Culture

Researchers at the University of Jyväskylä highlight how the struggles caused by the COVID-19 pandemic can guide us towards an equitable use of our shared environment and a transition towards sustainability.

COVID-19 crisis has emphasized how poorly prepared humanity is to cope with global disasters and to face the new ecological norm under climate change, degraded ecosystems, and biodiversity loss. The final consequences of COVID-19 crisis on sustainability are not yet known. However, this crisis offers a unique opportunity to move towards a greener, more sustainable and equitable society to avoid the destruction of our planet and our own well-being.

We must proactively adapt to the potentially harder times ahead of us aggravated by global environmental changes. "COVID-19 crisis" serves as a global-scale stress-test for our resilience towards an uncertain future, says Visiting Researcher Rémi Duflot from the Department of Biological and Environmental Science at the University of Jyväskylä.

Moving towards a sustainable future path

The actions and objectives for a sustainable transition are already defined by the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development by the United Nation. Many alternatives are ready to be implemented through sectorial entry points and can mitigate the social and economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now researchers argue that the implementation of a sustainable policy requires a change in societal priorities, shifting from the economic paradigm of growth (of GDP) to human well-being and a healthy environment. To quantify progress towards sustainable well-being, measures of success should account for the multiple dimensions of well-being using a collection of indicators such as Genuine Progress Index and the Sustainable Development Goals.

A sustainable transition, alike an adequate response to a pandemic, requires a cohesive and inclusive society where people adhere to collective actions. Justice in a broad sense should be seen as a precondition to create institutional trust and social security, and thus to encourage citizens' participation in collective projects for sustainability, explains Duflot.

The research emerged as a collaboration within the School of Resource Wisdom community JYU.Wisdom, and was published as a "Note and Comment" in Sustainability Science in April 2021.

WASHINGTON -- Researchers have developed new x-ray optics that can be used to harness extremely fast pulses in a package that is significantly smaller and lighter than conventional devices used to modulate x-rays. The new optics are based on microscopic chip-based devices known as microelectromechanical systems (MEMS).

"Our new ultrafast optics-on-a-chip is poised to enable x-ray research and applications that could have a broad impact on understanding fast-evolving chemical, material and biological processes," said research team leader Jin Wang from the U.S Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory. "This could aid in the development of more efficient solar cells and batteries, advanced computer storage materials and devices, and more effective drugs for fighting diseases."

In The Optical Society (OSA) journal Optics Express, the researchers demonstrated their new x-ray optics-on-a-chip device, which measures about 250 micrometers and weighs just 3 micrograms, using the x-ray source at Argonne's Advanced Photon Source synchrotron. The tiny device performed 100 to 1,000 times faster than conventional x-ray optics, which tend to be bulky.

"Although we demonstrated the device in a large x-ray synchrotron facility, when fully developed, it could be used with conventional x-ray generators found in scientific labs or hospitals," said Wang. "The same technology could also be used to develop other devices such as precise dosage delivery systems for radiation therapy or fast x-ray scanners for non-destructive diagnostics."

Capturing fast processes

X-rays can be used to capture very fast processes such as chemical reactions or the quickly changing dynamics of biological molecules. However, this requires an extremely high-speed camera with a fast shutter speed. Because many materials that are opaque to light are transparent to x-rays it can be difficult to improve the speed of shutters effective for x-rays.

To solve this challenge, the research team, consisting of scientists from Argonne's Advanced Photon Source and Center for Nanoscale Materials, turned to MEMS-based devices. "In addition to being used in many of the electronics we use daily, MEMS are also used to manipulate light for high-speed communication," said Wang. "We wanted to find out if MEMS-based photonic devices can perform similar functions for x-rays as they do with visible or infrared light."

In the new work, the researchers show that the extremely small size and weight of their MEMS-based shutter allows it to oscillate at speeds equavilent to about one million revolutions per minute (rpm). The researchers leveraged this high speed and the MEMS material's x-ray diffractive property to create an extremely fast x-ray shutter.

Boosting shutter speed

Using their new optics-on-a-chip with x-rays produced by the Advanced Photon Source, the researchers demonstrated that it could provide a stable shutter speed as fast as one nanosecond with an extremely high on/off contrast. This could be used to extract single x-ray pulses from the source, even if the pulses were only 2.8 nanoseconds apart from each other.

"We show that our new chip-based technology can perform functions not possible with conventional large optics," said Wang. "This can be used to create ultrafast probes for studying fast processes in novel materials."

The researchers are now working to make the devices more versatile and robust so that they can be used continuously over long periods of time. They are also integrating the peripheral systems used with the tiny chip-based MEMS devices into a deployable stand-alone instrument.

People who regularly use psychoactive substances report experiencing a variety of negative impacts since the COVID-19 pandemic began, including increased usage and fear of relapse or overdose, highlighting the need for improved supports and services, including better access to safe supply programs, according to a new CAMH survey published in the International Journal of Drug Policy.

"People who use drugs have been negatively impacted by the pandemic in ways that put them at greater risk for experiencing substance and health-related harms, including overdoses and a decreased ability to mitigate risk behaviours," writes lead author Dr. Farihah Ali. "These findings warrant the need for increased accessibility of safe supply programs, take-home naloxone and drug-testing kits, as well as novel approaches to help ensure they have the necessary tools available to make informed choices and mitigate risk."

Key Survey Findings:

Nearly half of respondents (47 per cent) indicated their substance use had increased during COVID. "I find that I use more because when there's stuff around I tend to get more of it because you don't know when they're gonna get it next or you don't know when there's gonna be more," said one participant. "So you end up buying more, and then when you have more, you end up doing more."

Almost four in ten (38 per cent) respondents said they believed they were more at risk to overdose due to supply disruptions that made drugs more expensive, harder to get and of unknown origin. "I've been using my whole life and I've never overdosed until just a couple weeks ago," said another. The drugs are cut with everything and anything. You never really know what you're getting."

Among those who use syringes and other paraphernalia, nearly half (47 per cent) of respondents said they started re-using or sharing for the first time after COVID began due to reduced hours or COVID restrictions that decreased access to harm reduction or needle exchange programs.

One in fourteen respondents (7 per cent) indicated they had relapsed during COVID.

"One of the potential factors in relapse is all the time spent alone and isolated with all the pandemic restrictions," said survey co-author Dr. Tara Elton-Marshall, Independent Scientist at the CAMH Institute for Mental Health Policy Research. "Using alone itself was a real concern. We know that people who use alone are more likely to die of an overdose, in part because there is nobody there to administer naloxone or call emergency services."

Principal Investigator Dr. Jürgen Rehm, Senior Scientist at the CAMH Institute for Mental Health Policy Research, says that sudden disruptions in the supply of street drugs when the pandemic began were associated with an increase in overdose deaths and other harms. In British Columbia, the number of illicit drug overdose deaths increased by 72 per cent during the first four months of the pandemic between March and July 2020 compared to the year before.

Dr. Rehm believes that the unprecedented circumstances caused by COVID-19 requires unprecedented action, including changes to existing drug laws.

"We need everything from good treatment and harm reduction measures to realizing that we are in an environment where everything is different during COVID and we need different solutions. We need to consider now how to decriminalize drug use. This survey lends strong support for the need for an integrated drug policy strategy including harm reduction."

"People who use drugs feel like they have been a forgotten entity throughout the COVID crisis," said survey co-author Sean LeBlanc. "There was already an overdose crisis in Canada before COVID and it has just gotten worse since then. They are not just numbers. They are all individuals with individual stories and individual losses and individual victories."

LeBlanc, a former opioid addict who has been actively involved in drug use advocacy groups for many years in Ottawa, had a relapse himself just a few weeks after the pandemic began. He says the experience and his successful recovery emphasizes how fragile the recovery experience can be in the face the blunt force of COVID.

"These are people who are at their most vulnerable now," said LeBlanc. "I think about the people who helped me the most when I needed it. That time when someone has the possibility to change, that is sometimes very fleeting. There is so much potential that is being unrealized right now because people aren't getting the help they need when they need it. For me that's the saddest thing right now."

Leesburg, VA, April 20, 2021--An award-winning Scientific Electronic Exhibit to be presented at the ARRS 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting found non-contrast pituitary MRI for central precocious puberty (CPP), growth hormone deficiency (GHD), and short stature (SS) has similar diagnostic yield compared to the standard contrast-enhanced protocol.

"Microadenomas, a common justification for contrast administration, may not influence management in this patient population," wrote first author Jennifer Huang of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, adding "minimal inconvenience would be added for the few patients who would need to return for contrast-enhanced MRI for definitive diagnosis."

Huang and colleagues performed a retrospective review of pediatric pituitary MRI studies from 2010-2019 for CPP, GHD, or SS, then a blinded review of non-contrast images was performed by two subspecialty-trained pediatric neuroradiologists.

Analyzing data from the 448 MRIs obtained for CPP (35%), GHD (49%), or SS (16%), the mean age was 8.2 years (range, 9 months to 17 years). All 448 (100%) scans were performed with gadolinium contrast, while 226 (50%) required sedation. Of the 136 (30%) abnormal studies, there was 71% concordance (n = 97) with the original reports on the blinded review of non-contrast images. Of the 39 discrepancies, 79% (n = 31) were of no clinical significance (e.g., pars intermedia cyst), and 1 was of uncertain significance. The remaining 7 (18%) discrepancies were visible on non-contrast images but required contrast for definitive characterization. Ultimately, 5 were extrasellar masses, and 2 were pituitary stalk abnormalities.

"In a large majority of patients, the shorter non-contrast examination would provide savings in time, anesthesia, gadolinium, and associated costs," the authors of this Magna Cum Laude ARRS Annual Meeting Scientific Electronic Exhibit concluded.

Researchers have found a causal link between caesarean section birth, low intestinal microbiota and peanut sensitivity in infants, and they report the effect is more pronounced in children of Asian descent than others, in a recently published paper in the journal of the American Gastroenterological Association.

"It's important to know what predicts or increases risk of food sensitivities because they predict which infants will go on to develop asthma and other types of allergies," said Anita Kozyrskyj, pediatrics professor in the University of Alberta's Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry and adjunct professor in the School of Public Health.

The research team analysed the gut bacteria of 1,422 infants in the CHILD Cohort Study, by examining fecal samples collected at three or four months of age and again at one year. They identified four typical trajectories for bacterial development, including one in which the infants had persistently low levels of Bacteroides, a type of bacteria known to be critical to immune system development. This profile was most common in babies born by caesarean section.

The infants were given skin prick tests at one and three years of age to assess their reaction to a variety of allergens, including egg, milk and peanut. The babies with low Bacteroides levels were found to have a threefold increase in their risk of developing a peanut sensitivity by age three--and the risk was eight times higher for babies born to mothers of Asian descent.

The team did further statistical analysis to look for what are known as "mediation" or causal effects between the exposure and the outcome. "In this case we observed that there was an association between Asian ethnicity and peanut sensitivity, and then the mediation analysis provided additional evidence for the causal association with caesarean section," explained Kozyrskyj, noting it is the first study to identify this link.

The researchers also observed that the infants with low Bacteroides also had lower levels of sphingolipids, proteins which are key to cell development and signalling in many parts of the body, including the immune system. Gut microbiota are the main source of these proteins. Children who have this deficiency in their immune cells may be more likely to develop food allergies, Kozyrskyj said.

"As the gut microbiota are developing so is the gut's immune system, training the gut to react to pathogens and to be tolerant of the food that we require," she explained.

Half a million Canadian children have a food allergy, while peanut allergy affects about two in 100 and can lead to severe anaphylaxis. Babies who have food allergies are at greater risk to develop asthma, wheezing, eczema and allergic rhinitis later in life, the study authors reported.

The overall rate of allergies is increasing in western countries and is likely linked to environmental factors, said Kozyrskyj, who is principal investigator of the SyMBIOTA (Synergy in Microbiota) laboratory, which studies the impact of maternal and infant antibiotic use, birth mode and breastfeeding on the composition of the intestinal microbiota in infants.

"In China food allergies are uncommon, but those who immigrate to Canada face a higher risk and more severe form of allergic disease," she said. "It's likely related to a change in diet and environment."

The next step for the research is for the results to be replicated in other studies around the world, Kozyrskyj said. She praised her main collaborator Hein Tun, a former post-doctoral fellow at U of A who is now assistant professor of public health at the University of Hong Kong. Their research was funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, Alberta Innovates and the Allergy, Genes, and Environment (AllerGen) Network. Kozyrskyj is a member of the Women and Children's Health Research Institute. Funding partners for the CHILD Cohort Study include the Stollery Children's Hospital Foundation and the Alberta Women's Health Foundation through the Women and Children's Health Research Institute.

Previous research by Kozyrskyj and others has shown that babies born by caesarean section do not get the same beneficial transfer of microbiota from mother to child that infants born through vaginal delivery receive. Studies looking to mitigate this by giving C-section babies probiotics or even swabbing them with their mother's vaginal bacteria have not been as successful as hoped, Kozyrskyj said.

The best path is to avoid caesarean birth unless it is medically necessary. "With this evidence at hand, the parent and the obstetrician might choose a different birth mode," she said.

When disease outbreaks happen, response time in developing and distributing treatments is crucial to saving lives. Unfortunately, developing custom drugs as countermeasures is often a slow and difficult process.

But researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have created a platform that can develop effective and highly specific peptide nucleic acid therapies for use against any bacteria within just one week. The work is detailed in Nature Communications Biology and could change the way we respond to pandemics and how we approach increasing cases of antibiotic resistance globally.

The Facile Accelerated Specific Therapeutic (FAST) platform was created by Associate Professor Anushree Chatterjee and her team within the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering. It can quickly produce new antibiotics for any system or disease - from highly adaptive microbial super bugs to radiation poisoning in astronauts - that are specifically designed to selectively target just the bacteria of interest. The paper demonstrates significant growth inhibition and other positive responses in resistant bacteria such as E. coli, which are adapting to current treatments much faster than new drugs can hit the market.

Traditional drug discovery methods usually take 10 or more years and are specific to one bug or another. That is because they are based on identifying molecules from one bacteria that can then be used against other bacteria to promote human health. Unfortunately, evolution over billions of years has resulted in bacteria strains today that are increasingly resistant to this kind of approach - aided in part by recent over prescription of antibiotics by doctors. FAST, on the other hand, can be used for any bug and enables speedy identification and testing of molecules that target new mechanisms in pathogens - getting ahead of that curve.

Kristen Eller, a PhD candidate in the Chatterjee Group, is the first author on the new paper. She said the FAST system utilizes bacteria's genetic makeup to design specific and targeted antibiotics that stop their natural means of producing essential proteins, causing them to die. She added that the platform also provides a unique strategy to deliver these treatments to bacteria that are traditionally hard to target because they reside within our own host cells. To get around this, the platform essentially utilizes bacteria's natural ability to invade our own cells and manipulates it instead to be a carrier of the therapeutic.

"The applications for the real world are immense in that we have created a platform - not just a single therapeutic," she said. "It is adaptive, dynamic and can be altered to target any bacterial species that is a threat while also being modulated to develop antivirals as needed."

Recently, another paper published in PNAS showed the use of the FAST platform to create novel antibiotics against a clinical isolate of carbapenem-resistant E. coli that was found to be resistant to pretty much all antibiotics.

Chatterjee said that last aspect is particularly important as particular strains evolve, change and become more resistant over time. The goal, she said, is to rapidly create tailored treatments specific to the region in question, the person seeking treatment or even the global health situation for example.

"The technology we use to treat these kinds of health issues has to be smart enough to keep up with evolving organisms and also quick enough to respond to real-time crisis," she said. "Within this platform there are multiple steps where you can design and create new drug targets, which is really key."

Chatterjee said the platform could eventually be modified to develop antivirals for treatment of common colds, the flu and most pressingly, COVID-19. For now, her team is working on collecting more data to develop potential COVID-19 treatments and beginning to work towards clinical trials.

"We need to think out of the box when it comes to keeping up with pathogens because they are always advancing and changing," she said. "If we can establish these processes and techniques now, then we will be much better prepared next time there is a pandemic or outbreak."

A new study is the first-ever to identify the genes for creativity in Homo sapiens that distinguish modern humans from chimpanzees and Neanderthals. The research identified 267 genes that are found only in modern humans and likely play an important role in the evolution of the behavioral characteristics that set apart Homo sapiens, including creativity, self-awareness, cooperativeness, and healthy longevity. The study, led by an international and interdisciplinary team of researchers from the American Museum of Natural History and Washington University among other institutions, is published today in the journal Molecular Psychiatry.

"One of the most fundamental questions about human nature is what sparked the explosive emergence of creativity in modern humans in the period just before and after their widespread dispersal from Africa and the related extinction of Neanderthals and other human relatives," said study co-author Ian Tattersall, curator emeritus in the American Museum of Natural History's Division of Anthropology. "Major controversies persist about the basis for human creativity in art and science, as well as about potential differences in cognition, language, and personality that distinguish modern humans from extinct hominids. This new study is the result of a truly pathbreaking use of genomic methodologies to enlighten us about the mechanisms underpinning our uniqueness."

Modern humans demonstrate remarkable creativity compared to their closest living relatives, the great apes (chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutans and their immediate ancestors), including innovativeness, flexibility, depth of planning, and related cognitive abilities for symbolism and self-awareness that also enable spontaneous generation of narrative art and language. But the genetic basis for the emergence of creativity in modern humans remains a mystery, even after the recovery of full-genome data for both chimpanzees and our extinct close relatives the Neanderthals.

"It has been difficult to identify the genes that led to the emergence of human creativity before now because of the large number of changes in the human genome after it diverged from the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees around 10 million years ago, as well as uncertainty about the functions of those changes," said Robert Cloninger, a psychiatrist and geneticist at Washington University in St. Louis, and the lead author of the study. "Therefore, we began our research by first identifying the way the genes that influence modern human personality are organized into coordinated systems of learning that have allowed us to adapt flexibly and creatively to changing life conditions."

The team led by Cloninger had previously identified 972 genes that regulate gene expression for human personality, which is comprised of three nearly separate networks for learning and memory. One, for regulating emotional reactivity--emotional drives, habit learning, social attachment, conflict resolution--emerged in monkeys and apes about 40 million years ago. The second, which regulates intentional self-control--self-directedness and cooperation for mutual benefit--emerged a little less than 2 million years ago. A third one, for creative self-awareness, emerged about 100,000 years ago.

In the latest study, the researchers discovered that 267 genes from this larger group are found only in modern humans and not in chimpanzees or Neanderthals. These uniquely human genes code for the self-awareness brain network and also regulate processes that allow Homo sapiens to be creative in narrative art and science, to be more prosocial, and to live longer lives through greater resistance to aging, injury, and illness than the now-extinct hominids they replaced.

Genes regulating emotional reactivity were nearly the same in humans, Neanderthals, and chimps. And Neanderthals were about midway between chimps and Homo sapiens in their genes for self-control and self-awareness.

"We found that the adaptability and well-being of Neanderthals was about 60 to 70 percent of that of Homo sapiens, which means that the difference in fitness between them was large," Cloninger said. "After the more creative, sociable, and physically resilient Homo sapiens migrated out of Africa between 65,000 and 55,000 years ago, they displaced Neanderthals and other hominids, who all became extinct soon after 40,000 years ago."

The genes that distinguish modern humans from Neanderthals and chimpanzees are nearly all regulatory genes made of RNA, not protein-coding genes made of DNA.

"The protein-coding genes of Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and chimps are nearly all the same, and what distinguishes these species is the regulation of the expression of their protein-coding genes by the genes found only in humans," said co-author Igor Zwir, a computer scientist at Washington University School of Medicine and the University of Granada. "We found that the regulatory genes unique to modern humans were constituents of clusters together with particular protein-coding genes that are overexpressed in the human brain network for self-awareness. The self-awareness network is essential to the physical, mental, and social well-being of humans because it provides the insight to regulate our habits in accord with our goals and values."

The researchers determined that the genes unique to modern humans were selected because of advantages tied to greater creativity, prosocial behavior, and healthy longevity. Living longer, healthier lives and being more prosocial and altruistic allowed Homo sapiens to support their children, grandchildren, and others in their communities throughout their lives in diverse and sometimes harsh conditions. And being more innovative than other hominids allowed humans to adapt more flexibly to unpredictable climatic fluctuations.

"In the bigger picture, this study helps us understand how we can effectively respond to the challenges that modern humans currently face," Tattersall said. "Our behavior is not fixed or determined by our genes. Indeed, human creativity, prosociality, and healthy longevity emerged in the context of the need to adjust rapidly to harsh and diverse conditions and to communicate in large social groups."

Added co-author Coral del Val of the University of Granada, "Now, we face similar challenges to which we must also respond creatively, as we did originally. Unfortunately, when we are exposed to conditions of fear, conflict, inequity, abuse or neglect, our self-awareness is impaired, which diminishes our ability to use our potential for creativity and to achieve well-being. Learning more about the regulatory genes unique to modern humans may help us to promote human well-being as we face these new environmental and social challenges."

It has been a long pursuit to develop super-resolution imaging techniques for Raman microscopy, which has intrinsic advantages of chemical specificity over the fluorescence counterpart. Despite the perceived importance and extensive research efforts, true super-resolution (defined as diffraction-unlimited) Raman imaging of biological systems in the optical far-field remains challenging due to the deficiency in sensitivity for conventional Raman scattering. Consequently, those reported super-resolution vibrational imaging methods have to base on excitation saturating, depleting, or high-order nonlinearity of the Raman transitions. These require extremely intense laser power in order to achieve a moderate resolution improvement (often less than a factor of 2), which inhibits the utility for biological application.

In a new paper published in Light: Science & Application, a team of scientists, led by Professor Wei Min from Columbia University, USA, has developed a novel super-resolution vibrational microscopy harnessing Stimulated Raman Excited Fluorescence (SREF) as an ultrasensitive vibrational contrast. SREF couples the vibrational excitation with fluorescence detection and enables all-far-field Raman spectroscopy with sensitivity down to single-molecule. However, direct coupling of stimulated emission depletion (STED) with SREF imaging fails to achieve super-resolution imaging due to the presence of the anti-stokes fluorescence background, which cannot be depleted by the STED beam.

In this new work, the team devised a frequency-modulation (FM) strategy to remove this broadband background. By temporally modulating the excitation frequency on- and off- the targeted vibrational resonance but still within the background's broad linewidth, they can generate an intensity modulation on the pure vibrational signal (but not on the background). The background-free vibrational signal can be subsequently demodulated by a lock-in detection. Comparing with the typical raw SREF spectrum, the spectrum acquired by FM-SREF represents the pure SREF signal, which enables high-contrast background-free SREF imaging. They further synthesized new isotope-edited SREF dyes to facilitate multicolor FM-SREF biological imaging with sharp vibrational contrast. Two vibrational colors are separated by FM-SREF with minimal cross-talk, which is nearly impossible by conventional fluorescence microscopy. Such chemical specificity of vibrational imaging has unique advantages for multiplexed optical imaging.

Finally, by integrating STED with background-free FM-SREF, they accomplished high-contrast super-resolution vibrational imaging with STED-FM-SREF, whose spatial resolution is only determined by the signal-to-noise. They demonstrated more than two times resolution improvement in biological systems with moderate laser excitation power. With future optimization on the instrumentation and imaging probes, STED-FM-SREF microscopy is envisioned to aid a wide variety of biological applications, with its superb resolution, high sensitivity, unique vibrational contrast, and biocompatible excitation power.

Our guts may not provide long-lasting systemic immunity from COVID-19, which is where immune cells circulate through the body to provide protection to other organs, finds a new study published in Frontiers in Immunology. An analysis of blood samples from patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 revealed that immune cells circulating in the blood, which were triggered by the gut's response to infection, were limited in number when compared to immune cells that had been triggered elsewhere in the body.

"Although the gut is considered an important portal of entry for the virus, the immune response in the blood of COVID-19 patients is dominated by lymphocytes - cells that protect the body from infection - that have been triggered by other areas of the body," says Dr Sebastian Zundler, author of this study and research group leader at the Department of Medicine 1, University Hospital Erlangen, Germany. "Further work is needed, but these findings may have implications for oral COVID-19 vaccines."

Gut response

COVID-19 infection can enter the body via the lungs or the gut, hence the advice for social distancing and frequent handwashing. Zundler's team were keen to understand the role of the gut in providing systemic immunity to this virus.

"My lab is usually interested in immune responses linked to inflammatory bowel disease - an immune-mediated disorder. Since SARS-CoV-2 infection can occur via the intestine, we decided to transfer our knowledge to study this virus," says Zundler.

The team used a technique called flow cytometry to detect and measure the different types of immune cells that were found in the blood samples of patients currently with COVID-19, patients recovered from COVID-19 and those free of the virus.

"There is a special mechanism in the lymphoid tissue of the gut that triggers the production of an imprint marker called "a4b7 integrin". This marker causes T cells to head towards the gut to fight infection. We can use this marker to identify whether there are lymphocytes circulating in the blood that were triggered by the gut's immune response," explains Dr Tanja Müller, lead author of this study, also based at the University Hospital Erlangen.

She continues, "We found relatively few immune cells with this marker in the blood of patients with COVID-19. This could be because of the "dilution" by cells generated at other sites of infection - most probably the lung - or alternatively by the selective attraction of these gut-imprinted immune cells to organs other than the gut, since there was no difference between patients with and without symptoms that suggested an intestinal element to their infection."

Implications for an oral vaccine

The researchers speculate that if the gut-imprinted immune cells are diluted in comparison to immune cells triggered by other parts of the body, there could be implications for the oral-based COVID-19 vaccines currently under development.

"If there are relatively few gut-imprinted immune cells, exposing the intestinal immune system with a SARS-CoV-2 vaccination might not result in substantial circulating immunity and therefore the cross-protection of other organs against the virus," says Müller.

Zundler stresses that further research is needed to understand the significance of their findings.

"Our study adds to our understanding of the human immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection, but we cannot yet finally answer the question about the fate of the gut-imprinted immune cells - whether they are "diluted" or "attracted" elsewhere. Assessing biopsy samples from the gut and autopsy samples from the lungs will help us to answer this important question."

Philadelphia, April 20, 2021 - American artisan cheese has become increasingly popular over the past few decades. Understanding spoilage concerns and the financial consequences of defects can improve quality, profitability, and sustainability in the American artisan cheesemaking industry. In an article appearing in the Journal of Dairy Science®, scientists from Tufts University took the pulse of artisan cheese producers in the United States through an industry survey.

The authors of this study provide a snapshot of the artisanal cheesemaking community indicating that many (71 percent) are concerned about undesirable surface molds and incorrect or unexpected colors or pigments on rinds (54 percent). Of the 61 cheesemakers surveyed, 18 percent were very concerned about quality and spoilage problems, 39 percent said that their quality standards are not met annually, and 33 percent said their quality standards are not met monthly.

"The growing US cheesemaking industry will require additional resources moving forward that address not only safety but also quality and spoilage concerns," said first author Megan Biango-Daniels, PhD, Biology Department, Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA. "One interesting observation from our data is that cheesemakers, as a group, are unsure about how widespread quality issues are but strongly agree that additional resources to help address quality issues would benefit them personally."

Although 62 percent of survey respondents reported that only between zero and five percent of their product was lost or made less valuable due to quality issues annually, seven percent of cheesemakers had losses of over 20 percent of their product. Nearly all respondents agreed that better quality of their products would lessen waste, boost profits, and enhance production. In answer to open-ended questions, those surveyed said that they would like to have access to additional online resources addressing quality topics and to digital forums to collaborate with experts and peers when problems emerge.

Dr. Biango-Daniels added, "Regardless of what these future resources will look like, it's important that cheesemakers budget for professional development, organizational membership, and continuing education (training online or in-person) in their business plans so that they can afford to invest in the resources that enable production of safe, high-quality cheese."

The study suggests that addressing the concerns of cheesemakers will remain challenging because of resource and tool development barriers, the relatively few scientists who specialize in these subjects, and the limited funding sources available for this type of research.

Flushing a toilet can generate large quantities of microbe-containing aerosols depending on the design, water pressure or flushing power of the toilet. A variety of pathogens are usually found in stagnant water as well as in urine, feces and vomit. When dispersed widely through aerosolization, these pathogens can cause Ebola, norovirus that results in violent food poisoning, as well as COVID-19 caused by SARS-CoV-2.

Respiratory droplets are the most prominent source of transmission for COVID-19, however, alternative routes may exist given the discovery of small numbers of viable viruses in urine and stool samples. Public restrooms are especially cause for concern for transmitting COVID-19 because they are relatively confined, experience heavy foot traffic and may not have adequate ventilation.

A team of scientists from Florida Atlantic University's College of Engineering and Computer Science once again put physics of fluids to the test to investigate droplets generated from flushing a toilet and a urinal in a public restroom under normal ventilation conditions. To measure the droplets, they used a particle counter placed at various heights of the toilet and urinal to capture the size and number of droplets generated upon flushing.

Results of the study, published in the journal Physics of Fluids, demonstrate how public restrooms could serve as hotbeds for airborne disease transmission, especially if they do not have adequate ventilation or if toilets do not have a lid or cover. Most public restrooms in the United States often are not equipped with toilet seat lids and urinals are not covered.

For the study, researchers obtained data from three different scenarios: toilet flushing; covered toilet flushing and urinal flushing. They examined the data to determine the increase in aerosol concentration, the behavior of droplets of different sizes, how high the droplets rose, and the impact of covering the toilet. Ambient aerosol levels were measured before and after conducting the experiments.

"After about three hours of tests involving more than 100 flushes, we found a substantial increase in the measured aerosol levels in the ambient environment with the total number of droplets generated in each flushing test ranging up to the tens of thousands," said Siddhartha Verma, Ph.D., co-author and an assistant professor in FAU's Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering. "Both the toilet and urinal generated large quantities of droplets smaller than 3 micrometers in size, posing a significant transmission risk if they contain infectious microorganisms. Due to their small size, these droplets can remain suspended for a long time."

The droplets were detected at heights of up to 5 feet for 20 seconds or longer after initiating the flush. Researchers detected a smaller number of droplets in the air when the toilet was flushed with a closed lid, although not by much, suggesting that aerosolized droplets escaped through small gaps between the cover and the seat.

"The significant accumulation of flush-generated aerosolized droplets over time suggests that the ventilation system was not effective in removing them from the enclosed space even though there was no perceptible lack of airflow within the restroom," said Masoud Jahandar Lashaki, Ph.D., co-author and an assistant professor in FAU's Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatics Engineering. "Over the long-term, these aerosols could rise up with updrafts created by the ventilation system or by people moving around in the restroom."

There was a 69.5 percent increase in measured levels for particles sized 0.3 to 0.5 micrometers, a 209 percent increase for particles sized 0.5 to 1 micrometers, and a 50 percent increase for particles sized 1 to 3 micrometers. Apart from the smallest aerosols, comparatively larger aerosols also pose a risk in poorly ventilated areas even though they experience stronger gravitational settling. They often undergo rapid evaporation in the ambient environment and the resulting decreases in size and mass, or the eventual formation of droplet nuclei, can allow microbes to remain suspended for several hours.

"The study suggests that incorporation of adequate ventilation in the design and operation of public spaces would help prevent aerosol accumulation in high occupancy areas such as public restrooms," said Manhar Dhanak, Ph.D., co-author, chair of FAU's Department of Ocean and Mechanical Engineering, and professor and director of SeaTech. "The good news is that it may not always be necessary to overhaul the entire system, since most buildings are designed to certain codes. It might just be a matter of redirecting the airflow based on the restroom's layout."

During the 300-second sampling, the toilet and urinal were flushed manually five different times at the 30-, 90-, 150-, 210-, and 270-second mark, with the flushing handle held down for five consecutive seconds. The restroom was deep cleaned and closed 24 hours prior to conducting the experiments, with the ventilation system operating normally. The temperature and relative humidity within the restroom were 21 degrees Celsius (69.8 degrees Fahrenheit) and 52 percent, respectively.

"Aerosolized droplets play a central role in the transmission of various infectious diseases including COVID-19, and this latest research by our team of scientists provides additional evidence to support the risk of infection transmission in confined and poorly ventilated spaces," said Stella Batalama, Ph.D., dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science.

Embargoed press materials are now available for the virtual Experimental Biology (EB) 2021 meeting, featuring cutting-edge multidisciplinary research from across the life sciences. EB 2021, to be held April 27-30, is the annual meeting of five scientific societies bringing together thousands of scientists and 25 guest societies in one interdisciplinary community.

Complete a Press Registration Form for complimentary meeting registration and full access to our virtual newsroom. We encourage advance registration as it may take up to a day to receive access.

Join Our Virtual Press Conference

Reporters are invited to join a live Q&A discussion of selected research announcements during a virtual EB press conference held online from 1-1:45 p.m. EDT on Monday, April 26, 2021 (RSVP by Friday, April 23). The press conference will feature the following five research highlights:

Taking Vitamin D Could Lower Heart Disease Risk for People with Dark Skin

Racial disparities in heart disease may be linked to vitamin D deficiency

Could Heart Medications Increase COVID-19 Risk?

Mouse study takes tissue-specific look at how blood pressure medications affect SARS-CoV-2 receptors

How Did Dinosaurs Deliver Bone-Crushing Bites? By Keeping a Stiff Lower Jaw.

New research addresses longstanding mystery on the anatomy of the Tyrannosaurus rex jaw

Cell Study Suggests Pesticide Exposure May Increase COVID-19 Susceptibility

Inflammation-induced mechanism might be linked with higher infection risk for veterans and people with metabolic disorders

Researchers Work to Increase Number of Transplantable Livers

New findings lay groundwork for turning previously unusable donor livers into transplantable organs

Additional Press Materials

Find these materials and more at our virtual newsroom:

New COVID-19 Research

Gene Changes Might Explain Long-Haul COVID-19 Symptoms

Airway cells exposed to SARS-CoV-2 spike protein exhibited persisting changes in gene expression

SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Alone May Cause Lung Damage

New mouse model makes it easier and safer to study COVID-19 lung injury

Study Illuminates How COVID-19 Worms Its Way into the Brain

Research helps explain baffling neurological symptoms--and why they're so unpredictable

Five New Insights in the Fight Against COVID-19

Researchers announce new findings on treatments, health impacts and repercussions for science education

Researchers Design Sensor for Fast, Inexpensive On-Site Ebola Detection

Sensor technology requires no special storage; could also be useful for detecting COVID-19

Urine of COVID-19 Patients Could Predict Who Will Develop Severe Disease

Inflammatory markers were higher in people with high blood pressure and diabetes

Our Natural World

Could Corals Use Sound to Communicate?

New evidence suggests corals may have genes involved in receiving or emitting sound

How Does a Nose Evolve into a Blowhole? Study Suggests There's More than One Way

Toothed and baleen whales show different patterns of blowhole development

Brain Development Is Surprisingly Similar between Humans and Other Primates

Study offers first comprehensive view of brain maturation across species

Staying Healthy

'Smart Shirt' Takes a Trip to Space for Science

High-tech shirt non-intrusively monitors astronauts' health during spaceflight

Why Older People Should Chill When It's Hot Out

Cooling off during extreme heat appears to help preserve cellular defenses

Researchers Uncover Potential New Way to Treat Dry Mouth

PDE4 inhibition induces salivation in mice; findings might also have implications for cystic fibrosis

Compound Found in Some Vegetables May Reduce Diabetes-Related Kidney Damage

Phenethyl isothiocyanate, derived from watercress and other cruciferous vegetables, shows benefits in rats

Omega-3 Supplements Help Kids with High Cholesterol Improve Lipid Profile

Fatty acid supplementation could fend off later heart disease in high-risk children

Prolonged Exposure to Extreme Heat and Humidity Increases Risk of Acute Kidney Injury

Findings could help future treatment and prevention measures

Heart Health

Depression Medication Could Also Protect Against Heart Disease

Researchers show antidepression drug also protects against clot formation in human blood

Potential Advancements in Treatment of PTSD and PTSD-related Cardiovascular Disease

Researchers explore renin-angiotensin system gene function for memory processing

Treating Cancer

Capsaicin Analog Could Help Treatment-Resistant Lung Cancer

Small cell lung cancer cells exposed to synthetic analog of chili pepper compound responded better to chemotherapy

Plant Compound Shows Promise Against Triple-Negative Breast Cancer

Cells from women with African American ancestry responded more strongly to the compound

Exercise Science

Got 10 Minutes? That's All You Need for this High-intensity Workout

Four-second cycling sprints improve exercise endurance and power

Dab on Deep Heat Cream to Improve Exercise Performance

Study finds boost in aerobic performance in athletes who used over-the-counter deep heat cream

Environmental Exposures

Five Studies Point to Dangers of Environmental Exposures

New research highlights surprising effects of invisible and often involuntary exposures

Exposure to Roundup® Extends Seizure-like Behavior in Roundworms

Findings have implications for human and environmental health

Other Medical News

Toward a Feasible Alternative to Liver Organ Transplant

New findings could lead to ways to keep transplanted adult liver cells functioning long term

Rapamycin May Exacerbate Age-related Arthritis Despite Life-extending Benefits

Rapamycin impairs mitochondrial function in guinea pig model

Using Big Data to Save Babies

Machine learning could detect lung disorder in preemies better than traditional diagnostics

Light Therapy Helps Veterans Treated for Traumatic Brain Injury

Lightbox improves cognitive function and mood in veterans with TBI, pilot study finds

Self-reported Daytime Sleepiness Is Associated with Telomere Shortening

Shorter telomere length was found in people without sleep apnea

Diabetes Drug Could Protect Against Dangerous Infection

Metformin inhibited C. diff spread in three study models

Contact: media@experimentalbiology.org

EB host societies are the American Association for Anatomy, American Physiological Society, American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, American Society for Investigative Pathology and American Society for Pharmacology & Experimental Therapeutics.

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A biomimicking "spiking" neural network on a microchip has enabled KAUST researchers to lay the foundation for developing more efficient hardware-based artificial intelligence computing systems.

Artificial intelligence technology is developing rapidly, with an explosion of new applications across advanced automation, data mining and interpretation, healthcare and marketing, to name a few. Such systems are based on a mathematical artificial neural network (ANN) composed of layers of decision-making nodes. Labeled data is first fed into the system to "train" the model to respond a certain way, then the decision-making rules are locked in and the model is put into service on standard computing hardware.

While this method works, it is a clunky approximation of the far more complex, powerful and efficient neural network that actually makes up our brains.

"An ANN is an abstract mathematic model that bears little resemblance to real nervous systems and requires intensive computing power," says Wenzhe Guo, a Ph.D. student in the research team. "A spiking neural network, on the other hand, is constructed and works in the same way as the biological nervous system and can process information in a faster and more energy-efficient way."

Spiking neural networks (SNNs) emulate the structure of the nervous system as a network of synapses that transmit information via ion channels in the form of action potential, or spikes, as they occur. This event-driven behavior, implemented mathematically as a "leaky integrate-and-fire model," makes SNNs very energy efficient. Plus, the structure of interconnected nodes provides a high degree of parallelization, which further boosts processing power and efficiency. It also lends itself to implementation directly in computing hardware as a neuromorphic chip.

"We used a standard low-cost FPGA microchip and implemented a spike-timing-dependent plasticity model, which is a biological learning rule discovered in our brain," says Guo.

Importantly, this biological model does not need teaching signals or labels, allowing the neuromorphic computing system to learn real-world data patterns without training.

"Since SNN models are very complex, our main challenge was to tailor the neural network settings for optimal performance," says Guo. "We then designed the optimal hardware architecture considering a balance of cost, speed and energy consumption."

The team's brain-on-a-chip proved to be more than 20 times faster and 200 times more energy efficient than other neural network platforms.

"Our ultimate goal is to build a compact, fast and low-energy brain-like hardware computing system. The next step is to improve the design and optimize product packaging, miniaturize the chip and customize it for various industrial applications through collaboration," Guo says.

LA JOLLA, CALIF. - April 20, 2021 Scientists at Sanford Burnham Prebys have identified, at an atomic level, how a part of a protein called PLEKHA7 interacts with a cell's membrane to regulate important intercellular communications. The research, published in the journal Structure, points to hotspots within PLEKHA7 as targets for drugs. These targets could be key in designing treatments for advanced colon, breast and ovarian cancers.

The region, or domain, in PLEKHA7 that the researchers examined, pleckstrin homology (PH), is commonly found in proteins that regulate the movement of cells as well as other important cellular activities. If the interaction between the PH domain and the lipids that comprise cell membranes is disrupted, diseases such as cancer can occur.

"PH domains have been studied for some time but examining their interactions with membrane-associated lipids has been challenging," says Francesca M. Marassi, Ph.D., professor and director of the Cell and Molecular Biology of Cancer Program at Sanford Burnham Prebys and corresponding author of the study. "We optimized our structural investigations by using an artificial membrane disc several nanometers in size. This nanodisc is a 'substitute' cell membrane and has been an important tool in overcoming obstacles in studying structural aspects of fatty interfaces, such as those involving lipids."

The investigators used several techniques to detail the precise areas where the PH domain interacted with lipids in a cell's membrane. Each of the three techniques was equally important: X-ray crystallography provided a snapshot of the structure; magnetic resonance showed the precise association of the PH domain with the lipid membrane surface; and computer simulations put all of this information together to generate a dynamic movie of the interaction.

"We were able to determine that the PH domain interacts with the cellular membrane at several locations simultaneously, thereby demonstrating the key role of the membrane as a platform for directing cell signaling and adhesion," says Marassi. "We found at least three sites along the PH domain that are engaged in binding lipids. Having multiple sites is crucial, because if you think of the PH binding sites as a zipper between proteins and lipids, each additional notch engaged by a zipper makes the binding stronger and more resistant to being pulled apart."

One of the reasons the scientists were interested in exploring PLEKHA7 was that the protein has recently been identified as a potential anti-cancer target. However, its molecular mechanism of action has been uncertain. Additionally, the researchers were interested in the PH domain because it has been implicated in advanced breast, renal and ovarian cancers and, most prominently, plays an important role in colorectal cancer.

"Clinicians have shown that PLEKHA7 is elevated in patients with colorectal cancer, and its levels increase as the disease worsens. It has also been shown that inhibiting PLEKHA7 decreases cellular proliferation and migration," says Marassi. "Therefore, the PLEKHA7 PH domain might be a useful drug target, but more work is needed to develop agents with greater potency and optimized pharmacological properties."

As a next step, the scientists hope to share their structural images with colleagues in other labs at Sanford Burnham Prebys, and elsewhere, to screen for drugs that target the PH domain and lipid membrane binding sites.

A long-awaited, high-tech analysis of the upper body of famed fossil "Little Foot" opens a window to a pivotal period when human ancestors diverged from apes, new USC research shows.

Little Foot's shoulder assembly proved key to interpreting an early branch of the human evolutionary tree. Scientists at the Keck School of Medicine of USC focused on its so-called pectoral girdle, which includes collarbones, shoulder blades and joints.

Although other parts of Little Foot, especially its legs, show humanlike traits for upright walking, the shoulder components are clearly apelike, supporting arms surprisingly well suited for suspending from branches or shimmying up and down trees rather than throwing a projectile or dangling astride the torso like humans.

The Little Foot fossil provides the best evidence yet of how human ancestors used their arms more than 3 million years ago, said Kristian J. Carlson, lead author of the study and associate professor of clinical integrative anatomical sciences at the Keck School of Medicine.

"Little Foot is the Rosetta stone for early human ancestors," he said. "When we compare the shoulder assembly with living humans and apes, it shows that Little Foot's shoulder was probably a good model of the shoulder of the common ancestor of humans and other African apes like chimpanzees and gorillas."

The apelike characteristics will likely attract considerable intrigue as science teams around the world have been examining different parts of the skeleton to find clues to human origins. The USC-led study, which also involved researchers at the University of Wisconsin, the University of Liverpool and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, among others, was published today in the Journal of Human Evolution.

The journal devoted a special issue to Little Foot analyses from a global research group, which looked at other parts of the creature's skeleton. The process is somewhat akin to the story of blind men and the elephant, each examining one part in coordination with others to explain the whole of something that's not fully understood.

The Little Foot fossil is a rare specimen because it's a near-complete skeleton of an Australopithecus individual much older than most other human ancestors. The creature, probably an old female, stood about 4 feet tall with long legs suitable for bipedal motion when it lived some 3.67 million years ago. Called "Little Foot" because the first bones recovered consisted of a few small foot bones, the remains were discovered in a cave in South Africa in the 1990s. Researchers have spent years excavating it from its rock encasement and subjecting it to high-tech analysis.

While not as widely known as the Lucy skeleton, another Australopithecus individual unearthed in East Africa in the 1970s, Carlson said Little Foot is older and more complete.

The USC-led research team zeroed in on the shoulder assemblies because Little Foot provides the oldest and most intact example of this anatomy ever found. Those bones provide telltale clues of how an animal moves. In human evolution, he said, these parts had to change form before our ancestors could live life free of trees, walk the open savannah and use their arms for functions other than supporting the weight of the individual.

The scientists compared the creature's shoulder parts to apes, hominins and humans. Little Foot was a creature adapted to living in trees because the pectoral girdle suggests a creature that climbed trees, hung below branches and used its hands overhead to support its weight.

For example, the scapula, or shoulder blade, has a big, high ridge to attach heavy muscles similar to gorillas and chimpanzees. The shoulder joint, where the humerus connects, sits at an oblique angle, useful for stabilizing the body and lessening tensile loads on shoulder ligaments when an ape hangs beneath branches. The shoulder also has a sturdy, apelike reinforcing structure, the ventral bar. And the collarbone has a distinctive S-shaped curve commonly found in apes.

Those conclusions mean that the structural similarities in the shoulder between humans and African apes are much more recent, and persisted much longer, than has been proposed, Carlson said.

"We see incontrovertible evidence in Little Foot that the arm of our ancestors at 3.67 million years ago was still being used to bear substantial weight during arboreal movements in trees for climbing or hanging beneath branches," he said. "In fact, based on comparisons with living humans and apes, we propose that the shoulder morphology and function of Little Foot is a good model for that of the common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees 7 million to 8 million years ago."

The scientists were able to achieve remarkably clear images of the fossils. That's because the bones, painstakingly excavated for many years, are in good condition and uniquely complete. The scientists examined them using micro-CT scans, which can detect minute features on the surface of an object, peer deep inside a bone, measure the density of an object and generate a 3D model without harming the fossil.