Long COVID after mild SARS-CoV-2 infection: persistent heart inflammation might explain heart symptoms

Visualization of heart inflammation by means of MRI: cardiologist Dr Valentina Puntmann monitors a study participant at the Institute for Experimental and Translational Cardiovascular Imaging at University Hospital Frankfurt.
Credit: Goethe-Universität

The research team led by Dr Valentina Puntmann and Professor Eike Nagel from University Hospital Frankfurt and Goethe University Frankfurt followed up around 350 study participants without previously known heart problems who had recovered from a SARS-CoV-2 infection. They found that over half of them still reported heart symptoms almost a year later, such as exercise intolerance, tachycardia and chest pain. According to the study, these symptoms can be attributed to mild but persistent cardiac inflammation. Pronounced structural heart disease is not a characteristic of the syndrome.

After recovering from a SARS-CoV-2 infection, many people complain of persistent heart complaints, such as poor exercise tolerance, palpitations or chest pain, even if the infection was mild and there were no known heart problems in the past. Earlier studies, predominantly among young, physically fit individuals, were already able to show that mild cardiac inflammation can occur after COVID-19. However, the underlying cause of persistent symptoms, and whether this changes over time, was unknown.

A team of medical scientists led by Dr Valentina Puntmann and Professor Eike Nagel from the Institute for Experimental and Translational Cardiovascular Imaging at University Hospital Frankfurt followed up 346 people – half of them women – between the age of 18 and 77 years, in each case around four and eleven months after the documented SARS-CoV-2 infection. For this purpose, the team analyzed the study participants' blood, conducted heart MRIs, and recorded and graded their symptoms using standardized questionnaires.

Boeing Demonstrates Open Autonomy Architecture for Manned-Unmanned Teaming with MQ-25

Boeing conducted approximately 125 test flight hours with the MQ-25 test asset, completing three refueling flights as well as a deck handling demonstration aboard the USS George H.W. Bush in 2021. 
Credit: Boeing

Boeing [NYSE: BA] has digitally demonstrated a new open autonomy architecture for MQ-25 that will allow the U.S. Navy to increase mission effectiveness by integrating manned-unmanned teaming (MUM-T) capability at speed and scale.

The non-proprietary architecture, based on the government-owned Open Mission System specification, is the foundation for advanced MUM-T. A Boeing-led team virtually demonstrated how other aircraft can use MQ-25’s architecture and task it to conduct tanking and intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions – all within the mission airspace and without traditional communications with the ship-based ground control station.

Boeing’s MUM-T demonstration included Northrop Grumman’s E-2D Advanced Hawkeye command and control aircraft, Boeing’s P-8A Poseidon maritime patrol and reconnaissance aircraft and Boeing’s F/A-18 Block III Super Hornet fighter jet. Using their existing operational flight program software and data links, the aircraft safely and efficiently tasked four virtual, autonomous MQ-25s to conduct ISR missions. The F/A-18 also used its advanced tactical data links and Boeing’s conceptual “Project Black Ice” crew vehicle interface, which significantly reduced aircrew workload.

How does nature nurture the brain?

Credit: Jessica Rockowitz on Unsplash

After a 60-minute walk in nature, activity in brain regions involved in stress processing decreases. This is the finding of a recent study by the Lise Meitner Group for Environmental Neuroscience at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, published in Molecular Psychiatry.

Living in a city is a well-known risk factor for developing a mental disorder, while living close to nature is largely beneficial for mental health and the brain. A central brain region involved in stress processing, the amygdala, has been shown to be less activated during stress in people who live in rural areas, compared to those who live in cities, hinting at the potential benefits of nature. “But so far the hen-and-egg problem could not be disentangled, namely whether nature actually caused the effects in the brain or whether the particular individuals chose to live in rural or urban regions”, says Sonja Sudimac, predoctoral fellow in the Lise Meitner Group for Environmental Neuroscience and lead author of the study.

To achieve causal evidence, the researchers from the Lise Meitner Group for Environmental Neuroscience examined brain activity in regions involved in stress processing in 63 healthy volunteers before and after a one-hour walk in Grunewald forest or a shopping street with traffic in Berlin using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). The results of the study revealed that activity in the amygdala decreased after the walk in nature, suggesting that nature elicits beneficial effects on brain regions related to stress.

Study calls for change in guidance about eating fish during pregnancy

Photo Credit: Neal E. Johnson on Unsplash

A woman’s mercury level during pregnancy is unlikely to have an adverse effect on the development of the child provided that the mother eats fish, according to a new University of Bristol-led study.

The findings, which drew together analyses on over 4,131 pregnant mothers from the Children of the 90s study in the UK, with similar detailed studies in the Seychelles, are published in NeuroToxicology.

Importantly, the researchers also found that it does not appear to matter which types of fish are eaten because the essential nutrients in the fish could be protective against the mercury content of the fish. The more important factor was whether the woman ate fish or not. This contrasts with current advice warning pregnant women not to eat certain types of fish that have relatively high levels of mercury.

Although there are several studies that have considered this question, this research has looked at two contrasting studies of populations with mercury levels measured during pregnancy where the children were followed up at frequent intervals during their childhood.

The first is a study focused on a population in the Seychelles, where almost all pregnant women are fish eaters. The second study considered analyses of data from the University of Bristol’s Children of the 90s study (also known as the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC)), based in a relatively industrialized area in south-west England where fish are consumed far less frequently. No summary of the findings from this study has been published before.

Artificial intelligence against child cancer

Stefan Posch
Photo Credit: Uni Halle / Markus Scholz

"Artificial Professor" is the nickname for a new research project at the University Hospital Leipzig and at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU). A team of doctors and bioinformatics wants to use self-learning software to significantly improve the therapy of lymphatic cancer (Hodgkin's lymphoma) in children. The second phase of the multi-year project recently began with 40,000 euros in funding from the Mitteldeutsche Kinderkrebsforschung Foundation.

Children affected by lymph gland cancer can now be cured with modern treatment methods such as chemotherapy and radiation in 95 percent of cases. However, intensive treatment in childhood often leads to late damage. Irradiation in particular increases the risk of developing a second cancer later. Long-term studies show massive over-mortality due to second diseases, such as cancer or heart diseases in adulthood.

Therefore, the primary goal of the medical profession is: only as little treatment as necessary. The data analysis developed in the project, based on artificial intelligence, is intended to help and optimize therapy for each individual patient. In the first phase, the researchers first prepared and prepared a unique data set for the big data analysis: a network of 270 child cancer clinics from 21 countries sent the data from the imaging PET examinations anonymously to Leipzig for years. The three-dimensional image series shows how well individual therapies work and how the tumor tissue develops over time.

New forecasting tool can give an early warning of solar storms

Solar flares can reach velocities of up to several million kilometers per hour.
Illustration: Matti Ahlgren/Aalto University

Associate Professor Maarit Korpi-Lagg has received funding from the European Research Council to develop a forecasting tool to locate the source regions for the eruption of solar flares already a few days before they emerge on the Sun’s surface.

The Earth is constantly bombarded by a stream of particles from the Sun, called solar wind. This stream can escalate into storms, which are born from massive solar flares spewing out from the Sun’s highly magnetized active regions. When strong solar storms hit Earth, they can have massive repercussions for telecommunications, global positioning systems and electrical grids.

In July 2012, the most severe solar flare in 150 years was spat out by the Sun. Fortunately, the resulting solar storm missed Earth. Had it been directed toward us; it would have had the potential to leave societies and the global economy in shatters and taken years to recover from.

‘Only the worst solar storms are a real threat to human life. However, the costs of fixing damages and shielding our digitalized infrastructure from them, are very high,’ says Maarit Korpi-Lagg, associate professor at Aalto University.

Iset River Can Be Cleaned Of Heavy Metals With Plants And Bacteria

Irina Kiseleva notes that in large quantities, heavy metals can be radioactive hazardous.
Photo credit: Andrey Fomin

Polluted rivers, such as the Iset River, can be cleaned by plants capable of accumulating dangerous toxicants such as heavy metals in their roots and leaves. Such biotechnology for purification is easy to implement and does not require large expenditures. Now biologists of the Ural Federal University are searching for water plants which could survive in the Ural weather conditions and at the same time effectively cope with the purification of water resources. Irina Kiseleva, Head of the Department of Experimental Biology and Biotechnologies of UrFU, talked about it on the air of Radio "Komsomolskaya Pravda".

"We need a comprehensive approach to the purification of rivers, because in addition to heavy metals there are a number of other organic and inorganic toxic substances. However, with the help of plants we can facilitate this process several times over. In the Ural Region, there are several species of coastal plants that are able to accumulate heavy metals in their leaves. For example, common cattail (sometimes called bulrush) or in warm countries water hyacinth. Yet cattail, which is more accustomed to our climate, purifies water much less effectively than water hyacinth, which, of course, will freeze in the first winter. Therefore, at the university we are working to find local flora plants that can clean the rivers and still survive for several seasons in our climate," says Irina Kiseleva.

Investigating Magnetic Excitation-induced Spin Current in Chromium Trihalides

A general formula that can calculate the spin current induced by oscillating magnetic fields in magnetic materials and aid our understanding of novel spintronics functionality has been developed by researchers from Tokyo Tech and Chiba University. The formula predicts large spin currents arising from a hitherto unknown contribution in antiferromagnetic chromium trihalides, opening doors to material design for novel spintronics devices.

An ingenious approach toward developing low-power, high-speed, and high-density memory devices is based on spintronics, an emerging frontier in technology that harnesses a degree of freedom of electrons known as "spin." Put simply, electrons, along with their negative charge, possess a "spin" whose orientation can be controlled using magnetic fields. This is particularly relevant for magnetic insulators, in which the electrons cannot move around, but the "spin" remains controllable. In these materials, the magnetic excitations can give rise to a "spin current," which forms the basis of spintronics.

Scientists have been looking for efficient methods to generate the spin current. The "photogalvanic effect," a phenomenon characterized by the generation of dc current from light illumination, is particularly useful in this regard. Studies have found that a "photogalvanic" spin current can be generated similarly using the magnetic fields in electromagnetic waves. However, we currently lack candidate materials and a general mathematical formulation for exploring this phenomenon.

Soil Temperature Can Predict Pest Spread in Crops

Corn earworm attacks a corn plant.
Photo Credit: Anders Huseth, NC State University.

A new study from North Carolina State University shows soil temperature can be used to effectively monitor and predict the spread of the corn earworm (Helicoverpa zea), an important pest that ravages corn, cotton, soybeans, peppers, tomatoes and other vegetable crops. The ability to better monitor the pest and make predictions about where it will appear could help farmers control the pest more effectively, which would reduce the financial and environmental impacts of pesticide use.

The researchers combined historical soil temperature data with long-term corn earworm monitoring data and information on how the pest survives cold conditions in a lab setting to better understand “overwintering success,” or how well the pest can survive underground during the colder winter months.

Greater overwintering success can expand the areas where the pest can live and thrive, the researchers say, as the pest can migrate long distances. Generally, greater overwintering success in more northern latitudes increases the potential for crop damage from this pest further north. Climate change also affects overwintering success.

“There is a preconceived notion that pests have little overwintering success north of 40 degrees latitude,” said Douglas Lawton, a former NC State postdoctoral researcher and co-corresponding author of a paper that describes the research, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. “That may have been true in the 1930s, but now we have more data-guided evidence to ask and answer the question, ‘Where can this species actually overwinter?’”

Finding antigens that trigger specific immune cells

The microwells in each experiment, seen in this micrograph by the black outlines, were loaded with spherical beads (the large grey circle in each well), and T cells (the smaller circles adhering to some of the beads).
Image credit: Yinnian Feng

Their approach, which mimics the physical forces exerted by immune cells as they crawl over host cells, could help scientists develop more effective cancer immunotherapies.

A cell’s secrets can be divulged by its surface, decorated with tens to hundreds of thousands of molecules that help immune cells determine friend from foe. Some of those protruding molecules are antigens that trigger the immune system to attack, but it can be difficult for scientists to identify those antigens, which often vary across individuals, in the molecular forest.

A team of Stanford scientists led by Polly Fordyce, an Institute Scholar at Sarafan ChEM-H, has developed a new method to faster and more accurately predict which antigens will lead to a strong immune response. Their approach, which was reported in Nature Methods on Sept. 5, could help scientists develop more effective cancer immunotherapies.

T cells, a class of immune cells, crawl along and squish past other cells as they patrol the body, using T cell receptors to molecularly read peptides, or short pieces of proteins – which are cradled within larger proteins called major histocompatibility complexes (pMHCs) that project from cell surfaces. Healthy host cells display an array of pMHCs that do not trigger an immune response, but once T cells recognize disease-indicating peptides, they become activated to find and kill cells bearing these foreign signatures. Understanding how T cells sensitively distinguish these antigenic peptides from host peptides to avoid mistakenly killing host cells has long been a mystery.