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WASHINGTON--All adults with endocrine disorders should be tested for high cholesterol and triglycerides to evaluate their risk of heart attack or stroke, according to a Clinical Practice Guideline issued today by the Endocrine Society.

The guideline, titled "Lipid Management in Patients with Endocrine Disorders: An Endocrine Society Clinical Practice Guideline," was published online?and will appear in the December 2020 print issue of The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism (JCEM), a publication of the Endocrine Society. This guideline provides an approach to assessing and treating high cholesterol and triglycerides in patients with endocrine diseases like hypothyroidism, menopause and Cushing's syndrome.

Apart from diabetes, many endocrine diseases are not mentioned in cholesterol management guidelines. Our guideline addresses this gap in information and has three main objectives: describe lipid abnormalities and cardiovascular risk in patients with endocrine diseases; assess whether treatment of the underlying endocrine disorder improves the lipid profile and/or lowers the risk of cardiovascular disease; and discuss the evidence for using cholesterol and triglyceride lowering medications, in addition to diet and exercise, in patients with these endocrine diseases.

"This guideline is the first of its kind. We hope that it will make a lipid panel and cardiovascular risk evaluation routine in adults with endocrine diseases and cause a greater focus on therapies to reduce heart disease and stroke," said Connie Newman, M.D., of the New York University Grossman School of Medicine in New York, N.Y. Newman is the chair of the committee that wrote the guideline.

Recommendations from the guideline include:

Obtain a lipid panel and evaluate cardiovascular risk factors in adults with endocrine disorders.

Start statins earlier in patients with type 2 diabetes and risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

Consider statin therapy at a younger age in adults with type 1 diabetes who have obesity, or vascular complications, or a 20-year history of diabetes.

Rule out hypothyroidism before treatment with lipid-lowering medications. In patients with hypothyroidism, re-evaluate the lipid profile when the patient has thyroid hormone levels in the normal range.

Monitor the lipid profile in adults with Cushing's syndrome and consider statin therapy in addition to lifestyle modifications if Cushing's syndrome persists after treatment.

To treat high cholesterol or triglycerides in post-menopausal women, use statins rather than hormone therapy.

Evaluate and treat lipids and other cardiovascular risk factors in women who enter menopause early (before the age of 40-45 years).

Other members of the Endocrine Society writing committee that developed this guideline include: Michael Blaha of the Johns Hopkins Ciccarone Center for the Prevention of Heart Disease in Baltimore, Md.; Jeffrey Boord of the Parkview Health System in Fort Wayne, Ind.; Bertrand Cariou of the Nantes University Hospital in Nantes, France; Alan Chait of the University of Washington in Seattle, Wash.; Henry Fein of the Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Md.; Henry Ginsberg of the Columbia University in New York, N.Y.; Ira Goldberg of the New York University Grossman School of Medicine; M. Hassan Murad of the Mayo Clinic Evidence-based Practice Center in Rochester, Minn.; Savitha Subramanian of the University of Washington; and Lisa Tannock of the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Ky.

The Society established its?Clinical Practice Guideline Program?to provide endocrinologists and other clinicians with evidence-based recommendations in the diagnosis, treatment, and management of endocrine-related conditions. Each guideline is developed by a writing committee of topic-related experts in the field. Writing committees rely on evidence-based reviews of the literature in the development of guideline recommendations. The Endocrine Society does not solicit or accept corporate support for its guidelines. All Clinical Practice Guidelines are supported entirely by Society funds.

This Clinical Practice Guideline was co-sponsored by the European Society of Endocrinology.

Perfluoroalkyl substances (PFASs) have received intense scrutiny in recent years because of their persistence in the environment and potential endocrine-disrupting effects. However, their estrogenic activities are controversial, with different studies showing apparently contradictory results. Now, researchers reporting in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology have used a combination of laboratory experiments and computer modeling to reveal that PFASs can interact with the estrogen receptor in different ways to influence estrogen-controlled gene expression.

PFASs have been widely used in a variety of household products, including non-stick coatings, polishes, fire-retardant foams and stain-repellant finishes for fabrics. These long-lasting compounds are pervasive in the environment and have been detected in wildlife and humans. In the lab, some PFASs appear to mimic estrogen under certain conditions by binding and activating the estrogen receptor, but they seem to block the hormone's signaling under others. Aiqian Zhang, Jianjie Fu and colleagues wanted to delve deeper into these seemingly contradictory results by studying interactions between various PFASs and the human estrogen receptor, in the presence or absence of the hormone itself. The team reasoned that because estrogen binds much more strongly to its receptor than PFASs, the pollutants probably couldn't completely displace estrogen from the receptor.

The researchers tested the estrogenic and anti-estrogenic behaviors of 10 PFASs using human cells. They found that two of the compounds mimicked estrogen's ability to activate transcription, whereas three others inhibited expression of a reporter gene. However, when the researchers also added estrogen to the cells, all of the compounds blocked the natural hormone's activity. To understand why, the researchers developed a computational model to explore how PFASs bind to the estrogen receptor under different conditions. The model predicted that all of the PFASs could bind to sites on the receptor surface that were distinct from where estrogen binds, including in a groove where coactivators -- which boost the activation of the receptor in the presence of estrogen -- attach. These findings suggest that some PFASs can bind and activate the estrogen receptor when the hormone isn't around, but when it is, the compounds bind to other regions of the receptor, potentially blocking its action, the researchers say.

Nationalistic behaviour by governments may exclude some countries from gaining access to COVID-19 vaccines and cost the global economy up to $1.2 trillion a year in GDP, according to a new study from the not-for-profit research organisation RAND Europe.

If countries demonstrate 'vaccine nationalism' - prioritising their own citizens and insisting on first access to vaccines by signing deals directly with pharmaceutical companies and hoarding supplies - this could mean that, by initially immunising only their own populations, they incur economic penalties for themselves as well as the wider global population.

The study's macroeconomic analysis shows that, as long as the virus is not under control in all regions of the world, there will continue to be a global cost associated with COVID-19 and its prolonged negative impact on certain economic sectors.

Even if only the lowest-income countries were denied equal access to a vaccine and all other countries managed to immunise their populations against the virus, it could still cost the global economy $153 billion a year in GDP terms. The US would lose $16 billion a year, the EU $40 billion a year, the UK $5 billion a year, China $14 billion a year, and other high-income countries collectively $39 billion a year.

The study also notes that there are economic incentives to providing global access to vaccines. Based on previous estimates, it would cost $25 billion to supply lower-income countries with vaccines. The US, UK, EU and other high-income countries combined could lose about $119 billion a year if the poorest countries are denied a supply. If these high-income countries paid for the supply of vaccines, there could be a benefit-to-cost ratio of 4.8 to 1. For every $1 spent, high-income countries would get back about $4.8.

"The study shows that a globally coordinated multilateral effort to fight the pandemic is key, not only from a public health perspective but also an economic one. If too many countries follow a 'vaccine nationalism' approach regarding the development, production and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, it could seriously hurt globally equitable access for those most at risk," said Marco Hafner, the study's lead author and senior economist at RAND Europe. "Our findings suggest that there are real economic incentives for the higher income countries to drive vaccine development and distribution to ensure that the rest of the world has access to vaccines as soon as possible."

The authors reached their conclusions by comparing the impact on global GDP of physical distancing and changes in consumer behaviour in highly contact-intensive service sectors - such as hospitality, retail and healthcare - to that of a hypothetical baseline scenario where every country manages to sufficiently immunise its population and physical distancing rules and regulations can be eased.

The study also examined the economic costs if no vaccine is developed against the disease. According to the analysis, the global economic cost associated with COVID-19 could be $3.4 trillion a year in lost GDP, compared to a scenario in which all countries can sufficiently inoculate their population.

Hafner said: "Given the substantial economic loss caused by COVID-19, investing heavily in the research and development and upscaling of vaccine manufacturing is key to finding a way out of the pandemic."

Beyond the economic implications, the global competition for vaccines may lead to preventable deaths if vulnerable people in certain countries receive the vaccine after those at low risk in other countries. The study recommends that enforceable frameworks for vaccine development and distribution be established, ensuring equitable access across the world and supporting a programme of inoculation over time.

To mask or not to mask - and which mask to use? With public health guidance about masks in the United States confused by political hedging, clarity around mask use is increasingly important, especially as the western U.S. battles the twin crises of wildfire smoke and COVID-19.

"The CDC is the gold standard of where we find guidance to protect our health, but it's also really important for that information to be spread in ways that people can access and understand it," said Francisca Santana, a PhD student at Stanford University and lead author of a perspective review on mask use published in Environmental Research Letters Oct. 28. "Unfortunately, just a website online may not be effective at communicating that information."

The researchers analyzed studies on large-scale responses to epidemics, drivers of human behavior and reactions to wildfire smoke exposure. Based on what scientists have gleaned in aggregate, they have outlined recommendations for communicating mask use guidelines. For U.S. government agencies, their suggestions include:

Reconciling evidenced-based messaging from federal and local organizations,

Clarifying which masks effectively protect against COVID-19 versus wildfire smoke,

Providing information about mask quantities and where they can be acquired,

Creating infographics or imagery about mask use differences, and

Applying culturally appropriate formats and translating messaging so that it reaches vulnerable groups.

"Even people who understand what they should be doing are not doing it," said senior author Gabrielle Wong-Parodi, an assistant professor of Earth system science at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). "The message needs to be evidence-based, and we need to provide people with behaviorally realistic options that they can actually do and afford."

Social norms

The researchers noted the importance of incorporating the social and psychological influences of mask use behavior - a critical and poorly understood topic they urge scientists to further investigate. "We are social beings, we live in these social contexts and we're not making decisions in isolation, so that's really important to acknowledge in whatever messages are given to the public," Wong-Parodi said. "Just because we put out a great message doesn't mean that people are going to take it up and do it - we need to be sensitive to what people are going through right now."

One pathway to behavior change is through social norms - the shared beliefs within a social group. Common methods for establishing social norms include comparing people's actions to others, providing positive feedback and placing messaging where it is most relevant. That could mean, for example, posting signage about wildfire masks outdoors and COVID-19 masks indoors.

Further investigation is needed to understand if mask wearing can also affect other actions to prevent the spread of infectious disease, such as hand-washing and social distancing, according to the co-authors.

Mistaken behavior

To help fill gaps in research on mask use during wildfires, Santana, a PhD student in the Emmett Interdisciplinary Program in Environment and Resources, interviewed residents affected by wildfire smoke from the 2018 Camp Fire that destroyed Paradise, California.

The discussions indicated that social norms are a powerful driver of mask use, but also revealed instances of maladaptive behavior, when the action taken is ineffective or even harmful. In one interview, Santana learned that during persistent wildfire smoke, someone with asthma wore a mask while sleeping - a practice that can even further stress breathing for people with pre-existing asthmatic conditions. "That highlighted how some of the basic information about how to wear a mask - how to fit it, what conditions should you wear it in - was not permeating all the communities that we were working in," Santana said.

Unlike situations of infectious disease alone, the dual threats of wildfire smoke and COVID-19 have presented a plethora of mask-wearing options with varying effectiveness, depending on the hazard. While an N95 mask is form fitting and must be placed on top of your nose to protect from wildfire smoke, cloth face coverings are advised for indoor COVID-19 protection - and people sometimes wear less-structured cloth masks under their noses, going against the CDC's recommendation to wear them over your nose and mouth to reduce disease transmission.

Social influence

The interviews also revealed a form of social support that is now being repeated during COVID-19: gifting masks to others. While it may or may not actually encourage mask use, that support can influence how people perceive the behaviors of close friends and family.

"Your perception of the behavior of people you're in close contact with matters maybe even more than what they're actually doing, in terms of influencing your own behavior," Wong-Parodi said.

The review also included surveys from China and Japan, where mask-wearing was associated with the perceived threat of pandemics like SARS and H1N1 and strong perceived benefits of masks. More recent research in the U.S. reveals how mask use can indicate political affiliation or fear of racial profiling.

The researchers suggest several areas of study that would help public health communications leverage the social nature of mask use, such as how social norms influence individual health - like the inhalation of smoke - versus collective health such as the spread of COVID-19. Above all, they underscore the importance of communications based on scientific evidence.

"It's really important for public health officials at the local or state level to provide clearer guidance to the public about which masks are appropriate for which events, and to make recommendations for behavior change," Santana said.

PULLMAN, Wash. - Teen-age boys exposed to pro-cannabis advertising and social media posts are more likely than female peers to associate marijuana use with improving sexual activity, new research from Washington State University suggests.

Researchers found that the adolescent males expected cannabis users to be less inhibited and enjoy sex more, leading them to express an intention to use marijuana in the future. Adolescent girls and young women, however, were less swayed to future cannabis use by the messages and perceived links.

"The messages adolescents and young adults are seeing are part of what is having impact, the type of appeal and the content, not just the fact that young people are seeing these messages on social media," said Jessica Fitts Willoughby, lead author on the study and an associate professor with the Murrow College of Communication. "Messages matter."

Beyond the perceived connections between marijuana and sex, the findings show the impact of advertising and social media content that portrays marijuana in a positive light on adolescents as well as young adults, she explained.

Additional conversations between parents and their children, as well as more critical viewing of the content, may be necessary to curb the impact pro-marijuana messages have on the perceptions of viewers, Stacey J.T. Hust, an associate professor with the Murrow College of Communication and a coauthor on the study, said.

"The next step is to identify how advertisements affect people as it relates to sex-related marijuana expectancies as well as the intent for use before and after sex," Hust said.

The WSU team of researchers surveyed two groups as part of the study, more than 300 15-17 year olds and nearly 1,000 college-aged young adults. Each group was asked about their social media habits, exposure to pro-marijuana content, whether in the form of advertisements or user-generated content, their perceived associations between sex and marijuana and their intentions to use marijuana in the future. The young adults were also asked about their past use of marijuana, since it is legal in the state of Washington for people over the age of 21 to consume it.

Regardless of age or gender, researchers found that participants who saw more pro-marijuana content on social media had greater intentions to use cannabis in the future.

Regulating the messages young people see on social media is difficult since the majority of content is user posts, and even content from marijuana businesses often isn't portrayed in the same way it would be in a traditional advertisement, the researchers said.

The authors suggest that these findings indicate more sophisticated regulations around the content of marijuana advertisements, not just where marijuana advertisements are placed, may be necessary. Hust pointed to the alcohol industry's regulatory guidelines that suggest messages should not directly link its products to sexual activity as an example of what may be necessary for marijuana.

Expectations around marijuana and sex wasn't associated with either college-aged men or women's plans to use marijuana in the future.
The study didn't determine why college-aged men weren't influenced in the same way teenage boys were, but the authors said that one possibility is it could be that by college young men typically have more sexual experience to draw on as a means of forming their perceptions of sex and marijuana.

Exposure to pro-marijuana content on social media didn't have the same connections for girls and women related to sex. However, content that was seen as positive of marijuana was still associated with increased intentions to use. The lack of findings related to marijuana and sexual expectations among girls and women could also have to do with concerns related to sexual agency, the authors said.

FAIRFAX, Va. -- Researchers demonstrated the success of a fully implantable wireless medical device, the Stentrode™ brain-computer interface (BCI), designed to allow patients with severe paralysis to resume daily tasks -- including texting, emailing, shopping and banking online -- without the need for open brain surgery. The first-in-human study was published in the Journal of NeuroInterventional Surgery™, the leading international peer-reviewed journal for the clinical field of neurointerventional surgery.

The patients enrolled in the study utilized the Stentrode neuroprosthesis to control the Microsoft Windows 10 operating system in combination with an eye-tracker for cursor navigation, without a mouse or keyboard. The subjects undertook machine learning-assisted training to control multiple mouse-click actions, including zoom and left click.

"This is a breakthrough moment for the field of brain-computer interfaces. We are excited to report that we have delivered a fully implantable, take home, wireless technology that does not require open brain surgery, which functions to restore freedoms for people with severe disability," said Thomas Oxley, MD, PhD, and CEO of Synchron, a neurovascular bioelectronics medicine company that conducted the research. "Seeing these first heroic patients resume important daily tasks that had become impossible, such as using personal devices to connect with loved ones, confirms our belief that the Stentrode will one day be able to help millions of people with paralysis."[1]

Graham Felstead, a 75-year-old man living at home with his wife, has experienced severe paralysis due to amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). He was the first patient enrolled in the first Stentrode clinical study and the first person to have any BCI implanted via the blood vessels. He received the Stentrode implant in August 2019. With the Stentrode, Felstead was able to remotely contact his spouse, increasing his autonomy and reducing her burden of care. Philip O'Keefe, a 60-year-old man with ALS who works part time, was able to control computer devices to conduct work-related tasks and other independent activities after receiving the Stentrode in April 2020. Functional impairment to his fingers, elbows and shoulders had previously inhibited his ability to engage in these efforts.

The Stentrode device is small and flexible enough to safely pass through curving blood vessels, so the implantation procedure is similar to that of a pacemaker and does not require open brain surgery. Entry through the blood vessels may reduce risk of brain tissue inflammation and rejection of the device, which has been an issue for techniques that require direct brain penetration. Implantation is conducted using well-established neurointerventional techniques that do not require any novel automated robotic assistance.

It is a long journey from harvesting in the field to the cooked dish that reaches the dinner table. The food supply chain covers all those processes and the actors involved in satisfying the consumer's needs. To ensure that the chain is successful requires correct administration of the products in the warehouse, inventory, transport management and coordination between warehouses, transport and destination.

In this sense, the Diverfarming project's research group, framed within work package 6 of the project, in charge of designing and analysing the value chains, and directed by Dr Francisco Campuzano-Bolarín (Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena) has developed a mathematical model that facilitates decision making when planning distribution capacity, and achieves a balance between performance of the inventory and transport in a supply network, taking differing scenarios into account depending on the availability of vehicles.

The model developed is based on the methodology of system dynamics, a recognised way of dealing with problems related to dynamic processes, such as the supply chain. This set of equations, input data and relationships among variables is tested in a frozen products supply chain at national level. This enables to determine the best configuration of parameters to obtain the best decision alternative in terms of costs and inventory levels, optimising the procedure with regard to the costs and stock levels.

This model can be applied to supply chains related with diversified crop systems, which is the objective of the Diverfarming project, financed by the European Commission, and seeks to introduce crop diversification into European agriculture to obtain environmental and economic benefits. To do so, they are also working on the design and analysis of value chains, with the aim of facilitating the adoption and dissemination of diversified agroecosystems. This new model represents a further step towards that objective.

A more sustainable industry 4.0

In the context of the fourth industrial revolution or 'Industry 4.0', understood as the actual trend of automation and data exchange which includes the Internet of things and cloud services, a growth in industrialisation that can upset current industrial systems is foreseen.

The increased consumption of resources, global warming, and climate change that can be derived from this situation make it clear that management practices in the production and supply chain taking sustainability into account (economic, social, and environmental) must be adopted as a strategy to face up to the negative effects derived from industry 4.0.

In this line, the research group in the Diverfarming project, framed within work package 6 of the project, in charge of designing and analysing value chains, and directed by Dr Francisco Campuzano-Bolarín (Universidad Politécnica de Cartagena) has just had a review of the research carried out thus far on the sustainable supply chain in industry 4.0 published in the journal Sustainability. The review concludes that only few studies concern themselves with the social focus of sustainability in industry 4.0., given that the majority tend to focus mainly on habilitating technologies to reduce costs and monitoring. Thus, this work identifies different projects that have adopted sustainability as part of their objectives, as is the case with the H2020 call by the European Commission.

This work, framed within the Diverfarming project, encourages future research lines to centre on referring to a sustainable supply chain from three perspectives: economic, environmental and social, in an integrated manner.

Highly efficient synthesis of ammonia under ambient temperatures and pressures has been drawing increasing attention for wide applications of scientists and industries around the world. Developing highly active and selective materials with transformative catalytic performance for ammonia synthesis is still a giant challenge.

Atomic catalysts (ACs) have long been the research frontier in the field of catalysis because of their unique structures and properties, such as the high atom utilization efficiency, high reaction selectivity and activity, etc. Compared with the traditional single-atom catalysts, graphdiyne (GDY)-based metal ACs feature unique and well-defined chemical and electronic structures, highly catalytic activity and selectivity, which is expected to achieve high selectivity and high yield of ammonia under ambient temperatures and pressures.

Recently, by utilizing the unique properties of GDY, Professor Yuliang Li (Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences) published a research paper in National Science Review (NSR), and proposed a new metal ion anchoring-electron transfer-self-reduction strategy for anchoring zero-valent palladium atoms. A free-standing 3D zero-valent atomic catalyst electrode was fabricated and showed high performance in electrocatalysis conversion of nitrogen to ammonia reaction at ambient conditions.

The scanning electron microscopy (SEM), high resolution transmission electron microscopy (TEM), aberration corrected high angle annular dark field (HAADF) scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM), X-ray near-edge absorption structure (XANES) and extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectrum (EXAFS) results solidly demonstrated that the Pd atoms individually anchored on GDY and exhibited zero-valence state.

This catalyst shows unique advantages such as determined electronic and chemical structure, determined active sites, clear reaction mechanism and process, excellent properties and performance, etc. For example, in neutral conditions, the Pd-GDY catalyst has the highest ammonia yield of 4.45 ± 0.30 mgNH3 mgPd-1 h-1, which is nearly ten orders of magnitude higher than the reported materials; in acidic conditions, its catalytic activity can also reach up to 1.58 ± 0.05 mgNH3 mgPd-1 h-1. The 15N isotope labelling experiments confirmed that the NH3 was formed from the reduction of N2, revealing that the Pd-GDY is highly selective and active toward ammonia synthesis. Moreover, both the ammonia production rate and Faradaic efficiency of the catalyst can be maintained for several cycles without decay, confirming its robust stability.

Among the African countries, South Africa has significantly high prevalence rate of overweight and obesity, especially, among women, courtesy certain factors such as nutrition transition and socio-demographic factors. Currently, there is little information about the socio-demographic determinants of overweight/obesity, especially in the rural settings.

Dr. Perpetua Modjadji, serving in School of Health Care Sciences, Department of Public Health, Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, South Africa, conducted research to identify and assess the socio-demographic determinants of overweight and obesity among mothers of primary school children living in a rural Dikgale Health and Demographic Surveillance System Site in South Africa. Interviewer-administered questionnaire was used to determine the socio-demographic factors.

The researcher concluded that socio-demographic and economic factors such as the decision-making authority of the spouse, income level and number of children have an impact on the health of women in South Africa in terms of the incidents of overweight and obesity. They recommend evidence based measures to address these factors in case policy makers wish to tackle the obesity epidemic among the female population specific to the region.

This article is open access (free-to-access). To download the article, please visit: https://benthamopen.com/ABSTRACT/TOPHJ-13-518

In the middle of the pandemic this spring, researchers at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) conducted a survey among members of Kondis, a Norwegian fitness training organization.

Since this survey was sent out in the middle of the lockdown in Norway, participants were asked whether they had changed their exercise habits as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The aim of these initial analyses was to map mental health and sleep problems, and to investigate whether changes in exercise habits had consequences for sleep.

"Not surprisingly, we found that the incidence of anxiety and depression was significantly lower in this relatively fit sample than among other people. And this was the case despite the fact that we conducted the survey in the middle of the toughest part of the COVID time," says associate professor Linda Ernstsen from NTNU's Department of Public Health and Nursing.

These findings come as little surprise to the researchers. The connection between physical and mental health has been known for a long time, not least through the 240 000 people who have participated in a series of health studies starting in 1984 called the HUNT Surveys.

But the new study still offers some surprises, especially related to the fact that a lot of people changed their exercise habits this spring.

Ernstsen carried out the study together with project manager and associate professor Audun Havnen from NTNU's Department of Psychology.

"It was surprising that so many people increased their amount of exercise during the coronavirus pandemic. Since people were encouraged to avoid public spaces and stay home, the fact that so many used the extra time they had to move more was a positive effect," says Havnen.

This survey is the first of three to be conducted among Kondis members. The overall goal of the questionnaires is to study the relationship between different aspects of physical activity, mental health and quality of life in a sample assumed to be fit, and how this changes over time.

Although active people generally suffer less depression and anxiety than others, some of them still do get depressed and anxious.

When COVID-19 struck this spring, many Kondis members modified their training habits, regardless of whether they were struggling with mental health problems or not. You would think that this change would affect their quality of sleep as well. But that didn't happen.

"We thought the connection between mental health and sleep problems would be more pronounced in people who changed how much they exercised. But we found no differences," says Ernstsen.

The two groups were thus affected in exactly the same way, regardless of changes in their exercise habits.

This doesn't mean that there is no connection between mental health and sleep, even in this active group.

"We found a connection between anxiety symptoms and sleep problems and a connection between depressive symptoms and sleep problems," Ernstsen says.

People with depression and anxiety consistently sleep less well than others. This is true for the most physically fit among us as well.

"Since all the participants answered the questions at the same time this spring, so far we only know that there's a connection between physical activity, mental health and sleep. To investigate what leads to what, we've invited the participants to take the survey again after six and twelve months to study changes over time," says Havnen.

Upon a heart infarct or stroke, rapid restoration of blood flow, and oxygen delivery to the hypo perfused regions is of eminent importance to prevent further damage to heart or brain. Arterial diameter is a critical determinant of blood flow conductance. Scientists of the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now discovered a novel mechanism to structurally increase arterial diameter by selectively increasing the size of arterial endothelial cells, thereby allowing rapid increases in flow. The team has published their results in Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19008-0).

Research team leader Professor Ferdinand le Noble of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology at the KIT explains that the prevalence of complex vascular disease is steadily rising and it is especially this patient population that will benefit from adjunct therapy to conventional revascularization methods. Unfortunately, many recent clinical therapeutic vascular growth trials failed, thus emphasizing the need for a more rational approach to this important area of clinical cardiovascular medicine, le Noble explains.

His research team now identified a novel mechanism to improve arteriogenesis involving enlargement of the endothelial cells lining the arteries. Larger endothelial cells allow a structural increase of arterial diameter in developing vascular networks. "This is important, as already small increases in arterial diameter considerably augment flow conductance, a simple physical principle," le Noble explains.

The process of cell enlargement is coordinated by a molecule called Trio. Trio is located inside the endothelial cell and plays a pivotal role in determining endothelial shape. Trio does this by selectively activating specific molecules, so called small Rho GTPases, that affect the structure and rigidity of the endothelial cytoskeleton in the cell periphery. The authors show that Trio can be activated selectively in developing arteries by precisely titrating Vegf signaling strength in the arterial wall. This is achieved by targeting soluble Vegf receptor Flt1, a decoy receptor for the growth factor VEGF. Endothelial cell enlargement is a fast process, independent of shear stress or inflammatory processes and within several hours results in 2-3 fold structurally larger arterioles that can attract flow to hypoperfused regions. Due to the rapid nature of this process, the authors believe that this approach has significant advantages over the (relatively slow) conventional angiogenesis approaches aimed at improving vessel number.

"We hope that our research can contribute to improving the treatment of ischemic cardiovascular diseases" le Noble says. "Our data derived from experimental models and human endothelial cells suggest that Trio is an interesting therapeutic target, and together with our collaboration partners, we envision to extend our work to pre-clinical models."

Researchers from Erasmus University, The Ohio State University, York University, and London Business School published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines the tension between AI's benefits and costs and then offers recommendations to guide managers and scholars investigating these challenges.

The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Consumers and Artificial Intelligence: An Experiential Perspective" and is authored by Stefano Puntoni, Rebecca Walker Reczek, Markus Giesler, and Simona Botti.

Not long ago, artificial intelligence (AI) was the stuff of science fiction. Now it is changing how consumers eat, sleep, work, play, and even date. Consumers can interact with AI throughout the day, from Fitbit's fitness tracker and Alibaba's Tmall Genie smart speaker to Google Photo's editing suggestions and Spotify's music playlists. Given the growing ubiquity of AI in consumers' lives, marketers operate in organizations with a culture increasingly shaped by computer science. Software developers' objective of creating technical excellence, however, may not naturally align with marketers' objective of creating valued consumer experiences. For example, computer scientists often characterize algorithms as neutral tools evaluated on efficiency and accuracy, an approach that may overlook the social and individual complexities of the contexts in which AI is increasingly deployed. Thus, whereas AI can improve consumers' lives in very concrete and relevant ways, a failure to incorporate behavioral insight into technological developments may undermine consumers' experiences with AI.

This article seeks to bridge these two perspectives. On one hand, the researchers acknowledge the benefits that AI can provide to consumers. On the other hand, they build on and integrate sociological and psychological scholarship to examine the costs consumers can experience in their interactions with AI. As Puntoni explains, "A key problem with optimistic celebrations that view AI's alleged accuracy and efficiency as automatic promoters of democracy and human inclusion is their tendency to efface intersectional complexities."

The article begins by presenting a framework that conceptualizes AI as an ecosystem with four capabilities: data capture, classification, delegation, and social. It focuses on the consumer experience of these capabilities, including the tensions felt. Reczek adds, "To articulate a customer-centric view of AI, we move attention away from the technology toward how the AI capabilities are experienced by consumers. Consumer experience relates to the interactions between the consumer and the company during the customer journey and encompasses multiple dimensions: emotional, cognitive, behavioral, sensorial, and social."

The researchers then discuss the experience of these tensions at a macro level, by exposing relevant and often explosive narratives in the sociological context, and at the micro level, by illustrating them with real-life examples grounded in relevant psychological literature. Using these insights, the researchers provide marketers with recommendations regarding how to learn about and manage the tensions. Paralleling the joint emphasis on social and individual responses, they outline both the organizational learning in which firms should engage to lead the deployment of consumer AI and concrete steps to design improved consumer AI experiences. The article closes with a research agenda that cuts across the four consumer experiences and ideas for how researchers might contribute new knowledge on this important topic.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Corals that appear healthy are more prone to getting sick when they're home to too many parasitic bacteria, new research at Oregon State University shows.

Supported by the National Science Foundation, the study, published in Environmental Microbiology, adds fresh insight to the fight to save the Earth's embattled coral reefs, particularly those in the Caribbean.

"The clear relationship we've discovered between this kind of bacteria and disease resistance in Caribbean staghorn coral is a crucial piece of the puzzle for coral restoration efforts in that region," said study co-author Becca Maher, a Ph.D. candidate at Oregon State.

Found in less than 1% of the ocean but home to nearly one-quarter of all known marine species, coral reefs help regulate the sea's carbon dioxide levels and are a crucial hunting ground that scientists use in the search for new medicines.

Between 2014 and 2017, more than 75% of the world's reefs experienced bleaching-level heat stress, and 30% suffered mortality-level stress. Bleaching refers to the breakdown of the symbiotic relationship between corals and the algae they rely on for energy.

A complex composition of dinoflagellates, viruses, fungi, bacteria and archaea make up the coral microbiome, and shifts in microbiome composition are connected to changes in coral health.

In 2019, scientists in the lab of OSU microbiologist Rebecca Vega Thurber identified a new genus of parasitic bacteria that flourishes when reefs become polluted with nutrients, siphoning energy from the corals and making them more susceptible to disease.

The bacteria are in the order Rickettsiales, and the new genus is associated primarily with aquatic organisms. Scientists named the genus Candidatus Aquarickettsia and the coral-associated species in the 2019 study, Candidatus A. rohweri, was the first in the new genus to have its genome completely sequenced.

Since their first appearance 425 million years ago, corals have branched into more than 1,500 species, including the one at the center of this research: the critically endangered Acropora cervicornis, commonly known as the Caribbean staghorn coral.

"The bacterial genus we've identified is found around the world and in multiple types of corals, but is most notably found in high abundance in the microbiomes of Caribbean staghorn coral," said study co-author Grace Klinges, also a Ph.D. candidate in the Vega Thurber lab. "Now we've uncovered significant evidence that a high abundance of Ca. Aquarickettsia is a marker of disease susceptibility in corals that otherwise seem healthy."

Disease-resistant corals were found to host a much more even mix of many types of bacteria, she said. Additionally, as corals experienced heat stress from a warming ocean, the microbiome dominance of Ca. Aquarickettsia eroded.

"That's apparently because the bacteria rely on host nutritional resources that become scarce during periods of stress," Vega Thurber said. "And then the sudden loss of a dominant community member frees up niche space and creates openings for opportunistic pathogens to proliferate and sicken the coral."

Erinn Muller of the Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Florida, led the study.

To build the machinery that enables bacteria to swim, over 50 proteins have to be assembled according to a logic and well-defined order to form the flagellum, the cellular equivalent of an offshore engine of a boat. To be functional, the flagellum is assembled piece by piece, ending with the helix called flagellar filament, composed of six different subunits called flagellins. Microbiologists from the University of Geneva (UNIGE) have demonstrated that adding sugar to the flagellins is crucial for the flagellum's assembly and functionality. This glycosylation is carried out by a newly discovered enzyme FlmG, whose role was hitherto unknown. Based on this observation - which you can read all about in the journal eLife - the researchers followed up with a second discovery published in Developmental Cell. Among the six flagellins of Caulobacter crescentus, the model bacterium in the two studies, one is the special one serving a signalling role to trigger the final assembly of the flagellum.

The flagellum is the locomotive engine of bacteria. Thanks to the flagellum, bacteria can swim towards food whether in the lake Geneva (Léman) or inside the host during an infection. The flagellum - which, due to its complexity, is similar to an offshore engine - is made up of a basic structure, a rotary motor and a helical propeller. It is synthesized inside the bacteria in their cytosol. "The 50 proteins must be produced sequentially and assembled in the right order", begins Patrick Viollier, a researcher in UNIGE's Department of Microbiology and Molecular Medicine. At the same time the flagellum must be embedded within the bacterial envelope that contains up to three cell layers before ending up on the outside. While the flagellar subunits are known many of the subtleties in flagellar assembly control and targeting mechanisms are still poorly understood.

Sweet suprise

The UNIGE microbiologists studied the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus. &laquoThese bacteria are very interesting for studying flagella since they produce two different daughter cells: one has a flagellum and the other doesn't. They're ideal for understanding what is needed for building a flagellum ", explains Nicolas Kint, co-author of the study. Another peculiarity is that the flagellar filament of this bacterium is an assembly consisting of six flagellin sub-units, meaning it isn't the result of the polymerisation of a single protein, as is the case for many other bacteria. "When analysing these six flagellins, we discovered they were decorated with sugars, indicating that a glycosylation step - an enzymatic reaction adding sugars to proteins - was taking place and was needed for assembly. It was a surprising discovery, since this reaction is not very common and not well understood in bacteria," continues Professor Viollier.

Viollier's research team succeeded in demonstrating that the glycosylation of the six flagellins that make up the filament is essential for the formation and functionality of the flagellum. "To demonstrate this, we first identified the gene that produces the glycosylation enzyme, FlmG. When it's absent, it results in bacteria without flagellum. Secondly, we genetically modified another type of bacterium, Escherichia coli, to express one of the six flagellins, the glycosylation enzyme and sugar producing enzymes from Caulobacter crescentus. All these elements are required to obtain a modified flagellin", adds Nicolas Kint.

A versatile black sheep

"The different elements of the flagellum are produced one after the other: the molecules of the base first, then those of the rotor and finally the propeller. The scientific literature indicates that this sequential process is important. However, we don't know how the order of manufacturing the sub-units is controlled ." The researcher and his team focused on the synthesis of the six flagellins, discovering a black sheep among them: a sub-unit that has only 50% sequence homology with the other five. "This sub-unit serves as become a checkpoint protein, a repressive molecular traffic cop restraining the synthesis of the other flagellin proteins," says Professor Viollier. It is present before the synthesis of the other five sub-units, and it acts as a negative regulator. As long as it is present in the cytosol, the synthesis of the other sub-units is prevented. Once the elements of the flagellum are assembled, apart from the filament, the cop is exported to the membrane and thus removed. Then the synthesis of the last five sub-units can then begin. "It is a sensor for the protein synthesis and a component of the flagellar filament at the same time: a dual function that is unique of its kind," says the microbiologist with great enthusiasm.

This discovery is fundamental for understanding the motility of bacteria and the assembly of proteins. "It also provides clues for understanding the synthesis and assembly of tubulin, an essential part of the cytoskeleton", concludes Professor Viollier.

Massive galaxies were already much more mature in the early universe than previously expected. This was shown by an international team of astronomers who studied 118 distant galaxies with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA).

Most galaxies formed when the universe was still very young. Our own galaxy, for example, 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, such as dust, heavy element content, and spiral-disk shapes, that 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.

In a survey called ALPINE (the ALMA Large Program to Investigate C+ at Early Times), an international team of astronomers studied 118 galaxies experiencing such a "growth spurt" in the early universe. "To our surprise, many of them were much more mature than we had expected," said Andreas Faisst of the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center (IPAC) at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

Galaxies are considered more "mature" than "primordial" when they contain a significant amount of dust and heavy elements. "We didn't expect to see so much dust and heavy elements in these distant galaxies," said Faisst. Dust and heavy elements (defined by astronomers as all elements heavier than hydrogen and helium) are considered to be a by-product of dying stars. But galaxies in the early universe have not had much time to build stars yet, so astronomers don't expect to see much dust or heavy elements there either.

"From previous studies, we understood that such young galaxies are dust-poor," said Daniel Schaerer of the University of Geneva in Switzerland. "However, we find around 20 percent of the galaxies that assembled during this early epoch are already very dusty and a significant fraction of the ultraviolet light from newborn stars is already hidden by this dust," he added.

Many of the galaxies were also considered to be relatively grown-up because they showed a diversity in their structures, including the first signs of rotationally supported disks - which may later lead to galaxies with a spiral structure as is observed in galaxies such as our Milky Way. Astronomers generally expect that galaxies in the early universe look like train wrecks because they often collide. "We see many galaxies that are colliding, but we also see a number of them rotating in an orderly fashion with no signs of collisions," said John Silverman of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe in Japan.

ALMA has spotted very distant galaxies before, such as MAMBO-9 (a very dusty galaxy) and the Wolfe Disk (a galaxy with a rotating disk). But it was hard to say whether these discoveries were unique, or whether there were more galaxies like them out there. ALPINE is the first survey that enabled astronomers to study a significant number of galaxies in the early universe, and it shows that they might evolve faster than expected. But the scientists don't yet understand how these galaxies grew up so fast, and why some of them already have rotating disks.

Observations from ALMA were crucial for this research because the radio telescope can see the star formation that is hidden by dust and trace the motion of gas emitted from star-forming regions. Surveys of galaxies in the early universe commonly use optical and infrared telescopes. These allow the measurement of the unobscured star formation and stellar masses. However, these telescopes have difficulties measuring dust obscured regions, where stars form, or the motions of gas in these galaxies. And sometimes they don't see a galaxy at all. "With ALMA we discovered a few distant galaxies for the first time. We call these Hubble-dark as they could not be detected even with the Hubble telescope," said Lin Yan of Caltech.

To learn more about distant galaxies, the astronomers want to point ALMA at individual galaxies for a longer time. "We want to see exactly where the dust is and how the gas moves around. We also want to compare the dusty galaxies to others at the same distance and figure out if there might be something special about their environments," added Paolo Cassata of the University of Padua in Italy, formerly at the Universidad de Valparaíso in Chile.

ALPINE is the first and largest multi-wavelength survey of galaxies in the early universe. For a large sample of galaxies the team collected measurements in the optical (including Subaru, VISTA, Hubble, Keck and VLT), infrared (Spitzer), and radio (ALMA). Multi-wavelength studies are needed to get the full picture of how galaxies are built up. "Such a large and complex survey is only possible thanks to the collaboration between multiple institutes across the globe," said Matthieu Béthermin of the Laboratoire d'Astrophysique de Marseille in France.