Culture

Most people are familiar with the historical Silk Road, but fewer people realize that the exchange of items, ideas, technology, and human genes through the mountain valleys of Central Asia started almost three millennia before organized trade networks formed. These pre-Silk Road exchange routes played an important role in shaping human cultural developments across Europe and Asia, and facilitated the dispersal of technologies such as horse breeding and metal smelting into East Asia. One of the most impactful effects of this process of ancient cultural dispersal was the westward spread of northeast Asian crops and the eastward spread of southwest Asian crops. However, until the past few years, a lack of archaeobotanical studies in Central Asia left a dearth of data relating to when and how this process occurred.

This new study, led by scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History, provides details of recently recovered ancient grains from the far northern regions of Inner Asia. Radiocarbon dating shows that the grains include the oldest examples of wheat and barley ever recovered this far north in Asia, pushing back the dates for early farming in the region by at least a millenium. These are also the earliest domesticated plants reported from the northern half of Central Asia, the core of the ancient exchange corridor. This study pulls together sedimentary pollen and ancient wood charcoal data with archaeobotanical remains from the Tiangtian archaeological site in the Chinese Altai Mountains to reveal how humans cultivated crops at such northern latitudes. This study illustrates how adaptable ancient crop plants were to new ecological constraints and how human cultural practices allowed people to survive in unpredictable environments.

The Northern Dispersal of Cereal Grains

The ancient relatives of wheat and barley plants evolved to grow in the warm and dry climate of the eastern Mediterranean and southwest Asia. However, this study illustrates that ancient peoples were cultivating these grasses over five and a half thousand kilometers to the northeast of where they originally evolved to grow. In this study, Dr. Xinying Zhou and his colleagues integrate paleoenvironmental proxies to determine how extreme the ecology was around the archaeological cave site of Tangtian more than five millennia ago, at the time of its occupation. The site is located high in the Altai Mountains on a cold,dry landscape today; however, the study shows that the ecological setting around the site was slightly warmer and more humid at the time when people lived in and around this cave.

The slightly warmer regional conditions were likely the result of shifting air masses bringing warmer, wetter air from the south. In addition to early farmers using a specific regional climate pocket to grow crops in North Asia, analysis showed that the crops they grew evolved to survive in such northern regions. The results of this study provide scholars with evidence for when certain evolutionary changes in these grasses occurred, including changes in the programed reliance of day length, which signals to the plant when to flower, and a greater resistance to cold climates.

The Trans-Eurasian Exchange and Crop Dispersal

The ancient dispersal of crops across Inner Asia has received a lot of attention from biologists and archaeologists in recent years; as Dr. Spengler, one of the study's lead authors, discusses in his recent book Fruit from the Sands, these ancient exchange routes shaped the course of human history. The mingling of crops originating from opposite ends of Asia resulted in the crop-rotation cycles that fueled demographic growth and led to imperial formation. East Asian millets would become one of the most important crops in ancient Europe and wheat would become one of the most important crops in East Asia by the Han Dynasty. While the long tradition of rice cultivation in East Asia made rice a staple of the Asian kitchen, Chinese cuisine would be unrecognizable without wheat-based food items like steamed buns, dumplings, and noodles. The discovery that these plants dispersed across Eurasia earlier than previously understood will have lasting impacts on the study of cultivation and labor practices in ancient Eurasia, as well as the history cultural contact and shifts in culinary systems throughout time.

These new discoveries provide reason to question these views, and seem to suggest that mixed small-scale human populations made major contributions to world history through migration and cultural and technological exchange. "This study not only presents the earliest dates for domesticated grains in far North Asia," says Professor Xiaoqiang Li, director of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing, "it represents the earliest beginning of a trans-Eurasian exchange that would eventually develop into the great Silk Road".

Dr. Xinying Zhou, who headed the study and directs a research team at the IVPP in Beijing, emphasizes that "this discovery is a testament to human ingenuity and the amazing coevolutionary bond between people and the plants that they maintain in their cultivated fields."

Contrary to theoretical predictions, oxygen inactivates biocatalysts for energy conversion within a short time, even under a protective film. A research team of the Resolv Cluster of Excellence at Ruhr Universität Bochum (RUB) has found out why: Hydrogen peroxide forms on the protective film. The addition of iodide salts to the electrolyte can prevent this from happening and considerably extend the life of the catalysts. The team around Professor Nicolas Plumeré from Resolv, Dr. Erik Freier from the Leibniz Institute for Analytical Sciences Dortmund and Professor Wolfgang Lubitz from the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Energy Conversion in Mülheim reports its findings in Nature Communications of 14 February 2020.

Deactivated within seconds

Biological and bio-inspired catalysts are available in abundance and their catalytic performance is close to that of precious metal catalysts. Nevertheless, they are not widely used for energy conversion processes. The reason for this is their instability. "Some of the most active small molecule conversion catalysts relevant to sustainable energy systems are so sensitive to oxygen that they are completely deactivated within seconds when they come into contact with it", explains Nicolas Plumeré.

Infinite protection - so far only in theory

The research group had recently discovered that redox-active films can protect bio-inspired and even biocatalysts such as hydrogenases against this. Theoretical models predict that protection against oxygen should last indefinitely. In experiments, however, this protection has so far only been effective for a few hours. "This contradicts our theoretical calculations and cannot be explained, even in view of the lifetime of the same catalyst in an oxygen-free environment", says Plumeré. The latter is up to six weeks with constant turnover.

Combination of methods explores the problem

This led the researchers to conclude that either the mechanism for protection against oxygen is not yet understood, or that apart from deactivation by oxygen, additional harmful processes take place. To investigate this, they combined various methods that allowed them to examine what happens in the protected layer in detail. The combination of confocal fluorescence microscopy and coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering performed in the laboratory by Erik Freier, with electrochemistry for the analysis of the protective matrix showed: The protective process leads to an accumulation of hydrogen peroxide, which promotes damage to the catalytic film.

Suppressing hydrogen peroxide formation

We show that the decomposition of hydrogen peroxide with iodide salts increases the half-life of a hydrogenase for hydrogen oxidation to up to one week at constant turnover, even with constant exposure to high oxygen concentrations. "Overall, our data confirm the theory that redox films make oxygen-sensitive catalysts completely immune to direct deactivation by oxygen", concludes Plumeré. "However, it is very important to also suppress hydrogen peroxide production in order to achieve complete protection against oxidative stress."

"Our work shows that the simple strategy of adding iodide salts to the electrolyte can be sufficient to significantly reduce the inactivation rates of biocatalysts", the researchers say. They believe that this will enable the widespread implementation of other electrocatalytic processes in real applications. This also includes energy conversion processes such as solar fuel generation by carbon dioxide reduction and the electrosynthesis of fine or basic chemicals such as ammonia.

Neural oscillations - also known as brainwaves - are important carriers of information in the brain. Researchers are increasingly coming to view them less as sustained oscillations and more as transient bursts. Until now, there has been no method for measuring such short-lived bursts in real time or for examining how they influence the behavior of living things. In cooperation with her working group, Prof. Dr. Ilka Diester of the University of Freiburg's Institute of Biology III and excellence cluster BrainLinks-BrainTools has developed a new method for analyzing data in the brain. They are using their method to detect short beta wave bursts in real time within neural frequency bands of around 20 Hertz and to show how rats can increase the occurrence of these bursts. The researchers have published their results in the scientific journal "Nature Communication Biology."

In humans, monkeys, and rodents, it is possible to detect short bursts of up to 150 milliseconds of beta waves - a specific section of the brainwave spectrum - within a frequency range of 15 hertz to 30 hertz. Researchers up to now connected these events with memory, motion, and perception. During what is known as neuro-feedback training, rats always receive a reward when their brain produces a burst in the beta frequency range. This increases not only the recurrence of beta frequency bursts, but the total amplitude of this frequency range as well.

Through their work, Diester and her team have been able to predict beta range bursts in rats based on the rats movements - particularly in the front half of the rats' bodies. This new method paves the way for investigating the role of beta bursts in specific behaviors. Because beta frequencies play a significant role in motion control, the method also opens new approaches in neuroprosthetics - the development and application of electronic implants for the restoration of damaged nerve function.

Despite the large number of existing reagents, research is ongoing in the world to obtain universal catalysts that are distinguished by their efficiency, low cost and neutral impact on the environment. After conducting laboratory studies, KFU scientists were able to create a new type of reagent based on nickel and cobalt carboxylates, which are highly effective catalysts for the refinement of heavy oil.

The use of catalysts injected into a reservoir intensifies the destruction of asphaltene-resinous compounds, those which most affect the viscosity of oil.

In the paper, chemical changes in the composition of asphaltene subfractions of heavy oil under the influence of oil-soluble Co-based catalyst were investigated. The results of SARA-analysis and MALDI-spectroscopy revealed a decrease in absolute content of asphaltenes and their molecular masses in the presence of catalyst. Moreover, the sulfur content was decreased under the catalyst influence and it was mostly observed in the subfraction with the highest molecular weight (A5). The main catalytic reaction was a destructive hydrogenation, directed to break the -C-S-C- bonds in the asphaltene molecules. The 13C NMR spectra revealed the decrease in average length of chain (MCL) after catalytic treatment by 15 times in A1 subfraction, which was accepted as a solvate layer and almost by 13 times in A2 subfraction. The C-O and C-S bonds break in the side chains of aromatic and alicyclic hydrocarbons. The content of primary (Cp) and the sum of secondary and quaternary (Csq) carbons was increased, while the content of tertiary (Ct) and aromatic carbons (Car) declined. The high-molecular poly-alicyclic and polyaromatic components had lost the straight and branched aliphatic hydrocarbons, and then were transformed into coke like substance - carbene-carboids.

"The aquathermolysis technology is used to work with catalysts. These reagents are our own production. To date, they have found their application in Cuba and on Ashalchi field in Tatarstan," said Salikh Indad Sharif Salikh, Junior Research Associate at the In-Situ Combustion Lab.

The market, according to the researcher, has already appreciated this technology - the catalysts are being introduced into production by the largest Russian companies.

"Representatives from Iran, Iraq, Algeria and other countries work at our laboratory. And it is no coincidence that we have plans to promote our catalysts in other countries of the world. We are convinced that they can perform well on numerous overseas oilfields," said Irek Mukhamatdinov, Senior Research Associate at the same laboratory.

Most Tennessee infants exposed to hepatitis C at birth are not later tested to see if they acquired the virus, according to a study by researchers at Monroe Carell Jr. Children's Hospital at Vanderbilt and the Vanderbilt Center for Child Health Policy.

Over the past few years, hepatitis C virus rates among pregnant women, likely a consequence of the country's opioid crisis, have grown substantially.

"The increase has largely gone unnoticed," said lead investigator Susan Lopata, MD, assistant professor of Pediatrics at Children's Hospital. "Given that the most common mode of transmission in the pediatric population is vertical transmission -- from mom to baby during pregnancy or during delivery -- the rising rates of hepatitis C among pregnant women signifies an emerging public health threat to children."

The findings, published in Pediatrics, are a result of a retrospective, cohort study that looked at infants enrolled in the Tennessee Medicaid program. Using data from birth certificates and hospital/doctor billing, investigators reviewed information from more than 4,000 subjects who were exposed to the virus during a 10-year period.

The results were disheartening.

"We wanted to see if children were being adequately tested per national guidelines and to see if there were factors associated with the differences in testing rates," said Lopata. "The guidelines call for hepatitis C-exposed infants to be tested at either 2 months old or at 18 months old. The gold standard is at 18 months."

According to study results for Tennessee:

Fewer than 1 in 4 exposed children were tested.

Fewer than 1 in 5 exposed children were adequately tested.

Infants born to African American mothers were tested about 10% of the time.

"Many children were being missed or not adequately tested according to the medical guidelines," Lopata said. "We believe that by the time a child reaches 18 months of age, pediatricians aren't thinking about perinatal-acquired infections. They are looking at development milestones."

The focus of the study, funded by the National Institutes on Drug Abuse, was to see if children exposed to the virus either during pregnancy or during delivery received appropriate testing and to determine if hospital- and patient-level factors affected testing.

Stephen Patrick, MD, MPH, MS, director of the Center for Child Health Policy at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and senior author of the paper, said as the opioid crisis continues to spread, affecting more women and infants, there needs to be more focus on the complications of the opioid crisis, like hepatitis C.

"There's an urgent need to develop public health approaches to ensure we are treating women for hepatitis C infections before pregnancy, identifying infected women in pregnancy and ensuring all exposed infants are appropriately monitored," said Patrick, associate professor of Pediatrics and Health Policy.

Lopata's interest in determining testing rates came after her interaction with a former patient, whose mother had opioid use disorder and hepatitis C, the most common cause of liver disease. The then-3-year-old was jaundiced, had hepatitis C and needed a liver transplant.

"Despite the fact that the baby was diagnosed with neonatal abstinence syndrome (NAS), an opioid withdrawal syndrome in newborns, his hepatitis C exposure wasn't identified. He fell through the cracks. Seeing him in liver failure made me want to pursue this area of research."

According to Lopata, 185 million people, or 3% of the world's population, are infected with hepatitis C. In the United States, 3.5 million people are infected with the virus, the most common blood-borne infection.

"I believe people will be shocked to discover that we are not doing a good job testing children," Lopata said. "There is no universal screening for hepatitis C in pregnancy. Perhaps someday this would be an option to better identify moms and babies exposed so that down the road we can test them when appropriate.

"Pediatricians need to be on alert about the need to follow and appropriately test these children. We have to develop better ways to track them."

TORONTO, February 13, 2020 – A study led by York University researchers provides new evidence that bilingualism can delay symptoms of dementia.

Alzheimer’s disease is the most common form of dementia, making up 60 to 70 per cent of dementia cases. Of all activities with neuroplastic benefits, language use is the most sustained, consuming the largest proportion of time within a day. It also activates regions across the entire brain. Ellen Bialystok, Distinguished Research Professor in York’s Department of Psychology, Faculty of Health, and her team tested the theory that bilingualism can increase cognitive reserve and thus delay the age of onset of Alzheimer’s disease symptoms in elderly patients. Bialystok’s team collaborated with researchers at Baycrest Health Sciences’ Rotman Research Institute, where Bialystok is an associate scientist.

The study is believed to be the first to investigate conversion times from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s disease in monolingual and bilingual patients. Although bilingualism delays the onset of symptoms, Bialystok says, once diagnosed, the decline to full-blown Alzheimer’s disease is much faster in bilingual people than in monolingual people because the disease is actually more severe.

“Imagine sandbags holding back the floodgates of a river. At some point the river is going to win,” says Bialystok. “The cognitive reserve is holding back the flood and at the point that they were when they were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment they already had substantial pathology but there was no evidence of it because they were able to function because of the cognitive reserve. When they can no longer do this, the floodgates get completely washed out, so they crash faster. Yet they had more time to enjoy the dry land.”

In the five-year study, researchers followed 158 patients from the Sam and Ida Ross Memory Clinic at Baycrest Health Sciences who had been diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment. The patients had been diagnosed after extensive testing and evaluation conducted by the clinic.

For the study, researchers classified bilingual people as having high cognitive reserve and monolingual people as having low cognitive reserve. Patients were matched on age, education, and cognitive level at the time of diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment. The researchers followed their six-month interval appointments at the clinic to see the point at which diagnoses changed from mild cognitive impairment to Alzheimer’s disease. The conversion time for bilinguals, 1.8 years after initial diagnosis, was significantly faster than it was for monolinguals, who took 2.6 years to convert to Alzheimer’s disease. This difference suggests that bilingual patients had more neuropathology at the time they were diagnosed with mild cognitive impairment than the monolinguals, even though they presented with the same level of cognitive function.

These results contribute to the growing body of evidence showing that bilinguals are more resilient in dealing with neurodegeneration than monolinguals. They operate at a higher level of functioning because of the cognitive reserve, which means that many of these individuals will be independent longer, Bialystok says. This study adds new evidence by showing that the decline is more rapid once a clinical threshold has been crossed, presumably because there is more disease already in the brain.

“Given that there is no effective treatment for Alzheimer’s or dementia, the very best you can hope for is keeping these people functioning so that they live independently so that they don’t lose connection with family and friends. That’s huge.”

Bottom Line: Subconcussive head impacts from sports are those that don't cause symptoms of a concussion. This randomized clinical trial evaluated whether such subconcussive head impacts from soccer-ball headings impaired brain circuitry linking eye and cognitive functions in adult soccer players compared with a control group of players that only kicked the soccer ball. Neuro-ophthalmologic function was measured with a test of eye movement and brain functions such as attention, language and concentration. The study included 78 soccer players, of whom 40 players did 10 soccer-ball headings. Researchers report the kicking control group performed better on the test of neuro-ophthalmologic function at all points over 24 hours after the intervention than the heading group of players.  The findings suggest subconcussive head impacts may affect neuro-eye function, at least in the short term. Limitations of the study include an inability to determine the observed effects beyond 24 hours and it is unknown whether prior exposure to soccer-ball heading affected the players' responses to 10 headings as part of the trial intervention.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

Authors: Keisuke Kawata, Ph.D., Indiana University School of Public Health,­ Bloomington, and coauthors.

(doi:10.1001/jamaophthalmol.2019.6128)

Editor's Note: The article includes funding/support disclosures. Please see the articles for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflicts of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

American consumers are hungry for more climate-friendly plant-based diets, but they need more information, according to results from a national survey released today by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (YPCCC) and the Earth Day Network (EDN).

The report, titled "Climate Change and the American Diet," found that half (51 percent) of Americans surveyed said that they would eat more plant-based foods if they had more information about the environmental impacts of their food choices. However, 70 percent rarely or never talk about this issue with friends or family. Nearly two-thirds of the Americans surveyed report having never been asked to eat more plant-based foods, and more than half rarely or never hear about the topic in the media.

However, the report found that more than half of Americans are willing to eat more vegetables and plant-based alternatives and/or less red meat. Additionally, consumers are already changing their diets and purchasing habits in favor of plant-based foods. 

Although four percent of Americans self-identify as vegan or vegetarian, 20 percent choose plant-based dairy alternatives about two to five times a week or more often. Roughly the same percentage choose not to buy products from food companies that are not taking steps to reduce their environmental impact.

"Many American consumers are interested in eating a more healthy and climate-friendly diet," said Anthony Leiserowitz, director of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. "However, many simply don't know yet which products are better or worse -- a huge communication opportunity for food producers, distributors and sellers."

The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication conducts research on public climate change knowledge, attitudes, policy preferences, and behavior, and on the underlying psychological, cultural, and political factors that influence them. It is based at the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.

Americans identified other barriers to eating more plant-based foods, including perceived cost, taste and accessibility. About half (49 percent) of Americans think a meal with a plant-based main course is more expensive than a meal with a meat-based main course. 

The research, a nationally representative survey of 1,043 American adults, also showed that Americans would eat more plant-based foods if they cost less than meat options (63 percent) and if they tasted better (67 percent). Barriers of cost and access, including distance from grocery stores and access to fresh produce, impact lower-income households in particular. 

"This data is a wake-up call for the climate movement," said Jillian Semaan, Food and Environment Director, Earth Day Network. "Animal agriculture is one of the major drivers of our climate crisis, we need to provide people with the relevant information that connects food choices, animal agriculture and climate change.'

Since the 1990s, femtochemistry has been researching ultrafast processes at the molecular level. In the last few years, the research group Femtosecond Dynamics at TU Graz's Institute of Experimental Physics has been able to achieve a number of successes in the area of light-matter interaction. "A precise understanding of the processes triggered by photoexcitation in molecules is, for example, a prerequisite for the development of sustainable technologies that enable an energy supply based on solar energy," says Markus Koch, the head of the working group. As an example, he cites photocatalysis, which helps to convert sunlight into chemical energy with advantages in terms of long-term storage and energy density when compared to the generation of electrical energy via photovoltaics.

One method for such molecular dynamic investigations makes use of so-called pump-probe measurements applying an ultrashort laser pulse to excite ("pump") a molecular system into a desired state. After an adjustable delay time, a second ("probe") laser interrogates the population of the excited state by ionizing the molecule. The energy of the emitted photoelectrons is measured and by varying the pump-probe delay time, conclusions can be drawn about the energy flow in the molecule.

Heisenberg's energy-time uncertainty principle prevents exact results

An exact description of light-induced processes on their real time scale has so far failed for some polyatomic molecules that may take different decay or fragmentation routes after excitation, depending on the choice between closely spaced energy states. As a result of Heisenberg's energy-time uncertainty principle, laser pulses of only femtosecond (10-15 seconds) time duration cannot selectively excite closely neighbouring molecular states. However, short pulses are a prerequisite for the observation of extremely fast processes.

New approach combines theory and experiment

In collaboration with researchers of the Institute of Theoretical Chemistry at the Faculty of Chemistry of the University of Vienna under the direction of Prof. Leticia González, the experimental physicists in Graz have now overcome this hurdle. By combining experiments with ultrashort laser pulses and theoretical simulations of light-induced processes, the energy flow in acetone - a molecule that has already been well studied - could now be observed for the first time at a key energy window between three closely related states. Even for the Vienna group, a driving force in the field of the theoretical description of molecules after light excitation, the system under investigation presented a challenge. "For these simulations, new developments in our local software package SHARC (https://sharc-md.org/) were necessary, without which the correct description of acetone dynamics would not have been possible," emphasizes González.

Synergy effects yield new insights

Both methods in themselves are widely used, but "while the energy-time-blur relation in femtosecond spectroscopy prevents precise results, real-time simulations provide deeper insights into molecular dynamics, which in turn require the experimental results to be verified," explains Koch. The combination of these two techniques now provides researchers with a deeper insight into acetone dynamics and is a further milestone in the study of light-matter interactions. The results were published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters.

This research area is anchored in the Field of Expertise "Advanced Materials Science", one of five strategic foci of TU Graz. Participating researchers are members of NAWI Graz Physics.

Under JST's Strategic Basic Research Programs, Noda Nobuo (Laboratory Head) and Yamasaki Akinori, Postdoctoral Fellow (currently Assistant Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology), at the Institute of Microbial Chemistry in collaboration with other researchers, have discovered that autophagy is effective for selectively degrading protein in a state of liquid droplet(1) that is formed through liquid-liquid phase separation(2) but does poorly with the degradation of protein in aggregation or solid state.

Autophagy is one of the mechanisms through which cellular protein is degraded. There exists a selective type of autophagy named selective autophagy(3) that targets and degrades specific proteins and organelles. It has been assumed that selective autophagy prevents the onset of diseases, but the state of proteins in which they could be efficiently degraded had been unclear.

This research group used the selective autophagy of Ape1 protein in yeast as the model system and succeeded in reconstituting the Ape1 isolation process with a lipid membrane in a test tube. It revealed that Ape1 protein is effectively isolated by the lipid membrane through the functioning of the Atg8 and receptor proteins when Ape1 forms droplets but is not isolated by the lipid membrane when Ape1 forms aggregates.

The discovery that selective autophagy is effective in degrading protein droplets but does poorly in degrading protein aggregates indicates that the activation of autophagy alone is insufficient in the prevention of and therapeutic medication development for neurodegenerative diseases and other diseases that are believed to be caused by the accumulation of abnormal proteins and that it is important to develop drugs that change aggregations into droplets. This will hopefully lead to the discovery of drugs that target "liquid-liquid phase separation," which is the mechanism for creating droplets.

It was also proved for the first time that the isolation step for the targeted protein in selective autophagy can be conducted with just the Atg8 and receptor proteins. Autophagy also selectively degrades mitochondria and other organelles as well as pathogenic bacteria. Atg8 and receptor proteins could be responsible for selective isolation in a similar mechanism in these cases as well. The application of the test-tube reconstitution system developed here would promote research on the selective autophagy mechanisms for a wide variety of targets.

(1) Liquid droplet

A condensate of macromolecules with fluidity created when protein and/or nucleic acids undergo liquid-liquid phase separation. The droplets are also known as "membraneless organelles" and perform various functions within the cell. A droplet spontaneously assumes a spherical form. It also has high internal fluidity, and it actively exchanges molecules with its surroundings.

(2) Liquid-liquid phase separation

This is the phenomenon of a uniform liquid phase separating into multiple liquid phases. It is observed in daily life as the separation of water and oil, which occurs within cells with proteins and nucleic acids.

(3) Selective autophagy?

Autophagic pathway that degrades specific targets when it is required by the cell, unlike ordinary autophagy, which is triggered by starvation and degrades intracellular components indiscriminately. In selective autophagy, there are receptor proteins that recognize the wide variety of targets for degradation. It is believed that they all selectively load their targets into autophagosomes by connecting to both the degradation targets and the Atg8 proteins on the autophagosomes.

Recently, a group of ITMO University researchers has looked into the microbiome of the Moscow Subway. Turns out that bacterial world of the Russian capital's subway system might be similar to that of New York's public transportation.

Over the course of our lives, we are constantly surrounded by bacteria - apart from those of our own, we encounter them in the air, soil, water and even in our homes. Some of these external microorganisms can be harmful to humans, while others play a vital role in regulating our immune system. With urbanization taking over the world, the situation is changing: people are still surrounded by bacteria, but their diversity is now decreased and we are exposed to them to a lower extent. Several years ago, an international group of researchers set out to explore the microbiome of subways, the vital transportation systems of modern cities. New York was first to have its subway microbiome investigated.

"The researchers analyzed the floors, handrails and carriages, and found a curiously varying microbiome," explains Alexander Tyakht, a PhD in biology, the chief technology officer at Knomics (Atlas R&D), and staff member of ITMO University's Computer Technologies Lab. "An international consortium was later established to study the subway microbiomes all over the world. This project aims to catalogize the diversity and patterns in their microbial ecology, thus creating a base for a more focused analysis of microorganisms inhabiting public spaces."

Traditionally, to study the microbiome of a certain surface you would need to cultivate samples from it. To put it simply, you have to take a swab sample from the floor, the wall or the handrail and streak a Petri dish with the swab. There, the microbes reproduce, which makes them easier to examine. This method, however, has a significant drawback: without prior knowledge of what kind of bacteria were collected it is difficult to choose a suitable medium for them to flourish, moreover, many microorganisms are practically uncultivable. High-throughput DNA sequencing is the method of choice for comprehensive microbiome profiling. This method, initially used in the New York subway system, was later used in other cities within the framework of the project, including Moscow.

After comparing their results with those obtained by the US researchers, the Russian group discovered that the most common types of bacteria in the subway systems of Moscow and New York are identical.

"Most of the Dietzia, Brevundimonas, Pseudomonas, Arsenicicoccus, Stenotrophomonas and Brevundimonas - highly abundant in the Moscow Subway - have also been detected during the previous New York project," says Natalya Klimenko, a bioinformatician at Knomics (Atlas R&D). "Apparently, the subway microbial community structures manifest similar patterns across the globe."

One other interesting outcome was the identified link between the microbiome diversity and the passenger traffic across the stations. At the same time, the highest diversity was found in places with abundant soil bacteria, while the prevalence of the skin microbiome corresponded to lower diversity. This pattern resonates with the fact that in nature soil microbiome is richer than that of our bodies.

Noteworthy, the researchers found no significant evidence of pathogenic bacteria: no DNA sequences were reliably detected for any of the ten pathogens that could be robustly detected given the applied method. Nevertheless, the researchers emphasize that this finding doesn't mean you can now stop washing your hands after a subway journey: only a handful of samples have been analyzed, and the analytical method cannot detect all known pathogenic bacteria, viruses, fungi or protozoa.

Although this study of the Moscow Subway was only a pilot project, it has already demonstrated that DNA sequencing can be successfully used to map the microbiome of public spaces. A further advanced survey of every station and every type of surface would benefit from a richer repertoire of microbiological methods and collaboration with public health, hygiene and biosurveillance experts.

Recently, a group of ITMO University researchers has looked into the microbiome of the Moscow Subway. Turns out that bacterial world of the Russian capital's subway system might be similar to that of New York's public transportation.

A research group from Politecnico di Milano has developed a new computing circuit that can execute advanced operations, typical of neural networks for artificial intelligence, in one single operation.

The circuit performance in terms of speed and energy consumption paves the way for a new generation of artificial intelligence computing accelerators that are more energy efficient and more sustainable on a global scale. The study has been recently published in the prestigious Science Advances.

Recognizing a face or an object, or correctly interpreting a word or a musical tune are operations that are today possible on the most common electronic gadgets, such as smartphones and tablets, thanks to artificial intelligence. For this to happen, complicated neural networks needs to be appropriately trained, which is so energetically demanding that, according to some studies, the carbon footprint that derives from the training of a complex neural network can equal the emission of 5 cars throughout their whole life cycle.

To reduce the time and energy consumption of the training, one should develop circuits that are radically different from the conventional approach and that are able to mimic more accurately the structure of the neural networks and the characteristics of the biological synapses. A typical example is the concept of in-memory computing, where data are processed directly within the memory, exactly like in the human brain.

Based on this analogy, the research group at Politecnico di Milano have developed a novel circuit that can execute a mathematical function known as regression in just one operation. For this purpose they use a resistive memory, also known as memristor, a device that can memorize any datum (for example the value of a share at a certain time) in the value of its resistance. By arranging these memory elements within an array with the size of a few micrometer (a few millionths of a meter), the group at Politecnico di Milano has been able to execute a linear regression on a group of data. This operation is capable of determining the straight line that best describes a sequence of data, allowing, for instance, to predict the trend in the stock market based on a simple linear model. Logistical regression, that allows to classify data within a database, has also been demonstrated. This function is essential for the so-called recommendation systems, that are a crucial marketing tools for online purchases.

'Tacky and 'kitsch' religious souvenirs brought back from pilgrimage sites offer pilgrims and their friends and family who cannot make the journey a deeper religious connection.

Research by Dr Leighanne Higgins, of Lancaster University, and Dr Kathy Hamilton, of the University of Strathclyde, published in the Annals of Tourism Research, studied visitors to the Catholic pilgrimage site of Lourdes, in France, a beacon for both ill and healthy pilgrims.

They found that souvenirs brought home either as gifts or for the pilgrim themselves extend the pilgrimage beyond Lourdes and into the homes of those who may never have been to the town itself.

Such material objects can frequently be given derogatory labels, but the researchers found such terms fail to appreciate the value pilgrims and those who receive their gift derive from having the souvenirs in their homes.

"Religious souvenirs from pilgrimage sites have been variously labelled 'Jesus Junk', 'Holy Hardware' and 'Christian Kitsch'," said Dr Higgins, Senior Lecturer in Marketing in Lancaster University Management School. "However, our study shows they have a more symbolic and important meaning for those who take them home.

"Objects purchased in Lourdes not only remind pilgrims of their pilgrimage, but also extend the essence of Lourdes to their homes. A pilgrim's personal attachment to the objects they bring home from Lourdes allows them to recapture the feelings of the pilgrimage.

"Religious objects are not used as symbols of religion, but instead provide a link to the pilgrimage and creates a sense of togetherness both with others who have been on pilgrimage and with those who remained at home but who receive similar items. The objects allow some of the therapeutic benefits of pilgrimage to be extended, with their cheap monetary value not commensurate with the value derived by those who buy or receive them.

"Our findings show that beneath the cacophony of plastic, luminosity and glitter, there can lie a kaleidoscope of symbolism important to a person's sense of self and a pathway to experiencing a more subtle, individual sense of community around pilgrimage. Souvenirs allow people to experience the sense of togetherness pilgrimage can create, conveying a sense of belonging even to those who have not made the journey."

The researchers conducted six visits to Lourdes, totalling eight weeks at the pilgrimage site, observing and interviewing pilgrims, both in Lourdes and after their return, as well as speaking with volunteers, Lourdes hotel owners and priests.

One of the pilgrims the researchers spoke to, Matthew, discussed the sense of calm and quietude he experienced on his visits to the Grotto of Massabielle, and how he recaptured these feelings through interaction with a wooden bracelet he brought home. He told them: "It reminds me of the place. It reminds me of how I felt, how I feel about the place... It reminds me of everything about Lourdes, about the experience, the kind of better person I want to be."

"What Matthew told us reinforce the sensory nature of memories of pilgrimage, which he is able to recapture through the bracelet," said Dr Hamilton, Reader in Marketing at the University of Strathclyde. "Beliefs are materialised in such objects, connecting those at home with Lourdes, where the practice of touching them brings their meaning to the fore.

"Another pilgrim, Lilly, brought home a sparkling Our Lady statue that she herself described as 'tacky'. Yet it connects her to her visits to Lourdes and memories of her mother, who visited the shrine on pilgrimage and who later died from cancer. The significance of the item extends beyond its market value."

Andrea, a pilgrim who brought home a luminous Our Lady statue she acknowledges as being religious kitsch, said: "When I wake during the night and see the statue shining, I feel protected and safe knowing Our Lady is watching me."

"The statue projects an atmosphere of safety and protection for Andrea, much as pilgrims experience in Lourdes," added Dr Higgins. "Lourdes 'speaks' to pilgrims through the objects they bring home, helping them with their lives away from the pilgrimage site and in the larger world.

"It is the pilgrims' belief in the narrative of Lourdes that drives them to bring souvenirs home."

As well as investigating the sense of togetherness souvenirs taken home can provide for pilgrims, their friends and families, Dr Higgins and Dr Hamilton also looked at the bonds with pilgrimage created by written prayers (petitions) left behind and candles lit in or near the Grotto in Lourdes.

Petitions are personal requests for religious intervention in life problems, both from pilgrims themselves and often from friends, family or acquaintances who cannot make the journey but who ask for them to be taken to Lourdes for them. They are private communications with God and provide a connection between pilgrims and those at home.

The researchers found that people posting petitions do not believe they will be more likely to be heard and answered if they are left in the Grotto, but see the process as special, allowing the sacred experience of the pilgrimage to speak to those at home.

Candles lit in or near the Grotto offer a similar connection, with the displays representing the collective voice of pilgrims and a shared connection between those on pilgrimage and those who do not travel.

"Therapeutic release is not only achieved by the pilgrims who are physically present at the pilgrimage site, but it can be extended to those at home, both through the petitions and the candles," said Dr Hamilton. "Those who receive the gifts and who send petitions to Lourdes have a similar sense of emotional release to those who make the physical journey, creating a bond between them and Lourdes, a unity and togetherness shared by pilgrims and those who may never be able to visit the shrine."

London, UK: A recent study published in the journal Cephalalgia, the official journal of the International Headache Society, builds on the sensorial characteristics of migraine patients. The study, entitled "C-tactile touch perception in migraineurs - a case-control study", was led by Dr. Gudrun Gossrau, from the University Hospital and Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus, Dresden, Germany.

Migraine is a neurological disorder that affects every sense. Leaving the headache aside, many other symptoms that make up the disease are the result of sensory abnormalities. Hypersensitivity to light (photophobia), sounds (phonophobia) and smells (osmophobia), nausea, vomiting, aura, allodynia (that pain in the scalp when combing or making hair ponytails), and other less common ones. These sensory disturbances make it evident that migraine is much more than a headache and that it affects people's functionality in a wider and substantial manner.

In Dr. Gossrau's study, to get an idea of how migraine influences sensory functioning, the researchers investigated the response to the tactile stimulus (light touch on the skin) of people with migraine. In addition to the discriminatory aspect of the tactile stimulus (location, the pressure of the stimulus), the researchers evaluated affective aspects of touch, that is, the sensation of pleasure associated with touch. The researchers applied different speeds of touch with a brush on the forearm and cheek (region innervated by the trigeminal nerve) and measured the associated pleasure, discomfort or pain responses. The effect of repeated stimuli in a row was also measured (30 stimuli repeated in 60 minutes of testing).

Fifty-two people without migraine (controls) and 52 patients were tested. Patients reported higher scores for pain in both applied areas (forearm and cheek) and less sensation of pleasure in the test of repeated stimuli. Interestingly, patients using triptan to abort their attacks showed normal scores. According to the authors, the same neurophysiological processes related to allodynia could explain these results.

This disturbance of sensory function seems to be specific to migraine. In another study, conducted by two research groups in the USA and Israel, the sensory profile assessed through pressure and temperature stimuli were compared between healthy people and patients with persistent post-traumatic headache (a type of secondary headache, caused by trauma in the head). The researchers subdivided patients into 2 main groups based on the characteristics of the pain, a group of patients with migraine-like headaches and another with tension-type headache-like pain.

The post-traumatic headache group with a migraine-like characteristic did not show substantial differences in the sensory profile in relation to the healthy group. Together with the former study, these data indicate that different types of headache have different origins and causes and modify the sensory function differently, as highlighted by the authors.

As migraine is a primary headache, that is, it is the disease and not the consequence of other diseases (such as traumatic post-traumatic headache), these studies emphasize the particularity of migraine as a neurological disease that causes many other disabilities other than pain.

As highlighted by Dr. Peter Goadsby, from the King's College London, United Kingdom, one of the most prolific headache researchers in the world and Chair of the Classification Committee of the International Headache Society, migraine is "an inherited tendency of the brain to lose control of its inputs".

A new Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) study finds a substantial increase in the number and strength of state laws to reduce impaired driving over the last 20 years, while laws to reduce excessive drinking remained unchanged. The study, published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, scores each state on a scale from 0 to 100, with 100 representing the most effective possible set of alcohol control laws. South Dakota scores the lowest at 25, but the highest scorer, Utah, only comes in at 68.

"There is substantial room for reasonable improvement in every state," says study lead author Jason Blanchette, a postdoctoral associate in health law, policy & management at BUSPH.

"Approximately 85% of alcohol-related death is attributable to causes other than impaired driving," Blanchette notes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Other major causes include unintentional injuries, violence, liver disease, stroke, hypertension, and several types of cancer. All together, excessive alcohol consumption is the third leading preventable cause of death in the U.S., responsible for approximately 88,000 deaths annually.

"Laws that reduce excessive drinking also have an independent effect of reducing impaired driving," Blanchette notes.

The researchers developed the Alcohol Policy Scale (APS) in 2014, consulting with experts who nominated and rated the efficacy of 29 state-level alcohol policies with enough consistent data for study. For the new study, Blanchette and colleagues updated the APS and assigned scores to each state and the District of Columbia from 1999 to 2018. They found that 23 states and D.C. improved their rankings in this period (most notably Arizona, Nevada, and D.C., as well as Utah), while scores for 18 states worsened (most notably Delaware, Georgia, and Virginia).

In their paper, the researchers provide examples for how Utah could strengthen its alcohol policy environment, including increasing its beer tax and its state-owned liquor store prices, and increasing the number of police officers assigned to alcohol enforcement.