Culture

SASKATOON - Tepary beans--a high protein legume common to the southwest United States and Mexico--may hold the key to adapting bean crops for the increasingly harsh conditions brought on by a changing climate, according to research led by University of Saskatchewan (USask) and Michigan State University.

In a study just published in Nature Communications, the researchers found that as the mercury rises to 27oC at night--a temperature devastating for current bean crops--specific genes sensitive to heat stress in the tepary bean get activated, protecting the plant.

"We are interested in tepary beans because they are very stress tolerant, unlike their cousin the common bean," said Dr. Kirstin Bett (PhD), professor of plant breeding and genetics at USask and one of the senior authors of the study.

By 2050, the major regions growing common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris L.)--the most important legume protein source for human consumption--may be unsuitable and the overall nutritional quality of the crop will likely be reduced.

"Tepary beans are an under-appreciated protein crop that are ideal for production in marginal environments due to their inherent tolerance of temperature stresses," said Bett.

The team sequenced the genome of the tepary bean (Phaseolus acutifolis A. Gray) to study how the legume adapts more effectively to fluctuating temperatures than its common bean cousin, and to combine traits of the two species into a more sustainable crop variety.

Having been part of Indigenous diets in regions such as northern Mexico, the southwest United States and Africa for centuries, the tepary bean has been valued for its ability to survive in arid environments. While the tepary bean can handle heat and dry, the researchers found it is less capable of surviving the threat of disease.

"Tepary beans have fewer disease resistance genes, perhaps because they are typically grown in arid climates where disease pressure has been less than in the wetter regions where common beans have been grown," said Bett.

"My group was responsible for the wild genome assembly and the comparative mapping work that shows the genome-level relationships between wild and cultivated tepary bean and common bean," said Bett. "This will help us better understand how to transfer traits between the two species. We are trying to increase the stress tolerance of the common bean by crossing with tepary bean and selecting for lines that are more tolerant to cold and drought."

In the future, researchers hope to be able to leverage this genetic information to improve the vitality of bean crops that must thrive in extreme temperatures or changing environments.

"We are continuing to try to develop tepary bean varieties that will grow here in Saskatchewan and in other dry areas of the world," Bett said.

(Boston)--Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) is a disease caused by cigarette smoking that reduces lung function and causes difficulty breathing. It is the third leading cause of death worldwide. Current treatments for COPD only affect symptoms, not progression. Identifying who is going to get COPD before they get it is key to figuring out how to intercept the disease at an early stage.

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) have identified a panel of genes that are active in smokers and ex-smokers who experience faster loss of lung function over time. They believe these genes could be useful to predict which people are most at risk for smoking-related decline in lung function.

"Our discovery that airway genes change before a rapid decline in lung function should give patients with COPD a lot of hope. A test like this could help doctors identify people at risk for COPD before they get it, and help scientists find new treatments to stop the disease before it gets worse," explained corresponding author Katrina Steiling, MD, MSc, assistant professor of medicine at BUSM.

Smoking, and diseases related to smoking, create changes throughout the airways and lungs. These changes can be detected using a procedure called a bronchoscopy, where a small flexible camera inserted through the nose or mouth is used to collect cells with brushes from the sides of the airways. The researchers tested airway brushings from 134 people who were current or former smokers. They found changes in the activity of specific genes in the people that went on to have more rapid worsening of their lung function several years after that initial airway brushing. Some of the genes were more active in the people who rapidly lost lung function while other genes were less active in these people.

According to the researchers, further study of these genes may provide clues as to what causes rapid lung function decline which could be used to develop to new treatments for preventing the development of COPD. "Being able to identify people most at risk for worsening lung function might also make clinical trials of COPD fighting medications easier, by enriching the trials testing new medications for people most likely to benefit from them," added co-author Beth Becker, PhD, a recent graduate from BU's bioinformatics program.

This study further shows another use for the 'airway field of injury' hypothesis. "Cigarette smoking causes changes to the cells in the lungs and airways. Because the changes in the airways are similar to those that occur deep inside the lung, testing the cells in the airways can be used to detect diseases deep within the lungs," added Marc Lenburg, PhD, professor of medicine and pathology and laboratory medicine at BUSM.

Researchers have mapped out the changes in metabolism that occur after a heart attack, publishing their findings today in the open-access eLife journal.

Their study in mice reveals certain genes and metabolic processes that could aid or hinder recovery, and might be good targets for treatments to prevent damage after a heart attack.

"Although some studies have looked at how changes in individual body tissues underlie mechanisms of disease, the crosstalk between different tissues and their dysregulation has not been examined in heart attacks or other cardiovascular-related complications," explains first author Muhammad Arif, a PhD student at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. "In this study, we performed an integrated analysis of heart and other metabolically active tissues using a mouse model of heart attack and used systems biology approaches to get a systematic picture of the metabolic changes that occur."

Systems biology has aided the discovery of new treatment approaches in multiple diseases. Rather than take systems apart and analyse the components, it involves taking measurements from different cells and tissues and using them to reproduce the system being studied. In this research, the team used a systems biology approach called co-expression networks (CNs) to reveal how the functions of genes in different tissues were linked together.

First, they measured the activity of all the genes in four tissue types: heart, fat, skeletal muscle and the liver in mice that had a heart attack. They compared these with the gene activity in mice that did not have a heart attack to generate sets of differentially expressed genes (DEGs) unique to each tissue. Next, in the co-expression network analysis, they looked at the top 5% of genes that were most strongly connected within the four different tissues. They then used the DEG results to see how those top 5% of genes were altered 24 hours after a heart attack.

They found key clusters of genes that were altered in different tissues after a heart attack. In the heart and muscle, the gene changes tended to be linked to energy production and muscle contraction. In the liver, the gene changes were related to fat transport and metabolism, and the metabolism of cell-protecting substances such as glutathione.

The team then used this information to build a multi-tissue model of the metabolic response to a heart attack and compared their results with other studies of heart tissue. They found that four genes were consistently altered across all studies. These genes are known to play roles in energy production, muscle contraction and protein production, and at least one of them is being explored as a drug target for cardiovascular disease.

Taken together, the results reveal a downregulation of heart-specific functions and upregulation of fat metabolism and inflammation in the heart, muscle and fat tissue after a heart attack. By contrast, the team saw a different response in the liver where inflammation was reduced.

"Our integrative analysis highlights both common and tissue-specific biological responses to a heart attack across a range of metabolically active tissues," concludes senior author Adil Mardinoglu, Professor of Systems Biology at KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, and King's College London, UK. "The approach demonstrates a way of using multi-tissue gene activity data to identify changes in biological processes and pathways and systematically explore the effects of a disease. This opens up new opportunities for future research into the pathways identified, and the potential to use a similar approach to understand other complex human diseases."

A new study from the University of Chicago has found that the photosynthetic bacterium Synechococcus elongatus uses a circadian clock to precisely time DNA replication, and that interrupting this circadian rhythm prevents replication from completing and leaves chromosomes unfinished overnight. The results, published online on May 10 in Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences, have implications for understanding how interrupted circadian rhythms can impact human health.

Circadian rhythms are the internal 24-hour clock possessed by most organisms on earth, regulating a diversity of biological functions including sleep/wake cycles, hormone production, digestion and body temperature. In humans, disruptions to the circadian rhythm -- such as working a shift-work job or experiencing frequent jet lag -- have been associated with an array of health problems, including obesity, cardiovascular and immune dysfunction, mood disorders and even cancer.

"In most species we've studied, if the circadian rhythm is disrupted or permanently changed, it's bad for the animal's health, but no one has really been able to explain what goes wrong if your clock is in the wrong state all the time," said senior author Michael Rust, PhD, Associate Professor of Molecular Genetics and Cell Biology at UChicago. "This cyanobacterial system is exciting because it gives us a chance to answer these mechanistic questions about how circadian rhythms are contributing to the health of an organism."

Despite the large evolutionary gap between humans and cyanobacteria, these tiny organisms can provide insights into critical cellular functions such as DNA replication. "The evidence suggests that circadian rhythms have evolved multiple times among different species, so there must be something very fundamental and important that's shared among these different species," said first author Yi Liao, a postdoctoral scholar in Rust's lab. "DNA replication is also a fundamental process, shared across species, which gave us a clue that it might be regulated by this clock."

The investigators were particularly interested in studying this process due to its lengthiness. "Some things are better to do during the day, like photosynthesis, while others are better at night, like fixing nitrogen," said Rust. "But DNA replication takes three to four hours to replicate the entire genome, so there's a fundamental need to predict the future. You commit to doing this thing and you don't know what the conditions will be like a few hours later. It seemed like maybe this process would use circadian rhythms to 'predict' the right time to start replication to ensure that it finishes during an optimal window of time."

Combining time-lapse fluorescent microscopy, mathematical modeling, molecular genetics and biochemical approaches, Liao and Rust were able to track DNA replication initiation, completion, and failures in bacteria exposed to different illumination patterns, including constant light, normal light/dark cycles and cycles with unexpected periods of darkness.

They found that the circadian clock creates rhythms in DNA replication even in the absence of environmental cues, such as the rising and setting sun. DNA replication typically begins when the clock state corresponds to the morning, and is suppressed when the clock predicts the arrival of night. However, when the internal clock of the bacteria predicts morning but the external environment unexpectedly becomes dark, ongoing replication can't be completed; the replication machinery disassembles, leaving cells with incomplete chromosomes.

"Many things are regulated by the circadian clock, but it is striking that it matters so much for DNA replication," said Rust. "If the clock is in the wrong state, it's the difference between completing the replication event, or the replication machinery falling apart completely."

These results, Liao says, open up even more questions. "What is the fate of these unfinished chromosomes? Does this lead to mutations?" he said. "Maybe this is a major driving force in the evolution of the circadian clock -- you want to avoid damaged DNA and unfinished chromosomes, so the clock has evolved multiple times in history to prevent those things from happening."

In a post-Industrial Revolution society, surrounded by artificial lights that can be turned on and off at will, these results could have implications for how circadian rhythms impact human health and why extensive disruptions can be so damaging.

"One question that we still need to answer is whether or not this failure to complete DNA replication leads to mutation and genomic instability," said Rust. "Organisms may experience unexpected darkness on occasion, but their clocks get very strong signals from the cycle of the sun rising and setting. In humans, where we can control the illumination of our environment and ignore the sun, we know there are changes in the circadian rhythm and we know it causes problems, but it's not clear where those problems come from. We're trying to put our finger on a molecular mechanism for what might be the biggest problem if your circadian clock is in the wrong state."

Argonne scientists across several disciplines have combined forces to create a new process for testing and predicting the effects of high temperatures on refractory oxides.

Cast iron melts at around 1,200 degrees Celsius. Stainless steel melts at around 1,520 degrees Celsius. If you want to shape these materials into everyday objects, like the skillet in your kitchen or the surgical tools used by doctors, it stands to reason that you would need to create furnaces and molds out of something that can withstand even these extreme temperatures.

That’s where refractory oxides come in. These ceramic materials can stand up to blistering heat and retain their shape, which makes them useful for all kinds of things, from kilns and nuclear reactors to the heat-shielding tiles on spacecraft. But considering the often-dangerous environments in which these materials are used, scientists want to understand as much as they can about what happens to them at high temperatures, before components built from those materials encounter those temperatures in the real world.

“I’m not saying humans aren’t great, but if we get help from computers and software, we can be greater. It opens the door for more experiments like this that advance science.” — Marius Stan, program lead, Intelligent Materials Design, Argonne

A team of researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has come up with a way to do just that. Using innovative experimental techniques and a new approach to computer simulations, the group has devised a method of not only obtaining precise data about the structural changes these materials undergo near their melting points, but more accurately predicting other changes that can’t currently be measured.

The team’s work has been published in Physical Review Letters.

The seed of this collaboration was planted by Marius Stan, leader of the Intelligent Materials Design program in Argonne’s Applied Materials division. Stan’s group had developed plenty of models and simulations about the melting points of refractory oxides, but he wanted to test them out.

“It’s rooted in the desire to see if our mathematical models and simulations represent reality or not,” Stan said. “But it has evolved into a study of machine learning. What I find most exciting is that there is now a way for us to predict interactions between atoms automatically.”

That innovation began by flipping a familiar script, according to Ganesh Sivaraman, lead author on the paper and an assistant computational scientist with the Data Science and Learning division at Argonne. He performed this work while he was a postdoctoral appointee at the Argonne Leadership Computing Facility (ALCF), a DOE Office of Science User Facility.

While most experiments begin with a theoretical model — basically, an informed and educated guess at what will happen under real-life conditions — the team wanted to start this one with experimental data and design their models around that.

Sivaraman tells a story about a famous German mathematician who wanted to learn how to swim, so he picked up a book and read about it. Creating theories without considering the experimental data, Sivaraman said, is like reading a book about swimming without ever getting into a pool. And the Argonne team wanted to jump in at the deep end.

“It’s more accurate to build a model around experimental data,” Sivaraman said. “It brings the model closer to reality.”

To obtain that data, the computational scientists partnered up with physicist Chris Benmore and assistant physicist Leighanne Gallington of Argonne’s X-ray Science Division. Benmore and Gallington work at the Advanced Photon Source (APS), a DOE Office of Science User Facility at Argonne, which generates very bright X-ray beams to illuminate the structures of materials, among other things. The beamline they used for this experiment allows them to examine the local and long-range structure of materials at extreme conditions, such as high temperatures.

Of course, heating up refractory oxides — in this case, hafnium dioxide, which melts at around 2,870 degrees Celsius — comes with its own complications. Ordinarily, the sample would be in a container, but there isn’t one available that would withstand those temperatures and still allow the X-rays to pass through them. And you can’t even rest the sample on a table, because the table will melt before the sample does.

The solution is called aerodynamic levitation and involves scientists using gas to suspend a small (2-3 mm in diameter) spherical sample of material about a millimeter in the air.

View related video here.

“We have a nozzle connected to a flow of inert gas, and as it suspends the sample, a 400-watt laser heats the material from above,” Gallington said. “You need to tinker with the gas flow to get it to levitate stably. You don’t want it too low, because the sample will touch the nozzle, and might melt to it.”

Once the data were taken and beamline scientists had a good understanding of some of what happens when hafnium oxide melts, the computer scientists took the ball and ran with it. Sivaraman fed the data into two sets of machine learning algorithms, one of them that understands the theory and can make predictions, and another — an active learning algorithm — that acts as a teaching assistant, only giving the first one the most interesting data to work with.

“Active learning helps other kinds of machine learning to learn with fewer data,” Sivaraman explained. “Say you want to walk from your house to the market. There may be many ways to get there, but you only need to know the shortest path. Active learning will point out the shortest way and filter out the others.”

Computations were run on supercomputers at the ALCF and the Laboratory Computing Resource Center at Argonne. What the team ended up with is a computer-generated model based on real-life data, one that allows them to predict things the experimentalists didn’t — or couldn’t — capture.

“We have what is called a multi-phase potential, and it can predict a lot of things,” Benmore said. “We can now go ahead and give you other parameters, such as how well it retains its shape at high temperatures, which we did not measure. We can extrapolate what would happen if we go beyond the temperature we can reach.”

“The model is only as good as the data you give it, and the more you give it the better it becomes,” Benmore added. “We give as much information as we can, and the model becomes better.”

Sivaraman describes this work as a proof of concept, one that can feed back into further experiments. It’s a nice example, he said, of collaboration between different parts of Argonne, and of research that could not be done without the resources of a national laboratory.

“We will repeat this experiment on other materials,” Sivaraman said. “Our APS colleagues have the infrastructure to study how these materials melt at extreme conditions, and we are working with computer scientists to build the software and streaming infrastructure to rapidly process these datasets at scale. We can incorporate active learning into the framework and teach models to more efficiently process the data stream using ALCF supercomputers.”

For Stan, the proof of concept is one that may replace the necessary tedium of people working out these precise calculations. He has watched this technology evolve during his career, and now what once took months only takes a few days.

“I’m not saying humans aren’t great,” he chuckled, “but if we get help from computers and software, we can be greater. It opens the door for more experiments like this that advance science.”

May 11, 2021 - Like other medical specialties at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, orthopaedic surgery rapidly pivoted from in-person visits to remote appointments via telemedicine. Analysis of that initial experience finds that some groups of patients faced persistent or worsening disparities as the shift to telemedicine occurred, reports Clinical Orthopaedics and Related Research® (CORR®), a publication of The Association of Bone and Joint Surgeons®. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

"We found concerning disparities in access to orthopaedic care via telemedicine for patients, and we observed that those disparities were associated with race or ethnicity, primary language, and insurance status," according to the new report, led by Andrew J. Schoenfeld, MD, MSc, of Harvard Medical School.

Can telemedicine 'mitigate rather than exacerbate healthcare disparities'?

Telemedicine has the potential to improve healthcare access for hard-to-reach populations. But there are concerns that growing reliance on telemedicine might perpetuate or even worsen existing healthcare disparities - for example, adding new barriers for non-English speakers or people without computers and high-speed internet.

Dr. Schoenfeld's team studied these disparities by evaluating nearly 2,000 patients' experiences getting orthopaedic care via telemedicine at two Boston medical centers early in the pandemic, from March to May 2020, and comparing them to the experience of nearly 10,000 orthopaedic patients who had in-person visits during those same months in the year prior to COVID-19.

The telemedicine patients were slightly younger than those making in-person visits the previous year (average 56 versus 59 years). In analyses adjusting for this and other differences, disparities remained significant in three areas:

Race/ethnicity. The odds that a Hispanic patient would be seen by telemedicine during the pandemic was 41 percent lower than that of a white patient, and the odds that an Asian patient would be seen via telemedicine was 27 percent lower than those of a white patient.

Language. Patients whose primary language was not English or Spanish had one-third the odds of making a telemedicine visit than did an English-language speaker. There was no difference in the rate of telemedicine visits for Spanish versus English speakers.

Insurance. The odds of a patient with Medicaid coverage receiving a telemedicine evaluation during the early months of the pandemic were 13 percent lower than that of a patient with commercial insurance.

Dr. Schoenfeld's team proposed measures to help ensure access to telemedicine systems: targeting minority and low-income communities, addressing the needs of patients who lack computer access, ensuring that telemedicine is eligible for reimbursement, and providing expanded hours and interpreter services for telemedicine visits.

In an accompanying 'Take 5' interview, Dr. Schoenfeld and CORR® Editor-in-Chief Seth S. Leopold, MD agree that telemedicine will remain part of the healthcare landscape long after the pandemic is over. "I would hope that we can find ways to use new tools to mitigate, rather than exacerbate, healthcare disparities," Dr. Leopold writes.

When it comes to developing and ensuring equitable access to telemedicine systems, "I think the onus is on the healthcare organizations, not civic government," says Dr. Schoenfeld. He adds: "The funding, advertising, and infrastructure to support this would ideally come from the healthcare organization itself, who could partner with leaders, grassroots organizations, and community stakeholders to ensure members of the community are aware of telemedicine and have the ability to access the technology."

A new approach to road safety that relies on design and engineering principles--the "Safe System" approach--could lead to dramatic reductions in vehicle-related deaths and injuries if implemented in the U.S., according to a report from a consortium of experts convened by researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Institute of Transportation Engineers.

The Safe System approach engineers road systems so that they are safe when used intuitively, the way people tend to use them. A Safe System minimizes the chances for mistakes by drivers, pedestrians, and bicyclists, and reduces the intensity of crashes when they do occur. This approach--which may include the use of roundabouts, separated bike lanes, rumble strips, and other measures--has already been applied successfully in several other countries. In Sweden, where the approach was first implemented, road deaths fell by about 67 percent from 1990 to 2017.

The report's authors advocate that the Safe System approach can improve road safety equity if it is implemented in ways that close the safety gap between well-served and historically underserved communities.

According to the National Safety Council, highway deaths increased 8% last year over the previous year even though people were driving considerably less, with an estimated 42,000 deaths in motor vehicle crashes and 4.8 million injuries. Since 2009, the traffic death rate has remained relatively steady at about 11 deaths per 100,000 population, and crashes have persisted as the leading cause of death among young people. The rate of traffic deaths in the U.S. declined sharply between the 1960s and 1990, largely as a result of the car safety revolution.

The report, "Recommendations of the Safe System Consortium," was released on May 11. The Safe System Consortium, a group of more than two dozen leading highway engineers, scientists, and public health professionals, convened earlier this year to reimagine road safety and equity in this country, as a new presidential administration got underway.

"With this report, we're encouraging policymakers to adopt what would be a paradigm shift in the approach to road safety in the U.S., with the potential to dramatically reduce the vehicle-related injuries and deaths that we've been seeing on a daily basis," says co-author Shannon Frattaroli, PhD, associate professor in the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Bloomberg School and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy.

"We see the Safe System approach as a way of engineering safety into the road system--making safety natural and intuitive for those who use the roads, so that the way they'll feel most comfortable driving or walking is the safest way," says co-author Jeffrey Michael, EdD, a former senior official at the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration who is now a Distinguished Scholar in the Department of Health Policy and Management and the Leon S. Robertson Faculty Development Chair in Injury Prevention at the Bloomberg School.

The traditional strategy for road safety in the U.S., the authors note, puts much of the burden of responsibility on the people driving, walking, or cycling on the roads. By contrast, the Safe System approach is designed to place a greater burden on the design of roads and vehicles.

"[N]ormal human lapses in judgment or diligence are expected, and roads are configured so that such errors do not lead to death or serious injury," the co-authors write. "Even with a forgiving design, crashes will occur in a Safe System, so roads are designed to limit crash forces to survivable levels."

Specific design changes in a Safe System include:

Lane reductions, on some multi-lane roads where pedestrians and bicyclists are present, that help slow vehicles and give drivers more time to react

Flashing beacons that alert drivers to pedestrian crosswalks

Roundabouts that slow traffic through dangerous intersections and prevent deadly side-impact collisions

Median barriers that, when used on some rural divided highways, reduce head-on collisions

As the authors of the report note, studies of Safe System measures indicate that they lead to dramatic drops in traffic deaths--for example, a roughly 80 percent reduction in severe crashes after the installation of roundabouts, and a 97 percent reduction in high-energy, head-on collisions with median barriers.

Overall, the Safe System approach has been linked to substantial traffic fatality reductions. Countries that adopted the approach in the 1990s show large drops in deaths between 1990 and 2017--with a 47 percent reduction in Australia, 48 percent reduction in New Zealand, 80 percent reduction in Spain, and 67 percent reduction in Sweden.

One of the Biden Administration's clearest priorities is to redress a history of underinvestment in road safety in communities of color, and the authors recommend that the Safe System approach be used to do this.

"Some communities currently have much more than their share of exposure to traffic-related hazards, due to larger thoroughfares going through their neighborhoods, for example, and/or fewer safety measures," Michael says. "It's how our transportation system developed over the years--but we now have an opportunity to change our approach."

The report's recommendations include requiring that Safe System principles be followed when federal funds are used for road design and operation, and setting up special programs to implement Safe System measures in historically underserved communities.

Amsterdam, May 11, 2021 - It is projected that up to 152 million people worldwide will be living with Alzheimer's disease (AD) by 2050. To date there are no drugs that have a substantial positive impact on either the prevention or reversal of cognitive decline. A growing body of evidence finds that targeting lifestyle and vascular risk factors have a beneficial effect on overall cognitive performance. A new review in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease, published by IOS Press, examines research that finds spiritual fitness, a new concept in medicine that centers on psychological and spiritual wellbeing, and Kirtan Kriya, a simple 12-minute meditative practice, may reduce multiple risk factors for AD.

"The key point of this review is that making a commitment to a brain longevity lifestyle, including spiritual fitness, is a critically important way for aging Alzheimer's disease free," explain authors Dharma Singh Khalsa, MD, Alzheimer's Research and Prevention Foundation, Tucson, AZ, USA, and Andrew B. Newberg, MD, Department of Integrative Medicine and Nutritional Sciences, Department of Radiology, Marcus Institute of Integrative Health, Thomas Jefferson University, Philadelphia, PA, USA. "We hope this article will inspire scientists, clinicians, and patients to embrace this new concept of spiritual fitness and make it a part of every multidomain program for the prevention of cognitive disability."

Research reveals that religious and spiritual involvement can preserve cognitive function as we age. The authors observe that today, spirituality is often experienced outside the context of an organized religion and may be part of every religion or separate to it. Spiritual fitness is a new dimension in AD prevention, interweaving basic, psychological and spiritual wellbeing. The authors discuss the research on how these factors affect brain function and cognition. For example, psychological wellbeing may reduce inflammation, cardiovascular disease, and disability. Significantly, individuals who have a high score on a "purpose in life" (PIL) measure, a component of psychological wellbeing, were 2.4 times more likely to remain free of AD than individuals with low PIL. In another study, participants who reported higher levels of PIL exhibited better cognitive function, and further, PIL protected those with already existing pathological conditions, thus slowing their decline.

Stress and stress management are under-discussed topics in AD prevention, yet the authors point out that there is ample evidence that physical, psychological, and emotional effects of stress may elevate AD risk. Kirtan Kriya (KK) is a 12-minute singing meditation that involves four sounds, breathing, and repetitive finger movements. It has multiple documented effects on stress, such as improving sleep, decreasing depression, and increasing wellbeing. It has also been found to increase blood flow to areas of the brain involved in cognition and emotional regulation and increases grey matter volume and decreases ventricular size in long-term practitioners, which may slow brain aging. Research in healthy individuals, caregivers, and those with cognitive decline found that the practice improves cognition, slows memory loss, and improves mood.

The overall relationship between spiritual fitness and a person's complete physical and mental health is a topic of investigation in the emerging field of study called neurotheology. Early work has focused on the development of models regarding which brain areas are affected through spiritual practices such as meditation or prayer. Over the last 20 years, there has been an extensive growth in neuroimaging and other physiological studies evaluating the effect of meditation, spiritual practices, and mystical experiences. A neuroimaging study of KK found long term brain effects, during meditation and afterwards. Neurotheological studies can help understanding of how a practice such as KK can lead to more permanent effects in brain function that support spiritual fitness, according to Dr. Khalsa and Dr. Newberg.

"Mitigating the extensive negative biochemical effects of stress with meditation practices, in tandem with the creation of heightened levels of spiritual fitness, may help lower the risk of AD. Small shifts in one's daily routine can make all the difference in AD prevention," Dr. Khalsa and Dr. Newberg conclude. "We are optimistic this article will inspire future research on the topic of spiritual fitness and AD."

Study Take-Aways:

Different African populations were genetically interrelated suggesting abundant gene flow across Africa such that all African population should be considered together as single subspecies.

There appeared a striking genomic distance between leopards living in Asia vs. leopards in Africa.

Asian leopards are more genetically separated from African leopards than brown bear species are from polar bear species, the researchers found.

The two leopard groups actually diverged around the same time as Neanderthals split apart from modern humans.

The genetic differences between African and Asian leopards have been maintained since 500,000 to 600,000 years ago. Asian leopards retain markedly less overall genetic variation than is seen in African leopards.

FORT LAUDERDALE/DAVIE, Fla. - They are some of the most beautiful, and elusive, animals on the plant. Leopards.

These majestic animals are the only great cat species (Genus Panthera) to roam about both Africa and Asia today. Leopards are considered as highly vulnerable, classified by the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES). Because of their elusive nature, and their adaptation to multiple landscapes (rain forest, savannah, deserts and mountain sides) an accurate estimation of their global census has not been possible.

In a major scientific step to reconstruct the evolutionary history plus their conservation status, the whole genome DNA sequence of 23 individual leopards sampled from eight geographically separated subspecies locales were interpreted using the latest technologies of population ecology and molecular evolution. Ancient DNA sequences for 18 archival specimens along with 5 living leopards were combined to refine our understanding of the leopard's movements, population reductions, divergence and isolation, and over the past half million years.

The new study was published today in Current Biology.

An international team involving scientists from Nova Southeastern University (NSU), Nottingham Trent University, the University of Cambridge, University of Leicester in U.K. and the University of Potsdam in Germany carried out genetic analysis of modern and historical specimens stored in natural history museums as part of the study.

"This study changes everything about genetic contributions to conservation management of the world's leopards, particularly the highly threatened Amur leopard," said Stephen J. O'Brien, Ph.D., a professor and research scientist in NSU's Halmos College of Arts and Sciences, who is a collaborating author and also led the genetic analyses the Florida panther restoration two decades ago.

O'Brien, is also the Chief Scientific Officer at the Theodosius Dobzhansky Center for Genome Bioinformatics, St. Petersburg State University, Russia, and is a member of the National Academy of Sciences.

Genetic distinctiveness of nine previously suggested subspecies was re-affirmed with increased precision. Different African populations were genetically interrelated suggesting abundant gene flow across Africa such that all African populations should be considered together as a single subspecies. By contrast Asian leopard populations were geographically distinct along ten prior recognized subspecies boundaries.

There appeared a striking genomic distance between leopards living in Asia vs. leopards in Africa. Asian leopards are more genetically separated from African leopards than brown bear species are from polar bear species, the researchers found. The two leopard groups actually diverged around the same time as Neanderthals split apart from modern humans. The genetic differences between African and Asian leopards have been maintained since 500,000 to 600,000 years ago. Asian leopards retain markedly less overall genetic variation than is seen in African leopards.

"While they both have spots, the African and Asian leopards are quite different when looking at their DNA, said Johanna Paijmans, Ph.D., lead author, Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge and Honorary Fellow at the University of Leicester. "Given their mobility, it is surprising that they have remained so distinct and do not carry more shared genetic material with one another. Our study demonstrates that many more exciting genetic discoveries could be hidden among the shelves of natural history museums around the world."

The simplest explanation for both low Asian diversity and this large genetic difference may involve an origin for all leopards in Africa, with a single founding "out of Africa" migration to Asia occurring 500,000 - 600,000 years ago. Evidence of subsequent additional northern migrations were not detected, perhaps because the Asian habitats were protected by behavioural reinforcement, a term used to describe the blocking of immigrants across a narrow migration corridor. For example, a similar pattern had occurred with puma/cougar population migrations to North America from South American isthmus 1-12,000 years ago.

The depletion of genetic diversity observed in Asian leopard subspecies extends to the extreme in the critically endangered Amur leopard ( Panthera pardi orientalis ). Amur leopards comprise a tiny relict subspecies living on the edge of extinction in the Primorsky Krai region of the Russian Far East-RFE, along the North Chinese border. The Amur leopard population has dropped below 60 individuals and is now showing congenital traits that derive from close inbreeding. Conservation organizations in the RFE are proposing a genetic restoration of re-introduction of Amur leopards to Ussurijsky and Lazovsky Nature Reserves in the RFE (similar to what was successful for the Florida Panther restoration 15 years ago to augment the struggling wild population). The new Amur leopard genomic diversity data shall form a baseline for monitor of Amur leopard re-introduction consequences.

"Despite the fact that they the most widely distributed big cats, the evolutionary development and population history of leopards across Africa and Asia has not been studied with genomic tools before now," said Axel Barlow, Ph.D., an expert in palaeogenomics and molecular bioscience in Nottingham Trent University's School of Science and Technology. "Our results have highlighted marked genetic differences between African and Asian leopards, that Asian leopards originated from a single out-of-Africa dispersal event, and that the distinctiveness of leopards on the two continents has been maintained."

It took an unlikely food innovation -- earth-friendly vegetarian patties, made to taste and "bleed" like the familiar meaty ones -- to make people aware of heme.

But heme is an essential part of proteins found in most life forms, from tiny bacteria to soy plants to the human body. Heme plays a crucial role in supplying cells with the energy needed to carry out chemical reactions.

In human cells, iron-containing heme is the essential cofactor of two types of molecules. One is the hemoglobin molecules that bind oxygen in the lungs and ferry it around the body. More than half the heme in the body is in hemoglobin, but some of the rest is in the hemeproteins called cytochromes.

New research from Washington University in St. Louis in the journal eLife shows how animals and bacteria differ in the enzyme they use to attach heme to the cytochrome. Spotting variations in how this "cytochrome c synthase" works would help to find compounds that deactivate the enzyme in bacteria, but not in humans. The results of this study demonstrate that the bacterial cytochrome c synthase could be a promising target for new antibiotics.

However, studying cytochrome c synthase in living cells is challenging.

"We took purified CcsBA [a protein for making cytochrome in bacteria] and purified human HCCS and, with an assay in a test tube, attached the heme to the cyt c or cyt c peptides," said Robert Kranz, professor of biology in Arts & Sciences and senior author of the new paper. "This allows us to say what each (CcsBA and human HCCS) recognizes on the cytochrome to attach the heme. It further shows that the peptides can inhibit attachment to the cytochrome by HCCS.

"No one else has purified CcsBA or human HCCS, or analyzed the reaction in vitro," Kranz said.

In addition to this first-of-its-kind research, Kranz led the group of Washington University scientists that previously discovered how the vital but vulnerable heme molecule is shuttled across cell membranes for cytochrome synthesis.

For the new work, the scientists examined in detail which structures the enzymes recognize to attach the heme onto their cytochrome target. Their experiments revealed that human and bacterial synthases actually rely on different parts of the cytochrome c to orient themselves. Different short compounds could block either the human or bacterial enzyme.

Variations between human and bacterial cytochrome c synthase could lead to new antibiotics that prevent cytochrome assembly and kill bacteria while sparing patients. A provisional patent application has been filed for the process by the Washington University Office of Technology Management.

"The project represents seven years of effort," said Molly C. Sutherland, one of three co-first authors of the paper, who is now an assistant professor of biological sciences at the University of Delaware. Sutherland said that she and co-authors Shalon E. Babbitt and Deanna L. Mendez were able to "work collaboratively, bring individual expertise and build off each other's results.

"This combined effort -- along with some talented undergrads! -- is the reason that we were able to analyze the human and bacterial holocytochrome c synthases at such a detailed level," Sutherland said.

Heme helps ferry oxygen throughout the body, carries iron and colors blood red. For most humans, the majority of the heme we consume comes from animals.

But plants also make heme. Plants use CcsBA in their chloroplasts -- the organelle that conducts photosynthesis -- and they cannot grow without cytochrome proteins. Because of this dependency, Kranz and his team are also looking at how they could block cytochrome processes in plants to build smarter herbicides.

Which bring us back to the heme in those veggie burgers. The company Impossible Foods discovered that heme in red meats catalyze (during cooking) many of the reactions that form the tasty flavors that meat-loving humans crave. A question raised by some at that time was whether heme -- as an added "magic" ingredient -- was safe. But because all plants have heme, humans ingest it every day -- even vegetarians. It is just at higher concentrations in red meat.

"Heme has been consumed by humans and other animals for a long time with no issues," Kranz told Business Insider at the height of the Impossible Burger craze.

So whether functioning as the magic ingredient in plant-based burgers or as an essential co-factor for cytochromes and hemoglobins, being able to control processes that use heme will lead to advances in health and agriculture. The potential use in new antibiotics is perhaps the most exciting for Kranz and his team.

"Now, we see how we might be able to target heme to starve bacteria by cutting off their energy sources," Kranz said. "The next step is to identify the molecules that specifically interfere with cytochrome synthase in bacteria."

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Two groups of researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have published papers on the droplets of liquid sprayed by coughs or sneezes and how far they can travel under different conditions.

Both teams used Sandia's decades of experience with advanced computer simulations studying how liquids and gases move for its nuclear stockpile stewardship mission.

Their findings reinforce the importance of wearing masks, maintaining social distancing, avoiding poorly ventilated indoor spaces and washing your hands frequently, especially with the emergence of new, more transmissible variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

One study used Sandia-developed high-performance computer simulation tools to model coughing with and without a breeze and with and without protective barriers. This work was recently published in the scientific journal Atomization and Sprays.

Stefan Domino, the lead computer scientist on the paper, said his team found that while protective barriers, such as plexiglass partitions in grocery stores, offer protection from larger droplets, very tiny particles can persist in the air for an extended time and travel some distance depending on the environmental conditions.

Separate computer modeling research at Sandia looked at what happens to the smaller aerosol droplets under different conditions, including when a person is wearing a face covering. That study showed that face masks and shields keep even the small droplets from a cough from dispersing great distances, said researcher Cliff Ho, who is leading that effort. This work was published in the journal Applied Mathematical Modelling on Feb. 24.

Simulating coughs shows persistent particles

In simulations run by Domino's team through Sandia's high-performance computers, larger droplets from a cough with no crosswind and no face coverings fell at most approximately three meters, or roughly nine feet away. They also found that the dry "droplet nuclei," or aerosols, left over after the liquid evaporates from a droplet traveled about the same distance but stuck around in the air for the two minutes they modeled.

Add a plexiglass partition into the mix, and their computer simulations showed that larger droplets cling to the barrier, which mitigates the risk of direct transmission, but the smaller droplet nuclei persist in the air, Domino said.

When they added a 10-meter-per-second breeze from the back to the simulation without a barrier, the larger droplets traveled up to 11 1/2 feet and the droplet nuclei traveled farther.

This study does not call into question the social-distancing standard of 6 feet recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designed to prevent direct contact from the majority of larger droplets. In a typical cough from an infected person, roughly 35% of the droplets might have the virus present, but models of how much SARS-CoV-2 and its variants are needed to infect another person are still being developed, Domino said.

"A recent review paper on the transmission of SARS-CoV-2 that appeared in the Annals of Internal Medicine suggests that respiratory transmission is the dominant route for transmission. As such, we feel that establishing a credible modeling and simulation tool to model transport of pathogen-containing droplets emanating from coughs and how they persist in public spaces that we all inhabit represents a critical piece of the required science," he said. Partitions, masks, social distancing, staying home when feeling unwell and getting vaccinated are still important to help cut down transmission, especially with the new more transmissible variants.

Domino also conducted computer modeling of outdoor open spaces and found that standing people exposed to a cough from someone in a kneeling position had relatively low risk of exposure compared to people who were seated. This was because of how the droplets and aerosols interact with the complex breezes that move around people. This work was published in the International Journal of Computational Fluid Dynamics on April 1. Domino's simulations used over four million hours of computer processing time and were run on many computer processors at the same time.

Simulations support social distancing, masks

Ho used a commercially available fluid dynamics computer model to simulate various events that expel moist fluid, such as coughing, sneezing, talking and even breathing, to understand how they affect transport and transmission of airborne pathogens. He assumed that viral pathogens were aerosolized in tiny droplets and that the pathogen distribution and concentration could be represented by the concentration of the simulated exhaled vapor.

"I introduced spatial and temporal concentrations into the modeling to develop quantified risks of exposure based on separation distance, exposure duration and environmental conditions, such as airflow and face coverings," said Ho. "I could then determine the probability of infection based on spatial and temporal aerosol concentrations, viral load, infectivity rate, viral viability, lung-deposition probability and inhalation rate."

The model also confirmed that wearing a face mask or face shield significantly reduced the forward travel of exhaled vapor and exposure risk by about tenfold. However, the vapor concentrations near the face persisted longer than without face coverings.

Overall, the model showed that social distancing significantly reduced the exposure risk from aerosols by at least tenfold and allowed time for dilution and dispersion of the exhaled viral plume. Other models quantified the degree that being upwind or crosswind of the source of the cough reduced exposure risks, and the degree being directly downwind of the cough increased exposure risks.

The exposure risks decreased with increasing distance, but the greatest increase in benefit was at three feet. Ho's models also quantified the degree that wearing a mask reduces exposure risks at various distances.

In short, the computer modeling confirmed the importance of social distancing and wearing masks. In addition, staying upwind and increasing fresh air ventilation in places like grocery stores, restaurants and schools can help to reduce the exposure risk.

Ho also conducted computer modeling of school buses and found that opening windows on school buses increased ventilation and reduced exposure risks. Specifically, to achieve sufficient ventilation, at least two sets of windows should be opened, one near the front of the bus and one near the back of the bus.

Sandia's stockpile stewardship work aids simulations

Sandia researchers were able to apply many of the same computational tools used in their nuclear stockpile stewardship mission to simulate droplets from coughs and sneezes, as well as Sandia's advanced high-performance computing resources. For the nuclear deterrence mission, these tools study such things as how turbulent jets, plumes and propellent fires react in different conditions.

"We can deploy our simulation tool capability to other applications," Domino said. "If you look at the physics of a cough or a sneeze, it includes attributes of these physics that we normally study at Sandia. We can simulate the trajectory of droplets and how they interact in the environment."

Those environmental conditions can include variables, such as temperature, humidity, launch trajectory, and crosswind strength and direction. They can also include natural and manmade barriers.

Along with studies done by others on cough spray, Sandia's computer-simulation capabilities add the value of seeing how droplets from a cough will react to different conditions. Sandia's simulation tools combine the mass, momentum and energy of the droplets to capture detailed evaporation physics that support the ability to distinguish between droplets that deposit and those that persist in the environment.

Trinity study finds people homeless in their 20s, 30s and 40s are physically comparable to those housed in their 70s and 80s

A Trinity College study published today (Monday, 10th May 2021) demonstrates an extremely high burden of physical and mobility problems experienced by people who are homeless and were admitted for inpatient care to an acute hospital in Dublin. The study found that only one third of participants could climb a hospital stairs and there was a very common presentation of geriatric conditions such as frailty, falls and needing a mobility aid on a long term basis, despite a low median participant age of 45 years.

The study is published in the journal Scientific Reports here: http://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-021-88590-0

Overall the study provided visible evidence of accelerated physical ageing among this cohort relative to the general population with participants, (all homeless and mostly using hostel accommodation or rough sleeping) in their 20s, 30s and 40s experiencing poor physical status and geriatric syndromes comparable to housed individuals in their 70s or 80s years.

It is commonly accepted that adults who are homeless experience poor health and frequently require hospital in-patient care. The objective of this study however was to evaluate a broad range of physical functioning variables to enable better future planning of targeted health and accommodation services for this group.

Uniquely this study collectively evaluated this group using a broad range of robust physical functioning measures, including lower extremity physical function, falls risk, functional capacity, stair climbing ability, frailty, fitness and grip strength. Notably, many participants were unable to even complete the simple physical tests due to pain or not feeling well enough.

The study of 65 people, (32.3% female, 66.7% male) was carried out in St James's Hospital and initiated by the Physiotherapy Department, Trinity College and Inclusion Health Team at St James's Hospital. It was conducted by Sinead Kiernan, Department of Physiotherapy St. James's Hospital and Researcher Discipline of Physiotherapy, Trinity and first author and led by Dr Cliona Ní Cheallaigh, Lead Inclusion Health Service, St. James's Hospital and School of Medicine Trinity College.

Most participants (64.0%) utilized hostel accommodation or were rough sleepers (17%). It was previously noted that people who are homeless tend to present more often for unscheduled care - such as presenting to the emergency department much more commonly than those who are stably housed. Some will need to be admitted to hospital for further care - and this cohort can constitute a substantial proportion of inpatients in many acute hospitals at any one time. Some of these patients were referred to physiotherapy and appeared to have very low levels of mobility but the physical characteristics of this vulnerable group were not well known.

KEY FINDINGS

- The majority (83%) of participants had mobility problems.

- Over half (54%) of this cohort experienced at least 1 fall in the previous 6 months.

- Only 31% could attempt to climb one flight of stairs.

- Only 38% could walk for 6 minutes.

- The majority of participants (70.5%) were frail or pre-frail.

- One quarter (25%) displayed extremely poor balance

Dr. Julie Broderick, Principal Investigator and Assistant Professor, Discipline of Physiotherapy, Trinity College said:

"In our study we found that general physical and mobility levels of participants who were homeless in their 20s, 30s and 40s were comparable to levels we would expect to see among stably housed people in their 70s or 80s, this is visible evidence of accelerated physical ageing among this cohort. The huge physical burden experienced by this group who mostly utilised hostels or were rough sleepers is concerning. As well as other complex needs, mobility levels, strength and fitness need to be targeted in this group to prevent further deterioration. Falls prevention strategies are also necessary. Accommodation services for people who are homeless need to be suitable and accessible for people with low mobility levels."

RECOMMENDATIONS

It is established that many people who are homeless experience problems associated with addiction and mental health complexities, but physical and mobility limitations also deserve greater consideration. The Trinity research team propose that medical and rehabilitation services are needed to target these limitations as some may be reversible with appropriate physiotherapy provision. Physiotherapy and other physical rehabilitation services are a priority for this group.

Appropriate community and outreach services are also necessary as it is likely that ongoing support will be needed after discharge from hospital. Specific community-based onward referral services are also required.

And finally, the research team recommends that housing policy should respond to the physical health needs of people who are homeless along with housing and accommodation services that are designed with accessibility in mind.

Dental and orthopedic implants are widely used around the world. Common causes for implant failure are the immune response against oral bacteria and titanium particles shed by the implant. These and other phenomena can generate an inflammatory response, activating the osteoclasts (bone resorbing cells), and ultimately leading to osteolysis (destruction of bone tissue) around the implants. After this process begins, it is almost impossible to control, eventually leading to loss of the implant. A similar process occurs around natural teeth, with bacteria as the main cause, and bone resorption triggered by the immune response and inflammatory cells.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University have developed an active molecule (SNV) derived from a vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP, a short protein), which can significantly suppress both the inflammation and the resulting bone destruction. The new technology can help people with orthopedic implants, following, for example, knee implantations, people with dental implants, and people suffering from gum recession (which is in fact bone resorption) or loose teeth, as a result of gum (periodontal) disease. VIP acts as a neurohormone and neurotransmitter related to many physiological processes, such as expanding blood vessels, expanding respiratory passages, cell division and nerve protection. The researchers attached a lipid to the protein making it "fatty" to enable its penetration through the skin, to facilitate administration as an ointment.

The study, conducted by Prof. Yankel Gabet, Prof. David Kohavi, Prof. Illana Gozes, Dr. David Dangoor and Dr. Michal Eger from TAU's Sackler Faculty of Medicine was just published in Frontiers in Pharmacology. The paper also presents preparations for a clinical trial and results regarding SNV's penetration through the skin.

"I recently met friends and relatives who had undergone knee or tooth implantations, and I understand the great need of patients for such medications. I hope we can help them," says Prof. Illana Gozes. "For years I have worked on VIP - the important protein hormone that maintains the viability of brain cells and also plays a part in sexual activity. We were first in the world to isolate the VIP gene, at a time when genetic cloning was in its infancy. We were also first to develop drug candidates by binding VIP with a lipid to create SNV - a molecule that can penetrate the skin and serve as an ointment drug. At that time, we tried to apply the molecule to problems of impotence and Alzheimer's disease, in collaboration with Prof. Mati Fridkin of the Weizmann Institute. Recently I came upon a totally different direction, in which we discovered that SNV is effective for protecting bones against inflammatory processes triggering bone resorption."

To begin with, the researchers tested the molecule's effect on both bone cells and immune cells. At this stage they discovered that metal particles originating from the implants cause accelerated bone resorption. Testing the molecule in an animal model, they were astounded to find that in the presence of SNV the resorption process is largely suppressed. Thus, the drug may repress or even prevent bone resorption, thereby preserving the hold of implants and teeth in the surrounding bone tissue. "These results were achieved thanks to the collaboration between clinicians and researchers, enabling a research-based response to the clinical challenge," explains Dr. Michal Eger, from the Maurice and Gabriela Goldschleger School of Dental Medicine.

Prof. Yankel Gabet concludes: "This project is a classic example of collaboration between different departments at TAU's Faculty of Medicine. On the one hand, together with Prof. David Kohavi, my group has for years studied the connection between the immune system, inflammatory response, and bone cells. On the other, Dr. Michal Eger is a dentist who decided to explore these processes for her doctoral thesis. She attended a course given by Prof. Gozes, in which VIP and SNV were discussed, and an in-depth conversation led to the idea of checking whether these molecules can prevent bone loss around implants and natural teeth. We quickly discovered the enormous potential of SNV for people who suffer from bone loss around teeth and implants. Currently we are working on translating this new discovery to the clinic."

LAWRENCE -- The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a new world of challenges for education. But a new study from the University of Kansas shows the voices and experiences of students who are already among the most marginalized can help lead the way in making young people's strengths the focus of education.

Students with disabilities already faced a disproportionate amount of inequities in the American educational system before the pandemic. Researchers interviewed students in this population about their experiences during the pandemic and found that students relied on their own strengths, resilience and self-determination. The findings not only highlight the importance of supporting young people to build resilience and ownership of their education and future, but it can also inform returning to in-person education, particularly highlighting the importance of student self-determination and agency.

Sheida Raley"We're increasingly looking at self-determination across the lifespan, especially for younger students, including those in middle and high school. We wanted to gauge their experiences with self-determination and how they navigated the barriers they experienced with school, home and social environments during the pandemic to determine how self-determination and resilience intersect," said Sheida Raley, assistant research professor in special education at KU and the KU Center on Developmental Disabilities, one of the study's co-authors.

Researchers interviewed more than 20 students ages 11-17 with a variety of disabilities for the study. It was published in the Journal of Education for Students Placed at Risk and led by Jessica Toste of the University of Texas, in collaboration with Raley and Karrie Shogren, director of the KU Center on Developmental Disabilities at KU; Jessica Gabriela Coelho of the University of Texas at Austin; and Samantha Gross Towes of California State University Northridge.

Researchers found the participants' pandemic experience responses fell into three major themes: adaptability, increased social awareness and disability identity.

Karrie Shogren"These young people bring strengths to the table that are not always acknowledged in special education services and supports. Understanding and enabling young people to voice how they use those strengths during the pandemic can tell us how better to support all students and leverage student strengths and self-determination as we go back to more and more in-person schooling," Shogren said. "We heard from students the ways they were able to adapt, problem-solve, adjust their goals and leverage supports during the pandemic. This highlights the importance of leveraging students that, as we transition back, while providing supports that address their identified needs and anxieties around the pandemic and its aftermath."

While the study participants experienced difficulties with remote learning, quarantining and social distancing, they also demonstrated how they drew on their personal resilience and self-determination to navigate the challenges. The students highlighted how they used their abilities and skills associated with self-determination to be in closer contact with their teachers to ask questions, receive technical support and complete assignments. That increased interaction improved their relationships with their teachers, though students often reported they missed in-person social interactions with teachers and classmates. However, they still found ways to interact with peers virtually through social media, video chats and other methods, the authors noted. The respondents also indicated an increase in self-awareness, as demonstrated by an increased willingness to talk with teachers about their individual learning needs.

"The students showed they could build self-advocacy skills they maybe didn't have to use before the pandemic, when they saw their teachers regularly," Raley said.

Students also demonstrated an increase in disability awareness and supports needed to meet their learning goals. They discussed feeling empowered to discuss exactly what supports they benefit from, when they had supportive teachers and learning opportunities. The respondents also indicated an understanding of the mental health effects of the pandemic and resulting isolation, but noted that their families had become more involved in their support network during remote learning. In some cases, families became much more involved in their children's school work, others reported how they had more interaction with their siblings and their respective education, as they had previously attended separate schools.

As for their personal experiences during the pandemic, students commonly responded that they had learned patience, which also supported them to learn to adapt when life changes. The experience also opened their eyes to social issues, both nationally and internationally, including matters of public health and disability. Students also demonstrated development of positive emotion regulation skills, especially in instances where they might become frustrated or upset.

The findings not only show how resilient young people with disabilities can be but also how they used their abilities and skills associated with self-determination, such as problem-solving and self-advocacy, to pursue their goals while in school and after graduation during the pandemic. The findings are consistent with research demonstrating students who experience the Self-Determined Learning Model show improved educational outcomes.

"These results tell us again how valuable it is for students to set their own goals," Shogren said. "If we can embed this in our curriculum, youth can navigate through any challenges they face, even challenges like the pandemic."

The educational and personal experiences of the students in the study also lend support to the approach of giving young people ownership of learning, as opposed to setting mandates or telling students what is expected of them and how they will achieve it without directly engaging them in identifying and setting targets for their learning goals.

"We need to let students lead the conversation and tell us what supports they need to navigate new learning models," Raley said. "That can benefit all students, as well as teachers, to identify what support students need to make progress toward their goals that are important to them in life and learning."

Can you feel the heat? To a thermal camera, which measures infrared radiation, the heat that we can feel is visible, like the heat of a traveler in an airport with a fever or the cold of a leaky window or door in the winter.

In a paper published in Proceedings of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, an international group of applied mathematicians and physicists, including Fernando Guevara Vasquez and Trent DeGiovanni from the University of Utah, report a theoretical way of mimicking thermal objects or making objects invisible to thermal measurements. And it doesn't require a Romulan cloaking device or Harry Potter's invisibility cloak. The research is funded by the National Science Foundation.

The method allows for fine-tuning of heat transfer even in situations where the temperature changes in time, the researchers say. One application could be to isolate a part that generates heat in a circuit (say, a power supply) to keep it from interfering with heat sensitive parts (say, a thermal camera). Another application could be in industrial processes that require accurate temperature control in both time and space, for example controlling the cooling of a material so that it crystallizes in a particular manner.

Watch a visualization of how the method cloaks a kite-shaped object here.

Or watch how it works for a Homer Simpson-shaped object here.

Cloaking or invisibility devices have long been elements of fictional stories, but in recent years scientists and engineers have explored how to bring science fiction into reality. One approach, using metamaterials, bends light in such a way as to render an object invisible.

Just as our eyes see objects if they emit or reflect light, a thermal camera can see an object if it emits or reflects infrared radiation. In mathematical terms, an object could become invisible to a thermal camera if heat sources placed around it could mimic heat transfer as if the object wasn't there.

The novelty in the team's approach is that they use heat pumps rather than specially crafted materials to hide the objects. A simple household example of a heat pump is a refrigerator: to cool groceries it pumps heat from the interior to the exterior. Using heat pumps is much more flexible than using carefully crafted materials, Guevara says. For example, the researchers can make one object or source appear as a completely different object or source. "So at least from the perspective of thermal measurements," Guevara says, "they can make an apple appear as an orange."

The researchers carried out the mathematical work needed to show that, with a ring of heat pumps around an object, it's possible to thermally hide an object or mimic the heat signature of a different object.

The work remains theoretical, Guevara says, and the simulations assume a "probing" point source of heat that would reflect or bend around the object - the thermal equivalent of a flashlight in a dark room.

The temperature of that probing source must be known ahead of time, a drawback of the work. However the approach is within reach of current technology by using small heat pumps called Peltier elements that transport heat by passing an electrical current across a metal-metal junction. Peltier elements are already widely used in consumer and industrial applications.

The researchers envision their work could be used to accurately control the temperature of an object in space and time, which has applications in protecting electronic circuits. The results, the researchers say, could also be applied to accurate drug delivery, since the mathematics of heat transfer and diffusion are similar to those of the transfer and diffusion of medications. And, they add, the mathematics of how light behaves in diffuse media such as fog could lead to applications in visual cloaking as well.

Find a preprint of the study here.

After publication, find the full study here.

In addition to Guevara and DeGiovanni, Maxence Cassier, CNRS Researcher at the Fresnel Institute in Marseille, France and Sébastien Guenneau, CNRS researcher, UMI 2004 Abraham de Moivre-CNRS, Imperial College London, London, UK co-authored the study.