Earth

Munich based Laser physicists have developed an extremely powerful broadband infrared light source. This light source opens up a whole new range of opportunities in medicine, life science, and material analysis.

With the help of Infrared light, researchers are able to go in search of the small particles which shape and determine our lives. The phenomenon, in which infrared light sets molecules in vibration, is pivotal in this search. Scientists are exploiting this phenomenon by using infrared light to analyze the molecular makeup of samples. In the hope that this analysis can become even more exact, the laser physicists from the Laboratory of Attosecond Physics at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet (LMU) in Munich and the Max Planck Institute for Quantum Optics have developed an infrared light source that has an enormously broad spectrum of wavelengths.

With this system, which has an output power of 19 Watt, researchers have achieved the broadest simultaneous infrared coverage from a solid state laser. Moreover, the infrared laser pulses emitted should correspond to a sub-cycle pulse in time domain.

This new light source opens up countless opportunities for the physicists of better understanding the fundamental properties of solid and soft matter. The analysis of light spectrums after interactions with material with infrared spectroscopy and microscopy allows the more precise and accurate conceptualization of research methods.

The LAP team utilizes these methods for driving the so-called "Broadband Infrared Diagnostics" project. In the framework of this project, the scientists are interested in assessing the molecular makeup of blood and breath.

Jupiter's icy moon Europa is a major target of astrobiology research in light of the possibility that it offers a habitable environment in the Solar System. Under its ice crust, estimated to be 10 km thick, is an ocean of liquid water of over 100 km deep. A huge source of energy deriving from gravitational interaction with Jupiter keeps this water warm.

Theoretical research to evaluate the microbial habitability of Europa using data collected from analogous environments on Earth has been conducted by a group of Brazilian researchers linked to the University of São Paulo (USP) that jointly signed an article published in Scientific Reports.

"We studied the possible effects of a biologically usable energy source on Europa based on information obtained from an analogous environment on Earth," said Douglas Galante, a researcher at Brazil's National Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS) and the Astrobiology Research Center (NAP-Astrobio) of the University of São Paulo's Institute of Astronomy, Geophysics & Atmospheric Sciences (IAG-USP).

Galante coordinates the study, supported by the São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP through a Master's fellowship from chemist Thiago Pereira, co-author of the article who has in Galante his supervisor, and through a Thematic Project which aims at investigating places in Brazil and Africa with possible vestiges of geochemical and isotopical transformations related to the emergence of multicelular life in Neoproterozoic Age.

Similarities with primitive earth

In the Mponeng gold mine near Johannesburg, South Africa, at a depth of 2.8 km, the research project not only found traces of major changes linked to history of life on Earth, but also a terrestrial contexto analogous to Europa. It was recently discovered that the bacterium Candidatus Desulforudis audaxviator survives inside the mine without sunlight by means of water radiolysis, the dissociation of water molecules by ionizing radiation.

"This very deep subterranean mine has water leaking through cracks that contain radioactive uranium," Galante said. "The uranium breaks down the water molecules to produce free radicals [H+, OH-, and others]. The free radicals attack the surrounding rocks, especially pyrite [iron disulfide, FeS2], producing sulfate. The bacteria use the sulfate to synthesize ATP [adenosine triphosphate], the nucleotide responsible for energy storage in cells. This is the first time an ecosystem has been found to survive directly on the basis of nuclear energy."

According to Galante and colleagues, the environment colonized by bacteria in the Mponeng mine is an excellent analogue of the environment assumed to exist at the bottom of Europa's ocean.

Although the temperature in Europa's surface is next to absolute zero, there is an enormous amount of thermal energy in its core, as an effect of Europa's interaction with Jupiter's powerful gravitational attraction, which causes the satellite's orbit to be extremely elliptical, meaning Europa finds itself either to close or too far from the Gas Giant. That makes the icy moon to suffer geometrical deformation as it moves at the mercy of Jupiter's immense tidal force. The energy released by the alternating states of elongation and relaxation makes Europa's subsurface capable of hosting an ocean of liquid water.

"However, it's not enough for there to be heated liquid water", said Galante. According to the researcher, the basis for all biological activity known to Earth are the chemical gradients, i.e., differences in concentrations of molecules, ions or electrons in distinct regions which produce a flow in a certain direction, allowing the occurrence of cellular respiration, photosynthesis, ATP production and other processes common to living beings.

"Hydrothermal emanations - of molecular hydrogen [H2], hydrogen sulfide [H2S], sulfuric acid [H2SO4], methane [CH4] and so on - are important sources of chemical imbalance and potential factors of 'biological transduction', i.e., transformation of the imbalance into biologically useful energy," Galante said. "These hydrothermal sources are the most plausible scenario for the origin of life on Earth."

Investigating conditions in Europa for ATP production

The group evaluated how chemical imbalance in Europa could be initiated through the emanation of water leading to chain reactions between water and chemical elements found in Europa's crust - however, a total lack of empirical data prevents scientists from unequivocally presuming any of these events (an "Europa Mission" may take place as late as 2030, stated Nasa, the US space agency). "That's why we looked for a more universal physical effect that was highly likely to occur. That effect was precisely the action of radioactivity", Galante said.

Celestial bodies in the Solar System with rocky cores share the same radioactive materials, ejected in space by the Supernova explosion that originated the Sun and the planets. Uranium, thorium and potassium are the radioactive elements considered by the research, which estimated the concentrations for these materials in Europa, based on the quantities already observed and measured on Earth, in meteorites and in Mars.

"From these amounts, we were able to estimate the energy released, how this energy interacts with the surrounding water, and the efficiency of the water radiolysis resulting from this interaction in generating free radicals," Galante said.

According to the study, along with radionuclides, pyrite is a crucial ingredient whose presence is indispensable for life in Europa. "One of the proposals deriving from our study is that traces of pyrite should be looked for as part of any assessment of the habitability of a celestial body," stated Galante. Chances for finding pyrite in a hypothetical mission to Europa are good, since sulfur (S) and iron (Fe) are elements found in abundance across the Solar System.

"The ocean bed on Europa appears to offer very similar conditions to those that existed on primitive Earth during its first billion years. So studying Europa today is to some extent like looking back at our own planet in the past. In addition to the intrinsic interest of Europa's habitability and the existence of biological activity there, the study is also a gateway to understanding the origin and evolution of life in the Universe."

A UCLA study explored the relationship between new drivers' skills and four factors. Instructors from a Los Angeles driving school rated students' driving skills on a scale of 1 to 4, and the researchers analyzed the results based on these variables:

Age: Among males, the older the student, the worse his driving skills score. Male teens scored 36 percent higher on driving skills than men in their 20s. The same pattern did not hold true for women.

Gender: Students were asked to rate their confidence in their own driving skills. Although female students on average were less confident than their male counterparts, men and women received almost the same average score from driving instructors.

Sports participation: A history of playing any kind of organized sport was linked to better driving skills among both men and women. Men and women who played sports scored 2.66 and 2.43, respectively, while men and women who had not played organized sports had average scores of 1.94 and 1.60. Previous studies have shown that participating in organized sports improves spatial perception.

Video game experience: Playing video games showed no relationship to driving abilities. The authors expected the opposite, because earlier research has shown that playing action video games improves spatial cognition.

One hundred novice drivers -- each with less than five hours of driving experience before their first driving lesson -- participated in a two-hour lesson focused on car control and traffic maneuvers. Students drove on the streets of Los Angeles, ranked by the 2017 INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard as having the worst traffic in the world. The group was evenly split by gender, and the students' average age was 18.

Following the lesson, the instructor ranked each student's skills on a four-point scale, in which 1 means the student requires far more instruction and practice before taking the state driving test and 4 indicates the instructor believes the student is prepared to pass the test.

To obtain a driver's license in the U.S., every person under age 18 must pay for a formal driver's education class with a minimum of six hours of driving instruction on the road. In California, teens must also wait six months after earning a learner's permit before taking the state's department of motor vehicles driving test.

The authors propose that the DMV in California and other states consider ending mandatory driver's education for only teens and expanding safety training to new drivers of all ages. If translated into policy, the findings could improve driver training, ultimately reducing traffic accidents and saving lives.

For their next study, the researchers intend to analyze whether drivers' gender, age and socioeconomic status (which they would estimate based on ZIP code) relate to whether candidates pass or fail their driving tests.

Washington DC, Feb. 22 - A study published today in Science illuminates the extent of global fishing - down to individual vessel movements and hourly activity - and opens an unprecedented gateway for improved ocean management. The study shows that, while the footprint of capture fishing extends across more than half the global ocean, activity is clearly bounded by different management regimes, indicating the role well-enforced policy can play in curbing over-exploitation.

Using satellite feeds, machine learning techniques and common ship tracking technology, a team of researchers from Global Fishing Watch, the National Geographic Society's Pristine Seas project, University of California Santa Barbara, Dalhousie University, SkyTruth, Google, and Stanford University found that industrial fishing covers more than 55 percent of the ocean's surface - over four times the area covered by agriculture. The new dataset of fishing is hundreds of times higher in resolution than previous global surveys and captures the activity of more than 70,000 vessels, including more than 75 percent of industrial fishing vessels larger than 36 meters.

The authors of the study are making their dataset freely available to the public, allowing anyone to download, visualize and analyze the global footprint of fishing. "By publishing the data and analysis, we aim to increase transparency in the commercial fishing industry and improve opportunities for sustainable management," said lead author, David Kroodsma, the Director of Research and Development at Global Fishing Watch.

Among the key findings of the study:

The dataset provides greater detail than previously possible about fishing activity on the high seas (beyond national jurisdictions). While most nations appear to fish predominantly within their own exclusive economic zones (EEZs), China, Spain, Taiwan, Japan and South Korea account for 85 percent of observed fishing on the high seas.

The total area of the ocean fished is likely higher than the 55 percent estimated, as the data do not include some fishing effort in regions of poor satellite coverage or in EEZs with a low percentage of vessels using AIS.

Over 37 million hours of fishing were observed in 2016 and fishing vessels traveled more than 460 million kilometers, a distance to the moon and back 600 times.

"This dataset provides such high-level resolution on fishing activity that we can even see cultural patterns such as when fishers in different regions take time off," said co-author Juan Mayorga of the National Geographic Society's Pristine Seas project and the University of California Santa Barbara. "Data of this detail gives governments, management bodies and researchers the insights they need to make transparent and well-informed decisions to regulate fishing activities and reach conservation and sustainability goals."

The study shows that when and where fishing occurs is tied more to politics and culture than to natural cycles such as climate variation and fish migration. "This study reveals fishing as an industrial process in which vessels operate more like floating factories that need to operate around the clock to make money," said co-author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University. "On the upside, however, this dataset also shows clearly where management boundaries are in place and where they are helping to constrain fishing effort."

Kroodsma and his team used machine learning technology to analyze 22 billion messages publicly broadcast from vessels' automatic identification system (AIS) positions from 2012 through 2016. Based solely on vessel movement patterns, the Global Fishing Watch algorithm was able to identify more than 70,000 commercial fishing vessels, the sizes of and engine powers of these vessels, what type of fishing they engaged in, and where and when they fished down to the hour and kilometer. This new global view of fishing draws on advances in satellite technology and big data processing. "Only a few years ago, we didn't have the computing power, enough satellites in orbit, or techniques to run machine learning at scale over massive datasets. Today we have all three, leading to dramatic advances in our ability to monitor and understand human interaction with our natural environment," said Brian Sullivan, a co-author who works for Google Earth Outreach.

"I think most people will be surprised that until now, we didn't really know where people were fishing in vast swaths of the ocean," said co-author economist Chris Costello of the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management, University of California Santa Barbara. "This new real-time data set will be instrumental in designing improved management of the world's oceans that is good for the fish, ecosystems, and fishermen."

"Our study has revealed more clearly how invasive human fisheries are on the high seas, where tunas, sharks and billfish are exposed to high intensity fishing," said Barbara Block, a co-author and professor of Marine Science at Stanford University. "Our data is vital for better regulation and enforcement, to ensure pelagic fish have a future."

Optical waves propagating away from a point source typically exhibit circular (convex) wavefronts. "Like waves on a water surface when a stone is dropped", explains Peining Li, EU Marie Sklodowska-Curie fellow at nanoGUNE and first author of the paper. The reason of this circular propagation is that the medium through which light travels is typically homogenous and isotropic i.e. uniform in all directions.

Scientists had already theoretically predicted that specifically structured surfaces can turn the wavefronts of light upside down when it propagates along them. "On such surfaces, called hyberbolic metasurfaces, the waves emitted from a point source propagate only in certain directions and with open (concave) wavefronts", explains Javier Alfaro, PhD student at nanoGUNE and co-author of the paper. These unusual waves are called hyperbolic surface polaritons. Because they propagate only in certain directions, and with wavelengths that are much smaller than that of light in free space or standard waveguides, they could help to miniaturize optical devices for sensing and signal processing.

Now, the researchers developed such a metasurface for infrared light. It is based on boron nitride, a graphene-like 2D material, and was selected because of its capability to manipulate infrared light on extremely small length scales, which could be applied for the development of miniaturized chemical sensors or for heat management in nanoscale optoelectronic devices. On the other hand, the researchers succeeded to directly observe the concave wavefronts with a special optical microscope, which have been elusive so far.

Hyperbolic metasurfaces are challenging to fabricate because an extremely precise structuring on the nanometer scale is required. Irene Dolado, PhD student at nanoGUNE, and Saül Vélez, former postdoctoral researcher at nanoGUNE (now at ETH Zürich) mastered this challenge by electron beam lithography and etching of thin flakes of high-quality boron nitride provided by Kansas State University. "After several optimization steps, we achieved the required precision and obtained grating structures with gap sizes as small as 25 nm", Dolado says. "The same fabrication methods can also be applied to other materials, which could pave the way to realize artificial metasurface structures with custom-made optical properties", adds Saül Vélez.

To see how the waves propagate along the metasurface, the researchers used a state-of the-art infrared nanoimaging technique that was pioneered by the nanoptics group at nanoGUNE. They first placed an infrared gold nanorod onto the metasurface. "It plays the role of a stone dropped into water", says Peining Li. The nanorod concentrates incident infrared light into a tiny spot, which launches waves that then propagate along the metasurface. With the help of a so-called scattering-type scanning near-field microscope (s-SNOM) the researchers imaged the waves. "It was amazing to see the images. They indeed showed the concave curvature of the wavefronts that were propagating away form the gold nanorod, exactly as predicted by theory", says Rainer Hillenbrand, Ikerbasque Professor at nanoGUNE, who led the work.

The results promise nanostructured 2D materials to become a novel platform for hyberbolic metasurface devices and circuits, and further demonstrate how near-field microscopy can be applied to unveil exotic optical phenomena in anisotropic materials and for verifying new metasurface design principles.

It is one of the most astonishing results of physics: when a complex system is left alone, it will return to its initial state with almost perfect precision. Gas particles, for example, chaotically swirling around in a container, will return almost exactly to their starting positions after some time. This "Poincaré Recurrence Theorem" is the foundation of modern chaos theory. For decades, scientists have investigated how this theorem can be applied to the world of quantum physics. Now, researchers at TU Wien (Vienna) have successfully demonstrated a kind of "Poincaré recurrence" in a multi-particle quantum system. The results have been published in the journal Science.

An Old Question, Revisited

At the end of the 19th century, the French scientist Henri Poincaré studied systems which cannot be fully analysed with perfect precision - for example solar systems consisting of many planets and asteroids, or gas particles, which keep bumping into each other. His surprising result: every state which is physically possible will be occupied by the system at some point - at least to a very good degree of approximation. If we just wait long enough, at some point all planets will form a straight line, just by coincidence. The gas particles in a box will create interesting patterns, or go back to the state in which they were when the experiment started.

A similar theorem can be proved for quantum systems. There, however, completely different rules apply: "In quantum physics, we have to come up with a completely new way of addressing this problem", says Professor Jörg Schmiedmayer from the Institute for Atomic and Subatomic Physics at TU Wien. "For very fundamental reasons, the state of a large quantum system, consisting of many particles, can never be perfectly measured. Apart from that, the particles cannot be seen as independent objects, we have to take into account that they are quantum mechanically entangled."

There have been attempts to demonstrate the effect of "Poincaré recurrence" in quantum systems, but until now this has only been possible with a very small number of particles, whose state was measured as precisely as possible. This is extremely complicated and the time it takes the system to return to its original state increases dramatically with the number of particles. Jörg Schmiedmayers team at TU Wien, however, chose a different approach: "We are not so much interested in the complete inner state of the system, which cannot be measured anyway", says Bernhard Rauer, first author of the publication. "Instead we want to ask: which quantities can we observe, that tell us something interesting about the system as a whole? And are there times at which these collective quantities return to their initial value?"

The team studied the behaviour of an ultracold gas, consisting of thousands of atoms, which is kept in place by electromagnetic fields on a chip. "There are several different quantities describing the characteristics of such a quantum gas - for example coherence lengths in the gas and correlation functions between different points in space. These parameters tell us, how closely the particles are linked by quantum mechanical effects", says Sebastian Erne, who was responsible for the theoretical calculations necessary for the project. "Our everyday intuition is not used to dealing with these quantities, but for a quantum systems, they are crucial."

Recurrence Discovered - in Collective Quantities

By measuring such quantities, which do not refer to single particles, but characterize the system as a whole, it was indeed possible to observe the long-sought quantum recurrence. And not only that: "With our atom chip, we can even influence the time it takes the system to return to one particular state", says Jörg Schmiedmayer. "By measuring this kind of recurrence, we learn a lot about the collective dynamics of the atoms - for example about the speed of sound in the gas or about scattering phenomena of density waves."

The old question, whether quantum systems show recurrences, can finally be answered: Yes, they do - but the concept of recurrence has to be slightly redefined. Instead of trying to map out the complete inner quantum state of a system, which cannot be measured anyway, it makes more sense to concentrate on quantities which can be measured in quantum experiments. These quantities can be observed to drift away from their initial value - and to return to their initial state eventually.

In a large ethnically diverse group of patients seen at a community-based Veterans Affairs practice, cure rates for chronic hepatitis C were lower for African American individuals relative to White individuals, even when patients were receiving optimal therapies. The findings are published in Pharmacology Research & Perspectives.

The investigators noted that although the results demonstrate the importance of racial/ethnic differences in chronic hepatitis C, the true causes of these differences remain unclear and should be further explored in prospective studies where drug levels and patient genetics are taken into account.

A new technique developed by neuroscientists at the University of Toronto Scarborough can, for the first time, reconstruct images of what people perceive based on their brain activity gathered by EEG.

The technique developed by Dan Nemrodov, a postdoctoral fellow in Assistant Professor Adrian Nestor's lab at U of T Scarborough, is able to digitally reconstruct images seen by test subjects based on electroencephalography (EEG) data.

"When we see something, our brain creates a mental percept, which is essentially a mental impression of that thing. We were able to capture this percept using EEG to get a direct illustration of what's happening in the brain during this process," says Nemrodov.

For the study, test subjects hooked up to EEG equipment were shown images of faces. Their brain activity was recorded and then used to digitally recreate the image in the subject's mind using a technique based on machine learning algorithms.

It's not the first time researchers have been able to reconstruct images based on visual stimuli using neuroimaging techniques. The current method was pioneered by Nestor who successfully reconstructed facial images from functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data in the past, but this is the first time EEG has been used.

And while techniques like fMRI - which measures brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow - can grab finer details of what's going on in specific areas of the brain, EEG has greater practical potential given that it's more common, portable, and inexpensive by comparison. EEG also has greater temporal resolution, meaning it can measure with detail how a percept develops in time right down to milliseconds, explains Nemrodov.

"fMRI captures activity at the time scale of seconds, but EEG captures activity at the millisecond scale. So we can see with very fine detail how the percept of a face develops in our brain using EEG," he says. In fact, the researchers were able to estimate that it takes our brain about 170 milliseconds (0.17 seconds) to form a good representation of a face we see.

This study provides validation that EEG has potential for this type of image reconstruction notes Nemrodov, something many researchers doubted was possible given its apparent limitations. Using EEG data for image reconstruction has great theoretical and practical potential from a neurotechnological standpoint, especially since it's relatively inexpensive and portable.

In terms of next steps, work is currently underway in Nestor's lab to test how image reconstruction based on EEG data could be done using memory and applied to a wider range of objects beyond faces. But it could eventually have wide-ranging clinical applications as well.

"It could provide a means of communication for people who are unable to verbally communicate. Not only could it produce a neural-based reconstruction of what a person is perceiving, but also of what they remember and imagine, of what they want to express," says Nestor.

"It could also have forensic uses for law enforcement in gathering eyewitness information on potential suspects rather than relying on verbal descriptions provided to a sketch artist."

The research, which will be published in the journal eNeuro, was funded by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and by a Connaught New Researcher Award.

"What's really exciting is that we're not reconstructing squares and triangles but actual images of a person's face, and that involves a lot of fine-grained visual detail," adds Nestor.

"The fact we can reconstruct what someone experiences visually based on their brain activity opens up a lot of possibilities. It unveils the subjective content of our mind and it provides a way to access, explore and share the content of our perception, memory and imagination."

There is substantial international variation in mortality rates after treatment for abdominal aortic aneurysm, or enlargement of the aorta. A BJS (British Journal of Surgery) study that compared 10-year data from England and Sweden found that mortality rates were initially better in Sweden but improved over time alongside greater use of a minimally invasive procedure called endovascular aneurysm repair in England. Now there is no difference between postoperative mortality rates after aneurysm repair in England and Sweden.

In both countries, better results after abdominal aortic aneurysm repair were seen each year.

"This research is an ongoing body of work being carried out through a collaboration between St. George's Vascular Institute and Uppsala University. The aim of this project is to identify factors that are associated with best practice in order to improve the care of patients who are diagnosed with an abdominal aortic aneurysm," said co-author Dr. Matthew Joe Grima, of St. George's University of London.

MINNEAPOLIS -- February 21, 2018 -- Results from a retrospective study of 1,629 patients with non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL) showed that survival at 4 years following allogeneic hematopoietic cell transplantation (HCT) for patients age 65 years and older is comparable to patients age 55 to 64 years. The study demonstrates that age alone should not be a determinant when considering HCT for patients with NHL. The study results will be presented in an oral session at the BMT Tandem Meetings on Saturday, February 24.

This multi-center study -- conducted by researchers at the CIBMTR® (Center for International Blood and Marrow Transplant Research®) -- compared the outcomes of 446 patients age 65 years and older with outcomes of 1,183 patients age 55-64 years who underwent allogeneic HCT for NHL from 2008 to 2015. Disease subtypes of NHL included follicular lymphoma, mantle cell lymphoma, diffuse large B cell lymphoma and mature T- or NK-cell lymphoma.

No significant differences were found in the 4-year overall survival (46% vs. 51%, p=0.07) and disease relapse/progression (42% vs. 41%, p=0.82) after allogeneic HCT for patients in the 65 and older age group (median age 68), compared to patients in the 55-64 age group (median age 60).

No significant differences were found in the cumulative incidence of grade 2-4 acute graft-versus-host disease (GVHD) at day 180 in the 55-64 years and ≥65 years cohorts: 37% vs 35%, respectively (p=0.38). The cumulative incidence of chronic GVHD at 2 years was also comparable in the 55-64 year age group and ≥65 year age group: 48% vs. 45%, respectively (p=0.25).

"Age alone should not be a determining factor in the decision to refer older patients for transplant consultation to determine patient eligibility," said Nirav Shah, M.D., lead author and assistant professor of medicine at the Medical College of Wisconsin's Division of Hematology and Oncology. "Advances in conditioning regimens and progress in post-transplant care have allowed more patients more than 65 years old or those with co-morbidities to undergo allogeneic HCT. In 2017 alone, nearly 19% of transplant patients were more than 65 years old."

In addition to age, another barrier that patients and their providers face in choosing transplant as a treatment option is the potential lack of insurance coverage. Currently, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has expanded coverage to HCT for myelodysplastic syndromes, sickle cell disease, myelofibrosis and multiple myeloma under Coverage with Evidence Development (CED). Transplants for these indications need to take place within a CMS-approved clinical study that meets federal guidelines.

Dr. Shah noted that use of allogeneic HCT to treat patients with NHL age 65 years or older in the United States is limited by Medicare coverage for this indication. Coverage for lymphoma is currently available to those states that reside in the National Government Services (NGS) jurisdiction. While this effort has been applauded, clearer coverage policy for beneficiaries with lymphoma in all states is needed in order to reduce this access barrier for patients who are eligible for HCT.

The results will be used for further analysis to develop a strategy for nationwide CMS coverage, according to Susan N. Leppke, Director, Public and Payer Policy at the NMDP/Be The Match. "We are excited about these results and we look forward to using this information to help shape our strategy to reduce access barriers for Medicare beneficiaries with lymphoma," she stated.

This study acknowledges HCT as an important and effective treatment for patients with NHL regardless of age.

Severe sleep-disordered breathing is linked with stiffening of the arteries' walls and may be related to the development of heart failure, according to a recent study in ESC Heart Failure, a journal of the European Society of Cardiology.

In the study, arterial stiffness increased according to the severity of sleep-disordered breathing in patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction.

The findings suggest that treating obstructive sleep apnea and other sleep-related breathing abnormalities -- for example, through the use of continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) devices--may improve the prognosis of certain heart failure patients by decreasing arterial stiffness.

"We hope that CPAP may improve not only hypertension but also arterial stiffness, and lead to improvements in the prognosis of patients with heart failure with preserved ejection fraction," said co-author Dr. Akiomi Yoshihisa, of Fukushima Medical University, in Japan.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Iron deficiency in the first four weeks of a piglet's life - equivalent to roughly four months in a human infant - impairs the development of key brain structures, scientists report. The abnormalities remain even after weeks of iron supplementation begun later in life, the researchers found.

The discovery, reported in the journal Nutrients, adds to the evidence that iron deficiency early in life can have long-lasting consequences for the brain, said University of Illinois animal sciences professor Ryan Dilger, who led the study with Austin Mudd, a graduate student in the neuroscience program at the U. of I. The analysis, which relied on neuroimaging to study the piglets' brains as they matured, homed in on specific brain regions most affected by iron-deficient diets. The use of neuroimaging was part of an effort to find noninvasive ways of studying pig brain development that could also be applied in humans.

Pigs are useful models for studies relevant to human health because they have some of the same nutrient and metabolic requirements as humans, Mudd said. For this reason, health authorities require that new infant formulas be tested in piglets before they can be used in clinical trials of human babies.

Pigs also have anatomically similar brains to humans, the researchers said.

"Pig brains and human brains follow very similar developmental trajectories," Mudd said. "One week of piglet brain growth is roughly equivalent to one month of human brain growth. You can overlay those trajectories and they are almost identical."

Pigs and humans also appear to respond in similar ways to dietary deficiencies - in particular, iron deficiencies, Dilger said.

"Nothing is as overt as an iron deficiency," he said. "Both piglets and human infants with iron deficiencies are smaller, and they display other characteristic anomalies. Iron deficiency in humans is the most prolific deficiency the world over."

"Research in humans has shown that iron deficiency early in life results in delayed motor development by 10 months of age, delayed cognitive processing by 10 years of age, altered recognition memory and executive functions at 19 years of age, and poorer emotional health in the mid-twenties" the researchers wrote.

In an earlier study of the same 28 piglets used in the new analysis, the scientists found that those fed iron-deficient diets for the first four weeks of life had smaller overall brain volume than those fed an iron-sufficient diet. When the iron-deficient pigs switched to an iron-replete diet from four to eight weeks of life, their brain volumes caught up with those of pigs that had never been iron deficient. This might lead some to assume that iron supplementation later in life corrects all of the problems associated with earlier deficiencies, Mudd said.

"We know, however, that there are many different brain regions and each one of them develops at a different rate. There could be a critical window of development for one region and not another," he said. "With our neuroimaging, we can look more closely at different brain structures and start to identify those developmental windows."

The researchers used magnetic resonance imaging and other noninvasive techniques to determine the relative iron content, volume and structural integrity of specific brain regions.

By comparing piglets with and without iron-deficient diets in the first four weeks of life, and then again at eight weeks after all received sufficient iron for four weeks, the researchers were able to determine whether the brain anomalies seen at four weeks persisted after the iron-deficient piglets' diets were corrected.

The analysis revealed that the brains of iron-deficient piglets did not fully recover. They had reduced iron content in several brain regions, including the left hippocampus, a region essential to learning and memory. Giving the piglets an iron-replete diet for another four weeks did not appear to increase the iron content of these brain regions.

The iron-deficient piglets also had structural deficiencies in their gray matter and white matter in several brain regions at four and eight weeks. Only the olfactory bulb, a brain structure that supports the sense of smell, was bigger in the iron-deficient piglets than in those that had never been deficient. The olfactory bulbs of the deficient piglets also had greater iron content than those of piglets that had never been deficient.

This latter finding suggests there could be a compensatory mechanism in the brain that concentrates available iron in the olfactory bulb to encourage an animal that normally roots around in the dirt with its snout to do so more aggressively to obtain sufficient iron from soil, the researchers said. While this is only a hypothesis and has not been proved, the researchers said, it is interesting that humans with iron deficiencies sometimes experience a condition known as pica, which makes them want to eat unusual substances, including dirt.

"Essentially what we found in this study is that there is a critical window in development for providing iron, and that window is immediately after birth," Mudd said. More research must be done to determine if this is also true for human infants, he said.

PHILADELPHIA (Feb. 20, 2018) - Studies have shown that talking with teens about sex-related topics is a positive parenting practice that facilitates important sexual health outcomes with heterosexual adolescents. But for LGBTQ youth, the topic of sexuality and sexual health is often ineffectively addressed at home.

A research team led by the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing (Penn Nursing) investigated and found that sex communication with parents throughout adolescence that excludes GBQ males' same-sex concerns is a missed opportunity for targeted sexual risk reduction. This is particularly important considering male-to-male HIV sexual transmission accounts for 92 percent of new HIV infections among all adolescent males between ages 13 and 24, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The study further advances understanding about the larger roles parents and health care providers can play in facilitating positive, family-based sexual health discussions for GBQ youth that are specific to their emerging attractions, current and future behavior, and identities. The findings are set for publication in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Adolescent Research, but are available online first here.

"The growing information on how sex communication occurs between parents and LGBTQ children can ultimately help families and health care providers address this population's health outcomes through inclusive sex communication," says the study's senior author Dalmacio Flores, PhD, ACRN, Postdoctoral Fellow in Penn Nursing's Department of Family and Community Health. "Supporting parents' capacity to address the needs of their LGBTQ children through inclusive sex communication has the potential to minimize risk behaviors before these youths leave the confines of the home."

The team used a qualitative interpretive approach to explore perceptions of sex communication with adolescent males who self-identify as gay, bisexual, or queer. Semi-structured interviews with GBQ males between 15 and 20 years of age were conducted to understand their experiences with sex communication, identify their thoughts on parents' approaches to these conversations and their efficacy as sex educators, and determine the inclusivity of these talks. The study determined that for this demographic, sex communication with parents occurs rarely, is heteronormative in content prior to adolescent males' disclosure as GBQ, and after disclosure is reactionary and based on stereotypes that associate this population with negative health outcomes.

"This study also identified parents as GBQ adolescent males' preferred source of sexuality information despite the infrequent and heteronormative nature of these talks. With health care providers' help, parents can be better sex educators and conduits of pertinent sexual health information for their GBQ adolescents," says Flores.

Mothers who struggle with depression are more likely to parent harshly and in over-reactive ways, and their children are at risk for a variety of negative outcomes--including more frequent behavior problems. A new longitudinal study of adoptive families looked at whether symptoms of depression in adoptive fathers is also related to over-reactive parenting and behavior problems in children; the study also examined how social support networks affect parenting. It found that fathers' symptoms of depression were related to harsh, over-reactive parenting, but not to children's subsequent behavior problems. For both mothers and fathers, when their partner was satisfied with his or her social support outside the marriage, symptoms of depression were no longer associated with harsh, over-reactive parenting.

These findings come from a study by researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, the University of Oregon, the University of California Riverside, George Washington University, Yale University, and The Pennsylvania State University. They appear in the journal Child Development.

"Our study suggests that for fathers as for mothers, even mild symptoms of depression can impair parenting," explains Lindsay Taraban, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, who led the study. "For parents who have a depressed spouse, it may be important to have sustaining social relationships--with friends, extended family, and others--outside the marriage. Through such relationships, parents may receive advice and empathy that increases their ability to support their depressed spouse and positively shape his or her parenting behavior."

Researchers looked at 519 adoptive families (in which children were adopted shortly after birth) from the Early Growth and Development Study. They focused on adoptive families to limit the possibility that shared genes contributed to links between parents' symptoms of depression and children's outcomes, and to isolate more fully the environmental impact of being raised by a depressed parent. Families were of middle to high income, primarily Caucasian, and well educated.

In-home assessments were conducted when children were 9, 18, and 27 months. Researchers measured parents' symptoms of depression and satisfaction with their social support networks when children were 9 months, and their reports of harsh, over-reactive parenting (e.g., displays of anger, meanness, irritability in response to challenges from their infants) when children were 18 months. Mothers and fathers reported on children's recent emotional and behavioral problems when the children were 27 months.

The study also took into consideration the effects of the birth mothers' aggression and mental health problems on children's behavior, adoptive parents' openness about the adoption, obstetric complications, children's temperament and gender, family income, parents' age, and the symptoms of depression of the spouse.

Fathers' and mothers' symptoms of depression when children were 9 months were related to harsh, over-reactive parenting when children were 18 months, the study found. However, only mothers' symptoms of depression were related to children's behavior problems when children were 27 months. The authors suggested this may be because fathers typically spend less time in direct contact with their children.

For both mothers and fathers, when their partner said he or she was very satisfied with his or her social support network, symptoms of depression were no longer associated with harsh, over-reactive parenting. Parents' own levels of satisfaction with their social support networks did not affect the connection between symptoms of depression and parenting, the researchers found.

The study has implications for practice. "Practitioners should encourage not only depressed parents, but also their partners, to practice self-care so they have adequate support and can help create a warm, sensitive rearing environment for their young children," suggests Daniel Shaw, distinguished professor of psychology at the University of Pittsburgh, who coauthored the study.

Older siblings play an important role in the lives of their younger siblings. Like parents, older brothers and sisters act as role models and teachers, helping their younger siblings learn about the world. This positive influence is thought to extend to younger siblings' capacity to feel care and sympathy for those in need: Children whose older siblings are kind, warm, and supportive are more empathic than children whose siblings lack these characteristics. A new longitudinal study looked at whether younger siblings also contribute to their older sisters' and brothers' empathy in early childhood, when empathic tendencies begin to develop. The research found that beyond the influence of parents, both older and younger siblings positively influence each other's empathic concern over time.

The study was done by researchers at the University of Calgary, Universite Laval, Tel Aviv University, and the University of Toronto. It appears in the journal Child Development.

Researchers studied an ethnically diverse group of 452 Canadian sibling pairs and their mothers who were part of the Kids, Families, and Places project and from a range of socioeconomic backgrounds. They wanted to determine whether levels of empathy in 18- and 48-month-old siblings at the start of the study predicted changes in the other siblings' empathy 18 months later. The researchers videotaped interactions in the families' homes and mothers completed questionnaires. Children's empathy was measured by observing each sibling's behavioral and facial responses to an adult researcher who pretended to be distressed (e.g., after breaking a cherished object) and hurt (e.g., after hitting her knee and catching her finger in a briefcase).

"Although it's assumed that older siblings and parents are the primary socializing influences on younger siblings' development (but not vice versa), we found that both younger and older siblings positively contributed to each other's empathy over time," explains Marc Jambon, postdoctoral fellow at the University of Toronto, who was at the University of Calgary when he led the study. "These findings stayed the same, even after taking into consideration each child's earlier levels of empathy and factors that siblings in a family share - such as parenting practices or the family's socioeconomic status - that could explain similarities between them."

The researchers also examined whether siblings' development of empathy differed as a result of age and gender differences between siblings (e.g., younger brother/older sister versus younger brother/older brother). "The effects stayed the same for all children in the study with one exception: Younger brothers didn't contribute to significant changes in older sisters' empathy," Jambon notes. The influence of older brothers and sisters was also stronger in families in which the age difference between the siblings was greater, suggesting they were more effective teachers and role models, the study found.

"Our findings emphasize the importance of considering how all members of the family, not just parents and older siblings, contribute to children's development," suggests Sheri Madigan, Canada Research Chair in Determinants of Child Development and assistant professor of psychology at the University of Calgary, who coauthored the study. "The influence of younger siblings has been found during adolescence, but our study indicates that this process may begin much earlier than previously thought."

The authors suggest that an important next step is to determine if and how we can cultivate greater empathic tendencies in young children, and whether teaching one sibling, either older or younger, can in turn affect the empathy of the other sibling. Such work would also help address the broader question of how family interventions aimed at promoting positive developmental outcomes during childhood can benefit from focusing on relationships between siblings.