NASA's Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA) has confirmed, for the first time, water on the sunlit surface of the moon, the agency announced on Monday, reports Xinhua.

This discovery indicates that water may be distributed across the lunar surface, and not limited to cold, shadowed places, said NASA.

"We confirmed water on the sunlit surface of the Moon for the 1st time using @SOFIAtelescope. We don't know yet if we can use it as a resource, but learning about water on the Moon is key for our #Artemis exploration plans," NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine tweeted.

SOFIA's follow-up flights will look for water in additional sunlit locations and during different lunar phases to learn more about how the water is produced, stored, and moved across the moon. The data will add to the work of future moon missions, to create the first water resource maps of the moon for future human space exploration, according to NASA.

SOFIA is a joint project of NASA and the German Aerospace Center.

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A new study from India says convalescent plasma did not reduce deaths among Covid-19 patients or prevent moderate disease from becoming severe.

Plasma taken from the blood of recovered Covid-19 patients that is given to people sick with the disease does not reduce their chances of getting seriously ill or dying, it said.

The study was conducted in India and published in the medical journal the BMJ on Thursday, reports CNN.

The findings suggested that "as a potential treatment for patients with moderate Covid-19, convalescent plasma showed limited effectiveness."

The research, which involved more than 400 people who were in hospital with COVID-19, investigated convalescent plasma as a treatment for people with moderate disease, reports AJ Jazeera.

The findings of one of the first clinical trials to investigate the efficacy of convalescent plasma are a setback for a treatment that US President Donald Trump touted in August as an “historic breakthrough”.

The US and India, battling the world’s worst outbreaks of Covid-19, have both authorised convalescent plasma for emergency use.

Other countries, including the United Kingdom, have been collecting donated plasma so that it could be widely rolled out if shown to be an effective treatment.

“The … trial was able to show a small effect on the rate at which patients were able rid themselves of the virus, but this was not enough to improve their recovery from the disease,” said Simon Clarke, an expert in cellular microbiology at the University of Reading.

“In simple terms, there were no clinical benefits to the patients.”

With no cure or vaccine, countries have been scrambling to find ways to moderate the effect of the virus.

Rigorous study

The convalescent plasma technique was first tried against diphtheria in 1892 and was shown to help speed recovery from Ebola and SARS, which is caused by the same family of pathogens as the novel coronavirus.

The new study, funded by the Indian Council of Medical Research, enrolled 464 adult patients, with an average age of 52, between April and July and split them randomly into two groups.

A control group of 229 was given the normal best standard of hospital care, while 235 people received two transfusions of convalescent plasma and the best standard of hospital care.

After seven days, use of convalescent plasma seemed to improve some symptoms, such as shortness of breath and fatigue, the researchers said, and led to higher rates of something known as “negative conversion” – a sign that the virus is being neutralised by antibodies.

But this did not translate into a reduction in deaths or progression to severe disease by 28 days.

After that period, 44 (19 percent) of the participants in the plasma group and 41 (18 percent) in the control group progressed to severe disease or died from any cause.

When they restricted the comparison to patients who received plasma with detectable levels of antibodies, the results were the same, the authors said.

The trial “was a rigorous randomised controlled study on a topic of enormous global importance” said public health scientist Elizabeth Pathak in a separate commentary also published in the BMJ.

Levels, timing

The researchers said future studies could explore using only plasma with high levels of neutralising antibodies to see if this might be more effective.

The results were greeted with caution by a spokesman from the United Kingdom’s National Health Service, which is also in the process of carrying out large, randomised control trials of convalescent plasma.

The official from the NHS blood and transplant department said that the Indian trial had used donations with antibody levels around six to 10 times lower than in the UK.

He said there is “other promising evidence” that convalescent plasma transfusions with high antibody levels could improve patient outcomes.

The point at which a patient receives the plasma might also be important, according to some researchers.

Ian Jones, a professor of virology, also at Reading University, says the plasma is more likely to work if given very soon after someone contracts Covid-19.

He urged these and other researchers to continue to conduct trials of convalescent plasma in newly diagnosed patients.

Read Also: Plasma therapy ineffective in reducing Covid-19 death: Research

Dutch scientists have claimed that they have found a potential new organ in the human throat while researching prostate cancer.

A secret set of salivary glands has been hiding behind the nose, reports Live Science.

It's hard to imagine there is a part of the human body that's gone unnoticed by doctors after centuries of medical research.

But that's exactly what a group of scientists from the Netherlands believe. They said they have discovered a pair of previously overlooked glands that are hidden away in our skulls where the nasal cavity and the throat meet.

The medical researchers first came across the body part, which they propose naming tubarial glands, during a scan designed to look for tumorous growths, reports CNN.

The scientists then looked at scans of the head and neck of a further 100 individuals they were treating for prostate cancer and dissected two cadavers -- one male and one female. They all had a set.

The discovery was "thrilling" but the authors were "a bit skeptical" at first, said the study's lead author Matthijs H. Valstar, a surgeon in the department of head and neck oncology and surgery at The Netherlands Cancer Institute.

"We thought it wasn't possible to discover this in 2020," Valstar said. "It's important it's replicated and it should be done with different series of patients. It's important to have confirmation of new medical findings."

The glands cannot be seen with conventional methods of medical imaging like ultrasound, CT scans (computerized topography) or MRI (magnetic resonance imaging), the study authors said.

The "unknown entity" was only identified when the doctors were using an advanced and new type of scan called PSMA PET/CT that has been used to detect the spread of prostate cancer. PSMA PET is shorthand for prostate-specific membrane antigen imaging using positron emission tomography.

Salivary glands show up clearly on this highly sensitive kind of imaging.

"People have three sets of large salivary glands, but not there," said study author Wouter Vogel, a radiation oncologist at The Netherlands Cancer Institute, in a news statement in May.

"As far as we knew, the only salivary or mucous glands in the nasopharynx are microscopically small, and up to 1000 are evenly spread out throughout the mucosa. So, imagine our surprise when we found these."

Many great scientific discoveries "come as a surprise — an incidental finding," said Joy Reidenberg, a professor of anatomy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, who wasn't involved in the study.

"Luckily, these researchers were tuned into the data, and were anatomically savvy enough to note the unusual brightness in a region that was not thought to contain any salivary glands," Reidenberg added via email. "As the famous (late French biologist) Louis Pasteur once said: 'Chance favors the prepared mind.'"

New organ?

This overview of the salivary gland tissues as seen in PSMA PET/CT scans depicts the known major salivary glands and an unknown structure (indicated by arrows) in the nasopharynx showing similar imaging characteristics.

This overview of the salivary gland tissues as seen in PSMA PET/CT scans depicts the known major salivary glands and an unknown structure (indicated by arrows) in the nasopharynx showing similar imaging characteristics.

It was a matter of debate whether the tubarial glands were a completely new organ or could be considered part of the salivary gland organ system, the study added.

"These findings support the identification of the tubarial glands as a new anatomical and functional entity," said the study, which published in the journal Radiotherapy and Oncology.

The glands could be newly discovered, "but it is difficult to exclude that these might represent groups of minor salivary glands," said Dr. Valerie Fitzhugh, the interim chair of pathology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. Fitzhugh wasn't involved in the study.

Because the study concentrated on a small number of patients who were mostly male and used specific rather than standard tests, she added, examination of more women and healthier patients would allow for better data.

Overall, there is "still much to learn about the human body," Fitzhugh said, "and technology is allowing us to make these discoveries. This might be the first of some exciting discoveries within the body."

No matter how the glands are described, the authors said their discovery had clinical implications, especially for patients with head and neck cancer, including tumors in the throat or tongue. Radiotherapy can damage salivary glands, which can lead to dry mouth and trouble swallowing, speaking and eating.

"For most patients, it should technically be possible to avoid delivering radiation to this newly discovered location of the salivary gland system in the same way we try to spare known glands," Vogel said.

"Our next step is to find out how we can best spare these new glands and in which patients. If we can do this, patients may experience less side effects which will benefit their overall quality of life after treatment."

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A 10-year study by Australian researchers has found that "shrinking" tonsils is significantly less painful than removing them entirely, reports Xinhua.

Flinders University recently published the results of an analysis of 608 children who underwent tonsil surgery between 2008 and 2018.

Researchers found that children who had a sub-total tonsil reduction whereby their tonsils were reduced with a small portion left intact made a full recovery in 4.6 days on average compared to 11.1 days for those who had a full tonsillectomy.

They were also three times less likely to experience any bleeding after the procedure and eight times less likely to have serious bleeding requiring hospitalization.

"A full tonsillectomy exposes the muscles of the throat, causing pain and a higher risk of bleeding," Sara Attard, co-lead researcher, said in a statement.

"By removing 90-95 percent of the tonsil and leaving a small crescent-moon of tissue intact, it leads to much less pain and bleeding, which obviously allows kids to go back to childcare or school so much earlier as well as reassuring parents there is much less risk of a tonsil hemorrhage."

According to the study there are more than 35,000 tonsillectomies performed on Australian patients under the age of 17 every year.

"Recurrent tonsillitis is much less common than in the past. By far, the most common reason for tonsil surgery is now obstruction, most commonly causing snoring and sleep issues, as well as speech and eating problems in some cases," Simon Carney, Flinders University lead researcher, said.

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Aussie study shows how antibiotic resistance bends rules of evolution

An Australian study released Tuesday has explained  how bacteria can bend the rules of evolution to develop antibiotic resistance, by means of horizontal gene transfer (HGT).

The research team from Australia's Monash University has discovered that bacteria were able to pass antibiotic resistant genes through HGT, even when there was no environmental imperative to do so, defying the laws of natural selection.

A traditional view of evolution involves genes being passed from parent to offspring, also known as vertical gene transfer (VGT).

Co-lead author of the study report Dr. Mike McDonald explained that the study arose because researchers were witnessing antibiotic resistance in areas where it should not necessarily exist.

"Genes for antibiotic resistance in the bacteria that live in hospitals, sewers and farms, are common because there are antibiotics in these places, due to human activities," he said.

"However, when scientists check environments without antibiotics, for example, forests or estuaries, antibiotic resistance genes can still be detected," he noted.

To understand why, the team monitored the growth of bacteria without exposure to antibiotics, but allowed it to receive HGT from the already antibiotic-resistant bacteria.

When researchers then introduced antibiotics to the trial bacteria they found there was a level of antibiotic resistance, more so than in those which had not received HGT.

"We found that the populations that had received HGT could survive treatment by antibiotic, but the control populations that had not received HGT did not survive," McDonald said.

According to the researchers, this shows that antibiotic resistance genes can spread into populations which are not experiencing selection with antibiotic.

"This could also explain why patients still have antibiotic resistant bacteria long after they have finished treatment with antibiotic and why bacteria quickly evolve resistance even when they have not been exposed to antibiotic before," McDonald said.

While it was previously thought that gene adaptions only occurred when there was an immediate benefit to their survival, McDonald asserted that, "our work shows that if HGT can transfer enough of the gene into the population, it can provide a force that pushes back against natural selection, and allows genes that do not confer a benefit to spread in the population."

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