Culture

Catalysts speed up chemical reactions and form the backbone of many industrial processes.  For example, they are essential in transforming heavy oil into gasoline or jet fuel. Today, catalysts are involved in over 80 percent of all manufactured products.

A research team, led by the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory in collaboration with Northern Illinois University, has discovered a new electrocatalyst that converts carbon dioxide (CO2) and water into ethanol with very high energy efficiency, high selectivity for the desired final product and low cost. Ethanol is a particularly desirable commodity because it is an ingredient in nearly all U.S. gasoline and is widely used as an intermediate product in the chemical, pharmaceutical and cosmetics industries.

“The process resulting from our catalyst would contribute to the circular carbon economy, which entails the reuse of carbon dioxide.” — Di-Jia Liu, senior chemist in Argonne’s Chemical Sciences and Engineering division and a UChicago CASE scientist

“The process resulting from our catalyst would contribute to the circular carbon economy, which entails the reuse of carbon dioxide,” said Di-Jia Liu, senior chemist in Argonne’s Chemical Sciences and Engineering division and a UChicago CASE scientist in the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, University of Chicago. This process would do so by electrochemically converting the CO2 emitted from industrial processes, such as fossil fuel power plants or alcohol fermentation plants, into valuable commodities at reasonable cost.

The team’s catalyst consists of atomically dispersed copper on a carbon-powder support. By an electrochemical reaction, this catalyst breaks down CO2 and water molecules and selectively reassembles the broken molecules into ethanol under an external electric field. The electrocatalytic selectivity, or “Faradaic efficiency,” of the process is over 90 percent, much higher than any other reported process. What is more, the catalyst operates stably over extended operation at low voltage.

“With this research, we’ve discovered a new catalytic mechanism for converting carbon dioxide and water into ethanol,” said Tao Xu, a professor in physical chemistry and nanotechnology from Northern Illinois University. “The mechanism should also provide a foundation for development of highly efficient electrocatalysts for carbon dioxide conversion to a vast array of value-added chemicals.”

Because CO2 is a stable molecule, transforming it into a different molecule is normally energy intensive and costly. However, according to Liu, “We could couple the electrochemical process of CO2-to-ethanol conversion using our catalyst to the electric grid and take advantage of the low-cost electricity available from renewable sources like solar and wind during off-peak hours.” Because the process runs at low temperature and pressure, it can start and stop rapidly in response to the intermittent supply of the renewable electricity.

The team’s research benefited from two DOE Office of Science User Facilities at Argonne — the Advanced Photon Source (APS) and Center for Nanoscale Materials (CNM) — as well as Argonne’s Laboratory Computing Resource Center (LCRC). “Thanks to the high photon flux of the X-ray beams at the APS, we have captured the structural changes of the catalyst during the electrochemical reaction,’’ said Tao Li, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at Northern Illinois University and an assistant scientist in Argonne’s X-ray Science division. These data along with high-resolution electron microscopy at CNM and computational modeling using the LCRC revealed a reversible transformation from atomically dispersed copper to clusters of three copper atoms each on application of a low voltage. The CO2-to-ethanol catalysis occurs on these tiny copper clusters. This finding is shedding light on ways to further improve the catalyst through rational design. 

“We have prepared several new catalysts using this approach and found that they are all highly efficient in converting CO2 to other hydrocarbons,” said Liu. “We plan to continue this research in collaboration with industry to advance this promising technology.”

Flying insects and parasites are often vectors for disease, but a mosquito needs to first find someone before they can bite them. In a recent study published in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution, researchers examined bird nests in order to understand how insects and parasites detect gases such as carbon dioxide and methane as a way to locate their hosts.

The researchers focused on blue tit bird nest boxes located in a deciduous forest in central Spain. They found that the nests contained more biting midges when concentrations of carbon dioxide were higher inside the nest compared to the forest air. "This is important because biting midges are the main vector of Haemoproteus, the most abundant blood parasite infecting birds in our study area," says Dr. Santiago Merino of the National Museum of Natural Sciences in Madrid, one of the researchers on the study.

With the looming threat of climate change, rising carbon levels will affect every aspect of our ecosystem - from the largest to the smallest organism. "Predictions expect an increase of diseases in northern latitudes due to climate change," he says, "But factors like gas concentrations and temperature may affect the incidence of diseases," as well.

The first step to understanding the future of course, is studying the present. "We want to know how the relationship between gas concentrations and parasite attraction is changing," Merino says, "in order to adjust our predictions on extension of diseases."

Bird nesting cavities offered a unique opportunity to study the interaction between gas concentration and parasites since the enclosed space allows for better comparisons. In addition to the positive correlation between carbon dioxide and biting midges, Merino and his colleagues found that there were more mites inside the nests when carbon dioxide was higher, and more black flies when methane was lower. The methane concentration may be related to bacteria in the nesting materials.

The authors also factored in variables such as temperature, brood size, and time to their analyses. When there were no nestlings present in the nest boxes, carbon dioxide concentration inside the nest was not significantly different compared with the forest air, indicating that the presence of nestlings caused gas fluctuations.

Merino says that the relationship between humidity and gas concentration is important and, while it was examined in this study, it should be studied further. While the study is limited in its focused approach, the authors would like to collaborate with other researchers working in different environments to see if their results differ in other conditions.

As a global center for petrochemical manufacturing, Houston, Texas, experiences some of the worst air quality in the country, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Evidence suggests that air pollution disproportionately affects low-income, non-white and Hispanic residents, but it's difficult to directly observe differences in pollutants between neighborhoods. Now, researchers reporting in Environmental Science & Technology have used airplanes and a satellite to uncover disparities in nitrogen dioxide amounts in the atmosphere above Houston.

Nitrogen dioxide, a precursor to ground-level ozone and particulate matter, is produced mainly by vehicles and power plants. In Houston, petrochemical refineries and industrial activities also emit this pollutant, which has been linked to respiratory problems. Ground-based nitrogen dioxide monitors and low-resolution satellite observations have historically had limited abilities to capture differences among neighborhoods of the same city. Angelique Demetillo, Sally Pusede and colleagues wanted to use a new high-spatial-resolution dataset from a NASA spectrometer onboard an airplane to investigate neighborhood-level differences in nitrogen dioxide within Houston, and to see whether these differences correlated with race-ethnicity and income of the neighborhoods. They also wanted to use these airborne data to evaluate whether the recently launched, space-based TROPOspheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI) could resolve similar between-neighborhood differences.

The researchers used the NASA airborne spectrometer data to examine differences in population-weighted nitrogen dioxide levels for different census tracts. The areas where the pollutant was highest were where more low-income, non-white and Hispanic people lived. In contrast, where the pollutant was lowest, high-income, white people tended to live there. Most of the disparities could be explained by proximity of the neighborhoods to industrial sources and heavy-duty diesel vehicles. The researchers then used the observations from TROPOMI in a similar analysis, demonstrating that these new space-based measurements could also detect pollution inequalities within Houston. While the aircraft measurements can be collected over one-month periods, the TROPOMI observations are made almost daily and have the potential to be useful to decision-makers as they allocate resources for reducing air pollution, propose emission requirements and invest in public transportation, the researchers say.

PITTSBURGH, Aug. 5, 2020 - Researchers at UPMC Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh and Promundo-US found that men who harbor more harmful attitudes about masculinity -- including beliefs about aggression and homophobia -- also tend toward bullying, sexual harassment, depression and suicidal thoughts.

The study, published today in Preventive Medicine, is based on the "Man Box" Scale developed by Promundo-US, the U.S. member of a global consortium dedicated to promoting gender equality and ending violence, as a way to measure harmful norms and stereotypes about masculinity. The 15-item scale encompasses themes such as self-sufficiency, acting tough, physical attractiveness, rigid masculine gender roles, hypersexuality, and control.

"While there has been a lot of discussion around harmful masculinities in the media and in the research community, no one has agreed on a standardized way to measure the concept," explains Elizabeth Miller, M.D., Ph.D., chief of adolescent and young adult medicine at UPMC Children's Hospital.

The idea of the Man Box originated in the 1980s. Paul Kivel and his colleagues at the Oakland Men's Project developed the "Act Like a Man Box" activity as a way to discuss how society tells men they ought to be. Since then, activist Tony Porter helped popularize the term in a TEDWomen Talk and his book "Breaking Out of the 'Man Box': The Next Generation of Manhood."

Recently, the issue of harmful masculinities received widespread attention in response to the 2018 American Psychological Association (APA) Guidelines for Psychological Practice with Boys and Men, which presented a series of steps health care practitioners should take to improve the psychological care of boys and men.

The APA was reacting to growing evidence showing that men who strongly align with more harmful masculine gender norms have poorer health outcomes, such as depression and suicidal ideation. In addition, these men perpetrate violence against others at much higher rates. Research shows that boys and men, just like girls and women, are affected by societal norms, and those norms can have real consequences.

Using 2016 data from more than 3,600 men ages 18-30 across three countries, this study found that higher Man Box Scale scores were associated with up to five times higher rates of verbal, online or physical bullying, as well as sexual harassment. Men with higher scores also were about twice as likely to experience depression or suicidal ideation.

"These findings highlight how detrimental harmful masculinities can be to the people who endorse them, as well as their peers, families and communities at large," said lead author Amber Hill, Ph.D., fourth-year medical student at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "It's important to remember that individuals of all genders are influenced and impacted by the heteronormative society that we live in."

To help clinicians more efficiently monitor their male patients' attitudes, the researchers developed a shorter version of the survey including only the five items that had the strongest associations with violence and poor mental health:

1. A man shouldn't have to do household chores.

2. Men should use violence to get respect if necessary.

3. A real man should have as many sexual partners as he can.

4. A man who talks a lot about his worries, fears and problems shouldn't really get respect.

5. A gay guy is not a "real man."

"We have found a way to measure the concept of the 'Man Box,' which allows us to clearly see that when men embrace stereotypical ideas about manhood, they're also more likely to harm the well-being of others, as well as impact their own health in adverse ways," said Gary Barker, Ph.D., president and C.E.O. of Promundo-US. "As health care providers, researchers and public health workers, we now have a valid tool in our pockets to help us measure progress toward changing harmful stereotypes and advancing both gender equality and healthier versions of masculinity."

Researchers have examined what's currently known about the neuroendocrine effects of grief and whether biological factors can predict complicated or prolonged grief after the death of a loved one. The findings appear in the Journal of Neuroendocrinology.

The review of the 20 published studies that were deemed relevant found that most studies reported on levels of the stress hormone cortisol, finding higher blood urine, or saliva levels associated with bereavement. While most published studies on the topic were of fair statistical quality only, many found that cortisol levels were altered in bereaved individuals, with possible consequences for health.

The authors called for additional studies encompassing more potential markers of neuroendocrine activity associated with grief. Such efforts may point to new treatment strategies related to psychological and physical adaptations to loss.

"Anticipatory grief and grief after social loss are fundamental stressors and can have long-term health implications for those who lose a loved one. Identifying neuroendocrine factors that are associated with grief might help tailor interventions for the bereaved and help them cope with loss." said senior author Beate Ditzen, PhD, of Heidelberg University Hospital, in Germany.

A new analysis published in IBIS examines whether bacteria, viruses, and other microorganisms that are present in wild vultures cause disease in the birds, and whether vultures play a role in spreading or preventing infectious diseases to humans and other animal species.

The analysis examined results from published studies and found that microorganisms, which cause disease in humans, can be found in vultures with some bacterial pathogens showing multi-antibiotic resistance. In some cases, these microorganisms cause health alterations of variable degree in different vulture species, but there was no clear evidence that vultures play a role spreading pathogens to humans and other species. On the contrary, they may actually help to prevent the spread of infectious diseases when they consume and remove decomposing carcasses from the environment.

"Further research should evaluate the potential of vultures in disease regulation to avoid misconceptions and to promote scientific evidence of the ecosystem service they provide. This will help to conserve this globally threatened avian group and maintain the contributions they provide to people," said lead author Pablo Plaza, of INIBIOMA-CONICET-National University of Comahue, in Argentina.

A survey conducted immediately before and after the 2016 US presidential election reveals that the election of Donald Trump had a negative effect on Europeans' image of the United States, but it did not seem to affect the willingness of Europeans to sign a trade and investment agreement with the country.

The authors of the analysis, which is published in Economic Inquiry, noted that the election mainly caused undecided people to adjust their image of the United States in a negative way, rather than cause people with a positive image to take on a negative one.

"We found that the election outcome led to an immediate and sizable negative effect on Europeans' image of the United States," said Tom Coupe, PhD, of the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. "But because people with a positive image are most likely to support a trade agreement, little changed overall," added Oleksandr Shepotylo, PhD, of Aston University, in the UK.

A new study in Review of Economic Studies suggests that a large increase in the stock of immigrants to the United States would have little impact on the wages of native US citizens. Allowing for more high-skill immigration could be detrimental to some highly skilled workers in the country, but disproportionately beneficial to low skilled workers.

The researcher involved in the study, Suphanit Piyapromdee of the economics department at University College London, quanti?ed the impact of immigration in a spatial equilibrium model. Using a framework that incorporates characteristics of workers and local labour markets, Piyapromdee studied welfare implications of changes in the skill mix and stock of immigrants as well as the welfare effects of the border wall between the United States and Mexico. The researcher measured the wage, rent, and welfare effects of immigration on different groups of workers across cities. Piyapromdee also measured the increased rental income accruing to landlords, highlighting a potential bene?t that is often not included in welfare analysis of immigration.

Ultimately the study found that a policy favoring the entry of high-skill immigrants leads to wage gains for natives, particularly those with low skill. The average wage gains are about 4% for low skilled natives and low skilled immigrants. There is a small positive effect on the average wages of high skilled natives. The adverse wage effects, however, are concentrated on the incumbent high skilled immigrants--the average wage loss is about 5%. Although rents may initially go up more proportionately in popular destinations of immigrants and offset some of the wage gains of low skill workers, internal migration can equalize the rent effects across locations. Overall, this policy also reduces local real wage inequality across workers.

"The adverse effects are concentrated on the wages of incumbent high skilled immigrants since they are in direct competition with the new high skilled immigrants," said Piyapromdee. "But since these new arrivals are not close substitutes to high skilled natives, and given some complementarity between the new arrivals and low skill workers, a skill selective policy can lead to higher productivity and raise natives' wages regardless of their skill levels. However, the gains are larger for low than high skilled natives. As a result, this policy can reduce local real wage inequality."

The same research methods were additionally used to analyze the potential benefits of President Donald Trump's proposed border wall between Mexico and the United States, and whether those benefits would outweigh the cost of the wall's construction. The study found the effects on wages, rent, and welfare would be small for workers in the four states adjacent to Mexico as well as in other cities. Given the number of workers, the proposed construction cost of the border would be approximately $47 per worker. Calculations suggest that even if 80% of the in?ow of potentially undocumented immigrants was removed, the additional gains relative to the baseline (the case of no wall) would be $5 per worker. These results show that the potential bene?ts of the border wall are considerably lower than the estimated construction cost.

"In all cases, there is a signi?cant increase in rental income accruing to landlords from increased immigration," said Piyapromdee. "An appropriate tax scheme on rental income and housing regulations would be an important consideration if policymakers want to redistribute gains or losses more evenly."

Minority and socioeconomically disadvantaged
children have significantly higher rates of COVID-19 infection, a new study led by
Children's National Hospital researchers shows. These findings, reported online August
5 in Pediatrics, parallel similar health disparities for the novel coronavirus that have been
found in adults, the authors state.

COVID-19, an infection caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 that emerged in
late 2019, has infected more than 4.5 million Americans, including tens of thousands of
children. Early in the pandemic, studies highlighted significant disparities in the rates of
infection in the U.S., with minorities and socioeconomically disadvantaged adults bearing
much higher burdens of infection. However, says Monika Goyal, M.D., M.S.C.E, a
pediatric emergency medicine specialist and associate division chief in the Division of
Emergency Medicine at Children's National whose research focuses on health
disparities, it's been unclear whether these disproportionate rates of infection also
extend to youth.

To investigate this question, she and her colleagues looked to data collected between
March 21, 2020, and April 28, 2020, from a drive-through/walk-up COVID-19 testing site
affiliated with Children's National -- one of the first exclusively pediatric testing sites for
the virus in the U.S. To access this free testing site, funded by philanthropic support,
patients between the ages of 0 and 22 years needed to meet specific criteria: mild
symptoms and either known exposure, high-risk status, family member with high-risk
status or required testing for work. Physicians referred patients through an online portal
that collected basic demographic information, reported symptoms and the reason for
referral.

When Dr. Goyal and her colleagues analyzed the data from the first 1,000 patients
tested at this site, they found that infection rates differed dramatically among different
racial and ethnic groups. While about 7% of non-Hispanic white children were positive
for COVID-19, about 30% of non-Hispanic Black and 46% of Hispanic children were
positive.

"You're going from about one in 10 non-Hispanic white children to one in three nonHispanic Black children and one in two Hispanic children. It's striking," says Dr. Goyal.
Using data from the American Families Survey, which uses five-year census estimates
derived from home address to estimate median family income, the researchers
separated the group of 1,000 patients into estimated family income quartiles. They found
marked disparities in COVID-19 positivity rates by income levels: while those in the
highest quartile had infection rates of about 9%, about 38% of those in the lowest
quartile were infected.

There were additional disparities in exposure status, Dr. Goyal adds. Of the 10% of
patients who reported known exposure to COVID-19, about 11% of these were nonHispanic white. However, non-Hispanic Black children were triple this number.

Although these numbers show clear disparities in COVID-19 infection rates, the authors
are now trying to understand why these disparities occur and how they can be mitigated.

"Some possible reasons may be socioeconomic factors that increase exposure,
differences in access to health care and resources, as well as structural racism," says
Dr. Goyal.

She adds that Children's National is working to address those factors that might increase
risk for COVID-19 infection and poor outcomes by helping to identify unmet needs --
such as food and/or housing insecurity -- and steer patients toward resources when
patients receive their test results.

"As clinicians and researchers at Children's National, we pride ourselves on not only
being a top-tier research institution that provides cutting-edge care to children, but by
being a hospital that cares about the community we serve," says Denice Cora-Bramble, M.D., M.B.A., chief medical officer of Ambulatory and Community Health Services at
Children's National and the research study's senior author. "There's still so much work to
be done to achieve health equity for children."

Other Children's National researchers who contributed to this study include Joelle N. Simpson, M.D.; Meleah D. Boyle, M.P.H, Gia M. Badolato, M.P.H; Meghan Delaney, D.O,. M.P.H.; and Robert McCarter Jr., Sc.D.

Seemingly everyone has a smartphone in their pocket, and we find new uses for them every day. They can help us avoid traffic jams or connect us to family from afar. They can even translate languages on the fly.

Now, scientists have figured out a new trick. Using a regular smartphone camera and some 3D-printed tools, they've developed an easier way to measure soil density. With the volume and weight of soil samples, scientists can compare the nutrient or carbon stocks in soils so we better manage them. With their new system, they cheaply reproduced expensive, time-consuming methods that require lasers or messy wax.

"The new approach could allow scientists around the world to speed up their work with tools they already have or can easily acquire," says Colby Brungard. Brungard is a researcher at New Mexico State University.

Measuring soil density is simple in principle, but hard in the real world. To determine density, scientists need the weight, or mass, of a clump of soil, along with the volume. Determining weight just requires a scale. But determining the volume of soil clumps - called peds - is traditionally a much more difficult task.

The original method to measure the volume carefully coated the soil ped in wax and then placed it in water. Messy. Three-dimensional laser scanning has emerged as an alternative, but it's pricey and time-consuming.

With these challenges in mind, Brungard was casting about for a better method. Based on a colleague's work, he knew photographs could be used to measure volume. So, he figured all he needed were photos from the right angles and a scale. Brungard decided to pitch the idea of creating a mobile app to students during a guest lecture.

"When I gave the guest lecture, I explained my idea and asked the undergraduate students if any of them had an interest in taking on the project," says Brungard. "Michael Whiting, a student in the class and the lead author of the paper, volunteered and did the research."

The team turned to modern conveniences. They knew that smartphones had cameras good enough to take high-resolution photos of a soil ped. To get a consistent view of the entire soil sample, they used a 3D printer to create a tiny turntable just a few inches across. The turntable had a cradle for the phone, to keep it still. And it had a simple crank allowing it to be turned by hand while the phone grabbed multiple pictures.

The scientists uploaded the pictures to a program that could stitch them together into a 3D image, which gave a measure of the volume. When they compared the smartphone system to the old standbys of laser-scanning or wax-dipping, the final measurements were nearly identical. That accuracy proved true across five different types of soil peds.

The smartphone system was fast, too. It took just 15 minutes per sample, while a laser scan can take an hour and a half. But there was downtime while the computer program analyzed the images, a computationally intensive task. Nonetheless, the method was simple, fast, cheap and accurate. A win-win-win-win.

"The photogrammetry method doesn't involve any complicated or expensive equipment like traditional 3D laser scanners as even low-budget cell phones likely have cameras that are adequate," says Brungard. "Others can quickly replicate this because of the high functionality of cell phones." Plus, plans for the 3D turntable are available online.

Thanks to these widely available tools, other scientists can use smartphones they probably already have and simple 3D printing blueprints to start analyzing this important soil property right away. All with the power they already carry in their pocket.

A project to help church communities become more 'dementia friendly' has had a significant impact across the country.

The Dementia Friendly Church programme began as a collaboration between Peter Kevern, Professor of Values in Health and Social Care at Staffordshire University, and the Anglican Diocese of Lichfield in 2012.

It was developed to inform, inspire and embed change in church communities so that their resources can contribute to the wellbeing of people with dementia. This includes making small practical changes to the layout, worship and hospitality available in church buildings.

The project is directed primarily at church attendees via volunteer 'champions' in each church, with the intention of making churches both 'friendly spaces' for people living with dementia and their carers, and providing them with the tools and encouragement to lead beneficial change in their local communities.

Professor Kevern commented: "Faith-based organisations represent a fantastic resource for helping to care for people in their local communities, one which is usually overlooked and underused by policymakers and statutory providers of social care. The Church of England, for example, covers every square metre of England and reckons to be available to everybody.

"The Diocese of Lichfield alone covers an area serving 2 million people, from isolated rural villages to industrial conurbations. In each of those communities, it can potentially make a difference to the experience of people with dementia."

The Dementia Friendly Church programme has involved partners from local authorities, the health community and the volunteer sector and a total of 3,900 'Dementia Friends' have been trained across the 94 churches in the Anglican Diocese of Lichfield.

Research by Professor Kevern and Revd Dr David Primrose of the Diocese of Lichfield has shown a significant improvement in the ease with which church attendees interact with people with dementia, which translates into making churches more welcoming and responsive places.

Revd Dr David Primrose said: "One of the big barriers around dementia has been an underlying fear - people don't know how to respond, people are anxious. The fact that this programme has enabled people to talk about dementia in church and in the community is itself liberating."

The model has since been adopted and adapted by a number of dioceses across England and Wales, as well as attracting attention from the USA and Canada. The experiences of some of these dioceses are the subject of a recent film, which can be viewed here.

FOLSOM, Calif. - August 5, 2020 - A new research study, published in the Journal of Nutrition, investigated how serum from subjects consuming a diet enriched with blueberries would affect the cells responsible for muscle growth and repair. The emerging study, "Consumption of a blueberry enriched diet by women for six weeks alters determinants of human muscle progenitor cell function," was conducted at Cornell University.

The study was conducted over six weeks with 22 women, 12 aged 25-40 and 10 aged 60-75. For the blueberry-enriched diet, participants consumed the equivalent of 1.75 cups of fresh blueberries/day, given as freeze-dried blueberries (19 g in the morning and 19 g in the evening), along with their regular diet. Participants were also asked to avoid other foods rich in polyphenols and anthocyanins. Serum was obtained from the participants 1.5 hours after consuming the morning dose of blueberries. The researchers then investigated how the serum would affect muscle progenitor cell function through proliferation or cell number, capacity to manage oxidative stress and oxygen consumption rate or metabolism.

The results showed the six-week blueberry-enriched serum obtained from the women aged 25-40 increased human muscle progenitor cell numbers in culture. There was also a trend toward a lower percentage of dead human muscle progenitor cells, suggesting a resistance to oxidative stress, as well as increased oxygen consumption of the cells. There were no beneficial effects seen in the muscle progenitor cells treated with serum from participants aged 60-75 who consumed the blueberry enriched diet.

"The consequences associated with the deterioration of skeletal muscle are a loss of mobility, decreased quality of life, and ultimately, loss of independence. Currently, research on dietary interventions to support skeletal muscle regeneration in humans is limited. This preliminary study of muscle progenitor cell function paves the way for future studies to develop clinical interventions," said Anna Thalacker-Mercer, Ph.D., the study's lead investigator. "While the results cannot be generalized to all populations, this study is an important step in translating findings from cell culture and rodent studies to a potential dietary therapy for improving muscle regeneration after injury and during the aging process."

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), muscles lose strength, flexibility, and endurance over time. Muscle mass decreases three to five percent every decade after 30 years of age, and that rate increases over age 60. Therefore, strategies to improve muscle progenitor cell proliferation and lower oxidative stress may also benefit muscle regeneration during the aging process.

Research on the role that blueberries may play in promoting good health is ongoing across multiple areas, including cardiovascular health, diabetes management, brain health, exercise and the gut microbiome.

An online survey involving nearly 800 cigar smokers found while the majority of the people surveyed intended to quit smoking due to concerns about elevated health risks if they contracted COVID-19, more than twice as many reported they increased rather than decreased their tobacco use since the pandemic's onset.

The multi-institutional study led by researchers from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill examined cigar smokers' perceived risk of COVID-19, quit intentions, and behaviors during the pandemic. Their findings were published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

"We are not sure why many participants reported increasing their tobacco use, but it is possible that they are stressed or anxious, they are bored at home, they stockpiled tobacco products in advance of sheltering-in-place orders, or they are not able to easily access evidence-based cessation resources like pharmacotherapy or behavioral support," said Sarah Kowitt PhD, MPH, the paper's first author, and an assistant professor in the UNC School of Medicine Department of Family Medicine.

Adam Goldstein, MD, MPH, director of UNC Tobacco Intervention Programs and professor of family medicine at UNC School of Medicine, is the study's senior author.

The researchers conducted an online survey for two weeks starting on April 23 as part of an ongoing study examining perceptions of health effects of cigars. All respondents reported using cigars during the past 30 days and most used other tobacco products, like cigarettes. The average age of those surveyed was 39.3 years, most were white (66.2%), and nearly half (48.9%) were women.

Far more respondents reported increasing their tobacco use since COVID-19 started (40.9%) vs. decreasing their tobacco use (17.8%). This finding was significant, Kowitt said, "because cigar use is associated with multiple cancers and other health effects."

However, Black or African American participants, those who used a quitline (a telephone-based tobacco cessation service), and those with higher COVID-19 risk perceptions had higher intentions to quit using tobacco due to COVID-19 and higher odds of making a quit attempt since COVID-19 started.

Nearly half (46.5%) of the respondents reported they had tried to quit smoking since the pandemic's onset and 70.8% were planning to quit within six months. Kowitt said this finding has important public health policy implications. Studies have shown that to convert quit attempts into successful cessation, support should be made available during this time, including increased access to nicotine replacement therapy, virtual support with tobacco treatment counselors, and mental health assistance, particularly since better perceived mental health was associated with increased intentions to quit.

Kowitt said tailoring support to sub-groups of tobacco users may also be important. For instance, tobacco users who have increased their tobacco use in response to COVID-19 may need additional help with higher dependency, as well as with coping strategies targeting stress and anxiety. Those who have decreased their tobacco use have an even greater chance of successfully quitting with clinician support.

"It is important, especially during the pandemic, that we provide support for tobacco users who want to quit smoking," said Kowitt. "A growing body of research suggests that tobacco users, compared to non-users, may be at greater risk for experiencing COVID-19 complications, so it is critical that we identify opportunities and approaches to encourage tobacco users to consider quitting and to provide them the support they need to quit successfully."

As cases of COVID-19 rise around the world, there has been a surge in the hospitalisation of COVID-19 patients in the United States, India and Brazil. Many are concerned by the ability of the healthcare systems to cope under the strain, particularly the availability of critical resources such as ventilators.

In times of acute shortages, the orthodoxy in healthcare is for scarce resources to be allocated based on who has the best chance of survival. However, Dr Diego Silva, a lecturer in bioethics at the University of Sydney, argues allocation decisions based on a simple utility calculus are unjust because they exacerbate existing social inequities.

In a paper published in Chest Journal, Dr Silva proposes a radical departure from current convention by arguing ventilators be allocated to COVID-19 patients via a lottery.

"At a population level, 'wealth equals health' is accurate. The opposite is also true, poverty leads to ill health. Those who are least likely to contract or die from coronavirus are the young and healthy. So, if saving the most lives favours saving people most likely to physically improve from their symptoms, we are indirectly further disadvantaging the economically poor and socially marginalised," Dr Silva said.

"Allocation based on lottery is also an expression of utility and maximising public resources, it would remove the likelihood of people being given preferential treatment because of social or economic advantages.

"Using a lottery system to allocate ventilators during a pandemic may sound wrong and all else being equal, we should maximise the number of lives saved. However, there's the rub: society pre-COVID-19 was not equal, nor is it during this pandemic. If we believe in a fair, just and equal society the only way to achieve this in a healthcare system is to give everyone an equal chance of receiving critical medical care."

Until now, Italy has been the only country that has experienced an acute shortage of ventilators during the pandemic, however there are concerns some states in the United States, and parts of Brazil and India, may have to confront similar shortages.

There are already troubling signs in the United States. Arizona currently has more than 50 percent of available ventilators in use. More than 50 hospitals across Florida have said there are no ICU beds available.

"Rationing medical care is not something many doctors and health administrators would have a lot of experience with. Usually, the allocation of health resources can be done with time on one's side and there is rarely - if ever - acute scarcity. I would urge hospitals in places where there is a worrying surge in coronavirus cases to start thinking about this ethical dilemma now, so that they are prepared if the hospital systems get inundated with COVID-19 patients," Dr Silva said.

A team of researchers from Nagoya University, Japan, has found the mechanism of the night-to-day transition of the circadian rhythm in green algae. The findings, published in the journal PLOS Genetics, could be applied to green algae to produce larger amounts of lipids, which are a possible sustainable source of biofuel.

Green algae are photosynthetic organisms that live mainly in lakes and ponds and produce lipids internally. Like most organisms, green algae have a circadian clock, which regulates their daily photosynthetic activities. The mechanism of their circadian clocks, however, had not been previously explained.

The team of Takuya Matsuo of the Center for Gene Research and colleagues at Nagoya University has been conducting studies on circadian clocks using Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, a species of freshwater green algae.

"We had previously found that a gene called ROC75 is involved in the circadian rhythm of C. reinhardtii in some way," says Matsuo. In the new study, the team further investigated the role of ROC75 in the same species. The results suggest that the ROC75 gene functions from dawn through the day and helps change the green alga's circadian phase from night to daytime by suppressing the activity of night-phased clock genes.

To demonstrate it, the team artificially controlled the activity of ROC75. When ROC75 was inhibited, the alga's circadian rhythm wasn't observed. Then, when the activity of ROC75 was restored, the circadian rhythm resumed. Also, through multiple experiments, the researchers found that the alga's circadian clock restarted, ticking consistently just as if the morning had come. The team thus concluded that ROC75 plays a crucial role in changing green algae's circadian phase from night to daytime.

"This study showed that by controlling the activity of ROC75, we can wake up green algae whenever we want and thereby enhance their photosynthetic activities. In this way, we could make green algae produce larger amounts of lipids that can be converted into biofuel," says Matsuo.

"The role of ROC75 that we found may reflect a survival strategy used by green algae after the species decided to continue to live in water during its evolution. I believe this study takes a step forward in understanding the mechanism and the evolutionary history of circadian clocks in green plants."