New Scientist - USA (2019-10-12)

16 | New Scientist | 12 October 2019

Biodiversity

Hidden structure of

the cosmos spotted

A VAST spider’s web of matter

is thought to stretch across the

whole universe and astronomers

have just got the best view of it yet.

Hideki Umehata at the RIKEN

institute in Japan and his team

used the Very Large Telescope

(VLT) in Chile to observe a young

cluster of galaxies 12 billion light

years from Earth, called SSA22.

They spotted wispy filaments of

hydrogen gas, shown in blue here,

Drug may ease

fatty liver disease

AN EXPERIMENTAL drug has

reversed the build-up of fat in

the livers of monkeys and lowers

levels of fatty substances in their

blood. Known as non-alcoholic

fatty liver disease, the build-up of

fat in the liver affects 1 in 3 people

and can lead to type 2 diabetes

and heart and kidney disease.

Gerald Shulman at the Yale

School of Medicine and his team

are developing the fat-busting

drug to get at what he believes

“is the root cause of diabetes”.

Called CRMP, the drug works by

making the liver waste energy. The

energy that powers cells relies on

structures called mitochondria. As

protons flow out of mitochondria,

they drive molecular turbines that

produce an energy-rich chemical

called ATP. The new drug lets

protons flow out of mitochondria

without generating ATP. It is a bit

like opening a bypass gate on a

Health^ Astronomy

THE loss of wildlife and plants in the

UK shows no sign of slowing. This

year’s State of Nature report, the

most comprehensive assessment

yet, found that the area occupied

by more than 6500 species has

shrunk by 5 per cent since 1970.

Of the species with detailed

data, nearly 700 saw numbers fall

by 13 per cent. The declines have

left 15 per cent of species facing

extinction, including the turtle dove.

“We have this pattern of ongoing

loss, which is showing no slowing

in the rate of decline,” says Daniel

Hayhow at the Royal Society for

the Protection of Birds.

While the 5 per cent fall in

distribution of species may sound

small, Hayhow calls it a “canary

in the coal mine signal” because

changes in distribution usually

happen much more slowly than

changes in abundance of wildlife.

This year’s report, produced by

the National Biodiversity Network,

was, for the first time, able to draw

on figures on less well-studied

species, such as lacewings,

hoverflies and lichens, after biases

in the data were adjusted for.

For moths and butterflies, the

picture is one of steep declines.

Mammals and birds show a slight

increase since 1970, which masks

dramatic falls in some species such

as hen harriers. There is a flicker of

good news for hedgehogs – classed

as vulnerable to extinction due to

long-term decline, since 2012

their numbers seem to have grown.

The biggest drivers of change are

intensified farming and climate

change. The report notes the UK will

miss most of its biodiversity targets

for 2020. Adam Vaughan

No let up in the worrying

decline of nature in UK

spanning the space between

the galaxies. These seem to be

filaments of the cosmic web.

Cosmologists assume that as

the universe grew, gravity pulled

matter into strands, creating a

structure of voids and stringy

areas filled with matter. We have

glimpsed this web before, but

never on such a large scale.

It is thought that the web arose

several hundred million years

after the big bang along with the

first galaxies, with gravity helping

to form rivers of hydrogen flowing

between them. At the point where

filaments cross, star and galaxy

formation would occur.

The filaments seen by Umehata

and his team stretch for 3 million

light years, but are just a small

portion of the web. Until now the

filaments have remained elusive,

but Umehata says they were able

to see them using a fairly new

instrument called the Multi Unit

Spectroscopic Explorer on the

VLT (Science, doi.org/dcdh).

Jonathan O’Callaghan

hydroelectric dam, letting water

out without generating power.

However, that lost energy ends

up as waste heat. A drug called

dinitrophenol, used for weight

loss from the 1930s, worked via

the same mechanism. Its use was

discontinued after people died

when they overheated. But CRMP

affects mainly liver cells, not the

entire body. “That’s important for

safety,” says Shulman.

Tests in two types of macaque

suggest CRMP is safe and effective

at reversing fat build-up in the

liver. But it causes no weight loss,

which means it is less likely to be

misused as a diet drug (Science

Translational Medicine, doi.org/

db96). Unpublished results from

tests in mice suggest the drug also

cuts the risk of heart disease by

reducing blood cholesterol and

triglyceride levels, says Shulman.

Given how dangerous

dinitrophenol was, Shulman

wants to carry out further animal

tests of CRMP before moving on

to human trials. Michael Le Page

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