The world’s first toothpaste that identifies dental plaque could also help reduce rates of heart attack and stroke, says this new study.
The patented Plaque HD toothpaste was initially developed by an orthodontist in 2009 to provide a safe, at home plaque-reduction program for patients. Plaque HD utilizes Targetol Technology, a gluten-free coloring agent, to provide a more efficient way to highlight and clean harmful plaque from patients’ teeth and gums.
This unique plant-based concentrated combination of cleaning agents has been proven to remove more than twice the amount of plaque than conventional toothpastes.
Additionally, results published this week from a randomized trial of subjects with dental plaque confirms that Plaque HD produces statistically significant reductions in inflammation throughout the body.
For decades, researchers have suggested a link between oral health and inflammatory diseases affecting the entire body—in particular, heart attacks and strokes. Inflammation is measured by high sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP). Hs-CRP is a sensitive marker of inflammation, but it is also an accurate predictor of future heart attacks and strokes.
In this trial, all randomized subjects were given the same brushing protocol and received a 30-day supply of toothpaste containing either Plaque HD or an identical non-plaque identifying placebo toothpaste. To assess hs-CRP, levels were measured by Quest Diagnostics using an enzyme linked immunosorbent assay.
Photo by Plaque HD
“The current findings show that Plaque HD significantly decreases hs-CRP in subjects with elevated levels at baseline, which is similar to the findings in our previous trial,” said Dr. Charles H. Hennekens, senior author and the First Sir Richard Doll Professor in Florida Atlantic University’s Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine.
“These results provide a strong rationale to conduct a large-scale randomized trial whose results could have significant clinical and public health implications,” added Hennekens.
Two years ago, the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine ranked the original manuscript published in 1997 by Hennekens and colleagues on aspirin, inflammation and cardiovascular disease, as their most influential original report of the last 20 years.
The data derived from the landmark Physician’s Health Study, in which Hennekens was the founding Principal Investigator, indicated that hs-CRP predicted future heart attacks and strokes.
A report from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that 47.2% of American adults aged 30 years and older have some form of periodontal disease, a pathological inflammatory condition of the gums and tissues surrounding the teeth.
Periodontal disease increases with age affecting more than 70% of adults 65 years and older. Prior research has suggested that periodontal disease may be connected to variety of other diseases, including heart disease and stroke and other inflammatory diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. Inflammation throughout the body may be a crucial link between periodontal and other systemic diseases.
Based on the findings of this trial performed at the Marshfield Clinic Research Center, Hennekens and colleagues are drafting an investigator initiated research grant proposal to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).
This randomized trial will test whether the reduction in inflammation throughout the body by Plaque HD leads to decreases in progression of atherosclerosis in the coronary and carotid arteries for which systemic inflammation is a crucial precursor.
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Rather than depicting an advertisement for food or clothing, this New York City billboard features a thank you message to the American firefighters who stepped up to help with the Australian bushfires.
“Imagine fighting a bushfire higher than this billboard,” reads the video advertisement. After the billboard screen is briefly consumed by animated flames, the ad reads: “Thank you to the brave Australian and US firefighters defending Australia … and to the world for all your support.”
The ad space was reportedly donated by Silvercast Media.
The NSW RFS published a video of the billboard message to Twitter this week, saying: “We wanted to say a big ‘thank you’ to all the firefighters who have worked so hard over the last few months, and to the community for its support. And when we say big, we mean big—70 feet tall in Times Square, New York.”
WATCH the video as it plays on the billboard below…
We wanted to say a big "thank you" to all the firefighters who have worked so hard over the last few months, and to the community for its support. And when we say big, we mean big - 70 feet tall in Times Square, New York. #nswrfs#nswfires#NewYorkCitypic.twitter.com/HT4vQEgkg4
Quote of the Day: “Men build too many walls and not enough bridges.” – Joseph Fort Newton
Photo: by Anders Jildén – public domain
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Growing black cohosh, by Priya Jaishanker – CC license, Forest Farming
For over a millennium Western society has attempted to establish clear codes of ethics in business, politics, personal relationships, religion, and even warfare. But what about a land use ethic? What does modern society have to say on the topic of ethics about our lands?
On a small farm in Massachusetts, farmer Jono Neiger is planting chestnut trees where he might have just planted corn or row crops. Once a staple crop of many Native American tribes, chestnuts provide much more than just lyrical opportunities in Christmas songs. Like a keystone endangered species in a national park, towering trees can anchor the success of a revolutionary agricultural practice that uses the noblest of ethical codes regarding the humble farmer’s acre.
Neiger, is just one of a number of American and European farmers facing the environmental challenges of the 21st century by looking backward toward the stewardship and land-use principles of the famed American conservationist Aldo Leopold, author of an essay called The Land Ethic.
“A land ethic,” he wrote in his magnum opus of the same name, “…reflects a conviction of individual responsibility for the health of the land”.
These American chestnut trees, a species almost completely extinct after a twentieth century blight tore their numbers down from 4 billion to a few individuals, will not only represent a step toward restoring North American chestnut ecosystems, but also plants the foundation for Neiger of what is called a system of “agroforestry,” “multi-story cropping,” or “permaculture” on his farm.
The nuts falling from their limbs will be one of his most critical crops, but only one of many in what will be a cyclical and regenerative agricultural practice that brings the field and the forest together, securing the food production of the former to the environmental services of the latter.
“Trees fit in well in many places where it’s not suitable to do tillage agriculture. You can use hillsides, where—any time regular monoculture agriculture occurs—it causes a lot of erosion and soil loss. Having trees in these places slows erosion, starts to rebuild soil, and sequesters more carbon,” farmer Neiger tells the BBC.
North Carolina forest farm by Priya Jaishanker, CC license – Forest Farming
In terms of producing food, his chestnuts are a great source of carbohydrate—like corn or wheat—only more nutrient-dense and growing higher up rather than down below. They were once very commonly ground into flour for baking bread, and they also provide hogs and wild forest creatures with a predictable and bountiful food source. Opting against a traditional farmer’s beige and yellow crop monopoly also frees up the forest floor for more diverse kinds of cash crops, as well as medicinal herbs and fungi.
Neiger chose papaws, persimmons, and elderberries that will grow and produce food while he waits for his chestnut trees to reach the necessary age and size. Furthermore, the ability to select a wide variety of plants to grow in and around the chestnut orchards allows Neiger and other multi-layer farmers to cultivate environments that can host the maximum number of both wild and domestic animal species.
Neiger released chickens on the land that, rather than eating corn and feed, will dine on food they actually prefer – rodents, insects, worms, as well as wild seeds and nuts. All of this turns their eggs into a natural color rich in healthier fats and nutrients.
This marriage of the canopy, cover crops, ground crops, and animals is what Neiger and other multi-story farmers are looking to master. It allows them to produce varying amounts of a large variety of different food sources, while sustaining all the environmental services provided by trees, like soil enrichment.
Aldo Leopold summed this concept up in his book Song of Gavilan:
“The oak which feeds the buck, who feeds the cougar, who dies under an oak and goes back into acorns for his erstwhile prey. This is one of the many food cycles starting from and returning to oaks, for the oak also feeds the jay who feeds the goshawk who named your river, the bear whose grease made your gravy, the quail who taught you a lesson in botany, and the turkey who daily gives you the slip”.
Land Ethics: Earning Income Without Damaging Things
Today, agriculture is one of the largest contributors to a number of practices detrimental to the environment. Forest clearance, especially in countries with tropical rainforest, is often driven by agriculture, while the resulting water contamination, soil erosion, and loss of carbon-sequestering plants, wildlife habitat, and biodiversity, all stem from age-old methods of farming and ranching.
Kansas farm by Patrick Emerson, CC license
Much of America’s farmland, and the crops which the U.S. government subsidizes, consist of corn, wheat, rice, soya, or cotton. These crops present very little nutritional value on their own, but the majorities of grain and legume harvests in the United States (corn for example,) go into producing industrial oils, sweeteners, petro-chemical additives, or bioethanol, with 5% going to livestock feed, and even less onto the plates of humans.
Estimates quoted from the Center for International Forestry Research state that merely 12 species of plants and 14 species of animal make up 98% of the entire world ag sector—a dangerous biological monopoly.
Further, the CO2 emissions from excessive soil tilling, deforestation, and synthetic fertilizer production, places agriculture as a large and prominent contributor to global warming; not nearly as big as manufacturing or transportation as some have suggested, but certainly significant.
Leopold recognized that the U.S. was moving down this path 100 years ago, commenting on the principles of 21st century permaculture even while Apache Indians still inhabited the hills of Arizona. “Health is the capacity of the land for self-renewal. Conservation is our effort to understand and preserve this capacity,”
But there is hope—as is demonstrated by Neiger, as well as others like Dr. Allen Williams who runs Soil Health Consultants, a team of farming experts who promote, not sustainable agriculture, but regenerative agriculture…
Calling it an “EpiPen” for trauma to the central nervous system, University of Michigan researchers have shown how an injection of nanoparticles can prevent the body’s immune system from overreacting to trauma—potentially preventing some spinal cord injuries from resulting in paralysis.
The approach was demonstrated in mice by the scientists in Ann Arbor, when the nanoparticles enhanced healing by reprogramming the aggressive immune cells.
“In this work, we demonstrate that instead of overcoming an immune response, we can co-opt the immune response to work for us to promote the therapeutic response,” said Lonnie Shea, the Steven A. Goldstein Collegiate Professor of Biomedical Engineering.
Trauma of any kind kicks the body’s immune response into gear. In a normal injury, immune cells infiltrate the damaged area and clear debris to initiate the regenerative process.
The central nervous system, which includes the brain and spinal cord, however, is normally walled off from the immune activity by the blood-brain barrier. But a spinal cord injury breaks that barrier, letting in overzealous immune cells that create too much inflammation for the delicate neural tissues. This leads to the rapid death of neurons, damage to the insulating sheaths around nerve fibers that allow them to send signals, and the formation of a scar that blocks the regeneration of the spinal cord’s nerve cells.
All of this contributes to the loss of function below the level of the injury. That spectrum includes everything from paralysis to a loss of sensation for many of the 12,000 new spinal injury patients each year in the United States.
Previous attempts to offset complications from this immune response included injecting steroids like methylprednisolone. That practice has largely been discarded since it comes with side effects that include sepsis, gastrointestinal bleeding and blood clots—and the risks outweigh the benefits.
But now, U-M researchers have designed nanoparticles that intercept immune cells on their way to the spinal cord, redirecting them away from the injury. Those that reach the spinal cord have been altered to be more pro-regenerative.
Hopefully, this technology could lead to new therapeutic strategies not only for patients with spinal cord injury but for those with various inflammatory diseases.
With no drugs attached, the nanoparticles reprogram the immune cells with their physical characteristics: a size similar to cell debris and a negative charge that facilitates binding to immune cells. In theory, their non-pharmaceutical nature avoids unwanted side effects.
With fewer immune cells at the trauma location, there is less inflammation and tissue deterioration. Second, immune cells that do make it to the injury are less inflammatory and more suited to supporting tissues that are trying to grow back together.
“Hopefully, this technology could lead to new therapeutic strategies not only for patients with spinal cord injury but for those with various inflammatory diseases,” said Jonghyuck Park, a U-M research fellow working with Shea.
Previous research has shown success for nanoparticles mitigating trauma caused by multiple sclerosis and the West Nile virus, for example.
“The immune system underlies autoimmune disease, cancer, trauma, regeneration—nearly every major disease,” Shea said. “Tools that can target immune cells and reprogram them to a desired response have numerous opportunities for treating or managing disease.”
The research, published in the current issue of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, was supported by The National Institutes of Health. Shea is also the William and Valerie Hall Chair of Biomedical Engineering and a professor of chemical engineering.
(Source: University of Michigan)
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By Julian Paren / Geograph.org project, CC license
On every continent, wildlife habitats of all kinds are threatened with development and construction, but perhaps none stand at greater risk than coastline ecosystems like estuaries, salt marshes, and coastal wetlands.
In Scotland one of the last remaining dune ecosystems of its kind in the entire country was just saved from an attempt to turn the unique sandy shore into a golf course.
The wetlands area known as Coul Links is a Ramsar site recognized by UNESCO, and part of the Dornoch Firth and Loch Fleet Special Protection Area.
After four years of campaigning by citizens and wildlife groups to preserve the coastline, home to over 1,200 species of plants and animals, some unique to Europe, Scottish ministers made their decision this week, refusing to allow the development to proceed.
The Scottish Wildlife Trust, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, the IUCN, and Scottish Natural Heritage cheered the news after the application was declined on the 21st of February. The groups had been arguing that there were golf courses already serving the area—one that was controversial for the same reasons (and in the news media because of its celebrity owner).
“Today’s decision demonstrates that individuals can make a real difference by taking the time to stand up for nature,” commented the Wildlife Trust’s Chief Executive Jo Pike.
By Julian Paren / Geograph.org project, CC license
“Saving Coul Links from development is a strong sign that the Scottish Government is committed to protecting Scotland’s fantastic natural environment, and that it is prepared to make difficult decisions,” she added.
The East Sutherland site is an important stopover refuge for migratory waterfowl and other rare aquatic bird species—and after the golf course at Aberdeenshire was built over a coastal ecosystem, it looked like development of Coul Links was to be par for the course of modern development. Luckily for the wild places of Scotland and their admirers, a government is willing to stand up for them.
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Quote of the Day: “Be the one who has an understanding and a forgiving heart, one who looks for the best in people. Leave people better than you found them.” – Marvin J. Ashton
Photo: by Igor Rodrigues – public domain
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
It can be quite a struggle for parents to get stubborn children to eat their vegetables—which is why generations of them have come up with creative methods for sneaking nutrition into their kids’ diets.
In the survey of 2,000 parents with children under 18, half declared a parenting ‘win’ whenever their child requested a healthy snack. 53% said another win was watching them actually enjoying that healthy snack.
These wins could arguably be the most satisfying for parents too, because 55% of respondents agreed getting their child to eat healthy food was “difficult”.
Conducted by OnePoll on behalf of Pirate’s Booty for National Snack Food Month in February, the survey looked at the top tips and hacks parents use to assist them in scoring those parentings wins.
Fifty-five percent of respondents said they’ve employed the “stealth health” technique to help them maintain a well-rounded and nutritious diet for their children.
21% of parents polled really dedicate themselves to stealth health by pureeing, dicing, or even grating vegetables so they can be snuck into a plate undetected.
Creativity is also key for parents—from slipping spinach into brownies or placing veggies underneath the cheese in pizza. One respondent even said they mix powdered baby food into mac n’ cheese in order to keep their kids eating their veggies.
‘Chicken nuggets’ is another key to stealth health, as twenty-two percent of parents surveyed said they’ve told their children breaded vegetables were chicken nuggets to help persuade the little ones to eat them and 21% said they’ve told their children all meat is chicken nuggets to give them a boost to eat it.
The most successful tip to keep their kids eating healthy, however, is simply allowing them to lend a hand in the kitchen (37%). Any way you slice it, adults all love those satisfying little ways we manage to empower ourselves while raising their brood.
WHAT ARE THE TOP 10 HACKS PARENTS USE TO MAINTAIN A NUTRITIOUS DIET FOR THEIR FAMILY? Survey Says…
1. Allowing your child to help cook meals so they will be more likely to eat them
2. Letting your child pick their own healthy snacks
3. Letting your child pick a few meals for the family to have each week
4. Only letting your child eat dessert if they’ve finished their vegetables
5. Switching the packaging from an unhealthy snack to a healthy snack
6. Bribing your child with a treat to get them to finish their dinner
7. Letting your child put a little ketchup on things they don’t like, so they will eat them
8. Using the “one more bite” rule over and over to get your child to finish their meal
9. Buying snacks with characters your child likes on the packaging so they would be more likely to eat it
10. Making faces with the food so your child will be entertained and be more likely to eat it
Share The Tips And Tricks With Your Friends On Social Media… (Photo by Dan Foy, CC license)
Ask ten of your friends to join you on stage to do improv comedy, and see how many of them say yes. Now, imagine someone suffering from anxiety or depression and ask them the same question—probably a slim chance of getting a yes out of anyone in your entire friend group.
But, those who are grappling with anxiety or depression in Chicago should seriously consider joining the program Improv for Anxiety.
Freethink.com documented the adventure of Stephanie Azzaline and other students who signed up for the 8-week course—a mixture of group therapy sessions (led by two licensed clinicians with improv experience) and actual improv training and performances led by instructors at one of the world’s premier comedy clubs, Second City.
The idea, which came to life at Second City a couple years ago, was to create a support network, which would then help bolster the confidence of members, both teens and college students, stuck in anxiety’s grasp. And a scientific study showed it to be a potentially a great idea.
After a short-term clinical study involving 32 patients, researchers in Illinois concluded that intervention using improvisational comedy exercises may provide a strong and efficient treatment for patients with anxiety and depression.
Improv for Anxiety course methods include all of the classic games that made Whose Line is it Anyway famous, like ‘scenes from a hat,’ and ‘hoedown’.
The students found the assurance that everyone in the class was already seeking to remedy their anxiety encouraging, and it was an important part of getting them comfortable enough to perform.
Improv Offers The Gift of Being Present
“People with anxiety a lot of times are either thinking about the past, or they’re thinking about the future,” Megan Hastings, an improv student told Freethink. “But they’re normally not in the present.”
Improv forces those in the class to stay rooted in the present as they try and come up with ideas, rhymes, jokes, and more. There are no pauses in improv rounds, so if you make a mistake, the only way to fix it is to move forward and try to nail the next bit.
Photo by Matt Stratton, CC license
For instance, one of the games from Whose Line is it Anyway that Improv for Anxiety regularly uses is an exercise where they all take turns adding one word onto an ongoing sentence to try and make the funniest story.
Many of the students and participants said their anxiety had abated, sometimes a little, sometimes a lot, after taking the course. One participant managed to navigate a potential breakup without breaking up, and added that her day-to-day life was 30% easier.
The support network continues even after their eight weeks has ended, as participants share their highs and lows in a group text—undoubtedly with jokes thrown in as often as possible.
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While not many of you currently clean your kitchen counters with a rotting banana peel, the natural processes inherent in decomposing fruit actually produce many of the key ingredients within many common household cleaners.
With so much food waste going to rot in landfills, a company called Veles wanted to repurpose those sugars and acids and turn them into something useful. Today, their all-purpose cleaner is made exclusively from 100% food waste, along with a selection of sustainably sourced natural fragrances—and lab tests show it to be effective 99% of the time at cleaning tough dirt from multiple surfaces.
Most household cleaners contain up to 90% water, a valuable resource in any country—but all the water in the Veles product is directly derived from the food waste.
Co-founders of the New York–based eco-company, Amanda Weeks and Brett Van Aalsburg, have partnered with food waste collectors across the city to bring the contents of food waste bins in corporate cafeterias throughout Manhattan to use in their production process.
Using a simple acid fermentation process, key cleaning ingredients can be teased out of food waste. These include water, lactic acid, acetic acid, one of the few compounds in vinegar, and alcohol. Together they make up 97% of the Veles cleaner, with natural fragrances representing the remaining 3%.
The environmental benefits of the Veles cleaner go beyond just increasing the amount of food waste being recycled. It raises awareness of the benefits of bio-matter as a cleaning agent; reduces a potent source of methane (CH4) a harmful greenhouse gas, which emanates from food waste accumulating in landfills; and also removes the need for processed ingredients to be shipped to the Veles production facility in Newark from faraway places, reducing CO2 emissions in the transportation sector.
And more good news comes from the fact that they’ve designed their handsome spray bottle to be made of recyclable aluminum sourced in the U.S., and the company will soon be selling refills for it.
Like other products that are beneficial for the environment, Veles isn’t cheap. It is available for $16.00 on their website, but the refills will be selling for half as much—for all the customers who want to maximize the green potential of their dollars, and support small business innovation.
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Quote of the Day: “Tell me who admires and loves you, and I will tell you who you are.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Photo: by Holger Link (@photoholgic) – public domain
With a new inspirational quote every day, atop the perfect photo—collected and archived on our Quote of the Day page—why not bookmark GNN.org for a daily uplift?
Artificial intelligence yields new antibiotic A deep-learning model identifies a powerful new drug that can kill many species of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
Written by Anne Trafton MIT News
Using a machine-learning algorithm, MIT researchers have identified a powerful new antibiotic compound. In laboratory tests, the drug killed many of the world’s most problematic disease-causing bacteria, including some strains that are resistant to all known antibiotics. It also cleared infections in two different mouse models.
The computer model, which can screen more than a hundred million chemical compounds in a matter of days, is designed to pick out potential antibiotics that kill bacteria using different mechanisms than those of existing drugs.
“We wanted to develop a platform that would allow us to harness the power of artificial intelligence to usher in a new age of antibiotic drug discovery,” says James Collins, the Termeer Professor of Medical Engineering and Science in MIT’s Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) and Department of Biological Engineering. “Our approach revealed this amazing molecule which is arguably one of the more powerful antibiotics that has been discovered.”
In their new study, the researchers also identified several other promising antibiotic candidates, which they plan to test further. They believe the model could also be used to design new drugs, based on what it has learned about chemical structures that enable drugs to kill bacteria.
“The machine learning model can explore, in silico, large chemical spaces that can be prohibitively expensive for traditional experimental approaches,” says Regina Barzilay, the Delta Electronics Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science in MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL).
Barzilay and Collins, who are faculty co-leads for MIT’s Abdul Latif Jameel Clinic for Machine Learning in Health (J-Clinic), are the senior authors of the study, which appears today in Cell. The first author of the paper is Jonathan Stokes, a postdoc at MIT and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard.
Photo by the Collins Lab at MIT
A new pipeline
Over the past few decades, very few new antibiotics have been developed, and most of those newly approved antibiotics are slightly different variants of existing drugs. Current methods for screening new antibiotics are often prohibitively costly, require a significant time investment, and are usually limited to a narrow spectrum of chemical diversity.
“We’re facing a growing crisis around antibiotic resistance, and this situation is being generated by both an increasing number of pathogens becoming resistant to existing antibiotics, and an anemic pipeline in the biotech and pharmaceutical industries for new antibiotics,” Collins says.
To try to find completely novel compounds, he teamed up with Barzilay, Professor Tommi Jaakkola, and their students Kevin Yang, Kyle Swanson, and Wengong Jin, who have previously developed machine-learning computer models that can be trained to analyze the molecular structures of compounds and correlate them with particular traits, such as the ability to kill bacteria.
The idea of using predictive computer models for “in silico” screening is not new, but until now, these models were not sufficiently accurate to transform drug discovery. Previously, molecules were represented as vectors reflecting the presence or absence of certain chemical groups. However, the new neural networks can learn these representations automatically, mapping molecules into continuous vectors which are subsequently used to predict their properties.
In this case, the researchers designed their model to look for chemical features that make molecules effective at killing E. coli. To do so, they trained the model on about 2,500 molecules, including about 1,700 FDA-approved drugs and a set of 800 natural products with diverse structures and a wide range of bioactivities.
Once the model was trained, the researchers tested it on the Broad Institute’s Drug Repurposing Hub, a library of about 6,000 compounds. The model picked out one molecule that was predicted to have strong antibacterial activity and had a chemical structure different from any existing antibiotics. Using a different machine-learning model, the researchers also showed that this molecule would likely have low toxicity to human cells.
This molecule, which the researchers decided to call halicin, after the fictional artificial intelligence system from “2001: A Space Odyssey,” has been previously investigated as possible diabetes drug. The researchers tested it against dozens of bacterial strains isolated from patients and grown in lab dishes, and found that it was able to kill many that are resistant to treatment, including Clostridium difficile, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The drug worked against every species that they tested, with the exception of Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a difficult-to-treat lung pathogen.
To test halicin’s effectiveness in living animals, the researchers used it to treat mice infected with A. baumannii, a bacterium that has infected many U.S. soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan. The strain of A. baumannii that they used is resistant to all known antibiotics, but application of a halicin-containing ointment completely cleared the infections within 24 hours.
Preliminary studies suggest that halicin kills bacteria by disrupting their ability to maintain an electrochemical gradient across their cell membranes. This gradient is necessary, among other functions, to produce ATP (molecules that cells use to store energy), so if the gradient breaks down, the cells die. This type of killing mechanism could be difficult for bacteria to develop resistance to, the researchers say.
“When you’re dealing with a molecule that likely associates with membrane components, a cell can’t necessarily acquire a single mutation or a couple of mutations to change the chemistry of the outer membrane. Mutations like that tend to be far more complex to acquire evolutionarily,” Stokes says.
In this study, the researchers found that E. coli did not develop any resistance to halicin during a 30-day treatment period. In contrast, the bacteria started to develop resistance to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin within one to three days, and after 30 days, the bacteria were about 200 times more resistant to ciprofloxacin than they were at the beginning of the experiment.
The researchers plan to pursue further studies of halicin, working with a pharmaceutical company or nonprofit organization, in hopes of developing it for use in humans.
Optimized molecules
After identifying halicin, the researchers also used their model to screen more than 100 million molecules selected from the ZINC15 database, an online collection of about 1.5 billion chemical compounds. This screen, which took only three days, identified 23 candidates that were structurally dissimilar from existing antibiotics and predicted to be nontoxic to human cells.
In laboratory tests against five species of bacteria, the researchers found that eight of the molecules showed antibacterial activity, and two were particularly powerful. The researchers now plan to test these molecules further, and also to screen more of the ZINC15 database.
The researchers also plan to use their model to design new antibiotics and to optimize existing molecules. For example, they could train the model to add features that would make a particular antibiotic target only certain bacteria, preventing it from killing beneficial bacteria in a patient’s digestive tract.
“This groundbreaking work signifies a paradigm shift in antibiotic discovery and indeed in drug discovery more generally,” says Roy Kishony, a professor of biology and computer science at Technion (the Israel Institute of Technology), who was not involved in the study. “Beyond in silica screens, this approach will allow using deep learning at all stages of antibiotic development, from discovery to improved efficacy and toxicity through drug modifications and medicinal chemistry.”
This compassionate veterinarian has spent the last nine years treating homeless people’s pets across California.
Dr. Kwane Stewart first started his labor of love back in 2011 when he was left heartbroken by the amount of animals being surrendered to his veterinary clinic during the recession. As more and more people lost their homes, more and more pet owners opted to turn their furry companions over to a shelter than allow them to be homeless.
Stewart then brought his veterinary supplies to a soup kitchen event so he could treat some of the homeless pets around Modesto, California.
“About 25% of our homeless population own a pet, and I knew that if I set up a table at a soup kitchen I could help a small group of animals,” Stewart told GoFundMe. “So that’s what I did. I called over anyone who was holding their pet and told them I’d take a look and vaccinate or treat their pet if I could.”
Upon successfully treating 15 animals in a single day, Stewart knew he had found his purpose.
He has since devoted his spare time to wandering through alleyways and city streets up and down the west coast so he can treat homeless people’s pets—and he has helped heal more than 400 animals.
Despite how many dogs and cats can easily be treated with the supplies in his veterinary bag, however, some of the animals required more intensive surgeries and operations.
Back in September, Stewart created a GoFundMe campaign to raise money for his mission—and to date, he has raised $29,000 to pay for animal treatments. He was also officially named the GoFundMe Hero of February.
“I don’t ever want to have to turn anybody away,” he says. “The look on people’s faces when they get their pets back, especially after a surgery or a life-saving procedure—those are moments I’ll remember forever.”
(WATCH the video below)
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In an ambitious bid to cut the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, India is now ensuring that all diesel and gas stations will only be supplying the cleanest available fuel.
Starting on April 1st, India will join the ranks of the few world nations offering Euro-VI grade fuel, which only contains 10 parts per million (ppm) of sulphur in contrast to the 50 ppm in Euro-IV fuels.
India is reportedly the first country to ever transition directly from IV-grade fuels to VI-grade. Not only that, they managed to achieve the transition in just three years.
According to The Tribune, it took India 7 years to transition from Euro-III grade fuel with a sulphur content of 350 ppm to Euro-IV fuel. Reports also say that most of the nation’s gas stations were already distributing the new ultra-low fuel by the end of 2019.
“We are absolutely on track for supplying BS-VI fuel from April 1. Almost all refineries have begun supplying BS-VI fuel and the same has reached storage depots across the country,” Sanjiv Singh, Chairman of Indian Oil Corp (IOC), told reporters. “It was a conscious decision to leapfrog to BS-VI as first upgrading to BS-V and then shifting to BS-VI would have prolonged the journey to 4 to 6 years. Besides, oil refineries, as well as automobile manufacturers, would have had to make investments twice—first to producing BS-V grade fuel and engines and then BS-VI ones.”
While the initiative is just one of the many ways that India is trying to keep up with the world’s shift towards renewable energy, the nation reportedly made history last week by becoming the first country to power all of its government-run seaports with solar and wind energy.
The “green port” infrastructure means that 12 of the country’s biggest seaports are exclusively using renewable energy to power their daily operations. Not only that, the ports can use the energy to electrically power ships as they are docked.
File photo by Bernard Gagnon, CC
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Thousands of people from around the world are rallying behind a 9-year-old Australian boy who was ruthlessly bullied for his dwarfism at his school.
Yarraka Bayles was heartbroken to pick up her son Quaden from school in Queensland this week only to find the youngster in tears from being taunted by some other students.
Bayles posted a video of Quaden’s emotional response to social media in hopes that it would show kids—and parents—just how devastating bullying can be for a boy.
The video did indeed have a powerful response; since it was uploaded on Tuesday, it has been viewed more than 20 million times
Hundreds of thousands of people have sent the family messages of love and support. Sports teams and celebrities such as Hugh Jackman have recorded video messages of encouragement for the youngster.
Furthermore, Australian comedian Brad Williams—who also lives with a form of dwarfism—started a GoFundMe in order to raise money to send Quaden and his family to Disneyland.
“I’m setting up this GoFundMe to let Quaden know that bullying will not be tolerated, and that he is a wonderful human being who deserves joy,” Williams wrote on the campaign page.
“This isn’t just for Quaden, this is for anyone who has been bullied in their lives and told they weren’t good enough,” he added. “Let’s show Quaden and others, that there is good in the world and they are worthy of it.
“I have been in touch directly with Quaden’s mother. So I will have their information to book the flights. Funds raised will be spent on two airplane tickets for Quaden and his mother from Australia to Los Angeles, as well as providing a hotel, food, and tickets to Disneyland Park in Anaheim for multiple days.
“After all the flights, hotel, tickets, and food is paid for, any excess money will be donated to anti-bullying/anti-abuse charities.”
Within 24 hours of creating the campaign, it surged past its original goal of $10,000 and garnered roughly a quarter-million dollars in donations. [Update: By Sunday, February 23, the fund has reached $460,000.]
“This is the best of humanity,” wrote Williams in a Twitter update. “I promise every penny donated will be put to good use. It will go to help Quaden and to make sure no child goes through what he went through. YOU ALL ARE AMAZING!”
Update! We raised 25k! I’m speechless. Many other people and celebrities have started their own campaigns of awareness and that’s great. Doesn’t matter where the help comes from as long as they are legit. I’m talking to his family to schedule the trip! https://t.co/bmRnGiSWil
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Although Harper the dog has already proven herself to be a very capable “branch manager”, it seems that she still has a few tricks that she needs to learn from her mom Willow.
Harper was recently caught on camera struggling with a particularly large stick in a local park. Despite how it seems she was determined to move the stick on her own, Willow was more than happy to lend a helping paw.
Based on their resulting success, we would not be surprised if the two pups made it a family business.
“Both have determined personalities and are always so proud when they are doing it,” their owner Tanya told The Dodo. “They carry [the sticks] for about a kilometer around our 5-kilometer park where they need to get through crosswalks and bollards—which they have now perfected.”
“Harper gets distracted by people wanting to talk to her,” she added “But Mum is always there to help her keep moving on.”
(WATCH the video below)
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Some rural Indian villages are miles and miles away from the nearest hospital—and that’s why this devoted man has taken it upon himself to run his very own free ambulance service.
During the last 19 years, Karimul Haque has brought more than five thousand people to the hospital using his makeshift motorcycle-powered ambulance.
Haque was first inspired to launch his mission of service after he was left grief-stricken by the death of his mother almost two decades ago. He then vowed not to let any other mothers in the region suffer from lack of medical treatment or access to healthcare.
Since Haque first began his labor of love, his entire family has joined his mission by volunteering their own time and services.
Corporate food giant Kellogg’s is moving to import all of their palm oil from sustainable sources before 2025—and it’s all thanks to the work of two young English sisters who were moved to help endangered orangutans.
12-year-old Asha Fitzpatrick and her 10-year-old sister Jia stopped eating Kellogg’s cereals and petitioned the firm to improve its palm oil policy after watching a documentary about orphaned orangutans.
Despite its humble beginnings, their petition has since racked up more than 780,000 signatures. Not only that, it caught the eye of Kellogg’s chiefs who invited the determined sisters to a meeting.
The sisters first met the firm’s executives in 2018 to discuss possible changes to where they source their palm oil. The clear-cutting in forests to make way for new palm crops have been blamed for devastating the orangutans’ natural habitat.
Since then, impressed Kellogg’s bosses have pledged to appoint “trusted NGOs” (or nonprofits) to oversee the firm’s planned switch to segregated palm oil—a more sustainable form of the ingredient widely used in food and cosmetics.
Alison Last, a spokeswoman for Kellogg’s, said: “In February 2020, Kellogg updated its Global Palm Oil Policy and launched its Global Deforestation Policy, as well as plans that reflect an evolution of the company’s strategies and actions to further drive impact at scale.
“…Kellogg’s is committed to working with its global palm oil suppliers to source fully traceable palm oil that is produced in a manner that’s environmentally responsible, socially beneficial and economically viable, which includes helping to mitigate deforestation.”
(L-R) Asha Kirkpatrick and Jia Kirkpatrick. SWNS.
In a policy document handed to the Kirkpatricks, Kellogg’s confirmed that it is now “committed” to sourcing 100% of its palm oil sustainably by 2025.
The firm currently sources 15% of its palm oil from uncertified producers and offsets the costs by purchasing environmental “credits” from the conservation nonprofit Roundtable for Sustainable Palm Oil.
Additionally, the food giant has pledged to partner with “trusted” NGOs and work with smallholders to “combat deforestation and support forest restoration.”
The company announced the move in a meeting with the sisters on Friday, 18 months after they first launched their petition.
Harvinder Dhinsa, the girls’ delighted mum, said: “They were really surprised by the announcement.
“They weren’t expecting such a commitment. I’m really proud of them,” she added. “It shows no matter how small you are that you have a voice and people will listen.”
(L-R) Asha Kirkpatrick and Jia Kirkpatrick. SWNS.
Dhinsa, who is from Leighton Buzzard, Bedfordshire, said her daughters have decided to keep the petition active in order to ensure that Kellogg’s management keeps their word.
“If they don’t follow through, we will be on their backs,” she added. “The announcement is great, but we need to keep their feet to the fire and ensure changes are made before we can say it’s done.
“That’s why the petition stays open and we are still calling for signatures.”
Dhinsa said the girls’ petition gained momentum after environmental charity Greenpeace launched a campaign to save the endangered orangutans in Borneo that are losing their homes and habitats to palm oil production.
The girls first met with Kellogg’s chiefs, including Oli Morton, managing director for Western Europe, back in 2018.
“The first meeting was a bit of a charm offensive,” recalled Dhinsa. They gave the girls cereal boxes, posed for photos and spoke about changing their policy.”
In the second meeting last year, Dhinsa said the girls left “disappointed” after the managers seemed to backtrack on their previous claims.
“They rolled back on the commitment saying they were a small player in the global palm oil market without much power to change things,” said the mother. “But on Friday, our third meeting, the firm’s tone became very positive.
“I’m certain that increased media coverage on climate change, the Australian forest fires and figures like Greta Thunberg have encouraged their new stance.”
Dhinsa said Kellogg’s bosses have agreed to meet with the girls again in six months to update them on their progress, and to tell them which NGOs they have appointed for the transition.
Now, the young sisters are considering approaching other firms to see whether they will “step up” and follow Kellogg’s lead.
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The NLRP3 receptor protein is responsible for detecting potential pathogens in the body and launching an immune response. (File photo by MLGProGamer123, CC)
Chronic inflammation can contribute to a variety of devastating diseases, from Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s to diabetes and cancer. It flares up if old age, stress, or environmental toxins keep the body’s immune system in overdrive.
Now, scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have identified a molecular “switch” that controls the immune machinery responsible for chronic inflammation in the body. The results of their testing on mice could lead to new ways to halt or even reverse many of these age-related conditions.
“My lab is very interested in understanding the reversibility of aging,” said senior author Danica Chen, associate professor of metabolic biology, nutritional sciences and toxicology at UC Berkeley. “In the past, we showed that aged stem cells can be rejuvenated. Now, we are asking: to what extent can aging be reversed? And we are doing that by looking at physiological conditions, like inflammation and insulin resistance, that have been associated with aging-related degeneration and diseases.”
In the study, published online in the journal Cell Metabolism this month, Chen and her team show that a bulky collection of immune proteins called the NLRP3 inflammasome—responsible for sensing potential threats to the body and launching an inflammation response—can be essentially switched off by removing a small bit of molecular matter in a process called deacetylation.
Over-activation of the NLRP3 inflammasome has been linked to a variety of chronic conditions, including multiple sclerosis, cancer, diabetes, and dementia. Chen’s results suggest that drugs targeted toward deacetylating—or switching off—this NLRP3 inflammasome might help prevent or treat these conditions and possibly age-related degeneration in general.
“This acetylation can serve as a switch,” Chen said. “So, when it is acetylated, this inflammasome is on. When it is deacetylated, the inflammasome is off.”
The NLRP3 receptor protein is responsible for detecting potential pathogens in the body and launching an immune response. (File photo by MLGProGamer123, CC)
By studying mice and immune cells called macrophages, the team found that a protein called SIRT2 is responsible for deacetylating the NLRP3 inflammasome. Mice that were bred with a genetic mutation that prevented them from producing SIRT2 showed more signs of inflammation at the ripe old age of two than their normal counterparts. These mice also exhibited higher insulin resistance, a condition associated with type 2 diabetes and metabolic syndrome.
The team also studied older mice whose immune systems had been destroyed with radiation and then reconstituted with blood stem cells that produced either the deacetylated or the acetylated version of the NLRP3 inflammasome.
Those that were given the deacetylated, or “off”, version of the inflammasome had improved insulin resistance after six weeks, indicating that switching off this immune machinery might actually reverse the course of metabolic disease.
“I think this finding has very important implications in treating major human chronic diseases,” Chen said. “It’s also a timely question to ask, because in the past year, many promising Alzheimer’s disease trials ended in failure. One possible explanation is that treatment starts too late, and it has gone to the point of no return. So, I think it’s more urgent than ever to understand the reversibility of aging-related conditions and use that knowledge to aid a drug development for aging-related diseases.”
