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Smoking wreaks havoc on our DNA
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in Brief Bats smash bird flight speed record
This desert lizard sips water from soggy sand with its feet THE devil finds work for idle skin. This thorny devil lizard uses its skin as a web of straws to soak up drinking water from soggy sand. The process brings water straight into its mouth, which is useful in a desert – especially if your mouth is so specialised for eating ants that you can’t drink water directly. “Thorny devils are one of the most fascinating species that collect and transport water with their skin,” says Philipp Comanns of RWTH Aachen University in Germany. There are microscopic grooves between their overlapping scales, creating a network of drinking straws ending in its
mouth. These draw in water from any part of the body through capillary action, whereby water is pulled along a channel, even against the tug of gravity. Comanns and his team examined six lizards from Mount Gibson, Western Australia, in the lab to figure out where they get their water from. When they placed them in a water puddle, the lizards could drink through their feet within 10 seconds, as their skin channelled water from their feet into their mouths. “But rain or water puddles rarely occur in their habitat,” says Comanns. The lizards are known to cover their backs with moist sand. When the team placed such sand on replicas of the skin, the straws filled with water, showing that the lizards can use their skin to sip water straight out of the sand (Journal of Experimental Biology, doi.org/bsnc).
Smoking wreaks havoc on our DNA EVERY 50 cigarettes smoked cause one DNA mutation per lung cell, according to a new analysis. Smoking has been linked with at least 17 classes of cancer, but this is the first time it has been possible to quantify the molecular damage inflicted on DNA. Ludmil Alexandrov at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and colleagues compared tumour DNA from
2500 smokers and 1000 nonsmokers. This allowed them to identify smoking-related mutations. On average, there is one DNA mutation per lung cell for every 50 cigarettes smoked, People who smoke a pack of 20 a day for a year generate 150 mutations per lung cell, 97 per larynx cell, 39 per pharynx cell, 18 per bladder cell and 6 per liver cell, (Science, doi.org/bsm9).
Quitting smoking will not wipe these mutations – they leave permanent scars on DNA – but it will prevent more being added, Alexandrov says. Theoretically, every DNA mutation could trigger a cascade of genetic damage ending in cancer. But we still don’t know how likely it is that a single smoking-related DNA mutation will turn into cancer, or which types of mutation are likely to be more malignant.
BRAZILIAN free-tailed bats have achieved speeds of more than 140 kilometres per hour in level flight, making them faster than any bird. “These are the fastest powered flight speeds documented yet in any vertebrate – that is, in bats or birds,” says Gary McCracken of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “We didn’t expect these results, even though the Brazilian free-tailed bats are known for their exceptional fast flight.” Previous studies suggested that birds fly faster than bats, but birds have received more attention, McCracken says. The fastest bird on record for level flight is the common swift (Apus apus), which reaches 111 km/h. The bats are well adapted to their aerial lifestyle. Long, narrow wings with pointed tips help them fly fast and horizontally, and long toe hairs may help judge speed and turbulence (Royal Society Open Science, DOI: 10.1098/rsos.160398).
Listen out for signs of a tumour SURGEONS have always needed sharp eyes – now they might also need keen hearing. We can differentiate healthy brain cells from cancerous ones using laser probes and a process called Raman spectroscopy. Now a collaboration between several UK universities and hospitals has given the process an audio output. This means surgeons can listen out for a noise indicating cancer as they operate. Participants in the study could distinguish cells in this way with over 70 per cent accuracy (Analyst, doi.org/bsrh). “We’ve shown how to give accurate guidance to surgeons in a way that allows them to keep their focus on their scalpel,” says Matthew Baker at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK. 12 November 2016 | NewScientist | 15
in Brief Bats smash bird flight speed record
This desert lizard sips water from soggy sand with its feet THE devil finds work for idle skin. This thorny devil lizard uses its skin as a web of straws to soak up drinking water from soggy sand. The process brings water straight into its mouth, which is useful in a desert – especially if your mouth is so specialised for eating ants that you can’t drink water directly. “Thorny devils are one of the most fascinating species that collect and transport water with their skin,” says Philipp Comanns of RWTH Aachen University in Germany. There are microscopic grooves between their overlapping scales, creating a network of drinking straws ending in its
mouth. These draw in water from any part of the body through capillary action, whereby water is pulled along a channel, even against the tug of gravity. Comanns and his team examined six lizards from Mount Gibson, Western Australia, in the lab to figure out where they get their water from. When they placed them in a water puddle, the lizards could drink through their feet within 10 seconds, as their skin channelled water from their feet into their mouths. “But rain or water puddles rarely occur in their habitat,” says Comanns. The lizards are known to cover their backs with moist sand. When the team placed such sand on replicas of the skin, the straws filled with water, showing that the lizards can use their skin to sip water straight out of the sand (Journal of Experimental Biology, doi.org/bsnc).
Smoking wreaks havoc on our DNA EVERY 50 cigarettes smoked cause one DNA mutation per lung cell, according to a new analysis. Smoking has been linked with at least 17 classes of cancer, but this is the first time it has been possible to quantify the molecular damage inflicted on DNA. Ludmil Alexandrov at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico and colleagues compared tumour DNA from
2500 smokers and 1000 nonsmokers. This allowed them to identify smoking-related mutations. On average, there is one DNA mutation per lung cell for every 50 cigarettes smoked, People who smoke a pack of 20 a day for a year generate 150 mutations per lung cell, 97 per larynx cell, 39 per pharynx cell, 18 per bladder cell and 6 per liver cell, (Science, doi.org/bsm9).
Quitting smoking will not wipe these mutations – they leave permanent scars on DNA – but it will prevent more being added, Alexandrov says. Theoretically, every DNA mutation could trigger a cascade of genetic damage ending in cancer. But we still don’t know how likely it is that a single smoking-related DNA mutation will turn into cancer, or which types of mutation are likely to be more malignant.
BRAZILIAN free-tailed bats have achieved speeds of more than 140 kilometres per hour in level flight, making them faster than any bird. “These are the fastest powered flight speeds documented yet in any vertebrate – that is, in bats or birds,” says Gary McCracken of the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. “We didn’t expect these results, even though the Brazilian free-tailed bats are known for their exceptional fast flight.” Previous studies suggested that birds fly faster than bats, but birds have received more attention, McCracken says. The fastest bird on record for level flight is the common swift (Apus apus), which reaches 111 km/h. The bats are well adapted to their aerial lifestyle. Long, narrow wings with pointed tips help them fly fast and horizontally, and long toe hairs may help judge speed and turbulence (Royal Society Open Science, DOI: 10.1098/rsos.160398).
Listen out for signs of a tumour SURGEONS have always needed sharp eyes – now they might also need keen hearing. We can differentiate healthy brain cells from cancerous ones using laser probes and a process called Raman spectroscopy. Now a collaboration between several UK universities and hospitals has given the process an audio output. This means surgeons can listen out for a noise indicating cancer as they operate. Participants in the study could distinguish cells in this way with over 70 per cent accuracy (Analyst, doi.org/bsrh). “We’ve shown how to give accurate guidance to surgeons in a way that allows them to keep their focus on their scalpel,” says Matthew Baker at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, UK. 12 November 2016 | NewScientist | 15