Which circulating antioxidant vitamins are confounded by socioeconomic deprivation? The MIDSPAN family study

<p><b>Background:</b> Antioxidant vitamins are often described as having “independent” associations with risk of cancer, cardiovascular disease (CVD) and mortality. We aimed to compare to what extent a range of antioxidant vitamins and carotenoids are associated with adulthood and childhood markers of socioeconomic deprivation and to adverse lifestyle factors.</p> <p><b>Methods and Findings:</b> Socioeconomic and lifestyle measures were available in 1040 men and 1298 women from the MIDSPAN Family Study (30–59 years at baseline) together with circulating levels of vitamins A, C, E, and carotenoids (α-carotene, β-carotene, lutein and lycopene). Markers of socioeconomic deprivation in adulthood were consistently as strongly associated with lower vitamin C and carotenoid levels as markers of adverse lifestyle; the inverse association with overcrowding was particularly consistent (vitamin C and carotenoids range from 19.1% [95% CI 30.3–6.0] to 38.8% [49.9–25.3] lower among those in overcrowded residencies). These associations were consistent after adjusting for month, classical CVD risk factors, body mass index, physical activity, vitamin supplements, dietary fat and fibre intake. Similar, but weaker, associations were seen for childhood markers of deprivation. The association of vitamin A or E were strikingly different; several adult adverse lifestyle factors associated with higher levels of vitamin A and E, including high alcohol intake for vitamin A (9.5% [5.7–13.5]) and waist hip ratio for vitamin E (9.5% [4.8–14.4]), with the latter associations partially explained by classical risk factors, particularly cholesterol levels.</p> <p><b>Conclusions:</b> Plasma vitamin C and carotenoids have strong inverse associations with adulthood markers of social deprivation, whereas vitamin A and E appear positively related to specific adverse lifestyle factors. These findings should help researchers better contextualize blood antioxidant vitamin levels by illustrating the potential limitations associated with making causal inferences without consideration of social deprivation.</p&gt

Quantum control of hybrid nuclear-electronic qubits

Pulsed magnetic resonance is a wide-reaching technology allowing the quantum state of electronic and nuclear spins to be controlled on the timescale of nanoseconds and microseconds respectively. The time required to flip either dilute electronic or nuclear spins is orders of magnitude shorter than their decoherence times, leading to several schemes for quantum information processing with spin qubits. We investigate instead the novel regime where the eigenstates approximate 50:50 superpositions of the electronic and nuclear spin states forming "hybrid nuclear-electronic" qubits. Here we demonstrate quantum control of these states for the first time, using bismuth-doped silicon, in just 32 ns: this is orders of magnitude faster than previous experiments where pure nuclear states were used. The coherence times of our states are five orders of magnitude longer, reaching 4 ms, and are limited by the naturally-occurring 29Si nuclear spin impurities. There is quantitative agreement between our experiments and no-free-parameter analytical theory for the resonance positions, as well as their relative intensities and relative Rabi oscillation frequencies. In experiments where the slow manipulation of some of the qubits is the rate limiting step, quantum computations would benefit from faster operation in the hybrid regime.Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures, new data and simulation

Beliefs about the Minds of Others Influence How We Process Sensory Information

Attending where others gaze is one of the most fundamental mechanisms of social cognition. The present study is the first to examine the impact of the attribution of mind to others on gaze-guided attentional orienting and its ERP correlates. Using a paradigm in which attention was guided to a location by the gaze of a centrally presented face, we manipulated participants' beliefs about the gazer: gaze behavior was believed to result either from operations of a mind or from a machine. In Experiment 1, beliefs were manipulated by cue identity (human or robot), while in Experiment 2, cue identity (robot) remained identical across conditions and beliefs were manipulated solely via instruction, which was irrelevant to the task. ERP results and behavior showed that participants' attention was guided by gaze only when gaze was believed to be controlled by a human. Specifically, the P1 was more enhanced for validly, relative to invalidly, cued targets only when participants believed the gaze behavior was the result of a mind, rather than of a machine. This shows that sensory gain control can be influenced by higher-order (task-irrelevant) beliefs about the observed scene. We propose a new interdisciplinary model of social attention, which integrates ideas from cognitive and social neuroscience, as well as philosophy in order to provide a framework for understanding a crucial aspect of how humans' beliefs about the observed scene influence sensory processing

Diets containing sea cucumber (Isostichopus badionotus) meals are hypocholesterolemic in young rats

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Atypical disengagement from faces and its modulation by the control of eye fixation in children with Autism Spectrum Disorder

By using the gap overlap task, we investigated disengagement from faces and objects in children (9–17 years old) with and without autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and its neurophysiological correlates. In typically developing (TD) children, faces elicited larger gap effect, an index of attentional engagement, and larger saccade-related event-related potentials (ERPs), compared to objects. In children with ASD, by contrast, neither gap effect nor ERPs differ between faces and objects. Follow-up experiments demonstrated that instructed fixation on the eyes induces larger gap effect for faces in children with ASD, whereas instructed fixation on the mouth can disrupt larger gap effect in TD children. These results suggest a critical role of eye fixation on attentional engagement to faces in both groups

Garden and landscape-scale correlates of moths of differing conservation status: significant effects of urbanization and habitat diversity

Moths are abundant and ubiquitous in vegetated terrestrial environments and are pollinators, important herbivores of wild plants, and food for birds, bats and rodents. In recent years, many once abundant and widespread species have shown sharp declines that have been cited by some as indicative of a widespread insect biodiversity crisis. Likely causes of these declines include agricultural intensification, light pollution, climate change, and urbanization; however, the real underlying cause(s) is still open to conjecture. We used data collected from the citizen science Garden Moth Scheme (GMS) to explore the spatial association between the abundance of 195 widespread British species of moth, and garden habitat and landscape features, to see if spatial habitat and landscape associations varied for species of differing conservation status. We found that associations with habitat and landscape composition were species-specific, but that there were consistent trends in species richness and total moth abundance. Gardens with more diverse and extensive microhabitats were associated with higher species richness and moth abundance; gardens near to the coast were associated with higher richness and moth abundance; and gardens in more urbanized locations were associated with lower species richness and moth abundance. The same trends were also found for species classified as increasing, declining and vulnerable under IUCN (World Conservation Union) criteria

Toxic metal enrichment and boating intensity: sediment records of antifoulant copper in shallow lakes of eastern England

Tributyltin (TBT), an aqueous biocide derived from antifouling paint pollution, is known to have impacted coastal marine ecosystems, and has been reported in the sediment of the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, a network of rivers and shallow lakes in eastern England. In the marine environment, the 1987 TBT ban has resulted in expanded use of alternative biocides, raising the question of whether these products too have impacted the Broads ecosystem and freshwaters in general. Here we examine the lake sediment record in the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads for contamination by copper (Cu) (as an active biocide agent) and zinc (Zn) (as a component of booster biocides), to assess their occurrence and potential for causing environmental harm in freshwater ecosystems. We find that, after the introduction of leisure boating, there is a statistically significant difference in Cu enrichment between heavily and lightly boated sites, while no such difference exists prior to this time. At the heavily boated sites the onset of Cu enrichment coincides with a period of rapid increase in leisure boating. Such enrichment is maintained to the present day, with some evidence of continued increase. We conclude that Cu-based antifouling has measurably contaminated lakes exposed to boating, at concentrations high enough to cause ecological harm. Similar findings can be expected at other boated freshwater ecosystems elsewhere in the world

Search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum in pp collisions at √ s = 8 TeV with the ATLAS detector

Results of a search for new phenomena in final states with an energetic jet and large missing transverse momentum are reported. The search uses 20.3 fb−1 of √ s = 8 TeV data collected in 2012 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Events are required to have at least one jet with pT > 120 GeV and no leptons. Nine signal regions are considered with increasing missing transverse momentum requirements between Emiss T > 150 GeV and Emiss T > 700 GeV. Good agreement is observed between the number of events in data and Standard Model expectations. The results are translated into exclusion limits on models with either large extra spatial dimensions, pair production of weakly interacting dark matter candidates, or production of very light gravitinos in a gauge-mediated supersymmetric model. In addition, limits on the production of an invisibly decaying Higgs-like boson leading to similar topologies in the final state are presente

Measurement of the inclusive and dijet cross-sections of b-jets in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector

The inclusive and dijet production cross-sections have been measured for jets containing b-hadrons (b-jets) in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt(s) = 7 TeV, using the ATLAS detector at the LHC. The measurements use data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 34 pb^-1. The b-jets are identified using either a lifetime-based method, where secondary decay vertices of b-hadrons in jets are reconstructed using information from the tracking detectors, or a muon-based method where the presence of a muon is used to identify semileptonic decays of b-hadrons inside jets. The inclusive b-jet cross-section is measured as a function of transverse momentum in the range 20 < pT < 400 GeV and rapidity in the range |y| < 2.1. The bbbar-dijet cross-section is measured as a function of the dijet invariant mass in the range 110 < m_jj < 760 GeV, the azimuthal angle difference between the two jets and the angular variable chi in two dijet mass regions. The results are compared with next-to-leading-order QCD predictions. Good agreement is observed between the measured cross-sections and the predictions obtained using POWHEG + Pythia. MC@NLO + Herwig shows good agreement with the measured bbbar-dijet cross-section. However, it does not reproduce the measured inclusive cross-section well, particularly for central b-jets with large transverse momenta.Comment: 10 pages plus author list (21 pages total), 8 figures, 1 table, final version published in European Physical Journal

Reviewing evidence of marine ecosystem change off South Africa

Recent changes have been observed in South African marine ecosystems. The main pressures on these ecosystems are fishing, climate change, pollution, ocean acidification and mining. The best long-term datasets are for trends in fishing pressures but there are many gaps, especially for non-commercial species. Fishing pressures have varied over time, depending on the species being caught. Little information exists for trends in other anthropogenic pressures. Field observations of environmental variables are limited in time and space. Remotely sensed satellite data have improved spatial and temporal coverage but the time-series are still too short to distinguish long-term trends from interannual and decadal variability. There are indications of recent cooling on the West and South coasts and warming on the East Coast over a period of 20 - 30 years. Oxygen concentrations on the West Coast have decreased over this period. Observed changes in offshore marine communities include southward and eastward changes in species distributions, changes in abundance of species, and probable alterations in foodweb dynamics. Causes of observed changes are difficult to attribute. Full understanding of marine ecosystem change requires ongoing and effective data collection, management and archiving, and coordination in carrying out ecosystem research.DHE