Culture

Imagine an attractive person walking toward you. Do you look up and smile? Turn away? Approach but avoid eye contact? The setup is the same, but the outcomes depend entirely on your "internal state," which includes your mood, your past experiences, and countless other variables that are invisible to someone watching the scene.

So how can an observer decode internal states by watching outward behaviors? That was the challenge facing a team of Princeton neuroscientists. Rather than tackling the intricacies of human brains, they investigated fruit flies with fewer behaviors and, one imagines, fewer internal states. They built on prior work studying the songs and movements of amorous Drosophila melanogaster males.

"Our previous work was able to predict a portion of singing behaviors, but by estimating the fly's internal state, we can accurately predict what the male will sing over time as he courts a female," said Mala Murthy, a professor of neuroscience and the senior author on a paper appearing in today's issue of Nature Neuroscience with co-authors Jonathan Pillow, a professor of psychology and neuroscience, and PNI postdoctoral research fellow Adam Calhoun.

Their models use observable variables like the speed of the male or his distance to the female. The researchers identified three separate types of songs, generated by wing vibration, plus the choice not to sing. They then linked the song decisions to the observable variables.

The key was building a machine learning model with a new expectation: animals don't change their behaviors at random, but based on a combination of feedback that they are getting from the female and the state of their own nervous system. Using their new method, they discovered that males pattern their songs in three distinct ways, each lasting tens to hundreds of milliseconds. They named each of the three states: "Close," when a male is closer than average to a female and approaching her slowly; "Chasing," when he is approaching quickly; and "Whatever," when he is facing away from her and moving slowly. The researchers showed that these states correspond to distinct strategies, and then they identified neurons that can control how the males switch between strategies.

"This is an important breakthrough," said Murthy. "We anticipate that this modeling framework will be widely used for connecting neural activity with natural behavior."

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Poets and songwriters may tend to focus their artistry on passion and romance, but it may be those unsung, brief feelings of love throughout the day that are connected with psychological well-being, according to a team of researchers led by two Penn State Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS) researchers. They added that the findings could one day lead to interventions aimed at boosting well-being.

In two studies, the researchers found that people who experienced higher "felt love" -- brief experiences of love and connection in everyday life -- also had significantly higher levels of psychological well-being, which includes feelings of purpose and optimism, compared to those who had lower felt love scores. They also found that people with higher felt love tended to have higher extraversion personality scores, while people with lower felt love scores were more likely to show signs of neuroticism.

"We took a very broad approach when we looked at love," said Zita Oravecz, assistant professor of human development and family studies and ICDS faculty co-hire. "Everyday felt love is conceptually much broader than romantic love. It's those micro-moments in your life when you experience resonance with someone. For example, if you're talking to a neighbor and they express concern for your well-being, then you might resonate with that and experience it as a feeling of love, and that might improve your well-being."

According to the researchers, the baseline of the subjects' felt love experiences, in general, rose throughout the study, suggesting that the nudges to recognize examples of love and connection during the study may also have gradually increased the subjects' overall sense of being loved. Stronger experiences of felt love, in turn, are associated with improvements in psychological well-being.

"It's something that we've seen in the literature on mindfulness, when people are reminded to focus attention on positive things, their overall awareness of those positive things begins to rise," said Oravecz. "Similarly, just by paying attention to those everyday moments of felt love, we may also increase our awareness of the overall positive aspects of love in our daily lives. This effect replicates in both studies, implying that raising awareness of felt love in day-to-day life may itself be an intervention that raises levels of felt love over a longer period of time."

The researchers, who report their findings in the current issue of Personality and Individual Differences, added that because the studies have only shown a correlation between felt love and well-being, more research would be needed to establish a causal relationship. If a firmer connection is established, the researchers said possible interventions could be designed, such as sending regular reminders to a person's smartphone to draw attention to the felt love that they may be experiencing in that moment to raise psychological well-being. Similar interventions have been designed for mindfulness and gratitude.

The team relied on smartphone technology to gather data from participants throughout their everyday lives. In the first study, they recruited 52 people of various ages. The second study consisted of 160 undergraduate students. Participants received six random prompts throughout the day over a four-week period to assess felt love and well-being, according to Timothy Brick, assistant professor of human development and family studies and ICDS co-hire. He added that sending these messages randomly throughout the day was critical to manage the possible effects of expectation bias.

"It's important from a research point-of-view," said Brick. "If the participants expect a call or a text at a certain time of day, they are no longer reacting to what's going on in their daily life, but are expecting the prompt and reacting to that expectation."

Gathering data multiple times throughout the day from more than 200 subjects over a month can produce a lot of data, said Brick. Also, these everyday experiences of love tend to fluctuate during the study, which can result in what the researchers termed "noisy" data.

"It's often very difficult to measure psychological quantities because we don't always have a great idea about what's going on in our own heads," said Brick.

Oravecz added, "But with the right statistical methods, we can start to get at questions about difficult constructs like love or compassion, and hopefully build interventions to promote them."

To analyze this large amount of noisy data, the researchers used nuanced statistical tools. According to Oravecz, the researchers specifically used a Bayesian latent stochastic differential equations model to cut through the noise in the data and identify processes happening underneath. This method is especially suited to help scientists investigate intricate social systems, which often involve relationships that generate complex, highly variable data, she said.

According to the researchers, this statistical method may be used more as social scientists begin to gather large amounts of real-world data from sensors on wearable devices. The researchers used computational resources of ICDS's advanced computer infrastructure for their analysis.

(Philadelphia, PA) - Boosting brain function is key to staving off the effects of aging. And if there was one thing every person should consider doing right now to keep their brain young, it is to add extra virgin olive oil (EVOO) to their diet, according to research by scientists at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM). EVOO is a superfood, rich in cell-protecting antioxidants and known for its multiple health benefits, including helping put the brakes on diseases linked to aging, most notably cardiovascular disease. Previous LKSOM research on mice also showed that EVOO preserves memory and protects the brain against Alzheimer's disease.

In a new study in mice published online in the journal Aging Cell, LKSOM scientists show that yet another group of aging-related diseases can be added to that list - tauopathies, which are characterized by the gradual buildup of an abnormal form of a protein called tau in the brain. This process leads to a decline in mental function, or dementia. The findings are the first to suggest that EVOO can defend against a specific type of mental decline linked to tauopathy known as frontotemporal dementia.

Alzheimer's disease is itself one form of dementia. It primarily affects the hippocampus - the memory storage center in the brain. Frontotemporal dementia affects the areas of the brain near the forehead and ears. Symptoms typically emerge between ages 40 and 65 and include changes in personality and behavior, difficulties with language and writing, and eventual deterioration of memory and ability to learn from prior experience.

Senior investigator Domenico Praticò, MD, Scott Richards North Star Foundation Chair for Alzheimer's Research, Professor in the Departments of Pharmacology and Microbiology, and Director of the Alzheimer's Center at Temple at LKSOM, describes the new work as supplying another piece in the story about EVOO's ability to ward off cognitive decline and to protect the junctions where neurons come together to exchange information, which are known as synapses.

"EVOO has been a part of the human diet for a very long time and has many benefits for health, for reasons that we do not yet fully understand," he said. "The realization that EVOO can protect the brain against different forms of dementia gives us an opportunity to learn more about the mechanisms through which it acts to support brain health."

In previous work using a mouse model in which animals were destined to develop Alzheimer's disease, Dr. Praticò's team showed that EVOO supplied in the diet protected young mice from memory and learning impairment as they aged. Most notably, when the researchers looked at brain tissue from mice fed EVOO, they did not see features typical of cognitive decline, particularly amyloid plaques - sticky proteins that gum up communication pathways between neurons in the brain. Rather, the animals' brains looked normal.

The team's new study shows that the same is true in the case of mice engineered to develop tauopathy. In these mice, normal tau protein turns defective and accumulates in the brain, forming harmful tau deposits, also called tangles. Tau deposits, similar to amyloid plaques in Alzheimer's disease, block neuron communication and thereby impair thinking and memory, resulting in frontotemporal dementia.

Tau mice were put on a diet supplemented with EVOO at a young age, comparable to about age 30 or 40 in humans. Six months later, when mice were the equivalent of age 60 in humans, tauopathy-prone animals experienced a 60 percent reduction in damaging tau deposits, compared to littermates that were not fed EVOO. Animals on the EVOO diet also performed better on memory and learning tests than animals deprived of EVOO.

When Dr. Praticò and colleagues examined brain tissue from EVOO-fed mice, they found that improved brain function was likely facilitated by healthier synapse function, which in turn was associated with greater-than-normal levels of a protein known as complexin-1. Complexin-1 is known to play a critical role in maintaining healthy synapses.

Dr. Praticò and colleagues now plan to explore what happens when EVOO is fed to older animals that have begun to develop tau deposits and signs of cognitive decline, which more closely reflects the clinical scenario in humans. "We are particularly interested in knowing whether EVOO can reverse tau damage and ultimately treat tauopathy in older mice," Dr. Praticò added.

Longevity genes that helped humans survive ancient airborne toxins may be the same genes that make humans resilient to pollution from fossil fuels and cigarette smoke today, according to a study published in the December 2019 issue of The Quarterly Review of Biology. In "The Exposome in Human Evolution: From Dust to Diesel," Ben Trumble (Arizona State University) and Caleb Finch (University of Southern California) examine the myriad toxins that humans have encountered through our evolutionary history and the immunity-related genes that have countered their harmful effects. "We hypothesize that adaptation to ancient pathogens and airborne toxins may, in some cases, be protecting us today from novel airborne pollutants such as cigarettes and diesel smoke," Trumble and Finch write. "Further inquiry into these unexplored domains of genetic processes may inform the future of human health and longevity during global warming."

Trumble and Finch's paper is a detailed examination of the human exposome - the interactions between human genes and the various environmental hazards we encountered through our evolutionary history. Each new environmental hazard posed a unique threat to humans and was addressed with various genes related to immunity. The authors focused in particular on genes of host defense and brain development during the evolution of the long human lifespan.

As human ancestors diverged from great apes, they encountered an array of new environmental hazards. First, as sub-Saharan Africa shifted from forest to savanna, humans breathed mineral dust and fecal aerosols from roaming herd animals and ingested pathogens from rotting meat. With the discovery of fire, humans were exposed to toxins from smoke and the charred meat that they cooked. Later, as hunting and gathering gave way to an agricultural life, humans were exposed to new toxins from domesticated animals and limited sanitation in dense living quarters. Although an understanding of infectious disease and hygiene emerged, the industrial revolution ushered in the modern-day hazards airborne pollutants and cigarettes.

Trumble and Finch found that some genes appear to have provided benefits through long stretches of evolutionary time and in very different environments. The gene AHR appears to have made archaic humans more resistant to toxins in domestic cooking fires than their Neandertal counterparts. "AHR is important in detoxifying response to modern domestic smoke, including responses to cigarette smoke," they write. "We hypothesize that genetic adaptations to ancient airborne toxins may play important roles in ameliorating the effects of exposures today, including the survival of some elderly lifetime cigarette smokers."

Many other genes grew to lose their benefits over time, or, in the case of ApoE, became dependent on the environment in determining which version is the most beneficial. The ancestral version of ApoE was highly beneficial for survival in environments with high levels of infection. However, it also negatively impacts artery and brain aging, and is associated with shorter life spans. A newer version of the gene appears to have more beneficial effects, including lower cholesterol in meat-eating populations. The fact that the ancestral version of ApoE is still prevalent in the population is an important example of the human environment changing faster than our gene pools can keep up, Trumble and Finch write. It may regain its adaptive value, however, as global warming promotes the recurrence of global infections through the expansion of insect populations, such as malaria-carrying mosquitoes.

Understanding the extent of these historical gene-environment interactions is key to meeting future global health challenges. "Understanding the full breadth and history of the human exposome will inform the future of human health and longevity during the emerging ecological shifts from dust to diesel and beyond."

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Oregon State University research has provided the first complete, cellular-level look at what's going on in joints afflicted by osteoarthritis, a debilitating and costly condition that affects nearly one-quarter of adults in the United States.

The study, published today in Nature Biomedical Engineering, opens the door to better understanding how interventions such as diet, drugs and exercise affect a joint's cells, which is important because cells do the work of developing, maintaining and repairing tissue.

Research by the OSU College of Engineering's Brian Bay and scientists from the Royal Veterinary College in London and University College London developed a sophisticated scanning technique to view the "loaded" joints of arthritic and healthy mice - loaded means under strain, such as an ankle, knee or elbow would be while running, walking, throwing, etc.

"Imaging techniques for quantifying changes in arthritic joints have been constrained by a number of factors," said Bay, associate professor of mechanical engineering. "Restrictions on sample size and the length of scanning time are two of them, and the level of radiation used in some of the techniques ultimately damages or destroys the samples being scanned. Nanoscale resolution of intact, loaded joints had been considered unattainable."

Bay and a collaboration that also included scientists from 3Dmagination Ltd (UK), Edinburgh Napier University, the University of Manchester, the Research Complex at Harwell and the Diamond Light Source developed a way to conduct nanoscale imaging of complete bones and whole joints under precisely controlled loads.

To do that, they had to enhance resolution without compromising the field of view; reduce total radiation exposure to preserve tissue mechanics; and prevent movement during scanning.

"With low-dose pink-beam synchrotron X-ray tomography, and mechanical loading with nanometric precision, we could simultaneously measure the structural organization and functional response of the tissues," Bay said. "That means we can look at joints from the tissue layers down to the cellular level, with a large field of view and high resolution, without having to cut out samples."

Two features of the study make it particularly helpful in advancing the study of osteoarthritis, he said.

"Using intact bones and joints means all of the functional aspects of the complex tissue layering are preserved," Bay said. "And the small size of the mouse bones leads to imaging that is on the scale of the cells that develop, maintain and repair the tissues."

Osteoarthritis, the degeneration of joints, affects more than 50 million American adults, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Women are affected at nearly a 25% rate, while 18% of men suffer from osteoarthritis.

As baby boomers continue to swell the ranks of the U.S. senior population, the prevalence of arthritis will likely increase in the coming decades, according to the CDC.

The CDC forecasts that by 2040 there will be 78 million arthritis patients, more than one-quarter of the projected total adult population; two-thirds of those with arthritis are expected to be women. Also by 2040, more than 34 million adults in the U.S. will have activity limitations due to arthritis.

"Osteoarthritis will affect most of us during our lifetimes, many to the point where a knee joint or hip joint requires replacement with a costly and difficult surgery after enduring years of disability and pain," Bay said. "Damage to the cartilage surfaces is associated with failure of the joint, but that damage only becomes obvious very late in the disease process, and cartilage is just the outermost layer in a complex assembly of tissues that lie deep below the surface."

Those deep tissue layers are where early changes occur as osteoarthritis develops, he said, but their basic biomechanical function and the significance of the changes are not well understood.

"That has greatly hampered knowing the basic disease process and the evaluation of potential therapies to interrupt the long, uncomfortable path to joint replacement," Bay said.

Bay first demonstrated the tissue strain measurement technique 20 years ago, and it is growing in prominence as imaging has improved. Related work is being conducted for intervertebral discs and other tissues with high rates of degeneration.

"This study for the first time connects measures of tissue mechanics and the arrangement of the tissues themselves at the cellular level," Bay said. "This is a significant advance as methods for interrupting the osteoarthritis process will likely involve controlling cellular activity. It's a breakthrough in linking the clinical problem of joint failure with the most basic biological mechanisms involved in maintaining joint health."

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Even when both male and female college students say they want to pursue a major with the best earnings prospects, the majors men choose are higher paying than the majors women choose.

In a new study, sociologist Natasha Quadlin of The Ohio State University found that "the logics of major choice" may lead women to select different majors from men, despite having similar preferences.

"Even when women place great emphasis on earnings, other preferences may ultimately win out for them," said Quadlin, assistant professor of sociology at Ohio State.

One possible competing preference: finding a field that's a good fit.

The study appears online in the journal Sociology of Education.

Quadlin used data from the Pathways through College Study, which surveyed 2,720 students from three higher education institutions that had programs intended to attract and retain STEM majors.

Each student was asked during their first term to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 how important four considerations were to them when selecting a major: money earned, career options, engaging classes, and helping others.

Students later reported which major they selected. Quadlin also used federal data to examine the earnings associated with each major.

"The pattern was clear: The majors men choose are associated with significantly higher earning than the majors women choose - regardless of men's and women's major preferences," she said.

So when men and women both prioritize economic returns in their preferences for a major, men still choose majors that pay more.

But even when men and women prioritized other preferences for their major - such as helping people - men still chose higher-paying majors, the findings showed.

For example, men who said they wanted a major where they could help people were more likely than women to choose biology, a pre-med major, because they thought doctors helped people. But women who wanted to help people were more likely than men to choose nursing.

"Nursing is a relatively high-paying job, but it generally doesn't pay as much as doctors can earn," Quadlin said.

Why do women choose different majors from men, even when they share the same preferences?

One reason may have to do with what jobs men and women think are realistic for them, said Quadlin.

"There's research that suggests men and women have very different ideas about what types of careers and fields are open and available to them," she said.

"Some STEM careers that pay the most may not be as receptive to women as they are to men, so women adjust what majors they select."

The result is that women who are motivated to make a lot of money choose majors that are relatively high-paying, but also more open and available to women, Quadlin said.

The results of the study suggest that attracting women to STEM may not be as easy as changing their preferences, because changing their preferences may not lead them to actually choose the STEM careers they're encouraged to select.

"You may not be able to attract women to high-paying STEM careers just by telling them it is a way to make a lot of money or a way to help other people," Quadlin said.

"Instead, we may have more to do with changing the culture around STEM so that women feel the field is more open and receptive to them."

NEW YORK, NY (November 25, 2019). The Thanksgiving holiday season is traditionally the busiest travel time of the year, and 2019 is expected to be busier than ever before. There will be more than
31.6 million passengers in the air, according to trade group Airlines for America. Knowing the "best" and "worst" choices is a valuable tool for any traveler, so Dr. Charles Platkin, editor of DietDetective.com and the Executive Director of the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center, once again studied the best "Calorie Bargains" and "Calorie Rip-offs" at 35,000 feet.

DietDetective.com and the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center
have released the 2019-20 Airline Food Study, rating foods for eleven (11) airlines. The study assigned a "Health Score" (5 stars = highest rated, 0 star = lowest rated) based on criteria including healthy nutrients and calorie levels of meals, snack boxes and individual snacks, level of transparency (display of nutrient information, menu online & ingredients), improvement and maintenance of healthy offerings, menu innovation and cooperation in providing nutritional information, overall sodium levels, availability of meals on flights under 3 hours, and our Airline Water Health Score. The study includes health ratings, average calories per airline, comments, best bets, food offerings, costs, and nutrition information (e.g., calories, carbs, fats, protein, sodium and exercise equivalents).
See the full study at DietDetective.com

"This year Alaska and Air Canada share the top spot as the airlines with the 'healthiest' food choices in the sky, with Delta and JetBlue tied for second," says Charles Platkin, Ph.D., JD, MPH, the executive director of the Hunter College NYC Food Policy Center
and editor of DietDetective.com.

Here are the major airline food headlines:

Alaska
Airlines and Air Canada pull to the top for a tie this year as the healthiest airlines.

Average Calories Same as Last Year: The average number of calories per menu item was 373 calories in 2018 and this year it is almost the same at 375 calories. But keep in mind, calories are not everything; the study also looks at the nutrient content of these foods, as well as innovations moving towards healthier, tastier, less expensive and more sustainable choices.

Alaska Airlines is the clear leader in making strides to minimize its
environmental impact. It was the first to replace plastic straws with paper ones and continues to look for eco-friendly substitutions. Alaska has also launched a #FillBeforeYouFly campaign to encourage flyers to bring their own water bottles and fill them up at water-filling stations in the airport to reduce the use of plastic cups and water bottles on board.

Shame On You Award goes to Hawaiian for not providing ALL their nutritional information for the study, and to the EPA for not providing penalty information on galley water violations when requested.

Sodium Matters: Sodium is often used by food providers to boost flavor, especially in the air where senses can be dulled. The average airline meal contains more than 800mg of sodium, which is more than 40 percent of the daily limit of 2000mg set by the World Health Organization. Also, note that in addition to health-related concerns, sodium can make you feel and look bloated because you retain extra water. Watch out for high levels of sodium throughout all airline menus.

Mini-Meals: Full meals or "mini-meal" options are better bets than eating individual snacks, which generally have little nutritional value.

Short Flights Matter: We urge airlines to provide meals or allow for preorder on shorter flights so that passengers have the option to eat a healthy meal no matter how long they're in the air. Keep in mind that a 90-minute flight can easily turn into a 5 or 6 hour travel experience when you include getting to the airport, TSA lines, waiting for the flight to take off, deplaning and getting to your final destination.

You Need to Know: We believe transparency around food is important for airlines. This means providing an up-to-date version of its menu online with all nutrient information (i.e., calories, fat, carbs, sugar, fiber, protein and sodium), including ingredients.

Taste Changes in Air: Research shows that our taste perception changes while in flight. Dr. Charles Spence from the University of Oxford found that the three factors impacting taste at such high altitudes are the lower cabin air pressure, lack of humidity and loud background noise. In-flight, air is recycled every few minutes and humidity is normally about 20 percent (compared to indoor relative humidity of 40 percent). With lower humidity and air pressure, we're likely to be thirstier, and there's naturally less moisture in the throat, which slows the transport of odors to the brain's smell and taste receptors.

Drink a lot of water. More salt, sugar and flavor enhancers (i.e. spices and herbs) are necessary to make meals inflight taste the way they do on the ground.

Watch Your Carbs: Eating lots of heavy carbs such as pasta with thick, dense sauces, breads, muffins or cakes will leave you feeling lethargic, cranky and not full or satisfied. Your blood sugar levels will spike and then fall, which will negatively impact your mood. The fact that food impacts mood, attitude and behavior has been well documented
in scientific literature.

Water Watch: This year we published an Airline Water Study highlighting the quality of water provided onboard. Each airline was given a Water Health Score, which has been factored into their overall score in this study. The study revealed that the quality of drinking water varies by airline, and many have provided passengers with unhealthy water. In general, it's probably best to avoid drinking
coffee and tea on board since they are made with galley water.

Here are the food-service offerings from several of the more popular airlines, along with Diet Detective's comments, ratings (Health Score: 5 = highest rating), calories, exercise equivalents (amount of walking required to burn off the food consumed) and personal favorites.

Summary of Health Ratings (5 is highest): Air Canada 4.0, Alaska Airlines 4.0, JetBlue 2.9, Delta 2.9, United Airlines 2.7, American 2.7, Frontier 2.0, Allegiant Air 1.9, Spirit Airlines 1.9, Hawaiian Airlines 1.9, Southwest Airlines 1.7

Air Canada

Cooperation in Providing Nutritional Information: Very Helpful

Health Score: 4.0 / 5

Fleet Size: 372

Onboard Water Health Score: N/A

Average Calories Overall (Individual Snacks, Snack Boxes, and Meals): 347

Average Individual Snack Calories: 308

Average Snack Box Calories: 590

Average Meal Calories: 376

Average Sodium Content Overall (Individual Snacks, Snack Boxes, and Meals): 544mg

Comments: The good news is that Air Canada has added several new items that show some serious health innovation, including the Grilled Chicken Summer Salad and the Wild Rice Superfood Salad. These are great mini-meals, much better than a traditional snack, and are low in calories with great nutrient content.

Air Canada also offers a Bento Express sushi California roll. And then there is the Freshii menu, which provides lower-calorie and higher-nutrient meal choices packed with more vegetables than many other airline options. Air Canada's meals are relatively healthy and available for trips that are more than 2 hours long. Providing real meals starting at 2 hours is not typical; most airlines start offering real meals at 3 or 4 hours, which is not great if you want to avoid unhealthy snacks. The bad news is that Air Canada needs to include all nutrient information and ingredients on its menu and online - there is no reason not to.

The average sodium content of 544mg for all of Air Canada's offerings is almost ten percent higher than the average among all airlines. However, the average sodium content for meals, at 620mg, is lower than the overall average for all airlines, which is 823mg.

Air Canada also has a larger selection of food items overall, which allows for several healthy options.

Best Bets: For breakfast, the Liberte Greek yogurt is still a good choice and will probably fill you up. The Avocado Smash Box, with fresh guacamole, hard-boiled egg, green apple slices, and multigrain muesli bread sounds amazing and also offers 23g of filling protein to keep you energized. You might want to skip the cheese though. Other best bets would be the new Grilled Chicken Summer Salad and the Wild Rice Superfood Salad, both of which are relatively low in calories and high in protein for a mini-meal. The chicken salad has 220 calories and 14 grams of protein (which helps to keep you full longer), and the wild rice is a close second with 260 calories and 8 grams of protein.

The Campbell's Chicken Noodle Soup is a low-calorie choice for a snack that will fill you up, but be wary of the 950mg of sodium if you are salt sensitive. The Celery & Carrots with Ranch Dip (if you use no more than half the dip) is still an OK choice. The Sabra Hummus is an OK choice if you share it, and the Sabra Guacamole appears to be healthy, but the Tostitos offer little nutritional value. The Krispy Kernels Natural Almonds come as a large portion but are still a better choice than most of the individual snacks.

If meals are available, the sushi California roll is a good choice. The Pangoa Bowl and the Sriracha Lime Wrap are both high-nutrient/ low-calorie choices. Skip the Smoked Meat Sandwich, since it has nearly an entire day's worth of sodium along with a high calorie content. And Air Canada needs to offer at least one healthy kids' meal.

Alaska Airlines

Cooperation in Providing Nutritional Information: Very Helpful

Health Score: 4.0 / 5

Fleet Size: 335

Onboard Water Health Score: 3.3 / 5

Average Calories Overall (Individual Snacks, Snack Boxes, and Meals): 359

Average Individual Snack Calories: 265

Average Snack Box Calories: 464

Average Meal Calories: 388

Average Sodium Content Overall (Individual Snacks, Snack Boxes, and Meals): 472mg

Comments:

Alaska Airlines has a variety of snacks, snack boxes, and meal offerings that include some better-for-you options. We applaud Alaska's transparency compared to other airlines, because its full menu and complete nutritional information are available online,
and on Alaska's app. However, the full ingredient list for each offering is still missing from the website. Although there are improvements to be made, Alaska Airlines has been a clear leader
for the past several years, and continues to be committed to healthy food. However, we'd like to see more of the airline's healthier options, some of which are now available only on flights of more than three hours, available on shorter flights as well.Still, the average number of Alaska's overall calories is 45 fewer than last year, and the average sodium content, which is 472mg overall, ranks close to the average of 497mg for all foods among all airlines.

One highlight is that Alaska is allowing for preordering of foods on their mobile app as well as on their website, so that passengers can reserve healthy foods in advance. Alaska is also a clear leader in environmental initiatives. It was the first airline to replace plastic straws and has launched a #FillBeforeYouFly campaign to encourage flyers to bring their own water bottles and fill them up at water-filling stations in the airport to reduce the use of plastic cups and water bottles on board (do not refill your water bottle on board).

Best Bets: Among the snack boxes, the Mediterranean Tapas hasn't changed much from last year and is still the healthiest choice. It has olives, hummus, almonds, dried fruit and even a dark chocolate bar. But keep in mind that 545 calories is a bit high for a "snack," so it would be best if you either shared the box or had it as a meal replacement. For kids (and their parents, because of nagging), the Kids' Choice Picnic Pack may be tempting, but it's always better for children (and adults) to eat a real meal.

Among individual snacks, the Beef Jerky is low in calories but very high in sodium. The Umpqua Oats Organic Apple Cranberry & Nut Oatmeal has 255 calories and 8 grams of protein, which makes it a healthier choice overall.

The breakfast offerings are a bit heavy and calorie-rich. The Fresh Start Protein Platter has 27 grams of protein, which is high (a good thing) for the number of calories in the platter (340 calories). The Signature Fruit and Cheese Platter also has 27 grams of protein; however, it also has 85 percent of the total amount of saturated fat you should have in a day, so you might want to skip half the cheese. And while you're at it, maybe skip half the crackers as well. There are fewer lunch/dinner choices this year, but the Fall Harvest Salad is a high-protein, low-calorie choice. When available, the Charge Up Protein Platter is also a great high-protein option.

JetBlue Airways

Cooperation in Providing Nutritional Information: Very Helpful

Health Score: 2.9 / 5

Fleet Size: 254

Onboard Water Health Score: 2.6 / 5

Average Calories Overall (Individual Snacks, Snack Boxes, and Meals): 295

Average Individual Snack Calories: 120

Average Snack Box Calories: 392

Average Meal Calories: 460

Average Sodium Content Overall (Individual Snacks, Snack Boxes, and Meals):547mg

Comments:

The best thing about JetBlue is that it posts all its nutritional information on its website; however, as of this study the information is not up-to-date. JetBlue has a few reasonably healthy meals on their EatUp Cafe menu; however, they are not offered on flights under 3 hours - not great. At least there are a few OK snack box choices that are available on flights of more than 2 hours. The airline needs to work on this. In addition, all JetBlue's free snacks are
unhealthy choices. I only wish that the airline would include apples and bananas in those snack baskets the flight attendants pass around. At least try it once. I would pay for the experiment (on one or two flights).

The average number of calories in JetBlue's food offerings has decreased from 323 last year to 295 this year - nice. However, the average sodium content of all food items is 547mg, which is higher than the average of 497mg across all airlines.

Best Bets:

The complimentary snacks aren't high in calories but they're low in nutritional value. The best bet would be to choose anything BUT the chocolate chip cookies. It's hard to believe, but Cheez-Its made with whole wheat flour and having only half the calories of the original version might be an OK choice compared to the others. Too bad. The problem is that the snacks are free; but that doesn't mean you need to take more than one. As for the EatUp boxes, the PickMeUp is lowest with 300 calories, but it's not necessarily the most nutritious. The SavorUp box features hummus, multigrain crackers and bean dip with Greek yogurt, and while it's high in calories, it's also loaded with good nutrition (e.g. fiber and protein). Also the FuelUp box is reasonably good, with almonds, dried apricots, apples, and an RX Bar. Have it as a meal though, not as a snack, and skip the biscotti to reduce low-nutrient calories, or share the box with a traveling companion. If you're on a flight that offers the EatUp Café, the Fresh Fruit and the Jicama and Grape Salad Shaker are very good choices. Skip the Ham & Cheese Croissant, which is very high in calories and sodium.

Delta Airlines

Cooperation in Providing Nutritional Information: Very Helpful

Health Score: 2.9 / 5

Fleet Size: 916

Onboard Water Health Score: 1.6 / 5

Average Calories Overall (Individual Snacks, Snack Boxes, and Meals): 424

Average Individual Snack Calories: 172
Average Snack Box Calories: 560

Average Meal Calories: 495

Average Sodium Content Overall (Individual Snacks, Snack Boxes, and Meals): 780mg

Comments:

It is nice that Delta provides our team with all the nutritional information for all foods, including sugar grams - nice. However,
as we said last year, we would still like Delta to post all nutritional information and ingredients for every meal--NOT just the Luvo Performance Kitchen meals--online and on its menu. Delta does include labels that alert people who have dietary restrictions (i.e. gluten-free, Kosher, vegetarian). However, full nutrition information should be accessible for improved transparency. We also urge Delta, and all airlines, to follow Air Canada's lead and include meals on flights of under 1300 miles or 3 hours in the air. Options like salads or other lighter fare are important even on shorter flights. If the airlines are worried about food waste, they can have passengers preorder.

Delta continues to work with Luvo's Performance Kitchen line, which has a very strong commitment to healthy eating. The bad news is that the Performance Kitchen items are no longer being offered as complimentary meals, and the remaining free meal options are not as healthy.

Delta's overall calorie average, now at 423, is 76 calories lower than it was last year - nice. But the average sodium content for all its food items is 780mg, one of the highest of any airline.

Best Bets: For a snack, your best bet is the almonds,
and you'll be surprised by how filling they are. Don't be fooled by the "whole grain" Cheez-It crackers - not a great choice even for free. Among snack boxes, the Tapas Box is an OK choice. Skip the rest of them. For breakfast, not the best choices, but it would probably be best to go for the Protein Box. Just eat only one of the two cheese offerings, and have it as a meal.

For lunch and dinner, go for whichever of the Performance Kitchen meals are offered in the direction you're flying - eastbound or westbound. The Mesquite-Smoked Turkey Combo is heavy on calories, carbs, and sodium. Among the complimentary lunch options (offered on cross-country flights) there is only one OK choice, which is the Tillamook Cheese and Fruit Box. For the complimentary dinner options (on cross-country flights), the Sesame Noodle Salad and the Greek Mezze Plate are good choices; however, they come with
the Tillamook Cheese and Fruit Box, which starts to get extremely high in sodium and calories. So if you choose that option, offer the cheeses to someone else. As for the complimentary dinner meals, avoid the Beef Pastrami Sandwich, which packs enough calories
for two meals and a whole day's worth of sodium. If your sandwich comes with a cookie, save the calories and give the cookie away.

United Airlines

Cooperation in Providing Nutritional Information: Somewhat Helpful

Health Score: 2.7 / 5

Fleet Size: 786

Onboard Water Health Score: 1.2 / 5

Average Calories Overall (Individual Snacks, Snack Boxes, and Meals): 320

Average Individual Snack Calories: 186

Average Snack Box Calories: 463

Average Meal Calories: 431

Average Sodium Content Overall (Individual Snacks, Snack Boxes, and Meals): 464mg

Comments:

United is improving for sure. The airline's average calories for all food items are significantly lower this year than they were last year, and the average sodium content is 464mg, which is lower than the average across all airlines. Also, the average meal calories are very reasonable at 431. The bad news is that there is no nutritional information on the website, no ingredients list, and United is still lagging behind other airlines on the environmental front (still using plastic straws and cups).

Best Bets:

The Beef Jerky and the Hummus are the only good bets for snacks. None of the complimentary snacks are healthy options, but if you must indulge, choose the pretzels. Get the Tapas snack box, which is high in calories but has many healthy foods, including almonds,
olives, hummus and bruschetta; just toss out the cheese spread, and share it unless you're eating it as a meal. Skip the Classic and Select snack boxes, and say no to the kids' snack box.

For breakfast, the Overnight Blackberry Vanilla Oats is an OK choice, but it does have 41g of sugar, while the Egg White & Chicken Sausage Flatbread Sandwich, with only 310 calories and 21g of protein, will keep you full longer. Avoid the Egg White Sandwich if you're sodium-sensitive.

For Lunch/Dinner, the Mezze Sampler, which has lots of veggies, hummus and grain, is your best bet.

American Airlines

Cooperation in Providing Nutritional Information: Mostly Helpful

Health Score: 2.7 / 5

Fleet Size: 968

Onboard Water Health Score: 1.5 / 5

Average Calories Overall (Meals, Snack Boxes and Individual Snacks): 481

Average Individual Snack Calories: 144

Average Snack Box Calories: 471

Average Meal Calories: 585

Average Sodium Content Overall (Meals, Snack Boxes and Individual Snacks): 678mg

Comments:

With more than 900 planes, American is a leading airline and should certainly make a more concerted effort to provide healthier food choices. We like its continued partnership with Zoe's Kitchen, a clean food company focusing on a Mediterranean diet, and we are glad the airline dropped the chocolate in the Hummus Duo, lowering the calories by 140 to a reasonable number, but they still need to serve healthier food. The Vegan Snack Box is good news, not just because it's vegan but because of the nice offerings it includes. The bad news is that the airline is still not publishing a menu with nutritional information on its website -- not good. Nor did American provide us with complete nutrition information (e.g. carbs, fats, protein and sodium). We appreciate the airline's responsiveness, but given its size,
it should have healthier menu options and provide online menus with full nutritional info and ingredients. Pringles are the only snack offered for purchase, not good. Come on, American--healthy food is good business, Have you heard of Whole Foods?

Overall, American's calories have increased from 417 last year to 481--not the right direction. And the sodium levels, at an average of 922mg for meals, is much higher than the already high average of 823mg for all airlines that serve meals. (Note: 2000mg is the World
Health Organization's daily limit.)

Best Bets:

The Continental Breakfast offering with Chobani Yogurt is a good choice (only available until Dec 1st, after which it's replaced by a high calorie Belgian waffle).The Breakfast Platter is an OK choice with hardboiled egg and apple slices, and on cross-country flights to/from San Francisco or LA and NYC, the complimentary Vegan Snack Box (oats) is a decent option. If you purchase lunch or dinner, the Harissa Chicken Wrap (without the cookie) seems to be the best option. The Hummus Duo is higher in calories and sodium, but it can be a good choice to share between two people unless you eat it as a meal.

The lunch/dinner version of the Vegan Snack Box (hummus) is also not bad if you're flying to/from San Francisco or LA and NY and you eat it as a meal. If you're trying to eat healthy, skip the chocolate chip cookie in all meals that come with one - it's 200 calories,
and not worth it. Avoid all the free or paid individual snacks and/or
snack boxes except for the two complimentary vegan boxes on flights where they are available (transcontinental).

Frontier Airlines

Cooperation in Providing Nutritional Information: Very Helpful

Health Score: 2.0 / 5

Fleet Size: 91

Onboard Water Health Score: 2.6 / 5

Average Calories Overall (Individual Snacks and Snack Boxes): 289

Average Individual Snack Calories: 298

Average Snack Box Calories: 257

Average Sodium Content Overall (Individual Snacks and Snack Boxes): 367mg

Comments:

Frontier was incredibly responsive, providing information quickly - nice. However, it would be great if the airline offered some healthier items. The average calories in their inflight offerings decreased for each category this year, but there is still room for improvement as to what those offerings could be. Again, Frontier is an innovative airline - please apply that innovation to food. The sodium content of its snacks is 367mg, which is much higher than the average for snacks across all airlines. And the average number of calories in its snacks is 298, which is 15 percent higher than the average across all airlines.

Best Bets: The best bet for snacks is to choose the KIND bar or the Jack Links Beef Steak (as long as you're not sodium sensitive). Neither of the bundled snack boxes provides a nutrient-rich, low-calorie option.

Allegiant Air

Cooperation in Providing Nutritional Information: Very Helpful

Health Score: 1.9 / 5

Fleet Size: 91

Onboard Water Health Score: 3.3 / 5

Average Calories Overall (Individual Snacks and Snack Boxes): 325

Average Individual Snack Calories: 390

Average Snack Box Calories: 240

Average Sodium Content Overall (Snack Boxes and Individual Snacks): 362mg

Comments: The good news is that Allegiant was very helpful throughout the study. Nice job! And compared to last year, it has lowered its overall calorie average slightly, from 336 to 326 calories. It would be wonderful if the airline added a few more nutritious food
items to the menu, perhaps an apple or a salad shaker.

Best Bets: Among the individual snacks, the nuts might work if you shared them with at least one other person. The Hummus Snack Pack is also OK. Avoid the Deli Snack Pack, and the Wingz Kids Snack Pack is not a healthy choice

Spirit Airlines

Cooperation in Providing Nutritional Information: Very Helpful

Health Score: 1.9 / 5

Fleet Size: 135

Onboard Water Health Score: 1 / 5

Average Calories Overall (Individual Snacks and Snack Boxes): 360

Average Individual Snack Calories: 370

Average Snack Box Calories: 319

Average Sodium Content Overall (Individual Snacks and Snack Boxes): 450mg

Comments:

Spirit's inflight offerings were hard to find on the airline's website. No nutritional information is provided for the food offered, and, overall, there are not many (if any) healthy options. The good news is that the airline responded incredibly well to our queries--nice.

The average sodium content of Spirit's snacks is 403mg, which is well above the average across all airlines. The airline's average individual snack calories are also significantly higher at 370 than the 255 average across all airline snacks.

Best Bets: The FlyFit Protein Mix of nuts would be a good bet if split among four people, because each bag contains about four servings of nuts. The Nissin Cup Noodle Very Veggie Chicken Flavor is OK at 330 calories and might feel like a real meal, but it's very high in sodium. The Cheese Tray is a much better choice than the Cafe Snack Box, but it would be better shared between two people. It's too bad that the Quinoa with Artichoke & Roasted Peppers is no longer on the menu, because it was a healthy and satisfying snack option.

Hawaiian Airlines

Cooperation in Providing Nutritional Information: Not So Helpful

Health Score: 1.9 / 5

Fleet Size: 57

Onboard Water Health Score: 3.1 / 5

Average Calories Overall (Individual Snacks, Snack Boxes, and Meals): 556

Average Individual Snack Calories: 369

Average Snack Box Calories: 515

Average Meal Calories: 898

Average Sodium Content Overall (Individual Snacks, Snack Boxes, and Meals): 755mg

Comments:

This year, Hawaiian Airlines showed a tiny bit more effort, but, to be honest, it is now the ONLY airline that does not provide us with complete nutrition information. Much of the meal nutrient content had to be estimated by our registered dietitians, and the information provided by Hawaiian was confusing. There are a lot of high-calorie and high-sodium options, and many of the snacks will not be satiating. If you are flying Hawaiian it's very important to note that ALL meals are free, and they are large, and there is a lot of food provided during flights from or to Hawaii - anywhere from 1122 to 1514 calories, and 1338 to 2453 milligrams of sodium. Those are very unhealthy numbers. The average sodium content of all Hawaiian's food offerings is 775mg, which is way above the average across all airlines.

Best Bets:

Among the snacks, choose the Kitchen & Love Quinoa with Artichoke and Roasted Pepper Quick Meal. That's it for healthy snacks; pass on all the others. Among the snackboxes, the Gluten Free Box has some healthy components, including the hummus, chickpea snacks, and the turkey stick. But skip the fruit snacks, and the cookies. For meals, it's much more complicated. NYC/Boston to Hawaii and Hawaii to NYC/Boston are long, 10-hour-plus flights, and food service includes several free meals throughout. The actual meal is OK; however, you should avoid all the free-meal extras, including the chips, the pineapple coconut treat, potato salad, cole slaw, cookies, cheese, crackers, snack mix, and alcoholic beverages. If you do insist on eating all the unhealthy "extras," they will leave you feeling tired and uncomfortable.

Southwest Airlines

Cooperation in Providing Nutritional Information: Somewhat Helpful

Health Score: 1.7 / 5

Fleet Size: 754

Onboard Water Health Score: 2.4 / 5

Average Individual Snack Calories: 106

Average Sodium Content Overall (Individual Snacks): 135mg

Comments: For one of the top carriers, Southwest does not offer much variety or nutritional value. If the airline really does have a heart (as it does on its logo), it would care about the food that's being served. Southwest needs to add some healthy snacks. And this year, for the first time in 20 years, the people we contacted were not nearly as helpful as they usually are in providing information for the study. The communications team's kindness was its only saving grace.

The airline's average calories for snacks has decreased from 138 last year to 106 this year. The average sodium for the few food offerings is low at 135mg.

Best Bets:

The pretzels are the only reasonable choice, they but have no nutritional value. More than on any other airline, when you fly Southwest, you need to bring your own fresh, nutrient-dense, healthy food, such as nuts and fresh fruit.

Researchers of Sechenov University together with their colleagues from Russia and Austria summarised everything known about cells producing group E antibodies. These molecules are responsible for most of the allergic reactions, including such dangerous diseases as asthma, Quincke's edema and anaphylaxis. Studying them and deepening our understanding of how to manage these reactions would help us fight against allergies and make patients' lives easier. The research was published in Cells.

Immunoglobulin (Ig) is a molecule, synthesised by immune cells, that can detect antigens (e.g. foreign proteins, compounds on the surface of bacteria or viruses) and help deal with them. Sometimes immune reactions are so severe and continuous that they turn into allergies. Class E immunoglobulin plays a key role in this process - it is involved in the development of diseases one third of all people suffer from.

IgE differs from other classes by small serum concentration (5*10-5 mg/ml) and short lifespan (half of the molecules are destroyed after two days compared to 21 days for class G1 immunoglobulin). These features of IgE impede both its examination and attempts to remove it from the circulation to treat allergies - concentration of IgE quickly returns to pre-treatment level. In order to improve the effectiveness of medicines, it's necessary to determine which cells can synthesise immunoglobulin so strongly and where they are located.

To some extent, scientists can use lab mice with the model of allergy to examine the general principles of the disease development and test new medicines. In addition, animal tissues are more available than human ones. However, particular mechanisms involved in the raise of IgE concentration differ considerably between people and mice, and this limits the usage of animal models.

Immune cells producing immunoglobulin E can keep 'memory' of allergens for decades, and in the presence of antigens the level of IgE elevates very quickly. This fact got scientists thinking that the synthesis of IgE is controlled by two specific processes. The first one is permanent production of IgE, possibly by plasma cells. The second one involves rapid releases of immunoglobulin in the presence of allergen that are even less understood.

As it has been shown earlier, cells producing IgE (B lymphocytes) can be found in blood. But blood tests for them are hindered because most methods can also find cells with IgE on their surface and cannot distinguish them from the cells actually producing immunoglobulin.

One of the most popular techniques in this field is flow cytometry, i.e. inspection of thin fluid jet with cells using a laser. Researchers match the surface structures of B lymphocytes and IgE receptors to antibodies with fluorochrome (fluorescent compound). In the treated samples the selected cells begin to glow and thus can be counted. One of the studies applied this method to show that the ratio of the cells producing IgE to the whole number of B lymphocytes is about 0.0019% - even less than estimated earlier.

Studies indicate that plasma cells produce only 0.2% of IgE contained in serum. All the rest is synthesised by the cells located in different parts of the body, e.g. in nasal mucosa that is first to contact allergens, in lungs and tonsils. But it should be noted that blood-derived cells can contribute to the cellular population of these tissues making it difficult to find out which cells are the main producers of IgE. There are also proofs that immunoglobulin E can be synthesised in the spleen and bone marrow.

To date, scientists have created medicines that can reduce the level of IgE. They follow one of two basic strategies affecting either IgE molecules themselves and effector cells or cells producing immunoglobulin.

The action of the medicines from the first group is directed at the parts of IgE molecules responsible for attachment to effector cells. They reduce the level of 'active' IgE molecules able to connect with effector cells and thus ease allergic reactions. Medicines of the second group affect B lymphocytes that synthesise IgE: they connect with B lymphocytes having IgE on their surface (i.e. ready to release it to blood) and make other immune cells (T-cells) destroy them.

Despite lots of studies focusing on IgE synthesis and mechanisms of allergy development, numerous questions remain, and having them answered will make allergy treatment more effective. Namely, which cells produce IgE and where they are located, which processes lead to the increase of IgE levels in the presence of the allergen and how quickly receptors react to these changes.

The highly contagious norovirus causes diarrhea and vomiting and is notorious for spreading rapidly through densely populated spaces, such as cruise ships, nursing homes, schools and day care centers. Each year, it is responsible for some 200,000 deaths, mostly in the developing world. There are no treatments for this intestinal virus, often incorrectly referred to as stomach flu.

Now, a new study led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has shown that gut microbes can tamp down or boost the severity of norovirus infection based on where along the intestine the virus takes hold.

The study, published Nov. 25 in the journal Nature Microbiology, suggests new routes to possible therapies for norovirus infection. Collaborators included researchers at the University of Florida, the University of Michigan and Yale University Medical School.

"There are currently no treatments for norovirus, which is very easily spread through fecal-oral transmission," said co-senior author Megan T. Baldridge, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine at Washington University. "Norovirus is especially dangerous in young children, older adults and people with compromised immune systems. We are trying to understand how the gut microbes interact with norovirus in an effort to pursue new therapeutic strategies."

In these mouse studies, the researchers found that normal gut bacteria boosted the severity of viral infection in the lower small intestine, which is in line with past work in the field. But simultaneously, normal gut bacteria blocked or inhibited viral infection in the upper small intestine. In other words, gut microbes can have totally opposite effects on norovirus infection depending on the infection's location along the length of the gut.

"These results were a huge surprise to us," Baldridge said. "We showed that different parts of the intestine can show dramatically different responses to this type of infection. Our research reveals that we can't view the gut as a homogeneous tube that responds to infection in a uniform way."

Baldridge and her colleagues found that the difference in response was driven by bile acids, which are mainly known for their roles in digestion.

"Bile acids are powerfully regulated by bacteria all along the gut," Baldridge said. "But there had not been a realization that these bile acids could prime the gut to mount an immune response against intestinal viruses."

In the new study, the researchers showed that bile acids in the upper small intestine -- but not the lower -- stimulated the immune system to respond to the infection. The researchers determined that bile acids in that region of the gut triggered a molecule called interferon III -- one of the body's key antiviral defenses in the intestine -- to become activated.

Baldridge noted that this complexity of interactions between gut microbes and bile acids could explain some of the variability seen in norovirus infections. Some people become extremely ill with this virus; others develop no symptoms at all.

"The different ways people respond to viral infections could be related to their individual gut microbial community," Baldridge said. "The severity of an infection could be tied to where exactly along the gut you get an infection, and that might be controlled by your individual microbiome. Subtle differences along the intestine could end up having dramatic effects on how the gut perceives the virus and responds to it."

Baldridge also said that this changes how researchers might think about strategies to protect against or treat norovirus infection. They might seek ways to expand the immune interferon signaling that they observed only in the upper small intestine such that it extends along the entire length of the gut, for example.

She and her colleagues are planning more studies to help investigate whether there may be ways to manipulate the gut environment -- through bile acids or the microbiome itself -- to stimulate the immune system in ways that could shut down norovirus infection.

Boulder, Colo., USA: On Mt. Etna volcano, inhabited areas have been inundated repeatedly by lava flows in historical times. The increasing exposure of a larger population, which has almost tripled in the area around Mt. Etna during the last 150 years, has resulted from on a poor assessment of the volcanic hazard and risk, allowing inappropriate land use in vulnerable areas. Thus, the researchers of the Laboratory of Technologies for Volcanology (TecnoLab) at the INGV in Catania assessed and mapped hazard, exposure, and risk for providing a basic broad overview of the potential effusive eruption impacts on the flanks of Mt. Etna.

Despite our knowledge of volcanic hazards and our capability to monitor volcanic activity, the possibility that effusive eruptions of Etna volcano could harm people, properties and services is greater today than ever before. A 2013 analysis of lava flow hazards and their distribution around the Etna volcano showed them to be far more dangerous than previously expected. There is no compelling evidence to think that rates and magnitudes of volcanism are changing, but, as a consequence of rising population densities, increasingly sophisticated facilities, and expanding complex social and economic infrastructure, all communities around Mt. Etna are becoming more vulnerable to experiencing heavy consequences from volcanic hazard activity.

The researchers of the TecnoLab assessed the lava flow risk on the flanks of Mt. Etna by using a GIS-based approach that combines simply the hazard with the exposure of elements at stake (the vulnerability was not considered). The hazard, showing the long-term probability related to lava flow inundation, was obtained by combining three different kinds of information: the spatiotemporal probability of the future opening of new flank eruptive vents, the event probability associated with classes of expected eruptions, and the overlapping of lava flow paths simulated by the MAGFLOW model. Data including all exposed elements were gathered from institutional web portals and high-resolution satellite imagery, and organized in four thematic layers: population, buildings, service networks, and land use. The total exposure is given by a weighted linear combination of the four thematic layers, where weights are calculated using the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).

The resulting risk map shows the likely damage caused by a lava flow eruption, allowing rapid visualization of the areas in which there would be the greatest losses if a flank eruption occurred on Mt. Etna. The highest hazard levels were obtained within the uninhabited Valle del Bove and along the upper portions of the South and North-East Rifts. Instead, higher exposure levels were found near the eastern coast where the population is highly concentrated and, as a consequence, there are wider urban areas and critical infrastructures. By combining the location of the main population centers on Etna with those where the hazard is high, we identified the south-eastern flank as the sector with the highest overall level of risk due to effusive eruptions from vents located on the volcano flanks.

SEATTLE, November 24, 2019 - While changing the rotation rate/axis of a thrown baseball has long been a weapon in a pitcher's arsenal, some pitchers, like Washington Nationals star Stephen Strasburg, manipulate the baseball's wake to create unexpected movement from a familiar delivery (his changeup).

Barton Smith, an engineering professor at Utah State University, will discuss how the seams of the baseball influence its trajectory and speed toward home plate at the American Physical Society's Division of Fluid Dynamics 72nd Annual Meeting in Seattle on Sunday, Nov. 24. The session, "The Baseball Seam: Clever and Capable Passive Flow Control," will take place at 9:31 a.m. Pacific (U.S.) on Sunday, Nov. 24 in Room 608 of the Washington State Convention Center as part of the talk on drag reduction.

The Magnus Effect, which has been known since 1853, is the force exerted on a spinning object moving through the air. It is what pitchers use to create curveballs, sinkers, sliders, or any pitch with movement. Less is known about forces due to the wake of the ball.

Smith says he and his team, postgraduate student Andrew Smith and undergraduate John Garrett, have been examining the effects of the wake of the baseball as it travels through the air. A video produced for the APS/DFD Gallery of Fluid Motion at the annual meeting shows how a stable seam position on the ball can create a change in the wake. This change causes a pressure gradient that can force the ball downward or upward, left or right, depending on the position of the seam during its flight. Smith calls this seam shifted wake orientation.

"If you miss your mark slightly with a Magnus-dependent pitch, it moves slightly differently. If you miss your mark the seam orientation with this, it's utterly different," Smith says. "And I'm not sure how much margin there is. I am only sure that (Strasburg) gets it right at least 10% of the time. (Nationals pitcher Max) Scherzer throws a pitch that looks the same to me, yet it never moves the same way."

Knuckleballs that have no spin will "knuckle" due to the seam shifted wake, but the way they are thrown are not like other pitches.

He says a 2-seam fastball from Cincinnati Reds pitcher Trevor Bauer thrown with seam shifted wake orientation has much more movement than when thrown with a traditional seam orientation.

An Otago scientist has been digging up human remains in the backyards of Uzbek villagers to discover how people lived in the Middle Ages.

Department of Anatomy bioarcheologist Dr Rebecca Kinaston has recently returned from a month-long trip to the village of Xo'Janqo in southwest Uzbekistan, where she and Ladislav Damašek, from Charles University, Prague, co-led an archaeological team for a community-approved excavation funded by a University of Otago Research Grant.

Uzbekistan has a long history of human settlement, and its village oases were important links on High Medieval trade routes stretching across Europe and Asia.

Dr Kinaston says researchers were interested in understanding diet, health, migration, interaction, ancestry, and care during a time of increased interaction along what is commonly known as the Silk Roads.

"We keep doing this work because it's like solving a mystery. Every site is completely different - you don't know what you're going to find when you show up."

Buried skeletons, some dating back thousands of years, are particularly well-preserved in the area due to a favourable pH level in the desert soil, Dr Kinaston says.

"People are constantly finding human remains in their back yards and this is because they're also mining a lot of the soil to build their mud-brick houses.

"They're quite amenable to scientists coming and excavating them and keeping them curated at the museums in Uzbekistan."

Dr Kinaston collaborated with researchers from Charles University in Prague, and Termez University in Uzbekistan, to excavate a cemetery and tepa (dirt mound made from human settlement) from the High Medieval period - approximately 800-1220 A.D. - and analyse the skeletons found within.

While conducting earlier research in the area in 2017, Dr Kinaston was approached by a local farmer to examine skeletons eroding from the soil in his back yard. Radiocarbon dating (ca 1000-1100 AD) placed this cemetery in the High Medieval period and was likely associated with the nearby tepa.

She returned to the village on her latest trip with PhD student Robyn Kramer to excavate the cemetery, although she found the farmer had reburied the skeletons together in one hole, which was later found to contain six adults and three children.

An excavation of the site was planned, as well as the nearby tepa, where Dr Kinaston's collaborators found more graves dug into the layers of soils with medieval artefacts.

Before mapping out potential dig sites, Dr Kinaston and her fellow researchers met with the local community and landowners to obtain their approval.

"We had a lot of community support and a lot of school groups look at the site.

"Every day there was at least 20 to 40 people that would come by the site and see what we were doing and we'd explain to them what our process was."

Once they had excavated the remains, Dr Kinaston and Ms. Kramer began laboratory analysis using a number of methods.

Lesions on the skeletons gave clues about health and disease, skulls and pelvises could be examined to determine age and sex, and isotope analysis and ancient DNA study provided insight into diet, health and ancestry.

"These people lived on oases and we're really interested in looking at how people adapted to these harsh desert environments and also how they interacted with each other and other communities further away on these important trade routes during that time," she says.

Initial results have shown evidence of degenerative joint disease of the spine and other joints, even in young people, which indicates they had a heavy workload, she says.

"We found a number of healed fractures of the forearm and ribs, possibly suggesting interpersonal violence (defensive wounds) but also indicating a level of care within the community as these were well healed."

The dig site is one of the only High Medieval cemetery sites in Uzbekistan that have been excavated with a full bioarcheological analysis, and it was an honour to be given community permission to excavate the remains, she says.

"The local people were really excited that we were interested in the history in their village, so we want to prepare the results in local Uzbek language and make this in layman's terms so it can be given to the school and local community."

Dr Kinaston plans to publish her full results by June 2020.

SEATTLE, November 23, 2019 - When it comes to archery, choosing the right feathers for an arrow is the key to winning. This necessity for precision makes it crucial to understand how environment and design effect arrows in flight.

Scientists from the Laboratoire d'Hydrodynamique at the Ecole Polytehcnique will explain the physics behind optimal arrow design at the 72nd Annual Meeting of the APS Division of Fluid Dynamics in Seattle on Saturday, Nov. 23. The presentation is part of a session on biological fluid dynamics in flight.

The researchers said the aspect of feather size and shape in archery accuracy not yet been studied in depth. To discover the optimal feather design, Tom Maddalena, Caroline Cohen and Christophe Clanet first shot arrows with various feathers using a throwing machine. They then used a wind tunnel to observe the aerodynamic forces on the arrow. These experiments were compared to theoretical models of arrow flight.

"We found that the best size depends on the environmental conditions. If there is no wind, a shooter must use very large feathers. The limit of the size is actually mostly dictated by geometrical constraints of the bow," said Maddalena.

The authors plan to further investigate environmental effects on the arrows. Although large feathers provide more stability, they're also affected more easily by the wind.

"We collaborated with the French Archery Federation to conduct this research. Currently, the choice of the feathers is based on intuition and comes directly from the athletes and their coaches. With our work, we hope able to tell them which feathers are the best, so that they can fully trust their equipment," said Maddalena.

Cryopreserved cell-free PE fluid from 101 NSCLC patients, 8 mesothelioma and 13 with benign PE was assayed for a panel of 40 cytokines/chemokines using the Luminex system.

Comparing NSCLC PE and published plasma levels of CAR-T recipients, both were dominated by sIL-6R and IL-6 but NSCLC PE had more VEGF, FGF2 and TNF, and less IL-2, IL-4, IL-13, IL-15, MIP1 and IFN.

A dampened effector response was detected in NSCLC PE, but not mesothelioma or benign PE.

Dr. Albert D. Donnenberg and Dr. Vera S. Donnenberg said, "The pleura represent a common site of metastasis for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) and are the primary site of tumorigenesis in malignant mesothelioma."

These conditions are accompanied by the development of pleural effusions, accumulations of serous fluid rich in tumor cells, mesothelial cells, immune cells, as well as the cytokines and chemokines which they secrete.

In this report the authors compare levels of 40 cytokines and chemokines in non-small cell lung cancer, mesothelioma and benign pleural effusions, with the goal of identifying druggable targets and interventions that can change the pleural environment from one that suppresses immunity and promotes tumor invasiveness, to one conducive to anti-tumor effector responses.

The Donnenberg/Donnenberg Research Team concluded that despite this hostile environment, there is evidence in NSCLC PE of a nascent immune effector response that may be harnessed therapeutically by modifying the local pleural immune environment with antibody-based therapeutics, by ex vivo activation and reinstillation of pleural T cells or engineered T cells.

The authors go on to speculate that conditioning the immune environment of the pleura will greatly increase the chances of success.

El Ninos have become more intense in the industrial age, which stands to worsen storms, drought, and coral bleaching in El Nino years. A new study has found compelling evidence in the Pacific Ocean that the stronger El Ninos are part of a climate pattern that is new and strange.

It is the first known time that enough physical evidence spanning millennia has come together to allow researchers to say definitively that: El Ninos, La Ninas, and the climate phenomenon that drives them have become more extreme in the times of human-induced climate change.

"What we're seeing in the last 50 years is outside any natural variability. It leaps off the baseline. Actually, we even see this for the entire period of the industrial age," said Kim Cobb, the study's principal investigator and professor in the Georgia Institute of Technology's School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences. "There were three extremely strong El Nino-La Nina events in the 50-year period, but it wasn't just these events. The entire pattern stuck out."

The study's first author Pam Grothe compared temperature-dependent chemical deposits from present-day corals with those of older coral records representing relevant sea surface temperatures from the past 7,000 years. With the help of collaborators from Georgia Tech and partner research institutions, Grothe identified patterns of in the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), swings of heating and cooling of equatorial Pacific waters that, every few years, spur El Ninos and La Ninas respectively.

The team found the industrial age ENSO swings to be 25% stronger than in the pre-industrial records. The researchers published their results in the journal Geophysical Review Letters in October 2019. The work was funded by the National Science Foundation.

Slumbering evidence

The evidence had slumbered in and around shallow Pacific waters, where ENSO and El Ninos originate until Cobb and her students plunged hollow drill bits into living coral colonies and fossil coral deposits to extract it. In more than 20 years of field expeditions, they collected cores that contained hundreds of records.

The corals' recordings of sea surface temperatures proved to be astonishingly accurate when benchmarked. Coral records from 1981 to 2015 matched sea surface temperatures measured via satellite in the same period so exactly that, on a graph, the jagged lines of the coral record covered those of the satellite measurements, obscuring them from view.

"When I present it to people, I always get asked, 'Where's the temperature measurement?' I tell them it's there, but you can't see it because the corals' records of sea surface temperatures are that good," said Grothe, a former graduate research assistant in Cobb's lab and now an associate professor at the University of Mary Washington.

First red flag?

In 2018, enough coral data had amassed to distinguish ENSO's recent activity from its natural preindustrial patterns.

To stress-test the data, Grothe left out chunks to see if the industrial age ENSO signal still stuck out. She removed the record-setting 1997/1998 El Nino-La Nina and examined industrial age windows of time between 30 and 100 years long.

The signal held in all windows, but the data needed the 97/98 event to be statistically significant. This could mean that changes in the ENSO activities have just now reached a threshold that makes them detectable.

What is El Nino?

Every two to seven years in spring, an El Nino is born when the warm phase of the ENSO swells into a long heat blob in the tropical Pacific, typically peaking in early winter. It blows through oceans and air around the world, ginning up deluges, winds, heat, or cold in unusual places.

Once El Nino passes, the cycle reverses into La Nina by the following fall, when airstreams push hot water westward and dredge up frigid water in the equatorial Pacific. This triggers a different set of global weather extremes.

Tropical Pacific corals record the hot-cold oscillations by absorbing less of an oxygen isotope (O18) during ENSO's hot phases, and progressively more of it during ENSO's cool phases. As corals grow, they create layers of oxygen isotope records, chronicles of temperature history.

Waves, repairs, contortions

Extracting them is adventurous: A research diver guides a chest-high pneumatic drill under the ocean. Its pressure hose connects to a motor on the boat that powers the drill after the diver has taken off her fins and weighed herself down on the reef.

She carefully angles the bit down the axis of coral growth to get a core with layers that can be accurately counted back in time. On occasion, waves put her and her safety diver through washing machine cycles.

"Doing this all underwater adds an extra level of difficulty, even from the simplest tasks like working with wrenches," Grothe said. "But the drill slices through underwater corals like butter. Fossil corals are drilled on land, and the drill constantly seizes up and overheats."

Blowing models away

The physical proof taken from three islands that dot the heart of the ENSO zone has also thrown down scientific gauntlets, starkly challenging computer models of ENSO patterns and causes. A prime example: Previously unknown to science, the study showed that in a period from 3,000 to 5,000 years ago, the El Nino-La Nina oscillations were extremely mild.

"Maybe there's no good explanation for a cause. Maybe it just happened," Cobb said. "Maybe El Nino can just enter a mode and get stuck in it for a millennium."