Culture

Researchers have observed black imported fire ants using sand to draw liquid food out of containers, when faced with the risk of drowning. This is the first time this sophisticated tool use has been reported in animals. These findings are published in the British Ecological Society journal Functional Ecology.

A laboratory experiment has shown for the first time that a species of ant has the remarkable ability to adapt its tool use. When provided with small containers of sugar water, black imported fire ants were able to float and feed on the surface, but when researchers reduced the surface tension, the ants started depositing sand grains on the inside of the container leading out of it.

"We found the ants used sand to build a structure that could effectively draw sugar water out of the container to then to be collected" said Dr Aiming Zhou, an associate professor at Huazhong Agricultural University, Wuhan, China, and a lead author of the research. "This exceptional tool making skill not only reduced the drowning risk of ants, but also provided a larger space for them to collect sugar water."

The sand structures were found to be so efficient that they could syphon almost half of the sugar water out of the containers in five minutes.

Researchers altered the surface tension of the sugar water by adding surfactant. When surfactant concentrations were over 0.05%, representing considerable drowning risk, ants were observed building the sand structures to syphon sugar water out of the container. These structures were never observed when ants foraged in containers of pure sugar water, indicating an adaptable approach to this novel tool use.

The results not only demonstrate black imported fire ants' ability to use tools to forage but also that they can recognise an increased foraging risk and can adjust their tool use in response to this.

Dr Jian Chen, Research Entomologist at The U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) Agricultural Research Service (ARS), Stoneville Mississippi, and another author of the research, said: "We knew some ant species are able to use tools, particularly in collecting liquid food; however, we were surprised by such remarkable tool use displayed by black imported fire ants. Our findings suggest that ants and other social insects may have considerable high cognitive capabilities for unique foraging strategies"

Tool use is seen as an indicator of cognitive sophistication and has mostly been observed in primates and some species of birds. But in invertebrates this behaviour is less well studied and has previously been thought of as hard wired and inflexible.

Black imported fire ants, Solenopsis richteri, are native to South America but are now an invasive species in southern United States after being introduced. Their Hydrophobic exoskeletons allow them to float on water but it's likely that they still face frequent drowning risk in nature because of the importance of liquid foods like nectar and honeydew as a carbohydrate source.

In the study the researchers calculated drowning risk by measuring the proportion of drowned ants in 2.5 cm containers of sugar water with differing concentrations of surfactant. The ants were able to float on the surface of pure sugar water, but the proportion of drowned ants increased significantly with increasing concentrations of surfactant. The researchers then provided ants with sands of varying grain size to test their preferences in creating sand structures when faced with different drowning risks.

Dr Zhou cautions that further studies are needed in this research area, saying: "Our experiments are conducted in the laboratory and only limited to the black imported fire ants." The next steps will be to determine how widespread this behavior is in other ant species. Dr Chen adds: "Our study is the first to touch on this interesting topic. We hope our paper will motivate others to do the related investigations."

The team of Professor Jinyang Liang, a specialist in ultrafast imaging at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS), in collaboration with an international team of researchers, has developed the fastest camera in the world capable of recording photons in the ultraviolet (UV) range in real time. This original research is featured on the front cover of the 10th issue of the journal Laser & Photonics Reviews.

Compressed ultrafast photography (CUP) captures the entire process in real time and unparalleled resolution with just one click. The spatial and temporal information is first compressed into an image and then, using a reconstruction algorithm, it is converted into a video.

Developing a Compact Instrument for UV

Until now, this technique was limited to visible and near-infrared wavelengths, and thus to a specific category of physical events. "Many phenomena that occur on very short time scales also take place on a very small spatial scale. To see them, you need to sense shorter wavelengths. Doing this in the UV or even X-ray ranges is a remarkable step toward this goal," says Jinyang Liang, who led the study.

To record in this new range of wavelengths and to develop the technique into a user-friendly product, researchers designed a compact UV-CUP system with Christian?Yves Côté of Axis Photonique Inc. via an academia-industry collaboration. The new system features a patterned photocathode, which is used to simultaneously detect and encode "black light". "Like a standard camera, our technology is passive. It does not produce light; it receives it. Therefore, our photocathode had to be sensitive to the photons emitted as UV light. This design makes our technique a stand-alone system that can be easily integrated into various experimental platforms," says Jinyang Liang, who has been contributing to the development of CUP since his postdoctorate.

Liang worked with François Légaré, also an INRS professor, to generate and take images of UV pulses at the Advanced Laser Light Source (ALLS) laboratory. "The outstanding research environment at the Énergie Matériaux Télécommunications Research Centre of INRS is very helpful. It is so much more efficient when all necessary design, manufacturing, and characterization capabilities are available in the same building."

Dividing up the Reconstruction Problem

"Taking the picture is only the first half of the job," says Jinyang Liang. "It also has to be reconstructed." To do this, the researchers developed a new algorithm, more efficient than standard algorithms, via their collaboration with Boston University. Its strength comes from a division of tasks. "Rather than solve the reconstruction problem as a lump, the algorithm divides the reconstruction into smaller problems that it tackles individually," explains Professor Liang.

With the innovations in both hardware and software, UV-CUP has an imaging speed of 0.5 trillion frames per second. It produces videos with 1500 frames in large format. As a light-speed imager, UV-CUP sees flying UV photons in real time. "It always fascinates me when you can watch the fastest object in the universe in such great detail," says Yingming Lai, a Master's student at INRS and the first author of the article.

The device developed through this international collaboration will be sent to the research laboratory SOLEIL Synchrotron in France to visualize physical phenomena. It could capture laser-plasma generation, a phenomenon that is essential for deducing certain properties of materials, and UV fluorescence, which is important in medical imaging to identify biomarkers linked to diseases.

Parity-time-symmetric photonic and optoelectronic systems is being intensively explored recently, which has been bringing about significant fundamental physics and technological outcomes. One of the main characteristics of a PT symmetric system is its effectiveness in mode selection in a single-mode lasing, in which two cross-coupled and spatially separated resonators with identical geometries are usually employed. A PT-symmetric laser system has a strongly enhanced gain difference between the dominant mode and the side modes, thus making single-mode oscillation possible. However, the strict requirements not only lead to increased structural complexity, high cost, and strong susceptibility to environmental perturbations, but also limit the compactness when on-chip devices are required.

In a new paper published in Light Science & Application, a team of scientists, led by Professor Jiejun Zhang from Guangdong Provincial Key Laboratory of Optical Fiber Sensing and Communications, Institute of Photonics Technology, Jinan University has proposed a new technique to realizing PT symmetry in a single spatial resonator. By the manipulation of the polarization-dependent response of the spatial resonator, localized eigenfrequencies, gain, loss, and coupling coefficients of two polarimetric loops formed by lights of orthogonal polarization states can be tuned to achieve PT symmetry. The proposed polarimetric PT symmetry concept opens new avenues for the implementation of non-Hermitian photonic systems, in which a variety of optical parameters, including polarization, wavelength, transverse mode and optical angular momentum, can be used.

As a demonstration, a fiber ring laser based on this concept supporting stable and single-mode lasing without using a high-Q optical filter is implemented. The PT-symmetric system is implemented in a single fiber loop with polarimetric diversity. In the experiment, the fiber ring laser has a cavity length of 41 m with a mode spacing as small as 4.88 MHz. The employment of polarimetric PT symmetry enables effective suppression of the sidemodes with a suppression ratio greater than 47.9 dB. The linewidth of the light generated by the fiber ring laser is measured to be 129 kHz with a wavelength-tunable range of 35 nm.

"In one single physical fiber loop, the polarimetric diversity is implemented by controlling the polarization states of light via polarization controllers. An erbium-doped fiber amplifier is incorporated to provide an optical gain. By tuning the loss, gain and coupling strength of the two polarimetric modes, PT symmetry is implemented, of which can be observed from the output spectrum. Since only a single physical loop is required, the implementation is significantly simplified, and the stability is highly improved."

"The measured laser linewidth is 129 kHz, which is broadened due to the high susceptibility of the system to environmental disturbances due to a long fiber in the cavity. By suppressing those noises using active cavity stabilization techniques or isolated laser systems, the linewidth is possible to be reduced to its Lorentzian linewidth of 2.4 kHz." they added.

"The presented technique provides a new concept of implementing PT symmetry in non-spatial parameter space in photonic systems. Not limited to the polarimetric parameter space, one can adopt this concept by constructing various parameter spaces. With simplified physical structures, this proposed concept is ready to be applied in other fields to promote the application of the PT symmetry mechanism." the scientists forecast.

CAMBRIDGE, MA - October 8 2020--The preprints selected for review in Rapid Reviews: COVID-19 (RR:C19), an open-access overlay journal published by the MIT Press, cover a wide range of subjects, with peer reviewers finding a study that higher levels of cytokines IL-6 and IL-10 are associated with increased severity of COVID-19 is particularly noteworthy and could be useful in clinical care.

And in the first published scholarly peer reviews of pre-print research from Li-Meng Yan, Shu Kang, Jie Guan, and Shanchang Hu--the so-called "Yan Report"--that claims to show that unusual features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome suggest sophisticated laboratory modification rather than natural evolution, reviewers Robert Gallo, Takahiko Koyama, Adam Lauring, and Marvin Reitz rate the study as misleading and write that the "manuscript does not demonstrate sufficient scientific evidence to support its claims."

Peer reviewers similarly flag as misleading new research that non-COVID-19 vaccinations are linked to decreased SARS-CoV-2 rates.

New peer reviews from RR:C19, in order of the evidence scale rating (strong, reliable, potentially informative, not informative, or misleading) as provided by each of the two reviewers:

"IL-6 and IL-10 as predictors of disease severity in COVID 19 patients: results from meta-analysis and regression" by Sujan K Dhar, et al. Preprint | Reviews

Evidence Scale Rating: Strong / Reliable

Summary: This preprint says that higher levels of cytokines IL-6 and IL-10 are associated with increased severity of COVID-19. Reviewer consensus suggests this well-conducted study provides scientific evidence of potential prognostic markers that could be useful in clinical care. Reviewers: You-Wen He and Tsvetelina Velikova

"College campuses and COVID-19 mitigation: clinical and economic value" by Elena Losina, et al. Preprint | Reviews

Evidence Scale Rating: Strong / Potentially Informative

Summary: This is a comprehensive model that covers a timely topic; however, the many estimations that went into the model, as well as the use of "contact-hours" as a key parameter, may make the conclusions subject to uncertainty. Reviewers: Kathy Leung and David Kim

"Lipid droplets fuels SARS-CoV-2 replication and inflammatory response" by Suelen da Silva Gomes Dias, et al. Preprint | Reviews

Evidence Scale Rating: Reliable / Potentially Informative / Potentially Informative

Summary: This study claims infection-mediated lipid droplet biogenesis contributes to SARS-CoV-2 replication while suppressing lipid droplet formation restricts infection. However, these are not fully substantiated by the data offered due to lack of proper controls. Reviewers: Ulrich Desselberger, KJ Helbig, Ebony Alice Monson, and Prasert Auewarakul

"Serum Sphingosine-1-Phosphate as novel prognostic and predictive biomarker for COVID-19 severity and morbidity and its implications in clinical management" by Giovanni Marfia, et al. Preprint | Reviews

Evidence Scale Rating: Potentially Informative / Potentially Informative / Not Informative

Summary: This potentially informative article with some methodological flaws suggests that serum Sphingosine-1-Phosphate (S1P) is associated with COVID-19 severity. Further research is needed to understand if serum S1P could be provided therapeutically to reduce COVID-19 severity. Reviewers: Yoh Takuwa, Hideru Obinata, and Markus Gräler

"Exploratory analysis of immunization records highlights decreased SARS-CoV-2 rates in individuals with recent non-COVID-19 vaccinations" by Colin Pawlowski, et al. Preprint | Reviews

Evidence Scale Rating: Potentially Informative / Misleading

Summary: While the findings from this study are intriguing, the potential for spurious association between vaccination and infection is substantial. There are limitations to the data and findings could be misleading. Reviewers: Andrew Wiese and Shaun Truelove

"Unusual features of the SARS-CoV-2 genome suggesting sophisticated laboratory modification rather than natural evolution and delineation of its probable synthetic route" by Li-Meng Yan, et al. Reviews

Evidence Scale Rating: Misleading / Misleading / Misleading

Summary: This manuscript does not demonstrate sufficient scientific evidence to support its claims. Claims are at times baseless and are not supported by the data and methods used. Decision-makers should consider the author's claims in this study misleading. Reviewers: Takahiko Koyama, Adam Lauring, Robert Gallo, and Marvin Reitz

RR:C19 is published by the MIT Press and the editorial offices are located at UC Berkeley, headed by editor-in-chief Stefano M. Bertozzi, Professor of Health Policy and Management and Dean Emeritus of the School of Public Health at University of California Berkeley. The journal is funded by a grant from the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation and hosted on PubPub, an open-source publishing platform from the Knowledge Futures Group.

To learn more about this project and its editorial board, or to sign up for future news and alerts, visit rapidreviewscovid19.mitpress.mit.edu.

EUGENE, Ore. - Oct. 8, 2020 - The exchange of DNA between chromosomes during the early formation of sperm and egg cells normally is limited to assure fertility.

But when there are too many of these genetic exchanges, called crossover events, the segregation of chromosomes into eggs is flawed, biologists have learned in a project done across three labs at the University of Oregon and Northwestern University.

In a paper published online Sept. 4 in the journal PLOS Genetics, researchers documented how the disruptions, as seen in basic research with microscopic roundworms (Caenorhabditis elegans), lead to a range of meiotic defects as the chromosomes are subjected to improper spindle forces.

Inaccurate chromosome segregation in humans is associated with Down syndrome and miscarriages. Such segregation defects as seen in the research can result in increased infertility, said UO biologist Diana E. Libuda, the study's principal investigator.

"Over the past century, research has focused on making sure enough crossovers are made during sperm and egg development," said Libuda, a professor in the UO's Department of Biology and Institute of Molecular Biology. "It was known that developing sperm and eggs had ways to make sure that not too many crossovers are made, but it was unclear why."

The research team identified two mechanisms that help counteract defects triggered by excess crossover activity in developing eggs and, thus, assist the coordination of the process that helps assure genomic integrity in new generations.

Libuda had reported in the Oct. 9, 2013, issue of Nature the discovery of a mechanism that inhibits the overproduction of crossovers in roundworms. However, Libuda said, it was not possible at that time to study the downstream effects in cases where too many crossovers did occur. Since then, her lab developed a way to generate extra crossovers on a single chromosome.

That ability led to a National Institutes of Health-funded collaboration with Sadie Wignall of Northwestern University, an expert on high-resolution imaging of structures involved in segregation of chromosomes into developing eggs. What Wignall found led Libuda back to Bruce Bowerman's UO lab to take a look at chromosome segregation in live developing eggs.

"Overall, it was a great joining of scientific strengths to take a multipronged approach to answer this important question," Libuda said.

The research provides fundamental insights that can guide research in other organisms to better understand the mechanisms and, eventually, lead to potential clinical applications.

"The same proteins that we are studying in C. elegans are also in humans," Libuda said. "In fact, most proteins required for fertility are used across organisms that include yeast, fruit flies, nematodes, zebrafish, mice and humans. Research using these microscopic worms has been shown in numerous contexts to have relevance in human health. "

LOS ANGELES (Oct. 7, 2020) -- Most COVID-19 (coronavirus) patients in Southern California during the early months of the pandemic appear to have been infected by a variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus introduced to the region from New York state via Europe, not directly from China, where the virus was first detected, according to a new study conducted at Cedars-Sinai.

The findings were based on a genetic analysis of the virus found in tissue samples taken from 192 patients diagnosed with COVID-19 at Cedars-Sinai.

Investigators said they believed their study was the first published genetic characterization of SARS-CoV-2 in the Los Angeles population using an advanced technique known as next-generation sequencing, which analyzes all the genes, or genome, of a virus or other organism. The study was published Oct. 7 in the journal JAMA Network Open.

"Based on these findings, we concluded SARS-CoV-2 was likely introduced into the Los Angeles community predominantly from New York state but also through multiple other independent transmission routes that included Washington state and China," said Eric Vail, MD, assistant professor and director of Molecular Pathology in the Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Cedars-Sinai. He was co-senior author of the study.

Specifically, investigators found that about 15% of the virus samples taken from the COVID-19 patients at Cedars-Sinai between March 22 and April 15 were genetically similar to published profiles of SARS-CoV-2 viruses from Asia, while 82% shared close similarities with variants originating in Europe.

"It was surprising to us that New York appeared to be the source of so much of the Los Angeles virus, especially since the first confirmed COVID-19 case in the U.S. involved a person who had returned to Washington state after visiting China," said Jasmine Plummer, PhD, research scientist at the Cedars-Sinai Center for Bioinformatics and Functional Genomics and associate director of the Applied Genomics, Computation & Translational Core. She was the other co-senior author of the study.

In addition, analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 virus using next-generation sequencing proved to be so precise that investigators were able to identify a unique cluster of 13 coronavirus patients, all members of the same religious denomination, living within a 2.4-mile radius of each other. This finding pointed to the potential for using this technique to monitor local community spread of the disease.

"This innovative research provides data to advance comparative genetic analysis of identifying features unique to SARS-CoV-2," said David Frishberg, MD, chair of Academic Pathology and professor of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine at Cedars-Sinai. "Sequencing discoveries provide critical information about COVID-19 and its origins and evolution, and they may even help predict its future trajectory."

What The Study Did: A survey study of Texas police officers examines how common mental illness and mental health care use are in a large urban department.

Authors: Katelyn K. Jetelina, M.P.H., Ph.D., of the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health in Dallas, 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/jamanetworkopen.2020.19658)

Editor's Note: The article includes funding/support 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.

What The Study Did: Researchers examined whether changes in chain restaurant advertising spending were associated with weight changes among adults across 370 counties in the United States.

Authors: Sara N. Bleich, Ph.D., of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health in Boston, 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/jamanetworkopen.2020.19519)

Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support 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.

Exercise intensity appears to make no difference to risk of mortality among older adults, suggests a randomised controlled trial from Norway published by The BMJ today.

Physical activity has been highlighted as one of the most important actions people of all ages can engage in to improve health, and data from observational studies show that early death is significantly reduced in physically active compared with inactive individuals.

Yet high quality clinical trial evidence on a potential direct (causal) relation between current advice on physical activity levels and longevity is lacking.

So an international research team set out to evaluate the effect of five years of supervised exercise training compared with recommendations for physical activity on mortality in older adults (70-77 years).

The trial involved 1,567 participants (790 women and 777 men) living in Trondheim, Norway, with an average age of 73 years. In total, 87.5% of participants reported overall good health and 80% reported a medium or high level of physical activity at the start of the trial.

Of these 1,567 participants, 400 were assigned to two weekly sessions of high intensity interval training (HIIT), 387 were assigned to moderate intensity continuous training (MICT), and 780 to follow the Norwegian guidelines for physical activity (control group), all for five years.

After five years, the overall mortality rate was 4.6% (72 participants).

The researchers found no difference in all cause mortality between the control group (4.7%, 37 participants) and combined HIIT and MICT group (4.5%, 35 participants).

They also found no differences in cardiovascular disease or cancer between the control group and the combined HIIT and MICT group.

For example, the total proportion of participants with cardiovascular disease after five years was 15.6%, with 16% (125 participants) in the control group, 15% (58 participants) in the MICT group, and 15.3% (61 participants) in the HIIT group.

The researchers point to some limitations. For example, highly active participants in the control group could have hampered finding differences between groups, and many participants were healthier than expected at the start of the study, which may have limited the potential to increase activity levels further.

However, strengths include the large number of older adults, and the long intervention period and monitoring throughout the study.

"This study suggests that combined MICT and HIIT has no effect on all cause mortality compared with recommended physical activity levels," write the researchers.

Pregnancy complications such as miscarriage, pre-eclampsia, diabetes in pregnancy (gestational diabetes) and pre-term birth are linked to a heightened risk of heart disease in later life, suggests an overarching (umbrella) analysis of data published by The BMJ today.

Several other factors related to fertility and pregnancy also seem to be associated with subsequent cardiovascular disease, say the researchers, including starting periods early, use of combined oral contraceptives, polycystic ovary syndrome, and early menopause.

However, a longer length of breastfeeding was associated with a reduced risk of cardiovascular disease.

Previous research has suggested that risk factors specific to women may be linked to cardiovascular disease and stroke, but clarity on the quality of the evidence is lacking and on how the findings can be translated into public health and clinical practice.

So a team of UK researchers searched relevant research databases for published systematic reviews and meta-analyses that investigated links between reproductive factors in women of reproductive age and their subsequent risk of cardiovascular disease.

A total of 32 reviews were included, evaluating multiple risk factors over an average follow-up period of 7-10 years.

The researchers found that several factors, including starting periods early (early menarche), use of combined oral contraceptives, polycystic ovary syndrome, miscarriage, stillbirth, pre-eclampsia, diabetes during pregnancy, pre-term birth, low birth weight, and early menopause were associated with an up to twofold risk of cardiovascular outcomes.

Pre-eclampsia was associated with a fourfold risk of heart failure.

Possible explanations for these associations include family medical history, genetics, weight, high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, and chemical imbalances from use of hormonal contraceptives.

However, no association was found between cardiovascular disease outcomes and current use of progesterone only contraceptives, use of non-oral hormonal contraceptive agents, or fertility treatment.

What's more, breastfeeding was associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.

The researchers point to some limitations, such as missing data and the fact that reviews were largely based on observational evidence, so they cannot rule out the possibility that other unmeasured (confounding) factors may have had an effect.

Nevertheless, they say the evidence reported in this umbrella review suggests that, from menarche to menopause, the reproductive profile of women is associated with their future risk of cardiovascular disease.

It also provides clarity on the quality of the evidence, identifies gaps in evidence and practice, and provides recommendations that could be incorporated into guidelines, such as incorporating reproductive risk factors as part of the risk assessment for cardiovascular disease, they conclude.

Neanderthal babies were born with the characteristic barrel-shaped rib cage shape previously identified in adult specimens, according to an analysis of digitally reconstructed rib cages from four Neanderthal infants. The findings suggest that Neanderthals' rib cages were already shorter and deeper than that of modern humans at birth, rather than shifting their shape later in development. While scientists have known that adult Neanderthals were heavier than modern humans, requiring significant differences in skeletal shape, there have been few studies that have compared the earliest postnatal developmental stages of Neanderthals and modern humans, due to a lack of well-preserved fossil remains of Neanderthal children. To investigate whether the shape of this hominid's thorax changed shape between birth and adulthood, Daniel García-Martínez and colleagues scanned and virtually reconstructed ribcages from 4 young Neanderthals estimated to be about 1 to 2 weeks old, less than 4 months old, 1.5 years old, and 2.5 years old. The most complete Neanderthal specimen (the 1.5-year-old) also revealed the species had relatively longer mid-thoracic ribs compared to its uppermost and lowermost ribs and a spine folded inward toward the center of the body, forming a cavity on the outside of the back. The researchers compared rib cage development in these specimens with a baseline for modern human development in the first three years of life, which they derived from a forensic assessment of remains from 29 humans. The Neanderthal specimens had consistently shorter spines and deeper rib cages, regardless of their age at death. García-Martínez et al. conclude that the bulky Neanderthal ribcage may have been genetically inherited, at least in part, from early Pleistocene ancestors.

Symptoms for pregnant women with COVID-19 can be prolonged, lasting two months or longer for a quarter of the women who participated in a national study led by UC San Francisco and UCLA.

In the largest study to date of COVID-19 among non-hospitalized pregnant women, researchers analyzed the clinical course and outcomes of 594 women who tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus during pregnancy.

They found that the most common early symptoms for pregnant women were cough, sore throat, body aches, and fever. Half of the participants still had symptoms after 3 weeks and 25 percent had symptoms after 8 weeks. Findings appear Oct. 7, 2020, in Obstetrics & Gynecology.

"We found that pregnant people with COVID-19 can expect a prolonged time with symptoms," said senior author Vanessa L. Jacoby, MD, MAS, vice chair of research in the Department of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Reproductive Sciences at UCSF, and co-principal investigator of the national pregnancy study. "COVID-19 symptoms during pregnancy can last a long time, and have a significant impact on health and wellbeing."

The PRIORITY study (Pregnancy CoRonavIrus Outcomes RegIsTrY) is an ongoing study in the United States for women who are pregnant or up to 6 weeks after pregnancy and have a confirmed or suspected case of COVID-19. It launched March 22, 2020.

While previous research on SARS-CoV-2 infection in pregnancy has primarily centered on hospitalized patients, the new analysis focused on ambulatory patients, who represent the overwhelming majority of adults with the virus.

Study participants tested positive between March 22 and July 10, and had a mean age of 31 years. Health care workers made up nearly a third of the cases, and participants were geographically diverse: 34 percent lived in the Northeast, 25 percent in the West, 21 percent in the South, and 18 percent in the Midwest.

Thirty-one percent of the participants were Latina, and 9 percent were Black. The average gestational age at the time of enrollment in the study was approximately 24 weeks.

The researchers found several common symptoms of COVID-19, but also that symptoms related to the virus were complicated by overlapping symptoms of normal pregnancy, including nausea, fatigue and congestion. Their findings included the following:

Primary first symptoms were cough (20 percent), sore throat (16 percent), body aches (12 percent), and fever (12 percent); by comparison, fever occurs in 43 percent of non-pregnant hospitalized patients;

Loss of taste or smell was the first symptom in 6 percent of pregnant women;

Other symptoms included shortness of breath, runny nose, sneezing, nausea, sore throat, vomiting diarrhea, or dizziness;

60 percent of women had no symptoms after 4 weeks of illness, but for 25 percent, symptoms persisted, lasting 8 or more weeks;

The median time for symptoms to resolve was 37 days;

Medical conditions for some participants included hypertension, pregestational diabetes, asthma, cardiac disease, thyroid disease, anxiety and depression.

The authors said that data on the clinical evolution of the virus are critical in order to assess risk and guide treatment during pregnancy.

"The majority of participants in our study population had mild disease and were not hospitalized," said first author Yalda Afshar, MD, PhD, assistant professor in the Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. "Even so, it took a median of 37 days for symptoms to ease."

"Despite the potential risks of COVID-19 for pregnant people and their newborns, there are large gaps in our knowledge on the course of the disease and the overall prognosis," she said. "Our results can help pregnant people and their clinicians better understand what to expect with COVID-19 infection."

Teenagers who receive a depression diagnosis during their school career show a substantial decline in attainment in Year 11, new King's College London research has found.

The researchers suggest that targeted educational support for children struggling with depression might particularly benefit boys and those from deprived backgrounds, who were especially vulnerable subgroups in this study, although all children with depression might benefit from such support.

The researchers, funded by the NIHR, carried out a historical, longitudinal cohort study linking data from health and education records.

They made use of an innovative data resource held at South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, which links together child mental healthcare records and the Department for Education school records. From this they identified the primary and secondary educational attainment of young people who received a clinical depression diagnosis under the age of 18.

In their sample of 1,492 children and adolescents the median age at depression diagnosis was 15 years. The researchers compared attainment in this sample against a local group of pupils in Year 2, Year 6 and Year 11.

Study findings - results decline between school Years 6 and 11

Among the group who received a depression diagnosis, 83 percent met the expected attainment threshold of level 2 or above in Year 2, and 77 percent met the expected attainment threshold of level 4 or above in Year 6. This was similar to local levels.

However, only 45 per cent met the expected threshold of five A*-C GCSE or equivalent grades (including English and maths) in Year 11, much lower than the proportion meeting this threshold in the local reference population (53 per cent), and also in national estimates (53 per cent).

Mental health and educational support needed

Alice Wickersham, NIHR Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre PhD Student, Department of Psychological Medicine, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, first author said, "Previous research has found that, in general, depression in childhood is linked to lower school performance. But what we've observed is that a group of children and adolescents who developed depression at secondary school had performed quite well when they were in primary school. It is only when they sat their GCSEs that they tended to show a drop in their school performance, which also happened to be around the time that many of them were diagnosed. This pattern appears to be quite consistent across different genders, ethnicities, and socioeconomic groups."

"While it's important to emphasise that this won't be the case for all teenagers with depression , it does mean that many may find themselves at a disadvantage for this pivotal educational milestone. It highlights the need to pay close attention to teenagers who are showing early signs of depression. For example, by offering them extra educational support in the lead up to their GCSEs, and working with them to develop a plan for completing their compulsory education."

Dr Johnny Downs, Senior Clinical Lecturer (Honorary Consultant) in Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King's College London, one of the Senior authors adds, "The majority of young people with emotional disorders, such as depression, do not receive treatment from mental health professionals, and so this study has two important policy implications: it demonstrates just how powerful depression can be in reducing young people's chances at fulfilling their potential, and provides a strong justification for how mental health and educational services need to work to detect and support young people prior to critical academic milestones."

"It also highlights the importance of secure data-sharing partnerships between health and educational organisations, without which we would not be able conduct these important studies and also conduct future work testing whether changes in health and education policies improve young people's lives."

An international research team including the University of Adelaide has found further evidence that rare gene mutations can cause cerebral palsy, findings which could lead to earlier diagnosis and new treatments for this devastating movement disorder.

In the study published in the journal Nature Genetics researchers employed gene sequencing to examine the DNA of 250 cerebral palsy families, and compared this to a control group of almost 1800 unaffected families. They then demonstrated the impact rare gene mutations can have on movement control using a fruit fly model.

The findings have important clinical implications. They will provide some answers to parents, as well as guide healthcare and family planning such as counselling for recurrence risk - often quoted as around 1 per cent but could be as high as 10 per cent when factoring in genetic risks.

Co-author of the research, Emeritus Professor Alastair MacLennan, AO, at the University of Adelaide, says the new study confirms the pioneering work of the Australian Collaborative Cerebral Palsy Research Group based at the Robinson Research Institute at the University of Adelaide.

"Cerebral palsy is a non-progressive developmental movement disorder impacting motor function, which affects approximately one in every 700 births in Australia and a similar number worldwide.

Symptoms range from mild to severe and can include intellectual disability," Emeritus Professor MacLennan said.

"Historically, cerebral palsy was considered largely the result of perinatal asphyxia - decreased oxygen to the baby's brain at birth, however this has only been in found in 8-10 per cent of cases.

"Eliminating other known causes, including premature birth and trauma at birth, this leaves a large number of cases - as many as 40 per cent in some studies - with an unknown origin."

Researchers at the University of Adelaide over many years have advocated that cerebral palsy is often caused by rare genetic variations (or mutations) which disrupt a child's control of movement and posture.

"Where previous studies have indicated underlying genetic causes in cerebral palsy, this study is the largest to date and includes in-depth statistical modelling and new controls to overcome limitations of earlier research," Emeritus Professor MacLennan said.

Co-author Professor Jozef Gecz, Channel 7 Children's Research Foundation Chair for the Prevention of Childhood Disability and Head of Neurogenetics at the University of Adelaide, says as a conservative estimate, 14 per cent of cerebral palsy families in the study had an excess of damaging genetic mutations and inherited recessive gene variations.

"Genes don't like to change; as soon as a gene is altered in any way you disturb its programing, and it can no longer perfectly perform what it's designed to do," said Professor Gecz, who is South Australia's Scientist of the Year 2019.

"Our US collaborators were able to disturb the same genes in fruit fly as found in humans, and in three out of four instances it severely altered the movement of either fruit fly larvae or adults or both.

"The gene mutations were mostly spontaneous new variants occurring in the sperm or an egg of the parents, who are otherwise not affected."

In some cases, identification of specific gene variations in individuals in the study led to new recommendations for patient health management, including treatments that would not have been initiated otherwise.

"As little as 30 years ago we were very limited in treatments for cerebral palsy, and the outlook for anyone diagnosed was grim," said Professor Gecz.

"As we come to recognise the role of genetics in cerebral palsy, we open the door for new treatments, earlier diagnosis and intervention, which could lead to greatly improved quality of life."

Other benefits of the study include a potential reduction in litigation, and evidence for further research to identify other damaging genetic variants in human DNA.

"The more we understand about the role of genetics in causing cerebral palsy, the closer we get to learning how to prevent it," Professor Gecz said.

Cell senescence is a state of permanent cell cycle arrest that was initially defined for cells grown in cell culture. It plays a key role in age-associated organ dysfunction and age-related diseases such as cancer, but the in vivo pathogenesis is largely unclear.

A research team led by Professor Makoto Nakanishi of the Institute of Medical Science, the University of Tokyo, generated a p16-Cre ERT2 -tdTomato mouse model (*1) to characterize in vivo p16 high cells (*2) at the single-cell level.

They found tdTomato-positive p16 high cells detectable in all organs, which were enriched with age. They also found that these cells failed to proliferate and had half-lives ranging from 2.6 to 4.2 months, depending on the tissue examined.

Single-cell transcriptomics in the liver and kidneys revealed that p16 high cells were present in various cell types, though most dominant in hepatic endothelium and in renal proximal and distal tubule epithelia, and that these cells exhibited heterogeneous senescence-associated phenotypes.

Further, elimination of p16 high cells ameliorated nonalcoholic steatohepatitis-related hepatic lipidosis and immune cell infiltration.

These results were published in Cell Metabolism on September 18, 2020.

There were a variety of senescent cells in the kidney, lung, liver, heart, brain

According to the research team, tamoxifen (TAM?*3) was administered to middle-aged mice to investigate the location of senescent cells. What they found was that they could detect these cells in all organs they investigated such as kidney, lung, liver, heart, brain...etc.

In addition, they investigated how senescent cell presence changed with age, and found that individual senescent cells did not proliferate, but the number of senescent cells in all organs increased significantly with aging.

It was also shown that non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH?*4) was significantly improved when senescent cells were removed from the liver and kidneys. This is an interesting result from the perspective of NASH prevention and treatment.

For details of the research, please see the paper.

Contribution to the further elucidation of the causes of human aging and the development of anti-aging therapies

These results have shown that senescent cells in vivo are diverse depending on the type of progenitor cell and the stimulus.

And their new mouse model and single-cell analysis provide a powerful resource to enable the discovery of previously unidentified senescence functions in vivo.

Lead Scientist Professor Nakanishi said " These are the first results in the world showing the comprehensive transcriptome profiles of individual senescent cells in vivo, and we hope that it will contribute to the further elucidation of the causes of human aging and the development of anti-aging therapies".