Culture

Clumsy kids can be as aerobically fit as their peers with better motor skills, a new Finnish study shows. The results are based on research conducted at the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences of the University of Jyväskylä and the Institute of Biomedicine of the University of Eastern Finland, and they were published in Translational Sports Medicine.

Aerobic fitness doesn't go hand in hand with motor skills

According to the general perception, fit kids also have good motor skills, while low aerobic fitness has been thought to be a link between poor motor skills and overweight. This perception is based on studies whose methods do not distinguish between the roles of aerobic fitness and body fat content as risk factors for poor motor skills and overweight.

"Our study clearly demonstrated that aerobic fitness is not linked to motor skills when body composition is properly taken into account," explains Eero Haapala, Ph.D., from the Faculty of Sport and Health Sciences at the University of Jyväskylä.

"Also, aerobic fitness was not strongly associated with overweight or obesity. Therefore, it seems that the role of poor aerobic fitness as a risk factor for poor motor skills and excess body weight has been strongly exaggerated."

The development of motor skills can be supported

This study did not look at the role of exercise in the development of motor skills, but earlier studies have shown that a range of exercise, varying in motor challenges and intensity, contributes to the development of motor skills, regardless of aerobic fitness and body fat content. Higher levels of physical activity and less sedentary behaviour can also protect against the development of excess weight.

"The key message of our study is that even a child who is unfit can be motorically adept and the heart of a clumsier kid can be as fit as her or his more skilful peer," Haapala says. "In addition, high levels of varied physical activity and reduced sedentary behaviour are central to the development of motor skills and the prevention of excess weight gain since childhood."

The study investigated the associations between aerobic fitness, body fat content, and motor skills in 332 children aged 7 to 11 years. Aerobic fitness was measured by maximum bicycle ergometer test and body composition with bioimpedance and DXA devices. Motor skills were measured by common methods.

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. -- Jan. 19, 2021 -- The results of a study led by Northern Arizona University and the Translational Genomics Research Institute (TGen), an affiliate of City of Hope, suggest the immune systems of people infected with COVID-19 may rely on antibodies created during infections from earlier coronaviruses to help fight the disease.

COVID-19 isn't humanity's first encounter with a coronavirus, so named because of the corona, or crown-like, protein spikes on their surface. Before SARS-CoV-2 -- the virus that causes COVID-19 -- humans have navigated at least 6 other types of coronaviruses.

The study sought to understand how coronaviruses (CoVs) ignite the human immune system and conduct a deeper dive on the inner workings of the antibody response. The published findings appear today in the journal Cell Reports Medicine.

"Our results suggest that the COVID-19 virus may awaken an antibody response that existed in humans prior to our current pandemic, meaning that we might already have some degree of pre-existing immunity to this virus." said John Altin, Ph.D., an Assistant Professor in TGen's infectious disease branch and the study's senior author.

This knowledge could help researchers design new diagnostics, evaluate the healing powers of convalescent plasma, develop new therapeutic treatments, and -- importantly -- help design future vaccines or monoclonal antibody therapies capable of protecting against mutations that may occur in the COVID-19 virus.

The researchers used a tool called PepSeq to finely map antibody responses to all human-infecting coronaviruses. PepSeq is a novel technology being developed at TGen and NAU that allows for the construction of highly diverse pools of peptides (short chains of amino acids) bound to DNA tags. When combined with high-throughput sequencing, these PepSeq molecule pools allow for deep interrogation of the antibody response to viruses.

"The data generated using PepSeq allowed for broad characterization of the antibody response in individuals recently infected with SARS-CoV-2 compared with those of individuals exposed only to previous coronaviruses that now are widespread in human populations," said Jason Ladner, Ph.D., an Assistant Professor at NAU's Pathogen and Microbiome Institute, which combines the academic genomic research focus of NAU and the translational genomics capacity of TGen. Dr. Ladner is the study's lead author.

Besides SARS-CoV-2, researchers examined the antibody responses from two other potentially deadly coronaviruses: MERS-CoV, which caused the 2012 outbreak in Saudi Arabia of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome; and SARS-CoV-1, the first pandemic coronavirus that caused the 2003 outbreak in Asia of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome. All three are examples of coronaviruses that infect animals, but evolved to make people sick and became new human pathogens.

In addition to characterizing antibodies that recognize SARS-CoV-2, they also examined the antibody responses of four older coronaviruses: alphacoronavirus 229E; alphacoronavirus NL63; betacoronavirus OC43; and betacoronavirus HKU1. These so called "common" coronaviruses are endemic throughout human populations, but usually are not deadly and cause mild upper respiratory infections similar to those of the common cold.

By comparing patterns of reactivity against these different coronaviruses, the researchers demonstrated that SARS-CoV-2 could summon immune system antibodies originally generated in response to past coronavirus infections. This cross-reactivity occurred at two sites in the SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein; the protein on the surface of virus particles that attaches to ACE2 proteins on human cells to facilitate cell entry and infection.

"Our findings highlight sites at which the SARS-CoV-2 response appears to be shaped by previous coronavirus exposures, and which have potential to raise broadly-neutralizing antibodies. We further demonstrate that these cross-reactive antibodies preferentially bind to endemic coronavirus peptides, suggesting that the response to SARS-CoV-2 at these regions may be constrained by previous coronavirus exposure," said Dr. Altin, adding that more research is needed to understand the implications of these findings.

The findings could help explain the widely varying reactions COVID-19 patients have to the disease; from mild to no symptoms, to severe infections requiring hospitalization, and often resulting in death. It's also possible that differences in the pre-existing antibody response identified by this study could help to explain some of the difference in how severely COVID-19 disease manifests in old versus young people, who will have different histories of infections with the common coronaviruses.

"Our findings raise the possibility that the nature of an individual's antibody response to prior endemic coronavirus infection may impact the course of COVID-19 disease," Dr. Ladner said.

Researchers looked at neurons within the basal ganglia, a part of the brain that, when damaged, can severely impact a person's motor ability, making seemingly simple reaching-and-grasping tasks near impossible

They focused on a large group of neurons, which has two distinct types - D1 direct striatal output neurons and D2 indirect output neurons

These neurons are implicated in the development of Parkinson's and Huntington's - neurodegenerative diseases that result in the progressive degeneration or death of nerve cells

In this research, mice were trained to reach for and grasp a chocolate pellet, and optical methods were used to either excite or inhibit their D1 or D2 neurons

The researchers found that both types of neurons were necessary for performing the task, with D1 neurons providing the early part of the movement and D2 neurons providing the final approach to the target

Research conducted at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology Graduate University (OIST), has looked at the importance of specific neurons for seemingly simple, day-to-day tasks that involve reaching for and grasping objects. The study was published in Cell Reports.

"We focused on the neurons located in the basal ganglia," said Professor Gordon Arbuthnott, who leads OIST's Brain Mechanisms for Behavior Unit. "This part of the brain is connected to the cerebral cortex, which is involved in motor function. And neurons, or nerve cells, are specialized cells that act as the building blocks of the nervous system - they connect input from the outside world to movement in our muscles."

Patients that suffer from damage to the basal ganglia can have their motor abilities severely impacted, making daily reaching-and-grasping tasks, like picking up a cup of coffee or putting on a jacket, near impossible.

"We know that interruptions to these basal ganglia neurons are involved in the development of diseases like Parkinson's and Huntington's, but the exact cellular mechanisms behind this isn't properly understood," Professor Arbuthnott went on to explain.

The neurons in question are striatal spiny projection neurons, a large group that contributes to smooth motor function. There are two distinct types - D1 direct striatal output neurons, which connect directly with the output of the basal ganglia, and D2 indirect output neurons, which take a longer route via other areas of the brain. Depending on a person's behavior, different groups made up of different compositions of these two neurons will form. Most groups have both D1 and D2 neurons although there are exceptions, with some groups only having one. Thus, it's a dynamic system where the two different types work together. Previous research has indicated that, for tasks involving movement, the D1 neurons give the 'go' signal whereas the D2 neurons give the 'stop' signal. The researchers decided to change the activity of each type independently, to test this idea.

To perform the experiment, mice were trained to reach through an opening in their chamber and grasp a chocolate food pellet. Failure to retrieve the pellet was classed in one of three ways. An 'initial' error occurred when the mouse couldn't get their paw through the opening of their chamber. A 'final' error was when a mouse's paw ended in the wrong place after it crossed the opening. And a 'grasp' error was when the mouse's paw made it to the pellet, but they were unable to pick it up.

When mice with both D1 and D2 neurons working as normal were trained in this task, they were most likely to fail with the grasp error, which occurred in more than half the failures. With this in mind, the researchers used optical methods so that either D1 neurons or D2 neurons could be excited or inhibited by light.

The researchers found that both exciting and inhibiting the D1 type resulted in a significant decrease in the success rate of treat retrieval, and that, proportionately, the number of failures from the 'initial' error increased.

In contrast, exciting the D2 type also resulted in a significant decrease in the success rate but, this time, it was the 'final' error that increased proportionately.

But, interestingly, when the D2 types were inhibited, the success rate of treat retrieval increased.

"We have several ideas as to why this might have occurred," said Professor Arbuthnott. "If we imagine that a small group of D2 neurons is enough to reach the target then exciting all the D2 cells in the area might make the small group get lost in the noisy activity of the many, while inhibiting the large group could leave behind just the most strongly excited neurons, which can then effectively guide the mouse's behavior."

The results found that both types were necessary for the smooth motor function of all movement. The mice have trouble with the starting part of the movement without the D1 cells; and, in most cases, the pellet cannot be retrieved if the D2 cells aren't working correctly. However, the stop-and-go theory was not supported by this study as, although D1 cells were found to be necessary for controlling the initial part of the reach, the researchers found that D2 cells were actually needed for aiming for the treat, rather than stopping the task.

"This study has helped us understand more about how our brains work and contributes to the body of research that will one day make finding a cure to neurodegenerative diseases possible," said Professor Arbuthnott. "With Parkinson's disease, we're getting good at fixing the symptoms, but we need to get to the root of the disease. In the meantime, understanding how neurons are involved in movement control will help to solve the problems facing patients on a daily basis."

Researchers have used the world's smallest, smartphone-sized DNA sequencing device to monitor hundreds of different bacteria in a river ecosystem.

Writing in the journal eLife, the interdisciplinary team from the University of Cambridge, UK, provide practical and analytical guidelines for using the device, called the MinION (from Oxford Nanopore Technologies), to monitor freshwater health. Their guidelines promise a significantly more cost-effective and simple approach to this work outside the lab, compared to existing methods.

Rowers and swimmers in Cambridge are regularly affected by waterborne infections such as Weil's disease, sometimes leading to public closures of the city's iconic waterways. Monitoring the microbial species in freshwater can help indicate the presence of disease-causing microorganisms and even water pollution. But traditional tests for freshwater bacteria often require well-equipped laboratories and complex methods for growing colonies of individual bacterial species.

"The direct measurement of all bacterial DNA traces in freshwater, an approach known as metagenomics, is a valuable alternative, but still requires large, expensive equipment that can be hard to operate," says Andre Holzer, co-first author and PhD student at the Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge. "We aimed to describe the bacterial species present in the River Cam using the new portable DNA sequencing technology."

The team used the MinION device to sequence the DNA of entire groups of microorganisms found in water samples from the River Cam. But before they could use the sequence data, they needed to optimise their experimental methods and analysis software. "It was essential to account for the quality of this new type of bacterial DNA sequence information," Holzer explains. "We tested many different algorithms for processing the data to find the most accurate methods."

The researchers then used their optimised guidelines to analyse the data and successfully measure the proportions of hundreds of different bacterial species present in the water. They took samples from nine different sites along the river, often sampling the sites at three different time points so they could compare the proportions of species in different locations and seasons.

The team was also able to distinguish closely related, harmful microbial species from non-harmful ones. By comparing the samples from different locations, they found that there were more potentially harmful bacteria and those associated with wastewater downstream of the most built-up, urban areas of the river. Chemical follow-up analyses of the water samples collected from the same urban areas revealed a matching trend of increasing wastewater pollution in those areas.

"Our work shows how MinION and the associated DNA sequencing technology can be used in the effective monitoring of freshwater health," says Lara Urban, co-lead investigator of the work and now an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow at the University of Otago, New Zealand. "This expands on the technology's existing applications which include the accurate tracing of viral transmissions between patients during the recent Ebola, Zika and SARS-CoV-19 virus outbreaks."

"We hope our results will encourage other independent scientists and collectives to engage in simplified freshwater management and biodiversity tests around the globe,"concludes senior author Maximilian Stammnitz, a PhD student at the Department of Veterinary Medicine, University of Cambridge.

A new negative pressure ventilator which could provide additional treatment options for patients with respiratory failure, including those with COVID-19 - and whose design can be easily adapted to developing countries - has been created by a team that includes anaesthetists, nurses and engineers. Details on the new exovent system - which is similar in design but much smaller in scale and easier to use than the devices used to help treat polio patients during the 1950s - are published in Anaesthesia (a journal of the Association of Anaesthetists).

Use of this system would offer more comfort to patients, who would not need to be asleep or have an artificial airway in place, although the authors make it clear that a clinical trial is required to fully test it. After monitoring patients closely at first, the system would also mean less nursing care and could be used anywhere in the hospital, and even potentially at home. Staffing requirements for the new system would be typically much lower than for today's typical intensive care unit ventilators, and lower than other non-intensive positive pressure systems for the equivalent severity of illness.

Negative pressure devices lower the pressure outside the body to allow lung tissue to expand and function in a way that is like normal breathing, while positive pressure devices such as the conventional ventilators and continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) systems in current use push air into the lungs under positive pressure. Research into negative pressure devices had been mostly abandoned since the 1950s, since positive pressure devices had become much smaller, cheaper and more convenient.

The exovent task force formed in March 2020 in response to the COVID-19 crisis, inspired by calls from the UK Government for rapid innovation to combat the challenge presented by SARS-CoV-2. The team is composed of anaesthetists, critical care consultants, nurses, medical clinicians, engineers, academics, scientists and manufacturers. This initiative was not part of the UK's 'Ventilator Challenge', because that project encouraged innovation for positive pressure devices only.

"The exovent team focused on exploring the benefits of negative pressure ventilation, founded upon lessons learned from nearly 100 years of using negative pressure ventilation, most memorably during the polio epidemic of the 1950s," explains co-author Dr Malcolm Coulthard of the Translational and Clinical Research Institute, Newcastle University, UK.

Use of negative pressure is far less intrusive and much more like normal breathing than either positive pressure ventilation through a tube inserted into the windpipe, or delivering CPAP via a tightly-fitting face mask. The exovent system is non-invasive, which means that patients do not need to have their windpipes intubated, so they don't need to be anaesthetised and oxygen can be delivered in the form of a normal oxygen mask or nasal prongs rather than through a high flow oxygen device that puts hospital oxygen supplies under pressure. Patients remain conscious, and can take food and medication by mouth, and talk to loved ones on the phone.

The exovent chamber consists of a base fitted onto a standard hospital bed that contains its own section of mattress and a removable top that fits over the torso with neck and hip seals (see link to pics below). A free-standing pump unit is connected to the base by flexible hoses and a control unit allows adjustment of pressure around the torso. The subject's torso can be observed through a window and accessed through portholes that seal around the healthcare provider's arms. The thin neoprene neck and hip seals are fitted loosely onto the person before the chamber being put in place, and then adjusted.

Testing was performed on six healthy adult volunteer members of the development team in the presence of three senior anaesthetists. All of the subjects were tested in the supine position (facing up) and slightly tilted up, while three were also tested in the prone (facing down) position. Various negative pressure settings were tested and spirometry (lung performance) readings recorded. These showed that the exovent was able to deliver both an increased lung expansion to people breathing spontaneously, and powerful ventilation to take over people's breathing entirely, using only moderate negative pressures.

Nurses reported that the exovent chamber could be positioned and removed quickly by two people. They noted that the window and portholes would allow them to monitor and look after their patients safely, despite the inevitably reduced direct access to their torsos. When supine, the subjects' heads could be positioned easily to allow view of the larynx for tracheal intubation, should that become necessary, without needing to remove or adjust the neck seal. For patients that progress to needing intubation, it would probably not be necessary to keep them in the exovent (though it would be easy and safe to do so) - and in the event of an emergency intubation, there would be no need to delay while the exovent was removed.

The volunteers all found the chamber comfortable, and in particular reported that the neck and hip seals were soft and easy to adjust, and that they could voluntarily breach them to stretch their arms or touch their faces without this significantly affecting the stability of the chamber pressure.

Importantly, all the test subjects felt 'in control' knowing that they could immediately release the vacuum by opening a wide gap under one of the seals if they wished. When the ventilation mode was used, the subjects all allowed the exovent to take over their breathing without feeling any desire to 'fight it' or that it felt unnatural or uncomfortable, and described the sensation as relaxing; one participant fell asleep within minutes.

"We are really excited to be unveiling this life-saving system which is a cutting-edge reinvention of pre-existing technology," says exovent CEO and article co-author Ian Joesbury. "As the patient does not need to be sedated it opens up alternative treatment options that may allow more patients with COVID-19 to be treated outside of intensive care."

It is estimated that the UK version of the exovent will cost approximately £8000 GBP (US $10,496, €8856), which is considerably cheaper than existing positive-pressure devices, which cost around £15,000 GBP for CPAP and over £30,000 GBP for intensive care ventilators. It is also estimated that a lower-cost global version of the exovent could be produced for less than £500 (US$652, €550).

The authors add: "Anticipated advantages of the exovent over positive-pressure ventilators, which may be especially relevant in low- and middle-income countries, include the lower resources required to ventilate conscious patients, and the potential for greater oxygen conservation, since oxygen would only need to be supplied to the patients directly via a facemask or nasal prongs when required, rather than the continuous oxygen supply needed for positive pressure systems."

They explain that because it is so much less invasive and so much easier to do than PPV, the threshold for using exovent when available will be much lower, and many more patients will be eligible for therapy. Even if hospitals in low- and middle-income countries have conventional intensive care ventilator hardware available, the resources required to (a) intubate, paralyse and sedate them as is necessary, and (b) to manage them whilst unconscious which means intensive nursing, intravenous nutrition or tube nutrition, skin care, etc, are too scarce to make intensive care ventilation available to any but a very few individuals. The authors explain: "It is about staffing more than equipment, and the exovent would be much easier and less expensive to use."

Thanks to the investment of over £1m of volunteer time from the exovent team, rapid development and prototyping by Marshall ADG, and partnership with Warwick Manufacturing Group (WMG) High Value Manufacturing Catapult, the system is now ready for a formal assessment and approval. The authors plan to submit the design to the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) which regulates medical devices in the UK, and hope to receive approval by the middle of 2021.

Nearly 78 per cent of children with autism have at least one mental health condition and nearly half have two mental health conditions or more, according to a new U.S. study from the University of British Columbia's department of psychology and the AJ Drexel Autism Institute at Drexel University (Pennsylvania).

The study also found mental health conditions present in 44.8 per cent of pre-school age children with autism. The scope of the issue among that age group had not previously been established using a large, population-based sample.

By contrast, the study found that only 14.1 per cent of youth without autism (ages 3-17) had mental health conditions.

It is the first research since 2008 to examine the prevalence of mental health conditions among children with autism at a population level, and signals a need for healthcare systems to adapt to account for the overlap.

"For a long time, mental health in kids with autism was neglected because the focus was on autism. There's much greater awareness now, but we don't have enough people trained to provide mental health treatments to kids on the autism spectrum," said Dr. Connor Kerns, an assistant professor in UBC's psychology department and lead author of the study. "We need to bridge these two systems and the different sets of providers that tend to treat these children."

Autism, or autism spectrum disorder (ASD), is a complex brain development disorder that impacts approximately 2.6 per cent of the U.S. population. People with autism can have difficulty communicating and interacting socially. They often demonstrate restricted, repetitive behaviour patterns. The term "spectrum" reflects the fact that symptoms can vary widely from one person to the next.

The researchers analyzed data from the 2016 National Survey of Children's Health, a survey of more than 42,000 caregivers with a total of 1,131 ASD-diagnosed children in their care.

These children were considered to also have a mental health condition if the parent/caregiver had reported a healthcare provider diagnosing the child with any of the following:

anxiety (39.5%)

depression (15.7%)

behavior/conduct problem (60.8%)

Tourette syndrome (1.8%)

ADHD (48.4%)

Mental health conditions became more prevalent as children with autism grew older. Still, the 44.8-per-cent prevalence among pre-school children is significant because early intervention is known to increase the effectiveness of mental health treatment.

The study compared the prevalence of mental health conditions in children with ASD, children with intellectual disabilities, and children with other ongoing, chronic conditions that require attention from the healthcare system. Mental health conditions were significantly more prevalent among children with autism than among the other groups.

For example, anxiety was 6.3 times more prevalent among children with autism than among children with intellectual disabilities, and three times more prevalent than it was among children with other special healthcare needs.

"There's something specific about autism that is increasing this mental health burden, and it's true not only for anxiety, but also for depression, behaviour problems and attention problems. This is a special population that requires special attention," said Dr. Kerns.

The researchers hope these eye-opening new numbers will prompt changes to public policy that make it easier for mental health treatments to be approved and funded for children with autism.

"If we think about ways to screen and intervene against these mental health conditions before these children even get to school, then we might be way ahead of the game," said Dr. Kerns. "The longer mental health conditions are allowed to exist and worsen, the harder they are going to be to treat. It's much better to catch them early. Right now, we don't have a great system for doing that."

Malta, a sovereign microstate in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, has no shortage of sunny beaches, honey-bricked villages and rugged countryside. Beyond its Mediterranean charm, Malta is home to a geographically and culturally isolated population whose unique genetic makeup, makes this island nation a goldmine for genetics research.

Four years ago, the University of Malta set up a national ALS Registry and Biobank to identify patients with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and collect data on their residence, occupation, lifestyle and environmental exposures. Blood samples donated by participants will remain stored in high-tech storage facilities at the University over many years.

ALS is a progressive neurological disease that destroys the nerves that interact with the body's muscles. The disease typically leads to complete paralysis of the body, robbing patients of their ability to walk, speak, eat and breathe. There is no cure for ALS, and eventually, the disease is fatal.

Malta's ALS Biobank is providing scientists with an invaluable resource for understanding the causes of ALS. In the first landmark study, researchers have retrieved and scrutinised the DNA from blood samples to discover flaws in genes linked to ALS.

"The DNA results caught us by surprise. The most frequently mutated ALS genes were flawless in Maltese patients," said the study's lead researcher Dr Ruben J. Cauchi, PhD, a senior lecturer at the University's School of Medicine and lead investigator at the University's Centre for Molecular Medicine and Biobanking.

Collaborating with scientists at the University Medical Centre (UMC) Utrecht in The Netherlands, University of Malta researchers found that ALS patients in Malta did not have flaws in the C9orf72, SOD1, TARDBP and FUS genes, which are known to contribute to a major number of ALS cases worldwide.

The study nonetheless revealed that compared to other European populations, a higher percentage of Maltese patients with no prior family history of ALS have harmful flaws in their DNA. Intriguingly, these occur in genes that are rarely damaged in Europeans with ALS.

"Our results underscore the unique genetics of the Maltese population, shaped by centuries of relative isolation. We also established that genetic factors play a significant role in causing ALS in Malta," added Dr Cauchi.

Right now, the research team is on the hunt for what triggers ALS in more than half of the study subjects that had no flaws in known ALS genes. Thanks to the participation of patients and healthy volunteers, Malta's ALS Biobank is rapidly growing into a precious treasure trove of data that is expected to unveil more fascinating insights on the causes of ALS in the years to come.

With the global student community taking online courses as a result of the anti-Covid-19 measures, a study led by the University of Geneva (UNIGE) reveals that online courses deepen inequalities between gifted and less gifted students by 5%. The results of the study, which was based on data collected in 2016-2017 prior to the anti-Covid lockdown initiatives, are published in the Journal of the European Economic Association. They indicate that this learning gap between different student profiles is mainly due to their behaviour and motivation. The study gives higher education establishments worldwide practical ways to deal with lockdown or the chronic lack of space in lecture theatres, including via co-educational curricula.

To gain insight into the impact of online courses on the success of university students (and to measure the interest they generate), 1,459 first-year students at UNIGE took part in a study run by UNIGE's Geneva School of Economics and Management (GSEM). Students were randomly offered online courses (while others, as a check, were not) to study their eight compulsory programmes covering subjects such as mathematics and economics. The content of the courses was then linked to specific exams in order to assess their level of knowledge. Every student had the opportunity to attend face-to-face classes if they wanted to. The data for the study was collected before the Covid-19 health crisis.

The inequality gap is widening

The results of the study show that online courses improve exam results for high-potential students by 2.5%. At the same time, however, the results for students with learning difficulties decrease by 2%. "Access to online education seems to widen the gap between gifted and less gifted students," begins Michele Pellizzari, GSEM co-director and co-author of the study. "That's a fact that universities around the world need to take note of, as the coronavirus is accelerating the shift to online learning."

The study found that students adopt different patterns of behaviour when it comes to online course options depending on their learning abilities. When the weather is bad, for example, students who have the best results often choose to study by themselves at home, while students who are not so well equipped go the extra mile to attend face-to-face classes. Furthermore, students with high potential choose streaming when it is offered, while students in difficulty once more prefer in-person classes. The authors argue that these different behaviours create educational inequalities when streaming is introduced.

Limited appetite

In overall terms, if university students have the choice, they prefer to attend face-to-face classes. They only opt for the online solution when confronted with unexpected situations caused by illness or even bad weather. Accordingly, offering streaming courses only reduces face-to-face participation by 8%. "That means these figures," continues the researcher, "don't solve the current problems of overcrowded lecture theatres in higher education."

The study helps to show the impact of e-learning on results as well as emphasising its limits. This data is useful for higher education institutions around the world given the current health crisis and shortage of classroom space. The article also offers effective blended learning solutions, where streaming complements face-to-face teaching. "At the same time, more data is needed so we can draw definitive conclusions about 100% online courses," concludes Professor Pellizzari.

A new study by researchers from Chulalongkorn University, Tohoku University, and The George Washington University is the first to identify autism candidate genes that may be responsible for the sex-specific effects of bisphenol A (BPA) on the brain. It suggests BPA may serve as an environmental factor that contributes to the prevalence of male bias in autism spectrum disorder (ASD).

The research was published in the journal Scientific Reports.

BPA is widely used in many products in our daily life and abundant in micro/nanoplastics found in the environment, food, or the human placenta. It is thought to be an environmental influence on ASD - a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by impaired social communication, restricted interests and repetitive behaviors. ASD is a major public health challenge around the world, with roughly 1 in 54 children in the United States being diagnosed.

"Many studies have shown BPA impairs neurological functions known to be disrupted in ASD, making scientists believe that BPA may be one of the key environmental risk factors for ASD. However, we still do not know how BPA can cause or increase the susceptibility of ASD and whether it also plays a role in the male bias of the disorder," said assistant professor Dr.Tewarit Sarachana, head of the SYstems Neuroscience of Autism and PSychiatric disorders (SYNAPS) Research Unit at the Faculty of Allied Health Sciences, Chulalongkorn University.

"In fact, one of our recent studies has demonstrated that prenatal exposure to BPA altered the expression of several ASD candidate genes in the hippocampus in a sex-dependent pattern, but the link between the dysregulation of ASD candidate genes and impaired neurological functions is still lacking."

"In this study, we showed exposure to BPA during the gestational period decreased neuronal viability and neuronal density in the hippocampus and impaired learning/memory in only the male offspring. Interestingly, the expression of several ASD-related genes in the hippocampus was dysregulated and showed sex-specific correlations with neuronal viability, neuritogenesis, and/or learning/memory. Under prenatal BPA exposure, these genes may play important roles in determining the risk of ASD and its higher prevalence in males," said Surangrat Thongkorn, a Ph.D. candidate and first author of the study.

"The sex differences in the effects of BPA found in our study strongly suggest that BPA negatively impacts the male and female offspring brain through different molecular mechanisms. We are progressively working on these issues to identify the sex-specific molecular mechanism of BPA in the brain. Understanding the effects of BPA and its molecular mechanisms in ASD may lead to changes in the policy regarding the use of BPA or even the discovery of molecular targets for ASD treatment in the future," concluded Dr.Sarachana.

The survival of pesky little flies in showers and other wet areas around the house, impervious to water droplets that may be larger than they are, comes down to more than quick reflexes. The insects have evolved a unique coating of hairs that allows them to shrug off water droplets of almost any size, KAUST researchers have shown.

Sigurdur Thoroddsen, who leads the high-speed fluids imaging laboratory at KAUST, couldn't help but take a professional interest in the small drain flies that made a home in his shower and never seemed to wash away. Thoroddsen's research focuses on multiphase flow and dynamics at air-liquid interfaces -- an environment where drain flies have found a niche, despite some risky physics.

Insects are so small that the surface tension of water exceeds the force they can exert by strength or bodyweight, potentially trapping them on contact. Thoroddsen mentioned the drain flies to Nathan Speirs, a postdoc in his team. "I found them in my kitchen sink and noticed that he was right: it is really hard to wash them down the drain," Speirs says. "So I caught some and brought them to work."

"Initially, I was interested in the flies' reaction times," Thoroddsen says. Teaming up with KAUST biologist Gauri Mahadik, Thoroddsen and Speirs used high-speed video to watch the flies in action and soon saw that rapid reactions were not the flies' main adaptation. Even when the flies were directly impacted by large droplets, the water would simply roll off, they observed. Fine mists were equally easily shed. The drain flies' main adaptation is a specialized coating of hair, the researchers realized. "The geometry of the drain flies' hair covering has not been seen before," Speirs says.

The drain fly's body is covered with hairs of various sizes. An outer layer of large ridged hairs covers the wings. Nanoscale grooves decorate each ridge and valley, and the ridges are topped with conical barbs angled toward the hair tip. This nanoscale roughness gives the wing surface superhydrophobicity, minimizing contact between water and wing so that the droplet remains a near-perfect sphere that quickly rolls off the insect.

The hair layers also collect finer droplets and condensation, corralling the water into larger droplets that are easily shed when the inset takes flight. "The flies are adapted to handle many different types of water threat," Speirs says, "which makes them just as at home in the shower as in native habitats such as wet woodland patches."

A Tokyo Tech research team led by Specially Appointed Professor Takuya Oda of the Institute of Innovative Research and Professor Keisuke Tanaka of the School of Computing, in collaboration with Mitsubishi Electric Corporation, has developed a new technology an original blockchain[1] technology that can optimize peer-to-peer (P2P) energy trading[2]. The technology is expected to contribute to more effective use of surplus electricity from renewable energy by creating trading environments that flexibly respond to shared trading needs, particularly to maximize the amount of surplus electricity available in the market at any given time. Beginning in April, the P2P energy trading system's performance will be evaluated to further optimize the algorithm as required, aiming at the earliest possible commercialization.

Flexible P2P energy trading using blockchain technology to optimally match trades

General blockchain technologies, such as those used for trading cryptocurrencies, require a large number of high-performance computers to perform massive calculations, or mining[3], when determining the creator of a new block to record trading information. To clear buy and sell orders, a conventional method[4] can be used to match conditions and process transactions, but this does not optimize matches.

Mitsubishi Electric and Tokyo Tech have developed an original blockchain technology to optimize P2P energy trading. Their newly devised distributed-optimization algorithm enables customer computers to share trading goals and data and then optimally match buy and sell orders using minimal computations. Also, the new mining method is executable on a micro-computing server.

Conventional blockchain

*Mining to determine block generators

*Run on high-performance computers

New system's blockchain

*Mining to optimize trading

*Run on small computers

As shown in Fig. 2, using the new technology involves four steps. In the first step, information on buy and sell orders with a common trading goal (market surplus, profit, etc.) are shared by computing servers during a predetermined timeframe. Second, each server searches for buy and sell orders matched to the common goal in the first step. Third, each server shares its search results. In the fourth and final step, each server receives the search results and generates a new block by selecting trades that best meet the shared goal, which it adds it to each blockchain.

P2P energy trading benefits consumers by enabling them to engage in direct trading as buyers and sellers and sometimes make trades even above offer prices or below bid prices if the right match is found. In addition, since new offers and bids can be issued, a customer who fails to make a trade can improve the chances of making a trade by changing the price or quantity in the next offer or bid after refering to the previous offer/bid conditions.

The trading goal shared among consumers can be changed to meet specific needs. For example, if the goal is to maximize the amount of surplus electricity available in the market, the best offer-bid match can be searched with respect to this common goal. If a surplus exists, the trading price would likely decrease according to market principles and thus demand for recharging electric vehicles would likely increase due to cheaper prices. As a result, surplus power usage would be maximized without retail power companies having to respond to market fluctuations.

If the priority is the profits of prosumers and consumers, the shared goal can be adjusted to increase total profits, or raise the lowest profits, of all prosumers and consumers. By allowing the shared goal to be adjusted, the system enables flexible P2P energy trading.

To ensure fair trading, the decentralized search of a solution occurs in parallel on multiple computers where equivalent[5] matches are selected randomly.

Background

As a measure against global warming, Japan introduced a feed-in tariffs (FIT) system to enable electric utilities to purchase electricity generated from solar and other renewable energy sources at fixed prices. The law for this system, however, has been gradually retired since November 2019. With buy-seller contracts under the FIT system now expiring, prosumers need to find alternative retail-power suppliers to sell their surplus electricity at acceptable prices.

As a new method of trading surplus power, P2P energy trading is attracting attention by allowing prosumers to directly trade surplus energy at optimal prices. Since the current Electricity Utilities Industry Law allows only retail power companies to sell electricity to consumers, demonstrations are now being conducted to test the use of blockchain technology for P2P power transactions under the management of retail electric operators, aiming at verifying the effectiveness of such transactions while identifying any possible issues.

People with anxiety and depression are more likely to report an increase in drinking during the COVID-19 pandemic than those without mental health issues, according to a new study by researchers at NYU School of Global Public Health published in the journal Preventive Medicine. While drinking grew the most among younger people, older adults with anxiety and depression saw a sharper increase in their risk for harmful alcohol use.

"This increase in drinking, particularly among people with anxiety and depression, is consistent with concerns that the pandemic may be triggering an epidemic of problematic alcohol use," said Ariadna Capasso, a doctoral student at NYU School of Global Public Health and the study's lead author.

People often drink to cope with stress and traumatic events; a 2002 study found that a quarter of New Yorkers increased their alcohol consumption after the September 11 terrorist attacks. COVID-19 has created many stressors, including isolation and the disruption of routines, economic hardship, illness, and fear of contagion, and studies suggest that people are drinking more during the pandemic.

Individuals with existing mental health conditions are particularly susceptible to increased alcohol use during stressful events. To understand the pandemic's impact on this population, NYU researchers created and administered an online survey in March and April 2020, using Facebook to recruit U.S. adults from all 50 states. The researchers asked participants about their alcohol use during the pandemic, gathered demographic information, and measured symptoms of depression and anxiety based on self-report.

Of the 5,850 survey respondents who said that they drink, 29 percent reported increasing their alcohol use during the pandemic, while 19.8 percent reported drinking less and 51.2 percent reported no change. People with depression were 64 percent more likely to increase their alcohol intake, while those with anxiety were 41 percent more likely to do so.

Drinking behaviors varied by age. In general, younger adults under 40 were the most likely to report increased alcohol use (40 percent) during the pandemic, compared to those 40-59 years old (30 percent) and adults over 60 (20 percent). However, older adults (40 and older) with symptoms of anxiety and depression were roughly twice as likely to report increased drinking during the pandemic compared to older adults without mental health issues.

"We expected that younger people and those with mental health issues would report drinking as a coping mechanism, but this is the first time we're learning that mental health is associated with differences in alcohol use by age," said study author Yesim Tozan, assistant professor of global health at NYU School of Global Public Health.

The researchers support increasing mental health and substance use services during COVID-19--using telehealth to overcome barriers to accessing care--and actively reaching out to people with mental health issues who may engage in unhealthy drinking in response to stress. They also recommend tailoring public health messaging by age group to more effectively communicate the risks of excessive alcohol use.

"Lessons we've learned from previous disasters show us that intervening early for unhealthy substance use is critical and could help lessen the pandemic's impact on mental health," said Ralph DiClemente, chair of the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at NYU School of Global Public Health and the study's senior author. Additional study authors include postdoctoral associate Joshua Foreman and doctoral students Shahmir Ali and Abbey Jones of NYU School of Global Public Health.

Genetic rewiring could have driven an evolutionary explosion in the shapes, sizes and adaptations of cichlid fish, in East Africa's answer to Darwin's Galapagos finches.

Published in BMC Genome Biology, an Earlham Institute (EI) study, with collaborators at the University of East Anglia (UEA) and Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, shows that 'genetic rewiring' at non-coding regions - rather than mutations to protein-coding regions of genes - may play an important role in how cichlid fish are able to rapidly adapt to fill a staggeringly wide range of environmental niches in the East African Rift lakes.

The results could help future studies to improve breeding of economically important cichlid species such as tilapia - a staple in aquaculture.

Darwin's famous finches are one of the most well-known examples of evolution by natural selection, and specifically adaptive radiation. The birds he observed on the Galapagos archipelago had differences in their beaks that could be matched to fit their specific feeding habits - whether they ate big or small seeds, insects, or even used tools to find food.

Amazingly, in the 2-3 million years it took 14 species of finch to evolve on the Galapagos Islands, around 1,000 species of cichlid evolved in Lake Malawi alone.

"In the Great Lakes of East Africa, and within the last few million years, a few ancestral lineages of cichlid fish have independently radiated and given rise to well over 2,000 species - and we're still finding new ones," says first author Dr Tarang Mehta, a postdoctoral scientist in EI's Haerty Group.

"They occupy a really large diversity of freshwater ecological niches in lakes, rivers and even swamps: this includes sandy substrates, mud, rocks, and vegetated bottoms. As a result, they are all adapted to different dietary habits and niches in these areas."

By looking at gene expression across different cichlid tissues in five representative species from East African rivers and the Great Rift Lakes, the team discovered an evolutionary rewiring of several important genes linked to the adaptability seen in cichlids. The effect which was particularly prominent in the vision of fish species.

"We found out that the most rewired genes are associated with the visual system," explains Dr Mehta. "Essentially, if you look at the different species of fish we used in the study, you could see major differences in the regulation network around opsin genes they use for vision depending on where they live and what they eat.

"For example, the Lake Malawi rock-dwelling species, M. zebra, feeds on UV-absorbing phytoplankton algae. That generally requires increased expression of a particular opsin, SWS1, which helps with sensitivity to UV light. That may well explain why it has a more complex regulatory network around SWS1 compared with the Lake Tanganyika benthivore, N. brichardi, which does not share the same diet or habitat."

Armed with some genes of interest, the team confirmed the mechanisms behind these gene regulatory differences in the lab. Looking at the fine scale, they identified small changes in the DNA sequence of regulatory regions at the start of genes important for trait differences between species, including the visual system.

Rather than the gene itself being modified, it was the regions of DNA known as binding sites that are targeted by transcription factors - the proteins which determine whether a gene is turned on or turned off. In this way, the different species of fish can be said to have had their visual system 'rewired' for different functions.

Taking this further, the team was able to show that these changes could be commonly associated throughout cichlid fish in Lake Malawi, with diet and ecology-dependent rewiring showing that changes in transcription factor binding could be key to fine-tuning visual sensitivity.

Depending on the trait, cichlids appear to utilise an array of genetic mechanisms to generate phenotypic novelty however, the 'tinkering' of regulatory systems appears more widespread in cichlid fish than previously discovered. This evolutionary plasticity could well explain the explosion of species in such a small area over a relatively short time.

"It's a proof of concept," says Dr Mehta. "As more data comes out, we'll be able to look at this in depth in representative clades from each of the different radiations, not just in Lake Malawi but also Lake Tanganyika, Lake Victoria and even in some of the cichlids in South America."

Professor Federica Di Palma, Professorial Fellow of Biodiversity at UEA, said: "We have released an impressive amount of expression data which will further aid studies into the adaptive radiation of cichlids for the future. We are now deciphering the complexity of these cis-regulatory regions by using genome-wide CRISPR screens.

"The wider impact of our regulatory gene network approach will also help inform evolution of agriculturally important traits for tilapia such as growth rate and tolerance to different local water conditions, as well as for general aquaculture and fisheries."

Fear of losing your job, worrying about you or a loved one getting sick, and online meetups with family and friends you have not seen for months. The COVID-19 lockdown has completely changed everyday life for most people around the world. Physical distancing is the new normal and an extremely important tool in the fight against the pandemic.

However, the effects of the lockdown on mental health are alarming - especially for young people under 30 and people with preexisting mental health issues. This is the conclusion of a new study from the University of Copenhagen, University College London, Sorbonne University, INSERM and the University of Groningen. The study builds on data from 200,000 citizens across Europe.

As part of the collaborative network COVID-Minds, researchers have collected and analyzed mental health data from four different countries (Denmark, France, the Netherlands and the UK) during the first lockdown in the spring and early summer of 2020.

'We have studied different mental health factors such as loneliness, anxiety and COVID-19 related worries. The highest levels of loneliness were observed amongst young people and people with preexisting mental health illness', says Assistant Professor Tibor V. Varga from Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen.

'Psychological stress is a prominent risk factor for future long-term and severe mental illness. Therefore, it is very important to know how lockdowns affect people, so we have a better chance of preventing long-term consequences.'

The researchers suggest that the subgroups identified by the study as particularly prone to experiencing loneliness and anxiety should be closely followed to prevent future challenges.

Mental health should be a concern parallel to containing the virus

The study consists of mental health data from 200,000 citizens from the four European countries during the first lockdown (March 2020 to June 2020). In all four countries, the highest levels of loneliness and anxiety were observed in March and early April, in the very beginning of the lockdown. These outcomes slowly subsided over the next few months as the countries gradually reopened.

Even though the four countries have had different approaches to handling the pandemic, it seems that the mental health reactions are quite similar and very important to take notice of to avoid long-term consequences.

'Mental health has emerged as a quite important parallel concern of this pandemic. While we of course need to contain the spread of the virus and deal with the obvious emergencies at hand, we also need to pay attention to the potential damaging psychiatric aftermath', says Professor Naja Hulvej Rod from Department of Public Health, Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences, University of Copenhagen.

'People under 30 and people with a history of mental illness could benefit from tailored public-health interventions to prevent or counteract the negative effects of the pandemic'.

The research project 'Standing together - at a distance' continuously collects Danish data to track the mental health status and consequences during the COVID-19 pandemic. The assembled data from June 2020 until now confirm the results of the study: Lockdown has a negative impact on anxiety, loneliness and worries concerning COVID-19.

Consumers of purchased foods have no way of ascertaining the quality and safety of the food that existing distribution systems deliver to their plates. Unfortunately, inappropriate refrigeration can sometimes lead to food spoilage, which is often difficult to detect. Such is the case for mackerel fish, which readily develop harmful levels of a substance called histamine when left at room temperature for too long. Histamine is neurotoxic and can trigger severe allergic reactions, including rashes, vomiting, and diarrhea. Because spoiled fish can sometimes look and smell completely normal, it is important to accurately quantify histamine levels in fish samples to ensure food quality has been properly maintained during transportation and storage.

Although several techniques to detect histamine exist, they generally require expensive and bulky equipment, as well as the presence of a qualified analyst. To address these limitations, a team of scientists at Chung-Ang University, Korea, recently developed a new quantification method that is simultaneously simple, effective, and inexpensive. In their study, which was led by Professor Tae Jung Park and Jong Pil Park and published in Biosensors and Bioelectronics, the team describes their novel approach based on the use of fluorescent carbon nanoparticles and a protein that binds strongly to histamine.

First, the scientists looked for peptides--short chains of amino acids--with the highest affinity and selectivity against histamine. To do this, they employed phage-display technology, in which the external proteins of genetically modified viruses are used to check for chemical interactions. After screening with a large peptide library, they identified the best one for their purposes, called "Hisp3."

Then, the scientists produced fluorescent carbon nanoparticles called "carbon quantum dots (CQDs)" and coated them with N-Acetyl-L-Cysteine (NAC), a naturally occurring compound that also binds to Hisp3. The CQDs are fluorescent, meaning that upon irradiation with ultraviolet light, they re-emit the captured energy at a lower, visible frequency. However, their fluorescence is "quenched" when Hisp3 is added to the mix, which binds to the NAC and covers the CQDs' surface.

This last part is essential to the method because, when a histamine-containing sample is mixed with the CQDs, the Hisp3 unbinds from the NAC and binds to the histamine, restoring the original fluorescence levels of the CQDs in direct proportion to the concentration of histamine (as shown in the accompanying figure). By comparing the initial and final fluorescence levels of the CQDs using a fluorescence detection instrument or a handheld UV-irradiation flashlight, it is possible to indirectly quantify the concentration or intensity of histamine in the sample.

The proposed strategy was validated using fish samples with known histamine concentrations and other established techniques as well. Surprisingly, the new method proved to be more powerful than existing ones despite being simpler, as Prof. Park remarks, "We managed to accurately measure histamine concentrations ranging from 0.1 to 100 parts per million, with a limit of detection as low as 13 parts per billion. This means our approach is not only more convenient but also more effective and sensitive than those currently available methods."

Thus, this new method can not only detect dangerous histamine levels, but can also assess the state and quality of food products, as Prof. Park explains, "While the detection of histamine as a harmful factor is important, our approach can further serve to objectively measure the quality and freshness of food, thereby contributing to increasing food safety and benefitting consumers."

Additionally, the proposed methodology could be applied using other peptides to accurately determine the concentration of different chemicals in food samples and biomedical specimens. If adopted by the food and medical diagnostic industries, this method could provide us with the much-needed assurance that the food we consume and the environmental conditions we live in are safe.