Culture

For centuries, ivory was often used to make art objects. But to protect elephant populations, the ivory trade was banned internationally in 1989. To restore ivory parts of old art objects, one must therefore resort to substitute materials - such as bones, shells or plastic. However, there has not been a really satisfactory solution so far.

TU Wien (Vienna) and the 3D printing company Cubicure GmbH, created as a spin-off of TU Wien, have now developed a high-tech substitute in cooperation with the Archdiocese of Vienna's Department for the Care of Art and Monuments and Addison Restoration: the novel material "Digory" consists of synthetic resin and calcium phosphate particles. It is processed in a hot, liquid state and hardened in the 3D printer with UV rays, exactly in the desired shape. It can then be polished and colour-matched to create a deceptively authentic-looking ivory substitute.

Beautiful and Mechanically Stable

"The research project began with a valuable 17th-century state casket in the parish church of Mauerbach," says Prof. Jürgen Stampfl from the Institute of Materials Science and Technology at TU Wien. "It is decorated with small ivory ornaments, some of which have been lost over time. The question was whether they could be replaced with 3D printing technology."

The team already had experience with similar materials: the research group also works with ceramic materials for dental technology, for example. Nevertheless, it was a challenging task to develop a suitable substitute for ivory: "We had to fulfil a whole range of requirements at the same time," says Thaddäa Rath, who worked on the project as part of her dissertation. "The material should not only look like ivory, the strength and stiffness must also be right, and the material should be machinable."

Stereolithography in the 3D printer

Through numerous experiments, Thaddäa Rath and other members of the team from TU Wien and Cubicure succeeded in finding the right mixture: Tiny calcium phosphate particles with an average diameter of about 7 μm were embedded in a special resin, together with extremely fine silicon oxide powder. The mixture is then processed at high heat in Cubicure's 3D printers using the hot lithography process: Layer by layer, the material is cured with a UV laser until the complete object is finished.

"You also have to bear in mind that ivory is translucent," explains Thaddäa Rath. "Only if you use the right amount of calcium phosphate will the material have the same translucent properties as ivory." Afterwards, the colour of the object can be touched up - the team achieved good results with black tea. The characteristic dark lines that normally run through ivory can also be applied afterwards with high precision.

No more tusks!

In the field of restoration, this is a big step forward: With the new material "Digory", not only is a better, more beautiful and easier to work with substitute for ivory available than before, the 3D technology also makes it possible to reproduce the finest details automatically. Instead of painstakingly carving them out of ivory substitute material, objects can now be printed in a matter of hours.

"With our specially developed 3D printing systems, we process different material formulations for completely different areas of application, but this project was also something new for us," says Konstanze Seidler from Cubicure. "In any case, it is further proof of how diverse the possible applications of stereolithography are."

The team hopes that the new material "Digory" will become generally accepted in the future - as an aesthetically and mechanically high-quality ivory substitute, for which no elephant has to lose a tusk.

International scientists from around the world are warning that chemical pollutants in the environment have the potential to alter animal and human behaviour.

A scientific forum of 30 experts formed a united agreement of concern about chemical pollutants and set up a roadmap to help protect the environment from behaviour altering chemicals. The conclusions of their work have been published today in a paper led by Professor Alex Ford, Professor of Biology at the University of Portsmouth, in Environmental Science and Technology. Until now the effect of chemical pollutants on wildlife has been studied and risk assessed in relation to species mortality, reproduction and growth. The effect on behaviour has been suspected but never formally tested or assessed - the scientists say this needs to change.

The world leading experts came from a variety of relevant disciplines including environmental toxicology, regulatory authorities and chemicals risk assessors. Professor Alex Ford explains: "The group were in no doubt that pollution can impact the behaviour of humans and wildlife. However, our ability to regulate chemicals for these risks, and therefore safeguard the environment, is rarely used. For example, chemicals that are deliberately designed as pharmaceutical drugs to alter behaviour, such as antidepressants and antianxiety medications, have been shown to alter the behaviours of fish and invertebrates during laboratory experiments. These medications like many prescribed drugs enter the environment through wastewaters."

History shows us there are other examples of behavioural alterations from chemicals. During the 19th century, the phrases "Mad as a hatter" and "Crazy as a painter" were coined when those in these trades were found to have changed behaviour, from the use of lead and mercury. In more recent times concerns over metal toxicity resulted in the enforcement of unleaded fuels.

The scientists are not just concerned about the obvious pollutants such pharmaceutical drugs leaking into the environment but they also warn about the potential unknowns such as chemicals in plastics, washing agents, fabrics and personal care products.

The forum have come up with a roadmap they are urging policy makers, regulatory authorities, environmental leaders to act upon.

The recommendations are:

- Improve the mechanisms of how science studies contaminated-induced behavioural changes.

- Develop new and adapt existing standard toxicity tests to include behaviour.

- Develop an integrative approach to environmental risk assessment, which includes behaviour. Not just mortality, growth and reproduction.

- Improve the reliability of behavioural tests, which need to allow for variation in behavioural reactions.

- Develop guidance and training on the evaluation of reporting of behavioural studies.

- Better integration of human and wildlife behavioural toxicology.

Professor Ford said: "We know from human toxicology and pharmaceutical drug development that regulatory authorities and industry have advanced with confidence in the use of behavioural endpoints, either in chemical risk assessment and drug development. We are yet to see this used fully when addressing the health of the environment and the impacts chemicals may have on wildlife behaviours. There is real concern around our lack of knowledge of how pollutants affect wildlife and human behaviour and our current processes for assessing this are not fit for purpose."

Dr Gerd Maack, from the German Environment Agency (UBA) and host of the forum, added: "We know that chemicals affect human and wildlife behaviours, especially hormones are affecting the mating behaviour of vertebrates. However, this knowledge is still not reflected in the regulation of chemicals in Europe, partly due to a lack of standardised methods, but also due to a non-understanding of the more complex study designs by many regulators. As one of the first of its kind, this workshop brought together behavioural scientists and regulators underpinning the importance of behavioural studies for the regulation. The results of this paper will serve a road map for a better acceptance and integration of behaviour studies in regulatory practices."

Joel Allen, from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said: "Along with my U.S. EPA colleagues, Jim Lazorchak and Stephanie Padilla, and as participants in the workshop and the preparation of this manuscript, we are excited about being part of a ground-breaking area in the potential use of behavioral responses to chemicals in chemical risk assessments as well as being co-authors on this topic in the prestigious Environmental Science and Technology Journal."

Dr Marlene Agerstrand, an expert of chemicals risk assessment from the University of Stockholm said: "The regulation of chemicals is constantly evolving, as the scientific basis improves. A workshop like this, where researchers and regulators meet, could be the starting point for a change in how behavioural studies are viewed upon in the regulatory sphere. In this paper, we have identified knowledge gaps and regulatory needs with the purpose to continue the discussion with a wider stakeholder group."

The forum took place at the German Environment Agency (UBA).

Metabolic bone disease is a common complication of chronic kidney disease (CKD) and involves a broad spectrum of disorders of mineral metabolism that result in both skeletal and extra-skeletal consequences.

A new special issue of Calcified Tissue International brings together a comprehensive series of state-of-the-art reviews which discuss key issues in CKD and mineral and bone disorders, known as CKD-MBD. Authored by a multidisciplinary group of leading international experts, the wide-ranging reviews aim to improve the understanding and management of CKD-MBD, and advance interdisciplinary knowledge.

Professors René Rizzoli and Stuart Ralston, Editors of Calcified Tissue International, stated:

"We greatly thank the authors for their contributions and the guest editors Professors J. B Cannata-Andía, N. Carrillo-López, and A. Ferreira, for curating this excellent series of reviews. The special issue brings together multidisciplinary expertise and covers many key topics of great importance to the field. We hope that these contributions will help to foster interaction among the diverse specializations involved in CKD-MBD research and clinical management."

The special issue comprises the following editorial and twelve invited reviews:

1. Editorial: Cannata-Andía, J., Carrillo-López, N. & Ferreira, A. Bone in CKD, a Fascinating Evolving Topic.
Calcif Tissue Int (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-021-00821-8

2. Cannata-Andía, J.B., Martín-Carro, B., Martín-Vírgala, J. et al. Chronic Kidney Disease--Mineral and Bone Disorders: Pathogenesis and Management. Calcif Tissue Int (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-020-00777-1

3. Santos, F., Díaz-Anadón, L., Ordóñez, F.A. et al. Bone Disease in CKD in Children. Calcif Tissue Int (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-020-00787-z

4. Carrillo-López, N., Martínez-Arias, L., Fernández-Villabrille, S. et al. Role of the RANK/RANKL/OPG and Wnt/β-Catenin Systems in CKD Bone and Cardiovascular Disorders. Calcif Tissue Int (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-020-00803-2

5. Mazzaferro, S., Bagordo, D., De Martini, N. et al. Inflammation, Oxidative Stress, and Bone in Chronic Kidney Disease in the Osteoimmunology Era. Calcif Tissue Int (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-020-00794-0

6. Leal, D.V., Ferreira, A., Watson, E.L. et al. Muscle-Bone Crosstalk in Chronic Kidney Disease: The Potential Modulatory Effects of Exercise. Calcif Tissue Int (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-020-00782-4

7. Fusaro, M., Cianciolo, G., Evenepoel, P. et al. Vitamin K in CKD Bone Disorders. Calcif Tissue Int (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-020-00792-2

8. Ferreira, A.C., Cohen-Solal, M., D'Haese, P.C. et al. The Role of Bone Biopsy in the Management of CKD-MBD. Calcif Tissue Int (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-021-00838-z

9. Komaba, H., Ketteler, M., Cunningham, J. et al. Old and New Drugs for the Management of Bone Disorders in CKD. Calcif Tissue Int (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-020-00788-y

10. Jørgensen, H.S., David, K., Salam, S. et al. Traditional and Non-traditional Risk Factors for Osteoporosis in CKD. Calcif Tissue Int (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-020-00786-0

11. Bover, J., Ureña-Torres, P., Cozzolino, M. et al. The Non-invasive Diagnosis of Bone Disorders in CKD. Calcif Tissue Int (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-020-00781-5

12. Pimentel A et al (2020) Bone fragility fractures in CKD patients. Calcif Tissue Int. https:// doi. org/ 10. 1007/ s00223- 020- 00779-z

13. Torregrosa, JV., Ferreira, A.C., Cucchiari, D. et al. Bone Mineral Disease After Kidney Transplantation. Calcif Tissue Int (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00223-021-00837-0

Research breakthrough in understanding how neural systems process and store information.

A team of scientists from the University of Exeter and the University of Auckland have made a breakthrough in the quest to better understand how neural systems are able to process and store information.

The researchers, including lead author Dr Kyle Wedgwood from the University of Exeter's Living Systems Institute, have made a significant discovery in how a single cell can store electrical patterns, similar to memories.

They compared sophisticated mathematical modelling to lab-based experiments to determine how different parameters, such as how long it takes for neuronal signals to be processed and how sensitive a cell is to external signals, affect how neural systems encode information.

The research team found that a single neuron is able to select between different patterns, dependent on the properties of each individual stimulus.

The research offers a new step towards developing a greater understanding of how information is encoded and stored in the brain, which could open up fresh insights into the cause and treatment of conditions such as dementia.

The research is published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface on Wednesday, April 14th 2021.

Dr Wedgwood, from the University of Exeter's Living Systems Institute said: "This work highlights how mathematical analysis and wet-lab experiments can be closely integrated to shed new light on fundamental problems in neuroscience.

"That the theoretical predictions were so readily confirmed in experiments gives us great confidence in the mathematical approach as a tool for understanding how individual cells store patterns of activity. In the long run, we hope that this is the first step to a better understanding of memory formation in neural networks."

According to Professor Krauskopf from the University of Auckland: "The research shows that a living neuron coupled to itself is able to sustain different patterns in response to a stimulus. This is an exciting first step towards understanding how groups of neurons are able to respond to external stimuli in a precise temporal manner.''

"Communication between neurons occurs over large distances. The communication delay associated with this plays an important role in shaping the overall response of a network. This insight is crucial to how neural systems encode memories, which is one of the most fundamental questions in neuroscience,'' adds Professor Tsaneva form the University of Exeter's Living Systems Institute.

Robust spike timing in an excitable cell with delayed feedback is published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface on Wednesday, April 14th 2021.

By combining the 'chassis' of an oil-producing microalgae with genes from a Cuphea plant, scientists from the Single-Cell Center, Qingdao Institute of BioEnergy and Bioprocess Technology (QIBEBT) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), can turn the algae into a microbial cell factory that can produce various oils with different properties.

The study was published in Metabolic Engineering on April 3.

Oils are composed of fatty acids, and fatty acids are composed in part of chains of carbon atoms. The length of these carbon chains can impact the physical properties of the fatty acid and thus the property of the oil. The researchers now can program the algal 'factory' by designing the algae to produce fatty acids of different lengths.

Oleaginous microalgae are often attractive candidates as "cell factories" due to their rapid reproduction rates and ability to produce large volumes of fatty acids.

But the chain-length of the fatty acids produced by these self-replicating photosynthetic factories is very rigidly specific to a given species. Typically, one type of microalgae would be great at producing fatty acids of some lengths, but not others.

In microalgae, fatty acids are synthesized by a particular type of enzyme, called the fatty acid synthase, or FAS. And the chain length of these fatty acids is in turn determined by the action of another type of enzyme, called an Acyl-ACP thioesterase, or simply a TE. Different types of TEs from different species specialize in different chain lengths.

"This is far from ideal as a product-flexible cell factory to deliver the plethora of chain lengths needed at will for various industrially relevant fatty acids, as you would have to constantly swap out the species that is doing the producing," said WANG Qintao, a researcher at Single-Cell Center, the first author of the study.

However, the research team found that the microalgae Nannochloropsis oceanica (N. oceanica) had a TE enzyme pathway that can vary the chain length to produce three variations on some of the longer fatty acids, but can't vary the chain length to produce multiple mid-length fatty acids.

So they added the genes for a similar TE enzyme pathway from a Cuphea plant - one that was good at boosting production of fatty acids with those mid-length chains. Protein engineers led by FENG Yanbin and XUE Song, now at Dalian University of Technology, tuned the enzymes so that fatty acids of a different chain length can be produced. The Cuphea genus is home to many species of plants also known for their oil production capabilities.

But by combining the enzymes, the team showed that it was possible to ratchet the fatty acid chain up and down a broad range of desired lengths, and within the N. oceanica 'factory'.

The researchers hope that this basic framework will now accelerate the development of designer oils of various fatty acid chain lengths within other species of Nannochloropsis and other oleaginous microalgae.

"By directly turning CO2, sunlight and seawater into designer oils, such microalgae cell factories are carbon negative, thus farming them at a large scale can help to save our planet from global warming," added XU Jian, Director of Single-Cell Center, and one senior author of the study.

The COVID-19 pandemic has cast a harsh light on the urgent need for quick and easy techniques to sanitize and disinfect everyday high-touch objects such as doorknobs, pens, pencils, and personal protective gear worn to keep infections from spreading. Now scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory and the New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) have demonstrated the first flexible, hand-held, device based on low-temperature plasma -- a gas that consists of atoms, molecules, and free-floating electrons and ions -- that consumers can quickly and easily use to disinfect surfaces without special training.

Recent experiments show that the prototype, which operates at room temperature under normal atmospheric pressure, can eliminate 99.99 percent of the bacteria on surfaces, including textiles and metals in just 90 seconds. The device has shown a still-higher 99.9999 percent effectiveness when used with the antiseptic hydrogen peroxide. Scientists think it will be similarly effective against viruses. "We're testing it right now with human viruses," said PPPL physicist Sophia Gershman, first author of a paper in Scientific Reports that describes the device and the research behind it.

Positive results welcomed

The positive results were welcome at PPPL, which is widening its fusion research and plasma science portfolios. "We are very excited to see plasmas used for a broader range of applications that could potentially improve human health," said Jon Menard, deputy director for research at PPPL.

The flexible hand-held device, called a dielectric barrier discharge (DBD), is built like a sandwich, Gershman said. "It's a high-voltage slice of bread on cheese that is an insulator and a grounded piece of bread with holes in it," she said.

The high-voltage slice of "bread" is an electrode made of copper tape. The other slice is a grounded electrode patterned with holes to let the plasma flow through. Between these slices lies the "cheese" of insulating tape. "Basically it's all flexible tape like Scotch tape or duct tape," Gershman said. "The ground electrode faces the users and makes the device safe to use."

The room-temperature plasma interacts with air to produce what are called reactive oxygen and nitrogen species -- molecules and atoms of the two elements -- along with a mixture of electrons, currents, and electrical fields. The electrons and fields team up to enable the reactive species to penetrate and destroy bacteria cell walls and kill the cells.

Room-temperature plasmas, which compare with the fusion plasmas PPPL studies that are many times hotter than the core of the sun, are produced by sending short pulses of high-speed electrons through gases like air, creating the plasma and leaving no time for it to heat up. Such plasmas are also far cooler than the thousand-degree plasmas that the laboratory studies to synthesize nanoparticles and conduct other research.

A special feature of the device is its ability to improve the action of hydrogen peroxide, a common antiseptic cleanser. "We demonstrate faster disinfection than plasma or hydrogen peroxide alone in stable low power operation," the authors write. "Hence, plasma activation of a low concentration hydrogen peroxide solution, using a hand-held flexible DBD device results in a dramatic improvement in disinfection."

Novel collaboration

Achieving these results was a novel collaboration that brought together the plasma physics expertise of PPPL and the biological know-how of a laboratory at NJIT. "While we usually are a neurobiology lab that studies locomotion, we were eager to collaborate with PPPL on a project related to COVID-19," said Gal Haspel, a professor of biological sciences at NJIT and a co-author of the paper.

Performing the plasma disinfection tests was co-author Maria Benem Harreguy, a graduate student in biological sciences at NJIT, with assistance from Gershman. "She did all the experiments and without her we wouldn't have this study," Gershman said.

The idea for this research began "as soon as we got into the COVID lockdown last March," said PPPL physicist and co-author Yevgeny Raitses, who directs the Princeton Collaborative Temperature Plasma Research Facility (PCRF) -- a joint venture of PPPL and Princeton University supported by the DOE Office of Science (FES) that provided resources for this work through a user project. "We at PCRF were thinking of how to help in fighting against COVID through our low-temperature plasma research, and it's been exciting for us to continue this collaboration," he said.

Raitses guided the PPPL side of the project, which included setting up the DBD based on a printed surface design and characterizing the plasma discharge in this device, and oversaw the ongoing collaboration with NJIT. Going forward, he said, "we are working to get access to a facility in which we will be able to apply the DBD and other relevant devices against the SARS CoV-2 virus" that causes COVID-19. "Also under way is research with immunologists and virologists at Princeton University and Rutgers University to expand the applicability of developed plasma devices to a broader range of viruses."

Patients who have preexisting respiratory conditions such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and live in areas with high levels of air pollution have a greater chance of hospitalization if they contract COVID-19, says a University of Cincinnati researcher.

Angelico Mendy, MD, PhD, assistant professor of environmental and public health sciences, at the UC College of Medicine, looked at the health outcomes and backgrounds of 1,128 COVID-19 patients at UC Health, the UC-affiliated health care system in Greater Cincinnati.

Mendy led a team of researchers in an individual-level study which used a statistical model to evaluate the association between long-term exposure to particulate matter less or equal to 2.5 micrometers — it refers to a mixture of tiny particles and droplets in the air that are two-and-one half microns or less in width — and hospitalizations for COVID-19. Medical records allowed researchers to use patients’ zip codes for estimating their particulate exposure over a 10-year period.

“Particulate matter is very small, small enough to be inhaled deep into the lungs, they cross into the blood and also affect other organ systems,” says Mendy. “Air pollution as a result of emissions from automobiles, factories or other sources is a generator of particulate matter.”

“Our study didn’t find any correlation between severity of COVID-19 and particulate matter in general, but we found something for people who had asthma and COPD,” says Mendy. “People who have preexisting asthma and COPD, when they are exposed to higher levels of particulate matter, they are more likely to have severe COVID-19, severe enough to be hospitalized.”

Researchers found that a one-unit increase in particulate matter 2.5 was associated with a 60% higher chance of hospitalization for COVID-19 patients with pre-existing respiratory disease. For patients without respiratory disease, no association was observed.

The study’s findings were published online in the scholarly journal Respiratory Medicine.

It is the first study to look at an association between air pollution, COVID-19 and individual patients, says Mendy. A study co-author, Xiao Wu, PhD, in the Department of Biostatistics at Harvard University, led a study last year looking at air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States.

“This study may have policy implications such as reducing particulate exposure,” says Mendy. “Many people want to have more clean energy and reduced emissions into the atmosphere.”

Mendy says the findings of his pilot study are preliminary and he hopes to use it to generate support for a larger more comprehensive study of patients. The UC Health patients in the study were diagnosed with COVID-19 between March 13, 2020 and July 5, 2020. The dataset was stripped of all Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) identifiers. The median age for patients was 46 and 96.6% were residents of Ohio with the remaining 3.4% coming from Kentucky, Indiana, New York, South Carolina, West Virginia and Iowa.

Other study co-authors from UC include Jason Keller, a researcher in the Department of Bioinformatics; Cecily Fassler, PhD, postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences; Senu Apewokin, MD, an assistant professor in the Department of Internal Medicine; Tesfaye Mersha, an associate professor pediatrics; and Changchun Xie, PhD, and Susan Pinney, PhD, both professors in the Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences.

Funding for the study included various grants from the National Institutes of Health supporting researchers.

Journal

Respiratory Medicine

Philadelphia, April 14, 2021 - In late 2020, several concerning SARS-CoV-2 variants emerged globally. They are believed to be more easily transmissible, and there is concern that some may reduce the effectiveness of antibody treatments and vaccines. An extensive genome sequencing program run by the Houston Methodist health system has identified all six of the currently identified SARS-CoV-2 variants in their patients. A new study appearing in The American Journal of Pathology, published by Elsevier, finds that the variants are widely spread across the Houston metropolitan area.

"Before the SARS-CoV-2 virus arrived in Houston, we planned an integrated strategy to confront and mitigate this microbial threat to our patients," explains lead investigator James M. Musser, MD, PhD, chair of the Department of Pathology and Genomic Medicine at Houston Methodist and Fondren Presidential Distinguished Chair with Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX, USA. "We instituted a plan to sequence the genome of every positive specimen from patients within the Houston Methodist system with the goal of understanding pathogen spread in our community and identifying biologically-important mutant viruses."

Dr. Musser notes that Greater Houston is the first metropolitan multiplex in the United States that has documented all of these important and concerning variants circulating among its residents. The Houston Methodist health system has one of the largest SARS-CoV-2 genome sequencing operations in the US and has so far sequenced 20,453 genomes from clinical specimens collected from patients from March 2020 to February 2021. Patient home address zip codes were used to see how the variants spread across Greater Houston's large, multiethnic, and geographically and socioeconomically diverse population.

The UK variant known as B.1.1.7 was first identified in a patient in Houston in January 2021 and has been found in 23 patients through February 2021. The California variants, B.1.429 and B.1.427 were first found in Houston in late December 2020. Variant B.1.429 has been identified in 143 patients in Houston and variant B.1.427 in 19 patients. The South African variant B.1.351 was first detected in Houston in two patients in December 2020 and January 2021. The Brazil variant P.1 has been identified in four patients since mid-January 2021 and P.2 in 39 patients since late December 2020.

With the exception of B.1.351, the investigators found geographically widespread dissemination of the variants, indicating successful patient-to-patient transmission among the communities. None of the patients were from a common household or reported recent international travel, suggesting that every infection was independently acquired locally or during domestic travel.

Initially Dr. Musser and co-investigators had observed that although the P.2 infection was numerically a minor cause of all Houston-area infections, it was the most common variant of concern in their population because its mutation has the potential to neutralize treatments and vaccines. Continued monitoring of the Houston area shows that the UK B.1.1.7 variant is now the most prevalent variant. According to Dr. Musser, "Emergence of new variants underscores the need for ongoing extensive genomic sequencing efforts for early identification and public health warning."

By linking the SARS-CoV-2 whole genome sequencing data to patient metadata in the electronic medical record, Houston Methodist is able to use analytic tools such as high-performance compute clusters and machine learning to investigate the genomic diversity and characteristics such as strain virulence or patient outcomes. "Our goal is to sequence the SARS-CoV-2 genome of every infected patient in our healthcare system in near-real time and expand outward to other patients in our community," Dr. Musser states. "Our results underscore the need to greatly increase genome surveillance to rapidly identify and track the introduction of new SARS-CoV-2 variants in the U.S. and in local areas."

Dr. Musser and his co-investigators have noted that in the last three weeks, Houston Methodist cases of the UK variant have increased to almost 1,600 from 648. They advise that because vaccination is the best way to decrease the number of circulating COVID-19 variants, a much larger percentage of the population needs to get vaccinated. In the meantime, the team is keeping a very close eye on the variants and the type of disease they cause.

A new study co-authored by University of Colorado Cancer Center researcher Srinivas Ramachandran, PhD, shows how DNA segments known as enhancers function in cells.

The paper published last month in Molecular Cell highlighted the work from Ramachandran, along with Satyanarayan Rao, both part of the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics at the CU School of Medicine, and Kami Ahmad from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.

Enhancers are DNA sequences that drive cell-type-specific gene expression, developmental transitions, and cellular responses to external stimuli. They typically have multiple binding sites for transcription factors, which are proteins that help turn specific genes "on" or "off" by binding to nearby DNA. Ramachandran wanted to find out what the role of those multiple binding sites was in driving enhancer function, and if the transcription factors were binding to the multiple enhancer sites randomly or in a coordinated fashion (which in biology is called "cooperativity").

"Think of the two binding sites in the enhancer as two chairs at a table in a coffee shop. The chairs could be occupied by strangers. They arrive and leave the table at random times, and any time they overlap would be purely by chance. If two friends show up to the coffee shop, they will spend much more time together at the table compared to random strangers," he says.

"Biologically, the implication for transcription factors occupying enhancers at the same time is very big. Our starting assumption was that the transcription factors were more like strangers than friends at a coffee shop. We wanted to develop methods to first measure if there is any cooperativity, and if we found any, then ask how the cell might make the factors work together."

The researchers observed the binding process in the cells of fruit flies, developing two methods to see if multiple transcription cells were binding together or separately at two adjacent binding sites in enhancers.

"Then we could actually say, what is the expectation of them spending time together?" Ramachandran says. "If we know one is bound 50% of the time and the other is bound 50% of the time, then my expectation for no cooperativity is, by multiplying these probabilities, that two of them are together 25% of the time just by chance. But if two of them are together 40% of the time, that means there's some cooperativity. That somehow the enhancer is having conditions that make the transcription factors bind at the same time."

The researchers found that up to 60% of the enhancers they observed had at least one coordinated binding event, meaning the transcription factors were turning on and off together and working together to turn genes off and on. If scientists can better understand why that process happens, he says, they may be able to better understand how enhancers are coopted by diseases like cancer.

"It gets back to how enhancers evolved and how enhancers function," Ramachandran says. "If you think about cancer, it's cells changing their identity from normal cells. They are taking advantage of systems that exist but are usually silenced in that cell type. Understanding how enhancers work actually lets us understand how they are taken advantage of as cells change their identity during disease."

By Luciana Constantino | Agência FAPESP – Adults with periodontitis transmit bacteria that can cause the disease in future to their children, and the bacteria remain in the oral cavity even when the children undergo treatment of various kinds, reinforcing the need for preventive care in the first year of a baby’s life. This is the main conclusion of a study conducted at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil. An article on the study is published in Scientific Reports.

Periodontitis is an inflammation of the periodontium, the tissue that supports the teeth and maintains them in the maxillary and mandibular bones. The disease is triggered by bacterial infection. Symptoms include bleeding of the gums and halitosis. In severe cases, it leads to bone and tooth loss. If the bacteria or other microorganisms that cause the disease enter the bloodstream, they may trigger other kinds of inflammation in the body. Treatment includes cleaning of the pockets around teeth by a dentist or hygienist and administration of anti-inflammatory drugs or antibiotics.

“The parents’ oral microbiome is a determinant of the subgingival microbial colonization of their children,” the article’s authors state in their conclusions, adding that “dysbiotic microbiota acquired by children of periodontitis patients at an early age are resilient to shift and the community structure is maintained even after controlling the hygiene status”.

According to dental surgeon Mabelle de Freitas Monteiro, first author of the article, she and her group have been researching periodontitis for ten years, observing parents with the disease and its impact on their children’s health.

“If the findings are applied to day-to-day dental practice, the study can be said to help design more direct approaches. Knowing that periodontal disease may affect the patient’s family is an incentive to use preventive treatment, seek early diagnosis and mitigate complications,” said Monteiro, who was supported by FAPESP via two projects (16/03704-7 and 16/19970-8).

The principal investigator for both projects was Renato Corrêa Viana Casarin, a professor at UNICAMP’s Piracicaba Dental School (FOP) and last author of the article.

For Casarin, parents should start caring for the health of their children’s gums when they are infants. “This pioneering study compares parents with and without periodontitis. In children of the former, we found subgingival bacterial colonization at a very early age. However, ‘inheriting’ the problem doesn’t mean a child is fated to develop the disease in adulthood. Hence the importance of keeping an eye open for the smallest signs and seeking specialized help,” Casarin said.

Data on the Brazilian population’s oral health is scarce. According to the last national dental epidemiological survey, conducted by the Ministry of Health in 2010, 18% of children aged 12 had never been to the dentist and 11.7% had experienced bleeding of the gums. In the 15-19 age group, 13.6% had never visited a dental clinic. Another survey was scheduled for 2020 but had to be postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The São Paulo State Department of Health published the findings of its latest oral health survey in 2019, showing among other things that 50.5% of adults aged 35-44 complained of toothache, bleeding gums and periodontitis (read more at: agencia.fapesp.br/30260/).

Bacteria

In the FOP-UNICAMP study led by Casarin and Monteiro, samples of subgingival biofilm and plaque were collected from 18 adults with a history of generalized aggressive (grade C) periodontitis, their children aged 6-12, and 18 orally healthy adults.

In addition to a clinical analysis, the samples were also subjected to a microbiological analysis and genetic sequencing by researchers at Ohio State University in the United States under the supervision of Professor Purnima Kumar.

“Children of periodontitis parents were preferentially colonized by Filifactor alocis, Porphyromonas gingivalis, Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans, Streptococcus parasanguinis, Fusobacterium nucleatum and several species belonging to the genus Selenomonas even in the absence of periodontitis,” the article states. “These pathogens also emerged as robust discriminators of the microbial signatures of children of parents with periodontitis.”

Casarin told Agência FAPESP that despite bacterial plaque control and vigorous brushing the children of people with the disease still had the bacteria in their mouths, whereas the effects of dental hygiene and prophylaxis were more significant in the children of healthy subjects.

“Because the parents had periodontitis, their children assumed this community with disease characteristics. They carried the bacterial information into their adult lives,” he said, adding that the analysis of bacterial colonization pointed to a greater likelihood of transmission by the mother. The research group will now work with pregnant women in an effort to “break the cycle” by preventing bacterial colonization of their children’s mouths.

“We’ll treat the mothers during pregnancy, before the babies are born, and try to find out if it’s possible to prevent bacterial colonization from occurring,” Casarin said, noting that studies with patients will proceed only when control of the pandemic permits.

Recognition

The periodontitis research group led by Casarin has won prizes at home and abroad. In 2019, Monteiro topped the clinical research category of the IADR’s Hatton Competition. The IADR (International Association for Dental Research) hosts the world’s leading conference on dentistry, and the competition is designed to provide an opportunity for the best junior investigators to present their research (read more in Portuguese at: www.fop.unicamp.br/index.php/pt-br/doi-odontopediatria/2352.html).

Years earlier the group won an award from the American Academy of Periodontology for the study with the most significant clinical impact.

The article “Parents with periodontitis impact the subgingival colonization of their offspring” is at: www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-80372-4.

Journal

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-020-80372-4

HERSHEY, Pa. -- People who trust television and Facebook to provide them with accurate news about the coronavirus pandemic are less knowledgeable about COVID-19, according to a new study, which assessed people's knowledge of the virus in the earliest stages of the pandemic.

The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Current Medical Research & Opinion, surveyed 5,948 adults in Pennsylvania between March 25-31, 2020, and found that those who relied on social media and TV for news were less likely to get the facts right about the coronavirus.

In fact, adults that used Facebook as an additional source of news in any way were less likely to answer COVID-19 questions correctly than those who did not.

"The rise of social media has changed the way people around the world keep up with current events, with studies showing that up to 66% of Americans rely on social media for news," said Dr. Robert Lennon, associate professor of family and community medicine at Penn State College of Medicine, one of the authors of the paper.

"This is worrying, as misinformation and misunderstanding about COVID-19 and how it spreads is likely to have fueled the pandemic, the death toll of which now surpasses 2.5 million worldwide." said Lennon.

In early March 2020, the COVID-19 outbreak had become alarming enough that Lennon and other Penn State researchers rapidly developed a survey to explore public knowledge, perceptions and preferred information sources regarding COVID-19. Within hours of being told that they had been awarded funding, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, and two days later the president declared a national emergency.

The survey was disseminated to 5,948 adults in Pennsylvania, offering insight into the public use of information in the midst of a national emergency. The respondents answered questions about where they got their news about coronavirus from, and which news sources they trusted most. They were then given 15 statements about COVID-19 and asked if they thought the statements were true or false, and how confident they were in their answer.

The questions covered knowledge across several domains -- transmission, severity, treatment - and asked questions felt to be of easy, moderate and hard difficulty in each. As media coverage of COVID-19 escalated, developing knowledge questions became increasingly difficult -- a nearly impossible question on Monday was by Thursday so easy it couldn't be used.

The results showed that the most trusted news sources were government websites (42.8%), followed by television (27.2%) and health system communications (9.3%).

There was a clear relationship between where people got their news from and their knowledge of coronavirus. For example, participants who said that their most trusted source of information was government health websites were more likely to correctly answer COVID-19 questions than other groups. On the other hand, individuals whose most trusted source was television news were less likely to correctly answer COVID-19 questions than other groups. Respondents who selected "Facebook" as either their single most trusted source or as an additional information source were less likely to answer knowledge questions correctly.

The findings highlight the importance of considering where people get their news from when designing public health interventions. Guidance such as "stay at home," "wash your hands," "wear a mask" and "socially distance" are only effective if understood and followed.

"Effective communication is a critical element of successfully managing a pandemic response," said Lennon. "Until vaccination is widespread and proven to be effective, public compliance with public health recommendations is our best chance of containing the disease."

"The first step in compliance is an understanding of those recommendations, so it is vital that health communicators -- such as those working for government agencies, academic institutions and health care organizations -- consider how the public get their information and monitor these venues to correct misinformation when it appears."

ITHACA, N.Y. - Just as humans are challenged from the social isolation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, a new study finds that a solitary lifestyle has profound effects on the brains of a social insect: paper wasps.

Paper wasps recognize the brightly colored faces of other paper wasps, an ability they lose when reared in isolation. The wasps' ability to remember faces is similar to primates and humans, but unlike other social insects.

The study revealed that when adult wasps are housed in solitude, visual areas of their brains - especially those involved with identifying nuanced color patterns and shapes - are smaller and less developed than their peers who lived with other wasps.

"To my knowledge, this is the first empirical study to propose a candidate brain region in an insect that is involved with individual identity processing," said first author Christopher Jernigan, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Michael Sheehan, assistant professor of neurobiology and behavior at Cornell University.

Paper wasps, native to the eastern United States, live in smaller colonies (up to a few hundred individuals) than honeybees (tens of thousands). Unlike honeybees, whose hives have a single queen, paper wasps can have multiple queens. When starting nests each spring, these future queens can form small groups that collaborate on labor. Still, colonies have social hierarchies and competition. The dominant queen monopolizes egg-laying and subordinate queens do most of the work. Subordinates may leave the nest to join another or start their own colony if they feel the arrangement isn't fair.

"There's tension of balancing conflicts among the cooperating queens, and that seems to be the thing that has favored individuals to recognize each other, to know who's who, how work is being divided up, whether they are getting their fair share," Sheehan said. "It seems to help manage conflicts."

This study tests the effects of maturation and social experience on the wasps' brain development, with a focus on regions involved in visual and olfactory processing, as paper wasps also sense individuals through smells and chemical communication.

Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain https://www.hse.ru/en/neuroling/ have, for the first time, described the language abilities of Russian children with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) at all linguistic levels (e.g., phonology, lexicon, morphosyntax, and discourse), using a language test that takes into account the psycholinguistic variables most relevant for Russians. The study was published in Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders.

In 2020, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported that one in every 54 children in the country is diagnosed with ASD. Usually, 75% of children with ASD have comorbid language impairments. Although numerous studies in the USA, UK and Europe have concentrated on these problems, in terms of the specific language profiles of children with ASD at the levels of phonology, lexicon, grammar, and discourse, hardly anything was known about the language abilities of Russian children with ASD.

Researchers from the HSE Center for Language and Brain conducted a comprehensive language assessment of Russian children with ASD. They relied on the Russian Child Language Assessment Battery (RuCLAB), which allows researchers to assess language production and comprehension in terms of the levels of phonology, lexicon, grammar, and discourse, with due consideration of such relevant psycholinguistic variables as word length, the age of acquisition of certain words, word frequency, the number of verb arguments, different sentence types, etc.

A total of 82 Russian primary-school-aged children with ASD participated in the study. Each child was screened with 11 subtests from the RuCLAB, along with two additional subtests on lexicon and phonology. Furthermore, the non-verbal IQ of children, as well as the severity of autistic traits, were measured.

The results showed that there was a significant difference between groups in all subtests, except for the simplest word repetition. Children with ASD had a lower accuracy than typically developing children. The researchers note that the lexicon of children with ASD was the least affected linguistic level, which is consistent with the studies on English-speaking children with ASD.

'In this work, it was important for us to identify the specific language profiles of Russian-speaking children with ASD at different linguistic levels, as well as understand how children's age, non-verbal IQ, and the severity of autistic traits may account for the extent of language impairments,' comments Vardan Arutiunian, author of the paper and Junior Research Fellow at the HSE Center for Language and Brain.

The results also demonstrate that non-verbal IQ dramatically influences language abilities, whereby the higher children's non-verbal intelligence, the higher their language performance. Interestingly, age and the severity of autistic traits were not related to language abilities in children with ASD.
The final goal of the study was to subgroup children with ASD according to their language abilities in each subtest. With this in mind, the researchers divided autistic children into three subgroups, i.e., with normal, borderline, and impaired language abilities.

The total number of children with normal language abilities was related to their linguistic levels. For instance, in terms of word comprehension (lexicon), 22% of children were within the normal range; sentence repetition (morphosyntax) - 8% of children had scores within the normal range; discourse production (discourse) - the normal language group consisted of only 4% of children with ASD.

'We found that the more complex the linguistic level, the lower the percentage of children with normal language abilities. Note that the same child may be in the normal group, according to their lexical abilities, but in the impaired group according to their grammatical development,' comments Vardan Arutiunian, adding: 'That is why the formal language of children with ASD needs to include all linguistic levels, from low-level phonology to high-order discourse. This will help experts to correctly determine the level of children's language development, as well as provide the appropriate speech-language therapy.'

Ultralight bosons are hypothetical particles whose mass is predicted to be less than a billionth the mass of an electron. They interact relatively little with their surroundings and have thus far eluded searches to confirm their existence. If they exist, ultralight bosons such as axions would likely be a form of dark matter, the mysterious, invisible stuff that makes up 85 percent of the matter in the universe.

Now, physicists at MIT's LIGO Laboratory have searched for ultralight bosons using black holes -- objects that are mind-bending orders of magnitude more massive than the particles themselves. According to the predictions of quantum theory, a black hole of a certain mass should pull in clouds of ultralight bosons, which in turn should collectively slow down a black hole's spin. If the particles exist, then all black holes of a particular mass should have relatively low spins.

But the physicists have found that two previously detected black holes are spinning too fast to have been affected by any ultralight bosons. Because of their large spins, the black holes' existence rules out the existence of ultralight bosons with masses between 1.3x10-13 electronvolts and 2.7x10-13 electronvolts -- around a quintillionth the mass of an electron.

The team's results, published today in Physical Review Letters, further narrow the search for axions and other ultralight bosons. The study is also the first to use the spins of black holes detected by LIGO and Virgo, and gravitational-wave data, to look for dark matter.

"There are different types of bosons, and we have probed one," says co-author Salvatore Vitale, assistant professor of physics at MIT. "There may be others, and we can apply this analysis to the growing dataset that LIGO and Virgo will provide over the next few years."

Vitale's co-authors are lead author Kwan Yeung (Ken) Ng, a graduate student in MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, along with researchers at Utrecht University in the Netherlands and the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

A carousel's energy

Ultralight bosons are being searched for across a huge range of super-light masses, from 1x10-33 electronvolts to 1x10-6 electronvolts. Scientists have so far used tabletop experiments and astrophysical observations to rule out slivers of this wide space of possible masses. Since the early 2000s, physicists proposed that black holes could be another means of detecting ultralight bosons, due to an effect known as superradiance.

If ultralight bosons exist, they could interact with a black hole under the right circumstances. Quantum theory posits that at a very small scale, particles cannot be described by classical physics, or even as individual objects. This scale, known as the Compton wavelength, is inversely proportional to the particle mass.

As ultralight bosons are exceptionally light, their wavelength is predicted to be exceptionally large. For a certain mass range of bosons, their wavelength can be comparable to the size of a black hole. When this happens, superradiance is expected to quickly develop. Ultralight bosons are then created from the vacuum around a black hole, in quantities large enough that the tiny particles collectively drag on the black hole and slow down its spin.

"If you jump onto and then down from a carousel, you can steal energy from the carousel," Vitale says. "These bosons do the same thing to a black hole."

Scientists believe this boson slow-down can occur over several thousand years -- relatively quickly on astrophysical timescales.

"If bosons exist, we would expect that old black holes of the appropriate mass don't have large spins, since the boson clouds would have extracted most of it," Ng says. "This implies that the discovery of a black hole with large spins can rule out the existence of bosons with certain masses.

Spin up, spin down

Ng and Vitale applied this reasoning to black hole measurements made by LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory, and its companion detector Virgo. The detectors "listen" for gravitational waves, or reverberations from far-off cataclysms, such as merging black holes, known as binaries.

In their study, the team looked through all 45 black hole binaries reported by LIGO and Virgo to date. The masses of these black holes -- between 10 and 70 times the mass of the sun -- indicate that if they had interacted with ultralight bosons, the particles would have been between 1x10-13 electronvolts and 2x10-11 electronvolts in mass.

For every black hole, the team calculated the spin that it should have if the black hole was spun down by ultralight bosons within the corresponding mass range. From their analysis, two black holes stood out: GW190412 and GW190517. Just as there is a maximum velocity for physical objects -- the speed of light -- there is a top spin at which black holes can rotate. GW190517 is spinning at close to that maximum. The researchers calculated that if ultralight bosons existed, they would have dragged its spin down by a factor of two.

"If they exist, these things would have sucked up a lot of angular momentum," Vitale says. "They're really vampires."

The researchers also accounted for other possible scenarios for generating the black holes' large spins, while still allowing for the existence of ultralight bosons. For instance, a black hole could have been spun down by bosons but then subsequently sped up again through interactions with the surrounding accretion disk -- a disk of matter from which the black hole could suck up energy and momentum.

"If you do the math, you find it takes too long to spin up a black hole to the level that we see here," Ng says. "So, we can safely ignore this spin-up effect."

In other words, it's unlikely that the black holes' high spins are due to an alternate scenario in which ultralight bosons also exist. Given the masses and high spins of both black holes, the researchers were able to rule out the existence of ultralight bosons with masses between 1.3x10-13 electronvolts and 2.7x10-13 electronvolts.

"We've basically excluded some type of bosons in this mass range," Vitale says. "This work also shows how gravitational-wave detections can contribute to searches for elementary particles."

New research has found that the most reliable indicators of willingness to be vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, are rejection of conspiracy suspicions about COVID-19 and a positive attitude towards vaccines in general. The study by King's College London and the University of Bristol is published in the leading peer-reviewed journal Psychological Medicine.

The researchers' analysis was based on a large representative sample survey carried out in November-December 2020. They looked at a range of factors that previous studies had found to be related to hesitancy about getting vaccinated against the coronavirus and found that:

Women, young people, less-educated people, and members of other than white ethnic groups are more hesitant about getting vaccinated

People who get their information about COVID-19 from social media are more hesitant about getting vaccinated

However, the researchers also found that many of these differences can be explained by people's attitudes towards vaccines in general and also by whether or not they suspect that there has been a conspiracy or cover-up connected with COVID -19. In particular, they found that:

Vaccine hesitancy among people who get their information about COVID-19 from social media is completely accounted for by more negative vaccine attitudes and stronger conspiracy suspicions

Vaccine hesitancy among members of other than white ethnic groups and members of low-income households is almost completely accounted for by more negative vaccine attitudes and stronger conspiracy suspicions

Among those who have negative views of vaccines or who suspect that COVID-19 conspiracy theories may be true, more highly educated people appear to be more vaccine hesitant than less highly educated people

On the other hand, the researchers found that greater vaccine hesitancy among women and young people is not explained by conspiracy suspicions or by attitudes to vaccines in general.

Dr Daniel Allington, lead author of the article and Senior Lecturer in Social and Cultural Artificial Intelligence at King's College London, said:

"These findings provide a powerful insight into why heavy users of social media appear to be less confident about being vaccinated against coronavirus: they tend to have more negative attitudes to vaccines in general and they are more likely to suspect that conspiracy theories about the pandemic may be true."

Dr Siobhan McAndrew, principal investigator of the research project and Senior Lecturer in Quantitative Social Science at the University of Bristol, added: "This study gives insight into the connections between fundamental characteristics such as ethnicity and education, and attitudes to vaccination against coronavirus. We have found that conspiracist suspicions and attitudes to vaccines in general form part of the connection - attitudes which likely preceded the current pandemic. The question for policy-makers is how to restore fundamental trust over the long-term, in the interests of public health."

Dr Vivienne Moxham-Hall, Research Associate at the Policy Institute at King's College London with a background in immunology and health policy, explained: "These findings can inform government and public health organisation's communication about the coronavirus vaccine. In order to increase vaccine compliance, communication strategies need to account for the polarising nature of conspiracy theories by providing clear advice to those who may be unsure about vaccine safety and integrity."