Culture

Innate or acquired resistance to current standard-of-care therapies is a major hindrance to successful chemotherapeutic intervention. There is a critical need to elucidate the underlying mechanisms responsible for chemoresistance in order to accelerate the development of more efficacious treatment strategies.

Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER) stress response proteins are produced by cells undergoing periods of stress and facilitate the folding of proteins. The studies highlighted in this review article by researchers from the Hill Lab at the University of Notre Dame, show that ER stress response proteins are also overexpressed in cancer cells, and are often associated with high resistance to chemotherapy and poor prognosis. Specifically, elevated expression of GRP78, the master regulator of the unfolded protein response, has been shown to induce chemoresistance and serves as a indictor of poor prognosis in patients with a variety of cancers.

This review focuses on the role of GRP78 in regulating signaling pathways that control cell survival and draw attention to its value as a prognostic marker and therapeutic target. It shows that elevated GRP78 expression is predictive of resistance to chemotherapy and tumor resurgence in many cancers. Moreover, GRP78 regulates chemoresistance through several branches of the unfolded protein response as well as through modulation of the PI3K/AKT pathway.

Elevated GRP78 expression has been linked to the failure of a growing number of current standard-of-care therapies, which suggest that it is necessary to identify strategies to inhibit GRP78 function in order to sensitize chemotherapy-resistant tumors to currently available treatment regimens.

Using two different measurement methods, researchers from North Carolina State University conducted a two-year study of North Carolina's Jordan Lake in which they monitored toxic algal blooms. The researchers found that multiple cyanotoxins from toxic algal blooms are present year-round, albeit in very low concentrations. Their findings could improve the ability to predict toxic blooms.

Freshwater algal blooms have increased due to nutrients from sources such as fertilizers and other agricultural runoff entering the water. While every algal bloom isn't toxic - some algal species can produce both toxic and nontoxic blooms - toxic blooms can cause problems for swimmers and other recreational users in the form of rashes or allergic reactions.

"We've confirmed both that the toxins are there year-round and that multiple toxins are there simultaneously but in very low levels," says Astrid Schnetzer, associate professor of marine, earth and atmospheric sciences at NC State and corresponding author of a paper describing the research. "First, let's be clear that the presence of the toxins doesn't affect drinking water - treatment plants scrub all of that out. Secondly, the amounts of toxins we did find are about an order of magnitude below safe levels, so that's also good news."

Schnetzer and former NC State graduate student Daniel Wiltsie wanted to know which cyanotoxins were present in Jordan Lake, a major drinking water reservoir in central North Carolina.

From 2014-16 Schnetzer and Wiltsie sampled the lake water in two ways: by taking discrete samples (in which water is collected in a container) and by using solid phase adsorption toxin tracking (SPATT) bags, which are left in the water for a period of days or weeks. SPATT bags contain an absorbent resin that captures dissolved toxins. "By using two methods we were better able to determine what the concentrations looked like over time," Schnetzer says. "Algal blooms are ephemeral, so it's possible to completely miss them if you only look at discrete sampling. SPATT bags give you data on how the toxins can accumulate and overlap."

The researchers analyzed the samples for five different toxins, and found four of them: microsystin, anatoxin-a, clindrospermopsin, and β-N-methylamino-L-alanine (BMAA). Multiple toxins were detected at 86 percent of the sampling sites and during 44 percent of the sampling events.

"This study is the first to use both SPATT bags and sampling to assess the toxins in the water," Schnetzer says. "It's a first step toward creating better informed approaches to really understanding the frequency and magnitude of these blooms.

"In the future, we want to have a better predictive capability regarding these blooms as well as the ability to identify new emerging toxins. The data may also help us determine risk from chronic low-level exposures, as well as tease out what risks derive from exposure to multiple toxins at once."

New Haven, Conn. -- People with stage III colon cancer who regularly eat nuts are at significantly lower risk of cancer recurrence and mortality than those who don't, according to a new, large study led by researchers at Yale Cancer Center.

The findings were published today in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

The study followed 826 participants in a clinical trial for a median of 6.5 years after they were treated with surgery and chemotherapy. Those who regularly consumed at least two, one-ounce servings of nuts each week demonstrated a 42% improvement in disease-free survival and a 57% improvement in overall survival.

"Further analysis of this cohort revealed that disease-free survival increased by 46% among the subgroup of nut consumers who ate tree nuts rather than peanuts," said Charles S. Fuchs, M.D., M.P.H., director of Yale Cancer Center and senior author of the study. Tree nuts include almonds, walnuts, hazelnuts, cashews, and pecans, among others. In contrast, peanuts are actually in the legumes family of foods.

"These findings are in keeping with several other observational studies that indicate that a slew of healthy behaviors, including increased physical activity, keeping a healthy weight, and lower intake of sugar and sweetened beverages, improve colon cancer outcomes," said Temidayo Fadelu, M.D., a postdoctoral fellow at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and lead author of the paper. "The results highlight the importance of emphasizing dietary and life-style factors in colon cancer survivorship."

Additionally, the researchers emphasized, the study highlighted connections between biological mechanisms that worsen disease not just in colon cancer but in certain chronic illnesses such as type 2 diabetes.

Many previous studies have reported that nuts, among other health benefits, may help to reduce insulin resistance, a condition in which the body has difficulty processing the insulin hormone. Insulin resistance leads to unhealthy levels of sugar in the blood and is often a predecessor to type 2 diabetes and related illnesses.

Earlier research among patients with colon cancer has revealed worse outcomes among those with lifestyle factors that heighten insulin resistance, such as obesity, lack of exercise, and a diet with high levels of carbohydrates that quickly raise levels of blood sugar.

"These studies support the hypothesis that behaviors that make you less insulin resistant, including eating nuts, seem to improve outcomes in colon cancer," Fuchs said. "However, we don't know yet what exactly about nuts is beneficial."

Nuts also might play a positive role by satisfying hunger with less intake of carbohydrates or other foods associated with poor outcomes, Fuchs noted.

Patients may not be eating nuts due to concerns about the high fat content. For example, a one-ounce serving of about 24 almonds holds about 200 calories, including 14 grams of fat. "People ask me if increasing nut consumption will lead to obesity, which leads to worse outcomes," he said. "But what's really interesting is that in our studies, and across the scientific literature in general, regular consumers of nuts tend to be leaner."

Dietary changes can make a difference. An earlier analysis of diets in the same patient cohort by Fuchs and his colleagues found a significant link between coffee consumption and reduced recurrence and mortality in colon cancer.

When Fuchs advises his patients about lifestyle choices, "first and foremost I talk about avoiding obesity, exercising regularly and staying away from a high-carbohydrate diet," he said. "Then we talk about things like coffee and nuts. If you like coffee or nuts, enjoy them, and if you don't, there are many other helpful steps you can take."

"Overall, we are working to apply the same rigorous science to the understanding of diet and lifestyles in the colon cancer patient population that we apply to defining new drugs," Fuchs said.

February 28, 2018 - In patients undergoing reconstructive surgery of the face, treatment with botulinum toxin A (BTX-A, or 'Botox') can improve the final appearance of surgical scars, reports a clinical trial in the March issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery®, the official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

"This study demonstrates that early post-surgical botulinum toxin injections can produce better, narrower, and flatter facial surgical scars," according to the study by XiaoXi Lin, MD, PhD, and colleagues of Shanghai Jiao Tong University School of Medicine. The results add to the growing list of clinical applications for BTX-A--beyond its cosmetic use in treating facial lines and wrinkles.

Early Botox Treatment Improves Final Appearance in 'Split-Scar' Study

The study included 16 patients undergoing facial plastic and reconstructive surgery at the authors' department over a four-month period. The patients averaged 12 years of age. Most were undergoing surgery for some type of disfiguring facial birthmark, such as a melanocytic nevus or port wine stain.

In each patient, half of the facial scar was randomly assigned to treatment with BTX-A or inactive saline (placebo) solution, injected immediately at the end of surgery. Six months later, independent plastic surgeons made measurements and rated the appearance of both sides of the scar. The scars averaged 6.74 centimeters in length, with a range of three to 16 centimeters (about one to six inches). The study included follow-up data in 14 patients.

By several measures, the final appearance of the scar was significantly better on the half treated with BTX-A. On a 0- to 10-point scale (with 0 being worst and 10 being best), the surgeon's ratings for overall scar appearance averaged 5.76 on the half treated with BTX-A versus 4.97 on the placebo-treated half.

The BTX-A-treated sides were also lower and narrower than then comparison sides. Other scar characteristics (color, pliability, and vascularity) were not significantly different.

Injection of BTX-A--best known by the brand name Botox--is widely used for treatment of facial lines and wrinkles. It is the most common cosmetic procedure in the United States, with about 7 million BTX-A injection procedures performed in 2016, according to ASPS statistics. In recent years, BTX-A has also been effectively used to treat a wide range of non-cosmetic problems as well.

How does BTX-A affect the process of scar formation? "Temporary muscular paralysis induced by BTX-A could decrease movement and stress around a healing wound," Dr. Lin and coauthors speculate. "This relief of tension may help prevent facial scar widening, hypertrophy and hyperpigmentation." They cite previous studies suggesting that BTX-A might also inhibit certain cells (fibroblasts) and mediators involved in scar.

The authors note some important limitations of their preliminary study, particularly the small number of patients included. They propose further studies comparing the effects of BTX-A on surgical scars with different injection techniques and in different locations on the face.

In a featured video on the Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery website, Editor-in-Chief Rod J. Rohrich, MD, notes that previous studies have reported the use of BTX-A to treat a variety of problems, "including chronic migraines, twitching eyelids, extreme sweating, crossed eyes, and more." He adds, "While more research is needed, this new [study] may demonstrate that early post-surgical injections of botulinum toxin can produce better, smaller, and flatter facial surgical scars."

Researchers have called for more evidence to understand the safety and effectiveness of video consultation, and its impact on patient access and GP workload. In a paper published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, the team from the Department of Primary Care and Public Health at Imperial College London said that while there is evidence that video consulting is acceptable to patients and offers many potential benefits, at least to those of younger age, its safety and efficacy in primary care currently remains largely untested.

Lead author Dr Benedict Hayhoe said: "Despite limited evidence for improving access to primary care, and potential for increased workload through supply induced demand, greater use of digital technology remains a key government priority."

Of particular concern to the researchers, given continued development of antimicrobial resistance, is the possibility of increased antibiotic prescribing.

The researchers examined the websites of seven private companies providing online video consulting with general practitioners. Four of the seven websites specified that they would prescribe antibiotics, with one appearing to use easy access to antibiotics as a marketing strategy. None of the websites made any mention of the appropriate use of antibiotics or of antibiotic stewardship.

Dr Hayhoe said: "The uncertainty inherent in video consulting, where examination is impossible, might be expected to result in increased antibiotic prescription, due to clinicians feeling a need to 'play it safe'." He added: "However, this novel mode of patient access also has potential for patient education, by improving health literacy on infection, antibiotics and antimicrobial resistance, where it is currently lacking."

The paper highlights possible opportunities for collaboration between NHS and private providers to achieve the government's aim of increased online access to primary healthcare, but questions the possible impact on primary care and the wider NHS.

Dr Hayhoe said: "Evidence for the impact of alternatives to face-to-face GP consulting on workload and access is limited. While availability of affordable online consultations may reduce pressure on NHS primary care, it may conversely increase pressure through supply induced demand, or through defensive practices."

Researchers at Harvard University have built soft robots inspired by nature that can crawl, swim, grasp delicate objects and even assist a beating heart, but none of these devices has been able to sense and respond to the world around them.

That's about to change.

Inspired by our bodies' sensory capabilities, researchers at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have developed a platform for creating soft robots with embedded sensors that can sense movement, pressure, touch, and even temperature.

The research is published in Advanced Materials.

"Our research represents a foundational advance in soft robotics," said Ryan Truby, first author of the paper and recent Ph.D. graduate at SEAS. "Our manufacturing platform enables complex sensing motifs to be easily integrated into soft robotic systems."

Integrating sensors within soft robots has been difficult in part because most sensors, such as those used in traditional electronics, are rigid. To address this challenge, the researchers developed an organic ionic liquid-based conductive ink that can be 3D printed within the soft elastomer matrices that comprise most soft robots.

"To date, most integrated sensor/actuator systems used in soft robotics have been quite rudimentary," said Michael Wehner, former postdoctoral fellow at SEAS and co-author of the paper. "By directly printing ionic liquid sensors within these soft systems, we open new avenues to device design and fabrication that will ultimately allow true closed loop control of soft robots."

Wehner is now an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

To fabricate the device, the researchers relied on an established 3D printing technique developed in the lab of Jennifer Lewis, the Hansjorg Wyss Professor of Biologically Inspired Engineering at SEAS and Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute. The technique - known as embedded 3D printing - seamlessly and quickly integrates multiple features and materials within a single soft body.

"This work represents the latest example of the enabling capabilities afforded by embedded 3D printing - a technique pioneered by our lab," said Lewis.

"The function and design flexibility of this method is unparalleled," said Truby. "This new ink combined with our embedded 3D printing process allows us to combine both soft sensing and actuation in one integrated soft robotic system."

To test the sensors, the team printed a soft robotic gripper comprised of three soft fingers or actuators. The researchers tested the gripper's ability to sense inflation pressure, curvature, contact, and temperature. They embedded multiple contact sensors, so the gripper could sense light and deep touches.

"Soft robotics are typically limited by conventional molding techniques that constrain geometry choices, or, in the case of commercial 3D printing, material selection that hampers design choices," said Robert Wood, the Charles River Professor of Engineering and Applied Sciences at SEAS, Core Faculty Member of the Wyss Institute, and co-author of the paper. "The techniques developed in the Lewis Lab have the opportunity to revolutionize how robots are created - moving away from sequential processes and creating complex and monolithic robots with embedded sensors and actuators."

Next, the researchers hope to harness the power of machine learning to train these devices to grasp objects of varying size, shape, surface texture, and temperature.

Using lasers, U.S. and Austrian physicists have coaxed ultracold strontium atoms into complex structures unlike any previously seen in nature.

"I am amazed that we've discovered a new way that atoms assemble," said Rice University physicist Tom Killian. "It shows how rich the laws of physics and chemistry can be." Killian is the lead scientist on a new paper in Physical Review Letters (PRL) that summarized the group's experimental findings.

Killian teamed with experimental physicists from Rice's Center for Quantum Materials and theoretical physicists from Harvard University and Vienna University of Technology on the two-year project to create "Rydberg polarons" out of strontium atoms that were at least 1 million times colder than deep space.

Rice University physicist Tom KillianThe team's findings, which are summarized in the PRL paper and a companion theoretical study appearing this week in Physical Review A (PRA), reveal something new about the basic nature of matter, Killian said.

"The basic laws that we learn in chemistry class tell us how atoms bond together to form molecules, and a deep understanding of those principles is what allows chemists and engineers to make the materials we use in our everyday lives," he said. "But those laws are also quite rigid. Only certain combinations of atoms will form stable bonds in a molecule. Our work explored a new type of molecule that isn't described by any of the traditional rules for binding atoms together."

Killian said the new molecules are only stable at extraordinarily cold temperatures -- about a millionth of a degree above absolute zero. At such low temperatures, the constituent atoms stay still long enough to become "glued together" in new, complex structures, he said.

"One amazing thing is that you can keep attaching an arbitrary number of atoms to these molecules," Killian said. "It's just like attaching Lego blocks, which you can't do with traditional types of molecules."

He said the discovery will be of interest to theoretical chemists, condensed matter physicists, atomic physicists and physicists who are studying Rydberg atoms for potential use in quantum computers.

"Nature takes advantage of a fascinating toolbox of tricks for binding atoms together to make molecules and materials," Killian said. "As we discover and understand these tricks, we satisfy our innate curiosity about the world we live in, and it can often lead to practical advances like new therapeutic drugs or light-harvesting solar cells. It is too early to tell if any practical applications will come from our work, but basic research like this is what it takes to find tomorrow's great breakthroughs."

The team's efforts centered around making, measuring and predicting the behavior of a specific state of matter called a Rydberg polaron, a combination of two distinct phenomena, Rydberg atoms and polarons.

In Rydberg atoms, one or more electrons are excited with a precise amount of energy so that they orbit far from the atom's nucleus. Rydberg atoms can be described with simple rules written down more than a century ago by Swedish physicist Johannes Rydberg. They have been studied in laboratories for decades and are believed to exist in cold reaches of deep space. The Rydberg atoms in the PRL study were up to one micron wide, about 1,000 times larger than normal strontium atoms.

Polarons are created when a single particle interacts strongly with its environment and causes nearby electrons, ions or atoms to rearrange themselves and form a sort of coating that the particle carries with it. The polaron itself is a collective -- a unified object known as a quasiparticle -- that incorporates properties of the original particle and its environment.

Rydberg polarons are a new class of polarons in which the high-energy, far-orbiting electron gathers hundreds of atoms within its orbit as it moves through a dense, ultracold cloud. In the Rice experiments, researchers began by creating a supercooled cloud of several hundred thousand strontium atoms. By coordinating the timing of laser pulses with changes in the electric field, the researchers were able to create and count Rydberg polarons one by one, ultimately forming millions of them for their study.

While Rydberg polarons had previously been created with rubidium, the use of strontium allowed the physicists to more clearly resolve the energy of the coated Rydberg atoms in a way that revealed previously unseen universal characteristics.

"I give a lot of credit to the theorists," said Killian, a professor of physics and astronomy. "They developed powerful techniques to calculate the structure of hundreds of interacting particles in order to interpret our results and identify the signatures of the Rydberg polarons.

"From an experimental standpoint, it was challenging to make and measure these polarons," he said. "Each one lived for only a few microseconds before collisions with other particles tore it apart. We had to use very sensitive techniques to count these fragile and fleeting objects."

Cleveland, Ohio -- Roberto Fernández Galán, an assistant professor of electrical engineering and computer science at the university's School of Engineering, and a team of undergraduate researchers at Case Western Reserve have been recording the electrical activity of hundreds of neurons as they fire inside the brain of a mouse model-for up to half an hour at a time.

"Neurons are highly active spontaneously, so 30 minutes is actually a very long time," Galán said.

For decades, neuroscientists examined the activity at shorter time-scales-tens of milliseconds, he said-and their aim was limited to observing some neurons firing together at times and others not.

However, Galán and his lab focused on the interactions between neurons at multiple time-scales from milliseconds to minutes.

"This is our main contribution," he said. "We have found very significant interactions between neurons on longer timescales, on the order of seconds."

Mapping more activity

It turns out that a previously hidden connection among the neurons is revealed when neurological activity is recorded and graphed across timescales.

"We observe that when some neurons speed up, others slow down-and they do this in a coordinated fashion over several seconds," Galán said.

"What we are discovering here, revealing for the first time, is a mode of operation of the brain circuits that shows you cannot have all of your networks operating at once," he said.

Galán and his team explain those two anatomically distinct and competing networks in the smallest of the brain's microcircuits, calling them "anti-correlated cortical networks," in a recent issue of Scientific Reports.

Co-authors include biology Professor Hillel Chiel and undergraduate students Nathan Kodama (first author), Tianyi Feng, James Ullett and Siddharth Sivakumar.
Galán said the discovery was especially gratifying because it culminates the testing of a mathematical model he developed a decade ago.

"That was a theoretical prediction-the idea that the wiring of brain circuits could be inferred from their spontaneous activity," he said. "When we were finally able to test this idea experimentally, we discovered the competing neural networks; it all came together in this study."

Meat and milk production from cattle could one day be boosted, thanks to analysis of microbes in cows' stomachs.

The study paves the way for research to understand which types of microbe - such as bacteria - are best at helping cattle to extract energy from their food, experts say.

It also identifies enzymes that are specialised for breaking down plant material, which could help in the quest to develop new biofuels.

Researchers led by the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute and Scotland's Rural College (SRUC) focused on microbes found in a cow's rumen - the first of its four stomachs.

The rumen is home to diverse strains of microorganisms, such as bacteria, archaea and fungi, which help the animal to extract energy and nutrients from its food.

The team used an advanced technique called metagenomics, which involves analysing the genetic composition all of the microbes that exist within an organism, in this case a cow.

They studied samples of rumen gut contents from 43 cows and identified 913 diverse strains of microbes living in the rumen.

Most of the microbes uncovered have never been seen before and may have potential uses in the biofuels and biotechnology industries.

By analysing their genetic information, the team pinpointed previously unknown enzymes that can extract energy and nutrition from plant material.

Beef and dairy cattle, and other milk-producing ruminants, provide food and nutrition to billions of people worldwide.

Understanding how these animals convert plant-based diets into energy will be vital for securing the future of the world's food supplies, experts say.

The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, was carried out in collaboration with experts at The Rowett Institute at the University of Aberdeen.

The Roslin Institute receives strategic funding from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council.

Professor Mick Watson, of the University of Edinburgh's Roslin Institute, said: "This has been a truly fascinating study, and really we are only beginning to understand what these microbes do. The fact most of them were very different to microbes that have already been discovered surprised us, so we just can't wait to study them further. If we can improve the efficiency of digestion in cows and other ruminants, we may be able to produce more food for people whilst using fewer resources. This is a key aim of improving global food security."

Professor Rainer Roehe from SRUC said: "The newly identified microbial species in the rumen of beef cattle will greatly improve our understanding of how the rumen microbial ecosystem works. Using breeding and nutritional interventions, we will be able to use this information to help improve cattle health and performance throughout the world."

Using new data gathered from sites in southern Africa, University of Rochester researchers have extended their record of Earth's magnetic field back thousands of years to the first millennium.

The record provides historical context to help explain recent, ongoing changes in the magnetic field, most prominently in an area in the Southern Hemisphere known as the South Atlantic Anomaly.

"We've known for quite some time that the magnetic field has been changing, but we didn't really know if this was unusual for this region on a longer timescale, or whether it was normal," says Vincent Hare, who recently completed a postdoctoral associate appointment in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences (EES) at the University of Rochester, and is lead author of a paper published in Geophysical Research Letters.

The new data also provides more evidence that a region in southern Africa may play a unique role in magnetic pole reversals.

"We're getting stronger evidence that there's something unusual about the core-mantel boundary under Africa that could be having an important impact on the global magnetic field."

The magnetic field that surrounds Earth not only dictates whether a compass needle points north or south, but also protects the planet from harmful radiation from space. Nearly 800,000 years ago, the poles were switched: north pointed south and vice versa. The poles have never completely reversed since, but for the past 160 years, the strength of the magnetic field has been decreasing at an alarming rate. The region where it is weakest, and continuing to weaken, is a large area stretching from Chile to Zimbabwe called the South Atlantic Anomaly.

In order to put these relatively recent changes into historical perspective, Rochester researchers--led by John Tarduno, a professor and chair of EES--gathered data from sites in southern Africa, which is within the South Atlantic Anomaly, to compile a record of Earth's magnetic field strength over many centuries. Data previously collected by Tarduno and Rory Cottrell, an EES research scientist, together with theoretical models developed by Eric Blackman, a professor of physics and astronomy at Rochester, suggest the core region beneath southern Africa may be the birthplace of recent and future pole reversals.

"We were looking for recurrent behavior of anomalies because we think that's what is happening today and causing the South Atlantic Anomaly," Tarduno says. "We found evidence that these anomalies have happened in the past, and this helps us contextualize the current changes in the magnetic field."

The researchers discovered that the magnetic field in the region fluctuated from 400-450 AD, from 700-750 AD, and again from 1225-1550 AD. This South Atlantic Anomaly, therefore, is the most recent display of a recurring phenomenon in Earth's core beneath Africa that then affects the entire globe.

"We're getting stronger evidence that there's something unusual about the core-mantel boundary under Africa that could be having an important impact on the global magnetic field," Tarduno says.

The researchers gathered data for this project from an unlikely source: ancient clay remnants from southern Africa dating back to the early and late Iron Ages. As part of a field called "archaeomagnetism," geophysicists team up with archaeologists to study the past magnetic field.

The Rochester team, which included several undergraduate students, collaborated with archaeologist Thomas Huffman of the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa, a leading expert on Iron Age southern Africa. The group excavated clay samples from a site in the Limpopo River Valley, which borders Zimbabwe, South Africa, and Botswana.

During the Iron Age in southern Africa, around the time of the first millennium, there was a group of Bantu-speaking people who cultivated grain and lived in villages composed of grain bins, huts, and cattle enclosures. Draughts were devastating to their agriculturally based culture. During periods of draught, they would perform elaborate ritual cleansings of the villages by burning down the huts and grain bins.

"When you burn clay at very high temperatures, you actually stabilize the magnetic minerals, and when they cool from these very high temperatures, they lock in a record of the earth's magnetic field," Tarduno says.

Researchers excavate the samples, orient them in the field, and bring them back to the lab to conduct measurements using magnetometers. In this way, they are able to use the samples to compile a record of Earth's magnetic field in the past.

The magnetic field is generated by swirling, liquid iron in Earth's outer core. It is here, roughly 1800 miles beneath the African continent, that a special feature exists. Seismological data has revealed a denser region deep beneath southern Africa called the African Large Low Shear Velocity Province. The region is located right above the boundary between the hot liquid outer core and the stiffer, cooler mantle. Sitting on top of the liquid outer core, it may sink slightly, disturbing the flow of iron and ultimately affecting Earth's magnetic field.

A major change in the magnetic field would have wide-reaching ramifications; the magnetic field stimulates currents in anything with long wires, including the electrical grid. Changes in the magnetic field could therefore cause electrical grid failures, navigation system malfunctions, and satellite breakdowns. A weakening of the magnetic field might also mean more harmful radiation reaches Earth--and trigger an increase in the incidence of skin cancer.

Hare and Tarduno warn, however, that their data does not necessarily portend a complete pole reversal.

"We now know this unusual behavior has occurred at least a couple of times before the past 160 years, and is part of a bigger long-term pattern," Hare says. "However, it's simply too early to say for certain whether this behavior will lead to a full pole reversal."

Even if a complete pole reversal is not in the near future, however, the weakening of the magnetic field strength is intriguing to scientists, Tarduno says. "The possibility of a continued decay in the strength of the magnetic field is a societal concern that merits continued study and monitoring."

The Asian tiger mosquito -- carrier of such diseases as dengue, yellow fever, Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya and Zika -- appears to have vanished from Palmyra.

Not native to the small atoll 1,000 miles south of Hawaii, Aedes albopict likely came to Palmyra during World War II, when the United States took it over as a base of operations. The military imported many other species as well, including the common black rat, Rattus rattus, a large tree-dwelling rodent whose blood fed many of the mosquitoes. The rats also ate juvenile coconuts, leaving the shells as potential habitat for mosquito larvae.

In 2011, to help Palmyra recover from the ecological damage wreaked by the non-native rats, land managers implemented an aerial drop of rodenticide that quickly eradicated them. Without rats to feed on, the mosquitoes were left with only humans to bite. But rather than being bitten more, people eventually were not bitten at all. Researchers began to wonder if the Asian tiger mosquito had disappeared along with the rats. Now, in the journal Biology Letters, a team of UC Santa Barbara scientists and colleagues at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) chronicles this unique example of co-extinction.

"We believe that this is the first documented accidental secondary extinction of a mosquito," said the paper's co-author Hillary Young, an associate professor in UC Santa Barbara's Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology (EEMB). "We hypothesized that Aedes was eradicated from Palmyra primarily because its persistence depended on taking blood meals from rats."

Young's earlier research on Palmyra's terrestrial systems produced a large data set that predated the rat eradication. Evidence for the presence of the Asian tiger mosquito prior to eradication efforts included surveys of insects with black-light traps and anecdotal observations from bitten researchers.

After the rats were gone, Young and a team of UCSB researchers intensified their mosquito survey efforts to include highly effective scent traps but were unable to locate even a single mosquito. They also surveyed visitors to Palmyra to see if they were still reporting being bitten by this aggressive and conspicuous day-biting mosquito. They were not. Two years of mosquito surveillance without success met the World Health Organization's standards for their eradication.

"Normally we mourn species losses, but without introduced rats and mosquitoes, Palmyra Atoll is as close to paradise as you could imagine," explained lead author Kevin Lafferty, an USGS ecologist and an adjunct EEMB faculty member at UCSB.

"Eradicating mosquitoes by eradicating a key host provides a relatively unexplored way to combat the diseases mosquitoes transmit," Young said. "Our case study highlights this potential for synergies between public health and an increasingly common conservation intervention."

While certainly not a panacea for mosquito-borne disease, this research does suggest new directions for controlling these important disease vectors, especially in places where introduced species are utilized heavily.

CLEMSON, South Carolina - As a general rule of thumb, if there is a puzzling phenomenon occurring somewhere deep in outer space, a black hole is often the culprit behind it.

This is according to postdoctoral researcher Vaidehi Paliya in the department of physics and astronomy, whose January 2018 publication in The Astrophysical Journal Letters details the discovery of seven galaxies that could potentially shake up what astrophysicists thought they knew about how the size of a galaxy - and the black hole at its center - can affect its behavior.

It has been widely believed that only massive galaxies contain enough energy to become blazars, which are stupendous jets of radiation powerful enough to stretch thousands of light years. But Paliya's latest research might indicate that smaller galaxies can also do this, if the conditions are right.

There are three main types of galaxies: oval-shaped ellipticals, disk-like spirals and irregulars that don't quite fit in with either of the former classes.

"Elliptical galaxies are the oldest, most massive galaxies in the universe," Paliya said. "People propose that elliptical galaxies form when two smaller galaxies collide, merging into one big elliptical. Typically, ellipticals are found to host a black hole that is more than a billion times the mass of our sun."

Through their inherent, inescapable gravitational force, black holes at the center of galaxies will grow larger by drawing in and "eating" the surrounding matter through a process called accretion.

"It's like when you pour water in the kitchen sink, you see it forms a spiral, then it goes down the drain. In a similar way, matter forms an accretion disk around the black hole," Paliya said. "The black hole then grows rapidly and becomes a monster."

But when the accretion disk surrounding the black hole begins emitting extreme bursts of energy - in radio, infrared or X-ray bands - the galaxy is said to be "active," opening the door to another galaxy classifier beyond shape.

"Blazars are one type of active galaxy," said Marco Ajello, a professor of physics and astronomy and Paliya's advisor. "These are galaxies that host a supermassive black hole, and this black hole - in some way - is able to accelerate particles to near the speed of light and keep them collimated in narrow beams, called jets, which become very bright sources of light when they are pointing toward us."

These jets are some of the most extreme sources of gamma-ray radiation in outer space.

"These blazars have jets that are like fountains. If you wanted a huge fountain, you'd need to have a very powerful engine at the base. Blazars need to have very massive black holes at their centers to be able to launch jets," Paliya said. "Generally, we don't expect these powerful jets from sources that are small, like our galaxy."

The Milky Way is a spiral galaxy with pinwheel-like arms made up of gas and dust that contain a bright center of older stars. Typically, spiral galaxies are less massive and much less active than their elliptical counterparts.

When the Fermi Gamma-Ray Space Telescope, launched in 2008 by NASA, detected gamma ray emission from four spiral galaxies in its first year of orbit, physicists were perplexed.

"It was unexpected - we have only seen that kind of gamma ray emission from blazars," said Dieter Hartmann, a professor of physics and astronomy and co-author of the study. "When these four sources were discovered, people speculated that they could be blazars. But since there were so few sources, nobody was certain about it. Then the question became: are these really a new type of source, or are they just exceptions to the standard?"

The question was left up in the air, until Paliya's collaborators in India released a catalog of active spiral galaxies in 2017. Known as Seyfert galaxies, these are another type of active galaxy with relatively low mass black holes residing at their centers. However, rather than emitting violent bursts of gamma-ray radiation, like blazars, Seyfert galaxies are known for their strong ultra-violet emissions.

The catalog provided the first chance for astrophysicists to address the question of the Fermi telescope's 2008 discovery. Is it possible for a spiral galaxy to emit jetted gamma-ray radiation?

"I took this catalog of 11,101 Seyfert galaxies, and I studied them in the gamma ray band using the data from the Large Area Telescope onboard Fermi satellite," Paliya said. "From that, I found four new gamma ray sources and three that were earlier known as blazars but we believe are actually Seyfert galaxies."

This breakthrough is an indication that even smaller sources are capable of launching powerful gamma ray jets - a potential paradigm shift in the field of astrophysics.

"If the jet is similar to that of blazars, but its black hole is small, you can imagine it like a car. Say a smaller car is going the same speed as another car that has a much bigger engine. The engine in the smaller car would then need to be much more efficient," Ajello said. "So, it could be that the black hole is working more efficiently in smaller, spiral systems than it is in larger objects like blazars."

To understand the elliptical/spiral nature of the host galaxies of these seven gamma-ray detected sources, Ajello and Paliya intend to obtain deep images with the highest resolution - a challenge for ground-based optical telescopes due to the blurring effects of the atmosphere.

"The light-collecting power of a telescope is proportional to the square of its diameter. This means that with bigger telescopes, we can collect a lot more photons. More photons mean more information," Paliya said.

The Gran Telescopio Canarias, or the "Great Canary Telescope," is a 10.4-meter reflecting telescope that began gathering observations in 2007. Currently holding the title of the "world's largest single-aperture optical telescope," the Gran Telescopio Canarias is slated to be surpassed in the next decade with the unveiling of the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT). When finished, TMT will have a 30-meter primary mirror and will allow researchers to see outer space with unprecedented clarity - at least 10 times better than the Hubble Space Telescope.

Ajello and Paliya intend to use the Hubble Space Telescope, and potentially upcoming facilities like TMT, to peer beyond the bright centers of the seven sources they uncovered to distinguish with certainty whether the galaxies are elliptical or spiral.

"If it is an elliptical, then it's true that we are just looking at a normal blazar. It's probably a smaller elliptical and a smaller black hole," Ajello said. "But if it's a spiral, then the jets can happen in any environment that is a black hole, within some newfound conditions."

"It is of great importance to better understand the environments of super-massive black holes that are able to launch jets in which particle acceleration takes place under extreme astrophysical conditions," Hartmann added.

Paliya also intends to study whether the differences observed in gamma rays translate across the electromagnetic spectrum.

"This is all about optics," Paliya said. "How do blazars behave at, say, radio frequencies? Then, how do these Seyferts compare? This discovery has indicated that yes, something different is occurring."

The researchers said that discoveries such as these are important in helping us understand the evolution of the universe. These discoveries could represent some of the missing pieces of the puzzle of how galaxies and black holes have grown together throughout history.

Children present with unique needs, particularly in a disaster. One challenge is that children may be completely dependent on adults for their care. With this in mind, and considering the physical, psychological and legal needs of children during and after a disaster, a group of stakeholders devised the outline for an educational pre-disaster video for child daycare providers in Los Angeles County using the Delphi technique. The ultimate goal of the Delphi technique is to achieve an unbiased consensus among experts.

Save the Children Fund (Save the Children), Children's Hospital Los Angeles, a free standing level 1 pediatric trauma center, and the Los Angeles Children in Disasters Working Group (LA CID Working Group) collaborated to provide daycare providers a rubric for creating their own disaster plans.

The end result was the development of a 20-minute video containing key points in disaster planning for the daycare provider.

According to the corresponding author Dr. Rita Burke, "Planning for a disaster can be overwhelming, especially for day care providers who are charged with caring for our children. The Los Angeles Children in Disasters Working Group, identified the need and together with Children's Hospital Los Angeles and Save the Children, aimed to create a short video which helps day care providers think about the disaster planning process in a more manageable way. Our overarching goal in creating the video is to continue to build resilience in our nation for our children and future generations."

Athletes who suffer life-threatening heat stroke should be cooled on site before they are taken to the hospital, according to an expert panel's report published in the journal Prehospital Emergency Care.

The principle of "cool first, transport second" differs from the usual practice of calling 911 and getting to the hospital as soon as possible.

The article was published online Jan. 16, 2018.

"In the case of heat stroke, the definitive care is cooling, which may best be performed immediately onsite before transport," said Jolie C. Holschen, MD, FACEP, a Loyola Medicine emergency medicine physician and co-author of the expert panel's consensus statement. First author of the statement is Luke Beval, MS, of the Korey Stringer Institute at the University of Connecticut.

Exertional heat stroke is one of the most common causes of death in athletes. Although it can happen in cooler temperatures, it typically occurs in warm weather during events such as marathons and preseason football practices.

The athlete shows central nervous system disturbances such as confusion, irritability or irrational behavior, which may culminate in a collapse or loss of consciousness. There is a common misconception that the athlete will have stopped sweating, have hot skin or be unconscious, but none of these symptoms are required for heat stroke.

The Korey Stringer Institute organized a meeting of national experts in emergency medicine and sports medicine to identify best practices for treating exertional heat stroke in prehospital settings. The institute is named after a Minnesota Viking football player who died from heat stroke during a sweltering training camp.

The panel recommended rapidly cooling the body to less than 104.5 degrees F (the threshold for critical cell damage) within 30 minutes of the time of collapse. Cooling should end once the body temperature drops to about 101.5 degrees F.

The best cooling method is to immerse the athlete in a tub of cold water. If a tub isn't available, a tarp, shaped like a taco and filled with cold water, could be tried. (This is known as tarp-assisted cooling.) Less effective cooling methods include cold-water dousing, cold showers, fans and icepacks.

"Transportation of an exertional heat stroke patient should occur only if it is impossible to cool adequately onsite or after adequate cooling has been verified by a body temperature assessment," the expert panel wrote. If a patient cannot be cooled onsite, paramedics should try the most aggressive cooling methods possible in the ambulance, such as continuously applying cold wet towels.

The panel's paper is titled "Consensus Statement - Prehospital Care of Exertional Heat Stroke." The goal of the consensus statement is to raise awareness of the need to implement the most rapid method of cooling, and to do so immediately in the field when resources are available, Dr. Holschen said.

"When doctors serve in sporting events as medical directors and team physicians, they must be prepared to cool onsite," Dr. Holschen said. "We also want to give emergency medical services the leeway to cool the patient before transport, when superior cooling methods are available. EMS directors should build this into their protocols and standard operating procedures."

Dr. Holschen is an associate professor in the department of emergency medicine of Loyola University Chicago Stritch School of medicine. She is a fellow of the American College of Emergency Physicians and is board certified in emergency medicine and in the sports medicine subspecialty of emergency medicine.