Brain

Modern hospitals and antibiotic treatment alone did not create all the antibiotic resistant strains of bacteria we see today. Instead, selection pressures from before widespread use of antibiotics influenced some of them to develop, new research has discovered.

By using analytical and sequencing technology that has only been developed in recent years, scientists from Wellcome Sanger Institute, University of Oslo and University of Cambridge have created an evolutionary timeline of the bacterium, Enterococcus faecalis, which is a common bacterium that can cause antibiotic resistant infections in hospitals.

The results, published today (9th March 2021) in Nature Communications show that this bacterium has the ability to adapt very quickly to selection pressures, such as the use of chemicals in farming as well as the development of new medications, which have caused different strains of the same bacterium to be found in many places worldwide, from the majority of people's guts to many wild birds. As it is so widespread, the researchers suggest people should be screened for this type of bacteria when entering the hospital, in the same way they are for other superbugs, to help reduce the possibility of developing and spreading infection within healthcare.

Enterococcus faecalis is a common bacterium that, in most people, is found in the intestinal tract and doesn't cause harm to the host. However, if someone is immunocompromised and this bacterium gets into the bloodstream, it can cause a serious infection.

In hospitals, it is more common to find antibiotic resistant strains of E. faecalis and it was initially thought that the wide use of antibiotics and other antibacterial control measures in modern hospitals caused these strains to develop.

In a new study, scientists from Wellcome Sanger Institute, University of Oslo and University of Cambridge analysed around 2000 samples of E. faecalis from 1936 to present day using blood stream isolates from patients and stool samples from animals and healthy humans.

By sequencing the genome (including chromosomes and plasmids) using technology from Oxford Nanopore, the team mapped the evolutionary journey of the bacterium and created a timeline of when and where different strains developed, including those nowadays found to be resistant to antibiotics. They found that antibiotic resistant strains developed earlier than previously thought, before the widespread use of antibiotics, and therefore it was not antibiotic use alone that caused these to emerge.

Researchers found that agricultural and early medical practices, such as the use of arsenic and mercury, influenced the evolution of some of the strains we see now. In addition to this, strains similar to the antibiotic resistant variants we see in hospitals now were found in wild birds. This shows how adaptable and flexible this species of bacterium is at evolving into new strains in the face of different adversity.

Professor Jukka Corander, co-lead author and Associate Faculty member at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, said: "This is the first time we have been able to map out the full evolution of E. faecalis from samples up to 85 years old, which enables us to see the detailed effect of human lifestyles, agriculture and medicines on the development of different bacterial strains. Having the full timeline of evolutionary changes would not have been possible without analytical and sequencing techniques that can be found at the Sanger Institute."

Dr Anna Pöntinen, co-lead author and post-doctoral fellow at University of Oslo, said: "Currently, when patients are admitted to hospital, they are swabbed for some antibiotic resistant bacteria and fungi and are isolated to ensure that infection rates are kept as low as possible. Thanks to this study, it is possible to scrutinize the diversity of E. faecalis and identify those that are more prone to spread within hospitals and thus could cause harm in immunocompromised people. We believe that it could be beneficial to also screen for E. faecalis on admission to hospitals."

Professor Julian Parkhill, co-author and Professor in the Department of Veterinary Medicine at University of Cambridge, said: "This research has discovered that these hospital-associated strains of antibiotic resistant bacteria are much older than we previously thought, and has highlighted their incredible metabolic flexibility combined with numerous mechanisms enhancing their survival under harsh conditions that has allowed them to spread widely across the globe."

Hamilton, ON (March 8, 2021) - Many parents know the struggle of having to make children with pneumonia finish the usual 10-day course in antibiotics despite the child feeling better after a few days of medication.

New research from McMaster University has proven that a five-day course of high-dose amoxicillin will do just as well for children six months to 10 years old with common pneumonia.

"Several studies have proven that adults with pneumonia do fine with short courses of antibiotics, and now we have proved a short course of antibiotics also works for children," said Dr. Jeffrey Pernica, lead study author, associate professor of pediatrics of McMaster's Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine and an infectious disease pediatrician for Hamilton Health Sciences.

The study, involving 281 Ontario children, found that 85.7% of those who received the short course of antibiotics and 84.1% of those who received the longer course of medication were cured two to three weeks later.

The paper was published online by the journal JAMA Pediatrics today.

"The dramatic increase in antimicrobial resistance in the world today is driven by overuse of antibiotics - which has only worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic," Pernica said. "This is why we need these clinical studies - to figure out how short we can make antibiotic treatment courses for common infections."

He said there are other reasons to use the least amount of antibiotics needed to effectively treat bacterial infections, including minimizing the costs of medicine.

As well, he noted, a number of conditions including obesity, asthma, and arthritis, have been associated with changes in the human microbiome that can be caused by the use of antibiotics.

The research team is recommending that clinical practice guidelines prepared for health professionals consider recommending five days of amoxicillin for pediatric pneumonia.

A new substance could improve the treatment of persistent cancers. Researchers at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) and the University of Greifswald have developed a new inhibitor that makes drug-resistant tumour cells respond again to chemotherapy. The new substance blocks a protein in the cancer cells that normally transports the cancer drugs back out of the cells. The results were published in the scientific journal Molecules.

In addition to radiation therapy, cytotoxic agents, also known as chemotherapy, are frequently used to treat cancer. They prevent cells from dividing and thus cancer cells are unable to multiply unchecked. "Cytotoxic agents remain a very important form of treatment because they have a general effect, in other words, they work on different types of cancer," explains Dr Andreas Hilgeroth, a professor of pharmacy at MLU. However, some tumours are resistant to chemotherapy. They possess certain proteins that transport the drugs back out of the cancer cell.

Hilgeroth's research group has now developed a new class of substances that inhibits one of these transport proteins: the multi-drug resistant protein 4 (MRP4). "It plays a particular role in leukaemia," says Professor Christoph Ritter from the Institute of Pharmacy at the University of Greifswald. The protein transports chemical messengers that appear to contribute to the development of that type of cancer. Ritter supported the team in the efficacy studies on special, drug-resistant cancer cell lines. The researchers were able to show that the cells treated with the new inhibitor transported fewer of the dye-labelled messengers and that the cytotoxic agents began having an effect again. "One of the substances showed particularly promising results," says Ritter, adding, it inhibited the protein much better than the best inhibitor known to date.

The new substances could have two simultaneously positive effects: "preventing the transport of cancer-promoting messengers and ensuring that the chemotherapy starts working again," explains Hilgeroth. If they prove to be successful in further tests, however, they will only be administrable in patients who have tumours containing the MRP4 transport protein. However, a pre-screening that uses markers to identify the type and characteristics of a specific cancer is already part of standard treatment. "There is an increasing focus on individualised medicine, especially in cancer therapy," says Hilgeroth. Drugs are used that are tailored to the type and characteristics of the cancer. A different inhibitor would then be used on a different transport protein.

The efficacy must now be confirmed in further preclinical trials. Researchers will try to establish how well the newly developed drugs specifically inhibit MRP4 in order to reduce side effects. If the substances are a success, several years of clinical trials will follow to confirm their efficacy in patients.

In 1952, Alan Turing, the father of computer science and artificial intelligence, proposed that certain repetitive natural patterns may be produced by the interaction of two specific substances through the "reaction-diffusion" process. In this system, activator promotes the reaction and inhibitor inhibits the reaction. When the two meet, the reaction diffuses. When the difference in diffusion coefficient between the two reaches a certain level, the high diffusion ratio between them will cause the system imbalance and induce the formation of periodic complex patterns.

"Turing structure" exists widely in nature, such as the body patterns of zebras, the phyllotaxis of sunflowers, the follicle spacing of mouse hairs and others. However, it is difficult to construct a Turing structure in a manmade chemical system since the difference in diffusion coefficients of substances is small.

Recently, the research group of Prof. GAO Minrui from the University of Science and Technology of China created the Turing structure on inorganic transition metal chalcogenides with the "reaction-diffusion" process for the first time. Results were published in German Applied Chemistry and was selected as Hot Paper and Back Cover.

In the binary solution of diethylenetriamine (DETA) and water, Ag+ will react with DETA to form Ag(DETA)+. At the same time, Co2+ overflows from the surface of the cobalt diselenide (CoSe2) nanobelt. Ag(DETA)+ is the inhibitor and Co2+ is the activator in this system. When the rapidly diffused Ag (DETA)+ reaches the Nernst layer on the CoSe2 surface, it interacts with the activator Co2+ diffused on the CoSe2 surface, and finally forms a complex and beautiful Ag2Se Turing pattern on the CoSe2 surface.

The study found that this multi-interface Turing structure material, Ag2Se-CoSe2, was an efficient oxygen evolution (OER) electrocatalyst. The OER activity of Ag2Se-CoSe2 was linearly related to the interface length of the Turing structure. The rich interface structure and the optimized OER intermediate adsorption energy at the interface structure conspired to bring about its high activity.

This study uses the "reaction-diffusion" theory to construct complex Turing structures on inorganic nanostructured materials for the first time, and provides new ideas for the design of cheap catalysts with higher performance.
This research employed the "reaction-diffusion" theory to build a complex Turing structure on inorganic nanostructured materials for the first time, and provided a new path for designing cheaper catalysts with higher performance.

A new study by the international network Women In Supramolecular Chemistry (WISC) has highlighted the equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) issues faced by women and marginalised groups working within that field.

The network has also set out a 'calling in' approach to address these issues.

The study, led by Dr Jennifer Leigh and Dr Jennifer Hiscock (both University of Kent) alongside WISC's wider team of international researchers, found that both men and women in the supramolecular community wanted to see more mentoring opportunities and more visibility for women and marginalised groups. There is a desire for more guidance during the transition from postdoctoral researcher to independent Principal Investigator, to ensure women can be retained and progress in supramolecular chemistry.

Furthermore, it was established that there is the need for a space to share concerns around career breaks, parenting, and the demands of balancing work with other aspects of life. Shared lived experiences documented in the survey showed differences in experiences between men and women taking career breaks or parental leave, with women reporting obstacles in progression and increased pressures upon return. The men surveyed did not note problems upon return.

WISC is following up on the study with a mentoring scheme to actively support the needs of the supramolecular chemistry community and will continue its approach to 'call in' colleagues to act together to address EDI issues. 'Calling in' is the gentler act of alerting peers to their behaviour with compassion and guidance, as opposed to 'calling out' which usually refers to publicly pointing out oppressive behaviour. A second survey exploring experiences through Covid-19 (open to the supramolecular community) is currently underway as ongoing research continues.

It is well documented that women in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) academia are disproportionately affected by funding structures, academic culture, research environments and caring responsibilities, which has been further implicated by the Covid-19 pandemic. Culture and other factors such as disability, ethnicity and race, are also noted by the study team as marginalising barriers. WISC, which was formed in 2019 as an area specific international community, hopes to bring change to the EDI issues experienced in supramolecular chemistry through its network.

While the study was carried out specifically in the supramolecular chemistry community, the team hope that new EDI approaches could be adopted in other fields. Dr Leigh said: 'Our strategy of calling in and rigorous social science research is not field-specific. By sharing our approach and results, we hope that our work may act as a framework to those within other fields and disciplines who are keen to tackle EDI issues.'

Dr Hiscock said: 'WISC is only at the beginning of its work. When we launched the network, we were cautious of projecting our own experiences and assumptions onto others, therefore bringing a social science approach into our research ensured rigour, validity and ethics. 'Calling in' invites individuals to discuss something that might be uncomfortable in a safe environment without the fear of getting it wrong, and then pulls together the community as a whole to make positive changes. We look forward to continuing to bring change in the community.'

East Hanover, NJ. March 8, 2021. Kessler Foundation researchers have demonstrated changes in the functional connectivity within the 'fatigue network' in response to cognitive fatigue. This finding, the first of its kind, was reported in Scientific Reports on December 14, 2020 in the open access article, "Using functional connectivity changes associated with cognitive fatigue to delineate a fatigue network" (doi: 10.1038//s41598-020-78768-3).

The authors are Glenn Wylie, DPhil, Brian Yao, PhD, Helen M. Genova, PhD, Michele H. Chen, PhD, and John DeLuca, PhD, of Kessler Foundation. All have faculty appointments at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Dr. Wylie is also a research scientist at The Department of Veterans' Affairs War-related Injury and Illness Study Center at the New Jersey Healthcare System.

Cognitive fatigue, a troublesome symptom among healthy and clinical populations, is a major research focus at Kessler Foundation. With this study, Foundation scientists extended their exploration of the 'fatigue network', a set of brain regions associated with cognitive fatigue, comprising the striatum of the basal ganglia, the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the ventro-medial prefrontal cortex, and the anterior sula. Understanding the underlying mechanisms of cognitive fatigue is essential to the development of effective interventions for people with disabling fatigue caused by multiple sclerosis, Gulf War Illness, brain injury, chronic fatigue syndrome and other conditions.

The study was conducted at the Rocco Ortenzio Neuroimaging Center at Kessler Foundation, a specialized facility dedicated solely to rehabilitation research. The team induced cognitive fatigue in 39 healthy volunteers while they underwent functional MRI of their brain activation patterns. The participants' fatigue in response to multiple runs of challenging tasks of working memory was measured using a visual analogue scale of fatigue (VAS-F). Researchers found that as cognitive fatigue increased, there was a decline in the connectivity among the regions that make up the fatigue network, and an increase in connectivity between the network and more posterior regions.

Dr. Wylie, director of the Ortenzio Center, commented on the results of this task-based functional neuroimaging paradigm: "Our findings provide further evidence for a functionally connected 'fatigue network' in the brain. More importantly, we have shown for the first time that this functional network connectivity changes in association with cognitive fatigue," he emphasized. "This promises to accelerate progress toward effective interventions aimed at relieving debilitating fatigue."

Irvine, CA - March 8, 2021 - A new study from the University of California, Irvine shows that compounds in both green and black tea relax blood vessels by activating ion channel proteins in the blood vessel wall. The discovery helps explain the antihypertensive properties of tea and could lead to the design of new blood pressure-lowering medications.

Published in Cellular Physiology and Biochemistry, the discovery was made by the laboratory of Geoffrey Abbott, PhD, a professor in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics at the UCI School of Medicine. Kaitlyn Redford, a graduate student in the Abbott Lab, was first author of the study titled, "KCNQ5 potassium channel activation underlies vasodilation by tea."

Results from the research revealed that two catechin-type flavonoid compounds (epicatechin gallate and epigallocatechin-3-gallate) found in tea, each activate a specific type of ion channel protein named KCNQ5, which allows potassium ions to diffuse out of cells to reduce cellular excitability. As KCNQ5 is found in the smooth muscle that lines blood vessels, its activation by tea catechins was also predicted to relax blood vessels - a prediction confirmed by collaborators at the University of Copenhagen.

"We found by using computer modeling and mutagenesis studies that specific catechins bind to the foot of the voltage sensor, which is the part of KCNQ5 that allows the channel to open in response to cellular excitation. This binding allows the channel to open much more easily and earlier in the cellular excitation process," explained Abbott.

Because as many as one third of the world's adult population have hypertension, and this condition is considered to be the number one modifiable risk factor for global cardiovascular disease and premature mortality, new approaches to treating hypertension have enormous potential to improve global public health. Prior studies demonstrated that consumption of green or black tea can reduce blood pressure by a small but consistent amount, and catechins were previously found to contribute to this property. Identification of KCNQ5 as a novel target for the hypertensive properties of tea catechins may facilitate medicinal chemistry optimization for improved potency or efficacy.

In addition to its role in controlling vascular tone, KCNQ5 is expressed in various parts of the brain, where it regulates electrical activity and signaling between neurons. Pathogenic KCNQ5 gene variants exist that impair its channel function and in doing so cause epileptic encephalopathy, a developmental disorder that is severely debilitating and causes frequent seizures. Because catechins can cross the blood-brain barrier, discovery of their ability to activate KCNQ5 may suggest a future mechanism to fix broken KCNQ5 channels to ameliorate brain excitability disorders stemming from their dysfunction.

Tea has been produced and consumed for more than 4,000 years and upwards of 2 billion cups of tea are currently drunk each day worldwide, second only to water in terms of the volume consumed by people globally. The three commonly consumed caffeinated teas (green, oolong, and black) are all produced from the leaves of the evergreen species Camellia sinensis, the differences arising from different degrees of fermentation during tea production.

Black tea is commonly mixed with milk before it is consumed in countries including the United Kingdom and the United States. The researchers in the present study found that when black tea was directly applied to cells containing the KCNQ5 channel, the addition of milk prevented the beneficial KCNQ5-activating effects of tea. However, according to Abbott, "We don't believe this means one needs to avoid milk when drinking tea to take advantage of the beneficial properties of tea. We are confident that the environment in the human stomach will separate the catechins from the proteins and other molecules in milk that would otherwise block catechins' beneficial effects."

This hypothesis is borne out by other studies showing antihypertensive benefits of tea regardless of milk co-consumption. The team also found, using mass spectrometry, that warming green tea to 35 degrees Celsius alters its chemical composition in a way that renders it more effective at activating KCNQ5.

"Regardless of whether tea is consumed iced or hot, this temperature is achieved after tea is drunk, as human body temperature is about 37 degrees Celsius," explained Abbott. "Thus, simply by drinking tea we activate its beneficial, antihypertensive properties."

You're going at the speed limit down a two-lane road when a car barrels out of a driveway on your right. You slam on the brakes, and within a fraction of a second of the impact an airbag inflates, saving you from serious injury or even death.

The airbag deploys thanks to an accelerometer -- a sensor that detects sudden changes in velocity. Accelerometers keep rockets and airplanes on the correct flight path, provide navigation for self-driving cars, and rotate images so that they stay right-side up on cellphones and tablets, among other essential tasks.

Addressing the increasing demand to accurately measure acceleration in smaller navigation systems and other devices, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have developed an accelerometer a mere millimeter thick that uses laser light instead of mechanical strain to produce a signal.

Although a few other accelerometers also rely on light, the design of the NIST instrument makes the measuring process more straightforward, providing higher accuracy. It also operates over a greater range of frequencies and has been more rigorously tested than similar devices.

Not only is the NIST device, known as an optomechanical accelerometer, much more precise than the best commercial accelerometers, it does not need to undergo the time-consuming process of periodic calibrations. In fact, because the instrument uses laser light of a known frequency to measure acceleration, it may ultimately serve as a portable reference standard to calibrate other accelerometers now on the market, making them more accurate.

The accelerometer also has the potential to improve inertial navigation in such critical systems as military aircraft, satellites and submarines, especially when a GPS signal is not available. NIST researchers Jason Gorman, Thomas LeBrun, David Long and their colleagues describe their work in the journal Optica.

This animation demonstrates the operating principles of a new accelerometer. This optomechanical accelerometer consists of two silicon chips. The first chip has a proof mass suspended by a set of silicon beams, which allows the proof mass to move vertically. The top of the mass has a mirrored coating. The second chip has an inset hemispherical mirror. Together the mass and hemisphere mirrors form an optical cavity. Infrared laser light is directed into the device. Most frequencies are reflected entirely. However, light matching the resonant frequency builds up inside the cavity, increasing in intensity, until the intensity of the light transmitted by the cavity matches the input. Light transmitted by the cavity can be detected on the other side. When the device accelerates, the length of the cavity changes, shifting the resonant frequency. By continuously matching the laser to the resonant frequency of the cavity, researchers can determine the acceleration of the device. Animation: Sean Kelley/NIST
The study is part of NIST on a Chip, a program that brings the institute's cutting-edge measurement-science technology and expertise directly to users in commerce, medicine, defense and academia.

Accelerometers, including the new NIST device, record changes in velocity by tracking the position of a freely moving mass, dubbed the "proof mass," relative to a fixed reference point inside the device. The distance between the proof mass and the reference point only changes if the accelerometer slows down, speeds up or switches direction. The same is true if you're a passenger in a car. If the car is either at rest or moving at constant velocity, the distance between you and the dashboard stays the same. But if the car suddenly brakes, you're thrown forward and the distance between you and the dashboard decreases.

The motion of the proof mass creates a detectable signal. The accelerometer developed by NIST researchers relies on infrared light to measure the change in distance between two highly reflective surfaces that bookend a small region of empty space. The proof mass, which is suspended by flexible beams one-fifth the width of a human hair so that it can move freely, supports one of the mirrored surfaces. The other reflecting surface, which serves as the accelerometer's fixed reference point, consists of an immovable microfabricated concave mirror.

Together, the two reflecting surfaces and the empty space between them form a cavity in which infrared light of just the right wavelength can resonate, or bounce back and forth, between the mirrors, building in intensity. That wavelength is determined by the distance between the two mirrors, much as the pitch of a plucked guitar depends on the distance between the instrument's fret and bridge. If the proof mass moves in response to acceleration, changing the separation between the mirrors, the resonant wavelength also changes.

To track the changes in the cavity's resonant wavelength with high sensitivity, a stable single-frequency laser is locked to the cavity. As described in a recent publication in Optics Letters, the researchers have also employed an optical frequency comb -- a device that can be used as a ruler to measure the wavelength of light -- to measure the cavity length with high accuracy. The markings of the ruler (the teeth of the comb) can be thought of as a series of lasers with equally spaced wavelengths. When the proof mass moves during a period of acceleration, either shortening or lengthening the cavity, the intensity of the reflected light changes as the wavelengths associated with the comb's teeth move in and out of resonance with the cavity.

Accurately converting the displacement of the proof mass into an acceleration is a critical step that has been problematic in most existing optomechanical accelerometers. However, the team's new design ensures that the dynamic relationship between the displacement of the proof mass and the acceleration is simple and easy to model through first principles of physics. In short, the proof mass and supporting beams are designed so that they behave like a simple spring, or harmonic oscillator, that vibrates at a single frequency in the operating range of the accelerometer.

This simple dynamic response enabled the scientists to achieve low measurement uncertainty over a wide range of acceleration frequencies -- 1 kilohertz to 20 kilohertz -- without ever having to calibrate the device. This feature is unique because all commercial accelerometers have to be calibrated, which is time-consuming and expensive. Since the publication of their study in Optica, the researchers have made several improvements that should decrease their device's uncertainty to nearly 1%.

Capable of sensing displacements of the proof mass that are less than one hundred-thousandth the diameter of a hydrogen atom, the optomechanical accelerometer detects accelerations as tiny as 32 billionths of a g, where g is the acceleration due to Earth's gravity. That's a higher sensitivity than all accelerometers now on the market with similar size and bandwidth.

With further improvements, the NIST optomechanical accelerometer could be used as a portable, high-accuracy reference device to calibrate other accelerometers without having to bring them into a laboratory.

Depending on the topic, people's attitudes can change from moment to moment or last a lifetime. The factors that make one opinion long-lasting and another ephemeral, however, are not always clear.

Past studies have demonstrated that opinions based on hard facts and data can remain constant over time, but new research published in the journal Psychological Science reveals that attitudes based on feelings and emotions can also stand the test of time. This research has implications for both predicting whose attitudes are fixed versus fleeting and how to nudge people to form more long-lasting opinions.

"We have known that encouraging people to think carefully and rationally can produce attitudes that change less in the future," said Matthew Rocklage, a researcher with the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and co-lead author on the paper. "Our research, however, shows that opinions based on people's emotional reactions can be particularly long-lasting as well."

As part of their study, the researchers asked more than 1,000 people to what extent they believed attitudes based on feelings or emotional reactions were more stable over time than those based on thinking and rational analysis. Only 15% expressed any belief that attitudes based on emotion would be more stable over time.

To test the role that emotion plays in forming long-lasting attitudes, the researchers conducted seven independent studies involving more than 20,000 participants in a variety of real-world situations.

The first survey, which was conducted the day after Christmas, measured feelings about recently received gifts. The timing of this survey allowed the researchers to measure real-world reactions to a relatively newly formed attitude.

The participants were given a list of adjectives to describe their attitudes toward their gifts. Adjectives like "worthwhile" were associated with a practical reaction to the gift, whereas words like "delightful" were more strongly associated with an emotional reaction.

One month later, the participants completed a follow-up survey to test the endurance of their opinions. The results showed that the stronger the initial positive emotional reaction, the more likely that opinion remained fixed one month later.

The researchers conducted similar tests using virtually the same procedure but involving other scenarios, such as how much the participants supported consumer brands over time and how favorable their online restaurant reviews were between visits.

In the final test, participants read one of two messages about a fictitious aquatic animal. One message contained encyclopedic facts about the animal (low-emotion condition). The other message was about a swimmer's underwater interaction with the animal (high-emotion condition). The participants in the high-emotion condition showed significantly less change in their attitude across time.

"Emotionality is an unappreciated predictor of long-lasting attitudes," said Andrew Luttrell, a researcher at Ball State University and the other lead author on the paper. "These findings are important for understanding why some opinions are so difficult to change as well as how to create opinions that stick."

The idea of creating selectively porous materials has captured the attention of chemists for decades. Now, new research from Northwestern University shows that fungi may have been doing exactly this for millions of years.

When Nathan Gianneschi's lab set out to synthesize melanin that would mimic that which was formed by certain fungi known to inhabit unusual, hostile environments including spaceships, dishwashers and even Chernobyl, they did not initially expect the materials would prove highly porous-- a property that enables the material to store and capture molecules.

Melanin has been found across living organisms, on our skin and the backs of our eyes, and as pigments for many animals and plants. It also plays a role in protecting species from environmental stressors. Turtle-headed sea snakes' stripes darken, for example, in the presence of polluted water; moths living in industrial areas turn black as their cells absorb toxins in soot. The researchers wondered whether this type of biomaterial could be made more sponge-like, to optimize these properties. And, in turn, whether sponge-like melanins existed already in nature.

"Melanin's function isn't fully known all the time and in all cases," Gianneschi, the corresponding author on the study, said. "It's certainly a radical scavenger in human skin and protects against UV damage. Now, through synthesis we've happened upon this exciting material that very well may exist in nature. Fungi might make this material to add mechanical strength to their cells, but is porous, allowing nutrients across."

The study will be published Friday, March 5, in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

Gianneschi is the Jacob and Rosaline Cohn Professor of Chemistry in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences. With appointments in the materials science and biomedical engineering departments in the McCormick School of Engineering, Gianneschi also is associate director of the International Institute for Nanotechnology.

The ability to create this material in a lab is encouraging for a number of reasons. In typical non-porous materials, particles adsorb only superficially on the surface. But porous materials like allomelanin soak up and hold undesirable toxins while letting good stuff like air, water and nutrients through. This may allow manufacturers to create breathable, protective coatings for uniforms.

"You're always excited by discovering something that's potentially useful," Gianneschi said. "But there's also the intriguing idea that by discovering this, maybe more materials like this exist out there in biology already. There aren't many examples where chemical synthesis leads to a biological discovery. It's most often the other way around."

Naneki McCallum, a graduate student researcher in the lab and first author on the paper, had noticed that under the right conditions, melanin appeared to be hollow, or could be made to contain what looked like voids by electron microscopy. When the team came across the synthetic material, they began experimenting with porosity and selectivity of the materials for adsorbing molecules in those voids.

In a key demonstration, the team, working with researchers at the Naval Research Laboratory, was able to show that the new porous melanin would act as a protective coating, preventing simulants of nerve gas from getting through. Inspired by this result, they then isolated naturally occurring melanin from fungal cells. This was done by etching away biomaterial from within, leaving a shell containing melanin. They call these structures "fungal ghosts" for the elusive, hollow shape's "Casper"-like quality. The material, derived from fungi could also, in turn be used as a protective layer in fabrics. Remarkably, the material stays breathable, allowing water to pass, while trapping toxins.

Another benefit to this material is its simplicity, as it's easily produced and scaled from simple molecular precursors. In the future, it could be used to make protective masks and face shields and has potential for applications in long distance space flight. Coating materials in space would allow astronauts to store toxins they're breathing out while protecting themselves from harmful radiation, making for less waste and weight.

It's also a step toward selective membranes, a highly complex field of study that aims to take compounds like water and allow healthy minerals to pass through while blocking heavy metals like mercury.

"Fungi can thrive in places where other organisms struggle, and they have melanin to help them do it," McCallum said. "So, we ask, what are the properties that we can harness by recreating such materials in the lab?"

What The Study Did: Survey data were used to estimate changes in racial/ethnic disparities in rates of autism spectrum disorder among U.S. children and adolescents from 2014 through 2019.

Authors: Z. Kevin Lu, Ph.D., of the University of South Carolina in Columbia, 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/jamanetworkopen.2021.0771)

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

Researchers have developed a new quantum version of a 150-year-old thermodynamical thought experiment that could pave the way for the development of quantum heat engines.

Mathematicians from the University of Nottingham have applied new quantum theory to the Gibbs paradox and demonstrated a fundamental difference in the roles of information and control between classical and quantum thermodynamics. Their research has been published today in Nature Communications.

The classical Gibbs paradox led to crucial insights for the development of early thermodynamics and emphasises the need to consider an experimenter's degree of control over a system.

The research team developed a theory based on mixing two quantum gases - for example, one red and one blue, otherwise identical - which start separated and then mix in a box. Overall, the system has become more uniform, which is quantified by an increase in entropy. If the observer then puts on purple-tinted glasses and repeats the process; the gases look the same, so it appears as if nothing changes. In this case, the entropy change is zero.

The lead authors on the paper, Benjamin Yadin and Benjamin Morris, explain: "Our findings seem odd because we expect physical quantities such as entropy to have meaning independent of who calculates them. In order to resolve the paradox, we must realise that thermodynamics tells us what useful things can be done by an experimenter who has devices with specific capabilities. For example, a heated expanding gas can be used to drive an engine. In order to extract work (useful energy) from the mixing process, you need a device that can "see" the difference between red and blue gases."

Classically, an "ignorant" experimenter, who sees the gases as indistinguishable, cannot extract work from the mixing process. The research shows that in the quantum case, despite being unable to tell the difference between the gases, the ignorant experimenter can still extract work through mixing them.

Considering the situation when the system becomes large, where quantum behaviour would normally disappear, the researchers found that the quantum ignorant observer can extract as much work as if they had been able to distinguish the gases. Controlling these gases with a large quantum device would behave entirely differently from a classical macroscopic heat engine. This phenomenon results from the existence of special superposition states that encode more information than is available classically.

Professor Gerardo Adesso said: "Despite a century of research, there are so many aspects we don't know or we don't understand yet at the heart of quantum mechanics. Such a fundamental ignorance, however, doesn't prevent us from putting quantum features to good use, as our work reveals. We hope our theoretical study can inspire exciting developments in the burgeoning field of quantum thermodynamics and catalyse further progress in the ongoing race for quantum-enhanced technologies.

"Quantum heat engines are microscopic versions of our everyday heaters and refrigerators, which may be realised with just one or a few atoms (as already experimentally verified) and whose performance can be boosted by genuine quantum effects such as superposition and entanglement. Presently, to see our quantum Gibbs paradox played out in a laboratory would require exquisite control over the system parameters, something which may be possible in fine-tuned "optical lattice" systems or Bose-Einstein condensates - we are currently at work to design such proposals in collaboration with experimental groups."

DUBLIN, Friday, 5 March 2021: RCSI researchers have discovered a new way to 'put the brakes' on excessive inflammation by regulating a type of white blood cell that is critical for our immune system.

The discovery has the potential to protect the body from unchecked damage caused by inflammatory diseases.

The paper, led by researchers at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences, is published in Nature Communications.

When immune cells (white blood cells) in our body called macrophages are exposed to potent infectious agents, powerful inflammatory proteins known as cytokines are produced to fight the invading infection. However, if these cytokine levels get out of control, significant tissue damage can occur.

The researchers have found that a protein called Arginase-2 works through the energy source of macrophage cells, known as mitochondria, to limit inflammation. Specifically they have shown for the first time that Arginase-2 is critical for decreasing a potent inflammatory cytokine called IL-1.

This discovery could allow researchers to develop new treatments that target the Arginase-2 protein and protect the body from unchecked damage caused by inflammatory diseases.

"Excessive inflammation is a prominent feature of many diseases such as multiple sclerosis, arthritis and inflammatory bowel diseases. Through our discovery, we may be able to develop novel therapeutics for the treatment of inflammatory disease and ultimately improve the quality of life for people with these conditions," commented senior author on the paper Dr Claire McCoy, Senior Lecturer in Immunology at RCSI.

The study was led by researchers at the School of Pharmacy and Biomolecular Sciences, RCSI (Dr Claire McCoy, Dr Jennifer Dowling and Ms Remsha Afzal) in collaboration with a network of international researchers from Australia, Germany, and Switzerland.

The research was funded by Science Foundation Ireland, with initial stages of the research originating from a grant from the National Health Medical Research Council, Australia.

Kanazawa, Japan - As the global population ages, the rate of dementia is increasing worldwide. Given that early detection is critical for treatment, effective ways to screen for dementia are a high research priority. Now, researchers from Japan have developed a new screening tool that can be administered in a matter of minutes.

In a study published in PLOS ONE, researchers from Kanazawa University have revealed a new computerized cognitive test, termed the computerized assessment battery for cognition (C-ABC), which they found to be effective in screening for both dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in just 5 minutes.

Computerized cognitive tests are frequently chosen over paper-and-pencil versions because they are more precise and do not require training to administer. However, computerized cognitive tests for dementia and MCI generally take 10-30 minutes to complete. Further, the wide range of existing tests can make it difficult for healthcare practitioners to choose one that is suitable for detecting dementia or MCI. The researchers at Kanazawa University aimed to address this by creating a test that could be used to accurately and efficiently screen for both conditions.

"Although patients with dementia usually have disorientation and severe memory disturbance, those with MCI and those with normal cognition rarely have both," says co-lead author of the study Moeko Noguchi-Shinohara. "We wanted to develop a test that could distinguish these cognitive states in an efficient manner."

To do this, the researchers collected C-ABC scores from participants in different age groups (50s, 60s, and those aged 70-85 years) with dementia, MCI, and normal cognition. They then conducted a range of statistical tests to determine whether the test could distinguish normal cognition, dementia, and MCI.

"The results were surprising," explains Masahito Yamada, senior author. "We found that the C-ABC could distinguish individuals with MCI from those with normal cognition using scores from items that only took 5 minutes to complete."

In fact, in the 75-80 age group, answers from just two questions could distinguish participants with MCI from those with normal cognition, and these two items took just 2 minutes to complete.

"When we compared our C-ABS scores with those from the frequently used Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), we found a high correlation. However, the C-ABC is substantially faster to complete than the MMSE, and may be more sensitive to MCI or mild dementia," says Yamada.

The data indicate that when used with a high cut-off score for sensitivity, the C-ABC is appropriate for initial screening for dementia and MCI. This new tool could make cognitive screening more accessible and efficient, thus enabling earlier detection of MCI or dementia. This, in turn, could improve the treatment options and overall outcome for individuals with MCI or dementia.

Tsukuba, Japan - Heavy snowfall slows things down and makes it harder to get from point A to point B. But snow clouds have a silver lining--heavy snow may prevent serious road injuries and even save lives. How? By getting people off bicycles and switching to safer modes of transport.

Japanese researchers examined 10 years of police data on road injuries among commuting junior high school students. They found that areas with monthly snowfall of at least 100 cm had almost no bicycling-related injuries. Total injuries among cyclists and pedestrians also fell by 68%. The findings were published in the Journal of Epidemiology.

The logic is quite simple. When there's heavy snow, people can't get around by bicycle--or at least it's a lot harder. So they may switch to public transportation or walking. This "modal shift" may offer a broader solution for road safety.

"There have been studies suggesting, for instance, bus priority lanes or use of public transport can reduce road injuries or deaths," says Professor Masao Ichikawa, a study coauthor from the University of Tsukuba. "But there isn't enough evidence to determine if modal shifts reduce road injuries at a regional or national level."

To examine this, Professor Ichikawa's research team needed a population that switches transport modes wholesale and that also may suffer high road injury rates. School-aged children incur such rates during their commutes. And junior high schoolers, who often bike to school, have to find other ways of commuting in the snowy months.

The researchers calculated injury rates spanning a decade among junior high schoolers across Japan's 47 prefectures. They focused on cyclist and pedestrian injuries. They then plotted these in relation to snowfall and looked at injury rate changes in areas with ?100 cm (~39.4 inches) of snowfall in at least 1 month of the study period. Areas with heavy snow saw a marked decline in cyclist injuries in December-February, but there was little variation in less-snowy regions.

"This suggests that when the junior high schoolers shifted from biking to other modes of transport, there was a distinct decline in road injuries," Professor Ichikawa says. "Using snowfall as the exposure variable, and with 10 years of nationwide data, we could make some solid estimates. Modal shift may effectively increase road safety, especially in areas where cyclists are at high risk."