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Poll: Americans split on denying services to same-sex couples

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Americans are evenly divided on whether a business should be able to deny service to same-sex couples, a new study suggests.

The study examines public views on the conflict between anti-discrimination laws and legal protections for speech and religion, a topic under debate by courts and legislatures. The Supreme Court heard recent arguments in a Colorado case in which a baker refused—on religious grounds—to make a wedding cake for a same-sex couple. The court is expected to rule by June 2018.

“The finding challenges the idea that denial of service to same-sex couples is all about religious freedom.”

But people who support denying service don’t necessarily see it as a matter of religious freedom, the study finds. They are as likely to support a business that denies service for reasons unrelated to religion as one that does so because of religious beliefs.

“The finding challenges the idea that denial of service to same-sex couples is all about religious freedom,” says Brian Powell, professor of sociology at Indiana University and lead author of the study that appears in Science Advances.

“People may oppose same-sex marriage because of their beliefs, but their views about denial of service have nothing to do with whether the denial is for religious reasons,” he says.

In other findings:

  • There was surprisingly strong support for the idea that businesses should be able to deny services to interracial couples, even though laws prohibit racial discrimination. Researchers asked about interracial couples to compare with findings for same-sex couples.
  • Respondents made a clear distinction between self-employed individuals and corporations. They were twice as likely to say a self-employed person could deny service as they were to support a business chain whose owners objected to serving same-sex or interracial couples.

Researchers asked a representative sample of more than 2,000 people to respond to vignettes in which a photographer refused to take wedding pictures. In random versions of the vignette, the photographer was self-employed or worked for a chain business, the couple was same-sex or interracial, and the reason for denying service was religious or nonreligious.

It was striking that two in five respondents supported denying service to an interracial couple, Powell says. Over half said a self-employed photographer should be able to refuse service to an interracial couple, while fewer than one-fourth said a corporation should be allowed to do so.

“Race is a protected category, and despite that, many people say you can deny service,” Powell says.

Also, while 61 percent of respondents said a self-employed photographer could deny service to a same-sex couple or interracial couple, only 31 percent said a corporation could deny service.

How same-sex marriage laws may save teens’ lives

Powell says the result suggests public views are not aligned with the Supreme Court’s 2014 Hobby Lobby decision, which said that closely held corporations had the same rights as individuals to deny their employees contraceptive insurance coverage because of the owners’ religious objections.

“Americans don’t believe that. They make a clear distinction between corporations and self-employed people,” Powell says.

In the study, respondents didn’t favor religious reasons for denying service over other reasons. In open-ended questions, Powell says, many took a libertarian view that a self-employed individual should be able to deny service to anyone for any reason. In contrast, others viewed denial of service as discrimination and said businesses should serve everyone.

Source: Indiana University

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This planet-eating star consumes its ‘offspring’

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A star 550 light years from Earth is slowly consuming its “offspring”—crushing one or more planets in its orbit into vast clouds of gas and dust—according to a new study.

The discovery that RZ Piscium—located in the constellation Pisces—is an insatiable “eater of worlds” may shed light on a brief but volatile period in the history of many solar systems, including our own.

“We know it’s not uncommon for planets to migrate inward in young solar systems since we’ve found so many solar systems with ‘hot Jupiters’—gaseous planets similar in size to Jupiter but orbiting very close to their stars,” says Catherine Pilachowski, chair of the astronomy department at Indiana University Bloomington and coauthor of the study, which appears in The Astronomical Journal.

"disrupted planet" orbiting RZ Piscium
This illustration shows a “disrupted planet” slowly broken up into a cloud of gas and dust as it orbits the star RZ Piscium about 550 light years from Earth. (Credit: NASA)

“This is a very interesting phase in the evolution of planetary systems, and we’re lucky to catch a solar system in the middle of the process since it happens so quickly compared to the lifetimes of stars,” Pilachowski says.

Doomed worlds that fly too close to their sun—only to be ripped apart by its tidal forces—are officially known as “disrupted planets.” In the case of RZ Piscium, the material near the sun-like star is being slowly pulled apart to create a small circle of debris about the same distance from the star as the planet Mercury’s orbit is from our sun.

“Based on our observations, it seems either that we’re seeing a fairly massive, gaseous planet being pulled apart by the star, or perhaps two gas-rich planets that have collided and been torn apart,” Pilachowski says.

Even solar systems whose planets are not lost to their sun are unstable in their early history, since newly born planets interact strongly with one another—as well as their sun—through gravity, she adds.

In our solar system, for example, some astronomers speculate that Uranus and Neptune swapped orbits about 4 billion years ago. But erratic orbits tend to stabilize over time, falling into regular patterns.

This discovery “helps us understand why some young solar systems survive—and some don’t.”

In the new study, Pilachowski, an expert on the analysis of light spectrum from distant stars to determine their temperature, gravity, and elemental composition, was responsible for determining the gravitational strength near RZ Piscium’s surface.

Her findings helped shed light on the star’s radius and brightness, both of which suggest a young star in the midst of a freewheeling solar system with unstable planets.

This is significant because researchers weren’t sure of RZ Piscium’s age. The debris field around a star can result from either the erratic orbits in young solar systems or the destruction of planets that occurs as an old star grows before collapsing and dying.

Extreme galaxy merger makes stars in a ‘frenzy’

Pilachowski’s analysis of the star’s light also helped determine the amount of lithium in the star, marking the star as a relatively young 30 million to 50 million years. Astronomers can use lithium levels to estimate a star’s age because the element declines over time.

Further, researchers discovered that the star’s temperature is about 9,600 degrees Fahrenheit (5,330 degrees Celsius)—only slightly cooler than our sun’s. Another sign of the star’s relative youth: It produces X-rays at a rate roughly 1,000 times greater than our sun.

“This discovery really gives us a rare and beautiful glimpse into what happens to many newly formed planets that don’t survive the early dynamical chaos of young solar systems,” Pilachowski says. “It helps us understand why some young solar systems survive—and some don’t.”

This is what happens when stars eat rocky planets

Researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology led the study. Other researchers from Indiana University; the University of California, Irvine; the University of California, Los Angeles; Haverford College; and Ithaca College are coauthors.

The team investigated the star using the European Space Agency’s XMM-Newton satellite, the Shane 3-meter telescope at Lick Observatory in California, and the 10-meter Keck I telescope at W.M.

Source: Indiana University

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These very subtle movements line up with autism

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A new study provides the strongest evidence yet that nearly imperceptible changes in how people move can be used to diagnose neurodevelopmental disorders, including autism.

The study’s results, reported in Scientific Reports, suggest a more accurate method to diagnose autism. Current assessments depend on highly subjective criteria, such as a lack of eye movement or repetitive actions. There is no existing medical test for autism, such as a blood test or genetic screening.

“We’ve found that every person has their own unique ‘movement DNA,'” says senior author Jorge V. José, professor of physics at Indiana University Bloomington. “The use of movement as a ‘biomarker’ for autism could represent an important leap forward in detection and treatment of the disorder.”

researcher and girl - autism movement test
Di Wu directs a volunteer as she touches images on a screen using a device designed to track minuscule fluctuation in the arm’s movement. (Credit: James Brosher/IU Communications)

It’s estimated that 1 percent of the world’s population, including 3.5 million children and adults in the United States, are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, which is the country’s fastest-growing developmental disability.

Unlike diseases diagnosed with medical tests, autism remains dependent upon symptoms whose detection may vary based upon factors such as the person conducting the assessment. The assessments are also difficult to administer to very young children, or to people with impairments such as lack of verbal skills, potentially preventing early interventions for these groups. Early intervention has been shown to play an important role in successful treatment of autism.

“Our work is focused on applying novel data analytics to develop objective neurodevelopmental assessments for autism, as well as other neurodevelopmental disorders,” says Di Wu, a PhD student and the lead author of the study. “We really need to narrow the gap between what physicians observe in patients in the clinic and what we’re learning about movement within the field of neuroscience.”

To conduct the study, the researchers examined over 70 volunteers as they moved their arm to touch an object on a screen. The volunteers included 30 individuals previously diagnosed with autism, ages 7 to 30, including a girl with no verbal skills. The group also included 15 neurotypical adults, ages 19 to 31; six neurotypical children; and 20 neurotypical parents of volunteers with autism.

After the assessment, each volunteer received a “score” based on the level of hidden speed fluctuations in their movement. A lower score indicated a greater risk for autism, with numbers under a certain threshold corresponding to previous diagnosis of autism. The greater amount of fluctuation in the movement of the individuals with autism was possibly related to the level of “noise” naturally produced by random neuron firings in the brain, for which neurotypical individuals seem to develop stronger compensation methods.

Head motions offer better way to detect autism in girls

Eighteen of the 30 individuals in the study with autism underwent assessment before the experiment, using four standard psychiatric tests for autism. In each case, the movement-based diagnoses corresponded to these qualitative-based assessments, which are rarely in complete agreement.

The volunteers who scored lower on the scale also exhibited more severe forms of autism. Currently there is no standard accepted quantitative metric to diagnose the disorder’s severity. Also, lower-than-average scores in several of the volunteers’ parents, who did not have an autism diagnosis themselves, suggested that movement could possibly be used to assess a neurotypical parent’s risk for children with autism, José says.

The volunteers’ movements were captured using high-speed, high-resolution sensors to track fluctuations in movement invisible to the naked eye. The study also tracked changes in speed and position of the arm at every point in movement, as opposed to a single variable—the top movement of the arm’s velocity—examined in a previously published study from the team. The new motion data strengthens evidence for movement as a biomarker for autism.

How babies learn to walk holds potential clues to autism

Next, the researchers aim to conduct movement assessments on more people, including more research on the parents of children with autism to better understand the connection between lower parental scores on the movement assessment and their children’s risk for autism.

John I. Nurnberger Jr., professor of psychiatry and director of the Institute of Psychiatric Research at the IU School of Medicine, provided access to volunteers with autism, as well as medical expertise, to the study. An additional major contributor to the study was Elizabeth Torres at Rutgers University.

Partial funding came from the National Science Foundation, the Nancy Lurie Marks Family Foundation, and New Jersey Governor’s Council for Medical Research and Treatment of Autism.

Source: Indiana University

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Polls suggest less environmentalism among U.S. Christians

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Among self-identified US Christians, positive attitudes about the environment and environmental stewardship have not increased, according to new research.

David Konisky of Indiana University’s School of Public and Environmental Affairs analyzed 20 years of survey results from Gallup public opinion polls.

He found that not only is environmentalism not increasing, there are signs it is actually in decline.

…the likelihood that a Christian survey respondent expressed a great deal of concern about climate change dropped by about a third between 1990 and 2015.

For example, Konisky’s analysis of the survey responses from 1990 through 2015 indicates that Christians, compared to atheists, agnostics, and individuals who do not affiliate with a religion, are less likely to prioritize environmental protection over economic growth, and they are more likely than others to believe global warming is exaggerated.

For example, the likelihood that a Christian survey respondent expressed a great deal of concern about climate change dropped by about a third between 1990 and 2015.

The pattern generally holds across Catholic, Protestant, and other Christian denominations and does not vary depending on levels of religiosity.

“This relationship between religion and the environment is significant because of the increasing importance of climate change,” Konisky says. “There may come a time when religious leaders and faith-based organizations generate more interest in protecting the environment and more willingness to demand action, but we haven’t seen it yet.”

The current lack of enthusiasm comes despite high-profile calls for action such as the encyclical letter on the environment released by Pope Francis in 2015 and despite initiatives led by Evangelical Protestant groups, such as the formation of the Evangelical Environmental Network.

Some Americans consult religion about science questions

While those efforts are relatively recent, Konisky says there is a historical divide in how Christians view their relationship to the planet.

“Some believe in the importance of stewardship and practice an ethic of ‘creation care,’ while others believe in human dominion over the Earth, a belief that undermines any obligation to protect the environment,” he explains.

Konisky says more research is needed to determine whether that belief in human dominion or some other aspect of how people experience religion is influencing a reduced concern for the environment.

His study appears in the journal Environmental Politics.

Source: Indiana University

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These molecules fight viruses by cracking their shells

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Researchers have discovered that a certain kind of molecule can break through the shells viruses use to protect their DNA.

The molecule could aid in the fight against the hepatitis B virus, which can cause liver failure and liver cancer.

It’s estimated that 2 billion people worldwide have had a hepatitis B virus infection in their lifetime, with about 250 million—including 2 million Americans—living with chronic infection. Although a vaccine exists, there is no cure.

The study, which appears in the journal eLife, explains how the structure of the hepatitis B virus changes when bound to an experimental drug. Members of this new class of antiviral drug are now in clinical trials.

virus capsid (viruses)
This image shows the shell, or capsid, that encapsulates the DNA of the hepatitis B virus, which is composed of 240 copies of the same protein. The green areas depict the structurally unique regions, which are found in a repeated arrangement across the surface of the shell. The small red areas reveal the sites where the molecule HAP binds to the virus. (Credit: Christopher Schlicksup/Indiana U.)

“Our discovery suggests that this same drug could attack hepatitis B virus on multiple fronts—both preventing replication and killing new copies of the virus,” says senior author Adam Zlotnick, a professor in the Indiana University Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ molecular and cellular biochemistry department. “If we’re smart, we can take advantage of the multiple ways this drug can work at the same time.”

A virus reproduces by hijacking a host’s cellular machinery to produce more of the virus. The majority of viruses protect their genetic material—DNA or RNA—inside a protein shell called a capsid.

“…viral capsids aren’t as impenetrable as previously thought…”

For the past 20 years, Zlotnick’s lab has conducted research to stop viral infections by studying the physics of viruses, focusing on how capsids are formed.

“The reaction is a bit like throwing a deck of cards in the air to build the Taj Mahal—a highly complex structure seemingly emerging from chaos,” Zlotnick says.

Zlotnick’s work helped discover a class of molecules called core protein allosteric modulators, or CpAMs, that disrupt capsid protein assembly.

CpAM molecules attack viruses by causing their shells to assemble incorrectly, interrupting the life cycle of the virus. Previously, CpAMs were seen as only able to disrupt a virus during formation of the capsid, after which its DNA was protected inside a hard casing.

Hijacked ‘forklifts’ let this virus invade our cells

This new study, however, finds the molecule can break apart the shell even after it has already assembled.

To make their discovery, researchers bound the CpAM to a chemical called TAMRA—a crimson-colored dye used in some red lipstick—to make it fluorescent and easier to detect in experiments. Using cryo-electron microscopy, they found the small CpAM molecule could make the large, soccer ball-shaped virus capsid bend and distort.

“The big implication is viral capsids aren’t as impenetrable as previously thought,” Zlotnick says. “The other implication, which may be even more important, is that if this type of interference works against hepatitis B virus, it might also work against other viruses.

“About half of known virus families have soccer ball-like capsids; examples include polio and herpes,” he adds. “This study may lead to better treatments against them since the mechanisms behind capsid disruption could lead to drugs against any of them.”

Zlotnick also is the co-founder of Assembly Biosciences, a NASDAQ-listed company, which has CpAMs in clinical trials. Although the molecule used in this study isn’t one of the molecules under clinical trial, Zlotnick says the mechanism sheds light on the behavior of the experimental drugs.

How this common virus evades the immune system

Next, Zlotnick hopes to conduct similar studies on the CpAMs under clinical trial.

Additional authors are from Indiana University and Assembly BioSciences. The National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases funded the work.

Source: Indiana University

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This neurotransmitter may be behind some alcohol cravings

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The neurotransmitter glutamate may play a role in some alcohol cravings, report researchers.

Alcohol dependence and alcohol use disorders occur in about 30 percent of all Americans, taking a severe toll on people’s lives, as well as on the health care system and economy. Ninety percent of all attempts to cure the dependence or abuse of alcohol result in relapse within four years. Sights, sounds, and situations associated with past drinking experiences are the primary triggers of these relapses.

“Scientists can now confidently target glutamate levels in the brain as they develop new treatments for alcoholism and other forms of addiction.”

“This is the first study to document changes in glutamate levels during exposure to alcohol cues in people with alcohol use disorders and shines a spotlight on glutamate levels as an important target for new therapies to treat the condition,” says Sharlene Newman, a professor in Indiana University’s Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences’ psychological and brain sciences department.

The study, recently published in the Journal of Alcohol and Alcoholism, builds on research by scientists such as George Rebec, a professor emeritus in the psychological and brain sciences department who previously found that sights and sounds associated with addictive substances such as cocaine or alcohol affect glutamate levels in the brains of rats addicted to these substances. These sights and sounds are called “cues” because they elicit a craving for the previously abused substance.

“Glutamate is the real workhorse of all transmitters in the brain,” Rebec says. “Dopamine is the more popularly known neurotransmitter, a lack of which contributes to depression, anxiety, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and Parkinson’s disease—but it actually accounts for less than 5 percent of all synaptic activity. By contrast, glutamate accounts for about 50 percent of this activity and is especially involved in the reward-motivation circuits integral to addiction.”

To conduct the new study, researchers enlisted 35 subjects, 17 with alcohol use disorder and 18 without the disorder. Then they measured concentrations of glutamate using a technology called magnetic resonance spectroscopy.

Brain scans suggest this therapy eases alcohol cravings

The study found a decrease of the chemical in the brain of people with alcohol abuse disorder after they were shown cues associated with drinking—such as a photo of alcohol in a glass—compared to when they viewed neutral photos. Individuals without the disorder showed no change in glutamate levels when viewing the same images.

“We recognized we could measure glutamate levels in the human brain using magnetic resonance spectroscopy,” says Newman, who led the collaboration between her department’s addiction researchers to build upon Rebec’s previous work in animals. “Scientists can now confidently target glutamate levels in the brain as they develop new treatments for alcoholism and other forms of addiction.”

Additional authors of the study are from Indiana University and Purdue University.

The National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute funded the study in part.

Source: Indiana University

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Failed arthritis drug may prevent opioid addiction

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A drug already proven safe for use in people may prevent opioid tolerance and physical dependence when used in combination with opioid-based pain medications, according to a new study in mice.

Researchers have discovered that a compound previously tested to treat osteoarthritis pain appears to block neuropathic pain and decrease signs of opioid dependence.

When drug manufacturer Eli Lilly and Co. conducted human trials of the drug to treat osteoarthritis pain, they found that the drug lacked efficacy. Researchers had not, however, tested the drug’s use in treating other kinds of pain and lessening opioid dependence.

“The potential to quickly begin using this compound in combination with opioid-based medication to treat pain and reduce addiction makes this discovery very significant,” says lead investigator Andrea G. Hohmann, a chair of neuroscience and professor in the Indiana University Bloomington psychological and brain sciences department. “We already know this drug is safe for use in people, so moving into human trials will not require as many regulatory hurdles.”

The need for non-addictive alternatives to opioid-based pain medication is urgent due to the rapid rise in overdose deaths over the past decade. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 64,000 Americans died from drug overdoses in 2016, including from illicit drugs and prescription opioids.

To test the potential of the experimental drug to treat pain and reduce addiction symptoms, the scientists administered the compound and the opioid morphine to male mice with neuropathic pain. While morphine initially reduced the pain, mice quickly developed tolerance to morphine’s effectiveness, similar to people who require higher doses of opioid over time to achieve relief.

When a low dose of the experimental drug was combined with morphine, however, the mice no longer became tolerant to morphine, and that lack of tolerance remained even after researchers discontinued the experimental drug. The researchers also found the experimental drug could produce sustained pain relief on its own at higher doses.

In another experiment, researchers gave mice either morphine alone or morphine in combination with the experimental drug, and then treated them with naloxone, which blocks the effect of opioids and induces opioid withdrawal symptoms. Remarkably, Hohmann says, the experimental drug also decreased the severity of these symptoms.

Gene variant linked to opioid addiction found in Euro Americans

Together, these results suggest the experimental drug could, in combination with opioids, prevent tolerance, allowing satisfactory pain treatment with fewer side effects, or wean opioid-tolerant individuals off these drugs.

The researchers chose to explore the failed osteoarthritis drug because they had previously found that the compound acted in a unique way upon a target in the body known to play a role in pain relief.

The researchers report their findings in the journal Molecular Pharmacology. The National Institute on Drug Abuse and National Cancer Institute contributed support for the work.

Source: Indiana University

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Scientists call for action in fight against ‘fake news’

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Legal scholars, social scientists, and researchers are joining forces in a global call to action in the fight against “fake news.”

The indictment of 13 Russians in the operation of a “troll farm” that spread false information related to the 2016 US presidential election has renewed the spotlight on the power of “fake news” to influence public opinion.

“It’s such a complex problem that it must be attacked from every angle.”

Filippo Menczer, a professor in the Indiana University School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, is a coauthor of a paper appearing in Science that calls for a coordinated investigation into the underlying social, psychological, and technological forces behind fake news. This is necessary, the authors say, to counteract the phenomenon’s negative influence on society.

“What we want to convey most is that fake news is a real problem, it’s a tough problem, and it’s a problem that requires serious research to solve,” says Menczer, who is also a member of the Inidiana University Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research and founder of the IU Observatory on Social Media, a platform that provides tools for identifying automated social media accounts and analyzing the spread of misinformation across social networks.

The paper includes estimates that the number of automated “bots” is 60 million on Facebook and up to 48 million on Twitter, the latter based upon a recent study by Menczer and colleagues. It also cites an analysis that found the average American likely encountered one to three fake news stories in the month before the 2016 US election.

“The spreaders of fake news are using increasingly sophisticated methods,” Menczer adds. “If we don’t have enough quantifiable information about the problem, we’ll never be able to design interventions that work. This paper is really a call to groups across the globe—academics, journalists, and private industry—to work together to attack this problem.”

This includes the tech companies that create the platforms used to produce and consume information, such as Google, Facebook, and Twitter. The authors say these companies have an “ethical and social responsibility transcending market forces” to contribute to scientific research on fake news.

Is fact-checking ‘fake news’ a waste of time?

Additionally, the article’s authors point out that false information affects not only the political sphere but also areas not previously regarded as political, such as public health topics like nutrition and vaccinations, as well as the stock market. They also say the problem is particularly intractable because some research has found that repeating a lie to correct it can actually ingrain false information in the mind.

One solution Menczer and his colleagues propose is rigorous research into the effectiveness of high school courses that help students recognize illegitimate news sources. They also propose specific changes to the powerful algorithms that increasingly control people’s access to information online.

“The challenge is there are so many vulnerabilities we don’t yet understand and so many different pieces that can break or be gamed or manipulated when it comes to fake news,” Menczer says. “It’s such a complex problem that it must be attacked from every angle.”

Friends don’t let friends tweet ‘fake news’

Additional authors on the article are from Harvard University; MIT; Tufts University; the University of California, Santa Barbara; Dartmouth College; Yale University; Microsoft; Columbia University; the University at Toronto; and Syracuse University.

Source: Indiana University

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Cell discovery could personalize treatment for glaucoma

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Researchers have taken a step closer to the goal of precision medicine for treating glaucoma and other neurodegenerative vision diseases.

For the first time, scientists identified a wide variety of previously unknown cell subtypes in the human eye. The cells—called retinal ganglion cells, also known as RGCs—are the neurons that take visual information from the eye to the brain for processing and interpretation, which is how we see.

“Although RGCs have been extensively studied in the past, they are not all the same,” says Jason Meyer, associate professor of biology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indiana and a primary investigator with the Stark Neurosciences Research Institute at the Indiana University School of Medicine.

“There are more than 30 different subtypes of these cells. Each of these subtypes is thought to have very different functions, and they respond differently in glaucoma and other diseases that affect RGCs. Some of these cell subtypes are more susceptible to damage than others.

“With our new comprehensive understanding of the diversity of RGCs, we have set the stage for future studies to look at these cells through a more critical lens, with the ultimate goal of more-tailored drug development and treatment strategies for cells that are damaged or lost in glaucoma and other neurodegenerative vision disorders,” Meyer says.

As reported in Stem Cell Reports, researchers studied RGCs that they derived from pluripotent stem cells. In past work, the Meyer laboratory successfully demonstrated the ability to turn stem cells derived from human skin cells into RGCs.

“The methods used in this work will allow us to study how neurodegenerative diseases or optic-nerve injuries—like those suffered by soldiers in combat or athletes in contact sports—affect different subtypes of RGCs,” Meyer says. “In the future, we will likely be able to customize cell-replacement strategies to replace those specific RGC subtypes for therapies.”

Prior to the study, knowledge of RGC subtypes in humans had been limited. Through methods developed by Kirstin Langer, the doctoral student who is first author of the new study, the researchers were able to identify and characterize these major RGC subtypes.

New way of imaging eyes could spot glaucoma sooner

“The study of different RGC subtypes in human-derived cells allows for more in-depth studies of how these RGCs develop, along with things like how these RGC subtypes may be differently affected by diseases or injuries of the eye,” says Langer.”We hope this will allow us to develop better-targeted treatments for patients in the future.”

Coauthors are from IUPUI and the University of Wisconsin. The National Eye Institute and the Indiana Department of Health funded the work.

Source: Indiana University

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Foul ball! Strike out 105-year-old ‘Baseball Rule’?

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About 1,750 fans are hurt each year by foul balls at Major League Baseball games every year. That’s about two injuries for every three games.

In light of opening day on Thursday, a new study suggests it’s time to abolish the so-called “Baseball Rule,” a legal doctrine established in 1913 to immunize teams from liability.

A fan seated 60 feet from home plate has four-tenths of a second to react to an approaching foul ball.

“The professional baseball industry is radically different today than it was a century ago,” writes Nathaniel Grow, an associate professor of business law and ethics at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

“Nevertheless, courts continue to rely on a 100-year-old legal doctrine when determining whether to hold teams liable for spectator injuries resulting from errant balls or bats.”

Further analysis suggests that fans’ risk of being hit by a flying object at MLB games has increased with the construction of nearly two dozen new stadiums since 1992.

“Fans today frequently sit more than 20 percent closer to home plate than was the case throughout most of the 20th century,” Grow says. “When you combine that with an increase in the speed with which baseballs are being hit into the stands, fans have less time to avoid errant balls or bats heading in their direction.”

Today, the typical foul ball enters the stands at speeds between 100 and 110 miles per hour. At that rate, a fan seated 60 feet from home plate has four-tenths of a second to react, if they are paying close attention to the action.

The “Baseball Rule” has come under increased scrutiny after a series of high-profile fan injuries in recent seasons, but courts have almost uniformly continued to apply the Baseball Rule to spectator-injury lawsuits.

Game-like vision tests could predict baseball’s best batters

“Although MLB has taken steps to increase the levels of fan protection in recent years, the time has come for courts to dispense with the Baseball Rule, and instead hold professional teams strictly liable for their fans’ injuries, forcing teams to fully internalize the cost of the accidents their games produce,” Grow says.

“Many foul-ball-related injuries could easily be avoided through the installation of additional safety netting at little cost to the team. Considering that MLB is a $10 billion per year organization, such a cost is a drop in the bucket for major-league teams, one that would almost immediately be recouped once the expanded screen prevented even just a single serious injury.”

Zachary Flagel, a student at the Terry College of Business at the University of Georgia is coauthor of the paper, which is forthcoming in the William and Mary Law Review.

Source: Indiana University

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Brains of contact and non-contact sport athletes aren’t the same

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Researchers have found differences in the brains of athletes who participate in contact sports compared to those who participate in noncontact sports.

Researchers observed the differences as both groups were given a simple visual task. The results could suggest that a history of minor but repeated blows to the head can result in compensatory changes to the brain as it relates to eye movement function. Or it could show how the hundreds of hours that contact sport players spend on eye-hand coordination skills leads to a reorganization of the brain in the areas dedicated to eye movements.

While more research is needed, senior author Nicholas Port says the findings contribute important information to research on subconcussive blows—or “microconcussions”—that are common in sports such as football, soccer, ice hockey, snowboarding, and skiing.

concussion check
Port is a lead researcher on the development of portable eye-tracking technology that could be used on the sidelines of sports events to immediately assess athletes for concussion following impact. (Credit: James Brosher/Indiana U. Communications)

Interest in subconcussions has grown significantly in recent years as the long- and short-term risks of concussions—or mild traumatic brain injury—have become more widely known and understood.

“The verdict is still out on the seriousness of subconcussions, but we’ve got to learn more since we’re seeing a real difference between people who participate in sports with higher risk for these impacts,” says Port, an associate professor in the Indiana University School of Optometry. “It’s imperative to learn whether these impacts have an actual effect on cognitive function—as well as how much exposure is too much.”

To conduct the study, researchers scanned the brains of 21 football players and 19 cross-country runners using fMRI technology.

The researchers focused on these sports because football is a physical game in which small but repeated blows to the head are common, whereas cross-country is extremely low risk for such impacts. The contact sport players did not have a history of concussion, but these sports are known to lead to repeat subconcussive blows.

AI can detect athlete’s concussions years later

The researchers also scanned the brains of 11 non-college-level athletes from socioeconomic backgrounds similar to the football players to ensure their scan results were not rooted in factors unrelated to their sport.

The differences in football players’ versus cross-country runners’ brains were specifically seen in regions of the brain responsible for visual processing. These regions were much more active in football players versus cross-country runners or volunteers who did not play college sports.

“We focused on these brain regions because physicians and trainers regularly encounter large deficits in players’ ability to smoothly track a moving point with their eyes after suffering an acute concussion,” Port says.

Although there were clear differences between the brains of the football players and the cross-country runners, Port says interpretation of the study’s results is challenging.

“Everyone from musicians to taxi drivers has differences in brain activity related to their specific skills,” he says. “The differences in this study may reflect a lifetime exposure of subconcussive blows to the head, or they could simply be the result of playing a visually demanding sport where you’re constantly using your hands and tracking the ball.”

The ideal way to find the root cause of these differences would be a similar analysis using only football players, he says. The next generation of wearable accelerometers to measure physical impact during play will greatly enhance researchers’ ability to confidently sort players of the same sport into groups based on exposure to subconcussions.

To spot concussions in kids, check their spit

The researchers report their findings in the journal Neuroimage: Clinical.

Port is a member of the Concussion In Sport Group, an international affiliation of experts that creates the guidelines that physicians and trainers use to diagnosis and manage concussion. He also conducts research on using eye-tracking technology to detect concussions on the sidelines immediately after impact.

Additional authors of the study are from Indiana University-Bloomington and Wake Forest University. The National Institutes of Health, National Science Foundation, and the Indiana Spinal Cord and Brain Injury Research Fund supported the work in part.

Source: Indiana University

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Evidence shows animals can play back memories

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Researchers have found the first evidence that non-human animals can mentally replay past events from memory. The discovery could help advance the development of new drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease.

“The reason we’re interested in animal memory isn’t only to understand animals, but rather to develop new models of memory that match up with the types of memory impaired in human diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease,” says Jonathon Crystal, a professor in the psychological and brain sciences department of the Indiana University Bloomington College of Arts and Sciences and director of the Bloomington program in neuroscience.

Under the current paradigm, Crystal says most preclinical studies on potential new Alzheimer’s drugs examine how these compounds affect spatial memory, one of the easiest types of memory to assess in animals. But spatial memory is not the type of memory whose loss causes the most debilitating effects of Alzheimer’s disease.

lab rat (memory concept)
PhD student Danielle Panoz-Brown looks at a rat in the “arena” researchers used in the memory study. (Credit: Eric Rudd/Indiana U.)

“If your grandmother is suffering from Alzheimer’s, one of the most heartbreaking aspects of the disease is that she can’t remember what you told her about what’s happening in your life the last time you saw her,” says Danielle Panoz-Brown, a PhD student and first author of the study. “We’re interested in episodic memory—and episodic memory replay—because it declines in Alzheimer’s disease, and in aging in general.”

Episodic memory is the ability to remember specific events. For example, if a person loses their car keys, they might try to recall every single step—or “episode”—in their trip from the car to their current location. The ability to replay these events in order is known as “episodic memory replay.” People wouldn’t be able to make sense of most scenarios if they couldn’t remember the order in which they occurred, Crystal says.

To assess animals’ ability to replay past events from memory, Crystal’s lab spent nearly a year working with 13 rats, which they trained to memorize a list of up to 12 different odors. The rats were placed inside an “arena” with different odors and rewarded when they identified the second-to-last odor or fourth-to-last odor in the list.

The team changed the number of odors in the list before each test to confirm the rats identified the odors based upon their position in the list, not by scent alone, proving the animals were relying on their ability to recall the whole list in order. Arenas with different patterns were used to communicate to the rats which of the two options was sought.

After their training, Crystal says, the animals successfully completed their task about 87 percent of the time across all trials. The results are strong evidence the animals were employing episodic memory replay.

Virtual reality sheds light on memory recall

Additional experiments confirmed the rats’ memories were long-lasting and resistant to “interference” from other memories, both hallmarks of episodic memory. They also ran tests that temporarily suppressed activity in the hippocampus—the site of episodic memory—to confirm the rats were using this part of their brain to perform their tasks.

Crystal says the need to find reliable ways to test episodic memory replay in rats is urgent since new genetic tools are enabling scientists to create rats with neurological conditions similar to Alzheimer’s disease. Until recently, only mice were available with the genetic modifications needed to study the effect of new drugs on these symptoms.

“We’re really trying push the boundaries of animal models of memory to something that’s increasingly similar to how these memories work in people,” he says. “If we want to eliminate Alzheimer’s disease, we really need to make sure we’re trying to protect the right type of memory.”

The study appears in the journal Current BiologyPartial funding came from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Source: Indiana University

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‘Bottle’ traps neutrons to investigate early universe

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New research could provide insight into the composition of the universe immediately after the Big Bang—as well as improve calculations used to predict the life span of stars and describe the rules that govern the subatomic world.

The study, which appears in the journal Science, reports a highly accurate way to measure the decay rate of neutrons.

“This is a significant improvement compared to previous experiments,” says study author Chen-Yu Liu, a professor in the Indiana University Bloomington physics department. “The data is far more accurate than what we’ve had before.”

Liu is a leader of the UNCtau experiment, which uses neutrons from the Los Alamos Neutron Science Center Ultracold Neutron source at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

The rate of the decay of neutrons—subatomic particles with no charge—is significant because researchers use it to predict the proportion of hydrogen and helium in the universe a few minutes after the Big Bang. The number also affects calculations used to determine how quickly hydrogen atoms burn up inside stars and the rules that control the elementary particles like quarks and gluons. This is related to the fact that neutron decay involves the transformation of one “up” quark into a “down” quark, a process that physicists don’t yet fully understand.

Scientists currently use two methods to isolate neutrons and calculate their decay rates:

  • The “bottle” method: Counting the number of neutrons that remain over time after being trapped inside a container.
  • The “beam” method: Measuring the rate of protons that emerge from a neutron beam a nuclear reactor generates.

Some physicists regard the beam method as more accurate because the bottle method risks miscounting neutrons absorbed into the container as disappearing from decay. But the study from Liu and colleagues uses an invisible container made from magnetic fields and gravity to eliminate the risk of interference from physical material. As a result, the experiment can measure a neutron’s lifetime with a high level of precision.

“A neutron could technically live inside our trap for three weeks, which is much longer than any other previously constructed ‘bottle’ traps,” Liu says. “This long trap lifetime is what makes it possible to achieve a highly accurate measurement.”

The use of a “magneto-gravitational trap,” in which the neutrons’ magnetic charge and mass prevent them from escaping their container, also makes it easier to measure the neutrons because the bottle is “lidless,” Liu says.

Measuring growth of the universe reveals a mystery

The work required five years to design, fabricate, test, and install their equipment at the neutron source in Los Alamos, after which the team began to run experiments and collect data. “Five years to get an experiment running and producing data is very fast in our field,” Liu says.

Additional authors of the study are from Indiana University, Los Alamos National Laboratory, North Carolina State University, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Virginia Polytechnic Institute, West Point Military Academy, the California Institute of Technology, Tennessee Technical University, DePauw University, the University of Washington, the Institut Laue-Langevin in France, and the Joint Institute for Nuclear Research in Russia.

The National Science Foundation, the Department of Energy, and the Indiana University Center for Spacetime Symmetries supported the research.

Source: Indiana University Bloomington

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Better online tools give you more ways to check ‘fake news’

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Researchers have launched upgrades to two tools that counter the spread of misinformation online.

The researchers have made improvements to Hoaxy and Botometer and a third tool—an educational game that aims to make people smarter news consumers—also launches alongside the upgrades.

“You can now easily detect when information is spreading virally, and who is responsible for its spread.”

“The majority of the changes to Hoaxy and Botometer are specifically designed to make the tools more usable by journalists and average citizens,” says Filippo Menczer, a professor in the Indiana University School of Informatics, Computing and Engineering and a member of the Network Science Institute. “You can now easily detect when information is spreading virally, and who is responsible for its spread.”

Hoaxy is a search engine that shows users how stories from low-credibility sources spread on Twitter. Botometer is an app that assigns a score to Twitter users based on the likelihood that the account is automated.

Hoaxy’s new functions show users which stories are trending on Twitter, including those from low-credibility sources. It also indicates what proportion of the users who are spreading the stories are likely to be “bots.” Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia, a research scientist at the Network Science Institute who is part of the team that developed the tools, previewed the new features at the International Symposium on Online Journalism in Austin, Texas.

The new version of Botometer employs updated machine learning algorithms to identify “bots” with greater accuracy and is strongly integrated with Hoaxy. Users can observe not only how information spreads across Twitter, but also whether these messages are mostly shared by real people or pushed by a computer program potentially designed to sway public opinion.

Automated accounts are commonly meant to give the false impression that a large number of people are speaking about a specific topic online, Menczer says. Political campaigns, celebrities, and advertisers are known to use bots to push specific agendas or products.

Scientists call for action in fight against ‘fake news’

The updated Hoaxy also has a “trending stories” section that displays popular news stories along with claims from low-credibility sources. This is possible because Hoaxy can now trace the spread of any online news story or hashtag over time across Twitter. Previously, users could only analyze headlines from specific websites identified by nonpartisan groups as likely to post false or misleading information.

Ciampaglia says Hoaxy and Botometer currently process hundreds of thousands of daily online queries. The technology has enabled researchers, including a team at Indiana University, whose work on misinformation appears in PLOS ONE, to study how information flows online in the presence of bots. A study on the cover of the March issue of Science that analyzed the spread of false news on Twitter and an analysis from the Pew Research Center in April that found that nearly two-thirds of the links to popular websites on Twitter are shared by automated accounts are also examples of research related to the tools.

The newly launched project is Fakey, a web and mobile news literacy game that mixes news stories with false reports, clickbait headlines, conspiracy theories, and “junk science.” Players earn points by “fact-checking” false information and liking or sharing accurate stories. Graduate student Mihai Avram led the project to create a tool to help people develop responsible social media consumption habits. An Android app is available, and an iOS version will launch shortly.

All three tools are united through their creators’ goal to help individuals understand the role of misinformation online, Menczer says.

“By partnering with other groups,” he adds, “we’re able to significantly amplify the power of our work in the fight against online disinformation.”

Friends don’t let friends tweet ‘fake news’

The Knight Prototype Fund on Misinformation, a joint venture of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Rita Allen Foundation, and the Democracy Fund supported the improvements to address concerns about the spread of misinformation and to build trust in quality journalism

Source: Indiana University

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Watch how bacteria ‘harpoon’ DNA to develop drug resistance

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Scientists have made the first direct observation of a key step in the process bacteria use to rapidly develop antibiotic resistance and other traits.

Researchers recorded the first images of bacterial appendages—over 10,000 times thinner than human hair—as they stretched out to catch DNA. The bacteria can then incorporate the DNA fragments into its own genome through a process called DNA uptake or “horizontal gene transfer.”

“Horizontal gene transfer is an important way that antibiotic resistance moves between bacterial species, but the process has never been observed before, since the structures involved are so incredibly small,” says senior author Ankur Dalia, an assistant professor in the College of Arts and Sciences’ biology department at Indiana University-Bloomington.

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“It’s important to understand this process, since the more we understand about how bacteria share DNA, the better our chances are of thwarting it,” he says.

Antibiotic-resistant bacteria affects nearly 1 million people each year, according to the World Health Organization. WHO has found evidence of these strains in nearly 490,000 people with tuberculous and 500,000 people with other infectious diseases.

The bacterium the researchers used in the study was Vibrio cholerae, the microbe that causes cholera. The structures bacteria use to catch DNA in the environment are extremely thin, hair-like appendages called pili.

Although scientists were aware that pili play a role in DNA uptake, direct evidence demonstrating how they work was lacking until this study, Dalia says. In order to observe pili in action, the scientists “painted” both the pili and DNA fragments with special glowing dyes.

Understanding bacteria ‘switch’ could lead to new antibiotics

The new study uses these dyes to reveal that pili act like microscopic “harpooners” that cast their line through pores in the cell’s wall to “spear” a stray piece of DNA at the very tip. The pili then “reel” the DNA into the bacterial cell through the same pore.

The pore is so small that the DNA would need to fold in half to fit through the opening in the cell, Dalia says.

“It’s like threading a needle,” says Courtney Ellison, a PhD student and first author of the study, which appears in Nature Microbiology.

“The size of the hole in the outer membrane is almost the exact width of a DNA helix bent in half, which is likely what is coming across. If there weren’t a pilus to guide it, the chance the DNA would hit the pore at just the right angle to pass into the cell is basically zero.”

The team wants to next study exactly how pili “hook” onto the DNA at just the right spot, especially since the protein involved in the process appears to interact with DNA in an entirely new way, Dalia says. His team also looks forward to applying their pili labeling method to study other functions played by these diverse bacterial structures.

Is ‘antivirulence’ the answer to failing antibiotics?

Distinguished professor Yves Brun is also a lead author of the paper. Other coauthors are from Indiana University and City University New York Brooklyn. The National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation supported the work.

Source: Indiana University

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MicroRNA snippets may warn of Alzheimer’s down the road

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Tiny snippets of genetic material called microRNA may offer a way to detect conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease earlier, according to a new study.

Researchers have discovered that changes in microRNA are detectable in mice long before they start to show symptoms from neurodegeneration. The changes may represent an early warning sign, or “biomarker,” for the condition.

“Identifying biomarkers early in a disease is important for diagnosing the condition, and following its progression and response to treatment,” says Hui-Chen Lu, a professor in the Linda and Jack Gill Center for Biomolecular Science and the psychological and brain sciences department at Indiana University. “You need something that can predict your future.”

There is currently no treatment to stop or reverse the effects of neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, ALS, or Huntington’s. It’s estimated that Alzheimer’s disease alone, which is the most common of these disorders, will affect 14 million Americans and cost US taxpayers $1.1 trillion by 2050.

Unlike regular “messenger RNA,” which direct cells to produce specific proteins, microRNA plays a regulatory role, increasing or decreasing the number of proteins that messenger RNAs encode. A single snippet can impact the function of tens or hundreds of proteins in the body.

Due to their stability in urine and blood, there is growing interest in using microRNA as biomarkers for disease prediction and diagnosis. The new study is an early step to learn whether scientists can use the material to detect neurodegenerative disorders.

To explore this question, the researchers analyzed microRNA and messenger RNA in two groups: a healthy group and a group genetically modified to develop symptoms of dementia. The team found the highest level of “dysregulation”—or deviation from normal levels—in the microRNA of the dementia group before their physical symptoms developed.

Not all Alzheimer’s damage is the same

“Higher levels of pre-symptomatic microRNA dysregulation are significant because it strongly suggests that it may have a role in changes in the brain in later stages,” Lu says.

The researchers then compared the microRNA changes to the messenger RNA changes to identify biological pathways affected by dysregulation. Their analysis suggested that changes in microRNA affected pathways related to immunity in the dementia-prone model.

In response, the team then conducted additional tests to study a specific type of microRNA that was elevated in the dementia model. The microRNA—called microRNA 142—is known to play a major role in inflammation, a part of the immune response.

How glowing microRNA could illuminate cancer

They found that introducing this microRNA into the brain triggered a significant neuroinflammation. The result is important since many other studies have shown that chronic inflammation contributes to many types of disease, including neurodegeneration, Lu says.

The next step will be to learn whether microRNA 142 is easily detectable through a blood test, a key quality for a truly non-invasive biomarker, she adds.

The research appears in Nature Scientific Reports.

The National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the Alzheimer’s Association, and the IU Johnson Center for Innovation and Translational Research supported the study in part.

Source: Indiana University

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Chemical bits can be worse than the whole for bald eagles

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Toxic chemicals in the environment that accumulate in the tissues of birds, fish, and other animals have been a concern for decades. A new study with bald eagles suggests that’s only part of the story.

Scientists discovered that chemicals used in flame retardants, plasticizers, and other commercial products are broken down through the process of metabolism into other compounds. But not enough is currently known about the dangers posed by those compounds, known as metabolites, they say.

“Most of these flame retardants and related chemicals can be readily metabolized,” says Marta Venier, a scientist in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs at Indiana University and one of the authors of the study, which appears in Environmental Science & Technology.

“The issue here is that, in some cases, the metabolites can be more toxic than the parent compounds.”

Researchers measured metabolites of flame retardants in bald eagle eggs in the Great Lakes region, focusing on “alternative” flame retardants introduced after it was discovered that earlier generations of the chemicals were persisting in the environment, causing health and environmental concerns.

In recent years, these alternative flame retardants have also been found in the environment. But when researchers looked for the flame retardants in eggs and serum of bald eagles , they found the compounds in low concentrations or not at all.

One possibility was that the eagles weren’t absorbing the chemicals from their food and environmental exposure.

But the researchers hypothesized that, instead, they were metabolizing the compounds so that only low concentrations of the parent compounds were passed on to the eggs that the birds laid. Using sophisticated chemical analysis, they determined that’s what was happening.

“The results confirmed our hypothesis,” Venier says. “Some of these compounds are not found in high concentrations because they get metabolized.”

Banned flame retardants show up in new babies

Venier says scientists don’t know a lot about the toxicity of the alternative flame retardants, and they know even less about the toxicity of their metabolites. In one test involving chicken embryos, not part of the IU research, exposure to the primary metabolite of an alternative flame retardant altered three times as many genes as exposure to the parent compound.

For the new study, researchers examined samples from 21 bald eagle eggs that failed to hatch. The eggs were collected between 2000 and 2012 in a monitoring project called the Michigan Bald Eagle Biosentinel Program.

Estrogens from wastewater linger in vernal pools

Bald eagles can serve as “sentinel species” that provide warnings about environmental dangers to humans and other organisms, Venier says. They are at the top of the food chain, feeding on fish and waterfowl, making them susceptible to exposure to chemicals that persist in the environment.

Formerly listed as an endangered species, in part because of the effects of the pesticide DDT in the environment, bald eagles are now increasing in number. But exposure to flame retardants and other pollutant chemicals could slow their recovery, researchers warn.

Other coauthors are from the University of Maryland, College Park.

Source: Indiana University

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‘Nanoscope’ zooms in to see Alzheimer’s plaques

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A major problem with understanding Alzheimer’s is not being able to clearly see why the disease starts. Now, a super-resolution “nanoscope” offers a 3D view of brain molecules with 10 times greater detail than ever before.

Recent studies show that 40 percent of Americans over the age of 85 have Alzheimer’s disease. Further, the disease begins 10 to 20 years before people ever show up at the doctor’s office with memory problems.

The instrument helped researchers better understand the structure of plaques that form in the brain of Alzheimer’s patients, pinpointing characteristics that are possibly responsible for damage.

slice of mouse brain - yellow and orange tendrils on black
3D single molecule super-resolution image of the amyloid plaques associated with Alzheimer’s disease in 30-micron thick sections of the mouse’s frontal cortex. (Credit: Fenil Patel/Purdue)

Long before Alzheimer’s develops, waxy deposits called amyloid plaques accumulate in the brain. These clusters interact with surrounding cells, causing inflammation that destroys neurons and creates memory problems.

The deposition of these plaques is currently the earliest detectable evidence of pathological change leading to Alzheimer’s disease.

“While strictly a research tool for the foreseeable future, this technology has allowed us to see how the plaques are assembled and remodeled during the disease process,” says Gary Landreth, professor of anatomy and cell biology at the Indiana University School of Medicine’s Stark Neurosciences Research Institute.

“It gives insight into the biological causes of the disease, so that we can see if we can stop the formation of these damaging structures in the brain.”

The trouble with brain tissue

The limited resolution in conventional light microscopes and the natural thickness of brain tissue have prevented researchers from clearly observing 3D morphology of amyloid plaques and their interactions with other cells.

“Brain tissue is particularly challenging for single molecule super-resolution imaging because it is highly packed with extracellular and intracellular constituents, which distort and scatter light—our source of molecular information,” says Fang Huang, assistant professor of biomedical engineering at Purdue University. “You can image deep into the tissue, but the image is blurry.”

As reported in Nature Methods, the super-resolution nanoscope, which Huang’s research team has already developed to visualize cells, bacteria, and viruses in fine detail, uses “adaptable optics”—deformable mirrors that change shape to compensate for light distortion, called “aberration,” that happens when light signals from single molecules travel through different parts of cell or tissue structures at different speeds.

How the new nanoscope works

To tackle the challenge of brain tissue, Huang’s research team developed new techniques that adjust the mirrors in response to sample depths to compensate for aberration introduced by the tissue. At the same time, these techniques intentionally introduce extra aberration to maintain the position information carried by a single molecule.

The nanoscope reconstructs the whole tissue, its cells, and cell constituents at a resolution six to 10 times higher than conventional microscopes, allowing a clear view through 30-micron thick brain sections of a mouse’s frontal cortex.

MicroRNA snippets may warn of Alzheimer’s down the road

The researchers used mice that were genetically engineered to develop the characteristic plaques that typify Alzheimer’s disease. The 3D reconstructions show that amyloid plaques are like hairballs, entangling surrounding tissue via their small fibers that branch off waxy deposits.

“We can see now that this is where the damage to the brain occurs. The mouse gives us validation that we can apply this imaging technique to human tissue,” Landreth says.

‘Fingerprint’ system could customize Alzheimer’s treatment

Researchers have already begun collaborating on using the nanoscope to observe amyloid plaques in samples of human brains, as well as a closer look at how the plaques interact with other cells and get remodeled over time.

“This development is particularly important for us as it had been quite challenging to achieve high-resolution in tissues. We hope this technique will help further our understanding of other disease-related questions, such as those for Parkinson’s disease, multiple sclerosis, and other neurological diseases,” Huang says.

Grants from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the National Institute of Health, the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences, the Alzheimer’s Association, the Jane and Lee Seidman Fund, the National Institute on Aging, Case Western Reserve University, and donations from Chet and Jane Scholtz and Dave and Susan Roberts funded the work.

Source: Purdue University

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Risk for genetic errors swells at DNA ‘hotspots’

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Researchers have identified “hotspots” in DNA where the risk for genetic mutations is significantly higher.

These mutations arise because “typos” can occur as DNA replicates during cellular division. A recent analysis, which found that random mistakes in DNA play a large role in many cancer types, underscores the need to understand more about what triggers these errors.

“Until now, I don’t think anyone could truly see the seriousness of these error hotspots in DNA.”

The research, which researchers conducted with E. coli, appears in two papers in Genetics (one, two). The “hotspots” they identified are specific to E. coli and related bacteria, but the work could provide a roadmap to identifying similar trouble spots in human DNA.

“This research gets us closer to understanding how the cell’s replication machinery interacts with DNA,” says Patricia Foster, a professor in the biology department at Indiana University-Bloomington. “If you can understand exactly why an error occurs at a particular point on the DNA in bacteria, it gets you closer to understanding the general principles.”

The risk for cancer from DNA replication errors is highest in certain tissues—like the prostate and bones—where a higher rate of cellular renewal means there are more opportunities for mistakes to occur as the DNA is copied.

“There are parts of the genome that contain ‘cancer drivers,’ where changes in the DNA can allow tumor cells to proliferate,” Foster says. “If you could know what sections of the DNA had a higher risk for mutation, you might be able to focus your analysis on these ‘hotspots’ to predict what will happen next.”

In E. coli, the researchers found that the chances of DNA replication errors were up to 18 times more likely in DNA sequences where the same chemical “letter” in the sequence repeats multiple times in a row. They also found that errors were up to 12 times more likely in DNA sequences with a specific pattern of three letters.

DNA blood test may spot cancer early

These patterns of letters in the DNA sequence had been previously identified as common locations for replication errors. But Foster says the sheer volume of data in the new studies—with analysis across the bacteria’s entire genome of 30,000 mutations accumulated during 250,000 generations—provide the “statistical weight” required to pinpoint the error rates with an unprecedented level of accuracy.

The studies also underline the importance of two systems in DNA replication: a “proofreader” enzyme and a molecular pathway called mismatch repair. Both serve as a defense against mistakes from the enzyme—called DNA polymerase—that copies the genome at a staggering rate of 1,000 letters per second.

This proofreader function resets the copying process after detecting a mistake. The researchers found that “switching off” this function caused 4,000 times more errors. Switching off mismatch repair, a backup system for the proofreader, caused 200 times more errors.

“When we switch off these backup systems, we start to see ‘pure’ errors—the places where the polymerase is more likely to make a mistake without intervention from other processes, ” Foster says. “Until now, I don’t think anyone could truly see the seriousness of these error hotspots in DNA.”

Prostate tumor DNA reveals gene problems in common

The US Army Research Office supported the work.

Source: Indiana University

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See over 300 artworks in the Uffizi without going to Italy

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You can now see some of the world’s most admired ancient artifacts and sculptures in 3D from home. A new website contains over 300 digitized sculptures and fragments from the collection of the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy.

The Uffizi Gallery, adjacent to the Piazza della Signoria in central Florence, houses some of the world’s finest masterpieces, including works by Botticelli, Caravaggio, da Vinci, Fra Angelico, Michelangelo, Raphael, and Titian.

It is among the most visited museums in Italy, with more than 1.5 million visitors each year.

scanning a sculpture in Uffizi Gallery
Scanning a sculpture at the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, Italy. (Credit: Indiana U.)

“… this collection of magnificent, inspiring, and irreplaceable classical antiquities can now be viewed and studied in an entirely new and fascinating way by scholars, museum professionals, students, and the general public,” says Michael A. McRobbie, president of Indiana University, which collaborated with the gallery on the project.

In summer 2018, the university team digitized 61 statues in the Uffizi and in the Villa Corsini, the complex where the Uffizi stores works of ancient art not on display in the galleries.

“We’re about halfway through the project and are on target to finish the job, as foreseen, in 2020,” says team leader Bernard Frischer, professor of informatics and director of the university’s Virtual World Heritage Laboratory. “We have already digitized more works of classical sculpture than has ever been done in a single museum.”

The digitization project includes:
• training informatics and art history students in the techniques of 3D data capture, digital modeling, and interactive online publication;
• creating a limited number of 3D restoration models of works of interest to individual project participants;
• and publishing the 3D models on several online sites, including the Italian Ministry of Culture’s internal conservation database, the Uffizi’s public website, and the Virtual World Heritage Laboratory’s publicly available Digital Sculpture Project.

3D ‘encyclopedia’ shows vertebrates inside and out

The Getty Villa in Malibu, Palazzo Altemps in Rome, and the National Archaeological Museum of Naples have expressed interest in digitization projects with the team, Frischer adds.

A key partner on the project has been the Politecnico di Milano, under the direction of professor Gabriele Guidi. Indiana University’s part of the digitization project receives funding from the Office of the Vice President for Research as part of its New Frontiers in the Arts and Humanities seed funding program. The project is also receiving technological support from University Information Technology Services.

Source: Indiana University

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