Culture

In a viral haemorrhagic disease where up to 40% of people developing it die, it is remarkable that doctors still do not agree whether the only recognised treatment, an antiviral drug called ribavirin, makes a difference. In a new Cochrane Review a team of authors at LSTM, along with colleagues in London, The Philippines and in Greece, evaluated the evidence to assess the effectiveness of treating Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever (CCHF).

Crimean Congo haemorrhagic fever is spread by the bite of an infected tick, and is becoming more common, with outbreaks in Turkey, Eastern Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean. Doctors treat the infection in hospital with intravenous fluids, blood and good nursing care. The debates around ribavirin are common amongst clinicians treating the disease, with strong advocates on one side, and others who have policies not to use it, so the authors hoped the review would settle the debate.

The review authors found just one trial with 136 participants, and some observational comparative studies of 612 participants: overall the analysis did not provide a clear answer. When the authors examined studies that were often quoted as showing benefit, they were critically biased. Although fewer people died in groups receiving ribavirin, the apparent effect could be due to the drug, or equally because those getting the drug may have also been less sick, or received high quality nursing and medical care earlier in the disease.

Lead author, LSTM's Dr Samuel Johnson, said: "Some doctors advocate giving ribavirin, and state that not to give it is even unethical. The problem is that the studies claiming to demonstrate benefit from the drug are designed in such a way we cannot separate the effect of the drug from other factors, and thus we do not know if ribavirin is effective at all."

The review clarifies the need for reliable research from a randomised control trial to establish whether ribavirin is effective. "The irony is that the strong beliefs and the widespread use of the drug may make it difficult to actually carry out the research needed" states Dr Johnson. "What we need to know is whether it works, when it works, and how good it is."

But is there any harm in just giving it in case it works? Dr Johnson points out, "Using unreliable research as evidence of benefit if it doesn't work could potentially waste resources and harm patients, we would also need to investigate other options. On the other hand, if ribavirin does work, then it needs to be rolled out to all patients who could benefit, which is currently not the case."

Whilst research into emerging infectious diseases and during outbreaks is difficult, the team hopes that the review provides an opportunity to strengthen the call for greater steps to be taken to facilitate rigorous research providing reliable results in outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Tens of thousands of sea turtles are caught each year by small-scale fishers off South America's Pacific coast, new research shows.

Surveys at 43 harbours in Ecuador, Peru and Chile reveal that gillnet fisheries catch more than 46,000 sea turtles per year, with more than 16,000 killed in the process.

And the true numbers are likely to be higher, as not all ports in each country were surveyed.

Such accidental catching - known as bycatch - is a major threat to species including sea turtles, and the researchers say their findings highlight Ecuador and Peru as key places to tackle this.

"People worry about industrial fisheries but a real concern that people are waking up to is small-scale fisheries," said Professor Brendan Godley, of the Centre for Ecology and Conservation on the University of Exeter's Penryn Campus in Cornwall.

"These are small vessels but they exist in such huge numbers that they can have a massive impact on ecosystems."

Turtles living in the study area include leatherbacks (critically endangered in the east Pacific) and hawksbills (critically endangered worldwide).

Dr Joanna Alfaro, who obtained her PhD at Exeter and is now director of ProDelphinus, a conservation organisation in Peru, said: "This work highlights the importance and the benefits of our approach of engaging with fishers.

"We are actively working with fishers in this region to develop and implement solutions to bycatch - not just to improve the situation for turtles but for the health of fisheries and fish stocks.

"Our goal is to develop fisheries that are sustainable for small-scale fishing communities and the species with which they interact."

Dr Jeffrey Mangel, also of the University of Exeter and ProDelphinus, added: "Gathering this survey data was a massive effort across three countries, and the results give us fascinating and important insights.

"We are careful not to overstate threats to wildlife, but in this case it's clear that tens of thousands of turtles are being caught each year."

The southeastern Pacific sustains extensive fisheries that are important sources of food and employment for millions of people.

Inadequate sleep is a public health problem affecting more than one in three adults worldwide. A new study in the journal SLEEP, published by Oxford University Press, suggests that insufficient sleep could also have grave economic consequences.

Community sleep surveys suggest that inadequate sleep is substantial and increasing. Surveys performed several years ago demonstrated that complaints of inadequate sleep were common, with between 20 and 30 percent of respondents complaining of inadequate sleep on a regular basis across several Western nations. Recent surveys suggest this proportion is increasing; between 33 and 45 percent of Australian adults now have this complaint.

The growth of the problem over time is shared by other nations with similar demographics. Some 35 percent of U.S. adults are not getting the recommended 7 hours of sleep each night. About 30 percent of Canadians don't feel they're getting enough sleep. Some 37 percent of those in the UK, 28 percent of people in Singapore, and 26 percent of French people also report insufficient sleep.

Insufficient sleep is associated with lapses in attention and the inability to stay focused; reduced motivation; compromised problem solving; confusion, irritability and memory lapses; impaired communication; slowed or faulty information processing and judgment; diminished reaction times; and indifference and loss of empathy. Furthermore, short sleep increases the risk of heart attacks, stroke, hypertension, obesity, diabetes, and depression.

Here researchers attempted to measure the economic consequences of limited sleep times--defined as "difficulties with sleep initiation, maintenance or quality associated with the presence of impaired daytime alertness" at least several days a week--in Australia. Researchers evaluated financial and non-financial cost data derived from national surveys and databases. Costs considered included: financial costs associated with health care, informal care provided outside the healthcare sector, productivity losses, non-medical work and vehicle accident costs, deadweight loss through inefficiencies relating to lost taxation revenue and welfare payments; and nonfinancial costs of a loss of well-being.

The financial cost component was $17.88 billion, comprised of: direct health costs of $160 million for sleep disorders and $1.08 billion for associated conditions; productivity losses of $12.19 billion ($5.22 billion reduced employment, $0.61 billion premature death, $1.73 billion absenteeism, $4.63 billion lost through workers showing up for work but not actually performing work on the job); non-medical accident costs of $2.48 billion; informal care costs of $0.41 billion; and deadweight loss of $1.56 billion. The non-financial cost of reduced well-being was $27.33 billion. Thus, the estimated overall cost of inadequate sleep in Australia in 2016-17 (population: 24.8 million) was $45.21 billion.

The financial and non-financial costs associated with inadequate sleep are substantial. The estimated total financial cost of $17.88 billion represents 1.55% of Australian gross domestic product. The estimated non-financial cost of $27.33 billion represents 4.6% of the total Australian burden of disease for the year. The researchers argue that these costs warrant substantial investment in preventive health measures to address the issue through education and regulation.

In setting national health priorities, governments have attempted to identify issues that involve high communal illness and injury burden with associated high costs for attention through public education, regulation, and other initiatives to effect improvements in health status. The authors say that governments have been remarkably successful in targeting diabetes, depression, and smoking, for example. These data presented above suggest that sleep health may merit similar attention. The situation is likely to be similar in equivalent economies.

Researcher quote: "We are in the midst of a worldwide epidemic of inadequate sleep, some from clinical sleep disorders, some through pressure from competing work, social and family activities and some from failure to give sleep sufficient priority through choice or ignorance. Apart from its impact on well-being, this problem comes at a huge economic cost through its destructive effects on health, safety and productivity. Addressing the issue by education, regulation and other initiatives is likely to deliver substantial economic as well as health benefits."

Even though men don't often talk about their body insecurities, a new survey finds it's something that's certainly on their minds. Instead of discussing the issue or seeking advice from their doctors, men often turn to supplements and extreme workout regimens to change their bodies. A national survey commissioned by Orlando Health finds that 90 percent of men have changed their daily habits to reach their fitness goals. While it's common and healthy to adopt some lifestyle changes, millennials are much more likely than any age group to go to extremes, like using supplements (51 percent) and working out more than four days per week (56 percent).

With health food store shelves lined with pills and powders promising to build muscle and cut fat, doctors warn that supplements are not regulated by the FDA and could have unintended health consequences. And while gym culture encourages men to push themselves to their limits, intense workout schedules often lead to burnout and an unhealthy rise and fall in weight and muscles mass.

To help men find a safe and sustainable balance, Dr. Jamin Brahmbhatt and Dr. Sijo Parekattil, co-directors of the PUR (Personalized Urology & Robotics) Clinic and urologists at Orlando Health, are hitting the road for the 5th annual Drive for Men's Health. This year, they'll open a conversation about male body image and discuss the possible dangers of going overboard for the sake of obtaining 6-pack abs or bigger muscles.

"Finding that healthy balance can be a challenge, but it's something that men should be speaking to their doctors about. The daily habits that they think are improving their health could actually be putting it at risk," said Brahmbhatt. "A lot of claims on the labels of supplements and shakes are, at best, unresearched, and at worst, potentially dangerous."

On June 4th, Brahmbhatt and Parekattil will kick-off this year's event in New York City, then hit the road in the Drive for Men's Health hybrid BMW i8 for a 3,000 mile road trip. They'll make stops in Philadelphia, Columbus, Chicago and Houston before ending their journey with a grand finale event in Clermont, Florida.

The duo will host health and nutrition demonstrations in partnership with local chefs at farmers' markets in each city, inviting men to take control of their health and be a part of the conversation on body image issues for men. They'll finish their roadtrip by joining the Clermont Waterfront ParkRun for a 5K to celebrate optimal health and active lifestyles.

"We want people to have fun at these events so that they are engaged and can absorb the important health messages that we're putting out there," said Parekattil, "Showing up creates a great opportunity to start the conversation and make an appointment with your doctor, because just living a healthy lifestyle isn't enough. Having regular visits with a physician is also extremely important to disease prevention and maintaining good health."

If you can't make it to the live events, you can ride along with the doctors via social media using the hashtag #Drive4Men. They'll be using Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube to answer questions, give live health advice and provide updates along their journey.

Twitter and Instagram: @drive4men
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drive4men
YouTube: http://bit.ly/2HC9IUA

Not only are millennials more likely to engage in risky habits to achieve their body goals, but they're also less likely to see their doctors. Brahmbhatt and Parekattil are determined to reach as many men as possible to help them understand the importance of regular checkups and encourage each of them to make an appointment.

"We often use the analogy that our bodies are a lot like our cars," said Brahmbhatt. "Men will take the time to do preventative maintenance on their cars, like getting tune ups and oil changes, but for whatever reason, we often don't take the same time and effort for our health. We need to change that mindset."

Brahmbhatt and Parekattil will hold events from June 4 through June 9 to spread the message that you don't need to go to extremes for the perfect body, but just like your car, regular maintenance will keep it in proper working order.

Male guppies exposed to predators in the wild or in captivity have heavier brains than those living in relatively predator-free conditions, according to new research published in the journal Functional Ecology.

Behavioural ecologists from Liverpool John Moores University, UK and McGill University, Canada sampled guppies from two rivers in northern Trinidad. In each river, guppies live above a waterfall, a location that only guppies and a few other small species of fish have managed to colonize, and below the fall, where many predators including pike cichlids live.

"Guppies offer an excellent model for evolutionary research because they have colonized multiple independent rivers in Trinidad where they are exposed to a variety of different conditions", said Dr Adam Reddon, now at Liverpool John Moores University's School of Natural Sciences and Psychology. "We were particularly interested in finding out how the brains of these widely-distributed fish have evolved for dealing with the challenges of living under predation threat."

The researchers looked at whether there are differences in relative brain mass between wild guppies collected from high and low predation populations and found that, for their body size, males collected from high predation sites had on average 17% heavier brains compared to males from low predation sites in the same river. Female guppies, by contrast, did not show this pattern.

To test the origins of these findings, the ecologists conducted a laboratory experiment in which they exposed young guppies to cues of predation risk.

"The brain is a highly malleable organ and experiences early in life can shape how it develops. We wanted to see if the predation effect we detected in male guppies in the wild could be due to experiences in their early life stages", commented Laura Chouinard-Thuly of McGill University, also an author on this paper.

The fish were exposed to the sight of a predator living in an adjacent aquarium for five minutes at a time, five times a week during the first 45 days of their life. The researchers also added the scents of predators and an alarm cue released by guppies. Guppies in the control group were exposed to the sight and smells of a non-predatory fish.

Again, the researchers found that males exposed to predator cues during development had 21% heavier brains than the control group. They found no evidence that the exposure to predation cues influenced the relative brain mass of female guppies.

Males are more brightly coloured and attractive to predators. The results suggest that a larger brain for their body size is advantageous under predation threat, perhaps allowing the fish to detect, learn about or react to predators better.

Reddon commented: "It is also possible that guppies with bigger brains are better at doing two things at once. For instance, males spend a lot of time courting females and it may be that those with a bigger brain can do this while keeping an eye out for predators."

Brains can use a lot of energy and are generally only as big as they need to be for animal survival and reproduction. Female guppies are 2-10 times the size of males and tend to live longer. They play a slow and steady strategy to reproduction and so may consistently benefit from paying the high costs of building and maintaining larger brain tissue, whereas male guppies may only benefit under high predation risk.

A group of men who may be underestimating their HIV risk has been identified in a new study.

Public health messages should be targeted specifically at this neglected group, suggest researchers who carried out the work.

The men are a distinct group who have sex with other men, but are not open about their sexuality.

They tend to mix with, and acquire infection from, each other and not from openly gay men.

They are unlikely to mix in the same social venues as openly gay men and are not likely to disclose that they have sex with other men.

Fear of stigmatisation, rejection or prejudice can stop this group, who include bisexual and non-gay-identified men, from disclosing their sexuality.

They are less likely to receive prevention messages and access the same healthcare as others and as a result may be less aware of their HIV risk.

Researchers at the University of Edinburgh used a national archive of anonymous data to study patterns of HIV transmission.

They analysed the genetic code of virus samples from more than 60,000 HIV-positive people in the UK.

Because the genetic information of the virus changes rapidly over time, by finding people whose virus was more similar, scientists were able to create networks of linked infections to see how the virus had spread.

Earlier work from the same group suggested that 6 per cent of men who claimed to be heterosexual at the time of diagnosis had actually become infected through sex with men, not women.

This study found that the group of men identified tend to have fewer sex partners and prefer to partner with each other - behaviour that may lead to them underestimating their risk.

There is little evidence of them spreading the infection to openly gay men or heterosexual women.

HIV attacks the body's immune system and, left untreated, makes it difficult fight infections.

Early diagnosis and access to effective treatments allow a near normal and healthy life and prevent onward transmission.

Men who have sex with men are the group most at risk from HIV and account for half of those living with the virus in the UK, but they tend to be diagnosed and receive treatment at earlier stages of the disease.

In contrast, heterosexual males remain the group least likely to visit sexual health clinics and are often diagnosed late, when their immune system has already been damaged.

The study, published in The Lancet HIV, was funded by the United States National Institutes of Health.

Professor Andrew Leigh Brown, of the School of Biological Sciences, who led the research, said: "Nondisclosed men who have sex with men are more likely to be infected by each other than by openly gay men, and less likely to be aware of their risk. The finding shows that public health messages should be targeted specifically at this neglected group. It also shows that large-scale studies of health data can be carried out without risk to individual privacy."

Bumper car-like interactions at the edges of our solar system—and not a mysterious ninth planet—may explain the dynamics of strange bodies called “detached objects,” according to a new study.

CU Boulder Assistant Professor Ann-Marie Madigan and a team of researchers have offered up a new theory for the existence of planetary oddities like Sedna. This minor planet orbits Earth's sun at a distance of 8 billion miles but appears separated from the rest of the solar system.

One theory for its unusual dynamics is that an as-of-yet-unseen ninth planet beyond Neptune may have disturbed the orbits of Sedna and other detached objects. But Madigan and her colleagues calculated that the orbits of Sedna and its ilk may result from these bodies jostling against each other and space debris in the outer solar system.

"There are so many of these bodies out there. What does their collective gravity do?" said Madigan of the Department of Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences (APS) and JILA. "We can solve a lot of these problems by just taking into account that question."

The researchers will present their findings on June 4 at a press briefing at the 232nd meeting of the American Astronomical Society, which runs from June 3-7 in Denver.

Detached objects like Sedna get their name because they complete humongous, circular orbits that bring them nowhere close to big planets like Jupiter or Neptune. How they got to the outer solar system on their own is an ongoing mystery.

Using computer simulations, Madigan's team came up with one possible answer. Jacob Fleisig, an undergraduate studying astrophysics at CU Boulder, calculated that these icy objects orbit the sun like the hands of a clock. The orbits of smaller objects, such as asteroids, however, move faster than the larger ones, such as Sedna.

"You see a pileup of the orbits of smaller objects to one side of the sun," said Fleisig, who is the lead author of the new research. "These orbits crash into the bigger body, and what happens is those interactions will change its orbit from an oval shape to a more circular shape."

In other words, Sedna's orbit goes from normal to detached entirely because of those small-scale interactions. The team's observations also fall in line with research from 2012, which observed that the bigger a detached object gets, the farther away its orbit becomes from the sun. Alexander Zderic, a graduate student in APS at CU Boulder, also co-authored the new research.

The findings may also provide clues around another phenomenon: the extinction of the dinosaurs. As space debris interacts in the outer solar system, the orbits of these objects tighten and widen in a repeating cycle. This cycle could wind up shooting comets toward the inner solar system--including in the direction of Earth--on a predictable timescale.

"While we're not able to say that this pattern killed the dinosaurs," Fleisig said, "it's tantalizing."

The future of cardiovascular care will be transformed by advances in artificial intelligence, digital health technology, and mobile as a means to prevent and treat heart disease, according to several review articles published today in a Journal of the American College of Cardiology Focus Seminar on the Future Technology of Cardiovascular Care.

"Artificial Intelligence in Cardiology"

As the type and breadth of data available to cardiologists and the cardiovascular care team continues to grow more sophisticated, physicians are increasingly being asked to provide more rapid and personalized interpretations of data to their patients. One solution to providing this level of personalized medicine efficiently is artificial intelligence, also known as machine learning.

In this review, researchers analyze select applications of artificial intelligence in cardiology and identify how the specialty could incorporate more artificial intelligence in the future to enhance the capabilities and experiences of clinicians and patients.

"[Artificial intelligence] has clear potential to enhance every stage of patient care--from research and discovery, to diagnosis, to selection of therapy," said Joel Dudley, PhD, senior author of the review and director of the Next Generation Healthcare Institute at Mount Sinai. "A key next step to incorporating artificial intelligence into cardiology is to align available data and technologies with clinical and business use. This way, we can prioritize short-term opportunities and understand gaps in available data or algorithms that are holding back applications of artificial intelligence in areas of high clinical need."

According to the review, artificial intelligence is currently only performed by those with specialized training, but in the future, these methods will be increasingly easy and widely available. It may eventually be incorporated into day-to-day practice by interacting with electronic health records and billing.

"Using Digital Health Technology to Better Generate Evidence and Deliver Evidence-based Care"

Digital health is the use of digital information, data and communication technologies to collect, share and analyze health information to improve patient health and health care delivery. It can broadly include electronic medical records and artificial intelligence applied to large datasets. These technologies have the potential to accelerate, streamline and optimize clinical research operations and reduce costs, but their use comes with concerns about data quality, patient safety and privacy, which contributes to the delay in their use.

In this review paper, participants from a 2016 think tank on digital health discuss the purpose and findings of the meeting. The participants, which included academic, industry and regulatory representatives, convened to understand the current landscape of digital health technology use in health care delivery and clinical trials, identify issues and barriers to the development and adoption of these technologies, and identify potential solutions.

"These technologies could facilitate and advance more conventional randomized clinical trials (RCTs), which is particularly necessary since RCTs are becoming increasingly expensive and complex, are slow to complete and take an extensive amount of time to implement into practice," said Abhinav Sharma, MD, lead author of the review and Stanford University Advanced Heart Failure Fellow (previously a Duke Clinical Research Institute Research Fellow).

Think tank participants reported that there are several solutions that can accelerate the use of these technologies, including: developing innovation networks to rapidly test new innovations, validate findings and provide value cost-effectiveness data; collaborating with regulatory agencies to streamline development; working with professional societies to identify critical knowledge gaps that could be filled by digital health technologies; and expanding the role of public-private partnerships.

"Mobile Health Advances in Physical Activity, Fitness and Atrial Fibrillation: Moving Hearts"

Cardiovascular disease management and prevention involves a commitment to heart healthy physical activity, diet, medication adherence and self-monitoring. These daily activities are largely unmeasured, but the emergence and rapid growth of mobile devices and wearables has made continuous health monitoring a possibility and, for many patients, a reality.

Mobile health, or mHealth, is the subset of digital health that focuses on the use of mobile and wearable devices and software applications. Authors in this article provide an update on cardiovascular mHealth, with a focus on research and clinical advances in measuring and promoting physical activity and fitness plus using these same mobile devices for heart rate and rhythm monitoring, especially for atrial fibrillation.

"Only recently has the medical community started to embrace the reality that most 'health' takes place outside the hospital and clinic, namely the daily activities and clinical events that occur 'the other 362 days' per year when people are not seen by a clinician," said Michael McConnell, MD, MSEE, lead author of the review and clinical professor of cardiovascular medicine at Stanford University and head of cardiovascular health innovations at Verily Life Sciences. "Enabling patients and clinicians to leverage these technologies for proactive health care can transform cardiovascular prevention and disease management."

The authors specifically looked at atrial fibrillation because it can go undetected and be difficult to manage. Office visits and short-term monitoring provide limited information on disease presence and burden, which can result in serious complications. However, ongoing monitoring with mHealth devices is an opportunity to prevent strokes, manage symptoms and reduce hospitalizations from atrial fibrillation. Machine learning has emerged as a powerful technology to enhance atrial fibrillation detection from wearable devices. Importantly, physical activity and fitness are also linked with primary prevention of atrial fibrillation and reduced atrial fibrillation burden and recurrence. The authors note the importance of broad collaboration to further integrate mHealth technology into clinical care, with the potential for substantial individual and societal benefits.

URBANA, Ill. - In the fight against herbicide resistance, farmers are working with a shrinking toolkit. Waterhemp, a weedy nemesis of corn and soybean farmers, has developed resistance to multiple herbicide modes of action, often in the same plant. Even farmers using the latest recommendations for tank mixtures are fighting an uphill battle, with long-distance movement of pollen and seeds bringing the potential for new types of resistance into their fields each year.

In a study released this week, scientists at the University of Illinois and USDA's Agricultural Research Service offer a new tool that is not only highly effective, it's free. All it costs is a conversation.

"I think we're at a point now where farmers are looking for new tools. This tool is free, but it requires that people talk to each other and work together as opposed to doing everything on their own," says Adam Davis, research ecologist with USDA-ARS and adjunct professor in the Department of Crop Sciences at U of I.

The tool is cooperative weed management - in other words, making decisions about how to manage herbicide-resistant weeds in cooperation with neighboring farms. The more farms working together, and the larger area covered, the better.

Davis and his team tested the efficacy of farmer cooperation using a computer simulation of waterhemp resistance evolution through time and space. They ran the simulation using real numbers and management practices from the past, starting in 1987, to arrive at a realistic representation of herbicide resistance in waterhemp in 2015. Then they forecast 35 years into the future to determine how resistance might change under different management and cooperation scenarios.

"The crux of the story is that if you do good stuff and you aggregate it at larger spatial scales, it gets even better. If you do bad stuff and you aggregate it at large spatial scales, it gets even worse," Davis says.

The "bad stuff," according to the simulation, is using a single herbicide mode of action year after year. Resistance to a single chemical evolved and spread very quickly throughout the simulated landscape, especially if everyone was spraying the same one every year.

"If you take the cheap route, you'll save some money in the short term on your herbicide costs, but in the long term, you'll have a much greater likelihood of developing resistance," Davis notes.

But if farmers invested in tank mixtures of herbicides representing three or four modes of action, the evolution and spread of resistance was delayed, and the delay got longer with increasing levels of cooperation.

"The message is not to use the most expensive herbicide program possible; the message is to use the available tools to manage your weeds better," Davis says. "If you do that on your own farm, certainly it's going to help. If you do it on a bunch of adjoining farms, it's going to help even more. You can buy a couple of decades of time, in terms of delaying herbicide resistance evolution, by aggregating the best practices at large spatial scales."

The simulation looked at management on individual farms, cooperatives of 10 neighboring farms, and cooperative weed management areas, comprising 10 neighboring farmer cooperatives. Davis says the specific number of farms making collective weed management decisions isn't as important as the spatial scale they cover. He suggests forming weed management areas at the township scale and above.

The concept is simple, but farmers treasure their independence. How will it work?

Davis points to existing regional farm associations, such as drainage districts or commodity groups, as possible models for how weed management cooperatives might operate. He also suggests involving custom applicators in decision-making and implementation, since they're already out there servicing multiple farms in a region.

The researchers are asking additional questions of the simulation, adding non-chemical control options like cover crops, crop rotation, and the Harrington Seed Destructor, to see how much more effective they get at larger scales. They're also trying to quantify how much non-compliance a cooperative weed management area can withstand before its effectiveness falls apart.

But for now, the study suggests preserving the effectiveness of existing herbicides is worth the trouble of making nice with the neighbors.

A new blood test being developed to diagnose heart attacks could one day be carried out on a simple handheld device, giving a rapid diagnosis in A&E departments without the need for samples to be sent to a lab, according to new research presented today at the British Cardiovascular Society Conference in Manchester.

The new test uses similar technology to the troponin test, but analyses the level of a protein called cardiac myosin-binding protein C (cMyC). Levels of cMyC in the blood increase more rapidly after a heart attack, and to a higher extent, than troponin, meaning that the test can rule out a heart attack in a higher proportion of patients straight away.

The international team, part-funded by the British Heart Foundation, took blood from 776 patients traveling to hospital by ambulance in Denmark. Researchers based at King's College London then tested these samples for cMyC protein.

In patients who did suffer heart attacks, the protein was present in high enough concentrations 95 per cent of the time for an on-the spot diagnosis. Importantly, the cMyC test outperformed the existing troponin test, which was only capable of diagnosing around 40 percent of patients in this way. This is mainly because troponin takes longer to reach detectable levels in the blood after you suffer a heart attack.

The researchers now hope to work with industry to create a portable testing device to be used in UK A&E departments, and in ambulances in countries where these have to drive considerable distances to get patients to their nearest hospital. A simple handheld device could replace the time-consuming processes involved in sending samples to the hospital labs for analysis.

It is estimated that over two thirds of people who attend A&E complaining of chest pain have not had a heart attack. But all will receive two tests: a heart test called an ECG and a blood test to measure the levels of a protein called troponin.

Under current guidelines, people suspected of having a heart attack are tested for high blood troponin levels as soon as they arrive in an A&E, and again after three hours. Depending on the type of troponin test used, up to 85 per cent of people will need to remain in hospital for further tests in order to rule out a heart attack.

The cMyC blood test, developed by a team from King's College London and tested across Europe, has already been shown to rapidly rule out a heart attack in more people than the standard troponin test. This could reassure worried patients in A&E departments, free up bed space and save hundreds of thousands of pounds per UK hospital every year.

Dr Tom Kaier, one of the lead researchers, funded by the British Heart Foundation at St Thomas' Hospital, London said:

"It is important for both patients and doctors to work out early who has had a heart attack and who hasn't.

"Now that we know that this test is sensitive enough to give an almost immediate heart attack diagnosis, we need to work on developing a testing device. We'd love to see this used in A&E departments within the next 5 years."

Professor Jeremy Pearson, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, said:

"Big heart attacks are often easy to diagnose with an ECG but smaller heart attacks, which are more common and also life-threatening, are more challenging.The troponin test has been used for around 20 years and is currently the most powerful tool we have for diagnosing such heart attacks, but there is always room for improvement.

"These initial results with the cMyC test look very promising for patients, who could be more quickly diagnosed and treated or reassured and sent home. However, further research is necessary before it can be recommended as a replacement for the troponin test."

Differences in the structure of the prefrontal cortex predict an individual's ability to make healthier food choices, according to a new analysis of previous research in healthy men and women. The paper, published in JNeurosci, suggests an important role of these anatomical markers in decisions that have long-term effects on health and wellbeing.

Maintaining a healthy diet requires consistently choosing healthy foods over perhaps more tempting ones that may satisfy an immediate craving but have negative health consequences. People vary in their ability to exercise such self-control, which has been linked to individual differences in real-time brain activity. In this study, Liane Schmidt and colleagues examined whether more stable differences in the anatomy of the brain could account for variations in self-control.

Analyzing data pooled from three previous studies and generalizing their results to a fourth independent dataset, the researchers found that greater volume in the dorsolateral and ventromedial prefrontal cortex was associated with improved dietary self-control across different diet goals and participant groups. Since brain structure, like connectivity, can change over time in response to lifestyle, these brain regions represent key targets to explore in the design of interventions that promote healthy choices.

Japan -- Even bonobos lose their appetites with enough 'ick'.

These primates, known for their liberal attitudes toward sex, are also generally open-minded when it comes to new foods -- as long as the grub is clean.

Researchers from Kyoto University's Primate Research Institute have now found that a bonobo's curiosity transforms into caution when food is presented with or near feces, soil, or bad smells. Their study was published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B.

In nature, parasites and pathogens are everywhere, and many enter our bodies by riding along with food. We therefore need a way to detect these hitchhikers with the help of our various senses.

"Current studies suggest that animals evolved a system to protect against such threats, now known as the adaptive system of disgust," explains Cecile Sarabian, lead author of the study. "For example, bodily fluids are universal disgust elicitors in humans, and recently, we published evidence that the same reaction exists in our primate cousins."

In a series of experiments, bonobos were presented with different food choices involving novel food items: foods contaminated with feces or soil; chains of food items linked to a contaminant; previously contaminated food; or only the odors of feces or rotting food.

Although bonobos happily gobbled up clean food, they steadfastly avoided anything contaminated. Moreover, their sensitivity toward contamination risk seemed to wane the farther away a food item was located from the source of contamination.

Another experiment showed that bonobos are less likely to engage in exploratory activities like touching and tasting substrates, or even using tools to achieve a goal when confronted with 'bad' smells.

"These results fit with what one would expect if bonobos had a system of disgust driving their behavioral decision making," says Sarabian. "Interestingly though, bonobo infants and juveniles showed much less precaution, matching human infant behavior in similar contexts."

One hypothesis they have is that while infants may get sick from this kind of behavior, it helps them build their immune systems at a critical time in their development.

The team has yet to conclude if bonobos themselves express disgust in a way we can recognize, but plan to continue their research and further investigate the origins of disgust in humans.

"There's some evidence from humans and other animals -- classically with rats -- on what we call food neophobia, which is an inclination to stay away from or be cautious around new foods," adds senior author Andrew MacIntosh. "This might also be related to our tendencies to avoid things that might make us sick, with different individuals being more or less conservative in both cases."

"In our study, the bonobos seemed eager to tuck into novel fruits, which tells us that they are not very food-neophobic, or at least they automatically associate fruits they've never seen before with food," MacIntosh continues. "But we need more information about how they might react to a range of new foods before we can try to link food-neophobia with contamination sensitivity in other primates."

Policymakers are being misinformed by the results of economic models that underestimate the future risks of climate change impacts, according to a new journal paper by authors in the United States and the United Kingdom, which is published today (4 June 2018).

The paper in the Review of Environmental Economics and Policy calls for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) to improve how it analyses the results of economic modelling as it prepares its Sixth Assessment Report, due to be published in 2021 and 2022.

The paper's authors, Thomas Stoerk of the Environmental Defense Fund, Gernot Wagner of the Harvard University Center for the Environment and Bob Ward of the ESRC Centre for Climate Change Economics and Policy at the London School of Economics and Political Science, draw attention to "mounting evidence that current economic models of the aggregate global impacts of climate change are inadequate in their treatment of uncertainty and grossly underestimate potential future risks".

They warn that the "integrated assessment models" used by economists "largely ignore the potential for 'tipping points' beyond which impacts accelerate, become unstoppable, or become irreversible". As a result "they inadequately account for the potential damages from climate change, especially at moderate to high levels of warming", due to rises in global mean temperature of more than 2 Celsius degrees.

The authors draw attention to "a major discrepancy between scientific and economic estimates of the impacts of unmanaged future climate change". They state: "These discrepancies between the physical and the economic impact estimates are large, and they matter. However, physical impacts are often not translated into monetary terms and they have largely been ignored by climate economists."

The paper states that the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report should "strengthen its focus on decision making under uncertainty" and "focus on estimating how the uncertainty itself affects economic and financial cost estimates of climate change".

The authors point out that the preparation of the report "can act as a broad forum that brings together scientists and economists with a goal of quantifying the impacts of climate change".

They suggest that this would allow the IPCC to "provide policymakers with a more robust and rigorous way of assessing the potential future risks of economic damage from climate change".

The authors have written to Professor Hans-Otto Pörtner and Professor Debra Roberts, the Co-Chairs of IPCC Working Group II, to draw attention to the new paper.

BALTIMORE - The key to predicting how someone is affected by sleep loss may be found in microRNAs (miRNAs), according to a new study from researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. Many studies connect sleep loss with cancer, cardiovascular disease, Alzheimer's, and other disorders, and it is well known that sleep loss negatively affects cognitive performance. However, those adverse effects are experienced differently from person to person, and little is known about how to accurately predict and detect these individual sleep-deprivation deficits.

This study is the first to find that microRNAs in the blood are changed by total sleep deprivation (TSD) for 39 hours, and by psychological stress, and can predict the resulting cognitive performance in adults. The authors say the findings can be used to identify who is most at risk for the negative effects of sleep deprivation, and thus should receive medical assistance to prevent those effects.

MiRNAs are small non-coding RNAs and are key regulators of gene expression, which guides information in a gene to be made into a functional protein. MiRNAs typically repress expression of their target messenger RNAs, preventing translation into proteins.

The findings (#0012) will be presented at SLEEP 2018, the 32nd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies LLC (APSS) at the Baltimore Convention Center on Sunday and Monday, June 3 and 4.

In the study, 32 healthy adults participated in a five-day experiment consisting of two, 8-hour baseline nights, followed by 39 hours of total sleep deprivation (TSD), in which they were not allowed to sleep, and followed by two, 8-to-10-hour recovery nights.

Subjects underwent testing for attention, memory, and cognitive throughput, i.e., how fast and accurate the brain performs of cognitive tests, were administered throughout the experiment to measure cognitive performance. Blood samples were taken at six time points and miRNAs from plasma were analyzed.

Compared to the pre-study time point, 10 miRNAs showed changes in their expression level in subjects who experienced TSD alone compared to 18 miRNAs with expression level changes in these subjects when they experienced TSD and psychological stress.

Notably, from the miRNA blood sample taken before the study began, 14 miRNAs reliably predicted behavioral attention performance during TSD, 7 miRNAs reliably predicted cognitive throughput performance during TSD and 10 miRNAs reliably predicted memory performance.

"These findings show for the first time that miRNAs can track responses to total sleep deprivation and its detrimental combination with psychological stress and predict robust individual differences in various types of cognitive performance," said senior author Namni Goel, PhD, an associate professor of Psychology in Psychiatry. "As such, miRNAs are viable biomarkers of sleep deprivation, psychological stress, and cognitive vulnerability in humans and can be used to identify individuals ahead of time who are in need of countermeasures or interventions such as caffeine or naps to mitigate or prevent impairments associated with insufficient sleep."

Some of the earliest predators that patrolled the oceans over 500 million years ago are also some of the largest animals to have lived at the time. However, a new fossil study led by Jianni Liu from the Northwest University of Xi'an in China, has shown that their tiny babies were also proficient killers.

The "creepy crawly" animal group known as the Arthropoda, which includes spiders, insects and crustaceans, has often been the inspiration behind many science fiction monsters, largely due to their scary-looking appendages. Some of the oldest and most primitive arthropod species belong to a group called the Radiodonta ("radiating teeth"), which were armed with large, spiny raptorial (or grasping) appendages at the front of the head and a circular mouth adorned with tooth-like serrations. These animals, including the famous Anomalocaris, are considered the giant apex predators of their time, reaching lengths of over one metre.

Until now, virtually nothing was known about the juveniles of radiodontans and their feeding habits. The discovery of an exceptionally-preserved juvenile of a species called Lyrarapax unguispinus from the early Cambrian (518 million-year-old) Chengjiang biota of China has shed new light on this iconic group of fossil arthropods.

At only 18mm in total body length, this almost complete specimen represents the smallest radiodontan ever found. To the surprise of the research team, its anatomy is extraordinarily well developed--especially the spiny grasping appendages--giving it the appearance of a miniaturised adult. This indicates that Lyrarapax unguispinus was a well-equipped predator at an early developmental stage, similar to modern arthropods such as praying mantises, mantis shrimps, and arachnids. This discovery confirms that raptorial feeding habits in juveniles appeared early on in the evolutionary history of arthropods.

This fossil find also has important implications for the rapid evolution of the first animals over half-a-billion years ago - an event referred to colloquially as the Cambrian 'Explosion'. It is hypothesised that predation was a major driver of this evolutionary event, with predators placing selective pressures on animal communities, forcing prey species to adapt and evolve or face extinction.The predatory lifestyles of juvenile radiodontans adds further complexity to Cambrian marine food webs by placing additional pressures on small prey during this evolutionary 'arms race'.