Culture

A large marine heatwave would double the rate of the climate change impacts on fisheries species in the northeast Pacific by 2050, says a recently released study by researchers from the University of British Columbia and University of Bern.

In 2013, a large marine heatwave, nicknamed the 'Blob', occurred in the northeast Pacific Ocean. From the coast of Alaska to Baja California, the Blob had a significant impact on the marine life and fisheries in this region; an impact that lasted for several years.

The new study, released in the journal Scientific Reports, combined the latest climate, ocean and fish modelling approaches to quantify the future impacts of marine heatwaves like the Blob on fish stocks along the west coast of Canada and USA. The resulting models showed that future 'blobs' would exacerbate climate change impacts on these important fish stocks, causing them to decrease in biomass and generating shifts in their distribution, which, in turn, would impact the fisheries sectors in this region.

"Previous studies have largely under-estimated climate change impacts on our marine life as they focused on changes in the average conditions," said William Cheung, professor and Canada Research Chair in Ocean Sustainability under Global Change at the UBC Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries. "The actual impacts in the next few decades are likely to be doubled when marine heatwaves occur. For example, in the year when a marine heatwave occurs, the average biomass of sockeye salmon in the ocean off Alaska and British Columbia is projected to reduce by more than 10 percent. This is in addition to a biomass decrease of 10-20 percent that is expected under long-term climate change."

"Marine heatwaves similar to the Blob are going to occur more frequently and with higher intensity in the coming decades," said Thomas Frölicher, assistant professor at the Physics Institute and Oeschger Centre for Climate Change Research of the University of Bern. "Our results underscore the need for a reduction of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions - the fundamental driver of ocean warming, to limit challenges from marine heatwaves on fish stocks and fisheries."

"The COVID-19 pandemic has made us very much aware of the need to be prepared for impactful episodic events such as marine heatwaves," said Cheung. "The Blob will return, and with climate change still taking place in the background, its impact will be even greater. Early prevention is the key - in this case that means active climate mitigation and effective adaptation."

Chinese researchers have developed a pulsed optically pumped (POP) atomic clock with a frequency stability of 4.7 × 10-15 at 104 seconds based on a new design.

The achievement is noteworthy because atomic clocks - often considered the most stable frequency standard for timekeeping - are crucial components in global navigation systems and international communication services, and frequency stability is key to their accuracy.

POP atomic clocks are an important research focus because they are lightweight and show excellent frequency stability.

The research was led by DENG Jianliao from the Shanghai Institute of Optics and Fine Mechanics (SIOM) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Results were published in Review of Scientific Instruments on 21 April 2020.

"Atomic clocks employ a quantum mechanical system as a 'pendulum' where the frequency of the local oscillator is locked to the transition between atomic energy states," said DENG Jianliao, corresponding author of the paper. "The accuracy of the atomic clock depends on determining the accuracy of the center of the atomic transition and the stability of the central frequency itself."

The new design uses a compact optical module consisting of a distributed Bragg reflector (DBR) laser and an acousto-optic modulator in a POP vapor-cell rubidium atomic clock.

Containing the physics package in a sealed vacuum chamber improved temperature control and also reduced the negative influence of the barometric effect.

DENG noted that the atomic clock is "sensitive to the fluctuations of many parameters," thus making it a challenge to optimize medium- to long-term frequency stability in laser-based vapor-cell clocks, such as POP clocks.

The frequency stability of 4.7 × 10-15 at 104 seconds achieved by the new design "is comparable to the state-of-the-art POP rubidium clock," according to the study.

The researchers are now working to improve frequency stability at an average time greater than 104 seconds and are also seeking to further reduce temperature sensitivity.

Some solid tumors have a very high growth rate, which often leads to a lack of vascularization due to the impossibility to develop, at the same time, the blood vessels that accompany and nourish it. The team of Dr. Cristina Muñoz Pinedo, from the Bellvitge Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBELL) and the Faculty of Medicine and Health Science of the University of Barcelona (UB), with the collaboration of the Catalan Institute of Oncology (ICO), has studied how tumor cells respond to this lack of nutrients. They have observed that cells respond releasing cytokines and chemokines, molecules that attract the first defenses of the immune system, which finally inhibit a more specific and effective attack. In addition, these cytokines will promote the formation of new blood vessels that nourish the tumor again. This work has been published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

Reduced nutrient levels in the less vascularized parts of the tumor are known to trigger stress responses. As Dr. Muñoz Pinedo points out, "the stress response due to lack of nutrients, known as an integrated stress response, induces the cell production of alarm proteins. And those proteins are closely related to cancer progression". This article demonstrates that this response participates in the secretion of inflammatory cytokines in many types of tumor cells in culture, from lung cancer cells to cervical cancer or rhabdomyosarcoma.

Previous studies of other groups point out that the inflammation that takes place in tumors could prevent an effective immune response to attack tumor cells. Tumors in mild and constant inflammation state present elevated levels of the cytokines and chemokines found in this study. For this reason, the authors hypothesize that this inflammation could be caused by the lack of nutrients that cells detect and interpret as a wound or infection.

The authors hypothesize that, under these circumstances, the tumor cells could be acting as a non-healed wound. When we have a wound, blood flow is interrupted at some point in our body, and this lack of blood flow could be the signal that triggers the wound healing response: the attraction of the first defenses of the immune system and the generation of new blood vessels, in other words, the inflammatory response. This response could be reproduced in solid tumors, in which the lack of blood supply is interpreted as a wound, but for the moment we can only consider this an idea not yet proven.

The signals sent by tumor cells not only impede the attack of the immune system, also induce the modification of the tissue that accompanies them. Specifically, this work shows that, when tumor cells are glucose deprived they initiate a signal cascade to promote angiogenesis in vitro, that is, the creation of new blood vessels that return the blood flow and the nutrients.

Antimetabolic drugs

There is a type of drug that attacks tumors called antimetabolic drugs. They act impairing nutrient processing of tumor cells, and thus, through starvation, promote the death of tumor cells. These drugs, despite having good results in animal models, often fail in clinical trials with patients.

The results of this study could explain the lack of efficacy of this type of drugs since this work describes that two antimetabolic drugs also cause tumor cells to secrete cytokines and chemokines. Franziska Püschel, the first author of the study, points out that these drugs could be causing an inflammatory response due to lack of nutrients, which could promote tumor survival. However, Franziska assures that more studies are necessary to make this claim.

Wide study

This is a very large study that includes secretion tests in cultured tumor cells, as well as, tests in mice injected with the proteins secreted by the tumor cells. Furthermore, it has been studied the effect in migration, invasion or proliferation of the molecules secreted by tumor cells.

It should be noted that these studies have had the collaboration of the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research (INSERM), the Amsterdam Medical Center, as well as the European networks ITN META-CAN and ITN TRAIN-ERs.

Scientists have identified a key step in the process that leads to leaky vessels and harmful swelling in eye diseases, according to a new study published today in eLife.

The discovery could lead to improved treatments for diseases such as age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. These diseases cause leaky blood vessels to grow in the eyes, leading to harmful swelling and progressive vision loss.

Currently available treatments block a molecule called VEGF that contributes to both leaking vessels and the growth of new blood vessels in the eye. This dual role of VEGF means that these treatments can prevent harmful swelling but cause adverse side effects such as the death of nerve and blood-vessel cells.

"In this study, we explored whether it would be possible to block the effect of VEGF on blood-vessel leakiness only, while leaving nerve and blood-vessel cells unharmed," says lead author Ross Smith, a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University, Sweden.

To do this, Smith and his team examined step by step how VEGF causes eye leakiness in mice with diseases that mimic age-related macular degeneration and diabetic retinopathy. The animals were engineered to have mutations in proteins in their eyes that are affected by VEGF.

By studying different mutant mice with eye diseases mimicking human conditions, the team identified exactly how VEGF causes vessels to leak. "We applied fluorescent particles to the bloodstream and used microscopy to find these particles outside the blood vessels, or not, depending on whether the leakiness had been stopped by a mutation," Smith explains. The experiments showed that the effect of VEGF on leakiness could be distinguished from the effect on new blood-vessel formation.

"Our findings provide an answer to the questions on how blood vessels leak and show that leakage can be stopped without killing the blood vessels," concludes senior author Lena Claesson-Welsh, Professor at the Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology, Uppsala University. "Using this insight, we've begun testing drugs that could selectively block this leak-inducing step in the process. If this approach is effective, it could lead to new treatments that stop leaking without the harmful side effects of existing drugs."

Researchers from the Biophysics and Bioengineering Unit of the University of Barcelona have created a non-invasive low-cost ventilator, to support patients with respiratory diseases in areas with limited means. Researchers published the results of the study in the European Respiratory Journal together with open source technical features to build it.

Non-invasive ventilators are usually used to treat patients with respiratory failure: for instance, those with severe symptoms with COVID-19. Non-invasive ventilation is administrated through facial masks that bring pressured air to the lungs. This support to the natural breathing process, when the disease causes the lungs to fail, enables the body to fight the infection and therefore improve.

The study was carried out in the Biophysics and Bioengineering Unit of the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the University of Barcelona, led by Ramono Farré, professor of Physiology and member of the August Pi i Sunyer Biomedical Research Institute (IDIBAPS) and the Respiratory Diseases Networking Biomedical Research Centre (CIBERES). "Considering the growing need for ventilator support devices everywhere due to the COVID-19 pandemic, we designed a ventilator that can be built with commercial elements at a low cost. The ventilator is aimed at hospitals and health systems to help cover the demand of respiratory equipment due to the coronavirus and other severe lung diseases", notes Farré.

The article describes how to build the ventilator in open code, and it can be copied in areas with limited means. The research team has designed, built and carried out the tests for the ventilator using a small high-pressure turbine, two pressure transducer and a monitor with digital screen. In order to build it one needs a basic knowledge on engineering, but no previous knowledge on ventilation, although the application in patients requires a medical supervision.

To assess the efficiency of the prototype of the ventilator compared to a commercial device, the research team tested it in twelve healthy volunteers. The participants' breathing was obstructed to simulate different levels of lung rigidity and respiratory obstruction.

Participants wore facial masks over their nose to ease breathing and marked their feeling of comfort or discomfort, both with and without a respiratory support. The tests showed the ventilator adapted to the spontaneous breathing rhythm and provided a feeling of breathing relief similar to a commercial ventilator.

The team carried out a respiratory test bank, in which they used lung simulators to assess the response of the ventilator in patients with different levels of air flow obstruction and lung rigidity. The test was carried out in sixteen different simulation situations, covering conditions of real life in which non-invasive ventilation is usually used in clinical practices. In all the simulated cases, the prototype of the ventilator was efficient so that lungs could efficiently breath.

"Our tests showed the prototype could behave similarly to a high-quality conventional device providing support to patients who, with difficulties, can try to breathe by themselves", notes Farré.

The prototype is a non-invasive ventilator that provides respiratory support; therefore, it is not aimed at those patients with severe cases who are intubated and need a mechanical ventilator in the intensive care unit.

Scientific support to new prototypes

The Biophysics and Bioengineering Unit of the UB has experience on instrumentation to treat respiratory diseases, specially in the field of sleep apnoea. Recently, Farré and his team provided advice on the design of emergency ventilator device prototypes from Protofy.xyz, GPA Innova and GAS N2. The three devices, built with the support from the Hospital Clínic and Can Ruti, and the UB, are under clinical studyu with patients, after the initial approval to conduct the study given by the Spanish Agency of Medicines and Medical Products (AEMPS). Farré's team has also provided support to the device carried out by the Technical University of Valencia, now in its final phase of development.

Experts at the University of Tokyo have identified a new protein in the pathway that leads
to Alzheimer's disease. Researchers used the "molecular scissors" of CRISPR/Cas9 to
search for new genes related to the neurodegenerative disease.

The exact causes of Alzheimer's disease remain unknown, but one of the most well-
supported theories focuses on a protein called amyloid beta. Aggregation, or clumping
together, and the depositing of two proteins, amyloid beta and tau, throughout a patient's
brain are a signature of Alzheimer's disease.

CRISPR/Cas9 allows scientists to make specific changes to the DNA inside cells.
Researchers used the CRISPR/Cas9 system to delete individual genes in mouse cells
growing in a dish and then measured the amount of amyloid beta that the cells produced.

"We believe this is the first time anyone has used this CRISPR/Cas9 genetic screening
technique to look for changes in amyloid beta production," said Yukiko Hori, a co-first
author on the research paper published in FASEB Journal and lecturer at the University of
Tokyo.

Researchers tested a total of 19,150 individual genes for their effect on amyloid beta
levels and ruled out all but one: calcium and integrin-binding protein 1 (CIB1).

Cells without functional CIB1 genes produced abnormally high levels of amyloid beta
protein.

"Nobody knows why the deposition of amyloid beta occurs in Alzheimer's disease patients'
brains, but we think a starting point of the process could be CIB1," said Professor Taisuke
Tomita, an expert in pathological biochemistry at the University of Tokyo and leader of the
research lab that performed the study.

In healthy cells, CIB1 is not directly involved with processing amyloid beta, but CIB1 stays
attached to a protein called gamma secretase both inside cells and at the cell membrane.
In cells without CIB1, gamma secretase spends more time inside the cell and does not
move to the membrane.

Amyloid beta protein goes through a multistep process of trimming before it reaches its
final form. Under healthy conditions, gamma secretase processes amyloid beta precursors
to produce the final amyloid beta protein. That processing activity occurs in an internal
compartment within the cell, then gamma secretase moves to the cell's surface
membrane.

Additional experiments in mouse cells allowed researchers to track how CIB1 regulates
gamma secretase. In healthy cells, CIB1 is not directly involved in gamma secretase's
activity to process amyloid beta, but CIB1 is attached to gamma secretase both in the
internal compartment and at the cell surface membrane.

In cells without CIB1, gamma secretase remains in the internal compartment inside the
cell and does not move to the surface membrane. More time in that internal compartment
allows gamma secretase to produce more amyloid beta proteins.

"Our results show that regulating the location of CIB1 and gamma secretase could be a
new target for Alzhemier's disease therapy," said Hori.

Convinced by their cellular experiments, Tomita's research team then decided to search
directly for changes in the amount of CIB1 in the brains of Alzheimer's disease patients.
The patient data they examined comes from a long-term project based in the U.S., the
Religious Orders Study and Memory and Aging Project (ROSMAP). The project tracks the
health of volunteers who are all professional religious leaders (nuns, priests, brothers) and
agree to donate their organs for research after their death.

People diagnosed with early-stage Alzheimer's disease had lower levels of CIB1 in their
brains than healthy people. Paradoxically, people diagnosed with late-stage Alzheimer's
disease had higher-than-healthy levels of CIB1.

"We cannot say for certain why CIB1 is increased in late-stage Alzheimer's disease. What
is important is that in both the early and late stages of Alzheimer's disease, something is
abnormal about the regulation of CIB1," said Tomita.

Future research projects will uncover more details about the role of CIB1 in the cellular
processes that lead to unhealthy levels of amyloid beta and Alzheimer's disease. Researchers also plan to use their CRISPR/Cas9 screening technique to search for new
genes that affect the other major Alzheimer's disease protein, tau.

Sweet food is even sweeter when you drink coffee. This is shown by the result of research from Aarhus University. The results have just been published in the scientific journal Foods.

Coffee lovers with a penchant for dark chocolate now have a scientific explanation for why the two are a perfect match. A study from Aarhus University shows that coffee makes you more sensitive to sweetness.

In the study, 156 test subjects had their sense of smell and taste tested before and after drinking coffee. The researchers found no changes tin their sense of smell, but they found that the sense of taste was affected.

"When people were tested after drinking coffee, they became more sensitive to sweetness, and less sensitive to bitterness," says associate professor at Aarhus University Alexander Wieck Fjældstad, who was involved in carrying out the study.

To rule out the possibility that caffeine in the coffee could be a factor, the researchers repeated the experiment using decaffeinated coffee. With the same result.

We are easily affected by sweetness and bitterness

"It's probably some of the bitter substances in the coffee that create this effect," says Alexander Wieck Fjældstad.

"This may explain that if you enjoy a piece of dark chocolate with your coffee, it's taste is much milder, because the bitterness is downplayed and the sweetness is enhanced," he continues.

According to the researcher, the study sheds some light on a new aspect of our knowledge about our senses of smell and taste.

"We already know that our senses have an effect on each other, but it's a surprise that our registration of sweetness and bitterness is so easily influenced."

According to Alexander Wieck Fjældstad, the results maybe provide us with a better understanding of how our taste buds work.

"More research in this area could have significance for how we regulate the way in which we use sugar and sweeteners as food additives. Improved knowledge can potentially be utilised to reduce sugar and calories in our food, which would be beneficial for a number of groups, including those who are overweight and diabetes patients," he explains.

Background for the results:

The study is a It is a comparative study in which trial participants act as their own controls.

The study is financed by Arla Foods and Region Midtjylland. The sponsors had no say, roles, or responsibilities in relation to the study, including (but not limited to) study design, data collection, management, analysis, interpretation of data, writing of the manuscript, or the decision to publish. Neither of the authors have any conflict of interest to declare.

Alexander Wieck Fjælstad is affiliated with a research group investigating enjoyment in Oxford as well as at the Flavor Clinic, Øre-Næse-Halsafdelingen in Holstebro.

The scientific article: 'Chemosensory Sensitivity after Coffee Consumption Is Not Static: Short-Term Effects on Gustatory and Olfactory Sensitivity' is published in Foods.

Would you like to be able to find out which antibiotic combination works best for a particular patient? And do it in just 12 or maybe even 6 hours, in a point-of-care? Or maybe search for antibodies in thousands of samples at a time? It's all possible with a new device invented by scientists from IPC PAS. It is cheap, fast & reliable, it can replace strip tests and give patients a better chance to fight disease.

A team led by prof. Piotr Garstecki is developing new tools for diagnostics. In a paper published in Micromachines the researchers wanted to show that combining different, simple methods can give users a simple bacterial susceptibility test kit. A kit that uses less reagents than a traditional susceptibility test in agar, less antibiotics, and is as easy to perform as an Etest. Users can also choose how to visualize the results, eg. use metabolism indicators of the bacteria, fluorescent dyes or see a colorimetric change.

"We wanted to test antimicrobial susceptibility as simply as possible, but not only for a single agent but also for combinations or under different conditions," explains dr Ladislav Derzsi, one of the authors of the paper and supervisor of the project. "To deliver this new device, we matched several things that were discovered independently. For example we used standard UV and soft lithography techniques which are very common methods to fabricate microfluidic devices and we combined it with non-contact printing on machine which was designed especially for us." By using this combination of methods scientists can very precisely position small droplets of any kind of liquid in microwells. In this case they were antibiotic solutions of different concentrations and in different combinations. They were printed inside microwells in a similar way that laser-jet or ink-jet printers do their job. "They have small nozzles and using piezoelectric forces they deliver very precise amounts of liquid: nanoliters to picoliters or even femtoliters," says dr Derzsi. "We use similar technique only instead of ink we use antibiotics and we inject them not on paper but onto a soft elastomer. We let it slowly dry out under controlled conditions. The aqueous phase - water - evaporates and we're left with just the very small amount of antibiotic." The wells used for the experiment were quite large - 1 mm diameter - and their capacity was approx. 0.67 microliters. "In total we're using 1024 wells in one chip. It is more than one order higher than classical plates with 96 wells despite being half the size. But it can be increased even to 10000 wells by decreasing their individual size," says dr Derzsi.

To make it more user-friendly researchers bonded the device with a polymeric adhesive tape to seal it air-tight and then put it into vacuum. So the device is delivered to the end-user sterile and with inner negative pressure. "If we'd like to use it commercially, it could be additionally sealed in a vacuum bag [like we do with food items]," explains the scientist.

The user than has only to unpack it, inject first a bacterial solution, with a simple, commercially available pipette, and then add a small amount of oil which divides wells and helps avoid any cross-contamination between them. Then the whole pack has to be put into the incubator and one just has to wait to see, what is the optimal combination of antibiotics and their concentration; in other words - where do bacteria hesitate to grow or don't grow at all.

A great advantage of the new testing system is its flexibility. One can produce sterile plates on demand, with different antibiotics in different combinations. "We used plates with 6 single antibiotics in 8 different concentrations and - to increase the precision - in 8 repetitions each. We also tested pair-wise combinations of these six antibiotics in several repetitions. It is possible to test combinations of an arbitrary number of different antibiotics, inhibitors and adjuvants in one well," says dr Derzsi, "but usually doctors don't use more than two at a time not to overburden patient's organism. By using this new method doctors can test the patient and see which antibiotic or a combination work best for him, i.e. personalize the treatment and not rely on what works in a general population. Every person have a slightly different response to treatment, even with the very same sickness. It's his bioflora, metabolic individuality and many other things. So one can say that new device is a step towards more personalized medicine. But it can be very helpful not only for a particular patient, but also for scientific purposes of finding new, non-obvious combinations of antibiotics that work better than known ones.

Although the work was done on bacteria and their antibiotic susceptibility, the method has the potential to be upgraded and after further testing used eg. for printing primers and do digital PCR to identify specific genes or antibodies. Especially that a single chip would cost no more than 5 euros.

Microfluidic methods have also an extra advantage: when searching for new drugs scientists often have a very limited amount of a potentially useful substance. Thanks to non-contact printing they can test more different concentrations and combinations of a potential cure without running out of the substrate too early.

When it comes to increasing electric storage efficiency and electric breakdown strength -- the ability of an electrical system to operate at higher voltage and temperatures with great efficiency -- increasing one traditionally has led to a decrease in the other. Penn State researchers, led by Qiming Zhang, distinguished professor of electrical engineering, recently developed a scalable method that relies on engineered materials to increase both properties.

The researchers altered a dielectric capacitor, a device that stores and regulates energy and is commonly used in electronics and electric systems. Using dopants --small, engineered materials also called metamaterials -- the researchers altered the dielectric capacitor to increase storage capacity while also increasing electric charge efficiency, meaning the capacitor can withstand greater voltage with very little energy loss at temperatures higher than 300 degrees Fahrenheit.

While other researchers have been able to do this for dielectric capacitors, the methods have been too expensive to scale for use with real products. Zhang and the other Penn State researchers reported their results in a recent issue of Science Advances.

"What we have done is to use interface effects in nano-dopants to increase both the storage efficiency and electric breakdown strength with a very small quantity of dopants and at a low cost," Zhang said. "A lot of people think they need to fill the capacitor with a lot of fillers to achieve the greater energy storage efficiency, but we showed you can accomplish it in the opposite direction, that is, by using very low-volume content fillers with very low-cost materials, which can also lead to greater breakdown strength. This keeps the cost low and makes this highly scalable."

Increasing the electric breakdown strength in a capacitor will enable the device to handle higher temperatures without a failure in the system. This is an important trait in many electronics and electrical systems, including electric cars, industrial drills and electric grids.

"Hybrid electric vehicles now use a capacitor made of a material known as BOPP," Zhang said. "They work well up to 80 degrees Celsius (176 degrees F). However, vehicles can get very hot, so you have to use a cooling agent. It increases cost and also adds volume. Now, you can use this new capacitor with metamaterials, which are smaller, to replace the existing capacitor and not worry about the cooling loop since it can handle higher temperatures."

Equipment used for deep drilling also will potentially benefit from having an increased temperature threshold and a smaller, less expensive capacitor. The electric grid will potentially benefit from this new technological development, particularly in terms of the increased energy efficiency and higher electric breakdown strength.

"We did not create a new material, but by using metamaterials in this way, we can greatly enhance the performance of existing materials without adding cost," Zhang said.

Other Penn State researchers working on this project are Tian Zhang, graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science, and Xin Chen, graduate student in materials science and engineering, both first authors; Yash Thakur, graduate student in electrical engineering and computer science; Blao Lu and Qlyan Zhang, post-doctoral fellows in electrical engineering and computer science; and James Runt, professor emeritus of polymer science.

PHILADELPHIA (April 21,2020) - Substance use by youth remains a significant public health concern. While social media provides youth the opportunity to discuss and display substance use-related beliefs and behaviors, little is known about how posting drug-related content, or viewing posted content influences the beliefs and behaviors of youth relative to substance use.

In a new study from the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing), researchers characterized the content of 23 million drug-related tweets by youths to identify their beliefs and behaviors related to drug use and better understand the potential mechanisms driving substance use behavior. They found that youths expressed pride, confidence, or boastfulness online about their drug-related behaviors, often indicating a craving or desire for drugs or the effects of drug use. Their tweets rarely covered the negative consequences or effects of substance use.

"Youths' tweets about using drugs to cope with stress, grief and trauma may contribute to distorted perceptions of normative behavior and may encourage other youth adopt similar coping strategies in real life," says lead-investigator Robin Stevens, PhD, MPH, Assistant Professor and Director of the Health Equity and Media Lab. "These findings indicate a critical need to leverage social media to understand youth experiences and attitudes related to drug use. An in-depth, real time understanding of youth attitudes, across diverse populations is critical for efforts to decrease substance abuse."

The study also defined the frequency with which drugs are discussed by members of this population on Twitter, generated a list of words and hashtags to contribute to analytical lexicons for others interested in similar research, and identified themes indicative of the ways in which youth discuss their support for (or opposition to) substance use on social media.

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Lincoln, UK, and York University, Canada, investigated how the global trend towards urbanisation has contributed to the rise in the total number of disease outbreaks per decade since the 1980s.

Their study, a major literature review published in the academic journal Urban Studies, shows that urban expansion at the periphery of cities - sometimes called 'extended urbanisation'- is fundamentally altering the spatial relationships which shape how millions of people live and interact with each other and with nature. In doing so, it is creating "new ecological niches" for the spread of infectious diseases, the researchers warn.

Rapid urbanisation, particularly in developing nations of Asia and Africa, is creating fluid relationships between urban and rural environments with populations drawn to new types of suburban settlements on the periphery of cities. These might be in the shape of suburban neighbourhoods, informal self-built settlements, refugee camps, or communities of workers living near mines or factories.

These suburban and 'peri-urban' areas are more likely than cities to be the source of new and re-emerging infectious diseases, the study explains. They are particularly vulnerable to diseases that jump the animal-to-human boundary (zoonosis), as they bring populations of humans and livestock into contact with displaced wildlife in a manner that does not happen in cities. They are often densely populated, poorly planned, lacking health infrastructure and out of sight of government authorities. Significantly for public health policy, they also serve as a conduit between city and countryside - making municipal, regional and even national boundaries effectively "porous".

The recent SARS and Ebola outbreaks are high profile examples of epidemics which originated in these new types of suburban hinterland before spreading into larger, established cities.

The researchers say this structural weak spot to infectious disease outbreaks has largely been overlooked in academic studies of the epidemiology of global urbanisation, which instead have tended to focus on health inequalities linked with urban poverty, such as diseases caused by obesity.

The researchers set out three key dimensions to understanding the link between urbanisation and infectious disease risk: the dynamics of population change, infrastructure and governance. They say further interdisciplinary research is needed in these fields - especially as the world responds to the current COVID-19 pandemic which first emerged in Wuhan, China, in December.

Without improved understanding, public health policymakers locally, nationally and internationally will be ill-equipped to identify and mitigate the heightened risk of infectious disease outbreaks posed by suburban sprawl.

Dr Creighton Connolly, an urban geographer from the School of Geography at the University of Lincoln and lead author of the paper, said: "Economic growth, changing labour markets and conflicts are driving urban expansion and migration from rural-to-urban in developing countries at unprecedented pace.

"Improved transport infrastructure has cut journey times between countryside, suburbs and cities from days to hours. However the infrastructure vital for good public health, like health clinics and clean water, often lags behind.

"Governance - particularly the mechanics for responding rapidly to disease outbreaks - are also weaker in these fringe communities in the so-called 'urban shadow' compared to established towns and cities, as jurisdictional responsibilities are often blurred."

The researchers conclude that better understanding of the changing spatial relationships between cities, suburbs and countryside, the factors that shape these changes, and effective ways to adapt to them, will be key to reducing the risk of future outbreaks of infectious diseases and limiting their spread when outbreaks do occur.

In the 2020 April 21 issue of Journal of Hepatology, a research group from the Department of Hepatology in Osaka City University Graduate School of Medicine, Japan reported that a new insight into the pathophysiology of human nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH) with fibrosis and suggested a possibility of the new therapy using cytoglobin (CYGB) inducer for clinical application.

Liver fibrosis is a common pathological feature of chronic liver diseases including virus infection, alcohol-related damage and metabolic syndromes, ultimately progresses to cirrhosis and increases the risk of developing hepatocellular carcinoma.

Although the number of patients with viral hepatitis has been reduced due to the development of antiviral therapy, NASH with liver fibrosis caused by metabolic syndrome has been increasing in recent years. However, evidence-based treatment for pathophysiology of NASH with liver fibrosis has not been established yet.

When the liver is damaged, hepatic stellate cells (HSCs), one of the liver constituent cells, are activated and collagen production is accelerated. If the cause is not eliminated, it progresses to cirrhosis, which causes scarring of tissues and markedly reduces liver function.

Moreover, severe hepatic fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma are estimated to cause 3.5% of all deaths worldwide, indicating a need for new anti-fibrotic therapies based on a detailed mechanistic understanding of liver diseases.

Therefore, activated HSCs have recently been focused on as a target cell for anti-fibrotic therapy and research on HSC is being actively worked worldwide.

It is widely accepted that transforming growth factor beta (TGF-β), is a cytokine, triggers strongly fibrogenic response through activation of HSCs.

CYGB is a mammalian globin, which is discovered by researchers and uniquely expresses in HSCs in the liver. Previously, researchers have reported that CYGB suppresses liver damage caused by oxidative stress and is expected to has a protective effect on hepatic parenchymal cells.

This study shows that the molecular regulatory mechanism of TGF-β-induced downregulation of CYGB in human HSCs, leading to the loss of cellular tolerance to exogenous oxidative stress and oxidative DNA damage in activated HSCs in human NASH with advanced fibrosis. Moreover, researchers revealed the new function of CYGB for the first time that CYGB can inhibit oxidative DNA damage by scavenging hydroxyl radicals.

Relocated in small groups to experimental islands, lizards rapidly and repeatedly developed new chemical signals for communicating with each other. Free from the risk of predators and intent to attract potential mates, male lizards produce a novel chemical calling card, according to new research from Washington University in St. Louis.

Studies of animal signal evolution usually focus on acoustic and visual signals -- like the complex warbling in a bird's song or the bright flashes of color on fish scales. Chemical signals between animals are less obvious to humans and more technically complex to parse. Much of the existing research on these signals has focused on insect pheromones relevant to certain agricultural applications.

But chemical signals are the oldest and most widespread communication mode, spanning bacteria to beavers. As such, they represent a valuable opportunity for decoding how animals communicate and perceive the world around them, researchers said.

"What we've discovered is that within species there is important variation in chemical signals depending on your context: Who's trying to eat you, who wants to mate with you and who you're trying to compete with," said Colin Donihue, a postdoctoral fellow in biology in Arts & Sciences at Washington University in St. Louis and lead author of a new study published April 21 in the Journal of Animal Ecology.

Both lizards and snakes collect chemical cues from their surroundings by flicking out their slender forked tongues, then process those cues using a well-developed sensory organ in the roof of their mouths.

Lizards deposit their chemical messages encoded in secretions from specialized glands located on their inner thighs. The secretions are a waxy cocktail of lipid compounds that contains detailed information about the individual lizard that produced them.

In this study, researchers relocated groups of eight male and 12 female Aegean wall lizards (Podarcis erhardii) from a single source population in Naxos, Greece, to five small islets that lacked predators. Under normal conditions, these lizards would have to contend with a number of native and non-native predators -- including snakes, birds and cats.

Free from predators on the small islets, the lizard populations grew rapidly and competition for resources was fierce.

Each of the relocated lizards was individually tagged so they could be identified when the researchers returned to check up on them. Over the next four years, the scientists revisited the populations, tracking the fates of the relocated lizards and their offspring.

What they found was striking: On each of the predator-free islands, lizards rapidly and repeatedly developed a new chemical "mix" that was distinct from that of lizards in the source population. The changes were apparent after only four generations.

For the first time, researchers believe that they have demonstrated solid evidence that lizards can "put on a new cologne" to suit their setting.

"Signals to attract mates are often conspicuous to predators," said Simon Baeckens, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Antwerp in Belgium and co-author of the new paper. "As such, sexual signals present a compromise between attractiveness and avoidance of detection. However, on these islets, there is no constraint on the evolution of highly conspicuous and attractive signals.

"In the experimental islands, we found that the 'signal richness' of the lizard secretions is the highest -- meaning that the number of different compounds that we could detect in the secretion is the highest," Baeckens added. "Our previous research suggests that this more elaborate signal might advertise the high quality of a male."

Donihue continued: "Animals have spent over a billion years developing a complex chemical communication library. But we only invented the technology to identify many of those chemicals a century ago, and the experiments for understanding what those chemicals mean for the animals in nature have only just begun.

"We found that animal chemical cues can rapidly and flexibly change to suit new settings, but this is only the beginning for understanding what the lizards are saying to each other."

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - In a new study, published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, researchers from Michigan Medicine find adults with spinal cord injury are at a higher risk of developing mental health disorders, including depression and anxiety, compared to adults without the condition.

The research team examined insurance claims data for adults, both with traumatic spinal cord injury and those without the condition, enrolled in a health insurance plan for at least three consecutive years and their diagnosis of a mental health disorder. In particular, they found adults with spinal cord injury had a higher incidence of anxiety disorders (19.3% vs 14.1%), depressive disorders (29.3% vs 9.3%), and psychological multimorbidity, or having more than two mental health conditions (37.4% vs 23.9%), as compared to adults without spinal cord injury.

"We also found that individuals with spinal cord injury had an increased risk of developing other chronic diseases, including cardiovascular and pulmonary diseases, diabetes, liver disease, cancer, arthritis, circulatory conditions and electrolyte disorders," says Mark Peterson, Ph.D., M.S., FACSM, the Charles E. Lytle, Jr. Research Professor in physical medicine and rehabilitation at Michigan Medicine and the lead author of the study. "Which makes sense, as patients with spinal cord injuries have extreme sedentary behavior including prolonged bed rest after injury."

Denise Tate, Ph.D., ABPP, FACRM, a professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Michigan Medicine and the senior author of the study, notes that much of the past research regarding spinal cord injury focuses on physical health outcomes. She says this study highlights the need for understanding this patient population's mental health and clinical care needs, as they're critical to overall quality of life and well-being in patients with spinal cord injury.

Peterson agrees, "Clinicians caring for adults with spinal cord injury need to be aware of the increased risk of developing mental health disorders in this patient population. This may be particularly important during these recent times of social distancing due to COVID-19, as these patients often already experience social isolation."

A UC Davis Health study found more evidence for the efficacy of telehealth-delivered behavioral intervention in treating language problems in youth with fragile X syndrome (FXS). The authors, however, could not establish efficacy for the drug lovastatin as a treatment for learning or behavior problems in individuals with FXS.

Fragile X syndrome is a single-gene disorder affecting approximately one in every 3,600 to 5,000 males and one in every 4,000 to 6,000 females. It is considered the leading inherited cause of intellectual disability. Individuals with FXS frequently have speech and language delays, behavior challenges, anxiety and symptoms of autism spectrum disorder.

Lovastatin is a widely used FDA-approved treatment for reducing cholesterol levels. It has been considered promising as a treatment for patients with FXS, based on an unblinded study and preclinical work. The UC Davis investigators assessed whether the benefits of lovastatin combined with Parent-Implemented Language Intervention (PILI) would be greater than the benefits of PILI alone.

There have been numerous demonstrations of the role a verbally responsive style of parental interaction can play in supporting the language development of children with FXS. PILI is an intervention model that aims to enhance parent's use of this style of interaction. In a verbally responsive interaction, parents:

Talk about and follow the child's focus of attention

Respond to the child's communicative overtures in affectively positive and contingent ways

Solicit the child's participation in the interaction

Provide examples of language that are slightly more advanced than the child's current level

"This is one of the first published studies to combine behavioral and medication treatment in fragile X syndrome," said Angela John Thurman, lead author and assistant researcher in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and member of the UC Davis MIND Institute faculty.

Behavioral intervention helps youth with FXS

The study was a 20-week randomized, double-blind controlled trial. It included 30 participants between the ages of 10 and 17 with FXS. Fourteen participants took lovastatin capsules orally, starting at 10 mg and increasing weekly or as tolerated by 10 mg increments, up to a maximum dose of 40 mg daily. Sixteen participants took a placebo.

A researcher delivered PILI through video teleconferencing to the families of all participants for 12 weeks, with four activities per week. Parents were taught to use PILI language-facilitation strategies when interacting with their children during a shared storytelling activity.

The study found that both groups demonstrated significant improvements in several outcome measures. It showed significant increases, over the course of the treatment period, in the number of child's story-related utterances, the number of different words produced by the child and the number of parent's story-related utterances.

Parents in both groups were able to learn and use the PILI language facilitation strategies. They reported significant improvements in the severity of spoken language and social impairments of their children.

"We found evidence that the behavioral intervention using telehealth to train parents to deliver therapy to their kids works," Thurman said. "This is consistent with our other published studies on the intervention."

The magnitude of change observed across the two groups was comparable, providing support for the efficacy of the use of PILI in youth with FXS. The medication, however, showed no evidence of efficacy.

"The study suggests that while we pursue medical treatments, we must also do more to develop behavioral and other nonmedical interventions," said Leonard Abbeduto, director of UC Davis MIND Institute, professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences and co-author on the study.