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    Home > Food News > Sweetener News > Biological Science and Technology Information Purslane Drought Resistance • Hyperthyroidism Molecular Mechanisms · Yeast DNA • T- Rex Bite Force ・ Alcohol Consumption Shorten Telomeres • Wrinkle cysts ・ Chew energy consumption ・ Sweeteners to raise blood sugar

    Biological Science and Technology Information Purslane Drought Resistance • Hyperthyroidism Molecular Mechanisms · Yeast DNA • T- Rex Bite Force ・ Alcohol Consumption Shorten Telomeres • Wrinkle cysts ・ Chew energy consumption ・ Sweeteners to raise blood sugar

    • Last Update: 2022-09-08
    • Source: Internet
    • Author: User
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    Original: Biological science and technology information| Purslane drought resistance · molecular mechanism of hyperthyroidism • yeast DNA • Tyrannosaurus rex bite force ・ alcohol shortening telomeres • wrinkle cysts ・ chewing energy consumption • sweeteners to raise blood sugar

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    Portulaca oleracea

    Portulaca oleracea

    Carrying the key "stunt" of drought resistance and high yield

    Carrying the key "stunt" of drought resistance and high yield

    From the August 9 "Science and Technology Daily" report, American scientists in the latest issue of science Advances magazine published a paper said that their latest research found that purslane, an ordinary plant integrated two different metabolic pathways, to create a new type of photosynthesis, so that it "transformed" into a super plant, can maintain high yields


    The common plant purslane may be a "super plant"


    The common plant purslane may be a "super plant"


    Image source: Physicist Organization Network Image source: Physicist Organization Network

    Over the course of a long evolutionary process, plants have independently evolved a variety of different mechanisms to improve photosynthesis


    Autoimmune hyperthyroidism

    Autoimmune hyperthyroidism

    Molecular mechanisms are revealed

    Molecular mechanisms are revealed

    From the August 9 "China Science News" reported that at present, about 750 million people worldwide have thyroid disease


    In recent years, the incidence of thyroid-related diseases is increasing year by year, and the total prevalence of thyroid-related diseases in China is as high as 20%.


    In order to explore how TSHR mediates the molecular mechanism of normal physiological functions and disease occurrence and development in vivo, the research team used single-particle cryo-EM technology to remodel


    Related paper information:

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    Human muscle genes

    Human muscle genes

    First insertion of baker's yeast DNA

    First insertion of baker's yeast DNA

    Excerpted from the China Science Popularization Network reported on August 10 that Dutch researchers successfully inserted human muscle genes into the DNA of baker's yeast, which is the first time that scientists have implanted such an important human feature into yeast cells, and the humanized yeast model obtained can be used as a tool


    Human DNA encoding the core functions of muscle cells is inserted into the DNA of yeast cells, and the resulting humanized yeast model can be used in areas such as


    Human DNA encoding the core functions of muscle cells is inserted into the DNA of yeast cells, and the resulting humanized yeast model can be used in areas such as


    Image source: Physicists Organization Network

    The traits added to yeast cells by the Delft Tech university research team are controlled by a set of ten genes without which humans would not be able to survive


    Previously, the team successfully constructed artificial chromosomes, using them as a DNA platform to build new functions


    Tyrannosaurus Rex: Small eyes in exchange for big bites

    Tyrannosaurus Rex: Small eyes in exchange for big bites

    From an August 12 report by China Science Daily, a study published by Communications Biology on August 11 found that Rex Tyrannosaurus rex (Tyrannosaurus rex) evolved narrower eye sockets than their ancestors or helped them bite more powerfully


    The skull of the Tyrannosaurus rex's original eye socket eye (left) and the virtual round eye socket eye is reconstructed


    The skull of the Tyrannosaurus rex's original eye socket eye (left) and the virtual round eye socket eye is reconstructed


    Image credit: Stephan Lautenschlager Image source: Stephan Lautenschlager

    Studies have shown that the eye sockets of older specimens appear to be rounder than those of closer samples, and the eye sockets of large theropods are closer to the shape


    To investigate the effect of eye socket shape on skull structure and function, the authors compared the stresses
    on bites of reptile skull theoretical models with 5 different eye socket shapes.
    The authors also compared the maximum eyeball size
    that a model of a tyrannosaurus skull with round or keyhole-shaped eye sockets could carry.
    The keyhole-shaped eye socket disperses force during the bite to the harder part of the skull behind the eye socket, making the eye socket less deformed and helping to reduce pressure
    on the skull.
    However, the Tyrannosaurus rex model with round eye sockets could carry 7 times the
    size of the eyeballs as the keyhole-shaped eye socket model.

    The authors suggest that theropod dinosaurs evolved narrower eye sockets, which may have reduced the eyeball space in their skulls, while leaving this space to the jaw muscles and increasing the hardness
    of the skull.
    This may allow them to trade smaller eyes for greater bite force, which previous studies have proposed to enhance visual perception
    .
    The findings highlight this functional trade-off that determined the evolution of dinosaurs
    .

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    Exceed the recommended weekly drinking amount

    Exceed the recommended weekly drinking amount

    Make the chromosomes shorter

    Make the chromosomes shorter

    Telomeres shorten
    with each round of cell division.

    Telomeres shorten
    with each round of cell division.

    Image source: KATERYNA KON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

    Image source: KATERYNA KON/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

    But this comparison does not indicate whether alcohol alone can cause telomeres to shorten at least to some extent, as other lifestyle factors, such as diet, may also affect telomere length
    .
    To better understand the specific role of alcohol, the researchers repeated the experiment, using data from earlier genome-wide association studies to identify 93 genetic variants
    associated with increased alcohol consumption.
    The researchers designed a genetic risk score based on these variants and found that participants with higher genetic risk scores who drank alcohol were more likely to have shorter telomeres
    .
    In both experiments, the researchers found that participants with higher genetic risk scores due to increased alcohol consumption were more likely to have shorter telomeres
    .
    But, genetically, people who consume 17 to 28 alcohol per week may also have shorter
    telomeres.
    The UK's National Health Service recommends that men and women not regularly drink more than 14 alcohol per week, which equates to 6 pints of medium-intensity beer or 10 small glasses of low-intensity wine
    .
    In the United States, it is recommended that men drink no more than two drinks a day and women reduce it to one cup
    .
    Topiwala says regular alcohol consumption increases oxidative stress and inflammation, which is caused by the accumulation of harmful free radicals in cells, which can lead to telomeres shortening
    .
    According to Carmen Martin-Ruiz of Newcastle University in the United Kingdom, the study only calculated the telomere length once per person, and did not measure the telomere length of subjects at different time points, which means that it is impossible to determine whether telomeres will shorten due to frequent alcohol consumption
    .

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    Hindspeaks or molts?

    Hindspeaks or molts?

    535 million years ago fossils to reveal the secret

    5 million years ago fossils to reveal the secret

    From the August 13 "China Science News" reported that in 2017, researchers found fossils of wrinkled cysts in the apatite-bearing rock of the Cambrian Lucky Order Kuanchuanpu Formation in The Zhangjiagou Section of Xixiang County, Shaanxi Province, which is considered to be the earliest hind-mouthed animal, and proposed that the hind-mouthed animal may have a millimeter-sized ancestor type
    that lives in the sediment crevices of the seabed and has no anus 。 Recently, the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (hereinafter referred to as the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology) and a research team of researchers from inside and outside the United Nations have given a new interpretation
    of its kinship and evolutionary significance through in-depth research on the microenvironed lithophyllaceae about 535 million years ago in southern Shaanxi.
    The results of the research were published online on August 17 in Nature
    .

    Scanning electron microscopy photographs
    of a specimen of the crease cyst.

    Scanning electron microscopy photographs
    of a specimen of the crease cyst.
    Scanning electron microscopy photographs
    of a specimen of the crease cyst.

    Courtesy of respondents

    The respondent provided the image

    Restoration diagram of crumpled cysts (drawn by Yang Dinghua) and system position map

    Restoration diagram of crumpled cysts (drawn by Yang Dinghua) and system position map

    A forevision, B left view, C posterior vision, and D wrinkled cysts are the whole population of
    molting animals.

    A forevision, B left view, C posterior vision, and D wrinkled cysts are the whole population of
    molting animals.

    Courtesy of respondents

    Courtesy of respondents

    The hindquarters here include echinoderms (sea lilies, starfish, sea urchins, etc.
    ), hemizoans (intestinal gills and feather gills, etc.
    ), cephalics (Wenchang fish, etc.
    ), tails (sea squirts, etc.
    ) and vertebrates (fish, frogs, crocodiles, dinosaurs, birds, tigers, pandas and humans, etc.
    ).

    Zhang Huaqiao, corresponding author of the paper and researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology, introduced that the key feature supporting the crucifix as a posterior mouth animal is the "gill hole" structure in the fossil, which is considered to be one of the original features of the posterior mouth animal
    .
    The crindocyst is a symmetrical animal of millimeter size on both sides, with a cystic body and an opening at the end, around which radial folds develop, and radiatively symmetrically arranged spikes
    .
    Through in-depth research on more and more complete fossil specimens, Zhang Huaqiao et al.
    found that the two sides of the body of the crinsas cyst are symmetrically arranged with bone-bearing plates, and there are a large number of small spines on the reverse mouth surface, and the structure that was once explained as "gill holes" is likely to be a well-like structure
    formed by the wear and tear of closed bone-bearing plates during the fossilization process.
    "Some of the key features of the crinkle cyst, such as the developmental epidermis also known as the stratum corneum, the absence of cilia on the epithelium, and the symmetrical arrangement of the radiation at the end of the mouth and the annular mouth, suggest that it is more closely related
    to molts.
    " Zhang huaqiao pointed out that the wrinkled cysts are more likely to be molts than posterior mouth animals
    .

    Molts are a branch of proto-mouth animals that include cyclic neuronals (gill trolls, mosses, roundworms, equine worms, etc.
    ) and pan-arthropods (velvet worms, tardigrades, trilobites, spiders, insects, centipedes, shrimps, crabs, etc.

    ).
    It is understood that the earliest known fossils of molts appeared during the Fortunate Period of the Cambrian Period, but they were all cyclic neurozoans, and the wrinkled cysts added a whole new type
    to the earliest known molts.

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    The world's largest aquatic insect appears in Beijing

    The world's largest aquatic insect appears in Beijing

    From the science network reported on August 17, recently, the insect diversity survey team of the Institute of Intelligent Agriculture of Beijing Agricultural College found the oriental megalodon in the Puwa Nature Reserve in Fangshan District
    , Beijing.

    Megalodon

    Megalodon

    Courtesy of Beijing Agricultural College

    Courtesy of Beijing Agricultural College

    According to Xu Jian, a professor at Beijing Agricultural College, the Oriental Megalodon is a species
    of the world's largest aquatic insect, the Megalodon.
    Megalodon is very demanding of the environment, particularly dependent on water sources, coupled with its fragile larval life, when the water body is polluted or the pH suddenly changes, it can not adapt, and quickly disappears in this water area, so the number is scarce
    .
    As a "water quality index insect" for judging the quality of water quality, its existence or not directly reflects the quality of local water quality
    .

    Puwa Nature Reserve is located in Puwa Township, southwest of Fangshan District, Beijing, which belongs to the forest ecosystem type, and there are a large number of rare wild animal and plant species and natural environment
    suitable for their survival in the reserve.
    The reserve has remained in its original state for 20 years, which is an important reason why
    insects with high water quality requirements such as megalodons can be found this time.

    Chewing increases body energy consumption by 15%

    Chewing increases body energy consumption by 15%

    From the August 19 "China Science News" reported that when it comes to ways to burn calories, few people think of chewing
    .
    One study found that about 3% of the energy people consume every day comes from chewing gum, cartilage, and other delicacies (which may consume more if you eat salads and celery stems
    ).
    Although chewing does not consume much energy, it may be enough to reshape the faces
    of human ancestors.
    The findings were published August 17 at Science Advances
    .

    While humans evolved strategies to reduce chewing, hominids such as Australopithecus evolved strong teeth and jaws to chew hard food
    .

    While humans evolved strategies to reduce chewing, hominids such as Australopithecus evolved strong teeth and jaws to chew hard food
    .
    While humans evolved strategies to reduce chewing, hominids such as Australopithecus evolved strong teeth and jaws to chew hard food
    .

    Image source: PHILIPPE PLAILLY

    Image source: PHILIPPE PLAILLY Image source: PHILIPPE PLAILLY

    Callum Ross, an anatomist at the University of Chicago who was not involved in the study, believes that this provides specific data
    to understand why the human jaw is so different from our distant ancestors and modern primates.
    Scientists have long suspected that our jaw size and teeth evolved to make chewing more efficient
    .
    As primitive human ancestors shifted their eating habits to foods that were easier to chew and developed techniques such as cutting and cooking, the shape of human jaws and teeth also changed — shrinking compared
    to other primates.
    However, Adam van Casteren, a bioanthropologist at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, believes that without knowing how much energy the chewing process consumes, it is difficult to determine whether the energy savings are also a factor driving these evolutions
    .

    For the study, van Casteren's team measured the amount of oxygen consumed and the amount of carbon dioxide exhaled by 21 men and women
    .
    They then had participants chew a tasteless, odorless, calorie-free gum (such gum doesn't trigger the energy-depleting digestive system) for 15 minutes
    .
    During chewing, the participants' levels of carbon dioxide in their breath rose, indicating that their bodies worked
    harder.
    When the gum was harder, participants consumed 15% more energy; When the gum softened, the participants' metabolic levels increased by an average of 10 percent
    .
    Amanda Henry, an archaeologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands and one of the study's authors, believes that although the scale of energy consumption is not large, it is still of great significance
    .

    The researchers said chewing gum consumed less than 1 percent
    of the participants' daily energy budgets.
    Chewing gum in the lab is essentially a proof of concept: early humans may have spent more time chewing
    before cooking and using tools.
    If the ancients spent as much time chewing as gorillas and orangutans, researchers estimate they would have consumed at least 2.
    5 percent of their energy
    .
    "If you eat a harder food and chew for a long time, then the energy you consume as a percentage of the total energy will be much
    larger.
    " Henry believes that more efficient chewing tailored to diet may be an evolutionary advantage
    .
    By conserving energy in chewing, you have more energy to spend on
    other things like rest, recovery, and growth.
    Calculating the energy expenditure of human chewing can also give us some insight
    into the evolutionary strategies of other hominids.
    For example, Australopithecus (an African hominid who lived 4 million to 2 million years ago) had chewing facial teeth and huge jaw muscles
    that were 4 times larger than modern humans.
    They must have expended more energy when chewed, and this new study is the first step
    in calculating their energy expenditure.

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    "insurance"

    Neuronal "insurance"

    Make sure mosquitoes can always smell humans

    Make sure mosquitoes can always smell humans

    From the August 19 "Science and Technology Daily" report, we know that annoying things have their survival tricks
    .
    When female mosquitoes are looking for a human bite, they smell a unique mixture of body odors emitted by the human body into the air that irritate the receptors of the mosquito's antennae, however, even after removing the entire family of odor-sensing receptors from the mosquito genome, the mosquitoes will still find a way to bite us
    .
    A study published in the journal Cell on the 18th found that the olfactory system of mosquitoes has evolved additional "fail-safe" devices to ensure that they can always smell the human body
    .

    One of the paper's lead authors, Margot Hull, a scientist at Rockefeller University in the United States, said that mosquitoes are breaking the rules
    of animal smell that are best known.
    In most animals, olfactory neurons are responsible for detecting only one odor, which is not the case
    with mosquitoes.
    The researchers point out that people need to work harder to eliminate mosquitoes because getting rid of a single receptor has no effect
    .
    Any future attempt to control mosquitoes through insect repellents or any other means must take into account how indestructible
    their attraction to the human body is.

    Neurons stimulated by the human odor 1-octen-3-ol were also stimulated by amines, another chemical
    that mosquitoes use to find humans, have also been found.
    But according to all the existing rules of animal olfaction, neurons encode odors with strong specificity, suggesting that 1-octen-3-ol neurons should not detect amines
    .
    Surprisingly, sniffing human mosquito neurons through 1-octen-3-alcohol and amine receptors is not alone, which may allow all human-related odors to activate the "human detection part" of the mosquito's brain, even if some receptors are lost, can also play a role
    in damage protection.
    The team also used mononuclear RNA sequencing to look at other receptors
    expressed by individual mosquito olfactory neurons.
    The results gave the researchers a broad understanding
    of the prevalence of receptor co-expression in mosquitoes.
    The researchers believe that other insects may have similar mechanisms
    .
    The Christopher Porter team at Johns Hopkins University recently reported that Fruit flies have similar receptor co-expression
    in their neurons.
    This may be a basic strategy
    for insects that rely heavily on their sense of smell.

    Sweeteners also raise blood sugar

    Sweeteners also raise blood sugar

    From the August 22 "China Science News" reported that saccharin and sucralose, two artificial sweeteners, although they are not believed to increase blood sugar levels, they may induce changes in blood sugar levels
    by changing the human gut microbiome.
    The paper was published in Cell
    on August 19.

    Image credit: Shutterstock/wasanajai

    Image credit: Shutterstock/wasanajai Image source: Shutterstock/wasanajai

    These sweeteners are sugar substitutes
    for people who suffer from metabolic diseases such as diabetes or who wish to lose weight.
    They are more than 200 times sweeter than sugar and have few or even zero calories
    .
    Jotham Suez of Johns Hopkins University in the United States and colleagues tested the effects
    of 4 sugar substitutes on blood sugar in 120 adults in Israel with no underlying health conditions.
    Participants said they did not consume low-calorie sweeteners in the 6 months
    prior to the study.

    Participants were divided into 6 groups
    .
    Over a two-week period, four of the participants consumed two packets of water-soluble aspartame, sucralose, saccharin, or stevia three times a day
    .
    All sweetener packs contain at least 96% glucose
    .
    The total daily intake of each sweetener is below the acceptable level
    set by the U.
    S.
    Food and Drug Administration.
    Group 5 consumed the same amount of glucose powder
    at the same time.
    Group 6 was not ingested
    .
    Throughout the study and for one week before and after, all participants wore continuous blood glucose monitors
    .
    After that, the participants completed a glucose tolerance test
    .
    The trial measures the effectiveness
    of controlling blood glucose levels after glucose intake in humans.

    The researchers found that, on average, people who consumed saccharin and sucralose had significantly higher
    blood sugar levels after the sugar tolerance test.
    Suez said blood sugar remained stable or even slightly lower in other groups of participants, even those who consumed glucose on a daily basis
    .
    This suggests that it is not the glucose in the sweetener pack that raises blood sugar levels
    .
    The team also analyzed the participants' daily stool and saliva samples and found that all 4 sweeteners significantly changed the number, activity, and type
    of bacteria in the gut and mouth.
    They took weekly blood samples and found corresponding changes in
    metabolites or molecules.
    Some changes in blood metabolites in the saccharin and sucralose groups are also present
    in patients with diabetes mellitus or vascular disease.
    Some of these are known to play a role
    in sugar breakdown.

    The researchers transplanted stool samples from saccharin, sucralose, glucose, and people without supplementation intake into the digestive tract of the mice and found that feces transplanted from the saccharin and sucralose groups caused postprandial blood sugar in the mice to rise
    .
    This suggests that changes in the microbiome are responsible for this result
    .
    "Sweeteners by themselves don't raise blood sugar
    .
    " But it appears to have weakened the body's ability to control blood sugar levels after eating through microbial-mediated mechanisms
    , Suez said.
    The health effects of these microbial and metabolic changes remain unknown, and the team hopes that future studies will help clarify these relationships
    .

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    END

    END

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