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09/10/2022 ---- 27/10/2022

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27.10.2022
THEME: ENVIRONMENT

The habit of nose-picking is common in primates and the cause may be evolutionary

Nose-picking is a common behavior in humans, often avoided in public since generally considered rude, “low class”, or even repugnant. Probably for the same reason, it is a behavior that remains poorly understood and studied even in animals. But not for the zoologist Anne-Claire Fabre of the University of Bern, who recently published a paper in the Journal of Zoology reporting noise picking in the lemur species aye-aye. In the same article, she also reviews the presence of this habit in various primate species, showing that it is present in at least 12 species. In the aye-aye lemur - whose characteristic is an extremely long, skinny, and mobile middle finger - accurate imaging shows that the insertion depth during the gesture reaches the pharynx. Since so many primates - many humans included - would utilize their fingers to collect and ingest nasal mucus, the scientists suspect that the behavior may have evolved for selective reasons such as, for instance, a sanitary or even a medical advantage. More studies will be needed to demonstrate any of such advantages. However, nose-picking is possible only in those species - like primates - that have fine manipulative skills, and therefore are sufficiently evolved. Some primates even use utensils to collect mucus from the nose. Once more, nature offers an unparalleled source of information, crucial to understand even those behaviors that pass unseen in our quotidian life. Biodiversity is the only mirror we have for transcending the social paradigms, observing the animal features that we all share, and understanding their importance.

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25.10.2022
THEME: HEALTH

Two respiratory viruses - RSV and Influenza - can fuse together to form a more potent hybrid virus

Each year, about 5 million people are hospitalized with influenza A worldwide. Another common virus, the Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), is the leading cause of acute infections of the lower respiratory tract in children under five years old. It can spread to the lower respiratory tract, causing pneumonia or bronchiolitis - an inflammation of the small airway passages entering the lungs. Although co-infection is common, it was still unclear how these viruses would respond if they are together in the same cell. A recent study published in Nature Microbiology - led by Prof. Pablo Murcia from the University of Glasgow - showed that the two viruses, rather than competing with one another, can fuse to form a hybrid virus: a more potent and new type of pathogen. Whereas influenza usually infects cells in the nose, RSV tends to go lower down into the respiratory tract reaching the lung cells. The possibility of forming a hybrid may increase the chances of triggering severe lung infections. The study has shown that once formed, the hybrid can infect neighboring cells even in presence of neutralizing antibodies against influenza - which would normally block the infection. A likely explanation is that, although the antibodies still attack the hybrid’s surface, the RSV viral proteins are used as a Trojan horse to resist the attack and penetrate the cells. It is the very first time that such cooperation between two common respiratory viruses has been observed. Researchers believe that these findings could explain why co-infections can lead to significantly worse diseases in some patients, including hard-to-treat viral pneumonia.

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24.10.2022
THEME: POLITICS

A week of records for UK politics: Liz Tuss marks the shortest mandate in history and Rishi Sunak is named Prime Minister

Today Rishi Sunak was named leader of the UK Conservative party and will consequently become the country's next prime minister (in the UK the leader of the majority party is automatically prime minister as well). Sunak's appointment came after British Prime Minister Liz Truss resigned last week, just six weeks into her mandate, after losing the party support mainly due to the serious financial crisis caused by her tax reform. Sunak is 42 years old and is the first non-white person to be named UK Prime Minister. He was born in Southampton, England, where his parents had emigrated from Africa: his father was born in Kenya, and his mother in Tanzania, and both were of Indian descent. In his political career, Sunak was mainly Chancellor of the Exchequer (Minister of Economy) between 2020 and 2022, during the government of Boris Johnson. He is a graduate of Oxford University and also studied at Stanford, in the United States. He had previously worked for the major investment bank Goldman Sachs and entered politics in 2014, among the Conservatives. He is considered a pragmatic politician who belongs to the right wing of the party (in 2016 he voted in favor of Brexit). Sunak will formally take office in the next few hours, after receiving the post from King Charles III. With Miss Tuss’ resignation after only 6 weeks and Sunak’s election, the UK marks two unprecedented records in his political history.

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23.10.2022
THEME: POLITICS

Xi Jinping is confirmed for a third historical mandate

On October 23, after the 20th Communist Party National Congress, Xi Jinping was appointed as the party’s general secretary for another five years with a norm-breaking unprecedented third term. In his opening speech on October 16th, Xi reported the last five year’s successful results: achieving modernization, social stability, economic well-being, national security, solving corruption issues, advancing technology and science, and raising the attention to ecology. All achievements were due, in his words, to the principles of Marxism, which has guided the nation in the past and will continue to give political guidance in the future. In his intervention, Xi Jinping remarked that huge changes are expected in the next five years of the world economic order and that China will be the key country in the social and political international landscape. Referring to the West, he mentioned that “In pursuing modernization, China will not tread the old path of war, colonization, and plunder taken by some countries”. On the Taiwan issue, he made clear that “resolving the Taiwan question and realizing China's complete reunification is, for the Party, a historic mission and an unshakable commitment” and “the policies of peaceful reunification are the best way to realize reunification across the Taiwan Strait”. He added that the party “will continue to strive for peaceful reunification with the greatest sincerity and the utmost effort, but will never promise to renounce the use of force, and we reserve the option of taking all measures necessary”.

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21.10.2022
THEME: POLITICS

EU Council takes measures for Ukraine war and energy market crisis

While Russia continued striking energy infrastructure in Ukraine, the EU council met on October 20-21 to formulate decisions on several open issues including the Ukraine and energy crisis. The council expressed determination “to defend the sovereignty of Ukraine and rules-based international order”. It reiterated “that Russia bears the sole responsibility for the current energy and economic crises” and the “rejection of the illegal annexation by Russia of Ukraine’s Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson regions”. The EU will continue to support Ukraine, providing “political, military, and financial support” and it decides to “conduct an EU Military Assistance Mission in support of Ukraine”. The Council condemns the acts of sabotage against critical infrastructures, such as those against the Nord Stream pipelines, and urges nations to cooperate to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructure. To contain gas pricing, the EU decided to encourage joint purchasing and implement a temporary dynamic price cap on natural gas transactions, in particular to the gas used for electricity generation. This will establish a flexible range for gas prices, but more precise details will be known in the next two to three weeks. During the press conference after the council, French president Emmanuel Macron expressed the feeling that gas pricing is not only concerning Russia but the US too. In his words “American gas is 3-4 times cheaper on the domestic market than the price at which they offer it to Europeans. These are double standards", Macron said. According to him, this should become a topic for discussion, since "it concerns sincerity in transatlantic trade". The Council also discussed external relations and pointed to the need to hold strategic discussions with China in preparation for the EU-ASEAN Commemorative Summit on 14 December 2022. This will be an opportunity to further deepen the European Union’s Strategic Partnership with ASEAN.

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19.10.2022
THEME: HEALTH

A new DNA-based screening test has been developed to predict cervical, ovarian, and breast cancer

So far, cervical cancer screening has been the most successful personalized cancer prevention strategy. This type of screening aims to identify women with a pre-invasive lesion, which can be then surgically excised. Infection with human papillomavirus (HPV, which is sexually transmitted) could increase the risk of cancer of the cervix, vulva, and vagina. Today, many countries are adopting screening for human papillomavirus (HPV) as the primary investigation for cervical cancer. The test consists of the cytological analysis of a small biopsy of the cervix: high-risk HPV-positive women are identified and successive eventual treatment is determined. However, many patients are developing this type of cancer that are HPV-negative, implying that preventive diagnosis remains limited to a minority of cases. Scientists from the University of Innsbruck and University College London (UCL) developed a new screening test based on a DNA analysis that brings preventive diagnosis significantly beyond. The study, published in Genome Medicine, demonstrates a DNA methylation test of the cervical fluid capable of identifying women with a high risk of developing cervical, ovarian, and breast cancer. Such methodology opens the way to the more efficient and quick prediction of multiple cancer risks - and therefore a concrete possibility to a systematic early cancer diagnosis, the most important factor for increased chances of success in successive treatment.

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17.10.2022
THEME: ENVIRONMENT

Devastating floods in Nigeria kill more than 500 people and displace Millions

On October 14 devastating floods caused by heavier-than-usual rain hit Nigeria. More than 500 people were killed and roughly 90.000 homes are underwater as well as food and fuel supplies are blocked. The floods have impacted 1.4 million people which are currently displaced. According to the humanitarian ministry, flooding this year was similar to Nigeria’s last major flooding in 2012, which killed 363 people and displaced 600.000 people. The World Food Programme indicates that Nigeria is at risk of poverty and vulnerable to food shortage, often caused by periodic floods that put the agriculture sector under pressure. The abnormal floods in Nigeria this year are just one of the many recent signs of climate change: indeed, in the last months, we witnessed natural extreme events around the world. In September severe floods hit Italy, Japan, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, and Pakistan. Earlier than that, in August, extreme temperatures occurred in the US, China, and central EU - where serious drought put at risk harvests and drinking water availability. Such a high frequency of events due to extreme climate demonstrates not only that climate change is happening, but in some cases that it can turn into a real humanitarian catastrophe.

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15.10.2022
THEME: TECHNOLOGY

Neurons cultured on silicon arrays and exposed to electrical feedback learned to play game Pong

The neurons are the cells responsible for receiving input from the external world and for sending motor commands to muscles. In a recent study published by a team of scientists from Monash University, Melbourne (Australia) and UC London (UK) 800’000 neurons cultured on silicon in a petri dish have learned to play the arcade 1970’s arcade game pong. Through silicon chips and arrayed electrodes, the scientists have connected humans and murine neurons to a computer where they were made aware when the paddle was making contact with the ball. It has been monitored the activity and responses of the neurons and plotted the results as spikes on a grid with spikes getting stronger the more a neuron moves a paddle and hit the ball. The results published in the journal Neuron demonstrated that neurons can adapt the activity to a changing environment in real-time. These findings pave the way to a better understanding of how intelligence arises, which would help to develop new algorithms for machine learning. Harnessing the computational power of living neurons to create synthetic biological intelligence (SBI), previously confined to the realm of science fiction, may now be within reach of human innovation.

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13.10.2022
THEME: TECHNOLOGY

NASA’s DART mission is a success: the first step towards planetary asteroid defense

The DART project (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) is a NASA mission designed to measure how much a spacecraft can deflect an asteroid through an impact with a spacecraft. The mission started on 24 November 2021 with the launch of a spatial probe that crushed intentionally on 26 September 2022 into Dimorphos, a minor moon of the asteroid Didymos. Two days ago, on Tuesday October 11, NASA announced that Dimorphos' orbital period had shortened by 32 minutes - surpassing the "success threshold" by more than one minute. DART is the world’s first test of its kind: a step towards a defense system for our planet against potentially threatening asteroids coming from deep space. The project cost USD 330 million and took seven years to develop. The results obtained justify further efforts toward testing and improving asteroid deflection methods. However, in order to sufficiently displace a bigger asteroid representing a threat to Earth, it is necessary to act with ample margin. It would mean identifying threats months if not years in advance, which implies having a global and connected surveillance network. A planetary defense system designed to prevent a potential doomsday meteorite collision with Earth. Something possible only with full collaboration among nations, rather than a fragmented politics of nationalistic interests. Is the world ready to protect itself from asteroids?

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11.10.2022
THEME: WORLD

Russias attacks Ukraine’s energy infrastructures as western countries work to unite their front

The Ukraine crisis is reaching new levels just ten days after the annexation of 15% territory to Russia. While the Kremlin declared that the annexed territories are part of Russia forever, Ukraine president Zelenski indicated that they intend to free the whole country from the invasion, Crimea included. In the last few days, the Ukrainian army has obtained some results by gaining back small portions of the subtracted regions. In a successful operation, a crucial bridge connecting Crimea and Russia was hit and temporarily put out of order. However, the answer from Russia has been serious with more than 100 cruise missiles dropped on key objectives, including Kyiv and Leopoli. The attacks, where energy infrastructures were targeted, resulted in many deaths and blackouts throughout the country. On the international front president of Belarus Lukashenko announced a plan to deploy joint forces with Russia. The EU leaders and allied countries met in Prague on October 7 to consolidate a community of 44 countries ready to contrast Russia on all fronts. Today October 11, during an emergency meeting of the G7 nations in Berlin, the leaders committed to supporting Ukraine for "as long as it takes" while promising to continue to provide financial, humanitarian, military, diplomatic, and legal support. Further, an air shield will be implemented to neutralize the Russian missiles and drones. More sanctions against Russia have also been planned. All this is happening in a tense diplomatic climate. While Russian officials have recently threatened the use of tactical nuclear weapons, US president Joe Biden said that “we have not faced the prospect of Armageddon since Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis”.

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10.10.2022
THEME: WORLD

The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2022 goes to the analysis of banks role during financial crisis

Ben Bernanke (USA, 68), Douglas Diamond (DK, 68), and Philip Dybvig (USA, 67) are the winners of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences 2022, awarded “for research on banks and financial crises”. Their research shed light on the significant role of banks in the economy, particularly during financial crises. An important finding in their research is why avoiding bank collapses is vital to avoid escalating consequences during crises. They have analyzed in detail the weakness of banks when rumors of imminent collapse spread: If a large number of savers simultaneously run to the bank to withdraw their money, the rumor may become a self-fulfilling prophecy – a bank run occurs and the bank collapses. These dangerous dynamics can be prevented through the government providing deposit insurance and acting as a lender of last resort to banks. Ben Bernanke analyzed the Great Depression of the 1930s, the worst economic crisis in modern history. Among other things, he showed how bank runs were a decisive factor in the crisis becoming so deep and prolonged. When the banks collapsed, valuable information about borrowers was lost and could not be recreated quickly. Overall, their work was crucial for the implementation of the modern defense mechanisms enacted during the financial crisis.

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