Culture

WASHINGTON--Eating a big breakfast rather than a large dinner may prevent obesity and high blood sugar, according to new research published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Our body expends energy when we digest food for the absorption, digestion, transport and storage of nutrients. This process, known as diet-induced thermogenesis (DIT), is a measure of how well our metabolism is working, and can differ depending on mealtime.

"Our results show that a meal eaten for breakfast, regardless of the amount of calories it contains, creates twice as high diet-induced thermogenesis as the same meal consumed for dinner," said the study's corresponding author, Juliane Richter, M.Sc., Ph.D., of University of Lübeck in Germany. "This finding is significant for all people as it underlines the value of eating enough at breakfast."

The researchers conducted a three-day laboratory study of 16 men who consumed a low-calorie breakfast and high-calorie dinner, and vice versa in a second round. They found identical calorie consumption led to 2.5 times higher DIT in the morning than in the evening after high-calorie and low-calorie meals. The food-induced increase of blood sugar and insulin concentrations was diminished after breakfast compared with dinner. The results also show eating a low-calorie breakfast increased appetite, specifically for sweets.

"We recommend that patients with obesity as well as healthy people eat a large breakfast rather than a large dinner to reduce body weight and prevent metabolic diseases," Richter said.

Researchers from The University of Texas at Austin and the National Institutes of Health have made a critical breakthrough toward developing a vaccine for the 2019 novel coronavirus by creating the first 3D atomic scale map of the part of the virus that attaches to and infects human cells.

Mapping this part, called the spike protein, is an essential step so researchers around the world can develop vaccines and antiviral drugs to combat the virus. The paper is publishing Wednesday, Feb. 19 in the journal Science.

The scientific team is also working on a related viable vaccine candidate stemming from the research.

Jason McLellan, associate professor at UT Austin who led the research, and his colleagues have spent many years studying other coronaviruses, including SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV. They had already developed methods for locking coronavirus spike proteins into a shape that made them easier to analyze and could effectively turn them into candidates for vaccines. This experience gave them an advantage over other research teams studying the novel virus.

"As soon as we knew this was a coronavirus, we felt we had to jump at it," McLellan said, "because we could be one of the first ones to get this structure. We knew exactly what mutations to put into this, because we've already shown these mutations work for a bunch of other coronaviruses."

The bulk of the research was carried out by the study's co-first authors, Ph.D. student Daniel Wrapp and research associate Nianshuang Wang, both at UT Austin.

Just two weeks after receiving the genome sequence of the virus from Chinese researchers, the team had designed and produced samples of their stabilized spike protein. It took about 12 more days to reconstruct the 3D atomic scale map, called a molecular structure, of the spike protein and submit a manuscript to Science, which expedited its peer review process. The many steps involved in this process would typically take months to accomplish.

Critical to the success was state-of-the-art technology known as cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM) in UT Austin's new Sauer Laboratory for Structural Biology. Cryo-EM allows researchers to make atomic-scale 3D models of cellular structures, molecules and viruses.

"We ended up being the first ones in part due to the infrastructure at the Sauer Lab," McLellan said. "It highlights the importance of funding basic research facilities."

The molecule the team produced, and for which they obtained a structure, represents only the extracellular portion of the spike protein, but it is enough to elicit an immune response in people, and thus serve as a vaccine.

Next, McLellan's team plans to use their molecule to pursue another line of attack against the virus that causes COVID-19, using the molecule as a "probe" to isolate naturally produced antibodies from patients who have been infected with the novel coronavirus and successfully recovered. In large enough quantities, these antibodies could help treat a coronavirus infection soon after exposure. For example, the antibodies could protect soldiers or health care workers sent into an area with high infection rates on too short notice for the immunity from a vaccine to take effect.

Barney Graham, deputy director of the NIH's Vaccine Research Center (VRC) in Bethesda, Maryland, helped supervise experiments and co-write the manuscript.

The neighborhood environment may positively or negatively influence one's ability to maintain cognitive function with age. Since older adults spend less time outside, the neighborhood environment increases in importance with age. Studies suggest physical aspects of the neighborhood such as the availability of sidewalks and parks, and more social and walking destinations, may be associated with better cognitive functioning. Beneficial neighborhood environments can provide spaces for exercise, mental stimulation, socializing and reducing stress. To date, few studies have examined how the neighborhood's physical environment relates to cognition in older adults.

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University and collaborators conducted one of the first known studies to examine how cognitive functioning is affected differently by the neighborhood environment depending on one's apolipoprotein E (APOE) genotype - a genetic risk factor for Alzheimer's disease (AD). For the study, researchers categorized 4,716 participants from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis as carriers of APOEε2 (lower AD risk), APOEε4 (higher AD risk), and APOEε3, the most common variant, which is considered to have neutral risk for developing AD.

Results of the study, published in the journal Health & Place, suggest that the cognitive benefits of living in neighborhoods with greater access to social, walking and retail destinations may be limited to individuals with a reduced genetic risk for cognitive decline, specifically APOE ε2 carriers.

"The positive influence of neighborhood environments on cognition may be strongest among individuals who are at the lowest risk for Alzheimer's disease," said Lilah M. Besser, Ph.D., M.S.P.H., senior author who led the study, an assistant professor in FAU's School of Urban and Regional Planning within the College for Social Design and Inquiry, and a member of the FAU Brain Institute (I-BRAIN). "The risk of cognitive decline among APOE ε4 carriers may be difficult to overcome even when living in beneficial neighborhood environments."

AD is the sixth leading cause of death in the United States and more than 5.8 million Americans are living with the disease. By 2050, this number is projected to rise to nearly 14 million. According to the Alzheimer's Association, in 2019, AD and other dementias cost the nation $290 billion. By 2050, these costs could rise as high as $1.1 trillion.

"Research on the potential influences of the neighborhood environment on cognition and brain aging can help inform recommendations for neighborhood improvements to simultaneously address population growth and healthy brain aging," said Besser. "Knowledge of how the neighborhood environment may affect cognition differentially depending on one's genetic makeup will be important to inform such recommendations."

Data and the economy stemming from them are the engine for the fourth industrial revolution. However, and according to Nikolaos Laoutaris, there is a very important leading player who currently receives absolutely nothing of the huge profits generated by the activity: the people who provide these data. Only in a very few cases do the humans producing data receive a measly compensation in kind for it: free online services.

The idea of an economy based on data generators charging for giving their data to companies was proposed by scientist, author, and artist Jaron Lanier in his book Who Owns the Future. In his article in IEEE Internet Computing, Laoutaris develops the idea and explains that he and his team at the IMDEA Networks Institute are now working to build the algorithms, systems and software so that financial compensation for data becomes a reality. Laoutaris advocates that suitable monetary payment would be the solution for some of the most serious problems that we as a society will face in the immediate future.

Every person receiving financial compensation for the data they produce would be - according to the IMDEA Networks researcher - 'an alternative to receiving a salary for labour, when in the future the majority of work will be done by machines'. Some analyses have concluded, continues Laoutaris in his article, 'that a family of four could earn up to 20,000 dollars (some 18,000 euros) a year for its data'.

The IMDEA Networks researcher stresses that the system would have huge benefits for privacy protection. Given that data collection is currently free, companies grab all data within their reach indiscriminately and without knowing whether or not they are useful. If they had to pay for this information, states Nikolaos Laoutaris, there would indeed be discrimination, as they would only compile data they were going to use: 'paying for data' - explains the researcher - 'exercises economic pressure on the companies to apply the minimisation principle'.

Not only this, the obligation of remuneration in exchange for data would lead to the disappearance of 'parasitic' companies that currently compile lists of anything and everything 'from alleged alcoholics to people who are HIV positive'. These services, also according to the researcher, create 'enormous risks to privacy'. 'Providing financial compensation for data will let internet companies acquire higher-quality data. The better data will in turn increase their revenues because they will be more useful for their users.' The idea of paying for data has already aroused the interest of several sector leaders, including Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates.

In his article, the researcher acknowledges that the transition from the current economy to a system in which paying for data is not only an obligation, but the primordial economic engine, is not simple, but he claims it is possible: 'Laying the foundations for this new economy and leading with the scalability challenges for calculating payments is only the tip of the iceberg on the road to making a human-centric data economy a reality.' However, in Laoutaris' opinion, the option is viable and he even proposes a model for getting it started: 'A small sample of visionaries is needed, people who are aware of the benefits of the new focus (moderation of disputes between privacy and utility, encouraging users to share more data, etc.) and are using it as a feature to stand out from their competitors. If they are successful, there will be more companies that adopt this practice and, in the end, it will be become a common system.'

Symbolic behaviour - such as language, account keeping, music, art, and narrative - constitutes a milestone in human cognitive evolution. But how, where and when did these complex practices evolve? This question is very challenging to address; human cognitive processes do not fossilize, making it very difficult to study the mental life of our Stone Age ancestors. However, in a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences journal PNAS, an interdisciplinary team of cognitive scientists and archaeologists from Denmark, South Africa and Australia takes up the challenge. They used engravings on ochre nodules and ostrich eggshells made between about 109 000 and 52 000 years ago in a series of five cognitive science experiments to investigate their potential symbolic function.

The engravings originate from the South African Middle Stone Age sites of Blombos Cave and Diepkloof Rock Shelter, and are considered among the earliest examples of human symbolic behaviour. They were found in different layers of the cave sediments, which has made it possible to reconstruct the approximate time and order in which they were produced. Lead scientist Kristian Tylén, Associate Professor at the Department of Linguistics, Cognitive Science and Semiotics and at the Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, Denmark, explains:

"It is remarkable that we have a record of a practice of making engravings spanning more than 40 000 years. This allows us to observe how the engraved patterns have been developed and refined incrementally over time to become better symbols - that is - tools for the human mind, similar to the way instrumental technologies, such as stone tools, are honed over time to do their job more efficiently".

In the experiments, participants were shown the engraved patterns while the researchers measured their responses in terms of visual attention, recognition, memory, reaction times, and discrimination of patterns belonging to different points in time. The experiments suggest that over the period of more than 40 000 years, the engravings evolved to more effectively catch human visual attention, they became easier to recognize as human-made, easier to remember and reproduce, and they evolved elements of group-specific style. However, they did not become easier to discriminate from each other within or between each of the two sites.

Several previous studies have presented speculations on the possible symbolic function of the Blombos and Diepkloof engravings. Some have suggested that they should be regarded as fully-developed symbols pointing to distinct meanings, more or less like written glyphs. This suggestion is, however, not supported by the present study:

"It is difficult to make well-grounded interpretations of these ancient human behaviours", says archaeologist and co-author Niels N. Johannsen, Associate Professor at the Department of Archaeology and Heritage Studies and at the Interacting Minds Centre, Aarhus University, "and we have been missing a more systematic, scientific approach. The main advantage of our experimental procedure is that we work directly with the archaeological evidence, measuring cognitive consequences of the changes that these engravings have undergone through time - and from these data, we argue, we are in a better position to understand the possible function of the engravings made by our ancestors tens of thousands of years ago."

The experimental findings suggest that the engravings from Blombos and Diepkloof were created and refined over time to serve an aesthetic purpose, for instance as decorations. However, they also evolved elements of style that could have worked to mark the identity of the group, that is, they could be recognized as coming from a particular group.

The experiments make use of contemporary participants and concerns could be raised that the measurements say little about cognitive processes unfolding in the minds of stone age humans 100 000 years ago.

Kristian Tylén explains:

"Previous investigations have relied exclusively on studies of archaeological artefacts, the size and shape of cranial casts, or the mapping of genes. These are very indirect measures of human cognitive processes. While our experimental approach is also indirect in the sense that we cannot travel back in time and directly record the cognitive processes of our Stone Age ancestors, it is, on the other hand, dealing directly with those basic cognitive processes critically involved in human symbolic behaviour."

The study can thus inform foundational discussions of the early evolution of human symbolic behaviour. Not unlike manual tools, the findings suggest that the engravings were incrementally refined over a period of more than 40 000 years to become more effective 'tools for the mind' as their producers became more skilled symbol makers and users. In the challenging pursuit of understanding human cognitive evolution, the approach and findings provide novel insights into the minds of our Stone Age ancestors that cannot be achieved through the traditional methods of archaeology and genetics, or by theoretical work alone.

UCLA researchers who previously found that intravenous administration of fish oil can treat a rare but potentially deadly form of liver disease in children have now monitored levels of a small molecule at the center of the disorder to track treatment results. In a new study, they also have identified the way specific genes change after fish oil treatment is started.

"Our study sheds light on some of the mechanisms by which IV fish oil helps treat this disease. It also suggests that measuring levels of the molecule might someday be used to diagnose and monitor this and other liver diseases without the need for biopsies," said Dr. Kara L. Calkins, first author of a study published in the Journal of Nutrition. She participated in the study with colleagues at the Neonatal Research Center of the UCLA Children's Discovery and Innovation Institute, the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, and UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital.

When the liver suffers damage, the small molecule, micro-RNA 122, or miR-122, is released into the bloodstream. The researchers said this is the first study to measure miR-122 in children with intestinal failure-associated liver disease, or IFALD. Risk factors for the disease include prematurity, sepsis, and altered intestinal permeability, a digestive condition in which bacteria and toxins are able to "leak" through the intestinal wall.

The study involved 14 children ages 3 months to 5 years old who were successfully treated with pure fish oil administered intravenously. Blood samples were collected at various times throughout the study to measure the level of the molecule in their bodies. Calkins said larger clinical trials will be needed to confirm results.

"Liver disease is a major health problem that can result in liver failure, the need for a liver transplant or even death," said Dr. Sherin Devaskar, lead author of the study and physician-in-chief of UCLA Mattel Children's Hospital and professor of pediatrics at the David Geffen School of Medicine. Because laboratory tests are not always accurate in predicting or diagnosing the disease, liver biopsy is the current standard treatment.

"One of our research goals is to find inexpensive, practical and accurate tests that predict and diagnose liver disease and provide an accurate measure of treatment response," Devaskar said. "This study suggests that plasma miR-122 may serve as a noninvasive marker of liver disease in children with IFALD, and we believe it could be an important surrogate for other liver diseases.''

Changes in DNA methylation patterns during a coral's lifetime can be passed down to their progeny. KAUST researchers believe they have found the first evidence of this change, and they suggest that the finding could help develop new strategies for coral conservation.

DNA methylation is the reversible attachment of a methyl group to a cytosine, one of the four nitrogenous bases that form the building blocks of our genomes. It is an epigenetic change that modifies how a gene is used.

"In mammals, DNA methylation patterns are reset across generations, except in rare exceptions," says postdoc Yi Jin Liew. "In plants, however, they are mostly inherited across generations."

Previous research led by KAUST marine scientist Manuel Aranda had shown that chronically stressed corals develop changes in their epigenetic patterns. "We were curious to find out if corals, like plants, could pass epigenetic information to the next generation," says Liew. "From a biological perspective, this would shatter the common assumption that epigenetic patterns are reset across generations in all animals."

Together with scientists from New York University Abu Dhabi, KAUST researchers analyzed the genomes of adult brain corals (Platygyra daedalea), their sperm and larvae that had been collected from reef sites in Abu Dhabi in the southern Arabian Gulf and from Fujairah in the Sea of Oman. The Abu Dhabi corals had been exposed to extreme temperatures and salinity, while the Fujairah ones lived in more moderate conditions.

"Our initial results were startling," says Liew.

The analyses showed that the DNA methylation patterns were most similar between sperm and their parent coral. "We think this is the first solid proof for intergenerational transfer of whole-genome DNA methylation patterns in an animal," Liew says.

The team found clear differences in the methylation patterns between the Abu Dhabi and Fujairah corals. They also found that DNA methylation patterns are passed equally from parent to progeny through the egg and sperm.

Further investigations confirmed that inheritance of the DNA methylation patterns was mostly independent from genetic inheritance, meaning that they are probably a response to the different environments in which these corals exist. This was supported by heat stress experiments on larvae from these colonies, which showed that the methylation status of certain genes correlated strongly with their chances of survival.

Coral colonies from the much hotter Arabian Gulf also had hypermethylated genes involved in stress responses, potentially allowing them to cope with their harsh environment.

"Inheritance of these novel epigenetic states could serve as a nongenetic breeding strategy to potentially increase resilience to climate change," says Aranda. "Long-term cultivation of corals under elevated temperatures could allow us to breed fitter coral larvae that get a head start in globally rising temperatures."

Aranda says further investigations are needed to verify that environmentally induced epigenetic patterns can be maintained across more than one generation and that these inherited changes could provide a survival advantage for corals and their offspring.

Background

During neuroendoscopic surgery of, for example, brain tumors, the characteristics of the operating space, usually narrower than that of other endoscopic surgery, are determined by visual inspection through the endoscope. However, when bleeding occurs, the surgical site is covered in blood, disrupting visualization. The surgeon may intend to resect a tumor with minimal hemorrhage but can unintentionally cut a blood vessel in the tumor that could not be confirmed visually. Therefore, identification of the presence of blood vessels during brain tumor resection is critical. So far, a number of studies have developed methods to detect invisible blood vessels. Nonetheless, further development of such methods is crucial.

In laparoscopic surgery, blood vessels can be detected using a force/tactile feedback system. However, in neurosurgery, it is difficult to detect blood vessels using the existing force/tactile feedback method because the thickness of the target blood vessels is different from that in laparoscopic surgery. In addition, during brain tumor resection under a neuroendoscope, the surgical site is often covered in blood even with minor bleeding since the operating space is very narrow.

Results

Scientists in the fields of mechanical engineering and medicine at Kanazawa University have collaborated to develop a method for detecting blood vessels inside tumors that are otherwise visually undetectable. They previously developed a surgical robot manipulator with a force feedback system and demonstrated the benefits of the system in neurosurgery. However, detection of blood vessels using the existing force/tactile feedback system is difficult in neurosurgery as described above.

In this study, they developed a novel blood vessel detection method that uses a master-slave surgical robot system1) with a force sensor at the operating segment. The method detects blood pulsation based on gripping force.

If there is a thin artery in a tumor, pulsation of such an artery should be detected by applying an appropriate force sensor to the gripper. However, since the hardness of tumors varies to a considerable extent, such a pulsation sensing system should be applicable to both soft tumors and hard tumors. In addition, since arterial pulsation is much smaller than the tumor-gripping force, such sensor systems must be able to detect even small force changes while gripping a tumor and to have an adequate response time for detecting pulsation.

In this study, a gripper of 3 mm diameter has been developed as shown in Figure 1 left. The force sensor integrated in the gripper detects and records pulsation of an artery in a tumor and the gripping force when the gripper grips a tumor. Since human pulsation is about 70 per minute, the time interval of force measurement was set to 5 msec. As seen in the second panel from the left of Figure 1, pulsation was detected and its frequency could be measured.

A simulated soft or hard tumor was made from urethane gel with 10% added salt or from silicone rubber. The dimension of a simulated tumor was 3 × 3 × 10 mm, and at the center along the long axis, silicone rubber tubing (radius = 0.5 mm and thickness = 0.1 mm) was inserted as a simulated artery. The Young's moduli2) of urethane gel and silicone rubber, measured in a preliminary experiment, were 6 and 38 kPa, respectively. In a study of fluid analysis in cerebral aneurysm, the Young's modulus of a normal blood vessel wall in the brain was found to be 1 MPa, while that of the silicone rubber tube measured in a preliminary experiment was 1.9 MPa. Water was passed through this model artery with a pulsation of 1.2 Hz to simulate blood flow.

The gripper with an opening angle of 34° was designated to be 0° and the closing speed was adjusted. One of the results with urethane gel is shown in Figure 2. With urethane gel, a simulated soft tumor, pulsation was detected at 30° (4° aperture). On the other hand, with silicone rubber as a simulated hard tumor, pulsation was detected at 15-25° (9-19° aperture).

Future prospects

Thus, the scientists were successful in detecting pulsation of a simulated brain artery of 1 mm diameter in simulated soft and hard tumors. Although they present only basic results on the detection of the blood pulses inside simulated tumors during the gripping process, they believe that this new system will be useful for surgeons. If the surgeon suspects the existence of blood vessels inside a tumor, then gripping the tumor can be prolonged to determine blood pulses in the gripping force wave of the manipulator. Although the detection accuracy and speed of this method needs to be improved, it should be effective in avoiding hemorrhage during tumor resection, thus providing a route for tumor resection.

HOUSTON - (Feb. 18, 2020) - Rice University engineers have one-upped their own technique to increase security for the "internet of things."

In truth, their upping is far greater than one.

Kaiyuan Yang, an assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Rice's Brown School of Engineering, and graduate student Yan He have introduced a technique to make security more than 14,000 times better than current state-of-the-art defenses while using far less energy.

The Rice team's technique, introduced with a paper and presentation at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference in San Francisco, is a hardware solution centered in the power management circuitry found in most central processing chips.

The "internet of things" (IoT) allows devices -- kitchen appliances, security systems, wearable technologies and many other applications -- to communicate with each other through networks. With the world on the verge of adopting them by the billions, the best possible security is paramount, Yang said.

Unfortunately, he said, any IoT device may become vulnerable to thieves, who could use it to gain access to entire households.

"Once they've found a hole, there are so many things they can do," Yang said. "And they don't need to get into a computer system or a cell phone. For instance, a thermostat connected to the network can become an access point to a home, a company, a hospital or a city."

Last year's breakthrough by the lab generated paired security keys based on fingerprintlike defects unique to every computer chip. "This year, the story is similar, but we are not generating keys," Yang said. "We are looking at defending against a new type of attack that is specifically for IoT and mobile systems.

"In power and electromagnetic side-channel attacks, the attackers can figure out a secret key when your device is running without opening up the device," he said. "Once they have your key they can decrypt everything, no matter how good your security software is.

The new strategy leverages the power regulators to obfuscate the information leaked by the power consumption of encryption circuits, Yang said. "Every system-on-a-chip has multiple modules powered by the power management circuits, so the interfaces we need are already there.

"By replacing existing power management circuitry with our unit, we not only provide a much better way to defend against powerful threats, but also provide a much more energy-efficient solution," he said.

Yang said the circuit should take no more room on a chip than current power management units, and as a side benefit will provide state-of-the-art power regulation. "I think it's going to be a very promising solution thanks to its minimal performance and design overheads," he said.

Yang said encryption-cracking hardware and software leveraging power and electromagnetic side-channel leakage are far too easy to find, "and there are YouTube videos to show you how to do this," he said. "This is a real threat, and we're in a fight to make it much more difficult and expensive for attackers to succeed."

While Rice's protective circuitry is improving with every iteration, he said it will take time for manufacturers to design it into their fabrication processes. "There's all the interface and engineering stuff," Yang said. "In terms of the concepts and principles, they're all proven. It's just going to be a long engineering effort."

Snakes live in diverse environments ranging from unbearably hot deserts to lush tropical forests, where they slither up trees, rocks and shrubbery every day. By studying how these serpents move, Johns Hopkins engineers have created a snake robot that can nimbly and stably climb large steps.

The team's new findings, published in Journal of Experimental Biology and Royal Society Open Science, advance the creation of search and rescue robots that can successfully navigate treacherous terrain.

"We look to these creepy creatures for movement inspiration because they're already so adept at stably scaling obstacles in their day-to-day lives. Hopefully our robot can learn how to bob and weave across surfaces just like snakes," says Chen Li, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering at The Johns Hopkins University and the papers' senior author.

Previous studies had mainly observed snake movements on flat surfaces, but rarely in 3D terrain except for on trees, says Li, and don't account for real-life large obstacles such as rubble and debris that search and rescue robots would have to climb over.

Li's team first studied how the variable kingsnake, a snake that can commonly be found living in both deserts and pine-oak forests, climbed steps in Li's Terradynamics Lab. Li's lab melds the fields of robotics, biology and physics together to study animal movements for tips and tricks to build more versatile robots.

"These snakes have to regularly travel across boulders and fallen trees; they're the masters of movement and there's much we can learn from them," says Li.

Li and his team ran a series of experiments, changing step height and the steps' surface friction to observe just how the snakes contorted their bodies in response to these barriers.

They found that snakes partitioned their bodies into three sections: their front and rear body wriggled back and forth on the horizontal steps like a wave while their middle body section remained stiff, hovering just so, to bridge the large step. The wriggling portions, they noticed, provided stability to keep the snake from tipping over.

As the snakes got closer and onto the step, the three body sections traveled down each body segment. As more and more of the snake reached the step, its front body section would get longer and its rear section would get shorter while the middle body section remained roughly the same length, suspended vertically above the two steps.

If the steps got taller and more slippery, the snakes would move more slowly and wriggle their front and rear body less to maintain stability.

After analyzing their videos and noting how snakes climbed steps in the lab, Qiyuan Fu, a graduate student in Li's lab, created a robot to mimic the animals' movements.

At first, the robot snake had difficulty staying stable on large steps and often wobbled and flipped over or got stuck on the steps. To address these issues, the researchers inserted a suspension system (like that in your car) into each body segment so it could compress against the surface when needed. After this, the snake robot was less wobbly, more stable and climbed steps as high as 38% of its body length with a nearly 100% success rate.

Compared to snake robots from other studies, Li's snake robot was speedier and more stable than all but one, and even came close to mimicking the actual snake's speed. One downside of the added body suspension system, however, was the robot used more electricity.

"The animal is still far more superior, but these results are promising for the field of robots that can travel across large obstacles," adds Li.

Next, the team will test and improve the snake robot for even more complex 3-D terrain with more unstructured large obstacles.

A landmark Commission report convened by WHO, UNICEF and The Lancet has found the health and future of every child and adolescent worldwide is under immediate threat from ecological degradation, climate change and exploitative marketing practices that push fast food, sugary drinks, alcohol and tobacco at children.

No single country is adequately protecting children's health, their environment and their futures, according to an accompanying global index of 180 countries, comparing performance on child flourishing, including measures of child survival and well-being, such as health, education, and nutrition; sustainability, including a proxy for greenhouse gas emissions, and equity, or income gaps

The US, for example, fails to offer children a top 30 start in life, according to the new Global Index, but of significant concern, the US is one of the worst performing countries on providing a climate fit for their future - coming in at 173rd place globally, within the bottom 10 [Global top and bottom 10 countries listed here]

As climate and commercial threats intensify, WHO-UNICEF-Lancet Commission presses for radical rethink on child health

No single country is adequately protecting children's health, their environment and their futures, finds a landmark report released today by a Commission of over 40 child and adolescent health experts from around the world. The Commission was convened by the World Health Organization (WHO), UNICEF and The Lancet.

The report, A Future for the World's Children?, finds that the health and future of every child and adolescent worldwide is under immediate threat from ecological degradation, climate change and exploitative marketing practices that push heavily processed fast food, sugary drinks, alcohol and tobacco at children.

"Despite improvements in child and adolescent health over the past 20 years, progress has stalled, and is set to reverse," said former Prime Minister of New Zealand and Co-Chair of the Commission, Helen Clark. "It has been estimated that around 250 million children under five years old in low- and middle-income countries are at risk of not reaching their developmental potential, based on proxy measures of stunting and poverty. But of even greater concern, every child worldwide now faces existential threats from climate change and commercial pressures.

"Countries need to overhaul their approach to child and adolescent health, to ensure that we not only look after our children today but protect the world they will inherit in the future," she added.

Intensifying climate change threatens every child's future

The report includes a new global index of 180 countries, comparing performance on child flourishing, including measures of child survival and well-being, such as health, education, and nutrition; sustainability, with a proxy for greenhouse gas emissions, and equity, or income gaps. [Top & Bottom 10 countries; Interactive Index, Full Global Index on pp. 35-38] [1]

According to the report, while the poorest countries need to do more to support their children's ability to live healthy lives, excessive carbon emissions -disproportionately from wealthier countries - threaten the future of all children. If global warming exceeds 4°C by the year 2100 in line with current projections, this would lead to devastating health consequences for children, due to rising ocean levels, heatwaves, proliferation of diseases like malaria and dengue, and malnutrition.

The index shows that children in Norway, the Republic of Korea, and the Netherlands have the best chance at survival and well-being, while children in Central African Republic, Chad, Somalia, Niger and Mali face the worst odds. However, when authors took per capita CO2 emissions into account, the top countries trail behind: Norway ranked 156, the Republic of Korea 166, and the Netherlands 160. Each of the three emits 210% more CO2 per capita than their 2030 target. The United States of America (USA), Australia, and Saudi Arabia are among the ten worst emitters.

"More than 2 billion people live in countries where development is hampered by humanitarian crises, conflicts, and natural disasters, problems increasingly linked with climate change," said Minister Awa Coll-Seck from Senegal, Co-Chair of the Commission. "While some of the poorest countries have among the lowest CO2 emissions, many are exposed to the harshest impacts of a rapidly changing climate. Promoting better conditions today for children to survive and thrive nationally does not have to come at the cost of eroding children's futures globally."

The only countries on track to beat CO2 emission per capita targets by 2030, while also performing fairly (within the top 70) on child flourishing measures are: Albania, Armenia, Grenada, Jordan, Moldova, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Uruguay and Viet Nam.

Harmful commercial marketing preys on children - with childhood obesity increasing 11-fold

The report also highlights the distinct threat posed to children from harmful marketing. Evidence suggests that children in some countries see as many as 30,000 advertisements on television alone in a single year, while youth exposure to vaping (e-cigarettes) advertisements increased by more than 250% in the USA over two years, reaching more than 24 million young people.

Professor Anthony Costello, one of the Commission's authors, said: "Industry self-regulation has failed. Studies in Australia, Canada, Mexico, New Zealand and the USA - among many others - have shown that self-regulation has not hampered commercial ability to advertise to children. For example, despite industry signing up to self-regulation in Australia, children and adolescent viewers were still exposed to 51 million alcohol ads during just one year of televised football, cricket and rugby. And the reality could be much worse still: we have few facts and figures about the huge expansion of social media advertising and algorithms aimed at our children."

Children's exposure to commercial marketing of junk food and sugary beverages is associated with purchase of unhealthy foods and overweight and obesity, linking predatory marketing to the alarming rise in childhood obesity. The number of obese children and adolescents increased from 11 million in 1975 to 124 million in 2016 - an 11-fold increase, with dire individual and societal costs.

A manifesto for immediate action on child and adolescent health

To protect children, the independent Commission authors call for a new global movement driven by and for children. Specific recommendations include:

Stop CO2 emissions with the utmost urgency, to ensure children have a future on this planet;

Place children and adolescents at the centre of our efforts to achieve sustainable development;

New policies and investment in all sectors to work towards child health and rights;

Incorporate children's voices into policy decisions;

Tighten national regulation of harmful commercial marketing, supported by a new Optional Protocol to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Dr. Richard Horton, Editor-in-Chief of The Lancet family of journals, said: "The opportunity is great. The evidence is available. The tools are at hand. From heads-of-state to local government, from UN leaders to children themselves, this Commission calls for the birth of a new era for child and adolescent health. It will take courage and commitment to deliver. It is the supreme test of our generation."

"From the climate crisis to obesity and harmful commercial marketing, children around the world are having to contend with threats that were unimaginable just a few generations ago," said Henrietta Fore, UNICEF Executive Director. "It is time for a rethink on child health, one which places children at the top of every government's development agenda and puts their well-being above all considerations."

"This report shows that the world's decision makers are failing today's children and youth: failing to protect their health, failing to protect their rights, and failing to protect their planet," Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director-General of the World Health Organization said. "This must be a wakeup call for countries to invest in child health and development, ensure their voices are heard, protect their rights, and build a future that is fit for children."

Despite the benefits of well-child care visits (WCV), up to half of WCVs are missed. A team of researchers and pediatricians at Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Washington, and the University of Vermont sought to understand the challenges that prevent families from attending their child's scheduled appointment. They interviewed caregivers of children who had missed WCVs as well as family and pediatric physicians from a large safety-net health system in Richmond, Virginia. Caregivers and physicians alike identified social factors as key barriers to attendance, including transportation, difficulty taking time off from work, childcare, and underlying financial stressors. The researchers conclude, "Our findings suggest there is a need to further explore the potential relationship between WCV attendance and social determinants of health."

Leading educators and clinical experts on transgender health care from Harvard, Fenway Health, and The Fenway Institute address access issues for transgender patients seeking care by providing a plan to integrate gender-affirming hormone therapy, surgical referrals, or wrap-around services into primary care. Such programs provide a much-needed service for this underserved but increasingly visible population that experiences significant health inequities. Authors provide a concise and practical guide to developing transgender health programs within existing primary care practices. Programs may be as streamlined as having one or two clinicians who provide hormone therapy within a welcoming primary care practice. The guide provides tips on how to access low-cost clinical training and how to generate organizational buy-in for the development of new services. The plan can be adapted across primary care practices of varying sizes and resources. This is the first peer-reviewed publication that provides a guide to implementing a transgender health program in primary care settings.

A new study from the University of Missouri concluded that a physician's decision not to intensify hypertension treatment is often a contextually appropriate choice. In two-thirds of cases where physicians did not change treatment for patients with hypertension, patients' blood pressure returned to normal in follow-up readings taken at home. This pre- and post-study tracked 90 patients with hypertension to understand the role that follow-up home blood pressure measures could play in understanding cases of "therapeutic inertia." Sixty-six percent of patients who had a blood pressure reading of 140/90 or higher when they were in the clinic and whose doctors did not change their treatment, had average readings under 140/90 when patients took their blood pressure at home.

According to the authors, there are implications for health care quality metrics. Doctors' success rates in controlling hypertension are based solely on clinic blood pressure rates. The authors extrapolated the home blood pressure metrics to show that when home metrics replaced clinical ones, the department's hypertension control success rates rose from 58% to 86%. They conclude, "Most validated home blood pressure should be accepted and preferred for physician hypertension performance measures."

Additionally, when surveyed after the home blood pressure reading intervention, participants shared that home blood pressure monitoring enhanced their understanding of blood pressure control. Eighty-three percent of participants agreed that they would consider buying a home blood pressure monitor if it was covered by insurance.

Lincoln, Nebraska -- For decades, research examining the intersection of religion and politics counted the religious "nones" -- or the unaffiliated -- as a small, homogeneous and liberal group, and conservatives have treated them as such.

But the number of religiously unaffiliated has grown exponentially to become one of the largest demographic groups in the United States, now reaching 23 percent of the population. This begs the question, do religious nones still cluster on the blue end of the political spectrum?

New research from University of Nebraska-Lincoln sociologist Philip Schwadel finds the unaffiliated are now much more varied in their political beliefs than previously believed. As this group grows, repercussions could be felt by political parties in the future.

Through survey data collected from Pew Research Center's American Trends Panel, Schwadel examined religious nones, further distilling the group into three categories --atheists, agnostics and "nothing in particulars" -- for the first time. When he measured their political activities and beliefs, he found agnostics and atheists were more likely to be liberal, while the largest group, the "nothing in particulars," was more likely to be conservative.

"As you would expect and as past research has shown, non-religious Americans as a whole are less likely to be Republican, more likely to be Democrat," Schwadel said. "But when we break it apart, it's really the atheists and agnostics who are especially likely to be Democrats, while those who are nothing in particular fall in between the (religiously) affiliated, who are significantly more likely to be conservative, and the atheists and agnostics."

Schwadel was surprised to find, however, that those who reported that their religion is "nothing in particular" seemed to shun politics altogether, being the least likely group to have voted in the previous election.

"They were also the least likely, even when compared to the religiously affiliated, to have talked about politics," Schwadel said.

The religiously unaffiliated have been largely ignored by the Republican Party, because it was thought to be a wholly liberal group, but these findings show an opening for conservative politics.

"It's possible that in the future, the Republican Party may be able to count on them as a constituency, but unfortunately, they're relatively uninterested politically," Schwadel said. "It would be up to the party to mobilize them."

The results raise questions for future prognostications about politics in America, too.

"Now that this group is one of the largest religious groups in our country, as political pollsters, political scientists, the media make political projections, I think it's important that they understand this group of non-affiliated Americans is not a monolithic group, they're not all the same," he said.

Schwadel noted the study also found that agnostics were the most politically active, more likely to vote, and reported that they feel politically isolated from their families, while atheists were politically active, too, but were more likely to have conflicts with others over politics.