Earth

A new study by the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) clarifies what influence major currents in the North Atlantic have on sea level along the northeastern United States. The study, published June 13 in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, examined both the strength of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)--a conveyor belt of currents that move warmer waters north and cooler waters south in the Atlantic--and historical records of sea level in coastal New England.

"Scientists had previously noticed that if the AMOC is stronger in a given season or year, sea levels in the northeast U.S. go down. If the AMOC weakens, average sea levels rise considerably," says Chris Piecuch, a physical oceanographer at WHOI and lead author on the paper. "During the winter of 2009-2010, for example, we saw the AMOC weaken by 30 percent. At the same time, sea level in our region rose by six inches. That doesn't sound like a lot, but a half-foot of sea level rise, held for months, can have serious coastal impacts."

"But, it's been unclear whether those two things--coastal sea level and the AMOC--are linked by cause and effect," adds Piecuch. Although the study confirmed that AMOC intensity and sea level seem to change at the same time, it found that neither directly causes changes in the behavior of the other. Instead, both seem to be controlled simultaneously by variability in major weather patterns over the North Atlantic, such as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).

"Changes in the NAO alter both AMOC and sea level separately," says Piecuch. "As the NAO changes, it affects the trade winds, which blow from the east across the tropical Atlantic. When the NAO is high, the trade winds are stronger than normal, which in turn strengthens AMOC. But at the same time, the westerly winds over New England are also stronger than usual. Together with unusually high air pressure on the northeast coast, this lowers the average sea level. It's wind and pressure that are driving both phenomena."

According to Piecuch, a study like this was not even possible until recently. For the past few decades, satellite imagery has given scientists a record of movement at the ocean's surface, but has been unable to detect currents below the surface. Starting in 2004, however, an international team of scientists began maintaining a chain of instruments that stretch across the Atlantic between Florida and Morocco. The instruments, which are collectively called the RAPID array, hold a variety of sensors that measure currents, salinity, and temperature. "RAPID doesn't resolve the details of every individual current along the way, but it does give us the sum total of the ocean's behavior, which is what the AMOC represents," Piecuch notes.

These findings are particularly important for residents along the northeast coast of the U.S., he adds. Existing climate models suggest sea levels will rise globally in the next century due to climate change, but that sea level rise on the New England coast will be greater than the global average. Scientists have traditionally assumed that the heighted future sea level rise in the northeast U.S. is inextricably tied to a weakening of the AMOC, which the climate models also predict. But, given the study's findings, that assumption might need to be revisited, Piecuch says. "The problem right now is that we only have about 13 years of AMOC data to work with. To get a better sense of how these two things relate to one another in the long term, we'll need to wait for a longer stretch of observational records to become available," he says.

Every spring, tens of thousands of elk follow a wave of green growth up onto the high plateaus in and around Yellowstone and Grand Teton national parks, where they spend the summer calving and fattening on fresh grass. And every fall, the massive herds migrate back down into the surrounding valleys and plains, where lower elevations provide respite from harsh winters.

These migratory elk rely primarily on environmental cues, including a retreating snowline and the greening grasses of spring, to decide when to make these yearly journeys, shows a new study led by University of California, Berkeley, researchers. The study combined GPS tracking data from more than 400 animals in nine major Yellowstone elk populations with satellite imagery to create a comprehensive model of what drives these animals to move.

"We found that the immediate environment is a very effective predictor of when migration occurs," said Gregory Rickbeil, who conducted the analysis as a postdoctoral researcher in Arthur Middleton's lab at UC Berkeley. This is in contrast with some other species, such as migratory birds, which rely on changing day length to decide when to move, Rickbeil pointed out.

The results, published in the current issue of the journal Global Change Biology, suggest that, as climate change reshapes the weather and environment of the park, elk should have the means to adjust their migratory patterns to match the new conditions.

While this adaptability may benefit the survival of the elk, it may also have unknown ripple effects in local economies and throughout the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem -- one of the last remaining large, nearly intact ecosystems in Earth's northern temperate zone, which encompasses about 18 million acres of land managed by more than 25 public entities and hundreds of private landowners. Another recent UC Berkeley-led study suggests that climate change is likely to hit National Parks harder than other areas of the country.

"The decisions that these animals make about when to migrate are absolutely dependent on changes in the landscape, changes that are ultimately governed by the climate," said Middleton, an assistant professor of environmental science, policy and management at UC Berkeley and senior author on the study. "And in the future, with climate change, we should expect the timing of these mass movements to be altered, which will affect the other wildlife and the people who depend on them, including predators, scavengers and hunters across the ecosystem."

Though the migration study's period was too short to say whether or not climate change is already affecting migratory timing, the tracking data did reveal a surprising trend: Elk on average arrived on their winter ranges 50 days later in 2015 than in 2001. This change had been noted by wildlife managers in the area, but had yet to be quantified on the ecosystem scale until now.

"This [study] provides great insight into the adaptation strategies of elk to climate change in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem," said Jonathan Jarvis, former director of the National Park Service, who now serves as executive director of the Institute for Parks, People, and Biodiversity at UC Berkeley.

Jarvis noted that more broadly, the new picture of the Yellowstone elk migrations provided by the study's comprehensive mapping effort "clearly demonstrate the need to think and operate at the landscape scale." He added, "For the park managers, this kind of research gives them options and incentives, such as protection of migration corridors and seasonal habitats, for ensuring elk and other keystone species in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem will persist."

Eating and being eaten

Yellowstone's approximately 20,000 migratory elk are among the most important large mammals in the ecosystem, comprising about 10 million or so pounds of animal biomass pulsing in and out of the parks and adjacent wilderness areas each year -- so where they can be found at any given time matters to both animals and humans alike.

"These elk eat a lot of things, and they are eaten by a lot of things, so wherever these masses of hundreds or thousands of elk are on the landscape determines who gets to eat and who doesn't," Middleton said. "In some cases, this could be sensitive populations of carnivores, like grizzly bears or wolves, and on the human side, it could be hunters, some of whom are making their income as outfitters and guides."

Recent studies have shown that threatened grizzly bears depend heavily on newborn elk calves as a food source in spring -- right when the migration is happening -- and that a Yellowstone wolf kills, on average, 16 elk per year. Meanwhile, each fall, thousands of hunters from around the country pay guides for the chance to harvest an elk in the wilderness near Yellowstone.

While a smattering of studies has investigated the migration of individual herds in the park, none before this study had investigated the phenomenon on an ecosystem scale. To get a more complete picture of migration, Middleton partnered with state and federal wildlife managers in the Yellowstone region to pool information on 414 elk across nine herds that had been fitted with GPS collars between 2001 and 2017.

Rickbeil then analyzed the data to pinpoint when each elk made its trek from winter range to summer range and back again and used satellite images to infer the conditions on the ground during journeys.

He found that elk tended to leave their winter ranges and set out to their summer ranges as soon as the snow had melted and during the "green-up," when fresh, nutritious plant growth began to sprout. Likewise, encroaching snowfall and hunting pressure cued them to make the return journey.

The team was surprised by the extent of the elks' flexibility: One year, a female elk might migrate in early May, but the next year in late July, depending on the timing of snowmelt and green-up.

"They've got a big brain and big eyes, and they can look around and, to a large degree, see changes on the landscape and react to them," Middleton said.

However, Rickbeil notes, the snow cover and vegetation couldn't fully explain why the elk are now arriving so much later at their winter ranges. Variations in snow depth, which cannot be inferred from satellite data, might explain part of the dramatic change, Rickbeil said.

Alyson Courtemanch, who manages the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem's Jackson elk herd as part of her job as a wildlife biologist with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, says knowing the whereabouts of the elk is critical to her job setting hunting seasons and managing the spread of diseases among wild elk and domestic cattle.

"We've been observing a lot of really interesting changes over the past decade about the way that elk are moving across the landscape, specifically of the timing of the migrations," said Courtemanch, who supplied GPS data on the Jackson herd for the study. "This analysis helped confirm a lot of things that people on the ground had suspected were happening, but that weren't really quantified."

"It seems like these animals can adapt to changing climates, which is likely a good thing," Rickbeil said. "But there will be a lot of consequences to these changes."

A new video shows how climate change connected and disconnected Andean "sky islands" during the past million years. The innovative mathematical model used to make the video was based on fossil pollen records and shows how the entire páramo habitat shifted. The model can predict climate change effects in mountainous regions around the world, according to an international team of scientists including authors from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama (STRI).

The páramo is an other-worldly habitat of stunted shrubs and alpine plants specially adapted to high winds, cold temperatures, poor nutrients and limited moisture. It exists in between the upper forest line, where trees dominate, and the snowline.

"Páramo habitat crept up and down mountain slopes, driven by dry glacial periods alternated with warmer, humid interglacial periods," said Suzette Flantua, former STRI postdoctoral fellow, now at the University of Bergen, Norway. "Our model reconstructs the connectedness of páramo habitats in the hopes that it will give us a way to see how dynamic this system had been, and to test how and why new species evolved not only in the Andes but in mountainous regions everywhere."

To visualize how páramo shifted in the past, researchers looked to a unique fossil record from Funza, Colombia. By driving a 100 meter-long drill pipe into ancient sediments, scientists extracted fossil plant pollen trapped there, revealing the migration of the forest line as temperatures changed during a million years.

As the average temperature at Funza fluctuated between 6 and 15 degrees Celsius, the forest line shifted between 1,900 to 3,500 meters above sea level.

During extremely cool global ice ages, temperatures in the Andes were 8 degrees Celsius cooler than today. Glaciers spread down mountainsides, pushing the páramos to lower elevations where they connected with páramo "islands" from other mountains.

"As the temperature changed we calculated how likely it was for each island of vegetation to connect to neighboring islands," Flantua said. "The unique aspect of this model is that we did that for an entire 1 million-year period producing a continuous curve of merging and mixing páramos."

The team used geographical information systems (ESRI ArcGIS 10.3) and specialized software for estimating connectivity (Gnarly Landscape Utilities, Linkage mapper and Conefor) to reconstruct the likelihood of dispersal and migration of plants and animals between páramo islands even when islands were not yet physically attached to each other.

"This model lets us put current climate change in perspective," said co-author Aaron O'Dea, STRI staff scientist. "What we see in the Andes today is not 'normal'. Our model puts current climate change in a million-year context. The paramo are near their historical limits and as warming progresses, they will be snuffed out as all of the unique birds, frogs, butterflies and plants are squeezed further up mountainsides."

Bottom Line: State-level data were analyzed to determine whether Medicaid expansion was associated with changes in rates of physical abuse and neglect of children younger than 6. Medicaid expansion was part of the the Affordable Care Act and prior research suggests it was associated with better financial stability for families and parents' access to mental health care, both risk factors for child maltreatment. This study included data from 2010 through 2016 for 31 states and the District of Columbia that expanded Medicaid and 19 states that didn't. Medicaid expansion was associated with a reduction in the reported child neglect rate (422 fewer cases of reported neglect per 100,000 children younger than 6) but not with a significant change to the physical abuse rate, which authors suggest truly may not be there but also could reflect a delayed association not captured by the short study period. Medicaid varies by state and the study may not have captured the effects of program variations that may have affected the association with child maltreatment. Future research should focus on understanding the reasons behind these study findings.

Authors:  Emily C.B.Brown, M.D., M.S., of Seattle Children's Hospital, and coauthors

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2019.5529)

Editor's Note: The article includes 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.

HOUSTON -- (June 14, 2019) -- Finding a shady refuge to cool off on a hot day could be more than a lifesaver in a warming world. It might save several species that would otherwise go extinct due to global warming, according to an analysis by ecologists at a dozen institutions.

"Animals are not passive, and there's plenty of evidence that some of them will seek out shade to regulate their body temperature," said Rice University ecologist Volker Rudolf, co-author of a study in Global Change Biology that examined both the behavior and habitats of 39 species. "The big question, for ecologists, is whether we can create a predictive framework that uses what we already know about species' behaviors and habitats to predict whether this behavior might buffer them from rapid climate change and potentially rescue them from otherwise going extinct."

Rudolf said he and his colleagues, including study co-lead authors Samuel Fey of Reed College and David Vasseur of Yale University, set out to create such a framework, in part because a number of high-profile studies have ignored behavior in making predictions about the possible impacts of climate warming.

Scientists have examined the impact of temperature on the fitness of many species. To control for external factors, almost all such tests are performed in a laboratory, where temperature can be increased while all other factors remain constant, said Rudolf, a professor in Rice's Department of BioSciences. The overall health, or fitness, of individuals often falls off as temperatures increase, especially in insects and other ectothermic animals whose bodies don't self-regulate temperature.

"Behavior allows for self-regulation of body temperature, even in some cases where physiology doesn't," Rudolf said. "So ignoring this behavior means you're probably making wrong predictions."

But behavior only goes so far. If a creature lives where there is no shade or other means to cool off, it's obviously not an option. It may also be impractical, especially if getting to the shady spot requires an enormous expenditure of energy.

To examine the consequences of this behavior across a wide range of animals, the scientists created a mathematical framework that accounts for variability in microclimate in the habitat of a species to estimate the cost-benefit trade-off an individual faces when expending energy to seek shade. The framework was first verified on tests with the southern rock agama, a lizard native to South Africa, and was later applied to a database of 38 insect species from Europe, Asia, North America, Africa and Australia.

Using International Panel on Climate Change temperature projections for the year 2050, the researchers found that 19 of the insects were likely to be negatively impacted by warming temperatures. They further found that behavior would likely mitigate the ill effects of warming for 17 of the 19 species, including six that were predicted to experience "behavioral rescue," a situation where behavioral adaptation keeps the species from going extinct. In fact, warmer temperatures, in conjunction with behavioral adaptation, were predicted to increase fitness for 10 species.

"With climate change already increasing temperatures worldwide, it is important to find ways to forecast how this will affect individual species as well as tightly couple ecological communities," Rudolf said.

In addition to looking at the direct effects of temperature on one species, he said it will be important for ecologists to consider how rising temperatures will affect a species' predators, competitors and food resources, including prey. Where looking at temperature alone might suggest a species will do better or worse, those predictions could change based on the impacts on closely coupled species.

Additional co-authors include Karla Alujevic? and Susana Clusella-Trullas of Stellenbosch University in South Africa; Kristy Kroeker of the University of California, Santa Cruz; Michael Logan of the University of Nevada, Reno, and the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institution in Panama; Mary O'Connor of the University of British Columbia; John DeLong of the University of Nebraska; Scott Peacor of Michigan State University; Rebecca Selden of Rutgers University; and Andy Sih of the University of California, Davis. The research was supported by CapeNature and initiated by conversations at the 2016 Gordon Research Conference on Predator-Prey Interactions.

NASA's Terra satellite showed Tropical Cyclone Vayu still lingering near the northwestern coast of India, and its cloud-filled eye remained offshore.

On June 14, 2019, t the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Terra satellite provided a visible image of Tropical Cyclone Vayu located off western India's Gujarat coast. Animated enhanced infrared satellite imagery revealed a compact area of asymmetric central deep convection (building thunderstorms) with well-organized spiral banding wrapping into a cloud-filled ragged eye.

JTWC forecasters noted that there are several things happening with the storm that is affecting the strength and shape of it. Dry air continues to feed into the storm, which prevents the development of thunderstorms (that make up the tropical cyclone). However, that is offset by low vertical wind shear (outside winds blowing at different speeds at different levels of the atmosphere that if strong enough, can blow a storm apart). Vayu is also moving through very warm waters, as warm as 30 to 31 degrees Celsius (86 to 87.8 degrees Fahrenheit) that is keeping the storm together. Tropical cyclones require sea surface temperatures of at least 80 degrees Fahrenheit (26.6 degrees Celsius) to maintain them. Warmer sea surface temperatures help keep storms together or give them fuel to strengthen further.

At 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC), the Joint Typhoon Warning Center or JTWC reported that Tropical Cyclone Vayu was located near 20.8 degrees north latitude and 68/0 east longitude. That is 248 nautical miles south-southeast of Karachi, Pakistan. Vayu has turned to the west-southwest. Maximum sustained winds had dropped to 85 knots (98 mph/157 kph) and the storm is forecast to continue weakening.

The JTWC has forecast Vayu to curve back to the northeast and make landfall in four days along the northwestern India/Pakistan border on June 17.

Some languages -- like English -- are tricky to pick up easily.

Young children learning to read and write English often need to identify patterns in words to be able to read and spell them. For example, knowing the "Magic E" syllable pattern can allow a child to understand why an E at the end of a word like "rate" significantly alters the word's sound from "rat."

Also, knowing that the words "one" and "two" are irregularly spelled helps prevent the child from trying to sound out the underlying sounds when seeing the word in print.

Parents who understand such language complexity -- what is known as reading-related knowledge -- are able to spot the difficulties and explain them. They also tend to pass on those skills when they listen to their children read, which in turn helps reading development.

These are among the findings of a new study, published in the Journal of Research in Reading, by two researchers from Concordia's Department of Education. They report that parents with higher reading-related knowledge are not only more likely to have children with higher reading scores but are also more attentive when those children read out loud to them.

The value of feedback

Seventy sets of six- and seven-year-old children and their parents participated in the study. The children were administered reading tests and were then provided with reading material at a level just above their performance level. This extra difficulty was intentional, as it provided opportunities for the parents to step in and lend a hand.

The parents were instructed to help their children as they normally would while their children read to them. The sessions were videotaped, transcribed and coded for evidence of parents' verbal and non-verbal feedback.

"We were interested in looking at two forms of feedback," says Aviva Segal, who co-wrote the paper as part of her now-completed PhD with her supervisor, Sandra Martin-Chang, associate professor of education. "The first was commenting on how the child was doing, the second was measuring how the parent responded when the child hesitated or made a mistake."

The results confirmed their beliefs that parents with higher reading-related knowledge offered more praise and less criticism to their children than parents with lower reading-related knowledge. They also found that parents with a better ear for language tried to explain the relations between graphemes (letters and letter patterns) and phonemes (the smallest sounds of spoken language) to their children more often.

"We found that reading-related knowledge in parents is associated with a good 'tag-team' of feedback," Segal says. "Parents with higher reading-related knowledge tend to give more praise, which sustains children throughout their learning, while at the same time they more often teach their children critical connections they need in order to read."

The learning was not all one-way, Segal notes. She says there were incidences when parents appeared to learn something about language while their children made mistakes reading to them.

"The parents sometimes seemed to have an 'aha!' moment, when they realized that their children were consistently stumbling on one particular obstacle. In essence, when they were able to make sense of some of the errors their children were making, parents noted their children's errors were the result of the language's trickiness and not the fault of the children," she reports.

"So, through these exchanges, parents might have been increasing their own reading-related knowledge based on what their children were displaying."

Lessons for teachers

This study has significant classroom implications as well.

"Reading-related knowledge is an important tool that many schools of education gloss over. This can lead teachers to provide negative feedback and criticism, which can cause self-doubt in children and discourage them from taking risks," says Martin-Chang.

"Teachers with high reading-related knowledge are often more positive and better equipped to offer precise feedback to their students. They have a sense of how hard it is for the child," she adds.

"Being able to target the right skills while at the same time praising the child's efforts will make the classroom a more positive setting. This can be achieved through increasing teachers' reading-related knowledge, which is a core focus of our training at Concordia."

Segal and Martin-Chang both believe parents should be encouraged to play with language and to pay attention to its characteristics.

"Have fun with it. Listen to song lyrics with your 7-year-old and figure out what rhymes," urges Martin-Chang.

"Even at the dinner table, play with words that start with the same sounds. When you do this, be sensitive and positive because these fun bonding interactions can become especially powerful."

Polymers reinforced with carbon fibers combine strength and low weight. They also boast significant green credentials as they are less resource-intensive during production and use, and they are readily recycled. While the mechanical properties of continuous-fiber laminates are sufficiently competitive for applications in aerospace and automobiles, composites reinforced with short carbon fibers could be attractive for fast-manufacture, and even 3D printing for applications with more moderate strength requirements. As a result, there is keen interest in optimizing the mechanical properties of short-fiber reinforced thermoplastics to maximize on the potential of these materials. László Szabó and Kenji Takahashi and colleagues at Kanazawa University and Kanazawa Institute of Technology have now demonstrated that irradiating short carbon fiber thermoplastics with an electron beam can improve their mechanical properties.

The researchers limited their study to polymers that thermoplastic so that the resulting composite could be readily recycled and remolded into other forms. With environmentally friendly concerns in mind they focused the study on the biobased cellulose propionate for the composite matrix. Their study included investigation of the effects of electron beam irradiation on the strength for polymers functionalized with esters to increase crosslinking, and enhanced with carbon fibers, as well as different forms during irradiation (dumbbells and pellets) and long and short extrusion nozzles.

While the researchers were able to demonstrate a level of control over crosslinking under radiation with the use of functionalizing esters, this was not always beneficial for the mechanical properties, particularly when the network of polymers hindered the mobility of the fibers. In addition, there is known to be a minimum carbon fiber length below which their inclusion compromises rather than enhances the tensile strength of the composite as their presence causes cracks.

Despite the potential drawbacks of carbon fiber inclusion and irradiation induced crosslinking, the researchers found that irradiating pellets of short-carbon-fiber composite made them stronger. Further studies suggested that the irradiation strengthened and lengthened the carbon fibers, while irradiating pellets and making dumbbells from the pellets left sufficient uncrosslinked polymer matrix for some carbon fiber mobility to mitigate stresses. The shorter nozzle, also diminished effects that shorten carbon fiber during extrusion.

"The composite retains its potential for recyclability (i.e. still thermoplastic) and the treatment is practically chemical-free," report the researchers. Future work may include further mechanical characterization of the material.

Annual European Congress of Rheumatology
(EULAR 2019)
Madrid, Spain, 12-15 June 2019

Madrid, Spain, 14 June 2019: The results of a pilot study presented today at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology (EULAR 2019) suggest that electro stimulation of one of the nerves connecting the brain to the body (the vagus nerve), could provide a novel treatment approach for patients with rheumatoid arthritis.1

"This is a really exciting development. For many patients suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, current treatments don't work, or aren't tolerated," said Professor Thomas Dörner, Chairperson of the Scientific Programme Committee, EULAR. "These results open the door to a novel approach to treating not only rheumatoid arthritis, but other chronic inflammatory diseases. This is certainly an area for further study."

The vagus nerve is the longest and the most complex of the 12 pairs of cranial nerves that originate from the brain. The name 'vagus' comes from the latin word for 'wandering'. This is because the vagus nerve wanders from the brain into the organs of the neck, chest and abdomen.

Recent advances in neuroscience and immunology have mapped circuits in the brain that regulate immune responses. In one of the circuits, the 'inflammatory reflex', signals are transmitted in the vagus nerve that inhibit the production of cytokines including tumor necrosis factor (TNF), an inflammatory molecule that is a major therapeutic target in rheumatoid arthritis. It is thought that, by stimulating the activity of this inflammatory reflex, innate immune responses can be modulated without abolishing them or producing significant immunosuppression.

In this pilot study, a novel miniaturised neurostimulator called a MicroRegulator was implanted into 14 patients with rheumatoid arthritis who had failed on at least two biologics or targeted oral therapies with different mechanisms of action. Patients were randomised to three groups who were either placebo, stimulated once daily, or stimulated four times a day for 12 weeks. At the end of the study, the patients who received once-daily stimulation were shown to have a better response than those on four-times-daily stimulation with two thirds meeting the EULAR good or moderate response criteria and a mean change in DAS28-CRP of -1.24. The mean change in DAS28-CRP* in the placebo group was 0.16.1

Cytokines (a broad and loose category of small proteins that are important in cell signalling) were also measured in the study with the actively stimulated groups showing a decrease of more than 30% in levels of Interleukin (IL) 1β, IL-6, and TNF-α. Implantation and stimulation were generally well tolerated with no device or treatment-related SAEs and two surgery-related adverse events that resolved without clinically significant effects.1

"Our pilot study suggests this novel MicroRegulator device is well tolerated and reduces signs and symptoms of rheumatoid arthritis," said Mark Genovese, M.D., James W. Raitt Endowed Professor of Medicine, Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. "These data support the study of this device in a larger placebo-controlled study as a novel treatment approach for rheumatoid arthritis and possibly other chronic inflammatory diseases."

This study follows a proof-of-concept study which used reprogrammed epilepsy stimulators on the vagus nerve to demonstrate reduced systemic inflammation and improved disease activity in 17 patients with rheumatoid arthritis.3

The study included 14 patients with active rheumatoid arthritis who had had an insufficient response to more than two biological disease modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (bDMARDs) or JAK inhibitors with more than two modes of action. All patients remained on stable background of methotrexate. The first three patients were implanted and stimulated after three weeks, following safety review board approval, the remaining 11 patients were implanted and randomised to one minute of stimulation once-daily, one minute of stimulation four times daily, or one minute of placebo stimulation.1

Abstract number: LB0009

A new renal biomarker was presented at the ERA-EDTA Congress last year: that shows that urinary DKK3 might help to identify patients who are at risk of progressive chronic kidney disease (CKD).

The pathological change that correlates with progressive kidney damage is tubulointerstitial fibrosis, the mechanisms of which are the subject of intensive research at present. Damaged cells of renal tubules produce various cytokines, which on one hand control regenerative processes, but which on the other can also lead to the development of tubulointerstitial fibrosis. Regenerative processes may occur in the early stages of activation, via the well-known Wnt signaling pathway (signaling pathway for cell differentiation and proliferation/regeneration), but continuous Wnt activation is detrimental and induces tubulointerstitial fibrosis. Modulators of the signaling chain include Dickkopf-related (DKK) proteins, which interact with the canonical Wnt signaling pathway. Urinary DKK3 can thus be used as a biomarker for tubular cell stress and progressing tubulointerstitial fibrosis - and therefore potentially as a marker for distinguishing progressive kidney injury.

Yesterday, an observational cohort study was published, which aimed to test the association between the ratio of preoperative urinary concentrations of DKK3 to creatinine (DKK3:creatinine) and postoperative acute kidney injury (AKI),defined according to the Kidney Disease Improving Global Outcomes [KDIGO] criteria, and subsequent kidney function loss.

AKI is a common complication after cardiac surgery. The incidence of cardiac surgery-associated AKI varies widely from 7 to 40% depending upon the patient population, the procedure and how AKI is defined. The risk increases in patients with known co-morbidities and the severity fluctuates from subclinical AKI, an increase of biochemical markers of kidney injury without a decrease in renal function, to severe AKI requiring renal replacement therapy with dialysis. The development of AKI after cardiac surgery has a dramatic impact on intensive care unit and hospital length of stay, as well as short- and long-term mortality. Reliable biomarkers are therefore needed to guarantee an early diagnosis and intervention.

In the present study nearly 1,000 patients from two cohorts were analyzed. The patients of one cohort had undergone elective cardiac surgery at the Saarland University Medical Centre (Homburg, Germany; derivation cohort, n=733). Patients who were undergoing elective cardiac surgery (selected on the basis of a Cleveland Clinical Foundation score of 6 or higher), and were enrolled in the prospective RenalRIP multicenter trial formed the second cohort (validation cohort, n=216). In this trial, the patients had been randomized to remote ischemic preconditioning or a sham procedure.

The analysis of the derivation cohort showed that urinary concentrations of DKK3:creatinine significantly improved AKI prediction (p

In the RenalRIP trial, preoperative urinary DKK3:creatinine concentrations higher than 471 pg/mg were associated with a significantly higher risk for AKI (OR: 1.94; p=0.026), persistent renal dysfunction (p=0.0072), and dialysis dependency (p=0.020) after 90 days compared with DKK3:creatinine concentrations of 471 pg/mg or less. In patients who underwent the sham procedure, the AKI risk was even higher (OR: 2.79). According to the study authors, this indicated that patients with ongoing tubular cell stress might particularly benefit from remote ischemic preconditioning.

"Urinary DKK3 can significantly improve the prediction of AKI beyond the established clinical models and available biomarkers. Measurement of urinary DKK3 might therefore represent a personalized medicine approach in patients having cardiac surgery. It gives us the chance to detect patients at risk for AKI and subsequent kidney function loss and to take care of them intensively," explained study investigator Professor Danilo Fliser, Homburg/Saar (Germany). "A DKK3-ELISA test provides relatively simple identification of at-risk patients. We think it is time to implement it in clinical practice."

Altering the default order in which foods are shown on the screen, or offering substitutes lower in saturated fat could help customers make healthier choices when shopping for food online, according to a study published in the open access International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity.

Dr Dimitrios Koutoukidis, the lead author, said: "Finding effective ways of lowering the saturated fat in our shopping baskets, such as from meat, cheese, or desserts, may translate to eating less of it, which could help lower our risk for heart disease. This is the first randomised trial to directly compare interventions targeting the environment and the individual to encourage healthier food choices. The findings could provide effective strategies to improve the nutritional quality of online food purchases."

Dr Koutoukidis and a team of researchers at the University of Oxford, UK, conducted an experiment with 1088 grocery shoppers from UK households, using an experimental online supermarket specifically designed for the study. Participants were asked to select ten 'everyday' foods that they and their household would want to eat, from a pre-specified shopping list.

Participants were randomly allocated to one of four groups. The first group was shown a list of food products ranked according to their saturated fat content from low to high (environmental-level intervention). The second group was offered the option to swap a product high in saturated fat for a similar one with lower saturated fat (individual-level intervention). The third group was shown a combination of both the ranked list and offered the option to swap products (combined intervention), while the fourth group was shown neither a ranked list, nor given the option to swap products (no intervention control). The authors found that participants in any of the intervention groups chose products with less saturated fat than those who received no intervention. Altering the default order was more effective than offering product swaps. Combining the two was more effective than offering swaps but no more effective than altering the default order of items.

For participants who received no intervention, the percentage of calories from saturated fat in their shopping baskets was 25.7%. Altering the order of foods or offering swaps reduced the percentage calories from saturated fat by 5.0% and 2.0%, respectively. A combination of both interventions reduced it by 5.4% compared to controls. The total cost of the shopping basket did not differ significantly between groups.

The authors caution that these interventions need to be tested now in real online supermarkets, as this was an experimental platform where participants chose
but did not receive the food and did not spend their own money. As the pre-specified shopping list focused on foods high in saturated fat, the effect of these interventions would likely be smaller during real-life shopping which would include a broader range of products.

Dr Koutoukidis said: "These results could be capitalised by online supermarkets which could implement either or both strategies knowing that they are potentially effective for lowering the saturated fat in their customers' shopping baskets and thus shape heathier food choices."

Climate and ecosystems are changing, but predation on shorebird nests has changed little across the globe over the past 60 years, finds an international team of 60 researchers. The study published in Science on 14 June 2019 challenges a recent claim that shorebird eggs are more often eaten by predators due to climate change, and more so in the Arctic compared to the tropics. The research shows that these claims are a methodological artefact.

The further from the equator, the fewer predators?

For many years, it was generally accepted by biologists that shorebirds decrease the chances of losing their clutch to a predator, by locating their nest further away from the equator.This could explain why so many shorebirds make the annual effort of long-distance migratory flights to the northern tundra to lay their eggs. A publication in Science in 2018 gave a remarkable twist to that long-standing idea and claimed the opposite. Now, Bulla and colleagues show that there is little support for the long-standing hypothesis, but also that the opposite conclusions are untenable and likely a methodological artifact.

Not egg predation but research methods have changed

First author Martin Bulla and his colleagues scrutinize the results, methods and data published the previous year in Science, to understand whether nest predation has indeed changed over the past 60 years across the globe and whether predation rates on nests are now higher in the Arctic than in the tropics. Contrary to the claims, nest predation has changed little over time, and there appears to be no latitudinal gradient in nest predation: neither higher nor lower nest predation in the Arctic versus the tropics. Instead, data collection and analysis methods have changed over time, which likely drove the patterns reported in last year's Science study. In particular, Bulla and colleagues identified a bias in how the fate of nests was determined over time, such that the incidence of predation was underestimated in older studies. The researchers corrected for that bias and re-analyzed the data, resulting in their conclusions.

Human impacts deserve attention

Contrary to what was previously reported in Science and many media outlets, there is no clear evidence that "the Arctic is no longer a safe haven for shorebirds". There is no doubt that many species of shorebirds worldwide face serious challenges due to human impacts, and the conservation of these birds deserves all possible attention. However, Bulla and colleagues warn that the issues are complex, and actions to save species must be based on sound data and unbiased analyses. Anything less, only distracts the attention from the real problems.

Philadelphia, June 13, 2019 - A shift from brain systems controlling reward-driven use to habit-driven use differentiates heavy cannabis users who are addicted to the drug from users who aren't, according to a study in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier. The findings help explain how the brain becomes dependent on cannabis, and why not all cannabis users develop an addiction, even with long-term regular use.

In the study, researchers at the University of Electronic Science and Technology of China and University of Bonn, Germany, used brain imaging to monitor neural activity when cannabis users viewed images associated with cannabis use, referred to as drug cues. Although all of the cannabis users in the study reported heavy use, only some were dependent on the drug. Both dependent and non-dependent cannabis users had exaggerated responses in a brain region that processes reward--the ventral striatum--compared with people who didn't use cannabis. Interestingly, the dependent users also had larger responses in a brain region that forms habits--the dorsal striatum.

"The present findings reflect that heavy cannabis use is promoted by changes in the brain's reward system--however, these changes alone may not fully explain addictive use. Addictive use may rather be driven by changes in brain systems that promote habitual--automatic--use, which also may explain the fact that addicts continue use despite a lack of experiencing rewarding effects of the drug. As such, their behavior has become under the control of the drug cues, rather than the actual reward expectation," said lead author Benjamin Becker, PhD.

Dependent users also had increased responses in other regions throughout the brain, including regions that attribute importance to things, for example, drug cues. This suggests that the development of cannabis addiction incorporates additional brain regions that may strengthen a person's desire to seek the drug.

"Cannabis is now legal for medical and recreational use in many parts of the United States and the health impacts of this development are still being understood," said Cameron Carter, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging. "These findings are important insights that can help us better understand why some individuals might be more likely to become addicted to cannabis," he added.

Differentiating the unique brain circuits behind dependent cannabis use could also be useful for understanding how to combat the problem of cannabis addiction. "The identification of the dorsal striatum and habitual behavior as a driver of addiction may allow the development of more specific treatment approaches to increase treatment success," said first author Xinqi Zhou.

Warming waters in the western tropical Pacific Ocean have significantly increased thunderstorms and rainfall, which may affect the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet and global sea-level rise, according to a Rutgers University-New Brunswick study.

Since the mid-1990s, West Antarctica - a massive ice sheet that sits on land - has been melting and contributing to global sea-level rise. That melting has accelerated this century. Wind and weather patterns play a crucial role in governing the melting: Winds push warm ocean water toward the ice sheet and melt it from below, at the same time as winds bring warm air over the ice sheet surface and melt it from above.

The study, in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, found that the South Pacific Convergence Zone, a region of the western tropical Pacific, is a major driver of weather variability across West Antarctica.

"With so much at stake - in coastal communities around the globe, including in New Jersey - it is very important to understand the drivers of weather variability in West Antarctica," said Kyle Clem, a former post-doc who led the research at Rutgers-New Brunswick and is now at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand. "Knowing how all regions of the tropics influence West Antarctica, both independently and collectively, will help us understand past climate variability there and perhaps help us predict the future state of the ice sheet and its potential contribution to global sea-level rise."

Rutgers researchers studied how warming ocean temperatures in the western tropical Pacific influence weather patterns around West Antarctica. This century, the Antarctic Peninsula and interior West Antarctica have been cooling while the Ross Ice Shelf has been warming - a reversal of what happened in the second half of the 20th century. From the 1950s to the 1990s, the Antarctic Peninsula and interior West Antarctica were the most rapidly warming regions on the planet, and the Ross Ice Shelf was cooling.

The temperature trends flipped at the start of this century. Coinciding with the flip in West Antarctic temperature trends, ocean temperatures in the western tropical Pacific began warming rapidly. Using a climate model, the researchers found that warming ocean temperatures in the western tropical Pacific have resulted in a significant increase in thunderstorm activity, rainfall and convection in the South Pacific Convergence Zone. Convection in the atmosphere is when heat and moisture move up or down.

A rainfall increase in the zone results in cold southerly winds over the Antarctic Peninsula and warm northerly winds over the Ross Ice Shelf, consistent with the recent cooling and warming in those respective regions. So the West Antarctic climate, although isolated from much of the planet, is profoundly influenced by the tropics. The findings may help scientists interpret the past West Antarctic climate as recorded in ice cores.

Usually, scientists study the molecular biology of cancer to find new treatments, but sometimes, it is the other way round: when trying to find new treatments, scientists find key information on cancer biology. The researchers from the Telomeres and Telomerase Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) have identified new drug combinations that prevent the development of therapy resistance in mice with glioblastoma, the most malignant brain tumour. They also found an unexpected link between the RAS pathway, which is involved in numerous types of cancer, and telomere maintenance. This finding, which could be used in new lines of research, will be published in the medical journal EMBO Molecular Medicine.

"We had a twofold result in our study," says Maria A. Blasco, Head of the Telomeres and Telomerase Group at CNIO, and CNIO Director, in Madrid. "We were looking for approved drugs that could block a new target, and we found them. In the process, we also found that some molecular pathways that have a role in cancer development also participate in the regulation of telomere maintenance. This is an interesting aspect of cancer biology that was unknown before."

For that reason, the scientists who took part in the study decided to title it "Multiple cancer pathways regulate telomere protection".

TRF1 as target in cancer stem cells

Telomeres are protective structures at the ends of chromosomes. The Telomeres and Telomerase Group at CNIO found that attacking the telomeres in cancer cells can be an effective strategy to stop cancer growth. Specifically, the researchers in this Group found that inhibiting the TRF1 telomere protein impairs tumour progression in human and murine glioblastoma models.

Glioblastoma is the most common brain tumour, with an average survival time of about 14 months. It can be difficult to treat, because it contains cancer stem cell population that are able to regenerate a whole tumour. Two years ago, CNIO researchers found that glioblastoma cells have high levels of TRF1, a protein with increased expression in stem cells. They tried to block this protein with compounds developed at CNIO and the strategy proved effective, since it increased life expectancy in mice with glioblastoma by up to 80 per cent.

Considering that treatment of glioblastoma often fails because these tumours are highly resistant to conventional therapies, the Telomeres and Telomerase Group researchers looked for additional TRF1 inhibitors among compounds previously approved for cancer treatment or drugs being used in clinical trials. The study will be published in EMBO Molecular Medicine this week.

A new role for anticancer drugs in use

The researchers at CNIO looked for TRF1 inhibitors among the 114 anticancer drugs available for well-known cancer pathways. The screening revealed that a number of these drugs were able to block TRF1 in both glioblastoma and lung cancer cells.

Interestingly, the action mechanisms of these drugs covered molecular pathways closely linked with cancer, such as components of the RAS, and which were independent from the first inhibitors developed at CNIO (Bejarano et al., Cancer Cell, 2017).

"The fact that there are several pathways for telomere protection acting on TRF1," explains paper co-author Jessica Louzame, "confirms the importance of telomeres for cancer cells. Identifying these pathways will allow us to find new ways of attacking telomeres and fighting cancer. Our Group is a pioneer in the study of this innovative strategy."

More drug combinations for less treatment resistance

After identifying the drugs that were able to block TRF1, the researchers at CNIO took a further step, testing a combination of these drugs with the first TRF1 inhibitors developed at CNIO.

The effectiveness of drug combinations was tested in mouse models of human glioblastoma to promising results. The drugs interacted with beneficial synergistic effects and helped overcome therapy resistance.

"Our work shows that combinations of TRF1 inhibitors might become an effective strategy to inhibit cancer growth and combat drug resistance," says co-author Giuseppe Bosso.