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Daily briefing: Toothbrush zaps bacteria to clear plaque
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Paediatrician Annie Andrews, a Democrat, won a US Senate seat in South Carolina in a surprise victory on 3 November. Democrats had not won a Senate seat in the state since 1998.Credit: Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty
The US mid-term elections won the Democratic party power in both chambers of the US Congress, raising hopes that lawmakers will now push back against disruptions to science introduced by the administration of Republican President Donald Trump. Democratic majorities in both the House and Senate will give the party the power to craft legislation that counteracts Trump’s science agenda. But the President could still veto these bills, since Democrats don’t hold more than two-thirds of seats in either chamber. The results have also brought a wave of scientists and medical professionals into political office. “The nerds strike back,” says Shaughnessy Naughton, president of the political fundraising group 314 Action.
A new manual toothbrush can destroy bacteria by generating its own electrical charge, rather than relying on friction alone. The brush’s bristles are made from a polymer that researchers stretched and heated to obtain its piezoelectric form — meaning it generates a charge when deformed. During brushing, the bending bristles release charges that create highly reactive forms of oxygen in nearby saliva. These damage bacteria cell membranes, the team says. When the bristles relax, the material reabsorbs the charges, ready to go again.
Two new studies analysing more than 4,700 ancient human genomes have identified the possible origins of Celtic and Germanic languages and found migrations that might have dispersed their speakers around Europe. The findings could explain why Germanic languages such as English and Dutch are so widespread, whereas Celtic languages such as Welsh and Gaelic are concentrated to a few million people in northern Europe.
Three people with drug-resistant epilepsy saw the number of seizures they had per month fall by more than 90%, after gene-laden viruses were infused into their brains as part of an early-stage clinical trial. The treatment was targeted to the small patch of brain tissue responsible for each participants’ seizures. The virus carried a gene that made neurons in that area sensitive to clozapine, a drug that activates the gene therapy, which in turn helps to suppress the abnormal electrical activity associated with seizures. The participants didn’t experience any serious side effects, but long-term use of clozapine might bring cardiovascular risks and other problems, say researchers.
A genetics lab in Shanghai has handed almost all control over to a team of robots guided by artificial-intelligence agents. The robotic arms in the ‘self-driving’ lab can operate more than 20 types of instrument, complete thousands of operations in a single project and see through experiments that involve synthesizing and sequencing DNA, among other tasks. The system, called ‘AutoDNA’, uses a simple human prompt to design and execute experiments. While it’s running, human hands are required only to refresh reagents and service hardware.
Health information distributed as part of a randomized clinical trial can unintentionally reshape social relationships, as demonstrated by a trial in rural Honduras. Researchers found that the intervention — which involved being provided with information about child and maternal health — affected people’s friendships, financial relationships and whom they went to for health advice. In villages where only a few people received the information, overall connectivity decreased, whereas it increased in places where the intervention covered the majority of households. (Nature News & Views | 6 min read)
When NASA astronaut Jessica Watkins launch