Tech

A new study led from the University of Southampton has shown that threatened birds and mammals are often ecologically distinct and irreplaceable in their environment.

Mammals such as the Asian Elephant and the Sumatran Rhinoceros, and birds such as the Great Indian Bustard, Amsterdam Albatross and the Somali Ostrich are both highly threatened and ecologically distinct. The extinction of these species could therefore lead to the loss of unique ecological roles. The findings also highlight that the most distinct species are often charismatic, such as Emperor Penguins, Wolves, Sea-eagles and Leopards.

The research was led by Dr Robert Cooke, visiting researcher at the University of Southampton and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Gothenburg. He said: "The most ecologically distinct species often have unique roles in their environment but they are not directly prioritised in current conservation plans. This blind spot means that ecologically important species may be lost."

The roles that ecologically distinct species have in the ecosystems they inhabit are wide ranging. Herbivores such as Elephants and Hippopotamus can impact vegetation structure and nutrient cycling, while predators, such as White-tailed Sea-eagle, Leopard, Grey Wolf and Puma can prevent overgrazing, enhance productivity and limit the spread of disease.

The researchers calculated the ecological distinctiveness of all living birds and mammals based on six traits - body mass, litter size, length of time between generations, breadth of habitat, diet type and diet diversity. This enabled them to identify the most distinct species and combine this with data from the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. They also compared the list against previous research identifying animals which have inherent value to humans based on public perceptions of charisma.

The study concludes that the connection between the unique characteristics of certain birds and mammals, their threatened status, and their public popularity creates a new conservation opportunity. "The use of charismatic species to attract funding is controversial, as it can divert people's attention to species that are potentially not the most threatened or ecologically important," added Dr Cooke. "However, here we show that charismatic species may be deserving of their elevated attention, due to their often-distinct ecological strategies and therefore potentially vital ecological roles."

The findings have been published in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation.

Scientists at Tokyo Institute of Technology (Tokyo Tech) have shown that single platinum atoms trapped in C12A7 crystals act as a stable and effective catalyst for the hydrogenation of nitroarenes, an essential process in the production of many kinds of fine chemicals. Their approach could become a versatile route for developing other single-atom catalysts for wide-ranging industrial applications.

Single-atom catalysts (SACs) are on the way to becoming dream catalysts -- ones that exhibit superb performance based on optimized usage of metal atoms. Many research teams around the world have been working to advance the scalable development of SACs since they were first proposed by Tao Zhang and colleagues in China and the US in 2011.

Now, in a proof-of-concept study that throws the door wide open to developing a new range of SACs, researchers at Tokyo Tech have designed and tested a catalyst composed of single platinum atoms trapped in C12A7, a nanoporous crystal widely used in the production of aluminous cement.

The inner structure of C12A7 crystals is "just the right size" for trapping single metal atoms, the researchers say in their paper published in Nature Communications.

"Our approach is rather like a 'diamond-in-a-ring' strategy, where the surface cavity of C12A7 can be regarded as a ring, and the single platinum atom is fixed on the ring as a diamond," says first author Tian-Nan Ye at Tokyo Tech's Materials Research Center for Element Strategy.

Ye explains that C12A7 has a positively charged framework structure composed of twelve sub-nanometer-sized cages, each with an inner diameter of around 0.4 nanometers -- a suitable size for capturing individual metal atoms. Each cage has a positive charge of +1/3, and the surface cavities have an open 'mouth' that can trap single metal atoms through electronic interaction.

The catalyst has been demonstrated to be highly stable and active toward the selective hydrogenation of nitroarenes, an important process often used in the dye and polymer industries. It has a higher turnover frequency (up to 25772 per hour) than that of platinum-based catalysts unsupported by C12A7. Remarkably, the new catalyst even works at temperatures of up to 600°C.

Based on these promising results, the researchers investigated whether the trapping effect might work using other metals. As they predicted, C12A7 was also capable of capturing single atoms of ruthenium and rhodium, indicating that their strategy would be applicable to various transition metals.

"Our findings open countless doors to developing new kinds of SACs for different catalytic processes," says Ye. Due to its exceptionally high thermal stability, the C12A7 support would be able to withstand harsher conditions involved in other industrially important processes such as ammonia synthesis and CO2 reduction.

Ye points out that the development of SACs cannot be separated from the exploration of new materials. This is a key reason why Professor Hideo Hosono's group at Tokyo Tech is uniquely positioned to be a pioneer in SAC research, he says, building on a series of achievements including the development of novel semiconductors, an iron-based superconductor, and the first room-temperature-stable electride.

Modern anticancer therapies aim to attack tumor cells while sparing healthy tissue. An interdisciplinary team of researchers at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR) and FU Berlin has made important progress in this area: the scientists have produced tiny nanoparticles that are designed to specifically target cancer cells. They can navigate directly to the tumor cells and visualize those using advanced imaging techniques. Both in petri dishes and animal models, the scientists were able to effectively guide the nanoparticles to the cancer cells. The next step is to combine the new technique with therapeutic approaches.

The HZDR researchers start out with tiny, biocompatible nanoparticles made of so-called dendritic polyglycerols that serve as carrier molecules. "We can modify these particles and introduce various functions," explains Dr. Kristof Zarschler, research associate at HZDR's Institute of Radiopharmaceutical Cancer Research. "For example, we can attach an antibody fragment to the particle that specifically binds to cancer cells. This antibody fragment is our targeting moiety that directs the nanoparticle to the tumor."

The target of the modified nanoparticles is an antigen known as EGFR (epidermal growth factor receptor). In certain types of cancer, such as breast cancer or head and neck tumors, this protein is overexpressed on the surface of the cells. "We were able to show that our designed nanoparticles preferentially interact with the cancer cells via these receptors," confirms Dr. Holger Stephan, leader of the Nanoscalic Systems Group at HZDR. "In control tests with similar nanoparticles that had been modified with an unspecific antibody, significantly fewer nanoparticles accumulated at the tumor cells."

The scientists intensively studied the nanoparticles' behavior both in cell cultures and in an animal model. For this purpose, they provided the nanoparticles with additional reporter characteristics, as Kristof Zarschler explains: "We used two complementary possibilities. In addition to the antibodies, we attached dye molecules and radionuclides to the nanoparticles. The dye molecule emits in the near infrared spectrum that penetrates the tissue and can be visualized with an appropriate microscope. The dye thus reveals where exactly the nanoparticles are located." The radionuclide, copper-64, fulfils a similar purpose. It emits radiation that is detected by a PET scanner (positron emission tomography). The signals can then be converted into a three-dimensional image that visualizes the distribution of the nanoparticles in the organism.

Excellent properties in living organisms

Using these imaging techniques, researchers have been able to show that nanoparticle accumulation in the tumor tissue reaches maximum two days after administration to mice. The labelled nanoparticles are subsequently eliminated via the kidneys without being a burden for the body. "They are apparently ideal in size and properties," says Holger Stephan. "Smaller particles are filtered out of the blood in just a few hours and thus only have a short-term impact. If, on the other hand, the particles are too big, they accumulate in the spleen, liver or lungs and cannot be removed from the body via the kidneys and bladder." The interplay between the nanoparticles with an exact size of three nanometers and the attached antibody fragments evidently has a positive influence on the distribution and retention of the antibody in the organism as well as on its excretion profile.

In future experiments, the HZDR researchers want to test whether they can modify their system to carry other components. Kristof Zarschler describes the plans: "You can take these nanoparticles and functionalize them with an active substance. Then you can deliver a drug directly to the tumor. This might be a therapeutic radionuclide that destroys the tumor cells." It is also possible to attach antibody fragments specific for proteins other than EGFR to target different types of cancer.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Komorebi is a Japanese word that describes how light filters through leaves--creating shifting, dappled "sunflecks" that illustrate plants' ever-changing light environment. Crops harness light energy to fix carbon dioxide into food via photosynthesis. In a special issue of Plant Journal, a team from the University of Illinois reports a new mathematical computer model that is used to understand how much yield is lost as soybean crops grapple with minute-by-minute light fluctuations on cloudy and sunny days.

"Soybean is the fourth most important crop in terms of overall production, but it is the top source of vegetable protein globally," said Yu Wang, a postdoctoral researcher at Illinois, who led this work for Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency (RIPE). "We found that soybean plants may lose as much as 13 percent of their productivity because they cannot adjust quickly enough to the changes in light intensity that are standard in any crop field. It may not sound like much, but in terms of the global yield--this is massive."

RIPE is an international research project that aims to improve photosynthesis to equip farmers worldwide with higher-yielding crops needed to ensure everyone has enough food to lead a healthy, productive life. RIPE is sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the U.S. Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research (FFAR), and the U.K. Government's Department for International Development (DFID).

Past models have only examined hour-by-hour changes in light intensity. For this study, the team created a dynamic computational ray-tracing model that was able to predict light levels to the millimeter across every leaf for every minute of the day in a flowering soybean crop. The model also takes into account two critical factors: photoprotection and Rubisco activase.

Photoprotection protects plants from sun damage. Triggered by high light levels, this process dissipates excess light energy safely as heat. But, when light levels drop, it can take minutes to hours for photoprotection to relax, or stop--costing the plant potential yield. The team evaluated 41 varieties of soybean to find out the fastest, slowest, and average rate from induction to the relaxation of photoprotection. Less than 30 minutes is considered "short-term," and anything longer is "long-term" photoprotection.

Using this new model, the team simulated a sunny and cloudy day in Champaign, Illinois. On the sunny day, long-term photoprotection was the most significant limitation of photosynthesis. On the cloudy day, photosynthesis was the most limited by short-term photoprotection and Rubisco activase, which is a helper enzyme--triggered by light--that turns on Rubisco to fix carbon into sugar.

The RIPE project has already begun to address photoprotection limitations in soybean and other crops, including cassava, cowpea, and rice. In 2016, the team published a study in Science where they increased the levels of three proteins involved in photoprotection to boost the productivity of a model crop by 14-20 percent. In addition, the RIPE team from the Lancaster Environment Centre at Lancaster University is seeking better forms of Rubisco activase in soybean and cowpea. The RIPE project and its sponsors are committed to ensuring Global Access and making these technologies available to the farmers who need them the most.

"Models like these are critical to uncovering barriers--and solutions--to attain this crop's full potential," said RIPE Director Stephen Long, Ikenberry Endowed University Chair Plant Biology and Crop Sciences at Illinois' Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology. "We've already begun to address these bottlenecks and seen significant gains, but this study shows us that there is still room for improvement."

SILVER SPRING, Md.--Intensive behavioral therapy (IBT) combined with liraglutide 3.0 mg (Saxenda) can produce clinically-meaningful weight loss in patients who receive the treatment in predominantly primary care settings, according to a study published online in Obesity, the flagship journal of The Obesity Society. The study is the first multi-site evaluation of the efficacy of IBT based on a treatment visit schedule covered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

"This is an impressive outcome, given the brief duration (15-minutes) of the counseling visits and the fact that participants were treated in a primary care setting, without the need to enroll in a group weight loss program at an academic medical center or another setting," said Thomas A. Wadden, PhD, professor of psychology in psychiatry, at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. Wadden is the corresponding author of the study.

A total of 282 adults with obesity enrolled at 17 predominantly primary care clinics in the United States. All participants received 23, 15-minute, individual counseling sessions of IBT during a period of 56 weeks. The sessions were delivered by registered dietitians following a detailed treatment protocol.

After the first 28 weeks, participants assigned to IBT plus placebo lost an average of 5.4 percent of initial body weight, compared with a significantly larger loss of 8.4 percent for those who received IBT and liraglutide 3.0 mg; 44.3 percent and 69 percent of these participants, respectively, lost 5 percent or more of initial body weight--a common criterion of clinically-meaningful weight loss. At week 56, both groups regained a small amount of weight (from week 28) such that the mean weight loss for IBT plus placebo was 4 percent, compared with 7.4 percent for those treated by IBT and liraglutide 3.0 mg; 38.8 percent and 61.5 percent of these participants, respectively, lost greater than or equal to 5 percent of initial weight.

"These two treatment approaches, IBT and medication, appear to have complementary mechanisms of action," said Jena Shaw Tronieri, assistant professor of psychology in psychiatry at the Perelman School of Medicine and a colleague of Wadden's at the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Weight and Eating Disorders. Tronieri co-authored the study.

Weight loss in both treatment groups was associated with improvements in quality of life, as well as measures of cardiometabolic risk factors including waist circumference, triglyceride levels and hemoglobin A1c, a measure of blood glucose control.

As approved in 2011, Medicare beneficiaries with obesity--defined by a body mass index of 30 kg/m2 or greater--are eligible to receive IBT from a qualified health provider in a primary care setting. The CMS covers weekly brief 15-minute individual counseling sessions for the first month, and then sessions every other week for the next five months. Patients who lose 3 kilograms (6.6 pounds) or more are eligible for six additional monthly sessions.

Wadden encourages CMS to expand the range of practitioners who are eligible to provide IBT independently, which is currently limited to physicians, nurse practitioners, physician assistants and nurse specialists. At present, registered dietitians and other professionals may only provide IBT under the supervision of a primary care provider, such as a physician, who must be physically present on site when treatment is delivered.

"Registered dietitians, health counselors and other professionals could be trained to deliver IBT independently, which would help expand access to this critical intervention and, ultimately, help the millions of Americans who struggle with obesity and its associated health complications," said Wadden.

"Although this study provides important data on the feasibility of a dietitian-lead IBT in a primary care practice, these services that are covered by Medicare are rarely covered by any other insurance plan and the cost of implementing such a program is prohibitive for most private practice primary care providers," said W. Troy Donahoo, MD, FTOS, associate professor in the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, at the University of Florida. Donahoo was not associated with the research.

Donna Ryan, professor emerita at Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, La., who was also not associated with the research noted "what is good about this study is that it shows that other office personnel besides the doctor can play an important role in weight management by delivering IBT. It is really important that we find ways to improve weight coaching--the essence of IBT--in primary care offices."

DALLAS, Feb. 24, 2020 - Researchers have identified a distinct collection of bacteria found in the gut that may contribute to and predict the development of pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH), according to new research published today in the American Heart Association's journal Hypertension.

PAH is a chronic and progressive disease in which the arteries that supply blood to the lungs are constricted, resulting in symptoms such as shortness of breath, heart palpitations, fatigue and others. In PAH, persistently high blood pressure in lung arteries makes the right side of the heart work too hard to pump blood, resulting in right-sided heart failure (inability of the heart to pump blood adequately). It is much less common than systemic blood pressure, which represents the force of blood moving through blood vessels throughout the entire body.

Everyone has a collection of bacteria in their gut - known as microbiota - that aid in digestion. The researchers found that having a specific microbiota profile in their gut predicted the presence of PAH with 83% accuracy.

"We showed for the first time that specific bacteria in the gut are present in people with PAH. While current PAH treatments focus on the lungs, looking at the lung/gut axis could open the door to new therapies centered in the digestive system," said Mohan Raizada, Ph.D., lead study author and distinguished professor in the department of physiology and functional genomics at the University of Florida College of Medicine in Gainesville, Fla.

For the study, stool samples were collected from 18 PAH patients and 12 people without a history of cardiopulmonary disease. The microbiota DNA from the stool samples were isolated and sequenced. The testing revealed a group of bacteria unique in the PAH patients that were associated with PAH.

This is the first link between a specific collection of bacteria and pulmonary arterial hypertension. However, it is not the first time that gut bacteria have been connected to medical conditions. A variety of different gut microbiota profiles have been linked to a variety of cardiovascular diseases including high blood pressure.

"We were very surprised to see such an association within a small group of study subjects," said Raizada. "It usually requires hundreds of patients to achieve such significance."

Gut microbiota are constantly changing, depending on what we eat, our environment and especially our genetic makeup. However, Raizada said the bacteria associated with PAH are unique and do not seem to change: "We believe these particular bacteria are constant."

If the results are validated in a larger study, the researchers said that the unique bacterial profile could help to diagnose PAH early, possibly replacing the invasive heart catheterization that is used today to diagnose the disease. Also, new types of treatment focused on altering the gut microbiome of PAH patients could be developed, providing new hope for halting the progression of the disease.

Another important question to be researched is how the gut bacteria impacts the lungs of PAH patients. "We do not know if and how gut bacteria and viruses make their way to the lungs," said Raizada. "Some studies have pointed to an increased incidence in intestinal leakage among people with pulmonary hypertension, which may allow some intestinal bacteria to get into the bloodstream and circulate to the lungs where they can cause inflammation and lead to vascular changes."

"There is still the question of whether the specific microbiota associated with PAH is the cause or the result of the disease, therefore, more research is needed," concluded Raizada.

Native fish discovered with spinal deformities in California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in 2011 were exposed to high levels of selenium from their parents and food they ate as juveniles in the San Joaquin River, new research has found.

The finding published in Environmental Science and Technology indicates that some fish in the region may experience harmful levels of selenium. Selenium is a naturally occurring mineral that is essential to life but turns toxic and can cause deformities at high levels. Deformities were also found in birds exposed to selenium concentrated in agricultural runoff in the same area in the 1980s.

Biologists collected the juvenile fish, minnows known as Sacramento splittail, from a pumping station in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta in 2011. They soon realized that more than 80 percent of the approximately 1,000 collected fish exhibited spinal deformities.

"This was not just a few fish, it was the majority of them," said Fred Feyrer, a research fish biologist at the U.S. Geological Survey's California Water Science Center and co-lead of the research.

Clues from Ear Bones

Scientists raised the fish in tanks for several years. In the meantime, they developed laboratory methods to examine the ear bones of the fish for clues about where they had encountered the selenium. Called otoliths, the ear bones record chemical traces of the conditions the fish experience as they grow.

"We found that the otoliths record a diary of selenium exposure from birth to death, and were the key to unraveling this mystery," said Rachel C. Johnson, a research biologist at NOAA Fisheries' Southwest Fisheries Science Center and University of California Davis and lead author of the research.

Researchers used high-intensity X-rays at Cornell University's Cornell High Energy Synchrotron Source to measure selenium concentrations in the otoliths. They revealed that the fish had absorbed selenium from their mothers, and while feeding as juveniles in the San Joaquin River. "They got it from both directions," Johnson said.

Another recent study by the same authors found high concentrations of selenium in some adult splittail feeding in the San Francisco Estuary. The concentrations exceeded protective criteria set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Splittail feed heavily on Asian clams, which concentrate selenium while filter feeding. The fish then pass the selenium on to offspring in the yolk of their eggs.

The details of how the fish encountered the selenium could help determine what to do about it, said Robin Stewart, a research hydrologist at the U.S. Geological Survey and coauthor of the research.

"These tools that help us understand where and how it happens will also help inform management agencies how they might best reduce risk," she said.

Rarely Seen in Wild

The findings raise the question of whether other fish such as salmon also encounter elevated levels of selenium, Johnson said. Scientists rarely see toxic effects of selenium in the wild. Regardless of how often it happens, afflicted fish either die or are quickly consumed by predators.

Sacramento splittail exist only in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, and grow more than a foot long as adults. They reproduce most abundantly in wet years such as 2011, when rivers spread into adjacent floodplains and open new habitat to fish. One question remains: do fish such as the splittail encounter high levels of selenium only in such wet years when the floodplain habitat is available, or more commonly?

"Was this a one-time event?" Stewart asked. "What we don't know is how frequently this could be happening, because no one is out there looking for these fish before they disappear."

Wilmington, DE, February 24, 2020 -- While radiation is successfully used to treat breast cancer by killing cancer cells, inflammation caused as a side-effect of radiation can have a contrary effect by promoting the survival of triple-negative breast cancer cells, according to research published online in the International Journal of Radiation Biology by Jennifer Sims-Mourtada, Ph.D., director of Translational Breast Cancer Research at ChristianaCare's Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute.

Accounting for 15-20% of all breast cancers, triple-negative breast cancer is faster growing than other types of breast cancers.

Dr. Sims-Mourtada's latest study, "Radiation induces an inflammatory response that results in STAT3-dependent changes in cellular plasticity and radioresistance of breast cancer stem-like cells," brings scientists closer to understanding the mechanisms behind this aggressive and hard-to-treat cancer. It shows that inflammation caused by radiation can trigger stem-cell-like characteristics in non-stem breast cancer cells.

"This is the good and the bad of radiation," Dr. Sims-Mourtada said. "We know radiation induced inflammation can help the immune system to kill tumor cells -- that's good -- but also it can protect cancer stem cells in some cases, and that's bad."

She added, "What's exciting about these findings is we're learning more and more that the environment the tumor is in - its microenvironment - is very important. Historically, research has focused on the genetic defects in the tumor cells. We're now also looking at the larger microenvironment and its contribution to cancer."

The term triple-negative breast cancer refers to the fact that the cancer cells don't have estrogen or progesterone receptors and also don't make too much of the protein called HER2. The cells test "negative" on all 3 tests. These cancers tend to be more common in women under age 40, who are African-American, Latina or who have a BRCA1 mutation.

"My work focuses on cancer stem cells and their origination," Dr. Sims-Mourtada said. "They exist in many cancers, but they're particularly elusive in triple-negative breast cancer. Their abnormal growth capacity and survival mechanisms make them resistant to radiation and chemotherapy and help drive tumor growth."

She and her team applied radiation to triple-negative breast cancer stem cells and to non-stem cells. In both cases, they found radiation induced an inflammatory response that activated the Il-6/Stat3 pathway, which plays a significant role in the growth and survival of cancer stem cells in triple-negative breast cancers. They also found that inhibiting STAT3 blocks the creation of cancer stem cells. Still unclear is the role IL-6/STAT3 plays in transforming a non-stem cell to a stem-cell.

For women living in Delaware, Dr. Sims-Mourtada's research is especially urgent: The rates of triple-negative breast cancer in the state are the highest nationwide.

"At ChristianaCare, we are advancing cancer research to help people in our community today, while we also advance the fight against cancer nationwide," said Nicholas J. Petrelli, M.D., Bank of America endowed medical director of the Helen F. Graham Cancer Center & Research Institute. "Dr. Sims-Mourtada's research is a dramatic step toward better treatments for triple-negative breast cancer."

To advance her research on inflammation, last year Dr. Sims-Mourtada received a $659,538 grant from the Lisa Dean Moseley Foundation. The three-year grant will enable her and her team at the Cawley Center for Translational Cancer Research to continue investigating the role of cells immediately around a tumor in spurring the growth of triple-negative breast cancer and a possible therapy for this particularly difficult cancer.

"Our next step is to understand the inflammatory response and how we might inhibit it to keep new cancer stem cells from developing," Dr. Sims-Mourtada said.

Dr. Sims-Mourtada's research team previously identified an anti-inflammatory drug, currently used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, that has the potential to target and inhibit the growth of cancer stem cells and triple-negative breast cancer tumors. That research could set the stage for clinical investigation of the drug, alone or in combination with chemotherapy, to improve outcomes for patients with triple-negative breast cancer.

It's a problem plaguing grape-growers worldwide--in an ever-changing climate, how can they protect their crops from the undesirable effects of wildfire smoke exposure.

A recent study by a team of UBC Okanagan researchers has led to the development of a preventative strategy for protecting grapes from volatile phenols--flavoured compounds present in smoke that may be absorbed into ripening grapes and subsequently impact wine flavour.

"It's definitely one of, if not the biggest concern wine-making communities are facing today," says Wesley Zandberg, assistant professor in chemistry at UBC Okanagan and study author.

"When you look at the catastrophic wildfire seasons California and the Okanagan Valley have experienced in recent years, and the season Australia is experiencing now, I don't think a solution can come quickly enough," he says. "Winemakers are under a lot of pressure to find a way to protect their crops."

Zandberg and his team tested multiple substances and found that applying an agricultural spray composed of phospholipids--typically used to prevent cracking in cherries--to wine grapes one week before exposing them to simulated forest fire smoke significantly reduced the levels of volatile phenols measured in smoke-exposed grapes at commercial maturity.

"The results are encouraging," says Zandberg. "This strategy has shown potential in its ability to protect crops."

According to Zandberg, when wine grapes absorb compounds from smoke, the grapes react by coating the compounds in sugar using their enzymes. This sugar coating masks the smoky odour and taste of volatile phenols until it's released again by yeast during the fermentation process.

"Many grape-growers don't have the means to pay to test their crops, so since smoke-taint can't be reliably detected until grapes are fermented, producers have to wait weeks to know whether their plants are suitable or not," explains Zandberg. "Meanwhile, costs and risks mount as their crops sit on the vine."

Zandberg adds that smoke-tainted crops can have a more devastating effect for some wine producers than others.

"A lot of wineries in the Okanagan Valley only use local grapes, so they don't have the option of purchasing grapes from Washington or Oregon, as they wouldn't be considered local," explains Zandberg. "When your whole business model is fermenting what you produce, you're in big trouble if your grapes are tainted."

For Zandberg, it's the people and their livelihoods that keep him determined to find a solution.

"In 2003, the wildfires in Australia cost their wine industry $300 million dollars in lost revenue, and I imagine they'll experience a similar loss this year, if not more," he says.

"Our team has developed a strategy that's proven to be successful, but there's still a long way to go," admits Zandberg. "Now, we need to work on replicating and refining these results to alleviate crop losses experienced globally by the wine industry."

The study was published recently in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

New research suggests that regular exercise may improve the well-being of African American cancer survivors, but most survivors do not meet current recommendations for physical activity. The findings are published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society (ACS).

Because regular physical activity can influence a variety of factors that affect survival after a cancer diagnosis, the ACS recommends that cancer survivors engage in at least 150 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week. For most cancers, African American patients have a higher likelihood of dying from their disease than other racial or ethnic groups, and preliminary research suggests that they engage in lower levels of physical activity.

To assess levels of physical activity in African American cancer survivors and to examine the relationship between such physical activity and their health-related quality of life (their physical, social, emotional, and functional well-being), Jennifer Beebe-Dimmer, MPH, PhD, of the Karmanos Cancer Institute and Wayne State University in Detroit, and her colleagues analyzed information from the Detroit Research on Cancer Survivors (Detroit ROCS) study. In this population-based study that includes African Americans diagnosed with the four most common cancers (lung, breast, prostate, and colorectal cancers), participants complete baseline and yearly follow-up surveys to update their health and health behaviors.

Among the first 1,500 participants, 60 percent reported engaging in regular physical activity, with 24 percent reporting at least 150 minutes per week. There were no differences by gender. Prostate cancer survivors were the most likely to report participating in physical activity (28 percent), while lung cancer survivors were the least likely (18 percent).

Survivors reported engaging in more physical activity at the first follow-up survey, increasing from an average of 76 minutes of moderate to vigorous physical activity at the start of the study to 110 minutes at the one-year follow-up. At the start, just one-quarter of survivors met ACS recommendations, compared with 34 percent at the one-year follow-up.

Survivors who participated in regular physical activity reported higher health-related quality of life and lower depression. Also, increases in the amount of physical activity between the start of the study and the one-year follow-up correlated with improvements in health-related quality of life.

"Identifying barriers to participation in regular exercise and developing interventions to reduce these barriers in African American cancer survivors will be critical for improving outcomes in this population and minimizing cancer health disparities," said Dr. Beebe-Dimmer.

In a study published in Advanced Materials, researchers at Aalto University, the University of Tokyo, Sichuan University, and the University of British Columbia have demonstrated that plant-derived cellulose nanocrystals (CNCs) can form an adhesive that fully integrates the concepts of sustainability, performance, and cost which are generally extremely challenging to achieve simultaneously.

Unlike Superglue, the new eco glue develops its full strength in a preferred direction, similar to "Peel and Stick" adhesives. When trying to separate the glued components along the principal plane of the bond, the strength is more than 70 times higher when compared to the direction perpendicular to that plane. All of this means that just a single drop of the "eco" glue has enough strength to hold up to 90kg weight, but can still be easily removed by the touch of a finger, as needed. As Dr Blaise Tardy from the Aalto Department of Bioproducts and Biosystems puts it, 'The ability to hold this amount of weight with just a few drops is huge, especially from a natural plant-based solution'.

These kind of properties are useful in protecting fragile components in machines that can undergo sudden physical shock such as high-value components in microelectronics, to increase the reusability of valuable structural and decorative elements, in new solutions for packaging applications, and - in general - for the development of greener adhesive solutions.

Producing a comparable product to a market leader at low cost and with new properties

Furthermore, compared to the current approach of making high-strength glues that can involve complex and expensive routes, the team has demonstrated that their solution is just taking biobased particles sources from plants (with a comparatively negligible cost) and just adding water. Since curing time is associated with evaporation of the water phase (~2 hours, currently), it can be controlled, for instance, with heat.

Aalto Professor Orlando Rojas says, 'Reaching a deep understanding on how the cellulose nanoparticles, mixed with water, to form such an outstanding adhesive is a result of the work between myself, Dr Tardy, Luiz Greca, Professor Hirotaka Ejima, Dr Joseph J. Richardson and Professor Junling Guo and it highlights the fantastic collaboration and integration of knowledge towards the development of an extremely appealing, low-cost and safe application'.

'Good, green packaging with bad glue still renders the packaging bad' - Dr Blaise Tardy

Moreover, the prospects for worldwide utilisation (in a 40B€ industry) is quite attractive given the ever-increasing production of cellulose nanocrystals seen across the globe, as supported by incentives in the framework of the circular bioeconomy.

Dr Tardy adds, 'The truly exciting aspect of this is that although our new adhesive can be sourced directly from residual biomass, such as that from the agro-industry or recycled paper; it outperforms currently available commercial synthetic products by a great many measures'.

New research from the University of Sheffield has discovered that switching to a rich diet after eating a restricted diet can decrease life expectancy and have negative effects on health.

It has long been known that restricting food intake can extend lifespan however researchers have now provided new insight into why, as well as how diets could benefit humans in terms of slowing ageing and the onset of age-related disease.

Experts, from the Healthy Lifespan Institute at the University of Sheffield and Brown University in the USA, tested the existing evolutionary theory that dietary restriction - a reduction of particular or total nutrient intake without causing malnutrition - triggers a survival strategy in humans and animals. The theory suggests that this is because humans and animals invest in maintaining and repairing the body in times of low food availability, to await times when food availability increases again.

However, the new findings have challenged this theory. Fruit flies (Drosophilia melanogaster) fed a restricted diet who were then returned to a rich diet were more likely to die and laid less eggs compared to flies that spent their whole life on a rich diet. This demonstrates that rather than waiting for food availability to increase in the future, the flies were essentially waiting to die on a restricted diet.

The researchers suggest that instead of dietary restriction increasing repair and maintenance mechanisms, it could actually be an escape from the damaging effects of a rich diet. This new interpretation can help us to understand why and how diet can have such profound effects on health.

The findings also suggest that changing diet repeatedly or abruptly could be harmful to health in certain situations.

PhD student Andrew McCracken, from the University of Sheffield's Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, who led the study said: "Dietary restriction is an unusual paradox which has attracted a great deal of interest within the field of ageing. Our results have now pointed us towards a more refined explanation of why it occurs, and have the potential to wholly shift the focus of future research.

"Our most surprising finding was that under certain circumstances, restricted diets can also be the origin of particular types of damage to the individual. This enhanced understanding of the penalties and benefits of certain types of diets, will expedite the quest to identify pharmaceutical interventions which mimic dietary restriction."

Dr Mirre Simons, from the University of Sheffield's Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, said: "The effects of diet on health are huge, but we understand little of the exact mechanisms. Our work has now uncovered a surprising property of dietary restriction, in that it makes flies ill-prepared for rich diets. This was contrary to our expectations and contrary to current evolutionary theory. In the biology of ageing field evolutionary biology has been highly influential in guiding interpretation of more mechanistic research. Our work thereby contributes to the broader understanding of dietary restriction and the efforts to translate its benefits to humans."

The research was funded by the National Environment Research Council (NERC), Wellcome, the American Federation of Aging Research & the National Institute on Aging.

The work forms part of the research of the Healthy Lifespan Institute at the University of Sheffield. The Institute brings together 120 world-class researchers from a wide range of disciplines with the aim of slowing down the ageing process and tackling the global epidemic of multimorbidity - the presence of two or more chronic conditions - in a bid to help everyone live healthier, independent lives for longer and reduce the cost of care.

Maize is a staple food all over the world. In the United States, where it's better known as corn, nearly 90 million acres were planted in 2018, earning $47.2 billion in crop cash receipts.

But, under the effects of climate change, this signature crop may not fare so well. As the world tries to feed a population skyrocketing to nine billion by 2050, that has major implications. So, what can we do about it? The answer might be exotic.

A multi-institutional team led by University of Delaware plant geneticist Randy Wisser decoded the genetic map for how maize from tropical environments can be adapted to the temperate U.S. summer growing season. Wisser sees these exotic varieties, which are rarely used in breeding, as key to creating next-era varieties of corn.

The research team included scientists from UD, North Carolina State University, University of Wisconsin, University of Missouri, Iowa State University, Texas A&M University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service. The resulting study, highlighted by the editorial board of Genetics, provides a new lens into the future viability of one of the world's most important grains.

"If we can expand the genetic base by using exotic varieties, perhaps we can counter stresses such as emerging diseases and drought associated with growing corn in a changing climate," said Wisser, associate professor in UD's Department of Plant and Soil Sciences. "That is critical to ensuring ample production for the billions of people who depend on it for food and other products."

Modern maize strains were created from only a small fraction of the global maize population. This limited infusion of diversity raises concerns about the vulnerability of American corn in a shifting climate. The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) seed bank includes tens of thousands of varieties, but many are just not being used.

"We know that the tropical maize varieties represent our greatest reservoir of genetic diversity," said study co-author Jim Holland, a plant geneticist with the USDA Agricultural Research Service at North Carolina State. "This study improved our understanding of those genetics, so we can use this information to guide future breeding efforts to safeguard the corn crop."

Certain exotic strains of maize better handle drought or waterlogging or low-nitrogen soil, for example. But because these strains have evolved outside the U.S., they are not immediately suited to states like Delaware. So, exotics first need to be pre-adapted.

In prior work, Wisser and his colleagues showed how 10 years of repeated genetic selection was required to adapt a tropical strain of maize to the temperate U.S. Co-author Arnel Hallauer spent a decade adapting the population through selective breeding, so it could flourish in an environment like Delaware.

"What's so cool now is that we could go back to the original generations from Dr. Hallauer and grow them side by side in the same field," Wisser said of the first-of-its-kind experimental design. "This allows us to rule out the influence of the environment on each trait, directly exposing the genetic component of evolution. This has opened a 'back to the future' channel where we can redesign our approach to developing modern varieties."

While extremely impressive, a decade to adapt exotic maize to new environments is a lot of time when the climate change clock is ticking.

"Unfortunately, this process takes 10 years, which is not counting ongoing evaluations and integrating the exotic variations into more commonly used types of maize," Wisser said. "With the climate threats we face, that's a long time. So, gaining insights into this evolutionary process will help us devise ways to shorten the time span."

Accelerating adaptation

Wisser isn't wasting any time as he explores ways to bolster corn's ability to survive and thrive. He and Holland are working on a new project to cut that time span in half.

In cutting-edge research funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture, the team is analyzing how corn genomes behave in a target environment as they aim to formulate a predictive model for fitness.

"What we're doing is sequencing the genomes and measuring traits like flowering time or disease for individuals in one generation. From this, we can generate a lookup table that allows us to foresee which individuals in the next generation have the best traits based on their genetic profiles alone," Wisser said. "And our lookup table can be tailored to predict how the individuals will behave in a particular environment or location like Delaware."

That means plant breeders could grow a second generation of corn anywhere outside of Delaware, but still predict which individuals would be the most fit for Delaware's environment.

"For instance, even if the plants are grown at a location where a disease is not present, our prediction model can still select the resistant plants and cross them to enrich the genes that underlie resistance," Wisser said.

With this approach, researchers don't have to wait out a Delaware winter, so they can continue to pre-adapt the population for at least one extra generation per year. That's how 10 years of selective breeding for pre-adaptation could become five, providing a quicker route to access exotic genes.

This new effort connects to the Genomes To Fields (G2F) Initiative, developed in 2013 for understanding and capitalizing on the link between genomes and crop performance for the benefit of growers, consumers and society.

If Wisser and Holland can develop a method to rapidly pre-adapt exotics, this opens a lane for G2F to test the impact of these unique genomes on crop performance.

"Our goal is to advance the science so breeders can draw on a wider array of the diversity that has accumulated across thousands of years of evolution," explained Wisser, who has been involved in the public-private initiative since its beginning. "In turn, they can produce improved varieties for producers and consumers facing the challenges of climate change."

One of the strategies used for biological control of the South American fruit fly Anastrepha fraterculus is sterilization of males by X-ray or gamma-ray irradiation. The aim of the procedure is to bring about a decrease in the wild population of these insects.

A. fraterculus is a major crop pest in the South Region of Brazil, mainly affecting apple and peach orchards.

Sterilization is considered an affordable alternative to the use of insecticides and toxic bait. Before irradiation, the pupae - the immature form between larvae and adults - are submitted to a quality control process to identify and discard dead and low-quality insects.

The problem is that this inspection is performed manually and is based on morpho-physiological analysis, but it is difficult to distinguish empty or dead pupae from healthy pupae with the naked eye. Color differences, for example, are subtle and may go unnoticed.

"The problem can impair the efficiency of biological control because low-quality pupae don't develop into sterile flies," said Clíssia Barboza da Silva, an agronomist affiliated with the University of São Paulo's Center for Nuclear Energy in Agriculture (CENA-USP) in Piracicaba. "The margin of error in manual inspection is about 10%", she added.

Barboza da Silva has been working on a way to optimize the process based on a secure and precise method of pupa analysis in the context of mass production. She and her team use VideometerLab, a multispectral imaging instrument developed by a Danish company, to analyze pupae. Multispectral images capture light from an object over a range of wavelengths across the electromagnetic spectrum. The technique accurately identifies alterations in sample quality.

Purchased for approximately BRL 400,000 (now approximately USD 92,000) with funding from FAPESP's Multiuser Equipment Program, the VideometerLab is about the size of a single-serve coffee maker. It sits on the laboratory bench and is easy to operate. In this case, the researchers place the pupae in a Petri dish and analyze them in five seconds. Manual analysis takes hours.

"Thanks to its multispectral camera, the device provides several kinds of data at the same time - physiological, sanitary and genetic, for example, in addition to data on chemical composition," Barboza da Silva said. The device has 19 LED strobe lights, each of which emits a different wavelength from infrared to ultraviolet. The main analytical technique is reflectance imaging. Reflectance is measured by shining light on a sample and calculating the ratio of reflected to incident light.

Images of pupae produced by VideometerLab show different color patterns. The bluer the image, the greater the reflectance and the higher the quality of the sample. According to Barboza da Silva, phenotypical traits such as color and weight are used to detect dead or empty pupae in the conventional inspection procedure.

"The problem is that to the naked eye, empty pupae are almost the same color as high-quality pupae", she said.

Barboza da Silva is co-author of an article published in the Journal of Applied Entomology, which presents the positive results of the use of multispectral imaging to control the quality of A. fraterculus pupae.

In addition to providing a complete analysis of various physical and biochemical properties of the pupae, the device also functions as a computer vision system, a type of artificial intelligence that extracts data from images by simulating human vision.

"It generates data and graphics that help monitor pupa quality over time," Barboza da Silva said, adding that since last year, the technology has been used to control the quality of sterile insects sent to supply producers in Vacaria, Rio Grande do Sul, in the far south of Brazil.

The Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (EMBRAPA) has a temperate fruit experiment station in Vacaria and is partnering with CENA-USP in the Moscasul project, launched in 2013 with the Brazilian Apple Growers Association (ABPM).

"A biofactory is being set up in Vacaria, but CENA-USP is producing the sterile fruit flies until an irradiator is acquired to sterilize the pupae," said Thiago de Araújo Mastrangelo, an agronomic engineer and researcher at CENA-USP. The pupae irradiated there are flown to Vacaria in foam boxes chilled to 15 °C about three days before the adult flies emerge.

At EMBRAPA Vacaria, the pupae are placed in larger boxes with access to water and food (usually sugar or honey). Days later, following adult emergence, the sterile males are released into orchards, where they mate with wild females. If the sterile males vastly outnumber the fertile wild males, the wild fly population quickly dies out. The pilot biofactory at CENA-USP currently produces 150,000-200,000 insects per week.

According to Mastrangelo, without sterilization or any other control method, the economic impact of the pest could reach 40% of the income from production. "The fly multiplies in areas of native vegetation and then invades nearby crops, such as orange groves in São Paulo [Southeast Brazil] or apple farms in the South."

To date, there is no evidence that biological control of A. fraterculus has had adverse ecological or environmental impacts of any kind in the region, Mastrangelo added. "Recent studies conducted in Mexico show that no harm is done to the food chain of which this insect is part. In tropical environments, even if the species were to become locally extinct, others could take over its ecological niche," he said.

Barboza da Silva noted that potential applications of the VideometerLab extend well beyond insect pupa quality control. "It's being used worldwide in several fields, including medicine, pharmacology, and new materials. Ours was acquired as multiuser equipment, so we want other researchers in Brazil to start using it too," she said.

Barboza da Silva took a training course in Denmark in 2018 to learn how to operate the device now installed at CENA-USP. This is the only unit currently available in Brazil. She and her team also use it to analyze tomato, carrot, physic nut (Jatropha curcas) and peanut seeds in search of optical imaging patterns that characterize alterations in quality. The study is supported by FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation ).

"Conventional tests of seed quality are destructive. Moreover, as with pupae, the results are subjective because they depend on the analyst's training. They are also time-consuming and require a support structure. With the VideometerLab, which uses artificial intelligence, one can analyze the quality of a seed sample noninvasively, objectively and precisely, producing a detailed diagnosis of its physical, physiological, genetic and sanitary characteristics and saving time and money. That's a very significant advance," Barboza da Silva said.

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 21, 2020 -- A common medication that reduces bleeding could be a treatment for bleeding stroke, particularly if administered quickly, according to late breaking science presented today at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference 2020. The conference, Feb. 19-21 is in Los Angeles, a world premier meeting for researchers and clinicians dedicated to the science of stroke and brain health.

The Spot Sign and Tranexamic Acid on Preventing ICH Growth - Australasia Trial (STOP-AUST) was a multicenter, prospective, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, phase 2 clinical trial using the antifibrinolytic agent tranexamic acid in people with intracerebral hemorrhage (ICH). ICH is a severe form of acute stroke with few treatment options.

Tranexamic acid is currently used to treat or prevent excessive blood loss from trauma, surgery, tooth removal, nosebleeds and heavy menstruation. For this study, one hundred patients with active brain bleeding were given either intravenous tranexamic acid or placebo within 4.5 hours of symptom onset. Researchers analyzed brain CT scans taken during the 24-hour period after treatment with tranexamic acid or placebo.

Researchers found a trend towards reduced hemorrhage expansion in the group treated with tranexamic acid, especially in those treated within 3 hours of the brain bleed. However, this trend was not statistically significant. The finding was consistent with previous research using the medication.

"Further trials using tranexamic acid are ongoing and focusing on ultra-early treatment - within 2 hours. This is where the greatest opportunity for intervention appears to be," said Nawaf Yassi, M.B.B.S., B.Sc., Ph.D., trial investigator and consultant neurologist at the Royal Melbourne Hospital.

"Tranexamic acid is inexpensive, safe and widely available," said Yassi. "Our results and others provide great impetus for further, focused research using this treatment."

Larger trials focused on patient outcomes are required for this therapy to enter routine clinical practice.