Earth

In our everyday life it's not uncommon to see the same material in different states. Take for example water: it's a liquid at ambient temperature, we can convert into ice when cooled below 0°C and it becomes a gas when heated above 100°C. The passages between these different states of matter are called phase transitions.

Phase transitions are the expression of the organization and interactions of molecules and atoms inside materials, and because of this they have been largely studied by physicists, chemists, biologists, and many more.

Some phase transitions, though predicted by theory, remain elusive and their existence cannot be verified with experiments, because of the harsh conditions in which they occur. This is the case of the adsorption/desorption transition of polymers.

Polymers are long molecules made up by the repetition - often more than thousand times -

of the same unit, called monomer. This particular structure brings up a series of interesting properties. For example, a polymer molecule can strongly adhere onto a surface even if the interaction between one single monomer and the surface is very weak: l'union fait la force. In fact, in order to separate the whole molecule from the surface, one would have to remove one by one all the monomers that are weakly attached, which is very unlikely to occur. Polymer chains are those considered irreversibly adsorbed, that is, a polymer chain is supposed to stick on a surface, for an extremely long time, basically forever.

Theorists have proposed that the adsorbed state is, instead, transitory and, when heated well above room temperature, polymer molecules should desorb and leave the surface. This would be the adsorption/desorption transition.

Till now, however, no one could verify these ideas, because the temperatures where this phase transition should occur are very high, and the material degrades before, eventually, desorbing.

Now, writing in Nature Communication Simone Napolitano (Laboratory of Polymer and Soft Matter Dynamics, ULB) and his collaborators, Xavier Monnier and Daniele Cangialosi, from the Donostia International Physics Center and Centro de Física de Materiales of San Sebastián (Spain) have been able to experimentally access the adsorption/desorption transition.

Combining the expertise of Cangialosi in phase transitions and that of Napolitano on adsorption, the team has used a new technique called fast scanning calorimetry, that permits to measure the heat exchanged by a material while the temperature is varied very rapidly. The technique can bring the polymer molecules from room temperature to 400 °C within a fraction of second, and within this short interval the material does not have time to degrade.

By studying this phenomenon, Monnier and coworkers have observed that a very tiny quantity of heat is released from the polymer chains when they desorb from a surface, which permitted to classify the adsorption/desorption as a first order phase transition.

This is similar to what happens to ice when we put it on the table. At low temperature, the molecules stay together thanks to interactions which keep the material in the solid state. By heating above 0°C the interactions start to fade, which corresponds to a heat exchange. The same occurs to polymer chains when they desorb.

Emmanouil Glynos (Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas), expert of polymer physics commented :

"Monnier et al have been able to observe desorption by heating a thin polymer layer, a neat result which was not achieved before. Fast calorimetry permitted them to fully characterize this elusive phase transition, this is an incredible advancement of the state of the art of soft matter physics".

In addition to the tremendous advancement of the study of phase transitions, this study opens to new methods to tailor the properties of nanomaterials as smart coatings, flexible electronics and more. The properties of these innovative systems, in fact, depend on how many molecules are adsorbed, and the authors anticipate that by adequately mastering the adsorption/desorption transition it will be possible to fabricate better performing and more durable materials.

Hamilton, ON (September 1, 2020) - Newly approved drugs in Canada lack important pediatric drug information in their product monograph, according to an analysis led by McMaster University and McMaster Children's Hospital.

This absence of pediatric information perpetuates "off-label" drug use which could be dangerous for this vulnerable population, say the authors. They add that Canadian regulatory mechanisms are needed to ensure submission of pediatric data by manufacturers when use in children is anticipated.

The findings were published today in Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) Open.

"Less than one-third of new Canadian drugs are approved for pediatric patients," said senior and corresponding author Samira Samiee-Zafarghandy, assistant professor of pediatrics at McMaster and a neonatologist and pediatric clinical pharmacologist at Hamilton Health Sciences' McMaster Children's Hospital.

"Dosing information was missing for the majority of pediatric age groups, but most concerningly for newborns. In addition, we found that many important drugs that treat critical diseases are not approved for use in newborns or children."

Diseases with no new drug development approved for children include, among others, inflammatory bowel disease, diabetes, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), seizure, depression and severe pain.

The detailed analysis was conducted of product monographs, which are intended to provide the necessary information, especially for health professionals, for the safe and effective use of a new drug.

The research team manually reviewed monographs of all new drugs approved by Health Canada between 2007 and 2016. During this time, Health Canada approved 281 drugs, 270 of which had clear benefit for children.

However, only 75 (28 per cent) of the drug monographs were approved for children and there were only 10 (4 per cent) drugs approved for use in newborns.

For a few oral drugs with approval in children (15), only nine (60 per cent) were available in child-friendly, age-appropriate dosage forms.

"Although we were aware that information present in the drug labels are usually more focused on adult patients, the extent of the absence of prescribing information available for children was much, much greater than we anticipated," said Samiee-Zafarghandy.

"We were also confounded by how many drugs used in critical conditions for pediatric and newborn patients did not have any information for their proper use in these children. Many of these drugs are being prescribed to children anyway, and the lack of pediatric data in their monograph can make it difficult for physicians and pharmacists to optimize treatment. The result may be inadequate treatment or increased side effects."

Samiee-Zafarghandy said regulatory mechanisms to require the submission of pediatric data by manufacturers to Health Canada are urgently needed to promote both neonatal and pediatric drug development.

"Our study is the first to report this severe lack of necessary information in labeling of Canadian drugs for pediatric patients," she said.

"The results of this study will serve as a foundation for future comparisons of pediatric drug information availability between Canadian drug labels, and drug labels of medications approved in other advanced countries."

Exercise fights off stress by increasing levels of the brain protein galanin, according to research in mice recently published in JNeurosci.

Going on a run during a stressful time does wonders for mental and emotional health. But the stress-relief benefits of exercise go beyond the anecdotal: exercise increases the brain's resilience to stress. This happens through elevated levels of the neuromodulator galanin, a protein that influences stress and mood and has been implicated in stress-related psychiatric disorders.

In examining the relationship between exercise and stress relief, Tillage et al. measured anxious behaviors in mice 24 hours after a stressful event. Mice that had access to an exercise wheel for three weeks displayed fewer anxious behaviors compared to mice that didn't exercise. The exercising mice also had elevated galanin levels in the locus coeruleus, a cluster of neurons in the brainstem involved in the stress response. The amount of time the mice spent exercising in the third week correlated with the amount of galanin in the locus coeruleus, which in turn correlated with their degree of stress resilience. Genetically increasing locus coeruleus galanin in sedentary mice recapitulated the beneficial effects of exercise. The increased galanin did not alter other aspects of the animal's behavior, suggesting galanin may be recruited only during periods of high stress.

Changes in ocean chemistry and temperature have had a dramatic effect on the diversity of corals and sea anemones, according to a team of scientists who have traced their evolution through deep time. A new study, published Aug. 31 in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution, finds that reef-building corals emerged only when ocean conditions supported the construction of these creatures' stony skeletons, whereas diverse softer corals and sea anemones flourished at other times. Without a significant change to anthropogenic carbon emissions, the new findings present stark implications for the present and future of hard-bodied corals while suggesting a silver lining for the diversity of some of their softer-bodied relatives.

New genetic analyses show that corals, which together with sea anemones make up a class of animals known as anthozoans, have been on the planet for 770 million years. That is 250 million years before the earliest undisputed fossil evidence of their existence--and long enough to experience massive shifts in climate, fluctuations in ocean chemistry and several mass extinctions.

In the new study, a research team led by scientists from Harvey Mudd College, the American Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History examined how these past conditions affected anthozoan diversity. That was possible thanks to a new molecular approach developed by Andrea Quattrini, research zoologist and curator of corals at the National Museum of Natural History, Catherine McFadden, a biologist at Harvey Mudd College, and Estefanía Rodríguez, a curator at the American Museum of Natural History, which allowed the team to compare nearly 2,000 key regions of anthozoan genomes to discern the evolutionary relationships between species. The team analyzed hundreds of anthozoan specimens that were collected from around the world and are now stored in museum collections. When this molecular data was aligned with fossil evidence of anthozoan history, it revealed how these diverse animals evolved over geologic time.

Over the Earth's history, changes in acidity and ion concentrations have shifted the ocean's chemical composition between two states, known as aragonite and calcite seas. These changes, as well as changes in ocean water temperature, appear to have played an important role in determining what kinds of skeletons corals were able to produce and, thus, how anthozoans evolved.

Stony corals--the type that build massive reefs that support complex marine ecosystems--take up minerals from the water to construct hard skeletons from a form of calcium carbonate known as aragonite. Other corals, such as sea fans and black corals, build their softer skeletons from protein or calcite (a less soluble form of calcium carbonate), whereas sea anemones have no skeleton at all.

Working with an international team of researchers, including Gabriela Farfan, the National Museum of Natural History's Coralyn W. Whitney Curator of Gems and Minerals, Quattrini and colleagues found that stony corals did not arise until conditions favored the construction of their aragonite skeletons--periods of aragonite seas, when ocean temperatures were relatively cool. During periods of calcite seas, when carbon dioxide is more abundant in the atmosphere and oceans are more acidic, evolution favored anemones and corals that built their skeletons from protein or calcite.

Notably, it was these other anthozoans that fared best after reef crises--times when up to 90% of reef-building organisms died off as oceans warmed and became more acidic. "Our study showed that after these reef crises, we actually get an increased diversification of anthozoans in general, particularly those that can do well under these climate conditions--ones that aren't producing aragonite and aren't making big reefs," Quattrini said.

That is consistent with observations from today's reefs, which are threatened by climate change and other human activities. "Current ecological studies have shown that when stony corals die off, these other anthozoans start to colonize dead coral and prosper," Quattrini said. "We actually see that in our evolutionary tree, too."

"Unfortunately, although these softer-bodied species may adapt better to climate change than stony corals, they don't form large reefs," McFadden said. "So, in the future, reefs may be replaced by different marine communities. This already appears to be happening in the Caribbean where stony corals are being replaced by 'forests' of sea fans."

Today, about 1,300 species of stony coral inhabit the ocean, favored by aragonite sea conditions. But rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are warming and acidifying the waters, making them less hospitable for these and other organisms whose shells and skeletons are made from aragonite. "Aragonite is expected to dissolve under ocean acidification," Quattrini said. "As our seas are becoming more acidic and warmer, it's likely that the skeletons of corals will dissolve or not be able to grow."

The new study suggests that as the climate changes, these ecosystems may also see increased diversification of anthozoans without aragonite skeletons. Nevertheless, loss of reef-building corals will have devastating consequences for communities who depend on reefs and the rich, complex ecosystems they support for fishing, shoreline protection and tourism. "Corals have suffered extinctions in the past when climate has posed challenges, and we'll likely see that in the future," Quattrini said. "The best way to protect them is to curb our carbon emissions."

"This study shows us how nature through evolution is able to adapt, survive and reinvent itself, so when hard corals are not able to survive, their soft-bodied relatives such as sea anemones will thrive instead," Rodríguez said. "The question is whether we will be able to adapt and reinvent ourselves once nature, as we currently know it, is not there anymore."

Electrochemical CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) is a promising approach to convert CO2 into useful chemicals.

A research team led by Prof. ZHANG Suojiang from the Institute of Process Engineering (IPE) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences prepared a manganese (Mn) single-atom catalyst (SAC) with Mn-N3 site supported by graphitic C3N4, which exhibited efficient performance of CO2 electroreduction.

This work was published in Nature Communications on August 28.

It is a great challenge to obtain high Faradaic efficiency (FE) and high current density simultaneously by cheap catalysts for CO2RR.

The prepared catalyst exhibited a maximum CO FE of 98.8% with 14.0 mA cm-2 CO current density (jCO) at overpotential of 0.44 V in KHCO3 electrolyte, outperforming all reported Mn SACs.

Moreover, a higher jCO value of 29.7 mA cm-2 was obtained at overpotential of 0.62 V, when ionic liquid was used as electrolyte.

X-ray absorption spectroscopy and high-angle annular dark-field scanning transmission electron microscopy confirmed atomically dispersed Mn in the catalyst, and the best-fitting analysis indicated that the isolated Mn atom was three-fold coordinated by N atoms.

"In situ X-ray absorption spectra and density functional theory calculations demonstrated that the remarkable performance of the catalyst was attributed to the Mn-N3 site, which facilitated the formation of the key intermediate COOH* through a lowered free energy barrier," said Prof. ZHANG Suojiang.

This work shows that the CO2RR activity of Mn-based catalysts can be enhanced through changing coordinated environment.

"It provides an important scientific basis and feasibility for low cost and high efficient electrochemical CO2 reduction to useful chemicals," said Prof. ZHANG Xiangping, a co-corresponding author of the paper.

Holographic movies, like the one R2D2 projected of Princess Leia in the Star Wars: A New Hope, have long been the province of science fiction, but for most of us, the extent of our experience with holograms may be the dime-sized stamps on our passports and credit cards. By using 'metasurface' materials that can manipulate light in ways that natural materials cannot, researchers reckon they have finally seen the light at the end of the tunnel for creating true holographic movies.

The findings, by a team at the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology (TUAT), are published on August 3rd in Optics Express.

Static holograms are all around us these days on our money, credit cards, and passports.

These "surface-relief holograms", stamped onto plastic in a similar way to how vinyl records are embossed, can be useful as a security device or to make wrapping paper twinkle, but they are known for their low image quality, still imagery, and limited viewing angle. In the third decade of the 21st Century, we don't yet have true holographic movies, such as R2D2's projection of Princess Leia in Star Wars: A New Hope, despite their ubiquity in popular culture.

Even the 'holograms' of pop stars that are increasingly common spectacles at concerts aren't true holograms, but an updated version of a very old theatrical trick deceiving the eye with mirrors and light--an illusion that is easily revealed as such if the viewer moves just slightly to the side of the set-up.

But researchers at Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology have demonstrated a genuine holographic movie, whose concept is inspired by the sequential playback of the very first cinematographic projectors of the 19th Century.

The proof of concept depends on what is called a 'metasurface', a thin film material just nanometers thick whose microstructure is artificially crafted in a way to deliver characteristics, such as clever manipulation of light, that are not found in naturally occurring materials. Metasurfaces involve very tiny repeating patterns at scales smaller than the wavelength of light. It is their shape and particular arrangement, rather than, as with conventional materials, their chemical composition, that allows metasurfaces to alter the path of light.

The researchers "printed" an array of 48 rectangular frames of a metasurface made primarily of gold and which diffracts laser light shone at it in such a way as to produce a true holographic three-dimensional image appearing mid-air (just like Princess Leia), viewable from most angles in the room.

Each of the metasurface frames is slightly different--as with a reel of celluloid film--using 48 images of the Earth rotating. The holographic movie was played back by sequentially reconstructing each frame at a rate of 30 frames per second--the frame rate used in most live TV.

"We're using a helium-neon laser as the light source, which produces a reddish holographic image," said Kentaro Iwami, one of the engineers who developed the system, "so the aim is to develop this to produce full colour eventually. And we want it to be viewable from any angle: a 'whole hemisphere' 3D projection."

It also took an electron-beam lithography printer six and a half hours to draw the 48 frames--an extremely short film run on a loop. A six-minute holographic movie would take just over 800 hours to draw, the researchers reckon.

Nanotheranostics, integrating diagnostic and therapeutic functions by nanoplatform, exhibits a great potential in precision and personalized medicine, and also raises the requirement on multifunctional nanomaterials in pursuit of both good biocompatibility and high theranostic performances. The emergence of diverse multifunctional nanomaterials and advanced nanotechnologies unprecedentedly simulates the evolution of nanotheranostics, and enables the integration of multimodal imaging and therapeutic functions in a single theranostic nanoparticle for high-efficacy theranostics of diseases. In engineering of theranostic nanoplatforms, biocompatibility and multifunction are two most important factors which need to be considered. Among various nanotheranostics, multimodal imaging-guided photothermal therapy has attracted intensive attention owing to its less invasiveness and lower side effects compared with conventional radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

In a new article published in the Beijing-based National Science Review, scientists in Shenzhen University, China, hypothesize that controllable incorporation of biocompatible Se element into the lattice of Te nanostructures for construction of TeSex nano-alloys could intrinsically tune the inherent cytotoxicity of Te nanomaterials, enhance the biocompatibility of Te nanomaterials and extend their functions for biomedical applications. In this work, a series of TeSex nano-alloys with different Se incorporating proportions are synthesized to investigate their biocompatibility and develop their theranostic functions. It is determined that the toxicity of Te nanomaterials mainly comes from irreversible oxidation stress and intracellular imbalance of organization and energy, which is exterminated by the nano-alloying by incorporating a moderate proportion of Se (x=0.43). The synthesized TeSex nano-alloy exhibits extraordinarily high NIR-II-photothermal conversion efficiency (77.2%), 64Cu coordination and CT contrast capabilities, enabling high-efficacy photothermal therapy of cancer under the guidance of multimodal PT/PA/PET/CT imaging.

Several main advances are achieved. (1) Advanced TeSex nano-alloys are facilely constructed to intrinsically eliminate the inherent toxicity of Te nanomaterials by the moderate incorporation of biocompatible Se. (2) Advanced mechanisms for Te nanomaterial toxification and TeSex alloying detoxification are uncovered. (3) Advanced theranostic performances with ordinarily high NIR-II-photothermal efficiency and multimodal PT/PA/CT/PET imaging capability are achieved by proposed nano-alloying strategy.

It has long been known that giving can have positive effects on the person who is giving, such as an increase in happiness, confidence, and even physical health. But research from Indiana University has found there may be another potential implication of giving: physical attractiveness.

The IU study, published in Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly, found that more attractive people are more likely to be givers, and givers are rated as more attractive.

"Poets and philosophers have suggested the link between moral and physical beauty for centuries," said study co-author Sara Konrath, who is an associate professor of philanthropic studies at the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy on sabbatical this year at Notre Dame's Institute for Advanced Study. "This study confirms that people who are perceived as more attractive are more likely to give and givers are seen as more attractive."

Konrath and study co-author Femida Handy, of the University of Pennsylvania, used three large studies, one that examined older adults at a single time, and two that started in late adolescence and followed participants for years--one of these studies followed participants as late as older adulthood. Konrath and Handy asked two research questions: Are individuals who undertake more giving behaviors rated as more physically attractive? And the reverse, are more physically attractive people more likely to undertake giving behaviors?

Those rating physical attractiveness had no information on participants' giving behaviors, allowing the researchers to determine if a person's giving behaviors correlated with physical attractiveness, without the halo effect of raters being influenced by knowing participants' giving behaviors.

When it comes to the older adults, volunteering and giving affection were related to higher attractiveness ratings. When it comes to young people, those who volunteered rated higher.

"Although we cannot fully explain why the link between giving behaviors and attractiveness exists, we find remarkable consistency across the three studies, despite being conducted at different times, using different participants, and using different methods and measures," Handy said.

The paper is important, Konrath said, because it disproves the perception that beautiful people are self-focused and vain. Instead, the studies found that being rated as a little more attractive was associated with a little more generosity. Furthermore, Konrath noted that people spend significant amounts of money on beauty products and cosmetic surgery to improve their looks, yet it is possible that doing good could help to draw inner beauty to the surface.

"Our findings suggest that beauty products and procedures may not be the only way to enhance an individual's attractiveness," Konrath said. "Perhaps being generous could be the next beauty trend."

With the highest possible spatial resolution of less than a millionth of a millimetre, electron microscopes make it possible to study the properties of materials at the atomic level and thus demonstrate the realm of quantum mechanics. Quantum-physical fundamentals can be studied particularly well by the interactions between electrons and photons. Excited with laser light, for example, the energy, mass or velocity of the electrons changes. Professor Nahid Talebi from the Institute for Experimental and Applied Physics at Kiel University has invented a new toolbox to extend the theoretical description of electron-light interactions to the highest accurate level possible. She has combined Maxwell and Schrödinger equations in a time-dependent loop to fully simulate the interactions from first principles. Talebi's simulation allows it for the first time to describe ultra-fast processes precisely in theory and to map them in real-time without using adiabatic approximation. Recently, she presented her results in the renowned journal Physical Review Letters. In the long term, they could help to improve microscopy methods as Talebi is investigating in her ERC Starting Grant project "NanoBeam" funded by the European Research Council.

The ultrafast electron microscopy combines electron microscopy and laser technology. Having ultrafast electron pulses, the dynamics of the sample can be studied with femtosecond temporal resolutions. This also allows conclusions about the properties of the sample. Due to the further development of spectroscopy technology, it is now possible to study not only atomic and electronic structure of the samples but also their photonic excitations, such as plasmon polaritons.

For the first time the simulation depicts the process of the interactions as a film in real-time

However, the simulation of such electron-light-interactions is time-consuming and can only be carried out with high-performance computers. "Therefore, adiabatic approximations and one-dimensional electron models are often used, meaning that electron recoil and amplitude modulations have been neglected," explains Nahid Talebi, Professor of Nanooptics at the Institute of Experimental and Applied Physics (IEAP) and an expert in simulations. For the first time, her new simulation shows the process of the electron-light interactions as a film in real-time, describing the complex interactions to the highest accurate level possible.

In her toolbox, she has combined Maxwell and Schroedinger equations in a time-dependent loop to fully simulate the interactions from first principles; therefore laying down the new field of electron-light interactions beyond adiabatic approximations. Due to this combination, Talebi was able to simulate what happens when an electron approaches a nanostructure of gold that was previously excited by a laser. Her simulation shows how the energy, momentum, and in general the shape of the wave packet of the electron change for each moment of the interaction (Fig.1). In this way, the full dynamics of the interaction caused by both single-photon and two-photon processes are captured. Single-photon processes are important for example to model electron energy-loss and -gain channels, whereas two-photon processes are responsible for modeling the laser-induced elastic channels such as the diffraction phenomenon.

Particularly in her simulation, Talebi observed a pronounced diffraction pattern that originates from strong interactions between electrons and photons based on the Kapitza-Dirac effect (Fig. 2). This diffraction pattern can have promising applications in time-resolved holography, to unravel charge-carrier dynamics of solid-state and molecular systems.

Further improving spectroscopy methods with ERC project "NanoBeam"

"Our toolbox can be used to benchmark the many approximations in theoretical developments, including eikonal approximations, neglecting the recoil, and neglecting two-photon processes." Talebi thinks. "Although we already have made a great step towards electron-light interactions beyond adiabatic approximations, there is still room for further developments." Together with her team, she plans to include a three-dimensional Maxwell-Dirac simulation domain to model relativistic and spin interactions. She also wants to better understand the role of exchange and correlations during electron-electron interactions.

Another aim of Talebi is to utilize the insights from her theoretical modelling to propose novel methodologies for coherent control and shaping of the sample excitations using electron beams. With her project "NanoBeam" she intends to develop a novel spectral interferometry technique with the ability to retrieve and control the spectral phase in a scanning electron microscope to overcome the challenges in meeting both nanometers spatial and attosecond time resolution. The project is funded by an ERC grant from the European Research Council with about 1.5 million euros.

The life cycle of a crawfish can be fairly straight forward. In the summer months, crawfish reproduce in underground mud burrows with a plug of mud on top of the burrow to protect them from predators. In late summer and early fall, rain softens the mud plugs so the crawfish can push their way out of the burrows and enter ponds, where they feed, molt and grow throughout Louisiana's typically mild winters. Spring then brings crawfish harvest season.

However, temperature and seasonal weather changes can affect this life cycle. Variability can have a costly effect on the industry, which has experienced considerable growth over the past two decades. For example, the 2018-19 Louisiana craw?sh season produced 151.8 million pounds of crawfish with an economic value of $209.5 million compared to 82 million pounds valued at about $45 million in the 2004-05 season, according to the LSU AgCenter. To help inform farmers, researchers at LSU are the first to quantify how rainfall and temperature affect crawfish harvest yields.

"Providing farmers and producers with more information on how their catch and livelihood may ?uctuate due to environmental conditions can help make them more resilient in the future," said LSU Assistant Professor-Research and the Southern Climate Impacts Planning Program Climate Research Director Vincent Brown, who is the lead author on this study published in Climate Research.

Brown and his colleagues analyzed eight years of crawfish harvest data from six LSU Aquaculture Research Station ponds. They used a statistical model to identify the most significant temperature and weather variables that impact crawfish.

"The timing of precipitation is really important. The statistical model shows that if you have heavy rainfall in August or September, the crawfish harvest yields will be suppressed in the spring," Brown said.

Heavy summer rains can trigger the crawfish to emerge from their burrows too early. When this happens, they enter ponds that could potentially have low oxygen due to decaying plant matter and high summer heat as well as a host of other things that could be harmful to their survival.

"We have seen how the low amount of dissolved oxygen in a pond can directly affect the survival rate of crawfish. This issue is something that we are continuing to study and develop best practices with the farmers to combat," said C. Gregory Lutz, LSU AgCenter Aquaculture Research Station professor, Louisiana Sea Grant College Program marine extension agent and study co-author.

Additionally, winter temperatures that drop below freezing can slow crawfish growth.

This information can benefit farmers. For example, if excessive precipitation occurs in August and September followed by a dry October and November plus freezing conditions in January, farmers may not need to set aside time and resources to harvest two to four days per week in February, which is generally prescribed. It is possible that only harvesting twice a week is sufficient, which can save farmers money on bait, labor, gas and other costs, write the researchers.

"This study can also serve as a template to investigate the impacts of weather on other farm-raised seafood products," said Mark Shirley, Louisiana Sea Grant College Program and LSU AgCenter marine extension agent and co-author of this study.

Mitochondria are the power plants of our cells and play an important role in providing energy for normal function of the tissues in our body. Nerve cells are particularly dependent on mitochondria for their activity and decreased mitochondrial function is seen in both inherited and more common age-associated forms of degenerative diseases. A long-standing view has been that neurons, in contrast to other cell types, cannot adjust their metabolism to compensate for mitochondrial dysfunction, and therefore irreversibly degenerate. In a new study, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging in Cologne, Germany, and the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, challenge this dogma by showing that neurons have the potential to counteract degeneration and promote survival by adapting their metabolism.

In our increasingly ageing society, neurodegenerative diseases are posing a significant burden. A growing body of evidence has linked mitochondrial dysfunction to some of the most devastating forms of neurodegeneration, such as Parkinson´s disease, different ataxias and several peripheral neuropathies. However, despite the urge to find strategies to prevent or arrest neurodegeneration, our understanding of the precise events underlying neuronal death caused by mitochondrial dysfunction is very limited. "We generally tend to consider neurons as terminally differentiated cells with very limited or no capacity to adapt their energy metabolism to challenging conditions", says Elisa Motori, a lead author of this study. "For some neurological diseases there is ample evidence that mitochondrial dysfunction can be tolerated for lengthy periods of time. We therefore asked the question whether degenerating neurons may activate a program of metabolic resilience."

The researchers devised an innovative approach to purify degenerating neurons from the mouse brain and analyze the global protein content (proteome) of these neurons. "Unexpectedly, the proteomic data showed the existence of a precisely coordinated, neuron-specific metabolic program that becomes activated in response to mitochondrial dysfunction", continues Motori.

Metabolic rewiring

In particular, the authors identified a form of metabolic rewiring (Krebs cycle anaplerosis) that makes neurons resistant to an otherwise very rapidly progressing degeneration. This type of metabolic adaptation was previously only thought to occur in peripheral tissues or supporting cells (glia cells) in the brain. "The finding that neurons can induce anaplerosis was not only intriguing, but we could further demonstrate that it had a protective role. When we blocked anaplerosis neurons died at a much faster pace and the disease became more severe." explains Elisa Motori.

The identification of certain forms of metabolic rewiring in dysfunctional neurons provide new mechanistic insights into the processes leading to neurodegeneration. Based on these new findings, the authors hope that it may be possible to develop therapeutic approaches to prolong neuronal survival and improve function in patients with mitochondrial diseases and other types of neurodegeneration.

Sophia Antipolis, France - 30 Aug 2020 : Trimetazidine administered after successful percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) does not improve outcomes in patients with chronic or acute coronary syndromes, according to results of the ATPCI trial presented in a Hot Line session today at ESC Congress 2020.1

Angina refers to constricting pain or discomfort in the front of the chest or in the neck, jaw, shoulder, or arm due to reduced blood flow to the heart. It can occur during acute coronary syndromes (ACS) and chronic coronary syndromes (CCS).

PCI improves prognosis in acute patients and can alleviate symptoms in chronic patients who do not respond to medication. However, previous studies have shown that angina recurs in 30% of patients despite antianginal therapy and successful PCI. There are limited contemporary data on the prognostic benefits of antianginal drugs in post-PCI patients.

The randomised ATPCI trial investigated the impact of trimetazidine added to standard therapy after PCI. Unlike typical angina medications, which improve blood flow by relaxing and widening the blood vessels, trimetazidine protects against myocardial ischaemia by improving the heart's metabolism and favouring the use of glucose.

The trial enrolled 6,007 patients who had undergone successful PCI, either elective for stable angina (n=3,490) or urgent for unstable angina or non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction (n=2,517). Patients were randomly assigned to trimetazidine or placebo.

The primary efficacy endpoint was the composite of cardiac death; or hospitalisation for a cardiac event; or recurrent/persistent angina leading to adding, switching or increasing the dose of antianginal drugs or coronary angiography.

After a median follow-up of five years, the primary efficacy endpoint occurred in 700 (23.3%) patients in the trimetazidine group and 714 (23.7%) patients in the placebo group (p=0.7). There was no difference between groups in the rate of side effects.

Principal investigator Professor Roberto Ferrari of the University of Ferrara, Italy said: "The trial shows that trimetazidine does not improve outcomes or symptoms after successful PCI in patients with acute and chronic coronary syndromes."

If the words in a weather forecast, such as "cool," "sunny" or "windy," can influence the way you dress for the day--can they also influence whether or not you take public transit?

In new research published in Vehicles, U researchers found a correlation between words used in media coverage related to weather or air quality, and transit ridership. It's not enough yet to say that media coverage causes changes in ridership, say authors Tabitha Benney and Daniel Mendoza. But it's enough to explore what factors in to a person's decision to ride transit and whether that decision can be nudged.

"This is encouraging," Benney says. "There's a lot of potential in terms of reaching a lot of different actors that could have a big influence or encourage ridership."

Scanning the media

Mendoza, a research assistant professor in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences and visiting assistant professor in the Department of City & Metropolitan Planning, previously studied how transit ridership along the Wasatch Front, on the buses and trains of the Utah Transit Authority (UTA), impacted air quality. The impact is greater when more people are riding since low-ridership trips, particularly on older buses, can actually have a net contribution to air pollution.

Around the same time Tabitha Benney, an associate professor in the Department of Political Science, was looking at surveys of Utahns that included their reasons for using transit or not. "We were surprised at some of the responses," she says, "and that led me to pursue asking questions about what matters in terms of what could be in the media or how it could be influencing people."

So Mendoza and Benney, along with co-authors Martin Buchert and John Lin, looked at how media coverage of the weather and air quality correlated with transit ridership. For the years 2014-2016, they scanned 40 local Utah media outlets for words related to weather (such as "cloudy," "freezing," or "summer"), air quality (red, yellow or green air day, according to the state's color-coded air quality system) and air pollution (such as "ozone," "PM2.5" or "particulate matter"). Then they looked at the transit ridership the day after the media coverage and noted the actual air quality of that day.

"We wanted to ask if there are any additional factors that would encourage or discourage ridership," Mendoza says.

Comfort and safety

UTA has three main modes of transportation: buses, light rail (TRAX) and commuter rail (FrontRunner). FrontRunner riders tend to ride for farther distances, and their rider behavior, the authors found, didn't vary much with media terms. The most variation, they found, was in bus ridership.

Within that variation, a few media terms related to weather stood out. On average, more usage of the term "good weather" was correlated with more ridership the following day. Similarly, more usage of "winter" was associated with increased ridership, but that may be related to the seasonal nature of U students, the authors say, as the U is the single largest paid pass purchaser from UTA.

Few UTA bus stops have a weather shelter, Mendoza says (although UTA has added more shelters in recent years). Media reports of bad weather, he suggests, could discourage bus ridership.

When looking at color-coded air quality terms, the researchers found less ridership on the bus system on days following use of "orange air day" and "red air day." That could be due to non-commuter bus users who ride the bus for discretionary transportation choosing to stay home to avoid poor air quality and the cold temperatures that typically accompany poor air quality days.

"Ridership is associated with favorable weather conditions and air quality," the authors wrote, "suggesting that ridership volume may be influenced by an overall sense of comfort and safety."

They also found that less technical terms, such as "particulate matter" instead of "PM2.5," were correlated with greater changes in ridership. Same with the color-coded "red air day" term.

"That kind of surprised us," Benney says. Another surprise was the finding that reports of bad air quality reduced ridership, and that reports of good air quality didn't boost it.

"You would expect a strong relationship to clean air with people wanting to move in that direction," she says. "And that's obviously significant."

Moving the needle

Benney says that the study focused on web-accessible media outlets and did not take into account social media, which could have a significant influence on younger audiences, who tend to ride buses more. Upcoming work, she says, will look closer at the sources of Utahns' information about weather and air quality, including from religious services.

The study is encouraging, she adds, because it suggests that messages may be able to influence day-to-day rider behavior. "This opens up a lot of opportunities for large institutional actors to help promote better air quality through ridership," she says.

And the impact has already begun. The Utah Legislature passed a bill in 2019 that launched a three-year pilot program to provide free fares on UTA transit on poor air quality days. Preliminary findings from this research, Mendoza says, provided part of the bill's supporting scientific basis.

Additionally, he says, some of the largest employers in the Salt Lake Valley, including the University of Utah, may be able to use these findings to effectively encourage employees to make air-friendly choices through riding transit or choosing to telework. "And now we're all getting really used to telework!" he says. "Because of that we can actually start to potentially move the needle by reducing the vehicular traffic."

Sophia Antipolis, France - 30 Aug 2020: Premenopausal women have good long-term outcomes after a heart attack, according to late breaking research presented today at ESC Congress 2020.1

"Previous research has shown that women are more likely to die after a heart attack than men," said principal investigator Professor Diego Ardissino of Parma University Hospital, Italy.2 "Our study shows that this does not hold true before the menopause, when women are still exposed to oestrogen, a hormone that protects against heart disease."

The Italian Genetic Study on Early-onset Myocardial Infarction compared outcomes of women and men under 45 who had a heart attack. The study included 2,000 patients (1,778 men and 222 women) who presented to hospital with a heart attack before the age of 45 at 125 Italian coronary care units between 1998 and 2002. The primary endpoint was a composite of recurrent heart attack, stroke, or death from cardiovascular disease.

During a median follow-up of 20 years, the primary composite endpoint occurred in 25.7% of women compared to 37.0% of men (hazard ratio [HR] 0.69; 95% confidence interval [CI] 0.52-0.91? p=0.01).

When the components of the primary endpoint were analysed separately, the researchers found that second heart attacks were less frequent in women compared to men (14.2% vs. 25.4%? HR 0.53; 95% CI 0.37-0.77? p

Smoking (46.5% vs. 42.8%), alcohol consumption (65.3% vs. 27.4%), high blood lipids (62.3% vs. 50.7%) and diabetes (7.8% vs. 5.4%) were more frequent in men compared to women (all p

Professor Ardissino said the better prognosis in premenopausal women compared to men was likely related to different mechanisms behind the heart attacks. Women were more than twice as likely to have healthy arteries than men (36.5% vs. 15.4%; p

He said: "In men, coronary events were mostly due to blocked arteries, while in women they had other causes such as coronary dissection which is known to have a more favourable prognosis and a lower risk of recurrence."

At discharge from hospital, men were more likely than women to be prescribed medications to protect against second heart attacks, including beta-blockers, aspirin, and angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs). The likelihood of statin treatment was similar in men and women.

Professor Ardissino said: "The disparity in prescribing may be due to the lower burden of coronary artery disease found in women in the study. It could also relate to the general under-prescribing of medication for women compared to men seen in other studies of acute cardiac events."

He concluded: "In contrast to the prevailing literature, women experiencing an early-onset heart attack have favourable long-term outcomes compared to men, despite being prescribed fewer preventive medications."

Sophia Antipolis, France - 29 Aug 2020: More than 90% of babies born with heart defects survive into adulthood. As a result, there are now more adults living with congenital heart disease than children. These adults have a chronic, lifelong condition and the European Society of Cardiology (ESC) has produced advice to give the best chance of a normal life. The guidelines are published online today in European Heart Journal,1 and on the ESC website.2

Congenital heart disease refers to any structural defect of the heart and/or great vessels (those directly connected to the heart) present at birth. Congenital heart disease affects all aspects of life, including physical and mental health, socialising, and work. Most patients are unable to exercise at the same level as their peers which, along with the awareness of having a chronic condition, affects mental wellbeing.

"Having a congenital heart disease, with a need for long-term follow-up and treatment, can also have an impact on social life, limit employment options and make it difficult to get insurance," said Professor Helmut Baumgartner, Chairperson of the guidelines Task Force and head of Adult Congenital and Valvular Heart Disease at the University Hospital of Münster, Germany. "Guiding and supporting patients in all of these processes is an inherent part of their care."

All adults with congenital heart disease should have at least one appointment at a specialist centre to determine how often they need to be seen. Teams at these centres should include specialist nurses, psychologists and social workers given that anxiety and depression are common concerns.

Pregnancy is contraindicated in women with certain conditions such high blood pressure in the arteries of the lungs. "Pre-conception counselling is recommended for women and men to discuss the risk of the defect in offspring and the option of foetal screening," said Professor Julie De Backer, Chairperson of the guidelines Task Force and cardiologist and clinical geneticist at Ghent University Hospital, Belgium.

Concerning sports, recommendations are provided for each condition. Professor De Backer said: "All adults with congenital heart disease should be encouraged to exercise, taking into account the nature of the underlying defect and their own abilities."

The guidelines state when and how to diagnose complications. This includes proactively monitoring for arrhythmias, cardiac imaging and blood tests to detect problems with heart function.

Detailed recommendations are provided on how and when to treat complications. Arrhythmias are an important cause of sickness and death and the guidelines stress the importance of correct and timely referral to a specialised treatment centre. They also list when particular treatments should be considered such as ablation (a procedure to destroy heart tissue and stop faulty electrical signals) and device implantation.

For several defects, there are new recommendations for catheter-based treatment. "Catheter-based treatment should be performed by specialists in adult congenital heart disease working within a multidisciplinary team," said Professor Baumgartner.