Culture

While the era of app-based ridehailing services, such as Uber and Lyft, has been credited with keeping more impaired drivers off the road, increasing job opportunities and offering new levels of convenience, it is also linked with more congestion and traffic deaths.

The arrival of ridehailing is associated with an increase of approximately 3 percent in the number of motor vehicle fatalities and fatal accidents, according to research from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

The researchers used the staggered roll-out dates from Uber and Lyft to review the eight quarters before and after ridehailing adoption in large U.S. cities from 2001 to 2016--analyzing traffic volume, transportation choices and accidents to arrive at their conclusion.

The documented increase in accidents appears to persist and even increase over time, and that rate has stayed steady through weekdays, weeknights, weekend days and weekend nights, according to John Barrios, assistant professor at Chicago Booth, and Yale V. Hochberg and Hanyi Yi, both of Rice University, in the working paper, The Cost of Convenience: Ridehailing and Traffic Fatalities.

For perspective, while in 2010 the number of roadway deaths in the U.S. stood at 32,885 (the lowest level since 1949), that number increased to more than 37,400 in 2016. The authors find that the introduction of ridehailing services in 2011 accounts for roughly 3 percent annual increase in auto deaths nationwide, or 987 people each year.

Economic theory and the data point to many reasons for ridehailing's contribution to the growth in traffic fatalities. Ridehailing has put more cars on the road, and that has meant more accidents, injuries, and deaths involving drivers, passengers, bikers, and pedestrians, the study says.

The most significant increase in accidents occurred in larger cities, which saw a rise in new-car registrations when ridehailing was available, despite having public-transportation systems. Meanwhile, in cities that have introduced ridehailing, bike and pedestrian fatalities from accidents involving cars have increased at a similar rate to all driving fatalities.

"Surveys report that fewer than half of [ridehailing] rides in nine major metro areas actually substitute for a trip that someone would have made in a car," the study says.

Also, Uber and Lyft need to keep large numbers of cars on the roads so they can get to riders quickly. Thus, the companies subsidize drivers to stay on the road between fares. As a result, ridehailing drivers are often driving alone as they search for riders, resulting in more cars on the road than usual at any given time.

Finally, the researchers quantify the financial costs of the additional fatalities. Based on U.S. Department of Transportation estimates for the value of a statistical life, they found fatalities due to ridehailing amount to about $10 billion. That figure does not include costs from non-fatal accidents.

While the authors note that ridehailing benefits are undeniable, such as providing safe and affordable transportation options, more carpooling for riders, and job opportunities for drivers, they emphasize that, "still, the annual cost in human lives is nontrivial." Instead, they view the essential contribution of their study as "pointing to the need for further research and debate about the overall cost-benefit tradeoff of ridehailing."

The towering, hundred-year-old Sitka spruce trees growing in the heart of Vancouver Island's Carmanah Valley appear placid and unchanging.

In reality, each one is packed to the rafters with evolutionary potential.

UBC researchers scraped bark and collected needles from 20 of these trees last summer, sending the samples to a lab for DNA sequencing. Results, published recently in Evolution Letters, showed that a single old-growth tree could have up to 100,000 genetic differences in DNA sequence between the base of the tree, where the bark was collected, and the tip of the crown.

Each difference represents a somatic mutation, or a mutation that occurs during the natural course of growth rather than during reproduction.

"This is the first evidence of the tremendous genetic variation that can accumulate in some of our tallest trees. Scientists have known for decades about somatic mutations, but very little about how frequently they occur and whether they contribute significantly to genetic variation," said Sally Aitken, the study's lead researcher and a professor of forestry at UBC. "Now, thanks to advances in genomic sequencing, we know some of the answers."

The researchers chose the Sitka spruce because it's among the tallest trees growing in the Pacific Northwest, and sampled the exceptional trees in Carmanah Walbran Provincial Park.

"Because these trees live so long and grow so tall, they're capable of accumulating tremendous genetic variation over time," explained Vincent Hanlon, who did the research as part of his master of science in the faculty of forestry at UBC.

"On average, the trees we sampled for the study were 220 to 500 years old and 76 metres tall. There's a redwood tree in California that's 116 metres tall, but these Sitka spruce were pretty big."

The researchers say more time and further studies will be needed to understand exactly how the different somatic mutations will affect the evolution of the tree as a species.

"Most of the mutations are probably harmless, and some will likely be bad," explained Aitken. "But other mutations may result in genetic diversity and if they're passed onto offspring they'll contribute to evolution and adaptation over time."

Studying somatic mutation rates in various tree species can shed light on how trees, which can't evolve as rapidly as other organisms like animals due to their long lifespans, nonetheless survive and thrive, Aitken said.

"We often see tree populations that adapt well to local climates and develop effective responses to changing stresses such as pests and bugs," she added. "Our study provides insights on one genetic mechanism that might help make this possible."

When anthropologists consider the origins of warfare, their evolutionary theories tend to boil it down to the resource-scarcity trifecta of food, territory and mates - three resources that would justify the loss of life and risk to a warring group of hunter-gatherers.

But researchers from University of Colorado Denver, University of British Columbia and University of Santiago, Chile, created an evolutionary mathematical model to unearth a fourth theory. They found that acculturation - the adoption and imitation of a victor's culture following defeat - could promote the evolution of intergroup conflicts. In other words, groups may evolve to fight for fighting's sake, despite the costs.

The study, "Acculturation drives the evolution of intergroup conflict," was published June 21 in the journal PNAS.

"Warriors" and "shepherds" in human evolution

"I've researched the evolution of cooperation and altruism - paradoxes in the conventional evolutionary theory of survival of the fittest - by group selection, but in this case, we wanted to understand the evolution of intergroup conflict," said Burton Simon, PhD, associate professor of mathematics at the University of Colorado Denver, who has worked as a sort of "mathematical anthropologist" for the last decade.

The researchers' mathematical model is based on two classes of people: warriors, who specialize in intergroup conflicts and have a low birth rate, and shepherds, who cannot defend themselves but are highly reproductive. The amount of each within a group depended on the probability that an offspring becomes a warrior or shepherd, a cultural trait passed vertically from one generation to the next.

The study determined group dynamics through three types of events: group extinctions (a whole group dies, e.g., as the result of a drought or a bad crop), fissions (when an overly large group splits into two) and group conflicts due to their "belligerence" (assumed to increase a group's probability of trying to conquer another group). When groups fight in the model, the winner imposes its cultural traits on the loser or eliminates the group altogether. The belligerence of a group and the probability that they will impose their culture (acculturation tendency) are two of those traits.

"You need individuals who are shepherds to reproduce and individuals who are warriors to protect the group," said Simon. "But the right numbers of each can change over time in complicated and surprising ways."

Cultural evolution may promote the spread of conflict

How might these cultures thrive or die? Depending on the initial conditions of each group and which parameters (like acculturation and belligerence) were allowed to evolve, researchers found that sometimes groups fought each other into extinction. In other cases, the whole population reached a peaceful equilibrium.

But when researchers allowed all of the parameters to evolve, they found that acculturation coevolved with belligerence and warrior production. In other words, groups became more and more belligerent over time, and they forced their cultures on their victims instead of killing them.

That cultural evolution may promote the spread of conflict, even in cases where it may hurt both the groups and the individuals, is a theory that has received little attention. A mathematical model was one way to see how it could happen, said Simon.

"I realize mathematical anthropology sounds like an oxymoron," said Simon. "Most people who theorize about why there's so much conflict between human groups use economics and political science. But when you look at a hunter-gatherer society with a mathematical model, which forces you to state your assumptions precisely, the results can be enlightening."

Simon cautioned that the causes of today's conflicts are much too complex for a mathematical model to tackle, but his research is a glimpse into how imitation might indirectly breed conflict in evolutionary theory.

With little cases of ethanol to preserve tissue samples for total genomic DNA analysis, a trio covered much ground in the mountains of Japan and Korea to elucidate the evolution of the scorpionfly. The rugged scientists set out to use molecular phylogenetic analysis to show that the "alpine" type of scorpionfly and "general" type must be different species. After all, the alpine type exhibit shorter wings than the general type, and alpine type females also have very dark and distinct markings on their wings.

However, what they found in the DNA surprised them.

Casually called the scorpionfly because the males have abdomens that curve upward and are shaped like the stinger of scorpions, the Panorpodes paradoxus do not sting. Tomoya Suzuki, postdoc research fellow of the Faculty of Science at Shinshu University, Suzuki's father, expert of scorpionflies, Nobuo Suzuki, professor at the Japan Women's College of Physical Education and Koji Tojo, professor at the only Institute for Mountain Science in Japan, Shinshu University, were able to indicate parallel evolutions of Japanese scorpionflies through Bayesian simulations and phylogenetic analyses.

Insects are among the most diverse organism on earth and many fall captive to their elegant beauty as did the scientists dedicated to their study. Insects are very adaptive to their habitat environments, making them excellent subjects to study ecology, evolution and morphology. Phylogenetics is the study of evolutionary history, often visualized in the form of ancestral trees. The team studied the Japanese scorpionfly by collecting samples of the Panorpodes paradoxus throughout Japan and parts of the Korean peninsula searching for samples in altitude of up to 3033 meters.

In a previous study, Professor Tojo was able to correlate plate tectonic geological events in Japan by studying the DNA of insects from a relatively small area of Nagano prefecture. By testing DNA, they discovered the different lineages align with how the land formations occurred in Japan, with some insect types having a more similar background to those on the Asian continent.

The Japanese archipelago used to be a part of mainland East Asia. About 20 million years ago, the movement of the tectonic plates caused the Japanese land mass to tear away from the continent. By around 15 million years ago, the Japanese islands were completely detached and isolated from the mainland. Ancestral lineages of the Japanese Panorpodes therefore, diverged from the continental types around this time. The two major phenotypes of scorpionflies in Japan; the "alpine" type that live in higher altitudes and have shorter wings, and their "general" type counterparts. It is hypothesized that the shorter wings are better suited for the colder climate of higher elevations. The alpine and general types also have slightly different seasonal periods when they can be observed in the wild.

Through Bayesian simulations which are estimates through probability, the divergence time of the genealogical lineages were estimated. Simulations were run for over 100 million generations. The divergence time of the continental and Japanese Panorpodes was estimated to be 8.44 million years ago. The formation of the mountains in the Japanese Archipelago which began around 5 million years ago could be seen in the estimated evolution of the alpine type of P. paradoxus. Another estimated evolution time coincided with climate change cooling times. Cool weather is a tough environment for insects and serves as a genetic selection process. The cool glacial periods encouraged local adaptation of the scorpionflies in the northeast part of the island of Honshu.

With DNA tests of the various scorpionfly specimens, the group was able to show how the P. paradoxus "ecomorphed" or evolved to have forms and structural features adapted to their ecology. This parallel evolution started about 5 million years ago, when the mountain ranges in central Japan formed. Gene flow between the samples collected at different mountains were not detected, evidence of the parallel evolution. Interestingly however, gene flow between the general and alpine types might be happening, one indicator that they are not different species.

In conclusion, the alpine type and general type were not separate species as they suspected, but the alpine scorpionfly ecomorphed, explaining why they looked different. Through a next generation sequencer the team hope to elucidate the exact moment of difference. What sort of genetic basis underlies the alpine ecomorph? What type of genes emerged to facilitate the shortening of the wings? The team hope to study the genetic basis for the ecomorph. To do so, Dr. Suzuki wishes to breed scorpionflies to further elucidate the differences in the gene expression from the alpine and general types. Breeding is necessary to perform the next generation sequencer but what the larva feeds on and other growing conditions remain a mystery. The trio hope to unlock each of these steps to further identify the unknown aspects of the Japanese scorpionfly, as well as continue cutting edge research at the Institute for Mountain Science in Japan, Shinshu University, which is blessed to be surrounded by the Alps in the heart of Japan.

Supercomputer simulations of galaxies have shown that Einstein's theory of General Relativity might not be the only way to explain how gravity works or how galaxies form.

Physicists at Durham University, UK, simulated the cosmos using an alternative model for gravity - f(R)-gravity, a so called Chameleon Theory.

The resulting images produced by the simulation show that galaxies like our Milky Way could still form in the universe even with different laws of gravity.

The findings show the viability of Chameleon Theory - so called because it changes behaviour according to the environment - as an alternative to General Relativity in explaining the formation of structures in the universe.

The research could also help further understanding of dark energy - the mysterious substance that is accelerating the expansion rate of the universe.

The findings are published in Nature Astronomy.

General Relativity was developed by Albert Einstein in the early 1900s to explain the gravitational effect of large objects in space, for example to explain the orbit of Mercury in the solar system.

It is the foundation of modern cosmology but also plays a role in everyday life, for example in calculating GPS positions in smartphones.

Scientists already know from theoretical calculations that Chameleon Theory can reproduce the success of General Relativity in the solar system.

The Durham team has now shown that this theory allows realistic galaxies like our Milky Way to form and can be distinguished from General Relativity on very large cosmological scales.

Research co-lead author Dr Christian Arnold, in Durham University's Institute for Computational Cosmology, said: "Chameleon Theory allows for the laws of gravity to be modified so we can test the effect of changes in gravity on galaxy formation.

"Through our simulations we have shown for the first time that even if you change gravity, it would not prevent disc galaxies with spiral arms from forming.

"Our research definitely does not mean that General Relativity is wrong, but it does show that it does not have to be the only way to explain gravity's role in the evolution of the universe."

The researchers looked at the interaction between gravity in Chameleon Theory and supermassive black holes that sit at the centre of galaxies.

Black holes play a key role in galaxy formation because the heat and material they eject when swallowing surrounding matter can burn away the gas needed to form stars, effectively stopping star formation.

The amount of heat spewed out by black holes is altered by changing gravity, affecting how galaxies form.

However, the new simulations showed that even accounting for the change in gravity caused by applying Chameleon Theory, galaxies were still be able to form.

General Relativity also has consequences for understanding the accelerating expansion of the universe.

Scientists believe this expansion is being driven by dark energy and the Durham researchers say their findings could be a small step towards explaining the properties of this substance.

Research co-lead author Professor Baojiu Li, of Durham University's Institute for Computational Cosmology, said: "In General Relativity, scientists account for the accelerated expansion of the universe by introducing a mysterious form of matter called dark energy -- the simplest form of which may be a cosmological constant, whose density is a constant in space and time.

"However, alternatives to a cosmological constant which explain the accelerated expansion by modifying the law of gravity, like f(R) gravity, are also widely considered given how little is known about dark energy."

The Durham researchers expect their findings can be tested through observations using the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) telescope, based in Australia and South Africa, which is due to begin observations in 2020.

SKA will be the world's largest radio telescope and aims to challenge Einstein's theory of General Relativity, look at how the first stars and galaxies formed after the Big Bang, and help scientists to understand the nature or dark energy.

Theranostics is an emerging field of medicine whose name is a combination of "therapeutics" and "diagnostics". The idea behind theranostics is to combine drugs and/or techniques to simultaneously - or sequentially - diagnose and treat medical conditions, and also monitor the response of the patient. This saves time and money, but can also bypass some of the undesirable biological effects that may arise when these strategies are employed separately.

Today, theranostics applications increasingly use nanoparticles that unite diagnostic molecules and drugs into a single agent. The nanoparticles act as carriers for molecular "cargo", e.g. a drug or a radioisotope to cancer patients undergoing radiotherapy, targeting specific biological pathways in the patient's body, while avoiding damage to healthy tissues.

Once at their target tissue, the nanoparticles produce diagnostic images and/or deliver their cargo. This is the cutting-edge technology of "nanotheranostics", which has become a major focus of research - albeit with many limitations to overcome.

Now, the lab of Sandrine Gerber at EPFL, working with physicists at the University of Geneva, have developed a new nanotheranostic system that overcomes several problems with previous approaches. The system uses "harmonic nanoparticles" (HNPs), a family of metal-oxide nanocrystals with exceptional optical properties, in particular their emission in response to excitation from ultraviolet to infrared light, and their high photostability. It was this feature that brought HNPs into nanotheranostics, when scientists were trying to solve some problems with fluorescent probes.

"Most light-activated nanotheranostic systems need high-energy UV light to excite their photoresponsive scaffolds," says Gerber. "The problem is that this results in poor penetration depth and can damage living cells and tissues, which limits biomedical applications."

The new system that Gerber's group developed avoids these problems by using silica-coated bismuth-ferrite HNPs functionalized with light-responsive caged molecular cargos. These systems can be easily activated with near-infrared light (wavelength 790 nanometers) and imaged at longer wavelength for both detection and drug release processes. Both these features render the system medically safe for patients.

Once light-triggered, the HNPs release their cargo - in this case, L-tryptophan, used as a model. The scientists monitored and quantified the release with a technique that combines liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry, covering the imaging-diagnostic part of the nanotheranostic system.

The authors state that "this work is an important step in the development of nanocarrier platforms allowing decoupled imaging in tissue depth and on-demand release of therapeutics."

By combining two well-established antibiotics for the first time, a scientific team led by Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and Louis Stokes Cleveland VA Medical Center has delivered a "double whammy" against the pervasive Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a potentially deadly form of bacteria that is a major source of hospital-based infections.

In a recent Journal of Infectious Diseases study, investigators showed using two antibiotic drugs to fight P. aeruginosa in mouse models was significantly more effective than either antibiotic alone. The antibiotics were ceftazidime-avibactam, a combination drug used to treat a wide variety of serious bacterial infections, and fosfomycin, used to primarily treat infections of the urinary tract.

"By successfully combining these two drugs against this widespread form of bacteria, we hope to lay a foundation for eventually eradicating the infection," said the study's lead author Krisztina M. Papp-Wallace, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine at the School of Medicine and a research scientist at the Cleveland VA Medical Center. "These findings have significant implications for further studies directed at clinical applications and could bring benefits to numerous patients worldwide."

Immunocompromised patients, such as those with cancer or cystic fibrosis, burn victims and patients on ventilators, are at particular risk from the bacterium, which can be spread by the hands of health-care workers or contaminated equipment.

Bacteria and other microorganisms have increasingly developed resistance to antibiotics, making infections harder to treat and expanding the risk of contamination to others. As a result, health-care costs are also growing. Microorganisms that develop antimicrobial resistance are sometimes referred to as "superbugs." While such resistance typically occurs naturally over time, usually through spontaneous genetic changes, the misuse and overuse of antibiotics in humans and animals is accelerating this process.

The new approach described in the paper is directed at destroying enzymes in the cell wall of the bacterium. Homing in on a particular strain of P. aeruginosa known as CL232, the researchers found that, after 24 hours, the ceftazidime-avibactam-fosfomycin combination was much more effective in reducing the presence of the bacterium than the medications individually.

"Dr. Papp-Wallace's insight about combining the two antibiotics proved to be right on target," said the study's senior author, Robert A. Bonomo, MD, professor of medicine, pharmacology, molecular biology and microbiology at the School of Medicine and chief of the medical service at the Cleveland VA Medical Center. "This is superb bench-to-bedside science and has positive implications for future patients worldwide."

Irvine, Calif., July 8, 2019 -- University of California, Irvine researchers have developed and tested on mice a therapeutic treatment that uses engineered stem cells to target and kill cancer bone metastases while preserving the bone.

This new approach, reported in the journal EBioMedicine, equips engineered mesenchymal stem cells with targeting agents that drive them to bone metastatic sites, where they offload therapeutics. Link to study: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352396419304281?via%3Dihub

"What's powerful about this strategy is that we deliver a combination of both anti-tumor and anti-bone resorption agents so we can effectively block the vicious circle between cancers and their bone niche," said the study's lead author, Weian Zhao, associate professor of pharmaceutical sciences and biomedical engineering. "This is a safe and almost nontoxic treatment compared to chemotherapy, which often leaves patients with lifelong issues."

Sandra Spivey, an Orange County patient advocate who has been living with metastatic breast cancer since 1997, has experienced firsthand the ravages of traditional treatment. "Chemotherapy can kill both cancer cells and normal cells and create drastic side effects," she said. "I have lost my hair; I have lost sensation in my hands and feet. Most of all, chemotherapy really robs you of your time. This new targeted approach could improve quality of life both during and after treatment."

The strategy could also be implemented with other bone diseases that are usually difficult to manage, such as multiple myeloma and osteoporosis.

"This study will pave the way to a clinical trial in the short term, as this type of stem cell has already been tested and deemed safe in the clinic," Zhao said. "UCI's Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Sue & Bill Gross Stem Cell Research Center and Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center are fully equipped to conduct this type of clinical trial. We will look to target patients with bone metastases."

Bottom Line: An observational study of 663 caregivers and the patients with dementia they care for suggests caregiver depression is associated with increased emergency department visits for their patients. A total of 84 caregivers had depression at the study start and it was associated with an increase in rates of emergency department use by patients after accounting for a number of other potential mitigating factors including patient age and the severity of dementia. There were 196 patients with dementia who had at least one emergency department visit in the first six months of the study. Caregiver depression was associated with an additional 0.7 emergency department visits per person-year for patients compared to caregivers without depression (1.5 vs. 0.8 visits) on an absolute scale. Limitations of the study to consider include selection bias because those caregivers with higher depression may have declined to participate. Other factors may also influence the results, including socioeconomic status. Still, the results reveal an important potential caregiver vulnerability that if overlooked in clinical encounters could neglect an important component of care and limit the ability to maximize patient outcomes.

Authors: Elan L. Guterman, M.D., of the University of California, San Francisco, and coauthors

(doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2019.1820)

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.

Bottom Line: This research letter reports on the association between the legalization of medical and recreational marijuana and teen marijuana use. Researchers used data from the Youth Risk Behavior Surveys from 1993 to 2017, when 27 states and Washington, D.C., contributed data to the survey before and after medical marijuana laws were adopted and seven states contributed data before and after recreational marijuana laws were adopted. More than 1.4 million high school students were included in the final study. The study reports medical marijuana laws weren't associated with either the likelihood of marijuana use in the past 30 days or frequent marijuana use. Recreational marijuana laws appear to be associated with a decrease in the odds of both measures of marijuana use, which may be because it is more difficult for teenagers to get marijuana if drug dealers are replaced by licensed dispensaries that require proof of age.

Author: D. Mark Anderson, Ph.D., of Montana State University, Bozeman, and coauthors

(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2019.1720)

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.

A global survey shows that a family of gut bacteria viruses called crAssphage is found in people - and their sewage - all over the world. Closely related viruses are found in monkeys and apes, so crAssphage has probably been with us for millions of years. These viruses are called phages, and they reproduce in bacterial cells, not in human cells. They make up the majority of gut viruses in healthy people. The work was published July 8 in the journal Nature Microbiology.

The team led byProfessor Robert Edwards from San Diego State University and Bas Dutilh from the Utrecht University in the Netherlands included 115 scientists from 65 countries and sampled every continent except Antarctica. Samuel Díaz Muñoz, assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology and Molecular Genetics participated by collecting samples in from wastewater treatment plants in New York (with collaborators at New York University), in Davis, California, and from a body of water San Juan, Puerto Rico.

Back in the lab, Díaz Muñoz amplified and sequenced genes from the crAssphage virus in his samples and sent the data to the lead authors. The virus was present in the New York and Davis samples but did not show up in Puerto Rico.

Edwards and Dutilh put their collaboration together with social media: In 2015, Edwards tweeted an invitation to anyone to donate samples. Michael Cranfield, director emeritus and chief veterinary officer for the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, is also an author on the paper.

"True crowdsourcing and showing the importance of social media in science!" Díaz Muñoz said.

CrAssphage is not associated with positive or negative health outcomes, and may be a natural part of the human gut biota. This virus has been tested as a marker for fecal pollution in bodies of water and might one day help scientists target harmful gut bacteria.

A new breakthrough has the potential to improve sensors used to test for diseases and detect doping in sports.

An international research team led by scientists from Lancaster University have created a coating only one molecule thick that modifies the surface of sensor electrodes.

The molecule used, called beta-cyclodextrin, has a funnel shape with a hydrophobic inside and a hydrophilic outside. The combination of these two properties works together to ensure that only molecules of the correct size and type will fit inside - thus ensuring the sensor only detects substances it is tuned for.

The process, which involves electrochemically grafting the beta-cyclodextrin onto the surface of graphite electrodes, is also easy to apply - it can be added in one simple step within minutes, without any special equipment or harmful chemicals - something the researchers believe makes the process cheap and scalable.

Although the use of cyclodextrin on sensors is not new, other methods to create similar sensor coatings have been, up until now, more complex and expensive. Tests showed this new method also produces sensors around ten times more sensitive than the best existing sensors based on cyclodextrin. This means that it has the potential to detect specific molecules at much lower concentrations.

Dr Stijn Mertens, Senior Lecturer in Electrochemical Surface Science at Lancaster University's Department of Chemistry, and lead researcher, said: "This one-step modification holds substantial promise for the routine production of inexpensive, yet robust and high-performing electrochemical sensors.

"It is very selective, only picking up molecules that fit within the cyclodextrin. This is important because it means we can analyse samples without time-consuming and therefore expensive pre-treatment, such as separation from other substances. We believe that the excellent performance of the sensor may be related to its simple and well-defined structure, as the cyclodextrin is attached directly and strongly to the electrode surface."

The researchers tested the sensor on dopamine - a neurotransmitter chemical that helps to send signals between nerve cells and is therefore very important in biochemistry.

"Even though we only tested it on dopamine as a biologically relevant molecule, we expect that the sensor will work for many other small biomolecules, or drugs. This could prove useful in helping to diagnose diseases, such as Parkinson's, or detecting drugs in athletes."

The research is currently at an early proof-of-concept stage, though sensors with these coatings have the potential to be used by scientists within labs to test blood or tissue samples.

The research is outlined in the paper 'One-Step Covalent Immobilization of beta-Cyclodextrin on sp2 Carbon Surfaces for Selective Trace Amount Probing of Guests', which is published in the journal Advanced Functional Materials.

The research, which also involved researchers from KU Leuven and Ghent University in Belgium, was funded by the Fund Scientific Research-Flanders, KU Leuven and the European Research Council.

Quantum computing and quantum information processing technology have attracted attention in recently emerging fields. Among many important and fundamental issues in nowadays science, solving Schroedinger Equation (SE) of atoms and molecules is one of the ultimate goals in chemistry, physics and their related fields. SE is "First Principle" of non-relativistic quantum mechanics, whose solutions termed wave functions can afford any information of electrons within atoms and molecules, predicting their physicochemical properties and chemical reactions. Researchers from Osaka City University (OCU) in Japan, Dr. K. Sugisaki, Profs. K. Sato and T. Takui and coworkers have found a novel quantum algorithm enabling us to determine whether quantum chemical calculations performed on quantum computers give correct wave functions as exact solutions of SE in a desired manner. These issues are intractable with any currently available supercomputers. Such a quantum algorithm contributes to the acceleration of implementing practical quantum computers. Nowadays chemistry and physics have sought to predict complex chemical reactions by invoking Full-CI approaches since 1929, but never been successful until now. Now Full-CI calculations are potentially capable of predicting chemical reactions, and a new Full-CI approach suitable for predicting the physicochemical properties has already been implemented on quantum computers. Now, the possible methodological implementation of "observables on quantum computers" such as calculating the spin quantum numbers of arbitrary wave functions, which is a crucial issue in quantum chemistry, has been established by the OCU research group.

The paper has been published at 4:00 PM on July 4, 2019 (JST, Japan Time Zone) in Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (Royal Chemical Society).

They said, "As Dirac claimed in 1929 when quantum mechanics was established, the exact application of mathematical theories to solve SE leads to equations too complicated to be soluble1. In fact, the number of variables to be determined in the Full-CI method grows exponentially against the system size, and it easily runs into astronomical figures such as exponential explosion. For example, the dimension of the Full-CI calculation for benzene molecule C6H6, in which only 42 electrons are involved, amounts to 1044, which are impossible to be dealt with by any supercomputers. What is worse, molecular systems during the dissociation process are characterized by extremely complex electronic structures (multiconfigurational nature), and relevant numerical calculations are impossible on any supercomputers. Besides these intrinsic difficulties, there has been a difficult issue in the emerging fields such as determining physical quantities relevant to quantum chemistry on quantum computers."

ANN ARBOR--If you're getting your news from a smartphone, size matters.

Heart rate variability decreases and changes in sweat are muted when viewing video news content on smaller screens. Both are indications of reduced attentiveness and engagement with content, according to a new study involving researchers at the University of Michigan and Texas A&M University.

The findings are in line with previous work focused on movie and television screens. This study, however, finds significant differences for news content, even across rather small changes in screen size.

"We are, to our knowledge, the first to find this effect for news content, and the first to focus on the move from a laptop to smartphone-size screen. This finding is of some significance given the trend towards news consumption on mobile technology," said Stuart Soroka, the Michael W. Traugott Collegiate Professor of Communication Studies and Political Science and faculty associate at the Institute for Social Research at U-M.

Soroka and colleague Johanna Dunaway, associate professor of communication at Texas A&M and the study's lead author, said that results in the current study suggest that cell phone technology may have both mobilizing and demobilizing effects.

Even as mobile technology facilitates news consumption for a large number of citizens, at almost any time and place, the reduced screen size means that news consumers may be less attentive and activated by what they are viewing, the researchers say. News consumption on small screens may be less informative and mobilizing than news consumption on larger screens, they say.

Participants watched a news program on a computer monitor, using a randomized sample of seven news stories, both international and domestic. Stories varied widely in subject matter, from a fire in Peru to a Labor Day parade to an American man making bagpipes.

The size of the video varied from roughly 13 inches wide (large) to just 5 inches wide (small). Heart rate and skin conductance was measured during viewing. Analyses find that participants had reduced reactions and attentiveness to the smaller screen.

The findings appear in Information, Communication & Society.

DUARTE, Calif. — A special blood test may one day predict if a newly diagnosed breast cancer patient will likely relapse years later, a City of Hope study suggests.
 
“This is the first success linking a solid tumor with blood biomarkers – an indicator of whether a patient will remain in remission,” said Peter P. Lee, M.D., chair of the Department of Immuno-Oncology at City of Hope and corresponding author of the study. “When patients are first diagnosed with cancer, it is important to identify those at higher risk for relapse for more aggressive treatments and monitoring. Staging and new tests based on genomics analysis of the tumor are currently available for risk stratification. However, a predictive blood test would be even more attractive but is not yet available. We are trying to change the status quo.”
 
The effectiveness of a person’s anti-tumor immune response is determined by the balance between pro-inflammatory and anti-inflammatory signaling pathways in response to cytokines, according to the July 8 Nature Immunology study. Lee and his colleagues used data on 40 breast cancer patients who were followed for a median of four years. Results were validated in a separate cohort of 38 additional breast cancer patients to create a benchmark that predicts if a breast cancer patient will likely relapse within a handful of years.
 
The balance of cytokine signaling responses in “peripheral blood immune cells” – the engine behind a healthy immune system – are indicators of the overall state of a person’s immune system, said Lee, the Billy and Audrey L. Wilder Professor in Cancer Immunotherapeutics at City of Hope.
 
“So, these findings may go beyond cancer to address other diseases the immune system must battle,” he added. “This general approach may also be useful for predicting outcomes in patients with autoimmune and infectious diseases.”
 
A cancer patient’s peripheral blood immune cells, a critical part of the immune system, tends to have decreased pro-inflammatory cytokine signaling responses and increased immune suppressive cytokine signaling responses, meaning a systemic immune environment is created that is conducive to the spread of cancer.
 
Lee and his colleagues analyzed signaling responses to many pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines in different immune cell types that are found in peripheral blood from breast cancer patients who were newly diagnosed with the disease. They found altered signaling to four different cytokines (two pro- and two anti-inflammatory) in regulatory T cells in some patients. These cytokine signaling patterns in peripheral blood at diagnosis reflects the state of the immune system and predicts future relapse three to five years later.
 
The scientists used their data to create a cytokine signaling index (CSI), a sort of benchmark. The idea is that a patient could go in for a blood test and have their data run through an algorithm that will output a number which informs doctors what the patient’s risk of cancer recurrence is within three to five years.
 
“Knowing the chance of cancer relapse will inform doctors how aggressive a particular patient’s cancer treatment should be,” Lee said. “The CSI is an overall reflection of a patient’s immune system at diagnosis, which we now know is a major determinant of future relapse.”
 
Scientists from UCLA also contributed to the study, which was supported by the U.S. Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program, Stand Up to Cancer, Breast Cancer Research Foundation and the V Foundation.
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About City of Hope
City of Hope is an independent biomedical research and treatment center for cancer, diabetes and other life-threatening diseases. Founded in 1913, City of Hope is a leader in bone marrow transplantation and immunotherapy such as CAR T cell therapy. City of Hope’s translational research and personalized treatment protocols advance care throughout the world. Human synthetic insulin and numerous breakthrough cancer drugs are based on technology developed at the institution. A National Cancer Institute-designated comprehensive cancer center and a founding member of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network, City of Hope is ranked one of America's "Best Hospitals" in cancer by U.S. News & World Report. Its main campus is located near Los Angeles, with additional locations throughout Southern California. For more information about City of Hope, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or Instagram.

Journal

Nature Immunology