Earth

Every time we eat, the glucose level in our body goes up. This spurs our pancreatic machinery into action and through intricate physiological mechanisms, appropriate amounts of insulin are produced, our blood glucose levels are controlled, and we remain healthy. But when a person indulges in high-fat food repeatedly over the long term, their pancreas is consistently overstimulated, eventually contributing to its damage and impairing its function. This increases the risk of developing type 2 diabetes, in which glucose level control mechanisms become lopsided.

Today, high-fat foods have become commonplace and so has diabetes. The need for designing new treatment strategies against diabetes is peaking. But to find an effective therapy, clarifying the causal cellular mechanisms at the core is essential. Now, a group of researchers from Japan, led by Dr Shoen Kume from Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), have unraveled one key mechanism by which pancreatic function is regulated. Their findings are published in American Diabetes Association's journal Diabetes.

The pancreas contains "beta cells", which secrete excess insulin in response to excess glucose and fatty acid in the diet. Dopamine, or the "feel-good" hormone that is commonly known to induce feelings of pleasure, is what controls insulin levels, when excess insulin is produced. In the pancreas, a protein called VMAT2 ferries dopamine into sacs called "vesicles" to protect it from degradation by monoamine oxidase (MAO). The dopamine stored in vesicles is then released along with the insulin into the extracellular space of beta cells, where it binds to its specific receptor on the plasma membrane of the beta cells and acts as a brake for insulin secretion. Thus, through the modulation of dopamine, VMAT2 regulates pancreatic insulin levels as well.

Meanwhile, the degradation of dopamine by MAO produces a type of chemical called "reactive oxygen species", which when generated in excess, damages the beta cells.

But how do all these dots connect? "We wanted to understand the exact mechanism by which VMAT2 and dopamine signaling regulate beta cell function and glucose homeostasis" Dr Kume says.

To this end, Dr Kume and team created a genetically mutant mouse model, the beta cells of which would be deficient in the VMAT2 protein: the "βVmat2KO" mouse. They then ran experiments in which they fed these and wild type mice both a regular diet and a high-fat diet and monitored subsequent changes in their beta cell structure and function over the weeks that followed. In the immediate aftermath of being fed, the βVmat2KO mice, as expected, showed increased insulin secretion. But with prolonged exposure to a high-fat diet, they showed both impaired glucose and insulin tolerance and beta cell failure.

This prompted the researchers to infer the following: a high glucose and fat diet induces the simultaneous increase in insulin and dopamine production. But when VMAT2 is missing from the beta cell, the dopamine remains exposed to MAO and is degraded by it. However, as the amount of dopamine increases, its reaction with MAO rapidly produces the reactive oxygen species hydrogen peroxide. Over time, this constant oxidative stress leads to beta cell loss and failure. Thus, a high-fat diet accelerates beta cell failure and could cause the βVmat2KO mice to develop diabetes as they get older.

In this scenario, VMAT2 protects beta cells from the oxidative stress that a high fat diet induces in patients with diabetes.

"We were excited to discover that VMAT2, the protein widely known for its crucial role in dopamine transport and storage within pancreatic beta cells, also performs such a critical role in the cell's response to excess nutrition, such as a high-fat diet," Dr Kume says. "Our findings underscore the possibility of using VMAT2 as a target for novel therapeutic approaches against diabetes."

The amount of synthetic microfiber we shed into our waterways has been of great concern over the last few years, and for good reason: Every laundry cycle releases in its wastewater tens of thousands of tiny, near-invisible plastic fibers whose persistence and accumulation can affect aquatic habitats and food systems, and ultimately our own bodies in ways we have yet to discover.

And according to researchers from UC Santa Barbara's Bren School of Environmental Science & Management, that's not the whole picture. In a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE, they found that the volume of synthetic microfibers we release to terrestrial environments from our wash cycles rivals -- and may soon eclipse -- the amount that winds up in our oceans, rivers and lakes.

"The emissions of microfibers onto terrestrial environments -- that was a known process. But the magnitude of the issue was not well known," said Jenna Gavigan, who led the study, the first ever to examine the problem on a global scale.

Using global datasets on apparel production, use and washing with emission and retention rates during washing, wastewater treatment and sludge management, Gavigan and colleagues estimate that 5.6 million metric tonnes (Mt) of synthetic microfibers have been emitted from apparel washing between 1950 and 2016, with 2.9 Mt finding their way into waterbodies and a combined 2.5 Mt emitted onto terrestrial environments (1.9 Mt) and landfilled (0.6 Mt).

"If you look at the figures you can see the enormous growth in synthetic clothes production, and as a result, increased synthetic microfiber pollution," said industrial ecology professor and paper co-author Roland Geyer.

Indeed, according to the paper, about half of the total synthetic microfiber emissions since 1950 (the dawn of synthetic fiber mass production) were generated in the last decade alone. Thanks in large part to the global appetite for fast fashion and its tendency toward cheaper, mass-producible synthetic fibers, as well as increased access to washing machines, our laundry is polluting not just the ocean, but the land, too.

Where is it coming from, this enormous -- and until now, largely unnoticed -- mass of synthetic microfibers? It turns out that in the effort to keep them from getting in our waterways, these fibers are accumulating in the sludge of wastewater treatment plants.

"Wastewater treatment is not the end of the pollution," said industrial ecology professor Sangwon Suh, who also is a co-author on the study. With a roughly 95-99% removal efficiency, all but the tiniest microplastics are caught in the sludge, which is treated and turned into biosolids, and "predominantly used in land applications," as fertilizer and soil amendments.

"A smaller percentage goes to the landfill," Gavigan said. "The smallest percentage gets dumped into the ocean in some countries, and some of it is incinerated."

"So then it becomes a terrestrial pollution issue," Geyer pointed out. "We just turned it into a different environmental pollution issue rather than having actually solved it."

According to the researchers, preventing emissions at the source -- whether by using a microfiber capture device, selecting a gentler wash method, washing clothes less often or foregoing synthetic fabrics -- would be more effective at mitigating microfiber pollution than trying to capture the fibers after the wastewater is sent to the treatment plant.

This sobering study has its roots in a 2016 Bren group project in which several graduate students, in research conducted for the outdoor apparel company Patagonia, sought to study the conditions that affect garment shedding. That undertaking focused primarily on the microfiber-laden effluent leaving the washing machine, and produced influential research that raised awareness of the synthetic microfiber problem.

The collaboration also inspired a 2017 microfiber leadership summit co-hosted by the Bren School and the environmental organization Ocean Conservancy, in which more than 50 stakeholders, including representatives from industry, government, the research community, the apparel sector and environmental nonprofits convened to try to get their arms around the issue. The result? A road map based on a shared vision, and action items for each stakeholder to steer toward solutions.

"When it comes to microfiber pollution, these new findings show that the ocean has been the canary in the coal mine, and that plastic pollution is far more pervasive in our environment than originally thought," said Nick Mallos, senior director of Trash Free Seas® at the Ocean Conservancy. "Fortunately, simple and effective solutions -- like adding filters to washing machines -- exist. We urge manufacturers to make these modifications standard."

This global assessment of synthetic microfiber emissions is part of a larger picture of microplastics in the environment that the researchers hope to fill in as they uncover the pathways these tiny fibers take. For instance, what other sources contribute these fibers to the environment? How do they move around and what systems may be affected? How do these microfibers interact with the biota of a region? Gaining answers to these and other questions could lead to practices that mitigate or prevent the effects of global synthetic microfiber pollution, even as consumption increases.

"There are huge unknowns," Suh said. "The amount of microplastics and microfibers that are generated is quite massive and continuing to rise, and if it continues there will be big changes, the consequences of which we are not yet sure. That's what makes it concerning."

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed over the South China Sea and captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Noui as it continued to organize and intensify.

Noul formed from a low-pressure area that began on the eastern side of the Philippines. The low crossed the Philippines and developed into Tropical Depression 13W in the Sulu Sea. The depression intensified, consolidated and became a tropical storm renamed Noul.

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard Suomi NPP provided a visible image of Noul on Sept. 16. The VIIRS imagery and animated enhanced infrared satellite imagery shows building convection and clouds obscuring a partially exposed low-level circulation center. The image also showed some banding of thunderstorms.

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) on Sept. 16, the Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted that Tropical storm Noul was located near latitude 13.7 degrees north and longitude 115.6 degrees east. That is about 445 nautical miles east-southeast of Da Nang, Vietnam. Noul is moving to the west-northwest and had maximum sustained winds near 45 knots (52 mph/83 kph). The storm was strengthening in the warm waters of the South China Sea.

Noul is forecast to move west-northwest across the South China Sea. The storm will strengthen to 65 knots (75 mph), just attaining typhoon strength prior to landfall in central Vietnam in one and a half days.

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.

Out of any other racial group, African American men have the lowest five-year survival rate for colorectal cancer (CRC). A major factor contributing to this dire situation is low adherence to recommended early detection screening, like colonoscopy and home-based stool testing kits. Yet, published research on effective strategies to increase screening for this group specifically are minimal. These findings were published today in a special health inequities and disparities issue of the journal PLOS ONE.

For this study, the researchers set out to understand the state of research on interventions to increase CRC screening uptake in African American men. The researchers conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis. They reviewed 41 studies published between 1998 and 2020 that examined adherence to CRC early detection methods and screening recommendations. Of these, only two studies focused exclusively on African American men. While many of the studies provide valuable insights, the researchers found the existing body of work lacks the detail needed to inform effective screening recommendations for reducing CRC incidence and deaths in African American men.

Charles R. Rogers, PhD, MPH, MS, MCHES, led the study. Rogers is a cancer investigator at Huntsman Cancer Institute and assistant professor of public health at the University of Utah, where he leads the Men's Health Inequities research lab. This group brings together researchers, advocacy organizations, clinicians, and health professionals from a variety of disciplines. They work together to improve the health and well-being of medically underserved populations through community engagement, research, and education. The research group is currently assessing the influence of numerous factors on CRC screening uptake - for example, poor patient-provider communication, masculinity barriers to medical care, health problem minimization, and medical mistrust. Rogers' team also evaluates social determinants of health in men, including lack of insurance, racism, and limited social support. His group has a longstanding interest in CRC prevention and awareness among African American men, including a 5-year study called #CuttingCRC, which aims to develop a barbershop-based intervention on masculinity barriers to medical care, psychosocial factors, and CRC screening uptake among African American men in Utah, Ohio, and Minnesota.

Rogers and his team view their PLOS ONE study as a call to action for researchers to advance understanding of factors that could improve screening completion among African American men. Limitations of existing interventional research on this issue identified by the team included lack of race and gender segmentation. More geographic representation is needed in these studies as the majority of research available is concentrated on people living in the northeast and southern parts of the United States. Also, many of the studies employed interventions among participants with regular access to health care at a major medical center - thus excluding significant representation of the African American male health care experience.

The researchers recommend more studies that focus exclusively on African American men. "To reach the goal of reducing CRC-related injustices among African American men, future health promotion and prevention interventions must explicitly focus on recruiting men belonging to this population," says Rogers. The group also advises that researchers prioritize conducting interventions in nontraditional health care settings, like churches or community centers. "It's key to meet people where they live, work, play, and worship," says Rogers.

In light of the unexpected death of Black Panther star Chadwick Boseman from CRC at age 43, Rogers and his team also emphasize the critical need for more research in African Americans younger than age 45, due to more young adults both getting the preventable disease and dying from it. Of a predicted growth of 90-124% among Americans aged 20-34 and 28-46% among those aged 35-49 by 2030, the highest growth of early-onset CRC incidence and death is predicted to occur in African American men, according to a study published in JAMA Surgery. "African American men continue to suffer the most from CRC incidence and mortality across all racial groups and genders. Advancing CRC prevention and early detection-focused research among African American men will provide critical insights - perhaps including why we need to adjust current screening recommendations - and will undoubtedly save lives," Rogers added.

In the popular imagination, Vikings were fearsome blonde-haired warriors from Scandinavia who used longboats to carry out raids across Europe in a brief but bloody reign of terror. But the reality is more complex, says SFU Archaeology Prof. Mark Collard.

Collard is a member of an international team of researchers that has just published the results of the world's largest DNA sequencing of Viking skeletons, in this week's edition of Nature.

Led by Prof. Eske Willerslev of the Universities of Cambridge and Copenhagen, the research team extracted and analysed DNA from the remains of 442 men, women and children.

The remains were recovered from archaeological sites in Scandinavia, the U.K., Ireland, Iceland, Greenland, Estonia, Ukraine, Poland and Russia, and mostly date to the Viking Age (ca. 750-1050 AD).

The team's analyses yielded a number of findings. One of the most noteworthy is that contrary to what has often been assumed, Viking identity was not limited to people of Scandinavian ancestry--the team discovered that two skeletons from a Viking burial site in the Orkney Islands were of Scottish ancestry.

They also found evidence that there was significant gene flow into Scandinavia from the British Isles, Southern Europe, and Asia before and during the Viking Age, which further undermines the image of the Vikings as 'pure' Scandinavians.

Another discovery that runs counter to the standard image of the Vikings is that many had brown hair, not blonde hair.

The analyses' results also shed light on the Vikings' activities. For example, consistent with patterns documented by historians and archaeologists, the team found that Vikings who travelled to England generally had Danish ancestry, while the majority of Vikings who travelled to Scotland, Ireland, Iceland and Greenland had Norwegian ancestry. In contrast, Vikings who headed east were mostly from Sweden.

Interestingly, says Collard, data revealed a number of close kin among the 442 individuals. Four members of a Viking raiding party interred in a boat burial in Estonia were found to be brothers, while two individuals buried 300 to 400 kilometers apart in Sweden were found to be cousins. Perhaps even more strikingly, the team identified a pair of second-degree male relatives (i.e. half-brothers, nephew-uncle, or grandson-grandfather) from two sites, one in Denmark and one in England.

"We have this image of well-connected Vikings mixing with each other, trading and going on raiding parties to fight Kings across Europe because this is what we see on television and read in books - but genetically we have shown for the first time that it wasn't that kind of world. This study changes the perception of who a Viking actually was," says Willerslev. "No one could have predicted these significant gene flows into Scandinavia from Southern Europe and Asia happened before and during the Viking Age."

Of all the team's discoveries, Collard is most intrigued by the identification of close kin.

"While the 'big picture' discoveries are great, I was blown away by the fact that the analyses revealed the presence of four brothers in the Estonian boat burial, and a possible nephew and uncle on either side of the North Sea."

"These findings have important implications for social life in the Viking world, but we would've remained ignorant of them without ancient DNA. They really underscore the power of the approach for understanding history."

Vaccines have curtailed the spread of several infectious diseases, such as smallpox, polio and measles. However, vaccines against some diseases, including HIV-1, influenza and malaria, don't work very well, and one reason could be the timing of antigen and adjuvant presentation to the immune system. Now, researchers reporting in ACS Central Science developed an injectable hydrogel that allows sustained release of vaccine components, increasing the potency, quality and duration of immune responses in mice.

To confer resistance to infectious diseases, vaccines display parts of a pathogen -- known as antigens -- to cells of the immune system, which develop antibodies against these molecules. If a vaccinated person later becomes infected with the same pathogen, their immune system can quickly deploy antibodies to destroy the invader. Vaccines usually contain an additional component, called an adjuvant, that helps stimulate the immune system. In natural infections, the body is typically exposed to antigens for 2-3 weeks, compared with only 1-2 days for vaccines. Eric Appel and colleagues wondered whether they could develop an injectable hydrogel that would slowly release vaccine components over a longer period of time, more similar to what the body is used to, which might boost the immune response.

The researchers developed a polymer-nanoparticle hydrogel that could be mixed with vaccine components. When injected under the skin of mice, the material formed a localized area of inflammation that attracted certain types of immune cells, while slowly releasing the antigen and adjuvant over a period of several days. As a result, the mice injected with the hydrogel produced more antibodies over a longer period of time than mice treated with a traditional vaccine. Importantly, the antibodies produced by the hydrogel-vaccine-treated mice had about 1,000-fold higher affinity for the antigen than those made by mice receiving the standard immunization. Although the new system still needs to be tested to see if it improves vaccine protection from specific diseases, this study demonstrates a simple, effective vaccine delivery platform that enhances the potency and duration of antibody-mediated immunity in mice, the researchers say.

The photon jet effect was discovered in the early 2000s. The jet is an electromagnetic wave focused at the surface of a quartz glass microsphere, which is at lens focus. This jet has a unique transverse dimension, which is less than the diffraction limit. This feature of the photon jet drew the attention of scientists. As a result, in 2011, a nanoscope based on the effect of a photonic jet was developed. It pushed the envelope of traditional optical microscopes limitation with a maximum resolution of 200 nanometers and made possible to observe up to 50 nanometers.

In 2015, TPU scientists proposed a photonic hook, a new type of curved light beam based on a photonic jet. It is much easier to obtain it than existing analogs. Only a microparticle of a certain shape is needed to obtain a photonic hook. Light passes through it and curve. For instance, the photonic hook moves nanoparticles using light pressure, curves around a barrier and transfers them through it.

"Researchers use microparticles from a dielectric material, such as glass to obtain a photonic jet and a photonic hook. Traditionally, it was believed that this requires particles of different shapes, such as symmetrical for the photon jet and asymmetrical for the hook. However, it is not so. We carried out simulations and conducted experiments. These experiments demonstrated that symmetric particles can be used in both cases. In order to do this, we partially covered the particle with a metal micro-size screen, which can be made of any metal, but in the experiments we used aluminum," Igor Minin, project manager and Professor of Division for Electronic Engineering, says.

To form a photon jet, the particle is irradiated completely, and in the case of a curved photonic hook, the particle is partially overlapped by the screen.

"Then we use an asymmetric wavefront with a symmetric particle. This expands the application potential of the photon jet and the hook. For instance, they can be used in one device depending on the tasks. You can grab nanoparticles by a photon jet and if you use the screen, the beam will curve and the particles can be moved, " the scientist explains.

Another possible application field is the lithography process in the manufacture of microcircuits. Lithography is a technology of using a laser to draw a pattern of a future microcircuit.

"Drawing can be made with either a straight beam or with a curved one, you only need to change the focusing particle. To do so, you can use a micro-sized metal screen, which is an extremely simple solution. Moreover, it will not significantly complicate the structure of devices, using a photonic jet or hook effect," Igor Minin says.

The Northwest Sub-basin (NWSB) is an indispensable and essential part of the South China Sea (SCS) since it is one of three sub-basins of the SCS. In this paper, researchers used 11 OBSs' data along the profile OBS2006-2 (Fig. 1) by means of the latest data converting programs, elaborated the velocity structures of extinct spreading ridge by the employ of forward/inverse modeling software (RayInvr and Tomo2d), and then clarified the formation mechanism of the Double-peak seamount in the NWSB.

The paper titled "Crustal velocity structure of the Northwest Sub-basin of the South China Sea based on seismic data reprocessing" is published in the Science China: Earth Sciences, which has been finished by Prof. Minghui Zhao's research team at the Key Laboratory of Ocean and Marginal Sea Geology, South China Sea Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the first author is Dr. Qiang Wang.

The SCS is the mother sea of the China. As one of the largest marginal seas around the western Pacific, the SCS acts as the first priority of scientific breakthrough for China's geoscience research from lands to oceans (Wang et al., 2009, 2018). The SCS can be divided into the Northwest Sub-basin, Southwest Sub-basin, and East Sub-basin based on bathymetric topography and the characteristics of the magnetic anomalies (Yao, 1996; Sun et al., 2019). The short spreading period (~7 Ma) of the NWSB (Briais et al., 1993; Ding et al., 2009; Ding et al., 2011), and the limited scope of the basin, resulting in multiple solutions for the recognition of magnetic anomalies; The relatively thicker sedimentary strata covered the submarine tectonics; Besides, intensive post-spreading magmatism transformed the pre-existing submarine tectonics; The above factors bring challenges to the understanding of the crustal structure and the division of the continent-ocean transition (COT) of the NWSB.

The ocean bottom seismometer (OBS)deep seismic survey is one of the most effective and mature methods to obtain the lithospheric velocity structures. The velocity structures along the 2-D wide-angle reflection/refraction seismic profile OBS2006-2 (Fig. 1) elaborates the characteristics of extinct spreading ridge in the NWSB. The sedimentary basement changes greatly; the depth of the Moho (23.5-11.8 km) and crustal thickness (20.5-6.5 km) systematically changes from continental crust of the Xisha Block to the oceanic crust within the NWSB. Combined with gravity and magnetic anomaly data, the location and geophysical characteristics of the COT in the NWSB is determined (Fig. 2), with a width of ~20 km, and the Moho depth decreases from 15 km to 11 km. A high velocity layer (HVL, 7.2-7.4 km s-1) exists at the bottom of the crust at the location where the sharp lateral transition of the continental crust to the oceanic crust occurs corresponding to a ~4 km decrease in crustal thickness (6-10 km).

The HVL may be related to in-situ mantle serpentinization based on previous results of magnetic anomaly analysis (Li et al., 2010; Li and Song, 2012); or it may be linked with the lower crust magma underplating due to the abrupt increase of magmatic supply at COT, which results in the rupture of the continental crust and the following onset of seafloor spreading (Huismans and Beaumont, 2011). The 40Ar/39Ar dating results of two trachyte samples (~23 Ma) indicating that the Double-peak Seamount is formed by magmatic intrusion ~2 Myr after the cessation of seafloor spreading in the NWSB. The crustal thickness beneath the Double-peak seamount is ~9 km, accompanying the low-velocity anomalies in the upper mantle. ~2 Myr after the cessation of seafloor spreading in the NWSB, the residual magma upwells due to buoyancy-driven decompression melting and intrudes into the bottom of the crust and leads to higher heat flow. Then the molten magma erupts to the seafloor along the pre-existing tectonic weak zone (e.g., extinct spreading ridge, transform fault) to form the Double-peak Seamount, which showing the tectono-magmatic processes.

This research enriches the deep crustal structure of the NWSB. It does not only accumulate important practical experiences for the OBS cruises and data processing, but also deepen the knowledge of magmatic activities, the characteristics of the COT and their dynamic mechanisms.

Researchers at the Babraham Institute have used their understanding of cellular signalling to highlight a pitfall in an emerging treatment for cancer and inflammation. A new review just published in Biochemical Society Transactions summarises the researchers' current knowledge, which includes details of their research published in Nature Communications earlier this year. Developing awareness around these findings will prevent wasted effort and resource being spent on further drug discovery research relating to this drug target by commercial pharmaceutical companies.

The research study focused on an emerging drug target in cancer and inflammation, and the use of small-molecule inhibitors to develop a new precision medicine - one that is matched to patients based on a genetic understanding of their disease. In this case, the compounds being investigated targeted a protein involved in cell signalling called ERK5. ERK5 is known to play an important role in some diseases, most notably in inflammation and cancer, and is thought to promote cell proliferation. Inhibiting this protein is an attractive strategy to develop novel anti-inflammatory or anti-cancer therapeutics and various large pharma have commercial research programmes to explore this for therapeutic purposes (for example, Bayer AG, Boehringer Ingelheim and AstraZeneca).

While conducting research using some potential ERK5 inhibitors, the research team of Drs Pamela Lochhead and Simon Cook at the Babraham Institute along with collaborators at Newcastle University, University of York in the UK, and Harvard Medical School in the USA,
noticed an unusual effect; the inhibitors acted in the opposite way what to was expected and activated ERK5 instead of blocking it. The team applied their knowledge of the ERK5 signalling pathway to dissect the molecular basis of this.

As summarised in their latest review, the team found that the unintended activation of ERK5 was due to the binding location of the inhibitors. ERK5 inhibitors that bound to the kinase domain of the protein led to the protein being shuttled to the cell nucleus and activated.

Blocking ERK5 has therapeutic potential, but activating it could have undesirable consequences in terms of stimulated unwanted cell growth. Similar observations have been seen before with a precision medicine developed to treat melanoma (a form of skin cancer) where it unintentionally caused another type of skin cancer, cutaneous squamous-cell carcinoma.

These research findings and improved understanding will prevent this situation being repeated. Dr Pamela Lochhead, a senior postdoctoral researcher in the Cook lab and first author on the research paper and the review, said "It was surprising that the inhibitors we tested caused activation of ERK5, but we knew that by working out how this happened, we would be able to inform drug discovery efforts in developing new, safer medicines".

"Our study is very significant for understanding how organisms, in this case the common swift, can migrate from one part of the world to another, where access to food is much better at a given time", says Susanne Åkesson, professor at Lund University and principal investigator of the study.

Common swifts that nest in Sweden and northern Europe arrive in sub-Saharan Africa four to six weeks later than the swifts that nest in southern Europe. By that time, the southern European swifts have already migrated even further south on the African continent. Hence the term chain migration, as opposed to the much more common pattern known as leap-frog migration, in which the populations that arrive first in a location claim the territory and occupy it, forcing populations that arrive later to leap-frog over the occupied area and fly further.

The common swift is the most mobile terrestrial bird in the world. When it is not breeding, it spends 24 hours a day airborne, for a total of ten months a year. According to the researchers, this has contributed to the species developing its unique migration pattern. Life in the air means that the swifts need a steady supply of energy and therefore food in the form of insects. This explains why the southern European populations migrate even further south in Africa when food availability increases there in the second half of the wintering period. It also explains why they are larger than their relatives from northern Europe. Quite simply, they make sure always to be in the region with the greatest availability of insects.

The researchers identified another factor determining the development of the common swift's chain migration: they cannot claim a territory in the same way as birds that spend more time on the ground.

"The core reason why the common swift engages in chain migration, whereas almost all other birds such as songbirds, ducks, geese and waders have leap-frog migration patterns, can probably be found in the amount of time they spend airborne. The common swift is unique in spending ten months in the air", says Susanne Åkesson.

"I think it is amazing that they know where food is to be found and when they should head for that specific location. They migrate over continents in such a way as to ensure continuous access to food and thereby to survive - they have a lifespan of over 20 years", she continues.

The researchers tracked 102 common swifts (Apus apus) from eleven different populations that nest in Europe, from Swedish Lapland in the north to Spain in the south. Using micro data-loggers attached to the birds, which record data including time of sunrise and daylight duration, they were able to calculate longitude and latitude and thus to determine the location of the 102 individuals at various times during the year. The study involved researchers from 14 universities and bird conservation organisations.

Chain migration has previously only been observed in two species: the sharp-shinned hawk and the northern gannet.

West Nile virus spreads most efficiently in the US at temperatures between 24-25 degrees Celsius (75.2-77 degrees Fahrenheit), a new study published today in eLife shows.

The results suggest that climate change could lead to the increased spread of West Nile virus in some places, while potentially causing a decrease in others, and provide insight on where and when these changes might occur.

"As the climate warms, it is critical to understand how temperature changes will affect the transmission of mosquito-borne diseases," says lead author Marta Shocket, who was a Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University, California, US, at the time the study was carried out, and is now a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles, US.

To do this, Shocket and her colleagues developed models to assess the impact of temperature on six mosquito-borne viruses, four of which occur in the US. These viruses - the West Nile, St. Louis Encephalitis, Eastern and Western Equine Encephalitis, Sindbis, and Rift Valley fever viruses - were grouped together for this study as they share some of the same species of mosquito carriers.

The models used laboratory experiments that measured how different temperatures affect the mosquitoes' survival, biting rate, reproduction, development and ability to transmit the virus. The team validated their West Nile model using data on human virus transmission in the US. They found that West Nile virus is transmitted most readily at moderate temperatures, while extreme temperatures limit where its mosquito carriers could live and successfully transmit the virus.

"Most of the viruses covered in this work are from more temperate areas than more commonly studied tropical diseases," Shocket explains. "We compared these results to those of tropical diseases like malaria and dengue and found that the optimal temperatures and cold thermal limits for virus spread are cooler. This means the viruses spread more efficiently at cooler temperatures compared to more tropical diseases, as you would expect."

The results suggest that mosquito-borne diseases could take a greater toll in the US as temperatures rise, especially as most of the population (70%) lives in places that are currently below the optimal temperature and will likely see increased transmission with climate warming. This is compared to 30% of the population who live in places where summer temperatures are above the optimal temperature, meaning transmission will likely decrease with climate warming. Temperature increases could also extend virus transmission seasons earlier into the Spring and later into the Fall.

"Climate change is poised to increase the transmission of West Nile and other mosquito-borne viruses in much of the US," concludes senior author Erin Mordecai, Assistant Professor of Biology at Stanford University. "But these diseases also depend on human contact with mosquitoes that also contact wildlife, so factors like human land use, mosquito control, mosquito and virus adaptations, and the emergence of new viruses make predicting the future of mosquito-borne disease a challenge."

Darmstadt, 15. September 2020. Researchers from the Technical University of Darmstadt and the University of Würzburg show that popular mobile messengers expose personal data via discovery services that allow users to find contacts based on phone numbers from their address book.

When installing a mobile messenger like WhatsApp, new users can instantly start texting existing contacts based on the phone numbers stored on their device. For this to happen, users must grant the app permission to access and regularly upload their address book to company servers in a process called mobile contact discovery. A recent study by a team of researchers from the Secure Software Systems Group at the University of Würzburg and the Cryptography and Privacy Engineering Group at TU Darmstadt shows that currently deployed contact discovery services severely threaten the privacy of billions of users. Utilizing very few resources, the researchers were able to perform practical crawling attacks on the popular messengers WhatsApp, Signal, and Telegram. The results of the experiments demonstrate that malicious users or hackers can collect sensitive data at a large scale and without noteworthy restrictions by querying contact discovery services for random phone numbers.

Attackers are enabled to build accurate behavior models

For the extensive study, the researchers queried 10% of all US mobile phone numbers for WhatsApp and 100% for Signal. Thereby, they were able to gather personal (meta) data commonly stored in the messengers' user profiles, including profile pictures, nicknames, status texts and the "last online" time. The analyzed data also reveals interesting statistics about user behavior. For example, very few users change the default privacy settings, which for most messengers are not privacy-friendly at all. The researchers found that about 50% of WhatsApp users in the US have a public profile picture and 90% a public "About" text. Interestingly, 40% of Signal users, which can be assumed to be more privacy concerned in general, are also using WhatsApp, and every other of those Signal users has a public profile picture on WhatsApp. Tracking such data over time enables attackers to build accurate behavior models. When the data is matched across social networks and public data sources, third parties can also build detailed profiles, for example to scam users. For Telegram, the researchers found that its contact discovery service exposes sensitive information even about owners of phone numbers who are not registered with the service.

Which information is revealed during contact discovery and can be collected via crawling attacks depends on the service provider and the privacy settings of the user. WhatsApp and Telegram, for example, transmit the user's entire address book to their servers. More privacy-concerned messengers like Signal transfer only short cryptographic hash values of phone numbers or rely on trusted hardware. However, the research team shows that with new and optimized attack strategies, the low entropy of phone numbers enables attackers to deduce corresponding phone numbers from cryptographic hashes within milliseconds. Moreover, since there are no noteworthy restrictions for signing up with messaging services, any third party can create a large number of accounts to crawl the user database of a messenger for information by requesting data for random phone numbers. "We strongly advise all users of messenger apps to revisit their privacy settings. This is currently the most effective protection against our investigated crawling attacks," agree Prof. Alexandra Dmitrienko (University of Würzburg) and Prof. Thomas Schneider (TU Darmstadt).

Impact of research results: service providers improve their security measures

The research team reported their findings to the respective service providers. As a result, WhatsApp has improved their protection mechanisms such that large-scale attacks can be detected, and Signal has reduced the number of possible queries to complicate crawling. The researchers also proposed many other mitigation techniques, including a new contact discovery method that could be adopted to further reduce the efficiency of attacks without negatively impacting usability.

LOS ANGELES - Patients treated for bladder cancer with a surgery known as radical cystectomy have worse outcomes if they are smokers, according to a systematic review and meta-analysis by Keck Medicine of USC. The study appeared in The Journal of Urology.

"This study is important because while it is known that tobacco smoking is the leading cause of bladder cancer, this is the first study to suggest that smoking puts bladder cancer patients at risk after diagnosis," says Giovanni Cacciamani, MD, lead author of the study and assistant professor of research urology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.

More than 500,000 cases of bladder cancer are diagnosed each year worldwide. When the cancer is large or has spread beyond the bladder, patients are typically treated with chemotherapy followed by a radical cystectomy, which is when the bladder, nearby lymph nodes and surrounding organs are surgically removed.

Cacciamani and fellow Keck Medicine researchers searched databases to select 17 studies that reported on the impact of tobacco smoking on chemotherapy response and survival outcomes of 13,777 patients following radical cystectomy. Of these patients, 40.8% were active smokers at the time of the surgery, 14.1% former smokers and 45.1% had never smoked or were not smoking at the time of the surgery.

The study showed that active smokers responded worse to chemotherapy and had higher mortality rates, both in general and specifically from bladder cancer, and a higher rate of bladder cancer recurrence than patients who never smoked or were not smoking at the time of surgery.

Former smokers also fared worse in these categories than those who had never smoked, even though the differences were less significant.

One reason smoking affects outcomes is that nicotine has shown to suppress the body's immune system, leading to more complications, according to the study authors. "In addition, patients with a history of smoking tend to have more aggressive forms of cancer and, if they survive bladder cancer, are more at risk for other potentially fatal cancers, such as lung cancer," says Cacciamani.

Looking forward, the researchers recommend that health care professionals advise bladder cancer patients to stop smoking after their diagnoses. "The research suggests that as long as a person is not smoking at the time of chemotherapy and surgery, they might do better," says Cacciamani.

He also recommends that physicians monitor smokers more carefully post-surgery than other patients because they are more at risk for complications or death.

In addition, the study authors recommend that future studies or clinical trials involving bladder cancer chart patients' smoking status to create a more accurate picture of what factors affect cancer survival and recurrence.

"While this study does not answer all the questions, it is an excellent starting point for investigating the association between smoking and long-term oncological outcomes, and will hopefully lead to new protocols that will benefit patients," says Cacciamani.

Due to their small size, nanoparticles find varied applications in fields ranging from medicine to electronics. Their small size allows them a high reactivity and semiconducting property not found in the bulk states. Sub-nanoparticles (SNPs) have an extremely small diameter of around 1 nm, making them even smaller than nanoparticles. Almost all atoms of SNPs are available and exposed for reactions, and therefore, SNPs are expected to have extraordinary functions beyond the properties of nanoparticles, particularly as catalysts for industrial reactions. However, preparation of SNPs requires fine control of the size and composition of each particle on a sub-nanometer scale, making the application of conventional production methods near impossible.

To overcome this, researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology led by Dr. Takamasa Tsukamoto and Prof. Kimihisa Yamamoto previously developed the atom hybridization method (AHM) which surpasses the previous trials of SNP synthesis. Using this technique, it is possible to precisely control and diversely design the size and composition of the SNPs using a "macromolecular template" called phenylazomethine dendrimer. This improves their catalytic activity than the NP catalysts.

Now, in their latest study published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, the team has taken their research one step further and has investigated the chemical reactivity of alloy SNPs obtained through the AHM. "We created monometallic, bimetallic, and trimetallic SNPs (containing one, combination of two, and combination of three metals respectively), all composed of coinage metal elements (copper, silver, and gold), and tested each to see how good of a catalyst each of them is," reports Dr Tsukamoto. Figure 1 describes the production process using AHM. Their catalytic activity was tested in the oxidation reaction of olefins, compounds made up of hydrogen and carbon with wide industrial uses.

Unlike corresponding nanoparticles, the SNPs created were found to be stable and more effective. Moreover, SNPs showed a high catalytic performance even under the milder conditions, in direct contrast to conventional catalysts. Monometallic, bimetallic, and trimetallic SNPs demonstrated the formation of different products, and this hybridization or combination of metals seemed to show a higher turnover frequency (TOF). The trimetallic combination "Au4Ag8Cu16" showed the highest TOF because each metal element plays a unique role, and these effects work in concert to contribute to high reaction activity (see Figure 2).

Furthermore, SNP selectively created hydroperoxide, which is a high-energy compound that cannot be normally obtained due to instability (see Figure 2). Mild reactions without high temperature and pressure realized in SNP catalysts resulted in the stable formation of hydroperoxide by suppressing its decomposition.

When asked about the relevance of these findings, Prof Yamamoto states: "We demonstrate for the first time ever, that olefin hydroperoxygenation can been catalyzed under extremely mild conditions using metal particles in the quantum size range. The reactivity was significantly improved in the alloyed systems especially for the trimetallic combinations, which has not been studied previously."

The team emphasized that because of the extreme miniaturization of the structures and the hybridization of different elements, the coinage metals acquired a high enough reactivity to catalyze the oxidation even under the mild condition. These findings will prove to be a pioneering key in the discovery of innovative sub-nanomaterials from a wide variety of elements and can solve energy crises and environmental problems in the years to come.

NASA's Aqua satellite analyzed Hurricane Paulette's water vapor content as it continued to move away from Bermuda and found structural changes, the strongest side, and dry air moving in.

Water Vapor Imagery's Indications

Water vapor analysis of tropical cyclones tells forecasters how much potential a storm has to develop. Water vapor releases latent heat as it condenses into liquid. That liquid becomes clouds and thunderstorms that make up a tropical cyclone. Temperature is important when trying to understand how strong storms can be. The higher the cloud tops, the colder and stronger they are.

 The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite gathered water vapor content and temperature information on Paulette on Sept. 15 at 3:25 a.m. EDT (0725 UTC). The MODIS data showed highest concentrations of water vapor and coldest cloud top temperatures were north of the center of circulation.  That area had coldest cloud top temperatures that were as cold as or colder than minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.6 degrees Celsius) in those storms. Storms with cloud top temperatures that cold have the capability to produce heavy rainfall.

The Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer 2 (AMSR2) onboard the GCOM-W1 satellite is a remote sensing instrument for measuring weak microwave emission from the surface and the atmosphere of the Earth. U.S. Navy Hurricane Specialist Dave Roberts at NOAA's National Hurricane Center in Miami, Fla. noted, "At 1:53 a.m. EDT (0533 UTC) the AMSR2 overpass on Paulette already reveals structural changes associated with the approaching mid-latitude baroclinic zone. The microwave image and GOES-16 satellite's mid- to upper-level water vapor imagery show drier more stable air beginning to intrude into the western portion of the cyclone.  Additionally, Paulette's rain shield is more confined to the northern half of the system, while drying out in the southern semi-circle. Only fragments of the eyewall remain in that particular area."

Paulette's Status on Sept. 15

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), the center of Hurricane Paulette was located near latitude 38.3 degrees north and longitude 57.9 degrees west. That is about 570 miles (915 km) northeast of Bermuda. Paulette is moving toward the northeast near 29 mph (46 kph). Maximum sustained winds are near 105 mph (165 kph) with higher gusts. The estimated minimum central pressure is 965 millibars.

Paulette's Forecast

The NHC said, "Some strengthening is possible through tonight, but rapid weakening is forecast to begin on Wednesday as the cyclone undergoes extratropical transition. Paulette should complete its transition to an extratropical cyclone on Thursday. A faster motion toward the east-northeast is expected through Thursday. Afterward, Paulette is forecast to slow down and turn toward the east-southeast and south-southeast late Thursday and Friday."

 NASA Researches Tropical Cyclones

Hurricanes/tropical cyclones are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

NASA's Aqua satellite is one in a fleet of NASA satellites that provide data for hurricane research.

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.