Culture

At a time when kombucha is commonplace on cafe menus and "probiotic-fortified" has become the newest health buzzword, our guts have never been more relevant. With good reason, humans have begun paying more attention to the bacteria living in our guts -- our microbiomes. The microbiome helps fight disease and aid digestion, playing a pivotal role in many creatures' wellbeing, from canines to primates to rodents. But for the first time-- largely in part due to museum collections--scientists were able to compare the guts of mammals, birds, reptiles, and amphibians alike. It turns out that not all species rely so heavily on their gut microbiomes. In fact, birds and bats have oddly similar microbiomes, and neither appear to rely on them much. "Why?" you may ask: to accommodate their ability to fly, scientists think.

"If you're carrying a lot of bacteria in your gut, it can be pretty heavy and may take resources away from you," says Holly Lutz, a research associate at Chicago's Field Museum and postdoctoral researcher at the University of California San Diego. "So if you're an animal that has really high energetic demands, say because you're flying, you may not be able to afford to carry all those bacteria around, and you may not be able to afford to feed them or deal with them."

"When we first started this project, I thought that it would make sense that we'd see similar associations between animals and their gut microbes when the animals shared a similar diet. Our pie-in-the-sky idea was that flight could impose a similar type of selection on which microbes animals host. What was shocking was that we didn't find that birds and bats share a similar microbiome per se, but rather that both lack a specific relationship with microbes," says Se Jin Song, the study's co-first author from UC San Diego.

To figure out the relationship between gut microbiomes and these vastly different species, Lutz and her colleagues got down and dirty: analyzing the fecal samples of around 900 species of animals with a backbone--the first study of its kind to analyze both mammal and bird microbial diversity on a global-scale.

It was a large, collaborative effort, bringing together researchers, museum collections, and zoo directors from around the world. Like something you'd see in an Indiana Jones movie, Lutz ventured into the dark bowels of remote Ugandan and Kenyan caves with a flashlight in tow and scrambled up rocky walls to collect samples from African bats.

Once all the samples were gathered, scientists used high throughput genetic sequencing to process them. DNA was extracted from individual cells using specialized detergent and filtration methods, after which scientists could target a specific gene common to all bacteria in order to "barcode" bacterial communities present within each sample. By pooling samples from individual hosts - referred to as "libraries" - they were then able to sequence samples en masse and make the broad comparisons that formed the foundation of the study.

Scientists expected to see gut microbiomes line up according to the family trees of the animals in which they live. In general, animals that are closely related to each other have similar gut microbiomes, because they evolved together - a pattern referred to by scientists as phylosymbiosis.

That's why they were surprised to see that bats' gut microbiomes had little in common with their fellow mammals. Bats' gut microbiomes were actually more similar to birds than any other group. The takeaway? That in birds and bats, there's little relationship between how closely related species are and how similar their microbiomes are.

The link between birds and bats isn't in their ancestry, but in their lifestyles. Birds and bats are vastly different and only distantly related, but they both independently evolved the ability to fly. Lutz has a hunch that birds' and bats' need to be light for flight changed their guts. Their intestinal tracts are much shorter than those of comparably-sized land mammals and carry far fewer bacteria -- giving flying animals less stuff to haul around. There's also the possibility that their guts aren't providing the necessary food to bacteria to maintain the symbiotic (mutually beneficial) exchange that would make living there beneficial to bacteria.

In addition to having shorter guts and fewer bacteria, the bacteria that birds and bats do have tend to vary a lot. For all mammalian groups besides bats, there were visible patterns of specific bacteria found in closely-related groups. However, with birds and bats you see all types of individual bacteria scattered across almost haphazardly. "It's almost like they're just picking up whatever's around them and they don't really need their microbes to help them in ways that we do," says Lutz.

Scientists hope that learning more about the nuances of other animals' microbiomes can tell us more about our own. The species that don't rely as much on their gut microbiomes can provide a particular insight. "If we ever are putting ourselves in some kind of extreme situation where we're disrupting our microbiome, there is something that we can learn from animals that don't need their microbiomes as much," reflects Lutz.

Lutz notes that this discovery wouldn't have been possible without museum collections from around the world. Specimens of bird and bat guts tucked away in cryogenic chambers filled with liquid nitrogen in the Field Museum's Collections Resource Center were pulled out to help provide the broad samples needed for a study of this size.

"The scope of this paper --in terms of species that we sampled-- is really remarkable. The diversity of collaborators that came together to make this study happen shows how much we can achieve when we reach out and have these big and inter-institutional collaborations,"
says Lutz.

HIGHLIGHTS

In many cases, researchers can predict the kinds of microbes a species might host in their guts if they already know the microbial makeup within other, related animals.

This study shows that's not the case for bats, which are unique among mammals -- their microbial patterns more closely resemble birds, who also have unpredictable microbial communities.

The finding suggests the evolutionary requirements of flight may have direct effect on gut microbiomes, and raises questions about what other kinds of evolutionary pressures could be influencing the microbial communities that live in and on us.

It's no secret there's a close relationship between humans and our microbiomes -- the communities of microbes that live in and on us. In fact, researchers can usually guess what an animal's gut microbiome might look like by studying closely related species. Or at least, that's what they thought.

It turns out that while there's a remarkable predictability in the gut microbiomes in most mammalian species, some kinds of evolutionary adaptations -- such as flight -- might lead to drastically different microbial populations.

In a new study published January 7, 2020 in mBio, University of California San Diego researchers found similarities in birds and bats beyond their penchant for flight. After working with dozens of institutions around the world to collect fecal samples from nearly 900 vertebrate species and comparing their gut microbiomes, the team was surprised by the lack of similarities between birds and bats.

"This research suggests that mammals -- including humans -- may be the exception rather than the rule in terms of how deeply reliant they are on their gut microbes," said co-first author Se Jin Song, PhD, director of research at the Center for Microbiome Innovation at UC San Diego. "This represents a paradigm shift in how we think about animals and the relationships they have with their microbes.

"We were broadly interested in figuring out what kinds of factors explain why animals have the types of gut microbes they do, but we also wanted to answer more specific questions like when different animals evolve similar traits -- such as adaptation to an extreme diet -- do their gut microbiomes also evolve in a similar way?

"When we first started this project, I thought that it would make sense that we'd see similar associations between animals and their gut microbes when the animals shared a similar diet. Our pie-in-the-sky idea was that flight could impose a similar type of selection on which microbes animals host. What was shocking was that we didn't find that birds and bats share a similar microbiome per se, but rather that both lack a specific relationship with microbes."

Earlier studies indicated the relationship between mammals and their microbes is very old. This led researchers to believe that they could predict the kinds of microbes a species might host just by looking at other similar mammals. The new research has toppled that idea, finding that bats are unique among mammals, simply because their gut microbiomes aren't predictable in terms of the types and quantities of microbes found in the guts of related species. This pattern actually more closely resembles birds, who also have unpredictable microbial communities.

"What that means is that, while some animals seem to have very stable relationships with their microbiomes, with similar bacterial communities persisting across millions of years, others appear to have much more dynamic relationships," said co-first author Jon Sanders, PhD, a former postdoctoral fellow in the UC San Diego lab of co-senior author Rob Knight, PhD. "Most surprisingly, powered flight seems to be associated with that lack of stability. Bats and birds both seem to have independently ended up with gut microbiomes that don't seem to follow the hosts' evolutionary relationships."

The variability across related species that share similar diets indicates that, at least in birds and bats, a specific microbial balance may not be so critical for supporting normal digestion. This means that the evolutionary requirements of adopting flight may be having direct, profound effects on the microbiome, and raises questions about what other kinds of evolutionary pressures could be influencing microbial communities.

"If you're carrying a lot of bacteria in your gut, it can be pretty heavy and may take resources away from you," said Holly Lutz, PhD, a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Pediatrics at UC San Diego School of Medicine and research associate at Chicago's Field Museum. "So if you're an animal that has really high energetic demands, say because you're flying, you may not be able to afford to carry all those bacteria around, and you may not be able to afford to feed them or deal with them."

The researchers see this data set as a new opportunity to help inform future research on the evolution of microbiomes and their importance for different species. "As humans, we've always thought that we're very special," said Song. "And we might be, but we do live in a world that's much older than we are. This work helps us better understand the evolution and ecology of host-microbe relationships, and I think will help us better understand ourselves."

"This study tells us a lot about large-scale patterns of evolution in the vertebrate gut, but there is still much more to do," said Knight, professor in the UC San Diego School of Medicine and Jacobs School of Engineering and director of the Center for Microbiome Innovation. "We need to perform functional studies with metagenomics and metabolomics, and understand microbes in other parts of the body, how they change during development, and how they interact with environmental microbes in both the wild and in captivity to impact animal health. Understanding these principles in thousands of other species will help us understand our own."

COLUMBUS, Ohio - When college students post about feelings of depression on Facebook, their friends are unlikely to encourage them to seek help, a small study suggests.

In fact, in this study, none of the 33 participating students said their friends told them they should reach out to a mental health professional to discuss their problems.

Instead, most friends simply sent supportive or motivating messages.

But that may not be good enough for people who are truly depressed - as some of the people in this study probably were, said Scottye Cash, lead author of the study and professor of social work at The Ohio State University.

"It makes me concerned that none of the Facebook friends of students in this study were proactive in helping their friend get help," Cash said.

"We need to figure out why."

The research, published online recently in the journal JMIR Research Protocols, is part of a larger online study of health outcomes of 287 students at four universities in the Midwest and West. This study included the 33 students in the larger study who reported that they had "reached out on Facebook for help when depressed."

The students reported what type of post they made and how their friends responded. They also completed a measure of depression.

Results showed that nearly half of the participants reported symptoms consistent with moderate or severe depression and 33 percent indicated they had had suicidal thoughts several days in the previous few weeks.

"There's no doubt that many of the students in our study needed mental health help," Cash said.

The two most common themes in the participants' Facebook posts were negative emotions ("I just said I felt so alone," one student reported) or having a bad day ("Terrible day. Things couldn't get any worse," one wrote). Together, those themes appeared in about 45 percent of the posts the students reported on.

But only one of the students directly asked for help and only three mentioned "depression" or related words, Cash said.

Many participants found ways to hint at how they were feeling without being explicit: 15 percent used sad song lyrics, 5 percent used an emoji or emotion to indicate their depressed feelings and another 5 percent used a quote to express sadness.

"They didn't use words like 'depressed' in their Facebook posts," Cash said.

"It may be because of the stigma around mental illness. Or maybe they didn't know that their symptoms indicated that they were depressed."

Students reported that the most common responses from their friends to their posts about depression (about 35 percent of responses) were simply supportive gestures. "All my close friends were there to encourage me and letting me know that everything will be okay," one student wrote.

The next most common response (19 percent of posts) was to ask what was wrong, which participants didn't always take positively. "It is hard to tell who cares or who's (just) curious this way, though," one participant wrote.

The other three most common responses (all occurring 11 percent of the time) were contacting the depressed friend outside of Facebook, sending a private message within the app, or simply "liking" the post.

Although participants reported that none of their friends suggested they get help, Cash said she is sympathetic to the plight of these friends.

"For the friends reading these posts, they often have to read between the lines since few people came right out and said they were depressed," Cash said.

"Many people used quotes and song lyrics to talk about how they're feeling, so their friends really had to decode what they were saying."

Cash said the findings point to the need for more mental health literacy among college students and others so they know how to recognize the signs of depression and how to respond.

"Both Facebook and colleges and universities could do more to give these students information about resources, mental health support and how to recognize the signs of depression and anxiety," she said.

"We need to increase mental health literacy and decrease mental health stigma."

The protection of Australia's threatened species could be improved by a factor of seven, if more efficient 'umbrella' species were prioritised for protection, according to University of Queensland research.

Umbrella species are species which when preserved, indirectly protect many other plant and animal species.

UQ PhD candidate Michelle Ward said different choices in Australia could provide more assistance for threatened species.

"The Australian Federal Government's umbrella prioritisation list identifies 73 species as conservation priorities," she said.

"But this only ends up benefiting six per cent of all Australia's threatened terrestrial species.

"This figure could be increased to benefit nearly half of all threatened terrestrial species for the same budget.

"One of the main reasons is that many umbrella species are chosen based on their public appeal, rather than their efficiency for protecting other species - we want to change that."

The researchers investigated what umbrella species could maximise the flora and fauna benefiting from management, while considering threats, actions and costs.

"The koala, red goshawk, matted flax-lily and purple clover are more efficient umbrella species, yet none of these appear on the existing federal government priority species list.

"Australia has committed to prevent further extinction of known threatened species and improve their conservation status by 2020.

"Yet, with limited funding committed to conservation, we need better methods to efficiently prioritise investment of resources."

The study's senior author, UQ and the Nature Conservancy's Professor Hugh Possingham said in a time of crisis, smart decision-making was essential.

"Now is precisely the time where governments need to get their investment in nature to be as efficient as possible," he said.

"Nations around the world can significantly improve the selection of umbrella species for conservation action by taking advantage of our transparent, quantitative and objective prioritisation approach.

"With a species extinction crisis, looming international deadlines and limited conservation funding globally, we need better methods to efficiently prioritise investment of resources in species recovery."

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its first Earth-size planet in its star's habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on the surface. Scientists confirmed the find, called TOI 700 d, using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and have modeled the planet's potential environments to help inform future observations.

TOI 700 d is one of only a few Earth-size planets discovered in a star's habitable zone so far. Others include several planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system and other worlds discovered by NASA's Kepler Space Telescope.

"TESS was designed and launched specifically to find Earth-sized planets orbiting nearby stars," said Paul Hertz, astrophysics division director at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "Planets around nearby stars are easiest to follow-up with larger telescopes in space and on Earth. Discovering TOI 700 d is a key science finding for TESS. Confirming the planet's size and habitable zone status with Spitzer is another win for Spitzer as it approaches the end of science operations this January."

TESS monitors large swaths of the sky, called sectors, for 27 days at a time. This long stare allows the satellite to track changes in stellar brightness caused by an orbiting planet crossing in front of its star from our perspective, an event called a transit.

TOI 700 is a small, cool M dwarf star located just over 100 light-years away in the southern constellation Dorado. It's roughly 40% of the Sun's mass and size and about half its surface temperature. The star appears in 11 of the 13 sectors TESS observed during the mission's first year, and scientists caught multiple transits by its three planets.

The star was originally misclassified in the TESS database as being more similar to our Sun, which meant the planets appeared larger and hotter than they really are. Several researchers, including Alton Spencer, a high school student working with members of the TESS team, identified the error.

"When we corrected the star's parameters, the sizes of its planets dropped, and we realized the outermost one was about the size of Earth and in the habitable zone," said Emily Gilbert, a graduate student at the University of Chicago. "Additionally, in 11 months of data we saw no flares from the star, which improves the chances TOI 700 d is habitable and makes it easier to model its atmospheric and surface conditions."

Gilbert and other researchers presented the findings at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society in Honolulu, and three papers -- one of which Gilbert led -- have been submitted to scientific journals.

The innermost planet, called TOI 700 b, is almost exactly Earth-size, is probably rocky and completes an orbit every 10 days. The middle planet, TOI 700 c, is 2.6 times larger than Earth -- between the sizes of Earth and Neptune -- orbits every 16 days and is likely a gas-dominated world. TOI 700 d, the outermost known planet in the system and the only one in the habitable zone, measures 20% larger than Earth, orbits every 37 days and receives from its star 86% of the energy that the Sun provides to Earth. All of the planets are thought to be tidally locked to their star, which means they rotate once per orbit so that one side is constantly bathed in daylight.

A team of scientists led by Joseph Rodriguez, an astronomer at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian in Cambridge, Massachusetts, requested follow-up observations with Spitzer to confirm TOI 700 d.

"Given the impact of this discovery -- that it is TESS's first habitable-zone Earth-size planet -- we really wanted our understanding of this system to be as concrete as possible," Rodriguez said. "Spitzer saw TOI 700 d transit exactly when we expected it to. It's a great addition to the legacy of a mission that helped confirm two of the TRAPPIST-1 planets and identify five more."

The Spitzer data increased scientists' confidence that TOI 700 d is a real planet and sharpened their measurements of its orbital period by 56% and its size by 38%. It also ruled out other possible astrophysical causes of the transit signal, such as the presence of a smaller, dimmer companion star in the system.

Rodriguez and his colleagues also used follow-up observations from a 1-meter ground-based telescope in the global Las Cumbres Observatory network to improve scientists' confidence in the orbital period and size of TOI 700 c by 30% and 36%, respectively.

Because TOI 700 is bright, nearby, and shows no sign of stellar flares, the system is a prime candidate for precise mass measurements by current ground-based observatories. These measurements could confirm scientists' estimates that the inner and outer planets are rocky and the middle planet is made of gas.

Future missions may be able to identify whether the planets have atmospheres and, if so, even determine their compositions.

While the exact conditions on TOI 700 d are unknown, scientists can use current information, like the planet's size and the type of star it orbits, to generate computer models and make predictions. Researchers at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, modeled 20 potential environments of TOI 700 d to gauge if any version would result in surface temperatures and pressures suitable for habitability.

Their 3D climate models examined a variety of surface types and atmospheric compositions typically associated with what scientists regard to be potentially habitable worlds. Because TOI 700 d is tidally locked to its star, the planet's cloud formations and wind patterns may be strikingly different from Earth's.

One simulation included an ocean-covered TOI 700 d with a dense, carbon-dioxide-dominated atmosphere similar to what scientists suspect surrounded Mars when it was young. The model atmosphere contains a deep layer of clouds on the star-facing side. Another model depicts TOI 700 d as a cloudless, all-land version of modern Earth, where winds flow away from the night side of the planet and converge on the point directly facing the star.

When starlight passes through a planet's atmosphere, it interacts with molecules like carbon dioxide and nitrogen to produce distinct signals, called spectral lines. The modeling team, led by Gabrielle Engelmann-Suissa, a Universities Space Research Association visiting research assistant at Goddard, produced simulated spectra for the 20 modeled versions of TOI 700 d.

"Someday, when we have real spectra from TOI 700 d, we can backtrack, match them to the closest simulated spectrum, and then match that to a model," Engelmann-Suissa said. "It's exciting because no matter what we find out about the planet, it's going to look completely different from what we have here on Earth."

Chinese researchers under the direction of Profs. LI Xianfeng and ZHANG Huamin from the Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics (DICP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences recently developed an ultrathin ion-conducting membrane with high selectivity and conductivity that can boost the power of flow batteries. The study was published in Nature Communications.

Membranes are key components of flow batteries. They separate reactive materials in the negative and positive chambers while permitting the transfer of ions across the membrane at the same time. The efficiency of flow batteries greatly depends on the ion selectivity and conductivity of these membranes.

Based on their previous study (Environ.Sci., 2011, 4, 1676), LI's group found that the key challenge for ion-conducting membranes is the "trade-off" between ion selectivity and conductivity. Porous membranes using the traditional phase inversion method of construction had tortuous and poorly connected pores, resulting in low ion conductivity.

In contrast, composite membranes possess separately tuned selective layers supported on substrates. "A composite membrane with a very thin selective layer and a highly conductive substrate hopefully overcomes the trade-off between ion selectivity and conductivity and further improves flow battery performance," said Prof. LI.

To this end, the researchers utilized interfacial polymerization to fabricate a thin-film composite membrane. This membrane has an ultra-thin cross-linked polyamide selective layer and a highly conductive support layer. The ultrathin selective layer is only 180 nm thick. It offers a very short ion-transfer pathway and has very low area resistance.

The cross-linked polyamide has free volume between the size of hydronium and hydrated vanadium ions. Vanadium ions, due to their size, are highly resistant to crossover, thus endowing the membrane with high ion selectivity.

Flow batteries with a thin-film composite membrane could work at higher current density. This would allow the use of a smaller battery stack to generate higher power and reduction in the cost of battery stacks.

The proton transfer mechanism in polyamide selective layers can be further understood by utilizing the Grotthuss mechanism to make theoretical calculations of proton transfers along water chains and carboxyl groups. Results provide new ideas for designing advanced ion-selective membranes that can also be applied to flow batteries.

Classical physics is characterised by the precision of its equations describing the evolution of the world as determined by the initial conditions of the Big Bang - meaning there is no room for chance. Yet our day-to-day experience and intuition are struck by this deterministic vision of the world: has everything really been written in advance? Is randomness nothing more than an illusion? A physicist from UNIGE, Swizerland, has been analysing the classical mathematical language used in modern physics. He has thrown light on a contradiction between the equations that are supposed to explain the phenomena that surround us and the finite world. He suggests making changes to the mathematical language to allow randomness and indeterminism to become part of classical physics, thereby bringing it closer to quantum physics. Thanks to these observations, which are published in the journal Nature Physics, a revolution is sweeping through classical physics and paving the way for potentially different futures.

In classical physics, or Newton's physics, it is accepted that everything has already been determined since the Big Bang. The evolution of the world is explained by mathematical equations that describe the world as unfolding from these initial conditions in the most precise way. For this, physicists employ the language of classical mathematics and represent these initial conditions by real numbers. "These numbers are characterised by an infinite number of decimals that follow the dot", says Nicolas Gisin, professor emeritus at the Department of Applied Physics, UNIGE's Faculty of Science and the author of the observation. "This implies that they contain an infinite amount of information." Such typical real numbers are far more numerous than numbers that have a name, such as Pi, and consist of a series of decimals that are completely random. We do not encounter them in everyday life but their existence is an accepted postulate in classical maths and they are used in many equations in physics. There is a problem, however: given that our world is finite, how can it include numbers that are infinite and that feature an infinite amount of information?

Leaving the language of classical mathematics behind for the language of intuitionistic mathematics

To circumvent the impossibility that the finite contains the infinite, professor Gisin suggests going back to the source of classical physics and changing the mathematical language so that we no longer have to resort to real numbers. "There is another mathematical language, called intuitionistic, which doesn't believe in the existence of the infinite", continues the Geneva physicist. "But it was completely crushed by the classic mathematical language at the beginning of the twentieth century." Instead of real numbers containing an infinite number of decimals at a given moment, intuitionistic mathematics represents these numbers as a random process that takes place over time, one decimal after the other, so that at each given moment there is only a finite number of decimals, and - it follows - a finite amount of information. " This solves the contradiction of classical physics, which uses infinity to explain the finite", adds professor Gisin.

There is another difference between the two mathematical languages: the truth of propositions. "In classical maths, a proposition is always either true or false, according to the law of excluded middle. But in intuitionistic maths, a proposition is either true, false or indeterminate. So, there is an accepted part of indeterminacy", continues professor Gisin. This indeterminacy is much closer to our everyday experience than the most absolute determinism advocated by classical physics. In addition, randomness is also found in quantum physics. "Some people endeavour to avoid it at all costs by involving other variables based on real numbers. But in my opinion, we shouldn't try to bring quantum physics closer to classical physics by attempting to eliminate randomness. Quite the opposite: we must bring classical physics closer to quantum physics by finally incorporating indeterminacy", says the Geneva-based physicist.

Open physics based on intuition instead of postulates

Our vision of the world is constructed via the language we speak. If we choose the language of classical mathematics, we will talk easily about determinism. If, on the contrary, we choose the language of intuitionistic mathematics, we will easily move towards indeterminism. "I now consider that we have accepted too many postulates in classical physics, meaning we have integrated a form of determinism that wasn't necessarily on any ground. On the other hand, if we choose to base classical physics on intuitionistic mathematics, it will also become indeterminate, like quantum physics, and will be closer to our actual experience, opening up possibilities for our future", explains professor Gisin.

"This change of language wouldn't change the results of research conducted to date but it would make it easier to understand quantum physics and eventually to abandon a worldview where everything is already written, making room for new perspectives, randomness, chance and creativity", concludes professor Gisin.

With more people with diabetes and pre-diabetes looking for strategies to help control blood sugar, new research from UBC's Okanagan campus suggests that ketone monoester drinks--a popular new food supplement--may help do exactly that.

"There has been a lot of excitement and interest in ketone drinks and supplements, which have really only been on the market and available to consumers for the last couple of years," says Jonathan Little, associate professor at UBC Okanagan's School of Health and Exercise Sciences and study lead author. "Because they're so new, there's very little research on how they can influence metabolism and we're among the first to look at their use in non-athletes."

Little says that Type 2 diabetes is a disease whereby the body is unable to control the level of sugar in the blood because defects in the functioning of a hormone called insulin.

"It's a disease that's becoming alarmingly common in Canada and approaching what many would consider epidemic levels," he says. "While Type 2 diabetes can be controlled with medications or injectable insulin, many people are looking to options that don't require taking pills every day or that are less invasive."

Ketone supplements are proving fertile ground for research into Type 2 diabetes because, according to Little, ketones are the natural fuel source of the body when it's in ketosis--the metabolic byproduct of consuming a low carbohydrate, ketogenic diet.

"There is mounting evidence that a low carbohydrate ketogenic diet is very effective in controlling blood sugar and even reversing Type 2 diabetes," says Little. "We wanted to know what would happen if artificial ketones were given to those with obesity and at risk for Type 2 diabetes but who haven't been dieting."

To test the idea, Little and his team asked 15 people to consume a ketone drink after fasting overnight. After 30 minutes, they were then asked to drink a fluid containing 75 grams of sugar while blood samples were taken.

"It turns out that the ketone drink seemed to launch participants into a sort of pseudo-ketogenic state where they were better able to control their blood sugar levels with no changes to their insulin," explains Little. "It demonstrates that these supplements may have real potential as a valuable tool for those with Type 2 diabetes."

Little is quick to point out that ketone supplements are not a magic bullet in managing the disease.

"There are a number of problems that we still have to work out, including the fact that we still don't know what the long-term effects of consuming ketones are," he says. "And not to mention that the drink itself tastes absolutely terrible."

"But for those that aren't able to follow a strict and challenging ketogenic diet or for those that are looking for a new way to control blood sugars, this may be another strategy in helping to manage Type 2 diabetes."

The zebrafish is a master of regeneration: If brain cells are lost due to injury or disease, it can simply reproduce them - contrary to humans where this only happens in the fetal stage. However, the zebrafish is evolutionarily related to humans and, thus, possesses the same brain cell types as humans. Can a hidden regeneration potential also be activated in humans? Are therapies for stroke, craniocerebral trauma and presently incurable diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's possible?

Dresden scientists have succeeded in determining the number and type of newly formed neurons in zebrafish; practically conducting a "census" in their brains. Following an injury, zebrafish form new neurons in high numbers and integrate them into the nervous system, which is the reason for their amazing brain regeneration ability. The study was conducted as a collaboration project "made in Dresden": Scientists from the Center for Regenerative Therapies TU Dresden (CRTD) combined their expertise in stem cell biology with the latest methods from the DRESDEN-concept Genome Center and complex bio-informatic analyses from the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems and the Center for Systems Biology Dresden. They have now published their results in the scientific journal DEVELOPMENT, which reports on topics of developmental, stem cell and regenerative biology.

For their study, the team led by Dr. Christian Lange and Prof. Dr. Michael Brand from the CRTD used adult transgenic zebrafish in whose forebrain they were able to identify the newborn neurons. The forebrain of the zebrafish is the equivalent to the human cerebral cortex, the largest and functionally most important part of the brain. The Dresden research team investigated the newborn and mature neurons as well as brain stem cells using single cell sequencing. Thus, they discovered specific markers for newborn neurons and were able to comprehensively analyse which types of neurons are newly formed in the adult brain of the zebrafish.

The scientists discovered two types of neurons that can be newly formed: Projection neurons, which create connections between brain areas, and internal neurons, which serve to fine-tune the activity of the projection neurons. The researchers also investigated the data obtained from brain cell sequencing of mice and found that zebrafish and mice have the same cell types. This also makes these results highly relevant for humans.

"On the basis of this study, we will further investigate the regeneration processes that take place in zebrafish. In particular, we will study the formation of new neurons after traumatic brain damage and their integration," explains Prof. Dr. Michael Brand, CRTD Director and senior author of the study. "We hope to gain insights that are relevant for possible therapies helping people after injuries and strokes or suffering from neurodegenerative diseases. We already know that a certain regenerative ability is also present in humans and we are working on awakening this potential. The results of our study are also important for understanding the conditions under which transplanted neurons can network with the existing ones and thus could let humans re-gain their former mental performance."

The CRTD at TU Dresden is the academic home for scientists from more than 30 nations. Their mission is to discover the principles of cell and tissue regeneration and leveraging this for recognition, treatment and reversal of diseases. The CRTD links the bench to the clinic, scientists to clinicians to pool expertise in stem cells, developmental biology, gene-editing and regeneration towards innovative therapies for neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, haematological diseases such as leukaemia, metabolic diseases such as diabetes, retina and bone diseases. The group of Prof. Dr. Michael Brand investigates the patterning and regeneration of the vertebrate brain and eye.

Observations with the 8-meter Gemini North telescope, a program of the NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, have allowed astronomers to pinpoint the location of a Fast Radio Burst in a nearby galaxy -- making it the closest known example to Earth and only the second repeating burst source to have its location pinpointed in the sky. The source of this burst of radio waves is located in an environment radically different from that seen in previous studies. This discovery challenges researchers' assumptions on the origin of these already enigmatic extragalactic events.

An unsolved mystery in astronomy has become even more puzzling. The source of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) -- sudden bursts of radio waves lasting a few thousandths of a second -- has remained unknown since their discovery in 2007. Research published today in the scientific journal Nature, and presented at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society, has pinpointed the origin of an FRB to an unexpected environment in a nearby spiral galaxy. Observations with the Gemini North telescope of NSF's Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (OIR Lab) on Maunakea in Hawai'i, played a vital role in this discovery, which renders the nature of these extragalactic radio pulses even more enigmatic.

The sources of FRBs and their nature are mysterious -- many are one-off bursts but very few of them emit repeated flashes. The recently discovered FRB -- identified by the unpoetic designation FRB 180916.J0158+65 -- is one of only five sources with a precisely known location and only the second such source that shows repeated bursts. Such FRB's are referred to as localized and can be associated with a particular distant galaxy, allowing astronomers to make additional observations that can provide insights into the origin of the radio pulse.

"This object's location is radically different from that of not only the previously located repeating FRB, but also all previously studied FRBs," elaborates Kenzie Nimmo, PhD student at the University of Amsterdam and a fellow lead author of this paper. "This blurs the differences between repeating and non-repeating fast radio bursts. It may be that FRBs are produced in a large zoo of locations across the Universe and just require some specific conditions to be visible."

Pinpointing the location of FRB 180916.J0158+65 required observations at both radio and optical wavelengths. FRBs can only be detected with radio telescopes, so radio observations are fundamentally necessary to accurately determine the position of an FRB on the sky. This particular FRB was first discovered by the Canadian CHIME radio telescope array in 2018 [1]. The new research used the European VLBI Network (EVN) [2] to precisely localize the source, but measuring the precise distance and local environment of the radio source was only possible with follow-up optical observations with the Gemini North telescope. The international Gemini Observatory comprises telescopes in both the northern and southern hemispheres, which together can access the entire night sky.

"We used the cameras and spectrographs on the Gemini North telescope to image the faint structures of the host galaxy where the FRB resides, measure its distance, and analyze its chemical composition," explains Shriharsh Tendulkar, a postdoctoral fellow at McGill University in Montreal, Canada who led the Gemini observations [3] and subsequent data analysis. "These observations showed that the FRB originates in a spiral arm of the galaxy, in a region which is rapidly forming stars."

However, the source of FRB 180916.J0158+65 -- which lies roughly 500 million light-years from Earth -- was unexpected and shows that FRB's may not be linked to a particular type of galaxy or environment, deepening this astronomical mystery [4].

"This is the closest FRB to Earth ever localised," explains Benito Marcote, of the Joint Institute for VLBI European Research Infrastructure Consortium and a lead author of the Nature paper. "Surprisingly, it was found in an environment radically different from that of the previous four localised FRBs -- an environment that challenges our ideas of what the source of these bursts could be."

The researchers hope that further studies will reveal the conditions that result in the production of these mysterious transient radio pulses, and address some of the many unanswered questions they pose. Corresponding author Jason Hessels of the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON) and the University of Amsterdam states that "our aim is to precisely localize more FRBs and, ultimately, understand their origin."

"It's a pleasure to see different observing facilities complement one another during challenging high-priority investigations such as this," concludes Luc Simard, Gemini Board member and Director General of NRC-Herzberg, which hosts CHIME, as well as the Canadian Gemini Office. "We are particularly honored to have the opportunity to conduct astronomical observations on Maunakea in Hawai'i. This site's exceptional observing conditions are vital to making astronomical discoveries such as this."

"Understanding the origin of FRBs will undoubtedly be an exciting challenge for astronomers in the 2020s," said Chris Davis of the US National Science Foundation, Program Officer for Gemini. Davis adds, "We're confident that Gemini will play an important role, and it seems fitting that Gemini has made these important observations at the dawn of the new decade."

A survey of yogurt ingredients show that sugar levels have significantly decreased in the last two years, but concerns about overall nutritional content remain.

Scientists from the University of Leeds have examined product and nutrient information from 893 yogurts available in UK supermarkets and compared all products to a 2016 baseline survey. Their study, published today in in the journal Nutrients, found there was an overall 13% decrease in total sugar content.

Those with the most reduction in sugar were children’s, drinks and fruit yogurts. The number of different children’s and organic products has also decreased since 2016 – 23% and 27% respectively.

The available products classed as “low sugar”– containing less than five grams of sugar per 100 grams – increased from 9% in 2016 to 15% in 2019.

The results of this independent survey are in line with the UK Government’s 2019 findings regarding industry progress in reducing sugar.

The data highlights the potential positive effect public policy measures and recommendations such as the SACN Carbohydrates and Health Report – a Public Health England report which included input from University of Leeds researchers – are having on improving the nutrient profile of commonly consumed foods.

But, while the result are promising for the UK’s efforts to tackle obesity and hit sugar reduction targets, the authors also warn that yogurt is still not a straightforward choice for consumers looking for healthy foods.

Lead author Dr Bernadette Moore, associate professor of obesity in the School of Food Science and Nutrition at Leeds said: “Simply put, lowering sugar intake is the best way to prevent obesity and protect our teeth – particularly for small children – so these are encouraging findings and a good insight into current market trends.”

“But recent research has shown a common lack of awareness about how much sugar is in our food. Yogurt in particular has something we refer to as a ‘health halo’, where sugar contents of what are considered ‘healthy foods’ are underestimated.

“Yogurt definitely can have health benefits but ultimately the final nutrient composition depends on the type of milk used and the ingredients added during production, which often include additional sugars and other sweeteners.”

Dr Alison Tedstone, chief nutritionist at Public Health England, said: “Some yogurts can contribute a lot of sugar to children’s diets, so it’s promising that we’ve seen some progress from the sector – but there is still a long way to go.

“The food industry has a responsibility to ensure healthier options are available and that our children aren’t flooded by products full of hidden sugars. We hope to see them step up even more to this challenge.”

Rise in dairy alternative yogurts

Compared to 2016 the number of dairy alternative products has almost doubled and the products surveyed were quite variable in their total sugar contents.

While 37% of dairy alternative yogurts could be considered low sugar – containing less than five grams of sugar per 100 grams – 27% had more than 10 grams of total sugar per 100 grams; and 20% listed sugar as the second most common ingredient after water.

Dr Moore explained: “Dairy alternative and plant-based ‘milks’ have grabbed people’s interest for a number of ethical, and environmental reasons. It’s a trend we see mirrored in the rise of yogurts that use almond and cashew nuts as their base, as well as an increased number of soya and coconut-based yogurts.

“The question of whether plant-based yogurts provide the same nutritional and health benefits as those made from cow’s milk is currently under investigation.

“Movements such as Veganuary may encourage people to reconsider their eating habits, but it’s important that people are aware that dairy alternatives may be an unrecognised source of added sugar to their diet.”

“Because dairy alternatives do not have lactose, which is a naturally-occurring sugar, the total sugar content comes entirely from added sweeteners. Generally added sugars are considered to be worse for teeth and health.

“Given the wide range of sugar levels across these products, people making a switch to a vegan-friendly yogurt should scrutinise product ingredients carefully.”

Changes in the yogurt market

In general, the study found there has been significant product turnover between the 2016 and 2019 surveys. When pairing matched products by brand and name 40% were considered “new products” as they had not been available in 2016.

32% of the matched products showed reductions in sugar content and 61% showed no changes. The remaining percent showed very small increases in sugar content. This suggests that a significant factor in the overall drop in sugar across all surveyed products was higher sugar products being discontinued.

Study co-author Eiméar H. Sutton, who conducted this research while an undergraduate researcher at the Leeds’ School of Food Science and Nutrition, said: “This survey is a snapshot of the market at a particular time. The extent of market changes between 2016 and 2019 demonstrates that yogurt products and composition is a moving landscape but hopefully this shows we are on the right track.

“Some of the changes were already quite positive. For example yogurts with added cholesterol-lowering plant stanols in 2016 were found to be extremely high in sugar but now we found many were among the top 20 products making the largest reductions in sugar content.

“In many categories the reductions to sugar level were modest and didn't yet meet the 20% reduction target but overall it shows a positive change in the UK’s food industry that may ultimately benefit people’s health.”

Philadelphia, January, 2020--A multi-center team of researchers led by Children's Hospital of Philadelphia (CHOP) has discovered a genetic signature that could help distinguish an adult-onset form of diabetes sharing many type 1 diabetes (T1D) characteristics from pediatric-onset T1D, opening the door to potentially more straightforward diagnostic tests for the adult condition and improving responses by ensuring patients receive the most appropriate treatment.

"This is our first insight into genetic differences between latent autoimmune diabetes in adults and T1D in children that may be diagnostically useful," said study leader Struan Grant, PhD, Co-Director of the Center for Spatial and Functional Genomics at CHOP and the Daniel B. Burke Endowed Chair for Diabetes Research. "We have found a genetic means of discriminating between the two conditions without expensive and cumbersome anti-autobody screening."

The study was published online December 16, 2019 in Diabetes Care.

Latent autoimmune diabetes in adults (LADA) is sometimes referred to as "type 1.5 diabetes" because it shares characteristics of both T1D and type 2 diabetes (T2D). Like T1D, LADA produces autoantibodies that attack the body's insulin-producing beta cells in the pancreas. However, like those with T2D, patients with LADA are diagnosed in adulthood and do not require insulin at the time of diagnosis. For this reason, LADA is often misdiagnosed as T2D; studies have shown that up to 10% of T2D diagnoses are, in fact, LADA, and as a result patients do not respond to the commonly inappropriate treatments prescribed to them.

An earlier genome-wide association study led by CHOP found that, from a genetic perspective, LADA has more in common with T1D than with T2D. Researchers wanted to take a deeper dive and look for genetic differences that could help discriminate between LADA and T1D, meaning the diagnosis of LADA could potentially begin with a simple genotype array, rather than with a more complex and expensive autoantibody screening.

To do so, the team decided to look at the major histocompatibility complex (MHC), a highly variable region of the genome that helps drive the immune system and is implicated in T1D. Earlier studies have shown that when researchers control for T1D genetic variants in one part of the MHC, other variants associated with T1D appear in another part of the MHC.

The study team applied that methodology to both a set of T1D data as well as a cohort of LADA patients. They found that when it came to the T1D group, the results from the earlier studies held: controlling for genetic variants in one part of the MHC revealed variants in another part of the MHC.

However, researchers did not find the same effect with LADA patients. When controlling for genetic variants in the MHC in those patients, the additional association was not observed within this key region - an important genetic distinction between the two conditions. When a sensitivity test was applied to the two cohorts, researchers still saw the effect only in T1D patients, not in those with LADA.

"This suggests that these MHC class associations may be a genetic discriminator between LADA and childhood-onset T1D," said Diana Cousminer, PhD, a geneticist at CHOP and a joint-first author of the study. "The next step is to look at this association in different ethnicities, particularly African ancestry, where the prevalence of adult-onset diabetes can be significantly higher in certain parts of the world."

Astronomers using the Mayall telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory, a program of NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, have identified several overlapping bubbles of hydrogen gas ionized by the stars in early galaxies, a mere 680 million years after the Big Bang. This is the earliest direct evidence from the period when the first generation of stars formed and began reionizing the hydrogen gas that permeated the Universe.

There was a period in the very early Universe -- known as the "cosmic dark ages" -- when elementary particles, formed in the Big Bang, had combined to form neutral hydrogen but no stars or galaxies existed yet to light up the Universe. This period began less than half a million years after the Big Bang and ended with the formation of the first stars. While this stage in the evolution of our Universe is indicated by computer simulations, direct evidence is sparse.

Now, astronomers using the infrared imager NEWFIRM on the 4-meter Mayall Telescope at the Kitt Peak National Observatory of NSF's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (OIR Lab), have reported imaging a group of galaxies, known as EGS77 [1], that contains these first stars. Their results were announced at a press conference held today at the 235th meeting of the American Astronomical Society (AAS) in Honolulu, Hawai'i.

"The young Universe was filled with hydrogen atoms, which so attenuate ultraviolet light that they block our view of early galaxies," said James Rhoads at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who presented the findings at the AAS press conference. "EGS77 is the first galaxy group caught in the act of clearing out this cosmic fog."

The team began with an imaging survey designed to detect high redshift galaxies and combined these data with corresponding images taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. This enabled the team to compute what is known as a photometric redshift, a proxy for estimating distance. At these redshifts, a galaxy's light is shifted completely out of the range of wavelengths to which the human eye is sensitive (the visible spectrum) to longer (infrared) wavelengths. The criteria for selecting distant galaxy candidates included a clear detection of them in the special infrared narrowband filters used with NEWFIRM on the Mayall 4-meter telescope and a complete non-detection in the shorter wavelength optical filter bands used by Hubble. "The discovery of the two fainter galaxies in the group was only possible because of the special narrowband filter used with NEWFIRM," said team leader Vithal Tilvi, a researcher at Arizona State University in Tempe.

"Intense light from galaxies can ionize the surrounding hydrogen gas, forming bubbles that allow starlight to travel freely," said Tilvi. "EGS77 has formed a large bubble that allows its light to travel to Earth without much attenuation. Eventually, bubbles like these grew around all galaxies and filled intergalactic space, clearing the way for light to travel across the Universe."

EGS77 was discovered as part of the Cosmic Deep And Wide Narrowband (Cosmic DAWN) survey, for which Rhoads serves as principal investigator. The team imaged a small area in the constellation of Boötes using a custom-built filter on the National Optical Astronomy Observatory's Extremely Wide-Field InfraRed imager (NEWFIRM). Ron Probst, a DAWN team member who also helped to develop NEWFIRM, adds, "These results show the value of maintaining instruments at our national observatories that are powerful and can flexibly adapt to pursue new scientific questions, questions that may not have been in mind when an instrument was originally built."

Once identified, the distances and hence the ages of these galaxies were confirmed with spectra taken with the MOSFIRE spectrograph at the Keck I telescope at the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in Hawai'i. All three galaxies show strong emission lines of hydrogen Lyman alpha at a redshift (z = 7.7), which means we are seeing them at about 680 million years after the Big Bang. The size of the ionized bubble around each was derived from computer modeling. These bubbles overlap spatially, but are large enough (about 2.2 million light-years) that Lyman alpha photons are redshifted before they reach the boundary of the bubble and can thus escape unscathed, allowing astronomers to detect them.

"We expected that reionization bubbles from this era in cosmic history would be rare and hard to find," said Sangeeta Malhotra, a collaborator at NASA GSFC, "so confirmation of this transition is important." This "cosmic dawn", the intermediate state between a neutral and an ionized Universe, is something that has been predicted. Such discoveries are made possible by the availability of powerful astronomical instruments that can probe the Universe in a way unimagined by past generations of astronomers.

Log cabins in West Virginia's Appalachian Mountains have a story to tell: when people leave, the forest takes over.

Researchers at West Virginia University are using tree-ring dating to determine not only when trees were cut down to build historic log buildings in the region but also what the forests were like before European immigrants arrived. This could help researchers shed light on when Native Americans abandoned the area and how their absence altered the landscape.

Geography graduate student Kristen de Graauw and her mentor, Professor Amy Hessl, uncovered evidence of the significant growth of trees in what may have been a previously cleared area. That growth in the late 17th century coincided with the estimated timing of Native American population decreases following the arrival of European immigrants. This corroborated the hypothesis that a change in the land's use caused forests to regrow, they explained.

"The historic logs showed evidence that a lot of trees began to grow at the same time across a fairly large area in West Virginia. This synchronous growth may indicate that trees began growing on cleared land that Native Americans had once inhabited and then abandoned following European contact," de Graauw said. "It's a small area, but we found compelling evidence that a major forest change occurred, and that change coincided with the estimated timing of depopulation in that particular region. However, there was also a sub-continental drought that may have led to broad-scale forest thinning and subsequent tree growth in the 1670s in eastern North America."

De Graauw used dendrochronology, or the science of tree-ring dating, to identify when trees grew and were cut down for construction. She sampled logs from buildings like houses, barns, forts, churches and smokehouses. The buildings are in Greenbrier, Hardy, Pendleton and Pocahontas counties in West Virginia and in Highland County, Virginia.

Their results suggest that the loss of Native American populations from the area may have led to forest regrowth through land abandonment. The evidence of forest regrowth may help local archaeologists better recount when Native Americans depopulated the region, which previously was not well understood.

The oldest log building they have sampled so far was built in 1784.

"We know through historical records that European immigrants moved into the study area around the 1740s to 1760s, yet I have not found a building that is from that time period. It could be that the buildings did not last on the landscape. Some people reused the logs; others may have burned, or logs of dilapidated buildings may have been used for fuel," de Graauw said. "We know that buildings were being constructed prior to the 1780s - we just haven't found them yet."

To sample the logs, the researchers used a hollowed drill bit to reach the center of each log.

"This method allows us to capture the rings of the tree all the way from its initiation to the very outer ring of the tree, which reflects when that log was cut down out of the forest," de Graauw said. "That very last ring is what tells us when the log was felled with the intention for construction. That allows us to know when it was built. By matching patterns of ring-width variability through time using live trees, dead trees and the logs in the buildings, we are able to assign calendar dates to the logs. We can then estimate when the tree began growing."

As they began their study, the researchers weren't confident that many building owners would allow the researchers to sample their logs. They were surprised by the hospitality they received.

"Most people were willing to help because they wanted to learn how old their buildings were," de Graauw said. "It was sort of a win-win - they got to find out how old their building is and tie that date to historical records, and we got to use the data within those logs to reconstruct past forests."

It is known that Native American populations declined following the arrival of Europeans in the Americas, but it is not well understood when the population decrease occurred in this region or if abandonment of Native American land management techniques would have led to forest regrowth, the researchers explained.

"Sometimes the tree ring record offers a new possibility for understanding history. It's a new line of evidence. The idea is that when people abandoned their cleared areas, forests regrew, but we don't even know what tribal groups were here," Hessl said. "The study needs to be replicated in more places before we can really confirm what we are seeing. But, de Graauw's idea of applying these data from historic buildings to this research question is novel. The fact that she has observed some potential legacies there is really exciting."

In the future, they hope to expand the study by adding other methods, including charcoal records and archaeological techniques, and taking samples in other locations to help disentangle whether trees established as a result of depopulation or the previously identified sub-continental drought event.

"There is so much to still learn about Native Americans at this point in history in eastern North America as far as the spread of epidemics and warfare and when depopulation occurred in different places. The idea is that depopulation wouldn't have all happened at the same time. It would have been spread out based on physical geography and the interactions of people," de Graauw said. "In other regions, I would expect that depopulation would not have necessarily happened at the same time that it did here. There's a difference in timing, which is why working with archaeologists is really important for us."

Dating log buildings has been a hobby of de Graauw's for more than 10 years. It has allowed her to blend her passions for American history and Appalachian folklore with her research interest in forest ecology.

"As I started graduate school, I was trying to find a way to merge my hobby with my academic interests," de Graauw said. "This project really came from that."

The study, "Do Historic Log Buildings Provide Evidence of Reforestation Following Depopulation of Indigenous Peoples," was published by DeGraauw and Hessl in the Journal of Biogeography.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Carpal tunnel, stiff shoulders, eye-strain headaches - these are all well-known side effects of prolonged computer use. But what happens when you step away from the desktop and into virtual reality?

A recent study from Oregon State University assessed how some common virtual reality movements contribute to muscle strain and discomfort. It's an effort to ensure future user safety in this fast-growing technology that is used not only for gaming, but also increasingly for education and industrial training.

"There are no standards and guidelines for virtual and augmented reality interactions," said researcher Jay Kim of OSU'S College of Public Health and Human Sciences. "We wanted to evaluate the effects of the target distances, locations and sizes so we can better design these interfaces to reduce the risk for potential musculoskeletal injuries."

The study was published recently in Applied Ergonomics with Northern Illinois University co-authors Sai Akhil Penumudi, Veera Aneesh Kuppam and Jaejin Hwang.

Virtual reality users wear a headset and engage in full-body, three-dimensional movements - unlike conventional computer users, where a desk or the arms of a chair offer some level of support for the hands and arms.

With sensors placed on participants' joints and muscles, researchers used motion capture to record their movements and electromyography to measure electrical activity in their muscles while performing common VR gestures. Wearing an Oculus Rift VR headset, participants were tasked with either pointing to specific dots around a circle, or coloring in a certain area with their finger.

Researchers repeated the tests with the visuals placed at eye level, 15 degrees above eye level, 15 degrees below eye level and 30 degrees below eye level.

Regardless of the angle, extending the arm straight out causes shoulder discomfort in as little as three minutes, Kim said. With prolonged use, as VR often requires, this may lead to major health problems like gorilla arm syndrome and rotator cuff injuries.

In addition, the heavy VR headset may increase the burden on the cervical spine, risking greater neck strain.

In computer users, the relationship between awkward postures or repeated movements and musculoskeletal disorders is well known, Kim said. "We wanted to see how the VR compares to conventional computer-human interactions."

The goal of the study was to establish a baseline of optimal object placement and angles, so VR developers going forward can design games and programs that minimize user discomfort.

Researchers focused on neck and shoulder movements. They found performance in the coloring task was worst when participants had to tilt their heads down 15 and 30 degrees. The most extreme postures and highest muscle activity were observed with targets at 15 degrees above eye level, as participants were forced to constantly maintain their extended neck and elevated arm position. And discomfort was greatest in the pointing task at 15 degrees above eye level.

"Based on this study, we recommend that objects that are being interacted with more often should be closer to the body," Kim said. "And objects should be located at eye level, rather than up and down."

The findings could have a massive impact, given VR's growing demand: Tech analysts project that roughly 168 million people worldwide will have some form of VR installed by 2023. A major portion of users are gamers, but VR's practical applications extend to health care, the military, education and training. In coal mining, for example, trainees use VR to practice new skills that would be dangerous to learn on-site.

Kim's main goal is to avoid the mistakes of the past. When personal computing was first emerging in the '80s and '90s, he said, people often didn't think of the risks of overuse until it was too late.

With VR, he said, "We'd like to learn now rather than later."