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Colonists dredged away Sydney’s natural oyster reefs. Now, scientists know how best to restore them

New research has identified optimal design for artificial habitats to support restoration of oyster reefs, based on a detailed understanding of natural oyster reef geometry. Published in the global journal Nature, the Sydney-based study shows the complex shapes of natural oyster reefs are not random—their structure and arrangement optimize the establishment and survival of developing oysters and their protection from predators.

Oysters are really “ecosystem engineers,” building their own reefs made up of living oysters and the discarded shells of previous generations, explains lead author of the study, Dr. Juan Esquivel-Muelbert of Macquarie University.

“But reefs aren’t just piles of shells or skeletons,” says Dr. Esquivel-Muelbert. “Reefs are finely tuned 3D systems. Their shape controls who lives, who dies and how fast the reef grows.”

The cells that never sleep: How slumber lets neurons clean up and stay healthy

When HHMI Investigator Amita Sehgal started studying sleep 25 years ago, the topic elicited a yawn from most biologists. “In the year 2000, if I had suggested to my department that we hire people working on sleep, they would have laughed at me,” says Sehgal, a molecular biologist and neuroscientist at the University of Pennsylvania. “The thinking was that sleep is not something that neuroscientists do; psychologists study sleep and dreams.” Now, more than two decades later, sleep science has finally woken up.

Biologists around the world are now studying sleep in everything from fruit flies to jellyfish to understand the fundamental molecular and cellular mechanisms that drive slumber and answer the age-old question of why we sleep.

“Sleep is widely conserved across the animal kingdom and so it must have some basic function that is the same across species, and so what is that?” Sehgal says. “We’re finally getting to a point where we are recognizing a few basic principles about sleep.”

Giant DNA viruses encode their own eukaryote-like translation machinery, researchers discover

In a new study, published in Cell, researchers describe a newfound mechanism for creating proteins in a giant DNA virus, comparable to a mechanism in eukaryotic cells. The finding challenges the dogma that viruses lack protein synthesis machinery, and blurs the line between cellular life and viruses.

Protein production is accomplished in cellular life by decoding messenger RNA (mRNA) sequences in a process referred to as translation. In fact, most genes have some function related to protein synthesis. However, viruses are not and do not contain cells.

“In contrast to living organisms, viruses cannot replicate independently and rely on a host cell to perform many of the biological processes required to reproduce. Although viruses encode proteins involved in DNA replication and transcription, the dogma is that all viruses share a universal dependence on the host cell translation machinery for viral protein synthesis,” explain the authors of the new study.

An inducible multiciliated cell line resolves proteome dynamics and identifies CDK7 as a conserved regulator

Camille Boutin, Laurent Kodjabachian et al. describe an inducible multiciliated cell line well suited for advanced microscopy and proteomic approaches. The study provides a detailed proteomic profiling of MCC during their differentiation.

Boutin et al., describe an inducible multiciliated cell line well suited for advanced microscopy and proteomic approaches. The study provides a detailed pr.

Blood test ‘clocks’ can predict when Alzheimer’s symptoms will start

Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have developed a method to predict when someone is likely to develop symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease using a single blood test. In a study published in Nature Medicine, the researchers demonstrated that their models predicted the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms within a margin of three to four years.

This method could have implications both for clinical trials developing preventive Alzheimer’s treatments and for eventually identifying individuals likely to benefit from these treatments.

More than seven million Americans live with Alzheimer’s disease, with health and long-term care costs for Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia projected to reach nearly $400 billion in 2025, according to the Alzheimer’s Association. This massive public health burden currently has no cure, but predictive models could help efforts to develop treatments that prevent or slow the onset of Alzheimer’s symptoms.

A gel for wounds that won’t heal: Oxygen-delivering technology can prevent amputations

As aging populations and rising diabetes rates drive an increase in chronic wounds, more patients face the risk of amputations. UC Riverside researchers have developed an oxygen-delivering gel capable of healing injuries that might otherwise progress to limb loss.

Injuries that fail to heal for more than a month are considered chronic wounds. They affect an estimated 12 million people annually worldwide, and around 4.5 million in the U.S. Of these, about one in five patients will ultimately require a life-altering amputation.

The new gel, tested in animal models, targets what researchers believe is a root cause of many chronic wounds: a lack of oxygen in the deepest layers of the damaged tissue. Without sufficient oxygen, wounds languish in a prolonged state of inflammation, allowing bacteria to flourish and tissue to deteriorate rather than regenerate.

Stopping fatal blood loss with clay

Traumatic injury is the third leading cause of death in the state of Texas, surpassing strokes, Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A massive number of these deaths are the result of uncontrolled bleeding. “Severe blood loss can rapidly lead to hemorrhagic shock,” said Dr. Akhilesh Gaharwar, a biomedical engineering professor at Texas A&M University. “Many patients die within one to two hours of injury. This critical period is often referred to as the ‘golden hour.’”

Gaharwar and his fellow researchers in the biomedical engineering department have found a way to extend this golden hour—using clay.

Gaharwar, Dr. Duncan Maitland and Dr. Taylor Ware are developing a suite of injectable hemostatic bandages —biomedical materials that stop bleeding and promote blood to clot faster. Their research is specifically targeting deep internal bleeding where traditional methods like compression are not possible.

Immunoglobulin A-producing cells mediate the clinical benefits of metformin via interleukin-10

Guo et al. show that metformin enhances intestinal IgA immunity via gut microbiota and increases gut antigen-specific IgA-producing IL-10+ cells in the liver and VAT. IL-10 from these cells mediates the clinical benefits of metformin.

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