Tech

A Purdue University graduate and a Purdue Research Park of Northwest Indiana (NWI) startup have published a research study in Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters that identifies a small molecule SERCA activator that may improve memory and cognition.

In the Alzheimer's disease models, the SERCA activator shows promise in reducing the cellular stress and preventing cell loss in neurons. The molecule corrects cells' calcium ion balance and represents a new therapeutic strategy for neurodegeneration drug development.

"We have identified a compound that could therapeutically slow or halt Alzheimer's disease, while also demonstrating its ability to cross the blood brain barrier, provide good bioavailability and cause no identifiable off target effects," said Katie Krajnak, co-author and graduate of Purdue University Northwest's Department of Biological Sciences.

Krajnak and Russell Dahl, chief executive officer of Neurodon, LLC, co-published the study "A New Target for Alzheimer's disease: A Small Molecule SERCA Activator is Neuroprotective in vitro and Improves Memory and Cognition in APP/PS1 Mice" in Bioorganic & Medicinal Chemistry Letters. Read the study here.

"We are interested in neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases," Dahl said. "Brain cell loss occurs when the cells' calcium balance is disrupted. We focus on correcting intracellular calcium handling by developing molecules that target calcium handling proteins, such as SERCA."

In the study, Dahl and Krajnak explored how a SERCA activator affects neurodegeneration. The team focused on two subjects, memory/cognition and brain cell mass, which are standard in pre-clinical Alzheimer's studies.

Dahl and Krajnak found that their molecule preserved brain cell mass and boosted memory in the treated subjects. The study details an array of tests, including the water maze test for memory, and illustrates the SERCA activator molecule's capacity for neuroprotection.

"Our focus is creating molecules that reach their target and act as a protector against cellular injury," Dahl said. "Currently, there are no drugs approved that actually slow down or halt neurodegeneration. Our ultimate product would accomplish this feat and bring the medicine to clinics."

In a previous study, the SERCA activator also produced a 60 percent reduction in Alzheimer's brain plaques, an aftereffect of treatment. The current study further validates these results by proving that the molecule also treats prevalent Alzheimer's symptoms.

"We could finally have a therapy modifying Alzheimer's disease," Krajnak said. "This molecule has the ability to rescue cells from apoptosis, or cell death. Preventing cell death can also prevent further brain atrophy and memory loss accompanying the disease."

Neurodon is a startup, located in the Purdue Research Park of NWI, working toward discovering neuroprotective drugs. Dahl and his team research treatments to different cell death illnesses, such as Alzheimer's diseases and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Next, Neurodon moves forward to preclinical testing and, eventually, to develop an oral pill treating neurodegeneration.

DALLAS, May 10, 2018 - Annual well woman exams by OB/GYNs provide a golden opportunity to evaluate a woman's heart health, according to a new joint advisory from the American Heart Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) which stresses the benefits of collaborative care between OB/GYN specialists and cardiologists.

As heart disease and stroke continue to be the leading causes of death in women, the advisory notes the essential role OB/GYNs play in actively helping women reduce their risk, since approximately 90 percent of women have at least one risk factor for heart disease and stroke.

"OB/GYNs are primary care providers for many women, and the annual 'well woman' visit provides a powerful opportunity to counsel patients about achieving and maintaining a heart-healthy lifestyle, which is a cornerstone of maintaining heart health" said John Warner, M.D. president of the American Heart Association, executive vice president for Health System Affairs at University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, Texas.

Traditional risk factors for heart disease -- such as high blood pressure, diabetes, high cholesterol and obesity -- affect both sexes but some may affect women differently and are considered to be more significant.

OB/GYN's are uniquely qualified to identify and treat woman-specific conditions and treatments that may raise a woman's risk of heart disease or stroke. Complications of pregnancy, including preeclampsia, gestational diabetes, gestational hypertension, pre-term delivery, and low-for-estimated-gestational-age birth weight all indicate a subsequent increase in the mother's cardiovascular risk.

"As the leading healthcare providers for women, OB-GYNs provide care that goes far beyond reproductive health and are in a unique position to screen, counsel and educate patients on heart health. By acknowledging and discussing the risks and communicating steps women can take to reduce their odds of developing heart disease. OB-GYNs have a powerful opportunity to be the secret weapon in the fight against heart disease," said Haywood L. Brown, M.D., immediate past president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) and F. Bayard Carter Professor in the department of obstetrics and gynecology at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Adverse pregnancy outcomes can be used to identify women who are at an increased risk for heart disease, even in those for whom the conditions resolve after delivery. Preeclampsia and gestational hypertension impart a three- to six-fold excess of subsequent hypertension and a two-fold risk for subsequent heart disease.

As cardiovascular disease continues to be the leading cause of death in women, the advisory provides recommendations on how cardiologists and OB/GYN providers can work collaboratively, using both low-tech solutions, such as advising patients about healthy diet and lifestyle at every visit, and high-tech solutions such as software algorithms that can trigger patient education and referrals by analyzing data contained in electronic medical records.

By providing a platform for comprehensive well-woman care, primary prevention and early intervention, providers of women's health can provide patient education, empowerment and motivation.

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Religious "nones," people who do not officially associate themselves with a specific religion, are on the rise in the United States. While there are many contributing factors to this phenomenon, new research suggests one reason is the merging of politics and conservative Christian beliefs.

A study published in April in the journal Political Research Quarterly examined states that enacted policies against same-sex marriage, and found a correlation between these activities and a rising number of people who do not affiliate with a specific religion.

The study, which was co-written by University at Buffalo political scientist Jacob Neiheisel, includes the following findings:

The movement to set state constitutions against same-sex marriage, which began in 2004, made the religious right more visible to the public, especially in states considering LGBT marriage bans.

By 2010, same-sex marriage bans were in place in 29 states. These states were more likely to be evangelical and had smaller percentages of nones compared to the other states.

From 2006-10, the gap between the nones in marriage ban states and those in states with no marriage ban had been cut in half, decreasing from 3.1 percent to 1.4 percent over that period. In other words, a greater percentage of people left the church in states where the religious right is most active.

"Regardless of which measure of religious right activity in the states that we used, in states that saw contentious fights over same-sex marriage, the political presence of right-leaning religious groups tracks with the rate of religious nones. So we like to say that salient controversy is the key link that's connecting politics and religion here," says Neiheisel, PhD, an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science in UB's College of Arts and Sciences.

He adds: "You don't see people sorting along political lines or leaving churches as a result of the activity of a combination of religious and political organizations, until you start to see changes in the policy arena."

The study's corresponding author is Paul Djupe, an associate professor at Denison University. Kimberly Conger, an assistant professor at University of Cincinnati, is a co-author.

The research follows another paper co-written by Neiheisel, which collected data from individuals over time in congregations. It showed that even over short periods of time, sizable portions were leaving their churches and that a contributing cause was political disagreement. In one three-month span, 14 percent left their church; that rate grew when they examined longer periods of time.

As Neiheisel explains: "Both studies suggest a great deal of churn among religious organizations driven by political disagreement. While everyday disagreement drives people out across the political spectrum, the public salience of the Christian right specifically helped to drive up the rate of nones."

Study data was acquired from a mixture of sources, including Conger's long-running survey of experts about conservative Christian presence at the state-level, as well as her work on counts of conservative Christian interest groups at the state-level. Key outcome variables are from religious census data, collected by the Glenmary Research Center, as well as survey data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES).

In a newly published study involving 94,250 women across the United States, researchers found that lesbian and bisexual (LB) women were more likely than heterosexual women to develop type 2 diabetes during the course of the 24-year study follow up.

The co-authored study, led by Heather L. Corliss, a professor at San Diego State University's Graduate School of Public Health, investigated incidence of type 2 diabetes in lesbian and bisexual women and heterosexual women in a large, longitudinal U.S. cohort.

Corliss and her team members released their findings in "Risk of Type 2 Diabetes Among Lesbian, Bisexual, and Heterosexual Women: Findings from the Nurses' Health Study II," an article published this month in Diabetes Care.

For the study, the team analyzed survey results dating back to 1989 from women participating in the Nurses' Health Study II, which is one of the largest investigations into the risk factors for major chronic diseases in women.

All women were between the ages 24 to 44 at the start of the study and were assessed for a diagnosis of type 2 diabetes every other year to identify incidence, from 1989 to 2013. The women self-identified their sexual orientation and, of the participants, 1,267 identified as lesbian or bisexual and 92,983 identified as heterosexual. Diabetes was assessed by self-reported clinician diagnosis.

Corliss and her colleagues found over that 24-year time period that lesbian and bisexual women had a 27 percent higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes than heterosexual women. In 2013, 6,399 women had developed type 2 diabetes with lesbian and bisexual women having a 22 percent greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes.

The team also found that lesbian and bisexual women developed type 2 diabetes at younger ages than heterosexual women, and that a higher body mass index in lesbian and bisexual women was an important contributor to disparities found.

"Given the significantly higher risk of developing type 2 diabetes before age 50 years among LB women, and their potentially longer duration of living with type 2 diabetes, LB women may also be more likely to experience complications compared with heterosexual women," the researchers wrote in the paper.

Corliss explained that her team carried out the study because previous research on risk of type 2 diabetes among lesbian and bisexual women has been inconclusive - some studies found differences between heterosexual and lesbian and bisexual women, while other studies did not find differences.

"Despite inconclusive findings, there is a reason to suspect that LB women may have disparities in chronic physical health conditions, including type 2 diabetes, because they are more likely than heterosexual women to have risk factors such as obesity, tobacco smoking, heavy alcohol drinking and stress-related exposures," the team explained.

Stress is an important consideration, here. The team noted that stress related to discrimination, violence victimization and psychological distress, were reportedly higher for lesbian and bisexual women, and these factors may contribute to higher rates of health-related issues for those women.

"Although it is important to address behavioral factors such as physical activity, sedentary behavior and dietary intake, focusing on these factors alone may not be sufficient to eliminate LB women's disparities in chronic disease," the team explained.

Corliss and her colleagues emphasize that enhanced public health and clinical efforts to prevent, detect and manage obesity and type 2 diabetes among lesbian and bisexual women -- along with improved access to care -- are crucial needs.

The team is also calling for expanded research into sexual orientation-related differences in disease management and on the overall health of lesbian and bisexual women.

Such improved knowledge is "vital to understanding the implications of disease on their subsequent health risks and prognosis," the team explained.

A NASA mission has discovered an important process explaining the fate of energy contained in the turbulent magnetic fields surrounding the Earth.

The phenomenon, discovered by NASA's four-spacecraft Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, is small but provides crucial insight into turbulent plasmas.

The Earth's magnetic field protects us from the solar wind, which is a stream of plasma coming from the Sun. Plasmas - streams of charged particles such as protons and electrons - fill much of the visible universe, so studying their properties can tell us a lot about space environments.

Intense periods of solar wind also cause 'magnetic storms' on Earth that disrupt GPS satellites and ground communications, making understanding its dynamics important.

The solar wind plasma becomes very turbulent where it interacts with the edges of the Earth's magnetic field, in the 'magnetosheath'. Turbulent plasmas are not well understood in physics, despite playing a fundamental role in environments, ranging from lab experiments to the Sun.

Now, researchers studying data from NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission at the edge of the Earth's magnetic field have discovered the ultimate fate of this turbulent energy and motion. The results of the team, which includes Imperial College London researcher Dr Jonathan Eastwood, are published today in Nature.

The answer revolves around a phenomenon known as magnetic reconnection, where energy from the magnetic field is transferred to the particles, creating hot jets of plasma. This dissipates the energy of the turbulence.

Magnetic reconnection is seen on large scales, and was predicted at smaller scales where it would dissipate energy as heat. However, very small-scale magnetic reconnection has never been observed until now, and several alternative mechanisms were also proposed to be the cause of the dissipation of turbulence.

The team analysed MMS data in the turbulent region and found reconnection occurring on the scale of electrons, the smallest scale observed to date. However, they found a key surprising difference in the process at this small scale compared to larger scales.

At larger scales, magnetic reconnection produces a 'jet' of charged particles called ions. This occurs for example in the Earth's magnetic field on the 'night side' of the Earth, facing away from the Sun, as part of the process that creates the Northern and Southern Lights. However, at the smallest scales, no ions jets have been observed.

Instead, the team determined that reconnection only affected the electrons in the plasma and created electron jets, which are very much faster than ion jets in large-scale reconnection.

Dr Eastwood, from the Department of Physics at Imperial, said: "Turbulence is one of the last great concepts in classical physics that we do not understand well, but we know it's important in space as it redistributes energy. With this observation, we can now make new theories or models that will help us understand observations of other places like the Sun's atmosphere and the magnetic environments of other planets."

The discovery confirms reconnection is happening on these small scales rather than some other process. However, the discovery also opens up many new questions, such as why the ions are not involved and whether this same process occurs in other plasmas. New theories and models now need to be developed to understand magnetic reconnection at these small scales.

A study led by the University of Birmingham has found that analysis of fluid in the spine could be used to predict the future progression of multiple sclerosis.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a condition in which the immune system attacks the nervous system and is the leading cause of non-traumatic disability in young adults, with around 100,000 people currently diagnosed in the UK.

It can cause a wide range of health issues including visual problems, fatigue, thinking difficulties, muscle weakness and a lack of coordination.

However, severity and progression of the disease can vary widely between individuals - some patients will only ever have a single episode of the disease, others will go on to suffer multiple attacks, potentially resulting in serious disability.

Mike Douglas, an honorary Professor at the University of Birmingham who led the clinical work in this study, said: "Although there are now a wide range of therapies available for the treatment of multiple sclerosis, the specific choice of treatment in any individual patient is not made in a very evidence-based way.

"We do not have reliable long-term outcome predictors for individual patients to guide their choice between more potent therapies with potentially greater side effects, and more gentle therapies which may not fully control the condition.

"The use of 'biomarkers' to predict future risk of disability is critical to ensure that individual patients receive the right treatment at the right time."

The team of scientists investigated whether fluid in the spine could hold the answer to help predict the progression of disability in patients with MS. The findings of the six-year study were published today in the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery & Psychiatry.

The study saw the team analyse the spinal fluid from patients with MS at the time they were diagnosed and matched these data with the progression of their disease five years later.

The researchers found a highly unusual pattern in the behaviour of white blood cells responsible for immunity and in the antibodies produced by these cells. Antibodies are required to fight infection and disease.

They found that the cells were producing a significantly higher ratio of one type of antibody molecule. These antibodies originated from cells within the nervous system of these patients - yet these cells are not normally found in this part of the body.

In the blood of MS patients there is a normal ratio of around 2:1 of each type of antibody, but in the spinal fluid of the study's MS patients the researchers found ratios of more than 100:1.

Joint lead author Dr John Curnow, of the University of Birmingham's Institute of Inflammation and Ageing, added: "What was interesting about our findings was that this unusual extreme ratio bias mostly occurred in patients in the early stages of the disease, while there was far less bias in those patients who later developed greater disability.

"Our research suggests that this early bias in this type of antibody could be related to a trigger of MS.

"For patients who later develop more severe disease we find that this attack by the immune system, even when analysed at the time of diagnosis, has already developed beyond the initial trigger of the disease, resulting in greater damage to the nervous system in subsequent years.

"The unusual pattern of antibody suggests a very distinct immune response early in the disease. We are hoping to identify the target of this immune response.

"Alongside improving our fundamental understanding of MS, this presents the opportunity to identify patients who are at higher risk of developing disability and may need more aggressive treatment. Similarly, it may be possible to identify patients at lower risk, who may be able to manage their condition more conservatively."

This is the first research to have identified an association between this distinct immune response and the development of disability over time.

Dr Curnow said that more research was necessary to validate these research findings, including a study using a larger number of patients.

He added: "If our findings are confirmed, then we would have a relatively simple test that could be used at diagnosis to help identify patients with a poor prognosis.

"This will enable clinicians to justify the use of highly effective therapies, which could potentially improve the long-term outcomes for these patients."

Vertebroplasty (surgery to repair spinal fractures) is no more effective for pain relief than a sham (placebo) procedure in older patients with osteoporosis, finds a trial published by The BMJ today.

The researchers say their results "do not support vertebroplasty as standard pain treatment in patients with osteoporotic vertebral fractures."

Osteoporosis is a disease in which bones become weak and more likely to break. Fractures caused by osteoporosis most often occur in the spine and are called vertebral compression fractures. Long term, these fractures can lead to deformity, breathing problems, and loss of height.

Vertebroplasty involves injecting a special cement into the fractured bone to stabilise it and to relieve pain. But previous studies have reported conflicting results and there is ongoing debate about its benefits, risks, and cost-effectiveness.

To try to resolve this uncertainty, researchers in the Netherlands and the USA compared pain relief in patients undergoing vertebroplasty or a 'sham' procedure, where patients are given local anaesthetic injections, but no bone cement.

The trial involved 180 adults aged older than 50 years, with 1-3 painful vertebral compression fractures of up to nine weeks old. Participants were randomly assigned to either vertebroplasty (91 patients) or the sham procedure (89 patients).

The main (primary) outcome measure was mean reduction in pain scores at one day, one week, and one, three, six, and 12 months after the procedure. Other (secondary) outcomes were differences in quality of life and disability over 12 months.

Pain was measured using a visual analogue scale (VAS) ranging from 0 (no pain) to 10 (severe pain). Clinically significant pain relief was defined as a decrease of 1.5 points in VAS score from the start of the study (baseline).

The mean reduction in VAS pain score was statistically significant in both groups at all follow-up points after the procedure, compared with baseline. However, these changes in VAS scores did not differ significantly between the groups over the 12 month follow-up period.

Vertebroplasty had no effect on quality of life or on disability.

"Percutaneous vertebroplasty to treat patients with acute osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures did not result in statistically significant more pain relief than a sham procedure during 12 months' follow-up," say the researchers.

They point to some study limitations, such as lack of an untreated control group and limited generalisability to other treatments. However, strengths over previous trials included larger patient groups and longer follow-up.

They believe there is a place for vertebroplasty "when efficacy outweighs the risks," but conclude that these results "do not support using percutaneous vertebroplasty as standard pain treatment in patients with acute osteoporotic vertebral compression fractures."

This trial suggests that vertebroplasty "should not be offered to patients with three or fewer painful osteoporotic vertebral fractures of less than 6-9 weeks' duration," says Evan Davies, consultant spinal surgeon at Southampton General Hospital, in a linked editorial.

However, questions remain on its place in the management of chronic painful fractures, and, more specifically, whether cement augmentation has any role in the prevention of long term morbidity and mortality, he adds.

These are fruitful areas for further research, he writes, In the meantime, early vertebroplasty - before nine weeks - "should probably be considered only in exceptional circumstances for patients with vertebral osteoporotic fractures."

When the solar wind - which is really a driving rain of charged particles from the sun - strikes Earth's protective magnetic field, the shock generates roiling, turbulent magnetic fields that enshroud the planet and stretch for hundreds of thousands of miles.

Where does all that turbulent energy go?

One of NASA's space weather missions, called Magnetospheric Multiscale or MMS, has discovered one surprising way this turbulent energy is dissipated: The magnetic energy is converted into high-speed jets of electrons as the magnetic fields break and reconnect.

The discovery will help scientists understand the role magnetic reconnection plays elsewhere in space, for example, in heating the inexplicably hot solar corona -- the sun's outer atmosphere -- and accelerating the supersonic solar wind. NASA's upcoming Parker Solar Probe mission will be launched directly toward the sun this summer to investigate exactly those phenomena, armed with this new understanding of magnetic reconnection near Earth.

And since magnetic reconnection occurs throughout the universe, what scientists learn about it around our planet -- which is easier to examine -- can be applied to other processes farther away.

"MMS discovered electron magnetic reconnection, a new process much different from the standard magnetic reconnection that happens in calmer areas around Earth," said Tai Phan, a senior fellow in the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. "This finding helps scientists understand how turbulent magnetic fields dissipate energy throughout the cosmos."

Phan is lead author of a paper describing the findings that will be published this week in the journal Nature.

"Turbulence occurs everywhere in space: on the sun, in the solar wind, interstellar medium, dynamos, accretion disks around stars, in active galactic nuclei jets, supernova remnant shocks and more," said Michael Shay of the University of Delaware, a co-author of the paper.

Turbulent magnetic fields are different

Standard magnetic reconnection is observed in Earth's relatively placid magnetosphere, which is like a magnetic force field that protects the planet from the intense solar wind. Within this region, undulating magnetic fields can cross, break and reconnect; the rejoined magnetic field lines snap like a rubber band and fling ionized atoms at high velocity throughout the magnetosphere.

The ion jets, wedges of ionized hydrogen atoms speeding off in opposite directions, heat up the gases surrounding Earth and drive space weather. Some of the charged particles are funneled to the north and south poles, where they collide with atoms in the atmosphere and create the auroras.

The new process takes place farther from Earth's surface, in a turbulent zone where the solar wind hits a shock wave surrounding Earth and drastically slows. Twice the width of the Earth itself, this zone - the magnetosheath - is highly turbulent.

"The turbulence in the magnetosheath contains a lot of magnetic energy," Phan said. "People have been debating how this energy is dissipated, and magnetic reconnection is one of the possible processes."

Phan and his colleagues used data from the MMS to prove that the new electron magnetic reconnection process happens on a smaller scale in turbulence and creates jets of electrons instead of ions. The electrons move about 40 times faster than ions accelerated by standard reconnection.

"We now have evidence that reconnection does happen to dissipate turbulent energy in the magnetosheath, but it is a new kind of reconnection," said Shay.

Can magnetic fields be too turbulent to reconnect?

Magnetic reconnection has been observed innumerable times in the magnetosphere but always under calm conditions. The new event occurred in the magnetosheath just outside the outer boundary of the magnetosphere. Previously, scientists didn't know if reconnection could occur there, because the plasma is highly chaotic in that region, Phan said.

MMS found that it does, but on scales much smaller than previous spacecraft could probe and theory would predict. Because it involves only electrons, it remained hidden from scientists looking for the telltale signature of standard magnetic reconnection: ion jets.

"We think this is because the electrons are fast and light and can easily participate, but the slow and heavy protons cannot," said Jonathan Eastwood, a lecturer at Imperial College London and a co-author of the paper. "Overall, this result opens up new areas of research into turbulent reconnection."

MMS consists of four identical spacecraft flying in a pyramid or tetrahedral formation to study magnetic reconnection around Earth in three-dimensions. Because the spacecraft fly incredibly close together -- at an average separation of just four and a half miles -- they are able to observe phenomena no one has seen before. Furthermore, MMS's instruments are designed to capture data at speeds 100 times faster than previous missions.

Even though the instruments aboard MMS are incredibly fast, they are still too slow to capture turbulent reconnection in action, which requires observing narrow layers of fast-moving particles hurled by the recoiling field lines. Compared to standard reconnection, in which broad jets of ions stream out from the site of reconnection, turbulent reconnection ejects narrow jets of electrons only a couple miles wide.

But MMS scientists were able to leverage the design of one instrument, the Fast Plasma Investigation, to create a technique that allowed them to read between the lines and gather extra data points in order to resolve the jets.

"The key event of the paper happens in 45 milliseconds. This would be one data point with the regular data," said Amy Rager, a graduate student at Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., who worked at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center to develop the technique. "But instead we can get six to seven data points in that region with this method, allowing us to understand what is happening."

With the new method, the MMS scientists are hopeful they can comb through existing datasets to find more of these events, and potentially other unexpected discoveries as well.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Makers of cars, planes, buses - anything that needs strong, lightweight and heat resistant parts - are poised to benefit from a new manufacturing process that requires only a quick touch from a small heat source to send a cascading hardening wave through a polymer. Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a new polymer-curing process that could reduce the cost, time and energy needed, compared with the current manufacturing process.

The findings, reported in Nature, state that the new polymerization process uses 10 orders of magnitude less energy and can cut two orders of magnitudes of time over the current manufacturing process. "This development marks what could be the first major advancement to the high-performance polymer and composite manufacturing industry in almost half a century," said aerospace engineering professor and lead author Scott White.

"The materials used to create aircraft and automobiles have excellent thermal and mechanical performance, but the fabrication process is costly in terms of time, energy and environmental impact," White said. "One of our goals is to decrease expense and increase production."

Take, for example, aircraft assembly. For one major U.S. producer, the process of curing just one section of a large commercial airliner can consume over 96,000 kilowatt-hours of energy and produce more than 80 tons of CO2, depending on the energy source, White said. That is roughly the amount of electricity it takes to supply nine average homes for one year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

"The airliner manufacturers use a curing oven that is about 60 feet in diameter and about 40 feet long - it is an incredibly massive structure filled with heating elements, fans, cooling pipes and all sorts of other complex machinery," White said. "The temperature is raised to about 350 degrees Fahrenheit in a series of very precise steps over a roughly 24-hour cycle. It is an incredibly energy-intensive process."

The team is part of the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and includes White, chemistry professor and Beckman Institute director Jeffrey Moore, aerospace engineering professor and department head Philippe Geubelle, and materials science and engineering professor Nancy Sottos. They proposed that they could control chemical reactivity to economize the polymer-curing process. "There is plenty of energy stored in the resin's chemical bonds to fuel the process," Moore said. "Learning to unleash this energy at just the right rate - not too fast, but not too slow - was key to the discovery."

"By touching what is essentially a soldering iron to one corner of the polymer surface, we can start a cascading chemical-reaction wave that propagates throughout the material," White said. "Once triggered, the reaction uses enthalpy, or the internal energy of the polymerization reaction, to push the reaction forward and cure the material, rather than an external energy source."

"You can save energy and time, but that does not matter if the quality of the final product is substandard," Sottos said. "We can increase the speed of manufacturing by triggering the hardening reaction from more than one point, but that needs to be very carefully controlled. Otherwise, the meeting spot of the two reaction waves could form a thermal spike, causing imperfections that could degrade the material over time."

The team has demonstrated that this reaction can produce safe, high-quality polymers in a well-controlled laboratory environment. They envision the process accommodating large-scale production due to its compatibility with commonly used fabrication techniques like molding, imprinting, 3-D printing and resin infusion.

Hurricanes that intensify rapidly - a characteristic of almost all powerful hurricanes - do so more strongly and quickly now than they did 30 years ago, according to a study published recently in Geophysical Research Letters, a journal of the American Geophysical Union.

While many factors are at play, the chief driver is a natural phenomenon that affects the temperature of the waters in the Atlantic where hurricanes are powering up, according to scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

They found that a climate cycle known as the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation or AMO is central to the increasing intensification of hurricanes, broadly affecting conditions like sea temperature that are known to influence hurricanes.

Stronger hurricanes in a day's time

Last year's lineup of powerful storms - Harvey, Irma, Jose and Maria -spurred the scientists to take a close look at the rapid intensification process. This occurs when the maximum wind speed in a hurricane goes up by at least 25 knots (28.8 miles per hour) within a 24-hour period. It's a rite of passage for nearly all major hurricanes, including the big four of 2017.

The team, comprised of Karthik Balaguru and Ruby Leung of PNNL and Greg Foltz of the NOAA, analyzed 30 years' worth of satellite hurricane data encompassing 1986 through 2015. Information came from NOAA's National Hurricane Center and the U.S. Navy's Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

Consistent with other studies, the scientists did not find that rapid intensification is happening more often nowadays.

But the scientists also looked closely at just how much the storms are strengthening. They found a sizeable jump in the strength of fast-growing storms - the storms are getting more powerful more quickly within a 24-hour period than they were 30 years ago.

The team found that the average boost in wind speed during a 24-hour intensification event is about 13 mph more than it was 30 years ago - on average about 3.8 knots (4.3 mph) for each of the three decades studied.

Several factors play a role when a hurricane gains more power rapidly, including the temperature of the surface of the ocean, humidity, characteristics of the clouds, the heat content in the ocean, and the direction of the wind at the surface compared to miles above. Among the biggest factors affecting the increase in magnitude in the last 30 years, according to the team's analysis:

The amount of heat available in the uppermost layer of the ocean, known as the ocean heat content. The warmer the upper ocean, the more powerful a hurricane can become.

Wind shear: The less the vertical wind shear - the difference in the direction and force of the winds at the surface compared to several miles into the air - the more powerful the hurricane can become.

The influence of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation

The team found that the biggest factor explaining the increasingly rapid intensification is the AMO. The result comes in part from analyses using 16 separate climate models to isolate the impact from global warming.

"This was a surprise, that the AMO seems to be a bigger influence in rapid intensification than other factors, including overall warming," said Balaguru, the first author of the paper.

The AMO governs how the temperature of the waters in the North Atlantic cycles between warmer and cooler, with each period typically lasting a decade or more. The cycling occurs for reasons scientists don't completely understand, but it has broad effects on the environment. For example, it plays a big part in determining the heat content of the oceans, an important factor powering hurricanes.

The AMO has generally been "positive" - causing warmer waters - since the late 1990s.

Balaguru noted that while rapid intensification historically has occurred more often in the western Atlantic, that's not where the team found the increasing strength of the last 30 years. Rather, the phenomenon is strengthening more in the central and eastern Atlantic, especially to the east of the islands of the Lesser Antilles, which includes the Virgin Islands and Saint Kitts. That's the same area where the AMO creates warmer waters and boosts ocean heat content, in the central and eastern Atlantic.

That's exactly the alley where hurricanes Irma, Jose and Maria powered up rapidly last year. It's a proving ground of sorts where many of the most powerful hurricanes strengthen dramatically.

Balaguru notes that teasing out the effects of the AMO from broader effects of global warming was beyond the scope of the current study but is a focus for scientists.

The study, "Juvenile survival, competing risks, and spatial variation in mortality risk of a marine apex predator," published today in the Journal of Applied Ecology, confirms that unintentional capture in fishing gear (bycatch) is the greatest cause of death for young white sharks, a protected species in both Mexico and the United States.

More broadly, data from pop-up archival tags (PAT tags)--which have been used worldwide to track tens of thousands of individual ocean animals, including white sharks--represent "a widely-available, untapped data source that could dramatically increase our understanding of marine population ecology," said lead author Dr. John Benson, an assistant professor at the University of Nebraska.

Benson, who primarily studies terrestrial predators, conducted the white shark study as a postdoctoral researcher at Monterey Bay Aquarium. The aquarium-- together with colleagues at California State University, Long Beach; Aquatic Research Consultants in San Pedro; and the Ensenada Center for Scientific Research and Higher Education (CICESE) in Baja California--has been tagging and tracking juvenile white sharks since 2002.

Research results at a glance

Data from 37 sharks tagged since 2002 revealed that:

The overall estimated annual survival rate for young white sharks was 63 percent. Though this study did not address broad trends in the white shark population in the Northeastern Pacific, the researchers note that protection of white sharks in 1994 has likely resulted in a reduction in fishing-related mortality. The increase in juvenile shark sightings over the last 15 years may be an early indication of a positive sign for population recovery.

Fisheries bycatch was the main source of mortality for juvenile white sharks in the region, highlighting the need to follow best practices related to incidental catch in coastal commercial and sport fisheries. Only two young white sharks tagged by researchers died of natural (non-fishing) causes.

Overall mortality risk for young white sharks was lower for larger animals, which could be attributed to smaller sharks being more abundant, or simply more susceptible to capture in gillnets.

According to Benson, the paper adds to scientific understanding of white sharks, and shows how models that estimate survival rates for top predators on land--data obtained from radio telemetry and tracking collars--can be applied to ocean species that carry PAT tags.

"We always learn things from adjacent fields," said Dr. Salvador Jorgensen, principal white shark scientist at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and senior coauthor on the paper. "Before coming to the aquarium, John made his name studying mountain lions in Southern California. We were excited to see how the methodologies John was using for land-based predators could be applied in the ocean."

Taking a new approach

Benson realized that data from PAT tags opened the door to a new approach to estimate survival rates for young sharks, using what are called known-fate models.

"Because the PAT tags record detailed data on temperature and diving, it is possible to reconstruct the fate of the shark in the final minutes of each track," said Jorgensen. "We've looked at these data for years and often noted when a tag ended up on a fishing boat or in the stomach of a larger predator. Surprisingly, nobody had yet connected the dots to use this information to estimate a critical demographic rate: annual survival."

The technique hinges on being able to determine the fate of individual animals--data that PAT tags provide. If a tagged shark was eaten by a predator, or if it died in a fishing net, the tag recorded those data.

By applying known-fate models to those data, researchers estimated survival and mortality rates for the population at large. They also determined that fisheries bycatch was the main source of mortality for juvenile white sharks in the Northeastern Pacific, and that juveniles were at significantly greater risk of mortality when in Mexican waters.

Protections are in place

In California, it is illegal to target and land white sharks, and coastal waters are permanently closed to all gillnets within three miles of shore. In Baja California and throughout Mexico, targeting and landing white sharks is prohibited all year. However, gillnet fishing in coastal waters is still permitted for other species. Data from the study show that juvenile white sharks are an estimated nine times less likely to get entangled in California compared with Baja.

"We are learning that the gillnet regulations in California, although originally designed to protect sport fishing interests, have done a lot to protect juvenile white sharks," said Dr. Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at CSU Long Beach and a coauthor of the paper.

The study also revealed that juvenile white shark mortality in gillnets is reduced when nets are checked by fishermen every 6 to 12 hours, so the young sharks can be released alive.

"In terms of reducing white shark mortality, avoiding setting nets close to shore and checking them frequently appear to be the best practices," Lowe said.

Coauthor Oscar Sosa-Nishizaki, a professor at CICESE, stressed that engaging with local fishermen in Mexico is critical to reducing mortalities and improving recovery prospects for the Northeastern Pacific white shark population.

"It's the best way to go," he said. "Mexican fishing communities play a vital role in enabling this research as well as helping us solve any issues as they arise."

CICESE doctoral student Emiliano García-Rodríguez, another coauthor, added: "It's very important to work with the fishermen, because we want to know whenever they incidentally catch a white shark."

"This research suggests the importance of a collaborative approach to management in California and Mexico, and opportunities to innovate on best practices that can support fishermen, research and protections for white sharks," Jorgensen said.

A robust research analysis has identified what factors can be targeted to support people to live as well as possible with dementia.

The study, led by the University of Exeter and published in the journal Psychological Medicine, found that good relationships, social engagement, better everyday functioning, good physical and mental health, and high-quality care were all linked to better quality of life for people with dementia.

Professor Linda Clare, at the University of Exeter, said: "This research supports the identification of national priorities for supporting people to live as well as possible with dementia. While many investigations focus on prevention and better treatments, it's equally vital that we understand how we can optimise quality of life for the 50 million people worldwide who have dementia. We now need to develop ways to put these findings into action to make a difference to people's lives by supporting relationships, social engagement and everyday functioning, addressing poor physical and mental health, and ensuring high-quality care."

The research was supported jointly by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the National for Health Research (NIHR). It involved collaboration with the London School of Economics, the universities of Sussex, Bangor, Cardiff, Brunel and New South Wales in Australia, and Kings College London.

The team carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine all available evidence about the factors that are associated with quality of life for people with dementia. They included 198 studies, which incorporated data from more than 37,000 people.

The study found that demographic factors such as gender, education marital status, income or age were not associated with quality of life in people with dementia. Neither was the type of dementia.

Factors that are linked with poor quality of life include poor mental or physical health, difficulties such as agitation or apathy, and unmet needs.

Factors that are linked with better QoL include having good relationships with family and friends, being included and involved in social activities, being able to manage everyday activities, and having religious beliefs.

Many other factors showed small but statistically significant associations with quality of life. This suggests that the way in which people evaluate their quality of life is related to many aspects of their lives, each of which have a modest influence. It is likely that to some extent the aspects that are most important may be different for each person.

Evidence from longitudinal studies about what predicts whether or not someone will experience a good quality of life at later stages was limited. The best indicator was the person's initial rating of quality of life. This again highlights the importance of optimising quality of life from the earliest stages of living with dementia.

Dr Anthony Martyr, lead author on the study, from the University of Exeter, said: "While in general it is more of a challenge to maintain good quality of life as dementia progresses, we found little evidence to show what predicts whether quality of life will improve or decline over time. The IDEAL programme we are currently leading will follow people living with dementia over several years and will help to answer this question."

Dr Doug Brown, Chief Policy and Research Officer at Alzheimer's Society, said: "Maintaining a healthy social life and doing things you enjoy is important for everyone's quality of life. As this Alzheimer's Society funded study highlights, people living with dementia are no exception.

"Someone develops dementia every three minutes but too many are facing it alone and feel socially isolated- a factor that researchers pinpoint contributing to a lower quality of life.

"People with dementia have a right to continue living a life they love. Alzheimer's Society's Dementia Friendly Communities initiative enables individuals, businesses and communities to involve and empower people affected - but we need all of society to unite to ensure people with dementia feel understood, valued and able to contribute to their community."

The full paper, entitled 'Living well with dementia: a systematic review and correlational meta-analysis of factors associated with quality of life, well-being and life satisfaction in people with dementia', is published in Psychological Medicine. Authors are Anthony Martyr, Sharon M. Nelis, Catherine Quinn, Yu-Tzu Wu, Ruth A. Lamont, Catherine Henderson, Rachel Clarke, John V. Hindle, Jeanette M. Thom, Ian Rees Jones, Robin G. Morris, Jennifer M. Rusted, Christina R. Victor and Linda Clare.

The study stems from the IDEAL programme. IDEAL is a major longitudinal cohort study of 1550 people with dementia and their family members or friends funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the National Institute for Health Research. The IDEAL study is survey- and interview-based and aims to understand what makes it easier or more difficult for people to live well with dementia. The findings from the study will help to identify what can be done by individuals, communities, health and social care practitioners, care providers and policy-makers to improve the likelihood of living well with dementia. Since 2018 the project has been extended as an Alzheimer's Society Centre of Excellence, making it possible to follow the experiences of participants for several more years.

Taking the bus is a whole lot safer than taking the car - and it's also safer for cyclists and pedestrians who take the same routes, according to a new study led by the Université de Montréal Public Health Research Institute (IRSPUM).

Published in the Journal of Urban Health, the study looked at the risk of injury along the 10 busiest bus routes on the island of Montreal and showed that the risk is four times greater for car occupants than for bus occupants.

Besides looking at specific routes, the study is the first to compare the effect of car and bus use on the safety of pedestrians and cyclists. Per kilometre travelled, car trips were associated with a greater number of pedestrian injuries (four times more), cyclist injuries (five times more), and fatal and severe injuries (five times more) compared to bus trips.

There were 28 times more seriously injured people in cars (278 over 10 years, including 19 deaths) than bus occupants (10 seriously injured, no deaths). Forty-two pedestrians and three cyclists were killed by cars, versus four pedestrians and zero cyclists by bus.

Why is bus travel safer? For one, drivers are professionally trained. Second, they drive more slowly than cars. Third, buses travel along designated routes and usual stick to the right lane, which make them more predictable in traffic. Fourth, far fewer buses than cars are needed to transport the same number of people.

In Montreal, a shift towards public transit will help reduce the number of injuries, the study argues. For the period studied, 2001 to 2010, it estimates that bus travel along these 10 routes saved 1,805 vehicle occupants, 156 cyclists and 476 pedestrians from injury.

"The fundamental point is that pedestrians, cyclists and motor-vehicle occupants are mostly injured where the speeds are highest and where there are the most vehicles, on the major arteries," said lead author Patrick Morency.

"The solution? Permanent structure to reduce speeds, and public transit,' said Morency, an assistant clinical professor at IRSPUM who works at the Montreal Public Health Department.

Helped by colleagues there and along with others at the Réseau de transport métropolitain (RTM) and the Sociéte de transport de Montréal (STM), Morency looked at weekday collision and injury data compiled in police reports to Quebec's automobile insurance board, the SAAQ, between 2001 and 2010. During that period, car travel on the 10 routes accounted for four times as many passenger kilometres annually than bus travel: 1.3 billion versus 257 million.

(Car travel was actually much higher, since the data include all vehicles and don't differentiate cars from heavy trucks and buses.)

The busiest car and bus routes were along Henri-Bourassa Blvd., Sherbrooke St. and Côte Vertu Blvd. and Sauvé St. But those weren't the most dangerous routes; the highest injury rates in cars were seen along Jarry St., Jean-Talon Blvd. and Beaubien St. The highest cyclist injury rates associated with car travel were Beaubien, Jarry and Sherbrooke; for pedestrians, Beaubien, Jarry and Jean-Talon. Lacordaire Blvd. and (involving pedestrians) Pie-IX Blvd. were also in the top 3 for bus accidents.

Although newer injury data, up to 2016, is available, precise traffic data for the routes studied were not, and so the current research had to be limited to 2001-2010, Morency said. He is now working with Jillian Strauss and Catherine Morency (Polytechnique Montréal) on compiling figures not only for the 10 busiest routes but also for the Montreal metropolitan area. In the meantime, he has presented his latest study to Montreal transit officials, and hopes they'll use the analysis in public-information campaigns touting not just the savings but also the safety of traveling by bus.

According to the Deutsche Multiple Sklerose Gesellschaft (German Multiple Sclerosis Society), around 200,000 people in Germany suffer from multiple sclerosis (MS) - a serious neurological condition that has no known cure. Although the causes are far from being known, we do know that the the immune system erroneously attacks the protective sheaths around nerve fibres. In conjunction with researchers from Münster, Germany, a team of scientists at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) led by Prof. Dr. Michael Wegner have now discovered how the formation of myelin sheaths is regulated by protein molecules. This knowledge could be used to help MS patients by stimulating the formation of new myelin sheaths after a relapse (doi: 10.1038/s41467-018-03336-3).

The human brain is likened to a high-performance computer in which it's essential for the numerous individual processors to be connected to each other as efficiently as possible using high-speed cables. Each of the between 90 and 100 billion nerve cells represent the processors, and the nerve fibres or axons covered by myelin sheaths represent the fibre optic cables. The speed at which information is transmitted is highly dependent on the quality of the myelin sheaths, which are formed by special brain cells called oligodendrocytes. Damage to myelin sheaths or to the cells from which they are produced leads to serious disorders such as MS. Such disorders finally lead to the nerve cells being destroyed.

Complex mechanisms regulate myelin formation

The working group led by Prof. Dr. Michael Wegner, Chair of Biochemistry and Pathobiochemistry at FAU, is researching how oligodendrocytes regulate the formation of their myelin sheaths. Neurological disorders such as MS can only be understood with this knowledge. The working group has already identified protein molecules such as 'Sox10' that regulate the formation and preservation of myelin sheaths.

The aim of the new project was to understand how the identified proteins with the regulating function in the oligodendrocytes interact when myelin is formed. The researchers discovered that other molecules called Nfat proteins are required for this interaction between the known molecules to be successful. These are mainly known for their function in the immune system. The presence of Nfat proteins in the oligodendrocytes ensures that all other required protein molecules can exist together in these cells without displacing each other.

Findings could help MS patients in the future

In their work, which has recently been published in the journal Nature Communications, Prof. Dr. Wegner's working group led by Dr. Matthias Weider and Prof. Dr. Tanja Kuhlmann's team from Universitätsklinikum Münster demonstrated the precise biochemical mechanisms involved. Inhibition of Nfat proteins adversely affects the capability of oligondendrocytes in rats, mice and also humans to form myelin. There are in fact fewer of these proteins in oligondendrocytes in parts of the brain affected by MS. However, it is still unclear whether this is one of the causes of the damage. 'The interrelationships are very complex', emphasises Michael Wegner.

This research project is very closely linked to research being carried out by scientists at the Faculty of Sciences and the Faculty of Medicine in an FAU research training group funded by the German Research Foundation called 'Neurodevelopment and vulnerability of the central nervous system'. The findings are not only relevant to basic research, but also to medicine. Targeted stimulation of Nfat proteins could perhaps be used in the future to promote the formation of new myelin sheaths in MS patients, for example after a relapse.

More substances need to be developed

However, such stimulating substances are not yet available. Up to now, only substances that inhibit the activity of Nfat proteins have been developed, such as Cyclosporin A and Tacrolimus. They are used in medicine mainly to keep the immune system under control and thus prevent organ rejection in transplant patients, for example. An interesting fact is that these patients often suffer from neurological disorders that are caused by myelin sheath loss. The new research suggest that these serious side effects are a direct result of the medication to inhibit Nfat proteins. It is thus extremely important that this medication is improved.

The findings demonstrate the significance of Nfat proteins for myelin formation and open up a new approach for the treatment of neurological disorders that currently have no cure.