Pope: Pull together, avoid pessimism in this coronavirus era

Pope Francis is cautioning against pessimism as many people emerge from coronavirus lockdowns to lament that nothing will ever be the same. During Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica to mark Pentecost Sunday, Francis noted a tendency to say “nothing will return as before.” “In this pandemic, how wrong narcissism is,” Francis said, lamenting “the tendency to think only of our needs, to be indifferent to those of others, and to not admit our own frailties and mistakes.”

source https://news.yahoo.com/pope-pull-together-avoid-pessimism-094713194.html

Iran says US talks 'futile', denounces black American's death

Iran's new parliament speaker said Sunday any negotiations with Washington would be "futile" as he denounced the death of a black American that has led to violent protests across the US. Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards' air force, was elected speaker on Thursday of a chamber dominated by ultra-conservatives following February elections. The newly formed parliament "considers negotiations with and appeasement of America, as the axis of global arrogance, to be futile and harmful," he said in his first major speech to the chamber.

source https://news.yahoo.com/iran-says-us-talks-futile-denounces-black-americans-103402422.html

Israeli defense minister apologizes for Palestinian's death

The shooting of Iyad Halak, 32, in Jerusalem's Old City on Saturday, drew broad condemnations and revived complaints alleging excessive force by Israeli security forces. Benny Gantz, who is also Israel's “alternate” prime minister under a power-sharing deal, made the remarks at the weekly meeting of the Israeli Cabinet.

source https://news.yahoo.com/israeli-defense-minister-apologizes-palestinians-093605770.html

‘We’re sick of it’: Anger over police killings shatters US

Another night of unrest in every corner of the country left charred and shattered landscapes in dozens of American cities Sunday as years of festering frustrations over the mistreatment of African Americans at the hands of police boiled over in expressions of rage met with tear gas and rubber bullets. Cars and businesses were torched, the words “I can’t breathe” were spray-painted all over buildings, a fire in a trash bin burned near the gates of the White House, and thousands marched peacefully through city streets to protest the death of George Floyd, a black man who died Monday after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee on his neck until he stopped breathing. People set fire to police cars, threw bottles at police officers and busted windows of storefronts, carrying away TVs and other items even as some protesters urged them to stop.

source https://news.yahoo.com/sick-anger-over-police-killings-090320437.html

Iran suggests up to 225 killed in November protests

Iran's interior minister has suggested that up to 225 people were killed in November protests sparked by a petrol price hike, ISNA news agency reported on Sunday. Officials in Iran have yet to issue an overall death toll for the unrest, while London-based human rights group Amnesty International has put the number at more than 300. The protests erupted on November 15 in Tehran and rapidly spread to at least 40 cities and towns, with petrol pumps torched, police stations attacked and shops looted, before being put down by security forces amid a near-total internet blackout.

source https://news.yahoo.com/iran-suggests-225-killed-november-protests-082850732.html

Iran's new parliament speaker says talks with US 'futile'

Iran's parliament speaker Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf said any negotiations with the United States would be "futile" as he delivered his first major speech to the conservative-dominated chamber on Sunday. Ghalibaf, a former commander of the Revolutionary Guards' air force, was elected speaker on Thursday after February elections that swung the balance in the legislature towards ultra-conservatives. The newly formed parliament "considers negotiations with and appeasement of America, as the axis of global arrogance, to be futile and harmful," said Ghalibaf.

source https://news.yahoo.com/irans-parliament-speaker-says-talks-us-futile-070701124.html

Mosques reopen in Saudi Arabia and Jerusalem amid virus woes

Tens of thousands of mosques across Saudi Arabia reopened Sunday for the first time in more than two months, but worshipers have been ordered to follow strict guidelines to prevent the spread of the coronavirus as Islam's holiest site in Mecca remained closed to the public. The Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the third holiest site for Muslims after Saudi Arabia's Mecca and Medina, also reopened for prayers for the first time since it was closed since mid-March. The mosque was one of Jerusalem’s many holy sites, including the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and the Western Wall, that were restricted to worshipers at the height of Israel’s coronavirus outbreak.

source https://news.yahoo.com/mosques-reopen-saudi-arabia-jerusalem-064828510.html

The Latest: Protesters assemble at Phoenix police HQ

Protesters marched the streets of downtown Phoenix and Tucson Saturday after the cities’ leaders implored them to refrain from violence. On Saturday night, however, Phoenix police had to defend the department’s headquarters. Shortly after 10 p.m., Phoenix police said a large group of protesters downtown had become an unlawful assembly, the Arizona Republic reported.

source https://news.yahoo.com/latest-l-f-under-citywide-060507424.html

Massive protests raise fears of new waves of virus outbreaks

The mayor of Atlanta, one of dozens of U.S. cities hit by massive protests after the police killing of a black man, has a message for demonstrators: “If you were out protesting last night, you probably need to go get a COVID test this week.” As emergency orders are lifted and beaches and businesses reopen, add protests to the list of concerns about a possible second wave of coronavirus outbreaks. It's also an issue from Paris to Hong Kong, where anti-government protesters accuse police of using social distancing rules to break up their rallies.

source https://news.yahoo.com/massive-protests-raise-fears-waves-055647623.html

The Hawaii navy base fueling Trump's quest for 'super duper' missiles

Kauai has one of the Pentagon’s most valued testing sites. It’s an economic driver, but some residents say the military shouldn’t be on the islands at allHawaii’s “garden island”, Kauai, is known for its breathtaking scenery and laid-back vibe, a place of plunging waterfalls and cliffs cloaked in green tropical forests. But beyond its beauty it is one of the Pentagon’s most valued testing and training sites in the Pacific.In Hawaii, where the military is the second-largest economic driver, after tourism, weapons testing and training enjoy widespread support, but some residents view the islands’ highly militarized state as misguided or even illegal.In missile defense circles, Kauai is known for its outsized role in weapons testing at the navy’s Pacific Missile Range Facility Barking Sands (PMRF), which its commanding officer, Capt Timothy Young, likens to a sports stadium that provides a venue for customers (weapons manufacturers, government agencies and military branches) to train people or test new technology.That technology includes ballistic missiles, rockets, drones and hypersonic weapons. In March at PMRF, the US navy and army collaborated in the test launch of a common-hypersonic glide body, which the Pentagon described as a major milestone in its goal to enhance its “hypersonic warfighting capabilities in the early- to mid-2020s”. Donald Trump said China and Russia had left the US no choice but to develop hypersonic weapons, which he described as “super duper” missiles. Hypersonic weapons fly faster than five times the speed of sound, making it possible to hit targets thousands of miles away in minutes. The US, Russia and China are all investing heavily in them.Young declined an in-person interview but in an email said: “We test systems and facilitate the fleet’s training that ultimately enable our safety and security.”As the island’s third-largest employer, PMRF also provides jobs that are attractive in a community where the tourism and service sector often pay less and are vulnerable during disruptions like the coronavirus pandemic and associated mandatory 14-day quarantine for all visitors from outside the islands.Young said he appreciated the relationship the base has with multi-generational Hawaiian families. He added that PMRF partnered with local businesses to encourage science, technology, reading and math education. “It’s not only the right thing to do when helping to educate our young people, but it also makes good business sense to develop a local workforce.” Space force comes to HawaiiPMRF will soon be offering even more jobs on the island as Hawaii’s air national guard stands up the 293rd offensive space control squadron using existing infrastructure on the base.The squadron will be one of four units administered by the national guard in California, Colorado, Florida and Hawaii. Tasked with space electronic warfare, the squadron’s primary mission will be “to protect and defend satellite communications systems”, said Ryan Okahara, the Hawaii air national guard brigadier general.Kauai’s mayor, Derek SK Kawakami, welcomes the military presence, saying PMRF sets a good example of how a military base can be embraced by the community through its volunteer efforts, emergency relief contributions, public outreach and openness to civilians.“Whether we have a military here or not, if we’re making enemies out there, we’re a target and so it’s best to have at least a shield of defense to protect our people,” Kawakami said. “Because we have a presence here, it makes us less vulnerable than not having a presence.“Historically, Hawaii has been a strategic location for national and international defense,” the mayor continued. “I understand many people may have mixed feelings about that. For myself, I understand the importance of keeping our nation protected and our state protected.”Critics of Hawaii’s large military presence are less sanguine.Kyle Kajihiro, an instructor with the department of geography and environment at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, said: “The technologies involved in these space programs are not only for defense; they can also enhance offensive capabilities. The expansion of these programs in Hawaii would cause countries who may be in the crosshairs of US war plans to perceive us as a threat.“History teaches us what happens when other powerful countries weaponize our islands … If the 2018 false missile alert did anything positive, it forced a conversation about how the massive military presence puts a big target over these islands.”Sparky Rodrigues, a Native Hawaiian activist opposed to the military in Hawaii, called the US military presence, which dates back to the 1893 overthrow of the Kingdom of Hawaii, an illegal occupation. The bombing of Pearl Harbor, Rodrigues said, wasn’t an attack on Hawaii but on the US military.“They have basically occupied the space, taken the land, denied access to our resources from long ago, and we are now stuck with them holding the checkbook that supports our families.”That sentiment has caused a rift in the Hawaiian community. “We are being poisoned and fed at the same time,” Rodrigues said. “The military has poisoned our economy, they’ve poisoned our land, they’ve poisoned the air. Every time they do training and missile firing, there’s contamination that goes into the environment … I don’t want Hawaii to be known as the purveyor of death.” Rockets and missilesBase proponents value PMRF as a facility that can accommodate testing and training below the sea, on land, in the sky and in space. In 2018, Japan’s ground self-defense forces achieved a first when they launched Type 12 surface-to-surface missiles and Himars rockets at PMRF during the huge Rim of the Pacific maritime exercises.PMRF also hosts the Kauai test facility, operated by Sandia, one of the department of energy’s national nuclear laboratories. KTF, which has operated on Kauai since 1962, has supported more than 450 launches, including a series of experimental rocket tests in 2019 to test new technologies being considered for future nuclear weapons life-extension programs.Two of PMRF’s most important functions have been for testing Lockheed Martin’s Aegis Ashore and Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (Thaad) ballistic missile defense (BMD) systems.> They have occupied the space, taken the land … and we are now stuck with them holding the checkbook that supports our families> > Sparky RodriguesThaad, which is intended to neutralize short-, medium- and limited intermediate-range ballistic missiles, is deployed in Guam, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Israel and South Korea.Aegis Ashore, a land adaptation of a ship-based BMD system, was introduced to a US naval base in Romania in 2016 and will deployed at a missile defense facility in Poland where it is years behind schedule and $96m over budget.Japan also plans to deploy Aegis Ashore in two locations by 2025. In 2019 and earlier this year, Japan’s defense minister traveled to PMRF to inspect the system. And while Tokyo and Washington insist Aegis Ashore is meant to defend against North Korea and Iran, both Moscow and Beijing see the system as an offensive threat.Patrick Shanahan, the former acting secretary of defense, may have stoked those fears when he announced US policy would “shift towards greater integration of offensive and defensive capabilities because missile defense necessarily includes missile offense”.PMRF’s expanding role comes at a time of heightened tensions between the US and Russia, China, North Korea and Iran. What’s more, countries around the world are facing the coronavirus pandemic and an economic freefall, with markets plunging, businesses collapsing and the world driven into crisis.The US Congress has already passed nearly $3tn in emergency response packages to the Covid-19 pandemic, as the Trump administration’s 2021 budget sharply increases spending on nuclear weapons, including a new low-yield submarine-launched nuclear weapon and a spending surge on intercontinental ballistic missiles.With the 2019 demise of the INF treaty, the US withdrawal from the Iran nuclear deal, growing worries that the US appears poised to abandon the bilateral New Start treaty, which might not be renewed in 2021, and the US Missile Defense Agency seeking new ways to use BMD systems, PMRF’s role appears likely to grow.William Hartung, the director of the arms and security project at the Center for International Policy, worries about the lack of public awareness of dramatic policy shifts or scrutiny of emerging technologies, such as hypersonic weapons, that reduce an already short response time to missile launches, as well as the further weaponization of space.“I think the economic impact of these military facilities all over the country is a big obstacle to changing how we spend our money, what kind of weapons are pursued, what nuclear policy we have, how we approach space,” Hartung said.“Because these places become entrenched, local communities depend on them economically and then there’s less inclination to question the value or the danger of the activities that are going on.”In the face of institutionalized military opacity, Hartung said there was an incentive for the military to avoid openness because “transparency can lead to criticism, criticism can lead to changes in policy, and so if they can stick to generic language and general boilerplate it may serve their interests. But they’re sort of short-term interests, they’re parochial interests.”

source https://news.yahoo.com/hawaii-navy-fueling-trumps-quest-050003868.html

Police cars burn, windows shatter as protests roil New York

Street protests spiraled into New York City’s worst day of unrest in decades Saturday, as fires burned, windows got smashed and dangerous confrontations between demonstrators and officers flared amid crowds of thousands decrying police killings. A day that began with mostly peaceful marches through Harlem and neighborhoods in the Bronx, Brooklyn and Queens descended into chaos as night fell. Demonstrators smashed windows, hurled objects at officers, torched and battered police vehicles and blocked roads with garbage and wreckage.

source https://news.yahoo.com/police-cars-burn-windows-shatter-155203715.html

Los Angeles mayor: National Guard to be deployed overnight

The Los Angeles mayor said National Guard troops were being sent in to the nation's second-largest city after continuing demonstrations Saturday saw protesters torch police cars and vandalize and burglarize stores while clashing with lines of officers. Mayor Eric Garcetti said he asked Gov. Gavin Newsom for 500 to 700 members of the Guard. “The California National Guard is being deployed to Los Angeles overnight to support our local response to maintain peace and safety on the streets of our city," the mayor said on social media.

source https://news.yahoo.com/los-angeles-mayor-asks-national-194637755.html

Police make nearly 1,400 arrests as protests continue

Police have arrested nearly 1,400 people in 17 U.S. cities since Thursday as protests continue over the death of George Floyd. Floyd died Monday in Minneapolis after a police officer put his knee on Floyd's neck for more than 8 minutes. The officer, Derrick Chauvin, was arrested on Friday and charged with third-degree murder.

source https://news.yahoo.com/police-nearly-1-400-arrests-025906931.html

Trump says he is postponing G7 summit

President Donald Trump on Saturday announced that the Group of Seven summit of world leaders would be postponed until at least September. Russia was ejected from what was then the G8 in 2014 as punishment for the annexation of Crimea. The announcement comes a day after The Associated Press and other news outlets reported that German Chancellor Angela Merkel would not attend a meeting in-person amid the coronavirus pandemic.

source https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-he-postponing-g7-summit-n1219896

Trump says he is postponing G7 summit

The move comes after German Chancellor Angela Merkel reportedly declined to participate in an in-person summit in June.

source https://news.yahoo.com/trump-says-postponing-g7-summit-020122476.html

Trump delays G7 until fall

Earlier Saturday, Angela Merkel said she "cannot confirm" she would be attending amid the coronavirus pandemic.

source https://news.yahoo.com/trump-delays-g7-until-fall-012441104.html

Officials blame differing groups of 'outsiders' for violence

As protests over the death of George Floyd grow in cities across the U.S., government officials have been warning of the “outsiders” -- groups of organized rioters they say are flooding into major cities not to call for justice but to cause destruction. Police officers across the country were gearing up Saturday for another night of potentially violent clashes in major cities. The finger pointing on both sides of the political spectrum is likely to deepen the political divide in the U.S., allowing politicians to advance the theory that aligns with their political view and distract from the underlying frustrations that triggered the protests.

source https://news.yahoo.com/officials-blame-differing-groups-outsiders-011738799.html

Heightened interaction between neolithic migrants and hunter-gatherers in Western Europe

This study reports new genome-wide data for 101 prehistoric individuals from 12 archaeological sites in today's France and Germany, dating from 7000-3000 BCE, and documents levels of admixture between expanding early Neolithic farmers and local hunter-gatherers seen nowhere else in Europe.

US faith leaders wrestle twin traumas in protests, virus

American religious leaders across faiths are grappling with the heavy burden of helping to heal two active traumas: rising civil unrest driven by the police killing of George Floyd and the coronavirus pandemic. Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders have raised their voices to condemn racial bias in the justice system while discouraging violence in response to the killing of Floyd, a black man who died after a white Minneapolis police officer pressed a knee into his neck. At Holy Trinity Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, which has provided relief and medical help to demonstrators this week as protests roiled the city, associate pastor Angela T. Khabeb said the shared pain caused by Floyd’s death was exposing the brutal double toll being exacted on people of color.

source https://news.yahoo.com/us-faith-leaders-wrestle-twin-231928493.html

Squad cars damaged, protesters struck with batons in Chicago

Several police cars were damaged, including at least one set on fire, as protests continued Saturday over the death of George Floyd, a handcuffed black man who died after a Minneapolis police officer pressed his knee into his neck for several minutes. Officers struck multiple demonstrators with batons amid the protest near the Trump Tower on the city's Near North Side, the Chicago Sun-Times reported. The demonstration began at 2 p.m. and protesters began marching north about 90 minutes later, the Chicago Tribune reported.

source https://news.yahoo.com/thousands-converge-chicago-minneapolis-death-215759951.html

Angela Merkel declines Donald Trump’s G7 invite to Camp David

Angela Merkel has reached her own Camp David accord — she’s not going. The German chancellor reportedly has politely rebuffed President Trump’s Group of 7 summit invitation at the Maryland presidential retreat, reported Politico. “The federal chancellor thanks President Trump for this invitation to the G7 summit at the end of June in Washington,” government spokesman Steffen Seibert told the site.

source https://www.nydailynews.com/news/world/ny-angela-merkel-hard-pass-20200530-rzpzvqfgjbd4zefclo5w7bv2kq-story.html#ed=rss_www.nydailynews.com/arcio/rss/category/news/

Coronavirus in South Africa: Eight lessons for the rest of the continent

What South Africa can teach other African countries gearing up for a spike in infections.

source https://news.yahoo.com/coronavirus-south-africa-eight-lessons-232845384.html

This Is What America Looks Like review: Ilhan Omar inspires – and stays fired up

The Minnesota congresswoman has written a fine memoir of her journey from Somalia to AmericaFew things are more unexpected than a genuinely inspirational memoir by a freshman member of Congress. If you’re looking for the perfect antidote to the perpetual tweetstorm of insanity and hatred from Donald Trump, try this beautiful new book from the Minnesota congresswoman Ilhan Omar.This migrant from Somalia came from a family of teachers and civil servants who lived in a guarded compound. Ilhan had a chauffeur to drive her to school. But all of that disappeared when Somalia was engulfed by civil war.“Bullets flew from one side of the conflict to the other,” Omar writes, “… directly over our house”. The house took direct hits, food became scarce and 350,000 died in the first year of the conflict.Omar’s family was forced to the oceanside town of Kismayo, where she was told that her father and brothers were dead. But the next day she followed what she thought was her father’s voice, “and toward the end of the stretch where everyone was sleeping, there he was … I put my hand on his face, just to make sure he was real. And he was.” Her brothers were alive, too.They fled to Kenya, where they faced malaria, dysentery and near starvation. The family survived in a refugee camp for 334,000 people, bartering kidney beans for kerosene and batteries for a radio. When she needed entertainment, Omar snuck under the barbed wire to walk to a nearby village, where an enterprising Kenyan charged a few shillings to watch movies on his TV. When six children who were distant relatives lost both their parents, Omar’s family looked after them, Ilhan paying special attention to the baby, Umi.Her father discovered that they could apply through the United Nations to go to Norway, Canada or Sweden. But the US was his first choice.“Only in America you ultimately become an American,” he said. “Everywhere else we will always feel like a guest.”Miraculously, a year after their first interview they were allowed to apply for America. Ilhan was upset, partly because the orphans couldn’t come with them, but the rest of her book is the astonishing story of a voyage from Nairobi to New York to Minnesota, then barely 20 years later to Congress.The family’s first stop was Arlington, Virginia, where the combative Ilhan spent most of her time in detention. But then she decided, she writes, “that my education was the one element of my life I had full control over, and given the long hours of studying in detention”, by the time they moved on to Minnesota she “had become a very good student”.At her new school, “Africans fought African Americans over who was blacker. Muslim kids and white kids fought over US policy in the Middle East. Latinos against African Americans, Africans against Native Americans.”But Ilhan began to display her talents as a community organizer. She joined a group of students determined to “improve racial and cultural relations” by founding Unity in Diversity, “essentially a training program around diverse leadership”.Her next stop was North Dakota State University, after a friend told her it was searching for students, offering scholarships and a “very low cost of living”. Back in Minneapolis after graduation, she immersed herself in the Democratic Farmer-Labor party, first working to defeat ballot initiatives to require photo IDs for voters and to outlaw gay marriage. She figured out a winning narrative: both were threats to freedom and civil liberties, a message that worked with communities of color and white rural Minnesotans. No anti-marriage equality initiative had ever been beaten until then – the same year Barack Obama was elected president.Omar was elected to the state legislature in 2016, then to the US Congress in 2018, as one of the first two Muslim women in the House. She feared she would be banned from the House floor by an ancient rule barring hats, which would have prevented her wearing her hijab. Nancy Pelosi fixed the rule.It’s unfortunate that Omar’s greatest fame is from a tweet made after Republican leader Kevin McCarthy said he wanted to punish her for her views on Israel, which include a two-state solution. When she tweeted back about campaign contributions from the Israeli lobby, writing “it’s all about the Benjamins baby”, the Twitterverse exploded.She realized her mistake and apologized.“I am by nature a starter of fires,” she writes. “My work has been to figure out where I’m going to burn down everything around me by adding the fuel of my religion, skin color, gender, or even my tone. Knowing not just yourself … but also how the world interacts with you … is vital to true and lasting progress.”Last week, such fire-starter impulses re-emerged: Omar expressed support for Tara Reade, who has accused Joe Biden of sexual assault. Omar conceded that Reade’s accusations have not been proven, and said she would still vote for Biden for president. But she also said it was “important” to believe Reade just because she describes herself as a “survivor”.It’s “not my place to litigate her story”, she said.On the other hand, there is another thing that makes Omar the perfect member of Congress for this moment.“Recognizing my psychology as a refugee who has seen her home devolve in to chaos basically overnight,” she writes “… it’s my duty to call out the lack of awareness about the disintegration of civilization that is possible anywhere … it can happen only when nobody is paying attention … or people stop caring.”When Omar was sworn in to Congress, there was one more big surprise. She had never believed Umi, the baby from the refugee camp, would make it. But now “a beautiful … vibrant, smiling woman” was standing in front of her.“I’m the baby,” Umi said.The congresswoman started to cry. * Join Ilhan Omar for a Guardian Live online event on 16 June.

source https://news.yahoo.com/america-looks-review-ilhan-omar-050034720.html

Supreme Court rejects challenge to limits on church services

A divided Supreme Court on Friday rejected an emergency appeal by a California church that challenged state limits on attendance at worship services that have been imposed to contain the spread of the coronavirus. Over the dissent of the four more conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the court's four liberals in turning away a request from the South Bay United Pentecostal Church in Chula Vista, California, in the San Diego area.

source https://news.yahoo.com/supreme-court-rejects-challenge-limits-043407482.html

The most common organism in the oceans harbors a virus in its DNA

The most common organism in the oceans, and possibly on the entire planet, is a family of single-celled marine bacteria called SAR11. These drifting organisms look like tiny jelly beans and have evolved to outcompete other bacteria for scarce resources in the oceans.

We now know that this group of organisms thrives despite -- or perhaps because of -- the ability to host viruses in their DNA. A study published in May in Nature Microbiology could lead to new understanding of viral survival strategies.

University of Washington oceanographers discovered that the bacteria that dominate seawater, known as Pelagibacter or SAR11, hosts a unique virus. The virus is of a type that spends most of its time dormant in the host's DNA but occasionally erupts to infect other cells, potentially carrying some of its host's genetic material along with it.

"Many bacteria have viruses that exist in their genomes. But people had not found them in the ocean's most abundant organisms," said co-lead author Robert Morris, a UW associate professor of oceanography. "We suspect it's probably common, or more common than we thought -- we just had never seen it."

This virus' two-pronged survival strategy differs from similar ones found in other organisms. The virus lurks in the host's DNA and gets copied as cells divide, but for reasons still poorly understood, it also replicates and is released from other cells.

The new study shows that as many as 3% of the SAR11 cells can have the virus multiply and split, or lyse, the cell -- a much higher percentage than for most viruses that inhabit a host's genome. This produces a large number of free viruses and could be key to its survival.

"There are 10 times more viruses in the ocean than there are bacteria," Morris said. "Understanding how those large numbers are maintained is important. How does a virus survive? If you kill your host, how do you find another host before you degrade?"

The study could prompt basic research that could help clarify host-virus interactions in other settings.

"If you study a system in bacteria, that is easier to manipulate, then you can sort out the basic mechanisms," Morris said. "It's not too much of a stretch to say it could eventually help in biomedical applications."

The UW oceanography group had published a previous paper in 2019 looking at how marine phytoplankton, including SAR11, use sulfur. That allowed the researchers to cultivate two new strains of the ocean-dwelling organism and analyze one strain, NP1, with the latest genetic techniques.

Co-lead author Kelsy Cain collected samples off the coast of Oregon during a July 2017 research cruise. She diluted the seawater several times and then used a sulfur-containing substance to grow the samples in the lab -- a difficult process, for organisms that prefer to exist in seawater.

The team then sequenced this strain's DNA at the UW PacBio sequencing center in Seattle.

"In the past we got a full genome, first try," Morris said. "This one didn't do that, and it was confusing because it's a very small genome."

The researchers found that a virus was complicating the task of sequencing the genome. Then they discovered a virus wasn't just in that single strain.

"When we went to grow the NP2 control culture, lo and behold, there was another virus. It was surprising how you couldn't get away from a virus," said Cain, who graduated in 2019 with a UW bachelor's in oceanography and now works in a UW research lab.

Cain's experiments showed that the virus' switch to replicating and bursting cells is more active when the cells are deprived of nutrients, lysing up to 30% of the host cells. The authors believe that bacterial genes that hitch a ride with the viruses could help other SAR11 maintain their competitive advantage in nutrient-poor conditions.

China home-built aircraft carrier conducting sea trials

source https://news.yahoo.com/china-home-built-aircraft-carrier-035649658.html

UN extends arms embargo and other sanctions in South Sudan

source https://news.yahoo.com/un-extends-arms-embargo-other-034227498.html

Fearful Great Danes provide new insights to genetic causes of fear

The identified genomic region includes several candidate genes associated with brain development and function as well as anxiety, whose further analysis may reveal new neural mechanisms related to fear.

For the purposes of the study, carried out by Professor Hannes Lohi's research group and published in the Translational Psychiatry journal, data from a total of 120 Great Danes was collected. The Great Dane breed is among the largest dog breeds in the world.

The project was launched after a number of Great Dane owners approached the research group to tell them about their dogs' disturbing fearfulness towards unfamiliar human beings in particular.

"Fear in itself produces a natural and vital reaction, but excessive fear can be disturbing and results in behavioural disorders. Especially in the case of large dogs, strongly expressed fearfulness is often problematic, as it makes it more difficult to handle and control the dog," says Riika Sarviaho, PhD from the University of Helsinki.

In dogs, behavioural disorders associated with anxiety and fearfulness include generalised anxiety disorder and a range of phobias. Fear can be evidenced, for example, as the dog's attempt to flee from situations they experience as frightening. At its worst, fear can manifest as aggression, which may result in attacks against other dogs or humans.

"Previous studies have suggested that canine anxiety and fearfulness could correspond with anxiety disorder in humans. In fact, investigating fearfulness in dogs may also shed more light on human anxiety disorders and help [us] understand their genetic background," Professor Lohi explains the broader goal of the study.

A new genomic region underlying fearfulness

The study utilised a citizen science approach as the dog owners contributed by completing a behavioural survey concerning their dogs, in which the dogs received scores according to the intensity of fear. Through genetic research, a genomic region associated with fearfulness was identified in chromosome 11. The analysis was repeated by taking into consideration the socialisation carried out in puppyhood, or the familiarisation of the dogs with new people, dogs and situations. The re-analysis reinforced the original finding.

"In the case of behavioural studies, it's important to keep in mind that, in addition to genes, the environment has a significant impact on the occurrence of specific traits. For dogs, the socialisation of puppies has been found to be an important environmental factor that strongly impacts fearfulness. In this study, the aim was to exclude the effect of puppyhood socialisation and, thus, observe solely the genetic predisposition to fearfulness," says Sarviaho.

The genomic region was studied in more detail also with the help of whole genome sequencing, but, so far, the researchers have not succeeded in identifying in it a specific gene variant that predisposes to fearfulness.

"Although no actual risk variant was identified, the genomic region itself is interesting, as it contains a number of genes previously associated in various study models with neural development and function, as well as anxiety. For example, the MAPK9 gene has been linked with brain development and synaptic plasticity as well as anxiety, while RACK1 has been associated with neural development and N4BP3 with neurological diseases," says Professor Lohi.

Link between accelerated puppyhood growth and timidity?

A genomic region in humans corresponding with the one now associated with canine fearfulness is linked to a rare syndrome, which causes both neurological symptoms and, among other things, accelerated growth in childhood.

"Research on the topic is only at the early stages and findings have to be carefully interpreted, but it's interesting to note, when focusing on a particularly large dog breed, that the genomic region associated with fearfulness appears to have a neurological role as well as one related to growth," Sarviaho adds.

So far, gene discoveries in canine behavioural research have remained fairly rare, and the genomic region now identified has not previously been linked with fearfulness. Lohi's research group has previously described two genomic regions associated with canine generalised fear and sensitivity to sound. The genetic research findings support the hypothesis that fearfulness and anxiety are inherited traits. To be able to identify more detailed risk factors and confirm the relevance of the findings, the study should be repeated with a more extensive dataset.

How toxic protein spreads in Alzheimer's disease

Toxic versions of the protein tau are believed to cause death of neurons of the brain in Alzheimer's disease. A new study published in Nature Communications shows that the spread of toxic tau in the human brain in elderly individuals may occur via connected neurons. The researchers could see that beta-amyloid facilitates the spread of toxic tau.

The present study is a collaboration between Lund University in Sweden and McGill University in Canada, and provides information on how toxic tau spreads in the human brain.

"Our research suggests that toxic tau may spread across different brain regions through direct neuronal connections, much like infectious diseases may spread to different cities through different transportation pathways. The spread is restricted during normal aging, but in Alzheimer's disease the spread may be facilitated by beta-amyloid, and likely leads to widespread neuronal death and eventually dementia," says lead author Jacob Vogel from McGill University.

"I think these findings have implications for therapies aiming at stopping the spread of tau and thereby halting the disease progression in Alzheimer's," says Oskar Hansson, professor of neurology at Lund University and co-lead investigator of the study.

There are two proteins that are known to be linked to Alzheimer's disease -- beta-amyloid, which forms what is known as a plaque in the brain, and tau, which forms tangles within brain cells. Previous studies have linked the spread of toxic tau, in particular, to degeneration of the brain and symptoms such as memory impairment.

Intense research is ongoing to better understand how toxic tau spreads in the brain, in order to develop new therapies that can stop the spread and thereby stop the disease. Ongoing clinical trials are currently evaluating whether antibodies developed to bind to tau might stop the disease.

"Our findings have implications for understanding the disease, but more importantly for the development of therapies against Alzheimer's, which are directed against either beta-amyloid or tau. Specifically, the results suggest that therapies that limit uptake of tau into the neurons or transportation or excretion of tau, could limit disease progression," says Oskar Hansson.

Date:

May 29, 2020

Source:

Lund University

Summary:

Toxic versions of the protein tau are believed to cause death of neurons of the brain in Alzheimer's disease. A new study shows that the spread of toxic tau in the human brain in elderly individuals may occur via connected neurons. The researchers could see that beta-amyloid facilitates the spread of toxic tau.

Anesthesia's effect on consciousness solved, settling century-old scientific debate

Date:

May 29, 2020

Source:

Scripps Research Institute

Summary:

How does general anesthesia cause loss of consciousness? Despite its 175-year-history of use by the U.S. medical system, science has been unable to definitively answer that question, until now. The lipid-based answer could open other brain mysteries.

Surgery would be inconceivable without general anesthesia, so it may come as a surprise that despite its 175-year history of medical use, doctors and scientists have been unable to explain how anesthetics temporarily render patients unconscious.

A new study from Scripps Research published Thursday evening in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences (PNAS) solves this longstanding medical mystery. Using modern nanoscale microscopic techniques, plus clever experiments in living cells and fruit flies, the scientists show how clusters of lipids in the cell membrane serve as a missing go-between in a two-part mechanism. Temporary exposure to anesthesia causes the lipid clusters to move from an ordered state, to a disordered one, and then back again, leading to a multitude of subsequent effects that ultimately cause changes in consciousness.

The discovery by chemist Richard Lerner, MD, and molecular biologist Scott Hansen, PhD, settles a century-old scientific debate, one that still simmers today: Do anesthetics act directly on cell-membrane gates called ion channels, or do they somehow act on the membrane to signal cell changes in a new and unexpected way? It has taken nearly five years of experiments, calls, debates and challenges to arrive at the conclusion that it's a two-step process that begins in the membrane, the duo say. The anesthetics perturb ordered lipid clusters within the cell membrane known as "lipid rafts" to initiate the signal.

"We think there is little doubt that this novel pathway is being used for other brain functions beyond consciousness, enabling us to now chip away at additional mysteries of the brain," Lerner says.

Lerner, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, is a former president of Scripps Research, and the founder of Scripps Research's Jupiter, Florida campus. Hansen is an associate professor, in his first posting, at that same campus.

The Ether Dome

Ether's ability to induce loss of consciousness was first demonstrated on a tumor patient at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston in 1846, within a surgical theater that later became known as "the Ether Dome." So consequential was the procedure that it was captured in a famous painting, "First Operation Under Ether," by Robert C. Hinckley. By 1899, German pharmacologist Hans Horst Meyer, and then in 1901 British biologist Charles Ernest Overton, sagely concluded that lipid solubility dictated the potency of such anesthetics.

Hansen recalls turning to a Google search while drafting a grant submission to investigate further that historic question, thinking he couldn't be the only one convinced of membrane lipid rafts' role. To Hansen's delight, he found a figure from Lerner's 1997 PNAS paper, "A hypothesis about the endogenous analogue of general anesthesia," that proposed just such a mechanism. Hansen had long looked up to Lerner -- literally. As a predoctoral student in San Diego, Hansen says he worked in a basement lab with a window that looked directly out at Lerner's parking space at Scripps Research.

"I contacted him, and I said, 'You are never going to believe this. Your 1997 figure was intuitively describing what I am seeing in our data right now,'" Hansen recalls. "It was brilliant."

For Lerner, it was an exciting moment as well.

"This is the granddaddy of medical mysteries," Lerner says. "When I was in medical school at Stanford, this was the one problem I wanted to solve. Anesthesia was of such practical importance I couldn't believe we didn't know how all of these anesthetics could cause people to lose consciousness."

Many other scientists, through a century of experimentation, had sought the same answers, but they lacked several key elements, Hansen says: First, microscopes able to visualize biological complexes smaller than the diffraction limits of light, and second, recent insights about the nature of cell membranes, and the complex organization and function of the rich variety of lipid complexes that comprise them.

"They had been looking in a whole sea of lipids, and the signal got washed out, they just didn't see it, in large part for a lack of technology," Hansen says.

From order to disorder

Using Nobel Prize-winning microscopic technology, specifically a microscope called dSTORM, short for "direct stochastical optical reconstruction microscopy," a post-doctoral researcher in the Hansen lab bathed cells in chloroform and watched something like the opening break shot of a game of billiards. Exposing the cells to chloroform strongly increased the diameter and area of cell membrane lipid clusters called GM1, Hansen explains.

What he was looking at was a shift in the GM1 cluster's organization, a shift from a tightly packed ball to a disrupted mess, Hansen says. As it grew disordered, GM1 spilled its contents, among them, an enzyme called phospholipase D2 (PLD2).

Tagging PLD2 with a fluorescent chemical, Hansen was able to watch via the dSTORM microscope as PLD2 moved like a billiard ball away from its GM1 home and over to a different, less-preferred lipid cluster called PIP2. This activated key molecules within PIP2 clusters, among them, TREK1 potassium ion channels and their lipid activator, phosphatidic acid (PA). The activation of TREK1 basically freezes neurons' ability to fire, and thus leads to loss of consciousness, Hansen says.

"The TREK1 potassium channels release potassium, and that hyper-polarizes the nerve -- it makes it more difficult to fire -- and just shuts it down," Hansen says.

Lerner insisted they validate the findings in a living animal model. The common fruit fly, drosophila melanogaster, provided that data. Deleting PLD expression in the flies rendered them resistant to the effects of sedation. In fact, they required double the exposure to the anesthetic to demonstrate the same response.

"All flies eventually lost consciousness, suggesting PLD helps set a threshold, but is not the only pathway controlling anesthetic sensitivity," they write.

Hansen and Lerner say the discoveries raise a host of tantalizing new possibilities that may explain other mysteries of the brain, including the molecular events that lead us to fall asleep.

Lerner's original 1997 hypothesis of the role of "lipid matrices" in signaling arose from his inquiries into the biochemistry of sleep, and his discovery of a soporific lipid he called oleamide. Hansen and Lerner's collaboration in this arena continues.

"We think this is fundamental and foundational, but there is a lot more work that needs to be done, and it needs to be done by a lot of people," Hansen says. Lerner agrees.

"People will begin to study this for everything you can imagine: Sleep, consciousness, all those related disorders," he says. "Ether was a gift that helps us understand the problem of consciousness. It has shined a light on a heretofore unrecognized pathway that the brain has clearly evolved to control higher-order functions."

Solution to century-old math problem could predict transmission of infectious diseases

Date:

May 29, 2020

Source:

University of Bristol

Summary:

An academic has achieved a milestone in statistical/mathematical physics by solving a 100-year-old physics problem -- the discrete diffusion equation in finite space.

A Bristol academic has achieved a milestone in statistical/mathematical physics by solving a 100-year-old physics problem -- the discrete diffusion equation in finite space.

The long-sought-after solution could be used to accurately predict encounter and transmission probability between individuals in a closed environment, without the need for time-consuming computer simulations.

In his paper, published in Physical Review X, Dr Luca Giuggioli from the Department of Engineering Mathematics at the University of Bristol describes how to analytically calculate the probability of occupation (in discrete time and discrete space) of a diffusing particle or entity in a confined space -- something that until now was only possible computationally.

Dr Giuggioli said: "The diffusion equation models random movement and is one of the fundamental equations of physics. The analytic solution of the diffusion equation in finite domains, when time and space is continuous, has been known for a long time.

"However, to compare model predictions with empirical observations, one needs to study the diffusion equation in finite space. Despite the work of illustrious scientists such as Smoluchowski, Pólya, and other investigators of yore, this has remained an outstanding problem for over a century -- until now.

"Excitingly, the discovery of this exact analytic solution allows us to tackle problems that were almost impossible in the past because of the prohibitive computational costs."

The finding has far-reaching implications across a range of disciplines and possible applications include predicting molecules diffusing inside cells, bacteria roaming in a petri dish, animals foraging within their home ranges, or robots searching in a disaster area.

It could even be used to predict how a pathogen is transmitted in a crowd between individuals.

Solving the conundrum involved the joint use of two techniques: special mathematical functions known as Chebyshev polynomials, and a technique invented to tackle electrostatic problems, the so-called method of images.

This approach allowed Dr Giuggioli to construct hierarchically the solution to the discrete diffusion equation in higher dimension from the one in lower dimensions.

Researchers discover new high-pressure material and solve a periodic table puzzle

Date:

May 29, 2020

Source:

Universität Bayreuth

Summary:

In the periodic table of elements there is one golden rule for carbon, oxygen, and other light elements. Under high pressures they have similar structures to heavier elements in the same group of elements. Only nitrogen always seemed unwilling to toe the line. However, high-pressure researchers have actually disproved this special status.

In the periodic table of elements there is one golden rule for carbon, oxygen, and other light elements. Under high pressures they have similar structures to heavier elements in the same group of elements. Only nitrogen always seemed unwilling to toe the line. However, high-pressure researchers of the University of Bayreuth have actually disproved this special status. Out of nitrogen, they have created a crystalline structure which under normal conditions occurs in black phosphorus and arsenic. The structure contains two-dimensional atomic layers, and is therefore of great interest for high-tech electronics. The scientists have presented this "black nitrogen" in "Physical Review Letters."

Nitrogen -- an exception in the periodic system?

When you arrange the chemical elements in ascending order according to their number of protons, and look at their properties, it soon becomes obvious that certain properties recur at large intervals ("periods"). The periodic table of elements brings these repetitions into focus. Elements with similar properties are placed one below the other in the same column, and thus form a group of elements. At the top of a column is the element that has the fewest protons and the lowest weight compared to the other group members. Nitrogen heads element group 15, but was previously considered the "black sheep" of the group. The reason: in earlier high-pressure experiments, nitrogen showed no structures similar to those the heavier elements of this group -- especially phosphorus, arsenic, and antimony -- exhibit under normal conditions. Instead, exactly this kind of similarities could be observed at high pressures in the neighbouring groups headed by carbon and oxygen.

Black nitrogen -- a high-pressure material with technologically attractive properties

In fact, nitrogen is no exception after all. Researchers at the Bavarian Research Institute of Experimental Geochemistry & Geophysics (BGI) and the Laboratory for Crystallography at the University of Bayreuth have now been able to prove this with the help of a measuring method they recently developed. Under the leadership of Dr. Dominique Laniel, they have made an unusual discovery. At very high pressures and temperatures, nitrogen atoms form a crystalline structure that is characteristic of black phosphorus, which is a particular variant of phosphorus. It also occurs in arsenic and antimony. This structure is composed of two-dimensional layers in which nitrogen atoms are cross-linked in a uniform zigzag pattern. In terms of their conductive properties, these 2D layers are similar to graphene, which shows great promise as a material for high-tech applications. Therefore, black phosphorus is currently being studied for its potential as a material for highly efficient transistors, semiconductors, and other electronic components in the future.

The Bayreuth researchers are proposing an analogous name for the allotrope of nitrogen they have discovered: black nitrogen. Some technologically attractive properties, in particular its directional dependence (anisotropy), are even more pronounced than in black phosphorus. However, black nitrogen can only exist thanks to the exceptional pressure and temperature conditions under which it is produced in the laboratory. Under normal conditions it dissolves immediately. "Because of this instability, industrial applications are currently not feasible. Nevertheless, nitrogen remains a highly interesting element in materials research. Our study shows by way of example that high pressures and temperatures can produce material structures and properties that researchers previously did not know existed," says Laniel.

Determining structure with particle accelerators

It took truly extreme conditions to produce black nitrogen. The compression pressure was 1.4 million times the pressure of the Earth's atmosphere, and the temperature exceeded 4,000 degrees Celsius. To find out how atoms arrange themselves under these conditions, the Bayreuth scientists cooperated with the German Electron Synchrotron (DESY) in Hamburg and the Advanced Photon Source (APS) at the Argonne National Laboratory in the USA. Here, X-rays generated by particle acceleration were fired at the compressed samples. "We were surprised and intrigued by the measurement data suddenly providing us with a structure characteristic of black phosphorus. Further experiments and calculations have since confirmed this finding. This means there is no doubt about it: nitrogen is, in fact, not an exceptional element, but follows the same golden rule of the periodic table as carbon and oxygen do," says Laniel, who came to the University of Bayreuth in 2019 as an Alexander von Humboldt Foundation research fellow.

Merkel a 'no' for Trump's in-person G7 summit: report

German Chancellor Angela Merkel will not attend an in-person summit of G7 leaders that US President Donald Trump has suggested he will host despite concerns over the coronavirus pandemic, the Politico website quoted her spokesman as saying Friday. Leaders from the Group of Seven, which the United States heads this year, had been scheduled to meet by videoconference in late June after COVID-19 scuttled plans to gather in-person at Camp David, the US presidential retreat in the state of Maryland. Trump last week, however, indicated that he could hold the huge gathering after all, "primarily at the White House" but also potentially parts of it at Camp David.

source https://news.yahoo.com/merkel-no-trumps-person-g7-summit-report-021510940.html

UN announces first 2 deaths of UN peacekeepers from COVID-19

source https://news.yahoo.com/un-announces-first-2-deaths-015016646.html

Announced termination of the U.S. relationship with WHO is damaging and dangerous amid global COVID-19 outbreak

source https://news.yahoo.com/announced-termination-u-relationship-damaging-014000098.html

Trump Fears The Minnesota Chaos Makes Him Look Weak

The coronavirus pandemic stole from President Donald Trump his most prized political possession: a booming U.S. economy. Now racial unrest in Minnesota threatens to steal his second-most-prized one: an image of power and stability that he can project to supporters and adversaries alike.Hours into a spate of destruction and arrests in Minneapolis after the police killing of an unarmed black man, Trump was already threatening to send in the National Guard and warning that “looters” in the city would be shot—employing a phrase popularized by a former Miami police chief famous for “tough-on-crime” policies that targeted citizens of color.Trump walked back the latter statement a few hours later, saying he only meant that looters could end up shooting people, not that they should be shot. “I’ve heard that phrase for a long time. I don’t know where it came from or where it originated,” he declared later. “I wouldn't know a thing like that.”But his immediate jump to a forceful and potentially deadly resolution to the unrest underscored what knowledgeable sources said is deep distress at events that, in Trump’s view, make him appear weak. He told reporters at the White House on Friday that he didn’t want Minneapolis to "descend further into lawless anarchy and chaos."There’s a personal branding aspect to that desire, one senior administration official told The Daily Beast. “He sees civil disturbance as a referendum on his leadership,” the source said. "A show of force like sending in the National Guard is a way to reassert that authority and show he's in control.”Alarmed Minneapolis Protesters Meet National Guard with Racist PastA key component of Trump’s political appeal amid his meteoric rise during in 2015 and 2016 was his reliance on old-school law-and-order rhetoric that tacitly—and sometimes explicitly—laid the blame for civil unrest at the feet of his opponents and Washington’s political class. In many cases, that manifested in his reactions to previous riots and demonstrations in response to high-profile police killings.“Our country is totally fractured and, with our weak leadership in Washington, you can expect Ferguson type riots and looting in other places,” Trump tweeted in the wake of unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, following the police shooting of Michael Brown. That unrest, in Trump’s view, made the country and its leaders look weak and ineffectual.“As China and the rest of the World continue to rip off the U.S. economically, they laugh at us and our president over the riots in Ferguson!” he declared in one tweet. “Can you imagine what Putin and all of our friends and enemies throughout the world are saying about the U.S. as they watch the Ferguson riot,” he said in another.In Trump’s mind, he was the antidote, and his supporters latched onto that image of a strong leader in firm control. The prospect of losing that image—and winding up on the receiving end of the same sorts of barbs he threw President Barack Obama’s way in 2014—makes him prone to visceral reactions when cable news networks broadcast images such as a burning American city onto his television, the former administration official said.It was the same impulse that led Trump to suggest in 2017 that he might employ the National Guard in an attempt to quell high rates of violent crime in Chicago. Just a year earlier, he’d booked a rally in the city that devolved into chaos when protesters succeeded in shutting down the event. Trump tried to turn it into a political asset. The protesters, he said at the time, “have totally energized America!”‘Burn It Down. Let Them Pay’: Deadly Chaos Erupts in Minneapolis as Fires Rage Over Police ViolenceThe unrest that Trump makes political hay of, in the end, is almost always the episodes that involve minority communities. As president, he notably tried to play the role of reconciliator for the white nationalist riots that upended Charlottesville and resulted in the death of a young woman. In the days prior to Minneapolis’ burning, Trump urged the Democratic governor of Michigan to have empathy and even meet with the armed white protestors who were demanding that she reopen the state more quickly in the wake of the COVID-related shutdown. That dichotomous approach is part of his political appeal. And as he was walking back the harsh tones of his looter tweets, some in the conservative media were encouraging him to act on it, fearful that something perceived as less forceful would be a potential body blow to his political brand. “Where is the law and order President?” asked Spectator columnist Amber Athey on Friday. “President Trump ought to be the tough but moral leader the city needs right now,” Athey wrote, “but his initial response was just as spineless as the rest.”As he continues to address the matter in the coming days and weeks, it’s highly unlikely that Trump will drift away from his typical “tough on crime” posturing, in part because he sees it as so integral to his political identity and victory.“The president sees attacks on the police as an attack on a key constituency,” said a current senior Trump administration official. “He sees his strong support for police officers...as a core part of who he is as a winner...I’ve heard him say several times [in recent months] things like, ‘I will never abandon our police. Joe Biden will.’”But there are complications. Trump isn’t simply running for office anymore. He’s holding it. And a tinderbox like Minneapolis is not so easy to address when the buck now stops with you. Just as he mused they would after Ferguson, Chinese government mouthpieces were quick to seize on the unrest there Friday to try to ding the administration. Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

source https://news.yahoo.com/trump-fears-minnesota-chaos-makes-010210352.html

Germany's Merkel rejects Trump invite to attend G7 summit in Washington- Politico

source https://news.yahoo.com/germanys-merkel-rejects-trump-invite-232919882.html

Akinwumi Adesina: Why the US is targeting a flamboyant Nigerian banker

The US pushes for new inquiry into allegations of corruption against the African Development Bank boss.

source https://news.yahoo.com/akinwumi-adesina-why-us-targeting-231141751.html

New method to map cholesterol metabolism in brain

Date:

May 29, 2020

Source:

Swansea University

Summary:

Researchers have developed new technology to monitor cholesterol in brain tissue which could uncover its relation to neurodegenerative disease and pave the way for the development of new treatments.

A team of researchers led by Swansea University have developed new technology to monitor cholesterol in brain tissue which could uncover its relation to neurodegenerative disease and pave the way for the development of new treatments.

The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, shows the major locations of cholesterol in the brain and what molecules it can be converted to.

The brain is a remarkably complex organ, with cholesterol and its metabolites underpinning the brain's function. Dysregulated cholesterol metabolism is linked to a number of neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Huntington's disease, multiple sclerosis and motor neurone disease.

It is known that cholesterol is not evenly distributed across different brain regions; however, up until now there has been no technology available to map cholesterol metabolism in defined locations of the brain at microscopic levels, and to visualise how it changes in pathological niches in the brain.

Here, researchers describe an advanced mass spectrometry imaging platform to reveal spatial cholesterol metabolism in mouse brain at micrometre resolution from tissue slices. The researchers mapped not only cholesterol, but also biologically active metabolites arising from cholesterol turnover. For example, they found that 24S-hydroxycholesterol, the major cholesterol metabolite in the brain, is about ten times more abundant in striatum than in the cerebellum, two regions involved in different ways in voluntary movement and cognition.

The new technology comes from a decade of research at Swansea University where the team have worked out methods to reveal the different metabolites of cholesterol in very small quantities of the brain, as small as the tip of a ballpoint pen.

Professor William Griffiths, who co-led the study from Swansea University added: "Although our work was with a mouse, the technology can similarly be used in humans in a research lab or a clinical setting, and could have revolutionary value when linked to neurosurgery.

"Tissue excised during surgery could rapidly be profiled by our method in-clinic and used to distinguish healthy from diseased tissue, informing the surgeon on the next step of the operation."

Professor Yuqin Wang added: "This technology which precisely locates molecules in the brain will further our understanding of the complexity of brain function and how it changes in neurodegenerative disorders.

"Our results show that cholesterol turnover is particularly high in striatum, the area most affected in Huntington's disease. We will apply this method to find out how cholesterol metabolism is associated with this disease. This may lead to the development of new therapies to a disease which currently has no cure."