With her new film "Big Sur" slated to hit theaters this Friday (November 1st), Kate Bosworth soaked up the spotlight by covering the November 2013 issue of Los Angeles Confidential magazine.
During her interview with the publication, the 30-year-old actress opened up about her relationship with husband Michael Polish and her new life as a married woman.
Check out a few highlights from Miss Bosworth's Q&A session below. For more, be sure to visit Los Angeles Confidential!
On her new home:
"One of the last untamed territories in America - we'll have grizzlies roaming around. We're on a lake, so we can just go ice-skating. It's beautiful, so as we start a family, we can really create a special place there together."
On Jasper:
"I've never had an older sister or brother, and she's an only child, so I feel we really understand each other in a special way. If I can make a positive impact on her life, that will me incredibly happy. Having Jasper in my life takes me right back to being that age. It's challenging - its a time when you're so hard on yourself, and not for a great reason, but because you haven't experienced enough to be able to understand a lot of things."
On Michael:
"I knew I didn't want to mess anything up because I wanted to work with him again. There's this moment where you think, I hope this is everything that I think it is, and then we both sort of looked at each other - that was the moment when you decide to really trust, where we said, 'Yes this is it.' I feel like I've known him my whole life, and he feels like he's known me my whole life. And that's something very special that's difficult to describe without sounding like a Hallmark card."
FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013 file photo, recording artist Kanye West speaks onstage during the 17th Annual Hollywood Film Awards Gala at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. West is postponing the rest of his “Yeezus” tour after a 60-foot LED screen used during his shows was damaged. A representative for the rapper says a truck that carried the screen was in an accident Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, that has “damaged the gear beyond repair.” (Photo by Frank Micelotta/Invision/AP, File)
FILE - In this Tuesday, Oct. 22, 2013 file photo, recording artist Kanye West speaks onstage during the 17th Annual Hollywood Film Awards Gala at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, Calif. West is postponing the rest of his “Yeezus” tour after a 60-foot LED screen used during his shows was damaged. A representative for the rapper says a truck that carried the screen was in an accident Wednesday, Oct. 30, 2013, that has “damaged the gear beyond repair.” (Photo by Frank Micelotta/Invision/AP, File)
NEW YORK (AP) — Kanye West is postponing the rest of his "Yeezus" tour after a 60-foot LED screen used during his shows was damaged.
A representative for the rapper says a truck that carried the screen was in an accident Wednesday that "damaged the gear beyond repair." The truck was on its way to Vancouver.
The rep said in a statement Thursday that it would be "impossible" to put on a show until the screen is repaired.
Thursday's show in Vancouver and next week's shows in Denver and Minneapolis were postponed. The West rep planned to provide an update later on any new dates.
West's tour kicked off this month in Seattle. Rapper Kendrick Lamar is his opening act.
Contact: Kim Martineau kmartine@ldeo.columbia.edu 646-717-0134 The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Parts of pacific warming 15 times faster than in past 10,000 years
A recent slowdown in global warming has led some skeptics to renew their claims that industrial carbon emissions are not causing a century-long rise in Earth's surface temperatures. But rather than letting humans off the hook, a new study in the leading journal Science adds support to the idea that the oceans are taking up some of the excess heat, at least for the moment. In a reconstruction of Pacific Ocean temperatures in the last 10,000 years, researchers have found that its middle depths have warmed 15 times faster in the last 60 years than they did during apparent natural warming cycles in the previous 10,000.
"We're experimenting by putting all this heat in the ocean without quite knowing how it's going to come back out and affect climate," said study coauthor Braddock Linsley, a climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "It's not so much the magnitude of the change, but the rate of change."
In its latest report, released in September, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted the recent slowdown in the rate of global warming. While global temperatures rose by about one-fifth of a degree Fahrenheit per decade from the 1950s through 1990s, warming slowed to just half that rate after the record hot year of 1998. The IPCC has attributed the pause to natural climate fluctuations caused by volcanic eruptions, changes in solar intensity, and the movement of heat through the ocean. Many scientists note that 1998 was an exceptionally hot year even by modern standards, and so any average rise using it as a starting point would downplay the longer-term warming trend.
The IPCC scientists agree that much of the heat that humans have put into the atmosphere since the 1970s through greenhouse gas emissions probably has been absorbed by the ocean. However, the findings in Science put this idea into a long-term context, and suggest that the oceans may be storing even more of the effects of human emissions than scientists have so far realized. "We may have underestimated the efficiency of the oceans as a storehouse for heat and energy," said study lead author, Yair Rosenthal, a climate scientist at Rutgers University. "It may buy us some time how much time, I don't really know. But it's not going to stop climate change."
Ocean heat is typically measured from buoys dispersed throughout the ocean, and with instruments lowered from ships, with reliable records at least in some places going back to the 1960s. To look back farther in time, scientists have developed ways to analyze the chemistry of ancient marine life to reconstruct the climates in which they lived. In a 2003 expedition to Indonesia, the researchers collected cores of sediment from the seas where water from the Pacific flows into the Indian Ocean. By measuring the levels of magnesium to calcium in the shells of Hyalinea balthica, a one-celled organism buried in those sediments, the researchers estimated the temperature of the middle-depth waters where H. Balthica lived, from about 1,500 to 3,000 feet down. The temperature record there reflects middle-depth temperatures throughout the western Pacific, the researchers say, since the waters around Indonesia originate from the mid-depths of the North and South Pacific.
Though the climate of the last 10,000 years has been thought to be relatively stable, the researchers found that the Pacific intermediate depths have generally been cooling during that time, though with various ups and downs. From about 7,000 years ago until the start of the Medieval Warm Period in northern Europe, at about 1100, the water cooled gradually, by almost 1 degree C, or almost 2 degrees F. The rate of cooling then picked up during the so-called Little Ice Age that followed, dropping another 1 degree C, or 2 degrees F, until about 1600. The authors attribute the cooling from 7,000 years ago until the Medieval Warm Period to changes in Earth's orientation toward the sun, which affected how much sunlight fell on both poles. In 1600 or so, temperatures started gradually going back up. Then, over the last 60 years, water column temperatures, averaged from the surface to 2,200 feet, increased 0.18 degrees C, or .32 degrees F. That might seem small in the scheme of things, but it's a rate of warming 15 times faster than at any period in the last 10,000 years, said Linsley.
One explanation for the recent slowdown in global warming is that a prolonged La Nia-like cooling of eastern Pacific surface waters has helped to offset the global rise in temperatures from greenhouse gases. In a study in the journal Nature in August, climate modelers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography showed that La Nia cooling in the Pacific seemed to suppress global average temperatures during northern hemisphere winters but allowed temperatures to rise during northern hemisphere summers, explaining last year's record U.S. heat wave and the ongoing loss of Arctic sea ice.
When the La Nia cycle switches, and the Pacific reverts to a warmer than usual El Nio phase, global temperatures may likely shoot up again, along with the rate of warming. "With global warming you don't see a gradual warming from one year to the next," said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who was not involved in the research. "It's more like a staircase. You trot along with nothing much happening for 10 years and then suddenly you have a jump and things never go back to the previous level again."
The study's long-term perspective suggests that the recent pause in global warming may just reflect random variations in heat going between atmosphere and ocean, with little long-term importance, says Drew Shindell, a climate scientist with joint appointments at Columbia's Earth Institute and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and a lead author on the latest IPCC report. "Surface temperature is only one indicator of climate change," he said. "Looking at the total energy stored by the climate system or multiple indicators--glacier melting, water vapor in the atmosphere, snow cover, and so onmay be more useful than looking at surface temperature alone."
The study's third author, Delia Oppo, is a climate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
###
The study, "Pacific Ocean Heat Content During the Past 10,000 Years," is available from the authors, or Science, scipak@aaas.org.
Kim Martineau Science Writer Lamont-Doherty kmartine@ldeo.columbia.edu 646-717-0134
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Is global heating hiding out in the oceans?
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Kim Martineau kmartine@ldeo.columbia.edu 646-717-0134 The Earth Institute at Columbia University
Parts of pacific warming 15 times faster than in past 10,000 years
A recent slowdown in global warming has led some skeptics to renew their claims that industrial carbon emissions are not causing a century-long rise in Earth's surface temperatures. But rather than letting humans off the hook, a new study in the leading journal Science adds support to the idea that the oceans are taking up some of the excess heat, at least for the moment. In a reconstruction of Pacific Ocean temperatures in the last 10,000 years, researchers have found that its middle depths have warmed 15 times faster in the last 60 years than they did during apparent natural warming cycles in the previous 10,000.
"We're experimenting by putting all this heat in the ocean without quite knowing how it's going to come back out and affect climate," said study coauthor Braddock Linsley, a climate scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. "It's not so much the magnitude of the change, but the rate of change."
In its latest report, released in September, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) noted the recent slowdown in the rate of global warming. While global temperatures rose by about one-fifth of a degree Fahrenheit per decade from the 1950s through 1990s, warming slowed to just half that rate after the record hot year of 1998. The IPCC has attributed the pause to natural climate fluctuations caused by volcanic eruptions, changes in solar intensity, and the movement of heat through the ocean. Many scientists note that 1998 was an exceptionally hot year even by modern standards, and so any average rise using it as a starting point would downplay the longer-term warming trend.
The IPCC scientists agree that much of the heat that humans have put into the atmosphere since the 1970s through greenhouse gas emissions probably has been absorbed by the ocean. However, the findings in Science put this idea into a long-term context, and suggest that the oceans may be storing even more of the effects of human emissions than scientists have so far realized. "We may have underestimated the efficiency of the oceans as a storehouse for heat and energy," said study lead author, Yair Rosenthal, a climate scientist at Rutgers University. "It may buy us some time how much time, I don't really know. But it's not going to stop climate change."
Ocean heat is typically measured from buoys dispersed throughout the ocean, and with instruments lowered from ships, with reliable records at least in some places going back to the 1960s. To look back farther in time, scientists have developed ways to analyze the chemistry of ancient marine life to reconstruct the climates in which they lived. In a 2003 expedition to Indonesia, the researchers collected cores of sediment from the seas where water from the Pacific flows into the Indian Ocean. By measuring the levels of magnesium to calcium in the shells of Hyalinea balthica, a one-celled organism buried in those sediments, the researchers estimated the temperature of the middle-depth waters where H. Balthica lived, from about 1,500 to 3,000 feet down. The temperature record there reflects middle-depth temperatures throughout the western Pacific, the researchers say, since the waters around Indonesia originate from the mid-depths of the North and South Pacific.
Though the climate of the last 10,000 years has been thought to be relatively stable, the researchers found that the Pacific intermediate depths have generally been cooling during that time, though with various ups and downs. From about 7,000 years ago until the start of the Medieval Warm Period in northern Europe, at about 1100, the water cooled gradually, by almost 1 degree C, or almost 2 degrees F. The rate of cooling then picked up during the so-called Little Ice Age that followed, dropping another 1 degree C, or 2 degrees F, until about 1600. The authors attribute the cooling from 7,000 years ago until the Medieval Warm Period to changes in Earth's orientation toward the sun, which affected how much sunlight fell on both poles. In 1600 or so, temperatures started gradually going back up. Then, over the last 60 years, water column temperatures, averaged from the surface to 2,200 feet, increased 0.18 degrees C, or .32 degrees F. That might seem small in the scheme of things, but it's a rate of warming 15 times faster than at any period in the last 10,000 years, said Linsley.
One explanation for the recent slowdown in global warming is that a prolonged La Nia-like cooling of eastern Pacific surface waters has helped to offset the global rise in temperatures from greenhouse gases. In a study in the journal Nature in August, climate modelers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography showed that La Nia cooling in the Pacific seemed to suppress global average temperatures during northern hemisphere winters but allowed temperatures to rise during northern hemisphere summers, explaining last year's record U.S. heat wave and the ongoing loss of Arctic sea ice.
When the La Nia cycle switches, and the Pacific reverts to a warmer than usual El Nio phase, global temperatures may likely shoot up again, along with the rate of warming. "With global warming you don't see a gradual warming from one year to the next," said Kevin Trenberth, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., who was not involved in the research. "It's more like a staircase. You trot along with nothing much happening for 10 years and then suddenly you have a jump and things never go back to the previous level again."
The study's long-term perspective suggests that the recent pause in global warming may just reflect random variations in heat going between atmosphere and ocean, with little long-term importance, says Drew Shindell, a climate scientist with joint appointments at Columbia's Earth Institute and the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and a lead author on the latest IPCC report. "Surface temperature is only one indicator of climate change," he said. "Looking at the total energy stored by the climate system or multiple indicators--glacier melting, water vapor in the atmosphere, snow cover, and so onmay be more useful than looking at surface temperature alone."
The study's third author, Delia Oppo, is a climate scientist at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
###
The study, "Pacific Ocean Heat Content During the Past 10,000 Years," is available from the authors, or Science, scipak@aaas.org.
Kim Martineau Science Writer Lamont-Doherty kmartine@ldeo.columbia.edu 646-717-0134
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'Flipping the switch' reveals new compounds with antibiotic potential
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Michael Freitag freitagm@science.oregonstate.edu 541-737-4845 Oregon State University
CORVALLIS, Ore. Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered that one gene in a common fungus acts as a master regulator, and deleting it has opened access to a wealth of new compounds that have never before been studied with the potential to identify new antibiotics.
The finding was announced today in the journal PLOS Genetics, in research supported by the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society.
Scientists succeeded in flipping a genetic switch that had silenced more than 2,000 genes in this fungus, the cereal pathogen Fusarium graminearum. Until now this had kept it from producing novel compounds that may have useful properties, particularly for use in medicine but also perhaps in agriculture, industry, or biofuel production.
"About a third of the genome of many fungi has always been silent in the laboratory," said Michael Freitag, an associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics in the OSU College of Science. "Many fungi have antibacterial properties. It was no accident that penicillin was discovered from a fungus, and the genes for these compounds are usually in the silent regions of genomes.
"What we haven't been able to do is turn on more of the genome of these fungi, see the full range of compounds that could be produced by expression of their genes," he said. "Our finding should open the door to the study of dozens of new compounds, and we'll probably see some biochemistry we've never seen before."
In the past, the search for new antibiotics was usually done by changing the environment in which a fungus or other life form grew, and see if those changes generated the formation of a compound with antibiotic properties.
"The problem is, with the approaches of the past we've already found most of the low-hanging fruit, and that's why we've had to search in places like deep sea vents or corals to find anything new," Freitag said. "With traditional approaches there's not that much left to be discovered. But now that we can change the genome-wide expression of fungi, we may see a whole new range of compounds we didn't even know existed."
The gene that was deleted in this case regulates the methylation of histones, the proteins around which DNA is wound, Freitag said. Creating a mutant without this gene allowed new expression, or overexpression of about 25 percent of the genome of this fungus, and the formation of many "secondary metabolites," the researchers found.
The gene that was deleted, kmt6, encodes a master regulator that affects the expression of hundreds of genetic pathways, researchers say. It's been conserved through millions of years, in life forms as diverse as plants, fungi, fruit flies and humans.
The discovery of new antibiotics is of increasing importance, researchers say, as bacteria, parasites and fungi are becoming increasingly resistant to older drugs.
"Our studies will open the door to future precise 'epigenetic engineering' of gene clusters that generate bioactive compounds, e.g. putative mycotoxins, antibiotics and industrial feedstocks," the researchers wrote in the conclusion of their report.
###
Editor's Note: Digital images are available to illustrate this story:
A mutated fungus producing pigments: http://bit.ly/19SMdQy
A corn stem infected with Fusarium graminearum: http://bit.ly/1h0SZK8
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'Flipping the switch' reveals new compounds with antibiotic potential
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Michael Freitag freitagm@science.oregonstate.edu 541-737-4845 Oregon State University
CORVALLIS, Ore. Researchers at Oregon State University have discovered that one gene in a common fungus acts as a master regulator, and deleting it has opened access to a wealth of new compounds that have never before been studied with the potential to identify new antibiotics.
The finding was announced today in the journal PLOS Genetics, in research supported by the National Institutes of Health and the American Cancer Society.
Scientists succeeded in flipping a genetic switch that had silenced more than 2,000 genes in this fungus, the cereal pathogen Fusarium graminearum. Until now this had kept it from producing novel compounds that may have useful properties, particularly for use in medicine but also perhaps in agriculture, industry, or biofuel production.
"About a third of the genome of many fungi has always been silent in the laboratory," said Michael Freitag, an associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics in the OSU College of Science. "Many fungi have antibacterial properties. It was no accident that penicillin was discovered from a fungus, and the genes for these compounds are usually in the silent regions of genomes.
"What we haven't been able to do is turn on more of the genome of these fungi, see the full range of compounds that could be produced by expression of their genes," he said. "Our finding should open the door to the study of dozens of new compounds, and we'll probably see some biochemistry we've never seen before."
In the past, the search for new antibiotics was usually done by changing the environment in which a fungus or other life form grew, and see if those changes generated the formation of a compound with antibiotic properties.
"The problem is, with the approaches of the past we've already found most of the low-hanging fruit, and that's why we've had to search in places like deep sea vents or corals to find anything new," Freitag said. "With traditional approaches there's not that much left to be discovered. But now that we can change the genome-wide expression of fungi, we may see a whole new range of compounds we didn't even know existed."
The gene that was deleted in this case regulates the methylation of histones, the proteins around which DNA is wound, Freitag said. Creating a mutant without this gene allowed new expression, or overexpression of about 25 percent of the genome of this fungus, and the formation of many "secondary metabolites," the researchers found.
The gene that was deleted, kmt6, encodes a master regulator that affects the expression of hundreds of genetic pathways, researchers say. It's been conserved through millions of years, in life forms as diverse as plants, fungi, fruit flies and humans.
The discovery of new antibiotics is of increasing importance, researchers say, as bacteria, parasites and fungi are becoming increasingly resistant to older drugs.
"Our studies will open the door to future precise 'epigenetic engineering' of gene clusters that generate bioactive compounds, e.g. putative mycotoxins, antibiotics and industrial feedstocks," the researchers wrote in the conclusion of their report.
###
Editor's Note: Digital images are available to illustrate this story:
A mutated fungus producing pigments: http://bit.ly/19SMdQy
A corn stem infected with Fusarium graminearum: http://bit.ly/1h0SZK8
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AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Important breakthrough in identifying effect of epilepsy treatment
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Tanya Gubbay tanya.gubbay@rhul.ac.uk Royal Holloway, University of London
50 years after valproate was first discovered, research published today in the journal Neurobiology of Disease, reports how the drug works to block seizure progression.
Valproate (variously labelled worldwide as Epilim, Depacon, Depakene, Depakote, Orlept, Episenta, Orfiril, and Convulex) is one of the world's most highly prescribed treatments for epilepsy. It was first discovered to be an effective treatment for epilepsy, by accident, in 1963 by a group of French scientists.
In thousands of subsequent experiments, animals have been used to investigate how valproate blocks seizures, without success. Scientists from Royal Holloway University and University College London have now identified how valproate blocks seizures in the brain, by using a simple amoeba.
"The discovery of how valproate blocks seizures, initially using the social amoeba Dictyostelium, and then replicated using accepted seizure models, highlights the successful use of non-animal testing in biomedical research," said Professor Robin Williams from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway.
"Sodium valproate is one of the most effective antiepileptic drugs in many people with epilepsy, but its use has been limited by side-effects, in particular its effect in pregnant women on the unborn child," said Professor Matthew Walker from the Institute of Neurology at University College London. "Understanding valproate's mechanism of action is a first step to developing even more effective drugs that lack many of valproate's side-effects."
"Our study also found that the decrease of a specific chemical in the brain at the start of the seizure causes even more seizure activity. This holds important implications for identifying underlying causes," added Professor Williams.
###
The research, funded by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research, builds on work in which most of the animal use in epilepsy research has been replaced by a simple amoeba to initially screen and identify improved treatments.
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Important breakthrough in identifying effect of epilepsy treatment
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Tanya Gubbay tanya.gubbay@rhul.ac.uk Royal Holloway, University of London
50 years after valproate was first discovered, research published today in the journal Neurobiology of Disease, reports how the drug works to block seizure progression.
Valproate (variously labelled worldwide as Epilim, Depacon, Depakene, Depakote, Orlept, Episenta, Orfiril, and Convulex) is one of the world's most highly prescribed treatments for epilepsy. It was first discovered to be an effective treatment for epilepsy, by accident, in 1963 by a group of French scientists.
In thousands of subsequent experiments, animals have been used to investigate how valproate blocks seizures, without success. Scientists from Royal Holloway University and University College London have now identified how valproate blocks seizures in the brain, by using a simple amoeba.
"The discovery of how valproate blocks seizures, initially using the social amoeba Dictyostelium, and then replicated using accepted seizure models, highlights the successful use of non-animal testing in biomedical research," said Professor Robin Williams from the School of Biological Sciences at Royal Holloway.
"Sodium valproate is one of the most effective antiepileptic drugs in many people with epilepsy, but its use has been limited by side-effects, in particular its effect in pregnant women on the unborn child," said Professor Matthew Walker from the Institute of Neurology at University College London. "Understanding valproate's mechanism of action is a first step to developing even more effective drugs that lack many of valproate's side-effects."
"Our study also found that the decrease of a specific chemical in the brain at the start of the seizure causes even more seizure activity. This holds important implications for identifying underlying causes," added Professor Williams.
###
The research, funded by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research, builds on work in which most of the animal use in epilepsy research has been replaced by a simple amoeba to initially screen and identify improved treatments.
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Automated system promises precise control of medically induced coma
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Sue McGreevey smcgreevey@partners.org 617-724-2764 Massachusetts General Hospital
Successful animal study may lead to computer-controlled general anesthesia delivery
Putting patients with severe head injuries or persistent seizures into a medically induced coma currently requires that a nurse or other health professional constantly monitor the patient's brain activity and manually adjust drug infusion to maintain a deep state of anesthesia. Now a computer-controlled system developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators promises to automate the process, making it more precise and efficient and opening the door to more advanced control of anesthesia. The team, including colleagues from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reports successfully testing their approach in animals in the open access journal PLOS Computational Biology.
"People have been interested for years in finding a way to control anesthesia automatically," says Emery Brown, MD, PhD, of the MGH Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, senior author of the report. "To use an analogy that compares giving anesthesia to flying a plane, the way it's been done is like flying a direct course for hours or even days without using an autopilot. This is really something that we should have a computer doing."
As part of a long-term project investigating the physiological basis of general anesthesia, Brown's team at MGH and MIT has identified and studied patterns of brain activity reflecting various states of anesthesia. One of the deepest states called burst suppression is characterized by an electroencephalogram (EEG) pattern in which brief periods of brain activity the bursts are interrupted by stretches of greatly reduced activity that can last for seconds or longer. When patients with serious head injuries that cause a buildup of pressure within the skull or those with persistent seizures are put into a medically induced coma to protect against additional damage, the goal is to maintain brain activity in a state of burst suppression.
Although anesthesiologists have had computer-assisted technologies for many years, no FDA-approved system exists that completely controls anesthesia administration based on continuous monitoring of a patient's brain activity. Until the current study, Brown notes, no one had demonstrated the level of control required for a completely automated system. Keeping patients at a precise level of brain activity for several days, as required for medically induced coma, appeared to be both a feasible goal and one that cried out for the sort of computer-controlled system called a brain-machine interface.
Adapting programs they had previously developed to analyze the activity of neurons, Brown's team developed algorithms to read and analyze an EEG pattern in real time and determine a target level of brain activity in this case the stage of burst suppression. Based on that target, an automated control device adjusts the flow of an anesthetic drug to achieve the desired brain state, and real-time analysis of the continuous EEG readings is fed back to the system to insure maintenance of the target. When the researchers tested their system in a rodent model, the actual EEG-based measure of burst suppression tracked the target trajectory almost exactly.
"As far as we know, these are the best results for automated control of anesthesia that have ever been published," says Brown, who is the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at MIT. "We're now in discussions with the FDA for approval to start testing this in patients." The MGH has also applied for a patent for the technology.
Among the benefits of such a system, Brown explains, would be the ability to maintain medical coma at a more precise, consistent level than can be done manually and using lower doses of anesthetic drugs, a reduction that is possible with any computer-assisted technology. Eliminating the need to devote one intensive-care nurse on each shift to continuous monitoring of one patient would significantly change ICU staffing needs. Further development of the system to control and maintain the full range of anesthesia states should introduce a powerful new tool to the entire field.
###
Lead authors of the PLOS Computational Biology report are Maryam Shanechi, PhD, now at Cornell University, and Jessica Chemali, MGH Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine. Additional co-authors are Max Liberman and Ken Solt, MD, MGH Anesthesia. Primary support for this work is through an National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award to Brown.
Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $775 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine.
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Automated system promises precise control of medically induced coma
PUBLIC RELEASE DATE:
31-Oct-2013
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Contact: Sue McGreevey smcgreevey@partners.org 617-724-2764 Massachusetts General Hospital
Successful animal study may lead to computer-controlled general anesthesia delivery
Putting patients with severe head injuries or persistent seizures into a medically induced coma currently requires that a nurse or other health professional constantly monitor the patient's brain activity and manually adjust drug infusion to maintain a deep state of anesthesia. Now a computer-controlled system developed by Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) investigators promises to automate the process, making it more precise and efficient and opening the door to more advanced control of anesthesia. The team, including colleagues from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reports successfully testing their approach in animals in the open access journal PLOS Computational Biology.
"People have been interested for years in finding a way to control anesthesia automatically," says Emery Brown, MD, PhD, of the MGH Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine, senior author of the report. "To use an analogy that compares giving anesthesia to flying a plane, the way it's been done is like flying a direct course for hours or even days without using an autopilot. This is really something that we should have a computer doing."
As part of a long-term project investigating the physiological basis of general anesthesia, Brown's team at MGH and MIT has identified and studied patterns of brain activity reflecting various states of anesthesia. One of the deepest states called burst suppression is characterized by an electroencephalogram (EEG) pattern in which brief periods of brain activity the bursts are interrupted by stretches of greatly reduced activity that can last for seconds or longer. When patients with serious head injuries that cause a buildup of pressure within the skull or those with persistent seizures are put into a medically induced coma to protect against additional damage, the goal is to maintain brain activity in a state of burst suppression.
Although anesthesiologists have had computer-assisted technologies for many years, no FDA-approved system exists that completely controls anesthesia administration based on continuous monitoring of a patient's brain activity. Until the current study, Brown notes, no one had demonstrated the level of control required for a completely automated system. Keeping patients at a precise level of brain activity for several days, as required for medically induced coma, appeared to be both a feasible goal and one that cried out for the sort of computer-controlled system called a brain-machine interface.
Adapting programs they had previously developed to analyze the activity of neurons, Brown's team developed algorithms to read and analyze an EEG pattern in real time and determine a target level of brain activity in this case the stage of burst suppression. Based on that target, an automated control device adjusts the flow of an anesthetic drug to achieve the desired brain state, and real-time analysis of the continuous EEG readings is fed back to the system to insure maintenance of the target. When the researchers tested their system in a rodent model, the actual EEG-based measure of burst suppression tracked the target trajectory almost exactly.
"As far as we know, these are the best results for automated control of anesthesia that have ever been published," says Brown, who is the Warren M. Zapol Professor of Anesthesia at Harvard Medical School and the Edward Hood Taplin Professor of Medical Engineering and Computational Neuroscience at MIT. "We're now in discussions with the FDA for approval to start testing this in patients." The MGH has also applied for a patent for the technology.
Among the benefits of such a system, Brown explains, would be the ability to maintain medical coma at a more precise, consistent level than can be done manually and using lower doses of anesthetic drugs, a reduction that is possible with any computer-assisted technology. Eliminating the need to devote one intensive-care nurse on each shift to continuous monitoring of one patient would significantly change ICU staffing needs. Further development of the system to control and maintain the full range of anesthesia states should introduce a powerful new tool to the entire field.
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Lead authors of the PLOS Computational Biology report are Maryam Shanechi, PhD, now at Cornell University, and Jessica Chemali, MGH Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine. Additional co-authors are Max Liberman and Ken Solt, MD, MGH Anesthesia. Primary support for this work is through an National Institutes of Health Director's Pioneer Award to Brown.
Massachusetts General Hospital, founded in 1811, is the original and largest teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School. The MGH conducts the largest hospital-based research program in the United States, with an annual research budget of more than $775 million and major research centers in AIDS, cardiovascular research, cancer, computational and integrative biology, cutaneous biology, human genetics, medical imaging, neurodegenerative disorders, regenerative medicine, reproductive biology, systems biology, transplantation biology and photomedicine.
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WASHINGTON (AP) — In geopolitics, just as on the playground, even best friends don't tell each other everything. And everybody's dying to know what the other guy knows.
Revelations that the U.S. has been monitoring the cellphone calls of up to 35 world leaders have brought into high relief an open-yet-often-unspoken secret — allies spy on allies. It's also raised a question: With the incredible reach of new-millennium technology, is this still OK?
National Intelligence Director James Clapper said this week it is a "basic tenet" of the intelligence business to find out whether the public statements of world leaders jibe with what's being said behind closed doors.
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma
FRIDAY, APRIL 29, 2011, AT 3:07 PM Obama Gets Firsthand Look at a Tornado Damage
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
TUESDAY, APRIL 20, 2010, AT 6:19 PM Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long. Tornado Kills at Least Five in Oklahoma. Very long title. Long long long.
It's the job of celebrities to wear costumes for a role, but even in their downtime, they still love to dress up -- especially during Halloween! Even before they were stars, celebs like Kate Bosworth and Channing Tatum had fun getting into the spirit of the holiday, and we've got the pictures they shared in their yearbooks to prove it! Check them out:
More last minute leaks point towards Kit Kat features
Another to add the the list of rumors about what's next for Google has magically surfaced tonight. According to ex-WSJ reporter Amir Efrati, Kit Kat will focus on unifying Android and making the OS run better on low-end hardware.
Specifically, he says it was designed for devices with 512MB of RAM, like the millions of devices in the wild running older versions of the OS. Google using a phone with a Snapdragon 800 and 2GB of RAM — if rumored specifications are to be believed — as a lead device for software designed for devices with old hardware is a bit puzzling though. This would be best done using the Nexus S, which Google surely has access to.
Additionally, Google has provided support for sensors such as a step detector and step counter, and and added what they are calling a geomagnetic rotation vector. This would enable Android to run as a fitness tracker as well as have more accurate and detailed location reporting. Bluetooth HID over GATT and Bluetooth MAP are additional services that would seem to suggest better wearable support.
Finally, It's said that there will be native support for IR controllers, such as the types used for televisions. We've seen these on devices before, though without support at the OS level.
Really, there's nothing here that hasn't been rumored for months. We'll know how much of it all is true, and what is just rampant speculation soon.
Arcade Fire's new album, Reflektor, comes out Tuesday.
JF Lalonde/Courtesy of the artist
Arcade Fire's new album, Reflektor, comes out Tuesday.
JF Lalonde/Courtesy of the artist
Fans of Arcade Fire might be feeling a bit of culture shock. The group has been called the world's most successful indie rock band — but its new album, Reflektor, explores the Haitian roots of band member Regine Chassagne.
She and her husband, frontman Win Butler, have worked with Haitian relief groups for years; the band has donated more than $1 million to charities there. Speaking with NPR's David Greene, Chassagne and Butler say the seeds of the idea for Reflektor were planted on a trip they took to Haiti right after winning the 2011 Grammy for album of the year, in a total upset.
"And then there's people coming from the mountains to watch us play who've never heard The Beatles before," Butler says of the scene when the band arrived. "You realize, stripped of that context, what you're left with is rhythm and emotion and melody; it kind of gets back to these really basic building blocks of music. So we kind of wanted to start from there and try and make something out of it."
Reflektor isn't a dance record through and through, but it does incorporate many specific dance rhythms — "Here Comes the Night Time," for example, evokes the Haitian street music known as rara in its faster moments. The title of that song, Butler says, refers to an uncanny sight that can often be seen at dusk on the streets of Port-au-Prince, large parts of which have no electricity.
"Everyone's kind of really hustling to get home because it can be kind of dangerous in a lot of neighborhoods; you have to get home before nightfall. And people have their bags of groceries and they're sprinting in the streets trying to get home," he says. "And then you see, like, three dudes in really sharp suits that are just stepping out to go out to a nightclub or something like that. You kind of have this duality where it's this really exciting atmosphere, but then also really dangerous at the same time.
Chassagne says that though the new album's themes are deeply meaningful to her, she hopes the band has created something that can be appreciated anywhere.
"I'm kind of stuck a little bit in both worlds, so I would like to make something that, basically, my mom could dance to. She wouldn't dance to a New Order song, but she would dance to the Haitian beat," Chassagne says. "I want to kind of do something that everybody can lock into."
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