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In a study published in Autophagy, researchers at the University of Maryland (UMD) shed new light on how Zika virus hijacks our own cellular machinery to break down a protein that is essential for neurological development and cellular communication, getting it to "eat itself". By triggering this process known as autophagy, Zika virus is able to degrade an important protein, a process that may contribute to the development of neurological or brain deficiencies and congenital birth defects in the newborns of infected pregnant women. By understanding the underlying mechanisms of how this process takes place, researchers are coming closer to developing therapeutic interventions to prevent congenital birth defects such as microcephaly caused by Zika virus infection in pregnant mothers.

"The Zika virus is able to disrupt our cellular mechanisms to create a conducive environment to replicate," explains Yanjin Zhang, associate professor in Veterinary Medicine at UMD. "It upregulates some proteins and downregulates others that have antiviral roles, manipulating and interfering with cells to its own advantage. In this case, it looks like the KPNA2 protein may have some antiviral effects, so the virus uses the natural cellular self-destruction process called autophagy, or self-eating, to get rid of KPNA2."

The human body is full of mechanisms to move information and equipment like proteins around, or clear out unnecessary equipment through self-destruct processes like autophagy. In autophagy, cellular components like proteins are marked as damaged, essentially triggering the cell to eat itself to recycle vital ingredients for cell regeneration. However, in this case, the Zika virus wants the protein KPNA2 destroyed for its own benefit.

"Researchers knew that KPNA2 has important roles in transporting proteins, but we didn't know the mechanism of its turnover until now," says Zhang. "KPNA2 is known to transport important cellular factors needed for development, growth, and cell differentiation during neurological or brain development."

Since Zika virus is known to cause infection in pregnant women that can lead to brain deficiencies and congenital defects like microcephaly (a birth defect leading to smaller head and brain size) in newborns, the fact that it degrades this particular protein is important to understanding the development of these defects.

Zika virus is a globally mosquito-transmitted virus that has been identified in 87 countries and territories as of 2019 according to the World Health Organization (WHO). While no cases have been reported in the United States in the last few years, the WHO reports a suspected total of over 30,000 cases in the Americas alone in 2018. After the Zika virus epidemic in 2015-2016, the health risk for pregnant mothers and congenital birth defects in newborns became a major public health concern.

"Zika virus is more of an issue internationally than locally right now," says Zhang, "but as we can see with COVID-19, a global disease can easily become a local concern. Nowadays, it is so easy to travel from one continent to another, and with commercial trade, everything is interlinked. Vectors like mosquitoes can be carried across the world and open new pathways of transmission."

The changing climate also plays a role in the spread of infectious diseases like this, explains Zhang. "This is vector-borne or mosquito-borne disease, and as the climate changes, the mosquitoes can reproduce more, and can move farther north and into other areas they may not have been before."

Zhang is hopeful, however, that his work will help lead to therapeutic options that can help prevent birth defects caused by Zika virus infection. "Understanding this mechanism is an important step towards understanding how to control the effects of Zika virus, including congenital birth defects," says Zhang.

NASA analyzed the cloud top temperatures in Tropical Storm Kujira using infrared light to determine the strength of the storm. Infrared imagery revealed that the strongest storms were around Kujira's center and in a band of thunderstorms on the western side of the storm.

The low-pressure area designated System 97W consolidated and strengthened into a tropical depression on Sept. 26 by 5 p.m. EDT (2100 UTC). On Sept. 27 at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC), the Joint Typhoon Warning Center noted that the depression had strengthened into a tropical storm and was renamed Kujira.

An Infrared View of Kujira

One of the ways NASA researches tropical cyclones is by using infrared data that provides temperature information. Cloud top temperatures identify where the strongest storms are located. The stronger the storms, the higher they extend into the troposphere, and the colder the cloud top temperatures.

On Sept. 28 at 6:15 a.m. EDT (1015 UTC) NASA's Aqua satellite analyzed Kujira using the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument. The MODIS imagery showed the strongest storms were around Kujira's center of circulation and in a fragmented band of thunderstorms in the western quadrant. Persistent deep convection was also obscuring the low-level circulation center.

Temperatures in those areas were as cold as minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 62.2 Celsius). An area of strong storms with cloud top temperatures as cold as minus 70 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 56.6. degrees Celsius) surrounded the center. NASA research has shown that cloud top temperatures that cold indicate strong storms that have the capability to create heavy rain.

NASA provides data to tropical cyclone meteorologists so they can incorporate it in their forecasts.

Kujira's Status on Sept. 28

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) on Sept. 28, the center of Tropical Storm Kujira was located near latitude 29.7 degrees north and longitude 153.3 degrees east. That is about 286 nautical miles north of Minami Tori Shima. Minami Tori Shima is an isolated Japanese coral atoll located about 1,148 miles (1,848 kilometers) southeast of Tokyo, Japan.

Kujira had maximum sustained winds near 45 knots (52 mph/83 kph) with higher gusts. The storm is moving north through the open waters of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean.

Kujira's Forecast

Kujira forecast to intensify and track north-northeastward through next 24 hours as it rounds a subtropical ridge (elongated area of high pressure.) Forecasters at the Joint Typhoon Warning Center expect Kujira will begin extratropical transition as it interacts with mid-latitude westerlies (winds) and encounters increasing vertical wind shear (outside winds that can weaken and tear a tropical cyclone apart).

The era of the television brought with it the TV dinner -- a fast, convenient meal that, while nutritionally questionable, meant the whole family could gather together on the sofa to enjoy "The Ed Sullivan Show" and eat their Swanson Salisbury steak, too.

Over the next several decades, advancements in technology and the ubiquity of streaming services has allowed for the proliferation of binge-watching culture, where hours spent sedentary rack up faster than "Jeopardy" points, and greasy fast food is only a few taps on your smartphone away.

Chris Wharton, assistant dean of innovation and strategic initiatives at Arizona State University's College of Health Solutions, whose research interests include lifestylewide behavior change, wanted to know what kind of relationship the time we spend in front of screens has with various health behaviors and factors.

In a study recently published in BMC Public Health, one of the largest open access public health journals in the world, Wharton found that heavy users of screens -- defined as those who use screens an average of 17.5 hours per day -- reported the least healthful dietary patterns and the poorest health-related characteristics compared with moderate and light users, who averaged roughly 11.3 and 7 hours of screen use per day, respectively.

"A lot of screen time-related literature has primarily focused on television," Wharton said. "But with the advancement of all these other types of devices that people use throughout the day, we wanted to see how health behaviors and factors are associated with a variety of screen-based devices."

For the study, more than 900 adults across the U.S. who owned a television and at least one other device with a screen were asked to complete a survey to assess screen time use across multiple devices, dietary habits, sleep duration and quality, perceived stress, self-rated health, physical activity and body mass index.

Among the findings, unique dietary habits were associated with different types of screen use such that heavy users of TV and smartphones displayed the least healthful dietary patterns compared with heavy users of TV-connected devices, laptops and tablets.

Additionally, heavy users of smartphones reported the lowest quality of sleep.

"I find that important and interesting because it does back up what we understand about smartphones," Wharton said. "We love to look at our phones and worry ourselves with the news right before we go to bed. But one of the simplest things people can do for their health when it comes to screens -- which is probably one of the hardest things to do because of the convenience and their addictive nature -- is putting all those devices down, in particular your smartphone, two hours before bedtime."

Wharton also explored the phenomenon of binge-watching, defined as watching multiple episodes of a television program in a single sitting, and found that it was significantly associated with less healthy dietary patterns, including frequency of fast food consumption, eating family meals in front of a television and perceived stress.

"We're engaging with media in lots of different ways, and in mobile ways," Wharton said. "And across a lot of these devices, heavy users were engaging in a lot of fast food consumption. So the convenience of (screen use) seems to be associated with the convenience of fast food."

That is, with the exception of laptops, which Wharton attributes to the likelihood that laptops are more often used for work than entertainment.

Wharton said the results of this study lay the foundation for future research into screen time interventions because they give researchers insight into which negative health effects are associated with which types of devices.

"When we look at interventions to help people eat more healthfully, as it relates to screen time, maybe we can't just focus on television. The smartphone might be another really important factor in that," he said. "Or if we want to improve physical activity, maybe we don't need to think about smartphones but we do need think about TVs."

In another study, currently pending publication, Wharton asked 10 participants to forgo screen use of any kind from the time they got home after work to the time they went to sleep for two weeks straight.

"We have some qualitative data to suggest that when people eliminate screens from their lives at night, magical things happen," he said. "Initial results suggest that people have to figure out what to do with this time, so they're doing things like spending more face-to-face with family and friends, cooking and preparing food, being physically active and engaging in hobbies. Things that are fulfilling in physically healthful ways and mentally healthful ways that you don't get when the majority of your day is engaged with screens."

Wharton himself has been making an effort to be especially conscious of his screen time use during the pandemic (he's even taken up the violin), a time when many of us are hearing the opposite message.

"I worry when people say, 'Now is the time to re-up your Netflix subscription. What else are you going to do?'" Wharton said. "I would flip that on its head and say, 'Oh my gosh, now is the time to think about all the things to do other than sit in front of screens.'

"COVID is really bringing this into crystal-clear focus, that our lives are fully mediated by screens. They were before, they especially are now. I think it's a good time to think about what a healthy but technologically plugged-in life could look like where screens aren't the only way in which we interact and do everything in our life, but instead are just a small side component of everything else that we do. We are nowhere near a conclusion like that, but I think we need to get there because screens have come to dominate us, and they drive real problems in our health."

Reading is the gateway for learning, but one-third of elementary school students in the United States do not read at grade level. Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University are exploring how the design of reading materials affects literacy development. They find that an overly busy page with extraneous images can draw the reader's attention away from the text, resulting in lower understanding of content.

The results of the study are available in the September issue of the journal npj Science of Learning.

"Learning to read is hard work for many kids," said Anna Fisher, associate professor of psychology and senior author on the paper.

The typical design of books for beginning readers often include engaging and colorful illustrations to help define the characters and setting of the story, offer context for the text and motivate young readers. Fisher and Cassondra Eng, a doctoral candidate in CMU's Department of Psychology and first author on the paper, hypothesized that the extraneous images may draw the reader's eyes away from the text and disrupt the focus necessary to understand the story.

The researchers sought to understand how to support young readers and optimize their experience as they become more fluent readers. In the study, 60 first- and second-grade students from the greater Pittsburgh area were asked to read from a commercially available book designed for reading practice in this age group. Half of the book consisted of the published design and the other half was streamlined, having removed the extraneous images. Each child read from the same book. The team used a portable eye-tracker to monitor the number of times the child's gaze shifted away from the text to images on the page.

To develop the streamlined version of the book, the researchers had a group of adults identify relevant images to the text. To differentiate, extraneous images were defined as entertaining, but nonessential pictures to understand the story. For the streamlined version, the researchers kept the images that 90% of the adult participants agreed were relevant illustrations. All other illustrations were removed.

While the time each child spent on a page was similar, the researchers found that nearly all children reading the streamlined version had lower gaze shifts away from text and higher reading comprehension scores compared to the text in the commercially designed version of the book. In particular, children who are more prone to look away from text benefited the most from the streamlined version of the book.

"During these primary school years, children are in a transition period in which they are increasingly expected to read independently, but even more so in the wake of stay-at-home orders as children are using technology with less in-person guidance from teachers," said Eng. "This is exciting because we can design materials grounded in learning theories that can be most helpful to children and enrich their experiences with technology."

Fisher notes one limitation to this study was that her team only evaluated reading using a single book.

According to Fisher, these findings highlight ways to improve the design of educational materials, especially for beginning readers. By simply limiting extraneous illustrations, children can have an easier time focusing and better reading comprehension as a result.

"This is not a silver bullet and will not solve all challenges in learning to read," said Fisher. "But if we can take steps to make practicing reading a little bit easier and reduce some of the barriers, we [can help children] engage with the printed material and derive enjoyment from this activity."

New research by BAT indicates that modern oral products (MOPs) showed lower toxicity responses in certain assays than traditional cigarettes.

Scientists analysed the toxicological impact of one of BAT's nicotine pouch products, formerly called Lyft and now known as Velo, in an in vitro laboratory-based test. Velo was compared with a reference cigarette (1R6F) and reference Swedish-style snus pouch (CRP1.1).

Velo was found to be less biologically active than cigarette smoke and snus, even at greater concentrations of nicotine, across a range of tests. In many cases, Velo failed to elicit a biological response at all, supporting the view that MOPs are likely to be less risky than traditional cigarettes and Swedish-style snus for users who switch completely.

Pre-clinical scientist Emma Cheung, who led the study, said the results added to the growing body of evidence to support the reduced-risk potential of MOPs compared to continuing to smoke.

"Velo was found to be less biologically active than cigarette smoke in certain assays, which is very encouraging," she said.

"We are committed to building a better tomorrow by reducing the health impact of our business through offering a greater choice of products for our consumers, and this study helps to support the reduced-risk potential of MOPs. Our scientists will continue to build evidence to support our New Category products."

The results have been published in Food and Chemical Toxicology.

What are modern oral products (MOPs)

MOPs are similar in appearance and use to snus, an oral smokeless tobacco product that has been widely used in Sweden since the 1800s.

There are decades of research (including epidemiology) on snus, with evidence demonstrating it is a reduced-risk product compared to using traditional cigarettes.

Consumers place the pouch between their gum and upper lip, typically for 30 to 40 minutes, after which the pouch is disposed of in the designated compartment in the lid of the can. During use, nicotine and flavours are released and the nicotine is absorbed through the oral mucosa in the gum.

BAT offers MOPs with and without tobacco. Velo (formerly known as Lyft) contains high purity nicotine, water and other high-quality food-grade ingredients, including eucalyptus and pine tree fibres, flavouring and sweeteners. Velo does not contain tobacco.

Developing a novel testing method

There has been a lack of consensus on how to assess MOPs in an in vitro environment, so scientists at BAT developed a novel approach in the hope that it would lead to a more standardised methodology.

In this study, the team devised a novel method for the extraction of pouch material, providing a consistent concentration of nicotine and easy in vitro assessment.

MOP and CRP1.1 extracts were generated by incubating one pouch in 20ml of cell culture media, while the aqueous extract of 1R6F was prepared by smoking one cigarette into 20ml of cell culture media.

A series of contemporary in vitro screening assays were then undertaken using human oral fibroblasts (HGF) and human lung epithelial cells (H292) to asses viability, cell health markers, oxidative stress and genotoxicity.

Cytotoxicity was measured by ToxTracker and high content screening, and, in every assay, Velo showed reduced toxicity compared to CRP1.1 and 1R6F.

BAT hopes this approach will allow other laboratories to adopt this procedure in future, resulting in a more standardised methodology for assessing MOPs.

Nucleus leakage happened in some place, rendering this place a forbidden area for lives. This is a scene people frequently meet in science movies.

In these movies, traditionally the reactions to the leakage of the heroes are sending checking robots, examining by helicopter and even running through the block in flash under some circumstances. But there is a novel option now.

rof. ZHANG Guoqing from National Research Center for Microscale Physical Science of University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and his team members, recently found that polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) can release acidic substance under γ radiation, whose amount is proportional to the radiation intensity.

After adding acid-base indicators like Quinoline blue fluorescent molecules, the amount of the acidic substance can be measured by monitoring the ratio of different fluorescence intensities. This feature enabled the team to develop a new kind of γ-radiation intensity sensor, which is in the form of a membrane. With the increasement of γ-radiation intensity, the film gently turns red, making the distinguishment of radiation intensity quick and easy.

In addition, the researchers carried out experiments to justify their explanation for this phenomenon. The results turned out to be that additional acid cause color changes similar to γ-radiation. Additional base can also help the irradiated film to return to its initial stage. The quantum chemistry simulating calculations of Quinoline molecule orbitals coincided with their experimental outcome. These results confirmed the accuracy of their hypothesis.

Being cheap, reliable and durable, this film sensor is expected to work in extreme situations. It can be thrown into the nucleus leakage affected area and help people to map the distribution of radiation intensity remotely, which is more than significant in protecting people and their property.

The study was published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

A new simulation approach has enabled a first practical, and highly accurate, computation of the noise characteristics of complex three-dimensional airfoil designs under extreme operating conditions. By shortening simulations that would have taken months or weeks to run to just days or hours, the new approach could accelerate the development of quieter airfoil designs to enable the next generation of aircraft and urban airborne vehicles.

"Aircraft noise is already a problem for many communities located near major airports, and this will only get worse with the expanded use of drones and, in the future, air taxis and private airborne vehicles," says Radouan Boukharfane, a postdoc at KAUST.

Airfoils--wings, propellers and turbine blades--are typically designed and refined using relatively fast applied mathematical techniques. However, characteristics like noise generation are more complex. These typically require tests using experimental models because the direct numerical simulations capable of resolving such features are so computationally intensive that, even on today's fastest computers, they would take months to complete.

"In realistic engineering problems in aeroacoustics, the interactions between the turbulent airflow and the surface are important," says Boukharfane. "One of our main challenges was how to model compressible airflows across the surface under high turbulence with sufficient accuracy to predict the separation of the airflow over a smoothly curved surface and its reattachment near the trailing edge."

Rather than directly simulate the entire flow field at high resolution, Boukharfane, with colleagues Matteo Parsani, and Julien Bodart, applied a wall-modeled large-eddy simulation (WMLES) to model the near-surface flows at high resolution while reducing overall computational intensity by modeling only larger flow structures further from the airfoil.

"The WMLES approach used in this work allows us to reproduce many of the key qualitative features of the airflow seen in experiments, as well as noise-related characteristics such as the wall pressure spectra. Importantly, we have also shown that the method is valid for high speed and highly turbulent flow," says Boukharfane.

The algorithm described in the paper is the latest in a suite of tools developed by the Advanced Algorithms and Numerical Simulations Laboratory, and builds on a collaboration with the Higher Institute of Aeronautics and Space in France under the Clean Sky Joint Undertaking of the European Union. Some of these tools are currently being used and tested by NASA, Airbus and the National Institute of Aerospace in Virginia.

"Our team is uniquely placed at the intersection of numerical analysis, physics, and high-performance computing to develop novel and efficient algorithms that better account for physical phenomena and efficiently utilize modern computing architectures," says Parsani.

Optimizing the integration of wind energy into a country's power network requires reliable forecasts of how wind speed and direction are likely to vary in time and space over the pending few hours. KAUST researchers have now developed a statistical model that provides the best forecasts yet for wind conditions across Saudi Arabia.

"Saudi Arabia is aiming to diversify its energy mix and has set targets to significantly increase the amount of renewable energy in the grid, starting with wind and solar," says former KAUST postdoc Amanda Lenzi.

To reach the goal of 9 gigawatts of installed wind energy by 2030 requires reliable models and advanced forecasting methodologies for wind conditions across the kingdom. This will help underpin investment certainty and is also needed for the efficient integration of wind energy into existing power grids.

Using hourly observations from 28 wind stations across the country, Lenzi and group leader Marc Genton set out to develop a reliable forecasting model using advanced statistical approaches for dealing with environmental data.

"Our main innovation with this approach is the joint modeling of both wind speed and direction, which are normally treated individually," says Lenzi. "This approach shows improved prediction performance at time scales from a few minutes to hours ahead and from a single site to a whole continental area based only on a few wind monitoring stations."

Although wind is inherently variable, there is often a trend of stronger winds coming from certain directions. Relying solely on wind speed can therefore introduce a systematic error into wind energy forecasts. Lenzi and Genton addressed this by building a spatio-temporal model of wind speed using west-east and north-south directional components and an efficient representation of the space- and time-varying statistics to make the model computationally efficient.

"Using this approach, we are able to compute a full forecast distribution from just a few monitoring locations and construct maps of wind speed for all of Saudi Arabia at high spatial resolution for up to several hours ahead with minimal computational time," says Lenzi. "The model also provides an accurate measure of the uncertainty in these predictions, which is necessary for planning wind farms that operate at maximum efficiency."

Designed to be run using the latest wind data, the team expect that this model will aid in the efficient implementation of wind energy in Saudi Arabia.

People with a history of positive social interactions with Chinese people were less likely to support discriminatory anti-Chinese policies as Covid-19 reached the UK - according to new research from the University of East Anglia.

Researchers studied how UK residents felt towards the Chinese community as Covid-19 reached our shores, and how these feelings might relate to British support for anti-Chinese policies.

They found that people who had positive experiences of contact with the Chinese community, such as having Chinese friends or colleagues, were least likely to support discriminatory policies.

But those who had the less experience of positive contact, or more negative contact experiences were more likely to be fearful towards the Chinese community.

Dr Charles Seger from UEA's School of Psychology said: "When we started this research project, there were 50,000 confirmed cases of Covid-19 in China. The virus had begun to spread worldwide with 1,200 cases across 26 countries including nine in the UK.

"The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office had advised against all but essential travel to mainland China but most British lives at that point were uninterrupted. Nevertheless, opinion polls suggested that one in three Brits already saw the virus as a personal threat and the British press were reporting a rise in hate crimes towards Chinese people.

"We know that interactions between people from different ethnic, cultural and social backgrounds is key to reducing prejudice and discrimination, and that positive interactions are effective in reducing prejudice towards a broad range of stigmatized outgroups.

"We wanted to find out whether past experiences of social contact with Chinese people might predict how fearful or angry British people felt towards Chinese people and how these feelings might relate to British support for anti-Chinese policies, like forcing all Chinese restaurants to close."

The research team carried out a survey of 340 non-Asian UK residents aged between 18 and 75 in February 2020.

The participants were asked questions about their attitudes towards Chinese people as well as a range of other social groups such as Americans, Polish and Spanish - in order to measure prejudice.

They were also asked about what emotions they felt towards Chinese people - such as anger or fear - as well as how often they had had positive and negative interactions with Chinese people.

Finally, the participants were asked about whether they supported nine policy measures the UK government could take to stop the spread of coronavirus. Five of these measures targeted restricting the activities of Chinese people in the UK such as enforcing a quarantine of all Chinese nationals in the UK and closing all Chinese restaurants.

Lead researcher Lisa Alston, also from UEA's School of Psychology, said: "We found that past positive social interactions played a protective role, predicting less support for discriminatory policies. This effect of contact was explained by lower fear towards Chinese people.

"On the other hand, people with less experience of positive interactions with Chinese people, or previous bad social experiences, were more supportive of anti-Chinese policies.

"These findings highlight the important role, even in a pandemic, that social contact and our emotions play in our attitudes towards people from different cultures," she added.

Being traumatized can cause what are known as dissociative symptoms--such as experiencing amnesia, an out-of-body experience, feeling emotionally numb--which may help people cope. Experiencing these symptoms intensely or for a long time, however, can negatively impact an individual's ability to function.

A team led by investigators at McLean Hospital has now found that brain imaging analyses can uncover changes in functional connections between brain regions linked to a specific individual's dissociative symptoms following trauma. The findings, which have been published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, may be useful for tailoring treatments for affected patients.

For the study, the researchers applied a novel machine-learning (artificial intelligence) technique to functional magnetic resonance imaging tests of 65 women with histories of childhood abuse and current post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The technique, developed by one of the lead authors, Meiling Li, PhD, from Athinoula A. Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, showed that measurements related to connections between different regions of the brain correlated with dissociative symptoms in the women.

"This moves us one step closer to identifying a 'fingerprint' of dissociation in the brain that could be used as an objective diagnostic tool," said one of the lead authors, Lauren A.M.Lebois, PhD, director of neuroimaging in the Dissociative Disorders and Trauma Research Program at McLean Hospital. "In the future, once brain-based measures reach high levels of sensitivity and specificity, we could use these assessments in individuals who are unable to effectively talk about their symptoms--for example, those who might intentionally or unintentionally minimize or exaggerate their symptoms--or in situations like court proceedings where objective corroborating evidence is requested."

Lebois noted that the existence of dissociative symptoms and dissociative disorders is often doubted, and people are rarely asked about them. "This doubt in the lay and medical communities fuels a vicious cycle: New generations of clinicians aren't educated about these experiences; these symptoms are misunderstood, stigmatized, and underdiagnosed; and funding isn't prioritized in this area of research." Consequently, people who suffer from these symptoms and disorders caused by childhood trauma don't have access to existing mental health interventions. "It's a global ethical issue--children are abused or neglected, and then on top of that injustice, they can't receive treatments that would help them as adults," said Lebois.

The study may help to address this issue by showing that dissociative symptoms in the brain can be objectively measured, making some of the invisible wounds of childhood trauma visible. "We hope that this biological evidence will be particularly compelling regarding the legitimacy of these psychiatric symptoms," said Lebois.

Increased awareness and acceptance surrounding dissociative symptoms may motivate patients to seek help, medical practitioners to provide adequate care, and insurance providers to cover treatment. A better understanding of the biology behind dissociative symptoms and disorders may also point to new therapeutic strategies.

"The important findings from this study have steered us toward the next step in our research quest," said one of the senior authors on the study, Milissa Kaufman, MD, PhD, director of the Dissociative Disorders and Trauma Research Program at McLean Hospital.

Kaufman's team recently received a five-year grant from the National Institute of Mental Health to study how dissociation may affect one's ability to benefit from current, standardized treatments for PTSD. "This new work may help us to establish a new standard of care for traumatized patients with PTSD who struggle with significant symptoms of dissociation," said Kaufman.

Unlike secondary batteries that need to be recharged, fuel cells are a type of eco-friendly power generation systems that produce electricity directly from electrochemical reactions using hydrogen as fuel and oxygen as oxidant. There are various types of fuel cells, differing in operating temperatures and electrolyte materials. Among them, the solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), which uses a ceramic electrolyte, are receiving increasing attention. Because it operates at high temperatures aroung 700 degrees Celsius, it offers the highest efficiency among various fuel cells, and it can also be used to produce hydrogen by steam decomposition. For the commercialization of this technology, further improvement of cell performance is necessary, and novel high-temperature catalyst materials are highly anticipated.

Platinum (Pt)-based catalysts demonstrate such excellent performance in fuel cell electrode reactions. Particularly, single-atom Pt catalysts are actively investigated due to their unique functionality. However, at high temperatures, the Pt atoms are not stable and easily agglomerate. Therefore, Pt single-atom catalysts have been used only in low-temperature fuel cells, like polymer-electrolyte membrane fuel cells, which is used for hydrogen electric vehicles.

Under these circumstances, a domestic research team have developed a catalyst that requires only a small amount of platinum for the significant improvement of performance and can operate stably at high temperatures. The Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) announced that Dr. Kyung-Joong Yoon and Researcher Ji-Su Shin from the Center for Energy Materials Research, together with Professor Yun -Jung Lee from Hanyang University (Hanyang University, President Woo-Seung Kim), developed a single-atom Pt catalyst that can be used for SOFCs.

In their research, entire platinum atoms are evenly distributed and function individually without agglomeration even at high temperatures. It has been experimentally shown to increase the electrode reaction rate by more than 10 times. It can also operate for more than 500 hours even at high temperatures up to 700 degrees Celsius and improves the electric power generation and hydrogen production performance by 3-4 times. It is expected to accelerate the commercialization of solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), the next-generation eco-friendly fuel cells.

The single-atom catalyst jointly developed by KIST-Hanyang University research team is made by combining platinum atoms and cerium (Ce) oxide nanoparticles. Each platinum atom is individually dispersed on the surface of the cerium oxide nanoparticles, and the strong bond maintains the dispersed state of the atoms for a long duration of time even at high temperatures, which allows all platinum atoms to be involved in the reaction. This in turn makes it possible to substantially improve the rate of the electrode reaction while minimizing the amount of platinum used.

For the fabrication, a solution containing platinum and cerium ions is injected into the electrode of the SOFC, and the catalysts are synthesized while the fuel cell is operating at a high temperature. Because the injection into the electrode can be performed easily without any special equipment, it expected that the newly developed catalyst can readily be applied to existing fuel cell fabrication processes.

Dr. Kyung-Joong Yoon from KIST stated, "The catalyst developed in this study can be applied to a wide variety of solid oxide fuel cells and high-temperature electrochemical devices using an easy and simple low-cost process, so it is expected to accelerate the development of next-generation eco-friendly power generation and energy storage devices." "Based on the fact that the single-atom catalyst can operate stably even at 700 degrees Celsius or higher, its application fields will be greatly expanded, including high-temperature thermochemical reactions and high-temperature electrochemical reactions."

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Clostridioides difficile, or C. diff, is the leading cause of health care-associated infection in the U.S.

Only two antibiotics, vancomycin and fidaxomicin, are FDA approved for the treatment of C. diff, but even these therapies suffer from high treatment failure and recurrence.

Now, Purdue University innovators have advanced novel compounds they developed to help treat patients with C. diff, one of only four bacteria considered an urgent threat by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Their work is published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

"Our compounds have several advantages, including ultrapotent activities with minimum inhibitory concentration values as low as 0.003 μg/mL," said Herman O. Sintim, the Drug Discovery Professor of Chemistry in Purdue's Department of Chemistry. "Our compounds also do not kill good bacteria at concentrations that kill C. diff and performed significantly better than current antibiotics in preventing recurrence. These are significant advantages for patients dealing with this difficult bacterial infection."

The most promising of the Purdue compounds, containing trifluoromethylthio functional group, is HSGN-218. Sintim said it has been shown to be one of the most potent compounds ever produced for use against C. diff.

"This is part of our work to create new solutions to treat diseases and infections, which are resistant to current treatment options," said Sintim, who is a member of the Purdue University Center for Cancer Research and the Purdue Institute for Drug Discovery. "This work provides a potential clinical lead for the development of C. diff therapeutics and also highlights dramatic drug potency enhancement via halogen substitution."

The researchers patented their compounds through the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization, which is looking for partners to advance the technology. For more information, contact Joseph Kasper at OTC at jrkasper@prf.org and mention track code 2019-SINT-68535.

In the coming years and decades, various nations want to explore the moon, and plan to send astronauts there again for this purpose. But on our inhospitable satellite, space radiation poses a significant risk. The Apollo astronauts carried so-called dosimeters with them, which performed rudimentary measurements of the total radiation exposure during their entire expedition to the moon and back again. In the current issue (25 September) of the prestigious journal Science Advances, Chinese and German scientists report for the first time on time-resolved measurements of the radiation on the moon.

The "Lunar Lander Neutron and Dosimetry" (LND) was developed and built at Kiel University, on behalf of the Space Administration at the German Aerospace Center (DLR), with funding from the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi). The measurements taken by the LND allow the calculation of the so-called equivalent dose. This is important to estimate the biological effects of space radiation on humans. "The radiation exposure we have measured is a good benchmark for the radiation within an astronaut suit," said Thomas Berger of the German Aerospace Center in Cologne, co-author of the publication.

The measurements show an equivalent dose rate of about 60 microsieverts per hour. In comparison, on a long-haul flight from Frankfurt to New York, it is about 5 to 10 times lower, and on the ground well over 200 times lower. Since astronauts would be on the moon for much longer than passengers flying to New York and back, this represents considerable exposure for humans, said Robert Wimmer-Schweingruber from Kiel University, whose team developed and built the instrument. "We humans are not really made to withstand space radiation. However, astronauts can and should shield themselves as far as possible during longer stays on the moon, for example by covering their habitat with a thick layer of lunar soil," explained second author Wimmer-Schweingruber. "During long-term stays on the moon, the astronauts' risk of getting cancer and other diseases could thus be reduced," added co-author Christine Hellweg from the German Aerospace Center.

The measurements were taken on board the Chinese lunar lander Chang'e-4, which landed on the far side of the moon on 3 January 2019. The device from Kiel takes measurements during the lunar "daylight", and like all other scientific equipment, switches off during the very cold and nearly two-week-long lunar night, to conserve battery power. The device and lander were scheduled to take measurements for at least a year, and have now already exceeded this goal. The data from the device and the lander is transmitted back to earth via the relay satellite Queqiao, which is located behind the moon.

The data obtained also has some relevance with respect to future interplanetary missions. Since the moon has neither a protective magnetic field nor an atmosphere, the radiation field on the surface of the moon is similar to that in interplanetary space, apart from the shielding by the moon itself. "This is why the measurements taken by the LND will also be used to review and further develop models that can be used for future missions. For example, if a manned mission departs to Mars, the new findings enable us to reliably estimate the anticipated radiation exposure in advance. That's why it is important that our detector also allows us to measure the composition of the radiation," said Wimmer-Schweingruber.

What The Study Did: This systematic review and meta-analysis evaluates current evidence on the susceptibility to and transmission of SARS-CoV-2 among children and adolescents compared with adults.

Authors: Russell M. Viner, Ph.D., of the UCL Great Ormond Street Institute of Child Health in London, United Kingdom, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.4573)

Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

Translational research aims to speed research breakthroughs into the clinic. And yet, training for basic scientists and clinicians too often remains siloed, leading to divergent cultures and a loss of opportunity for cross-disciplinary collaboration.

The South Carolina Clinical & Translational Research (SCTR) Institute's TL1 program, a translational research training program for doctoral students in the MUSC Colleges of Graduate Studies, Medicine, Health Professions, Dental Medicine, and Pharmacy, is trying to change that by requiring TL1 trainees to complete a rotation in which they shadow physicians who treat patients with the diseases at the center of their research. The rotation, dubbed the Translational Sciences Clinic, is profiled in a recent article in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science (JCTS).

"The education provided by the Translational Sciences Clinic is a two-way street. It provides basic science trainees a better understanding of what the patients' problems are and what they need to address in their research," explained TL1 program director and lead author Perry Halushka, M.D., Ph.D. "But the students also educate the clinicians by bringing basic science questions and answers to the patients' problems."

In the third year of their graduate studies, students spend a half day each week in the clinics of their choice. By that time, they are already well versed in teamwork and in the various stages of translational research through their participation in the TL1 journal club, as was detailed in another recent JCTS article. In journal club, they read articles documenting the successful translation of a breakthrough to the clinic and work in teams of three to present each step of that research. One member discusses the fundamental basic research; another, the clinical testing of the breakthrough; and the third, its dissemination.

"The TL1 journal club helps students see how a basic discovery can be developed into a drug or a device," said TL1 associate director and senior author Carol Feghali-Bostwick, Ph.D. "It has the additional advantage of having them work as teams."

This background prepares them well to work on cross-disciplinary teams in the Translational Sciences Clinic. In turn, the rotation in the clinic often leads to ongoing cross-disciplinary collaborations.

The clinicians that the trainees shadow often join their mentorship teams and provide clinical perspectives on their research. Sometimes, they even serve on their dissertation committees. Such was the case with Daniel Lench, who has now graduated from the program. He worked with Gonzalo J. Revuelta, D.O., a movement disorders specialist.

"Working with Dr. Revuelta in a translational research setting was a uniquely rewarding experience," said Lench. "I spent one semester in his movement disorder clinic observing and learning from specific cases. As a member of my dissertation committee, Dr. Revuelta helped me think more about the clinical relevance of research questions. Overall, my time in the clinic with him provided a strong framework on how to perform translational research in the future."

In some cases, the clinician mentor is a SCTR KL2 scholar, a junior-level physician-scientist who is guaranteed time to pursue a research project. For example, Xinh Xinh Nguyen, a TL1 trainee who studies scleroderma in Feghali-Bostwick's research laboratory, was able to shadow Deanna Baker Frost, M.D., Ph.D., a KL2 scholar and rheumatologist with a clinical interest in autoimmune diseases and fibrosis, as she saw patients with scleroderma.

"Participation in the TL1 program has provided me with additional learning opportunities to gain expertise in translational research," says Nguyen. "It has enhanced my knowledge about clinically relevant aspects of my project.""

Feghali-Bostwick recognizes how greatly the rotation in the Translational Sciences Clinic benefited Nguyen.

"Xinh Xinh is doing research on scleroderma, but now she understands better what scleroderma is and understands what patients go through and what their complications are and what they come in for," explained Feghali-Bostwick. "That puts it all in perspective and helps her better understand why she is doing the research she is doing."

Feghali-Bostwick believes that there is a natural mentoring relationship between the KL2 and TL1 scholars. "There is less of a gap between them than between senior scientists, like myself, and TL1s," she said. "It's a good fit; it's a natural fit."

Most of all, the Translational Sciences Clinic motivates trainees and reminds them of the importance of the work they do. On program evaluations, many comment that their time spent in clinic seeing patients was among their most meaningful and inspiring experiences in graduate school.

"Through the time spent in the Translational Research Clinic, trainees suddenly get a greater appreciation for what they're doing at the bench and see how that could change people's lives," said Halushka. "They can actually see what happens when fundamental discoveries are turned into new therapeutic approaches."