The discovery of the burst, named FRB 20220610A, was made in June last year by the ASKAP radio telescope in Australia [1] and it smashed the team’s previous distance record by 50 percent.

“Using ASKAP’s array of dishes, we were able to determine precisely where the burst came from,” says Stuart Ryder, an astronomer from Macquarie University in Australia and the co-lead author of the study published today in Science. “Then we used [ESO’s VLT] in Chile to search for the source galaxy, [2] finding it to be older and further away than any other FRB source found to date and likely within a small group of merging galaxies.”

The discovery confirms that FRBs can be used to measure the ‘missing’ matter between galaxies, providing a new way to ‘weigh’ the Universe.

Current methods of estimating the mass of the Universe are giving conflicting answers and challenging the standard model of cosmology. “If we count up the amount of normal matter in the Universe — the atoms that we are all made of — we find that more than half of what should be there today is missing,” says Ryan Shannon, a professor at the Swinburne University of Technology in Australia, who also co-led the study. “We think that the missing matter is hiding in the space between galaxies, but it may just be so hot and diffuse that it’s impossible to see using normal techniques.”

“Fast radio bursts sense this ionised material. Even in space that is nearly perfectly empty they can ‘see’ all the electrons, and that allows us to measure how much stuff is between the galaxies,” Shannon says.

Finding distant FRBs is key to accurately measuring the Universe’s missing matter, as shown by the late Australian astronomer Jean-Pierre (‘J-P’) Macquart in 2020. “J-P showed that the further away a fast radio burst is, the more diffuse gas it reveals between the galaxies. This is now known as the Macquart relation. Some recent fast radio bursts appeared to break this relationship. Our measurements confirm the Macquart relation holds out to beyond half the known Universe,” says Ryder.

“While we still don’t know what causes these massive bursts of energy, the paper confirms that fast radio bursts are common events in the cosmos and that we will be able to use them to detect matter between galaxies, and better understand the structure of the Universe,” says Shannon.

The result represents the limit of what is achievable with telescopes today, although astronomers will soon have the tools to detect even older and more distant bursts, pin down their source galaxies and measure the Universe’s missing matter. The international Square Kilometre Array Observatory is currently building two radio telescopes in South Africa and Australia that will be capable of finding thousands of FRBs, including very distant ones that cannot be detected with current facilities. ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope, a 39-metre telescope under construction in the Chilean Atacama Desert, will be one of the few telescopes able to study the source galaxies of bursts even further away than FRB 20220610A.

Notes

[1] The ASKAP telescope is owned and operated by CSIRO, Australia’s national science agency, on Wajarri Yamaji Country in Western Australia.

[2] The team used data obtained with the FOcal Reducer and low dispersion Spectrograph 2 (FORS2), the X-shooter and the High Acuity Wide-field K-band Imager (HAWK-I) instruments on ESO’s VLT. Data from the Keck Observatory in Hawai’i, US, was also used in the study.

This has made it difficult to pinpoint exactly when they first began to fly, or began roosting in caves, or developed their unique way of ‘seeing’ their surroundings in the dark using sound — called echolocation.

But a near-perfectly preserved bat’s skull discovered by French palaeontologists in a cave that dates back about 50 million years has shed new light on what we thought we knew about this ancient, hypothetical creature.

Emeritus Professor Sue Hand from UNSW Sydney’s School of Biological Earth and Environmental Sciences is a leading palaeontologist with expertise in bat evolution. She led an analysis of the skull, published today in the journal Current Biology, that involved Dr Jacob Maugoust and Professor Maeva Orliac from University of Montpellier in France, and Professor Robin Beck from the University of Salford, UK.

Prof. Hand says prior to the discovery of this skull — which was among 23 separate fossilised individuals found in the cave belonging to the extinct species Vielasia sigei — only fragments or completely flattened skeletons of early bats had existed in the fossil record.

“We don’t know very much about the beginnings of bats because we don’t have the missing links like we do, say, between dinosaurs and modern birds,” she says.

“The oldest bat fossil is about 57 million years old, and it’s a single tooth from a site in Portugal — that’s all we know about it. The first bats are all just known from fragmentary fossils, mostly teeth. When bats appear in the fossil record a little later, about 52 million years ago, some are wonderfully complete bats, but they’re flattened.”

While these flattened specimens are, in Prof. Hand’s words, “beautifully preserved,” the fact that they’ve been flattened by layers of rock deposited over millions of years makes it difficult to decide with conviction, the exact positioning of bones in their three-dimensional anatomy. And when it comes to determining whether a fossil is from a species of bat that is already using echolocation, detailed and precise anatomy of the skull is crucial.

“In modern bats, between the voice box and the ear, there are some bones called the hyoid bones. In all modern bats that echolocate, one of these bones directly contacts the middle ear bones and appears to be involved in transmitting high frequency sound.

“But in the flattened fossils, while we can see these various bones, there is a question about their precise relationships to each other. This has led to a lot of debate among scientists about whether or not a species used echolocation.”

Uncrushed skull

But in the case of Vielasia sigei, not only is the skull almost entirely intact, but it has been preserved in limestone in its original three-dimensional shape which the scientists describe as ‘uncrushed’.

“In this particular bat, we can see more directly what’s going on deeper, in the inner ear,” Prof. Hand says.

“We took fine measurements of that inner ear bone and compared it with that in the bats that do echolocate today and bats that don’t, and it sits in the middle of the ones that echolocate.”

Not all bats echolocate, Prof. Hand explains. Flying foxes regularly seen in the Sydney night sky around the Botanical Gardens, Centennial Park and the Royal National Park rely on their very good eyesight to navigate and find fruit, without echolocation. Meanwhile, Sydney microbats such as the Eastern Bentwing Bat, Gould’s Wattled Bat and the Chocolate Wattled Bat, are well known for navigating and catching insects using feedback from the high frequency sound they emit.

While Prof. Hand stops short of concluding that Vielasia sigei used echolocation with 100 per cent certainty, she says the new evidence is compelling.

“It’s very convincing that the type of echolocation some of these early bats used was indistinguishable from what many echolocating bats use today, and at 50 million years ago, this is well ahead of whales developing this ability.

“Prior to this find, we were only really certain that echolocation developed in the modern families of bats.”

Back to the bat cave

In all, there were 400 fossil bones and teeth discovered by the French team in the cave in south-western France, which represented 23 individuals. Vielasia — which is not a direct ancestor of today’s bats but may have been closely related to it — was only a small bat, with the uncrushed skull measuring only 1.8 cm long.

“There were 23 of these wonderful little bats living in a cave, which also makes it the oldest cave-dwelling bat in the world that we know of,” says Prof. Hand.

“We didn’t think that these early bats actually lived in caves. The information had been that they lived in trees around lakes and in forests which stretched right up to both poles because the Earth was very warm at this time.”

But when these greenhouse conditions started to deteriorate later in the early Eocene period — around 50 million years ago and about the same time that this bat was living — there were much more wildly fluctuating changes in temperature.

“So it could be that this bat lived in a cave because this is much more stable environment.”

Inspiration

Whether or not the analysis of the uncrushed Vielasia skull has settled the echolocation debate about early bats, Prof. Hand hopes that it will inspire further exploration of the fossil record.

“We think some of the characteristics of this bat would have also characterised the last common ancestor for modern bats. So it’s exciting, and it is actually going to be an important specimen that people will get a lot of information from and use in their own analyses.”

The study will be published on Thursday, October 19, in The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

“Our findings strongly support dietary guidelines that recommend limiting the consumption of red meat, and this applies to both processed and unprocessed red meat,” said first author Xiao Gu, postdoctoral research fellow in the Department of Nutrition.

While previous studies have found a link between red meat consumption and type 2 diabetes risk, this study, which analyzed a large number of type 2 diabetes cases among participants being followed for an extended period of years, adds a greater level of certainty about the association.

Type 2 diabetes rates are increasing rapidly in the U.S. and worldwide. This is concerning not only because the disease is a serious burden, but it also is a major risk factor for cardiovascular and kidney disease, cancer, and dementia.

For this study, the researchers analyzed health data from 216,695 participants from the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS), NHS II, and Health Professionals Follow-up Study (HPFS). Diet was assessed with food frequency questionnaires every two to four years, for up to 36 years. During this time, more than 22,000 participants developed type 2 diabetes.

The researchers found that consumption of red meat, including processed and unprocessed red meat, was strongly associated with increased risk of type 2 diabetes. Participants who ate the most red meat had a 62% higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes compared to those who ate the least. Every additional daily serving of processed red meat was associated with a 46% greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes and every additional daily serving of unprocessed red meat was associated with a 24% greater risk.

The researchers also estimated the potential effects of substituting one daily serving of red meat for another protein source. They found that substituting a serving of nuts and legumes was associated with a 30% lower risk of type 2 diabetes, and substituting a serving of dairy products was associated with a 22% lower risk.

“Given our findings and previous work by others, a limit of about one serving per week of red meat would be reasonable for people wishing to optimize their health and wellbeing,” said senior author Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition.

In addition to health benefits, swapping red meat for healthy plant protein sources would help reduce greenhouse gas emissions and climate change, and provide other environmental benefits, according to the researchers.

Other Harvard Chan School authors included Frank Sacks and Frank Hu.

The NHS, NHS II, and HPFS are supported by the National Institute of Health (grants UM1 CA186107, U01 CA176726, and U01 CA167552).

G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) are the largest and most diverse group of cell surface proteins in humans. These receptors, which can be seen as ‘traffic directors,’ transmit signals from the outside to the inside of cells and are involved in many physiological processes. Given their prominent roles in cellular communication, cell growth, immune responses, and sensory perception, many drugs have been developed to target GPCRs, for the treatment of conditions such as asthma, allergies, depression, hypertension, and heart disease. In fact, more than 300 GPCR-related drugs are currently in clinical trials, 36% of which target over 60 novel GPCR targets without an already-approved drug. Moreover, drugs that target GPCRs account for as much as 27% of the global market share of therapeutic drugs, with aggregated sales close to US$890 billion between 2011 and 2015. Thus, any technique that could accelerate research on GPCRs is likely to trigger a large ripple effect, ultimately bringing more effective treatments to millions of people.

Today, approaches such as cryo-electron microscopy, optogenetics, computational approaches and artificial intelligence, biosensors and label-free technologies, and single-cell technologies are being explored for GPCR drug discovery and development. Among them, the single-cell approach based on yeast is one of the most useful platforms to study GPCRs. Besides its widespread application in beer and bread making, the yeast species Saccharomyces cerevisiae has a long history of being used as a host to research human derived GPCRs. Although some GPCRs can be engineered to enhance their stability and function to facilitate experiments, most GPCRs do not function well in yeast cells. This long-standing problem has greatly slowed progress in our understanding of GPCRs and the development of new drugs that target them.

Against this backdrop, a research team from Tokyo University of Science (TUS), Japan, recently came up with an innovative strategy to restore the activity of human derived GPCR human histamine 3 (H₃R) in S. cerevisiae. Their study, published in Volume 13 of Scientific Reports on September 26, 2023, was led by Associate Professor Mitsunori Shiroishi and co-authored by Ms. Ayami Watanabe and Ms. Ami Nakajima, all from TUS.

“H₃R is mainly expressed in the nervous system. It is involved in cognitive function, and its inhibition is associated with the therapeutic outcomes of various conditions, such as ADHD, schizophrenia, Alzheimer’s disease, and narcolepsy,” explains Dr. Shiroishi. Through preliminary experiments, the team showed that H₃R becomes non-functional when expressed in yeast.

To restore its function, the research team utilized a technique called error-prone polymerase chain reaction to introduce random mutations in the H₃R gene. After producing a random mutant library of H₃R, they introduced modified DNA segments into yeast cells and cultivated them in the presence of an H₃R agonist — a compound that binds to H₃R and sets off a measurable response. By screening through multiple cultures, the researchers obtained four mutants in which the normal activity of H₃R was restored. These mutants responded exclusively to a type of yeast strain that harbors certain G-chimera proteins. The mutations responsible for the restored activity were located near the amino acid sequence motifs important for GPCR activation.

This innovative approach to study GPCRs could have profound implications, particularly in the fields of medicine and cell biology. “Our research could help elucidate the function of GPCRs and may even lead to the development of drugs with fewer side effects, as well as bolster drug discovery for diseases for which there is currently no treatment,” remarks Dr. Shiroishi. There are many therapeutic areas where GPCR-targeting drugs are being actively developed, including neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s and schizophrenia, cardiovascular diseases such as hypertension and heart failure, various types of cancer, and metabolic disorders.

A deeper understanding of GPCR variations and how they impact individuals differently could also lead to new approaches to personalized medicine. Tailoring GPCR-targeted drugs to an individual’s genetic makeup and their specific disease profile may greatly improve treatment outcomes. Furthermore, generic GPCR treatments reaching a vast number of people worldwide might also become a reality, which would reduce the burden on healthcare systems.

We are certain that the findings of this study will pave the way to a healthier future for everyone.

Each treatment involves the application of a bandage pre-loaded with a hydrogel containing skin cells for healing and magnetic particles. To maximise therapeutic results, a wireless external magnetic device is used to activate skin cells and accelerate the wound healing process. The ideal duration of magnetic stimulation is about one to two hours.

Lab tests showed the treatment coupled with magnetic stimulation healed diabetic wounds about three times faster than current conventional approaches. Furthermore, while the research has focussed on healing diabetic foot ulcers, the technology has potential for treating a wide range of complex wounds such as burns.

“Conventional dressings do not play an active role in healing wounds,” said Assistant Professor Andy Tay, who leads the team comprising researchers from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at NUS College of Design and Engineering as well as the NUS Institute for Health Innovation & Technology. “They merely prevent the wound from worsening and patients need to be scheduled for dressing change every two or three days. It is a huge cost to our healthcare system and an inconvenience to patients.”

In contrast, the unique NUS invention takes a comprehensive ‘all-in-one’ approach to wound healing, accelerating the process on several fronts.

“Our technology addresses multiple critical factors associated with diabetic wounds, simultaneously managing elevated glucose levels in the wound area, activating dormant skin cells near the wound, restoring damaged blood vessels, and repairing the disrupted vascular network within the wound,” explained Asst Prof Tay.

The NUS team described their innovation in a paper published in the scientific journal, Advanced Materials, on 8 September 2023. The research was conducted in collaboration with scientists from the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, Nanyang Technological University, Sun Yat-sen University and Wuhan University of Technology.

Chronic diabetic wounds: A major healthcare challenge

Currently, more than half a billion people globally are living with diabetes and this number is expected to rise significantly. Chronic diabetic wounds such as foot ulcers (one of the most common and hardest to treat wounds) have therefore become a major global healthcare challenge.

Traditional treatments for these wounds are often unsatisfactory, leading to recurring and persistent health issues and — in a high number of cases — limb amputation.

Every year, there are around 9.1 to 26.1 million cases of diabetic foot ulcer worldwide, and around 15 to 25 per cent of patients with diabetes will develop a diabetic foot ulcer during their lifetime. Singapore has one of the highest rates of lower limb amputation due to diabetes globally, averaging around four per day.

Gentle ‘work-out’ for skin cells

Skin cells experience mechanical forces continuously from normal daily activities. However, patients with wounds are usually advised not to carry out rigorous activities, such as walking, and this could kill the remaining cells essential for healing.

“What our team has achieved is to identify a sweet spot by applying gentle mechanical stimulation,” said Asst Prof Tay. “The result is that the remaining skin cells get to ‘work-out’ to heal wounds, but not to the extent that it kills them.”

The specially designed wound-healing gel is loaded with two types of FDA-approved skin cells — keratinocytes (essential for skin repair) and fibroblast (for formation of connective tissue) — and tiny magnetic particles. When combined with a dynamic magnetic field generated by an external device, the mechanical stimulation of the gel encourages dermal fibroblasts to become more active.

Lab tests showed that the increased fibroblast activity generated by the magnetic wound-healing gel increases the cells’ growth rate by approximately 240 per cent and more than doubles their production of collagen — a crucial protein for wound healing. It also improves communication with keratinocytes to promote the formation of new blood vessels.

“The approach we are taking not only accelerates wound healing but also promotes overall wound health and reduces the chances of recurrence,” added Asst Prof Tay.

The NUS team worked on the project from 2021 to 2023 to demonstrate the viability of this new approach. A patent has been filed for this innovation.

Potential game-changer in wound management

While the magnetic wound-healing gel has shown great promise in improving diabetic wound healing, it could also revolutionise the treatment of other complex wound types.

“The magneto-responsive hydrogel, combined with wireless magneto-induced dynamic mechanical stimulation, addresses fundamental challenges in wound healing, such as creating a conducive microenvironment and promoting tissue regeneration,” said co-first author of the research paper Dr Shou Yufeng, Research Fellow from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at NUS College of Design and Engineering.

“These principles and our technology’s adaptability, as well as its general ease of use for patients, means that it can be applied to improve wound healing in various situations beyond diabetes, including burns and chronic non-diabetic ulcers.”

The researchers are conducting more tests to further refine the magnetic wound-healing gel to improve its effectiveness. They are also collaborating with a clinical partner to test the effectiveness of the gel using diabetic human tissues.

“This is major step forward in active wound care,” said Asst Prof Tay. “Our goal is to provide an effective and convenient wound-healing solution that improves outcomes for millions around the world.”

“Wound healing, especially in the field of diabetic foot ulcers, has always been a challenging arena. Diabetic foot patients do not heal as well as normal patients and their healing journey is often prolonged,” said Assistant Professor Francis Wong Keng Lin, Consultant, Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Sengkang General Hospital.

Asst Prof Wong, who is not involved in the study, added, “Advancements in wound healing technologies will reduce the duration of the patient journey and would allow them to return to their lives as quickly as possible, hence improving productivity and quality of life.”

Black holes are massive astronomical objects that have such a strong gravitational pull that nothing, not even light, can escape. They are incredibly dense. A black hole could pack the mass of the Earth into a space the size of a pea.

Conventional theories about black holes, based on Einstein’s theory of General Relativity, typically explain how static or spinning black holes can exist on their own, isolated in space. Black holes in pairs would eventually be thwarted by gravity attracting and colliding them together.

However, this is true if one assumes the Universe is standing still. But what about one which is constantly moving? Could pairs of black holes exist in harmony in an ever expanding Universe, perhaps masquerading as one?

“The standard model of cosmology assumes that the Big Bang brought the Universe into existence and that, approximately 9.8 billion years ago, it became dominated by a mysterious force, coined ‘dark energy’, which accelerates the Universe at a constant rate,” says Professor Oscar Dias of the University of Southampton.

Scientists refer to this mysterious force as a ‘cosmological constant’. In a Universe explained by Einstein’s theory with a cosmological constant, black holes are immersed in a cosmological accelerated background. This moves the theoretical goal posts over how black holes can interact and exist together.

Through complex numerical methods, the team behind this latest study show that two static (non-spinning) black holes can exist in equilibrium — their gravitational attraction offset by the expansion associated with a cosmological constant. Even in the acceleration of an ever expanding Universe, the black holes remain locked at a fixed distance from one another. As hard as expansion may try to pull them apart, the gravitational attraction compensates.

“Viewed from a distance, a pair of black holes whose attraction is offset by cosmic expansion would look like a single black hole. It might be hard to detect whether it is a single black hole or a pair of them,” comments Professor Dias.

Professor Jorge Santos of the University of Cambridge adds: “Our theory is proven for a pair of static black holes, but we believe it could be applied to spinning ones too. Also, it seems plausible that our solution could hold true for three or even four black holes, opening up a whole range of possibilities.”

This study was conducted by Professor Oscar Dias (University of Southampton), Professor Gary Gibbons (University of Cambridge), Professor Jorge Santos (University of Cambridge) and Dr Benson Way (University of Barcelona). Their paper ‘Static Black Binaries in de Sitter Space’ is published in the journal Physical Review Letters and reviewed as a Viewpoint article.