Sunday, July 12, 2020

Be a Part of History, Help NASA Design the Lunar Loo for the Next Mission

A mission in space involves more than just building rockets and training people to be able to withstand everything that goes with space travel for longer stretches. It also involves thinking about the mundane, apparently trivial stuff like being able to go to the bathroom without too much trouble.
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The topic of astronauts’ number ones and twos isn’t often discussed in the media because, well, what anyone does in the bathroom is no one else’s business. This time, though, NASA wants and needs media attention, in order to reach out to as many innovators as possible – because NASA wants their help in designing the next-generation space toilet.

Or, as NASA calls it, the Lunar Loo. As of the end of last month, applications opened for the so-called Lunar Loo Challenge, which will see teams or individual innovators submitting their ideas for a new space toilet. NASA plans to put the first woman and the next man on the Moon by 2024, and it wants to do so with a new, smaller and more efficient toilet.

Current space toilets, like the one on ISS, are made solely for microgravity. NASA wants this next generation of toilets to be for both microgravity and Lunar gravity, fit for both men and women, for both number one and number two, smaller, more silent and lighter.

“Getting back to the Moon by 2024 is an ambitious goal, and NASA is already working on approaches to miniaturize and streamline the existing toilets,” reads the campaign on HeroX. “But they are also inviting ideas from the global community, knowing that they will approach the problem with a mindset different from traditional aerospace engineering.”

Total prizes are $35,000 in the senior category, with first spot getting $20,000. Junior submissions will get recognition and official NASA merchandise. NASA doesn’t say exactly what that is, noting that it’s a “surprise.”

Submissions are accepted until August 17 and must follow a very strict set of criteria, including a weight of no more than 15 kg (33 pounds) in Earth’s gravity, a volume no greater than 0.12 m3 and power consumption under 70 Watts.

Back in the days of the Apollo program, astronauts didn’t actually have toilets, relying on plastic bags with hoses and sticky rings in order to do their business. These days, modern space toilets look like the contraptions in the video below. If you think you can do better, help NASA out and be a part of history.

Michigan's expanded Medicaid program helped improve health for most vulnerable residents

The most vulnerable residents of the nation's 10th most populous state say their health improved significantly after they enrolled in Michigan's expanded Medicaid program, a new study finds.
Michiganders with extremely low incomes, those who live with multiple chronic health problems, and those who are Black, got the biggest health boosts year over year among all those enrolled in the safety-net health coverage program, the study shows.
But participants of almost all ages, backgrounds and in all geographic regions reported improvements in health over time.
Writing in the new issue of JAMA Network Open, a team from the University of Michigan reports the results of a survey that asked more than 3,000 enrollees in the Healthy Michigan Plan about their health, at two time points a year apart.
The new paper adds to a growing body of evidence about the impacts of Michigan's Medicaid expansion, compiled by a team from the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation with funding from the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
The IHPI team just unveiled a summary of findings based on the final report from the first five years of their evaluation of the Healthy Michigan Plan. The new paper is the latest in a series of peer-reviewed, data-driven articles that the team has published in academic journals based on their evaluation work.
Michigan's experience might inform states where Medicaid has not yet been expanded, or is about to be - including Missouri which has a ballot proposal up for a vote in early August, Oklahoma, whose voters just approved expansion last week, and Nebraska, which is preparing to start its program this fall. Twelve other states have not expanded their Medicaid programs.

Reductions in poor health

The new paper's lead author is Minal Patel, Ph.D., M.P.H., an associate professor at the U-M School of Public Health who analyzed data from the longitudinal survey of participants who had been enrolled in the Healthy Michigan Plan for at least a year before the first time they were surveyed.
The percentage of respondents who called their health fair or poor dropped from nearly 31% in 2016 to 27% in 2017. Larger decreases were seen among those with the very lowest incomes, those who were Black, those who had two or more chronic conditions, and those who live in the Detroit metropolitan area.
Additional survey data contained in a new report showed that the percentage who said their health was fair or poor dropped further, to 25.6% by 2018.
The average number of days in the past month when the respondents said they had been in poor physical health dropped by more than a day in many groups, including those with two or more chronic health conditions. But there was no significant change in days of poor mental health or days when respondents said their health interfered with their usual activities.
Nearly one quarter of respondents who answered in 2016 were no longer enrolled in the program when surveyed in 2017.
Enrollees had incomes below or just above the federal poverty line, but 57% said they were employed or self-employed. Just over half had incomes less than 35% of the federal poverty level, which was $11,880 for a single adult in 2016.
Our study showed that sub-groups who would benefit the most from greater access to care through Michigan's Medicaid expansion reported improved health over time. Better access is indeed translating to better health."
Minal Patel, Ph.D., M.P.H., Associate Professor, U-M School of Public Health
The emphasis that the Healthy Michigan Plan places on primary care and prevention, as well as the inclusion of dental and vision care that can address long-unmet needs, likely played a role, she adds.
"It is rare to find a change in health policy that actually improves health of a target population in merely one year," says Susan D. Goold, M.D., MHSA, M.A., study co-author and professor of internal medicine at U-M. "The Healthy Michigan Plan model of expansion, which emphasized both insurance coverage and primary care, built on what we have learned from health systems around the globe."

Five years in, some key findings

The economic effects of COVID-19 have likely led more Michiganders to seek coverage from the safety net of the Healthy Michigan Plan. As of this week, more than 751,000 people are enrolled in the plan, up from 675,000 in February before COVID-19 struck Michigan.
"This new study adds to the large body of evidence on Medicaid expansion that our team at the University of Michigan has developed over the past five years," says IHPI director and study co-author John Z. Ayanian, M.D., M.P.P.
Some other key findings documented in the five-year summary brief:
  • Before enrolling in the Healthy Michigan Plan, half of those surveyed said they had a doctor or clinic they could see for regular care. By 2018, that had climbed to 83%.
  • The percentage who said that emergency rooms were their usual source of care dropped from 12% to 3%.
  • 85% of enrollees had seen a primary care provider in the last year, 84% had received a preventive medical service such as a cancer screening, and nearly half had seen a dentist.
  • 40% of enrollees surveyed said their dental health had improved since enrolling
  • 85% of enrollees said they had fewer problems paying medical bills since they enrolled
  • The percentage of enrollees who said they were employed or enrolled as a student grew to 61% in 2018, up from 55% in 2016.
  • 43% of enrollees said they had completed a Health Risk Assessment, a special feature of the Healthy Michigan Plan. Of these, 91% said it motivated them to be more responsible for their health.
  • Enrollees with incomes above the poverty level pay a contribution of 2% of their household income for their Healthy Michigan Plan coverage. Some services have co-pays. 88% of enrollees said that the amount they pay for their coverage seems fair. Among those who were billed for contributions or copays, the average quarterly statement amount was $16.85.
The IHPI team continues to study the impacts of Medicaid expansion on Michigan's enrollees. Learn more about IHPI's Healthy Michigan Plan evaluation: https://ihpi.umich.edu/featured-work/healthy-michigan-plan-evaluation

USC scientists may have found a path toward increasing human lifespan

Scientists at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences may have found the beginnings of a path toward increasing human lifespan.
The research, published July 10 by the Journal of Gerontology: Biological Sciences, shows the drug mifepristone can extend the lives of two very different species used in laboratory studies, suggesting the findings may apply to other species, including human beings.

Countering wear and tear inflicted by males

Studying one of the most common laboratory models used in genetic research -- the fruit fly Drosophila -- John Tower, professor of biological sciences, and his team found that the drug mifepristone extends the lives of female flies that have mated.
Mifepristone, also known as RU-486, is used by clinicians to end early pregnancies as well as to treat cancer and Cushing disease.
During mating, female fruit flies receive a molecule called sex peptide from the male. Previous research has shown that sex peptide causes inflammation and reduces the health and lifespan of female flies.
Tower and his team, including Senior Research Associate Gary Landis, lead researcher on the study, found that feeding mifepristone to the fruit flies that have mated blocks the effects of sex peptide, reducing inflammation and keeping the female flies healthier, leading to longer lifespans than their counterparts who did not receive the drug.
The drug's effects in Drosophila appear similar to those seen in women who take it.
In the fly, mifepristone decreases reproduction, alters innate immune response and increases life span. In the human, we know that mifepristone decreases reproduction and alters innate immune response, so might it also increase life span?"
John Tower, Professor of Biological Sciences, USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences

Overcoming juvenile hormone effects

Seeking a better understanding of how mifepristone works to increase lifespan, Tower and his team looked at the genes, molecules and metabolic processes that changed when flies consumed the drug. They found that a molecule called juvenile hormone plays a central role
Juvenile hormone regulates the development of fruit flies throughout their life, from egg to larvae to adult.
Sex peptide appears to escalate the effects of juvenile hormone, shifting the mated flies' metabolism from healthier processes to metabolic pathways that require more energy to maintain. Further, the metabolic shift promotes harmful inflammation, and it appears to make the flies more sensitive to toxic molecules produced by bacteria in their microbiome. Mifepristone changes all of that.
When the mated flies ate the drug, their metabolism stuck with the healthier pathways, and they lived longer than their mated sisters who did not get mifepristone. Notably, these metabolic pathways are conserved in humans, and are associated with health and longevity, said Tower.

Hope for humans?

In a scientific first, Tower and collaborators Chia-An Yen, who obtained her Ph.D. last spring from USC Dornsife College, and Sean Curran, associate professor of gerontology and biological sciences at USC Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and USC Dornsife College, also gave mifepristone to another common laboratory model, a small roundworm called C. elegans. They found the drug had the same life-extending effect on the mated worm.
Because Drosophila fruit flies and C. elegans worms sit on relatively distant branches of the evolutionary tree, Tower believes the similar results in such different species suggest other organisms, including humans, might see comparable benefits to lifespan.
"In terms of evolution, Drosophila and C. elegans are equally as distant from each other as either one is distant from humans," he said, and the fact that mifepristone can increase lifespan in both species suggests the mechanism is important to many species.
Tower emphasizes that a clearer understanding of the intricacies of mifepristone's actions is needed before drawing any firm conclusions.
"Our data show that in Drosophila, mifepristone either directly or indirectly counteracts juvenile hormone signaling, but the exact target of mifepristone remains elusive."
Revealing that target may give scientists critical insight needed to extend lifespan in people.
Source:
Journal reference:
Landis, G.N., et al. (2020) Metabolic Signatures of Life Span Regulated by Mating, Sex Peptide and Mifepristone/RU486 in Female Drosophila melanogaster. The Journals of Gerontology: Series A. doi.org/10.1093/gerona/glaa164.

Membrane makeover turns N95 respirator into a reusable mask

A polyimide membrane with regularly sized and spaced pores turns the N95 respirator into a reusable mask for protection against COVID-19.
An ultrathin, lightweight, porous polymeric membrane designed at KAUST can turn the N95 respirator into a reusable facemask while potentially improving its ability to keep out SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
Governments around the world are requiring or advising citizens to cover their faces while in public places to help protect themselves and others from COVID-19 infection. The rise in demand for facemasks has led to global shortages and makeshift solutions.
The N95 respirator is a single-use, tight-fitting, surgical-grade mask that filters 95 percent of airborne particles. World health bodies and governments recommend their use only by healthcare professionals as these masks are in short supply.
Now, KAUST electrical engineer Muhammad Mustafa Hussain and his team have repurposed the N95 respirator by fabricating an attachable membrane that can be replaced after a single use. The new design facilitates reuse of the N95 mask, saving costs, resources and broadening its availability.
Importantly, it could also improve the mask's filtration efficiency for SARS-CoV-2. Pores in currently available N95 masks are around 300 nanometers (nm) in size, while the SARS-CoV-2 virus is significantly smaller at 65 to 125 nanometers. The N95 is highly efficient at filtering out airborne particles but less so for particles smaller than the respirator's pores.
The team's approach facilitates the design of ultrathin polymeric membranes with pore sizes as small as five nanometers. The method first involves etching funnel-shaped pores into a silicon-based template, producing an array of 90 x 90nm squares on one side and tiny 5 to 55nm-sized pores on the other. "The etching method controls the distances between the pores and overcomes the problem of randomly spaced and oriented pores found in polymeric, nanoporous membranes developed by other researchers until now," explains Hussain.
The template pattern is then etched on to a 10 micrometer-thick polyimide film that is removed from the template and can be attached to an N95 respirator.
The polyimide membrane is intrinsically hydrophobic. In other words, water droplets fall off it instead of being absorbed into it, which means that particles don't accumulate or collect on the mask's surface.
The team's theoretical calculations show that their repurposed N95 mask conforms to the breathability standards set out by the United States National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health.
We are now working with commercial partners to further optimize our mask's breathability and filtration efficacy."
Nazek El-Atab, KAUST postdoc and the study's first author
Source:
Journal reference:
El-Atab, N., et al. (2020) Flexible nanoporous template for the design and development of reusable anti-COVID-19 hydrophobic face masks. ACS Nano. doi.org/10.1021/acsnano.0c03976.

Concentration of lopinavir and hydroxychloroquine not sufficient to fight novel coronavirus

Lopinavir is a drug against HIV, hydroxychloroquine is used to treat malaria and rheumatism. Until recently, both drugs were regarded as potential agents in the fight against the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. A research group from the University of Basel and the University Hospital has now discovered that the concentration of the two drugs in the lungs of Covid-19 patients is not sufficient to fight the virus.
In February 2020, a Covid-19 patient cohort was established at the University and the University Hospital in Basel to prospectively monitor a range of diagnostic means and potential treatments for Covid-19, including the off-label use of hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir.
A research group prospectively monitored lopinavir plasma levels in Covid-19 patients.
Considering that substantial inflammation was observed in these patients, and previous studies have shown the inhibition of drug metabolism by systemic inflammation, we had the rationale to investigate the effect of inflammation on lopinavir and hydroxychloroquine plasma levels."
Professor Catia Marzolini, first author of the study and professor for experimental medicine at the University of Basel
The authors included 92 patients in their study. Professor Parham Sendi, who is the co-leader of this study summarizes the main findings as follows: First, lopinavir plasma levels were more than two to threefold higher than typically observed in HIV patients. Hydroxychloroquine levels were with normal range. Second, there was a significant correlation between the inflammation marker levels in the blood and lopinavir plasma levels. Third, when the inflammation was blocked with the Interleukin-6 inhibitor Tocilizumab, lopinavir plasma levels were significantly lower than the ones in patients without Tozulizumab treatment
These results clearly indicate that drug metabolism enzymes (cytochrome P450 3A) are inhibited by systemic inflammation.
"Caution is advised when prescribing CYP3A4 substrates such as Lopinavir/ritonavir or any other drug with a narrow therapeutic index to Covid-19 patients because of the risk of elevated drug levels and related toxicities," the authors state.
Importantly, from the lopinavir and hydroxychloroquine concentrations in the plasma, the study group calculated the corresponding concentration in the lung compartment - the anatomic site of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The results strongly suggest that it is unlikely that both drugs reach sufficient concentrations to inhibit the virus replication in the lung.
WHO accepted the recommendation from the Solidarity Trial's International Steering Committee to discontinue the trial's hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir/ritonavir arms on 4 July 2020. Professor Manuel Battegay - co-leader of this study and head of the Division of Infectious Diseases and Hospital Epidemiology at the University Hospital in Basel - mentioned that the results provide important pharmacological and antiviral insights to the rationale of discontinuing the lopinavir/ritonavir arm. In fact, they add scientific reasoning why hydroxychloroquine and lopinavir are not effective against the SARS-CoV-2.
Source:
Journal reference:
Marzolini,C., et al. (2020) Effect of Systemic Inflammatory Response to SARS-CoV-2 on Lopinavir and Hydroxychloroquine Plasma Concentrations. Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy. doi.org/10.1128/AAC.01177-20.





From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation

by Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor



EBOOK, 300 PAGES
ISBN: 9781608465637
Read on any device
February 2016
$9.99 $5.99 40% off

HARDBACK, 288 PAGES
ISBN: 9781642591019
September 2019
$45.00 $36.00 20% off
With free bundled ebook

An indispensable contribution to the movement for racial justice in “postracial” America.
Winner of the 2016 Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize for an Especially Notable Book

“Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor's searching examination of the social, political and economic dimensions of the prevailing racial order offers important context for understanding the necessity of the emerging movement for black liberation.”
—Michelle Alexander

The eruption of mass protests in the wake of the police murders of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri and Eric Garner in New York City have challenged the impunity with which officers of the law carry out violence against Black people and punctured the illusion of a postracial America. The Black Lives Matter movement has awakened a new generation of activists.

In this stirring and insightful analysis, activist and scholar Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor surveys the historical and contemporary ravages of racism and persistence of structural inequality such as mass incarceration and Black unemployment. In this context, she argues that this new struggle against police violence holds the potential to reignite a broader push for Black liberation.
Resources

Study guide suitable for classroom and reading group use. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation Study Guide.

Reviews
"Ultimately, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation is an essential read for anyone following the movement for Black Lives. The text chronicles a portion of history we rarely ever see, while also bringing together data and deep primary source research in a way that lucidly explains the origins of the current moment."
—Los Angeles Review of Books

“This brilliant book is the best analysis we have of the #BlackLivesMatter moment of the long struggle for freedom in America. Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has emerged as the most sophisticated and courageous radical intellectual of her generation.”
—Dr. Cornel West

"Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor's searching examination of the social, political and economic dimensions of the prevailing racial order offers important context for understanding the necessity of the emerging movement for black liberation."
—Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow

"Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor’s has not written the average rushed first-wave book on a social movement. Taylor, a professor of African American studies at Princeton, is the rare academic writer whose sense of humor is as sharp as her scholarship. She’s written a sweeping yet concise history not just of the Black Lives Matter movement, but of the past seven years under the first black president and of how the 20th century led to our current state of woke uprising. It’s full of gems of historical insight and it fearlessly tackles what black liberation looks like when it happens in a black-governed city 40 miles from a black-occupied White House.”
—Steven Thrasher, The Guardian

"Class Matters! In this clear-eyed, historically informed account of the latest wave of resistance to state violence, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor not only exposes the canard of color-blindness but reveals how structural racism and class oppression are joined at the hip. If today’s rebels ever expect to end inequality and racialized state violence, she warns, then capitalism must also end. And that requires forging new solidarities, envisioning a new social and economic order, and pushing a struggle to protect Black Lives to its logical conclusion: a revolution capable of transforming the entire nation."
—Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

"With political eloquence, intellectual rigor, and an unapologetically left analysis,the brilliant scholar-activist Keeanga Taylor has provided a powerful contribution to our collective understanding of the current stage of the Black freedom struggle in the United States, how we arrived at this point, and what battles we need to fight in order to truly achieve liberation. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation is a must read for everyone who is serious about the ongoing praxis of freedom."
—Barbara Ransby, author of Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision

"Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has a strong voice, a sharp mind and a clear, readable style that all come together in this penetrating, vital analysis of race and class at this critical moment in America's racial history."
—Gary Younge, editor-at-large for the Guardian

"Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor brings the long history of Black radical theorizing and scholarship into the neoliberal 21st century with From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. Her strong voice is deeply needed at a time when young activists are once again reforging a Black liberation movement that is under constant attack. Deeply rooted in Black radical, feminist and socialist traditions, Taylor’s book is an outstanding example of the type of analysis that is needed to build movements for freedom and self-determination in a far more complicated terrain than that confronted by the activists of the 20th century. Her book is required reading for anyone interested in justice, equality and freedom."
—Michael C. Dawson, author of Blacks In and Out of the Left

"Mainstream political discourse right now, not only but particularly in the US, seems to be on a race to the bottom, eager to plumb and rehabilitate new depths of vileness. The #BlackLivesMatter movement has been one inspiring and salutary dissenting tendency to that and it couldn’t have a better analyst. Comradely and sympathetic without losing critical edge, Taylor always combines anger and rigor with rare and clear subtlety. Her examination of the changing contours of radical race politics is bound to be indispensable."
—China Miéville

"This book should be read widely. It's a powerful, concise account of why the Black Lives Matter movement has erupted and why it's needed. It is a clear-eyed and morally righteous work informed by a deep understanding of history and social policy, one that patiently and painstakingly illustrates the ways racism and capitalism are intertwined. Ultimately Taylor presents a powerful argument for social movements, for building power outside of electoral politics that can take on structural inequities. I found myself underlining something on almost every page."
–Astra Taylor, author of The People’s Platform

“From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation is a profoundly insightful book from one of the brightest new lights in African American Studies. Keeanga Yamahtta-Taylor invites us to rethink the postwar history of the US and to place the actions of everyday people, including the hundreds of thousands of African Americans who participated in the urban rebellions and wildcat strikes of 1960s and 1970s, at the forefront of American politics. By doing so, she offers up a “usable past” for interpreting the current anti-state sanctioned violence movement sweeping the U.S. in the early twenty-first century. This timely volume provides much needed analysis not only of race and criminalization in modern American history, but of the specific roles played by a bi-partisan electoral elite, the corporate sector, and the new black political class in producing our current onslaught of police killings and mass incarceration in the years since the Voting Rights Act’s passage. Yamahtta-Taylor’s fluent voice as historian and political theorist renders legible the accomplishments and, perhaps most importantly, the expansive possibilities of a new generation of black youth activism.”
—Donna Murch, author of Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California

"Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor has given us an important book, one that might help us to understand the roots of the contemporary policing crisis and build popular opposition capable of transforming the current, dismal state of affairs. Equal parts historical analysis and forceful polemic, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation provides a much-needed antidote to the post-racial patter that has defined the Obama years, but it also serves as a proper corrective for the “new civil rights movement” posturing of some activists. Against such nostalgic thinking, Taylor reminds us of the new historical conditions we face, and the unique challenges created by decades of African American political integration. From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation sketches a politics that rightly connects anti-police brutality protests and a broader anti-capitalist project. Everyone who has grown sick of too many undeserved deaths at the hands of police and vigilantes should read and debate this book."
—Cedric G. Johnson, author of Revolutionaries to Race Leaders: Black Power and the Making of African American Politics


“One by one, Taylor traces the origins of concepts such as ‘culture of poverty’, family breakdown and so on – and demolishes them as examples of ideological reaction against the threat of civil rights to establishment power.” –Red Pepper

“This is an important book, from a great writer, featuring powerful prose, compelling arguments, written very accessibly. It’s an important and needed message in a sea of racial reaction, tepid liberal ‘multiculturalism’, and pro-capitalist reformism – and it deserves a wide audience.” –Dana Williams, California State University, Chico, Anarchist Studies

“From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation is a must-read for those interested in understanding racism and inequality in modern society...a quintessential manifesto for the underrepresented, unappreciated black peoples and their allies. This book demands not only a constitutional change, but a revolution that will free black people from an inherently biased system.” –Luke de Noronha, Birkbeck College, University of London, Ethnic and Racial Studies

“Taylor's book is a recommended read. Not only an analysis of contemporary protest, but an illuminating history of institutional and structural racism in the USA, an incisive critique of 'Black Faces In High Places' and a valuable insight on how struggles against police racism, brutality and murder might be, must be, broadened and linked to others” –Just Books