Effect of atorvastatin on cognitive function in patients from the Lipid Lowering and Onset of Renal Disease (LORD) Trial

Study Objective. To examine the effect of atorvastatin on cognitive function by testing two hypotheses: that atorvastatin 10 mg/day would impair cognitive function, and that other biochemical and demographic measures would better predict cognitive performance than atorvastatin alone. Design. Randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Setting. Two primary acute care settings in the north and northwest of Tasmania, Australia. Patients. Fifty-seven patients from the Lipid Lowering and Onset of Renal Disease (LORD) trial. Intervention. Participants were randomly assigned to receive either atorvastatin 10 mg/day or matching placebo. Cognitive testing was performed in two sessions occurring 12 weeks apart and involved three repeated measures of attention and concentration. Measurements and Main Results. Performance was measured using three standard neuropsychological tests: Digit Symbol Coding subtest, Trail Making Test, and Stroop Color-Word Reading Test. Patients received atorvastatin for a mean of 72.93 weeks and placebo for a mean of 68.85 weeks. Repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance failed to identify any significant differences between the two groups on any of the three cognitive measures. Multiple regression analyses identified no single factor or combination of plasma cholesterol levels, renal function, liver function, or age that predicted cognitive performance in either the atorvastatin or placebo group on the three measures at either testing session. Conclusion. Atorvastatin 10 mg/day did not produce decrements to cognitive performance. In addition, biochemical and demographic measures and the receipt of atorvastatin versus placebo did not individually or in combination predict cognitive performance on measures of attention and concentration

Impact-induced changes in source depth and volume of magmatism on Mercury and their observational signatures

Mantle partial melting produced the volcanic crust of Mercury. Here, the authors numerically model the formation of post-impact melt sheets and find that mantle convection was weak at around 3.7–3.8 Ga and that the melt sheets of Caloris and Rembrandt may contain partial melting of pristine mantle material

Notonuphar antarctica, an extinct water lily (Nymphaeales) from the Eocene of Antarctica

A new genus and species, Notonuphar antarctica, is described from the Eocene of Seymour (Marambio) Island, the Antarctic Peninsula and assigned to the Nymphaeales based on well-preserved seeds. This is the first record of a water lily from Antarctica and the first record of a Gondwanan plant with close link to the genus Nuphar (Nymphaeaceae), which is restricted today to the Northern Hemisphere. Critical features for systematic placement of Notonuphar are the presence of a germination cap with closely spaced hilar scar and micropyle, anatropous, bitegmic and exotestal seed organization, exotesta composed of one cell layer of high sclerenchymatic palisade-shape cells, mesotesta of smaller, low parenchymatic cells, a few cell layers deep, and a thin tegmen. The seeds of Notonuphar are particularly similar to seeds of extant and fossil Nuphar in the straight, unfolded anticlinal wall of the exotestal cells and the presence of a narrow zone of exotestal tissue between hilum and micropyle. Other seed features including the very tall exotestal cells and strongly thickened cell walls of exotesta also link Notonuphar to Brasenia and related fossil taxa (Cabombaceae). This character mosaic observed in Notonuphar corroborates the transitional position of Nuphar between Cabombaceae and Nymphaeaceae. Notonuphar is the only member of Nymphaeales recorded from Antarctica and so far the only fossil seeds of Nymphaeales known from the Southern Hemisphere. The discovery of this extinct Gondwanan taxon with features suggesting close relationship with extant Northern Hemisphere genus Nuphar is a further evidence for the relictual nature of the extant group.Other funding from:Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas (CONICET Grant PIP 0462 to MAR.), the Argentine National Agency for Promotion of Science and Technology (ANPCyT Grant PICTO-2010–0093 to MAR) and the Paul Scherrer Institute https://www.psi.ch/useroffice/useroffice (projects 20130185, 20141047, 2016140)</p