Category Archives: Physiology

Could reptiles and amphibians hold the key to the fountain of youth? – Popular Science

When it comes to longevity, scientists have long suspected that scaly and slimy vertebrates have an edge. Galpagos tortoises, eastern box turtles, cave-dwelling salamanders known as olms, and a number of other reptiles and amphibians can live more than a century. And the oldest known land animal, a Seychelles giant tortoise named Jonathan, recently celebrated his 190th birthday.

Until now, though, most of the evidence highlighting the long lifespans of these animals have come from anecdotal reports from zoos, says Beth Reinke, a biologist at Northeastern Illinois University in Chicago. She and a team of more than 100 researchers from around the globe have compared rates of aging in 77 species of reptiles and amphibians in the wild. The study initially grew out of the long-running notion that turtles can live for a long time. We wanted to know how widespread that is, Reinke says.

The researchers found that although aging and lifespan varied greatly from one species to the next, turtles, crocodilians, and salamanders generally aged very slowly and had disproportionately long lifespans for their size. Meanwhile, another group of researchers in Denmark reached similar conclusions after comparing 52 species of turtles and tortoises living in zoos and aquariums: roughly 75 percent of the reptiles showed slow or negligible senescence, and 80 percent aged more slowly than modern humans.

Both teams reported their results on June 23 in Science. The new findings arent particularly surprising but do challenge the idea that senescencea gradual decline in bodily functions that increases the mortality risk after an organism reaches sexual maturityis universal, says Rob Salguero-Gmez, an ecologist at the University of Oxford who wasnt involved in the research.

Theyre both excellent pieces of research, he says. They add a new layerupon our understanding of senescence across the tree of life.

For their analysis, Reinke and her collaborators drew from long-running studies on a wide variety of animals that included turtles, frogs, salamanders, crocodilians, snakes, lizards, and the lizard-like tuatara. These studies tracked reptile and amphibian populations over an average period of 17 years and encompassed more than 190,000 individual animals.

To determine how quickly a species aged, Reinke and her team calculated the rate at which its individual members died over time after hitting sexual maturity. The team estimated lifespan from the number of years it took for 95 percent of these adult animals to die.

One caveat to these estimates, Reinke notes, is that the researchers didnt distinguish between different causes of death. When people hear aging, they tend to think of just physiology, she says. Our measure of aging includes not just physiology, but all things that could cause death in the wild.

[Related: These jellyfish seem to cheat death. Whats their secret?]

The team also compared their estimates with previously published data on aging in mammals and birds. These groups of vertebrates are warm-blooded or endothermic, meaning they are capable of regulating their own body temperature. Reinke and her team expected to find that the cold-blooded, or ectothermic, reptiles and amphibians would age more slowly on the whole than birds and mammals because their slower metabolisms put less physiological wear and tear on their bodies. But the results revealed a mixed bag. While some reptiles and amphibians did age more slowly than most birds and mammals, others aged faster. Longevity in reptiles and amphibians varied from 1 to 137 yearsa much wider range than the 4 to 84 years seen in primates.

However, species with negligible aging appeared across the reptile and amphibian family tree, and turtles as a group were uniquely slow agers, she says.

Species equipped with protective shells, scaly armor, or venom aged more slowly and lived longer. In both reptiles and amphibians, species that began reproducing later in life ended up living longer. The team also observed that reptiles that lived in warm temperatures aged more quickly, while amphibians in similar conditions aged more slowly.

More research is needed to tease out how these and other variables drive differences in aging and longevity. There are a lot of really interesting patterns that we brought to light that need to be explored further, Reinke says. I think that ectotherms could have the answers to a lot of what we want to know about aging for human health.

In the quest to extend human life, salamanders may be a particularly promising group to focus on. A lot of them can live for 10 years or more, which for their size is a lot, Reinke says. These amphibians are famous for their ability to regrow lost limbs and tails, leading some scientists to believe that there may be a connection between these regenerative capabilities and the salamanders impressive longevity.

For the second new paper, the team out of Denmark focused on aging in captive reptiles.

All these theories of senescence state thatthe risk of mortality would increase with age after sexuality maturity, when we stop putting so much energy into repairing cell damage and tissues and put more energy into reproduction, says Rita da Silva, a biologist at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense and coauthor of the findings.

The best candidates for a species that might escape the damaging effects of getting old are those that continue growing their entire lives, such as turtles and tortoises.

What we were mainly interested in is if their risk of mortality increases with age as it does in humans for instance, and in other mammals and in birds, da Silva says. She and her colleagues analyzed records of captive turtles and tortoises, with data for each species ranging from 58 to several thousand individuals.

In most species, mortality either remained constant with age or actually decreased. On average, male turtles and tortoises lived longer than femalesthe opposite of whats seen in mammals. For three of the species, the team also examined data on wild populations, and found that captive animals enjoyed lower rates of aging.

In some way these populations found a way to lower their aging rates when the conditions are favorable, da Silva says. In captivity, reptiles dont need to pour energy into finding food or shelter. But its not clear why only some reptiles seem to respond to this bounty by minimizing or avoiding senescence. For some other species either the conditions are not ideal or they are not really able to switch off the senescence, da Silva speculates.

[Related: Has the fountain of youth been in our blood all along?]

While the majority of turtle and tortoise species studied aged more slowly than humans, its too soon to say what implications the findings could have for efforts to understand human health and aging.

We need to be careful when making these comparisons, da Silva says. We cannot draw a clear connection between this and humans, [but] I can say that we are one step closer to understanding the mechanisms of aging.

The two new papers show how much remains to be discovered about aging and how it differs among humans and other animals, plants, and more distantly related organisms, Salguero-Gmez says.

Theres true value in this type of research beyond the potential translations into biomedical research, just for a higher appreciation for our place in the tree of life and also for the realization that not everything follows a human way of living, he says.

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Could reptiles and amphibians hold the key to the fountain of youth? - Popular Science

Cameron Smith: If you want to understand politics, train to be a foster parent – AL.com

This is an opinion column.

Foster parent training has helped me understand more about American politics than years of experience in the halls of Congress ever could. The psychology and physiology of a traumatized child puts the interconnected web of politics, policy, and power in a whole new light. In truth, many foster children arent that different from modern American partisans.

Trauma and stress attend almost any situation where the state intervenes in a relationship between parent and child. As a result, foster parents train to address those factors which deeply influence both behavior and development. Thankfully, my wife and I trained with Dr. Daniel Siegels hand model of the brain to help us understand some complex neurological interactions.

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Look at your hand. The wrist represents the spinal cord, the palm is the brainstem (basic body functions), and the thumb is the amygdala (danger detection). Place the thumb into the palm to form the limbic system. The other four fingers fold over the thumb to represent the cerebral cortex, and the tips of those fingers are the prefrontal cortex (emotional governor).

If theres a simpler model of brain anatomy, I certainly havent found it.

The limbic system is the instinctual survival part of our brain which also handles memories and emotions. The cortex is responsible for imagination, creativity, problem-solving, and our higher level thinking in general.

If a grizzly bear is chasing me through the woods, Im quite grateful for my limbic system which triggers a rush of cortisol, a stress hormone, increasing my heart rate and giving me a burst of energy to flee. If I stopped and reasoned through my options before moving to escape, Id become bear food.

On the other hand, I cant effectively consider the best policies to reduce gun violence while chased by said bear, because the limbic system is in the drivers seat. If I need to think and process, the cortex must retake control. That happens when I feel safe from the bear and calm down.

The prefrontal cortex is especially important because it allows us to evaluate a signal from the amygdala and control our emotions before they get to the point where our fight or flight response takes over. For example, it helps us keep our cool even after someone says something particularly offensive.

Our foster trainers explained that our prefrontal cortex isnt fully developed until were almost 30 years old. As such, children have less of an ability to control their emotions. When they flip their lids, its often up to parents to help them calm down before their thought centers can effectively engage and address a situation.

Sounds good for parenting. What about politics?

For the longest time, I couldnt understand why politicians I respected ran negative, fear-based ads I absolutely despised. Brain physiology explains so much.

Thinking, rational people challenge politicians. They ask all kinds of questions, discuss issues in detail, and expect politicians to demonstrate statesmanship.

Rather than rise to the challenge, many politicians create grizzly bears barreling towards us. Democrats want to take our constitutional rights. Republicans are white supremacists. Liberals want to force you to clap for drag queens performing at your church. Conservatives will commandeer your uterus. If the other party wins, your future and family are at risk.

In response, our lids flip and too often stay that way. The limbic system drives our actions. We look to our leaders to tell us what to do to address the immediate threats. We become reactionary and aggressive. As far as our brains are concerned, stress is stress. Our belief in the threats around us is every bit as relevant as reality. My brain doesnt care whether the grizzly is actually chasing me. Im running until I believe Im safe.

Cable news makes for a toxic political partner. If were angry or afraid, were glued to the screen awaiting the next grizzly coming over the horizon. As long as were focused on a string of partisan monsters, we dont hold our own elected officials accountable or stop watching. We become strung out, inconsistent, and unquestionably compliant.

If our political leaders and media companies were foster parents, theyd calm us down. Theyd help us sort through our emotions in productive ways. Theyd help us prioritize what really impacts our families and communities.

But then we might not vote for them. We might realize that so many of them are directionally loud and otherwise incompetent. We might turn off the televisions and play with our children and grandchildren in a creek somewhere. Above all, wed operate in reality and not useful political fiction.

Our only path to a better future is understanding whats happening to us and ending the cycle. Whether its cable news, social media, or even casual conversation, were all worse off participating in a political battle royale. When we sense anger and rage developing because of something we watch, read, or hear, we should put our lids back on. Change the subject, step back for a bit, or do something unexpectedly kind. Keep the thoughtful parts of our brains in control and realize we cant effectively communicate when theyre not.

Better yet, train to be a foster parent. Many children need a calming adult influence, and many of us could use a little help learning to be just that.

Smith is a recovering political attorney with three boys, two dogs, and an extremely patient wife. He engages media, business, and policy through the Triptych Foundation and Triptych Media. Please direct outrage or agreement to csmith@al.com or @DCameronSmith on Twitter.

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Cameron Smith: If you want to understand politics, train to be a foster parent - AL.com

Men, women might have different optimal times of day for exercise – Medical News Today

Not everyone exercises for the same reason. For some, exercise is a means of addressing a health issue such as hypertension. Some work out to build strength in one part of the body or another, and some to improve their mood.

A new study suggests the time of day at which a person exercises may produce different results. In addition, those results are not the same for women and men.

Professor Paul J. Arciero, lead author of the study and professor at the Health and Human Physiological Sciences Department at Skidmore College in New York, tells BBC News that the best time for exercise is when people can fit it into their schedules.

Nonetheless, the study reveals certain time periods when individuals are most likely to achieve specific exercise goals.

Dr. Asad R. Siddiqi, assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at Weill Cornell Medicine in NYC, who was not involved in the study, told Medical News Today:

I appreciated the authors stated goal of adding to our understanding of the effects of training on female athletes and how that may differ from male athletes.

Women are notoriously underrepresented in the medical literature, and even hypothesizing that there may be a difference between how different biological sexes respond to exercise indicates a level of thoughtfulness and nuance that has long been missing from scientific inquiry. Dr. Asad R. Siddiqi

The study was published in frontiers in Physiology.

The researchers tracked the benefits of exercise in a group of 30 women and 26 men who were assigned to exercise in the morning specifically between 6:00 to 8:00 am or in the evening from 6:30 to 8:30 PM.

All participants were healthy, non-smoking, athletically trained individuals.

The participants trained according to the PRISE (Protein pacing intake combined with Resistance functional, Interval sprint, Stretching, Endurance exercise) exercise and fitness paradigm developed by Dr. Arciero.

All participants followed a designed healthy meal plan and intake was similar in morning and evening groups.

The authors of the study measured a range of outcomes, including muscular strength, endurance and power, body composition, systolic/diastolic blood pressure, respiratory exchange ratio, and mood states, as well as their dietary intake.

Dr. Siddiqi cautioned that the participants were all healthy, active, lean, and weight-stable individuals, which may not be particularly reflective of the habits, demographics, or goals of the larger population.

He noted, in particular, that they were middle-aged adults with no cardiovascular disease. Thus, this would not be representative of the general population.

One of the unique aspects of the study is its exploration of exercise time of day on mood.

[F]or the first time, we show that exercise time of day significantly alters mood state in women and men, Dr. Arciero told MNT.

Specifically, women who exercise in the [p.m.] significantly boost overall mood state compared to those exercising in the morning. Prof. Paul J. Arciero

Dr. Siddiqi also pointed out another interesting finding:

The men studied had greater improvement in perceived mood state than women. Exercise seemed to decrease tension, depression, anger, substantially in men regardless of time of day, whereas improvements in tension and depression were only seen in women who exercised at night.

He added that studying mood is inherently more difficult due to its reliance on self-reporting.

All participants showed improvements in all areas after the 12-week trial. However, the nature of improvements varied.

The effect was less pronounced in men. However, there were differences:

Dr. Arciero noted that a direct comparison between women and men was not the goal of the study.

However, he said, several potential mechanisms for the differences between women and men with regards to their response to exercising at different times of the day may include; variations in neuromuscular function, capillary density, hunger responses, and fat metabolism between women and men.

[These differences] suggest molecular, endocrine, metabolic, and neuromuscular factors likely contribute to these diurnal variations in health and physical performance outcomes between women and men. Prof. Paul J. Arciero

The precise mechanism, Dr. Arciero continued, is not clear, but may be related to neuro-hormonal-psychological effects of exercising later in the day as a form of a stress-reliever that may also favorably impact sleep quality. Its interesting to note that [p.m.] exercise in men also significantly reduced feelings of fatigue.

The studys findings suggest that people consider the time of day at which they will exercise as they develop exercise or fitness programs with their physicians, added Dr. Arciero.

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Men, women might have different optimal times of day for exercise - Medical News Today

Neuron Physiology & Sports Injury Centre – Why choose a physical therapist with expertise or experience in pediatrics? – Business Wire

HONG KONG--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Neuron Physiology & Sports Injury Centre -Physical therapy for children requires special skills. Children are not adults. Their bodies are different, and children grow, move, and think differently than adults. Physiotherapy in Hong Kong, Physiotherapists are specialists in child development, especially mobility development. Activities are the foundation of life and are vital to life. Therefore, physical therapy for children in physical therapist referrals plays an important role in infant and child development.

Physiotherapy for children at the Physiotherapy Center is for children from birth to under 19 years of age. Children's physiotherapy develops specialized skills and has expertise and experience in child development and childhood disorders.

What diseases or conditions do child physical therapists at the Physical Therapy and Sports Trauma Center work on:Nervous System Disorders: Brain injury in children such as cerebral palsy, autism cluster disorder or traumatic brain, congenital disorders, genetic diseases such as childhood idiopathic arthritis injury, or long-term illness with growth-related joint and posture correction.

Children in Physiotherapy Hong Kong Hong Kong physiotherapists are specialists in assessing, identifying, and managing developmental and mobility impairments in children. They have the knowledge and practical skills to tailor postural treatment for each child, to enable the child to participate in the treatment session actively and communicate with their parents and caregivers to assist the child in daily life and social activities.

When should a child see a pediatric physical therapist?Excessive range of motion of joints, genetic and metabolic abnormalities, neurological diseases, posture problems: accidents such as high and low shoulders, scoliosis, O-shaped legs, X-shaped legs, Muscle strain, etc., after surgery or major health accidents, or joint or muscle pain

Exercise therapy and physical therapy programs:Maintain or improve joint range of motionImprove muscle strength, and core stabilityRestoring body positioning and correct postureRe-adjust the movement mode and gait to meet the development requirements of large muscle movements and small muscle movementsEducation and SupportPromote activities of daily living

Neuron Physiology & Sports Injury Centre also provides physiotherapy services and stretching treatments including Tennis Elbow Physiotherapy, Chiropractic, Chiropractic Physiotherapy, Sacral Therapy, Chiropractic, Fifty Shoulder Physiotherapy, Orthopedic Physiotherapy, Frozen Shoulder Physiotherapy, High and low shoulder physical therapy, cruciate ligament physical therapy, intervertebral disc herniation therapy, cold back therapy, arthritis therapy, intervertebral disc herniation physical therapy, pain therapy, condylar and sacral therapy, muscle and bone sprain, joint strain and home physical therapy.

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Neuron Physiology & Sports Injury Centre - Why choose a physical therapist with expertise or experience in pediatrics? - Business Wire

C. Shan Xu named Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Physiology – Yale News

C. Shan Xu

C. Shan Xu, a pioneer in the field of instrumentation development, has been appointed Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Physiology, effective July 1.

Xu is a graduate of the University of Science and Technology of China and earned his Ph.D. in physical chemistry from the University of California, Berkeley in 1997. He was a technical director in charge of research, development, and dissemination of advanced semiconductor technologies at Lam Research Corporation. In 2009, Xu joined the Janelia Research Campus of Howard Hughes Medical Institute as a senior scientist to develop enhanced focused ion beam-scanning electron microscopy (FIB-SEM) and later became the director of FIB-SEM technologies. He was recently recruited to Yale to further develop the next generation FIB-SEM technologies as a senior faculty member in the Department of Cellular and Molecular Physiology.

A pioneer in instrumentation development, Xu holds more than 20 patents and is known for his work transforming conventional FIB-SEM from a metrology tool that is unreliable for more than a few days to a robust imaging platform with 100% effective reliability: capable of years of continuous imaging without defects in the final image stack. The enhanced FIB-SEM technology was initially invented to generate the largest and most detailed brain connectome to date, and was recently used to create an open-access, 3D atlas of whole cells and tissues at the finest isotropic resolution, including cancer and immune cells, mouse pancreatic islets, and Drosophila neural tissues. The story was featured in Nature and The Scientist. This technology has enabled significant discoveries in tissue biology, cell biology, and neuroscience where nano-scale resolution coupled with meso and even macro scale volumes is critical. In addition to technology development, Xu is well known for his leadership in disseminating enhanced FIB-SEM technology to worldwide research community.

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C. Shan Xu named Harvey and Kate Cushing Professor of Physiology - Yale News

Special Master’s Program in Physiology | Georgetown University

Preparing You for Your Future in Medicine

Established in 1975, the Georgetown University Special Masters Program is the foremost and longest-running program of its kind for college graduates seeking to apply to medical school. Our students learn alongside Georgetown medical students, and over 85% are accepted to med schools within two years.

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Special Master's Program in Physiology | Georgetown University

Earths Largest Rodents Were Smaller Than We Once Thought – The New York Times

Modern rodents range in size from pygmy mice weighing less than an ounce to stocky capybaras pushing 175 pounds. But even the largest capybara is a pipsqueak compared with some prehistoric rodents that resembled a cross between a supersized capybara and a hairy hippopotamus. Paleontologists estimate that one, Phoberomys pattersoni, may have weighed as much as 1,300 pounds. Another, Josephoartigasia monesi, was believed to be around 2,000 pounds, as big as a bison.

But these size predictions have long sparked debate. People have said theyre the size of bison, but no one had any methods that could confidently nail down these sizes, said Russell Engelman, a paleontologist pursuing his Ph.D. from Case Western Reserve University.

So Mr. Engelman proposed a new method for accurately describing the dimensions of these rodents of unusual size. In a study published Wednesday in the journal Royal Society Open Science, he downsized the animals by comparing a joint at the back of the skulls of Phoberomys, Josephoartigasia and other prehistoric rodents with those in large modern mammals instead of their pint-size relatives.

Between two million and eight million years ago, giant rodents like Phoberomys and Josephoartigasia inhabited South Americas wetlands. According to Ernesto Blanco, a paleontologist at Universidad de la Repblica in Uruguay who discovered the Josephoartigasia skull in 2008, these giant rodents had a powerful bite that could generate three times as much force as a modern tiger bite, potentially protecting them from predators like terror birds and saber-toothed marsupials.

Much of our understanding of these rodents is tied to their size. Body size is a key trait in mammals because everything you cannot physically measure in the fossil like ecology and physiology is correlated with body size, said Virginie Millien, a zoologist at McGill University who studies the body sizes of rodents and was not involved in the new study. In 2010, Dr. Millien used fossilized femurs to estimate that Phoberomys was the size of a large antelope.

Accurately sizing these gargantuan rodents has proved difficult. One reason is a lack of fossils. While paleontologists have unearthed leg bones and other bits of Phoberomyss skeleton, Josephoartigasia is known from only a single skull. Without fossil evidence, researchers often rely on the anatomies of an extinct animals closest living relatives. However, traits like Josephoartigasias prolonged skull and Phoberomyss bulky femurs are not found in living rodents. Thus, simply increasing the size of a capybara fails to render accurate anatomical estimates, and can yield distorted sizes similar to those seen in a carnival mirror.

So Mr. Engelman turned to the occipital condyle, the joint that helps connect an animals skull with its spine. The size of this joint varies little across all mammals to ensure the skull and spine stay securely attached, making it a bellwether for comparing different species. Usually paleontologists look for traits that are different between animals, Mr. Engelman said, but when youre looking at body size, you want to nail down the parts that have changed the least.

Recently, Mr. Engelman measured the width of the joint in more than 400 species of mammals, including mice and African elephants. He discovered that the occipital condyle width was an accurate predictor of their dimensions. Because the width of these joints was similar across mammals of a particular size, he could compare the size of the prehistoric rodents joints with those of other large mammals without having to extrapolate.

This left Mr. Engelman with drastically decreased sizes: Phoberomys maxed out under 450 pounds, and Josephoartigasia weighed around 1,000 pounds much closer to the size of a pony than a bison. If I made every reasonable assumption I could to make the masses higher, I still couldnt make them as big as people were saying, Mr. Engelman said. Even unreasonable assumptions couldnt get them that big.

Mr. Engelman also believes that this decrease in brawn may boost these rodents brains, which are measly for their perceived size. They have small brains, but they may not have these ridiculously tiny brains that people think they had, he said.

Dr. Blanco believes these figures are more realistic than previous estimates of these rodents weighing a metric ton. But he believes more fossil evidence is required before it is certain how large the largest rodents grew. Even with this excellent method, well have significant uncertainties until we have more than a skull, he said.

While the new findings are less eye-popping than earlier estimates, Dr. Millien said 1,000 pounds is still a really big rat.

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Earths Largest Rodents Were Smaller Than We Once Thought - The New York Times

The Health Effects of Extreme Heat – The New York Times

When W. Larry Kenney, a professor of physiology at Pennsylvania State University, began studying how extreme heat harms humans, his research focused on workers inside the disaster-stricken Three Mile Island nuclear plant, where temperatures were as high as 165 degrees Fahrenheit.

In the decades that followed, Dr. Kenney has looked at how heat stress affects a range of people in intense environments: football players, soldiers in protective suits, distance runners in the Sahara.

Of late, however, his research has focused on a more mundane subject: ordinary people. Doing everyday things. As climate change broils the planet.

Heat advisories and excessive heat warnings were in effect on Monday across much of the eastern interior of the United States, following a weekend of record-smashing heat in the countrys Southwest. The heat will move farther Northeast in the next few days, according to the National Weather Service, into the upper Mississippi Valley, western Great Lakes and Ohio Valley.

With severe heat waves now affecting swaths of the globe with frightening regularity, scientists are drilling down into the ways life in a hotter world will sicken and kill us. The aim is to get a better grip on how many more people will be afflicted by heat-related ailments, and how frequent and severe their suffering will be. And to understand how to better protect the most vulnerable.

One thing is for sure, scientists say: The heat waves of the past two decades are not good predictors of the risks that will confront us in the decades to come. Already, the link between greenhouse-gas emissions and sweltering temperatures is so clear that some researchers say there may soon no longer be any point trying to determine whether todays most extreme heat waves could have happened two centuries ago, before humans started warming the planet. None of them could have.

And if global warming is not slowed, the hottest heat wave many people have ever experienced will simply be their new summertime norm, said Matthew Huber, a climate scientist at Purdue University. Its not going to be something you can escape.

Whats tougher for scientists to pin down, Dr. Huber said, is how these climatic shifts will affect human health and well-being on a large scale, particularly in the developing world, where huge numbers of people are already suffering but good data is scarce. Heat stress is the product of so many factors humidity, sun, wind, hydration, clothing, physical fitness and causes such a range of harms that projecting future effects with any precision is tricky.

There also havent been enough studies, Dr. Huber said, on living full time in a warmer world, instead of just experiencing the occasional roasting summer. We dont know what the long-term consequences of getting up every day, working for three hours in nearly deadly heat, sweating like crazy and then going back home are, he said.

The growing urgency of these issues is drawing in researchers, like Dr. Kenney, who didnt always think of themselves as climate scientists. For a recent study, he and his colleagues placed young, healthy men and women in specially designed chambers, where they pedaled an exercise bike at low intensity. Then the researchers dialed up the heat and humidity.

They found that their subjects started overheating dangerously at much lower wet-bulb temperatures a measure that accounts for both heat and mugginess than what they had expected based on previous theoretical estimates by climate scientists.

Effectively, under steam-bath conditions, our bodies absorb heat from the environment faster than we can sweat to cool ourselves down. And unfortunately for humans, we dont pump out a lot more sweat to keep up, Dr. Kenney said.

Heat is climate change at its most devastatingly intimate, ravaging not just landscapes and ecosystems and infrastructure, but the depths of individual human bodies.

Heats victims often die alone, in their own homes. Apart from heatstroke, it can cause cardiovascular collapse and kidney failure. It damages our organs and cells, even our DNA. Its harms are multiplied in the very old and very young, and in people with high blood pressure, asthma, multiple sclerosis and other conditions.

When the mercury is high, we arent as effective at work. Our thinking and motor functions are impaired. Excessive heat is also associated with greater crime, anxiety, depression and suicide.

The toll on the body can be strikingly personal. George Havenith, director of the Environmental Ergonomics Research Center at Loughborough University in England, recalled an experiment years ago with a large group of subjects. They wore the same clothes and performed the same work for an hour, in 95 degree heat and 80 percent humidity. But by the end, their body temperatures ranged from 100 degrees to 102.6 degrees Fahrenheit.

A lot of the work were doing is trying to understand why one person ends up on one side of the spectrum and the other one on the other, he said.

For years, Vidhya Venugopal, a professor of environmental health at Sri Ramachandra University in Chennai, India, has been studying what heat does to workers in Indias steel plants, car factories and brick kilns. Many of them suffer from kidney stones caused by severe dehydration.

One encounter a decade ago has stayed with her. She met a steelworker who had been working 8-to-12-hour days near a furnace for 20 years. When she asked him how old he was, he said 38 to 40.

She was sure shed misunderstood. His hair was half white. His face was shrunken. He didnt look younger than 55.

So she asked how old his child was and how old he was when he got married. The math checked out.

For us, it was a turning point, Dr. Venugopal said. Thats when we started thinking, heat ages people.

Great Salt Lake. Local politicians and scientists are warning that climate change and rapid population growth are shrinking the lake, creating a bowl of toxic dust that could poison the air around Salt Lake City. But there are no easy solutions to avert that outcome.

Carbon dioxide levels. The amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere hit its highest level ever, scientists said. Humans pumped 36 billion tons of the planet-warming gas into the atmosphere in 2021, more than in any previous year.

Poor U.S. performance. The Environmental Performance Index, published every two years by researchers at Yale and Columbia, found that the United States performance on combating climate change had declinedin relation to other countries largely as a result of Trump-era policies.

Extreme heat. Global warming has made the severe heat wave in Pakistan and Indiahotter and much more likely to occur in the future, according to scientists. The researchers said that the chances of a heat wave in South Asia like this one have increased by at least 30 times since preindustrial times.

Adelaide M. Lusambili, a researcher at the Aga Khan University in Kenya, is investigating heats effects on pregnant women and newborns in Kilifi County, on Kenyas coast. In communities there, women fetch water for their families, which can mean walking long hours in the sun, even while pregnant. Studies have linked heat exposure to preterm births and underweight babies.

The most heartbreaking stories, Dr. Lusambili said, are of women who suffered after giving birth. Some walked great distances with their 1-day-olds on their backs, causing the babies to develop blisters on their bodies and mouths, and making breastfeeding difficult.

It has all been enough, she said, to make her wonder whether climate change is reversing the progress Africa has made on reducing newborn and childhood mortality.

Given how many people have no access to air-conditioners, which are themselves making the planet hotter by consuming huge amounts of electricity, societies need to find more sustainable defenses, said Ollie Jay, a professor of heat and health at the University of Sydney.

Dr. Jay has studied the bodys responses to sitting near an electric fan, wearing wetted clothing and sponging down with water. For one project, he recreated a Bangladeshi garment factory in his lab to test low-cost ways of keeping workers safe, including green roofs, electric fans and scheduled water breaks.

Humans have some ability to acclimatize to hot environments. Our heart rate goes down; more blood is pumped with each stroke. More sweat glands are activated. But scientists primarily understand how our bodies adapt to heat in controlled laboratory settings, not in the real world, where many people can duck in and out of air-conditioned homes and cars, Dr. Jay said.

And even in the lab, inducing such changes requires exposing people to uncomfortable strain for hours a day over weeks, said Dr. Jay, who has done exactly that to his subjects.

Its not particularly pleasant, he said. Hardly a practical solution for life in a stifling future or, for people in some places, an increasingly oppressive present. More profound changes in the bodys adaptability will only occur on the time scale of human evolution.

Dr. Venugopal gets frustrated when asked, about her research on Indian workers, India is a hot country, so whats the big deal?

Nobody asks what the big deal is about having a fever, but heatstroke puts the body in a similar state.

That is human physiology, Dr. Venugopal said. You cant change that.

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UB-led study presents critical step forward in understanding Parkinson’s disease and how to treat it – UBNow: News and views for UB faculty and staff…

A new study led by a researcher in the Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB has important implications for developing future treatments for Parkinsons disease (PD), a progressive nervous system disorder that affects movement and often includes tremors.

In this study, we find a method to differentiate human-induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) to A9 dopamine neurons (A9 DA), which are lost in Parkinsons disease, says Jian Feng, professor of physiology and biophysics in the Jacobs School and senior author on the paper published May 24 in Molecular Psychiatry.

These neurons are pacemakers that continuously fire action potentials regardless of excitatory inputs from other neurons, he adds. Their pace-making property is very important to their function and underlies their vulnerability in Parkinsons disease.

This exciting breakthrough is a critical step forward in efforts to better understand Parkinsons disease and how to treat it, says Allison Brashear, vice president for health sciences and dean of the Jacobs School. Jian Feng and his team are to be commended for their innovation and resolve.

Feng explains there are many different types of dopamine neurons in the human brain, and each type is responsible for different brain functions.

Nigral dopamine neurons, also known as the A9 DA neurons, are responsible for controlling voluntary movements. The loss of these neurons causes the movement symptoms of Parkinsons disease, he says.

Scientists have been trying hard to generate these neurons from human pluripotent stem cells to study Parkinsons disease and develop better therapies, Feng says. We have succeeded in making A9 dopamine neurons from human induced pluripotent stem cells. It means that we can now generate these neurons from any PD patients to study their disease.

Feng notes that A9 DA neurons are probably the largest cells in the human body. Their volume is about four times the volume of a mature human egg.

Over 99% of the volume is contributed by their extremely extensive axon branches. The total length of axon branches of a single A9 DA neuron is about 4.5 meters, he says. The cell is like the water supply system in a city, with a relatively small plant and hundreds of miles of water pipes going to each building.

In addition to their unique morphology, the A9 DA neurons are pacemakers they fire action potentials continuously, regardless of synaptic input.

They depend on Ca2+ channels to maintain the pace-making activities. Thus, the cells need to deal with a lot of stress from handling Ca2+ and dopamine, Feng says. These unique features of A9 DA neurons make them vulnerable. Lots of efforts are being directed at understanding these vulnerabilities, with the hope of finding a way to arrest or prevent their loss in Parkinsons disease.

Pace-making is an important feature and vulnerability of A9 DA neurons. Now that we can generate A9 DA pacemakers from any patient, it is possible to use these neurons to screen for compounds that may protect their loss in PD, he notes. It is also possible to test whether these cells are a better candidate for transplantation therapy of PD.

To differentiate human iPSCs to A9 DA neurons, the researchers tried to mimic what happens in embryonic development, in which the cells secrete proteins called morphogens to signal to each other their correct position and destiny in the embryo.

Feng notes the A9 DA neurons are in the ventral part of the midbrain in development.

Thus, we differentiate the human iPSCs in three stages, each with different chemicals to mimic the developmental process, he says. The challenge is to identify the correct concentration, duration and treatment window of each chemical.

The combination of this painstaking work, which is based on previous work by many others in the field, makes it possible for us to generate A9 DA neurons, he adds.

Feng points out there are a number of roadblocks to studying Parkinsons disease, but that significant progress is being made.

There is no objective diagnostic test of Parkinsons disease, and when PD is diagnosed by clinical symptoms, it is already too late. The loss of nigral DA neurons has already been going on for at least a decade, he says.

There was previously no way to make human dopamine neurons from a PD patient so we could study these neurons to find out what goes wrong.

Scientists have been using animal models and human cell lines to study Parkinsons disease, but these systems are inadequate in their ability to reflect the situation in human nigral DA neurons, Feng says.

Just within the past 15 years, PD research has been transformed by the ability to make patient-specific dopamine neurons that are increasingly similar to their counterparts in the brain of a PD patient.

Houbo Jiang, research scientist in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, and Hong Li, a former postdoctoral associate in the Department of Physiology and Biophysics, are co first-authors on the paper.

Other co-authors are Hanqin Li, a graduate of the doctoral program in neuroscience and currently a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, Berkeley; Li Li, a trainee in UBs doctoral program in neuroscience; and Zhen Yan, SUNY Distinguished Professor of Physiology and Biophysics.

The study was funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs, National Institutes of Health and by New York State Stem Cell Science (NYSTEM).

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UB-led study presents critical step forward in understanding Parkinson's disease and how to treat it - UBNow: News and views for UB faculty and staff...