Culture

A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, and the University of Virginia, USA, has studied the impact of high ozone air pollution on the chemical communication between flowers and pollinators. They showed that tobacco hawkmoths lost attraction to the scent of their preferred flowers when that scent had been altered by ozone. This oxidizing pollutant thus disturbs the interaction between a plant and its pollinator, a relationship that has evolved over millions of years. However, when given the chance, hawkmoths quickly learn that an unpleasantly polluted scent may lead to nutritious nectar (Journal of Chemical Ecology, September 2020, DOI: 10.1007/s10886-020-01211-4).

Pollination in the Anthropocene

Pollination is a critical ecosystem service, one that is performed mainly by insects. Flowers attract insects using floral scents, which are chemical signals that the pollinators can have an innate preference for. This preference is the result of the co-evolutionary relationship between flowers and their pollinators that has evolved over millions of years.

For about 20 years, the term "Anthropocene" has been used in the scientific community to refer to the geological epoch in which humans are responsible for many changes in biological and atmospheric processes. However, until recently, little has been known about the effects of anthropogenic climate change and atmospheric pollution on natural environmental odors that drive chemical communication between organisms.

A team of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and the University of Virginia has investigated whether human-driven ozone pollution in the air influences the attraction of a pollinating moth to the scent of one of their favorite flowers. Ozone is an oxidant, a highly reactive chemical and pollutant known to cause respiratory diseases in humans. Now, ozone is also thought to change the floral scents that flowers emit to attract their pollinators.

For their experiments, the scientists used the tobacco hawkmoth Manduca sexta. "The hawkmoth Manduca sexta is the perfect model for our study. Although it is highly attracted by flower odors, it also uses its visual system to locate flowers. Flowers that usually attract hawkmoth often share specific compounds in their blend and are visually very conspicuous due to their bright white color," says study leader Markus Knaden, who heads a research group in the Department of Evolutionary Neuroethology at the Max Planck Institute.

The research team first determined the exact compositions of the flower odors - with and without increased ozone content - and the respective concentrations of individual odor components using gas chromatography. For the ozone-altered odors, the researchers used ozone concentrations that can be measured on hot days in the natural habitat of tobacco hawkmoths. They tested the responses of the moths in behavioral assays in a wind tunnel, allowing the insect to investigate both the original floral odor and to the ozone-altered floral odor.

"We were surprised, even shocked, that the innate attraction to the odor of tobacco flowers was completely lost in the presence of increased ozone levels," said Knaden, describing what was observed during the experiments.

Tobacco hawkmoths are able to learn

The question remained whether ozone in the air would spoil the appetite of hungry and foraging tobacco hawkmoths, or whether it would prevent insects from finding their food source. Would insects be able to figure out that even polluted flower odors can offer rewards? To answer this question, researchers tested whether tobacco hawkmoths could learn to accept an initially unattractive scent as a food cue if they smelled it while simultaneously being offered a sugar solution reward. The researchers assessed several different ways in which the moth could learn to recognize flowers based on the ozone-altered floral scent. This was critical to relating these experiments to real-world learning. In the real world, a floral scent only becomes ozone-altered as it moves downwind of the flower and mixes with ozone. To see if moths could learn ozone-altered floral scents even when they are decoupled from the sugar reward at the flower, the researchers developed an experiment where the moth had to follow the ozone-altered odor to the flower, but were presented with the original scent at the flower containing the sugar reward.

"While we anticipated that Manduca sexta could learn new floral scents and hoped that they would be able to learn the polluted floral scent of their host flower, we were amazed to see that Manduca sexta could learn the polluted floral blend in a number of different ways, including learning a polluted scent that was decoupled from a sugar reward. This type of learning, which we were surprised to find in Manduca sexta, could be very important in insects' ability to use learning to cope with their rapidly changing environments," says first author Brynn Cook from the University of Virginia. What is especially noteworthy and pertinent about this kind of responsiveness to a changing environment is that it occurs in real time and not over evolutionary timescales.

Learning ability of Manduca sexta is not an all-clear

Although the study shows that tobacco hawkmoths can learn to rely on ozone-altered and initially unattractive plumes to recognize their flowers, air pollution still poses a serious risk to pollination and pollinators. "Learning may be key to insects recognizing their host plants in polluted environments, but one of the major questions remaining from our study is whether pollinators will be able to find their flowers in the first place. Without initially recognizing smells, will pollinators only have visual cues to help them locate host flowers in order to learn the pollution-altered floral scent? Another important aspect to consider is that other pollinators may not have the same facility to learn new smells that Manduca sexta has. Specialist pollinators, for instance, may not have that flexibility in learning. Our study is just a starting point. Field studies are going to be critical to understanding which flowers and insects are most affected by which pollutants, and likely why," says Cook.

Air pollution and climate change have far-reaching consequences for our ecosystem; by no means have all of these been studied and understood. For example, we still know little about the impact of atmospheric changes on the chemical communication between plants and insects. Not only are plant odors altered, but also the sex pheromone female insects use to attract males. Atmospheric changes have the potential to cause alterations in pheromones that could lead to mating failure. Insect mortality has risen dramatically in recent years, and researchers worldwide are searching for the causes. Since 2020, the Max Planck Center next Generation Insect Chemical Ecology, a cooperation between the Max Planck Society and two Swedish universities in which the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology and the co-authors of the study, Bill Hansson and Markus Knaden, play a major role, has been dedicated to this field of research.

Artificial intelligence, machine learning and neural networks are terms that are increasingly being used in daily life. Face recognition, object detection, and person classification and segmentation are common tasks for machine learning algorithms which are now in widespread use. Underlying all these processes is machine learning, which means that computers can capture the essential properties or the key characteristics of processes in which the relationships between objects are really complex. The learning process involves good and bad examples with no previous knowledge about the objects or the underlying laws of physics.

However, since it is a blind optimization process, machine learning is like a black box: computers take decisions they regard as valid but it is not understood why one decision is taken and not another so the internal mechanism of the method is still unclear. As a result, the predictions made by machine learning for critical situations are risky and by no means reliable because the results can be deceptive.

In this study, the research group made up of Vladimir Baulin, from the URV's Department of Chemical Engineering, Marc Werner (Leibniz Institute of Polymer Research in Dresden) and YachongGuo (University of Nanjing, China) has tested the predictions of a neural network to check whether they coincide with actual results. To this end, they chose a well defined practical example: the neural network had to design a polymer molecule that would cross the lipid membrane in as short a time as possible. The lipid membrane is a natural barrier that protects cells from damage and external components. To monitor the neural network's prediction, the researchers developed a novel numerical method that uses an exhaustive enumeration system that determines all the possibilities of polymer composition by directly programming the high-performance graphic cards in parallel calculations. "The traditional processor of a computer can contain a maximum of 12-24 nuclei for calculations, but graphic cards are designed to make parallel calculations of image and video pixels, and they have thousands of calculation cores optimized for parallel calculations," explains Vladimir Baulin. This enormous computational power generates thousands of millions of polymer combinations in just a few seconds or minutes. In this way a map can be generated that contains all the possible combinations and, therefore, how the neural network chooses the correct result can be monitored.

"What is surprising is that such a simple, minimum network as the neural network can find the composition of a molecule," Baulin points out. "This is probably due to the fact that physical systems obey the laws of nature, which are intrinsically symmetrical and self-similar. This drastically reduces the number of possible parameter combinations that are then captured by the neural networks."

Therefore, comparing the result of the neural network with the actual result not only makes it possible to check the prediction but also shows how the predictions evolve if the task is changed. And, in turn, this shows how neural networks take decisions and how they "think".

New homes are increasingly being outfitted with solar panels, heat pumps, rechargeable batteries and other means of producing and storing heat, electricity and gas, all of which interconnect with the electrical grid. At the level of an entire neighborhood, these decentralized, intermittent energy sources form a complex network, which can also include energy-consuming installations such as electric vehicle charging stations.

Managing these multi-energy systems and optimizing energy costs raises a number of questions. Should energy be consumed when it is produced, sold to the grid, or stored for later use? And how should various energy sources be distributed if there are groups of consumers generating their own energy?

Orchestrating the production and consumption of energy

CSEM has developed smart, predictive software capable of providing real-time answers to these questions. Designed for non-specialists, it makes use of weather forecasts, data from local infrastructure, residents' consumption habits and market energy costs. As its name indicates, Maestro is like an orchestra conductor that automatically manages resources and keeps costs down. An online simulator, based on a building with eight family apartments, is available here.

Determining the best time to consume energy

"All of Maestro's decisions are based on cost management," says Tomasz Gorecki, one of CSEM's engineers behind the system. "When a solar panel is in use, for example, the software can tell you whether it's more advantageous to charge your electric vehicle, store the energy, or sell it to the grid. The system works for individual homes, but it could also prove to be very useful for a self-sufficient community, sharing various renewable energy sources across several homes," he adds. The system has already been successfully installed in two private homes and in an apartment building in collaboration with Soleco. Negotiations are underway to fit out an entire neighborhood currently under construction in Zurich. Maestro was also presented at the IFAC World Congress in Berlin.

How Maestro works

The software is easy to use and can be quickly adapted to individual neighborhoods. To start with, parameters such as solar panel size, buildings' surface area, battery storage capacity and user preferences and priorities are fed into a planning tool.

Production data from energy installations, provided by sensors, are then sent to the cloud, where Maestro automatically compares possible consumption decisions and identifies the most cost-effective one. Instructions are sent back to the computer, which carries them out on site.

Maestro can incorporate boilers, heat pumps and electric vehicle charging stations, as well as electric batteries, renewable energy sources such as solar panels and wind turbines, power-to-gas facilities, thermal storage tanks, and more.

To learn more and test the online simulator, go to: https://www.csem.ch/page.aspx?pid=126438

Specific questions

What sets Maestro apart from other energy management systems?

Other systems on the market are designed only for individual homes and often employ a very simple mechanism of increasing power consumption whenever solar energy is produced. Maestro, on the other hand, can be used just as well for an entire neighborhood, where the network is more complex. It can also accommodate other energy-consuming installations such as electric vehicle charging stations and home heating and cooling systems. What's more, Maestro looks at weather forecasts for the coming days, which means that it can factor future needs into its consumption decisions. More broadly, the system is designed to keep costs down.

Could this focus on cost actually lead to increased energy consumption?

No, that shouldn't happen. Whenever surplus energy is produced, for example, the system will sell it to the grid if storing it for later use wouldn't be possible or cost-efficient. In making this decision, the system takes into account the losses that would be incurred by storing the energy in batteries. It's all about determining the best time and most rational way to use the energy.

What sort of cost savings are possible?

The cost savings will vary from home to home and user to user. A preliminary study on the first house running Maestro revealed an approximately 20% reduction in heating costs alone.

Researchers in France have discovered that patients suffering from severe COVID-19 show changes in a class of immune cells known as unconventional T cells. The study, published today in the Journal of Experimental Medicine (JEM), suggests that monitoring the activity of these cells in the blood of patients could predict the severity and course of the disease.

While most people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus experience relatively mild symptoms, some patients mount an aberrant inflammatory response that can damage the lungs and cause acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), potentially resulting in the patient’s death. However, the immune cells and inflammatory molecules responsible for ARDS associated with COVID-19 remain unclear.

Unconventional T cells are a diverse class of immune cells that help control the response to viral infection and are commonly found in the lungs and other mucosal tissues in the body. “Despite this, the role of unconventional T cells in the pathophysiological process of SARS-CoV-2–driven ARDS has not yet been explored,” says Christophe Paget, a researcher at the INSERM Research Center for Respiratory Diseases, University of Tours.

Paget and colleagues, including co-lead author Youenn Jouan, an intensivist at the academic hospital of Tours, examined 30 patients admitted to intensive care with severe COVID-19 and compared the immune cells in their blood and lungs to those found in healthy volunteers or patients admitted to the ICU for reasons other than COVID-19.

The researchers found that two types of unconventional T cells—known as mucosal-associated invariant T (MAIT) and invariant natural killer T (iNKT) cells—were dramatically reduced in the blood of patients with severe COVID-19. However, the number of MAIT cells increased in the patients’ airways, suggesting that these cells might move from the blood to the lungs to control the response to SARS-CoV-2 infection.

The MAIT and iNKT cells of COVID-19 patients appeared to be highly activated and produced distinct sets of inflammatory molecules. The researchers found that patients whose circulating MAIT and iNKT cells were particularly active at the time of their admittance to the ICU were less susceptible to hypoxemia (low blood oxygen levels) and were discharged sooner than patients whose MAIT and iNKT cells were less active.

“This suggests that MAIT and iNKT cells might play a beneficial role during severe COVID-19, although their precise functions and associated mechanisms require further investigation,” says Jouan.

“Altogether, our findings should encourage further studies on MAIT and iNKT cells in SARS-CoV-2–induced ARDS to assess their potential as biomarkers and/or targets for immune intervention strategies,” adds Paget.

Rather than a slow build-up of plaque over time, a heart attack caused by spontaneous coronary artery dissection strikes suddenly, often in younger women who didn't seem to be at risk for a cardiac event.

SCAD is poorly understood, and it's so far impossible to predict which combination of genes and environmental triggers will lead coronary arteries to spontaneously tear, or dissect, leading to a heart attack that requires emergency, life-saving medical care.

Researchers have now uncovered additional genetic clues to better understand SCAD, which are desperately needed, says senior author Santhi Ganesh, M.D., from the Michigan Medicine Frankel Cardiovascular Center. The genes Ganesh and colleagues have identified further illustrate the difference between SCAD and the more common heart attack, when plaque builds up in the artery and limits blood flow, called atherosclerosis.

"The SCAD risk alleles were inversely associated with coronary disease and myocardial infarction due to atherosclerotic disease, suggesting very different underlying biology in the artery causing each type of heart attack," Ganesh says.

"It is especially intriguing that many of the same genetic markers are involved, but in different ways, in both SCAD-induced heart attack and atherosclerotic heart attack."

The researchers performed a genome-wide association study, analyzing millions of genetic markers in patients with SCAD and healthy controls. They found a significant association of several specific genetic regions associated with SCAD, which further implicated specific genes influenced by the identified genetic variants, Ganesh says.

In addition, researchers report that the genetic risk factors for SCAD also predict SCAD among individuals with fibromuscular dysplasia, or FMD, a vascular disease that may affect any artery in the body and is found in some patients with SCAD. Many people with FMD also lack traditional risk factors underlying atherosclerosis, like high blood pressure and diabetes, researchers say, but still may be at risk for vascular complications such as arterial aneurysms and dissections.

"As a physician caring for patients with both FMD and SCAD, it is gratifying to see results from our research that are beginning to uncover the genetic architecture and risk for these diseases about which so little is known," Ganesh says.

"This unbiased and large-scale analysis has provided us with new clues for where to focus our next steps of research, which is urgently needed. We are grateful for the participation of our patients, without whom these studies and new insights would not be possible."

Finally, the SCAD risk alleles were positively associated with migraine headache, which highlights a shared genetic basis for migraine headache and SCAD. Ganesh says more research is needed to precisely define the biological relationship of SCAD to vascular diseases such as FMD and migraine headache, as well as its implications for clinical care.

"Identifying these genetic risk alleles helps further advance our understanding of risks of SCAD," says co-lead author Jacqueline Saw, M.D., from Vancouver General Hospital/University of British Columbia. "Whether these findings have implications for SCAD in high-risk populations, such as those with peripartum SCAD, is an important next step of this research."

The team's work relied upon international large-scale collaborations including the Canadian SCAD Study, the University of Michigan Genetic Study of Arterial Dysplasia, the UK Biobank, the Million Veteran's Program and the Michigan Genomics Initiative, from which thousands of healthy controls boosted the team's ability to detect genetic associations.

The next step is to conduct studies on larger groups of patients with SCAD, and to conduct further in-depth studies of the genetic and biologic relationship between SCAD and FMD, and related dysplasia-associated arterial diseases, Ganesh says. The group is launching a clinical and genetic study of peripartum, or postpartum, SCAD.

Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have identified a small neutralizing antibody, a so-called nanobody, that has the capacity to block SARS-CoV-2 from entering human cells. The researchers believe this nanobody has the potential to be developed as an antiviral treatment against COVID-19. The results are published in the journal Nature Communications.

"We hope our findings can contribute to the amelioration of the COVID-19 pandemic by encouraging further examination of this nanobody as a therapeutic candidate against this viral infection," says Gerald McInerney, corresponding author and associate professor of virology at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology at Karolinska Institutet.

The search for effective nanobodies--which are fragments of antibodies that occur naturally in camelids and can be adapted for humans--began in February when an alpaca was injected with the new coronavirus' spike protein, which is used to enter our cells. After 60 days, blood samples from the alpaca showed a strong immune response against the spike protein.

Next, the researchers cloned, enriched and analysed nanobody sequences from the alpaca's B cells, a type of white blood cell, to determine which nanobodies were best suited for further evaluation. They identified one, Ty1 (named after the alpaca Tyson), that efficiently neutralizes the virus by attaching itself to the part of the spike protein that binds to the receptor ACE2, which is used by SARS-CoV-2 to infect cells. This blocks the virus from slipping into the cells and thus prevents infection.

"Using cryo-electron microscopy, we were able to see how the nanobody binds to the viral spike at an epitope which overlaps with the cellular receptor ACE2-binding site, providing a structural understanding for the potent neutralisation activity," says Leo Hanke, postdoc in the McInerney group and first author of the study.

Nanobodies offer several advantages over conventional antibodies as candidates for specific therapies. They span less than one-tenth the size of conventional antibodies and are typically easier to produce cost-effectively at scale. Critically, they can be adapted for humans with current protocols and have a proven record of inhibiting viral respiratory infections.

"Our results show that Ty1 can bind potently to the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein and neutralize the virus, with no detectable off-target activity" says Ben Murrell, assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology and co-senior author of the publication. "We are now embarking on preclinical animal studies to investigate the neutralizing activity and therapeutic potential of Ty1 in vivo".

This project is the first arising from the CoroNAb consortium, which is coordinated by Karolinska Institutet, and funded by the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme. Additional funding for this project was obtained from the Swedish Research Council, and KI Development Office.

The sequence of Ty1 is available in the scientific article and will also be posted on the NCBI GenBank sequence data base under the accession code MT784731.

What's the risk of different human populations to develop a disease? To find out, a team led by Université de Montréal professor Guillaume Lettre created an international consortium to study the blood of hundreds of thousands of people worldwide.

In one of the largest studies of its kind, published today in Cell, close to 750,000 participants from five major populations -- European, African, Hispanic, East Asian and South Asian -- were tested to see the effect of genetic mutations on characteristics in their blood.

These characteristics include such things as hemoglobin concentration and platelet counts.

"Each human population is subject to different environments," said Lettre, a researcher at the Montreal Heart Institute.

"Over thousands of years," he said, "these environmental pressures have resulted in the progressive appearance of variations in DNA, called genetic mutations, which can influence our physical characteristics, such as skin size or color, but also our risk of getting certain diseases."

He added: "This observation (of how the environment affects how people's appearance and health vary in different parts of the world) represents the cornerstone of the theory of evolution by natural selection proposed by Charles Darwin in 1859."

The consortium founded by Lettre and his colleagues chose to study 15 characteristics of blood cells because previous studies had already uncovered mutations whose consequences were limited to certain populations.

45 million genetic mutations

By testing more than 45 million genetic variations in each participant, Lettre and his collaborators have found more than 5,000 mutations in human DNA that affect the blood characteristics of populations around the world.

Done in conjunction with another study focusing exclusively on individuals of European origin, the new study shows that the vast majority of mutations associated with blood cells were common to all five major population groups.

But aside from these, the researchers also found about 100 mutations whose effect was restricted to certain populations and which, it turns out, are not found in people of European descent.

For example, in individuals of South Asian origin, the researchers identified a mutation in the interleukin-7 gene that stimulates the secretion of this molecule and thus increases the levels of lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell in the immune system) circulating in their blood.

"Of course, this kind of mutation can affect the health of people of South Asian origin," Lettre noted. "It's thought that this mutation could influence their capacity to resist certain infections or develop diseases like blood cancer."

However, he cautioned, "these are, at present, only hypotheses, as researchers do not have the capacity to test them, given the immense costs and the difficulty of finding participants for this type of study."

Improving ways of predicting

By comparing the genetic results obtained in each population, the researchers were able to prioritize certain genes that appear to have an overall effect on blood cell production.

This will make it possible, over the long term, to improve ways of predicting the risk of suffering from certain diseases and to develop new, more effective treatments.

Here again, however, major investments in research will be required to analyze the consequences of these mutations on the health of these population groups.

Another major obstacle will be to convince researchers how important it is for all population groups globally to be included in these types of genetic studies.

"Despite the size of our study, the vast majority of participants -- about 560,000 out of 740,000 individuals -- were of European origin," Lettre noted. "This necessarily introduces a bias into the study."

In the future, he said, "we hope to work with populations that have been little studied so far -- for example, East African populations or indigenous peoples -- in order to shed light on new genes that regulate blood cells."

One thing is clear, he concluded: in order to better understand human diseases and to ensure that everyone, regardless of ethnic origin, is able to benefit from advances in genetics and precision medicine, diseases will have to be studied in all populations worldwide.

The path to global sustainability isn't a one-way street and scientists at Michigan State University and in China use the world's adoration of pandas to show new ways to figure out how not to get lost.

The group scrutinized the complex, vast enterprises that feed the boundless love of giant pandas that bring tourists to the Wolong Nature Reserve and other reserves in remote southwestern China, and the successful operations that loan the cuddly bears to zoos all over the world. The goal: understand how achieving one of the 17 United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) spins off more SDG success - or sabotages progress on another goal across spatial and administrative boundaries, as well as unforeseen consequences.

But that's only the beginning, says the group writing in Science of the Total Environment. They employ a new integrated framework to systematically and comprehensively examine human-nature interactions across space. The metacoupling framework integrates how humans and nature interact within a specific place, between adjacent places, and between distant places around the world.

"Previous research indicates that efforts towards the SDGs have an inherent tendency to achieve one at the cost or benefit of others in a specific place," said senior author Jianguo "Jack" Liu, Rachel Carson Chair in Sustainability and director of the Center for Systems Integration and Sustainability. "but it is not clear how SDGs interact across boundaries although the world is increasingly interconnected among different places and the SDGs need to be achieved everywhere. To fill such an important knowledge gap, we have developed new ways to understand SDG tradeoffs and synergies within and across boundaries. Interactions between pandas and people are very useful for exploring this new interdisciplinary frontier."

To find the synergies and tradeoffs that swell around panda endeavors, the group examined a wide range of information surrounding tourism in and around Wolong, as well as 19 other panda reserves in Sichuan Province who were visited by more than 8.2 million tourists annually. They discovered that tourism brought nine synergies amongst the SDGs, with various aspects of economic growth being promoted, which in turn alleviated poverty, raised incomes, improved infrastructures. One SDG took a hit, as hiking trails for tourists disturbed crucial panda habitat.

From 1996 to 2017, Wolong implemented international collaboration agreements with 14 zoos in 12 countries andSDGs_Panda_tourism_2020 sent 28 pandas to those zoos, and that effort created win-win situations for SDGs, both providing economic boosts as well as funding scientific research and supporting training bases for panda reintroduction.

The authors further revealed that the benefits spilled over beyond the reserves' borders, as people who live outside created businesses and made money supporting the tourism effort. Hitting one SDG had the domino effect of providing progress for other goals as people found jobs and improved their lives. The industry that took a chunk out of another goal was the collection of medicinal herbs. While that provided economic benefits to people, that activity damaged natural habitat.

The panda loans, they found, have generated income that has enhanced scientific research - and then generated positive results that have spilled over into benefits for other reserves to have more resources for conservation, which in turn allowed more pandas to be reintroduced in the wild and boost genetic diversity.

"We have found many more synergies than trade-offs when it comes to striving for Sustainable Development Goals," said Zhiqiang Zhao, lead author of the paper. "It is important to cast a wide net when understanding what battles we are winning in sustainability, and what wins may be at a cost of another important goal. Only then can we make necessary adjustments."

Pregnant mice fed a diet high in omega-6 fats and low in omega-3 fats produce offspring that go on to exhibit "hedonic"--pleasurable but excessive--levels of consumption of hyper-caloric diets, according to researchers at Hiroshima University.

Omega-6 fats are found in grapeseed oil, corn oil and sesame oil, and are a staple of several salad dressings in world cuisine. Omega-3 fats are found in fish, perilla oil, and linseed oil. A diet balanced with these fats is considered essential for healthy brain growth.

The researchers also found that the offspring exhibit increased in utero growth of dopamine-producing neurons in the midbrain--the neurological reward system. They believe that exposure to this high omega-6/low omega-3 diet increases growth in these neurons in the fetus's brain during a specific period during pregnancy, driving dopamine release in the offspring's brain, and thus primes the offspring for hedonic consumption of sugar- or fat-rich diets over the course of their life.

The findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Communications Biology, on August 28.

Meanwhile, mice whose mothers had not consumed the imbalanced omega-6/omega-3 diet did not exhibit as much overeating behavior, even when tempted by the presence of such food.

Since the 1960s, the Western diet has experienced a significant uptick in the presence of polyunsaturated omega-6 fats, and in ratios to polyunsaturated omega-3 fats that historically humans had never experienced before.

The ratio between these two types of fats is important because biochemically they compete with each other for incorporation into cell membranes, and an omega-6/omega-3 imbalance in the membranes of red blood cells is correlated with weight gain. An earlier study on mice had found that consumption of an imbalanced omega-6/omega-3 diet by the pregnant mother replicates this imbalance in the offspring's brain and even impairs brain development.

The Hiroshima researchers also found that a dopamine-inhibiting drug eliminates the hedonic consumption of the offspring, further supporting the notion that the dopamine signaling plays a critical role in driving this behavior.

"This suggests that adult mice gorging themselves on hyper-caloric diets were in effect neurologically programmed to do so by their mother's own consumption patterns," said Nobuyuki Sakayori, paper author and assistant professor from the Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences at Hiroshima University.

The scientists were keen to stress that the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fat in the mouse diet is much higher than that experienced by most humans, and that their work lays the foundation for further, epidemiological studies on humans to see if the pattern holds for us.

But if it does, this could provide a new strategy for preventing obesity in children by managing the type of fats that pregnant mothers consume, akin to how mothers today generally avoid consumption of alcohol.

"This could work much better than existing anti-obesity campaigns or food taxes," Sakayori continued, "because instead of fighting against the brain's reward system, such a strategy focuses right from the start on the development of that system."

(LOS ANGELES) - In a newly published paper, the authors first paint the vision of what optimal patient advocacy can do to overcome the challenges described by kidney transplant patients and donors, and then describe how to make that vision a reality, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Dr. Amy Waterman, Deputy Director at the Terasaki Institute for Biomedical Innovation and leader of the Transplant Research and Education Center (TREC), assembled a panel of patients to learn their priorities for their care during this unprecedented time.

The authors describe the vision of optimal patient advocacy as patients feeling informed and empowered to make appropriate decisions about their care. The three key areas the patient panel identified for making that vision a reality are: "including the patient voice in all healthcare decisions and drug development, ensuring equitable access to the best evidence-based treatments and educate patients fully in their care decision process, and honoring patient priorities in all care innovations and policies." The way those key areas look in practice are described throughout the paper.

The authors explain that diverse patient voices should be included, especially those from populations at higher risk of contracting and dying from COVID-19. These patient voices should drive outcomes of interest for transplant centers and educators. Patients were once encouraged to bring family members along with them to care, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic they are no longer able to do so. Patients and their families should strive to find new ways to engage in care and provide support, while also recognizing there may be increased burden on caregivers for immunocompromised kidney recipients.

Centers should be providing equitable access to up-to-date information for their patients about how their care is impacted by answering questions like, what precautions is the center taking to prevent the spread of COVID-19? It is vital that this information be health literate, written at a 6th grade reading level, and in multiple languages, so that all patients can be informed and make empowered choices about their care. It also means that educational information should be disseminated through multiple channels like text messages, social media, and emails so that patients have easy access to the information they need to make empowered decisions.

Lastly, optimal patient advocacy at the policy level includes changes like the Comprehensive Immunosuppressive Drug Coverage for Kidney Transplant Patients Act which makes life-sustaining immunosuppressive drugs covered by Medicare beyond the former 36-month post-transplant coverage period.

Dr. Waterman concludes the paper by writing "Patient empowerment is essential through the COVID-19 pandemic given changes in the healthcare system, and transplant recipients' increased risk of contracting COVID-19 and suffering negative outcomes. Patient advocacy is not simply a moral imperative. If we are acting as true patient advocates and empowering patients in their own healthcare, this commitment will result in more patients being alive and thriving--the entire purpose of healthcare itself."

In addition to the information provided in the body of the article, the authors include a table in the publication with specific action steps to overcome barriers to optimal transplant patient advocacy.

Co-author, Senior Research Associate of the KFU Quantum Informatics Lab Kamil Khadiev, explains, "The Dyck problem is designed to check the program code and allows you to find out whether it satisfies the rules or not. The problem, on the one hand, is an important subtask of parsers and compilers, and on the other hand, it is interesting from a theoretical point of view. The classical solution to the problem has been known for a long time, but no one thought about a quantum algorithm for the problem until 2018. Particular attention to the construction of a quantum algorithm for the Dyck problem appeared after a publication by Scott Aaronson and his co-authors two years ago. Aaronson showed, in particular, that a program for an ordinary computer would solve the problem for a year, but on a quantum computer it can be solved in a few seconds."

In the paper, Khadiev and his colleagues demonstrated an algorithm that can solve the problem in 40 seconds and also proved that it cannot be solved in less than 10 second on a quantum computer.

"Scientists are developing quantum algorithms in parallel with the creation of the quantum computer itself. The emergence of another effective algorithm spurs physicists to create quantum computers as soon as possible and makes the prospect of a quantum computer more and more enticing," adds Khadiev.

Does the COVID-19 cytokine storm exist?

Inflammatory proteins, also known as cytokines, play a crucial role in the immune response. If this immune response is too strong, a phenomenon known as "cytokine storm", it can cause harm to the patient. It has been thought that a cytokine storm contributes to disease severity in patients with COVID-19. Following the measurement of several important cytokines in patients with COVID-19 and various other severe diseases, researchers at Radboud university medical center now show that COVID-19 is not characterized by a cytokine storm. This may have consequences for the treatment of these patients, the researchers write in JAMA.

The cytokine storm in COVID-19 patients is not clearly defined. In many cases, different cytokines are evaluated and no comparison has been made with other diseases. Therefore, uncertainty and doubt exists concerning the cytokine storm in these patients.

Various patient groups

Researchers from the Intensive Care (IC) department at Radboud university medical center have now measured the concentration of three essential cytokines in the blood of patients admitted to the IC with several distinct conditions. They performed these measurements in patients with COVID-19 who met the criteria for a severe acute respiratory infection (ARDS), patients with bacterial septic shock (with and without ARDS), and patients who had been admitted to the IC after a cardiac arrest or severe trauma. The cytokines were measured using the same methods for each of the groups of patients.

Cytokine storm?

In the abovedescribed five patient groups, the concentration of tumor necrosis factor alpha (TNF-?) and interleukins 6 and 8 (IL-6, IL-8) was measured. The results were remarkable. Researcher Matthijs Kox: "The level of cytokines was significantly less elevated in COVID-19 patients than in patients with septic shock and ARDS. Compared to patients with septic shock without ARDS, so without severe pulmonary disease, patients with COVID-19 also displayed markedly lower levels of IL-6 and IL-8. The cytokine concentrations in COVID-19 patients were similar to those in IC patients with trauma or cardiac arrest, conditions that are not noted for a cytokine storm."

Possible consequences

The results from this study show that COVID-19 is not characterized by a cytokine storm. Professor of Intensive Care Medicine Peter Pickkers: "The severe disease observed in critically ill COVID-19 patients is therefore not explained by strongly elevated levels of inflammatory proteins in the blood. This means that critically ill COVID-19 patients likely will not benefit from specific anti-cytokine therapies."

AURORA, Colo. (Sept. 3, 2020) - A new study led by researchers from the University of Colorado School of Medicine compares adolescent siblings to determine the impact of early and frequent use of marijuana on cognitive function.

This study, published in the journal Addiction, contrasts with previous studies by finding that moderate adolescent cannabis use may have adverse effects that cannot be explained by the genetic or environmental factors that siblings may have in common.

"We wanted to expand our understanding of whether cannabis use is related to lower cognitive functioning," said lead author Jarrod M. Ellingson, PhD, assistant professor of psychiatry at the CU School of Medicine. "There's a large body of evidence that cannabis use is linked to cognitive functioning, but we know that cannabis use is not isolated from other important risk factors. That was the primary motivation behind this study, in which we compared siblings to account for many of these risk factors."

Such possibilities include environmental risk factors, such as peer group influence, parental behavior, and socioeconomic status. In addition, by designing the study to look at siblings, researchers could consider whether genetic factors explain a shared risk for worse cognitive functioning and earlier or heavier cannabis use.

With this study, Ellingson and his colleagues were able to establish comparisons between siblings and then determine that differential levels of cannabis use were related to poorer cognitive functioning, particularly verbal memory.

The study participants were 1,192 adolescents from 596 families. They were primarily male - 64 percent - and racially and ethnically diverse, with non-Hispanic whites accounting for 45 percent. The families were from metro Denver and San Diego. Drug use was assessed through clinical interviews and cognitive abilities were analyzed through a battery of neuropsychological tests. Two waves of data were collected. The first wave was from participants with an average age of 17 from 2001-2006; the second wave was collected from 2008-2013, with an average participant age of 24.

"More work needs to be done to determine how cannabis use is related to cognitive functioning and we hope that our study can help inform future study designs," Ellingson said. "These studies are particularly important because cannabis is becoming more potent and more accessible as states legalize its recreational use."

In the article, Ellingson and his co-authors: "Due to changes in the legality of recreational and medical cannabis and widespread access in many states, valid empirical data must be available to inform policy and public health decisions, including how cannabis use may affect the developing brain."

In a retrospective study of patients tested for COVID-19, researchers at the University of Chicago Medicine found an association between vitamin D deficiency and the likelihood of becoming infected with the coronavirus.

"Vitamin D is important to the function of the immune system and vitamin D supplements have previously been shown to lower the risk of viral respiratory tract infections," said David Meltzer, MD, PhD, Chief of Hospital Medicine at UChicago Medicine and lead author of the study. "Our statistical analysis suggests this may be true for the COVID-19 infection."

The research team looked at 489 UChicago Medicine patients whose vitamin D level was measured within a year before being tested for COVID-19. Patients who had vitamin D deficiency (

The study, Association of Vitamin D Status and Other Clinical Characteristics With COVID-19 Test Results, was published Sept. 3 in JAMA Network Open. Findings were previously reported on medRxiv, a preprint server for the health sciences.

Half of Americans are deficient in Vitamin D, with much higher rates seen in African Americans, Hispanics and individuals living in areas like Chicago where it is difficult to get enough sun exposure in winter.

"Understanding whether treating Vitamin D deficiency changes COVID-19 risk could be of great importance locally, nationally and globally," Meltzer said. "Vitamin D is inexpensive, generally very safe to take, and can be widely scaled."

Meltzer and his team emphasize the importance of experimental studies to determine whether vitamin D supplementation can reduce the risk, and potentially severity, of COVID-19. They also highlight the need for studies of what strategies for vitamin D supplementation may be most appropriate in specific populations. They have initiated several clinical trials at UChicago Medicine and with partners locally.

Over the next two weeks, The Lancet will be publishing two reports calling for urgent global action on non-communicable diseases (NCDs).

The NCD Countdown to 2030 tracks global progress on non-communicable diseases against commitments to reduce deaths from NCDs by a third by 2030. The report will publish 6.30pm [New York time] Thursday 3rd September (details below).

On Tuesday 14th September 6.30pm [New York time], The Lancet will publish a new Commission urging greater action to combat one of the world's biggest and most neglected health disparities: non-communicable diseases and injuries (NCDI) that kill and disable the poorest billion people, many of them children and young adults - and many of them at dire risk amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The report will be launched at a virtual event on 15th September https://zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_N1ES-NafRQilBe8IEuo5HA

For further information, or for an advance copy of the report, please contact The Lancet press office pressoffice@lancet.com

Peer reviewed / Review and modelling

Among high-income countries, only Denmark, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, and South Korea are on track to meet the SDG target of a third reduction in non-communicable disease (NCD) mortality by 2030 for both men and women at current rates of decline.

Relationship between COVID-19 and non-communicable diseases highlights urgent need for governments to implement policies to prevent avoidable deaths from chronic diseases.

Around the world, the risk of dying prematurely from preventable and largely treatable chronic diseases such as stroke, heart disease, and stomach cancer has declined steadily over the past decade, but death rates from other chronic diseases such as diabetes, lung cancer, colon cancer, and liver cancer are declining too slowly or worsening in many countries.

Many countries are falling short or behind on their commitments to reducing premature mortality from chronic diseases, or non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Among high-income countries, only Denmark, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, and South Korea are on track to meet the SDG target for both men and women if they maintain or surpass their recent rates of progress.

These are the findings of the 2nd edition of the NCD Countdown 2030 report, published today in The Lancet, ahead of the Global Week of Action on NCDs next week. The 1st NCD Countdown Report was released in 2018 [1].

NCDs currently kill over 40 million people a year worldwide, making up seven out of ten deaths globally. 17 million of these deaths are of people younger than 70 years old and classed as premature; the great majority (15 million) of these deaths are between 30 and 70 years.

In 2015, world leaders signed up to achieve the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goal 3.4 of a one-third reduction in deaths between 30 and 70 years of age from four key NCDs - cancer, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, and diabetes - by the year 2030. The NCD Countdown 2030 report, led by Imperial College London, World Health Organization, and the NCD Alliance, reveals that the global goal to reduce premature mortality from NCDs by one third by 2030 is still achievable but many countries are falling short.

"No country can reach that target by simply addressing a single disease - what is needed is a package of measures, a strong health system, which addresses prevention, early detection and treatment, tailored to the national situation," said Majid Ezzati, Professor of Global Environmental Health at Imperial College London, who led the study. [2]

"Young people must lead the fight against NCDs. An estimated 150 million people will lose their lives too early from a noncommunicable disease over the next decade and right now NCDs are intensifying the impact of COVID-19," said Dr Bente Mikkelsen, Director of Noncommunicable Diseases, World Health Organization. "We must ensure that all NCDs are addressed in COVID-19 recovery plans so that we can turn this deadly tide. We cannot allow NCDs to become a generational catastrophe, where human potential is wasted, and inequality is exacerbated." [2]

NCDs in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic

People living with many NCDs are being disproportionately affected by COVID-19 - they are at a considerably higher risk of suffering severe illness and dying from the disease. At the same time, the ability to reach the UN targets is being challenged by the added impact of the COVID-19 pandemic which is severely disrupting the capacity of national health services to deliver regular screening, diagnosis, treatment and prevention of NCDs.

"COVID-19 has exposed how a failure to invest in effective public health to prevent NCDs and provide health care for people living with NCDs can come back to bite us," said Katie Dain, CEO of the NCD Alliance. "The good news is that all countries can still meet the 2030 targets, with sound policies and smart investments. NCD prevention and treatment can no longer be seen a 'nice to have', it must be considered as part of pandemic preparedness." [2]

In an editorial, The Lancet highlights that: "COVID-19 and NCDs form a dangerous relationship, experienced as a syndemic that is exacerbating social and economic inequalities... COVID-19 is a pandemic that must highlight the high burden that NCDs place on health resources. It should act as a catalyst for governments to implement stricter tobacco, alcohol, and sugar controls, as well as focused investment in improving physical activity and healthy diets. COVID-19 has shown that many of the tools required for fighting a pandemic are also those required to fight NCDs: disease surveillance, a strong civil society, robust public health, clear communication, and equitable access to resilient universal health-care systems... COVID-19 must stimulate far greater political action to overcome inertia around NCDs."

Tracking country progress on SDG 3.4

The UN measure of progress towards the SDG target 3.4 is reducing by one-third the risk of death between 30 and 70 years of age from four major groups of NCDs (cancers, cardiovascular diseases (CVDs), chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes), termed NCD4. Based on recent (2010-2016) trends, the NCD Countdown 2030 report finds that:

Among high-income countries, only Denmark, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, and South Korea are on track to meet this target for both men and women if they maintain or surpass their 2010-16 average rates of decline.

17 countries are already on track to reach the SDG target 3.4 for women: Belarus, Denmark, Iran, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Kuwait, Luxembourg, Latvia, Maldives, Norway, New Zealand, Russian Federation, Singapore, Serbia, Timor-Leste, Ukraine.

And 15 countries are on track for men: Bahrain, Belarus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Iran, Iceland, Kazakhstan, South Korea, Luxembourg, Maldives, Norway, New Zealand, Singapore, Slovakia.

The risk of dying prematurely from NCD4 is declining rapidly in central and eastern Europe.

However, large countries that showed stagnation or small increases in risk of premature death from these NCDs are Bangladesh (men), Egypt (women), Ghana (men and women), Cote d'Ivoire (men and women), Kenya (men and women), Mexico (men), Sri Lanka (women), Tanzania (men) and the USA (women).

Tracking progress on four major groups of NCDs

Worldwide, deaths from stroke, heart disease and stomach cancer are falling, although overall progress has slowed compared to the previous decade, according to WHO [3]. Deaths from diabetes, lung cancer, colon cancer and liver cancer are stagnating or rising in many countries. The NCD Countdown 2030 report shows that (see figure 2):

The risk of premature death from ischaemic and haemorrhagic stroke, heart disease, chronic lung diseases and stomach cancer declined faster than that of other causes. However, heart disease remains the leading cause of premature death in most countries for men and in about half the countries for women.

In contrast, the risk of premature death from diabetes, colorectal cancer, liver cancer, breast cancer and prostate cancer declined more slowly than other causes, as did lung cancer among women.

For lung cancer in women and colorectal, liver and prostate cancers in men, the risk of premature death increased in more than half of countries.

Policies to accelerate decline in premature mortality

The report notes that although premature death from NCDs is declining in the majority of countries, the pace of change is too slow to achieve SDG target 3.4 in most. The authors used mathematical modelling to assess how many options countries have for accelerating mortality decline.

"To move forward we must learn from those countries that are doing well and replicate their strategies to NCD prevention and healthcare," said Professor Ezzati. "Our analysis shows that every country still has options to achieve SDG target 3.4 but they need to address multiple diseases and have strong health systems." [2]

To that end the report highlights the set of interventions needed to move countries forward:

Tobacco and alcohol control and effective health system interventions, such as a ban on advertising, increasing taxes, plain packaging, public smoking/drinking bans.

Quality primary care - including equitable access to doctors' surgeries and community-based clinics.

Quality referral systems and consistent maintenance of people in care to help patients get the right treatment at the right time.

A range of medicines and techniques available for early diagnosis and treatment - such as increased equitable access to preventative cholesterol-lowering, hypertension and diabetes medicines.

Effective cancer screening and treatment - to diagnose and treat cancers earlier, reducing long-term health impacts and premature deaths.