The Galaxy Activity, Torus, and Outflow Survey (GATOS): III. Revealing the inner icy structure in local active galactic nuclei

We use JWST/MIRI MRS spectroscopy of a sample of six local obscured type 1.9/2 active galactic nuclei (AGN) to compare their nuclear mid-IR absorption bands with the level of nuclear obscuration traced by X-rays. This study is the first to use subarcsecond angular resolution data of local obscured AGN to investigate the nuclear mid-IR absorption bands with a wide wavelength coverage (4.9–28.1 μm). All the nuclei show the 9.7 μm silicate band in absorption. We compare the strength of the 9.7 and 18 μm silicate features with torus model predictions. The observed silicate features are generally well explained by clumpy and smooth torus models. We report the detection of the 6 μm dirty water ice band (i.e., a mix of water and other molecules such as CO and CO2) at subarcsecond scales (∼0.26″ at 6 μm; inner ∼50 pc) in a sample of local AGN with different levels of nuclear obscuration in the range log NHX-Ray (cm−2)∼22 − 25. We find good correlation between the 6 μm water ice optical depths and NHX-Ray. This result indicates that the water ice absorption might be a reliable tracer of the nuclear intrinsic obscuration in AGN. The weak water ice absorption in less obscured AGN (log NHX-ray (cm−2)≲23.0 cm−2) might be related to the hotter dust temperature (> TsubH2O ∼ 110 K) expected to be reached in the outer layers of the torus due to their more inhomogeneous medium. Our results suggest it might be necessary to include the molecular content, such as H2O, aliphatic hydrocarbons (CH−), and more complex polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) molecules, in torus models to better constrain key parameters such as the torus covering factor (i.e., nuclear obscuration)

Confirmation of an He I evaporating atmosphere around the 650-Myr-old sub-Neptune HD235088 b (TOI-1430 b) with CARMENES

HD235088 (TOI-1430) is a young star known to host a sub-Neptune-sized planet candidate. We validated the planetary nature of HD235088 b with multiband photometry, refined its planetary parameters, and obtained a new age estimate of the host star, placing it at 600-800 Myr. Previous spectroscopic observations of a single transit detected an excess absorption of He I coincident in time with the planet candidate transit. Here, we confirm the presence of He I in the atmosphere of HD235088 b with one transit observed with CARMENES. We also detected hints of variability in the strength of the helium signal, with an absorption of $-$0.91$\pm$0.11%, which is slightly deeper (2$\sigma$) than the previous measurement. Furthermore, we simulated the He I signal with a spherically symmetric 1D hydrodynamic model, finding that the upper atmosphere of HD235088 b escapes hydrodynamically with a significant mass loss rate of (1.5-5) $\times$10$^{10}$g s$^{-1}$, in a relatively cold outflow, with $T$=3125$\pm$375 K, in the photon-limited escape regime. HD235088 b ($R_{p}$ = 2.045$\pm$0.075 R$_{\oplus}$) is the smallest planet found to date with a solid atmospheric detection - not just of He I but any other atom or molecule. This positions it a benchmark planet for further analyses of evolving young sub-Neptune atmospheres.Comment: Accepted for publication in A&A. 17 pages, 18 figure

Risk factors for non-diabetic renal disease in diabetic patients

Background. Diabetic patients with kidney disease have a high prevalence of non-diabetic renal disease (NDRD). Renal and patient survival regarding the diagnosis of diabetic nephropathy (DN) or NDRD have not been widely studied. The aim of our study is to evaluate the prevalence of NDRD in patients with diabetes and to determine the capacity of clinical and analytical data in the prediction of NDRD. In addition, we will study renal and patient prognosis according to the renal biopsy findings in patients with diabetes. Methods. Retrospective multicentre observational study of renal biopsies performed in patients with diabetes from 2002 to 2014. Results. In total, 832 patients were included: 621 men (74.6%), mean age of 61.7 6 12.8 years, creatinine was 2.8 6 2.2 mg/dL and proteinuria 2.7 (interquartile range: 1.2–5.4) g/24 h. About 39.5% (n ¼ 329) of patients had DN, 49.6% (n ¼ 413) NDRD and 10.8% (n ¼ 90) mixed forms. The most frequent NDRD was nephroangiosclerosis (NAS) (n ¼ 87, 9.3%). In the multivariate logistic regression analysis, older age [odds ratio (OR) ¼ 1.03, 95% CI: 1.02–1.05, P < 0.001], microhaematuria (OR ¼ 1.51, 95% CI: 1.03–2.21, P ¼ 0.033) and absence of diabetic retinopathy (DR) (OR ¼ 0.28, 95% CI: 0.19–0.42, P < 0.001) were independently associated with NDRD. Kaplan–Meier analysis showed that patients with DN or mixed forms presented worse renal prognosis than NDRD (P < 0.001) and higher mortality (P ¼ 0.029). In multivariate Cox analyses, older age (P < 0.001), higher serum creatinine (P < 0.001), higher proteinuria (P < 0.001), DR (P ¼ 0.007) and DN (P < 0.001) were independent risk factors for renal replacement therapy. In addition, older age (P < 0.001), peripheral vascular disease (P ¼ 0.002), higher creatinine (P ¼ 0.01) and DN (P ¼ 0.015) were independent risk factors for mortality. Conclusions. The most frequent cause of NDRD is NAS. Elderly patients with microhaematuria and the absence of DR are the ones at risk for NDRD. Patients with DN presented worse renal prognosis and higher mortality than those with NDRD. These results suggest that in some patients with diabetes, kidney biopsy may be useful for an accurate renal diagnosis and subsequently treatment and prognosis

Estimating the Extent of Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus Infection

BACKGROUND: Eight outbreaks of paralytic polio attributable to circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV) have highlighted the risks associated with oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV) use in areas of low vaccination coverage and poor hygiene. As the Polio Eradication Initiative enters its final stages, it is important to consider the extent to which these viruses spread under different conditions, so that appropriate strategies can be devised to prevent or respond to future cVDPV outbreaks. METHODS AND FINDINGS: This paper examines epidemiological (temporal, geographic, age, vaccine history, social group, ascertainment), and virological (type, genetic diversity, virulence) parameters in order to infer the numbers of individuals likely to have been infected in each of these cVDPV outbreaks, and in association with single acute flaccid paralysis (AFP) cases attributable to VDPVs. Although only 114 virologically-confirmed paralytic cases were identified in the eight cVDPV outbreaks, it is likely that a minimum of hundreds of thousands, and more likely several million individuals were infected during these events, and that many thousands more have been infected by VDPV lineages within outbreaks which have escaped detection. CONCLUSIONS: Our estimates of the extent of cVDPV circulation suggest widespread transmission in some countries, as might be expected from endemic wild poliovirus transmission in these same settings. These methods for inferring extent of infection will be useful in the context of identifying future surveillance needs, planning for OPV cessation and preparing outbreak response plans

Effect of processing on the drying kinetics and functional value of dried apricot

Apricots can be considered as a good source of phenolic compounds, which are beneficial for human health. Microwaves may be an alternative to the conventional sun or hot air drying techniques used to obtain dried apricot. Nevertheless, their impact on the functional compounds must be taken into account if they are to be recommended as an attractive drying option. This work compares the drying kinetics and the change in the organic acids, phenolic compounds and antioxidant activity of dried apricot when using hot air drying and microwave energy. Empirical (linear and Page) equations can be used to model the drying kinetics in air, combined air-microwave and microwave processes. From the obtained results, it can be concluded that the industrial processing of dried apricots may be improved by using microwave energy, as the drying time is considerably reduced, and the obtained fruit had a higher phenolic content, particularly of chlorogenic acid, catequin and epicatequin. Nevertheless, as the contribution of these phenols to antioxidant capacity was not significant, microwave dried samples maintained the same antioxidant capacity as the air-dried ones. When sulphite is added previous to the drying processes, care should be taken with the total phenols and the antioxidant capacity quantified as it may interfere with the results depending on the methodology used. © 2011 Elsevier Ltd.Igual Ramo, M.; García Martínez, EM.; Martín-Esparza, M.; Martínez Navarrete, N. (2012). Effect of processing on the drying kinetics and functional value of dried apricot. Food Research International. 47(2):284-290. doi:10.1016/j.foodres.2011.07.019S28429047

Rapid contraction of giant planets orbiting the 20-million-year-old star V1298 Tau

Current theories of planetary evolution predict that infant giant planets have large radii and very low densities before they slowly contract to reach their final size after about several hundred million years1,2. These theoretical expectations remain untested so far as the detection and characterization of very young planets is extremely challenging due to the intense stellar activity of their host stars3,4. Only the recent discoveries of young planetary transiting systems allow initial constraints to be placed on evolutionary models5,6,7. With an estimated age of 20 million years, V1298 Tau is one of the youngest solar-type stars known to host transiting planets; it harbours a system composed of four planets, two Neptune-sized, one Saturn-sized and one Jupiter-sized8,9. Here we report a multi-instrument radial velocity campaign of V1298 Tau, which allowed us to determine the masses of two of the planets in the system. We find that the two outermost giant planets, V1298 Tau b and e (0.64 ± 0.19 and 1.16 ± 0.30 Jupiter masses, respectively), seem to contradict our knowledge of early-stages planetary evolution. According to models, they should reach their mass–radius combination only hundreds of millions of years after formation. This result suggests that giant planets can contract much more quickly than usually assumed. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.A.S.M. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) under the 2019 Juan de la Cierva Programme. J.I.G.H. acknowledges financial support from the Spanish MICINN under the 2013 Ramón y Cajal programme RYC-2013-14875. A.S.M., J.I.G.H., R.R., B.T.-P., N.L., M.R.Z.O., E.G.-A., J.A.C., P.J.A. and I.R. acknowledge financial support from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation through projects AYA2017-86389-P, PID2019-109522GB-C53, PID2019-109522GB-C51, AYA2016-79425-C3-3-P, PID2019-109522GB-C52 and PGC2018-098153-B-C33. M.D. acknowledges financial support from the FP7-SPACE Project ETAEARTH (GA no. 313014). A.M., D.L., G.M., A.S. and S.D. acknowledge partial contribution from the agreement ASI-INAF no. 2018-16-HH.0. S.B., D.L., G.M. and D.T. acknowledge partial contribution from the agreement ASI-INAF no. 2021-5-HH.0. P.J.A. acknowledges financial support from the project SEV-2017-0709. S.D., V.D., S.B. and D.T. acknowledge support from the PRIN-INAF 2019 ‘Planetary systems at young ages’ (PLATEA). D.S.A. thanks the Leverhulme Trust for financial support. I.R. acknowledges the support of the Generalitat de Catalunya/CERCA programme. E.G.-A acknowledges support from the Spanish State Research Agency (AEI) project no. MDM-2017-0737 Unidad de Excelencia ‘María de Maeztu’ Centro de Astrobiología (CAB, CSIC/INTA). D.T. acknowledges the support of the Italian National Institute of Astrophysics (INAF) through the INAF Main Stream project ‘Ariel and the astrochemical link between circumstellar discs and planets’ (CUP: C54I19000700005). E.E.-B. acknowledges financial support from the European Union and the State Agency of Investigation of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (MICINN) under grant PRE2020-093107 of the Pre-Doc Program for the Training of Doctors (FPI-SO) through FEDER, FSE and FDCAN funds. This work is based on observations made with the Italian Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) operated by the Fundación Galileo Galilei (FGG) of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (INAF) at the Observatorio del Roque de los Muchachos (La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain). CARMENES is an instrument at the Centro Astronómico Hispano-Alemán (CAHA) at Calar Alto (Almería, Spain), operated jointly by the Junta de Andalucía and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC). This work is based on data obtained with the STELLA robotic telescopes in Tenerife, an AIP facility jointly operated by AIP and IAC. This work makes use of observations from the LCOGT network.Peer reviewe

Rapid contraction of giant planets orbiting the 20-million-year-old star V1298 Tau

peer reviewedCurrent theories of planetary evolution predict that infant giant planets have large radii and very low densities before they slowly contract to reach their final size after about several hundred million years1,2. These theoretical expectations remain untested so far as the detection and characterization of very young planets is extremely challenging due to the intense stellar activity of their host stars3,4. Only the recent discoveries of young planetary transiting systems allow initial constraints to be placed on evolutionary models5–7. With an estimated age of 20 million years, V1298 Tau is one of the youngest solar-type stars known to host transiting planets; it harbours a system composed of four planets, two Neptune-sized, one Saturn-sized and one Jupiter-sized8,9. Here we report a multi-instrument radial velocity campaign of V1298 Tau, which allowed us to determine the masses of two of the planets in the system. We find that the two outermost giant planets, V1298 Tau b and e (0.64 ± 0.19 and 1.16 ± 0.30 Jupiter masses, respectively), seem to contradict our knowledge of early-stages planetary evolution. According to models, they should reach their mass–radius combination only hundreds of millions of years after formation. This result suggests that giant planets can contract much more quickly than usually assumed. © 2021, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited

Whole-genome sequencing reveals host factors underlying critical COVID-19

Critical COVID-19 is caused by immune-mediated inflammatory lung injury. Host genetic variation influences the development of illness requiring critical care1 or hospitalization2,3,4 after infection with SARS-CoV-2. The GenOMICC (Genetics of Mortality in Critical Care) study enables the comparison of genomes from individuals who are critically ill with those of population controls to find underlying disease mechanisms. Here we use whole-genome sequencing in 7,491 critically ill individuals compared with 48,400 controls to discover and replicate 23 independent variants that significantly predispose to critical COVID-19. We identify 16 new independent associations, including variants within genes that are involved in interferon signalling (IL10RB and PLSCR1), leucocyte differentiation (BCL11A) and blood-type antigen secretor status (FUT2). Using transcriptome-wide association and colocalization to infer the effect of gene expression on disease severity, we find evidence that implicates multiple genes—including reduced expression of a membrane flippase (ATP11A), and increased expression of a mucin (MUC1)—in critical disease. Mendelian randomization provides evidence in support of causal roles for myeloid cell adhesion molecules (SELE, ICAM5 and CD209) and the coagulation factor F8, all of which are potentially druggable targets. Our results are broadly consistent with a multi-component model of COVID-19 pathophysiology, in which at least two distinct mechanisms can predispose to life-threatening disease: failure to control viral replication; or an enhanced tendency towards pulmonary inflammation and intravascular coagulation. We show that comparison between cases of critical illness and population controls is highly efficient for the detection of therapeutically relevant mechanisms of disease

Torus and polar dust dependence on active galactic nucleus properties

We present a statistical analysis of the properties of the obscuring material around active galactic nuclei (AGN). This study represents the first of its kind for an ultra-hard X-ray (14–195 keV; Swift/BAT), volume-limited (DL <  40 Mpc) sample of 24 Seyfert (Sy) galaxies (BCS40 sample) using high angular resolution infrared data and various torus models: smooth, clumpy, and two-phase torus models and clumpy disc+wind models. We find that torus models (i.e. without including the polar dusty wind component) and disc+wind models provide the best fits for a comparable number of galaxies, 8 out of 24 (33.3%) and 9 out of 24 (37.5%), respectively. We find that the best-fit models depend on the hydrogen column density (${{N}}_{\mathrm{H}}^{\mathrm{X-ray}}$), which is related to the X-ray (unobscured or obscured) and optical (Sy1/Sy2) classification. In particular, smooth, clumpy, and two-phase torus models are best at reproducing the infrared (IR) emission of AGN with relatively high hydrogen column density (median value of log (${{N}}_{\mathrm{H}}^{\mathrm{X-ray}}$ cm−2) = 23.5 ± 0.8; i.e. Sy2). However, clumpy disc+wind models provide the best fits to the nuclear IR spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of Sy1/1.8/1.9 (median value of log (${{N}}_{\mathrm{H}}^{\mathrm{X-ray}}$ cm−2) = 21.0 ± 1.0) – specifically, in the near-infrared (NIR) range. The success of the disc+wind models in fitting the NIR emission of Sy1 galaxies is due to the combination of adding large graphite grains to the dust composition and self-obscuration effects caused by the wind at intermediate inclinations. In general, we find that the Seyfert galaxies having unfavourable (favourable) conditions, namely, nuclear hydrogen column density and Eddington ratio, for launching IR dusty polar outflows are best-fitted with smooth, clumpy, and two-phase torus (disc+wind) models, confirming the predictions from simulations. Therefore, our results indicate that the nature of the inner dusty structure in AGN depends on the intrinsic AGN properties