Physiology

Why more heatwaves endanger our health and ability to work – Horizon magazine

It's actually quite easy for us to point out the problem we have increasing temperatures, increasing frequency of heatwavesit affects our physical and cognitive performance, said Lars Nybo, a professor of integrative physiology from the University of Copenhagen, Denmark. He is working on a project called HEAT-SHIELD designed to examine the effects of heat exposure on worker productivity in industrial sectors that employhalf of Europes workforce: manufacturing, construction, transportation, tourism, and agriculture.

Precipitated by a series of heatwaves, 2019 was thehottest year ever recorded in Europe. Over the past five years, mean temperatures in the continent are averaging almost 2C warmer than pre-industrial figures,a worrying sign for the achievementof the Paris climateagreement to keep global mean temperatureincreases well below2C.

Data from the project suggestthat exposure to external heat in combination with physical activity, which elevates the bodys production of heat, can result in physiological changes that can diminish occupational performance, via reduced working endurance, vision, motor coordination and concentration. This can lead to more mistakes as well as injuries.

Roughly 70% of all European workers, at some time during the working day, are not optimally hydrated, Prof. Nybo said. The solution to the problem, he adds, is intuitive: drink water, replace electrolytes and reduce physical activity, but implementing these measures whilst maintaining productivity is where things get tricky.

You could just say to the worker stay at home and drink cold margaritas in the shadow to prevent heat stress, he joked. But that will not help productivity.

Productivity

As coordinator of HEAT-SHIELD, Prof. Nybo and his team are tasked with not just assessing the extent of the problem modelling the expected rise in temperature in Europe in the coming years and its impact on worker productivity but also devising and implementing solutions that are location and vocation specific to adjust to the inevitable increases in temperature.

A construction worker wears a safety helmet, which impairs the bodys ability to purge heat, but the worker thinks this problem cannot be solved because it is intrinsic to their work, Prof. Nybo notes.

Surmounting challenges like this is one of the key objectives of the project conceiving ways to weave in heat mitigation strategies alongside the practicalities of the job.

For instance, outdoor workers should be vigilant of weather patterns and plan work earlier in the day during periods of extreme heat, take a short break every hour and secure easy access to water. Similar remedies for workers in enclosed settings could mean a combination of air conditioning, working in shade and improving ventilation keeping in mind the ecological footprint of such measures.

But on a macro level, for climate change policymakers to take concrete action here and now the numbers are key, Prof. Nybo says.

In Europe, agricultural and construction workers for instance, lose some 15% of effective working time when the temperature goes beyond 30C, which works out to almost one working day per week, he notes, citing HEAT-SHIELD analyses.

If you are a policymaker, he says, the numbers show that theres an incentive to act now: if you mitigate the problem the cost will stabilise at a lower level in the long run than if you dont.

Excessive heat

Diminished worker productivity and the downstream economic damage are prominent impacts of rising temperatures caused by climate change. But to get a full picture of the consequences, its necessary to understand what excessive heat does to the human body.

It can damage organs such as the heart and the lungs, exacerbate a range of diseases, and increase the risk of death.

Extreme heat can increasethe occurrence of heart attacksand strokes in susceptible patients due to increased blood viscosity, and raise the risk of cardiovascular death in vulnerable patients. Hot, humid days can also triggerasthma symptomsand have been shown to increase airway resistance, while warmer climates tend to extend the pollen season.

Another side effect of rising temperatures is the association with air pollution the largest environmental killer in Europe,causing roughly 500,000 premature deaths annually.

Observational data and modelling suggest that as it gets warmer, air pollution levels particularly surface ozone gas (O3) and fine particulate matter (PM2.5) increase in some populated regions, even whenemissions of air pollutants have not risen, as well as create conditions favourable for forest fires.

Both extreme heat and air pollution raise the risk of cardiovascular and respiratory disease, which currently costs the European Union anestimated 600bna year.If these environmental stressors continue to accumulate unabated, these costs could jump.

We think there are reasons to believe that being able to comply with a Paris agreement will save very many lives and reduce human suffering.

Dr Kristin Aunan, Center for International Climate Research, Norway

Projections

But the synergistic relationship between air pollutants and rising temperatures is not well understood and existing health-risk projections in Europe do not properly account for adaptive measures that can be taken to ameliorate associated health risks, according to Dr Kristin Aunan, a senior researcher at the Norway-based Center for International Climate Research.

There's quite a lot of literature on short-term impact in terms of the day-to-day variation on the impact of heat stress on mortality but when it comes to long-term impact, there is not a lot of information, she said.

As part of a project calledEXHAUSTIONthat kicked off last year, researchers including project coordinator Dr Aunan, are focused on quantifying the risks of cardiopulmonary disease in different temperatures.

The project is also working on identifying interventions to minimise the risks to health sparked by environmental stressors and demystifying the link between air pollution and temperature hikes.

Quantifying the cascading effect of cardiopulmonary diseases on the economy is key to affecting action on climate change, she suggests.

EXHAUSTION researchers, for instance, are devising a macro-economic model that tracks increased hospitalisation and mortality in different age groups to measure the impact on the broader economy in different European countries. We also have a bottom-up model where you put a price on every premature death or hospital admission and add up to estimate the economic cost.

One of the main questions the researchers hope to answer is the magnitude of impact limiting temperature spikes to 1.5C the aim of the Paris climate agreement will have on health.

I have no answer to that today but the reason why were doing this projectis that we think there are reasons to believe that being able to comply with a Paris agreement will save very many lives and reduce human suffering, Dr Aunan said.

When you discuss climate policy and discuss the costs of it its very expensive to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases, etc. But you also need to consider the benefits and that's what we are doing with this project hoping that we can contribute to the other side of the coin.

The research in this article was funded by the EU. If you liked this article, please consider sharing it on social media.

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Why more heatwaves endanger our health and ability to work - Horizon magazine

Physiology

How an ultra-fast screening test and a team of contact tracers aim to keep campus safe – CU Boulder Today

A CU Boulder athlete spits into a tube as part of a new, 45-minute screening test for COVID-19. (Credit: CU Boulder)

Watch the webinar series

CU Boulder researchers, including Sara Sawyer and Matthew McQueen, took part in a series of webinars focusing on how the campus is preparing for the fall semester.

See the recordings

Incoming Buffs moving to campus next week will be among the first to access a new 45-minute COVID-19 test aimed at identifying asymptomatic individuals before they can spread the virus.

Before ever entering a residence hall, theyll spit in a tube, close the lid, hand it over to a gloved and masked volunteerand wait.

The idea is that if we can keep unknowingly infected students from ever stepping into the dorm on the first day, many of those transmission chains that would have started will not start, said Professor Sara Sawyer, whose team of virologists began work on the so-called RT-LAMP test shortly after word of the novel coronavirus began to make headlines. Its an incredible feeling to see something developed in our own lab now out in the world helping people.

The new test is just the first step in a unique, multi-pronged campus surveillance program being built from the ground up by CU Boulder scientists and staff members.

To work around national bottlenecks that have kept patients in some areas of the country waiting weeks for COVID-19 test results, biochemists at the BioFrontiers Institute have also developed a version of the more sensitive nasal-swab test known as PCR (Polymerase chain reaction).

Meanwhile, epidemiologists from the CU Boulder Department of Integrative Physiology have amassed a team of contact tracers, including about 80 students who are doing it for course credit. Theyll assist fellow students who test positive and help notify those they may have exposed.

A number of people on campus recognized very early on that, in order to avoid the problems associated with commercial testing and overburdened public health agencies, we needed to develop the capacity to do some things on our own, said Roy Parker, director of the BioFrontiers Institute, a biomedical research facility that will house two new testing labs. The community effort among scientists across this campus ever since has been awe-inspiring.

When more than 7,500 first-year students arrive next week, those who havent been tested or who are still awaiting results will begin their day with not one but two tests developed and processed at no cost to the student.

First, theyll spit in a tube. Then, theyll scrape a swab across the inside of each nostril. Finally, theyll hand off their samples to a team of students, postdoctoral researchers or EMTs-in- training who will whisk the samples away for processing.

A mobile lab screen newcomers to the CU Boulder campus for COVID-19. (Credit: CU Boulder)

Each test has its pros and cons.

The saliva test, based on a technology known as reverse-transcription loop-mediated isothermal amplification (RT-LAMP), requires little more than pipettes, a heating source and an enzyme mixture that changes color when it interacts with bits of the viruss genome. If the sample turns from pink to yellow, the test is positive. If it doesnt, its negative.

Results can be returned in as little as 45 minutes.

The PCR test uses more sophisticated equipmentthe now ubiquitous nasal swabto amplify and detect viral DNA from the sample.

It is FDA approved so you can give a clinical diagnosis, and it is slightly more sensitive, but the disadvantage is that it is expensive to run and takes more time and more staff, said Parker, pointing to nine- to 14-day waits and $100 price tags at labs around the country.

The CU Boulder effort is designed to return results, even for the PCR tests, within 24 hours.

Because the new saliva test is cheap, fast, easily scalable and deployable just about anywhere think factories, homeless shelters, school campusesit holds great promise as a triaging tool to find the occasional needle in a haystack of asymptomatic people, said Sawyer. Her team is currently working with the state of Colorado to further validate the test and make it more broadly available.

The researchers say its unlikely that a student would get a positive result on the saliva screening test and then test negative on the diagnostic nasal swab test.

But to cover all bases and get a sense of how the tests compare, CU Boulder will give incoming students both tests.

Our campus is going to be one of the first places in the country where mass screening of healthy people is being undertaken with two tests on a broad scale, said Sawyer. While students wait their 24 hours to get their diagnostic test, they can get a quick read-out that lets them know they should modify their behavior in the meantime.

Throughout the semester, the campus plans to conduct surveillance test of students both on and off-campus to get a sense of how the virus is moving through the community.If a student was to test positive at move-in, they would be asked to either return home to isolate or do so at on-campus housing set aside for such use. During the semester, they would be asked to isolate on campus or, if they live off-campus, isolate in place.

Thats where contact tracers would step in.

One person, under normal conditions, could infect three or four or more people, but with contact tracing you could get that number down to one or even none, said integrative physiology Professor Matt McQueen.

In March, McQueen teamed up with Professor Todd Gleeson, director of the Health Professions Residential Academic Program, to develop Public Health Practicum: Contact Tracing, a course that enables students to play a critical role in breaking the COVID-19 transmission chain.

If a student tests positive, the contact tracers, overseen by Medical Services staff, will try to get a sense of anyone the student has been within 6 feet of for 15 minutes or more in the last 48 hours. Then, theyll reach out to encourage those individuals to quarantine, and offer testing when appropriate.

In the case of a faculty or staff member testing positive, Medical Services has amassed a team of about two dozen staffers and paid temporary workers to serve as contact tracers for that population.

In addition to providing campus with an additional tool for keeping the COVID curve flat and contained, McQueen sees the course as a historic opportunity for students.

This is something they will tell their grandchildren about years from now, he said.

In the long-run, studies that grow out of these testing and tracing efforts could help people better prepare for, or even fend off, the next pandemic.

A year from now, due to the efforts of this scientific community, we will know a lot more about this virus, said Parker.

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How an ultra-fast screening test and a team of contact tracers aim to keep campus safe - CU Boulder Today

Physiology

Learning good breathing habits from a freediver | Life Examined – KCRW

Taking a deep breath has long been known to calm down the body; athletes before a race do it or performers and speakers before going on stage. So how can we learn to breathe better? KCRWs Joanthan Bastian talks to a freediver and a breath practitioner about the mechanics of breathing well and the impacts on our mental and physical well-being.

The following interview excerpts have been abbreviated and edited for clarity.

KCRW: Youre a four time freediving World Champion. How did that get started for you?

Stig Severinsen:Well as with any child, once you start freediving, going under the surface of the ocean, or even in a swimming pool, you pretty quickly realize that in order to be able to stay down, you need to be relaxed. So mental relaxation, physiological relaxation is very important. As children we subconsciously train a lot of different breathing techniques you experiment and find your own way. When you get more into competitive freediving, most of your focus is actually on breathing and the preparation, so if you don't really understand breathing and you kind of have a bad start. So it sounds like a paradox, you're a free diver, you need to hold your breath but you're working with breathing, they go hand in hand and I look at it as a brother and a sister.

In yoga, the fourth element of Ashtanga Yoga, the fourth limb or the fourth step is called pranayama and that deals with breathing and particularly the breath holding but that's what freediving is, investigating the pause in the breath.

KCRW: How much training is involved in becoming a freediver?

Stig Severinsen:It depends. Once you get older, your metabolism slows down, which is an advantage. Whereas in most any other sport, once you get older you lose your stamina, your muscles, your coordination and balance you had in your youth. But in freediving, it's actually an advantage and you also have a lifelong experience to look back on and to lean against so I would say with decent freediving a few times a week. In addition you do a cardiovascular workout, the apnea training, the breath training, hypoxic training, all the kind of crazy, stuff that I do with the Navy Seals, the Royal Air Force, Olympic athletes, but for an average person its not too hard and thats the great thing about freediving.

The first rule of any diving is to never dive alone, never hold your breath alone because you can black out and drown. But if you experiment at home, in your bed, on the couch on your yoga mat, it's super safe, and you go into all these crevices of your mind and your body and your neurophysiology anatomy - thats extraordinary.

And the wonderful thing about freediving is that the learning curve is incredibly fast: you see people after 1,2, 3 introductory dives, doubling or tripling the performance. There are not many things in life where you can double or triple your performance; think about running or weightlifting. If you could triple the weight you could lift that would be amazing. So it takes dedication and patience but people can learn very quickly.

Annelies Richmond. Photo courtesy of Annelies Richmond.

KCRW: Annelies Richmond where did your interest in the breath begin and what kinds of results have you seen in the mental health space?

I run a program called Sky Campus Happiness, which we have at 58 universities in the US. I first got into this 22 years ago in New York City when I was a professional ballerina with the Metropolitan Opera Ballet. I used to experience lots of stage anxiety, I would walk on the stage and I would have so much anxiety that I wouldn't perform as well. That was probably the worst part of my career and I just happened to walk into an Art of Living Course; a weekend course that taught me Sky Breath meditation, a breath-based meditation practice.

I had no idea what I was walking into but I had been exploring meditation, but this was the deepest by far and the most effective by far. I practiced it for about two weeks and then I walked onto stage one night and there was just zero anxiety. All of a sudden and I thought this is phenomenal. What happened to the stage anxiety that had been plaguing me for about eight or nine years.

So I vowed I would learn to teach this to others and I retired from dance and started this program 10 years ago specifically for university student populations, because student anxiety and depression has doubled in just in the last eight years. Mental health is really poor on campuses, more than 60% of college students say they report overwhelming anxiety. Suicidal ideation and severe depression has doubled since 2012. So I wanted to see how we could help in a very effective group setting to help cure some of these ills, or give students really practical tools. I knew that Sky Breath meditation was so phenomenal for anxiety and depression, so we combined the deep practice of meditation with the Art of Living Programs; which offer social connection and emotional intelligence skills.

KCRW: So is your practice different from meditation?Richmond: Yes, entirely different. Our classes are three days long. So I think we all probably notice that you cannot talk yourself out of a negative emotion. It's very difficult to tell your mind, don't be anxious or calm down. It's the worst thing someone tells you, is hey, calm down, don't be depressed. The more you resist negative emotions in the mind, the more they persist and the breath work gives us a way into the autonomic nervous system. It directly affects the physiology and takes us from the sympathetic mode of the nervous system, which is fight or flight. So a breath automatically puts you into parasympathetic mode very quickly, within the first session. And that trains your system to be in rest and digest mode, which brings calm and focus.

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Physiology

NASA-backed mobile gravity suit helps astronauts fight health hazards of zero-gravity space flight – Brinkwire

With the successful launch and return of SpaceXs Crew Dragon in May, space travel is getting closer to becoming a reality for the average person.

But spending extended periods outside Earths gravity can have serious health consequences, including bone decalcification, muscle atrophy, and decreased oxygen to the brain.

Astronauts in microgravity are also susceptible to Spaceflight Associated Neuro-ocular Syndrome (SANS), a condition associated with blurry vision, headaches, and seeing spots.

Now a savvy young engineer has developed a mobile gravity suitthat could help future space jockeys fend off those deleterious effects.

The suit uses portable vacuum system that applies negative pressure, shifting blood flow to the lower body and generating ground-reaction forces to preserve bone and muscle density.

Neeki Ashari, a graduate bioengineering student at University of California San Diego, designed the space-age slacks while interning at the Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute in La Jolla.

Ashari scored two NASA grants for her project, and assistance from Alan Hargens, director of UC-San Diegos Orthopaedic Clinical Physiology Lab and former chief of the space physiology department at NASAs Ames Research Center.

We designed and developed the mobile gravity suit in the form of wearable trousers, the pair detailed in a new report in Frontiers in Physiology.

[Its] fully equipped with its own portable vacuum system, pressure and thermal control system, safety shut-off system, and spinal loading system.

Here on Earth, we rely on gravity to provide resistance. Our body weight GRFs under our feet as we move.

In space, though, theres no external resistance and bones are more prone to breaks and fractures.

Astronauts aboard the International Space Station use treadmills and other exercise to simulate GRFs.

But they only generate a fraction of what we get on Earth.

Lower body negative pressure (LBNP) chambers do better, but they require users to remain stationary for hours at a time.

And theyre too cumbersome to be included on missions outside Earths orbit.

Asharis pants allow a free range of motion and generate far greater GRFs than a standard LBNP chamber.

The mobile gravity suit is a small, untethered, and flexible intravehicular activity (IVA) suit, its creators write.

This trouser-like suit is designed for astronauts to comfortably wear and begin applying the LBNP technique without reducing crew time.

Made of an airtight yet breathable Hyprotex fabric, the pants exoskeleton envelops the user from the waist down, including their feet, maintaining the pressure and regulating temperature and humidity.

Last year, the first all-female space walk was delayed because NASA couldnt find enough spacesuits to fit the womens bodies.

Ashari had the opposite problem with her gravity trousers: Their tailored volume limited sizing, meaning her test subjects were all women.

When theyre actually produced, Ashari says, the suits will be custom designed for each astronauts biometrics.

For commercial use, though, she foresees five different sizes: XS, SM, M, L, and XL.

Once space travel becomes commercialized, this device may ensure the health of future civilian space travelers, the report reads. It is important to develop effective devices, like the mobile gravity suit, that simulate the very conditions our bodies on Earth depend on.

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NASA-backed mobile gravity suit helps astronauts fight health hazards of zero-gravity space flight - Brinkwire

Genetics

Genetic Variants and the Biology of Stillbirth – Technology Networks

Columbia researchers have uncovered an array of new genes that cause stillbirth, significantly increasing the understanding of the condition's genetic foundations. The findings suggest that genetic analysis could be used to counsel parents who have previously experienced stillbirth and to unlock new human biology.

Using both standard and advanced analysis techniques, the team led by David Goldstein, PhD, and Ronald Wapner, MD, of Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons (VP&S) identified the likely genetic cause of stillbirth in about one of every 10 cases studied.

"This study shows that careful genetic analyses can often identify the precise genetic causes of stillbirth and demonstrates the importance of diagnostic sequencing in all cases of unexplained stillbirth," says Goldstein, director of the Institute for Genomic Medicine at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. "Of equal importance, the work highlights how little we currently understand about the biology of stillbirth and the role that genomic analysis can play in helping us understand it."

The study was published online today in the New England Journal of Medicine by the Columbia team. Kate Stanley, MS, a research associate in the Goldstein lab, and Jessica Giordano, MS, a research genetic counselor in the reproductive genetics division of the Department of Obstetrics & Gynecology at VP&S, were co-first authors of the study.Presumed Genetic Underpinning, but Few Studies

Stillbirth (the in utero death of a fetus after 20 weeks' gestation) occurs in approximately one in 100 pregnancies and is about 10 times more common than sudden infant death syndrome.

But in the majority of cases, the cause of stillbirth is unknown. Some have been linked to maternal medical conditions such as infection and preeclampsia; 10% to 20% are attributed to large and easily detectable chromosomal abnormalities. Only a few genes have been implicated.

"Unlike postnatal childhood conditions that are presumed to be strongly genetic, stillbirth had yet to be systematically analyzed with modern genome sequencing approaches," says Goldstein.

"All too often, we have no explanation to give parents who experience a stillbirth," says Wapner, professor of obstetrics & gynecology. "Not only are they devastated, they're often left to wonder if it's something they did wrong or if it might happen again."

Genomic Sequencing Plus New Bioinformatic Analyses Find Hidden Genetic Causes

Genomic sequencing has been particularly useful in diagnosing otherwise unexplained childhood disorders and fetal structural defects, and the Columbia team used it for the first time to search for genetic variants that cause stillbirth.

The researchers sequenced all protein-encoding genes--where most known disease-causing genetic variants occur--from 246 stillborn fetuses and deployed new statistical analyses to identify the genetic mutations that caused the death of the fetus.

The combination of traditional sequencing and new analytical techniques revealed small changes in 13 genes that caused fetal death; six of the genes had not been previously linked to stillbirth.

"Although these are small changes in only a single site in the genome, they are, in effect, genomic sledgehammers that either dramatically change or knock out essential genes and appear responsible on their own for fetal demise," Goldstein says.

The small genetic changes explained 8.5% of the stillbirths in the study. When combined with a previous analysis of larger genomic alterations in this group, the researchers determined that 18% of the stillbirths had a known genetic cause.

The analysis also showed a critical difference compared with the study of postnatal genetic conditions.

"Interestingly, some of the changes we found in genes known to cause postnatal diseases and conditions appeared to have more profound effects than the mutations linked to postnatal disease," Goldstein adds.

Clinical Implications

Currently, the analyses required to find causal genetic causes of a stillbirth can be conducted in only a few academic medical centers.

But eventually the findings from this study--and future studies--will help physicians counsel parents and guide clinical care.

"To a woman who's just had a stillbirth, specific knowledge about the cause is critical," Wapner says. "They often blame themselves and some decide not to have any more children."

If the stillbirth can be attributed to a genetic mutation that has only occurred in the fetus, not in the parents, the same problem is unlikely to occur in future pregnancies.

"That knowledge would change the way we would provide care," Wapner says, "and facilitate closure and bereavement for families."

Unlocking New Human BiologyMost genetic diagnostic studies focus on genes already known to cause disease. Because stillbirth has been understudied, however, the team wanted to test whether genetic changes in genes not currently linked to disease contribute to stillbirth.

For this assessment, the researchers used a bioinformatic tool pioneered by the Goldstein lab that focuses on genes that are under the strongest natural selection in the human population--known as "intolerant" genes. The lab team showed that at least 5% of stillbirths are likely explained by mutations in intolerant genes that are not currently linked to any known human disease.

"These novel disease genes appear to be critical for early human development, and the only way to discover them is through the analysis of fetuses that do not develop," Goldstein says.

"We're opening up new frontiers in biology and the more we understand about basic human development, the more we can potentially intervene."

Reference: Stanley et al. (2020).Causal Genetic Variants in Stillbirth. The New England Journal of Medicine.DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa1908753.

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Genetic Variants and the Biology of Stillbirth - Technology Networks

Genetics

Baylor Genetics and Rice University form COVID-19 screening partnership for fall semester – Fort Worth Business Press

HOUSTON Baylor Genetics, a clinical diagnostics laboratory known for genetic testing and precision medicine, and Rice University, a private, comprehensive research university, have partnered to create a first-of-its-kind, total turnkey solution for the university to resume in-person classes for the fall semester despite the COVID-19 pandemic.For Baylor Genetics and Rice University, this partnership represents a moon-shot opportunity to benefit students, faculty, and staff, Kengo Takishima, President and Chief Executive Officer at Baylor Genetics, said in a news release. It is imperative families have peace of mind as they send their children to college and weve set an aggressive goal of serving as a blueprint for other academic institutions and, more broadly, society.

Many universities nationwide have been strongly impacted by the pandemic and have announced changes to the fall semester. One of the major changes is universities going fully online for the semester.The news release said Rice has been able to overcome many challenges brought on by COVID-19 thanks to its partnership with Baylor Genetics.In terms of learning online, I found that it wasnt that intuitive and effective for my own learning style. In addition to that, it is my senior year and I wanted to get one last taste of the community that I have come to grow and love here, said Victor Nguyen, a senior at Rice University, in an interview released by the university. Being on campus again feels a little bit more of what we are used to, even though we live in a new reality. Its closer to normal so its exactly what we were hoping for.This partnership entails Baylor Genetics providing support for temperature checks, on-campus sample collection and transport logistics, processing of samples, and customized results reporting for individuals via email. Nearly 60,000 screening tests will be performed by Baylor Genetics with a turnaround time of 48 hours or less.In addition to large-scale surveillance testing, the partnership includes population management reporting. This custom reporting system delivers population data to assist policymakers at Rice with managing the campus community and by aiding in intelligent decision making.

Testing by itself is not enough, said Kevin Kirby, Rice Universitys Vice President for Administration. What matters is how we use that information to act quickly to isolate, treat, contact trace, and quarantine those affected. A systematic approach is the best practice for creating an environment that will mitigate the spread of COVID-19.In addition, data tracking will provide the university with specific trends and infection rates on buildings, facilities, and housing throughout the campus.Rice said in the news release that the innovative approach is part of the universitys strategy to prevent cross-contamination and ensure the safety of its faculty, students, and staff. There are plans to extend the partnership with symptomatic testing in the near future.

This opportunity is a chance to demonstrate that we can operate safely in such a difficult time, said Chad Shaw, Ph.D., Senior Director of the Baylor Genetics Innovation Lab, Adjunct Professor of Statistics at Rice University, and Professor in the Department of Molecular and Human Genetics at Baylor College of Medicine.As a Houstonian and a member of both the Baylor and Rice faculty, I am excited by the opportunity to serve my community to find a thoughtful and creative way to overcome the COVID challenge. It takes commitment, grit, and a team effort, Shaw said.The program began the week of Aug. 3 with college staff, graduate students, and orientation coordinators. For students, testing is broken down into three phases and began Aug. 15. There will be no charge to faculty, students or staff for the on-campus testing.For members of the Rice community who are confirmed positive for the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), Rice will follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention contact-tracing protocols to identify others who have had significant contact with those tested positive.Baylor Genetics test for COVID-19 has one of the highest sensitivity (true positive rate) and specificity (true negative rate) rates for identifying active coronavirus infection, the news release said. FWBP Staff

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Baylor Genetics and Rice University form COVID-19 screening partnership for fall semester - Fort Worth Business Press

Genetics

Is bipolar disorder genetic? Yes, but that doesn’t guarantee you’ll develop it – Insider – INSIDER

Bipolar disorder, formerly known as manic depression, is a mental health disorder that involves extreme mood swings. It is estimated around 4.4% of adults in the US will experience bipolar disorder in their lifetimes. The average age of onset is 25, but it can also occur in teenagers and children.

Experts don't know exactly what causes bipolar disorder, but research suggests that there is both a genetic component and environmental one that contribute to its development.

"Bipolar disorder is characterized by having a history of depressive episodes but more specifically at least one manic episode," says Jared Heathman, MD, a psychiatrist in Houston, Texas. "Manic symptoms include grandiosity, decreased need for sleep, increased rate of speech, flight of ideas, distractibility, and impulsive behaviors that contribute to social or occupational dysfunction."

A hereditary disease is one that can be passed on through genetic material, like from a parent to one of their children. For some hereditary diseases, like one type of breast cancer, physicians know exactly which gene causes the issue, and therefore, how likely it is to be passed along.

The exact genes related to bipolar disorder aren't known, which makes it difficult to explain the exact mechanisms of how the condition is passed on genetically. The leading theory is that several different genes contribute to bipolar disorder, each in a small way.

"Bipolar disorder works on something called a diathesis-stress model, meaning that someone inherits a greater likelihood of the disorder, but some sort of severe physical or mental stress can activate that tendency," says Aimee Daramus, PsyD, a licensed clinical psychologist and author of Understanding Bipolar Disorder: The Essential Family Guide.

According to a Journal of Psychiatry & Neuroscience study published in 2012, people who have one first-degree relative like a parent or sibling with bipolar disorder have a 15% to 35% greater chance of also developing the condition. If someone has two first-degree relatives with bipolar disorder, their chances of having the disorder increase to 75%.

Heathman says people with bipolar disorder have around a 10% chance of having children with the disorder, too. According to him, "most cases" of the condition happen in families where a relative already has bipolar but not all of them.

For bipolar disorder, genetics is just one part of the equation, and needs to be considered alongside other risk factors.

There are environmental and behavioral factors that might increase your risk of developing bipolar disorder. These include:

The relationship between alcohol use or drug use and bipolar disorder isn't fully understood. However, studies found that substance abuse and bipolar disorder can interact with each other to make symptoms significantly worse. A 2004 study published in the journal Bipolar Disorders evaluated 4,310 people receiving treatment for bipolar disorder at Veterans Administration (VA) facilities. Researchers found that 25% of these patients had alcohol use disorder, 10.4% abused cocaine, and 4.4% abused opiates.

"Some drugs are connected with a greater likelihood of developing bipolar if the genetic likelihood is there," Daramus says. For example, Daramus says, "Habitual cannabis use before someone's first mood episode is connected to an earlier age of onset."

A 2008 review published in Dialogues in Clinical Neuroscience looked at various studies about brain imaging in individuals with bipolar disorder and found there may be structural differences in the brain of those with bipolar disorder.

Specifically, a 2017 study published in Molecular Psychiatry found differences in the hippocampus, a part of the brain associated with memory and learning. People with bipolar disorder had abnormal shapes and less volume in that area.

Many conditions are comorbid with bipolar disorder, like depression, anxiety, and PTSD. A 2018 paper published in the American Journal of Psychiatry looked at 6,788 people who experienced substance-induced psychosis a condition where alcohol or drugs induce delusions or hallucinations and found that 32.2% developed bipolar disorder or schizophrenia.

The exact relationship between bipolar disorder and these other illnesses isn't fully understood, but people who suffer from them should also know how to recognize bipolar symptoms, and seek treatment if they appear.

According to a 2016 paper in the International Journal of Bipolar Disorders, experiencing trauma in childhood is connected with a higher risk of developing bipolar disorder. This may include:

Survivors of childhood trauma can have more severe cases of bipolar than people who didn't have those experiences. The researchers aren't certain of what causes the link, but suggest that childhood trauma can affect the way people respond to stressors as adults.

If you have a parent or a family member with bipolar disorder and are worried you may develop the same condition, Heathman says there's no known way to prevent it. But, you can learn how to manage the symptoms. "

A healthy lifestyle that includes a healthy diet and regular, adequate sleep can reduce the frequency of bipolar events," Heathman says.

People with a family history of bipolar disorder should also know the common symptoms, and how to seek professional help if they see signs of behavior that could be related to bipolar disorder.

Much more research is necessary to pin down the exact causes of bipolar disorder, including any specific genetic links and how hereditary the condition is. While bipolar can be a difficult condition to live with, many people do extremely well with medication and/or therapy, under the supervision of a physician.

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Is bipolar disorder genetic? Yes, but that doesn't guarantee you'll develop it - Insider - INSIDER

Genetics

Experts develop genetic risk score to predict heart disease in South Asia – Express Healthcare

Findings and methods developed can be used to screen large populations and high-risk individuals at a cost less than Rs 5000, according to the release

Findings of the first-ever research capturing the polygenic risk score for South Asia populations for coronary artery disease were recently published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (JACC).

Conducted by MedGenome Labs, in collaboration with researchers from Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard; Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston; Narayana Health, Bangalore; Eternal Hospital, Jaipur; Madras Medical Mission, Chennai; KMCH, Coimbatore and a few other institutes, the study on Indian population validates a novel CAD-PRS (coronary artery disease-genome-wide polygenic risk score) to precisely predict the risk of developing a coronary artery disease/myocardial infarction (MI) using a persons genetic makeup.

Knowing the polygenic risk is important to individuals with a family history of CAD, hypertension, diabetes, high cholesterol level, smoking habits, alcohol consumption, stressful lifestyle, as CAD results from a combination of these factors. A poor lifestyle and high polygenic risk could be a fatal combination and may result in early-onset CAD.

Such findings and methods developed can be used to screen large populations and high-risk individuals at a cost less than Rs 5000.

Looking at all the available scientific evidence and our study results we are convinced that there exists a good opportunity to combine both clinical and genetic risks (polygenicrisk score based) and significantly improve the primary prevention of coronary artery disease (CAD). We firmly believe that incorporatingvalidated genetic risk scores would help in better stratification of high-risk individuals if implemented at population level,said Dr Vedam Ramprasad, CEO, MedGenome Labs.

This unique study is based on the principle of Genome-wide Polygenic Risk Score (PRS) which usesa genome-wideanalysis of an individual to quantify the risk of developing heart disease.

It was conducted on the south Asian population in 1800 confirmed CAD cases and 1163 control samples from five centres across the country with a median age between 54 and 55 years. The findings of this study have helped develop a CAD PRS that integrates information from millions of sites of common DNA variation into a single metric that can be calculated from birth and validate a scalable polygenic score framework in India. This finding lays the scientific and operational foundation for clinical implementation not just for CAD but for other diseases.

CAD PRS is a powerful genetic predictor that can be used to identify individuals at increased risk for CAD. It provides a quantified risk score based on ones genetic makeup and predicts a patients risk for having an acute coronary event, such as a heart attack, before symptoms appear. CAD PRS is an important new risk factor to help physicians stratify high-risk patients and better guide treatment decisions and lifestyle interventions, said Dr Sekar Kathiresan, CEO, Verve Therapeutics and Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School, Cardiology Division, Massachusetts General Hospital.

According to a research paper published in theJournal of Genetics, the estimated prevalence of CAD disease in India is about 10.5 per cent of the population which extrapolates to a burden of about 32 million affected individuals. Over and above, the incidence of cardiac disorders has increased from 2 per cent to 10.5 per cent of the urban population in the past few years and early age of onset is a new countrywide trend.

South Asians no matter where they stay in India or any other country always have higher cases of CAD than Caucasians. Even if our body structure is much leaner, smaller and thus comparatively lower food consumed compared to Caucasians, we still end up with CAD. So, it can be considered that South Asians have some genetic issue that is causing high CAD cases and hence we need to identify these genetic factors so that we are able to manage the disease in our population, said Dr Ajit Mullasari, Director, Adult Cardiology, Madras Medical Mission.

The virtual press conference and announcement was also supported by several eminent cardiologists from across the country Dr Ramesh Seshadri, Dr Julius Punnen, Dr Varun Shetty, Dr Bagirath Raghuraman from Narayana Institute of Cardiac Science, Bangalore, Dr.Pradeep Narayan, RTIIS, Kolkata, Dr Rajendra N.S, Narayana Hospital, Mysore and Dr Rajeev Gupta, EHCC Jaipur.

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Experts develop genetic risk score to predict heart disease in South Asia - Express Healthcare

Human Behavior

The extremes of human behavior Mondoweiss – Mondoweiss

Of late I keep being reminded of my age. Fortunately, the impinging frailties are emotional, not physical. Emotional lability is common among octogenarians. I shudder to think of other more psychopathological explanations for the infirmity. Whatever the cause, in my rural Palestinian culture crying is not for strong men. But nowadays reading the news seems always to bring tears to my eyes.

The cases of near random brutalizing of civilians in the occupied Palestinian territories, often multiple and often to death, is a near daily occurrence. Last weeks episode in Haaretz apparently is a case of mistaken identity, a border cop shooting a man from Jenin in the back seat of a car on sight. The Israeli heroic soldiers quick finger on the trigger is in line with the a priori Talmudic license of Ifsomeonecomes tokill you,rise up andkill him first. I cried for the injured mans father visiting him in the hospital. Not only that one of his sons is in critical condition with a pointblank shot to the head but also that there is a death sentence for the other son, the intended subject of the attack. And the same newsfeed has this item as well as this, one of a mother and the other of a child, the second such incident in three months. A weekly inclusive summary of such abuses, deadly and otherwise, is the JVP Health Advisory Committee weekly report.

Then Haaretz (English print version) carried a report about the rush of so many Palestinian families including parents, children and some elderly to the shore of the Mediterranean, mostly at Jaffas beach, many of them for the first time in their lives. Not only that they had no permits but also that most of them crossed the so called Security Barrier through illegal passages and breaks in the fence with the Israeli security officials looking the other way. This surprising event and the pleasure the Palestinian children derived from wading into the sea for the first time, as is shown in one of the pictures in the report, nearly made me cry with pleasure. But what really made me cry to where I was gulping for breath is a video that a search about the topic of Israels borders eventually led me to. It shows a football game between two teams of Palestinian amputees in Gaza. Those young men didnt even touch the fence of their open-air prison, much less crossed it. Just as the unwritten permit to cross the Apartheid wall to reach the sea, shooting with intent to mutilate demonstrating youth in Gaza must have been a well-considered decision of security and political higher-ups. War crimes usually start at the top.

My home in Galilee is nearly equidistant from Jenin and Beirut. For the last five days the scenes of death, destruction and wide spread misery in the Lebanese capitals port area is shocking. For many of us, natives of the region, the shock is in proportion to Beiruts romantic place in our hearts as Paris of the Levant. The tragic scenes in the media, especially on Lebanese TV stations, are sufficient to shock the most stoic amongst us. The account of one touching human tragedy that I have seen on TV is also reported in the New York Times international edition. It is of a heroic young woman from a village in north Lebanon, a medic who had joined Beiruts fire department and died while talking to her fianc. She was buried in a typical village wedding procession with the standard wedding music and singing and with her coffin draped in white and her fianc dressed in a wedding suit and carried on his friends shoulders as befits a groom.

But the one report that brought tears to my eyes the most was a two-line sketch in Arabic on a dear friends Facebook account which went as follows (My translation):

You should be Careful. I have Corona! an injured woman in Beirut told the man trying to rescue her.

I am not letting you die, the man answered as he carried her in his arms.

The humanity of both! I just cant stop crying. I cant breathe.

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The extremes of human behavior Mondoweiss - Mondoweiss

Human Behavior

Pandemic behavior: Why some people don’t play by the rules – The Jakarta Post – Jakarta Post

Lockdowns and social distancing measures introduced around the world to try and curb the COVID-19 pandemic are reshaping lives, legislating activities that were once everyday freedoms and creating new social norms.

But there are always some people who don't play by the rules.

Rule-breaking is not a new phenomenon, but behavioral scientists say it is being exacerbated in the coronavirus pandemic by cultural, demographic and psychological factors that can make the flouters seem more selfish and dangerous.

Here are some questions and answers on the science of human behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic:

What makes some people flout and others obey the rules?

A key factor is individualism versus collectivism.

"Some countries...tend to be higher on individualism, which is about expressing your sense of identity and who you are as an individual," said Jay Van Bavel, an associate professor of psychology at New York University.

People in individualist cultures tend to reject rules and ignore attempts by public health authorities to "nudge" behavior change with risk messages or appeals for altruism.

"If you say, for example, that wearing a mask will help protect others, people in individualistic cultures just care less," said Michael Sanders, a expert at the Policy Institute at King's College London.

In collectivist cultures, people are more likely to do what's best for the group.

Are trust and fear important?

Yes. These and other instincts are significant influences on human behavior.

In societies with more political division, for example, people are less likely to trust advice from one side or the other, and also tend to form pro- and anti-camps.

Optimism and fear are also crucial. A little of both can be positive, but too much of either can be damaging.

"In a situation like a pandemic, (optimism) can lead you to take risks that are incredibly dangerous," said Van Bavel.

Why is social distancing difficult?

"We are truly social animals," said Van Bavel. "Our bodies and brains are designed for connection and the pandemic in many ways goes against our instincts to connect."

That's partly why local outbreaks can crop up in bars and nightclubs, or religious ceremonies, weddings and parties.

"People have a hard time resisting that tendency for social and group connection."

If rule-breakers are a minority, why does it matter?

"The problem is that, in a massive collective problem like the one we're facing now, if everybody breaks the rules a little bit, then it's not dissimilar to lots of people not following the rules at all," said Sanders.

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Pandemic behavior: Why some people don't play by the rules - The Jakarta Post - Jakarta Post