Culture

More local law enforcement agencies are using military equipment, such as tear gas, armored vehicles and rubber bullets, to handle social justice protests--calling into question police militarization.

But if police no longer used weapons and tactics previously connected to the military, there is little evidence that this would impact violent crime or officer safety, according to a new University of Michigan study.

In fact, previous data analyses supporting officers taking on the appearance and using weapons like soldiers as a crime-reduction method are unreliable, said U-M researcher and study author Kenneth Lowande. The data problems also impact studies that claim military equipment make police more violent.

In a report published today in Nature Human Behaviour, Lowande examined the substantial limitations of data used to analyze the effects of transferring surplus military equipment, or SME, to law enforcement.

Federal authorities have subsidized weapons and equipment acquisition, but limitations in record keeping about these transfers have rendered studies of their effects not credible, he said. The current study examined 3.8 million archived federal inventory records to gauge the reliability in these other studies.

During a typical three-month period, more than 15,000 controlled items vanish from agency inventories and more than 4,000 are received for transfer, the study indicated.

Lowande, U-M assistant professor of political science, compared this data to data collected when the Obama administration recalled SME in 2015, which resulted in a forced demilitarization of several hundred police departments. Proponents of SME transfers, as well as the Trump administration, say that demilitarization would lead to an increase in violent crime, but that's now what Lowande found.

"When you examine crime and officer safety statistics in these demilitarized departments and compare them to similar departments that weren't impacted, you find essentially no differences," said Lowande, a faculty associate at the Center for Political Studies at U-M's Institute for Social Research.

"I find little to no evidence that demilitarization had an impact on violent crime or officer safety. Put differently, contrary to the claims of those who support the transfer of equipment, these data do not support the conclusion that militarization saves lives--or that demilitarization risks them."

BEER-SHEVA, Israel...December 7, 2020 - According to a new study by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers, the natural sweetener stevia may lead to a gut microbial imbalance. The findings were just published in Molecules, a leading international peer-reviewed journal of chemistry.

Stevia is a natural low-calorie sweetener that is growing in popularity in food and beverage products and is generally considered safe. However, emerging scientific evidence has implicated the sweetener in gut microbial imbalance, which can lead to a variety of gastrointestinal health issues.

According to the new study, stevia may disrupt communications between different bacteria in the gut microbiome. While the team found that stevia inhibited these pathways, it did not kill off the bacteria.

"This is an initial study that indicates that more research is warranted before the food industry replaces sugar and artificial sweeteners with stevia and its extracts," says lead researcher Dr. Karina Golberg, of the BGU Avram and Stella Goldstein-Goren Department of Biotechnology Engineering.

Large amounts of new particles can form in the valleys of the Himalayas from naturally emitted gases and can be transported to high altitudes by the mountain winds and injected into the upper atmosphere.

The emitted particles may eventually affect climate by acting as nuclei for cloud condensation. These new findings about particles formation and sources will contribute to a better understanding of past and future climate.

"To understand how the climate has changed over the last century we need to know as reliably as possible the natural atmospheric conditions before the industrialization," says Associate Professor Federico Bianchi from the University of Helsinki's Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR).

In order to do that scientists are looking for pristine locations around the world where human influence is minimal. An international group of researchers has now completed a comprehensive study at the Nepal Climate Observatory at Pyramid station, located in the proximity of the Everest base camp at 5050 m above sea level. There, they were able to investigate the formation of atmospheric particles far from human activities. The results were published today in the prestigious journal Nature Geoscience.

Particles from natural origin

The study shows that up-valley winds bring vapours emitted by vegetation at the Himalayan foothills to higher altitudes. During this transport, these gases are transformed by photochemical reactions into compounds of very low volatility, which rapidly form a large number of new aerosol particles. These are then transported into the free troposphere, a region of the atmosphere with very low human influence.

"You can think of the whole Himalayas as an 'aerosol factory' that continuously produces a large amount of particles and then directly injects them high up into the atmosphere above the Everest", says Bianchi. We calculate from these measurements that the transport of particles may increase present-day particle concentration above the Himalayas by a factor of up to two or more.

It's the first time the scientists consider mountain venting as a big potential source of atmospheric particles in the free troposphere.

Additionally, the freshly formed particles have natural origin with little evidence of the involvement of anthropogenic pollutants. This process is therefore likely to be essentially unchanged since the pre-industrial period, and may have been one of the major sources contributing to the upper atmosphere aerosol population during that time. These new observations are therefore important to better estimate the pre-industrial baseline of aerosol concentrations in this large region. The inclusion of such processes in climate models may improve the understanding of climate change and predictions of future climate.

Future studies shall focus on a better quantification of this phenomenon and investigate it also in other high mountain regions.

According to a biologist from RUDN University, fern leaves powder has a positive effect on the immune system, antimicrobial activity, and growth of carps. Based on this data, fish farms can breed big and healthy fish without using any chemical additives. An article about the work was published in the Fish & Shellfish Immunology journal.

Cyprinus carpio or common carp accounts for 7.7% of world fish production (around 4.2 mln tons). Because of the increasing production volumes, fish farms become overcrowded which causes stress in the fish. This, in turn, slows down their growth, weakens their immune systems, promotes infections, and eventually causes financial damage to the farmers. Infectious diseases can be fought with chemical additives, but they accumulate in the bodies of the fish leading to drug resistance in the next generations which can be harmful to consumers. A biologist from RUDN University suggested improving the immunity of the fish by adding fern leaves powder to their diet. An experiment conducted by his team confirmed the efficiency of this natural additive and showed no side effects from it.

"Many studies on the effect of plant extracts on fish have been conducted in recent years. Plant additives show positive results because they contain certain biologically active components: essential oils, alkaloids, saponins, phenols, flavonoids, and polysaccharides. In our work, we focused on Adiantum fern that has been known for its beneficial pharmacological properties since ancient times. For example, the extract of its leaves showed antibacterial activity against S. aureus and E. coli," said Morteza Yousefi, PhD., an assistant professor at the Department of Veterinary Medicine, RUDN University.

The team conducted an experiment to study the effect of Adiantum capillus-veneris on the health of fish. To do so, they distributed 144 carps between 12 pools and developed different diets (with three feedings per day) for each group. All diets were based on fish, wheat, and soy flour, fish oil, and a set of minerals and vitamins. Dried and powdered fern leaves were added to nine diets with their share varying from 0.5% to 2% of the total weight of the fodder. Then, the team monitored the growth of the fish and the activity of their immune systems for 56 days. After that, the biologists measured the levels of immunoglobulin in the blood serum and skin mucus of the fish, the activity of the antibacterial enzyme lysozyme, and other parameters.

Lysozyme activity turned out to grow with the increase of the share of fern in the diet. While the addition of 0.5% had practically no impact on the work of the enzyme, 2% made it almost twice as active, increasing its levels from 4.6 to 8 units per ml. The addition of fern powder also supported the antibacterial activity of blood serum against some pathogens, such as S. aureus, E. coli, and Ps. aeroginosa. Moreover, the fish with 2% fern powder in their diet gained the most weight: 27.7 g on average against 19.6 gained by the fish that did not receive fern at all.

"The results of our work clearly demonstrate the positive effect of Adiantum capillus-veneris on the immunity of common carp juveniles. However, further research on the molecular level is required to identify the exact mechanism of its influence on growth indicator, stress resistance, and immune parameters of the fish," added Morteza Yousefi from RUDN Univerisity.

Athens and Patras, December 7, 2020- Caregivers of people with dementia and milder forms of neurocognitive disorder bear a heavy burden. They are constantly confronted with challenging symptoms and behaviors and feel they are up against their limits. The latest results from a study indicate that the COVID 19 crisis affects this burden since the pandemic has mental health implications.

Scientists and clinicians from the universities of Athens and Patras and the Corporation for Succor and Care of Elderly and Disabled-FRODIZO studied the impact of the COVID19 pandemic on caregiver distress. They contacted during the first lockdown in Greece carers of people with a neurocognitive disorder of the psychogeriatric unit at the Eginition Hospital in Athens, the Patras dementia day center, and the psychogeriatric department for neurocognitive assessment at the Patras office of the Hellenic Red Cross. Based on a standardized questionnaire, they asked caregivers over the telephone about difficulties of patients with memory function, neuropsychiatric symptoms such as depressive mood, sleep problems or anxiety, and last but not least about patients' problems with everyday activities (e.g., preparing meals, managing household, personal hygiene). In addition, caregivers depicted their distress due to these symptoms and reported their feelings and worries regarding the COVID19 crisis. Symptoms related to the pandemic, such as feeling on guard, trouble falling asleep, or concentrating, were significantly associated with caregiver distress due to dementia symptoms. "This clear association highlights the effect of the pandemic on the way difficulties of dementia care are encountered" underscores associate professor Panagiotis Alexopoulos, Department of Psychiatry at the Patras University Hospital at the University of Patras. Progression of memory deficits and neuropsychiatric symptoms also pertained significantly to caregiver burden.

"Our observations are an alarming voice for the support needs of caregivers of people with the neurocognitive disorder during the COVID-19 pandemic since they seem to belong to the hidden victims of the current crisis," states professor Antonios Politis, head psychiatrist of the old age mental health services at the Eginition Hospital at the University of Athens.

New research shows that the militarization of local law enforcement through weapons, armored vehicles, combat attire, office equipment and other items provided by the Department of Defense does not reduce crime. Additionally, researchers found incomplete records and discrepancies in the federal government's tracking of surplus military equipment, or SME, issued to local law enforcement agencies.

"Scholars rely on accurate data to track and analyze the true effect of police militarization on crime. Policymakers also need accurate data to base their decisions upon. However to-date, we do not have reliable data on SME transfers to local police and sheriffs through the federal government," said LSU Department of Political Science Assistant Professor Anna Gunderson, who is the lead author on a paper published today in Nature Human Behaviour.

In 2014 following the police brutality protests in Ferguson, President Obama prohibited local law enforcement agencies from procuring some of the most military-like equipment, such as tracked armored vehicles and grenade launchers, from the Department of Defense. In 2017, President Trump reversed this order citing research that claimed police militarization reduces crime. Three years ago, Gunderson and coauthors at Emory University began interrogating newly released data on SME provisions through the 1033 program, which is one of the most significant federal programs that contributes to the militarization of local police and sheriffs.

"When we looked at the data and ran the replications, nothing looked like the results being cited by the Trump Administration. We spent a year trying to diagnose the problem," Gunderson said.

She and her coauthors found significant discrepancies in the data about which law enforcement agencies have and use SME. The researchers compared a 2014 data release from National Public Radio, or NPR, and newer data from 2018 and found inconsistencies between them. For example, the NPR data recorded counties as receiving equipment like weapons, with no corresponding record in the 2018 data; and the 2018 data show some counties as receiving equipment while those counties are missing in the NPR data.

The researchers conclude that drawing firm conclusions and promoting claims about the efficacy of police militarization--especially for crime rates--based on research relying on the SME data released by the Department of Defense is unreliable. When they conducted a new analysis using updated data, the authors found no evidence that SME transfers reduce crime.

"This is a cautionary tale about the importance of oversight. The most important thing for policy makers and the public to know is that you can't justify giving surplus military equipment to police departments on the grounds it will lead to a reduction in crime. There is no evidence for that. You can't claim this program is important because it reduces crime," said co-author Tom Clark, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Political Science at Emory. "If you are going to engage in policy making experiments, it is important to include resources and requirements for reporting so that policy analysts can study whether the policy is working."

Researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign have developed a new technique that combines label-free imaging with artificial intelligence to visualize unlabeled live cells over a prolonged time. This technique has potential applications in studying cell viability and pathology.

The study "Phase imaging with computational specificity (PICS) for measuring dry mass changes in sub-cellular compartments" was published in Nature Communications.

"Our lab specializes in label-free imaging, which allows us to visualize cells without using toxic chemicals," said Gabriel Popescu, a professor of electrical and computer engineering and the director of the Quantitative Light Imaging Laboratory at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology. "However, we cannot measure specific attributes of the cell without using toxic fluorescent dyes. We have solved that problem in this study."

"We had this idea that computational methods could estimate what the sample would look like without actually killing the cells," said Mikhail Kandel, a graduate student in the Popescu group.

The researchers first imaged the cells over several days using their non-destructive label-free technique. At the end of the experiment, they stained the samples and used deep learning, which is a subset of machine learning, to learn where the fluorescence dyes would be located. "This let us estimate the stain in our initial movies without actually staining the cells," Kandel said.

"Although AI has been used in the past to create one type of imaging from a different type of staining, we were able to program it to analyze the images in real time," Popescu said. "Using deep learning, we were able to look at cells that had never been tagged with any dye, and the algorithm was able to precisely locate different parts of the cell."

"Another advantage of the technique is that we can perform experiments over the span of many days. The cells remain alive even after more than a week," said Yuchen He, a graduate student in the Popescu group. "This cannot be done with fluorescent dyes since the chemical toxicity might kill the cells."

"This study highlighted the potential of AI-based techniques to learn complicated models such as the concentration of specific dyes, which goes beyond the capabilities of the naked eye," Kandel said. "The more we can teach our method to recognize patterns, the more kinds of experiments can be performed without resorting to killing the cells."

The researchers are now trying to adapt deep learning algorithms across different cell lines and biological samples. "Training deep learning models requires a large amount of data because we want to ensure that they work well in different scenarios. Fortunately, our imaging instruments make it easy for us to generate the needed training data in an efficient fashion," He said.

"These deep learning algorithms can be used for several applications," Popescu said. "We can assess the cell viability over a long time without labeling the cells, we can differentiate between different cell types in diseases, and we can study different cellular processes."

Antibodies are remarkable biomarkers: they are the cues that provide us with indications about many diseases and how our immune system counter them. Now a group of scientists from the University of Rome, Tor Vergata (Italy) has found a way to repurpose them so that they can trigger a specific chemical reaction.

"We demonstrated a strategy to use specific antibodies to control chemical reactions forming a wide range of molecules, from imaging to therapeutic agents." says Francesco Ricci, full professor at the University of Rome Tor Vergata and senior author of the article. "Our approach allows to synthesize a functional molecule from inactive precursors only when a specific antibody is present in the reaction mixture".

To achieve this goal, the researchers took advantage of the versatility of synthetic DNA oligonucleotides and of the predictability of DNA-DNA interactions. "Synthetic oligonucleotides are amazing molecules, they can be modified with a range of reactive groups and also with recognition elements that can target specific antibodies." says Lorena Baranda, PhD student in the group of Prof. Ricci and first author of the article. "In our work we rationally designed and synthesized a pair of modified DNA sequences that can recognize a specific antibody and bind to it. When this happens the reactive groups appended on the other ends of the DNA strands will be in close proximity and their reaction will be triggered ultimately leading to the formation of a chemical product", she explains.

The strategy demonstrated in this work can be used, for example, to control the formation of functional molecules, such as therapeutic agents, with biomarker antibodies. As a proof of principle of this possible application the researchers demonstrated the formation of an anticoagulant drug able to inhibit the activity of thrombin, a key enzyme of blood coagulation and an important target for the treatment of thrombosis. "We demonstrated that a specific IgG antibody can trigger the formation of the anticoagulant agent, which was further proven to efficiently inhibit the activity of thrombin" says Prof. Ricci. "The strategy is highly specific to the antibody of interest and also programmable. We envision it would represent a new avenue to targeted therapy and diagnostics", he concludes.

Adipose tissue is not just a simple reservoir of energy for periods of food scarcity. It contributes significantly to regulation of the metabolism, releasing various molecules into the bloodstream, including microRNAs that modulate the expression of key genes in different parts of the organism, including the liver, pancreas, and muscles.

Research has shown that both aging and obesity can impair the production of these regulatory microRNAs by adipose tissue and favor the development of diseases such as diabetes and dyslipidemia. The good news is that this degenerative process can be reversed by practicing regular aerobic exercise, according to a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

"Experiments with mice and humans have shown that aerobic exercise stimulates expression of an enzyme called DICER, which is essential to the processing of these microRNAs. We, therefore, observed an increase in production of these regulatory molecules by adipose cells, with several benefits for the metabolism," said Marcelo Mori, a professor at the University of Campinas's Institute of Biology (IB-UNICAMP) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, and one of the principal investigators for the project, which was supported by FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation) and conducted in partnership with groups at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark and Harvard University in the United States.

The experiments were performed during the postdoctoral research of Bruna Brasil Brandão, formerly Mori's PhD student and now at Harvard Medical School working as a research fellow in the laboratory of Professor C. Ronald Kahn.

The results showed the occurrence of communication between muscle and adipose tissue during aerobic exercise via signaling molecules secreted into the bloodstream. This exchange of information makes energy consumption by adipose cells more efficient, enabling the metabolism to adapt to exercise and enhancing the performance of the muscles.

The mice were subjected to a 60-minute treadmill running protocol for eight weeks. As they became fitter, treadmill speed and inclination were increased. At the end, in addition to the improvement in performance, the scientists found a significant elevation in adipocyte levels of DICER expression, which was accompanied by a reduction in body weight and visceral fat.

When they repeated the experiment with mice that were genetically modified not to express DICER in adipose cells, the researchers found that the beneficial effects of aerobic exercise were far smaller. "The animals didn't lose weight or visceral fat, and their overall fitness didn't improve," Mori said. "We also observed that adipose cells used the energy substrate differently in these GM mice than in wild mice, leaving less glucose available for muscles."

In humans, six weeks of high-intensity interval training (HIIT) were sufficient to yield a fivefold increase in the amount of DICER in adipose tissue on average. The effect was observed in both younger volunteers, aged about 36, and older subjects, aged about 63. The response varied considerably between individuals, however, with DICER increasing as much as 25 times in some, and very little in others.

Detailed mechanism

The role of DICER and microRNA processing in adipose tissue was first described in 2012 in an article published in Cell Metabolism, reporting a study led by Mori and Khan in collaboration with an international group of researchers. The main finding here was that expression of DICER in the adipose tissue of mice declined as the animals gained weight and that this reduced their lifespan. The study also showed that caloric restriction could reverse the deleterious effects of obesity.

In another study, published in 2016 in the journal Aging, Mori and his group showed that caloric restriction in mice prevented the aging-related decline in microRNA production by adipose tissue and the development of type 2 diabetes. In a study reported in 2017 in Nature, they proved that the microRNAs produced by adipose tissue entered the bloodstream and acted on distant tissues, regulating gene expression.

"In this latest study we found that aerobic exercise, like caloric restriction, can reverse the drop in DICER expression and microRNA production thanks to the activation of a very important metabolic sensor, the enzyme AMPK [adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase]," Mori said.

The sensor is activated, he explained, when the cell consumes ATP (adenosine triphosphate, the molecule that acts as an energy substrate for cells) and creates an energy deficit. In experiments with mice, the researchers found that aerobic exercise activated AMPK in muscle cells and that this somehow induced DICER expression in adipose cells.

"The obvious conclusion is that the effect on gene expression occurs in the same cell in which the energy deficit occurs, which is indeed the case, but here the sensor is also activated in muscles and controls the response that occurs in adipose tissue," he said.

To confirm communication between tissues, the scientists collected blood serum from a trained animal and injected it into a sedentary animal. This "treatment" increased DICER expression in adipose tissue. In another experiment, they incubated cultured adipocytes with serum from trained mice and observed the same effect.

"This finding suggests trained individuals have one or more molecules in their bloodstream that directly induce a metabolic improvement in adipose tissue," Mori said. "If we can identify these molecules, we can investigate whether they also induce other benefits of aerobic exercise, such as cardioprotection. Moreover, we may think about converting this knowledge into a drug at some stage."

To obtain an even more detailed understanding of the metabolic regulation mechanism, the researchers analyzed all of the thousands of microRNAs expressed in the organism of the trained mice and compared them with those found in sedentary mice.

"We identified a molecule called miR-203-3p, whose expression increases with both training and caloric restriction," Mori said. "We showed that this microRNA is responsible for promoting metabolic adjustment in adipocytes. When muscles use up all their glycogen during prolonged exercise, molecular signals are sent to adipose tissue and miR-203-3p fine-tunes the adipocyte metabolism. We found this metabolic flexibility to be essential to good health as well as performance enhancement."

Absent this modulation, adipocyte consumption of glucose during exercise increases, leaving less energy substrate available to muscles, he added. This can lead to hypoglycemia, one of the main performance limitations for athletes.

"In GM mice that don't express DICER in adipocytes, this conversation between adipose tissue and muscles doesn't happen. It's a model that mimics aging and obesity. So when DICER declines, metabolic health is poor and degenerative processes accelerate" Mori said.

Enormous efforts are being made worldwide in a technological field that could far surpass the capabilities of conventional electronics: spintronics. Instead of operating based on the collective movement of charged particles (electrons), spintronic devices could perform memory storage and data transmission by manipulating spin, an intrinsic property of elementary particles related to angular momentum and from which many magnetic characteristics in materials arise. Unfortunately, controlling spin has proven to be a challenging endeavor, leading physicists and engineers to look for efficient materials and techniques to do so.

In this regard, antiferromagnetic materials (AFMs) are good candidates for spintronics because they are resistant to external magnetic fields and allow for switching spin values in timescales of picoseconds. One promising strategy to manipulate spin orientation in AFMs is using an optical laser to create extremely short-lived magnetic field pulses, a phenomenon known as the inverse Faraday effect (IFE). Although the IFE in AFMs generates two very distinct types of torque (rotational force) on their magnetization, it now seems the most important of the two has somehow been neglected in research.

In a recent study published in Nature Communications, a trio of scientists, including Professor Takuya Satoh from the Tokyo Tech, Japan, delved deep into this issue. Spin dynamics in AFMs are described by a sum of two terms: field-like torque and damping-like torque (Figure 1). The latter, as the word 'damping' implies, is related to the gradual decay (or dying off) of the spin oscillations triggered by the optical pulses on the material.

Until now, scientists studied the damping-like torque only from the perspective of spin relaxation after excitation, believing its amplitude to be small during the ultrashort spin excitation process. In this study, however, Prof Satoh and colleagues found it to be, in some cases, the main player in terms of spin reorientation due to the IFE. Through theoretical analyses and experimental verification in both YMnO3 and HoMnO3, they clarified the conditions under which the damping effect becomes the dominant spin excitation mechanism.

A simplified interpretation of the findings can be as follows. Imagine a hanging pendulum (magnetization direction) oscillating in wide arcs, drawing a very pronounced ellipse. The damping-like torque produces a large instantaneous perturbation in the direction of the small diameter, 'tipping it off' and causing it to lean like a spinning top that is about to fall. "The otherwise small damping-related magnetization causes a large spin canting because of the extreme ellipticity inherent to AFMs," explains Prof Satoh. "Considering that it is possible to adjust the strength of the damping by strategically selecting the ions in the AFM, we might have found a way to tune material properties for specific spintronic applications," he adds.

The trio of scientists also tested how spin dynamics are influenced by temperature, which affects and even destroys antiferromagnetic order past certain thresholds. By putting the materials close to the critical transition points, they managed to produce a more pronounced effect from damping-type torque. Excited about the results, Prof Satoh remarks: "Our results indicate that optically generated torques might provide the long sought-after tool enabling the efficient realization of ultrafast spin switching in AFMs."

Although much more research will certainly be needed before applied spintronics becomes a reality, uncovering efficient mechanisms for spin manipulation is obviously among the first steps. This study proves that such mechanisms might be hidden in phenomena we know and neglect!

Well-known for its bactericidal and anti-fungal properties, Brazilian red propolis has now been found to act powerfully against the parasite that causes schistosomiasis, reducing the number of eggs and killing the helminths (worms).

In experiments performed at Universidade Guarulhos (UnG) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil, with FAPESP’s support, 400 milligrams per kilogram of body weight was a sufficient dose of red propolis to reduce the parasite load by more than 60% in mice infected with the flatworm Schistosoma mansoni. It was equally effective against the immature and adult stages of the parasite. In vitro tests also showed that red propolis blocked reproduction and oviposition (egg-laying).

“Propolis, especially the red variety, is well-known for its action against bacteria and fungi. It protects the beehive from intruders, and we expected that some of its more than 20 substances would act against parasitic infectious agents. What surprised us was that it disrupted the worm’s integument and killed adult as well as immature worms, which the conventional treatment for schistosomiasis doesn’t do,” said Josué de Moraes, a professor at UnG and last author of the article on the study published in the Journal of Ethnopharmacology.

The results of all the tests suggest red propolis may be more effective to treat schistosomiasis than the only pharmaceutical product available for this purpose. Before red propolis can be prescribed for patients, of course, it must be tested in clinical trials on humans with the disease.

Super-helminths

Schistosomiasis is the most common disease caused by helminths and affects some 300 million people worldwide. Despite its high prevalence in tropical and subtropical areas, it has been treated with a single drug for about 40 years.

“Praziquantel is effective but has major limitations,” Moraes said. “In contrast with what we found in the study with red propolis, the drug doesn’t combat infections caused by the immature stage of the parasite. It kills only adult worms, so patients have to wait until the growth cycle reaches the adult stage to start the treatment, by which time the infection has become chronic.”

Another limitation of praziquantel is that some species have become drug-resistant after 40 years with no alternative treatment. Schistosome strains with low susceptibility to the drug have been isolated by researchers.

The research project led by Moraes at UnG’s Center for Research on Neglected Diseases (NPDN) aims at drug repurposing to tackle schistosomiasis. “Because it’s a neglected disease linked to poverty and lack of basic sanitation, this is basically the only way to find novel therapies. Repurposing is cheaper and quicker than developing new drugs from scratch,” Moraes said.

The research group tested 73 nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs sold in Brazil and elsewhere. They found five to be effective against the disease, with mefenamic acid (widely used for menstrual period pain relief) exhibiting the most promising results to date (read more at: agencia.fapesp.br/31372).

In an article published in mid-2020 in Trends in Parasitology, Moraes and a co-author note that the United States’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has approved very few drugs for the treatment of parasitic diseases.

“Since the start of the century, the FDA has approved a total of 604 medications, some of which are novel drugs and others repurposed,” Moraes said. “Only nine are antiparasitics, and of these only two are anthelmintics. In my view, helminthiases are the most neglected of neglected diseases.”

Why red propolis?

Moraes explained that the decision to study the effects of red propolis in this project was made because the natural product had been fully characterized in studies by Severino M. Alencar, a researcher at the University of São Paulo’s Luiz de Queiroz College of Agriculture (ESALQ-USP), and Bruno Bueno-Silva at UnG’s Dentistry Department. Both are collaborators with NPDN.

“Brazilian red propolis has attracted attention in recent years owing to its pharmacological potential as well as its anti-microbial and anti-inflammatory action,” he said. “Our study didn’t investigate the mechanism of red propolis in the schistosome but analyzed the action of red propolis extract indirectly using scanning electron microscopy. For example, we set out to see if this natural product, which is made up of several substances, could get through the parasite’s integument. This would increase its power to reach one or more targets and kill the worms, but we didn’t identify any targets.”

Green and brown propolis are likely to have some effect on schistosomiasis, Moraes added, but specific studies will be needed to analyze the other two natural products.

The discovery could also be applicable to other verminoses. “The schistosome is a model for the study of infections in humans and animals caused by other flatworms, or platyhelminths, such as tapeworms of the genus Taenia,” he said. “The discovery, therefore, creates an opportunity for research relating to the treatment of other diseases that affect humans, cats, and dogs, and are also treated with praziquantel.”

In direct contradiction to the official forecast, a team of scientists led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) is predicting that the Sunspot Cycle that started this fall could be one of the strongest since record-keeping began.

In a new article published in Solar Physics, the research team predicts that Sunspot Cycle 25 will peak with a maximum sunspot number somewhere between approximately 210 and 260, which would put the new cycle in the company of the top few ever observed.

The cycle that just ended, Sunspot Cycle 24, peaked with a sunspot number of 116, and the consensus forecast from a panel of experts convened by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is predicting that Sunspot Cycle 25 will be similarly weak. The panel predicts a peak sunspot number of 115.

If the new NCAR-led forecast is borne out, it would lend support to the research team's unorthodox theory - detailed in a series of papers published over the last decade - that the Sun has overlapping 22-year magnetic cycles that interact to produce the well-known, approximately 11-year sunspot cycle as a byproduct. The 22-year cycles repeat like clockwork and could be a key to finally making accurate predictions of the timing and nature of sunspot cycles, as well as many of the effects they produce, according to the study's authors.

"Scientists have struggled to predict both the length and the strength of sunspot cycles because we lack a fundamental understanding of the mechanism that drives the cycle," said NCAR Deputy Director Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist who led the study. "If our forecast proves correct, we will have evidence that our framework for understanding the Sun's internal magnetic machine is on the right path.

The new research was supported by the National Science Foundation, which is NCAR's sponsor, and NASA's Living With a Star Program.

Sunspot Cycle 25 starts with a bang; what will follow?

In McIntosh's previous work, he and his colleagues sketched the outline of a 22-year extended solar cycle using observations of coronal bright points, ephemeral flickers of extreme ultraviolet light in the solar atmosphere. These bright points can be seen marching from the Sun's high latitudes to the equator over about 20 years. As they cross the mid-latitudes, the bright points coincide with the emergence of sunspot activity.

McIntosh believes the bright points mark the travel of magnetic field bands, which wrap around the Sun. When the bands from the northern and southern hemispheres - which have oppositely charged magnetic fields - meet at the equator, they mutually annihilate one another leading to a "terminator" event. These terminators are crucial markers on the Sun's 22-year clock, McIntosh says, because they flag the end of a magnetic cycle, along with its corresponding sunspot cycle, -- and act as a trigger for the following magnetic cycle to begin.

While one set of oppositely charged bands is about halfway through its migration toward the equatorial meetup, a second set appears at high latitudes and begins its own migration. While these bands appear at high latitudes at a relatively consistent rate -- every 11 years -- they sometimes slow as they cross the mid-latitudes, which appears to weaken the strength of the upcoming solar cycle.

This happens because the slowdown acts to increase the amount of time that the oppositely charged sets of bands overlap and interfere with one another inside the Sun. The slow-down extends the current solar cycle by pushing the terminator event out in time. Shifting the terminator out in time has the effect of eating away at the spot productivity of the next cycle.

"When we look back over the 270-year long observational record of terminator events, we see that the longer the time between terminators, the weaker the next cycle," said study co-author Bob Leamon, a researcher at the University of Maryland Baltimore County. "And, conversely, the shorter the time between terminators, the stronger the next solar cycle is.

This correlation has been difficult for scientists to see in the past because they have traditionally measured the length of a sunspot cycle from solar minimum to solar minimum, which is defined using an average rather than a precise event. In the new study, the researchers measured from terminator to terminator, which allows for much greater precision.

While terminator events occur approximately every 11 years and mark the beginning and end of the sunspot cycle, the time between terminators can vary by years. For example, Sunspot Cycle 4 began with a terminator in 1786 and ended with a terminator in 1801, an unprecedented 15 years later. The following cycle, 5, was incredibly weak with a peak amplitude of just 82 sunspots. That cycle would become known as the beginning of the "Dalton" Grand Minimum.

Similarly, Sunspot Cycle 23 began in 1998 and did not end until 2011, 13 years later. Sunspot Cycle 24, which is just ending, was quite weak as well, but it was also quite short -- just shy of 10 years long - and that's the basis for the new study's bullish prediction that Sunspot Cycle 25 will be strong.

"Once you identify the terminators in the historical records, the pattern becomes obvious," said McIntosh. "A weak Sunspot Cycle 25, as the community is predicting, would be a complete departure from everything that the data has shown us up to this point.

As municipalities have taxed sugar-sweetened beverages and schools and worksites have banned their sales, university researchers have found that simple warning labels on such beverages in a college cafeteria helped students reduce their reported consumption of drinks by 14.5 percent. The results signal that such labels could reduce sugar consumption in larger settings.

"Sugar-sweetened beverages are a major driver of chronic disease. Health warning labels may reduce the intake of sugar-sweetened beverages, but the effectiveness of such labels in real-world settings is only beginning to be established," said Jennifer Falbe, assistant professor of Nutrition and Human Development at University of California, Davis, who is a senior author of the study and designed the warning label used. "This experiment takes the evidence a step further by looking at young adult behavior in a setting that they frequent each day," she said. The study was conducted by the University of Michigan School of Public Health and UC Davis.

Taking a cue from tobacco control efforts, researchers placed warning labels on beverage dispensers at a University of Michigan cafeteria for one semester in 2019. In language based on previous proposed California legislation, the bright yellow labels with a large triangle and exclamation mark state:

"Warning: Drinking beverages with added sugar(s) contributes to type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and tooth decay." Two other cafeterias on campus -- located geographically distant from the cafeteria with the labels -- served as control sites, and displayed no warning labels.

Nearly 1,000 college students were contacted by email before and after the warning labels were implemented to ask them to participate in surveys with no specific mention of sugar-sweetened beverages. Participants were given a $10 gift card after completing each survey.

In total, 840 students across all cafeterias were included in the study. At the intervention site, consumption of sugar-sweetened drinks that had the warning label declined by 18.5 percent compared to a decline of 4.7 percent at the control sites at which no label was used. Students exposed to the warning labels also reduced their consumption of 100-percent juice drinks by 21 percent even though, in the experiment, juices had not been labeled as sugar-sweetened beverages.

A tool to reduce sugar consumption

"The results of this study indicate that warning labels may be effective tools for reducing consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages, particularly beverages such as sweetened teas, pink lemonade and chocolate milk for which the sugar content is not immediately obvious or well known," said Cindy Leung, assistant professor of Nutritional Sciences at the University of Michigan School of Public Health and lead author of the study.

"Sugar-sweetened beverages remain ubiquitous in retail and cafeteria settings. As we explore avenues to promote healthy food and beverage choices, warning labels are a potential tool to reduce their consumption that should be tested in other populations and other settings." said Julia Wolfson, assistant professor of Health Management and Policy at the U-M School of Public Health and co-author of the study.

The study, "Warning Labels Reduce Sugar-Sweetened Beverage Intake among College Students," was published last month in the Journal of Nutrition. Additional co-authors are Robert Hsu, Keith Soster and Steve Mangan, all of University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Falbe teaches in the UC Davis Department of Human Ecology.

"These results provide evidence to inform future institutional strategies... and legislative efforts to use warning labels as a promising approach to SSB consumption," the researchers concluded.

For instance, nine jurisdictions, including California, have introduced, at various times, sugar-sweetened beverage warning label legislation. "These laws could ensure that consumers have the necessary information to make informed choices," Falbe said.

The creosote is the king of the desert. This scraggly shrub dominates the landscape of the American southwest, creating mini-oases from the harsh heat for desert wildlife.

In a new study, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin leveraged computer algorithms and high-resolution survey data to conduct the first-ever creosote census - counting every creosote in a 135-square-mile conservation site in Nevada's Mojave Desert. The final count was 23 million creosotes among a total population of 66 million plants.

The researchers discovered important new information about the plant species, but they also demonstrate how data techniques can improve on conventional methods for studying plant communities.

"This was first and foremost a big data project," said James "Jake" Gearon, a graduate student at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences who led the study. "The majority of time was data cleaning, data investigation, data prep. By the time you get to analysis, you have discovered so many things along the way you have a path forward."

The study was published in November 2020 in the journal Landscape Ecology.

The census is a milestone for plant science. Most plant population data comes from samples of fewer than 1,000 plants or aerial surveys that capture community snapshots. This research presents a way to account for each and every individual in a plant community. The scientists also discovered that certain landscape features can influence how big creosotes grow and how far apart they are spaced.

"People are amazed at the size of the dataset. But we tried to avoid being dazzled by size and focus in the interested things the data tell us," said coauthor Michael Young, a senior research scientist at the Bureau of Economic Geology, a research unit at the Jackson School.

The creosote research is built on repurposed data collected by Young and colleagues during a 2017 aerial survey that collected aerial photos and elevation data from the Boulder City Conservation Easement in the Mojave Desert.

The data were originally collected to find burrows belonging to the threatened desert tortoise. But the high-resolution photos (one pixel is equivalent to six inches) combined with the elevation data that measured variations in each square meter of the easement, created a rich resource for new research.

Counting the creosotes involved applying computer algorithms that could distinguish the bushes from the surrounding landscape and other plants. In addition to carrying out the census, the algorithms also extracted information on each creosote's location, height, and canopy area, from which canopy volume was calculated.They also extracted information on the surrounding landscape, such as relative soil age, and slope angle and direction.

When the landscape and creosote information were analyzed together, the researchers discovered some notable trends about how the landscape influenced plant growth.

They found that direction of the slope, or aspect, was the main control on creosote volume - with the plants growing on east-facing slopes being about five times bushier than plants on west-facing slopes.

"That's five times more cover on the ground for the critters, for land use, or for understanding just how hot the ground is going to get - that has a huge impact," Gearon said.

They also found that soil age influences creosote volume, with plants in the younger soil being about 27% larger than plants in the oldest.

The connection between soil age and plant size is well documented, but the influence of hillslope aspect on plant size came as a surprise, Gearon said. That's because the research record more often relates plant growth to north and south slope directions - with few studies on east and west slopes.

But this study suggests that growing on an eastward slope could be an important way for desert plants to stay hydrated, with the placement allowing the plants to soak up the sunshine during the cooler, wetter morning hours, unlike westward slopes which receive the most sunlight during the hottest parts of the day when they're most susceptible to losing water via transpiration.

Erik Hamerlynk, a research ecologist at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said the study is significant because of the precision of the data that comes from accounting for every individual in a population.

"This is the first time I've seen something that takes plot level data and really expands it to a landscape scale, to a basin scale," Hamerlynk said. "That's just a huge accomplishment."

He added that techniques presented in the study could help improve range management practices by offering an in-depth and standardized view of an entire plant community before and after a particular intervention.

GAINESVILLE, Fla. --- The island of Nihoa, a slice of jagged rock that juts out of the Pacific Ocean, is the sole refuge for a rediscovered species of native Hawaiian land snail previously presumed to be extinct.

First recorded in 1923, Endodonta christenseni lacked a scientific name and description until now. It is likely the last remaining species in the Endodonta genus. The other 11 species were collected and described more than 100 years ago and today are known only from museum specimens. A team of researchers from the Bishop Museum and the Florida Museum of Natural History found the snail during a survey of more than 1,000 sites across the Hawaiian Islands.

Now the scientists warn that, without protections, the species could vanish within a decade, erasing a lineage that existed for millions of years and the stories it could tell. Giving E. christenseni a name is an essential first step to conserving its remaining population, the researchers said.

"This sort of work forms the foundation for all conservation efforts," said lead author Kenneth Hayes, director of the Bishop Museum's Pacific Center for Molecular Biodiversity, in a statement. "The gap in knowledge about biodiversity, which is especially severe for understudied and highly threatened groups like snails and insects, prevents effective research needed to inform conservation actions."

Land snails in the Pacific islands have suffered more recorded extinctions in the last 400 years than any other group of animals, with declining numbers linked to habitat destruction, invasive predators and climate change. While Hawaii has lost more than half of its land snail species - once more than 750 species strong - researchers have recorded nearly 300 species widely assumed to have vanished long ago, including E. christenseni.

"The results from these extensive survey efforts give us hope that there are still many species left that can be saved," said Norine Yeung, malacology curator at the Bishop Museum and a co-principal investigator of the study. "But we need to act quickly and decisively if we are to beat the extinction clock that ticks louder with each passing day."

Museum records - ranging from the first collection of E. christenseni in 1923 to specimens dating to 1990 - enabled the team to perform targeted searches on Nihoa to see if the snail still existed, said John Slapcinsky, manager of the Florida Museum's invertebrate zoology collection.

"Having those museum specimens allowed us to target specific areas and find these things again. Everything depends on prior knowledge," he said.

Slapcinsky attributed the long gap between 1923 and the species description published this year to the scarcity of taxonomists who study land snails.

E. christenseni is about the size of a pea and has tigerlike stripes. A ground dweller, it relies on the tussocks of variable lovegrass, another native Hawaiian species, for moisture and sustenance. Slapcinsky said it likely lives and reproduces in the "wonderful little habitat" in the plant's moist center, feeding on fungal films that develop on dead blades of grass.

But the snail's decline is also linked to its highly specialized lifestyle. Many lowland grass habitats in Hawaii have been replaced by exotic vegetation, and invasive species such as ants and rats are more prevalent in low-lying areas than at high altitudes. Although Nihoa is uninhabited, with visitation highly restricted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the researchers said it remains vulnerable to human disturbances - threats only amplified by the island's small size, where habitat disturbances can have long-term consequences.

Slapcinsky said the species has yet to recolonize two-thirds of the island ravaged by an out-of-control campfire in 1885. A network of factors - including exceptionally limited mobility, habitat specificity and slow reproduction - has likely prevented E. christenseni from re-expanding its range, he said.

The team hopes to incorporate the new species into the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources' Snail Extinction Prevention Program, through which captive breeding can help researchers measure species resilience in the wild. Although DNA samples from E. christenseni and related species will help the researchers trace its evolutionary relationships, a living population will enable them to answer key ecological questions about reproduction, diet and lifecycle, all of which can help inform species recovery plans, Slapcinsky said.

He added that rediscovering land snail populations is shedding light on how they can be conserved, signaling that not all is lost for the group.

"The picture is going from one that was really miserable and hopeless to one that's a little less miserable, but hopeful," he said. "In the recent past, things looked so bad that we were thinking pretty much everything's gone. There wasn't a lot of effort into conservation of many of the land snails, so by doing these surveys and finding some of these species that are still there, we have the ability now to save whole lineages."

The name E. christenseni honors Bishop Museum scientist Carl Christensen, an expert on Pacific island land snails and an advocate for their conservation.