Tag: science

Growing plants in space

On By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment


Zinnias such as this one were among the first flowers to be grown on the International Space Station.

Researchers on the International Space Station are growing plants in systems that may one day sustain astronauts traveling far across the solar system and beyond.

Vibrant orange flowers crown a leafy green stem. The plant is surrounded by many just like it, growing in an artificially lit greenhouse about the size of a laboratory vent hood. On Earth, these zinnias, colorful members of the daisy family, probably wouldn’t seem so extraordinary. But these blooms are literally out of this world. Housed on the International Space Station (ISS), orbiting 381 kilometers above Earth, they are among the first flowers grown in space and set the stage for the cultivation of all sorts of plants even farther from humanity’s home planet.

Coaxing this little flower to bloom wasn’t easy, Gioia Massa, a plant biologist at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, tells The Scientist. “Microgravity changes the way we grow plants.” With limited gravitational tug on them, plants aren’t sure which way to send their roots or shoots. They can easily dry out, too. In space, air and water don’t mix the way they do on Earth—liquid droplets glom together into large blobs that float about, instead of staying at the roots.

Massa is part of a group of scientists trying to overcome those challenges with a benchtop greenhouse called the Vegetable Production System, or Veggie. The system is a prototype for much larger greenhouses that could one day sustain astronauts on journeys to explore Mars. “As we’re looking to go deeper into space, we’re going to need ways to support astronaut crews nutritionally and cut costs financially,” says Matthew Romeyn, a long-duration food production scientist at Kennedy Space Center. “It’s a lot cheaper to send seeds than prepackaged food.”

In March 2014, Massa and colleagues developed “plant pillows”—small bags with fabric surfaces that contained a bit of soil and fertilizer in which to plant seeds. The bags sat atop a reservoir designed to wick water to the plants’ roots when needed (Open Agriculture, 2:33-41, 2017). At first, the ISS’s pillow-grown zinnias were getting too much water and turning moldy. After the crew ramped up the speed of Veggie’s fans, the flowers started drying out—an issue relayed to the scientists on the ground in 2015 by astronaut Scott Kelly, who took a special interest in the zinnias. Kelly suggested the astronauts water the plants by hand, just like a gardener would on Earth. A little injection of water into the pillows here and there, and the plants perked right up, Massa says.

With the zinnias growing happily, the astronauts began cultivating other flora, including cabbage, lettuce, and microgreens—shoots of salad vegetables—that they used to wrap their burgers and even to make imitation lobster rolls. The gardening helped to boost the astronauts’ diets, and also, anecdotally, brought them joy. “We’re just starting to study the psychological benefits of plants in space,” Massa says, noting that gardening has been shown to relieve stress. “If we’re going to have this opportunity available for longer-term missions, we have to start now.”

The team is currently working to make the greenhouses less dependent on people, as tending to plants during space missions might take astronauts away from more-critical tasks, Massa says. The researchers recently developed Veggie PONDS (Passive Orbital Nutrient Delivery System) with help from Techshot and Tupperware Brands Corporation. This system still uses absorbent mats to wick water to plants’ seeds and roots, but does so more consistently by evenly distributing the moisture. As a result, the crew shouldn’t have to keep such a close eye on the vegetation, and should be able to grow hard-to-cultivate garden plants, such as tomatoes and peppers. Time will tell. NASA sent Veggie PONDS to the ISS this past March, and astronauts are just now starting to compare the new system’s capabilities to those of Veggie.

“What they are doing on the ISS is really neat,” says astronomer Ed Guinan of the University of Pennsylvania. If astronauts are going to venture into deep space and be able to feed themselves, then they need to know how plants grow in environments other than Earth, and which grow best. The projects on the ISS will help answer those questions, he says. Guinan was so inspired by the ISS greenhouses he started his own project in 2017 studying how plants would grow in the soil of Mars—a likely future destination for manned space exploration. He ordered soil with characteristics of Martian dirt and told students in his astrobiology course, “You’re on Mars, there’s a colony there, and it’s your job to feed them.” Most of the students worked to grow nutritious plants, such as kale and other leafy greens, though one tried hops, a key ingredient in beer making. The hops, along with some of the other greens, grew well, Guinan reported at the American Astronomical Society meeting in January.

Yet, if and when astronauts go to Mars, they probably won’t be using the Red Planet’s dirt to grow food, notes Gene Giacomelli, a horticultural engineer at the University of Arizona. There are toxic chemicals called perchlorates to contend with, among other challenges, making it more probable that a Martian greenhouse will operate on hydroponics, similar to the systems being tested on the ISS. “The idea is to simplify things,” says Giacomelli, who has sought to design just such a greenhouse. “If you think about Martian dirt, we know very little about it—so do I trust it is going to be able to feed me, or do I take a system I know will feed me?”

For the past 10 years, Giacomelli has been working with others on a project, conceived by now-deceased business owner Phil Sadler, to build a self-regulating greenhouse that could support a crew of astronauts. This is not a benchtop system like you find on the space station, but a 5.5-meter-long, 2-meter-diameter cylinder that unfurls into an expansive greenhouse with tightly controlled circulation of air and water. The goal of the project, which was suspended in December due to lack of funding, was to show that the lab-size greenhouse could truly sustain astronauts. The greenhouse was only partially successful; the team calculated that a single cylinder would provide plenty of fresh drinking water, but would produce less than half the daily oxygen and calories an astronaut would need to survive a space mission. Though the project is on hold, Giacomelli says he hopes it will one day continue.

This kind of work, both here and on the ISS, is essential to someday sustaining astronauts in deep space, Giacomelli says. And, if researchers can figure out how to make such hydroponic systems efficient and waste-free, he notes, “the heck with Mars and the moon, we could bring that technology back to Earth.”

https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/54637/title/Researchers-Grow-Veggies-in-Space/

An explanation of blood sugar

On By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment

By Alina Bradford

Blood sugar, or glucose, is the main sugar found in blood. The body gets glucose from the food we eat. This sugar is an important source of energy and provides nutrients to the body’s organs, muscles and nervous system. The absorption, storage and production of glucose is regulated constantly by complex processes involving the small intestine, liver and pancreas.

Glucose enters the bloodstream after a person has eaten carbohydrates. The endocrine system helps keep the bloodstream’s glucose levels in check using the pancreas. This organ produces the hormone insulin, releasing it after a person consumes protein or carbohydrates. The insulin sends excess glucose in the liver as glycogen.

The pancreas also produces a hormone called glucagon, which does the opposite of insulin, raising blood sugar levels when needed. The two hormones work together to keep glucose balanced.

When the body needs more sugar in the blood, the glucagon signals the liver to turn the glycogen back into glucose and release it into the bloodstream. This process is called glycogenolysis.

When there isn’t enough sugar to go around, the liver hoards the resource for the parts of the body that need it, including the brain, red blood cells and parts of the kidney. For the rest of the body, the liver makes ketones , which breaks down fat to use as fuel. The process of turning fat into ketones is called ketogenesis. The liver can also make sugar out of other things in the body, like amino acids, waste products and fat byproducts.

Glucose vs. dextrose
Dextrose is also a sugar. It’s chemically identical to glucose but is made from corn and rice, according to Healthline. It is often used as a sweetener in baking products and in processed foods. Dextrose also has medicinal purposes. It is dissolved in solutions that are given intravenously to increase a person’s blood sugar levels.

Normal blood sugar
For most people, 80 to 99 milligrams of sugar per deciliter before a meal and 80 to 140 mg/dl after a meal is normal. The American Diabetes Association says that most nonpregnant adults with diabetes should have 80 to 130 mg/dl before a meal and less than 180 mg/dl at 1 to 2 hours after beginning the meal.

These variations in blood-sugar levels, both before and after meals, reflect the way that the body absorbs and stores glucose. After you eat, your body breaks down the carbohydrates in food into smaller parts, including glucose, which the small intestine can absorb.

Problems
Diabetes happens when the body lacks insulin or because the body is not working effectively, according to Dr. Jennifer Loh, chief of the department of endocrinology for Kaiser Permanente in Hawaii. The disorder can be linked to many causes, including obesity, diet and family history, said Dr. Alyson Myers of Northwell Health in New York.

“To diagnose diabetes, we do an oral glucose-tolerance test with fasting,” Myers said.

Cells may develop a tolerance to insulin, making it necessary for the pancreas to produce and release more insulin to lower your blood sugar levels by the required amount. Eventually, the body can fail to produce enough insulin to keep up with the sugar coming into the body.

It can take decades to diagnose high blood-sugar levels, though. This may happen because the pancreas is so good at its job that a doctor can continue to get normal blood-glucose readings while insulin tolerance continues to increase, said Joy Stephenson-Laws, founder of Proactive Health Labs (pH Labs), a nonprofit that provides health care education and tools. She also wrote “Minerals – The Forgotten Nutrient: Your Secret Weapon for Getting and Staying Healthy” (Proactive Health Labs, 2016).

Health professionals can check blood sugar levels with an A1C test, which is a blood test for type 2 diabetes and prediabetes, according to the U.S. National Library of Medicine. This test measures your average blood glucose, or blood sugar, level over the previous three months.

Doctors may use the A1C alone or in combination with other diabetes tests to make a diagnosis. They also use the A1C to see how well you are managing your diabetes. This test is different from the blood sugar checks that people with diabetes do for themselves every day.

In the condition called hypoglycemia, the body fails to produce enough sugar. People with this disorder need treatment when blood sugar drops to 70 mg/dL or below. According to the Mayo Clinic, symptoms of hypoglycemia can be:

Tingling sensation around the mouth
Shakiness
Sweating
An irregular heart rhythm
Fatigue
Pale skin
Crying out during sleep
Anxiety
Hunger
Irritability


Keeping blood sugar in control

Stephenson-Laws said healthy individuals can keep their blood sugar at the appropriate levels using the following methods:

Maintaining a healthy weight

Talk with a competent health care professional about what an ideal weight for you should be before starting any kind of weight loss program.

Improving diet

Look for and select whole, unprocessed foods, like fruits and vegetables, instead of highly processed or prepared foods. Foods that have a lot of simple carbohydrates, like cookies and crackers, that your body can digest quickly tend to spike insulin levels and put additional stress on the pancreas. Also, avoid saturated fats and instead opt for unsaturated fats and high-fiber foods. Consider adding nuts, vegetables, herbs and spices to your diet.

Getting physical

A brisk walk for 30 minutes a day can greatly reduce blood sugar levels and increase insulin sensitivity.

Getting mineral levels checked

Research also shows that magnesium plays a vital role in helping insulin do its job. So, in addition to the other health benefits it provides, an adequate magnesium level can also reduce the chances of becoming insulin-tolerant.

Get insulin levels checked

Many doctors simply test for blood sugar and perform an A1C test, which primarily detects prediabetes or type 2 diabetes. Make sure you also get insulin checks.

https://www.livescience.com/62673-what-is-blood-sugar.html#?utm_source=ls-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=05272018-ls

Rapamycin lotion reduces facial tumors caused by tuberous sclerosis

On By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment


Researching tuberous sclerosis from the left are Adelaide Hebert, M.D.; John Slopis, M.D.; Mary Kay Koenig, M.D.; Joshua Samuels, M.D., M.P.H.; and Hope Northrup, M.D. PHOTO CREDIT Maricruz Kwon, UTHealth

Addressing a critical issue for people with a genetic disorder called tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC), doctors at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) reported that a skin cream containing rapamycin significantly reduced the disfiguring facial tumors affecting more than 90 percent of people with the condition.

Findings of the multicenter, international study involving 179 people with tuberous sclerosis complex appear in the journal JAMA Dermatology.

“People with tuberous sclerosis complex want to look like everyone else,” said Mary Kay Koenig, M.D., the study’s lead author, co-director of the Tuberous Sclerosis Center of Excellence and holder of the Endowed Chair of Mitochondrial Medicine at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth. “And, they can with this treatment.”

Tuberous sclerosis complex affects about 50,000 people in the United States and is characterized by the uncontrolled growth of non-cancerous tumors throughout the body.

While benign tumors in the kidney, brain and other organs pose the greater health risk, the tumors on the face produce a greater impact on a patient’s daily life by making them look different from everyone else, Koenig said.

Koenig’s team tested two compositions of facial cream containing rapamycin and a third with no rapamycin. Patients applied the cream at bedtime for six months.

“Eighty percent of patients getting the study drug experienced a significant improvement compared to 25 percent of those getting the mixture with no rapamycin,” she said.

“Angiofibromas on the face can be disfiguring, they can bleed and they can negatively impact quality of life for individuals with TSC,” said Kari Luther Rosbeck, president and CEO of the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance.

“Previous treatments, including laser surgery, have painful after effects. This pivotal study and publication are a huge step toward understanding the effectiveness of topical rapamycin as a treatment option. Further, it is funded by the TSC Research Program at the Department of Defense. We are so proud of this research,” Rosbeck said.

Rapamycin is typically given to patients undergoing an organ transplant. When administered by mouth, rapamycin suppresses the immune system to make sure the organ is not rejected.

Rapamycin and tuberous sclerosis complex are linked by a protein called mTOR. When it malfunctions, tuberous sclerosis complex occurs. Rapamycin corrects this malfunction.

Rapamycin was initially used successfully to treat brain tumors caused by tuberous sclerosis complex, so researchers decided to try it on TSC-related facial tumors. Building on a 2010 pilot study on the use of rapamycin to treat TSC-related facial tumors, this study confirmed that a cream containing rapamycin shrinks these tumors.

As the drug’s toxicity is a concern when taken by mouth, researchers were careful to check for problems tied to its use on the skin. “It looks like the medication stays on the surface of the skin. We didn’t see any appreciable levels in the bloodstreams of those participating in the study,” Koenig said.

The Topical Rapamycin to Erase Angiofibromas in TSC – Multicenter Evaluation of Novel Therapy or TREATMENT trial involved 10 test sites including one in Australia.

Koenig said additional studies are needed to gauge the long-term impact of the drug, the optimal dosage and whether the facial cream should be a combined with an oral treatment.

Koenig’s coauthors include Adelaide Hebert, M.D.; Joshua Samuels, M.D., M.P.H.; John Slopis, M.D.; Cynthia S. Bell; Joan Roberson, R.N.; Patti Tate; and Hope Northrup, M.D. All are from McGovern Medical School at UTHealth with the exception of Slopis, who is with The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Hebert is also on the faculty of the MD Anderson Cancer Center and Northrup on the faculty of The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center UTHealth Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences.

The study was supported in part by the United States Department of Defense grant DOD TSCRP CDMRP W81XWH-11-1-0240 and by the Tuberous Sclerosis Alliance of Australia.

“The face is our window to the world and when you look different from everyone else, it impacts your confidence and your ability to interact with others. This treatment will help those with TSC become more like everyone else,” Koenig said.

https://www.uth.edu/media/story.htm?id=37af25df-14a2-4c5e-b1ee-ac9585946aa0

New test is ably to reliably predict the risk of preterm birth

On By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment

By Laura Kurtzman

Scientists at UC San Francisco have developed a test to predict a woman’s risk of preterm birth when she is between 15 and 20 weeks pregnant, which may enable doctors to treat them early and thereby prevent severe complications later in the pregnancy.

Preterm birth is the leading cause of death for children under five in the United States, and rates are increasing both in the U.S. and around the world. It is often associated with inflammation and has many potential causes, including an acute infection in the mother, exposure to environmental toxins, or chronic conditions like hypertension and diabetes.

The new test screens for 25 biomarkers of inflammation and immune system activation, as well as for levels of proteins that are important for placenta development. Combined with information on other risk factors, such as the mother’s age and income, the test can predict whether a woman is at risk for preterm birth with more than 80 percent accuracy. In the highest risk pregnancies—preterm births occurring before 32 weeks or in women with preeclampsia, a potentially fatal pregnancy complication marked by high blood pressure in the mother—the test predicted nearly 90 percent of cases.

In the study, published Thursday, May 24, 2018, in the Journal of Perinatology, the researchers built a comprehensive test that would capture both spontaneous preterm births, which occurs when the amniotic sac breaks or contractions begin spontaneously, and “indicated” preterm birth, in which a physician induces labor or performs a cesarean section because the health of the mother or baby is in jeopardy. The researchers also wanted to be able to identify risk for preeclampsia, which is not included in current tests for preterm birth.

“There are multifactorial causes of preterm birth, and that’s why we felt like we needed to build a model that took into account multiple biological pathways,” said first author Laura Jelliffe-Pawlowski, PhD, director of Precision Health and Discovery with the UCSF California Preterm Birth Initiative and associate professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF. “The model works especially well for early preterm births and preeclampsia, which suggests that we’re effectively capturing severe types of preterm birth.”

The researchers developed the screen using blood samples taken from 400 women as part of routine prenatal care during the second trimester, comparing women who went on to give birth before 32 weeks, between 32 and 36 weeks, and after 38 weeks (full-term). The researchers first tested the samples for more than 60 different immune and growth factors, ultimately narrowing the test down to 25 factors that together could help predict risk for preterm birth. When other data, including whether or not the mother was over 34 years old or if she qualified as low income (indicated by Medicaid eligibility), improved the accuracy of the test by an additional 6 percent.

Researchers said the test could help prevent some cases of preterm birth. Based on a woman’s probability of preterm birth derived by the test, she could discuss with her clinician how best to follow-up and try to lower her risk. Some cases of preterm birth, including those caused by preeclampsia, can be prevented or delayed by taking aspirin, but treatment is most helpful if started before 16 weeks. Physicians could also evaluate high-risk women for underlying infections that may have gone undetected but could be treated. For others, close monitoring by their doctor could help flag early signs of labor like cervical shortening that can be staved off with progesterone treatment.

“We hope that this test could lead to more education and counseling of women about their level of risk so that they know about preterm birth and know what preeclampsia or early signs of labor look like,” said Jelliffe-Pawlowski. “If we can get women to the hospital as soon as possible, even if they’ve gone into labor, we can use medications to stave off contractions. This might give her some additional days before she delivers, which can be really important for the baby.”

A test for preterm birth is currently available, but it is expensive and only screens for spontaneous preterm birth, not for signs that could lead to indicated preterm births or for preeclampsia. Jelliffe-Pawlowski said that the new screen would likely be a fraction of the cost, making it more accessible to women who need it the most.

“One of the reasons we’re most excited about this test is that we see some potential for it addressing preterm birth in those most at risk, including low-income women, women of color, and women living in low-income countries,” she said. “We want to make sure that we’re developing something that has the potential to help all women, including those most in need.”

Other authors on the study were Larry Rand, Scott Oltman, and Mary Norton of UCSF; Bruce Bedell, Jeffrey Murray, and Kelli Ryckman of the University of Iowa; Rebecca Baer of UC San Diego; and Gary Shaw and David Stevenson of Stanford University.

https://www.ucsf.edu/news/2018/05/410456/risk-preterm-birth-reliably-predicted-new-test?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ucsf_press_releases+%28UCSF+Press+Releases%29

Researchers 3D Print on Skin for Breakthrough Applications

On By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment


Researchers at the University of Minnesota use a customized 3D printer to print electronics on a real hand. Image: McAlpine group, University of Minnesota

Soldiers are commonly thrust into situations where the danger is the unknown: Where is the enemy, how many are there, what weaponry is being used? The military already uses a mix of technology to help answer those questions quickly, and another may be on its way. Researchers at the University of Minnesota have developed a low-cost 3D printer that prints sensors and electronics directly on skin. The development could allow soldiers to directly print temporary, disposable sensors on their hands to detect such things as chemical or biological agents in the field.

The technology also could be used in medicine. The Minnesota researchers successfully used bioink with the device to print cells directly on the wounds of a mouse. Researchers believe it could eventually provide new methods of faster and more efficient treatment, or direct printing of grafts for skin wounds or conditions.

“The concept was to go beyond smart materials, to integrate them directly on to skin,” says Michael McAlpine, professor of mechanical engineering whose research group focuses on 3D printing functional materials and devices. “It is a biological merger with electronics. We wanted to push the limits of what a 3D printer can do.”

McAlpine calls it a very simple idea, “One of those ideas so simple, it turns out no one has done it.”

Others have used 3D printers to print electronics and biological cells. But printing on skin presented a few challenges. No matter how hard a person tries to remain still, there always will be some movement during the printing process. “If you put a hand under the printer, it is going to move,” he says.

To adjust for that, the printer the Minnesota team developed uses a machine vision algorithm written by Ph.D. student Zhijie Zhu to track the motion of the hand in real time while printing. Temporary markers are placed on the skin, which then is scanned. The printer tracks the hand using the markers and adjusts in real time to any movement. That allows the printed electronics to maintain a circuit shape. The printed device can be peeled off the skin when it is no longer needed.

The team also needed to develop a special ink that could not only be conductive but print and cure at room temperature. Standard 3D printing inks cure at high temperatures of 212 °F and would burn skin.

In a paper recently published in Advanced Materals, the team identified three criteria for conductive inks: The viscosity of the ink should be tunable while maintaining self-supporting structures; the ink solvent should evaporate quickly so the device becomes functional on the same timescale as the printing process; and the printed electrodes should become highly conductive under ambient conditions.

The solution was an ink using silver flakes to provide conductivity rather than particles more commonly used in other applications. Fibers were found to be too large, and cure at high temperatures. The flakes are aligned by their shear forces during printing, and the addition of ethanol to the mix increases speed of evaporation, allowing the ink to cure quickly at room temperature.

“Printing electronics directly on skin would have been a breakthrough in itself, but when you add all of these other components, this is big,” McAlpine says.

The printer is portable, lightweight and cost less than $400. It consists of a delta robot, monitor cameras for long-distance observation of printing states and tracking cameras mounted for precise localization of the surface. The team added a syringe-type nozzle to squeeze and deliver the ink

Furthering the printer’s versatility, McAlpine’s team worked with staff from the university’s medical school and hospital to print skin cells directly on a skin wound of a mouse. The mouse was anesthetized, but still moved slightly during the procedure, he says. The initial success makes the team optimistic that it could open up a new method of treating skin diseases.

“Think about what the applications could be,” McAlpine says. “A soldier in the field could take the printer out of a pack and print a solar panel. On the cellular side, you could bring a printer to the site of an accident and print cells directly on wounds, speeding the treatment. Eventually, you may be able to print biomedical devices within the body.”

In its paper, the team suggests that devices can be “autonomously fabricated without the need for microfabrication facilities in freeform geometries that are actively adaptive to target surfaces in real time, driven by advances in multifunctional 3D printing technologies.”

Besides the ability to print directly on skin, McAlpine says the work may offer advantages over other skin electronic devices. For example, soft, thin, stretchable patches that stick to the skin have been fitted with off-the-shelf chip-based electronics for monitoring a patient’s health. They stick to skin like a temporary tattoo and send updates wirelessly to a computer.

“The advantage of our approach is that you don’t have to start with electronic wafers made in a clean room,” McAlpine says. “This is a completely new paradigm for printing electronics using 3D printing.”

http://www.asme.org/engineering-topics/articles/bioengineering/researchers-3d-print-skin-breakthrough

How brown fat keeps us warm

On By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment


Adipose Connective Tissue Stores Fat in Our Body. Credit: Berkshire Community College Bioscience Image Library

A new technique to study fat stores in the body could aid efforts to find treatments to tackle obesity.

The approach focuses on energy-burning tissues found deep inside the body – called brown fat – that help to keep us warm when temperatures drop.

Experts are aiming to find it this calorie-burning power can be harnessed to stop weight gain, but little is known about how the process works.

Previous studies have mainly relied on a medical imaging technique called PET/CT to watch brown fat in action deep inside the body. But the method is unable to directly measure the chemical factors in the tissue.

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh developed a technique called microdialysis to measure how brown fat generates heat in people.

The approach involves inserting a small tube into an area of brown fat in the body and flushing it with fluid to collect a snapshot of the tissues’ chemical make-up.

The team tested the technique in six healthy volunteers, using PET/CT to guide the tube to the right location.

They discovered that in cold conditions, brown fat uses its own energy stores and other substances to generate heat.

Brown fat was active under warm conditions too, when the body does not need to generate its own heat, an outcome that had not been seen before.

Researchers hope the technique will help them to analyse the specific chemicals involved, so that they can better understand how brown fat works.

Most of the fat in our body is white fat, which is found under the skin and surrounding internal organs. It stores excess energy when we consume more calories than we burn.

Brown fat is mainly found in babies and helps them to stay warm. Levels can decrease with age but adults can still have substantial amounts of it, mainly in the neck and upper back region. People who are lean tend to have more brown fat.

The study, published in Cell Metabolism, was funded by the Medical Research Council and Wellcome.

Lead researcher Dr Roland Stimson, of the British Heart Foundation Centre for Cardiovascular Science at the University of Edinburgh, said: “Understanding how brown fat is activated could reveal potential targets for therapies that boost its energy-burning power, which could help with weight loss.”

This article has been republished from materials provided by the University of Edinburgh. Note: material may have been edited for length and content. For further information, please contact the cited source.

Reference: Weir, G., Ramage, L. E., Akyol, M., Rhodes, J. K., Kyle, C. J., Fletcher, A. M., … Stimson, R. H. (2018). Substantial Metabolic Activity of Human Brown Adipose Tissue during Warm Conditions and Cold-Induced Lipolysis of Local Triglycerides. Cell Metabolism, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2018.04.020

https://www.technologynetworks.com/proteomics/news/how-brown-fat-keeps-us-warm-304351?utm_campaign=Newsletter_TN_BreakingScienceNews&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&utm_content=63228690&_hsenc=p2ANqtz-9oqDIw3te1NPoj51s94kxnA1ClK8Oiecfela6I4WiITEbm_-SWdmw6pjMTwm2YP24gqSzRaBvUK1kkb2kZEJKPcL5JtQ&_hsmi=63228690

UMass Amherst Chemists Develop New Blood Test to Detect Liver Damage in Under an Hour

On By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment

Chemist Vincent Rotello at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with colleagues at University College London (UCL), U.K., announce today that they have developed a “quick and robust” blood test that can detect liver damage before symptoms appear, offering what they hope is a significant advance in early detection of liver disease. Details appear in Advanced Materials.

Their new method can detect liver fibrosis, the first stage of liver scarring that can lead to fatal disease if left unchecked, from a blood sample in 30-45 minutes, the authors note. They point out that liver disease is a leading cause of premature mortality in the United States and U.K., and is rising. It often goes unnoticed until late stages of the disease when the damage is irreversible.

For this work, Rotello and his team at UMass Amherst’s Institute of Applied Life Sciences (IALS) designed a sensor that uses polymers coated with fluorescent dyes that bind to blood proteins based on their chemical processes. The dyes change in brightness and color, offering a different signature or blood protein pattern.

He says, “This platform provides a simple and inexpensive way of diagnosing disease with potential for both personal health monitoring and applications in developing parts of the world.” Rotello and colleagues hope the new test can be used routinely in medical offices, clinics and hospitals to screen people with elevated liver disease risk so they can be treated “before it’s too late.”

The UCL team tested the sensor by comparing results from small blood samples equivalent to finger-prick checks from 65 people, in three balanced groups of healthy patients and among those with early-stage and late-stage fibrosis. This was determined using the Enhanced Liver Fibrosis (ELF) test, the existing benchmark for liver fibrosis detection. They found that the sensor identified different protein-level patterns in the blood of people in the three groups. The ELF test requires samples to be sent away to a lab.

Co-author William Peveler, a chemist now at the University of Glasgow, adds, “By comparing the different samples, the sensor array identified a ‘fingerprint’ of liver damage. It’s the first time this approach has been validated in something as complex as blood, to detect something as important as liver disease.”

The investigators report that the test distinguished fibrotic samples from healthy blood 80 percent of the time, reaching the standard threshold of clinical relevance on a widely-used metric and comparable to existing methods of diagnosing and monitoring fibrosis. The test distinguished between mild-moderate fibrosis and severe fibrosis 60 percent of the time. The researchers plan further tests with larger samples to refine the method’s effectiveness.

Peter Reinhart, director of UMass Amherst’s IALS says, “These exciting findings epitomize the mission of IALS to translate excellent basic science into diagnostics, therapeutic candidates and personalized health monitoring devices to improve human health and well-being.”

Peveler adds, “This may open the door to a cost-effective regular screening program thanks to its simplicity, low cost and robustness. We’re addressing a vital need for point-of-care diagnostics and monitoring, which could help millions of people access the care they need to prevent fatal liver disease.”

Rotello explains that the sensing strategy uses a “signature-based” approach that is highly versatile and should be useful in other areas. “A key feature of this sensing strategy is that it is not disease-specific, so it is applicable to a wide spectrum of conditions, which opens up the possibility of diagnostic systems that can track health status, providing both disease detection and monitoring wellness.”

In addition to UMass Amherst, UCL and the University of Glasgow, the U.K.-based research and development firm iQur Ltd. took part in the study. The work was supported by the U.K. Royal Society, the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, the U.S. National Institutes of Health and the U.K. National Institute for Health Research UCLH Biomedical Research Centre.

http://www.umass.edu/newsoffice/article/umass-amherst-chemists-international-team

Depression speeds up brain ageing

On By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment

Psychologists at the University of Sussex have found a link between depression and an acceleration of the rate at which the brain ages. Although scientists have previously reported that people with depression or anxiety have an increased risk of dementia in later life, this is the first study that provides comprehensive evidence for the effect of depression on decline in overall cognitive function (also referred to as cognitive state), in a general population.

For the study, published today, Thursday 24 May 2018, in the journal Psychological Medicine, researchers conducted a robust systematic review of 34 longitudinal studies, with the focus on the link between depression or anxiety and decline in cognitive function over time. Evidence from more than 71,000 participants was combined and reviewed. Including people who presented with symptoms of depression as well as those that were diagnosed as clinically depressed, the study looked at the rate of decline of overall cognitive state – encompassing memory loss, executive function (such as decision making) and information processing speed – in older adults.

Importantly, any studies of participants who were diagnosed with dementia at the start of study were excluded from the analysis. This was done in order to assess more broadly the impact of depression on cognitive ageing in the general population. The study found that people with depression experienced a greater decline in cognitive state in older adulthood than those without depression. As there is a long pre-clinical period of several decades before dementia may be diagnosed, the findings are important for early interventions as currently there is no cure for the disease.

Lead authors of the paper, Dr Darya Gaysina and Amber John from the EDGE (Environment, Development, Genetics and Epigenetics in Psychology and Psychiatry) Lab at the University of Sussex, are calling for greater awareness of the importance of supporting mental health to protect brain health in later life.

Dr Gaysina, a Lecturer in Psychology and EDGE Lab Lead, comments: “This study is of great importance – our populations are ageing at a rapid rate and the number of people living with decreasing cognitive abilities and dementia is expected to grow substantially over the next thirty years.

“Our findings should give the government even more reason to take mental health issues seriously and to ensure that health provisions are properly resourced. We need to protect the mental wellbeing of our older adults and to provide robust support services to those experiencing depression and anxiety in order to safeguard brain function in later life.”

Researcher Amber John, who carried out this research for her PhD at the University of Sussex adds: “Depression is a common mental health problem – each year, at least 1 in 5 people in the UK experience symptoms. But people living with depression shouldn’t despair – it’s not inevitable that you will see a greater decline in cognitive abilities and taking preventative measures such as exercising, practicing mindfulness and undertaking recommended therapeutic treatments, such as Cognitive Behaviour Therapy, have all been shown to be helpful in supporting wellbeing, which in turn may help to protect cognitive health in older age.”

The research paper, ‘Affective problems and decline in cognitive state in older adults’ will be available at: https:// doi.org/10.1017/S0033291718001137 from Thursday 24 May 2018.

http://www.sussex.ac.uk/broadcast/read/44977

Ultrasound Fires Up the Auditory Cortex—Even Though Animals Can’t Hear It

On By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment


Ultrasound activates auditory pathways in the rodent brain (red arrows) regardless of where in the brain the ultrasound-generating transducer is placed.

By Abby Olena

Activating or suppressing neuronal activity with ultrasound has shown promise both in the lab and the clinic, based on the ability to focus noninvasive, high-frequency sound waves on specific brain areas. But in mice and guinea pigs, it appears that the technique has effects that scientists didn’t expect. In two studies published today (May 24) in Neuron, researchers demonstrate that ultrasound activates the brains of rodents by stimulating an auditory response—not, as researchers had presumed, only the specific neurons where the ultrasound is focused.

“These papers are a very good warning to folks who are trying to use ultrasound as a tool to manipulate brain activity,” says Raag Airan, a neuroradiologist and researcher at Stanford University Medical Center who did not participate in either study, but coauthored an accompanying commentary. “In doing these experiments going forward [the hearing component] is something that every single experimenter is going to have to think about and control,” he adds.

Over the past decade, researchers have used ultrasound to elicit electrical responses from cells in culture and motor and sensory responses from the brains of rodents and primates. Clinicians have also used so-called ultrasonic neuromodulation to treat movement disorders. But the mechanism by which high frequency sound waves work to exert their influence is not well understood.

The University of Minnesota’s Hubert Lim studies ways to restore hearing, but many of the strategies that his group uses are invasive, such as cochlear implants, which require surgery to insert a device inside the ear. He says that he and his colleagues were excited by the prospect of using noninvasive and precise ultrasound to activate the parts of the brain responsible for hearing.

Lim’s team started by stimulating the brains of guinea pigs with audible noise or with pulsed ultrasound directly over the auditory cortex. They were surprised to observe similar neuronal responses to the two different stimuli because ultrasound is outside the spectrum that the guinea pigs—and humans—can hear. The researchers also found that the rodents’ neurons showed comparable electrical activity in the auditory cortex regardless of where in the brain the researchers directed the ultrasound. This raised the question: are the animals’ brains responding directly to the ultrasound or to responses of the auditory system?

When the authors cut the guinea pigs’ auditory nerves or removed their cochlear fluid, the guinea pigs stopped responding to the ultrasound and to audible noise. Lim’s team concluded that what must be happening is ultrasound moves through brain tissue and vibrates the cochlear fluid. This vibration then triggers auditory signaling and indirectly activates the auditory cortex and other brain regions, rather than ultrasound having a direct effect on the activity of the neurons.

“I am actually very hopeful that ultrasound can be a powerful tool that can not only modulate but also treat different neurologic and psychiatric disorders, and that it can achieve a noninvasive yet localized activation,” says Lim. “But what we’re trying to show in this paper is that there are many confounding effects that are actually happening with ultrasound, and we have to remove those effects to really see how it’s activating the brain.”

A coauthor on the companion study, Mikhail Shapiro of Caltech, says that previous work showing that it is possible to apply ultrasound to the brains of mice and rats to elicit electrical activity and movement in their limbs left him and his colleagues curious about how it works. To determine where and when neural activation happens, they applied ultrasonic pulses to the brains of transgenic mice that have neurons that light up when stimulated. As with guinea pigs, ultrasound is inaudible to mice.

“To our surprise, we found that the main activation pattern that we were seeing was not in the region where we were applying the ultrasound directly, but actually in the auditory areas of the brain, those responsible for processing information about sound,” Shapiro tells The Scientist.

Consistent with the findings of Lim and colleagues, Shapiro and his coauthors determined that the mouse brains lit up across the cortex, starting from the auditory cortex. And as in the guinea pigs, the mouse neurons responded similarly to ultrasound and audible sounds. The researchers also showed that both ultrasound and audible noise elicited motor movements that decreased when they used chemicals to deafen the mice.

“We’re not trying to imply that [the effects of ultrasound observed in previous studies are] due to this auditory side effect,” says Shapiro. “We’re very optimistic that now that we know that it’s there, we will be able to design ways to get around it and still be able to use this technology scientifically.”

Shy Shoham, a neuroscientist and biomedical engineer at New York University Langone Medical Center who did not participate in the studies, tells The Scientist that these papers highlight how careful researchers must be in the future when using ultrasound to modify neuronal function. “In the field of neural stimulation in general, we should always be very concerned about off-target effects,” he says. We must “delineate what is real and what isn’t.”

“The big take home point here is that we need to take care of the auditory effects,” says Kim Butts Pauly, who studies ultrasound neuromodulation at Stanford University Medical Center and who coauthored the accompanying commentary with Airan. “There’s been very compelling data from other studies that ultrasound can stimulate the brain and change recordings from the brain that are completely separate from any auditory effects. As we get rid of the auditory effects, then the more subtle effects may become apparent.”

H. Guo et al., “Ultrasound produces extensive brain activation via a cochlear pathway,” Neuron, doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2018.04.036, 2018.

T. Sato et al., “Ultrasonic neuromodulation causes widespread cortical activation via an indirect auditory mechanism,” Neuron, doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2018.05.009, 2018.

https://www.the-scientist.com/?articles.view/articleNo/54652/title/Ultrasound-Fires-Up-the-Auditory-Cortex-Even-Though-Animals-Can-t-Hear-It/

Semir Osmanagić claims he has found the world’s oldest pyramids in Bosnia, and shown that they generate Nikola Tesla’s predicted torison fields of standing energy.

On By A.P.In UncategorizedLeave a comment

By JON AUSTIN

Scientist Semir Osmanagić claims a series of triangular-shaped hills in his native Bosnia, are artificial pyramids that are bigger and older than those in Egypt.

Despite mainstream archaeologists saying they are just natural rock formations, Mr Osmanagic has made another bold claim that he has found Nikola Tesla’s so-called “torison fields of standing energy” at the Bosnian Pyramids site, which means we could now “communicate with aliens”.

Mr Telsa was a Serbian-American inventor, physicist, and futurist, who contributed to the design of the AC electricity supply system in 1888.

His ideas became more left-field and experimental towards the end of the 1800s, and he devised the theory of “standing waves” of energy coming from Earth that meant electricity could be transmitted wirelessly over long distances.

Mr Osmanagić has claimed the alleged discovery at one of the “34,000 year old” pyramids he calls the Pyramid of the Sun “changes the history of planet” and could lead to intergalactic communication.

He wrote: “The discovery of Tesla’s standing waves at the top of the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun— which are believed to travel faster than the speed of light, while not losing strength as they pass through cosmic bodies—prove the existence of something referred to as a cosmic web or cosmic internet which allow for a immediate intergalactic communication throughout the universe.

“Recorded energetic phenomena above the Pyramid of the Sun at Visoko seek a different definition of a pyramid compared to conventional, dogmatic explanations.

“The pyramids are energy boosters that send and receive information through the Sun.”

Tesla devised a theory of standing waves saying they travel faster than light, meaning they could “move through other cosmic bodies without wasting energy.”

Mr Osmanagić claims on the surface of and underneath the Bosnian Pyramid of the Sun, archaeological digs have found quartz crystals. The crystal is present in the underground tunnels as well, a mineral he says receives then amplifies energy.

He claims there are seven levels of tunnels inside the pyramid and that this amplifies the intensity of the energy.

Osmanagić also supports the ancient aliens theory that advanced beings came to Earth thousands of years ago to help build the pyramids.

He added: “Life originated thanks to an intervention on our planet, species on Earth change in the long term through experiments where evolution plays a minor role, and homo sapiens is the result of genetic engineering.

“And, of course, we are not the first nor the most advanced civilisation in the history of the planet.”

Boston University’s archaeological professor, Curtis Runnels, has been one of many to attempt to put the Bosnian Pyramid claims to bed.

He said: “Early prehistoric cultures, including village farmers of the Neolithic period [back to 9,000 years ago], and before them Stone Age hunters and gatherers, did not have populations large enough or social structures organised in ways that would have permitted the creation of pyramids on a large scale.

“Pyramidal shapes offer the least resistance to such forces, and are common forms in nature.”

https://www.express.co.uk/news/weird/773789/Bosnian-Pyramid-Nikola-Tesla-standing-waves-aliens