Culture

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected people's behavior everywhere. Fear, apprehensiveness, sadness, anxiety, and other troublesome feelings have become part of the daily lives of many families since the first cases of the disease were officially recorded early last year.

These turbulent feelings are often expressed in dreams reflecting a heavier burden of mental suffering, fear of contamination, stress caused by social distancing, and lack of physical contact with others. In addition, dream narratives in the period include a larger proportion of terms relating to cleanliness and contamination, as well as anger and sadness.

All this is reported in a study published in PLOS ONE. The principal investigator was Natália Bezerra Mota, a neuroscientist and postdoctoral fellow at the Brain Institute of the Federal University of Rio Grande do Norte (UFRN), in Brazil.

The study was part of Mota's postdoctoral research and was supervised by Sidarta Ribeiro at UFRN and Mauro Copelli at the Federal University of Pernambuco (UFPE), both of whom are affiliated with the Neuromathematics Research, Innovation and Dissemination Center (NeuroMat).

Neuromat is hosted by the University of São Paulo (USP) and is one of many Research, Innovation and Dissemination Centers (RIDCs) supported by São Paulo Research Foundation - FAPESP.

The results are consistent with the hypothesis that dreams reflect the challenges of waking-life experience during the pandemic, and that the prevalence of negative emotions such as anger and sadness during the period reflects a higher emotional load to be processed, the authors write.

According to Mota, the findings are corroborated by those of other studies published later by researchers in the United States, Germany, and Finland.

The Brazilian study was initially reported in May in a preprint posted to medRxiv, and not yet peer-reviewed at that time (read more at: agencia.fapesp.br/33664). "It's the first study on the subject to look empirically at these signs of mental suffering and their association with the peculiarities of dreams during the pandemic," Mota told.

For Ribeiro, the authors of the study managed to document the continuity between what happens in the dream world and people's mental lives, especially psychological distress. "This is interesting from the standpoint of dream theory," he said. "Another point worth highlighting is that they did so quantitatively, using mathematics to extract semantics."

The group deployed natural language processing tools to analyze 239 dream reports by 67 subjects produced in March and April 2020, shortly after the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a pandemic.

According to Mota, researchers at USP, UFRN, and the Federal Universities of Minas Gerais (UFMG), Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) and Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ) are conducting a multicentric study involving the analysis of data collected during a longer period (from the start of the pandemic through July) to see how dreams are affected by the deaths of family members, loved ones, friends and co-workers. "The plan is to publish the findings as soon as they're ready so that mental health strategies can be based on this knowledge," she said.

Methodology

For some time the researchers have been developing and using computer software that analyzes language to diagnose mental illnesses, such as schizophrenia, and adapting similar tools to perform cognitive assessments.

Dream accounts recorded by the volunteers using a smartphone app were transcribed and analyzed using three software tools. The first focused on discourse structure, word count, and connectedness.

The other two focused on content. One ranged words in certain emotional categories against a list associated with positive and negative emotions. The other used a neural network to detect semantic similarity to specified keywords, such as contamination, cleanliness, sickness, health, death and life.

In their PLOS ONE publication, the researchers say "the significant similarity to 'cleanness' in dream reports points towards new social strategies (e.g. use of masks, avoidance of physical contact) and new hygiene practices (e.g. use of hand sanitizer and other cleaning products) that have become central to new social rules and behavior. Taken together, these findings seem to show that dream contents reflect the different sources of fear and frustration arising out of the current scenario".

Mota noted that more suffering was expressed in the dream reports submitted by female volunteers, although this was detected indirectly. "There are studies on gender difference in the literature. Women report more negative dreams and nightmares. I think this has to do with women's history and daily lives, with working a double or triple shift, and the heavier mental burden entailed by concerning themselves with a job plus the home and children. The pandemic has made this worse," she said.

For more than a century, optical coatings have been used to better reflect certain wavelengths of light from lenses and other devices or, conversely, to better transmit certain wavelengths through them. For example, the coatings on tinted eyeglasses reflect, or "block out," harmful blue light and ultraviolet rays.

But until now, no optical coating had ever been developed that could simultaneously reflect and transmit the same wavelength, or color.

In a paper in Nature Nanotechnology, researchers at the University of Rochester and Case Western Reserve University describe a new class of optical coatings, so-called Fano Resonance Optical Coatings (FROCs), that can be used on filters to reflect and transmit colors of remarkable purity.

In addition, the coating can be made to fully reflect only a very narrow wavelength range.

"The narrowness of the reflected light is important because we want to have a very precise control of the wavelength," says corresponding author Chunlei Guo, professor at Rochester's Institute of Optics. "Before our technology, the only coating that could do this was a multilayered dielectric mirror, that is much thicker, suffers from a strong angular dependence, and is far more expensive to make. Thus, our coating can be a low-cost and high-performance alternative."

The researchers envision a few applications for the new technology. For example, they show how FROCs could be used to separate thermal and photovoltaic bands of the solar spectrum. Such capability could improve the effectiveness of devices that use hybrid thermal-electric power generation as a solar energy option. "Directing only the useful band of the solar spectrum to a photovoltaic cell prevents its overheating," says Guo.

The technology could also lead to a six-fold increase in the life of a photovoltaic cell. And the rest of the spectrum "is absorbed as thermal energy, which could be used in other ways, including energy storage for night-time, electricity generation, solar-driven water sanitation, or heating up a supply of water," Guo says.

"These optical coatings can clearly do a lot of things that other coatings cannot do," Guo adds. But as with other new discoveries, "it will take a little bit of time for us or other labs to further study this and come up with more applications.

"Even when the laser was invented, people were initially confused about what to do with it. It was a novelty looking for an application."

Guo's lab, the High-Intensity Femtosecond Laser Laboratory, is noted for its pioneering work in using femtosecond lasers to etch unique properties into metal surfaces.

The FROC project resulted from a desire to explore "parallel" ways to create unique surfaces that do not involve laser etching. "Some applications are easier with laser, but others are easier without them," Guo says.

Fano resonance, named after the physicist Ugo Fano, is a widespread wave scattering phenomenon first observed as a fundamental principle of atomic physics involving electrons. Later, researchers discovered that the same phenomenon can also be observed in optical systems. "But this involved very complex designs," Guo says.

Guo and his colleagues found a simpler way to take advantage of Fano resonance in their optical coatings.

They applied a thin, 15 nanometer-thick film of germanium to a metal surface, creating a surface capable absorbing a broad band of wavelengths. They combined that with a cavity that supports a narrowband resonance. The coupled cavities exhibit Fano resonance that is capable of reflecting a very narrow band of light.

CLEVELAND--Researchers at Case Western Reserve University, using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze simple tissue scans, say they have discovered biomarkers that could tell doctors which lung cancer patients might actually get worse from immunotherapy.

Until recently, researchers and oncologists had placed these lung cancer patients into two broad categories: those who would benefit from immunotherapy, and those who likely would not.

But a third category--patients called hyper-progressors who would actually be harmed by immunotherapy, including a shortened lifespan after treatment--has begun to emerge, said Pranjal Vaidya, a PhD student in biomedical engineering and researcher at the university's Center for Computational Imaging and Personalized Diagnostics (CCIPD).

"This is a significant subset of patients who should potentially avoid immunotherapy entirely," said Vaidya, first author on a 2020 paper announcing the findings in the Journal for Immunotherapy of Cancer. "Eventually, we would want this to be integrated into clinical settings, so that the doctors would have all the information needed to make the call for each individual patient."

Ongoing research into immunotherapy

Currently, only about 20% of all cancer patients will actually benefit from immunotherapy, a treatment that differs from chemotherapy in that it uses drugs to help the immune system fight cancer, while chemotherapy uses drugs to directly kill cancer cells, according to the National Cancer Institute.

The CCIPD, led by Anant Madabhushi, Donnell Institute Professor of Biomedical Engineering, has become a global leader in the detection, diagnosis and characterization of various cancers and other diseases by meshing medical imaging, machine learning and AI.

This new work follows other recent research by CCIPD scientists which has demonstrated that AI and machine learning can be used to predict which lung cancer patients will benefit from immunotherapy.

In this and previous research, scientists from Case Western Reserve and Cleveland Clinic essentially teach computers to seek and identify patterns in CT scans taken when lung cancer is first diagnosed to reveal information that could have been useful if known before treatment.

And while many cancer patients have benefitted from immunotherapy, researchers are seeking a better way to identify who would mostly likely respond to those treatments.

"This is an important finding because it shows that radiomic patterns from routine CT scans are able to discern three kinds of response in lung cancer patients undergoing immunotherapy treatment--responders, non-responders and the hyper-progressors," said Madabhushi, senior author of the study.

"There are currently no validated biomarkers to distinguish this subset of high risk patients that not only don't benefit from immunotherapy but may in fact develop rapid acceleration of disease on treatment," said Pradnya Patil, MD, FACP, associate staff at Taussig Cancer Institute, Cleveland Clinic, and study author.

"Analysis of radiomic features on pre-treatment routinely performed scans could provide a non-invasive means to identify these patients," Patil said. "This could prove to be an invaluable tool for treating clinicians while determining optimal systemic therapy for their patients with advanced non- small cell lung cancer."

Information outside the tumor

As with other previous cancer research at the CCIPD, scientists again found some of the most significant clues to which patients would be harmed by immunotherapy outside the tumor.

"We noticed the radiomic features outside the tumor were more predictive than those inside the tumor, and changes in the blood vessels surrounding the nodule were also more predictive," Vaidya said.

This most recent research was conducted with data collected from 109 patients with non-small cell lung cancer being treated with immunotherapy, she said.

Cancer is a significant cause of death worldwide and many efforts have been devoted to the development of methods for early detection. Telomerase are considered as a tumor biomarker for early diagnosis because the telomerase of more than 80% immortalized cells are reactivated and provides the sustained proliferative capacity of these cells, but the telomerase activity are not detectable in normal somatic cells. Telomerase is a ribonucleoprotein complex that is thought to add telomeric repeats onto the ends of chromosomes during the replicative phase (S phase) of the cell cycle.

Recently, Xia Wu, Jun Wu, Feng Wu, Xiaoding Lou, Fan Xia from the China University of Geosciences and Jun Dai, Biao Chen, Zhe Chen, Shixuan Wang from Huazhong University of Science and Technology made exciting progress and investigated the role of cell cycle progression on analyzing telomerase activity in cancer cells based on an AIEgen-based fluorescence detecting system. The fluorescence signal of cancer cells gradually increased from G0/G1, G1/S to S phase. In contrast, both cancer cells arrested at G2/M phase and normal cells exhibited the negligible fluorescence intensities, which demonstrates that future studies on tumor biomarkers analyzing, such as TERT mRNA and telomerase activity should consider the phase of cell cycle.

First, PyTPA-DNA and Silole-R bioprobe were used to investigate the expression of TERT mRNA and telomerase activity under different cell cycle of HeLa cells. Upon progression through the cell cycle, the PyTPA-DNA faintly fluoresced in G0/G1 stage but demonstrated an enhancement of fluorescence when responded to G1/S phase, finally reached the strongest output in S stage. However, cells arrested at G2/M phase showed the weakest fluorescence in contrast to the other three cell cycle. Furthermore, cell cycle-dependent alterations of TERT mRNA expression in HeLa cells was reconfirmed by qPCR. The similar responses of telomerase activity were also given by evaluated with using Silole-R bioprobe in different cell cycle. Moreover, TRAP assay was selectively analyzed and found to be the strongest expression levels in S stage.

Second, the intracellular imaging of TERT mRNA and telomerase activity during different stages of cancer cell cycle also demonstrated that the cell cycle has dramatic effects on the localization of TERT mRNA and telomerase activity, which S phase-specific boost and G2/M phase-specific reduce of TERT mRNA and telomerase activity in human cancer cells.

Then, the expression level of TERT mRNA and telomerase activity in different period of HeLa cells were compared with human lung fibroblasts (HFL-1) cells (normal cells) and found that somatic cells have almost no activation of telomerase during three phase of cell cycle. The level of TERT mRNA and active telomerase in most phases of cell cycle (G0/G1, G1/S, S) are above normal cells, while, cells arrested in G2/M phase exhibited almost the same level of normal cells.

In addition, a map of transcriptome information during different phases of cell cycle was performed. The parameters of CA9, CDKN1A, TK1 and EGFR were significantly elevated in G1/S stage and the activities of KRAS, CYC1 and PLOD3 were remarkably weakened in G0/G1 and G1/S phases. These results indicated that different tumor markers were highly diversified and varied in functions of different cell cycle.

It is worth noting that cell cycle served as a major role for the cellular processes and held the ability to modulate various biomarkers. These results, therefore, suggested that future studies on tumor biomarkers analyzing, such as TERT mRNA and telomerase activity should consider the phase of cell cycle.

Gun violence among children is lower in states with more gun laws, according to a Rutgers-led study.

The study, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, examined youth gun and weapon carrying data from 2005 and 2017 across several states. Researchers found the rates of youths carrying guns were higher in states with less gun laws and lower in states with more gun laws. According to researchers, this phenomenon could be associated with large urban areas and more significant safety concerns within these areas.

Louisiana and Arkansas reported the highest percentages of youth reporting gun carrying behavior in 2017 and 2013 respectively, with 12.7 percent and 12.5 percent respectively. These two states had 13 gun laws in place while the lowest rates of gun carrying among youth were reported in New York in 2013 and Iowa in 2007, with 3.0 percent and 3.5 percent respectively. They had 63 laws and 20 laws, respectively for these years.

"We understood the role of individual characteristics in youth gun carrying, but we often ignored the broader environmental context surrounding youth gun carrying behavior, such as whether gun laws are in place in a state to discourage access to guns," said Professor Paul Boxer, a co-author and professor of psychology at Rutgers-Newark. "Our study helped provide clarity to these associations."

Gun violence among children is a significant public health concern in the United States. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, firearms are the third leading cause of death among U.S. children ages 1 to 17.

Researchers highlighted how legislation potentially influences gun violence trends regardless of whether youth carry guns and the need for improved safety in communities and schools.

"Though more work is needed, the current findings point to the potential of gun laws to lower youth gun carrying behavior, which all sides of the gun-law debate can agree is unwanted and dangerous," said John Gunn, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral researcher at the Rutgers Gun Violence Research Center.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Considering the greater good by social distancing during a pandemic turns out to have an attractive personal benefit: A new study has found that staying away from others also reduces an individual person's chances of contracting COVID-19.

Researchers presented study participants with virtual behavior scenarios of various public settings - a grocery store, a crowded beach, a crosswalk - and asked them to place themselves or fictional people in those contexts based on their social distancing preferences.

Four months later, the participants were asked if they had tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection or otherwise believed they had been sick with a case of COVID-19.

Statistical analyses showed that the more participants demonstrated a preference for social distancing in the scenarios, the less likely they were to have gotten sick with COVID-19. The study's implication was clear - what was good for society according to public health advice was also good for individuals who wanted to avoid the virus.

"The evidence from our work indicates there is value in socially distancing - not only to reduce the spread of a virus within a community, but because it is actually beneficial for the individual engaging in the social distancing," said Russell Fazio, senior author of the study and a professor of psychology at The Ohio State University.

"There's a selfish notion to it all: 'Hey, it's good for me personally. I'm not just benefiting other people.'"

The research is published today (Feb. 4, 2021) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The researchers did ask participants to report how much they practiced social distancing in real life. But the team added an innovative element: virtual social distancing scenarios in which participants made "in the moment" decisions about how they would react in different situations.

"The virtual behavior measure worked much better as a predictor of illness than the self-report measure, and there are a variety of explanations for that," Fazio said.

For example, some people may over-report their actual self-distancing behavior to provide a good impression to others.

"If I like to view myself as somebody very conscious of the science and supportive of reducing the pandemic, that is also affecting my memory process when I try to engage in this reconstruction and provide a rating that represents what my past is like," Fazio said.

"The virtual behavior measure, which required asking at a moment in time, in a concrete situation, 'What would you do?' did a better job than an abstract summary report of someone's past."

Fazio's lab studies how personal beliefs and attitudes influence behavior. When COVID-19's emergence in the United States led to lockdowns and stay-at-home orders, his team agreed to devote their efforts to trying to understand social distancing behavior.

"The entire lab group came to view the pandemic as a call to action for behavioral scientists because this was ultimately a test of human behavior," Fazio said. "Rarely does a whole society get called upon to change behavior."

The researchers recruited participants from Amazon's Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing marketplace. The sample in this study consisted of 1,885 U.S. citizens representing a range of ages, geographical locations and political ideologies.

In separate surveys conducted in May and June, participants were asked whether they had pre-existing health conditions or jobs that required them to leave home, and the extent to which they were socially distancing - either at the time of the survey or looking back in time if they were responding after economies had begun to open.

The virtual behavior scenarios, initially created for a study of interactions with strangers, were expanded for this new research. Fazio's team told participants the scenarios would be used to assess "people's behavior in common everyday situations, and how this behavior may have changed in light of the current COVID-19/coronavirus pandemic." Researchers instructed participants to view scenes of social situations and indicate how they personally, as individuals, would navigate them.

Ten scenarios were presented. Four situations assessed walking routes participants would take along a street or park path or in a library with people around, and which seat they would choose in a coffee shop. In six interactive scenarios, participants moved a slider to indicate how much distance they would want between themselves and friends, grocery shoppers, a passing stranger or several people standing in line; drew the path they would take crossing a crowded plaza; and placed their towel on a busy beach. Responses were compiled into a composite score for each participant, with a higher score indicating more adherence to social distancing recommendations.

Four months later, the researchers asked the participants if they had been tested for COVID-19 since they had completed the surveys and, if so, whether they tested positive or negative. Those who had not been tested were asked if they believed they had ever had COVID-19.

At the time of the follow-up, 199 participants reported either a positive test result since the initial surveys (85 people) or that they believed they had contracted COVID-19. The researchers measured relationships between the survey variables - pre-existing health condition, working outside the home, self-reported social distancing practices and virtual scenario scores - and the likelihood of contracting the virus, either based on actual positive tests or people's beliefs that they had caught the virus.

Statistical analyses consistently yielded the same results: The more participants exhibited social distancing behavior, the less likely they were to have contracted COVID-19. The strongest evidence that social distancing was protective to individuals was found in the relationship between a low virtual behavior score and higher odds of testing positive for COVID-19.

Scientists like the John A. Moran Eye Center's Paul S. Bernstein, MD, PhD, know a special class of lipids, or fatty acids, found in the retina of the eye and in just a few other parts of the body play an important role in maintaining vision.

But it's been difficult to study whether giving these lipids, called very-long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids (VLC-PUFAs), to patients as a supplement could prevent blinding eye diseases like age-related macular degeneration, diabetic retinopathy, and some inherited retinal diseases. Made in the body by the ELOVL4 enzyme but rarely consumed as part of a normal diet, VLC-PUFAs weren't commercially available in enough quantities for animal or human research.

Now Bernstein and colleagues from the University of Utah's Chemistry Department have changed the paradigm, inventing a method for synthesizing large enough quantities of VLC-PUFAs to evaluate their potential sight-preserving properties. The method and the results of the first study to use it were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS) this week.

The study determined that VLC-PUFA supplementation increased levels of the lipids in the retina and also improved visual function in normal mice and in mice with a defect in the ELOVL4 enzyme. While Bernstein says there's more work to be done, the results are an exciting first step.

"Synthesizing VLC-PUFAs opens up a whole new area of study, and these first results are very promising," said Bernstein, the paper's corresponding author. "Our results raise interesting questions about how orally administered VLC-PUFAs improve vision, how they are carried in the bloodstream, and how they are selectively targeted to the retina. The VLC-PUFA formulation, dosage, and timing of the intervention first need to be optimized, and then the underlying mechanisms will need to be defined."

Organic Chemistry Professor Jon D. Rainier, PhD, a co-author on the research, said the group is confident it can synthesize additional VLC-PUFA variants.

"There are a number of VLC-PUFA variants that are present in the human eye," said Rainier, second author on the research. "So far we have only made one member of this family, but we are confident that our new synthetic method will enable us to both synthesize and study the other variants and by doing that get a much better idea of what it is that each of the individual VLC-PUFAs do."

In nuclear physics so-called magic number are such nuclear proton and/or neutron numbers, for which the nucleus is more stable compared to neighboring isotopes on the nuclear chart. Researchers in both experimental and theoretical nuclear physics from University of Jyväskylä, Finland, took part of international research team, which studied the nuclear charge radii of potassium isotopes. Isotopes were studied by using the collinear resonance ionization spectroscopy technique. The results indicated that the potassium isotope with a neutron number of 32 does not conform with criteria of magic neutron number. The results were published in Nature Physics journal on January 2021.

Far from the stable isotopes which we know well from the periodic table, in region of the so-called exotic nuclei, an extreme ratio of protons and neutrons lead to the emergence of new phenomena which test our understanding of the nuclear forces.

One well known feature of these forces is that some nuclei with certain number of protons and/or neutrons are more stable than their neighboring isotopes. We refer to these numbers as magic numbers. They lead to longer half-lives and among others, a smaller size than would be expected for a non-magic nucleus.

In the mass region of the potassium isotopes, 32 was proposed as a new magic number for neutrons. The experimental study of these special regions of the nuclear chart is crucial to unveil new phenomena, and through comparison with state-of-the-art nuclear theory, test how well we understand them.

However, in practice, these isotopes can only be produced at accelerator facilitates, and there only in minute samples. This drives continuous developments in experimental techniques, for increased efficiency and sensitivity to the nuclear properties we wish to measure.

Modification to setup to measure nuclear charge radius of 52K

In this research researchers performed laser spectroscopy studies on the exotic potassium isotopes using the Collinear Resonance Ionization Spectroscopy (CRIS) technique at CERN, ISOLDE.

"For the measurement of the potassium isotope with 33 neutrons (52K), we modified our setup to increase the selectivity of the method, by detecting the decay of this isotope, thus reducing the background noise introduced by stable species. This allowed for the measurement of nuclear charge radius of 52K", says post doctoral researcher Agota Koszorus from the University of Liverpool, who is now based at the University of Jyväskylä.

"If the size of this isotope was significantly larger than its proposed magic neighbor, 51K, we would have confirmed the magic nature of the neutron number 32. However, our results show a continuously increasing trend, implying that 32 neutrons don't have a special stabilizing affecting on the nuclear size", she concludes.

On theory side, the nuclear structure of potassium isotopes were modeled with two different theoretical approaches, namely with the nuclear density functional theory (DFT) and the coupled cluster (CC) theory.

"The DFT is an ideal method for heavier nuclei, whereas CC is more suitable for light and medium mass nuclei. The potassium region offers an ideal meeting ground to test these approaches simultaneously. Both theoretical methods need information about the nuclear interactions. For this purpose, state-of-the art nuclear structure models were applied: The DFT calculations employed highly successful Fayans energy density functional and CC calculations used the latest ab-initio chiral potential", says Associate Professor Markus Kortelainen from the Department of Physics at the University of Jyväskylä.

While both theoretical approaches reproduced the general experimental trend of charge radius isotopic shifts, some shortcomings were noted. The DFT results showed a notable overestimation of charge radius staggering between neighboring odd and even neutron number isotopes, whereas the CC calculations had difficulties to reproduce experimental trend in heavier isotopes. These observations urge to further improve present nuclear structure models.

Lead halide perovskites, with high refractive index and excellent optoelectronic property, have been used in both constructing high-quality optical resonators/lasers and fabricating high-efficiency light-emitting devices for advanced displays. Lenticular printing provides an illusion of depth and shows varying images upon view angles, which is considered as a promising approach towards future stereoscopic displays. To realize lenticular-printing-based display, it is required to modulate the outcoupling direction of emission light rather than that of incident light. Ideally, the lenticular-lens-like structures would be integrated into the active layer of light-emitting devices. Therefore, the hybrid perovskite becomes a promising candidate for the investigation of lenticular printing display; however, it remains a challenge to realize large-area periodic structures of perovskite materials especially with a feature size of wavelength scale.

Very recently, Dr. Chuang Zhang, Dr. Yong Sheng Zhao from Institute of Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Dr. Yuchen Wu from Technical Institute of Physics and Chemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and their colleagues fabricated lead halide perovskite periodic structures via a space-confined solution growth method. The spatial resolution could be down to hundreds of nanometers while the substrate size up to several centimeters. These structures were able to not only modulate the reflection of visible light, but also control the angle of light emission from hybrid perovskites. More importantly, the low-threshold lasing based on distributed feedback was observed from the periodic structures, and its narrow line-width offered possibility to realize the lenticular printing laser display, according to the wavelength-dependent outcoupling of emission colors. A prototype of laser display panels was then realized based on the mixed halide perovskites, in which the green and red colored images were obtained at high and low angles respectively. This work would shed light on the design and fabrication of perovskites materials for new types of display techniques.

Researchers from the University of Ottawa have discovered that plants may be able to control the genetics of their intimate root symbionts - the organism with which they live in symbiosis - thereby providing a better understanding of their growth.

In addition to having a significant impact on all terrestrial ecosystems, their discovery may lead to improved eco-friendly agricultural applications.

We talked to research lead Nicolas Corradi, Associate Professor in the Department of Biology and Research Chair in Microbial Genomics at the University of Ottawa, and lead author Vasilis Kokkoris, Postdoctoral Fellow in the Corradi Lab, in partnership with Agriculture and AgriFood Canada (Stefani Lab and Dettman Lab), to learn more about their recent study published in the journal Current Biology.

Can you tell us more about your findings?

Nicolas Corradi: "We have uncovered a fascinating genetic regulation between plants and their microbial symbionts, known as Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi (AMF).

AMF are plant obligate symbionts that grow within the plant roots and help their hosts to grow better and be more resistant to environmental stressors.

AMF genetics have long been mysterious; while typical cells carry one nucleus, the cells of AMF carry thousands of nuclei that can be genetically diverse. How these nuclei communicate with each other and whether the plants can control their relative abundance, has been a total mystery.

Our work provides insights into this unique genetic condition:

1- We demonstrate that the host plant symbiont influences the relative abundance of thousands of co-existing nuclei carried by their fungal symbionts.

2- We find evidence that co-existing nuclei of different genetic backgrounds cooperate, rather than compete with one another thus potentially maximizing growth benefits for both the fungi and their plant partners."

How did you come to these conclusions?

Vasilis Kokkoris: "We implemented a novel molecular approach accompanied by advanced microscopy and mathematical modelling. Every single AMF spore carries hundreds of nuclei (see image).

By analyzing single spores, we were able to quantify the genetics of thousands of nuclei and define their relative abundance in different fungal strains and across plant species.

To ensure that we accurately analyze single nuclei, we used advanced microscopy to visualize and count the nuclei in the spores.

Lastly, we used mathematical modelling to prove that the observed abundance of nuclear genotypes we identified cannot be a product of luck but instead is the result of a driven cooperation between them.

To better understand what is regulating the AMF nuclei we grew different AMF strains with different hosts and found that plants have control of the relative abundance of the fungal nuclei."

What are the impacts of your discovery?

Nicolas Corradi: "For many years, AMF have been considered to be genetic peculiarities and far away from model organisms. Inconsistencies are commonly observed in plant-AMF experiments. For example, growing the same fungal strain with different plants can lead to drastically different plant yields. For a long time, this variance in plant growth was blamed on the AMF mysterious genetics.

Our research provides an answer as we demonstrate that the genetics of these fungi, and their effect on plant growth, can be manipulated by plants thus explaining the reason for the observed variability on plant growth.

From an environmental standpoint, this new knowledge allows for better understanding how plants can influence the genetics of their symbiotic partners, thus influencing entire terrestrial ecosystems.

From an economic standpoint, it opens doors to improved sustainable agricultural applications."

LA JOLLA, CA--As the opioid epidemic raged on with an even greater force during COVID-19, the Scripps Research laboratory of chemist Kim Janda, PhD, has been working on new therapeutic interventions that may be able to prevent the bulk of deaths from opioid overdose.

Janda and his team have developed experimental vaccines that have shown in rodents to blunt the deadly effects of fentanyl--which has been driving the boom in opioid deaths--as well as its even more fatal cousin, carfentanil, a growing source of overdoses and a chemical terrorist threat.

"Synthetic opioids are not only extremely deadly, but also addictive and easy to manufacture, making them a formidable public health threat, especially when the coronavirus crisis is negatively impacting mental health," says Janda, the Ely R. Callaway, Jr. Professor of Chemistry at Scripps Research. "We've shown it is possible to prevent these unnecessary deaths by eliciting antibodies that stop the drug from reaching the brain."

Once in the brain, synthetic opioids trigger the body to slow down breathing. When too much of the drugs are consumed, which is easy to do, breathing can stop altogether. In a series of experiments involving mice, Janda's vaccines "sequestered" the potent drug molecules to keep them from interacting with the brain and body, thus thwarting dangerous respiratory symptoms.

Findings appear today in ACS Chemical Biology, published by the American Chemical Society.

Janda envisions the vaccine being used in a number of scenarios, including emergency situations to treat overdoses, as a therapy for those with substance abuse disorder, and as a means to protect military personnel who may be exposed to opioids as chemical weapons. They may even be helpful for police dogs that are trained seek out these deadly drugs.

"The respiratory depression data we show is phenomenal for both fentanyl and carfentanil, which brings us hope that this approach will work to treat a number of opioid-related maladies," Janda says.

A long way from 'miracle drug'

Opioids are a diverse class of drugs that have been used to relieve pain for more than 200 years, although the landscape has taken a stark turn in recent decades. The pain drug morphine, isolated from opium, was heralded as a miracle drug in the early 1800s. Not long after, drug makers created a synthetic form, heroin, as a supposedly non-addictive morphine substitute. (The problematic nature of the drug became clear in the 1920s, prompting regulation.)

However, it wasn't until the late 1990s that opioids began to trigger a public health emergency marked by widespread overuse of opioid medications, both from prescriptions and illegal sale of the drugs.

Today, the problem has reached a new crescendo. In December, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention declared the highest number of overdose deaths ever recorded in a 12-month period, with synthetic opioids--primarily fentanyl, created in illegal labs--as the main source.

Also deemed a terrorist weapon

Fentanyl is much stronger than most other opioids, up to 100 times stronger than morphine. Carfentanil, meanwhile, is up to 10,000 times more potent than morphine, Janda says, making it the deadliest of all. It is often used in veterinary medicine to sedate large animals such as elephants.

Although carfentanil is not as well-known as a street drug, it is an increasingly used as an adulterant in heroin and cocaine, leading to unexpected drug overdoses. It can also lead to overdose deaths from accidental exposure, such as in veterinary or police settings. Having an emergency vaccine on hand can thwart those risks.

Janda says synthetic opioids also are considered a terrorist weapon; they can be made in large quantities and in several forms, including tablets, powder and spray. They are readily absorbed through the skin or through inhalation. A single terrorist attack using carfentanil could be deadly for large numbers of people, he says.

"Unfortunately, the rise in carfentanil and fentanyl overdose incidents is placing further strain on already overwhelmed public health systems currently battling a pandemic," Janda says. "We look forward to continuing our vaccine research and translating it to the clinic, where we can begin to make an impact on the opioid crisis."

Army scientists evaluated three nonhuman primate species as potential models of SARS-CoV-2 airborne infection, according to results published online this week in PLOS ONE. Their work demonstrates that any of these species may be useful for testing vaccines and therapies in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in over 104 million cases and more than 2 million deaths worldwide in the past year.

Given the global impact of COVID-19, experts are working rapidly to develop medical countermeasures, and testing in animal models is critically important to evaluate the efficacy of these products. Recent studies suggest that aerosol transmission may be the most prevalent route of human exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Until now, however, the African green monkey was the only nonhuman primate model studied in efforts to replicate airborne transmission of the virus.

In this paper, first author Sara C. Johnston, Ph.D., and colleagues at the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases analyzed two additional nonhuman primate species as potential models of COVID-19 in humans.

The team exposed cynomolgus macaques, rhesus macaques, and African green monkeys to SARS-CoV-2 using a model system invented at USAMRIID that generates a controlled dosage of highly respirable airborne particles within a sealed chamber. Scientists then monitored the animals for up to 18 days, documenting clinical disease findings and comparing them to human cases. All three species developed disease that resembled mild acute respiratory disease in human patients, and all had corresponding viral loads in nasal and throat swabs. Respiratory abnormalities and viral shedding also were observed for all animals.

"In general, the clinical disease characteristics we noted are similar to those described by others in the field," Johnston commented. "One exception is the presence of fever in all cynomolgus macaques on this study. This finding was exclusive to cynomolgus macaques and was detected only by using implanted body temperature-monitoring devices. Since fever is a hallmark of COVID-19 for human patients, this represents an important clinical finding."

Developing animal models is a complex process, according to Johnston. Variables include the species selected, the dose of virus used, and the route of exposure, with the goal being to combine these elements to create a model that replicates human disease as closely as possible.

Overall, the USAMRIID data indicate that macaques, in addition to African green monkeys, can be infected by airborne SARS-CoV-2, providing natural transmission models for evaluation of vaccines and treatments.

"In addition to determining critical disease parameters associated with disease progression, and establishing correlations between primate and human COVID-19, this work directly contributes to the advancement of medical countermeasures against the virus," said USAMRIID senior author Aysegul Nalca, M.D., Ph.D. She said the team's next step is to demonstrate the utility of these primate models for the continuing evaluation of vaccine and therapeutic candidates. Having more than one viable model in place, she added, will help to facilitate a more rapid deployment of new medical products to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic.

A new study further highlighting a potential physiological cause of clinical depression could guide future treatment options for this serious mental health disorder. Published in Frontiers in Psychiatry, researchers show differences between the cellular composition of the brain in depressed adults who died by suicide and non-psychiatric individuals who died suddenly by other means.

"We found a reduced number of astrocytes, highlighted by staining the protein vimentin, in many regions of the brain in depressed adults," reports Naguib Mechawar, a Professor at the Department of Psychiatry, McGill University, Canada, and senior author of this article. "These star-shaped cells are important because they support the optimal function of brain neurons. Our findings confirm and extend previous research implicating astrocytes in the pathology of depression."

Major depressive disorder, also referred to as clinical depression, causes a persistent feeling of sadness and loss of interest, leading to a variety of serious emotional and physical problems. With approval from the Research Ethics Board, the team at the Douglas Institute (McGill University) used postmortem analysis to add weight to the theory that astrocytes play a role in this disorder.

Same shape different number

"We analyzed the astrocytes in the brain by staining specific proteins found in their structure -- vimentin and GFAP. Vimentin staining has not been used before in this context, but it provides a clear, complete and unprecedented view of the entire microscopic structure of these cells," explains Liam O'Leary, who completed this study at McGill University as part of his PhD research. "Using a microscope, we counted the number of astrocytes in cross sections of the brain, enabling us to estimate how many were in each region. We also analyzed the 3D structure of over three hundred individual astrocytes for any differences."

The postmortem analysis revealed that in depression, while the number of astrocytes differed, they have a similar structure to psychiatrically healthy individuals.

"This research indicates that depression may be linked to the cellular composition of the brain. The promising news is that unlike neurons, the adult human brain continually produces many new astrocytes. Finding ways that strengthen these natural brain functions may improve symptoms in depressed individuals," says Mechawar.

Target for treatment

"Our study provides a strong rationale for developing drugs that counteract the apparent loss of astrocytes in depression," says O'Leary. "No antidepressants have yet been developed to target these cells directly, although the leading theory for the rapid antidepressant action of ketamine, a relatively new treatment option, is that it corrects for astrocyte abnormality."

Future research hopes to address some limitations of the current study and to look deeper at the association of astrocytes with depression.

"While this study is the most comprehensive so far, it was only conducted with samples from male patients. We want to widen this study to investigate samples from female patients since it is now known that the neurobiology of depression differs quite significantly between men and women," says Mechawar, who also acknowledges the critical role of the donors and their families.

"Tissue donation to scientific research allows us to better understand the cellular and molecular dysfunctions underlying brain disorders, thereby supporting the development of better mental healthcare treatments."

If you or someone you know is affected by depression, please find help now. The International Association for Suicide Prevention provide a list of crisis centers across the world that can offer support in your region.

Researchers from University of Notre Dame, York University (Canada), and University of New England (Australia) published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that identifies a novel reason why people under-save and demonstrates a simple, short, and inexpensive intervention that increases intentions to save and actual savings.

The study, forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing, is titled "Popping the Positive Illusion of Financial Responsibility Can Increase Personal Savings: Applications in Emerging and Western Markets" and is authored by Emily Garbinsky, Nicole Mead, and Daniel Gregg.

People around the world are not saving enough money. Since increasing personal savings is critical for individual and societal welfare, many researchers have tried to identify reasons why people under-save. Most of these reasons, however, do not lend themselves to behavioral interventions.

Garbinsky explains that "We show that one reason people under-save is because they hold the positive illusion of being financially responsible. In other words, most people hold positively distorted beliefs about how well they save and manage their money because this allows them to feel good about themselves. In our study, we show that most people view themselves as more financially responsible than their average peer, which is statistically impossible."

Building on this finding, the research demonstrates that offsetting this positive illusion of financial responsibility motivates people to restore this diminished self-view. In other words, when people perceive that their past financial behaviors have fallen short of their desired standard (in this case, to be a financially responsible person), they enact behaviors to close the gap (in this case, by allocating more money to their savings).

"As part of the study," Gregg says, "we created what we call the 'superfluous-spender intervention' that influenced people to believe they were not saving as well as they believed. Across a series of six experiments, we show that people receiving the superfluous-spender intervention increased both intentions to save and actual savings relative to those who do not receive the intervention. Our theoretical reasoning is that the intervention increases saving by inducing one's desire to restore diminished perceptions of financial responsibility."

The study also sheds light on two managerially relevant factors about when and for whom the intervention is most likely to be effective. More specifically, the intervention is only expected to increase savings if people can draw perceptions about their own level of financial responsibility. Because past research has shown that people reach conclusions about themselves only when past behavior was freely chosen, the intervention is only effective when past financial behaviors are highlighted that were under one's control and therefore attributable to the self. Also, the intervention is most effective among people who are motivated to perceive themselves as financially responsible.

In closing, although it may be tempting to think that the savings silver bullet is to make consumers feel better about themselves in the financial domain, the empirical data from this research suggest otherwise. "We illuminate that the illusion of financial responsibility is a novel antecedent to saving and that financial stakeholders can combat this self-enhancing bias to encourage consumers to commit to saving more," says Mead.

Politicians around the world must be held to account for mishandling the covid-19 pandemic, argues a senior editor at The BMJ today.

Executive editor, Dr Kamran Abbasi, argues that at the very least, covid-19 might be classified as 'social murder' that requires redress.

Today 'social murder' may describe a lack of political attention to the conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work and age that exacerbate the pandemic.

When politicians and experts say that they are willing to allow tens of thousands of premature deaths, for the sake of population immunity or in the hope of propping up the economy, is that not premeditated and reckless indifference to human life, he asks?

If policy failures lead to recurrent and mistimed lockdowns, who is responsible for the resulting non-covid excess deaths?

And when politicians wilfully neglect scientific advice, international and historical experience, and their own alarming statistics and modelling, because to act goes against their political strategy or ideology, is that lawful?

He acknowledges that any nation's laws on political misconduct or negligence are complex, and not designed to react to unprecedented events, but says after more than 2 million people have died, "we must not look on impotently as elected representatives around the world remain unaccountable and unrepentant."

If citizens feel disempowered, who might hold negligent politicians to account, he asks?

He points out that official scientific advisers have often struggled to convince politicians to act until it is too late or kept silent to avoid public criticism, while much of the media is complicit too, "worried about telling pandemic truths to their readers and viewers, owners, and political friends."

It is this environment that has allowed covid denial to flourish, for unaccountability to prevail, and for the great lies of 'world-beating' pandemic responses to be spun, argues Abbasi.

When citizens find no accountability among their leaders, and feel unsupported by experts and the media, the law remains one form of redress, he writes. Indeed, some legal avenues, including criminal negligence and misconduct in public office, are being explored, although proving any such claims will be difficult and drawn out.

What's left then in this circumstance is for citizens to lobby their political representatives for a public inquiry; for professionals in law, science, medicine, and the media, as well as holders of public office, to put their duty to the public above their loyalty to politicians and to speak out, to dissent lawfully, to be active in their calls for justice, especially for the disadvantaged.

"Politicians must be held to account by legal and electoral means, indeed by any national and international constitutional means necessary. State failures that led us to 2 million deaths are 'actions' and 'inactions' that should shame us all," he concludes.

In a linked editorial, Clare Wenham at the London School of Economics asks what went wrong in the global governance of covid-19?

Looking at the latest report from the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, she argues that the system we have established for global health security cannot respond adequately to a health emergency.

She calls for collaborative action to fix the identified weaknesses, but acknowledges that given the politicisation of responses globally, any efforts to develop a standardised response to health emergencies will have to overcome serious challenges to secure agreement among all member states.

"We need a targeted review that names and shames governments, rather than obscuring them with generalisations," she writes. "I look forward to bolder reports from the independent panel that consider not only the economic and social effect of the pandemic but the failure of Western governments too."