Science Learning

Scientists claim regarding HIV, infected genes can be extracted from the cell

Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Scientists have said that they have successfully isolated HIV from cells using gene editing technology.

According to scientists, they have used the Nobel Prize winning CRISPR gene editing technology to cut and isolate HIV from the infected cell.

Using this technique, they have separated the infected parts by cutting the DNA like scissors at the molecular level.

The team at the University of Amsterdam says that they hope that with this method HIV infection can be removed from the body.

However, giving more information about the research related to this in a medical conference this week, the team said that the current research proves the "concept" that in this way the infected part of the cell's DNA can be removed, but this method It is not that HIV will be cured soon.

The medicines available till now treat HIV by stopping it from spreading, but they cannot completely eliminate it from the body.

What did scientists find in the study for better cancer treatment?

Thursday, January 11, 2024

Scientists in England have discovered that a patient's complete genetic makeup can lead to positive changes in cancer treatment.

This study has been published in Nature Medicine. In this, information of more than 13 thousand patients has been analyzed.

In this, the mutations behind the development of the tumor are analyzed and the DNA is studied to see whether the patient was born with such a gene due to which the risk of this disease increases.

Researchers found that more than 90 percent of brain tumors and 50 percent of bowel and lung cancers have genetic changes that affect the patient's treatment, such as surgery and specific treatments.

Three scientists have been awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing quantum dots.

These three scientists live in America.

The Nobel laureates include Mongi G Bawendi, Lewis E Bruce and Alexey I Ekimov who will share the prize of 8.24 lakh pounds.

What are quantum dots?

Most people have probably seen tiny crystals on their TV sets whose tiny dots combine to form colors.

In fact, these quantum dots are very tiny and their number can be tens of millions in one millimeter.

Russian physicist Alexei I. Ekimov is credited with the discovery of quantum dots in the 1980s, and later Lewis E. Bruce, an American chemist, discovered that crystals could be grown in liquids.

After this, Mongi G. Bawendi, a native of Paris, discovered a method of making quantum dots particles in a more controlled manner.

These quantum dots are also used in medical imaging and solar panels for better use of cancer drugs and surgery.

Serum Institute of India (SII) has said that the World Health Organization (WHO) has approved the world's second malaria vaccine.

WHO has given this approval on the basis of pre-clinical and clinical trial data of the vaccine. In trials, this vaccine was found to be quite effective in four countries.

According to the news of news agency PTI, SII has said in a statement that it has become the second vaccine in the world to get the approval of the World Health Organization to protect children from malaria.

This R21/Matrix-M malaria vaccine has been developed by SII in collaboration with Oxford University.

SII has said that it has made arrangements to produce 10 crore doses of the vaccine every year and this production will double in the next two years.

Currently this vaccine is being used in Ghana, Nigeria and Burkina Faso. But now after the approval of the World Health Organization, it can be used all over the world.

The Nobel Prize in Physics for the year 2023 has been awarded to scientists who conducted 'experiments' to capture the 'smallest moments' of light. The scientists who received the award are Pierre Augustini, Ferenc Krause and Ann L'Hullie.

These scientists demonstrated through experiments how extremely tiny waves of light can be structured and used to measure the rapid process of energy change of an electron.

Professor Pier Augustini teaches at Ohio University in the United States. Professor Ferenc Krause teaches quantum optics at the Max Planck Institute in Germany. Professor Ann L'Hullie teaches at a university in Sweden.

The Nobel Prize for Medicine has been announced to be awarded to the pair of scientists who invented the technology of mRNA Covid vaccine.

These two scientists are Dr. Catalin Carico and Dr. Drew Wiseman.

This technology was used before the Covid pandemic but later it was given to millions of people around the world.

Further research is being done on this mRNA technology regarding other diseases including cancer.

mRNA i.e. messenger ribonucleic acid tells the body how to make proteins.

A variant of the corona virus has been found in Vietnam, which is a mixed form of variants previously found in India and Britain. Officials say it spreads rapidly through the air.

Vietnam's Health Minister Nguyen Thanh Long said on Saturday, 29 May 2021, that this new variant of Corona is very dangerous.

The virus always changes its form, that is, mutates. Most variants are not very effective, but some viruses become more contagious after mutation.

Since the identification of the virus of COVID-19 in January 2020, several mutations have been reported so far.

According to the news agency Reuters, Vietnam's health minister said in a government meeting, "A new variant of the corona virus has been found in Vietnam, which is a mixed form of the first virus variant found in Britain and India."

He said, "The new variant is more contagious than the former. It spreads rapidly in the air. This variant has emerged after testing new patients. The genetic code of this virus will be available soon.''

In India, a variant of the corona virus was found in October 2020. This variant is being called B.1.617. It is said to be more dangerous than the Corona variant B.1.1.7 found in the UK.

According to research, two doses of Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccine are most effective against virus variants found in India. But one dose of these vaccines is not very effective against it.

So far no evidence has been found that any mutation of the corona virus has caused serious disease in a large population.

The original version of the corona virus has been described as more dangerous for older people and already ill people. But the virus is becoming more contagious without a vaccine and is causing more deaths.

In recent weeks, new cases of corona have increased rapidly in Vietnam. More than 6,700 cases have been reported since the epidemic began in Vietnam. But more than half of these cases have been reported since April 2021. So far 47 people have died here from Corona.

US space agency NASA's spacecraft Perseverance has landed on the surface of Mars.

To reach Mars, this spacecraft has traveled about half a billion kilometers from the Earth seven months ago. 'Perseverance Rover' has landed on Mars in a deep crater, which is close to the equator of the planet Zzero.

Rover tweeted a photo after landing on the surface of Mars. This rover will examine the land of an old dried up lake, as well as any signs of micro-organisms on Mars billions of years ago, and send them to Earth.

Just as the spacecraft landed on the ground of Mars, the smiles on the faces of the scientists sitting at NASA's Control Center. This is NASA's first mission since 1970 to find traces of life on Mars.

Mission Deputy Project Manager Matt Wallace said, "The good news of the spacecraft is that I think it is in perfect condition."

This six-wheeled rover will excavate the stones and rocks of Mars in the next 25 months to search for evidence that indicates that life was once possible here.

It is believed that there used to be a huge lake near Jezero billions of years ago. And where there is water, there is a possibility that there must have been life there too.

Astronauts at NASA received indications that the 'Perseverance Rover' had landed safely on Mars at 8:55 pm (GMT).

On a normal day, he would probably hug and shake his hands on happy occasions. But due to the Corona virus protocol, social distance is being followed here. However, the members of the mission expressed their happiness by fighting fists with each other.

This was followed by two low-resolution images of Mars taken by the rover's engineering cameras on the screen. Photographs show that there was a lot of dust in front of the camera lens but the ground appeared in front and back of the rover.

The analysis conducted after the landing reveals that the rover has traveled two kilometers towards the southeastern part of the delta region at the zzero.

"Our rover is in a flat area," says Alan Chan, who leads the landing team. So far the vehicle is tilted at 1.2 degrees. We found a place to take off the rover and we easily landed our rover on the ground. I am very proud of my team for this remarkable work.''

NASA Interim Administrator Steve Jarczek also congratulated the team of scientists for this success.

He has said, "The team has done a great job. What a wonderful team that has done this by overcoming the difficulties of landing the rover on Mars amidst the challenges of COVID-19.

Mike Watkins, director of NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab, said, "For us these early days are very special because we, as this rover, landed a representative of the Earth on a place where no one has ever gone before .''

It has never been easier to land on Mars. But NASA has become an expert in this matter. However, the Perseverance team spoke very carefully about their work on Thursday, 18 February 2021.

This is the second one-ton weight rover launched on Mars by the US Space Agency NASA.

Helicopter will fly on Mars?

Earlier, the Curiosity rover was launched in 2012 on another crater on Mars.

Controllers will work on a new rover in the coming days and try to see if any part of the rover has been damaged in the process of landing on the ground.

To take pictures, the mast of persistence and its main camera system should be raised upwards. Also, the rover has been transported to Mars through a special software, this software will also have to be changed so that the program can be run to run the rover on the surface of Mars.

With this, Perseverance is expected to take several photographs of the surface of Mars in the next week so that scientists can understand the surrounding area better.

One of the purposes of this rover is to fly a low-weight helicopter to Mars. Perseverance has taken a small helicopter with him. The rover will attempt to fly this helicopter which will be the first such flight on another planet.

In terms of Mars, it can be as long as the Wright Brothers Moment, exactly when the Wright brothers first flew to Earth and realized their dream of flying.

Only then will the robot begin to carry out the main work of this mission and move to the Zzero where the delta region is.

The delta areas are formed by rivers when they fall into the sea and leave sediments with them on the shore. Scientists are hoping that the deltas of Jezero are made up of these sediments, which could be huge signs of life in any area.

Perseverance will sample the delta and move toward the edge of the crater.

Investigation through satellites has revealed that there are carbonate rocks at this place which are considered to be very good at containing biological processes on Earth.

The Persistence Rover has all the tools that can study all of these structures intensively at the microscopic level.

Why is the Zzero crater special?

The forty-five-kilometer-wide crater on Mars is named after a town in Bosnia-Herzegovina. The word Zzero in the Slovak language means lake, which is enough to explain why there is a special interest in this name.

Zzero consists of a variety of rocks consisting of clay and carbonate rocks. They have the ability to save organic molecules. Scientists believe that they can find those molecules in the Zzero of Mars that can tell about the signs of life there.

Those sediments are important in this, which is being called 'bathtub ring'. According to scientists, this must have been the coastal area of ​​the old lake of Mars. At this place, perspiration can be found in those sediments called stromatolitis on Earth.

"In some lakes you find microbial mats and carbonates interact with each other to form larger structures," says Dr. Bryony Horgan, a member of the science team associated with Purdue University in the West Lafayette area of ​​the American province of Indiana. And these are produced layer by layer. If we find any such structure in Jazero then we will go directly to the same. Because they can prove to be the mine of the mysteries of astrobiology of Mars.''

The interesting rocks that Perseverance will discover will keep parts of them in thin tubes placed on the left side of the ground.

NASA and the European Space Agency have drawn up a plan to bring these cylinders back to Earth. This project will cost a lot of money.

It will be a very complicated endeavor that will use another rover, a Mars rover, and a giant satellite to bring the rocks of the Zzero to Earth.

Scientists believe that bringing these samples back to understand Mars is a logical step. If persistence finds something that resembles a bio-signature, that evidence will still be investigated.

In such a situation, by bringing those rocks back, the earth will be examined in a state of the art way so that all the speculations related to whether or not there is life on Mars will be stopped.

Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) in India on 03 January 2021 allowed emergency use of two vaccines for treatment of COVID-19.

These are two vaccines - Covishield and Covaxin. While Covishield is actually the Indian version of Oxford-AstraZeneca, the Covaxin is India's own vaccine, also known as the indigenous vaccine.

Covishield is being formed by the Serum Institute of India Company in India. At the same time, Covaxin is being formed in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), a biotech company in India.

After the approval of the emergency use of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine Covishield in Britain, there was every possibility that Covishield would get approval in India and finally got it.

But with this, no one expected that the Covaxin would be allowed in India so soon.

Some health workers, including the Congress party, have started to question it after the Covaxin was allowed so soon.

After Covishield and Covaxin were granted permission on 03 January 2021, many raised questions as to how permission was granted without releasing data for the third trial of both vaccines.

In the third phase of the trial, the drug is tested on a large number of people and then based on the results, it is found out what percentage of the drug is affecting the people.

The three Vaccine Pfizer BioNTech, Oxford-AstraZeneca and Moderna are discussed in the world, with varying statistics for the Phase 3 trial. The Oxford vaccine has been reported to be up to 70% effective.

In India, Covishield is effective on how many people other than Covaxin. Questions have also been raised on this, but due to the vaccine of Oxford, it is not being given due to the suspicion that the Covaxin is being seen.

The statistics of the Phase-3 trial on 1,600 volunteers in Covishield's India have also not been released. At the same time, it was tried on 800 volunteers in the trial of Phase 1 and 2 of the Covaxean, while in the third phase trial it is said to try on 22,500 people. But their figures have not been made public.

Congress leader Shashi Tharoor tweeted after being allowed to use Covaxin emergencyly, saying that the third stage trial of Covaxin has not been done yet, without the permissible permission that could be dangerous.

Tagging the Union Health Minister, he wrote, "Dr. Harsh Vardhan please clear this point. Its use should be avoided until all tests are done. Till then India can start with AstraZeneca vaccine.

The Congress leader had to tweet that questions started coming up in India on the vaccine. Congress leader Jairam Ramesh and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav also voiced concerns about Covaxin and the health of the people.

Dr Swapnil Parikh, a researcher of infectious diseases in Mumbai, says that doctors are in a difficult situation right now.

He said, "I think it is time to get rid of the regulatory hurdles and complete the process at the earliest."

Dr. Parikh said, "The government and regulators have a responsibility to be transparent about the data, which they reviewed before allowing the vaccine, because if they don't do so, it will affect people's trust."

After questions from the opposition and several health workers, India's Union Health Minister Harsh Vardhan came out and he made several tweets and argued about the effect of Covaxin.

In the first tweet, he wrote, "Shashi Tharoor, Akhilesh Yadav and Jairam Ramesh have followed a science-backed protocol to allow the COVID-19 vaccine."

After this, the Union Health Minister made several tweets in support of Covaxin, although he did not mention the statistics of the third phase trial in these tweets.

He wrote that the vaccine is being allowed all over the world on the basis of the encoding spike protein which has an effect of 90%, whereas the Covaxin has antigenic episodes other than the spike protein based on the inactivated virus, so it remains as safe. It is as effective as the rest said.

Along with this, Harshvardhan said that Covaxin is also effective on new variants of corona virus.

Harsh Vardhan also said by tweeting that the Emergency Use Approval (EUA) of covaxine has been given on conditional basis.

He wrote in the tweet, "EUA has been conditioned for Covaxin in clinical trial mode. The EUA that Covaxin received is completely different from Covishield as it will be used in clinical trial mode. All people taking Covaxin will be tracked and monitored if they are on trial.''

"Our goal is to provide global access to the population that needs it the most," said Krishna Illa, chairman of the India biotech manufacturer of Covaxin.

He said in the statement, "Covaxin has given amazing safety data in which several viral proteins have given strong immune response."

However, the company and DCGI have also not given any data that can tell how effective and safe the vaccine is, but a source from the news agency Reuters said that the two doses of this vaccine have an effect of more than 60%.

Delhi AIIMS chief doctor Randeep Guleria, speaking to a news channel, said that he sees the Covaxin as a backup in the event of an emergency and currently Covishield will be used as the main vaccine.

The statement of Delhi AIIMS director Dr. Randeep Guleria was tweeted by news agency ANI, "In case of emergency when there is a sudden increase in cases and we need to get vaccinated, Bharat Biotech Vaccine will be used. It can also be used as a backup when we are not sure how effective the serum institute vaccine is going to be.''

On this statement of Guleria, journalist Tavleen Singh retweeted, "What does this mean?" If vaccination needs backup, then what does the vaccine mean?

He said that by then more drugs of Covaxin would be ready and they would use strong data of Phase-3 to show how safe and effective it is but for the first few weeks the Covishield will be used, which has five million doses.

Covaxin is India's vaccine. While Covishield is also being made in India, it is originally a vaccine from Oxford-AstraZeneca.

After getting the approval of both the vaccines, the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi wrote in a tweet that the two vaccines which have been approved for emergency use are both made in India, to fulfill the dream of a self-reliant India. Refers to willpower.

Journalist Shekhar Gupta has also said about vaccine nationalism, "When China and Russia vaccinated millions of people without disclosing the data of the third phase of the trial, and now India also allowed the use without reviewing the third phase of the trial. Has given This is a dangerous step. A mistake can cause huge damage to the vaccine's trust.''

Now, with the approval of emergency use of both these vaccines, it will be given to the health workers and frontline employees first.

India's goal is to vaccinate the corona vaccine to 300 million people by July 2021.

Four hundred years later, Jupiter and Saturn, two planets in the solar system, came so close on 21 December 2020 that the distance between the two was just 0.1 degrees.

According to scientists, they can be seen with naked eyes and also with binoculars or telescopes.

This astronomical event is occurring after 17 July 1623.

After this view will be seen on 15 March 2080. Also 21 December 2020 is the shortest day of the year.

The US space agency NASA says that it is not rare for two large planets to come close in our solar system.

While Jupiter passes every 20 years from its neighboring planet Saturn, it is special to come so close to it.

Scientists say that the distance between the two planets will be only 0.1 degree from their point of view, even though this distance will be millions of kilometers.

Dr Crawford at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge told the BBC, "The weather is not looking great so this is a valuable opportunity".

If the weather conditions remain favorable then it can easily be seen around the world after sunset.

Where and when will it appear?

The best view of this event will be seen in the northern part of Britain on the night of 21 December 2020 as the sky will be clear there.

This view will not be as clear in the southern areas as the sky will be mostly cloudy.

Planetary astronomer Doctor James Odonohue tweeted where and at what time Jupiter and Saturn would be closest in the sky.

Planetary astronomer Doctor James Odonohue tweeted that at which time Jupiter and Saturn would be closest in the sky on 21 December 2020 and 22 December 2020.

Los Angeles: 09:43
New York: 12:43
Rio de Janeiro: 14:43
London / UTC: 17:43
Paris / CET: 18:43
Istanbul: 20:43
Dubai: 21:43
New Delhi: 23:13
Tokyo: 02:43 (22 December 2020)
Sydney: 04:43 (22 December 2020)

Is this the star of Bethlehem?

Some astronomers and theologians believe so.

Erik M. Vanden Eckel, Professor of Religion at Ferrum College in Virginia, stated in an article that because of the time this event is happening, many speculate that "whether this could be the same astronomical event as in the Bible Is, the incident that brought knowledgeable people to Joseph, Mary and newborn Jesus.

It is said that at the time of Christ's birth, a star appeared in the sky which informed the people about the birth of Jesus Christ and showed the way to get there. Seeing this, three wise kings from the east also reached Bethlehem to offer them, to honor them.

It is also known as Bethlehem's Tara or Christmas Tara. It is described as a divine event.

Says Doctor Crawford, "Two thousand years ago people knew a lot about what was happening in the night sky, so it is not impossible that the Bethlehem star resembled the event of approaching two planets."

The planets orbiting around the Sun are not a rare occurrence but they are special.

Astrophysicist Professor Tim O'Brien at the University of Manchester says, "It is great to see planets close to each other, it happens often but the planets are as close as possible to this event."

Two large planets present in the solar system and some visible nightly shining bodies have not come so close in the last 800 years.

Professor O'Brien says, "These planets must be setting in the southwestern region, so you have to leave as soon as the sky is dark."

"None of us are going to live on earth for the next 400 years, so keep an eye on the weather and if you get a chance, come out and see this place."