UCSB Anthropologists Study Testosterone Spikes in Non-Competitive Activities

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) — The everyday physical activities of an isolated group of forager-farmers in central Bolivia are providing valuable information about

Benjamin C. Trumble,
Credit: Adrian Jaeggi

how industrialization and its associated modern amenities may impact health and wellness.

Studying short-term spikes in the testosterone levels of Tsimane men, UC Santa Barbara anthropologists Ben Trumble and Michael Gurven have found that the act of chopping down trees –– a physically demanding task that is critical to successful farming and food production –– results in greater increases in testosterone than does a directly competitive activity such as soccer. Their research appears in the early online edition of the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

"With the Tsimane, we see an environment that is more like that in which humans evolved, and for which our systems are calibrated," said Trumble, a postdoctoral researcher in anthropology at UCSB and the paper's lead author. The paper was written with Gurven, a UCSB professor of anthropology and co-director of the Tsimane Health and Life History Project, a collaboration between UCSB and the University of New Mexico.

According to Trumble, whose research lies at the intersection of hormones, behavior, and the environment, testosterone levels are closely related to the availability of food energy. When young men skip even a single meal, their testosterone levels can drop as much as 10 percent. Fast for a couple of days, and they decrease to castrate levels.

Full description below ++

"The same is true for infection," he added. "An infection from a pathogen or parasite –– even injuries, burns, or surgery –– all cause an immediate decrease in testosterone."
The body uses food energy for a number of critical processes. Among them are building muscle mass and maintaining proper immune function. When food energy is limited, the body has to choose between one and the other. For populations in industrialized countries like the United States, there isn't much of a tradeoff," Trumble said. "I can go to the grocery store and gather 20,000 calories in 10 minutes without breaking a sweat. I don't have to worry about a deficit."

However, for a group such as the Tsimane, who are more physically active than most Americans –– and use a lot more food energy –– but also have to grow, hunt, or fish for the vast majority of the calories they consume, the tradeoff is much greater. In addition, the Tsimane's regular exposure to pathogens and parasites requires additional calories for maintaining necessary immune function.

Previous studies by Trumble, Gurven, and others have demonstrated that competitive activity –– such as soccer –– causes a short-term spike in testosterone. "Past research has mostly focused on the role of testosterone in aggressive competition," Trumble said. "Given the important of testosterone in supplying energy to muscles, we wanted to look at how testosterone changes during another vital part of Tsimane life –– food production." He and the research team collected saliva specimens from Tsimane men before and after an hour of tree chopping, just as previous studies had examined saliva specimens taken from Tsimane men immediately before and after an hour of soccer. "With soccer, we saw a 30.1 percent increase in testosterone," Trumble said. "With chopping, we saw a 46.8 percent increase. It was significantly greater."

The acute spike in testosterone increases the muscle's ability to take in blood sugar, which, in turn, enhances soccer performance and reaction times. It turns out the same is true for tree chopping. "If you're better able to pull blood sugar into your muscle tissue, and better able to use that energy, you'll be able to chop more trees," Trumble explained.

While Tsimane men have a relatively low baseline testosterone level –– 33 percent lower than that of men living in the United States, where life is less physically demanding –– they appear to maintain their testosterone levels over the course of their lives. This is contrary to the United States and other industrialized populations, where men generally experience decreases in testosterone as they age.

"One of the important take-home messages of this study is that over the course of human evolution, we had very physical strategies for producing calories. It's important to think about how testosterone fits into that. We needed to maintain testosterone in order to maintain muscle mass, and also to spike testosterone when necessary. If you're a 50-year-old Tsimane man, for example, you probably have six or more children, and you need to be able to feed them. If you lose the ability to have the acute spikes in testosterone that increase your ability to chop trees –– chop longer and chop harder –– that would be detrimental to feeding your family."
Trumble noted that in many societies women produce a significant portion of calories, and other researchers have reported acute spikes in testosterone during physical activity for women, despite their very low baseline levels. "While we didn't measure the testosterone of women in this study, women can also produce short-term spikes, which suggests the importance of acute rises in testosterone not only for competition over mates, but also for critical daily tasks such as food production."


The paper's other co-authors include Hillard S. Kaplan and Daniel K. Cummings of the University of New Mexico, Albuquerque; and Kathleen A. O'Connor, Darryl J. Holman and Eric A. Smith of the University of Washington, Seattle.

++ Bottom image: A new study finds Tsimane men experience higher short-term testosterone spikes while chopping trees than they do playing competitive soccer.
Credit: Benjamin C. Trumble

UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 • (805) 893-8000

UCSB Professor Collaborates on New Gene Repair Technique That Promises Advances in Regenerative Medicine

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Using human pluripotent stem cells and DNA-cutting

James Thomson,
Credit: Michael Klenitz

protein from meningitis bacteria, researchers from UC Santa Barbara, the Morgridge Institute for Research at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and Northwestern University have created an efficient way to target and repair defective genes.
Published today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the team's findings demonstrate that the novel technique is much simpler than previous methods and establishes the groundwork for major advances in regenerative medicine, drug screening, and biomedical research.
Principal investigator James A. Thomson, co-director of biology at UCSB's Center for Stem Cell Biology and Engineering and professor in the campus's Department of Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology, said the discovery holds many practical applications, including paving a new route for correcting genetic disorders. Thomson is also director of regenerative biology at the Morgridge Institute, serves as the James Kress Professor of Embryonic Stem Cell Biology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, and is a John D. MacArthur professor at UW–Madison's School of Medicine and Public Health.
According to the paper's lead author, Zhonggang Hou of the Morgridge Institute's regenerative biology team, the technique has the potential to repair any genetic defect, including those responsible for some forms of breast cancer, Parkinson's, and other diseases. "The fact that it can be applied to human pluripotent stem cells opens the door for meaningful therapeutic applications," said Hou.
The research team focused on Neisseria meningitidis bacteria because it is a good source of the Cas9 protein needed for precisely cleaving damaged sections of DNA. Using different types of small RNA molecules, the research team was able to guide this protein, engendering the careful removal, replacement, or correction of problem genes. "This represents a step forward from other recent technologies built upon proteins, such as zinc finger nucleases and transcription activator-like effector nucleases," said Yan Zhang of Northwestern University, second author of the paper.
These previous gene correction methods required engineered proteins to help with the cutting. The researchers said scientists can synthesize RNA for the new process in as little as one to three days, compared with the weeks or months needed to engineer suitable proteins.
"Human pluripotent stem cells can proliferate indefinitely and they give rise to virtually all human cell types, making them invaluable for regenerative medicine, drug screening, and biomedical research," Thomson said. "This collaboration has taken us further toward realizing the full potential of these cells because we can now manipulate their genomes in a precise, efficient manner."
Erik Sontheimer, another principal investigator and the Soretta and Henry Shapiro Research Professor of Molecular Biology in Northwestern's department of molecular biosciences, Center for Genetic Medicine, and the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University, said the team's results also offer hopeful signs about the safety of the technique.
"A major concern with previous methods involved inadvertent or off-target cleaving, raising issues about the potential impact in regenerative medicine applications," said Sontheimer. "Beyond overcoming the safety obstacles, the system's ease of use will make what was once considered a difficult project into a routine laboratory technique, catalyzing future research."
Also contributing to the study, which was supported by funding from the National Institutes of Health, the Wynn Foundation, and the Morgridge Institute for Research, were Nicholas Propson, Sara Howden, and Li-Fang Chu from the Morgridge Institute for Research.

UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 • (805) 893-8000

Fuel efficiency with insect protection

The DLR ATRA research aircraft collects data during low-altitude flights over Saxony-Anhalt

ATRA above Magdeburg-Cochstedt Airport;
Credit: DLR (CC-BY 3.0)

A windscreen full of insect remains is a familiar experience on the roads in summer. It is no different on the runway at the airport. On warm days, aircraft sometimes collide with entire swarms of insects as they take off and land. Researchers at the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) are working in partnership with Airbus to investigate how the resulting large-scale contamination disturbs the airflow over new wing designs in particular, thus putting targeted fuel savings at risk. Extremely low-level flights by the DLR ATRA research aircraft over Magdeburg-Cochstedt Airport have shown experts in flow patterns how small flying animals affect aircraft. The aim is to create hi-tech wings that incorporate insect protection for the future.

“As part of our research work on laminar-flow technology, we are working with Airbus to pursue the aim of improving commercial aircraft in terms of environmental sustainability, noise emissions and cost-effectiveness,” says Dominic Gloß from the DLR Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology. “The numerous insects that encounter the front portions of the wings hinder the development of large laminar-flow, low-friction areas on the wing, rendering the effort to save fuel by using laminar flow ineffective.” Modern wings made of carbon fibre are being investigated in the area of laminar-flow technology. The wings of the future will need to have particularly smooth surfaces for the laminar flow, so that significantly lower drag can be achieved than with current wings.

“In future, special front flaps that are extended during take-off and landing to increase lift are also expected to protect the wing from insect contamination," says Gloß. The DLR ATRA, an Airbus A320 airliner that has been converted into a research aircraft, has become the researchers’ flying laboratory for new technology: “We are using the ATRA for the tests in circling flights. Each test point involves some ten flights over the airport at low altitude,” explains the Braunschweig-based researcher. “Insects typically fly very low, which presents a particular challenge for in-flight research. They are rarely found above an altitude of 200 metres. Their numbers diminish drastically as the altitude increases."

Low fly-bys instead of take-offs and landings

“From the DLR site in Braunschweig, we set a course for Magdeburg-Cochstedt Airport with the ATRA,” reports test pilot Stefan Seydel. “The individual fly-bys over the airport were exciting – we used them to simulate the take-offs and landings of a commercial aircraft,” continues the head of the DLR flight department in Braunschweig, adding: “The aim was to fly at around 15 metres above the ground, so that, in as short a time as possible, we could induce the undesired negative effects of insects, which are actually an everyday occurrence in typical take-off and landing configurations.” The test pilots carried out up to 30 such low-altitude flights and subsequent touch-and-go landings in a day. The test flights took place between 23 July and 6 August, on a total of four days specially selected for the numbers of insects to be expected.

Adhesive film with insect patterns

“The numerous low-level flights gave us a good picture of where the insects were sticking to the aircraft,” says DLR researcher Gloß. Gloß and his colleagues captured the insects on a series of adhesive films and are now storing the insect patterns in their computer models. “We will use the computer results for future aerodynamic wing designs, for further developments in laminar-flow technology.”

Gliders as examples

The scientists’ perspective goes beyond the development status of today’s commercial aircraft. Numerous surface bumps caused by rivets, layers and joints have been affecting the wings to date. To develop the laminar-flow wing, the researchers must first eliminate these flow disruptors from the design: “The development of wings with a less flow-disruptive surface quality is a major challenge, but it is technically possible,” says Gloß. Future laminar-flow wings are based on the smooth, flow-optimised wings of modern gliders, but they will be significantly larger.

The carbon-fibre reinforced composite wings of the future, with no disruptive irregularities or contamination by insects, will reduce fuel consumption.  The leading-edge flaps on the new wings will provide the necessary protection – insect protection to save fuel, as it were, the design of which is being influenced by the test flights being carried out now.

The impressive test flights at Magdeburg-Cochstedt Airport are an initial step in the ProWinGS (Performance Development for Wing Design, Ground Test and Simulations) project, funded by the German Federal Ministry for Economics and Technology under the 4th Aviation Research Programme. Further occasional test flights are planned for the end of August.

Contacts

Falk Dambowsky
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Corporate Communications, Editor Aeronautics
Tel.: +49 2203 601-3959
mailto:falk.dambowsky@dlr.de

Dominic Fabian Gloß
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Institute of Aerodynamics and Flow Technology
Tel.: +49 531 295-3302
mailto:dominic.gloss@dlr.de

Stefan Seydel
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Head of Flight Operations Department, Flight Facility Braunschweig
Tel.: +49 531 295-2240
mailto:stefan.seydel@dlr.de

Commissioning of the new research ship MYA II – Handing over to scientists at the Alfred Wegener Institute on Sylt

List/Bremerhaven, 12 August 2013. A good 21 metres long, 1.30 metre

MYA II, Credit: Florian Lange,
Alfred-Wegener-Institut

draught, a maximum speed of ten knots and full of the most up-to-date technology: on 13 August 2013 the research ship MYA II will be handed over to science at a ceremony in List on Sylt. Prof. Dr. Waltraud Wende, the Schleswig-Holstein Minister for Education and Research, is going to be present at the event, as well as representatives of the Federal Ministry for Education and Research. Ten percent of the 4.5 million euro development and construction costs for the MYA II were met by the State of Schleswig-Holstein, and 90 percent from federal funds. One highlight will be the awarding of the “Blue Angel” eco label for the environmentally friendly ship design of the MYA II. The public will then be invited to get to know the ship in List harbour, and talk to scientists during the open day at the neighbouring Alfred Wegener Institute’s Wadden Sea Station Sylt. 

Godmother Bianca Jablonski and captain Alfred Resch,
Credit: Folke Mehrtens, Alfred-Wegener-Institut

“Whilst this is our smallest research vessel, it is extremely modern and ideally equipped for coastal research”, said Prof. Dr. Karin Lochte, Director of the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) during the launch of the MYA II last month in the Fassmer shipyard. She is impressed by the modern technology on board which is reminiscent of the equipment on large research vessels. The ship has a network and data logging system, which continually stores the measurements from various sensors centrally. Fixed installations include a navigation system for precise position location, a sonar system for mapping the seabed, a multibeam echo sounder to estimate the biomass of fish and an ADCP for measuring the current. In addition the stern of the MYA II has a crane boom, the so-called A-frame. Using this the two-man crew and up to twelve scientists are able to lift heavy equipment weighing up to a tonne from the working deck into the water, such as the box corer used to obtain sediment samples. These scientific measurement and sampling devices are moved using trawl lines or research winches.  In addition to recording data, a so-called single core cable enables sampling devices to be opened or closed by computer if the sensors indicate conditions pointing to exciting small algae or animals. 

Unlike its predecessor, the research catamaran MYA, the MYA II is a single hull ship, achieving a speed of up to ten knots. “This means we can extend our examination radius around Sylt and up to Helgoland”, says geologist Dr. Christian Hass from the Wadden Sea Station Sylt. The AWI scientist will be one of the principal users, taking samples from the seabed with corers. He combines grain size analyses of sand and silt with bathymetric and other hydroacoustic measurement data, and on the basis of this compiles comprehensive maps. “These help us understand where various kinds of sediment are deposited, how the seabed is structured and which plants and animals it provides suitable habitats for”, Hass explains. “When repeated regularly these measurements enable us to recognise changes and to correlate influential factors such as climate change or anthropogenic influence”, the geologist adds. 

 

Together with biologists at the Wadden Sea Station, Hass uses an underwater video system on board. On the one hand this makes it possible to directly control whether the seabed actually looks the way it is interpreted on the basis of measured data. On the other hand it also shows what is living beneath the surface of the water. The interaction of flora and fauna in the food web is one of the biological key issues examined at the AWI Wadden Sea Station. Scientists have long gone beyond a simple description of “who is eating whom?” They use computer models to calculate material flows between the various levels of the food web under diverse environmental conditions. They start with the productivity of phytoplankton, which produce energy from sunlight, moving on to crustaceans and fish and then to seals and to humans as end consumers. “The new multibeam echo sounder will, for example, enable us to estimate fish biomass without net catches. Previously we had to catch large numbers of fish and determine their length individually using a measuring board”, the Sylt coastal researcher PD Dr. Harald Asmus says to explain the advantages of the new measuring technology. “We are now able to investigate the demands of individual species and their interaction without a need for intervention in the ecosystem. This provides us with the basis for a responsible use of the Wadden Sea, which is a UNESCO world heritage site,” the biologist says. 

Young scientists will also be able to use the new coastal research tool. Students from national and international universities are regular guests on Sylt. As with students at graduate schools, on internships and at summer schools, on board they learn about using modern oceanographic equipment. The motorised dinghy brings those interested in processes in flat water and on the mud flats right up to tidal inlets. 

“We placed great value on environmentally friendly technology when building the MYA II in order to minimise disturbance to the Wadden Sea caused by research activities,” says AWI Director Prof. Dr. Karin Lochte. The new ship, which cost 4.5 million euros to build, has a particulate filter as well as a waste gas purification system, which removes nitrogen oxide (NOx) from engine exhaust fumes. As a result, the NOx emissions of the MYA II are around 85 % below the current limit. Moreover an environmentally friendly ship coating was used and an impressed current system was installed to prevent corrosion on the hull as a substitute for toxic zinc anodes.  Neither wastewater nor oily bilge water from the engine room get into the sea, but are disposed of in port. Dr. Ralf-Rainer Braun, member of the eco label jury is pleased about the award: “The MYA II demonstrates that more environmental protection is possible in shipbuilding. We hope that the Blue Angel on the MYA II will serve as a positive example to other research vessels.”

The eco label will be revealed during a celebration on 13 August 2013 when the MYA II is handed over to science. Following the commissioning of the ship, it will open its doors from 4.30 to 7 pm in List harbour on Sylt to give interested guests an opportunity to look around the new research vessel. Employees invite people to the open day at the nearby Wadden Sea Station (Hafenstraße 43) from 4.30 to 9 pm, and are looking forward to talking to guests about their current research work.  

 

Technical data: 

Name:  MYA II

Home port:  List, Sylt

Construction: Fassmer shipyard, Berne

Year of construction: 2013

Overall length:  21.70 metres

Width:  6.00 metres

Draught:  Maximum 1.50 metres

Displacement: 120 tonnes

Speed:  Maximum 10 knots

Crew:  2 people

Scientific personnel: Maximum of 12 people

Equipment: 

• Laboratory room with wet working area, sinks and connection of fresh and seawater.  

• IT workstations, among other things to control hydroacoustic systems 

• Network and “DShip” data logging and management system 

• Two trawl line winches and two research winches (one with single conductor wire)

• Stern crane (A-frame – one tonne) as well as a working crane (0.85 tonnes with ten-metre boom)

• Two side arms to deploy scientific equipment up to four metres below the keel. 

• Rudder pipe in the laboratory through which measuring equipment can be placed in the water

• Rinsing/sorting desk on deck with connection of fresh and seawater 

• Grid (one metre) on deck onto which diverse equipment can be screwed 

• Work platform on the stern (for example for divers)

• Motorised dinghy with small crane boom

• Equipment to operate the ship if it falls dry on the mud flats

Your contact partner at the Alfred Wegener Press Office is Dr. Folke Mehrtens (Tel.: 0471 4831-2007; Email: medien@awi.de).

Your contact partner at the AWI Wadden Sea Station Sylt is Dr. Matthias Strasser (Mobile: 0151 174 53 497; Email Matthias.Strasser@awi.de)

The Alfred Wegener Institute conducts research in the Arctic and Antarctic and in the high and mid-latitude oceans.  The Institute coordinates German polar research and provides important infrastructure such as the research ice breaker Polarstern and stations in the Arctic and Antarctic to the international scientific world.  The Alfred Wegener Institute is one of the 18 research centres of the Helmholtz Association, the largest scientific organisation in Germany.

Microentrepreneurs may be an untapped market for product design

The key, MIT study finds, is designing products that make money for the microentrepreneur
CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Designing products for the developing world can be a hit-or-miss endeavor: While there may be a dire need for products addressing problems, such as access to clean water, sanitation and electricity, designing a product that consumers will actually buy is a complicated process. More often than not, such products — even those that are distributed at no charge — go unused due to poor quality, unreliability or differences in cultural expectations.

And yet, an increasing number of organizations, companies and startups are targeting products at developing countries for one very practical reason: money. Rising economies like China and India represent potentially massive emerging markets, a large portion  of which are made up of small “microenterprises” — informal, mom-and-pop businesses of five or fewer people that generate limited income.

In a new MIT study, researchers suggest that microentrepreneurs are a promising and largely untapped market. They say designers will have more success in developing countries by targeting products to microentrepreneurs, particularly if such products are designed to help make these small businesses money.

“If you can convince them you can make them money, you’re most of the way there to selling them your product,” says Jesse Austin-Breneman, a graduate student in MIT’s Department of Mechanical Engineering. “It seems obvious, but if you look at a lot of products out there, they’re not really doing that.”

Austin-Breneman and Maria Yang, the Robert N. Noyce Career Development Associate Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Engineering Systems, combed through the literature on product design in emerging markets and identified four case studies in which products had documented success in developing countries: solar-lighting technology, cookstoves, drip irrigation, and a line of Nokia cellphones.

From their research, as well as interviews with product designers, the researchers drew up guidelines on how to design for emerging markets. In addition to designing products that can be profitable for consumers, the team advises designers to consider designing for reliability and service, as well as multifunctionality.

“We’re trying to refocus people’s design thinking,” Austin-Breneman says. “For example, rather than figuring out a clever way to fix sanitation, let’s come up with a clever way to make people money that’s perhaps in the sanitation sector.”

The team will present their results at the American Society of Mechanical Engineers’ (ASME) International Design Engineering Technical Conference in August.

Beyond affordability

One of the most successful products in emerging markets, the researchers found, was a line of entry-level cellphones manufactured and distributed in developing countries by Nokia. The company designed phones with a number of features that turned out to have wide appeal for microentrepreneurs: Multiple contact lists allowed cellphone owners to rent out their phones to others, and a time display marking the length of each call served as a method of metering — an easy way for cellphone owners to charge per call.

Nokia also provided reliability via dedicated service vans that traveled to rural Indian villages to fix broken phones. This combination of features that help to make customers money, along with a service plan that established a continuing relationship with the company, likely swayed customers toward Nokia’s phones.

Yang and Austin-Breneman found that service and reliability were also big factors for small farmers in choosing a system for drip irrigation — an efficient means of delivering small amounts of water directly to the base of each plant. Farmers tended to choose systems that came with service plans, along with extras beyond the irrigation system itself. For example, some companies offered classes on the types of seeds that would likely be most valuable in the future — information that could help a farmer’s bottomline. The researchers also found that modular irrigation systems were attractive: Farmers could easily buy a small system, then add more components as their farms grow.

In the case of solar lighting, products that were multifunctional were most popular with microentrepreneurs. In particular, lights that doubled as cellphone chargers helped small businesses in two ways: The lights kept an owner’s store illuminated at night, driving more traffic to it, and the owner could rent the light as a charger for customers’ cellphones.

Interestingly, the researchers found that in all cases, microentrepreneurs tended to prefer products that were not necessarily the cheapest available: Factors such as reliability, profitability and multifunctionality often trumped affordability.

“If a microentrepreneur has, say, a small cart, they don’t have a lot of capital to risk, and are more risk-averse,” Austin-Breneman says. “But if they believe your product can be serviced and can make them money, that can be successful.”

Going forward, the team will be looking through many more case studies, and perhaps focusing on one specific market sector. Yang says they will also dig deeper into the elements of product design to understand how both large companies and small startups can successfully sell to developing countries. For example, while Nokia was able to invest millions of dollars in developing a service network, a startup may not have such resources.

“We want to create design guidelines, based on research, that companies and also independent designers can be inspired by to develop products that are going to be successful, empower microentrepreneurs, and help people improve their lives and communities,” Yang says. “That’s sort of the holy grail, and will make a strong impact in emerging markets.”

###

Written by Jennifer  Chu, MIT News Office

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue Building 11-400, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 United States

UCSB to Host International Conference on Autism Intervention and Treatment

(Santa Barbara, Calif.)  Autism experts from around the world will gather at UC Santa Barbara next month for the 6th Annual International Pivotal Response Treatment (PRT) Autism and Asperger's Conference.

Sponsored by UCSB's Koegel Autism Center, the conference will take place Thursday and Friday, September 19 and 20, at the campus's Corwin Pavilion. Open to the public, it will feature scholars, health care professionals, educators, and parents discussing autism, Asperger's syndrome, and cutting-edge intervention and treatment strategies.
"This year's conference will include PRT techniques for teaching every aspect of autism spectrum disorder, ranging from first words, to socialization, to social conversation, and across the age span from treatments for infants to employment strategies for adults," said Lynn Kern Koegel, clinical director of the Koegel Autism Center and the Broad Asperger Center.
Developed at UCSB, PRT is a protocol based on principles of positive motivation. Researchers have found that increasing children's participation in activities they enjoy –– and avoiding as much as possible those they do not –– can actually lessen the severity of autism spectrum disorder symptoms. Their work with infants was highlighted in the April issue of the Journal of Positive Behavioral Interventions.
In addition to Lynn Koegel, presenters at the conference will include Robert Koegel, director of the Koegel Autism Center; Ty Vernon, director of the center's assessment clinic; Grace Gengoux, clinical assistant professor at Stanford University's Autism and Developmental Disabilities Research Program; Areva Martin, an attorney and author who will speak on special education advocacy issues; and Amber Bharoocha Walz, a doctoral student at UCSB whose area of emphasis is special education disabilities and risk studies.
Additional information about the conference, including a complete schedule and registration details is available at http://www.education.ucsb.edu/autism.

UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 • (805) 893-8000

UCSB Study Reveals That Overthinking Can Be Detrimental to Human Performance

(Santa Barbara, Calif.) –– Trying to explain riding a bike is difficult because it is an implicit memory. The body knows what to do, but thinking about the process can often interfere. So why is it that under certain circumstances paying full

UCSB postdoc Taraz Lee, Credit: UCSB

attention and trying hard can actually impede performance? A new UC Santa Barbara study, published today in the Journal of Neuroscience, reveals part of the answer. 
There are two kinds of memory: implicit, a form of long-term memory not requiring conscious thought and expressed by means other than words; and explicit, another kind of long-term memory formed consciously that can be described in words. Scientists consider these distinct areas of function both behaviorally and in the brain.
Long-term memory is supported by various regions in the prefrontal cortex, the newest part of the brain in terms of evolution and the part of the brain responsible for planning, executive function, and working memory. "A lot of people think the reason we're human is because we have the most advanced prefrontal cortex," said the study's lead author, Taraz Lee, a postdoctoral scholar working in UCSB's Action Lab.

Two of the kaleidoskopic images used in the study,
Credit: UCSB

Two previous brain studies have shown that taxing explicit memory resources improved recognition memory without awareness. The results suggest that implicit perceptual memory can aid performance on recognition tests. So Lee and his colleagues decided to test whether the effects of the attentional control processes associated with explicit memory could directly interfere with implicit memory.
Lee's study used continuous theta-burst transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) to temporarily disrupt the function of two different parts of the prefrontal cortex, the dorsolateral and ventrolateral. The dorsal and ventral regions are close to each other but have slightly different functions. Disrupting function in two distinct areas provided a direct causal test of whether explicit memory processing exerts control over sensory resources –– in this case, visual information processing –– and in doing so indirectly harms implicit memory processes.
Participants were shown a series of kaleidoscopic images for about a minute, then had a one-minute break before being given memory tests containing two different kaleidoscopic images. They were then asked to distinguish images they had seen previously from the new ones. "After they gave us that answer, we asked whether they remembered a lot of rich details, whether they had a vague impression, or whether they were blindly guessing," explains Lee. "And the participants only did better when they said they were guessing."
The results of disrupting the function of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex shed light on why paying attention can be a distraction and affect performance outcomes. "If we ramped down activity in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, people remembered the images better," said Lee.
When the researchers disrupted the ventral area of the prefrontal cortex, participants' memory was just slightly worse. "They would shift from saying that they could remember a lot of rich details about the image to being vaguely familiar with the images," Lee said. "It didn't actually make them better at the task."
Lee's fascination with the effect of attentional processes on memory stems from his extensive sports background. As he pointed out, there are always examples of professional golfers who have the lead on the 18th hole, but when it comes down to one easy shot, they fall apart. "That should be the time when it all comes out the best, but you just can't think about that sort of thing," he said. "It just doesn't help you."
His continuing studies at UCSB's Action Lab will focus on dissecting the process of choking under pressure. Lee's work will use brain scans to examine why people who are highly incentivized to do well often succumb to pressure and how the prefrontal cortex and these attentional processes interfere with performance.
"I think most researchers who look at prefrontal cortex function are trying to figure out what it does to help you and how that explains how the brain works and how we act," said Lee. "I look at it at the opposite. If we can figure out the ways in which activity in this part of the brain hurts you, then this also informs how your brain works and can give us some clues to what's actually going on."

Co-authors of the just-published study are Robert S. Blumenfeld of the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute and Mark D'Esposito of the Department of Psychology, both at UC Berkeley. This work was supported by a National Institutes of Health grant.


UC Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 • (805) 893-8000

Why tumors become drug-resistant

New findings could lead to drugs that fight back when tumors don’t respond to treatment.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass-- Cancer drugs known as ErbB inhibitors have shown great success in treating many patients with lung, breast, colon and other types of cancer. However, ErbB drug resistance means that many other patients do not respond, and even among those who do, tumors commonly come back.

A new study from MIT reveals that much of this resistance develops because a protein called AXL helps cancer cells to circumvent the effects of ErbB inhibitors, allowing them to grow unchecked. The findings suggest that combining drugs that target AXL and ErbB receptors could offer a better way to fight tumors, says Doug Lauffenburger, the Ford Professor of Bioengineering, head of MIT’s Department of Biological Engineering and an affiliate member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research.

“Drug resistance is the major challenge in cancer these days. People are coming up with a lot of targeted therapies for particular genes and identifying drugs that work against them, but resistance is just invariably the issue,” says Lauffenburger, the senior author of a paper describing the findings in the Aug. 6 issue of Science Signaling.

ErbBs, a family of epithelial growth factor receptors (EGFRs), are proteins that are often overactive in cancer cells, causing them to grow and divide uncontrollably. The drug Iressa is used to treat lung cancer patients whose tumors overexpress one type of ErbB mutant, and Herceptin targets another ErbB family member that is found in certain types of breast cancer.

“There are a lot of excellent drugs that target EGFR itself or other members of that family, yet they have these limitations,” Lauffenburger says.

Systems analysis

In the new study, Lauffenburger and colleagues set out to identify factors that help tumor cells become resistant to EGFR and other ErbB inhibitors. To do this, they developed a new computer model and applied it to a large dataset called the Cancer Cell Line Encyclopedia, which includes information on about 1,000 human cancer lines and their responses to different drugs.

Led by biological engineering graduate student Aaron Meyer, lead author of the paper, the researchers created a machine learning program that can sift through the data and look for pairs of overexpressed proteins that make tumor cells resistant to EGFR inhibitors. In this case, they searched for the EGFR protein in combination with every other possible protein in the database, one pair at a time.

Through this analysis, the researchers found that EGFR paired with the AXL receptor appears to be the strongest marker for EGFR inhibitor resistance. They found this pattern across many types of cancer, including lung, breast and pancreatic.

A few previous studies have shown that overexpression of AXL is associated with resistance to EGFR inhibitors in a particular tumor, but this is the first systematic study to demonstrate the correlation, Lauffenburger says. This “systems biology” approach, which focuses on complex interactions within biological systems, is critical for finding new drugs that work together to knock out cancer’s defense mechanisms, he says.

“It’s now well known that when you look for a single pathway, you won’t get to an effective therapeutic. You will end up with resistance,” Lauffenburger says. “You’ve got to look at pathways in combination, you’ve got to look at whole interacting networks. That’s the only way.”

Clues to a mystery

Then, in experiments on cancer cells grown in the lab, the researchers found that the AXL protein tends to cluster with EGFR on cell surfaces, so when EGFR is activated, AXL also becomes active. AXL then not only stimulates further much of the same cellular machinery targeted by EGFR, but also additional pathways provoking cell growth and division. AXL also helps cells become more motile, allowing cancer to spread through the body.

The researchers also showed that other members of the ErbB family beyond EGFR similarly cluster with AXL. This suggests that AXL inhibition may also be effective for treating breast cancers dependent on ErbB2 or ovarian cancers that overexpress ErbB3, Lauffenburger says.

The study sheds light on the complicated interactions between EGFR and other proteins that help tumors re-emerge after initial treatment with EGFR inhibitors, and could help researchers develop improved treatments, says Trever Bivona, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco.

“The implication that emerges from the findings is that the way receptor kinases interact to undermine sensitivity to treatment is quite complex,” says Bivona, who was not part of the research team.

High levels of AXL have previously been found in triple-negative breast cancer cells, which lack the three most common breast cancer markers — estrogen receptors, progesterone receptors and HER2 receptors. The new finding may explain why EGFR inhibitors fail to work on these tumors even though they have high EGFR levels, Lauffenburger says.

“Triple-negative breast cancer cells were a special interest of ours mainly because it’s always been such a mystery why they have not responded to EGFR inhibitors,” he says.

The new study suggests that AXL inhibitors, either alone or in combination with EGFR inhibitors, might be an effective treatment for triple-negative breast cancer, which is now treated with chemotherapy drugs that have severe side effects. A handful of clinical trials are currently testing AXL inhibitors against different types of cancer, and Lauffenburger is now planning studies in mice to investigate the effects of combining AXL and EGFR pathway inhibitors.

Biological engineering graduate student Miles Miller and Frank Gertler, a professor of biology and member of the Koch Institute, are also co-authors of the paper. The research was funded by the National Cancer Institute Integrative Cancer Biology Program, the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program, and the Koch Institute Frontier Research Program.


Written by Anne Trafton, MIT News Office

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue Building 11-400, Cambridge, MA 02139-4307 United States

A layer of tiny grains can slow sound waves

Layer of microscopic spheres offers new approach to controlling acoustic waves.

(CAMBRIDGE, MA) -- In some ways, granular material — such as a pile of sand — can behave much like a crystal, with its close-packed grains mimicking the precise, orderly arrangement of crystalline atoms. Now researchers at MIT have pushed that similarity to a new limit, creating two-dimensional arrays of micrograins that can funnel acoustic waves, much as specially designed crystals can control the passage of light or other waves.

The researchers say the findings could lead to a new way of controlling frequencies in electronic devices such as cellphones, but with components that are only a fraction the size of those currently used for that function. On a larger scale, it could lead to new types of blast-shielding material for use in combat or by public-safety personnel or equipment.

A paper on the research appears in the journal Physical Review Letters, written by Nicholas Fang, the Brit and Alex d’Arbeloff Career Development Associate Professor in Engineering Design; Nicholas Boechler, a former MIT postdoc now at the University of Washington; and four co-authors.

Research on the properties of granular materials — collections of small grains, such as sand or tiny glass beads — has become “a rich and rapidly developing field,” the researchers write. But most such research has focused on the properties of sand-sized particles, about a millimeter across, Fang says. The new work is the first to examine the very different properties of particles that are about one-thousandth that size, or one micrometer across, whose properties were expected to be “qualitatively different.”

In their experiments, the team used a single layer of microspheres to guide and slow sound waves (known as surface acoustic waves, or SAWs) traveling across a surface, Fang says. The researchers used ideas they had previously applied in research on controlling light waves, he says, which involved the use of photonic crystals.

SAWs are widely used in electronic devices such as cellphones, Fang says, “like clocks that give a single frequency signal … to synchronize different chips or parts of a chip.” But with the new system, “we can shrink the device size” needed for processing SAWs, he says. Present-day oscillators for SAWs are relatively bulky, Fang says, but the use of a 2-D granular material to guide and slow the waves could allow such devices to be only one-sixth their present size, he estimates.

What’s more, the 2-D nature of this system could allow it to be fabricated right on a chip, along with the necessary control circuits and other components. Today’s oscillators, by contrast, are typically separate devices placed next to the chip array that controls them, Fang says — so in cases where small size is important, the new work has the potential to allow for even smaller electronic devices.

The system could potentially also be used to develop new kinds of sensors, such as microbalances capable of measuring tiny changes in weight, he says.

The same principle could also lead to a new kind of blast-shielding material, Fang suggests. If acoustic waves — such as the intense shock waves from an explosion — hit the two-dimensional material at a right angle, much of their energy can be converted to surface waves that travel sideways out of the material. A sandwich of many layers of such material might provide substantial protection from a blast in a lightweight, wearable form, though such applications will likely require substantial further research, Fang says.

John Page, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Manitoba, says this is “a high-quality piece of research. … I am sure that their findings will be widely accepted.”

In addition to Fang and Boechler, the research team included graduate students Jeff Eliason and Anshuman Kumar; research fellow Alex Maznev; and professor of chemistry Keith Nelson. The work was supported by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency and the National Science Foundation.

Written by David Chandler, MIT News Office
Related Links

Paper: "Interaction of a Contact Resonance of Microspheres with Surface Acoustic Waves"

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Decoding Material Fluxes in the Tropical Ocean

Turbulent processes provide important contribution to oxygen supply

August 2, 2013 / Kiel. How is vital oxygen supplied to the tropical ocean? For the first time, oceanographers at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel were able to make quantitative statements regarding this question. They showed that about one third of the oxygen supply in these areas is provided by turbulent processes, such as eddies or internal waves. The study, conducted in the framework of the Collaborative Research Center SFB 754 "Climate-Biogeochemistry Interactions in the Tropical Ocean", was just published in the international journal Biogeosciences.

In many areas of the tropical oceans, oxygen is in rather short supply. In the Indian Ocean, the eastern Pacific and the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of West Africa, at depths of several hundred meters, there are vast areas with very low oxygen levels, so-called oxygen minimum zones (OMZ). These have been the focus of scientists in Kiel for a number of years. Using modern measurement techniques, they were now able to quantify for the first time which of the processes are important for the oxygen supply to these areas, the so-called ventilation. Thus far, oceanographers had assumed that the dissolved oxygen in the ocean would slowly penetrate from the surface layers to greater depths through large-scale processes. Fluctuations in the trade winds driving the ocean currents could thus regulate the oxygen supply directly. However, measurements off the coast of West Africa and south of the Cape Verde islands have now revealed the major importance of turbulent mixing processes. The scientists used high-precision measurements, such as microstructure probes and profiling current meters, for their investigations.

The surveying of a so-called tracer, a chemically inert substance discharged into the ocean, confirmed the results of the direct turbulence measurements. The horizontal and vertical spreading of the tracer was determined by chemical analysis with a high degree of accuracy over a period of three years.

Both measurement methods showed that about one third of the oxygen supply in the tropical oxygen minimum zones is provided by the vertical turbulent mixing. "The relatively high contribution of turbulence to the oxygen budget has surprised us," says Prof. Dr. Martin Visbeck, one of the initiators of the experiment. "Also, thanks to the improved measurement methods and accuracies, we were breaking new ground here," Visbeck continued. First author Dr. Tim Fischer, who - as part of his doctorate – was able to significantly improve the parameters settings and evaluation of ship-based current profile measurements to determine the turbulence in the ocean from a moving ship, adds: "Thus, in comparison to the time-consuming microstructure probe measurements, we are able to collect much more data."  Co-author Dr. Donata Banyte from GEOMAR, who – as part of her dissertation - has worked for more than three years with the data from the tracer experiment, adds: "I am delighted to have discovered something really new and important in physical oceanography".

"Since any expansion of oxygen deficient areas can have negative effects on the marine ecosystem, it is important to identify the relevant processes thereof. The results will help us to better understand the dynamics and changes in the oxygen minimum zones in the oceans," says Prof. Visbeck.

Background information
The dynamics of oxygen minimum zones is the central theme of the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 745 "Climate-Biogeochemistry Interactions in the Tropical Ocean", which is funded by the German Research Foundation at the Christian-Albrechts University in Kiel and at GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel.

Oxygen minimum zones, i.e. zones where oxygen is scarce or even completely missing, are present in all tropical oceans. Measurements of recent years, however, indicate that these zones are expanding. One of the consequences is that the habitat of certain fish species is shrinking. But are these changes part of a natural variation or are they a result of human-induced global change? And how far will these low-oxygen zones spread? These and other questions are investigated by the researchers who are participating in SFB 754.

In addition, the scientists at the Kiel Cluster of Excellence "The Future Ocean", also explore the changes in the oceans of the past, present and future with a globally unique approach: Marine, geo and economic scientists, physicians, mathematicians, computer scientists, lawyers as well as corporate and social scientists combine their expertise in eleven multidisciplinary research groups. Their findings contribute significantly to concepts in sustainable use and activity options for a global management of the oceans The new research program is thus aimed at an increased integration of knowledge. The goal is that a basic understanding of the ocean should lead to scientifically sound predictions and scenarios - in a close dialogue with decision-makers - to contribute to a sustainable management of the oceans.

The original publication:

Fischer, T., D. Banyte, P. Brandt, M. Dengler, G. Krahmann, T. Tanhua, and M. Visbeck, 2013: Diapycnal oxygen supply to the tropical North Atlantic oxygen minimum zone. Biogeosciences, 10, 5079-5093, doi:10.5194/bg-10-5079-2013    

Links:

www.geomar.de GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel

www.sfb754.de Collaborative Research Centre754

www.futureoceanorg  Cluster of Excellence "The Future Ocean"

Contact:

Prof. Dr. Martin Visbeck, Phone: +49-431-600-4100, mvisbeck@geomar.de

Dr. Andreas Villwock (GEOMAR, Communication & Media), Phone: +49-431 600 2802, avillwock@geomar.de

GEOMAR
Helmholtz-Zentrum für Ozeanforschung Kiel

Wischhofstr. 1-3, Geb. 4

24148 Kiel
GERMANY