Earth

When driving across country, people can only make it so far before stopping off to rest. Likewise, most migratory songbirds must make stops during their long-distance journeys to sleep along the way. Now, researchers have evidence that songbirds tuck themselves in differently depending on just how worn out they really are.

As reported in the journal Current Biology on August 19, birds that are low on fat reserves will tuck their heads under their feathers for a deep snooze. They do so despite the fact that this more restful sleeping position slows their reaction to the sound of potential trouble. By comparison, birds in better shape stop and sleep with their head facing forward, untucked, and more alert.

"We discovered that migratory birds trade off safety for lower energy expenditure," said Leonida Fusani of the University of Vienna and University of Veterinary Medicine, Austria. "If they sleep with their head tucked in the scapular feathers, they enter a sort of deeper sleep that is associated with lower energy consumption but exposes them to a higher predation risk. Consequently, birds in good condition sacrifice some energy to sleep more safely with the head untucked, whereas birds in poor condition sacrifice vigilance to save energy while sleeping unsafely tucked in."

Fusani and colleagues, including Andrea Ferretti, Massimiliano Cardinale, Scott McWilliams, Niels Rattenborg and Thomas Ruf, wondered how small migratory songbirds cope with sleep deprivation. To find out, they analyzed the sleeping patterns of Garden Warblers at a stopover site in the Mediterranean.

At night, they report, Garden Warblers in poor metabolic condition slept more and exhibited less migratory restlessness than birds in good condition. Rather than sleeping with their head facing forward, those birds in poor condition slept with their head turned and tucked in their feathers.

The researchers went on to show that sleeping with the head tucked is associated with lower respiratory and metabolic rates. By hiding the head, the birds lose less heat. But the benefit of conserving energy while sleeping with the head tucked is countered by reduced vigilance. When the researchers presented those birds with the sound of crunching leaves, they were slower to respond than birds whose heads faced forward.

"We did not expect to find such a strong difference between the two sleeping postures in terms of metabolic rate--the amount of energy required to fuel the bird's physiological functions," Ferretti said. "Although there was good reason to think that birds reduce heat loss by tucking their heads in their feathers, we were surprised to see that they actually reduce their alertness when sleeping in this position."

Fusani says that the findings suggest that migratory songbirds may benefit from stopover habitats that not only provide sufficient food, but are also conducive to undisturbed sleep. His team will continue to study the physiological basis of birds' decision making during migration, noting that little is known beyond navigation or migratory routes.

"Migratory songbirds appear to be very well suited for studying the role of sleep in both brain and body maintenance," Ferretti says.

River diversions have not created or maintained land, but resulted in more land loss, according to a new paper in the peer-reviewed science journal Restoration Ecology. LSU Boyd Professor R. Eugene Turner and his LSU co-authors Erick Swenson and Michael Layne, and Dr. Yu Mo, University of Maryland, used satellite imagery to study the differences between the percent land before and after a river diversion was opened.

The scientists analyzed two large river diversions over the span of decades in Louisiana using two different kinds of satellite imagery analyses. They tested for differences between the percent land before and after the diversion was opened and compared them to adjacent reference areas. The results demonstrated an increased land loss in both areas. The results were confirmed for one diversion using independently collected data and supported by the example from a larger third river diversion that broke through river levees in 1973 to become a "loss accelerant."

Why these diversions had a negative impact may be due to the increased nutrient availability for organic soils, greater flooding and physical scouring. Diversion models need to include the on-the-ground results of existing diversions of river water into wetlands in order to calibrate them.

"Using river diversions for wetland restoration is relatively new, complex and expensive, so knowing the long-term consequences makes it important to develop management plans," Turner said.

The limited understanding about the unanticipated chronic and delayed effects indicate that the $5 billion of the planned future diversions may do more harm than good through unintended consequences, said the scientists.

Not enough is being done to prevent elder abuse in the Chinese American community, according to four new Rutgers studies published in the current edition of the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society.

The studies found that a history of abuse, lack of positive social support, and isolation from family significantly increase older Chinese Americans' risk of experiencing elder abuse, chronic health conditions, and even early death. Culturally-sensitive screening for a history of violence among minorities - the key to improving care - remains inadequate, however.

"Violence over the life course has a profoundly negative impact on victims' lives and our society," said lead researcher, XinQi Dong, director of the Rutgers Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research and Chair of the National Health Collaborative on Violence and Abuse. "Our research found that violence is prevalent, cumulative and leads to significant adverse health outcomes, including poor physical and mental health, chronic pain, greater use of healthcare services, and increased risk of early death."

Researchers interviewed 3,157 Chinese Americans aged 60 and older and found child abuse, intimate partner violence, negative social support, and isolation from family were potential predictors of elder abuse, including psychological and physical mistreatment, caregiver neglect, and financial exploitation.

According to the studies, 11.4% of study respondents reported experiencing child maltreatment, 6.5% reported intimate partner violence, and 15.2% reported elder abuse. Because traditional cultural values often prevent Chinese older adults from disclosing potential abuse to maintain family harmony, the numbers are likely much higher.

The articles illustrate how various factors contribute to increased risk of elder abuse.

Key findings:

Victims of child abuse are four times likelier to experience intimate partner violence and psychological elder abuse.

Victims of intimate partner violence face five to eight times the risk for psychological elder abuse, six to nine times the risk for physical/sexual abuse, and three times the risk for financial exploitation.

Individuals with a history of childhood physical/sexual abuse are twice as likely to re-experience physical/sexual intimate partner violence. Those with a history of physical/sexual intimate partner violence are at nine times higher the risk of re-experiencing physical/sexual elder abuse.

Family structure is an essential indicator of elder abuse. Older U.S. Chinese immigrants' heavy reliance on family and the stress it can cause increases the risk for elder abuse. Though a tight-knit family can reduce the risk, older adults who receive greater assistance from family are at a higher risk for abuse.

Although evidence shows that positive social support from friends improves well-being, traditional cultural values often prevent older Chinese immigrants from seeking support outside the family, leading to a decreased social circle and, ultimately, increasing the risk of abuse.

All subtypes of elder abuse are associated with a substantially increased risk of 1-, 3-, and 4-year mortality.

The research findings continue to challenge the "model minority myth" - the misperception that the U.S. Asian populations are more economically prosperous, highly educated, have active social and familial relationships, and are healthier than the general population.

"The research has exposed the truth behind the myth," said Dr. Dong. "The truth is that older Chinese Americans are often economically vulnerable, less educated, and suffer from a wide range of health problems exacerbated by the lack of linguistically/culturally sensitive care."

According to Dong, healthcare professionals must work to develop culturally customized services for older minorities.

"Our research suggests that healthcare providers serve a critical role in interrupting the cycle of violence," Dong continued. "To ensure adequate, equitable, and culturally-sensitive care, healthcare providers, must overcome cultural and linguistic barriers to care."

Dong said, by assessing patients for a history of violence, inquiring into family dynamics- focusing on stressors like immigration and acculturation processes - and exploring sources of social support, providers can better screen for elder abuse and, ultimately, improve patients' quality of life.

What The Study Did: Data from Swedish national registers were used to examine the risk of psychiatric disorders and suicide attempt in individuals diagnosed as children with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) compared with people in the general population and with siblings of patients with IBD.

Author: Agnieszka Butwicka, M.D., Ph.D., of the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm, is the corresponding author.

(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.2662)

Editor's Note: The article contains conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.

Bacteria found in muddy marshes, estuaries and coastal sediment synthesise one of the Earth's most abundant climate cooling gases - according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA).

Dimethylsulfoniopropionate (DMSP) is an important nutrient in marine environments with billions of tonnes produced annually by marine phytoplankton (microscopic plant-like cells), seaweed, corals and bacteria.

When marine microorganisms break down DMSP, they release a climate-cooling gas called dimethylsulfide (DMS), which also gives the seaside its characteristic smell. Until recently, it was thought that DMSP was mainly produced in the ocean's surface waters by photosynthetic algae.

But new research published today in Nature Microbiology reveals that it the molecule is produced in coastal sediment - and at much higher levels than in seawater.

Lead researcher Professor Jonathan Todd, from UEA's School of Biological Sciences, said: "DMS is produced when microorganisms break down DMSP, and it is important because it affects atmospheric chemistry, cloud formation and potentially climate - by increasing cloud droplets that in turn reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the ocean's surface.

"Across the world's oceans, seas and coasts, tens of millions of tonnes of DMS are released annually by microbes that live in these environments.

"These same clouds are vital in the movement of large amounts of sulfur from the oceans to land, making the production of DMSP and DMS a critical step in the global sulfur cycle."

The research team studied salty sediment from the North Norfolk coast at the Stiffkey and Cley salt marches. Such environments are known to produce vast quantities of DMSP and DMS, but until now it was thought that these compounds were produced by the grass, known as Spartina, that grows at many such environments.

Dr Beth Williams, also from UEA's School of Biological Sciences, said: "Working on these coastal sediments we found that DMSP levels and DMSP and DMS synthesis rates were far higher in the surface sediment than in surface seawater.

"We also found that these high DMSP levels were not dependent on the presence of Spartina, with similar levels being detected at the Yarmouth Estuary, where the plant doesn't grow.

"Amazingly we discovered that there were as much as 100 million DMSP-producing bacteria per gram of salt marsh sediment.

"This supports our theory that bacteria play a very significant role in DMSP production in the sediment.

"Furthermore, we found that deep ocean sediment from the Mariana Trench also contained vastly higher levels of DMSP and DMSP-producing bacteria than the far overlying surface seawater.

"Our findings could mean that scientists have been significantly underestimating both the production of this molecule and the effect it is having in the environment."

EVANSTON, Ill. --- A new Northwestern University study found that a program aimed at reducing gun violence in Chicago, the Violence Reduction Strategy (VRS), deterred about 100 victimizations over a two-year period.

VRS is a program that seeks to lower rates of gun violence in typically high-crime areas. The program seeks to do so by inviting participants with heightened risk of victimization to participate in a meeting known as a "call-in."

At the call-in, a collaborative group of criminal justice agencies, service providers and community members discuss the risk of victimization and the damage caused by gun violence to communities. The participants also may be referred or given information about local social service programs. Part of the program's design is that those invited to the call-in would hopefully carry this message back to those in their own social networks.

"In the study, we examined whether VRS reduced gunshot victimization among participants," said George Wood, first author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow at Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research and the Northwestern Neighborhood & Network Initiative. "We also evaluated the effect of VRS on the social peers of participants. While these peers did not participate in the program, they had social contact with a participant and may, therefore, have been affected by the program through spillover effects."

In total, 2,349 people were invited to participate in VRS from 2010-2016, 1,642 of whom attended a call-in meeting.

VRS reduced gunshot victimization among participants by around 3.2 percentage points. Additionally, the spillover effects of VRS reduced gunshot victimization among the peers of participants by around 1.5 percentage points.

"Importantly, the program achieved these reductions while minimizing traditional law enforcement responses that can have a negative impact on communities," Wood said.

Perhaps the most illuminating finding, Wood said, is that although the spillover effect is smaller than the primary effect in size, the total reduction in victimization that can be attributed to spillover effects is almost as large as that attributed to the primary effect, resulting in important implications.

"First, our evidence indicates that VRS achieved the aim of reducing gunshot victimization among participants," Wood said. "Second, the evidence regarding spillover effects suggests that reductions in violence might be increased if such focused efforts can enhance network diffusion."

Previous research has examined VRS, as well as other focused-deterrence programs. However, Wood said, much of that research looks at particular geographic regions in which a program has been implemented and compares aggregated counts of victimization before and after the program started.

"We believe our study is the first to estimate an individual-level effect on participants and spillover effects on the peers of these participants," Wood said. "Our article, therefore, builds on existing research by providing a specific estimate of the program effects on the participants themselves. By looking at spillover effects, our article also highlights one possible mechanism by which the reductions that were found in existing research might have come about."

In addition, said Andrew Papachristos, professor of sociology in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern and senior author of the study: "Our findings also suggest that the power of networks might be leveraged in other gun violence reduction strategies, such as street outreach efforts of trauma-based interventions, that hope to reduce violence and save lives."

Papachristos also is a faculty fellow with Northwestern's Institute for Policy Research and director of Northwestern Neighborhood & Network Initiative.

Every day, people are exposed to myriad chemicals, both natural and synthetic. Some of these compounds may affect human physical development, but testing them directly on people would be grossly unethical.

To get around this dilemma, researchers from Boyce Thompson Institute used Caenorhabditis elegans, a soil roundworm, to show that tiny amounts of natural compounds can dramatically influence time to sexual maturity and lifespan.

As described in the August issue of Nature Chemical Biology, researchers from BTI Professor Frank Schroeder’s lab and Ilya Ruvinsky’s lab at Northwestern University discovered that a compound excreted by male worms – and to a lesser extent by their hermaphrodite counterparts – speeds egg-laying and hastens the death of the hermaphrodites.

While the discovery was made in C. elegans, humans and other animals make similar compounds and possess similar molecular pathways. “That means that in humans, too, tiny amounts of small molecules from the environment, produced by microbes in our bodies, or taken up as a side effect of social interactions could affect the timing of puberty and pace of our decline,” said Schroeder.

The work was initiated by Andreas Ludewig, a research associate in the Schroeder lab, who had previously found that a high population density of worms accelerated development and reduced lifespan of hermaphrodites. In parallel, Ruvinsky’s group had found that males caused a similar effect.

The two groups joined forces and discovered the compound responsible, an N-acylated glutamine called nacq#1.

The researchers found extremely low concentrations of nacq#1, down to 10 picomolar, shortened the amount of time needed for worms to reach sexual maturity. As a result of earlier maturity, the worms laid 30% more eggs on the first day of egg laying, which, under some environmental conditions, can be a significant advantage for a species with a lifecycle of only about two weeks.

Additionally, nacq#1 triggered hibernating C. elegans to “wake up”, and thus might also act as a signal that the environment has sufficient resources for the worms to grow and reproduce.

Notably, nacq#1 also significantly reduced worm lifespans by about one-sixth (13.6 vs. 16.3 days).

“The results suggest a tradeoff between the animals’ investment into reproductive success at the expense of longevity, a relationship that is fine-tuned by small molecules in response to changes in the environment,” said Schroeder.

The researchers further determined that C. elegans detect nacq#1 with their chemosensory organs, which are analogous to a nose or taste buds, and then the compound turns on a molecular signaling pathway that triggers hormone receptors on the surface of cells’ nuclear membranes.

“Nuclear hormone receptors regulate the expression of genes,” said Ludewig. “This particular subfamily of receptors has been highly conserved throughout evolutionary history, and include receptors in humans like the vitamin D receptor and the liver X receptor that coordinate vertebrate development.”

Additionally, the structure of nacq#1 is similar to numerous compounds that exist in many animals, including a compound in human sweat.

Because nacq#1 and its related nuclear receptors are so similar between C. elegans and humans, miniscule amounts of small molecules could similarly impact human development and lifespan.

“Over the past 150 years, people have been entering puberty earlier and earlier,” said Ludewig. “No one knows the reason for this trend, but it is likely caused by environmental stimuli.”

The researchers’ next steps will be to identify the remaining parts of the molecular pathway that connects sensory perception of nacq#1 and nuclear hormone receptors, identify the genes that nacq#1 perception turns on and off, and examine the role of similar molecules in other species.

In addition to his position at BTI, Schroeder is a Professor of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Cornell University.

The research was supported in part by National Institutes of Health grants R01GM113692, R01GM088290, T32GM008500 and R01GM126125, and by National Science Foundation (NSF) grants IOS-1708518 and IOS-1755244.

CITATION: Ludewig, A.H., Artyukhin, A.B., Aprison, E.Z., Rodrigues, P.R., Pulido, D.C., Burkhardt, R.N., Panda, O., Zhang, Y.K., Gudibanda, P., Ruvinsky, I. and Schroeder, F.C., 2019. An excreted small molecule promotes C. elegans reproductive development and aging. Nature chemical biology, 15(8), pp.838-845.

Journal

Nature Chemical Biology

DOI

10.1038/s41589-019-0321-7

BOZEMAN -- Wildfires in the West are becoming inevitable, and communities that rethink what it means to live with them will likely fare better than those that simply rebuild after they burn.

So says a recently published paper led by Dave McWethy, assistant professor of Earth Sciences in Montana State University's College of Letters and Science, and a group of scientists from several other institutions across the U.S. and Canada.

The paper, published in the journal Nature Sustainability on August 19, argues that communities should consider how to adapt and, in some cases, transform themselves to be more resilient to the inevitability of wildfires in the future and provides examples of communities that have successfully done so in recent years.

"The key point of our paper is that current approaches to responding to wildfire are not working, especially as fire seasons are getting warmer and longer," McWethy said. "In many fire-susceptible landscapes, rebuilding after wildfire leaves communities in a constant state of vulnerability."

The paper is the result of an interdisciplinary collaboration of ecologists and social scientists supported by a 2017 grant from the federal Joint Fire Science Program. The $290,000 grant is focused on addressing the challenges communities and land managers face when responding to wildfire by identifying actions that promote resilience in both human and natural systems. The core research team includes McWethy; University of Montana scientists Philip Higuera, Alex Metcalf and Libby Metcalf; and U.S. Forest Service scientist Carol Miller.

"Efforts to promote resilience to wildfire are falling short because they are limited in scope and scale, insufficiently funded, hindered by agency constraints, and lack urgency and broad public support," wrote McWethy and his co-authors.

They cite recent, destructive fire seasons as reasons why a new approach is needed: The 2017 fire season was the most expensive ever for the U.S. government at $2.9 billion, and California saw both its largest and most deadly fires in history in 2018.

The authors argue that learning to better live with and protect against wildfires starts with acknowledging that fire is inevitable in western North American landscapes. Fire was historically a critical feature that shaped those landscapes, and efforts to control and stop them are making communities more vulnerable to severe and destructive burns, especially in a changing climate, the researchers write.

The paper uses Montecito, California, as one of its examples. After a series of severe fires in the 1960s, the Montecito Fire Protection District took steps toward what the paper calls "adaptive resilience." This included creating defensible space around homes (a space without woody fuels), "hardening" homes by using fire-resistant building materials, reducing fuels across the larger landscape through prescribed fire and other treatments, and implementing detailed fire planning and response outreach programs. The authors argue that those practices paid off more than four decades later, reducing the damage caused to homes in Montecito by the Thomas Fire in 2017.

Similar practices could be tailored to fit varying ecosystems and communities, making adaptive and transformative resilience more widespread, the researchers said.

"It is important to remember that there isn't a one-size-fits-all approach for living with wildfire," said co-author Alex Metcalf, an assistant professor of human dimensions at the University of Montana. "In some places, it will make sense to continue defending structures and other human values. Elsewhere, fighting wildfire will be futile given warming patterns, so people must adapt. In other instances, people will have to entirely re-envision development patterns given the realities of wildfire."

DGIST research team succeeded in synthesizing new biomimetic materials that will increase the efficiency of chemical reaction related to body metabolism and discovered that synthesized materials cause the oxidation of aldehydes. The results are expected to bring positive impacts on catalyst development in the future.

DGIST announced that Professor Jaeheung Cho's team in the Department of Emerging Material Science developed 'copper(II)-hydroperoxo1 complex,' a biomimetic compound that conducts aldehyde deformylation. This complex is drawing attention in bioinorganic fields due to its higher efficiency than the existing complexes which cause deformylation reaction.

'Deformylation reaction' is a type of oxidation2 reaction that deformylates double-bond structure of carbon and oxygen inside aldehyde or ketone3 compound in a different form. It especially adjusts important chemical reaction in various ways by controlling the conversion of steroid with sex hormone or by converting the fat aldehyde formed during fat reduction4. To synthesize biomimetic compounds, the research team added 'hydroperoxo,' a combination of electrons and proton with oxygen molecule, to a copper compound. The 'copper(II)-hydroperoxo complex' formed here boasts much higher efficiency in deformylation reaction than other existing materials.

It is especially the first time to confirm that copper(II)-hydroperoxo adduct is directly involved in deformylation reaction.

Professor Jaeheung Cho in the Department of Emerging Materials Science at DGIST said "We believe we've expanded the research scope of materials involved in deformylation reaction, which plays an important role in biological system. We will continue our research on materials or method that have higher efficiency and controllability in deformylation reaction," and explained his follow-up research plans.

For all the advances technology has made throughout our lives, in many cases it stands behind what nature can do. Ants can carry 5000 times their weight, and spider webs are five times stronger than steel. Fuel efficiency is no different. In a new study seen in Angewandte Chemie International Edition, researchers from Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST) report new details on the proton transfer pathway of nickel-iron [NiFe]-hydrogenase using Fourier transfer infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR). This transfer is crucial for the hydrogen metabolism of microorganisms, and the study gives scientists a better understanding of how to mimic nature in the construction of new biofuel cells.

Hydrogen metabolism is one of the oldest forms of energy production for life and one of the most intensely studied because of its significance in evolution. It has also attracted attention as it is a clean energy source. Among the enzymes responsible for hydrogen metabolism, [NiFe]-hydrogenase is the most abundant and ancient.

Much is known about the enzyme. It reversibly oxidases hydrogen atoms through its Ni-Fe active site, which is surrounded by specific amino acids. However, notes NAIST Professor Shun Hirota, who managed the study, certain fundamentals in the chemical reactions need to be understood before using this nanomachine to design biofuel technologies.

"Hydride and proton coordinate with the Ni-Fe site in the protonation-deprotonation cycle, resulting in four hydrogenase states. But the proton transfer pathway remains unknown," he says.

One reason for the lack of clarity has been an inability to resolve stretching frequencies of different hydrogen bonds. In the new work, Hirota's team, in collaboration with other researchers in Japan and China, solved this problem by observing photoconversions of three hydrogenase states with FT-IR spectra.

Distinct absorbance frequencies revealed that one of the four cysteines, cysteine 546, along with another amino acid, glutamic acid 34, and an ordered water molecule are crucial for the transfer. The scientists used the new information to deduce how the sulfur molecule of cysteine 546 and the acid group in glutamic acid 34 form hydrogen bonds to regulate the hydrogen transport.

"Our results show that cysteine 546 is a proton donor and acceptor in the [Ni-Fe] hydrogenase cycle. They also demonstrate how a low-barrier hydrogen bond for glutamic acid 34 is formed and cleaved during the catalytic cycle," notes Hirota.

Microorganisms have adapted to a wider range of environmental conditions than humans. They can be found in the comfortable climate of our bedrooms to the most hostile environments on earth. Thus, seeing how the [Ni-Fe] site of [Ni-Fe] hydrogenase transfers protons optimally provides a paradigm for researchers seeking to manufacture high efficiency energy catalysts under a host of conditions.

"Life has spent billions of years adapting to energy. We believe it gives us the best model for energy efficiency in the future," says Hirota.

A study conducted at the University of Eastern Finland demonstrated that a recently described T-cell subset, so-called peripheral T helper cells, may have a role in the development of type 1 diabetes. The frequency of circulating peripheral T helper cells was observed to be increased both in children with recently diagnosed type 1 diabetes and in healthy children who later progressed to type 1 diabetes. The study was published in the journal Diabetologia.

Type 1 diabetes is an autoimmune disease that typically manifests in childhood. In type 1 diabetes, insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas are destroyed by the immune system. In addition to genetic susceptibility, the appearance of autoantibodies in blood is predictive of future development of type 1 diabetes.

The appearance of autoantibodies before clinical diabetes is caused by B cell activation against proteins in the pancreatic islets. The activation of B cells in lymphoid tissues is, in turn, controlled by follicular helper T cells. Earlier work by Academy Research Fellow Tuure Kinnunen and his research group at the University of Eastern Finland has demonstrated that the frequency of blood follicular helper T cells is increased in children close to the onset of type 1 diabetes.

A similar ability to activate B cells was recently attributed to a novel T-cell subset. These so-called peripheral helper T cells resemble follicular helper T cells, but they express receptors that enable them to migrate to inflamed tissues.

The current study suggests a role for peripheral helper T cells in the development of type 1 diabetes. Researchers demonstrated that the frequency of these cells was increased in blood of both children with recently diagnosed type 1 diabetes as well as healthy, autoantibody-positive children. Importantly, the frequency was most clearly increased in those autoantibody-positive children who later developed type 1 diabetes.

"Based on our results, it is possible that peripheral helper T cells may have a role in the development of type 1 diabetes. This information could be employed in the development of better methods to predict type 1 diabetes risk and new immunotherapies for the disease. However, more studies need to be conducted to verify our results and to further characterize the functionality of peripheral helper T cells," early stage researcher Ilse Ekman from the University of Eastern Finland notes.

The study was conducted utilizing samples from the Finnish DIPP study in which the development of type 1 diabetes is followed from birth in children with genetic risk for the disease. The study involved researchers from the Universities of Turku, Helsinki and Oulu as well as Harvard University.

People with maltreatment experiences in their childhood have a changed perception of social stimuli later as adults. This is what scientists from the Division of Medical Psychology at the University of Bonn have discovered. Traumatized people found touch stimuli less comforting than people without trauma. They also maintained a greater social distance toward strangers. In addition, the researchers discovered changes in the activation of certain brain areas. The results may open up options for new therapies and are now published in the American Journal of Psychiatry.

Those who were humiliated, beaten or sexually abused in childhood are more likely to suffer from mental illnesses such as depression or anxiety attacks in adulthood than people who were spared these experiences at a young age. Numerous studies show this. But what are the reasons for this greater vulnerability? Do experiences of violence as a child possibly lead to a permanently changed perception of social stimuli? Scientists from the Department of Medical Psychology at Bonn University Hospital (UKB) and their colleagues from the Ruhr University Bochum and Chengdu (China) have investigated this question.

The researchers interviewed a total of 120 people about their experiences with violence and accompanying illnesses. A total of 92 adults (64 women) were included in the study. The prerequisite was that the participants neither suffered from neurological diseases nor took medication to exclude these influences. The scientists tested sensory perception by stroking the naked skin of the shins with one hand with either a fast or a slower movement. "Touch is of central importance because it influences brain development, provides a feeling for one's own body and serves as a stress regulator," says Dr Dirk Scheele of the UKB's Division of Medical Psychology.

Nerve fibers are specialized for different stimuli

Interpersonal contact is mediated via two different nerve fibers in the skin: Aß fibers transmit the sensory information and respond primarily to faster touches, while C tactile fibers transmit the emotional well-being and are activated primarily by slow touches, explains lead author Ayline Maier. The test subjects lay in the brain scanner during the experiments and could not see the experimenter who performed the movements. His hands were in cotton gloves to avoid direct skin contact. The functional magnetic resonance imaging system recorded the activity of the brain areas. After each measurement, the test persons were asked how comforting the touches were.

The more pronounced the maltreatment experiences during childhood, the more strongly two brain regions reacted to rapid touches. The somatosensory cortex is located in the brain approximately above the ear and registers where a touch occurs. "This area encodes haptic sensations and is involved in the preparation and initiation of body movement - for example, pulling away the leg that has been touched," says Maier. The posterior insula cortex is an area deep in the brain behind the temple that is responsible for all body perceptions such as touch, hunger, thirst and pain. Scheele summarizes the result with: "In traumatized people, the activity in these two areas in response to rapid touches is significantly increased".

The hippocampus, on the other hand, was much weaker activated during slow touches when traumatic experiences had been had in childhood. The brain structure, similar to a seahorse, serves the formation of memory and thus also stores negative and positive associations of stimuli. "Specifically, the activity of the hippocampus could reflect how rewarding a touch was in the experiment," explains Maier. More traumatized participants might find a slow and thus more emotionally charged touch less pleasant.

In addition, the scientists investigated the social distance. The participants were asked to walk up to a person they did not know and to stop when the distance was just about perceived as pleasant. It was significantly larger in more severely traumatized people - on average by twelve centimeters.

Potential for new therapies

"The results show that the perception and sensory processing of people with traumatic childhood experiences have changed," says Scheele, summarizing the results. Touching is less comforting compared to people without maltreatment experience. As control analyses show, it is not the concomitant diseases such as depression or anxiety attacks that are responsible for this, but the traumatization itself. "However, this result may also open up opportunities for new therapies: Supplementary body-based therapies in a safe environment could make it possible to retrain this stimulus processing," suspects Maier. However, this potential would first have to be investigated in more detail in further studies.

Men's empathy for other men who sexually harass women may help explain why they are more likely to blame victims, new research suggests.

The research, based on two studies, compared people's reactions after reading about an incident of sexual harassment.

In the first study, men and women showed equal levels of empathy for the female victim - but men's greater empathy for the male perpetrator explained why they were more likely than women to blame the victim.

The second study was an experiment where people were asked to focus on the man's or the woman's point of view before reading the same information. Both men and women who focused on the male perpetrator's point of view showed greater empathy for him and blamed the female victim more.

The researchers, from the universities of Exeter, Queensland and Bath, say their findings highlight a dark side to empathy.

"Despite movements such as #MeToo, women still fear negative consequences of making a sexual harassment complaint," said Dr Renata Bongiorno, of the University of Exeter, who led the research.

"Many women encounter victim-blaming attitudes when they do, especially from men.

"In our research, victim blaming wasn't high overall - but consistent with past research it was higher in men than in women on average.

"It is widely assumed that a lack of empathy for female victims explains why people blame them, but we actually found that empathy for the male sexual harasser was a more consistent explanation of variability in victim blame.

"Media reports of sexual harassment - especially involving male perpetrators - often focus on their point of view and the potential damage to their lives for being outed as a sexual harasser," Dr Bongiorno added.

"Our findings point to the damaging consequences of that focus for female victims.

"To improve responding, everyone but especially men, should be mindful that their empathy for a male sexual harasser can increase their likelihood of blaming women for being sexually harassed.

"And victim blame continues to make it very difficult for women who are sexually harassed to come forward and get a fair hearing when they do."

Tropical Storm Krosa continued to erode after it moved into the Sea of Japan and satellite data showed it as a ragged and shapeless storm on August 16, 2019.

The center of Tropical Storm Krosa's circulation was difficult to pinpoint in the Aug. 16 visible image from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard the NOAA-20 satellite. NOAA-20 passed over the Sea of Japan at 12:12 a.m. EDT (0412 UTC) and the VIIRS instrument provided a view of the shapeless storm. The bulk of clouds associated with the storm was north of the center.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center or JTWC issued their final bulletin on Krosa at 0300 UTC on Aug. 16 (11 p.m. EDT on Aug. 15). At that time Tropical Storm Krosa was located near 39.4 degrees north latitude and 134.9 east longitude, about 296 miles west-southwest of Misawa, Japan. Krosa was moving to the north-northeast and had maximum sustained winds 35 knots (40 mph).

During this time Krosa was becoming extra-tropical. That means that a tropical cyclone has lost its "tropical" characteristics. The National Hurricane Center defines "extra-tropical" as a transition that implies both poleward displacement (meaning it moves toward the north or south pole) of the cyclone and the conversion of the cyclone's primary energy source from the release of latent heat of condensation to baroclinic (the temperature contrast between warm and cold air masses) processes. It is important to note that cyclones can become extratropical and retain winds of hurricane or tropical storm force.

Krosa is veering northeast and will become fully extra-tropical during the day on Aug. 16.

New Rochelle, NY, August 15, 2019--New evidence continues to drive the evolution of guideline recommendations for the medical management of patients with severe traumatic brain injury (TBI). A comprehensive look at how the four editions of the Brain Trauma Foundation guidelines for managing severe TBI have become a global standard for treating patients and key challenges and goals for the future are featured in an article published in Journal of Neurotrauma, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. Click here to read the full-text article on the Journal of Neurotrauma website through September 15, 2019.

"Evolution of Evidence and Guideline Recommendations for the Medical Management of Severe Traumatic Brain Injury" was coauthored by Victor Volovici, Erasmus MC Rotterdam (The Netherlands) and colleagues from Erasmus MC Rotterdam, Leiden University Medical Center (The Netherlands), and Antwerp University Hospital and University of Antwerp (Belgium). The authors call for the TBI research community to generate more high-quality evidence. The growing evidence base then needs to be responsibly translated into clinically applicable recommendations that will benefit patients.

"This paper provides an excellent look at the continuing refinement of our processes for evaluating published evidence and then incorporating that evidence into clinical guidelines," said Alex Valadka, Deputy Editor of Journal of Neurotrauma. "It's also important to note that recommendations based on the strongest evidence withstand the test of time to a greater extent than recommendations based on lower-quality studies. This work is of interest to anyone who uses clinical guidelines for patient care, research, education, quality improvement, or creation of policies and procedures."