Culture

January 29, 2021 -- A study at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health and Columbia University Irving Medical Center has found that Medicaid expansion in 2014 in New York State was associated with a statistically significant reduction in severe maternal morbidity in low-income women during delivery hospitalizations compared with high-income women. The decrease was even more pronounced in racial and ethnic minority women than in White women. Until now there was little research on the link between ACA Medicaid expansion and maternal health outcomes. The findings are published online in the journal of the International Anesthesia Research Society, Anesthesia & Analgesia.

"Our findings indicate that the 2014 Medicaid expansion under the ACA in New York has contributed to reducing severe maternal morbidity in low- income women. These findings are of public health importance given the ongoing increase in maternal morbidity and mortality on the national level," said Jean Guglielminotti, MD, PhD, in the Department of Anesthesiology, Columbia Medical Center.

The researchers analyzed data from the 2006-2016 New York State Inpatient Database, a census of discharge records from community hospitals. They compared the changes in the incidence of severe maternal morbidity (SMM) as defined by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention during delivery hospitalizations and discharges between low- and high-income women associated with the 2014 Medicaid expansion in New York State from January 1, 2006 to December 31, 2016.

For each year of the study period, the researchers calculated the volume of deliveries and delivery-related discharges, cesarean delivery rate, percent admission during a weekend, percent non-White women (i.e, racial and ethnic minority women), and percent Medicaid beneficiaries.

Of 2,286,975 delivery-related discharges in 173 hospitals, 611,020 were among low-income women (27 percent). Compared with high-income women, low- income women had a higher incidence of SMM (2.6% vs 1.9%, respectively).

Medicaid beneficiaries increased from 43 percent in the pre-expansion study period to 48 percent in the post-expansion study period. The proportion of the uninsured decreased 5 percent and by a decline of 9 percent among privately insured women. The 2014 New York State Medicaid expansion increased the income eligibility threshold for pregnant women from 200 percent to 223 percent of the Federal Poverty Level. According to earlier Columbia research, even though half of pregnant women are covered by Medicaid nationwide, up to 13 percent are uninsured in the month of delivery.

"We hypothesized that the introduction of Medicaid expansion in January 2014 would not be associated with an abrupt change in the incidence of SMM immediately after its introduction but rather with a gradual decrease over time," said Guglielminotti. "We based this on the fact that a pregnancy lasts 3 quarter-years and that the beneficial effect of health insurance coverage on maternal health outcomes during delivery hospitalizations is thought to be mediated by earlier prenatal care during pregnancy and a better quality of prenatal care."

While insured women may receive earlier and better care throughout pregnancy and postpartum, an earlier and higher utilization of prenatal care is also associated with better maternal and neonatal outcomes, according to the researchers. Secondly, insured women might seek earlier care if symptomatic of a complication without worrying about financial implications. In addition, care during hospitalization can be influenced by insurance type by removing financial barriers to care delivery such as the utilization of expensive procedures.

"Excess maternal morbidity and mortality in the United States, particularly in low-income and racial/ethnic minority women, is a growing public health concern," said Guohua Li, MD, DrPH, professor of Anesthesiology and Epidemiology at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health. "Our study suggests that Medicaid expansion under the ACA is an effective policy intervention to improve maternal health outcomes and reduce health disparities. "

News reports indicate COVID-19 vaccines are not getting out soon enough nor in adequate supplies to most regions, but there may be a larger underlying problem than shortages. A University of California, Davis, study found that more than a third of people nationwide are either unlikely or at least hesitant to get a COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available to them.

The results are from public polling of more than 800 English-speaking adults nationwide in a study published online earlier this month in the journal Vaccine.

"Our research indicates that vaccine uptake will be suboptimal ... with 14.8 percent of respondents being unlikely to get vaccinated and another 23 percent unsure," said Jeanette B. Ruiz, assistant professor of teaching communication at UC Davis and lead author of the study.

"Even though vaccination remains one of the most effective public health initiatives, some still doubt the efficacy and safety of vaccines. Unfortunately, the seemingly rushed process of the COVID-19 vaccine may have further fueled these doubts."

Co-author is Robert Bell, emeritus professor of communication, UC Davis.

Respondents cited vaccine safety and effectiveness assessments as the primary basis for hesitancy, authors said.

In the study, compensated participants were recruited from the United States through an Internet survey panel of 2.5 million residents developed by a commercial survey firm. Recruitment was based on quota sampling to produce a U.S. census-matched sample representative of the nation, and was representative of the U.S. population in terms of region of residence, sex and age, but also diverse with regard to all demographic variables assessed.

Researchers measured the respondents' intention to vaccinate; demographic and health status profile of individuals least likely to vaccinate; general vaccine knowledge and vaccine conspiracy beliefs; and the role of media and partisan politics played in their resistance to vaccination.

Political party, health risk factors, media contribute to attitudes

Authors indicated demographic characteristics, vaccine knowledge, perceived vulnerability to COVID-19, risk factors for COVID-19, and politics likely contribute to vaccination hesitancy. The study was conducted relatively early in the pandemic outbreak during two days in June 2020.

Demographic predictors of likelihood of being vaccinated against COVID-19 included having an income of $120,000 or higher, or being a Democrat (in comparison to the reference category Republican). The members of three political groups -- Democrat, Republican or Independent -- did not differ in their reported vaccine knowledge, however. One fourth of those identifying with no political party reported they were not likely to get vaccinated.

Media had an effect too. Respondents relying primarily on social media for information about COVID-19 anticipated a lower likelihood of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance. Those reporting getting their information from various other media did not show significant differences in vaccine acceptance, but viewers of Fox News did report being more hesitant than viewers of other broadcast news, the research showed. Authors noted that it is possible that individuals gravitate toward the cable news networks that present a view on the pandemic that is aligned with their own opinions.

Media reports have regularly noted that men, adults age 65 and over, and individuals with pre-existing conditions are most vulnerable to COVID-19, and respondents from these groups said they were more likely to accept a future vaccine in this survey. A majority of the least-educated respondents did not expect to get vaccinated against COVID-19, researchers said.

The top four reasons given for vaccination hesitancy were as follows: concerns about vaccine side effects, worries about allergic responses to the vaccine, doubts about vaccine effectiveness and a preference for developing immunity through infection. Other reasons were less frequently cited -- including being healthy, fear of needles, being immune from past infection, being young and lack of concern about developing a serious illness.

Unfortunately, the health disparities present in the spread and treatment of COVID-19 were reflected in survey participants' vaccination hesitancy estimations," researchers said in the paper. "The pandemic has especially burdened the African American, Latino and Native American communities, who account for a disproportionate number of COVID-19 cases and deaths. Greater likelihood of COVID-19 vaccine acceptance was associated with more knowledge about vaccines, less acceptance of vaccine conspiracies, elevated COVID-19 threat appraisals and being current with influenza immunization."

Primary Findings Summary

Male, older, white, married, and those from higher-income households more likely to vaccinate.

Republicans and Fox News viewers were less likely to vaccinate.

Being currently immunized against influenza predicted COVID-19 vaccination intent.

A better understanding of COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy is needed.

WOODS HOLE, Mass. -- The most powerful substance in the human brain for neuronal communication is glutamate. It is by far the most abundant, and it's implicated in all kinds of operations. Among the most amazing is the slow restructuring of neural networks due to learning and memory acquisition, a process called synaptic plasticity. Glutamate is also of deep clinical interest: After stroke or brain injury and in neurodegenerative disease, glutamate can accumulate to toxic levels outside of neurons and damage or kill them.

Shigeki Watanabe of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, a familiar face at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) as a faculty member and researcher, is hot on the trail of describing how glutamate signaling works in the brain to enable neuronal communication. In a paper last fall, Watanabe (along with several MBL Neurobiology course students) described how glutamate is released from neural synapses after the neuron fires. And today, Watanabe published a follow-up study in Nature Communications.

"With this paper, we uncover how signals are transmitted across synapses to turn on the switch for plasticity," Watanabe says. "We demonstrate that glutamate is first released near AMPA-type glutamate receptors, to relay the signal from one neuron to the next, and then near NMDA-type receptors immediately after the first signal to activate the switch for synaptic plasticity."

This new study was also partly conducted in the MBL Neurobiology course, where Watanabe is a faculty member. "It began in 2018 with (course students) Raul Ramos and Hanieh Falahati, and then we followed up in 2019 with Stephen Alexander Lee and Christine Prater. Shuo Li, the first author, was my teaching assistant for the Neurobiology course for both years," Watanabe says. He will be returning to the MBL this summer to teach in the course -- and discover more.

Below please find a summary and link(s) of new coronavirus-related content published today in Annals of Internal Medicine. The summary below is not intended to substitute for the full article as a source of information. A collection of coronavirus-related content is free to the public at http://go.annals.org/coronavirus.

1. Study finds Black race higher risk factor for COVID-19 infection than occupational exposure
A large survey of health care workers found that community and demographic factors, such as contact with a confirmed or suspected COVID-19-positive case outside the workplace and Black race, were stronger predictors of COVID-19 infection than occupational exposure. The findings are published in Annals of Internal Medicine.

Read the full text: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-7145.

Researchers from Emory University Medical School and Rollins School of Public Health fitted a logistic regression model to data from a cross-sectional survey of health care workers conducted from April to June 2020 within their health care system to quantify occupational, community, and demographic risk factors for SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity. The researchers found an overall SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence of 3.8% among the health care workers after the initial surge of the epidemic. After adjusting for possible bias due to voluntary participation in testing, Black race was still a stronger predictor of infection than workplace exposure.

The researchers explain that racial disparities, now well documented in the general population, extend to health care workers after accounting for other risk factors including job role and workplace COVID-19 exposure, underscoring the fundamental societal inequities that have become a hallmark of the COVID-19 pandemic. These disparities must be considered when examining workplace COVID-19 risk. While the authors adjusted for community risk by including ZIP code-level COVID-19 incidence in the model, they could not account for more proximal factors that may have contributed to higher risk for infection among Black health care workers, including higher likelihood of exposure at home or use of public transportation.

Media contacts: A PDF for this article is not yet available. Please click the link to read full text. The lead authors, Kristin N. Nelson, PhD, and Julia M. Baker, PhD, can be reached through Janet Christenbury, jmchris@emory.edu.

RIVERSIDE, Calif. -- When we step on the car brake upon seeing a red traffic light ahead, a sequence of events unfolds in the brain at lightning speed.

The image of the traffic light is transferred from our eyes to the visual cortex, which, in turn, communicates to the premotor cortex -- a section of the brain involved in preparing and executing limb movements. A signal is then sent to our foot to step on the brake. However, brain region that helps the body go from "seeing" to "stepping" is still a mystery, frustrating neuroscientists and psychologists.

To unpack this "black box," a team of neuroscientists at the University of California, Riverside, has experimented on mice to identify the brain region that functions beyond sensory encoding and motor encoding, potentially opening up new directions to studying the cellular and circuit mechanisms of sensory-motor transformations. The researchers report a cortical region traditionally defined as whisker motor cortex in mice is most directly related to the transformation process.

In the lab, the researchers trained mice to sense a slight deflection on one side of their whiskers, and report if they sensed it by licking a water port.

"We recorded the neuronal activity of some brain regions that might convey this sensory-motor transformation by using the 'language of neurons' -- the electrical signals -- generated as the mouse performs the task of stimulus detection," said Zhaoran Zhang, a graduate student in the Neuroscience Graduate Program and a co-first author of the research paper published in eNeuro, an open-access journal of the Society of Neuroscience.

Behzad Zareian, a graduate student in the Department of Psychology and a co-first author of the research paper, explained the team used simple but intuitive mathematical tools to transform the neurons' electrical activities to numbers that describe how much the neurons sense the sensory input, how much they reflect the upcoming movement outputs, and how well they predict whether the sensory information can be successfully transformed to a correct behavior.

"We located a brain region traditionally defined as the whisker motor cortex, which was previously believed to influence how a mouse moves its whiskers," Zareian said, "We found this cortical region is capable of transforming the sensory input from whisker deflection to a more general movement action -- licking in this case -- rather than just moving whiskers."

Corresponding author Edward Zagha, an assistant professor of psychology and the team's principle investigator, explained that one difficulty in finding brain regions operating the sensory-motor transformation is that although scientists can measure the sensory- and motor-related brain activities easily in the lab, the inner process that conducts the sensory-motor transformation in the brain is elusive and hard to quantify.

"Our brain represents sensory and motor information in more than one place and often in a redundant manner for multiple purposes such as fine-tuning future movements, enhancing perception or memory storage," Zagha said. "Thus, scientists are now able to distinguish the location of transformation and the regions that merely reflect the sensory or motor information for other purposes. This can vastly improve the use of targeted therapy for patients with sensory- and motor-related brain deficits."

Next, the team plans to focus its research on whisker motor cortex to show what happens within this region to enable the transformation process.

"Interestingly, each cortical region consists of multiple layers and multiple subtype of neurons such as excitatory and inhibitory neurons that are subject to research," Zagha said. "Thus, this expands our knowledge of the neurobiological circuits performing sensory-motor transformations and identifies sites of potential therapeutic intervention to modulate these brain functions."

New research led by Carnegie Mellon University Assistant Professor of Physics Shiladitya Banerjee demonstrates how certain types of bacteria can adapt to long-term exposure to antibiotics by changing their shape. The work was published this month in the journal Nature Physics.

Adaptation is a fundamental biological process driving organisms to change their traits and behavior to better fit their environment, whether it be the famed diversity of finches observed by pioneering biologist Charles Darwin or the many varieties of bacteria that humans coexist with. While antibiotics have long helped people prevent and cure bacterial infections, many species of bacteria have increasingly been able to adapt to resist antibiotic treatments.

Banerjee's research at Carnegie Mellon and in his previous position at the University College London (UCL) has focused on the mechanics and physics behind various cellular processes, and a common theme in his work has been that the shape of a cell can have major effects on its reproduction and survival. Along with researchers at the University of Chicago, he decided to dig into how exposure to antibiotics affects the growth and morphologies of the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus, a commonly used model organism.

"Using single-cell experiments and theoretical modelling, we demonstrate that cell shape changes act as a feedback strategy to make bacteria more adaptive to surviving antibiotics," Banerjee said of what he and his collaborators found.

When exposed to less than lethal doses of the antibiotic chloramphenicol over multiple generations, the researchers found that the bacteria dramatically changed their shape by becoming wider and more curved.

"These shape changes enable bacteria to overcome the stress of antibiotics and resume fast growth," Banerjee said. The researchers came to this conclusion by developing a theoretical model to show how these physical changes allow the bacteria to attain a higher curvature and lower surface-to-volume ratio, which would allow fewer antibiotic particles to pass through their cellular surfaces as they grow.

"This insight is of great consequence to human health and will likely stimulate numerous further molecular studies into the role of cell shape on bacterial growth and antibiotic resistance," Banerjee said.

School closures during COVID-19 have decreased access to school meals, which is likely to increase the risk for food insecurity among children in Maryland, according to a new report issued by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM). The number of meals served to school-age children during the first three months of the pandemic dropped by 58 percent, compared to the number of free or reduced-price meals served the previous spring. As a result, thousands of children across the state were placed at increased risk of food insecurity, with many likely experiencing the health ramifications associated with the abrupt disruption in their access to regular meals.

"Food insecurity in children is associated with poor child health, low developmental and academic performance, and may co-occur with excess weight gain.," said study leader Erin Hager, PhD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Epidemiology & Public Health at UMSOM. "We found that despite the best efforts of food service providers across the state to ensure access to free meals during the pandemic, they were not able to reach every family in need. We need to learn more about what we can do to overcome these access challenges."

Dr. Hager and her colleagues worked with the Maryland State Department of Education (who funded this study), local school systems in the state, and food service providers to evaluate meal distribution during the first three months of the pandemic. During this time, and even now, all meals distributed are free to children under 18 years. They found that certain policies worked well to ensure access to free meals, including temporary waivers issued by Federal and State governments to enable flexibility in policies normally in place to support subsidized meals.

For example, families did not have to prove that their incomes were below a certain level in order to gain access to the meals. They could also pick up multiple meals and multiple days of food for their children during a single excursion.

"Leaders of the school meal programs throughout the state chose to place meal distribution sites in areas where the need was greatest," said Dr. Hager, "which we found to be very helpful for access." The staff who worked at these meal distribution sites reported in surveys and interviews that they were deeply concerned about not reaching enough children in need and worried about children going hungry during the unprecedented school closures.

Financial resources remained a concern for the leaders of the meal program. After examining the financial data, the researchers concluded that, without significant local, state, and federal support, the financial health of these programs will take a major hit during the pandemic, when revenues are greatly reduced and expenses have grown.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated the crisis of food insecurity in our nation's children," said E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, UM Baltimore; the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor; and Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine. "We need to take a hard look at the lessons learned from this study to determine long-term solutions for providing meals to students when school is regularly not in session, including summer months and holidays."

Boulder, Colo., USA: GSA's dynamic online journal, Geosphere, posts articles online regularly. Topics for articles posted for Geosphere this month include feldspar recycling in Yosemite National Park; the Ragged Mountain Fault, Alaska; the Khao Khwang Fold and Thrust Belt, Thailand; the northern Sierra Nevada; and the Queen Charlotte Fault.

Feldspar recycling across magma mush bodies during the voluminous Half Dome and Cathedral Peak stages of the Tuolumne intrusive complex, Yosemite National Park, California, USA
Louis F. Oppenheim; Valbone Memeti; Calvin G. Barnes; Melissa Chambers; Joachim Krause ...

Abstract: Incremental pluton growth can produce sheeted complexes with no magma-magma interaction or large, dynamic magma bodies communicating via crystal and melt exchanges, depending on pulse size and frequency of intrusions. Determining the degree and spatial extent of crystal-melt exchange along and away from plutonic contacts at or near the emplacement level, such as in the large, long-lived Tuolumne intrusive complex (TIC) in California, sheds light onto the process and evolution of incremental growth. This study used field mapping and petrographic and geochemical analysis of plagioclase and K-feldspar populations in the equigranular Half Dome (eHD), porphyritic Half Dome (pHD), and Cathedral Peak (CP) Granodiorites of the southeastern section of the TIC to determine the presence and/or extent of feldspar recycling at interunit contacts. Our results suggest that contacts between major units are predominantly ~400-m- to 3-km-thick gradational zones. K-feldspar is compositionally distinct in eHD and neighboring gradational zones and shows no evidence of mixing. K-feldspar in a gradational zone between pHD and CP shows evidence of mixing between the two. Plagioclase in eHD and CP display distinct ranges of anorthite content, Sr, and light rare earth element abundances; both populations are observed in pHD. Major oxide and trace element calculations of melts in equilibrium with plagioclase cores indicate that the melts were more silicic, less calcic, and lower in Sr and Rb than corresponding analyzed whole-rock samples. These results suggest that the magmas also underwent plagioclase and biotite accumulation. The presence of two plagioclase populations in pHD is consistent with eHD and CP hybridizing to form pHD in an increasingly maturing and exchanging TIC magmatic system during the eHD-pHD-CP stages but before groundmass and small K-feldspar phenocrysts crystallized.

View article: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article-abstract/doi/10.1130/GES02286.1/594155/Feldspar-recycling-across-magma-mush-bodies-during

Development of surface ruptures by hanging-wall extension over a thrust ramp along the Ragged Mountain fault, Katalla, Alaska, USA: Applications of high-resolution three-dimensional terrain models
Sarah N. Heinlein; Terry L. Pavlis; Ronald L. Bruhn

Abstract: High-resolution three-dimensional terrain models are used to evaluate the Ragged Mountain fault kinematics (Katalla, Alaska, USA). Previous studies have produced contradictory interpretations of the fault's kinematics because surface ruptures along the fault are primarily steeply dipping, uphill-facing normal fault scarps. In this paper, we evaluate the hypothesis that these uphill-facing scarps represent extension above a buried thrust ramp. Detailed geomorphic mapping along the fault, using 20-cm-resolution aerial imagery draped onto a 1-m-resolution lidar (light detection and ranging) elevation model, was used to produce multiple topographic profiles. These profiles illustrate scarp geometries and prominent convex-upward topographic surfaces, indicating significant disturbance by active tectonics. A theoretical model is developed for fault-parallel flow over a thrust ramp that shows the geometric relationships between thrust displacement, upper-plate extension, and ramp dip. An important prediction of the model for this study is that the magnitude of upper-plate extension is comparable to, or greater than, the thrust displacement for ramps with dips greater than ~45°. This model is used to analyze profile shapes and surface displacements in Move software (Midland Valley Ltd.). Analyses of scarp heights allow estimates of hanging-wall extension, which we then use to estimate slip on the underlying thrust via the model. Assuming a low-angle (30°) uniformly dipping thrust and simple longitudinal extension via normal faulting, variations in extension along the fault would require a slip gradient from ~8 m in the north to ~22 m in the south. However, the same north-south variation in extension with a constant slip of 8-10 m may infer an increase in fault dip from ~30° in the north to ~60° in the south. This model prediction has broader implications for active-fault studies. Because the model quantifies relationships between hanging-wall extension, fault slip, and fault dip, it is possible to invert for fault slip in blind thrust ramps where hanging-wall extension is the primary surface manifestation. This study, together with results from the St. Elias Erosion and Tectonics Project (STEEP), clarifies the role of the Ragged Mountain fault as a contractional structure within a broadly sinistral shear system in the western syntaxis of the St. Elias orogeny.

View article: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article-abstract/doi/10.1130/GES02097.1/594156/Development-of-surface-ruptures-by-hanging-wall

Development of an intra-carbonate detachment during thrusting: The variable influence of pressure solution on deformation style, Khao Khwang Fold and Thrust Belt, Thailand
C.K. Morley; S. Jitmahantakul; C. von Hagke; J. Warren; F. Linares

Abstract: Classic detachment zones in fold and thrust belts are generally defined by a weak lithology (typically salt or shale), often accompanied by high over-pressures. This study describes an atypical detachment that occurs entirely within a relatively strong Permian carbonate lithology, deformed during the Triassic Indosinian orogeny in Thailand under late diagenetic-anchimetamorphic conditions. The key differences between stratigraphic members that led to development of a detachment zone are bedding spacing and clay content. The lower, older, unit is the Khao Yai Member (KYM), which is a dark-gray to black, well-bedded, clay-rich limestone. The upper unit, the Na Phra Lan Member (NPM), comprises more massive, medium- to light-gray, commonly recrystallized limestones and marble. The KYM displays much tighter to even isoclinal, shorter-wavelength folds than the NPM. Pressure solution played a dominant role throughout the structural development--first forming early diagenetic bedding; later tectonic pressure solution preferentially followed this bedding instead of forming axial planar cleavage. The detachment zone between the two members is transitional over tens of meters. Moving up-section, tight to isoclinal folds with steeply inclined axial surfaces are replaced by folds with low-angle axial planes, thrusts, and thrust wedging, bed-parallel shearing, and by pressure solution along bedding-parallel seams (that reduce fold amplitude). In outcrops 100-300 m long, reduction of line-length shortening on folds from >50% to View article: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article-abstract/doi/10.1130/GES02267.1/594157/Development-of-an-intra-carbonate-detachment

Influence of pre-existing structure on pluton emplacement and geomorphology: The Merrimac plutons, northern Sierra Nevada, California, USA
V.E. Langenheim; J.A. Vazquez; K.M. Schmidt; G. Guglielmo, Jr.; D.S. Sweetkind

Abstract: In much of the western Cordillera of North America, the geologic frame¬work of crustal structure generated in the Mesozoic leaves an imprint on later plutonic emplacement, subsequent structural setting, and present landscape morphology. The Merrimac plutons in the northern Sierra Nevada (California, USA) are a good example of the influence of pre-existing structure at a larger scale. This paper updates and refines earlier studies of the Merrimac plutons, with the addition of analysis of gravity and magnetic data and new 206Pb/238U zircon dates. The gravity and magnetic data not only confirm the presence of two different neighboring plutons, but also (1) support the presence of a third pluton, (2) refine the nature of the contact between the Merrimac plutons as being structurally controlled, and (3) estimate the depth extent of the plutons to be ~4-5 km. The zircon 206Pb/238U dates indicate that the two main plutons have statistically different crystallization ages nearly 4 m.y. apart. Geomorphic analyses, including estimates of relief, roughness and drainage density and generation of chi plots, indicate that the two main plutons are characterized by different elevations with large longitudinal channel knickpoints that we speculatively attribute to possible reactivation of pre-existing structure in addition to lithologic variations influencing relative erosion susceptibility in response to prior accelerated surface uplift.

View article: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article-abstract/doi/10.1130/GES02281.1/594115/Influence-of-pre-existing-structure-on-pluton

Late Quaternary sea level, isostatic response, and sediment dispersal along the Queen Charlotte fault
J. Vaughn Barrie; H. Gary Greene; Kim W. Conway; Daniel S. Brothers

Abstract: The active Pacific margin of the Haida Gwaii and southeast Alaska has been subject to vigorous storm activity, dramatic sea-level change, and active tectonism since glacial times. Glaciation was minimal along the western shelf margin, except for large ice streams that formed glacial valleys to the shelf break between the major islands of southeast Alaska and Haida Gwaii. Upon deglaciation, sediment discharge was extensive, but it terminated quickly due to rapid glacial retreat and sea-level lowering with the development of a glacio-iso­static forebulge, coupled with eustatic lowering. Glacial sedimentation offshore ended soon after 15.0 ka. The shelf became emergent, with sea level lowering by, and possibly greater than, 175 m. The rapid transgression that followed began sometime before 12.7 ka off Haida Gwaii and 12.0 ka off southeast Alaska, and with the extreme wave-dominated environment, the unconsolidated sediment that was left on the shelf was effectively removed. Temperate carbonate sands make up the few sediment deposits presently found on the shelf. The Queen Charlotte fault, which lies just below the shelf break for most of its length, was extensively gullied during this short period of significant sed­iment discharge, when sediment was transported though the glacial valleys and across the narrow shelf through fluvial and submarine channels and was deposited offshore as sea level dropped. The Queen Charlotte fault became the western terminus of the glacio-isostatic forebulge, with the fault acting as a hinged flap taking up the uplift and collapse along the fault of 70+ m. This may have resulted in the development of the distinctive fault valley that presently acts as a very linear channel pathway for sediment throughout the fault system.

View article: https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geosphere/article-abstract/doi/10.1130/GES02311.1/594116/Late-Quaternary-sea-level-isostatic-response-and

GEOSPHERE articles are available at http://geosphere.geoscienceworld.org/content/early/recent. Representatives of the media may obtain complimentary copies of GEOSPHERE articles by contacting Kea Giles at the address above. Please discuss articles of interest with the authors before publishing stories on their work, and please make reference to GEOSPHERE in articles published. Non-media requests for articles may be directed to GSA Sales and Service, gsaservice@geosociety.org.

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Scientists have broadened our understanding of how 'weak' cells bond with their more mature cellular counterparts to boost the body's production of insulin, improving our knowledge of the processes leading to type 2 diabetes - a significant global health problem.

Type 2 diabetes mellitus occurs when β-cells cannot release enough insulin - a tightly controlled process requiring hundreds of such cells clustered together to co-ordinate their response to signals from food, such as sugar, fat and gut hormones.

An international research team - led by scientists at the University of Birmingham - have discovered that immature β-cells (PDX1LOW/MAFALOW) are able to overcome their relative deficiencies by partnering with 'stronger' counterparts to drive insulin release.

Publishing their findings today in Nature Communications, the researchers reveal that subtle differences in the levels of PDX1 and MAFA proteins (found only in β-cells) , and more broadly, differences in β-cell maturity, contribute to how clusters of insulin-producing cells, known as islets, function.

The corresponding author David Hodson, Professor of Cellular Metabolism, at the University of Birmingham, commented: "Our research shows that differences in β-cell maturity, defined using PDX1 and MAFA levels, are needed across the islet for proper insulin release. Unexpectedly, increases in the proportion of mature β-cells, is associated with islet failure. It seems that, rather like society, the islet needs cells with all ages to be properly functional.

"Redressing the balance between immature and mature β-cells restores islet function under conditions of metabolic stress - an excess of sugar and fat in the diet - providing evidence that both 'weak' and 'strong' β-cells could contribute to proper islet function and insulin release.

"This is the first glimpse that immature cells might contribute to the regulation of insulin release across the islet. Our study indicates a promising line of investigation that could be leveraged to make islets more resilient during type 2 diabetes or when generating new islets in a 'dish' for the purpose of transplantation."

Normally, mature and immature β-cells co-exist within the adult islet and can be grouped into subpopulations according to differences in their levels of specific genes and proteins. Immature β-cells are generally considered to be poorly functional when viewed alone, as single cells.

Researchers found that islets containing proportionally more PDX1HIGH and MAFAHIGH β-cells showed defects in cell function (metabolism, ionic fluxes and insulin secretion). The team believes maintaining a mix of 'strong' and 'weak' β-cells is important for effective insulin production.

Researchers from the Hubrecht Institute mapped the recovery of the heart after a heart attack with great detail. They found that heart muscle cells - also called cardiomyocytes - play an important role in the intracellular communication after a heart attack. The researchers documented their findings in a database that is accessible for scientists around the world. This brings the research field a step closer to the development of therapies for improved recovery after heart injury. The results were published in Communications Biology on the 29th of January.

In the Netherlands, an average of 95 people end up in the hospital each day because of a heart attack. During a heart attack, the blood supply to a part of the heart is blocked, for example due to a blood clot in a coronary artery. Attempts to restore the blood supply are made as soon as possible, also known as reperfusion. However, a part of the heart has already been without oxygen for some time. Depending on the size and duration of the infarction, this causes heart muscle cells - also called cardiomyocytes - to die. This can result in the formation of scar tissue, which is stiffer than normal heart tissue and therefore makes it more difficult for the heart to properly contract. This can cause the pumping function of the heart to deteriorate, which can eventually lead to heart failure.

Heart recovery

In other words, insight into the recovery of the heart after a heart attack and how this leads to the formation of scar tissue is extremely important. However, much is still unknown. Reason enough for researchers from the lab of Eva van Rooij to examine this further. They studied how the hearts of mice recover at three different time points following a heart attack. To this end, they used single cell sequencing, a technique that enables the examination of the RNA of individual cells. The researchers generated an enormous dataset with information about the role of different types of cells during the recovery process after a heart attack.

Communication network

Consequently, they used the data to map a communication network. Louk Timmer, researcher on the project, explains: "Cells communicate with each other by secreting molecules. These molecules then trigger the recipient cell to take a specific action, which may be important for the recovery process. We have now mapped with great detail how different cells communicate with each other at different time points after a heart attack. That had never been done so thoroughly before." This communication network is now documented in a database and accessible to scientists around the world.

Formation of scar tissue

Especially the role of cardiomyocytes in the recovery following a heart attack was still largely unknown, partly because of technical difficulties. However, another recent paper from Van Rooij's lab solved these obstacles, allowing the researchers to specifically study the function of cardiomyocytes in the recovery process. "We noticed that at the earliest time point measured after the heart attack, cardiomyocytes were secreting increased amounts of a molecule called B2M. Subsequent experiments showed that the secretion of B2M can result in the activation of so-called fibroblasts - cells responsible for the formation of scar tissue," says Timmer. Cardiomyocytes thus seem to indirectly stimulate the production of scar tissue early in the recovery process. "Intuitively, we already thought that cardiomyocytes play an important role in intracellular communication during heart recovery and it is great that we have now been able to confirm that."

Improve recovery process

When asked about the next steps within this field of research, Timmer emphasizes the importance of additional studies. "Various scientists and experts can use this data, which enables us to gain a better understanding of the cells and molecules that are involved in the recovery of the heart and the way they communicate with each other. Hopefully, we can eventually improve the recovery process, so that people end up with less damage after a heart attack."

Efforts to understand when corals reproduce have been given a boost thanks to a new resource that gives scientists open access to more than forty years' worth of information about coral spawning.

Led by researchers at Newcastle University, UK, and James Cook University, Australia, the Coral Spawning Database (CSD) for the first time collates vital information about the timing and geographical variation of coral spawning. This was a huge international effort that includes over 90 authors from 60 institutions in 20 countries.

The data can be used by scientists and conservationists to better understand the environmental cues that influence when coral species spawn, such as temperature, daylight patterns and the lunar cycle.

By providing access to data going back as far as 1978, it can also help researchers identify any long-term trends in the timing of spawning and provide additional evidence for differentiating very closely related coral species.

It will also provide an important baseline against which to evaluate future changes in regional and global patterns of spawning times or seasonality associated with climate change.

Most corals reproduce by expelling eggs and sperm into open water during short night-time spawning events. These events can be highly synchronised within and among species, with millions of colonies spawning at much the same time resulting in one of nature's most spectacular displays.

The discovery of multi-species synchronous spawning of scleractinian, or hard, corals on the Great Barrier Reef in the 1980s stimulated an extraordinary effort to document spawning times in other parts of the globe. However, much of the data remained unpublished until now, meaning that there was little information about the month, date, and time of spawning or geographical variation in these factors.

The new, open access database collates much of the disparate data into one place. The CSD includes over 6,000 observations of the time or day of spawning for more than 300 scleractinian species from 101 sites in tropical regions across the Indian and western Pacific oceans.

Dr James Guest, from the School of Natural and Environmental Sciences, Newcastle University, said: "Coral spawning times can be used to address many significant and fundamental questions in coral reef ecology. Knowing when corals spawn can assist coastal management - for example, if dredging operations cease during mass spawning events. It also has enormous potential for scientific outreach, education and tourism if spawning events can be witnessed in person or remotely."

Professor Andrew Baird from the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reefs Studies at James Cook University added: "The CSD is a dynamic database that will grow over time as new observations become available. Anyone can add data at any time by contacting us and we will update the online database annually.

"Our vision is to help advance many aspects of coral reef science and conservation at a time of unprecedented environmental and societal change. It will accelerate our understanding of coral reproductive biology and provide a baseline against which to evaluate any future changes in the time of spawning."

Coral reefs are one of the most species-rich marine ecosystems on the planet and provide enormous societal benefits such as food, tourism and coastal protection. Corals are the ecosystem engineers on reefs and provide much of the habitat complexity in much the same way that trees do in forests.

Coral reefs around the world are in sharp decline due to overfishing, pollution and warming seas caused by climate change and successful reproduction is one of the main ways that reefs can recover naturally from human disturbances. It is hoped therefore that the CSD will improve our ability to manage and preserve these remarkable ecosystems.

As part of standard patient protocol, doctors inform women of the risks of pregnancy. But there is one exception to this standard: stillbirth.

University of Arkansas law professor Jill Wieber Lens argues that women have a right to know of the risk of stillbirth, and, consistent with the evolution of informed consent law, this right should be enforceable through a medical malpractice tort claim.

Stillbirth, or pregnancy loss after 20 weeks but before birth, is not uncommon. Annually, 26,000 U.S. women give birth to a stillborn baby, or roughly one out every 160 pregnancies. The United States' stillbirth rate is higher than the stillbirth rates of many other high-income countries and has not decreased as have other countries' rates.

"Numerous countries have reduced their stillbirth rates through initiatives that include requiring doctors to disclose the risk of stillbirth to women and to educate women on simple preventative measures," Lens says. "A tort claim enforcing a woman's right to disclosure of stillbirth could have a similar effect in the United States."

In "Medical Paternalism, Stillbirth, & Blindsided Mothers," published in the Iowa Law Review, Lens contends that women remain ignorant of the possibility of stillbirth because of the remnants of medical paternalism -- doctors choose not to disclose the risk because they think women don't need to and shouldn't know about it, because the risk is low, and they think it might cause anxiety in patients.

There could be other reasons. Doctors might believe that anxious women would want additional visits, which might not be covered under current insurance billing standards.

"Possibly the only one benefiting from current non-disclosure is the doctor," writes Lens, "as he or she may be motivated by billing incentives more than what is best for the patient and her unborn child."

In the article, Lens explained that doctors historically were obligated to disclose only those risks they thought patients needed to know. However, decades ago, courts rejected this paternalism in favor of a patient's right to information and self-determination. This led to the adoption of a so-called "materiality standard," which requires doctors to disclose all risks that a reasonable patient would want to know.

Lens applied this materiality standard and the evolved principles of informed consent law to a pregnant woman's right to know about the risk of stillbirth. The right easily satisfies the materiality standard, she said. Additionally, Lens argued, there is no evidence to support the myth that disclosure will cause anxiety for pregnant women.

In current routine practice, doctors disclose many risks associated with pregnancy, including the risks of miscarriage and fetal abnormalities, such as down syndrome and fatal trisomies. But empirical studies confirm that pregnant women remain unaware of the possibility and reality of stillbirth.

"The narrative of the irrational and emotional pregnant woman does not justify the doctor's non-disclosure," she said. "This narrative is common, but there is no evidence to support it. Keeping women in the dark about stillbirth only prevents them from taking actions that could prevent stillbirth, such as not smoking, sleeping on one's side and monitoring the baby's movements."

In addition to patient and fetal health, there are other benefits that could be achieved through a tort claim, Lens explained. Educating women will likely reduce the number of malpractice claims filed after stillbirth, as patients are less likely to sue when they feel informed and are satisfied with doctor-patient communication. Though stillbirth will still be devastating for women, knowing about the risk ahead of time might help alleviate some of the shock. Finally, informing women of the risk of stillbirth might increase public awareness and help reduce the stigma and taboo surrounding stillbirth.

COLLEGE PARK, Md.--The amount of methane released into the atmosphere as a result of coal mining is likely much higher than previously calculated, according to research presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union recently.

The study estimates that methane emissions from coal mines are approximately 50 percent higher than previously estimated. The research was done by a team at the U.S. Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and others.

The higher estimate is due mainly to two factors: methane that continues to be emitted from thousands of abandoned mines and the higher methane content in coal seams that are ever deeper, according to chief author Nazar Kholod of PNNL.

The results have important implications for Earth's climate because methane is about 25 times more powerful than carbon dioxide when it comes to warming the planet over a long period. In addition to coal mining, other major sources of methane emissions globally include wetlands, agriculture, and oil and gas facilities.

The study is one of the first to account for methane leaking from old, abandoned mines. Kholod said that when a closed mine is flooded, water stops methane from leaking almost completely within about seven years. But when an abandoned mine is closed without flooding, as many are, methane leaks into the air for decades.

Methane emissions are a constant concern at coal mines, which vent the gas as it's emitted when coal seams are disturbed. While methane produced in some industries is captured and used to create additional energy, it's more difficult to capture from coal mines, where the gas typically makes up a tiny fraction of the overall air stream.

Globally, coal mining is decreasing in the United States and Europe but increasing rapidly in other parts of the world, such as southeast Asia and India. The authors point out that less coal production doesn't translate to less methane.

"As more coal mines close, the share of coal mines that have been abandoned but are still emitting methane will increase," said Kholod. He is a scientist at the Joint Global Change Research Institute, a partnership between PNNL and the University of Maryland where researchers explore the interactions between human, energy and environmental systems.

More methane from deeper and defunct mines

The research team analyzed 250 coal samples from around the world, including North America, South America, Australia, Asia and Europe. The team found that coal from depths greater than 400 meters--depths many new mines reach--contains more than twice as much methane as coal mined at depths less than 200 meters. Mines are getting deeper every year.

The study is the first to attempt to account for methane escaping from abandoned mines. The reason is straightforward, Kholod said: Good data sets are hard to come by. His paper drew largely on data from the United States and Ukraine, countries where data about coal mine status and methane is fully available. In the United States in 2015, about one-third of abandoned mines were flooded. Ukraine reported that all its mines abandoned that year were flooded.

The team estimated that in 2010, 103 billion cubic meters of methane were released from working underground and surface mines and an additional 22 billion cubic meters from abandoned mines. That total of 125 billion cubic meters for 2010 is 50 percent higher than the estimate of 83 billion cubic meters for that year by the Community Emissions Data System, a highly regarded system developed by PNNL researchers and collaborators used for analyzing historical emissions data.

While the results are based on actual measurements from coal mines around the world, the scientists suggest further studies that take into account more such measurements from coal mines, including abandoned mines, would be helpful.

The future: More methane emissions from mines very likely

The study analyzed future methane emissions from coal mines under a range of scenarios. If efforts to address climate change remain similar to what they have been, the researchers estimate that methane emissions as a result of coal mining will increase dramatically by the end of the century: Nearly eight times what they are today from abandoned mines and four times what they are from working mines.

But Nazar notes that there is uncertainty about future coal production. If coal production decreases, then emissions from working mines would decrease.

However, in all scenarios, methane emissions from abandoned mines are expected to grow more quickly than those from established mines. The team cites deeper mines, more abandoned mines, and a greater percentage of surface mines from which methane escapes more freely as reasons why.

Those increases are significantly higher than what current climate models call for--for instance, 83 percent higher in 2050 than suggested by the widely used Global Change Analysis Model developed by PNNL.

The study estimates that if strong climate mitigation strategies are put in place, then by the end of this century the amount of methane escaping from abandoned mines would be about the same as 2020. Under the same conditions, the amount of methane escaping from working mines would be cut in half.

"If you stop producing coal, that doesn't mean that methane will stop being emitted from coal mines," said Kholod. "We can't just take coal out of the equation."

The Japanese now have their own reference genome thanks to researchers at Tohoku University who completed and released the first Japanese reference genome (JG1).

Their study was published in the journal Nature Communications on January 11, 2021.

"JG1 can aid with the clinical sequence analysis of Japanese individuals with rare diseases as it eliminates the genomic differences from the international reference genome," said Jun Takayama, co-author of the study.

Back in 2003, the Human Genome Project, through a gargantuan global effort, cracked the code of life and mapped all the genes of the human genome.

Since then, more accurate versions of the human reference genome have been realized. Aiding this has been the advancement in next-generation sequencing technologies that allow for short read of approximately several hundred bases in a massively parallel way, reducing the costs and time to sequence DNA and RNA.

The international reference genome is based on an individual of African-European descent. This hampers investigating genetic variants or rare disease and cancer driving genes in Japanese owing to natural genomic difference reflective in different populations.

Associate professor Takayama and professor Gen Tamiya from Tohoku University's Tohoku Medical Megabank Organization (ToMMo) and the Advanced Research Center for Innovations in Next-Generation Medicine (INGEM) and colleagues from Tohoku University School of Medicine, School of Information Sciences, RIKEN AIP Center, and Miyagi Cancer Research Institute developed JG1 as the first part of the Japanese Reference Genome Assembly (JRGA) project.

This high-precision reference sequence is applicable to the whole human genome analysis and was constructed by analyzing the genomes of three Japanese individuals using high-coverage, long-read next-generation sequencing technologies.

Researchers can efficiently investigate the causal genetic variants of rare diseases and cancer driver genes with JG1.

"JG1 may be applicable to other populations, especially those from Asia. In addition, with the JG1, the accuracy of the Japanese allele frequency and haplotype reference panels gets improved," added Takayama.

A new study has found that mobile apps can play a vital role in helping immigrants integrate into new cultures, as well as provide physical and mental health benefits.

Researchers at Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) surveyed new migrants and refugees undertaking free beginners' language classes in Greece, often the first destination for people arriving into Europe from Africa and Asia, over a 10-month period.

The findings, published in the journal Computers in Human Behavior, show that those using mobile apps aided by artificial intelligence (AI), such as language assistants, customised information sites, or health symptom trackers, experienced 5.3% better health status, and increased social integration by 2.7%.

Other, non-AI applications, such as those to signpost public services, improved general health status by a much smaller amount, under 1%.

Professor Nick Drydakis, Director of the Centre for Pluralist Economics at ARU, said: "AI apps work by providing services like customised search results, peer-reviewed e-learning, professional coaching on pronunciation, real-time translations, and virtual communication for finding possible explanations for health conditions. Our study found these to be of significant benefit for migrants in relation to integration, health and mental health.

"The World Health Organization recommends the use of health apps in improving services, particularly for vulnerable populations. Mobile applications and AI, if used correctly, can clearly benefit the lives of people arriving in an unfamiliar new country - however around a third of people we surveyed did not possess a smartphone, potentially providing a barrier to these benefits.

"Our study is the first that we know of that examines the use of mobile applications to support migrants' needs in relation to societal integration and quantify associations between mobile applications, health, mental health and integration for migrants, and assess the role of AI in enhancing these outcomes."