“As the large wooden doors of the chapel opened and I saw my bride for the first time, our minds and hearts communicated in a way only love could evoke.” This sincere sentiment, echoed by the proud groom, only expresses a drop in the ocean of...

It didn't come as a surprise to anyone when Dana Brown left the Blue Jays as a special assistant to general manager Ross Atkins to join the Braves as vice president of scouting.

How can asking patient to tell us their story improve healthcare? Helen Morant, content lead at BMJ, talks us through her project getting healthcare professionals to sit down with patients and record their conversations, and what on earth this has to do with quality improvement. We also hear some of the recordings she has gathered through the...

With the emergence of sofobuvir, a new direct acting antiviral, treatment for Hepatitis C infection is currently undergoing it's greatest change since the discovery of the virus 25 years ago. However Gilead, who manufacture the treatment, are under fire for the cost of the druge - around $90 000 for a course of treatment. Victor Roy, doctoral...

Surrogate endpoints are commonly used in clinical trials to get quicker results, however Michael Baum, emeritus professor at University College London, worries that by not focusing on real outcomes - length of life, and quality of life - that these are being used to justify expensive treatments which may not benefit patients. Read the full...

As we cover the covid-19 outbreak, we want to hear some of the stories from the frontline - And who better to heart of what this pandemic is doing to the profession in the UK, than some of the people who write regularly for The BMJ? In this first one, we wanted to look specifically at acute care - those at the sharp end of the response, so we're...

As the pandemic plays out - the way in which doctors in the UK practice is changing, hospitals are reconfigured to increase critical care capacity, GPs are working from home and doing their day to day work remotely. Some of the changes have come at the detriment of staff and patient wellbeing but covid-19 has also helped cut through some of the...

As the pandemic plays out - hospitals are reconfigured to increase critical care capacity, outpatient clinics become virtual, and elective procedures delayed. How are these affecting care for those who are in hospital but don't have covid-19? In this podcast, Matt Morgan,honorary senior research fellow at Cardiff University, consultant in...

For the next few months Talk Evidence is going to focus on the new corona virus pandemic. There is an enormous amount of uncertainty about the disease, what the symptoms are, fatality rate, treatment options, things we shouldn't be doing. We're going to try to get away from the headlines and talk about what we need to know - to hopefully give you...

Shane Rea
Nov 1, 1997; 46:1667-1677
Perspectives in Diabetes

New Reds outfielder Yasiel Puig has been in camp for about a week, often hitting on his own on the backfields. With the first full-squad workout taking place on Monday, Puig was able to warm up, throw and hit with his teammates.

Parish Histories of Jamaica Project, a publication by the JN Foundation in collaboration with the Department of History and Archaeology at The University of the West Indies, Mona, was launched recently. Jenny Jemmott of Department of History and...

Redlining a Holocaust is a rigorously researched oeuvre that establishes Dòwòti Désir as one of the most important figures in contemporary African thought. Redlining is an imaginative and monumental undertaking, a literary, visual, and oratorical...

Reduced storage of dietary fatty acids (DFAs) in abdominal adipose tissues with enhanced cardiac partitioning has been shown in subjects with type 2 diabetes (T2D) and prediabetes. We measured DFA metabolism and organ partitioning using positron emission tomography with oral and intravenous long-chain fatty acid and glucose tracers during a standard liquid meal in 12 obese subjects with T2D before and 8–12 days after bariatric surgery (sleeve gastrectomy or sleeve gastrectomy and biliopancreatic diversion with duodenal switch). Bariatric surgery reduced cardiac DFA uptake from a median (standard uptake value [SUV]) 1.75 (interquartile range 1.39–2.57) before to 1.09 (1.04–1.53) after surgery (P = 0.01) and systemic DFA spillover from 56.7 mmol before to 24.7 mmol over 6 h after meal intake after surgery (P = 0.01), with a significant increase in intra-abdominal adipose tissue DFA uptake from 0.15 (0.04–0.31] before to 0.49 (0.20–0.59) SUV after surgery (P = 0.008). Hepatic insulin resistance was significantly reduced in close association with increased DFA storage in intra-abdominal adipose tissues (r = –0.79, P = 0.05) and reduced DFA spillover (r = 0.76, P = 0.01). We conclude that bariatric surgery in subjects with T2D rapidly reduces cardiac DFA partitioning and hepatic insulin resistance at least in part through increased intra-abdominal DFA storage and reduced spillover.

Central to the development of diabetic macro- and microvascular disease is endothelial dysfunction, which appears well before any clinical sign but, importantly, is potentially reversible. We previously demonstrated that hyperglycemia activates nuclear factor of activated T cells (NFAT) in conduit and medium-sized resistance arteries and that NFAT blockade abolishes diabetes-driven aggravation of atherosclerosis. In this study, we test whether NFAT plays a role in the development of endothelial dysfunction in diabetes. NFAT-dependent transcriptional activity was elevated in skin microvessels of diabetic Akita (Ins2^+/–) mice when compared with nondiabetic littermates. Treatment of diabetic mice with the NFAT blocker A-285222 reduced NFATc3 nuclear accumulation and NFAT-luciferase transcriptional activity in skin microvessels, resulting in improved microvascular function, as assessed by laser Doppler imaging and iontophoresis of acetylcholine and localized heating. This improvement was abolished by pretreatment with the nitric oxide (NO) synthase inhibitor l-N^G-nitro-l-arginine methyl ester, while iontophoresis of the NO donor sodium nitroprusside eliminated the observed differences. A-285222 treatment enhanced dermis endothelial NO synthase expression and plasma NO levels of diabetic mice. It also prevented induction of inflammatory cytokines interleukin-6 and osteopontin, lowered plasma endothelin-1 and blood pressure, and improved mouse survival without affecting blood glucose. In vivo inhibition of NFAT may represent a novel therapeutic modality to preserve endothelial function in diabetes.

There will be a lot of attention paid to D-backs infielder Jake Lamb when Spring Training gets underway. Lamb, of course, is coming off a season that was almost entirely lost to a left shoulder injury. His healthy return would play a big part in helping the D-backs' offense overcome the departures of Paul Goldschmidt and A.J. Pollock during the offseason.

Invitation Only Research Event

Event participants

Richard King, Senior Research Fellow, Energy, Environment and Resources Department, Chatham House
Chair: Duncan Brack, Associate Fellow, Energy, Environment and Resources Department, Chatham House

29 January 2020

Policymakers are in danger of sleepwalking into ineffective carbon dioxide removal solutions in the quest to tackle climate change. This paper warns against overreliance on bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS). 

Over the past decade, immigrant investor programs have proliferated around the world, and Chinese applicants have dominated in a number of countries. In 2015, about 9,000 Chinese millionaires moved to other countries, many through so-called golden visa programs. This article explores the social and cultural factors driving well-off Chinese to move abroad and examines perceptions of elite emigration in China.

One of the least developed countries in sub-Saharan Africa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo has experienced significant migration outflows and inflows tied to political and economic crises in recent decades. While most Congolese migrants head to neighboring countries, destinations have diversified, with an uptick in those leaving for opportunities in Europe and beyond. This country profile explores historical and contemporary patterns of migration to and from DR Congo.

Former American Basketball Association commissioner and NBA executive Mike Storen died Thursday after a lengthy battle with a rare form of cancer. He was 84.

OBJECTIVE

We examined the association of lactation duration with incident type 2 diabetes among women with a history of gestational diabetes mellitus (GDM).

Police and firefighters in Michigan came to the rescue of a family of baby geese that wandered out onto a busy highway and fell into a storm sewer.

The ADA is presenting two free webinars March 27, aiming to help dentists financially weather the economic downturn during the COVID-19 outbreak and illustrate how ADA advocacy has helped turn the tide.

The ADA Board of Trustees traditionally holds six meetings a year at Association Headquarters in Chicago, but this year, for the first time, the Board held its April meeting via Zoom — an all digital meeting.

An unexpected rise in U.S. crude inventories offset fears of potential risk to Venezuelan crude supply because of possible U.S. sanctions.

BP on Friday announced plans to increase disclosure on its efforts to fight climate change after requests from two groups of investors.

As maritime arrivals climbed in 2015, EU policymakers struggled to mount a coordinated response. A range of ad hoc crisis-response tools emerged, but many officials worry that if another migration emergency were to hit Europe, the European Union may still be unprepared. This report traces the evolution of the EU response to the 2015–16 crisis and lays out recommendations to lock in progress and shore up weaknesses.

Over the last several years it has become clear that higher order assemblies on membranes, exemplified by signalosomes, are a paradigm for the regulation of many membrane signaling processes. We have recently combined two-color direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (dSTORM) with the (Clus-DoC) algorithm that combines cluster detection and colocalization analysis to observe the organization of 5-lipoxygenase (5-LO) and 5-lipoxygenase–activating protein (FLAP) into higher order assemblies on the nuclear envelope of mast cells; these assemblies were linked to leukotriene (LT) C4 production. In this study we investigated whether higher order assemblies of 5-LO and FLAP included cytosolic phospholipase A2 (cPLA2) and were linked to LTB4 production in murine neutrophils. Using two- and three-color dSTORM supported by fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy we identified higher order assemblies containing 40 molecules (median) (IQR: 23, 87) of 5-LO, and 53 molecules (62, 156) of FLAP monomer. 98 (18, 154) molecules of cPLA2 were clustered with 5-LO, and 77 (33, 114) molecules of cPLA2 were associated with FLAP. These assemblies were tightly linked to LTB4 formation. The activation-dependent close associations of cPLA2, FLAP, and 5-LO in higher order assemblies on the nuclear envelope support a model in which arachidonic acid is generated by cPLA2 in apposition to FLAP, facilitating its transfer to 5-LO to initiate LT synthesis.

“I’m a confused Mexican Jew.” So says Daniel Lubetzky, Founder and CEO of KIND Snack, in his very personal interview with Columbia faculty member David Rogers at BRITE ’16. Their discussion touched on the many ideas behind KIND Snacks, from the beginnings of the company, to the strategic thinking that forces Lubetzky to stay away […]

The June 2020 issue of History of Psychiatry is now online. Full details follow below: “Wild melancholy. On the historical plausibility of a black bile theory of blood madness, or hæmatomania,” Jan Verplaetse. Abstract: Nineteenth-century art historian John Addington Symonds coined the term hæmatomania (blood madness) for the extremely bloodthirsty behaviour of a number of … Continue reading New History of Psychiatry: Melancholy, Madness, Chinese Psychiatry, Psychedelic Therapy, and More →

AHP readers may be interested in a recent piece on “History of Spanish Psychology, 1800–2000” in the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Psychology. Full details below. “History of Spanish Psychology, 1800–2000,” by Javier Bandrés. Abstract: In the history of Spanish psychology in the 19th century, three stages can be distinguished. An eclectic first stage was defined … Continue reading History of Spanish Psychology, 1800–2000 →

Photographs of John Watson (left) and Rosalie Rayner (right) via Ben Harris. The May 2020 issue of History of Psychology is now online. The issue includes a special section on “Who Was Little Albert? The Historical Controversy.” Full details follow below. Special Section: Who Was Little Albert? The Historical Controversy“Journals, referees, and gatekeepers in the … Continue reading May HoP, including a Special Section: Who Was Little Albert? The Historical Controversy →

The clitoris is an organ that has been wildly misunderstood and mischaracterized for most of human history. The last three decades have dramatically changed the way that scientists think and talk about the clitoris; however, many myths and misconceptions remain.

In much of the world, gender is viewed as binary: man or woman, each assigned characteristics and traits designated by biological sex. But that's not the case everywhere, says France Villarta. In a talk that's part cultural love letter, part history lesson, he details the legacy of gender fluidity and inclusivity in his native Philippines -- and emphasizes the universal beauty of all people, regardless of society's labels.

Historian Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor leads a thoughtful and history-backed examination of one of the most divisive words in the English language: the N-word. Drawing from personal experience, she explains how reflecting on our points of encounter with the word can help promote productive discussions and, ultimately, create a framework that reshapes education around the complicated history of racism in the US.

The common thinking on biological sex goes like this: females have two X chromosomes in their cells, while males have one X and one Y. In this myth-busting talk, science writer and podcaster Molly Webster shows why the so-called "sex chromosomes" are more complicated than this simple definition -- and reveals why we should think about them differently.

Indigenous languages across North America are under threat of extinction due to the colonial legacy of cultural erasure, says linguist Lindsay Morcom. Highlighting grassroots strategies developed by the Anishinaabe people of Canada to revive their language and community, Morcom makes a passionate case for enacting policies that could protect Indigenous heritage for generations to come.

Health care workers are under more stress than ever before. How can they protect their mental health while handling new and complex pressures? TED Fellow Laurel Braitman shows how writing and sharing personal stories helps physicians, nurses, medical students and other health professionals connect more meaningfully with themselves and others -- and make their emotional well-being a priority.

A lovely short video about a mother who goes through the forensic mental health care system and recovers and regains custody of her son.

A collection of short news stories from this week.

Despite a $6,100 teacher pay raise this spring, school districts report that they're starting the new academic year with nearly 500 teaching vacancies.

Super-short stories written by teachers about their triumphs and frustrations, and the hilarious or absurd moments from their lives.