Culture

Inspired by the flashing Brownian ratchet, Parrondo's paradox is a counter-intuitive phenomenon in which two losing games, when played in a specific order, can surprisingly end up winning. For example, slot machines are designed to ensure that players lose in the long run. "What the paradox says is that there might be slot machines which are subtly linked in such a way that playing either slot machine independently will lead to financial disaster, but switching in between them will eventually leave the player richer than before," said senior author, Assistant Professor Kang Hao Cheong of the Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD).

To explore the plethora of exciting applications in biology, researchers from SUTD have examined a large range of recent developments of Parrondo's paradox in biology, across ecology and evolution, genetics, social and behavioral systems, cellular processes, and disease.

Their study, appearing in a recent issue of BioEssays, has identified key connections between numerous seemingly disjointed works, culminating in an emergent pattern of nested recurrent mechanics that appear to span the entire biological gamut, from the smallest of spatial and temporal scales to the largest. The authors explained that the pivotal role the paradox plays in the shaping of living systems has become increasingly apparent, which points strongly towards its potential identity as a universal principle underlying biological diversity and persistence.

"Developments in Parrondo's paradox to date have revealed a potential unifying fundamental characteristic of life itself, more valuable to our understanding of nature than its individual components," said co-author Jin Ming Koh.

The picture that the authors paint of biological reality is a striking one. Their work suggests that the biosphere might be supported by countless layers of Parrondo-paradoxical effects, each ingesting inevitably losing strategies and producing enhanced outcomes at a slightly larger temporal or spatial scale for the layer above, in what may be visualized as a fractal-like recurrent pattern. Such an imagery offers a fresh perspective on our view of nature and of ourselves.

The trio is now attempting to analyze the detailed structure of these mechanisms, which might span from hugely macroscopic spatial scales of entire ecosystems to the molecular inner workings of cells, and from the million-year timescales of evolution to sub-microsecond genetic and molecular processes. "Every cell, organism and species, and species assemblage and ecosystem, is necessarily mortal, yet the biosphere persists," said Assistant Professor Cheong.

It is in industrialised countries and regions of the world where one can find the highest concentrations of lead, the world's most widespread neurotoxical accumulative metal. Thus, it was presumed that the Amazon, the world's largest expanse of tropical rainforest containing the highest levels of biocultural and cultural diversity, would contain a low amount of urban or industrial contaminants due to its remoteness and low human impact.

A group of researchers from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology and the Department of Animal Health and Anatomy at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), and the Central University of Catalonia/Vic University, for the first time have evaluated lead concentrations and isotopic fingerprints in free-ranging wildlife in remote areas of the Peruvian Amazon.

For the study, liver samples were collected from 315 animals from 18 different species, hunted for food by local indigenous peoples (Quechua, Achuar and Yagua). These areas under study are very remote and only accessible after a 4-5 day boat trip along the local rivers. Some of these areas are also located within the second most productive oil concession of the country, operating since the 1970s.

High concentrations of lead were found in the livers of Amazon wild mammals and birds, animals which are consumed daily by the local indigenous population. These values are higher than those observed among wild animals found in industrialised countries. The presence of this unexpectedly high level of lead in Amazonian wildlife poses a health risk for the local population, which relies on subsistence hunting.

Half of all samples analysed contained more than the 0.5 miligrams per kilo which European regulation considers to be the limit for human consumption of animal entrails, and 91% contained more than the 0.1 miligrams considered a suitable level for human consumption of meat in general. A very high risk for the population, taking into account that almost thirty of the samples analysed contained far higher levels of lead.

The researchers also demonstrated that the main sources of lead are the extended use of lead-based ammunition, as well as pollution related to oil extraction. In fact, lead-based ammunition could be an underestimated problem throughout the continent of South America. These results suggest that lead has entered the trophic chain in areas where human population depends on subsistence hunting. Thus, it is not likely a unique problem, but one that affects indigenous people around the world who use lead-based ammunition.

In addition, the fact of having found oil-related lead in wildlife suggests that other toxic compounds related to oil activities may have also entered the trophic chain. Indeed, in the northern Peruvian Amazon, oil extraction activities have generated an important environmental impact through the daily spillage of lead-rich wastewater into the environment.

Due to the high dependence of indigenous people globally on subsistence hunting and the extended use of lead-based ammunition, jointly with the advance of oil activities in tropical rainforests (oil and gas reserves overlap with 30% of the world's rainforests), these results uncover an important health risk for tropical wildlife conservation and for local human communities depending on these animals as their main source of protein.

Finally, the study further illustrates how remote natural areas also contain yet another ubiquitous anthropogenic footprint. This might be extended throughout the Amazonian ecosystem and other rainforests around the world, illustrating how human impact reaches further than usually envisaged, and the expansion of anthropogenic contaminants from industrial centres to the most remote areas of the planet.

Eating rye comes with a variety of health benefits. A new study from the University of Eastern Finland now shows that both lactic acid bacteria and gut bacteria contribute to the health benefits of rye. Published in Microbiome, the study used a metabolomics approach to analyse metabolites found in food and the human body.

Rye sourdough used for the baking of rye bread is rich in lactic acid bacteria. In addition to fermenting the dough, these bacteria also modify bioactive compounds found in rye. They produce branched-chain amino acids and amino acid-containing small peptides, which are known to have an impact on insulin metabolism, among other things.

Many of the compounds found in rye are processed by gut bacteria before getting absorbed into the body. The study found that gut microbes and microbes found in sourdough produce compounds that are partially the same. However, gut microbes also produce derivatives of trimethylglycine, also known as betaine, contained in rye. An earlier study by the research group has shown that at least one of these derivatives reduces the need for oxygen in heart muscle cells, which may protect the heart from ischemia or possibly even enhance its performance. The findings can explain some of the health benefits of rye, including better blood sugar levels and a lower risk of cardiovascular diseases.

The study used metabolomics as the primary method to carry out an extensive analysis of metabolites found in food and the human body. The effects of gut microbes were studied in mice and in an in vitro gastrointestinal model, mimicking the function of the human gut. Using these two models, the researchers were able to eliminate naturally occurring differences in the gut microbiome between different individuals, making it easier to detect metabolites actually originating from rye.

Rye can be traced back to what is now known as present-day eastern Turkey, from where it has spread to many cuisines across the world. In Finland, for example, rye has been consumed for thousands of years, and it was recently selected as the country's national food.

Although the health benefits of rye are long known, the underlying mechanisms are still poorly understood. For instance, the so-called Rye Factor refers to the lower insulin response caused by rye than, for example, wheat bread. Eating rye makes blood sugar levels fall slower, which leads to beneficial effects on the health - for a reason that remains unknown.

A significant factor contributing to the health benefits of rye are its bioactive compounds, or phytochemicals, which serve as antioxidants. In addition, gut microbes seem to play an important role in turning these compounds into a format that can be easily absorbed by the body, making it possible for them to have a greater effect.

"The major role played by gut microbes in human health has become more and more evident over the past decades, and this is why gut microbes should be taken very good care of. It's a good idea to avoid unnecessary antibiotics and feed gut microbes with optimal food - such as rye," Researcher Ville Koistinen from the University of Eastern Finland notes.

Half of New Zealand's birds have gone extinct since humans arrived on the islands. Many more are threatened. Now, researchers reporting in the journal Current Biology on August 5 estimate that it would take approximately 50 million years to recover the number of bird species lost since humans first colonized New Zealand.

"The conservation decisions we make today will have repercussions for millions of years to come," says Luis Valente (@evo_island) of Museum für Naturkunde in Berlin. "Some people believe that if you leave nature alone it will quickly recuperate, but the reality is that, at least in New Zealand, nature would need several million years to recover from human actions--and perhaps will never really recover."

The biodiversity observed today is the result of millions of years of evolutionary time, Valente explains. Extinctions caused by human activities erase this history. While the number of lost or threatened bird species often has been quantified, the broad-scale evolutionary consequences of human impact on island biodiversity rarely have been measured.

In the new study, Valente and colleagues developed a method to estimate how long it would take for islands to regain the number of species lost due to humans. They realized that New Zealand birds would be an ideal system to apply and demonstrate this new method.

"The anthropogenic wave of extinction in New Zealand is very well documented, due to decades of paleontological and archaeological research," Valente says. "Also, previous studies have produced dozens of DNA sequences for extinct New Zealand birds, which were essential to build datasets needed to apply our method."

Using computers to simulate a range of human-induced extinction scenarios, the researchers found that it would take approximately 50 million years to recover the number of species lost since human's first arrived in New Zealand. If all species currently under threat are allowed to go extinct, they report, it would require about 10 million years of evolutionary time to return to the species numbers of today.

Valente says they now plan to estimate evolutionary return times for several islands worldwide to see whether there are certain islands that have more evolutionary time under threat. They also want to assess which anthropogenic factors play the most significant role in determining those losses.

For New Zealand, Valente says, there is a bright side. "The conservation initiatives currently being undertaken in New Zealand are highly innovative and appear to be efficient and may yet prevent millions of years of evolution from further being lost," he says.

Seaweed may be a quiet achiever when it comes to mitigation of greenhouse gases, with it now shown to travel far and deep beyond coastal areas and thus to play a key role in sequestering carbon from the atmosphere.

Seaweed, or macroalgae, form the most extensive and productive vegetated coastal habitats. They colonize all latitudes and are efficient at capturing atmospheric CO2 and converting it into plant material. An international research team has reported that a diverse range of macroalgae species drifts as much as 5000 kilometers beyond coastal areas. Around 70 percent of this seaweed, therefore carbon, will sink to ocean depths below 1000 meters, meaning the carbon is unlikely to return to the atmosphere.

"This finding has huge implications for how the global carbon dioxide budget is calculated," says Ph.D. student, Alejandra Ortega, the first author of the study. "It indicates that macroalgae are important for carbon sequestration and should be included in assessments of carbon accumulated in the ocean, known as blue carbon."

Macroalgae are ignored in current assessments of blue carbon, mainly because these rootless marine plants do not remain in the same place but drift with currents and tides. Little was known about their fate once they have floated away from the coast. As a result, there have been no detailed assessments of their role in carbon sequestration in coastal habitats, particularly in the sediments of seagrass and mangrove.

Now the team, led by Carlos Duarte and his KAUST colleagues at the Red Sea Research Center and the Computational Bioscience Research Center (CBRC), has identified DNA sequences of macroalgae in hundreds of metagenomes generated by the global ocean expeditions Tara Oceans and Malaspina, the later led by Duarte. The expeditions surveyed the global ocean to a depth of 4000 meters and sequenced the particulate material collected in the water sample to create a global DNA resource. The marine scientists searched for macroalgae in these global ocean metagenomes, using Dragon Metagenomic Analysis Platform (DMAP). Developed by CBRC bioinformaticians, DMAP uses KAUST's supercomputer to annotate and compare metagenomic data sets.

For the very first time, the team was able to provide semiquantitative evidence of the presence of macroalgae beyond the shoreline. "Work is still needed to be able to translate a specific amount of DNA into a specific amount of organic carbon in a specific taxon, but finding macroalgal DNA is the first step," says Ortega.

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- Medical doctors in the United States are twice as likely to experience symptoms of burnout as other workers, which can compromise quality of care and place patients at risk. In a study in JAMA Internal Medicine, Mayo Clinic researchers suggest a new approach to fighting burnout: external professional coaching.

Defined by the World Health Organization as "feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion; increased mental distance from one's job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one's job; and reduced professional efficacy," burnout creates problems for both physicians and the patients they treat. This study, led by Liselotte Dyrbye, M.D. and Colin West, M.D., Ph.D., investigates the use of external professional coaching--focused on professional goal setting, work choices, professional relationships, and influencing change at work--to reduce burnout. Though researchers have previously studied coaching in other contexts, this is the first study specifically exploring its effects on physician burnout.

"Helping physicians navigate career decisions and manage the stress of their job is crucial," says Dr. Dyrbye. "While many of these doctors have a good informal support system, professional coaches can address a variety of topics and needs, and provide a safe setting to admit perceived vulnerabilities and uncertainties. We really think it can improve physicians' ability to manage their careers and change the detrimental aspects of their work environments, so that ultimately they can do their job well without feeling overwhelmed."

Participants - 88 practicing physicians - began the study by filling out several self-assessment questionnaires, querying for burnout, quality of life, resilience, and job satisfaction. They then completed 6 sessions with a non-physician credentialed professional coach, who worked with the doctors on issues of their choice. After those six sessions, the physicians filled out the same questionnaires to chart their progress.

Results were promising. The doctors reported less burnout and a higher quality of life after coaching, as compared to before. Notably, the researchers also administered these tests on physicians who were not coached. Across the same span of time, these physicians actually reported more emotional exhaustion and lower quality of life, showing how these symptoms can worsen if left unaddressed.

More research remains to be done on the efficacy of professional coaching when combined with other programs, but these results suggest it may be added to a growing list of evidence-based tools to support physicians and, by extension, the patients they serve. While useful, professional coaching should be offered in parallel to organizational efforts to improve the practice environment and address the underlying drivers of burnout among physicians.

CHAMPAIGN, Ill. -- While watching the production of porous membranes used for DNA sorting and sequencing, University of Illinois researchers wondered how tiny steplike defects formed during fabrication could be used to improve molecule transport. They found that the defects - formed by overlapping layers of membrane - make a big difference in how molecules move along a membrane surface. Instead of trying to fix these flaws, the team set out to use them to help direct molecules into the membrane pores.

Their findings are published in the journal Nature Nanotechnology.

Nanopore membranes have generated interest in biomedical research because they help researchers investigate individual molecules - atom by atom - by pulling them through pores for physical and chemical characterization. This technology could ultimately lead to devices that can quickly sequence DNA, RNA or proteins for personalized medicine.

In 2014, University of Illinois physics professor Aleksei Aksimentiev and graduate student Manish Shankla demonstrated a graphene membrane that controlled a molecule's movement through a nanopore by means of electrical charge. They discovered that once the molecules are on the surface of the membrane, it is very difficult to get them to shuffle into the membrane's pores because molecules like to stick to the surface.

While on sabbatical at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, Aksimentiev found that DNA tends to accumulate and stick along the edges of fabrication-formed defects that occur as linear steps spanning across the membrane's surface. The Illinois team's goal was to find a way to use these flaws to direct the stuck molecules into the nanopores, as a principle that can also apply to the delivery, sorting and analysis of biomolecules.

To refine and confirm their observations, the researchers used the Blue Waters supercomputer at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at Illinois and the XSEDE supercomputer to model the system and molecule movement scenarios at the atomic level.

"Molecular dynamics simulations let us watch what is happening while simultaneously measuring how much force is required to get the molecule to clear a step," Aksimentiev said. "We were surprised to find that it takes less force to move a molecule down a step than up. Although it may seem intuitive that gravity would make stepping down easier, it is not the case here because gravity is negligible at the nanoscale, and the force required to move up or down should be the same."

Aksimentiev said team members originally thought they could use concentric defect patterns that form around the pores to force the molecules down, but their simulations showed the molecules congregating along the edges of the steps. That is when it dawned on them: A defect with edges that spiral into a pore, combined with an applied directional force, would give the molecule no other option than to go into the pore - kind of like a drain.

"This way, we can drop molecules anywhere on the membrane covered with these spiral structures and then pull the molecules into a pore," he said.

The researchers have not yet produced a membrane with spiral defects in the laboratory, but that task may be easier than trying to rid a graphene membrane of the current molecule-immobilizing step defects, they said.

"When manufactured at scale, defect-guided capture may potentially increase the DNA capture throughput by several orders of magnitude, compared with current technology," Shankla said.

"After a long development process, we are excited to see this principle used in a variety of other materials and applications such as delivery of individual molecules to reaction chambers for experiments," the researchers said.

All living organisms depend on enzymes - molecules that speed up biochemical reactions that are essential for life.

Scientists have spent decades trying to create artificial enzymes capable of cranking out important chemicals and fuels at an industrial scale with performance rivaling their natural counterparts.

Researchers from Stanford University and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have developed a synthetic catalyst that produces chemicals much the way enzymes do in living organisms. In a study published in the Aug. 5 issue of Nature Catalysis, the researchers say their discovery could lead to industrial catalysts capable of producing methanol using less energy and at a lower cost. Methanol has a variety of applications, and there is a growing demand for its use as a fuel with lower emissions than conventional gasoline.

"We took our inspiration from nature," said senior author Matteo Cargnello, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Stanford. "We wanted to mimic the function of natural enzymes in the laboratory using artificial catalysts to make useful compounds."

For the experiment, the researchers designed a catalyst made of nanocrystals of palladium, a precious metal, embedded in layers of porous polymers tailored with special catalytic properties. Most protein enzymes found in nature also have trace metals, like zinc and iron, embedded in their core.

The researchers were able to observe trace palladium in their catalysts with electron microscopic imagery by co-author Andrew Herzing of the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Model reaction

"We focused on a model chemical reaction: converting toxic carbon monoxide and oxygen into carbon dioxide (CO2)," said PhD student Andrew Riscoe, lead author of the study. "Our goal was to see if the artificial catalyst would function like an enzyme by speeding up the reaction and controlling the way CO2 is produced."

To find out, Riscoe placed the catalyst in a reactor tube with a continuous flow of carbon monoxide and oxygen gas. When the tube was heated to about 150 degrees Celsius (302 degrees Fahrenheit), the catalyst began generating the desired product, carbon dioxide.

High-energy X-rays from the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource (SSRL) at SLAC revealed that the catalyst had traits similar to those seen in enzymes: The palladium nanocrystals inside the catalyst were continuously reacting with oxygen and carbon monoxide to produce carbon dioxide. And some of the newly formed carbon dioxide molecules were getting trapped in the outer polymer layers as they escaped from the nanocrystals.

"The X-rays showed that once the polymer layers were filled with CO2, the reaction stopped," said Cargnello, an affiliate with the Stanford Natural Gas Initiative (NGI). "This is important, because it's the same strategy used by enzymes. When an enzyme produces too much of a product, it stops working, because the product is no longer needed. We showed that we can also regulate the production of CO2 by controlling the chemical composition of the polymer layers. This approach could impact many areas of catalysis."

The X-ray imaging was conducted by study co-authors Alexey Boubnov, a Stanford postdoctoral scholar, and SLAC scientists Simon Bare and Adam Hoffman.

Making methanol

With the success of the carbon dioxide experiment, Cargnello and his colleagues have turned their attention to converting methane, the main ingredient in natural gas, into methanol, a chemical widely used in textiles, plastics and paints. Methanol has also been touted as a cheaper, cleaner alternative to gasoline fuel.

"The ability to convert methane to methanol at low temperatures is considered a holy grail of catalysis," Cargnello said. "Our long-term goal is to build a catalyst that behaves like methane monooxoygenase, a natural enzyme that certain microbes use to metabolize methane."

Most methanol today is produced in a two-step process that involves heating natural gas to temperatures of about 1,000 C (1,800 F). But this energy-intensive process emits a large amount of carbon dioxide, a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global climate change.

"An artificial catalyst that directly converts methane to methanol would require much lower temperatures and emit far less CO2," Riscoe explained. "Ideally, we could also control the products of the reaction by designing polymer layers that trap the methanol before it burns."

Future enzymes

"In this work, we demonstrated that we can prepare hybrid materials made of polymers and metallic nanocrystals that have certain traits typical of enzymatic activity," said Cargnello, who is also affiliated with Stanford's SUNCAT Center for Interface Science and Catalysis. "The exciting part is that we can apply these materials to lots of systems, helping us better understand the details of the catalytic process and taking us one step closer to artificial enzymes."

Some older adults without noticeable cognitive problems have a harder time than younger people in separating irrelevant information from what they need to know at a given time, and a new Johns Hopkins University study could explain why.

The findings offer an initial snapshot of what happens in the brain as young and old people try to access long-term memories, and could shed light on why some people's cognitive abilities decline with age while others remain sharp.

"Your task performance can be impaired not just because you can't remember, but because you can't suppress other memories that are irrelevant," said senior author Susan Courtney, a cognitive neuroscientist at Johns Hopkins. "Some 'memory problems' aren't a matter of memory specifically, but a matter of retrieving the correct information at the right time to solve the problem at hand."

The findings were just posted in Neurobiology of Aging.

The researchers had 34 young adults (18 to 30) and 34 older adults (65-85) perform a mental arithmetic task while their brain activity was measured through functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI. Other images were also collected to measure the integrity of the connections between brain areas called white matter tracts.

The task compared the participants' ability to inhibit irrelevant information automatically retrieved from long term memory. They were asked to indicate whether a proposed solution to an addition or multiplication problem was correct or not - for instance 8x4=12 or 8+4=32. These examples would create interference as participants considered the right answer because although they should answer "incorrect," the proposed solution seems correct at first glance, based on long-term memories of basic math. This interference did not exist when participants were asked to answer clearly false equations like 8x4=22. Making the task even more complicated, the subjects were sometimes asked to switch to multiplication after they saw the addition symbol and vice versa.

Older people were a fraction of a second slower at answering the questions than younger participants, particularly when there was interference, but the more dramatic difference showed up in the brain scans. Older individuals who had more difficulty with interference also had more frontal brain activation than young adults.

The brain imaging demonstrated that in some aging participants, fibers connecting the front and back of the brain appear to have been damaged over the years. However other older individuals had fibers similar to much younger subjects. The greater the integrity of these fibers, the better the participant's task performance, said lead author Thomas Hinault, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins.

"Everyone we studied had good functioning memory, but still we saw differences," Hinault said. "There are so many disruptions in the world and being able to suppress them is crucial for daily life."

The researchers were surprised to find that during parts of the task that were the trickiest, where participants had to switch between multiplication and addition and were asked to add after they saw a multiplication command or vice versa, the people with the strongest brain fiber connections counterintuitively performed even better. Something about deliberately exercising the mind in this fashion made the most agile minds even more so.

"If you have good connections between brain networks, that will help," Courtney said. "If not, you have interference."

BEER-SHEVA, Israel...August 5, 2019 - Mankai, a new high-protein aquatic plant strain of duckweed, has significant potential as a superfood and provides glycemic control after carbohydrate consumption, a team of researchers from Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) has determined.

Hila Zelicha, a registered dietician (R.D.) and Ph.D. student in the BGU Department of Public Health and her BGU colleagues researched the glycemic aspect of Mankai duckweed. Her research was just published in Diabetes Care, the official journal of the American Diabetes Association.

In this new study, the researchers compared Mankai shake consumption to a yogurt shake equivalent in carbohydrates, protein, lipids, and calories. Following two weeks of monitoring with glucose sensors, participants who drank the duckweed shake showed a much better response in a variety of measurements including lower glucose peak levels; morning fasting glucose levels; later peak time; and faster glucose evacuation. The participants also felt more full.

The research group, led by Prof. Iris Shai, a member of BGU's S. Daniel Abraham International Center for Health and Nutrition and the School of Public Health, has found in several previous studies that Mankai duckweed has tremendous health potential as a superfood. This new research is a sub-study of the Dietary Intervention Randomized Controlled Trial - Polyphenols Unprocessed (DIRECT PLUS) which explores the effects of green- Mediterranean diet.

The Mankai duckweed aquatic plant is being grown in Israel and other countries in a closed environment and is highly environmentally sustainable - requiring a fraction of the amount of water to produce each gram of protein compared to soy, kale or spinach. It can also be grown year-round using hydroponic cultivation, which is another advantage.

Duckweed has been consumed for hundreds of years in Southeast Asia, where it is known as "vegetable meatball" due to its high-protein content -- more than 45% of the dry matter. It includes the complete protein profile of eggs, containing all nine essential and six conditional amino acids. In addition, Mankai is very rich in polyphenols, mainly phenolic acids and flavonoids (including catechins), dietary fibers, minerals (including iron and zinc), vitamin A, vitamin B complex, and vitamin B12 , which is rarely produced by plants.

A previous duckweed study conducted by Alon Kaplan, a Ph.D. student in Prof. Shai's lab, published in Clinical Nutrition, showed that the absorption of the essential amino acids from Mankai was similar to the soft cheese and plant (peas) equivalent in protein content, reinforcing its role as a high-quality protein source. Also, the study suggested that Mankai is a unique plant source of vitamin B12.

Another study by the researchers in the Journal of Nutrition published earlier this year by BGU Ph.D. student Anat Yaskolka Meir R.D., indicates that a Mediterranean diet with Mankai, elevates iron and folic acid levels, despite low quantities of red meat. This study also determined that iron from Mankai was efficient in treating iron-deficiency anemia in anemic rats to the same degree as the common treatment.

It is the aggregation of all of these properties which seem to make the easily integratable, tasteless and odorless plant, a good candidate to become a superfood. Harvard University apparently agrees, Mankai smoothies were introduced in the Harvard School of Public Health cafeteria recently.

A new team-based model for intensive care unit (ICU) pharmacists, developed by Rutgers and RWJBarnabas Health System, resolves a common dilemma for hospitals and improves care for critically ill patients.

Many ICUs include a team of general practice pharmacists, supplemented by one who specializes in critical care. Typically, only the specialist can respond to such complex, ICU-specific issues as determining whether a delirious patient needs to switch medications. But when the specialist is not on duty, patients often have to wait longer for that expert care, according to the study published in the Journal of Clinical Outcomes Management.

Lead researcher Liza Barbarello Andrews, a clinical associate professor at Rutgers University's Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy, developed a solution at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Hamilton, where she is the sole critical care pharmacy specialist.

Under her new model, several non-specialists on the Hamilton ICU's pharmacy staff underwent six months of intensive classroom and clinical training on topics such as the complications that patients face while attached to mechanical ventilators; infectious disease risk; and blood flow management for non-mobile patients. Over time, all pharmacists on the newly formed Critical Care Pharmacist Team (CCPT) were able to provide the full range of patient interventions previously limited to the critical care specialist.

The new model, believed to be the first of its kind, produced notable results: The overall quality of pharmacy services provided to patients improved. All pharmacists who underwent the training reported feeling comfortable and confident in providing the specialized levels of care, along with a greater sense of professional satisfaction. Other members of the ICU staff, including physicians and nurses, also reported improvements in pharmacy care, including a consistent, high level of care even when the specialist was not on duty.

"Before we tried this model, the non-specialty pharmacists in the ICU were often uncomfortable with clinical issues, which sometimes meant going to the bedside to assess the situation. As a result, relatively minor issues were frequently escalated with a call to the specialist, who was not always readily available," Andrews said. "Our new model effectively empowers all of our pharmacists to act as specialists."

Andrews said the new model was adopted without significant cost and should therefore benefit other community-based hospitals with limited resources.

Given that they generate hardly any greenhouse gases, are undemanding, nutritious and fast growing, insects have generated a lot of hype in recent years. They are touted as the superfood of the future - cheap suppliers of protein that can even decompose all kinds of residual products.

"This all sounds very promising, but has little to do with reality," says Wilhelm Windisch, Professor of Animal Nutrition at the Technical University of Munich. "Anyone who hopes to keep animals professionally and on a large scale needs to know exactly what kinds of nutrients they need and can consume. And for insects, this is yet to be determined."

In collaboration with a German-Kenyan research team, the agricultural scientist has for the first time ever systematically investigated how various feed substrates influence the growth and development of crickets (Gryllus bimaculatus) and locusts (Schistocerca gregaria).

From biblical plague to farm animal

In the wild, both species feed on leaves. "But supplying large insect farms with fresh greens year-round is virtually impossible to implement," says Windisch. "You need feed of verifiable quality and safety that can be dried, stored and transported."

Commercial animal feed would fulfill these criteria. But, does it meet the nutritional needs of insects? At the renowned Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Nairobi, the team investigated how the two species responded to different feed choices.

They tested different dry feed variants containing cornstarch, protein and fiber-rich cowpea leaves, protein-rich soy extract and vitamin-enriched carrot powder.

The researchers logged the amount of feed provided every day, weighed the excrements and finally determined the average weight of the adult insects. Two rounds of tests were carried out and evaluated over a three-month period.

The goal: Nutritional recommendations for grasshoppers and co.

"The result surprised us," recalls Windisch: "It was clear to us that the metabolism and digestion are rather different in insects than in conventional farm animals such as cattle, pigs and chickens. What we did not expect were immense species-specific differences."

Locusts, for example, can process plant fibers that are indigestible by humans. Crickets, on the other hand, excrete fiber-rich food. Locusts grow quickly only when fed protein, while crickets need starch, above all.

The source of the differences is still unclear. In their next project, the researchers hope to investigate which enzymes are active in the intestines of various insects and which of them can, for example, convert plant fiber into glucose.

"The research is still in its infancy, but with each result we understand the metabolism and nutrient needs of individual genera better and can use the outcomes in professional insect farms to process biomass that, for example, could not be used previously because it is inedible for humans and livestock can process it poorly, at best," sums up Windisch.

Tomato yellow leaf curl disease (TYLCD) caused by tomato yellow leaf curl virus-like viruses is the most destructive disease of tomato, causing severe damage to crops worldwide and resulting in high economic losses. To combat this disease, many farmers opt for intensive application of insecticides. However, this practice is frequently ineffective and has a negative impact on the environment and human health.

Alternatively, some farmers plant TYLCD-resistant tomato varieties, but these hybrid varieties are often tasteless and a poor comparison to the robust flavor of traditional tomatoes. As a result, there is a demand for effective and environmentally friendly control measures to prevent continuing widespread damage of TYLCD, as well as other plant viruses.

To answer this demand, a team of scientists at the Spanish Council of Scientific Research (IHSM UMA-CSIC) conducted field and greenhouse trials for three consecutive years and found two environmentally friendly control alternatives to insecticides.

First, they discovered that protecting tomato crops with UV-blocking plastics led to reduced TYLCD damage. Secondly, they found that the application of a salicylic acid analogue to strengthen tomato plant defenses was also effective in reducing TYLCD-associated losses.

For the most effective results, the team recommends that farmers combine both control practices. These practices are proposed for commercial use in open field or on protected tomato crops. These findings also suggest the possibility for future discovery of environmentally friendly virus control strategies.

HOUSTON - (Aug. 5, 2019) - Paper is at the heart of an experimental device developed by Rice University bioengineers to study heart disease.

They are using paper-based structures that mimic the layered nature of aortic valves, the tough, flexible tissues that keep blood flowing through the heart in one direction only. The devices allow the engineers to study in detail how calcifying diseases slow or stop hearts from functioning.

The work by the Brown School of Engineering team, detailed in Acta Biomaterialia, shows that collagen 1, a natural protein and a component of the valves' fibrous extracellular matrix, appears to have a strong association with calcification when it is found outside its usual domain. Valves hardened by calcium deposits are less flexible and lose their ability to seal the heart's chambers.

"When tissues make a lot of excess type 1 collagen, it's called fibrosis," said Rice bioengineer Jane Grande-Allen, who directed the study with Rice graduate student and lead author Madeline Monroe. "Fibrosis can happen in many types of tissues and it accompanies calcific aortic valve disease (CAVD). That doesn't necessarily mean collagen will always cause CAVD, but it definitely drove the calcification-linked phenotype in the cells that we cultured."

Collagen generally stays in the valve's fibrosa layer, one of three in each of the three leaflets that make up an aortic valve. (The others layers are the spongiosa and ventricularis.) The researchers prepared paper layers to support heart valve cells embedded in either collagen or hyaluronan, and discovered that when collagen 1 proteins are present in multiple layers, the cells behave in a way that would ultimately lead to mineralized lesions.

Grande-Allen said the layers of extracellular matrix in a healthy aortic valve are well-defined. "In a more pathological state, the collagen isn't localized," she said. "It's spread out. Our models suggest nonlocalized collagen could contribute to cell overexpression of these calcific factors."

The Rice researchers want to know how that happens. They needed a way to see how valve cells would react to collagen spreading through a three-dimensional tissue, and common filter paper turned out to be a suitable stand-in. What they made doesn't look like a heart valve, but effectively acts like one to show how cells proliferate through a valve's layers.

Heart valve disease can't be treated with a pill yet, said Grande-Allen, who has studied valve disease for much of her career and reported on paper-based cultures in 2015. Current remedies often involve replacement of the valve with human or animal donor tissue or a mechanical valve. But the ability to accurately model and manipulate all the layers of a valve could help decipher the chemical transactions in heart disease. She said that may eventually lead to noninvasive medication.

"The first step has been to develop models that mimic the way the cells in valves behave," Grande-Allen said. "The next step would be to see them actually calcify. Once that is in hand, we can start to test chemicals that would block that calcification process."

Monroe, with co-author and Rice undergraduate Rebecca Nikonowicz and early help from alumnus Matthew Sapp, took inspiration from the cells-in-gels-in-wells filter-paper cultures used at Harvard University to study hypoxia in lung cancer cells.

The Rice lab started by 3D-printing polymer holders with arrays of holes. These held in place layers of paper that had been impregnated with a wax pattern to eliminate crosstalk between the open circles of filter paper. The circles were then saturated with various combinations of fibrous collagen 1, hyaluronan (normally found in the spongiosa layer) and millions of living heart cells, and the sheets were pressed together within the holders.

"This modeling system gives us complete control over a lot of different variables," Monroe said. "We were able to create distinct stacks with different compositions based on what components we put in each layer. We had stacks where all the layers were all hyaluronan, or all collagen, or heterogeneous stacks with both kinds of layers.

"That let us see if the cells behaved differently when there was an increase in the number of collagen layers," she said.

Monroe assessed the cells' behavior over time by analyzing the protein markers they expressed, particularly alpha smooth muscle actin (aSMA), a Runt-related transcription factor-2 (RunX2) and SRY-box 9 (Sox9), all of which are indicators for CAVD. Using a high-throughput staining and scanning method with the groups of wells allowed her to quickly gather data from dozens of structures.

The data let them see that valvular interstitial cells, the principal and normally stable aortic valve cell type, became more susceptible to osteogenesis -- hardening -- in the presence of more layers containing collagen protein.

"The paper model is ingenious for allowing us that versatility and flexibility," Grande-Allen said. "I don't know of another method that so easily allows us to put together different layers easily, culture the combinations together and then take them apart and analyze them so rapidly."

Environmental defenders on the front line of natural resource conflict are being killed at an alarming rate, according to a University of Queensland study.

According to UQ School of Biological Sciences researcher Dr Nathalie Butt, the 1558 deaths recorded between 2002 and 2017 were largely due to external demand for the very resources they were trying to protect.

"The number of reported deaths of environmental defenders has increased, as well as the number of countries where they occur," Dr Butt said.

"Environmental defenders help protect land, forests, water and other natural resources.

"They can be anyone - community activists, lawyers, journalists, members of social movements, NGO staff and Indigenous people - anyone who resists violence.

"And importantly, Indigenous peoples are dying in higher numbers than any other group."

The reasons for the fatal violence are mainly related to conflict over natural resources, such as water, timber, land for agriculture or development, or minerals.

A third of all deaths between 2014 and 2017 - more than 230 - were linked to the mining and agribusiness sectors.

"Although conflict over natural resources is the underlying cause of the violence, spatial analyses showed corruption was the key correlate for the killings," Dr Butt said.

"Globally, 43 per cent of all murders result in a conviction, while for environmental defenders this figure is only 10 per cent.

"In many instances, weak rule of law means that cases in many countries are not properly investigated, and sometimes it's the police or the authorities themselves that are responsible for the violence.

"For example, in Pau D'Arco, Brazil, ten land defenders were killed by the police in May 2017."

Dr Butt is calling for more transparency and accountability from multinational companies and governments, and awareness from consumers.

"The ecology of the planet is fundamental to the production of food and resources - that we all depend upon - and we are ultimately bound to support it, otherwise it will not support us," she said.

"Part of this support is to protect the people who protect it.

"As consumers in wealthy countries - who are effectively outsourcing our resource consumption - we share responsibility for what's happening.

"Businesses, investors and national governments at both ends of the chain of violence need to be more accountable."