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Researchers have shown for the first time that these insects use different directional sensors to achieve the highest possible navigational precision in different conditions.

The discovery of the dung beetles' wind compass and how it complements the sun compass was made by an international research team comprising biologists from Sweden and the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) in South Africa.

"This is the first study that shows how an animal's biological compass can integrate different directional sensors, in this case wind and sun, in a flexible way. This enables the highest possible precision at all times," says Marie Dacke, professor of Sensory Biology at Lund University and leader of the research team.

When it is cloudy, or when the sun is higher than 75 degrees above the horizon in the middle of the day, dung beetles are unable to use the sun as a directional guide. A couple of hours later, when the sun is a little lower, they turn off the wind compass and again rely on the sun to navigate.

In the new study, researchers investigated dung beetles both in the field and in the laboratory. Using fans, to create and manipulate wind direction, they examined how wind direction affects the insects' directional awareness. This was also done with the sun, by artificially changing its position with a mirror.

The experiment showed that when the sun is at a low or medium elevation in the sky, the dung beetles change direction by 180 degrees if the sun's position is changed by 180 degrees. However, the dung beetles were not affected when the researchers changed the wind direction by 180 degrees when the sun was at these elevations.

Conversely, when the sun was high, the situation reversed. The insects responded by switching to select the wind as a navigational tool, changing their course as the direction of the wind was changed by 180 degrees.

The results show that directional information can be transferred from the wind compass to the sun compass and vice versa. In this way, the dung beetles can continue on in one direction when one of the compasses becomes less reliable.

"The insects' brains are definitely not pre-programmed to always follow the same set of actions. On the contrary, we can show that such small brains work according to very dynamic principles that adapt to the conditions prevailing at a given moment," says Dacke.

The researchers had previously shown that, during the night, some dung beetles orientate by the Milky Way and polarised moonlight while rolling their dung balls in a straight line. Combined with the results from the new study, they show that the insects' compass works at all times of the day or night and probably under almost any conditions.

"The beetles have a fall-back system of compass cues that they can switch between, dependent on which one is providing the most reliable information for orientation," says Marcus Byrne, a professor at Wits University, who has collaborated with Dacke for almost 20 years on dung beetle orientation.

"Now we will go on to study whether the beetles can also use the wind at night. Another aspect we are curious about is what guides them when there is no wind and it's cloudy," says Dacke.

The aim of the research is to fully understand how very small brains handle large amounts of information in order to make a relevant decision: is it appropriate to turn left or right, or continue straight on?

Byrne illustrates this point, saying "choosing the most important job at any given moment is a task most computers struggle with, which we all know about from the frustration of attempting to send an email while our machine checks its virus protection".

Dacke believes that the results will be of direct benefit within a few years, in areas like robot development and artificial intelligence (AI). Just like dung beetles, robots must take large amounts of information into consideration in order to direct their next action.

"Developments in AI are happening at breath-taking speed and part of my research is directly aimed at creating a model of how networks function to integrate information in a smart way," she says.

Plants use light energy from the sun for photosynthesis to turn carbon dioxide (CO2) into biomass. Animals can't do that. Therefore, some of them have teamed up with bacteria that carry out a process called chemosynthesis. It works almost like photosynthesis, only that it uses chemical energy instead of light energy. Many animals rely on chemosynthetic bacteria to supply them with food. The symbionts turn CO2 into biomass and are subsequently digested by their host. Kentron, a bacterium nourishing the ciliate Kentrophoros, was thought to be 'just another' chemosynthetic symbiont. However, recent results indicate that it is not.

Turning waste into food

An international team led by scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology sequenced the genome of Kentron, the sulfur-oxidizing symbiont of the ciliates. "Contrary to our expectations, we couldn't find any of the known genes for the fixation of CO2," reports first author Brandon Seah.

Without being able to fix CO2, what does Kentron grow on? "From their genes, it seems that Kentron uses small organic compounds and turns those into biomass," Nicole Dubilier, director at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology and senior author of the study, explains. These include compounds such as acetate or propionate, which are typical 'low value' cellular waste products. "In this sense, Kentron is upcycling the garbage. It most probably recycles waste products from the environment and from their hosts into 'higher value' biomass to feed their hosts."

Underpinning genetic analyses with isotope fingerprinting

Kentrophoros is a thin, ribbon-like ciliate that lives in sandy marine sediments, where it can easily squeeze and move between sand particles. It almost entirely relies on its symbionts for nutrition and has even given up its own mouth. Seah, who now works at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen, and his colleagues collected specimens at sites in the Mediterranean, Caribbean and Baltic Seas. However, Kentrophoros does not grow and reproduce in the lab. So how could the researchers investigate Kentron's food preferences? "Our collaborators in Calgary and North Carolina have developed a way to estimate the stable isotope fingerprint of proteins from the tiny samples that we have," Seah explains. This fingerprint tells a lot about the source of carbon an organism uses. The Kentron bacteria have a fingerprint that is completely unlike any other chemosynthetic symbiont's fingerprint from similar habitats. "This clearly shows that Kentron is getting its carbon differently than other symbionts."

Textbook knowledge put to the test

This research provides a counterexample to textbook descriptions. These usually say that the symbiotic bacteria make most of their biomass from either CO2 or methane. In contrast, Kentron does not appear to have this ability to make biomass from scratch. "Uptake of organic substrates from the environment and recycling waste from their hosts might play a bigger role in these symbioses than previously thought," senior author Harald Gruber-Vodicka from the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology concludes. "This has implications in ecological models of carbon cycling in the environment, and we are excited to look further into the details and pros and cons of either strategy."

Around half of patients admitted to hospital in Vietnam are carriers of multiresistant intestinal bacteria, which are resistant to carbapenems, a group of broad-spectrum antibiotics. This is the conclusion of a study by Swedish and Vietnamese scientists led by Linköping University, published in the Journal of Infection.

"In our study, we see a high prevalence of multiresistant intestinal bacteria in Vietnamese hospitals. The longer the patients are in hospital, the greater is the risk that they have been infected by intestinal bacteria resistant to carbapenems", says Håkan Hanberger, professor in the Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine at Linköping University and consultant in the Infection Clinic at Linköping University Hospital.

There are several reasons why carbapenem-resistant enterobacteriaceae (CRE) are a serious problem. They are resistant to nearly all broad-spectrum antibiotics, which means that infections caused by these bacteria are difficult to treat. In addition, CRE can pass antibiotic-resistance genes to other bacteria, causing these to become resistant to the carbapenem group of antibiotics. Intestinal bacteria spread easily, such as on hands and furniture used in the care of infants. They cause various types of infection, primarily urinary tract infections, sepsis and pneumonia. These multiresistant intestinal bacteria are spreading rapidly around the world, and WHO has given the highest priority to measures to control the spread of CRE and to develop new antibiotics against these bacteria.

The study reported in the Journal of Infection included more than 2,200 patients admitted to 63 different wards at 12 hospitals in various parts of Vietnam. Rectal swabs were taken from the patients and investigated for the presence of CRE. Being a carrier is a risk factor for contracting a clinical infection with the bacteria, but not all carriers become sick.

Risk factors for becoming a carrier of multiresistant intestinal bacteria were a longer stay in the hospital and contracting an infection during the stay, known as a "hospital-acquired infection". One of eight patients (13%) were carriers at admission, which had increased to seven of eight patients (87%) after two weeks in hospital. Another risk factor for patients in the study was being treated with carbapenem, which contributes to the carbapenem-resistant bacteria being selected.

In a sub-study of 328 new-born children in a neonatal intensive care unit, the scientists showed that mortality is linked to being a carrier for CRE and to having a hospital-acquired infection when admitted to the unit (odds ratio 5.5, p "The sub-study looked at the most vulnerable patients, new-born children who needed intensive care, and showed that mortality was five times higher in those who had a hospital-acquired infection and were carriers of the multiresistant CRE bacteria", says Håkan Hanberger.

The researchers conclude that there is an epidemic spread of multiresistant intestinal bacteria in Vietnamese hospitals with rapid transmission to hospitalised patients.

"The extensive spread of carbapenem-resistant intestinal bacteria means that forceful measures must be taken to reduce the transmission of infection in hospitals, by improvements to hand hygiene, the use of sterile working methods during surgery and when handling venous catheters, and by isolating patients who have been affected by multiresistant intestinal bacteria. It is also important to have effective follow up when patients are discharged from hospital, in order to reduce the spread of these bacteria in the population. But even if we do everything right, it will take a long time to get infections down to an acceptably low level", says Håkan Hanberger.

In the case of Sweden, the presence of carbapenem-resistant bacteria so far is extremely low.

"Sweden is one of the countries in the world where the situation with respect to carbapenem-resistant intestinal bacteria is most favourable. It is one of the countries that can probably delay the spread the longest, but we must improve hygiene in the healthcare services also in Sweden", says Håkan Hanberger.

Tuesday, June 25, 2019, Cleveland: Implemented back in 2005, the lung allocation score is used to prioritize patients awaiting lung transplants in the United States. Sicker transplant candidates have a higher calculated score and are placed at the top of the list. But a recent study led by Maryam Valapour, M.D., MPP, director of Lung Transplant Outcomes in Cleveland Clinic's Respiratory Institute, found including new clinical variables helped to better identify the sickest cystic fibrosis and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) patients awaiting transplants.

The paper was published June 14 in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

Dr. Valapour, who is also the senior investigator for lung transplant for the U.S. Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients (SRTR), worked on behalf of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) and Cleveland Clinic physicians Carli Lehr, M.D., MS and Elliott Dasenbrook, M.D., MHS, also collaborated on the study.

"Lung transplant is a life-saving procedure for patients with end-stage lung disease and these patients have no alternative treatment available to them if an organ doesn't become available in time," Dr. Valapour said.

The study merged patient data from the SRTR and the CFF Patient Registry from January 2011 to December 2014. It included 9,043 patients on the lung transplant waiting list and 6,100 lung transplant recipients. Once merged, cystic fibrosis-specific variables were added into the lung allocation score calculation.

People with cystic fibrosis differ from the average patient awaiting a lung transplant in several ways. "They are younger, often have more infections and multiple organs that are affected by their disease," Dr. Lehr said. "While many of these problems progress during a patients' life, they are not adequately factored into the lung allocation score."

This study marked the first time researchers could review a cystic fibrosis patient's entire clinical history. That's because the CFF registry captures all clinical data for almost all cystic fibrosis patients in this country from birth onwards while the SRTR includes clinical data on all patients starting from when they are placed on the waiting list to transplant and beyond.

Results of the data merge not only showed improved accuracy of the lung allocation score for cystic fibrosis candidates, but the re-evaluation of the pulmonary function testing also helped patients with COPD.

"We believe the database we used more accurately identifies candidates likely to benefit the most from a transplant," Dr. Valapour said.

Today, more than 30,000 people are living with cystic fibrosis in the United States. Described as a progressive, genetic disease, cystic fibrosis causes persistent lung infections and limits the ability to breathe over time. The average life span for people with cystic fibrosis is about 37 years. Because almost all individuals with cystic fibrosis die of respiratory failure, lung transplant is a vital therapeutic option for patients with advanced lung disease.

WASHINGTON--Women exposed to triclosan are more likely to develop osteoporosis, according to a study published in the Endocrine Society's Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism.

Triclosan is an endocrine-disrupting chemical being widely used as an antibacterial in consumer goods and personal care products, including soaps, hand sanitizers, toothpaste, and mouthwash. A person can be exposed to triclosan via consumer products and contaminated water. The FDA also banned triclosan from over-the-counter hand sanitizer in recent years.

"Laboratory studies have demonstrated that triclosan may have potential to adversely affect the bone mineral density in cell lines or in animals. However, little is known about the relationship between triclosan and human bone health," said the study's corresponding author, Yingjun Li, Ph.D., of Hangzhou Medical College School of Public Health in Hangzhou, China. "As far as we know, this is the first epidemiological study to investigate the association between triclosan exposure with bone mineral density and osteoporosis in a nationally representative sample from U.S. adult women."

In this study, researchers analyzed data from 1,848 women in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey to determine the link between triclosan and bone health. They found women with higher levels of triclosan in their urine were more likely to have bone issues.

PHILADELPHIA - Shortening the length of rotations in a medical intensive care unit (MICU) from the traditional 14-consecutive day schedule to only seven days helps mitigate burnout among critical care physicians, according to a new Penn Medicine pilot study. The study, published today in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, is the first to validate the efficacy of a truncated rotation in reducing the rate of burnout among critical care physicians.

The team found the shorter rotations not only led to lower burnout rates - by as much as 41 percent - but the change also resulted in increased job fulfillment.

"In critical care medicine, periods of extreme stress can contribute to high burnout. Our study shows that organizations can implement new strategies, such as shorter staffing rotations, that have a real impact on burnout rates and job fulfillment," said the study's lead author, Mark E. Mikkelsen, MD, MSCE, chief of Medical Critical Care and an associate professor of Medicine. "Based on our findings, we changed our scheduling approach to limit the number of consecutive days per rotation, and ensure adequate non-clinical time between rotations."

Work-related burnout, characterized by emotional or physical exhaustion as well as feeling cynical or detached, is common among physicians - particularly, intensivists, or critical care physicians, who care for critically ill patients. Recent research shows nearly half of the 10,000 critical care physicians practicing in the United States reported symptoms of severe burnout, which can lead to compassion fatigue, decreased quality of care and job turnover.

In May 2018, Penn Medicine launched a pilot initiative across four critical care rotations, spanning the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania (HUP) and Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, to identify effective strategies to mitigate burnout and maximize fulfillment. The team, who had found high rates of burnout among intensivists at the end of 14-day rotations, tested a strategy proposed by the Critical Care Societies Collaborative that called for limiting the maximum number of days worked consecutively.

As a part of the pilot, intensivists in one unit, the Founders 9 MICU at HUP, had the option to attend for the traditional 14-day rotation or change their schedule to a seven-day rotation. Rotations in two other units were capped at seven consecutive days, while intensivists in the fourth unit worked a two-week rotation, with one weekend off.

From May 2018 to February 2019, the team administered more than 180 surveys to 29 physicians at different points throughout the rotations, including on day seven of a 14-day rotation and between clinical rotations. They found burnout and fulfillment varied by the clinical rotation and length of rotation. For example, intensivists in in the Founders 9 MICU, a 24-bed unit staffed by two critical care physicians, fellows and internal medicine residents, responded with 61 percent burnout and 47 percent fulfillment rates. Meanwhile, the intensivists working a seven-day rotation in the Donner 3 MICU at HUP - an 8-bed unit, staffed by one critical care physician and two advanced practice providers - responded with a 24 percent burnout and 76 percent fulfillment rates.

"While our main focus was measuring burnout and fulfillment rates, we also wanted to ensure the shorter rotations did not negatively impact our ability to educate the next wave of physicians whom are training here," said author Meeta Prasad Kerlin, MD, MSCE, an assistant professor of Medicine and associate fellowship program director in the division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care. "Based on feedback from our critical care physicians, fellows, and residents, we found the shorter rotations may have, in fact, led to better education, as faculty felt they could be more engaged and energetic."

The South African dung beetle Scarabaeus lamarcki has - to put it mildly - an interesting technique to ensure its offspring a good start in life. When the animal, which is only a few centimetres tall, encounters elephant dung, for example, it forms small balls out of it which it then rolls away in a randomly chosen direction. After a while, the beetle stuffs the dung into underground passages, which serve as its breeding chamber; where it then lays its eggs.

How the dung beetle finds its way from the elephant dung pile to the underground passages: This is what Dr. Basil el Jundi is interested in. The neurobiologist heads an Emmy Noether Junior Research Group at the Biocentre of Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria, Germany, and investigates the navigational ability of insects.

Together with scientists from Sweden and South Africa, he has now discovered that the dung beetle - contrary to previous assumptions - does not only orient itself on the position of the sun when navigating, but also includes information about wind direction in its route planning. The researchers have published their new findings in the current issue of the journal PNAS - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

On a straight line away from the dung heap

"South African dung beetles must roll their dung ball away from the dung pile as quickly as possible to prevent the ball from being stolen by other beetles", explains el Jundi. To ensure that they actually get out of the dangerous area as quickly as possible, the beetles roll the ball away from the dung pile along a straight line. In order to keep their course, they use celestial cues as orientation references - for example, the position of the sun. However, it was not yet clear how the beetles find their way when the sun provides no useful information, for example when it is noon.

Basil el Jundi and his team can now answer this question: "We have discovered that dung beetles use the wind for orientation in addition to the sky." The animals perceive the corresponding signals via their antennae. The necessary information is provided by high wind speeds, which occur in the African savannah especially around noon, when orientation by the sun becomes difficult.

The combination of the systems increases precision

However, to produce an efficient and robust "compass", the animals must combine and harmonize the wind information with the other celestial signals. This is the only way to ensure that they find their way, even in a sudden calm, by flexibly switching back to the solar compass as the main orientation signal. As the researchers were able to show, this combination of different orientation systems not only makes it easier for the beetle to find its way, but it also increases the precision of the beetle compass.

For their study, the scientists worked within a laboratory arena in which they were able to simulate and control the position of the sun and the wind direction to precisely record their effects on beetle navigation. Their experiments not only show that the beetles set the wind directional information relative to the position of the sun. "We could also show that the beetles were able to transfer the directional information, which they have set with the sun as their only reference, to the wind compass," says el Jundi. This shows that both the wind compass and the solar compass in the beetle brain "access" the same spatial memory network and therefore communicate with each other.

A highly plastic neuronal machinery

Thus, the recently published study shows that dung beetles use a much more dynamic compass than science has previously thought possible. The access to different sensory modalities enables the animals to navigate at any time with highest precision. Their abilities clearly exceed human abilities - even though they are equipped with a brain that is smaller than a grain of rice. In addition, the results confirm that an insect brain is not a "static substrate", but a piece of a "highly plastic neuronal machinery that can adapt to its environment in a perfect way", as the scientists write.

The frilled dragon exhibits a distinctive large erectile ruff. This lizard usually keeps the frill folded back against its body but can spread it as a spectacular display to scare off predators. Researchers at the University of Geneva (UNIGE), Switzerland, and the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics report in the journal eLife that an ancestral embryonic gill of the dragon embryo turns into a neck pocket that expands and folds, forming the frill. The researchers then demonstrate that this robust folding pattern emerges from mechanical forces during the homogeneous growth of the frill skin, due to the tensions resulting from its attachment to the neck and head.

In Jurassic Park, while the computer programmer Dennis Nedry attempts to smuggle dinosaur embryos off the island, he gets attacked and killed by a mid-sized dinosaur that erects a frightening neck frill. This fictional dinosaur is clearly inspired from a real animal known as the 'frilled dragon', that lives today in northern Australia and southern New Guinea. These lizards, also known as Chlamydosaurus kingii, have a large disc of skin that sits around their head and neck. This frill is usually folded back against the body, but can spread in a spectacular fashion to scare off predators and competitors. Folding of the left and right sides of the frill occurs at three pre-formed ridges. But, it remains unclear which ancestral structure evolved to become the dragon's frill, and how the ridges in the frill form during development.

Recycling gills

A multidisciplinary team led by Michel Milinkovitch, Professor at the Department of Genetics and Evolution of the UNIGE Faculty of Science and Group Leader at the SIB Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics, shows today that the dragon's frill, as well as bones and cartilages that support it, develop from the branchial arches. These are a series of bands of tissue in the embryo that evolved to become the gill supports in fish, and that now give rise to multiple structures in the ear and neck of land vertebrates. In most species, the second branchial arch will eventually fuse with the arches behind it. But in the frilled dragon, this arch continues instead to expand, leading to the formation of the dragon's spectacular frill. "These changes in the development of gill arches highlight how evolution is able to "recycle" old structures into new forms playing different roles," enthuses Michel Milinkovitch.

Mechanical process rather than molecular genetic signal

As the frill develops, the front side of the skin forms three successive folds, which make up the pre-formed ridges. Studying the formation of these ridges, the Swiss team reveals that they do not emerge from increased growth at the folding sites, but from physical forces - whereby the growth of the frill is constrained by its attachment to the neck. This causes the top layer to buckle, creating the folds of the frill. "We then simulated this process in a computer model and discovered that we could trace how the folds develop in the frills of the real lizard embryos," continues Michel Milinkovitch.

New research discovers employees who view pornography aren't just costing companies millions of dollars in wasted time, they're causing harm to the company.

A study published in the Journal of Business Ethics finds that viewing pornography at work increases unethical behavior. Given unethical employee behavior is linked to a number of negative organizational outcomes -- like fraud and collusion -- employee pornography consumption is putting organizations at risk.

"Pornography is often framed as an issue affecting only individuals and relationships outside of a business context," said study co-author Melissa Lewis-Western, a Brigham Young University professor of accountancy. "But businesses are made up of people, and people make decisions, and businesses function off the decisions people make. If you have a societal phenomenon that a lot of people are participating in and it negatively impacts individuals' decisions, that has the potential to impact organizational-level outcomes."

The study included an experiment with 200 participants and a nationally-representative survey of 1,000 other individuals. In the experiment, one group was tasked with recalling and recording their last experience viewing pornography. The researchers chose not to expose participants directly to pornography due to ethical concerns and concerns of selection and demand effects. Meanwhile, members of the control group were asked to recall and record their most recent experience exercising. Both groups were then employed to watch the entirety of a boring 10-minute video consisting of a blue background with a monotone voice speaking with subtitles.

Researchers found 21 percent of those who had recalled their last experience viewing porn did not finish viewing the video, but lied about it. Only 8 percent of those in the control group did not finish the video and lied about it. This represented a statistically significant 163 percent increase in shirking work and lying for those who view pornography. Similar evidence was obtained from the survey. The experiment also found that the rise in unethical behavior is caused by an increased propensity to dehumanize others; pornography consumption increases the viewer's propensity to view others as objects or less than human.

Authors, which include BYU accounting professor David Wood and former BYU graduate student Nathan Mecham, say because porn consumption causes dehumanization, the incidence of sexual harassment or hostile work environments is likely to increase with increases in employee pornography consumption. "Organizations should be mindful of those risks," said Mecham, now a Ph.D. student at the University of Pittsburgh.

"If you have a larger portion of your employees that are consuming pornography at work, it's likely changing their behaviors and those changes are likely negative," Lewis-Western said. "Regardless of your stance on pornography, most people want to be good employees, they want to be fair to men and women and they don't want to be unethical. That's where we need to start the conversation. We need to refrain from viewing pornography to create work environments that are inclusive to all."

The researchers suggest companies take steps to reduce pornography consumption at the office, including:

Preventative controls such as internet filters and blocking devices

Policies that prohibit porn consumption at work, with penalties

Hiring employees who are less likely to view pornography than others

"Almost everyone cares about the #MeToo movement and women, but if you care about that, then you have to care about this issue too," Lewis-Western said. "If your manager is regularly watching pornography at work, then our research suggests that the way you are treated is going to be different in negative ways."

LA JOLLA, CA - Sorting through individual immune cells is a handy way to see how the body responds to disease. For years, researchers around the world have used a technique called flow cytometry to separate different types of immune cells, such as T cells, B cells and monocytes. But occasionally they'd see two cells stuck together as a "doublet." Many regarded doublets as an artefact of the flow cytometry process, and it was common place to "dump" those conjoined cells before gathering data.

That was until scientists at the La Jolla Institute of Immunology (LJI) took a closer look at doublets and uncovered their link to disease. In a new study, published on June 25, 2019, in the journal eLife, the researchers report that higher levels of doublets can be found in people with severe cases of tuberculosis or dengue fever.

This finding shows that doublets are not simply technical artefacts of the flow cytometry process. Instead of ignoring these doublets, scientists could study them to predict disease progression and even vaccine effectiveness.

"It's an important lesson learned," says Bjoern Peters, Ph.D., a professor in the Vaccine Discovery Division at LJI and senior author of the new study. "By studying these cells and how they communicate, we might learn more about the immune system."

The presence of doublets also explains cases where an immune cell appears to show gene expression of two distinct types of immune cells. Peters and his team have studied thousands of these odd "double expressors" and shown that these are actually doublets. "You look closer, and really it's two cells," says Peters.

The team was inspired to investigate doublets when they ran into a puzzling group of cells in blood samples from patients with tuberculosis. Their flow cytometry experiments revealed immune cells in these patients the characteristics of both monocyte cells and T cells. The scientists saw the same strange cells in patients with dengue fever.

Julie Burel, Ph.D., postdoctoral research fellow at LJI, realized that high levels of these double expressors correlated with a higher risk of disease progression in the patients. Her follow-up experiments showed that these cells were in reality doublets made up of a monocyte and a T cell stuck together.

The researchers then started looking for these doublets in more samples. They found that while recently infected patients tend to have more doublets, doublets appear to be surprisingly common in everyone. "Every blood sample we've analyzed contains doublets," says Burel, who served as first author of the new study.

So why did it take so long to find them?

"Instrument sensitivity is a lot higher now, so we're able to see things no one could see 10 years ago," Peters says.

The presence of doublets makes complete sense if you consider the role of T cells in the body, Peters explains. "T cells are meant to monitor what's going on in other cells, and detect and even kill infected cells --so it makes sense to study T cells that are found in complexes with other cells," says Peters.

In tuberculosis and dengue fever, monocytes become reservoirs for disease, so T cells would be more likely to come in contact with monocytes and form doublets.

Peters says doublets are likely relevant in many other diseases. After all, infection prompts immune cells to communicate and interact more closely. That could mean they are more likely to form doublets.
"The immune system is a very complicated, social network," says Burel. "Flow cytometry is meant to break cells apart, but actually, doublets matter."

As Peters likes to put it, "no cell is an island." The new research has inspired his lab to look beyond the single-cell analysis usually done with flow cytometry and instead gather more data on doublets.

One question is whether measuring doublets could allow researchers to detect disease before a patient even shows the symptoms. This could be critical for stopping fast-moving diseases such as dengue. Doublets could also indicate when a vaccine is sparking an effective immune response, which could help speed up vaccine research.

"Doublets could be a biomarker for any immune perturbation," Burel says.

Abstract: The function of protein machines in biological cells is so complex that even supercomputers cannot predict their cycles at atomic detail. But, as demonstrated in this review article, many aspects of their operation at mesoscales can be already revealed by exploring simple mechanical models, amenable for simulations on common computers. The authors also show how artificial protein-like structures with machine properties can be designed.

The living cell can be viewed as a factory where protein machines are in charge of various processes, such as transport of material inside the cell or operations with other macromolecules like DNA. Their operation is typically fueled by ATP molecules, the major energy carrier in biological cells. The chemical energy gained through ATP hydrolysis is used by a protein machine to cyclically change its shape and thus to perform a particular function. Hence, resolving functional conformational changes in proteins is a major challenge, with fundamental importance for understanding and control of biological single-molecule motors and machines.

The complexity of interactions between atoms in a protein machine is so high that even world's best supercomputers cannot reproduce just one of their operation cycles. In this review article, it is however demonstrated that essential aspects of the operation of such natural nano-devices can be already revealed by exploring very simple mechanical models of proteins, i.e. by treating such macromolecules as elastic networks obtained by connecting particles by a set of elastic springs.

The authors, professor Alexander Mikhailov and assistant professor Holger Flechsig from the Nano Life Science Institute in the Kanazawa University in Japan, argue that elastic networks corresponding to protein machines with functional dynamics have special properties, emerged in the process of biological evolution. Despite an apparent complexity, internal motions in such systems proceed in an ordered manner, as if guided along hidden rail tracks. Thus, a molecular machine behaves similar to macroscopic mechanical devices with highly coordinated movements of their parts. This ensures that the cellular factory can function robustly despite strong fluctuations present at nanoscales.

Using this approach, simulations covering entire operation cycles could be performed and the first molecular movies of protein machines were thus obtained. As an example, Fig.1 from the original 2010 publication by the authors shows how the helicase motor protein of the hepatitis C virus - a principal part of its replication machinery and an important pharmacologic target for antiviral drugs - actively moves along the DNA and mechanically unzips it.

Artificial protein-like structures with machine properties could be moreover designed by running a computer evolution of elastic networks. In Fig. 2 two examples are shown, a designed model machine operating within a biological membrane, and a machine which exhibits allosteric communication.

This review article presents a new perspective in understanding of the complex machinery of biological cells. It also paves the way to novel approaches in the design of artificial nano-machines - the task of high potential for future biotechnological applications.

People who care for their elderly parents outside of their full-time jobs -- and are unpaid for their help -- experience considerable disruption of their workplace routines. Many are not getting employer support because it is not offered or because they do not feel able to use it, even if it is available, according to a Baylor University researcher.

"A big and overwhelming consequence of America's aging population is that so-called sandwiched caregivers, typically middle-aged, are caring for ailing parents while trying to work full-time and raise their own children," said lead author Matthew A. Andersson, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociology in Baylor University's College of Arts & Sciences. "It's no wonder we see such high rates of work interruption among caregivers.

"But what's particularly troubling -- and what's new in this study -- is that employees who are experiencing work interruption are much more likely to say they have unmet need for workplace support than those who manage to keep working at the same pace," he said. "This tells us that employers may not be stepping up to connect informal caregivers with workplace supports they need. That makes informal caregiving an even tougher role."

About three fourths of informal (unpaid) caregivers have at least a mild interference, such as working partial rather than full days, and about one quarter express an unmet need for workplace support, Andersson said.

"That means they need help from one of six potentially useful workplace programs we looked into -- such as eldercare referral or financial counseling. Yet they're still not getting that help, even if their employer provides access to it."

The study -- "Strapped for Time or Stressed Out? Predictors of Work Interruption and Unmet Need for Workplace Support Among Informal Elder Caregivers" -- is published in the Journal of Aging and Health.

About one in four employed U.S. adults provides informal care for a parent, in-law or other family member older than 65, according to the United States Census Bureau. This number is projected to grow as the population continues to age and as many continue to live into their 80s or beyond.

Researchers from Baylor, Louisiana State University and the University of Iowa analyzed data from 642 individuals at a large public university who were informal caregivers for anyone 65 or older, often parents, spouses or friends.

Unmet needs for caregiving support are about twice as common among employees whose work is interrupted, suggesting a strong link between unmet needs and lapsed work performance, researchers said. Those interruptions ranged from mild ones, such as adjusting work hours, to more severe ones, such as moving from a full- to a part-time job position to taking a leave of absence or even early retirement.

While the study focused on the association between unmet needs for workplace support and work disruption among informal elder caregivers, researchers also examined how much unmet needs and work interruptions are linked to such factors as caregivers' personal or job characteristics; their physical and psychological well-being; and the caregiving particular situations, including time weekly, necessary travel, number of individuals assisted and their health conditions -- among them physical limitations, independence issues, chronic conditions and mental illness or cognitive impairment.

Among their findings:

Nearly three-fourths of the informal caregivers experience mild or severe work interruption.

More than half of those who serve as caregivers 10 or more hours weekly reported severe interruption of work.

More than 40 percent of caregivers reported being involved in caregiving 10 or more hours weekly; most care-providing (60 percent) took place within the household or less than 30 minutes away.

While caring for one family member was most common (68 percent), a sizeable number oversaw two or three.

Most (70 percent) assisted individuals with chronic health conditions; 80 percent cared for people with physical limitations.

Caregivers with several work interruptions were especially likely to care for those with mental illness or cognitive impairment.

"We know that informal caregiving is becoming more common and more complicated due to the multiple health conditions of care recipients and the all-too-familiar work-family conflict," Andersson said.

"First, we need to do more research not just on individual caregivers but on caregiving networks," he said. "Because informal caregiving can be so difficult and time-consuming, it's usually too much to ask of one person. It's not uncommon for multiple family members to get involved.

"Second, we need to get employers more involved in the reality of this pressing situation. This study examined the unmet needs of caregivers in a large workplace where these supports are, in theory, available to everyone. Yet, caregivers weren't taking advantage -- even when they thought they should be."

To combat that, "supervisors should see their power for what it is: they shape culture more than they realize," Andersson said. "Work teams should be structured so that absences can be taken in stride when family duties are pressing. This places a burden on supervisors to model how long-term success involves, first and foremost, taking care of yourself and your family."

Employee training should involve clarity and communication about available supports and how to use them.

"Using them should not be a source of guilt," Andersson said. "And it definitely does not mean an employee is not valuable or productive."

Previous research has found that workers who care for the elderly have more stress, decreased health, more work-family conflict, greater financial burdens, strained relations with co-workers and diminished self-esteem. Additional duties may lead to lost productivity as well as missed training opportunities or diminished job skills. All those issues are concerns for employers wanting to retain and invest in employees.

Vienna, 25 June 2019: The adverse effect of maternal smoking during pregnancy is well established and associated with several negative neonatal outcomes (such as low birth weight and preterm birth). It is also evident in some studies that the semen quality of men exposed to prenatal maternal smoking is generally more impaired than that of unexposed men.(1) However, there is little known about the effect of paternal smoking in the time leading up to and during pregnancy.

Now, preliminary results from a large population study based on the Danish National Birth Cohort has found that paternal smoking is associated with lower total sperm counts and sperm concentrations independent of maternal smoking and other confounding factors (such as age, alcohol consumption or BMI).

'There have been previous studies investigating the association of paternal smoking with semen quality but these were small studies without information on key confounders,' said investigator Dr Sandra Søgaard Tøttenborg from Bispebjerg Frederiksberg Hospital, in Copenhagen, Denmark. 'Our larger study does support these previous findings that paternal smoking is associated with sperm concentrations in male offspring independently of maternal smoking. We also found the association was independent of other preconceptional and prenatal risk factors for adult semen quality - including parental age, alcohol and caffeine consumption, pre-pregnancy BMI, and household occupational status.' The results are presented today by Dr Tøttenborg at the 35th Annual Meeting of ESHRE in Vienna.

The study was a follow-up analysis of 778 19-year-old young men born to mothers registered in the Danish National Birth Cohort between 1996 and 2002. Smoking information (including that on the father) was based on a maternal report around gestational week 16. Semen quality in the young men was analysed according to WHO criteria to include sperm concentration, total sperm count, morphology and sperm motility.(2)

Results showed that in the adjusted analyses the sons of fathers who smoked daily (and where the mothers did not smoke) had a 8% lower sperm concentration and 9% lower total sperm count than the sons of paternal non-smokers.(3)

'Our results did show an association with paternal smoking,' said Dr Tøttenborg, 'but the effect of maternal smoking is much larger. If the mother but not the father smoked, the reduction was 26% for sperm concentration and 46% for sperm count. It's certainly worse for the boys if the mother smokes. Nevertheless, the circumstances in which the father smokes but the mother doesn't is much more prevalent, so this is still very relevant for public health. A decline in sperm count of 8-9% can seriously affect the fertility of men with already sub-optimal sperm quality.'

Dr Tøttenborg added that, while the association with sperm count and concentration observed in this study is not dramatic when compared to other known risk factors (such as exposure to certain pesticides and some urogenital disorders such as cryptorchidism), it still remains in the same range as that associated with smoking in the adult man.

The likely explanation for a preconceptional or prenatal effect of paternal smoking in the offspring is epigenetic, by which paternal smoking can induce alterations in the sperm genome which in turn may be transmitted to the cells of the offspring.

East Hanover, NJ. June 25, 2019. A recent study by Kessler Foundation researchers provided new findings about the nature of social cognitive deficits in the population with progressive multiple sclerosis (MS). The article, "Cognitive but Not Affective Theory of Mind Deficits in Progressive MS", (doi: 10.1017/S1355617719000584) was epublished on June 10, 2019 by the Journal of the International Neuropsychological Society.

The authors are Katie Lancaster, PhD, Eric M. Stone, and Helen Genova, PhD, of Kessler Foundation. Link to abstract: https://tinyurl.com/y3kqb7oe

The researchers conducted tests of social cognition in two groups: 15 individuals with progressive MS and 15 healthy controls. They used Virtual Assessment of Mentalising Ability (VAMA) to measure Theory of Mind (ToM) in both groups. This was the first application of VAMA for research in the subtype of progressive MS. Results showed poorer performance on VAMA in the MS group and identified a specific deficit in the cognitive ToM subtest, which measures how well individuals can reason about the thoughts and intentions of others. In contrast, they found no differences between the groups on the affective ToM subtest, which measures how well individuals can reason about the emotions of others.

Deficits in social cognition that impair quality of life are associated with all types of MS, but appear to be more pronounced in progressive MS. Developing effective interventions depends upon expanding our knowledge of social cognitive deficits in progressive MS. Much of the research, however, has been conducted in relapsing remitting MS.

"This study is an important first step toward a better understanding of cognitive dysfunction in individuals with progressive MS," said Dr. Genova, the Foundation's assistant director of the Center for Neuropsychology and Neuroscience Research. "By examining both the cognitive and affective components of Theory of Mind, we found evidence for differential effects of progressive MS, similar to the effects reported for relapsing remitting MS," she affirmed, "including the apparent sparing of affective ability. Our findings indicate that VAMA will be an important tool for developing interventions that help individuals maintain the skills needed to function in everyday life."

Astronomers have a new tool in their search for extraterrestrial life - a sophisticated bot that helps identify stars hosting planets similar to Jupiter and Saturn.

These giant planets' faraway twins may protect life in other solar systems, but they aren't bright enough to be viewed directly. Scientists find them based on properties they can observe in the stars they orbit. The challenge for planet hunters is that in our galaxy alone, there are roughly 200 billion stars.

"Searching for planets can be a long and tedious process given the sheer volume of stars we could search," said Stephen Kane, UCR associate professor of planetary astrophysics. "Eliminating stars unlikely to have planets and pre-selecting those that might will save a ton of time," he said.

The astronomy bot is a machine learning algorithm designed by Natalie Hinkel, a researcher formerly in Kane's laboratory now with the Southwest Research Institute. Kane examined data produced by the bot and discovered three stars with strong evidence of harboring giant, Jupiter-like planets about 100 light years away.

A paper detailing the team's work was published today in the Astrophysical Journal.

The algorithm uses information about the chemical composition of stars to predict whether it is surrounded by planets.

Scientists can use spectroscopy, or the way light interacts with atoms in a star's upper layers, to measure the elements inside of it such as carbon, iron, and oxygen. These elements are key ingredients in making planets, since stars and planets are made at the same time and from the same materials.

To train and test the algorithm, Hinkel fed it a publicly available database of stars that she developed. The database has allowed the algorithm to look at the elements that make up more than 4,200 stars and assess their likelihood of hosting planets.

In addition, Hinkel looked at different combinations of those ingredients to see how they influenced the algorithm. "We found that the most influential elements in predicting planet-hosting stars are carbon, oxygen, iron and sodium," Hinkel said.

The team used the algorithm specifically to help them identify giant planets like Jupiter that are hard to find because they are farther from their host stars. Distant giant planets like these are likely to protect the Earth-like rocky planets near them, and any life they could be home to. Kane's team at UCR has a long track record of discovering giant planets similar to Jupiter.

"Jupiter is very close to Earth at the moment, we can see how beautiful it is without a telescope, but many of us take for granted how it makes life on this planet possible," Kane said.

Jupiter-like planets pull meteors, comets and other flying space objects out of their trajectories before they can smash into their smaller planet neighbors. Kane likens giant planets to his older brother, who kept him safe as a boy. "In school, it was very useful to have a big brother nearby who prevented bullies from beating me up on the playground," Kane said. "That's what Jupiter does for Earth."