Culture

Scientists have discovered a new treatment to dramatically reduce swelling after brain and spinal cord injuries, offering hope to 75 million victims worldwide each year.

The breakthrough in treating such injuries - referred to as central nervous system (CNS) edema - is thought to be hugely significant because current options are limited to putting patients in an induced coma or performing risky surgery.

Brain and spinal cord injuries affect all age groups. Older people are more at risk of sustaining them from strokes or falls, while for younger age groups, major causes include road traffic accidents and injuries from sports such as rugby, US-style football and other contact games.

The high-profile example of Formula 1 racing driver Michael Schumacher demonstrates the difficulties physicians currently face in treating such injuries. After falling and hitting his head on a rock while skiing in Switzerland in 2013, Schumacher developed a swelling on his brain from water rushing into the affected cells. He spent six months in a medically-induced coma and underwent complex surgery, but his rehabilitation continues to this day.

The new treatment, developed by an international team of scientists working at Aston University (UK), Harvard Medical School (US), University of Birmingham (UK), University of Calgary (Canada), Lund University (Sweden), Copenhagen University (Denmark) and University of Wolverhampton (UK), features in the latest edition of the scientific journal Cell.

The researchers used an already-licensed anti-psychotic medicine - trifluoperazine (TFP) - to alter the behaviour of tiny water channel 'pores' in cells known as aquaporins.

Testing the treatment on injured rats, they found those animals given a single dose of the drug at the trauma site recovered full movement and sensitivity in as little as two weeks, compared to an untreated group that continued to show motor and sensory impairment beyond six weeks after the injury.

The treatment works by counteracting the cells' normal reaction to a loss of oxygen in the CNS - the brain and spinal cord - caused by trauma. Under such conditions, cells quickly become 'saltier' because of a build-up of ions, causing a rush of water through the aquaporins which makes the cells swell and exerts pressure on the skull and spine. This build-up of pressure damages fragile brain and spinal cord tissues, disrupting the flow of electrical signals from the brain to the body and vice versa.

But the scientists discovered that TFP can stop this from happening. Focusing their efforts on important star-shaped brain and spinal cord cells called astrocytes, they found TFP prevents a protein called calmodulin from binding with the aquaporins. Normally, this binding effect sends the aquaporins shooting to the surface of the cell, letting in more water. By halting this action, the permeability of the cells is reduced.

Traditionally, TFP has been used to treat patients with schizophrenia and other mental health conditions. Its long-term use is associated with adverse side effects, but the researchers said their experiments suggested that just a single dose could have a significant long-lasting impact for CNS edema patients.

Since TFP is already licensed for use in humans by the US Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and UK National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) it could be rapidly deployed as a treatment for brain injuries. But the researchers stressed that further work would allow them to develop new, even better medicines based on their understanding of TFP's properties.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), each year around 60 million people sustain a traumatic brain or spinal cord injury and a further 15 million people suffer a stroke. These injuries can be fatal or lead to long-term disability, psychiatric disorders, substance abuse or self-harm.

Professor Roslyn Bill of the Biosciences Research Group at Aston University said:

"Every year, millions of people of all ages suffer brain and spinal injuries, whether from falls, accidents, road traffic collisions, sports injuries or stroke. To date, their treatment options have been very limited and, in many cases, very risky.

"This discovery, based on a new understanding of how our cells work at the molecular level, gives injury victims and their doctors hope. By using a drug already licensed for human use, we have shown how it is possible to stop the swelling and pressure build-up in the CNS that is responsible for long-term harm.

"While further research will help us to refine our understanding, the exciting thing is that doctors could soon have an effective, non-invasive way of helping brain and spinal cord injury patients at their disposal."

Dr Zubair Ahmed of the University of Birmingham's Institute of Inflammation and Ageing said:

"This is a significant advance from current therapies, which only treat the symptoms of brain and spinal injuries but do nothing to prevent the neurological deficits that usually occur as a result of swelling. The re-purposed drug offers a real solution to these patients and can be fast-tracked to the clinic."

Dr Alex Conner of the University of Birmingham's Institute of Clinical Sciences said:

"It is amazing that our work studying tiny water channels in the brain can tell us something about traumatic brain swelling that affects millions of people every year."

Dr Mootaz Salman, Research Fellow in Cell Biology at Harvard Medical School, said:

"This novel treatment offers new hope for patients with CNS injuries and has huge therapeutic potential. Our findings suggest it could be ready for clinical application at a low cost in the very near future".

What The Viewpoint Says: Publicly available data were used to analyze the number of deaths from seasonal influenza deaths compared with deaths from COVID-19.

Authors: Jeremy Samuel Faust, M.D., M.S., of Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, is the corresponding author.

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

(doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2020.2306)

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

What The Study Did: Researchers looked at whether a patient's body weight and weight loss before bariatric surgery were associated with risk of death within 30 days after surgery using data from nearly 500,000 patients in the U.S. and Canada.

Authors: Wei Bao, M.D., Ph.D., of the University of Iowa College of Public Health in Iowa City, is the corresponding author.

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

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.4803)

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

New research from the University of Sheffield into stem cells could help make regenerative medicine safer

Regenerative medicine involves using pluripotent stem cells to repair damaged or diseased tissues in the body

The new research has suggested ways to reduce the likelihood of mutations occurring in these cells when cultured.

Research from the University of Sheffield has given new insight into the cause of mutations in pluripotent stem cells and potential ways of stopping these mutations from occurring.

The findings, published in Stem Cell Reports, show that pluripotent stem cells are particularly susceptible to DNA damage and mutations compared to other cells, and this could cause genetic mutations.

Pluripotent stem cells are able to develop into any cell type in the body, and there is considerable interest in using them to produce cells to replace diseased or damaged tissues in applications referred to as regenerative medicine.

One concern for the safety of this is that these cells often acquire recurrent mutations which might lead to safety issues if used in patients.

The researchers have found that these mutations are more likely to occur in a certain point during their cell cycle and have suggested ways of growing the cells to dramatically reduce the susceptibility to DNA damage and potentially the mutations that arise.

Peter Andrews, Professor of Biomedical Science at the University of Sheffield, said: "Clinical trials of regenerative medicine using cells derived from pluripotent stem cells are now beginning around the world, but there are concerns that mutations in the pluripotent stem cells may risk patient safety. Our results may allow us to significantly reduce that risk.

"Understanding the genetic stability of human pluripotent stem cells is an area developed at the University of Sheffield and one in which we are an international lead."

The Department of Biomedical Science at the University of Sheffield carries out world-leading research to understand disease, improve treatments, and find potential cures. Researchers work in areas ranging from cell biology and developmental biology to neuroscience and regenerative medicine, with expertise in topics including stem cells and cancer.

Since 2013, following strict enforcement of provincial wildlife legislation in the less studied regions of Asia, the overall trend of illegal reptile poaching is steadily decreasing. But it's too early to claim that the issue is solved. Poached reptiles are largely destined not only for the pet trade, but also folk medicines and snake charmer shows, according to the recent study led by the scientists from the Pakistan Museum of Natural History and the University of Peshawar published in the open-access journal Herpetozoa.

For the first time, the exploitation of reptiles for the pet trade has come to the attention of the public in the late 1960s. In general, illegal poaching is one of the problems we still face a lot all over the world, despite strict restrictions which are coming in force massively over the last decades. The wildlife trade leads not only to biodiversity loss (through the capture of protected species), but also threatens with a possible spread of animal-borne diseases, due to interspecies contact at pet and folk medicine markets. The case of the recent COVID-19 pandemic gives a lesson to learn, and in order to stop further occurrences, a focus on law-enforcement activities should be brought to wildlife trade hotspots.

In the particular case of Pakistan, a country with high species diversity of reptiles, still very little is known about the links between illegal wildlife trade and wildlife decline. The illegal poaching and trade in Pakistan are largely undocumented and it's difficult to bring accurate data since the trade involves many channels and follows informal networks. There is marginal information available about the medicinal use of wild flora and fauna for some parts of Pakistan, but there is no report on the commercialisation, harvest, market dynamics and conservation impact of these activities.

Since 2013, a number of confiscations of different reptile species and their parts from Pakistani nationals have been reported widely from across the country, which resulted in the enforcement of legislations regarding the wildlife trade in Pakistan.

An international team of researchers, led by Dr. Rafaqat Masroor from Pakistan Museum of Natural History investigated the extent of illegal reptile collection in southwestern Balochistan. Scientists tried to determine what impact these activities might have on the wild populations.

The field trips, conducted in 2013-2017, targeted Chagai, Nushki, Panjgur, Kharan and Washuk districts in Balochistan province. Over those years, scientists interviewed 73 illegal collectors. Most of the collectors worked in groups, consisting of males aged between 14 to 50 years.

"They were all illiterate and their sole livelihood was based on reptile poaching, trade, and street shows. These collectors were well-organized and had trapping equipment for the collection of reptiles. [...] These groups were locally known as "jogeez", who mainly originated from Sindh Province and included snake charmers, having their roots deep with the local hakeems (herbal medicine practitioners) and wildlife traders, businessmen and exporters based at Karachi city. [...] We often observed local people killing lizards and snakes, mostly for fear of venom and part for fun and centuries-old myths", share Dr. Masroor.

A total number of illegally poached reptiles, recorded during the investigation, results in 5,369 specimens representing 19 species. All of them had already been declared Protected under Schedule-III of the Balochistan Provincial Wildlife Act.

Amongst the reasons for the province of Balochistan to remain unexplored might have been the lack of government environmental and wildlife protection agencies, lack of resources and specialists of high qualification in the provincial wildlife, forest and environment departments, as well as geopolitical position and remoteness of vast tracts of areas.

Scientists call for the provincial and federal government to take action and elaborate a specific strategy for the conservation of endemic and threatened species as a part of the country's natural heritage both in southwestern Balochistan and whole Pakistan. The conservation plan needs to be consulted with specialists in the respective fields, in order to avoid incompetence.

Also, the research group suggests to strictly ban illegal poaching of venomous snakes for the purpose of venom extraction.

What is important to remember is that Balochistan represents one of the most important areas of Asia with a high number of endemic reptile species. The illegal capture of these species presents a threat to the poorly documented animals. Even though the current trend for captured reptiles is decreasing, more actions are needed, in order to ensure the safety of the biodiversity of the region.

Astronomers using the Subaru Telescope have determined that the Earth-like planets of the TRAPPIST-1 system are not significantly misaligned with the rotation of the star. This is an important result for understanding the evolution of planetary systems around very low-mass stars in general, and in particular the history of the TRAPPIST-1 planets including the ones near the habitable zone.

Stars like the Sun are not static, but rotate about an axis. This rotation is most noticeable when there are features like sunspots on the surface of the star. In the Solar System, the orbits of all of the planets are aligned to within 6 degrees with the Sun's rotation. In the past it was assumed that planetary orbits would be aligned with the rotation of the star, but there are now many known examples of exoplanet systems where the planetary orbits are strongly misaligned with the central star's rotation. This raises the question: can planetary systems form out of alignment, or did the observed misaligned systems start out aligned and were later thrown out of alignment by some perturbation? The TRAPPIST-1 system has attracted attention because it has three small rocky planets located in or near the habitable zone where liquid water can exist. The central star is a very low-mass and cool star, called an M dwarf, and those planets are situated very close to the central star. Therefore, this planetary system is very different from our Solar System. Determining the history of this system is important because it could help determine if any of the potentially habitable planets are actually inhabitable. But it is also an interesting system because it lacks any nearby objects which could have perturbed the orbits of the planets, meaning that the orbits should still be located close to where the planets first formed. This gives astronomers a chance to investigate the primordial conditions of the system.

Because stars rotate, the side rotating into view has a relative velocity towards the viewer, while the side rotating out of view has a relative velocity away from the viewer. If a planet transits, passes between the star and the Earth and blocks a small portion of the light from the star, it is possible to tell which edge of the star the planet blocks first. This phenomenon is called the Rossiter-McLaughlin effect. Using this method, it is possible to measure the misalignment between the planetary orbit and the star's rotation. However, until now those observations have been limited to large planets such as Jupiter-like or Neptune-like ones.

A team of researchers, including members from the Tokyo Institute of Technology and the Astrobiology Center in Japan, observed TRAPPIST-1 with the Subaru Telescope to look for misalignment between the planetary orbits and the star. The team took advantage of a chance on August 31, 2018, when three of the exoplanets orbiting TRAPPIST-1 transited in front of the star in a single night. Two of the three were rocky planets near the habitable zone. Since low-mass stars are generally faint, it had been impossible to probe the stellar obliquity (spin-orbit angle) for TRAPPIST-1. But thanks to the light gathering power of the Subaru Telescope and high spectral resolution of the new infrared spectrograph IRD, the team was able to measure the obliquity. They found that the obliquity was low, close to zero. This is the first measurement of the stellar obliquity for a very low-mass star like TRAPPIST-1 and also the first Rossiter-McLaughlin measurement for planets in the habitable zone.

However the leader of the team, Teruyuki Hirano at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, cautions, "The data suggest alignment of the stellar spin with the planetary orbital axes, but the precision of the measurements was not good enough to completely rule out a small spin-orbit misalignment. Nonetheless, this is the first detection of the effect with Earth-like planets and more work will better characterize this remarkable exoplanet system."

Today Boa snakes have a patchy distribution in the islands that form the Lesser Antilles in the Caribbean Sea, but the constrictors are nearly absent from archaeological deposits in the region. Whether this scarcity is due to past species distribution, poor preservation conditions, or a lack of interaction with human communities, remains unknown.

To find out why boas occur sparsely in the Lesser Antilles today but hardly at all in archaeological contexts, Corentin Bochaton of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the University of Bordeaux, conducted a multidisciplinary study combining archaeological evidence with historical and biological data sources. The study, published in Journal of Island and Coastal Archaeology, describes eight archaeological Boa finds on islands where the reptiles have never previously been identified and provides insights into the relationship between Amerindian groups and Boa before Western colonization.

Boas had a special status in pre-Columbian Lesser Antilles

To conduct the study, Bochaton investigated the animal remains from three sites: Dizac Beach on Martinique, Basse-Terre Cathedral on Basse-Terre (Guadeloupe) and Pointe Gros Rampart on La Désirade (Guadeloupe). Using a binocular microscope, Bochaton observed the surface condition and taxonomic features of the finds, eventually identifying eight vertebrae from the Boa genus.

Despite the presence of many other snake species in the archeological assemblages of the Lesser Antilles, these Boa remains are the only snake bones that appear to have been made into beads, an important clue as to their cultural significance. "The extreme scarcity of Boa in zooarchaeological assemblages, combined with the fact that these are the only snake bones to be modified, reflects the prominent status Boa had in Pre-Columbian Amerindian communities," says Bochaton.

The fact that Boa are largely absent from archaeological finds suggests they probably weren't hunted or eaten by human populations, at least not near their settlements, and evidence from historical records further points to an elevated status of Boa snakes. A chronicle of a 17th century voyage to the Caribbean in a document known as Carpentras Anonymous describes the indigenous people of the islands as unwilling to kill Boas, believing the harm they did to the snakes would also be done to their grandchildren. Further, an account by Charles de Rochefort (1658) retells a story told by the people of Dominica of a monstrous snake who carried on its head a stone of great worth that would glow when it drank or moved in the abyss.

"These documents show us that Boa snakes had, among all snakes, a special status and were especially feared and respected, which could help explain their scarcity in archaeological deposits," says Bochaton.

Multiple lines of evidence help to reconstruct lost past

The islands of the Lesser Antilles were first colonized by Amerindian groups between 7,000 and 5,500 years ago, but molecular evidence and the presence of Boa in fossil deposits show that the snakes colonized these islands thousands, if not millions of years before. Approximately 2,500 years ago, ceramic producing cultures arrived and evolved until the first European contact. At this point a ceramic style known as Cayo emerges.

Western colonization in the 17th century almost completely depopulated the Lesser Antilles of Amerindians and wiped out indigenous cultural practices. It also brought about the extinctions of a long list of species, ranging from terrestrial and flying mammals to birds and scaled reptiles - a list this paper shows to remain incomplete.

"Because of their absence in the archaeological record, Boa snakes were presumed absent from Guadeloupe," Bochaton explains. "These remains not only show that Boas were here, they remind us how much of the cultural and natural history of these islands has been lost, and how important it is to use different lines of evidence to discover and interpret the past."

The laboratory of the UMA "BacBio" has proved that Bacillus subtilis cells, when deprived of an amyloid protein (TasA), exhibit a range of cytological anomalies and dysfunctions leading to their premature death. A discovery that enables progress to be made in understanding the role of these proteins, widely distributed in the microbial world, and helps improve biological control methods in sustainable agriculture. This research has been recently published in the scientific journal Nature Communications.

The UMA research team has particularly evidenced how this amyloid protein TasA, required for the assembly of the bacterial communities known as "biofilms", also prevents bacterial cell death, but preserving cell membrane integrity. "That is: we observed a complementary role in these proteins in addition to their merely structural role", explains the main author of this study, the researcher Diego Romero, who is also a member of the Institute for Mediterranean and Subtropical Horticulture "La Mayora" (IHSM), a joint research institute of the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC) and the UMA.

According to the expert, this dual functionality is reflected in bacterial attachment to plant surfaces, where the protein contributes to combat pathogen attack and improve bacterial fitness. "We aim to boost its use in sustainable models of crop production and protection", says the Professor of the UMA Department of Microbiology.

Thus, this study has worked on the bacterium Bacillus subtilis placing emphasis on two aspects: the study of its molecular bases, that lead to the formation of bacterial communities known as "biofilms", and how these biofilms contribute to the beneficial activity of Bacillus as biocontrol agents in sustainable agriculture models.

The amyloids: dual functionality

Amyloids are proteins primarily known for its relation to degenerative diseases in human beings. In fact, "amyloidosis", an ailment caused by amyloid accumulation in organs or tissues, is named after them. However, as noted by this research, amyloid proteins (TasA among them) have the ability to adopt a great variety of purposes in nature, reason why they are called functional amyloids.

"The fact that these proteins are widely distributed in the microbial world entails the possibility that they might play a role in other bacterial species stabilizing cell integrity, or at least a different and complementary role to that initially observed in each of these systems", clarifies Romero.

The expert states that the importance of these results is twofold. From the agrobiotechnological point of view, it allows researchers to better understand the behaviour of beneficial bacteria, hence, improve and reinforce its use in sustainable production and protection programmes. On the other hand, from the microbial point of view, where amyloid proteins are highly distributed, a new target has been identified to be attacked should they wish to harm pathogenic microorganisms.

S. maltophilia strains occur in several natural and human associated ecosystems. The bacterium was long regarded as relatively unproblematic but is now considered to be one of the most feared hospital pathogens, as it frequently causes infections and is resistant to a number of antibiotics. This can be particularly dangerous for immune-compromised patients or for patients with underlying inflammatory lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis. Although almost any organ can be affected, infections of the respiratory tract, bacteraemia or catheter-related infections of the bloodstream are the most common. In view of the increasing importance of this pathogen and the often-severe clinical consequences of an infection, knowledge about the virulence factors and about the local and global transmission of S. maltophilia bacteria is urgently needed.

Scientists from a total of eight countries initially established a genotyping method that enables the standardised analysis of the different genomes of S. maltophilia strains. The DZIF teams around Prof. Stefan Niemann (FZB), Prof. Jan Rupp, (Clinic of Infectiology and Microbiology, Campus Lübeck) and Prof. Ulrich Nübel from the Leibniz Institute DSMZ (German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures GmbH ) in Braunschweig were involved.

The scientists found that the S. maltophilia complex can be divided into a total of 23 lineages with different prevalence levels. One particular line of descent appeared worldwide and had the highest rate of human-associated strains. This "Sm6" strain was also characterised by the presence of key virulence genes and resistance genes. "This suggests that a specific gene configuration may promote the spread of different S. maltophilia subtypes in the hospital setting, i.e. under antimicrobial treatment," says Matthias Gröschel, lead author of the study.

Transmission analysis also identified several potential outbreak events of genetically closely related strains that were isolated within days or weeks in the same hospitals. "Combined with studies on other pathogens, our results show how systematic genome-based monitoring of S. maltophilia and other pathogens in hospital settings can help detect transmission pathways and improve infection control," Thomas Kohl, senior author of the study at FZ Borstel, adds.

Modern bioinformatics allows us to take a look into the past and find out when certain species diverged during evolution, which of them still are genetically close to each other, and which are not. An international team of researchers, which, among others, includes the academic supervisor of ITMO University's Laboratory of Genomic Diversity and researchers from the University of Copenhagen, Barcelona Institute of Science and Technology, and other research centers from all over the world, analyzed the genomes of extinct and living lions. They managed to determine when the divergence took place, as well as come to several other conclusions on genetic diversity of the modern lion population in India. The results are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

Lions are one of the most powerful and dangerous predators on the planet. Many cities and countries use lion images on their coats of arms as a symbol of power and strength.

However, according to scientists, nowadays lions are in great danger of extinction. In the last two centuries, a 90% reduction in the population took place. During the last 150 years, Cape and Barbary lions were exterminated. Today, apart from zoos, you can meet these animals only in Western and Central Africa, as well as in the Gir National Park and Wildlife Sanctuary, Gujarat, India. To comprehend the process of reduction in the lion population and prevent their extinction, scientists need to answer several questions considering their evolution history.

An international research team, which includes specialists from different countries and continents, as well as Stephen O'Brian, the academic supervisor of ITMO University's Laboratory of Genomic Diversity, has analyzed the remains of cave lions kept in museums and found during paleontological expeditions. The results of the analysis were compared with those of modern lions. It was concluded that cave lions and modern species diverged about 500,000 years ago.

The scientists have also discovered that lion ancestors which used to live in Central and Western Africa diverged from the ancestors of subspecies that used to inhabit Northern Africa, and now inhabit India, about 70,000 years ago. A quite popular myth about lions being artificially brought to India in the pre-colonial era is therefore proved to be false.

This research may have a direct impact on the attempts of the restoration of the Northern-African lion population. If the scientists manage to determine the closest relatives of Barbary subspecies, it will make the restoration more scientifically substantiated and possibly more successful. All the more so due to the fact that in various zoos there are animals which are considered to be derived from Barbary lions gifted to Moroccan rulers in the 19th century.

One of the important conclusions that the scientists came to is that there is no clear evidence that cave lions, which went extinct 10,000-15,000 years ago, or Cape and Barbary lions, which went extinct recently, had a problem with genetic diversity. It means that their extinction evidently was not caused by degeneration and accumulation of deleterious mutations in the population.

However, the reduction in genome diversity can be clearly detected in the modern population of Indian lions. As they have been living in a comparatively small area for centuries, inbreeding often took place. This resulted in cranial defects, low sperm count and testosterone levels, as well as smaller manes. These facts should be taken into consideration during the attempts to save the Indian lion population from extinction.

"The obtained results demonstrate the power given to us by the era of genome research. We can apply it to discover the secrets of the past by reading the fragments of DNA taken from modern species' ancestors. Apart from that, a troubling reduction in Indian lion genetic material was proved," Stephen O'Brien concludes.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Corn cultivation spread from Mesoamerica to what is now the American Southwest by about 4000 B.C., but how and when the crop made it to other parts of North America is still a subject of debate. In a new study, scientists report that corn was not grown in the ancient metropolis of Cahokia until sometime between A.D. 900 and 1000, a relatively late date that corresponds to the start of the city's rapid expansion.

The findings are published in the journal American Antiquity.

The research team determined the age of charred corn kernels found in homes, shrines and other archaeological contexts in and around Cahokia. The researchers also looked at carbon isotopes in the teeth and bones of 108 humans and 15 dogs buried in the vicinity.

Carbon-isotope ratios differ among food sources, with isotope ratios of corn being significantly higher than those of almost all other native plant species in the region. By analyzing the ratio of carbon 12 to carbon 13 in teeth and bones, the team determined the relative proportion of different types of foods the people of Cahokia ate in different time periods.

The corn remnants and isotope analyses revealed that corn consumption began in Cahokia between 900 and 1000. This was just before the city grew into a major metropolis.

"There's been an idea that corn came to the central Mississippi River valley at about the time of Christ, and the evolution of maize in this part of the world was really, really slow," said retired state archaeologist Thomas Emerson, who led the study. "But this Cahokia data is saying that no, actually, corn arrived here very late. And in fact, corn may be the foundation of the city."

The research team included Illinois State Archaeological Survey archaeobotanist Mary Simon; bioarchaeologist Kristin Hedman; radiocarbon dating analyst Matthew Fort; and former graduate student Kelsey Witt, now a postdoctoral researcher at Brown University.

Beginning in about 1050, Cahokia grew from "a little village of a few hundred people to part of a city with 5,000 to 10,000 people in an archaeological instant," Emerson said. The population eventually expanded to at least 40,000. This early experiment in urban living was short-lived, however. By 1350, after a period of drought and civil strife, most of the city's population had dispersed.

Scientists who theorize that corn came to the central Mississippi River valley early in the first millennium A.D. are overlooking the fact that the plant had to adapt to a completely different light and temperature regime before it could be cultivated in the higher latitudes, said Simon, who conducted an exhaustive analysis of corn kernels found at Cahokia and elsewhere in the Midwest.

"Corn was originally cultivated in Mesoamerica," she said. "Its flowering time and production time are controlled by the amount of sunlight it gets. When it got up into this region, its flowering was no longer corresponding to the available daylight. If you planted it in the spring, it wouldn't even start to flower until August, and winter would set in before you could harvest your crop."

The plant had to evolve to survive in this northerly climate, Simon said.

"It was probably only marginally adapted to high latitudes in what is now the southwestern United States by 0 A.D.," she said. "So, the potential for successful cultivation in the Midwest at this early date is highly problematic."

When they analyzed the carbon isotopes in the teeth and bones of 108 individuals buried in Cahokia between 600 and 1400, researchers saw a signature consistent with corn consumption beginning abruptly between 950 and 1000, Hedman said. The data from dogs buried at and near Cahokia also corresponded to this timeline.

"That's where you see this big jump in the appearance of corn in the diet," Hedman said. "This correlates very closely with what Mary Simon is finding with the dates on the maize."

"Between 900 and 1000 is also when you start to see a real shift in the culture of Cahokia," Emerson said. "This was the beginning of mound construction. There was a massive growth of population and a dramatic shift in ideology with the appearance of fertility iconography."

Artifacts uncovered from Cahokia include flint-clay figurines of women engaged in agricultural activities and vessels marked with symbols of water and fertility. Some of the items depict crops such as sunflowers and squash that predated the arrival of corn.

"It wasn't like the Cahokians didn't already have an agricultural base when corn arrived on the scene," Simon said. "They were preadapted to the whole idea of cultivation."

The absence of corn iconography in artifacts from the city reflects corn's status as a relative newcomer to the region at the time Cahokia first flourished, Emerson said.

For Army scientists, the goal of neuroscience research is pursuing the inner workings of the human brain to advance scientific understanding and improve Soldier performance.

Researchers recently applied new techniques to modify brain activity. Not only are these techniques used to characterize and study complex networks such as in telecommunications or social networks -- they describe how different nodes, or elements of the network: brain regions in neuroscience, or individuals in social networks, interact with each other.

The U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command's Army Research Laboratory, in collaboration with academic partners, collaborated on a neurostimulation study, where they safely and non-invasively modified brain activity and then characterized the dynamics of the brain's response to this modification. This research provides some of the foundational knowledge for future technologies that may one day expedite cognitive processes. The journal Network Neuroscience published the recent discoveries.

Researchers from the lab, Drs. Javier Garcia, Steven Thurman and Jean Vettel, along with researchers from the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Irvine, investigated foundational questions to how local processing in the brain harmonizes with global dynamics using dynamic community detection on rapidly changing brain signals.

"A flexible brain region is one that easily engages with other brain regions and/or networks," Garcia said. "In marrying these methods and techniques, we find that there are precise and measurable local (stimulated region) and global (whole brain) effects that travel common oscillatory patterns in the brain often implicated in tasks related to vision, attention and motor control. This puts us a little closer to harnessing the power of neurostimulation for behavioral modification."

The researchers combined new and different techniques and methods to add to the novelty of their discovery.

"The first is neurostimulation, which uses simultaneous transcranial magnetic stimulation and electroencephalography," Garcia said. "[This] is a type of neurostimulation that causes a changing magnetic field near your scalp, which in turn induces current into whatever conductive body is next to it -- in this case, it's your brain."

The electrical current that is non-invasively injected into your brain then disrupts the neural firing at the stimulated region, but it is unclear what kind of downstream non-local effects this stimulation will produce, he said.

"This method and related methods are often controversial because it's often very difficult to determine what behavioral effect is actually due to the stimulation, and given the variety of stimulation protocols, it is often difficult to determine the specificity of the effect," Garcia said. "In our research, we kept it simple and pulsed four regions related to attention and visual processing every four or so seconds."

They paired this stimulation with EEG, which measures the electrical current emanating from the brain -- through the scalp -- and inspected the effects of stimulation.

"Effects of this specific type of stimulation do not last more than one second," Garcia said. "To look at the effects on the brain from this stimulation, we used some network science approaches, specifically dynamic community detection."

This research supports the lab's current research in Human-Autonomy Teaming and the goal of providing foundational knowledge products to enable future adaptive teaming neurotechnologies.

"As part of human basic research for the laboratory, we often look at associations between physiology and behavior, perhaps finding that a brain network may be associated with a particular behavior or optimal performance within a narrow task," Garcia said. "This type of research will support future adaptive neurotechnologies that may be used in human-autonomy teams where behavioral missteps may be predicted and avoided or it could enable a non-human agent synthetic metacognitive abilities to know how a member of the team will perform in particular situations and assess team and individual performance."

This research goes one step beyond this and provides some foundational knowledge that may enable a robot to neurally nudge the brain to perhaps prime an individual for an upcoming task when a particular outcome is needed.

"While technologically we are pretty far from this scenario, the foundational research that measures the impact of subtle nudges of electrical injection in the brain is necessary to attain these sort of human-autonomy teaming neurotechnologies," Garcia said.

HOUSTON - (May 14, 2020) - Early studies show evidence of COVID-19 genetic material in fecal matter, but more work is needed to determine if the virus can be spread through stool, according to a new review paper from a Rice University epidemiologist.

"Potential Fecal Transmission of SARS-CoV-2: Current Evidence and Implications for Public Health" will appear in an upcoming edition of the International Journal of Infectious Diseases and is available online. The paper reviewed an ever-changing body of literature on detection of the novel coronavirus in fecal matter of COVID-19 patients.

"Most of the studies that have been done so far are picking up viral RNA in the feces rather than infectious virus," said E. Susan Amirian, an epidemiologist with Rice's Texas Policy Lab and the study's lead author. "However, a few studies have showed that infectious virus may be present in stool samples."

Amirian said the mere presence of genetic material is less worrisome than if infectious amounts of viable virus are found in stool in future studies, as that would imply it is possible for it to be transmitted to others through feces. She said if future research continues finding viable virus in stool, this could have important implications, especially for those working in the restaurant industry, nursing homes, day cares, etc.

"Ultimately, more research is needed to determine whether exposure to stool is spreading this virus and making the pandemic worse," Amirian said. "But given this possibility, it behooves us to be more careful, especially in settings where people have an increased risk of morbidity and death due to COVID-19."

Amirian said there's no downside to exercising an abundance of caution in following good personal hygiene practices until we know more.

"There are plenty of other diseases out there that are transmitted through fecal contamination, including hepatitis A and norovirus," she said. "Following a high level of precaution will help just in case COVID-19 can be spread this way."

Some people with HIV need to undergo an allogeneic stem cell transplantation in order to treat different types of blood cancer. Most of the patient's immune cells are eliminated during these transplantations. Stem cells from a healthy donor are then used to replace the patient's damaged bone marrow and restore their immune system.

"In the first weeks after an allogeneic stem cell transplantation, during which the donor´s cells and the patient´s cells still exist together, the CD4+ T cells (helper cells) were strongly activated. This activation could promote reactivation of the HI virus and re-seeding of the infection in expanding CD4+ donor T-cells," according to the study's first author, Dr. Johanna Eberhard from the UKE.

In cooperation with researchers from the Pasteur Institute, Dr. Eberhard found that new, specific T-cell responses to HIV proteins from donor cells developed after this time. This indicates that the donor cells were in contact with HI viruses during their expansion and had learnt to react against them. This confirms the existence of a "window of vulnerability" during which infection of donor cells can occur, said Dr. Eberhard.

"Together with the results of previous studies, these results show a weak point that may explain why allogeneic stem cell transplants may not completely remove the virus from the body, despite a drastic reduction in the number of infected cells. Additional immunotherapy or gene therapy may be required to achieve ongoing, spontaneous control of HIV infection in people with HIV after allogeneic stem cell transplantation," said the co-author of the study, Associate Professor Dr. Julian Schulze zur Wiesch, senior physician in the medical clinic and polyclinic of the UKE, who carries out research with his working group at the German Center for Infection Research on topics related to curing HIV.

New Rochelle, NY, May 13, 2020--Artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, and other key digital technology applications will play a vital role addressing the new healthcare challenges triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a peer-reviewed Special Issue of OMICS: A Journal of Integrative Biology. Click here to read the Special Issue free on the OMICS website through June 13, 2020.

"COVID-19 is undoubtedly among the ecological determinants of planetary health," states Vural Özdemir, MD, PhD, Editor-in-Chief of OMICS in his editorial. "Digital health is a veritable opportunity for integrative biology and systems medicine to broaden its scope from human biology to ecological determinants of health," he said. "This is very important."

Despite a widespread belief that media coverage of artificial intelligence tends to be negative, Colin Garvey and Chandler Maskal, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (Troy, NY) report that the majority of the news coverage is positive. Click here to read the article.