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Introduction Postmenopausal women are particularly vulnerable to metabolic dysfunction. Compelling evidence suggests that this is due to their lacking the protective effect of estrogens. We have shown that circulating estrogens regulate daily eating and sleep-activity rhythms in female mice and protect them from obesity and diabetes. However, few studies have investigated whether postmenopausal women have disrupted eating and sleep-activity rhythms that could contribute to their metabolic dysfunction. The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between eating rhythms, sleep, and metabolic risk in postmenopausal women. Methods During 7 days, we studied sedentary, postmenopausal women who were not taking hormones (estrogens ± progestin) and were metabolically unhealthy, defined as prediabetic or normal glucose tolerance with at least 1 feature of the metabolic syndrome. Women taking medications affecting sleep or eating were excluded. Sleep timing and quality were assessed by actigraphy and sleep logs. Times of first and last meals were collected from participants with a texting system. Body composition (DXA), body mass index (BMI), and waist circumference were collected as markers of obesity. Lipid metabolism and glycemic control were assessed by fasting lipid panel and HbA1c as well as oral glucose tolerance test. Results Eighteen postmenopausal women (mean ± SEM; 57.2 ± 1.1 years) participated in the study. Both sleep timing and quality were associated with metabolic risk in postmenopausal women. Specifically, later timing of sleep onset was associated with later meal timing and greater BMI and body fat percentage. Increased sleep fragmentation was associated with reduced HDL. In addition, both the timing and duration of eating were associated with worse metabolic measures. Longer eating duration was associated with larger waist circumference. Later eating time was associated with greater waist circumference and BMI. Conclusion We found that late timing and poor quality of sleep, as well as long eating duration, are associated with markers of metabolic risk in postmenopausal women. These data suggest that interventions that reduce eating duration and advance the timing of last meal and sleep onset may improve metabolic risk in postmenopausal women. Support (if any) This study is supported by NIH awards R01DK124774, T32 AG078110, and UL1TR001998.

Nanostructured ferromagnetic materials are applicable in a broad range of technologies, especially in the areas of data storage and spintronics. In addition, special structures are of high interest in basic research, aiming at understanding magnetization reversal processes on the nano-scale and thus possibly creating new applications. The strong influence of the shape anisotropy in magnetic nanoparticles enables tailoring magnetization reversal processes by the shape of such a particle. Typically, symmetrical structures are investigated, such as nano-dots, doughnuts, squares, rectangles, etc. Here we report on spiral nano-structures with constantly varying bending radii, modelled according to the Fibonacci spiral which is well-known from diverse plants and biological processes and also related to many mathematical problems. The magnetic Fibonacci nano-spirals with a thicker and a thinner lateral structure size as well as a mirrored form, building a heart-like shape, show large numbers of steps in the hysteresis loops, corresponding to stable intermediate states, due to nucleation and annihilation of domains which do not propagate along the spirals. The numbers of these stable intermediate states which could be utilized for data storage as well as the coercive fields depend strongly on the spiral dimensions and the orientation of the external magnetic field. Simulating minor loops showed the high stability of the intermediate states and thus underlined the possibility to use such structures for data storage.

Many studies have examined obese/insulin-resistant mice to conclude that macrophages dominate pathogenic inflammation in metabolic disease, but few studies have ranked chronic sources of peripheral inflammation in obese people across a natural spectrum of metabolic health. We compared the relative contributions of myeloid and T cells to peripheral inflammation in samples from metabolically healthy and unhealthy obese people to address disappointing outcomes from clinical trials of anti-inflammatories in obesity-associated type 2 diabetes (T2D). We stimulated PBMCs from obese subjects with euglycemia, prediabetes, or T2D with T cell-targeting CD3/CD28 or myeloid-targeting LPS, and measured supernatant cytokines over time. Cytokines increased with time following CD3/CD28, but LPS responses were time-independent. A series of surface marker and intracellular staining assays taking into account these temporal differences in cytokine production unexpectedly showed that T cells contribute more TNFα to peripheral inflammation than do myeloid cells from all subject groups. Bioinformatic modeling combining cytokine outcomes from all subjects, stimuli, and time points, indicated IFNγ generated by CD3/CD28 stimulation was most important for differentiating peripheral inflammation in T2D compared to non-T2D samples. This result was consistent with the previously identified Th1/Th17 profile in T2D. We conclude that human T cells dominate peripheral inflammation in obesity-associated T2D, and thus targeting T cells may be an effective approach for prevention/management of obesity-associated metabolic diseases. Supported by NIH Training Grants T32 DK007778 and TL1 UL1TR001998, R01DK108056, the Shared Resource Facility of the University of Kentucky Markey Cancer Center P30 CA177558, University of Kentucky College of Medicine, Barnstable Brown Diabetes and Obesity Center, The Center for Clinical and Translational Research (UL1TR000117), and NIH National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences UL1TR001998.

The formation of the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) brings new promise for moving basic and discoveries to clinical practice, ultimately improving the health of the nation. The CTSA sites, now housed with NCATS, are organized and prepared to support in this endeavor. The CTSAs provide a foundation for capitalizing on such promise through provision of a disease-agnostic infrastructure devoted to C&T science, maintenance of training programs designed for C&T investigators of the future, by incentivizing institutional reorganization and by cultivating institutional support.

Environments of deposition within a submarine slope-fan-basin plain system have been reconstructed for three flysch formations on the basis of sedimentary facies and facies associations. The dominantly arenitic rocks of the Eocene Greifenstein Sandstone were deposited in large channels on the inner fan and the inner part of the middle fan. The pelitic and arenitic strata of the Upper Cretaceous Sievering Formation were deposited in large channels and on interchannel surfaces of the middle fan. The dominantly pelitic rocks of the Paleocene—Eocene Laab Formation were deposited on the outer fan and the outer part of the middle fan. Most of the trace fossils in these formations are characteristics of the Nereites facies, which is typical of deep-water paleoenvironments. Nearly all the abundant full-relief traces in pelites and hyporelief traces on the soles of arenites were constructed by deposit-feeding, inbenthic animals burrowing and feeding in mud. The epirelief traces on the upper surfaces of arenites are surface trails of epibenthic deposit-feeders, scavengers, or carnivores. Abundance and diversity of inbenthic deposit-feeders apparently were limited by sediment grain size, and their traces are abundant only in thinly interbedded, finegrained arenites and pelites deposited in middle fan channel and interchannel environments of the Sievering Formation and parts of the Laab Formation. Abundance of epibenthic animals may have been limited by temporal and geographic continuity of suitable sandy substrates, and their traces are abundant only locally in ungraded, coarser-grained arenites deposited in inner fan channel environments of the Greifenstein Sandstone.

Fifteen features of trace fossils on flysch sandstone soles have been found useful in distinguishing between pre-depositional traces of mud-inhabiting animals and post-depositional traces of sand-dwellers. The Polish Carpathian flysch ichnofauna of 55 genera and 145 species, including 41 ichno-genera that occur at least in part on sandstone soles, is dominated both in number of taxa and number of specimens by traces of mud inhabitants, and most traces, both of mud- and sand-dwellers, were produced by infaunal deposit-feeders. Because mud was the temporally dominant substrate, the mud-dwellers were much more abundant over long periods of time, but the fauna of turbidites and similar sands may have been nearly as diverse and abundant at any given moment as the mud fauna at another. The currents depositing these sands eroded surficial layers of mud and excavated any burrow fillings in almost every case. The flysch ichnofauna differs from observed trace assemblages of modern deep-sea substrates in that the former consists almost exclusively of burrows, while surface traces dominate the latter.

Geomorphic, structural, paleontologic, and stratigraphic analysis of features of emergent marine terraces have been used to reconstruct part of the late Pleistocene paleoenvironmental, paleogeographic, and tectonic history of the San Diego area. The Nestor terrace abrasion platform was cut 120,000 yr B.P. during a marine stillstand 6 ± 4 m above present sea level. Fossil marine invertebrates on this platform reflect slightly higher than present shallow-water marine temperatures, consistent with the slightly higher level of the sea and smaller volume of glacial ice. The 105,000-yr B.P. stillstand 12 ± 3 m lower than present sea level may be recorded in a single very small unfossiliferous terrace remnant. The Bird Rock terrace abrasion platform was cut 80,000 yr B.P. during a stillstand 14 ± 2 m lower than present sea level. Fossil marine invertebrates on this platform reflect slightly lower than present shallow-water marine temperatures, consistent with the slightly lower level of the sea and larger volume of glacial ice. General, rather uniform tectonic elevation of the entire San Diego coastal area has amounted to 19 to 24 m during the past 80,000 yr for a rate of uplift of 24 to 30 cm per thousand years. Just south of the Rose Canyon fault, the Nestor platform was elevated tectonically by approximately 23 m between 120,000 and 80,000 yr B.P. and another 31 m during the subsequent 80,000 yr to a total of 54 m in 120,000 yr, or 45 cm per thousand years.

Distinctive biogenic sedimentary structures (trace fossils) in sedimentary rocks reflect the burrowing behavior of the animals that made them. Because the distribution of these animals is influenced by environmental factors such as water depth and substrate type, trace fossils have been used widely as paleoenvironmental guides. The massive, ungraded sandstones in the Point Loma Formation have sharp upper and lower contacts, thick lenses of mudstone clasts, and common load-deformation structures, suggesting deposition largely by grain-flow processes. Foraminifers and most of the trace fossils suggest deposition in a deep, probably bathyal environment. However, two abundant trace fossils, Qphiomorpha and Thalassinoides , are widely held to represent very shallow-water to intertidal paleoenvironments, and they usually occur in such facies. Two morphologic forms of a third trace fossil, Zoophycos , have been thought to reflect different environmental conditions, but they occur here in the same strata. These occurrences emphasize the point that paleoenvironmental interpretations should not be based on individual trace-fossil taxa, but that such traces should be considered only in conjunction with other available evidence.

Th 230 /U 234 dating of corals shows that the Nestor Terrace in the San Diego area was formed 120,000 ± 10,000 yr ago. This terrace appears to be correlative with marine terraces at other places on the California coast and with shoreline features formed in many parts of the world during a late Pleistocene eustatic high sea stand. The difference between the original and present elevations of the Nestor Terrace on the west side of Point Loma in San Diego indicates an average rate of uplift, since the terrace formed, of 11 to 14 cm per 1,000 yr. Dating of mollusks from the Nestor Terrace and from a topographically lower terrace has given apparently unreliable results.