Dynamic clay microstructures emerge via ion complexation waves

Clays control carbon, water and nutrient transport in the lithosphere, promote cloud formation5 and lubricate fault slip through interactions among hydrated mineral interfaces. Clay mineral properties are difficult to model because their structures are disordered, curved and dynamic. Consequently, interactions at the clay mineral-aqueous interface have been approximated using electric double layer models based on single crystals of mica and atomistic simulations. We discover that waves of complexation dipoles at dynamically curving interfaces create an emergent long-range force that drives exfoliation and restacking over time- and length-scales that are not captured in existing models. Curvature delocalizes electrostatic interactions in ways that fundamentally differ from planar surfaces, altering the ratio of ions bound to the convex and concave sides of a layer. Multiple-scattering reconstruction of low-dose energy-filtered cryo electron tomography enabled direct imaging of ion complexes and electrolyte distributions at hydrated and curved mineral interfaces with {\aa}ngstrom resolution over micron length scales. Layers exfoliate and restack abruptly and repeatedly over timescales that depend strongly on the counterion identity, demonstrating that the strong coupling between elastic, electrostatic and hydration forces in clays promote collective reorganization previously thought to be a feature only of active matter

Predictors of seizure outcomes in children with tuberous sclerosis complex and intractable epilepsy undergoing resective epilepsy surgery: an individual participant data meta-analysis.

ObjectiveTo perform a systematic review and individual participant data meta-analysis to identify preoperative factors associated with a good seizure outcome in children with Tuberous Sclerosis Complex undergoing resective epilepsy surgery.Data sourcesElectronic databases (MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL and Web of Science), archives of major epilepsy and neurosurgery meetings, and bibliographies of relevant articles, with no language or date restrictions.Study selectionWe included case-control or cohort studies of consecutive participants undergoing resective epilepsy surgery that reported seizure outcomes. We performed title and abstract and full text screening independently and in duplicate. We resolved disagreements through discussion.Data extractionOne author performed data extraction which was verified by a second author using predefined data fields including study quality assessment using a risk of bias instrument we developed. We recorded all preoperative factors that may plausibly predict seizure outcomes.Data synthesisTo identify predictors of a good seizure outcome (i.e. Engel Class I or II) we used logistic regression adjusting for length of follow-up for each preoperative variable.ResultsOf 9863 citations, 20 articles reporting on 181 participants were eligible. Good seizure outcomes were observed in 126 (69%) participants (Engel Class I: 102(56%); Engel class II: 24(13%)). In univariable analyses, absence of generalized seizure semiology (OR = 3.1, 95%CI = 1.2-8.2, p = 0.022), no or mild developmental delay (OR = 7.3, 95%CI = 2.1-24.7, p = 0.001), unifocal ictal scalp electroencephalographic (EEG) abnormality (OR = 3.2, 95%CI = 1.4-7.6, p = 0.008) and EEG/Magnetic resonance imaging concordance (OR = 4.9, 95%CI = 1.8-13.5, p = 0.002) were associated with a good postoperative seizure outcome.ConclusionsSmall retrospective cohort studies are inherently prone to bias, some of which are overcome using individual participant data. The best available evidence suggests four preoperative factors predictive of good seizure outcomes following resective epilepsy surgery. Large long-term prospective multicenter observational studies are required to further evaluate the risk factors identified in this review

Effects of ambient air pollution on obesity and ectopic fat deposition:a protocol for a systematic review and meta-analysis

Introduction - Globally, the prevalence of obesity tripled from 1975 to 2016. There is evidence that air pollution may contribute to the obesity epidemic through an increase in oxidative stress and inflammation of adipose tissue. However, the impact of air pollution on body weight at a population level remains inconclusive. This systematic review and meta-analysis will estimate the association of ambient air pollution with obesity, distribution of ectopic adipose tissue, and the incidence and prevalence of non-alcoholic fatty liver disease among adults. Methods and analysis.The study will follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guidelines for conduct and reporting. The search will include the following databases: Ovid Medline, Embase, PubMed, Web of Science and Latin America and the Caribbean Literature on Health Sciences, and will be supplemented by a grey literature search. Each article will be independently screened by two reviewers, and relevant data will be extracted independently and in duplicate. Study-specific estimates of associations and their 95% Confidence Intervals will be pooled using a DerSimonian and Laird random-effects model, implemented using the RevMan software. The I2 statistic will be used to assess interstudy heterogeneity. The confidence in the body of evidence will be assessed using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach.Ethics and disseminationAs per institutional policy, ethical approval is not required for secondary data analysis. In addition to being published in a peer-reviewed journal and presented at conferences, the results of the meta-analysis will be shared with key stakeholders, health policymakers and healthcare professionals.Prospero registration numberCRD42023423955

Potential Circumstances Associated With Moral Injury and Moral Distress in Healthcare Workers and Public Safety Personnel Across the Globe During COVID-19: A Scoping Review

Healthcare workers (HCWs) and public safety personnel (PSP) across the globe have continued to face ethically and morally challenging situations during the COVID-19 pandemic that increase their risk for the development of moral distress (MD) and moral injury (MI). To date, however, the global circumstances that confer risk for MD and MI in these cohorts have not been systematically explored, nor have the unique circumstances that may exist across countries been explored. Here, we sought to identify and compare, across the globe, potentially morally injurious or distressful events (PMIDEs) in HCWs and PSP during the COVID-19 pandemic. A scoping review was conducted to identify and synthesize global knowledge on PMIDEs in HCWs and select PSP. Six databases were searched, including MEDLINE, EMBASE, Web of Science, PsychInfo, CINAHL, and Global Health. A total of 1,412 articles were retrieved, of which 57 articles were included in this review. These articles collectively described the experiences of samples from 19 different countries, which were comprised almost exclusively of HCWs. Given the lack of PSP data, the following results should not be generalized to PSP populations without further research. Using qualitative content analysis, six themes describing circumstances associated with PMIDEs were identified: (1) Risk of contracting or transmitting COVID-19; (2) Inability to work on the frontlines; (3) Provision of suboptimal care; (4) Care prioritization and resource allocation; (5) Perceived lack of support and unfair treatment by their organization; and (6) Stigma, discrimination, and abuse. HCWs described a range of emotions related to these PMIDEs, including anxiety, fear, guilt, shame, burnout, anger, and helplessness. Most PMIDE themes appeared to be shared globally, particularly the ‘Risk of contracting or transmitting COVID-19’ and the ‘Perceived lack of support and unfair treatment by their organization.’ Articles included within the theme of ‘Stigma, discrimination, and abuse’ represented the smallest global distribution of all PMIDE themes. Overall, the present review provides insight into PMIDEs encountered by HCWs across the globe during COVID-19. Further research is required to differentiate the experience of PSP from HCWs, and to explore the impact of social and cultural factors on the experience of MD and MI

Effector gene birth in plant parasitic nematodes: Neofunctionalization of a housekeeping glutathione synthetase gene.

Plant pathogens and parasites are a major threat to global food security. Plant parasitism has arisen four times independently within the phylum Nematoda, resulting in at least one parasite of every major food crop in the world. Some species within the most economically important order (Tylenchida) secrete proteins termed effectors into their host during infection to re-programme host development and immunity. The precise detail of how nematodes evolve new effectors is not clear. Here we reconstruct the evolutionary history of a novel effector gene family. We show that during the evolution of plant parasitism in the Tylenchida, the housekeeping glutathione synthetase (GS) gene was extensively replicated. New GS paralogues acquired multiple dorsal gland promoter elements, altered spatial expression to the secretory dorsal gland, altered temporal expression to primarily parasitic stages, and gained a signal peptide for secretion. The gene products are delivered into the host plant cell during infection, giving rise to "GS-like effectors". Remarkably, by solving the structure of GS-like effectors we show that during this process they have also diversified in biochemical activity, and likely represent the founding members of a novel class of GS-like enzyme. Our results demonstrate the re-purposing of an endogenous housekeeping gene to form a family of effectors with modified functions. We anticipate that our discovery will be a blueprint to understand the evolution of other plant-parasitic nematode effectors, and the foundation to uncover a novel enzymatic function

Genomic resolution of a cold subsurface aquifer community provides metabolic insights for novel microbes adapted to high CO2 concentrations.

As in many deep underground environments, the microbial communities in subsurface high-CO2 ecosystems remain relatively unexplored. Recent investigations based on single-gene assays revealed a remarkable variety of organisms from little studied phyla in Crystal Geyser (Utah, USA), a site where deeply sourced CO2 -saturated fluids are erupted at the surface. To provide genomic resolution of the metabolisms of these organisms, we used a novel metagenomic approach to recover 227 high-quality genomes from 150 microbial species affiliated with 46 different phylum-level lineages. Bacteria from two novel phylum-level lineages have the capacity for CO2 fixation. Analyses of carbon fixation pathways in all studied organisms revealed that the Wood-Ljungdahl pathway and the Calvin-Benson-Bassham Cycle occurred with the highest frequency, whereas the reverse TCA cycle was little used. We infer that this, and selection for form II RuBisCOs, are adaptions to high CO2 -concentrations. However, many autotrophs can also grow mixotrophically, a strategy that confers metabolic versatility. The assignment of 156 hydrogenases to 90 different organisms suggests that H2 is an important inter-species energy currency even under gaseous CO2 -saturation. Overall, metabolic analyses at the organism level provided insight into the biochemical cycles that support subsurface life under the extreme condition of CO2 saturation

Adjuncts for the evaluation of potentially malignant disorders in the oral cavity

BACKGROUND: Oral squamous cell carcinoma is the most common manifestation of malignancy in the oral cavity. Adjuncts are available for clinicians to evaluate lesions that seem potentially malignant. In this systematic review, the authors summarized the available evidence on patient-important outcomes, diagnostic test accuracy (DTA), and patients' values and preferences (PVPs) when using adjuncts for the evaluation of clinically evident lesions in the oral cavity. TYPES OF STUDIES REVIEWED: The authors searched for preexisting systematic reviews and assessed their quality using the Assessing the Methodological Quality of Systematic Reviews tool. The authors updated the selected reviews and searched MEDLINE, Embase, and the Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials to identify randomized controlled trials and DTA and PVPs studies. Pairs of reviewers independently conducted study selection, data extraction, and assessment of the certainty in the evidence by using the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation approach. RESULTS: The authors identified 4 existing reviews. DTA reviews included 37 studies. The authors retrieved 7,534 records, of which 9 DTA and 10 PVPs studies were eligible. Pooled sensitivity and specificity of adjuncts ranged from 0.39 to 0.96 for the evaluation of innocuous lesions and from 0.31 to 0.95 for the evaluation of suspicious lesions. Cytologic testing used in suspicious lesions appears to have the highest accuracy among adjuncts (sensitivity, 0.92; 95% confidence interval, 0.86 to 0.98; specificity, 0.94; 95% confidence interval, 0.88 to 0.99; low-quality evidence). CONCLUSIONS AND PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS: Cytologic testing appears to be the most accurate adjunct among those included in this review. The main concerns are the high rate of false-positive results and serious issues of risk of bias and indirectness of the evidence. Clinicians should remain skeptical about the potential benefit of any adjunct in clinical practice

A systematic review, meta-analysis and metaregression of the effect of protein supplementation on resistance training-induced gains in muscle mass and strength in healthy adults

Objective We performed a systematic review, metaanalysis and meta-regression to determine if dietary protein supplementation augments resistance exercise training (RET)-induced gains in muscle mass and strength. Data sources A systematic search of Medline, Embase, CINAHL and SportDiscus. Eligibility criteria Only randomised controlled trials with RET ≥6 weeks in duration and dietary protein supplementation. Design Random-effects meta-analyses and metaregressions with four a priori determined covariates. Twophase break point analysis was used to determine the relationship between total protein intake and changes in fat-free mass (FFM). ResultsData from 49 studies with 1863 participants showed that dietary protein supplementation significantly (all p Summary/conclusion Dietary protein supplementation significantly enhanced changes in muscle strength and size during prolonged RET in healthy adults. Increasing age reduces and training experience increases the efficacy of protein supplementation during RET. With protein supplementation, protein intakes at amounts greater than ~1.6 g/kg/day do not further contribute RET-induced gains in FFM

Civility and trust in social media

Social media have been credited with the potential of reinvigorating trust by offering new opportunities for social and political participation. This view has been recently challenged by the rising phenomenon of online incivility, which has made the environment of social networking sites hostile to many users. We conduct a novel experiment in a Facebook setting to study how the effect of social media on trust varies depending on the civility or incivility of online interaction. We find that participants exposed to civil Facebook interaction are significantly more trusting. In contrast, when the use of Facebook is accompanied by the experience of online incivility, no significant changes occur in users’ behavior. These results are robust to alternative configurations of the treatments

The P323L substitution in the SARS-CoV-2 polymerase (NSP12) confers a selective advantage during infection

Background The mutational landscape of SARS-CoV-2 varies at the dominant viral genome sequence and minor genomic variant population. During the COVID-19 pandemic, an early substitution in the genome was the D614G change in the spike protein, associated with an increase in transmissibility. Genomes with D614G are accompanied by a P323L substitution in the viral polymerase (NSP12). However, P323L is not thought to be under strong selective pressure. Results Investigation of P323L/D614G substitutions in the population shows rapid emergence during the containment phase and early surge phase during the first wave. These substitutions emerge from minor genomic variants which become dominant viral genome sequence. This is investigated in vivo and in vitro using SARS-CoV-2 with P323 and D614 in the dominant genome sequence and L323 and G614 in the minor variant population. During infection, there is rapid selection of L323 into the dominant viral genome sequence but not G614. Reverse genetics is used to create two viruses (either P323 or L323) with the same genetic background. L323 shows greater abundance of viral RNA and proteins and a smaller plaque morphology than P323. Conclusions These data suggest that P323L is an important contribution in the emergence of variants with transmission advantages. Sequence analysis of viral populations suggests it may be possible to predict the emergence of a new variant based on tracking the frequency of minor variant genomes. The ability to predict an emerging variant of SARS-CoV-2 in the global landscape may aid in the evaluation of medical countermeasures and non-pharmaceutical interventions