Futuristic fuels could replace our current supplies, recycling what the latter’s combustion produces most: carbon dioxide. And synthetic diamond exposed to light may hold the key Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed. The principle underlying modern chemistry seems to support efforts by scientists to fight CO2 emissions. European researchers are investigating new possible approaches to decrease the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, with a view to exploiting them. If successful, the experimental technology will help fight climate change and provide a more sustainable supply of raw materials for certain industrial branches. The vision is to produce useful chemicals from the carbon dioxide treated in water or in other green solvents, with the aid of sunlight. The resulting substances could be used to get fuels for cars, or obtain other compounds such as methanol, formic acid or methane, necessary to the chemical industry that, right now, relies on petroleum or natural gas.

In the current issue of Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics there are data about the long term-effects of a form of psychotherapy in depression compared to medication. Compared to episodic depression, only a limited number of follow-up studies for chronic depression exist despite its poor long-term course. For episodic depression, psychotherapy has repeatedly been shown to result in more sustainable treatment effects than antidepressant medication. However, relapse rates remain high even after response to acute phase psychotherapy at approximately 30% after 1 year and approximately 50% after 2 and more years. For patients suffering from chronic depression, the Cognitive Behavioral Analysis System of Psychotherapy (CBASP) has shown promising results during acute treatment, yet data on the sustainability of these effects is scarce.

L’ISPRA precisa: “E’ tossico solo se ingerito e non contamina il pescato”.

E’ stato pescato a Molfetta un altro esemplare di pesce palla maculato, specie altamente tossica al consumo. A riconoscerlo un cittadino che ha immediatamente provveduto ad informare il pescatore della sua pericolosità, evitandone così l’immissione nel mercato,  e a comunicarlo ai ricercatori. La decima segnalazione è arrivata ai ricercatori dell’ISPRA nell’ambito della campagna di informazione lanciata dall’Istituto nel 2013 e rinforzata nel 2015, attraverso la collaborazione con il Ministero delle Politiche, Agricole, Alimentari e Forestali, il Corpo delle Capitanerie di Porto e l’Istituto di Scienze del Mare (ICM) di Barcellona, che coordina seawatchers.org, un progetto che coinvolge i cittadini nella segnalazione di specie esotiche e di altre problematiche ambientali. Il pesce palla maculato (Lagocephalus sceleratus), è entrato in Mediterraneo dal Canale di Suez nel 2003, in pochi anni ha invaso il bacino orientale del Mediterraneo, raggiungendo le coste italiane nel 2013 a Lampedusa. Da allora, grazie alle campagne di informazione, è stato possibile reperire segnalazioni della specie provenienti oltre che da Lampedusa, dalla costa meridionale della Sicilia, dalla Calabria e dalla Puglia, compresa quella dell’esemplare pescato a Molfetta. 

The hippocampus is essential to the memory and learning. This picture shows its characteristic form. The interneurons are highlighted in green, "Ammon's horn" (CA3), as the hippocampus is also known, and the dentate gyrus (DG) are outlined in white. Source: Marlene Bartos

Inhibited neurons set the tempo for memory processes

The more we know about the billions of nerve cells in the brain, the less their interaction appears spontaneous and random. The harmony underlying the processing of memory contents has been revealed by Prof. Dr. Marlene Bartos' workgroup at the Institute of Physiology I. In a study written with a colleague from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria and published in the Nature Communications journal, she highlights the role of inhibiting circuits in the creation of high-frequency brainwaves in the hippocampus. With its work, the team, which also comes partly from the BrainLinks-BrainTools Cluster of Excellence and the Bernstein Center Freiburg, shows how the brain processes information that is relevant to memory.

For the first time, researchers have found the presence of predator bacteria in the microbiota of cystic fibrosis patients. There are researchers from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid among the authors of this finding. The results, obtained by a team of researchers from Hospital Universitario Ramón y Cajal, Instituto Ramón y Cajal de Investigación Sanitaria  (IRYCIS) and School of Agricultural, Food and Biosystems Engineering (ETSIAAB) at Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), have allowed them to design a computational model to eradicate the pathogens of cystic fibrosis lung by inoculating predator bacteria. The results have been published in mBio®, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

By dispersing the seeds of plants, fruit-eating animals contribute to the possibility of increased plant speciation and thus biodiversity. These are the findings of a new study led by Renske E. Onstein and W. Daniel Kissling, researchers at the University of Amsterdam's Institute for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Dynamics (IBED). The results were published on Monday, 23 October in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution.

Tropical rain forests are the supermarkets for fleshy fruits: more than 70% of woody, tropical plant species have fleshy fruits and rely on fruit-eating animals such as chimpanzees, elephants or hornbills for their seed dispersal. By dispersing the seeds of plants over large distances, these animals contribute to the possibility of plant speciation. The international team of researchers from the Netherlands, UK, France, Sweden and Denmark investigated over 2000 palm species with fleshy fruits (such as the date palm) to understand how the ecology of species, their distribution, and the interaction with potential fruit-eating animals may have affected their past speciation. This was done by assembling large databases of phylogenetic, functional trait and species distribution data for these palms.

Un team di ricerca internazionale che coinvolge l’Ispaam-Cnr spiega in uno lavoro pubblicato su Nature Communications e finanziato da Airc perché le cellule tumorali resistono ai farmaci chemioterapici in alcune patologie oncologiche, aprendo prospettive per lo studio e la messa a punto di nuove cure che rendano le cellule malate più sensibili a chemio e radio

Uno studio pubblicato sulla rivista Nature Communications cui ha partecipato l’Istituto per il sistema produzione animale in ambiente mediterraneo del Consiglio nazionale delle ricerche (Ispaam-Cnr) di Napoli getta nuova luce su alcuni meccanismi molecolari responsabili della resistenza delle cellule tumorali alla chemio e radioterapia.

“Applicando moderne tecniche di analisi genomica e proteomica abbiamo individuato un nuovo meccanismo funzionale della proteina Ape1, un enzima di riparazione del danno al Dna che contribuisce al processo di instabilità genetica associata a diversi tumori, come quelli che colpiscono seno, ovaie e il cervello (glioblastoma), scoprendo un nuovo ruolo nel processo di tumorigenesi”, spiega Andrea Scaloni, direttore dell’Ispaam-Cnr dove, grazie alle strumentazioni presenti, sono stati svolti gli studi di proteomica del lavoro. “Abbiamo capito che la proteina Ape1 è in grado di regolare il processamento dei microRna, piccole molecole dell’acido ribonucleico (Rna), contribuendo alla regolazione dell’espressione di geni coinvolti nei fenomeni di chemioresistenza. Inoltre abbiamo evidenziato come questa proteina, interagendo con molte altre, giochi un ruolo importante nello sviluppo del cancro”.

 The filtration and storage of pollutants are so efficient, that blue mussels are used in environmental monitoring; they are like environmental detectives. (Photo: Janne Kim Gitmark, NIVA)

May 2015, Kristiansand, Norway. Two researchers in a boat loaded with thousands of blue mussels, collected from a mussel farm in Lillesand. The boat heads out the Kristiansand fjord, and the researchers deploy the blue mussels in the sea. Why are they doing this? Blue mussel. This shellfish has its home in the intertidal areas in the sea, where it pumps large volumes of sea water over its ciliated gills. The blue mussel filtrates phytoplankton and pollutants from the water, takes up the plankton as food, and stores the pollutants in its tissues. The filtration and storage of pollutants are so efficient, that blue mussels are used in environmental monitoring; they are like environmental detectives. But, to say something certain about the pollution level in the fjord, a lot of blue mussels is needed; and picking massive amounts in areas where there are only few mussels, or even no mussels at all, is impossible. Now the researchers are experimenting with caged mussels: can newcomer mussels replace native mussels in environmental monitoring?

3D spheroid of cultivated breast cancer cells. Invasive cells show a light blue co-staining for the leptin receptor and a marker of epithelial-mesenchymal transition (i.e. the ability of cells to metastasize). Cell nuclei are stained in red. Source: Helmholtz Zentrum München

Obesity leads to the release of cytokines into the bloodstream which impact the metabolism of breast cancer cells, making them more aggressive as a result. Scientists from Helmholtz Zentrum München, Technische Universität München (TUM), and Heidelberg University Hospital report on this in ‘Cell Metabolism’. The team has already been able to halt this mechanism with an antibody treatment. The number of people with obesity is increasing rapidly worldwide. The German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ) recently reported that according to the WHO the number of children and adolescents with obesity increased tenfold between 1975 and 2016.  Severe overweight can lead to various health impairments. Besides inducing cardiovascular diseases, obesity for example also promotes the development of cancer and metastases. The current study elucidates an as yet unknown mechanism making breast cancer more aggressive. The enzyme ACC1* plays a central role in this process," said Dr. Mauricio Berriel Diaz, deputy director of the Institute for Diabetes and Cancer (IDC) at Helmholtz Zentrum München. He led the study together with Stephan Herzig, director of the IDC and professor for Molecular Metabolic Control at TUM and Heidelberg University Hospital. “ACC1 is a key component of fatty acid synthesis," said Berriel Diaz. “However, its function is impaired by the cytokines leptin and TGF-β.“ The levels of these cytokines are increased particularly in the blood of severely overweight subjects.