Culture

Pity the poor blemished banana. In a society that equates beauty with quality, the perception that blemished produce is less desirable than its perfect peers contributes to 1.3 billion tons of wasted food a year globally.

That, in turn, raises the cost and environmental impact of feeding the world's population.

Researchers are suggesting a potential solution - they found that 'humanizing' produce can change consumer attitudes toward fresh fruits and vegetables that are showing signs of age.

The work, published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, found that depicting imperfect-looking but still nutritious produce with human characteristics enhanced the food's appeal.

"We suggest that when old produce is humanized, it is evaluated more favorably, since it leads consumers to evaluate the old produce with a more compassionate lens," the researchers wrote.

Vanessa Patrick, Bauer Professor of Marketing at the University of Houston and a coauthor on the paper, said the researchers examined how attitudes toward human aging - "old is gold," vs. "young is good" - translated to attitudes toward so-called "mature" produce. The project involved anthropomorphizing bananas, cucumbers and zucchini, or depicting the produce in ways that suggest human-like traits.

Bananas, for example, were depicted sunbathing while reclining in a chaise. Cucumber slices were used to create a picture of a human face.

"With fresh produce, aging promotes visible changes, much as it does in humans," Patrick said. "That can create a connection with human qualities of aging when the food is anthropomorphized."

In the study, participants were shown depictions of both fresh and slightly-past-its-prime produce in both anthropomorphized and unadorned states. Those who saw the anthropomorphized aging produce rated it as more desirable than participants who saw the same produce without the anthropomorphic effects.

Anthropomorphism didn't affect perceptions of fresh produce.

The researchers said the results suggest grocery store managers and other marketers should consider using similar strategies to promote produce that has begun to show signs of aging but remains nutritious and tasty.

"Making food that would otherwise go to waste more appealing to consumers may allow store managers to avoid having to reduce the price for that older produce, which would improve the bottom line," Patrick said.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- Airplane wings, wind turbines and indoor heating systems all struggle under the weight and chill of ice. De-icing techniques are energy-intensive, however, and often require large masses of ice to melt completely in order to work. Researchers from the University of Illinois and Kyushu University in Japan have developed a new technique that requires only a thin layer of ice at the interface of a surface to melt, allowing it to slide off under the force of gravity.

The method, which uses less than 1% of the energy and less than 0.01% of the time needed for traditional de-icing techniques, is published in the journal Applied Physics Letters.

The inefficiency problem in conventional systems results from most of the energy used in heating and de-icing needing to go into warming other components of the system rather than directly heating the frost or ice, the researchers said. This increases energy consumption and system downtime.

"In order to defrost, the system cooling function is shut down, the working fluid is heated up to melt ice or frost, then it needs to be cooled down again once the surface is clean," said lead author and U. of I. mechanical science and engineering professor Nenad Miljkovic. "This consumes a lot of energy, when you think of the yearly operational costs of running intermittent defrosting cycles."

The researchers propose delivering a pulse of very high current to the interface between the ice and the surface to create a layer of water. To ensure the pulse is able to generate the required heat at the interface, the researchers apply a thin coating of a material called indium tin oxide - a conductive film often used for defrosting - to the surface of the material. Then, they leave the rest to gravity.

To test this, the team defrosted a vertical glass plate cooled to -15 degrees Celsius and to -70 degrees Celsius. These temperatures were chosen to model heating, ventilation and air conditioning applications and refrigeration and aerospace applications, respectively. In all tests, the ice was removed with a pulse lasting less than one second.

In a real-world setting, gravity would be assisted by airflow, Miljkovic said. "This new approach is more efficient than conventional methods."

The group has not yet studied more complicated 3D surfaces like airplane components, which they said is an obvious future step. "Aircraft are a natural extension as they travel fast, so shear forces on the ice are large, meaning only a very thin layer at the interface needs to be melted in order to remove ice," Miljkovic said. "More work is needed to figure out how we can coat curved components with indium tin oxide conformably and in a cost-effective manner while maintaining safety compliance."

Large systems such as aircraft wings would require very high amounts of instantaneous current, the researchers said. "Although the total power during the pulse is very low, the instantaneous power is high," said Illinois graduate student Yashraj Gurumukhi. "Further work is needed in terms of electronics required to power the circuits that heat up the interface."

Scientists at The University of Texas at Dallas have found evidence suggesting that resistance to the "hunger hormone" ghrelin in the brain is linked to the cognitive impairments and memory loss associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD).

The findings, based on observations of postmortem brain-tissue samples from Alzheimer's patients and on experiments with a mouse model of AD, also suggest a possible treatment strategy for the incurable neurodegenerative disorder that affects about 5.8 million older adults in the United States.

The research was published Aug. 14 as the cover article in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

"This is a proof-of-concept study, but we are very encouraged by the results," said Dr. Heng Du, associate professor of biological sciences at UT Dallas and corresponding author of the study.

Produced in the stomach, ghrelin sends signals to the brain that regulate energy balance and body weight. Often called the hunger hormone, it plays a role in appetite and meal initiation. But ghrelin also has been implicated in learning and memory.

The hippocampus region of the brain -- crucial to learning, memory and emotions -- is one of the first to suffer cell death and damage in Alzheimer's disease due to a toxic buildup of protein fragments called amyloid beta.

In a healthy hippocampus, ghrelin binds with proteins called ghrelin receptors, which combine with similarly activated receptors for the neurotransmitter dopamine. The two receptors then form a protein complex that helps maintain communication between brain cells and, ultimately, memory.

In the new study, Du and his colleagues found that amyloid beta binds to ghrelin receptors in the hippocampus, blocking their ability to combine with dopamine receptors.

"Our hypothesis is that this dissociation between ghrelin and dopamine receptors may be what is affecting cognition in Alzheimer's patients," Du said. "As the brain loses the function of ghrelin receptors due to amyloid beta, the body tries to compensate by increasing the production of ghrelin and the number of ghrelin receptors. But the amyloid prevents the receptors from functioning."

Du likened the condition to insulin resistance found in individuals with type 2 diabetes. In that disease, insulin receptors malfunction.

"To compensate, patients in the early stages of type 2 diabetes produce more insulin to bind insulin receptors," Du said. "But they become insulin-resistant. No matter how much insulin your body produces, the insulin receptors are unable to activate the downstream biochemical reactions needed to transport glucose from blood into cells.

"Similarly, based on our findings, Alzheimer's might be linked to ghrelin resistance."

Du said the new findings help explain why a recent clinical trial of a compound called MK0677 -- designed to activate ghrelin receptors in the brain -- proved unable to slow the progression of Alzheimer's.

To test a different approach in their mouse model of AD, Du's team gave the mice MK0677 and another compound -- SKF81297 to activate dopamine receptors -- at the same time.

"When we gave these compounds simultaneously, we saw improved cognition and memory in the AD mice, and lesions in the hippocampus were reduced," Du said. "Activating both receptors at the same time was key; it restored the receptors' ability to form complexes. When this happens, we suspect the ghrelin receptor becomes protected and can no longer bind to amyloid beta.

"More research is needed, but targeting this mechanism might prove therapeutically useful."

Du, who has filed for a patent on the approach, said the team's findings suggest that Alzheimer's might be more than just a brain disease.

"As we age, we tend to experience changes in metabolism. These affect the heart and the gastrointestinal system, but maybe they also are affecting the brain by altering the ghrelin receptor," he said. "We know that even in the absence of dementia, many older people have memory problems, and this could be related to the dissociation between the receptors in the brain, even without the presence of amyloid.

"I'm starting to think of Alzheimer's as a systemic disorder, and that we should pay more attention to the metabolic and hormonal path of the disease."

Immediately following severe burns, bacteria reach the wound from different sources, including the patient's skin, gastrointestinal tract, respiratory tracts and health care-related human contact. Within the wound, bacteria multiply, establish an infection and move from the infected burn wound into the bloodstream, causing serious complications like sepsis, multiple-organ failure and death.

In modern burn units, more than 50% of deaths are attributed to septic shock and organ dysfunction. Pseudomonas aeruginosa, an opportunistic pathogen, is among the different pathogens that cause sepsis in burn patients. This gram-negative, antibiotic-resistant bacterium produces several destructive factors that make it critical to identify alternative treatments.

To help reduce the risk of Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection and its associated complications, Abdul Hamood, Ph.D., a professor for the Department of Immunology and Molecular Microbiology at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) School of Medicine, and a team of collaborators investigated the feasibility of developing a topical treatment unrelated to conventional antibiotics that can be used to battle Pseudomonas aeruginosa.

Their study, "Application of Lactobacillus gasseri 63 AM supernatant to Pseudomonas aeruginosa-infected wounds prevents sepsis in murine models of thermal injury and dorsal excision," is published in the August issue of the Journal of Medical Microbiology.

Because Pseudomonas aeruginosa has developed resistance to antibiotics, Taylor Lenzmeier, a TTUHSC graduate student and the study's lead author, said Hamood's research uses probiotic bacteria and its superior by-products to prevent Pseudomonas infection.

"It's almost this idea of using probiotics as an alternative to antibiotics," Lenzmeier explained. "What makes it really, really special is the bacteria that is creating this alternative is a very safe bacteria already found in the gut, the mouth and all over the human body. We're using the safe bacteria to get rid of the pathogenic bacteria."

To accomplish this, the Hamood team examined the effectiveness of using a highly concentrated supernatant, or secreted liquid by-product, obtained from Lactobacillus gasseri strain 63 AM (LgCS). This supernatant is separated from the LgCS, concentrated and applied to the wound. Lenzmeier said other similar research exists, but in those studies the bacteria is added to the wound prior to secretion.

"It seems kind of counterintuitive to use one bacteria to get rid of another bacterial infection, so we completely eliminate that process," Lenzmeier said. "We take this LgCS bacteria, let it secrete, and then add those secretions instead of adding the bacteria and letting it secrete within the wound."

The process also prevents the bacteria from entering the bloodstream where it may or may not be safe for the patient, she added.

The research team found that applying LgCS secretions to the wound inhibited Pseudomonas aeruginosa growth, prevented biofilm development and eliminated any partially developed biofilm. Biofilms are sticky substances that form whenever bacteria attaches to surfaces in moist conditions like thermal (burn) injuries.

The study also showed that a single injection of LgCS secretions administered after thermal injury and Pseudomonas aeruginosa infection reduced mortality to 0% and prevented sepsis in mice. A second injection administered 24 hours later eliminated Pseudomonas aeruginosa from the wound.

In addition, and using another model of wound infection that does not involve thermal injury, the investigators discovered that treating an infected wound using either LgCS or ceftazidime significantly reduced the mortality rate in mice, and treating the infected wound using a combination of LgCS and ceftazidime eliminated mortality in mice. Ceftazidime is an antibiotic used to treat meningitis and several other infections.

Armed with these results, Hamood said the next step is to characterize the inhibitory factor that seems to produce such promising results. For this study, his team harvested everything the LgCS secreted and concentrated it by 20 times. Now they must uncover the nature of the inhibiting factor and learn for certain if it's a protein or an enzyme.

"Right now, it's just a crude product, and we proved that this crude product is very special," Hamood said. "There's a phenomenon occurring, but now we need to discuss and describe what's causing it, and even further, describe the mechanism of action to that wound. That's where I'm going next."

In sub-Saharan Africa, many young women and adolescent girls are at high risk of HIV infection. In a new research paper published in the open access journal PLOS Medicine, Kenneth Mugwanya and co-authors report on a study aiming to investigate the feasibility of providing antiretroviral drugs via family planning clinics to prevent HIV infection in young women.

Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) is a method for preventing HIV infection that involves providing antiretroviral drugs in pill form, and this approach has been successfully used in men who have sex with men. In Africa and elsewhere, preventing new HIV infections in other high-risk population groups, including women and girls, is a priority, and PrEP is one promising method that is undergoing evaluation.

In Mugwanya and colleagues' study, 1271 women (approximately half

The study indicates that integration of screening for HIV risk and preventive treatment among young women in a family planning clinic setting is feasible, despite the drop-off in participants continuing PrEP. The authors note that "this work will set the stage for ... full scale PrEP delivery in family planning clinics not only in Kenya but in other settings in Africa."

DALLAS - Sept. 3, 2019 - Researchers may finally have an answer in the long-running controversy over whether the common surgical mask is as effective as more expensive respirator-type masks in protecting health care workers from flu and other respiratory viruses.

A study published today in JAMA compared the ubiquitous surgical (or medical) mask, which costs about a dime, to a less commonly used respirator called an N95, which costs around $1. The study reported "no significant difference in the effectiveness" of medical masks vs. N95 respirators for prevention of influenza or other viral respiratory illness.

"This study showed there is no difference in incidence of viral respiratory transmission among health care workers wearing the two types of protection," said Dr. Trish Perl, Chief of UT Southwestern's Division of Infectious Diseases and Geographic Medicine and the report's senior author. "This finding is important from a public policy standpoint because it informs about what should be recommended and what kind of protective apparel should be kept available for outbreaks."

Medical personnel - in particular nurses, doctors, and others with direct patient contact - are at risk when treating patients with contagious diseases such as influenza (flu). A large study conducted in a New York hospital system after the 2009 outbreak of H1N1, or swine flu, found almost 30 percent of health care workers in emergency departments contracted the disease themselves, Dr. Perl said.

During that pandemic, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommended using the tighter-fitting N95 respirators, designed to fit closely over the nose and mouth and filter at least 95 percent of airborne particles, rather than the looser-fitting surgical masks routinely worn by health care workers, Dr. Perl said. But some facilities had trouble replenishing N95s as supplies were used.

In addition, there are concerns health care workers might be less vigilant about wearing the N95 respirators since many perceive them to be less comfortable than medical masks, such as making it harder to breathe and being warmer on the wearer's face.

Earlier clinical studies comparing the masks and respirators yielded mixed results, said Dr. Perl, also a Professor of Internal Medicine who holds the Jay P. Sanford Professorship in Infectious Diseases.

The new study was performed at multiple medical settings in seven cities around the country, including Houston, Denver, Washington, and New York, by researchers at the University of Texas, the CDC, Johns Hopkins University, the University of Colorado, Children's Hospital Colorado, the University of Massachusetts, the University of Florida, and several Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals. Researchers collected data during four flu seasons between 2011 and 2015, examining the incidence of flu and acute respiratory illnesses in the almost 2,400 health care workers who completed the study.

The project was funded by the CDC, the Veterans Health Administration, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which is part of the U.S. Health and Human Services Department and was founded in the years after Sept. 11, 2001, to help secure the nation against biological and other threats.

"It was a huge and important study - the largest ever done on this issue in North America," Dr. Perl said.

In the end, 207 laboratory-confirmed influenza infections occurred in the N95 groups versus 193 among medical mask wearers, according to the report. In addition, there were 2,734 cases of influenza-like symptoms, laboratory-confirmed respiratory illnesses, and acute or laboratory-detected respiratory infections (where the worker may not have felt ill) in the N95 groups, compared with 3,039 such events among medical mask wearers.

"The takeaway is that this study shows one type of protective equipment is not superior to the other," she said. "Facilities have several options to provide protection to their staff - which include surgical masks - and can feel that staff are protected from seasonal influenza. Our study supports that in the outpatient setting there was no difference between the tested protections."

Dr. Perl said she expects more studies to arise from the data collected in this report; she now plans to investigate the dynamics of virus transmission to better understand how respiratory viruses are spread.

Key Takeaways:

Mobile apps increase sales, purchase frequency and the range of items sold not only on a retailer's website but also in its stores.

App users exhibit greater product returns.

Retail mobile app users are likely to buy a more diverse range of products.

Shoppers buy more when they access mobile apps for loyalty rewards programs, product information, and notifications, particularly when they are physically close to a retail store.

CATONSVILLE, MD, September 3, 2019- Researchers from Texas A&M University published new research in the INFORMS journal Marketing Science (Editor's note: The source of this research is INFORMS), which shows that retailers' branded mobile apps are very effective in increasing customer engagement, increasing sales on multiple levels, not just on the retailer's website, but also in its stores. At the same time, apps increase the rate of returns, although the increase in sales outweighs the return rates.

The study to be published in the September edition of the INFORMS journal Marketing Science is titled "Mobile App Introduction and Online and Offline Purchases and Product Returns," and is authored by Unnati Narang and Ventakesh Shankar, both of the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University.

The study authors found that retail app users buy 33 percent more frequently, they buy 34 percent more items, and they spend 37 percent more than non-app user customers over 18 months after app launch.

At the same time, app users return products 35 percent more frequently, and they return 35 percent more items at a 41 percent increase in dollar value.

All factors considered, the researchers found that app users spend 36 percent more net of returns.

"Overall, we found that retail app users are significantly more engaged at every level of the retail experience, from making purchases to returning items," said Narang. "Interestingly, we also found that app users tend to purchase a more diverse set of items, including less popular products, than non-app users. This is particular helpful for long-tail products, such as video games and music."

"For the retailer, the lesson is that having a retail app will likely increase customer engagement and expand the range of products being sold online and in store," added Shankar. "We also found that some app users who make a purchase within 48 hours of actually using an app, tend to use it when they are physically close to the store of purchase. They are most likely to access the app for loyalty rewards, product details and notifications."

INFORMS Journal Operations Research New Study Key Takeaways:

A new algorithm achieves school diversity goals while allowing parents to still have a say in where their child attends.

The only caveat with the model is there is no way to control the size of a school, so diversity changes may have more of an impact on smaller schools.

In order to reach goals, some schools may have to have empty seats.

CATONSVILLE, MD, September 3, 2019 - All parents want their children to get the best education possible, so how do school districts allow parents/guardians to have a say in where their child goes to school while still meeting diversity goals for the student body? New research in an upcoming addition of the INFORMS journal Operations Research has a solution, just in time for children to return to school for the 2019-2020 year.

Giving parents and students a voice in which school they attend is done by using school choice programs. These programs try to assign students to their most preferred school and seek to close an opportunity gap, which is usually expressed in terms of proportions or diversity goals.

School districts frequently modify their priorities over factors such as a student's distance to the school or whether they have siblings in the same school, by giving more weight to race or socioeconomic status. This does not guarantee that the diversity goals will be met. Sometimes these goals are replaced by numbers related to the capacity of the school, which poses a problem because schools aren't being filled to capacity and it is hard to predict which schools will be popular with parents from year to year.

The authors, Thanh Nguyen of Purdue University and Rakesh Vohra of the University of Pennsylvania, say they have come up with a method that doesn't replace diversity goals with numbers or modify priorities.

"Our solution gives everyone what they want. The only caveat is there is no way to guarantee the proportionality requirements for small schools. A large school will have little movement in diversity levels because if a small number of students from a particular group are added or removed, it won't really change the overall percentages. But with a small school, if a single student leaves it makes a big difference in the percentages," said Vohra, a professor in the Departments of Economics and Electrical and Systems Engineering.

This research allows schools to more closely meet their goals, while giving parents more options and not limiting families to the school in their neighborhood.

September 3, 2019 (Thousand Oaks, CA) Over the past 20 years, has the U.S. made significant progress to improve preventable medical errors? A new special collection of articles in the American Journal of Medical Quality (AJMQ), published by SAGE Publishing, begins to answer this question by analyzing the impact these articles have had on the medical field.

In 1999, the Institute of Medicine (now the National Academy of Medicine) published To Err Is Human: Building a Safer Health System, a landmark report that found tens of thousands of deaths occur every year from preventable medical errors and ushered a new era of transparency and accountability. To acknowledge the 20th anniversary of To Err is Human, AJMQ republished and reflected on 11 of their own most downloaded and cited articles from the past 20 years, discussing how each of the articles have directly impacted the safety of health care.

The collection "highlights key pieces of scholarship that provided guidance to clinical colleagues across the care continuum and tools to reduce error and to reduce harm," says Editor-in-Chief David B. Nash. While the collection found that the country has made only modest progress towards zero harm, despite many new measures and resources devoted to the issue, "the special issue serves as a call to action for the future and highlights the role of groups like the American College of Medical Quality in achieving our long sought clinical goals."

AJMQ's collection assesses how these articles have enabled "strides to improve outcomes, communication, payment systems, teamwork training, leadership, and integration of the health system." Earlier this year, SAGE announced a new effort to better measure and celebrate research that makes impact beyond the academic community - on policy, practice, and public life. Read a collection of articles from SAGE that have had positive societal impact.

Read the full collection, including "The Gift of Fine China: An Appropriate 20th Anniversary Look Back," by Erica Li and David Nash in the American Journal of Medical Quality.

(Philadelphia, PA) - Sometimes the more a person tries to fix a seemingly minor problem, the worse things become. Cells are no different, it turns out, though attempting to compensate for what begins as a minor deficiency or dysfunction can be dire. In the case of Alzheimer's disease, Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM) researchers now show that mitochondrial calcium transport remodeling - what appears to be an attempt by cells to compensate for flagging energy production and metabolic dysfunction - while initially beneficial, ultimately becomes maladaptive, fueling declines in mitochondrial function, memory, and learning.

The new research, published online in the journal Nature Communications, is the first to link maladaptive changes in calcium transport by mitochondria - the energy-generating powerhouses of cells - to the progression of Alzheimer's disease.

"Amyloid-beta deposition and tau pathology are considered the major contributors to Alzheimer's disease and, as a result, they have been the main focus of therapeutic development," explained John W. Elrod, PhD, Associate Professor in the Center for Translational Medicine at LKSOM and senior investigator on the new study. "Large clinical trials targeting these pathways have universally failed, however."

Altered calcium regulation and metabolic dysfunction have been suspected of contributing to neuronal dysfunction and Alzheimer's development. "But up to now, no one has investigated the impact of altered calcium transport into and out of the mitochondria on the progression of Alzheimer's disease," Dr. Elrod noted. "Our current study provides a missing link between these two hypotheses of Alzheimer's pathogenesis."

Calcium transport into mitochondria plays an important part in many cellular functions and requires the involvement of multiple proteins to be carried out effectively. Among the key regulators of this process is a protein known as NCLX, which previously was discovered by Dr. Elrod's laboratory to mediate calcium efflux from heart cells. NCLX expression is also important in mitochondrial calcium efflux in neurons.

In their new study, Dr. Elrod and colleagues examined the role of mitochondrial calcium uptake by neurons in Alzheimer's disease. To do so, the team used a mouse model of familial Alzheimer's disease in which animals harbored three gene mutations that give rise to age-progressive pathology comparable to Alzheimer's progression in human patients.

As mice carrying the three mutations aged, the researchers observed a steady reduction in NCLX expression. This reduction was accompanied by decreases in the expression of proteins that limit mitochondrial calcium uptake, resulting in damaging calcium overload. NCLX loss was further linked to increases in the production of cell-damaging oxidants.

To better understand the physiological relevance of NCLX loss, Dr. Elrod's team next completely eliminated NCLX expression in the forebrain of Alzheimer's disease mice. In tests for memory and cognitive function, the animals exhibited significant impairments. Analyses of brain tissue from these mice showed that NCLX reduction and the consequent loss of calcium efflux from mitochondria accelerated the development of amyloid beta and tau pathology. When NCLX expression was restored, levels of harmful protein aggregates declined, neuronal mitochondrial calcium homeostasis was reestablished, and mice were rescued from cognitive decline.

"Our findings indicate that maladaptive remodeling of pathways to compensate for abnormalities in calcium regulation, which perhaps are meant to maintain energy production in cells, lead to neuronal dysfunction and Alzheimer's pathology," Dr. Elrod said. "Moreover, our data suggest that amyloid beta and tau pathology actually lie downstream of mitochondrial dysfunction in the progression of Alzheimer's disease, which opens up a new therapeutic angle."

Dr. Elrod and colleagues plan next to carry out a more detailed investigation of metabolic dysfunction that arises before Alzheimer's disease pathology emerges.

After patient RDS (identified only by his initials for privacy) suffered a stroke, he experienced a rare and unusual side effect: when he saw something red, blue, green, or any other chromatic hue, he could not name the object's color.

Using RDS as a subject, a study publishing on September 3 in the journal Cell Reports looks at how language shapes human thinking. Neuroscientists and philosophers have long wrestled with the interaction between language and thought: do names shape the way we categorize what we perceive, or do they correspond to categories that arise from perception?

To name the color red, for instance, we think of a red item as one of many in a vaguely defined spectrum that encompasses the concept "red." In this sense, we perform an act of categorization each time we call something by its name--we group colors into discrete categories to identify mustard as a shade of yellow, for instance, or place teal in the blue family.

Senior author Paolo Bartolomeo, a neurologist at the Brain and Spine Institute in Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris, says, "We perceive colors as continuous. There is no sharp boundary between, say, red and blue. And yet conceptually we group colors into categories associated with color names.

"In our study, we had the unique opportunity to address the role of language in color categorization by testing a patient who couldn't effectively name colors after a stroke," he says.

Many scientists believe categorizing colors depends on top-down input from the language system to the visual cortex. Color names are believed to be stored in the brain's left hemisphere and to depend on language-related activity in the left side of the brain.

Conversely, these latest findings support recent neuroimaging studies suggesting that color categorization is distributed bilaterally in the human brain.

Viewing discs containing two colors from the same color category (e.g., two blue shades) or from different categories (e.g., brown and red), RDS was asked to identify same-category colors. He was also asked to name 34 color patches presented on a computer screen; eight of these patches were achromatic (white, black and grey), and 26 were chromatic.

Before his stroke, RDS perceived and named colors normally. After the stroke, an MRI revealed a lesion in the left region of his brain. This lesion apparently severed RDS's memory of color names from his visual perception of colors and his language system. Yet RDS could still group most colors--even colors he couldn't name--into categories such as dark or light or as being a mixture of other colors.

"We were surprised by his ability to consistently name so-called achromatic colors such as black, white, and gray, as opposed to his impaired naming of chromatic ones such as red, blue, and green," says the first author of the study, PhD student Katarzyna Siuda-Krzywicka. This suggested that our language system may process black, white, and gray differently from chromatic colors. Such striking dissociations raise important questions about how different color-related signals are segregated and integrated in the brain, she says.

To ensure that RDS's behavior did not reflect abnormal brain organization, the researchers compared the functioning of his unaffected brain areas to that of the same brain areas in healthy subjects and developed a non-verbal color-categorization test. "Our result--that his color categories were independent from language--could be generalized to healthy adults," Bartolomeo says.

Where do color categories come from, if not from language? Siuda-Krzywicka suggests that future studies could explore the implementation of color categorization in non-human primates as well as in the human brain and how language acquisition interacts with color categorization at stages of childhood development.

Immunological signatures can predict whether malaria-infected children will develop fever or other symptoms, suggests a study publishing September 3 in the journal Immunity. Surprisingly, activation of the well-known tumor-suppressor protein p53 is associated with enhanced protection against malaria fever--and increasing p53 in human immune cells and in mice results in a decrease in malaria-induced inflammation. The authors say the findings could lead to new strategies for dampening the harmful inflammatory responses associated with some infections and identifying individuals who might be at risk for such responses.

"Malaria is caused by the Plasmodium falciparum parasite and remains a major killer of children in Africa," says senior study author Peter Crompton of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. "Our limited understanding of how the human immune system controls malaria-induced inflammation and parasite growth impedes the development of vaccines and adjunctive therapies for this devastating disease."

Malaria is caused by parasites that are transmitted to people through the bites of infected mosquitoes. In 2017, there were approximately 219 million malaria cases worldwide and 435,000 malaria deaths. P. falciparum is the most prevalent malaria parasite in Africa and is responsible for most malaria deaths globally. In areas of intense transmission, children who survive the first five years of life have typically acquired immunity to severe malaria. But in non-immune individuals, P. falciparum malaria can cause fever and rapidly progress to severe illness and death if not treated early.

The development of a safe and effective vaccine could play a critical role in malaria elimination efforts. Although progress is being made, a malaria vaccine that reliably induces long-term protection remains elusive. The complexity of the Plasmodium parasite and the incomplete understanding of critical processes, such as host immune protection and disease pathogenesis, have hampered efforts to develop a vaccine.

Antimalarial drugs, in combination with mosquito control programs, have played a key role in controlling malaria in endemic areas, resulting in significant reduction of the geographic range of malarial disease worldwide. But the emergence and spread of drug-resistant parasites and insecticide-resistant mosquitos have contributed to a re-emergence of malaria, turning back the clock on control efforts. The need for new strategies to prevent malaria infection and disease has become a critical priority on the global malaria research agenda.

To gain insights into host factors that might protect against malaria disease, Crompton and first author Tuan Tran of Indiana University School of Medicine applied a systems biology approach to study children who differed in their ability to control parasite growth and fever following P. falciparum infection. They collected and analyzed blood samples from healthy, uninfected Malian children at enrollment before the malaria season, during bi-weekly scheduled visits, and at their first malaria episode of the ensuing season. Specifically, the researchers integrated whole-blood transcriptomics with flow-cytometric analysis of blood cells and cytokine and antibody profiles. They focused on children aged 6-11 years, the age during which malaria immunity begins to be acquired in this region.

During the first malaria season, the researchers identified three distinct outcomes of P. falciparum infection. Twenty children were immune and showed no symptoms, 26 children showed early fever at the time of infection, and 34 children experienced delayed fever two days to two weeks later. Protection from malaria symptoms was associated with a pre-infection signature of B cell enrichment, platelet and monocyte activity, T helper cell responses, including interferon-driven pro-inflammatory responses, and p53 activation. In addition, control of parasite growth was associated with increased immunoglobulin G and Fc receptor activation prior to infection.

After this analysis, the researchers next set out to specifically investigate the role of p53 in malaria. Using multiple approaches in the laboratory, they found that increased p53 attenuates malaria-induced inflammation in human monocytes and in a mouse model of malaria, providing evidence that p53 activation contributes to the control of malaria fever. However, this study does not prove that p53 is directly involved in controlling the inflammatory response to malaria in humans.

"There has been extensive research on p53 in the context of cancer, but much less is known about its role in the immune response to infections, particularly in humans," Crompton says. "It may be that low expression of p53 in blood could serve as a marker for individuals or populations at greater risk of harmful inflammation when infected by malaria or other pathogens. Or perhaps increasing p53 pathways relevant to controlling inflammation could potentially reduce the severity of late-stage malaria."

Crompton notes that it will also be important to investigate whether the findings are generalizable to other human populations and other infectious diseases, and potentially to autoimmune diseases. "It will also be interesting to investigate the nexus between pathogen-induced modulation of p53 expression, particularly in the context of chronic or repeated infections, and cancer risk," he says.

Japan -- Say hello to the common fruit fly: a regular guest in all our homes, feasting on that banana peel you tossed into the garbage a few days ago.

Despite their name, it's not just fruit they fly to; these insects will feed on various kinds of plant matter. In a paper published in Cell Reports scientists describe that this diversity in diet stems from their flexible response to carbohydrates, giving us insight into how we humans evolved what we eat.

The fruit fly, or Drosophila melanogaster, maybe a nuisance to some, but to scientists they are the backbone of Genetics, and have provided answers on how genes operate in our bodies. Like the fruit fly, humans can also eat a wide range of food resources. We are known as 'nutritional generalists'.

On the other hand, some genetic cousins of the fruit fly are known as 'nutritional specialists' and can only grow on very specific plants. Many questions remain as to how organisms -- even within the same genetic family -- have such differences in feeding habits.

"Uncovering the differences in the molecular mechanisms between nutritional generalists and specialists can help us understand how organisms adapt to variable nutritional environments," explain Kaori Watanabe and Yukako Hattori of Kyoto University's Graduate School of Biostudies who lead the study. "In our investigation, we changed the nutrient balance in the food of different Drosophila species and compared their nutritional adaptability along with their transcriptional and metabolic responses."

The team began by examining whether larvae of generalists and specialists could adapt to three experimental diets: high protein, high carbohydrate, and 'medium' protein-carbohydrate. As expected, generalist flies -- including the common fruit fly -- grew under all diets. Larvae of specialists on the other hand could not survive on carbohydrate-rich conditions.

These specialists are known to eat and reproduce on specific fruits or flowers, and examining the nutritional profiles of their native diets showed that they live on low-carbohydrates. Looking at this, the team hypothesized that the difference between the flies lies in the genetic pathways that control their response to carbohydrates itself.

"A signaling pathway known as 'TGF-β/Activin signaling' regulates the body's response to carbohydrates. In the generalists, this pathway is quite flexible and maintains metabolic homeostasis under different diets. In fact, there are about 250 metabolic genes that are downregulated when their diet is carbohydrate-rich," they explain.

In contrast, a specialist expressed these genes at higher levels, where they accumulated metabolites, culminating in reduced adaptation. The same lack of adaptation was also found when a gene in the TGF-β/Activin pathway, named dawdle, is disabled in the common fruit fly.

The results suggest that the generalists evolutionarily retained the robust carbohydrate-responsive systems through genome-environment interactions, whereas specialists lost them in consistent low-carbohydrate environments.

The research team concludes, "considering that humans and flies share a number of genes and regulatory factors, we can begin to develop an interspecies comparative approach that provides an informative model system for addressing the genetic variability among humans in response to dietary intakes."

Bottom Line: Greater consumption of soft drinks, including both sugar- and artificially sweetened, was associated with increased risk of overall death in a population-based study of nearly 452,000 men and women from 10 European countries. Drinking two or more glasses per day (compared with less than one glass per month) of total soft drinks, sugar-sweetened soft drinks and artificially sweetened soft drinks was associated with higher risk of death from all causes during an average follow-up of 16 years in which 41,693 deaths occurred. The study group included participants from Denmark. France, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Soft drink consumption was collected on food questionnaires or in interviews at baseline from 1992 to 2000. Also among the findings was a higher risk of death from circulatory diseases associated with consuming two or more glass per day of total and artificially sweetened soft drinks, and a higher risk of death from digestive diseases associated with drinking one or more glass per day of total and sugar-sweetened soft drinks. No association was observed between soft drink consumption and overall cancer death. Limitations of the study include its observational design, which makes causal inferences impossible, and there was only a single assessment of soft drink consumption. Study authors suggest the findings support public health initiatives to limit soft drink consumption.

Authors: Neil Murphy, Ph.D., of the International Agency for Research on Cancer, Lyon, France, and coauthors

(doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2019.2478)

Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.

What The Study Did: This study used a blood marker of inflammation to assess the association of inflammation in late adolescence with death among a group of apparently healthy men (born between 1952 and 1956) who had blood drawn for compulsory conscription in the Swedish Army (at ages 16 to 20) and who were observed up to age 57.

Author: Elizabeth D. Kantor, Ph.D., M.P.H., of the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer in New York, is the corresponding author.

(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.2835)

Editor's Note: The article contains funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, financial disclosures, funding and support, etc.