An Assessment of the Retail Food Environment, Access to Food, and Food Security in Missoula, Montana in Relation to the Socioeconomic and Health Status of Its Residents

Inadequate access to healthy food sources may contribute to less nutritious diets and an increased risk for chronic disease. Numerous studies on nutrition environments and food access have found disparities between low income neighborhoods and higher income neighborhoods in regards to access to supermarkets and healthier foods. The purpose of this study was to examine the retail food environment, access to food, and food security in Missoula, Montana in relation to the socioeconomic and health status of its residents. This study was conducted in four neighborhoods based on the average median family income level of each neighborhood as defined by the 2000 U.S. Census. Each neighborhood fell into one of the following categories: very low income, low income, medium income, and high income. Neighborhood boundaries were defined using census tracts. Data were collected at supermarkets, grocery stores, and convenience stores in the four selected neighborhoods. The retail food environment was assessed using the Nutrition Environment Measures Survey for Food Stores (NEMS-S). Food security, access to food, and health status were analyzed using a food store shopper survey which included the Six-item Short form U.S. Household Food Security Module and the SF-12v2 Health Survey. Data were collected in both September and February to account for any seasonal variability in food selection, food access, and food security. The results from this study indicate that there is no relationship between the retail food environment in the four neighborhoods assessed and the food security or health status of food store shoppers within each neighborhood. However, there was a significant difference in the type of transportation food store shoppers used to get to the food store among the four neighborhoods. Food store shoppers in the very low income neighborhood were more likely to walk to the food store than food store shoppers in the other neighborhoods and food store shoppers in the very low income and medium income neighborhoods were more likely to ride their bike to the food store than food store shoppers in the low income and high income neighborhoods

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least $4m$. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the $6.5m$ James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 years, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit.Comment: Accepted by PASP for the special issue on The James Webb Space Telescope Overview, 29 pages, 4 figure

Splicing profile by capture RNA-seq identifies pathogenic germline variants in tumor suppressor genes

Germline variants in tumor suppressor genes (TSGs) can result in RNA mis-splicing and predisposition to cancer. However, identification of variants that impact splicing remains a challenge, contributing to a substantial proportion of patients with suspected hereditary cancer syndromes remaining without a molecular diagnosis. To address this, we used capture RNA-sequencing (RNA-seq) to generate a splicing profile of 18 TSGs (APC, ATM, BRCA1, BRCA2, BRIP1, CDH1, CHEK2, MLH1, MSH2, MSH6, MUTYH, NF1, PALB2, PMS2, PTEN, RAD51C, RAD51D, and TP53) in 345 whole-blood samples from healthy donors. We subsequently demonstrated that this approach can detect mis-splicing by comparing splicing profiles from the control dataset to profiles generated from whole blood of individuals previously identified with pathogenic germline splicing variants in these genes. To assess the utility of our TSG splicing profile to prospectively identify pathogenic splicing variants, we performed concurrent capture DNA and RNA-seq in a cohort of 1000 patients with suspected hereditary cancer syndromes. This approach improved the diagnostic yield in this cohort, resulting in a 9.1% relative increase in the detection of pathogenic variants, demonstrating the utility of performing simultaneous DNA and RNA genetic testing in a clinical context

The James Webb Space Telescope Mission

Twenty-six years ago a small committee report, building on earlier studies, expounded a compelling and poetic vision for the future of astronomy, calling for an infrared-optimized space telescope with an aperture of at least 4 m. With the support of their governments in the US, Europe, and Canada, 20,000 people realized that vision as the 6.5 m James Webb Space Telescope. A generation of astronomers will celebrate their accomplishments for the life of the mission, potentially as long as 20 yr, and beyond. This report and the scientific discoveries that follow are extended thank-you notes to the 20,000 team members. The telescope is working perfectly, with much better image quality than expected. In this and accompanying papers, we give a brief history, describe the observatory, outline its objectives and current observing program, and discuss the inventions and people who made it possible. We cite detailed reports on the design and the measured performance on orbit