Culture

CAMBRIDGE, MA -- Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, researchers at MIT and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, along with their collaborators at the University of Washington, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Brigham and Women's Hospital, and the Ragon Institute, have been working on a CRISPR-based diagnostic for Covid-19 that can produce results in 30 minutes to an hour, with similar accuracy as the standard PCR diagnostics now used.

The new test, known as STOPCovid, is still in the research stage but, in principle, could be made cheaply enough that people could test themselves every day. In a study appearing in the New England Journal of Medicine, the researchers showed that on a set of patient samples, their test detected 93 percent of the positive cases as determined by PCR tests for Covid-19.

"We need rapid testing to become part of the fabric of this situation so that people can test themselves every day, which will slow down outbreak," says Omar Abudayyeh, an MIT McGovern Fellow working on the diagnostic.

Abudayyah is one of the senior authors of the study, along with Jonathan Gootenberg, a McGovern Fellow, and Feng Zhang, a core member of the Broad Institute, investigator at the MIT McGovern Institute and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, and the James and Patricia Poitras '63 Professor of Neuroscience at MIT. The first authors of the paper are MIT biological engineering graduate students Julia Joung and Alim Ladha in the Zhang lab.

A streamlined test

Zhang's laboratory began collaborating with the Abudayyeh and Gootenberg laboratory to work on the Covid-19 diagnostic soon after the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak began. They focused on making an assay, called STOPCovid, that was simple to carry out and did not require any specialized laboratory equipment. Such a test, they hoped, would be amenable to future use in point-of-care settings, such as doctors' offices, pharmacies, nursing homes, and schools.

"We developed STOPCovid so that everything could be done in a single step," Joung says. "A single step means the test can be potentially performed by nonexperts outside of laboratory settings."

In the new version of STOPCovid reported today, the researchers incorporated a process to concentrate the viral genetic material in a patient sample by adding magnetic beads that attract RNA, eliminating the need for expensive purification kits that are time-intensive and can be in short supply due to high demand. This concentration step boosted the test's sensitivity so that it now approaches that of PCR.

"Once we got the viral genomes onto the beads, we found that that could get us to very high levels of sensitivity," Gootenberg says.

Working with collaborators Keith Jerome at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center and Alex Greninger at the University of Washington, the researchers tested STOPCovid on 402 patient samples -- 202 positive and 200 negative -- and found that the new test detected 93 percent of the positive cases as determined by the standard CDC PCR test.

"Seeing STOPCovid working on actual patient samples was really gratifying," Ladha says.

They also showed, working with Ann Woolley and Deb Hung at Brigham and Women's Hospital, that the STOPCovid test works on samples taken using the less invasive anterior nares swab. They are now testing it with saliva samples, which could make at-home tests even easier to perform. The researchers are continuing to develop the test with the hope of delivering it to end users to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The goal is to make this test easy to use and sensitive, so that we can tell whether or not someone is carrying the virus as early as possible," Zhang says.

Researchers at Uppsala University have developed a new method to determine - rapidly, easily and cheaply - how effective two antibiotics combined can be in stopping bacterial growth. The new method is simple for laboratories to use and can provide greater scope for customising treatment of bacterial infections. The study is published in PLOS Biology.

Combinations of antimicrobial agents are invariably prescribed for certain infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, HIV and malaria. Bacterial infections that are not readily treatable, such as those affecting cardiac valves and prostheses, and lung infections in cystic fibrosis, are also usually subjected to a combination of antibiotics. The effect sought, "synergism", means that the joint action of the combined agents is more effective than could in fact have been expected, based on the efficacy of the separate agents. In contrast, the opposite phenomenon - that is, two antibiotics counteracting each other's effects ("antagonism") - is undesirable. However, knowing what the combined effect will be is not always easy.

With the newly developed method known as CombiANT (combinations of antibiotics), interactions between various antibiotics can be tested on agar plates and results obtained in 24 hours. The lead author of the study, Nikos Fatsis-Kavalopoulos, developed the method at Uppsala University. It is based on creating a "concentration gradient" of antibiotics that have been cast into an agar plate, using a 3D-printed plastic disc.

On the agar plate, bacteria that have been isolated from an individual patient are then cultured to see how they react to different combinations of antibiotics.

In their study, the researchers investigated E. coli bacteria isolated from urinary tract infections. Different cultures of E. coli proved not to react in the same way to specific antibiotic combinations. A combination of antibiotics that had synergistic effects on most cultures brought about antagonism in some, with the result that the treatment for the latter group was inferior.

"This result may be of great clinical importance. Consequently, instead of assuming that synergistic and antagonistic interactions are equal for all bacterial isolates, we test individually every isolate taken from an infected patient," says Dan I. Andersson, Professor of Medical Bacteriology at Uppsala University, who is primarily responsible for the study.

Customising the drug combo in this way may be crucially important in achieving high efficacy in the treatment of infections. Being a simple, low-cost method, it is also easy to introduce and use in health care.

The uprising that erupted in fall 2019 in Chile against the post-dictatorship government may be diminished by the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

Despite a reputation for equitable development and robust democratic institutions, post-dictatorship Chile proved incapable of guaranteeing economic and social protections for vast swaths of the population and of adequately representing their needs and policy preferences, according to René Rojas, assistant professor of human development at Binghamton University. Over the last 10 years, stagnation, intensified insecurity and oligarchic politics promoted an upsurge in popular protests that finally erupted in October 2019, as a furious and seemingly uncontainable rebellion. The COVID-19 pandemic, however, may give the post-authoritarian regime a new lease on life, as it undermines possibilities for ongoing collective action and places the prospects for meaningful reform on hold.

"As the insurgency set about to resolve its differences and confront inevitable exhaustion, the arrival of the coronavirus and its recent surge have placed mobilizations on hold, threatening to restore the fragile balance of the pre-rebellion order," wrote Rojas in a new paper in New Labor Forum. "In one swoop, the pandemic snatched from the movement its crucial weapon for securing concessions -- its capacity for disruption."

Fear of the virus and its economic consequences has stymied the uprising, and Chileans have redirected their energies toward holding on to work and whatever income they might secure. Whether the uprising can find its momentum again amidst the ongoing pandemic remains to be seen. Some developments indicate that as the pandemic reveals the inadequacy of official relief measures and re-exposes deep inequalities at the heart of the Chilean governing model, mass mobilization might retake center stage, wrote Rojas.

"The question in coming months will be whether Chile's new mass movement can regroup and win the reforms it forced onto the national agenda or whether neoliberal elites will succeed in reviving the developed world's least representative and most unequal political system," said Rojas.

Stripe rust is one of the most destructive wheat diseases in the world, especially in the United States. While the disease can be controlled by chemicals, those may be harmful to humans, animals, and the environment and the application can cost millions of dollars to wheat production. Rather than use chemicals, many farmers would prefer to grow wheat varieties that resist stripe rust and the development of such varieties is a top priority for wheat breeding programs.

To help develop these varieties, scientists from the US Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service (USDA-ARS) and Washington State University recently studied stripe rust resistance genes in 616 spring wheat varieties using the genome-wide association study approach. They used the GMS platform recently developed by the USDA-ARS Wheat Health, Genetics, and Quality Research Unit, which reduces the cost greatly compared to the Wheat SNP Chips.

"We tested the wheat varieties with five predominant strains of the wheat stripe rust pathogen under controlled greenhouse conditions and in field locations under natural infection of the pathogen, and characterized using a genotyping by multiplex sequencing (GMS) technique and molecular markers linked to previously reported stripe rust resistance genes," explained Xianming Chen. "We identified 37 genes, including 10 new genes, that show resistance to stripe rust."

Wheat growers should choose the resistant varieties identified in this study. Growing more and more resistant varieties will reduce chemical application and prevent stripe rust damage. These resistant varieties can also be used by wheat breeders to develop new varieties with improved stripe rust resistance and other desirable agronomic traits.

This study was possible due to the GMS platform developed by co-author Deven See's lab, which was considerably cheaper than other platforms. Chen was initially concerned that the platform might not identify a large number of genes associated with stripe rust resistance but was surprised to report results that were better than expected.

For more information on this important study, read "Identification of Stripe Rust Resistance Loci in U.S. Spring Wheat Cultivars and Breeding Lines Using Genome-Wide Association Mapping and Yr Gene Markers," which includes a large amount of data, such as which wheat varieties are resistant or susceptible to stripe rust and which varieties have which individual genes for stripe rust resistance. This article also includes methodology and techniques for studying important plant traits. This article was published in the August issue of Plant Disease.

Preserving terrestrial biodiversity requires more ambitious land-conservation targets to be established and met. At the same time, "bending the curve" on biodiversity loss needs more efficient food production, and healthier and less wasteful consumption and trade. If undertaken with "unprecedented ambition and coordination," these efforts provide an opportunity to reverse terrestrial biodiversity loss by 2050, according to a new study.

The research was published September 10 in Nature and forms part of the latest Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) Living Planet Report. The work was led by the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), a research institute based in Austria.

"This important paper adds further evidence that food and environmental security are not incompatible," said Fabrice DeClerck, a co-author and senior scientist at the Alliance of Bioversity International and the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), who co-authored 2019's EAT-Lancet report that outlined food system transitions to feed 10 billion people sustainably by 2050.

In a novel approach to explore future terrestrial biodiversity trends as affected by habitat conversion, the researchers built an ensemble of models to better understand possible future scenarios, much in the same way the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) creates future climate projections. They explore different assumptions - conservation and restoration efforts, and the impact of more sustainable food production and consumption practices - to build a timeline for a reversal in biodiversity loss.

"We wanted to assess in a robust manner whether it might be feasible to bend the curve of declining terrestrial biodiversity due to current and future land use, while avoiding jeopardizing our chances to achieve other Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)," said David Leclère, the lead author and IIASA researcher. "If this were indeed possible, we also wanted to explore how to get there and, more specifically, what type of actions would be required, and how combining various types of actions might reduce trade-offs among objectives."

The study comes at a relevant time for international discussions related to climate, conservation and food systems, including the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, which is taking stock of its Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020.

The research was also featured in the 5th Global Biodiversity Outlook, released this week.

"We found that apart from increased conservation efforts, the most important actions to revert the loss of biodiversity are all related to how we manage the food system," said Mario Herrero, the chief research scientist for agriculture and food at CSIRO, Australia's national research agency. "Key transitions towards healthy and sustainable diets, renewed waste reduction efforts and increases in productivity will help enormously restore ecosystems. These are central elements where we need investment and action and are an integral part of the forthcoming World Food Summit."

How much loss is already locked in?

Even under a best-case scenario, ongoing land conversion will drive further biodiversity loss before the curve starts bending. At least a third of the projected losses in the coming years are unlikely to be avoided under any scenario. Potential biodiversity losses were found to be highest in the regions richest in biodiversity, including sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), South Asia, Southeast Asia, the Caribbean and Latin America.

The study's baseline projections for biodiversity loss - which include global and local extinctions and reductions in viable population levels for plants and animals - will be driven by the loss of about 5.3 million km2 of unmanaged forest and natural vegetation by 2050. To have a chance at reversing biodiversity loss - or bending the biodiversity curve towards restoration - about 9.8 million km2 must be restored by 2050. This implies a significant increase to the Bonn Challenge, an international agreement to bring 3.5 million km2 into restoration by 2030.

While study does not factor in the impact of climate change, the authors discuss climate's increasing role in biodiversity loss, writing:

"Land-use change is currently the largest single threat to biodiversity, but other threats will increase in importance in the future, in particular climate change."

Additionally, the "Integrated Action Portfolio" proposed by the researchers to address biodiversity loss implies doubling crop yields in SSA, which will be no easy feat. "While significant yield gaps prevailing in this region might offer opportunities, closing the yield gap in a sustainable manner will require investments and innovative policies, and might be complicated by climate change," they wrote.

"We need to adopt a zero land conversion approach," said DeClerck. "We need to realize that doubling productivity in SSA amongst others is a core contribution to the biodiversity and food security challenge, combined with producing the foods that contribute to, rather than detract from public health."

While a rapidly shifting climate is hurting biodiversity, Climate will also play a big role in the sustainable intensification of agriculture, especially in places like sub-Saharan Africa where agricultural production will need to increase considerably in order to meet land conservation goals.

Terrestrial habitats will need to be better protected, the researchers argue. Even if current global agreements to protect 17 percent of land by 2020 are more than doubled to 40 percent and include biodiversity hotspots, about half of biodiversity losses projected under the study's baseline scenario will not be avoided.

But the effectiveness of protected areas is declining as pressures on those areas are growing.

The report is not all bad news. Complementing research published in the past couple of years, the team found that integrated efforts that target habitat conservation, improved production practices and significant shifts towards healthy and less wasteful diets enable reversing the loss of biodiversity. These efforts are similarly necessary to achieve climate security and are not incompatible with global food security targets. Urgent action is needed this decade, however, to have any chance of transitioning to a net-nature positive scenario.

URBANA, Ill. - For many livestock species, artificial insemination (AI) is standard. But it can be tricky to achieve success the first time, thanks to variability in ovulation timing across the herd.

Sperm remains viable for a day or two once they reach the oviduct, the tube connecting the uterus with the ovaries, in pigs and cattle. The amount of time sperm can be stored in the oviduct has a direct bearing on AI success; if ovulation happens just outside that window, the effort and expense of AI has to be repeated.

A new University of Illinois study identifies a naturally occurring sugar that slows the maturation of sperm in pigs, opening up the possibility of extending sperm storage time within the female reproductive tract and increasing the chances of successful fertilization through AI.

"We knew there was something about the oviduct that was increasing sperm lifespan, but we didn't know what it was, exactly," says David Miller, professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at Illinois and co-author on the PLOS One study. "In this study, we discovered the molecules of the oviduct that bind sperm and increase their lifespan are complex sugars called glycans."

After screening more than 400 sugars for their capacity to hold sperm, Miller's team had an inkling glycans were a candidate for pigs. To confirm, they isolated various sugars from the pig oviduct and applied them to beads in the laboratory, mimicking the oviduct lining. Compared with other sugars, the glycan-treated beads bound more sperm.

But it wasn't just the physical act of slowing sperm down that increased their lifespan.

"We found out glycans were delaying the normal influx of calcium into sperm," Miller says. "Normally, calcium slowly comes into sperm as they mature, and that triggers them on their differentiation pathway, which makes them capable of fertilization. But binding to these immobilized sugars actually stops that calcium movement inside the cells. So it in a sense, the glycans are blocking their differentiation pathway and making them live longer."

Miller sees several potential applications for this discovery. For example, it might be possible to conduct a fertility test for sperm using glycans in the lab. Sperm whose lifespan didn't increase when exposed to glycans would likely be less fertile and could be discarded. It might also be possible, someday, to introduce supplemental glycans in the oviduct during AI to create a larger reservoir of viable sperm.

The results also extend scientists' understanding of fertility across animal species. Miller has done research to show a similar sugar binds and extends longevity in bovine sperm, and he's currently looking for genetic similarities in sperm storage organs among a wide variety of animal groups. Nature may use the same mechanisms to lengthen sperm lifespan after mating in several species.

An international team of researchers has found that some of the oldest terrain on Venus, known as tesserae, have layering that seems consistent with volcanic activity. The finding could provide insights into the enigmatic planet's geological history.

Tesserae are tectonically deformed regions on the surface of Venus that are often more elevated than the surrounding landscape. They comprise about 7% of the planet's surface, and are always the oldest feature in their immediate surroundings, dating to about 750 million years old. In a new study appearing in Geology, the researchers show that a significant portion of the tesserae have striations consistent with layering.

"There are generally two explanations for tesserae - either they are made of volcanic rocks, or they are counterparts of Earth's continental crust," says Paul Byrne, associate professor of planetary science at North Carolina State University and lead author of the study. "But the layering we find on some of the tessera isn't consistent with the continental crust explanation."

The team analyzed images of Venus' surface from NASA's 1989 Magellan mission, which used radar to image 98% of the planet through its dense atmosphere. While researchers have studied the tesserae for decades, prior to this work the layering of the tesserae hasn't been recognized as widespread. And according to Byrne, that layering would not be possible if the tesserae were portions of continental crust.

"Continental crust is composed mainly of granite, an igneous rock formed when tectonic plates move and water is subducted from the surface," Byrne says. "But granite doesn't form layers. If there's continental crust on Venus, then it's below the layered rocks we see.

"Aside from volcanic activity, the other way to make layered rock is through sedimentary deposits, like sandstone or limestone. There isn't a single place today on Venus where these kinds of rocks could form. The surface of Venus is as hot as a self-cleaning oven and the pressure is equivalent to being 900 meters (about 985 yards) underwater. So the evidence right now points to some portions of the tesserae being made up of layered volcanic rock, similar to that found on Earth."

Byrne hopes that the work will help to shed light on more of Venus' complicated geological history.

"While the data we have now point to volcanic origins for the tesserae, if we were one day able to sample them and find that they are sedimentary rocks, then they would have had to have formed when the climate was very different - perhaps even Earth-like," Byrne says.

"Venus today is hellish, but we don't know if it was always like this. Was it once like Earth but suffered catastrophic volcanic eruptions that ruined the planet? Right now we cannot say for certain, but the fact of the layering in the tesserae narrows down the potential origins of this rock."

Early in the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, a small study in China produced results that influenced subsequent research on the virus. Researchers at the University of Cincinnati used the same study parameters on a much larger patient population and reached completely different findings. The study was published in the journal Progress in Cardiovascular Diseases in mid-July.

The primary theory that emerged from the 12-patient study in China was that when the virus binds to the angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), a protein on the surface of lung cells by which the virus is able to enter and infect the cell, it disrupts a vital hormonal system called the Renin-Angiotensin-Aldosterone System (RAAS).

"RAAS is the primary hormone system the body uses to regulate blood pressure and fluid volume status," says Brandon Henry, MD, with the Cardiac Intensive Care Unit at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center and co-author of the study. "It regulates your blood pressure, it regulates your fluids and it regulates your electrolytes."

Henry says much of the debate around COVID-19 research has been on the potential for danger from certain drugs, such as ACE inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers, because of the disruption of RAAS, while other researchers are testing those same drugs as therapies in patients with COVID-19.

"We were interested in trying to figure out what's actually going on with RAAS," Henry says. "There are a lot of clinical trials targeting RAAS, but no one has really examined if it is truly affected and disturbed in these patients. That was the focus of our investigation."

When COVID-19 first hit, anyone presenting to University of Cincinnati Medical Center with potential symptoms of the virus was isolated in a separate part of the emergency department called the "Respiratory ED." A lot of those people were getting blood work done, so researchers were able to pull a blood sample from those patients.

"This sets up a nice, natural experiment where all these patients are in the ED and they all have respiratory symptoms," says Justin Benoit, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Emergency Medicine at the UC College of Medicine, who ran the logistics of the study.

"Some have COVID, some do not, and we don't know who does or doesn't have COVID when you're drawing the blood. Then you can start looking for differences. Since they all present similarly, when you find differences between these patient groups, you might be able to attribute that to COVID."

Benoit says the researchers' goal was to try to find pathways that are altered in patients with COVID-19 that have specific pharmacological targets that could be used in subsequent studies.

"We were trying to inform clinical trials because there are a lot of trials being proposed or up and running at UC and in other places, but most are based on theory and conjecture and not necessarily based on actual data," Benoit says.

Henry says they wanted to learn more about the main hypothesis on how COVID-19 causes severe disease in some patients. The enzyme called ACE2 breaks down a peptide called angiotensin II (AngII), which causes inflammation and restricts the vessels within the lung in models of people with acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), according to Henry.

"The ACE2 enzyme that the virus uses takes AngII and converts it into another peptide called angiotensin (1-7)," says Henry. "The idea is that when the virus binds to the enzyme, its activity stops and levels of AngII start to rise dramatically. That's what propagates the severity of the infection and causes people to develop ARDS, or so the theory goes."

Reducing AngII levels is also the goal of the most commonly prescribed medication in the United States, ACE inhibitors such as enalapril or lisinopril for hypertension.

The research team measured levels of this peptide in COVID-19 patients and discovered that AngII levels were normal. Henry says based on the results of the 12-person study in China, they expected to see AngII levels that were very high, but that was not what they found in their study of 190 patients.

In a recently published follow-up study in the Journal of Medical Virology, the research team reported low levels of angiotensin (1-7) as compared to healthy controls.

"This is among the first substantial evidence supporting the hypothesis of a potential inhibition of ACE2 activity due to virus binding," Henry stated. "As angiotensin (1-7) is anti-inflammatory peptide that also dilates the vessels, low levels of this peptide due to [the coronavirus] may promote ARDS. As such, supplementation with synthetic angiotensin (1-7) may be a potential therapeutic target for treating COVID-19."

The blood samples collected in the UC Medical Center Emergency Department were analyzed by the lab run by Stefanie Benoit, MD, in the Division of Nephrology and Hypertension, wife of Justin, and co-author of the study. She says the speed at which this trial got up and running is unprecedented.

"We have dismantled a mountain and moved it 30 feet and reassembled it in three months," she says. "Everybody stepped up, it was just amazing. The lab workers got things done in two days that normally take two weeks."

Stefanie says one important aspect of this study is that it produced data that can hopefully help guide further research into the pathophysiology of COVID-19.

"We could not reproduce the data that came out of China," she says. "Our data is completely different, in the same patient population, measured at the same time, measured in the same laboratory technique. That small study is what all of this was built off of. It's kind of a warning or reminder that we are doing things now in ways they've never been done before, so we have to be thoughtful about when data comes out, what it means and how we use it."

Benoit says he was very impressed by the fast response to the need for COVID-19 research by the UC College of Medicine and its leadership, including Andrew Filak, MD, the dean of the college. The research was funded by a $50,000 grant from the UC College of Medicine Special Coronavirus Research Pilot Grant Program that was announced in early April. In all, $425,000 was awarded to 11 projects through the program which was established to rapidly support the development of innovative studies that will contribute significantly to the knowledge of COVID-19 biology or pathology.

This latest image of Jupiter, taken by NASA's Hubble Space Telescope on Aug. 25, 2020, was captured when the planet was 406 million miles from Earth. Hubble's sharp view is giving researchers an updated weather report on the monster planet's turbulent atmosphere, including a remarkable new storm brewing, and a cousin of the famous Great Red Spot region gearing up to change color - again.

A unique and exciting detail of Hubble's snapshot appears at mid-northern latitudes as a bright, white, stretched-out storm traveling around the planet at 350 miles per hour (560 kilometers per hour). This single plume erupted on Aug. 18, 2020 - and ground-based observers have discovered two more that appeared later at the same latitude.

While it's common for storms to pop up in this region every six years or so, often with multiple storms at once, the timing of the Hubble observations is perfect for showing the structure in the wake of the disturbance, during the early stages of its evolution. Trailing behind the plume are small, rounded features with complex "red, white, and blue" colors in Hubble's ultraviolet, visible, and near-infrared light image. Such discrete features typically dissipate on Jupiter, leaving behind only changes in cloud colors and wind speeds, but a similar storm on Saturn led to a long-lasting vortex. The differences in the aftermaths of Jupiter and Saturn storms may be related to the contrasting water abundances in their atmospheres, since water vapor may govern the massive amount of stored-up energy that can be released by these storm eruptions.

Hubble shows that the Great Red Spot, rolling counterclockwise in the planet's southern hemisphere, is plowing into the clouds ahead of it, forming a cascade of white and beige ribbons. The Great Red Spot is currently an exceptionally rich red color, with its core and outermost band appearing deeper red.

Researchers say the Great Red Spot now measures about 9,800 miles across, big enough to swallow Earth. The super-storm is still shrinking as noted in telescopic observations dating back to 1930, but the reason for its dwindling size is a complete mystery.

Another feature researchers are noticing has changed is Oval BA, nicknamed by astronomers as Red Spot Jr., which appears just below the Great Red Spot in this image. For the past few years, Red Spot Jr. has been fading in color to its original shade of white after appearing red in 2006. However, now the core of this storm appears to be darkening slightly. This could hint that Red Spot Jr. is on its way to turning to a color more similar to its cousin once again.

Hubble's image shows that Jupiter is clearing out its higher altitude white clouds, especially along the planet's equator, where an orangish hydrocarbon smog wraps around it.

The icy moon Europa, thought to hold potential ingredients for life, is visible to the left of the gas giant.

This Hubble image is part of yearly maps of the entire planet taken as part of the Outer Planets Atmospheres Legacy program, or OPAL. The program provides annual Hubble global views of the outer planets to look for changes in their storms, winds, and clouds.

An early morning infrared image of Hurricane Teddy taken from NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite shows the proximity of the strengthening hurricane to the Lesser Antilles island chain and Puerto Rico. Teddy is a major hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite passed the North Atlantic Ocean overnight on Sept. 17 at 12:40 a.m. EDT (0440 UTC). The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard Suomi NPP provided a nighttime image of Hurricane Teddy. Puerto Rico and the Lesser Antilles can be seen lit up by night lights to the west in the image. The Lesser Antilles a group of islands that frame the eastern side of the Caribbean Sea.

The image was created using the NASA Worldview application at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

By 11 a.m. EDT infrared imagery revealed Teddy's satellite appearance had steadily developed. There is now a ragged warming eye surrounded by a ring of convection with cloud tops colder than minus 76 degrees Fahrenheit/minus 60 degrees Celsius.

Teddy's Status on Sept. 17

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), National Hurricane Center (NHC) said the center of Hurricane Teddy was located near latitude 19.3 degrees north and longitude 53.0 degrees west. Teddy was about 610 miles (980 km) east-northeast of the Lesser Antilles.

Teddy is moving toward the northwest near 12 mph (19 kph) and this motion is expected to continue for the next few days. Maximum sustained winds were near 120 mph (195 kph) with higher gusts.  Teddy is a category 3 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale. The estimated minimum central pressure is 957 millibars.

Teddy's Forecast

Some additional strengthening is possible through tonight as Teddy moves northwest. A slow weakening trend is expected to begin over the weekend.

This latest image of Jupiter, taken by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope on 25 August 2020, was captured when the planet was 653 million kilometres from Earth. Hubble's sharp view is giving researchers an updated weather report on the monster planet's turbulent atmosphere, including a remarkable new storm brewing, and a cousin of the Great Red Spot changing colour -- again. The new image also features Jupiter's icy moon Europa.

A unique and exciting detail of Hubble's new snapshot appears at mid-northern latitudes as a bright, white, stretched-out storm moving at 563 kilometres per hour. This single plume erupted on 18 August 2020 and another has since appeared.

While it's common for storms to pop up in this region, often several at once, this particular disturbance appears to have more structure behind it than observed in previous storms. Trailing behind the plume are small, counterclockwise dark clumps also not witnessed in the past. Researchers speculate this may be the beginning of a longer-lasting northern hemisphere spot, perhaps to rival the legendary Great Red Spot that dominates the southern hemisphere.

Hubble shows that the Great Red Spot, rolling counterclockwise in the planet's southern hemisphere, is ploughing into the clouds ahead of it, forming a cascade of white and beige ribbons. The Great Red Spot is currently an exceptionally rich red colour, with its core and outermost band appearing deeper red.

Researchers say the Great Red Spot now measures about 15 800 kilometres across, big enough to swallow the Earth. The super-storm is still shrinking, as noted in telescopic observations dating back to 1930, but its rate of shrinkage appears to have slowed. The reason for its dwindling size is a complete mystery.

Researchers are noticing that another feature has changed: the Oval BA, nicknamed by astronomers as Red Spot Jr., which appears just below the Great Red Spot in this image. For the past few years, Red Spot Jr. has been fading in colour to its original shade of white after appearing red in 2006. However, now the core of this storm appears to be darkening to a reddish hue. This could hint that Red Spot Jr. is on its way to reverting to a colour more similar to that of its cousin.

Hubble's image shows that Jupiter is clearing out its higher-altitude white clouds, especially along the planet's equator, which is enveloped in an orangish hydrocarbon smog.

Jupiter's icy moon Europa is visible to the left of the gas giant. Europa is already thought to harbour a liquid ocean beneath its icy crust, making this moon one of the main targets in the search for habitable worlds beyond Earth. In 2013 it was announced that the Hubble Space Telescope discovered water vapour erupting from the frigid surface of Europa, in one or more localised plumes near its south pole. ESA's JUpiter ICy moons Explorer, a mission planned for launch in 2022, aims to explore both Jupiter and three of its largest moons: Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa.

Hubble also captured a new multiwavelength observation in ultraviolet/visible/near-infrared light of Jupiter on 25 August 2020, which is giving researchers an entirely new view of the giant planet. Hubble's near infrared imaging, combined with ultraviolet views, provides a unique panchromatic look that offers insights into the altitude and distribution of the planet's haze and particles. This complements Hubble's visible-light picture that shows the ever-changing cloud patterns.

Reston, VA--A single-center observational study of more than 1,000 oncological examinations has demonstrated that positron emission tomography/magnetic resonance imaging (PET/MRI) facilitates cancer staging as well as PET/computed tomography (PET/CT) and improves lesion detectability in select cancers, potentially helping to promote fast, efficient local and whole-body staging in one step. The study, published in The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, also shows that PET/MRI significantly reduces overall radiation exposure when compared to PET/CT--of particular benefit to pediatric and adolescent patients.

While PET/CT is known as the diagnostic cornerstone in various oncologic imaging guidelines due to its sensitivity and high-resolution morphologic imaging, PET/MRI has higher soft-tissue contrast and lower radiation exposure. However, clinical data for PET/MRI are scarce due to the lack of clinical studies with relevant sample sizes.

In the observational study, a total of 1,003 whole-body PET/MRI examinations on 918 patients from a single center were compared with whole-body PET/CT examinations of the same patients. The oncological indications included lung cancer, gastrointestinal cancer or neuroendocrine cancer, gynecologic or breast cancer, prostate cancer, lymphoma, melanoma, head and neck cancer, cancer of unknown primary and malignant bone disease.

Board-certified nuclear medicine physicians and radiologists evaluated the examinations to identify additional findings on PET/MRI that were missing on PET/CT and probable diagnoses; additional but indeterminate findings on PET/MRI requiring additional examinations or follow-up; classification of indeterminate findings on PET/CT by PET/MRI; and missed findings on PET/MRI in comparison to PET/CT. Effective dose of both modalities was also investigated.

Additional information on PET/MRI was reported for 26.3 percent of examinations, compared with PET/CT. Of these, additional malignant findings were detected in 5.3 percent, leading to a change in TNM staging in 2.9 percent due to PET/MRI. Definite lesion classification of indeterminate PET/CT findings was possible in 11.1 percent with PET/MRI. In 2.9 percent, lesions detected on PET/CT were not visible on PET/MRI. Malignant lesions were missed in 1.2 percent on PET/MRI, leading to a change in TNM staging in 0.5 percent. The estimated mean effective dose for whole-body PET/CT amounted to 17.6 ± 8.7 mSv, in comparison to 3.6 ± 1.4 mSv for PET/MRI, resulting in a potential dose reduction of 79.6 percent.

"Due to the higher soft tissue contrast, PET/MRI improves lesion detection and reduces the need for additional examinations in comparison to PET/CT," said Benedikt Schaarschmidt, MD, professor and radiologist at the University Hospital Essen in Essen, Germany. "Especially in younger patients who need repeated diagnostic procedures, our data advocate the use of PET/MRI due to the markedly reduced radiation exposure of PET/MRI when compared to PET/CT."

He continued, "Hybrid imaging examinations are now part of complex diagnostic algorithms in multiple cancer types. Based on our data, PET/MRI could be an important adjunct to PET/CT by providing diagnostic advantages and improving diagnostic algorithms in numerous cancers at the same time. Furthermore, the markedly reduced radiation exposure of PET/MRI could lead to a more frequent use of this examination in oncological patients, most notably for treatment monitoring."

Consuming high fructose corn syrup appears to be as bad for your health as consuming sugar in the form of fructose alone, according to a new study from researchers at the University of California, Davis. The study reports health risks related to the type of sugar consumed, but also reveals novel risks when sugars are combined, which has important implications for dietary guidelines.

When it comes to health risks, sugar in the form of fructose is clearly the bad guy. This is because a majority of fructose consumed ends up in the liver. When there is too much fructose, the liver produces uric acid and fat in the form of triglycerides, which increase the risk of fatty liver, heart disease and gout. But lead investigator Kimber Stanhope, a researcher with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, says the new data shows that we shouldn't let glucose off the hook.

"It turns out that the combination of fructose and glucose found in high fructose corn syrup appears to be worse than fructose alone for some heart disease risk factors," said Stanhope. "When we planned this study, we didn't expect to find this."

Research has shown that fructose compared with glucose increases risk factors for heart disease and diabetes. This led to an assumption that the glucose in the high fructose corn syrup is benign. The new study, published in Metabolism Journal, tested this assumption by examining differences in health risk factors based on sugar type. Participants consumed beverages containing fructose, glucose, high fructose corn syrup, or an aspartame control, and researchers analyzed their blood for known risk factors for heart disease and diabetes.

The researchers expected risk factors would be highest for fructose and lowest for glucose, with high fructose corn syrup somewhere in between. This is exactly what they saw for some of the risk factors. However, for others, including the risk factors many scientists believe are the most predictive for heart disease, the increases were highest for high fructose corn syrup due to an interaction of fructose and glucose.

CONSUMER CHOICES AND DIETARY GUIDELINES

The results of the current study suggest that dietary guidelines and consumer choices should not be based on the assumption that all adverse effects from dietary sugars are due to fructose content.

"Our study shows that nutrition is more than looking at individual food components," said first author Bettina Hieronimus with the Department of Child Nutrition at the Max-Rubner Institut in Karlsruhe, Germany. "To understand the way our food affects our bodies, we need to study diets as a whole."

(Philadelphia, PA) - The COVID-19 pandemic has increasing numbers of doctors caring for patients virtually. While critical to protecting patient health during a pandemic, however, virtual care presents unique challenges, especially when it comes to diagnosis. Now, cardiologists at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM), have come up with a virtual screening tool that greatly simplifies the process of diagnosing a complex form of heart failure known as pulmonary hypertension.

The new method--known as the virtual echocardiography screening tool (VEST)--makes use of initial screening data from echocardiography, which captures images of the heart. The ability of VEST to accurately and remotely diagnose pulmonary hypertension, based on simple analysis of multiple echocardiogram features, represents a major advance in virtual patient care.

"VEST enables physicians to quickly evaluate patients for pulmonary hypertension by simply searching for routine key measures indicated in echocardiogram reports," explained Anjali Vaidya, MD, FACC, FASE, FACP, Co-Director of the Pulmonary Hypertension, Right Heart Failure & CTEPH Program at Temple University Hospital, Associate Professor of Medicine at LKSOM and lead author on the new study. The report describing VEST was published online September 17 in the journal Pulmonary Circulation.

Pulmonary hypertension occurs when there is high pressure in the blood vessels connecting the right and left sides of the heart and can lead to right-sided heart failure. The condition typically is diagnosed based on right heart catheterization, which distinguishes specific types of the disease. Because patients with pulmonary hypertension are at high risk of serious illness if infected with COVID-19, due to pre-existing heart and lung disease, traveling to a Pulmonary Hypertension Center of Comprehensive Care or visiting a hospital to undergo invasive right heart catheterization for diagnosis is not as readily available as it had previously been. Most patients who are referred for invasive testing with right heart catheterization and evaluation previously have undergone echocardiography.

The new study shows that VEST is especially effective in distinguishing between the two most common, though very different, subtypes of pulmonary hypertension - the first caused by left heart disease, and the other by pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH). Patients with pulmonary hypertension due to PAH frequently suffer poor survival. Delays in diagnosis (often up to 2-3 years) and treatment greatly impact these outcomes.

To evaluate the effectiveness and accuracy of VEST, Dr. Vaidya and colleagues analyzed data from patients with pulmonary hypertension who underwent right heart cardiac catheterization as well as echocardiography. To predict the subtype of pulmonary hypertension from echocardiography, the researchers looked at select reported echocardiogram features, including size and shape of the heart chamber and Doppler features. Scores derived from these measures were used to predict PAH versus pulmonary hypertension due to left heart disease.

"This is the first time that routine interpretation of echocardiogram reports, without direct advanced review of imaging, has proven to be effective," Dr. Vaidya said. "By using parameters routinely reported in echocardiograms to assess hemodynamic profiles, VEST truly facilitates the diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension."

"VEST makes early recognition of the condition possible, allowing patients to receive more timely referral for appropriate evaluation. The fact that this can be done remotely during virtual telemedicine visits is especially relevant in the COVID-19 era."

The next step for VEST centers on investigating its long-term impact on patient outcomes. "Now that we have a tool for assisting virtual diagnosis of pulmonary hypertension that any physician could use, we have a real opportunity to examine long-term outcomes in patients referred for treatment based on VEST findings," Dr. Vaidya added.

WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- Although it may seem counterintuitive, researchers are turning to an animal without a brain to crack the neural code underlying behavior.

Hydra vulgaris, a tiny, tentacled, freshwater organism, uses "nets" of neurons dispersed throughout its tube-like body to coordinate stretching, contracting, somersaulting, and feeding movements. This simple nervous system is one reason that Hydra is well suited for studying how electrical activity translates into motion.

In a study published in eNeuro, a duo from Columbia University and the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) has begun to crack the neural code behind Hydra's simplest behavior, called contraction bursts (when the torso shrinks down and expands outward, over and over again). The scientists found that the concentration of dissolved particles in the surrounding water -- a property known as osmolarity -- affects the activity of a neural circuit in one of Hydra's nerve nets, which can trigger a specific set of muscle cells to contract the torso.

"One by one, we want to decipher the neural and muscular activity behind each of Hydra's behaviors," says senior author and MBL Whitman Center Fellow, Rafael Yuste of Columbia University. "This paper is the beginning of our journey."

Yuste and first author Wataru Yamamoto conducted their experiments in Woods Hole during the summers of 2017 and 2018, in consultation with their MBL Hydra Lab research consortium. They used whole-body calcium imaging to visualize Hydra's neurons and muscles, and tested whether tweaking various environmental conditions such as water temperature, body size, nutritional state, and osmolarity would affect contractions. They were surprised to find that just one of those parameters, osmolarity, had an impact.

Boosting the concentration of sugar particles in the water triggered fewer contractions and decreased activity in the "contraction burst" (CB) neural circuit as well as in one set of muscles. Lowering particle concentration had the opposite effect, increasing cellular activity and contractions. Although additional experiments are needed to confirm their theory, the researchers propose that CB neurons respond to changes in osmolarity by altering muscle activity, which in turn influences contraction frequency.

Reacting to changes in particle concentration could mean the difference between life and death for Hydra -- especially if salt is involved. As freshwater dwellers lacking advanced excretory systems, Hydra are not well-equipped to maintain the proper balance of salinity inside and outside their bodies. Water is constantly flowing in and out of their gastrovascular cavities, and too much internal salty solution causes them to balloon and literally explode. The researchers surmise that Hydra contract in response to high osmolarity to "wring" themselves out and expel excess water.

In addition to affecting contractions, osmolarity also influenced how often Hydra detached and repositioned its tube foot, likely preparing to move to a new location. Yamamoto plans to continue to investigate how and why this happens. He hopes his line of inquiry will eventually help decode a more complex behavior: somersaulting, when Hydra flips tentacles-over-tube foot, like a circus acrobat.