The genome of a new species of tardigrade discovered under Zhang and his colleagues in the Funiu Mountain in China’s Henan province

“It’s like when in wartime, when factories are refitted to just make munitions. It’s almost that level of retooling how gene expression is working,” says Bob Goldstein, a cell biologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, who has been studying tardigrades for 25 years. “We’re fascinated by how an organism would change their gene expression to a point where they’re making that much transcript for specific genes.”

Scientists are getting insights into what makes the tiny eight-legged creatures so resistant to radiation, thanks to a new species of tardigrade. Thousands of genes can become active when exposed to radiation after scientists analyzed the genome of this new species. The defence system involves protecting the genome from damage caused by radiation and repairing breaks that do occur. They hope that these insights could be harnessed to protect humans exposed to radiation during space missions or to improve cancer treatment.

Around six years ago, Zhang and his colleagues ventured into Funiu Mountain in China’s Henan province to collect moss samples. Back in the laboratory and under the microscope, they identified a previously undocumented species of tardigrade, which they named Hypsibius henanensis. 30% of the genes that were found in the species were unique to tardigrades.

How much radiation do tardigrades really withstand? The case of TRID1, a gene that helps acidic DNA repair and mop-up fragile chemicals

The authors hope that they can be used to help protect astronauts from radiation during space missions, clean up nuclear pollution or improve cancer treatment.

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, have long fascinated scientists with their ability to withstand extreme conditions, including radiation at levels nearly 1,000 times higher than the lethal dose for humans. There are around 1,500 known tardigrade species, but only a handful are well-studied.

One of the genes, called TRID1, encodes a protein that helps to repair double-strand breaks in DNA by recruiting specialized proteins at sites of damage. “This is a newgene that none of us were studying,” says the man.

The researchers think that tardi grade genes were acquired from other organisms through a process called horizontal gene transfer. There is a gene called DODA 1 which is used by tardigrades to make four types ofoxidant pigments called betalains. These pigments can mop up some of the harmful reactive chemicals that radiation causes to form inside cells, which account for 60–70% of radiation’s damaging effects.

It could be useful to learn the mechanisms that enable tardigrades to tolerate harsher conditions such as extreme temperatures and dehydration. It could improve the shelf life of fragile substances such as vaccines, for example. “All your medicines have expiration dates — tardigrades don’t,” says Goldstein.

Comparing these mechanisms between different tardigrades is an important part of this research, adds Nadja Møbjerg, an animal physiologist at the University of Copenhagen. She says there is still not knowledge of different tardigrade species.

These animals have “a font of protectants that will probably keep spilling out more that will be useful and interesting to understand”, says Goldstein. “We want to understand how those work and what potential they have.”

Making a muon collider at the Tokyo Proton Accelerator Research Complex a reality: Feeding a baby caesarean section milk contains 3.5mm of their mother’s poo

Feeding a baby caesarean section milk that contains a small amount of their mother’s poo is beneficial to their gut. There was a marked difference between the poo samples of babies who received 3.5mm of their mother’s poo in milk and the poo samples of babies who did not. Researchers emphasized that this method should not be replicated at home. “You have to be certain that the faecal matter that you give to the newborn doesn’t include pathogens that could cause a disease,” says Otto Helve, paediatrician and the study’s primary investigator.

Researchers have accelerated muons — the heavier, unstable cousins of electrons — into a tightly controlled beam for the first time. A team at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex in Tokai shot a laser at a stream of muons to bring the fast-moving particles to a near-standstill. Then, the researchers applied an electric field to accelerate these ‘cooled’ muons to around 4% of the speed of light. The feat takes researchers a step closer to making a muon collider, which would be smaller and cheaper than other current colliders, a reality.

Molecular palaeontologist Alexandra Morton-Hayward investigates why a small proportion of ancient brains somehow resist the decomposition process that begins to destroy most soft tissue within hours after death. Her motivation for studying the brain goes beyond scientific curiosity. She is a former mortician, and she suffers from a rare brain abnormality and daily cluster headaches: extremely painful attacks that led her to attempt suicide. “I’m always aware of my brain,” she says. “Sometimes, it feels like it’s in worse shape than the ones I have on the bench in the lab.”

Source: Daily briefing: Specialized genes of new tardigrade species arm it with radiation shield

Urbanization, Medieval Egypt, and the History of Democracy in the Uzbek Republic: a case study of two ancient cities

Five specialists have shared essential books that give an insight into threats to democracy past and present, including an investigation of who is able to vote and how technology has affected voting rights in the United States since the colonial era.

The scale of two ancient cities buried high in the mountains of Uzbekistan has been uncovered using drone-mounted laser technology. One of the cities was six times bigger than expected. Two cities were nestled in the heart of the medieval Silk Road and may have played an important role in the trade of the era. “It’s not a village, it’s urbanized, because it has its own citadel where the rulers lived,” says archaeologist Farhod Maksudov. “We think it was some kind of mountain civilization very independent politically and economically from the huge Empires which were down there in the lowlands.”

New apple varieties have been developed by David Bedford. As an apple breeder, creating new types requires trial and error. There is no substitute for taking a bite of the tree to see if it tastes good, you just need to test for firmness, texture and acidity. 12 min read is theScientific American.