(NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases) A randomized, controlled clinical trial evaluating the safety and efficacy of a treatment regimen of the investigational antiviral remdesivir plus the anti-inflammatory drug baricitinib for COVID-19 has begun. The trial is now enrolling hospitalized adults with COVID-19 in the United States. The trial is expected to open at approximately 100 US and international sites. Investigators currently anticipate enrolling more than 1,000 participants. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases is sponsoring the trial.

(Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan) Now, as hospitals across the country start to return to doing non-emergency operations that keep their beds full and their books balanced, they need to think carefully about what resources each of those procedures will need as the pandemic continues. A new guide could help them prioritize and plan. Created by poring over seven years' worth of data from 17 common operations in dozens of hospitals, it's available for free for any hospital to use.

(DOE/Pacific Northwest National Laboratory) Software vulnerabilities are more likely to be discussed on social media before they're revealed on a government reporting site, a practice that could pose a national security threat, according to computer scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory.

(University of Sydney) In a study published today in Current Biology, researchers from University of Sydney have identified the single gene that determines how Cape honey bees reproduce without ever having sex. One gene, GB45239 on chromosome 11, is responsible for virgin births.

(American Chemical Society) Antiviral drugs could help us fight the new coronavirus, but currently, we don't have a highly potent, effective antiviral that cures COVID-19. Why not? We called a few virologists to find out: https://youtu.be/AIpeZDR9i3E.

(University of California - Davis) In the tropical atmosphere, cold air rises due to an overlooked effect -- the lightness of water vapor. This effect helps to stabilize tropical climates, and the impacts of a warming climate would be much worse without it.

(University of York) An international team of scientists, led by researchers at the University of York, analysed the molecular remains of food left in pottery used by the first farmers who settled along the Atlantic Coast of Europe from 7,000 to 6,000 years ago.

(Cell Press) In a study appearing April 30 in the journal Current Biology, scientists tell the story of three 16th century African slaves identified from a mass burial site in Mexico City. Using a combination of genetic, osteological, and isotope analyses, the scientists determined from where in Africa they were likely captured, the physical hardships they experienced as slaves, and what novel pathogens they may have carried with them across the Atlantic.

(Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History) Three 16th-century skeletons from a mass burial in Mexico City highlight the role of the transatlantic slave trade in introducing and disseminating new pathogens to the Americas. Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and Escuela Nacional de Antropología e Historia in Mexico analyzed skeletal features, genetic data and isotopes to explore the life history of three enslaved Africans and explore the wide-ranging impacts of massive forced migration.

(University of Warwick) A microbial community is a complex, dynamic system composed of hundreds of species and their interactions, they are found in oceans, soil, animal guts and plant roots. Each system feeds the Earth's ecosystem and their own growth, as they each have their own metabolism that underpin biogeochemical cycles. Researchers from the School of Life Sciences at the University of Warwick have produced an extendable thermodynamic model for simulating the dynamics of microbial communities.

(Arizona State University) Hydrogen is an essential commodity with over 60 million tons produced globally every year. However over 95 percent of it is made by steam reformation of fossil fuels, a process that is energy intensive and produces carbon dioxide. If we could replace even a part of that with algal biohydrogen that is made via light and water, it would have a substantial impact.

(University of Washington) By comparing new measurements from NASA's ICESat-2 mission with the original ICESat mission, which operated from 2003 to 2009, scientists were able to measure precisely how the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets have changed over 16 years.

(American Association for the Advancement of Science) Microplastic particles entering the sea surface were thought to settle to the seafloor directly below them, but now, a new study reveals that slow-moving currents near the bottom of the ocean direct the flow of plastics, creating microplastic hotpots in sediments of the deep sea.

(University of Bath) Researchers at the University of Bath have developed an AI model that can automatically classify underwater environments directly from sonar measurements.

China reported one new coronavirus case for Friday, unchanged from the day before, data from the national health authority showed on Saturday. One new imported case was recorded on May 8, the National Health Commission said in a statement.

Chief Justice Patience Roggensack faced backlash for her comment, with some people calling it "elitist" to separate meatpackers from "regular folks."

There aren’t a ton of synonyms for the word “hypocrisy.” I’ve become aware of this problem ever since I began writing about the Tara Reade–Joe Biden situation. I keep gravitating towards phrases such as “despicable hypocrisy,” or “partisan hypocrisy,” or “unconscionable hypocrisy,” but you can only go to the well so often. Really, though, I’m not sure how else to describe the actions of someone like Senator Dianne Feinstein.You might recall that it was Feinstein, the ranking member of the Judiciary Committee, who withheld Christine Blasey Ford's allegation of sexual misconduct against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh from the Senate so that it could not be properly vetted, in a last-ditch effort to sink the nomination.Feinstein knew that Ford's credibility was brittle -- the alleged victim could not tell us where or when the attack occurred, hadn’t mentioned Kavanugh’s name to anyone for over 30 years, and offered nothing approaching a contemporaneous witness.At first, Feinstein did not want to provide Ford’s name, or a place or time of the alleged attack, or allow the accused to see any evidence against him, denying him the ability to answer the charges.Henceforth this brand of justice could be referred to as “The Joe Biden Standard,” since it’s exactly the kind of show trial the presumptive Democratic nominee promises college kids via Title IX rules.When finally asked about Reade yesterday, Feinstein responded: “And I don’t know this person at all who has made the allegations. She came out of nowhere. Where has she been all these years? He was vice president.”To put this in perspective, when Ford came forward “out of nowhere,” Feinstein said: “Victims must be able to come forward only when they are ready.”What’s changed?During the Kavanaugh hearings Feinstein noted that “sharing an experience involving sexual assault — particularly when it involves a politically connected man with influence, authority and power — is extraordinarily difficult.”Is Biden not a politically connected man with influence, authority, and power? Feinstein is now arguing the opposite: She is saying we should dismiss Reade’s allegations because she failed to come forward against a powerful man earlier.But to answer Feinstein’s question about what Reade has been “up to” the past 27 years: Well, she’s been telling people that Biden had engaged in sexual misconduct. She relayed her story to her former neighbor, her brother, her former co-worker, and at least two other friends. It is also likely that her mother called Larry King Live asking for advice for her daughter the year of the alleged attack.Yesterday a document uncovered by local journalists in California -- somehow missed by Barack Obama’s crack vetting team -- shows Reade’s ex-husband bolstering her claim in 1996 divorce proceedings: “On several occasions [Reade] related a problem that she was having at work regarding sexual harassment, in U.S. Senator Joe Biden's office.”The reaction to the divorce papers has been extraordinary. Biden defenders argue that because Reade alleged “sexual harassment” -- a catch-all term used in the 1990s when men were getting away with despicable behavior far more often -- it proves her story has changed. Biden, through his deputy campaign manager Kate Bedingfield, alleges that “more and more inconsistencies” come up every day.Even if Reade didn't tell everyone everything that allegedly happened every time she mentioned the incident, that doesn’t definitively prove anything. If it did, none of us would have ever heard the name Christine Blasey Ford.Indeed, at time of Ford’s evolving story, there was a slew of journalists taking deep dives into the unreliability of memory and trauma and complexities of relaying assault allegations. I assume that science hasn’t changed in two years.Let’s also not forget that, despite Ford’s inconsistencies, Biden still argued that Kavanaugh should be presumed guilty. Why shouldn’t he?It is also quite amazing to see Biden’s defenders implicitly contending that Reade is only credibly claiming that she was sexually harassed for nearly 30 years, so her story must be politically motivated.Even if we concede that Reade is a wily Sanders operative or Putin stooge, what political motive could Reade possibly have had back in 1993 -- after working for Biden -- to smear the senator? What motive did she have to repeat that story to her family before Sanders was a candidate or Putin was running Russia?By the way, liberals have never argued that political motivations should be disqualifying. Ford came forward, by her own admission, because she did not believe the man who had allegedly assaulted her in high school should be given a seat on highest court in the land. Reade says she doesn’t want a man who allegedly assaulted her -- when he was in his 50s -- to hold the most powerful office in the world.Feinstein, of course, isn’t the only one to engage in this kind of transparent double standard. When asked about Reade, the idealist Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, said, “I’m not sure. Frankly, this is a messy moment, and I think we need to acknowledge that -- that it is not clear-cut.”Where was all this hand-wringing and caution over the messiness of sexual-assault claims when nearly every Democrat and all their allies in the press were spreading Julie Swetnick’s alleged “gang rape” piece? Nowhere.AOC, whose position on Biden has evolved, invited Ana Maria Archila, the women who had famously cornered a weak-kneed senator Jeff Flake in an elevator and yelled at him about Kavanaugh, to the 2019 State of the Union address. Archila now says, “I feel very trapped.”I bet.People point out that there are numerous sexual-misconduct allegations leveled at Donald Trump. Indeed. If they haven’t yet, news outlets should scrutinize and investigate the credibility of those allegations, as they did for Biden but not for Kavanaugh. But it’s important to remember that Trump accuser E. Jean Carroll was given immediate and widespread coverage on cable news, while Reade reportedly wasn’t asked to tell her story by any major network -- save Fox News -- until this week.Of course, most Biden defenders are being purposely obtuse about the debate -- Mona Charen’s recent column is an excellent example. The problem isn’t that Biden is being treated unjustly, or that he should be treated unjustly; it’s that he is being treated justly by the same people who treat others unjustly. Democrats have yet to explain why Biden is afforded every benefit of the doubt but not Kavanaugh, and not millions of college students.Public figures such as Biden have every right to demand fair hearings and due process. Voters have every right to judge the credibility of both accuser and accused. Many women are victims. Many women are victims who are powerless to prove it. And some women are frauds. You can’t keep demanding that our political system adjudicate similar incidents under two completely differ set of rules. It’s untenable.

You can now add Fresno to the growing list of cities that are now requiring people to wear face masks in public places.

The budget carrier will begin conducting temperature checks via touchless thermometers on June 1. Passengers have to start wearing masks Friday.

Now Swain, 40, spends her evenings having dinner with her girls, age 5 and 8, and studying for her real-estate license, which she hopes will provide more long-term stability for her family after the coronavirus crisis upended her livelihood. "I can't be put in a position like this again," said Swain, a bartender for 20 years. American women are taking an outsized hit from the early wave of unemployment caused by the pandemic, due to the nature of the jobs that were lost in the business shutdowns to control the spread of the coronavirus.

(Rutgers University) Rutgers' RUCDR Infinite Biologics received an amended emergency use authorization from the FDA late Thursday for the first SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus test that will allow people to collect their own saliva at home and send to a lab for results. The decision follows the FDA's recent emergency approval to RUCDR Infinite Biologics for the first saliva-based test, which involves health care workers collecting saliva from individuals at testing sites.

As part of the College's move to remote learning, 143 first-year students are taking a series of virtual field courses to investigate biodiversity.

A coronavirus test – which aims to deliver rapid results – has received major funding.

Imperial's disease outbreak centre J-IDEA has launched a pandemic hospital planning tool to help cope with extreme surges in demand from coronavirus.

By analysing virus genomes from over 7,500 people infected with Covid-19, researchers have characterised patterns of diversity of SARS-CoV-2 genome.

What impact has the lockdown had on our mental health, and what determines how people cope with isolation?

(Osaka University) Researchers from Osaka University and Mandom Corporation succeeded in generating immortalized myoepithelial cells in human eccrine sweat glands, providing a novel test system for research on human sweating.

(American Geriatrics Society) The American Geriatrics Society (AGS) will this year honor past AGS President Todd Semla, PharmD, MS, AGSF, with the prestigious Nascher/Manning Award, given biannually at the AGS Annual Scientific Meeting (#AGS21, to be held next year May 13-15 in Chicago, Ill., following the cancellation of the AGS 2020 Annual Scientific Meeting due to COVID-19).

(Stanford School of Engineering) After analyzing 95 million traffic stop records, filed by officers with 21 state patrol agencies and 35 municipal police forces from 2011 to 2018, a Stanford-led research team concluded that 'police stops and search decisions suffer from persistent racial bias.'

Stephen F. Quevedo
Oct 1, 2001; 14:
Feature Articles

The Ministry of Health and Wellness has reported ten new positive COVID-19 test results, pushing the tally of confirmed cases to 488. Among the ten new cases, eight are females, and two are males. Their ages range from four years to 39-years-...

A Manchester mother is pleading with the authorities to provide her with the results of COVID-19 tests done on her and her week-old baby. The woman claims that she has been in isolation in hospital since April 27, a day after she gave birth to...

Liz Wilkes ’13, CEO of Exubrancy, knows mental and physical well-being is more important now than ever before.

20 September 2018

Invitation Only Research Event

Event participants

Michelle Butler, Barrister, Matrix Chambers
Charles Garraway, Visiting Fellow, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex
Chair: Elizabeth Wilmshurst, Distinguished Fellow, International Law Programme, Chatham House

Pathogenic bacteria of the genera Mycobacterium and Corynebacterium cause severe human diseases such as tuberculosis (Mycobacterium tuberculosis) and diphtheria (Corynebacterium diphtheriae). The cells of these species are surrounded by protective cell walls rich in long-chain mycolic acids. These fatty acids are conjugated to the disaccharide trehalose on the cytoplasmic side of the bacterial cell membrane. They are then transported across the membrane to the periplasm where they act as donors for other reactions. We have previously shown that transient acetylation of the glycolipid trehalose monohydroxycorynomycolate (hTMCM) enables its efficient transport to the periplasm in Corynebacterium glutamicum and that acetylation is mediated by the membrane protein TmaT. Here, we show that a putative methyltransferase, encoded at the same genetic locus as TmaT, is also required for optimal hTMCM transport. Deletion of the C. glutamicum gene NCgl2764 (Rv0224c in M. tuberculosis) abolished acetyltrehalose monocorynomycolate (AcTMCM) synthesis, leading to accumulation of hTMCM in the inner membrane and delaying its conversion to trehalose dihydroxycorynomycolate (h2TDCM). Complementation with NCgl2764 normalized turnover of hTMCM to h2TDCM. In contrast, complementation with NCgl2764 derivatives mutated at residues essential for methyltransferase activity failed to rectify the defect, suggesting that NCgl2764/Rv0224c encodes a methyltransferase, designated here as MtrP. Comprehensive analyses of the individual mtrP and tmaT mutants and of a double mutant revealed strikingly similar changes across several lipid classes compared with WT bacteria. These findings indicate that both MtrP and TmaT have nonredundant roles in regulating AcTMCM synthesis, revealing additional complexity in the regulation of trehalose mycolate transport in the Corynebacterineae.

Coenzyme Q (Qn) is a vital lipid component of the electron transport chain that functions in cellular energy metabolism and as a membrane antioxidant. In the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, coq1–coq9 deletion mutants are respiratory-incompetent, sensitive to lipid peroxidation stress, and unable to synthesize Q6. The yeast coq10 deletion mutant is also respiratory-deficient and sensitive to lipid peroxidation, yet it continues to produce Q6 at an impaired rate. Thus, Coq10 is required for the function of Q6 in respiration and as an antioxidant and is believed to chaperone Q6 from its site of synthesis to the respiratory complexes. In several fungi, Coq10 is encoded as a fusion polypeptide with Coq11, a recently identified protein of unknown function required for efficient Q6 biosynthesis. Because “fused” proteins are often involved in similar biochemical pathways, here we examined the putative functional relationship between Coq10 and Coq11 in yeast. We used plate growth and Seahorse assays and LC-MS/MS analysis to show that COQ11 deletion rescues respiratory deficiency, sensitivity to lipid peroxidation, and decreased Q6 biosynthesis of the coq10Δ mutant. Additionally, immunoblotting indicated that yeast coq11Δ mutants accumulate increased amounts of certain Coq polypeptides and display a stabilized CoQ synthome. These effects suggest that Coq11 modulates Q6 biosynthesis and that its absence increases mitochondrial Q6 content in the coq10Δcoq11Δ double mutant. This augmented mitochondrial Q6 content counteracts the respiratory deficiency and lipid peroxidation sensitivity phenotypes of the coq10Δ mutant. This study further clarifies the intricate connection between Q6 biosynthesis, trafficking, and function in mitochondrial metabolism.

The developing nervous system is remarkably sensitive to environmental signals, including disruptive toxins, such as polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs). PBDEs are an environmentally pervasive class of brominated flame retardants whose neurodevelopmental toxicity mechanisms remain largely unclear. Using dissociated cortical neurons from embryonic Rattus norvegicus, we found here that chronic exposure to 6-OH–BDE-47, one of the most prevalent hydroxylated PBDE metabolites, suppresses both spontaneous and evoked neuronal electrical activity. On the basis of our previous work on mitogen-activated protein kinase (MAPK)/extracellular signal-related kinase (ERK) (MEK) biology and our observation that 6-OH–BDE-47 is structurally similar to kinase inhibitors, we hypothesized that certain hydroxylated PBDEs mediate neurotoxicity, at least in part, by impairing the MEK–ERK axis of MAPK signal transduction. We tested this hypothesis on three experimental platforms: 1) in silico, where modeling ligand–protein docking suggested that 6-OH–BDE-47 is a promiscuous ATP-competitive kinase inhibitor; 2) in vitro in dissociated neurons, where 6-OH–BDE-47 and another specific hydroxylated BDE metabolite similarly impaired phosphorylation of MEK/ERK1/2 and activity-induced transcription of a neuronal immediate early gene; and 3) in vivo in Drosophila melanogaster, where developmental exposures to 6-OH–BDE-47 and a MAPK inhibitor resulted in offspring displaying similarly increased frequency of mushroom-body β–lobe midline crossing, a metric of axonal guidance. Taken together, our results support that certain ortho-hydroxylated PBDE metabolites are promiscuous kinase inhibitors and can cause disruptions of critical neurodevelopmental processes, including neuronal electrical activity, pre-synaptic functions, MEK–ERK signaling, and axonal guidance.

Daniella H Hock
Apr 21, 2020; 0:RA120.002076v1-mcp.RA120.002076
Research

Anne-Claude Gingras
Apr 1, 2020; 19:572-573
Editorial

Alma L. Burlingame
Apr 1, 2020; 19:571-571
Editorial

Lindsay K Pino
Apr 20, 2020; 0:P119.001913v1-mcp.P119.001913
Perspective

In this era when we need to do everything possible to keep essential businesses operational, the people of the information security community have banded together in an inspirational effort to protect us all.

We are extremely pleased to announce the availability of XG Firewall on Amazon Web Services (AWS) public cloud infrastructure.

How to deploy and secure your virtual desktops with Sophos Intercept X and Sophos XG Firewall

Customized malware used to compromise physical and virtual firewalls

By Lucy Martinez and Eduardo Torres Davila We attended the Joint Math Meetings (JMM) conference in Denver to present our research from our work at the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute Undergraduate Program. At JMM, there was a fair of graduate … Continue reading →

7 January 2020

This programme of work addresses the conundrum of nuclear weapons as a wicked problem in a complex adaptive system.

1 May 2020