Culture

Plastics in the ocean can release chemicals that cause deformities in sea urchin larvae, new research shows.

Scientists soaked various plastic samples in seawater then removed the plastic and raised sea urchin embryos in the water.

The study, led by the University of Exeter, found that urchins developed a variety of abnormalities, including deformed skeletons and nervous systems.

These abnormalities were caused by chemicals embedded in the plastics leaching out into the water, rather than the plastics themselves.

The plastic-to-water ratio in the study would only be seen in severely polluted places, but the findings raise questions about the wider impact of plastic contaminants on marine life.

"We are learning more and more about how ingesting plastic affects marine animals," said Flora Rendell-Bhatti, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

"However, little is known about the effects of exposure to chemicals that leach into the water from plastic particles.

"This study provides evidence that contamination of the marine environment with plastic could have direct implications for the development of larvae, with potential impacts on wider ecosystems.

"Our work contributes to the growing evidence that we all need to help reduce the amount of plastic contamination released into our natural environment, to ensure healthy and productive ecosystems for future generations."

Dr Eva Jimenez-Guri, also of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation, added: "Many plastics are treated with chemicals for a variety of purposes, such as making them mouldable or flame retardant.

"If such plastics find their way to the oceans, these chemicals can leach out into the water.

"Plastics can also pick up and transport chemicals and other environmental contaminants, potentially spreading them through the oceans."

The study used pre-production "nurdles" (pellets from which most plastics are made) from a UK supplier, and also tested nurdles and "floating filters" (used in water treatment) found on beaches in Cornwall, UK.

For the tests, each plastic type was soaked in seawater for 72 hours, then the plastic was removed.

Analysis of the water showed all samples contained chemicals known to be detrimental to development of animals, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and polychlorinated biphenyls.

Water from the different kinds of plastic affected urchin development in slightly different ways, though all sample types led to deformity of skeletons and nervous systems, and caused problems with gastrulation (when embryos begin to take shape).

The study also raised urchin embryos in water that had contained "virgin" polyethylene particles that had not been treated with additive chemicals or collected any environmental pollutants.

These urchins developed normally, suggesting that abnormalities observed in other samples were caused by industrial additives and/or environmentally adsorbed contaminants - rather than the base plastics themselves.

Nurdles and floating filters are not waste products, so they are not deliberately discarded, but the study highlights the importance of preventing their accidental release.

The researchers say most plastics may have similar effects as those in the study, so the findings emphasise the importance of finding alternatives to replace harmful additives, and reducing overall marine plastic pollution.

A major review of palliative care services around the world has highlighted huge inconsistencies in provision, with patients in some countries receiving a fraction of the support provided elsewhere.

More than 11 million cases have been reviewed at the University of Leeds' Academic Unit of Palliative Care, which found length of care for people with life limiting and terminal conditions varies acutely across different countries - and within the countries themselves.

The researchers found:

In the UK, cancer patients are referred to palliative care earlier than patients with other life limiting conditions, despite the need being the same among both groups

In the United States, patients receive on average 10 days' fewer palliative care than in non-US countries

The shortest average duration of care was six days in Australia, while the longest was 69 days in Canada

Palliative care is internationally defined as 'the active holistic care of individuals across all ages with serious health-related suffering due to severe illness and especially of those near the end of life. It aims to improve the quality of life of patients, their families and their caregivers'. Its function is to support patients and their families with needs that arise during a serious illness, months or potentially years before death.

It has been found to be most effective if introduced at least three to four months before a patient's death, when it can improve their quality of life and reduce financial costs.

But previous studies carried out into the duration of palliative care in countries around the world revealed a wide variation in length of care.

The multi-disciplinary research team led by Leeds conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis of 169 studies from 23 countries, involving 11,996,479 patients.

They found the global average length of care from initiation to the patient's death was 18.9 days. When US data was removed, the average length increased to 29 days.

Cancer patients received care for an average of 15 days, but non-cancer patients received only six days' care.

Duration of care also varied depending on the location, from 19 days in a specialist palliative care unit; 20 at home or in the community, and six days on a general hospital ward.

And countries with very high levels of development provided on average 18.91 days of care, compared with 43 days for countries at all other levels of development.

Dr Matthew Allsop, University Academic Fellow from the Leeds Institute of Health Sciences, who co-authored the paper, said: "This study highlights a major challenge to human health worldwide.

"Our work highlights a stark shortfall in the duration of palliative care being provided internationally, with clear variation reported across countries. There is no data from low- and middle-income countries to understand at what point patients are accessing care before death - it is in these countries that provision of palliative care is most lacking.

"Increased funding is essential to develop capacity, but so too is research - to determine when people are accessing palliative care and how existing services can be improved."

The work included researchers from Hull York Medical School, and the Department of Public Health and Primary Care, Ghent University, Belgium. It was supported by National Institute for Health Research infrastructure at Leeds.

Nine UK studies were included in the analysis, covering 50,021 patients. Care lasts on average 48 days in the UK, but this varies depending on the setting. Specialist palliative care lasts nine days, whereas in the community or at home the duration is 41 days.

Some 85% of studies covering 97% of participants were from the USA, with three studies featuring more than one million participants each. Sub analysis of this data was performed, comparing it with non-US countries. The researchers found the average length of care in the US was 18.9 days - but 10 days fewer than outside it.

The report suggests this could be explained by USA models of care that restrict hospice care to patients with prognoses of fewer than six months, and have financial implications for patients.

Meanwhile, in middle income countries, the duration of palliative care was often much longer. In Brazil, the average duration was 190 days; Egypt was 66 days and Thailand 33 days. The data came from smaller samples and further research is needed to understand these findings.

Dr Allsop said: "Death affects us all. The global burden of serious health-related suffering requiring palliative care is projected to almost double by 2060 - most people either receive no palliative care, or not the amount necessary to achieve maximum benefit.

"There is a clear and significant gap between current and ideal practice, which impacts on the benefit of palliative care for patients and health care services.

"Globally palliative care needs to be highlighted as an essential component of healthcare with efforts needed to increase capacity and access to support for patients and their families."

Esports players are up to 21 per cent healthier weight than the general population, hardly smoke and drink less too, finds a new QUT (Queensland University of Technology) study.

The findings, published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, were based on 1400 survey participants from 65 countries.

First study to investigate the BMI (Body Mass Index) status of a global sample of esports players.

Esports players were between 9 and 21 per cent more likely to be a healthy weight than the general population.

Esports players drank and smoked less than the general population.

The top 10 per cent of esports players were significantly more physically active than lower level players, showing that physical activity could influence esports expertise.

QUT eSports researcher Michael Trotter said the results were surprising considering global obesity levels.

"The findings challenge the stereotype of the morbidly obese gamer," he said.

Mr Trotter said the animated satire South Park poked fun at the unfit gamer but the link between video gaming and obesity had not been strongly established.

"When you think of esports, there are often concerns raised regarding sedentary behaviour and poor health as a result, and the study revealed some interesting and mixed results," he said.

"As part of their training regime, elite esports athletes spend more than an hour per day engaging in physical exercise as a strategy to enhance gameplay and manage stress," he said.

The World Health Organisation guidelines for time that should be spent being physically active weekly is a minimum of 150 minutes.

"Only top-level players surveyed met physical activity guidelines, with the best players exercising on average four days a week," the PhD student said.

However, the study found 4.03 per cent of esports players were more likely to be morbidly obese compared to the global population.

Mr Trotter said strategies should be developed to support players classed at the higher end of BMI categories.

"Exercise and physical activity play a role in success in esports and should be a focus for players and organisations training esports players," Mr Trotter said.

"This will mean that in the future, young gamers will have more reason and motivation to be physically active.

"Grassroots esports pathways, such as growing university and high school esports are likely to be the best place for young esports players to develop good health habits for gamers."

The research also found esports players are 7.8 per cent more likely to abstain from drinking daily, and of those players that do drink, only 0.5 per cent reported drinking daily.

The survey showed only 3.7 per cent of esports players smoked daily, with player smoking frequency lower compared to global data at 18.7 per cent.

Future research will investigate how high-school and university esports programs can improve health outcomes and increase physical activity for gaming students.

Of course, there is no weather in our sense of the word in space - nevertheless, soil can also "weather" in the vacuum of space if it is constantly bombarded by high-energy particles, such as those emitted by the sun. The Martian moon Phobos is affected by a special situation: it is so close to Mars that not only the solar wind but also the irradiation by particles from Mars plays a decisive role there. A research team from TU Wien has now been able to measure this in laboratory experiments. In just a few years, a Japanese space mission will take soil samples from Phobos and bring them back to Earth.

Billions of years of particle irradiation

"There are different theories of how the Mars moon Phobos could have formed", says Paul Szabo, who is working on his PhD thesis in the research group of Prof. Friedrich Aumayr at the Institute of Applied Physics at TU Wien. "It is possible that Phobos was originally an asteroid that was then captured by Mars, but it could also have been created by a collision of Mars with another large object."

When investigating such celestial bodies, one must always bear in mind that their surfaces have been completely changed over billions of years by cosmic particle bombardment. The surface of the Earth remains unaffected by this, because our atmosphere shields the particles. However, the geology of celestial bodies without atmospheres, such as our Moon or Phobos, can only be understood if it is possible to correctly assess "space weathering".

Therefore, elaborate experiments were conducted at TU Wien: "We used a mineral like it is found on Phobos and bombarded it in vacuum chambers with different charged particles," explains Paul Szabo. "Using an extremely precise balance, we can measure how much material is removed in the process and how much each particle affects the surface.

The special properties of the moon Phobos must be taken into account: Its distance from the surface of Mars is less than 6000 km - not even two percent of the distance between our Moon and the Earth. Just like our Moon, it is in a tidally locked rotation around its planet: The same side always faces Mars.

"Because of the extremely small distance between Mars and Phobos, not only particles emitted from the Sun play a role on the surface of Phobos, but also particles from Mars," says Paul Szabo. The Martian atmosphere consists mainly of carbon dioxide. But in the outer regions of the atmosphere there are also larger amounts of oxygen. When particles from the solar wind penetrate there, oxygen ions can be created, which then hit Phobos at high speed and change the surface material.

Data for 2024 space mission

"With our measuring methods we were able to estimate the erosion of Phobos much more accurately than was previously possible," says Friedrich Aumayr. "Our results show that the effect of oxygen ions from the Martian atmosphere cannot be neglected. It is also important to distinguish between the two sides of Phobos: While the solar wind causes the weathering on the side facing away from Mars, the bombardment from the Martian atmosphere dominates on the other side, when the Sun is shielded from Mars.

These considerations could soon play an important role in the evaluation of real Phobos samples: As early as 2024, a spacecraft is meant to reach Phobos as part of the Japanese space mission MMX (Martian Moon eXploration) and bring soil samples back to Earth.

New research involving the University of East Anglia (UEA) shows how conservation polices can avoid having unintended consequences for local ecosystems and people.

The study investigates the closure of a marine area in the western Pacific Ocean to fishing and the possible impact on offshore fish supply chains and nearshore ecosystems. The landmark Palau National Marine Sanctuary (PNMS) came into force in January and protects 80 per cent of Palau's waters, making it one of the largest marine protected areas in the world.

The research, conducted by scientists at the Stanford Center for Ocean Solutions (COS) and University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, with partners in Palau and economists in Italy and the UK,
shows that the PNMS policies which restrict industrial offshore fishing could drive up offshore fish prices and, in turn, increase tourists' consumption of reef fish.

However, the results also highlight how food branding provides economic opportunities - if tourists are offered a local and sustainable offshore fish choice, this unintended environmental impact on nearshore reef ecosystems can be avoided.

Published in the journal Nature Food, the study is part of ongoing efforts to investigate how the PNMS can help Palauans conserve biodiversity and ensure future food security.

As other nations look to meet international protected area agreements and conservation
goals, studies that analyze socioeconomic trade-offs for food systems will become
increasingly important for designing effective and sustainable protected areas, as well as
sound conservation policies.

"Our study highlights why actions to protect nature need to consider impacts to local food supply and how food branding could curtail these impacts," explained lead author Dr Staci Lewis at COS. "The establishment of a sustainable brand of offshore fish could minimize the [PNMS's] unintended impacts to reef fish consumption as well as generate economic opportunities for local fishers."

The research team surveyed more than 400 tourists in Palau to understand how conservation policies might impact tourists' behaviour and food preferences. In particular, they explored how food systems respond to conservation policies, yet also create potential win-win solutions benefiting local economies and reef ecosystems.

Co-author Dr Silvia Ferrini, from UEA's School of Environmental Sciences, said: "This research brings under scrutiny the challenges of conservation policies. Local decision makers, scientists and economists worked together to broaden our understanding of conservation policies and design solutions to overcome unintended consequences.

"The moral is that the protection of natural resources commands a systematic analysis of the three pillars of sustainability: environment, economic and society. We anticipate that other conservation policies, for example the Fisheries Act 2020, might experience negative effects, and so timely and collaborating research is vital."

According to this study, tourists are willing to pay up to $15 more for a local, sustainable offshore fish meal. By offering tourists this choice, their demand for reef fish meals would not increase, avoiding environmental impacts to cultural and ecologically important Palauan reef systems.

One of the study's Palauan researchers, Lincy Marino from Palau International Coral Reef Center, said the research was important for Palau: "We Palauans rely on our natural resources, not just for food, but for our culture and traditions. This paper provides important information to our leaders so they can create policies that ensure the PNMS will benefit all of us."

Using post-mortem tissue samples, a team of researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin have studied the mechanisms by which the novel coronavirus can reach the brains of patients with COVID-19, and how the immune system responds to the virus once it does. The results, which show that SARS-CoV-2 enters the brain via nerve cells in the olfactory mucosa, have been published in Nature Neuroscience*. For the first time, researchers have been able to produce electron microscope images of intact coronavirus particles inside the olfactory mucosa.

It is now recognized that COVID-19 is not a purely respiratory disease. In addition to affecting the lungs, SARS-CoV-2 can impact the cardiovascular system, the gastrointestinal tract and the central nervous system. More than one in three people with COVID-19 report neurological symptoms such as loss of, or change in, their sense of smell or taste, headaches, fatigue, dizziness, and nausea. In some patients, the disease can even result in stroke or other serious conditions. Until now, researchers had suspected that these manifestations must be caused by the virus entering and infecting specific cells in the brain. But how does SARS-CoV-2 get there? Under the joint leadership of Dr. Helena Radbruch of Charité's Department of Neuropathology and the Department's Director, Prof. Dr. Frank Heppner, a multidisciplinary team of researchers has now traced how the virus enters the central nervous system and subsequently invades the brain.

As part of this research, experts from the fields of neuropathology, pathology, forensic medicine, virology and clinical care studied tissue samples from 33 patients (average age 72) who had died at either Charité or the University Medical Center Göttingen after contracting COVID-19. Using the latest technology, the researchers analyzed samples taken from the deceased patients' olfactory mucosa and from four different brain regions. Both the tissue samples and distinct cells were tested for SARS-CoV-2 genetic material and a 'spike protein' which is found on the surface of the virus. The team provided evidence of the virus in different neuroanatomical structures which connect the eyes, mouth and nose with the brain stem. The olfactory mucosa revealed the highest viral load. Using special tissue stains, the researchers were able to produce the first-ever electron microscopy images of intact coronavirus particles within the olfactory mucosa. These were found both inside nerve cells and in the processes extending from nearby supporting (epithelial) cells. All samples used in this type of image-based analysis must be of the highest possible quality. To guarantee this was the case, the researchers ensured that all clinical and pathological processes were closely aligned and supported by a sophisticated infrastructure.

"These data support the notion that SARS-CoV-2 is able to use the olfactory mucosa as a port of entry into the brain," says Prof. Heppner. This is also supported by the close anatomical proximity of mucosal cells, blood vessels and nerve cells in the area. "Once inside the olfactory mucosa, the virus appears to use neuroanatomical connections, such as the olfactory nerve, in order to reach the brain," adds the neuropathologist. "It is important to emphasize, however, that the COVID-19 patients involved in this study had what would be defined as severe disease, belonging to that small group of patients in whom the disease proves fatal. It is not necessarily possible, therefore, to transfer the results of our study to cases with mild or moderate disease."

The manner in which the virus moves on from the nerve cells remains to be fully elucidated. "Our data suggest that the virus moves from nerve cell to nerve cell in order to reach the brain," explains Dr. Radbruch. She adds: "It is likely, however, that the virus is also transported via the blood vessels, as evidence of the virus was also found in the walls of blood vessels in the brain." SARS-CoV-2 is far from the only virus capable of reaching the brain via certain routes. "Other examples include the herpes simplex virus and the rabies virus," explains Dr. Radbruch.

The researchers also studied the manner in which the immune system responds to infection with SARS-CoV-2. In addition to finding evidence of activated immune cells in the brain and in the olfactory mucosa, they detected the immune signatures of these cells in the cerebral fluid. In some of the cases studied, the researchers also found tissue damage caused by stroke as a result of thromboembolism (i.e. the obstruction of a blood vessel by a blood clot). "In our eyes, the presence of SARS-CoV-2 in nerve cells of the olfactory mucosa provides good explanation for the neurologic symptoms found in COVID-19 patients, such as a loss of the sense of smell or taste," explains Prof. Heppner. "We also found SARS-CoV-2 in areas of the brain which control vital functions, such as breathing. It cannot be ruled out that, in patients with severe COVID-19, presence of the virus in these areas of the brain will have an exacerbating impact on respiratory function, adding to breathing problems due to SARS-CoV-2 infection of the lungs. Similar problems might arise in relation to cardiovascular function."

Molecular cages, in which guest molecules cling to the cages' outer surfaces rather than enter an internal cavity, could cut the environmental impact of separating mixtures of industrial chemicals, research from KAUST suggests.

Molecular separations performed at scale by the chemical industry collectively account for as much as 15 percent of global energy consumption. One of the most energy-intensive separations involves benzene derivatives, called xylenes, which are produced as a mixture of three isomeric forms that must be separated for their various industrial uses. The most valuable isomer, para-xylene, is a key ingredient in polyester and polyethylene terephthalate (PET) polymer manufacture.

"Conventionally, these isomers are separated by energy-demanding methods, such as fractional crystallization," says Basem Moosa, a research scientist in Niveen Khashab's lab. "Alternative techniques that require less heat would lower the carbon footprint and overall pollution of xylene separation," he adds.

Khashab and her team have been investigating the possibility of separating xylene isomers using cage-like materials, which selectively absorb one xylene isomer in the mixture, as an energy-efficient alternative separation technique. Previous research has focused on porous inorganic materials called zeolites, but processing challenges and zeolites' limited selectivity have somewhat restricted their adoption by industry.

In their latest work, KAUST researchers turned to stable, easily made organic cage materials that incorporated nitrogen-based azo groups in their structure. The materials captured the para-xylene isomer with high selectively. "Compared with other organic materials, it showed one of the highest adsorbents for xylene separations," says Aliyah Fakim, a Ph.D. student in Khashab's team. Strikingly, however, the para-xylene adsorption did not involve the isomer entering the azo-cage. Instead, the isomer stuck to the outside of the cage, forming crystals in which each para-xylene molecule was surrounded by four cage molecules.

The team plans to refine the performance of the nonporous organic cages by lowering the activation temperature and reducing the time it takes to absorb and then release the para-xylene once extracted from the mixture.

However, the concept of separation using nonporous organic cages could be adopted for many industrial-scale chemical separations, lowering the energy demand of these major industrial processes, Khashab notes. "We believe that these structures will be a next-generation, disruptive technology for many energy-intensive chemical separations," she says. "The organic cages are cheap to scale up compared to other organic materials, and most interestingly, they can be easily tuned for selective separations, unlike their inorganic zeolite counterparts."

The climate in inner East Asia may already have reached a tipping point, where recent years' transition to abnormally hot and dry summers can be irreversible. This is the finding of a new international study by researchers at University of Gothenburg now published in Science.

Associated with the ongoing global warming, are changes that impact regional climate and ecosystems. In a worst- case scenario, these can reach what is known as a tipping point, at which point changes are fast and often times irreversible. Examples of tipping points are the sea ice in the Arctic disappearing in the summer or the melting of the Greenland ice-sheet.

Inner East Asia is a sensitive area

Inner East Asia, which includes Mongolia and nearby areas, is a sensitive region that has experienced a clear increase in the number of heat waves during the summer in recent decades. Together with stable high-pressure systems, which raise temperatures, reduced soil moisture can cause intense and long-lasting heat waves because of enhanced interaction between the land surface and the atmosphere.

"What this connection looks like in a longer preindustrial context is, however, unknown since long-term observations do not exist," says Deliang Chen, co-author to the study and leader of the Regional Climate Group (RCG) at the University of Gothenburg.

Annual growth rings from trees provide information on changes that effect their growth and this can be used to study changes in climate in the past.

"By choosing trees whose growth are sensitive to weather variations, the annual rings can be used to reconstruct different climate parameters with annual resolution hundreds of years back in time. Since trees have significant geographic coverage, this data can be used for detailed studies of climate changes over large areas," says Hans Linderholm, co-author of the study and head of the Gothenburg University Laboratory for Dendrochronology (GULD).

Study of tree rings showed a tipping point is close

Long-term observations of soil moisture are rare, but tree rings from trees, which are limited by access to water, can be used as indicators of this parameter. In the same way, trees that grow at high altitudes, where the growing season is short and cool, can be used to provide temperature-related information.

"In this study, we developed a new method for reconstructing both variations in soil moisture and changes in frequency of heat waves in inner East Asia, a region where the interaction between these parameters is very strong," says Peng Zhang, first author of the study and researcher in the Regional Climate Group at the University of Gothenburg.

These new reconstructions allow the scientists to study the recent warm and dry summers in a long-term perspective. The results show that the current high frequency of heat waves and low soil moisture have not been observed during the last 260 years.

"By combining observations, reconstructions and climate model data, we discovered that the link between land surface and atmosphere has become more pronounced in inner East Asia over the last 20 years, along with increased drying of soils. So we argue that reduced soil moisture enhances land-atmosphere coupling contributing to heating of the land surface, which causes more heat waves, which in turn reduces soil moisture and so on," says Peng.

The study's authors found that the recent pattern of increased warming and drought indicate that a tipping point in the climate is close, a change that could be irreversible and lead to a much dryer climate in the region.

"This would increase the stresses of ecosystems and societies in this already vulnerable region," says Peng.

When Rebecca Acabchuk was studying mild traumatic brain injuries while working on her doctorate in physiology and neurobiology at UConn, she met a student athlete who had suffered multiple concussions.

"When I started doing research on concussions, people just started coming to me," Acabchuk says. "Families at my daughter's school, anytime somebody had a concussion, I would hear about it - I would hear these personal stories and all the struggles of people who had concussions and their symptoms just didn't resolve."

So it was for the student athlete, who told Acabchuk that she would experience seizures when a smoke alarm went off in her dormitory.

"All of these symptoms she would have to struggle with - really profound symptoms - are an invisible injury," says Acabchuk, who earned her PhD in 2016 and is now a post-doctoral fellow with UConn's Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy, or InCHIP. "People think you should be better, the injury happened so long ago. Why aren't you better? And then more frustration comes in when your doctor says just to rest, there's nothing else that can be done, but you're still getting headaches or feeling fatigued or depressed."

Chronic concussion symptoms are notoriously difficult to treat. But Acabchuk - who is also a yoga instructor in Hebron, and has been teaching yoga for 17 years - is hoping that a recently published InCHIP study, the first-ever meta-analysis looking at the use of yoga, meditation, and mindfulness-based interventions for the effective treatment of chronic concussion symptoms, will offer hope to those still struggling with their symptoms. The study was recently published in the journal Applied Psychology: Health and Well-being.

"This was really a passion project for me in the sense that it combines these two areas of interest, concussion work with yoga and meditation," says Acabchuk, who is the study's lead author. "We know from other studies that yoga and meditation may be helpful for reducing systemic inflammation, and we know that they are helpful for increasing self-compassion and reducing rumination if people are dealing with symptoms of depression."

Most studies looking at the effectiveness of yoga, meditation, and mindfulness on concussions have been small. For their meta-analysis, Acabchuk and her team pulled together data from 22 different studies, including both published and unpublished work, that all together included a total of 539 study participants, and looked at the impact of the three interventions on outcome categories - including mental health, physical health, cognitive performance, quality of life, and social/occupational performance - and on specific health outcomes, like depression, attention, anxiety, and fatigue. The team then applied advanced meta-analytical methods to compile and assess the results of those studies.

"The main results that we saw were significant reductions in depression and fatigue," Acabchuk says. "Especially with fatigue, it was a large effect size, which is impressive in the sense that fatigue is a difficult symptom for patients to deal with."

The meta-analysis found that mind-body interventions consistently provided symptom improvement across nearly all measured outcomes. The trends were remarkable, the researchers noted, because of the variety of patients enrolled in the studies, and the known difficulty of relieving chronic concussion symptoms.

Acabchuk says more and larger studies are needed to further investigate the benefits of yoga, meditation, and mindfulness in concussion treatment plans. She also says that more study is needed to help researchers and the general public understand the mechanisms by which these types of interventions promote healing and reduce concussion symptoms.

But importantly, including some sort of yoga, meditation, or mindfulness practice as part of a treatment plan for a mild traumatic brain injury appears to involve no adverse effects for the patient, she says - so there's little downside to giving it a try.

"Think of the brain almost like an ACL - if you tear your ACL, you're going to rest it, but you're also going to take steps to rehabilitate it," Acabchuk says. "If you think of the brain in that sense, a concussion is also like a rehabilitation injury in that, through rehabilitation, you can strengthen certain pathways in the brain. And we think the tools to help do that are breath-work, meditation, and mindful movement through poses from yoga."

She continues, "Maybe starting with a meditation app or online meditation group to learn the basics, and setting aside time to meditate 10 minutes a day. If you're a person who can't sit still, maybe yoga is better for you. If you're too tired at the end of the day, maybe a simple body scan with deep breathing exercises would be better for you. It's not going to be a miracle cure, but more of something that can provide benefits over time by incorporating these tools into daily life. I really do hope that this helps empower people who are struggling with their symptoms."

BOSTON - A combination cancer therapy that is effective against treatment-resistant hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) by inhibiting tumor growth and increasing survival has been identified by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH). In a paper published in the Journal for ImmunoTherapy of Cancer, the investigators describe how the dual therapy -- which combines the multikinase inhibitor drug regorafenib to "reprogram" the tumor immune microenvironment, and programmed cell death 1 (PD1) antibodies to stimulate anti-tumor immunity -- improved survival in mouse models of HCC beyond what each therapy could have achieved alone.

"The holy grail of immunotherapy in treating solid cancers like HCC is to draw cancer-fighting T-cells inside the tumor," explains Dan G. Duda, DMD, PhD, director of translational research in GI Radiation Oncology at MGH and senior author of the study. "We found that regorafenib delivered at the right intermediate dose tricks cancer cells into expressing a chemokine known as CXCL10 which, in turn, triggers intratumoral T-cell infiltration."

HCC, the most common form of liver cancer, is an aggressive gastrointestinal disease that is increasing globally at more than 3% a year. It is the second deadliest form of cancer, responsible for more than 700,000 deaths annually. The encouraging news for patients is the emergence in recent years of combination therapies of anti-vascular endothelial growth factor receptor (anti-VEGFR) inhibitors along with PD1 pathway blockades.

This type of cancer develops a rich new vasculature that feeds tumor progression. This vasculature is highly abnormal, which limits the recruitment and activity of effector T-cells. Anti-VEGFR inhibitors work to control that growth in part by normalizing tumor vasculature and increasing T-cell infiltration into tumors. This concept was first advanced by study co-author Rakesh K. Jain, PhD, director of Steele Laboratories for Tumor Biology at MGH, and a pioneer in the fields of vascular biology and cancer therapy. PD1 inhibitors, for their part, restore the immune system's ability to become activated and kill cancer cells by inhibiting the interaction between PD-L1, a protein on the surface of some of the malignant and non-malignant cells in HCC, and the protein PD1 on the surface of T-cells. This dual treatment strategy has shown in some clinical trials of HCC patients response rates nearly double the 15% to 20% who typically respond to anti-PD1 treatment alone.

"Combination therapy has been a major advance for the field, but it still has limitations in treating liver cancer, as evidenced by the fact so many patients experience recurrence of the disease, even as they are living longer," says Jain. "To address treatment resistance, we suggested that an inhibitor that can target multiple kinases beyond VEGF receptors could be particularly effective. Our research teams were able to show that regorafenib has that unique capability when used at doses that induce both vascular normalization and increased expression of the chemokine CXCL10 in cancer cells. These intratumoral changes induce infiltration of T-cells into tumors where they can more effectively do their job."

Findings from the MGH study are directly informing ongoing clinical trials of regorafenib in cancer patients. Indeed, this work is highly relevant to the future development of treatments for HCC as well as other cancers that metastasize to the liver, according to Duda. "Now that our preclinical study has shown the effectiveness of dual therapy, we need to understand how to combine its components in ways that produce maximum benefit in patients," he says. "Our work has taken a major step in that direction by demonstrating the importance of targeting the immune microenvironment of HCC while using immunotherapy against this deadly cancer."

In recent decades, researchers have found that most mammals' guts are surprisingly complex environments - home to a variety of microbial ecosystems that can profoundly affect an animal's well-being. Scientists have now learned that the bear appears to be an exception, with its gut playing host to a microbial population that varies little across the intestinal tract.

"It's the first mammal species where we've looked at two separate locations in the gut and found microbial communities that are essentially indistinguishable from each other," says Sierra Gillman, first author of a paper on the work and a Ph.D. student at the University of Washington. Gillman did the work while a grad student at Northern Michigan University (NMU).

"Bears have really simple guts - pretty much a garden hose - so they can't regulate their gut microbes to the extent that animals with longer, more complex guts can," says Erin McKenney, co-author of the paper and an assistant professor of applied ecology at North Carolina State University. "Without that control, the bears' diet and environment may play a greater role in shaping the gut microbiome. It raises some interesting evolutionary questions about the relationship between the shape of an animal's gut, its gut microbiome, and the relationship between the microbiome and the animal's health and behavior."

The researchers set out to learn more about the gut microbiome of American black bears (Ursus americanus) with little idea of what to expect. Not much research has been done on microbial ecosystems in the species, and what work has been done has focused on animals in captivity. Since animals in captivity and animals in the wild often have very different gut microbiomes, the researchers were curious as to what they'd find. One major challenge was obtaining samples in the first place.

To that end, the researchers worked with guides who lead scheduled trips with hunters in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. Gillman developed a detailed set of protocols and conducted training sessions with the guides on how to collect samples from bears that were harvested when the guides went on their regularly scheduled trips with hunters. Specifically, Gillman taught the guides how to retrieve samples from both the jejunum, which is the middle section of the small intestine, and the colon, which is also called the large intestine.

Ultimately, the researchers obtained 31 useable jejunum samples and 30 useable colon samples. They then analyzed the samples to identify which microbial species were present.

The researchers expected to see more, and different, species of microbes in the colon. The colon is often where digestion slows down, enabling gut microbes to break down fiber in the diet - which normally fosters microbial diversity. But not, apparently, in the black bears of Michigan.

Why are bear gut microbiomes different from the microbiomes of other omnivores scientists have looked at? In a word, it's probably the cecum.

Omnivores with more complex guts have a small pouch - called the cecum - between the small and large intestine. The cecum helps slow down the rate at which food passes through the gut, like an oxbow in a river, and likely serves as a reservoir for microbial populations in the gut, allowing animals to replenish the diversity of their microbiomes, even as their diets and health change.

"Bears don't have a cecum," Gillman says. "That makes their gut microbiomes more vulnerable to systemic change due to diet, health or other factors."

This finding has an immediate practical application for wildlife researchers.

"In many animal species, a fecal sample can tell you what the microbial diversity of the colon was like - but it doesn't tell you much about what's happening in other parts of the gut," says Diana Lafferty, co-author of the paper and an assistant professor of wildlife ecology at NMU. "Our work suggests that a fecal sample offers insight into the microbial community across the entire gut for black bears - and possibly for other carnivores and omnivores that have simple gut morphologies."

In other words, they can learn more from wild animal poop than they previously thought.

The researchers are currently in the process of comparing the samples collected in Michigan to samples from black bears harvested by hunters in North Carolina, in order to determine if the findings are consistent across geographic regions.

"We are also looking at carnivore species that also lack a cecum to see if they have a similar lack of microbial diversity across the gut," Gillman says.

"And we are working on a project that will help us better identify and understand the connections between the gut microbiome and bear health," says Lafferty.

"One of the things we're curious about is weight gain," McKenney says. "We know that specific shifts in the microbiome can lead to weight gain and obesity in other species, which is usually viewed as a negative. But for species that hibernate, like bears, that could actually be advantageous."

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, together with their colleagues at the Barcelona Beta Research Centre in Spain, the University Medical Centre in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and the University of Paris, have found new forms of tau protein that become abnormal in the very early stages of Alzheimer's disease before cognitive problems develop. The scientists developed new tools to detect these subtle changes and confirmed their results in human samples.

At a time when the incidence and social costs of dementia and Alzheimer's disease in particular continue to rise, this breakthrough is very timely as it could enable the detection of the disease much earlier than current approaches. The findings are also important for the testing of therapies against this devastating disease.

Alzheimer's disease is characterized by two pathological changes in brain tissue. One is a protein called tau while the other involves the amyloid beta peptide. Both can form clumps of aggregates that progressively accumulate in specific areas of the brain. For tau, individual units of the protein can aggregate into finely-ordered fibrillar structures facilitated by a biochemical process called phosphorylation. Throughout the disease process, amyloid beta and phosphorylated tau (p-tau) are released from the brain into cerebrospinal fluid; the amount of the released proteins are used as reliable surrogate markers for clinical diagnoses of Alzheimer's disease.

Normally, amyloid beta levels in cerebrospinal fluid become abnormal several years before p-tau. The current clinical tests for p-tau become abnormal when memory failings develop. This makes it difficult to identify people with the disease at the very early stages before it is too late. How can we, therefore, reliably detect these sub-threshold disease changes?

To address these challenges, the scientists discovered that there are specific forms of p-tau that undergo very minute increases in cerebrospinal fluid and blood in people with emerging Alzheimer pathology. Consequently, the researchers developed highly sensitive techniques to measure these biological markers that precede clinical signs by several years.

In the first study, conducted in the Alfa parent cohort study at the Barcelona Beta Research Centre (BBRC), with the support of "la Caixa" Foundation, about a third of the 381 people evaluated had brain evidence of Alzheimer pathology but without any cognitive problems, meaning that these changes could not be detected in the clinic by memory assessments. Remarkably, the new p-tau markers correctly identified these emerging abnormalities measured in cerebrospinal fluid and regular blood samples.

Subsequent studies performed in Gothenburg, Paris and Ljubljana revealed that these new markers continue to increase from the preclinical stage through the onset of cognitive problems to the late dementia stages. For this reason, progressive increases in p-tau could provide insights into the biological and clinical development of Alzheimer's disease. The studies are now published in the leading journals EMBO Molecular Medicine and Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association.

Kaj Blennow, professor of neurochemistry at the University of Gothenburg, who directed the work said "A possible way to improve the chances of future therapies is to test them on people in the very early stages of the disease with elusive biological changes but lacking clinical symptoms including memory failings. Candidate drug trials have not been too successful." He added that: "The practical challenge, however, is that these very tiny initial changes are incredibly difficult to measure reliably. This compromises our chances to identify and recruit preclinical AD patients for clinical trials."

Dr. Thomas Karikari, an assistant professor at the University of Gothenburg, who co-led the discovery commented: "The remarkable findings reported in these publications show that the new highly sensitive tools capture the earliest Alzheimer disease changes in the brain in clinically normal people. These tools therefore have the potential to advance population screening and clinical trials."

According to Dr. Marc Suárez-Calvet, neurologist and ERC researcher at BBRC, "the biomarker detected in blood may change clinical practice in the coming years, since it will improve the diagnosis of patients with Alzheimer's disease, both in its asymptomatic and symptomatic phases".

Inside every cell, thousands of different proteins form the machinery that keeps all living things - from humans and plants to microscopic bacteria - alive and well. Almost all diseases, including cancer, dementia and even infectious diseases such as COVID-19, are related to the way these proteins function. Because each protein's function is directly related to its three-dimensional shape, scientists around the world have strived for half a century to find an accurate and fast method to enable them to discover the shape of any protein.

Today (Monday) researchers at the 14th Community Wide Experiment on the Critical Assessment of Techniques for Protein Structure Prediction (CASP14) will announce that an artificial intelligence (AI) solution to the challenge has been found.

Building on the work of hundreds of researchers across the globe, an AI program called AlphaFold, created by London-based AI lab DeepMind, has proved capable of determining the shape of many proteins. It has done so to a level of accuracy comparable to that achieved with expensive and time-consuming lab experiments.

CASP14 is organised by Dr John Moult (chair), University of Maryland, USA; Dr Krzysztof Fidelis, UC Davis, USA; Dr Andriy Kryshtafovych, UC Davis, USA; Dr Torsten Schwede, University of Basel and SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, Switzerland; and Dr Maya Topf, Birkbeck, University of London, UK and CSSB (HPI and UKE) Hamburg, Germany.

Dr Moult said: "Proteins are extremely complicated molecules, and their precise three-dimensional structure is key to the many roles they perform, for example the insulin that regulates sugar levels in our blood and the antibodies that help us fight infections. Even tiny rearrangements of these vital molecules can have catastrophic effects on our health, so one of the most efficient ways to understand disease and find new treatments is to study the proteins involved.

"There are tens of thousands of human proteins and many billions in other species, including bacteria and viruses, but working out the shape of just one requires expensive equipment and can take years.

"Nearly 50 years ago, Christian Anfinsen was awarded a Nobel Prize for showing that it should be possible to determine the shape of proteins based on their sequence of amino acids - the individual building blocks that make up proteins. That's why our community of scientists have been working on the biennial CASP challenge."

Teams taking part in the CASP challenge are given the amino acid sequences for a set of around 100 proteins. While scientists study the proteins in the lab to determine their shape experimentally, about a 100 participating CASP teams from more than 20 countries will try to do the same thing using computers. The results are assessed by independent scientists.

Dr Fidelis said: "The CASP approach has created intense collaboration between researchers working in this field of science and we have seen how it has accelerated scientific developments.

"Since we first ran the challenge back in 1994, we have seen a succession of discoveries, each solving an aspect of this problem, so that computed models of protein structures have become progressively more useful in medical research."

During the latest round of the challenge, DeepMind's AlphaFold program has determined the shape of around two thirds of the proteins with accuracy comparable to laboratory experiments*. AlphaFold's accuracy with most of the other proteins was also high, though not quite at that level.

The CASP organisers say that this success builds on achievements made in previous CASP rounds, both by the DeepMind team and other participants, and that other teams taking part in CASP14 have also produced some highly accurate structures during this round.

Dr Kryshtafovych said: "What AlphaFold has achieved is truly remarkable and today's announcement is a win for DeepMind, but it's also a triumph for team science. The unique and intense way we collaborate with researchers around the world through CASP, and the contributions from many teams of scientists over the years, have brought us to this breakthrough."

He adds: "Being able to investigate the shape of proteins quickly and accurately has the potential to revolutionise life sciences. Now that the problem has been largely solved for single proteins, the way is open for development of new methods for determining the shape of protein complexes - collections of proteins that work together to form much of the machinery of life, and for other applications."

Professor Dame Janet Thornton, Director Emeritus of EMBL's European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), who is not affiliated with CASP or DeepMind, said: "One of biology's biggest mysteries is how proteins fold to create exquisitely unique three-dimensional structures. Every living thing - from the smallest bacteria to plants, animals and humans - is defined and powered by the proteins that help it function at the molecular level.

"So far, this mystery remained unsolved, and determining a single protein structure often required years of experimental effort. It's tremendous to see the triumph of human curiosity, endeavour and intelligence in solving this problem. A better understanding of protein structures and the ability to predict them using a computer means a better understanding of life, evolution and, of course, human health and disease."

OAK BROOK, Ill. - Up to one-third of adult women who sustain a non-displaced fracture to the ulna bone of the forearm may be victims of intimate partner violence, according to a study being presented at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA). The findings underscore the need to screen for intimate partner violence in women with these types of injuries, researchers said.

Fractures to the ulna, the bone on the pinkie side of the forearm, often occur when people hold up their hands to protect their faces from being struck with an object. These breaks are referred to as "nightstick fractures," because they are frequently seen in people who try to block blows from nightsticks wielded by police officers.

Bharti Khurana, M.D., a radiologist at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and senior author of the study, had observed these fractures in her practice for years, mostly in men. But it was the occasional woman she saw that raised questions.

"I would see these types of injuries in men, but once in a while I would see them in women," Dr. Khurana said. "I never correlated it with intimate partner violence until recently. I shared my thoughts with our orthopedic surgeons and, with their interest and support, decided to pursue the study."

For the study, Dr. Khurana and colleagues searched electronic medical records from six hospitals for isolated ulnar fractures in women ages 18 to 50. They identified 62 patients, average age 31. Of those, 12 were confirmed for intimate partner violence and another eight were suspected of intimate partner violence.

Analysis of the radiographs demonstrated that intimate partner violence was strongly associated with minimally displaced fractures.

"The radiological characteristics we were looking at were the location of the fracture, the pattern of the fracture in terms of how it broke, and the displacement of the fracture," said study lead author David Sing, M.D., an orthopedic surgery resident at Boston Medical Center. "Out of all those things, what we usually saw was a minimally displaced fracture, meaning the bone is broken all the way through but has not shifted significantly."

Confirmed cases were also linked with homelessness and previous visits to the emergency department with musculoskeletal injuries.

Women with ulnar fractures from intimate partner violence who are reluctant to report the crime will often attribute their injuries to a fall, Dr. Khurana said. However, she noted, falls are much more likely to result in a fracture of the radius, the other bone of the forearm.

This observation was supported by the study, as all the patients who were not victims of intimate partner violence had ulnar fractures from motor vehicle accidents or accidental striking, such as from crashing into a tree while skiing. Of the eight patients where intimate partner violence was suspected, four reported a fall.

"It's actually rare to break your ulna in a fall," Dr. Khurana said. "If a radiologist is seeing an ulnar fracture that is non-displaced, and the woman says she had a fall, it's actually quite concerning for intimate partner violence."

The study results suggest that intimate partner violence screening may be underutilized. Formal documentation of intimate partner violence evaluation or screening was completed in only 40% of confirmed/suspected intimate partner violence cases in the study. According to the researchers, radiologists who observe non-displaced ulnar fractures can help close that shortfall by letting the emergency department physician or orthopedic surgeon know that the fracture is often seen in intimate partner violence. The ordering physician can then look at the patient's clinical history to see if there is anything suspicious.

"Careful analysis of previous imaging exams may also help radiologists confirm their suspicion of intimate partner violence," said study co-author Rahul Gujrathi, M.D., a radiology fellow at Brigham and Women's Hospital.

In the study, for instance, historical imaging analysis alone was able to raise suspicion in 75% of clinically confirmed intimate partner violence patients.

"We have resources that we can provide to the patients who are stuck in that situation," Dr. Sing said. "It's especially important during COVID-19, where we've seen the rate of intimate partner violence go up with people trapped at home with their abusers."

Dr. Khurana, who devotes much of her research to identifying radiological signs of intimate partner violence, believes that a more widespread awareness of the association between ulnar fractures and intimate partner violence will help provide earlier detection and intervention.

"The sooner we can address and change the behavior, the better," she said. "Just like radiologists want to diagnose cancer as early as possible, it's the same thing with this. If we diagnose early, we have a better chance to break the cycle of violence."

Researchers from Bochum, Göttingen, Duisburg and Cologne have developed a new method for detecting bacteria and infections. They use fluorescent nanosensors to track down pathogens faster and more easily than with established methods. A team headed by Professor Sebastian Kruß, formerly at Universität Göttingen, now at Ruhr-Universität Bochum (RUB), describes the results in the journal Nature Communications, published online on 25 November 2020.

Traditional methods of detecting bacteria require tissue samples to be taken and analysed. Sebastian Kruß and his team hope to eliminate the need to take samples by using tiny optical sensors to visualise pathogens directly at the site of infection.

Fluorescence changes in the presence of bacterial molecules

The sensors are based on modified carbon nanotubes with a diameter of less than one nanometre. If they are irradiated with visible light, they emit light in the near-infrared range (wavelength of 1,000 nanometres and more), which is not visible to humans. The fluorescence behaviour changes when the nanotubes collide with certain molecules in their environment. Since bacteria secrete a characteristic mix of molecules, the light emitted by the sensors can thus indicate the presence of certain pathogens. In the current paper, the research team describes sensors that detect and differentiate harmful pathogens that are associated with, for example, implant infections.

"The fact that the sensors work in the near-infrared range is particularly relevant for optical imaging, because in this range there are far fewer background signals that can corrupt the results," says Sebastian Kruß, who heads the Functional Interfaces and Biosystems Group at RUB and is a member of the Ruhr Explores Solvation Cluster of Excellence (Resolv). Since light of this wavelength penetrates deeper into human tissue than visible light, this could enable bacteria sensors read out even under wound dressings or on implants.

Additional areas of application are conceivable

"In the future, this could constitute the foundation for optical detection of infections on intelligent implants, as sampling would no longer be required. It would thus allow the healing process or a possible infection to be detected quickly, resulting in improved patient care," says Robert Nißler from the University of Göttingen, lead author of the study. "The possible areas of application are not limited to this," adds Kruß. "For example, improved rapid diagnosis of blood cultures in the context of sepsis is also conceivable in the future."