Earth

ATLANTA - Yerkes National Primate Research Center researchers in collaboration with Institut Pasteur have determined a combination immunotherapy of Interleukin-21 (IL-21) and interferon alpha (IFN?) when added to antiviral therapy (ART) is effective in generating highly functional natural killer (NK) cells that can help control and reduce simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) in animal models. This finding, published online today in Nature Communications, is key for developing additional treatment options to control HIV/AIDS, which impacts 38 million people worldwide.

ART is the current leading treatment for HIV/AIDS. It is capable of reducing the virus to undetectable levels, but is not a cure and is hampered by issues such as cost, adherence to medication treatment plan and social stigma.

To reduce reliance on ART, the Yerkes, Emory and Institut Pasteur research team worked with 16 SIV-positive, ART-treated rhesus macaques. In most nonhuman primates (NHPs), including rhesus macaques, untreated SIV infection progresses to AIDS-like disease and generates NK cells with impaired functionality. This is in contrast to natural primate hosts of SIV, which do not progress to AIDS-like disease (Huot et al., Nature Communications, 2021). Determining why natural hosts do not progress or how to stop the progression is a critical step in halting HIV in humans.

The researchers compared ART-only treated animals with animals that received ART, IL-21 and IFN? to evaluate how the ART plus combination immunotherapy affected the amount of virus in the animals' tissue.

"Our results indicate the ART plus combo-treated rhesus monkeys showed enhanced antiviral NK cell responses," says first author Justin Harper, PhD. "These robust NK cell responses helped clear cells in the lymph nodes (LN), which are known for harboring the virus and enabling its replication and, therefore, the virus' persistence. Targeting areas where the virus seeks refuge and knowing how to limit replication facilitate controlling HIV," Harper continues. Harper is a senior research specialist and lab manager of the Paiardini research lab.

HIV treatment has historically focused on the role of T cells in immunity. "This proof-of-concept study in rhesus monkeys, which progress to AIDS-like disease in the absence of ART, demonstrates how certain NK cell activity can contribute to controlling the virus," says Mirko Paiardini, PhD. "This opens the door to designing additional treatment strategies to induce SIV and HIV remission in the absence of ART, and, ultimately, reducing the burden HIV is to individuals, families and the world," he adds. Paiardini is an associate professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Emory University and a researcher at Yerkes.

Heavy precipitation can cause large economic, ecological, and human life losses. Both its frequency and intensity have increased due to climate change influences. Therefore, it is becoming increasingly critical to accurately model and predict heavy precipitation events. However, current global climate models (GCMs) struggle to correctly model tropical precipitation, particularly heavy rainfall. Atmospheric scientists are working to identify and minimize model biases that arise when attempting to model large-scale and convective precipitation.

"Unrealistic convective and large-scale precipitation components essentially contribute to the biases of simulated precipitation." said Prof. Jing Yang, a faculty member in the Geographical Science department at Beijing Normal University.

Prof. Yang and her postgraduate student Sicheng He, along with Qing Bao from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, explored the challenges and barriers to achieving realistic rainfall modeling from the perspective of convective and large-scale precipitation.

"Although sometimes total rainfall amounts can be simulated well, the convective and large-scale precipitation partitions are incorrect in the models." remarked Yang.

To clarify the status of convective and large-scale precipitation components within current GCMs, researchers comprehensively classified 16 CMIP6 models focusing on tropical heavy rainfall. In most cases, results show a much more rainfall resolved from large-scale rainfall rather than convective components of CMIP6 model simulations, which is not realistic.

The research team divided model components into three distinct groups to better assess based on the percentage of large-scale precipitation: (1) whole mid-to-lower tropospheric wet biases (60%-80% large-scale rainfall); (2) mid-tropospheric wet peak (50% convective/large-scale rainfall); and (3) lower-tropospheric wet peak (90%-100% large-scale rainfall).

These classifications are closely associated with the vertical distribution of moisture and clouds within the tropical atmosphere. Because the radiative effects of low and high clouds differ, the associated differences in vertical cloud distributions can potentially cause different climate responses, therefore considerable uncertainties in climate projections.

The study is recently published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. "The associated vertical distribution of unique clouds potentially causes different climate feedback, suggesting accurate convective/large-scale rainfall partitions are necessary to reliable climate projection." noted Yang.

A new study led by Dr. Wei and Dr. Qiao from the First Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources provides an evaluation of the performance of the newly released CMIP6 models in simulating the global warming slowdown observed in the early 2000s. This study reveals that the key in simulating and predicting near-term temperate change is to correctly separate and simulate the two distinct signals, i.e., the human-induced long-term warming trend and natural variabilities, especially those at interannual, interdecadal and multidecadal scales. This work was online published in SCIENCE CHINA Earth Sciences on April 15th, 2021.

After the unprecedented warming over the last quarter of the 20th century, the global surface temperature growth slowed unexpectedly during 1998-2013 despite the sharp increase in greenhouse gas emissions; this phenomenon is termed the global warming hiatus or slowdown to be more precise. The global warming slowdown challenges the existing scientific understanding of global temperature change mechanisms, thus has been one of the most concerning issues in recent climate research and even public.

However, the sophisticated and advanced climate models in CMIP5 could not simulate this warming slowdown. During 1998-2013, the models mostly present a rapidly warming surge which greatly deviates from the observed flat temperature time series. The models considerably overestimate the observed warming rate of the recent period. IPCC AR5 stated: "Almost all CMIP5 historical simulations do not reproduce the observed recent warming hiatus". Therefore, the simulation and prediction ability of sophisticated climate models have been questioned.

Now the CMIP6 model data are gradually released since 2020. The newly developed models include better understanding of the global temperature change mechanisms, especially more reasonable physical processes of natural variabilities. Successful simulations of the global warming slowdown are expected in the new-generation models. As the data of 28 new models become available, it is necessary to timely examine the ability of the CMIP6 models on presenting the recent warming slowdown.

By comparison to six widely used global surface temperature datasets, research team from First Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources evaluates the performance of the 28 newly released CMIP6 models in simulating the recent warming slowdown, and finds that most CMIP6 models still fail to reproduce the warming slowdown, although they present some encouraging improvements when compared with CMIP5 models (Figure 1).

Further, they explored the possible reasons for the difficulty of CMIP6 models in simulating the recent warming slowdown. They reveal that it is associated with the models' deficiencies in simulating the distinct temperature change signals from the human-induced long-term warming trend and/or the three crucial natural variabilities at interannual, interdecadal, and multidecadal scales (Figure 2).

This study reveals that the key in simulating and predicting near-term temperate change is to correctly separate and simulate the two distinct signals, i.e., the human-induced long-term warming trend and natural variabilities, especially those at interannual, interdecadal and multidecadal scales. This suggests that the key-scale variabilities require more attention in the models, considering their vital roles in modulating the warming rate change at decadal to multidecadal scales. This result can provide important insight for the simulation and prediction of near-term climate changes.

The collision between the Indian and Eurasian plates resulted in the formation of the Tianshan Tectonic Belt; however, the formation mechanism of Tianshan and the construction of a dynamic model explaining it remain to be achieved and an integrated understanding has not been reached. A new study adopted shear-wave splitting system to collect and analyze shear-wave splitting parameters of 33 stations in the Tianshan area, it provides new evidence for potentially enhance the understanding the dynamic mechanism of the Tianshan tectonic belt.

The research paper is titled:"Anisotropic zoning in the upper crust of the Tianshan Tectonic Belt, Published in Science China Earth Sciences Issue 4, 2021, Corresponding author of the paper is Yuan Gao, Institute of Earthquake Prediction, China Earthquake Administration. Li Jin, works in the Earthquake Administration of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region, is the first author. This study investigates the spatial distribution of seismic anisotropy in the upper crust at 33 stations measured during 2009-2019 in the Tianshan Tectonic Belt.

Current research on the anisotropy of Tianshan is insufficient due to the lack of observational data, the research found that the polarization directions of fast waves at various stations in the Tianshan Tectonic Belt show obvious zoning in terms of spatial distribution. In the area with the strong surface piedmont deformation in the Tianshan Tectonic Belt, the polarization directions are consistent with the tectonic stress field. The obvious stress extrusion observations could be related to dynamic models such as "interlayer insertion and reduction" and "intraplate subduction". The Tianshan Orogenic Belt is relatively softer compared to the basins located on both sides of the north and the south. As the main crustal shortening area, the Tarim Basin thrusts and subducts beneath the Tianshan into the crust and the upper mantle, due to the long-range influences of the convergence between the Indian Plate and Siberian Plate.

Time delays of slow waves exhibit spatial differences. The time delays in the Tianshan Tectonic Belt, regardless of North Tianshan or South Tianshan, increase from east to west. These results are consistent with the north-south convergence deformations across the Tianshan Mountains, where the deformation rate increased from east to west. The average values of time delays in northeastern Pamir are significantly higher than that in the other areas due to the occurrence of the most intensive tectonic movements suggesting that the anisotropy of the zone is significantly stronger than that of the other zones in the Tianshan Tectonic Belt.

This research successfully deciphered the seismic anisotropy in the upper crust and provided a comprehensive and systematic understanding of the dynamic mechanisms of the Tianshan Tectonic Belt.

This research was funded by the Science for Earthquake Resilience Project (No. XH17041Y, XH21041) and the Natural Science Foundation of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region (No. 2020D01A83).

See the article: Li J, Gao Y, Wang Q. 2021. Anisotropic zoning in the upper crust of the Tianshan Tectonic Belt. Science China Earth Sciences, 64(4): 651-666.
https://www.sciengine.com/doi/10.1007/s11430-020-9709-0

Researchers from the Francis Crick Institute, Royal Marsden, UCL and Cruces University Hospital have found that cells from different parts of kidney tumours behave differently, and surprisingly, cells within the centre of a tumour are the most aggressive and have the highest chance of spreading around the body.

Cancers can spread to other parts of the body, with cells taking hold as secondary tumours which make the disease much harder to treat. Understanding the mechanics of this spread, a process called metastasis, could lead to new treatments that block this migration.

In their multidisciplinary study published today (17 May) in Nature Ecology and Evolution, scientists led by the Litchfield lab at UCL and the Turajlic, Swanton, and Bates labs at the Crick, analysed 756 cancer biopsy samples from different regions within tumours from the TRACERx Renal study.

They found that cells at the centre of tumours have a less stable genome and a higher potential to spread to secondary sites around the body. By contrast cells at the tumour edge had lower rates of metastasis, as well as lower rates of growth and genetic damage.

"Cancer cells in the central zone of the tumour face harsh environmental conditions, as there's a lack of blood supply and oxygen. They have to adapt to survive, which makes them stronger and more aggressive. This also means they are more likely to successfully evolve into cells that can disseminate and take hold in distant organs," says Kevin Litchfield, paper author and group leader at the UCL Cancer Institute.

The results highlight a need to pay close attention to the tumour centre to understand how cancer spreads and to find the cancer cells of greatest threat to the patient. It also shows the importance of developing treatments that target the unique environmental conditions found within the tumour core, in order to successfully eliminate the most aggressive tumour cells.

The scientists also looked at how genetically different populations of cancer cells grow within a tumour. Using a unique map building tool to reconstruct the growth of tumour cells, they found that, while most tumours follow a pattern where populations of cells grow in the local area - like a plant growing up and outwards - two cases demonstrated a "jumping" pattern where cells took hold in a new region of the tumour by seemingly 'jumping' over other populations of tumour cells.

The researchers are now planning to reconstruct 3D tumour maps, which will provide an even clearer visualisation of the spatial patterns within tumours.

Samra Turajlic, head of the Crick's Cancer Dynamics Laboratory, Consultant Medical Oncologist at the Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and the Chief Investigator of TRACERx Renal, said: "Cancer spread is one of the biggest barriers to improving survival rates. In the context of the TRACERx Renal study we previously resolved the genetic make up of different tumour areas, but until now, there has been no understanding of how these differences relate spatially. The most critical question is the part of the tumour from which cancer cells break away and migrate making cancer incurable.

"Using this unique clinical cohort and a multidisciplinary approach, including mathematical modeling, we identified with precision the place in the tumour where genetic chaos emerges to give rise to metastases. Our observations shed light on the sort of environmental conditions that would foster emergence of aggressive behaviour. These findings are a critical foundation for considering how we target or even prevent distinct populations of cells that pose the biggest threat."

A new study led by researchers from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, University of Oxford and the University of Birmingham for Current Biology has used new methods to analyse the variability of mammal fossils, revealing extraordinary results: it was not dinosaurs, but possibly other mammals, that were the main competitors of modern mammals before and after the mass extinction of dinosaurs.

The study challenges old assumptions about why mammals only seemed to diversify, becoming larger and exploring new diets, locomotion and ways of life, after the extinction of the non-bird dinosaurs. It points to a more complex story of competition between distinct mammal groups. The new research also highlights the importance of testing old and established ideas about evolution using the latest statistical tools.

"There were lots of exciting types of mammals in the time of dinosaurs that included gliding, swimming and burrowing species, but none of these mammals belonged to modern groups, they all come from earlier branches in the mammal tree." said Dr Elsa Panciroli, a researcher from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History and a co-author of the study. "These other kinds of mammals mostly became extinct at the same time as the non-avian dinosaurs, at which point modern mammals start to become larger, explore new diets and ways of life. From our research it looks like before the extinction it was the earlier radiations of mammals that kept the modern mammals out of these exciting ecological roles by outcompeting them".

Most of the mammal species alive today trace their origins to groups that expanded explosively 66 million years ago, when a mass extinction killed all non-bird dinosaurs. It was traditionally thought that, before the extinction, mammals lived in the shadow of the dinosaurs. They were supposedly prevented from occupying the niches that were already occupied by the giant reptiles, keeping the mammals relatively small and unspecialised in terms of diet and lifestyle. It appeared that they were only able to flourish after the dinosaurs' disappearance left these niches vacant.

However, new statistical methods were used to analyse how constrained different groups of mammals were in their evolution before and after the mass extinction. These methods identified the point where evolution stopped producing new traits and started producing features that had already evolved in other lineages. This allowed the researchers to identify the evolutionary "limits" placed on different groups of mammals, showing where they were being excluded from different niches by competition with other animals. The results suggest that it may not have been the dinosaurs that were placing the biggest constraints on the ancestors of modern mammals, but their closest relatives.

The study looked at the anatomy of all the different kinds of mammals living alongside dinosaurs, including the ancestors of modern groups, also known as therians. By measuring how frequently new features appeared, such as changes in the size and shape of their teeth and bones, and the pattern and timing of their appearance before and after the mass extinction, the researchers determined that the modern mammals were more constrained during the time of the dinosaurs than their close relatives. This meant that while their relatives were exploring larger body sizes, different diets, and novel ways of life such as climbing and gliding, they were excluding modern mammals from these lifestyles, keeping them small and generalist in their habits.

"This result makes very little sense if you assume that it was the dinosaurs constraining the therians" said Dr Neil Brocklehurst of the University of Oxford, who led the research. "There is no reason why the dinosaurs would be selectively competing with just these mammals and allowing others to prosper. It instead appears that the therians were being held back by these other groups of mammals."

The researchers suggest the extinction of other mammal groups was more important in paving the way for modern mammal success. As further evidence for this, the researchers looked at body size in different mammal groups. They discovered that both the smallest and largest mammals showed the same release from constraints following the dinosaur extinction, suggesting that size made little difference to their success.

Co-author Dr Gemma Benevento of the University of Birmingham said, "Most of the mammals that lived alongside the dinosaurs were less than 100g in body mass - that's smaller than any non-bird dinosaur. Therefore, these smallest mammals would probably not have been directly competing with dinosaurs. Despite this, small mammals show diversity increases after the extinction which are just as profound as those seen in larger mammals."

Dr Brocklehurst added, "Palaeontology is undergoing a revolution. We have greatly expanded the toolkit available to analyse large datasets and directly test our ideas about evolution. Most studies of the mammal radiation have focused on how fast they evolved, but analysing what limits there were on the evolution provides new perspectives. We have had to rethink many of our theories using these state-of-the-art approaches."

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- For children, pandemic norms have meant virtual school, holidays over Zoom and for some, even seeing the doctor from their own homes.

One in five parents in a new national poll say their child had a virtual health visit over the past year for either check-ups, minor illnesses, mental health or a follow up - a marked increase in remote care for children.

And while some parents still have reservations about using telemedicine for their kids, the majority were satisfied with the experience, suggest findings from the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health at the University of Michigan.

"COVID has had a major impact on the delivery of healthcare for children, both for routine check-ups and visits for illnesses," says Mott Poll co-director and Mott pediatrician Gary L. Freed, M.D., M.P.H.

"We've seen a massive expansion of virtual care, but this experience is especially new to parents who primarily relied on in-person pediatric visits. Our poll looked at how parents have experienced this evolution in children's health."

The nationally representative poll is based on responses from 2,002 parents of children 18 and under in January 2021.

Factors Impacting Virtual Care for Kids

One strong factor for the increase in pediatric video visits may be that it was the only choice for some parents during much of the COVID-19 pandemic. Around half of parents whose child used telemedicine weren't provided an in-person option, as providers limited office visits due to safety concerns for families and healthcare teams. Instead, many either began to offer or expanded their capacity for pediatric virtual care.

For one in three parents who chose virtual care, however, safety and reducing exposure to the virus was the primary reason. Another third of parents chose virtual visits for convenience.

"For busy parents, a virtual visit reduces the burden of travel time to the appointment and minimizes time away from work or school," Freed says.

And although these video physician interactions were a first for many parents, nine in 10 were satisfied with the visit and felt all their questions were answered.

Still, some parents remain hesitant about using telemedicine for children, citing factors such as technology issues.

One in four parents are worried about technical problems with virtual visits, with this being a more common concern among lower-income parents.

"Moving forward we want to make sure gaps in technology don't exacerbate disparities in care," Freed says. "Providers should provide clear directions and technical support for families who use virtual visits.

"Systems and policies that provide access to necessary and reliable technology will be essential to preventing inequity in availability and use of virtual care."

Parents who aren't able to connect through a video visit might start with a telephone consultation, he says, but should be prepared to bring their child for an in-person visit if needed.

One in four parents polled still saw a provider in-person after a virtual visit. This could be because the provider wanted to examine the child, or there was a need for additional services, such as immunizations or lab tests, Freed notes.

Future of e-visits for Kids

Families' major concerns about virtual visits are that the provider would not be as thorough as they would be in-person or that it would be too difficult to address their child's problem virtually, according to the Mott Poll.

However, around half of parents would be OK with a virtual visit for a mental health concern or a minor illness. If parents decide to try a virtual visit related to mental health, experts recommend timing it when a child is less likely to have "zoom fatigue" and not too late in the day, which might make concentration and communication difficult.

In contrast, most parents prefer in-person visits for check-ups (77%) with only 23% being okay with a virtual option. Similarly, 74% prefer an in-person visit with a specialist, with 26% saying they're okay with virtual visits.

For parents who may be hesitant about virtual visits, experts recommend first trying it with a non-urgent issue like a sleep or feeding question, Freed says.

"We expect remote visits to continue to expand for pediatric patients long after the pandemic," Freed says. "Parents should try virtual visits to gauge whether they feel that the provider can understand the child's symptoms or condition, and are comfortable asking questions in the virtual format."

Fifty years after presumably becoming extinct as a breeding species in Bulgaria, the Griffon Vulture, one of the largest birds of prey in Europe, is back in the Eastern Balkan Mountains. Since 2009, three local conservation NGOs - Green Balkans - Stara Zagora, the Fund for Wild Flora and Fauna and the Birds of Prey Protection Society, have been working on a long-term restoration programme to bring vultures back to their former breeding range in Bulgaria. The programme is supported by the Vulture Conservation Foundation, the Government of Extremadura, Spain, and EuroNatur. Its results have been described in the open-access, peer-reviewed Biodiversity Data Journal.

Two large-scale projects funded by the EU's LIFE tool, one of them ongoing, facilitate the import of captive-bred or recovered vultures from Spain, France and zoos and rehabilitation centres across Europe. Birds are then accommodated in special acclimatization aviaries, individually tagged and released into the wild from five release sites in Bulgaria. Using this method, a total of 153 Griffon Vultures were released between 2009 and 2020 from two adaptation aviaries in the Kotlenska Planina Special Protection Area and the Sinite Kamani Nature Park in the Eastern Balkan Mountains of Bulgaria.

After some 50 years of absence, the very first successful reproduction in the area was reported as early as 2016. Now, as of December 2020, the local population consists of more than 80 permanently present individuals, among them about 25 breeding pairs, and has already produced a total of 31-33 chicks successfully fledged into the wild.

"Why vultures of all creatures? Because they were exterminated, yet provide an amazing service for people and healthy ecosystems", Elena Kmetova-Biro, initial project manager for the Green Balkans NGO explains.

"We have lost about a third of the vultures set free in that site, mostly due to electrocution shortly after release. The birds predominantly forage on feeding sites, where the team provides dead domestic animals collected from local owners and slaughterhouses," the researchers say.

"We, however, consider the establishment phase of the reintroduction of Griffon Vulture in this particular site as successfully completed. The population is still dependent on conservation measures (supplementary feeding, isolation of dangerous power lines and accidental poisoning prevention), but the area of the Eastern Balkan Mountains can currently be regarded as a one of the only seven existing general areas for the species in the mainland Balkan Peninsula and one of the five which serve as population source sites".

Writing in the May 14, 2021 issue of The American Journal of Psychiatry, a multi-institution team of scientists led by researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine report that medications commonly prescribed to reduce the severity of physical and mental health symptoms associated with schizophrenia may have a cumulative effect of worsening cognitive function in patients.

Psychotropic medications are often necessary and beneficial, but they possess other secondary properties that are not directly related to reducing symptoms, including anticholinergic properties. That is, apart from their actual intended effects, they also inhibit acetylcholine, a neurotransmitter that is important in brain signaling and in a number of other body functions. Apart from schizophrenia, which is estimated to affect roughly 1.5 million Americans, drugs with anticholinergic properties are used to treat a wide variety of conditions, including urinary incontinence, chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder and some muscle disorders.

"Many medications have anticholinergic effects, and we are becoming increasingly aware about their potential long-term risks," said lead study author Yash Joshi, MD, assistant professor in the Department of Psychiatry at UC San Diego School of Medicine.

In fact, anticholinergic drugs have been linked to cognitive impairment and increased dementia risk in healthy adults. For example, a 2020 study by UC San Diego School of Medicine researchers found an association between anticholinergic medications and increased risk of Alzheimer's disease. Another study cited by authors reported that taking just one strong anticholinergic medication for three years was associated with a 50 percent increase in the odds of developing dementia over the 11-year study period.

Persons living with schizophrenia commonly experience significant difficulties with attention, learning, memory, executive function (such as reasoning and planning) and social cognition. Since these mental processes are critical for many daily activities, cognitive impairment in schizophrenia can lead to significant disability.

In the latest study, Joshi and colleagues sought to comprehensively characterize how the cumulative anticholinergic burden from different classes of medications impact cognition in patients with schizophrenia.

"We wanted to better understand how anticholinergic medication burden impacted cognitive functioning in individuals who may have already some cognitive difficulties due to schizophrenia," he said.

Researchers assessed medical records, including prescribed medications, of 1,120 study participants with schizophrenia. They found that 63 percent of participants had an anticholinergic cognitive burden (ACB) score of at least 3.

"This is striking because previous studies have shown that an ACB score of 3 in a healthy, older adult is associated with cognitive dysfunction and a 50 percent increased risk for developing dementia," said Joshi.

Notably, roughly one-quarter of the schizophrenia patients in the study had ACB scores of 6 or more.

The authors wrote that while such numbers may be high for persons living without any psychiatric illness, they are not difficult to achieve in patients receiving routine psychiatric care, which often includes medications with anticholinergic properties. For example, a patient prescribed daily olanzapine for symptoms of psychosis already starts with an ACB score of 3; add hydroxyzine for anxiety and insomnia in the same patient and their ACB score doubles. Many patients with schizophrenia are treated with multiple psychotropic drugs -- other medications for other health conditions could increase this burden further.

"It is easy even for well-meaning clinicians to inadvertently contribute to anticholinergic medication burden through routine and appropriate care," said Gregory Light, PhD, professor of psychiatry and senior author. "The unique finding here is that this burden comes from medications we don't usually think of as typical anticholinergic agents."

The authors said ACB should be considered when physicians prescribe medications for patients with schizophrenia, noting that emerging data suggests reducing anticholinergic burden is associated not only with cognitive benefit, but an improved quality of life.

"Brain health in schizophrenia is a game of inches, and even small negative effects on cognitive functioning through anticholinergic medication burden may have large impacts on patients' lives," said Joshi.

"Everyone caring for those living with schizophrenia -- mental health providers, primary care providers, specialists, and loved ones -- should be vigilant in trying to reduce anticholinergic burden in a holistic way so that we can be good stewards of our patients' long-term cognitive health. If clinically feasible and safe, this could include reducing the number of psychotropic medications, changing some psychotropic medications to others with lower anticholinergic properties, or using complementary approaches to enhance cognitive functioning."

In its response to pathogens and vaccines, our immune system relies on dendritic cells. These white blood cells patrol the body's tissues, collect components of pathogens and vaccines and transport them via lymphatic vessels to the nearest lymph node. There, they present the collected material to other immune cells in order to trigger an immune response.

How exactly dendritic cells get from the tissue into lymphatic vessels and from there to the lymph node is the focus of research conducted by Cornelia Halin, Professor of Pharmaceutical Immunology at ETH Zurich. For a long time, scientists assumed that dendritic cells choose the path of least resistance and migrate from the tissue into the smallest branches of the lymphatic vessels, the lymphatic capillaries. This is because, unlike other lymphatic vessels, capillaries are surrounded only by a thin, barely closed layer of cells, allowing dendritic cells to slip through the spaces between neighbouring cells relatively easily.

However, this route is slow. While cells in blood vessels and in most other lymphatic vessels are carried along by a flow of fluid, virtually no flow is present in lymphatic capillaries. Consequently, cells in these capillary vessels need to actively move themselves forward, which only happens at an extremely low speed.

Faster despite obstacles

With her team, ETH Professor Halin has now discovered that dendritic cells can take a shortcut. In studies performed on mouse tissues and employing microscopy, the scientists were able to show that dendritic cells can also migrate directly into those lymphatic vessels into which the capillaries merge: the collecting lymphatics. These vessels are surrounded by a well-sealed layer of cells and a thicker membrane of connective tissue. Consequently, migration across these barriers is more difficult for dendritic cells, and entry takes longer than into capillaries. All in all, however, dendritic cells taking this path arrive in the lymph nodes much faster, since immediately after entry they are carried along by the lymph flow present in the collecting vessels and can bypass the slow active migration step in the capillaries.

Thinner barrier in case of inflammation

At present, it is not yet completely understood under which circumstances dendritic cells choose the known path via the capillaries and under which they take the newly discovered shortcut. As ETH Professor Halin and her colleagues have shown, the shortcut becomes available when there is an ongoing inflammatory response in the tissue. Specifically, the researchers were able to show that the connective tissue membrane surrounding the collecting lymphatics becomes degraded during inflammation, making it easier for dendritic cells to penetrate into the collectors.

It thus appears that an inflammatory response is the key factor that allows dendritic cells to take this shortcut and arrive more quickly in the lymph nodes. The scientists will now investigate whether all dendritic cells or only specific subtypes can travel via this route. In particular, they plan to explore the importance of the newly discovered pathway for the activation of the immune system and for installing immune responses. They suspect that the ability to sound the alarm in the lymph node more quickly may provide an advantage in fighting certain infections.

Sperm are generally viewed as having just one action in reproduction - to fertilise the female's egg - but studies at the University of Adelaide are overturning that view.

Published in Nature Research journal Communications Biology, new research shows that sperm also deliver signals directly to the female reproductive tissues to increase the chances of conception.

Robinson Research Institute's Professor Sarah Robertson, who led the project, said: "This research is the first to show that the female immune response is persuaded by signals in sperm to allow the male partner to fertilise her eggs and conceive a pregnancy.

"This overturns our current understanding of what sperm are capable of - they are not just carriers of genetic material, but also agents for convincing the female to invest reproductive resources with that male."

It has been known that proteins in seminal fluid modulate the female immune response at conception to encourage her body to accept the foreign embryo. Whether sperm affect this response has not been clear until now.

The team evaluated effects on global gene expression in the mouse uterus after mating with males with intact sperm, or vasectomized males. Intact males induced greater changes in female genes, particularly affecting immune response pathways.

The females that had contact with sperm produced stronger immune tolerance than those females mated with vasectomised males. By examining effects of sperm interactions with female cells in cell culture experiments, the researchers confirmed the sperm were directly responsible.

These new findings suggest that sperm health isn't only important for conceiving, but also has ongoing effects on the chances of a healthy baby. Factors like age, diet, weight, alcohol and smoking, and exposures to environmental chemicals can affect sperm quality in men and so might have greater consequences for pregnancy health than previously considered.

"Recognition that sperm influence reproductive events beyond simply fertilizing oocytes shows that sperm quality can have consequences for pregnancy health, beyond just conception,'' Professor Robertson said.

"Conditions like recurrent miscarriage, preeclampsia, preterm birth and stillbirth are affected by the female's immune response in ways that the partner's sperm contribute to."

Marilyn Monroe famously sang that diamonds are a girl's best friend, but they are also very popular with quantum scientists - with two new research breakthroughs poised to accelerate the development of synthetic diamond-based quantum technology, improve scalability, and dramatically reduce manufacturing costs.

While silicon is traditionally used for computer and mobile phone hardware, diamond has unique properties that make it particularly useful as a base for emerging quantum technologies such as quantum supercomputers, secure communications and sensors.

However there are two key problems; cost, and difficulty in fabricating the single crystal diamond layer, which is smaller than one millionth of a metre.

A research team from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Transformative Meta-Optics at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS), led by Professor Igor Aharonovich, has just published two research papers, in Nanoscale and Advanced Quantum Technologies, that address these challenges.

"For diamond to be used in quantum applications, we need to precisely engineer 'optical defects' in the diamond devices - cavities and waveguides - to control, manipulate and readout information in the form of qubits - the quantum version of classical computer bits," said Professor Aharonovich.

"It's akin to cutting holes or carving gullies in a super thin sheet of diamond, to ensure light travels and bounces in the desired direction," he said.

To overcome the "etching" challenge, the researchers developed a new hard masking method, which uses a thin metallic tungsten layer to pattern the diamond nanostructure, enabling the creation of one-dimensional photonic crystal cavities.

"The use of tungsten as a hard mask addresses several drawbacks of diamond fabrication. It acts as a uniform restraining conductive layer to improve the viability of electron beam lithography at nanoscale resolution," said lead author of paper in Nanoscale, UTS PhD candidate Blake Regan.

To the best of our knowledge, we offer the first evidence of the growth of a single crystal diamond structure from a polycrystalline material using a bottom up approach - like growing flowers from seed.

"It also allows the post-fabrication transfer of diamond devices onto the substrate of choice under ambient conditions. And the process can be further automated, to create modular components for diamond-based quantum photonic circuitry," he said.

The tungsten layer is 30nm wide - around 10,000 times thinner than a human hair - however it enabled a diamond etch of over 300nm, a record selectivity for diamond processing.

A further advantage is that removal of the tungsten mask does not require the use of hydrofluoric acid - one of the most dangerous acids currently in use - so this also significantly improves the safety and accessibility of the diamond nanofabrication process.

To address the issue of cost, and improve scalability, the team further developed an innovative step to grow single crystal diamond photonic structures with embedded quantum defects from a polycrystalline substrate.

"Our process relies on lower cost large polycrystalline diamond, which is available as large wafers, unlike the traditionally used high quality single crystal diamond, which is limited to a few mm2" said UTS PhD candidate Milad Nonahal, lead author of the study in Advanced Quantum Technologies.

"To the best of our knowledge, we offer the first evidence of the growth of a single crystal diamond structure from a polycrystalline material using a bottom up approach - like growing flowers from seed," he added.

"Our method eliminates the need for expensive diamond materials and the use of ion implantation, which is key to accelerating the commercialisation of diamond quantum hardware" said UTS Dr Mehran Kianinia, a senior author on the second study.

Climate change is exacerbating problems like habitat loss and temperatures swings that have already pushed many animal species to the brink. But can scientists predict which animals will be able to adapt and survive? Using genome sequencing, researchers from McGill University show that some fish, like the threespine stickleback, can adapt very rapidly to extreme seasonal changes. Their findings could help scientists forecast the evolutionary future of these populations.

A popular subject of study among evolutionary ecologists, stickleback are known for their different shapes, sizes, and behaviours - they can even live in both seawater and freshwater, and under a wide range of temperatures. But what makes this species so resilient?

Identifying the genetic basis of adaptations, for example, to freshwater or in response to climate change, can be challenging. "The modern version of Darwin's idea of evolution by natural selection posits that organisms with genes that favour survival and reproduction will tend to leave more offspring than their peers, causing the genes to increase in frequency over generations. As a result, populations become adapted or better-suited to their environments over time," says lead author Alan Garcia-Elfring, a Doctoral Candidate under the supervision of Rowan Barrett, the Canada Research Chair of Biodiversity Science at McGill University.

"However, this process has typically been studied retrospectively, in populations that adapted to their current environments long in the past. This can make it difficult to understand the sequence of events - for example, which traits were most important and when - that led to their adaptation," he adds.

Natural selection in real-time

To study natural selection in action, the researchers tracked six populations of threespine stickleback fish before and after seasonal changes to their environment, using genome sequencing. Stickleback found in different estuaries along coastal California provide a rare opportunity to study natural selection in real-time. Seasonal changes driven by wet winters and dry summers result in drastic shifts in habitat structure and balance of salt versus freshwater, and only those fish able to tolerate these rapid changes survive into the next season.

Estuaries are periodically isolated from the ocean due to sandbar formation during dry summer months. "These changes probably resemble the habitat shifts experienced by stickleback populations when they colonized many newly created freshwater lakes from the ocean after the glaciers receded 10,000 years ago" says Professor Barrett. "We hope to gain insight into the genetic changes that may have resulted from natural selection long in the past."

Remarkably, the researchers discovered evidence of genetic changes driven by the seasonal shifts in habitat that mirrored the differences found between long-established freshwater and saltwater populations. "These genetic changes occurred in independent populations over a single season, highlighting just how quickly the effects of natural selection can be detected," says Alan Garcia-Elfring.

"The findings are important because they suggest that we may be able to use the genetic differences that evolved in the past as a way to predict how populations may adapt to environmental stressors like climate change in the future" he says.

The research underscores the importance of studying species in dynamic environments, like bar-built estuaries, to gain a better understanding of how natural selection operates. In further research, they plan to investigate how repeatable the observed genetic shifts are, by testing whether they show up year after year. Doing so would demonstrate their ability to reliably forecast the evolutionary future of these populations.

The international scientific community agrees that the latest findings of an FAU research team will revolutionise the entire chemistry of magnesium. The research team have discovered magnesium, which usually has a double positive charge in chemical compounds, in the elemental zero-oxidation state. They have published their ground-breaking findings in the journal Nature.

In the periodic table of elements, magnesium (Mg) is a metal with low electronegativity, which means it does not easily attract electrons but easily loses both the electrons in its outer shell during chemical reactions. It therefore only exists in nature as a compound with other elements in the form of a positively charged Mg2+ cation. For example, this most stable form of Mg2+ is found in various minerals or in chlorophyll, which is the pigment that makes plants green.

Magnesium normally has double-positive charge, but now discovered in zero-oxidation state

The team at FAU led by Prof. Dr. Sjoerd Harder, Chair of Inorganic and Organometallic Chemistry, has now discovered the first complexes of magnesium in which the metal has a zero-oxidation state. The oxidation numbers in chemical compounds indicate the charge of the atoms, which means in this case that the researchers have managed to isolate elemental Mg in complex compounds.

As is so often the case in scientific research, this discovery was purely accidental. The research team had actually planned to split magnesium-magnesium bonds in order to produce magnesium radicals. Metallic sodium was used during this synthesis. The predicted result of the experiment was that the sodium would transfer one electron to the magnesium. Astonishingly, however, two sodium atoms transferred electrons to the magnesium and an Mg(0) complex that has never previously been observed was formed. The Mg centres in these complexes formally even carry a negative charge due to a unique magnesium sodium bond and thus react completely differently than conventional Mg2+ compounds. Whereas the electron-poor Mg2+ cations can accept electrons, the electron-rich Mg(0) reacts like a negatively charged anion by losing electrons.

This complex is soluble in organic solvents like toluene or benzene and is an extremely strong reducing agent, which is an element or compound that donates electrons to another element or compound. Slightly heating the complex led the Mg(0) to donate some of its electrons to the positively charged sodium cation (Na+), which then became elemental sodium metal Na(0). This is quite unusual, since sodium itself is a metal that has an even stronger tendency to lose electrons. This reaction created a new complex: three atoms of magnesium strung together like beads on a necklace. This triple core magnesium cluster reacts like atomic Mg(0) and can be considered as the smallest form of magnesium metal, one that is soluble in organic solvents. This new class of magnesium complexes represents a landmark in the chemistry of magnesium. The FAU research team led by Prof. Harder expect to discover further unusual reactivity of this soluble and extremely strong reducing agent.

High-temperature and high-pressure experiments involving a diamond anvil and chemicals to simulate the core of the young Earth demonstrate for the first time that hydrogen can bond strongly with iron in extreme conditions. This explains the presence of significant amounts of hydrogen in the Earth's core that arrived as water from bombardments billions of years ago.

Given the extreme depths, temperatures and pressures involved, we are not physically able to probe very far into the earth directly. So, in order to peer deep inside the Earth, researchers use techniques involving seismic data to ascertain things like composition and density of subterranean material. Something that has stood out for as long as these kinds of measurements have been taking place is that the core is primarily made of iron, but its density, in particular that of the liquid part, is lower than expected.

This led researchers to believe there must be an abundance of light elements alongside the iron. For the first time, researchers have examined the behavior of water in laboratory experiments involving metallic iron and silicate compounds that accurately simulate the metal-silicate (core-mantle) reactions during Earth's formation. They found that when water meets iron, the majority of the hydrogen dissolves into the metal while the oxygen reacts with iron and goes into the silicate materials.

"At the temperatures and pressures we are used to on the surface, hydrogen does not bond with iron, but we wondered if it were possible under more extreme conditions," said Shoh Tagawa, a Ph.D. student at the Department of Earth and Planetary Science at the University of Tokyo during the study. "Such extreme temperatures and pressures are not easy to reproduce, and the best way to achieve them in the lab was to use an anvil made of diamond. This can impart pressures of 30-60 gigapascals in temperatures of 3,100-4,600 kelvin. This is a good simulation of the Earth's core formation."

The team, under Professor Kei Hirose, used metal and water-bearing silicate analogous to those found in the Earth's core and mantle, respectively, and compressed them in the diamond anvil whilst simultaneously heating the sample with a laser. To see what was going on in the sample, they used high-resolution imaging involving a technique called secondary ion mass spectroscopy. This allowed them to confirm their hypothesis that hydrogen bonds with iron, which explains the apparent lack of ocean water. Hydrogen is said to be iron-loving, or siderophile.

"This finding allows us to explore something that affects us in quite a profound way," said Hirose. "That hydrogen is siderophile under high pressure tells us that much of the water that came to Earth in mass bombardments during its formation might be in the core as hydrogen today. We estimate there might be as much as 70 oceans' worth of hydrogen locked away down there. Had this remained on the surface as water, the Earth may never have known land, and life as we know it would never have evolved."