Earth

Climate change could threaten the survival and development of common whelk - a type of sea snail - in the mid-Atlantic region, according to a study led by scientists at Rutgers University-New Brunswick.

The common, or waved, whelk (Buccinum undatum) is an important commercial species that has been harvested for decades in Europe and Canada for bait and human consumption. Its habitat within the mid-Atlantic region is one of the Earth's fastest warming marine areas and annual fluctuations in the bottom temperature are among the most extreme on the planet due to unique oceanographic conditions.

Climate change will result in higher temperatures and that's a problem because temperatures are closely linked to the whelk's spawning cycle and temperature increases could threaten its survival, according to the study in the journal Helgoland Marine Research. This is the first time the species' annual reproductive cycle in the mid-Atlantic has been documented.

"Previous studies showed that the common whelk, a cold-water species, has some resilience to warmer temperatures," said lead author Sarah Borsetti, a doctoral student at Rutgers' Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory in the School of Environmental and Biological Sciences. "But rising temperatures may have a negative impact on whelk survival, recruitment, development and growth."

Commercial fishermen are interested in developing a fishery for this species in the mid-Atlantic. Similar to the United States, whelk fisheries have expanded in many countries, resulting in a global increase in whelk landings over the last 20 years.

But whelk have highly variable traits, such as reproductive timing, that need to be studied before intense fishing begins, Borsetti added. The species is vulnerable to overexploitation if fishery managers assume populations are uniform throughout its habitat.

"The resilience of whelk comes with a trade-off: fewer offspring, which can negatively impact the whelk population and fisheries landings," said co-author Daphne Munroe, an associate professor in the Department of Marine and Coastal Sciences who is based at the Haskin Shellfish Research Laboratory in Port Norris, New Jersey.

Previous research led by the Rutgers group examined traits such as the size whelk reach in maturity, sex ratio and abundance. For the study on whelk reproduction, the team caught 602 whelk off the coast from Cape May County to the Delmarva Peninsula from January 2017 to September 2017. The study examined fluctuations in whelk body metrics, gonad weights and sea-bottom temperatures.

More information about the effects human activities have on Southeast Asian coral reefs has been revealed, with researchers looking at how large-scale global pressures, combined with the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern, can detrimentally impact these delicate marine ecosystems.

The research, published in the Nature journal, Scientific Reports, provides the first long-term data on the ENSO-driven synchrony of climate impacts on both terrestrial and marine ecosystems in northern Borneo. Researchers analysed coral reef samples to learn about regional environmental changes, including changes that have occurred during the last few decades.

Lead Australian researcher Dr Nicola Browne, a coral ecologist from the School of Molecular and Life Sciences at Curtin University, said that over the past 40 years, nearly all of Southeast Asia's marine coastal ecosystems have experienced intense pressures, due to large-scale economic development, urbanisation and deforestation.

"The ways that humans use the land can severely impact soil contents and soil erosion patterns, which then discharge sediments into freshwater systems and nearby marine environments, ultimately altering the water quality on coral reefs," Dr Browne said.

"Weather patterns that bring heavy rainfalls, such as those seen with the ENSO climate pattern, can exacerbate these erosion patterns even more, bringing more sediments into the local marine environments, which then ultimately end up affecting the coral reef ecosystems."

Through analysing coral core samples from the Miri-Sibuti Coral Reefs National Park in Sarawak, Malaysia, the research team revealed decade-long, synchronous climatic impacts on the reef systems in northern Borneo, linking the El Niño Southern Oscillation climate pattern to effects shown on the area's coral reefs.

Lead researcher PhD candidate Ms Hedwig Krawczyk, from the University of Leicester in the United Kingdom, explained coral cores act as a type of 'record keeper' of the local marine environments, creating fossils which researchers are able to read, interpret and then use to predict future ecosystem impacts.

"Corals incorporate geochemical tracers from the surrounding water into their skeleton, leaving behind a type of record of the marine environment at specific instances in time," Ms Krawczyk said.

"In coastal regions where there is limited, long-term environmental data, such as in Borneo, coral cores provide a critical record of local changes in river runoff and rainfall. These records help us to understand the types of pressures these reefs have been exposed to over the last 30 years, and their level of resilience to future environmental changes.

"Our study testified that both marine and terrestrial environments in Borneo are massively affected by changes in the hydroclimate associated with ENSO, and longer term cycles in regional rainfall and temperature."

In a report published in NANO, a group of researchers from the Republic of Korea have discovered a method to promote cancer cell growth using silica-coated gold nanorods. The cell growth by near infrared (NIR) exposure of Si-AuNRs nano heat islands revealed a higher growth rate of 36.13% than the normal incubator condition.

Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) have been brought to the forefront of cancer research in recent years. They possess a number of favourable properties such as ease of synthesis and surface modification, strongly enhanced and tunable optical properties as well as excellent biocompatibility for clinic setting. Gold nanorods (AuNRs) are considered suitable materials for diverse biomedical applications in controlling cell behaviors.

The nano island system with well dispersed silica coated Au nanorods (Si-AuNRs) was used to demonstrate the enhanced cell growth of normal and cancer cells from the induced expressions of the heat shock proteins. Heat shock proteins could hinder the formation of unwanted intermolecular bond when combined with unconjugated protein.

The researchers believe that the growth of cancer cells in near infrared region using Si-AuNRs induced the activities of heat shock proteins, which could help the protein folding in cell growth and survival in comparison to the cells grown in the incubator only. Unlike external heating sources, such as infrared radiation, steamed heats, or water bath, the internalized nanomaterials for mediating heats were effective with minimal side effects.

"The cell growth with NIR exposure to Si-AuNRs nano heat islands could be an alternative way to grow cells in comparison to the conventional system, such as an incubator. Such cells can be used in diverse cellular applications in future", said lead investigator of study Dong Kee Yi.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- An Army project devised a novel approach for quantum error correction that could provide a key step toward practical quantum computers, sensors and distributed quantum information that would enable the military to potentially solve previously intractable problems or deploy sensors with higher magnetic and electric field sensitivities.

The approach, developed by researchers at Massachusetts Institute of Technology with Army funding, could mitigate certain types of the random fluctuations, or noise, that are a longstanding barrier to quantum computing. These random fluctuations can eradicate the data stored in such devices.

The Army-funded research, published in Physical Review Letters, involves identifying the kinds of noise that are the most likely, rather than casting a broad net to try to catch all possible sources of disturbance.

"The team learned that we can reduce the overhead for certain types of error correction on small scale quantum systems," said Dr. Sara Gamble, program manager for the Army Research Office, an element of U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory. "This has the potential to enable increased capabilities in targeted quantum information science applications for the DOD."

The specific quantum system the research team is working with consists of carbon nuclei near a particular kind of defect in a diamond crystal called a nitrogen vacancy center. These defects behave like single, isolated electrons, and their presence enables the control of the nearby carbon nuclei.

But the team found that the overwhelming majority of the noise affecting these nuclei came from one single source: random fluctuations in the nearby defects themselves. This noise source can be accurately modeled, and suppressing its effects could have a major impact, as other sources of noise are relatively insignificant.

The team determined that the noise comes from one central defect, or one central electron that has a tendency to hop around at random. It jitters. That jitter, in turn, is felt by all those nearby nuclei, in a predictable way that can be corrected. The ability to apply this targeted correction in a successful way is the central breakthrough of this research.

The work so far is theoretical, but the team is actively working on a lab demonstration of this principle in action.

If the demonstration works as expected, this research could make up an important component of near and far term future quantum-based technologies of various kinds, including quantum computers and sensors.

Life is rife with patterns. It's common for living things to create a repeating series of similar features as they grow: think of feathers that vary slightly in length on a bird's wing or shorter and longer petals on a rose.

It turns out the brain is no different. By employing advanced microscopy and mathematical modeling, Stanford researchers have discovered a pattern that governs the growth of brain cells or neurons. Similar rules could guide the development of other cells within the body, and understanding them could be important for successfully bioengineering artificial tissues and organs.

Their study, published in Nature Physics, builds on the fact that the brain contains many different types of neurons and that it takes several types working in concert to perform any tasks. The researchers wanted to uncover the invisible growth patterns that enable the right kinds of neurons to arrange themselves into the right positions to build a brain.

"How do cells with complementary functions arrange themselves to construct a functioning tissue?" said study co-author Bo Wang, an assistant professor of Bioengineering. "We chose to answer that question by studying a brain because it had been commonly assumed that the brain was too complex to have a simple patterning rule. We surprised ourselves when we discovered there was, in fact, such a rule."

The brain they chose to examine belonged to a planarian, a millimeter-long flatworm that can regrow a new head every time after amputation. First, Wang and Margarita Khariton, a graduate student in his lab, used fluorescent stains to mark different types of neurons in the flatworm. They then used high-resolution microscopes to capture images of the whole brain - glowing neurons and all - and analyzed the patterns to see if they could extract from them the mathematical rules guiding their construction.

What they found was that each neuron is surrounded by roughly a dozen neighbors similar to itself, but that interspersed among them are other kinds of neurons. This unique arrangement means that no single neuron sits flush against its twin, while still allowing different types of complementary neurons to be close enough to work together to complete tasks.

The researchers found that this pattern repeats over and over across the entire flatworm brain to form a continuous neural network. Study co-authors Jian Qin, an assistant professor of chemical engineering, and postdoctoral scholar Xian Kong developed a computational model to show that this complex network of functional neighborhoods stems from the tendency of neurons to pack together as closely as possible without being too close to other neurons of the same type.

While neuroscientists might someday adapt this methodology to study neuronal patterning in the human brain, the Stanford researchers believe the technique could be more usefully applied to the emerging field of tissue engineering.

The basic idea is simple: tissue engineers hope to induce stem cells, the powerful, general-purpose cells from which all cell types derive, to grow into the various specialized cells that form a liver, kidney or heart. But scientists will need to arrange those diverse cells into the right patterns if they want the heart to beat.

"The question of how organisms grow into forms that carry out useful functions has fascinated scientists for centuries," Wang said. "In our technological era, we are not limited to understanding these growth patterns at the cellular level but can also find ways to implement these rules for bioengineering applications."

Pairing chemotherapy nanodrugs with a nutritional supplement can lessen devastating side-effects while reducing the amount of the expensive drugs needed to treat cancer according to a study from Carnegie Mellon University and Taiwan's National Health Research Institutes. In addition, pretreatment with the supplement promotes the production of tumor-killing macrophages, making it a promising complement and supplement to existing chemotherapies.

The new findings, published in Scientific Reports, demonstrate that administering anti-cancer drugs with the FDA-approved nutrition source Intralipid, a technique first described by Carnegie Mellon Emeritus Professor of Biological Sciences Chien Ho in 2015, is ready to move to early stage clinical trials and be studied for use with other nanodrugs.

"The combination of anti-cancer nanodrugs with Intralipid enhances the inhibition of tumor growth and may serve as a novel strategy to improve therapeutic efficacy in treating cancers in clinical practice," said Ho.

Cancer continues to increase among the global population, with an estimated 18.1 million new cases and 9.6 million deaths in 2018. The cost of treating cancer has rapidly increased due to the growing number of patients and the high cost of new anti-cancer therapies, including small molecules and biological agents.

While nanodrugs like paclitaxel have proven to be effective in killing cancer cells, less than one percent of the expensive drug reaches tumor cells. That leaves the rest to be absorbed by other cells, particularly those in the liver, kidneys and spleen, which leads to the toxic side-effects that are a hallmark of chemotherapy.

In the current study, the researchers looked at how pairing Abraxane, a form of paclitaxel commonly used to treat a number of cancers, with Intralipid would impact human cells in vitro. They found that the combination protected monocytic white blood cells from damage without impacting the drug's efficacy in killing breast, lung or pancreatic cancer cells.

The researchers also investigated how Intralipid impacts macrophages, large white blood cells that traditionally play an important role in the immune response. Macrophages can differentiate into three different phenotypes, M0, M1 and M2. The M2 phenotype can be hijacked by cancer cells to help protect the cells and promote their proliferation while the M1 phenotype produces molecules that attack cancer cells. Through in vitro and in vivo studies using a mouse model, the team found that Intralipid promoted macrophages to polarize into the cancer-killing M1 type rather than the cancer-abetting M2 type.

In the final section of their paper, the research group demonstrated in a mouse model for breast cancer that pre-treatment with Intralipid paired with half the standard clinical dose of Abraxane was as effective in stopping tumor growth as a full clinal dose without Intralipid. Additionally, they found that while there was more of the drug present in the livers of mouse models that received Intralipid, there was not an increased amount of damage to liver cells, indicating that Intralipid had a protective effect.

"By decreasing the amount of Abraxane needed in treating cancers, we can protect the organs from some of the chemical damage done by the drug," said Ho.

The researchers hope that the treatment can be moved into early stage clinical trials. They also believe that the technique may benefit nanodrug-based treatments for other diseases.

"This new nanodrug delivery method is a general one and can be applied to other approved and in-development nanodrugs without any modifications to the drugs or their carriers," said Ho. "This drug delivery method can reduce the amount of drugs needed for treatment, improving the quality of life for patients and reducing the cost of treatment with these expensive drugs."

Synthetic chemicals known as per- and polyfluoroalkyls, or PFAS, contain bonds between carbon and fluorine atoms considered the strongest in organic chemistry. Unfortunately, the widespread use of these nonbiodegradable products since the 1940s has contaminated many water supplies across America.

Engineers at UC Riverside have now shown in modeling experiments that using excess electrons shatters the carbon-fluorine bond of PFAS in water, leaving by-products that might even accelerate the process. The paper is published in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics.

Impervious to heat, chemicals, and physical force, the carbon-fluorine bond makes PFAS ubiquitous in food packaging, stain and water repellent fabrics, polishes and waxes, firefighting foams, cleaning products, carpets and thousands of other common household and industrial products. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that most of the population has been exposed to PFAS that accumulate in the body over time because these "forever chemicals" do not biodegrade.

Sharma Yamijala, a postdoctoral researcher in the Marlan and Rosemary Bourns College of Engineering and first author of the paper, ran simulations on both perfluorooctanoic acid and perfluorooctanesulfonic acid molecules, the most common PFA contaminants in the environment, surrounded by water molecules. He found that they instantly lost their fluorine atom in the presence of excess electrons.

The PFA molecules broke down into an intermediate chemical species whose composition could further accelerate the decomposition of other PFA molecules. The reaction also formed a hydrogen fluoride molecule. Whether or not these shortchain molecules are carcinogens at typical concentrations in water has not yet been determined.

"In a real water treatment scenario, the excess electrons could come from metal-containing compounds placed in the water under ultraviolet radiation. The electrons from these compounds will interact with the PFA molecules and break them," Yamijala said.

The simulations describe in precise detail a process that scientists have known is possible.

"People knew you could do this but didn't know why," said Bryan Wong, an associate professor of chemical and environmental engineering and the paper's senior author. "Our simulations define the bigger picture that we can refine to find ways to break down PFAs faster or more efficiently in the future."

The research was supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Early Career Research Program Award No. DE-SC0016269 and the National Science Foundation Grant No. CHE-1808242.

Osaka, Japan - A joint research group from Osaka University and the University of Tokyo uncovered the mechanism of the glass transition that electrons can experience in pyrochlore oxide crystals. The researchers show that distortions in the atomic lattice cause two types of rotational degrees of freedom of spins to become coupled and form a glassy state at the exact same temperature. This work will shed light on our understanding of the mechanism of glass transitions, which is one of the most fundamental unsolved problems in physics.

Pyrochlore oxides are minerals that have the chemical formula A2B2O7, where A is usually a rare earth ion and B is a transition metal—in this case, molybdenum. The metal ions in the crystal form tetrahedra that share corners. The electrons in the ions are essentially bound to the nucleus but they can still orbit around the nucleus and spin around themselves. In a sense, this is similar to motions of planets in the solar system: planets are orbiting around the sun while also spinning around themselves.

Scientists found that the orbits and spins of the electrons on different corners of the tetrahedra are interacting with each other in a complex way. Some pairs of spins want to align their axes of spin in parallel but others want to align anti-parallel. Unfortunately, there is no possible way to meet all of these simultaneously, so scientists say that the spins are "frustrated." The result is many equivalent configurations and the spins end up stuck pointing in different directions even at low temperatures. This is known as a spin-glass, since it has very similar dynamics to the cooling of molten glass to solid state. That is, the glass we are used to in our windows and cups is in an intermediate state between solid and liquid. The molecules are fixed in place, like a solid—since they don't have enough energy to move—but they are arranged without long-range order, somewhat like a "frozen liquid."

"Although some systems are known to show such behaviors due to extrinsic randomness, called 'quenched disorder,' we have shown that this is not needed to understand the glassiness of the pyrochlore system," says first author Kota Mitsumoto.

While nature often appears to favor symmetric forms, there are cases in which tetrahedral crystals are more stable when one side is elongated and another is compressed, in a process called the Jahn-Teller distortion. The researchers found that this change coupled the spin and orbital degrees of freedom, which made them undergo glass transitions at the same critical temperature. "We were happy to be able to help solve a long-standing puzzle on the origin of the disorder-free spin glass," adds senior author Hajime Yoshino.

The team used computer simulations along with theoretical calculations to show that, at this critical temperature, the non-linear response to external magnetic fields becomes very large, as expected for a glass transition.

"We demonstrated, for the first time, how a thermodynamic glass transition can occur on a periodic lattice without quenched randomness," says Mitsumoto. "We hope that our findings can improve the understanding of the glass transition in general."

Baboon mothers living in the wild carry dead infants for up to ten days, according to a new study led by UCL and Université de Montpellier.

The research, published in Royal Society Open Science, is the most extensive study on baboons, reporting on 12 cases of group responses to infants' deaths, including a miscarriage and two stillbirths, recorded over 13 years in wild Namibian chacma baboons.

Chacma baboons live in large multi-sex groups, with strong linear male and female hierarchies. One group of baboons can range anywhere from 20 to 100 primates.

Anthropologists observed baboon mothers in the Namibian desert carrying dead infants for varying lengths of time, ranging from one hour to ten days, with the average length being three to four days. During this time the mother grooms the dead infant frequently.

Lead author, Dr Alecia Carter (UCL Anthropology and Université de Montpellier), said: "There are numerous hypotheses to explain primate responses to dead infants. Perhaps the strongest hypothesis is that carrying after death is an extension of nurturing behaviour.

"We are not suggesting that the mothers are unaware that their infants are dead, but there is such strong selection on mother-infant bond formation that, once formed, the bond is difficult to break. It's less clear why only some mothers carry or protect their dead infant, but I suspect that a range of factors influence this behaviour."

While there are a number of hypotheses, the researchers believe the most plausible are the 'grief-management hypothesis', which suggests that mothers carry the dead infant as a way of dealing emotionally with their loss, and the 'social-bonds hypothesis' which suggests that mothers carry their infants because of the intense social bond mothers and infants share during life.

Other possible explanations for the behaviour include the 'unawareness hypothesis' which suggests that the mother lacks the cognitive ability to discriminate between 'dead' and 'unresponsive but alive', and that continued care is ultimately an adaptive behaviour in case the unresponsive individuals recover.

Primate mothers are unlikely to be unaware that their infants are dead, however, as they treat the corpse very differently to live infants, even if they are sick and lethargic. For example, dead infants are frequently carried by a limb or dragged along the ground; this is never done with live infants.

Researchers believe a range of factors influence the length of time a mother carries her dead infant, including the mothers' age, infant cause of death and the climate conditions.

Dr Carter adds: "Other primates have been observed carrying their dead infants for much longer periods of time. Chimps and Japanese macaques for example have been observed carrying infants for over a month. However, chacma baboons travel much longer distances on an average day and the desert environment is harsh, making it costly for a mother to carry her infant for long periods."

The researchers also observed that male 'friends' - who had been associated with the mother and her infant during its life and are usually the fathers of the infant - protect the dead infant, either by threatening observers that came close or, on one occasion, sitting near and grooming the dead infant when the mother moved away temporarily.

Last author on the study, Dr Elise Huchard (Université de Montpellier), said: "This is quite surprising behaviour, because it has rarely been reported by previous studies. Male baboons are not usually very paternal, but they regularly protect their infant from threats, especially from infanticidal attacks. That is where a male baboon kills another male's offspring in order to mate with the mother."

Disrupted and poor quality sleep in the earliest months of a child's life can be an indicator of depression, anxiety and behavioural problems among toddlers, according to a new study.

Researchers at the Institute for Mental Health, at the University of Birmingham in collaboration with the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, in Helsinki, found a clear relationship between sleep problems in infancy such as frequent night wakings, short sleep duration or difficulty in falling asleep and particular emotional and behavioural problems at 24 months of age.

Although childhood sleep problems are extremely common and their association with daytime behavioural difficulties is well recognised, this study shows for the first time how sleep problems in infancy and very early childhood are associated with emotional and behavioural problems later in childhood.

The team believes these findings, published in BMJ Paediatrics Open, highlight the need to address infant sleep problems at an early stage, to prevent the development or worsening of future emotional and behavioural problems in later stages of childhood.

The team studied the results of two sleep questionnaires completed by parents within the CHILD-SLEEP birth-cohort, a large study cohort based in southern Finland. For this specific study, the researchers obtained information from nearly 1700 parents who completed a baseline questionnaire, and reported on sleep habits of their children at 3,8, 18 and 24 months. These results were compared with a separate questionnaire on emotional and behavioural symptoms, which was completed by 950 parents at the child´s age of 24 months..

The researchers found that high frequency of night wakings at 3 months was strongly linked to emotional, behavioural and self-regulation (the ability to control emotions and behaviours) problems in toddlers.Further, infants who experienced shorter sleep duration, who took longer to fall asleep and who experienced frequent night wakings at different stages of early childhood were likely to find problems in regulating their behaviour and emotions at the age of 24 months, leading to disrupting emotions and behaviours, such as temper tantrums.

The study contributes to recent research on the role of early sleep problems in socio-emotional development.

Lead researcher Dr Isabel Morales-Muñoz explained: "Our results show that infants who sleep for shorter periods of time, take longer to fall asleep and wake up more frequently during the night are more likely to show emotional and behavioural problems in later stages of childhood. It's likely that sleep quality in these early months and the development of self-regulation - the ability to control our behaviour - are closely intertwined."

The study suggests that infant sleep problems may be due to a variety of mechanisms, including genetic and environmental factors.

"Scientists think there are links in the central nervous system between sleep-wake behaviour and our emotions, and so it's possible these links have a biological basis," says Dr Morales-Muñoz. "Environmental factors, such as sleeping practices in the family, parental reactions to crying and parental stress also play an important part in a child's sleep and socioemotional development."

Dr Morales-Muñoz added: "Although more research needs to be done in this area, we think early interventions in infants experiencing these sleep problems could be really beneficial and help very young children develop their behavioural and emotional self-control."

New research has shown that large ecosystems such as rainforests and coral reefs can collapse at a significantly faster rate than previously understood. The findings suggest that ecosystems the size of the Amazon forests could collapse in only 49 years and the Caribbean coral reefs in just 15 years.

It is well know that ecosystems can transform rapidly when put under stress. Clear lakes can be transformed into green waters, coral reefs can become bleached and sparsely populated as algae disappears and rain forests can shift to savanna grassland as deforestation causes a change in humidity.

Scientists from the University of Southampton, the School of Oriental and African Studies and the University of Bangor studied data on the transformations of 40 natural environments on land and in waters. These varied in size from small ponds to the black sea aquatic ecosystem. This data had been compiled from scientific publications, institutional reports and online databases about regime shifts and thresholds.

The team discovered that whilst larger ecosystems took longer to collapse - due to their sheer size - the rate at which the transformation occurred was significantly faster than the pace of change for smaller systems.

The findings, published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, can be explained by the fact larger ecosystems are made up of more compartments, or sub-systems, of species and habitats. This modular set up provides resilience against stress initially; however once a certain threshold has been passed, the same modularity causes the rate at which the ecosystem unravels to accelerate. This means that ecosystems that have existed for thousands of years could collapse in less than 50.

John Dearing, Professor in Physical Geography at the University of Southampton, who led the research said: "The messages here are stark. We need to prepare for changes in our planet's ecosystems that are faster than we previously envisaged."

The unravelling effects that Professor Dearing and his team have highlighted are probably illustrated by the rapid spread of bush fires recently seen in Australia and magnify concerns about the effects that the recent fires in the Amazon rainforest will have on its ability to withstand climate change.

Professor Dearing concluded, "These findings are yet another call for halting the current damage being imposed on our natural environments that pushes ecosystems to their limits."

Patients who used copper intrauterine devices (Cu IUD) were found to have a lower risk of high-grade cervical neoplasms (cervical cancer) compared to users of the levonorgestrel-releasing intrauterine system (LNG-IUS), according to a Columbia study recently published in Obstetrics & Gynecology.

Studies from the 1980s suggested reduced risk of cervical cancer among women who used an intrauterine contraceptive, though those studies did not differentiate between the varying types of IUDs. Furthermore, much of the data from those studies was collected prior to the availability of most hormonal IUDs (LNG-IUS).

By standardizing four decades' worth of data from the Columbia University Irving Medical Center database through the OMOP Common Data Model and using high-level analytics developed within the Observational Health Data Sciences and Informatics (OHDSI) collaboration, the research team ran a retrospective cohort analysis of more than 10,000 patients who received IUDs.

The diagnosis of high-grade cervical neoplasia was 0.7% in the Cu IUD cohort and 1.8% in the LNG-IUS cohort.

"Copper and hormonal IUDs may have different physiological effects on the female genitourinary system," says Matthew Spotnitz, MD, MPH, a Postdoctoral Research Scientist within the Department of Biomedical Informatics and lead author of this study. "Consequently, the risk of cervical neoplasms may be different for copper and hormonal IUD users. Our findings may help patients and healthcare providers make informed decisions about whether the benefits of hormonal IUD use, compared to copper IUD use, are greater than the risks."

Spotnitz noted that the research team hopes to lead a network study across other databases within the OHDSI network, which spans 19 countries, 133 unique databases converted to the OMOP CDM, and more than one billion patient records.

"The proportions of women who use copper and hormonal IUDs may vary among institutions," Spotnitz says. "Overall, IUD use has become more popular over the past 20 years. Copper IUD use has remained constant whereas hormonal IUD use has increased. The rising popularity of hormonal IUDs may be related to the fact that they decrease the pain and bleeding of menses."

The study notes that more than 100 million women use IUDs as contraception around the world, and these findings have implications for the larger population of current IUD users.

Scientists at The University of New Mexico have found that the Earth and Moon have distinct oxygen compositions and are not identical in oxygen as previously thought according to a new study released today in Nature Geoscience.

The paper, titled Distinct oxygen isotope compositions of the Earth and Moon, may challenge the current understanding of the formation of the Moon.

Previous research led to scientists to develop the Giant Impact Hypothesis suggesting the Moon was formed from debris following a giant collision between early-Earth and a proto-planet named Theia. The Earth and Moon are geochemically similar. Samples returned from the Moon from the Apollo missions showed a near-identical composition in oxygen isotopes.

Although the Giant Impact Hypothesis can nicely explain many of the geochemical similarities between Earth and Moon, the extreme similarity in oxygen isotopes has been difficult to rationalize with this scenario: either the two bodies were compositionally identical in oxygen isotopes to start with, which is unlikely, or their oxygen isotopes were fully mixed in the aftermath of the impact, which has been difficult to model in simulations.

"Our findings suggest that the deep lunar mantle may have experienced the least mixing and is most representative of the impactor Theia," said Erick Cano. "The data imply the distinct oxygen isotope compositions of Theia and Earth were not completely homogenized by the Moon-forming impact and provides quantitative evidence that Theia could have formed farther from the Sun than did Earth."

To arrive at their findings, Cano, a research scientist, and along with colleagues Zach Sharp and Charles Shearer from UNM's Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, conducted high-precision measurements of the oxygen isotopic composition on a range of lunar samples at UNM's Center for Stable Isotopes (CSI). The samples included basalts, highland anorthosites, norites and volcanic glass, a product of uncrystallized rapidly cooled magma.

They found that the oxygen isotopic composition varied depending on the type of rock tested. This may be due to the degree of mixing between the molten Moon and vapor atmosphere following the impact. Oxygen isotopes from samples taken from the deep lunar mantle were the most different to oxygen isotopes from Earth

"This data suggests that the deep lunar mantle may have experienced the least mixing and is most representative of the impactor Theia," said Sharp. "Based on the results from our isotopic analysis, Theia would have an origin farther out from the Sun relative to Earth and shows that Theia's distinct oxygen isotope composition was not completely lost through homogenization during the giant impact."

The research is important because it eliminates the need for giant-impact models that include a complete oxygen isotope homogenization between the Earth and the Moon, and provides a foundation for future modeling of the impact and lunar formation.

Wearing clothes can release even greater quantities of microfibres to the environment than washing them, new research shows.

In a first-of-its-kind study, scientists from the Institute for Polymers, Composites and Biomaterials of the National Research Council of Italy (IPCB-CNR) and the University of Plymouth compared four different items of polyester clothing and how many fibres were released when they were being worn and washed.

The results showed that up to 4,000 fibres per gram of fabric could be released during a conventional wash, while up to 400 fibres per gram of fabric could be shed by items of clothing during just 20 minutes of normal activity.

Scaled up, the results indicate that one person could release almost 300million polyester microfibres per year to the environment by washing their clothes, and more than 900million to the air by simply wearing the garments.

In addition, there were significant differences depending on how the garments were made, which the researchers concluding that clothing design and manufacturer has a major role to play in preventing microfibres from being emitted to the environment.

The research, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, was conducted by scientists at the National Research Council of Italy and the University of Plymouth. It builds on their previous studies which showed substantial quantities of fibres are released during the laundry process.

Dr Francesca De Falco, Research Fellow at IPCB-CNR and lead author on the current research, said: "Recently, more evidence has been accumulating on the presence of synthetic microfibres not only in aquatic environments, but also in atmospheric ones. That is why we decided to design this set of experiments to study microfibre release by garments to both media. This is a type of pollution that should be mainly fought at its source, the fabric itself, but we investigated the influence of different textile parameters on the release. Results have shown that textiles with a very compact structure like woven, with yarns highly twisted and composed of continuous filaments, can release less microfibres to both air and water."

The study compared four different garments, which were washed at 40°C with any released fibres being collected. It showed that anywhere between 700 and 4,000 individual fibres could be released per gram of fabric during a single wash.

The researchers also created a dedicated clean lab used by multiple volunteers wearing each of the four garments separately and then performing a sequence of movements simulating a mix of real life activities. Any fibres emitted by the garments were then collected, with up to 400 being released per gram of fabric in just 20 minutes.

The polyester/cotton garment showed the greatest release during both washing and wearing, with a woven polyester one releasing the least quantity of microfibres.

However, based on the overall results, the researchers say previous estimations of microplastic pollution have actually underestimated the importance of synthetic textiles since they did not take into account the quantities released directly into the air.

Professor Richard Thompson OBE, Head of the University of Plymouth's International Marine Litter Research Unit, was a senior author on the current study and gave evidence to both the UK Government's Sustainability of the Fashion Industry inquiry and the recent OECD Forum on due diligence in the garment and footwear sector.

He added: "The key story here is that the emission of fibres while wearing clothes is likely of a similar order of magnitude as that from washing them. That constitutes a substantial and previously unquantified direct release to the environment. The results also show textile design can strongly influence both release to the air and release due to laundering; that is a crucial message highlighting the importance of sustainable design for the fashion industry. Indeed many of the current issues associated with the environmental impacts of plastic items stem from a lack of holistic thinking at the design stage."

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- Viruses -- small disease-causing parasites that can infect all types of life forms -- have been well studied, but many mysteries linger. One such mystery is how a spherical virus circumvents energy barriers to form symmetric shells.

A research team led by physicist Roya Zandi at the University of California, Riverside, has made progress is solving this mystery. The team reports in a paper published in ACS Nano that an interplay of energies at the molecular level makes the formation of a shell possible.

Understanding the factors that contribute to viral assembly could enable biomedical attempts to block viral replication and infection. A better understanding of how viral shells -- nature's nano-containers -- form is of vital importance to material scientists and a crucial step in the design of engineered nano-shells that could serve as vehicles for delivering drugs to specific targets in the body.

Zandi's team explored the role of protein concentration and elastic energy in the self-organization of proteins on the curved shell surface to understand how a virus circumvents many energy barriers.

"Understanding the combined effect of elastic energy, genome-protein interaction, and protein concentration in the viral assembly constitutes the breakthrough of our work," said Zandi, a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy. "Our study shows that if a messy shell forms because of the high protein concentration or strong attractive interaction, then, as the shell grows larger, the cost of elastic energy becomes so high that several bonds can get broken, resulting in the disassembly and subsequent reassembly of a symmetric shell."

What is a virus?

The simplest physical object in biology, a virus consists of a protein shell called the capsid, which protects its nucleic acid genome -- RNA or DNA. Viruses can be thought of as mobile containers of RNA or DNA that insert their genetic material into living cells. They then take over the cells' reproductive machinery to reproduce their own genome and capsid.

Capsid formation is one of the most crucial steps in the process of viral infection. The capsid can be cylindrical or conical in shape, but more commonly it assumes an icosahedral structure, like a soccer ball.

An icosahedron is a geometrical structure with 12 vertices, 20 faces, and 30 sides. An official soccer ball is a kind of icosahedron called a truncated icosahedron; it has 32 panels cut into the shape of 20 hexagons and 12 pentagons, with the pentagons separated from each other by hexagons.

Viral assembly is not well understood because viruses are very small, measuring in nanometers, a nanometer being one-billionth of a meter. The assembly also happens very quickly, typically in milliseconds, a millisecond being one-thousandth of a second. Theoretical work and simulations are necessary to understand how a virus grows.

"A viral shell is highly symmetric," Zandi said. "If one pentagonal defect forms in the wrong location, it breaks down the symmetry. Despite this sensitivity, viral shells are often assembled into well-defined symmetric structures."

Nano vehicles

Zandi explained that due to a lack of experimental data, the virus assembly process is not well understood. The new work found the elastic properties of capsid proteins and the attractive interaction between them go hand in hand to form highly symmetric configurations that are energetically very stable.

"By fine-tuning these parameters, we can control the final structure and stability of viral capsids," she said. "These viral capsids can be used as nano-containers for transporting drugs as cargo to specific targets. What makes them highly promising for drug delivery and gene delivery purposes is that they are stable, have a high uptake efficiency, and have low toxicity."

Already, some experimental groups are working with pharmaceutical companies to design drugs that interfere or block viral assembly. Her lab is working with international collaborators to design simulations to better understand virus assembly.

"Understanding the factors that affect the stability of the final viral structures can make drug delivery processes more controllable," she said.