Discovery of a new genetic cause of hearing loss illuminates how inner ear works

Penn Medicine study shows link between mutations of GAS2 gene and ability to amplify incoming sound, providing research target for future gene therapy

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA SCHOOL OF MEDICINE

Research News

 

PHILADELPHIA-- A gene called GAS2 plays a key role in normal hearing, and its absence causes severe hearing loss, according to a study led by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

The researchers, whose findings are published online today in Developmental Cell, discovered that the protein encoded by GAS2 is crucial for maintaining the structural stiffness of support cells in the inner ear that normally help amplify incoming sound waves. They showed that inner ear support cells lacking functional GAS2 lose their amplifier abilities, causing severe hearing impairment in mice. The researchers also identified people who have GAS2 mutations and severe hearing loss.

"Anatomists 150 years ago took pains to draw these support cells with the details of their unique internal structures, but it's only now, with this discovery about GAS2, that we understand the importance of those structures for normal hearing," said study senior author Douglas J. Epstein, PhD, professor of genetics at Penn Medicine.

Two to three of every 1,000 children in the United States are born with hearing loss in one or both ears. About half of these cases are genetic. Although hearing aids and cochlear implants often can help, these devices seldom restore hearing to normal.

One of the main focuses of the Epstein laboratory at Penn Medicine is the study of genes that control the development and function of the inner ear--genes that are often implicated in congenital hearing loss. The inner ear contains a complex, snail-shaped structure, the cochlea, that amplifies the vibrations from sound waves, transduces them into nerve signals, and sends those signals toward the auditory cortex of the brain.

Unraveling the role of Gas2 in hearing

A few years ago, Epstein's team discovered that Gas2, the mouse version of human GAS2, is switched on in embryos by another gene known to be critical for inner ear development. To determine Gas2's role in that development, the team developed a line of mice in which the gene had been knocked out of the genome and called them Gas2-knockout mice.

Alex Rohacek, PhD, a former graduate student in the Epstein lab, was puzzled to observe that the Gas2-knockout mice had inner ears with cells and structures that seemed quite normal. However, the animals, when tested, turned out to be severely hearing-impaired, with deficits at high sound frequencies of up to 50 decibels--equivalent to a loss of 99.999 percent of the normal acoustic energy.

Tingfang Chen, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow and co-first author on the study, determined that Gas2 is normally active within inner-ear support cells called pillar cells and Deiters' cells. In these cells, the protein encoded by the gene binds to flexible, tube-like structures called microtubules in a way that bundles and stabilizes them, effectively stiffening the cells.

With help from the collaborating team of Benjamin L. Prosser, PhD, assistant professor of Physiology at Penn Medicine and an expert on microtubules, the researchers discovered that when pillar cells and Deiters' cells lack Gas2, their microtubule bundles tend to come apart, dramatically reducing the stiffness of the cells.

That turns out to have dire implications for hearing. Within the inner ear, pillar cells and Dieters' cells help form the basic structure of the cochlea and serve as physical supports for cells called outer hair cells. The outer hair cells move in response to incoming acoustical vibrations--essentially to provide a crucial amplification of that sound energy. The experiments revealed that the pillar and Deiters' cells' loss of stiffness, due to the absence of Gas2, severely degrades the sound-amplifying properties of the outer hair cells they support.

"We observed that some of Deiters' cells in the Gas2-knockout mice even buckled under the tension of the rapid movements of the outer hair cells," Epstein said.

The experiments included sophisticated imaging of propagating sound waves in the inner ears of live Gas2-knockout and normal mice, conducted by collaborator John Oghalai, MD, chair and professor of otolaryngology-head and neck surgery at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, and his team.

GAS2 also causes human hearing loss

Curiously, the researchers could find no reports of GAS2-associated congenital hearing loss in the medical literature. Even when they canvassed colleagues around the world who run hearing-loss clinics, they came up empty-handed.

Then one day, Hannie Kremer, PhD, professor and chair of molecular otogenetics at Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands, emailed Epstein. She and her team had been studying a Somalian family in which four of the siblings had severe hearing loss from early life. The affected family members had no mutations in known hearing-loss genes--but each carried two mutant copies of GAS2.

The study therefore establishes GAS2 as a very probable new hearing loss gene in humans--the first one known to affect the mechanical properties of inner ear support cells.

The prevalence of hearing loss in people due to GAS2 mutations remains to be determined, but Epstein noted that this type of congenital hearing loss is nevertheless an attractive target for a future gene therapy.

"In many genetic hearing loss conditions, the affected cells are permanently damaged or die, but in this one, the affected cells are intact and conceivably could be restored to normal or near-normal by restoring GAS2 function," he said.

He added that such a gene therapy might be useful not only in more obvious cases of hearing loss in early childhood, but also in cases--perhaps more numerous--in which inherited mutations lead to a slower development of hearing loss in adulthood.

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Funding was provided by the National Institutes of Health (R01 DC006254, R01 DC014450, R01 DC013774, R01 DC017741, R01 HL133080), the Boucai Innovation Fund in Auditory Genomics, the National Science Foundation (15-48571), and the Heinsius Houbolt Foundation.

Penn Medicine is one of the world's leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, and excellence in patient care. Penn Medicine consists of the Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania (founded in 1765 as the nation's first medical school) and the University of Pennsylvania Health System, which together form a $8.9 billion enterprise.

The Perelman School of Medicine has been ranked among the top medical schools in the United States for more than 20 years, according to U.S. News & World Report's survey of research-oriented medical schools. The School is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $496 million awarded in the 2020 fiscal year.

 

Hologram experts can now create real-life images that move in the air

Using lasers to create the displays of science fiction, inspired by Star Wars and Star Trek

BRIGHAM YOUNG UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

IMAGE: A TINY STARSHIP ENTERPRISE FIRES ON A TINY KLINGON BATTLE CRUISER WITH REAL ANIMATED IMAGES CREATED IN THIN AIR. view more 

CREDIT: BYU

They may be tiny weapons, but Brigham Young University's holography research group has figured out how to create lightsabers -- green for Yoda and red for Darth Vader, naturally -- with actual luminous beams rising from them.

Inspired by the displays of science fiction, the researchers have also engineered battles between equally small versions of the Starship Enterprise and a Klingon Battle Cruiser that incorporate photon torpedoes launching and striking the enemy vessel that you can see with the naked eye.

"What you're seeing in the scenes we create is real; there is nothing computer generated about them," said lead researcher Dan Smalley, a professor of electrical engineering at BYU. "This is not like the movies, where the lightsabers or the photon torpedoes never really existed in physical space. These are real, and if you look at them from any angle, you will see them existing in that space."

It's the latest work from Smalley and his team of researchers who garnered national and international attention three years ago when they figured out how to draw screenless, free-floating objects in space. Called optical trap displays, they're created by trapping a single particle in the air with a laser beam and then moving that particle around, leaving behind a laser-illuminated path that floats in midair; like a "a 3D printer for light."

The research group's new project, funded by a National Science Foundation CAREER grant, goes to the next level and produces simple animations in thin air. The development paves the way for an immersive experience where people can interact with holographic-like virtual objects that co-exist in their immediate space.

"Most 3D displays require you to look at a screen, but our technology allows us to create images floating in space -- and they're physical; not some mirage," Smalley said. "This technology can make it possible to create vibrant animated content that orbits around or crawls on or explodes out of every day physical objects."

To demonstrate that principle, the team has created virtual stick figures that walk in thin air. They were able to demonstrate the interaction between their virtual images and humans by having a student place a finger in the middle of the volumetric display and then film the same stick finger walking along and jumping off that finger.

Smalley and Rogers detail these and other recent breakthroughs in a new paper published in Nature Scientific Reports this month. The work overcomes a limiting factor to optical trap displays: wherein this technology lacks the ability to show virtual images, Smalley and Rogers show it is possible to simulate virtual images by employing a time-varying perspective projection backdrop.

"We can play some fancy tricks with motion parallax and we can make the display look a lot bigger than it physically is," Rogers said. "This methodology would allow us to create the illusion of a much deeper display up to theoretically an infinite size display."

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New study determines cystic fibrosis therapy is safe and effective for young children

Children two to five years of age can benefit from lumacaftor/ivacaftor treatment for up to 120 weeks

CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL COLORADO

Research News

 

IMAGE: LEAD STUDY AUTHOR JORDANA HOPPE, MD, A PEDIATRIC PULMONOLOGIST WITH CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL COLORADO AND ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF PEDIATRICS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO SCHOOL OF MEDICINE ON THE ANSCHUTZ MEDICAL... view more 

CREDIT: CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL COLORADO

Children ages two to five who have the most common form of cystic fibrosis (CF), caused by two copies of the F508 gene mutation, have not had any modulator treatments available to them until recently. A new study authored by researchers at Children's Hospital Colorado and published May 6, 2021, in Lancet Respiratory Medicine shows that the CFTR modulator - lumacaftor/ivacaftor - can be safe and well-tolerated for this age range for up to 120 weeks, allowing younger children to begin proactive treatment of CF earlier in their lives.

CF affects more than 70,000 people worldwide and is a chronic, progressive, life-shortening genetic disease caused by an absent or defective protein called the CF transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) protein, resulting from mutations in both copies of the CFTR gene. Most people with CF have little to no CFTR protein function. CFTR modulators target the specific defects caused by mutations in the CFTR gene to increase the quantity or function of CFTR protein. Lumacaftor/ivacaftor is the first combination CFTR modulator therapy approved to treat people with CF who have two copies of the most common disease-causing CFTR mutation.

While a prior study found that up to 24 weeks of lumacaftor/ivacaftor was safe and effective, the safety and efficacy of long-term lumacaftor/ivacaftor treatment had not previously been investigated in children under the age of six. During this new study, 57 children between two and five years of age received weight- and age-based doses of lumacaftor/ivacaftor every 12 hours for over 96 weeks with the end results demonstrating that lumacaftor/ivacaftor is safe, effective and can be used for up to 120 weeks of treatment.

"Starting CFTR modulator treatments at a younger age may help to slow and hopefully prevent some of the devastating consequences of CF, such as lung damage, lung function decline and frequent illnesses or hospitalizations," said lead study author Jordana Hoppe, MD, a pediatric pulmonologist with Children's Hospital Colorado and assistant professor of pediatrics at the University of Colorado School of Medicine on the Anschutz Medical Campus. "Prior to the approval of lumacaftor/ivacaftor for children between 2-5 years old, younger patients with two copies of the F508 mutation could only receive symptomatic treatments such as manual chest percussion to clear mucus from the airways, nebulized treatments or antibiotics. The modulator therapy is preventive instead of reactive, targeting the function of the protein to make it work better."

Another key finding demonstrated improvements or an increase in pancreatic function. CF can cause pancreatic insufficiency so that those with the disease must ingest pancreatic enzymes every time they eat to maintain growth and nutrition. These results suggest that for some patients treated with the CFTR modulator therapy, there may be improvement in pancreatic function, possibly resulting in changes to their enzyme dosing.

Additional results included changes in sweat chloride, improved weight gain and growth, and increased lung clearance. It also helps prevent pulmonary exacerbations or respiratory illnesses that require hospitalizations and antibiotic therapy, which has been especially alleviating for families during the COVID-19 pandemic.

"These patients will be transitioned to a more highly effective modulator TRIKAFTA*, but there are certainly benefits to starting modulator therapy at a younger age as the results of this study demonstrated," Hoppe said.

Study visits were conducted in the Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CCTSI) research area at Children's Hospital Colorado. The hospital's Mike McMorris Cystic Fibrosis Research and Care Center is the largest center of its kind in the nation and follows close to 400 children.

"The Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CCTSI) has been a longtime partner with the Mike McMorris Cystic Fibrosis Research and Care Center. Our pediatric Clinical and Translational Research Center and our specialized research nursing staff assist the CF investigators like Dr. Hoppe with conducting CF clinical trials in many ways, including collecting data and obtaining specimens, infusing medications and educating the families and children about research," said Ronald Sokol, MD, director of the CCTSI and vice chair of pediatrics at Children's Hospital Colorado.

*In 2019, researchers at the Children's Hospital Colorado Breathing Institute, one of the largest CF clinical care centers in the U.S., were part of a Therapeutics Development Network that oversaw clinical trials leading to FDA approval of TRIKAFTA, a highly effective CF treatment for people with CF 12 years of age and older. The team was also involved in trials of TRIKAFTA in children ages 6-11 years, which was recently proven efficacious for this patient population and could be soon approved by the FDA for use for kids 6 and older. TRIKAFTA is a combination of three medicines that can improve the CFTR protein function to over 50%, helping approximately 90% of people living with CF.

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ABOUT CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL COLORADO

Children's Hospital Colorado is one of the nation's leading and most expansive pediatric healthcare systems with a mission to improve the health of children through patient care, education, research and advocacy. Founded in 1908 and recognized as a top ten children's hospital by U.S. News & World Report, Children's Colorado has established itself as a pioneer in the discovery of innovative and groundbreaking treatments that are shaping the future of pediatric healthcare worldwide. Children's Colorado offers a full spectrum of family-centered care at its urgent, emergency and specialty care locations throughout Colorado, including its location on the Anschutz Medical Campus, and across the region. In 2019, Children's Hospital Colorado, Colorado Springs, opened as the first pediatric-only hospital in southern Colorado. For more information, visit http://www.childrenscolorado.org, or connect with us on Facebook and Twitter.

 

New weather warning gauge

Novel patterns found in Australia's climate extremes

FLINDERS UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

Australia, the driest inhabited continent, is prone to natural disasters and wild swings in weather conditions - from floods to droughts, heatwaves and bushfires.

Now two new Flinders University studies of long-term hydro-climatic patterns provide fresh insights into the causes of the island continent's strong climate variability which affect extreme wet or dry weather and other conditions vital to water supply, agriculture, the environment and the nation's future.

For the first time, researchers from the National Centre for Groundwater Research and Training (NCGRT) at Flinders have revealed a vegetation-mediated seesaw wetting-drying phenomenon between eastern and western Australia.

The seesaw phenomenon covered in a new paper in Earth's Future is characterised by eastern Australia gaining water, while western Australia is losing water, and vice-versa being reset by strong La Niña induced continent?wide wetting.

"The seesaw phase seems to depend on vegetation cover anomaly prior to the strong La Niña event, and can be explained by subsequent vegetation and soil moisture interactions," says lead researcher Dr Huade Guan, Associate Professor in Hydrology.

"This finding provides society with valuable reference for managing forest, water, and disaster risks in the wake of a next strong La Niña induced continent?wide wetting in Australia," says co-author Flinders University Professor Okke Batalaan.

Rainfall on land has its moisture source mostly from evaporation in oceans. Sea surface temperature variation - in tropical Pacific in rhythm with the El Nino-Southern Oscillation, and in northern Indian Ocean represented by Indian Ocean Dipole - provides a lead up of several months for predicting overall drought or wet condition in Australia.

In another lengthy NCGRT study over more than a decade, Flinders researchers evaluated the impacts of sea surface temperature variations in Southern Hemisphere oceans on rainfall in South Australia. They found a seven-year lead ocean-atmosphere oscillation for precipitation patterns - which may help prepare South Australia for future extreme weather conditions, the Frontiers in Earth Science paper says.

"This long-running study, beginning with a postgraduate project (by Dr CP Rofe in 2009), revealed a seven-year lag precipitation teleconnection with a large-scale ocean-atmosphere oscillation index known as Southern Annular Mode, or Antarctic Oscillation," Associate Professor Guan says.

"We filled the teleconnection with a 27-season lag correlation between sea surface temperature off the coast of South Australia and the Southern Annual Mode, and a two-season lag correlation between rainfall in SA and sea surface temperature."

Other co-authors Dr Wenju Cai (CSIRO and Flinders alumnus) and previous visiting scholars Dr Lingli Fan and Dr Jianjun Xu (Guangdong Ocean University) confirmed this oceanic teleconnection dominant between 1979-1998.

"Focusing on this period, we were able to delineate an oceanic pathway showing how sea water temperature anomaly associated with the South Annual Mode propagated from the southern Pacific Ocean to South Australian seas in about 27 seasons.

"This sea temperature anomaly propagation only existed in 1979-1998 when the Pacific Ocean was in a certain stage, known as the positive phase of Interdecadal Pacific Oscillation (IPO)."

With this teleconnection, the team successfully "hindcasted" the 1988 and 1999 droughts in SA without ambiguity with seven-year lead time, Associate Professor Guan says, adding that the next positive phase of IPO will further test this theory to support water resource and agricultural planning in South Australia.

Read the article online, A 7-Year Lag Precipitation Teleconnection in South Australia and Its Possible Mechanism (2021) by L Fan, H Guan, W Cai, CP Rofe and J Xu has been published in Frontiers in Earth Science DOI: 10.3389/feart.2020.553506

The Earth's Future study confirmed four consecutive periods of seesaw wetting and drying between eastern and western Australia in the past five decades, based on analyses of GRACE satellite-derived terrestrial water storage and extended datasets by co-author and Flinders PhD student Ms Ajiao Chen.

"These findings support the idea of better stormwater harvesting and other environmental measures to prepare for a drying phase - and more disaster risk and adaptive land management in the wake of a strong La Niña induced continent-wide wetting in Australia.

"Reducing vegetation cover right after the wetting episode might reduce the risk of heatwaves and bushfires in the later dry stage," researchers say.

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The first article, Seesaw terrestrial wetting and drying between eastern and western Australia (2021) by Ajiao Chen, Huade Guan and Okke Batelaan, has been published in Earth's Future DOI: 10.1029/2020EF001893

 

Study helps to better understand the link between indoor and outdoor air quality

INSTITUTE OF ATMOSPHERIC PHYSICS, CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

Research News

 

IMAGE: SOURCES AND EVOLUTION OF PARTICULATE MATTER IN THE INDOOR ENVIRONMENT. view more 

CREDIT: JUNYAO LI

People spend about 80-90% of their time indoors. Compared to outdoor air quality, the indoor air quality is more relevant to people's health. Therefore, understanding the levels, sources and evolution of particulate matter (PM) indoors is important for the accurate evaluation of people's health risks to aerosol exposure.

A research team led by Prof. Yele Sun from the Institute of Atmospheric Physics (IAP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences deployed a time-of-flight aerosol chemical speciation monitor (ToF-ACSM) to measure time series and mass spectra of non-refractory species in a typical academic office in IAP. The study was published in Indoor Air.

The researchers measured the concentration and chemical composition of indoor PM2.5 for one month along with simultaneous measurements outdoors. They also performed the open-close window and the dampness experiments in order to figure out the mechanism of indoor/outdoor air exchange, and the influence of increased humidity on the indoor PM2.5.

They found that the indoor aerosol species were primarily from outdoor air exchange. "The indoor and outdoor variation trends are similar for most of aerosol species," said Prof. Sun, "However, the chemical compositions of PM2.5 are different. The concentration of organic aerosol from fossil fuel combustion and ammonium nitrate decreases because they evaporate or turn from particle to gas upon indoor transport when the indoor temperature is much higher than the outside in winter."

It is often believed that opening windows to ventilate can improve the indoor air quality. However, according to this newly published study, the PM mass concentration outdoors is significantly higher than that in the office. Elevated natural ventilation will increase PM exposure indoors instead, and this increased exposure might be prolonged when outdoor PM got cleared up. "So it's not a good idea to open windows when the air quality is not good outdoors." Said Prof. Sun.

The team also investigated the effect of air humidifiers, which are widely used to increase the indoor humidity. Prof. Sun said, "The increase of indoor relative humidity could lead to a significant increase in PM2.5 mass concentration, especially for organic aerosol. The increase is likely due to the partitioning of hygroscopic organic species from gas phase to particle phase in indoor air."

"Better understanding of the links between indoor and outdoor air quality will be needed in the future, as well as a more quantitative assessment of human exposure risks indoors," said Sun.

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Systemic inequalities driving exposure to high indoor air pollution in London

UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON

Research News

 

Systemic inequalities mean that low-income households in London are more likely to be exposed to higher levels of indoor air pollution, according to a report by UCL researchers.

The biggest factors are the quality of housing and the characteristics of the surrounding environment, taking location and levels of outdoor air pollution into account - factors beyond occupants' control.

Air pollution exposure is the greatest environmental health threat in the UK, with long-term exposures estimated to cause 28,000-36,000 premature deaths a year.

In the paper, published in Buildings and Cities, researchers used available data and models, assembling evidence to examine five factors explaining why lower socio-economic groups may be exposed to higher levels of indoor air pollution in their homes, focusing on London and the pollutants PM2.5, NOx and CO. These pollutants were selected as they are primarily produced by combustion processes, such as cooking or burning fuel, and are therefore found in most households.

The factors were: housing location and ambient outdoor levels of pollution; housing characteristics including ventilation properties and internal sources of pollution; occupant behaviours; time spent indoors; and underlying health conditions. London was the focus because housing there isn't typically representative of the rest of the country, with a higher proportion of renters and flats as dwellings.

The team used a systems approach highlighting interactions and links between factors to show how they lead to systemic exposure inequalities, with lower income households having limited opportunities to improve their indoor air quality.

Lead author, PhD candidate Lauren Ferguson, (UCL Energy Institute and UCL Institute for Environmental Design & Engineering) said: "This research highlights that exposure to indoor air pollution can lead to health inequalities depending on socio-economic status. Differences in housing quality and characteristics of the surrounding areas mean low-income households are likely to bear a disproportionate risk of elevated exposure to indoor air pollution.

"Poor quality housing can lead to a number of negative health effects and is therefore an area which should be targeted in order to address the growing health inequalities gap in the UK."

Air pollution exposure is associated with health problems such as respiratory and cardiovascular complications, birth defects, childhood asthma cases and sudden infant deaths. Long term exposure to particulate matter (PM) has been linked to adult depression, although this needs more research.

Low socio-economic status (SES) groups are more likely to live in higher density flats and smaller dwellings and areas of London with higher levels of air pollution.

Whilst high density dwellings often have lower ventilation levels which can prevent some outdoor air pollution from getting in, this is not sufficient to offset living in an area of high outdoor pollution. Dwellings with low levels of ventilation prevent indoor air pollution from activities including cooking and smoking from escaping, and are more vulnerable to local pollution from neighbours' cooking or smoking.

Levels of smoking are higher amongst low SES groups, with 25.5% of those in routine and manual occupations smoking regularly, compared with 15.7% in intermediate occupations and 10.2% in managerial and professional occupations. Low SES groups also report longer cooking durations, increasing exposure to pollution.

Low SES groups are more likely to spend less time outdoors, due to a variety of factors including higher levels of unemployment, fewer after-school clubs and little access to green spaces. This raises their susceptibility to developing health conditions from increased exposure to indoor air pollution.

They are at a higher risk of experiencing underlying health conditions, material deprivation and psychological stress, making them more susceptible to air pollution. Material deprivation includes lack of access to healthcare, poor diet - which is strongly linked to income class - and lack of physical activity, which is linked to spending more time indoors due to the factors mentioned above.

The paper builds on previous research in 2020 on how concentrations of indoor domestic air pollution may vary between SES groups. The researchers hope the findings will influence policy decisions regarding air pollution and housing in London, and call for action to improve housing quality, promote and support interventions to reduce exposure to outdoor air pollution and encourage behavioural change to minimise risk factors from smoking and spending large amounts of time indoors.

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The project was funded by Public Health England and the EPSRC.

Notes to Editors

For more information or to speak to the researchers involved, please contact: Kate Corry, UCL Media Relations. T: +44 (0)20 3108 6995, E: k.corry@ucl.ac.uk

Lauren Ferguson, Jonathon Taylor, Ke Zhou, Clive Shrubsole, Phil Symonds, Michael Davies, Sani Dimitroulopoulou, 'Systemic inequalities in indoor air pollution exposure in London, UK' will be published in Buildings & Cities on Friday 7th May 2021, 07:00 UK time and is under a strict embargo until this time.

The DOI for this paper will be https://doi.org/10.5334/bc.100

Additional information

Paper published in 2020: Exposure to indoor air pollution across socio-economic groups in high-income countries: A scoping review of the literature and a modelling methodology: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32629198/

About UCL (University College London) - London's Global University

UCL is a diverse community with the freedom to challenge and think differently.

Our community of more than 41,500 students from 150 countries and over 12,500 staff pursues academic excellence, breaks boundaries and makes a positive impact on real world problems.

We are consistently ranked among the top 10 universities in the world and are one of only a handful of institutions rated as having the strongest academic reputation and the broadest research impact.

We have a progressive and integrated approach to our teaching and research - championing innovation, creativity and cross-disciplinary working. We teach our students how to think, not what to think, and see them as partners, collaborators and contributors.

For almost 200 years, we are proud to have opened higher education to students from a wide range of backgrounds and to change the way we create and share knowledge.

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Find out how UCL is helping lead the global fight against COVID-19 http://www.ucl.ac.uk/covid-19-research

 

Scrap for cash before coins

Researchers including Göttingen University show Bronze Age witnessed revolution in small change across Europe

UNIVERSITY OF GÖTTINGEN

Research News

IMAGE: MAP SHOWING THE SPREAD OF WEIGHING TECHNOLOGY IN BRONZE AGE EUROPE (C. 2300-800 BC) view more 

CREDIT: N IALONGO

How did people living in the Bronze Age manage their finances before money became widespread? Researchers from the Universities of Göttingen and Rome have discovered that bronze scrap found in hoards in Europe circulated as a currency. These pieces of scrap - which might include swords, axes, and jewellery broken into pieces - were used as cash in the late Bronze Age (1350-800 BC), and in fact complied with a weight system used across Europe. This research suggests that something very similar to our 'global market' evolved across Western Eurasia from the everyday use of scrap for cash by ordinary people some 1000 years before the beginning of classical civilizations. The results were published in Journal of Archaeological Science.

This study analysed around 2,500 metal objects and fragments from among the thousands of hoards of fragments from the late Bronze Age that, over time, have been unearthed in Central Europe and Italy. The researchers used a statistical technique that can determine if a sample of measurements is due to an underlying system. This technique can detect, for instance, if the analysed objects are multiples of a weight unit. The researchers' analysis provides very significant results for fragments and scraps, which means that these metal objects were intentionally fragmented in order to meet predetermined weights. The analyses confirm that the weight unit that regulated the mass of metals was the same unit represented in European balance weights of the same period. The researchers conclude that these scraps were being used as money, and that the fragmentation of bronze objects was aimed at obtaining 'small change' or cash.

Trade in prehistory is commonly imagined as a primitive system based on barter and on the exchange of gifts, with money appearing as some kind of evolutionary milestone somewhere during the making of Western state-societies. The study challenges this notion by introducing the concept that money was a bottom-up convention rather than a top-down regulation. Bronze Age money in Western Eurasia emerges in a socio-political context in which public institutions either did not exist (as was the case in Europe) or were uninterested in enforcing any kind of monetary policy (as in Mesopotamia). In fact, money was widespread and used on a daily basis at all levels of the population.

The spread of the use of metallic scraps for cash happened against the background of the formation of a global market in Western Eurasia. "There was nothing 'primitive' about pre-coinage money, as money before coins performed exactly the same functions that modern money does now," explains Dr Nicola Ialongo at the University of Göttingen's Institute for Prehistory and Early History. Ialongo adds, "Using these metallic scraps was not an unexpected development, as it is likely that perishable goods were used as currency long before the discovery of metallurgy, but the real turning point was the invention of weighing technology in the Near East around 3000 BC. This provided, for the first time in human history, the objective means to quantify the economic value of things and services, or, in other words, to assign them a price."

CAPTION

Mathematical analysis of balance weights (like the Bronze Age balance weights from southern Italy shown here) and metal scraps in Italy and Central Europe show that the weight unit (shekel) matches the weight of the metal scraps. This suggests that they were used as a common currency across Europe. (scale bar = 3cm)

CREDIT

N Ialongo

The study is the result of an international collaboration between the project 'Weight and Value' at the University of Göttingen and directed by Professor Lorenz Rahmstorf, and Sapienza University of Rome.

Original publication: Ialongo, N., Lago, G. 2021. A small change revolution. Weight systems and the emergence of the first Pan-European money. Journal of Archaeological Science 129. DOI: 10.1016/j.jas.2021.105379

CAPTION

Bronze Age money across Europe: Metal scraps from the 'soldier's pouch' of the Late Bronze Age battlefield of Tollensee Valley, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern

CREDIT

Photo by Volker Minkus, copyright Thomas Terberger

 

Transforming atmospheric carbon into industrially useful materials

Salk scientists quantify process to permanently store plant-captured CO2 as SiC, a valuable material for electronics

SALK INSTITUTE

Research News

 

LA JOLLA--(May 6, 2021) Plants are unparalleled in their ability to capture CO2 from the air, but this benefit is temporary, as leftover crops release carbon back into the atmosphere, mostly through decomposition. Researchers have proposed a more permanent, and even useful, fate for this captured carbon by turning plants into a valuable industrial material called silicon carbide (SiC)--offering a strategy to turn an atmospheric greenhouse gas into an economically and industrially valuable material.

In a new study, published in the journal RSC Advances on April 27, 2021, scientists at the Salk Institute transformed tobacco and corn husks into SiC and quantified the process with more detail than ever before. These findings are crucial to helping researchers, such as members of Salk's Harnessing Plants Initiative, evaluate and quantify carbon-sequestration strategies to potentially mitigate climate change as CO2 levels continue to rise to unprecedented levels.

"The study offers a very careful accounting for how you make this valuable substance and how many atoms of carbon you've pulled out of the atmosphere. And with that number, you can start to extrapolate what role plants could play in mitigating greenhouse gases while also converting an industrial byproduct, CO2, into valuable materials by using natural systems like photosynthesis," says co-corresponding author and Salk Professor Joseph Noel.

SiC, also known as carborundum, is an ultrahard material used in ceramics, sandpaper, semiconductors and LEDs. The Salk team used a previously reported method to transform plant material into SiC in three stages by counting carbons at each step: First, the researchers grew tobacco, chosen for its short growing season, from seed. They then froze and ground the harvested plants into a powder and treated it with several chemicals including a silicon-containing compound. In the third and final stage, the powdered plants were petrified (turned into a stony substance) to make SiC, a process that involves heating the material up to 1600 ?C.

"The rewarding part was that we were able to demonstrate how much carbon can be sequestered from agricultural waste products like corn husks while producing a valuable, green material typically produced from fossil fuels," says first author Suzanne Thomas, a Salk staff researcher.

Through elemental analysis of the plant powders, the authors measured a 50,000-fold increase in sequestered carbon from seed to lab-grown plant, demonstrating plants' efficiency at pulling down atmospheric carbon. Upon heating to high temperatures for petrification, the plant material loses some carbon as a variety of decomposition products but ultimately retains about 14 percent of the plant-captured carbon.

The researchers calculated that the process to make 1.8 g of SiC required about 177 kW/h of energy, with the majority of that energy (70 percent) being used for the furnace in the petrification step. The authors note that current manufacturing processes for SiC carry comparable energy costs. So while the production energy required means that the plant-to-SiC process isn't carbon neutral, the team suggests that new technologies created by renewable energy companies could bring down energy costs.

"This is a step towards making SiC in an environmentally responsible approach," says co-corresponding author and Salk visiting scientist James La Clair.

Next, the team hopes to explore this process with a wider variety of plants, in particular plants like horsetail or bamboo, that naturally contain large amounts of silicon.

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About the Salk Institute for Biological Studies:

Every cure has a starting point. The Salk Institute embodies Jonas Salk's mission to dare to make dreams into reality. Its internationally renowned and award-winning scientists explore the very foundations of life, seeking new understandings in neuroscience, genetics, immunology, plant biology and more. The Institute is an independent nonprofit organization and architectural landmark: small by choice, intimate by nature and fearless in the face of any challenge. Be it cancer or Alzheimer's, aging or diabetes, Salk is where cures begin. Learn more at: salk.edu.

Swiping, swabbing elevates processing plant food safety

CORNELL UNIVERSITY

Research News

 

ITHACA, N.Y. - By swiping surfaces in commercial food processing plants with specially designed rapid-testing adenosine triphospate (ATP) swabs - which produce a light similar to the glow of fireflies in the presence of microorganisms - spoilage and foodborne illness could diminish, according to a new study from Cornell University food scientists.

During food production, routine cleaning and surface sanitation are keys to help prevent microbial contamination in the end food products. Without such a sanitation regime, food from processing plants can become more vulnerable to spoilage, and people who eat that food may face greater risk with illness or death from foodborne pathogens.

"Food scientists know that for processing plants, visual inspection is not a reliable indicator of cleaning-protocol success," said Randy Worobo, professor of food science in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) and faculty fellow at the Cornell Atkinson Center for Sustainability. "All food factory 'ecosystems' are prone to niches where microorganisms can hang out or where food residues can persist. We need to find them."

Worobo is senior author of the study, "Implementation of ATP and Microbial Indicator Testing for Hygiene Monitoring in a Tofu Production Facility Improves Product Quality and Hygienic Conditions of Food Contact Surfaces: A Case Study," which published on Feb. 12 in Applied and Environmental Microbiology.

Each year more than 48 million Americans get sick from foodborne pathogens; more than 120,000 are hospitalized and about 3,000 die, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Examining the efficacy of an environmental monitoring program using the 3M Clean-Trace Hygiene Monitoring and Management system for ATP monitoring, in combination with 3M Petrifilm Plates, for microbiological enumeration - Worobo and lead author Jonathan H. Sogin, a doctoral student in food science, in partnership with 3M Food Safety microbiologists, spent nine months testing samples collected from the processing environment in a commercial tofu manufacturing facility.

Worobo, Sogin and the 3M Food Safety team assembled a custom-designed plan to use an ATP swab test to check dozens of critical points in the plant after it had been cleaned. Following use, the ATP swab is placed in a luminometer instrument, where the bioluminescence of contaminants is detected.

The amount of light is transformed in the luminometer to relative light units, where this value is displayed on the instrument. If it exceeds a defined threshold value, the surface would be considered dirty and may indicate that cleaning operations were not performed properly.

Results show that targeted cleaning - demonstrated by ATP monitoring, and verified by further microbiological tests - can improve the environmental hygiene of food-processing facilities.

"If a plant supervisor is responsible for the cleaning crew and the supervisor says, 'That's not clean enough,' there might be an employee who thinks that the supervisor is picking on them," Worobo said. "Instead, if you have luminometer, like the 3M Clean-Trace system, that device removes the bias so that the cleaning crew itself can see the numbers. These methods become a quantitative way to ensure that they're doing a good job."

ATP monitoring and microbiological enumeration can verify and improve the efficacy of cleaning and sanitation practices, which can have a positive impact not only for the facility, but for product quality, Sogin said.

"This test can not only verify that the plant's equipment and food-contact surfaces are cleaned and sanitized before starting food preparations, it can identify problematic situations. It helps you become a sleuth," Worobo said. "But as a standard, the industry should be using this method to verify cleaning and sanitation programs. It's key."

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In addition to Worobo and Sogin, contributors included Maro C?obo, technician, Cornell AgriTech; and technical applications specialists Cari Lingle and Gabriela Lopez-Velasco, technical sales manager Burcu Yordem, and global scientific affairs manager John M. David, all of 3M.

This study was supported by a 3M-sponsored research contract, with additional funding by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releas

 

Feeling younger buffers older adults from stress, protects against health decline

Younger 'subjective age' can have functional health benefits, study finds

AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION

Research News

 

WASHINGTON -- People who feel younger have a greater sense of well-being, better cognitive functioning, less inflammation, lower risk of hospitalization and even live longer than their older-feeling peers. A study published by the American Psychological Association suggests one potential reason for the link between subjective age and health: Feeling younger could help buffer middle-aged and older adults against the damaging effects of stress.

In the study, published in Psychology and Aging, researchers from the German Centre of Gerontology analyzed three years of data from 5,039 participants in the German Ageing Survey, a longitudinal survey of residents of Germany age 40 and older. The survey included questions about the amount of perceived stress in peoples' lives and their functional health - how much they were limited in daily activities such as walking, dressing and bathing. Participants also indicated their subjective age by answering the question, "How old do you feel?"

The researchers found, on average, participants who reported more stress in their lives experienced a steeper decline in functional health over three years, and that link between stress and functional health decline was stronger for chronologically older participants.

However, subjective age seemed to provide a protective buffer. Among people who felt younger than their chronological age, the link between stress and declines in functional health was weaker. That protective effect was strongest among the oldest participants.

"Generally, we know that functional health declines with advancing age, but we also know that these age-related functional health trajectories are remarkably varied. As a result, some individuals enter old age and very old age with quite good and intact health resources, whereas others experience a pronounced decline in functional health, which might even result in need for long-term care," said study lead author Markus Wettstein, PhD, who is now at University of Heidelberg. "Our findings support the role of stress as a risk factor for functional health decline, particularly among older individuals, as well as the health-supporting and stress-buffering role of a younger subjective age."

The results suggest that interventions that aim to help people feel younger could reduce the harm caused by stress and improve health among older adults, according to the researchers - though further study is needed to help determine what kind of interventions would work best. For example, Wettstein said, messaging campaigns to counteract ageism and negative age stereotypes and to promote positive views on aging could help people feel younger. In addition, more general stress-reduction interventions and stress management training could prevent functional health loss among older adults, according to Wettstein.

Finally, more research is needed to figure out the ideal gap between subjective and chronological age, according to Wettstein, as previous research has suggested that it's helpful to feel younger up to a point but that benefits decrease as the gap between subjective and chronological age increases. "Feeling younger to some extent might be adaptive for functional health outcomes, whereas 'feeling too young' might be less adaptive or even maladaptive," he said.

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Article: "Subjective age moderates the effect of perceived stress on change in functional health," by Markus Wettstein, PhD, University of Heidelberg, and Svenja Spuling, PhD, Anja Cengia, and Sonja Nowossadeck, German Center for Geronotology. Psychology and Aging 36(3), May 2021.

Full text of the article is available at https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/pag-pag0000608.pdf.

Contact: Markus Wettstein, PhD, can be reached at wettstein@nar.uni-heidelberg.de.

The American Psychological Association, in Washington, D.C., is the largest scientific and professional organization representing psychology in the United States. APA's membership includes nearly 122,000 researchers, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. Through its divisions in 54 subfields of psychology and affiliations with 60 state, territorial and Canadian provincial associations, APA works to advance the creation, communication and application of psychological knowledge to benefit society and improve people's lives.