Culture

At first glance, a pack of wolves has little to do with a vinaigrette. However, a team led by Ramin Golestanian, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization, has developed a model that establishes a link between the movement of predators and prey and the segregation of vinegar and oil. They expanded a theoretical framework that until now was only valid for inanimate matter. In addition to predators and prey, other living systems such as enzymes or self-organizing cells can now be described.

Order is not always apparent at first glance. If you ran with a pack of wolves hunting deer, the movements would appear disordered. However, if the hunt is observed from a bird's eye view and over a longer period of time, patterns become apparent in the movement of the animals. In physics, such behaviour is considered orderly. But how does this order emerge? The Department of "Living Matter Physics" of Ramin Golestanian is dedicated to this question and investigates the physical rules that govern motion in living or active systems. Golestanian's aim is to reveal universal characteristics of active, living matter. This includes not only larger organisms such as predators and prey but also bacteria, enzymes and motor proteins as well as artificial systems such as micro-robots. "When we describe a group of such active systems over great distances and long periods of time, the specific details of the systems lose importance. Their overall distribution in space ultimately becomes the decisive characteristic", explains Golestanian.

From inanimate to living system

His team in Göttingen has recently made a breakthrough in describing living matter. To achieve this, Suropriya Saha, Jaime Agudo-Canalejo, and Ramin Golestanian started with the well-known description of the behaviour of inanimate matter and expanded it. The main point was to take into account the fundamental difference between living and inanimate matter. In contrast to inanimate, passive matter, living, active matter can move on its own. Physicists use the Cahn-Hilliard equation to describe how inanimate mixtures such as an emulsion of oil and water separate.

The characterization developed in the 1950s is considered the standard model of phase separation. It is based on the principle of reciprocity: Tit for tat. Oil thus repels water in the same way as water repels oil. However, this is not always the case for living matter or active systems. A predator pursues its prey, while the prey tries to escape from the predator. Only recently has it been shown that there is non-reciprocal (i.e. active) behaviour even in the movement of the smallest systems such as enzymes. Enzymes can thus concentrate specifically in individual cell areas - something that is necessary for many biological processes. Following this discovery, the Göttingen researchers investigated how large accumulations of different enzymes behave. Would they mix together or form groups? Would new and unforeseen characteristics arise? With the aim of answering these questions, the research team set to work.

Suddenly waves appear

The first task was to modify the Cahn-Hilliard equation to include non-reciprocal interactions. Because the equation describes non-living systems, the reciprocity of passive interactions is deeply embedded in its structure. Thus, every process described by it ends in thermodynamic equilibrium. In other words, all participants ultimately enter a resting state. Life, however, takes place outside the thermodynamic equilibrium. This is because living systems do not remain at rest but rather use energy in order to achieve something (e.g. their own reproduction). Suropriya Saha and her colleagues take this behaviour into account by expanding the Cahn-Hilliard equation by a parameter that characterizes non-reciprocal activities. In this way, they can now also describe processes that differ from passive processes to any extent.

Saha and her colleagues used computer simulations to study the effects of the introduced modifications. "Surprisingly, even minimal non-reciprocity leads to radical deviations from the behaviour of passive systems", says Saha. For example, the researcher observed the formation of travelling waves in a mixture of two different types of particles. In this phenomenon, bands of one component chase the bands of the other component, thereby resulting in a pattern of moving stripes. In addition, complex lattices can form in particle mixtures in which small clusters of one component chase groups of the other component. With their work, the researchers hope to contribute to scientific progress in both physics and biology. For example, the new model can describe and predict the behaviour of different cells, bacteria, or enzymes. "We have taught an old dog new tricks with this model", says Golestanian. "Our research shows that physics contributes to our understanding of biology and that the challenges posed by studying living matter open up new avenues for fundamental research in physics."

There's a long-standing question in planetary science about the origin of water on Earth, Mars and other large bodies such as the moon. One hypothesis says that it came from asteroids and comets post-formation. But some planetary researchers think that water might just be one of many substances that occur naturally during the formation of planets. A new analysis of an ancient Martian meteorite adds support for this second hypothesis.

Several years ago, a pair of dark meteorites were discovered in the Sahara Desert. They were dubbed NWA 7034 and NWA 7533, where NWA stands for North West Africa and the number is the order in which meteorites are officially approved by the Meteoritical Society, an international planetary science organization. Analysis showed these meteorites are new types of Martian meteorites and are mixtures of different rock fragments.

The earliest fragments formed on Mars 4.4 billion years ago, making them the oldest known Martian meteorites. Rocks like this are rare and can fetch up to $10,000 per gram. But recently 50 grams of NWA 7533 was acquired for analysis by the international team in which Professor Takashi Mikouchi at the University of Tokyo was participating. The project was led by Professor Zhengbin Deng, currently at the University of Copenhagen.

"I study minerals in Martian meteorites to understand how Mars formed and its crust and mantle evolved. This is the first time I have investigated this particular meteorite, nicknamed Black Beauty for its dark color," said Mikouchi. "Our samples of NWA 7533 were subjected to four different kinds of spectroscopic analysis, ways of detecting chemical fingerprints. The results led our team to draw some exciting conclusions."

It's well known to planetary scientists that there has been water on Mars for at least 3.7 billion years. But from the mineral composition of the meteorite, Mikouchi and his team deduced it's likely there was water present much earlier, at around 4.4 billion years ago.

"Igneous clasts, or fragmented rock, in the meteorite are formed from magma and are commonly caused by impacts and oxidation," said Mikouchi. "This oxidation could have occurred if there was water present on or in the Martian crust 4.4 billion years ago during an impact that melted part of the crust. Our analysis also suggests such an impact would have released a lot of hydrogen, which would have contributed to planetary warming at a time when Mars already had a thick insulating atmosphere of carbon dioxide."

If there was water on Mars earlier than thought, that suggests water is possibly a natural byproduct of some process early on in planet formation. This finding could help researchers answer the question of where water comes from, which in turn could impact theories on the origins of life and the exploration for life beyond Earth.

In a recent study, a research group led by Christian Gruber at MedUni Vienna's Institute of Pharmacology isolated a peptide (small protein molecule) from beetroot. The peptide is able to inhibit a particular enzyme that is responsible for the breakdown of messenger molecules in the body. Due to its particularly stable molecular structure and pharmacological properties, the beetroot peptide may be a good candidate for development of a drug to treat certain inflammatory diseases, such as e.g. neurodegenerative and autoimmune diseases.

The peptide that occurs in the roots of beetroot plants belongs to a group of molecules that plants use inter alia as a chemical defence against pests such as e.g. bacteria, viruses or insects. "By analysing thousands of genomic data, our team was able to define a number of new cysteine-rich peptides and assign them phylogenetically in the plant kingdom. In this process, our attention was drawn to a possible function as so-called 'protease inhibitors'. The beetroot peptide can therefore inhibit enzymes that digest proteins," explains Gruber.

The beetroot peptide specifically inhibits prolyl oligopeptidase (POP), which is involved in the breakdown of protein hormones in the body and is therefore able to regulate inflammatory reactions. POP is a much-discussed drug target for neurodegenerative and inflammatory diseases, such as Alzheimer's and multiple sclerosis, for example. "This means that, in future studies, this group of plant peptides called 'knottins', such as those found in beetroot, could potentially provide a drug candidate for treating these diseases."

Peptide can be detected in commercial beetroot juice

The peptide not only occurs in the root vegetables but can also be detected in commercially available beetroot juice - albeit in very low concentrations. "Although beetroot counts as a very healthy vegetable, it would be unreasonable to hope that dementia could be prevented by regular consumption of beetroot," stresses the MedUni Vienna pharmacologist. "The peptide only occurs in very small quantities and it is not clear whether it can as such be absorbed via the gastrointestinal tract."

Using Nature's blueprint

The research work being conducted by Gruber's laboratory utilized the idea of harnessing Nature's blueprint to develop drug candidates. "We are searching through large databases containing genetic information of plants and animals, decoding new types of peptide molecules and studying their structure, aiming to test them pharmacologically on enzymes or cellular receptors (such as one of the prominent drug target classes, the so-called G protein-coupled receptors) and finally analysing them in the disease models," explains Gruber. Potential drug candidates are chemically synthesised in a slightly modified form based on the natural product, in order to obtain optimised pharmacological properties. This concept appears to be successful: a few years ago the research team generated a drug candidate T20K for MS with a synthesised plant peptide (cyclotide), which has recently been tested successfully in a Phase 1 trial by the Swedish firm Cyxone under a MedUni Vienna licence, and is now being prepared for a Phase 2 clinical trial.

Specialists from the Department of Fundamental Medicine of Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) with Russian and Japanese colleagues have probed into mechanisms of COVID-19 inside-the-body distribution linked to erythrocytes damaging. According to researchers, the virus might attack red marrow, thus being detrimental not only for erythrocytes in the bloodstream but also for the process of the formation of the new ones. A related article appears in Archiv EuroMedica.

Erythrocytes are the major target for the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). These red blood cells are responsible in the body for transport of the iron-rich protein hemoglobin carrying the oxygen.

Lost of erythrocytes might cause damage to the brain neurons, blood vessels, and internals, considering they get not enough oxygen. In the most severe cases, multiple organ failure can occur, and without his own red blood cells, the patient starts to suffocate. Artificial ventilation doesn't help following there is no one who transports oxygen within the body. Effective therapy for such patients is to administer erythrocyte mass and vitamin B12. The mechanism of recovery of damaged red blood cells is still a mystery for scientists.

Early breakdown of red blood cells is the initial reaction of the body to the SARS COV-2 virus, which scales up gradually. The patient can learn about the pathology by feeling the taste of iron. That occurs because hemoglobin released from erythrocytes in the bloodstream is get in saliva.

According to scientists, everyone who has low hemoglobin is at risk. First of all, these are elderly people, patients with high blood pressure, people with obesity and diabetes mellitus, pregnant women, patients with primary and acquired immunodeficiency, with inhibition of hematopoietic function, HIV- and cancer patients.

"The virus enters the epithelium, where multiplies, then enters the bloodstream and attacks targets, which can be both the internal epithelium (gastrointestinal tract, lungs, genitourinary system) and erythrocytes," explains Galina Reva, Professor of the Department of Fundamental Medicine, School of Biomedicine, FEFU. "Although most frequently we would see the pathology of the respiratory system, lungs, the virus needs epithelial cells only for reproduction. We believe the main target for the virus is the red marrow, where it damages the endothelium, the tissue, which normally regulates the migration of maturing cells into the blood. For this reason, strange things happen to the cells of the immune system, and megakaryocytes, very large cells of the bone marrow, had been found in the tissues of various organs. Normally, megakaryocytes become sources of platelets, which are responsible for blood coagulation, but with COVID-19 they clot blood in the vessels without any necessity."

Professor Reva proceeds that lung fibrosis is just the most obvious manifestation of COVID-19, which appears not only as usual scar tissue formation in the defect's area. Since the cause of fibrosis is megakaryocytes "thrown" into the bloodstream, similar processes might occur in the tissues of all parenchymal (dense) organs, which are lungs, liver, spleen, kidneys, pancreas, and thyroid.

"This is an aggressive process, though it can be slow and relatively benignant, with no clinical manifestations at the background of anemia, short wind, and increased heart rate. Simultaneously, the number of functionally active cells of organs' tissue is shrinking, stromal elements that perform as a soft framework increase. Sometimes local changes take the form of a large fibrous tumor-like formation. The pathology is very dangerous since clinical signs can appear when these irreversible processes occupy a significant volume of the organ," Professor Reva says.

In order to develop targeted treatment and measures to prevent possible complications after coronavirus 2, it is necessary to scrutinize the mechanism behind fibrosis of the lungs tissue, liver, kidneys, and other organs.

According to Galina Reva, coronavirus 2 also induces destruction of white pulp in the spleen, the very tissue producing cells responsible for infectious immunity like T-cells, and B-lymphocytes. For this exact reason, secondary infections comorbid to coronavirus 2 are dangerous to humans. The body simply has nothing to fight back. A patient can survive only through large doses of antibiotics, while the main thing is not to be late, because when the red cells begin to die from a shortage of oxygen, the person begins to suffocate and to save him is even more difficult.

At the next stage, scientists plan to check the intercellular connections and interactions in order to go down the chain of the virus's way of action to the end. When did that, they hope to understand which cells in the body need to be stimulated in a severe course of the disease, and what it is simply useless to try to influence.

Conducting the investigation, scientists analyzed the results of their own studies of lung samples from 79 patients who died from COVID-19, which was PCR-confirmed. In the control group were 14 patients died accidentally.

Massive galaxies were already much more mature in the early universe than previously expected. This is the conclusion of an international team of astronomers who studied distant galaxies with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA). The result is now published by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory. Researchers from the The Cosmic Dawn Center at the Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen participated in the project, and Seiji Fujimoto, postdoc, explains the objective like this: "We performed the first large multi wavelength survey of distant galaxies, in order to understand the initial phase of galaxy formation and evolution in the Universe. We didn't expect to find such mature galaxies, and this new information allows us to now paint a more coherent picture of the average condition in the early universe".

Unexpected maturity of galaxies in a very young universe
Most galaxies formed when the universe was still very young. Our own galaxy, the Milky Way, likely started forming 13.6 billion years ago, in our 13.8 billion-year-old universe. When the universe was only ten percent of its current age (1-1.5 billion years after the Big Bang), most of the galaxies experienced a "growth spurt". During this time, they built up most of their stellar mass and other properties, and the amount of dust, metal content, and their spiral-disk shapes are what we see in today's galaxies. Therefore, if we want to learn how galaxies like our Milky Way formed, it is important to study this epoch.

ALMA obtained a more coherent picture of the population of galaxies in the ALPINE survey
Galaxies are considered more mature when they contain a significant amount of dust and heavy elements (metals), as dust and metals are a by-product of dying stars. But galaxies in the early universe have not had much time to build stars yet, let alone see the ending of their lifespan, so the team of astronomers didn't expect to see much dust or metals. Nevertheless, this turned out to be the case, and it even proved to be more "the order of the day" than a special case in the population of galaxies observed in the ALPINE project (the ALMA Large Program to Investigate C+ at Early Times). Seiji Fujimoto explains the significance of this: "Sometimes, if the entire galaxy we wish to observe is obscured by dust, we can't get the information we're after using optical telescopes - telescopes that observe using visible light. But with ALMA, a radio telescope observing via invisible longer wavelengths, we are able to see through the "veil of dust and metal gas".

New and surprising discoveries were also made by ALMA in the process
ALMA is not only able to obtain an image of each galaxy, but can also see how the metal gas moves in the individual galaxies. Because forming-phase galaxies are expected to have highly disordered motions, the metal gas motion tells us something about the matureness of the galaxies. It turned out that while many of the galaxies are colliding, the team also found that a number of them are rotating in an orderly fashion with no signs of collisions. Surprisingly, the team even discovered a galaxy surrounded by a huge rotating metal gas that far exceeds the stellar distribution. This probably means that the metal gas was pushed away from the galaxy in distorted motions by supernova explosions or energetic jets and radiation from supermassive black holes, but it formed the ordered rotating disk after a sufficient time.

What can be considered "normal" in the early Universe?
These results allow for the survey's conclusions on what the normality of the observed galaxies were.
Seiji Fujimoto explains the quest for the standard condition like this: "This time we studied the galaxies based on the metal and dust information, something we haven't been able to acquire from previous observations. Based on the comprehensive perspective of the galaxies, we focused on obtaining what we could call the normal picture in the early universe, which automatically defines what is unusual at the same time and allows us to identify unique objects. The normal picture will help us to much better determine the evolution of our Universe. In fact, cosmological theorists will need this new information to build up a theoretically more precise picture of the development of the Universe. Furthermore, we may learn new cosmological events or physical mechanisms in galaxies through the objects that are out of the ordinary. This research will contribute to our fundamental understanding of the universe we are part of".

The astronomers now wish to point ALMA at individual galaxies for a longer time to answer further questions, such as where the dust and metals are and how they move around. A comparison of these properties between the dust/metal-rich and -poor galaxies at similar distances may answer if the unexpectedly mature galaxies are formed with special circumstances in their environments.

This ethereal remnant of a long dead star, nestled in the belly of The Whale, bears an uneasy resemblance to a skull floating through space. Captured in astounding detail by ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), the eerie Skull Nebula is showcased in this new image in beautiful bloodshot colours. This planetary nebula is the first known to be associated with a pair of closely bound stars orbited by a third outer star.

Also known as NGC 246 , the Skull Nebula lies about 1600 light-years away from Earth in the southern constellation of Cetus (The Whale). It formed when a Sun-like star expelled its outer layers in its old age, leaving behind its naked core -- a white dwarf -- one of two stars that can be seen at the very centre of NGC 246.

Even though this nebula has been known for centuries, only in 2014 did astronomers discover, using ESO's VLT, that the white dwarf and its companion are concealing a third star situated at the heart of the Skull Nebula. This star, which is not visible in this image, is a dim red dwarf that sits close to the white dwarf at about 500 times the distance between Earth and the Sun. The red and white dwarf stars orbit each other as a pair, and the outer star orbits the two dwarfs at a distance of around 1900 times the Earth-Sun separation. Collectively, these three stars establish NGC 246 as the first known planetary nebula with a hierarchical triple stellar system at its centre.

Taken by the FORS 2 instrument on ESO's VLT in the Chilean Atacama Desert, this new image of the Skull Nebula intentionally captures light emitted in some narrow ranges of wavelengths -- those associated with hydrogen and oxygen gas. Observations of light emitted by particular elements help reveal a wealth of information about an object's chemical and structural compositions. This new image of the Skull Nebula highlights where NGC 246 is rich or poor in hydrogen (shown in red) and oxygen (depicted in light blue).

This image was selected as part of the ESO Cosmic Gems programme, an outreach initiative to produce images of interesting, intriguing or visually attractive objects using ESO telescopes, for the purposes of education and public outreach. The programme makes use of telescope time that cannot be used for science observations. All data collected may also be suitable for scientific purposes, and are made available to astronomers through ESO's science archive.

More information

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world's most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It has 16 Member States: Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and with Australia as a Strategic Partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. Also at Paranal ESO will host and operate the Cherenkov Telescope Array South, the world's largest and most sensitive gamma-ray observatory. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become "the world's biggest eye on the sky".

A pair of University of Michigan studies reveals how some massive stars--stars eight or more times the mass of our sun--become isolated in the universe: most often, their star clusters kick them out.

Massive stars typically reside in clusters. Isolated massive stars are called field massive stars. The papers published by U-M students examined most of these stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way.

The studies, appearing in the same issue of The Astrophysical Journal, reveal how these field massive stars originate, or become so isolated. Understanding how field massive stars become isolated--whether they form in isolation or whether they become isolated by being ejected from a star cluster--will help astronomers probe the conditions in which massive stars are formed. Understanding this and cluster formation is critical for understanding how galaxies evolve.

"About a quarter of all massive stars appear to be isolated, and that's our big question," said recent undergraduate Johnny Dorigo Jones. "How they're found to be isolated, and how they got there."

Dorigo Jones shows in his paper that the vast majority of field massive stars are "runaways," or stars ejected from clusters. Graduate student Irene Vargas-Salazar looked for field massive stars that may have formed in relative isolation by looking for evidence of tiny clusters around them. That means these relatively isolated stars could have formed in conjunction with these smaller stars. But she found very few of these faint clusters.

"Because massive stars require a lot of material to form, there are usually a lot of smaller stars around them," Vargas-Salazar said. "My project asks specifically how many of these field massive stars could have formed in the field."

Dorigo Jones examined how field massive stars are ejected from clusters. He looks at the two different mechanisms that produce runaways: dynamical ejection and binary supernova ejection. In the first, the massive stars are ejected from their clusters--by up to half a million miles per hour--because of unstable orbital configurations of stellar groups. In the second, a massive star is ejected when a binary pair has one star that explodes and shoots its companion out into space.

"By having the velocities and the masses of our stars, we're able to compare the distributions of those parameters to the model predictions to determine the certain contributions from each of the ejection mechanisms," Dorigo Jones said.

He found that dynamical ejections--ejections caused by unstable orbital configurations--were about 2 to 3 times more numerous than supernova ejections. But Dorigo Jones also found the first observational data that shows a large fraction of the field massive stars came from a combination of both dynamical and supernova ejections.

"These have been studied in the past but we have now set the first observational constraints on the numbers of these two-step runaways," he said. "The way we reach that conclusion is we're essentially seeing that the stars that trace the supernova ejections in our sample are a bit too numerous and too fast compared to the model predictions. You can imagine this being remedied by these stars being reaccelerated upon a supernova kick, having first been dynamically ejected."

The researchers found that potentially up to half of the stars first thought to be from supernova ejections were first dynamically ejected.

Vargas-Salazar's findings also support the idea that most field massive stars are runaways, but she looked at opposite conditions: she looked for field massive stars that formed in relative isolation in tiny clusters of smaller stars, where the massive target star is, called the "tip of the iceberg, or TIB clusters. She did this using two algorithms, "friends-of-friends" and "nearest neighbors," to search for those clusters around 310 field massive stars in the Small Magellanic Cloud.

The "friends-of-friends" algorithm measures the number density of stars by counting how many stars there are at a specific distance from the target star and then doing the same for those stars in turn. The more tightly packed the stars are, the more likely it is to be a cluster. The "nearest neighbors" algorithm measures the number density of stars between the target star and its nearest 20 companions. The more compact and denser the group, the more likely they are to be clusters, Vargas-Salazar said.

Using statistical tests, Vargas-Salazar compared these observations with three random-field datasets and compared the known runaway massive stars to nonrunaways. She found that only a few of the field massive stars appeared to have TIB clusters around them, suggesting that very few actually formed in the field. The balance of the field stars must have originated as runaways.

"In the end, we showed that 5% or less of the stars had TIB clusters. Instead, our findings imply that the majority of stars in field samples could be runaways," Vargas-Salazar said. "Our findings are actually supporting the result that Johnny found, wrapped in a neat little bow."

Vargas-Salazar's findings provide part of the answer to the question of how massive stars form, says Sally Oey, senior author on both of the papers and professor of astronomy at U-M.

"Johnny and Irene's work are flip sides of the same coin," Oey said. "Irene's numbers are consistent with Johnny's in that the vast majority of field massive stars are runaways, but that a few are not. This is a critical finding for understanding how massive stars and clusters form, and in what conditions."

Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (BDR) have developed an improved human-skin equivalent that reproduces traction-force balance in the lateral direction, a property that controls the structure and physiological function of skin. This artificial skin will enhance in-depth analyses of physiological skin functions, provide solutions to skin problems caused by diseases or ageing, and reduce the need for animal testing.

The skin provides a barrier and physical cushion that protects the body from the external environment. In addition to responding to external physical stimuli such as pressure and tension, the skin is constantly in a state of "tensional homeostasis" in which the cells near the outer layer of skin maintain a stable and steady tension through collagen fibers. This tension helps keep internal structures strong, yet flexible. When skin is cut from an organism, it contracts in the same direction in which collagen fibers, texture, and the hairline are aligned. While synthetic skin models have been developed as alternatives to testing animals when developing safe and functional skincare products, it is difficult to study the tension distribution in the body because of its complexity.

In collaboration with the ROHTO Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., the research team led by Takashi Tsuji at RIKEN BDR developed a human skin equivalent (HSE) that reproduces the tension balance of natural skin, and explored the role of tensional homeostasis in controlling skin structure and function.

The team first experimented on ways to construct a skin model that reproduces the tensional homeostasis. Conventional skin models shrink during the construction process, which eliminates the tension and therefore the collagen and cells in the dermis-the second-most outer layer of skin-are not properly oriented. The team developed a new model by sandwiching the artificial skin in a culture vessel and fixing the degree of contraction. This reproduced a natural tensional homeostasis, the model did not shrink during culture, and its tissue structure was similar to that of natural skin, with collagen fibers and cells aligned in the same lateral direction as the tension. In addition, dermal fibroblast cells in this model stretched uniformly in the lateral direction, indicating that reproduction of the tension equilibrium is important for maintaining the orientation of skin tissue.

By exploring the molecular mechanisms underlying skin-tension homeostasis, the team found that compared to artificial skin without tension, the synthetic skin with tension equilibrium had more collagen fibers in the dermis, reproduction more primary skin cells, and had greater expression of certain genes. This means that tensional homeostasis facilitates healing and regeneration of the HSE and makes it more responsive to some drugs. The researchers suggest that skin-tension balance regulates skin functionality via mechanical stress signals.

Although the healthcare market is expected to grow to 5.25 trillion dollars within 10 years, social demands to reduce using animals, especially for skincare products and medicines, is increasing. "HSEs have crucial roles for scientific evidence-based skin health care and disease research that can help us reduce research in animals," Tsuji says. "Our study will open a novel field of animal-experiment replacement based on scientific evidence in the fields of healthcare and drug discovery. We believe that our HSE model will greatly contribute to the technological developments of next-generation skincare, and improve the quality of life."

How does Covid-19 affect sperm and thus the next generation´s immune system? Researchers from the University of Bergen are collecting sperm to find the answer.

So far, 50 Covid-19 patients between 30 and 40 have delivered a sperm sample. Students are next in line. The plan is that participants will return after 12 months for more testing.

isThe project aims to see how the infection affects the development of the immune system and, follow-up studies will reveal how Covid-19 will affect the immune system of their future children.

"The immune system is trained by infections of all kinds. We want to study how it is affected by Covid-19 and also if the infection has implication for future generation´s immune systems. That is why we decided to study sperm in addition to whole blood", says Professor Cecilie Svanes, at Centre for International Health, University of Bergen.

This is the first study of its kind on human beings. The Covid-19 pandemic gives researchers a new and unique opportunity to study immune-training and how the infection may have effect on the next generation. Svanes is leading the study together with Professor Rebecca Cox at The Influenza Centre, University of Bergen.

Infections train the immune system

All kinds of infections stimulate reactions in our immune system. The researchers want to find out if Covid-19 trains the immune system in a good or bad way.

"Previous testing on animals have shown that infections can affect a future generation´s immune system in both a negative and a positive way," Svanes says.

Infections by micro-worms, so-called helminths, were found to have a positive effect on the immune system among mouse offspring. Sepsis, on the other hand, had a negative effect on the next generation of mice.

The researchers in the study believe the link between infection, sperm and offspring is the result of epigenetic changes, affecting how the hereditary material is "read and understood" and how the body sbuilds the proteins involved in the immune system. The researchers are studying the messenger-RNA, which translates the DNA to proteins.

"If one compares the hereditary material with a cookbook, the epigenetics is about which of the recipes are to be read. We believe that an infection can affect this process", Svanes explains.

Should maybe wait to have children

The researchers cannot wait for the covid-19 patients to have children, so that they can study any effects of the father's infection on the offspring's immune response. They study and compare sperm and blood from the patients with that taken from a large control group without Covid-19.

The control group are participants in the large European RHINESSA-study, where the participants from seven different countries have been followed over 20 years. The database contains information on how lung health, asthma, allergies and associated diseases have developed over time

"If we find considerable negative changes in sperm, there is a possibility that we will advise people to wait with having children, for, for example, one year after a Covid-19 infection," says Cecilie Svanes.

COVID-19 spreads faster and more widely throughout U.S. households than previously reported, according to new preliminary research from a multicenter study led by Vanderbilt University Medical Center researchers and published in MMWR, a weekly report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

The study, led by Carlos G. Grijalva, MD, MPH, associate professor of Health Policy, and H. Keipp Talbot, MD, MPH, associate professor of Medicine, found that 51% of others living in the home with someone who was positive for COVID-19 also became infected.

"We observed that, after a first household member became sick, several infections were rapidly detected in the household," Grijalva said. "Those infections occurred fast, whether the first sick household member was a child or an adult."

The study found that at least 75% of the secondary household infections occurred within five days of the first person in the household experiencing symptoms.

"This preliminary research is the first to closely follow U.S. households through systematic daily assessments and study the transmission of coronavirus among groups living together under one roof," Talbot said. "Other similar studies have mostly been conducted abroad, and others have made estimates of household transmission using contact tracing data."

Similar studies in the U.S., Europe and Asia have reported that 30%, or less, of household members also became infected.

The preliminary findings from this ongoing study were collected from households in Nashville, Tennessee, and Marshfield, Wisconsin.

Also among the study's findings is that less than half of household members experienced symptoms when they first tested positive, and many reported no symptoms throughout the 7-day daily follow-up period.

The study results underscore the potential for transmission from symptomatic or asymptomatic contact with household members and the importance of quarantine, Grijlava said. Persons aware of recent close contact with an infected person, such as household members, should quarantine at home and monitor for development of symptoms.

As winter approaches, and people start spending more time indoors, it will be important to prepare for potential infections at home.

"In the absence of an efficient approach for identification of infections without regard to symptoms, these findings suggest that prompt adoption of isolation measures as soon as a person feels ill might reduce the probability of household transmission," the authors concluded.

For Black LGBQ+ Americans, Intersectional Experiences Can Hurt -- Or Help, YSPH Study FindsUsing a new method for quantifying intersectional experiences, a new Yale School of Public Health study finds that Black LGBQ+ Americans tend to feel better about themselves after encountering events that affirm their identity.

In the study, which was recently published in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, researchers asked 131 Black members of the LGBQ+ community to chronicle their daily experiences for a week and record any times in which their racial and sexual identity was simultaneously challenged or supported -- an intersectional event. What they found was surprising: 31% of all days featured at least one positive experience, and 11% had at least one negative experience. Both types of events were related to changes in psychological well-being, the data showed.

The findings are a major step forward in figuring out how to reduce stigma and improve mental health for Black LGBQ+ Americans, who often struggle to find acceptance, said Skyler Jackson, the study's lead author and an associate research scientist. Jackson is also affiliated with the Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS (CIRA) at Yale.

"I can speak for myself as a Black, gay/queer-identifying person that certainly these identities bring challenges and hardships," Jackson said. "But they also bring opportunities for joy, and culture, connection, and so many other wonderful things."

Unlike in other studies, the researchers looked for experiences that were in some way intersectional, like a enjoying a gathering of Black LGBQ+ people or encountering a racist stereotype from an LGBQ+ community member. Jackson's team also asked participants to not only quantify their intersectional experiences but also describe them every day for a week.

That way, Jackson said, the researchers could get a better understanding of what these events look like and how they shape perceptions of daily life.

The study cannot confirm that these experiences cause shifts in well-being, Jackson added. But the findings do shed light on potential factors: The data suggests that negative intersectional experiences could exacerbate feelings of identity conflict, which can lead to psychological distress among Black LGBQ+ people.

Jackson plans to use his new method to study other subgroups that face complex experiences of stigma, including both multiracial people and gender non-binary individuals. The methodology will be further outlined in an article that will be published in the Journal of Counseling Psychology early next year.

"You feel that these identities -- and the powerful experiences they lead to -- are much more alive when you measure them within a person's everyday life," he said.

The study's findings also have key implications for public health. Participants' responses suggest that spaces that cater to -- and represent -- members of the Black LGBQ+ community can lift their spirits and contribute to their well-being.

"There are these moments where people from marginalized groups have these sort of micro-liberations -- they get free," Jackson said. "Not despite their identities, but because of them."

One in 4,000 people is born without a corpus callosum, a brain structure consisting of neural fibres that are used to transfer information from one hemisphere to the other. A quarter of these individuals do not have any symptoms, while the remainder either have low intelligence quotients or suffer from severe cognitive disorders. In a study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex, neuroscientists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) discovered that when the neuronal fibres that act as a bridge between the hemispheres are missing, the brain reorganises itself and creates an impressive number of connections inside each hemisphere. These create more intra-hemispheric connections than in a healthy brain, indicating that plasticity mechanisms are involved. It is thought that these mechanisms enable the brain to compensate for the losses by recreating connections to other brain regions using alternative neural pathways.

The corpus callosum develops in utero between the tenth and twentieth week of gestation. Agenesis of the corpus callosum is a congenital brain malformation in which this brain structure fails to develop, resulting in one out of 4,000 babies born without a corpus callosum. When it is missing, nothing replaces this structure measuring about ten centimetres, with the exception of cerebrospinal fluid. This means that the information transmitted from one hemisphere to the other can no longer be conveyed by the neuronal projections from the corpus callosum. &laquoTheir role in a healthy brain,» begins Vanessa Siffredi, a researcher in UNIGE's Faculty of Medicine, &laquois to ensure the functioning of various cognitive and sensorimotor functions». Surprisingly, 25% of people with this malformation have no visible signs; 50% have average intelligence quotients and learning difficulties; and the remaining 25% suffer from severe cognitive disorders.

Mysterious fibres

The scientific literature shows that, in the absence of the corpus callosum, certain fibres designed to serve as a bridge between the hemispheres, known as Probst bundles, bypass the absent brain area and curl up inside each hemisphere. &laquoThe back-up zones vary from one individual to another. And we don't understand their functions,» explains the neuroscientist. The UNIGE scientists - working in collaboration with their colleagues at the University of Melbourne - set out to understand this variability and to examine the role of the fibres. Using MRI brain imaging, they studied the anatomical and functional links between different brain regions of approximately 20 Australian children aged 8 to 17 suffering from agenesis of the corpus callosum.

A salutary role

This approach first made it possible to observe the physical relationships between the different regions of the brain, i.e. their structural links. In children with corpus callosum agenesis, the neural fibres inside each hemisphere are greater in number and of higher quality than in healthy brains. Furthermore, the UNIGE scientists succeeded in determining the correlations between the activity of different brain regions and their functional links. &laquoIf two regions are active together, it means they are communicating with each other,» explains Dr Siffredi. The data shows that intra and inter-hemispheric functional connectivity of brains without the corpus callosum are comparable to those of healthy brains. &laquoRemarkably, communication between the two hemispheres is maintained. We think that plasticity mechanisms, such as the strengthening of structural bonds within each hemisphere, compensated for the lack of neuronal fibres between hemispheres. New connections are created and the signals can be re-routed so that communication is preserved between the two hemispheres.»

Predicting cognitive impairment

The Geneva neuroscientists likewise observed a correlation between the increase in intra-hemispheric connections and cognitive skills. This information is very interesting for clinical work since, as agenesis is currently detected by means of ultrasound during pregnancy, it is often proposed that a pregnancy be terminated. &laquoIn the not-too-distant future, we could imagine using MRI imaging to predict whether the malformation observed by ultrasound runs the risk of being associated with cognitive impairment or not, and so better inform future parents», concludes Dr Siffredi.

Like a specter, the question looms: How risky is trick-or-treating with SARS-Cov-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in the air -- and possibly on the candy?

In a study published October 30, 2020 in the journal mSystems, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and San Diego State University analyzed the viral load on Halloween candy handled by patients with COVID-19.

SARS-CoV-2 is primarily transmitted by respiratory droplets and aerosols. The risk of infection by touching fomites -- objects or surfaces upon which viral particles have landed and persist -- is relatively low, according to multiple studies, even when fomites are known to have been exposed to the novel coronavirus. Nonetheless, the risk is not zero.

"The main takeaway is that, although the risk of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 by surfaces, including candy wrappers, is low, it can be reduced even further by washing your hands with soap before handling the candy and washing the candy with household dishwashing detergent afterwards," said co-senior author Rob Knight, PhD, professor and director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego. "The main risk is interacting with people without masks, so if you are sharing candy, be safe by putting it in dish where you can wave from six feet away." Knight led the study with Forest Rohwer, PhD, viral ecologist at San Diego State University, and Louise Laurent, MD, PhD, professor at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

For their study, the researchers enrolled 10 recently diagnosed COVID-19 patients who were asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic and asked them to handle Halloween candy under three different conditions: 1) normally with unwashed hands; 2) while deliberately coughing with extensive handling; and 3) normal handling after handwashing.

The candy was then divided into two treatments -- no post-handling washing (untreated) and washed with household dishwashing detergent -- followed by analyses using real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, the same technology used to diagnose COVID-19 infections in people, and a second analytical platform that can conduct tests on larger samples more quickly and cheaply. Both produced similar findings.

On candies not washed post-handling, researchers detected SARS-CoV-2 on 60 percent of the samples that had been deliberately coughed on and on 60 percent of the samples handled normally with unwashed hands. However, the virus was detected only 10 percent of the candies handled after handwashing.

Not surprisingly, the dishwashing detergent was effective for reducing the viral RNA on candies, with reducing the viral load by 62.1 percent.

They had also planned to test bleach, "but importantly, we noted that bleach sometimes leaked through some of the candy wrappers, making it unsafe for this type of cleaning use," Rohwer said.

The study authors underscored that the likely risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from candy is low, even if handled by someone with a COVID-19 infection, but it can be reduced to near-zero if the candy is handled only by people who have first washed their hands and if it is washed with household dishwashing detergent for approximately a minute after collection.

Washington, DC - October 30, 2020 - New research shows that COVID-19 exposure risk from contaminated candy could be successfully mitigated both by washing hands and washing candy using a simple at-home method. A team of researchers published this work today in mSystems, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

The researchers enrolled 10 recently diagnosed asymptomatic or mildly/moderately symptomatic COVID-19 patients to handle typical Halloween candy (pieces individually wrapped) under three conditions: normal handling with unwashed hands, deliberate coughing and extensive touching, and normal handling following handwashing.

The researchers described how they washed the candy, a simple process, which should be easy for anyone to recreate with household ingredients: In a container big enough to fit the amount of candy you intend to wash, prepare a 1:50 dilution of dish soap detergent (containing Sodium laureth sulfate [SLS] sometimes written as Sodium dodecyl sulfate [SDS]) in water by mixing 3 oz of detergent per gallon of water. Submerge the candy in the solution and agitate to evenly cover all surfaces of the candy wrappers with the detergent solution. Let the candy sit in the detergent solution for no less than 1 minute. Finally, rinse the candy with clean water.

From the candies not washed post-handling, SARS-CoV-2 was detected on 60% of candies that were deliberately coughed on, 60% of candies normally handled with unwashed hands, but only 10% of candies handled after hand washing. Treating candy with dishwashing detergent reduced SARS-CoV-2 load by 62.1% in comparison to untreated candy. Viral RNA load of SARS-CoV-2 was reduced to near zero by the combination of handwashing by the infected patient and ?1 minute detergent treatment after collection.

It is important to note that SARS-CoV-2 is primarily transmitted by respiratory droplets and aerosols. "Taking preventative measures to clean candy is reasonable if one wants to be extra cautious, but the main risk of COVID-19 transmission during trick-or-treating is airborne transmission," said Rodolfo Salido, Ph.D., lead author on the study and research associate in the department of engineering, University of California, San Diego.

The uncertainty and confusion caused by the COVID-19 pandemic is being "widely exploited by terror groups for spinning a plethora of sinister schemes", which could lead to a new tide of violence against people and governments.

This is the claim of a new international study published in the peer-reviewed Global Security: Health, Science and Policy, which analysed terrorist activity and trends across the globe since the pandemic began.

"Despite the overriding media attention to the COVID-19 pandemic and its near-total eclipse of security issues, the terrorism milieu has hardly taken a pause from its deadly pursuits or suspended the execution of its plans," lead author Professor of Psychology Arie Kruglanski from the University of Maryland, explains.

This "milieu" of terrorism so far in 2020 has been considerable. The team of experts note "far from uniting humanity against a common threat," the pandemic has enabled - or at least not stopped - a vast range of incidents.

These include: ISIS attacks in seven countries in March alone; the Islamic State Khorasan Province carrying out a "devastating" attack in a funeral parlour in Afghanistan (24 killed, 68 wounded); Al-Qaeda-affiliated Al Shabab organisation reporting 37 attacks in Somalia and Kenya (52 dead, 35 wounded); and in Mali, al Qaeda-linked Jama'at Nasr al-Islam kidnapping a high-profile opposition leader.

Far-right extremists "have not been 'sitting idle'" either, the study states. So far, in 2020, the far-right has been responsible for 90% of terrorist attacks in the US compared to 66% in 2019.
This includes 50 vehicle ramming attacks since late May, targeting protesters.
There have also been right-wing attacks against anti-lockdown protests in Germany.

Additionally, even though there's been no attribution to any known extremist groups, there has been a significant worldwide rise in cyberattacks - mostly targeting hospitals.

What this suggests is that terror organisations have used the pandemic as a "golden opportunity to tie their messaging to information about the disease and intensify their propaganda for purposes of recruitment and incitement to violence", proclaims Professor Kruglanski.

"The awe of the pandemic notwithstanding, extremist groups have not ceased sowing their own brand of horror. Far from just keeping up their activity despite the pandemic, they are using the pandemic as an opportunity to grow stronger. They are exploiting gaps in security, and the general burdens on societies that the pandemic imposes and are pushing forward their ideologies as a cure for fear, frustration, and panic," he says.

The research group - also consisting of experts from Nanyang Technological University; the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism; and the George Washington University School of Medicine - have found that terrorists' messages are being pursued through a "diverse, and, often internally inconsistent" blend of communications.

Although these messages differed between each organisation, they unexceptionally included elements characteristic of violence-justifying narratives. The specific contents of these elements varied across the different groups, but included: conspiracy theories, claims of the God's vengeance against its enemies, exhortation to weaponize the virus, and taking advantage of society's weakness by "launching widespread attacks wherever and whenever possible".

ISIS and Al-Qaeda propagandists, for example, in contrast to blaming Western or Chinese powers for creating and spreading the virus as a bioweapon, claimed that the coronavirus is a soldier of Allah sent to avenge the Muslim people's suffering brought about by the US and its allies.

"In this narrative, the coronavirus is seen as a type of plague sent by God that will kill the enemies of Allah, sparing the believing Muslims. In May, ISIS spokesman Abu Hamza al-Qurashi made a speech in which he compared the pandemic to the biblical story of Moses cursing Pharaoh with the 10 plagues until he relented and let God's people go," the authors noted.

What might be even more troubling, the research shows, is grave concerns that jihadists
will learn from the horrific world impact of COVID 19 and "intensify their efforts to switch from the use of complicated devices, bombs, and suicide attacks to biological warfare, and bioterrorism", and the study demonstrates evidence of doctoral-level scientists who had been recruited by ISIS to study scientific journals about biological and chemical advancements.

Summarising, Prof. Kruglanski says: "For both the jihadists and the far righters, the pandemic has offered new opportunities and methods for unleashing violence against the objects of their hate.

"Though everyone's attention is naturally drawn to the immense health and economic challenges that the pandemic poses, we cannot ignore the potential storm of intensified world terrorism that seems to be gathering in its shadows."