Earth

The UN's Sustainable Development Goal 7 (SDG 7) aims to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable, and modern energy for all by 2030. Access to electricity services is of course a key priority under this goal, particularly due to the strong interconnections it has with other development objectives. Sub-Saharan Africa remains the region with the largest electricity access deficit in the world with nine out of ten people living without electricity in 2030 projected to be in this region, despite progress in terms of expanding access to electricity. Planning for expanding electricity infrastructure and prioritizing financial support in sub-Saharan Africa requires up-to-date information on the status of electricity access and use at sub-national scales. Official statistics for tracking and monitoring developmental indicators, however, usually only tell a very limited story, and care is needed to interpret them. Achieving this ambitious goal globally, therefore presents significant challenges.

In their study published in the journal Scientific Data, researchers from IIASA and the Future Energy Program at the Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) in Italy, examined the precision with which nighttime satellite images can be converted into spatially detailed maps of electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa. They further investigated whether remotely sensed data on light intensity could provide a proxy for electricity access quality beyond a binary measure of access and if it could help to identify regions that lack access to electricity, as well as hotspots where progress in terms of providing access is stalled or regressing. The team's satellite derived dataset was able to provide an accurate prediction of not only where people have access to electricity and where not, but their measure of light intensity could also provide an accurate proxy for the amount of residential electricity consumption in a particular area.

"We were able to use our derived indicators to track, within each country, what progress with electricity access has been over the last five years and where critical hotspots of people without access or high latent electricity demand remain," explains Giacomo Falchetta, a researcher at FEEM and lead author of the study. "The results revealed large inequalities in progress towards universal access to electricity, both across and within nations in the region."

According to the researchers, some countries show robust improvement in electricity access in just five years, while others show a stagnant or even deteriorating situation, particularly in areas where population growth is taking place at a faster rate than provision of access to electricity. While progress in terms of expanding electricity infrastructure in urban areas has generally been more rapid than in rural areas, the results indicate that some urban areas still experience electricity access deficits. These trends suggest that changes in the status of electricity access are potentially closely related to internal as well as international migration flows on the African continent and beyond. Moreover, the study provides an open-access, updatable, replicable proof-of-concept of how satellite derived data can be used to track and monitor progress towards development objectives like universal electricity access. It can aid in planning and prioritizing support for infrastructure expansion, and it may also substantially lower public costs for data collection.

The published open access dataset that resulted from this work can support both policymakers and private firms in their investment decisions to prioritize financial support and plan electricity infrastructure expansion projects in the region. The dataset can of course also be used by the research community for electrification modeling and poverty and vulnerability assessments, and it can raise awareness among civil society on the issue of electricity access in sub-Saharan Africa.

"Our dataset provides a useful complement that is easily updatable and can help assess progress with providing electricity access, as well as inequalities in electricity use at a fine sub-national scale. This can be an invaluable input to efforts aimed at meeting SDG7," concludes study coauthor Shonali Pachauri, a researcher with the IIASA Energy Program.

A dynamic interface to browse and download the data can be accessed on the IIASA website.

Cancer is a leading cause of death in ageing populations. Despite decades of research, cancer treatments are still inefficient and have unacceptable side effects that continue to prompt an urgent need for new approaches to prevention and treatment. Uncovering novel anti-cancer mechanisms would fill current knowledge gaps and help meet this need.

Bats are unusual mammals with the ability to fly and have long lifespans. In addition, bats have a low incidence of cancer, but the reason for this has so far remained unclear.

"Our team investigated the unique anti-cancer mechanisms in bats and found that exposure to toxic drugs caused significantly less DNA damage in bat cells than human cells due to the presence of the important ABCB1 protein," said Associate Professor Koji Itahana, from Duke-NUS' Cancer and Stem Cell Biology Programme, senior author of the study.

DNA damage in cells can contribute to cancer through multiple mechanisms. The researchers discovered that ABCB1, an important protein that pumps many foreign substances out of cells, is present in significantly larger amounts in various types of cells derived from bats compared to those from humans. Furthermore, decreased drug accumulation in cells due to greater amounts of ABCB1 was found across multiple bat species. The investigations also provided evidence that blocking ABCB1 in bat cells triggered the accumulation of toxic chemicals, causing DNA damage and cell death.

"Our findings reveal that the transportation of toxic drugs out of the system protects bat cells from DNA damage, which may contribute to their low cancer incidence. This discovery can provide important insights into cancer biology that can be translated into future therapies for humans," added Professor Wang Linfa, co-corresponding author of the study and Director of the Emerging Infectious Diseases Programme at Duke-NUS.

Professor Patrick Casey, Senior Vice Dean of Research at Duke-NUS, commented, "It is estimated that one in every four to five people in Singapore may develop cancer in their lifetime, and the number of people living with cancer will continue to increase. This important study exemplifies how the cross-fertilisation of ideas and collaboration among researchers with different specialisations can yield important insights that may lead to future strategies to prevent or treat cancer."

Drug resistance arising from chemotherapy is still one of the main reasons for cancer recurrence and patient death. Tumours acquire elevated amounts of the ABCB1 protein in response to prolonged chemotherapy, which is one of the major causes of drug resistance. The research team is currently working on developing more effective and less toxic drugs for ABCB1, which could be used to overcome drug resistance in human cancer.

In a world first, scientists have found a new way to direct stem cells to heart tissue. The findings, led by researchers at the University of Bristol and published in Chemical Science, could radically improve the treatment for cardiovascular disease, which causes more than a quarter of all deaths in the UK (1).

To date, trials using stem cells, which are taken and grown from the patient or donor and injected into the patient's heart to regenerate damaged tissue, have produced promising results.

However, while these next generation cell therapies are on the horizon, significant challenges associated with the distribution of the stem cells have remained. High blood flow in the heart combined with various 'tissue sinks', that circulating cells come into contact with, means the majority of the stem cells end up in the lungs and spleen.

Now, researchers from Bristol's School of Cellular and Molecular Medicine have found a way to overcome this by modifying stem cells with a special protein so they 'home' to heart tissue.

Dr Adam Perriman, the study's lead author, Associate Professor in Biomaterials, UKRI Future Leaders Fellow and founder of the cell therapy technology company CytoSeek, explained: "With regenerative cell therapies, where you are trying to treat someone after a heart attack, the cells rarely go to where you want them to go. Our aim is to use this technology to re-engineer the membrane of cells, so that when they're injected, they'll home to specific tissues of our choice.

"We know that some bacterial cells contain properties that enable them to detect and 'home' to diseased tissue. For example, the oral bacterial found in our mouths can occasionally cause strep throat. If it enters the blood stream it can 'home' to damaged tissue in the heart causing infective endocarditis. Our aim was to replicate the homing ability of bacteria cells and apply it to stem cells."

The team developed the technology by looking at how bacterial cells use a protein called an adhesin to 'home' to heart tissue. Using this theory, the researchers were able to produce an artificial cell membrane binding version of the adhesin that could be 'painted' on the outside of the stem cells. In an animal model, the team were able to demonstrate that this new cell modification technique worked by directing stem cells to the heart in a mouse.

Dr Perriman added: "Our findings demonstrate that the cardiac homing properties of infectious bacteria can be transferred to human stem cells. Significantly, we show in a mouse model that the designer adhesin protein spontaneously inserts into the plasma membrane of the stem cells with no cytotoxity, and then directs the modified cells to the heart after transplant. To our knowledge, this is the first time that the targeting properties of infectious bacteria have been transferred to mammalian cells.

"This new technique carries enormous potential for the seven million people currently living with heart disease in the UK."

Dr Perriman's UKRI Future Leaders fellowship is based on research funded by the Elizabeth Blackwell Institute-funded Catalyst project. He is also a member of the University's BrisSynBio, a multi-disciplinary research centre part of the Bristol BioDesign Institute, that focuses on the biomolecular design and engineering aspects of synthetic biology.

Dr Perriman is well-known for his pioneering research on the construction and study of novel synthetic biomolecular systems for regenerative engineering.

A particularly aggressive, metastasizing form of cancer, HER2-positive breast cancer, may be treated with nanoscopic particles "imprinted" with specific binding sites for the receptor molecule HER2. As reported by Chinese researchers in the journal Angewandte Chemie, the selective binding of the nanoparticles to HER2 significantly inhibits multiplication of the tumor cells.

Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women and one of the leading causes of death. About 20 to 30 % of breast cancer cases involve the very poorly treatable HER2-positive variety. HER2 stands for Human Epidermal Growth Factor Receptor 2, a protein that recognizes and binds to a specific growth factor. HER2 spans across the cell membrane: one part protrudes into the interior of the cell; the other is on the cell surface. As soon as a growth factor docks, the extracellular parts of HER2 bind into a heterodimer with a second, closely related HER, such as HER1 or HER3. This triggers a multistep signal cascade within the cell, which is critically involved in processes like cell division, metastasis, and the formation of blood vessels that supply the tumor. HER2-positive tumor cells contain significantly higher concentrations of HER2. One current therapy for early-stage HER2-positive tumors is based on binding an antibody to HER2 to block the dimerization. Researchers led by Zhen Liu at Nanjing University (China) have now developed "molecularly imprinted" biocompatible polymer nanoparticles that recognize HER2 just as specifically as an antibody in order to prevent the dimerization.

Nanoparticles can be molecularly imprinted in that - to simplify - a polymerizable mixture is polymerized into nanospheres in the presence of the (bio)molecules they are supposed to recognize later. The (bio)molecules act as a kind of stamp, leaving nanoscopic "imprints" in the spheres. These then perfectly fit the molecules they were imprinted with and bind to them specifically. In contrast to antibodies, the nanospheres are easy and inexpensive to produce and are chemically stable.

For the imprinting process, the researchers use a special method (boronate affinity controllable oriented surface imprinting) that is particularly controllable and makes it possible to imprint using chains of sugar building blocks (glycans) as templates. Many proteins contain specific "sugar chains". These are unique, like a protein fingerprint. The researchers used this kind of glycan from the extracellular end of the HER2 proteins as their "stamp". This allowed them to produce imprinted nanoparticles that specifically recognize HER2 and selectively bind to it, inhibiting the dimerization. They were thus able to significantly reduce the multiplication of tumor cells in vitro and the growth of tumors in mice. In contrast, healthy cells were essentially unaffected.

Philadelphia, July 3, 2019 - Treatment of psychosis can be targeted to a specific genetic mutation in patients with psychotic disorders, according to a study in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier. The study provides a proof-of-principle demonstration that treatments can be tailored to a specific genotype, rather than diagnosis, to relieve symptoms. The findings also link an individual structural mutation to the underlying biology of psychosis and treatment response.

Genetic mutations that have large effects on psychiatric disease risk are rare, with some known to occur in only one or a few families, like the mutation described in the study led by Deborah L. Levy, PhD, McLean Hospital, a psychiatric affiliate of Harvard Medical School, Cambridge, MA, USA. The mutation was a copy number variant (CNV) in which the two patients in the study had four, instead of the usual two, copies of the GLDC gene. The authors hypothesized that this mutation might reduce brain glycine, a key factor for proper glutamatergic functioning, which is disrupted in schizophrenia.

"The compelling aspect is that this CNV can be linked to pathophysiology, and, as the new study shows, to treatment," said Dr. Levy.

The researchers assessed whether this CNV could help guide treatment decisions by targeting the mutation to normalize its effects, a "genotype first" approach. "This approach contrasts with the standard clinical practice of treating individuals on the basis of clinical symptoms or diagnosis independent of specific genetic variants," said Dr. Levy.

Addition of agents to restore glutamate function, glycine or D-cycloserine, to the patients' standard medications improved psychotic symptoms in both patients beyond their usual treatment regimens. Each of the patients also saw some reductions in other symptoms, including mood symptoms and negative symptoms of schizophrenia, including enhanced emotional engagement and less social withdrawal.

"It is important to note that the two subjects studied here bore little clinical resemblance, with distinctly different symptom burdens, and highly dissimilar courses of illness," noted first author J. Alexander Bodkin, MD, McLean Hospital. This suggests that response to the treatment arose from targeting a specific biological process, rather than clinical diagnosis per se.

"Most studies of rare structural variants will have very small sample sizes, complicating the usual approach to statistical analysis. Nevertheless, because the effects of a targeted treatment can be large, it is important to prioritize opportunities to study even small groups of patients who may benefit," observed author Charity J. Morgan, University of Alabama, Birmingham, AL, USA.

"Psychiatry is in the very early days of precision medicine, i.e., the effort to match particular patients to the specific treatments that they need. In their article, Dr. Levy and her colleagues provide a wonderful example of this approach," said John Krystal, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry. "The substances that they administered, glycine and D-cycloserine, do not produce noticeable behavioral effects in healthy people or in patients with psychotic disorders. However, because these substances replaced a deficient co-factor involved in neural communication in these particular individuals, their administration alleviated mood and psychosis symptoms. As in these cases, we expect psychiatry to develop more instances where specific treatments can be developed to meet the needs of particular groups of patients."

Hesperos Inc., pioneers of the "human-on-a-chip" in vitro system has announced the use of its innovative multi-organ model to successfully measure the concentration and metabolism of two known cardiotoxic small molecules over time, to accurately describe the drug behavior and toxic effects in vivo. The findings further support the potential of body-on-a-chip systems to transform the drug discovery process.

In a study published in Nature Scientific Reports, in collaboration with AstraZeneca, Hesperos described how they used a pumpless heart model and a heart:liver system to evaluate the temporal pharmacokinetic/pharmacodynamic (PKPD) relationship for terfenadine, an antihistamine that was banned due to toxic cardiac effects, as well as determine its mechanism of toxicity.

The study found there was a time-dependent, drug-induced response in the heart model. Further experiments were conducted, adding a metabolically competent liver module to the Hesperos Human-on-a-Chip® system to observe what happened when terfenadine was converted to fexofenadine. By doing so, the researchers were able to determine the driver of the pharmacodynamic (PD) effect and develop a mathematical model to predict the effect of terfenadine in preclinical species. This is the first time an in vitro human-on-a-chip system has been shown to predict in vivo outcomes, which could be used to predict clinical trial outcomes in the future.

"The ability to examine PKPD relationships in vitro would enable us to understand compound behavior prior to in vivo testing, offering significant cost and time savings," said Dr. Shuler, President and CEO, Hesperos, Inc and Professor Emeritus, Cornell University. "We are excited about the potential of this technology to help us ensure that potential new drug candidates have a higher probability of success during the clinical trial process."

Understanding the inter-relationship between pharmacokinetics (PK), the drug's time course for absorption, distribution, metabolism and excretion, and PD, the biological effect of a drug, is crucial in drug discovery and development. Scientists have learned that the maximum drug effect is not always driven by the peak drug concentration. In some cases, time is a critical factor influencing drug effect, but often this concentration-effect-time relationship only comes to light during the advanced stages of the preclinical program. In addition, often the data cannot be reliably extrapolated to humans.

"It is costly and time consuming to discover that potential drug candidates may have poor therapeutic qualities preventing their onward progression," said James Hickman, Chief Scientist at Hesperos and Professor at the University of Central Florida. "Being able to define this during early drug discovery will be a valuable contribution to the optimization of potential new drug candidates."

As demonstrated with the terfenadine experiment, the PKPD modelling approach was critical for understanding both the flux of compound between compartments as well as the resulting PD response in the context of dynamic exposure profiles of both parent and metabolite, as indicated by Dr. Shuler.

In order to test the viability of their system in a real-world drug discovery setting, the Hesperos team collaborated with scientists at AstraZeneca, to test one of their failed small molecules, known to have a CV risk.

One of the main measurements used to assess the electrical properties of the heart is the QT interval, which approximates the time taken from when the cardiac ventricles start to contract to when they finish relaxing. Prolongation of the QT interval on the electrocardiogram can lead to a fatal arrhythmia known as Torsade de Pointes. Consequently, it is a mandatory requirement prior to first-in-human administration of potential new drug candidates that their ability to inhibit the hERG channel (a biomarker for QT prolongation) is investigated.

In the case of the AstraZeneca molecule, the molecule was assessed for hERG inhibition early on, and it was concluded to have a low potential to cause in vivo QT prolongation up to 100 μM. In later pre-clinical testing, the QT interval increased by 22% at a concentration of just 3 μM. Subsequent investigations found that a major metabolite was responsible. Hesperos was able to detect a clear PD effect at concentrations above 3 μM and worked to determine the mechanism of toxicity of the molecule.

The ability of these systems to assess cardiac function non-invasively in the presence of both parent molecule and metabolite over time, using multiplexed and repeat drug dosing regimes, provides an opportunity to run long-term studies for chronic administration of drugs to study their potential toxic effects.

Hesperos, Inc. is the first company spun out from the Tissue Chip Program at NCATS (National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences), which was established in 2011 to address the long timelines, steep costs and high failure rates associated with the drug development process. Hesperos currently is funded through NCATS' Small Business Innovation Research program to undertake these studies and make tissue chips technology available as a service based company.

"The application of tissue chip technology in drug testing can lead to advances in predicting the potential effects of candidate medicines in people," said Danilo Tagle, Ph.D., associate director for special initiatives at NCATS.

Global warming is a serious threat to the planet and the living beings. One of the main cause of global warming is the increase in the atmospheric CO2 level. The main source of this CO2 is from the burning of fossil fuels in our daily lives (electricity, vehicles, industry and many more).

Researchers at TIFR have developed the solution phase synthesis of Dendritic Plasmonic Colloidosomes (DPCs) with varying interparticle distances between the gold Nanoparticles (NPs) using a cycle-by-cycle growth approach by optimizing the nucleation-growth step. These DPCs absorbed the entire visible and near-infrared region of solar light, due to interparticle plasmonic coupling as well as the heterogeneity in the Au NP sizes, which transformed golden gold material to black gold.

Black (nano)gold was able to catalyze CO2 to methane (fuel) conversion at atmospheric pressure and temperature, using solar energy. They also observed the significant effect of the plasmonic hotspots on the performance of these DPCs for the purification of seawater to drinkable water via steam generation, temperature jump assisted protein unfolding, oxidation of cinnamyl alcohol using pure oxygen as the oxidant, and hydrosilylation of aldehydes.

This was attributed to varying interparticle distances and particle sizes in these DPCs. The results indicate the synergistic effects of EM and thermal hotspots as well as hot electrons on DPCs performance. Thus, DPCs catalysts can effectively be utilized as Vis-NIR light photo-catalysts, and the design of new plasmonic nanocatalysts for a wide range of other chemical reactions may be possible using the concept of plasmonic coupling.

Raman thermometry and SERS (Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy) provided information about the thermal and electromagnetic hotspots and local temperatures which was found to be dependent on the interparticle plasmonic coupling. The spatial distribution of the localized surface plasmon modes by STEM-EELS plasmon mapping confirmed the role of the interparticle distances in the SPR (Surface Plasmon Resonance) of the material.

Thus, in this work, by using the techniques of nanotechnology, the researchers transformed golden gold to black gold, by changing the size and gaps between gold nanoparticles. Similar to the real trees, which use CO2, sunlight and water to produce food, the developed black gold acts like an artificial tree that uses CO2, sunlight and water to produce fuel, which can be used to run our cars. Notably, black gold can also be used to convert sea water into drinkable water using the heat that black gold generates after it captures sunlight.

This work is a way forward to develop "Artificial Trees" which capture and convert CO2 to fuel and useful chemicals. Although at this stage, the production rate of fuel is low, in coming years, these challenges can be resolved. We may be able to convert CO2 to fuel using sunlight at atmospheric condition, at a commercially viable scale and CO2 may then become our main source of clean energy.

New research published in the European Journal of Neurology indicates that an active sexual life is linked with lower disability and better quality of life in men with early Parkinson's disease.

The analysis included a subgroup of 355 patients from the PRIAMO (PaRkinson dIseAse non MOtor symptoms) study, who were followed for two years.

The findings should prompt specialists who treat patients with Parkinson's disease to periodically inquiry about their patients' sexual life. Additional studies are needed to confirm the study's findings in men and to explore whether such a relationship occurs in women with Parkinson's disease.

Chief executives who speak out on political issues and take a principled stance are increasingly sought out by jobseekers who believe such behaviour signals fair treatment, respect for employees, and a more responsible vision beyond nurturing the bottom line, new research shows.

People are over 20% more likely to want to work for a company where the CEO takes a humanistic stance on a political issue unrelated to their business, new research by the University of Bath's School of Management, Audencia Business School in France, and London's Imperial College, shows.

This effect is true, regardless of age, education, gender of the job seeker or their political orientation - and the jobseeker does not need to agree with the CEO's views.

"We had expected people to be attracted to principled, politically active business leaders but we were surprised to find that graduates did not necessarily need to share their opinions to find them appealing," said Andrew Crane, Professor of Business and Society at the University of Bath School of Management, one of the three authors of the study.

"If we take an issue like gun control, people are much more likely to want to work for a company when the CEO stands up for greater gun control, regardless of whether the jobseekers themselves are pro- or anti-gun control. We see exactly the same effect for other issues like same-sex marriage and immigration. Employees want their CEOs to take the more liberal, humanistic stand whatever their own position might be. It seems CEO principles are counting for more and more in today's jobs market," Crane said.

Chief executives around the globe have become increasingly vocal about social and political issues in recent years. Last month Qantas Chief Executive Alan Joyce - who has spoken out on indigenous rights, same-sex marriage and gender equality - vowed to continue campaigning on social issues and maintains it has improved the Qantas brand.

Many in the U.S. have been galvanised particularly by President Donald Trump's hardline stance on immigration, including Tim Cook of Apple. And ethical practice has been brought into sharp focus globally by a raft of corporate issues, arguably led by the Facebook data scandal and that company's response.

For many years managerial convention has been to shy away from taking a principled stand on current affairs and politics, fearful of alienating customers, key clients, governments or shareholders. Crane believes that is now changing for good and CEOs need to take heed of this change to ensure they continue to attract top candidates.

Crane said there was limited knowledge about the impact a CEO might personally have on attracting talent to a company. He chose to conduct the study in the U.S. because of the recent increase in political activism by CEOs there.

But the study, by Crane, Professor Christian Voegtlin of Audencia Business School in Nantes, France, and Dr. Laura Noval from Imperial College showed that not all activism will appeal to prospective employees - and principles might prove costly if they are not deemed the 'right' principles.

"Interestingly, our findings show that the positive effect of CEO activism disappears if the CEO becomes politically active to oppose humanistic values, such as when leaders speak up against same-sex marriage," said Voegtlin.

"People are more likely to want to work for a company with a CEO that takes no stand whatsoever than one where he or she comes out against such issues. It seems that when CEOs speak up, they should speak up for humanistic values if they want to have a positive spill-over effect for their company," Voegtlin said.

The study also found the effect was more pronounced when a female CEO engaged in political activism. Crane said gender stereotyping - that a female management style is more often associated with attributes such as care or concern for others - might be a significant factor in attracting potential employees.

"Our research suggests people perceive such activism as more congruent with the role of a chief executive officer when the CEO is a woman. There is an assumption that potential employees will implicitly expect women leaders to be more likely to speak up for humanistic values," he said.

Regardless of gender, CEO behaviour was found to play a powerful part in jobseekers' perceptions - and expectations - of a company.

"Potential employees expect goodwill from companies that are run by a CEO openly engaging in humanistic values and infer from this signal that employees at that company are treated fairly and with respect," Crane said, adding that pride and social status might be attached to being associated with a company doing the 'right thing'.

Crane said jobseekers increasingly were looking to CEOs and companies to fulfil social responsibilities, as well as deliver the bottom line. Ultimately, however, it will not be enough to write 'CEO activism' into the role profile alongside tough financial performance targets. Such activist behaviour must be authentic.

"If the stand is just talk without action, then employees will see through this and it could easily breed discontent. Taking a genuine political stand that leads to tangible action is critical," Crane said.

Teenagers with large amounts of grey matter in the brain at age 14 are more likely to increase their alcohol use over the next five years, according to a whole brain imaging study reported today in eLife.

The findings may help scientists understand what makes some teens more vulnerable to developing alcohol use disorders. They could also help identify teens who are at increased risk of excessive drinking and enable early interventions to curb alcohol use.

"Adolescence is a critically vulnerable time for the development of alcohol drinking habits that may lead to considerable consequences later in life, including alcohol addiction ," says lead author Simone Kuehn, Professor of Neural Plasticity at the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, and Group Leader at the Center for Lifespan Psychology, Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Germany. "During this period, teens undergo a critical period of brain development and adopt many new behaviours, making it an important time to intervene."

Previous studies have suggested that differences in certain parts of the brain in early adolescence may make some young people more vulnerable to developing addictions. Kuehn and her colleagues went a step further by using structural magnetic resonance imaging to look for differences throughout the entire brain that might predict increasing teen alcohol use over the next five years.

They looked at detailed brain images of 1,814 healthy 14-year-olds participating in the IMAGEN project, a large European study of adolescents, and compared that to the participants' self-reported drinking habits at ages 14, 16 or 17, and 19. They used computers to break the images into small 3D cubes called voxels and built models based on this data to predict changes in the teens' drinking behaviour over time.

The models revealed that teens with more grey matter in the caudate nucleus, the region of the brain involved with learning, and the left cerebellum, which is associated with thinking and movement, had a higher chance of increasing their drinking habits over time.

Similar brain differences in adolescents have been linked to the development of psychiatric disorders later in life, which reinforces the idea that structural differences in the brain may contribute to both psychiatric and substance use disorders. But the cause of these differences isn't yet clear. However, Kuehn notes that the amount of grey matter in the brain grows through childhood and then peaks during adolescence when unnecessary brain connections are pruned away.

"Our results may reflect a slowing down of this pruning activity or an overproduction of brain connections," Kuehn concludes. "Future research involving multiple neuroimaging techniques will be needed to help answer this question."

New to science species of Australian jumping spider was named after Hamburg-born fashion icon Karl Lagerfeld (1933-2019) after the arachnid reminded its discoverers of the designer. Intrigued by its distinct 'downplayed' black-and-white colours, the Hamburg-Brisbane-Melbourne team likened the spider's appearance to Lagerfeld's trademark style: his white hair and Kent collar that contrasted with the black sunglasses and gloves.

Thus, the curious species, now officially listed under the name Jotus karllagerfeldiI was described in the open-access journal Evolutionary Systematics by Dr Danilo Harms of the Center for Natural History of the University of Hamburg (CeNak), Dr Barbara Baehr, Queensland Museum (Brisbane, Australia) and Joseph Schubert, Monash University (Melbourne).

When compared with other members in the 'brushed' jumping spider genus Jotus, the novel species clearly stands out due to its black-and-white legs and tactile organs (pedipalps), whereas the typical representative of this group demonstrates striking red or blue colours.

"The animal reminded us with its colours of the reduced style of Karl Lagerfeld. For example, we associate the black leg links with the gloves he always wore", Danilo Harms explains.

In fact, what was to be now commonly referred to as Karl Lagerfeld's Jumping Spider was identified amongst specimens in the Godeffroy Collection. Kept at CeNak, the historical collection was originally compiled by the inquisitive and wealthy tradesman from Hamburg Johann Cesar Godeffroy, who financed several expeditions to Australia back in the 19th century. Here, the research team identified another link between Australia, Godeffroy, Hamburg and Jotus karllagerfeldi.

Besides the tiny (4 to 5 mm) arachnid, whose pedipalps resemble a white Kent collar, the scientists describe another seven new to science species and add them to the same genus. Two of those, Jotus fortiniae and Jotus newtoni, were also named after inspirational figures for their hard work and creativity: educator, molecular biologist and science communicator Dr Ellen Fortini (Perth College, Western Australia) and keen naturalist and photographer Mark Newton. All novel species were found either in the Godeffroy Collection or amongst the jumping spiders housed at Queensland Museum.

Surprisingly, even though the genus Jotus comprises numerous species found all over Australia, there is not much known about these spiders. An interesting feature, according to the scientists behind the present study, are the huge telescopic eyes, which allow for spatial vision. The Jotus species need this ability in foraging, since they do not weave webs, but rather hunt in the open. Thus, they have evolved into extremely fast and agile hunters, capable of jumping short distances.

Curiously, back in 2017, the team of Barbara and Danilo, joined by Dr Robert Raven from Queensland Museum, described another previously unknown, yet fascinating species: a water-adapted spider, whose sudden emergence at the coastline of Australia's "Sunshine State" of Queensland during low tide in January brought up the association with reggae legend Bob Marley and his song "High Tide or Low Tide". The species, scientifically known as Desis bobmarleyi, was also published in Evolutionary Systematics.

Visual motion is an important source of information for separating objects from their backgrounds.

A spider camouflaged against a branch, for instance, immediately loses its invisibility once it starts moving. A friend you're trying to spot in a crowded airport terminal is more distinguishable once she begins waving her hands.

While the process of separating an object from a background is seemingly effortless, researchers don't know how our visual system manages to rapidly pick out and segregate moving objects from their backgrounds.

According to new research from scientists at the University of Rochester, one reason human beings are good at discerning smaller moving objects in the foreground is that the brain becomes desensitized to the motion in the larger background. Conversely, when a person's brain is more sensitive to background motion, the negative trade-off is that she will be less sensitive to smaller foreground objects. The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, could lead to new training programs for elderly adults and patients with conditions such as schizophrenia, which has been linked to weaker motion segregation.

"The human brain cannot possibly process all of the information around us," says Duje Tadin, a professor of brain and cognitive sciences at Rochester and the lead author of the study. "Being less sensitive to things that are less important makes the brain more efficient and faster at accomplishing the more important tasks."

Take driving for instance. As the background scenery whizzes by, it is imperative that a driver see and avoid cars, pedestrians, and other objects on the road.

There are two basic ways the brain can distinguish such objects from moving backgrounds. It can enhance the objects that matter; or, it can suppress the background, and, by virtue of this suppression, enhance the objects. The latter is "the more efficient option," Tadin says. "Think about trying to have a conversation in a room with high background noise. It is more effective to find a way to turn off the noise than it is to just try speaking more loudly."

While these strategies are not the only ones the brain uses to highlight moving objects--attention is another factor, for instance--previous research from Tadin's lab found a link between IQ and an ability to suppress background motion. The researchers speculated that in healthy, young people, a region in the brain called the middle temporal visual area (MT) is responsible for this suppression.

In order to test people's ability to identify moving objects on a moving background, the researchers showed study participants moving textured patterns. Within the textured background, there was a smaller patterned object moving in the direction opposite from the background. The participants were instructed to report either the location or the shape of the smaller patterned object.

The researchers found that younger adults were better at seeing smaller moving objects in the foreground and worse at seeing background motion. Older adults--participants aged 65 and above--were the opposite. They were poorer at seeing the smaller moving objects because they had a heightened awareness of the backdrop against which the objects moved. Younger adults took on average 20 milliseconds to pick out the moving objects, and older adults took about 30 milliseconds.

While both groups were efficient at the task, taking only a fraction of a second to detect the movement of the object against the background, "those extra milliseconds could make a big difference," says Woon Ju Park, a former postdoctoral associate in Tadin's lab and currently a research associate at the University of Washington. "Think about things that matter for your survival." A split second could mean the difference between hitting or avoiding a pedestrian; or it could be just enough time to lose sight of a rambunctious child. In the case of the animal world, it could mean the difference between life and death.

"Think of an animal in the wild," Park says. "If it sees a moving object, that could either be lunch for the animal or something that could eat that animal for lunch. Animals are really good at camouflage, but even the best camouflage pulls apart with motion."

The researchers speculate that older adults have impaired motion segregation because as people age, their vision changes and becomes "noisier." As an adaptive mechanism, the aging brain then might prioritize integrating motion information in general over suppressing and segmenting background from foreground. The results also suggest that people with psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia--associated with similar "noisier" visual systems--might also experience the trade-off between integration and segregation.

Although the research shows that the ability to detect moving objects against a moving background decreases with age, the research also offers some good news for older adults.

"With training, we can make older adults be more like younger adults," Tadin says.

The researchers found that older adults could train their brains to process motion more like younger adults by practicing visual segmentation of moving objects. Older participants performed the study task for four weeks, with four sessions per week, and became quicker at the task, narrowing the gap in performance with their younger counterparts. Surprisingly, the researchers found, the older participants who underwent training did not in fact get better at seeing the smaller moving object; their ability to see the object was just as good as it was at the beginning of the training. What changed with training was that the older adults became less sensitive to the background motion, just like younger adults.

"Most of the time when you train something in the brain, things get better," Tadin says. "This is a case where, with training, you get better at seeing objects, while at the same time get worse at seeing the background. This showed us that these two things are really integrally connected, because when we affected one, the other one also changed."

People of all ages tend to misjudge the strength of other people's emotions based on an egocentric bias, according to a new study by Associate Professor Hajimu Hayashi, Kobe University Graduate School of Human Development and Environment. The findings were published on June 1 in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

Even if the end result is the same, the recipient of an action usually responds with stronger emotions if the actions are intentional rather than accidental. For example, if we compare a scenario in which B intentionally destroyed A's treasured possession in front of A with a scenario in which B accidentally destroyed the possession, we assume that A is sadder if the action was intentional. In this case A sees B's actions, so A knows B's intentions. If A did not know B's intentions, A would feel the same amount of sadness in both cases. But if we as a third party judge that A is sadder if B intentionally destroyed A's possession, we are interpreting another person's emotions based on knowledge that only we have (the intentions of B), and egocentric bias is taking place.

This study looked at whether egocentric bias occurs in emotional understanding, and potential differences based on age and positive or negative contexts. The participants were 106 children age 8-9, 108 children age 11-12, 122 children age 15-16, and 154 adults.

The research team prepared four pairs of stories. Two pairs featured negative context in which the protagonists were harmed by the actors and felt sad, and the other two pairs featured positive contexts in which the protagonists were helped by the actors and felt happy. The only difference between each pair of scenarios was whether the actions were intentional or accidental (see Figure 1).

Two conditions were prepared in terms of the knowledge or ignorance of the protagonists. In the knowledge condition, the protagonists in both stories watched the actors and therefore knew that the actors intentionally or accidentally harmed or helped. In the ignorance condition, the protagonists in both stories did not watch the actors and therefore did not know their intentions. After some fact-checking questions, the researchers quizzed the participants with questions about emotional understanding, such as "Which girl is sadder at the end of each story?"

Scores were assigned based on the results of these questions, and they calculated average scores for two pairs of the stories in each of the negative and the positive contexts (Figure 2).

+1: The participant judged that the protagonist was sadder when the harm was intentional (negative context) or happier when the help was intentional (positive context)

-1: The participant judged that the protagonist was sadder when the harm was accidental (negative context), or happier when the help was accidental (positive context)

0: The participant judged that both protagonists are equally sad (negative context), or equally happy (positive context)

Average scores in the knowledge condition (in which the protagonists were aware of the actors' intentions) were significantly greater than 0 for all age groups in both contexts (Figure 2 green), confirming a general trend to judge the feelings of the recipient to be stronger when the actions are intentional. In the ignorance condition (in which the protagonists were ignorant of the actors' intentions), they should feel the same whether the action is accidental or intentional, so logically the average scores should be 0. However, the average scores were significantly greater than 0 for all age groups in both contexts (Figure 2 pink), revealing that some participants interpret the protagonists' emotions based on information that the protagonists do not possess. This shows that people of any age may demonstrate an egocentric bias when interpreting the feelings of others, although this bias is stronger in younger children. There was no significant difference between the score for negative and positive contexts, so the type of emotion does not affect the level of bias.

Understanding the emotions of others is the key to social behaviors such as smooth communication and helping others. This study reveals that our understanding of the strength of other people's emotions can be distorted by the information we possess. This may lead to miscommunication and have an effect on actions like offering help and comfort. Let's put ourselves in the position of the actors in this study: if we accidentally harm someone else, we may wrongly assume that his/her feelings of sadness are weaker even if he/she is ignorant of our intention. Quarrels between children over trivial matters may also occur because of this sort of egocentric bias. This bias is particularly strong in children up to elementary school age, so adults can use their awareness of this in education and guidance for child socialization.

When you jump into a lake and hold your head under water, everything sounds different. Apart from the different physiological response of our ears in air and water, this derives from the different sound propagation in water compared to air. Sound travels faster in water, checking in at 1493 m/s, on a comfortable summer day of 25°C. Other liquids have their own sound velocity, like alcohol with 1144 m/s, and helium, if you go to a chilling -269°C for its liquefied state, with 180 m/s.

These liquids are referred to as classical liquids, examples for one of the primary states of matter. But if we cool down that helium a few degrees more, something dramatic happens, it turns into a quantum liquid. This macroscopic display of quantum mechanics is a superfluid, a liquid that flows without friction.

So what do you hear if you make the unfortunate decision to stick your head into this liquid? Surprisingly, you will hear the same sound twice. In addition to the normal sound of a liquid there is the phenomenon of second sound that derives from the quantum nature of this liquid. If someone says something to you while immersed in superfluid helium, you will hear it as first sound first, and then get a second chance to listen when it arrives as second sound, albeit strongly muted. For superfluid helium, second sound is quite a bit slower than first sound, with 25 m/s vs. 250 m/s, between 1 and 2 Kelvin.

While the conventional theory of second sound has been successful for superfluid helium, the rise of Bose-Einstein condensates of ultracold atoms has posed new challenges. A team of scientists led by Ludwig Mathey from the University of Hamburg have put forth a new theory that captures second sound in these quantum liquids, recently published in Physical Review A.

'For superfluid helium, second sound is slower than first sound', explains co-author Vijay Singh, 'but we were amazed to find that this is not necessarily true, that the second pulse can be faster'. A new theoretical approach was needed to capture this. Modern problems require modern solutions, as they say.

'We generalized the Feynman path integral to expand the theory of superfluids describes lead author Ilias Seifie the conceptual advance. While the path integral, brilliantly conceived by Richard Feynman, formulates quantum mechanics as a sum over trajectories, these trajectories themselves are classical. 'We modified what these trajectories look like' continues Seifie, 'in our path integral they contain information about quantum fluctuations.' Imagine a pool noodle that stretches from A to B as a poor man's visualization of a trajectory that enters the Feynman path integral. The cross-section of the noodle is more or less round with a constant diameter along its length. But in the new path integral, the shape of the cross section can vary, it can take elliptical shapes, imagine squeezing the pool noodle together. Fittingly, physicists refer to these quantum mechanical states as squeezed states.

'This approach is widely applicable', explains Ludwig Mathey, 'it can be applied to any method that is based on path integrals.' Indeed, many phenomena at the interface of quantum and classical physics can be imagined to be better understood with this approach. One might just squeeze a bit more insight out of nature with this new framework.

Over the past decades, the idea that all adults should get regularly screened for cancer -- with mammograms, colonoscopies and prostate specific antigen blood tests -- has been conveyed to the public time after time. But current clinical guidelines recommend against screening many older adults, such as those with less than 10 years' life expectancy. For doctors, talking to a patient about the idea that they've "aged out" of cancer screening can be a challenging conversation.

Now, to better inform these conversations, Johns Hopkins researchers have studied the perspectives of both clinicians and older adults on how to communicate about stopping cancer screening. The results of this study were published in the June 2019 issue of The Gerontologist. In a separate study, other Johns Hopkins researchers also show that primary care doctors and specialists are equally likely to continue to order mammograms in women with less than 10 years' life expectancy. Results of this study were published in the May 14 issue of the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

"As we gain more scientific evidence, cancer screening is shifting to be more tailored to an individual, and for the elderly that means don't screen if the patient really won't benefit from it," says Nancy Schoenborn, M.D., associate professor of medicine at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and lead author of the two new papers. "These new findings help us learn how we can better support clinicians and improve patient care when it comes to personalizing cancer screening."

Mammograms, colonoscopies and prostate cancer screening have been credited with preventing cancer-related deaths by detecting cancers before they are advanced enough to cause severe symptoms. One study published online Feb. 11, 2019, for instance, concluded that mammograms have prevented up to 600,000 breast cancer deaths since 1990. But the screening methods also come with a cost; the U.S. health care system spends an estimated $7.8 billion on mammograms each year.

Studies have found that cancer screening in adults with limited life expectancy can present unnecessary risks and lead to unnecessary treatments. That's because the tests may detect slow-growing tumors that aren't likely to affect an older person's lifespan. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force currently recommends routine breast cancer screening for women ages 50-74 and colorectal cancer screening for adults ages 50-75. Above that age, the guidelines suggest that whether screening is beneficial depends on a person's unique health situation. For prostate cancer screening, the guidelines suggests that whether or not to screen men ages 55-69 should be tailored to a person's health situation and recommend against screening in other age groups. But how should doctors discuss this with patients when they reach the upper boundaries of routine cancer screening?

To better understand this conundrum, Schoenborn and her colleagues interviewed 28 clinicians and 40 older adults, ages 65-92, about their viewpoints on cancer screening discussions. The patients were recruited from four clinical programs associated with Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center and were 57.5% female, 62.5% white and had a range of educational levels and life expectancies. The clinicians included physicians, certified registered nurse practitioners and physician assistants who were all associated with Johns Hopkins Community Physicians. Interviews with clinicians were 40-60 minutes long and conducted between January and May 2015; interviews with patients were 30-60 minutes long and conducted in private offices, clinic rooms or patients' homes between December 2015 and March 2016. All interviews were audio recorded and transcribed.

Schoenborn's group reported that both clinicians and patients thought it was important to frame discussions around stopping cancer screening in terms of risks and benefits. While screening can reveal tumors, it can also lead to complications from screening -- such as colon perforations during a colonoscopy -- and to risks and side effects from follow-up tests and treatment -- such as the infection, fatigue and bleeding associated with chemotherapy. Cancer diagnosis may also lead to diverted attention from other health priorities, increased psychological stress and a financial burden on patients.

Patients and clinicians also agreed that patients should play an active role in making the decision to stop screening. Clinicians tended to worry that patients might perceive the recommendation to stop screening in a negative light and that it would make patients angry. However, patients mostly responded that if they trusted their clinician, they would not think negatively of them for initiating the conversation.

"I hope that's reassuring for doctors," says Schoenborn. "And makes them a little bit more comfortable going into these conversations."

While clinicians almost unanimously reported that they didn't bring up life expectancy in the context of stopping cancer screening, older adults were split on the idea -- some wanted to hear about life expectancy, others thought it was acceptable not to bring it up and a third group was actively against it.

"We'd like to continue to look in a larger population at preferred phrases to use in these discussions," says Schoenborn. "There are still some challenges for clinicians learning how to talk about these things and we want to encourage discussion."

In an effort to learn more about which physicians might be prescribing later-in-life screening, Schoenborn and her team turned to breast cancer screening and mammography. A commonly held belief was that specialists tend to order more screening mammograms than primary care clinicians. But, in the Journal of General Internal Medicine paper, Schoenborn and her team report that the type of doctor did not make a difference in whether a doctor continued to prescribe mammograms for patients past the life expectancy recommendation. They did find that internal medicine, family medicine and obstetrics/gynecologic specialists were the most common prescribers of mammograms to patients regardless of life expectancy.

Understanding which doctors are ordering mammograms in women who may not benefit from the screening tests can help researchers determine who to target with education, says Schoenborn.

For their study, Schoenborn and her colleagues used previously published data from the 2011 National Health and Aging Trends Study (NHATS) to identify 2,041 women age 65 and over who had no history of breast cancer to ask how many continued to have mammograms despite having limited life expectancy. Of the women in the study, 86% were white, 7.1% black and 3.9% Hispanic. Medicare data linked to NHATS let the researchers identify which patients had a mammogram in the 24 months following the NHATS survey and who had ordered that mammogram -- a clinician in family medicine, internal medicine, other primary care, obstetrics and gynecology, or other specialties such as radiology or cardiology. The researchers calculated life expectancy using a previously validated life expectancy prediction model. They grouped patients into those with greater than 10 years' life expectancy and fewer than 10 years' life expectancy.

Among the 2,140 women, 48.0% received a screening mammogram during the study period, with a screening rate of 60.2% for women with a life expectancy of more than 10 years and 27.0% for women with a shorter life expectancy. The most common clinician specialties who referred women to get mammograms were internal medicine, family medicine, and obstetrics/gynecology. There was no significant difference in who referred mammograms for women with shorter versus longer life expectancies.

"If we already have a curriculum on communicating with patients about stopping cancer screening, then it's not that much added cost to disseminate that to specialists as well as primary care providers," she says.