21 May 2022 | New Scientist | 23Space explorationTHALE cress, a small flowering
plant, has been grown in lunar
regolith – the powdery material
on the moon’s surface – for the first
time, using samples collected during
the Apollo 11, 12 and 17 missions.
Robert Ferl at the University of
Florida and his colleagues planted
thale cress seeds in 4 grams of lunar
soil from each of the three Apollo
missions and tracked their growth
over 20 days. As a control, they also
grew seeds in terrestrial volcanic
ash, which is commonly used to
mimic soil from the moon.
Within 60 hours of planting, the
researchers found that seeds had
germinated in all the soil samples.Between day six and eight, they
removed some seedlings so that just
one grew in each gram of soil. On
the removed plants, they found that
the roots in lunar soil were stunted
compared with those in terrestrial
soil. Over the following days, they
also found that leaves of the plants
grown in lunar soil were smaller and
darker than usual (Communications
Biology, doi.org/htsx).
In any event, the cress wouldn’t
be a great space crop for human life
support. “[Thale cress] isn’t a good
candidate; it’s too small to produce
meaningful biomass,” says Karl
Hasenstein at the University of
Louisiana. Carissa WongPlants can grow in moon
soil, but not very well
TY
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FASDragonflies use
wings to flip in flightA high-speed camera
and computer algorithm
have revealed that
dragonflies use precise
control of their wing pitch
to perform aerial acrobatics
in just 200 milliseconds.
The insects seems to
use visual signals to
decide when such rapid
manoeuvres are required
(Science, doi.org/gp5d4g).Emphysema missed
by race-based testsBlack men in the US who
are in their 50s may be
misdiagnosed as having
healthy lungs when in
fact they have emphysema,
a study suggests. The
work, presented at a
meeting of the American
Thoracic Society, highlights
the problem of using
calculations that account
for race in medical tests.Microgel prevents
transplant rejectionMonkeys with type 1
diabetes didn’t reject
a transplant of insulin-
producing cells when the
tissue was coated with a
protein-laden microgel that
kills overactive immune
cells. This approach might
lead to human treatments
one day (Science Advances,
DOI: 10.1126sciadv.
abm9881).KO
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Really brief
ZoologyA STEROID hormone may be
responsible for making young
female octopuses waste away
and die soon after laying eggs.
Female California two-spot
octopuses (Octopus bimaculoides)
starve themselves while guarding
their eggs until they die, usually
at about 1 year of age. It is thought
that the optic glands in their
brains play a role in this behaviour.
To learn more, Z. Yan Wang at
the University of Washington in
Seattle and her team used mass
spectrometry to analyse the glands
in both mated and unmated
female octopuses, to better
understand the substances that
lead to the animals’ early demise.
They found that after mating,
the glands produce more enzymes
that convert cholesterol into
7-dehydrocholesterol (7-DHC),
a steroid (Current Biology,
doi.org/gp49rt). Its exact role
in the starving behaviour isn’t
clear. There is a human condition,
Smith-Lemli-Opitz syndrome, that
results in high 7-DHC. It is linked
to developmental delays and
repetitive, self-harming behaviour.
The findings suggest potential
links between cholesterol
metabolism, neurodegenerative
conditions and lifespan, says
Wang. Christa Lesté-LasserreWhy do octopuses
self-destruct?New Scientist Daily
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FertilityRAT testicle cells that were frozen
for 23 years have produced sperm
after being implanted into mice.
The findings suggest that
children who have testicle tissue
frozen before cancer treatment
may be able to have the tissue
reimplanted so they can one day
have their own biological children
via IVF, says Eoin Whelan at the
University of Pennsylvania.
Chemotherapy to treat cancer
can kill stem cells in the testiclesthat make sperm. Adults can have
sperm samples frozen, but that
isn’t an option for children who
are yet to go through puberty.
In such cases, some clinics
have been removing and freezing
small samples of children’s
testicle tissue in the hope that,
if reimplanted as adults, it will
mature and start making sperm.
Whelan and his colleagues’
study gives some cause for
optimism. They took advantage
of stem cells from rats that had
been isolated and frozen 23 years
earlier, thawing and implanting
them into the testes of mice.The mice had been treated with
a drug that killed their own sperm-
making cells – which is too toxic
to use on rats – and had defective
immune systems so they
couldn’t reject the transplant.
When the mice’s testes were
examined, the 23-year-old stem
cells had survived and developed
into groups of sperm-producing
cells. The groups of cells from
these implants were making
mature sperm, but each made
about a third as many as the ones
derived from implants of fresh or
recently frozen cells (PLoS Biology,
doi.org/gp4xhc). Clare Wilson.Long-frozen testicle
cells can make sperm