Up to 18 countries across Latin America have joined China’s new Belt and Road Initiative, hoping to boost their infrastructure development and investment.  

Pennsylvania is promoting a new roadmap to electrify transportation by designing policies and setting targets to get more electric vehicles on the roads.

It’s lighter, abundant and finally ready to take on Tesla. Hydrogen-powered vehicles are gearing up to challenge electric vehicles again in the race for mass-market clean cars. This week, a much larger group of companies signed on to a global coalition aimed at drumming up government support for the technology that Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk has derided as “ mind-bogglingly stupid” for cars. The firms also pledged to find a cleaner way to produce the gas.

Bonds backing clean energy and other sustainable initiatives are booming. Investors are snapping up green bonds at the fastest pace on record, as big banks like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp. pile in with new issuance to feed the growing appetite for socially responsible investments.

RWE AG, the German utility whose coal-fired plants make it Europe’s largest carbon emitter, officially started the company’s largest renewables project on Thursday: a wind farm in Liverpool Bay off Britain’s coast.

A "dark horse" is defined as a little-known entity that emerges to prominence in the face of competition — a contestant that seems unlikely to succeed. I borrow the term from a conversation last week, wherein India was referred to as the dark horse in the global race to go solar.

The World Bank indicated in its new report "Building Competitive Green Industries: The Climate and Clean Technology Opportunity for Developing Countries" that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in developing countries are set to undergo significant growth and create more jobs in the field of clean technology. Anabel Gonzalez, senior director for the World Bank's Global Practice on Trade and Competitiveness, said developing home-grown clean-tech industries will help developing countries more effectively increase the adoption of low-cost clean energy and drive sustainable economic development.

Pennsylvania is promoting a new roadmap to electrify transportation by designing policies and setting targets to get more electric vehicles on the roads.

The offshore wind market in the is lagging behind other areas of the energy sector when it comes to embracing – and understanding – the potential of digital technologies.

Bonds backing clean energy and other sustainable initiatives are booming. Investors are snapping up green bonds at the fastest pace on record, as big banks like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America Corp. pile in with new issuance to feed the growing appetite for socially responsible investments.

RWE AG, the German utility whose coal-fired plants make it Europe’s largest carbon emitter, officially started the company’s largest renewables project on Thursday: a wind farm in Liverpool Bay off Britain’s coast.

Check here each week to keep up with the latest from John MacArthur's pulpit at Grace Community Church.

From Italy to Kansas, health authorities are increasingly warning that the question isn’t whether a second wave of infections and deaths will hit, but when and how badly.

New York has embarked on a program to use thousands of 'contact tracers' to track the spread of the novel coronavirus and contain its reach. ......

Photo by DIRK WAEM/BELGA/AFP via Getty Images Dockworkers in Belgium are wearing bracelets to enforce social distancing. The bracelets were already used to detect if someone fell into the water, but now they will sound an alarm if workers get to close to each other. Manufacturers say there is no privacy issue and the bracelets don't track...

After 40 episodes, “Terrace House Tokyo 2019-2020” has gone on hiatus to protect the cast and crew amid the COVID-19 pandemic. It’s still unclear when, ...

Irish golf courses will reopen on 18 May after 55 days without a round being played - but there will be numerous restrictions. Gary Moran reports on the sport's first, tentative steps towards normality.

Former US Senate aide Tara Reade said on Thursday that presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden should acknowledge her claim that he sexually assaulted her is true and quit the 2020 presidential race.“You and I were there, Joe Biden. Please step forward and be held accountable. You should not be running on character for the president of the United States,” Reade said during her first on-camera interview since Biden appeared on MSNBC last week and denied her accusation for the first…

Earlier this week, a Southern California filmmaker posted his newest production on Facebook and YouTube and let the social media platforms do what they’ve been built for: make his video go viral.Within days, the 26-minute video had spread like wildfire, racking up millions of views and attracting legions of new fans. The video, called “Plandemic,” looks like a serious documentary, with well-shot interviews intercut with news footage and ominous music. But it propagates coronavirus conspiracy…

After almost three months of hectic preparation, Denis Huen Yin-fan’s Hong Kong factory started delivering masks to customers last week to help protect them against the Covid-19 pandemic.Just as the supplies began reaching his clients, the Hong Kong government announced it will be distributing reusable and disposable masks to all households, free of charge, within weeks.Every household will receive reusable masks that can be washed up to 60 times, as well as a pack of 10 disposable masks.1.5…

WASHINGTON: The woman who accused Joe Biden of sexually assaulting her in 1993 called on him to drop out of the US presidential race, saying Thursday she´d take a polygraph about the alleged encounter if he would. Tara Reade said in March that Biden, the Democratic Party´s presumptive...

Helen Keller, author, lecturer, and political activist, once said, “Alone, we can do so little; together, we can do so much.” For over sixty years, HARMAN has demonstrated our passion for working together to support the communities where we live and work...

In January, a plethora of companies and brands were in Las Vegas to kick off the New Year at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES). From smart TVs and refrigerators to digital assistants, robots, and more, CES is the place to be to experience the latest...

With its highly strategic and importance place in the world, China is a critical market for international expansion for a wide range of global businesses including those in the automotive space. HARMAN is dedicated to expanding its footprint in the ...

Google recently claimed to have achieved quantum supremacy, but many companies are still hoping their own quantum computers will soon overtake Google's

Amazon has combined three types of quantum computing processors from D-Wave Systems, IonQ, and Rigetti Computing into a cloud service to test quantum algorithms

The race among start ups to win the self driving car billions is heating up and the field is crowded with 75 of them in Silicon Valley alone and more than 240 around the world.

Diamonds that formed twice as deep as normal contain evidence of a pristine hunk of original Earth rock hiding deep underground

Many classic psychology experiments have found humans to be pretty gullible. But book Not Born Yesterday argues that such a trait runs against the logic of natural selection

After finding out she was autistic, Siena Castellon sparked a global school movement that celebrates neurodiversity, which now includes nearly half a million students

The hope is that we will have a coronavirus vaccine in 12-18 months, but for that to happen we may have to rely on untested techniques - and that comes with its own risks.

Tara Reade, the woman who alleges Joe Biden sexually assaulted her in 1993, said in a video interview on Thursday that he should withdraw from the White House race. Gloria Tso reports.

Covid-19 contact tracers are part healthcare worker, part detective and part call centre operative. But what is the job really like? New Scientist spoke to one in Ireland to find out

The UK government has set a new target of recruiting an army of 18,000 coronavirus contact tracers by the middle of May, to be in place for the launch of the NHS contact tracing app

The UK government has refused to say how many covid-19 contact tracers it has employed, with less than three weeks to go until its target of recruiting 18,000 of them by mid-May

Pfizer's chief scientific officer tells Reuters his company got a head start on vaccine development for the coronavirus because it had already been working for two years on the flu with its German partner, BioNTech. Fred Katayama reports.

Title: Contraception Safety Program for Acne Drug Failing in Canada
Category: Health News
Created: 4/25/2016 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 4/26/2016 12:00:00 AM

Title: What Is Paracentesis?
Category: Procedures and Tests
Created: 3/23/2020 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 3/23/2020 12:00:00 AM

Title: Birth Control Pills (List of Oral Contraceptives and Side Effects)
Category: Medications
Created: 12/31/1997 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 1/30/2020 12:00:00 AM

Detailed landform mapping of key areas in the Vale of Pickering, supported by LiDAR interpretation, has produced sufficient evidence to establish a reinterpretation of the Mid to Late Pleistocene chronology of the Vale of Pickering by defining the margins of two temporally distinct proglacial lakes and reaching a new understanding of the origin of some well-documented geomorphological features. The main significance of the mapping has been to establish that the Hutton Buscel terrace probably originated by lateral erosion along the southern edge of the Corallian Group dip slope of the North York Moors prior to deposition of a broad alluvial plain below a 70 m strandline. Traces of a comparable feature were also located below the Chalk Group escarpment on the southern side of the Vale of Pickering. Perhaps of equal significance has been confirmation that the younger of the two lakes, which has a 45 m shoreline, was possibly connected to Lake Humber in the Vale of York through the Derwent Valley. Evidence for such a lake was provided by mapped shorelines at Malton and Pickering that appear compatible with shorelines in Lake Humber. To account for deep erosion of the Derwent and Mere valleys and the occurrence of laminated clays at c. 65 m, below a 70 m shoreline above Crambe, regional uplift has been evoked post the older 70 m lake. In-valley alluvial fans have been mapped for the first time in Newton Dale and Thornton Dale.

The invertebrate trace fossils Selenichnites rossendalensis and Crescentichnus tesiltus are recorded and described from the Middle Jurassic Gristhorpe Member of the Cloughton Formation of the Cleveland Basin. This is the first record of these ichnospecies from the basin and now completes the occurrence of these and other traces assumed to have been made by limulids from all three non-marine formations of the Ravenscar Group.

Membrane-bound proteins have been proposed to mediate the transport of long-chain FA (LCFA) transport through the plasma membrane (PM). These proposals are based largely on reports that PM transport of LCFAs can be blocked by a number of enzymes and purported inhibitors of LCFA transport. Here, using the ratiometric pH indicator (2',7'-bis-(2-carboxyethyl)-5-(and-6-)-carboxyfluorescein and acrylodated intestinal FA-binding protein-based dual fluorescence assays, we investigated the effects of nine inhibitors of the putative FA transporter protein CD36 on the binding and transmembrane movement of LCFAs. We particularly focused on sulfosuccinimidyl oleate (SSO), reported to be a competitive inhibitor of CD36-mediated LCFA transport. Using these assays in adipocytes and inhibitor-treated protein-free lipid vesicles, we demonstrate that rapid LCFA transport across model and biological membranes remains unchanged in the presence of these purported inhibitors. We have previously shown in live cells that CD36 does not accelerate the transport of unesterified LCFAs across the PM. Our present experiments indicated disruption of LCFA metabolism inside the cell within minutes upon treatment with many of the "inhibitors" previously assumed to inhibit LCFA transport across the PM. Furthermore, using confocal microscopy and a specific anti-SSO antibody, we found that numerous intracellular and PM-bound proteins are SSO-modified in addition to CD36. Our results support the hypothesis that LCFAs diffuse rapidly across biological membranes and do not require an active protein transporter for their transmembrane movement.

Cellular membranes are not homogenous mixtures of proteins; rather, they are segregated into microdomains on the basis of preferential association between specific lipids and proteins. These microdomains, called lipid rafts, are well known for their role in receptor signaling on the plasma membrane (PM) and are essential to such cellular functions as signal transduction and spatial organization of the PM. A number of disease states, including atherosclerosis and other cardiovascular disorders, may be caused by dysfunctional maintenance of lipid rafts. Lipid rafts do not occur only in the PM but also have been found in intracellular membranes and extracellular vesicles (EVs). Here, we focus on discussing newly discovered functions of lipid rafts and microdomains in intracellular membranes, including lipid and protein trafficking from the ER, Golgi bodies, and endosomes to the PM, and we examine lipid raft involvement in the production and composition of EVs. Because lipid rafts are small and transient, visualization remains challenging. Future work with advanced techniques will continue to expand our knowledge about the roles of lipid rafts in cellular functioning.

ABSTRACT

Intracellular bacterial pathogens remodel cellular functions during their infectious cycle via the coordinated actions of effector molecules delivered through dedicated secretion systems. While the function of many individual effectors is known, how they interact to promote pathogenesis is rarely understood. The zoonotic bacterium Brucella abortus, the causative agent of brucellosis, delivers effector proteins via its VirB type IV secretion system (T4SS) which mediate biogenesis of the endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-derived replicative Brucella-containing vacuole (rBCV). Here, we show that T4SS effectors BspB and RicA display epistatic interactions in Brucella replication. Defects in rBCV biogenesis and Brucella replication caused by deletion of bspB were dependent on the host GTPase Rab2a and suppressed by the deletion of ricA, indicating a role of Rab2-binding effector RicA in these phenotypic defects. Rab2a requirements for rBCV biogenesis and Brucella intracellular replication were abolished upon deletion of both bspB and ricA, demonstrating that the functional interaction of these effectors engages Rab2-dependent transport in the Brucella intracellular cycle. Expression of RicA impaired host secretion and caused Golgi fragmentation. While BspB-mediated changes in ER-to-Golgi transport were independent of RicA and Rab2a, BspB-driven alterations in Golgi vesicular traffic also involved RicA and Rab2a, defining BspB and RicA’s functional interplay at the Golgi interface. Altogether, these findings support a model where RicA modulation of Rab2a functions impairs Brucella replication but is compensated by BspB-mediated remodeling of Golgi apparatus-associated vesicular transport, revealing an epistatic interaction between these T4SS effectors.

IMPORTANCE Bacterial pathogens with an intracellular lifestyle modulate many host cellular processes to promote their infectious cycle. They do so by delivering effector proteins into host cells via dedicated secretion systems that target specific host functions. While the roles of many individual effectors are known, how their modes of action are coordinated is rarely understood. Here, we show that the zoonotic bacterium Brucella abortus delivers the BspB effector that mitigates the negative effect on bacterial replication that the RicA effector exerts via modulation of the host small GTPase Rab2. These findings provide an example of functional integration between bacterial effectors that promotes proliferation of pathogens.

ABSTRACT

Microbial pathogens exploit host nutrients to proliferate and cause disease. Intracellular pathogens, particularly those exclusively living in the phagosome such as Histoplasma capsulatum, must adapt and acquire nutrients within the nutrient-limited phagosomal environment. In this study, we investigated which host nutrients could be utilized by Histoplasma as carbon sources to proliferate within macrophages. Histoplasma yeasts can grow on hexoses and amino acids but not fatty acids as the carbon source in vitro. Transcriptional analysis and metabolism profiling showed that Histoplasma yeasts downregulate glycolysis and fatty acid utilization but upregulate gluconeogenesis within macrophages. Depletion of glycolysis or fatty acid utilization pathways does not prevent Histoplasma growth within macrophages or impair virulence in vivo. However, loss of function in Pck1, the enzyme catalyzing the first committed step of gluconeogenesis, impairs Histoplasma growth within macrophages and severely attenuates virulence in vivo, indicating that Histoplasma yeasts rely on catabolism of gluconeogenic substrates (e.g., amino acids) to proliferate within macrophages.

IMPORTANCE Histoplasma is a primary human fungal pathogen that survives and proliferates within host immune cells, particularly within the macrophage phagosome compartment. The phagosome compartment is a nutrient-limited environment, requiring Histoplasma yeasts to be able to assimilate available carbon sources within the phagosome to meet their nutritional needs. In this study, we showed that Histoplasma yeasts do not utilize fatty acids or hexoses for growth within macrophages. Instead, Histoplasma yeasts consume gluconeogenic substrates to proliferate in macrophages. These findings reveal the phagosome composition from a nutrient standpoint and highlight essential metabolic pathways that are required for a phagosomal pathogen to proliferate in this intracellular environment.

ABSTRACT

Polymorphonuclear granulocytes (PMNs) are indispensable for controlling life-threatening fungal infections. In addition to various effector mechanisms, PMNs also produce extracellular vesicles (EVs). Their contribution to antifungal defense has remained unexplored. We reveal that the clinically important human-pathogenic fungus Aspergillus fumigatus triggers PMNs to release a distinct set of antifungal EVs (afEVs). Proteome analyses indicated that afEVs are enriched in antimicrobial proteins. The cargo and the release kinetics of EVs are modulated by the fungal strain confronted. Tracking of afEVs indicated that they associated with fungal cells and even entered fungal hyphae, resulting in alterations in the morphology of the fungal cell wall and dose-dependent antifungal effects. To assess as a proof of concept whether the antimicrobial proteins found in afEVs might contribute to growth inhibition of hyphae when present in the fungal cytoplasm, two human proteins enriched in afEVs, cathepsin G and azurocidin, were heterologously expressed in fungal hyphae. This led to reduced fungal growth relative to that of a control strain producing the human retinol binding protein 7. In conclusion, extracellular vesicles produced by neutrophils in response to A. fumigatus infection are able to associate with the fungus, limit growth, and elicit cell damage by delivering antifungal cargo. This finding offers an intriguing, previously overlooked mechanism of antifungal defense against A. fumigatus.

IMPORTANCE Invasive fungal infections caused by the mold Aspergillus fumigatus are a growing concern in the clinic due to the increasing use of immunosuppressive therapies and increasing antifungal drug resistance. These infections result in high rates of mortality, as treatment and diagnostic options remain limited. In healthy individuals, neutrophilic granulocytes are critical for elimination of A. fumigatus from the host; however, the exact extracellular mechanism of neutrophil-mediated antifungal activity remains unresolved. Here, we present a mode of antifungal defense employed by human neutrophils against A. fumigatus not previously described. We found that extracellular vesicles produced by neutrophils in response to A. fumigatus infection are able to associate with the fungus, limit growth, and elicit cell damage by delivering antifungal cargo. In the end, antifungal extracellular vesicle biology provides a significant step forward in our understanding of A. fumigatus host pathogenesis and opens up novel diagnostic and therapeutic possibilities.