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Category Archives: Nutrition
Coronavirus: Ethnic minorities ‘over-exposed’ to Covid-19
They “face greater barriers” when trying to protect themselves from coronavirus, a report says.
Autism in children: ‘Many families face council discrimination’
Dozens of English councils discriminate against children with autism, legal experts say.
Between shark and ray: The evolutionary advantage of the sea angels
The general picture of a shark is that of a fast and large ocean predator. Some species, however, question this image — for example angel sharks. They have adapted to a life on the bottom of the oceans, where they lie in wait for their prey. In order to be able to hide on or in the sediment, the body of angel sharks became flattened in the course of their evolution, making them very similar to rays, which are closely related to sharks.
Flattened body as indication for a successful lifestyle
The oldest known complete fossils of angel sharks are about 160 million years old and demonstrate that the flattened body was established early in their evolution. This also indicates that these extinct angel sharks already had a similar lifestyle as their extant relatives — and that this lifestyle obviously was very successful.
Angel sharks are found all over the world today, ranging from temperate to tropical seas, but most of these species are threatened. In order to understand the patterns and processes that led to their present low diversity and the possible consequences of their particular anatomy, the team has studied the body shapes of angel sharks since their origins using modern methods.
Today’s species are very similar
For this purpose, the skulls of extinct species from the late Jurassic period (about 160 million years ago) and of present-day species were quantitatively analysed using X-ray and CT images and prepared skulls employing geometric-morphometric approaches. In doing so, the evolution of body shapes could be explained comparatively, independent of body size.
The results show that early angel sharks were different in their external shape, whereas modern species show a comparably lower variation in shape. “Many of the living species are difficult to identify on the basis of their skeletal anatomy and shape, which could be problematic for species recognition,” explains Faviel A. López-Romero.
Angel sharks are well adapted, but react slowly to environmental changes
It has been shown that in living species the individual parts of the skull skeleton are more closely integrated than in their extinct relatives. This led to a reduced variability in appearance during the evolution of angel sharks. “The effect of integrating different parts of the skull into individual, highly interdependent modules can lead to a limited ability to evolve in different forms, but at the same time increases the ability to successfully adapt to specific environmental conditions,” explains Jürgen Kriwet.
In the case of the angel sharks, increasing geographical isolation resulted in the development of different species with very similar adaptations. “But modular integration also means that such animals are no longer able to react quickly to environmental changes, which increases their risk of extinction,” concludes Jürgen Kriwet.
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Materials provided by University of Vienna. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
An easier way to go veggie: Vitamin B12 can be produced during dough fermentation
Vitamin B12 is an essential micronutrient that is needed for functions such as maintaining the nervous system and forming blood cells. However, B12 is mainly found in food of animal origin. Those who consume only small amounts of animal products or are vegan must therefore take B12 in the form of pills or eat food to which industrially produced B12 has been added.
“In situ fortification of B12 via fermentation could be a more cost-effective alternative. And as a commonly consumed staple food, grains are excellent vehicles for enrichment with micronutrients,” explains Chong Xie from the Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, University of Helsinki, about the background of his doctoral dissertation.
Xie used 11 different grain-based materials and fermented them with Propionibacterium freudenreichii — the only B12-producing micro-organism accepted for food products.
Propionibacterium freudenreichii, the essential microbe in Emmental cheese, produced nutritionally significant amounts of vitamin B12 in most of the fermented grain materials. During the three-day fermentation process, rice bran and buckwheat bran had the highest B12 production. The addition of Lactobacillus brevis was able to dominate indigenous microbes during fermentation and greatly improved microbial safety during the fermentation process.
Further information: https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/317682/insitufo.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
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Materials provided by University of Helsinki. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
A normal DNA repair process can become a major source of mutations in cancer
Hypermutation is an unusual occurence that can lead to many nearby mutations at once, severely damaging our genetic material and potentially causing cancer. The best known type of local hypermutation, called a mutation shower or thunderstorm, is quite uncommon and it leads to many mutations accumulated in a small area, e.g. a single gene.
Researchers from IRB Barcelona’s Genome Data Science Lab, led by the ICREA researcher Fran Supek, have discovered a new type of hypermutation called mutation fog, which can generate hundreds of mutations in every cell. Such mutations are widely distributed, but accumulate in the most important regions of the genome, where genes reside (the so-called euchromatin). The fact that these mutations are spread around explains why they have remained undetected until now.
Surprisingly, the scientists have also identified that the newly discovered hypermutation type is related to a normal DNA repair process. When cells sense a mismatch in their DNA, they undergo a DNA repair reaction, in order to preserve genetic information. Remarkably, this reaction can become coupled to the APOBEC enzyme-typically used by human cells to defend against viruses and having an important role in fighting hepatitis and HIV. The work by the Genome Data Science Lab indicates that, in some cases, when both the APOBEC enzymes and the DNA repair process are active at the same time, APOBEC hijacks the DNA repair, generating the mutation fog.
“We think that this APOBEC-driven mutation fog has a mutagenic potential that matches or even exceeds that of well-known strong carcinogens, such as tobacco smoke or ultraviolet radiation,” Fran Supek explains. Recent work by other research groups suggests that the process appears to be more active in late-stage metastatic cancers: it helps the cancer evolve, enabling it to resist drugs and radiation. “This finding makes APOBEC an attractive target for treating cancer, removing its ability to evolve and to become more aggressive,” adds Supek.
The origin of a half of the mutations in some lung and breast cancers
A thorough analysis of more than 6,000 human cancer genomes, including lung tumours, breast tumours and melanomas, among others, led to the finding that the mutation fog is a common phenomenon. “More than half of all APOBEC mutations in some lung or breast cancers are generated by the hypermutation mechanism that we have found,” says David Mas-Ponte, first author of the study and PhD student in the Genome Data Lab.
Some types of cancer, such as cervical or some head-and-neck cancers, are known to be due to viruses. However, this study has found mutations caused by this APOBEC system not only in these tumours but also in cancers that are not currently known to be virus-related. Further work should clarify what triggers the APOBEC system. “Understanding APOBEC better could have broad implications for cancer treatment,” adds Mas-Ponte.
The HyperClust statistical method
Mas-Ponte and Supek designed a statistical method, called HyperClust, that can rapidly analyse large amounts of human genomic data to find unusual mutational processes that can lead to simultaneous mutations, such as these cases of mutation fog. This statistical method is described in the article, which has been published in Nature Genetics, and is also available as an open-source software in a Github repository.
This work has been funded by the ERC Starting Grant “HYPER-INSIGHT” awarded to Fran Supek; ICREA reaearcher and EMBO Young Investigator; and the Severo Ochoa grant awarded to IRB Barcelona. David Mas-Ponte was the recipient of an FPI-SO fellowship.
Is It Unethical to Have Pets?
Sometimes people ask me about my stance on pets, so I’ll share that in this post.
My family had a pet when I was growing up – a rabbit named Cinnamon. Sometimes it roamed freely around the backyard, while other times they kept it in a large cage. I wasn’t the rabbit’s main caregiver.
At another time my first wife and I got a kitten. I don’t recall the exact year, but I think it was before we were married. We didn’t have the kitten long though. I found out that I was allergic to cats, so we gave it away to someone else, probably a few months after we got it.
We had the kitten in the 1990s in L.A. I might have been vegetarian at the time, or this may have been shortly after I went vegan. I think of my early vegan years as being mainly about the plant-based diet and not about the full vegan lifestyle. I hadn’t stopped using other animal products like leather shoes and belts at that point yet.
I also grew up in a neighborhood where neighbors on both sides had dogs, and I used to spend a lot of time at their houses, and I’d often play with their dogs. I also used to take care of a different neighbor’s cat when they were out of town.
So I have some experience with pets. I understand the value in having them. My views on pets have evolved a lot since I was younger though.
I know that animals can have interesting relationships with people, and I’m in favor of relating to them in ways that respect their freedom and dignity and provide mutual value. I’m also in favor of safety in these relationships when it’s necessary to consider it.
I’m opposed, however, to treating animals as property or to claiming ownership of them. I consider this unethical because it’s nonconsensual. Animals don’t grasp the human world of property and can’t consent to this aspect of a relationship.
I do feel that animals can consent to other aspects of relationships with humans. They can communicate in various ways, such as with movement, sound, and body language. This communication may not always be clear, but human-to-human communication isn’t perfectly clear at all times either.
I do feel that people can serve as caregivers for animals. Within human society, people can assume responsibility for the lives of certain animals. I’m okay with animals living with people too, with some caveats.
I don’t think it’s ethical to constrain animals in ways that disrespect their natural lifestyles and potential. Putting a fish in a fishbowl or aquarium seems very wrong. Same goes for putting a bird in a cage.
I don’t feel that humans are entitled to claim animals as property, whether for food, entertainment, companionship, or some form of service.
You are welcome to disagree with me. Obviously we live in a world where people do claim animals as property. Do you feel that humans are entitled to do so? What gives us this ability? I think the answer is pretty clear: Humans are stronger. We can use our bigger brains to dominate other species. And so we have done so. Does might make right?
I don’t grant humans any high ground of ethics to use this power. I don’t regard claiming ownership of animals as being substantially different from claiming ownership of other humans, which was also done based on dominance. People tried to justify this after the fact with various moral twists, and they don’t hold up.
I think if you’re going to claim ownership of an animal anyway, it’s best to be clear about that relationship. You can do that because you’re dominant. The animal doesn’t have much say in the matter. It cannot give informed consent. You can just take its life and do as you wish with it. Whatever you do after the fact to justify that is your own moral twisting to make yourself feel better about the decision.
You can still love the animal. You can take good care of it. You can mourn it when it dies. You can consider it part of your family. Just note that people have had similar relationships with other people they’ve regarded as property too.
You can do your best to convince yourself that it’s an equitable and consensual relationship, but the ownership aspect is still going to infect that relationship, which will corrupt the relationship to some extent.
That said, you can still have nice relationships with animals without the entitlement of ownership that comes from dominance. You don’t actually need to claim ownership of them.
You can still pretend to claim ownership of an animal for the sake of navigating the human world legally and socially. Pay lip service to that idea to the extent necessary for keeping animals that you care about safe from harm. You may have some tricky decisions to make there, but I think you could make this work.
Claiming ownership of animals damages our relationships with them. You can have better relationships with animals when you don’t try to own them as “my dog” or “my cat.” Bring more respect to your relationships with them instead.
Hummingbirds often fly around where I live. They’re the closest animals I have to pets right now – and lizards too I suppose. I don’t claim ownership of them, but I still enjoy their company. I’ve even pet one of them before. I would never want to cage one though. A hummingbird needs to live a hummingbird’s life – outdoors with the trees and flowers. It’s not my place to disrupt their lifestyles.
How would you feel if a more intelligent AI claimed ownership of you? What if the AI wasn’t even that smart… just smart enough to dominate you? Would it be okay for the AI to control more parts of your life without your consent? Should it constrain your movement to keep you safer? Should it prevent you from having sex to avoid potential problems that could cause?
Do you give animals the same risky freedoms that you’d want for yourself?
Health24.com | Mastering the violin won’t help your child master maths
- Many parents believe that learning a musical instrument boosts their children’s overall intelligence
- Now, a new study has found that music training doesn’t build mental or academic skills in other areas
- Music training, may, however, be beneficial by improving kids’ social skills and self-esteem
All the parents who force their children to play an instrument because it has been touted as a way to boost overall intelligence, take note.
New research now suggests that it may not help develop memory, mathematics, reading and writing skills after all.
Earlier studies trying to pinpoint the value of music training on cognitive and academic performance have been conflicting, the researchers said.
So, Giovanni Sala, from Fujita Health University in Japan, and Fernand Gobet, from the London School of Economics and Political Science in the United Kingdom, analysed data on nearly 7 000 children from 54 previously published studies.
Improving social skills
The investigators found that music training seemed to have no effect on building mental or academic skills in other areas, regardless of age or how long kids were trained.
The report was published in the journal Memory and Cognition.
“Our study shows that the common idea that ‘music makes children smarter’ is incorrect,” Sala said.
“On the practical side, this means that teaching music with the sole intent of enhancing a child’s cognitive or academic skills may be pointless,” Sala said in a journal news release. “While the brain can be trained in such a way that if you play music, you get better at music, these benefits do not generalise in such a way that if you learn music, you also get better at math.”
Still, Gobet said, “Music training may nonetheless be beneficial for children, for example by improving social skills or self-esteem. Certain elements of music instruction, such as arithmetical music notation could be used to facilitate learning in other disciplines.”
Image credit: Getty
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