Earth

Ann Arbor, February 20, 2018 - Suicide is a major national concern in the US. In 2016, it was the second leading cause of death in adolescents aged 12-18 years, with over 1,900 individuals in this age group dying by suicide. Researchers have now identified sexual orientation discordance - sexual contact that is inconsistent with the individual's sexual orientation - as a potential risk factor for adolescent suicidal ideation and/or attempts. They found that discordant students were 70 percent more likely to have had suicidal ideas or to have made suicide attempts compared with concordant students, reports the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

"These findings are a wakeup call that we need to learn more about why teens who engage in sexual activity that is different than their sexual orientation are more likely to think about or attempt suicide," explained lead investigator Francis B. Annor, PhD, from the Epidemic Intelligence Service and Division of Violence Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Atlanta, Georgia. "A better understanding of the stress that leads to suicidal thoughts or attempts among these young people can help communities identify and implement tailored approaches to help them."

Investigators examined the association between sexual orientation discordance and suicidal ideation/suicide attempts among a nationally representative sample of US high school students. In 2015 for the first time, CDC's national Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS) included two measures of sexual orientation - sexual identity and sex of sexual contacts - providing an opportunity to examine discordance and how it relates to nonfatal suicidal behaviors among a nationally representative sample. Data were analyzed on a nationally representative group of close to 6,800 students in ninth to twelfth grades who attend public and private schools, identify as heterosexual or gay/lesbian, and had had sexual contact.

Based on the sex of respondents, sex of sexual contacts was categorized as sexual contact with only the opposite sex, sexual contact with only the same sex, sexual contact with both sexes, or no sexual contact. The sexual identity variable was used as the basis against which the sex of sexual contact variable was compared because most students responded to this question. For students who identified as heterosexual, discordance was established if they had had sexual contact with only the same sex or with both sexes. For students who identified as gay/lesbian, discordance was established if they had had sexual contact with only the opposite sex or with both sexes. Respondents who identified as bisexual or not sure were excluded from this study because authors could not be sure that the sex of their sexual contacts was discordant with their sexual identity.

Respondents were considered as being at low risk for nonfatal suicidal behaviors if they had not seriously considered attempting suicide, made a plan about how they would attempt suicide, or attempted suicide during the past 12 months. Students who either seriously considered attempting suicide, made a plan about how they would attempt suicide, or made at least one suicide attempt during the past 12 months were considered as being at high risk for nonfatal suicidal behaviors.

Most students (98 percent) identified as heterosexual. Approximately 96 percent of students experienced sexual orientation concordance with the remaining 4 percent experiencing discordance. The prevalence of discordance in gay/lesbian students was 32 percent, whereas the prevalence was 3.3 percent among heterosexual students.

Discordant students were 70 percent more likely to have experienced nonfatal suicidal behaviors during the past 12 months compared with concordant students and 60 percent after excluding students who had experienced forced sexual intercourse. Higher risk for nonfatal suicidal behaviors was found for discordant students who were bullied on school property, who experienced forced sexual intercourse, and who self-identified as gay/lesbian than their analogous counterparts.

"This study highlights another potential risk factor for youth suicide," commented Dr. Annor. "The needs of all youth should be considered when developing and implementing suicide prevention programs. The good news is that suicide is preventable. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention technical package to prevent suicide can help communities and states prioritize strategies with the best available evidence."

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 19, 2018 -- Enzymes are proteins that speed up or catalyze a reaction in living organisms. Bacteria can produce enzymes that make them resistant to antibiotics. Specifically, the TEM beta-lactamase enzyme enables bacteria to develop a resistance to beta-lactam antibiotics, such as penicillin and cephalosporins. Researchers at Stanford University are studying how an enzyme changes and becomes antibiotic-resistant.

During the Biophysical Society's 62nd Annual Meeting, held Feb. 17-21, 2018, in San Francisco, California, Samuel H. Schneider, a graduate student in Stanford University's Boxer Lab, will present the group's research studying what happens when an enzyme is accelerating reaction and how an enzyme changes over time making it resistant to antibiotics.

Researchers have been trying to figure out exactly what is happening when an enzyme binds to another molecule and ultimately, how that enzyme becomes resistant to antibiotics. The team of researchers at the Boxer Lab is using an existing technique called the vibrational Stark effect (VSE) in a novel way to measure a molecule's electric field when the enzyme and molecule are attached at different times during the enzyme's evolution to becoming resistant to antibiotics.

The team measured the electric fields generated by a TEM beta-lactamase enzyme attached to two different molecules and the vibration of the chemical bonds in these molecules in the hopes that they will find what makes the enzyme develop a resistance to cephalosporins antibiotics.

Going forward, the team hopes to expand the study to thousands of variants of these enzymes "to understand the correlation between the evolution of electric fields in enzymes and the development of [antibiotic] resistances," said Jacek Kozuch, a postdoctoral researcher working in the Boxer Lab.

With their insensitivity to decoherence what are known as Majorana particles could become stable building blocks of a quantum computer. The problem is that they only occur under very special circumstances. Now researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have succeeded in manufacturing a component that is able to host the sought-after particles.

Researchers throughout the world are struggling to build a quantum computer. One of the great challenges is to overcome the sensitivity of quantum systems to decoherence, collaps of superpositions. One track within quantum computer research is therefore to make use of what are known as Majorana particles, which are also called Majorana fermions. Microsoft is also committed to the development of this type of quantum computer.

Majorana fermions are highly original particles, quite unlike those that make up the materials around us. In highly simplified terms, they can be seen as half electron. In a quantum computer the idea is to encode information in a pair of Majorana fermions which are separated in the material, which should, in principle, make the calculations immune to decoherence.

So where do you find Majorana fermions?

In solid state materials they only appear to occur in what are known as topological superconductors - a new type of superconductor that is so new and special that it is hardly ever found in practice. But a research team at Chalmers University of Technology is now among the first in the world to submit results indicating that they have actually succeeded in manufacturing a topological superconductor.

"Our experimental results are consistent with topological superconductivity," says Floriana Lombardi, Professor at the Quantum Device Physics Laboratory at Chalmers.

To create their unconventional superconductor they started with what is called a topological insulator made of bismuth telluride, Be2Te3. A topological insulator is mainly just an insulator - in other words it does not conduct current - but it conducts current in a very special way on the surface. The researchers have placed a layer of a conventional superconductor on top, in this case aluminium, which conducts current entirely without resistance at really low temperatures.

"The superconducting pair of electrons then leak into the topological insulator which also becomes superconducting," explains Thilo Bauch, Associate Professor in Quantum Device Physics.

However, the initial measurements all indicated that they only had standard superconductivity induced in the Bi2Te3 topological insulator. But when they cooled the component down again later, to routinely repeat some measurements, the situation suddenly changed - the characteristics of the superconducting pairs of electrons varied in different directions.

"And that isn't compatible at all with conventional superconductivity. Suddenly unexpected and exciting things occurred," says Lombardi.

Unlike other research teams, Lombardi's team used platinum to assemble the topological insulator with the aluminium. Repeated cooling cycles gave rise to stresses in the material (see image below), which caused the superconductivity to change its properties.

After an intensive period of analyses the research team was able to establish that they had probably succeeded in creating a topological superconductor.

"For practical applications the material is mainly of interest to those attempting to build a topological quantum computer. We ourselves want to explore the new physics that lies hidden in topological superconductors - this is a new chapter in physics," Lombardi says.

A new study published today in the Journal of Trust Research reveals how boards of directors can proactively address CEO misconduct to increase public trust towards an organization.

Experts assessed how members of the public might react to two different board-initiated responses to a CEO transgression - dismissing the CEO, or keeping the CEO in place while offering an apology and acknowledgement of the wrongdoing.

They discovered that both tactics increased trust towards the organization, but in different ways. By firing the CEO, the board differentiates itself from the transgressor, leaving the organization's reputation intact. However, in cases where the CEO must stay, a board-requested CEO apology, combined with the CEO's acknowledgement of wrongdoing, encourages others to see the CEO as a 'reformed sinner', helping to repair trust in the organization.

In both cases, the board of directors took initiative to handle these types of crises with authority to restore faith in the organization.

The authors suggest that boards of directors should consider how to best signal that either 1) the guilty CEO is distinct from the rest of the top leadership (which is assumed trustworthy), or 2) that the CEO has learned a lesson from the event and will be a reformed leader in the future.

Co-author of the study, Professor Cecily D. Cooper, commented: "CEO transgressions, such as insider trading, siphoning of corporate funds for personal use, or inappropriate personal behavior, are an unfortunately common storyline in today's business press. We find that actions taken by the board of directors are instrumental when addressing CEO misconduct.

"The board can send different signals via tactics such as firing the errant CEO or forcing him/her to apologize and pay a personal cost. These types of actions are key to repairing trust in the CEO's associated organization, and even the CEO him/herself in cases where the CEO must stay.

"Either of these strategies can address the violation and start to rebuild trust - but if the CEO needs to stay on with the company, the latter strategy (emphasizing CEO repentance) needs to be adopted."

To produce their findings, the researchers set up an experimental study with 87 participants, which replicated a real-life trust violation by a CEO at a leading Fortune-500 company. They then analyzed university students' responses to the two different board-directed tactics, which were tested through a series of videos and newspaper articles.

WASHINGTON, D.C., Feb. 18, 2018 -- Protein systems, such as Ras, make up the complex signaling pathways that control whether a cell divides or, in some cases, becomes cancerous and metastasizes into other regions of the body. For example, 98 percent of pancreatic cancers show Ras protein mutations.

Ras proteins have long been the focus of cancer research because of their role as "on/off switch" signaling pathways that control cell division and failure to die like normal, healthy cells do. In order for Ras proteins to do their job, they need to bind to a membrane surface. Scientists have tried to pharmaceutically "turn off" the Ras protein, or prevent it from being "turned on", without much success. Now, a team of researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has been able to study precisely how Ras proteins interact with cell membrane surfaces.

Stephen Sligar and his team have found that the KRas4b form of Ras protein binds more tightly to the cell membrane, but it needs to attach on the correct side.

One side of the KRas4b protein associates with signaling partners; if this side binds to the membrane, then it's not able to interact with its partners, but if the inactive side binds to the membrane, then the active side is available to engage in the downstream signaling process that could enable cancer. Sligar' s team discovered that fatty acids in KRas4b help control which side attaches to the cell membrane.

"The membrane is playing a very critical role in controlling the activity of very complex signaling networks that involve many different protein molecules, Sligar said. "It is now becoming appreciated how much the membrane composition can dictate how these molecules are recruited to the membrane surface, and then how they go about their business."

In the long term, the revitalized interest in the biophysics of KRas4b, and its interaction with the membrane, will hopefully guide the discovery and design of pharmaceuticals for the treatment of cancer.

AUSTIN, Tex -- It's not rare that a baby experiences a stroke around the time it is born. Birth is hard on the brain, as is the change in blood circulation from the mother to the neonate. At least 1 in 4,000 babies are affected shortly before, during, or after birth.

But a stroke in a baby -- even a big one -- does not have the same lasting impact as a stroke in an adult. A study led by Georgetown University Medical Center investigators found that a decade or two after a "perinatal" stroke damaged the left "language" side of the brain, affected teenagers and young adults used the right sides of their brain for language.

The findings, to be reported Feb. 17 in a symposium at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Annual Meeting in Austin, Tex., demonstrates how "plastic" brain function is in infants, says cognitive neuroscientist Elissa L. Newport, PhD, professor of neurology at Georgetown University School of Medicine, and director of the Center for Brain Plasticity and Recovery at Georgetown University and MedStar National Rehabilitation Network.

Her study found that the 12 individuals studied, aged 12 to 25, who had a left-brain perinatal stroke all used the right side of their brains for language. "Their language is good -- normal," she says.

The only telltale signs of prior damage to their brain are that some study individuals limp a bit and many have learned to make their left hands dominant because the stroke left right hand function impaired. They also have some executive function impairments -- slightly slower neural processing, for example -- that are common in individuals with brain injuries. But basic cognitive functions, like language comprehension and production, are excellent, Newport says.

Furthermore, imaging studies revealed that language in these participants is all based in the right side in an exact, mirror opposite region to the left normal language areas. This has also been found in previous research, but earlier findings have been inconsistent, perhaps due to the heterogeneity of the types of brain injuries included in those studies, Newport explains. Her research, which was carefully controlled in terms of the types and areas of injury included, suggests that while "these young brains were very plastic, meaning they could relocate language to a healthy area, it doesn't mean that new areas can be located willy-nilly on the right side.

"We believe there are very important constraints to where functions can be relocated," she says. "There are very specific regions that take over when part of the brain is injured, depending on the particular function. Each function, like language or spatial skills, has a particular region that can take over if its primary brain area is injured. This is a very important discovery that may have implications in the rehabilitation of adult stroke survivors."

This finding makes sense in very young brains, Newport adds. “Imaging shows that children up to about age four can process language in both sides of their brains, and then the functions split up: the left side processes sentences and the right processes emotion in language.”

Newport and her colleagues are extending their study of brain function after a perinatal stroke to a larger group of participants, and are looking at both left and right brain strokes and also at whether brain functions other than language are relocated and where.

Her group is also collaborating on studies that may reveal the molecular basis of plasticity in young brains -- additional information that might help switch on plasticity in adults who have suffered stroke or brain injury.

In the ongoing study, Newport collaborates with other investigators at Georgetown University, as well as at Johns Hopkins University, Children's National Medical Center, Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, and MedStar National Rehabilitation Network.

Newport reports having no personal financial interests related to the study.

Stanford, CA--Roots face many challenges in the soil in order to supply the plant with the necessary water and nutrients. New work from Carnegie and Stanford University's José Dinneny shows that one of these challenges, salinity, can cause root cells to explode if the risk is not properly sensed. The findings, published by Current Biology, could help scientists improve agricultural productivity in saline soils, which occur across the globe and reduce crop yields.

Salts build up in soils from natural causes, such as sea spray, or can be introduced as a consequence of irrigation and poor land management. Salinity has deleterious effects on plant health and limits crop yields, because salt inhibits water uptake and can be toxic for plants.

But Dinneny and his collaborators, including Alice Cheung at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Carnegie's Wei Feng, the paper's lead author, determined a never-before-described effect that salt has on the plant cell wall--a structure that provides strength to the plant cell and determines the rate at which plant tissues can grow.

Animal cells are surrounded by a layer of material on the outside, called the extracellular matrix, which provides structural support and facilitates communication. But the walls that surround plant cells need to resist tremendous pressure that builds up inside them. Plant cell walls must be strong enough to resist pressures two to three times greater than that in a car tire, while also being elastic enough to allow for growth.

When this growth extends a plant root into a saline environment, the root's first response for self-protection is to shut off growth for several hours.

"After this dormant phase, roots are ready to pick themselves up and start growing again," explained Dinneny. "We were looking for genetic mutations that disrupted the ability of roots to successfully enter the recovery phase. We found one and the effect of the mutation simply shocked us."

Dinneny, Cheung, Feng, and their colleagues found that a cell surface receptor--a kind of protein that interacts with molecules on the outside of the cell--called FERONIA is crucial to a plant's ability to sense salinity's effects on the wall and prevent a loss of structural integrity.

"Plants with mutations that cause them to be deficient in FERONIA actually violently explode as they start to recover growth, their tissues degenerate, and ultimately they die," added Feng.

The damage caused by salinity could be partly reversed by adding chemicals to the environment that increased the strength of the wall.

Furthermore, the authors further showed similar defects could be observed in mutants that have disruptions in certain chemical bonds in the structures of their cell walls.

Taken together, these findings indicate that the FERONIA protein directly interacts with the plant cell wall and could be directly sensing some of the damage to the wall caused by salinity.

"What our work suggests is that the very processes that regulate plant cell wall chemistry may be important for sensing and surviving high-salt soil conditions," Dinneny explained. "This opens up a whole new exciting area of research on salt tolerance mechanisms in plants--it may even be possible to change the chemistry of the cell wall to alter its resistance to salt-induced damage."

Chronic pain is among the most vexing health problems, including in the developing world, where most research suggests that the prevalence of pain is similar to the United States and other developed nations.

Preliminary research from a small pilot study carried out in Meru, in eastern Kenya, shows a link between chronic pain and consumption of glutamate, a common flavor enhancer found in Western and non-Western diets worldwide. Results demonstrated that when study participants cut monosodium glutamate from their diets, their symptoms improved. The findings are published in the journal Nutrition.

"This preliminary research in Kenya is consistent with what I am observing in my chronic pain research here in the United States," said Kathleen Holton, lead author of the study and assistant professor of health studies at American University. "We don't know what exposure is leading to this susceptibility to dietary glutamate, but this pilot study suggests the need for a large-scale clinical trial, since dietary change could be an effective low-cost treatment option for developing countries."

As researchers study glutamate, they're gaining insights into how the chemical works in the human brain and body. In the brain, glutamate is a common neurotransmitter. It also can act as an excitotoxin, over-stimulating and damaging or killing nerve cells. Some research has found that increased consumption of glutamate may enhance chronic pain symptoms, so there is biological cause for scientists to examine the chemical in relation to pain.

Glutamate is also a naturally occurring chemical in some foods, like soy sauce and parmesan cheese, but is more commonly found as a food additive. In the U.S., glutamate is added to many food products and found under many names including 'monosodium glutamate,' 'hydrolyzed protein,' 'protein isolate,' 'protein extract' and 'autolyzed yeast extract,' just to name a few. In Kenya, people's exposure to glutamate is only from a few foods which contain MSG, with the largest exposure being from a mixed seasoning spice called Mchuzi Mix, which is typically used in cooking daily.

In the Kenya study, the goal was to test whether a dietary intervention could perform as well as or better than over-the-counter medication in relieving pain. With a sample size of 30 participants, the researchers tested the effects of removing MSG, increasing water intake, or a combination of both, relative to acetaminophen (the main treatment option available in Meru). Study participants experienced chronic pain for at least three months or more and in at least three quadrants of the body. Similar to what is seen with widespread chronic pain patients in the U.S., most also suffered from other neurological symptoms, including headaches or migraines, chronic fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and sleep issues.

Holton's collaborators in the research were University of Michigan Professor Dr. Daniel J. Clauw, M.D., and Dr. Peter K. Ndege, M.D., of Meru University of Science and Technology in Kenya. This research came about after Clauw learned about Meru villagers' plight with chronic pain. When the team initially surveyed residents in the area, an estimated 60 percent reported chronic pain, twice the amount typically observed.

The participants were broken into four groups. Because dehydration is associated with headache pain, the researchers factored that into the study design. The groups consisted of the following: If subjects commonly consumed Mchuzi Mix, they were given a similar mixed seasoning substitute that contained no MSG. Those reporting low water intake and no MSG were given bottled water and instructed to increase water consumption to eight cups a day.

Those with low water consumption who also consumed MSG were given water and the substitute spices. The control group had neither exposure and was given acetaminophen. The group that removed MSG from its diet and consumed more water reported significant improvements in their symptoms, as did the group receiving acetaminophen.

In the future, Holton, Clauw and Ndege plan a larger, epidemiological survey to further understand the prevalence of widespread chronic pain in the region and to train Kenyan research staff how to conduct a large-scale clinical trial to test if dietary change could be an effective, low-cost treatment option for pain in countries like Kenya.

"This would be incredible if we could impact chronic pain simply by making slight modifications to diet," said Clauw, a leading expert on chronic pain.

After days of lingering off the west Kimberley coast of Western Australia as a slowly organizing low pressure area, Tropical Storm 10S has formed about 50 miles west of Broome, Australia.

Tropical Storm 10S was previously known as System 91S and strengthened into a tropical cyclone early today, Feb. 16. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology (ABM) issued warnings and watches on 10S. The Warning Zone covers Cape Leveque to Port Hedland, including Broome and Bidyadanga. The Watch Zone extends to the inland east Pilbara and the southwest Kimberley to include Marble Bar, Nullagine and Telfer.

ABM noted that there is a Blue Alert for residents between Cape Leveque and DeGrey, including Broome and Bidyadanga. Residents need to prepare for cyclonic weather and organize an emergency kit including first aid kit, torch, portable radio, spare batteries, food and water. In addition, communities between De Grey and Port Hedland and in the inland east Pilbara should listen for the next advice. For updated forecasts from ABM, visit: http://www.bom.gov.au.

Infrared light provides valuable temperature data to forecasters and cloud top temperatures give clues about highest, coldest, strongest storms within a hurricane. NASA's Aqua satellite provided an infrared view of Tropical Storm 10S that showed where the strongest storms were located.

On Feb.16 at 12:20 p.m. EDT (1720 UTC) the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite analyzed Tropical Storm 10S's cloud top temperatures in infrared light. MODIS found a small area around the center of circulation where cloud top temperatures of strongest thunderstorms. Those temperatures were as cold as or colder than minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 62.2 Celsius).Cloud top temperatures that cold indicate strong storms that have the capability to create heavy rain.

The infrared imagery showed that the center of 10S remained off the coast, while a strong band of thunderstorms in the eastern quadrant were soaking the coast.

The Joint Typhoon Warning Center (JTWC) noted at 10 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) 10S's maximum sustained winds were near 40 mph (35 knots/62 kph). 10S was moving to the southwest direction at 7 mph (6 knots/11 kph). 10S was located about 46 miles west of Broome, Australia near 18.4 degrees south latitude and 120.9 degrees east longitude.

JTWC expects 10S to strengthen rapidly to hurricane-force, as strong as 92 mph (80 knots/148 kph), before making landfall. The cyclone will parallel the coast of Western Australia, before heading inland between Broome and Port Hedland.

10S is expected to cross the west Kimberley or east Pilbara coast on Sunday, Feb. 18.

With their insensitivity to decoherence what are known as Majorana particles could become stable building blocks of a quantum computer. The problem is that they only occur under very special circumstances. Now researchers at Chalmers University of Technology have succeeded in manufacturing a component that is able to host the sought-after particles.

Researchers throughout the world are struggling to build a quantum computer. One of the great challenges is to overcome the sensitivity of quantum systems to decoherence, collaps of superpositions. One track within quantum computer research is therefore to make use of what are known as Majorana particles, which are also called Majorana fermions. Microsoft is also committed to the development of this type of quantum computer.

Majorana fermions are highly original particles, quite unlike those that make up the materials around us. In highly simplified terms, they can be seen as half electron. In a quantum computer the idea is to encode information in a pair of Majorana fermions which are separated in the material, which should, in principle, make the calculations immune to decoherence.

So where do you find Majorana fermions?

In solid state materials they only appear to occur in what are known as topological superconductors - a new type of superconductor that is so new and special that it is hardly ever found in practice. But a research team at Chalmers University of Technology is now among the first in the world to submit results indicating that they have actually succeeded in manufacturing a topological superconductor.

"Our experimental results are consistent with topological superconductivity," says Floriana Lombardi, Professor at the Quantum Device Physics Laboratory at Chalmers.

To create their unconventional superconductor they started with what is called a topological insulator made of bismuth telluride, Be2Te3. A topological insulator is mainly just an insulator - in other words it does not conduct current - but it conducts current in a very special way on the surface. The researchers have placed a layer of a conventional superconductor on top, in this case aluminium, which conducts current entirely without resistance at really low temperatures.

"The superconducting pair of electrons then leak into the topological insulator which also becomes superconducting," explains Thilo Bauch, Associate Professor in Quantum Device Physics.

However, the initial measurements all indicated that they only had standard superconductivity induced in the Bi2Te3 topological insulator. But when they cooled the component down again later, to routinely repeat some measurements, the situation suddenly changed - the characteristics of the superconducting pairs of electrons varied in different directions.

"And that isn't compatible at all with conventional superconductivity. Suddenly unexpected and exciting things occurred," says Lombardi.

Unlike other research teams, Lombardi's team used platinum to assemble the topological insulator with the aluminium. Repeated cooling cycles gave rise to stresses in the material (see image below), which caused the superconductivity to change its properties.

After an intensive period of analyses the research team was able to establish that they had probably succeeded in creating a topological superconductor.

"For practical applications the material is mainly of interest to those attempting to build a topological quantum computer. We ourselves want to explore the new physics that lies hidden in topological superconductors - this is a new chapter in physics," Lombardi says.