Culture

Night-time imagery from NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite showed Hurricane Paulette's large eye approaching the island of Bermuda. A Hurricane Warning is in effect for Bermuda.

Bermuda is a British territory in the western Atlantic Ocean. It is located approximately 643 miles (1,035 km) east-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.

NASA's Night-Time View of Elida's Intensification

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard Suomi NPP provided a nighttime image of Hurricane Paulette at 1:30 a.m. EDT (0530 UTC). The large eye, between 35 and 40 miles in diameter, was clearly apparent in the nighttime image, and it was surrounded by powerful thunderstorms. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 45 miles (75 km) from the center and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 175 miles (280 km).

The image was created using the NASA Worldview application at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Hurricane Paulette's Status  

At 5 a.m. EDT on Sept. 14, the eye of Paulette circled the entire island of Bermuda. The center of the eye of Hurricane Paulette was located over northeastern Bermuda or near latitude 32.3 degrees north and longitude 64.7 degrees west.

NOAA's National Hurricane Center (NHC) said Paulette is moving toward the north-northwest near 12 mph (19 km/h), and this motion should continue early this morning. A turn toward the north is expected by late morning and will continue into this afternoon. A faster motion toward the northeast is expected by this evening and will continue through Wednesday.

Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 90 mph (150 km/h) with higher gusts.  Additional strengthening is likely when Paulette turns northeastward and moves away from Bermuda tonight through Tuesday. Although winds have subsided across much of Bermuda due to Paulette's eye passage, hurricane-force winds will return shortly when the southern portion of Paulette's eyewall passes over the island. Tropical-storm-force winds will continue possibly into the early afternoon across the entire island. The estimated minimum central pressure based on surface observations on Bermuda is 973 millibars.

Paulette's Forecast Track

At 5 a.m. EDT, the NHC noted that on the forecast track, the eye of Paulette will continue to pass over Bermuda during the next couple of hours, followed by passage of the southern portion of the eyewall.

About NASA's EOSDIS Worldview

NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Worldview application provides the capability to interactively browse over 700 global, full-resolution satellite imagery layers and then download the underlying data. Many of the available imagery layers are updated within three hours of observation, essentially showing the entire Earth as it looks "right now."

NASA Researches Earth from Space

For more than five decades, NASA has used the vantage point of space to understand and explore our home planet, improve lives and safeguard our future. NASA brings together technology, science, and unique global Earth observations to provide societal benefits and strengthen our nation. Advancing knowledge of our home planet contributes directly to America's leadership in space and scientific exploration.

For updated forecasts, visit: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov

ABERDEEN PROVIDING GROUND, Md. -- A team of Army researchers uncovered how the human brain processes bright and contrasting light, which they say is a key to improving robotic sensing and enabling autonomous agents to team with humans.

To enable developments in autonomy, a top Army priority, machine sensing must be resilient across changing environments, researchers said.

"When we develop machine vision algorithms, real-world images are usually compressed to a narrower range, as a cellphone camera does, in a process called tone mapping," said Andre Harrison, a researcher at the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory. "This can contribute to the brittleness of machine vision algorithms because they are based on artificial images that don't quite match the patterns we see in the real world."

By developing a new system with 100,000-to-1 display capability, the team discovered the brain's computations, under more real-world conditions, so they could build biological resilience into sensors, Harrison said.

Current vision algorithms are based on human and animal studies with computer monitors, which have a limited range in luminance of about 100-to-1, the ratio between the brightest and darkest pixels. In the real world, that variation could be a ratio of 100,000-to-1, a condition called high dynamic range, or HDR.

"Changes and significant variations in light can challenge Army systems--drones flying under a forest canopy could be confused by reflectance changes when wind blows through the leaves, or autonomous vehicles driving on rough terrain might not recognize potholes or other obstacles because the lighting conditions are slightly different from those on which their vision algorithms were trained," said Army researcher Dr. Chou Po Hung.

The research team sought to understand how the brain automatically takes the 100,000-to-1 input from the real world and compresses it to a narrower range, which enables humans to interpret shape. The team studied early visual processing under HDR, examining how simple features like HDR luminance and edges interact, as a way to uncover the underlying brain mechanisms.

"The brain has more than 30 visual areas, and we still have only a rudimentary understanding of how these areas process the eye's image into an understanding of 3D shape," Hung said. "Our results with HDR luminance studies, based on human behavior and scalp recordings, show just how little we truly know about how to bridge the gap from laboratory to real-world environments. But, these findings break us out of that box, showing that our previous assumptions from standard computer monitors have limited ability to generalize to the real world, and they reveal principles that can guide our modeling toward the correct mechanisms."

The Journal of Vision published the team's research findings, Abrupt darkening under high dynamic range (HDR) luminance invokes facilitation for high contrast targets and grouping by luminance similarity.

Researchers said the discovery of how light and contrast edges interact in the brain's visual representation will help improve the effectiveness of algorithms for reconstructing the true 3D world under real-world luminance, by correcting for ambiguities that are unavoidable when estimating 3D shape from 2D information.

"Through millions of years of evolution, our brains have evolved effective shortcuts for reconstructing 3D from 2D information," Hung said. "It's a decades-old problem that continues to challenge machine vision scientists, even with the recent advances in AI."

In addition to vision for autonomy, this discovery will also be helpful to develop other AI-enabled devices such as radar and remote speech understanding that depend on sensing across wide dynamic ranges.

With their results, the researchers are working with partners in academia to develop computational models, specifically with spiking neurons that may have advantages for both HDR computation and for more power-efficient vision processing--both important considerations for low-powered drones.

"The issue of dynamic range is not just a sensing problem," Hung said. "It may also be a more general problem in brain computation because individual neurons have tens of thousands of inputs. How do you build algorithms and architectures that can listen to the right inputs across different contexts? We hope that, by working on this problem at a sensory level, we can confirm that we are on the right track, so that we can have the right tools when we build more complex AIs."

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- The early days of the COVID-19 pandemic contributed to negative mental health effects for many in the U.S., according to new Penn State research. But the researchers also found that some coping techniques -- like wearing masks and focusing on self-care -- were linked with positive mental health.

Erina MacGeorge, professor of communication arts and sciences, said the results -- recently published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health -- may give clues about how people can continue to cope with the pandemic, as well as which populations may need extra care and assistance.

"These populations may include young people, those with pre-existing conditions, and those who don't have much social support from family and friends," MacGeorge said. "As individuals, we can help bolster our own mental health by protecting ourselves from COVID-19 as much as possible -- like with social distancing, hand-washing, and mask-wearing -- by seeking support when we need it, and choosing activities that keep us moving forward, such as looking for safe ways to have fun and help others."

After the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic in the middle of March 2020, a cascade of measures meant to slow the spread -- such as school and business closures and social distancing requirements -- went into effect.

The researchers said that while necessary, these measures helped contribute to people experiencing excess stress not only from fear of the disease itself, but also from other factors such as financial stress, problems finding child care, and separation from friends and family, among others.

"I've spent much of my career studying social support, which is one important factor in how people respond to traumatic events," said MacGeorge. "Living through the earliest weeks of the pandemic, talking with friends, and reading news stories about the challenges we were all facing, I wanted to study relationships, supportive communication, and health during the pandemic."

The researchers recruited participants between the ages of 18 and 90 for the study. Participants were asked to complete surveys at three points in time: one on April 20, one between May 4 and 8, and one between May 18 and 22. A total of 442 participants participated in all three surveys.

In each survey, participants answered questions designed to measure symptoms of depression and anxiety, as well as ones designed to measure how well participants were coping with traumatic events. The surveys also measured how much the participants felt the pandemic was affecting them financially, physically, socially and mentally, as well as whether participants were adhering to recommendations -- such as mask wearing -- and what kinds of coping strategies they were using.

The researchers found that levels of stress, anxiety and depression were highest at the beginning of the study, at the end of April. By the time the study ended near the end of May -- when many states were making plans to reopen -- these levels were lower. Younger people and people with pre-existing health conditions were more likely to have negative mental health outcomes.

According to the researchers, "social strain" -- such as someone making demands, giving criticism, or simply getting on your nerves -- was the strongest and most consistent predictor of mental health.

"This suggests that in difficult times like this, it could be particularly important to proactively structure our social networks in ways that minimize negative social experiences," said Yanmengqian "Alison" Zhou, a graduate assistant in communication arts and sciences.

However, MacGeorge said that several "forward-focused" coping strategies were associated with better mental health.

"Things like keeping a consistent schedule, reminding yourself that things will get better, finding activities to distract yourself, and taking care of others who need help are all helpful," MacGeorge said. "Additionally, adhering to the national recommendations for protecting oneself from COVID-19, like hand-washing, social distancing and masking, was also associated with better mental health."

Jessica Myrick, associate professor of media studies, said the study suggests that physical and mental health are interconnected.

"Sometimes we need to take a break from thinking about how we feel and do something to help alleviate the threat and make us feel a lot better about our situation in life," Myrick said. "COVID-related messages that emphasize that even small actions are worthwhile might have the doubly positive effect of getting people to take small actions, like washing their hands more often, but also alleviate some mental strain, too."

MacGeorge added that it's important to note that the data for their study was collected in April and May, before the protests following the killing of George Floyd and the ramping up of presidential campaigns.

"The pandemic had not been going on very long at that point," MacGeorge said. "Many states were just starting to 'reopen,' and there was a temporary flattening of the COVID-19 illness and death curve at that time. There is reason to believe that the mental health impacts of the continuing pandemic will be stronger than they appeared in our study in May, especially for people who have lost loved ones, who are now out of work, or who have suffered racial prejudice and discrimination."

COVID-19 and interlinkages to endocrine and metabolic diseases was an important programme topic at the 2020 European Congress of Endocrinology. With 4675 attendees from 112 countries this is the premier European endocrine meeting. Over 5 days, panel sessions covered the science behind COVID-19 and endocrine and metabolic disorders, as well as e-consulting and e-support to endocrine patients in times of COVID-19.

"One thing that is clear from the beginning of the pandemic is that patients with underlying endocrine diseases, like diabetes, obesity or the lack of vitamin D were more at risk of developing severe COVID-19," said Andrea Giustina, President of ESE. He continued, "Therefore, disciplines that work in the prevention, such as endocrinology, can focus on creating a healthier population, which can be important in the preparation for pandemics like COVID-19."

The need to address the links between endocrinology and COVID-19 has not gone unnoticed by policymakers. At the e-ECE opening ceremony, John Ryan, Director of public health, country knowledge and crisis management at the Directorate General for Health and Food Safety (DG SANTE) of the European Commission said, "there is a huge issue regarding non-communicable diseases and the EU is investing heavily together with Member States in trying to find effective ways to prevent it, such as the Farm2Fork Strategy of the EU4Health program."

COVID-19 incidence higher for those with underlying endocrine conditions

There is evidence that people with underlying endocrine conditions such as diabetes, obesity or autoimmune thyroid disease, face an increased risk of infection from COVID-19. In fact, vitamin D deficiency makes people more vulnerable to infection and may increase lung damage. In addition, recent studies show that certain underlying conditions, associated with exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs), are exacerbating the effects of COVID-19 in vulnerable populations.

Endocrine conditions lead to worse outcomes for COVID-19

It has been proven that people suffering from underlying endocrine-related diseases, who are infected by COVID-19 are more likely to suffer severe symptoms, be admitted to intensive care units (ICU) as well as have an increased risk of death. For instance, in a study by Matteo Rottoli, obesity was shown to be a risk factor for respiratory failure, admission to the ICU and death among COVID-19 patients. In fact, patients with a body mass index (BMI) over 35kg/m2 had a dramatically increased risk of death.

Moreover, endocrine systems could suffer in the long term from the impact of COVID-19, since the hormone system is the key regulator of body weight, energy expenditure and energy (food) intake. In fact, COVID-19 is associated with anorexia, dysgeusia, dysfunction of gastrointestinal absorption and severe weight loss, mostly from muscle mass.

Urgent policy attention is needed to address these interlinkages

The European Society of Endocrinology (ESE) has stated in a COVID-19 and endocrinology position statement that we need urgent policy attention to address the structural factors and underlying conditions that render populations vulnerable and exacerbate healthcare crises such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The upcoming EU4Health strategy needs a strong endocrine and metabolic element to achieve its objectives. Therefore, it is needed to focus on the following demands: an increase in research funding for the relationship between COVID-19 and hormones, a coordinated effort for global surveillance, new models of patient management and increased collaboration between countries, policymakers and other stakeholders.

Columbus, Ohio - A new study by researchers at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute (OSUCCC - James) shows that RNA nanoparticles have elastic and rubbery properties that help explain why these particles target tumors so efficiently and why they possess lower toxicity in animal studies.

RNA nanoparticles show great promise for the targeted delivery of anticancer drugs. Understanding their structure and behavior is essential for their possible future use.

This study, published in the journal ACS Nano, reveals that RNA nanoparticles have elastic and rubbery properties that enable the molecules to stretch and return to their normal shape. Researchers say that these properties could help the particles target tumors by enabling them to slip through the poorly formed walls of tumor blood vessels and enter a tumor mass.

The researchers further proved that the same rubbery properties enable the RNA nanoparticle to slip through the kidney filters to excrete into the urine half hour after systemic injection, thereby eliminating them from the body relatively quickly. That, in turn, could reduce retention of the anticancer agent in vital organs, lowering an agent's toxicity.

"We show that RNA nanoparticles have a flexibility that allows for the assembly of molecular structures that have stretchable angles," says study leader and corresponding author Peixuan Guo, PhD, professor in the College of Pharmacy and the Sylvan G. Frank Endowed Chair in Pharmaceutics and Drug Delivery. Guo also is in the OSUCCC - James Translational Therapeutics Research Program.

"These findings demonstrate the rubbery properties of RNA nanoparticles and why these molecules hold great promise for industrial and biomedical applications, especially as carriers for targeted delivery of anticancer drugs," says Guo, who directs Ohio State's Center for RNA Nanobiotechnology and Nanomedicine.

For this study, Guo and his colleagues tested the elasticity of nucleic acid polymers by stretching and relaxing individual RNA nanoparticle , while subjecting RNA nanoparticles to elasticity studies using dual-beam optical tweezers built in Guo lab. Finally, they used animal models to study the biodistribution, excretion and retention of RNA nanoparticles. This included measuring excretion of the particles in urine, along with the study on the effect of their shape and size.

Key findings include:

RNA nanoparticles are stretchable and shrinkable, like rubber, even after repeated extension and relaxation with multiple repeats by optical tweezers.

In animal models, RNA nanoparticles show stronger cancer targeting and lower accumulation in healthy organs when compared to gold and iron nanoparticles of similar size.

Also in animal models, within half hour after systemic injection, RNA nanoparticles that were 5, 10 and 20 nm in size were filtered by the kidneys and retained their original structure in urine, even though the upper limit of kidney pore size for filtration is generally 5.5 nm. This suggests that the larger RNA nanoparticles slipped like rubberl and amoeba through filtration pores, then returned to their original size and shape in urin.

"Overall," Guo says, "we believe these findings further support the development of RNA nanoparticles for targeted delivery of anticancer drugs or therapeutic RNA."

Grants from the National Institutes of Health (EB019036, CA151648 and CA207946) supported this research.

Other researchers involved in this study were Chiran Ghimire, Hongzhi Wang, Hui Li, Mario Vieweger and Congcong Xu, The Ohio State University.

About the OSUCCC - James

The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center - Arthur G. James Cancer Hospital and Richard J. Solove Research Institute strives to create a cancer-free world by integrating scientific research with excellence in education and patient-centered care, a strategy that leads to better methods of prevention, detection and treatment. Ohio State is one of only 51 National Cancer Institute (NCI)-designated Comprehensive Cancer Centers and one of only a few centers funded by the NCI to conduct both phase I and phase II clinical trials on novel anticancer drugs sponsored by the NCI. As the cancer program's 356-bed adult patient-care component, The James is one of the top cancer hospitals in the nation as ranked by U.S. News & World Report and has achieved Magnet® designation, the highest honor an organization can receive for quality patient care and professional nursing practice. With 21 floors and more than 1.1 million square feet, The James is a transformational facility that fosters collaboration and integration of cancer research and clinical cancer care.

Journal

ACS Nano

DOI

10.1021/acsnano.0c04863

An international team of astronomers, led by Professor Jane Greaves of Cardiff University, today announced the discovery of a rare molecule - phosphine - in the clouds of Venus. On Earth, this gas is only made industrially, or by microbes that thrive in oxygen-free environments.

Astronomers have speculated for decades that high clouds on Venus could offer a home for microbes - floating free of the scorching surface, but still needing to tolerate very high acidity. The detection of phosphine molecules, which consist of hydrogen and phosphorus, could point to this extra-terrestrial 'aerial' life. The new discovery is described in a paper in Nature Astronomy.

The team first used the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT) in Hawaii to detect the phosphine, and were then awarded time to follow up their discovery with 45 telescopes of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile. Both facilities observed Venus at a wavelength of about 1 millimetre, much longer than the human eye can see - only telescopes at high altitude can detect this wavelength effectively.

Professor Greaves says, "This was an experiment made out of pure curiosity, really - taking advantage of JCMT's powerful technology, and thinking about future instruments. I thought we'd just be able to rule out extreme scenarios, like the clouds being stuffed full of organisms. When we got the first hints of phosphine in Venus' spectrum, it was a shock!"

Naturally cautious about the initial findings, Greaves and her team were delighted to get three hours of time with the more sensitive ALMA observatory. Bad weather added a frustrating delay, but after six months of data processing, the discovery was confirmed.

Team member Dr Anita Richards, of the UK ALMA Regional Centre and the University of Manchester, adds: "To our great relief, the conditions were good at ALMA for follow-up observations while Venus was at a suitable angle to Earth. Processing the data was tricky, though, as ALMA isn't usually looking for very subtle effects in very bright objects like Venus."

Greaves adds: "In the end, we found that both observatories had seen the same thing - faint absorption at the right wavelength to be phosphine gas, where the molecules are backlit by the warmer clouds below."

Professor Hideo Sagawa of Kyoto Sangyo University then used his models for the Venusian atmosphere to interpret the data, finding that phosphine is present but scarce - only about twenty molecules in every billion.

The astronomers then ran calculations to see if the phosphine could come from natural processes on Venus. They caution that some information is lacking - in fact, the only other study of phosphorus on Venus came from one lander experiment, carried by the Soviet Vega 2 mission in 1985.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist Dr William Bains led the work on assessing natural ways to make phosphine. Some ideas included sunlight, minerals blown upwards from the surface, volcanoes, or lightning, but none of these could make anywhere near enough of it. Natural sources were found to make at most one ten thousandth of the amount of phosphine that the telescopes saw.

To create the observed quantity of phosphine on Venus, terrestrial organisms would only need to work at about 10% of their maximum productivity, according to calculations by Dr Paul Rimmer of Cambridge University. Any microbes on Venus will likely be very different to their Earth cousins though, to survive in hyper-acidic conditions.

Earth bacteria can absorb phosphate minerals, add hydrogen, and ultimately expel phosphine gas. It costs them energy to do this, so why they do it is not clear. The phosphine could be just a waste product, but other scientists have suggested purposes like warding off rival bacteria.

Another MIT team-member, Dr Clara Sousa Silva, was also thinking about searching for phosphine as a 'biosignature' gas of non-oxygen-using life on planets around other stars, because normal chemistry makes so little of it.

She comments: "Finding phosphine on Venus was an unexpected bonus! The discovery raises many questions, such as how any organisms could survive. On Earth, some microbes can cope with up to about 5% of acid in their environment - but the clouds of Venus are almost entirely made of acid."

Other possible biosignatures in the Solar System may exist, like methane on Mars and water venting from the icy moons Europa and Enceladus. On Venus, it has been suggested that dark streaks where ultraviolet light is absorbed could come from colonies of microbes. The Akatsuki spacecraft, launched by the Japanese space agency JAXA, is currently mapping these dark streaks to understand more about this "unknown ultraviolet absorber".

The team believes their discovery is significant because they can rule out many alternative ways to make phosphine, but they acknowledge that confirming the presence of "life" needs a lot more work. Although the high clouds of Venus have temperatures up to a pleasant 30 degrees centigrade, they are incredibly acidic - around 90% sulphuric acid - posing major issues for microbes to survive there. Professor Sara Seager and Dr Janusz Petkowski, also both at MIT, are investigating how microbes could shield themselves inside droplets.

The team are now eagerly awaiting more telescope time, for example to establish whether the phosphine is in a relatively temperate part of the clouds, and to look for other gases associated with life. New space missions could also travel to our neighbouring planet, and sample the clouds in situ to further search for signs of life.

Professor Emma Bunce, President of the Royal Astronomical Society, congratulated the team on their work:

"A key question in science is whether life exists beyond Earth, and the discovery by Professor Jane Greaves and her team is a key step forward in that quest. I'm particularly delighted to see UK scientists leading such an important breakthrough - something that makes a strong case for a return space mission to Venus."

Science Minister Amanda Solloway said:

"Venus has for decades captured the imagination of scientists and astronomers across the world."

"This discovery is immensely exciting, helping us increase our understanding of the universe and even whether there could be life on Venus. I am incredibly proud that this fascinating detection was led by some of the UK's leading scientists and engineers using state of the art facilities built on our own soil."

A multidisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Liège (Belgium) has detected significant amounts of DNA traps in distinct compartments of the lungs of patients who died from Covid-19. These traps, called NETs, are released massively into the airways, the lung tissue and the blood vessels. Such excessive release could be a major contributor to severe disease complications leading to in-hospital death. These results are published this week in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Neutrophils are innate immune cells that act as the immune system's first line of defence. However, when over-activated, they can play a toxic role, as in the case of autoimmune diseases and chronic inflammatory diseases, for example. Neutrophils have the ability to release their own DNA through DNA traps called Neutrophil Extracellular Traps or NETs. When massively released in certain compartments of the lungs, they can cause toxic effects.

"Here, we have detected substantial quantities of NETs in distinct compartments of the lungs of patients who died from Covid-19 at the University Hospital (CHU) of Liège and who exhibited histo-pathological features of diffuse alveolar damage, whereas these DNA traps were absent in the lungs of patients who died from another cause," explains Prof. Thomas Marichal, Welbio and ERC Investigator, head of the Immunophysiology Laboratory at the GIGA Institute of the University of Liège. The presence of NETs in the blood vessels, pulmonary interstitium and airways could explain the formation of fibrin-rich clots underlying highly prevalent thrombotic events and different aspects of lung damage resulting from an uncontrolled activation of the immune system leading to the "cytokine storm".

Also composed of Prof. Cécile Oury (Fund for Scientific Research - F.R.S.-FNRS, Head of the Cardiology Laboratory, GIGA, ULiège) and Prof. Philippe Delvenne (Head of Pathological Anatomy Laboratory of the CHU of Liège, Director of the Laboratory of Experimental Pathology, ULiège) and Dr Coraline Radermecker (Postdoctoral Research for the Fund for Scientific Research - FNRS at the Laboratory of Immunophysiology, GIGA, ULiège), the research team was able to characterize the presence and precise localization of NETs in the lungs using imaging techniques associated with histopathological analyses.

"We are the first team in the world to identify the presence of NETs in several compartments of the lungs of patients with Covid-19," explains Coraline Radermecker, first author of this study published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

"Clinical trials aimed at degrading these NETs in the hope of improving the condition of patients with advanced disease are being conducted by other teams around the world. Our study validates these therapeutic approaches by demonstrating that NETs are associated with the severe complications of Covid 19," added Thomas Marichal.

"NET-targeting pharmacological approaches exist, with drugs already available, such as dornase alfa used in cystic fibrosis" explains Cécile Oury. As part of the prevention and treatment of thrombotic complications, she also stresses the need to implement current heparin-based recommendations. The fight against the excessive release of NETs appears to be a complementary route that could prove efficacy.

"We will now continue our research on the effects of Covid 19 on other organs, including the heart, another organ frequently affected in this disease, and further refine our knowledge of the mechanisms that lead to severe forms of the disease", Thomas Marichal concludes.

"When we got the first hints of phosphine in Venus's spectrum, it was a shock!", says team leader Jane Greaves of Cardiff University in the UK, who first spotted signs of phosphine in observations from the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope (JCMT), operated by the East Asian Observatory, in Hawai'i. Confirming their discovery required using 45 antennas of the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in Chile, a more sensitive telescope in which the European Southern Observatory (ESO) is a partner. Both facilities observed Venus at a wavelength of about 1 millimetre, much longer than the human eye can see -- only telescopes at high altitude can detect it effectively.

The international team, which includes researchers from the UK, US and Japan, estimates that phosphine exists in Venus's clouds at a small concentration, only about twenty molecules in every billion. Following their observations, they ran calculations to see whether these amounts could come from natural non-biological processes on the planet. Some ideas included sunlight, minerals blown upwards from the surface, volcanoes, or lightning, but none of these could make anywhere near enough of it. These non-biological sources were found to make at most one ten thousandth of the amount of phosphine that the telescopes saw.

To create the observed quantity of phosphine (which consists of hydrogen and phosphorus) on Venus, terrestrial organisms would only need to work at about 10% of their maximum productivity, according to the team. Earth bacteria are known to make phosphine: they take up phosphate from minerals or biological material, add hydrogen, and ultimately expel phosphine. Any organisms on Venus will probably be very different to their Earth cousins, but they too could be the source of phosphine in the atmosphere.

While the discovery of phosphine in Venus's clouds came as a surprise, the researchers are confident in their detection. "To our great relief, the conditions were good at ALMA for follow-up observations while Venus was at a suitable angle to Earth. Processing the data was tricky, though, as ALMA isn't usually looking for very subtle effects in very bright objects like Venus," says team member Anita Richards of the UK ALMA Regional Centre and the University of Manchester. "In the end, we found that both observatories had seen the same thing -- faint absorption at the right wavelength to be phosphine gas, where the molecules are backlit by the warmer clouds below," adds Greaves, who led the study published today in Nature Astronomy.

Another team member, Clara Sousa Silva of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, has investigated phosphine as a "biosignature" gas of non-oxygen-using life on planets around other stars, because normal chemistry makes so little of it. She comments: "Finding phosphine on Venus was an unexpected bonus! The discovery raises many questions, such as how any organisms could survive. On Earth, some microbes can cope with up to about 5% of acid in their environment -- but the clouds of Venus are almost entirely made of acid."

The team believes their discovery is significant because they can rule out many alternative ways to make phosphine, but they acknowledge that confirming the presence of "life" needs a lot more work. Although the high clouds of Venus have temperatures up to a pleasant 30 degrees Celsius, they are incredibly acidic -- around 90% sulphuric acid -- posing major issues for any microbes trying to survive there.

ESO astronomer and ALMA European Operations Manager Leonardo Testi, who did not participate in the new study, says: "The non-biological production of phosphine on Venus is excluded by our current understanding of phosphine chemistry in rocky planets' atmospheres. Confirming the existence of life on Venus's atmosphere would be a major breakthrough for astrobiology; thus, it is essential to follow-up on this exciting result with theoretical and observational studies to exclude the possibility that phosphine on rocky planets may also have a chemical origin different than on Earth."

More observations of Venus and of rocky planets outside our Solar System, including with ESO's forthcoming Extremely Large Telescope, may help gather clues on how phosphine can originate on them and contribute to the search for signs of life beyond Earth.

One of the grand quests in neuroscience is to build a precise map of the brain, charting all its neurons and the connections between them. Such a wiring diagram, called a connectome, promises to help shed light on how a collection of cells can together give rise to thoughts, memories, behaviors and myriad other functions.

Now, researchers at Harvard Medical School, Boston Children's Hospital and the European Synchrotron Radiation Facility (ESRF) have demonstrated that a new x-ray microscopy technique could help accelerate efforts to map neural circuits and ultimately the brain itself.

Reporting in Nature Neuroscience on Sept. 14, the team describes how x-ray holographic nano-tomography (XNH) can be used to image relatively large volumes of mouse brain and fruit fly nervous tissue at high resolutions.

Combined with artificial intelligence-driven image analysis, they reconstructed dense neural circuits in 3D, comprehensively cataloging neurons and even tracing individual neurons from muscles to the central nervous system in fruit flies.

"We think this is going to open new avenues for understanding the brain, both in how it's organized and the circuitry that underlies its function," said co-corresponding author Wei-Chung Allen Lee, HMS assistant professor of neurology at Boston Children's. "This type of knowledge can give us foundational insights into neurological disorders, diseases that affect the structure of the brain and much more."

For biological questions like neural circuit discovery, x-ray microscopy holds several advantages over current approaches based on electron microscopy (EM), according to the authors.

"We think XNH can bring a lot of value to neuroscience, because we can now access much larger volumes in shorter times," said co-corresponding author Alexandra Pacureanu, a scientist at the ESRF. "This is the beginning of a new approach for efforts to map neural circuits."

Near-light speed

Studying the connectome is a monumental challenge. The human brain, for example, contains some 100 billion neurons with 100 trillion neural connections, roughly the number of stars within 1,000 galaxies.

In animal models, scientists have made remarkable progress, such as imaging an entire fruit fly brain, primarily by taking serial slices of a brain, each a thousand times thinner than a human hair, imaging the slices with EM and stitching the images together for analysis.

The costs of this method can be prohibitive in terms of time and resources, requiring large numbers of EM images, which have a narrow field of view, and an intense effort to reconstruct even small neural circuits. There is a need for new imaging modalities to accelerate such efforts, the study authors said.

To do so, Lee's lab, which studies the organization and function of neural circuits, collaborated with Pacureanu, who specializes in x-ray microscopy and neuroimaging. Spearheaded by co-first authors Aaron Kuan, research fellow in neurobiology at HMS, and Jasper Phelps, graduate student in the Harvard Program in Neuroscience, the team focused on applying XNH to neural tissue.

The technique works analogously to a CT scan, which uses a rotating x-ray to create serial cross-sectional images of a body. In contrast, XNH exposes a rotating tissue sample to high-energy x-rays at the ESRF's synchrotron, which accelerates electrons to near-light speed around an 844-meter ring.

Unlike standard x-ray imaging, which relies on differences in x-ray attenuation as the beam passes through a tissue, XNH creates images based on variations of subtle phase shifts of the beam induced by the sample. This latter approach increases sensitivity and, combined with imaging in cryogenic conditions, helps preserve and protect the specimen from being damaged by x-ray energy.

Images generated by XNH must be interpreted to identify which structures are neurons. The team tackled this by applying deep learning, an artificial intelligence technique increasingly used for applications such as face or object recognition.

As proof of principle, the researchers scanned millimeter-sized volumes of mouse and fruit fly neural tissue and reconstructed 3D images, achieving resolutions around 87 nanometers. This was enough to comprehensively visualize neurons and trace individual neurites, the projections from neurons that form the wiring of neural circuits.

Importantly, these reconstructions took a few days to achieve, compared to the months to years it can take to reconstruct similar volumes using serial EM sections.

Form to function

In the mouse brain, the team looked at an area of the cortex involved in integrating sensory stimuli and perceptual decision making. Previous EM studies have noted interesting structural characteristics of so-called pyramidal neurons in this area, but have been limited to sample sizes of around 20 neurons per dataset due to limitations in field of view.

Using XNH, the researchers scanned over 3,200 cells in this area. Combined with aligned EM data, the team characterized the structure and connectivity of hundreds of pyramidal neurons, which revealed distinct structural properties--such as strong and spatially compressed inhibitory inputs on certain neurite areas--that suggest unique and previously undescribed functional properties.

"Being able to visualize neurons helps us to understand the organizational principles of the brain and how different circuits or networks can perform computations that are required for behavior," said Lee, who is an investigator at the Kirby Neurobiology Center at Boston Children's. "We can then do further experiments to link structural data with functional experiments to try to address this question directly."

They also imaged the neurons contained within a fruit fly leg, a structure difficult to section and study with EM. With XNH, they were able to map all of the motor neurons extending from the fly equivalent of a spinal cord into a leg, as well as the sensory neurons that relay signals to the central nervous system.

"This technique has been applied to neural tissue before, but never with this level of quality and resolution," said Pacureanu, who is a former a visiting scientist in the Department of Neurobiology in the Blavatnik Institute at HMS. "We've shown that we can achieve sufficient resolution to trace neurites and move studies toward the direction of connectomes."

The researchers are now working to improve and further optimize XNH for imaging biological tissue.

The current resolution achieved by the technique is not yet high enough to visualize synapses, which currently requires aligned EM data to study. However, the physical limits of the technique are far from being reached, the authors said, and efforts to push the resolution will be aided by a next-generation x-ray source recently operational at the ESRF.

"X-ray microscopy has particular strengths and one of our goals is to apply it to larger networks of neural connections at higher resolutions," Lee said. "The hope is we could someday help address questions like can we understand neural circuits that underlie complex behaviors like decision making? Can we get inspiration for more efficient computer algorithms and artificial intelligence? Can we reverse engineer the algorithms of the brain?"

Additional authors on the study include Logan Thomas, Tri Nguyen, Julie Han, Chiao-Lin Chen, Anthony Azevedo, John Tuthill, Jan Funke and Peter Cloetens.

The work was supported by the National Institutes of Health (grant R01NS108410), the Edward R. and Anne G. Lefler Center for the Study of Neurodegenerative Disorders and the Goldenson Family and the European Research Council (grant 852455).

A planet observed crossing in front of, or transiting, a low-mass star has been determined to be about the size of Jupiter. While hundreds of Jupiter-sized planets have been discovered orbiting larger sun-like stars, it is rare to see these planets orbiting low-mass host stars and the discovery could help astronomers to better understand how these giant planets form.

"This is only the fifth Jupiter-sized planet transiting a low-mass star that has been observed and the first with such a long orbital period, which makes this discovery really exciting", said Caleb Cañas, lead author of the paper and a Ph.D. student at Penn State and NASA Earth and Space Science Fellow.

Originally detected by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) spacecraft, astronomers characterized the planet's mass, radius, and its orbital period using the Habitable-zone Planet Finder (HPF), an astronomical spectrograph built by a Penn State team and installed on the 10m Hobby-Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory in Texas. A paper describing the research appears in the September 2020 issue of the Astronomical Journal and is publicly accessible on arXiv.

"A transiting Jupiter-sized planet is amenable to further observations to see how well the orbit is aligned with the spin-axis of the host star and to constrain how it could have formed," said Cañas. "Furthermore, the low mass of the host star and the long orbital period result in a Jupiter with a moderate temperature compared to similar planets detected with NASA's Kepler space telescope."

The host star, TOI-1899, is a low-mass (M dwarf) star about 419 light years away from Earth. The planet, TOI-1899 b, is two-thirds the mass of Jupiter, ten percent larger in radius than Jupiter, and is 0.16 astronomical units (AU)--a measure defined as the distance between the Earth and the sun--from its host star such that a full year on TOI-1899 takes only 29 Earth days. For comparison, the four other transiting Jupiter-size planets around comparable stars complete their orbits in less than 4 days.

The planet was detected by TESS using the transit method, which searches for stars showing periodic dips in their brightness as a telltale sign of an orbiting object crossing in front of the star and blocking a portion of its light. The signal was later confirmed as a planet using precision observations from the HPF spectrograph that measure the planet's mass by analyzing how it causes its host start to the wobble.

From a formation and orbital evolution perspective, there is not a clear dividing line between warm Jupiters and the large planets even closer to their host stars, the more commonly discovered hot Jupiters.

"Warm Jupiters like TOI-1899 b orbit surprisingly close to their star," said Rebekah Dawson, assistant professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State and an author of the paper. "Even though the planet's orbital period is long compared to many other giant planets detected and characterized through the transit method, it still places the giant planet much closer to its star than we'd expect from classical formation theories. Detailed characterization of their physical and orbital properties, system architecture, and host stars--as the HPF team has done for TOI-1899 b--allow us test theories for how giant planets can form or be displaced so close to their star."

The Habitable-zone Planet Finder was delivered to the 10m Hobby Eberly Telescope at McDonald Observatory in late 2017, and started full science operations in late 2018. HPF is designed to detect and characterize planets in the Habitable-zone--the region around the star where a planet could sustain liquid water on its surface--around nearby M-dwarf stars, but is also capable of making sensitive measurements for planets outside the habitable zone.

"This warm Jupiter is a compelling target for atmospheric characterization with upcoming missions like the James Webb Space Telescope," said Suvrath Mahadevan, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State, the principal investigator of the HPF spectrograph, and an author of the paper. "HPF was critical in helping us to confirm this, but detecting a second transit is important to very precisely pin down its period."

In addition to data from HPF, additional data were obtained with the 3.5m Telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) in Arizona and the 3m Shane Telescope at Lick Observatory for high contrast imaging and photometric observations with the 0.9m WIYN Telescope at KPNO, 0.5 m ARCSAT telescope at Apache Point Observatory, and the 0.43 m telescope at the Richard S. Perkin Observatory in New York.

A major new international study has provided a first worldwide insight into how soil erosion may be affecting the longevity of our soils.

The study, led by Lancaster University in collaboration with researchers from Chang'an University in China, and KU Leuven in Belgium, brought together soil erosion data from around the globe, spanning 255 locations across 38 countries on six continents.

This data was used to calculate how long it would take for the top 30 cm of soil to erode at each location - the soil lifespan. The top layer of soil is often rich in nutrients and organic matter, making it important for growing food, fibres, feed and fuel. Soil erosion is a serious threat to global sustainability, endangering food security, driving desertification and biodiversity loss, and degrading ecosystems

The study included soils that are conventionally farmed, as well as those managed using soil conservation techniques, to find out how changes to land use and management practices can extend the lifespans of soils.

Researchers found more than 90 per cent of the conventionally farmed soils in the study were thinning, and 16 per cent had lifespans of less than a century. These rapidly thinning soils were found all over the world, including countries such as Australia, China, the UK, and the USA.

"Our soils are critically important and we rely on them in many ways, not least to grow our food", says lead author Dr Dan Evans of Lancaster University. "There have been many headlines in recent years suggesting that the world's topsoil could be gone in 60 years, but these claims have not been supported with evidence. This study provides the first evidence-backed, globally relevant estimates of soil lifespans.

"Our study shows that soil erosion is a critical threat to global soil sustainability, and we need urgent action to prevent further rapid loss of soils and their delivery of vital ecosystem services."

However, there are causes for optimism. In the data, soils managed with conservation strategies tended to have longer lifespans, and in some cases these practices promoted soil thickening. Only seven per cent of soil under conservation management had lifespans shorter than a century, and nearly half exceeded 5,000 years.

Co-author, Professor Jess Davies, also of Lancaster University, said: "Whilst 16 per cent of soils with lifespans shorter than 100 years is a more optimistic estimate than '60 harvests left', soil is a precious resource and we can't afford to lose that much over a human lifetime.

"But importantly what our study also shows is that we have the tools and practices to make a difference - employing the appropriate conservation methods in the right place can really help protect and enhance our soil resource and the future of food and farming."

Converting arable land to forest was found to be the best way to lengthen soil lifespans. However, other approaches that allow farming to continue, such as cover cropping, where plants are grown between cropping seasons to protect the soil, were also shown to be highly effective. The ploughing of land along contours rather than down slope, and hillslope terracing were similarly suggested as beneficial for lengthening soil lifespans.

Professor John Quinton, of Lancaster University and co-author of the study, said: "It is clear that we have a conservation toolbox that can slow erosion and even grow soil. Action is needed to promote the adoption of these measures so that we can protect and enhance our soil resource for future generations."

A National Institutes of Health-funded study found that people with substance use disorders (SUDs) are more susceptible to COVID-19 and its complications. The research, published today in Molecular Psychiatry, was co-authored by Nora D. Volkow, M.D., director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). The findings suggest that health care providers should closely monitor patients with SUDs and develop action plans to help shield them from infection and severe outcomes.

By analyzing the non-identifiable electronic health records (EHR) of millions of patients in the United States, the team of investigators revealed that while individuals with an SUD constituted 10.3% of the total study population, they represented 15.6% of the COVID-19 cases. The analysis revealed that those with a recent SUD diagnosis on record were more likely than those without to develop COVID-19, an effect that was strongest for opioid use disorder, followed by tobacco use disorder. Individuals with an SUD diagnosis were also more likely to experience worse COVID-19 outcomes (hospitalization, death), than people without an SUD.

"The lungs and cardiovascular system are often compromised in people with SUD, which may partially explain their heightened susceptibility to COVID-19," said Dr. Volkow. "Another contributing factor is the marginalization of people with addiction, which makes it harder for them to access health care services. It is incumbent upon clinicians to meet the unique challenges of caring for this vulnerable population, just as they would any other high-risk group."

NIDA's Dr. Volkow and Rong Xu, Ph.D., of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, analyzed EHR data collected until June 15, 2020, from 360 hospitals nationwide. The EHRs were de-identified to ensure privacy.

The study population consisted of over 73 million patients, of which over 7.5 million had been diagnosed with an SUD at some point in their lives. Slightly more than 12,000 were diagnosed with COVID-19, and about 1,880 had both an SUD and a COVID-19 diagnosis on record. The types of SUDs investigated in the study were tobacco, alcohol, opioid, cannabis, and cocaine.

The complicating effects of SUD were visible in increased adverse consequences of COVID-19. Hospitalizations and death rates of COVID-19 patients were all elevated in people with recorded SUDs compared to those without (41.0% versus 30.1% and 9.6% versus 6.6%, respectively).

Additionally, African Americans with a recent opioid use disorder diagnosis were over four times more likely to develop COVID-19, compared to whites. Results showed that hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and renal diseases, which are risk factors for COVID-19, were more prevalent among African Americans than whites with opioid use disorder.

According to the authors, the study findings underscore the need to screen for, and treat, SUDs as part of the strategy for controlling the pandemic. Additional research needs to be done to better understand how best to treat those with SUDs who are at risk for COVID-19 and counsel on how to avoid the risk of infection.

New research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis helps illuminate a surprising mind-body connection. In mice, the researchers found that immune cells surrounding the brain produce a molecule that is then absorbed by neurons in the brain, where it appears to be necessary for normal behavior.

The findings, published Sept. 14 in Nature Immunology, indicate that elements of the immune system affect both mind and body, and that the immune molecule IL-17 may be a key link between the two.

"The brain and the body are not as separate as people think," said senior author Jonathan Kipnis, PhD, the Alan A. and Edith L. Wolff Distinguished Professor of Pathology and Immunology and a professor of neurosurgery, of neurology and of neuroscience. "What we've found here is that an immune molecule -- IL-17 -- is produced by immune cells residing in areas around the brain, and it could affect brain function through interactions with neurons to influence anxiety-like behaviors in mice. We are now looking into whether too much or too little of IL-17 could be linked to anxiety in people."

IL-17 is a cytokine, a signaling molecule that orchestrates the immune response to infection by activating and directing immune cells. IL-17 also has been linked to autism in animal studies and depression in people.

How an immune molecule like IL-17 might influence brain disorders, however, is something of a mystery since there isn't much of an immune system in the brain and the few immune cells that do reside there don't produce IL-17. But Kipnis, along with first author and postdoctoral researcher Kalil Alves de Lima, PhD, realized that the tissues that surround the brain are teeming with immune cells, among them, a small population known as gamma delta T cells that produce IL-17. They set out to determine whether gamma-delta T cells near the brain have an impact on behavior. Kipnis and Alves de Lima conducted the research while at the University of Virginia School of Medicine; both are now at Washington University.

Using mice, they discovered that the meninges are rich in gamma-delta T cells and that such cells, under normal conditions, continually produce IL-17, filling the tissues surrounding the brain with IL-17.

To determine whether gamma-delta T cells or IL-17 affect behavior, Alves de Lima put mice through established tests of memory, social behavior, foraging and anxiety. Mice that lacked gamma-delta T cells or IL-17 were indistinguishable from mice with normal immune systems on all measures but anxiety. In the wild, open fields leave mice exposed to predators such as owls and hawks, so they've evolved a fear of open spaces. The researchers conducted two separate tests that involved giving mice the option of entering exposed areas. While the mice with normal amounts of gamma-delta T cells and levels of IL-17 kept themselves mostly to the more protective edges and enclosed areas during the tests, mice without gamma-delta T cells or IL-17 ventured into the open areas, a lapse of vigilance that the researchers interpreted as decreased anxiety.

Moreover, the scientists discovered that neurons in the brain have receptors on their surfaces that respond to IL-17. When the scientists removed those receptors so that the neurons could not detect the presence of IL-17, the mice showed less vigilance. The researchers say the findings suggest that behavioral changes are not a byproduct but an integral part of neuro-immune communication.

Although the researchers did not expose mice to bacteria or viruses to study the effects of infection directly, they injected the animals with lipopolysaccharide, a bacterial product that elicits a strong immune response. Gamma-delta T cells in the tissues around the mice's brains produced more IL-17 in response to the injection. When the animals were treated with antibiotics, however, the amount of IL-17 was reduced, suggesting gamma-delta T cells could sense the presence of normal bacteria such as those that make up the gut microbiome, as well as invading bacterial species, and respond appropriately to regulate behavior.

The researchers speculate that the link between the immune system and the brain could have evolved as part of a multipronged survival strategy. Increased alertness and vigilance could help rodents survive an infection by discouraging behaviors that increase the risk of further infection or predation while in a weakened state, Alves de Lima said.

"The immune system and the brain have most likely co-evolved," Alves de Lima said. "Selecting special molecules to protect us immunologically and behaviorally at the same time is a smart way to protect against infection. This is a good example of how cytokines, which basically evolved to fight against pathogens, also are acting on the brain and modulating behavior."

The researchers now are studying how gamma-delta T cells in the meninges detect bacterial signals from other parts of the body. They also are investigating how IL-17 signaling in neurons translates into behavioral changes.

Botox injections to manage jaw and facial pain do not result in clinically significant changes in jaw bone when used short term and in low doses, according to researchers at NYU College of Dentistry. However, they found evidence of bone loss when higher doses were used.

The researchers, whose findings are published in the Journal of Oral Rehabilitation,, call for further clinical studies to track bone- and muscle-related changes with long-term use of Botox for TMJD, or temporomandibular muscle and joint disorders.

TMJDs are a group of common pain conditions that occur in the jaw joint and surrounding muscles, with the most common type involving the muscles responsible for chewing. While many individuals manage their TMJD symptoms with conservative treatments such as jaw exercises, oral appliances, dietary changes, and pain medication, some do not respond to these treatments.

Botox (or botulinum toxin), an FDA-approved injectable drug known for its wrinkle-reducing capabilities, is approved to treat certain muscle and pain disorders, including migraines. It works in part by temporarily paralyzing or weakening muscles. In the U.S., a Phase 3 clinical trial is currently underway to study the use of Botox to treat TMJD, but in the meantime, it is increasingly being used off-label.

Thus far, small studies using Botox to treat TMJD in humans have had mixed results. In animal studies, Botox injections in jaw muscles have led to major bone loss in the jaw. This is thought to be due to the muscles not being used to exert force needed for bone remodeling, but Botox may also have a direct effect on bone resorption, the process of breaking down bone tissue.

"Given these concerning findings from animal studies, and the limited findings from clinical studies, more research on the safety of Botox for jaw muscles and bones is critically important," said Karen Raphael, professor in the Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Pathology, Radiology and Medicine at NYU College of Dentistry and the study's lead author.

The NYU study included 79 women with TMJD affecting their facial muscles: 35 of whom received Botox injections (between two and five rounds in the past year) and 44 who were not treated with Botox but may have used other TMJD treatments. Using specialized CT scans, the researchers measured participants' jaw bone density and volume.

The researchers found that jaw bone density and volume were similar between women who had Botox injections to treat their TMJD and those who did not. While most study participants were given relatively low doses of Botox--smaller than in most clinical trials for TMJD--individuals who received higher doses of Botox were more likely to have lower bone density.

Raphael and her colleagues recommend that more human studies be conducted to better understand the impact of the long-term use of Botox on jaw muscles and bones--and whether it just reduces muscle force on bone or also plays a direct role in altering bone resorption.

"Should Botox receive regulatory approval for the treatment of TMJD, we would recommend that a phase IV study be done using low-radiation CT and MRI to track bone- and muscle-related changes with Botox use, examining both dose and long-term use," said Raphael. "Unless specialized imaging of muscle and bone are conducted among patients who receive Botox treatment over long periods, true cumulative effects will remain unknown."

When states turn to private prisons, the number of criminals incarcerated rises and the length of sentences increases.

That's the finding of a new paper from Washington State University researchers just published in the journal Labour Economics, entitled "Do privately-owned prisons increase incarceration rates?"

The study found that private prisons lead to an average increase of 178 new prisoners per million population per year. At an average cost of $60 per day per prisoner, that costs states between $1.9 to $10.6 million per year, if all those additional prisoners are in private prisons.

The length of sentences also increases when private prisons come into a state, especially in nonviolent crimes that have more leeway in sentencing guidelines.

"Not all crimes are created equally," said Gregmar Galinato, a co-author and professor in WSU's School of Economic Sciences. "For crimes like property damage, fraud, or non-violent drug crimes - crimes where judges have more leeway in sentencing - states saw higher sentencing rates and significant increases in sentence lengths when private prisons were established."

The number of new sentences and sentencing lengths weren't affected in violent crime sentences, where judges have less leeway in sentencing, he said.

Galinato wrote the paper with Ryne Rohla, who earned a Ph.D. in Economics from WSU and now works in the Office of the Attorney General for Washington State.

The authors found two potential reasons for the effect of private prisons. The first is corruption, where judges or legislators may be influenced to give out harsher sentences or write laws with harsher penalties.

The most prominent corruption example is the 'kids for cash' scandal in Pennsylvania, where two judges were bribed by a private prison company to give harsher sentences to juvenile offenders instead of probation to increase occupancy at for-profit detention centers.

The other potential reason for the findings is increased capacity.

"If a judge knows prisons are at or over capacity, he or she is likely more hesitant to send marginal criminals to prison," Galinato said. "But when you have private prisons that don't have capacity concerns, that induces more people to be incarcerated."

Galinato doesn't normally study prisons, but has studied corruption in previous research. In 2015, he was watching Elementary, a television show re-imagining Sherlock Holmes stories, and saw an episode about private prison corruption. That inspired him to do some basic research, which is when he learned about the 'kids for cash' scandal.

"I saw the corruption angle and thought 'I can model this,'" he said.

Galinato hopes the paper influences government officials to consider the costs and the benefits when thinking about expanding private prisons.

"We aren't saying private prisons are bad," he said. "But states need to be careful with them. If your state has previous and regular issues with corruption, I wouldn't be surprised to see laws being more skewed to give longer sentences, for example. If the goal is to reduce the number of incarcerated individuals, increasing the number of private prisons may not be the way to go. One can study sentencing reform and even anti-corruption policies that improve the efficacy and fairness of judicial outcomes."

Although people have been questioning the role of private prisons in mass incarceration in the U.S. for many years, Galinato saw no published research that rigorously estimates the causal effect between such prisons and incarceration rates.

That's because comparing the growth of private prisons to increases in incarceration rates could be related in a different way: increased crime could mean more private prisons are necessary to hold them. Although Galinato and Rohla started working on the paper in 2015, it took them several years to account for that possible bias in the research.

Once they factored that in, while going through thousands of papers about privatization, the data still showed private prisons led to more prisoners and longer sentences.

"It was very hard work, and we found out why nobody has done this work before," Galinato said. "But we hope this has an impact and gives lawmakers something to think about when considering bringing in or adding private prisons."