Brain

When so-called beauty quarks are produced during the collision of high-energy proton beams in the Large Hadron Collider - the particle accelerator at CERN in Geneva - they decay almost immediately on the spot. Researchers of the Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment (LHCb) reconstruct the properties of the composite particles based on their decay products. According to the established laws of particle physics - the so-called Standard Model - it is expected that beauty quarks decay with the same probability into a final state with electrons and muons, the much heavier siblings of electrons. However, since 2014 measurements at the LHC suggest that this "lepton universality" may be violated in some decays. In these decays, the production ratio of the two types of particles is different from the theoretical prediction of one.

Decay measurements appear inconsistent with particle physics prediction

Members of the group led by Nicola Serra, professor at the Department of Physics at the University of Zurich (UZH), are part of the small research team that worked directly on the measurement. In the newest LHCb analysis, the ratio of decay products containing electrons and muons was determined with much better precision compared to previous measurements, using all the data collected by the LHCb detector so far. The result indicates evidence for a deviation from the ratio of one - and hence a breaking of the "lepton universality" in beauty quark decays with a probability of around 0,1% that the data is compatible with the theoretical prediction. If confirmed, this violation would imply physics beyond the Standard Model such as a new fundamental force in addition to the four fundamental ones: gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear interactions responsible for radioactivity and strong nuclear forces that hold matter together.

Too early for a final conclusion, but great potential with upcoming measurements

"The Standard Model has reigned supreme for decades. Our job as experimentalists is to test it more and more precisely and see if it can survive the increased scrutiny", says UZH senior researcher Patrick Owen, who played a leading role in the analysis. In particle physics, observations become true discoveries if the probability of error, taking into account all known errors, is less than one in three million or 0,00003%, which adds caution to researcher's excitement. &laquoSo, it is too early to draw a final conclusion. However, this deviation agrees with a pattern of anomalies which have manifested themselves over the last decade», says Nicola Serra. &laquoFortunately, the LHCb collaboration is well placed to clarify the potential existence of new physics effects in these decays. We just need many more related measurements in the future», he concludes.

The result was presented today for the first time at the Moriond conference on electroweak interactions and unified theories, and at an online seminar at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research in Geneva.

The Large Hadron Collider beauty experiment (LHCb)

The LHCb experiment is one of the four large experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN in Geneva. It is designed to study decays of particles containing a beauty quark, the quark with the highest mass forming bound states. The resulting precision measurements of matter-antimatter differences and rare decays of particles containing a beauty quark allow sensitive tests of the Standard Model of particle physics.

Research groups from the UZH and the EPFL are members of the LHCb collaboration since 1999. They have made important contributions to the design and construction of the LHCb detector and are involved in its upgrades. These will be key to collect the needed statistics to find out whether the anomalies observed in beauty quark decays are indeed real. Since the start of data taking in 2009 the UZH group of Nicola Serra has played a leading role in measurements of decays of particles containing beauty quarks.

LA JOLLA, CA--A discovery involving multiple teams from across Scripps Research has revealed a powerful new approach for treating diabetic foot ulcers, which affect millions of people in the US and often lead to serious complications.

By targeting a gene that controls tissue growth and regeneration, the scientists were able to boost cell division at the site of injury and repair chronic wounds quickly. The new research appears in Nature Chemical Biology.

Given the growing prevalence of diabetes and limited options for treating foot ulcers--which can lead to amputation, in severe cases--it's clear that more effective treatments are needed, says chemist Michael Bollong, PhD, assistant professor at Scripps Research and senior author of the study.

"We developed a way to activate multiple aspects of wound healing using a small-molecule drug that can be applied topically, without affecting other tissues," Bollong says. "Essentially, we were able to trick the cells into proliferating and closing the wound, restoring the outer layers of skin."

Bollong's group worked in concert with laboratory of Scripps Research President and CEO Peter Schultz, PhD, and drug discovery teams at Calibr, which screened more than 800,000 molecules to find one that stimulated key regenerative pathways. The drug, PY-60, acts on a previously unknown regulator of tissue growth.

The researchers tested their approach in animal models and on "human skin equivalents," which are skin samples from people that are further cultivated in a petri dish. They hope to begin clinical trials within the next year.

Beyond treating chronic wounds, Bollong says the approach may lead to new regenerative therapies for heart disease, liver conditions and inflammatory bowel disease, or IBD. "We believe the future of this type of regenerative therapy is incredibly bright," Bollong says.

In the near term, however, the focus is diabetic foot ulcers, which affect roughly 15 percent of people with diabetes. More than half of those diagnosed with a diabetic foot ulcer will not survive the next five years, Bollong says, and the only existing regenerative therapy was developed more than two decades ago and has limited efficacy.

At the core of the new approach is a gene known as YAP, which is known to control organ size and tissue regeneration. YAP is regulated via a pathway called Hippo--often a target of cancer drugs due to its ability to influence cell growth.

Through their research, the scientists found a previously unknown player in the Hippo pathway--a protein that works with YAP to communicate cell density; when an organ or other tissue reaches a certain concentration, the cells will stop growing. But by targeting this protein with the new drug molecule, tissue cells bounce back into production mode. The healing process happens quickly and without producing negative side effects; in experiments, the outer skin layer doubled in a week.

"We found the results of the study to be incredibly compelling," Bollong says. "We hope this regenerative approach can eventually be added on to existing standards of care for diabetic foot ulcers."

A study by the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund shows that gorilla families come together to support young gorillas that lose their mothers.

The findings, published in the journal eLife, use the Fossey Fund's more than 50-year dataset to discover how maternal loss influences young gorillas' social relationships, survival and future reproduction. The study shows when young mountain gorillas lose their mothers, the rest of the group helps buffer the loss by strengthening their relationships with the orphans.

"Mothers are incredibly important for survival early in life--this is something that is shared across all mammals," said lead author Dr. Robin Morrison. "But in social mammals, like ourselves, mothers often continue to provide vital support up to adulthood and even beyond."

"In many species, like our close relatives, chimpanzees, individuals without mothers suffer higher mortality or may be less successful parents themselves, and this finding can hold even if the loss occurs in early adulthood," she said. "But our research shows that mountain gorillas really go against this trend."

The study shows that gorillas whose mothers died or left their group after they were able to feed themselves but before they were fully mature (between the ages of two and eight), do not have any greater risk of dying than those whose mothers are still around. In addition, maternal loss does not appear to have any long-term effect on the young gorillas' eventual ability to produce and rear offspring themselves.

What does change, however, is the number of affiliative interactions they have with other group members, which increases dramatically after they are orphaned.

The authors suggest that this support from other group members may be similar to what we see in humans, where other family members and even non-relatives can step into key roles in caring for children.

Mountain gorillas live in close-knit "family" groups including a dominant silverback male who leads the group, multiple adult females, their immature offspring and, in some cases, subordinate adult males.

Male gorillas are known to care for young members of their group, regardless of paternity. In her lifetime, Dian Fossey noted, "The extraordinary gentleness of the adult male with his young dispels all the King Kong mythology"--an observation reinforced by this study, which found that the dominant silverback male plays a particularly important role in supporting young motherless gorillas, spending more time close to them and increasing the time spent resting and grooming together. This response is common across all group leaders whether or not they are the genetic fathers. Access to the highest-ranking individual likely ensures that orphans do not become socially isolated and continue to have access to food and other resources.

"These findings suggest that our capacity to care for other group and family members in times of need may be deeply rooted within our DNA and something we share with gorillas," said Morrison.

This research used data on the lives of mountain gorillas collected by hundreds of individuals going back to 1967, when Dian Fossey first established long-term monitoring of the gorillas.

"This study highlights the value of long-term research on wild animal populations" said Dr. Tara Stoinski, senior author on the study and CEO and chief scientist of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund.

"Just like us, gorillas live long lives, so it takes years for researchers to record the rare and fascinating behaviors that occur over a gorilla's lifetime. Our dataset, one of the longest of any animal species, stretches back more than 50 years, helping us understand how much we share with one of our closest relatives as we work to protect them and their biodiverse habitat."

Latino undergraduate male college students are involved in many leadership roles, yet how this leadership evolves in higher education has been understudied. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University in collaboration with San Diego State University and Texas A&M University explored how Latino male college students make meaning of their masculinity and how this meaning shapes their understanding and performance of leadership.

The study published in the International Journal of Leadership Education, utilized a qualitative method to delve deep into the understandings of the masculinities, gender socialization, leadership and transfer experiences of 34 Latino undergraduate male students. Using a philosophical approach, the researchers examined how masculinity and manhood were defined by the study participants based on their own life experiences. The research involved two, approximately 60-minute face-to-face interviews with each student.

"The successful retention and completion of Latino men in higher education must be supported by policy and practice that reflect a clear understanding of the familial and cultural values that Latino men students use to navigate a variety of intersectional spaces," said Lazaro Camacho, Jr., co-author and an FAU Ph.D. candidate. "By centering how Latino male students have been socialized to understand and conceptualize leadership, colleges and universities can better create engagement opportunities in which these men are able to not only persist, but thrive."

Study participants expressed their understanding of leadership as a strong relationship between the performance of masculinity and the Latino family, as defined by "familismo" - a shared responsibility, solidarity and loyalty within the family construct. Findings reveal that "familismo leadership" is a form of leadership practiced by Latino men, which is related to how they define masculinity as a form of strength, how they identify the role of provider as a form of leadership, and how they consider the performance of leadership as direct action.

The study participants' fathers served as role models of strength and leadership, qualities that intertwine strong heads of households with providing for the needs of the family as a whole. Grandfathers, uncles and older brothers also were observed by the study participants as reflecting qualities of strength and leadership within the family.

Recommendations from the study include the importance of an approach to research and practice that engages Latino undergraduate male students via leadership development and involvement that is reflective of the way Latino masculine gender identity and leadership performance is socialized within the social construct of "familismo."

"'Familismo leadership' is a form of capital that most Latino men and Latin* communities learn before enrolling in higher education institutions. It is used as a form of student success and self-awareness to navigate predominantly white spaces," said Cristobal Salinas, Jr., Ph.D., co-author and an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Research Methodology within FAU's College of Education. "Also, 'familismo leadership' challenges colleges and universities to reconceptualize how leadership is defined and applied by Latino male college students to support their leadership development and success."

Using an improved version of the gene editing tool CRISPR/Cas9, researchers knocked out up to twelve genes in plants in a single blow. Until now, this had only been possible for single or small groups of genes. The approach was developed by researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the Leibniz Institute of Plant Biochemistry (IPB). The method makes it easier to investigate the interaction of various genes. The study appeared in The Plant Journal.

The inheritance of traits in plants is rarely as simple and straightforward as Gregor Mendel described. The monk, whose experiments in the 19th century on trait inheritance in peas laid the foundation of genetics, in fact got lucky. "In the traits that Mendel studied, the rule that only one gene determines a specific trait, for example the colour of the peas, happened to apply," says plant geneticist Dr Johannes Stuttmann from the Institute of Biology at MLU. According to the researcher, things are often much more complicated. Frequently there are different genes that, through their interaction with one another, result in certain traits or they are partly redundant, in other words they result in the same trait. In this case, when only one of these genes is switched off, the effects are not visible in the plants.

The scientists at MLU and IPB have now developed a way to study this complex phenomenon in a more targeted way by improving CRISPR/Cas9. These gene editing tools can be used to cut the DNA of organisms at specific sites. The team built on the work of biologist Dr Sylvestre Marillonnet who developed an optimised building block for the CRISPR/Cas9 system at the IPB. "This building block helps to produce significantly more Cas9 enzyme in the plants, which acts as a scissor for the genetic material," explains Stuttmann. The researchers added up to 24 different guide RNAs which guide the scissor enzyme to the desired locations in the genetic material. Experiments on thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) and the wild tobacco plant Nicotiana benthamiana proved that the approach works. Up to eight genes could be switched off simultaneously in the tobacco plants while, in the thale cress, up to twelve genes could be switched off in some cases. According to Stuttmann, this is a major progress: "As far as I know, our group has been the first to successfully address so many target genes at once. This may make it possible to overcome the redundancy of genes," says the biologist.

Until now, creating multiple mutations was a much more complex process. The plants had to be bred in stages with a single mutation each and then crossed with one another. "This is not only time-consuming, it's also not possible in every case," says Stuttmann. The new approach developed at the MLU and the IPB overcomes these disadvantages and could prove to be a more efficient method of research. In future, it will also be possible to test random combinations of several genes in order to identify redundancies. Only in the case of conspicuous changes in the plant's traits would it then be necessary to specifically analyse the genetic material of the new plants.

It's well known that mentoring opportunities are critical for development and career advancement, and are associated with greater job satisfaction and increased earnings and promotions.

Yet a recent study co-authored by RMIT University's Professor Andrew R. Timming found women may be missing out on these opportunities due to fears by male managers of potential misconduct allegations.

"Workplace relations between males and females have changed over the past two years. Male managers are significantly less likely than female managers to mentor or interact one-on-one with female employees," Timming said.

"We found that male managers were less likely to work one-on-one in an office with the door closed and less likely to have a late-night dinner with female employees."

Despite this trend, the study also found a large portion of female employees reporting a willingness to be mentored by an older male co-worker, many of whom hold senior positions.

The study was co-authored with Professors Michael T. French and Karoline Mortensen at the University of Miami.

More than 2,000 participants in the United States completed the surveys, but Timming said the findings were highly relevant in Australia and other similar countries that have experienced their own #MeToo movements.

"Aside from cultural similarities between the US and Australia, both countries have recently experienced allegations of rape and sexual misconduct," Timming said.

"This research is critical for everyone in the workplace, male and female alike, across Australia."

"We need to ensure that women don't miss out on workplace mentoring opportunities because males fear misconduct allegations."

The study involved two surveys: one administered to female employees and another distributed to both male and female managers.

The surveys were conducted in the summer of 2018 - roughly one year after Hollywood celebrities began accusing powerful men in the film industry of sexual assault and harassment, starting the #MeToo movement.

More than 1,800 female employees were asked to answer questions relating to their level of comfort and willingness to be mentored by an older male co-worker.

From this survey, 38% of females under 35 years of age reported that their interactions with males were very to somewhat different today than they were 1-2 years ago - prior to the #MeToo movement.

Only 11% of female participants overall reported an unwillingness to be mentored by an older male co-worker.

"Women are clearly still willing to be mentored by older males, but opportunities for such mentoring may not be as forthcoming - as seen in our second survey."

The second survey presented 12 photographs of employees to more than 200 male and female managers, where they were asked three mentoring questions for each photographed individual.

The female managers reported a greater willingness and likelihood to mentor female employees than male employees.

In contrast, male managers were significantly less likely to mentor female employees, less likely to work one-on-one with female employees behind closed doors, and less likely to have a late-night dinner with female employees.

"Although we can't say with absolute certainty whether the #MeToo movement caused this reluctance, it seems reasonable to conclude that it may have played a role."

A researcher from Skoltech has filled in the gaps connecting quantum simulators with more traditional quantum computers, discovering a new computationally universal model of quantum computation, the variational model. The paper was published as a Letter in the journal Physical Review A. The work made the Editors' Suggestion list.

A quantum simulator is built to share properties with a target quantum system we wish to understand. Early quantum simulators were "dedicated" - that means they could not be programmed, tuned or adjusted and so could mimic one or very few target systems. Modern quantum simulators enable some control over their settings, offering more possibilities.

In contrast to quantum simulators, the long-promised quantum computer is a fully programmable quantum system. While building a fully programmable quantum processor remains elusive, noisy quantum processors that can execute short quantum programs and offer limited programmability are now available in leading laboratories around the world. These quantum processors are closer to the more established quantum simulators.

Despite today's prototype quantum processors suffering from noise and a general lack of controllability, we have seen amazing demonstrations of quantum computational supremacy by Google as well as scientists in China. Quantum computational supremacy shows that quantum processors can perform certain tasks dramatically faster than even the world's leading supercomputers.

Quantum computational supremacy was achieved using only limited programmability: a fixed and short quantum program, or circuit, can be tuned, followed by simplistic quantum measurements. Researchers around the world are questioning how far this simplistic approach might be pushed towards applications that are more practical than quantum supremacy.

"When does a quantum simulator become a quantum computer? The quantum processors at Google and elsewhere have often been described as being "situated somewhere between a dedicated quantum simulator and a programmable quantum computer." The ad hoc approach used by Google and others was to variational tune a quantum circuit to minimize a cost function calculated classically. This approach turns out to represent a universal model of quantum computation, meaning that a quantum simulator only needs limited additional control to execute general quantum algorithms," Skoltech's Associate Professor Jacob Biamonte notes.

Biamonte, who heads the Laboratory for Quantum Information Processing, has proved, as the editors of the journal note, "that the contemporary variational approach to quantum-enhanced algorithms enables a universal model of quantum computation." The editors went on to state, "This brings the resources required for universal quantum computation closer to contemporary quantum processors."

"The study bridges the gap between a programmable quantum simulator and a universal quantum computer. The analysis provided a new means to implement quantum algorithms using a variational approach," Biamonte says.

Osaka, Japan - Scientists from the Graduate School of Science at Osaka University created superabsorbent polymer (SAP) microparticles that self-assemble into structures that can be modified by adjusting the proportion of particle type. This research may lead to new tunable biomimetic "smart materials" that can sense and respond to specific chemicals.

Biological molecules in living organisms have a remarkable ability to form self-assembled structures when triggered by an external molecule. This has led scientists to try to create other "smart materials" that respond to their environment. Now, a team of researchers at Osaka University has come up with a tunable system involving poly(sodium acrylate) microparticles that can have one of two types of chemical groups attached. The adjustable parameters x and y refer to the molar percent of microparticles with β-cyclodextrin (βCD) and adamantyl (Ad) residues, respectively.

"We found that the macroscopic shape of assemblies formed by microparticles was dependent on the residue content," co-senior author Akihito Hashidzume says. In order for assemblies to form, x needed to be at least 22.3; however, the shape of assemblies could be controlled by varying y. As the value of y increased, the clusters became more and more elongated. The team hypothesized that at higher values of y, small clusters could form early and stick together, leading to elongated aggregates. Conversely, when y was small, clusters would only stick together after many collisions, resulting in more spherical aggregates. This provides a way to tune to the shape of the resulting clusters. The team measured the aggregates under a microscope to determine the shapes of assemblies using a statistical analysis.

"On the basis of these findings, we hope to help reveal the origin of the diverse shape of living organisms, which are macroscopic assemblies controlled by molecular recognition," co-senior author Akira Harada says. This research may also lead to the development of new smart sensors that can form clusters large enough to be seen with the naked eye.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Most stroke victims don't receive treatment fast enough to prevent brain damage. Scientists at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, College of Engineering and College of Medicine have developed technology to "retrain" cells to help repair damaged brain tissue. It's an advancement that may someday help patients regain speech, cognition and motor function, even when administered days after an ischemic stroke.

Engineering and medical researchers use a process created by Ohio State called tissue nanotransfection (TNT) to introduce genetic material into cells. This allows them to reprogram skin cells to become something different - in this case vascular cells - to help fix damaged brain tissue.

Study findings published online today in the journal Science Advances.

In this mouse study, cells were 'pre-conditioned' with specific genes and injected into the stroke-affected brains, where they promoted the formation of new blood vessels via reprogramming and the repair of damaged brain tissue.

"We can rewrite the genetic code of skin cells so that they can become blood vessel cells," said Daniel Gallego-Perez, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and surgery at Ohio State who is leading the research. "When they're deployed into the brain, they're able to grow new, healthy vascular tissue to restore normal blood supply and aid in the repair of damaged brain tissue."

Researchers studied the process in mice and found that those treated with this innovative cell therapy regained 90% of their motor function. MRI scans showed damaged areas of the brain were repaired within a few weeks.

"We found that the mice have a higher recovery because the cells that are being injected into the affected area also release healing signals in the form of vesicles that help in the recovery of damaged brain tissue" said Natalia Higuita Castro, assistant professor of biomedical engineering and surgery at Ohio State and a co-lead author on the study.

Every 40 seconds, someone in the United States suffers a stroke. It's the second-leading cause of death worldwide, and those who survive often have irreversible brain damage resulting in paralysis, speech impairment and loss of motor function. No treatments exist to address the lasting and debilitating damage to brain tissue caused by stroke.

Although medical advancements have allowed doctors to clear clots in the brain faster and improve outcomes, this is only effective if done within a few hours of the stroke, before the brain tissue dies. About 80% of ischemic stroke patients don't receive the clot-busting therapy in time to prevent permanent deficits to their speech, cognition and motor function.

"The thought was that once brain tissue dies, that was it," said Dr. Shahid Nimjee, a neurosurgeon at Ohio State Wexner Medical Center, a member of Ohio State's Neurological Institute and co-author of the study. "We're now learning that there could be opportunities to regenerate cells to restore brain function."

Researchers continue to study this approach, and they're also exploring other potential uses for this technology to treat brain disorders such as Alzheimer's and autoimmune diseases.

For years, in the vastness of our galaxy, astrophysicists have been tracking down pevatrons - natural accelerators of particles with monstrous energies. Thanks to the HAWC Observatory for Cosmic Radiation, another probable trace of their existence has just been found: photons with some of the highest energies. However, what is particularly important is that this time the high-energy photons have not only been recorded, but also their probable place of origin has been determined.

We know they exist, we just don't know where exactly they are or what they look like. Pevatrons - because this is what we are talking about here - are the largest natural particle accelerators in our galaxy, capable of accelerating protons and electrons to energies even many billions of times greater than the energy of photons of visible light. The problem with detecting pevatrons stems from the fact that the particles they accelerate carry an electric charge and are therefore deflected by magnetic fields in the galaxy. The discovery which has just been made thanks to data collected by the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma-Ray Observatory brings us significantly closer to finding the first cosmic pevatron and understanding its nature.

The HAWC Observatory is located on the slope of the Sierra Negra volcano in Mexico, at an altitude of 4,100 m. It consists of 300 water tanks, each surrounded by sensitive photomultipliers. When a particle of secondary cosmic radiation travelling at a speed faster than the speed of light in water enters a tank, there is an electromagnetic "boom" - a weak flash of radiation (Cherenkov), detected and amplified by the photomultipliers. A careful analysis of flashes observed at the same time in individual tanks makes it possible to extract information about the type, energy and direction of the particle of the primary cosmic radiation which initiated the recorded cascade of secondary particles.

"Based on data collected by the HAWC, we were able to determine the source of photons with energies of about 200 teraelectronvolts. For photons, this is an extreme value, one hundred trillion times greater than the energy typical of photons perceived by our eyes," says Dr. Sabrina Casanova from the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IFJ PAN) in Cracow. Together with Dr. Francisco Sales Greus (IFJ PAN & IFIC) and PhD student Dezhi Huang from the Michigan Technological University in Houghton (USA), she is one of the main authors of the analysis published in the excellent astronomical journal The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Compared to protons and electrons, photons have a pleasant feature: they ignore magnetic fields and run to their target along the shortest path that space-time allows. So, once the direction from which the photons are coming is identified within a galaxy, it is usually possible to determine their source. This is not an easy task, but in this case it was successful. The source of the 200 TeV photons turned out to be a region of the recently discovered pulsar eHWC J1825-134, visible in the southern hemisphere in the background of the Vela constellation, and lying at a distance of about 13 thousand light years from Earth.

Observations of such high-energy photons are rare, and it is even rarer to identify the source. The record currently belongs to photons with energies of 450 TeV, detected with the Sino-Japanese ASgamma detector in Tibet. In that case, the photons came from the vicinity of a pulsar in the famous Crab nebula in the background of the Taurus constellation.

"We now know of two mechanisms that can explain the existence of photons with energies of 200 TeV and above," explains Dr Salesa Greus, before elaborating: "According to the first, the source of such energetic photons could be electrons with slightly higher energies, emitted by supernova remnants or pulsars and then interacting with the microwave background radiation filling the Universe. This case seems to fit the Crab nebula. The second variant of the course of events assumes that photons are born due to the interaction of protons emitted by a pulsar with matter in interstellar space. What is particularly interesting in this scenario is that the energies of the protons must be at least an order of magnitude greater than the energies of the observed photons!"

The region of the eHWC J1825-134 pulsar is a complex astronomical structure with several sources of high-energy gamma rays within it. HAWC researchers have determined that the origin of the 200 TeV photons was not the pulsar itself, but a previously unknown source: a nearby cloud of interstellar material. It surrounds a young cluster of stars, about one million years old, designated as [BDS2003] 8. The observed photons could thus have been emitted by protons from the eHWC J1825-134 pulsar which, within the [BDS2003] 8 star cluster, had enough time to accelerate in the local magnetic field to energies of a few petaelectronvolts and produce energetic photons in the interaction with the cloud. If this variant of the course of events is confirmed in subsequent observations, we would be dealing with the first pevatron identified in our galaxy.

"For the time being, we have too little data to unambiguously decide on the nature of the cosmic accelerator responsible for the generation of 200 TeV photons in the region of eHWC J1825-134. If, however, there is a galactic pevatron hiding somewhere, we have managed to find a really excellent candidate," notes Dr. Casanova.

For the first time, scientists have documented biofluorescence in an Arctic fish species. The study, led by researchers at the American Museum of Natural History who spent hours in the icy waters off of Greenland where the red-and-green-glowing snailfish was found, is published today in the American Museum Novitates.

"Overall, we found marine fluorescence to be quite rare in the Arctic, in both invertebrate and vertebrate lineages," said John Sparks, a curator in the American Museum of Natural History's Department of Ichthyology and one of the authors of the study. "So we were surprised to find these juvenile snailfish brightly fluorescing in not just one, but two different colors, which is very unusual in a single species."

In 2014, Sparks and colleague David Gruber, a research associate at the Museum and a biology professor at Baruch College, identified more than 180 new species of fishes that biofluoresce, the ability to convert blue wavelengths into green, red, or yellow light. This ability, which could be used for behaviors including communication and mating in some species, is now well documented in tropical fishes that live in regions where there is an even amount of daylight year-round. But in the Arctic, where days can be incredibly long or incredibly short, researchers were interested in seeing firsthand how prolonged periods of darkness affected fishes' ability to biofluoresce.

"The light regime at the poles provides for winter months of near total darkness, where biofluorescence would not be functional," Gruber said. "But given the summer months with the midnight Sun, we hypothesized that it could be present."

In 2019, as part of a Constantine. S. Niarchos Expedition, Sparks and Gruber headed to the iceberg habitats off the coast of Eastern Greenland to test their theory. In addition to finding very little marine fluorescence, they observed that groups of fishes that glow brightly in tropical and temperate regions--for example, scorpionfishes and flatfishes--did not fluoresce in the cold waters. But there was an exception: two juvenile specimens of variegated snailfish (Liparis gibbus), the first species shown to biofluoresce in the Arctic. The species glows in both green and red, a rare example of multiple fluorescent colors emitted from a single organism. In addition, the authors report red biofluorescence from an adult kelp snailfish (L. tunicatus) collected in the Bering Strait off of Little Diomede Island, Alaska, which was collected and scanned by colleagues at NOAA Fisheries Service.

In the seven years since Sparks and Gruber first reported widespread biofluorescence in fishes, it has been found in a number of new lineages, including mammals like platypuses, opossums, flying squirrels, springhares, and even marine turtles. But its exact function remains a mystery.

"We are now focusing our efforts on determining the function of fluorescence in various fish groups, including catsharks, where we have shown that bright green fluorescence enhances contrast in their pigmentation pattern, making it easier for individuals to see each other at depth," Sparks said.

Smart glass can change its color quickly through electricity. A new material developed by chemists of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität (LMU) in Munich has now set a speed record for such a change.

On the highway at night. It rains, the bright headlights of the car behind you are blinding. How convenient to have an automatically dimming rearview mirror in such a case. Technically, this helpful extra is based on electrochromic materials. When a voltage is applied, their light absorption and color change. Controlled by a light sensor, the rearview mirror can thus filter out strongly dazzling light.

Recently, experts discovered that, in addition to established inorganic electrochromic materials, a new generation of highly ordered lattice structures can also be equipped with this capability: so-called Covalent Organic Frameworks, COFs for short. They consist of synthetically produced organic building blocks that, in suitable combinations, form crystalline and nanoporous networks. Here, the color change can be triggered by an applied electrical voltage which causes an oxidation or reduction of the material.

The LMU-team led by Thomas Bein (Physical Chemistry, LMU Munich) has now developed COF structures whose switching speeds and coloration efficiencies are many times higher than those of inorganic compounds. COFs are attractive because their material properties can be adjusted over a wide range by modifying their molecular building blocks. Scientists at LMU Munich and the University of Cambridge took advantage thereof to design COFs that were ideal for their purposes. "We have made use of the modular construction principle of the COFs and designed the ideal building block for our purposes with a specific thienoisoindigo molecule", says Derya Bessinger, first author and PhD student in the group of Thomas Bein. Incorporated into a COF, the new component demonstrates how strongly it can improve the COF's properties. "For example, with the new material, we cannot only absorb the shorter-wavelength UV light or small parts of the visible spectrum, but also achieve photoactivity well into the near-infrared spectral regions", says Bessinger.

At the same time, the new COF structures are much more sensitive to electrochemical oxidation. This means that even a low applied voltage is sufficient to trigger a color change of the COFs, which is also completely reversible. In addition, this happens at very high speed: the response time for a complete and distinct color change by oxidation is around 0.38 seconds, while the reduction back to the initial state takes only about 0.2 seconds. This makes the e-conversion team's electrochromic organic frameworks among the fastest and most efficient in the world.

Two things in particular are responsible for the high speed: The conductive framework structure of the COFs enables fast electron transport in the lattice. And thanks to an optimized pore size, the surrounding electrolyte solution can quickly reach every corner. This is essential because the positive charge generated in the oxidized COF structure must quickly be charge-compensated by negative electrolyte ions. Last but not least, the product of the Munich scientists has a very high stability. Long-term tests showed that the material was able to maintain its performance even after 200 oxidation-reduction cycles.

With these fundamental findings, the publication advances the development of a new class of high-performance electrochromic coatings. The obvious demand for this is shown by current applications of such "smart glass" as switchable solar-protection and privacy-shield windows for whole building facades.

Researchers from Skoltech were part of a research consortium studying a case of vertical COVID-19 transmission from mother to her unborn child that resulted in major complications in the pregnancy, premature birth and death of the child. The consortium used a Skoltech-developed proteomics method to verify the diagnosis. The paper was published in the journal Viruses.

The effects of SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus, on maternal and perinatal outcomes are poorly understood due to limited data and research in pregnant women with COVID-19. There is some evidence suggesting vertical transmission from mother to fetus during pregnancy is possible, as, for instance, in China, immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibodies were found in babies born to mothers with positive SARS-CoV-2 tests.

Most known cases of COVID-19 in pregnant women have been in the third trimester of pregnancy, yet it is in the second trimester that the immune system of the mother is significantly less active. Professor Evgeny Nikolaev, Dr. Alexey Kononikhin and Dr. Alexander Brzhozovskiy of Skoltech and their colleagues in the consortium report the case of a healthy 27-year-old woman who got moderately sick with COVID-19 during the 21st week of her pregnancy.

After two weeks of illness when the patient had already tested negative for SARS-CoV-2 and had no symptoms, an ultrasound scan detected severe abnormalities with the fetus, including growth restriction and impaired blood flow in the umbilical artery. A premature boy was born via cesarean section two weeks later and died after a day and a half in NICU. The patient had no previous risk factors of severe neonatal pathology, and the pregnancy had developed normally until COVID-19.

The child tested positive for COVID-19 IgG antibodies, and a PCR test on the placenta and umbilical cord blood was positive for three SARS-CoV-2 and SARS-CoV-like genes. "The results of independent polymerase chain reaction (PCR), mass spectrometry and immunohistochemistry analyses of placenta tissue, umbilical cord blood and child blood jointly indicated vertical transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from mother to the fetus, which we conclude to be the major cause for the development of maternal vascular malperfusion in the studied case," the paper notes.

The results also present the first confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 proteins in infected placenta by proteomics and confirm the potential of mass-spectrometry approaches for detecting SARS-CoV-2 in biological fluids and tissues.

"The mass spectrometry based method of virus detection used in this study was developed at Skoltech last year. In this method, the S- and N-proteins of the virus are unambiguously detected. This approach provides 100%-selectivity for virus detection, making mass spectrometry the gold standard for COVID diagnostics. The method can be used without any modification for detection of the SARS-CoV-2 virus with any mutations," Professor Nikolaev says.

"The studied case clearly showed that transplacental transmission of SARS-CoV-2 infection is possible not only in the last trimester of pregnancy, but also in earlier stages of pregnancy. Transplacental transmission can cause the inflammation of placenta and neonatal viremia with the damage of various organs and systems," the authors conclude.

Veterans with PTSD who practiced the Transcendental Meditation technique showed significant reductions in PTSD symptom severity, according to a new study published today in Journal of Traumatic Stress. Fifty percent of the meditating veterans no longer met criteria for PTSD after three months compared to only 10 percent of controls. The randomized controlled study also showed significant reductions in veterans' symptoms of depression and anxiety, and sleep difficulties.

"Transcendental Meditation is a non-trauma-focused, easy-to-learn technique that was found in this study to improve PTSD symptoms, likely through the experience of physical rest," said Mayer Bellehsen, Ph.D., director of the Unified Behavioral Health Center for Military Veterans and their Families, Northwell Health, and study principal investigator. "In contrast to commonly administered therapies for PTSD that are trauma-focused and based on a patient's recall of past traumatic experiences, this intervention does not require extensive review of traumatic history, which some individuals find difficult to engage in. This intervention may therefore be more tolerable for some individuals struggling with PTSD."

The randomized controlled trial, conducted at Northwell Health in Bay Shore, New York, assigned 40 veterans with documented PTSD to either the Transcendental Meditation (TM) group or treatment as usual control group. The TM treatment provided 16 sessions over 12 weeks, with twice-a-day daily home practice. PTSD symptom severity was assessed with the Clinician-Administered PTSD Scale for DSM-5 (CAPS-5), and patient self-report with the PTSD Checklist for DSM -5 (PCL-5).

The results showed large effect sizes, indicating a strong TM treatment impact in reducing trauma symptoms for both PTSD measures. Other factors associated with trauma, such as depression and anxiety symptoms and sleep problems, also showed a strong impact of TM treatment.

"This trial corroborates the findings of a large clinical trial published in The Lancet Psychiatry," said Sanford Nidich, Ed.D., Director of the Center for Social-Emotional Health at Maharishi International University Research Institute, and study co-investigator. "The current study further supports the effectiveness of Transcendental Meditation as a first-line treatment for PTSD in veterans. The availability of an additional evidence-based therapy will benefit veterans, both by offering them a greater range of options and by serving as an alternative treatment strategy for those who don't want to engage in trauma-focused treatment or who aren't responding to a previous PTSD intervention."

The authors point out in their research paper that TM may positively affect trauma symptom severity through the reduction of hyperarousal symptoms. Previous research has shown that TM practice decreases physiological responses to stressful stimuli. In addition, recent research indicates that TM may improve resilience and positive coping strategies, providing further benefit to both veterans and active military personnel.

IN BRIEF:

It's a first: approximately 100 scientists in 42 countries joined forces to learn about the incidence of parental burnout.

They found that Western countries are the most affected by parental burnout.

The cause? The often individualistic culture of Western countries. This international study, published in Affective Science, shows how culture, rather than socio-economic factors, plays a predominant role in parental burnout.

The individualism is more pronounced during health crises.

Does the incidence of parental burnout depend on a country's culture? This question was at the heart of the first international study on the subject for which hundreds of scientists in 42 countries mobilised. In other words, the global scientific community is worried about family stress-induced parental burnout. A high level of stress in the family can lead to parental exhaustion. Such suffering has serious consequences for both parents and children.

'We worked in close collaboration with scientists from all the cultures involved,' UCLouvain researchers and study initiators and coordinators Isabelle Roskam and Moïra Mikolajczak explained in a statement. 'They were the only ones capable of collecting data in their countries, guaranteeing their validity and interpreting them correctly. Such exceptional collaboration deserves to be highlighted.'

The study's findings are categorical: rich, individualistic Western countries, which on average have few children, are the most affected by the phenomenon. Culture, rather than socio-economic and demographic differences between countries, plays a predominant role in parental burnout. 'Prevalence varies greatly from one culture and country to another,' Prof. Roskam explains. 'We could have hypothesised that it would be the same everywhere but that the reasons for exhaustion would be different.' This is not the case.

Published in Affective Science, the study shows that the values of individualism in Western countries can subject parents to higher levels of stress. The results force us to question ourselves in a context where the mantra of "every one for oneself" is spreading all over the world.

'Our individualistic countries cultivate a cult of performance and perfectionism,' says Prof. Roskam, a parental burnout specialist. 'Parenthood in these countries is a very solitary activity, unlike in African countries, for example, where the entire village is involved in raising children.' These poorer countries, which often have many children, are more collectivist. This dimension seems to protect against parental burnout. In addition, Western individualism is exacerbated by the current health crisis: families find themselves isolated and cut off from their social relations.

What measures can be taken to prevent stress in parenting? 'The first would be to revive in our cultures the dimension of sharing and mutual aid among parents within a community,' Prof. Roskam says. 'And abandon the cult of the perfect parent and gain some perspective on all the parenting advice out there in order to choose what works for you.'

Thanks to the study consortium's collective dynamics, their work opens up many avenues for future intercultural investigations. Until now, all studies on parental burnout focused on personal factors. However, parents affected by this syndrome exercise their parenting in a particular cultural context. It is important to take this into account when treating symptoms.