Distress and Growth in the Black Community

Racial discrimination is an unfortunate reality that people of color regularly experience. This leaves lasting impacts on the health of individuals and communities. With the increased use of social media, videos depicting violence against black bodies are widely circulated. The consequences of being exposed to these race related traumatic events online (TEO) can be damaging to the mental health of the black community, maybe even more so if one’s racial identity is important and salient to their overall wellbeing. Though witnessing these race related TEO often lead to posttraumatic stress, positive change may also be possible known as posttraumatic growth

Crossing Goal Lines and Borders: Engaging Black Male Student-Athletes in Education Abroad

Many Black male student-athletes suffer from identity foreclosure at rates higher than their white peers as they fail to develop salient aspects of their identity outside of the athlete role (Murphy, Petitpas, & Brewer, 1996; Beamon, 2012).  Education abroad offers the opportunity to take advantage of a holistic collegiate experience, which impedes the detrimental effects of the athletic identity foreclosure process. International educational opportunities can positively influence Black male student-athletes’ personal, academic, and professional development as they come to see the world beyond the gym and campus. This article examines the significance and value of creating education abroad opportunities for Black male student-athletes as a means of providing meaningful educational opportunities in the realm of higher education

T-Cell Mechanobiology: Force Sensation, Potentiation, and Translation

A T cell is a sensitive self-referential mechanical sensor. Mechanical forces influence the recognition, activation, differentiation, and function throughout the lifetime of a T cell. T cells constantly perceive and respond to physical stimuli through their surface receptors, cytoskeleton, and subcellular structures. Surface receptors receive physical cues in the form of forces generated through receptor-ligand binding events, which are dynamically regulated by contact tension, shear stress, and substrate rigidity. The resulting mechanotransduction not only influences T-cell recognition and signaling but also possibly modulates cell metabolism and gene expression. Moreover, forces also dynamically regulate the deformation, organization, and translocation of cytoskeleton and subcellular structures, leading to changes in T-cell mobility, migration, and infiltration. However, the roles and mechanisms of how mechanical forces modulate T-cell recognition, signaling, metabolism, and gene expression, are largely unknown and underappreciated. Here, we review recent technological and scientific advances in T-cell mechanobiology, discuss possible roles and mechanisms of T-cell mechanotransduction, and propose new research directions of this emerging field in health and disease

Transcriptomic analysis of field-droughted sorghum from seedling to maturity reveals biotic and metabolic responses.

Drought is the most important environmental stress limiting crop yields. The C4 cereal sorghum [Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench] is a critical food, forage, and emerging bioenergy crop that is notably drought-tolerant. We conducted a large-scale field experiment, imposing preflowering and postflowering drought stress on 2 genotypes of sorghum across a tightly resolved time series, from plant emergence to postanthesis, resulting in a dataset of nearly 400 transcriptomes. We observed a fast and global transcriptomic response in leaf and root tissues with clear temporal patterns, including modulation of well-known drought pathways. We also identified genotypic differences in core photosynthesis and reactive oxygen species scavenging pathways, highlighting possible mechanisms of drought tolerance and of the delayed senescence, characteristic of the stay-green phenotype. Finally, we discovered a large-scale depletion in the expression of genes critical to arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) symbiosis, with a corresponding drop in AM fungal mass in the plants' roots

Catching Element Formation In The Act

Gamma-ray astronomy explores the most energetic photons in nature to address some of the most pressing puzzles in contemporary astrophysics. It encompasses a wide range of objects and phenomena: stars, supernovae, novae, neutron stars, stellar-mass black holes, nucleosynthesis, the interstellar medium, cosmic rays and relativistic-particle acceleration, and the evolution of galaxies. MeV gamma-rays provide a unique probe of nuclear processes in astronomy, directly measuring radioactive decay, nuclear de-excitation, and positron annihilation. The substantial information carried by gamma-ray photons allows us to see deeper into these objects, the bulk of the power is often emitted at gamma-ray energies, and radioactivity provides a natural physical clock that adds unique information. New science will be driven by time-domain population studies at gamma-ray energies. This science is enabled by next-generation gamma-ray instruments with one to two orders of magnitude better sensitivity, larger sky coverage, and faster cadence than all previous gamma-ray instruments. This transformative capability permits: (a) the accurate identification of the gamma-ray emitting objects and correlations with observations taken at other wavelengths and with other messengers; (b) construction of new gamma-ray maps of the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies where extended regions are distinguished from point sources; and (c) considerable serendipitous science of scarce events -- nearby neutron star mergers, for example. Advances in technology push the performance of new gamma-ray instruments to address a wide set of astrophysical questions.Comment: 14 pages including 3 figure

Endothelial Aryl Hydrocarbon Receptor Nuclear Translocator Mediates the Angiogenic Response to Peripheral Ischemia in Mice With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

Hypoxia-inducible factors (HIFs) are the master regulators of angiogenesis, a process that is impaired in patients with diabetes mellitus (DM). The transcription factor aryl hydrocarbon receptor nuclear translocator (ARNT, also known as HIF1β) has been implicated in the development and progression of diabetes. Angiogenesis is driven primarily by endothelial cells (ECs), but both global and EC-specific loss of ARNT-cause are associated with embryonic lethality. Thus, we conducted experiments in a line of mice carrying an inducible, EC-specific ARNT-knockout mutation (ArntΔEC, ERT2) to determine whether aberrations in ARNT expression might contribute to the vascular deficiencies associated with diabetes. Mice were first fed with a high-fat diet to induce diabetes. ArntΔEC, ERT2 mice were then adminstrated with oral tamoxifen to disrupt Arnt and peripheral angiogenesis was evaluated by using laser-Doppler perfusion imaging to monitor blood flow after hindlimb ischemia. The ArntΔEC, ERT2 mice had impaired blood flow recovery under both non-diabetic and diabetic conditions, but the degree of impairment was greater in diabetic animals. In addition, siRNA-mediated knockdown of ARNT activity reduced measurements of tube formation, and cell viability in human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) cultured under high-glucose conditions. The ArntΔEC, ERT2 mutation also reduced measures of cell viability, while increasing the production of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in microvascular endothelial cells (MVECs) isolated from mouse skeletal muscle, and the viability of ArntΔEC, ERT2 MVECs under high-glucose concentrations increased when the cells were treated with an ROS inhibitor. Collectively, these observations suggest that declines in endothelial ARNT expression contribute to the suppressed angiogenic phenotype in diabetic mice, and that the cytoprotective effect of ARNT expression in ECs is at least partially mediated by declines in ROS production

Plasma membrane-targeted PIN proteins drive shoot development in a moss.

BACKGROUND: Plant body plans arise by the activity of meristematic growing tips during development and radiated independently in the gametophyte (n) and sporophyte (2n) stages of the life cycle during evolution. Although auxin and its intercellular transport by PIN family efflux carriers are primary regulators of sporophytic shoot development in flowering plants, the extent of conservation in PIN function within the land plants and the mechanisms regulating bryophyte gametophytic shoot development are largely unknown. RESULTS: We have found that treating gametophytic shoots of the moss Physcomitrella patens with exogenous auxins and auxin transport inhibitors disrupts apical function and leaf development. Two plasma membrane-targeted PIN proteins are expressed in leafy shoots, and pin mutants resemble plants treated with auxins or auxin transport inhibitors. PIN-mediated auxin transport regulates apical cell function, leaf initiation, leaf shape, and shoot tropisms in moss gametophytes. pin mutant sporophytes are sometimes branched, reproducing a phenotype only previously seen in the fossil record and in rare natural moss variants. CONCLUSIONS: Our results show that PIN-mediated auxin transport is an ancient, conserved regulator of shoot development.C.J.H. is funded by a Royal Society University Research Fellowship, a Gatsby Charitable Foundation fellowship (GAT2962) and the BBSRC (BB/L00224811) and R.R. is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (SPP 1067, RE 837/6) and the Excellence Initiative of the German Federal and State Governments (EXC294).This is the final version. It was first published by Elsevier at http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822%2814%2901217-2

Catching Element Formation In The Act

Gamma-ray astronomy explores the most energetic photons in nature to address some of the most pressing puzzles in contemporary astrophysics. It encompasses a wide range of objects and phenomena: stars, supernovae, novae, neutron stars, stellar-mass black holes, nucleosynthesis, the interstellar medium, cosmic rays and relativistic-particle acceleration, and the evolution of galaxies. MeV gamma-rays provide a unique probe of nuclear processes in astronomy, directly measuring radioactive decay, nuclear de-excitation, and positron annihilation. The substantial information carried by gamma-ray photons allows us to see deeper into these objects, the bulk of the power is often emitted at gamma-ray energies, and radioactivity provides a natural physical clock that adds unique information. New science will be driven by time-domain population studies at gamma-ray energies. This science is enabled by next-generation gamma-ray instruments with one to two orders of magnitude better sensitivity, larger sky coverage, and faster cadence than all previous gamma-ray instruments. This transformative capability permits: (a) the accurate identification of the gamma-ray emitting objects and correlations with observations taken at other wavelengths and with other messengers; (b) construction of new gamma-ray maps of the Milky Way and other nearby galaxies where extended regions are distinguished from point sources; and (c) considerable serendipitous science of scarce events -- nearby neutron star mergers, for example. Advances in technology push the performance of new gamma-ray instruments to address a wide set of astrophysical questions