Culture

Irvine, Calif. - March 4, 2020 - In the past, biologically-active peptides - small proteins like neurotoxins and hormones that act on cell receptors to alter physiology - were purified from native sources like venoms and then panels of variants were produced in bacteria, or synthesized, to study the structural basis for receptor interaction. A new technique called zombie scanning renders these older processes obsolete.

Peptides are used for medical therapy and to study biology, among other things, but their production cost in time and money is increasingly high.

"If a peptide has 30 residues, simply changing each site once requires the synthesis, purification and validation of the folded composition of all 30 variants, a process that requires months and many thousands of dollars," said Steven A.N. Goldstein, MD, PhD, vice chancellor for Health Affairs at the University of California, Irvine, and distinguished professor in the UCI School of Medicine Departments of Pediatrics and Physiology & Biophysics.

Published today in Science Advances, the new study co-led by Goldstein and Jordan H. Chill, PhD, a professor in the Department of Chemistry at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, reveals how researchers were able to hijack cell machinery to simplify the creation of peptides allowing for extensive, rapid studies of structure-function and mechanism to improve specificity and affinity of action, the important parameters for therapeutic efficacy.

"Since we hijack the cell machinery to synthesize and display the peptides on the cell surface with the receptor, we dub this zombie scanning," said first author Ruiming Zhao, PhD., an investigator in the Goldstein laboratory.

"Using this new technique, peptide changes are as simple as plasmid synthesis and require only days of work and pennies per construct. This enables us to study the roles of many sites with many changes in a much shorter period of time at a much lower cost."

The study, titled, "Tethered peptide neurotoxins display two blocking mechanisms in the K+ channel pore as do their untethered analogues," outlines how the encoded peptides are linked via a native pathway to the outside of the cell on a flexible tether. In this case, the receptor target was also expressed from a plasmid and could be modified. The method also allows study of low affinity interactions that would not otherwise be feasible to analyze.

Using zombie scanning, researchers made the unexpected discovery that a peptide in clinical trials as an immune suppressant acts differently than once thought, revealing that this family of neurotoxins has two possible modes of interacting with potassium channels rather than just one.

Chill and colleague Netanel Mendelman, PhD, enhanced the impact of these findings by elucidating the three-dimensional structure of a selected neurotoxin using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR).

"By estimating hundreds of distances and angles between atoms in the peptide, we now know its structure, offering a molecular context for these exciting results," said Chill. "The two binding modes seem to involve a 'flipping' of the toxin or some rearrangement of its atomic structure."

Alternative binding modes as described for these peptides are a troublesome confounding factor in structure-based drug design, highlighting the importance of the findings of this report and future studies of the recognition process between channels and inhibitory peptides.

Affirmative action in higher education was originally meant to rebalance the scales of mostly-white, mostly-male institutions. But a study from the University of Colorado Denver found that the legal semantics of two landmark Supreme Court cases have redefined the focus of affirmative action from access for students of color to educational benefits for white students. This repositioning of diversity priorities also shows up in higher education diversity initiatives, such as "Inclusive Excellence."

"The idea of 'inclusive excellence' seemed good at face value," said Naomi Nishi, PhD, department of Ethnic Studies at CU Denver. "We cannot, as an institution, be excellent unless we have a diversity of people participating. But in practice, students of color at elite institutions are being treated like their responsibility is to be the diversity that gives white students a well-rounded education."

The study was published in the journal Race Ethnicity and Education.

Defining diversity and critical mass

In 2003, a pair of affirmative action lawsuits found their way to the Supreme Court (Grutter v. Bollinger (2003) and Gratz v. Bollinger (2003)). The first found in favor of the University of Michigan, ruling Michigan's Law School was using racial diversity appropriately in admissions as they were seeking a critical mass of Students of Color through a nuanced admissions process. The second found for the plaintiff, arguing that the University of Michigan had used a quota system in their undergraduate program scoring system that unfairly favored people of color.

During the two cases, two terms--diversity and critical mass--began to fluctuate in their definitions. In 1977, Rosabeth Moss Kanter coined the term "critical mass" to mean diversity in diversity--enough people of color in the classroom so that students of color would not be tokenized or feel isolated. In the Grutter case, the term matched Kanter's definition half of the time.

Diluting and revising the legal definitions

But a revised usage showed up, too: "critical mass" became the number of students of color needed for the student body to realize educational benefits. The definition was revised to focus less on the students of color and more on the benefit for current students (most of whom were white). It stuck. By the next Supreme Court cases, Fisher v. University of Texas (2013, 2016), it was the only definition used.

Nishi described how, in the discourse of these cases, the definitions of key words, like "critical mass" and "diversity" were being diluted and revised to be more palatable to white interests.

"Both sides were rapidly changing definitions to co-opt and concede the remaining benefit for students of color that remained in Affirmative Action," said Nishi.

Who benefits from diversity?

The semantic concessions had reverberations in future affirmative action cases. As affirmative actions cases proliferated alongside state-wide bans on using any racial consideration in the admissions process, institutions shifted their efforts to instead focus on diversity and inclusivity programming. It was what Nishi called a "Plan B in the face of legal dismantlement of racial considerations in admissions"

"Yet, these same diversity and inclusivity initiatives were quickly co-opted by people who were looking--even unintentionally--to further white elite interests," said Nishi.

For example, when a business school launched an Inclusive Excellence program, Nishi said leaders in the school described the program as a way to help prepare their students for future jobs where they would manage diverse groups.

"It was a predominantly white institution and they were essentially saying 'we've got to teach our white students how to manage people of color because one day they'll be their boss,'" said Nishi. "That's troubling."

The problem of racism and supremacy in higher ed

But affirmative action and subsequent diversity programming were Band-Aids from the beginning, said Nishi.

"We've never actually been interested in dealing with the larger problem of racism and white supremacy in higher education," said Nishi. "White women were the biggest benefactors of affirmative action, but now their numbers in higher ed outpace white men in some areas. We've seen that when these programs no longer benefit white people, interests diverge. There's a seizing back of any benefits or access from people of color--something we call 'Imperialistic Reclamation.'"

"The truth is, we won't see racial justice until we stop pretending that racism isn't at work in our institutions of higher education and end the futile attempts to convince white elites in power that racial equity is first and foremost for them. It's not."

MIT researchers have invented a way to integrate "breadboards" -- flat platforms widely used for electronics prototyping -- directly onto physical products. The aim is to provide a faster, easier way to test circuit functions and user interactions with products such as smart devices and flexible electronics.

Breadboards are rectangular boards with arrays of pinholes drilled into the surface. Many of the holes have metal connections and contact points between them. Engineers can plug components of electronic systems -- from basic circuits to full computer processors -- into the pinholes where they want them to connect. Then, they can rapidly test, rearrange, and retest the components as needed.

But breadboards have remained that same shape for decades. For that reason, it's difficult to test how the electronics will look and feel on, say, wearables and various smart devices. Generally, people will first test circuits on traditional breadboards, then slap them onto a product prototype. If the circuit needs to be modified, it's back to the breadboard for testing, and so on.

In a paper being presented at CHI (Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems), the researchers describe "CurveBoards," 3D-printed objects with the structure and function of a breadboard integrated onto their surfaces. Custom software automatically designs the objects, complete with distributed pinholes that can be filled with conductive silicone to test electronics. The end products are accurate representations of the real thing, but with breadboard surfaces.

CurveBoards "preserve an object's look and feel," the researchers write in their paper, while enabling designers to try out component configurations and test interactive scenarios during prototyping iterations. In their work, the researchers printed CurveBoards for smart bracelets and watches, Frisbees, helmets, headphones, a teapot, and a flexible, wearable e-reader.

"On breadboards, you prototype the function of a circuit. But you don't have context of its form -- how the electronics will be used in a real-world prototype environment," says first author Junyi Zhu, a graduate student in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL). "Our idea is to fill this gap, and merge form and function testing in very early stage of prototyping an object. ... CurveBoards essentially add an additional axis to the existing [three-dimensional] XYZ axes of the object -- the 'function' axis."

Joining Zhu on the paper are CSAIL graduate students Lotta-Gili Blumberg, Martin Nisser, and Ethan Levi Carlson; Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS) undergraduate students Jessica Ayeley Quaye and Xin Wen; former EECS undergraduate students Yunyi Zhu and Kevin Shum; and Stefanie Mueller, the X-Window Consortium Career Development Assistant Professor in EECS.

Custom software and hardware

A core component of the CurveBoard is custom design-editing software. Users import a 3D model of an object. Then, they select the command "generate pinholes," and the software automatically maps all pinholes uniformly across the object. Users then choose automatic or manual layouts for connectivity channels. The automatic option lets users explore a different layout of connections across all pinholes with the click of a button. For manual layouts, interactive tools can be used to select groups of pinholes and indicate the type of connection between them. The final design is exported to a file for 3D printing.

When a 3D object is uploaded, the software essentially forces its shape into a "quadmesh" -- where the object is represented as a bunch of small squares, each with individual parameters. In doing so, it creates a fixed spacing between the squares. Pinholes -- which are cones, with the wide end on the surface and tapering down -- will be placed at each point where the corners of the squares touch. For channel layouts, some geometric techniques ensure the chosen channels will connect the desired electrical components without crossing over one another.

In their work, the researchers 3D printed objects using a flexible, durable, nonconductive silicone. To provide connectivity channels, they created a custom conductive silicone that can be syringed into the pinholes and then flows through the channels after printing. The silicone is a mixture of a silicone materials designed to have minimal electricity resistance, allowing various types electronics to function.

To validate the CurveBoards, the researchers printed a variety of smart products. Headphones, for instance, came equipped with menu controls for speakers and music-streaming capabilities. An interactive bracelet included a digital display, LED, and photoresistor for heart-rate monitoring, and a step-counting sensor. A teapot included a small camera to track the tea's color, as well as colored lights on the handle to indicate hot and cold areas. They also printed a wearable e-book reader with a flexible display.

Better, faster prototyping

In a user study, the team investigated the benefits of CurveBoards prototyping. They split six participants with varying prototyping experience into two sections: One used traditional breadboards and a 3D-printed object, and the other used only a CurveBoard of the object. Both sections designed the same prototype but switched back and forth between sections after completing designated tasks. In the end, five of six of the participants preferred prototyping with the CurveBoard. Feedback indicated the CurveBoards were overall faster and easier to work with.

But CurveBoards are not designed to replace breadboards, the researchers say. Instead, they'd work particularly well as a so-called "midfidelity" step in the prototyping timeline, meaning between initial breadboard testing and the final product. "People love breadboards, and there are cases where they're fine to use," Zhu says. "This is for when you have an idea of the final object and want to see, say, how people interact with the product. It's easier to have a CurveBoard instead of circuits stacked on top of a physical object."

Next, the researchers hope to design general templates of common objects, such as hats and bracelets. Right now, a new CurveBoard must built for each new object. Ready-made templates, however, would let designers quickly experiment with basic circuits and user interaction, before designing their specific CurveBoard.

Additionally, the researchers want to move some early-stage prototyping steps entirely to the software side. The idea is that people can design and test circuits -- and possibly user interaction -- entirely on the 3D model generated by the software. After many iterations, they can 3D print a more finalized CurveBoard. "That way you'll know exactly how it'll work in the real world, enabling fast prototyping," Zhu says. "That would be a more 'high-fidelity' step for prototyping."

As Italy urges tourists not to cancel their plans in the face of the coronavirus outbreak and a National Basketball Association memo reportedly encourages teammates to avoid high-fives, a new study conducted at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama takes a look at how social bonds change in response to illness in another highly social animal: the vampire bat. In these bats, just as in humans, strong family bonds were less affected by the appearance of disease than were weaker social relationships.

Vampire bats are an extremely social species. Their interactions range from grooming family members and unrelated individuals to saving another bat from starvation by sharing a regurgitated blood meal.

“By asking how different social connections change in response to sickness, we can better understand how social networks change as a pathogen spreads,” said Gerry Carter, research associate at STRI and assistant professor of biology at The Ohio State University.

The lead author of the paper, Sebastian Stockmaier, did this project at STRI as part of his doctoral research at the University of Texas at Austin, advised by Daniel Bolnick at the University of Connecticut. Stockmaier injected vampire bats in a captive colony with a bacterial extract that challenged their immune systems, making them feel sick without harming their health or any risk of transmission. He then observed how the appearance of being sick would affect the ill bats’ social relationships with other colony members.

Just as a sick person might choose to stop shaking hands with strangers, but would still need to go to buy groceries, their results, published in the Journal of Animal Ecology, showed that sick vampire bats may reduce the amount of time they spend grooming—not a very important social interaction—but not food sharing—a more important social interaction.

Family relationships are very important: “A female vampire bat is less likely to groom an unrelated bat that is sick, but she won’t reduce the amount of time grooming her own sick offspring,” Stockmaier said.

“What we demonstrated in this study is that the type of social connection matters,” Carter said. “Just as in the recent COVID-19 outbreak, we would expect that a virus transmitted by contact would spread mainly within family groups, because these social connections will not be reduced by sickness behavior. In vampire bats, as well as in humans, the most important social behaviors and relationships don’t change as much when individuals are sick.”

“This study underlies the importance of basic research,” said Rachel Page, research biologist at STRI and a co-author of the paper. “Understanding how social interactions change in the face of illness is a key component in predicting the channels and speed at which a pathogen can spread across a population. Close observation of vampire bat behavior sheds light on how social animals interact, and how these interactions change—and importantly, when they do not change but persist—as individuals become sick.”

The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, headquartered in Panama City, Panama, is a unit of the Smithsonian Institution. The institute furthers the understanding of tropical biodiversity and its importance to human welfare, trains students to conduct research in the tropics and promotes conservation by increasing public awareness of the beauty and importance of tropical ecosystems. Promo video.

Stockmaier, S., Bolnick, D.I., Page, R.A. and Carter, G.G. 2020. Sickness effects on social interactions depend on the type of behavior and relationship. Journal of Animal Ecology. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2656.13193

Journal

Journal of Animal Ecology

DOI

10.1111/1365-2656.13193

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- Florida State University physicists believe they have an answer to unusual incidents of rare decay of a subatomic particle called a Kaon that were reported last year by scientists in the KOTO experiment at the Japan Proton Accelerator Research Complex.

FSU Associate Professor of Physics Takemichi Okui and Assistant Professor of Physics Kohsaku Tobioka published a new paper in the journal Physical Review Letters that proposes that this decay is actually a new, short-lived particle that has avoided detection in similar experiments.

"This is such a rare disintegration," Okui said. "It's so rare, that they should not have seen any. But if this is correct, how do we explain it? We think this is one possibility."

Kaons are particles made of one quark and one antiquark. Researchers study how they function -- which includes their decay -- as a way to better understand how the world works. But last year, researchers in the KOTO experiment reported four instances of a particular rare decay that should have been too rare to be detected yet.

This observation violates the standard model of physics that explains the basic fundamental forces of the universe and classifies all known elementary particles.

According to their calculations, there could be two possibilities for new particles. In one scenario, they suggest that the Kaon might decay into a pion -- a subatomic particle with a mass about 270 times that of an electron -- and some sort of invisible particle. Or, the researchers in the KOTO experiment could have witnessed the production and decay of something completely unknown to physicists.

Researchers in Japan are conducting a special data run to confirm whether the previous observations were true detections of new particles or simply noise.

"If it's confirmed, it's very exciting because it's completely unexpected," Tobioka said. "It might be noise, but it might not be. In this case, expectation of noise is very low, so even one event or observation is very striking. And in this case there were four."

Each week, millions of runners around the world lace up their running shoes, spurred on by the psychological, health and social benefits that running delivers.

The birth of Parkrun in 2004 - now an international activity with more than 20 countries involved - is credited with a sharp rise in the popularity of running in the past decade, but with benefits come downsides.

A new research paper by University of South Australia Adjunct Professor Jan de Jonge and his team reveals the price that runners (and society) pay when the sport becomes an obsession.

Prof de Jonge, based in the Netherlands at Eindhoven University of Technology and Utrecht University, surveyed 246 recreational runners aged 19 to 77 years to investigate how a person's mental outlook (mental recovery and passion for running) affects their risk of running-related injuries.

Not surprisingly, the more "obsessively passionate" runners - where the sport fully controlled their life to the detriment of partners, friends and relatives - reported far more running-related injuries than those who were more "harmoniously passionate" and laid back in their approach to running.

The latter group, who are in full control of their running and integrate the sport into their life and other activities, reported faster mental recovery after a run and sustained fewer running-related injuries. They were more likely to heed the early warning signs of injuries and take both physical and mental breaks from running whenever necessary.

Obsessively passionate runners disregarded the need to recover after training and failed to mentally detach from the sport, even when running became harmful. Their approach to running delivered short-term gains such as faster times but resulted in more running-related injuries.

Age and gender played a part. The older runners were able to mentally detach and recover a lot faster after a run than those in the 20-34 age group - especially females - who were more prone to running-related injuries.

"Most running-related injuries are sustained as a result of overtraining and overuse or failing to adequately recover, merely due to an obsessive passion for running," Prof de Jonge says.

"The majority of research focuses on the physical aspects of overtraining and lack of recovery time, but the mental aspects of running-related injuries have been ignored to date.

"When running becomes obsessive, it leads to problems. It controls the person's life at the expense of other people and activities and leads to more running-related injuries. This behaviour has also been reported in other sports, including professional dancing and cycling."

In the Netherlands, where the study was undertaken, running-related injuries costs the economy approximately €10 million a year (A$16 million) in medical costs, work absences and reduced productivity. Next to soccer, running is the Dutch sport with the highest number of injuries.

While there are no comparative figures available for Australia, a study by Medibank Private lists running as the 4th most injury-prone sport in Australia after Aussie Rules, basketball and netball, with sporting injuries overall costing the economy more than $2 billion a year.

The paper, "Mental Recovery and Running-Related Injuries in Recreational Runners: the Moderating Role of Passion for Running", is published open access in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Notes to editors

The pilot study was undertaken by Prof Jan de Jonge, Professor Toon W. Taris from Utrecht University and Dr Yannick A. Balk from the University of Amsterdam.

Prof Jan de Jonge is based at Eindhoven University of Technology and Utrecht University, and is an Adjunct Professor in the Asia Pacific Centre for Work Health and Safety at the University of South Australia.

The study examined 246 recreational runners (54 per cent male and 46 per cent female) with a mean age of 47 years. The average running experience was 14 years. On average, participants engaged in running activities three times a week, and the average running distance was about 27 kilometres per week. Two-thirds of the runners ran in groups, and approximately half of the runners used an individualised training schedule for their training activities.

Of all participants, 51.2 per cent reported running-related injuries over the past 12 months, such as knee, Achilles tendon and foot injuries.

Corals are constantly exposed to multiple environmental stressors at any given time. On a global scale, climate change is increasing seawater temperatures which can cause coral to bleach. Locally, land-use practices can cause poor water quality run-off of land-based fertilizers and sediment washing over our coral reefs. A new study conducted by researchers at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST) found the survival and development of coral larvae in their first few days of life was negatively affected by elevated nutrients and a modest increase in water temperature.

Before reef corals build their hard, rocky skeletons they actually start their life as tiny, gelatinous larvae adrift in waters adjacent to coral reefs. The research team used larvae of three common Hawaiian coral species, starting at less than one-day old, and exposing them to various combinations of low or high nutrients and water temperatures. At the end of five days, the team determined how the individual and interacting stressors impacted coral during the first days of the life cycle for each species.

In particular, when nitrogen was high, coral larva showed the lowest survivorship. However, when phosphate was also added, the negative effects of nitrate were lessened. Surprisingly warming didn't reduce survivorship, but the interaction of high temperature with nutrients affected larval growth, generally reducing larval size. This showed that nutrients can have serious impacts on coral larvae, but importantly the imbalance of nutrients and their interactions with temperature can harm corals at very early stages.

"The study also revealed that the way corals reproduce and other biological differences among larvae influence how they respond to environmental change," said Chris Wall, study co-author and postdoctoral researcher at SOEST's Pacific Biosciences Research Center. "The impacts of warming and elevated nutrients were greatest on small larvae that develop outside the parents, called broadcast spawners, and dependent on whether the larvae had already formed a relationship with their symbiotic algae. And interestingly, those larger larvae that develop inside their parents, called brooders, were quite resistant to warming and nutrient spikes."

In adult corals, nutrient pollution can increase the negative effects of ocean warming, such as increasing the severity of coral bleaching. As marine heat waves and bleaching events have already become more common because of climate change, it is critical that conservationists and managers consider how reducing different forms of local impacts like pollution - such as nitrogen and phosphate from residential and agricultural runoff- can significantly affect adult corals and also the viability of coral larvae.
 
"Understanding the impacts of stressors on adult corals has been a primary focus of coral research, but this is just one piece of the puzzle," said study co-author Madeline Piscetta. "In order to gain a comprehensive understanding of how temperature and nutrients will shape coral reefs, we need to examine these interactions across all life history stages."

WASHINGTON - Scientists at the Environmental Working Group and Indiana University have for the first time conducted a review of 26 fluorinated chemicals, or PFAS, and found that all display at least one characteristic of known human carcinogens.

The study, published today in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, found that the most well-studied PFAS compounds - PFOA, formerly used by DuPont to make Teflon, and PFOS, formerly an ingredient in 3M's Scotchgard - exhibit up to five key carcinogenic characteristics.

"Our research has shown that PFAS impact biological functions linked to an increased risk of cancer," says Alexis Temkin, Ph.D., EWG toxicologist and the primary author of the new study. "This is worrisome, given that all Americans are exposed to PFAS mixtures on a daily basis, from contamination in water, food and everyday products."

Americans are exposed to hundreds of cancer-causing chemicals, many of which can build up in the body over time. Changes in the body, such as hormonal dysregulation and weakened immune system, increase cancer risk, and PFAS chemicals cause many such changes. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies PFOA as a possible human carcinogen. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says both PFOS and the PFOA replacement chemical GenX show evidence of carcinogenicity.

"Data from animal and epidemiological studies point to human health risks for PFAS, especially an elevated risk of cancer," said Lisa Kamendulis, an associate professor at Indiana University and one of the authors of the study.

PFAS chemicals never break down in the environment and can stay in the human body for many years. According to the new study, some so-called short-chain and replacement PFAS, touted by the chemical industry as safer alternatives to long-chain PFAS, exhibited the same key characteristics as the toxic chemicals they were designed to replace.

"We should focus on preventing cancer by preventing human exposure to potential carcinogens," said Olga Naidenko, Ph.D., vice president for science investigations at EWG. "Cancer causes staggering costs to society, and compelling evidence tells us that exposures to toxic chemicals in the environment are a significant risk factor."

In the C8 Health Project, which studied more than 70,000 people who lived or worked in the mid-Ohio Valley, where drinking water was contaminated with PFOA, elevated PFOA levels in the body were associated with greater risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma and kidney, testicular, prostate and ovarian cancers.

In January, laboratory tests commissioned by EWG found the toxic PFAS chemicals in the drinking water of dozens of U.S. cities. Some of the highest PFAS levels detected were in samples from major metropolitan areas, including Miami, Philadelphia, New Orleans and the northern New Jersey suburbs of New York City.

Drawing on results from those tests and new academic research that found PFAS widespread in rainwater, EWG scientists believe PFAS is likely detectable in all major water supplies in the U.S., almost certainly in all that use surface water. EWG's tests also found chemicals from the PFAS family that are not commonly tested for in drinking water.

EWG's tap water samples, collected from May to December 2019, were analyzed for the presence of 30 different PFAS compounds by an accredited independent laboratory. That's five times as many chemicals as were tested for, from 2014 to 2015, in an EPA-mandated program that grossly underreported the true extent of contamination. On average, six or seven different PFAS chemicals were detected in samples.

In addition to elevated risk of cancer, exposure to PFAS chemicals is also linked to other serious health concerns, including reproductive and developmental harms, and reduced effectiveness of vaccines. Independent scientific studies have recommended a safe level for PFAS in drinking water of 1 part per trillion, a standard that is endorsed by EWG.

A new study in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute, published by Oxford University Press, finds improvements in five-year survival rates for all cancers in young adults. For some cancers, however, there has been little improvement since the 1970s.

Over the past several decades, treatment of cancer in adolescents and young adults (people between age 15 and 39) has evolved significantly, leading to steady improvements in estimated survival rates.

Researchers here found that, among 282,969 five-year young adult cancer survivors, five-year mortality (from five through ten years after diagnosis) from all causes decreased from 8.3% among those diagnosed in 1975-1984 to 5.4% among those diagnosed in 2005-2011. However, for specific cancer types, including colorectal, bone, sarcomas, cervical/uterine, and bladder, there was little improvement in mortality over time. Researchers here found some reduction in late mortality in Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma, leukemia, central nervous system tumors, melanoma, breast cancer, and kidney cancer.

Some of the most obvious improvements in mortality over time were observed among young adult survivors of hematologic malignancies and central nervous system tumors, cancer types that are also predominant among children and have therefore been the focus of considerable cancer research in recent decades. Notably, the mortality rate among five-year young adult leukemia survivors dropped from over 25% to less than 5% between patients treated in the late 1970s and early 1980s and those treated more recently. Reductions in mortality over were also pronounced for survivors of lymphomas and central nervous system tumors, cancer types with some of the highest mortality rates. These findings show the impact of new treatments for patients with these cancers.

Although improvements in mortality rates have been more dramatic for children and older adults with cancer, findings from these reports indicate that early survival among young adults has improved steadily over the past several decades. Reported five-year survival gains likely reflect, in large part, the impact of advances in therapy for several of the most common cancers in young adults.

Researcher quote "It is important that we monitor trends in survival not only among recently diagnosed patients, but also among survivors who are several years beyond their initial cancer diagnosis," said the paper's lead author, Chelsea Anderson. "There have been substantial improvements over the past several decades for five-year survivors, though some cancer types have not shared in these improvements. Survivors of these cancer types may therefore be priority groups for efforts to improve long-term surveillance to reduce late mortality from cancer among adolescents and young adults."

BINGHAMTON, N.Y. - Research led by faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York has revealed the most effective hospital-based methods for reducing readmission rates.

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act requires the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to penalize hospitals by reimbursing them at lower rates for what they consider excess readmissions when compared to expected levels of readmissions.

According to the American Hospital Association, since the start of the program in October 2012, hospitals have experienced nearly $1.9 billion in penalties.

As a result, hospital organizations nationwide have implemented various hospital readmission reduction programs (HRRPs) over the past several years to improve health outcomes for patients and control costs. Some examples of HRRPs include collaborating with certified home healthcare agencies; using telehealth programs, post-discharge phone calls or house-call programs; implementing interdisciplinary case-management or discharge-planning programs; and creating partnerships with primary care practices.

Binghamton University researcher Michele Summers decided to investigate which of these programs is the most effective. She confined the research to hospitals within upstate New York, investigating 94 facilities across 53 counties ranging from rural to metropolitan status. She also restricted the study to HRRPs aimed at patients admitted with heart failure or pneumonia.

"I chose heart failure and pneumonia because those are two of the most common diagnoses requiring hospital admission," she said.

First, Summers gathered data regarding which, if any, HRRPs the hospital organizations used. For facilities with an interdisciplinary case-management team, she further identified whether there was a registered nurse or advanced-practice registered nurse (a nurse with post-graduate nursing education) on or leading the team. Then, she analyzed the relationship between the type and number of HRRPs used by the hospital organization and the facility's readmission and reimbursement outcomes.

Results from the study showed that collaborating with home healthcare agencies, using telehealth or implementing house calls for follow-up with post-discharge patients lowered the incidence of readmission for patients who had previously been hospitalized for heart failure or pneumonia. In addition, Summers found that facilities that employed more than one HRRP also had lower rates for readmission. Finally, the research also indicated that including an advanced practice nurse on interdisciplinary case-management teams resulted in better patient outcomes and lower readmission rates.

Summers was particularly happy to see house-call programs get good results. These initiatives bring nurse practitioners or physicians into the patient's home for care following discharge.

"Of all the different programs I looked at, house calls had the most significant impact on decreasing reimbursement penalties in hospitals located in primary care provider shortage areas," Summer said.

As a nurse practitioner with a home-care background, Summers hopes to design a house-call intervention program and test it in the area.

"I think it would be wise for hospitals to develop programs that provide house calls," she said. "The organizations that do this are saving money because they're getting fewer penalties due to readmissions. It's an investment up front, but there can be a huge return on that investment."

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. - Make them tougher by making them weaker.

That's the proposed solution from a Purdue University research team - well-known for its adhesive technology.

"We have been using inspiration from sea creatures to develop several new adhesives," said Jonathan Wilker, a Purdue professor of chemistry and materials engineering, who helps lead the research team. "Recently we have been seeking strategies for making adhesives tougher. One way to get there can be viewed as making the materials tougher by, first, making them weaker."

The Purdue team added bonds that are broken easily throughout the material. When pressure or stress is applied to the glue, these sacrificial bonds are designed to absorb energy and break apart. Meanwhile, the rest of the larger adhesive system remains intact.

The Purdue team's work is published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

"The idea is somewhat similar to how a brick wall is made of bricks that are offset from each other," Wilker said. "You stagger the bricks and cement so that a crack does not shoot right down through the cement lines. A crack hits the middle of a brick and the forces get spread out toward both sides, eventually decreasing to the point that the wall stays intact.

"We added weak bonds within the adhesive so that mechanical forces and growing cracks lose energy by breaking these bonds instead of having the whole, larger material fracture. The idea is to manage how energy moves through the material. The overall adhesive system can become tougher and less likely to break apart when placed under mechanical stress."

Wilker's team tested this idea with several types of bonds. The ones that worked best were neither too weak nor too strong. He said that this technique for managing energy in adhesives might be a general phenomenon that could be applied to adhesives in industries ranging from consumer electronics to construction to manufacturing airplanes and automobiles.

The team has hundreds of mussels and oysters growing in its laboratory for studying proteins used by the sea creatures attaching to rocks. After working to understand the nature of these natural adhesives, the researchers then generate several synthetic versions with different properties.

They have worked to patent several of their toxin-free adhesive systems with the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization, which recently moved into the Convergence Center for Innovation and Collaboration in Discovery Park District.

The researchers are looking for partners to continue developing their technology. For more information on licensing and other opportunities, contact Joseph Kasper of OTC at jrkasper@prf.org.

A caesarean birth had little impact on whether a child would go onto develop allergies, a new study led by the Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI) has shown.

The research, published in the Archives of Disease in Childhood journal, found only a small link between caesarean delivery and asthma and no association between the delivery method and eczema or lung function.

The research team, headed by MCRI's Professor Melissa Wake and Dr Rachel Peters, used parent-reported asthma and eczema data drawn from the HealthNuts study (3135 participants) and the Longitudinal Study of Australian Children (3654 participants) at age 6-7 years and lung function data from Child Health CheckPoint study (1502 participants) at age 11-12 years.

Professor Wake said previous data from the 1990s suggesting a link between caesarean delivery and childhood allergic diseases such as eczema, asthma and poor lung function had warranted further examination.

"Scientists are racing to find out what's behind the epidemic of allergy affecting our kids," she said.

"One possibility is caesarean delivery, because rates of allergy and caesarean have rocketed up together since the 1990s. It's plausible, because a healthy start to a good immune system includes a baby's exposure to the mother's microbiome - bacteria, fungi, protozoa and viruses that live on and inside the body - during a normal delivery."

Dr Peters said both caesarean delivery and childhood allergic disease have rapidly risen over the past 30 years.

"The global caesarean rate is higher than 20 per cent, and North America, East Asia and the Pacific regions, including Australia, all now have caesarean rates around 30 per cent. At the same time, rates of asthma and eczema in children aged 6-7 years globally are 12 per cent and 8 per cent respectively, with higher prevalence reported in Australia (20 per cent and 17 per cent)," Dr Peters said.

"Our study gives parents confidence that if they want or need to have a caesarean birth, their child is unlikely to be at higher risk of having eczema and poor lung function than children delivered vaginally," Dr Peters said. "And only a possible small risk of developing asthma."

Climate change is heating the oceans, which affects billions of marine microbes in ways scientists don't fully understand. In response, USC researchers have developed a model to forecast how these important organisms will adapt to warming seas.

Oceans substantially shape life and climate on Earth. Marine microorganisms are responsible for producing half of the oxygen that we breathe. The oceans sequester vast amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere -- taking up about 30% of human-derived CO2. Fisheries, which are supported by marine microorganisms, contribute to food and income for about 820 million people worldwide, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

Those vital tasks and more are accomplished by plants and animals so tiny that thousands could swim in a teaspoon. In many ways, what Earth will look like in 50 to 100 years depends on how these tiny creatures respond to a changing climate.

"Microorganisms are critical to life on earth," said Naomi Levine, assistant professor of biological and Earth sciences at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and senior author of a new study about marine microbes. "The oceans are changing, but we don't know what future ocean ecosystems will look like because we don't know how these organisms will respond to changes."

Researchers at USC -- in collaboration with scientists at the University of Edinburgh and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) -- developed a predictive model to estimate how those microbes will adapt. Previously, the future of ocean systems has proven very complex to predict at the level of microscopic organisms living in the sea. However, this model provides a simple framework that can be used to understand the adaptation of different types of microorganisms to numerous variables, including human-derived changes in marine environments. It is also freely available to other scientists around the world.

Tweaking simulations of future ocean conditions, Levine and colleagues discovered marine microbes responded in two ways. Some microbes changed easily; suited for success in the short run, they thrived with little preparation for the future. Meanwhile, competitors -- pushed to the margins for a spell -- evolved to position for rapid proliferation over the long run once temperatures stabilized at a higher level.

"It's like a tortoise and hare comparison, two different strategies to finishing the race," Levine said.

Their findings appear today in Proceedings of the Natural Academy of Sciences.

This genetic turn of the tables shows how climate change works as a selective pressure on the evolution of marine microbes. While the study looks at two specific scenarios, the tool USC scientists developed has wider utility.

In addition, the study results show the importance of the interplay between physical and biological time intervals in determining evolutionary outcomes, which is valuable information to include in other models of global carbon cycles now being used to forecast climate change.

The UK's National Health Service (NHS) needs to do more to address the ingrained stigma and discrimination faced by people with obesity, says a leading health psychologist.

Although it is a problem rooted in wider society, Dr Stuart Flint, Associate Professor in the Psychology of Obesity at the University of Leeds, says negative attitudes around weight gain are pervasive in the NHS and they can affect the way patients are treated.

Writing a Comment article in The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology to mark World Obesity Day (March 4th), Dr Flint argues: "A core value of the NHS is to provide a comprehensive service that is available to all.

"Despite this core value, many processes prevent it from being achieved.

"For instance, weight stigma and discrimination are common within healthcare settings and affects the quality of care that patients receive."

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Obesity has reported that only one in four people with obesity said they were being treated with dignity and respect by health professionals when they sought advice or treatment for their weight.

Ignorance about the scientific causes of weight gain is part of the problem. Dr Flint says many people hold stereotypes where they believe individuals are responsible for their own weight gain because they are either lazy or greedy.

"Attributions of personal responsibility can lead to bias... with a person's health status perceived to be within an individual's control, which leads to fault and blame," he writes.

However research shows that obesity is "...a complex, multifaceted health condition that can be caused by, for instance, by genetics, epigenetics, biological, environmental, and societal factors."

Dr Flint also compared the narrative around obesity with that for cancer in the NHS long term plan, highlighting that the language and framing of obesity may also contribute to weight stigma.

"The most striking difference is that the language used about cancer is positive, reflecting optimism and hope," he says. "When compared with obesity, the language is negative, reflecting pessimism, fear and unpleasantness."

For example, people with cancer are discussed as survivors whereas obesity is seen as a burden.

Earlier this week, Dr Flint launched a list of dos and don'ts to help MPs avoid loaded language when they discuss obesity.

The list suggests:

Use object descriptions such as "weight" or "excess weight"

Put people first - do not use 'obese people' but 'people with obesity'

Be accurate in the description of the complex causes of weight gain

Do not to imply there is a group of people who do not wish to manage their weight.

The guidelines were drawn up in partnership with the charity Obesity UK and MPs on the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Obesity.

Mary Glindon, Labour MP for North Tyneside and chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group, said: "Current efforts to reduce obesity simply aren't working.

"Weight stigma acts as a barrier to people with obesity seeking help and getting treatment.

"These guidelines will help MPs to lead the way in changing the way we speak about obesity, help to promote a wider understanding of the complexities of obesity, and help us move away from damaging stereotypes.

"Reducing obesity is not necessarily all about eating less and moving more."

March 3, 2020 --The fierce national debate over health care reform includes deep divisions over the appropriate roles of the federal and state governments. For example, while Sen Bernie Sanders (I-VT) calls for expanding the federal Medicare program to cover all Americans, the Trump administration pushes for the states to have far greater authority. However, according to Michael Sparer, JD, PhD, chair of health policy and management at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) points towards a more effective inter-governmental partnership, one in which the states have significant policy and administrative discretion, bounded by strong national standards designed to limit unacceptable inequities.

In a policy paper titled "Federalism And The ACA: Lessons For The 2020 Health Policy Debate" in a special issue of the journal Health Affairs, Professor Sparer writes: "States are too prominent and too engaged in every aspect of the nation's health care system not to insist on playing an important ongoing role." Proposals to eliminate a significant state role are both unlikely to be enacted and at odds with 250 years of American history. But he adds that future reforms also need strong national standards to guarantee the desired policy outcome (such as universal coverage) and to limit unacceptable inter-state inequities

The ACA offers several models for combining centralized and state-based approaches for policy makers to develop the next generation of health reform, notes Sparer, and each of them could achieve universal coverage without eliminating the private insurance system. Indeed, rather than abandoning the ACA, reformers ought to recognize that the law suggests "the sort of intergovernmental partnership that just might lead to a US version of affordable universal coverage.

On March 10th Professor Sparer will take part in a briefing in Washington hosted by the journal. Here is more information. Registration is free.