From the deep sea to biotechnology, the scientific world has seen many advances in the past months. Here are four very different but equally fascinating developments.
Largest Great White Shark Nursery in North Atlantic Found Off Of Long Island
This past June, for the first time in world history, researchers were able to track a baby white shark’s movements. Liberty, a young female great white shark, led the Massachusetts-based Atlantic White Shark Conservancy to find a huge shark nursery in a triangular area between Montauk Point, Long Island; Cape May, New Jersey; and New York City. With a predicted two hundred great white sharks raised in the area every year, this nursery is proposed to be the location for the first year of life for every single great white shark in the North Atlantic. It serves as a sanctuary where pups learn how to feed, navigate the waters, and escape predation. Estimates as high as eight hundred have been proposed for the nursery’s total population, but continued tracking will need to occur before a more solid estimate is put in place. Warming waters caused by climate change threaten the nursery, but the ecosystem remains healthy. The large population of sharks, other fish, and squid make this finding “a conservation success story,” in the words of Tobey Curtis, a fishery management specialist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and co-author of multiple studies on the nursery.
A baby great white shark is spotted off of Long Island during a research expedition. James Blake/National Geographic
International Research Group Uncovers a Genetic Cause of Obesity
A newly discovered genetic predisposition to obesity, found by a team of international researchers under the leadership of University of Exeter’s Mattia Frontini, PhD, is caused by the absence of both copies of the SMIM1 gene. One out of every five thousand people receives mutations from both biological parents that cause them to lack both copies of the gene. For this reason, their genome does not encode the Vel antigen on red blood cells, making them have the Vel-negative blood group. Exeter’s new study found that, in addition to stopping the creation of the Vel antigen, lacking both copies of the SMIM1 gene leads to abnormalities in fat tissue, decreased levels of thyroid hormones, and lower energy expenditure while resting, increasing the likelihood of obesity. This discovery will help in further studies of obesity and the many responsibilities of the SMIM1 gene.
An example of a human karyotype, a representation of all of a person’s chromosomes.
Wessex Reg. Genetics Centre
“Frog Saunas” Developed to Quell Spread of Chytrid Fungal Infection in Amphibians
First created on the Macquarie University campus and now in the process of being distributed throughout Sydney, Australia, small shelters for frogs have been developed to fight the world’s deadliest wildlife pathogen. These ten-hole, painted, black masonry bricks allow basking frogs to reach a body temperature of eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit—high enough to kill the chytrid diseases Batra-chochytrium dendrobatidis and Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans without harming the hosts. These “saunas” are inexpensive and less intrusive on other species than other solutions to killing fungal infections, like cutting down trees to allow for more sun exposure. Scientists involved in this study and invention also found that green and golden bell frogs that had been previously infected by chytrids were approximately twenty-three times more likely to resist re-infection with the pathogen when faced with a second exposure, compared to those never previously infected. Rick Shine, PhD, and his team of researchers have now paved the way for further engineered systems for fighting infection in a cost-effective and environmentally-friendly manner.
A Macquarie University frog sauna. Anthony Waddle/Forbes
PepFlow is Now the Best AI for Predicting Peptide Folding
Peptides are chains of amino acids that fold in three-dimensional shapes and play similar biological roles as proteins do. The University of Toronto’s Osama Abdin, PhD, and Philip M. Kim, PhD, have rolled out a deep-learning model that predicts peptide shapes. Within minutes, this new technology can give scientists and engineers a clear snapshot of the folding habits of any existing peptide. PepFlow is more expansive in its abilities than AlphaFold, a Google Deepmind AI model for protein structure prediction, which is unable to make multiple conformation predictions for a single peptide. Many common neurodegenerative diseases are caused by prions—misfolded proteins that induce other proteins to misfold—and PepFlow can help to unravel the mystery behind these molecules and similar peptides that are thought to be linked to Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease, cancer, and more. Now, with multiple structures predicted per peptide, PepFlow, with two-and-a-half years of development, opens the door for biotechnology advancements that focus on peptides and proteins that have not been previously manipulated to fight fatal diseases.