Brain

With a specialised telescope in Namibia a DESY-led team of researchers has proven a certain type of binary star as a new kind of source for very high-energy cosmic gamma-radiation. Eta Carinae is located 7500 lightyears away in the constellation Carina (the ship's keel) in the Southern Sky and, based on the data collected, emits gamma rays with energies all the way up to 400 gigaelectronvolts (GeV), some 100 billion times more than the energy of visible light. The team headed by DESY's Stefan Ohm, Eva Leser and Matthias Füßling is presenting its findings, made at the gamma-ray observatory High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S.), in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. An accompanying multimedia animation explains the phenomenon. "With such visualisations we want to make the fascination of research tangible," emphasises DESY's Director of Astroparticle Physics, Christian Stegmann.

Eta Carinae is a binary system of superlatives, consisting of two blue giants, one about 100 times, the other about 30 times the mass of our sun. The two stars orbit each other every 5.5 years in very eccentric elliptical orbits, their separation varying approximately between the distance from our Sun to Mars and from the Sun to Uranus. Both these gigantic stars fling dense, supersonic stellar winds of charged particles out into space. In the process, the larger of the two loses a mass equivalent to our entire Sun in just 5000 years or so. The smaller one produces a fast stellar wind travelling at speeds around eleven million kilometres per hour (about one percent of the speed of light).

A huge shock front is formed in the region where these two stellar winds collide, heating up the material in the wind to extremely high temperatures. At around 50 million degrees Celsius, this matter radiates brightly in the X-ray range. The particles in the stellar wind are not hot enough to emit gamma radiation, though. "However, shock regions like this are typically sites where subatomic particles are accelerated by strong prevailing electromagnetic fields," explains Ohm, who is the head of the H.E.S.S. group at DESY. When particles are accelerated this rapidly, they can also emit gamma radiation. In fact, the satellites "Fermi", operated by the US space agency NASA, and AGILE, belonging to the Italian space agency ASI, already detected energetic gamma rays of up to about 10 GeV coming from Eta Carinae in 2009.

"Different models have been proposed to explain how this gamma radiation is produced," Füßling reports. "It could be generated by accelerated electrons or by high-energy atomic nuclei." Determining which of these two scenarios is correct is crucial: very energetic atomic nuclei account for the bulk of the so-called Cosmic Rays, a subatomic cosmic hailstorm striking Earth constantly from all directions. Despite intense research for more than 100 years, the sources of the Cosmic Rays are still not exhaustively known. Since the electrically charged atomic nuclei are deflected by cosmic magnetic fields as they travel through the universe, the direction from which they arrive at Earth no longer points back to their origin. Cosmic gamma rays, on the other hand, are not deflected. So, if the gamma rays emitted by a specific source can be shown to originate from high-energy atomic nuclei, one of the long-sought accelerators of cosmic particle radiation will have been identified.

"In the case of Eta Carinae, electrons have a particularly hard time getting accelerated to high energyies, because they are constantly being deflected by magnetic fields during their acceleration, which makes them lose energy again," says Leser. "Very high-energy gamma radiation begins above the 100 GeV range, which is rather difficult to explain in Eta Carinae to stem from electron acceleration." The satellite data already indicated that Eta Carinae also emits gamma radiation beyond 100 GeV, and H.E.S.S. has now succeeded in detecting such radiation up to energies of 400 GeV around the time of the close encounter of the two blue giants in 2014 and 2015. This makes the binary star the first known example of a source in which very high-energy gamma radiation is generated by colliding stellar winds.

"The analysis of the gamma radiation measurements taken by H.E.S.S. and the satellites shows that the radiation can best be interpreted as the product of rapidly accelerated atomic nuclei," says DESY's PhD student Ruslan Konno, who has published a companion study, together with scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg. "This would make the shock regions of colliding stellar winds a new type of natural particle accelerator for cosmic rays." With H.E.S.S., which is named after the discoverer of Cosmic Rays, Victor Franz Hess, and the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA), the next-generation gamma-ray observatory currently being built in the Chilean highlands, the scientists hope to investigate this phenomenon in greater detail and discover more sources of this kind.

Thanks to detailed observations of Eta Carinae at all wavelengths, the properties of the stars, their orbits and stellar winds have been determined relatively accurately. This has given astrophysicists a better picture of the binary star system and its history. To illustrate the new observations of Eta Carinae, the DESY astrophysicists have produced a video animation together with the animation specialists of the award-winning Science Communication Lab. The computer-generated images are close to reality because the measured orbital, stellar and wind parameters were used for this purpose. The internationally acclaimed multimedia artist Carsten Nicolai, who uses the pseudonym Alva Noto for his musical works, created the sound for the animation.

"I find science and scientific research extremely important," says Nicolai, who sees close parallels in the creative work of artists and scientists. For him, the appeal of this work also lay in the artistic mediation of scientific research results: "particularly the fact that it is not a film soundtrack, but has a genuine reference to reality," emphasizes the musician and artist. Together with the exclusively composed sound, this unique collaboration of scientists, animation artists and musician has resulted in a multimedia work that takes viewers on an extraordinary journey to a superlative double star some 7500 light years away.

DESY is one of the world's leading particle accelerator centres and investigates the structure and function of matter - from the interaction of tiny elementary particles and the behaviour of novel nanomaterials and vital biomolecules to the great mysteries of the universe. The particle accelerators and detectors that DESY develops and builds at its locations in Hamburg and Zeuthen are unique research tools. They generate the most intense X-ray radiation in the world, accelerate particles to record energies and open up new windows onto the universe. DESY is a member of the Helmholtz Association, Germany's largest scientific association, and receives its funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (90 per cent) and the German federal states of Hamburg and Brandenburg (10 per cent).

Currently, there are no specific guidelines on the most effective materials and designs for facemasks to minimize the spread of droplets from coughs or sneezes to mitigate the transmission of COVID-19. While there have been prior studies on how medical-grade masks perform, data on cloth-based coverings used by the vast majority of the general public are sparse.

Research from Florida Atlantic University's College of Engineering and Computer Science, just published in the journal Physics of Fluids, demonstrates through visualization of emulated coughs and sneezes, a method to assess the effectiveness of facemasks in obstructing droplets. The rationale behind the recommendation for using masks or other face coverings is to reduce the risk of cross-infection via the transmission of respiratory droplets from infected to healthy individuals.

Researchers employed flow visualization in a laboratory setting using a laser light sheet and a mixture of distilled water and glycerin to generate the synthetic fog that made up the content of a cough-jet. They visualized droplets expelled from a mannequin's mouth while simulating coughing and sneezing. They tested masks that are readily available to the general public, which do not draw away from the supply of medical-grade masks and respirators for healthcare workers. They tested a single-layer bandana-style covering, a homemade mask that was stitched using two-layers of cotton quilting fabric consisting of 70 threads per inch, and a non-sterile cone-style mask that is available in most pharmacies. By placing these various masks on the mannequin, they were able to map out the paths of droplets and demonstrate how differently they perform.

Results showed that loosely folded facemasks and bandana-style coverings stop aerosolized respiratory droplets to some degree. However, well-fitted homemade masks with multiple layers of quilting fabric, and off-the-shelf cone style masks, proved to be the most effective in reducing droplet dispersal. These masks were able to curtail the speed and range of the respiratory jets significantly, albeit with some leakage through the mask material and from small gaps along the edges.

Importantly, uncovered emulated coughs were able to travel noticeably farther than the currently recommended 6-foot distancing guideline. Without a mask, droplets traveled more than 8 feet; with a bandana, they traveled 3 feet, 7 inches; with a folded cotton handkerchief, they traveled 1 foot, 3 inches; with the stitched quilted cotton mask, they traveled 2.5 inches; and with the cone-style mask, droplets traveled about 8 inches.

"In addition to providing an initial indication of the effectiveness of protective equipment, the visuals used in our study can help convey to the general public the rationale behind social-distancing guidelines and recommendations for using facemasks," said Siddhartha Verma, Ph.D., lead author and an assistant professor who co-authored the paper with Manhar Dhanak, Ph.D., department chair, professor, and director of SeaTech; and John Frakenfeld, technical paraprofessional, all within FAU's Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering. "Promoting widespread awareness of effective preventive measures is crucial at this time as we are observing significant spikes in cases of COVID-19 infections in many states, especially Florida."

When the mannequin was not fitted with a mask, they projected droplets much farther than the 6-foot distancing guidelines currently recommended by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The researchers observed droplets traveling up to 12 feet within approximately 50 seconds. Moreover, the tracer droplets remained suspended midair for up to three minutes in the quiescent environment. These observations, in combination with other recent studies, suggest that current social-distancing guidelines may need to be updated to account for aerosol-based transmission of pathogens.

"We found that although the unobstructed turbulent jets were observed to travel up to 12 feet, a large majority of the ejected droplets fell to the ground by this point," said Dhanak. "Importantly, both the number and concentration of the droplets will decrease with increasing distance, which is the fundamental rationale behind social-distancing."

The pathogen responsible for COVID-19 is found primarily in respiratory droplets that are expelled by infected individuals during coughing, sneezing, or even talking and breathing. Apart from COVID-19, respiratory droplets also are the primary means of transmission for various other viral and bacterial illnesses, such as the common cold, influenza, tuberculosis, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), and MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome), to name a few. These pathogens are enveloped within respiratory droplets, which may land on healthy individuals and result in direct transmission, or on inanimate objects, which can lead to infection when a healthy individual comes in contact with them.

"Our researchers have demonstrated how masks are able to significantly curtail the speed and range of the respiratory droplets and jets. Moreover, they have uncovered how emulated coughs can travel noticeably farther than the currently recommended six-foot distancing guideline," said Stella Batalama, Ph.D., dean of FAU's College of Engineering and Computer Science. "Their research outlines the procedure for setting up simple visualization experiments using easily available materials, which may help healthcare professionals, medical researchers, and manufacturers in assessing the effectiveness of face masks and other personal protective equipment qualitatively."

With graduation ceremonies, weddings, funeral, annual parades, and many other gatherings called off, it is apparent that our lives are filled with rituals. UConn Assistant Professor of Anthropology Dimitris Xygalatas studies rituals and how they impact our health. In research published today in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Xygalatas and collaborators from Masaryk University, Czech Republic, including former UConn student Martin Lang, examine the important roles rituals play in reducing our anxiety levels.

"In the current context of the pandemic, if you were a completely rational being -- perhaps an extraterrestrial who's never met any actual humans -- you would expect that given the current situation people wouldn't bother doing things that do not seem crucial to their survival. Maybe they wouldn't care so much about art, sports, or ritual, and they would focus on other things," says Xygalatas. "If you were to think that, it would show you didn't know much about human nature, because humans care deeply about those things."

Further, Xygalatas says, rituals play an important role in people's lives, helping them cope with anxiety and functioning as mechanisms of resilience.

This research started years ago, says Xygalatas. He explains that to study something as complex as human behavior, it is important to approach the question from multiple angles to collect converging evidence. First, in a laboratory study, they found that inducing anxiety made people's behavior more ritualized, that is, more repetitive and structured. So the next step was to take this research out to real-life situations, where they examined whether performing cultural rituals in their natural context indeed helps practitioners cope with anxiety.

"This approach also goes to show the limitations of any study. One study can only tell us a tiny bit about anything, but by using a variety of methods like my team and I are doing, and by going between the highly controlled space of the lab and the culturally relevant place that is real life we are able to get a more holistic perspective."

The experiment reported in their current publication took place in Mauritius, where the researchers induced anxiety by asking participants to prepare a plan for dealing with a natural disaster that would be evaluated by government experts. This was stressful, as floods and cyclones are very pertinent threats in that context. Following this stress-inducing task, one half of the group performed a familiar religious ritual at the local temple while the other half were asked to sit and relax in a non-religious space.

The researchers found that the speech was successful in inducing stress for both groups but those who performed the religious ritual experienced a greater reduction in both psychological and physiological stress, which was assessed by using wearable technology to measure heart rate variability.

Stress itself is important, says Xygalatas, "Stress acts as a motivation that helps us focus on our goals and rise to meet our challenges, whether those involve studying for an exam, flying a fighter jet, or scoring that game-winning goal. The problem is that beyond a certain threshold, stress ceases to be useful. In fact, it can even be dangerous. Over time, its effects can add up and take a toll on your health, impairing cognitive function, weakening the immune system, and leading to hypertension or cardiovascular disease. This type of stress can be devastating to our normal functioning, health, and well-being."

This is where Xygalatas and his team believe ritual plays an important role in managing stress.

"The mechanism that we think is operating here is that ritual helps reduce anxiety by providing the brain with a sense of structure, regularity, and predictability."

Xygalatas explains that in recent decades we have begun to realize the brain is not a passive computer but an active predictive machine, registering information and making predictions to help us survive.

"We come to expect certain things -- our brain fills in the missing information for the blind spot in our vision, and prompts us to anticipate the next word in a sentence -- all of these things are due to this effect because our brain makes active predictions about the state of the world."

Well-practiced rituals, like the one included in the study, are repetitive and predictable and therefore the researchers believe they give our brains the sense of control and structure that we crave, and those feelings help alleviate stress. This stress reducing impact of rituals could be a way to cope with chronic anxiety.

In today's stressful context, we see ritual taking different forms, from people gathering to applaud healthcare workers, to virtual choirs singing across the internet. Xygalatas also notes a recent study that tracked the increase in people typing 'prayer' in Google searches. In this unpredictable time, people are continuing to find relief in ritual.

"One thing I like to tell my students is that we as human beings are not as smart as we'd like to think. But thankfully, we are at least smart enough to be able to outsmart ourselves. We have many ways of doing this, for instance when we look at ourselves in the mirror before an interview and tell ourselves, 'Ok I can do this'. Or when we take deep breaths to calm down. We have all of these hacks that we can use on our very brain. We could rationalize it and tell ourselves 'Ok I'm going to lower my heartbeat now'. Well that doesn't work. Ritual is one of those mental technologies that we can use to trick ourselves into doing that. That is what these rituals do -- they act like life hacks for us."

Going forward, Xygalatas points out that he and his colleagues intend to do more work on the exact mechanisms underlying these effects of ritual.

"Of course it is a combination of factors, and that is why ritual is so powerful: because it combines a number of mechanisms that have to do both with the behavior itself, the physical movements, and with the cultural context, the symbolism, and the expectations that go into that behavior. To be able to disentangle those things is what we are trying to do next: we are examining these factors one at a time. Those rituals have gone through a process of cultural selection and they are still with us because they fulfil specific functions. They are life hacks that have been with and have served us well since the dawn of our kind."

To read more about Xygalatas' work, you can read his recent article in The Conversation.

LAWRENCE -- New information emerges about the novel coronavirus on a daily basis, sometimes confirming, other times contradicting what we thought we knew the day before. Our reaction to this constant information flow depends not only on our understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic but also our sources, environment and how we estimate risk. A recent University of Kansas study found that while Kansas survey participants relied on multiple sources about reliable COVID-19 information, they tended to prefer local authorities and distrust social media.

Mugur Geana, associate professor of journalism & mass communications and director of KU's Center for Excellence in Health Communications to Underserved Populations, wrote the study, which will be published in the June issue of the Kansas Journal of Medicine. The study showed responses consistent with the state's status, at the time, as an area with relatively few cases.

"When we did this survey in April, information was changing very fast," Geana said. "We wanted to make sure we captured a window in which data available to people did not vary widely."

More than 130 Kansans submitted answers to the social media survey, open only for a 96-hour window.

No respondents reported having COVID-19. Only 8% said they had family members diagnosed, while 41% said they knew someone in their community or place of work with COVID-19. Respondents appraised their knowledge of the pandemic as above average, and their responses to questions about the virus confirmed that.

"We wanted to understand what their concept of risk was. We were pleasantly surprised, but we also need to take it with a grain of salt, because the sample skewed toward highly educated participants," Geana said.

Those results are consistent with online surveys, which tend to be answered more by highly educated people and women, Geana said.

Among the significant findings was where people reported getting information about the pandemic. The top source was Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly's daily media briefings, which were also rated as the most trustworthy. Information from search engines such as Google or Bing was second in terms of usage, with 60% of respondents saying they used them daily. National newspapers such as The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal were third in terms of use, while discussions with family, friends and co-workers followed.

As far as mediated sources of information, public television and national newspapers were the most trusted media sources, while local or regional papers, commercial television, cable news, liberal and conservative media sources followed. Social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram were the least trusted source of information.

A high level of knowledge among respondents was not surprising, but the lack of trust in social media was, Geana said.

"We somewhat expected that (high level of knowledge) because it was a salient issue. People had to stay at home because of COVID-19, so they were watching a lot of TV because of it, reading a lot of news because of COVID-19, etc. That was very surprising," Geana said of the observed lack of trust in social media. "In addition to media, in terms of trust, medical professionals are the most trusted people, but co-workers, family and friends are important, because you talk with them more, often through social media channels. Well, we found that they are not as trusted as we expected. Probably a lot of the recent scandals involving social media influenced the trust that people have in it nowadays."

The findings also showed a relationship between people's level of knowledge and their willingness to take precautions to protect themselves and others. Those who reported strong feelings about precautionary measures put in place by the state government to slow the spread were also less likely to take precautionary measures. That was also in line with previous findings that people's risk perceptions were related to the severity of the outbreak in their community.

"If I believe a mask will not help me, I am more likely not to wear one, even though I have access to information that tells me that is dangerous and I could get COVID-19," Geana said of the findings.

The study is the first of two, and the second part will include further information on the perception of risk about contracting COVID-19 as states started to reopen, with survey data taken in May.

Light to moderate drinking may preserve brain function in older age, according to a new study from the University of Georgia.

The study examined the link between alcohol consumption and changes in cognitive function over time among middle-aged and older adults in the U.S.

"We know there are some older people who believe that drinking a little wine everyday could maintain a good cognitive condition," said lead author Ruiyuan Zhang, a doctoral student at UGA's College of Public Health.

"We wanted to know if drinking a small amount of alcohol actually correlates with a good cognitive function, or is it just a kind of survivor bias."

Regular, moderate alcohol consumption has been shown to promote heart health and some research points to a similar protective benefit for brain health. However, many of these studies were not designed to isolate the effects of alcohol on cognition or did not measure effects over time.

Zhang and his team developed a way to track cognition performance over 10 years using participant data from the nationally representative Health and Retirement Study.

During the study, a total of 19,887 participants completed surveys every two years about their health and lifestyle, including questions on drinking habits. Light to moderate drinking is defined as fewer than eight drinks per week for women and 15 drinks or fewer per week among men.

These participants also had their cognitive function measured in a series of tests looking at their overall mental status, word recall and vocabulary. Their test results were combined to form a total cognitive score.

Zhang and his colleagues looked at how participants performed on these cognitive tests over the course of the study and categorized their performance as high or low trajectories, meaning their cognitive function remained high over time or began to decline.

Compared to nondrinkers, they found that those who had a drink or two a day tended to perform better on cognitive tests over time.

Even when other important factors known to impact cognition such as age, smoking or education level were controlled for, they saw a pattern of light drinking associated with high cognitive trajectories.

The optimal amount of drinks per week was between 10 and 14 drinks. But that doesn't mean those who drink less should start indulging more, says Zhang.

"It is hard to say this effect is causal," he said. "So, if some people don't drink alcoholic beverages, this study does not encourage them to drink to prevent cognitive function decline."

Also of note, the association was stronger among white participants versus African American participants, which is significant, said Zhang, and prompts further exploration into the mechanisms of alcohol's effect on cognition.

New Zealand's monster penguins that lived 62 million years ago had doppelgangers in Japan, the USA and Canada, a study published today in the Journal of Zoological Systematics and Evolutionary Research has found.

Scientists have identified striking similarities between the penguins' fossilised bones and those of a group of much younger Northern Hemisphere birds, the plotopterids.

These similarities suggest plotopterids and ancient penguins looked very similar and might help scientists understand how birds started using their wings to swim instead of fly.

Around 62 million years ago, the earliest known penguins swam in tropical seas that almost submerged the land that is now New Zealand. Palaeontologists have found the fossilised bones of these ancient waddlers at Waipara, North Canterbury. They have identified nine different species, ranging in size from small penguins, the size of today's Yellow-Eyed Penguin, to 1.6 metre-high monsters.

Plotopterids developed in the Northern Hemisphere much later than penguins, with the first species appearing between 37 and 34 million years ago. Their fossils have been found at a number of sites in North America and Japan. Like penguins, they used their flipper-like wings to swim through the sea. Unlike penguins, which have survived into the modern era, the last plotopterid species became extinct around 25 million years ago.

The scientists - Dr Gerald Mayr of the Senckenberg Research Institute and Natural History Museum, Frankfurt; James Goedert of the Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture and University of Washington, USA; and Canterbury Museum Curators Dr Paul Scofield and Dr Vanesa De Pietri - compared the fossilised bones of plotopterids with fossil specimens of the giant penguin species Waimanu, Muriwaimanu and Sequiwaimanu from Canterbury Museum's collection.

They found plotopterids and the ancient penguins had similar long beaks with slit-like nostrils, similar chest and shoulder bones, and similar wings. These similarities suggest both groups of birds were strong swimmers that used their wings to propel them deep underwater in search of food.

Some species of both groups could grow to huge sizes. The largest known plotopterids were over 2 metres long, while some of the giant penguins were up to 1.6 metres tall.

Despite sharing a number of physical features with penguins both ancient and modern, plotopterids are more closely related to boobies, gannets and cormorants than they are to penguins.

"What's remarkable about all this is that plotopterids and ancient penguins evolved these shared features independently," says Dr De Pietri. "This is an example of what we call convergent evolution, when distantly related organisms develop similar morphological traits under similar environmental conditions."

Dr Scofield says some large plotopterid species would have looked very similar to the ancient penguins. "These birds evolved in different hemispheres, millions of years apart, but from a distance you would be hard pressed to tell them apart," he says. "Plotopterids looked like penguins, they swam like penguins, they probably ate like penguins - but they weren't penguins."

Dr Mayr says the parallels in the evolution of the bird groups hint at an explanation for why birds developed the ability to swim with their wings.

"Wing-propelled diving is quite rare among birds; most swimming birds use their feet. We think both penguins and plotodopterids had flying ancestors that would plunge from the air into the water in search of food. Over time these ancestor species got better at swimming and worse at flying."

Fossils from New Zealand's giant penguins, including Waimanu and Sequiwaimanu are currently on display alongside life-sized models of the birds in Canterbury Museum's exhibition Ancient New Zealand: Squawkzilla and the Giants, extended until 16 August 2020.

Long-term morbidity as well as a lower level of education and employment rate are common among adults who underwent congenital heart surgery during childhood, regardless of the severity of the defect.

A congenital heart defect in childhood increases the risk of chronic diseases, such as arrhythmia and heart failure, in adulthood. The risk of other diseases, including asthma, epilepsy and even psychiatric diseases, is also higher than usual. These adverse effects occur regardless of the severity of the heart defect.

These were the findings in a study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association and carried out at the University of Helsinki and the New Children's Hospital.

Heart malformations are the most common congenital structural defects of an individual organ. The study encompasses all patients who underwent congenital heart surgery in Finland aged under 15, from 1966 onwards.

"The findings emphasise the importance of long-term follow-up among this patient group. Furthermore, the study highlights the extensive coverage of Finland's national databases and the excellent opportunities for follow-up studies they provide, not available in many other countries," says Alireza Raissadati, a pediatrician specialising in pediatric cardiology.

According to another study, published in the Pediatrics journal, the effects of heart defects also extend to the quality of life. Adults who underwent heart surgery in childhood had a lower level of education and rate of employment than the control subjects; this was the case especially among men.

"It was surprising to see that patients with a simple heart defect also had a poorer socioeconomic status compared with the rest of the population," Raissadati says.

The study compared the level of education, rate of employment, marital status and number of children between adults who had undergone heart surgery in childhood and control subjects during a 60-year period.

Enantioselectivity plays an important role in the pharmacological and toxicological processes of chiral drugs.

In chiral drug synthesis that uses bioorthogonal chemistry within complex biological milieu, asymmetric transfer hydrogenation (ATH), which utilizes safe hydrogen donors instead of high pressure H2, has been gaining popularity and has been performed in living cells.

Prof. QU Xiaogang from the Changchun Institute of Applied Chemistry (CIAC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and his colleagues recently presented a novel strategy using a neutrophil-directed ATH reaction to achieve site-selective chiral drug synthesis in living systems.

The study was published in Chem on June 25.

The researchers first constructed inflammation-targeted chiral catalysts by preparing Pd-immobilized mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSN-Pd).

Cinchona alkaloid enantiomers were individually adsorbed on the MSN-Pd catalyst to introduce enantioselectivity.

A neutrophil membrane was subsequently coated onto the MSN-Pd chiral catalysts, creating the MSN-Pd/CD@Neu catalyst, which possessed inflammation-targeting ability inherited from the neutrophils.

The next stage of research involved using MSN-Pd/CD@Neu to catalyze an intracellular conversion involving the precursors of Ibuprofen (IBU).

IBU is a drug well-known for relieving inflammation, fever and pain. The pharmacological activity of IBU is mainly attributed to the S-enantiomer while the R-enantiomer is thought to be potentially harmful. For this reason, it is important to be able to control the catalysis of IBU into its enantiomers.

In this study, the conversion of the precursor molecule of IBU (pre-IBU) to S-IBU was realized by using a targeted ATH bioorthogonal reaction in a mouse paw model, with HCOONa as the hydrogen donor.

Compared with the controls, the MSN-Pd/CD@Neu catalyst simultaneously exhibited inflammation-targeted capability and enantioselectivity as part of its anti-inflammatory action.

In situ synthesized IBU can ameliorate lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-triggered acute inflammation, pyrexia and tissue edema.

This research opens a new avenue for chiral drug synthesis activated on the designed target in living systems. It also holds promise for wide application of targeted bioorthogonal chemistry, especially in enantioselective drug synthesis.

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (June 26,2020) -- It's entirely reasonable during a pandemic to feel more stressed, anxious, lonely and depressed than usual. Yet, despite the circumstances, some people are doing OK. Some people continue to feel love for others, gratitude for what they have and joy in the small things.

How do they do that? Data collected in April by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill researchers who asked 600 adults across the United States about their experiences and behavior in the past day reveals ways positive emotions can be cultivated as people spend more time apart.

Exercising, as well as self-care such as hobbying and relaxing, or spiritual activities like prayer and meditation, come with positive emotions, according to researchers in the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Lab at UNC-Chapel Hill, which led the recent research. Scrolling passively through social media left people feeling down.

"Most people know that these things are important, of course. But they are especially so these days as we stay at home to slow the spread of the coronavirus," said Barbara L. Frederickson, the Kenan Distinguished Professor in the UNC-Chapel Hill Department of Psychology and Neuroscience and director of the PEP lab.

"The tie between time spent on these sorts of activities and positive states was particularly strong for people who felt more of the negatives states. So, the more stressed, anxious, lonely or depressed you are, the more it matters that you take the time to exercise and care for yourself."

But it's important not to become too self-focused.

Social connection is foundational for a person's health and happiness. While social media can be very important for staying connected while physically distanced, it needs to be used properly.

The UNC-Chapel Hill data showed that the amount of time people spend passively browsing social media - scrolling through feeds and looking for updates - was unrelated to positive states, and strongly linked to anxiety and other negative feelings.

"If your feeds are like ours, they're mostly composed of distressing news and politicking. Keeping up with these endless streams is far from uplifting," says Frederickson.

People who spend more time actively interacting with others experience more positive and fewer negative emotions. This was true for introverts and extraverts alike, and especially for people living alone, according to the researchers' data.

"Importantly, it matters how one is interacting with others," said Michael M. Prinzing, a graduate fellow at the Parr Center for Ethics at UNC-Chapel Hill who works in the PEP lab. "Time spent interacting face-to-face or by voice or video call came with more positive emotions, whereas time spent in text-based interaction did not."

Interacting with others does not seem to help much when you can't see or hear the people you are communicating with, the researchers said.

"This was a useful wake-up call for us. We thought we were doing ourselves good by keeping up via text. But the evidence suggests this isn't as valuable as we thought," said Prinzing. "It's much harder to establish a meaningful connection with someone via text."

It's a good time to bring back the humble phone call and take advantage of the many video-calling platforms.

Finally, those who went out of their way to help others experienced more positive states than those who didn't.

"Crises provide ample opportunities for kindness," said Frederickson. "You can donate face masks or other equipment to healthcare workers. If you're healthy, you can donate much-needed blood. Such altruistic acts aren't just good for those receiving help. They're good for those giving it as well."

Resilience -- handling life's challenges and bouncing back from setbacks - increases not from avoiding negative states, but from increasing positive emotional states.

To have a better day during a pandemic, it's vital that everyone MARCH together, say Carolina researchers who offer this summary of their findings:

Minimize passive scrolling through social media

Accept negative emotion

Really connect with people

Care for yourself

Help others

"It's more important than usual for people to stay connected and help each other," said Frederickson.

Tsukuba, Japan - It is no secret that DNA, in the form of chromosomes, is the building block of life. Incorrect distribution of chromosomes during cell division can have disastrous consequences. Unbalanced chromosome copy, or aneuploidy, is a hallmark of tumors and affects development and survival in all organisms, including humans.

How cells disseminate genetic material has fascinated researchers for centuries. In a study published in June 2020 in Nucleic Acids Research, researchers from the University of Tsukuba, led by Associate Professor Keiji Kimura, have identified a new protein complex, NWC, involved in chromosome distribution.

NWC is associated with the nucleolus, a membrane-less intranuclear structure, and re-locates to the periphery of chromosomes during cell division. This protein complex contains three different proteins: NOL11, WDR43, and Cirhin. NOL11 is usually associated with the nucleolus, and WDR43 and Cirhin are WD-repeat proteins. "This research is important because, to date, the mitotic functions of nucleolar proteins have largely been uncharacterized," says Associate Professor Kimura.

The team examined NOL11 localization in human cells using immunofluorescence. Using a specialized microscope, protein location can be visualized by virtue of its "glow." They found that NOL11 localized to the periphery of chromosomes during mitosis, or nuclear division. Explains Associate Professor Kimura: "When we examined the NOL11 protein we realized that it lacked any functional motifs. We then explored the idea that perhaps it functions in a complex with other proteins."

Using advanced molecular techniques, the research team identified and characterized the NWC complex. They examined the effect of removing individual proteins from the complex and found that all three components are required for NWC to localize to chromosomes and function in mitosis. Reducing the amount of NWC in cells led to incomplete cell cycle progression, with chromosomes failing to separate, misaligned chromosomes, and defects in the location and concentrations of proteins required for accurate chromosome distribution, including Aurora B, the cohesin complex, and histone H3 phosphorylation.

The results presented by Associate Professor Kimura and colleagues show that NWC specifically functions in mitotic chromosome stability through allowing Aurora B to accumulate at the centromeres, partially through regulating histone phosphorylation. Precisely how NWC controls histone phosphorylation near centromeres remains to be determined.

Given that correct chromosome dissemination is essential for the continuation of life and disease prevention, these results may present a new focus in the search for genes that when mutated lead to aneuploidy, or unbalanced chromosome copies.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - Kindergartners in face masks. Closed playground structures. Random COVID-19 testing.

They are among the long list of hypothetical scenarios for school in the pandemic era.

And as lawmakers and educators reimagine the K-12 model for fall, a new survey assessed parents' plans for in-person school and support for 15 potential measures to reduce the risk of COVID-19 in schools in Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio.

The majority of parents surveyed (two-thirds) said they will likely send all of their children to school in fall. Most also support certain safety measures, including decreasing the number of children on buses, daily temperature screens for students, alternating between in-person and online classes, regular testing of school staff, and requiring school staff and older children to wear masks.

The report, published by the Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research Center (CHEAR) at the University of Michigan, included 1,193 parents of school-aged children in the three states who were surveyed from June 12-22.

"Families are facing a challenging decision regarding whether to send their children to school for in-person classes in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic," says lead author Kao-Ping Chua, M.D., Ph.D., a pediatrician and researcher at Michigan Medicine C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, CHEAR and the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, which funded the report.

"On the one hand, sending children to school could increase the risk of COVID-19 among children and family members. On the other hand, children who don't return to in-person school may experience disruptions in their education. Some families simply don't have a choice because they need to go to work."

Parents' plans on sending their children to school were similar between each state but varied by demographic factors. Respondents who were Black, Hispanic, or Asian were less likely to report that they will send all of their children to school compared with respondents who were white/non-Hispanic.

Parents from low-income households were the least likely to report that they will send all of their children to school, with 40 % reporting that they are unsure of their plans or are not planning on sending at least one of their children.

"The disparity by household income raises the possibility of potential educational disruption among less advantaged students," Chua says. "Efforts should especially be made to understand and address barriers to school attendance for these students, and to ensure high-quality education for students who do not attend school in-person."

Views on masks and other safety measures

The survey revealed strong support for a number of measures to reduce COVID-19 exposure risk at school. Three-quarters of parents supported daily temperature screens of students and requiring testing of children if a classmate tests positive for COVID-19.

More than 60 % of parents supported decreasing the number of children on buses, alternating groups of children between in-person and virtual classes, staggering arrival and pick-up times, and random weekly COVID-19 testing for staff. Half supported random weekly COVID-19 testing of children and requiring children to eat meals in classrooms rather than cafeterias.

Most parents supported requiring face masks for school staff and middle and high school students, but were less likely to support requiring face masks for younger children, especially kindergarten through second grade.

Support was low for closing playground structures and stopping all extracurricular programs.

Overall, the average parent supported or strongly supported eight of the 15 measures assessed in the survey. While this number was lower in some demographic groups, three-quarters of parents supported four or more measures.

"Preferences for the number and types of measures vary among parents," Chua says. "But they broadly agree with the notion that schools should take steps to keep children as safe as possible."

Factors impacting a return to school

Twelve percent of parents surveyed indicated they will likely not send at least one of their children to school in fall, with health concerns being the biggest factor. Respondents were less likely to say their children would attend in-person school if they believe someone in their home has a condition that increases the risk of severe COVID-19 illness.

But many feel that the in-person school experience is best for their kids.

"I feel like (my child) gets a better education in person. I want her to be able to go to school where she can directly interact with teachers," one Michigan parent said.

Twenty-one percent of parents said they weren't sure yet about school attendance plans. Many are waiting to see how the COVID-19 pandemic evolves, while others are waiting to hear more about their schools' plans.

"If the schools here decide to open, then that will mean we are trending in a favorable direction as far as the virus is concerned. I trust the local school districts to make the best decision based on their staff/cleaning/knowledge of the situation," a parent from Illinois wrote.

Many respondents also indicated they had little choice to send children to school due to jobs and financial constraints.

"We have no family to babysit and do not have the funds to hire a babysitter if the kids stay home. If one of us has to stay home to watch them we will likely lose our house," one Ohio respondent said.

Many families indicated that a surge in COVID-19 cases would cause them to reconsider plans for sending children to school. Others would likely reconsider based on the safety strategies implemented in schools or the type of educational experience their children might have.

Governors across the country are working with educators to develop plans to safely open school. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer is expected to announce her "Return to School Roadmap" on June 30, which will provide an outline for schools across the state to reopen for in-person learning in fall.

As these plans are announced, Chua believes it will be important to continue to survey parents regarding their plans and support for COVID-19 risk mitigation measures.

"In our survey, parents expressed a lot of uncertainty regarding their plans for school attendance," he says. "Many are waiting to see how schools address safety and how the pandemic evolves. It's very likely that parents' views and plans will change as new information becomes available."

In a paper published in NANO, a group of researchers from Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin, China have discovered an effective way to remove heavy metal Cadmium(II) from wastewater. This utilizes the surface-initiated atom-transfer radical polymerization (SI-ATRP) method to graft poly (tert-butyl acrylate) PtBA from the ultrathin pore wall of inverse opal (IO) SiO2.

Currently, harmful heavy metal pollution in water bodies is an extremely severe environmental issue and causes various serious diseases and even cancer due to carcinogenicity and damage of liver, kidney, and skin. Cadmium (Cd), a dangerous heavy metal, mainly originates from metal production, photography, electroplating, and the manufacturing of batteries. Therefore, it is quite necessary and urgent to develop a series of ways to remove Cd(II) from wastewater. The research group led by Professor Zhang Xu of Hebei University of Technology used the prepared inverse opal hybrid SiO2 for the removal of Cd (II) in aqueous solution.

The SI-ATRP method was utilized to graft polymer segments from the ultrathin pore wall of IO SiO2. First, IO SiO2 was prepared through a templating method. Then, bromine groups are anchored into the materials by sol-gel method. Afterward, the SI-ATRP method was utilized to graft poly (tert-butyl acrylate) (PtBA) from the pore wall of IO SiO2 (IO SiO2-g-PtBA). Subsequently, PtBA was hydrolyzed to polyacrylic acid (PAA) and the IO SiO2-g-PAA was obtained. Finally, an amidation reaction with superfluous diethylenetriamine (DETA) was performed to obtain IO hybrid adsorbent (IO SiO2-g-PAA-DETA). Batch adsorption of removing Cd(II) onto IO SiO2-g-PAA-DETA was studied as the effect of solution pH, adsorbent doses, contact time, ionic concentration, and temperature.

The IO hybrid adsorbent with the grafted amount of 73% showed the optimum adsorption capacity. The adsorption performance towards Cd(II) ions exhibited the best adsorption ability when the pH value is 5 and the adsorbent feed was 0.5 g/L. In addition, Na+ at low concentration had little effect on adsorption capacity. The experimental data was best described using the Freundlich and the pseudo-first-order model. After regeneration by 0.025M EDTA solution, the adsorption efficiency was kept above 80% of the original Cd(II) adsorption ability in 6 adsorption-desorption experiments. On the basis of the above summary, it can be summarized that the IO hybrid adsorbent is a well potential candidate for removing Cd(II) ions.

CRISPR-Cas9 has become one of the most convenient and effective biotechnology tools used to cut specific DNA sequences. Starting from Streptococcus pyogenes Cas9 (SpCas9), a multitude of variants have been engineered and employed for experiments worldwide. Although all these systems are targeting and cleaving a specific DNA sequence, they also exhibit relatively high off-target activities with potentially harmful effects.

Led by Professor Hyongbum Henry Kim, the research team of the Center for Nanomedicine, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS, South Korea), has achieved the most extensive high-throughput analysis of CRISPR-Cas9 activities. The team developed deep-learning-based computational models that predict the activities of SpCas9 variants for different DNA sequences. Published in Nature Biotechnology, this study represents a useful guide for selecting the most appropriate SpCas9 variant.

This study surpassed all previous reports, which had evaluated only up to three Cas9 systems. IBS researchers compared 13 SpCas9 variants and defined which four-nucleotide sequences can be used as protospacer adjacent motif (PAM) - a short DNA sequence that is required for Cas9 to cut and is positioned immediately after the DNA sequence targeted for cleavage.

Additionally, they evaluated the specificity of six different high-fidelity SpCas9 variants, and found that evoCas9 has the highest specificity, while the original wild-type SpCas9 has the lowest. Although evoCas9 is very specific, it also shows low activity at many target sequences: these results imply that, depending on the DNA target sequence, other high-fidelity Cas9 variants could be preferred.

Based on these results, IBS researchers developed DeepSpCas9variants, a computational tool to predict the activities of SpCas9 variants. By accessing this public website, users may input the desired DNA target sequence, find out the most suitable SpCas9 variant and take full advantage of the CRISPR technology.

"We began this research when we noticed the critical lack of a systematic comparison among the different SpCas9 variants," says Kim. "Now, using DeepSpCas9variants, researchers can select the most appropriate SpCas9 variants for their own research purposes."

Japan -- Symmetry and asymmetry are fundamental properties of nature. Seen from above, butterflies have left-right symmetry, while male fiddler crabs show dramatic asymmetry. This is also the case for the fundamental units of life: cells. They control the symmetry of their internal structures to regulate all biological functions.

Publishing in Nature Communications, a team led by Kyoto University's Hakubi Center for Advanced Research has announced the development of an artificial cell that brings to light the dynamics that govern each cell's internal symmetry.

The team found that the actomyosin network -- a complex consisting primarily of the protein actin that creates the filamentary meshwork, and the force-generating molecular motor myosin -- self-organizes into two distinct structures that push-and-pull intracellular components as if in a tug-of-war.

Previous studies have shown that the structural mass of a cell -- the actin cytoskeleton -- is involved in symmetrical positioning. It has been hypothesized that this network steers and positions intracellular components. However, the mechanisms of how the proteins find the 'center' of the cell, or how they induce symmetry breaking, have remained elusive.

"Living cells are traditionally used to study these processes," explains Makito Miyazaki who led the study. "But a cell is so complex that it can obfuscate the underlying regulatory system."

To overcome this difficulty, the team settled on a bottom-up approach, developing a simplified, artificial cell by confining the actin cytoskeleton in a tiny droplet of liquid. This enabled them to control the sizes and concentrations of any proteins of interest.

By then changing the cell size, the team discovered two coexisting actomyosin networks with opposing functions: a ring-like centripetal actomyosin that pushes toward the center, and radially-formed bulk actomyosin bridges that pull to the edges.

Molecular perturbation experiments and theoretical modeling further revealed that the balance between these two networks is what determines positioning symmetry.

"How cells organize their internal structures is an important question, which we must answer in order to understand how our bodies are constructed from single fertilized cells," concludes Miyazaki.

By simplifying the cell system, the team believes that it has developed a universally-applicable model that could lead to further revelations regarding life's most fundamental functions.

Using radar commonly deployed to track speeders and fastballs, researchers have developed an automated system that will allow cars to peer around corners and spot oncoming traffic and pedestrians.

The system, easily integrated into today's vehicles, uses Doppler radar to bounce radio waves off surfaces such as buildings and parked automobiles. The radar signal hits the surface at an angle, so its reflection rebounds off like a cue ball hitting the wall of a pool table. The signal goes on to strike objects hidden around the corner. Some of the radar signal bounces back to detectors mounted on the car, allowing the system to see objects around the corner and tell whether they are moving or stationary.

"This will enable cars to see occluded objects that today's lidar and camera sensors cannot record, for example, allowing a self-driving vehicle to see around a dangerous intersection" said Felix Heide, an assistant professor of computer science at Princeton University and one of researchers. "The radar sensors are also relatively low-cost, especially compared to lidar sensors, and scale to mass production."

In a paper presented June 16 at this Conference on Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition (CVPR), the researchers described how the system is able to distinguish objects including cars, bicyclists and pedestrians and gauge their direction and oncoming speed.

"The proposed approach allows for collision warning for pedestrians and cyclists in real-world autonomous driving scenarios -- before seeing them with exist direct line-of-sight sensors," the authors write.

In recent years, engineers have developed a variety of sensor systems that allow cars to detect other objects on the road. Many of them rely on lidar or cameras using visible or near-infrared light, and such sensors preventing collisions are now common on modern cars. But optical sensing is difficult to use to spot items out of the car's line of sight. In earlier research, Heide's team has used light to see objects hidden around corners. But those efforts currently are not practical for use in cars both because they require high-powered lasers and are restricted to short ranges.

In conducting that earlier research, Heide and his colleagues wondered whether it would be possible to create a system to detect hazards out of the car's line of sight using imaging radar instead of visible light. The signal loss at smooth surfaces is much lower for radar systems, and radar is a proven technology for tracking objects. The challenge is that radar's spatial resolution -- used for picturing objects around corners such as cars and bikes -- is relatively low. However, the researchers believe that they could create algorithms to interpret the radar data to allow the sensors to function.

"The algorithms that we developed are highly efficient and fit on current generation automotive hardware systems," Heide said. "So, you might see this technology already in the next generation of vehicles."

To allow the system to distinguish objects, Heide's team processed part of the radar signal that standard radars consider background noise rather than usable information. The team applied artificial intelligence techniques to refine the processing and read the images. Fangyin Wei, a graduate student in computer science and one of the paper's lead authors, said the computer running the system had to learn to recognize cyclists and pedestrians from a very sparse amount of data.

"First we have to detect if something is there. If there is something there, is it important? Is it a cyclist or a pedestrian?" she said. "Then we have to locate it."

Wei said the system currently detects pedestrians and cyclists because the engineers felt those were the most challenging objects because of their small size and varied shape and motion. She said the system could be adjusted to detect vehicles as well.

Heide said the researchers plan to follow the research in a number of directions for applications involving both radar and refinements in signal processing. He said the system has the potential to radically improve automotive safety and it relies on existing radar sensor technology, so readying the radar system for deployment in the next generation of automobiles should be possible.

"It would certainly go through the very rigorous automotive development cycles," he said. "In terms of integration and bringing it to market, it requires a lot of engineering. But the technology is there, so there is the potential for seeing this very soon in vehicles."