Earth

Climatologists may be unable to accurately predict regional climate change over the North Atlantic because computer model simulations have failed to accurately include air pressure changes that have taken place in the Greenland region over the last three decades.

This deficiency may mean regional climate predictions for the UK and parts of Europe could be inaccurate, according to new research published today.

Researchers compared real data with simulation data over a 30 year period and found that the simulations on average showed slightly decreasing air pressure in the Greenland region, when in fact, the real data showed a significant increase in high air pressure - or so-called 'Greenland blocking' - during the summer months. These simulations are widely used by climate scientists worldwide as a basis for predicting future climate change.

The findings raise serious questions about the accuracy of regional climate projections in the UK and neighbouring parts of Europe because meteorological conditions in those regions are closely linked to air-pressure changes over Greenland.

Researchers warn that record wet summers in England and Wales such as those experienced in 2007 and 2012 could become more frequent if Greenland air pressure continues to strengthen over the next few decades, but such a trend might not be predicted due to inaccurate regional climate simulations.

The study, carried out by the University of Lincoln, UK, and the University of Liège in Belgium, also concluded that current models of melting on the Greenland Ice Sheet - a vast body of ice which covers more than 80 per cent of the surface of Greenland - may significantly underestimate the global sea-level rise expected by 2100.

Professor Edward Hanna led the study with Dr Richard Hall, both from the University of Lincoln's School of Geography, and Dr Xavier Fettweis of University of Liège. Professor Hanna said: "These differences between the estimates from the current climate models and observations suggests that the models cannot accurately represent recent conditions or predict future changes in Greenland climate.

"While there is natural variability in the climate system, we think that the recent rapid warming over Greenland since the early 1990s is not being fully simulated by the models, and that this misrepresentation could mean that future changes in atmospheric circulation and the jet stream over the wider North Atlantic region may not be properly simulated.

"Until now, no-one has systematically examined the projections to see how they represent the last few decades and future changes - up to the year 2100 - from a Greenland regional perspective. Previous work reported a tendency for global warming to result in a slightly more active jet stream in the atmosphere over the North Atlantic by 2100 but our results indicate we may actually see a somewhat weaker jet, at least in summer."

The research is the first to systematically compare global climate model data and observational data of air pressure changes for the Greenland region. The study, Recent changes in summer Greenland blocking captured by none of the CMIP5 models has been published in the European Geosciences Union journal, The Cryosphere.

Unicellular diatoms are able to adapt their behavior to different external stimuli based on an evaluation of their own needs. This was discovered by scientists of the Friedrich Schiller University and the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena, Germany, together with partners from Belgium. The algae depend on nutrients in order to reproduce. However, they also need sexual mates which they find when they follow pheromone traces. In experiments, Seminavis robusta diatoms directed their orientation either towards nutrient sources or mating partners, depending on the degree of starvation and the need to mate. The tiny organisms demonstrated in fact a primitive form of behavioral biology. (The ISME Journal, Oktober 2018, DOI: 10.1038/s41396-018-0299-2).

Diatoms are unicellular microalgae. They dominate marine phytoplankton, which is ubiquitous in our oceans. On shores and beaches, these algae can be observed as biofilms on rocks and other surfaces. Diatoms are not only the food source for many marine animals, but also responsible for an extremely important ecosystem service: They contribute significantly to global photosynthesis and thus to the production of oxygen on our planet. Moreover, they are discussed as possible produces of biofuels.

The diatom Seminavis robusta is an ideal model organism for behavioral studies in the lab: The cells respond to different environmental conditions and their sexuality can be controlled. The research group of Georg Pohnert, who is Professor of Instrumental Analytics/Bioorganic Analytics at Friedrich Schiller University and head of the Max Planck Fellow Group at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology, wanted to know whether the tiny organisms are able to make decisions about what they needed more urgently: food or sexual mates.

In order to find out, the scientists cultivated cells under different conditions. In particular, the cells were confronted with different amounts of nutrients and sex pheromones. Since diatoms primarily reproduce asexually by cell division, sexual reproduction may become necessary for their survival if the cells become smaller and smaller after continuous division. After all, the cells die if they become too small and fall below a minimum size. Diatoms also search actively for nutrients they need for the formation of their cell walls. They can trace silicate minerals in their environment and move actively towards this food source. A recent study showed that they are attracted by the odor of the minerals (see press release The odor of stones, February 4, 2016).

"It is striking that even unicellular organisms that obviously lack a nervous system can process different stimuli and even evaluate their individual needs. Our study showed that diatoms can adapt their behavior flexibly to environmental changes. They also responded differently depending on their need to sexually mate. We observed that the diatoms moved towards pheromones or food sources depending on how hungry they were for sex or nutrients. Until now, this kind of decision-making has only been attributed to higher organisms," study leader Georg Pohnert summarizes the results.

The decision of one diatom does not only determine the fate of a single cell. Moreover, it is crucial for the dynamics of biofilms which is composed of communities of countless diatoms. Using mathematical models, the researchers calculated interactions between cell density and the availability of nutrients (silicate minerals) and mating partners (pheromones). Based on these results, the scientists are able to better explain how biofilms are organized and why they are often patchy and show certain patterns.

The scientist would now like to find out how the single-cell organisms perceive, process and evaluate chemical signals. "Our goal is to identify the corresponding receptors and signal processing pathways, but this will be a very complex endeavor given the fact that we know so little about these important micoralagae," says Georg Pohnert.

Charlottesville, VA (October 16, 2018). Researchers from Beijing have developed a new technique of external ventricular drain (EVD) insertion that involves the use of a mixed-reality holographic computer headset. Wearing this headset, the neurosurgeon can visualize holographic images of individual patients' brain structures while performing the procedure. This makes EVD insertion more accurate than the usual freehand technique, which relies only on referral to external anatomical landmarks. The new technique is described and illustrated in the article, "A wearable mixed-reality holographic computer for guiding external ventricular drain insertion at the bedside," by Ye Li, M.D., Ph.D., and colleagues, published today in the Journal of Neurosurgery.

Background

External ventricular drainage systems are widely used to manage intracranial hypertension, intraventricular hemorrhage, and acute hydrocephalus. A catheter (drain) is inserted through the patient's skull and moved through brain tissue until it reaches a site within a ventricle (the target). Once there, intracranial pressure can be monitored, and blood or excessive amounts of cerebrospinal fluid can be removed via the drain.

Often conducted at the bedside of the patient, the neurosurgeon commonly performs EVD insertion using a "blind," freehand technique, in which he or she does not see the operative field. The neurosurgeon relies visually on anatomical landmarks on the outside of the patient's head and knowledge of normal brain anatomy underlying those landmarks. When performed in this manner, the procedure is only accurate about half the time and may require two or more passes of the catheter to reach the correct position in the ventricle.

If the brain is injured or diseased, brain structures may have shifted from their normal anatomical positions, making it more difficult to estimate the best pathway to the ventricle. Repeated passes of the catheter pose an increased risk of complications (hemorrhage or infection) to the brain.

Accuracy of the procedure can be increased by the addition of imaging guidance, but navigational devices are usually bulky and expensive, and add time to the procedure. They also necessitate transfer of the patient to the operating room. For these reasons, many physicians prefer not to use them.

Present Study

Li and colleagues set out to develop a new technique of EVD insertion that can easily be performed at the bedside and can provide greater accuracy than the blind, freehand technique. The one they have developed is guided by holographic images of individual patients' unique brain anatomy.

The researchers tested the readily available Microsoft HoloLens™ mixed-reality holographic computer headset while treating 15 patients. Registration markers, which can be identified on imaging studies, were attached to the head of each patient, and computed tomography (CT) was performed. Two-dimensional CT-generated data were converted into three-dimensional data, on the basis of which a surgical plan could be created. Then all this information was accessed by the wireless HoloLens™ headset and visualized by the neurosurgeon as holographic images. The holographic images resembled specific brain structures inside the head of the particular patient whose CT scans were used and included the planned trajectory of the catheter to the targeted site in the ventricle.

While wearing the HoloLens™ headset, the neurosurgeon was able to superimpose holographic images over the actual head of each patient and align the registration markers seen on the holograms with those attached to the outside of the patient's head. This allowed the neurosurgeon to "see" from outside the head into the brain of the individual patient, and to follow the course of the catheter as it moved along the planned trajectory to the ventricle. It also allowed for easy adjustments to the trajectory during the procedure, if necessary. An added benefit to the neurosurgeon was that "the mixed-reality device succeeded in creating the feeling of the actual physical presence" of brain structures within the patient's skull, making the entire surgical procedure more intuitive and natural.

No adverse events occurred in patients when holographic guidance was used. The mean number of passes required to reach the target in the 15 patients treated with holographic guidance was 1.07 ± 0.258 compared to 2.33 ± 0.98 in a control group of 15 patients in whom EVD insertion was performed using the blind, freehand technique. The mean target deviation was 4.34 ± 1.63 mm compared with 11.26 ± 4.83 mm in the control group. The differences in values between the two patient groups are statistically significant, thus showing significantly greater accuracy when the HoloLens™ headset was used.

Use of the holographic guidance system added a mean additional time of 40.20 ± 10.74 minutes prior to the procedure. This is not unlike the amount of additional time required when imaging-guided navigation is used. The authors believe that as they become more accustomed to working with the HoloLens™ headset, this preprocedural time will shorten. Despite the increased time, the procedure still can be used at the bedside and does not require bulky and expensive equipment.

The work reported in this paper is still preliminary. The authors acknowledge limitations of their study, including the small number of patients in the study group. However, they look forward to improvements in registration accuracy and simplicity of the procedure in the hope of using this technique for other types of surgical procedures in the future.

When asked about the study, Dr. Wang said, "To the best of our knowledge, this is the first positive experience with the use of such a new state-of-art technique to assist neurosurgeons in bedside EVD insertion. With further improvement in accuracy and simplicity, this wearable mixed-reality holographic computer could also serve as a portable and low-cost navigational device for multiple neurosurgical fields in the future. In addition to the function of navigation, the application of this technique would change the neurosurgical way of 'seeing is believing,' making the important structures visible around the lesion. Therefore, this will make surgery more minimally invasive and safe."

The United States is an aging society, where one in five people will be 65 or older by 2035. While bioethics scholarship on aging has historically concerned itself with issues at the end of life and the medical care of patients with chronic or progressive conditions, it is time for bioethics to look at the experience of aging itself and to articulate "a concept of good citizenship in an aging society that goes beyond health care relationships," write Nancy Berlinger and Mildred Z. Solomon in the introduction to What Makes a Good Life in Late Life? Citizenship and Justice in Aging Societies, a new special report from the Hastings Center Report.

Berlinger, a research scholar at The Hastings Center, and Solomon, president of The Hastings Center, are co-editors of the report, with Kate de Medeiros, the O'Toole family professor in the department of sociology and gerontology at Miami University. The report is a product of a two-year grant-funded initiative at The Hastings Center to begin to determine how bioethics can better reflect and meet the needs of our aging society. It features 16 essays by leading scholars and practitioners in architecture and design, bioethics, disability studies, economics, gerontology, health policy, housing studies, medicine, philosophy, political science, and urban planning.

Takeaways from the report include:

Many older people face economic and other forms of insecurity that stem from changing social policies, not a personal failure to plan.

Increasing numbers of older adults grapple with precarious financial, environmental, and social conditions in late life. In "Precarious Aging: Insecurity and Risk in Late Life," Amanda Grenier and Christopher Phillipson describe how economic insecurity accrues over the course of a person's life due to factors such as declining access to pensions and inadequate coverage of the full cost of health care. These social factors expose older people to risks they cannot mitigate on their own. Reductions in social welfare programs worsen these problems. Amanda Grenier holds the Gilbrea chair in aging and mental health at McMaster University; Christopher Phillipson is a professor of sociology and social gerontology at the University of Manchester.

Aging societies must respond to the challenges that older adults face in their communities.

Despite policies and programs that aim to help older adults age in a familiar environment, an older person's housing may not align with his or her changing needs, write Jennifer Molinsky and Ann Forsyth in "Housing, the Built Environment, and the Good Life." Community planners, developers, policymakers, and others responsible for how communities plan and build should acknowledge what our aging society needs and work toward consensus around design and facilities that serve older as well as younger residents. Molinsky is a senior research associate at the Harvard Joint Center for Housing Studies; Forsyth is a professor in the department of urban planning and design at the Harvard Graduate School of Design.

In "Age-Friendly Initiatives, Social Inequalities, and Spatial Justice," Emily A. Greenfield recommends that local efforts to make communities more supportive of people as they age also embrace opportunities to reduce socioeconomic disparities that affect older adults and others in that community. Greenfield is an associate professor in the School of Social Work and a faculty affiliate of the Institute for Health, Health Care Policy and Aging Research at Rutgers University.

National bans on parents slapping or spanking their children to punish them for bad behaviour are linked to lower rates of youth violence, reveals an international study published in the online journal BMJ Open.

Countries that prohibit corporal punishment at home and at school have rates of physical fighting among young men and women that are 42 to 69 per cent lower than in countries without any such bans in place, the findings show.

Slapping is still considered an acceptable way of disciplining a child in many parts of the world. But a growing body of evidence suggests that it may be detrimental to a child's health and wellbeing and perpetuate a cycle of violence through successive generations.

To find out if national bans might affect rates of youth violence around the globe, the researchers drew on data from longstanding surveys of teen behaviour for 88 countries-the World Health Organization Health Behaviour in School Aged Children (HBSC) study and the Global School Based Health Survey (GSHS).

The surveys included a question on whether, and how often, the respondent had been involved in a physical fight over the past 12 months. At the time of the analysis, the 88 countries were home to around 46 per cent of the world's teens.

Thirty countries had implemented a full ban on corporal punishment at school and at home; 38 had a partial ban (schools only); and 20 had no bans in place.

Analysis of the survey responses showed that frequent physical fighting was more than three times as common among young men as it was among young women. And it varied widely by country, ranging from less than 1 per cent among Costa Rican young women to nearly 35 per cent among young men from Samoa.

In countries were full bans were in force, the prevalence of physical fighting was 69 per cent lower among young men and 42 per cent lower among young women than it was in countries without any ban.

In countries operating a partial ban, which include the UK, the USA, and Canada, the prevalence of physical violence was lower only among young women (56%).

These associations held true even after taking account of other potentially influential factors, such as national wealth, the murder rate, and social programmes aiming to curb teens' exposure to violence at home and at school.

This is an observational study, and as such, cannot establish cause. And the study authors acknowledge certain limitations to their findings, including differences in the timing of legislation and the surveys, and the lack of information on the use of corporal punishment by the teens' parents and teachers.

It's not clear whether these bans prompt changes in the way in which children are disciplined or whether they reflect a culture that inhibits youth violence, say the researchers. But either way, the findings add to the growing body of evidence on the links between corporal punishment and teen health and safety, they add.

"These results support the hypothesis that societies that prohibit the use of corporal punishment are less violent for youth to grow up in than societies that have not," they conclude.

Shelled marine creatures living in increasingly acidified oceans face a fight for survival as the impacts of climate change spread, a new study suggests.

Researchers from the University of Tsukuba, Japan, and the University of Plymouth, UK, assessed the impact of rising carbon dioxide levels on the large predatory "triton shell" gastropod (Charonia lampas).

They found those living in regions with predicted future levels of CO2 were on average around a third smaller than counterparts living in conditions seen throughout the world's oceans today.

However there was also a noticeable negative impact on the thickness, density, and structure of their shells, causing visible deterioration to the shell surface.

Writing in Frontiers in Marine Science, scientists say the effects are down to the increased stresses placed on the species in waters where the pH is lower, which reduce their ability to control the calcification process.

And they have warned other shellfish are likely to be impacted in the same way, threatening their survival and that of other species that rely on them for food.

Dr Ben Harvey, Assistant Professor in the University of Tsukuba's Shimoda Marine Research Center, said: "Ocean acidification is a clear threat to marine life, acting as a stressor for many marine animals. Here we found that the ability of the triton shells to produce and maintain their shells was hindered by ocean acidification, with the corrosive seawater making them smoother, thinner, and less dense. The extensive dissolution of their shells has profound consequences for calcified animals into the future as it is not something they can biologically control, suggesting that some calcified species might be unable to adapt to the acidified seawater if carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise unchecked."

The research was conducted at a marine volcanic seep off the coast of Shikine-jima in Japan where carbon dioxide bubbling up through the seabed lowers seawater pH from present-day levels to future predicted levels.

Using computed tomography (CT) scanning, the scientists measured the thickness, density and structure of the shells, with shell thickness halved in areas with raised CO2 while average shell length was reduced from 178mm in sites with present day levels to 112mm.

In some cases, these negative effects left body tissue exposed and the shell casing dissolved, with the corrosive effects of acidi?cation far more pronounced around the oldest parts of the shell.

Jason Hall-Spencer, Professor of Marine Biology at the University of Plymouth, added: "Our study clearly shows that increasing carbon dioxide levels cause seawater to become corrosive to shellfish. As these calcified animals are a fundamental component of coastal marine communities, ocean acidi?cation is expected to impact shellfish fisheries."

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- A trip to the pediatrician's office can be a nerve-wracking experience for both children and their parents, especially when efforts to calm young patients down dominate the visit.

And half of parents of toddler and preschool-aged children can relate, saying their child is afraid of going to the doctor, according to a new report from C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health at the University of Michigan.

One in 25 parents had postponed a vaccine due to their child's fear of doctor visits and one in five parents said it was hard to concentrate on what the doctor or nurse was saying because their young child was so upset.

The nationally representative report is based on responses from 726 parents who had at least one child aged 2-5.

"Regular check-ups are vital during early childhood, not only because of important preventive services like vaccinations, but because they provide parents an opportunity to discuss health concerns with their pediatrician," says Mott Poll co-director Sarah Clark.

"If a child fears the doctor's office, health visits can be a challenging experience for the whole family. We found that children's anxiety can negatively impact parents' interactions with providers during visits and even causes a small proportion of families to postpone or cancel appointments."

Levels of fearfulness did not differ based on whether the child saw the same doctor every visit or saw multiple providers, or whether it was the oldest child versus a younger sibling.

Among parents with a child afraid of doctor's visits, fear of getting a shot (66 percent) and stranger anxiety (43 percent) were main reasons children age 2-3 years were afraid. Being scared of a shot was also the most common reason children ages 4-5 feared doctor visits (89 percent), followed by stranger anxiety (14 percent) and bad memories of being sick (13 percent).

Children's distress also interfered with parents' ability to ask questions and share information with their provider. Twenty-two percent of parents say that it was hard to concentrate on what the doctor or nurse was saying, and 9 percent said they would sometimes not ask questions or bring up concerns, because their child was scared or upset during the visit. Four percent of parents reported delaying their child's vaccination, and 3 percent cancelled a visit all together because of a child's fear.

Parents used different strategies to help their children prepare for a doctor's visit. Some parents tried to placate their young child by promising to get a treat after the visit (31 percent) or telling the child there wouldn't be any shots (21 percent). About 1 in 5 parents (22 percent) said they didn't do anything special
to prepare their child for health care visits.

"Parents say the biggest source of fear is 'needle phobia,' which can be especially tricky for younger children who require vaccinations more frequently," Clark says. "Children's fear of shots can be exacerbated when they pick up on their parents' anxiety and it can often be difficult to calm children down during these services."

Clark recommends parents ask child health providers for tips on how to decrease children's fear of shots. Having the child be held or hugged by the parent, for example, may be calming for many children. Distracting the child with songs, a video, or even coughing briefly before the shot, has also been shown to decrease anxiety.

"Telling the child there will no shots at the visit when the child is due for a vaccination or saying 'it won't hurt' may backfire and only increase anxiety ahead of future visits," Clark says.

Other parents tried educating their child about what would happen at the visit by talking about it (61 percent), playing with a toy medical kit (26 percent), or reading a book or watching a show about going to the doctor (23 percent).

"Steps to educate children ahead of a visit can help them develop expectations about what will happen so the interactions will feel familiar and alleviate fears," Clark says.

Only a small proportion of cases of dementia are thought to be inherited - the cause of the vast majority is unknown. Now, in a study published today in the journal Nature Communications, a team of scientists led by researchers at the University of Cambridge believe they may have found an explanation: spontaneous errors in our DNA that arise as cells divide and reproduce.

The findings suggest that for many people with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease and Parkinson's disease, the roots of their condition will trace back to their time as an embryo developing in the womb.

In common neurodegenerative diseases, toxic proteins build up in the brain, destroying brain cells and damaging brain regions, leading to symptoms including personality changes, memory loss and loss of control. Only around one in twenty patients has a family history, where genetic variants inherited from one or both parents contributes to disease risk. The cause of the majority of cases - which are thought to affect as many as one in ten people in the developed world - has remained a mystery.

A team of researchers led by Professor Patrick Chinnery from the Medical Research Council (MRC) Mitochondrial Biology Unit and the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at the University of Cambridge hypothesised that clusters of brain cells containing spontaneous genetic errors could lead to the production of misfolded proteins with the potential to spread throughout the brain, eventually leading to neurodegenerative disease.

"As the global population ages, we're seeing increasing numbers of people affected by diseases such as Alzheimer's, yet we still don't understand enough about the majority of these cases," says Professor Chinnery. "Why do some people get these diseases while others don't? We know genetics plays a part, but why do people with no family history develop the disease?"

To test their hypothesis, the researchers examined 173 tissue samples from the Newcastle Brain Tissue Resource, part of the MRC's UK Brain Banks Network. The samples came from 54 individual brains: 14 healthy individuals, 20 patients with Alzheimer's and 20 patients with Lewy body dementia, a common type of dementia estimated to affect more than 100,000 people in the UK.

The team used a new technique that allowed them to sequence 102 genes in the brain cells over 5,000 times. These included genes known to cause or predispose to common neurodegenerative diseases. They found 'somatic mutations' (spontaneous, rather than inherited, errors in DNA) in 27 out of the 54 brains, including both healthy and diseased brains.

Together, these findings suggest that the mutations would have arisen during the developmental phase - when the brain is still growing and changing - and the embryo is growing in the womb.

Combining their results with mathematical modelling, their findings suggest that 'islands' of brain cells containing these potentially important mutations are likely to be common in the general population.

"These spelling errors arise in our DNA as cells divide, and could explain why so many people develop diseases such as dementia when the individual has no family history," says Professor Chinnery. "These mutations likely form when our brain develops before birth - in other words, they are sat there waiting to cause problems when we are older."

"Our discovery may also explain why no two cases of Alzheimer's or Parkinson's are the same. Errors in the DNA in different patterns of brain cells may manifest as subtly different symptoms."

Professor Chinnery says that further research is needed to confirm whether the mutations are more common in patients with dementia. While it is too early to say whether this research will aid diagnosis or treatment this endorses the approach of pharmaceutical companies who are trying to develop new treatments for rare genetic forms of neurodegenerative diseases.

"The question is: how relevant are these treatments going to be for the 'common-or-garden' variety without a family history? Our data suggests the same genetic mechanisms could be responsible in non-inherited forms of these diseases, so these patients may benefit from the treatments being developed for the rare genetic forms."

NASA's Aqua satellite captured an infrared image of Tropical Storm Sergio's clouds and rainfall sweeping into the southwestern U.S.

At 5:05 a.m. EDT (0905 UTC) on Oct. 3 the MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite gathered infrared data on Sergio. Although the center of circulation was over Baja California, Mexico, clouds and showers in the northeastern quadrant extended into southern Arizona.

Infrared data provides temperature information. MODIS found strongest storms with coldest cloud top temperatures as cold as minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 53 Celsius) in a small area in northwestern Mexico. NASA research has shown that cloud tops with temperatures that cold were high in the troposphere and have the ability to generate heavy rain.  A large area of storms with cloud top temperatures near minus 50 degrees Fahrenheit blanketed most of Baja California, northwestern mainland Mexico and stretched into southern Arizona.

Soon after Aqua passed overhead, Sergio entered the Sea of Cortez, located between Baja California and mainland Mexico.

At 11 a.m. EDT on Oct. 12, a Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the west coast of the Baja California peninsula from Punta Eugenia to Cabo San Lazaro and for the east coast of the Baja California peninsula from Mulege to Bahia San Juan Bautista.

The National Hurricane Center or NHC noted the center of Tropical Storm Sergio was located near latitude 27.5 North, longitude 111.9 West. Sergio is moving toward the northeast near 24 mph (39 kph), and this general motion is expected to continue during the next day or so.  On the forecast track, the center of Sergio will move across the Sea of Cortez during the next several hours and then move over northwestern Mexico later today or tonight. Maximum sustained winds are near 40 mph (65 kph) with higher gusts.

Sergio should weaken to a tropical depression later today, and degenerate into a remnant low while moving over northwestern Mexico. Dissipation should occur on Saturday.

Despite dissipation as a tropical cyclone, though, the NHC said "moisture from Sergio will affect the United States, with total rain accumulations of 1 to 3 inches from southeast Arizona and southern New Mexico toward the southern Plains through Saturday. This rainfall could cause life-threatening flash flooding."

The smallest Tylosaurus mosasaur fossil ever found has been revealed in a new study in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology and surprisingly it lacks a trademark feature of the species.

The fossil, likely to be that of a newborn, does not have the recognizable long snout typically seen in the species. The lack of this snout initially perplexed researchers, who struggled to identify which group of mosasaurs it belonged to.

After examining and comparing the fossil to young specimens of closely-related species, such as T. nepaeolicus and T. proriger which already had identifiable noses, researchers finally deemed it to be a young Tylosaurus.

Lead author Professor Takuya Konishi, of the Department of Biological Sciences at the University of Cincinnati said, "Having looked at the specimen in 2004 for the first time myself, it too took me nearly 10 years to think out of that box and realize what it really was--a baby Tylosaurus yet to develop such a snout.

For those 10 years or so, I had believed too that this was a neonate of Platecarpus, a medium-sized (5-6m) and short-snouted mosasaur, not Tylosaurus, a giant (up to 13m) mosasaur with a significantly protruding snout."

The lack of snout in the baby specimen found suggests to researchers that the development of this feature happens extremely quickly, between birth and juvenile stage - something that previous studies on the species had failed to notice.

Konishi further commented, "Yet again, we were challenged to fill our knowledge gap by testing our preconceived notion, which in this case was that Tylosaurus must have a pointy snout, a so-called 'common knowledge.'

As individual development and evolutionary history are generally linked, the new revelation hints at the possibility that Tylosaurus adults from much older rock units may have been similarly short-snouted, something we can test with future discoveries."

The fragments found include a partial snout with teeth and tooth bases, partial braincase, and a section of upper jaw with tooth bases. From this, they can estimate the entire baby skull to have been around 30cm (1ft) in total.

Tylosaurus belong to one of the largest-known groups of mosasaurs, up to 13m long, the front 1.8 m of that body being its head. The baby, therefore, was about 1/6 the size of such an adult.

Michael J. Everhart, a Kansas native and a special curator of paleontology at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History, Hays, Kansas, found the tiny specimens in 1991 in the lower Santonian portion of the Niobrara Chalk, in Kansas, which are now housed at the museum. The paper was co-authored by Paulina Jiménez-Huidobro and Michael W. Caldwell of the University of Alberta, Canada.

Less parental warmth and more harshness in the home environment affect how aggressive children become and whether they lack empathy and a moral compass, a set of characteristics known as callous-unemotional (CU) traits, according to findings from the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Michigan, and Michigan State University. The work was published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

In a study of 227 identical twin pairs lead by Penn psychologist Rebecca Waller, the research team analyzed small differences in the parenting that each twin experienced to determine whether these differences predicted the likelihood of antisocial behaviors emerging. They learned that the twin who experienced stricter or harsher treatment and less emotional warmth from parents had a greater chance of showing aggression and CU traits.

"Some of the early work on callous-unemotional traits focused on their biological bases, like genetics and the brain, making the argument that these traits develop regardless of what is happening in a child's environment, that parenting doesn't matter," says Waller, an assistant professor in Penn's Department of Psychology. "We felt there must be something we could change in the environment that might prevent a susceptible child from going down the pathway to more severe antisocial behavior."

The work is the latest in a series of studies from Waller and colleagues using observation to assess a variety of aspects of parenting. The initial research, which considered a biological parent and child, confirmed that parental warmth plays a significant role in whether CU traits materialize.

A subsequent adoption study, of parents and children who were not biologically related, turned up consistent results. "We couldn't blame that on genetics because these children don't share genes with their parents," Waller says. "But it still didn't rule out the possibility that something about the child's genetic characteristics was evoking certain reactions from the adoptive parent." In other words, a parent who is warm and positive may have a hard time maintaining those behaviors if the child never reciprocates.

Knowing this led Waller and University of Michigan psychologist Luke Hyde to team with S. Alexandra Burt, co-director of the Michigan State University Twin Registry. Using 6- to 11-year-old participants from a large, ongoing study of twins that Burt directs, the team turned its attention to identical twins.

For 454 children (227 sets of identical twins), parents completed a 50-item questionnaire about the home environment. They also established their harshness and warmth levels by rating 24 statements such as "I often lose my temper with my child" and "My child knows I love him/her." The researchers assessed child behavior by asking the mother to report on 35 traits related to aggression and CU traits.

"The study convincingly shows that parenting--and not just genes--contributes to the development of risky callous-unemotional traits," says Hyde, an associate professor in Michigan's Department of Psychology. "Because identical twins have the same DNA, we can be more sure that the differences in parenting the twins received affects the development of these traits."

According to Waller, a potential next step is to turn these findings into useable interventions for families trying to prevent a child from developing such traits or to improve troubling behaviors that have already begun.

"From a real-world standpoint, creating interventions that work practically and are actually able to change behaviors in different types of families is complicated," Waller says. "But these results show that small differences in how parents care for their children matters. Our focus now is on adapting already-successful parenting programs to include specific interventions focused on callous-unemotional traits as well."

Though an intervention with parents could succeed, Hyde and colleagues stress that the work isn't blaming parents for their child's CU or aggressive behaviors. "Our previous work with adopted children also showed that genes do matter, and so there is a back and forth," he says. "Some children may be more difficult to parent. The most important message is that treatments that work with parents likely can help, even for the most at-risk children."

The researchers acknowledge some limitations to the study, for example that it skews heavily toward two-parent families, meaning the findings may not be as generalizable to single-parent homes. It also assesses parenting measures and twin behaviors based solely on parenting reports.

Yet despite these drawbacks, the researchers say the work broadens the understanding of how different forms of antisocial behavior, like aggression and callous-unemotional traits, emerge. "This provides strong evidence that parenting is also important in the development of callous-unemotional traits," Hyde says. "The good news is we know that treatments can help parents who may need extra support with children struggling with these dangerous behaviors."

As Europe's most active volcano, Mount Etna is intensively monitored by scientists and Italian authorities. Satellite-based measurements have shown that the southeastern flank of the volcano is slowly sliding towards the sea, while the other slopes are largely stable. To date, it has been entirely unknown if and how movement continues under water, as satellite-based measurements are impossible below the ocean surface. With the new GeoSEA seafloor geodetic monitoring network, scientists from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel, the Kiel University, priority research area Kiel Marine Science, and the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV) have now been able to detect for the first time the horizontal and vertical movement of a submerged volcanic flank.

The results confirm that the entire southeastern flank is in motion. The driving force of flank movement is most likely gravity, and not the ascent of magma, as previously assumed. Catastrophic collapse involving the entire flank or large parts of it cannot be excluded and would trigger a major tsunami with extreme effects in the region. The results of the study have been published today in the international journal Science Advances.

"At Mount Etna we used a sound based underwater geodetic monitoring network, the so-called marine geodesy, on a volcano for the first time ", says Dr. Morelia Urlaub, lead author of the study. She led the investigations as part of the "MAGOMET - Marine geodesy for offshore monitoring of Mount Etna" project. In April 2016, the GEOMAR team placed a total of five acoustic monitoring transponder stations across the fault line that represents the boundary between the sliding flank and the stable slope. "We placed three on the sliding sector and two on the presumably stable side of the fault line," says Dr. Urlaub.

During their mission each transponder was sending an acoustic signal every 90 minutes. Since the speed of sound in water is known, the travel time of the signals between transponders gave information on the distances between transponders on the seafloor with a precision of less than one centimeter. "We noticed that in May 2017 the distances between transponders on different sides of the fault clearly changed. The flank slipped by four centimeters seawards and subsided by one centimeter within a period of eight days," explains Dr. Urlaub. This movement can be compared to a very slow earthquake, a so-called "slow slip event". It was the first time that the horizontal movement of such a slow slip event was recorded under water. In total, the system delivered data for about 15 months.

A comparison with ground deformation data obtained by satellite showed that the southeastern flank above sea level moved by a similar distance during the same observation period. "So the entire southeast flank changed its position," says Dr. Urlaub.

"Overall, our results indicate that the slope is sliding due to gravity and not due to the rise of magma," she continues. If magma dynamics in the centre of the volcano triggered flank deformation, displacement of the flank would be expected to be larger onshore than below water. This is crucial for hazard assessments. "The entire slope is in motion due to gravity. It is therefore quite possible that it could collapse catastrophically, which could trigger a tsunami in the entire Mediterranean," explains Professor Heidrun Kopp, coordinator of the GeoSEA array and co-author of the study. However, the results of the study do not allow a prediction whether and when such an event might occur.

"Further basic research is needed to understand the geological processes at and around Etna and other coastal volcanoes. Our investigation shows that the sound-based geodetic monitoring network can be a tremendous help in this respect," summarises Dr. Urlaub.

A rose by any other name is still a rose. The same, it turns out, can be said for cannabis.

Newly published research from UBC's Okanagan campus has determined that many strains of cannabis have virtually identical levels of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD), despite their unique street names.

"It is estimated that there are several hundred or perhaps thousands of strains of cannabis currently being cultivated," says Professor Susan Murch, who teaches chemistry at UBC Okanagan. "We wanted to know how different they truly are, given the variety of unique and exotic names."

Cannabis breeders have historically selected strains to produce THC, CBD or both, she explains. But the growers have had limited access to different types of plants and there are few records of the parentage of different strains.

"People have had informal breeding programs for a long time," Murch says. "In a structured program we would keep track of the lineage, such as where the parent plants came from and their characteristics. With unstructured breeding, which is the current norm, particular plants were picked for some characteristic and then given a new name."

Until now, the chemical breakdown of many strains has been unknown because of informal breeding.

Elizabeth Mudge, a doctoral student working with Murch and Paula Brown, Canada Research Chair in Phytoanalytics at the British Columbia Institute of Technology, examined the cannabinoid--a class of chemical compounds that include THC and CBD--profiles of 33 strains of cannabis from five licensed producers.

The research shows that most strains, regardless of their origin or name, had the same amount of THC and CBD. They further discovered that breeding highly potent strains of cannabis impacts the genetic diversity within the crop, but not THC or CBD levels.

However, Mudge says that they found differences in a number of previously unknown cannabinoids -- and these newly discovered compounds, present in low quantities, could be related to pharmacological effects and serve as a source of new medicines.

"A high abundance compound in a plant, such as THC or CBD, isn't necessarily responsible for the unique medicinal effects of certain strains," says Mudge. "Understanding the presence of the low abundance cannabinoids could provide valuable information to the medical cannabis community."

Currently licensed producers are only required to report THC and CBD values. But Murch says her new research highlights that the important distinguishing chemicals in cannabis strains are not necessarily being analysed and may not be fully identified.

Murch says while patients are using medical cannabis for a variety of reasons, they actually have very little information on how to base their product choice. This research is a first step towards establishing an alternative approach to classifying medical cannabis and providing consumers with better information.

Murch's research was recently published in Nature's Scientific Reports.

LA JOLLA, CA - Oct. 10, 2018 - If you've ever been sunburned, you've experienced the dreaded pain of putting on a shirt the next day. Fabric that should feel soft turns into a layer of painful pressure. That kind of pain-from what should feel like a gentle touch-is called allodynia, and it's a fact of life for many people who suffer from chronic conditions, such as fibromyalgia or nerve damage from chemotherapy. There are limited options to help these patients.

Now scientists at Scripps Research have identified the molecule in neurons responsible for tactile allodynia, a protein called PIEZO2. It was originally discovered in the lab of Ardem Patapoutian, PhD, who led the work to determine its role in allodynia in mice.

The new Scripps Research study was published this week in the journal Science Translational Medicine alongside a study led by the National Institutes of Health that showed Piezo2 is also responsible for allodynia in humans.

"These two studies provide validation that targeting PIEZO2 could be beneficial in the clinic," says Patapoutian, professor at Scripps Research and investigator with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

"We hope that these results will help researchers develop better treatments for managing this common form of pain," says Alexander T. Chesler, PhD, a Stadtman Investigator at the NIH's National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) and study author of the study in humans.

For both studies, the researchers induced allodynia using various methods including application of capsaicin, the irritating molecule active in chili peppers, to areas of the skin. Capsaicin is known to sensitize neurons, causing inflammation similar to a sunburn.

Swetha Murthy, PhD, first author of the Scripps Research study, looked at how mice reacted to gentle touch after they were exposed to capsaicin. While normal mice experienced allodynia, the mice with PIEZO2 "knocked out" did not react. The same held true when Chesler tested humans with mutations that inactivated their PIEZO2.

"It was very gratifying to see this in both studies," says Murthy. "It usually takes years to confirm if results observed in mice hold true in humans, so I think it was mutually exciting for both groups."

Going forward, the researchers want to understand exactly how inflammation interferes with normal touch signals. They are also interested in identifying small molecules that block PIEZO2. Topical application of such PIEZO2 blockers could be beneficial for patients suffering from neuropathic pain.

As Hurricane Michael barrels toward the U.S. states along the northwestern Gulf of Mexico, and Tropical Storm Leslie lingers in the Central Atlantic, Tropical Storm Nadine has formed off the west coast of Africa in the far eastern Atlantic. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided a visible image of the new named storm.

On Oct. 9, the VIIRS instrument aboard NASA-NOAA's Suomi satellite provided a visible look at Tropical Storm Nadine. The bulk of storms were east to south of center and wrapping into the low-level center.

NOAA's National Hurricane Center noted st 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) on Oct. 9 the center of Tropical Storm Nadine was located near latitude 10.5 North, longitude 30.0 West. That's about 480 miles (770 km) southwest of the southernmost Cabo Verde Islands. Nadine is moving toward the west-northwest near 9 mph (15 kph), and this motion is expected to continue through tonight. A motion toward the northwest at a similar forward speed is forecast on Wednesday, Oct. 10 through Friday, Oct. 12. Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 40 mph (65 kph) with higher gusts.

The National Hurricane Center noted that additional strengthening is forecast through Wednesday, with weakening expected to begin by early Thursday. Nadine is forecast to weaken to a tropical depression on Friday.