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In "The Politics of Selecting the Bench from the Bar: The Legal Profession and Partisan Incentives to Introduce Ideology into Judicial Selection," published in the Journal of Law and Economics, Adam Bonica and Maya Sen analyze how and why American courts become politicized. The authors present a theory of strategic selection in which politicians appoint judges with specific ideological backgrounds in order to advance political agendas.

Instead of simply determining whether partisanship influences the composition of the courts, the authors aim to understand the ideological demographics of the legal profession--the population from which judges are chosen--and the judiciary. "This is the first study to provide a direct ideological comparison across tiers of the judiciary and between judges and lawyers," say Bonica and Sen, "and also the first to document how--and why--American courts become politicized."

Using a newly collected data set from the Martindale-Hubbell legal directory and the Database on Ideology, Money in Politics, and Elections (DIME) that captures the ideological positioning of nearly half a million judges and lawyers who have made campaign contributions, the authors show that the higher the court, the more conservative and more polarized it becomes, in contrast with the broader population of attorneys, who tend to be liberal. Because higher level courts are more likely to shape national and state policy, politicians who prioritize certain selection methods over others can aim to restructure the judiciary toward their own ideologies.

Bonica and Sen argue that this political motivation leads political actors to favor judicial selection systems relying on gubernatorial or legislative appointments rather than nominations based on merit or nonpartisan elections. Their analysis demonstrates that partisan elections and appointments allow politicians to choose individuals with preferred ideological backgrounds in order to facilitate desired policy shifts. Their findings suggest that political actors take opportunities to use ideology in the selection of judges but that they strategically prioritize higher courts.

"Left to a judicial selection process devoid of ideological considerations," say Bonica and Sen, "America's courts should, after controlling for relevant demographic characteristics, closely resemble the population of attorneys in the jurisdiction from which they are drawn. However, as ideology becomes an increasingly important consideration in judicial selection, the ideological profile of the courts will deviate from that of attorneys and start to look more like that of the relevant political actors."

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- Using an artful combination of nanotechnology and basic chemistry, Sandia National Laboratories researchers have encouraged gold nanoparticles to self-assemble into unusually large supercrystals that could significantly improve the detection sensitivity for chemicals in explosives or drugs.

"Our supercrystals have more sensing capability than regular spectroscopy instruments currently in use, just like a dog's nose has more sensing capabilities than a human's," said lead Sandia researcher Hongyou Fan.

Other researchers previously reported forming gold supercrystals but only in the micron range, too small for commercial production, said Fan, whose submillimeter supercrystals are easily manipulated with industrial tools of the macroworld.

The benchtop sensors, recently reported in Nature Communications, also are surprisingly inexpensive, Fan says. "The supercrystals are built of gold, but only a little of it." It takes 0.012 grams of gold to form a sensor, for a total materials cost of roughly 50 cents.

To form each of the Sandia supercrystals, millions of gold nanoparticles tightly self-assemble in orderly rows. The particles naturally develop facets -- resembling those cut in diamonds by a jeweler -- to exist at the lowest possible energy level needed to maintain the existence of the crystal.

Crystal facets 'bay' like hounds

The facets are adept at recognizing and transmitting signals. They "bay" in groups like hounds -- that is, emit a strong signal -- when a predetermined external frequency is "sniffed." That is because when a nanoparticle recognizes a band frequency and makes it resonate, that energy will pass to other nanoparticles, coupled by nearness and the local electromagnetic field. The alerted nanoparticles augment the response in a kind of echoing action, making noticeable what in less keen sensors may have passed unnoticed.

The initial formation of the crystals involves dispersing gold particulates about 5 nanometers in diameter into a "good" solvent, toluene. They then are subjected to a bath in a "hostile" solvent, isopropanol, which the particles supersaturate and from which they are then ejected or precipitated.

The ejected particles, refugees from the solution, then crystallize as small seeds. The growth of facets makes them available to respond to a wide variety of incoming chemical odors or light band frequencies.

The proper concentrations of materials and particle immersion times are important factors in creating large crystals. The process may take as long as a week.

In an article published July 17, 2018 by Nature Communications, a highly collaborative team of researchers at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC) and Ohio State University report that normal breast cells can prevent successful radiation treatment of breast cancer due to dysregulation between tumor suppressors and oncogenes. Tumor suppressors act like brakes that stop cells from undergoing uncontrolled growth, while oncogenes are the gas pedal. The tumor suppressor gene of interest in this study is PTEN, which is often mutated in human cancer cells.

An initial surprising observation that the stroma, or supportive connective tissue, in some women without cancer had abnormally low PTEN fueled this study.

"The results suggest that PTEN loss in normal cells may be a biomarker for identifying breast cancer patients who would benefit from adding specific inhibitors in combination with the standard radiation therapy," says Michael C. Ostrowski, Ph.D., a professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at MUSC, a member of the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center, and senior author on the article.

The cancer research field did not previously know that early PTEN-focused events in the breast stroma are capable of triggering malignant development in the breast.

In human breast cancer, expression of the tumor suppressor PTEN and the cell growth promoter active protein kinase B (AKT) are inversely correlated. In other words, when PTEN is reduced, AKT is significantly increased. However, researchers knew neither why this occurs nor how it could be useful clinically.

To address this specific question, the team developed a mouse model to look at what occurs when PTEN is not expressed specifically in the breast stroma. This special model revealed that the absence of PTEN tumor suppressor in the breast stroma leads to larger mammary (breast) tumors.

Digging deeper, the MUSC researchers wanted to understand how stromal cells without PTEN could lead to such rapid growth of cancer cells. Surprisingly, connective stromal cells that do not have PTEN release more of soluble factors called EGF ligands. The EGF ligands promote abnormal growth in neighboring epithelial cells, which line the surfaces of internal organs including in breast tissue.

Radiation therapy is a mainstream treatment for breast cancers as radiation causes cell death in the targeted cells. When the PTEN level is low in the breast cancer connective tissue cells, the tumor cells have a high degree of genetic instability. Genetically unstable cells do not follow the normal growth checkpoints, meaning that the cells ignore cell death signals. The finding of the connection between low PTEN levels and reduced response to radiation therapy.

"This allows for a multi-pronged attack on the tumor, by predicting who will respond the best to radiation therapy in combination with chemotherapy and other targeted treatments" says Ostrowski.

The team of researchers was able to progress quickly from initial observation to preclinical findings because they could draw on the skill sets of oncologists, biostatisticians, pathologists, and researchers available via the MUSC Hollings Cancer Center Translational Core. Development of this core will enable vital cancer research, such as that reported in this work, to move from pre-clinical studies to clinical trial.

The research is moving quickly. Another publication looking at the PTEN mechanism even more in depth will soon be published. A small clinical trial to investigate the correlation between reduction in stromal PTEN and radiation resistance would be game-changing to the field. One option is to use the PTEN data to divide the patients into groups, leading to more personalized medicine. Using this tool, physicians could decide which breast cancer patients would benefit the most from radiation and spare the patients who are not likely to respond from the costs and side effects of the treatment.

By discovering that normal connective tissue cells might be predisposing epithelial cells to cancerous changes, the research team may have pinpointed a vulnerability in cancer cells.

"We may have found an Achilles heel for cancer cells, because the stromal cells and PTEN pathways can be targeted," says Ostrowski.

Tsukuba, Japan - Placodes and neural crests are defining features of vertebrates (animals with a spinal cord surrounded by cartilage or bone). Placodes are embryonic structures that develop into sensory organs such as ear, nose, and lens cells, while neural crests develop into various cell lineages such as bone, craniofacial cartilage, and epidermal sensory neurons.

In spite of extensive study on placodes and neural crests, their evolutionary origins remain unclear. The puzzle is further compounded by evidence of the presence of rudiments of both cell types in invertebrate chordates (animals without a spinal cord). This spurred a team of Tsukuba-centered researchers to unravel this evolution mystery.

"For the purpose of our study, the researchers used a combination of lineage tracing, gene disruption and single-cell RNA-sequencing assays to explore the properties of the lateral plate ectoderm, a peripheral embryonic structure, of the proto-vertebrate, Ciona intestinalis, a marine invertebrate animal commonly known as the sea squirt," explains Ryoko Horie, one of three co-first authors of the study which was in the prestigious journal Nature.

By analyzing the regulatory "blueprint" of the Ciona embryo, the researchers identified several genetic determinants of the lateral plate ectoderm, and successfully obtained evidence for the interlocking regulatory interactions among them.

"The most striking deviation between the Ciona and vertebrate regulatory fate maps is the compartmentalization of the Ciona front lateral plate into two distinct domains," says corresponding author Takeo Horie.

The researchers found that the antero-posterior compartmentalization of the Ciona lateral plate led to the development of related but distinct sensory cell types, including palp sensory cells (PSCs), anterior trunk epidermal neurons (aATENs) and bipolar tail neurons (BTNs). aATENS have been shown to have dual properties of placode-derived chemosensory neurons, such as neurons involved in the sense of smell, while BTNs are thought to share properties with neural crest-derived dorsal root ganglia, a cluster of neurons (a ganglion) in a dorsal root of a spinal nerve.

Notably, the BTNs readily transformed into PSCs when regulatory genes of the former were misexpressed. The proof of transformation was confirmed by whole-embryo single-cell RNA-sequencing assays.

"Taken together, our findings suggest the possibility of the entire lateral plate of the last shared tunicate and vertebrate ancestor being the source of both placodal and neural crest derivatives in vertebrates," says Takeo Horie.

A stalled weather pattern led to persistent showers and thunderstorms moving up the eastern seaboard during the week of July 22, resulting in significant rainfall amounts and numerous flood warnings. NASA utilized satellite data to analyze and tally the rainfall from the storms.

A nearly stationary elongated upper-level trough or elongated area of low pressure stretching down from the Great Lakes to Florida combined with a persistent Bermuda High off the coast to channel a steady flow of warm, humid air up the eastern seaboard. The result was a week of re-occurring showers and thunderstorms across the region.

That's where the Global Precipitation Measurement mission or GPM constellation of satellites comes in. GPM is a joint mission between NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, JAXA and measures precipitation from space.

The Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM or IMERG is used to estimate precipitation from a combination of passive microwave sensors, including GPM's GMI microwave sensor and geostationary infrared data. Accumulated IMERG rainfall estimates for the 1-week period of July 19 to 26, 2018 showed most of the eastern third of the U.S. receiving some rain.

The heaviest accumulations extend from the north-central Gulf of Mexico across northeast Florida, up along the coast of the Carolinas, through central Maryland and Pennsylvania and into central New York State.

Early in the period, a stationary front draped across southern Georgia helped to focus showers and thunderstorms over north Florida and off the coast of South Carolina, while a trough of low pressure over the northern Gulf of Mexico did the same for that area. In the middle of the period, a wave of low pressure formed along the front over southeast Georgia and moved up the coast, then over the Chesapeake Bay, across central Pennsylvania and into central New York before weakening over the Great Lakes. This brought the first round of heavy rains to the Outer Banks of North Carolina, central Maryland and central Pennsylvania. After that more showers and thunderstorms formed in the moist southeast onshore flow, bringing additional rains to the coastal Carolinas and across the Piedmont into the Appalachians.

The highest rainfall totals over land for the period are over the Outer Banks, central Maryland and central Pennsylvania where IMERG estimates are on the order of 180 mm or more (~7 inches). Numerous areas received on the order of 50 to 100 mm (~2 to 4 inches) with locally higher amounts of up to 140 mm (~5.5 inches) over northern Kentucky and parts of northern Florida.

Differences in social status and political belief increase paranoid interpretations of other people's actions, finds a new UCL experimental study.

Paranoia is the tendency to assume other people are trying to harm you when their actual motivations are unclear, and this tendency is increased when interacting with someone of a higher social status or opposing political beliefs, according to the study published today in Royal Society Open Science.

"Being alert to social danger is key to our survival, but our results suggest social difference alone encourages us to think that the other person wants to harm us," said the study's senior author, Professor Nichola Raihani (UCL Psychology & Language Sciences).

"Intense paranoia is also a symptom of mental ill health, and is more common among people who perceive themselves to have low social rank. We believe our findings could shed light on why paranoia is more common in those who are struggling on the social ladder and excluded by society," she added.

For the study, 2,030 people participated in an online experiment where they were paired with another person and given a sum of money. Ahead of the experiment, all participants had reported their typical levels of paranoid thinking by filling out a questionnaire, as well as their own perceived social status and their political affiliation along the liberal-conservative spectrum. They were then paired with someone from a higher, lower or similar social status, or with someone who had similar or opposing political beliefs.

In each pair, one person got to decide whether to split the money 50-50 or to keep it all for themselves. The other person was then asked to rate how much they thought the decision was motivated by the decider's self-interest, and how much the decision was likely motivated by the decider wanting to deny them any of the prize - a measure of perceived harmful intent. The roles were then swapped with a new sum of money.

People who were paired with someone with a higher social status or with different political beliefs more frequently assumed their partner's decision had been motivated by wanting to cause them harm. In contrast, social difference did not affect how often people assumed their partner was motivated by self-interest.

Researchers also found that the over-perception of other people's harmful intentions occurred at the same rate, regardless of whether participants already had heightened levels of paranoid thinking.

"Our findings suggest that people who struggle with high levels of paranoia are equally well-tuned to social difference despite sometimes seeming that they misperceive the social world. This research may help us understand how exclusion and disadvantage fuel some of the most severe mental health problems," said co-author Dr Vaughan Bell (UCL Psychiatry).

July 31, 2018 - Three-dimensional image simulation is popular among women planning breast augmentation surgery. But while this evolving technology may enhance communication, it doesn't improve patient satisfaction with the results of the procedure, reports a paper in the August issue of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery® official medical journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons (ASPS).

"Patients are likely to use novel technology like three-dimensional photography with computer simulation if they perceive it to enhance their understanding of their final outcome," write ASPS Member Surgeon Terence Myckatyn, MD, and colleagues of Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis. However, 3D stimulation "did not lead to clinically meaningful changes in patient-reported outcomes." Bo Overschmidt, BSc, and Ali A. Qureshi, MD, were the lead authors of the new report.

3D Simulations Help Patients Visualize Cosmetic Outcomes

The study evaluated the impact of 3D imaging with computer simulation on the outcomes of breast augmentation. In this technique, the plastic surgeon obtains digital photographs, then uses imaging software to create a 3D simulation of how the patient's breasts will look after surgery. The surgeon and patient can adjust different variables, such as cup size and implant volume, to help in procedure planning and decision-making.

The study included 100 women undergoing breast augmentation over a three-year period. Twenty-three women agreed to participate in a randomized trial, where they were randomly assigned to 3D simulation (10 patients) or conventional "tissue-based" planning (13 patients).

But after the first few months, all of the women enrolled in the study opted for 3D simulation - perhaps reflecting increased awareness of this preoperative planning option via the Internet and word of mouth.

The researchers used two approaches to evaluate how 3D simulation affected breast augmentation outcomes. A standard questionnaire called the BREAST-Q© was used to assess patient satisfaction and various domains of quality of life. In addition, a detailed set of "mammometric" measurements was obtained to evaluate objective results.

On the BREAST-Q questionnaire, breast augmentation led to substantial improvements in satisfaction with breasts, sexual well-being, and psychosocial outcomes. However, the use of 3D simulation had no significant effect on any of these patient-reported outcomes, compared to tissue-based planning. In both groups, on a 0-to-100 scale, average score for satisfaction with breasts increased from about 20 before surgery to 85 after surgery.

The mammometric measurements were also similar between groups, with no significant correlations between the patient-reported and mammometric results. There was also no significant difference in the volume of implants chosen by women undergoing 3D simulation versus tissue-based planning.

Previous studies have shown that 3D simulation can facilitate communication and preoperative planning in women undergoing breast augmentation. The new study finds that this technology is popular with patients - almost all of whom choose to undergo 3D simulation, if made aware of its availability. "These patients may seek out practices specifically offering such technology," Dr. Myckatyn and coauthors write.

The researchers discuss some limitations of their study, including the reasons why 3D simulation doesn't necessarily improve patient satisfaction with breast augmentation. They note that many factors may affect patient satisfaction, and that a range of implant sizes and styles may help patients achieve their aesthetic goals.

Dr. Myckatyn and colleagues also point out that, while 3D simulations may provide a useful communication tool, plastic surgeons already achieve excellent cosmetic results using conventional tissue planning techniques. The authors write, "Any potential impact of simulation of postoperative patient satisfaction may have been of insufficient magnitude to move the needle on already high scores."

Pioneering new research into the way in which cells communicate with each other could hold the key to unlocking new, improved treatment for life-threatening diseases, including cancer.

Various mechanisms exist for cells to communicate with each other, and many are essential for development. A team of international researchers looked at how one important family of signalling molecules - Wnt proteins, which orchestrate and control many cell development processes - are transported between cells.

Accurate transmission of Wnt signals is therefore incredibly important; however, the mechanism for this was previously unknown. It was discovered that cell protrusions called cytonemes. play an essential role in transmitting the signal to control the rate of cell division.

Professor Steffen Scholpp, Principal Investigator at the University of Exeter's Living Systems Institute said: "These are very exciting times for cell biology. We are in the process of changing our understanding of cell communication in a tissue. In the early days researchers believed that signalling molecules are released from cells into the extracellular space, the area between cells, and diffuse randomly.

"This would mean that target cells are surrounded by a mix of various signalling molecules. In contrast, our research shows that there is a flexible grid of tiny protrusions connecting all cells in a multicellular body. This novel concept allows a fast, precise and controlled exchange of information between sender cells and target cells".

As excessive Wnt signalling is known to cause a number of cancers by causing excessive cell division, the scientists believe that this research could lead to the development of new cancer treatments by helping to create drugs to target cytoneme formation, preventing transmission of the signal.

The team, including researchers from the Duke Medical School in Singapore, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, Germany and Cardiff University, discovered that impeding cytoneme formation prevented transmission from Wnt producing cells.

Wnt was found to move to areas of the cell membrane and interact with a receptor known as Ror2, inducing the formation of a cytoneme. This constitutes the first time a signalling protein has been shown to control its own transport mechanism.

Wnt signalling is also essential to embryo formation, organ development, wound healing and cell regeneration. Further understanding of the mechanism is therefore relevant to other developmental disorders.

Professor Scholpp added: "We have started to understand the characteristics of this information grid in the matrix of a tissue. Our research provides the first insight how this web of cell protrusions is formed and what kind of consequences it has if we alter these connections.

"A thorough functional and structural characterisation of the information grid and their functions in contact-based signalling is fundamental and calls for further studies at the molecular, cellular and tissue level."

Carolyn Elya discovered the puppet-master on the balcony of her Berkeley apartment. It was a fungus that infects fruit flies, invading their nervous system and eating them from the inside out.

In their death throes, the infected flies - like puppets on a string - obligingly climb to a high point and spread their wings, exposing their abdomen and allowing the fungus to shoot its spores as widely as possible to infect new flies.

Far from repulsed, Elya was excited. When she first saw dead fruit flies lying around a rotting organic watermelon that she placed on her balcony in the summer of 2015, she suspected she was seeing the effects of such a behavior-manipulating fungus.

After days of early morning and late evening visits to the watermelon, she confirmed that a mind-control fungus, was, in fact, infecting the flies, and she quickly brought laboratory fruit flies, Drosophila melanogaster, home to get them infected as well.

She achieved success only after ditching the standard food used to feed flies in the lab, which contains an antifungal agent.

"I thought this was a big, bad, evil thing crazed with infecting lots of flies, but the fungus is actually pretty wimpy," Elya said.

It's also really weird, she said, almost like science fiction.

"I think of this as like the invasion of the body snatchers," Elya said. "When I tell people what I do, they're normally grossed out, but then I tell them that it can't infect humans and they get really interested."

She took the infected flies back to her UC Berkeley lab, where she was a doctoral student working with molecular and cell biology adjunct professor Michael Eisen, and has been studying them ever since to determine how the fungus controls the behavior of flies.

"There are several well-known examples of microorganisms - bacteria, fungi and protozoa - that manipulate animal behavior in the natural world, but we don't yet understand how these organisms hijack an animal's nervous system," Elya said. Now, because Drosophila has been so thoroughly studied in the lab, she had the tools to find out.

The fungus has been known for 160 years and is called Entomophthora muscae. The genus name means "destroyer of insects." And the behavior it induces is not unusual among fungi that infect insects. There are related fungi that invade ants, aphids, beetles and crickets and alter their behavior, including making them embark on a fatal climb to a high point from which fungal spores can be spread widely. In fact, this has a name: summit disease.

"Microbes are the most innovative part of life," Eisen recently told a reporter for The Atlantic magazine. "Logic tells us that any time there are interactions between microbes and animals, which is all the time, some microbes will have figured out ways of manipulating the behavior of their host to their advantage."

One thing Elya has already learned is that the fungus gets inside the fly's nervous system early in infection, which could be an important clue as to how the fungus changes the fly's behavior, she said.

While infiltrating the nervous system, she found, it feeds off the fly's fat stores as the fly goes about its daily behavior, apparently little affected.

"As far as I could tell, the flies are clueless," she said.

Only after all the fat is consumed does the fly's behavior become abnormal, apparently as the fungus invades and destroys its organs. This is when the fly starts spending more time on higher perches. Eventually, the fungus appears to grow out of its proboscis - the siphon through which is sucks liquid food - and stick to whatever surface the fly is on, cementing it in place. Then the fly raises its wings to an unnatural 90-degree angle and freezes in place, dead.

"As far as I can tell, it holds off on eating the brain until after it kills the fly," Elya said. "That's also when it eats the muscles."

Elya and Eisen published their fascinating findings last week in the journal eLife, and are continuing their studies. Now a postdoc at Harvard University in the lab of Benjamin de Bivort, Elya is focusing how the fungus gets the fly to climb.

At UC Berkeley, Eisen and graduate student Maxwell Coyle are intrigued by a virus they found that, surprisingly, infects the fungus that infects the fly.

But irony is lost on fungi.

Diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, high cholesterol and borderline high blood pressure, Dana Hayes pursued bariatric surgery in hopes of living a healthier life.

"I struggled with weight my whole life, but this was a place I'd never been before," says Hayes, 30, a hairdresser and mother of four. "Diabetes was the final straw."

She waited five months for surgery after her first clinic appointment.

That wait is not uncommon: Eligible patients are increasingly facing longer waits for operations proven to help them safely lose weight that endangers their health, according to a new study published in the Annals of Surgery.

In the first multi-institutional look at bariatric surgery wait times in the United States, surgeons examined data collected by the Michigan Bariatric Surgery Collaborative (MBSC) on 60,791 patients who had bariatric surgery in Michigan.

In 2006, patients typically had their bariatric surgery 86 days after their first clinic visit. By 2016, wait times had nearly doubled to 159 days.

"Prolonged wait times can be discouraging and increase the chance that patients will drop their pursuit of surgery," says study author Oliver Varban, M.D., an assistant professor of surgery at the University of Michigan and director of the Adult Bariatric Surgery Program. He also performed Hayes' surgery.

Because more surgeons have begun performing bariatric surgery in Michigan over the past decade, finding an available doctor had minimal impact on scheduling, authors affirmed.

Why surgical delays occur

Researchers used the data to create two study groups: a shorter wait time group that had a median wait of 67 days and a longer wait time group that waited 204 days or more for surgery.

After one year, patients in the longer wait time group had lost 56.6 pounds compared with the shorter wait time group in which average weight loss was 58.9 pounds.

Patients with complex medical histories enrolled in Medicaid experienced the longest delays. Nonwhite patients also waited longer, but in Michigan they are more often enrolled in Medicaid.

Smokers and patients with high cholesterol or psychological disorders also had longer wait times for bariatric surgery.

But there was no major effect on well-being: Among all recipients, serious complications occurred in just 2 percent of patients in the first month after surgery.

So why do patients face longer wait times to receive bariatric surgery compared with surgeries to treat other life-threatening conditions such as cancer and heart disease?

One big reason: Many insurance companies require them to lose weight before the surgery, even though there's no data or evidence to prove preoperative weight loss affects long-term success.

Some insurers, including Medicaid, want documentation of supervised diet attempts. Patients may lose some weight that improves their health conditions, but the benefits won't last unless the patients can keep the weight off.

"Showing that patients waiting longer are not experiencing fewer complications or better comorbidity resolution than those with shorter wait times argues for streamlining the preoperative optimization process and against insurance-mandated weight-loss documentation," says U-M general surgery resident Rafael Alvarez, M.D., lead author of the study.

Insurer mandates can result in a delay in care, study authors say, and such policies should be re-examined considering their unclear benefit to patients.

A push for timely intervention

The study team members recognize that their data cannot gauge attitudes or second thoughts.

Cautious doctors may overestimate surgery risk, and patients can get cold feet and intentionally delay surgery. And the study was not able to measure the availability of other specialists, such as registered dietitians, who are needed to guide patients through a successful health transformation.

Even without the practice-specific details, the work led by U-M surgeons is the most robust examination of bariatric surgery wait times in the U.S.

About 95 percent of patients undergoing bariatric surgery in Michigan are enrolled in the MBSC registry used for the study.

Surgeons across the state share information about their cases via MBSC with the intent of recognizing practice trends and patient outcomes in a way that a single doctor or even a hospital would be able to do on their own -- namely whether suitable patients receive bariatric surgery in a timely fashion.

After a onetime weight of 285 pounds, Hayes has lost 30 pounds in a little more than two months after gastric sleeve surgery. Her recovery was event-free; she returned to work in two weeks.

The steady decline in weight has given Hayes a welcome boost of energy for work and family life. Her blood sugar levels are normal.

And Hayes has talked to a dietitian about how to get adequate nutrition now that she is consuming less food.

"My only regret," she says, "is that I didn't do it sooner."

New York, NY--July 30, 2018--Lithium metal batteries hold tremendous promise for next-generation energy storage because the lithium metal negative electrode has 10 times more theoretical specific capacity than the graphite electrode used in commercial Li-ion batteries. It also has the most negative electrode potential among materials for lithium batteries, making it a perfect negative electrode. However, lithium is one of the most difficult materials to manipulate, due to its internal dendrite growth mechanism. This highly complex process is still not fully understood and can cause Li-ion batteries to occasionally short circuit, catch fire, or even explode.

While researchers know that the growth of dendrites, which are needle-like lithium whiskers that form internally in battery electrodes, is affected by how ions move in the electrolyte, they do not understand how ion transport and inhomogeneous ionic concentration affect the morphology of lithium deposition. Imaging ion transport in a transparent electrolyte has proved to be highly challenging, and current techniques have been unable to capture low ionic concentrations and ultrafast electrolyte dynamics.

Columbia University researchers announced today that they have used Stimulated Raman Scattering (SRS) microscopy, a technique widely used in biomedical studies, to explore the mechanism behind dendrite growth in lithium batteries and, in so doing, have become the first team of material scientists to directly observe ion transport in electrolytes. They discovered a lithium deposition process that corresponds to three stages: no depletion, a partial depletion (a previously unknown stage), and full depletion of lithium ions. They also found a feedback mechanism between lithium dendrite growth and heterogeneity of local ionic concentration that can be suppressed by artificial solid electrolyte interphase in the second and third stages. The paper is published online in Nature Communications.

"Using Stimulated Raman Scattering microscopy, which is fast enough to catch the quickly changing environment inside the electrolyte, we've been able to figure out not only why lithium dendrites form but also how to inhibit their growth," says Yuan Yang, co- author of the study and assistant professor of materials science and engineering, department of applied physics and applied mathematics at Columbia Engineering. "Our results show that ion transport and inhomogeneous ionic concentration is critical to the formation of lithium dendrites on the lithium surface. The capability to visualize ion movement will help us improve the performance of all kinds of electrochemical devices--not just batteries, but also fuel cells and sensors."

For this study, Yang collaborated with Wei Min, professor of chemistry at Columbia University and the study's co-author. Ten years ago, Min developed SRS with colleagues as a tool to map chemical bonds in biological samples. Yang learned about the technique from Min's website , and realized that SRS might be a valuable tool in his battery research.

"SRS is three to six orders of magnitude faster than conventional spontaneous Raman microscopy," Yang noted. "With SRS, we can acquire a 3D image of resolution of 300 nm ((1/300 of the diameter of human hair) in 10 seconds with a chemical resolution ~ 10 mM, thus making it possible to image ion transport and distribution."

The study revealed that there are three dynamic stages in the Li deposition process:

A slow and relatively uniform deposition of moss-like Li when ionic concentration is well above 0;

A mixed growth of mossy Li and dendrites; at this stage, Li+ depletion partially occurs near the electrode, and lithium dendrite protrusions start to appear; and

Dendrite growth after full depletion. When the surface ions are fully depleted, the lithium deposition will be dominated by "dendrite growth" and you will see the quick formation of lithium dendrites.

Stage 2 is a critical transitional point at which the heterogeneous Li+ depletion on the Li surface induces the lithium deposition to grow from "mossy lithium mode" to "dendrite lithium mode." At this stage, two regions begin to appear: a dendrite region where lithium starts to deposit dendrites at a faster and faster rate, and a non-dendrite region where the lithium deposition slows down and even stops. These results are also consistent with predictions made from simulations carried out by Pennsylvania State University collaborators, Long-Qing Chen, professor of materials science and engineering, and his PhD student Zhe Liu.

"The clever use of Stimulated Raman Scattering microscopy to visualize the electrolyte concentration within an operating electrode is a real breakthrough in the imaging of electrochemical systems," says Martin Bazant, professor of chemical engineering and mathematics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "In the case of lithium electrodeposition, the link between local salt depletion and dendritic growth was directly observed for the first time, with important implications for the design of safe rechargeable metal batteries."

Following up on their observations, the Columbia team then developed a method to inhibit dendrite growth by homogenizing the ionic concentration on the lithium surface at both stages 2 and 3.

"When we made the surface ion distribution uniform and mitigated the ionic heterogeneity by depositing an artificial solid electrolyte interface, we were able to suppress the dendrite formation," says the study's lead author Qian Cheng, a postdoctoral researcher in Yang's lab. "This gives us a strategy to suppress dendrite growth and move on to improving the energy density of current batteries while developing next-generation energy storage."

Min is very pleased that his SRS technique has become such a powerful tool for the materials and energy fields. "Without SRS microscopy, we would not have been able to see and validate such a clear correlation between the Li+ concentration and dendrite growth," he says. "We are excited that more people in materials science will learn about this tool. Who knows what we will see next?"

Carbon materials (CMs) exhibit great application potentials in diverse fields due to their high electric conductivity, good chemical stability, and unique microstructure. Traditionally, CMs were prepared by the carbonization of low-vapor-pressure natural products or synthetic polymers. But they suffer from some distinct disadvantages, such as difficulty in tailoring the microstructures and chemical compositions of the obtained products, or complicated and slow polymerization processes. Up to now, it is still a significant challenge to develop a facile, low-cost, and highly controllable method for preparing CM with desired constituents and structures in a large scale.

A research team led by Prof. YU Shuhong and Prof. LIANG Haiwei from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) proposes a simple, effective, and versatile method to prepare a series of functional CMs from small organic molecules (SOMs) by a transition metal assisted carbonization process. This work was published on Science Advances entitled as "Transition metal-assisted carbonization of small organic molecules toward functional carbon materials" on July 27th (Science Advances 2018, 4, eaat0788).

Preparation of CMs. (A) Schematic illustration of the preparation process of CMs. (B) Structures of the investigated SOMs for the CM preparation.

Small organic molecules (SOMs) as precursors for preparing CMs have some distinct advantages, such as common availability, relatively low cost, and diverse element species with various contents. Previous efforts on the transformation of SOMs into CMs almost relied on harsh synthesis conditions, e.g. pyrolysis in sealed reactors, chemical vapor deposition, or salt-melt-based ionothermal carbonization, due to the high volatility of SOMs at evaluated temperatures. To address this, the research group led by Prof. YU Shuhong and Prof. LIANG Haiwei develops a method of transition metal assisted carbonization of SOMs. The transition metals can catalyze the preferential formation of thermally stable intermediate polymeric structures and thus avoid the direct sublimation of SOMs during the heating process, which guarantees the successful preparation of CMs with high carbon yield. Researchers have found that totally fifteen SOMs and nine TMSs can be employed as carbon precursors and catalysts respectively for preparing CMs. Besides, two hard templates can used in the method to enhance the porosity of obtained CMS. All of research results indicate that the method is a simple, effective, and versatile method to prepare CMs.

The prepared CM exhibited three different prominent microstructures (including bamboo-like multi-walled carbon nanotube, micrometer-sized nanosheets and irregular particles) that were highly dependent on the molecular structures of SOMs. Besides, the CMs possessed high specific surface areas, large pore volumes, abundant heteroatoms as well as highly graphitic structures. As a results, the CM showed great application potentials for heterogeneous catalysis, e.g. selective oxidization of ethylbenzene and hydrogenation of nitrobenzene, and electrocatalysis, e.g. hydrogen evolution reaction and oxygen reduction reaction. This work opens a new window for the synthesis of CMs with desired constituents and structures.

Patients with spinal fractures caused by tumors or osteoporosis usually undergo a procedure called kyphoplasty, where the fracture is filled with surgical cement. While kyphoplasty can stabilize the bone, cancer patients are still often left with spinal column tumors that are very hard to reach with conventional chemotherapy, which has to cross the blood-brain barrier when delivered intravenously.

Now, researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago report in the journal PLOS ONE, that by adding magnetic particles to surgical cement used to heal spinal fractures, they could guide magnetic nanoparticles directly to lesions near the fractures. Nanoparticles bound to various drugs have been used to target drugs to specific locations or types of cells in the body. Most commonly, this is achieved by binding a minute amount of drug to the nanoparticle, which is designed to also bind to a specific type of cell, such as a cancer cell.

"By modifying the kyphoplasty bone cement, we can both stabilize the spinal column and provide a targeted drug delivery system. This is a very promising technology as it has the potential to become a surgical option for patients with primary spinal column tumors or tumors that metastasize to the spinal column," said Steven Denyer, a third-year medical student in the UIC College of Medicine and a co-lead author on the paper.

Using a pig model to study the magnetically-guided drug delivery system, Denyer and colleagues were successfully able to steer magnetic nanoparticles to the magnetic cement in the animal's spinal vertebrae. In future studies to test the efficacy of this technique on treating spinal column tumors, the magnetic nanoparticles would be bound to tiny amounts of chemotherapy drugs.

"Our study provides an in vivo proof-of-concept that this novel drug delivery system can help treat underlying causes of spinal fractures in addition to providing structural support," said Abhiraj Bhimani, a fourth-year medical student in the UIC College of Medicine and a co-lead author on the paper.

The Eastern Pacific Ocean's Tropical Depression 9E formed on July 26 and by July 27 the depression had dissipated over 1,200 miles from Hilo, Hawaii. NASA's Terra satellite captured a look at the storm at its peak.

On July 26 at 4:05 p.m. EDT (2005 UTC) when Tropical Depression 9E was at its strongest, NASA's Terra satellite passed overhead and the MODIS instrument or Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer analyzed the storm in infrared light. Infrared data shows cloud top temperatures, and storms surrounding 9E's center were as cold as minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.6. degrees Celsius). Strong storms also appeared in a band of thunderstorms wrapping into the center from the southeast. Those indicate strong storms with the potential for heavy rainfall.

By 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), 9E had degenerated into a remnant low pressure system. The remnants of 9E were located near latitude 10.6 degrees north and longitude 138.8 degrees west. That's about 1,255 miles (2,015 km) east-southeast of Hilo, Hawaii. The remnants are moving toward the west near 13 mph (20 kph). Maximum sustained winds are near 30 mph (45 kph) with higher gusts.

9E is now an elongated area of low pressure, or a trough and it is expected to move into the Central Pacific basin later in the day on July 27.

The financial costs of flooding in Canada's maritime region could spike by 300 per cent by the end of the century if steps are not taken to address the impacts of climate change.

A study done by researchers at the University of Waterloo looked at the Halifax, Nova Scotia area, a region hard hit by recent riverine flooding. The team, made up economists, geographers and political scientists, merged data on flood probability, climate change and financial payout information from the insurance/re-insurance market and used the information to develop a forecast.

"Until recently there hasn't been a lot of work exploring what increased flooding will cost, and who will get stuck with the bill," says Andrea Minano, coordinator of the Canadian Coastal Resilience Forum (CCRF) and a researcher at Waterloo's Faculty of Environment. "The increases in flood losses put into question the long term insurability in the Halifax area, and highlight a broader problem facing many other areas in Canada if no actions are taken to mitigate and adapt to climate change."

The research team ran models for two different climate change scenarios and found a significant difference between best and worst-case climate scenarios. If no action is taken to stall climate change (4 °C rise in global temperatures) Halifax area could incur $67 million in damages in the event of a severe flood. If temperature rise can be limited to 2 °C, damages would be $10 million for the same event.

"The difference in cost between both climate scenarios shows just how exponentially worse things can get without action," says Minano. "It also shows governments need to plan for rare but high-impact flood events, warn citizens, and not build in high risk areas."

While this study focused on the Maritimes, it warns that nearly all of Canada has some vulnerability to hazardous flooding. It calls for frank and inclusive discussion about how much flood risk is acceptable to the community; and the need for controls on further growth of exposure in these areas if the risk is deemed unacceptable.