Culture

Prenatal exposure to low levels of methylmercury does not affect child cognition, but certain gene variants may increase susceptibility. These are the main conclusions of a study led by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), an institution supported by "la Caixa", in collaboration with the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the University of Bristol.

Exposure to methylmercury can impair neurodevelopment, particularly during prenatal stages. When mercury enters our oceans, lakes or rivers, it is converted to methylmercury by bacteria and accumulates in fish and shellfish. Previous studies have found that the effect of exposure to this compound may in part depend on genetic predisposition, or in other words, the expression of certain gene variants.

Indeed, in a previous study with 1127 children from the ALSPAC Cohort in Bristol, UK, a group led by ISGlobal researcher Jordi Júlvez, identified four variants (also called polymorphisms) associated with a greater effect of methylmercury on cognitive development.

In this study, Júlvez and colleagues included data from an additional 1045 children of the cohort, and explored more than 240 polymorphisms in candidate genes belonging to four major biological pathways relevant to neurodevelopment and neurotoxicity. They measured mercury concentrations in umbilical cord samples and evaluated intelligence quotient (IQ) at age eight, for all 2172 children. The analyses also adjusted for seafood diet (the main source of methylmercury but also a source of beneficial fatty acids) and maternal socioeconomic position.

The results show that the average concentration of methylmercury in cord blood was low (2.7ug/ml), likely reflecting the low frequency of fish intake by the general English population. Overall, no negative association was observed between methylmercury concentrations and IQ scores at eight years of age. However, the analyses revealed that children with polymorphisms in certain genes achieved lower IQ scores. In other words, children with these gene variants showed evidence of methylmercury toxicity that was not detectable in the cohort sample as a whole. "These findings emphasize the need to consider the impact of genetic predisposition when evaluating methylmercure toxicity," says Julvez.

Three of these polymorphisms were newly identified while two were confirmed from the previous study by the same team. One of the validated polymorphisms concerns the receptor for progesterone, a sexual hormone that seems to have a neuroprotective effect. The gene variant identified may function poorly, thereby decreasing the protective effect of progesterone. "Importantly, around 30% of children in the general population carry this gene variant and are therefore more vulnerable to prenatal methylmercury exposure, even in low-exposure settings," he adds. The results also reveal the need to further study the effects of the progesterone receptor variant on this and other environmental pollutants.

Depression is common in people with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), but the actual causes of depression in this group are unknown. In a Neurogastroenterology & Motility study, depression was linked with more severe IBD symptoms, and a less positive cognitive bias in emotional recognition (a reduced ability to recognize basic emotions in others) was involved in this association.

The results raise the possibility that psychological interventions targeting emotional recognition biases could be used to treat or even prevent depression in high-risk individuals with IBD.

"These findings are preliminary but suggest that negative cognitive biases associated with IBD activity may lead to the development of depression in people with IBD. Our results could indicate novel ways to treat or even prevent depression in people with IBD, though our findings require replication in prospective studies, which will allow us to draw stronger inferences on the causal association of cognitive biases with depression," said senior author Chris Dickens, PhD, of the University of Exeter, in the UK.

Treatment for individuals who experience psychosis, such as hallucinations and delusions as a result of a psychiatric illness, can be targeted to a specific structural mutation, according to a study published by researchers from McLean Hospital and other institutions in the journal Biological Psychiatry.

The study was led by Deborah L. Levy, PhD, director of the Psychology Research Laboratory at McLean Hospital, the largest psychiatric affiliate of Harvard Medical School. The research provides a proof-of-principle demonstration of symptom relief by targeting a specific genotype and links an individual structural mutation to the pathophysiology of psychosis and treatment response.

In the last decade, significant progress has been made in identifying genetic factors underlying schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other psychiatric disorders. Hundreds if not thousands of common genetic variants are collective risk factors for schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. However, the impact of each individual variant is both very small and indecisive in determining risk.

Rare genetic variants, on the other hand, can have large effects on risk. These variants are thus assumed to impact core pathophysiological processes.

Large-effect mutations are individually rare, with even the most recurrent impacting relatively few individuals. Some are so rare that they are private mutations, known to occur in only one or a few families, as is the mutation described by Levy and her colleagues.

Levy's study describes a variant that is characterized by an increase in the number of copies of specific genes (i.e., a copy number variant or CNV). In this case, is effectively due to the presence of a small extra chromosome. This CNV includes the gene encoding the enzyme glycine decarboxylase (GLDC). "The compelling aspect is that this CNV can be linked to pathophysiology, and, as the new study shows, to treatment," said Levy.

GLDC breaks down glycine, which is a co-agonist at the NMDA receptor, a type of excitatory glutamate receptor. The patients in this study have four, instead of the usual two, copies of the GLDC gene.

"We thus predicted that they would have increased glycine breakdown and thus less glycine available at the glycine modulatory site of the NMDA receptor. This results in NMDA receptor hypofunction," said Uwe Rudolph, MD, former director of the Laboratory of Genetic Neuropharmacology at McLean Hospital.

NMDA receptor hypofunction has long been considered an important factor in the pathophysiology of schizophrenia. Variants in genes associated with NMDA receptor function are overrepresented in schizophrenia.

According to Levy, the presence of an increased number of copies of GLDC raised the question of whether this CNV is medically actionable in individuals with this mutation.

"Starting with individual carriers of the mutation, meaning using a 'genotype-first' approach, we sought to determine whether the predicted reduced glycine availability attributable to the increased copy number could be potentially normalized with agents that increase glycine or D-serine availability," explained Levy. "This approach contrasts with the usual standard clinical practice of treating individuals on the basis of clinical symptoms or diagnosis independent of specific genetic variants."

Participants in the study had four identical copies of the GLDC gene. The authors showed that supplementation of standard psychotropic agents (including clozapine) with glycine or D-cycloserine (a partial selective agonist at the NMDA receptor) resulted in improvement in clinical symptoms. The researchers provided two independent proof-of-principle demonstrations of symptom relief by targeting this specific genotype.

Notably, the same rare mutation occurred here in different clinical disorders (schizoaffective disorder and bipolar disorder with psychotic features). This suggest that treatment response was determined by the targeted mutation independently of clinical diagnosis.

"It is important to note that the two subjects studied here bore little clinical resemblance, with distinctly different symptom burdens, and highly dissimilar courses of illness," noted J. Alexander Bodkin, MD. Bodkin, the director of the Clinical Psychopharmacology Research Program at McLean, oversaw psychiatric care of both subjects throughout the blinded and open-label trials of glycine and d-cycloserine.

"The findings may implicate a 'molecular subtype' that may respond to treatments that normalize dysregulation of the glutamatergic system" said Levy, "Specifically, carriers of other related mutations may potentially benefit from low-dose D-cycloserine as well. If it becomes possible one day to identify patients with such molecular subtypes in clinical practice, studies could be conducted that would potentially make targeted treatment approaches available to a larger group of patients."

Moreover, one of the study's authors, Charity J. Morgan, PhD, University of Alabama at Birmingham, stated, "The present study illustrates that targeting structural genetic variants is a promising approach but because these variants are individually rare, most studies will have very small sample sizes, complicating the usual approach to statistical analysis." Nevertheless, she said, "Because the effects of a targeted treatment can be large, it is important to prioritize opportunities to study even small groups of patients who may benefit."

In the near future, we will be able to mass-produce meat directly from animal cells.

This cultured meat could change the world - or it could falter like GM 'frankenfoods'.

Writing in Frontiers in Nutrition, researchers warn that the most common media framing of cultured meat - as a 'high-tech' innovation - may be the least effective in garnering consumer acceptance.

The revolution will be televised

"Cultured meat has the potential to reduce the ethical, environmental, and public health burdens associated with conventional livestock farming," says lead author Christopher Bryant of the University of Bath.

In a free market, this potential can only be realized through consumer demand.

"Surveys show hesitancy towards cultured meat centers around its perceived 'unnaturalness', which can lead to concerns about food safety," explains Bryant.

These echo consumer concerns about the last food technology breakthrough of this scale: GM crops.

"Extensive research has shown that media coverage of GM foods had a significant negative impact on public perceptions of, and behaviour towards, the technology."

Just as 'climate change' took the heat off global warming, GMOs were reanimated as 'frankenfoods'. In the public imagination, will cultured meat ever truly leave the lab?

"As most people have so far heard little or nothing of cultured meat," argues Bryant, "this is a crucial time to assess how the framing of this innovation can impact consumer perceptions."

Presentation matters

With co-author Dr. Courtney Dillard of Portland State University, Bryant assessed how framing cultured meat as (a) an innovation which benefits society, (b) a high-tech development, or (c) as very similar to conventional meat affected attitudes and behavioral intentions.

Their sample of 480 US adults was broadly representative of the country as a whole in terms of age, gender, geographic distribution and diet (88% were meat eaters).

"We found that those who encounter cultured meat through the 'high tech' frame have significantly more negative attitudes towards the concept, and are much less willing to consume it," reports Bryant.

For example, the 'high-tech' framing group were the least likely to consider cultured meat safe, healthy or environmentally friendly. They rated themselves on average 14% less likely to try cultured meat, compared to the 'societal benefits' or 'same as meat' groups.

Even before the frames were presented, the most common word associations to cultured meat across all 480 participants were "artificial" and "science".

"Worryingly, cultured meat as a 'high-tech' development has been a very dominant frame in early media coverage, which frequently features 'science themed' photos such as meat in a petri dish in a lab. This may be causing consumers to develop more negative attitudes towards cultured meat than they otherwise might."

Fake meat news

The results sit well with findings from other cultured meat researchers.

"We'd love to get away from the 'lab-grown' label," says Tufts University researcher Natalie Rubio, who recently introduced an astounded world to cultured insect meat. "When cultured meat is ready to go, it won't be produced in a lab at all but in a food processing plant just like existing meat alternatives and other foods."

The Good Food Institute in particular has demonstrated that consumers are much more likely to find 'clean meat' appealing than more technical terms like 'cultured meat' and 'cell-based meat'.

"Our suggestion to news media and startups is to normalize not only the name but the whole concept of clean meat - which as the same taste, nutrition and basic building blocks as conventionally farmed meat. Hopefully, the texture and price will soon match too."

Journalists can look down under for inspiration, says Bryant.

"This 'naturalness' has already been identified as a key focus in Australian media coverage of clean meat, in contrast with US and European counterparts."

In Belgium, there are 70,000 new adult cases of cancer every year, compared to 350 in children. Owing to lack of interest from pharmaceutical groups, treatments for paediatric cancers are developing much less rapidly than those for adults. The chemotherapy recommended for most childhood cancers is just as toxic as it was 20 years ago. In addition, it has significant consequences for the child: infertility, deafness, and premature ageing. After chemotherapy sessions, the child suffers a loss of stem cells, which are crucial to the healing and regeneration of tissues. The cured child has an entire life to live, yet the capacity of his or her tissues to regenerate has diminished.

For 15 years Anabelle Decottignies, a professor at the UCLouvain de Duve Institute, and her team have been studying telomeres, the little bits of chromosomes that play a vital role in ageing. Normally, telomeres shorten over time, causing cells and organs to age. This is natural ageing. In a cancer cell, telomeres don't shorten. As a result, the cancer cells don't age and they divide indefinitely, forming tumours and metastases.

Prof. Decottignies's goal is to target the cancer cell and safeguard the rest of the body, by forcing telomeres to shorten and thus prevent them from dividing. Achieving this necessitates understanding the mechanisms that allow cancer cells to maintain their eternal youth:

In most cases, the cancer cells reactivate the expression of an embryonic gene. In the first stage of normal embryonic development, our cells are 'eternally young' thanks to the enzyme telomerase. In 90% of cancers, this enzyme can awaken, leading to tumours and metastases.

In 5 to 10% of cancer cases, most involving children, the cancer cells establish an alternative system based on a mechanism called alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT). It is completely pathological - in other words, ALT is not active in any of our healthy cells, making it an ideal target for new anti-tumour therapies.

Recently, the UCLouvain team identified a protein that allows the survival of cancer cells that use the ALT mechanism, which is not essential to the survival of healthy cells. Its name: TSPYL5. This protein is absolutely essential to the proper functioning of the telomeres of cancer cells that have the ALT mechanism, but not the telomeres of cells using telomerase or healthy cells. When the TSPYL5 protein is removed, the cancer cells die due to dysfunction of their telomeres. 'This is the first time we have found a specific target to fight cancer cells in children', Prof. Decottignies says.

For the past year, Prof. Decottignies has been working with two other research teams to find new therapeutic molecules targeting TSPYL5:

the team of Joris Messens, a professor at the VUB Center for Structural Biology, will identify molecules at the heart of the new therapy;

the team of Benjamin Elias, a chemist and professor at the UCLouvain Institute of Condensed Matter and Nanosciences, will synthesise the therapeutic molecules for ALT cancers.

Up next? Testing the molecules in culture and verifying in vitro that they kill ALT cancer cells and spare healthy cells. After that, preclinical tests will be done in mice. Finally, clinical trials in paediatric oncology will take place. For now, the first big challenge is to find molecules that kill only cancerous cells. The second will be to have very effective molecules that do not generate resistance from the cancer cell. If all these conditions are met, Prof. Decottignies's team will have contributed to the improvement of treatments for paediatric cancers.

This condition causes small bulges or pouches to appear in the lining of the intestine. Particularly affecting the elderly (as many as 65 per cent of over 85s may be affected), diverticulosis can in some cases can lead to a medical emergency if the pouches become infected or burst.

The new early-stage research finding comes from a team of scientists led by Imperial College London, who investigated the effectiveness and side effects of three common blood pressure medications: ACE-inhibitors, beta-blockers and calcium channel blockers.

High blood pressure affects one in ten adults across the globe, and increases the risk of heart attack and stroke. The most common treatments for high blood pressure are lifestyle changes and medications.

However, despite the three main medications being taken by millions, investigating their potential side effects (as well as studying their effectiveness for treating other diseases), can be difficult and often involves lengthy and expensive clinical trials.

To overcome this problem, the research team, led by Imperial's School of Public Health, used genetic analyses to study the effects of the drugs.

By investigating versions of genes that mimic the effects of these drugs, the team were able to study the drugs' effectiveness - and their potential side effects.

First, the researchers, who published their work in the journal Circulation, identified the proteins targeted by the drugs, and which help lower blood pressure. Next, they analysed genetic data from around 750,000 people and identified the so-called genetic variants that code for these proteins.

The team, who included researchers from LMU Munich, then studied whether these gene variants - which cause increased production of these proteins - were linked to an increased or decreased risk of other diseases.

The good news was that, as expected, these so-called genetic variants (which coded for proteins involved in lowering blood pressure) were linked to lower heart disease and stroke risk.

However after assessing the risk of around 900 different diseases - using data from the UK Biobank study - the team found that the versions of genes related to the effects of a particular type of calcium channel blocker - the non-dihydropyridine class, were linked to an increased the risk of a bowel condition called diverticulosis.

The team compared their findings with further genetic data, and supported the potential link with an increased risk of the bowel condition.

The link now needs further investigation with larger trials, explains Dr Dipender Gill, co-lead author of the research from Imperial's School of Public Health: "This is the first time that this class of blood pressure drug has been associated with diverticulosis. We're not sure of the underlying mechanism - although it may relate to effects on the function of intestine muscles, which perform contractions to transport food through the gut."

Dr Joanna Tzoulaki, senior author from Imperial's School of Public Health added: "The study of genetic variants that mimic the effect of drugs is evolving as a powerful concept to help prioritise clinical trials and design clinical trials more likely to be successful".

Dr Gill cautions the findings should not change current prescribing guidelines and that people should not stop taking their medication unless first consulting their doctor.

He added: "These findings should not change clinical practice, but instead should act as a catalyst for further research."

The Tibet ASgamma experiment, a China-Japan joint research project, has discovered the highest energy cosmic gamma rays ever observed from an astrophysical source - in this case, the "Crab Nebula." The experiment detected gamma rays ranging from > 100 Teraelectron volts (TeV) (see Fig.1) to an estimated 450 TeV. Previously, the highest gamma-ray energy ever observed was 75 TeV by the HEGRA Cherenkov telescope.

Researchers believe the most energetic of the gamma rays observed by the Tibet ASgamma experiment were produced by interaction between very-high-energy electrons and cosmic microwave background radiation (i.e., remnant radiation from the Big Bang).

The Crab Nebula is a famous supernova remnant in the constellation Taurus. It was first observed as a very bright supernova explosion in1054 AD (see Fig.1). It was noted in official histories of the Song dynasty in ancient China as well as in Meigetsuki, written by the 12th century Japanese poet Fujiwara no Teika. In the modern era, the Crab Nebula has been observed using various types of electromagnetic waves including radio and optical waves, X-rays and gammarays.

The Tibet ASgamma experiment has been operating since 1990 in Tibet, China, at an altitude of 4300m above sea level. The China-Japan collaboration added new water Cherenkov-type muon detectors under the existing cosmic-ray detectors in 2014 (see Fig.2). These underground muon detectors suppress 99.92% of cosmic-ray background noise (see Fig.3). As a result, 24 gamma-ray candidates above 100 TeV have been detected from the Crab Nebula with low background noise. The highest energy is estimated at 450 TeV (see Fig.2).

The researchers hypothesize the following steps for generating very-high-energy gamma rays: (1) In the nebula, electrons are accelerated up to PeV, i.e., peta (one thousand trillion) electron volts within a few hundred years after the supernova; (2) PeV electrons interact with the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR) filling the whole universe; (3) A CMBR photon is kicked up to 450 TeV by the PeV electrons. The researchers thus conclude that the Crab Nebula is now the most powerful natural electron accelerator discovered so far in our galaxy.

This pioneering work opens a new high-energy window for exploring the extreme universe. The detection of gamma rays above 100 TeV is a key to understanding the origin of very-high-energy cosmic rays, which has been a mystery since the discovery of cosmic rays in 1912. With further observations using this new window, we expect to identify the origin of cosmic rays in our galaxy, namely, pevatrons, which accelerate cosmic rays up to PeV energies.

"This is a great first step forward," said Prof. HUANG Jing, co-spokesperson for the Tibet ASgamma experiment. "It proves that our techniques worked well, and gamma rays with energies up to a few hundred TeV really exist. Our goal is to identify a lot of pevatrons, which have not yet been discovered and are supposed to produce the highest-energy cosmic rays in our galaxy."

Antibodies are the biomolecules our immune systems deploy to find, tag and destroy invading pathogens. They work by binding to specific targets, called epitopes, on the surfaces of antigens - like locks to keys.

For many decades, scientists have cleverly exploited this selective tagging mechanism in natural antibodies to engineer antibody-based probes that let them purify and study different types of proteins within cells. One tried and true technique, epitope tagging, involves fusing an epitope to a protein of interest and using fluorescently labeled antibodies to make those proteins visible - but only in fixed, dead cells.

Now, a cross-disciplinary team of researchers from Colorado State University and the Tokyo Institute of Technology have added a new tool to the arsenal of antibody-based probes, but with a powerful distinction: Their genetically encoded probe works in living cells. The work, led by CSU Monfort Professor Tim Stasevich and Tokyo Tech Professor Hiroshi Kimura, is described July 3 in the journal Nature Communications.

According to first author Ning Zhao, a postdoctoral researcher in Stasevich's lab who designed most of the experiments, their new antibody-based probe is affectionately called a "frankenbody." Like stitching new limbs on a body, the scientists have taken the binding regions of a normal antibody, the "sticky parts," and grafted them to a different scaffold that remains stable in live cells but retains the specificity of the antibody.

"We're interested in intracellular antibodies because you can use them as imaging reagents in a live cell," said Stasevich, an assistant professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at CSU. "You don't need a tag, like a Green Fluorescent Protein, because instead you have this fluorescent antibody that will bind to your protein that you want to visualize."

The new probe would be a useful complement to the green fluorescent protein (GFP), a widespread biochemistry tool and subject of a Nobel Prize that involves genetically fusing a light-up green tag to a protein of interest. However, the GFP is limited by its relatively large size and the time it takes to fluoresce; with the CSU researchers' new probe, the tag is smaller and becomes fluorescent faster, so the "birth" of a protein of interest can be captured in real time.

With the goal of making their tool immediately useful, the scientists designed their probe to work with the classic HA tag. HA is a widely used small linear epitope tag that's derived from a portion of the human influenza virus protein hemagglutinin.

"For the longest time, people have been looking at HA-tagged proteins in fixed, dead cells," Stasevich said. "Now we can image the dynamics of those proteins in live cells."

The possibilities of how scientists may use the new probe are limitless. Stasevich's lab is particularly interested in studying RNA translation, and they plan to use their new system to more easily design new RNA imaging experiments.

Added Zhao, the HA tag is tiny - a chain of just nine amino acids - and the probe is genetically encoded on a plasmid that can be easily transferred into a cell. This is in contrast to traditional antibodies, which can cost a lab several hundreds of dollars per order, suffer from lot-to-lot variability, and are difficult to get into cells. The new probe from Stasevich's team therefore provides a low-cost solution for protein and RNA translation imaging.

In the paper, the scientists demonstrated some applications, including single-protein tracking, single-RNA translation imaging, and amplified fluorescence imaging in zebrafish embryos. All of these experiments are more challenging when using traditional fluorescent protein tags.

The team of researchers is grateful for the support they received from the National Institutes of Health (grant No. R35GM119728); the Boettcher Foundation's Webb-Waring Biomedical Research Program; the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (KAKENHI grant No. JP18H05527); and from CSU's Catalyst for Innovative Partnerships program and Tokyo Tech's World Research Hub Initiative. The work strengthens ties between CSU and the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

"We have several new imaging reagents in the works that build off of this success, so I see great things ahead," Stasevich said.

In a Cancer Medicine study of 298,434 patients diagnosed with breast cancer between 2004 and 2012, married patients had a better prognosis than patients who were single, who in turn had a better prognosis than those who were divorced, separated, or widowed.

When considering race and tumor characteristics, the better prognosis of single patients was only observed in white patients and in patients with tumors expressing estrogen receptors and progesterone receptors.

In the study, a better prognosis was maintained for married patients among all age subgroups, but for single patients, it was seen only in those older than 35 years.

"Our study demonstrates that patients with breast cancer could gain significant benefits from marriage and indicates the importance of psychosocial support to patients with unfavorable marriage," said co-author Zhijun Dai, of Zhejiang University, in China.

By the end of fourth quarter 2018, total household debt in the United States reached a new high of $13.54 trillion. A new Economic Inquiry study found that nonprofit credit counseling--which reaches millions of consumers a year and provides financial education, individualized financial counseling, and debt restructuring services--can be an effective strategy for addressing consumer debt issues.

For the study, researchers analyzed the credit of counseled individuals versus a matched comparison group of noncounseled individuals. Individuals who underwent credit counseling experienced a substantial decline in debt relative to the comparison group, and credit counseling was also associated with an increase in credit scores for consumers with the lowest credit scores prior to counseling.

"This research shows some of the most rigorous evidence to date on the benefits of nonprofit credit counseling in helping distressed households manage their debt levels," said co-author Stephen Roll, PhD, of Washington University in St. Louis. "Though these results are encouraging, more work is needed to understand the longer-term effects of credit counseling services on consumer credit profiles. Our findings also speak to the need for policymakers, researchers, and practitioners to find ways of helping households better address their debt issues before they fall into crisis and experience large credit score declines, which can have lasting implications for consumers' financial security."

New evidence suggests that high-energy particles from space known as galactic cosmic rays affect the Earth's climate by increasing cloud cover, causing an "umbrella effect".

When galactic cosmic rays increased during the Earth's last geomagnetic reversal transition 780,000 years ago, the umbrella effect of low-cloud cover led to high atmospheric pressure in Siberia, causing the East Asian winter monsoon to become stronger. This is evidence that galactic cosmic rays influence changes in the Earth's climate. The findings were made by a research team led by Professor Masayuki Hyodo (Research Center for Inland Seas, Kobe University) and published on June 28 in the online edition of Scientific Reports.

The Svensmark Effect is a hypothesis that galactic cosmic rays induce low cloud formation and influence the Earth's climate. Tests based on recent meteorological observation data only show minute changes in the amounts of galactic cosmic rays and cloud cover, making it hard to prove this theory. However, during the last geomagnetic reversal transition, when the amount of galactic cosmic rays increased dramatically, there was also a large increase in cloud cover, so it should be possible to detect the impact of cosmic rays on climate at a higher sensitivity.

In the Chinese Loess Plateau, just south of the Gobi Desert near the border of Mongolia, dust has been transported for 2.6 million years to form loess layers - sediment created by the accumulation of wind-blown silt - that can reach up to 200 meters in thickness. If the wind gets stronger, the coarse particles are carried further, and larger amounts are transported. Focusing on this phenomenon, the research team proposed that winter monsoons became stronger under the umbrella effect of increased cloud cover during the geomagnetic reversal. They investigated changes in particle size and accumulation speed of loess layer dust in two Loess Plateau locations.

In both locations, for about 5000 years during the geomagnetic reversal 780,000 years ago, they discovered evidence of stronger winter monsoons: particles became coarser, and accumulation speeds were up to > 3 times faster. These strong winter monsoons coincide with the period during the geomagnetic reversal when the Earth's magnetic strength fell to less than ¼, and galactic cosmic rays increased by over 50%. This suggests that the increase in cosmic rays was accompanied by an increase in low-cloud cover, the umbrella effect of the clouds cooled the continent, and Siberian high atmospheric pressure became stronger. Added to other phenomena during the geomagnetic reversal - evidence of an annual average temperature drop of 2-3 degrees Celsius, and an increase in annual temperature ranges from the sediment in Osaka Bay - this new discovery about winter monsoons provides further proof that the climate changes are caused by the cloud umbrella effect.

"The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has discussed the impact of cloud cover on climate in their evaluations, but this phenomenon has never been considered in climate predictions due to the insufficient physical understanding of it", comments Professor Hyodo. "This study provides an opportunity to rethink the impact of clouds on climate. When galactic cosmic rays increase, so do low clouds, and when cosmic rays decrease clouds do as well, so climate warming may be caused by an opposite-umbrella effect. The umbrella effect caused by galactic cosmic rays is important when thinking about current global warming as well as the warm period of the medieval era."

Do differences in performance have an impact on the appetite for risk-taking in decision-makers? Economists at the University of Göttingen have addressed this question. The result of their study is that people's willingness to take risks increases as soon as they get a lower return than other people with whom they compare themselves. At the same time, decision-makers take lower risks if they get a higher return than their peers. The study was published in the journal Games and Economic Behavior.

Dr Stephan Müller and Professor Holger Rau from the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Göttingen investigated the risk preferences of 236 participants in computer laboratory experiments. Risk preferences play an important role in financial and product markets, as they determine the investment behaviour and the associated profits and losses of investors. These actions result in those concerned making different profits on their investments. For example, investors in financial markets achieve higher long-term returns if they take on higher investment risks. Therefore, pronounced risky investment behaviour usually results in an increase in the gap between the levels of investors' income.

"If, for example, a fund manager generates higher profits than his colleague, this can lead to a significant increase in his colleague's willingness to take risks in order to close the existing gap," says Rau. Conversely, decision-makers are less keen on taking risks if they find that their social peer has a lower income. "Interestingly, the results of this change in risk-taking behaviour depend on how strong the test subjects' aversion to inequality is," Müller adds. The results of this study provide valuable insights into the design of employment contracts in order to control the risk-taking behaviour of employees through organisational structures and information policies. Furthermore, the study provides insights into insurance strategies for social projects in order to minimise the existing financial risk for sponsors.

River dikes are small dams made of earth that are used to hold in the water of the course of a river, without affecting the course too much. However, when the water exceeds a certain level due to flooding, the dike breaks, causing disasters that can be devastating for human life or cause huge financial losses.

Providing a solution to this issue and improving the lives of those who live near riverbanks are also the work of Hydraulics. Hence, Hydraulic Engineering Professor Óscar Castro Orgaz, from the Agronomy Department at the University of Cordoba along with a team of international researchers, developed a system of physics equations that models how when water spills out over an earth dike, the dike breaks, causing consequent overflow of the course of the river.

They are not the first to do so. This kind of research has been happening for some time now in the field of river hydraulics, but most predictive models that have been developed to date assume the dike is always stationary and that water flowing by simply erodes its surface continuously. This does not always occur. And that is the variable that the University of Cordoba incorporated. This new model takes into account the deformation that the bed of earth undergoes (of which the dike is comprised) while water spills out over and erodes it.

In order to predict under what conditions and how the dike will break, and therefore rely on the tools needed to anticipate and face this problem, the researchers used a hybrid analysis based on physics equations solved by a mathematical model, and at the same time, performed a series of laboratory experiments to verify whether the equations and the model gave results that were consistent with reality.

A reduced scale dike replica made it possible to test the model in order to verify it. The tests on this model enabled the analysis of the model's predictive capacity, using variables like speed, pressure, water levels and friction with the dike. In addition, the properties of the materials the dike is made up of were taken into account.

This work is a step further in the study of river hydraulics carried out within the VÁMONOS (CTM-2017-85171-C2-1-R) State Research Plan Project in which different issues in river dynamics are analyzed, such as obstacles that hinder the course of rivers.

People with both physical illnesses and mental disorders visit the emergency department more frequently than people with multiple physical illnesses or mental illness alone, according to a study in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

"Physical multimorbidity and mental disorders are associated with frequent visits to the emergency department," says author Mr. Marc Simard, Institut national de santé publique du Québec (INSPQ), Québec, Quebec. "When both are present, the sum of their impacts is greater than its parts. This potential synergy between physical multimorbidity and mental disorders significantly increases total impact on public health."

The large study looked at data on more than 5.3 million adults in Quebec, Canada, between 2012 and 2016. Researchers found that each additional physical illness in people with mental illness was associated with a larger increase in frequent visits to the emergency department compared to people without mental illness. Between people with 0 to 4 or more physical conditions, the absolute risk increased 16.2% for people with serious mental health disorders compared to people with common mental health issues (15.3%) or no disorders (11.4%).

The authors suggest that innovative health approaches such as using clinical case managers in emergency departments to connect patients to nonemergency care providers could improve the care such patients receive. Approaches to promote high-quality care for mental illness have the potential to prevent up to 6% of emergency visits in Quebec.

"The linked study used rigorous methodology to show and quantify what should be intuitive to those of us who routinely treat patients with comorbid psychiatric and medical conditions," writes Dr. Mark Sinyor, Department of Psychiatry, Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre and the University of Toronto, with coauthors in a related commentary http://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.190709. "It contributes to a growing understanding of the interrelationship between mental and physical illness and suggests the need for a parallel synergy in the treatment strategy of these conditions, which is already beginning to occur."

"[T]he close interplay between mental and physical disorders strongly suggests that health care should ideally be provided via a collaborative approach in centres with expertise in both types of conditions," argue the commentary authors.

"Combined impacts of multimorbidity and mental disorders on frequent emergency department visits: a retrospective cohort study in Quebec, Canada" is published July 2, 2019.

Matter surrounds us day and night in all its forms - trees, houses, furniture, and even the air we breathe. But, according to physicists, the visible matter familiar to us may only account for approximately 20 percent of all material in the universe. According to the current theory, as much as 80 percent may be dark matter. This claim is based on several observations, one of which is that stars and galaxies rotate much faster than they would if there were only 'normal' matter present in the universe.

Dark matter could be made of axions

Over time, scientists have developed different theories to explain exactly what this mysterious dark matter might be made of. Among the potential candidates that come into question are weakly interacting massive particles or WIMPs. Researchers have spent many years trying to hunt these down with particle detectors, as yet without success. Several years ago, however, scientists proposed an alternative - a class of particles called axions, which are significantly lighter than other particles. According to the theory, the field of these particles oscillates, which means that it varies continuously. The frequency of this oscillation is proportional to the mass of the particles, and, as this is extremely low, the frequency must also be low. But nobody knows just yet if that is the case. The problem is that the field oscillation is as likely to go through a complete cycle once a year as a trillion times a second.

Detecting axions with the help of nuclear spin change

Researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) have now found a way of detecting axions with the help of the Cosmic Axion Spin Precession Experiment (CASPEr) program. "We are exploiting the potential of nuclear magnetic resonance," explained Professor Dmitry Budker of the Institute of Physics at JGU and the Helmholtz Institute Mainz. "This means we can identify the spin of nuclei within molecules, or, more specifically in our case, within the carbon isotope C13 and hydrogen." The basic assumption is that dark matter can influence the spin of nuclei, hence providing researchers with a way of tracking it down. The spin, however, can also be influenced by the Earth's magnetic field. The researchers use sophisticated shielding to suppress the magnetic field; however, even the best shielding in imperfect. The physicists must therefore decide which proportion of the observed spin changes are due to dark matter and which to the Earth's magnetic field. This led the team of scientists to develop its new comagnetometer configuration. The principle underlying the technique is the fact that molecules generally contain different kinds of atomic nuclei. As the various nuclei will react to the magnetic field and dark matter to differing extents, it is possible to differentiate between these influences.

A part of the possible frequency range has now been investigated

The team at Mainz University have now combed through the range of frequencies from a few oscillations per year up to 18 oscillations per hour - as yet, without finding evidence of the effect of dark matter. "It's rather like looking for a lost ring in a vast garden," said Budker. "We have already searched part of the garden, so we now know this is where the ring - the axion - is not to be found. This has allowed us to considerably narrow down the range in which we hope to find the axion, and we can now focus our search on other ranges."