Culture

Soon after E.L. James's Fifty Shades of Grey appeared in 2015, the book market was inundated with a flood of erotic bestsellers. People from all corners began wondering what this type of novel's secret of success could be. Now, a research team at the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (MPIEA) in Frankfurt/Main, Germany, has taken a closer look at the readership of erotic novels and investigated the causes of this literary predilection.

In the media as well as the academy, contemporary erotica is typically dismissed as being of low literary value. Critics and scholars tend to classify its readers as having mediocre to poor taste, without, however, examining their motivations and experiences in more detail. Against this background, the MPIEA team conducted an online study to investigate who actually reads erotic novels and why. The findings have just been published as an Open Access article in the journal Humanities & Social Sciences Communications.

The study included data sets from around 420 female participants. The majority of respondents were heterosexual women in stable relationships with an above-average level of education. They described themselves as being enthusiastic frequent readers who enjoyed sharing their reading experiences with others. Most of the study participants were between 20 and 40 years old.

The majority of respondents indicated that they read erotic novels as a diversion, and feelings of ease and relaxation were frequently named as a motivating factor. The sexual explicitness of the novels and their potential to provide orientation in readers' own lives also played a role for the participants, although this role was less significant than had been assumed in previous studies. Readers' opinions about erotic novels also came as a surprise, by contrast with more general critical ideas about contemporary erotica.

"Many of the study participants saw erotic novels - at least in part - as being emancipated, feminist, and progressive. We attribute this finding primarily to the respondents' more traditional views of male and female gender roles," explains lead author Maria Kraxenberger.

This study is the first to investigate empirically the readership and motivations for reading that underlie a major contemporary cultural phenomenon. Although readers of erotica have a significant impact on the international book market, the mainstream conversation about literature and reading is still reserved for "serious" readers of "good," if less popular, kinds of books. The study's findings underscore the need for more research that explores reading experiences outside the canon of serious literature.

Twenty dollars a month might not seem like a lot to pay for health insurance. But for people getting by on $15,000 a year, it's enough to make some drop their coverage - especially if they're healthy, a new study of Medicaid expansion participants in Michigan finds.

That could keep them from getting preventive or timely care, and could leave their insurance company with a sicker pool of patients than before, say the researchers from the University of Michigan and University of Illinois Chicago. They have published their findings as a working paper through the National Bureau of Economic Research, ahead of publication in the American Journal of Health Economics.

The study has implications for other states that require low-income people to pay for their Medicaid coverage, or may be considering such a requirement if they expand Medicaid. It also has importance for the plans sold on the national and state Marketplaces to people who buy their coverage directly.

Impact of monthly fees

The new findings come from Michigan's Medicaid expansion program, called the Healthy Michigan Plan, which was one of the first in the nation to require some low-income participants to pay monthly fees and most participants to pay co-pays for services they receive. Nearly 906,000 Michiganders get their health coverage through the program.

Fees, formerly called contributions and similar to the monthly premiums that people with other forms of insurance pay, are only charged to those have a household income above the federal poverty level. The program is open to adults making up to 138% of the federal poverty level, a cap of about $17,700 for a single-person household in 2021.

The analysis was done by a team from the U-M Institute for Healthcare Policy and Innovation, which has conducted a formal evaluation of the program for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services. Betsy Q. Cliff, Ph.D., now at the University of Illinois Chicago, led the analysis during her doctoral training at the U-M School of Public Health.

While people leave Medicaid for a number of reasons, the study found a 2.3 percentage point jump in disenrollment at the federal poverty level, which the researchers attribute to the imposition of premiums.

Given a baseline disenrollment of about 20% over 6 months of the program, the study finds 12% more participants dropped off the Healthy Michigan Plan after they began owing monthly fees. The amount someone had to pay also mattered: Disenrollment rose by nearly 1 percentage point for every dollar charged monthly. The study used data from the inception of the program in March 2014 and followed participants through September 2016.

Michigan's cost-sharing requirements for people in the Healthy Michigan Plan kick in after a person has been in the program for six months. An individual on the program with an income just above the poverty level - around $12,900 a year in 2021 - might be charged about $20 a month, though this amount can be reduced by engaging in a discussion with their physician about healthy behaviors. The monthly amount goes up as income increases.

"Disruptions in Medicaid coverage -- also known as churn -- can lead to worse quality care, higher administrative costs and less chance for the population to receive needed but non-urgent preventive services," says Cliff, now an assistant professor at UIC's School of Public Health.

Indeed, previous work by the IHPI team to survey past participants in the Healthy Michigan Plan showed that 81% had access to no other form of insurance before they joined the program, and that 55% went uninsured for the three months after they left it.

Signs of "adverse selection"

When the researchers looked closer at who was leaving the plan, they found that it was mainly people who were relatively healthy: Those who hadn't had any care related to a chronic illness, and that had below-median health spending.

By contrast, the study did not find an increase in disenrollment among those who had gotten care for a chronic condition or had above-median health care spending during the first months after enrollment, before they received a cost-sharing invoice.

In participants who had no care related to a chronic disease in the six months before cost-sharing kicked in, or who had below-median overall spending, facing a premium increased the chance of disenrollment by about 3 percentage points. Every dollar of monthly fees cost raised disenrollment by 0.8 percentage points. But monthly fees didn't change the disenrollment chances of less-healthy enrollees who had chronic disease care or higher-than-median health spending.

When the researchers adjusted for demographic differences, they found that the people who disenrolled had medical spending in the first six months of enrollment that was 40% lower than the spending for those who stayed in.

Being billed for co-pays did not seem to alter the chance that people of any health status would leave the program. In general, co-pays for people receiving certain health care services under the Healthy Michigan Plan are $1 to $8 for a prescription up to $100 for an inpatient hospital stay, depending on income.

Enrollees are not required to leave the program for non-payment of monthly fees or co-pays; people must actively disenroll or fail to complete yearly renewal paperwork.

Implications for other states and plans

In addition to the disruption for individuals and the private plans that cover them, the authors say the findings have implications for how the state and federal governments plan for spending on Medicaid, and how they adjust payments to insurers and providers based on patients' health risk.

States that are considering implementing or continuing cost-sharing requirements under Medicaid expansion should consider this, the authors say.

Cost-sharing is seen as a way to promote personal responsibility and encourage participants to make better decisions about health care and have been used as a way to achieve bipartisan support for Medicaid expansion in Michigan and other states.

But as the study shows, this may limit access to coverage and cause Medicaid to experience adverse selection, that can disrupt the health insurance market.

The relationship a dog has with its owner is related to its stress level. This is the conclusion of a newly published study from Linköping University, Sweden. The results, published in the journal Scientific Reports, also suggest that the link between stress and the owner's personality traits differs between dog breeds.

Researchers at Linköping University have investigated whether the stress levels of dogs are affected by the people they live with. Stress levels for the past several months can be determined in both dogs and humans by measuring the levels of stress hormone stored in hairs as they grow.

The researchers have collected hair from both dogs and owners, and measured levels of cortisol, the most important stress hormone, in them. They were interested in whether there are differences between different dog breeds. Breeding has led to the genetic selection of different breeds for different tasks. The study included 18 dogs from breeds that have been bred for independent hunting, such as the Swedish elkhound, the Norwegian elkhound, and the dachshund. A second group included dogs from ancient breeds that are genetically more closely related to the wolf than other breeds. This group comprised 24 dogs from breeds such as the shiba inu, the basenji, and the Siberian husky. All owners completed questionnaires about their own personality and that of their dog. They also answered questions about their relationship with their dog, including such matters as how the owner experienced the interaction with the dog, degree of emotional attachment to the dog, and the extent to which owning a dog gave rise to problems.

"The results showed that the owner's personality affected the stress level in hunting dogs, but interestingly enough not in the ancient dogs. In addition, the relationship between the dog and the owner affected the stress level of the dogs. This was the case for both types, but the result was less marked for the ancient dogs", says Lina Roth, senior lecturer in the Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology at Linköping University.

In a previous study, the same researchers had seen that dogs from herding breeds, which have been genetically selected for their ability to collaborate with humans, mirror the long-term stress level of their owner. When the researchers now added information about the relationship of the herding dogs to their owner, it became clear that the relationship was significant for the long-term stress levels also in these dogs.

The researchers conclude that long-term stress is influenced least strongly by the owner and their relationship to the dog for ancient breeds. The hunting dogs show clear links between both the personality of the owner and their relationship to the dog, but it is only herding dogs that demonstrate the unique synchronisation with the long-term stress in the owner.

"We believe that the synchronisation of stress is a consequence of breeding the herding dogs for collaboration with people, while the relationship to the owner and the owner's personality are important parameters that influence the synchronisation of stress levels", says Lina Roth.

For organizations to reach their potential, they must leverage the expertise of their employees. However, research demonstrates that lower-status employees may not be heard because their "voices" are more likely to be ignored.

New research from the University of Notre Dame is the first to show that peers can help boost marginalized voices, and at the same time benefit their own status, all while helping their organization realize the potential of its employees' diverse perspectives.

Publicly endorsing -- or amplifying -- another person's contribution, while giving attribution to that person, enhances the status of both parties, according to "Amplifying Voice in Organizations," forthcoming in the Academy of Management Journal. Nathan Meikle, postdoctoral research associate in Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business, and co-lead authors Kristin Bain, Tamar Kreps and Elizabeth Tenney show that ideas that were amplified were rated as higher quality than when those same ideas were not amplified.

"Employees have a finite number of opportunities to speak up in organizations," said Meikle, who specializes in social perception and its implications for organizations. "This can create a dilemma for employees who are trying to get recognized for their contributions. Should they use these limited speaking opportunities to shine a light on themselves or on others? And if they emphasize another's contributions, does it come at a cost to themselves?"

Previous research on "voice" -- speaking up to improve one's organization -- has focused on interactions between supervisors and employees and the negative aspects of voice in such scenarios. However, Meikle and colleagues found that peers can play a crucial role in facilitating the voice process. The team found that those who publicly endorse a peer's contribution, with attribution to that person, enhance both the status of those they amplified as well as their own.

In the first study, 1,188 participants read a transcript of a sales team meeting involving employees of a fictional insurance company with declining sales. Two members offered ideas followed by a third member who ignored the previous ideas. The researchers then manipulated the scenario in one of three ways: the first member amplified the idea of the second member, voiced another idea or simply stayed quiet. The researchers found that both the first member and the second member were rated significantly higher in status in the amplification condition than the other conditions.

In a similar second study, 1,501 participants listened to the transcript rather than reading it, and gender and status were introduced. The team varied whether the first and second members were a high-status male or a low-status female. Consistent with the first study, the first member amplified the second, remained quiet or voiced a new idea. The researchers also added a condition in which the first member self-promoted their prior idea.

"We found that regardless of gender composition, amplifying was more beneficial than any of the other behaviors," Meikle said. "Furthermore, amplification increased the status of both the amplifier and the person being boosted. That was great news for us, that amplification helps even people with low status, whether they are amplifying or being amplified."

In a final study, the researchers tested whether low-status employees could be trained to amplify within their teams. The researchers collected data from 77 employees of a nonprofit educational organization serving people with developmental disabilities. The school director identified 22 employees she believed did not have the degree of influence they should have. Those 22 people were trained in amplification, and after two weeks their status significantly increased. The employees not involved in amplification maintained the same status.

"We were thrilled to see that amplification could be beneficial in a real organization," Meikle said. "We'd seen consistent results in laboratory experiments, which was obviously encouraging. But we were especially excited to see that people can use amplification to make an impact in the real world."

The researchers gained interesting insights from trying out amplification in their own group process as well. In particular, Meikle believes that the benefits of amplification may accrue subconsciously. In their research meetings, the researchers frequently amplified one another, often jokingly, but then had to point out to each other that someone had just been amplified. Meikle says these subtle actions can have a profound impact without being overt or obvious.

"The very first time we examined amplification, I was observing the amplifier as they amplified other group members, and I was surprised at how much of a leadership role the amplifier took on, simply by boosting other people," Meikle said. "Amplifying others requires no new ideas nor complicated decision making, and proves to be a very low-risk, easy strategy that can be used by anyone to help themselves and others."

When a loved one dies, memories of that person become particularly valuable in connecting the mourners with the deceased. A new Weill Cornell Medicine online application, called Living Memory Home, offers a virtual and personal memorial space that allows mourners to deposit their memories and feelings about their loss and honor their loved one.

Living Memory Home users are able to create a memorial space that they can personalize with photos and messages. They can customize a virtual cabin and choose an appropriate view. The curated set of questions prompt users to write memories and feelings about their loved one. Users may write as if they are speaking to the person who died, which can help with the grieving process, said Dr. Wan Jou (Lavender) She, a postdoctoral research associate at Weill Cornell Medicine who co-designed Living Memory Home with researchers from the institution's Center for Research on End-of-Life Care. The center is co-directed Dr. Holly Prigerson, the Irving Sherwood Wright Professor in Geriatrics II and professor of sociology in medicine at Weill Cornell Medicine.

"It could be stressful to always worry about forgetting the memories, so Living Memory Home serves an important function to allow them to deposit their memories," Dr. She said.

Living Memory Home was developed in collaboration with Dr. Chee (Jim) Ang from the University of Kent's School of Computing and Dr. Panote Siriaraya from the Kyoto Institute of Technology. Dr. Ang and Dr. Siriaraya played a role in providing insights into human computer interaction, particularly in relation to how users interact with technology in a social-technical context.

People who experience the loss of a loved one through death often report in research studies that their biggest fear is forgetting memories and details of that person. To that end, some people use social media as a forum to honor their loved one. However, the mechanism of receiving likes and comments on these forums often encourage people to act in a socially acceptable way and discourage the sharing of negative thoughts or taboo subjects, according to Dr. She.

While receiving likes or supportive comments on social media may feel gratifying, Dr. She said, mourners may self-edit the content and remove some details of the relationship, making the content superficial and less reflective of the complexity of the loss. However, grief involves revisiting the experiences and processing the variety of emotions, positive and negative, accompanied with the loss. Being unable to process grief appropriately could lead to prolonged grief disorder, which is when a person gets "stuck" in their grief, Dr. She added. They feel a persistent and pervasive longing for someone six months or more after the person has died, which can lead to a mistrust of others, feeling numb, substance use, suicidal thinking and other challenges.

To support the mourning process, Living Memory Home--which is free and available to the public-- offers a virtual space in which people can memorialize and reminisce about their loved one privately, reflecting on both positive and negative memories and emotions.

To study design opportunities and challenges to facilitate backstage grieving, Dr. She and colleagues recruited 20 adults who had all lost a loved one within the past three years to use the Living Memory Home program for one month, later interviewing them about their experience with the program. The researchers presented their findings at CHI'21: ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing System, hosted May 8-13 in Yokohama, Japan.

"This study helps us understand how people use digital technology for sensitive and personal matters such as grieving, so that we can incorporate human values in technology design." Dr. Ang said.

The center's investigators developed Living Memory Home in response to the popularity of its self-screening Grief Intensity Scale, a free tool that assesses a person's risk of developing prolonged grief disorder. The center's researchers wanted to next create an application that could help people from reaching that state of prolonged grief disorder.

AMES, Iowa - New variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus most likely will necessitate the development of more vaccine options in the years ahead, and a biomedical scientist at Iowa State University believes the "key" to that development lies in the way the virus binds to human cells.

Michael Cho, a professor of biomedical sciences at Iowa State, is studying how to develop COVID-19 vaccines that target SARS-CoV-2's receptor-binding domain, or the part of the virus that docks with the host cellular receptor, angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). This docking process allows the virus access to the host's cells, which leads to infection.

Cho was the lead author of a study recently published in the peer-reviewed scientific journal Frontiers in Immunology detailing the ability of a vaccine to induce antibodies in mice that target the virus's receptor binding domain. The patent-pending vaccine approach is available for licensing from the Iowa State University Research Foundation. Cho will deliver a virtual presentation on the potential of the approach to BioConnect Iowa's vaccine and immunotherapeutics meeting on Wednesday.

The antibodies produced by the experimental vaccine attack the receptor binding domain, or RBD, of the virus. The RBD is the portion of the viral spike protein that binds to host cells to initiate infection. Cho likens the spike protein to a key, and the RBD is the part of the key that actually enters the lock.

"The spike glycoprotein is the key that opens the lock, and the region of the key with all the peaks and valleys and grooves is the RBD," Cho said. "If antibodies attack the RBD, then the key won't work and the door will stay locked, preventing infection. We don't really need to make antibodies against the entire spike protein, which is more difficult to make. We can just focus on the RBD portion."

This approach differs from the three vaccines currently available in the United States to ward off COVID-19. The mRNA vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna work by delivering a set of instructions that teach the immune system how to make the entire spike protein that triggers an immune response. The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is known as a viral vector vaccine that uses a modified version of a different virus.

Cho and his colleagues conducted trials of the RBD subunit protein vaccine on mice and were able to induce a potent antibody response in the rodents over the course of three injections. The study showed that one or two injections are sufficient, depending on the adjuvant used. Cho said he would like to test the approach in human trials.

Easy to produce, scale up

The RBD-targeting vaccine has some advantages over the vaccines currently licensed for use in the United States. Cho said the experimental vaccine is relatively easy to produce and scale up because it requires only a small portion of the virus's spike protein to manufacture. The RBD vaccine also can be delivered multiple times, which could be necessary to develop immunity against multiple virus variants that will inevitably emerge.

Cho said the process of reaching herd immunity to COVID-19 through vaccines will take time, allowing for new variants of the virus to spread. This is particularly true for populations in developing countries that have had only limited access to the currently available vaccines so far. And as more variants emerge, the likelihood grows that additional vaccines will become necessary, he said.

"Just because we have vaccines now, that doesn't mean we won't need more in three or five years, maybe even longer," he said. "I don't think our vaccine is too late to play a role."

The 2021 Immunotherapeutics Virtual Conference is presented by Iowa State, the University of Iowa and BioConnect Iowa. The conference aims to connect cutting-edge university research with industry leaders. Cho will address the virtual conference Wednesday morning. Registration information is available at https://www.isupark.org/news/registration-open-for-2021-iowa-vaccines-and-immunotherapeutics-conference/.

MADISON - By engineering a short chunk of protein, or peptide, that can prevent the attachment of human parainfluenza viruses to cells, researchers have improved a method in rodent models intended to help keep children healthy.

Human parainfluenza viruses, or HPIVs, are the leading cause of childhood respiratory infections, responsible for 30% to 40% of illnesses like croup and pneumonia. The viruses also affect the elderly and people with compromised immune systems.

To sicken people, HPIVs must latch onto cells and inject their genetic material to start making new viruses. HPIV3 is the most prevalent among these viruses. There are currently no approved vaccines or antivirals for HPIV3 infection in people.

In a study led by the Sam Gellman lab in the chemistry department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the lab of Anne Moscona and Matteo Porotto at Columbia University, researchers built upon years of work on peptide treatments to generate one capable of blocking the HPIV3 attachment process.

The researchers published their findings April 7 in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.

To enter host cells, HPIVs use specialized fusion proteins that resemble three corkscrews laid side-by-side. Earlier work by the Moscona-Porotto lab showed that scientists could a partial chunk of this corkscrew protein from HPIV3, introduce this peptide to the virus, and prevent the corkscrew from driving the infection process. The peptide, itself a corkscrew, essentially zippers up with the virus's corkscrews, creating a tight bundle of six corkscrew shapes.

The new peptide persists longer in the body, making it about three times more effective at blocking infection in rodent models of disease than the original form.

The research team started by trying to engineer the original peptide to be more resistant to protein-digesting enzymes in the body, which can easily shred proteins and make them useless. So, the Gellman lab turned to unusual building blocks to create a hardier peptide.

Cells build proteins out of alpha amino acids. But chemists can create beta amino acids, which are similar but have an extra carbon atom. When peptides use these beta amino acid building blocks, they often take a different shape because of the extra atom. This can help a peptide hide from protein-digesting enzymes and survive longer.

However, the researchers also knew that if the peptide's shape changed too much as a result of these unusual building blocks, they might not lock together with HPIV's corkscrew fusion protein.

That's where the Gellman lab's decades of experience testing and modifying beta amino acid-containing peptides became critical.

"We know which side of the peptide is binding to its protein target. So, we (knew that we) can modify only residues that are not directly involved in binding the viral protein," says Victor Outlaw, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab and one of the co-first authors of the report. In lab tests, they saw that the carefully modified peptide still bound strongly to the virus's protein.

In another improvement pioneered by the Moscona-Porotto lab, the scientists hooked the peptide up to a molecule of cholesterol. This fatty addition helps the peptide slide into the greasy cell membrane, where it can best block the virus.

"Our hypothesis was that the combination of beta amino acids and cholesterol would increase anti-viral efficacy," says Outlaw, who explained that the cholesterol helped get the peptide to where it needed to go, while the shape change from the beta amino acids allowed the peptide to persist longer in the body.

As the research team hoped, when they gave the new peptide to cotton rats it lasted much longer in the lungs than the previous version did thanks to its resistance to digestion by enzymes. The peptide was delivered into the rats' noses.

To test how well the peptide worked to prevent infection, cotton rats received the new peptide before they were exposed to HPIV3. Compared to animals given no antiviral peptides, those given the improved peptide had 10 times fewer viruses in their lungs.

And compared to the peptide that was more susceptible to enzymes, the hardier peptide reduced viral load by about three times, suggesting that the new peptide's ability to avoid digestion in the body helps it better block infection.

While the approach hasn't yet been tested in humans and researchers must further refine and test the system, it does provide a new strategy for potentially preventing or treating these common infections.

The research collaboration is now looking to make second-generation peptides that last even longer in the body. They also want to test how well the modified peptide might block infection by related viruses. That additional research could move the peptide treatment closer to clinical trials.

"This was a very fortunate coming together of groups that had complementary needs and capabilities," says Gellman. "It's really been a great joint effort."

The Covid-19 pandemic, like many other health crises, has had unequal effects on the U.S. population, with communities of color often hit the hardest. A new study co-authored by an MIT professor identifies a related challenge: Different social groups have different reactions to the fact that Covid-19 has generated those health inequities.

More specifically, the study, based on a multilayered survey of U.S. residents, finds a divergence among racial groups when people are informed about the varying effects of the pandemic. Upon learning more about the social distribution of Covid-19, Black Americans tend to gain a better understanding of their risk. But among white Americans given the same information, there is a split response.

The study used "feeling thermometers," on a scale from 0 to 100, to let participants rate their attitudes towards other racial groups. After learning more about health disparities, whites with "warmer" feelings toward Blacks favored a more vigorous public health response, while those with a "cooler" view of Blacks subsequently viewed Covid-19 as a less urgent problem and became less inclined to support strong public health measures.

"From a public health perspective, there is both good and bad news," says MIT political scientist Evan Lieberman, co-author of a new paper detailing the study's results. "For African Americans who were learning from this study that death rates were higher among African Americans, this increased their perception that they were at greater risk from Covid. ... That's good news because a big part of public health messaging is to make people aware of these dangers."

Moreover, Lieberman adds, "A second piece of good news is that a large share of white Americans feel empathic or close to Black Americans." And those fitting this description "became more invested in the notion that the government should do more on Covid."

However, white participants who admitted to having colder feelings about Blacks became more reluctant to support extensive efforts to tackle the pandemic.

"We did find that those whites who had these cooler views toward African Americans, to the extent they were aware of these disparities in death rates, were more likely to perceive that this was not a problem that affected them, and wanted less aggressive action on Covid-19," says Lieberman.

The paper, "How information about race-based health disparities affects policy preferences: Evidence from a survey experiment about the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States," is published in the May issue of the journal Social Science and Medicine. The authors are Lieberman, who is the Total Professor of Political Science and Contemporary Africa at MIT; and Allison Harell, a professor of political science at the University of Québec at Montréal.

To conduct the study, the researchers conducted an online survey from August to September 2020, using the Qualtrics platform and working with the survey firm Dynata. The final sample is a demographically representative group of 3,961 adult Americans. The participants were asked a variety of questions, and responded to the "feeling thermometers" about other racial groups.

Some participants were then given information about the health disparities generated by Covid-19 -- as of last summer, there were 2.5 times as many deaths per capita for Black Americans, compared to white Americans. Then respondents were asked a series of follow-up questions about Covid-19 risk, the government reaction, public health measures, personal liberties, and economic relief measures.

Only about 15 percent of the whites in the survey reported an unfavorable view about Blacks generally. But among those who did, there was a significant shift in perspective after being presented with information about Covid-19 health disparities. Those least favorable toward Blacks were most likely to think the government was doing too much to combat Covid-19 for instance, while those more favorable were most likely to think the government was doing too little. The researchers identified a similar pattern related to acceptance of certain public health measures such as social distancing and restricting access to public venues.

"It was telling that this share of participants, when they learned this information, became disinclined to have a public health response to Covid," Lieberman says. "Whites who were cool toward Blacks at the start of the study were already relatively less inclined to support aggressive Covid policies. So, the overall effect of receiving the information was to further polarize attitudes on this important set of policies."

Moreover, he says, the results are of a piece with other findings indicating that, for instance, white American men disproportionately do not want to get vaccinated.

"That's a clear expression of a denial of the problem and a lack of interest in participating in what needs to be a coordinated effort to achieve herd immunity," Lieberman says. "They're not interested in a multiracial collective [solution], nor do they perceive themselves to be particularly vulnerable."

Lieberman and Harell recognize their findings can seem vexing, since health officials place a premium on delivering facts to the public -- and in this case, the facts can lead a portion of the population to become more indifferent to the problem. Still, Lieberman says, the research could help make public health messaging more effective.

"The best strategy would be some targeting in messaging," Lieberman suggests. Communicating the facts about Covid-19 disparities usefully informed Black participants, after all, while for some others, he says, it may be necessary to attempt "more messaging that reminds us of the different ways we're interconnected, in which we all lose out to the extent that this pandemic persists."

Reformulating a certain amount of Covid-19 messaging may not be easy. Still, Lieberman says, even if policymakers "are uncomfortable with the notion that there might be any negative effects of disseminating true information, it's fairly clear that's an important reality."

New research demonstrates that African and Asian leopards are more genetically differentiated from one another than polar bears and brown bears. Indeed, leopards are so different that they ought to be treated as two separate species, according to a team of researchers, among them, scientists from the University of Copenhagen. This new knowledge has important implications for better conserving this big and beautiful, yet widely endangered cat.

No one has any doubts about polar bears and brown bears being distinct species. Leopards, on the other hand, are considered one and the same, a single species, whether of African or Asian origin. But perhaps that shouldn't be the case. In a surprising new research result, to which the University of Copenhagen has contributed, it has been made clear that the intercontinental cat cousins are more genetically different than the two species of bear.

"If one sticks with the traditional concept of speciation, the genetic difference is so great that African and Asian leopards shouldn't belong to the same species at all. As leopards are known to roam far and wide, we had expected to come across a much greater mix of genes among them. So, the result came as a surprise," says postdoc and study co-author Rasmus W. Havmøller of the University of Copenhagen's Natural History Museum of Denmark.

The genomes of 26 leopards were mapped by the researchers and account for eight of nine living leopard subspecies. Some of the genetic material used for the study was sourced from leopards in the Natural History Museum's collection. The findings have just been published in the journal Current Biology.

Current subspeciation doesn't hold water

Genome analysis indicates that current differentiations in leopard subspecies just don't hold water. While nine leopard subspecies have been officially identified, the study shows that in example Indian and Sri Lankan leopards are so closely related that they could be considered as a unified evolutionary significant unit.

According to Rasmus W. Havmøller, subspeciation is a central concept when it comes to the conservation of the iconic but endangered feline, whose overall distribution has shrunk by 75% - and locally, by as much as 98% - over the past 250 years.

"When planning leopard conservation efforts, one orients around different subspecies, which might each have their own conservation status. Therefore, this new knowledge can be useful if we are to develop better conservation strategies for leopards. I hope that these results spur debate about the role of genomics in subspeciation," says Rasmus W. Havmøller.

He adds that the results can hopefully be used as a tool to determine which animals are able to be intermixed across geographic regions, so as to maintain high genetic diversity, and whether leopard populations can be merged, as is frequently discussed:

"The answer must now be a resounding no when it comes to African and Asian populations. There is a risk of reducing genetic diversity when crossing a leopard that specialises in living in hot deserts, for example, with another that has adapted to frigid mountain conditions. You are likely to create offspring that are not well adapted to either habitat. On the other hand, our results demonstrate that there might be a solid foundation for interbreeding some of the more genetically similar Asian subspecies."

Emigrated from Africa in one go

Throughout history, leopards have dispersed over a vast area, from Siberia to South Africa. The new research also sheds light on when leopards spread from the African continent, their original home. Here too, the new results surprise - indicating that leopard migration from Africa occurred in a single 'dispersal event' some 500-600,000 years ago. Since then, there has been virtually no contact between leopards on the two continents.

"Until now, it was thought that the colonization of Asia by leopards occurred in several waves and not at once, as our results suggest. The timeframe accords with the concentration of ice at the poles, which precipitated low water levels between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. This is what made it possible for leopards to cross the sea," explains Rasmus W. Havmøller.

The next step is to find out how the substantial genetic differences in African and Asian leopards are expressed - something that the current body of study does not reveal.

Rasmus W. Havmøller's cautious guess is that the differences are mainly expressed in characteristics linked to how leopards adapt locally.

AURORA, Colo. (May 10, 2021) - Looking to safely block a gene linked to factors known to cause heart disease, scientists at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus may have found a new tool - light.

The study, published Monday in the journal Trends in Molecular Medicine, may solve a medical dilemma that has baffled scientists for years.

The gene, ANGPTL4, regulates fatty lipids in plasma. Scientists have found that people with lower levels of it also have reduced triglycerides and lipids, meaning less risk for cardiovascular disease.

But blocking the gene using antibodies triggered dangerous inflammation in mice. Complicating things further, the gene can also be beneficial in reducing the risk of myocardial ischemia and helping to repair a damaged heart.

"The scientific community is still trying to figure out a way to safely inhibit it," said the study's lead author Tobias Eckle, MD, PhD, professor of anesthesiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. "Now we have discovered that ANGPTL4 is a gene with a circadian pattern. It can be influenced by light."

Eckle previously discovered that light therapy can protect the heart. In this study, his team did an unbiased, whole genome array, profiling intense, light-dependent cardiac gene expressions. They found that ANGPTL4 was the top light dependent gene.

Eckle believes the gene could be manipulated by light without risking the lethal effects of blocking it entirely.

"We demonstrate that if you want to get around this problem you don't knock out the protein, you enhance the circadian amplitude by increasing its troughs and peaks," he said. "Throughout the day, you will have times of enhanced protein expression and times with lower expression."

Eckle said the gene can be activated by light therapy, a flavonoid known as nobiletin or through drug formulations.

"In fact, circadian amplitude enhancement of ANGPTL4 would be quite distinct from disabling or even overexpressing it," Eckle said. " Enhancing peaks and troughs would mean that at specific times of day, the ANGPTL4 response would be enhanced and 12 hours later the response would be even more robustly suppressed."

The discovery, Eckle said, reinforces the physiological importance of circadian rhythms as well as the light and oxygen pathways threading through the human body.

"Sunlight and oxygen are the most life-sustaining things on this planet," Eckle said. "We evolved to adapt to those two things and we have pathways throughout our body that sense them."

He said that chronotherapy, giving medications at different times of the day to maximize benefits and minimize side-effects, is a new frontier in medicine.

"The administration of any drug should be connected to a specific time of day," he said. "I believe chronotherapy is the future of medicine."

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Log on to any app store, and parents will find hundreds of options for children that claim to be educational. But new research suggests these apps might not be as beneficial to children as they seem.

A new study analyzed some of the most downloaded educational apps for kids using a set of four criteria designed to evaluate whether an app provides a high-quality educational experience for children. The researchers found that most of the apps scored low, with free apps scoring even lower than their paid counterparts on some criteria.

Jennifer Zosh, associate professor of human development and family studies at Penn State Brandywine, said the study -- recently published in the Journal of Children and Media -- suggests apps shouldn't replace human interaction nor do they guarantee learning.

"Parents shouldn't automatically trust that something marked 'educational' in an app store is actually educational," Zosh said. "By co-playing apps with their children, talking to them about what is happening as they play, pointing out what is happening in the real world that relates to something shown in an app, and selecting apps that minimize distraction, they are able to leverage the pillars of learning and can successfully navigate this new digital childhood."

According to previous research, about 98 percent of kids ages eight and under live in a home with some type of mobile device, like a smartphone or tablet. While watching videos and playing games are popular ways children spend their time on these devices, the researchers said there are also many apps that are not only popular but claim to be educational.

Marisa Meyer, a research assistant at the University of Michigan, said the idea for the study came about when reviewing the top-downloaded apps on the Google Play marketplace for different research.

"We noticed a concerning number of apps being marketed to children as 'educational' without reputable justification or verification of these educational claims," Meyer said. "Our study was an effort to create a coding scheme that would allow us to evaluate apps marketed as educational and have a framework to verify, or refute, those claims."

For the study, the researchers developed a system for evaluating educational apps that was based on Zosh's previous work in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, which used decades of research on the science of learning to uncover the "pillars" of learning - or the contexts and traits of truly educational experiences. In that piece, Zosh says, "we explored how these pillars might give us insight into how to leverage new technology to create truly educational experiences for young children.

In the current study, Zosh and the other researchers tested the apps children are actually using against these pillars to uncover what today's apps are doing well and where they struggle in supporting learning in young children. The researchers deemed an app high-quality based on how it performed across each pillar.

"The first pillar is to facilitate active, minds-on thinking in the children -- asking them to question, guess, evaluate, and think deeply, rather than simply tapping or reacting to on-screen stimuli," Zosh said. "The second is that it helps children stay tuned into the learning at hand, rather than distracting them with overwhelming sound effects, flash ads, and gimmicky rewards."

The researchers said the third pillar is containing relevant and meaningful content that facilitates a connection of app-based learning to the user's external world. Finally, the fourth pillar is that the app provides opportunities for social interaction, either in-person or mediated by the screen.

The top 100 children's educational apps from the Google Play and Apple app stores, as well as 24 apps most frequently played by preschool-age children in a separate longitudinal cohort study, were analyzed for the study. Each app was given a score of zero (low) to three (high) for each pillar. Apps that had a combined score of less than five after adding the scores for each pillar were considered low quality.

After analyzing the data, the researchers found that a score of '1' was the most common rating for all four pillars. For the fourth pillar -- Social Interaction -- a score of '0' was the second most common rating.

According to the researchers, because these apps might not provide high-quality educational experiences for kids, they risk parents choosing them over other activities -- such as reading, physical activity or pretend play -- that could actually be more beneficial.

Meyer added that the study also has implications not just for parents, but for app developers, as well.

"If app designers intend to engender and advertise educational gains through use of their apps, we recommend collaborating with child development experts in order to develop apps rooted in the ways children learn most effectively," Meyer said. "We also recommend that app designers and app stores work with child development experts to create evidence-based ratings of apps, so that higher-quality products with fewer distracting enhancements can be easily identified by parents."

A new survey led by researchers from North Carolina State University found that the future of hunting in the United States might look different than it has in the past.

In The Journal of Wildlife Management, researchers reported findings from a nationwide survey of college students' interest and participation in hunting. They found current, active hunters were more likely to be white, male and from rural areas, and to have family members who hunted. But they also found a group of potential hunters - with no hunting experience but an interest in trying it - who were more diverse in terms of gender, race and ethnicity.

"There are a lot of potential hunters out there who look nothing like current hunters, suggesting there are many different pathways into hunting," said study co-author Lincoln Larson, associate professor of parks, recreation and tourism management at NC State. "We are working to find messages and strategies that resonate with new and diverse groups."

In the study, researchers surveyed 17,203 undergraduates at public universities in 22 states from 2018 to 2020 to understand college students' perspectives on hunting. Recruiting new hunters has become a priority for state wildlife agencies as declines in hunting participation have also meant a reduction in a vital source of funding for agencies' operations: revenue from hunting licenses and excise taxes on hunting gear and ammunition.

"For nearly 100 years, hunting and angling have combined to provide a majority of wildlife conservation funding in the United States," Larson said. "Without people participating in these activities, our current conservation model won't work. By helping college students connect with public lands and wildlife, we can create a more sustainable source of funding into the future."

They found 29 percent of all students in the survey had hunted at some point in the past, and another 11 percent had accompanied a hunter in the field. The biggest predictor of whether a student hunted was having an immediate family member who also hunts.

When they sorted students into categories of active, potential, lapsed and non-hunters, they found approximately 26 percent of students were active hunters.

They were 84 percent white, 74 percent male, and many were from rural hometowns. In addition, most active hunters had immediate family members who also hunted, and just 7 percent reported no social support for hunting.

In comparison, the largest group of college students were non-hunters, at 50 percent. The smallest group, at 3 percent, were lapsed hunters. Twenty-two percent of students were potential hunters, which meant they said they might try it once, or they might hunt rarely or regularly in the future.

Potential hunters were a more diverse group compared to active hunters. Forty-seven percent were female, and 38 percent identified as either Black or African-American, Hispanic or Latinx, Asian, American Indian or other.

Forty-three percent of potential hunters were from urban hometowns, and 74 percent did not have immediate family members who hunt. Seventy-nine percent were majoring in fields outside of agriculture or natural resources.

"We found many potential hunters who don't share the same attributes as active hunters," Larson said. "What's motivating them, what's limiting their participation and how do we build a bridge to help connect them to hunting and wildlife conservation?"

For students across the survey, getting ethically and locally sourced meat was the biggest motivator for hunting. Students across all groups also supported hunting as a conservation tool. Hunting for social reasons or for sport were more prominent motivations among active hunters. The biggest constraints they found among non-hunters, potential hunters and lapsed hunters was interest in other activities.

"One of our biggest takeaways is that many students, regardless of their background, support ecological conservation motivations for hunting. They care about controlling over-populated species and about improving personal and environmental health by eating local game meat," said the study's lead author Victoria Vayer, a former graduate student in parks, recreation and tourism management at NC State. "If we use messaging that relates to those motivations, instead of emphasizing contentious things like trophy hunting, we could reel in more potential hunters without eroding support among people who don't hunt."

Endometriosis, a disease found in up to 10 per cent of women, has been enigmatic since it was first described. A new theory developed by researchers at Simon Fraser University suggests a previously overlooked hormone -- testosterone -- has a critical role in its development. The research could have direct impacts on diagnosis and treatment of the disease, signaling hope for women with endometriosis worldwide.

The disease is caused by endometrial tissue growing outside of the uterus, usually in the pelvic area, where it contributes to pain, inflammation, and infertility. But why some women get it, and others do not, has remained unclear.

The new research is based on recent findings that women with endometriosis developed, as fetuses in their mother's womb, under conditions of relatively low testosterone, compared to women without endometriosis.

According to the researchers' theory, this low testosterone 'programs' the developing reproductive system of women to exhibit the unique suite of traits that is linked with endometriosis, including early menarche, short menstrual cycles, high pain sensitivity, high inflammation, and altered levels of the hormones that control ovulation and the menstrual cycle.

The researchers found their theory to be supported by a remarkable range of data in the literature, from genetics and development to endocrinology, morphology, life history, and evolutionary biology, thus providing the first comprehensive explanation for the traits associated with endometriosis.

The theory can explain almost all symptoms of endometriosis as downstream effects of low early-life testosterone. The findings are presented in two recent papers published in Evolution, Medicine and Public Health, and Evolutionary Applications.

"Low testosterone in early development is the strongest known correlate of endometriosis, and its effects can explain the majority of endometriosis symptoms," says SFU biological sciences professor Bernard Crespi, a Canada Research Chair and co-author of the work with graduate student Natalie Dinsdale. "What's more, the new theory has direct implications for endometriosis diagnosis and treatment."

Crespi notes that testosterone has apparently been overlooked in studies of endometriosis because it is usually regarded as a 'male' hormone, even though it is known to have key effects in females as well.

"It is very common for researchers to focus on estrogen as a female hormone, and testosterone as a male hormone, but in reality, these are both critically important hormones in all humans," says Ben Trumble, an assistant professor at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University, who was not associated with these studies. "I applaud the authors for moving beyond this binary hormonal blind spot, and studying the full range of steroids that can impact women's health."

"This work establishes endometriosis as a developmental endocrine disorder, with roots in early life," says Crespi. "It also clarifies the relationship of endometriosis with polycystic ovary syndrome, a disorder driven by too high, rather than too low, levels of prenatal testosterone. We show that polycystic ovary syndrome is essentially opposite to endometriosis in its causes, correlates, and major symptoms. As such, this work should help to transform our understanding of both disorders."

Admit it: Daily commutes - those stops, the starts, all that stress - gets on your last nerve.

Or is that just me?

It might be, according to a new study from the University of Houston's Computational Physiology Lab. UH Professor Ioannis Pavlidis and his team of researchers took a look at why some drivers can stay cool behind the wheel while others keep getting more irked.

"We call the phenomenon 'accelerousal.' Arousal being a psychology term that describes stress. Accelarousal is what we identify as stress provoked by acceleration events, even small ones," said Pavlidis, who designed the research. According to the professor, the reason for it goes deeper than you might think.

"It may be partly due to genetic predisposition," Pavlidis said. "It was a very consistent behavior, which means, in all likelihood, this is an innate human characteristic."

To reach these conclusions, UH researchers, in collaboration with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, took a hard look at how individual drivers reacted to common acceleration, speed and steering events on a carefully monitored itinerary. Results appeared in the May 2021 proceedings of ACM CHI, the premier forum on Human-Computer Interaction research. (Click here.)

"Thanks to our work, we now have an understanding of accelerousal, a phobia that was hidden in plain sight," said Tung Huynh, a research assistant with the team.

For the study, 11 volunteer drivers were monitored for signs of instantaneous physiological stress during separate half-hour drives along the same route in the same Toyota Sienna minivan.

Stress measurements were taken via thermal imaging targeting the drivers' levels of perinasal perspiration, which is an autonomic (involuntary) facial response reflecting a fight-or-flight reaction. Simultaneously, a computer in the Toyota Sienna functioned like an airplane's black box, recording the vehicle's acceleration, speed, brake force and steering.

The driving tests were conducted by Texas A&M Transportation Institute researchers under the direction of Dr. Mike Manser, manager of the Institute's Human Factors Program.

When data was crunched at the University of Houston, researchers found about half the participants consistently exhibited peaked stress during periods of commonplace acceleration, such as happens in stop-and-go progress through red lights. The other half showed no notable changes from their baseline measurements.

"This has all the characteristics of long-term stressor, with all the health and other implications that this may entail," Pavlidis said.

Even more revealing is how far apart the two extremes were.

"The differences were significant, with 'accelaroused' participants logging nearly 50% more stress than non-accelaroused ones," Pavlidis said. "Moreover, psychometric measurements taken through a standardized questionnaire given to every volunteer at the end of the drive revealed that acceleroused drivers felt more overloaded." The anxious drivers were more exhausted after their drives, in other words, than the calm drivers were after theirs.

"This was a clear indication that accelerousal was taking a toll on drivers, and that the drivers were not consciously aware of that," Pavlidis said.

This small-scale study, he suggests, points to the need for deeper research. It also highlights the instrumental role technology could play in understanding human response to demands of driving. Such understanding could not only improve safety on our roads but will also safeguard the long-term health of drivers.

"For instance, delivery drivers, which is an expanding class in the current gig economy, are exposed to stop-and-go events all the time. Therefore, delivery drivers who experience accelerousal - and for now, are unaware - could have a way to detect this condition in themselves and account for its long-term stress effects," Pavlidis explained.

These findings will have even more relevance over coming decades, as automotive innovators move toward semi-automated vehicles that could sense and relieve stressed drivers.

During the recent tests, great care was taken to equalize the volunteers' driving experiences. Each drive happened during daylight hours, in clear weather and light traffic over the same 19-kilometer town itinerary (almost 12 miles). Participants were experienced drivers of similar age (18 to 27) and all had normal vision.

Where would you score on the accelerousal scale? Watch out for signs, the professor urges, and ask yourself: Does driving wear you out more than it does your friends and family?

"That could be a telltale sign of accelerousal," Pavlidis cautioned.

Chemotherapy can induce a painful peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), a chronic condition and common adverse effect for cancer patients undergoing treatment. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues elsewhere, have used a mouse model to demonstrate the pivotal role of cholesterol in CIPN, and proposed a novel therapeutic approach to reverse it.

The findings are published in the May 10, 2021, online issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

The study was a collaboration between the laboratories of senior study author Yury Miller, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, and Tony Yaksh, PhD, professor of anesthesiology and pharmacology, both at UC San Diego School of Medicine. Miller studies cholesterol metabolism and cardiovascular and neuro inflammation. Yaksh specializes in neuropathic pain.

"It was truly gratifying to work at the intersection of two disciplines and identify the role cholesterol plays in activation of microglia -- immune cells of the spinal cord -- and regulation of chronic pain," said first author Juliana Navia-Pelaez, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in Miller's lab.

"The metabolism of cellular cholesterol was already linked to neurological conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease, but we were first to show its role and underlying mechanisms in chronic pain."

Cholesterol is essential for brain function, both during development and in adult life. It is a major component of cell membranes, a precursor to some hormones and serves as a cellular messenger. However, excess of cholesterol is detrimental to human health; buildup of cholesterol plaques in large arteries often causes heart attacks and stroke.

The UC San Diego team found that changes in cholesterol metabolism contributed to reprogramming of microglia in a way that perpetuated chronic inflammation in the spinal cord. Genetically modified mice lacking cholesterol transporters in microglia were unable to remove excessive amounts of cholesterol, and thus experienced pain -- even without chemotherapeutic intervention.

The outer membrane of these cells, which is normally fluid, became rigid with accumulated cholesterol in the form of floating solid platforms called lipid rafts. The lipid raft environment, said the authors, favors assembly and activation of cellular proteins that mediate inflammatory response, such as Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4).

"We were surprised to find that in CIPN, enlarged lipid rafts and TLR4 assemblies persisted for days and weeks," said Miller. "We even started calling them 'inflammarafts' to stress the importance of these membrane domains in neuroinflammation and pain states."

To reverse the harmful effects of excessive cholesterol in microglia, researchers used a modified version of the apoA-I binding protein (AIBP), which hastens cholesterol removal and disrupts inflammarafts, but does not damage physiological lipid rafts. A single injection of AIBP in the spinal canal of mice reversed CIPN pain, and the therapeutic effect lasted for several weeks, without adverse effects.

"The long-lasting effect we observed with the delivery of AIBP points to a reprogramming of these immune cells that implies cholesterol plays a fundamental role in gene expression," said Navia-Pelaez. "It might even act as a driver of epigenetic alterations in microglia and ultimately pain behavior."

The authors said the results are part of a promising series of investigations, conducted by UC San Diego and Raft Pharmaceuticals.

"Considerable work remains to be done in terms of safety and kinetics to move this new biologic ahead for clinical trials," said Yaksh, "but the present results are exceedingly promising as they provide a hitherto unappreciated target -- inflammarafts in immune cells -- for drug development in the management of chronic neuropathic pain."