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What The Study Did: This observational study examined how well sociodemographic features, laboratory value and comorbidities of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 in Eastern Massachusetts might predict a course of severe illness.

Authors: Roy H. Perlis, M.D., M.Sc., of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston and an associate editor at JAMA Network Open, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.23934)

Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

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Media advisory: The full study is linked to this news release.

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About JAMA Network Open: JAMA Network Open is the new online-only open access general medical journal from the JAMA Network. On weekdays, the journal publishes peer-reviewed clinical research and commentary in more than 40 medical and health subject areas. Every article is free online from the day of publication.

LUGANO, 31 October, 2020 - Researchers have developed a novel allergen-depleted and anti-inflammatory fragrance that can be used in moisturisers for people with extremely dry, xerotic skin. Beiersdorf researchers in Germany report the results of two tests proving the fragrance is anti-inflammatory at today's 29th EADV Congress, EADV Virtual.

Tests on skin cells found that the anti-inflammatory ingredients of the allergen-depleted fragrance composition reduced expression of both Prostaglandin E2 and Interleukin-8 after applying a stressor substance. The researchers also studied the fragrance formulated in a moisturiser applied to the forearm of human volunteers after they shaved their skin on three consecutive days to induce skin irritation. They found that skin redness was significantly reduced in the skin treated with the moisturiser.

Fragrances are one of the most frequent causes of allergic contact dermatitis. The novel fragrance was developed without using not only any of the 26 commonly known allergens, but also without the additional 60+ potential allergens currently under evaluation. However, it still has a pleasant scent, which can significantly improve the cosmetic acceptability of moisturisers and, consequently, enhance patients' treatment adherence.

Dr Julia Gallinger, a senior scientist at Beiersdorf AG's Research and Development department explains: "A moisturiser containing our novel fragrance could provide an improved treatment option for people with dry skin conditions. It would be both pleasant to use due to its scent, enhancing patients` treatment adherence, and actively soothe inflammation. Hence, the long-standing paradigm of fragranced moisturisers considered as allergenic risk in the treatment of xerotic dermatoses may soon become obsolete. The fragrance has been integrated into two new Eucerin UreaRepair PLUS products for dry skin to provide skin care with a pleasurable experience."

In addition, a patient preference study among 86 people with dry skin who used the fragranced moisturiser for two weeks showed that 97% agree that it doesn't just feel like they have to apply something on their skin, but now they also enjoy it. 91% confirmed that the scented lotion makes their care routine more pleasant. Furthermore, 71% confirmed that they like the scented product better than the unscented moisturiser they normally use.

New research by an international team of scientists shows how marine organisms were forced to 'reboot' to survive following the asteroid impact 66 million years ago which killed three quarters of life on earth.

Researchers from the University of Southampton and UCL, along with colleagues in Paris, California, Bristol and Edinburgh used an exceptional record of plankton fossils and eco-evolutionary modelling techniques to examine how organisms behaved before and after this extinction event - and why some survived and some didn't.

The team found that prior to the asteroid impact, species of nannoplankton - microscopic algae - were exclusively reliant on harnessing energy from sunlight (photoautotrophs), but those living afterwards were capable of capturing food and eating it in addition to using photosynthesis to feed (mixotrophs). This suggests the blocking of light from the sun played an important role in killing off some species and over time, encouraging others to evolve and adapt.

Findings are published in the journal Science Advances.

The research team's breakthrough came when they found that many of the nannoplankton skeletons (coccospheres) post mass-extinction included a large hole, indicating the position of flagella - tiny tail like structures used by the algae for movement and feeding. This indicates these microscopic organisms, which survived the asteroid strike, were capable of hunting and ingesting food.

"Those species that were lost at the mass extinction show no evidence of a mixotrophic lifestyle and were likely to be completely reliant on sunlight and photosynthesis," explains Dr Samantha Gibbs of the University of Southampton. "Fossils following the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) extinction show that mixotrophy dominated and our model indicates this is because of the exceptional abundance of small prey cells - most likely surviving bacteria - and reduced numbers of larger 'grazers' in the post-extinction oceans."

Opposing evolutionary forces led to the emergence of more diverse feeding strategies and eventually a return to greater reliance on photosynthesis in open ocean nannoplankton. Most nannoplankton today only photosynthesise.

So, what caused this devastating mass extinction of photoautotrophs and other species?

The simple answer is a lack of light. The K/Pg event was triggered by an asteroid impact that formed the Chicxulub crater in Mexico, and is well known for the extinction of dinosaurs, plesiosaurs, ammonites and many other groups.

"This huge impact flung vast amounts of debris, aerosols and soot into the atmosphere, causing darkness, cooling and acidification over days and years," says Paul Bown, Professor of Micropalaeontology at UCL. "The significant bias found in the nannoplankton extinctions - removal of open-ocean photoautotrophs but survival of mixotrophs that could hunt and feed - can only be fully explained by the darkness caused by the asteroid impact acting as a kill mechanism."

Samantha Gibbs adds: "This 'blackout' or shutdown of primary productivity would have been felt across all of Earth's ecosystems and reveals that the K/Pg event is distinct from all other mass extinctions that have shaped the history of life, both in its rapidity, related to an instantaneous impact event, and its darkness kill mechanism, which shook the foundations of the food chains.

"The K/Pg boundary event likely represents the only truly geologically instantaneous mass extinction event."

'This is pretty mind blowing'

Patients treated by highly skilled surgeons are more likely to survive long-term

Ask your surgeon how many similar procedures they have done

Colon cancer is one of most common in U.S.

CHICAGO --- Patients of more technically skilled surgeons, as assessed by review of operative video, have better long-term survival after surgery for the treatment of colon cancer, reports a new Northwestern Medicine study.

Patients whose surgery was performed by a highly skilled surgeon had a 70 percent lower risk of dying over five years compared to patients with a lower skilled surgeon, the study found.

"This is pretty mind blowing," said lead author Dr. Karl Bilimoria, professor of surgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and a Northwestern Medicine surgical oncologist. "The long-term effect is huge."

The paper will be published October 30 in JAMA Oncology and presented virtually at the Commission on Cancer Annual Meeting.

Although the importance of surgical skill has long been presumed, this is the first study, to the authors' knowledge, to demonstrate a surgeon's skill is important to long-term outcomes among patients undergoing cancer treatment surgery.

"It may seem common sense in some ways, but we didn't realize the magnitude of the effect," Bilimoria said. In a prior study the team conducted, there were 25% fewer short-term complications -- such as a colon leak or bleeding -- when a highly skilled surgeon performed the colon cancer operation.

Colon cancer is one of the most common cancers, with over 100,000 new cases diagnosed annually in the United States. In many cases, surgery is the primary treatment.

Bilimoria also is director of the Surgical Outcomes and Quality Improvement Center of Northwestern and a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University.

One possible reason for the difference is that a skilled surgeon may be more likely to remove lymph nodes that contain colon cancer, said study first author Dr. Brian Brajcich, a Northwestern surgical resident and research fellow.

"A less skilled surgeon may not remove as many lymph nodes, potentially leaving behind cancer," Brajcich said. "Patients who would benefit from chemotherapy after surgery won't receive it if we don't know that the cancer has spread to the lymph node."

How do you find a highly skilled cancer surgeon?

How do you find a highly skilled cancer surgeon? Ask about the number of similar procedures they have done, Bilimoria said.

"Lots of experience with the procedure is a good marker of skill," Bilimoria said. "General surgeons, colorectal surgeons and surgical oncologists all do colon cancer surgery, and there can be excellent cancer surgeons in each of those fields."

In the study, a surgeon's technical skill was scored based on review of video footage of colon surgery by other surgeons, including peers and expert reviewers. The outcomes of patients treated by surgeons with higher and lower skill scores were then compared.

Improving outcomes after surgery, especially cancer surgery, should include efforts targeting surgeons' technical skill. Comprehensive approaches to help surgeons improve their technical skill could include surgical coaching and the ability to review and discuss surgical video footage with peers and experts in the field.

Further research is needed to determine whether efforts to improve surgical skill lead to improved technical skills and patient outcomes. Additionally, the actual methods to improve surgical skill need to be advanced and studied to determine whether they are effective at improving patient outcomes.

Bilimoria acknowledged the small study size but said, "Even in this size study, we see a large impact."

People are significantly less likely to smoke - and are more likely to successfully quit - if they live in green neighbourhoods, new research has found.

The study is the first to demonstrate that access to neighbourhood greenspace is linked to lower rates of current smoking, and that this is due to higher rates of smoking cessation rather than lower uptake in these areas.

Researchers used data gathered through the Health Survey for England (HSE), conducted annually on behalf of the UK Office for National Statistics, and examined the responses of more than 8,000 adults to questions about their health, where they lived and various other lifestyle factors.

Of the HSE survey's respondents, just under one fifth (19%) described themselves as current smokers while almost half (45%) said they had regularly smoked at some point during their lives.

However, even after to taking into account other factors known to influence smoking, people living in areas with a high proportion of greenspace were 20% less likely to be current smokers than those in less green areas.

In addition, among people who had smoked at some point during their lives, those living in greener neighbourhoods were up to 12% more likely to have successfully quit smoking.

The authors suggest that improving access to greenspace may constitute an overlooked public health strategy for reducing smoking prevalence, especially given that smoking uptake and cessation are affected by stress.

Published in Social Science & Medicine, the research was led by psychologists from the University of Plymouth, the University of Exeter and the University of Vienna.

Previous studies by the same team have shown that being able to see green spaces from your home is associated with reduced cravings for alcohol, cigarettes and unhealthy foods. They have also demonstrated that individuals who visit natural spaces weekly, and feel psychologically connected to them, report better physical and mental wellbeing.

Leanne Martin, from the University of Plymouth, the lead author on all three studies, said: "This study is the first to investigate the association between neighbourhood greenspace and smoking behaviours in England. Its findings support the need to protect and invest in natural resources - in both urban and more rural communities - in order to maximise the public health benefits they may afford. If our findings are substantiated by further work, nature-based interventions could be prescribed to assist individuals attempting to give up smoking."

The research also examined whether the link between greenspace and smoking was affected by factors including socio-economic status and neighbourhood deprivation. No such impacts were found and the study's authors say this suggests that high greenspace neighbourhoods are independently associated with a lower prevalence of current smoking, irrespective of the socio-demographic characteristics of the individuals who reside in them.

Co-author Mathew White, Senior Scientist at the University of Vienna and Honorary Associate Professor at the University of Exeter, said: "Despite a decline in prevalence within the general population over the last decade, smoking remains a devastating and global public health issue. Governments across the world spend billions each year trying to tackle it, both in an attempt to improve public health and reduce the strain on health services. This study emphasises the need to preserve existing green spaces and expand the development of new ones."

Co-author Sabine Pahl, Professor of Urban and Environmental Psychology at the University of Vienna and Honorary Professor of Applied Social Psychology at the University of Plymouth, added: "While there is now considerable evidence that natural spaces are associated with stress reduction and better well-being, this is the first study to my knowledge to show that more greenspace is also linked to a reduction in unhealthy behaviours. This is intriguing and suggests that the benefits of natural green and blue spaces may reach even further than initially thought."

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich researchers have designed a light-sensitive inhibitor that can control cell division and cell death - and provides a promising approach for studies of essential cellular processes and the development of novel tumor therapies.

The ability to precisely control biological and chemical processes is an essential element of both basic research and medicine. Light represents an attractive stimulus in this context, as its effects can be accurately modulated both spatially and temporally. These desirable properties are the reason why the development of light-controllable molecules has become such an important goal for biological chemists. Such tools promise to make significant contributions to the elucidation of basic cellular functions, the detailed understanding of medical disorders and the design of new therapeutic strategies to combat them. A group of researchers led by cell biologist Esther Zanin at LMU's Biocenter, in cooperation with the chemist Henry Dube (who moved in April of this year from the LMU to the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg) has now developed a light-sensitive chemical inhibitor, that allows them to control two fundamental cellular processes, cell division and cell death, with light.

Cell division is a vital and highly complex process. It is therefore subject to tight regulation to ensure that cells divide only at the right time and error free. Defective cells are eliminated by programmed cell death (also known as 'apoptosis'). Both correct cell division and the disposal of defective cells depend on a molecular machine called the proteasome, which specifically degrades cellular proteins that are either damaged or no longer required.

"We have now modified an established and versatile chemical inhibitor of the proteosome by adding a light-sensitive protective group to it," says Zanin. "This group blocks the reactive aldehyde function of the inhibitor and prevents it from binding to the proteasome." In the dark, the inhibitor is therefore inactive and the proteasome functions normally. However, exposure of the cells to blue light detaches the protective group, thus allowing the inhibitor to interact with the proteosome and inhibit its function. Since the activating blue light radiation can be accurately targeted, the action of the inhibitor can be very precisely controlled. "By this means, we are able to arrest the division of tumor cells at a specific stage of the process, and to trigger apoptosis in a targeted manner," Zanin explains.

She and her colleagues believe that the new light-sensitive proteosome inhibitor will prove to be a valuable tool for the study of a wide range of dynamic cellular processes - for example, in the context of development, during which cells and tissues undergo rapid and often radical changes during a short time and at confined locations. In addition, proteosome inhibitors have promising applications as therapeutic agents - in the treatment of cancer, for instance. "The ability to activate these compounds specifically in both time and space could make them more efficacious in the future, while reducing the incidence of side-effects," says Zanin. However, reaching this goal will require further work, as the inhibitor employed in the new study is not suitable for medical use in its present form.

One year after the publication of research on the Xiahe mandible, the first Denisovan fossil found outside of Denisova Cave, the same research team has now reported their findings of Denisovan DNA from sediments of the Baishiya Karst Cave (BKC) on the Tibetan Plateau where the Xiahe mandible was found. The study was published in Science on Oct. 29.

The research team was led by Prof. CHEN Fahu from the Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research (ITP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Prof. ZHANG Dongju from Lanzhou University, Prof. FU Qiaomei from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of CAS, Prof. Svante Pääbo from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, and Prof. LI Bo from University of Wollongong.

Using cutting-edge paleogenetic technology, the researchers successfully extracted Denisovan mtDNA from Late Pleistocene sediment samples collected during the excavation of BKC. Their results show that this Denisovan group is closely related to the late Denisovans from Denisova Cave, indicating Denisovans occupied the Tibetan Plateau for a rather long time and had probably adapted to the high-altitude environment.

Denisovans were first discovered and identified in 2010 by a research team led by Prof. Svante Pääbo. Almost a decade later, the Xiahe mandible was found on the Tibetan Plateau. As the first Denisovan fossil found outside of Denisova Cave, it confirmed that Denisovans had occupied the roof of the world in the late Middle Pleistocene and were widespread. Although the Xiahe mandible shed great new light on Denisovan studies, without DNA and secure stratigraphic and archaeological context, the information it revealed about Denisovans was still considerably restricted.

In 2010, a research team from Lanzhou University led by Prof. CHEN Fahu, current director of ITP, began to work in BKC and the Ganjia basin where it is located. Since then, thousands of pieces of stone artifacts and animal bones have been found. Subsequent analysis indicated that the stone artifacts were mainly produced using simple core-flake technology. Among animal species represented, gazelles and foxes dominated in the upper layers, but rhinoceros, wild bos and hyena dominated in the lower layers. Some of the bones had been burnt or have cut-marks, indicating that humans occupied the cave for a rather long time.

To determine when people occupied the cave, researchers used radiocarbon dating of bone fragments recovered from the upper layers and optical dating of sediments collected from all layers in the excavated profile. They measured 14 bone fragments and about 30,000 individual grains of feldspar and quartz minerals from 12 sediment samples to construct a robust chronological framework for the site. Dating results suggest that the deepest excavated deposits contain stone artifacts buried over ~190 ka (thousand years). Sediments and stone artifacts accumulated over time until at least ~45 ka or even later.

To determine who occupied the cave, researchers used sedimentary DNA technology to analyze 35 sediment samples specially collected during the excavation for DNA analysis. They captured 242 mammalian and human mtDNA samples, thus enriching the record of DNA related to ancient hominins. Interestingly, they detected ancient human fragments that matched mtDNA associated with Denisovans in four different sediment layers deposited ~100 ka and ~60 ka.

More interestingly, they found that the hominin mtDNA from 60 ka share the closest genetic relationship to Denisova 3 and 4 - i.e., specimens sampled from Denisova Cave in Altai, Russia. In contrast, mtDNA dating to ~100 ka shows a separation from the lineage leading to Denisova 3 and 4.

Using sedimentary DNA from BKC, researchers found the first genetic evidence that Denisovans lived outside of Denisova Cave. This new study supports the idea that Denisovans had a wide geographic distribution not limited to Siberia, and they may have adapted to life at high altitudes and contributed such adaptation to modern humans on the Tibetan Plateau.

However, there are still many questions left. For example, what's the latest age of Denisovans in BKC? Due to the reworked nature of the top three layers, it is difficult to directly associate the mtDNA with their depositional ages, which are as late as 20-30 ka BP. Therefore, it is uncertain whether these late Denisovans had encountered modern humans or not. In addition, just based on mtDNA, we still don't know the exact relationship between the BKC Denisovans, those from Denisova Cave in Siberia and modern Tibetans. Future nuclear DNA from this site may provide a tool to further explore these questions.

At first glance, a pack of wolves has little to do with a vinaigrette. However, a team led by Ramin Golestanian, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, has developed a model that establishes a link between the movement of predators and prey and the segregation of vinegar and oil. They expanded a theoretical framework that until now was only valid for inanimate matter. In addition to predators and prey, other living systems such as enzymes or self-organizing cells can now be described.

Order is not always apparent at first glance. If you ran with a pack of wolves hunting deer, the movements would appear disordered. However, if the hunt is observed from a bird's eye view and over a longer period of time, patterns become apparent in the movement of the animals. In physics, such behaviour is considered orderly. But how does this order emerge? The Department of "Living Matter Physics" of Ramin Golestanian is dedicated to this question and investigates the physical rules that govern motion in living or active systems. Golestanian's aim is to reveal universal characteristics of active, living matter. This includes not only larger organisms such as predators and prey but also bacteria, enzymes and motor proteins as well as artificial systems such as micro-robots. "When we describe a group of such active systems over great distances and long periods of time, the specific details of the systems lose importance. Their overall distribution in space ultimately becomes the decisive characteristic", explains Golestanian.

From inanimate to living system

His team in Göttingen has recently made a breakthrough in describing living matter. To achieve this, Suropriya Saha, Jaime Agudo-Canalejo, and Ramin Golestanian started with the well-known description of the behaviour of inanimate matter and expanded it. The main point was to take into account the fundamental difference between living and inanimate matter. In contrast to inanimate, passive matter, living, active matter can move on its own. Physicists use the Cahn-Hilliard equation to describe how inanimate mixtures such as an emulsion of oil and water separate.

The characterization developed in the 1950s is considered the standard model of phase separation. It is based on the principle of reciprocity: Tit for tat. Oil thus repels water in the same way as water repels oil. However, this is not always the case for living matter or active systems. A predator pursues its prey, while the prey tries to escape from the predator. Only recently has it been shown that there is non-reciprocal (i.e. active) behaviour even in the movement of the smallest systems such as enzymes. Enzymes can thus concentrate specifically in individual cell areas - something that is necessary for many biological processes. Following this discovery, the Göttingen researchers investigated how large accumulations of different enzymes behave. Would they mix together or form groups? Would new and unforeseen characteristics arise? With the aim of answering these questions, the research team set to work.

Suddenly waves appear

The first task was to modify the Cahn-Hilliard equation to include non-reciprocal interactions. Because the equation describes non-living systems, the reciprocity of passive interactions is deeply embedded in its structure. Thus, every process described by it ends in thermodynamic equilibrium. In other words, all participants ultimately enter a resting state. Life, however, takes place outside the thermodynamic equilibrium. This is because living systems do not remain at rest but rather use energy in order to achieve something (e.g. their own reproduction). Suropriya Saha and her colleagues take this behaviour into account by expanding the Cahn-Hilliard equation by a parameter that characterizes non-reciprocal activities. In this way, they can now also describe processes that differ from passive processes to any extent.

Saha and her colleagues used computer simulations to study the effects of the introduced modifications. "Surprisingly, even minimal non-reciprocity leads to radical deviations from the behaviour of passive systems", says Saha. For example, the researcher observed the formation of travelling waves in a mixture of two different types of particles. In this phenomenon, bands of one component chase the bands of the other component, thereby resulting in a pattern of moving stripes. In addition, complex lattices can form in particle mixtures in which small clusters of one component chase groups of the other component. With their work, the researchers hope to contribute to scientific progress in both physics and biology. For example, the new model can describe and predict the behaviour of different cells, bacteria, or enzymes. "We have taught an old dog new tricks with this model", says Golestanian. "Our research shows that physics contributes to our understanding of biology and that the challenges posed by studying living matter open up new avenues for fundamental research in physics."

There's a long-standing question in planetary science about the origin of water on Earth, Mars and other large bodies such as the moon. One hypothesis says that it came from asteroids and comets post-formation. But some planetary researchers think that water might just be one of many substances that occur naturally during the formation of planets. A new analysis of an ancient Martian meteorite adds support for this second hypothesis.

Several years ago, a pair of dark meteorites were discovered in the Sahara Desert. They were dubbed NWA 7034 and NWA 7533, where NWA stands for North West Africa and the number is the order in which meteorites are officially approved by the Meteoritical Society, an international planetary science organization. Analysis showed these meteorites are new types of Martian meteorites and are mixtures of different rock fragments.

The earliest fragments formed on Mars 4.4 billion years ago, making them the oldest known Martian meteorites. Rocks like this are rare and can fetch up to $10,000 per gram. But recently 50 grams of NWA 7533 was acquired for analysis by the international team in which Professor Takashi Mikouchi at the University of Tokyo was participating. The project was led by Professor Zhengbin Deng, currently at the University of Copenhagen.

"I study minerals in Martian meteorites to understand how Mars formed and its crust and mantle evolved. This is the first time I have investigated this particular meteorite, nicknamed Black Beauty for its dark color," said Mikouchi. "Our samples of NWA 7533 were subjected to four different kinds of spectroscopic analysis, ways of detecting chemical fingerprints. The results led our team to draw some exciting conclusions."

It's well known to planetary scientists that there has been water on Mars for at least 3.7 billion years. But from the mineral composition of the meteorite, Mikouchi and his team deduced it's likely there was water present much earlier, at around 4.4 billion years ago.

"Igneous clasts, or fragmented rock, in the meteorite are formed from magma and are commonly caused by impacts and oxidation," said Mikouchi. "This oxidation could have occurred if there was water present on or in the Martian crust 4.4 billion years ago during an impact that melted part of the crust. Our analysis also suggests such an impact would have released a lot of hydrogen, which would have contributed to planetary warming at a time when Mars already had a thick insulating atmosphere of carbon dioxide."

If there was water on Mars earlier than thought, that suggests water is possibly a natural byproduct of some process early on in planet formation. This finding could help researchers answer the question of where water comes from, which in turn could impact theories on the origins of life and the exploration for life beyond Earth.

In a recent study, a research group led by Christian Gruber at MedUni Vienna's Institute of Pharmacology isolated a peptide (small protein molecule) from beetroot. The peptide is able to inhibit a particular enzyme that is responsible for the breakdown of messenger molecules in the body. Due to its particularly stable molecular structure and pharmacological properties, the beetroot peptide may be a good candidate for development of a drug to treat certain inflammatory diseases, such as e.g. neurodegenerative and autoimmune diseases.

The peptide that occurs in the roots of beetroot plants belongs to a group of molecules that plants use inter alia as a chemical defence against pests such as e.g. bacteria, viruses or insects. "By analysing thousands of genomic data, our team was able to define a number of new cysteine-rich peptides and assign them phylogenetically in the plant kingdom. In this process, our attention was drawn to a possible function as so-called 'protease inhibitors'. The beetroot peptide can therefore inhibit enzymes that digest proteins," explains Gruber.

The beetroot peptide specifically inhibits prolyl oligopeptidase (POP), which is involved in the breakdown of protein hormones in the body and is therefore able to regulate inflammatory reactions. POP is a much-discussed drug target for neurodegenerative and inflammatory diseases, such as Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis, for example. "This means that, in future studies, this group of plant peptides called 'knottins', such as those found in beetroot, could potentially provide a drug candidate for treating these diseases."

Peptide can be detected in commercial beetroot juice

The peptide not only occurs in the root vegetables but can also be detected in commercially available beetroot juice - albeit in very low concentrations. "Although beetroot counts as a very healthy vegetable, it would be unreasonable to hope that dementia could be prevented by regular consumption of beetroot," stresses the MedUni Vienna pharmacologist. "The peptide only occurs in very small quantities and it is not clear whether it can as such be absorbed via the gastrointestinal tract."

Using Nature's blueprint

The research work being conducted by Gruber's laboratory utilized the idea of harnessing Nature's blueprint to develop drug candidates. "We are searching through large databases containing genetic information of plants and animals, decoding new types of peptide molecules and studying their structure, aiming to test them pharmacologically on enzymes or cellular receptors (such as one of the prominent drug target classes, the so-called G protein-coupled receptors) and finally analysing them in the disease models," explains Gruber. Potential drug candidates are chemically synthesised in a slightly modified form based on the natural product, in order to obtain optimised pharmacological properties. This concept appears to be successful: a few years ago the research team generated a drug candidate T20K for MS with a synthesised plant peptide (cyclotide), which has recently been tested successfully in a Phase 1 trial by the Swedish firm Cyxone under a MedUni Vienna licence, and is now being prepared for a Phase 2 clinical trial.

Specialists from the Department of Fundamental Medicine of Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) with Russian and Japanese colleagues have probed into mechanisms of COVID-19 inside-the-body distribution linked to erythrocytes damaging. According to researchers, the virus might attack red marrow, thus being detrimental not only for erythrocytes in the bloodstream but also for the process of the formation of the new ones. A related article appears in Archiv EuroMedica.

Erythrocytes are the major target for the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). These red blood cells are responsible in the body for transport of the iron-rich protein hemoglobin carrying the oxygen.

Lost of erythrocytes might cause damage to the brain neurons, blood vessels, and internals, considering they get not enough oxygen. In the most severe cases, multiple organ failure can occur, and without his own red blood cells, the patient starts to suffocate. Artificial ventilation doesn't help following there is no one who transports oxygen within the body. Effective therapy for such patients is to administer erythrocyte mass and vitamin B12. The mechanism of recovery of damaged red blood cells is still a mystery for scientists.

Early breakdown of red blood cells is the initial reaction of the body to the SARS COV-2 virus, which scales up gradually. The patient can learn about the pathology by feeling the taste of iron. That occurs because hemoglobin released from erythrocytes in the bloodstream is get in saliva.

According to scientists, everyone who has low hemoglobin is at risk. First of all, these are elderly people, patients with high blood pressure, people with obesity and diabetes mellitus, pregnant women, patients with primary and acquired immunodeficiency, with inhibition of hematopoietic function, HIV- and cancer patients.

"The virus enters the epithelium, where multiplies, then enters the bloodstream and attacks targets, which can be both the internal epithelium (gastrointestinal tract, lungs, genitourinary system) and erythrocytes," explains Galina Reva, Professor of the Department of Fundamental Medicine, School of Biomedicine, FEFU. "Although most frequently we would see the pathology of the respiratory system, lungs, the virus needs epithelial cells only for reproduction. We believe the main target for the virus is the red marrow, where it damages the endothelium, the tissue, which normally regulates the migration of maturing cells into the blood. For this reason, strange things happen to the cells of the immune system, and megakaryocytes, very large cells of the bone marrow, had been found in the tissues of various organs. Normally, megakaryocytes become sources of platelets, which are responsible for blood coagulation, but with COVID-19 they clot blood in the vessels without any necessity."

Professor Reva proceeds that lung fibrosis is just the most obvious manifestation of COVID-19, which appears not only as usual scar tissue formation in the defect's area. Since the cause of fibrosis is megakaryocytes "thrown" into the bloodstream, similar processes might occur in the tissues of all parenchymal (dense) organs, which are lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, pancreas, and thyroid.

"This is an aggressive process, though it can be slow and relatively benignant, with no clinical manifestations at the background of anemia, short wind, and increased heart rate. Simultaneously, the number of functionally active cells of organs' tissue is shrinking, stromal elements that perform as a soft framework increase. Sometimes local changes take the form of a large fibrous tumor-like formation. The pathology is very dangerous since clinical signs can appear when these irreversible processes occupy a significant volume of the organ," Professor Reva says.

In order to develop targeted treatment and measures to prevent possible complications after coronavirus 2, it is necessary to scrutinize the mechanism behind fibrosis of the lungs tissue, liver, kidneys, and other organs.

According to Galina Reva, coronavirus 2 also induces destruction of white pulp in the spleen, the very tissue producing cells responsible for infectious immunity like T-cells, and B-lymphocytes. For this exact reason, secondary infections comorbid to coronavirus 2 are dangerous to humans. The body simply has nothing to fight back. A patient can survive only through large doses of antibiotics, while the main thing is not to be late, because when the red cells begin to die from a shortage of oxygen, the person begins to suffocate and to save him is even more difficult.

At the next stage, scientists plan to check the intercellular connections and interactions in order to go down the chain of the virus's way of action to the end. When did that, they hope to understand which cells in the body need to be stimulated in a severe course of the disease, and what it is simply useless to try to influence.

Conducting the investigation, scientists analyzed the results of their own studies of lung samples from 79 patients who died from COVID-19, which was PCR-confirmed. In the control group were 14 patients died accidentally.

Massive galaxies were already much more mature in the early universe than previously expected. This is the conclusion of an international team of astronomers who studied distant galaxies with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The result is now published by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Researchers from the The Cosmic Dawn Center at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen participated in the project, and Seiji Fujimoto, postdoc, explains the objective like this: "We performed the first large multi wavelength survey of distant galaxies, in order to understand the initial phase of galaxy formation and evolution in the Universe. We didn't expect to find such mature galaxies, and this new information allows us to now paint a more coherent picture of the average condition in the early universe".

Unexpected maturity of galaxies in a very young universe
Most galaxies formed when the universe was still very young. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, likely started forming 13.6 billion years ago, in our 13.8 billion-year-old universe. When the universe was only ten percent of its current age (1-1.5 billion years after the Big Bang), most of the galaxies experienced a "growth spurt". During this time, they built up most of their stellar mass and other properties, and the amount of dust, metal content, and their spiral-disk shapes are what we see in today's galaxies. Therefore, if we want to learn how galaxies like our Milky Way formed, it is important to study this epoch.

ALMA obtained a more coherent picture of the population of galaxies in the ALPINE survey
Galaxies are considered more mature when they contain a significant amount of dust and heavy elements (metals), as dust and metals are a by-product of dying stars. But galaxies in the early universe have not had much time to build stars yet, let alone see the ending of their lifespan, so the team of astronomers didn't expect to see much dust or metals. Nevertheless, this turned out to be the case, and it even proved to be more "the order of the day" than a special case in the population of galaxies observed in the ALPINE project (the ALMA Large Program to Investigate C+ at Early Times). Seiji Fujimoto explains the significance of this: "Sometimes, if the entire galaxy we wish to observe is obscured by dust, we can't get the information we're after using optical telescopes - telescopes that observe using visible light. But with ALMA, a radio telescope observing via invisible longer wavelengths, we are able to see through the "veil of dust and metal gas".

New and surprising discoveries were also made by ALMA in the process
ALMA is not only able to obtain an image of each galaxy, but can also see how the metal gas moves in the individual galaxies. Because forming-phase galaxies are expected to have highly disordered motions, the metal gas motion tells us something about the matureness of the galaxies. It turned out that while many of the galaxies are colliding, the team also found that a number of them are rotating in an orderly fashion with no signs of collisions. Surprisingly, the team even discovered a galaxy surrounded by a huge rotating metal gas that far exceeds the stellar distribution. This probably means that the metal gas was pushed away from the galaxy in distorted motions by supernova explosions or energetic jets and radiation from supermassive black holes, but it formed the ordered rotating disk after a sufficient time.

What can be considered "normal" in the early Universe?
These results allow for the survey's conclusions on what the normality of the observed galaxies were.
Seiji Fujimoto explains the quest for the standard condition like this: "This time we studied the galaxies based on the metal and dust information, something we haven't been able to acquire from previous observations. Based on the comprehensive perspective of the galaxies, we focused on obtaining what we could call the normal picture in the early universe, which automatically defines what is unusual at the same time and allows us to identify unique objects. The normal picture will help us to much better determine the evolution of our Universe. In fact, cosmological theorists will need this new information to build up a theoretically more precise picture of the development of the Universe. Furthermore, we may learn new cosmological events or physical mechanisms in galaxies through the objects that are out of the ordinary. This research will contribute to our fundamental understanding of the universe we are part of".

The astronomers now wish to point ALMA at individual galaxies for a longer time to answer further questions, such as where the dust and metals are and how they move around. A comparison of these properties between the dust/metal-rich and -poor galaxies at similar distances may answer if the unexpectedly mature galaxies are formed with special circumstances in their environments.

This ethereal remnant of a long dead star, nestled in the belly of The Whale, bears an uneasy resemblance to a skull floating through space. Captured in astounding detail by ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), the eerie Skull Nebula is showcased in this new image in beautiful bloodshot colours. This planetary nebula is the first known to be associated with a pair of closely bound stars orbited by a third outer star.

Also known as NGC 246 , the Skull Nebula lies about 1600 light-years away from Earth in the southern constellation of Cetus (The Whale). It formed when a Sun-like star expelled its outer layers in its old age, leaving behind its naked core -- a white dwarf -- one of two stars that can be seen at the very centre of NGC 246.

Even though this nebula has been known for centuries, only in 2014 did astronomers discover, using ESO's VLT, that the white dwarf and its companion are concealing a third star situated at the heart of the Skull Nebula. This star, which is not visible in this image, is a dim red dwarf that sits close to the white dwarf at about 500 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. The red and white dwarf stars orbit each other as a pair, and the outer star orbits the two dwarfs at a distance of around 1900 times the Earth-Sun separation. Collectively, these three stars establish NGC 246 as the first known planetary nebula with a hierarchical triple stellar system at its centre.

Taken by the FORS 2 instrument on ESO's VLT in the Chilean Atacama Desert, this new image of the Skull Nebula intentionally captures light emitted in some narrow ranges of wavelengths -- those associated with hydrogen and oxygen gas. Observations of light emitted by particular elements help reveal a wealth of information about an object's chemical and structural compositions. This new image of the Skull Nebula highlights where NGC 246 is rich or poor in hydrogen (shown in red) and oxygen (depicted in light blue).

This image was selected as part of the ESO Cosmic Gems programme, an outreach initiative to produce images of interesting, intriguing or visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes, for the purposes of education and public outreach. The programme makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations. All data collected may also be suitable for scientific purposes, and are made available to astronomers through ESO's science archive.

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ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 16 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world's largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".

A pair of University of Michigan studies reveals how some massive stars--stars eight or more times the mass of our sun--become isolated in the universe: most often, their star clusters kick them out.

Massive stars typically reside in clusters. Isolated massive stars are called field massive stars. The papers published by U-M students examined most of these stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way.

The studies, appearing in the same issue of The Astrophysical Journal, reveal how these field massive stars originate, or become so isolated. Understanding how field massive stars become isolated--whether they form in isolation or whether they become isolated by being ejected from a star cluster--will help astronomers probe the conditions in which massive stars are formed. Understanding this and cluster formation is critical for understanding how galaxies evolve.

"About a quarter of all massive stars appear to be isolated, and that's our big question," said recent undergraduate Johnny Dorigo Jones. "How they're found to be isolated, and how they got there."

Dorigo Jones shows in his paper that the vast majority of field massive stars are "runaways," or stars ejected from clusters. Graduate student Irene Vargas-Salazar looked for field massive stars that may have formed in relative isolation by looking for evidence of tiny clusters around them. That means these relatively isolated stars could have formed in conjunction with these smaller stars. But she found very few of these faint clusters.

"Because massive stars require a lot of material to form, there are usually a lot of smaller stars around them," Vargas-Salazar said. "My project asks specifically how many of these field massive stars could have formed in the field."

Dorigo Jones examined how field massive stars are ejected from clusters. He looks at the two different mechanisms that produce runaways: dynamical ejection and binary supernova ejection. In the first, the massive stars are ejected from their clusters--by up to half a million miles per hour--because of unstable orbital configurations of stellar groups. In the second, a massive star is ejected when a binary pair has one star that explodes and shoots its companion out into space.

"By having the velocities and the masses of our stars, we're able to compare the distributions of those parameters to the model predictions to determine the certain contributions from each of the ejection mechanisms," Dorigo Jones said.

He found that dynamical ejections--ejections caused by unstable orbital configurations--were about 2 to 3 times more numerous than supernova ejections. But Dorigo Jones also found the first observational data that shows a large fraction of the field massive stars came from a combination of both dynamical and supernova ejections.

"These have been studied in the past but we have now set the first observational constraints on the numbers of these two-step runaways," he said. "The way we reach that conclusion is we're essentially seeing that the stars that trace the supernova ejections in our sample are a bit too numerous and too fast compared to the model predictions. You can imagine this being remedied by these stars being reaccelerated upon a supernova kick, having first been dynamically ejected."

The researchers found that potentially up to half of the stars first thought to be from supernova ejections were first dynamically ejected.

Vargas-Salazar's findings also support the idea that most field massive stars are runaways, but she looked at opposite conditions: she looked for field massive stars that formed in relative isolation in tiny clusters of smaller stars, where the massive target star is, called the "tip of the iceberg, or TIB clusters. She did this using two algorithms, "friends-of-friends" and "nearest neighbors," to search for those clusters around 310 field massive stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud.

The "friends-of-friends" algorithm measures the number density of stars by counting how many stars there are at a specific distance from the target star and then doing the same for those stars in turn. The more tightly packed the stars are, the more likely it is to be a cluster. The "nearest neighbors" algorithm measures the number density of stars between the target star and its nearest 20 companions. The more compact and denser the group, the more likely they are to be clusters, Vargas-Salazar said.

Using statistical tests, Vargas-Salazar compared these observations with three random-field datasets and compared the known runaway massive stars to nonrunaways. She found that only a few of the field massive stars appeared to have TIB clusters around them, suggesting that very few actually formed in the field. The balance of the field stars must have originated as runaways.

"In the end, we showed that 5% or less of the stars had TIB clusters. Instead, our findings imply that the majority of stars in field samples could be runaways," Vargas-Salazar said. "Our findings are actually supporting the result that Johnny found, wrapped in a neat little bow."

Vargas-Salazar's findings provide part of the answer to the question of how massive stars form, says Sally Oey, senior author on both of the papers and professor of astronomy at U-M.

"Johnny and Irene's work are flip sides of the same coin," Oey said. "Irene's numbers are consistent with Johnny's in that the vast majority of field massive stars are runaways, but that a few are not. This is a critical finding for understanding how massive stars and clusters form, and in what conditions."

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (BDR) have developed an improved human-skin equivalent that reproduces traction-force balance in the lateral direction, a property that controls the structure and physiological function of skin. This artificial skin will enhance in-depth analyses of physiological skin functions, provide solutions to skin problems caused by diseases or ageing, and reduce the need for animal testing.

The skin provides a barrier and physical cushion that protects the body from the external environment. In addition to responding to external physical stimuli such as pressure and tension, the skin is constantly in a state of "tensional homeostasis" in which the cells near the outer layer of skin maintain a stable and steady tension through collagen fibers. This tension helps keep internal structures strong, yet flexible. When skin is cut from an organism, it contracts in the same direction in which collagen fibers, texture, and the hairline are aligned. While synthetic skin models have been developed as alternatives to testing animals when developing safe and functional skincare products, it is difficult to study the tension distribution in the body because of its complexity.

In collaboration with the ROHTO Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., the research team led by Takashi Tsuji at RIKEN BDR developed a human skin equivalent (HSE) that reproduces the tension balance of natural skin, and explored the role of tensional homeostasis in controlling skin structure and function.

The team first experimented on ways to construct a skin model that reproduces the tensional homeostasis. Conventional skin models shrink during the construction process, which eliminates the tension and therefore the collagen and cells in the dermis-the second-most outer layer of skin-are not properly oriented. The team developed a new model by sandwiching the artificial skin in a culture vessel and fixing the degree of contraction. This reproduced a natural tensional homeostasis, the model did not shrink during culture, and its tissue structure was similar to that of natural skin, with collagen fibers and cells aligned in the same lateral direction as the tension. In addition, dermal fibroblast cells in this model stretched uniformly in the lateral direction, indicating that reproduction of the tension equilibrium is important for maintaining the orientation of skin tissue.

By exploring the molecular mechanisms underlying skin-tension homeostasis, the team found that compared to artificial skin without tension, the synthetic skin with tension equilibrium had more collagen fibers in the dermis, reproduction more primary skin cells, and had greater expression of certain genes. This means that tensional homeostasis facilitates healing and regeneration of the HSE and makes it more responsive to some drugs. The researchers suggest that skin-tension balance regulates skin functionality via mechanical stress signals.

Although the healthcare market is expected to grow to 5.25 trillion dollars within 10 years, social demands to reduce using animals, especially for skincare products and medicines, is increasing. "HSEs have crucial roles for scientific evidence-based skin health care and disease research that can help us reduce research in animals," Tsuji says. "Our study will open a novel field of animal-experiment replacement based on scientific evidence in the fields of healthcare and drug discovery. We believe that our HSE model will greatly contribute to the technological developments of next-generation skincare, and improve the quality of life."