University of Maine Engineering

Promotional magazine for the University of Maine\u27s College of Engineering. This issue explores the energy generation and energy transmission-related engineering programs being conducted by faculty, staff, and students with the College of Engineering. Topics include NASA-related research, robotics, survey engineering, and forest bioproducts.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/umaine_today/1058/thumbnail.jp

University of Maine Engineering

Promotional magazine for the University of Maine\u27s College of Engineering. This issue explores the energy generation and energy transmission-related engineering programs being conducted by faculty, staff, and students with the College of Engineering. Topics include biofuels and offshore wind, robotics, biomedicine, nanomaterials, and mentor relationships.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/umaine_today/1059/thumbnail.jp

UMaine Today: Special Edition

Promotional magazine for the University of Maine\u27s College of Engineering. This issue explores the energy generation and energy transmission-related engineering programs being conducted by faculty, staff, and students with the College of Engineering. Topics include humanitarian projects undertaken by the Construction Engineering Technology, biomedical engineering student projects, water quality monitoring, and the Advanced Manufacturing Center developing product prototypes.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/umaine_today/1064/thumbnail.jp

UMaine Today: Special Edition

Promotional magazine for the University of Maine\u27s College of Engineering. This issue explores the energy generation and energy transmission-related engineering programs being conducted by faculty, staff, and students with the College of Engineering. Topics include humanitarian projects undertaken by the Construction Engineering Technology, biomedical engineering student projects, water quality monitoring, and the Advanced Manufacturing Center developing product prototypes.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/umaine_today/1064/thumbnail.jp

UMaine Engineering

Promotional magazine for the University of Maine\u27s College of Engineering. This issue explores the energy generation and energy transmission-related engineering programs being conducted by faculty, staff, and students with the College of Engineering. Topics include the College of Engineering\u27s response to COVID-19, particle research in aquaculture, Evergreen AI, and harnessing off-shore wind power.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/umaine_today/1078/thumbnail.jp

UMaine Today: Special Edition

Promotional magazine for the University of Maine\u27s College of Engineering. This issue explores the energy generation and energy transmission-related engineering programs being conducted by faculty, staff, and students with the College of Engineering. Topics include storm water management, a report on UMaine engineering alumni, transportation engineering, research and development, paper engineering, and STEM partnerships.https://digitalcommons.library.umaine.edu/umaine_today/1061/thumbnail.jp

New genetic loci link adipose and insulin biology to body fat distribution.

Body fat distribution is a heritable trait and a well-established predictor of adverse metabolic outcomes, independent of overall adiposity. To increase our understanding of the genetic basis of body fat distribution and its molecular links to cardiometabolic traits, here we conduct genome-wide association meta-analyses of traits related to waist and hip circumferences in up to 224,459 individuals. We identify 49 loci (33 new) associated with waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for body mass index (BMI), and an additional 19 loci newly associated with related waist and hip circumference measures (P < 5 × 10(-8)). In total, 20 of the 49 waist-to-hip ratio adjusted for BMI loci show significant sexual dimorphism, 19 of which display a stronger effect in women. The identified loci were enriched for genes expressed in adipose tissue and for putative regulatory elements in adipocytes. Pathway analyses implicated adipogenesis, angiogenesis, transcriptional regulation and insulin resistance as processes affecting fat distribution, providing insight into potential pathophysiological mechanisms

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Shared Genetic Risk Factors of Intracranial, Abdominal, and Thoracic Aneurysms

Background: Intracranial aneurysms (IAs), abdominal aortic aneurysms (AAAs), and thoracic aortic aneurysms (TAAs) all have a familial predisposition. Given that aneurysm types are known to co‐occur, we hypothesized that there may be shared genetic risk factors for IAs, AAAs, and TAAs. Methods and Results: We performed a mega‐analysis of 1000 Genomes Project‐imputed genome‐wide association study (GWAS) data of 4 previously published aneurysm cohorts: 2 IA cohorts (in total 1516 cases, 4305 controls), 1 AAA cohort (818 cases, 3004 controls), and 1 TAA cohort (760 cases, 2212 controls), and observed associations of 4 known IA, AAA, and/or TAA risk loci (9p21, 18q11, 15q21, and 2q33) with consistent effect directions in all 4 cohorts. We calculated polygenic scores based on IA‐, AAA‐, and TAA‐associated SNPs and tested these scores for association to case‐control status in the other aneurysm cohorts; this revealed no shared polygenic effects. Similarly, linkage disequilibrium–score regression analyses did not show significant correlations between any pair of aneurysm subtypes. Last, we evaluated the evidence for 14 previously published aneurysm risk single‐nucleotide polymorphisms through collaboration in extended aneurysm cohorts, with a total of 6548 cases and 16 843 controls (IA) and 4391 cases and 37 904 controls (AAA), and found nominally significant associations for IA risk locus 18q11 near RBBP8 to AAA (odds ratio [OR]=1.11; P=4.1×10−5) and for TAA risk locus 15q21 near FBN1 to AAA (OR=1.07; P=1.1×10−3). Conclusions: Although there was no evidence for polygenic overlap between IAs, AAAs, and TAAs, we found nominally significant effects of two established risk loci for IAs and TAAs in AAAs. These two loci will require further replication