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Abstract Human induced pluripotent stem cell-derived (iPSC) neural cultures offer clinically relevant models of human diseases, including Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, and Autism Spectrum Disorder. In situ characterization of the spatial-temporal evolution of cell state in 3D culture and subsequent 2D dissociated culture models based on protein expression levels and localizations is essential to understanding neural cell differentiation, disease state phenotypes, and sample-to-sample variability. Here, we apply PR obe-based I maging for S equential M ultiplexing (PRISM) to facilitate multiplexed imaging with facile, rapid exchange of imaging probes to analyze iPSC-derived cortical and motor neuron cultures that are relevant to psychiatric and neurodegenerative disease models, using over ten protein targets. Our approach permits analysis of cell differentiation, cell composition, and functional marker expression in complex stem-cell derived neural cultures. Furthermore, our approach is amenable to automation, offering in principle the ability to scale-up to dozens of protein targets and samples. 

Background Hypertension drives myocardial remodeling, leading to changes in structure, composition and mechanical behavior, including residual stress, which are linked to heart disease progression in a gender-specific manner. Emerging therapies are also targeting constituent-specific pathological features. All previous studies, however, have characterized remodeling in the intact tissue, rather than isolated tissue constituents, and did not include sex as a biological variable. Objective In this study we first identified the contribution of collagen fiber network and myocytes to the myocardial residual stress/strain in Dahl-Salt sensitive rats fed with high fat diet. Then, we quantified the effect of hypertension on the remodeling of the left ventricle (LV), as well as the existence of sex-specific remodeling features. Methods We performed mechanical tests (opening angle, ring-test) and histological analysis on isolated constituents and intact tissue of the LV. Based on the measurements from the tests, we performed a stress analysis to evaluate the residual stress distribution. Statistical analysis was performed to identify the effects of constituent isolation, elevated blood pressure, and sex of the animal on the experimental measurements and modeling results. Results Hypertension leads to reduced residual stress/strain in the intact tissue, isolated collagen fibers, and isolated myocytes in male and female rats. Collagen remains the largest contributor to myocardial residual stress in both normotensive and hypertensive animals. We identified sex-differences in both hypertensive and normotensive animals. Conclusions We observed both constituent- and sex-specific remodeling features in the LV of an animal model of hypertension. 

The prevalence of disease-driven mass mortality events is increasing, but our understanding of spatial variation in their magnitude, timing and triggers are often poorly resolved. Here, we use a novel range-wide dataset comprised 48 810 surveys to quantify how sea star wasting disease affected Pycnopodia helianthoides , the sunflower sea star, across its range from Baja California, Mexico to the Aleutian Islands, USA. We found that the outbreak occurred more rapidly, killed a greater percentage of the population and left fewer survivors in the southern half of the species's range. Pycnopodia now appears to be functionally extinct (greater than 99.2% declines) from Baja California, Mexico to Cape Flattery, Washington, USA and exhibited severe declines (greater than 87.8%) from the Salish Sea to the Gulf of Alaska. The importance of temperature in predicting Pycnopodia distribution rose more than fourfold after the outbreak, suggesting latitudinal variation in outbreak severity may stem from an interaction between disease severity and warmer waters. We found no evidence of population recovery in the years since the outbreak. Natural recovery in the southern half of the range is unlikely over the short term. Thus, assisted recovery will probably be required to restore the functional role of this predator on ecologically relevant time scales. 

We report on one of the highest sensitivity surveys for molecular lines in the frequency range 6.0 to 7.4 GHz conducted to date. The observations were done with the 305m Arecibo Telescope toward a sample of twelve intermediate/high-mass star forming regions. We searched for a large number of transitions of different molecules, including CH3OH and OH. The low RMS noise of our data (~5 mJy for most sources and transitions) allowed detection of spectral features that have not been seen in previous lower sensitivity observations of the sources, such as detection of excited OH and 6.7 GHz CH3OH absorption. A review of 6.7 GHz CH3OH detections indicates an association between absorption and radio continuum sources in high-mass star forming regions, although selection biases in targeted projects and low sensitivity of blind surveys imply incompleteness. Absorption of excited OH transitions was also detected toward three sources. In particular, we confirm a broad 6.035 GHz OH absorption feature in G34.26+0.15 characterized by an asymmetric blue-shifted wing indicative of expansion, perhaps a large scale outflow in this HII region. 

A multi-TeV muon collider offers a spectacular opportunity in the direct exploration of the energy frontier. Offering a combination of unprecedented energy collisions in a comparatively clean leptonic environment, a high energy muon collider has the unique potential to provide both precision measurements and the highest energy reach in one machine that cannot be paralleled by any currently available technology. The topic generated a lot of excitement in Snowmass meetings and continues to attract a large number of supporters, including many from the early career community. In light of this very strong interest within the US particle physics community, Snowmass Energy, Theory and Accelerator Frontiers created a cross-frontier Muon Collider Forum in November of 2020. The Forum has been meeting on a monthly basis and organized several topical workshops dedicated to physics, accelerator technology, and detector R&D. Findings of the Forum are summarized in this report.

 

Meeting abstract 

A study of the anomalous couplings of the Higgs boson to vector bosons, including$${\textit{CP}}$$$\mathrm{CP}$-violation effects, has been conducted using its production and decay in the WW channel. This analysis is performed on proton–proton collision data collected with the CMS detector at the CERN LHC during 2016–2018 at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, and corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 138$$\,\text {fb}^{-1}$$${\text{fb}}^{-1}$. The different-flavor dilepton$$({\textrm{e}} {{\upmu }})$$$\left(\text{e}\mu \right)$final state is analyzed, with dedicated categories targeting gluon fusion, electroweak vector boson fusion, and associated production with a W or Z boson. Kinematic information from associated jets is combined using matrix element techniques to increase the sensitivity to anomalous effects at the production vertex. A simultaneous measurement of four Higgs boson couplings to electroweak vector bosons is performed in the framework of a standard model effective field theory. All measurements are consistent with the expectations for the standard model Higgs boson and constraints are set on the fractional contribution of the anomalous couplings to the Higgs boson production cross section.