Earth

Cells must utilize nutrient resources as efficiently as possible in order to ensure survival. This involves an intricate balance between the synthesis and degradation of cellular components, the latter of which can be used to liberate metabolites from unneeded components during periods of stress. Autophagy is a key intracellular degradation pathway that is triggered under such conditions. Autophagy captures and transports cellular material to a special compartment called the vacuole (or lysosome in animal cells), where they are degraded to produce basic metabolites such as amino acids, which are the building blocks of proteins. These metabolites can then be returned to the cytoplasm for reuse by the cell.

How exactly are these autophagy-derived metabolites used? While scientists have found that this recycling is important, where metabolites are needed in the cell is not known.

To address this question, researchers from the Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech), Japan, and Monash University, Australia, including the 2016 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine, Dr Yoshinori Ohsumi, set out to identify how autophagy-derived metabolites are used by cells. Their findings have been published in Nature Communications.

Dr Alexander I. May, lead author on the paper, explains: "We wanted to gain a better understanding of the physiology of autophagy, which is a long-standing question in the field of autophagy research. We transferred mutant yeast cells, which are incapable of autophagy, from a glucose medium to an ethanol medium, forcing these cells to adapt to respiratory growth in a way that's very easy to observe. This change to respiration requires a huge increase in mitochondrial function and therefore involves remodeling of the bulk of the cell's metabolic machinery. We found that autophagy-defective yeast took longer to adapt to respiratory growth than the normal yeast cells do, and we worked backwards from this observation to uncover why."

The team then looked in further detail at cells undergoing the transition from fermentation, when yeast cells break down glucose to ethanol in the cytosol to obtain energy, to respiration, during which other carbohydrates are utilized to make energy in mitochondria. They discovered that this transition triggers autophagy, suggesting that cells need to recycle metabolites to adapt to respiration.

What autophagy-derived metabolites help facilitate respiratory growth? To find out, the group first searched for nutrients that may be recycled by autophagy to support growth, individually adding metabolites to autophagy-defective mutant cultures and testing whether each metabolite was able to help cells adapt to respiration and thereby support normal growth. It turned out that the amino acid serine is able to rescue the delayed adaptation of autophagy mutant cells to respiratory growth.

The authors then asked how serine helps cells start respiration. Serine feeds into an important mitochondrial metabolic pathway called one-carbon metabolism. This pathway is plays a central role in the initiation of protein synthesis in mitochondria. While few in number, these proteins are absolutely critical for mitochondrial respiration. Dr. May and colleagues showed that key markers of mitochondrial one-carbon metabolism were perturbed in autophagy mutant cells, and that adding serine to these cells restored one-carbon metabolism and mitochondrial protein synthesis.

Explaining the outcomes of this study, Dr May says: "In yeast adapting to respiratory growth, autophagy plays a central role in providing serine to mitochondria, which otherwise experience a critical shortfall in serine. Serine is used by numerous pathways in the cell in addition to mitochondrial respiration, suggesting that competition exists between these pathways. On a more conceptual level, our findings indicate that autophagy provides key adaptive pathways with sufficient precursors, thereby allowing the most efficient deployment of cellular resources during their adaptation to environmental fluctuations. This is critical when the concentration of important metabolites is reduced during periods of stress such as the glycolytic to respiratory transition, when competition between cellular pathways for limited resources acts as a bottleneck on growth"

In addition to furthering our fundamental understanding of autophagy, this study establishes a yet-unknown link between autophagy and one-carbon metabolism, which is known to play an important role in cancer cell metabolism. The results may provide medical researchers developing therapeutic strategies with a new tool to attack cancer cells.

Longer nocturnal respiratory events in patients with obstructive sleep apnoea (OSA) cause higher immediate heart rate variability, and greater changes in beat-to-beat intervals are associated with reduced daytime alertness, according to new research from the University of Eastern Finland.

Obstructive sleep apnoea affects approximately 1 billion people worldwide. It is one of the most prevalent sleeping disorders, putting a great strain on national economies and on public health. Nocturnal respiratory events, be they complete or partial blocking of the airways, often cause repeated oxygen desaturations and interrupted sleep in patients with OSA, leading to abnormal nervous system function.

Abnormal hyperactivation of the sympathetic nervous system affects heart function and cardiovascular regulation by increasing OSA patients' nocturnal heart rate and by reducing their long-term heart rate variability. These changes have been shown to significantly increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases. In addition, hyperactivation of the sympathetic nervous system can prevent patients with OSA from getting enough deep, restorative sleep, which is why they often feel tired and less alert during the day. Hyperactivation of the sympathetic nervous system can keep the body in a state of alertness over the long term despite sufficient deep sleep, and this can be seen in, e.g., elevated daytime heart rate in patients with OSA.

Two recent studies from the University of Eastern Finland have explored the immediate effect of respiratory events on heart rate variability, as well as the association of OSA patients' nocturnal heart rate changes with their alertness.

A study published in Scientific Reports yesterday shows that the type and duration of individual respiratory events has an effect on heart rate and heart rate variability both during and after the event. A longer duration of a respiratory event caused greater changes in heart rate as well as higher ultra-short-term heart rate variability, and both of these changes were greater during complete obstruction of the airway.

"The study sheds important new light on the cardiovascular load nocturnal respiratory events cause in patients with OSA," the study's lead author Early Stage Researcher Salla Hietakoste from the University of Eastern Finland says.

The other study, published in ERJ Open Research earlier this year, found that changes in pulse rate measured via finger photoplethysmogram were associated with performance in the psychomotor vigilance task (PVT) in patients with OSA. Patients who performed poorly in the PVT had a significantly higher nocturnal heart rate.

"By taking a better look at polysomnography data for respiratory events and heart function, we might be able to identify patients who have a higher risk for reduced vigilance and alertness," Postdoctoral Researcher Samu Kainulainen from the University of Eastern Finland says.

In both studies, the findings were more pronounced in men. The findings suggest that the abundance of data available from current clinical sleep studies could be utilised more extensively in the future. Data relating to heart rate and heart rate variability could possibly be used alongside the current diagnostic parameters for OSA in order to get a more representative clinical picture and to better identify high-risk patients.

Justifiable pride can be taken in the incremental accomplishments of international climate change cooperation, but it is "unthinkable" to continue at the current pace. The global response to climate change is completely insufficient and leaves the world on a "road to hell".

That's according to four former senior members of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) secretariat, who have published an exclusive critical insider insight piece -today published in the peer-reviewed journal, Climate Policy.

In reviewing 30 years since the launch of international negotiations on climate change, the team state that while countries have successfully agreed three significant UN treaties over the three decades, global implementation of the ensuing commitments is failing, and ramped up action is required urgently "to avoid dangerous climate change" and to stay within agreed temperature increase thresholds.

The former UNFCCC leaders plea, first and foremost, for effective and ambitious implementation by governments of their agreed commitments, supported by business and other levels of government and society. They also call for the setting of realistic new targets backed up by concrete strategies and action; suggest the development of "creative and even controversial" new international agreements; and urge richer countries and multilateral financial institutions to strengthen support to developing nations.

Recommendations, among many by the team, which has 40 years of collective experience in the UNFCCC, include:

Governments to raise significantly the ambition of their commitments and act domestically with all means at their disposal - with the largest emitters and wealthiest countries bearing the most responsibility

Simultaneous action by the business and finance sectors, local and regional governments, and other civil society actors

Taxes and eco-tariffs

"Real action rather than lip service" on removal of fossil fuel subsidies and phasing out coal

Sector specific strategies and coalitions

The establishment of a 2030 interim target, in order to have a good chance of not exceeding the 1.5ºC temperature increase threshold

For business, the finance sector and major economic actors to change the trajectory of development to a sustainable path, accelerating existing technological trends

"Before we can seriously contemplate climate change 'heaven', we need to get off the current road to 'hell', even if it is paved with good intentions! Concrete and full implementation of already agreed commitments is the essential prerequisite for climate 'salvation'," states lead author Richard Kinley, UNFCCC Deputy Executive Secretary 2007- 2017.

Fellow co-author Michael Zammit Cutajar was founding Executive Secretary of UNFCCC between 1991-2002. He says: "Drawing on hardening IPCC science and building on the foundations of the 1992 Convention, the last 30 years of international cooperation have established a clear understanding of the need to prevent dangerous climate change and an opportunity to do so.

"But the ambition and effectiveness of governmental and corporate action to this end must shift quickly to another scale, beyond recognition, if we are to achieve global net zero emissions over the next 30 years.

"We cannot continue kicking the can down the road to climate safety."

Within the paper, the experts voice particular frustration about distant targets not being accompanied by "immediate and effective action plans".

Christiana Figueres was UN Climate Chief at the time of the Paris Agreement.

She states: "The Paris Agreement's national climate pledges - the nationally-determined contributions - were a great start, but they need to be significantly strengthened starting with the current round of updates, and then decisively implemented, if the global goals are to be met."

Co-author Yvo de Boer, UN Climate Chief 2006-2010 adds: "A strategy is needed to ensure that deadlines lead to enhanced action on the ground and not simply more headlines of the moment."

On Saturday, France, along with the UK and the UN, will host a meeting of world leaders in Paris to mark five years since the Paris Agreement was adopted. Leaders will discuss progress to meet the collective global goals of limiting temperature increase below 2°C and even 1.5°C, along with global net zero emissions in the second half of this century. The message to leaders from the UNFCCC quartet is that they need to do much more, and quickly, to achieve the goals of Paris.

This paper takes a critical, and even "self-critical", stock of what has been achieved since these international negotiations were launched on 21 December 1990.

Using their inside knowledge of the workings of the UN, the team state that whilst "the UNFCCC process was ahead of public consciousness, it now lags behind" and they admit a failing of the UN system is that it's "often hindered by interagency rivalries." There have been notable successes in the international negotiations, however, and these need to be recognised.

Figueres says: "One of the strongest successes of the UNFCCC regime rests in the growing engagement of civil society and business in implementing the climate change solutions that are readily available, along with the system of emission data and national reporting going back over 25 years."

The authors also see the UN Secretary-General playing a "key role as an important advocate for engagement" by heads of state and government, "encouraging them to truly make climate change an all-government priority, and to move beyond 'window dressing'."

This role, Kinley states, is "especially urgent in placing climate change policy at the heart of COVID-19 pandemic recovery strategies" going forwards.

"International cooperation alone will not 'save the planet', but it is an essential adjunct to national government responsibility and business and civil society initiative," he says.

De Boer adds: "UNFCCC negotiators need to evaluate the functioning of their process, which, in its formal work and agendas, has become unwieldy and routinised, heavy in its carbon footprint, and out of step with the scale of urgency."

Be it with smartphones, laptops, or mainframes: The transmission, processing, and storage of information is currently based on a single class of material - as it was in the early days of computer science about 60 years ago. A new class of magnetic materials, however, could raise information technology to a new level. Antiferromagnetic insulators enable computing speeds that are a thousand times faster than conventional electronics, with significantly less heating. Components could be packed closer together and logic modules could thus become smaller, which has so far been limited due to the increased heating of current components.

Information transfer at room temperature

So far, the problem has been that the information transfer in antiferromagnetic insulators only worked at low temperatures. But who wants to put their smartphones in the freezer to be able to use it? Physicists at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have now been able to eliminate this shortcoming, together with experimentalists from the CNRS/Thales lab, the CEA Grenoble, and the National High Field Laboratory in France as well as theorists from the Center for Quantum Spintronics (QuSpin) at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology. "We were able to transmit and process information in a standard antiferromagnetic insulator at room temperature - and to do so over long enough distances to enable information processing to occur", said JGU scientist Andrew Ross. The researchers used iron oxide (α-Fe2O3), the main component of rust, as an antiferromagnetic insulator, because iron oxide is widespread and easy to manufacture.

The transfer of information in magnetic insulators is made possible by excitations of magnetic order known as magnons. These move as waves through magnetic materials, similar to how waves move across the water surface of a pond after a stone has been thrown into it. Previously, it was believed that these waves must have circular polarization in order to efficiently transmit information. In iron oxide, such circular polarization occurs only at low temperatures. However, the international research team was able to transmit magnons over exceptionally long distances even at room temperature. But how did that work? "We realized that in antiferromagnets with a single plane, two magnons with linear polarization can overlap and migrate together. They complement each other to form an approximately circular polarization," explained Dr. Romain Lebrun, researcher at the joint CNRS/Thales laboratory in Paris who previously worked in Mainz. "The possibility of using iron oxide at room temperature makes it an ideal playground for the development of ultra-fast spintronic devices based on antiferromagnetic insulators."

Extremely low attenuation allows for energy-efficient transmission

An important question in the process of information transfer is how quickly the information is lost when moving through magnetic materials. This can be recorded quantitatively with the value of the magnetic damping. "The iron oxide examined has one of the lowest magnetic attenuations that has ever been reported in magnetic materials," explained Professor Mathias Kläui from the JGU Institute of Physics. "We anticipate that high magnetic field techniques will show that other antiferromagnetic materials have similarly low attenuation, which is crucial for the development of a new generation of spintronic devices. We are pursuing such low power magnetic technologies in a long-term collaboration with our colleagues at QuSpin in Norway and I am happy to see that another piece of exciting work as come out of this collaboration."

Finding alternatives to antibiotics is one of the biggest challenges facing the research community. Bacteria are increasingly resistant to these drugs, and this resistance leads to the deaths of more than 25,000 around the world. Now, a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the Universitat Rovira i Virgili, the University of Grenoble (France), the University of Saarland (Germany) and RMIT University (Australia) have discovered that the mechanical deformation of bacteria is a toxic mechanism that can kill bacteria with gold nanoparticles. The results of this research have been published in the journal Advanced Materials and are a breakthrough in researchers' understanding the antibacterial effects of nanoparticles and their efforts to find new materials with bactericide properties.

Since the times of Ancient Egypt, gold has been used in a range of medical applications and, more recently, as for diagnosing and treating diseases such as cancer. This is due to the fact that gold is a chemically inert material, that is, it does not react or change when it comes into contact with an organism. Amongst the scientific community, nanoparticles are known for their ability to make tumours visible and for their applications in nanomedicine.

This new research shows that these chemically inert nanoparticles can kill bacteria thanks to a physical mechanism that deforms the cell wall. To demonstrate this, the researchers have synthesized in the laboratory gold nanoparticles in the shape of an almost perfect sphere and others in the shape of stars, all measuring 100 nanometres (8 times thinner than a hair). The group analysed how these particle interact with living bacteria. "We find that the bacteria become deformed and deflate like a ball that is having the air let out before dying in the presence of these nanoparticles", explained Vladimir Baulin, researcher at the Department of Chemical Engineering of the URV. The researchers state the bacteria seem to have died after a massive leak, "as if the cell wall had spontaneously exploded ".

The scientists thought that a physical mechanism might be responsible for the death of the bacteria. Consequently, they carried out aa numerical simulations to analyse how a homogenous layer of individual nanoparticles could apply sufficient mechanical tension to the cell wall of the bacteria that it ends up breaking seemingly by stretching, like a balloon that is inflated from different points until it exploded.

To confirm this hypothesis, the researchers created an artificial model of a bacterial cell membrane to evaluate its response when it entered into contact with the 100 nm gold nanoparticles. "We found that the model spontaneously contracted until it completely collapsed, thus proving the hypothesis that nanoparticles apply a mechanical stretch on the cell membrane of the bacteria", Baulin asserted.

ITHACA, N.Y. - To deflect future world food crises created by climate change and growing consumer demand, a Cornell University-led international team of economists, scientists and business experts has created a road map for global agricultural and food systems innovation, reform and sustainability.

The group's report - "Socio-Technical Innovation Bundles for Agri-Food Systems," funded by the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability - was published Dec. 10 on the Nature Sustainability website, in collaboration with its sibling journal, Nature Food.

"By any measure, our world's food systems are phenomenally productive, responsive and adaptable, as we can now feed almost 5 billion in a healthy way," said Chris Barrett, professor of applied economics and management, and international professor of agriculture in Cornell's Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, who leads the project.

"But that means nearly 3 billion cannot afford a healthy diet. And with inevitable population growth, income growth and the climate change that's already baked into the food system, our current agricultural gains and methods are not sustainable," said Barrett, also a faculty member in the Department of Global Development and in the Department of Economics. "Globally, we can't continue on this path without destroying the planet and imperiling billions of people."

In December 2019, more than 20 business, government, nonprofit and scientific experts from around the world convened to kick off the expert panel at Cornell Tech in New York City to assess research linking agri-food systems, technological and institutional innovations, and society's future needs.

The group has outlined seven major recommendations in a 170-plus-page report in order to make the world's agri-food systems healthy, equitable, resilient and sustainable. Its main recommendation involves combining social and technological innovations.

"There's really no technology that's a silver bullet," said Barrett, a Cornell Atkinson fellow. "During the Green Revolution, for example, breeders improved the seeds, but to scale those advances, governments had to improve roads to get to farmers, and offer extension services to educate farmers on how to use the new seeds. That's bundling. All of these pieces were essential, complementary elements."

The second major suggestion calls for reducing the land and water footprint for producing food. Society cannot effectively tackle the climate and biodiversity loss crises - and, for example, reduce the risk of virus-driven pandemics - without easing agricultural demands on the land and oceans.

"We've hit this tipping point where we're starting to see the downside of [ramping up food production with fossil fuels], particularly with climate change and also with the depletion of soil and water resources and other key food production resources," said co-chair Rebecca Nelson, professor in the School of Integrative Plant Sciences and Global Development. "We're also seeing that we're polluting the environment to a really dangerous level and we're seeing which systems are unfair, and we're all not feeling that global warming crisis equally.

"It's hitting some people much harder than others," said Nelson, also a Cornell Atkinson fellow.

Further, the report suggested implementing systemic risk management policies; developing novel financing mechanisms to transform agri-food systems; and reconfiguring public support for changes in agri-food systems.

"It is the worst of times," Nelson said. "But it's also the best of times, in the sense that we have powerful tricks up our collective sleeves that we could use to make things better - if we can muster the will to implement them."

The mental symptoms of premenstrual dysphoric disorder improve following treatment with a progesterone receptor modulator, as demonstrated by SciLifeLab researcher Erika Comasco and Professor Inger Sundström-Poromaa, Uppsala University. The mechanism of action of the study drug provides insights into the potential molecular mechanisms underlying this psychiatric disorder and its treatment.

It has long been known that the menstrual cycle can affect women's mood and well-being. For the majority of women of reproductive age, this manifests itself in mild symptoms that do not need any treatment, but for 3-5 per cent of women, the hormonal changes during the menstrual cycle lead to disabling mental symptoms: premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD).

Selective progesterone receptor modulators bind to and inhibit progesterone receptors in the brain. This is a relatively new class of drugs developed for the treatment of uterine fibroids and endometriosis. In this multicentre, double-blind, placebo-controlled clinical trial, researchers from Uppsala University, Karolinska Institutet and Umeå University, all in Sweden, have demonstrated for the first time the efficacy of a selective progesterone receptor modulator as a treatment for PMDD.

According to the study now published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, the progesterone receptor modulator primarily reduces the mental symptoms of PMDD, such as irritability and depression. Half of the women (50 per cent) receiving the treatment improved completely, while the corresponding proportion of women receiving placebo was 21 per cent.

"Side effects were mild and the ongoing development of well tolerated progesterone receptor modulators will hopefully make this a treatment option for patients with PMDD," says Professor Inger Sundström-Poromaa of the Department of Women's and Children's Health and the Centre for Women's Mental Health during the Reproductive Lifespan (WoMHeR) at Uppsala University.

Looking ahead, the researchers are currently investigating how progesterone receptor modulator affects the brain in women with PMDD. By neuroimaging the brain of these patients before and during treatment, using magnetic resonance imaging, the researchers aim to define structural and functional brain signatures that can explain the relief of PMDD symptoms.

The research results will be an important piece of the puzzle of improving our understanding of the mechanisms behind PMDD, the researchers say. Today, the first-line treatment for PMDD is serotonin reuptake inhibitors. Although these drugs are very effective, they are not suitable for all women and additional treatment options are of value. In addition, it would be desirable to have a treatment that more specifically addresses the mechanisms underlying this psychiatric disorder.

New lipid residue analyses have revealed a dominance of animal products, such as the meat of animals like pigs, cattle, buffalo, sheep and goat as well as dairy products, used in ancient ceramic vessels from rural and urban settlements of the Indus Civilisation in north-west India, the present-day states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

The study, published in Journal of Archaeological Science, was led by Dr Akshyeta Suryanarayan, former PhD student at the Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge and current postdoctoral researcher at CEPAM, UMR7264-CNRS, France.

Dr Suryanarayan said: "The study of lipid residues involves the extraction and identification of fats and oils that have been absorbed into ancient ceramic vessels during their use in the past. Lipids are relatively less prone to degradation and have been discovered in pottery from archaeological contexts around the world. However, they have seen very limited investigation in ancient ceramics from South Asia."

"This study is the first to investigate absorbed lipid residues in pottery from multiple Indus sites, including the Indus city of Rakhigarhi, as well as other Indus settlements of Farmana and Masudpur I and VII, allowing comparisons to be made across settlements and across time."

The identification of specific compounds in the lipid extracts enables the detection of different plant or animal products, such as fatty acids, previously used in the vessels. Additionally, isotopic analysis of fatty acids enables the differentiation of different types of animal meat and milk. These analyses enable an understanding of vessel use and what was being cooked in them.

Suryanarayan said: "Our study of lipid residues in Indus pottery shows a dominance of animal products in vessels, such as the meat of non-ruminant animals like pigs, ruminant animals like cattle or buffalo and sheep or goat, as well as dairy products. However, as one of the first studies in the region there are interpretative challenges. Some of the results were quite unexpected, for example, we found a predominance of non-ruminant animal fats, even though the remains of animals like pigs are not found in large quantities in the Indus settlements. It is possible that plant products or mixtures of plant and animal products were also used in vessels, creating ambiguous results."

"Additionally, despite the high percentages of the remains of domestic ruminant animals found at these sites, there is very limited direct evidence of the use of dairy products in vessels, including in perforated vessels that have been previously suggested to be linked to dairy processing. A recent Scientific Reports study has reported more evidence of dairy products, primarily in bowls in Gujarat. Our results suggest that there may have been regional differences. The analysis of more vessels from different sites would help us explore these potential patterns."

Senior author Dr Cameron Petrie, University of Cambridge, said: "The products used in vessels across rural and urban Indus sites in northwest India are similar during the Mature Harappan period (c.2600/2500-1900 BC). This suggests that even though urban and rural settlements were distinctive and people living in them used different types of material culture and pottery, they may have shared cooking practices and ways of preparing foodstuffs."

"There is also evidence that rural settlements in northwest India exhibited a continuity in the ways they cooked or prepared foodstuff from the urban (Mature Harappan) to post-urban (Late Harappan) periods, particularly during a phase of climatic instability after 4.2 ka BP (c.2100 BC), which suggests that daily practices continued at small rural sites over cultural and climatic changes," Petrie said.

This study adds to existing research in the region which suggests the resilience of rural settlements in northwest India during the transformation of the Indus Civilisation, and during a period of increasing aridity.

The results also have major implications for broadening our understanding of the foodways of South Asia, as well as the relationship between pottery and foodstuffs.

Dr Suryanarayan concluded: "Our understanding of the culinary history of South Asia is still very limited but these results demonstrate that the use of lipid residues, combined with other techniques in bioarchaeology, have the potential to open exciting new avenues for understanding the relationship between the environment, foodstuffs, material culture, and ancient society in protohistoric South Asia."

A new national study of public water systems found that arsenic levels were not uniform across the U.S., even after implementation of the latest national regulatory standard. In the first study to assess differences in public drinking water arsenic exposures by geographic subgroups, researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health confirmed there are inequalities in drinking water arsenic exposure across certain sociodemographic subgroups and over time. Community water systems reliant on groundwater, serving smaller populations located in the Southwest, and Hispanic communities were more likely to continue exceeding the national maximum containment level, raising environmental justice concerns. The findings are published online in Environmental Health Perspectives.

"This research has important implications for public health efforts aimed at reducing arsenic exposure levels, and for advancing environmental justice," said Anne Nigra, PhD, postdoctoral research fellow in environmental health sciences, and first author. "Systematic studies of inequalities in public drinking water exposures have been lacking until now. These findings identify communities in immediate need of additional protective public health measures."

'Our objective was to identify subgroups whose public water arsenic concentrations remained above 10 μg/L after the new maximum arsenic contaminant levels were implemented and, therefore, at disproportionate risk of arsenic-related adverse health outcomes such as cardiovascular disease, related cancers, and adverse birth outcomes," said Ana Navas-Acien, PhD, Professor of Environmental Health Sciences and senior author.

Arsenic is a highly toxic human carcinogen and water contaminant present in many aquifers in the United States. Earlier research by the Columbia research team showed that reducing the MCL from 50 to 10 μg/L prevented an estimated 200-900 cancer cases per year.

The researchers compared community water system arsenic concentrations during (2006-2008) versus after (2009-2011) the initial monitoring period for compliance with EPA's 10 μg/L arsenic maximum contaminant level (MCL). They estimated three-year average arsenic concentrations for 36,406 local water systems and 2,740 counties and compared differences in means and quantiles of water arsenic between both three-year periods for U.S. regions and sociodemographic subgroups.

Analyses were based on data from two of the largest EPA databases of public water available. Using arsenic monitoring data from the Third Six Year Review period (2006-2011), the researchers studied approximately 13 million analytical records from 139,000 public water systems serving 290 million people annually. Included were data from 46 states, Washington D.C., the Navajo Nation, and American Indian tribes representing 95 percent of all public water systems and 92 percent of the total population served by public water systems nationally.

Regional Differences

For 2006-2008 to 2009-2011, the average community water system arsenic concentrations declined by 10 percent nationwide, by 11.4 percent for the Southwest, and by 37 percent for New England, respectively. Despite the decline in arsenic concentrations, public drinking water arsenic concentrations remained higher for several sociodemographic subgroups -- Hispanic communities, the Southwestern U.S, the Pacific Northwest, and the Central Midwest., in particular. Likewise, communities with smaller populations and reliant on groundwater were more likely to have high arsenic levels.

The percent of community water systems with average concentrations arsenic above the 10 μg/L MCL was 2.3% in 2009-2011 vs. 3.2% in 2006-2008. Community water systems that were not compliant with the arsenic MCL were more likely in the Southwest (61 percent), served by groundwater (95 percent), serving smaller populations (an average of 1,102 persons), and serving Hispanic communities (38 percent).

Nigra and Navas-Acien say that estimating public drinking water arsenic exposure for sociodemographic and geographic subgroups is critical for evaluating whether inequalities in arsenic exposure and compliance with the maximum contaminant levels persist across the U.S, to inform future national- and state-level arsenic regulatory efforts, and to investigate whether inequalities in exposure by subgroup contribute to disparities in arsenic-related disease. "Our findings will help address environmental justice concerns and inform public health interventions and regulatory action needed to eliminate exposure inequalities."

"We urge continued state and federal funding for infrastructure and technical assistance support for small public water systems in order to reduce inequalities and further protect numerous communities in the U.S. affected by elevated drinking water arsenic exposure," said Nigra.

An existing service in the North West of England called Community Connectors, which enables adults to access social activities within their community, can help reduce loneliness and social isolation, according to an analysis published in Health & Social Care in the Community.

Interviews with 13 older adults and middle-aged adults, from 289 people who accessed the service between June 2017 and September 2018, revealed that Community Connectors provided individuals with confidence in engaging with community activities and enhanced individuals' social networks.

The investigators noted that additional research needs to quantitatively measure the impacts of the service on loneliness, depression, and social connectedness. Such studies are particularly important in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, with provision of social activities and social support services suddenly significantly reduced.

"Community-support services are vital to support the well-being of older adults, who have suddenly been cut off from face-to-face and often any type of support due to the pandemic. Not every older adult can access services remotely though, so it is crucial that services such as Community Connectors are able to adapt to provide face-to-face support where possible and support older adults in accessing remote support," said lead author Clarissa Giebel, PhD, of the University of Liverpool and the NIHR ARC NWC, in the UK.

SAN ANTONIO - After a median follow-up of 5.1 years, among women with lymph node-positive early-stage breast cancer and a recurrence score of 25 or lower who received adjuvant endocrine therapy with or without chemotherapy, postmenopausal patients had no added benefit from chemotherapy, while premenopausal patients who received chemotherapy had improved invasive disease-free survival (IDFS) and an early indication of improved overall survival (OS), according to data from the SWOG S1007 RxPONDER clinical trial presented at the 2020 San Antonio Breast Cancer Symposium, held Dec. 8-11.

"The most common form of breast cancer is hormone receptor (HR)-positive and HER2-negative, comprising about two-thirds of all invasive breast cancers," said Kevin Kalinsky, MD, MS, director of the Glenn Family Breast Center at Winship Cancer Institute of Emory University.

RxPONDER was designed and run by SWOG Cancer Research Network with support from the National Cancer Institute. It set out to determine which patients with HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer and one to three positive axillary lymph nodes benefit from chemotherapy and which patients could safely avoid chemotherapy and still achieve similar outcomes with endocrine therapy alone, Kalinsky said. "Up until now, there were no data from a large randomized clinical trial to guide this decision," he added.

"At the time of this analysis, our data show that postmenopausal women with HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer with one to three positive nodes and a recurrence score of 25 or lower can safely avoid receiving adjuvant chemotherapy. On the other hand, premenopausal patients with HR-positive, HER2-negative breast cancer with one to three positive nodes and a recurrence score of 25 or lower should consider adjuvant chemotherapy. The invasive disease-free survival rate improved by 5 percent with chemotherapy in this group," Kalinsky said.

In this clinical trial, 5,083 patients with stage 2-3 breast cancer involving one to three axillary lymph nodes and whose tissue had a recurrence score of 25 or lower were randomly assigned (1:1) to endocrine therapy alone or endocrine therapy plus chemotherapy. Roughly two-thirds of the patients were postmenopausal. Data were stratified by recurrence score (0-13 versus 14-25), menopausal status, and axillary nodal dissection versus sentinel node biopsy.

The recurrence score, which can range from zero to 100, was determined using the Oncotype Dx test. The test provides a genome-based individualized risk assessment (by evaluating 16 cancer-related genes) for early-stage invasive breast cancer.

The study was designed to assess whether the difference in IDFS for patients treated with chemotherapy, compared with no chemotherapy, was related to the recurrence score. The investigators found no association between chemotherapy benefit and recurrence score values between 0-25 when evaluating the entire study population including both premenopausal and postmenopausal women.

However, there was a significant association between chemotherapy benefit and menopausal status, triggering further analyses of the data by menopausal status.

In postmenopausal patients with recurrence scores of 25 or lower, there was no difference in the five-year IDFS between those who received chemotherapy and those who did not (91.6 percent vs. 91.9 percent, respectively).

In premenopausal patients with recurrence scores of 25 or lower, five-year IDFS was 94.2 percent for those who received chemotherapy, versus 89 percent for those who did not receive chemotherapy. Data also showed a 53 percent OS benefit in premenopausal patients, although this result is considered early due to the limited number of events at the time of evaluation. The results were similar in premenopausal women with recurrence scores 0-13 and those with recurrence scores 14-25.

"For premenopausal patients with node-positive breast cancer, we know from other studies that the most effective adjuvant endocrine therapy is ovarian suppression combined with an aromatase inhibitor. We also know that chemotherapy induces ovarian suppression that is often permanent in premenopausal women," explained Kalinsky.

Among the premenopausal women in this study, ovarian suppression was performed in 15.9 percent of those in the endocrine therapy alone arm, versus in 3.7 percent of those in the chemotherapy plus endocrine therapy arm. "To what extent the chemotherapy benefit observed in our trial is due to chemotherapy-induced menopause remains unknown," Kalinsky noted.

"We are reporting these data at 53.7 percent of expected IDFS events. We will continue to report updates from this study as more follow-up data are collected," he said.

Limitations of the study include that these data represent an interim analysis. Future studies will allow for additional subset data analyses and time for continued follow-up, Kalinsky said.

Polar climate scientists have created the most high resolution past record of the Southern Hemisphere westerly winds. The results, published this week (9 December) in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, describe how the winds are likely to intensify and migrate poleward as the climate warms. The study highlights the urgent need for better models to predict the future.

The westerly winds (known by latitude as the roaring forties, furious fifties, and screaming sixties) are particularly strong due to the absence of continental landmasses in the Southern Ocean to slow them down. They play an important role in regulating how much carbon dioxide (greenhouse gas) is exchanged between the atmosphere and ocean and have been linked to droughts and wildfires, as well as changes in sea ice extent, ocean circulation and ice shelf stability.

Researchers have recreated a 700-year record of the winds using radiocarbon dated sediment cores collected from a coastal lake on sub-Antarctic Marion Island. The island, located southeast of South Africa, is uniquely positioned in the core belt of the winds. The team measured changes in the accumulation rate of wind-blown sea salts by studying diatoms - tiny algae, specifically microalgae - embedded in the sediment, together with wind-blown dust, to track past wind strength.

Results show that during cool periods, such as the Little Ice Age (c. 1400-1870 CE), the winds weakened and shifted towards the equator, and during warm periods (before 1450 and after 1920) they intensified and migrated poleward.

Lead author, Dr Bianca Perren, a paleoclimatologist at British Antarctic Survey says:

"From this unique high resolution record we can see how much the westerly winds have changed over the last 700 years. By looking at the past we can better understand what's happening now and what might happen in the future. It's clear that since the 1920s the winds have been migrating south and, with predictions for climate warming, this is likely to continue."

The project Principal Investigator, Professor Dominic Hodgson at British Antarctic Survey says:

"With the rapid changes now occurring in the Earth's climate it is especially important that we use historical data to increase the accuracy of our climate models. This study has revealed the behaviour of the westerly winds long before satellites and on the ground measurements began. It shows us that climate warming drives moisture bearing winds southwards away from Australia, South America and South Africa. The immediate human consequences of this are increased droughts and wildfires."

URBANA, Ill. - For individuals looking to improve their health in 2021, strengthening your couple relationship may be part of the answer, according to findings from a recent University of Illinois study.

The study examined long-term changes in partners' health after participating in a new program for two-parent African American families.

"We found that when we strengthened the couple dyad, we observed collateral benefits. The couple relationship became stronger and that, in turn, leads to benefits in a variety of other areas, including better sleep, less depressive symptoms, and better perceived health overall," says Allen Barton, assistant professor in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at U of I and lead author on the study.

The program, Protecting Strong African American Families (ProSAAF), uses a cognitive behavioral approach with the goal of improving and strengthening couple interaction patterns and ways of thinking. Particular attention was devoted to contextual stressors that rural African Americans experience and helping couples prevent these stressors from spilling over into their relationship.

Barton and co-authors Justin Lavner and Steven Beach, University of Georgia, conducted the research with 346 African American families in rural Georgia. Half of the families were randomly selected to participate in ProSAAF, while the other half were assigned to a control group.

"We challenge unhelpful patterns of behavior and identify more effective ways of interacting, whether it's from challenges inside or outside of the relationship," Barton explains. "The goal is to help couples have a sense they are a team, and whatever challenges they face, they can overcome them together. We aim to unite the couple and help them see their partner as a source of support and not a source of frustration."

The program consisted of six sessions over six weeks, conducted in the home with the help of a trained facilitator. Study participants also completed questionnaires on a variety of measures assessing physical, mental, and relationship health. The researchers collected data at four times-starting with a pre-test before program launch, followed by post-program surveys eight, 16, and 24 months after pre-test data collection.

As expected, program participants reported significant improvements in couple functioning, including effective communication, relationship confidence, partner support, and relationship satisfaction. The researchers did not find any direct effects from program participation on health outcomes. However, they observed significant indirect effects, as program-related improvements in couple functioning predicted improved general health, fewer depressive symptoms, decreased sleep problems, and decreased substance abuse.

These findings lead to "tempered optimism," Barton states.

"For some couples¬-particularly those experiencing a bit of distress in their relationship-research suggests programs like this will likely have more immediate and direct effects on improving individuals' health and well-being. For others, improvements in health will be more drawn out, occurring after changes in the relationship have been more established. It's like a cascade effect, where participating in the program leads to improvements in couple functioning and then these improvements in couple functioning, in turn, lead to better physical, mental, and behavioral health in individuals," he says.

Barton and colleagues are conducting a follow-up study to gain a deeper understanding of health benefits from participating in programs like ProSAAF. For this, they will be collecting biological data from participants to examine program effects on participants' cytokine levels, metabolic risk, and epigenetic aging (a measure of a person's "biological age").

As oceans warm and become more acidic and oxygen-poor, Smithsonian researchers asked how marine life on a Caribbean coral reef copes with changing conditions.

"During my study, water temperatures on reefs in Bocas del Toro, Panama, reached an alarming high of almost 33 degrees C (or 91 degrees F), temperatures that would make most of us sweat or look for air conditioning--options not available to reef inhabitants," said Noelle Lucey, post-doctoral fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI).

Lucey and her team showed that when temperatures were at their highest, oxygen levels were lowest and the water was most acidic. These stressful times for reef animals occurred at night when scientists do not typically make observations.

To test the responses of sea urchins to these alarming conditions, they designed experiments to separate the effects of acidity (pH), oxygen and temperature. Conditions in the ocean change quickly, so the experiments were designed to reflect this, and they only exposed the animals to different sets of conditions for two hours at a time.

The area of the study encompassed an entire bay and nearby, offshore waters. In that area, Hospital Point reef is one of the best places to collect the rock boring sea urchin, Echinometra lucunter.

"The urchins are so common there you don't even think about putting your foot down," said STRI Fellow Eileen Haskett, a co-author. "When the surf isn't too rough, you can see them hiding in every crevice and reef crack, happily pounded by the waves. When the sunlight hits them perfectly, they shimmer with bright purple and red colors."

Lucey and Haskett collected hundreds of urchins. In the laboratory at STRI's Bocas del Toro Research Station, they exposed these prickly creatures for two hours to the severe hot, hypoxic and acidic conditions sea urchins may experience on local reefs.

After their exposure to high temperatures, acidity, low oxygen or combinations of the three, the researchers flipped the urchins upside down. When a sea urchin is flipped, it usually immediately rights itself, using its spines and tube feet. In nature, if they do not right themselves quickly, they may get tossed against the rocks by the surf or eaten by reef fish.

The experiment clearly showed that it was much harder for sea urchins to right themselves after being in oxygen-poor water. More acid conditions did not seem to affect the urchins' behavior. However, sea urchins were also less able to find their footing and flip right-side up after exposures to high temperatures. Most survived and were returned to the reef but the low oxygen and high temperature exposures resulted in some mortality.

The researchers conclude that ocean acidification may not be nearly as important as lack of oxygen (hypoxia), a factor that has not received as much attention in discussions of global climate change. In fact, even though high temperatures, acidity and low oxygen occur at the same time, the team found that together they did not affect the urchin's performance any more than lack of oxygen alone.

"What really caught my attention was the relationship between extreme low oxygen and high temperatures even out at the offshore sites," Lucey said. "It shouldn't be surprising because the relationship between increasing temperatures and decreasing oxygen is well known, but it is somehow eerie to find this in your own data, in your own little part of the world."

"More and more often, tropical reefs experience severe conditions that, as we have shown, push the limits of marine organisms," said Rachel Collin, STRI staff scientist and co-author. "A lack of oxygen and high temperatures are bad news for these reef animals. These severe conditions are occurring more frequently and for longer periods of time, upping the stress levels experienced by important reef organisms like sea urchins."

"Showing how animals react to several forms of stress at the same time helps us understand how marine life is affected by changing conditions, and what conditions to look out for," Lucey said. "We were surprised to find that such hot, hypoxic and acidic conditions all occur even on a reef that gets plenty of wave action. Our realistic experiments are alarming--showing the levels of oxygen already occasionally found on this reef have such a negative impact on these sea urchins."

As the deadly COVID-19 pandemic continues to wreak havoc around the world with no end in sight, new ways in which to stop the spread or mitigate the effects of the disease are few.

Although most experts agree that a vaccine would significantly slow or eventually stop the spread, the work to develop, approve and distribute such a vaccine are likely months away. That leaves us with only prevention efforts such as masks, social distancing and disinfecting, which partially due to human inconsistencies in behavior, have proven to be variable in effectiveness.

Despite these grim realities about the novel coronavirus that has taken 2020 by storm, disrupting the work, school and personal lives of nearly everyone on the globe, some University of New Mexico researchers have found a possible breakthrough in how to manage this virus, as well as future ones.

A team led by the Center for Biomedical Engineering faculty David Whitten, Distinguished Professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, along with Eva Chi and Linnea Ista, faculty members in the same department, have found some light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak.

The main finding of their research, highlighted in the paper, "Highly Effective Inactivation of SARS-CoV-2 by Conjugated Polymers and Oligomers," published this week in the journal ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, involves the ability of the combination of certain polymers and oligomers, when combined with UV light, to almost completely kill the coronavirus.

UNM co-authors on the paper were Florencia A. Monge, of UNM's Center for Biomedical Engineering and the biomedical engineering graduate program; Virginie Bondu of the Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the UNM School of Medicine; Alison M. Kell, Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology at the UNM School of Medicine; and Patrick L. Donabedian of the nanoscience and microsystems engineering graduate program at UNM. Also on the team are Kirk S. Schanze and Pradeepkumar Jagadesan, both of the Department of Chemistry at the University of Texas at San Antonio.

Although disinfectants such as bleach or alcohol are effective against the virus, they are volatile and corrosive, which limit lasting sterilization of surfaces treated by these products, Whitten said.

What is different about these polymer and oligomer materials is that when activated with UV light, they provide a coating that is shown to be fast acting and highly effective, reducing the concentration of the virus by five orders of magnitude, Chi said.

"These materials have shown to have broad-spectrum antiviral properties," she said.

Whitten points out that in order for the material to be active against the virus, it must be exposed to light. Light activates the "docking" process that is important and necessary for placing the oligomer or polymer at the surface of the virus particle, allowing the absorption of light that generates the reactive oxygen intermediate at the surface of the virus particle.

"As far as we know so far, materials such as ours are not active against SARS-CoV-2 in the dark and require activation by irradiation with ultraviolet or visible light, depending on where the specific antimicrobial absorbs light," he said. "In the dark, our antimicrobial materials 'dock' with the virus, and then on irradiation, they activate oxygen. It is this active, excited state of oxygen that starts the chain of reactions that inactivate the virus."

And this science can easily be applied into consumer, commercial and healthcare products, such as wipes, sprays, clothing, paint, personal protective equipment (PPE) for healthcare workers, and really almost any surface.

"When incorporated into N95 masks, this material works well against the virus," Chi said. "In addition to trapping the virus in a mask, this would make for better PPE and prolong its life."

Another unique advantage of this material is that unlike traditional disinfectant products, it is shown to not wash away with water and leaves no toxic residue as a result of the photodegradation process, Chi said.

Studying the potential of conjugated polymers and oligomers is nothing new for UNM researchers. In fact, Whitten and another of the authors on the study, Kirk Schanze, have been researching this area for a couple of decades.

Whitten and Chi said colleagues such as Schanze and others have collected a lot of data on polymer and oligomers, so when the pandemic hit in the spring, Whitten almost immediately started wondering how his area of study could help.

"It was the right timing for all of us," Chi said.

Acquiring live coronavirus for research is not an easy feat, but thanks to the efforts a couple of team members, they were able to make it happen.

Linnea Ista is a member of the Biosafety Committee at UNM, and when the pandemic broke out and she was aware of the research that Whitten and Chi were conducting, she realized that she may have a connection on how to make the research happen, due to the fact that representatives from UNM's School of Medicine also sit on the committee.

Alison Kell, a faculty member in the School of Medicine, was the one who was able to acquire the live coronavirus for testing the effectiveness of these materials. She has been working with the SARS-CoV-2 virus in her research and was able to develop a protocol for analyzing samples the team prepared and exposing them to near UV or visible light.

Due to the sensitive nature of working with a virus such as coronavirus, it was crucial for Kell to be part of the team, since the work had to be done in cooperation with the UNM School of Medicine, which has BSL-3 lab facilities that are essential to doing study on the highly-contagious active virus, Ista said.

Whitten said he is hopeful that this discovery can quickly be put into use. He has a company called BioSafe Defenses that he said has hired a former Environmental Protection Agency official to help expedite the regulatory process in taking this discovery to market. He anticipates that once a material is approved, it will be only a matter of months before wipes, masks and other products are in the marketplace.

He said their research has found that adding the material into wipes would add only pennies per wipe. Additionally, the material could be added into masks and other personal protective equipment, changing the game for businesses such as gyms, airlines, cruise ships, groceries, health care facilities, schools and many more industries. In addition to coronavirus, these products could also help eliminate infections by the common cold, seasonal flu and other viral and bacterial infections that plague millions of people annually, causing loss of work and school time.

"There is a limitless market for this," he said.

He added that the current pandemic is likely not the last such public health crisis we will see, so even after a vaccine for coronavirus is available, such products could be useful in combatting a wide variety of viruses and bacteria, including the flu or common cold.

"We're not just thinking about COVID but other pathogens and any viral agents," Whitten said. "We want to be ready for the next pandemic."