Earth

With climate change, the Arctic tundra is likely to become drier. Lakes may shrink in size and smaller lakes may even disappear according to a new Dartmouth study. In western Greenland, Kangerlussuaq experienced a 28 percent decrease in the number of smaller lakes (those less than 10,000 square meters) and a 20 percent decrease in total area from 1969 to 2017. Many of the lakes that had disappeared in 1969 have since become vegetated. The findings are published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences.

"Lake drying may be one of the most significant consequences of Arctic climate change given that the majority of the world's lakes are in high latitudes," explained lead author Rebecca Finger Higgens, a graduate student in the ecology, evolution, ecosystems and society program at Dartmouth. "Much of the drying of lakes in Kangerlussuaq has been occurring from 1985 until now, a period during which we've also seen a 2.5 Celsius increase in the mean annual temperature. Our results demonstrate that warmer temperatures in western Greenland over the past 30 years have accelerated lake decline," she added.

Finger Higgens first noticed that the Arctic landscape seemed to be getting drier in 2015 while doing fieldwork outside of Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. From 2015 to 2017, she served as a Joint Science Education Program (JSEP) graduate fellow during which she spent over six months conducting research in Kangerlussuaq. She started compiling collections of satellite and aerial imagery of lakes in Greenland gathered in the 1960s and 1980s and weather data to track changes over time.

Images of lakes in Kangerlussuaq were sourced from: declassified satellite CORONA imagery from the Cold War, which is available through the U.S. Geological Survey; an aerial survey by the Danish Government in Greenland, which is available through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration; and satellite imagery from summer 2017 by Planet Labs, Inc. Temperature and precipitation data for Kangerlussuaq obtained by the Danish Meteorological Institute during 1971 to 2017 was also used.

In analyzing the imagery, the team wanted to determine why some lakes visible in 1969 weren't visible in 2017. For a lake to be classified as disappeared, it had to have dried (be vegetated or non-vegetated) and be smaller than 100 square meters. The team found three possible reasons as to why some lakes weren't visible in 2017: vegetation had come in and recolonized the area; the lake water was still present but too small to be detected by their threshold; or the lake remained but was just dry and not vegetated. Most of the lakes in the study which had disappeared were dry and vegetated.

While smaller lakes in Kangerlussuaq appeared to be especially susceptible to lake decline, larger lakes also saw a decline with a 21 percent decrease in lake count and a 2 percent decrease in surface area. The rapid thawing of permafrost may contribute to the draining of some larger lakes in the future. Warmer winters and drier summers are likely to accelerate losses in lakes, as the researchers found that evapotranspiration rates were higher during June, July and August. The study explains that these rates may be "exacerbated by longer snow- and ice-free periods during the summer."

"As smaller lakes and wetlands disappear in the Arctic, the habitat of aquatic organisms and other animals is likely to be jeopardized," said Finger Higgens. "The Arctic is home to many bird species that migrate north to breed, especially waterfowl. With declines in wetlands, we may see some declines in goose populations in this area."

In addition, a drier Arctic may also increase the vulnerability to soil erosion, insect outbreaks, tundra fires and other phenomenon associated with drought-like conditions.

Rebecca A. Finger Higgens is available for comment at: rebecca.finger@gmail.com. The study was co-authored by Jonathan W. Chipman, David A. Lutz, Lauren E. Culler, Ross A. Virginia, and Laura A. Ogden at Dartmouth.

In the state of California, reported incidences of sexual harassment are 5 percent higher for women and 10 percent higher for men than the national average, report the authors of a joint study produced by the Center for Gender Equity and Health (GEH) at University of California San Diego School of Medicine and the nonprofit organization California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA).

"California has led the nation's focus on the #MeToo and #TimesUp movement. This report offers a stark look at the widespread prevalence of verbal, physical and cyber-based sexual harassment in the Golden State," said Anita Raj, PhD, professor in the Department of Medicine at UC San Diego School of Medicine and director of GEH.

GEH is an academic center focused on public health and social science research and methods to build evidence on gender inequities and health, and how to tackle inequities for better health outcomes.

Raj and co-authors said "Measuring #MeToo in California, 2019: A Statewide Assessment of Sexual Harassment and Assault" marks the first statewide analysis on the prevalence and scope of sexual harassment and assault in California. They will release their report Thursday, May 23. The team has, for the past two years, also released a nationwide study exploring the same data points across the entire United States.

The California-focused study found that overall Californians who identify as gay or lesbian, as well as male Californians who were born outside of the United States, are at higher risk of experiencing sexual harassment and assault.

Specific findings:

More than 86 percent of women in California (compared with 81 percent nationally) and 53 percent of men (compared with 43 percent nationally) report having experienced some form of sexual harassment and/or assault in their lifetime.
Three out of four foreign-born men reported harassment compared to one out of two U.S.-born men living in the state.
Four out of five lesbian and bisexual women have faced sexual assault compared with one in four straight women.
Three out of four gay and bisexual men have faced aggressive sexual harassment (e.g., stalking, unwanted sexual touching) compared with one out of three straight men.

"This report demonstrates that sexual harassment is prevalent and ubiquitous, but at the same time, we also see higher rates on some of our most marginalized residents, such as gay, lesbian and bisexual people and foreign-born men," said Raj.

David S. Lee, director of prevention, CALCASA, said that the study offers yet another confirmation of the desperate need for education about sexual consent.

"Prevention efforts, including education in schools as early as possible, around issues of consent and harassment are crucial," said Lee. "We know that prevention works, and it's necessary to shift to a culture where individuals look out for one another."

AMHERST, Mass. - Wildlife ecologists at the University of Massachusetts Amherst who are studying different conservation practices in the forests of Costa Rica recently made a startling discovery on a wildlife camera trap - wild bush dogs documented farther north than ever before and at the highest elevation.

Doctoral student Carolina Saenz-Bolaños is in Costa Rica comparing land use, management techniques, their effects on species presence and abundance, and human attitudes in four different areas in the rugged Talamanca Mountains: a national park, an adjacent forest reserve, an indigenous territory and nearby unprotected areas.

She and her advisor, professor of environmental conservation Todd Fuller at UMass Amherst, with others, report in an article today in Tropical Conservation Science the new, repeated sightings of bush dogs (Speothos venaticus) on trailcams well outside the limit of their previously known range on the Costa Rica-Panama border. The dogs are native to South America but are considered rare and are very seldom seen even there, the two ecologists point out.

Fuller says, "They aren't supposed to be there, but Carolina's work shows they really are, and they seem to be doing well. Not only is this wild dog rare wherever it is found, but this mountain range is very remote, with very little access. They could have been there before and we wouldn't know it. So we're documenting them with this report."

Saenz-Bolaños says that because the roadless area is so huge, she and colleagues are not sure if the dogs are expanding their range, returning to a former range, or if they've been there all along but eluded detection. She works with Victor Montalvo, a fellow UMass Amherst doctoral student, and Eduardo Carrillo of the Universidad Nacional de Costa Rica and UMass Amherst adjunct professor of environmental conservation.

Once the dogs were spotted on camera, the researchers contacted Michael Mooring of San Diego's Point Loma Nazarene University who, with Junior Porras of Costa Rica's National System of Conservation Areas (SINAC), also had obtained new bush dog photos from southern Costa Rica.

Saenz-Bolaños, who has been operating trap cameras in the area since 2012, says, "I know most of the things that live here, so when I saw them on the camera I said 'Wow, what is that - bush dogs here?' I was very excited and thrilled to see them." She adds, "The native people have a name for these dogs and their oral tradition says the dogs have been there in the past, but people living there now have never seen one."

Bush dogs have been spotted north of the Panama Canal near the Costa Rica border in the past 10 years, she adds, but they are completely unexpected in the northern parts of the Talamanca Mountains.

Fuller says that bush dogs have lived in South America for thousands of years, and no one knows why they have not moved farther north into Central America, where the habitat is similar, but they are so rare that studying them is quite difficult. "There are still definitely interesting things to find out about them, especially if they're expanding their range," he says.

Curious about what it would take to collect more sightings of bush dogs in Costa Rica, he and Saenz-Bolaños worked with Paul Sievert of the U.S. Geological Survey and UMass Amherst to calculate how many camera-trap hours it might take to have even a 50-50 chance of seeing the animals again in an area of roughly 2,000 square miles (5,000 sq. km). Fuller says they estimate that it would require at least 25 camera traps set out for 100 nights, a difficult task in such remote, mountainous and tropical terrain.

The ecologists hope that their report will spark the imaginations of other wildlife ecologists, park managers and rangers in the region, who might set up their own camera traps in promising areas. Saenz-Bolaños plans to continue monitoring her study area and plans to try to talk to more local people about the dogs. Fuller adds, "At this point the mountain range looks like good bush dog habitat, but we just don't know if they are getting started there or are already at home."

The Stone Zoo in Stoneham, Mass., part of Zoo New England, has a family of bush dogs on exhibit where visitors can see these small wild dogs. The zoo participates in species survival planning for the bush dog to manage and conserve threatened or endangered animals.

Boulder, Colo., USA: Earth is bombarded every year by rocky debris, but the rate of incoming meteorites can change over time. Finding enough meteorites scattered on the planet's surface can be challenging, especially if you are interested in reconstructing how frequently they land. Now, researchers have uncovered a wealth of well-preserved meteorites that allowed them to reconstruct the rate of falling meteorites over the past two million years.

"Our purpose in this work was to see how the meteorite flux to Earth changed over large timescales -- millions of years, consistent with astronomical phenomena," says Alexis Drouard, Aix-Marseille Université, lead author of the new paper in Geology.

To recover a meteorite record for millions of years, the researchers headed to the Atacama Desert. Drouard says they needed a study site that would preserve a wide range of terrestrial ages where the meteorites could persist over long time scales.

While Antarctica and hot deserts both host a large percentage of meteorites on Earth (about 64% and 30%, respectively), Drouard says, "Meteorites found in hot deserts or Antarctica are rarely older than half a million years." He adds that meteorites naturally disappear because of weathering processes (e.g., erosion by wind), but because these locations themselves are young, the meteorites found on the surface are also young.

"The Atacama Desert in Chile, is very old ([over] 10 million years)," says Drouard. "It also hosts the densest collection of meteorites in the world."

The team collected 388 meteorites and focused on 54 stony samples from the El Médano area in the Atacama Desert. Using cosmogenic age dating, they found that the mean age was 710,000 years old. In addition, 30% of the samples were older than one million years, and two samples were older than two million. All 54 meteorites were ordinary chondrites, or stony meteorites that contain grainy minerals, but spanned three different types.

"We were expecting more 'young' meteorites than 'old' ones (as the old ones are lost to weathering)," says Drouard. "But it turned out that the age distribution is perfectly explained by a constant accumulation of meteorites for millions years." The authors note that this is the oldest meteorite collection on Earth's surface.

Drouard says this terrestrial crop of meteorites in the Atacama can foster more research on studying meteorite fluxes over large time scales. "We found that the meteorite flux seems to have remained constant over this [two-million-year] period in numbers (222 meteorites larger than 10 g per squared kilometer per million year), but not in composition," he says. Drouard adds that the team plans to expand their work, measuring more samples and narrowing in on how much time the meteorites spent in space. "This will tell us about the journey of these meteorites from their parent body to Earth's surface."

BOSTON-- A novel method of embedding child psychiatric care in an urban pediatrics clinic was found to be feasible and a promising way to increase access to and engagement in psychiatric care among a primarily Latino population, according to new study from Boston Medical Center researchers. The study is the first to provide initial evidence for the effectiveness of this intervention, which could have important implications for underserved and minority populations that experience disparities in psychiatric care.

While nearly 20 percent of U.S. children suffer from a mental illness, only one in five receive treatment. Barriers to care, including long wait times, high costs, and limited availability of specialists, impact access among all families, but disproportionately impact vulnerable communities and people of color. Untreated mental illness is associated with a range of health, developmental, social and educational risks for children, making improved access a high priority among health and policy leaders.

The study began in 2013, when pediatricians at an urban pediatrics primary care clinic that served a largely Latino and non-English speaking population started referring patients to a child psychiatrist embedded in the practice for evaluation and short-term treatment, with the goal of transferring care back to the primary care setting in the long-term. During the two year study period, 211 referrals were made to the embedded psychiatrist, at a rate of approximately two to three per week. Seventy four percent of patients who were referred completed an evaluation. Younger children and those who had a history of therapy were more likely to complete an evaluation. The researchers also found that children who had more severe symptoms and higher levels of psychiatric comorbidity attended more follow-up appointments with the embedded psychiatrist.

"While preliminary, these results are very encouraging as we look to increase access to mental health care for children, especially among underserved communities," said lead author Andrea Spencer, MD, a psychiatrist at Boston Medical Center and assistant professor of psychiatry at Boston University School of Medicine. "We believe this model of embedding a child psychiatrist in a primary care practice could reduce stigma for families, improve convenience, and remove other barriers to care."

Most patients involved in this study attended fewer than four visits with the psychiatrist, which is consistent with previous reports on the duration of mental health treatment in this population, and fitting in the design of the model as a short-term intervention. The fact that clinical need predicted intensity of service utilization was encouraging. The researchers note that transferring care back to the primary care setting should be studied further, along with what factors best engage families of younger versus older children in an initial psychiatric evaluation.

Researchers say these findings support application of the model, with particularly important implications for Latino and non-English speaking populations, and suggest continued research into clinical outcomes, provider and patient satisfaction, and cost of integrated child psychiatry.

The study was published in the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved.

Researchers from NYU Abu Dhabi's (NYUAD) chemistry program and colleagues from the University's biology program have developed and studied the biological activity of five new, metal-organic hybrid knotted molecules, termed metal-organic trefoil knots (M-TKs). These molecules can effectively deliver metals to cancer cells, demonstrating the potential to act as a new category of anti-cancer agents.

In a study published in the journal Chemical Science, NYUAD Research Scientists Farah Benyettou and Thirumurugan Prakasam from the Trabolsi Research Group, led by NYUAD Associate Professor of Chemistry Ali Trabolsi, report that these nanoscale, water-soluble M-TKs showed high potency in vitro against six cancer cell lines and in vivo in zebrafish embryos. Zebrafish-related studies were performed by NYUAD Postdoctoral Associate Anjana Ramdas Nair from the Sadler Lab.

The M-TKs, generated by metal-templated self-assembly of a simple pair of chelating ligands, were well tolerated in vitro by non-cancer cells but were significantly more potent than cisplatin, a common chemotherapy medication, in both human cancer cells--including those that were cisplatin-resistant--and in zebrafish embryos. In cultured cells, M-TKs introduce reactive oxygen species (ROS) that damage the mitochondria of cancer cells, but not the nuclear DNA or the plasma membrane.

"The cytotoxicity and wide scope for structural variation of M-TKs indicate the potential of synthetic metal-organic knots as a new field of chemical space for pharmaceutical design and development," said Trabolsi. "There is significant promise for developing new cancer therapies that can complement the existing chemotherapy options that are currently used to treat nearly half of all cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy."

The M-TKs synthesised by NYUAD Research Scientist Thirumurugan Prakasam from the Trabolsi Research Group were found, in many cases, to have greater potency than has been previously reported in cisplatin and other metal complexes, explains NYUAD Research

Scientist Farah Benyettou. The main delivery routes were macropinocytosis and both caveolin- and clathrin-mediated endocytosis, which are all more active in cancer cells than in normal cells. Cisplatin and other small molecules penetrate cells by diffusion, which is less cancer-selective in vitro. The researchers hypothesize that the molecules they have developed are less toxic to healthy cells because they are internalized less.

In the next stage of developing M-TKs, research efforts will focus on the mechanism of action of the M-TKs to determine whether their ROS-mediated toxicity involves specific intracellular targets.

These findings confirm the viability of studying the effects of these compounds in whole vertebrates, as the M-TKs were well tolerated by zebrafish and appeared to selectively attack dividing cells.

Fat cells. They are the bane of a dieter's existence, but fat is important. Previous studies showed the subcutaneous white fat cells can transform to brown and beige varieties when exposed to cold stress. These dusky forms of fat, burn energy more effectively to keep an organism warm. Researchers at University of Utah Health have figured out a way to make more of these energy-burning fat cells. They have identified TLE3, a genetic switch that stops the conversion of white fat into these thermogenic varieties. The results are available online in the May 23 issue of the journal Genes and Development.

"Our story highlights that there are different types of fat cells, and TLE3 is one way to address how fat cells are programmed," said Claudio Villanueva, Ph.D., assistant professor in biochemistry at U of U Health and senior author on the paper. "If we could find therapeutic ways to inhibit TLE3, we may be able to develop interventions for type II diabetes. Therapies that help lower blood glucose levels are gravely needed."

Fat cells come in three varieties. White fat, the most common variety, is stored fat associated with metabolic disorders, like diabetes and obesity. Brown and beige fat contain more mitochondria, the energy centers of the cell, allowing these varieties to burn fuel more efficiently. Brown fat is activated in cold conditions and burned to create heat. Beige fat is found in bundles nestled within white fat, but little is known about it.

Previous research found that white fat tissue that overexpresses early B-cell factor 2 (EFB2) recruits more beige fat cells, but this protein-coding gene is triggered by many factors. Villanueva and his team focused on transducing-like enhancer 3 (TLE3), a protein situated in the same region as EFB2. They found that TLE3 acts like a switch, stopping EFB2 from converting white to beige fat and preventing energy expenditure and glucose use.

The team deleted TLE3 in mice and placed the animals in cold conditions for several days. According to Villanueva, they tried to recreate a situation where an animal would be trying to develop beige fat cells to understand impact of the loss of TLE3. In the absence of this gene, the knock-out mice recruited more beige fat cells. The team examined the impact of the abundance of beige fat on animal metabolism.

"The knock-out mice experienced enhanced energy expenditure under normal conditions and weight loss during cold conditions," said Stephanie Pearson, PhD, a researcher working in Villanueva's lab and first author on the paper. "Even without cold stimulation, the knock-out mice did not gain as much weight."

Villanueva believes these results could be used to create interventions for metabolic disorders.

"Long-term we want to identify or develop drugs that will target TLE3 that can be used as an intervention for patients with type 2 diabetes and obesity," he said.

Cancer prevention efforts rarely focus on the distinct needs and circumstances of older people, who are at greatest risk for developing cancer, but society can do more to reduce cancer risk and preserve health as adults enter their 60s, 70s, and beyond -- according to a new supplement to the journal The Gerontologist from The Gerontological Society of America.

The entire supplement, titled "Opportunities for Cancer Prevention During Older Adulthood," is available free to view online.

In April 2017, the National Association of Chronic Disease Directors and the Division of Cancer

Prevention and Control at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) convened a meeting of multidisciplinary experts to examine opportunities for public health action to reduce cancer risk and promote health among older adults. The discussions at this event resulted in the 11 total articles appearing in the supplement.

Serving as guest editors were Richard A. Goodman, MD, JD, MPH, of Emory University and Dawn Holman, MPH, and Mary C. White, ScD of the CDC.

"A comprehensive approach to cancer prevention at older ages would lower exposures to known causes of cancer, promote healthy social and physical environments, expand the appropriate use of clinical preventive services, and engage older adults in these efforts," the editors write, joined by Lisa C. Richardson, MD, MPH of the CDC, in the opening article.

The supplement's collection of articles calls for such a comprehensive approach, coupled with an intensified application of evidence-based measures and best practices to reduce cancer risk in the growing population of older adults, and provide innovative insights for exciting new directions in research and practice.

Older people represent a growing population at special risk of cancer. More than two-thirds of all new cancers are diagnosed among adults aged 60 and above. In presenting their research and discussing the state of the science, the supplement's authors identify a wide range of targets for prevention activities, including improved health literacy, promotion of adequate sun protection, reduced age discrimination and positive attitudes toward aging, studies on the impact of natural disasters and financial hardship on cancer risk, and the appropriate use of preventive health services at older ages.

"Cancer development is a multi-step process involving a combination of factors," the editors added. "Each cancer risk factor represents a component of cancer causation, and opportunities to prevent cancer may exist at any time up to the final component, even years after the first. The characteristics of the community in which one lives often shape cancer risk-related behaviors and exposures over time, making communities an ideal setting for efforts to reduce cancer risk at a population level."

Scientists at VCU Massey Cancer Center may have uncovered a primary method through which cancer cells exist undetected in an organism and received more than $1 million to investigate the potential for novel therapeutics that target and destroy cells in a specific state of tumor dormancy.

Cancer cells often migrate from the organ in which they originated and hide in a state of inactivity elsewhere in the body. These cells can reactivate at anytime and pose a serious risk of recurrence and metastatic disease. The likelihood of curing cancer is greatly reduced once the disease has spread.

Tumor dormancy remains one of the greater mysteries in regard to the scientific understanding of cancer progression; identifying and killing inactive tumor cells persists as a prominent challenge in the field of cancer treatment.

However, ongoing research at Massey may provide major new insight for novel cancer therapeutics by targeting cells in a particular state of inactivity called senescence. The research is led by David Gewirtz, Ph.D., member of the Developmental Therapeutics research program at Massey and professor of pharmacology and toxicology at the VCU School of Medicine; Hisashi Harada, Ph.D., member of the Cancer Cell Signaling research program at Massey and associate professor at the Philips Institute for Oral Health Research at the VCU School of Dentistry; and Joseph Landry, Ph.D., member of the Cancer Molecular Genetics research program at Massey and assistant professor of human and molecular genetics at the VCU School of Medicine.

"It is entirely unclear how tumor cells might survive in the body for months or years, only to break out of dormancy and give rise to recurrent disease," Gewirtz said. "Our studies have suggested that one form of tumor dormancy might be that of senescence, a prolonged form of growth arrest that can be shown to be induced in tumor cells by chemotherapeutic drugs and radiation. If dormant tumors are, in fact, in this state of senescence, it is possible that they might be susceptible to elimination by senolytic agents (a class of small molecules under investigation to see if they can selectively induce death of senescent cells)."

Cellular senescence has long been understood as a DNA damage response in which normal cells cease to divide; however, its role in cancer cells is largely unknown. Senolytic agents are drugs that are programmed to seek out and kill cells in a state of senescence.

Research led by Gewirtz and recently published in Biochemical Pharmacology demonstrated that breast and lung cancer cells provoked into a state of senescence by chemotherapy were able to eventually recover and re-multiply at a rapid pace in culture and in mice. This finding challenged a commonly held notion about senescent cancer cells.

"The prevailing viewpoint for many years has been that senescence is an irreversible form of growth arrest," explained Gewirtz. "During the course of the last few years, the scientific community has come to accept that this is not necessarily the case and that cells can re-emerge from senescence and give rise to tumors, where the tumors are sometimes more aggressive than the original disease."

Based on these findings, Gewirtz published an article in Cancer Research suggesting that senescent cells are of significant importance in further research seeking to better understand how tumor cells evade existing cancer therapies and hide in a state of dormancy and to inform the development of novel cancer therapeutics.

"If senescence is a form of tumor dormancy, then tumor cells that escape from senescence and survive will, in some cases, be the source of recurrent disease. Their elimination would provide a survival advantage for patients with cancer," Gewirtz added.

As a means to further explore this concept, Gewirtz, Harada and Landry received a five-year, $1.2 million R01 grant from the National Cancer Institute to study whether senolytic drugs can effectively eliminate senescent-like lung tumor cells in order to prevent, or at least significantly suppress, cancer recurrence. They will test the ability of the drug ABT-263, a BCL-2 inhibitor, to target and destroy cells in a senescent state, and seek to determine the specific role that BCL-2 family proteins (genes that regulate cell death) play in regard to the destruction or preservation of dormant tumor cells.

It is unknown what roles the immune system plays in sustaining therapy-induced tumor dormancy.

"The immune system has been known for some time to control the growth of tumors," Landry said. "It is less clear how cancer therapies, and the senescence they induce, affect this natural response. They are likely to have complicated effects on the control of therapy-induced dormant cells."

One of the major goals of this study will be to establish the involvement of immune responses to tumor cell senescence caused by chemotherapy and radiation in the absence and presence of senolytic drugs.

"We also hope to establish a therapeutic strategy for the elimination of non-small cell lung cancer cells that have the potential to contribute to recurrent disease," Gewirtz said.

BEER-SHEVA...May 20, 2019 - The first experimental robot drone that flies like a typical quadcopter, drives on tough terrain and squeezes into tight spaces using the same motors, has been developed by Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers.

The hybrid FSTAR (flying sprawl-tuned autonomous robot) will be introduced at the International Conference on Robotics and Automation 2019 in Montreal on May 21. It was developed in the BGU Bio-Inspired and Medical Robotics Lab by Prof. David Zarrouk, senior lecturer in BGU's Department of Mechanical Engineering, and head of the Bio-Inspired and Medical Robotics Lab and his graduate student, Nir Meiri. Click here to watch a video of the new robot.

FSTAR can fly over obstacles or run underneath them. The sprawl, which adjusts from a flat configuration to 55 degrees allows the robot to transform its movement from a flying quadcopter to a car-like robot. It also adjusts its width to crawl or run on flat surfaces, climb over large obstacles and up closely-spaced walls, or squeeze through a tunnel, pipe or narrow gaps.

It can run on the ground at a speed of up to eight feet per second (2.6 m/s). That combined with low energy consumption using the same motors makes FSTAR ideal for a broad range of applications that may require longer work time.

Possible commercial uses are package deliveries since it can quickly fly to a target zone and then drive using its wheels safely and quietly to reach the recipient's doorstep. FSTAR can also be used for search and rescue applications as it can fly over various obstacles and crawl between or underneath cracks where a regular drone cannot fly. The robot can also be used in agriculture, maintenance, cleaning, filming, and entertainment, as well as law enforcement and anti-terrorist applications.

"We plan to develop larger and smaller versions to expand this family of sprawling robots for different applications, as well as algorithms that will help exploit speed and cost of transport for these flying/driving robots." Dr. Zarrouk says.

Social media and other online tools have changed the way people seek and share health information. Recent consumer interest in natural, organic, and ethically-made personal care products has led to an increase of shared recipes for homemade products including sunscreen. A new study conducted by researchers at the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's Hospital and the Brooks College of Health at University of North Florida examined how homemade sunscreens were portrayed on Pinterest.

The study, published today in Health Communication, found that nearly all (95%) pins, or bookmarks, for homemade sunscreen positively portrayed the effectiveness of homemade sunscreens and most (68%) recommended recipes for homemade sunscreens that offered insufficient UV radiation protection. Sun Protection Factor (SPF) claims were made in a third of pins with a range of SPF 2 to SPF 50. This is concerning because the ingredients recommended in homemade sunscreen pins offer minimal scientifically proven broad-spectrum protection from UV radiation yet are widely shared and promoted as safe alternatives to commercial sunscreens on Pinterest. The average number of saves for a pin was 808, with one pin being saved more than 21,700 times.

"The internet is a great place for families to go to for recipe inspiration and arts and crafts projects, but not necessarily for making their own safety-related things," said Lara McKenzie, PhD, co-author of this study and principal investigator in the Center for Injury Research and Policy at Nationwide Children's. "Homemade sunscreen products are risky because they are not regulated or tested for efficacy like commercial sunscreens. When you make it yourself, you don't know if it's safe or effective." With rising skin cancer rates, the use of effective broadband sunscreen is critical to protect the skin from UV radiation and reduce incidence of skin cancer.

Just because you make it yourself or something is labeled as natural or has fewer ingredients doesn't necessarily mean it's safer. The best sunscreen is one that can be regularly applied and stay on the skin without causing irritation or other side effects, which usually depend on the child and the activity. It often takes a trial of several sunscreens before finding the one that does the job best for your family, even if that means everyone uses a different type of product. Here are some tips on how to protect your child's skin:

Use an FDA-approved sunscreen. The American Academy of Dermatology recommends that everyone 6 months and older wear sunscreen. Make sure the sunscreen has these characteristics:

Broad spectrum, which protects against UVA and UVB sunrays.

Water-resistant (effective for up to 40 minutes in water) or very water resistant (effective for up to 80 minutes in water).

Sun Protection Factor (SPF) of 30 or higher.

Start early. Children whose parents regularly apply sunscreen at an early age are more likely to continue using sunscreen as teenagers and adults. Make a habit of using sunscreen to set kids up for a lifetime of safely enjoying outdoor activities.

Apply early and often. Sunscreen should be applied in a thick layer (about ¼ teaspoon for a toddler's face), 30 minutes before heading outside and reapplied every 2 hours. If children are swimming or sweating a lot, reapply sunscreen more often and use a water-resistant formula. For a week-long beach vacation, a school-aged child should go through an entire 8 oz. bottle of sunscreen, applying it twice a day.

Throw out expired or old sunscreen. Look for an expiration date on the bottle and throw out expired sunscreen. If there is no expiration date, throw out sunscreen three years after opening. If your sunscreen looks or feels really different - it's much thicker or thinner or the color has changed - throw it out.

ATS 2019, Dallas, TX -- Bacterial pneumonia appears to be linked to ongoing breathing problems in previously healthy infants who were hospitalized in a pediatric intensive care unit for acute respiratory failure, according to research presented at ATS 2019. The researchers found that infants with bacterial pneumonia when they left the hospital were more likely to have lung problems that required supplemental oxygen, bronchodilators or steroids.

New clinical research supported by the National Institutes of Health shows that increasing the intensity of treatment for alcohol use disorder (AUD) over time improves alcohol-related outcomes among people with HIV. This stepped approach to AUD treatment also improves HIV-related disease measures in this patient population. A report of the new study, led by researchers at Yale University, is now online in The Lancet HIV.

"These research findings demonstrate the potential of integrated treatment for AUD and HIV in improving health outcomes," said George F. Koob, Ph.D., director of the NIH's National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), which provided primary funding for the new research, with additional funding provided by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA). "Moreover, it underscores the importance of integrating treatment for alcohol problems into mainstream health care."

In the United States, estimates of the prevalence of people with HIV who either drink heavily, or who have AUD, range from 8 percent to 42 percent. Alcohol misuse can increase risky behaviors that increase the likelihood of acquiring HIV or transmitting it to others. Alcohol misuse may also speed the progression of HIV in individuals with HIV infection and make it harder to follow medication regimens.

"Many people with HIV are unaware of, or not seeking treatment for, their alcohol use problems," said first author E. Jennifer Edelman, M.D., M.H.S., associate professor of medicine at Yale School of Medicine. "In addition, HIV clinicians often do not realize that there are effective medications and counseling that they can easily integrate into their practice for patients with alcohol use problems."

Noting that previous studies have found that integrating the treatment of opioid use disorder into HIV clinics improves both HIV and substance-related outcomes, the researchers wanted to evaluate whether such a model would similarly benefit people with HIV and AUD.

Treatment for AUD often occurs apart from an individual's HIV clinical care. The current study integrates the treatment for AUD with treatment for HIV.

Dr. Edelman and her colleagues conducted a randomized clinical trial in five Veterans Affairs-based HIV clinics with 128 people who had HIV infection and AUD. The researchers investigated integrated stepped alcohol treatment (ISAT) -- an approach that involved consecutive steps of increased AUD treatment intensity if lower intensity treatment did not produce desired results.

People in the ISAT group started their AUD treatment with an on-site addiction psychiatrist, focusing on the use of medications for AUD. If that step did not stop heavy drinking, the next step included the addition of a behavioral intervention conducted on-site to boost motivation to change drinking behavior and teach coping skills for managing high-risk situations. Researchers defined heavy drinking as five drinks or more per day for men and four drinks or more per day for women, on one or more days during the previous 14 days. Patients who continued to engage in heavy drinking were advanced to the final step of referral to specialty addiction treatment -- such as intensive outpatient treatment or residential treatment depending on locally available resources. Patients in the control group received treatment as usual - which included alcohol screening, brief intervention, and referral to specialty addiction treatment at the VA at the discretion of their HIV clinician.

At the end of the six-month study, while both groups reported reduced alcohol intake, the researchers found no differences in drinks per week or HIV outcomes between the ISAT and control groups. Both groups then continued AUD treatment under treatment as usual (control) conditions. At the 12-month follow up, individuals who had initially received ISAT were found to have fared better than individuals who only received treatment as usual. People in the ISAT group, for example, reported having fewer drinks per drinking day than people in the control group and a greater percentage of days abstinent. The ISAT group also had a higher percentage of people who reported no heavy drinking days.

"Importantly, we also observed that participants randomized to stepped AUD treatment were more likely to achieve an undetectable HIV viral load," said Dr. Edelman. "We believe that with decreased alcohol consumption, participants in the ISAT group were more likely to take their HIV medications consistently, translating into improved HIV viral control."

In an invited commentary on the new research in The Lancet HIV, co-authors Lorenzo Leggio, M.D., Ph.D., Senior Investigator in the NIH Intramural Research Program at NIAAA and NIDA, and Roberta Agabio, M.D., a psychiatrist at the University of Cagliari in Italy welcomed the new findings as important for the HIV field and beyond.

"Stepped care approaches have been found to be effective for treating a variety of chronic diseases," said Dr. Leggio.

"These findings are a first indication of their potential value for treating AUD in the context of HIV treatment. The results warrant further investigation on how to optimize its use among people with HIV, and to explore its integration in other medical care settings. Indeed, the study is a compelling example of the need for trained clinicians across the spectrum of health care to recognize and treat AUD as a medical disorder amenable to a variety of treatment approaches."

New Haven, Conn. -- People with HIV who drink too much were more likely to reduce drinking after undergoing an approach to care known as integrated stepped alcohol treatment, according to a Yale-led study.

The finding supports greater use of this treatment model in HIV clinics to improve outcomes for patients with both HIV and drinking problems, the researchers said.

The study was published in The Lancet HIV.

Stepped care is used to treat some patients with chronic diseases such as hypertension and depression. It entails the use of different treatments that are "stepped up," or increased in intensity over time, in response to patients' needs. Prior to this new study, little research had been done to evaluate the impact of stepped care for patients struggling with alcohol use disorder, and none had been conducted in HIV treatment settings, the researchers said.

The research team recruited 128 individuals from one of five Veterans Affairs-based HIV clinics. They randomized the patients into one of two groups -- those given integrated stepped alcohol treatment and an equal number receiving treatment as usual.

The stepped-care patients were offered evidence-based treatments, including medication, motivational therapy, and specialty care at either an outpatient or residential treatment facility. By comparison, the treatment-as-usual patients were referred to specialty addiction treatment at the VA at the discretion of their HIV clinician.

At the end of the study period, the researchers found that patients who received integrated stepped care fared better overall. After 52 weeks, stepped-care patients had fewer heavy drinking days, drank less per drinking day, and had more days of abstinence, the researchers noted.

"We saw overall improvements in drinking," said Jennifer Edelman, M.D., lead author and associate professor in internal medicine. "We also found improved HIV outcomes at the 52-week mark."

The improvements in patients' HIV status were presumably associated with the reduced alcohol use, Edelman noted. "Over time, the patients receiving integrated stepped care showed decreases in alcohol use and a higher rate of undetectable HIV viral load, likely related to improved HIV medication adherence," she said.

The study results support the expanded use of integrated stepped care for alcohol misuse in settings where patients are already being treated for HIV, the researchers said.

A revolutionary new study using only materials derived from humans has revealed that insulin-producing beta cells can change their function in diabetes - and that this change may be reversible.

Research led by the University of Exeter is the first to look at the cells using an entirely animal-free model, instead using a completely human cell system in laboratories for the first time. The team found that the RNA messaging system which tells proteins how to behave in cells is different in diabetes. The changes lead to some of the beta cells no longer producing insulin which regulates blood sugar, and instead producing somatostatin, which can block the the secretion of other important hormones including insulin itself.

The research is published in Human Molecular Genetics and funded by Animal Free Research UK. The study may give new insights into how high blood sugar can alter the behaviour of important hormone-producing cells, and pave the way to new treatments.

Professor Lorna Harries, of the University of Exeter Medical School, who led the research, said: "These insights are really exciting. Only recently, Exeter researchers discovered that people with type 1 diabetes still retain some insulin-producing cells, but the environment produced by diabetes can be toxic for these cells that remain. Our work could lead to new changes to protect these cells, which could help people maintain some ability to make their own insulin. The method we used of creating an all-human cell system for the first time is significant - I don't think we'd have seen these changes in mouse cells."

Carla Owen, Chief Executive of Animal Free Research UK which funded the research, said: "This is pioneering research at its best - we supported the Exeter team to create a novel method to investigate how diabetes affects humans, rather than animals. Their breakthrough findings would never have been discovered in animals, highlighting the importance of using a human-relevant approach to understanding human diseases. We're proud to be supporting the next phase to take this discovery forward and closer to treatments for people living with diabetes."

The team examined what happens to human beta cells when exposed to an environment that replicated type 2 diabetes.

Beta cell loss occurs in both type 1 and type 2 diabetes. Scientists have previously assumed this was because the microenvironment around the cells causes them to die.

However, the team found for the first time that a proportion of the cells are no longer beta cells that are making insulin. They had actually started to make a different hormone called somatostatin - characteristic of a delta cell.

The team than analysed post mortem pancreas tissue from people with either type 1 or type 2 diabetes. This revealed that they have more delta cells than they should have, suggesting that diabetes might be causing some of the beta cells to turn into delta cells in people as well as in cells in the laboratory.

Similar findings have been reported in animal models, but the changes are different. In mice, most of the changes are beta to alpha cells, not delta cells. Alpha cells make a different hormone called glucagon. This means that the consequences of changes in cell type might be different between mice and humans.

In the next step, the team investigated why the cells might change from beta cells to delta cells, by looking at gene regulation. They looked at differences in the genes that make the decision as to which type of RNA message is made which helps cells to deal with their environment. In samples from the pancreas of people with type 2 diabetes, they found that about a quarter of genes show disruption to the expected pattern of messages made compared with samples from people with no diabetes. This indicates that the differences in the regulators translate to differences in messages made. The type of RNA message made controls every aspect of cell life or behaviour, and the authors speculate this could be why the treated cells behave differently.

Professor Harries said: "The really exciting finding is that in the laboratory at least, we have been able to reverse the changes - turn the delta cells back to beta cells - if we restore the environment to normal, or if we treat the cells with chemicals that restore the regulator genes and the patterns of RNA messages made to normal. That's very promising when we consider the potential for new therapeutics."