It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Wednesday, September 03, 2025
AFRICAN AMERICAN
Children with sickle cell disease face higher risk of dental issues, yet many don’t receive needed care
New study finds that fewer than half of children with sickle cell disease and Medicaid in Michigan received dental services
ANN ARBOR, Mich. – Children with sickle cell disease are more likely to have dental problems — but fewer than half of those covered by Michigan Medicaid got dental care in 2022, according to a new study.
The findings, led by Michigan Medicine and non-profit RAND Corporation, appear in JAMA Network Open.
“Sickle cell disease is known to increase the risk of dental complications in children, which underscores the importance of preventive dental care for this population,” said senior author Sarah Reeves, Ph.D., M.P.H., an associate professor of pediatrics and epidemiology at the U-M Medical School and the Susan B. Meister Child Health Evaluation and Research (CHEAR) Center.
“Our findings show that we need to take steps to make sure kids with this condition get the dental care they need—by helping dentists feel more prepared to treat them and making sure doctors know how important dental health is for these children."
Sickle cell disease is an inherited blood disorder that affects roughly 2,000 newborns a year in the U.S. It affects red blood cells, causing them to become misshapen and block blood flow, which can lead to pain, strokes, and other serious health problems.
Dental health is particularly important for children with the condition because of its reciprocal relationship with the disease, Reeves says. Infections cause inflammation and stress in the body, which can lead to the sickling of red blood cells.
“Oral infections are especially dangerous for people with sickle cell disease because they can trigger or worsen symptoms and serious complications,” Reeves said.
“Preventative dental care helps reduce the risk of pain crises and hospitalizations.”
Researchers analyzed use of dental care for 1,096 children with both sickle cell disease and Michigan Medicaid, and 1.18 million children with Michigan Medicaid.
More than 40% of children in both groups were aged 6-14 years. Children with sickle cell disease in Michigan have comparable rates of dental service utilization to the general pediatric Medicaid population. Overall, less than half of children with or without out sickle cell disease and Medicaid received any type of dental care, including preventive services and treatment.
Reeves said several factors limit access to dental care for children with sickle cell disease, including a shortage of dentists who accept Medicaid and a lack of clear guidelines for treating these patients.
The study highlights the need for targeted solutions, she says, such as better provider training and stronger communication between medical and dental professionals to ensure children with the condition get the care they need.
“Given increased risk of oral health problems among patients with sickle cell disease we need focused efforts to expand access to dental services for them,” she said.
“There are many reasons why dental care rates are low in this group. Future research should look at what those barriers are and how we can overcome them to improve care for this vulnerable population.”
Journal
JAMA Network Open
Article Title
Sickle cell disease and dental care for children with Medicaid
Article Publication Date
3-Sep-2025
Mechanical forces drive evolutionary change
A small tissue fold present in fruit fly embryos buffers mechanical stresses and may have evolved in response to mechanical forces.
Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG)
Gene expression in a Drosophila melanogaster embryo. Nuclei are shown in gray, and the colors represent where the genes slp1 (cyan), btd (magenta), and eve (yellow) are expressed.
Credit: Bruno C. Vellutini / MPI-CBG / Nature (2025)
To the point:
Small fold – big role: A tissue fold known as the cephalic furrow, an evolutionary novelty that forms between the head and the trunk of fly embryos, plays a mechanical role in stabilizing embryonic tissues during the development of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster.
Combining theory and experiment: Researchers integrated computer simulations with their experiments and showed that the timing and position of cephalic furrow formation are crucial for its function, preventing mechanical instabilities in the embryonic tissues.
Evolutionary response to mechanical stress: The increased mechanical instability caused by embryonic tissue movements may have contributed to the origin and evolution of the cephalic furrow genetic program. This shows that mechanical forces can shape the evolution of new developmental features.
Mechanical forces shape tissues and organs during the development of an embryo through a process called morphogenesis. These forces cause tissues to push and pull on each other, providing essential information to cells and determining the shape of organs. Despite the importance of these forces, their role in the evolution of development is still not well understood.
Animal embryos undergo tissue flows and folding processes, involving mechanical forces, that transform a single-layered blastula (a hollow sphere of cells) into a complex multi-layered structure known as the gastrula. During early gastrulation, some flies of the order Diptera form a tissue fold at the head-trunk boundary called the cephalic furrow. This fold is a specific feature of a subgroup of Diptera and is therefore an evolutionary novelty of flies.
The research groups of Pavel Tomancak and Carl Modes, both group leaders at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden, Germany, looked into the function of the cephalic furrow during the development of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster and the potential connection with its evolution. The results of their investigation are published in the journal Nature.
A genetically patterned fold with unknown function
The researchers knew that several genes are involved in the formation of the cephalic furrow. The cephalic furrow is especially interesting because it is a prominent embryonic invagination whose formation is controlled by genes, but that has no obvious function during development. The fold does not give rise to specific structures and, later in development, it simply unfolds, leaving no trace. Bruno C. Vellutini, a postdoctoral researcher in the group of Pavel Tomancak, who led the study together with Tomancak, explains, “Our original question was to uncover the genes involved in cephalic furrow formation and the developmental role of the invagination. Later on, we broadened our investigations to other fly species and found that changes in the expression of the gene buttonhead are associated with the evolution of the cephalic furrow.”
With their experiments, the researchers show that the absence of the cephalic furrow leads to an increase in the mechanical instability of embryonic tissues and that the primary sources of mechanical stress are cell divisions and tissue movements typical of gastrulation. They demonstrate that the formation of the cephalic furrow absorbs these compressive stresses. Without a cephalic furrow, these stresses build up, and outward forces caused by cell divisions in the single-layered blastula cause mechanical instability and tissue buckling. This intriguing physical role gave the researchers the idea that the cephalic furrow may have evolved in response to the mechanical challenges of dipteran gastrulation, with mechanical instability acting as a potential selective pressure.
Physical model of folding dynamics
To determine the contribution of individual sources of mechanical stress, the experimentalists in the Tomancak group teamed up with the group of Carl Modes to create a theoretical physical model that behaves like the fly embryos. Carl Modes says, “Our model can simulate the behavior of embryonic tissues in fly embryos with very few free parameters. The model was fed with the data from the experiments. First, we wanted to see how the strength of the fold affects the function of the cephalic furrow. We assumed that a strong pull inside the fold is a good buffer to counteract mechanical forces. However, we discovered that the position and timing are what really matter. The earlier the cephalic furrow forms, the better of a buffer it is, and when it forms around the middle of the embryo, it proved to have the strongest buffering effect.” This physical model provides a theoretical basis that the cephalic furrow can absorb compressive stresses and prevent mechanical instabilities in embryonic tissues during gastrulation.
A related study reveals two cellular mechanisms to prevent stress.
Another study, also focusing on mechanisms of how flies counteract mechanical stresses, is published at the same time in the Nature journal. The team led by Steffen Lemke from the University of Hohenheim, Germany, and Yu-Chiun Wang from the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research in Kobe, Japan, found two different ways how flies deal with compressive stress during embryonic development. Flies either feature a cephalic furrow or, if they lack one, display widespread out-of-plane division, meaning the cells divide downwards to reduce the surface area. Both mechanisms act as mechanical sinks to prevent tissue collision and distortion. The authors of the study worked together with the MPI-CBG researchers during the course of their studies.
Evolution of a small fold
Pavel Tomancak summarizes the results, “Our findings uncover empirical evidence for how mechanical forces can influence the evolution of innovations in early development. The cephalic furrow may have evolved through the genetic changes in response to the mechanical challenges of the dipteran gastrulation. We show that mechanical forces are not just important for the development of the embryo but also for the evolution of its development.”
Related Publication:
Bipasha Dey, Verena Kaul, Girish Kale, Maily Scorcelletti, Michiko Takeda, Yu-Chiun Wang, Steffen Lemke: Divergent evolutionary strategies pre-empt tissue collision in gastrulation. Nature, September 3, 2025, doi : 10.1038/s41586-025-09447-4
Gene expression in the cephalic furrow of aDrosophila melanogasterembryo. Nuclei are shown in gray, and the colors represent where the genes slp1 (cyan), btd (magenta), and eve (yellow) are expressed.
A new study has revealed a "hidden extinction crisis" in China's flora, showing that habitat decline over the past four decades has sharply increased extinction risks nationwide. The findings, published in One EarthonSeptember 3, suggest that current conservation efforts are failing to keep pace with biodiversity threats.
Led by Dr. SHEN Guozhen from the Institute of Botany of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, along with international collaborators, the researchers combined satellite-based land-cover data (1980–2018) with species-composition models to quantify—for the first time at a national scale—how habitat loss is reshaping extinction risk across entire plant communities.
They found that extinction risk among China's vascular plants has increased by 3.9% nationwide, coinciding with a 2.8% decrease in native habitats. Risks are highest in eastern China, home to more than 90% of the country's plant species, where reserves are small, fragmented, and have lost nearly one-fifth of their core zones. Meanwhile, over 70% of protected areas are concentrated in the west, where risks are comparatively low.
Despite apparent greening, unique native communities continue to vanish as ecological functions degrade, creating a "greening illusion" that masks biodiversity loss. This hides biodiversity decline, while global conservation tools such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List remain limited by static, species-focused assessments that overlook emerging risks from recent habitat degradation.
By introducing a dynamic, spatially explicit framework for quantifying extinction risk, the study offers an early-warning paradigm for biodiversity loss, an irreversible environmental change now unfolding worldwide. It underscores that existing conservation measures have not been timely or effective enough to halt the decline and calls for urgent action to integrate wilderness protection and habitat-based assessments into conservation planning.
This work offers a "China solution" for curbing the ongoing global biodiversity decline and achieving the goals of the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework.
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Associate Professor shares his mother’s story during a recent public science talk, part of CSHL’s Cocktails & Chromosomes series.
“My body is all used up, and I have no will left to live.” Those are the first words of a new essay written by Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory Associate Professor Tobias Janowitz. They’re the words of his late mother during the final days of her life. “A perceptive woman who survived a childhood shaped by war, malnutrition, and displacement, she was not given to complaint. Her words reflected insight and recognition, not resignation,” Janowitz writes.
In a new essay published in the journal Neuron, Janowitz dives into our current understanding of a condition called cachexia. Known as a wasting syndrome, the condition typically occurs during the late stages of disease. It’s now recognized as a leading cause of death among cancer patients. Recent research from Janowitz and collaborators has revealed that cachexia affects a link between the brain and the immune system, which may reduce motivation. That could help explain why many patients with the disease may start to feel “all used up.”
Janowitz’s essay not only points to new potential therapeutic strategies for cancer cachexia and other diseases. It calls for closer collaboration between cancer researchers and neuroscientists. Moreover, it makes an impassioned plea to all scientists to listen to patients carefully. It challenges them to consider patient-reported symptoms not as anecdotal evidence, but rather as invaluable data points that may help us better understand how diseases like cancer affect the connections between the brain and the body.
Although the material damage from 2012's Hurricane Sandy may have been repaired, the storm left a lasting impact on cardiovascular health, according to new findings from Weill Cornell Medicine and New York University researchers.
The study, published Sept. 3 in JAMA Network Open, found that older adults living in flood-hit areas in New Jersey faced a 5% higher risk of heart disease for up to five years after Sandy’s landfall. This is one of the first studies to rigorously quantify long-term cardiovascular risks associated with flooding in older adults. Most studies focus on the immediate consequences of severe weather events.
"Climate-amplified hurricanes and hurricane-related floods are expected to increase into the future," said Dr. Arnab Ghosh, assistant professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine and an internist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center, who led the research. “So, it’s essential to understand the long-term health effects on those most vulnerable."
Natural Controlled Experiment
The researchers analyzed Medicare data from over 120,000 people aged 65 and older living in New Jersey, New York City, and Connecticut in the five years after the storm.
They compared ZIP code areas that were flooded during the hurricane to nearby ZIP code areas that weren’t, matching the communities in terms of age, income, race and health status before the storm. Using advanced statistical models, the team tracked heart-related health events like heart attacks, strokes and heart failure in people who did not relocate after the hurricane.
“Capitalizing on such a large, diverse and stable patient population as Medicare recipients, allowed our team to see broader population trends while controlling for many of the threats to validity, whether socio-economic factors or the prevalence of co-morbidities,” said senior author Dr. David Abramson, clinical professor of social and behavioral sciences in the School of Global Public Health at New York University. The researchers concluded that heart failure rates were higher in flooded areas, especially in New Jersey, and that the risk persisted for four to five years—not just weeks or months—after the storm.
They hypothesize that more people in New Jersey were directly affected by the storm’s physical and emotional stressors. Flooded zip codes in New Jersey had lower median incomes and higher area deprivation index scores, which are indicators of social and economic disadvantage. These factors are linked to worse health outcomes and lower access to care, especially after a disaster. The residents also faced lingering difficult environmental and psychological circumstances and reduced community support.
In a related study published last month in Frontiers in Public Health, Dr. Ghosh and his colleagues found that the rate of death in elderly individuals living in areas flooded after Sandy was 9% higher on average five years later compared to those in less affected neighborhoods. The magnitude of this effect varied by region. While New York City saw an 8% increase in mortality, Connecticut had a 19% increase. However, the rest of coastal New York, including Long Island, and New Jersey seemed to escape this effect.
“The regional differences that we noted may highlight how local environments differ and need further examination,” Dr. Ghosh said. “New York City, for example, is heavily urbanized, while impacted parts of Connecticut and New Jersey are suburban with different infrastructure and more single-family homes.”
Taking a Longer-Term View
The study suggests that disaster preparedness and recovery frameworks should integrate chronic disease management and long-term health monitoring, not just short-term emergency care. The findings are particularly relevant for climate resilience planning, especially in regions with aging populations and increasing hurricane exposure.
“We are starting to appreciate that disasters are happening more frequently. But our policies and support systems for vulnerable groups after severe weather has struck haven't been well developed,” Dr. Ghosh said.
Given the regional variation in health outcomes, localized health system preparedness is essential, added the researchers. This includes resource allocation, training and infrastructure to manage chronic disease burdens in the aftermath of disasters.
“With this work, we lay the groundwork to show that hurricanes can have long-term impacts on health,” said Dr. Ghosh. Building on these results, the researchers are now planning to conduct larger-scale analyses on the health consequences of other events such as wildfires and tornadoes. Another aspect they plan to study involves how increased health risks related to weather affect Medicare, Medicaid and the health care system financially.
This work was supported with funding from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute and the National Center for Advancing Clinical Translational Science, both part of the National Institutes of Health, through grant numbers R03TR004976 and K08HL163329.
