rays resemble those of bursts produced by the collapse of massive stars.
Given that all other confirmed neutron star mergers we have observed have been accompanied by bursts lasting less than two seconds, we had every reason to expect this 50-second GRB was created by the collapse of a massive star. This event represents an exciting paradigm shift for gamma-ray burst astronomy.”
A paper describing the findings, ‘A kilonova following a long-duration gamma-ray burst at 350 Mpc’, is published in the journal Nature today.
The blast was first spotted in December 2021, by Nasa’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Since then, researchers have been looking to categorise the explosion, and understand where it might have come from.
Among other findings, they showed that the one event produced heavy elements that amounted to roughly 1,000 times the mass of our Earth. That suggests that kilonovae are the main place that gold is produced in the universe.
And because the galaxy from which the GRB came from is relatively nearby, scientists were able to get an unusually good look at it. What’s more, that could help explain other gamma-ray bursts that do not seem to fit with our understanding of where they come from.
“This was a remarkable GRB,” said Benjamin Gompertz. “We don’t expect mergers to last more than about two seconds. Somehow, this one powered a jet for almost a full minute. It’s possible the behaviour could be explained by a long-lasting neutron star, but we can’t rule out that what we saw was a neutron star being ripped apart by a black hole.
“Studying more of these events will help us determine which is the right answer and the detailed information we gained from GRB 211211A will be invaluable for this interpretation.”
And scientists hope that the switch-on of the James Webb Space Telescope will get an even better view of kilonovae. That telescope is able to capture images of distant astronomical objects, and “sniff” their atmosphere, allowing it to see exactly what elements are present through a process known as spectroscopy.
“Unfortunately, even the best ground-based telescopes are not sensitive enough to perform spectroscopy,” Rastinejad said. “With the JWST, we could have obtained a spectrum of the kilonova. Those spectral lines provide direct evidence that you have detected the heaviest elements.”
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Earth has been hit by an ‘unusual, intense blast of energy’ from nearby galaxy that could change our understanding of the universe
Earth has been hit by an intense, unusual blast of light that could change our understanding of the universe, scientists have said.
Late last year, scientists spotted a 50-second-long blast of energy coming towards Earth, known as a gamma-ray burst or GRB, which are the most powerful explosions in the universe. Immediately, researchers started looking for the afterglow that such blasts leave behind, with that visible light being useful to find where the blast has come from.
But those researchers instead found something else entirely: that the blast appeared to have come from a kilonova. Those rare events only happen when a neutron star merges with another very compact object – either another neutron star or a black hole.
The study challenges our understanding of where such long-lasting GRBs come from. But it could also provide an exciting way to answer other questions about the universe, such as where its heaviest elements come from, which still remains a mystery.
And the galaxy from which the GRB came from is also strange. It is young and still forming stars – the opposite of the only other known nearby galaxy that has played host to such an event.
“This event looks unlike anything else we have seen before from a long gamma-ray burst,” said Jillian Rastinejad, from Northwestern University, who led the study. “Its gamma rays resemble those of bursts produced by the collapse of massive stars.
Given that all other confirmed neutron star mergers we have observed have been accompanied by bursts lasting less than two seconds, we had every reason to expect this 50-second GRB was created by the collapse of a massive star. This event represents an exciting paradigm shift for gamma-ray burst astronomy.”
A paper describing the findings, ‘A kilonova following a long-duration gamma-ray burst at 350 Mpc’, is published in the journal Nature today.
The blast was first spotted in December 2021, by Nasa’s Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory and the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope. Since then, researchers have been looking to categorise the explosion, and understand where it might have come from.
Among other findings, they showed that the one event produced heavy elements that amounted to roughly 1,000 times the mass of our Earth. That suggests that kilonovae are the main place that gold is produced in the universe.
And because the galaxy from which the GRB came from is relatively nearby, scientists were able to get an unusually good look at it. What’s more, that could help explain other gamma-ray bursts that do not seem to fit with our understanding of where they come from.
“This was a remarkable GRB,” said Benjamin Gompertz. “We don’t expect mergers to last more than about two seconds. Somehow, this one powered a jet for almost a full minute. It’s possible the behaviour could be explained by a long-lasting neutron star, but we can’t rule out that what we saw was a neutron star being ripped apart by a black hole.
“Studying more of these events will help us determine which is the right answer and the detailed information we gained from GRB 211211A will be invaluable for this interpretation.”
And scientists hope that the switch-on of the James Webb Space Telescope will get an even better view of kilonovae. That telescope is able to capture images of distant astronomical objects, and “sniff” their atmosphere, allowing it to see exactly what elements are present through a process known as spectroscopy.
“Unfortunately, even the best ground-based telescopes are not sensitive enough to perform spectroscopy,” Rastinejad said. “With the JWST, we could have obtained a spectrum of the kilonova. Those spectral lines provide direct evidence that you have detected the heaviest elements.”
Gene That Guides Earliest Social Behaviors Could Be Key to Understanding Autism
Summary: The TOP2a gene controls a network of genes that contribute to ASD. Drugs that suppress TOP2a during development can turn on a cluster of other genes that disrupt brain development and increase autism risks. Alterations to the TOP2a gene may be responsible for the social behavioral difficulties associated with ASD.
Source: University of Utah
Little is known about how social behavior develops in the earliest stages of life. But most animals––including humans––are born with an innate ability to interact socially or form bonds with others. And that contributes to success throughout life.
Now, a new animal study points to a gene that is important for the earliest development of basic social behaviors.
The work also suggests that exposure to certain drugs and environmental risk factors during embryonic development can cause changes to this gene, leading to alterations in social behavior that are similar to those found in individuals who have autism. Much to their surprise, the researchers also found they could reverse some of the effects using an experimental drug.
“This study helps us understand at the molecular level why sociability is disrupted during the very earliest stages of life,” says Randall T. Peterson, Ph.D., the corresponding author of the study and dean of the University of Utah College of Pharmacy. “It also gives us an opportunity to explore potential treatments that could restore sociability in these animals and, perhaps in time, eventually in humans as well.”
More broadly, their findings suggest that the gene—TOP2a—controls a large network of genes that are known to increase the risk of autism. It also may serve as a link between genetic and environmental factors that contribute to onset of disorder, Peterson adds.
The study, conducted by University of Utah Health researchers and colleagues nationwide, appears in the Nov. 23 issue of Science Advances.
Anti-social animals
Scientists suspect many social traits are determined before birth. But the precise mechanisms involved in this process remain murky. One promising area of research suggests that social behavior and other characteristics and traits are influenced not only by our genetic makeup but also how and where we live.
To test this model, the scientists evaluated whether environmental exposures during embryonic development could influence social behavior. Peterson and his colleagues exposed zebrafish embryos to more than 1,100 known drugs––one drug per 20 embryos––for 72 hours beginning three days after conception.
The researchers determined that four of the 1,120 tested drugs significantly reduced sociability among the zebrafish. Fish exposed to these drugs were less likely to interact with other fish. It turned out that the four medications all belonged to the same class of antibiotics, called fluoroquinolones. These drugs are used to treat upper and lower respiratory tract infections in people.
When the scientists gave a related drug to pregnant mice, the offspring behaved differently when they became adults. Even though they appeared normal, they communicated less with other mice and engaged in more repetitive acts—like repeatedly poking their head in the same hole—than other rodents.
A basis for sociability
Digging deeper, the researchers found that the drugs suppressed a gene called TOP2a, which, in turn, acted on a cluster of genes that are known to be involved in autism in humans.
They also found that the cluster of autism-associated genes shared another thing in common—a higher than usual tendency to bind a group of proteins called the PRC2. The researchers hypothesized that Top2a and the PRC2 work together to control the production of many autism-associated genes.
To determine whether the anti-social behaviors could be reversed, the research team gave embryonic and young zebrafish an experimental drug called UNC1999, which is known to inhibit the PRC2. After treatment with the drug, fish exposed to fluoroquinolones were more likely to swim closer to other fish, demonstrating that the drug helped restore sociability. They saw similar results with other drugs known to inhibit the same key gene, TOP2a.
“That really surprised me because I would’ve thought disrupting brain development when you’re an embryo would be irreversible,” Peterson says. “If you don’t develop sociality as an embryo, you’ve missed the window. But this study suggests that even in those individuals later in life, you can still come in and inhibit this pathway and restore sociality.”
Moving forward, the researchers plan to explore how and why this drug had this effect.
See also
Although the scientists only found four compounds that are Top2a inhibitors, evidence suggests hundreds of other drugs and naturally occurring compounds in our environment can inhibit its activity.
“It’s possible that these four compounds are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of substances that could be problematic for embryonic exposure,” Peterson says.
However, Peterson notes that this study was conducted in animals, and more research needs to be done before any of its results can be confirmed in humans. Therefore, he cautions against drawing conclusions about real-world applications.
“We have no evidence that fluroquinolones or any other antibiotic causes autism in humans,” Peterson says. “So, there is no reason to stop using antibiotics. What this paper does identify is a new molecular pathway that appears to control social development and is worthy of further exploration.”
In addition to Dr. Peterson, U of U Health scientists Yijie Geng, Tejia Zhang, Ivy G. Alonzo, Sean C. Godar, Christopher Yates, Brock Plummer, and Marco Bortolato contributed to this study. Other participating institutions include the University of Chicago; Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston; Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School; the Broad Institute, Cambridge, Massachusetts; and MDI Biological Laboratory, Bar Harbor, Maine.
The study, “Top2a promotes the development of social behavior via PRC2 and H3K27me3,” appears in the Nov. 23, 2022, issue of Science Advances.
Funding: This research was supported by the L. S. Skaggs Presidential Endowed Chair and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences at the National Institutes of Health.
About this genetics and ASD research news
Author: Doug Dollemore
Source: University of Utah
Contact: Doug Dollemore – University of Utah
Image: The image is in the public domain
Original Research: The findings will appear in Science Advances
Darvin Ham – ‘Understanding’ with Russell Westbrook after remarks
LOS ANGELES — Lakers coach Darvin Ham says he and Russell Westbrook have “moved on” and have “an understanding” after the point guard suggested Ham’s decision to bring him off the bench in the preseason could have contributed to a minor hamstring injury he suffered.
Ham, however, pushed back at any insinuation that his rotation in the Lakers’ preseason finale loss to the Sacramento Kings — in which Westbrook played just five minutes off the bench before exiting with the strained left hamstring — had anything to do with the physical setback.
“Let me be clear with this,” Ham said before his team hosted the LA Clippers on Thursday. “The Lakers, myself, my staff, we would in no way, shape or form put a player or an employee in harm’s way. Physically, mentally, spiritually. We don’t stand for that. We’re not about that. That’s not who we are.”
Following the Lakers’ 123-109 season-opening loss to the Golden State Warriors on Tuesday, Westbrook said he “absolutely” believes that coming off the bench against Sacramento could have caused the injury.
“I’ve been doing the same thing for 14 years straight,” he said, referring to starting 1,005 out of 1,022 games in his career. “Honestly, I didn’t even know what to do pregame. Being honest, I was trying to figure out how to stay warm and loose. … That’s something I just wasn’t accustomed to.”
Ham said the two shared a “brief discussion” about the remarks. Ham went back to Westbrook in the starting lineup against the Warriors and again against the Clippers.
“We moved on, we got an understanding,” Ham said. “As the coach of this team, we’re going to do what’s best for our team to be as successful as it can be. And I’ll just leave it at that.”
Ham said he understands “respect” and “routine” are important to the former league MVP but acknowledged the team-centric goals he will require Westbrook to meet.
“He’s been around a long time. He’s been a high-level player for a very long time. So, I know what that’s about and how that is,” Ham said. “But on the other hand, you have to be prepared to do whatever your team needs you to do. And that’s called being a professional. So, however we choose to use him, there has to be a willingness there to sacrifice for your teammates and overall good of the team if that course of action is going to lead to success.”
Westbrook played 31 minutes against Golden State and finished with 19 points on 7-for-12 shooting, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal and 4 turnovers.
Ham said he had a “good plan in place” for Westbrook’s role moving forward, but added, “based on performance, minutes can go up, minutes can go down.”
Ham also said he didn’t have a problem with Westbrook saying what he said to reporters after the Warriors game, or with LeBron James’ blunt assessment that “we’re not a team that’s constructed of great shooting” — even if their comments were interpreted as critiques of the coaching staff and front office.
“It’s a grown man’s league,” Ham said. “Things are going to be said whether it’s directed at someone or not. I handle it in stride. I’ve been around this thing for 26 years. I’ve been on quiet teams and I’ve been on a couple of loud teams. But I have the utmost respect for those guys. I believe they have the utmost respect for me. There’s nothing taken personal about anything. We address it and we move on.”