Culture

In August 2019 a team of scientists and conservationists broke new ground in saving the northern white rhinoceros from extinction. They harvested eggs from the two remaining females, artificially inseminated those using frozen sperm from deceased males and created two viable northern white rhino embryos. With great support from the Kenyan Government and in the presence of Hon Najib Balala, - Kenya's Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife - the team repeated the procedure on December 17, 2019, and was able to create a new embryo over Christmas. This significantly increases the chances of successfully producing offspring. The procedure has proven to be safe and reproducible, and can be performed on a regular basis before the animals become too old. Preparations for the next steps of the northern white rhino rescue mission are underway.

Four months after the ground breaking first "ovum pickup" in August 2019, the team repeated the procedure with northern white rhinos Najin and Fatu on December 17, 2019, at Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. The animals were placed under general anaesthetic and nine immature egg cells (oocytes) - three from Najin and six from Fatu - were harvested from the animals' ovaries using a probe guided by ultrasound. The anaesthesia and the ovum pickup went smoothly and without any complications. The oocytes were transported immediately to the Avantea Laboratory in Italy. After incubating and maturing nine eggs, four from Fatu and one from Najin were fertilised with sperm using a procedure called ICSI (Intra Cytoplasm Sperm Injection). One out of five eggs from Fatu fertilized with semen from Suni developed into a viable embryo with the help of Geri, an innovative benchtop incubator with integrated continuous embryo monitoring capabilities designed to provide an individualized and undisturbed incubation environment, donated by Merck. The embryo is now stored in liquid nitrogen along with the two embryos from the first procedures.

Hon. Najib Balala, Cabinet Secretary for Kenya's Ministry of Tourism and Wildlife:
"As a government, we are glad that the northern white rhino in-vitro fertilisation project by a consortium of scientists and conservationists from Kenya, Czech Republic, Germany and Italy collaborative partnership has been able to successfully produce three pure northern white rhino embryos ready for implantation into southern white rhino as surrogate mothers in coming months. This is a big win for Kenya and its partners, as the northern white rhinos are faced with the threat of imminent extinction, where only two of them, females Najin and Fatu, are left in the whole world and are currently hosted by Kenya. It's a delicate process, and for that, we thank the concerned parties, the Kenya Wildlife Service, Ol Pejeta Conservancy, Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Avantea Laboratory and Dvur Králové Zoo, for putting in all of their efforts in ensuring that the critically endangered species do not disappear from the planet under our watch. I urge the scientists to continue digging deeper into technology and innovations to ensure that not only this concerned species does not go extinct, but other species that are faced with similar threats. The fact that Kenya is at the centre of this scientific breakthrough also makes me very proud. It's amazing to see that we will be able to reverse the tragic loss of this subspecies through science."

Preparations for the next steps of the mission for saving the northern white rhino from extinction are underway simultaneously to the creation of embryos. The plan is to select a group of southern white rhinos at Ol Pejeta Conservancy from which a female could serve as surrogate mother for the northern white rhino embryo. To achieve the best possible results for work with pure northern white rhino embryos, the team relies on experience from similar embryo transfer procedures in southern white rhinos that have been performed in order to address reproduction challenges in European zoos. Despite the fact that more research is still needed, the team expects that a first attempt for this crucial, never before achieved step, may be undertaken in 2020.

In December 2019, the team also transported the semen of Sudan, the last northern white rhino male that died in March 2018, from Kenya to Germany. The aim is to use it in future for production of more embryos. However, as the semen was collected in 2014 when Sudan was already over 40 years old, it is necessary to test it first and then see whether it could be used for such purposes.

The egg collection, embryo creation and preparation for the embryo transfer is a joint effort by the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research (Leibniz-IZW), Avantea, Dvur Králové Zoo, Ol Pejeta Conservancy and the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). The entire process is part of the "BioRescue" research. Its goal is to significantly advance assisted reproduction techniques (ART) and stem cell associated techniques (SCAT) complemented with a comprehensive ethical assessment carried out by the University of Padova for the benefit of the northern white rhinoceros. The consortium is partially funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and comprises of internationally renowned institutions from Germany, Italy, Czech Republic, Kenya, Japan and USA.

Quotes

Thomas Hildebrandt, Head Department of Reproduction Management, Leibniz-IZW:
"Our repeated success in generating a third embryo from Fatu demonstrates that the BioRescue program is on the right track. Now, the team will make every effort to achieve the same result for the 30-year-old Najin before it is too late for her. We are strongly committed to our plan to transfer a northern white embryo into a surrogate mother in 2020 to ensure the survival of the northern white rhino."

Jan Stejskal, Director of International Projects, Dvur Králové Zoo:
"We don't know how many embryos we will need to achieve a successful birth of a new northern white rhino calf. That's why every embryo is so important and why a long-term cooperation between scientists, experts in zoos and conservationists in field is a crucial element if we want to give hope to a species that would otherwise go extinct in few years."

Cesare Galli, Director, Avantea:
"Having produced another embryo again from Fatu and none from Najin indicates that we cannot waste more time as aging of the animals is not a favourable condition."

Richard Vigne, Managing Director, Ol Pejeta Conservancy:
"We have taken yet another small step along the road of saving the northern white rhino from extinction. We have a long way to go and success is far from assured, but Kenya continues to play her part at the centre of a multi-national collaboration to save this species. Let us hope for news of a successful northern white pregnancy in the not too distant future."

Brig (Rtd) John Waweru, Kenya Wildlife Service Director General:
"We are thrilled at the two successful ovum pick-ups and the subsequent creation of embryos which together mark crucial milestones in the ambitious race to save the majestic Northern White Rhino species from imminent and irreversible extinction. We are delighted at the steady progress every time such a step is made. The more than decade-long journey Kenya has walked as part of an international collaborative rescue mission is a strong testament to what can be achieved when humanity comes together in a collaborative approach. We remain upbeat at the prospects of the groundbreaking efforts to revive the Northern White Rhino from disappearing from the planet. Kenya Wildlife Service reiterates her commitment to the partnership contributing to this historic initiative that's pushing the frontiers of science."

Barbara de Mori, Director of the Ethics Laboratory for Veterinary Medicine, Conservation and Animal Welfare - University of Padua:
"Like the previous ones, even this new embryo has been created under a rigorous ethical assessment of all procedures involved, taking care of the welfare of Najin and Fatu in all aspects. All the stakeholders involved participated in the ethical assessment, confirming the importance to carry on with this project in order to give the two northern white rhino females a chance to rise their offspring and hopefully save their species."

Jan Kirsten, Head of Global Business Franchise for Fertility, Merck:
"It's a privilege to support the mission to save the world's most endangered mammal with our expertise and world-leading technologies. We are excited that a viable, Northern White Rhino embryo has developed with the help of our Geri incubator."

Steven Seet, Head Public Relations, Leibniz-IZW:
"The additional embryo is a remarkable success. The worldwide public awareness of our conservation research is very important. Media and people show that they care about nature. We hope that supporters will contact us directly to be part of the endeavour of saving the northern white rhinos from extinction."

Most animals need to move, whether this is to seek out food, shelter or a mate. New research has shown that movement doesn't always break camouflage and if an animal needs to move, animals that are unpatterned and use short, fast movements are less likely to be located by predators.

In most cases, most of the visual field of a predator does not fall within a high-resolution area and so, when an undetected prey moves, that motion will often be in peripheral vision. Research by academics at the University of Bristol, published today [15 January] in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B, has investigated how this can be exploited by prey, through different patterns of movement, to reduce the accuracy with which the predator can locate undetected prey when it redirects its gaze toward the target.

Ioan Smart, a former postgraduate at Bristol's School of Biological Sciences and lead author, said: "Our research has shown that the ability of a predator to localise upon a target in its peripheral vision is influenced by duration, speed and target pattern. Some behaviours can reduce the negative effect that movement can have on camouflage. Localisation can be reduced, if the moving target is unpatterned, has the mean brightness of the background, it does not use a startle display before moving, and uses short, fast movements."

Using human participants as surrogate predators, tasked with localising upon a target displayed on peripherally viewed computer screens, the researchers quantified the effects of duration, speed and target pattern.

Although movement doesn't help camouflage, the findings have shown that when movement is necessary, some behaviours and surface patterns reduce that cost.

The research has highlighted the importance of addressing ecological problems, while considering the perceptual differences that different regions of the visual field permit.

Further work is required on prey detection and, subsequently, localisation in peripheral vision, as well as how camouflage influences it. Generally, most of the visual field of a predator does not fall within a high-resolution area; and so, when undetected prey move, that motion will often be in the predator's peripheral vision. The same applies to predators approaching prey.

Furthermore, it will be beneficial for researchers to incorporate a noisy environment into the assessment of localisation accuracy. Noisy environments, such as foliage swaying in the wind, would minimise the prominence of the moving target and, together with the behaviours identified in this study, could reduce the negative effect that movement has on camouflage. Nevertheless, it may be difficult to implement an experiment to measure the localisation accuracy of a target moving within the peripheral visual field through a noisy environment.

Some plastic food and beverage containers still contain bisphenol A (BPA), which can mimic the hormone estrogen. Although experts say that small amounts of BPA detected in foods are unlikely to cause problems, some people worry that constant low-level exposures could have health effects, especially for developing fetuses, infants and children. Now, researchers report in ACS' Journal of Proteome Research that in mice, BPA activates an immune response that persists for at least three generations.

Epidemiological studies have linked in utero BPA exposure with the onset of childhood asthma. Other studies have shown that treating pregnant mice with the substance induces asthma-like symptoms in the mothers and their pups. To better understand how BPA could trigger allergic asthma, Terumi Midoro-Horiuti, Kangling Zhang and colleagues analyzed the proteins produced by immune cells of BPA-treated pregnant mice, their pups and two generations of mice afterward that had not themselves been exposed to BPA. 

Using mass spectrometry, the researchers compared the proteins produced by certain immune cells from BPA-exposed mice and their descendants with those from control mice. In the BPA-exposed mice and subsequent generations, some proteins related to an activated innate immune system -- which plays a key role in antiviral defense and is also related to allergic diseases -- were produced at higher amounts than in control mice. In particular, the BPA-exposed mice and their offspring produced about twice as much of a protein called ZDHHC1, which is also produced at higher levels in response to estrogen. In addition, BPA exposure caused changes in enzymes that modify DNA-binding proteins called histones. That kind of modification can cause heritable changes in gene expression. Therefore, descendants of the original BPA-exposed mice could have inherited changes in DNA expression that cause aberrant immune system activation, even in the absence of BPA, the researchers say.

A new study shows drinking low-fat milk -- both nonfat and 1% milk -- is significantly associated with less aging in adults.

Research on 5,834 U.S. adults by Brigham Young University exercise science professor Larry Tucker, Ph.D., found people who drink low-fat milk experience several years less biological aging than those who drink high-fat (2% and whole) milk.

"It was surprising how strong the difference was," Tucker said. "If you're going to drink high-fat milk, you should be aware that doing so is predictive of or related to some significant consequences."

Tucker investigated the relationship between telomere length and both milk intake frequency (daily drinkers vs. weekly drinkers or less) and milk fat content consumed (whole vs. 2% vs. 1% vs. skim). Telomeres are the nucleotide endcaps of human chromosomes. They act like a biological clock and they're extremely correlated with age; each time a cell replicates, humans lose a tiny bit of the endcaps. Therefore, the older people get, the shorter their telomeres.

And, apparently, the more high-fat milk people drink, the shorter their telomeres are, according to the new BYU study, published in Oxidative Medicine and Cellular Longevity. The study revealed that for every 1% increase in milk fat consumed (drinking 2% vs. 1% milk), telomeres were 69 base pairs shorter in the adults studied, which translated into more than four years in additional biological aging. When Tucker analyzed the extremes of milk drinkers, adults who consumed whole milk had telomeres that were a striking 145 base pairs shorter than non-fat milk drinkers.

Nearly half of the people in the study consumed milk daily and another quarter consumed milk at least weekly. Just under a third of the adults reported consuming full-fat (whole) milk and another 30 percent reported drinking 2% milk. Meanwhile, 10% consumed 1% milk and another 17% drank nonfat milk. About 13% did not drink any cow milk.

"Milk is probably the most controversial food in our country," Tucker said. "If someone asked me to put together a presentation on the value of drinking milk, I could put together a 1-hour presentation that would knock your socks off. You'd think, 'Whoa, everybody should be drinking more milk.' If someone said do the opposite, I could also do that. At the very least, the findings of this study are definitely worth pondering. Maybe there's something here that requires a little more attention."

Somewhat surprisingly, he also found that milk abstainers had shorter telomeres than adults who consumed low-fat milk.

Tucker said the study findings provide support for the current Dietary Guidelines for Americans (2015-2020), which encourage adults to consume low-fat milk, both nonfat and 1% milk, and not high-fat milk, as part of a healthy diet.

"It's not a bad thing to drink milk," Tucker said. "You should just be more aware of what type of milk you are drinking."

January 15, 2020 - Black patients undergoing lumbar (lower) spinal fusion surgery have worse outcomes - including higher complication rates, more hospital days, and higher costs - compared to white patients, suggests a study in Spine. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

"Our study reaffirms the concern than black race remains a social determinant of health impacting equity in surgical outcomes," according to the new research by Robert S. White, MD, MS, of New York Presbyterian Hospital - Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City, and colleagues. The authors propose some steps that may help to promote equity in the outcomes of spinal fusion and other surgical procedures.

Large-Scale Study Looks at Impact of Race on Spinal Fusion Surgery

The researchers analyzed patient discharge records from five states (California, Florida, New York, Maryland, and Kentucky) from 2007 through 2014. The study included data on nearly 268,000 patients hospitalized for this common spinal surgical procedure.

Overall, 77.7 percent of patients were white and 6.5 percent were black. Patient characteristics, complication rates, and other outcomes of spinal fusion surgery were compared between these two racial/ethnic groups.

Black patients were younger and more likely to be women. They had more health problems, including obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. Black patients were also more likely to have low-income, to be treated at hospitals that served more "safety net" patients and did a lower volume of spinal fusion surgeries, and to have surgery on an emergency or urgent basis.

Even after adjustment for these differences, black patients had significantly worse outcomes of lumbar spinal fusion, compared to white patients. Black patients were eight percent more likely to experience complications specific to spinal surgery, and 14 percent more likely to have general postoperative complications.

Black race/ethnicity was associated with increased odds of hospital readmission at both 30 and 90 days. Black patients were also more likely to have a longer hospital stay and higher total charges. The racial differences in outcomes remained significant after adjustment for patient demographic factors, co-existing medical conditions, hospital characteristics, and surgical techniques.

There are well-documented disparities in healthcare across a wide range of surgical procedures, including lumbar spinal fusion surgery. "Previous research has identified race as a social determinant of health that impacts outcomes after lumbar spinal fusion surgery," according to the authors. Their study examines these associations in a large multistate sample of patients, including a full range of spinal surgery outcomes.

"We showed that black patients, as compared to white patients, are more likely to have postoperative complications, be readmitted, have longer lengths of stay, and have higher total hospital charges," Dr. White and coauthors write. "Our results reaffirm the concern that black race remains a social determinant of health impacting equity in surgical outcomes."

The racial differences in outcomes might be related to differences in the characteristics of black patients (such as higher rates of diabetes and obesity) or where they are treated (for example, at hospitals that perform a lower volume of spinal fusion procedures). The authors discuss some approaches that may help to address these inequities. Dr. White and colleagues conclude: "Hospital systems and providers should adopt methods to promote equity in care, including employee educational programs focusing on healthcare disparities and the impact of unequal care, and through the utilization of standardized protocol based care, such as Enhanced Recovery After Surgery programs, that can reduce the impact of implicit bias on post-surgical outcomes."

COLUMBUS, Ohio - The first animal study of a pig virus' potential to jump to another species shows that the virus, once introduced to a select group of birds, is easily transmitted to healthy chickens and turkeys.

The researchers who led this work were part of a team that previously found in a lab setting that the virus could infect cells from multiple species, including chickens and humans.

In this study, birds that were given the virus developed diarrhea by two days after infection. Healthy birds housed with infected chickens and turkeys also developed diarrhea two days after exposure.

That rapid spread of disease surprised the Ohio State University scientists.

"We weren't even sure the virus would transmit from bird to bird. That's a significant finding," said senior author Scott Kenney, assistant professor of veterinary preventive medicine based in Ohio State's Food Animal Health Research Program at the Ohio Agricultural Research and Development Center (OARDC) in Wooster.

"It looks like it's pretty readily able to spread between birds. It's a little concerning because if the virus gets into one or two animals in a large layer or broiler house, it would probably permeate through the entire house pretty quickly," Kenney said.

Susceptibility to a pig virus can't ethically be tested in humans - but the previous work in cells showed the virus attaches itself to the same type of receptor in many different host species.

"If the human cell culture model is as predictive as it was with the chickens, then humans are definitely susceptible to having virus-related disease," he said.

The study is published in the online journal Emerging Infectious Diseases.

This virus, porcine deltacoronavirus, was first detected in pigs in Asia in 2009 and caused a swine diarrhea outbreak in the United States - involving Ohio pigs - in 2014. It is part of the family of pathogens that cause respiratory and gastrointestinal diseases in the species they infect.

There are four types of coronaviruses. Two illnesses known for life-threatening regional outbreaks, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS), were caused by betacoronaviruses. The current respiratory disease outbreak associated with a live animal market in China is also attributed to a betacoronavirus. Deltacoronaviruses historically have been linked to birds, and scientists suspect that this porcine virus originated in an avian species.

In this study, researchers worked with 14-day-old chickens and turkeys. In each group, they directly gave 10 birds the virus obtained from an infected pig. Two days later, the researchers allowed uninfected "sentinel" chickens and turkeys to live among the infected birds.

Most infected birds developed diarrhea at various time points, and the sentinels had mild to moderate diarrhea after joining the infected flock. Based on the length and severity of symptoms, the study showed that turkeys are more susceptible to the virus than chickens.

Other signs of disease in the birds included distended intestinal tracts containing gas and yellow liquid, high levels of the virus RNA in swabs of their tracheas and digestive tracts, and increased antibody levels in the directly infected birds and some sentinels, said Patricia Boley, first author of the study and a research associate in Kenney's lab.

"Both chickens and turkeys were still shedding the virus at 14 days, when the study ended. We don't know how long either species would continue shedding the virus," Boley said.

Despite the presence of virus RNA in the trachea, the birds showed no signs of respiratory symptoms, which would make this virus more dangerous than enteric - intestinal - symptoms. The virus also did not kill the birds, but it can lead to death in piglets.

"We want to figure out why the virus is enteric versus respiratory, and how the hosts respond differently," Kenney said. "With piglets we see mortality. We don't have chickens dying, but we have piglets dying from the virus, so what makes the chickens different in their response to the virus? Maybe we can learn something from chickens and apply it to the pigs so they get less sick from the virus."

Though there is no screening in place to detect this deltacoronavirus in humans, Kenney said it is feasible that humans have been exposed and infected and even had symptoms.

"People who get gastroenteritis may write it off as food poisoning. Deltacoronaviruses may be in some cases causing human disease, but we don't know that aspect of it yet," he said.

The virus cannot be transmitted to humans by consumption if the meat is properly cooked, he noted.

COLUMBIA, Mo. - Starting a new job often includes enrolling in a company's retirement plan. As defined contribution plans, such as 401(k) plans, become more common than pension plans, American workers are increasingly responsible saving for retirement. Rui Yao, a nationally recognized expert on retirement savings from the University of Missouri, suggests that employees can't trust that the retirement plan sponsored by their employer is in good hands just because the plan uses an advisor. To ensure a strong retirement plan performance, consumers must be active participants in retirement planning, she says.

In one of the first known academic studies devoted to evaluating fund selection offered in defined contribution plans, Yao, a professor of personal financial planning, examined retirement plan performance based on using plan advisors, plan size and plan choices offered. She found that plan advisors alone are not enough to ensure strong retirement plan performance.

"Plan advisors make recommendations regarding investment options that are offered in the plan," Yao said. "It is critical for plan sponsors that such recommendations are beneficial to participants."

Using data from an independent provider of retirement plan ratings and investment analytics, Yao evaluated retirement plan performance and its relationship with the use of advisors, comparing the performance of plans and funds offered within plans against benchmarks. For the study, Yao looked at data from retirement plans from 2013, 2014 and 2015.

After controlling for plan size and use of advisors, Yao found that working with an advisor was significantly and negatively related to retirement plan performance in 2013, the best year in terms of market return. She saw only slight improvements or no significant results in the latter two years when the market was flatter.

Yao's advice for employees hoping to make the most of their defined contribution retirement plans is to ask a lot of questions -- of both their own financial advisors and of their employers.

"Some advisors are incentivized to market different funds, and while they are financial experts, they do not always have a fiduciary responsibility to their clients," Yao said. "They are required by law to disclose this information, so it's absolutely ok -- and advisable -- for plan participants to ask their employer what kind of legal responsibility the plan advisor bares."

Yao provides the following advice to plan sponsors, plan participants, and participants' financial advisors looking to strengthen their retirement plans:

Plan sponsors should require advisors to provide objective data on a regular basis and disclose this information to plan participants.

Plan participants should ask their employer how their plan advisor is paid, how funds in the plan are chosen and how those funds perform against benchmarks.

Individual financial advisors should monitor the plan performance and evaluate funds in their clients' retirement plan portfolio by objective measures, identify performance issues and ask their clients to report such issues to their employer.

"Use of advisors and retirement plan performance," will be published in the Journal of Financial Counseling and Planning. The MU Department of Personal Financial Planning is in the College of Human Environmental Sciences.

A study led by the University of Southampton has mapped several sites in Europe containing gas hydrate - a relatively clean fuel which could help bridge the gap between fossil fuels and renewables.

Vast amounts of natural gas are stored in an ice-like form beneath the seabed, under the deep seafloor, close to edge of the landmasses that form our continents. This gas hydrate, sometimes known as 'ice that burns', has the potential to play a role as a substitute for coal in the coming decades, until there is sufficient renewable energy to meet society's demands.

This new inventory of gas hydrate deposits was undertaken as part of MIGRATE (Marine Gas Hydrates: An Indigenous Resource of Natural Gas for Europe), a project funded by the European Commission and led by the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research, Kiel.

The research showed there are direct or indirect indications of the presence of hydrate at several European sites, including off the west and east coasts of Greenland, on and around the Arctic archipelago of Svalbard (Barents Sea), off central Norway and west of Ireland. It is also present in the eastern Mediterranean Sea, the Sea of Marmara and the Black Sea.

Professor Tim Minshull of the University of Southampton, who led a 31 strong-team from 14 countries, said: "We found that gas hydrate is particularly widespread around Svalbard, off Norway and in the Black Sea, but the hydrate systems have only been well investigated in a few areas, so there could be much still to discover.

"Exploiting gas hydrate deposits safely and efficiently presents challenges, for example, converting the hydrate to gas without using up too much energy. But several large feasibility projects are exploring these and other factors."

The study authors point out that having this hydrate inventory may also be important for more acute environmental reasons. If oceans warm due to climate change, hydrate may naturally melt, releasing methane which could change the chemical balance of the oceans. Mapping where this might happen will help scientists to monitor progress.

New Rochelle, NY, January 15, 2020--A new study has shown that, among online gamblers, setting voluntary monetary limits can help players stay in control of their gambling and the most significant effects were seen among intense gamblers. The study, which comprised more than 49,500 online gamblers, is published in Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking, a peer-reviewed journal from Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. Click here to read the full-text article free on the Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking website through February 15, 2020.

"The Effects of Voluntary Deposit Limit-Setting on Long-Term Online Gambling Expenditure" was coauthored by Michael Auer and Niklas Hopfgartner, neccton GmbH (Müllendorf, Austria) and Mark Griffiths , Nottingham Trent University (U.K.). The study examined whether setting voluntary monetary limits had any effect on online gambling expenditure over a one-year period. The researchers also divided the participants into groups according to age, gender, and gambling intensity, which was defined as the total amount of money wagered during a three-month period. Problem gamblers are more likely to fall into the higher intensity categories. The study showed that there was a significant decrease in the amount of money spent over the one-year period among the 10% most intense gamblers.

"This study reported on a dataset of 49,560 players from 7 countries and appears to further support the positive influence responsible gambling tools, such as limit setting, can have on individual behavior," says Editor-in-Chief Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD, MBA, BCB, BCN, Interactive Media Institute, San Diego, California and Virtual Reality Medical Institute, Brussels, Belgium.

New research from Western University has shown that both women and men are significantly more likely to have a heart attack or another major cardiovascular event within thirty days of having a stroke.

The study led by Dr. Luciano Sposato, Associate Professor and the Kathleen and Henry Barnett Chair in Stroke at Western's Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, was published in the American Heart Association Journal, Stroke.

The study demonstrated for the first time that in people with no underlying heart disease, after a stroke they were more than 20 times more likely than those who didn't have a stroke (23-fold in women and 25-fold in men) to have a first-in-life major adverse cardiovascular event. These events include things like heart attack, chest pain, cardiac failure or cardiac death.

This risk dropped after 30 days, but even one year after a stroke, men and women both still had twice the risk of a major cardiac event than those who didn't have a stroke.

The research team examined ICES data for more than 90,000 adults over the age of 65 in Ontario with no pre-existing clinical diagnosis of heart disease. The researchers examined the incidence of cardiac events in two groups - a group of just over 20,000 that had a stroke and a group of approximately 70,000 individuals without stroke but with similar vascular risk factors, comorbidities and demographic characteristics.

The researchers point out that the connection between cardiovascular events and stroke has often been believed to be the result of shared risk factors like high blood pressure, diabetes or smoking. However, in this study there was the same proportion of these risk factors in both groups - the group that had a stroke, and the group that did not.

"This shows that after taking risk factors into consideration, having experienced a recent stroke was independently associated with the incidence of major adverse cardiac events," said Dr. Sposato, who is also the director of the Heart & Brain Laboratory at Western University. "This leads us to believe that there are underlying mechanisms linked to stroke that may be causing heart disease."

In a paper published earlier in 2019, Dr. Sposato and collaborators used animal models to back up this finding by demonstrating that the brain damage caused by stroke leads to inflammation and scarring in the left atrium of the heart. These changes are well-known structural abnormalities for a number of heart diseases such as heart attacks, heart failure and cardiac arrhythmias.
"This is the first animal model that clearly demonstrates how stroke can influence scarring in the heart. We are excited to continue work in this area to target these influencing factors to prevent heart disease following stroke," said Shawn Whitehead, PhD, Associate Professor at Schulich Medicine & Dentistry who was co-principal investigator of the study in rats.

Dr. Sposato hopes this information will inform clinical practice and encourage health care providers to watch for cardiovascular symptoms in patients who recently had strokes.

"My hope is that neurologists, cardiologists and scientists can work more closely together on this brain heart connection so that in the future we can understand and target the underlying mechanisms to prevent heart disease after stroke," he said.

Microtubules, filamentous structures within the cell, are required for many important processes, including cell division and intracellular transport. A research team led by scientists from Heidelberg University recently discovered how the spiral-shaped, modular microtubules are formed and how their formation is controlled. These processes were visualised using state-of-the-art cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM).

"To assemble microtubules from their individual components, the cells use structural templates that mimic one layer of the microtubule helix and can serve as a starting point for the newly forming microtubules," explains Dr Stefan Pfeffer, junior research group leader at the Center for Molecular Biology of Heidelberg University (ZMBH). In human cells, the gamma-tubulin ring complex (γ-TuRC) serves as such a structural template. To more accurately understand how it influences the formation of microtubules, the scientists used cryo-EM for determining the structure of the γ-TuRC at molecular resolution. The study elucidates in detail how the γ-TuRC is structurally organised and how its approximately 30 different subunits are assembled. It also clarifies how the formation of microtubules on γ-TuRC can be quickly regulated by a simple change in the ring diameter.

"The activation of γ-TuRC in particular is essential for efficient and reliable division of the genetic material during cell division. Because the number of microtubules in cancer cells is changed, contributing to the aggressiveness of tumours, these findings are also significant for cancer research," adds Prof. Dr Elmar Schiebel, ZMBH research group leader who, together with Dr Pfeffer, is a corresponding author of the study. As a next step, the scientists plan on finding drugs that can be used to block the microtubule nucleating activity of γ-TuRC. The goal would be to establish a new mode of action for inhibiting cell division, which the scientists believe could be used in tumour therapy.

Scientists from the universities in Bochum and Bonn as well as Charité - University Medicine Berlin also participated in the study. The results of this study were published in the journal Nature.

The dwarf galaxy Gaia-Enceladus collided with the Milky Way probably approximately 11.5 billion years ago. A team of researchers including scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Germany for the first time used a single star affected by the collision as a clue for dating. Using observational data from ground-based observatories and space telescopes, the scientists led by the University of Birmingham were able to determine the age of the star and the role it played in the collision. The research group describes its results in today's issue of Nature Astronomy.

On cosmic time scales, the colliding and merging of galaxies is not uncommon. Even if both galaxies involved are of very different sizes, such a collision leaves clear traces in the larger one. For example, the smaller galaxy introduces stars with a different chemical composition, the motion of many stars is altered, and myriads of new stars are formed.

The Milky Way has encountered several other galaxies in its 13.5 billion-year history. One of them is the dwarf galaxy Gaia-Enceladus. To understand how this event affected our galaxy and changed it permanently, it is important to reliably date the collision. To this end, the researchers led by Prof. Dr. Bill Chaplin of the University of Birmingham turned their attention to a single star: ν Indi is found in the constellation Indus; with an apparent brightness comparable to that of Uranus, it is visible even to the naked eye and can be easily studied in detail.

"The space telescope TESS collected data from ν Indi already in its first month of scientific operation," says Dr. Saskia Hekker, head of the research group "Stellar Ages and Galactic Evolution (SAGE)" at MPS and co-author of the new study. The space telescope was launched in 2018 to perform a full-sky survey and characterize as many stars as possible. "The data from TESS allow us to determine the age of the star very accurately," Hekker adds.

Moreover, ν Indi provided clues on the history of the collision with the dwarf galaxy Gaia-Enceladus. To reconstruct its role in the collision, the research group evaluated numerous data sets on ν Indi obtained with the help of the spectrographs HARPS (High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher) and FEROS (Fiber-fed Extended Range Optical Spectrograph) of the European Southern Observatory, the Galaxy Evolution Experiment of the Apache Point Observatory in New Mexico, and ESA's Gaia Space Telescope. This allowed them to specify both the chemical composition of the star and its movement within the galaxy with great precision.

The cosmic detective work produced a clear picture: v Indi has been part of the halo, the outer region of the Milky Way, and the collision changed its trajectory. "Since the motion of v Indi was affected by the collision, it must have taken place when the star was already formed," Chaplin explains the line of argument. The age of the star therefore puts a constraint on the time of the collision.

To determine the age of a star, researchers use its natural oscillations, which can be observed as brightness fluctuations. "Similar to the way seismic waves on Earth allow conclusions about the interior of our planet, stellar oscillations help us to reveal the internal structure and composition of the star and thus its age," explains co-author Dr. Nathalie Themessl.

The calculations carried out by MPS researchers and other research groups showed that with a probability of 95 percent the galaxy merger must have occurred 13.2 billion years ago. With a probability of 68 percent, the collision took place approximately 11.5 billion years ago. "This chronological classification not only helps us to understand how the collision changed our galaxy," says Hekker. "It also gives us a sense, of how collisions and mergers impacted other galaxies and influenced their evolution."

A team of addiction researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) report in Psychopharmacology that oxytocin, a hormone produced naturally in the hypothalamus, has significant gender differences when used as a treatment for cocaine-addicted individuals with a history of childhood trauma.

The MUSC team was led by Jane E. Joseph, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Neuroscience, and Kathleen T. Brady, M.D., Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and MUSC vice president for research.

Oxytocin has been shown to have therapeutic action in addiction, reducing cravings that could result in a relapse while also reducing brain activity associated with stress. Despite previous studies showing some potential therapeutic actions of oxytocin, it was not yet known how oxytocin influenced cravings induced by the sight of cocaine paraphernalia or whether gender-based differences existed.

To understand the role of oxytocin in addiction, it is important to understand the changes that can occur in the brain in response to environmental factors. Extremely traumatic events such as childhood trauma can lead to post-traumatic stress disorder, which can change neural connections within the brain. Addiction can lead to changes in the connections of the brain as well, and the areas changed by both trauma and addiction can overlap.

The amygdala, one region in the brain that experiences these changes, is rich in oxytocin receptors and can become hyperreactive in response to stress. While oxytocin has been shown to reduce amygdala activity in response to stress cues, less was known about how oxytocin might affect cravings for cocaine in addicted individuals.

To test the craving response, the researchers asked 67 study participants, while in an MRI, to view images of drug paraphernalia alongside images of more mundane items. Viewing images of drug paraphernalia led to the amygdala "lighting up" in drug-addicted men, correlating to an increase in cravings for cocaine. Participants were then each treated with either oxytocin or a placebo, and the effect on the amygdala was measured.

In men with a history of trauma, the response was as predicted. Oxytocin reduced the activity within the amygdala, as well as the cravings that the individuals felt for cocaine, consistent with previous studies demonstrating the hormone's therapeutic effect.

Surprisingly, this did not hold true for women with a history of trauma. While the amygdala of men with cocaine addiction would become highly active in response to visual drug cues, that of women with cocaine addiction and a history of trauma showed little activity.

"When the women with trauma were viewing the cocaine cues on placebo, they didn't have a strong response to begin with, which was surprising," said Joseph. "In fact, the treatment with oxytocin led to the response in the brain to drug paraphernalia being enhanced and exacerbated."

Historically, cocaine-addicted women have worse treatment outcomes than their male counterparts. This study clearly points to the need to flesh out the trauma-induced changes in the brain, explore how they differ by gender and better understand how they affect addiction. It also suggests that treating women with a history of childhood trauma with oxytocin alone might increase both amygdala activity and cravings, potentially leading to a higher incidence of relapse.

"Even though more men use cocaine, it really has more devastating effects on women when they relapse, and they're much more sensitive to cocaine," said Joseph.

Joseph sees several plausible explanations for the study's surprising findings that gender matters when it comes to the response of cocaine-addicted individuals, with a history of trauma, to oxytocin treatment. Men may be more susceptible to the visual cues of drug paraphernalia and the cravings that they induce. In contrast, women may be more susceptible to "stress-associated" cues, such as visuals that relate to past traumas, which could increase amygdala response. Alternatively, women might have a blunted response in the amygdala to stress and cravings as a result of changes that could occur in response to the initial trauma-induced hyperreactivity. However, as this study only looked at drug cues and craving responses, these hypotheses must be evaluated in future studies.

Existing therapies for addiction may not have been developed with attention to how gender affects treatment responses, perhaps accounting in part for the increased rates of treatment failures in women. Better understanding of the intricacies of trauma, addiction and gender differences could move addiction researchers one step closer to finding effective and personalized therapies for everyone.

"The search for a medication to treat cocaine use disorder has been unsuccessful to date," said Brady. "Exploring subgroups of individuals, such as those with childhood trauma, and agents with novel mechanisms of action, like oxytocin, is critical to moving the field forward."

AUSTIN, Texas -- Although they have no way of identifying their biological fathers, male chimpanzees form intimate bonds with them, a finding that questions the idea of fatherhood in some of humanity's closest relatives, according to a study of wild chimpanzees in Uganda.

In adulthood, male chimpanzees form strong relationships with one another. These bonds can be mutually beneficial -- to relieve stress, protect one another and share food. In a new study examining when and with whom these bonds develop, researchers found chimpanzees most often bond with their maternal brothers and old males, including -- seemingly unbeknownst to the younger chimps -- their biological fathers.

"Fatherhood is really a social relationship that happens to be linked to a genetic relationship. In humans, it is strongly correlated because humans tend to form pair bonds," said Aaron Sandel, assistant professor of anthropology at The University of Texas at Austin. "Usually we think that pair bonds evolved in humans first, and then fathers came to play an active role. However, my findings suggest that elements of fatherhood may have arisen in a chimpanzee-like social system before mates formed pair bonds."

Sandel and his team studied the social relationships of 18 adolescent and young adult (12-21 years old) male chimpanzees at Ngogo in Kibale National Park, Uganda, over the course of one year.

The researchers found that by age 12, which is about the time chimpanzees begin to regularly travel independently from their mothers, male chimpanzees form strong friendships with other males in their communities. These relationships range in intimacy, from associating in the same subgroup, where they travel, rest and feed together; to spending time in proximity, a tighter-knit group that stays within about 15 feet of one another; to grooming, where they use their fingers to comb through each other's hair.

"For humans, you can imagine association, proximity and grooming as if you were at a coffee shop," Sandel said. "You're in association with everyone at the coffee shop. You're in proximity to others at the same table or one table away. And if you have a private conversation with someone, that's like grooming."

Through observation and fecal sampling, researchers found that the younger males tended to associate and spend the most time in proximity to their maternal brothers. Many bonds were with distantly related or unrelated males. Some bonds were between peers. However, many of their closest relationships were with old, "retired" males, including their biological father.

"It's as if chimpanzees have father figures and some of these are their actual father," Sandel said. "This was surprising because chimpanzee females will mate with multiple males while ovulating, and there's no paternal care in a chimp's rearing. So, there is no reason to think that she or the males know who the father of her offspring is, and vice versa."

But there are benefits to bonding with an older, somewhat retired male, the researchers noted. Older males are well connected in the community but are no longer competing for a position in the hierarchy. It could be that the chimp's biological father was high-ranking in the past, making him more likely to reproduce with females within the same territory and more likely to be groomed by younger chimps looking to climb the social ladder, Sandel suggested.

The researchers proposed that future research should examine the mechanisms of how father-son relationships might develop. But the fact that there is a relationship at all suggests that such bonds can arise without a bond between parents and without the father caring for his offspring as an infant, two factors thought to be important for father-offspring relationships in humans.

This research, co-authored by researchers from Arizona State University and the University of Michigan, was published in the American Journal of Primatology and reviewed and approved by the Uganda National Council for Science and Technology, Uganda Wildlife Authority and the University Committee on Use and Care of Animals at the University of Michigan.

Our modern lifestyle would be immensely different without rechargeable batteries. Owing to their low-cost, recyclable technology, these batteries are used in most portable electronic devices, electric and hybrid vehicles, and renewable power generation systems. And why shouldn't they be? They offer an elegant solution to the world's growing energy demands. Moreover, rechargeable batteries are an essential tool in systems that harvest renewable energy, such as the wind and sunlight, because these sources can fluctuate greatly with the weather. Rechargeable batteries allow us to store the generated electricity and dispatch it on demand. Thus, it is no surprise that researchers globally have been focused on improving rechargeable batteries as a step towards developing sustainable energy resources.

Since their commercialization, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have been the go-to rechargeable batteries because of their excellent performance. However, with the ensuing spike in their demand, coupled with the limited availability of lithium and cobalt (another necessary element for LIBs) in Earth's crust, using LIBs may soon become a major problem. This is why a team of scientists at Tokyo University of Science led by Prof Shinichi Komaba decided to walk the road less traveled: they focused on replacing the exhaustible element lithium with better alternatives like sodium and potassium. Sodium and potassium are in the same alkali metal group in the periodic table of elements, and their chemical natures are, therefore, quite similar. But, unlike lithium, these elements are widely abundant on Earth, and using them to develop high-performance rechargeable batteries would be a breakthrough towards creating a more sustainable society.

In 2014, Prof Komaba, along with Prof M. Stanley Whittingham, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2019, analyzed the current state of development of sodium-ion batteries and published his assessments as a review. This became a highly cited study, with over 2,000 citations only in the past 5 years. Prof Komaba and his team then explored other plausible alternative to LIBs, potassium-ion batteries (KIBs), which have slowly become the focus of extensive research since 2015 after certain pioneering studies (e.g., a study published in Nature Materials in 2012), some of which were carried out by Komaba's group. The use of potassium in batteries is promising because they show comparable (or even better) performance to LIBs. What's more, the materials necessary to build KIBs are all non-toxic and much more abundant than those required for LIBs. Prof Komaba states, "By studying new materials for applications in lithium-, sodium-, potassium-ion batteries, we wanted to develop an energy-efficient and environment-friendly technology."

In a remarkable effort to facilitate further research on KIBs, the research group led by Prof Komaba analyzed the workings of KIBs in great detail in a comprehensive review published in Chemical Reviews. Their paper encompasses everything related to the development of KIBs, from cathode and anode materials, various electrolytes and all-solid KIBs, to electrode doping and electrolyte additives. Moreover, the review compares the different materials used in lithium-, sodium-, and potassium-ion batteries. Being the only study that comprehensively analyzes several aspects of rechargeable batteries, it could prove really useful for leading current and future researchers in the right direction. Having comprehensive volumes of past research on KIBs and all the acquired insight condensed onto a single article is of immense value to anyone interested in delving in this research topic.

The continuous development of KIBs will hopefully bring about a rise in the use of this coveted alternative to LIBs. "As evidenced by recent intensive research, KIBs are recognized as promising next-generation battery candidates owing to their unique characteristics, such as cost-effectiveness, high voltage, and high-power operation. Further improvements to the performance of KIBs would pave the way for their practical application," explains Prof Komaba.

However, research on certain aspects of KIBs, such as their safety, has been limited, and focus should be placed on obtaining more insight into what's going on physically and chemically between the different components and elements. Prof Komaba is hopeful in this regard and concludes by saying, "Research on KIBs, including electrode materials, non-aqueous/solid electrolytes, and additives will provide new insights into the electrode reactions and solid ionics, opening up new strategies that would allow for the creation of next-generation batteries." His research group has also focused on supercapacitors and biofuel cells along with both LIBs and sodium-ion batteries, which could all find very important functions in a more sustainable society in the future.