Earth

Capturing and reproducing realistic, real-world objects for any virtual environment is complex and time-consuming. Imagine using a conventional camera with a built-in flash--from any mobile device or off-the-shelf digital camera--to simplify this task. A global team of computer scientists have developed a novel method that replicates physical objects for the virtual and augmented reality space just using a point-and-shoot camera with a flash, without the need for additional, and oftentimes expensive, supporting hardware.

"To faithfully reproduce a real-world object in the VR/AR environment, we need to replicate the 3D geometry and appearance of the object," says Min H. Kim, associate professor of computer science at KAIST in South Korea and lead author of the research. "Traditionally, this has been either done manually by 3D artists, which is a labor-intensive task, or by using specialized, expensive hardware. Our method is straightforward, cheaper and efficient, and reproduces realistic 3D objects by just taking photos from a single camera with a built-in flash."

Kim and his collaborators, Diego Gutierrez, professor of computer science at Universidad de Zaragoza in Spain, and KAIST PhD students Giljoo Nam and Joo Ho Lee, will present this new work at SIGGRAPH Asia 2018 in Tokyo 4 December to 7 December. The annual conference features the most respected technical and creative members in the field of computer graphics and interactive techniques, and showcases leading edge research in science, art, gaming and animation, among other sectors.

Existing approaches for the acquisition of physical objects require specialized hardware setups to achieve geometry and appearance modeling of the desired objects. Those setups might include a 3D laser scanner or multiple cameras, or a lighting dome with more than a hundred light sources. In contrast, this new technique only needs a single camera, to produce high-quality outputs.

"Many traditional methods using a single camera can capture only the 3D geometry of objects, but not the complex reflectance of real-world objects, given by the SVBRDF," notes Kim. SVBRDF, which stands for spatially-varying bidirectional reflectance distribution functions, is key in obtaining an object's real-world shape and appearance. "Using only 3D geometry cannot reproduce the realistic appearance of the object in the AR/VR environment. Our technique can capture high-quality 3D geometry as well as its material appearance so that the objects can be realistically rendered in any virtual environment."

The group demonstrated their framework using a digital camera, the Nikon D7000 and the built-in camera of an Android mobile phone, in a series of examples in their paper, "Practical SVBRDF Acquisition of 3D Objects with Unstructured Flash Photography." The novel algorithm, which does not require any input geometry of the target object, successfully captured the geometry and appearance of 3D objects with basic, flash photography and reproduced consistent results. Examples that were showcased in the work included diverse set of objects that spanned a wide range of geometries and materials, including metal, wood, plastic, ceramic, resin and paper, and comprised of complex shapes like a finely detailed mini-statute of Nefertiti.

In future work, the researchers hope to further simplify the capture process or extending the method to include dynamic geometry or larger scenes, for instance.

WASHINGTON-- Blue whales around the world are singing a little flat, and scientists may now have more clues as to the reason why.

A new study finds there's a seasonal variation in the whales' pitch correlated with breaking sea ice in the southern Indian Ocean. The new research also extends the mysterious long-term falling pitch to related baleen whales and rules out noise pollution as the cause of the global long-term trend, according to the study's authors.

Blue and fin whales are among the loudest animals in the oceans as well as the largest. Only males sing, humming about as loud as large ships. The whales' loud songs can travel more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) underwater, allowing the whales to communicate across vast oceans.

Blue whales have been dropping pitch incrementally over several decades, but the cause has remained a mystery. Now, the new study in AGU's Journal of Geophysical Research: Oceans finds the same mysterious long-term trend of falling pitch in fin whales and Madagascan pygmy blue whales. Pitch, or the perception of how high or low a note sounds, is a result of the frequency of the sound wave, usually measured in hertz.

The authors of the new study use new data from the southern Indian Ocean to rule out noise pollution as the cause of the pitch change. Instead, the new study suggests the pitch drop is an anatomical consequence of singing less loudly. The whales' calls could be quieter due to growing numbers of whales or changes in the ocean due to climate change, according to the study's authors.

"We think it is something non-voluntary from the whale. Decrease the call intensity and it will decrease the call frequency, just because of the sound emission mechanism," said Emmanuelle Leroy, lead author of the new study and a research fellow at the University of New South Wales in Australia.

The new research also uncovers a seasonal counterpoint in the calls of Antarctic blue whales, potentially related to the noise of melting sea ice. The new study finds blue whale calls in the southern Indian Ocean increase in pitch during the summer. The pitch could be increasing as whales sing louder to be heard over breaking sea ice, according to the study's authors.

"Our hypothesis is that the call frequency change is again linked to call intensity and that the whale will adapt the call intensity to the variation of noise level," Leroy said. "The noise is related to the increasing number of free icebergs in summer. When the ice sometimes cracks, like when you put ice in your drink, it makes noise. This noise is really strong and will propagate over really long distances, so we can hear this noise at our northernmost site, up to 26 degrees south."

Analyzing whale songs

The new study analyzed more than 1 million songs from three species of large baleen whale: fin, Antarctic blue and three acoustically-distinct populations of pygmy blue whales. Six stationary underwater microphones recorded the calls over six years, from 2010 to 2015, in the southern Indian Ocean, an area spanning 9 million square kilometers (3.5 million square miles).

The stereotypical song of the Antarctic blue whale spans about 15 to 30 hertz, at the very bottom edge of human hearing, which ranges from about 20-20,000 hertz. Blue whale songs are in the range of the lowest, longest pipes of large cathedral organs. For consistency, the study measured the pitch of selected elements of each species' song, which had fallen to about 25.6 hertz for the Antarctic blue and 96 hertz for the fin whale by the end of 2015.

In 2002, the pitch of the selected element of the blue whales' call was closer to 27.5 hertz, a difference from the 2015 values equivalent to about a whole tone or major second interval in Western music tradition.

The new study found Antarctic blue whale calls are falling 0.14 hertz per year. Though fin whales, pygmy blue whales and Antarctic blue whale sing very different songs, the new study observed similar trends in call pitch, falling about 0.12 to 0.54 hertz per year, depending on the species.

The new research also found whale calls rise in pitch by 0.2 - 0.3 hertz from October through February.

Low pitches carry farther underwater, but the pitch change is likely too small to make a difference in the way the whale calls travel over long distances in the ocean and too subtle for the whales to detect any changes, according to the study's authors

Changing soundscape

Unlike most of the world's oceans, subject to an increasing mechanical cacophony, the southern Indian Ocean has grown quieter in recent years and its shipping traffic is limited.

Because the long-term trends in pitch drop are steady around the global range of the whales, the data from the Indian Ocean indicates the ongoing drop cannot be explained as a response to human-generated noise. Instead, the authors of the new study suggest the drop could be a byproduct of lower volume if the rebounding whale population doesn't need to sing as loudly to reach other whales.

Recent population assessments estimate there are 10,000 to 25,000 blue whales globally, up from a few thousand at the end of commercial whaling in the 1970s, but still fewer than 10 percent of their numbers before the 20th century.

"Because the whaling stopped, the whale population is increasing. They can decrease their call intensity to keep in touch, because there are more whales. These calls are long distance communication," Leroy said.

Alternatively, Leroy said, the whales may not need to be so loud because sound travels farther in ocean water made increasingly acidic by climate change. The speed and distance sound travels are affected by the temperature, pressure and chemistry of the ocean.

Naturally-occurring seasonal ocean noise could explain the seasonal variation in whale call pitch observed by the researchers in the southern Indian Ocean, however.

They observe the seasonal variation in pitch during the months of the austral summer when sea ice breaks up. Iceberg crackles are loud. They boom for thousands of kilometers in a frequency range overlapping the pitch of the Antarctic blue whales' calls. To be heard over the noise the whales may need to get a little louder, the study suggests. Singing louder makes the pitch go up.

"What's surprising is the long-term and short-term changes could have the same reason, a change in call intensity, but the change responds to two different causes," Leroy said.

The UK Government needs to urgently implement new carers' employment rights and work with employers to better support carers in the workplace, a new report from the Work Foundation states today.

The research, based on an evidence review and a workshop attended by carers, charities and government officials, highlights the profound impact caring responsibilities have on a person's employment with those providing 50 hours or more care per week being 36% less likely to be employed compared to non-carers. Findings suggest women are disproportionately affected, with 61% of female carers being employed in comparison to 68% of men. Those aged 45-54 are twice as likely as any other group to have reduced their working hours due to caring responsibilities.

This causes financial strain - reduced earnings, savings and pension contributions - meaning many suffer from relatively high poverty rates and end up in debt. Researchers are therefore calling for Government to deliver on its promise to implement new rights such as statutory leave, which was recommended in the 2017 Independent Review of the State Pension Age - and pledged by the Conservative party in their 2017 manifesto.

The number of 'informal' or unpaid carers - people who look after a friend or relative who need help due to age, disability or illness - is growing rapidly in the UK, and is estimated to reach 9 million by 2037. This follows a sharp increase between 2001 and 2011, when the number of informal carers rose from 5.8million to 6.5million - an increase that outpaced the growth of the overall population.

Dr James Chandler, from the Work Foundation, said: "The current carer's allowance is inadequate and means the financial barriers faced by carers are incredibly difficult to overcome. Not only do they face family and financial worries, their time away from work can have a real impact on their confidence, skills and knowledge. We found that many carers are prone to poor mental and physical health, with many experiencing social isolation due to the pressures on their time.

"With an ageing population and reduced investment in social care, unpaid carers provide the majority of care in the UK - not doctors, nurses or care workers - and the numbers of carers are only expected to grow. Our health system is reliant on them and they do an incredible job, but not just for their family and friends, they also make a substantial contribution to the economy - estimated by Carers UK to be £132billion a year. With Brexit looming, a reliance on migrant labour in the health and care industry and an ageing workforce, there is a risk of further pressure on employees to leave work to care for family and friends.

"The Government and employers need to act fast. For years, unpaid carers have picked up the slack, but there's a real risk that this won't continue unless changes are made urgently."

Emily Holzhausen, Director of Policy and Public Affairs at Carers UK, said: "We know that over 2 million people have given up work at some point to fulfil their caring responsibilities for someone who is older, disabled or seriously ill, when they could be enjoying the benefits of employment .

"This has costs not only for the individual but for employers who face higher recruitment costs, as well as the exchequer, with £1.7 billion in social security benefits paid to people who have left their jobs because of unpaid caring. Another £1.2 billion in taxes on top of that is forgone on lost earnings.

"Through our employer forum, Employers for Carers, we work with employers to develop and share carer friendly policy and practice. Carers UK has long called for stronger employment rights for carers and want the Government to commit to introducing statutory paid carers' leave of at least five days and the right to request flexible working from day one.

"As well as support at work, carers also need access to high quality, affordable care services so the forthcoming Green Paper must deliver a sustainable funding solution for social care. Not only does this make good business sense - helping employers to attract and retain a diverse and skilled workforce - it also improves carers' health and well-being and strengthens families, communities and our economy."

The Work Foundation report offers a series of recommendations to policymakers, including:

Include specific provisions for carers in the Right to Request Flexible Working. People of working age with caring responsibilities should, on starting a new job, be able to request flexible working in order to fit their caring responsibilities around their work

Introduce dedicated carers' employment rights, such as statutory leave, as recommended in the 2017 Independent Review of the State Pension Age21 and pledged by the Conservatives in their 2017 manifesto

Work closely with businesses to promote the evidence-based value of retaining carers in the workplace. The Government should collect and share examples of good practice, and provide guidance to employers

The Department for Work & Pensions (DWP) could work more closely with social care departments in local authorities as part of the carers' assessment process so as to identify local job opportunities

Issue guidance to both employers and prospective employees on how caring could be discussed during interview stage

Develop an accreditation scheme or 'charter', similar to the 'Disability Confident' scheme already in place

Establish a 'carers' committee' with the Department of Health and Social Care, made up of charities, employers and unions, to advise the Government on ways to support working carers, while recognising the needs of businesses

Work with charities, such as Carers UK, Mind, the Carers Trust and Age UK, on policy guidance and best practice

Launch a public awareness campaign to increase national understanding of the importance of working carers

Establish regional networks for small and medium-sized organisations, enabling them to share best practice in supporting working carers.

Researchers also recommend that employers:

Introduce 'Carer Champions' to raise awareness of working carers and destigmatise caring. It would reassure other working carers that they're not alone and encourage them to share experiences

Seek to create a workplace culture where carers are supported with 'carer friendly' policies

Set up carers' peer groups or support forums, where carers can share experiences and advice. Businesses could signpost staff to external support forums

Share examples of good practice with other organisations

Provide an online resource, through company employee benefit schemes or HR services, to help carers source practical advice and expert support on topics including care, legal and financial information

Offer online or telephone counselling, through services like Employee Assistance Programmes

Train line managers on how to identify and support carers, including bespoke approaches. Educate them that working carer roles do not mean lack of commitment at work

Commit to flexible and remote working

Explore how technology could help working carers and the workforce more generally

Run workplace awareness campaigns

Be open to employee requests to take on fewer hours or less senior roles.

USC researchers have developed a polio vaccine that doesn't require refrigeration, meaning it could someday be used all over the world to deliver the final blow to this longtime foe.

The injectable vaccine, which was freeze-dried into a powder, kept at room temperature for four weeks and then rehydrated, offered full protection against the polio virus when tested in mice.

"Stabilization is not rocket science, so most academics don't pay much attention to this field," said the study's first author, Woo-Jin Shin, a fellow in the lab of Jae Jung, chair of the Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology at the Keck School of Medicine of USC. "However, no matter how wonderful a drug or vaccine is, if it isn't stable enough to be transported, it doesn't do anyone much good."

The study appears in the Nov. 27 issue of the journal mBio.

Polio is on the brink of complete eradication, with just 22 reported cases worldwide in 2017. The highly infectious disease, which causes lifelong paralysis and disability mostly in young children, is a fading memory in many places. Yet in countries where vaccination rates are spotty, young children are at risk.

The biggest hitch to complete eradication has been creating a temperature-stable vaccine for use in developing countries where refrigeration may be unavailable. Recent polio cases have been reported in Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Syria and Pakistan.

In the United States, the polio epidemic reached its height in the 1950s. In 1957, mass immunization brought the annual number of cases down from 58,000 to 5,600. Since 1979, no cases of polio have originated in the United States.

By removing moisture through freeze-drying, researchers have created temperature-stable vaccines for measles, typhoid and meningococcal disease. But scientists haven't been able to make a polio vaccine that retains potency through freeze-drying and rehydration.

Shin and his colleagues used two lab techniques -- liquid chromatography and high-throughput screening -- that allowed them to analyze a high volume of ingredients and formulations until they found one that worked.

Jung's hope is that a foundation or company will take over the project to pay for human studies and bring the injectable vaccine onto the market.

In addition to Shin, the study's authors are Daiki Hara and Jae Jung of the Keck School of Medicine, and Francisca Gbormittah, Hana Chang and Byeong S. Chang of Integrity Bio Inc. Integrity Bio is a company that specializes in biologics, or medicines made from substances found in living things.

Back story: During dinner three years ago, Jung and his college buddy Chang, CEO of Integrity Bio, decided to bring together Jung's virology expertise with Chang's expertise in stabilization. Chang paid Shin's salary, and Jung provided supplies.

"He and I decided to do this as we are getting old and we need to directly contribute to human health and life," Jung said. "Creative ideas always start with food and drinks."

Powerful storms that cause extreme weather conditions such as flooding across Europe and North America, with the potential to wreak social and economic havoc, could increase threefold by the end of the 21st century due to climate change.

Pioneering new research, led by Dr Matt Hawcroft from the University of Exeter, has shown new and detailed information on projections of the frequency of extratropical cyclones.

The research shows that unless there is a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, there will be a stark increase in their frequency across large swathes of the Northern Hemisphere.

Crucially, the impact on local communities could be severe, with more intense and extreme storms leading to greater large-scale flooding events - similar to those experienced across Somerset in 2013/14, Cumbria in 2015 and Gloucestershire in 2007.

The research is published in the journal Environmental Research Letters on Tuesday, November 27 2018.

Dr Hawcroft, a Research Fellow in Exeter's Mathematics department said: "It is expected that precipitation extremes will increase in intensity and frequency in a warmer climate. In this work, we have attributed those changes to the events which bring much of our large-scale rainfall and flooding. This additional information, on the dynamical nature of changes, is important since it provides clear information on the nature and impact of the changes in precipitation that can be used, for example, in policymaking and adaptation planning."

Extratropical cyclones, which are steered by the jet stream, play a key role in day-to-day weather variability across large parts of North America and Europe. They are characterised by areas of low atmospheric pressure in the storm's centre, with air drawn cyclonically (anti-clockwise) around the low pressure.

This leads to warm air being drawn from the south and cold air from the north. At the interface of cold and warm air, fronts form which can induce heavy rainfall. The most extreme storms are responsible for much large-scale flooding in North America and Europe.

A key piece of information for policymakers and governments looking to mitigate against such extreme weather conditions is the ability to project where and how often these storms may occur in the future. However, current climate model projections are affected by huge uncertainties.

In this new study, the researchers analysed the behaviour of present day and future storms using state-of-the-art modelling and storm tracking techniques. By approaching the analysis in a 'storm centred' framework, the team were able to evaluate changes in the frequency and intensity of these extratropical cyclones with more consistency than previous studies have suggested.

Importantly, the research team were able to show that models project there would be a threefold increase in the number of the most intensely precipitating extratropical cyclones in both Europe and North America by the end of the century.

Dr Hawcroft added: "Due to the complexity of the circulation response to warming, there is much uncertainty in regional patterns of climate change. Given this uncertainty, it is important to be able to distil clear information where that is available. Here we show that in spite of these complexities, we are still able to provide large and consistent projections of change in these highly impactful events."

CHICAGO - Young football players may experience a disruption in brain development after a single season of the sport, according to a new study presented today at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America (RSNA).

"This research demonstrates that playing a season of contact sports may affect normal gray matter pruning in high school and youth football players," said Gowtham Krishnan Murugesan, M.S., research assistant in the Department of Radiology at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.

The brain is highly complex with an abundance of neural connections. New connections are formed, and unused connections fall away in a process called pruning. Much like cutting back dead or unnecessary branches keeps a tree healthy and helps it grow, brain pruning is necessary to healthy brain development.

"Pruning is an essential part of brain development," Murugesan said. "By getting rid of the synapses that are no longer used, the brain becomes more efficient with aging."

The researchers set out to determine whether exposure to repetitive head impacts affects normal pruning of the brain in young football players.

For the study, 60 youth and high school football players without history of developmental, neurological or psychiatric abnormalities and no history of concussion prior to or during the season were outfitted with the Head Impact Telemetry System (HITS). HITS helmets are lined with accelerometers or sensors that measure the magnitude, location and direction of impacts to the head. Impact data from the helmets were used to calculate a risk of concussion exposure for each player.

Players were then split into two groups: high-impact players (24) and low-impact players (36), based on each player's risk of cumulative head impact exposure as determined by HITS.

Pre- and post-season resting state functional (fMRI) scans were performed on all players, and changes in power within five components the default mode network (DMN) were analyzed.

The DMN is a network of regions deep in the gray matter areas of the brain. It includes structures that activate when a person is awake and engaging in introspection or processing emotions, which are activities that are important for brain health.

The post-season results showed significant increases in power and gray matter volume in the frontal DMN in the high-impact group.

"Disruption in normal pruning has been shown to be related to weaker connections between different parts of the brain," Murugesan said. "Our study has found a significant decrease in gray matter pruning in the frontal default mode network, which is involved in higher cognitive functions, such as the planning and controlling of social behaviors."

Studies of biomechanical data from this same group of participants were conducted at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C. Their findings showed that most head impacts occurred during practice.

"By replacing high-impact practice drills with low- or no-impact drills, the overall head-impact exposure for players can be reduced," Murugesan said.

The researchers also suggested that minor modifications to the game could also be implemented to reduce full-speed contact.

"The new National Football League kickoff rule eliminating the running start is an example," Murugesan said.

The researchers hope to conduct further study to fully understand the long-term changes in resting state brain networks and their association with neuropsychological task performance.

A study of 89 fishing communities in East Africa has found that good neighbors who agree with common proposals to improve shared fisheries management are uncommon, illustrating that the "tragedy of the commons" dilemma is alive for many fisheries facing sustainable use challenges.

Fortunately, the authors of the newly published paper also discovered that neighborliness appears to depend on predictable factors such as activities being proposed, the perceptions of the costs and benefits, and the national historical context of development and conflicts. And, the researchers say, some proposals for improving fishing can probably be handled by friendly get-togethers while others will require larger scales of governance and less-friendly enforcement. The implication is that achieving global fisheries sustainability will need some combination of informal agreements and consequential enforcement for those failing to comply.

The study titled "Demographic variability and scales of agreement and disagreement over resource management restrictions" appears online in the journal Ecology and Society. Authors Dr. Tim McClanahan and C.A. Abunge from the Wildlife Conservation Society based the study on interviews with nearly 2000 marine fishers in Kenya, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Madagascar.

This study is a first-of-its kind to look at the perceptions of fisheries restrictions between neighboring communities in four African countries that share fishing grounds. The study was stimulated by the ever-increasing responsibilities put on communities to manage their fisheries resources in the context of historical failures by national governments.

From previous work, researchers knew the perceptions of restriction benefits within fishing communities could be strong for some types of low-cost restrictions such as minimum sizes at capture and allowable fishing gears. The question being addressed in this study was whether these same perceptions would match when looking at a community's nearest neighbors and for larger-scale management recommendations such as restrictions of species capture and protected areas.

The researchers found that members from different communities shared more positive outlooks on lax restrictions but still less agreement than among their own community members. Among stricter and large-scale restrictions, agreements between neighbors were uncommon. The levels of agreement on restrictions between different communities depended on numbers of people, economic development, communication capacities and past histories of resource management conflicts--all of which led to less agreement among neighbors. This finding suggests there are limits on how much communities can manage fisheries through agreed-on behaviors - a critical element in the smooth functioning of societies.

The researchers suggest that more agreements can be reached by first finding common ground between communities and their preferences. To do this, polling people and finding their preferences can avoid unworkable plans or outcomes that only benefit a few.

"Our investigations of these communities tells us that perceptions of fairness and justice were at the core of disagreements," said McClanahan, Senior Conservation Scientist for WCS and a co-author of the study. "Transparent justice procedures should be promoted to improve compliance with proposed fisheries restrictions."

The authors also noted that the scales of human agreement and governance are smaller than the scales at which resources for many marine animals depend. A mismatch between scales of human responsibility and the resource needs of animals creates a great challenge for promoting fisheries sustainability in coral reefs and global fisheries.

Stressful events in the evening release less of the body's stress hormones than those that happen in the morning, suggesting possible vulnerability to stress in the evening.

The body's central system reacts less strongly to acute psychological stress in the evening than it does in the morning, according to research conducted at Japan's Hokkaido University.

In the study published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology Reports, medical physiologist Yujiro Yamanaka and his colleagues recruited 27 young, healthy volunteers with normal work hours and sleep habits to find out if the "hypothalamic -pituitary-adrenal" (HPA) axis responds differently to acute psychological stress according to the time of day.

The HPA axis connects the central nervous and endocrine systems of the body. Cortisol, the primary stress hormone in humans, is released for several hours when the HPA axis is activated by a stressful event. This helps provide the body with energy in the face of a perceived need for fight or flight. Cortisol levels are also regulated by a master circadian clock in the brain, and are normally high in the morning and low in the evening.

The team first measured the diurnal rhythm of salivary cortisol levels from the volunteers to establish a baseline. The volunteers were then divided into two groups: one that was exposed to a stress test in the morning, two hours after their normal waking time, and another that was exposed to a stress test in the evening, ten hours after their normal waking time.

The test lasted for a period of 15 minutes and involved preparing and giving a presentation in front of three trained interviewers and a camera, and conducting a mental arithmetic. Saliva samples were taken half an hour before starting the test, immediately after, and at ten-minute intervals for another half hour.

The researchers found that salivary cortisol levels increased significantly in the volunteers that took the stress test in the morning while no such response was observed in those that took the test in the evening. The volunteers' heart rates on the other hand, an indicator of the sympathetic nervous system which immediately responds to stress, did not differ according to when the test was taken.

Yujiro Yamanaka commented "The body can respond to the morning stress event by activating the HPA axis and sympathetic nervous system, but it needs to respond to evening stress event by activating the sympathetic nervous system only. Our study suggests a possible vulnerability to stress in the evening. However, it is important to take into account each individual's unique biological clock and the time of day when assessing the response to stressors and preventing them."

Researchers in Israel have discovered that breast tumors can boost their growth by recruiting stromal cells originally formed in the bone marrow. The study, which will be published November 23 in the Journal of Experimental Medicine, reveals that the recruitment of bone marrow-derived fibroblasts lowers the odds of surviving breast cancer, but suggests that targeting these cells could be an effective way of treating the disease.

Within solid tumors, cancer cells are surrounded by other cell types that, though not cancerous themselves, boost tumor growth and metastasis. Breast tumors, for example, contain large numbers of fibroblast cells that promote cancer cell proliferation, inflammation, and the formation of new blood vessels to supply the growing tumor with nutrients and oxygen. Many of these cancer-associated fibroblasts are derived from the neighboring breast tissue, but others seem to come from elsewhere in the body.

Neta Erez and colleagues at the Sackler School of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, discovered that, in mice with breast cancer, a significant number of cancer-associated fibroblasts are derived from bone marrow cells called mesenchymal stromal cells (MSCs). The researchers found that breast tumors can recruit MSCs from the bone marrow and cause them to develop into fibroblasts.

These bone marrow-derived fibroblasts are different from other cancer-associated fibroblasts. They lack, for example, a key cell signaling protein called PDGFRα. But bone marrow-derived fibroblasts are particularly effective at stimulating the formation of new blood vessels because they produce large amounts of a protein called clusterin. Tumors containing bone marrow-derived fibroblasts were therefore more vascularized and grew faster than tumors that only contained breast-derived fibroblasts.

Erez and colleagues found that human breast cancers also contain fibroblasts lacking PDGFRα, suggesting that human tumors may also recruit bone marrow-derived cells. Moreover, tumors containing lower levels of PDGFRα tended to be more deadly, suggesting that the recruitment of bone marrow-derived fibroblasts is a crucial step in breast cancer progression.

"Our study shows that the recruitment of bone marrow-derived fibroblasts is important for promoting tumor growth, likely by enhancing blood vessel formation," Erez says. "Understanding the function of these cancer-associated fibroblasts could form the basis of developing novel therapeutic manipulations that co-target bone marrow-derived fibroblasts as well as the cancer cells themselves."

An international study lead by University of Manchester scientists has discovered the identity of genes that predispose people to chronic kidney disease.

The discovery is a major advance in understanding of the significantly under-diagnosed disorder which, if left undetected, can lead to failing kidneys that need dialysis or kidney transplantation.

The discovery of 35 kidney genes is an important step forward to the future development of new diagnostic tests and treatments for the disease that affects around one in ten adults.

The team, based in Poland, Australia and the UK publish the Kidney Research UK funded study in Nature Communications today.

Lead researcher Professor Maciej Tomaszewski from The University of Manchester said: "Chronic kidney disease is known for its strong genetic component.

"Our limited knowledge of its exact genetic mechanisms partly explains why progress in the development of new diagnostic tests and treatments of chronic kidney disease has been so slow.

"The findings were made possible by using a state-of-the art technology known as "next-generation RNA sequencing" applied to one of the largest ever collections of human kidneys.

"We hope that some of the kidney genes we discovered may become attractive targets for the development of future diagnostics and treatment for patients with chronic kidney disease."

Co-author Professor Adrian Woolf from Manchester Children's Hospital and The Universality of Manchester said: "One of the genes - mucin-1- is especially interesting.

"It makes a sticky protein called mucin that coats urinary tubes inside the kidney. Mutations of this gene have already been found in rare families with inherited kidney failure"

Professor Fadi Charchar from Federation University Australia said: "We hope that early prediction by genetic testing even before the development of symptoms will in the future be the first line of defence against one of the world's top killers."

"Early detection followed by treatment using kidney-protective medication or avoidance of drugs which can damage the kidneys is the key to healthier kidneys later in life."

Director of research operations at Kidney Research UK, Elaine Davies said: "Nearly 2 million people in the UK have been diagnosed with moderate-severe CKD by their GP but it is estimated that a further one million people remain undiagnosed. We refer to CKD as a silent killer because it is common for it to have little or no symptoms until the consequences of the disease have taken hold.

"The findings of this research are hugely important as they bring us a step closer to being able to understand, diagnose earlier and prevent kidney disease."

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has today published a new briefing note highlighting the ethical issues that can arise when patients and doctors wish to use experimental treatments.

Several controversies over the use of experimental treatments have been reported in the media recently, including couples feeling duped over expensive fertility treatment 'add-ons'1, deaths following stem cell-engineered larynx transplants2, and parents wishing to access experimental treatments for their children abroad.3

Meanwhile, success stories such as the compassionate use of modified immune cells in babies with leukaemia at Great Ormond Street Hospital show the potential of experimental treatments to help patients who have otherwise run out of options.4

Using three types of experimental treatments as examples: advanced therapies (such as gene and stem cell therapies), surgery, and fertility treatment, the briefing note sets out the ways in which such treatments might be accessed, explains how these treatments are regulated, and summarises some of the ethical issues that patients, families and healthcare professionals need to be aware of.

The Council notes that the use of experimental treatments can raise ethical issues such as:

Difficulties in assessing how safe and effective the treatment will be - if there is an absence of research evidence, and little or no previous experience to draw on.

Challenges around informed decision-making and consent - especially when treatments are sought for a child or person who lacks capacity to consent.

The influence of online information - the availability of online information about experimental treatments can empower patients, but might fail to alert patients to the limits or risks of experimental treatments.

Ensuring healthcare professionals act responsibly and that any treatment offered to a patient are in their best interests and not driven by other incentives.

Unequal access - not everyone can afford experimental treatments privately or abroad, and availability can vary between countries, including within the UK.

Negative impacts on knowledge generation - information about the efficacy and side-effects of an experimental treatment might not be recorded and shared as it would otherwise be within a clinical trial.

Hugh Whittall, Director of the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, said: "Often, experimental medical treatments are considered as a last hope, when all other options have been exhausted. It is completely understandable that people in this position might be willing to try anything and everything they can, despite uncertainties about the efficacy or safety of the treatment, and the likelihood of there being significant costs involved. A key challenge is balancing the interests of patients with ensuring they are protected from harm, particularly if treatments are offered outside of UK regulation.

It is important that patients and their families have access to impartial and accurate information, and are made aware of uncertainties about possible outcomes when making a decision about trying an experimental treatment.

We will be raising these issues with Government and working with regulators, and we are following up this piece of work with a new project exploring how disagreements can develop about the care of critically ill children, and how those disagreements are being resolved.

Advanced therapies

Experimental stem cell and gene therapies are often aimed at conditions for which there is no existing cure, such as cancers, multiple sclerosis and muscular dystrophy. They offer the potential of a tailored and bespoke treatment and some have been offered in the NHS. Others, however, raise ethical concerns such as unscrupulous marketing practises by clinics, the influence on patient's expectations of overly optimistic media reports, and the influence of public campaigns over access to very early-stage therapies.

Surgery

There is a strong culture of innovation in surgery. In this area of medicine - more than others - there can be a lack of clarity about what constitutes a new intervention, as opposed to a modification of a routine surgical technique, and patients are sometimes unaware that a surgical procedure offered to them is not routine. There is a lack of systematic oversight of new surgical procedures in the NHS. Initiatives such as the IDEAL collaboration are seeking to improve outcome reporting in surgical innovation.

Fertility

In the private sector, patients are increasingly offered 'add-ons' to fertility treatment, with the aim of improving chances of a successful pregnancy. Despite costing between £50 and £8,000 extra, there is limited evidence to support the use of many add-ons, and a recent study found that some clinics in the UK are providing patients with misleading information about the supporting evidence.5

Using machine-learning and an integrated photonic chip, researchers from INRS (Canada) and the University of Sussex (UK) can now customize the properties of broadband light sources. Also called "supercontinuum", these sources are at the core of new imaging technologies and the approach proposed by the researchers will bring further insight into fundamental aspects of light-matter interactions and ultrafast nonlinear optics. The work is published in the journal Nature Communications on November 20, 2018.

In Professor Roberto Morandotti's laboratory at INRS, researchers were able to create and manipulate intense ultrashort pulse patterns, which are used to generate a broadband optical spectrum. In recent years, the development of laser sources featuring intense and ultrashort laser pulses - that led to the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2018 - along with ways to spatially confine and guide light propagation (optical fibre and waveguides) gave rise to optical architectures with immense power. With these new systems, an array of possibilities emerges, such as the generation of supercontinua, i.e extended light spectra generated through intense light-matter interactions.

Such powerful and complex optical systems, and their associated processes, currently form the building blocks of widespread applications spanning from laser science and metrology to advanced sensing and biomedical imaging techniques. To keep pushing the limits of these technologies, more tailoring capability of the light properties is needed. With this work, the international research team unveils a practical and scalable solution to this issue.

Dr Benjamin Wetzel (University of Sussex), principal investigator of this research led by Prof. Roberto Morandotti (INRS) and Prof. Marco Peccianti (University of Sussex), demonstrated that diverse patterns of femtosecond optical pulses can be prepared and judiciously manipulated. "We have taken advantage of the compactness, stability and sub-nanometer resolution offered by integrated photonic structures to generate reconfigurable bunches of ultrashort optical pulses," explains Dr Wetzel. "The exponential scaling of the parameter space obtained yields to over 1036 different configurations of achievable pulse patterns, more than the number of stars estimated in the universe," he concludes.

With such a large number of combinations to seed an optical system known to be highly sensitive to its initial conditions, the researchers have turned to a machine-learning technique in order to explore the outcome of light manipulation. In particular, they have shown that the control and customization of the output light is indeed efficient, when conjointly using their system and a suitable algorithm to explore the multitude of available light pulse patterns used to tailor complex physical dynamics.

These exciting results will impact fundamental as well as applied research in a number of fields, as a large part of the current optical systems rely on the same physical and nonlinear effects as the ones underlying supercontinuum generation. The work by the international research team is thus expected to seed the development of other smart optical systems via self-optimization techniques, including the control of optical frequency combs (Nobel 2005) for metrology applications, self-adjusting lasers, pulse processing and amplification (Nobel 2018) as well as the implementation of more fundamental approaches of machine-learning, such as photonic neural network systems.

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 20, 2018 -- Ever watch aquatic animals jump out of the water and wonder how they manage to do it in such a streamlined and graceful way? A group of researchers who specialize in water entry and exit in nature had the same question and are exploring the specific physical conditions required for animals to successfully leap out of water.

During the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics 71st Annual Meeting, which will take place Nov. 18-20 at the Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta, Georgia, Sunghwan Jung, an associate professor of biology and environmental engineering at Cornell University, and one of his students, Brian Chang, will present their work designing a robotic system inspired by jumping copepods (tiny crustaceans) and frogs to illuminate some of the fluid dynamics at play when aquatic animals jump.

"We collected data about aquatic animals of different sizes -- from about 1 millimeter to tens of meters -- jumping out of water, and were able to reveal how their maximum jumping heights are related to their body size," said Jung.

In nature, animals frequently move in and out of water for various purposes -- including escaping predators, catching prey, or communicating. "But since water is 1,000 times denser than air, entering or exiting water requires a lot of effort, so aquatic animals face mechanical challenges," Jung said.

As an object -- like a dolphin or a copepod -- jumps through water, mass is added to it -- a quantity referred to as "entrained water mass." This entrained water mass is incorporated and gets swept along in the flow off aquatic animals' bodies. The group discovered that entrained water mass is important because it limits the animals' maximum jumping height.

"We're trying to understand how biological systems are able to smartly figure out and overcome these challenges to maximize their performance, which might also shed light on engineering systems to enter or exit air-water interfaces," Jung said.

Most aquatic animals are streamlined, limiting entrained water mass's effect, so water slides easily off their bodies. "That's why they're such good jumpers," said Jung. "But when we made and tested a robotic system similar to jumping animals, it didn't jump as much as animals. Why? Our robot isn't as streamlined and carries a lot of water with it. Imagine getting out of a swimming pool with a wet coat -- you might not be able to walk due to the water weight."

The group's robot features a simple design akin to a door hinge with a rubber band. A rubber band is wrapped around a 3D-printed door hinge's outer perimeter, while a tiny wire that holds the door hinge allows it to flip back when fluid is pushed downward. "This robot shows the importance of entrained water while an object jumps out of the water," he said.

Next up, the group will modify and advance their robotic system so that it can jump out of the water at higher heights similar to those reached by animals like copepods or frogs. "This system might then be able to be used for surveillance near water basins," said Jung.

WASHINGTON -- A comprehensive analysis examining the relationship between vaping and smoking among youth and young adults finds that cigarette smoking dramatically decreased between 2013 and 2017 just as e-cigarette use became more popular.

The study, published in the journal Tobacco Control, looked at five different U.S. population-level surveys that covered the four year time frame -- the time during which vaping became increasingly popular.

"We found a strong and consistent inverse relationship between vaping and smoking across the different datasets for both youth and young adults," says the study's senior author, David Levy, PhD, professor of oncology at Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.

"This finding is important because it indicates the country experienced a major reduction in youth and young adult cigarette smoking when vaping became more popular," he says.

Other studies, including one released in 2018 by the National Academy of Sciences, did not reach such a robust finding because they relied on one survey that covered a shorter span of time, Levy says.

Data on youth and young adult cigarette use was obtained from five different, large scale national surveys: the Monitoring the Future (MTF) Survey, the National Youth Tobacco Survey, the Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the National Survey of Drug Use and Health, and the National Health Interview Survey. These surveys asked about vaping, some as early as 2011, and they indicate that vaping occurred at relatively low levels from 2011-2013, but at much higher levels by 2014.

"We see that 2014 was a tipping point year when vaping became popular, and cigarette use then declines much more rapidly than in previous years," Levy says.

For example, trend analysis using the Monitoring the Future survey for 12th graders indicates a long-term annual relative reduction in (any last 30 day) smoking prevalence of 4.6 percent with an additional 9.5 percent annual reduction during the 2014-2017 vaping period, yielding a total annual relative reduction in smoking prevalence of 14.1 percent during the vaping period. In addition, the same or greater relative reductions were observed for more established smoking, such as daily or half pack a day smoking.

"The data paints a consistent picture of accelerated reductions in youth and young adult smoking prevalence as vaping becomes more widespread," Levy says. "Vaping has had a positive effect on reducing cigarette smoking. On a population level, any effect that vaping may have had act as a gateway to cigarette smoking during the time frame examined appears to be small relative to the effects of vaping leading to less smoking," Levy says.

He points out that the survey used in this analysis were before the popularity of Juul, a different and popular type of vaping device. Juul uses "nicotine salts" that both have stronger nicotine content and are less harsh than vape from traditional e-cigarettes.

"We need to continue to study the use of e-cigarettes, including Juul, with the goal of reducing harmful cigarette smoking but also to prevent underage youth from using any nicotine delivery system, especially cigarettes," Levy says.

One day, MRI brain scans may help predict whether older people will develop dementia, new research suggests.

In a small study, MRI brain scans predicted with 89 percent accuracy who would go on to develop dementia within three years, according to research at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the University of California San Francisco.

The findings, presented Sunday, Nov. 25 at the Radiological Society of North America meeting in Chicago, suggest that doctors may one day be able to use widely available tests to tell people their risk of developing dementia before symptoms arise.

"Right now it's hard to say whether an older person with normal cognition or mild cognitive impairment is likely to develop dementia," said lead author Cyrus A. Raji, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of radiology at Washington University's Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology. "We showed that a single MRI scan can predict dementia on average 2.6 years before memory loss is clinically detectable, which could help doctors advise and care for their patients."

Alzheimer's disease is a progressive, irreversible brain disorder that destroys memory and thinking skills. The disease affects 5.5 million Americans, according to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Neurologists can get a ballpark estimate of a patient's risk of Alzheimer's dementia using the Mini-Mental State Examination questionnaire, or by testing for the high-risk form of the gene ApoE, which increases a person's risk of Alzheimer's by up to 12-fold. Both tests were about 70 to 80 percent accurate in this study. Other assessments, such as PET scans for plaques of Alzheimer's proteins in the brain, are good at detecting early signs of Alzheimer's disease, but available to few patients. PET scans cost thousands of dollars and require radioactive materials not found in a typical hospital.

MRI brain scans are widely available and give doctors a glimpse into what's going on inside a person's brain. Raji and colleagues at the School of Medicine including Tammie Benzinger, MD, PhD, a professor of radiology, Parinaz Massoumzadeh, PhD, and Adedamola Adedokun, as well as radiologist Pratik Mukherjee, MD, PhD, of the University of California San Francisco, analyzed MRI scans for physical signs of impending cognitive decline.

They used a technique called diffusion tensor imaging to assess the health of the brain's white matter, which encompasses the cables that enable different parts of the brain to talk to one another.

"Diffusion tensor imaging is a way of measuring the movement of water molecules along white matter tracts," Raji said. "If water molecules are not moving normally it suggests underlying damage to white tracts that can underlie problems with cognition."

Using information from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative - a multisite collaboration that pools data, funding and expertise to improve clinical trials for Alzheimer's disease - Raji and colleagues identified 10 people whose cognitive skills declined over a two-year period and matched them by age and sex with 10 people whose thinking skills held steady. The average age of people in both groups was 73. Then, the researchers analyzed diffusion tensor MRI scans taken just before the two-year period for all 20 people.

The researchers found that people who went on to experience cognitive decline had significantly more signs of damage to their white matter. The researchers repeated their analysis in a separate sample of 61 people, using a more refined measure of white matter integrity. With this new analysis, they were able to predict cognitive decline with 89 percent accuracy when looking at the whole brain. When the researchers focused on specific parts of the brain most likely to show damage, the accuracy rose to 95 percent.

"We could tell that the individuals who went on to develop dementia have these differences on diffusion MRI, compared with scans of cognitively normal people whose memory and thinking skills remained intact," Raji said. "What we need now, before we can bring it into the clinic, is to get more control subjects and develop computerized tools that can more reliably compare individual patients' scans to a baseline normal standard. With that, doctors might soon be able to tell people whether they are likely to have Alzheimer's develop in the next few years."

Although there are no drugs available yet to prevent or delay the onset of Alzheimer's disease, identifying those at high risk of developing dementia within the next few years could still be beneficial, the researchers said. People could make decisions on their financial and living arrangements while they are still in full control of their faculties.