Brain

New Rochelle, NY, July 19, 2021--Duct tape and items retrieved from the water are common pieces of evidence in forensic cases. A new study evaluates the recovery of DNA from folded duct tape that has been submerged in ocean water for up to 2 weeks. The study is published in the peer-reviewed journal Forensic Genomics. Click here to read the article now.

Joseph Donfack, PhD, from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Laboratory Division, and coauthors showed that it is possible to recover enough DNA to yield a complete short tandem repeat (STR) profile from folded duct tape that has been submerged in ocean water for up to 2 weeks if the initial amount of cellular material is sufficient. They concluded that "the durability and adhesive nature of duct tape seem to provide protection to cellular material on its surface while submerged in aqueous environments."

Also published in the current issue of Forensic Genomics is the article entitled "Genes, Race, Ancestry and Identity in Forensic Anthropology: Historical Perspectives and Contemporary Concerns," by Amy Michael, PhD, University of New Hampshire, Jennifer Bengtson, PhD, Southeast Missouri State University, and Samantha Blatt, PhD, Idaho State University. "As anthropologists who collaborate with Forensic Genomics experts, we are interested in considering how debates within anthropological circles might inform--or be informed by--detailed biogeographical ancestry estimates generated as part of forensic genomic analyses," state the authors. "In this article, we summarize the history of the race concept in anthropology and contemporary debates about ancestry estimation occurring more specifically among forensic anthropologists." The proper assessment of biogeographical ancestry can be key for identifying unknown persons from forensic evidence.

Decreasing bacterial acidity could help reduce antimicrobial resistance by eliminating bacteria that can survive being treated with antibiotics.

Scientists at the University of Exeter have developed a novel method, which allows users to measure the pH of individual bacteria before, during and after treatment with antibiotics.

The research, published in the journal mBio, lays the foundation for understanding the special properties of bacteria that survive being treated with antibiotics, so that new ways of targeting them can be developed.

The Exeter University research team found that even before antibiotic treatment, common infection causing Escherichia coli cells that can survive treatment have a more acidic intracellular pH compared to clonal cells that are eliminated by the antibiotic treatment. These surviving cells are called persisters because they are responsible for persistent bacterial infections and contribute to antibiotic resistance.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the most pressing public health challenges and threatens the ability to effectively fight infectious diseases, with around 10 million people predicted to die annually of infections by 2050.

The University of Exeter research team has discovered the mechanisms that permit persisters to have an acidic pH. By measuring the genetic properties of these cells, they found that two cellular processes, namely tryptophan metabolism and carboxylic acid catabolism, are responsible for the low pH measured in persister bacteria.

Dr Stefano Pagliara, a biophysicist in the Living Systems Institute, leading this research at the University of Exeter, said: "Our findings indicate that the manipulation of the intracellular pH represents a bacterial strategy for surviving antibiotic treatment. Our new data suggest a strategy for developing antibiotics that interfere with key cellular components of persisters and decrease their acidity."

The team is now working on expanding this research to find out whether cell acidity is key for antibiotic resistance in other critical bacterial pathogens such as Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Burkholderia pseudomallei and to identify drug molecules that can alter the pH of persister cells before antibiotic treatment.

Researchers in the BOTTLE Consortium, including from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE's) National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and the University of Portsmouth, have identified using enzymes as a more sustainable approach for recycling polyethylene terephthalate (PET), a common plastic in single-use beverage bottles, clothing, and food packaging that are becoming increasingly relevant in addressing the environmental challenge of plastic pollution. An analysis shows enzyme-recycled PET has potential improvement over conventional, fossil-based methods of PET production across a broad spectrum of energy, carbon, and socioeconomic impacts.

The concept, if further developed and implemented at scale, could lead to new opportunities for PET recycling and create a mechanism for recycling textiles and other materials also made from PET that are traditionally not recycled today. PET ranks among the most abundantly produced synthetic polymers in the world, with 82 million metric tons produced annually; roughly 54% of PET is used in the manufacture of textiles for clothing and fibers for carpet.

"From all the plastics that were produced since the 1950s, less than 10% of it has ever been recycled," said Avantika Singh, a chemical engineer at NREL and first author of a new paper outlining the path toward enzyme-based recycling. "Most waste plastics end up in landfills."

The paper, "Techno-economic, life-cycle, and socioeconomic impact analysis of enzymatic recycling of poly(ethylene terephthalate)," appears in the journal Joule. Her coauthors are Nicholas Rorrer, Scott Nicholson, Erika Erickson, Jason DesVeaux, Andre Avelino, Patrick Lamers, Arpit Bhatt, Yi Min Zhang, Greg Avery, Ling Tao, Alberta Carpenter, and Gregg Beckham, all from NREL; and John McGeehan and Andrew Pickford of the University of Portsmouth's Centre for Enzyme Innovation in the United Kingdom, who are also members of BOTTLE.

BOTTLE is striving to address the problem of plastic pollution with two innovative approaches, namely to: (1) develop energy-efficient, cost-effective, and scalable recycling and upcycling technologies and (2) design modern plastics to be recyclable by design.

The new research paper addresses the challenge of plastic recyclability. While images of discarded bottles floating in oceans and other waterways provide a visual reminder of the problems posed by plastic waste, the lesser-seen issue remains of what to do with the PET used to manufacture textiles for clothing and fibers for carpet.

The researchers modeled a conceptual recycling facility that would take in a fraction of the 3 million metric tons of PET consumed annually in the United States. The enzymatic recycling process breaks down PET into its two building blocks, terephthalic acid (TPA) and ethylene glycol. Compared to conventional fossil-based production routes, the research team determined the enzymatic recycling process can reduce total supply-chain energy use by 69%-83% and greenhouse gas emissions by 17%-43% per kilogram of TPA. Additionally, an economy-wide comparison of virgin TPA and recycled TPA in the United States shows that the environmental and socioeconomic effects of the two processes are not distributed equally across their supply chain. The proposed recycling process can reduce environmental impacts by up to 95%, while generating up to 45% more socioeconomic benefits, including local jobs at the material recovery facilities.

The study also predicts that enzymatic PET recycling can achieve cost parity with the production of virgin PET, thus highlighting the potential for this enzyme technology to decarbonize PET manufacturing, in addition to enabling the recycling of waste PET-rich feedstocks, such as clothing and carpets.

"That's one of the biggest opportunities," Singh said. "If we can capture that space--textiles, carpet fibers, and other PET waste plastics that are not currently recycled--that could be a true game-changer."

An internal transporter that enables us to use the copper we consume in foods like shellfish and nuts to enable a host of vital body functions also has the essential role of protecting the receptor that enables us to grow new blood vessels when ours become diseased, Medical College of Georgia scientists report.

The findings published in the journal Nature Communications point toward the copper transporter ATP7A as a potential new therapeutic target in treating cardiovascular diseases like heart attack, peripheral artery disease and stroke.

"Our paper is talking about a newly discovered function of ATP7A," says
Dr. Masuko Ushio-Fukai, vascular biologist in MCG's Vascular Biology Center. "Our paper shows that ATP7A directly binds to the receptor for vascular endothelial growth factor, called VEGFR2, to stabilize it, to regulate the receptor itself," she says of the receptor that enables us to produce new blood vessels from our existing ones in a process called angiogenesis.

They've already shown that in diseases like diabetes, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease, ATP7A expression is down, degradation of VEGFR2 is up and a healthy copper balance lost, which contributes to many of the problems these patients experience like heart attacks and impaired wound healing, says Dr. Tohru Fukai, vascular biologist and cardiologist in the VBC.

It was those findings that got the co-corresponding authors on the new paper thinking there might be a direct link between ATP7A and VEGF's receptor.

Endothelial cells line our blood vessels, and VEGF stimulates the proliferation and movement of these cells, which lay the foundation and stimulation for restorative new blood vessels. VEGF receptors on endothelial cells are a starting point for angiogenesis, says Fukai.

In healthy humans, angiogenesis occurs to some extent throughout life, but in conditions like diabetes, when this ability is probably needed most, it's impaired, the scientists say.

They suspect and are further pursuing that the essential crosstalk they have now discovered between transporter and receptor occurs in aging as well when, as with many body functions and factors, levels of ATP7A naturally begin to decrease.

Next steps in their work include identifying drugs that would increase and stabilize ATP7A levels and consequently the VEGF receptor, Ushio-Fukai says.

The reddish metal copper, an essential micronutrient, has long been known to stimulate the proliferation and migration of endothelial cells -- copper prompts new blood vessel growth, and removing copper reduces tumor growth in animal models -- and copper concentrations are increased in tissue forming new blood vessels, the scientists say. But just how copper stimulates new blood vessel formation has been unknown, they say.

ATP7A typically resides in the cell's trans-Golgi network -- a sort of bus station inside the cell that sends new proteins out where needed -- where it delivers copper to enzymes that need the micronutrient to be activated and functional. These enzymes include superoxide dismutase, which breaks down the harmful byproducts of oxygen use like reactive oxygen species, which play a key role in a variety of conditions like cardiovascular disease and diabetes, as well as lysyl oxidase, which is critical to producing connective tissue in the body and essential to healthy bones, hair and more, Fukai says.

When too much copper accumulates inside the cells, as they have seen in conditions like diabetes, ATP7A also has the job of removing the excess because both too much or too little can be destructive. "Copper is both very toxic and essential," Fukai notes.

Now the MCG scientists have shown that VEGF coaxes ATP7A out of the trans-Golgi network to the cell membrane where it binds to and stabilizes VEGF's receptor. They also have shown that loss of ATP7A in endothelial cells promotes formation of autophagosomes, which basically cast a membrane net around whatever items are about to be consumed, and which now target VEGFR2 for degradation. The excess copper that begins to accumulate inside the cell can further hamper helpful angiogenesis.

"Essential copper enzymes cannot be activated and also excessive amounts of copper cannot be exported," says Fukai. "ATP7A would be one of the therapeutic targets to help correct this."

The collective findings mean that copper transporter ATP7A is required for new blood vessel formation and for restoring blood flow in ischemic cardiovascular disease, they write.

The fact that copper is essential to angiogenesis was shown decades ago, when it was found that just applying copper to endothelial cells stimulates angiogenesis, Ushio-Fukai says.

There has been some indication copper's role in angiogenesis worked through ATP7A's delivery of copper to copper containing enzymes like superoxide dismutase. "Our paper changes this concept," she says.

Conditions that can trigger ATP7A to move out of the trans-Golgi network are signals like a lot of copper being present in the cytoplasm, a fluid-filled pocket in the cell that holds most its contents including the trans-Golgi network; inadequate oxygen, called hypoxia, being supplied to a tissue, like what occurs in heart and peripheral artery disease; and insulin.

Too much copper inside cells is definitely bad, where it can work like what Fukai calls an "atomic weapon" to vigorously produce destructive free radicals. Without sufficient work by ATP7A to keep copper levels balanced, levels of the metal keep going up while the essential activities of copper containing enzymes decrease.

Although our cells naturally make copper receptors, we have to consume the essential micronutrient itself. Foods high in copper include oysters and other shellfish like lobster and small clams, shitake mushrooms, tofu and soybeans, sweet potatoes, sesame seeds and nuts like cashews and walnuts as well as leafy greens like spinach and kale.

What The Study Did: The experiences, perspectives and needs of transgender young people in accessing health care are described in this review of 91 studies.

Authors: Lauren S. H. Chong, M.D., of the Children's Hospital at Westmead in Sydney, Australia, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2021.2061)

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

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Media advisory: The full study and editorial are linked to this news release.

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The MOMAT research group from Universidad Complutense de Madrid has worked with Universidad de Almería, to develop a mathematical model that simulates the impact of SARS-CoV-2 strains and vaccines together, combined with many other biological and social processes in the propagation of COVID-19.

The tool can be downloaded without restriction and free of charge and applied to any territory. It forms part of the family of θ-SIR models, which were initially developed by the MOMAT research group itself before the arrival of new variants and the development of vaccines.

"The model allows us to estimate for the first time what the dynamics of the disease propagation could be. To do so, we have assumed scenarios which quantify uncertainties such as the appearance of new strains and the progress of the rate of vaccination, based on the emergence of data and new knowledge," explains Ángel Manuel Ramos, director of the Interdisciplinary Mathematical Institute (IMI) of UCM.

As well as the parameters already mentioned, the model takes into account others such as different phases of the illness, undetected cases and the impact of control measures.

Monitoring the reproduction number of variants and overall

The article that has just been published in Communications in Nonlinear Science and Numerical Simulation (it was written in January 2021) has developed and validated the model. It took data from Italy as a reference, with the arrival of what was then called the British strain (now "Alpha") and the vaccination rate then projected for the country using the vaccines Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. The model at that time estimated that the rate of vaccination was insufficient to prevent a new wave, given the new strain, as was subsequently confirmed.

The researchers highlight that the forecasts in the conclusions published in January have proved accurate, as can be seen in the updated data collected in the first six months of the year and included as a note in the annex to the article. Although it is true that the incidence is now lower than in January and the percentage of people immunised is greater, the experts recall the initial theory: a new strain may endanger the current vaccination rate's ability to prevent a new wave.

In epidemiological terms, the aim continues to be to lower the effective reproduction number of the disease (Re) to below 1. The model warns that this is not sufficient, given that although Re is below 1, the reproduction number of a specific variant (Re(v)) may be higher, even though the overall number of the epidemic is below 1. In this case, the vaccination rate would have to be increased and security measures enhanced.

"Our model continues to be useful, in particular during the current state of uncertainty with respect to the Delta strain. The same could happen with the Delta strain as with the Alpha, i.e. that the effective reproduction number is over 1, driving the pandemic to a possible new wave, although the figures right now are falling," adds Ramos.

For this reason, he insists, "it is very important to carry out rigorous monitoring at all times of the numbers of people affected with any new variant that is potentially more dangerous and increase the vaccination rate as soon as possible."

An award-winning model that is constantly being updated

The researcher from Universidad de Almería, Miriam Ruiz Ferrández, who belongs to the research group Supercomputación-Algoritmos, insists that "the simulated scenarios (and thus assuming that the hypotheses on the Alpha strain and the vaccination campaign are correct) demonstrate that the current rate of vaccination would be sufficient to eradicate the illness, provided that the restrictive control measures are maintained for a prolonged period of time. However, if the control measures are relaxed, the current rate of vaccination may not be sufficient to prevent a new wave."

Nevertheless, Ruíz highlights that "these scenarios were simulated for publication of the work at the end of May, when the Alpha variant was predominant; and in the current situation, with the appearance of new strains such as the Delta, we are working on new scenarios in which we have to incorporate their characteristics to obtain updated results."

To make their results better known, the experts have publishedan informational video in which they explain the research. Moreover, on 17 June, the Social Council of the UCM rewarded this group at the COVID-19 Awards in the Research category for the project "Mathematical models as a key tool in the fight against COVID-19".

Analysis of children and young people's proximity to woodlands has shown links with better cognitive development and a lower risk of emotional and behavioural problems, in research led by UCL and Imperial College London scientists that could influence planning decisions in urban areas.

In what is believed to be one of the largest studies of its kind, researchers used longitudinal data relating to 3,568 children and teenagers, aged nine to 15 years, from 31 schools across London. This period is a key time in the development of adolescents' thinking, reasoning and understanding of the world.

The study, published in Nature Sustainability, looked at the links between different types of natural urban environments and the pupils' cognitive development, mental health and overall well-being.

The environments were divided into what planners call green space (woods, meadows and parks) and blue space (rivers, lakes and the sea), with green space separated further into grassland and woodland. Researchers used satellite data to help calculate each adolescent's daily exposure rate to each of these environments within 50m, 100m, 250m and 500m of their home and school.

After adjusting for other variables, the results showed that higher daily exposure to woodland (but not grassland) was associated with higher scores for cognitive development, and a 16% lower risk of emotional and behavioural problems two years later.

A similar but smaller effect was seen for green space, with higher scores for cognitive development, but this was not seen for blue space. The researchers note though that access to blue space in the cohort studied was generally low.

Examples of other explanatory variables considered included the young person's age, ethnic background, gender, parental occupation and type of school, e.g., state or independent. The level of air pollution might have influenced adolescents' cognitive development, but researchers did not feel these observations were reliable or conclusive, and these require further investigations.

It is already estimated that one in 10 of London's children and adolescents between the ages of five and 16 suffer from a clinical mental health illness and excess costs are estimated between £11,030 and £59,130 annually for each person. As with adults, there is also evidence that natural environments play an important role in children and adolescents' cognitive development and mental health into adulthood, but less is known about why this is.

The results of this study suggest that urban planning decisions to optimise ecosystem benefits linked to cognitive development and mental health should carefully consider the type of natural environment included. Natural environments further away from an adolescent's residence and school may play an important role too, not just their immediate environment.

Lead author, PhD student Mikaël Maes (UCL Geography, UCL Biosciences and Imperial College London School of Public Health) said: "Previous studies have revealed positive associations between exposure to nature in urban environments, cognitive development and mental health. Why these health benefits are received remains unclear, especially in adolescents.

"These findings contribute to our understanding of natural environment types as an important protective factor for an adolescent's cognitive development and mental health and suggest that not every environment type may contribute equally to these health benefits.

"Forest bathing, for example (being immersed in the sights, sounds and smells of a forest), is a relaxation therapy that has been associated with physiological benefits, supporting the human immune function, reducing heart rate variability and salivary cortisol, and various psychological benefits. However, the reasons why we experience these psychological benefits from woodland remain unknown."

Joint senior author Professor Mireille Toledano (Director, Mohn Centre for Children's Health and Wellbeing and Investigator, MRC Centre for Environment and Health and Principal Investigator of the SCAMP study, Imperial College London) said: "It's been suggested previously that the benefits of natural environments to mental health are comparable in magnitude to family history, parental age and even more significant than factors like the degree of urbanisation around you, but lower than your parents' socio-economic status. Sensory and non-sensory pathways have been suggested as potentially important for delivering cognition and mental health benefits received from exposure to nature.

"It's critical for us to tease out why natural environments are so important to our mental health throughout the life course - does the benefit derive from the physical exercise we do in these environments, from the social interactions we often have in them, or from the fauna and flora we get to enjoy in these environments or a combination of all of these?"

Joint senior author Professor Kate Jones (UCL Centre for Biodiversity & Environment Research, UCL Biosciences) said: "One possible explanation for our findings may be that audio-visual exposure through vegetation and animal abundance provides psychological benefits, of which both features are expected in higher abundance in woodland. Even though our results show that urban woodland is associated with adolescent's cognitive development and mental health, the cause of this association remains unknown. Further research is fundamental to our understanding of the links between nature and health."

To arrive at the findings, researchers analysed a longitudinal dataset of 3,568 adolescents between 2014 and 2018, whose residence was known, from the Study of Cognition, Adolescents and Mobile Phones (SCAMP) across the London metropolitan area. They assessed adolescents' mental health and overall well-being from a self-reported Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) - covering areas such as emotional problems, conduct, hyperactivity and peer problems - and the KIDSCREEN-10 Questionnaire taken by each adolescent for SCAMP.

Limitations of the study include an assumption that living or going to school near natural environments means more exposure to them, which may not always be the case due to how easily they can be accessed by a child or young person or how usable they are.

Also, a considerable proportion of the participants (52.21%) were in the group whose parents had a managerial/professional occupation, so adolescents in less favourable socio-economic groups may be underrepresented and pupils requiring special needs may be differently affected compared with their peers. Crime rates, which may have influenced the results too, were not taken into account.

Two common practices in the U.S. restaurant industry -- service with a smile and tipping -- contribute to a culture of sexual harassment, according to new research from the University of Notre Dame.

"A perfect storm: Customer sexual harassment as a joint function of financial dependence and emotional labor" was recently published in the Journal of Applied Psychology from Timothy Kundro, assistant professor of management and organization at Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business.

In the study, co-authored by Alicia Grandey and Vanessa Burke from Penn State University and Gordon Sayre from Emlyon Business School in France, more than 66 percent of restaurant employees reported facing some form of sexual harassment in the past six months.

Previous research has looked at the idea that customers can engage in sexual harassment. But this study is the first to examine why sexual harassment is so pervasive in the service industry itself. It's also the first to empirically link tipping to sexual harassment. 

"Service employee dependence on tips and requirements for friendly displays lead customers to experience a heightened sense of power -- which can lead them to engage in sexual harassment," said Kundro, whose research examines when and why employees engage in dysfunctional behavior, specifically looking at ethics, discrimination and impression management. "We show it's really the joint effects of customer tipping and requirements for positive gestures that drive sexual harassment. When either isn't present, customers don't feel the same sense of power."

The team conducted two studies. In the first, they asked 92 full-time service employees to report the percentage of their income dependent on tips and the extent to which their organization requires them to maintain positive displays with customers. The researchers asked the service employees to report how much power they felt customers had and then asked the employees to report how frequently they experience sexual harassment. 

The team recruited 229 men for the second study to analyze the customer perspective. They manipulated the dependence on tips and the facial display of the waitress. The men then reported the extent to which they would feel power and would engage in sexual harassment behaviors.

"It's really compelling, in my view," Kundro said, "because we replicated this from both the perspective of the employee and the customer and our findings for each were the same -- employees who rely on tips face more sexual harassment, but only when required to engage in 'service with a smile.'"

The study suggests that service organizations can reduce customer power and sexual harassment by eliminating tipping dependence and/or requirements for "service with a smile."

"You really can't have both," Kundro said. "Yet, organizations often do -- which may explain why sexual harassment is so pervasive in the service industry. Our research shows that paying a fair wage or eliminating tipping practices can reduce the power differential between a service worker and an employee. Alternatively, organizations can also reduce or eliminate positive display requirements."

Living organisms are often exposed to stress stimuli generated either by external or internal factors, and they need to respond accordingly. At a cellular level, stress usually triggers the activation of survival pathways that contribute to the recovery of cell homeostasis. However, when stress is too high, a process of cell death is initiated that eliminates the damaged cell.

Scientists led by ICREA researcher Dr. Angel Nebreda, head of the Signalling and Cell Cycle laboratory at IRB Barcelona, have identified an important role of the p38-MK2 pathway in determining cell fate in response to stress.

"Our study describes a molecular mechanism that cells can use to translate the stress-induced activation of the p38a-MK2 pathway into an appropriate biological response," says Dr. Nebreda.

When cells are exposed to high levels of stress, the p38-MK2 pathway is activated in a sustained manner, promoting the degradation of the MK2 protein, which correlates with cell death. However, moderate levels of stress trigger only a temporary activation of the p38-MK2 pathway, which allows the re-accumulation of MK2 and leads to cell survival. Thus, MK2 protein levels act as a molecular indicator that informs cells whether to stay alive or to initiate self-destruction.

"By using human and mouse cell lines treated with different stress stimuli, we showed that MK2 expression levels are regulated by stress intensity and that they are critical for the viability of stressed cells," explains Dr. Núria Gutiérrez-Prat, who started the work and is the first co-author of the article, together with Dr. Mónica Cubillos-Rojas and Dr. Begoña Canovas.

p38, a protein related to stress and cancer

p38 is a central protein that regulates many cellular processes by modulating the activity of a number of other proteins. Diseases such as cancer show alterations in the p38 pathway, and high p38 activity levels are sometimes linked to poor prognosis, for example in lung tumours. Moreover, the dysregulation of this p38-MK2 pathway has been linked to several human diseases, such as inflammatory disorders and cancer.

Further studies will investigate whether the regulation of the p38-MK2 pathway in response to strong or sustained stress functions as a common sensor of irreversible damage among cell types. Researchers will also study the possible relevance of these stress response mechanisms in causing diseases, and whether the stress response differs under pathological situations.

According to the World Health Organization, over 340 million children and adolescents (aged 5 to 10 years old) were classified as overweight or obese in 2016, a statistic that has risen from 14% since 1975. Childhood obesity is associated with a wide range of severe health complications and an increased risk of premature onset of illnesses, including diabetes and heart disease. Without intervention, children and young adolescents classified as obese are likely to remain so throughout adolescence and adulthood.

A new study conducted in the United Arab Emirates investigates whether asking early adolescents to evaluate the food choices of peers triggers deliberative thinking that improves their own food selection, even when the peers' food choices are unhealthy. The findings suggest that incorporating evaluations of the healthiness of others' food choices can be a tool to fight unhealthy eating lifestyles. This study is the first to ask early adolescents to evaluate the food choices of "remote peers" (real or fictitious children of the same age who are not physically present). In this instance, the remote peers were fictitious students of the same age identified as coming from another school whose varied (healthy or unhealthy) food choices were shared in writing before the young adolescents participating in the study selected their own food.

The findings were published in a Child Development article, written by researchers at the American University of Sharjah, the University of Granada, Zayed University, University of St. Gallen, New York University Abu Dhabi, Center for Behavioral Institutional Design and the Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research.

"We initially hypothesized that early adolescents who evaluate the healthiness of food choices of remote peers will make healthier decisions irrespective of the healthiness of the remote peers' choice," said Ernesto Reuben, lead researcher and professor at the Center for Behavioral Institutional Design at New York University Abu Dhabi. "Our second hypothesis suggested that asking young adolescents to evaluate the healthiness of the choices of remote peers will trigger more deliberative decision-making among 6th graders compared to 5th graders, because cognitive development even in the short span of one year may result in greater reliance on reasoned decisions made more slowly and thoughtfully, rather than intuitive decisions that are made impulsively. Growth in reliance on deliberative decision making with age during early adolescence would mean that being asked to evaluate the food choices of a remote peer could have a higher impact on the healthiness of food choices of the older students compared to the younger ones."

Participants included 467 students (54.5% female) in the 5th and 6th grades recruited from three international primary schools in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. The sample was predominantly of middle to high socioeconomic status.

The week before the experiment, an email was sent to parents of participating students to inform them that they would not need to bring a snack for one of their school breaks on the day of the study. Participants were presented with four different food trays each with five different food items of similar nutritional value evaluated by a nutritionist at the Burjeel Hospital in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates. Each adolescent was asked to select four food items from the trays. Before making their own food choices, they were informed about the four food items chose by an unknown remote peer attending a different school who was also participating in the experiment.

In each participating school, different classes were randomly assigned to one of four treatments (variables):

Healthy Peer: the remote peer's food items were all relatively healthy: an apple, a banana, a pear, and water.

Unhealthy Peer: the remote peer's food items were all relatively unhealthy: gummi bears, a lollipop, chips, and chocolate milk.

Healthy Peer with Evaluation: after receiving the information about the remote peer's choices but before choosing their own food, participants had to evaluate the remote peer's decisions in terms of healthiness and explain their evaluation. The peer's choices were the same as in Healthy Peer treatment (apple, banana, pear and water).

Unhealthy Peer with Evaluation: mirrors the Healthy Peer with Evaluation treatment but uses the peer's choices of the Unhealthy Peer treatment (gummi bears, a lollipop, chips and chocolate milk).

Participants were also asked to evaluate the healthiness of the peer's choices as 'very unhealthy,' `unhealthy,' `healthy,' or `very healthy.' Participant's knowledge of the healthiness of the food items was also measured (how they thought parents from their school would rank the different food trays from unhealthiest to healthiest).

The findings indicated that the mere fact of being asked to evaluate the choices of a remote peer led young adolescents to choose significantly healthier food, whether or not the peer's food choice was healthy or unhealthy. In addition, even the small age difference between 5th and 6th graders mattered. Evaluating the peer's choices improved the healthiness of the food choices of 6th graders more than those of 5th graders.

"These findings show that making individuals think more deliberately affects their decision-making--moreover, the stage of their cognitive development matters," said Francisco Lagos, professor of economics at Zayed University and the University of Granada. "The findings also have important public health implications: having a better understanding of how young adolescents develop, evaluate, and subsequently make food choices can help us design effective strategies to improve people's eating habits while they are young."

The authors acknowledge that the adolescents in the study made their decisions without social interaction, whereas food choices are often made by adolescents in social contexts. In addition, study participants were provided popular, familiar healthy food items such as fruit, but not healthy options sometimes considered less attractive, such as green vegetables. Participants were also from relatively affluent and educated families in which adults may be more likely to emphasize the benefits of health eating. The findings are based on specific age cohorts and may not apply to younger adolescents with less capacity for deliberative thinking. Finally, one of the main challenges in improving eating habits is finding effects that last long-term and this study evaluated only short-term effects.

Shining a beam of light into potentially contaminated water samples may hold the key to real-time detection of hydrocarbons and pesticides in water.

UBC Okanagan researchers are testing the use of fluorescence to monitor water quality. The results, they say, show great promise.

When a beam of light is shone into the water, it excites the electrons in molecules of certain compounds and causes them to emit light. The characteristics of the emitted light are like a fingerprint and can be used to identify certain contaminants, explains Nicolas Peleato, an assistant professor at UBCO's School of Engineering.

"The challenge with using this fluorescence approach is that they are typically source-specific; meaning we have to calibrate for a particular water source and anticipate what specific contaminants we want to look for," says Peleato. "In our latest work, we have developed a data processing technique that expands the effectiveness from one water source to others."

This means their new technique removes a lot of the guesswork at the beginning of the process. As Peleato points out, every water source has a slightly different composition of organic compounds, which can hide the contaminant signals, so calibrating for each source is crucial for detection accuracy.

Using machine learning algorithms, Peleato and his graduate student Ziyu Li have devised an approach that addresses the challenge of source-specific models through mapping their similarities.

According to Li, it isn't quite a one-size-fits-all method but it is close.

"By establishing a process that identifies similar patterns between water sources, the fluorescence detection becomes a viable option for real-time, accurate detection of hydrocarbons and pesticides," explains Li.

During the testing process, the researchers look for unique shapes of fluorescence signals. Each unique shape indicates the presence of impurities and helps researchers determine what the impurity is and distinguish it from other compounds.

Water contaminated with hydrocarbons is known to be carcinogenic and can be dangerous, or toxic, to flora and fauna.

The researchers are now turning their attention to using this new approach to detect and monitor chemicals, such as the major toxic contaminants in oil sand tailings ponds that may impact surface water and groundwater.

"Building a comprehensive model that seamlessly transitions from one water source to another will speed up monitoring, and has the potential to be a game changer," says Peleato.

ITHACA - Ligands are much like nanosized barnacles, binding to many kinds of surfaces. This form of adsorption is crucial for a range of chemical processes, from purification and catalysis to the design of nanomaterials.

However, understanding how ligands interact with the surface of nanoparticles has been a challenge to study. Adsorbed ligands are difficult to identify because there are other molecules in the mix, and nanoparticle surfaces are uneven and multifaceted, which means they require incredibly high spatial resolution to be scrutinized.

Cornell researchers led by Peng Chen, the Peter J.W. Debye Professor of Chemistry in the College of Arts and Sciences, have used a breakthrough imaging technique they pioneered in 2019 to obtain a high-resolution snapshot of these surface interactions and gain new understanding of the strength, or affinity, of ligand adsorption as well as how multiple ligands cooperate - or don't - with each other.

This led to an unexpected discovery: By varying the concentration of an individual ligand, the researchers found they can control the shape of the particle it stowed aboard - an approach that could result in an array of daily applications, such as removing micropollutants from the environment.

"When the molecule adsorbs on the surface of a nanoscale material, it also actually protects the surface and makes it more stable," Chen said. "And this can be utilized to control how nanoscale particles grow and become their eventual shape. And we found we can do this with just one ligand. You don't do any other trick. You just decrease the concentration or increase the concentration, and you can change the shape."

The group's paper, "Nanoscale Cooperative Adsorption for Materials Control," published July 13 in Nature Communications. The lead authors are postdoctoral researchers Rong Ye, a Presidential Postdoctoral Fellow, and Ming Zhao.

A nanoparticle's size and surface structures, or facets, are intrinsically tied to the particle's potential applications. The larger the particle, the more atoms fit inside it, while smaller particles have less available space internally but a greater surface volume ratio for atoms to sit atop, where they can be utilized for processes such as catalysis and adsorption. The different types of structures the atoms and molecules form on these surface facets are directly correlated with the particle's shape.

Scientists have used several imaging methods to survey these particles, but they haven't been able to obtain nanometer resolution to really explore the nooks and crannies of the multiple surface facets and quantify the affinity of a ligand's adsorption. Chen's team was able to do just that by employing a method it devised, called COMPEITS - short for COMPetition Enabled Imaging Technique with Super-Resolution.

The process works by introducing a molecule that reacts with the particle surface and fluoresces. A nonfluorescent molecule is then sent to bind to the surface, where its reaction competes with the fluorescent signal. The resulting decrease in fluorescence - essentially creating a negative image - can then be measured and mapped with super high resolution.

Using COMPEITS on a gold nanoparticle, the team was able to quantify the strength of ligand adsorption, and they discovered just how diverse ligand behavior can be. Ligands, it turns out, are fair-weather friends of a sort: At some sites, they cooperate to help each other adsorb; at others, they can impair each other's efforts. Chen's team also discovered that sometimes this positive and negative cooperativity exists at the same site.

In addition, the researchers learned that the surface density of adsorbed ligands can determine which facet is dominant. This "crossover" inspired the team to vary the concentrations of individual ligands as a way to tune the shape of the particle itself.

"For us, this has opened more possibilities," Chen said. "For example, one way to remove micropollutants, such as pesticides, from the environment is to adsorb micro-portions on the surface of some adsorbent particle. After it is adsorbed on the surface of the particle, if the particle is a catalyst, it can catalyze the destruction of the micropollutants."

The research was primarily supported by the Army Research Office, an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory.

"Professor Peng Chen's work allows for deep insights into molecular adsorption processes, which is important to understand for designing molecular sensors, catalysts and schemes to clean up micropollutants in the environment," said James Parker, program manager with the Army Research Office. "This research is also important for designing and engineering stimuli-responsive materials with specialized function that could not be found in regular, bulk materials."

New research published online in the International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction found that Canadians with a history of drug dependence are much less likely to have flourishing mental health and are more likely to have mental illness.

Researchers compared a nationally representative sample of 460 Canadians with a history of illicit drug dependence (excluding cannabis) to 20,305 Canadians with no history of illicit drug dependence using data drawn from Statistic Canada's Canadian Community Health Survey-Mental Health.

While 80% of those with a history of drug dependence were in remission, more than half (52.1%) were still experiencing mental illness. Further, only 37.9% were in excellent mental health, which is markedly lower than the 74.1% of Canadians without a history of drug dependence who had excellent mental health. To be considered in excellent mental health, participants had to report: 1) freedom from mental illness in the previous year (i.e., substance dependence, psychiatric disorders, suicidality); 2) almost daily happiness or life satisfaction in the past month; and 3) high levels of social and psychological well-being in the past month.

"Remission from dependence is an important factor in the recovery process, but we also want to consider mental health outcomes beyond abstinence," says first author, Andie MacNeil, a recent Master of Social Work graduate from the University of Toronto. "We want to think about how we can support the psychological and social well-being of people recovering from drug dependence."

The current study found several factors that were associated with excellent mental health among those in remission from drug dependence, including older age and social support.

"As people age, they often experience declines in impulsivity and increased role responsibilities in their personal and professional lives," says senior author Esme Fuller-Thomson, professor at the University of Toronto's Factor-Inwentash Faculty of Social Work and director of the Institute for Life Course and Aging. "Older individuals often move away from the social circles and contexts where drug use is more prevalent, which in turn can help support their recovery."

A post-secondary education, being married, and no lifetime history of major depressive disorder or generalized anxiety disorder were among the other factors associated with both remission from drug dependence and excellent mental health.

Although the Statistics Canada survey used for the study did not collect information on interventions that participants may have used to support their recovery, other research indicates that various psychosocial approaches (such as Motivational Interviewing, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy) and pharmacological approaches (such as Opioid Agonist Therapy) can help individuals reduce drug use and recover from dependence.

Drug dependence is a major public health crisis, with drug overdoses now representing one of the leading causes of death for adults under 50 in the United States. Although opioids tend to be the driving substance behind overdose deaths, there has been significant increases in cocaine-involved deaths and psychostimulant-involved deaths in recent years. In the United States, illicit drug use has an estimated cost of $193 billion per year due to healthcare expenditures, criminal justice costs, and loss productivity.

"Considering the tremendous loss of life due to drug dependence and its associated economic consequences, there needs to be a greater understanding of factors associated with both remission and with broader aspects of recovery, such as mental well-being," says MacNeil.

Ashalcha oilfield in Tatarstan is one of the most popular locations to study the extraction of heavy oils. In particular, Kazan Federal University's In-Situ Combustion Lab has been working there for a few years.

Senior Research Associate Irek Mukhamatdinov explains, "On average, there are one sulfur and one nitrogen atom and five oxygen atoms per resin molecule. In the course of transformation under the action of a catalytic agent and a hydrogen donor, the content of heteroatoms (sulfur, nitrogen and oxygen) in a much larger number of structural blocks of resin molecules decreases. Resin molecules are mainly represented by mono- and two-block structures with a predominance of aromatic rings over naphthenic ones, with long paraffin chains."

His co-author, Head of the In-Situ Combustion Lab Alexey Vakhin adds, "As a result of thermal steam treatment with a catalyst and a hydrogen donor, the fraction of atoms in paraffinic and naphthenic fragments decreases, while in aromatic fragments it increases, which confirms the fact that an increase in the aromaticity and a decrease in the aliphaticity of oil take place during its hydrothermal transformations."

During the study, scientists were able to identify the distribution of resin fractions. These fractions were obtained by liquid-adsorption chromatography, extracted with individual solvents and their binary mixtures in various ratios. The results of MALDI spectroscopy revealed a decrease in the molecular weight of all resin fractions after catalytic treatment, mainly with a hydrogen donor.

"Elemental analysis data indicate a decrease in the H / C ratio for resin fractions as a result of the removal of alkyl substituents in resins and asphaltenes. The data of 1H NMR spectroscopy of resin fractions indicate an increase in the aliphatic hydrogen index during catalytic aquathermolysis in the high-molecular part of resins R3 and R4," says Mukhamatdinov.

One of the advantages of this particular technology is its relative cost effectiveness. New catalysts are planned for use in Ashalcha soon.

Sunnyvale, Calif. - July 13, 2021 - Aerin Medical Inc., a company dedicated to providing Ear Nose and Throat (ENT) physicians non-invasive solutions for the treatment of chronic nasal airway conditions, today announced that the International Forum of Allergy and Rhinology has published three-month results online from the VATRAC trial, confirming the safety and efficacy of VivAer® for the treatment of nasal airway obstruction (NAO) caused by nasal valve collapse (NVC). In the study, those treated with VivAer showed significant improvement in nasal obstruction symptoms compared to the control group. This is the first randomized controlled trial of a non-invasive, radiofrequency treatment of NVC.

"The outcome of this study provides one of the highest levels of clinical evidence to support the use of VivAer in treating nasal airway obstruction due to nasal valve collapse," said co-principal investigator Joseph K. Han, M.D., of the Department of Otolaryngology - Head and Neck Surgery at the Eastern Virginia Medical School, in Norfolk, Virginia, and president of the American Rhinologic Society. "New, non-invasive treatment options that don't require cuts or incisions are remarkable for patients whose daily lives are impacted by the burden of nasal congestion. This study builds on the growing body of evidence that VivAer provides an attractive alternative to traditional surgical procedures for appropriate patients."

The VivAer procedure for Treatment of Nasal Airway Obstruction Study (VATRAC), a multi-center, prospective, single-blinded, randomized, sham-controlled trial, enrolled 117 patients who had extreme or severe NAO, based on the clinically validated Nasal Obstruction Symptom Evaluation (NOSE) Scale score, with NVC as a primary or significant contributor to their nasal obstruction symptoms. Patients were randomized to undergo in-office treatment with VivAer (treatment group) or an in-office sham procedure that replicated the treatment experience without delivering therapeutic radiofrequency energy (control group).

The VATRAC study met its primary and secondary endpoints, with treated patients demonstrating a significantly superior responder rate (88.3% of the treatment group patients had at least a 20% improvement in NOSE score versus 42.5% in the control group) and symptom reduction (55.1% improvement in mean NOSE score in the treatment group compared to 21.3% improvement in the control group). Statistically significant improvements were observed for treated patients in nasal congestion, nasal blockage, improved breathing and sleeping, and improved breathing during exercise or exertion. The authors noted that patients treated with VivAer experienced NAO symptom relief similar to those who underwent more invasive surgical procedures. Subgroup analysis of the data also showed that VivAer was equally effective in treating patients with static and dynamic (occurring during inhalation) NVC. Treatment with VivAer was generally well tolerated, with no serious adverse events related to the procedure.

NAO is a common condition that impacts more than 20 million Americans1 and can take a heavy toll on daily life. The most common symptoms include nasal congestion or stuffiness, trouble breathing through the nose, trouble sleeping, and difficulty breathing well during exercise or exertion. NVC contributes to nasal obstruction for 73% of highly symptomatic patients,2 but it is often under-diagnosed and left untreated. VivAer offers physicians a unique treatment modality that gently remodels tissue in the nasal valve, increasing its ability to resist collapse.

"We believe that one reason NVC is commonly overlooked is the scarcity of non-invasive treatment options as an alternative to surgical repair," said Scott Wolf, M.D., founder and chief medical officer of Aerin Medical. "To date, more than 30,000 people have been treated with VivAer, and the strong VATRAC trial results reflect our commitment to building a robust body of clinical evidence to support the safety and effectiveness of this non-invasive device."