The interdisciplinary field of active matter physics investigates the principles behind the behavior and self-organization of living organisms. The goal is to reveal general principles that allow to describe and predict the performance of living matter and thereby support the development of novel technologies. Recently, the groups of Oliver Bäumchen and Marco Mazza from the MPIDS, the University of Bayreuth and the University of Loughborough in the UK published their results on the model describing microbial navigation. “As microbes are often challenged with navigating through confined spaces, we were asking ourselves if there is a pattern behind the microbial navigation in a defined compartment,” they explain the approach. To answer this question, the researchers followed a single motile microbe and experimentally determined the probability flux of its movements. That is to say, they subdivided an predefined compartment into sectors and determined the probability of movement direction for each sector. In this way, a map was created according to which the navigation behavior of the microbe can be predicted.
The curvature determines the flux
Surprisingly, the microbe was found not to move randomly though the open space. Instead, the average movement pattern was both highly organized and symmetrical: the map of movement patterns showed a defined distribution of probability fluxes. “In particular, the strength of the flux was found to depend on the curvature of the adjacent solid interface: a higher degree of curvature resulted in a stronger flux” explain Jan Cammann and Fabian Schwarzendahl, the lead authors of the study. For practical reasons, all measurements were done in a quasi 2-dimensional environment, meaning that the microbe was confined from the top and bottom to better monitor its movement and avoid defocusing. Observing its movement pattern, the group of Marco Mazza (University of Loughborough and MPIDS) created a model to predicts the probabilities to flow in a certain direction. This model was then applied to compartments with more complex interface curvatures and experimentally verified by the lab of Oliver Bäumchen (MPIDS and University of Bayreuth). “It turns out that the curvature of the interface is the dominating factor which directly determines the flux of the self-propelling microbe.,” Bäumchen summarizes.
A technological implication for the future
As this discovery constitutes a fundamental observation, the model might as well be applied to other areas of active matter physics. “With our model, we can basically statistically predict where the object of interest will be in the next moment,” Mazza reports. “This could not only significantly improve our understanding of the organization of life, but also help to engineer technical devices.”
Understanding the principles behind the organization of active matter therefore can have direct implications on our future technologies. Potential applications of the model could be directing the movement of photosynthetic microorganisms in such a way so their flux can propel a generator, which would be a direct way to convert sunlight into mechanical energy. But also, in the pharmaceutical and healthcare sector, the findings of the scientists might be applied: “A potential application in the medical sector is the development of micro-robots delivering drugs to their specific destination in an efficient manner,” Bäumchen concludes.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

In 2020, an estimated 10 million people lost their lives to cancer. This devastating disease is underpinned by changes to our DNA — the instruction manual for all our cells.
It has been 20 years since scientists first unveiled the sequence of the human genome. This momentous achievement was followed by major technological advances that allow us to today read the layers of information of our DNA in enormous detail — from the first changes to DNA that occur as a cell becomes cancerous to the complex microenvironments of advanced tumours.
Now, to accelerate discoveries for cancer patients, we need new ways to bring together the different types of complex data we generate to provide new biological insights into cancer evolution.
For today’s issue of Science, my colleagues Professor Toshikazu Ushijima, Chief, Epigenomics Division, National Cancer Center Research Institute (Japan), Prof Patrick Tan, Executive Director, Genome Institute of Singapore and I were invited to review the cancer insights we can currently obtain from analysing DNA in its full complexity and define the future challenges we need to tackle to yield the next step-changes for patients.
The complexity of our DNA
Many imagine our DNA — our genome — as simply a string of letters. In reality, many layers of information — known as the epigenome — completely change its activity.

The University of Kent’s School of Biosciences and the Institute of Medical Virology at Goethe-University, Frankfurt am Main, have identified a protein that may critically contribute to severe forms of COVID-19.
SARS-CoV-2 is the coronavirus that causes COVID-19. While many individuals develop only mild or no symptoms upon SARS-CoV-2 infection, others develop severe, life-threatening disease.
Researchers have found that the infection of cells with SARS-CoV-2 results in increased levels of a protein called CD47 on the cell surface.
CD47 is a so-called ‘do not eat me’ signal to the immune system’s defences that protect cells from being destroyed. Virus-induced CD47 on the surface of infected cells is likely to protect them from immune system recognition, enabling the production of larger amounts of virus, resulting in more severe disease.
Well-known risk factors for severe COVID-19 such as older age and diabetes are associated with higher CD47 levels. High CD47 levels also contribute to high blood pressure, which is a large risk factor for COVID-19 complications such as heart attack, stroke, and kidney disease.
The data suggest that age and virus-induced high CD47 levels contribute to severe COVID-19 by preventing an effective immune response and increasing disease-associated tissue and organ damage.
Since therapeutics targeting CD47 are in development, this discovery may result in improved COVID-19 therapies.
Professor Martin Michaelis, University of Kent, said: “This is exciting. We may have identified a major factor associated with severe COVID-19. This is a huge step in combatting the disease and we can now look forward to further progress in the design of therapeutics.”
Professor Jindrich Cinatl, Goethe-University Frankfurt, said: “These additional insights into the disease processes underlying COVID-19 may help us to design better therapies, as well as appreciation for the importance of the breadth of research being conducted. Through this avenue, we have achieved a major breakthrough and exemplified that the fight against the disease continues.”
The study “A potential role of the CD47-SIRPalpha axis in COVID-19 pathogenesis” is published by the scientific journal Current Issues in Molecular Biology (Katie-May McLaughlin, Dr Mark Wass, Professor Martin Michaelis — University of Kent; Dr Denisa Bojkova, Marco Bechtel, Joshua D. Kandler, Philipp Reus, Trang Le, Dr Julian U. G. Wagner, Professor Sandra Ciesek, Professor Jindrich Cinatl — Goethe University Frankfurt).
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Kent. Original written by Sam Wood. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

A UCL-led research team has identified a new gene as a cause of hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, an inherited heart condition affecting one in 500 people.
The discovery, published in the European Heart Journal, provides a new causal explanation for 1-2% of adults with the condition. (In the UK, this is approx. 1,250-2,500 people.)
As a result of the study, the new causal variants, known as truncating ALPK3 (alpha-protein kinase) variants, should be added to genetic testing/screening, allowing doctors to identify a greater number of people who are at risk of developing the condition and who would therefore benefit from regular monitoring.
In hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, heart muscles are thicker, which can make it harder for the heart to receive and pump blood. While in most cases the condition will not affect daily life, it can cause heart failure and is frequently cited as the most common cause of sudden unexpected death in young people.
About half of cases already have known genetic causes, linked to eight to 10 specific genes (only two of these single genes were found in the last decade).
Lead author Dr Luis Lopes (UCL Institute of Cardiovascular Science), also a Consultant Cardiologist at Barts Health NHS Trust, said: “Hypertrophic cardiomyopathy is an extremely common genetic condition. Earlier, small-scale studies suggested that variants in the ALPK3 gene could be a cause of a rare paediatric form of cardiomyopathy, but only when two abnormal copies were inherited. We have now proved that just one abnormal copy is enough to cause hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in adults, looking at a large number of patients and families. This form of inheritance (autosomal dominant) is much more prevalent, as inheriting just one abnormal copy of a gene is more likely than inheriting two.

New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis suggests that radiation therapy can reprogram heart muscle cells to what appears to be a younger state, fixing electrical problems that cause a life-threatening arrhythmia without the need for a long-used, invasive procedure.
In that invasive procedure — catheter ablation — a catheter is threaded into the heart, and the tissue that triggers the life-threatening irregular heart rhythm — ventricular tachycardia — is burned, creating scars that block the errant signals. The new study, however, shows that noninvasive radiation therapy normally used to treat cancer can reprogram the heart muscle cells to a younger and perhaps healthier state, fixing the electrical problem in the cells themselves without needing scar tissue to block the overactive circuits. The study also suggests that the same cellular reprogramming effect could be achieved with lower doses of radiation, opening the door to the possibility of wider uses for radiation therapy in different types of cardiac arrhythmias.
The study appears Sept. 24 in the journal Nature Communications.
Physician-scientists at Washington University showed in 2017 that radiation therapy typically reserved for cancer treatment could be directed at the heart to treat ventricular tachycardia.
In theory, radiation therapy could reproduce the scar tissue usually created through catheter ablation but with a much shorter and totally noninvasive procedure, making the treatment available to more severely ill patients. Surprisingly, the doctors found that patients experienced large improvements in their arrhythmias a few days to weeks after radiation therapy, much quicker than the months it can take scar tissue to form after radiation therapy, suggesting that a single dose of radiation reduces the arrhythmia without forming scar tissue. The data indicated that radiation treatment worked just as well, if not better, than catheter ablation for certain patients with ventricular tachycardia but in a different and unknown way.
“Traditionally, catheter ablation creates scar tissue to block the electrical circuits that are causing ventricular tachycardia,” said senior author and cardiologist Stacey L. Rentschler, MD, PhD, an associate professor of medicine, of developmental biology and of biomedical engineering. “To help us understand whether the same thing was happening with radiation therapy, some of the first patients to have this new treatment gave us permission to study their heart tissue — following heart transplantation or if they had passed away for another reason, for example. We saw that scar tissue alone could not explain the remarkable clinical effects, suggesting that radiation improves the arrhythmia in some other way, so we delved into the details of that.”
The scientists found that radiation treatment triggered heart muscle cells to begin expressing different genes. They measured increased activity in a signaling pathway called Notch, which is known for its vital role in early development, including in forming the heart’s electrical conduction system.

An international team of scientists have created a three-dimensional (3D) pancreatic cancer tumour model in the laboratory, combining a bioengineered matrix and patient-derived cells that could be used to develop and test targeted treatments.
In a new study published today in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of Nottingham, Queen Mary University of London, Monash University and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have created a multicellular 3D microenvironment that uses patient-derived cells to recreate the way tumour cells grow in pancreatic cancer and respond to chemotherapy drugs.
Pancreatic cancer is very difficult to treat, particularly as there are no signs or symptoms until the cancer has spread. It can be resistant to treatment and the survivial rate is low compared to other cancers, with only a 5-10% survival rate five years after diagnosis.
The study was led by Professors Alvaro Mata from the University of Nottingham (UK), Daniela Loessner from Monash University (Australia) and Christopher Heeschen from Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China). Dr David Osuna de la Peña, a lead researcher on the project, said: “There are two main obstacles to treating pancreatic cancer — a very dense matrix of proteins and the presence of highly resistant cancer stem cells (CSCs) that are involved in relapse and metastasis. In our study, we have engineered a matrix where CSCs can interact with other cell types and together behave more like they do in the body, opening the possibility to test different treatments in a more realistic manner.”
There is a need for improved 3D cancer models to study tumour growth and progression in patients and test responses to new treatments. At present, 90% of successful cancer treatments tested pre-clinically fail in the early phases of clinical trials and less than 5% of oncology drugs are successful in clinical trials.
Pre-clinical tests mostly rely on a combination of two-dimensional (2D) lab grown cell cultures and animal models to predict responses to treatment. However, conventional 2D cell cultures fail to mimic key features of tumour tissues and interspecies differences can result in many successful treatments in animal hosts being ineffective in humans.
Consequently, novel experimental 3D cancer models are needed to better recreate the human tumour microenvironment and incorporate patient-specific differences.
Self-assembly is the process by which biological systems controllably assemble multiple molecules and cells into functional tissues. Harnessing this process, the team created a new hydrogel biomaterial made with multiple, yet specific, proteins found in pancreatic cancer. This mechanism of formation enables incorporation of key cell types to create biological environments that can emulate features of a patient’s tumour.
Professor Mata adds: “Using models of human cancer is becoming more common in developing treatments for the disease, but a major barrier to getting them into clinical applications is the turnaround time. We have engineered a comprehensive and tuneable ex vivo model of pancreative ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) by assembling and organising key matrix components with patient-derived cells. The models exhibit patient-specific transcriptional profiles, CSC functionality, and strong tumourigenicity; overall providing a more relevant scenario than Organoid and Sphere cultures. Most importantly, drug responses were better reproduced in our self-assembled cultures than in the other models.
We believe this model moves closer to the vision of being able to take patient tumour cells in hospital, incorporate them into our model, find the optimum cocktail of treatments for a particular cancer and deliver it back to the patient — all within a short timeframe. Although this vision for precision medicine for treating this disease is still a way off, this research provides a step towards realising it.”
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Nottingham. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

Scientific advisers to the C.D.C. endorsed additional doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine for older Americans but not for health care workers, in a possible rift with regulators.An influential scientific panel on Thursday opened a new front in the campaign against the coronavirus, recommending booster shots of the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid vaccine for a wide range of Americans, including tens of millions of older people. But the experts declined to endorse additional doses for health care workers, teachers and others who might have higher exposure on the job.The decisions were made by the C.D.C. panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, in a series of votes, during which scientists agonized over their choices. The recommendations revealed deep divisions among federal regulators and outside advisers about how to contain the virus nearly two years into the pandemic.Just a day earlier, the Food and Drug Administration authorized booster shots for certain frontline workers. But the C.D.C.’s advisers disagreed that the doses were needed by so many healthy people.The next step is for Dr. Rochelle Walensky, the director of the C.D.C., to make a formal recommendation. If she follows the guidance of the agency’s advisory committee, as is typically the case, the agency’s guidance may conflict with that of the F.D.A.One administration official said Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services, might ultimately have to mediate between the two agencies.“There’s a complexity here, because Dr. Walensky was part of the White House announcement” on boosters, said Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Global Health. “I think she’s going to feel some amount of pressure to authorize this for health care workers.”Depending on what is decided, the White House is likely to begin promoting and rolling out a plan for booster shots as soon as Friday. That would be in keeping with the administration’s previously announced plan to offer the additional doses the week of Sept. 20.Whatever the scientific reservations, millions are expected to seek out booster shots. In one recent poll, about three-quarters of vaccinated Americans said they would opt for a booster if the doses were available.State health departments generally follow the recommendations of the C.D.C. But many Americans were scrambling for boosters even before the F.D.A.’s authorization, typically by finding a cooperative pharmacist or by claiming to be unvaccinated.The C.D.C.’s advisers acted on what they described — with considerable frustration — as scant research, mulling over conflicting data points that seldom pointed in one direction.In the end, the panel unanimously endorsed booster shots for adults over 65 and for residents of long-term care facilities, who most clearly will benefit.The committee also backed the shots for people 50 to 64 with medical conditions that leave them at risk for severe Covid-19, as well as those 18 to 49 who have certain medical conditions, based on an assessment of their individual needs.Only Americans who already have received two doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine will qualify for booster shots. The panel was not asked to judge whether people who received the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines should receive the additional doses, which have not been authorized by the F.D.A.Several experts on the C.D.C. panel nevertheless urged a mix-and-match strategy, saying that they could see little reason not to offer a Pfizer-BioNTech booster to someone who qualified but had received, for example, the J. & J. vaccine. Some members warned that delivering multiple rounds of booster shots, available periodically when authorized, would tax an already burdened health care system.The C.D.C. panel’s guidance followed weeks of internal disagreement and public debate among American health officials and advisers. In mid-August, President Biden announced plans for a booster rollout, but scientists and regulators were quick to point out there was little research on who might benefit and how the doses should be distributed.The F.D.A.’s acting commissioner, Janet Woodcock, said on Wednesday that the agency’s authorization would allow for booster doses “in certain populations such as health care workers, teachers and day care staff, grocery workers and those in homeless shelters or prisons, among others.”But some members of the committee said there was little evidence to suggest that vaccinated teachers, and even health care workers, were at risk of repeated exposure to the virus. The decision reflected fears that such a broad recommendation would effectively throw the doors open to an all-adults booster campaign.“My sense was that the committee felt that that was sort of a hole that you could drive a truck through,” Dr. Paul Offit, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania and a member of the F.D.A.’s vaccine advisory panel, told reporters at an online briefing on Thursday.Over the two days, the panel wrestled with the public’s expectations for Covid vaccines, the safety of third doses and how a booster program would affect nursing home residents. Booster doses alone would not turn back the pandemic, some scientists noted: Only vaccinating the unvaccinated would do that..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-w739ur{margin:0 auto 5px;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-w739ur{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-w739ur{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-9s9ecg{margin-bottom:15px;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-uf1ume{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-box-pack:justify;-webkit-justify-content:space-between;-ms-flex-pack:justify;justify-content:space-between;}.css-wxi1cx{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-flex-direction:column;-ms-flex-direction:column;flex-direction:column;-webkit-align-self:flex-end;-ms-flex-item-align:end;align-self:flex-end;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}“We may move the needle a little bit by giving a booster dose to people,” said Dr. Helen Talbot, an associate professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University. But, she added, “the hospitals are full because people are not vaccinated.”The advisers also grappled with a lack of clarity on the goal of the vaccines: Should it be to prevent all infections, or to forestall severe illness and hospitalization?Many suggested that booster doses could do only the latter, and that trying to thwart all infections was impossible. That reasoning supported limiting who should receive the doses, the experts said.On Thursday, C.D.C. scientists presented models indicating that, if booster doses were to slightly increase people’s protection against hospitalization, the additional shots could prevent more than 2,000 hospitalizations for every million doses given.But it was not clear how long additional protection from a booster would last, raising the prospect that boosters would need to be given repeatedly.Boosters can reduce infections in nursing home residents, who are among those at highest risk. Even so, cases in nursing homes will persist when community transmission is high, according to a modeling study presented at the meeting.The advisers also wrestled with the practicalities of endorsing a booster shot for only Pfizer-BioNTech recipients, when close to half of vaccinated Americans have received Moderna or J. & J. vaccines.“I just don’t understand how, later this afternoon, we can say to people 65 and older, ‘You’re at risk for severe disease and death, but only half of you can protect yourselves right now,’” said Dr. Sarah Long, a pediatrician and infectious diseases expert at Drexel University College of Medicine in Pennsylvania.Committee members also expressed concern on Thursday that some recommendations — particularly that certain younger Americans be allowed booster shots after an assessment of individual risks — would mean that only the wealthy and educated would gain access to additional shots.Some experts seemed to suggest on Wednesday that it might be better to hold off on recommending any booster shots until recipients of all three vaccines could qualify for them.Moderna’s booster authorization may arrive in a few days to weeks. The company has applied to the F.D.A. for authorization of a booster shot carrying half the dosage given in the first two shots, which has complicated the agency’s deliberations.Some global health experts have criticized the Biden administration for pushing booster shots when much of the world has yet to receive a first dose. But analysts noted that even if the United States distributes booster shots, there should still be considerable excess vaccine supply this year, and they urged the government to begin sending the extra doses abroad.Sheryl Stolberg contributed reporting from Washington.

A team co-led by a Washington State University scientist offers an alternative way to understand and minimize health impacts from human-caused changes to the climate and environment in a new study published in the journal One Earth.
Based at WSU Vancouver, lead author Deepti Singh, assistant professor in the School of the Environment, drew on hundreds of studies of climate change, air quality, agriculture, and public health to propose a “systems lens,” or scientific approach, that connects health risks with simultaneous environmental changes driven by human practices.
“The health consequences of air pollution, climate change, and transformations in agriculture are often discussed separately,” Singh said. “But these issues are all related — they have similar sources, and each one affects the others. Agricultural activities contribute to air pollution and affect regional climate patterns, while farm production and quality of crops are sensitive to air quality and climate conditions.”
Collaborating with researchers at Columbia University, the Indian School of Business, Boston University, and the University of Delaware, Singh studied the situation in South Asia, where rapid industrialization and modern farming practices have aided economic development and increased food production, but also compromised multiple dimensions of human health.
“We’re offering a framework to assess the overall health impacts from multiple parts of Earth’s natural systems, which are all changing simultaneously because of human activities,” Singh said. “The research could help identify policies and solutions that will have multiple co-benefits for the environment and human health.”
“Our work sheds new light on the ways that food systems affect, and are affected by, climate change and air pollution,” said Kyle Davis, co-author and assistant professor at the University of Delaware.
The scientists reviewed multiple examples of health impacts from changes in climate, air quality, and agricultural output, as well as co-benefits and unintended consequences of efforts to curb emissions and save water, for example. They found these examples share the need for better tools and local, high-resolution data on health, weather, emissions, air pollution, and land use to better measure human and environmental impacts.
“This study points out how useful and effective policy responses need to take multiple factors and interactions into account, and highlights the problem with simplistic explanations,” said Ashwini Chhatre, co-author and associate professor of public policy at the Indian School of Business.
Use of fossil fuels, burning of crop residue, and changes to the landscape from expansion and intensification of agriculture have contributed to extremely poor air quality in South Asia, changed the main source of rainfall, the summer monsoon, and also increased health risks for nearly a quarter of the world’s population living in the region.
“Late autumn is ‘pollution season’ in north India, and also brings vicious debates in our society about who and what are contributing to it,” Chhatre said.
Additionally, more frequent and intense heat waves and floods have killed thousands, displaced millions, lowered labor productivity, and caused disease outbreaks. Severe air pollution has contributed to increased heart and lung diseases as well as millions of premature deaths and weakened monsoonal rains. At the same time, air pollution and climate change have reduced yields of important food crops.
“While the climate benefits of reductions in greenhouse gas emissions we make today may not be felt for decades, our approach shines a light on some of the immediate health benefits, as well as unintended consequences, of policies that aim to minimize human impacts on climate and the environment,” Singh said.

A teenager’s life has been put “on hold” since she began developing Tourette’s syndrome this year.Megan Jones from Carmarthenshire began experiencing head jerks in February, which she said could be set off by things like bugs.Since then the 17-year-old’s condition has progressed to more physical and vocal tics, including swearing and seizures. She has not been to school since June.”It’s definitely put my life on hold. I’ve lost a lot of independence,” Megan said.

Sperm cells are among the most diverse cells in the animal world, despite having the same purpose — to find and fertilize an egg. The sperm of some species have a single tail, others have no tail or multiple tails, and some have hooks on their headlike structures. Scientists don’t know the reason for such extreme diversity among sperm cells, but new research shows that certain shapes and proportions are associated with swimming behavior in some mouse species.
University of Maryland researchers used machine learning to discover that sperm with a wide head relative to length are more likely to clump together and swim collectively, a rare behavior that sometimes helps them reach an egg faster. The study provides a new method for understanding how form and function are related in cells with complex behaviors in all animals, including humans. Their results were published on September 22, 2021, in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
“This is really a form versus function study asking how shape and behavior are associated, but we’ve taken a new approach, using machine learning to do these automated morphometric analyses,” said Kristin Hook, the lead author of the paper who was a postdoctoral associate in UMD’s Department of Biology during the study. “These mice have sperm that are sort of paddle shaped, and we determined that it’s the sperm with a wider paddle shape that are more likely to form groups and swim cooperatively.”
Sperm are usually solitary swimmers, but in a few species, the sperm adhere to one another and swim collectively until they get close to the egg. Hook and her colleagues hypothesized that sperm shape was an important factor in whether sperm were solitary or collective swimmers. But they didn’t know which features of shape were significant.
To find out, they looked at sperm in six closely related species of mice, some with sperm that swim in groups and some with solitary sperm. The researchers measured the length and width of sperm heads using a meticulous and time-consuming hand-measuring method and then with an automated computer system. After verifying that the computer could accurately perform the measurements, they fed high-resolution images of sperm cells from all six mouse species into the computer system and asked it to find the distinguishing traits that were most relevant to the sperm’s social behavior.
Now that the researchers know width is an important characteristic thanks to this study, they can begin to investigate how and why it affects sperm behavior in these mice.
“We think there may be some adhesive mechanism holding the sperm together, and the wider the cell the more adhesion,” said Heidi Fisher, assistant professor of biology at UMD and a co-author of the study. “What we really want to find is the molecular mechanisms responsible for it, the adhesive molecule that glues the cells together. But this is the first step. Identifying aspects of the cell shape that are associated with group formation can help us narrow in on likely targets for that adhesive molecule.”
To conduct the automated measurement and machine learning aspects of the study, Fisher and Hook teamed up with Wolfgang Losert, a professor in UMD’s Department of Physics and Institute for Physical Science and Technology, and members of his lab.
“One of the most exciting aspects of this work is that we were able to combine expertise from across campus to ask an interesting question about biology,” Fisher said. “My lab wouldn’t have been able to do the automated morphometrics and the machine learning aspects of this work had we not collaborated with Wolfgang Losert’s lab. So, the collaboration was really important.”
By publishing the code they developed for the automated measuring and machine learning portions of the study, the team hopes that other researchers will be able to apply the same methods to understanding other forms of complex cell behavior.
“This work highlights the importance of data analytics experts and subject matter experts working together to break down barriers between fieldsand push the boundaries of knowledge,,” said Losert.
Story Source:
Materials provided by University of Maryland. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.