BIRDS, BIRDSONGS CAN IMPROVE MENTAL HEALTH OF PEOPLE
If you are around chirping birds, your mental well-being is guaranteed to be better. New research from King’s College London has found that seeing or hearing birds is associated with an improvement in mental well-being that can last up to eight hours. This improvement was also evident in people with depression, which is the most common mental illness worldwide. The researchers used a smartphone app called Urban Mind to collect people’s real-time reports of mental well-being alongside their reports of seeing birds or hearing birdsongs.
NEW PLASTIC-LIKE MATERIAL CAN REVAMP ELECTRONIC DEVICES
Scientists from the University of Chicago have discovered a material which is made like plastic but can conduct electricity like a metal, a breakthrough that could help develop new materials in electronic devices. The new material — yet to be named — offers easier options for processing. Metals usually have to be melted to achieve the right shape for a chip or device, which limits what one can make with them since other components of the device have to be able to withstand the heat needed to process these materials. But the new material has no such restriction because it can be made at room temperature. It can also be used where the need for a device or pieces of the device to withstand heat, acid or alkalinity, or humidity has previously limited engineers’ options to develop new technology.
GENE EDITING TECHNIQUE TO TREAT RARE IMMUNE SYSTEM DISEASE
Scientists from University College London have discovered a new gene-editing technique which opens avenues to a whole range of treatments for those born with diseases of the immune system. This brings hope for the treatment of a rare disease of the white blood cells (called regulatory T cells) that help control the immune system and those that protect the body from repeat infections and cancer, called effector T cells. A condition called ‘CTLA-4 insufficiency’ affects the immune system’s ‘memory’, which makes patients suffer from recurring infections by the same viruses and bacteria. CTLA-4 is a protein receptor, acting as an immune checkpoint regulating immune responses. In some cases, CTLA-4 deficiency can lead to lymphomas, a type of blood cancer. Patients with this condition carry gene mutations that cause malfunctioning of the T cells. The researchers were able to target the faulty gene in T cells and repair them using ‘cut and paste’ gene editing techniques to restore CTLA-4 levels to make the patients healthy again.
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Nirad Mudur