Earth

A large study has shown that children of mothers who are anxious during pregnancy and in the first few years of the child's life have twice the risk of having hyperactivity symptoms at age 16. This work is being presented for the first time at the ECNP Congress in Copenhagen.

Scientists know that foetal and early life conditions can have long-term effect on subsequent health. Now a long-term study of more than 3000 children in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC) has shown that maternal anxiety is associated with hyperactivity in their children, although the link with other ADHD symptoms such inattention is more tenuous.

ALSPAC is a long-term project based in Bristol UK, which allows scientists to track how children's health changes over time. The study recorded reported levels of some physical symptoms of anxiety such as sweating, trembling, dizziness, and insomnia in 8727 mothers in the period between early pregnancy and her child reaching 5 years of age.

The researchers were able to classify the mothers' anxiety levels, depending on how often the mothers reported signs of physical anxiety. Very broadly, the women fell into low anxiety, medium anxiety, or high anxiety class.

The researchers then checked how children performed in attention tests (when they reached 8 and a half years of age), and found that there was no difference between children in attention, no matter how anxious the mothers had been. However, testing a larger group of 3199 children at the age of 16 showed that there was a significant difference in hyperactivity symptoms, depending on how anxious the mother had been.

On average a child from a mother who had expressed moderate or high anxiety was around twice as likely to show symptoms of hyperactivity from a mother with low anxiety* Adjusting for social and demographic factors showed a similar correlation**. This means that 11% of the children from 'high anxiety" mothers, and 11% of children from "moderate anxiety" mothers showed symptoms of hyperactivity. Only 5% of children from '"low anxiety" mothers showed hyperactivity symptoms.

Dr. Blanca Bolea, led the study when she was at the University of Bristol. She is now Assistant Professor at the University of Toronto in Canada. She said:

"This is the first time that a study has shown that anxiety is linked to a child's hyperactivity in later life but that inattention is not linked. One interpretation is that some symptoms of ADHD are associated with the mother's anxiety, but not all of them. More broadly, it shows that the stresses a mother experiences can show up in her child nearly a generation later; it is worth noting that all the mothers reported an increase in anxiety during pregnancy. Around 28% of the women we tested showed medium or high anxiety. We controlled for hyperactivity in 3199 children in total, and found that 224 children showed signs of hyperactivity, with the rate of hyperactivity being more than doubled if the mother had suffered from medium or high anxiety".

This is an association, so we can't 100% say that anxiety symptoms in pregnancy and early life causes later hyperactivity, other genetic, biological or environmental effects may be at play. However, this idea is supported by studies in animals. We're not sure why this might happen. It could be a that the children are responding to perceived anxiety in the mother, or it could be that there is some biological effect which causes this, for example stress hormones in the placenta having an effect on a developing brain. ADHD is a controversial illness, and there doesn't seem to be any single cause, though we know it can be hereditary. This work shows that maternal anxiety is one factor which is linked to ADHD, but we need some more research to confirm this and other causes"

Commenting, Professor Andreas Reif (University Hospital, Frankfurt) said:

"This is a very interesting study, especially given the longitudinal and transgenerational character and its large sample size. As with all studies of this design, one however must be caution not to mix association with causation. As we know that ADHD and anxious traits are correlated on the genetic level (see Demontis and colleagues, 2019), the finding could well be reflective of shared genetic influences. However, it is also important to stress that this study is not on anxiety disorders or ADHD, but rather on traits related to these disorders. For sure these data however further add to emerging picture that ADHD / hyperactivity, anxiety and bipolar disorder (Meier et al., Br J Psychiat 2018) are linked."

Barcelona--Researchers had previously reported data from the KEYNOTE 021 trial that showed antitumor activity for pembrolizumab plus platinum-based chemotherapy in untreated advanced nonsquamous non-small cell lung cancer patients. Today at the IASLC 2019 World Conference on Lung Cancer hosted by the International Association for the Study of Lung Cancer, the same research group presented new data from two new groups of patients from this trial.

The researchers, led by Corey Langer from Abramson Cancer Center of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, created two new groups: patients in cohort C received pembrolizumab plus carboplatin and pemetrexed. Patients in cohort G were randomized 1:1 to pembrolizumab plus carboplatin and pemetrexed or carboplatin and pemetrexed alone. Tumor mutational burden was determined by whole-exome sequencing of tumor and matched normal DNA.

Langer and the KEYNOTE 021 researchers were able to evaluate TMB data for 70 patients: 12/24 (50.0%) in cohort C, 32/60 (53.3%) in the cohort G pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy arm, and 26/63 (41.3%) in the cohort G chemotherapy only arm.

TMB as a continuous variable was not significantly associated with objective response rate, progression free survival or overall survival for pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy or chemotherapy alone. There was no significant correlation between TMB and Tissue Polypeptide-specific Antigen in patients treated with pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy.

"In this exploratory analysis, TMB was not significantly associated with efficacy of pembrolizumab plus carboplatin and pemetrexed or carboplatin and pemetrexed alone as first-line therapy for metastatic nonsquamous NSCLC," Langer reported. "TMB was also not significantly correlated with PD-L1 expression. Among pembrolizumab plus chemotherapy-treated patients, ORR was high in both the TMB low and high subgroups."

MISSOULA - New research from the University of Montana suggests that streamflow variability brought on by climate change will negatively affect the survival of salamanders.

UM biology Professor Winsor Lowe and his partners studied spring salamanders living in five New Hampshire streams. Like many streams around the globe, these waterways are experiencing greater fluctuations between low and high flows brought about by climate change.

The researchers revealed that streamflow variability can kill salamanders while they are metamorphosing from larvae to adults. The work was published recently in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in an article titled "Hydrologic variability contributes to reduced survival through metamorphosis in a stream salamander."

"We feel this work is important because it expands our knowledge about the effects of climate change on a diverse group of species that are often overlooked because they spend most of their lives under rocks and logs in small, headwater streams," Lowe said. "Increasing environmental variability may be especially challenging for species that undergo metamorphosis - like many insects and amphibians - because that's a vulnerable period when they rely on stable environments for survival."

He said the research suggests society shouldn't focus on average conditions as it tries to understand and manage the effects of climate change. Scientists and managers also must pay attention to changes in environmental variability, which may increase with climate change.

"Small headwater streams are home to diverse species and the source of clean water to downstream communities, but these ecosystems are also easy to overlook and are losing protection under proposed Clean Water Act revisions," Lowe said. "Our work underscores the vulnerability of headwater ecosystems in this era of climate change, the need for protection of vulnerable headwater species, and the value of long-term monitoring efforts."

Using a 20-year dataset from Merrill Brook in New Hampshire, the researchers showed the abundance of spring salamander adults declined about 50% since 1999, but no trend was noted for larval abundance. Scientists then studied whether streamflow variability at Merrill Brook and streams in the nearby Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest affected the survival of salamanders metamorphosing from larvae to adults. They found that fewer salamanders survived metamorphosis during years when steamflow variability was high, leading to the decline in the adult population.

WHAT:

The normal human gut microbiome is a flourishing community of microorganisms, some of which can affect the human immune system. In a new paper published this week in Cell, researchers found that oral antibiotics, which can kill gut microorganisms, can alter the human immune response to seasonal influenza vaccination. The work was led by scientists at Stanford University and funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health.

The research team examined 33 healthy adult participants in their study. One group of 22 volunteers was studied during the 2014-2015 flu season, and the second group with 11 volunteers was studied during the 2015-2016 flu season. The group of 22 volunteers had high pre-existing immunity to the influenza virus strains contained in the 2014-2015 seasonal influenza vaccine. The group of 11 volunteers had low immunity to the 2015-2016 seasonal influenza vaccine's virus strains.

All study participants received a seasonal influenza vaccine. Half the participants in each group also received a five-day course of a broad-spectrum antibiotic regimen (consisting of neomycin, vancomycin, and metronidazole) by mouth before receiving the vaccine. By analyzing stool and blood serum samples taken at various times up to one year after vaccination, the researchers tracked the participants' immune response to the influenza vaccines, as well as the diversity and abundance of the organisms in their gut microbiomes.

As expected, most participants who received antibiotics experienced reduced levels of gut bacteria. In addition, among the 2015-2016 participants who had little prior immunity to the seasonal influenza virus vaccine strains, a course of antibiotics hindered their immune responses to one of the three influenza virus strains in the vaccine, an H1N1 A/California-specific virus. This likely indicates that should they be exposed to this H1N1 virus after vaccination, these participants would be less protected against infection with that strain than people who had not received antibiotics, according to the authors. This finding supports earlier research results in mice.

The researchers also found that people who took antibiotics experienced changes to their immune systems that promoted a pro-inflammatory state, similar to a condition seen in older adults who have received influenza vaccines. The investigators believe this pro-inflammatory state is related to the process by which the microbiome regulates the metabolism of bile acid--with fewer microorganisms, this process is disrupted. Humans' microbiomes change naturally as they age, and the researchers suggest that further research on these pathways could provide insights into why older adults respond differently to influenza vaccination and why they have weaker immune systems overall.

Dating, especially during the teenage years, is thought to be an important way for young people to build self-identity, develop social skills, learn about other people, and grow emotionally.

Yet new research from the University of Georgia has found that not dating can be an equally beneficial choice for teens. And in some ways, these teens fared even better.

The study, published online in The Journal of School Health, found that adolescents who were not in romantic relationships during middle and high school had good social skills and low depression, and fared better or equal to peers who dated.

"The majority of teens have had some type of romantic experience by 15 to 17 years of age, or middle adolescence," said Brooke Douglas, a doctoral student in health promotion at UGA's College of Public Health and the study's lead author.

"This high frequency has led some researchers to suggest that dating during teenage years is a normative behavior. That is, adolescents who have a romantic relationship are therefore considered 'on time' in their psychological development."

If dating was considered normal and essential for a teen's individual development and well-being, Douglas began to wonder what this suggested about adolescents who chose not to date.

"Does this mean that teens that don't date are maladjusted in some way? That they are social misfits? Few studies had examined the characteristics of youth who do not date during the teenage years, and we decided we wanted to learn more," she said.

To do this, Douglas and study co-author Pamela Orpinas examined whether 10th grade students who reported no or very infrequent dating over a seven-year period differed on emotional and social skills from their more frequently dating peers.

They analyzed data collected during a 2013 study led by Orpinas, which followed a cohort of adolescents from Northeast Georgia from sixth through 12th grade. Each spring, students indicated whether they had dated, and reported on a number of social and emotional factors, including positive relationships with friends, at home, and at school, symptoms of depression, and suicidal thoughts. Their teachers completed questionnaires rating each student's behavior in areas that included social skills, leadership skills and levels of depression.

Non-dating students had similar or better interpersonal skills than their more frequently dating peers. While the scores of self-reported positive relationships with friends, at home, and at school did not differ between dating and non-dating peers, teachers rated the non-dating students significantly higher for social skills and leadership skills than their dating peers.

Students who didn't date were also less likely to be depressed. Teachers' scores on the depression scale were significantly lower for the group that reported no dating. Additionally, the proportion of students who self-reported being sad or hopeless was significantly lower within this group as well.

"In summary, we found that non-dating students are doing well and are simply following a different and healthy developmental trajectory than their dating peers," said Orpinas, a professor of health promotion and behavior.

"While the study refutes the notion of non-daters as social misfits, it also calls for health promotion interventions at schools and elsewhere to include non-dating as an option for normal, healthy development," said Douglas.

"As public health professionals, we can do a better job of affirming that adolescents do have the individual freedom to choose whether they want to date or not, and that either option is acceptable and healthy," she said.

A study out of Texas State University attempted to determine the number of available horticultural community service opportunities for individuals completing community service hours per their probation or parole requirements, and whether that brand of community service generates a calculable offset against the common nature of repeat offenses for an inmate population once released.

Former graduate student Megan Holmes and her advisor Tina Waliczek delved into this complex topic, evaluating whether horticultural programs or exposure to horticultural settings can help to reduce the probability of recidivism. Their findings are detailed in the article 'The Effect of Horticultural Community Service Programs on Recidivism' available now in HortTechnology, an open-access journal published by the American Society for Horticultural Science.

Waliczek explains, "We became interested in this study because of observations made in our own campus garden where offenders often serve out community service sentences. Some of those serving would mention how they felt a sense of purpose and pride in working with the plants in the garden. Our study verified some of those initial observations."

As the researchers illustrate in their article, the average cost of housing a single inmate in the United States is roughly $31,286 per year, bringing the total average cost states spend on corrections to nearly $75 billion per year.

The United States currently incarcerates the greatest percentage of its population compared with any other nation in the world. Although the world average rate of incarceration is 166 individuals per 100,000, the US average is 750 per 100,000. And recidivism is a predictable factor of our criminal justice system.

Recidivism is the repetition of criminal behavior and reimprisonment of an offender and is one of the reasons for large inmate populations in the United States. Research tracked a total of 404,638 prisoners across 30 states for a span of 5 years and found 67.8% of prisoners released reoffended within 3 years and a total of 76.6% reoffended within 5 years of being released. One third of those offenders were arrested within the first 6 months of being released.

Holmes added, "Further researching the role plants play on positively impacting an individual's life or decision to productively redirect their behavior has the potential to greatly benefit our society as a whole, long-term."

Past studies have shown that certain educational and rehabilitation efforts have helped to reduce a return to a life of crime. As a means of education and vocational rehabilitation, horticultural programs have been introduced into detention facilities across the United States. Many prisoners have participated in horticultural activities such as harvesting and maintaining their own vegetable gardens as a means of providing food for the institution, which can also serve as skill development for a means of earning income once released back into society.

Waliczek suggested, "Participation in horticultural programs upon being released from prison or while on probation partnered with educational and community service could provide a sense of meaning and purpose to offenders while also helping assist with a successful transition back into society."

In investigating the different types of community service opportunities available to offenders, Holmes and Waliczek found there were 52 different agencies available as options for community service during the time of the study. Of the 52 community service agencies, 25 of them provided horticultural work options.

The results and information gathered support the notion that horticultural activities can play an important role in influencing an offender's successful reentry into society. The researchers found that individuals who engaged in horticultural programs demonstrated the lowest rate of recidivism over all other categories of released inmates.

Holmes interjected, "It was indeed notable the study found that those individuals who completed their community service requirements in a horticultural setting were less likely to recidivate when compared to those who completed their community service in a non-horticultural setting."

She further added, "I plan on continuing this research and studying the overall benefits of horticulture on the well-being and recidivism rates of both incarcerated juvenile and adult offenders on a larger scale."

Ruth M. Risueño leads the Leukaemic Stem Cell group of the Josep Carreras Leukaemia Research Institute. This group investigates Acute Myeloid Leukaemia (AML) and the cell population responsible for the disease spreading, persisting, and if it has been treated and overcome, reappear.

AML is one of leukaemia with the worst prognosis. Its treatment with chemotherapy refers from 50% to 85%, and has a high rate of recidivism after treatment. Relapse in the disease may be because a small number of diseased stem cells have become resistant to treatment, being only a matter of time for these cells to spread again.

Leukaemic stem cells can be renewed or differentiated. They replicate themselves indefinitely to maintain their population. However, when they differentiate, they generate all the types of mature leukaemic cells found in the tumor. These adult cells, which are the majority in leukaemia, have lower prevalence and are more sensitive to chemotherapy. Nevertheless, leukaemic stem cells are responsible for the initiation, maintenance, and regeneration of the disease. To die them, they can be killed, death induced or differentiation induced into mature cells.

"If we can differentiate all leukaemic stem cells, this population would be depleted. Therefore, its ability to maintain the disease and the chances of regeneration and relapse would be lost," says Risueño to explain in which area his team focuses most of his work.

In the research recently published in EBioMedicine, in which Dr. Josep Mª Cornet-Masana collaborates, after the first phase of search and screening in silico of molecules by computer procedures, a group of antihistamines was found. Tests with antihistamines in laboratory samples and mice resulted not only in differentiation induction. 

Through a mechanism that is different from their antiallergic function, antihistamines penetrate two vital "organs" of the cell: Those responsible for metabolizing energy, mitochondria, and those responsible for cell digestion, lysosomes, causing their failure and leading to cell death.

"This does not affect healthy cells because the process of transforming leukaemic cells implies that mitochondria and lysosomes are more fragile. This fact allows them to have more resistance to pre-apoptotic stimuli, that is, to the cell's safety mechanisms that cause their death when something goes wrong, and increase the metabolic rate, which is necessary for all tumor cells. What is an advantage for the propagation of the tumor becomes a disadvantage for its protection against such drugs." Argues Risueño.

At the moment, these drugs cannot be used against leukaemia because of their rapid degradation and because they do not have a direct administration technique on diseased cells. Risueño's team is working to make these drugs more stable while developing a mechanism so that they can be administered directly and distinctively on leukaemic stem cells.

A more environmentally-friendly and sustainable method of producing the useful chemical 1,2,4-butanetriol has been discovered. The Kobe University team were the first in the world to utilize a method involving the direct fermentation of xylose in rice straw using an engineered yeast strain to produce 1,2,4-butanetriol. In the course of conducting this research, the team successfully overcame two bottlenecks to maximize the production.

The research was conducted by Academic Researcher Takahiro Bamba and Professor Akihiko Kondo (from the Graduate School of Science, Technology and Innovation), and Professor Tomohisa Hasunuma (of the Engineering Biology Research Center).

1,2,4-butanetriol uses and current production methods:

The commodity chemical 1,2,4-butanetriol has a wide variety of practical uses across different fields. For example, it can be utilized in the production of solvents and to synthesize various pharmaceutical products- such as anti-viral and cholesterol-lowering drugs, among others.

Current methods of producing 1,2,4-butanetriol use raw materials derived from oil and result in byproducts that are harmful to the environment. The most common way to produce the chemical is by using sodium borohydride (NaBH4) to chemically reduce malic acid to 1,2,4-butanetriol. However the process generates a large amount of borate salts. Disposing of these salts causes pollution. Chromite and Rubidium can also be used as catalysts for 1,2,4-butanetriol production, however these methods require high temperature and high pressure, and also result in toxic byproducts.

Deriving xylose (the second most abundant natural sugar) from lignocellulosic biomass (dry plant matter) and using it to produce chemicals offers multiple advantages as it is a renewable resource that causes far less environmental pollution. It provides a sustainable alternative to petroleum-based production.

Methodology:

As shown in Figure 1, 1,2,4-butanetriol is produced by microbes through a 5 stage reaction process within the cells.

However in steps 1, 3 and 4 of the reaction, there were no enzymes to provide a catalyst in the yeast. In this study, rice straw hydrolysate was used to produce xylose. The yeast used was genetically engineered with the required enzymes in order to successfully produce an efficient yield of 1,2,4-butanetriol.

In the first successful trial, only 0.02g/L of 1,2,4-butanetriol was produced. By examining these results, it became apparent that there were insufficient catalytic activities for Stage 3 and Stage 4 inside the yeast cells. This meant that the reaction was slowed down in Stages 3 and 4. These reactions were considered to be bottlenecks.

With the presence of iron sulphur clusters within the structure of the xylonate dehydratase catalyst in stage 3, it became clear that it was difficult for the yeast to maintain a reaction with the iron sulphur protein in the cells. This was due to an insufficient amount of iron sulphur clusters within the yeast cells.

Iron (Fe) is essential for the yeast cells to produce 1,2,4-butanetriol, however too much iron damages the cells. Metabolic engineering (optimizing regulatory and genetic processes within cells to increase the production of a particular substance) was utilized to further genetically modify the yeast in order to increase its iron metabolism. This improved the yeast's reactivity with the xylonate dehydratase and ensured that functional Fe-S enzymes were formed (Figure 2). Using this modified yeast strain improved catalytic activity by approximately 6 times.

Furthermore, the Stage 4 bottleneck was overcome by using KdcA (derived from Lactococcus lactis- a bacterium commonly used for fermentation in the food industry) as the decarboxylase to provide sufficient catalytic activity.

Results:

Ultimately, this method succeeded in producing 1.7g/L of 1,2,4-butanetriol when engineered yeast was used. In addition, 1.1 g/L of 1,2,4-butanetriol was produced by the rice straw hydrolysate solution that was used as the medium during the fermentation experiment (Figure 3).

This research suggests that it would be possible to produce other chemicals that require iron sulphur proteins using a similar method. Optimizing the metabolic pathway in this study through further research would allow for greater production of useful compounds from lignocellulosic biomass. This could potentially reduce future dependence on finite oil resources and polluting methods of production.

Lithium-sulphur batteries are regarded as one of the most promising candidates for the next generation of energy storage devices. They have a theoretical gravimetric energy density that is five times higher than that of the best lithium-ion batteries currently available. And they even work at sub-zero temperatures of down to -50 °C. In addition, sulphur is inexpensive and environmentally friendly.

However, their capacity so far has fallen sharply with every charge-discharge cycle, so that such batteries are not yet long-lasting. The loss of capacity is caused by complicated reaction processes at the electrodes inside the battery cell. It is therefore particularly important to understand exactly how the charge (sulphur) and discharge (lithium sulphide) products precipitate and dissolve. While sulphur precipitates macroscopically and therefore lends itself to examination by imaging techniques or X-ray diffraction during cycling, lithium sulphide is difficult to detect due to its sub-10-nm particle size.

Insight into this has now been provided for the first time by investigations with the BER II neutron source at the HZB. Dr. Sebastian Risse used a measuring cell he developed to illuminate lithium-sulphur batteries with neutrons during charging and discharging cycles (operando) and simultaneously performed additional measurements with impedance spectroscopy.

This enabled him and his team to analyse the dissolution and precipitation of lithium sulphide with extreme precision during ten discharge/charging cycles. Since neutrons interact strongly with deuterium (heavy hydrogen), the researchers used a deuterated electrolyte in the battery cell to make both the solid products (sulphur and lithium sulphide) visible.

Their conclusion: "We observed that the lithium sulphide and sulphur precipitation does not take place inside the microporous carbon electrodes, but instead on the outer surface of the carbon fibres", says Risse. These results provide a valuable guide for the development of better battery electrodes.

Tropical Storm 14W has been moving through the Northwestern Pacific Ocean for several days and has now been renamed Faxai. NASA's Aqua satellite passed over the newly renamed storm and took the temperature of Faxai's clouds and storms.

NASA's Terra satellite used infrared light to analyze the strength of storms in the remnants of Tropical Storm Faxai. Infrared data provides temperature information, and the strongest thunderstorms that reach high into the atmosphere have the coldest cloud top temperatures.

On Sept. 5 at 8:15 a.m. EDT (1215 UTC), the Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Terra satellite found strongest thunderstorms had cloud top temperatures as cold as or colder than minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.6 Celsius). Those temperatures were in cloud tops of storms around the low-level center of circulation and in a thick band of thunderstorms that wrapped around the storm from west to north to east. Cloud top temperatures that cold indicate strong storms with the potential to generate heavy rainfall.

The imagery also showed the southwestern side was cloud free, and that is because of sinking air, or subsidence, which prevents the development of thunderstorms. It is being caused by an elongated area of low pressure located to the south of the storm and a Tutt Cell to the north. A Tutt Cell is a Tropical Upper Tropospheric Trough (elongated area of low pressure).

On Sept. 5 at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), Tropical Storm Faxai, formerly known as 14W, was located near 20.8 degrees north latitude and 154.0 degrees east longitude. That is about 742 nautical miles east-southeast of Iwo To island, Japan. Faxai was moving to the north-northwest and had maximum sustained winds 40 knots (46 mph/74 kph).

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) expects Faxai will move west-northwest across the Northwestern Pacific Ocean and turn north after three days. It is expected to make landfall near Tokyo at 80 knots on Sunday, Sept. 8.

One of the planet's most active ecosystems is one most people rarely encounter and scientists are only starting to explore. The open ocean contains tiny organisms -- phytoplankton -- that perform half the photosynthesis on Earth, helping generate oxygen for animals on land.

A study by University of Washington oceanographers, published this summer in Nature Microbiology, looks at how photosynthetic microbes and ocean bacteria use sulfur, a plentiful marine nutrient.

Sulfur is the odorous element that gives beaches their distinctive smell. The new study focused on sulfonates, in which a sulfur atom is connected to three oxygen atoms and a carbon-based molecule. In the ocean, phytoplankton use energy from the sun to create sulfonate molecules. Bacteria then consume the sulfates to gain nutrients and energy.

Bryndan Durham, then a postdoctoral researcher in oceanography and now an assistant professor at the University of Florida, drew on the recent genetic studies of soils to learn which microbial pathways are used to process sulfonates in the ocean. The study first focused on 36 marine microbes that the team cultured in the lab, using a UW-developed method to test which organisms produce sulfonates on their own in a lab environment.

The study discovered "some striking similarities between sulfonate pathways in terrestrial and ocean systems," Durham wrote in a "Behind the Paper" post in Nature Microbiology that discusses the project. Plants produce most of the sulfonates in soils. In the oceans most sulfonates are also produced by photosynthetic organisms, but in this case by unicellular phytoplankton.

The study then considered microbes in the open ocean that cannot yet be bred in the lab. During a 2015 research cruise north of Hawaii co-led by a team of researchers including Virginia Armbrust and Anitra Ingalls, both professors of oceanography and senior authors on the new study, microbial samples were collected at different times of day and night. The researchers then froze the samples in order to analyze their genetic and chemical contents back in Seattle.

"We returned from sea with a freezer's worth of samples that generated over six terabytes of data for us to explore," Durham wrote, "a major computational hurdle."

The team eventually succeeded in extracting the relevant data and found patterns that backed up the findings from the lab samples. They also detected a day-night rhythm in sulfonate metabolism that reflects the activity of photosynthetic organisms.

"Sulfonates are produced and consumed by certain groups of microbes, so we can use them to track specific relationships in seawater communities," Durham said. "And because sulfonates contain a carbon-sulfur bond, they are part of the global carbon cycle which controls the flux of carbon dioxide into and out of the ocean. This is increasingly important to understand as the climate changes."

In power electronics, semiconductors are based on the element silicon - but the energy efficiency of silicon carbide would be much higher. Physicists of the University of Basel, the Paul Scherrer Institute and ABB explain what exactly is preventing the use of this combination of silicon and carbon in the scientific journal Applied Physics Letters.

Energy consumption is growing across the globe; electric power is being relied upon more and more, and sustainable energy supplies such as wind and solar power are becoming increasingly important. Electric power, however, is often generated a long distance away from the consumer. Efficient distribution and transport systems are thus just as crucial as transformer stations and power converters that turn the generated direct current into alternating current.

Huge savings are possible

Modern power electronics must be able to handle large currents and high voltages. Current transistors made of semiconductor materials for field-effect transistors are now mainly based on silicon technology. Significant physical and chemical advantages, however, arise from the use of SiC over silicon: in addition to a much higher heat resistance, this material provides significantly better energy efficiency, which could lead to massive savings.

It is known that these advantages are significantly compromised by defects at the interface between silicon carbide and the insulating material silicon dioxide. This damage is based on tiny, irregular clusters of carbon rings bound in the crystal lattice, as experimentally demonstrated by researchers led by Professor Thomas Jung at the Swiss Nanoscience Institute and Department of Physics from the University of Basel and the Paul Scherrer Institute. Using atomic force microscope analysis and Raman spectroscopy, they showed that the defects are generated in the vicinity of the interface by the oxidation process.

Experimentally confirmed

The interfering carbon clusters, which are only a few nanometers in size, are formed during the oxidation process of silicon carbide to silicon dioxide under high temperatures. "If we change certain parameters during oxidation, we can influence the occurrence of the defects," says doctoral student Dipanwita Dutta. For example, a nitrous oxide atmosphere in the heating process leads to significantly fewer carbon clusters.

The experimental results were confirmed by the team led by Professor Stefan Gödecker at the Department of Physics and Swiss Nanoscience Institute from the University of Basel. Computer simulations confirmed the structural and chemical changes induced by graphitic carbon atoms as observed experimentally. Beyond experiments, atomistic insight has been gained in the generation of the defects and their impact on the electron flow in the semiconductor material.

Better use of electricity

"Our studies provide important insight to drive the onward development of field-effect transistors based on silicon carbide. Therefore we expect to provide a significant contribution to the more effective use of electrical power," comments Jung. The work was initiated as part of the Nano Argovia program for applied research projects.

In the wet-dry topics of Australia, drinking water in remote communities is often sourced from groundwater bores. The geochemistry of that groundwater impacts the occurrence of opportunistic pathogens in the drinking water supply, researchers now report in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases.

Many aquifers in the tropics of Northern Australia are shallow and contain naturally high levels of iron, which encourages environmental iron bacteria to form biofilms in pipes and the growth of opportunistic pathogens. Some of these bacteria include the emerging threat Burkholderia pseudomallei which causes the fatal disease melioidosis in humans and animals. Researchers have not previously studied the microbial composition of water from remote bores.

In the new work, Mirjam Kaestli of Charles Darwin University, Australia and colleagues including Menzies School of Health Research sampled water and biofilms from three remote Indigenous communities in Australia's Northern Territory. All three communities had previously reported B. pseudomallei clinical infections. The aquifers in each community varied by their age and depth; in addition, one had low levels of iron, another had average levels of iron, and a third had high levels of iron. Water was collected from five points in each water system, including both untreated sections of the system, and points after chlorination.

On average 19 times more bacterial DNA was found in the source water from the medium iron water supply and 83 times more in the high iron water supply compared to the low iron system. In addition, biofilms were more common in these supplies and bacteria known to cycle iron were found in the medium and high iron water systems. B. pseudomallei were also found in these systems and the genomes revealed five different genetic variants of the bacteria, including three that had been previously reported in Australia. Overall, chlorination successfully contained both B. pseudomallei and another opportunistic pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

"Results from this study will inform future studies to ultimately improve management guidelines for water supplies in the wet-dry tropics," the researchers say.

Teams from the New York Stem Cell Foundation Research Institute (NYSCF) and the University of Michigan have used the NYSCF Institutional Report Card for Gender Equality (Report Card) to evaluate the representation of women in STEM across more than 500 institutions over the past four years. NYSCF designed and collected the Report Cards and the University of Michigan analyzed the over 1,200 Report Cards received. The findings indicate that promotion, recruitment, and retention of women to senior roles are lacking, as are policies to support women in science.

"To reach treatments and cures, we need full participation in science and medicine," said NYSCF CEO Susan L. Solomon, JD, who co-led the study. "When women are prevented from reaching their full potential, the entire field suffers. We need 100% of the available brainpower to make the biggest impact and move research forward as quickly as possible."

The study resulted from NYSCF's Initiative on Women in Science and Engineering (IWISE), started by NYSCF in 2014 with support from the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, whose mission is to devise actionable strategies for advancing women in STEM. These strategies included an Institutional Report Card for Gender Equality, which NYSCF used through its extramural award program to collect quantitative data about gender representation throughout the educational and academic pipeline (e.g. among students, professors, invited speakers) as well as qualitative data on institutional policies to support women in science. Over the past 4 years, 541 institutions in 38 countries have completed the Report Card.

Gender Imbalance at the Top: The Leaky Pipeline Persists

The Report Card results show that we are still a long way from gender equity in STEM. Women are well represented amongst undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students (constituting over 50% of each population), but among faculty, as seniority increased, representation of women decreased (averaging 42% of assistant professors, 34.2% of associate professors, and 23.4% of full professors). Women made up less than 10% of tenured faculty recruits in nearly one-third of institutions. This data suggests that rather than recruiting women into STEM, the bigger issue appears to be retention and promotion of women into positions that allow them more influence, resources, and in turn, high-impact research.

Unfortunately, institutional gender equity did not improve over time. Among 71 institutions tracked over a period of more than 2 years, just over half improved their grades, but only by an average of 8%. Institutions whose grades worsened did so by the same amount, suggesting that overall, there were no significant or systematic changes in institutional practices over time.

Policies and Programs to Support Gender Equity are Emerging, but Limited

The actionable strategies put forth by IWISE include institutional policies that would be supportive of women in STEM. Among institutions surveyed, 38% offered additional support mechanisms for paid family leave, while some offered additional policies that addressed childcare, flexibility, funding, and career development initiatives.

"Many of these policies and programs - such as flexible family care spending, 'extra hands' funding, and gender-balanced peer review and speaker selection policies - align with the seven actionable strategies proposed by IWISE in 2015," explained NYSCF's Kristin Smith-Doody, co-author of the study. "We are excited to see some organizations implement these recommendations and hope to see widespread adoption in the future."

To support gender equity on decision-making committees, however, only 8% of institutions had an explicit minimum requirement, 16% had general policies to promote diversity, and 77% held no policies on the issue.

"Representation on strategic, decision-making committees is critical, both because it is important to have a diversity of viewpoints within these groups, and because participation in committees builds leadership skills and visibility that helps members advance their careers," noted University of Michigan's Reshma Jagsi, M.D., D.Phil., who co-led the study. Jagsi is director of the university's Center for Bioethics and Social Sciences in Medicine.

While many of these results are sobering, the researchers believe that the process of collecting high-quality, comprehensive data through the Report Cards is helping assess the current landscape of gender equality in STEM, and encouraging institutions to establish a baseline. The Report Card is also shining a light on the issue and prompting institutions to think more about gender equity in STEM.

"Simply asking institutions to fill out this Report Card draws their attention to the gender equity issue, encouraging them to identify areas for improvement and make necessary changes," said Ms. Solomon. "In the beginning, many institutions told us that there was nowhere for them to go to find the information that we were requesting in the Report Card. In subsequent years, we heard that information on gender equity is now being tracked and is more easily accessible at the institutions."

What's Next?

The researchers will continue to use the report card to collect data, highlight best practices, and monitor changes in gender representation over time. They look forward to improving this tool and working with other organizations to identify strategies for fostering the success of women in STEM.

To encourage change at the institutional level, NYSCF aims to work with other funders to implement a 'recognition phase' for the Report Card modeled in part on the UK's Athena Swan charter, which confers awards of bronze, silver, or gold status to member institutions that have demonstrated good practices and meaningful interventions to advance gender equity. Case studies and independent surveys have shown that this initiative has positively impacted women's career progression in STEM, and the team hopes that establishing such a system in the United States will confer similar benefits.

"We remain committed to reaching gender equality in STEM, and to partnering with institutions to achieve this goal," remarked Ms. Solomon. "This is a large-scale, collaborative effort, and we must all work together to make it a reality."

Researchers have successfully sequenced the first genome of an individual from the Harappan civilization, also called the Indus Valley Civilization (IVC). The DNA, which belongs to an individual who lived four to five millennia ago, suggests that modern people in India are likely to be largely descended from people of this ancient culture. It also offers a surprising insight into how farming began in South Asia, showing that it was not brought by large-scale movement of people from the Fertile Crescent where farming first arose. Instead, farming started in South Asia through local hunter-gatherers adopting farming. The findings appear September 5 in the journal Cell.

"The Harappans were one of the earliest civilizations of the ancient world and a major source of Indian culture and traditions, and yet it has been a mystery how they related both to later people as well as to their contemporaries," says Vasant Shinde, an archaeologist at Deccan College, Deemed University in Pune, India, and the chief excavator of the site of Rakhigarhi, who is first author of the study.

The IVC, which at its height from 2600 to 1900 BCE covered a large swath of northwestern South Asia, was one of the world's first large-scale urban societies. Roughly contemporary to ancient Egypt and the ancient civilizations of China and Mesopotamia, it traded across long distances and developed systematic town planning, elaborate drainage systems, granaries, and standardization of weights and measures.

Hot, fluctuating climates like those found in many parts of lowland South Asia are detrimental to the preservation of DNA. So despite the importance of the IVC, it has been impossible until now to sequence DNA of individuals recovered in archaeological sites located in the region. "Even though there has been success with ancient DNA from many other places, the difficult preservation conditions mean that studies in South Asia have been a challenge," says senior author David Reich, a geneticist at Harvard Medical School, the Broad Institute, and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Answering questions about the ancient people of the Indus Valley was in fact the primary reason Reich founded his own ancient DNA laboratory in 2013.

In this study, Reich, post-doctoral scientist Vagheesh Narasimhan, and Niraj Rai, who established a new ancient DNA laboratory at the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences in Lucknow, India, and led the preparation of the samples, screened 61 skeletal samples from a site in Rakhigarhi, the largest city of the IVC. A single sample showed promise: it contained a very small amount of authentic ancient DNA. The team made over 100 attempts to sequence the sample. Reich says: "While each of the individual datasets did not produce enough DNA, pooling them resulted in sufficient genetic data to learn about population history."

There were many theories about the genetic origins of the people of the IVC. "They could resemble Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers or they could resemble Iranians, or they could even resemble Steppe pastoralists--all were plausible prior to the ancient DNA findings," he says.

The individual sequenced here fits with a set of 11 individuals from sites across Iran and Central Asia known to be in cultural contact with the IVC, discovered in a manuscript being published simultaneously (also led by Reich and Narasimhan) in the journal Science. Those individuals were genetic outliers among the people at the sites in which they were found. They represent a unique mixture of ancestry related to ancient Iranians and ancestry related to Southeast Asian hunter-gatherers. Their genetic similarity to the Rakhigarhi individual makes it likely that these were migrants from the IVC.

It's a mix of ancestry that is also present in modern South Asians, leading the researchers to believe that people from the IVC like the Rakhigarhi individuals were the single largest source population for the modern-day people of India. "Ancestry like that in the IVC individuals is the primary ancestry source in South Asia today," says Reich. "This finding ties people in South Asia today directly to the Indus Valley Civilization."

The findings also offer a surprising insight into how agriculture reached South Asia. A mainstream view in archaeology has been that people from the Fertile Crescent of the Middle East--home to the earliest evidence of farming--spread across the Iranian plateau and from there into South Asia, bringing with them a new and transformative economic system.

Genetic studies to date seemed to add weight to this theory by showing that Iranian-related ancestry was the single biggest contributor to the ancestry in South Asians.

But this new study shows that the lineage of Iranian-related ancestry in modern South Asians split from ancient Iranian farmers, herders, and hunter-gatherers before they separated from each other--that is, even before the invention of farming in the Fertile Crescent. Thus, farming was either reinvented locally in South Asia or reached it through the cultural transmission of ideas rather than through substantial movement of western Iranian farmers.

For Reich, Shinde, and their team, these findings are just the beginning. "The Harappans built a complex and cosmopolitan ancient civilization, and there was undoubtedly variation in it that we cannot detect by analyzing a single individual," Shinde says. "The insights that emerge from just this single individual demonstrate the enormous promise of ancient DNA studies of South Asia. They make it clear that future studies of much larger numbers of individuals from a variety of archaeological sites and locations have the potential to transform our understanding of the deep history of the subcontinent."