Culture

ATLANTA-Females find same-sex social interactions to be more rewarding than males, and females are more sensitive to the rewarding actions of oxytocin (OT) than males, according to a research study led by Georgia State University on the brain mechanisms that determine the rewarding properties of social interactions.

"Recognizing gender differencess in social reward processing is essential for understanding sex differences in the occurrence of many mental health diseases and the development of gender-specific treatments for psychiatric and neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, substance abuse and schizophrenia," said Dr. Elliott Albers, director of the Center for Behavioral Neuroscience and Regents' Professor of Neuroscience at Georgia State, who led the research team.

The research team discovered that while OT acting within the "reward circuit" in the brain is essential for the rewarding properties of social interaction in both males and females, females are more sensitive to the actions of OT than males. The team also found that as the intensity of social interactions increases among females, these interactions become more rewarding up to a point and then are ultimately reduced (for example, there is an inverted U-shape relationship among OT, social reward and neural activity).

The findings are published in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology.

OT receptors in the brain play a major role in regulating many forms of social behavior as well as pair bonding. Social neuroscience literature indicates social support reduces drug use, ameliorates stress and can predict better mental health outcomes in the treatment of various psychiatric disorders. Prominent sex differences exist in the prevalence and clinical course of many of these disorders. For example, women typically have higher rates of depression and anxiety disorders, while men more often suffer from autism and attention deficit disorder. Despite substantial sex differences in the expression of social behavior and the incidence of these mental health disorders, little is known about how the brain mechanisms underlying these phenomena differ in females and males.

Recognizing this gap in the knowledge base, the team investigated the sex-dependent role of OT receptors within the ventral tegmental area of the brain of male and female rodents. More specifically, they explored whether OT receptors mediated the magnitude and valence of social reward and if this mediation differed by gender. They used several preference tests to measure the rewarding properties of social interactions.

Study data showed that activation of OT receptors was critical for social interaction to be rewarding in both males and females, but females were more sensitive to the actions of OT than males. This is the first study to provide evidence that same-sex social interactions and OT are more rewarding in females than in males in an animal model. These findings are consistent with human studies.

Vaccinating laboratory mice with Streptococcus mitis bacteria prevents their virulent sibling, Streptococcus pneumoniae from infecting the mice. The research suggests that vaccination of humans with live S. mitis might offer protection from some of the many serotypes of S. pneumoniae that vaccines currently do not exist for. This pathogen is one of the most common causes of severe pneumonia, and can also cause meningitis, bloodstream and sinus infections, endocarditis, and middle ear infections in young children. The research is published in Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

S. pneumoniae afflicts about 14 million children, annually, killing 2-3 million, including around a million under age five. Resistance to antibiotics is an increasing problem, underscoring the need for vaccines, according to the report. And current vaccines target only 13 of more than 90 serotypes of S. pneumoniae.

S. mitis, which lacks many of the virulence genes present in S. pneumoniae, but is otherwise quite similar, commonly inhabits the oral cavity and the upper respiratory tract, living in peaceful coexistence with the host.

The investigators intranasally vaccinated mice with two different versions of S. mitis, to compare their efficacy: wild type S. mitis, and S. mitis which they had genetically engineered to express a sugar coat that is found on the exterior of the cell wall of S. pneumoniae. Serotype 4, they posited, might strengthen the antibody response to S. penumoniae.

Vaccination with the S. mitis vaccine boosted production of IgG and IgA antibodies, as well as Th17 cells (the investigators did not examine production of such antibodies and cells following vaccination with the engineered vaccine), said principal investigator Fernanda C. Petersen, DDS, PhD, Professor of molecular microbiology, University of Oslo, Norway.

IgG is an important antibody in the blood and other bodily fluids, and IgA is critical in secretions, especially those of the mucus epithelium of the intestinal and respiratory tracts. Th17 cells are pro-inflammatory cells that play an important role in fighting invading pathogens.

The engineered vaccine worked as expected, boosting protection against S. pneumoniae serotype 4, but not against S. pneumoniae serotype 2, as compared to the wild type vaccine.

Co-corresponding author Sudhanshu Shekhar, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Petersen's group, noted that one must be cautious in extrapolating results from mouse models to humans, and emphasized that protection of humans would remain hypothetical until human studies have been performed.

The report also noted that commensal live vaccines circumvent the main limitation of vaccinations with attenuated live pathogens: reversion to virulence.

"Bacterial live vaccines can be highly efficient because they mimic the natural infection," said Dr. Petersen. "They have been known for decades to prevent respiratory and enteric infections in humans. The main challenge, however, is to engineer attenuated versions that are safe as vaccines, but still offering protection. Our study reveals that S. mitis a natural human colonizer that resembles S. pneumoniae but seldom causes diseases, can be the answer offered by nature for a safe vaccine against S. pneumoniae."

(Boston)-- While not an FDA-approved treatment, e-cigarettes are used as, or more often by smokers to help them quit smoking, versus FDA-approved treatments for smoking cessation. An editorial in response to a newly published paper on the effectiveness of e-cigarettes for smoking cessation in the New England Journal of Medicine says that caution should be used in recommending e-cigarettes for smoking cessation.

"While e-cigarettes are 'safer' than traditional cigarettes, they are not without risks," said Belinda Borrelli, PhD, professor of Health Policy & Health Services Research at Boston University Henry M. Goldman School of Dental Medicine, and George O'Connor, MD, professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine.

Their editorial accompanied a new study (Hajek et al.) comparing the effectiveness of e-cigarettes against the nicotine-replacement therapy (NRT) for smoking-cessation. That study found the one-year abstinence rate was higher in the e-cigarette group (18 percent) than the NRT group (9.9 percent). The authors of the editorial argue that since the cessation rates of traditional cigarettes are similar between e-cigarettes and FDA-approved products, FDA approved products for smoking cessation should be recommended first. For example, treatment with NRT and bupropion achieves abstinence rates of approximately 25 to 26 percent at six months and 20 percent at one year, with slightly higher abstinence rates for combination therapy. Quit rates with Varenicline (Chantix) have shown even higher cessation rates.

Given the known and unknown health effects of e-cigarette use in the general population and in high-risk groups, health care providers should only recommend e-cigarettes when an FDA approved treatment fails, and then manage cessation with e-cigarettes like they would with any other FDA approved treatment. "Start with the lowest effective dose, monitor side effects and work towards a treatment end date," said Borrelli. However, the editorialists state that there is not enough data at present for formal guidelines to have emerged regarding specific recommendations about dosing and safety.

According to the authors of the editorial, a key finding of the study is that among participants with sustained abstinence at one year, 80 percent in the e-cigarette group were still using e-cigarettes, whereas only nine percent in the nicotine-replacement group were still using nicotine replacement. "This pattern of long-term use raises concerns about the health consequences of long-term e-cigarette use. We know that e-cigarette vapor contains many toxins and exerts potentially adverse biologic effects on human cells," explained O'Connor. Both Borrelli and O'Connor believe that indefinite e-cigarette use in place of traditional cigarettes should not be viewed as a completely successful smoking-cessation outcome, given the uncertain health risks to the smoker and to those in the environment.

An international study led by the Complutense University of Madrid (UCM) and the National Centre for Cardiovascular Research (CNIC) has found that Lactobacillus bacteria present in the intestinal microbiota interact with immune system cells to strengthen the intestinal barrier.

Conducted on mice and published in Immunity, the study opens a new avenue for the treatment of diseases such as ulcerative colitis or Crohn's disease, in which the intestinal barrier becomes so weakened that bacteria can migrate to other organs, causing inflammatory processes.

Until now, only a few descriptions have existed of specific commensals in mouse microbiota that stimulate the immune system and regulate the lymphocyte population, which helps ensure that bacteria remain in the niche where they are beneficial.

"Our research shows that there are molecular patterns present in or secreted by commensal intestinal bacteria which are recognised by a receptor in the immune system cell called Mincle", reported El Salvador Iborra, a researcher in the Department of Immunology, Ophthalmology and ENT at the UCM.

This interaction between Mincle and beneficial Lactobacillus bacteria occurs in regions of the small intestine called Peyer's patches and promotes a beneficial response in the host.

A reduction in lymphocytes leads to a weakened barrier

To carry out the study, the researchers used Mincle-deficient mice, or mice deficient in one of the proteins involved in intracellular signalling of this receptor, called Syk.

The researchers found that this deficiency led to a failure to produce the instructions necessary to generate the intestinal lymphocytes essential for regulating the intestinal immune barrier function.

"We found that as a result of this reduction in the lymphocyte population, intestinal barrier function deteriorated, leading to an increase in the number of bacteria capable of migrating from the intestine and reaching the liver, generating hepatic inflammation and metabolic changes", Iborra explained.

The results of this study open a new avenue for treating disease, such as "the administration of beneficial probiotic microorganisms capable of interacting with this receptor, or prebiotics capable of promoting the growth of these intestinal bacteria", noted the UCM researcher. Iborra also added another possibility: treatment with synthetic compounds capable of binding to Mincle and triggering the beneficial response mediated by this receptor.

In addition to inflammatory bowel diseases, stress, poor diet or overuse of drugs can also weaken the intestinal barrier.

Besides the UCM, several other international institutions were involved in the study, including the University of Oxford, the University of Manchester, the University of Paris-Saclay, the University of the Sorbonne and the University of Zurich.

Both the study's idea and its outcomes were straightforward: Organize a short houseplant-potting workshop for incarcerated women and see if it improved their moods.

The answer was yes -- a finding reported in December 2018 in the International Journal of Prisoner Health. But what is more nuanced, the study's lead author says, are the lessons we can extrapolate from what otherwise may seem like a simple, one-off event.

To the women who participated, the one-hour activity was a respite, a little slice of nature they got to bring back to their cells. And the results of that experience, said Barb Toews, assistant professor of criminal justice in the Social Work and Criminal Justice Program at University of Washington Tacoma, suggest value in expanding such activities, replicating the research and, above all, demonstrating how interaction with nature can help achieve therapeutic and rehabilitative goals.

"So often when we think about research with people who are incarcerated, we focus on recidivism," said Toews, who collaborated with researchers from Iowa State University and Western Michigan University on the project. "This study shows there are so many other important things that happen beyond that..

"We don't always have to be thinking about what happens after release. People's quality of life while they're inside is also important, and how we create that environment for the sake of their well-being and relationships when they're there will hopefully spill out when they're released."

With a background in restorative justice -- she has facilitated such dialogues and programs in communities and prisons for more than two decades -- Toews has a particular interest in how environment affects people who are incarcerated, and how prison architecture and programs can be adapted to incorporate more contact with nature.

Other research on a variety of populations, not just those in prison, has shown that exposure to nature improves mental health and well-being. Long-term, nature-oriented programs for incarcerated people have been evaluated for their benefits: Horticulture classes, for example, have been associated with vocational and social skill-building, while interior design and programmatic enhancements to prisons, like windows and the availability of nature videos, have been linked to lower aggression.

Toews' interest led her to collaborate with her co-authors on the paper, Julie Stevens, a landscape architecture professor at Iowa State who designs and builds holistic landscapes for an Iowa women's prison, and Amy Wagenfeld, an occupational therapy professor then at Western Michigan. The team has been evaluating the impact of the prison landscape on women and staff.

The three realized that there has been less research on short-term programs, which can reach larger numbers of people and suit the limited resources of some institutions, Toews said. A desire to fill the gap served as the impetus for this study.

This study involved about a dozen women incarcerated in an Iowa state prison, all of whom lived in a support wing for inmates with moderate mental health diagnoses. The women spent an hour in a common area transplanting succulents and African violets into small plastic cups to take back to their rooms, and potting larger plants, such as ficus and Norfolk Island pine, into larger containers for display in a common area.

While the activity didn't require any gardening skill, it did involve social interaction and cooperation -- no small task in a prison setting, Toews said. The participants completed written surveys about their emotional states before and after the planting party; five women also participated in interviews.

According to the surveys and the interviews, the women enjoyed the experience. The surveys provided emojis -- a useful additional tool, Toews said, to help participants articulate their feelings. The women said the plants brightened their own rooms as well as the common area, and, for some participants, the event triggered positive memories or brought a sense of community. The women used words like "homey," "peaceful" and "calm" to describe how they felt, and how the greenery improved their surroundings.

How long those feelings lasted is unknown, Toews said. But even at one hour, the event had some impact on the women who participated, she added, and ideally, a facility could host a program, and a future study, on an ongoing basis.

"So often we run into people who say individuals who are incarcerated don't deserve things like this, that it's a luxury.
But research shows it's a necessity, and how can we provide that necessity?" Toews said. "My interest is not just in how we can make prisons prettier or more humane, but how we can take this separation from the community and turn it into a space that promotes accountability and health, where people can feel accountable, rather than defensive, about what they've done."

Other studies could focus on different prison populations, Toews and her co-authors wrote, and include a control group to analyze the specific effects of a nature program on those who participate versus those who don't.

With preliminary support from the Washington State Department of Corrections and the Washington Corrections Center for Women, Toews is planning an upcoming study to examine how the outdoor environment might lessen fatigue among staff at the women's prison.

Scientists have used a Nobel-prize winning Chemistry technique on a mixture of metals to potentially reduce the cost of fuel cells used in electric cars and reduce harmful emissions from conventional vehicles.

The researchers have translated a biological technique, which won the 2017 Nobel Chemistry Prize, to reveal atomic scale chemistry in metal nanoparticles. These materials are one of the most effective catalysts for energy converting systems such as fuel cells. It is the first time this technique has been for this kind of research.

The particles have a complex star-shaped geometry and this new work shows that the edges and corners can have different chemistries which can now be tuned to reduce the cost of batteries and catalytic convertors.

The 2017 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Joachim Frank, Richard Henderson and Jacques Dubochet for their role in pioneering the technique of 'single particle reconstruction'. This electron microscopy technique has revealed the structures of a huge number of viruses and proteins but is not usually used for metals.

Now, a team at the University of Manchester, in collaboration with researchers at the University of Oxford and Macquarie University, have built upon the Nobel Prize winning technique to produce three dimensional elemental maps of metallic nanoparticles consisting of just a few thousand atoms.

Published in the journal Nano Letters, their research demonstrates that it is possible to map different elements at the nanometre scale in three dimensions, circumventing damage to the particles being studied.

Metal nanoparticles are the primary component in many catalysts, such as those used to convert toxic gases in car exhausts. Their effectiveness is highly dependent on their structure and chemistry, but because of their incredibly small structure, electron microscopes are required in order to provide image them. However, most imaging is limited to 2D projections.

"We have been investigating the use of tomography in the electron microscope to map elemental distributions in three dimensions for some time," said Professor Sarah Haigh, from the School of Materials, University of Manchester. "We usually rotate the particle and take images from all directions, like a CT scan in a hospital, but these particles were damaging too quickly to enable a 3D image to be built up. Biologists use a different approach for 3D imaging and we decided to explore whether this could be used together with spectroscopic techniques to map the different elements inside the nanoparticles."

"Like 'single particle reconstruction' the technique works by imaging many particles and assuming that they are all identical in structure, but arranged at different orientations relative to the electron beam. The images are then fed in to a computer algorithm which outputs a three dimensional reconstruction."

In the present study the new 3D chemical imaging method has been used to investigate platinum-nickel (Pt-Ni) metal nanoparticles.

Lead author, Yi-Chi Wang, also from the School of Materials, added: "Platinum based nanoparticles are one of the most effective and widely used catalytic materials in applications such as fuel cells and batteries. Our new insights about the 3D local chemical distribution could help researchers to design better catalysts that are low-cost and high-efficiency."

"We are aiming to automate our 3D chemical reconstruction workflow in the future", added author Dr Thomas Slater."We hope it can provide a fast and reliable method of imaging nanoparticle populations which is urgently needed to speed up optimisation of nanoparticle synthesis for wide ranging applications including biomedical sensing, light emitting diodes, and solar cells."

A network of very fine blood vessels that connects bone marrow directly with the blood supply of the periosteum that was previously overlooked has now been discovered by Dr. Anika Grüneboom, a young researcher who is now working at Universitätsklinikum Erlangen. She made this groundbreaking discovery while working on her doctoral thesis at Universität Duisburg-Essen (UDE) with Prof. Dr. Matthias Gunzer. Researchers from Universitätsklinikum Essen, Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU) and research institutes in Jena, Berlin, Dresden and Bern were also involved in the study.

Although bones are very hard organs, they also have a dense network of blood vessels inside them where the bone marrow is located as well as on the outside that is covered by the periosteum. This is why bone fractures often cause serious bleeding. However, new blood cells can also leave the bone marrow via this system of vessels and enter the body.

'As with every organ, bones need a closed bloodstream for these functions. While fresh blood is transported into organs via arteries, veins transport the 'used' blood back out again. The precise structure of this closed bloodstream in long bones was not clear up to now', explains Dr. Anika Grüneboom, Department of Medicine 3 - Rheumatology and Immunology at Universitätsklinikum Erlangen.

Over one thousand blood vessels in some places

The group of researchers have now found thousands of previously unknown blood vessels in the bones of mice that traverse perpendicularly across the entire length of the compact bone, the so-called cortical bone. The researchers have named them 'trans-cortical vessels' (TCVs) for this reason. Furthermore, they were able to demonstrate that the majority of both arterial and venous blood flows through this newly discovered system of vessels. This means that the system is a central component for supplying bones with oxygen and nutrients.

In addition, the researchers discovered that the newly-discovered system of vessels is used by the immune cells in bone marrow to reach the bloodstream. In the case of inflammatory diseases such as arthritis, it is especially important that immune cells reach the source of the inflammation quickly. 'This network of blood vessels in the bone is similar to an underground train system that is able to successfully transport large numbers of passengers quickly and directly through barriers', explains Dr. Grüneboom.

Lead researcher Prof. Gunzer adds: 'The previous concepts only described a few single arterial canals and two venous canals in bones. This is completely inaccurate and does not reflect the actual situation at all. It is quite surprising that we can still find new anatomic structures in the 21st century that are not found in any textbooks.' The discovery was possible due to a unique combination of modern imaging methods explains Prof. Gunzer: 'Many of these methods were used for the very first time by us such as so-called light-sheet fluorescence microscopy and ultra high-resolution 7 tesla (T) magnetic resonance imaging and x-ray microscopy in collaboration with the ERC Synergy Grant 4D-nanoSCOPE team under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Silke Christiansen and Prof. Dr. Georg Schett'.

In future, studies are planned to investigate the role of trans-cortical vessels for normal bone remodelling and in conditions such as osteoporosis or tumours that metastasise in bones. The work at FAU was funded by collaborative research centre 1181 as well as the ERC Synergy Grant 4D nanoSCOPE.

Hong Kong's illegal wildlife trade is contributing to a global extinction crisis. Every year millions of live animals, plants and their derivatives are illegally trafficked into and through Hong Kong, by transnational companies and organised crime syndicates.

There is an urgent need for the government to enhance its current enforcement strategy against wildlife smuggling. Over the last decade, the diversity of endangered species imported into Hong Kong has increased by 57%. At the same time, the estimated value of the trade has increased by 1,600%. Since 2013, seizures of illegal ivory, pangolin scales and rhino horn have been made by Hong Kong authorities, potentially equating to the deaths of 3,000 elephants, 96,000 pangolins and 51 rhinoceros.

Hong Kong's illegal wildlife trade is increasing in volume, underestimated in value and contributing to the global extinction crisis.

Some members of the Hong Kong Wildlife Trade Working Group (HKWTWG) have joined forces to publish a study focusing on the type and volume of seizures relating to illegal wildlife trade in Hong Kong over the last 5 years. The findings documented in the 200 page report: Trading in Extinction: The Dark Side of Hong Kong's Wildlife Trade, illustrate the city's central role in global wildlife trafficking and the extent and nature of the associated criminality. It identifies clearly, how future policy and enforcement could be improved to provide the urgently required long-term sustainability.

Associate Professor Amanda Whitfort of the Faculty of Law, one of the authors of the report said: "Wildlife crime in Hong Kong remains under-policed and under-investigated. Wildlife smuggling is not regarded as organised and serious crime, under Hong Kong law. Failure to include wildlife smuggling as a crime under the Organised and Serious Crime ordinance, Cap 455, hampers authorities' powers to effectively prosecute those behind the networks and syndicates that take advantage of Hong Kong's position as a major trading port."

"Our research indicates Hong Kong has become a hub for organised wildlife smugglers, with consequences for the international reputation of our city as well as international biodiversity," said Lisa Genasci, CEO of ADMCF, adding that "Extinction of elephants, rhino, pangolin and many other species in our lifetime is on the horizon, unless the illegal trade is stopped."

E-cigarettes are almost twice as effective as nicotine replacement treatments, such as patches and gum, at helping smokers to quit, according to a clinical trial led by Queen Mary University of London.

The multi-centre trial, which involved almost 900 smokers who also received additional behavioural support, found that 18.0 per cent of e-cigarette users were smoke-free after a year, compared to 9.9 per cent of participants who were using other nicotine replacement therapies.

Lead researcher Professor Peter Hajek from Queen Mary University of London said: "This is the first trial to test the efficacy of modern e-cigarettes in helping smokers quit. E-cigarettes were almost twice as effective as the 'gold standard' combination of nicotine replacement products.

"Although a large number of smokers report that they have quit smoking successfully with the help of e-cigarettes, health professionals have been reluctant to recommend their use because of the lack of clear evidence from randomised controlled trials. This is now likely to change."

The only previous trial comparing e-cigarettes to nicotine patches used early 'cig-a-like' e-cigarettes with very low nicotine delivery, had no face-to-face contact, and found low efficacies for both treatments.

Funded by the National Institute for Health Research, supported by Cancer Research UK and published in the New England Journal of Medicine, the new study, was set-up to test the long-term efficacy of newer refillable e-cigarettes compared with a range of nicotine replacement treatments

886 smokers attended UK National Health Service stop smoking services (in Tower Hamlets, City of London, Leicester and East Sussex) and were randomised to receive either a nicotine replacement treatment of their choice (including patches, gum, lozenges, sprays, inhalators, or a combination of products) provided for up to three months, or an e-cigarette starter pack with one or two bottles of e-liquid and encouragement to buy future supplies of their own choice of strengths and flavours.

All participants received weekly one-on-one behavioural support for at least four weeks, with expired air carbon monoxide monitoring.

In addition to e-cigarettes being almost twice as effective, the researchers found that:

The participants comprised largely of middle aged dependent smokers, with 40 per cent entitled to free prescriptions (a marker of social disadvantage or poor health)

Abstinence rates were higher in the e-cigarette arm at all time points

Among abstainers, e-cigarette participants were more likely to use their allocated product at 52 weeks than nicotine replacement participants (79.8 per cent vs 9.1 per cent)

Among participants who did not achieve full abstinence, more e-cigarette users achieved a carbon monoxide-validated reduction of smoking by at least 50 per cent

Adherence was similar in both arms, but e-cigarettes were used more frequently and for longer

E-cigarette participants reported more throat/mouth irritation (65.4 per cent vs 50.8 per cent) and nicotine replacement participants reported more nausea (37.8 per cent vs 31.4 per cent)

E-cigarette participants reported greater decline in incidence of cough and phlegm production after 52 weeks

Both products were perceived as less satisfying than cigarettes, but e-cigarettes provided higher satisfaction and were rated as more helpful than nicotine replacement treatment

E-cigarette arm abstainers experienced less severe urges to smoke at 1 and 4 weeks post-quit date. They also reported a lower increase in irritability, restlessness and inability to concentrate after the first week of abstinence, compared to those in the nicotine replacement arm

Study author Dunja Przulj from Queen Mary University of London said: "The UK specialist stop smoking services will now be more likely to include e-cigarettes among their treatment options, and health professionals will feel more comfortable in recommending e-cigarettes as a stop-smoking intervention. This may ultimately further accelerate the reduction in smoking and in smoking related diseases."

Professor Hywel Williams, Director of the NIHR Health Technology Assessment Programme, said: "This groundbreaking NIHR-funded study provides clear evidence that e-cigarettes are almost twice as effective as nicotine replacement therapy for helping smokers to quit. Cigarette smoking is still a major cause of ill health and death in the UK, so this study will provide much needed evidence to help people and policy makers to make informed choices."

Martin Dockrell, Tobacco Control Lead, Public Health England, said: "This landmark research shows that switching to an e-cigarette can be one of the most effective ways to quit smoking, especially when combined with face-to-face support. All stop smoking services should welcome smokers who want to quit with the help of an e-cigarette."

The study saw a stronger e-cigarette effect than in previous trials, and the researchers say this could be due to the inclusion of smokers who were seeking help, the provision of face-to-face support, and the use of refillable e-cigarettes for which smokers sourced their own choice of e-liquids.

The researchers add that the reason e-cigarettes were found to be more effective than other nicotine replacement therapies could be primarily because they allow better tailoring of nicotine dose to individual needs, but also because they provide some of the behavioural aspects of smoking cigarettes.

The study has several limitations. Product allocation could not be blinded, which could affect results if nicotine replacement was seen as an inferior option and those participants were putting less effort into their quit attempt. The team tried to limit expectation effects by recruiting only participants with no strong product preference, and the results in the nicotine replacement arm were at least as good as in routine practice.

The findings may not be generalisable to smokers who are less dependent, or to first generation 'cig-a-like' e-cigarettes, and further trials are needed to determine whether the results generalise outside the UK services.

Sophia Lowes, from Cancer Research UK, said: “This is the first study to show the effectiveness of e-cigarettes combined with behavioural support for giving up smoking, and the results are extremely positive. This research should give doctors, nurses, pharmacists and Stop Smoking Service advisers further confidence to recommend e-cigarettes as an effective means of quitting.

“Smokers have a range of options available to help them quit, including nicotine replacement therapy, prescription medication or e-cigarettes. Everyone is different, so smokers shouldn’t be afraid to experiment and find what works for them. But whatever the method, it’s clear that using the support available from local Stop Smoking Services gives smokers the best chance of quitting.”

A UBC professor has determined that people diagnosed with terminal cancer--who have hope, positivity and family support--are able to live well during the advanced stage of the disease.

Carole Robinson, professor emeritus with UBC Okanagan School of Nursing, recently published a paper explaining the process of living well with an awareness of dying.

"While there is a growing body of research focused on select aspects of people's experiences with advanced cancer, there is little research examining the process of living with advanced cancer across the trajectory towards death," says Robinson. "Even patients whose prognosis is limited are living longer and want to live well, making this issue a global concern."

Robinson notes that globally there are 14.1 million new cancer cases diagnosed each year, 8.2 million cancer deaths, and 32.6 million people living with cancer. Historically, researchers have studied the concept of living well with a chronic illness, but not specifically cancer. Robinson says those studies convey the idea it may be possible to live well with advanced cancer, but little is known about how it is done or how to support it.

The study analyzed 22 interviews with Spanish residents involved in previous research that explored their experience of living with advanced cancer. The researchers found the participants engaged in a five-phase iterative process: struggling, accepting, living with advanced cancer, sharing the illness experience and reconstructing life. This process revolved around participants' awareness of dying, which differed from people living with chronic illness and was a unique aspect of this newresearch.

Each phase was revisited, and as the disease advanced living well got more challenging. Participants talked about strategies for living with advanced cancer, including making life adjustments, maintaining a positive attitude, normalizing and hoping.

Over time, participants realized struggling against the disease created additional difficulties. In fact, they understood it was counterproductive so they made a conscious choice to let go of struggling. Some referred to it as being the only choice they could make while living with the uncertainty of advanced cancer. This enabled accepting their life circumstances at some level and learning to live alongside their illness.

Robinson says that the importance of family love and support cannot be underestimated. For all the participants, she adds, awareness of dying led them to focus on living well. Sharing the experience with loved ones softened suffering remarkably. They were aware they did not have time to lose.

"Although it might happen in moments, participants were able to put advanced cancer behind them and live life rather than living their illness," she notes. "Living in the moment enabled deep appreciation of everyday things such as the beauty of a flower garden."

Robinson says the key takeaways to living well encompass a balance between dependence and independence, being able to see the positive and maintaining hope even in the end stages of the disease.

"The participants in this study worked hard to live a life rather than live an illness," says Robinson. "The implication here is to support the positive. It has been found in previous research that hoping for a cure when cancer is advanced is not lack of awareness--it can be a choice in focusing simply on positive possibilities."

University of Oklahoma researchers, led by Courtney Hofman and Rita Austin, in collaboration with the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, are addressing the challenges of curating ancient biomolecules and working toward the development and dissemination of best practices. In a recent paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Hofman and her collaborators suggest museums play a critical role among stakeholders in ancient biomolecules research and should be responsive to these concerns.

"Ancient biomolecules research has been transformed by new methods, but more dialogue is needed between researchers and museum collections, as historical curation practices can influence biomolecular preservation in unexpected ways," said Hofman, assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology, OU College of Arts and Sciences, and co-director of the Laboratories for Molecular Anthropology and Microbiome Research. "Biomolecular techniques offer new avenues to understand the past, and curating for biomolecules can increase their research applicability and continuing relevance."

Biomolecular research has sparked a methodological revolution in the field of anthropology, and museums are now faced with the challenge of conserving and evaluating materials for these new methods. Anthropological collections are important for science and society, due in no small part to their potential applications for biomolecular research. Museums everywhere face challenges to balance the scientific interests, descendant concerns and the need to preserve collections for future generations.

"As centralized places housing biomolecules, disseminating knowledge to the public and connecting stakeholders (including descendant communities), the voice and role of museums is imperative for establishing best practices and standards for molecular research on collections to ensure ethical scientific investigations of museum materials, and support sustainable collaborations," said Austin, OU graduate student. "Active discussion and consultation with stakeholders continue to be critical for preserving collections and developing innovative research partnerships."

Only a small fraction of people who had non-fatal opioid overdoses in West Virginia received treatment in the aftermath, a new study led by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health suggests. The finding, the authors say, represents a missed opportunity to prevent future fatal overdoses in a state that leads the nation in these deaths.

West Virginia's overdose death rate is currently four times the national average. However, study leads Brendan Saloner, PhD, assistant professor in the Bloomberg School's departments of Health Policy and Management and Mental Health, and Neel Koyawala, a medical student at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, say it's unclear what happens to people who are at the greatest risk of suffering a fatal overdose: those who overdose and survive.

The paper was published online Jan. 28 in the Journal of General Internal Medicine.

The researchers report that only about 10 percent of those who experienced a non-fatal overdose received recommended treatment afterward, including medications for opioid use disorder such as buprenorphine, follow-up visits to health care providers for opioid use disorder, and mental health counseling. When they looked at the data month over month, they saw that office visits for opioid use disorder spiked in the month following an overdose. However, after that, they leveled off to pre-overdose trends. At 12 months post-overdose, only 7.3 percent of these individuals were taking buprenorphine.

"A non-fatal opioid overdose is a significant life event, and it represents an opportunity for the health care system to step in to help prevent future deaths," says Saloner. "Our findings indicate that many people are missing the lifesaving opportunity to start treatment."

For the study, the researchers collected West Virginia Medicaid claims data for individuals enrolled under the Affordable Care Act expansion between 2014 and 2016. The research team identified opioid overdoses in the claims data using diagnosis codes for opioid poisoning. They then searched for codes for opioid use disorder and counseling specific to addiction, diagnoses for mental health disorders and drug prescriptions in the six months prior to overdose and the 12 months following.

They identified 301 people who had a non-fatal opioid overdose during this time frame. This group of individuals was 60 percent male and 91 percent non-Hispanic white with a mean age of 34.5 years. More than half had a diagnosis of depression, anxiety disorder, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia, but overdoses were not followed by improved mental health medication treatment.

Overdoses did not substantially lead to improved mental health treatment or treatment for opioid use disorder. Those in the study were less likely to receive mental health counseling in the 12 months following an overdose than they were in the three months prior to an overdose.

"It's important not only to connect people with care at the point of overdose but to follow them over time," says Koyawala, who is also a trainee at the Center for Mental Health and Addiction Policy Research in the Bloomberg School's Department of Health Policy and Management. "Looking at these data, it's clear that's not happening for the vast majority of patients who experience an opioid overdose."

Saloner adds that this situation isn't unique to West Virginia. Other studies suggest that providing recommended treatment after an opioid overdose is a nearly universal problem across the country.

However, Koyawala says, a variety of policy changes could help patients receive the care they need. "It's important not to take these findings as a reflection of how things have to be," he says. "There's a lot that can be done to improve both people's opioid use disorder and co-existing psychiatric conditions."

For example, some states have achieved promising results with pilot studies in which more comprehensive care programs start right in the hospital emergency room while patients are being treated for non-fatal overdoses. Other effective programs are helping to reduce the stigma that often stymies effective treatment by using peer counselors--former patients with opioid addictions who can help current patients with a personal perspective.

"Our key message is that we can be better and we must be better. There is no choice, really," says Saloner. "There's a lot of talk about how we need to get serious on this issue and get death rates to go down. But if people aren't getting appropriate treatment in the aftermath of an overdose, we're setting many up for failure."

Black holes consume everything that falls within their reach, yet astronomers have spotted jets of particles fleeing from black holes at nearly the speed of light. New computer simulations have revealed what gives these particles such speed: cosmic robbery.

The particle escapees steal some of the spinning black hole's rotational energy, accomplishing this through two main mechanisms involving magnetic fields, the simulations' creators report in the January 25 issue of Physical Review Letters.

As a black hole spins, its dense mass distorts and twists the surrounding fabric of space and time. The simulations show that magnetic fields at the poles of the black hole become coiled and spring outward, flinging jets of particles into space. At the equator, magnetic fields collapse into clumps. This tangling creates areas that act like particle accelerators, boosting some particles into the edges of polar jets at high speeds and others into the maw of the black hole.

The results are the most detailed look yet at the processes that power a black hole's jets, according to study co-author Alexander Philippov, an associate research scientist at the Flatiron Institute's Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York City. "No one has been able to push these simulations so hard in curved space-time," says Philippov, who worked on the project alongside Kyle Parfrey of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Benoît Cerutti of the Université Grenoble Alpes in France.

Upcoming data releases from observational missions such as the Event Horizon Telescope will put the simulations to the test, Philippov says. That telescope focuses on the supermassive black hole that inhabits the heart of the Milky Way galaxy and is designed to capture images of the regions where the jet forms.

Tracking the formation of jets is tricky because of the complexity of the physics involved. Black holes bend space-time and generate powerful magnetic fields. Particles on the outskirts of the black hole zip around untethered from atoms in a state of matter called plasma. New particles can pop into existence, such as pairs of electrons and their antimatter doppelgangers known as positrons.

Previous attempts to understand the source of a black hole's jets used a simplified model of plasma. Parfrey, Philippov and Cerutti instead employed new numerical techniques that provide the first representation of collisionless plasma around a black hole. In a collisionless plasma, individual particles don't bump into each other often enough to be treated uniformly and represented simplistically.

The new simulations begin with a spinning black hole surrounded by intense magnetic fields. Around the fringes of the black hole, the simulations create pairs of electrons and positrons. Because these particles have an electric charge, they are pulled along by electromagnetic fields.

As the simulations progress, a previously predicted mechanism called the Blandford-Znajek process occurs near the north and south poles. During this process, the black hole twirls the fabric of space-time. This distortion twists the magnetic fields into coils near the poles. These coils then spring outward into space like a jack-in-the-box, extracting spin energy from the black hole and launching jets of particles.

Near the black hole's midsection, a different and unexpected particle-boosting mechanism appears. Magnetic field lines operating in opposing directions like a two-lane highway meet at the equator. This congregation causes the lines to twist and tangle. In the space between these bundles, the magnetic field is relatively weak compared with the black hole's electric field.

The electric field, now the strongest force at play, accelerates particles. Some fly outward, following a curved trajectory into the peripheries of the polar jets. Others speed into the black hole. From afar, the descending particles appear to have negative energy. As the black hole eats them, the black hole loses a bit of its rotational energy in what's called the Penrose process.

Overall, the simulations suggest that roughly 80 percent of the jet's energy comes from the corkscrewing magnetic field at the poles, with the remaining 20 percent originating from the particles accelerated near the equator.

The researchers hope to further hone their simulations by adding a more realistic portrayal of when and how electron-positron pairs appear around a black hole. They also plan to model the flow of material crossing the black hole's event horizon.

Researchers at the University of Sydney have found that the relationship between the tissue-sucking Varroa mite and virulence of a virus of honey bees, has most likely been misunderstood.

The study challenges the long-held belief that the parasitic Varroa mite - a mite that sucks the tissue of honey bees - transmits the Deformed Wing Virus of honeybees and in doing so changes the virus to make it more virulent and deadly.

Research published today in Proceedings of The Royal Society B: Biological Sciences concludes that this belief is incorrect.

"The prevailing wisdom is that the mite selects for very virulent strains of the virus," said Professor Madeleine Beekman from the School of Life and Environmental Sciences at the University of Sydney.

"For that reason, the virus is now known as a very dangerous virus and the Australian beekeepers are adamant this virus should not get into the country. In fact, there is legislation that prevents the import of any bee products that could contain the virus. But our work shows that the virus is more likely to be an innocent bystander."

Australia is the only country in the world to remain free of the Varroa mite. This makes Australian honey and wax valuable because it is free of chemical residues used to eliminate the parasite.

"Australia is the last country on the planet to produce completely pure honey," says Professor Beekman. "But the mite is highly likely to arrive in Australia on shipping containers so we need to understand how the mite and the virus interact."

Professor Beekman and her team in the Behaviour and Genetics of Social Insects Lab injected honey bee pupae with high levels of Deformed Wing Virus which is carried by the mite to test if the virus was highly virulent due to changes in the transmission route that occurred via the Varroa mite.

In the absence of the mite, the virus needs to be transmitted to other bees via direct interactions between an infected and non-infected bee. Varroa does the transmission by biting one bee and then another.

The team found the transmission route used by the Varroa mite selects against viruses that are much more virulent than the Deformed Wing Virus, such as Sacbrood virus and Black queen cell virus. These viruses normally suppress Deformed Wing Virus. The elimination of Sacbrood and Black Queencell virus leaves just Deformed Wing Virus, which does not kill the bees.

"Our work therefore changes our understanding of the effect Varroa has on Deformed Wing Virus and the health of honey bee colonies," Professor Beekman said.

"It means we don't have to be scared of the virus. Instead we need to focus on eliminating the mite and reducing its numbers."

The results will also have an impact on the ways the Australian beekeepers can prepare themselves for the arrival of Varroa.

"Many countries actively select for honey bee populations that can tolerate the Varroa mite without treatment. Australian beekeepers would like to import the sperm from such populations to start preparing their honey bees for when the mite arrives," said Professor Beekman.

"But the importation of the sperm is currently forbidden because of the threat of Deformed Wing Virus, which can be present in bee sperm. Perhaps beekeepers can now convince the authorities that bee sperm is safe."

"If we want to protect the bees, it now no longer seems to make sense to try to combat the virus," said Professor Beekman. "Instead, there needs to be a renewed focus on ensuring the number of mites in honey bee colonies remain low."