Tech

In an international collaboration, researchers from Uppsala University have mapped the lymph node lymphatic vessels in mice and humans down to the level of individual cells. The results may eventually help scientists to discover new methods for strengthening the immune system against viruses and cancer. Their work has been published in the journal Frontiers of Cardiovascular Research.

The unique microenvironment of the lymph nodes plays an important role in maintaining an efficient immune system. When we have an infection, the lymph nodes swell and release activated white blood cells into the body through the lymphatic vessels. It is important to understand how these vessels work if we are to develop new drugs to improve the immune system; for example, new vaccines.

Previous research has shown that the specialised cells that make the lymphatic vessels, known as lymphatic endothelial cells, both communicate with white blood cells and actively assist in regulating the immune system. Until now, however, researchers have only understood the importance of a few of the genes that control the versatility of these cells.

Our immune system is involved in a range of different diseases, including chronic inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis, atherosclerosis and cancer. In order to study the role of the immune system in disease mechanisms, many scientists use model systems, including mice.

"By using model systems, we researchers can test the function of various genes and evaluate treatment strategies, all of which provides us with valuable knowledge. However, in order to translate findings from mouse models to humans we need a better understanding of the similarities and differences between the signalling pathways and genes that control cell function in the different species," explains Maria Ulvmar, a researcher who led the study at Uppsala University's Department of Immunology, Genetics and Pathology.

The research teams that conducted the study analysed the activity of genes in individual cells in mice and humans. Based on the gene activity profiles, they were able to demonstrate that both species have five distinct and similar groups of lymphatic endothelial cells in the lymph nodes, two of which were previously unknown. This discovery, complements previous published analysis of the lymphatic vessels in the lymph nodes and will help the scientific understanding of how immune cells enter and leave the lymph nodes and how their activity is regulated.

The results support the proposition that basic vessel functionality is the same in mice and humans. At the same time, researchers noted crucial differences in gene activity between the two species. This discovery is important for future research.

"This new knowledge will make it possible for my team and other researchers to focus our research on the genes expressed in humans and eventually identify new ways to strengthen the immune system against viral diseases and cancer for example. My team is currently looking at how the lymph node endothelium changes in cancer and contributes to metastases in breast cancer. This an exciting new area of research and we are looking forward to new advances in our understanding of organ-specific and immune-regulating functions of the lymphatic endothelial cells over the next few years," says Maria Ulvmar.

Researchers in the College of Science have developed a material that is up to 40 times faster in desalinating small batches of water than other materials available today.

Guoliang "Greg" Liu, an assistant professor in the Department of Chemistry, has been researching the design and synthesis of porous carbon fibers for the last several years. The material is composed of long, fibrous strands of carbon with uniform mesopores of approximately 10 nanometers.

Liu sees the primary application of his porous carbon fibers in the automotive industry, where similar, but less efficient, materials are already used as the external shells of some luxury cars. Now, Liu reports a new application for this wonder material: capacitive desalination.

"Because of the high surface area of the porous carbon fibers, we can store a lot of ions," said Liu, who is also an affiliated faculty member of the Macromolecules Innovation Institute. "Because of the interconnected porous network, the ion movement is very fast inside the pores."

The most well-known method of desalination is reverse osmosis, in which seawater is forced through a semi-permeable membrane to separate salts from water. Liu said the materials and process in reverse osmosis are relatively mature now, and this energy-intensive process is efficient at treating large quantities of water. Capacitive desalination using porous carbon fibers, on the other hand, requires much less energy for treating water with low salinity.

"The advantage of our process is that we can have much faster, much higher capacity, and more energy efficiency at this concentration range," Liu said. "Under our experimental conditions of around 500 milligrams (of salt) per liter, it's going to be way more expensive if you use other means because you're trying to get a little bit of salt out of the water."

Tianyu Liu, a postdoctoral research associate in the Liu Lab, served as the first author in an article detailing this work published in Science Advances.

He said the process was simple: he placed two pieces of porous carbon fibers into a saline solution, and then he applied a voltage through the fibers. This applied voltage created an electrostatic force that naturally attracted the salt ions out of the water.

"Capacitive desalination treats the water using electrodes with high surface areas and electrical conductivity," Tianyu Liu said. "The potential you apply reduces the ion concentration in water, and then you discharge the ions to regenerate the electrodes. These processes are repeatable with negligible loss of desalination capacity."

Tianyu Liu notes that while this material has shown great results, the research team has only shown a proof of concept for desalination. They are looking for engineering laboratories on campus and across the country to help scale up this research and design large-scale desalination cells.

This work is conducted in collaboration with Prof. Zhen "Jason" He, a former faculty member of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Tech, and now a faculty member at McKelvey School of Engineering at Washington University in St. Louis.

Greg Liu's porous carbon fibers are promising for end applications as diverse as batteries, cars, and desalination, and he's looking to see what else it can do.

"We hit the jackpot," Greg Liu said. "We want to explore all of the advantages of this material. This material has many great properties, and there are so many things we can do."

The accumulation of senescent cells plays a significant role in cancer pathogenesis and other diseases. However, senolytic drugs (intended to remove senescent cells) present significant toxicity, which limits their therapeutic benefits.

Now, a new international study involving researchers at CIBER-BBN, the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and the Principe Felipe Research Center, in collaboration with the University of Cambridge, have just proved the efficiency of a new conjugated drug, Nav-Gal, which selectively removes senescent cells, minimising the effect on healthy cells and reducing toxicity through this therapy. The use of this drug in combination with chemotherapy could be confirmed as a promising strategy in treating cancer. The auspicious results of this study have been published in the journal Aging Cell.

Senescent cells: the target

Senescence is a response to cell damage and stress characterised by the arrest of the cell cycle. When aging, cells permanently stop dividing, thus preventing the propagation of damaged and dysfunctional cells. However, eventually, a massive quantity of senescent cells accumulate in tissues, resulting in the onset and progression of multiple disorders, including diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, lung fibrosis, neurological disorders or cancer. Moreover, in the case of cancer, several chemotherapies result in cell senescence, and this accumulation of senescent cells due to the treatments has been related to tumourigenesis, associated with metastasis and the recurrence of tumours in different types of cancer. That is why the search for new drugs that remove senescent cells induced by cancer treatments is a key question in order to guarantee the total eradication of the tumour and prevent them from recurring.

On this front, senolytic drugs (compounds that kill senescent cells using several mechanisms) are a promising therapeutic alternative in oncology and for treating other diseases related to the accumulation of senescent cells. However, today senolytics present a low specificity because they also damage healthy cells, and have significant toxicities, which reduce their therapeutic benefits.

Reducing toxicity and preventing "collateral damages"

In this new study, published in Aging Cell, researchers at CIBER-BBN, the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) and the Principe Felipe Research Center, in collaboration with researchers from CRUK, at the University of Cambridge, worked on the design of a second-generation senolytic, which is more specific and less toxic. They focused on Navitoclax, a drug validated in preclinical models that proved to have a high capacity to destroy senescent cells, modifying it with acetylated-galactose.

The new compound, called Nav-Gal, results in a drug with selective, wide-ranging senolytic activity, which induces the death of senescent cells while preserving the activity of healthy cells.

"To summarize, we suggest the galactose conjugation with certain drugs as a versatile methodology to develop second-generation prodrugs with high senolytic activity and reduced toxicity," explains Ramón Martínez Máñez, member of the Interuniversity Research Institute for Molecular Recognition and Technological Development (IDM) of the Universitat Politècnica de València, Scientific Director of CIBER-BBN and one of the study's coordinators.

The researchers tested this drug in combination with chemotherapy (cisplatin) in human lung cancer cells, proving that treatment with cisplatin and Nav-Gal results in the eradication of senescent lung cancer cells and significantly reducing tumour growth. "This study provides evidence of the potential clinical application of combining senescence-induction chemotherapies with senotherapies in cancer," explains Daniel Muñoz Espín from the CRUK Early Detection Programme of the University of Cambridge. Moreover, the compound Nav-Gal reduced platelet toxicity and the thrombopenia (reduction of the platelet circulation in bloodstream) caused by the previous drug, Navitoclax.

Ischemia is a disease that occurs when tissue stops receiving the vascular supply it needs. Though it can affect several organs, the digestive system is one of the most harmed by the loss of blood circulation, making it one of the most common veterinarian emergencies, especially among certain animals such as dogs and horses.

A new study published by the University of Cordoba tested the effectiveness of a drug that reduces side effects from the treatment of this intestinal disease on rabbit models. Its name is methylene blue, an organic coloring and a drug known in the medical field for its usefulness in different therapeutic procedures.

Although the disease can occur for several reasons, "part of the treatment consists of repositioning the affected organ and restoring the blood supply, which is known as reperfusion", explains the lead author of the study and UCO Department of Animal Medicine and Surgery researcher Juan Morgaz. The problem is that this procedure also has negative consequences. During the time that the cells do not receive nutrients from the blood, they try to get this energy intake by means of other mechanisms. This produces toxic substances that are emitted via the blood stream once the intestine has recovered. As a consequence, cardiac problems and other reactions arise that can cause the animal's death.

More specifically, in addition to helping restore blood flow, the drug decreases the effects of this chain reaction and has a protective effect on the rest of the organism.

According to the study's results, after administering the drug, tissue damage, inflammation and degree of necrosis are lower, and heart rate and blood pressure are significantly improved.

Dosage is key

After having analyzed the influence of dosage, the research team concluded that the best strategy for administering the drug is in small doses continually. "This is a medicine with a fast metabolism and the intestine usually takes time to recover after an ischemia, so, a larger dosis does not guarantee a greater protective effect, but rather the exact opposite", explains the lead author.

The next stage is to assess the effect of the drug on animal models who tend to have this disease more frequently. For instance, certain dog breeds are more susceptible to having rotations in the stomach that stop their blood flow, a disease known as 'gastric dilatation volvulus' that could result in death. The aim, as the researcher points out "is to study this medicine and adjust the dosage in these animals in order to prevent complications and increase the survival rate."

A wholistic tumour sampling method that more accurately detects genetic alterations in tumours, which are critical in allowing treatment to be personalised to each and every patient, has been developed by researchers from the Crick, Roche and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust and published in Cell Reports.

Today, to help doctors select treatment options for cancer patients, a sample from their tumour can be DNA sequenced. This aims to find mutations in the DNA which mean the tumour is either susceptible or resistant to a specific treatment. The results of this test therefore have a significant impact on treatment choices and the patient's prognosis.

However, the genetics of tumours are complex because they are often made up of different groups of cells which vary genetically and sit in different parts of the tumour.

Current sampling methods can miss this genetic diversity because they use tissue taken from just one small location in the tumour. In routine practice, on average, only five in a million cells from the tumour (0.0005%) are tested. This means that clinicians are making treatment decisions based on potentially incomplete information, which can lead to patients potentially missing out on the therapies that would give them the highest chances of survival.

Initially, the concept of improved sampling was tested in lung and bladder cancers, where a simulation of improved sampling reduced misclassification rates in deciding whether a patient was suitable for immunotherapy from 20% to 2% and from 52% to 4% respectively, when compared to current methods.

Based on this finding, they developed a technique called representative sequencing, which builds a more accurate picture of a tumour's DNA. This works by taking the majority of the tumour removed at surgery - tissue that is not currently sampled and is routinely discarded - and mixing it so that cells from different areas of the tumour are more evenly distributed. A sample is then taken from this mixture to be DNA sequenced.

The researchers tested this new method in 12 patients with kidney, breast, colon, lung or skin cancer. Comparing the new and current methods, they found that representative sequencing gave far more consistent results, as it avoids the bias of looking at just one small part of the tumour tissue. Instead, the new method is able to capture information from a well-mixed representation of the whole tumour, meaning much more data is collected which is also of better quality. As an analogy, the new test takes a higher viewpoint and is more like a police search using a helicopter, rather than tracking a criminal just from one location on the ground.

The method, which was developed in partnership with researchers from the Crick, Roche Diagnostics and The Royal Marsden and published in Cell Reports is being further tested in 500 tumours at The Royal Marsden in London to further establish its feasibility and utility. The researchers hope that, following successful results, it will be rolled out further.

"By equipping clinicians with more accurate information about a tumour, we hope our method will lead to patients and treatments being significantly better matched. Additionally, there is an opportunity for critical biological insights to be made by increasing the search space within each tumour," says Samra Turajlic, group leader at the Crick and Consultant Medical Oncologist at The Royal Marsden.

Through extensive testing on a case of kidney cancer, the representative sampling method gave identical genetic results 95% of the time, compared to only 77% consistency with the current methods. Similarly, in a case of skin cancer the new method correctly identified a highly complex and difficult to treat cancer from the outset, whereas the current method missed important genetic information.

"This method is more accurate, has more reproducible results and has the same sequencing cost as the current technique. In fact, by introducing an extra, simple purification step, it could become much cheaper than the existing process. It could be a gamechanger for tumour sampling in hospitals and in research," says Kevin Litchfield, lead author and bioinformatician in the Translational Cancer Therapeutics Laboratory at the Crick.

"Through this work, we've addressed a major obstacle for solid tumor diagnostics using a straightforward method that can be implemented in the clinic,'' says Nelson Alexander, the project's principal investigator at Roche Molecular Solutions. "It's a great demonstration of the impact that collaborations between public and private institutions can have on longstanding challenges in healthcare."

Professor David Cunningham, Director of Clinical Research at The Royal Marsden, said, "The selection of patients who will benefit from cancer therapies remains a major challenge - some patients get excellent, long-lasting tumour control whereas other patients may suffer side effects but without benefit. This simple but ingenious revision to an established technique to analyse tumour DNA should facilitate a more personalised approach to the treatment of cancer patients."

Water is a global resource which is essential for life on our planet, thus hydrological research and the study of its management has also become crucial work for the continuity of life on Earth. The availability of public data on water behavior such as data about river flow and rainfall are key for the research community in order to create a world water map. When drawing this map, the public and people who manage water resources on local scales also play important roles. By means of carrying out citizen science, they provide and verify data.

The research community works on this task with hydrological models, which are tools that enable them to represent processes in the hydrological cycle, and are able to obtain, for example, predictions about river flow using primarily rainfall data (though also other atmospheric variables such as temperature, solar radiation, land features and plant development can be used). These tools usually use a hydrological basin as a unit of measurement, with a basin being a unit of land whose water flows toward the same point.

Researcher Rafael Pimentel from the Fluvial Dynamics and Hydrology research group at the University of Cordoba, worked for two years at the Hydrology Unit of the Swedish Meteorological and Hydrological Institute (SMHI) where he participated in shaping the first global model on a basin scale. The model used was HYPE, a model designed in said unit for comprehensive water management in Sweden and previously used on a European scale.

The modelling process was challenging but feasible according to the research staff since it was applied to more than 130,000 basins that cover the world's land mass (except for Antarctica). The main challenge was compiling data and evaluating their quality, as well as calibrating the model, that being the process of testing the river flow model data and the observed data to assess whether or not the model was working properly. Due to the complexity of representing the great array of global hydrological processes, the model's performance varied. Generally speaking, the model provides good results, with an average value of over 0.4 in the Kling-Gupta Efficiency metric (KGE), which is an index used to quantify the goodness of a hydrological model which classifies models of 0.4 or more as good. The Eastern US, Europe, Japan and areas of Russia, Asia, Canada and South America were the areas with the best results, with KGE values of over 0.6, demonstrating a high potential for its use in performing seasonal forecasts of river flow in these areas. Using these weather data in a six-month period, it is possible to predict river flow data for the next six months. This prediction is quite useful for staff at reservoirs and hydroelectric power plants who could, with the help of these data, manage and plan their resources better and more precisely.

The challenge of scaling and quantifying the goodness of this model, in addition to verifying the geographical location of lakes, rivers and reservoirs so that it all coincides when scaling the model, was possible thanks to the amount of free access hydrological data that are available to the research community as well as to the general public, though the river flow data in this case was scarce in many areas. This shows how open access and shared knowledge helps hydrology progress. Nevertheless, there is a lack of information, especially regarding river flow, in many areas of the world with which to carry out this verification. Thus, the idea of creating a network of collaborative science has been proposed. Using this network, researchers, managers, consultants and students working in these areas with hydrological information on a local scale could assess the model in those areas. The corresponding part of the model would be provided to those interested, with the idea of working together to verify and adjust the model by means of workshops during which the locals would give their feedback. In this way, the model's representation of reality on a global scale would improve.

A technique for measuring the ripeness of avocados could reduce waste by up to 10% and help fulfil consumer demand for ready-to-eat fruit.

Developed and tested by Cranfield University, the technology uses a laser and small vibration to test the individual fruits' resonant frequency, giving a reliable assessment of ripeness without damaging the avocado.

Up to 30% of avocado fruit are currently wasted due to damage caused by testing during grading, with a further 5% loss at retail. The current way to test ripeness is through a pneumatic device which pushes into the fruit, or manual testing.

Cranfield University adapted a technology more often used in automotive factories to test the uniformity of large engineered parts. Laser Doppler vibrometry (LDV) beams a laser at the fruit to measure refracted light and uses small vibrations to test the resonant frequency.

The vibrations are caused by a simple automated impact device which taps the fruit. The LDV test was proven to accurately predict the ready-to-eat stage of avocado fruit.

Professor Leon Terry, Director of Environment and Agrifood at Cranfield University, said: "Hard fruits create a higher frequency than soft fruits, so we calculated the perfect frequency for a ripe avocado and accurately measured this with the LDV test. Leaving the fruit undamaged is of great benefit and vastly reduces waste. The test we have developed could be extended to other fruits."

With the UK importing nearly 100,000 tonnes[1] of avocados a year and the fruit increasingly in demand, predicting ripeness is of great benefit to suppliers and retailers. An expensive product, the avocados travel on conveyor belts in single file, which means the LDV can test them individually. From there, an automatic sorting mechanism which largely exists already could be used to separate the ripe from unripe fruits.

Research Fellow Dr Sandra Landahl added: "We tested the accuracy of LDV on a real factory line, under lab conditions, and the method has real potential, giving accurate measures of ripeness without damaging fruit. If developed, a simple 'traffic light' system could sort the fruit into those that are ripe, for discard or for storage, helping industry tackle food waste at this point in the supply chain."

Cranfield University is co-leading the new BBSRC Quality and Food Loss Network, a new initiative to link researchers with industry to find solutions for the huge food waste challenges facing the supply chain.

Researchers at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI have collaborated with British economists to study how energy consumption by Swiss industry develops depending on energy pricing. To this end, they examined in particular the prices and consumption of both electricity and natural gas over the past decades. One result: For the most part, price increases have only long-term effects on energy consumption. Furthermore, the researchers worked out possible scenarios for future development up to the year 2050 in which they address, among other things, aspects of climate protection. Today the researchers are publishing their results in the report "Swiss Industry: Price Elasticities and Demand Developments for Electricity and Gas".

Rising energy prices can, among other things, trigger two effects in industry. On the one hand, energy demand should fall as companies try to offset higher prices by saving energy, for example through the use of more efficient technologies or production processes. On the other hand, higher energy prices can impair companies' global competitiveness, so that as a consequence production declines and therefore less energy is consumed. This correlation between price changes and changes in demand is also known as price elasticity.

In the present study, researchers from the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI, on behalf of a research project funded by the Swiss Federal Office of Energy (SFOE), together with economists from the British consultancy firm Cambridge Econometrics developed a method that can be used to understand this price elasticity retrospectively and to model it in future scenarios. "As the basis for data on previous developments, we have used available scientific literature as well as data provided by SFOE and the International Energy Agency IEA", explains Tom Kober, head of the Energy Economics Group at PSI and one of the principal authors of the study. The data come from a period extending from 1970 to 2016. Prices and consumption of both natural gas and electricity were examined.

The reaction takes place after about five years

At present, natural gas and electricity account for two-thirds of the energy consumption of Swiss industry, with one-third coming from other energy sources and waste. The sectors with the highest consumption are the chemical industry, the food industry, machine building, non-metallic minerals including the cement industry, and the paper and pulp industry. One finding of the retrospective analysis showed that price increases rarely have an impact on consumption of gas and electricity in the short term. It was only in the longer term, after about five years, that the researchers were able to observe a reduction in energy consumption. According to the study, this can be attributed to the fact that, in most cases, it takes time after a price signal to adapt production processes and procedures or to invest in more energy-efficient equipment.

At the same time, individual sectors differ markedly from each other. Thus, the iron and steel industry, which is responsible for six percent of energy consumption of the Swiss industry, reacts the least to price increases. There a price increase of one percent led to a reduction in consumption of only around 0.14 percent. In contrast, industries such as non-metallic minerals and the pulp and paper industry cut their energy consumption more significantly as a result of price increases. Here, prices one percent higher led to around 0.7 percent lower consumption.

To be able to investigate long-term developments of industrial energy consumption in the future, the researchers sketched out scenarios that they then calculated with computer models. The scenario designated E-POL is primarily oriented towards Switzerland's Energy Strategy 2050. This scenario itself does not provide any concrete values for the reduction of emissions of so-called greenhouse gases and is based mainly on the use of energy-efficient technologies and the build-up of renewable energy sources. So, for example, final energy consumption per capita in Switzerland should decrease to 57 percent of the 2000 level by 2035 and to 46 percent by 2050. The so-called CLI scenario, in contrast, is essentially based on the climate strategy of Switzerland, with the goal of achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by the middle of the century.

Electricity applications as the key to greenhouse gas reduction

In both the E-POL and CLI scenarios, CO2 emissions will decrease continuously until 2050, with all industrial sectors contributing to the reduction of emissions through increased reliance on electricity applications and the replacement or conservation of natural gas, mineral oils, and coal (which at present is burned mainly in the Swiss cement industry).

In the food and paper sectors, the proportion of electrical energy could increase through the use of appropriate technologies. For example, the energy efficiency targets imposed in the E-POL scenario support the use of heat pumps in combination with heat recovery. This could boost energy efficiency in this area by up to 40 percent. The energy savings in the industrial sector for non-metallic minerals such as stones, clay, and salt are estimated to be somewhat lower. In the long term, the switch from coal to natural gas will also contribute to increasing energy efficiency and reducing emissions in this sector. To what extent the separation of CO2 can be used in the production of cement is yet to be determined.

Despite the efforts to reduce CO2, the industrial sector's share of Switzerland's total emissions will increase, as the reduction in other sectors will be even greater due to intensified climate protection efforts. Overall, the researchers anticipate a long-term increase in the cost of energy use and thus an increase in prices for selected energy sources. This has an impact on the economy and the total amount of energy in demand, as well as the composition of energy sources and technologies.

The researchers found, among other things, a special effect in the development of the end energy consumption. The demand for electricity remains largely stable or even grows. As a result, the share of electricity in total final consumption increases in all scenarios, from around 24 percent in 2015 to 28 to 35 percent in 2030, and 32 to 62 percent in 2050. In absolute terms, the demand for electricity remains roughly at the 2015 level in E-POL, while it rises nearly 40 percent by 2050 in the CLI scenario.

"In this context, it is extremely important how the electricity is produced", Kober stresses. "For an effective reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, the timely build-up of renewable energy is therefore necessary." The import of electricity from abroad must also be used, with renewable energy sources also gaining in importance there. Overall, this results in the recommendation to promote efficient use of electricity in industry and at the same time to maintain incentives to replace fossil fuels with electricity-based technologies. Gases also remain an important component of the energy mix for industrial heating applications, with synthetic and biogenic gases playing an ever greater role if greenhouse gases are to be reduced.

Short-term effects of Covid-19

The study did not consider short-term effects of the current Covid-19 pandemic. As a result of the shutdown of large shares of industry worldwide, there was a massive price drop in the energy markets. "Our scenarios for the future are oriented towards a much longer-term perspective, since they model developments up to the year 2050", Kober says. It cannot be ruled out that the consequences of the pandemic could also have a longer-term influence. "How exactly that could turn out is uncertain. I assume, though, that the long-term dynamics in the energy system that our scenarios describe will basically be preserved."

The yellow-legged gull has a high ability to adapt to human activities and benefit from these as a food resource during all year. This is stated in a scientific article published in the journal Ecology and Evolution whose first author is the researcher Francisco Ramírez, from the Faculty of Biology and the Biodiversity Research Institute (IRBio) of the University of Barcelona.

Other participants in the study are the experts Josep Lluís Carrasco (Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences of the UB); Isabel Afán y Manuela González Forero (Doñana BIologial Station, EBD-CSIC); Joan Navarro (Institute of Marine Sciences (ICM-CSIC)) and Willem Bouten (University of Amsterdam, Netherlands). This research is part of a Talent-Hub project funded by Agencia Andaluza del Conocimiento.

Opportunist species with great spread abilities

The yellow-legged gull (Larus michahellis) is an opportunist species which feeds from a great range of preys (fish, crustaceans, annellids, organic rests from dumping sites, etc.). As part of the new study, experts analysed -with remote monitoring devices- the movement of thirty gulls that nest in the Marismas del Odiel Natural Site (Huelva).

The animals were marked with GPS devices to obtain their location every five minutes for a year, from the moment of breeding -also during winter season- until the next reproductive season. The exact location of each animal enabled experts to identify their use of the land and the relationship with human activity. As a result, the research team could obtain a detailed map of their movements in space and time.

Changes in the eating pattern over the year

The conclusions of the study reveal a tight relation between the space distribution of the gulls and the human-origin resources during a year. "The preferences of the gulls in the use of habitat changed over their annual cycle as a possible response to the restrictions the species suffer over the course of their phenological cycle: physiological restrictions due to the differences of energetic demand of each period, and time restrictions resulting from the fluctuations in the availability of food resources", notes researcher Francisco Ramírez (UB-IRBio). The expert notes that "The extreme ability to adapt allows these species to modify their eating habits and the exploitation of different habitats to manage both limitations".

In the study, the location of the gulls was compared to the information on the occupation of the land obtained in high-resolution databases. The use of information of the aboard satellite sensors -to quantify the intensity of artificial night lights- enabled researchers to relate the habitats of hulls with the close activity to urban sites.

The high ability of spread of these individuals, covering cross-bordering areas of Spain, Portugal and Morocco during their annual cycle, shows the need for international efforts to limit the availability of human food resources and improve the management of this species.

"The knowledge of behavioural patterns over the year in opportunist species with a wide spread, such the yellow-legged gull, is important in order to assess potential impacts such species can have on the ecosystem", concludes Ramírez.

Having positive health beliefs--specifically, the perception that you can protect yourself from having another stroke--is linked to lower blood pressure among stroke survivors, especially women, according to a new study led by researchers at NYU School of Global Public Health. The findings are published in a spotlight issue on psychosocial factors in the Journal of the American Heart Association.

High blood pressure is strongly associated with an increased risk of stroke, including the risk of having a second stroke. While blood pressure can be modified through lifestyle changes or medication, many adults have difficulty controlling it.

There is growing recognition that positive beliefs about one's health can play a role in cardiovascular health. This study sought to understand whether positive health beliefs can promote lower blood pressure among stroke survivors, many of whom need to control their blood pressure in order to reduce the risk of having another stroke.

Using data from the Discharge Educational Strategies for Reduction of Vascular Events (DESERVE) study, a randomized controlled trial of 552 stroke patients in four New York City hospitals, the research examined the link between positive health beliefs and blood pressure reduction one year following a stroke.

Prior to being discharged from the hospital, patients were asked whether they agreed with the following statement: "I can protect myself against having a stroke." More than three quarters of the study's participants agreed.

"This perception that you can protect yourself from another stroke reflects the construct of self-efficacy, or a belief in one's ability to achieve a specific outcome," said Emily Goldmann, clinical assistant professor of epidemiology at NYU School of Global Public Health and the study's lead author.

The researchers followed up with the study participants a year after being discharged from the hospital to assess their blood pressure. They found that those who believed they could protect themselves from having a stroke had a 5.6 mm Hg greater reduction in blood pressure than those who did not, which represents a clinically significant difference.

After additional analyses, the researchers found that female stroke survivors who had positive health beliefs were especially likely to have lower blood pressure a year later; this finding was not statistically significant in men. Female patients who did not feel they could protect themselves from having another stroke had, on average, a slight increase in blood pressure.

"In this study, we found an association between self-efficacy and reduced blood pressure, which is consistent with previous studies linking positive psychological states to better health outcomes in the context of cardiovascular disease and stroke," said Goldmann. "Targeted strategies to improve health beliefs after stroke may be an important component to include in risk factor management among stroke survivors."

GIS - LandScan goes public

Oak Ridge National Laboratory's high-resolution population distribution database, LandScan USA, became permanently available to researchers in time to aid the response to the novel coronavirus pandemic.

LandScan, widely considered the gold standard of population and mapping data in the United States, captures daytime and nighttime activity of the U.S. population at a resolution of roughly 90 meters or about 300 feet.

Emergency agencies routinely rely on LandScan to coordinate disaster response and recovery. The model's level of detail has proved a valuable tool for researchers tracking the spread of the virus that causes COVID-19.

"This release was already in the works before the COVID-19 outbreak," said Amy Rose, a senior ORNL scientist who manages LandScan. "It just happened that the timing was exceptionally good."

The release was made public on the GeoPlatform online portal through the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Homeland Infrastructure Foundation-Level Data program.

Media Contact: Matt Lakin, 865.341.0404, lakinmn@ornl.gov

Image: https://www.ornl.gov/sites/default/files/2020-05/sanfran%20%281%29_2.png

Caption: ORNL's standard-setting population distribution database, LandScan USA, captures daytime and nighttime activity of the United States' population at high resolution. Credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory/U.S. Dept. of Energy

Wireless charging - Special delivery for UPS

Researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory demonstrated a 20-kilowatt bi-directional wireless charging system on a UPS plug-in hybrid electric delivery truck, advancing the technology to a larger class of vehicles and enabling a new energy storage method for fleet owners and their facilities.

The demo was the first of its kind to achieve high power transfer across an 11-inch air gap between the truck and a charging pad. Specially designed electromagnetic coils and power electronic converters transferred electricity from the grid to the vehicle battery terminals at more than 92% efficiency.

At a 20-kilowatt level, it would take about three hours to charge the vehicle's battery packs; conventional wired charging takes between five and six hours. With its bi-directional design, the system supports use of the vehicle's batteries for energy storage.

"The system expands the possibilities for fleets that want convenient, efficient electric vehicle charging as well as electricity storage solutions," said ORNL's Omer Onar.

Media contact: Stephanie Seay, 865.604.3384, seaysg@ornl.gov

Image: https://www.ornl.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/UPS%20Demo%20rear%20view.jpg

Caption: ORNL researchers in late February demonstrated a 20-kilowatt, bi-directional wireless charging system on a medium-class hybrid electric UPS delivery truck. Credit: Brittany Cramer/Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Nuclear - Finally, a benchmark

In the 1960s, Oak Ridge National Laboratory's four-year Molten Salt Reactor Experiment tested the viability of liquid fuel reactors for commercial power generation. Results from that historic experiment recently became the basis for the first-ever molten salt reactor benchmark.

The benchmark, published in the 2019 OECD/NEA International Handbook of Evaluated Reactor Physics Experiments, fills a significant gap for the international nuclear reactor community to verify and validate computer codes for future MSR development and licensing.

ORNL's Jeff Powers and Germina Ilas were co-principal investigators. Max Fratoni of the University of California at Berkeley led this project, with graduate student Dan Shen gathering data from hundreds of reports from the 1950s-1960s, then running models.

"This benchmark could help underpin the licensing applications for industry pursuing MSR designs," Powers said. "If we can play even a small part in helping an advanced MSR concept come to market, that's a pretty big win."

Media Contact: Kristi Nelson Bumpus, 865.253.1381, bumpuskl@ornl.gov

Image: https://www.ornl.gov/sites/default/files/2020-05/67051.jpg

Caption: ORNL's Molten Salt Reactor Experiment operated 1966-1970, successfully using U235 and U233 fluoride fuels. The historic experiment is the basis for a new molten salt reactor benchmark. Credit: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, U.S. Dept. of Energy

Amsterdam, NL, May 5, 2020 - Two purines, caffeine and urate, have been associated with a reduced risk of Parkinson's disease (PD) in multiple study groups and populations. Analysis of data from the Harvard Biomarkers Study shows that lower levels of caffeine consumption and lower blood urate are inversely associated with PD, strengthening the links between caffeine intake and urate levels and PD, reports a study in the Journal of Parkinson's Disease (JPD).

"Both caffeine and urate possess neuroprotective properties via adenosine receptor antagonist and antioxidant actions, respectively," explained lead investigator Rachit Bakshi, PhD, Department of Neurology, Massachusetts General Hospital, and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA. "They both have protective properties in animal models of PD, raising the possibility of their disease-slowing potential."

Researchers therefore investigated whether these reduced risk factors are associated with PD in participants in the Harvard Biomarkers Study (HBS), which is a longitudinal study designed to accelerate the discovery and validation of molecular diagnostic and progression markers of early-stage PD.

Investigators conducted a cross-sectional, case-control study of 369 individuals with idiopathic PD and 197 healthy controls from the full HBS cohort. Urate was measured in plasma samples collected at each participant's initial HBS visit. Caffeine intake was also assessed at each participant's initial HBS visit using a semi-quantitative questionnaire. The questionnaire queried participants' usual consumption of caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, tea, and soft drinks during the previous 12 months in standard volumes (cups for coffee and tea and cans for soft drinks) with nine possible frequencies ranging from never to six or more per day.

Caffeine intake was lower in idiopathic PD patients compared to healthy controls. The odds of having PD decreased significantly with increasing caffeine consumption in a concentration-dependent manner across quintiles of caffeine consumption, adjusting for age, sex, BMI, and plasma urate. Compared with the lowest caffeine consumption quintile, the prevalence of PD was over 70 percent lower in the highest quintile. A strong inverse association was also observed with plasma urate levels both in males and females. An equally large association between urate and PD risk was observed among women, in contrasts with most prior studies of the association between urate and idiopathic PD stratified by sex. These findings support the generalizability of discoveries made with this cohort, which is well suited for deep analysis of relationships between dietary factors, genes, established and novel biomarkers, and clinical phenotypes of PD.

"The strength of this new study relates to the robust approach, including the large and carefully followed cohort of people living with PD and the comprehensive set of outcome measures. It is an important basis to further develop future disease-modifying approaches to slow down the decline of this otherwise relentlessly progressive condition," added Prof. Bas Bloem, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal.

The investigators caution that a recent large clinical trial of a urate-elevating treatment failed to demonstrate a benefit for people with PD over months to years. Thus, even though the current study strengthens the link between PD and lower urate levels, strategies to raise them may be harmful and cannot be recommended. Caffeine has yet to be rigorously studied in a long-term PD trial, therefore increasing one's caffeine intake cannot be recommended. Nevertheless, people who currently enjoy caffeine in coffee or tea may take additional pleasure in knowing of its therapeutic even if unproven potential, they point out.

"Identifying factors that are linked to lower likelihood of PD, such as caffeine consumption, offer a unique opportunity to understand the disease, and if the link were causal, then possibly to slow the disease," concluded Dr. Bakshi.

PD is a slowly progressive disorder that affects movement, muscle control and balance. It is the second most common age-related neurodegenerative disorder affecting about 3% of the population by the age of 65 and up to 5% of individuals over 85 years of age.

Daily symptoms logged by more than two and a half million users of the COVID-19 Symptom Tracker, a mobile application launched in March 2020, suggest the tool could help to predict geographical hotspots of COVID-19 incidence up to a week in advance of official public health reports. The app, which enables users to self-report data on COVID-19 exposure and infection, was developed by the Coronavirus Pandemic Epidemiology (COPE) Consortium - a multinational collaboration composed of leading COVID-19 investigators collectively studying "the largest and most diverse patient population assembled to-date," the authors write. Although an increasing number of digital collection tools for COVID-19 are being developed and launched, they are not often tailored for the type of scalable longitudinal data capture that epidemiologists need. Here, David Drew and colleagues launched their mobile app - in the U.K. on March 24, 2020, and in the U.S. five days later - among several large epidemiology cohorts that have previously gathered longitudinal data on lifestyle, diet and health factors and genetic information. Their app also tracked information from healthcare workers, including work hazards from personal protective equipment shortages. Drew and colleagues looked at data on symptoms from individuals who reported results to the Tracker within the initial launch period. Positive tests for the disease were often predicted by combinations of three or more symptoms, including fatigue and cough, followed by diarrhea, fever, and loss of smell. Based on this symptom data, Drew and colleagues developed a weighted prediction model. With data from a subset of users in Southern Wales, they successfully predicted two spikes in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in advance of public health authorities, showing the tool's predictive power. The results point to mobile technology as a resource for providing the real-time epidemiological information that scientists have struggled to gain from qPCR nucleic acid testing. Because the launch of the app began in cohorts for which longitudinal data was previously gathered, it will also allow the researchers to investigate long-term outcomes of COVID-19, they say. The authors note the app has limitations, including not representing a random sampling of the population.

Most electrical activity in vertebrates and invertebrates occurs at extremely low frequencies, and the origin -- and medical potential -- of these frequencies have eluded scientists. Now a Tel Aviv University study provides evidence for a direct link between electrical fields in the atmosphere and those found in living organisms, including humans.

The study's findings may change established notions about electrical activity in living organisms, paving the way for revolutionary, new medical treatments. Illnesses such as epilepsy and Parkinson's are related to abnormalities in the electrical activity of the body.

"We show that the electrical activity in many living organisms -- from zooplankton in the oceans, to sharks and even in our brains -- is very similar to the electrical fields we measure and study in the atmosphere from global lightning activity," explains Prof. Colin Price of TAU's Porter School of the Environment and Earth Sciences, who led the research for the study, published in the International Journal of Biometeorology on February 8.

Colleagues from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Alaska also contributed to the study.

"We hypothesize that over evolutionary timescales living organisms adapted and evolved to actually use the electricity in the environment -- global lightning," Prof. Price continues. "This has likely not changed over billions of years and is similar to the evolution of our eyes, which evolved using the sunlight nature gave us."

As living organisms evolved over billions of years, the natural electromagnetic resonant frequencies in the atmosphere, continuously generated by global lightning activity, provided the background electric fields for the development of cellular electrical activity. Prof. Price's research found that, in some animals, the electrical spectrum is difficult to differentiate from the background atmospheric electric field produced by lightning.

"Neither biologists nor doctors can explain why the frequencies in living organisms (0-50 Hz) are similar to those in the atmosphere caused by lightning," adds Prof. Price. "Most of them are not even aware of the similarity we presented in our paper."

"Our review of previous studies revealed that lightning-related fields may have positive medical applications related to our biological clock (circadian rhythms), spinal cord injuries and maybe other bodily functions related to electrical activity in our bodies," says Prof. Price. "The connection between the ever-present electromagnetic fields, between lightning in the atmosphere and human health, may have huge implications in the future for various treatments related to electrical abnormalities in our bodies."

The study comprised a retrospective review of previous studies on the link between lightning-related fields in the atmosphere and human and animal health. "We collected many different studies over the years to build a clear picture of this link," concludes Prof. Price. "Going forward, we need to design new experiments to see how these extremely low frequency fields from lightning may impact living organisms, and to investigate how these fields can be used to benefit us. One new experiment we are now planning is to see how these fields may impact the rate of photosynthesis in plants."

Hamilton, ON (May 5, 2020) - Media pressure on chiropractors advocating against vaccinations has led to the removal of vaccine-related information from their websites.

A McMaster University study has found that a small minority of chiropractors provide vaccine information on their websites. In the past three years, half of the online vaccination information, mostly negative, has been removed from surveyed websites of the regulated health-care group.

The details of the study were published in Canadian Medical Association Journal (CMAJ) Open.

Principal investigator Jason Busse, a chiropractor himself, says the removal of vaccine information from chiropractors' websites was associated with a large increase in Canadian media coverage of the topic.

"The Canadian media has drawn attention to anti-vaccination statements by some chiropractors, and that seemingly had a large impact on curbing publication of such online material," said Busse, associate professor in the departments of anesthesia, and of health research methods, evidence, and impact at McMaster.

"While this is laudable, chiropractic regulatory colleges should monitor chiropractors' websites and social media accounts for misleading information and enforce their standards of practice."

He added that, with approximately 9,000 practitioners, chiropractic is Canada's third-largest regulated health-care profession.

"Historically, some prominent chiropractors have been extremely critical of vaccination, and a number of traditional practitioners maintain these attitudes," he said.

The research team conducted a prospective cohort study focused on Canadian chiropractors' websites between July 2016 and April 2019.

As of July 2016, the team identified 94 unique sites maintained by Canadian chiropractors that provided information on vaccination. Of these sites, almost two-thirds (63 per cent) were critical of vaccination, 20 per cent were neutral, and the rest (17 per cent) were supportive of vaccination.

The quality of vaccination content present on chiropractor's websites was generally poor with a median Web Resource Rating Tool score of 19 per cent.

The four main themes identified on the sites offering vaccination information were that there are alternatives to vaccination; that vaccination is harmful; mixed evidence regarding vaccination, and concerns regarding vaccination policy.

Researchers also focused in on Canadian media coverage and potential impact on the chiropractors' websites.

Between 2012 to 2016, they identified one Canadian newspaper story concerning anti-vaccination statements by chiropractors. However, between 2017 and 2019 there were 51 news articles published on this topic.

Researchers revisited all identified websites from 2016 in April 2019 to explore changes to posted vaccination material. Approximately three years after a number of Canadian media outlets began exploring anti-vaccination statements by some chiropractors, almost half of the websites identified in 2016 (47 per cent) had been discontinued or all content regarding vaccination had been removed.

Following media attention, the College of Chiropractors of Ontario standard was amended in 2018 and 2019 to prohibit chiropractors from providing information on vaccination on a member's website or social media account.

In December 2019, the Canadian Chiropractic Association updated their position statement to explicitly state that vaccination is a safe and effective public health practice for the prevention of infectious diseases.

Busse urges collaboration between physicians, public health and chiropractic associations.

"It may be helpful for medical and public health associations to work with Canadian chiropractic associations to collaborate on promotion of vaccination programs," he said.