#Disorder:

[jcmarchi]

Atomic-Level Study Captures Frog Toxin In Action - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/atomic-level-study-captures-frog-toxin-in-action-technology-org/

Atomic-Level Study Captures Frog Toxin In Action - Technology Org

Cryo-electron imaging studies of poison dart frog toxin molecules in action are helping to solve the mystery of why this is among the deadliest natural poisons.

Graphic abstract of Nature Communications paper on binding of poison dart frog toxin to sodium ion channels. Image credit: George Wisedchaisri, University of Washington

Some tiny Amazon frogs defend themselves when threatened by releasing a substance that quickly incapacitates a predator. For centuries, a few Indigenous tribes in Colombia have siphoned this toxin from skin glands on the frogs’ backs to coat blow darts for hunting, because of its power to take down big game.

The poison instantly cramps the muscles in the body and forces the heart into a chaotic rhythm that ends in cardiac arrest. The bright coloring of the frogs warns animals to stay away. Their chemical weapon is called batrachotoxin, a name based on the Greek root word for frog. 

“Predators that attack these dendrobatid frogs are paralyzed so rapidly that they can’t clamp down on the frogs to kill and eat them,” said one of the senior researchers on a recent batrachotoxin study, William Catterall, a professor of pharmacology at the University of Washington School of Medicine. 

He noted that “it is so toxic that wiping the toxin secretion from the back of a single frog is sufficient to poison several blow darts, which will each immobilize or kill large prey.”

What makes their irreversible toxin more severe, compared with others that also target the signal-producing pores of nerve and muscle cells? 

It has long been known that batrachotoxin affects sodium ion channels, which control electrical pulses by regulating the flow of charged sodium particles through the membranes of these cells. 

“The toxin acts by hyperactivation of the sodium channel that generates action potentials in nerve and muscle, thereby causing a lethal storm of hyperactivity of nerves, synapses and muscle cells,” Catterall said. 

By using high-resolution cryogenic electron microscopy, a research team led by pharmacologists at the University of Washington School of Medicine have determined, at the atomic level, the structure of the toxin derivative batrachotoxin-A benzoate when it is bound to its receptor site on the cardiac sodium channel. 

Unexpectedly, the researchers discovered that, unlike other toxins, batrachotoxin actually binds to two separate but similar receptor sites in the cardiac sodium channel. This dual-receptor action, and its multifaceted effects, provide unprecedented insights into why this poison is so effective, powerful and deadly. 

The toxin’s unique mechanism for high potency and lethality might also establish a new paradigm that helps to explain the actions of other toxins with high lethality, the researchers suggested. 

Such studies might also lead to better therapies for conditions resulting from certain electrical signaling problems in excitable cells and tissues, such as those in the heart, muscles, nerves and brain that are caused by malfunction of a sodium channel. 

For example, Catterall suggested, drugs designed to be robust inhibitors at both dual-receptor sites discovered in this study might also be valuable therapeutic agents in the treatment of disorders of hyperexcitability of nerve and heart cells. Such disorders include epilepsy, chronic pain and arrhythmias.

Source: University of Washington

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[longreads]

How Concerned Citizens Drove a Neo-Nazi Out of Rural Maine

Christopher Pohlhaus planned to build a fascist training compound in the woods of rural Maine. The local journalists, veterans, lumberjacks, and policymakers weren't having it.

Pohlhaus, 37, is a former U.S. marine, an itinerant tattoo artist, and a hardcore white-supremacist influencer. He is loud and hostile, and proud to be both. His voice is pitched surprisingly high, and he has a slight Southern drawl. He has a large body and small bald head; a blue-black tattoo crawls up the right side of his face, from his chin to his forehead. Over the years, Pohlhaus has collected thousands of social media followers, who know him by his nickname: Hammer.

Hammer had been living in Texas for a few years when, in March 2022, he bought the land in Maine. He told his followers that he was going to use it to build a haven, operational center, and training ground for white supremacists.

Check out our excerpt of The Atavist’s latest blockbuster story. 

[389]

PORTO ROCHA

[nanaluvbug]

🧀🥪🌶️🥭 The Ravening War portraits  🧀🥪🌶️🥭

patreon * twitch * shop  

[ID: a series of digitally illustrated portraits showing - top left to bottom right - Bishop Raphaniel Charlock (an old radish man with a big red head and large white eyebrows & a scraggly beard. he wears green and gold robes with symbols of the bulb and he smirks at the viewer) Karna Solara (a skinny young chili pepper woman with wavy green hair, freckled light green skin with red blooms on her cheeks. she wears a chili pepper hood lined with small pepper seeds and stares cagily ahead) Thane Delissandro Katzon (a muscular young beef man with bright pinkish skin with small skin variations to resemble pastrami and dark burgundy hair. he wears a bread headress with a swirl of rye covering his ears and he looks ahead, optimistic and determined) Queen Amangeaux Epicée du Peche (a bright mango woman with orange skin, big red hair adorned with a green laurel, and sparkling green/gold makeup. she wears large gold hoop earrings and a high leafy collar) and Colin Provolone (a scraggly cheese man with waxy yellow skin and dark slicked back hair and patchy dark facial hair. he wears a muted, ratty blue bandana around his neck and raises a scarred brow at the viewer with a smirk) End ID.)

[70sscifiart]

One of my favorites by Paul Lehr, used as a 1971 cover to "Earth Abides," by George R. Stewart. It's also in my upcoming art book!

[taizooo]

もともとは10年ほど前にTumblrにすごくハマっていて。いろんな人をフォローしたらかっこいい写真や色が洪水のように出てきて、もう自分で絵を描かなくて良いじゃん、ってなったんです。それで何年も画像を集めていって、そこで集まった色のイメージやモチーフ、レンズの距離感など画面構成を抽象化して、いまの感覚にアウトプットしています。画像の持つ情報量というものが作品の影響になっていますね。

映画『きみの色』山田尚子監督×はくいきしろい対談。嫉妬し合うふたりが語る、色と光の表現｜Tokyo Art Beat

[layla-keating]

#thistension

XO, KITTY — 1.09 “SNAFU”

[nevver]

Arts & Architecture, Sander Patelski

[foodffs]

Noodles with Lamb Sauce (Laghman, 新疆拌面) Xinjiang laghman features chewy noodles served with a bold and rich lamb and tomato sauce that is bursting with flavor.

Recipe: https://omnivorescookbook.com/recipes/uyghur-style-noodles-with-lamb-sauce

[lesserknownbots]

CJ from Hello World (MSPFA) by phasedsun?

[jcmarchi]

Tying Knots Inside Lasers - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/tying-knots-inside-lasers-technology-org/

Tying Knots Inside Lasers - Technology Org

What do you picture in your mind’s eye when you hear the word “laser“? A light saber? A cat toy? The sensor at the supermarket reading barcodes as fast as the eye can blink?

These are all lasers, but there are so many more in so many sizes and colors with capabilities that have yet to be tapped or even imagined. Assistant Professor of Electrical Engineering and Applied Physics Alireza Marandi is in the business of dreaming up these lasers and creating them in the lab.

Marandi’s latest investigation involves mode-locked lasers, which emit light in steady pulses rather than in a single continuous beam. These pulses can be extremely short, counted in picoseconds (trillionths of a second) or femtoseconds (quadrillionths of a second), and can carry ultrahigh powers in such short times. Pulses from mode-locked lasers have been used in many applications, such as eye surgery, by providing narrowly targeted cutting power without creating the undue heat that a continuous laser beam would cause.

Mode-locking involves locking the amplitudes and phases of the light waves that traverse a laser’s resonant cavity. When mode-locking is achieved, these resonant waves act in concert, typically forming a steadily pulsing pattern. Marandi’s team adds topological robustness to a mode-locked laser by introducing specific couplings among the resonant light pulses in the laser cavity.

The resulting topological temporal mode-locking creates laser pulse patterns that can tolerate imperfections and disorders arising from manufacturing or environmental noise sources.

“This fundamental research could potentially have many applications,” Marandi says. “By realizing topological behaviors in mode-locked lasers, we are essentially creating a knot that can make the laser’s behavior more robust against noise. If the laser is ordinarily mode-locked and you shake it, everything goes crazy. But if the laser pulses are knotted together, you can shake the system, and nothing chaotic will happen, at least for a certain range of shakings.”

Topologically protected mode-locked lasers can create better frequency combs used in communication, sensing, and computing applications. “The output of a mode-locked laser in the frequency domain is a frequency comb, that is, many equidistant narrow spectral peaks,” Marandi explains. “Frequency combs are typically prone to noise sources and environmental instabilities. By utilizing the topological behaviors in a mode-locked laser, the resulting frequency comb can protect against some noise sources.”

In the future, Marandi hopes to utilize the rich physics of this new type of laser to access regimes of nonlinear topological physics that are not accessible with other experimental platforms as well as developing advanced types of sensors and computing hardware.

Written by Cynthia Eller

Source: Caltech

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[389]

PORTO ROCHA

[theroyalweekly]

HRH The Princess of Wales in Southport today, on her first engagement since completing chemotherapy. It’s so good to see her!❤️ --

[shitakeo33]

よく「発明は1人でできる。製品化には10人かかる。量産化には100人かかる」とも言われますが、実際に、私はネオジム磁石を1人で発明しました。製品化、量産化については住友特殊金属の仲間たちと一緒に、短期間のうちに成功させました。82年に発明し、83年から生産が始まったのですから、非常に早いです。そしてネオジム磁石は、ハードディスクのＶＣＭ(ボイスコイルモーター)の部品などの電子機器を主な用途として大歓迎を受け、生産量も年々倍増して、2000年には世界で1万トンを超えました。

世界最強「ネオジム磁石はこうして見つけた」（佐川眞人 氏 ／ インターメタリックス株式会社 代表取締役社長） | Science Portal - 科学技術の最新情報サイト「サイエンスポータル」

[kithtaehyung]

AGUST D : DAECHWITA (大吹打) & HAEGEUM (解禁)  ⤷ movie posters | ig ; twt (click for hi-res)