Culture

Researchers at Shinshu University successfully recorded previously unexplained behavior of hydrogel microspheres (microgels) using a newly customized tool: the temperature-controlled high-speed atomic force microscopy (TC HS AFM). This machine, which is the only one in the world, had been assembled by Dr. Takayuki Uchihashi of Nagoya University to investigate proteins. It was applied for the first time to the study of microgels by the team at Daisuke Suzuki Laboratory, Graduate School of Textile Science & Technology and RISM (Research Initiative for Supra-Materials) of Shinshu University. The study lead by first year doctoral candidate, Yuichiro Nishizawa, succeeded in observing the structure of the microgels which had been difficult due to limitations of previous equipment.

The structure of microgels has been studied extensively using scattering and imaging techniques including electron microscopy, fluorescence microscopy, atomic force microscopy, super-resolution microscopy. The thermoresponsive properties of the core-shell structures had been well documented using such techniques. Using TC HS AFM, they were able to observe and record the particles in detail, non-thermoresponsive inhomogeneous decanano-scale spherical domains, which had been hypothesized by Dr. Kenji Urayama of the Kyoto Institute of Technology.

Nishizawa states, "as our research indicated, hydrogel microspheres have heterogeneous structure in almost every case. Moreover, the heterogeneous nano structure would have an impact on the physicochemical properties of water swollen microgels and would lead to a gap between theory and result. We believe that our findings can contribute to the understanding of these gaps."

The Shinshu University team first studied the microgels synthesized by precipitation polymerization. This gel has the core-shell structure, as well as the non-thermoresponsive spherical domains. Using inverse miniemulsion polymerization techniques, they were able to produce two more types of microgels previously thought to all be the same, but was observed to behave differently.

Microgels made by inverse miniemulsion polymerization below the VPTT produced a gel that did not have the non-thermoresponsive domain, nor did it have the classic core-shell structure. It was uniformly homogenous. A third method, using the inverse miniemulsion polymerization above the VPTT produced an inhomogeonous gel with no core-shell structure, but with the nano- to submicron-sized non-thermoresponsive domains. The Shinshu team were able to show that the method of production greatly effects the differences in the structure and therefore behavior of the three types of microgels.

This study provides insight into all thermoresponsive microgels and perhaps other stimuli-responsive colloids. The knowledge that the method of production has a strong effect on the structure will help develop real world applications such as microgel glass/crystal and other medical materials. The Shinshu team hope to continue the study of hydrogel microspheres. Nishizawa says, "ultimately, we want to develop new types of microspheres which improve people's standard of living."

Philadelphia, May 30, 2019 - An imbalance of functioning in attention-related brain systems may help forecast the course of teen depression, according to a study published in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier. Proper coordination of frontoinsular brain networks help us regulate our attention between external goals and self-focused or emotional thinking. But abnormalities in the coordination between these networks were not only evident in teens with more severe depression, but also, critically, predicted increased depressive symptoms two weeks later.

"The teen years are a time of remarkable growth and opportunity, as young people forge new relationships, learn how to navigate intense emotions, and make the transition to independence. However, it is also during adolescence that a high and growing number of teens experience clinical depression and related mood problems for the first time," said first author Roselinde Kaiser, PhD, University of Colorado Boulder.

"Our challenge as clinicians, scientists, and parents, is: how do we predict which teens will experience mood problems in the near future?".

Dr. Kaiser and colleagues tested the idea of using fMRI to predict future mood health. They measured the activity of frontoinsular networks while adolescents played a difficult computer game involving emotional images. Current prediction tools mostly use self-report, which can be unreliable in teens.

"Our results showed that adolescents who showed imbalanced coordination across brain systems--that is, lower coordination among areas involved in goal-directed attention, and higher coordination among areas involved in self-focused thought--went on to report bigger increases in depression two weeks later, bigger mood swings, and higher intensity of negative mood in daily life," said Dr. Kaiser.

Network functioning provided a better prediction of future mood health beyond current symptoms--a critical distinction, the authors wrote, as it suggests that frontoinsular network functioning could predict who might develop more severe depression between two teens with the same current symptoms.

"This very interesting study highlights the important role that frontoinsular circuits, measured using fMRI during the processing of emotional stimuli, may play in regulating our mood, and how impairment in the function of this network may underlie present and ongoing negative mood states," said Cameron Carter, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.

Although the study assessed mood health at only two weeks later, the findings indicate that frontoinsular network functioning may be useful to predict future mood health in teens. If confirmed in longer clinical studies, the findings suggest that this measure could provide a neurobiological risk predictor to help guide interventions to prevent severe depression.

Academic medical centers across the country and around the world are rapidly creating and expanding population health departments to bridge the worlds of clinical practice and public health. However, few frameworks exist to guide these efforts. Now a new case study from a pioneering leader in the field provides an important and definitive road map.

The report -- published by the Department of Population Health at NYU School of Medicine in the June 2019 issue of Academic Medicine -- includes four core approaches to improving health and reducing health inequities:

Engaging community partners to ensure that research goals and activities align with real-world priorities

Turning information into insight through rigorous analysis of data from diverse sources

Transforming healthcare to bridge the divide between research and clinical operations

Shaping policy by expanding the evidence base for and evaluating policies that advance population health

"While departments of Population Health are emerging independently at multiple institutions across the country, they share a number of core goals," says Marc N. Gourevitch, MD, MPH , the Muriel G. and George W. Singer Professor and chair of the Department of Population Health at NYU School of Medicine, and co-author of the case study. "We offer an approach for academic medical centers to promote health across the domains of research, education, and practice."

Launched in 2012, the Department of Population Health at NYU School of Medicine was one of the first departments of its kind in the country -- and now the largest, with nearly 100 full-time faculty and 350 staff. Its roster of interdisciplinary research encompasses numerous disciplines including community-engaged preventive health; mathematical modeling of health interventions; biomedical ethics, early childhood development; and healthcare delivery system improvements. Its faculty have published more than 2,000 peer-reviewed academic articles, and the Department has more than doubled its extramural funding, exceeding $49 million this year (of which 49 percent is from the National Institutes of Health).

A Record of Achievement

The report cites examples of successful initiatives that correspond to the four core approaches proposed as a framework for departments of population health:

Engaging community health workers from South Asian communities burdened by high rates of diabetes and hypertension to work with residents to prevent and manage diabetes, and from barbershops and churches in the African American community to promote colorectal screening among black men --the population most likely to die from colorectal cancer in the U.S.

Exploring the connection between the presence of specific communities of oral bacteria and the subsequent development of different cancers by applying novel computational approaches, and investigating whether or not modifiable behaviors such as smoking and consuming specific foods increase risk for developing these oral bacteria profiles

Supporting transformation of health care delivery from a volume- to a value-based approach by developing new models for improving and linking community-based, office-based, and hospital-based care through information technology, identifying high-risk populations, and evaluating the effectiveness of value-based care interventions.

Determining the influence of policies to alter the food environment on health outcomes such as childhood obesity, diabetes, and cancer

Gourevitch and Lorna Thorpe, PhD, MPH , professor of Population Health and director of the department's Division of Epidemiology -- and the case study's co-author - agree that Population Health departments face a number of common challenges. These include tensions in balancing priorities of research, practice, and evaluation; sustaining an integrated, interdisciplinary approach; and perhaps the largest hurdle, the lack of financial models that reward health care delivery systems for investing meaningfully in the health of geographic populations.

Despite these challenges, "academic medical centers and health systems across the country will increasingly endorse population health, not only to achieve the improved outcomes that come from addressing patients' social needs but also to harness resources and expertise in measuring the impact of novel approaches on the health of clinical populations and the communities in which they live," Thorpe says.

Gourevitch recently co-authored another study--along with eight other population health department chairs nationwide--describing the emergence and growth of the field in U.S. academic medicine in the journal JAMA Network Open . Key findings in that study also highlighted common elements and opportunities, and challenges across these new academic entities.

"Health systems achieve their missions most successfully when they partner with the communities they serve to create programs that meet defined needs," says Robert I. Grossman, MD, the Saul J. Farber Dean of NYU School of Medicine and CEO of NYU Langone Health. "In addition to providing outstanding clinical care, we foster broad-based investigation into what most benefits communities in sustaining good health and quality of life. Our Department of Population Health leads much of this effort."

WHAT:

The experimental antiviral drug remdesivir completely protected four African green monkeys from a lethal dose of Nipah virus, according to a new study in Science Translational Medicine from National Institutes of Health scientists and colleagues.

First identified in 1999 in Malaysia, Nipah virus is an emerging pathogen found primarily in Bangladesh and India. The virus is spread to humans by fruit bats; person-to-person transmission also occurs. Nipah virus can cause neurological and respiratory disease; the mortality rate is about 70%. Delayed relapse, manifesting as brain inflammation or encephalitis, can occur. An outbreak in May 2018 in India resulted in 23 cases and 21 deaths.

Gilead Sciences, Inc., is developing remdesivir and, in collaboration with scientists from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), performed initial laboratory studies evaluating the drug against Nipah virus. Researchers from CDC and NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) collaborated on the concept for the monkey study. NIAID then conducted the monkey studies with laboratory serology and pathology support from CDC. Animals infected with a lethal dose of Nipah virus received a first dose of intravenous remdesivir 24 hours after infection and then a daily intravenous dose for a total of 12 consecutive days. The NIAID team observed the animals for 92 days after infection, taking clinical samples 14 times during that span. The long period of observation allowed scientists adequate time to monitor the central nervous system for disease, which can be slow to develop when caused by Nipah virus. Two treated animals developed mild respiratory signs that resolved within three weeks; the other two treated animals showed no signs of illness. All four remained apparently healthy for the remainder of the study. Four untreated animals also received a lethal dose of Nipah virus. They began showing signs of illness within four days of infection and rapidly developed fatal disease within eight days.

Scientists next plan to evaluate delayed drug administration to determine how long after infection the animals can be treated successfully. Remdesivir is the second experimental treatment, after monoclonal antibody m102.4, shown to prevent severe Nipah virus disease in a monkey model when administered after the animals are infected.

More than a dozen chemical blends could serve as alternative refrigerants that won't heat the atmosphere as much as today's refrigerants do, or catch fire, according to a new computational study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The NIST study identified the 22 "best" nonflammable or marginally flammable blends with lower global warming potential (GWP)--a measure of how much heat a gas will trap if released into the atmosphere--than the current standard refrigerant for vehicle air conditioning (AC), called R-134a (tetrafluoroethane).

Most of the identified blends combine R-134a with one or two other commercial refrigerants.

The new NIST analysis, which was conducted for the U.S. military but also applies to civilian applications such as AC systems for homes and cars, is a follow-up to a 2017 NIST study that found that all single-component, climate-friendly refrigerants were at least marginally flammable. That study suggested blends might offer the optimal solutions.

"The military is insistent about wanting non-flammable blends, but the civilian applications are moving more and more toward at least marginally flammable mixtures," NIST mechanical engineer and study lead author Ian Bell said.

To help reduce global warming, nearly 200 nations, including the United States, agreed in 2016 to amend the Montreal Protocol to phase down by mid-century the refrigerants used in most AC systems. The partial phasedown, rather than a complete phaseout, recognized the complicated choices that will need to be made to select replacements.

For the new study, NIST researchers selected 13 fluids within a range of pressure, flammability, and GWP values that might produce a blend with the desired characteristics. All fluids were low in toxicity and commercially available. The researchers conducted an extensive evaluation of all possible combinations of two or three of the 13 fluids.

The fluids included hydrofluoroolefins, which have very low GWP but are mildly flammable; nonflammable hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) with moderate-to-high GWP; mildly flammable HFCs; and carbon dioxide, which is nonflammable and also has a very low GWP of 1, but would raise the operating pressure of a blend, which is undesirable.

NIST researchers did not find any blends that met all desired constraints--nonflammability, low GWP, high efficiency (cooling per unit of work), and overall cooling capacity similar to that of the R-134a baseline system.

The study identified 14 nonflammable blends that offered a reduction in GWP of, at most, 51 percent compared to R-134a's GWP of 1300. An additional eight blends that were marginally flammable were identified with GWP reductions of as much as 99 percent. Researchers simulated the performance of these 22 blends in a detailed refrigeration cycle model. The study was performed using computational tools; researchers plan to carry out laboratory experiments to verify the results.

The study revealed several trends. The most promising nonflammable blends have slightly lower efficiency compared to R-134a. These nonflammable blends have a lower GWP limit of 640; this is due to the need for a lot of R-134a in the mixture to suppress the flammability of low-GWP fluids. Other blends containing a significant amount of carbon dioxide were also nonflammable, but these had very low efficiencies compared to R-134a and were not considered viable alternatives.

There is also a general trend of efficiency increasing in tandem with GWP and flammability. This is because lower-GWP fluids tend to be more complex molecules and this complexity can hinder refrigeration performance.

"The 'good' blends that we found are very borderline nonflammable," Bell cautioned. "That doesn't mean that they won't still burn given the right environment. We need to be cautious, because this is sort of a dark art. There is a fundamental trade-off: If you really want nonflammability and efficiency, you won't get both. You will get one or the other."

Pregnant African American women are more likely than white women to give birth prematurely, but they’re underrepresented in studies of preterm birth rates. Snehalata Huzurbazar, a biostatistics professor in the West Virginia University School of Public Health, is working to change that.

In a recent study, she and her colleagues analyzed how pregnant women’s vaginal microbiomes correlated to preterm birth rates. They identified bacteria species that proliferated in women who gave birth early. Because most of the study’s participants were African American, the findings may help healthcare providers predict and prevent preterm birth in this at-risk population. Their results appear in Nature Medicine.

The researchers scrutinized data from the Multi-Omic Microbiome Study–Pregnancy Initiative, a collaborative project centered at Virginia Commonwealth University. They considered the vaginal microbiomes of 45 women who gave birth prematurely and 90 whose pregnancies extended through term. About 78 percent of the women in each group were African American.

“Given where VCU is—in the Richmond area—you have a predominantly African American population, and so that’s who shows up at the VCU clinics,” Huzurbazar said. “That’s a really useful thing because a lot of other studies are mostly done with large groups of people of European descent.”

Another useful thing was the timespan the data represented. Because the data spanned all trimesters of pregnancy—and even extended into the postpartum period—the researchers could track how the bacterial communities changed over time.

They found that by the second trimester, women who would eventually give birth prematurely harbored much larger populations of certain vaginal bacteria than their full-term counterparts did. In addition, they had smaller populations of Lactobacillus crispatus. That’s noteworthy because a Lactobacillus-dominated microbiome is a hallmark of a healthy reproductive tract. These differences only grew more pronounced as the pregnancies progressed.

The researchers also discovered that the microbial profile associated with preterm birth correlated to a greater presence of proinflammatory proteins—called cytokines—in vaginal fluid.

“Microbiome data is relatively new—especially the vaginal microbiome—so a lot of it is looking at the data and figuring out what you see in terms of correlation,” Huzurbazar said. “The next steps are doing the basic science to find out, for example, how the cytokines potentially affect preterm birth.”

Their findings may influence how pregnant women’s risk of preterm birth is assessed. For example, perhaps their vaginal microbiomes could be screened for the bacteria at issue.

“We don’t know why the microbiome looks different. A large part of the microbiome—whether it’s gut or vaginal or whatever—might have to do with access to healthcare, socioeconomic factors and so on,” Huzurbazar said. “The bigger goal is to try to figure out early on which women are more likely to have preterm births. Then you can do something about it because you have some time for intervention.”

The project might also have implications beyond the clinical environment. It may improve how scientists—especially statisticians—make sense of microbiome data, even when dealing with other parts of the body. One woman’s vaginal microbiome may comprise 400 distinct types of bacteria. The digestive tract hosts more than 1,200. Analyzing that many data points—and seeing how they relate to separate sets of data, such as cytokine counts—is a challenge.

“We’re still developing methods, as a field, to try to figure out how to analyze and integrate completely different types of data. It’s very exploratory, and from a biostats perspective, I think that’s an important point,” she said. “The science is new.”

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Institutes of Health under Award Numbers UH3AI083263, U54HD080784, R21HD092965, 1R01HD092415 and R25GM090084. The Global Alliance to Prevent Prematurity and Stillbirth also provided support. The findings and conclusions in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position of NIH or GAPPS.

Citation

Title: The vaginal microbiome and preterm birth

DOI: 10.1038/s41591-019-0450-2

Link: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41591-019-0450-2

Journal

Nature Medicine

DOI

10.1038/s41591-019-0450-2

PULLMAN, Wash. - Research from Washington State University could provide government regulators with powerful new tools for addressing a bevy of commercial claims and other concerns as non-medical marijuana, hemp and CBD products become more commonplace. The new analysis of the genetic and chemical characteristics of cannabis is believed to be the first thorough examination of its kind.

The current method is inadequate, says Mark Lange, a professor in WSU's Institute for Biological Chemistry. Regulators focus on levels of the psychoactive compound THC and just a handful of the more than 90 other cannabinoids. The industry makes various claims about different strains, from sedating indicas to invigorating sativas, Acapulco Gold to Zkittlez, but they defy objective analysis.

"There is a reason why all these strains have different names - because a lot of them are very different," said Lange. "But some strains with different names are actually very similar. The bottom line is there is a lot of confusion."

Until now.

Lange and his colleagues analyzed genetic sequences from nine commercial cannabis strains and found distinct gene networks orchestrating each strain's production of cannabinoid resins and terpenes, volatile compounds behind the plant's powerful aroma.

Their research was published today in the journal Plant Physiology.

Armed with this new tool, people can start to sort out a variety of issues that are already emerging as recreational cannabis is legal in 11 states, including the entire West Coast, and hemp is legal across the country.

Lange's analytical method, for example, can be used to clearly delineate between psychoactive cannabis and hemp, which by law has to have less than 0.3 percent THC. It might help identify the skunky smell that elicits complaints from the neighbors of pot farms, opening a way to breed and grow something easier on the nose. It can test the health claims of cannabidiol, known by the shorthand CBD, or the alleged synergy, known as the "entourage effect," between cannabis compounds.

It can truth squad your bud tender.

"One of the things that needs to happen in the emerging market is that you know what you're selling," said Lange. "You can't just call it something and then that's good. We need to be very clear that this is the cannabinoid profile that is associated with, say, Harlequin -it has a specific cannabinoid profile, a specific terpenoid profile, and that's what it is. If it has a different name, then it should have a different profile. Currently you can do whatever you want."

Lange is an expert on trichomes, the resin-producing glands of plants like mint. But in this case, he could not touch the plant if he was to comply with federal and university policy on cannabis research. All the material was handled by EVIO Labs, a private cannabis testing company licensed by the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. Anthony Smith, an EVIO biochemist and co-author, drew RNA from each strain by abrading trichomes with glass beads and filtering the material. A third party sequenced the RNA. In the end, Lange and his team touched only a high-resolution data set that clearly marks both the genes of each strain and their end products.

(Boston)--Specific molecules (small noncoding microRNAs or miRNAs) found in saliva may be able to predict alcohol dependence as biomarkers.

This is the first study to examine changes in the miRNA expression in the saliva of people with alcohol dependence. Currently, no genetic markers exist to test for this condition.

Alcohol dependence is a common, complex and genetically inuenced disorder. A current diagnosis depends primarily on self-reported symptoms, which is limited by inaccurate recall or reluctance of patients to give accurate information on their drinking behaviors or alcohol-related problems.

Researchers from Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) first used miRNA sequencing (miRNA-seq) technology to prole miRNA transcriptomes in the saliva of patients with alcohol dependence and healthy control subjects from both African-American (AA) and European-American (EA) populations. They then identied salivary miRNAs that expressed differently in people with alcohol dependence as compared to the control group. Using a machine learning approach, the researchers were then able to predict alcohol dependency in approximately 80 percent of AAs and 72 percent of EAs.

According to the researchers, there is considerable interest in the identication of biological measurements (or biomarkers) to assess a patient's current or past alcohol use.

"The identication of disease-specic biomarkers in easily accessible body uids such as saliva can result in the early diagnosis and treatment of diseases. This study provides initial evidence that salivary miRNAs are potential biomarkers for this illness," explained corresponding author Huiping Zhang, PhD, associate professor of psychiatry at BUSM.

WHAT:

A research project funded by the National Institutes of Health has identified differences in the vaginal bacteria that may raise the risk of preterm birth among pregnant African-American women. The findings could be a first step toward the development of a screen for the early identification of preterm birth risk in this population. The study was conducted by Jennifer Fettweis, Ph.D., of Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond and colleagues. It appears in Nature Medicine.

The researchers analyzed a subset of more than 1,500 women participating in the NIH Common Fund's Human Microbiome Project. They obtained samples of vaginal bacteria from 45 pregnant women who ultimately delivered preterm and compared them to similar samples from 90 pregnant women who delivered at term. Nearly 80% of the women in this subset, both those who delivered preterm and at term, were African-American, and the remainder were white, Hispanic, and American Indian/Alaska native.

The women who delivered preterm had a much more diverse microbiome in early pregnancy, compared to their peers. The preterm group had lower levels of the bacterium Lactobacillus crispatus, higher levels of BVAB1, a bacterium associated with a condition called bacterial vaginosis, and 12 other bacterial groups. The researchers linked this combination of bacterial species to the presence of immune system factors that promote inflammation. Previous studies have found higher levels of inflammation-promoting factors in women who deliver preterm. The authors note that larger studies are necessary to confirm their findings.

KINGSTON, R.I. -- May 29, 2019 -- Scientists with a NASA-led expedition are operating from the Inner Space Center at the University of Rhode Island's Graduate School of Oceanography as colleagues explore the deep Pacific Ocean to prepare to search for life in deep space.

The SUBSEA (Systematic Underwater Biogeochemical Science and Exploration Analog) research program is a partnership among NASA's Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the Ocean Exploration Trust and various academic centers that blend ocean and space research to better understand if the watery worlds found on moons and planets in our solar system offer conditions that could support microbial life.

Last year, the SUBSEA shipboard team used remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) deployed from the Ocean Exploration Trust's E/V Nautilus to explore Lō’ihi Seamount, an underwater volcano off the southeastern coast of the Big Island of Hawaii. The type of hydrothermal venting at the Lō’ihi Seamount is a good representation of conditions scientists believe exist on certain moons in the outer solar system. The onshore NASA team, stationed in Mission Control at the Inner Space Center, learned how scientists and engineers communicate science objectives via telepresence.

The NASA team returns to the Inner Space Center through June 8 to test specialized mission-planning software as part of NASA's long-term strategy for achieving extended human presence in deep-space. Scientists will study the work practices, habits, communication and information flows necessary to conduct remote science and exploration by observing operations conducted by the SUBSEA teams on the E/V Nautilus and at the Inner Space Center.

"The m+ost important role of the Inner Space Center for the SUBSEA project is to help NASA learn how to use telepresence for ocean exploration as an analog to how it may be used for space exploration," said Dwight Coleman, director of the Inner Space Center.

SUBSEA researchers aboard E/V Nautilus will conduct field programs at the Gorda Ridge offshore of northern California and Oregon. This section of mid-ocean ridge is of interest to ocean researchers because it is home to seafloor hydrothermal activity that departs from the convention of black smoker hydrothermal systems, instead emitting clear fluids from the seafloor.

The public will be able to watch exploration of the seafloor via 24/7 live stream at http://www.nautiluslive.org as ROVs collect high definition video footage from the sea floor.

A human-robotic voyage to the moon or Mars might parallel SUBSEA's mission architecture using robotic explorers controlled by humans nearby as directed by a remote team of scientists. Using the Inner Space Center's cutting edge technology -- including telepresence -- for ocean research, exploration and education, the SUBSEA team will be able to test, evaluate and improve the necessary processes and technology tools needed for deep space exploration.

Ultimately, the results of SUBSEA's research will inform strategies for conducting science via tele-operations at destinations in space as well as scientists' understanding of a wider range of deep-sea environments for conducting ocean research.

"The Inner Space Center is the world leader in supporting telepresence-based ocean exploration missions, so we're excited to serve as a base of operations for this groundbreaking project," said Coleman.

Manuka honey could provide the key to a breakthrough treatment for cystic fibrosis patients following preliminary work by experts at Swansea University.

Dr Rowena Jenkins and Dr Aled Roberts have found that using Manuka honey could offer an antibiotic alternative to treat antimicrobial resistant respiratory infections, particularly deadly bacteria found in Cystic Fibrosis (CF) infections.

Using lung tissue from pigs, experts treated grown bacterial infections mimicking those seen in CF patients with Manuka honey. The results showed that it was effective in killing antimicrobial resistant bacteria by 39% compared to 29% for antibiotics, whilst improving the activity of some antibiotics that were unable to function effectively by themselves, honey and antibiotics combined killed 90% of the bacteria tested.

CF is one of the UK's most common life-threatening inherited diseases, with around 10,400 people in the UK suffering according to the CF Trust. A government review led by Lord Jim O'Neill also highlighted the threat of antimicrobial resistance, estimating that a continued rise in resistance by 2050 would lead to 10 million people dying every year from antimicrobial resistant infections.

A problem that CF patients suffer from are chronic and long-lasting respiratory infections which often prove fatal due to the presence of certain bacteria that are resistant to many (if not all) the antibiotics that doctors currently have at their disposal.

Bacteria that cannot be removed from the lungs through antibiotic treatment can, as a last resort, be removed by providing patients with newly transplanted lungs. This has some associated risks, however, as the bacteria that caused the original infection can still be found in the upper airway, and migrate into the new lungs, thus making the transplant ineffective.

Some patients have a worse prognosis as they are infected with deadly types of bacteria, such as Pseudomonas and Burkholderia cepacia complex, which are difficult to kill (due to multiple antibiotic resistance) and cause extensive damage to the lungs. In some instances, merely their presence within a patient can prevent them from receiving life-saving lung transplants.

The effectiveness of antibiotics against these deadly infections is a huge concern, making the need to find suitable, non-toxic alternatives, which are effective at killing the bacteria a top priority.

Honey has been used for thousands of years as a medicinal product. More recently, research has shown that Manuka honey is capable of killing antibiotic resistant bacteria present in surface wounds. Funding from The Waterloo Foundation and The Hodge Foundation has allowed research to look at it as an antibiotic alternative in CF infections.

Dr Rowena Jenkins, Lecturer in Microbiology and Infectious Diseases at Swansea University, said:

"The preliminary results are very promising and should these be replicated in the clinical setting then this could open up additional treatment options for those with cystic fibrosis infections.

"The synergy with antibiotics and absence of resistance seen in the laboratory has allowed us to move into the current clinical trial, investigating the potential for Manuka honey as part of a sinus rinse for alleviating infection in the upper airway."

NEW YORK -- From a child snapping Legos together to a pickpocket plucking a wallet from your bag, our brains have a remarkable ability to spot new objects and figure out how to manipulate them. Scientists have long believed that the brain accomplishes this by methodically interpreting visual and textural cues, such as an object's edges or boundaries. But a new study suggests that the human brain requires only a tiny bit of information, as well as its previous experience, to calculate a complete mental representation of a new object. These results help to explain the mental mathematics that enable us to easily know what a novel object looks like simply by touching it, or the way an object feels from sight alone.

This study, led by researchers at Columbia University, the University of Cambridge and the Central European University and reported in the journal eLife, illustrates the brain's natural power to learn quickly and generalize.

"Our brains' ability to single out one object from many by touch -- the way pickpockets use their fingers to hone in on a wallet deep inside a purse -- is a broadly used skill, and key to our ability to interact with the world," said Daniel Wolpert, PhD, a principal investigator at Columbia's Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and the study's co-senior author. "Our latest study exemplifies the brain's knack for performing mathematics to infer an object's identity."

Nearly 40 years ago, scientists trying to understand how we identify individual objects proposed that the edges or boundaries of each item allow us to distinguish one object from the next. But Dr. Wolpert and the research team hypothesized that this explanation did not tell the whole story and was perhaps a smaller part of a much larger, more generalized principle of how the brain infers properties about its surroundings.

"We wondered whether our brains could do more, with less," said Máté Lengyel, PhD, professor of computational neuroscience from the University of Cambridge, a research fellow at the Central European University and one of the study's senior authors. "Perhaps they don't need to acquire and analyze boundary information systematically in order to identify an object, but can instead work out an object's identity by performing clever statistical analyses that also incorporate memories and experiences,"

These "clever statistical analyses," Dr. Lengyel and his colleagues thought, could allow our brains to not only immediately identify objects we've encountered before, but also predict key properties of new objects we come across.

To test their object-identification hypothesis, the researchers developed a simple computer game where players watched jigsaw-like puzzle pieces stuck together in various combinations on a screen. Their task, which they generally did with ease, was to recognize which combinations appeared together more frequently.

"The players' brains were able to gather visual information about the pairs of puzzle pieces, such as which pieces were most often found together, or which looked easiest to pull apart," said Dr. Wolpert, who is also a professor of neuroscience at Columbia's Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.

A second set of participants was given similar scenes of puzzle pieces stuck together. But instead of using their eyes to work out which pieces went together as a pair, they used their sense of touch. Scientists call this form of identification haptic perception.

The players grasped two handles -- mounted to a robotic contraption that controlled the forces the player experienced when ripping apart different sets of puzzle pieces. Some combinations were easy to pull apart; others, more difficult.

After providing visual or haptic information to each of the two groups of players, the research team swapped the groups; the visual group now evaluated puzzle pieces using their sense of touch, and the haptic group now used their sense of vision.

"Our results of this swap revealed players' adeptness to take the knowledge they had learned from one of the two modalities -- either visual or haptic -- and extrapolate to the other modality," said Dr. Lengyel.

These findings challenge the conventional view of how our brains extract and learn about our environment. Even when faced with a minimal amount of source material -- a small amount of statistics about how often two objects appeared together, or how much force it took to pull them apart -- the human brain could make powerful inferences and connections.

"Our study shows that our brains are wondrously adept at generalizing from one modality, such as vision, to another, such as touch," said Dr. Wolpert. "This may be because our brains have calculated a statistical understanding of how objects behave based on our previous experiences. This study further reveals that the computations our brains perform are sufficiently powerful for achieving a multitude of cognitive feats -- whether it be picking someone's pocket or imagining the feel of a leather purse in a window display."

Taxes on sugary products and labels on the front of packages can help reduce sugar consumption, according to a study from the University of Waterloo.

The study, which included more than 3,500 people aged 13 and over on their purchasing behaviour last spring, also found that taxes could have the greatest impact if 100 per cent fruit juice was included in reduction efforts.

"Governments don't need to wait to implement these policies; they're already used in many other parts of the world and are successful in helping people make healthier food choices," said Rachel Acton, a doctoral student in the School of Public Health & Health Systems. "Many people don't realize that fruit juice can have just as much sugar, or more, as regular pop, and these types of drinks aren't always included in a tax when evidence shows that maybe they should be."

In the study, participants purchased food and snacks in scenarios involving different levels of sugar taxes, as well as different types of 'front-of-package' labels, including labels that have been proposed by Health Canada that warn consumers about high levels of sugar, salt, and saturated fat in pre-packaged foods.

The study found that when prices increased due to taxes, or packages displayed nutrition labels such as the 'high in sugar' label on the front of packs, people bought drinks and snacks with less sugar, sodium, saturated fat and calories.

"One interesting finding was that the 'high in' labels proved to be most effective at encouraging purchases with less sugar, sodium, saturated fat and calories," said Acton. "This is the type of labelling system the Canadian government is considering, and has been already implemented in Chile.

"Other systems, like the traffic light labeling used in the U.K. and the health star ratings used in Australia and New Zealand, had some impacts on people's purchases, but to a lesser extent." Traffic light labels use a red-yellow-green rating, while health star labels use ratings to indicate overall healthiness.

Co-author David Hammond, a professor in the School of Public Health and Health Systems, said, "Taxes on sugary drinks and better nutrition labels are the types of measures that can help reverse increasing rates of obesity and chronic disease from unhealthy diets. Evidence is particularly important given strong opposition from the industry. Indeed, industry lobbying has delayed and threatens to derail the nutrition labels announced by the federal government more than a year ago."

Research carried out by the University of Kent has found differences between the knuckle joints of primates that will enable a better understanding of ancient human hand use.

Using samples from the Powell-Cotton Museum in Birchington-on-Sea (UK), as well as samples from Germany, Belgium and the USA, a team led by School of Anthropology and Conservation (SAC) PhD student Christopher Dunmore examined the internal bone structure, called trabeculae or cancellous bone, of great apes.

Trabecular bone is a honeycomb structure that is found within most bones and changes depending on what that bone is used for during a lifetime. When it is preserved in fossils, researchers can learn more about how ancient apes as well as humans moved and interacted with their environment.

The study compared the internal bone structure of the knuckle joints in chimpanzee, bonobo, orang-utan and gorilla hands, to assess whether this bone structure records how these apes moved when knuckle-walking on the ground or hanging from trees.

The researchers found the knuckle joints of orang-utans were consistent with flexing the knuckles while grasping branches, while the joints of chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas were consistent with knuckle-walking - the most frequent ways in which these animals move around in their respective environments.

The information will now enable scientists studying fossils to better understand whether ancient humans were swinging from trees or walking on the ground.

Mr Dunmore said: 'For the first time we see interesting internal bone patterns differentiating subtle differences between chimpanzee and gorilla knuckle-walking, as well as arboreal grasping in orang-utans. This matters because when we find ancient human hand fossils that preserve their internal structure, we can work out if they were probably swinging from trees during their lifetime or if they were walking on the ground more like humans today.'

A new U of T study has for the first time outlined a few key advantages that extroverts enjoy in the workplace.

"There's been much debate in popular culture recently about the advantages and disadvantages extroverts have in the workplace, but it often overlooks the scientific literature," says Michael Wilmot, a postdoc in the Department of Management at U of T Scarborough who led the study.

"We wanted to delve into this research to find out how and to what extent extroversion relates to things relevant to success in the workplace across the lifespan of people."

A prototypical extrovert can be defined as talkative, outgoing, prefers taking charge, expresses positive emotion and enjoys seeking out new experiences, explains Wilmot. By comparison, a prototypical introvert is quiet, emotionally reserved, less energetic, and harder to get to know.

The study, published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, offers the most comprehensive review of existing research (91 meta-analyses in total) relating to extroversion and work-related variables. These variables (165 in total) include things like motivation, work-life balance, emotional well-being and performance. Supporting data was taken from studies across multiple countries, from different occupations and across different career moments including education, job application, and on the job evaluations.

Wilmot and his co-authors at the University of Minnesota found that higher extroversion was desirable for 90 percent of variables, which suggests a small, persistent advantage in the workplace. However, it was in four categories that extroverts enjoy a distinct advantage; motivational, emotional, interpersonal and performance-related.

"These four appear to really capture the strongest positive effects of extroversion at work," says Wilmot, whose research looks at how organizations use personality measures to solve workplace challenges.

Wilmot says extroversion is linked with a greater motivation to achieve positive goals - in this case as a desired reward through work. It's also closely associated with experiencing positive emotions more regularly. As he points out, a happy employee is not only more satisfied with life, they also tend to work harder and are perceived as a better leader as a result. Positive emotions also act as a buffer against stress or adverse experiences at work.

Since extroverts like to be around other people, the third advantage has to do with socializing. By virtue of stronger communication skills, extroverts tend to adapt better to different social situations and are adept at persuasion, which is also a strong leadership skill.

The fourth advantage is in job performance. "This was a real surprise," says Wilmot, who points to past research that has found out of the big five personality traits, only conscientiousness and emotional stability generally predicted performance across different occupations.

He says the reason for better performance likely appears to come from a combination of the three previous advantages.

"If you're motivated to achieve a goal at work, if you're feeling positive and you're good at dealing with people, you're probably going to perform better on the job," he says. "These advantages appear to have a cumulative effect over the span of one's career."

So what does this mean for introverts?

Wilmot says while it's generally advantageous to be extroverted, introverts shouldn't interpret these findings to suggest they will be at an inevitable disadvantage.

First, as Wilmot notes, few people can be defined purely as an introvert or extrovert, and that everyone displays a range of extroverted and introverted behaviors.

There are also numerous other characteristics that contribute to workplace success, including cognitive ability, conscientiousness, and the ability to regulate negative emotions.

A limitation of the study is that it only looked at extroversion and work-related variables. Wilmot adds there are many jobs (computer programming, for instance) where introverted characteristics like listening skills or the ability to focus would be more beneficial.

"You might be more introverted, but if you're intelligent, work hard and bring other things to the table, you're probably going to do well," he says.

"At the same time, if you're more extroverted, but lack the cognitive ability or work ethic, you're probably not going to be as successful."