The post CfP: Patient preferences in psychotherapy (Deadline for expressions of interest: Oct 31) was curated by information for practice.

The post CfP | Psychoactives: Recreational drugs repurposed as novel therapies (Submission Deadline: 27 June) was curated by information for practice.

Host Michel Martin speaks with rapper Samuel Bazawule, better known as Blitz the Ambassador, about his new album, "Afropolitan Dreams."

Brady didn’t get much sleep, but he’s all over dissecting the action that unfolded in Tuesday’s New Hampshire Republican Primary. A rundown of the three words that defined the day, a deeper look at the politics that ran the race, a glimpse into the future, and favorite reporter moments from the 2016 trail. Stay tuned for the Democratic edition wrap-up episode!

Brady still hasn't gotten any sleep, but he’s all over dissecting the action that unfolded in Tuesday’s New Hampshire Democratic Primary. A rundown of the three words that defined the day, a deeper look at the politics that ran the race, and favorite reporter moments from the 2016 trail. If you missed it, check out our Republican edition wrap-up episode!

Freeman Colby was a young schoolteacher from New Hampshire who joined the Union Army during the American Civil War. For the first nine months, Colby kept detailed notes of his service and wrote to his family members. Marek Bennett of Henniker drew on these rich resources for his graphic novel, The Civil War Diary of Freeman Colby. In that volume, Bennett stuck close to Colby's exact language. Recently, he's published Volume II, in which he takes some liberties and draws on new sources for inspiration. NHPR's Peter Biello sat down with Marek Bennett to talk about Volume II.

When Cindy Copeland was in seventh grade in the early 1970s, an English teacher encouraged her to become a writer. Shortly after that, the Keene resident landed an internship as a “cub reporter” with a local journalist, following her to public meetings and learning how question people powerful people—most of them men. And Cindy did all this while navigating the tricky minefield of fraught friendships, cliques, and bullying that so often characterize life in junior high.

In Concord-native Meredith Tate’s new novel, a young woman is kidnapped after a drug deal goes badly. To summon help, she has an out-of-body experience. Her quest to give her sister clues about where she is and how she got there serves as the central action of the book, which is called The Last Confession of Autumn Casterly. Tate spoke about it with NHPR's Peter Biello.

Cloudy skies and scattered showers will persist into Sunday morning as a low-pressure system tracks from southeastern Minnesota into central Wisconsin. Temperatures will cool briefly to seasonal averages on Monday, followed by a warm-up and breezy winds as the week wraps up.

Asst. Prof. Koichiro Ito explains research on regulations increasing average size of vehicles

Asst. Prof. Koichiro Ito explains research on regulations increasing average size of vehicles

Alarmed by the growing popularity of rap among Russian youth, President Vladimir Putin wants cultural leaders to devise a means of controlling, rather than banning, the popular music.

Nipsey Hussle, a respected rapper who earned a Grammy nomination this year for his major-label debut, was fatally shot outside his clothing store, authorities said.

Up until Tuesday evening, 50 Cent held the distinction of throwing the worst first pitch in the history of all ceremony.

Muslim vigilante groups are working with federal authorities to lure young people into sharing blasphemous content on social media in order to put them behind bars, according to an investigation by Pakistan’s National Commission for Human Rights

Earlier this year, the city of Lebanon gave a small group of residents the chance to bring not their trash and recyclables to the local landfill, but their compost too. It makes Lebanon one of a few cities in the state helping residents reduce food waste, which is a major contributor to climate change.

People suffering as a result of unwanted same-sex attraction or gender confusion should be allowed to seek professional help, and the Church must offer a more hopeful message than simply telling them to be celibate for the rest of their lives.

A Christian counselor is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to block enforcement of a Colorado law that regulates what licensed professionals can say while discussing unwanted same-sex attractions with clients, arguing that the state government censors speech it disfavors. 

The woman who journalistically captured a burgeoning epidemic of self-harm among teen girls suddenly identifying as transgender has confronted yet another colossal behemoth: the mental health industry.

Experiments with colors are very interesting and useful Pensioner Valentina Aleksina from Moscow is a real enthusiast; she is an expert in color therapy. The woman believes that the color with which a person contacts can influence his state of health and spirits. But how is it possible? Ancient healers of the East believed that color had the unique capability of healing people's bodies and souls. The medicines of Ancient India, China, Egypt, Laos and other eastern countries had a trend called ra-therapy which cured people with the help of the rainbow colors. The ancient wise were not Orthodox and believed that energetic peculiarities of each person are unique. This in its turn means that each person has colors and shades that are particularly favorable for him. The ancient wise men made up a reasonable system revealing the influence of different colors upon the human organism; the system is based upon the individual properties of each color.

Russia has a very extensive history of military operations and wars. Russia has been successful in most of its wars, but the price was too high as too many lives had been lost. Therefore, our descendants need to remember the lessons that our ancestors left for us as a legacy. Most of the threats that Russia had to deal with were coming from the south and the southwest. One of those campaigns took place in 1827-1828, when France and England pushed Russia into the flames of another war with Turkey. General Nikolai Yepanchin combined his service in the army ranks with extensive scientific and teaching activities. He was also a member of the Military Historical Commission of the General Staff for compiling a description of the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. He repeatedly criticised the military component of the Russian Empire, dwelling in detail on how the Russian army was prepared for military campaigns.

The April National Geographic is definitely worth getting if you're interested in hominids. There's an article on the hobbits, Homo floresiensis, and another article about the Dmanisi hominids from Georgia; in particular, a new skull has been discovered there. The new skull is of interest because it is almost entirely toothless, suggesting that the individual must have received considerable support from his companions. This skull was also published on this month (Lordkipanidze et al. 2005, Nature, 434:717).

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers targeting a group of hereditary neurodegenerative diseases have found success using a gene therapy treatment in an animal model. The approach, which uses CRISPR-Cas9 genome editing technology, offers a unique and promising strategy that could one day treat rare but debilitating motor neuron diseases in humans.

A radioterapia tem sido usada para tratar o cancer desde o inicio do seculo 20. Este tipo de tratamento continua sendo um dos tratamentos mais eficazes para tumores cerebrais cancerigenos (malignos) e nao cancerigenos (benignos). A forma como ele e ministrado -- e a tecnologia utilizada -- continuou evoluindo e melhorando.

The use of biologic and targeted therapies for children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) surpassed more typical therapies in recent years, according to Rutgers Health researchers.

The use of biologic and targeted therapies for children with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA) surpassed more typical therapies in recent years, according to Rutgers Health researchers.

[Culture] :
 Calligraphy by the late Korean independence fighter Ahn Jung-geun will soon be on display for the South Korean public. According to the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History, a special exhibition on Ahn’s writings will open Thursday in cooperation with the Ahn Junggeun Memorial Association ...

[more...]

The Geography Olympiad: Bandung, Indonesia  British Geological Survey

Ordnance Survey adds geological data to its Data Hub  Geographical Magazine

The crystal structure of calcium atorvastatin trihydrate was redetermined from previously published synchrotron powder diffraction data to give a much-improved agreement with two independent density-functional theory calculations.

With ever-improving quantum-mechanical computational methods, the accuracy requirements for experimental crystal structures increase. The crystal structure of calcium atorvastatin trihydrate, which has 56 degrees of freedom when determined with a real-space algorithm, was determined from powder diffraction data by Hodge et al. [Powder Diffr. (2020), 35, 136–143]. The crystal structure was a good fit to the experimental data, indicating that the electron density had been captured essentially correctly, but two independent quantum-mechanical calculations disagreed with the experimental structure and with each other. Using the same experimental data, the crystal structure was redetermined from scratch and it was shown that it can be reproduced within a root-mean-square Cartesian displacement of 0.1 Å by two independent quantum-mechanical calculations. The consequences for the calculated energies and solubilities are described.

The synthesis of a chiral isothiourea, namely, (4aR,8aR)-3-phenyl-4a,5,6,7,8,8a-hexahydrobenzo[4,5]imidazo[2,1-b]thiazol-9-ium bromide, C15H17N2S+·Br−, with potential organocatalytic and anti-inflammatory activity is reported. The preparation of the heterocycle of interest was carried out in two high-yielding steps. The hydrobromide salt of the isothiourea of interest provided suitable crystals for X-ray diffraction analysis, the results of which are reported. Salient observations from this analysis are the near perpendicular arrangement of the phenyl ring and the mean plane of the heterocycle. This conformational characteristic may be relevant with regard the stereoselectivity induced by the chiral isothiourea in asymmetric reactions. Furthermore, evidence was found for the existence of an S...Br− halogen bond.

Following the work of Day & Hawthorne [Acta Cryst. (2022), A78, 212–233] and Day et al. [Acta Cryst. (2024), A80, 258–281], the program GraphT–T has been developed to embed graphical representations of observed and hypothetical chains of (SiO4)4− tetrahedra into 2D and 3D Euclidean space. During embedding, the distance between linked vertices (T–T distances) and the distance between unlinked vertices (T⋯T separations) in the resultant unit-distance graph are restrained to the average observed distance between linked Si tetrahedra (3.06±0.15 Å) and the minimum separation between unlinked vertices is restrained to be equal to or greater than the minimum distance between unlinked Si tetrahedra (3.713 Å) in silicate minerals. The notional interactions between vertices are described by a 3D spring-force algorithm in which the attractive forces between linked vertices behave according to Hooke's law and the repulsive forces between unlinked vertices behave according to Coulomb's law. Embedding parameters (i.e. spring coefficient, k, and Coulomb's constant, K) are iteratively refined during embedding to determine if it is possible to embed a given graph to produce a unit-distance graph with T–T distances and T⋯T separations that are compatible with the observed T–T distances and T⋯T separations in crystal structures. The resultant unit-distance graphs are denoted as compatible and may form crystal structures if and only if all distances between linked vertices (T–T distances) agree with the average observed distance between linked Si tetrahedra (3.06±0.15 Å) and the minimum separation between unlinked vertices is equal to or greater than the minimum distance between unlinked Si tetrahedra (3.713 Å) in silicate minerals. If the unit-distance graph does not satisfy these conditions, it is considered incompatible and the corresponding chain of tetrahedra is unlikely to form crystal structures. Using GraphT–T, Day et al. [Acta Cryst. (2024), A80, 258–281] have shown that several topological properties of chain graphs influence the flexibility (and rigidity) of the corresponding chains of Si tetrahedra and may explain why particular compatible chain arrangements (and the minerals in which they occur) are more common than others and/or why incompatible chain arrangements do not occur in crystals despite being topologically possible.

Ribulose-1,5-bisphosphate carboxylase/oxygenase (RuBisCO) is the enzyme responsible for the first step of carbon dioxide (CO2) fixation in plants, which proceeds via the carboxylation of ribulose 1,5-biphosphate. Because of the enormous importance of this reaction in agriculture and the environment, there is considerable interest in the mechanism of fixation of CO2 by RuBisCO. Here, a serial synchrotron crystallography structure of spinach RuBisCO is reported at 2.3 Å resolution. This structure is consistent with earlier single-crystal X-ray structures of this enzyme and the results are a good starting point for a further push towards time-resolved serial synchrotron crystallography in order to better understand the mechanism of the reaction.

Crystallographic fragment screening has become a pivotal technique in structure-based drug design, particularly for bacterial targets with a crucial role in infectious disease mechanisms. The enzyme CdaA, which synthesizes an essential second messenger cyclic di-AMP (c-di-AMP) in many pathogenic bacteria, has emerged as a promising candidate for the development of novel antibiotics. To identify crystals suitable for fragment screening, CdaA enzymes from Streptococcus pneumoniae, Bacillus subtilis and Enterococcus faecium were purified and crystallized. Crystals of B. subtilis CdaA, which diffracted to the highest resolution of 1.1 Å, were used to perform the screening of 96 fragments, yielding data sets with resolutions spanning from 1.08 to 1.87 Å. A total of 24 structural hits across eight different sites were identified. Four fragments bind to regions that are highly conserved among pathogenic bacteria, specifically the active site (three fragments) and the dimerization interface (one fragment). The coordinates of the three active-site fragments were used to perform an in silico drug-repurposing screen using the OpenEye suite and the DrugBank database. This screen identified tenofovir, an approved drug, that is predicted to interact with the ATP-binding region of CdaA. Its inhibitory potential against pathogenic E. faecium CdaA has been confirmed by ITC measurements. These findings not only demonstrate the feasibility of this approach for identifying lead compounds for the design of novel antibacterial agents, but also pave the way for further fragment-based lead-optimization efforts targeting CdaA.

Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) is the first enzyme in the pentose phosphate pathway. It has been extensively studied by biochemical and structural techniques. 13 X-ray crystal structures and five electron cryo-microscopy structures in the PDB are focused on in this topical review. Two F420-dependent glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (FGD) structures are also reported. The significant differences between human and parasite G6PDs can be exploited to find selective drugs against infections such as malaria and leishmaniasis. Furthermore, G6PD is a prognostic marker in several cancer types and is also considered to be a tumour target. On the other hand, FGD is considered to be a target against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and possesses a high biotechnological potential in biocatalysis and bioremediation.

Fixed targets (`chips') offer efficient, high-throughput microcrystal delivery for serial crystallography at synchrotrons and X-ray free-electron lasers (XFELs). Within this family, sheet-on-sheet (SOS) chips offer noteworthy advantages in cost, adaptability, universality and ease of crystal loading. We describe our latest generation of SOS devices, which are now in active use at both synchrotrons and XFELs.

AnACor2.0 significantly accelerates the calculation of analytical absorption corrections in long-wavelength crystallography, achieving up to 175× speed improvements. This enhancement is achieved through innovative sampling techniques, bisection and gridding methods, and optimized CUDA implementations, ensuring efficient and accurate results.

RAPID (RAtio method Pattern InDexing) is an ImageJ macro script developed for the quick determination of sample orientation and indexing of calibrated and uncalibrated zone axis aligned electron diffraction patterns from materials with a cubic crystal structure. In addition to SAED and NBED patterns, the program is also capable of handling zone axis TEM Kikuchi patterns and FFTs derived from HR(S)TEM images. The software enables users to rapidly determine whether materials are cubic, pseudo-cubic, or non-cubic, and to distinguish between P, I, and F Bravais lattices. It can also provide lattice parameters for material verification and aid in determining the camera constant of the instrument, thus making the program a convenient tool for on-site crystallographic analysis in the TEM laboratory.

Here we describe TOMOMAN (TOMOgram MANager), an extensible open-sourced software package for handling cryo-electron tomography data preprocessing. TOMOMAN streamlines interoperability between a wide range of external packages and provides tools for project sharing and archival.

Analytical absorption corrections are employed in scaling diffraction data for highly absorbing samples, such as those used in long-wavelength crystallography, where empirical corrections pose a challenge. AnACor2.0 is an accelerated software package developed to calculate analytical absorption corrections. It accomplishes this by ray-tracing the paths of diffracted X-rays through a voxelized 3D model of the sample. Due to the computationally intensive nature of ray-tracing, the calculation of analytical absorption corrections for a given sample can be time consuming. Three experimental datasets (insulin at λ = 3.10 Å, thermolysin at λ = 3.53 Å and thaumatin at λ = 4.13 Å) were processed to investigate the effectiveness of the accelerated methods in AnACor2.0. These methods demonstrated a maximum reduction in execution time of up to 175× compared with previous methods. As a result, the absorption factor calculation for the insulin dataset can now be completed in less than 10 s. These acceleration methods combine sampling, which evaluates subsets of crystal voxels, with modifications to standard ray-tracing. The bisection method is used to find path lengths, reducing the complexity from O(n) to O(log2 n). The gridding method involves calculating a regular grid of diffraction paths and using interpolation to find an absorption correction for a specific reflection. Additionally, optimized and specifically designed CUDA implementations for NVIDIA GPUs are utilized to enhance performance. Evaluation of these methods using simulated and real datasets demonstrates that systematic sampling of the 3D model provides consistently accurate results with minimal variance across different sampling ratios. The mean difference of absorption factors from the full calculation (without sampling) is at most 2%. Additionally, the anomalous peak heights of sulfur atoms in the Fourier map show a mean difference of only 1% compared with the full calculation. This research refines and accelerates the process of analytical absorption corrections, introducing innovative sampling and computational techniques that significantly enhance efficiency while maintaining accurate results.

Serial crystallography (SX) efficiently distributes over many crystals the radiation dose absorbed during diffraction data acquisition, enabling structure determination of samples at ambient temperature. SX relies on the rapid and reliable replacement of X-ray-exposed crystals with fresh crystals at a rate commensurate with the data acquisition rate. `Solid supports', also known as `fixed targets' or `chips', offer one approach. These are microscopically thin solid panes into or onto which crystals are deposited to be individually interrogated by an X-ray beam. Solid supports are generally patterned using photolithography methods to produce a regular array of features that trap single crystals. A simpler and less expensive alternative is to merely sandwich the microcrystals between two unpatterned X-ray-transparent polymer sheets. Known as sheet-on-sheet (SOS) chips, these offer significantly more versatility. SOS chips place no constraint on the size or size distribution of the microcrystals or their growth conditions. Crystals ranging from true nanocrystals up to microcrystals can be investigated, as can crystals grown in media ranging from low viscosity (aqueous solution) up to high viscosity (such as lipidic cubic phase). Here, we describe our two SOS devices. The first is a compact and lightweight version designed specifically for synchrotron use. It incorporates a standard SPINE-type magnetic base for mounting on a conventional macromolecular crystallography goniometer. The second and larger chip is intended for both X-ray free-electron laser and synchrotron use and is fully compatible with the fast-scanning XY-raster stages developed for data collection with patterned chips.

In the realm of X-ray ptychography experiments, a considerable amount of ptychography scans are typically performed within a field of view encompassing the target sample. While it is crucial to obtain overlapping scans in small increments over the region of interest for achieving high-resolution sample reconstruction, a significant number of these scans often redundantly measure the empty background within the wide field of view. To address this inefficiency, an innovative algorithm is proposed that introduces automatic guidance for data acquisition. The algorithm first directs the scan point to actively search for the object of interest within the field of view. Subsequently, it intelligently scans along the perimeter of the sample, strategically acquiring measurements exclusively within the boundary of the region of interest. By employing this approach, a reduction in the number of measurements required to obtain high-resolution reconstruction images is demonstrated, as compared with conventional raster scanning methods. Furthermore, the automatic guidance provided by the algorithm offers the added advantage of saving valuable time during the reconstruction process. Through practical implementation on real experiments, these findings showcase the efficacy of the proposed algorithm in enhancing the efficiency and accuracy of X-ray ptychography experiments. This novel approach holds immense potential for advancing sample analysis and imaging techniques in various scientific disciplines.

In X-ray diffraction imaging (XDI), electron density maps of a targeted particle are reconstructed computationally from the diffraction pattern alone using phase-retrieval (PR) algorithms. However, the PR calculations sometimes fail to yield realistic electron density maps that approximate the structure of the particle. This occurs due to the absence of structure amplitudes at and near the zero-scattering angle and the presence of Poisson noise in weak diffraction patterns. Consequently, the PR calculation becomes a bottleneck for XDI structure analyses. Here, a protocol to efficiently yield realistic maps is proposed. The protocol is based on the empirical observation that realistic maps tend to yield low similarity scores, as suggested in our prior study [Sekiguchi et al. (2017), J. Synchrotron Rad. 24, 1024–1038]. Among independently and concurrently executed PR calculations, the protocol modifies all maps using the electron-density maps exhibiting low similarity scores. This approach, along with a new protocol for estimating particle shape, improved the probability of obtaining realistic maps for diffraction patterns from various aggregates of colloidal gold particles, as compared with PR calculations performed without the protocol. Consequently, the protocol has the potential to reduce computational costs in PR calculations and enable efficient XDI structure analysis of non-crystalline particles using synchrotron X-rays and X-ray free-electron laser pulses.