Category Archives: Physiology

Physiology

Reply to: Revisiting life history and morphological proxies for early mammaliaform metabolic rates – Nature.com

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Clemens, W. A. New morganucodontans from an Early Jurassic fissure filling in Wales (United Kingdom). Palaeontology 54, 11391156 (2011).

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Chen, M., Strmberg, C. A. & Wilson, G. P. Assembly of modern mammal community structure driven by Late Cretaceous dental evolution, rise of flowering plants, and dinosaur demise. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA. 116, 99319940 (2019).

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Reply to: Revisiting life history and morphological proxies for early mammaliaform metabolic rates - Nature.com

Physiology

Is It Dangerous To Drink Beverages That Contain Sodium Benzoate? – Tasting Table

It sure is. Sodium benzoate is a powder that's made by combining benzoic acid with lye, also called sodium hydroxide. This combination does not occur in nature, but benzoic acid can be found in some fruits, plants, and fermented foods.

On its own, sodium benzoate is harmless. What causes trouble is when it's added to products containing vitamin C or ascorbic acid, as it's commonly called on food labels. When these two substances meet, they can turn into benzene, a known carcinogen. This combination is commonly found in soft drinks and is particularly a concern with diet sodas as sugar seems to blunt some of the negative effects of the duo. (via FBC Industries).

In addition to possibly forming a carcinogen, a 2016 study published in Physiology International linked the additive to tissue inflammation. A 2014 study published in Sage Journal found a correlation between sodium benzoate consumption and ADHD. A decrease in leptin, which controls appetite, was concluded in a 2011 study from the British Journal of Nutrition, and free radical formation resulted in a 2014 study via Scientific World Journal.

While deemed safe in specific amounts by the FDA, and more studies are needed to draw further conclusions on any purported dangers, it's always best to do your due diligence and read labels when your health is at stake.

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Is It Dangerous To Drink Beverages That Contain Sodium Benzoate? - Tasting Table

Physiology

ExPath Grad Student Madeline Mayday Awarded Grant from the NIDDK Cooperative Centers of Excellence in Hematology – Yale School of Medicine

Madeline Mayday, BS, a fourth-year Experimental Pathology graduate student in the Laboratory of Diane Krause, MD, PhD, was recently awarded a 2022 National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases Hematology Centers Program Type B Pilot and Feasibility grant for her project entitled, Investigation of RBM15 and the m6A Epitranscriptome in Megakaryopoiesis.

The NIDDK is an institute within the National Institutes of Health. The NIDDK Hematology Centers Program provides a novel support mechanism for researchers to pursue new directions in benign hematology. The grants are designed to support innovative pilot research projects in benign hematology, including the generation of preliminary data for larger research grants.

Madeline is a PhD candidate in the Department of Pathology and is part of the Medical Research Scholars Program. She is originally from Muskoka, Ontario, and graduated with a BS in Cell and Molecular Biology from San Francisco State University. She then worked as a Research Associate at UCSF to develop a protocol for detection of pathogens causing respiratory failure in pediatric HSC transplant patients.

Madeline began her graduate studies in the Translational Molecular Medicine, Pharmacology and Physiology (TMMPP) program at Yale in Fall 2019 and joined the Krause Lab in May 2022 with an interest in translational research and hematopoiesis.

Submitted by Terence P. Corcoran on September 20, 2022

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ExPath Grad Student Madeline Mayday Awarded Grant from the NIDDK Cooperative Centers of Excellence in Hematology - Yale School of Medicine

Physiology

You have so much to choose from: The Marvels Wont Adapt Monica Rambeaus Strongest Version For the Movie, Fans Claim They Are Depowering a Black Woman…

Monica Rambeau is the daughter of Maria Rambeau who was a dear friend of Carol Danvers aka Captain Marvel. Following the storyline ofWandaVision, the character of Monica Rambeau crossed the Hex 2 to 3 times which made her gain powers never before seen!

Announcing her return inThe Marvelsin 2023, it seems that Monica Rambeaus powers were nullified significantly to keep the focus on Captain Marvel more, the fans state Marvel is depowering a black woman is in the attempt.

Speaking at the D23 Expo, the director of the movie Nia DaCosta stated that the original character of Monica Rambeau will not be seen inThe Marvelsand only a part of her powers will be used. The director gave her statement as follows.

With Monica, we really got to talk about, Okay, like which of her thousands of powers in the comics do we want to make canon in the MCU? Well, you know theres a part in the comics where she realizes shes immortal.

Based on your interests: Its Green Lantern with a female lead: Fans Divided After Brie Larson Hints Shes Leaving MCU, Captain Marvel Haters Claim Movie Was a Bust Despite Making $1.1 Billion

She continued,

She freaks out and then she goes intangible in water, and her atoms scatter across the ocean, and that takes her like forever to put herself back together. Like, shes insane so its like, you have so much to choose from Anyway, we didnt do that one.

While as awesome as this may sound, the director has stated that the audience will not be able to see the ultimate form of Monica Rambeau inThe Marvelsas fans claim that an attempt to depower a black woman is in progress.

You might also like to read: Just dont screw up the main villain as you did in season 1: Fans Wary of Ms. Marvel Season 2 Renewal, Claim Season 1 Had the Worst Villain of All MCU Shows

Taking to Twitter, the fans shared the news about the attempt to allegedly depowerize a black woman as Monica Rambeaus powers may overshadow Captain Marvels. Her powers include enhanced physiology, spectral vision, energy absorption, and, intangibility to name a few along with immortality and many other godly powers that compete with the powers of Captain Marvel herself!

The fans took to Twitter to express their views and opinions with most of them unhappy with the power change.

The decision indeed rests with the people over at Marvel as to what the powers of Monica Rambeau should be.The Marvels will combine Iman Vellanis Ms. Marvel along with Brie Larsons Captain Marvel and Teyonah Parris Monica Rambeau with her newly acquired abilities.

The Marvelsis set for a release date on 28th July 2023 to be released in theaters worldwide.

Suggested: Strong women dont pine for male approval: God of War Director David Scott Jaffe Calls Brie Larson Haters Nasty ring of underdeveloped geeks

Source: Twitter

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You have so much to choose from: The Marvels Wont Adapt Monica Rambeaus Strongest Version For the Movie, Fans Claim They Are Depowering a Black Woman...

Physiology

The US Is Measuring Extreme Heat Wrong – WIRED

In the late 1970s, a physicist and textiles engineer in Texas named Robert Steadman published a paper called The Assessment of Sultriness. The title reflected an unpleasant sort of steaminesshow temperature and humidity combine to make life hard on the body. To do it, he drew on a long history of experimentation. In the 18th century, people climbed into ovens warmed to 250 degrees Fahrenheit to see how long they could suffer, as they watched steaks cook beside them. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, researchers observed people sweat in Turkish baths and reported from mines where they measured the ambient conditions as workers collapsed from heat exhaustion. Later on, the military picked up more of the testing, deriving equations for how blood flow, sweat, and breathing respond to atmospheric extremes.

What was unique to Steadman was his intimate knowledge of clothes; he was known for projects like a universal sizing system for garments, and motors that could spin fine cotton yarn. After all, he theorized, people are rarely naked in the heat, so our perception of it must be mediated by a combination of physiology and clothing. His formulas assumed precise percentages of how much skin would be covered with fabric, and how specific mixes of air and fiber would transfer heat from the air.

Whats surprising is that, for a set of calculations developed by a textiles researcher, Steadmans measure of sultriness proved useful for weather forecasters, especially in the United States. In 1990, a scientist at the National Weather Service adapted them with Steadmans key features more or less intact. Henceforth, the sultriness index came to be known more (or perhaps less) pithily as the heat index," though it's also sometimes called the apparent temperature or real feel. If you have been caught in this summers heat waves, this is likely a number you have consulted to better understand the torturous outdoors. Its the measure thats supposed to include an overlooked factor in the human experience with heat: humidity. That wetness in the air slows the evaporation of sweat off your skina key way of staying cool.

What made Steadmans index successful was that the numbers felt right, in a literal sense. The heat index reads like a temperature, but its wobblier than that, a perception rooted in physiological reality. When two different combinations of heat and humidity result in the same heat indexsay, 96 degrees Fahrenheit/50 percent humidity and 86 degrees/95 percent humidity, which both have a heat index of 108this is meant to signal that the body in each scenario is under a similar level of stress as it tries to cool down. As the heat index rises, the miracle of internal thermoregulation that fixes our bodies at 98.6 degrees begins to crumble. Our core temperature rises, which starts off as unpleasant and then gets dangerous. Theres a roughly 10 degree window before all the chemistry that sustains life begins to fail. That means death.

But theres a problem with Steadmans calculations: They werent actually built to handle those sorts of extreme conditions. At a certain thresholdone that includes a plausibly steamy combination of 80 percent humidity and 88 degrees Fahrenheitthe heat index veers into predicting what David Romps, a physicist and climate scientist at the University of California, Berkeley, calls unphysical conditions that rarely happen in the lower parts of atmosphere. This includes supersaturated air making contact with the skinthat is, air thats more than 100 percent saturated with water.

Temperature and humidity conditions beyond that threshold are somewhat rareand when they do happen, its possible to extrapolate from Steadman's model to come up with an estimated heat index value. But estimates are estimates, and those kinds of heat waves are becoming more common as temperatures rise. So Romps and his graduate student, Yi-Chuan Lu, began taking a look at the models fundamentals. They quickly realized that, for the long list of assumptions in the equations, certain things were missing. For one thing, there is a natural solution to the supersaturation problem: When the air is too wet for human sweat to evaporate, it can still bead and drip off the skin, providing some relief.

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The US Is Measuring Extreme Heat Wrong - WIRED

Physiology

4th agricultural revolution needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions: Nobel laureate – The Straits Times

SINGAPORE - The agricultural sector is responsible for a huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions - equivalent to the emissions from all the electricity generation in the world, said Nobel laureate Steven Chu.

Hence, there is a need to transform the sector - through a fourth agricultural revolution - where higher crop yields to feed the world's populations are obtained sustainably without the use of fertilisers or insecticides.

Professor Chu, who is a professor of molecular and cellular physiology and of energy science and engineering at Stanford University, was speaking to The Straits Times at the Nobel Prize Dialogue 2022: The Future We Want Together on Sept 13.

The event was held at Raffles City Convention Centre, where Nobel laureates, students and other experts came together to discuss how to improve people's lives and how a better future can be built. It was organised by the National University of Singapore's Yong Loo Lin School of Medicine.

Prof Chu, 74, who is American, noted how the previous agricultural revolutions helped the world's population to grow through the domestication of animals, cultivation of staple crops and the use of fertilisers to boost crop yield.

"But there were also unintended consequences - fertiliser requires a lot of energy to make, and the fertiliser run-off (into rivers and streams) is a potent greenhouse gas effect," he added.

Fertiliser run-offs release nitrous oxide - which has a warming potential of approximately 300 times that of carbon dioxide.

Some solutions are being tested, such as creating microbes which can take nitrogen from the soil to feed crops like corn, wheat and rice, so that fertilisers would not be needed.

This has already been trialled on a small scale in the United States, where 50 per cent of fertiliser needed for growing corn has been replaced with microbes in some farms. This will, however, unlikely take shape on a larger scale until it is profitable for farmers to do so, Prof Chu noted.

To prevent less methane from being released through cow burps, it is also possible to reduce the number of microbes found in cattle by 90 per cent, perhaps by modifying their feed or vaccinating them, he said.

Prof Chu was energy secretary in the US from 2009 to 2013, helping to implement then President Barack Obama's agenda of investing in clean energy, reducing the US' reliance on foreign oil, and addressing the global climate crisis.

Prof Chu helped to propel the development of a funding agency called Advanced Research Projects For Energy - which invested in projects such as accelerating the development of solar power to lower its costs.

"In 2010, we had a crazy ambition to cut (the costs of solar) by one quarter in 10 years, and we managed to get it to one quarter in seven years," he said. The feat took a detailed road map and required working closely with the industry.

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4th agricultural revolution needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions: Nobel laureate - The Straits Times

Physiology

KRTL INTERNATIONAL AND ICANN VENTURES TO LAUNCH CANNABIS EDUCATION PROGRAM IN KOREA – StreetInsider.com

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Lakewood, CO, Sept. 23, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) --

KRTL International Corp., a subsidiary of KRTL Holding Group, Inc. (OTC: KRTL) and ICANN Ventures have signed multiple strategic agreements to be executed accordingly. As an introduction to this relationship, they have collaborated with Yeungnam University (Republic of Korea). Through this trilateral revenue sharing partnership, the CBD Training Academy, a global Cannabis Learning Community, can introduce their hemp business acceleration program and services. They will start offering its specialized courses, masterclasses, and full professional certificate courses in October 2022.

Designed to provide students with the most comprehensive education in the cannabis ecosystem and backed by a vision to create a platform for hemp enthusiasts to share their passion and creativity while having a positive impact on the Hemp industry at large, The CBD Training Academy - Korea will be available to corporate executives and professionals participating in the Special Free Zone in Gyeongbuk Province. As legislation progresses in this industry, the program anticipates it will accept a wide range of students passionate about cannabis, particularly those aspiring to advance professionally in business.

Yeungnam University, Department of Horticulture & Life Science, is a leading provider of education in Korea. Their faculty members are composed of experts in plant physiology, plant genetics, vegetable crops, pomology, plant pathology, floriculture, protected horticulture, flower decoration, and publish papers in globally prominent plant journals.

The CBD Training Academy goes beyond business as usual. I am very proud to say that every course is embedded with best practices, including the latest medical, clinical, and scientific advances in using hemp for health and wellness, commented Rick Diamond, CEO of ICANN Ventures, the parent of the CBD Training Academy.

Kai Kim, the CEO of KRTL International Corp: Education is fundamental to the development and growth of all sustainable infrastructure. Agricultural innovations and education can enhance efficient public administration and the private sector for sustainable growth. For countries to reap these benefits fully, they need to unleash the potential of the human mind. And there is no better tool for doing so than education. We are happy to have introduced this educational mechanism that can accomplish all this with a trilateral revenue sharing structure.

CBD is currently legal in South Korea for medical purposes for patients that have a doctors prescription and is controlled by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety. According to a survey released last year, more than one in three Korean respondents said they were aware of the medical effects of cannabis or had heard about it. On July 18, the Korean Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced that patients who are living with rare, incurable diseases and who have no other treatment options would be permitted to import and use cannabis-derived drugs that were legal in other countries. While far from as liberal a law as some US states have enacted for medical cannabis and hemp CBD oil use, the law is a major move for a country that has strict cannabis laws. Officials who allowed for medical cannabis use stated that their reasoning was based on trends seen in other countries, as well as the call for access by advocates in Korea. The future for cannabis in Korea looks bright.

The CBD Training Academys curriculum is unlike any other in the country, said Dr. Park, Head of Smart Farm Safety at the Department of Horticulture and Life Science, Yeungnam University. We are a game changer in Koreas cannabis education scene, bringing three authoritative organizations together to advance the knowledge and education for this new industry. Students will obtain the most resourceful and dynamic educational programs. Im very excited to welcome the first batch of students, and I feel privileged to witness the students growth in their cannabis studies at the CBD Training Academy.

About KRTL Holding Group, Inc.: KRTL is a holding company interested in diversifying risk and accessing new markets. The Company operates its wholly owned subsidiaries, KRTL Biotech, Inc. and KRTL International Corp., with precision and excellence and continues to create and strengthen the KRTL reputation. This allows KRTL Holding Group, Inc. to capitalize on any range of investment opportunities. Our organization values collaboration and emphasizes a transparent work environment. Additional information on KRTL is available online at http://www.krtlholding.com and http://www.krtl-icc.com and http://www.krtlbiotech.com.CONTACT: KRTL Holding Group Inc. [emailprotected] 800-707-0586

About the CBD Training Academy: The CBD Training Academy was the first to certify people in the CBD industry. After launching the CBD training platform and certifying a record number of CBD Coaches, the Academy is bringing that a high level of knowledge to the international market. Learn from REAL the experts and learn EVERYTHING about CBD such as dosing, methods, history, legal, sales & marketing, coaching, working with clients & patients. Courses are taught by industry leaders, including doctors, successful retailers & distributors, logistics experts, cannabinoid lawyers, and other CBD industry service providers that are experts in their particular areas of the CBD industry. Visit their site for amazing resources & courses about CBD, Hemp, Cannabis, and all Cannabinoids. https://cbdtrainingacademy.com/

About Yeungnam University (Republic of Korea) Department of Horticulture & Life Science: Department of Horticulture and Life Science is an applied science that studies theories and technologies on horticulture, and it is a discipline that has come under the limelight as a high-income sector of the future together with the introduction of various new technologies and high-tech equipment.

information contained herein includes forward-looking statements. These statements relate to future events or to our future financial performance, and involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors that may cause our actual results, performance, or achievements to be materially different from any future results, performance or achievements expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking. We assume no obligation to publicly update or revise these forward-looking statements for any reason, or to update the reasons actual results could differ materially from those anticipated in these forward-looking statements, even if new information becomes available in the future.

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KRTL INTERNATIONAL AND ICANN VENTURES TO LAUNCH CANNABIS EDUCATION PROGRAM IN KOREA - StreetInsider.com

Physiology

Gastrointestinal Physiology and Function – PubMed

The gastrointestinal (GI) system is responsible for the digestion and absorption of ingested food and liquids. Due to the complexity of the GI tract and the substantial volume of material that could be covered under the scope of GI physiology, this chapter briefly reviews the overall function of the GI tract, and discusses the major factors affecting GI physiology and function, including the intestinal microbiota, chronic stress, inflammation, and aging with a focus on the neural regulation of the GI tract and an emphasis on basic brain-gut interactions that serve to modulate the GI tract. GI diseases refer to diseases of the esophagus, stomach, small intestine, colon, and rectum. The major symptoms of common GI disorders include recurrent abdominal pain and bloating, heartburn, indigestion/dyspepsia, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, and constipation. GI disorders rank among the most prevalent disorders, with the most common including esophageal and swallowing disorders, gastric and peptic ulcer disease, gastroparesis or delayed gastric emptying, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD). Many GI disorders are difficult to diagnose and their symptoms are not effectively managed. Thus, basic research is required to drive the development of novel therapeutics which are urgently needed. One approach is to enhance our understanding of gut physiology and pathophysiology especially as it relates to gut-brain communications since they have clinical relevance to a number of GI complaints and represent a therapeutic target for the treatment of conditions including inflammatory diseases of the GI tract such as IBD and functional gut disorders such as IBS.

Keywords: Absorption; Barrier function; Central nervous system (CNS); Colon; Constipation; Diarrhea; Digestion; Enteric nervous system (ENS); Epithelial barrier; Gut microbiome; Inflammation; Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD); Intestinal permeability; Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS); Mucosa; Secretion; Small intestine; Smooth muscle; Stress; Visceral pain.

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Gastrointestinal Physiology and Function - PubMed

Physiology

Scientists find the best way to soothe a crying baby – Earth.com

The sound of a crying infant can be very distressing to parents. They seek to soothe the baby and may resort to numerous ploys in order to restore the baby to a state of peace. None of these methods has been scientifically proven, however, relying rather on trial and error or on the advice of experienced caregivers. In a new study by Japanese researchers, four different soothing methods were tested and the efficacy of each was assessed based on changes in the babys heart rate and whether the baby stopped crying.

Many parents suffer from babies nighttime crying, says corresponding author Kumi Kuroda of the RIKEN Center for Brain Science in Japan. Thats such a big issue, especially for inexperienced parents, that it can lead to parental stress and even to infant maltreatment in a small number of cases, she says.

The study details how crying babies are physiologically affected by being held, carried, and laid down. The researchers made use of ECG data on heart rate, and hand-held video cameras, to track the physiological and behavioral state of the baby as it was soothed. Mothers were given four methods for calming the baby: hold the crying infant, hold and walk with the infant, place the infant in a cot or crib, and place the infant in a mobile crib or stroller that can be moved back and forth. At each heartbeat, behavior was assessed as asleep, alert, or crying, and scored accordingly. This way the researchers could track changes in both behavior and physiology with sub-second precision.

In previous research, Kuroda and her colleagues found that mother mice pick up their babies (pups) by mouth and carry them when they are distressed. The mouse pups show a specific response, termed the Transport Response, when picked up by their mothers. This involves a complex series of parallel biological processes that results in reduced crying and lower heart rates, which helps the parents to transport the infants. Kruoda and the team wondered whether human infants would show similar physiological responses to being carried around, and whether this would have a calming impact when the infant was distressed.

The Transport Response is found in many mammals that have altricial young (born underdeveloped and helpless) that are not able to walk around on their own. Such mammals include dogs, cats and monkeys. We are more familiar with this response when picking up young puppies or kittens by the scruff of the neck. They tend to hang motionless and become more docile, but their bodies do not go entirely limp; they maintain a certain compactness of posture, with legs pulled in slightly, perhaps making it easier for their parents to carry them to a new location.

The researchers compared the responses of 21 human infants to soothing using the four different methods. They found that when the mother walked while carrying the baby, the crying infants calmed down and their heart rates slowed within 30 seconds. In fact, when mothers walked in this way for a period of five minutes, the infants became so calm that around 50 percent of them fell asleep. A similar calming effect occurred when the infants were placed in a rocking cot, but not when the mother held the baby while sitting, or placed the baby in a motionless cot.

As Kuroda explains, walking for five minutes promoted sleep, but only for crying infants. Surprisingly, this effect was absent when babies were already calm beforehand. Among the babies studied, all had stopped crying by the end of the five-minute walk and had reduced heart rates. However, sitting and holding a crying baby was not calming; the heart rate tended to increase and crying persisted. Heart rates also increased when walking mothers turned, or when they stopped walking, showing that babies are very sensitive to their mothers movements.

Unfortunately, the study found that when the mothers tried to put down their sleeping babies after calming them, more than one-third of the infants became alert again within 20 seconds. Analysis of the data showed that all the babies produced physiological responses, including changes in heart rate, the moment they became detached from the mothers body. However, if the infants were asleep for a longer period before being laid down, they were less likely to awaken during the process, the team found.

Even as a mother of four, I was very surprised to see the result. I thought whether a baby awoke during a laydown was related to how theyre put on the bed, such as their posture, or the gentleness of the movement, Kuroda says. But our experiment did not support these general assumptions. Although we did not predict it, the key parameter for successful laydown of sleeping infants was the latency from sleep onset. Babies often woke up if they were put down before they got about 8 minutes of sleep.

Based on their findings, the researchers propose a method for soothing and promoting sleep in crying infants. They recommend that parents hold crying infants and walk with them for five minutes, followed by sitting and holding infants for another five to eight minutes before putting them to bed. The protocol, unlike other popular sleep training approaches such as letting infants cry until they fall asleep themselves, aims to provide an immediate solution for infant crying. Whether it can improve infant sleep in the long-term requires further research, Kuroda says.

Although the research involved only mothers and their infants, Kuroda expects the effects are likely to be similar for fathers and any other caregivers. She emphasizes that this study only included a small samples of infants and will need to be repeated with bigger sample sizes in order to verify the results. Additionally, this procedure does not address why some babies cry excessively and cannot sleep, but it does offer an immediate solution that can help parents of newborns.

The researchers recognize the usefulness of heartrate data in this approach to soothing a baby and hope to make it accessible to parents. We are developing a baby-tech wearable device with which parents can see the physiological states of their babies on their smartphones in real-time, says Kuroda. Like science-based fitness training, we can do science-based parenting with these advances, and hopefully help babies to sleep and reduce parental stress caused by excessive infant crying.

The research is published in the journal Current Biology.

By Alison Bosman, Earth.com Staff Writer

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Scientists find the best way to soothe a crying baby - Earth.com

Physiology

Revealing the Hidden Genome: Unknown DNA Sequences Identified That May Be Critical to Human Health – SciTechDaily

Scientists have developed a new technique to reveal the hidden human genome.

Numerous short RNA sequences that code for microproteins and peptides have been identified, providing new opportunities for the study of diseases and the development of drugs.

Researchers from Duke-NUS Medical School and their collaborators have discovered thousands of previously unknown DNA sequences in the human genome that code for microproteins and peptides that could be critical for human health and disease.

Much of what we understand about the known two per cent of the genome that codes for proteins comes from looking for long strands of protein-coding nucleotide sequences, or long open reading frames, explained computational biologist Dr Sonia Chothani, a research fellow with Duke-NUS Cardiovascular and Metabolic Disorders (CVMD) Programme and first author of the study. Recently, however, scientists have discovered small open reading frames (smORFs) that can also be translated from RNA into small peptides, which have roles in DNA repair, muscle formation and genetic regulation.

Scientists have been seeking to identify smORFs and the tiny peptides they code for since smORF disruption can cause disease. However, the currently available techniques are quite limited.

Much of the current datasets do not provide information that is detailed enough to identify smORFs in RNA, added Dr Chothani. The majority also comes from analyses of immortalised human cells that are propagatedsometimes for decadesto study cell physiology, function and disease. However, these cell lines arent always accurate representations of human physiology.

Chothani and her colleagues from Singapore, Germany, the United Kingdom, and Australia present an approach they created to address these challenges in a recentstudy published in Molecular Cell. They scoured existing ribosome profiling datasets for short strands of RNA with periodic three-base sections that covered more than 60% of the RNAs length. They then performed their own RNA sequencing and Ribosome profiling to establish a combined data set of six kinds of cells and five types of tissue derived from hundreds of patients.

Analyses of these data identified nearly 8,000 smORFs. Interestingly, they were highly specific to the tissues that they were found in, meaning that these smORFs may perform a function specific to their environment. The team also identified 603 microproteins coded by some of these smORFs.

The genome is littered with smORFs, said Assistant Professor Owen Rackham, senior author of the study from the CVMD Programme. Our comprehensive and spatially resolved map of human smORFs highlights overlooked functional components of the genome, pinpoints new players in health and disease and provides a resource for the scientific community as a platform to accelerate discoveries.

Professor Patrick Casey, Senior Vice-Dean of Research at Duke-NUS, said, With the healthcare system evolving to not only treat diseases but also prevent them, identifying potential new targets for disease research and drug development could open avenues to new solutions. This research by Dr Chothani and her team, published as a resource for the scientific community, brings important insights to the field.

Reference: A high-resolution map of human RNA translation by Sonia P. Chothani, Eleonora Adami, Anissa A. Widjaja, Sarah R. Langley, Sivakumar Viswanathan, Chee Jian Pua, Nevin Tham Zhihao, Nathan Harmston, Giuseppe DAgostino, Nicola Whiffin, Wang Mao, John F. Ouyang, Wei Wen Lim, Shiqi Lim, Cheryl Q.E. Lee, Alexandra Grubman, Joseph Chen, J.P. Kovalik, Karl Tryggvason, Jose M. Polo, Lena Ho, Stuart A. Cook, Owen J.L. Rackham and Sebastian Schafer, 15 July 2022, Molecular Cell.DOI: 10.1016/j.molcel.2022.06.023

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