The Poverty Trap: How A Small Financial Setback Can Spiral Into an Inescapable Disaster

Tucker Carlson 1/29/24 | Tucker Carlson January 29‚ 2024

DOJ Investigating House Democrat for Improper Use of Government Funds

A new vaccine against SARS-CoV-2‚ the virus behind COVID-19‚ has been developed using an innovative DNA delivery system. Tests in mice have shown promising results so far‚ and the scientists behind it hope this could be the answer to developing vaccines against some of our trickier viral customers‚ such as flu and HIV.The vaccine consists of a DNA particle that acts as a scaffold‚ holding on to lots of copies of an antigen from the virus you’re interested in preventing. In this way‚ the DNA “mimics” the structure of the virus.Vaccines that use proteins‚ genetic material‚ or other small pieces of an infectious agent to evoke an immune response are called subunit vaccines‚ and they offer several advantages over more traditional types. One key advantage is that they cannot cause illness themselves‚ so they may be suitable even for people with compromised immune systems. Lots of these types of vaccines are in common use today‚ like the tetanus vaccine that uses the bacterial toxin rather than an attenuated or inactivated form of the bacterium itself. Particulate vaccines are an extension of this‚ using a carrier molecule to help deliver the subunits into the body. On the face of it‚ you might think that a DNA vaccine sounds less like this‚ and more like the mRNA vaccine technology that gave us the game-changing COVID-19 shots‚ altering the course of the pandemic and bagging their creators a Nobel Prize. These vaccines use mRNA to deliver what amounts to an instruction manual to the cells of the body‚ allowing the cells’ own machinery to start making copies of a viral antigen. The mRNA is naturally broken down in a few days‚ but by then there’s enough antigen around to stimulate an immune response.The speedy introduction of mRNA vaccines against COVID-19 saved lives‚ but also led to some unfortunate misinformation about what these shots can do. One persistent myth has been that mRNA vaccines can alter our own DNA: this has been proven to be false. In fact‚ the mRNA doesn’t even make it into the nucleus where the DNA is stored.These new DNA vaccines work in quite a different way‚ and are much more similar to the many subunit vaccines that are already part of standard immunization schedules‚ like the HPV and diphtheria vaccines.How does this new DNA vaccine work?The DNA in this new vaccine is essentially a vehicle to carry and display the viral proteins of interest to the body’s immune system. Previously‚ scientists have tried to use other proteins for this purpose‚ but they found that this was having unwanted side-effects.“DNA‚ we found in this work‚ does not elicit antibodies that may distract away from the protein of interest‚” explained co-senior author Mark Bathe‚ a professor at MIT‚ in a statement. “What you can imagine is that your B cells and immune system are being fully trained by that target antigen‚ and that’s what you want – for your immune system to be laser-focused on the antigen of interest.”The fact that these vaccines target B cells‚ as Bathe says‚ is another point in their favor. B cells are the immune cells that create antibodies. They persist for much longer in the body than the T cells that are stimulated by other types of vaccines – sometimes for decades – so there’s the potential for much longer-lasting protection.Bathe’s lab has been developing intricate scaffolds from synthetic DNA using a method that’s literally called DNA origami. By folding the DNA molecule and adding viral antigens at strategic locations‚ they can create structures that are easily recognized by B cells because they look a lot like normal viruses.Up to now‚ the DNA scaffold vaccines have only been tested in mice‚ so it’s early days. They used the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein‚ and were able to demonstrate that the mice developed a strong immune response to the virus‚ but crucially not the DNA scaffold itself.The team hopes that this approach could be the key to developing a broad-spectrum vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 variants‚ which could even cover related viruses like those that cause SARS and MERS. And their ambition doesn’t stop there.“We’re interested in exploring whether we can teach the immune system to deliver higher levels of immunity against pathogens that resist conventional vaccine approaches‚ like flu‚ HIV‚ and SARS-CoV-2‚” said co-senior author Daniel Lingwood‚ an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and principal investigator at the Ragon Institute. “This idea of decoupling the response against the target antigen from the platform itself is a potentially powerful immunological trick that one can now bring to bear to help those immunological targeting decisions move in a direction that is more focused.”The study is published in Nature Communications.

A study of almost a billion stars in infrared light has revealed many currently invisible to us at other wavelengths‚ including new categories of rapidly changing objects. One of these‚ dubbed “old smokers”‚ are aging red giants that can suddenly release clouds of dark material that prevent light from escaping.Dust blocks our view of the center of the galaxy in visible light‚ but infrared wavelengths are less affected. Unfortunately‚ the atmosphere has the opposite effect‚ blocking infrared light‚ which is why we are so dependent on the JWST. Nevertheless‚ the Visible and Infrared Survey Telescope (VISTA) in Chile sits above enough of the atmosphere to be able to study the galactic core in the near-infrared.An international team dug into VISTA’s data for stars with the greatest brightness variations‚ choosing the top 222‚ including some where the cause was found to be microlensing events causing sudden brightening‚ rather than anything intrinsic to the star."About two-thirds of the stars were easy to classify as well-understood events of various types‚" Professor Philip Lucas of the University of Hertfordshire said in a statement. "The rest were a bit more difficult so we used ESO's Very Large Telescope to get spectra of many of them individually.”The team was searching for protostars in the process of getting fusion started. These are known to undergo enormous outbursts lasting months to decades.Artist's impression of an eruption in the disc of matter around a newborn star. Like the Sun's corona being hotter than its surface‚ the innermost part of the disc becomes hotter than the star itself.Image Credit: Philip Lucas/University of Hertfordshire"These outbursts happen in the slowly spinning disc of matter that is forming a new solar system. They help the newborn star in the middle to grow‚ but make it harder for planets to form‚” said Dr Zhen Guo of the University of Hertfordshire. "We don't yet understand why the discs become unstable like this."The search proved fruitful‚ capturing 32 protostars that underwent increases in brightness of a factor of 40 or greater in the 9.5 years of observations. Some became 30‚000 percent brighter. By processing the data quickly‚ the team got to pay additional attention to some erupting stars at the peak and as their brightness declined. Average rise times were about two years‚ longer than the few examples that had been seen prior to this study.Forty-fold increase in brightness in a protostar between 2010 and 2015. It has remained similarly bright since. The image was taken in wavelengths three times too long for our eyes. The cause of the outburst is not known.Image Credit: Philip Lucas/University of HertfordshireMeanwhile‚ the search turned up something unexpected that may prove even more significant: 21 red stars that underwent more mysterious changes in brightness. On investigating seven of these in detail‚ the team determined they are older giants of a type never seen before."These elderly stars sit quietly for years or decades and then puff out clouds of smoke in a totally unexpected way‚” said Professor Dante Minniti at Andrés Bello University. "They look very dim and red for several years‚ to the point that sometimes we can't see them at all."These “old smokers” are concentrated in the Milky Way’s central Nuclear Disc‚ which explains why we have not seen their like before‚ A red giant star near the center of the galaxy that faded for a few years as a result of obscuring smokeImage Credit: Philip Lucas/University of HertfordshireThe closer one gets to the center of the galaxy‚ the higher stars’ concentration of metals‚ a product of more generations of supernovae having seeded the region with heavy elements. It seems‚ therefore‚ that this smoking behavior is something that only occurs in stars with more metals than those we are used to observing. Higher concentrations of metals make it easier for dust particles to condense out of gas around stars‚ or even in the cooler outer layers. Nevertheless‚ the team can’t explain what causes these erratic puffs that temporarily obscure the stars."Matter ejected from old stars plays a key role in the life cycle of the elements‚ helping to form the next generation of stars and planets‚" Lucas said. "This was thought to occur mainly in a well-studied type of star called a Mira variable. However‚ the discovery of a new type of star that throws off matter could have wider significance for the spread of heavy elements in the Nuclear Disc and metal-rich regions of other galaxies."As galaxies age‚ supernovae and kilonovae have time to work their changes on the galactic equivalent of suburbs‚ causing the high-metal region to expand. Eventually‚ perhaps‚ old smokers will become a feature of our own stellar neighborhood.The study is published as four open-access papers in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. They include a general overview of the results; a more detailed exploration of the spectra of protostars and old giants; a study of the episodic accretion events thought to explain the outbursts among protostars and contribute to planet formation; and a detailed report on a single ongoing outburst where a protostar leapt to 16 times the brightness of the Sun‚ despite probably having only about a fifth of its mass.

We’re often told to pay attention to the color of our urine as an indicator of factors like dehydration – but as you gaze into the toilet bowl‚ have you ever wondered how exactly pee gets its yellow color? A recent study has answered that long-standing question‚ pointing to a newly discovered enzyme produced by gut bacteria.The process centers on how a compound called bilirubin (an orangey pigment produced when hemoglobin is broken down at the end of red blood cells’ 120-day lifespan) is metabolized. Bilirubin is either broken down or reabsorbed in the gut‚ where it is secreted via bile. For over 125 years‚ we’ve known that a product of this breakdown called urobilin is what makes pee yellow – but the enzyme responsible for its production‚ which the team behind the study has named bilirubin reductase (BilR)‚ has only now been revealed.“Gut microbes encode the enzyme bilirubin reductase that converts bilirubin into a colorless byproduct called urobilinogen‚” lead author of the study Brantley Hall‚ assistant professor in the University of Maryland’s Department of Cell Biology and Molecular Genetics‚ explained in a statement. “Urobilinogen then spontaneously degrades into a molecule called urobilin‚ which is responsible for the yellow color we are all familiar with.”The team examined different species of bacteria from the human gut microbiome. They found nine strains capable of reducing (aka giving electrons) to bilirubin‚ converting it to urobilinogen‚ and 13 that were not. Examining the genomes of strains that showed this capability and comparing them to the genomes of strains that didn’t‚ they narrowed down sets of genes to one that was “homologous to 2‚4-dienoyl-CoA reductase (EC: 1.3.1.34)‚ an oxidoreductase that reduces carbon–carbon double bonds‚ similar to the expected bilirubin reduction reaction.”The researchers then made E. coli express genes coding for bilirubin reductase‚ giving it the ability to reduce bilirubin‚ whereas E. coli which was not made to produce the enzyme did not reduce bilirubin. They also showed evidence that residues of the amino acids arginine and aspartic acid in the active site of bilirubin reductase are key to the enzyme’s reduction of bilirubin‚ as mutating these residues significantly lowered the enzyme’s activity.It was also found that this enzyme is mostly produced by bacteria in the phylum Firmicutes‚ which are common in the human gut. They also note in the paper that “Some bilR genes were found in bacteria from the Flavobacteriales‚ which are typically found in aquatic and soil environments‚ suggesting a possible role for bilirubin reductase in breaking down bilirubin or similar metabolites in other environments.”Upon analyzing human gut metagenomes (an analysis of the sequence of all the organisms in a sample) for bilirubin reductase‚ the team found some interesting information. They found that the enzyme is often missing in infants up until the end of their first year of life. This period of absence coincides with the period where neonatal jaundice risk is highest‚ which is relevant as jaundice is caused by bilirubin building up in the blood. They also found that the enzyme was missing in significantly more people with ulcerative colitis or Crohn’s compared to those without these conditions.“Now that we’ve identified this enzyme‚ we can start investigating how the bacteria in our gut impact circulating bilirubin levels and related health conditions like jaundice‚” said Xiaofang Jiang‚ study co-author and NIH Investigator. “This discovery lays the foundation for understanding the gut-liver axis.”“It’s remarkable that an everyday biological phenomenon went unexplained for so long‚ and our team is excited to be able to explain it‚” Hall said.The study is published in the journal Nature Microbiology.

What are the best Transporting Pals in Palworld? Transporting items in your base is an often overlooked task – after all‚ you can never have enough resources. However‚ keeping a Transporting Pal on standby can save bags of time when you’re dropping off items‚ letting you get back to exploring while also ensuring your base looks as fresh as the day you first built it. Pals that excel in Transporting are the key to a tidy base in Palworld. Unlike the best Palworld Mining Pals or the best Palworld Kindling Pals‚ their work efficiency revolves around item management rather than Palworld resource production. Instead‚ the best Transporting Pals do all the heavy lifting‚ picking up any items lying around your base and dropping them in storage boxes. So‚ if you need a Palworld Pal to keep your hoarding tendencies in check in Pocketpair’s Pokemon PC game‚ here are all the best Transporting Pals to assign to your base. Continue reading Best Pals for Transporting in Palworld MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Palworld bosses‚ Palworld map‚ Palworld settings

What are the Enshrouded system requirements? Despite being an early access game on Steam‚ Enshrouded has quite a detailed set of system requirements that let you know if your gaming PC is up to the task. We've been closely following Enshrouded as it aims to become one of the best survival games on PC. Granted‚ launching right as the Palworld craze struck isn't ideal‚ but neither game should be passed up. Just like Palworld‚ Enshrouded won't require the best graphics card on the market‚ although overall it is a little more demanding on your rig. Continue reading Enshrouded system requirements MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Best graphics card‚ Best gaming PC‚ Best SSD for gaming

A brand new studio from industry veterans behind Cyberpunk 2077‚ BioShock‚ Borderlands‚ and Squad has announced its debut game‚ a PvE co-op tactical shooter set in a post-nuclear open world. Coming from the newly formed Antistatic Studios‚ the first footage of the game‚ codenamed Hornet‚ has also been released‚ and it looks phenomenal. Continue reading Cyberpunk 2077 and BioShock devs show off brand new PvE FPS game MORE FROM PCGAMESN: Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty review‚ Best Cyberpunk 2077 mods‚ Buy Cyberpunk 2077