Brain

Some antibiotics appear to be effective against a form of skin cancer known as melanoma. Researchers at KU Leuven, Belgium, examined the effect of these antibiotics on patient-derived tumours in mice. Their findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

Researchers from KU Leuven may have found a new weapon in the fight against melanoma: antibiotics that target the 'power plants' of cancer cells. These antibiotics exploit a vulnerability that arises in tumour cells when they try to survive cancer therapy.

"As the cancer evolves, some melanoma cells may escape the treatment and stop proliferating to 'hide' from the immune system. These are the cells that have the potential to form a new tumour mass at a later stage" explains cancer researcher and RNA biologist Eleonora Leucci (KU Leuven). "In order to survive the cancer treatment however, those inactive cells need to keep their 'power plants' - the mitochondria - switched on at all times". As mitochondria derive from bacteria that, over time, started living inside cells, they are very vulnerable to a specific class of antibiotics. This is what gave us the idea to use these antibiotics as anti-melanoma agents."

The researchers implanted patient-derived tumours into mice, which were then treated with antibiotics - either as the only treatment or in combination with existing anti-melanoma therapies. Leucci: "The antibiotics quickly killed many cancer cells and could thus be used to buy the precious time needed for immunotherapy to kick in. In tumours that were no longer responding to targeted therapies, the antibiotics extended the lifespan of - and in some cases even cured - the mice."

The researchers worked with antibiotics that are now, because of rising antibiotic resistance, only rarely used in bacterial infection. However, this resistance has no effect on the efficacy of the treatment in this study, explains Leucci. "The cancer cells show high sensitivity to these antibiotics, so we can now look to repurpose them to treat cancer instead of bacterial infections."

However, patients with melanoma shouldn't start experimenting, warns Leucci. "Our findings are based on research in mice, so we don't know how effective this treatment is in human beings. Our study mentions only one human case where a melanoma patient received antibiotics to treat a bacterial infection, and this re-sensitised a resistant melanoma lesion to standard therapy. This result is cause for optimism, but we need more research and clinical studies to examine the use of antibiotics to treat cancer patients. Together with oncologist Oliver Bechter (KU Leuven/UZ Leuven), who is a co-author of this study, we are currently exploring our options."

Toronto -- People post 500 million tweets and 4 billion pieces of content on Facebook a day. What makes them do it?

An urge to share and connect with others seems obvious. But, despite how toxic the social media sandbox can get, people more often share attitudes that are framed in terms of support instead of opposition, according to new research. That happens regardless of whether the opinion itself is positive or negative.

Take gun control. The research found that people were likelier to express themselves on that issue in terms of, "I support allowing guns," or, "I support banning guns," versus, "I oppose banning guns," or, "I oppose allowing guns."

"There are a lot of controversial issues where both sides talk about what they support - pro-life and pro-choice on abortion, for example," said researcher Rhia Catapano, an assistant professor of marketing at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. "It's very rare that we see positions that primarily frame themselves in terms of what they oppose."

Working with co-investigator Zakary Tormala of Stanford University, Prof. Catapano tested the idea of "support-oppose framing" through 10 studies in the field, online and in the lab. A sampling of Twitter tweets over one month showed some 50,000 tweets were framed in supportive language compared to about 1,100 that spoke to what they were against.

Even more telling, tweets using supportive language were retweeted 624 times, on average, compared to just 28 times for tweets that spoke to what they opposed.

The theory held up whether the topic was same-sex marriage, gun control, self-isolation as a public health measure against COVID-19 or even support/opposition for politicians or commercial brands.

Understanding why people do this has to do with psychological drivers. Showing support for something feels like a stronger statement of our personal values and who we are, instead of who we are not. And as much as some may believe they don't care about what others think of them, humans prefer to be liked; expressing opinions through supportive statements makes us feel like we are making a better social impression.

This was borne out when participants were asked in one experiment what they thought about the importance of self-isolating during a COVID-19 outbreak. Participants were more willing to share supportively framed attitudes on the issue and said that doing so felt more expressive of their values and would leave a more positive impression.

Social media has been fertile ground for social psychology researchers interested in understanding what makes people share what they think. This is the first time that research has explored the influence of how an opinion is framed on what people choose to share.

Besides giving clues about leveraging social media to gain support for products, causes or individuals, the findings are relevant for anyone keen to get people discussing important yet controversial subjects instead of shying away from them, such as pollsters or public health communicators.

"If we're looking to encourage positive changes in people's behaviour or attitudes, we can change how we talk about those ideas," said Prof. Catapano.

The study was posted online on February 22, 2021 and will appear in the July print issue of Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Bringing together high-impact faculty research and thought leadership on one searchable platform, the new Rotman Insights Hub offers articles, podcasts, opinions, books and videos representing the latest in management thinking and providing insights into the key issues facing business and society. Visit http://www.rotman.utoronto.ca/insightshub.

Drought can have a lasting impact on the community of microbes that live in and around roots of rice plants, a team led by UC Davis researchers has found. Root-associated microbes help plants take up nutrients from the soil, so the finding could help in understanding how rice responds to dry spells and how it can be made more resilient to drought. The work is published July 22 in Nature Plants.

The root microbiome of irrigated rice plants goes through a sequence of changes as the plants grow and stabilizes when they flower. The sequence of changes in the root microbiome is consistent for a particular rice strain and geographic location. Previous work has shown that when a growing rice plant is deprived of water, it hits pause on the succession of changes in the root microbiome.

Venkatesan Sundaresan, distinguished professor of plant biology in the UC Davis College of Biological Sciences and colleagues looked at changes in rice root microbes over time when plants were deprived of water for 11, 21 or 33 days. This kind of intermittent drought condition is more common in rain-fed crops than terminal drought, Sundaresan said.

As expected, the microbe community changes when water is taken away. More surprising is that the changes persisted for weeks after plants were watered again.

"Rice plants carry a 'memory' of the drought episode in their root microbiota, so that plants that have experienced drought can be distinguished solely on the basis of their microbiomes," Sundaresan said.

Promoting root growth

The team was able to culture and sequence the most abundant of these persistent microbes. It was a species of Streptomyces that promotes growth of plant roots, a classic response to drought. The bacteria's DNA includes genetic code similar to plant genes for the growth hormone auxin.

"The persistence of changes to the microbiome means that root elongation continues even after drought has ended. This allows the roots to be better prepared to tap deep water," Sundaresan said. For some drought tolerant rice cultivars, after a drought episode, the roots will continue to grow long enough to penetrate the hardpan, he said.

The persistent changes also mean that the microbiome response will be more rapid the next time drought hits, because it is altered from the first drought.

As extreme climate events become more common, crops are likely to experience more intermittent droughts, the authors note. Understanding what makes plants more resilient to drought conditions could help reduce crop losses.

In the depths of space, there are celestial bodies where extreme conditions prevail: Rapidly rotating neutron stars generate super-strong magnetic fields. And black holes, with their enormous gravitational pull, can cause huge, energetic jets of matter to shoot out into space. An international physics team with the participation of the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) has now proposed a new concept that could allow some of these extreme processes to be studied in the laboratory in the future: A special setup of two high-intensity laser beams could create conditions similar to those found near neutron stars. In the discovered process, an antimatter jet is generated and accelerated very efficiently. The experts present their concept in the journal Communications Physics (DOI: 10.1038/s42005-021-00636-x).

The basis of the new concept is a tiny block of plastic, crisscrossed by micrometer-fine channels. It acts as a target for two lasers. These simultaneously fire ultra-strong pulses at the block, one from the right, the other from the left - the block is literally taken by laser pincers. "When the laser pulses penetrate the sample, each of them accelerates a cloud of extremely fast electrons," explains HZDR physicist Toma Toncian. "These two electron clouds then race toward each other with full force, interacting with the laser propagating in the opposite direction." The following collision is so violent that it produces an extremely large number of gamma quanta - light particles with an energy even higher than that of X-rays.

The swarm of gamma quanta is so dense that the light particles inevitably collide with each other. And then something crazy happens: According to Einstein's famous formula E=mc2, light energy can transform into matter. In this case, mainly electron-positron pairs should be created. Positrons are the antiparticles of electrons. What makes this process special is that "very strong magnetic fields accompany it," describes project leader Alexey Arefiev, a physicist at the University of California at San Diego. "These magnetic fields can focus the positrons into a beam and accelerate them strongly." In numbers: Over a distance of just 50 micrometers, the particles should reach an energy of one gigaelectronvolt (GeV) - a size that usually requires a full-grown particle accelerator.

Successful computer simulation

To see whether the unusual idea could work, the team tested it in an elaborate computer simulation. The results are encouraging; in principle, the concept should be feasible. "I was surprised that the positrons that were created in the end were formed into a high-energy and bundled beam in the simulation," Arefiev says happily. What's more, the new method should be much more efficient than previous ideas, in which only a single laser pulse is fired at an individual target: According to the simulation, the "laser double strike" should be able to generate up to 100,000 times more positrons than the single-treatment concept.

"Also, in our case, the lasers would not have to be quite as powerful as in other concepts," Toncian explains. "This would probably make the idea easier to put into practice." However, there are only few places in the world where the method could be implemented. The most suitable would be ELI-NP (Extreme Light Infrastructure Nuclear Physics), a unique laser facility in Romania, largely funded by the European Union. It has two ultra-powerful lasers that can fire simultaneously at a target - the basic requirement for the new method.

First tests in Hamburg

Essential preliminary tests, however, could take place in Hamburg beforehand: The European XFEL, the most powerful X-ray laser in the world, is located there. The HZDR plays a major role in this large-scale facility: It leads a user consortium called HIBEF, which has been targeting matter in extreme states for some time. "At HIBEF, colleagues from HZDR, together with the Helmholtz Institute in Jena, are developing a platform that can be used to experimentally test whether the magnetic fields actually form as our simulations predict," explains Toma Toncian. "This should be easy to analyze with the powerful X-ray flashes of the European XFEL."

For astrophysics as well as nuclear physics, the new technique could be exceedingly useful. After all, some extreme processes in space are also likely to produce vast quantities of gamma quanta, which then quickly materialize again into high-energy pairs. "Such processes are likely to take place, among others, in the magnetosphere of pulsars, i.e. of rapidly rotating neutron stars," says Alexey Arefiev. "With our new concept, such phenomena could be simulated in the laboratory, at least to some extent, which would then allow us to understand them better."

Millennials, often referred to as the "job-hopping generation," represent a group of young workers who once grabbed the national spotlight with their publicized demands for "fun" work perks, such as happy hours. However, researchers at the Novak Leadership Institute at the University of Missouri and Kansas State University discovered today's young workers -- ages 21-34 -- represent a life-stage shift toward placing more value on having respectful communication in the workplace over trendy work perks.

"Millennials have been called the 'entitled generation,' and they kind of give young workers a bad rap because their often-publicized interests began with wanting to have fun in the workplace, but today's young workers have shifted toward interests in doing valuable work and finding meaning in their day-to-day job functions," said Danielle LaGree, an assistant professor of strategic communication at Kansas State University, who earned her doctorate at the Missouri School of Journalism. "Leaders and managers are the ones who have the power to help foster that connection of meaningful work, determine what employee well-being means and how to communicate that meaning in a respectful way to their employees."

The team of researchers, which includes experts from the Novak Leadership Institute and the MU Department of Communication, were able to identify this shift in workplace values for young workers after surveying more than 1,000 full-time workers, ages 21-34, who represent 18 different career areas, including the service industry. The team analyzed how participants rated, on a 1 to 5 scale, how each of the following workplace culture aspects were representative of their current place of employment -- respectful engagement, autonomous respect, occupational resilience, job satisfaction, employee loyalty and retention, and job engagement.

While previous studies have reported leaders and managers spend 70-90% of their time communicating, LaGree believes this study shows more emphasis needs to be placed on training leaders and managers on how to be effective communicators and convey respectful communication with their employees. She believes that even though the study was completed before the COVID-19 pandemic began, their results continue to be relevant in today's workplaces, which may have adjusted to more of a hybrid workplace split between work and home offices, or gone entirely remote.

LaGree acknowledges the extent to which leaders and managers can foster supportive cultures and outcomes is still unclear, yet she believes their study strongly contributes to the concept that workplaces are intensely social experiences.

"As we see here with our research, actively recognizing employees for the value they bring to their organization will help equip them to bounce back after adversity, to perform better in their jobs and be more committed to their organizations in the long term," LaGree said. "I think that's especially relevant today, even though this study was conducted before the coronavirus pandemic."

Margaret Duffy, executive director of the Novak Leadership Institute and a professor of strategic communication in the Missouri School of Journalism, believes employers risk losing younger employees if they don't make an effort to use respectful communication in the workplace.

"There's a giant risk for employers if they don't help employees have a sense of purpose and a sense of well-being and engagement," Duffy said. "Coming to work may not be joyful every day, but if work is something where I can feel fulfillment, I can feel respected as a human being and most important, that I can feel that I have earned the respect and recognition that I'm given by my boss and by my co-workers."

It's hard to save what you can't identify. That's been a problem for the endangered salt marsh harvest mouse, which is found only in the salty, brackish waters of the San Francisco Bay area. The mouse competes for space with about eight million humans, and more than three-quarters of its habitat has been eaten by development and land conversion. That loss is expected to increase amid rising sea levels.

Conserving the population has proven tricky, in part because it looks so much like another mouse in the area--the western harvest mouse--that is abundant throughout western U.S.

But scientists from UC Davis have developed a tool, a "decision tree," that has been able to differentiate the doppelgängers with up to 99% accuracy, without the need for genetic analysis.

"If people misidentify the species, they have a false impression that they're doing well," said Mark Statham, a researcher with the Mammalian Ecology and Conservation Unit within the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine.

The tool is described in a study published this month in a special issue of the journal California Fish and Wildlife.

BAY AREA HOUSING SHORTAGE

There are two distinct subspecies of salt marsh harvest mice -- a southern subspecies in south and central San Francisco Bay and a northern subspecies in the San Pablo and Suisun bays. Both look very similar to the non-endangered western harvest mouse.

Of the two, the southern is most vulnerable to climate change and habitat conversion. It relies on salt marshes, which are on the edge of the bay and feeling the pinch with sea level rise. Northern populations have more habitat and room to migrate upslope with climate change. But in the south bay, marsh land runs into urban areas, leaving southern salt marsh harvest mice with limited housing options.

MICE BELLIES TELL A TAIL

The study looked specifically at the southern population of mice. The researchers trapped and collected genetic samples and physical measurements from 204 harvest mice from across the southern mouse's population range. About one-quarter were salt marsh harvest mice while the remainder were western harvest mice.

The researchers then used machine learning to determine which characteristics were most helpful in setting the species apart. They found that the color of the mice's bellies and tail hair could best differentiate the endangered mouse from the western harvest mouse.

The red belly of the southern salt marsh harvest mouse is particularly striking. It's even part of the species' scientific name, Reithrodontomys raviventris. The "raviventris' component means "red belly."

"It is a bit of a misnomer because most animals within the species have a white belly, particularly those within the northern subspecies," Statham said. "So, it was never clear how useful this was for identifying the species. It turns out that it is one of two really useful characters for identifying the southern salt marsh harvest mouse."

Statham said this improved method could help efforts to conserve and recover the population of this mouse that is home only in the San Francisco Bay.

"Now field researchers can go in the field and identify the animal immediately," Statham said. "Without something like this, you don't really know what you've got."

A landmark scientific study involving marine biologists from Greece, Turkey, Cyprus, Libya, Italy, Tunisia, the UK, the US and even Malta, documenting instances where native Mediterranean species have preyed upon two highly invasive marine fish - the Pacific red lionfish and the silver-cheeked toadfish - has just been published. Prof. Alan Deidun, coordinator of the Spot the Alien Fish citizen science campaign and resident academic within the Department of Geosciences of the Faculty of Science, is a co-author of such an extensive study.

The Pacific red lionfish (Pterois miles) and the silver-cheeked toadfish (Lagocephalus sceleratus) are amongst the most invasive of non-indigenous fish species to enter the Mediterranean in recent years, posing both ecological and socio-economic hazards. For instance, considerable negative impacts on native fish populations in the Caribbean and in the Gulf of Mexico has been recorded as a result of the introduction of non-native lionfish species, such that the active removal and even consumption of the species is advocated by conservation biologists in the invaded areas, mainly as a result of a lack of predators of the same species. In addition, lionfish also pose risks to humans as the venom in their 18 spines can cause cardiovascular and neuromuscular effects, ranging from mild reactions, including swelling, to extreme pain and paralysis in upper and lower extremities. The Pacific red lionfish was first recorded from the Mediterranean in 1991 within Israeli waters, having reached the central Mediterranean in Italy and in Tunisia, but not Maltese waters, to date.

The silver-cheeked toadfish was first recorded from the Mediterranean from Turkish waters in 2003, and has even been caught a number of times from Maltese waters as of 2016. This is an extremely toxic species due to the high concentrations of the potent neurotoxin tetrodotoxin (TTX) it harbours in its tissues, responsible for a number of human mortalities each year. In addition, the species disrupts fishing lines, tears fishing nets and predates on fished stocks, including cephalopods (squid, cuttlefish, octopus), wreaking a considerable socio-economic impact.

The study has documented only one native predator of adult silver-cheeked toadfish - loggerhead turtles - and a number of native predators for juvenile toadfish, including dolphinfish (lampuki) and garfish (msell). Interestingly enough, cannibalism was also observed within the species. As for the Pacific red lionfish, documented native predators included the dusky grouper (?erna), the white grouper (dott tal-faxxi), the common octopus (qarnit) as well as the silver-cheeked toadfish itself. The study also documented predation of the two invasive fish species within their native range (i.e. Indo-Pacific region) as well as from other invaded regions (e.g. western Atlantic), through a trans-Atlantic research collaboration with colleagues from the US.

The relative paucity in natural, native predators of these two highly invasive non-indigenous fish species suggests that direct human management measures need to be implemented in order control their Mediterranean populations. In Cyprus, for example, the direct removal of both silver-cheeked toadfish and Pacific red lionfish individuals is incentivised by authorities through the provision of financial 'bounties' and through the organisation of spearfishing competitions known as 'derbies.'

Imagine opening up a book of nature photos only to see a kaleidoscope of graceful butterflies flutter out from the page.

Such fanciful storybooks might soon be possible thanks to the work of a team of designers and engineers at CU Boulder's ATLAS Institute. The group is drawing from new advancements in the field of soft robotics to develop shape-changing objects that are paper-thin, fast-moving and almost completely silent.

The researchers' early creations, which they've dubbed "Electriflow," include origami cranes that can bend their necks, flower petals that wiggle with the touch of a button and, yes, fluttering insects.

"Usually, books about butterflies are static," said Purnendu, a graduate student at CU Boulder who is leading the project and who goes by a singular name. "But could you have a butterfly flap its wings within a book? We've shown that it's possible."

He and his colleagues presented their results recently at the Association for Computing Machinery's 2021 Designing Interactive Systems (DIS) conference.

Artificial muscles

Purnendu explained that the team's Electriflow designs don't require motors or other traditional machine parts to come to life--making them soft to the touch, just like real butterflies. They're inspired by a class of "artificial muscles" that were initially developed by engineers led by Chrisoph Keplinger at CU Boulder and are now available commercially through a company called Artimus Robotics.

Artimus taps into a technology called hydraulically amplified self-healing electrostatic (HASEL) actuators. Unlike traditional robotic parts, which are often made of rigid metal, HASEL actuators get their power from fluids. The actuators rely on electrostatic forces to push oil around in sealed plastic pouches, said Eric Acome, a former CU Boulder graduate student who helped to pioneer the actuator technology. Picture how the shape of a ketchup packet will change when you squeeze one side.

"One of the main benefits of these actuators is that they're versatile," said Acome, coauthor of the new study and the chief technology officer at Artimus Robotics. "They're just pouches, but depending on the shape of that pouch, you can generate different kinds of movement."

They also emulate the natural world in which organisms of all kinds (think pufferfish or Venus fly traps) change their shapes to scare away predators and trap prey.

"Shape changing is a big part of communication and survival for certain animals," Purnendu said. "Engineers have been on a quest to develop similar kinds of functions for computer interfaces."

Wing flaps

Purnendu wondered if he could use the same concept as Artimus Robotics, or oils sloshing around inside pouches, not to just build new robots but to design soft, movable artwork.

Electriflow takes advantage of several different pouch shapes to create origami-like folds in flat plastic sheets. And it's fast: Purnendu's insects can beat their wings at a top speed of about 25 beats per second--quicker than most real butterflies and on par with some speedier moths.

"This system is very close to what we see in nature," he said. "We're pushing the boundaries of how humans and machines can interact."

The researcher said he hopes more artists and designers will use the tools he and his team developed to push those boundaries even farther. He imagines that one day, you might see origami animals that can fold themselves into various shapes from a flat sheet of plastic or cartoon characters that run and jump in the pages of books.

"There are a lot of different geometries that we can play with," Purnendu said.

For now, he's happy to watch his butterflies take flight.

Alexandria, Va., USA - The International Association for Dental Research (IADR) announced David Williams, Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, UK, as the 2021 recipient of the IADR Gold Medal Award. Williams was recognized during the Opening Ceremonies of the virtual 99th General Session & Exhibition of the IADR, held in conjunction with the 50th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Dental Research (AADR) and the 45th Annual Meeting of the Canadian Association for Dental Research (CADR), on July 21-24, 2021.

Williams is a Professor of Global Oral Health at Barts and The London School of Medicine and Dentistry, Queen Mary University of London, UK. He is currently Co-Chair of the FDI World Dental Federation Vision 2030 Working Group, a member of the Advocacy Task Team, a member of the Oral Health Observatory Task Team and Chair of the Science Committee of the FDI. He is joint Chair of the project team, comprised of 23 international experts, that has developed the Standard Set of Adult Oral Health Outcome Measures. Since June 2020 he has been a member of the Expert Advisory Group of the Global Self-Care Federation, which represents associations and manufacturers in the self-care industry and is committed to promoting sustainable growth and better global health outcomes for all.

Williams' principal research focus is on the causes and consequences of the oral health inequalities that exist both within and between countries. This led to the establishment of the International Association for Dental Research - Global Oral Health Inequalities Research Agenda® (IADR-GOHIRA®) initiative which set priorities for research that can lead to a reduction in oral health inequalities.

Williams served as the 86th president of the IADR (2009-10), president of the IADR British Division (2002-04) and president of the IADR Pan European Region (2004-05). He was a founding member and served as president of the IADR Global Oral Health Inequalities Research Network. He also served as president of the IADR Experimental Pathology Group (now the IADR Oral Medicine & Pathology Scientific Group) and on various IADR Committees. Williams won the IADR Oral Medicine and Pathology Research Award in 1996.

On receiving the award, Professor David Williams from Queen Mary University of London said: "I'm both humbled and honored to receive the IADR Gold Medal, the more so when I see the names of previous recipients. This is illustrious company by any measure. The award recognizes efforts over the past decade to raise awareness of the global burden of oral disease and the oral health inequalities that exist. This has not been a solo effort, but reflects the work of a community of outstanding colleagues. It has been a real privilege to have collaborated with many of them."

"It is particularly rewarding to see the historic Resolution on oral health passed by the World Health Assembly in May this year. The Resolution urges Member States to address key risk factors of oral diseases shared with other noncommunicable diseases and to enhance the capacities of oral health professionals. It also recommends a shift from the traditional curative approach towards a preventive approach."

The IADR Gold Medal is the highest recognition bestowed by the IADR. The IADR Gold Medal is presented to an individual who is a previous recipient of an IADR Distinguished Scientist Award (in any one of the current 17 categories) who has then built on their original scientific accomplishments to more broadly impact science, health research, or population health through expansion of their scientific field of inquiry into other disciplines or through higher administrative positions in academia, government, non-profit or private industry, or some combination thereof.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The parasites that cause severe malaria are well-known for the sinister ways they infect humans, but new research may lead to drugs that could block one of their most reliable weapons: interference with the immune response.

In the study, scientists defined the atomic-level architecture of the connection between a protein on the surface of a parasite-infected red blood cell when it binds to a receptor on the surface of an immune cell.

When that protein-receptor connection is made under normal circumstances, the infected red blood cell, hijacked by the disease-causing parasite, de-activates the immune cell - meaning the body won't fight the infection. A drug designed to fit into that space could block the interaction, allowing the immune system to get to work clearing away the pathogen.

In a previous study, a team including the Ohio State University and National Institutes of Health scientists who led this research did similar work with another immune cell receptor that the protein, called RIFIN, binds to in its bid to suppress the immune response.

Through a genome-wide analysis of the parasite that causes malaria, the scientists found RIFIN exerts the same type of immune-suppressing function in various species of Plasmodium infecting humans, gorillas and chimpanzees. This suggests it is a mechanism that has not changed over the course of evolution - meaning this function is critical to the parasite's success and therefore an attractive target for intervention.

The researchers envision either a vaccine or a chemical compound, or both, could be developed to disable this function, reducing the risk of severe malaria cases that require hospitalization and rapid treatment.

"RIFIN targets two receptors to down-regulate immune function so the parasite can evade immune surveillance and survive. If we can lift the immunosuppression, the human immune system can take care of the rest," said Kai Xu, assistant professor of veterinary biosciences at Ohio State and co-lead author of the study. "Inhibition of the immune response is one of the major reasons severe malaria infection is so hard to deal with."

Xu co-led the research with Peter Kwong of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Vaccine Research Center.

The study is published in Nature Communications.

This work focuses on species of Plasmodium that cause the worst cases of malaria - many of the 200 million people infected annually have mild symptoms, but severe cases can cause respiratory distress and organ failure. More than 400,000 people die of the disease each year. There are several drugs used to treat malaria, but current medications are losing effectiveness because the parasites have developed resistance to them.

Humans are infected through the bite of a mosquito carrying the parasite. Once in the human body, the parasites transform themselves in the liver so they can then infect red blood cells, reproduce and release toxic factors, which leads to clinical symptoms of disease.

The members of the RIFIN family of parasitic proteins - of which there are 200-plus - can do lots of things to exacerbate the infection once the parasite has reached red blood cells. A small subset of them bind to two receptors, LAIR1 and LILRB1, on B-, T- and NK cell surfaces to keep those immune cells dormant.

Capturing the protein-receptor interactions with X-ray crystallography in enough detail to define the precise structure at the binding site can be tricky because they happen so quickly and are dynamic. The researchers observed the connections as they naturally happen, but a bit of serendipity provided them with an even better option. It turns out that antibodies induced in some people who have had malaria contain genes from the LAIR1 receptor, and by being part of a parasite-specific antibody, the LAIR1 segment develops a very high attraction to RIFIN. Using those unusual antibody structures to observe the LAIR1 segment's attachment to RIFIN gave the team a much, much closer look at the structure of their bond.

From here, the researchers plan to focus their efforts on the 20 or so RIFIN family members that are attracted to and bind with the two immune cell receptors.

"RIFIN is a large and diverse parasitic protein family. However, the subset of RIFIN molecules that bind to LAIR1 and LILRB1 is less diversified and shares common features, so we only focus on that small subset," Xu said. "We want to generate a drug that can specifically target the receptor-binding interface on RIFIN, blocking one of the important immune escape mechanisms of the parasite. That's the future direction."

As the world warms, sweeping changes in marine nutrients seem like an expected consequence of increased ocean temperatures. However, the reality is more complicated. New research suggests that processes below the ocean surface may be controlling what is happening above.

Plankton are some of the most numerous and important organisms in the ocean. The balance of chemical elements inside them varies and is critical to shaping many marine processes, including the food web and the global carbon cycle. Temperature has been traditionally thought to control the ratio of these elements. However, a new study suggests this balance is largely dependent on activity in the subsurface ocean, from depths of over 300 feet. The work, led by scientists at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, was recently published in Communications Earth and Environment.

The team looked at samples from eight locations in oceans around the world. They found that the ratio of nitrogen and phosphorus introduced from the subsurface ocean controls the balance of those nutrients in the marine microorganisms that form the foundation of ocean health. This discovery could allow scientists to more accurately explore complex ocean processes.

"This is the first time that we've looked across a broad range of ocean regions and directly measured the balance of nutrients in ocean microorganisms, which is really exciting," said Mike Lomas, lead author on the paper. "Now we can apply more realistic parameters based on what is actually driving marine dynamics to the computer models used to forecast ocean change "

For decades, researchers have been using a fixed ratio to estimate the balance of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphorus in marine environments. Scientists and groups like the International Panel on Climate Change use this ratio in computer simulations to make predictions about the future of the planet.

However, it does not necessarily represent the wide diversity of chemical balances in the ocean or the significant role that organisms play in cycling nutrients.

"The problem is that the fixed ratios are safe estimates that do not actually represent how biology works," Lomas said. "More realistic, but risky and complicated, approaches are not yet widely utilized."

To develop a more accurate understanding of these ratios, Lomas directly measured them in phytoplankton - some of the most critical marine organisms worldwide. The elements in these organisms' cells reflect the available nutrients in their habitat and shine light on the role of biodiversity in how the nutrients cycle.

This is not the first time phytoplankton have been examined to understand nutrient levels in the ocean, but it is the most advanced and comprehensive. The team examined phytoplankton around the world to create a snapshot of three critical nutrient elements across broad environmental conditions. Traditionally, researchers have used physical filters to sort out plankton from seawater before examining them. However, this approach can also capture bacteria and tiny particles, leading to errors.

This study used a technique called flow cytometry, which allows researchers to examine and sort hundreds to thousands of cells per second. This enabled the researchers to isolate and examine only the cells they were interested in. It not only gave them a more accurate understanding of the diverse ratios of elements in the ocean, but also what processes are controlling them.

The team found that, contrary to the most common hypothesis, the ratio of carbon, nitrogen and phosphorus in cells was primarily dependent on the ratio of nitrogen and phosphorus supplied from the subsurface ocean to the sunlit waters where phytoplankton are active. This was true across all locations, regardless of the kind of phytoplankton or their environmental conditions.

Lomas hopes that this improved understanding of nutrients can be used to better picture how oceans will respond to climate change.

"We can't examine the nutrients in every single cell in every ocean, but we need to be sure all the controlling factors are included in computer models," Lomas said. "As we blend these results with other advanced disciplines, we will really advance our understanding of ocean dynamics and ability to forecast future conditions."

Irvine, Calif., July 21, 2021 -- It's not exactly X-ray vision, but it's close. In research published in the journal Optica, University of California, Irvine researchers describe a new type of camera technology that, when aimed at an object, can rapidly retrieve 3D images, displaying its chemical content down to the micrometer scale. The new tech promises to help companies inspect things like the insides of computer chips without having to pry them open -- an advancement the researchers say could accelerate the production time of such goods by more than a hundred times.

"This is a paper about a way to visualize things in 3D very fast, even at video rate," said Dmitry Fishman - director of laser spectroscopy labs in the UCI Department of Chemistry - who, along with Eric Potma, professor of chemistry, spearheaded the work. The novel imaging tech is based on a so-called nonlinear optical effect in silicon - a semiconductor material used in visible-light cameras and detectors.

Through such a nonlinear optical effect, conventional silicon detectors can sense light coming from the mid-infrared range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The reason being, Fishman explained, is that the mid-infrared spectral region carries important information on the material's chemical make-up. "Most molecular vibrations and signatures are in the mid-infrared range," he said.

Other technologies, he explained, are slow to retrieve images, because the laser light needs to scan across the object - a process that takes a longer amount of time. "A nonlinear optical 'trick' with short laser pulses allowed us to capture a depth-resolved image on a camera in one shot, thus providing an alternative method to what other people are doing - and the advance is that this is not just faster, but also produces 3D images with chemical contrast," Fishman said.

And the imaging technology isn't just for computer chips. Potma explained that the system can also image things like ceramics used to make things like heat shield plates on space shuttles and reveal clues about any structural weaknesses that might be there.

The research follows in the wake of work by Potma and Fishman and a team of researchers published last year in Nature's Light: Science & Applications that describes the first steps toward creating efficient mid-infrared detection technology using off-the-shelf silicon-based cameras. Back then, the technology was just beginning to take shape, but now, Fishman explained, it's getting close to being ready for the mainstream. "This time we made it much more efficient and better," he said.

FINDINGS

Scientists from the UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center have identified a key protein, transcription factor TAF12, that plays a critical role in the formation of a preinitiation complex, which consists of over one hundred proteins that are necessary for the transcription of protein-coding genes. The team found by eliminating TAF12, the entire preinitiation complex is destroyed and the genome-wide transcription is downregulated drastically.

The findings could help pave the way for cancer therapies that target TAF12, potentially stopping transcription in cancer cells and helping decrease the growth of cancerous tumors. TAF12 had previously been shown by others to be essential for growth of acute myeloid leukemia in mouse models.

"Identifying TAF12 as the cornerstone of the preinitiation complex allowed us to eliminate preinitiation complexes in the cell, and that has not been done before," said senior author Michael Carey, PhD, professor of Biological Chemistry and director of the Gene Regulation Program at the Jonsson Cancer Center.

BACKGROUND

There have been significant advancements in the last couple of decades in principles about how the genome is organized and understanding the structures of transcription factors. However, the precise details of how enhancers communicate with promoters -- genetic elements that control transcription in human and mouse genomes -- to turn on genes is still not completely understood.

Efficient transcription, a basic and fundamental biological process that plays an important role in making proteins, requires the formation of a preinitiation complex that has over one hundred transcription factors including two major complexes termed co-activators. Understanding how these major co-activators function in cells is crucial in determining the precise mechanisms of gene activation. In this study, UCLA investigators looked to identify the key proteins in the co-activators to see if this knowledge of gene regulation and transcription could be eventually be applied to cancer therapeutics.

METHOD

The researchers conducted an shRNA knockdown screen to identify key proteins in gene transcription in mouse embryonic stem cells. A technique termed auxin-inducible degradation was employed by the researchers to rapidly remove the identified transcription factor to determine the effects on formation of preinitiation complexes throughout the genome.

WASHINGTON, July 20, 2021 -- In the wind power industry, optimization of yaw, the alignment of a wind turbine's angle relative to the horizonal plane, has long shown promise for mitigating wake effects that cause a downstream turbine to produce less power than its upstream partner. However, a critical missing puzzle piece in the application of this knowledge has recently been added -- how to automate the identification of which turbines are experiencing wake effects amid changing wind conditions.

In the Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy, by AIP Publishing, researchers from the University of Texas at Dallas describe a real-time method for potentially helping turbine farms realize additional power from the clustering of their turbines. Their method requires no new sensors to identify which turbines at any given time could increase power production if yaw control is applied, and validation studies showed an increase of 1%-3% in overall power gain.

"There was a huge gap in how to determine, automatically, which turbine is in the wake of another in the field with variable wind conditions," said co-author Stefano Leonardi. "This is what we solved. This is our contribution."

Wind farms consist of multiple turbines built close together, each converting kinetic energy into electricity. Optimizing power production from an individual turbine depends on many factors (e.g., stratification, temperature, turbulence, topography, etc.), but optimizing production of the farm as a whole also involves interactions between turbines. A downstream turbine in the wake of another encounters decreased wind, reducing turbine power production up to 60%.

The researchers identified how to create clusters or links between turbines by identifying correlations in data currently collected by turbine sensors. Wind farm owners can then use this automated information to guide employment of a standard procedure for yaw control, based on the past decade of studies about yaw optimization. Each 1% increase in energy production would represent 3 billion kilowatts per year.

"The exciting part about our work is that it matches reality, impacting real people," said co-author Federico Bernardoni. "Operators can use these results to identify when they should apply yaw control, and to which group, to maximize wind power gain."

Since the turbines already have the hardware and sensors, and the land is already committed to the wind farm, any increase in power production using this method would be truly green energy. The method is also unique because it is model-free. It makes no assumptions about current parameters or conditions, minimizing the effects of uncertainty present in current wake models.

"By just making turbines smarter, we're getting more energy from something that already exists," said Leonardi. "Using just simple math, we're increasing energy, so that's a very clean, green 1[%]-3%."

Chinese researchers along with international colleagues recently reported a 6,700-year-long, precisely dated and well-calibrated tree-ring stable isotope chronology from the Northeastern Tibetan Plateau. It reveals full-frequency precipitation variability in the Asian Summer Monsoon (ASM) from interannual to multimillennial timescales with a long-term decreasing trend and several abrupt climate change events.

The international research team comprised 20 scientists from research groups based in China, Norway, Germany, United Kingdom, USA, Sweden, Canada, and Switzerland and was jointly led by Prof. Nils Christian Stenseth from the University of Oslo and Prof. YANG Bao from the Northwest Institute of Eco-Environment and Resources of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. The team studied more than 9,500 individual oxygen isotope measurements from juniper tree rings to reconstruct ASM variability over the past 6,700 years.

The researchers extracted and analyzed the oxygen isotopes from each ring in each tree independently, enabling them to build the most detailed dataset ever for the period from the mid-Holocene to the present.

These tree-ring stable isotopes offer a far more accurate archive for reconstructing full-frequency precipitation variability in North China than conventional tree-ring studies, which often fail.

By comparing this ASM precipitation reconstruction with another tree-ring oxygen record from the Animaqing Mountains, the researchers inferred that during the mid-Holocene, the ASM limit extended at least 300 km further northwest compared to its present day limit.

This allows direct comparison between the ASM's northern boundary 5,000 years ago and in the current era.

This precipitation reconstruction also provides a valuable opportunity to determine the societal and ecological responses to rapid climatic change in the past.

The reconstruction suggests that a rapid decrease in moisture availability from ~2,000-1,500 BCE caused a drought regime from ~1,675-1,185 BCE, which might have played an important role in regional forest deterioration and enhanced aeolian activity during that time.

In addition, the data also suggest that abrupt aridification starting about 2,000 BCE might have contributed to the shift of Neolithic cultures in northern China and likely triggered human migration and societal transformation during that time.