The Grim Reefer shares a report from Live Science: Once a mighty kauri tree — a species of conifer that can grow up to 165 feet (50 meters) tall — the low, leafless stump looks like it should be long dead. But, as a new study published today in the journal iScience reminds us, looks are only surface-deep. Below the soil, the study authors wrote, the stump is part of a forest “superorganism” — a network of intertwined roots sharing resources across a community that could include dozens or hundreds of trees. By grafting its roots onto its neighbors’ roots, the kauri stump feeds at night on water and nutrients that other trees have collected during the day, staying alive thanks to their hard work.

Using several sensors to measure the movement of water and sap (which contains important nutrients) through the three trees, the team saw a curious pattern: the stump and its neighbors seemed to be drinking up water at exact opposite times. During the day, when the vibrant neighbor trees were busy transporting water up their roots and into their leaves, the stump sat dormant. At night, when the neighbors settled down, the stump circulated water through what was left of its body. The trees, it seemed, were taking turns — serving as separate pumps in a single hydraulic network. So, why add a near-dead tree to your underground nutrient highway? While the stump no longer has any leaves, researchers wrote, it’s possible that its roots still have value as a bridge to other vibrant, photosynthesizing trees elsewhere in the forest. It’s also possible that the stump joined roots with its neighbors a long time ago, before it was, well, a stump. Since nutrients still flow through the stump’s roots and into the rest of the network, the neighboring trees may never have noticed its loss of greenery.

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Source: Slashdot – Strange Forest ‘Superorganism’ Is Keeping a New Zealand Vampire Tree Alive

New research from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering could be key to our understanding of how the aging process works. The findings potentially pave the way for better cancer treatments and revolutionary new drugs that could vastly improve human health in the twilight years. ScienceDaily reports: “To drink from the fountain of youth, you have to figure out where the fountain of youth is, and understand what the fountain of youth is doing,” said Nick Graham, Assistant Professor of Chemical Engineering and Materials Science. “We’re doing the opposite; we’re trying to study the reasons cells age, so that we might be able to design treatments for better aging.” To achieve this, lead author Alireza Delfarah, a graduate student in the Graham lab, focused on senescence, a natural process in which cells permanently stop creating new cells. This process is one of the key causes of age-related decline, manifesting in diseases such as arthritis, osteoporosis and heart disease.

The research team discovered that the aging, senescent cells stopped producing a class of chemicals called nucleotides, which are the building blocks of DNA. When they took young cells and forced them to stop producing nucleotides, they became senescent, or aged. “This means that the production of nucleotides is essential to keep cells young,” Delfarah said. “It also means that if we could prevent cells from losing nucleotide synthesis, the cells might age more slowly.” Graham said that the team’s research has applications in the emerging field of senolytics, the development of drugs that may be able to eliminate aging cells. He said that human clinical trials are still in early stages, but studies with mice have shown that by eliminating senescent cells, mice age better, with a more productive life span. The study has been published in the Journal of Biological Chemistry.

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Source: Slashdot – New Cause of Cell Aging Discovered: Senescent Cells Stop Producing Nucleotides

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Nature: A Japanese stem-cell scientist is the first to receive government support to create animal embryos that contain human cells and transplant them into surrogate animals since a ban on the practice was overturned earlier this year. Hiromitsu Nakauchi, who leads teams at the University of Tokyo and Stanford University in California, plans to grow human cells in mouse and rat embryos and then transplant those embryos into surrogate animals. Nakauchi’s ultimate goal is to produce animals with organs made of human cells that can, eventually, be transplanted into people.

Until March, Japan explicitly forbid the growth of animal embryos containing human cells beyond 14 days or the transplant of such embryos into a surrogate uterus. That month Japan’s education and science ministry issued new guidelines allowing the creation of human-animal embryos that can be transplanted into surrogate animals and brought to term. Nakauchi’s experiments are the first to be approved under Japan’s new rules, by a committee of experts in the science ministry. Final approval from the ministry is expected next month. Nakauchi says he plans to proceed slowly, and will not attempt to bring any hybrid embryos to term for some time. Initially, he plans to grow hybrid mouse embryos until 14.5 days, when the animal’s organs are mostly formed and it is almost to term. He will do the same experiments in rats, growing the hybrids to near term, about 15.5 days. Later, Nakauchi plans to apply for government approval to grow hybrid embryos in pigs for up to 70 days.

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Source: Slashdot – Japan Approves First Human-Animal Embryo Experiments

The Grim Reefer shares a report from Live Science: For the first time, scientists have created a permanently magnetic liquid. These liquid droplets can morph into various shapes and be externally manipulated to move around, according to a new study. Thomas Russell, a distinguished professor of polymer science and engineering at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and his team created these liquid magnets by accident while experimenting with 3D printing liquids at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (where Russell is also a visiting faculty scientist). The goal was to create materials that are solid but have characteristics of liquids for various energy applications.

One day, postdoctoral student and lead author Xubo Liu noticed 3D-printed material, made from magnetized particles called iron-oxides, spinning around in unison on a magnetic stir plate. So when the team realized the entire construct, not just the particles, had become magnetic, they decided to investigate further. Using a technique to 3D-print liquids, the scientists created millimeter-size droplets from water, oil and iron-oxides. The liquid droplets keep their shape because some of the iron-oxide particles bind with surfactants — substances that reduce the surface tension of a liquid. The surfactants create a film around the liquid water, with some iron-oxide particles creating part of the filmy barrier, and the rest of the particles enclosed inside, Russell said. The team then placed the millimeter-size droplets near a magnetic coil to magnetize them. But when they took the magnetic coil away, the droplets demonstrated an unseen behavior in liquids — they remained magnetized. (Magnetic liquids called ferrofluids do exist, but these liquids are only magnetized when in the presence of a magnetic field.) A video of the new material has been posted to YouTube. The researchers say their findings could lead to a revolutionary class of printable liquid devices for a variety of applications from artificial cells that deliver targeted cancer therapies to flexible liquid robots that can change their shape to adapt to their surroundings.

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Source: Slashdot – In a Lab Accident, Scientists Create the First-Ever Permanently Magnetic Liquid

A new report (XLSX) from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas says wind power has surpassed coal for the first time in the state. CNN reports: Wind has generated 22% of the state’s electrical needs this year. It just edged out coal, which provided 21% of the Lone Star State’s power, according to the Electrical Reliability Council of Texas, which manages electrical flow on about 90% of the Texan grid. Sixteen years ago, in 2003, wind made up just 0.8% of the state’s power, and coal satisfied 40% of electrical needs, the council documents show. By 2010, wind accounted for 8% of the state’s energy, and it steadily inched forward to 19% last year and now 22% in the first half of 2019. At the same time, coal’s portion of the energy mix has declined over the past several years, from 37% in 2013 to 24% last year and just 21% this year. Yet while wind has soared and coal-generated power has cooled, natural gas still accounts for the largest share of the state’s energy mix, generating 46% of its power in 2003 and staying strong at 44% last year.

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Source: Slashdot – Wind Is Outpacing Coal As a Power Source In Texas For the First Time

After a developer based in the Crimea region of Ukraine was blocked from GitHub this week, the Microsoft-owned software development platform said it has started restricting accounts in countries facing U.S. trade sanctions. GitHub lists Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syris as countries facing U.S. sanctions. ZDNet reports: As the developer reports, his website https://tkashkin.tk, which is hosted on GitHub, now returns a 404 error. He also can’t create new private GitHub repositories or access them. While his website could easily be moved to another hosting provider, the block does pose a challenge for his work on GameHub, which has an established audience on GitHub.

GitHub does offer developers an appeal form to dispute restrictions but [the developer] told ZDNet that, at this point, there’s nothing to gain by appealing the restriction. “It is just pointless. My account is flagged as restricted and, in order to unflag it, I have to provide a proof that I don’t live in Crimea. I am in fact a Russian citizen with Crimean registration, I am physically in Crimea, and I am living in Crimea my entire life,” he said. “For individual users, who are not otherwise restricted by U.S. economic sanctions, GitHub currently offers limited restricted services to users in these countries and territories. This includes limited access to GitHub public repository services for personal communications only,” it says.

GitHub notes on its page about U.S. trade controls that its paid-for on-premise software — aimed to enterprise users — may be an option for users in those circumstances. “Users are responsible for ensuring that the content they develop and share on GitHub.com complies with the U.S. export control laws, including the EAR (Export Administration Regulations) and the U.S. International Traffic in Arms Regulations (ITAR),” GitHub says. “The cloud-hosted service offering available at Github.com has not been designed to host data subject to the ITAR and does not currently offer the ability to restrict repository access by country. If you are looking to collaborate on ITAR- or other export-controlled data, we recommend you consider GitHub Enterprise Server, GitHub’s on-premises offering.”

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Source: Slashdot – GitHub Starts Blocking Developers In Countries Facing US Trade Sanctions