Culture

Concerns over infecting others play a greater role in people's willingness to be vaccinated in sparsely populated areas than dense urban ones, according to newly published findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of the United States.

Researchers at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) of the University of Pennsylvania examined people's behavior getting a flu vaccine as well as their future intentions to be vaccinated against the flu and COVID-19.

Given that they encounter more people and have a greater risk of transmitting disease, it might seem that people in urban environments would be more highly motivated to vaccinate because of "prosocial" concerns - to protect others. But that is not what the research found.

"Contrary to the common intuition that prosocial concern should motivate vaccination more in denser areas with more social contacts and disease transmission risk, our results showed that prosocial concern yields higher vaccination rates in sparser areas where people believe that their behavior will have more impact," the researchers concluded.

Social density and altruism

"We know that the degree to which people act for the benefit of others - the degree to which they act in an altruistic manner - depends on their perception that they're likely to have an impact," said co-author Dolores Albarracín, a professor of psychology and business administration at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a distinguished research fellow at APPC.

"People are equally concerned for others in rural and urban environments," Albarracín said. "But in cities they don't think they have as much impact. They feel less influential, that their contribution is a drop in the bucket. In practice, they are less likely to act altruistically - not because they don't want to help or don't care for others, but because they think there is not that much they can do in a city as opposed to people in a little community of, say, five blocks."

This research has important implications for public health communications about vaccination, the researchers said. It identified "emphasizing prosocial aspects of vaccination as one means by which public health interventions can reduce the rural-urban disparity in vaccination."

Herd immunity in urban and rural areas

Vaccination protects both the individual from disease and the community at large. High levels of vaccination are needed to protect the community, a phenomenon referred to as herd immunity or community protection.

"Many people think of vaccination as a personal choice," said co-author Haesung Jung, a postdoctoral researcher at the Social Action Lab of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "It's not only a personal decision but a social one. With infectious diseases, there is a higher probability you are also going to infect others - so in that sense, getting vaccinated is a social decision, as people can lower the likelihood of transmitting disease to others.

"Prior research has shown that if you think of vaccination as a prosocial decision instead of an individual decision, that increases vaccination," Jung added. "We examined whether this framing is more or less effective across environments with different social densities. The COVID-19 pandemic showed that social density is linked to how fast the virus spreads. So we thought it was important to quantify how social density affects people's willingness to vaccinate for the sake of others."

Three studies: A national survey and two experiments

The researchers based their findings on data from a survey and two experiments: a nationally representative, longitudinal survey of 2,490 Americans conducted by the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and follow-up experiments establishing causality that were conducted by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

APPC's Annenberg Science Knowledge (ASK) survey measured vaccination behavior at six different times from September 2018 through October 2019, spanning the 2018-19 flu season. The survey results showed that people were consistently more likely to be vaccinated when their prosocial concerns were higher. Notably, these prosocial concerns had a larger positive effect on vaccination when the survey participants lived in regions that were nonmetropolitan, had a lower population density, and a lower proportion of urban land area.

For the first follow-up experiment, during the 2019-20 winter flu season, 240 online participants were recruited. They were presented with a simulated environment, a shoe store, that was manipulated to be high or low density, and were shown information about both individual and prosocial benefits of flu vaccination. Half of them were asked to recall and write about the prosocial benefits and the other half about the individual benefits. The results showed that in the low-density group, participants in the prosocial condition thought their vaccination would have a greater impact on others, which positively influenced their intention to be vaccinated.

The second experiment, in June 2020, involved a nationally representative sample of 560 U.S. adults who took part in an online survey. As in the first experiment, they were randomly assigned to one of four conditions produced by combining social density (high or low) and vaccine concerns (individual or prosocial). The experiment examined the effects of social density and intention to vaccinate against COVID-19 and similarly found that "[w]hen social density was low, prosocial concern increased the perceived impact of vaccination, which, in turn, led to stronger vaccination intentions."

Implications and potential future research

The authors suggested that future research could look at whether prosocial concerns and social density are critical to other preventive behaviors for COVID-19, such as physical distancing, mask-wearing, and handwashing, and whether these findings about the flu and COVID-19 vaccines may be generalized to other vaccines. They also suggested looking at whether prosocial concerns could make people less willing to vaccinate under certain circumstances. For example, if most people are immune to a particular infectious disease, they may not be motivated to vaccinate for others since their vaccination would have minimal impact.

In theory, social density may influence additional behaviors considered to affect other people's well-being, such as taking part in social movements that affect gender and racial equality. Or, the researchers noted, these findings could be applied to spaces such as hospitals, college dorms, schools, and workplaces, where social density in the immediate environment may affect the processes that lead to altruistic behavior.

The researchers thank the APPC 2018-2019 ASK (Annenberg Science Knowledge) group, including the survey design and administration team: APPC postdoctoral fellows Ozan Kuru, Dominik Stecula, Hang Lu, and Yotam Ophir; Man-pui Sally Chan of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Ken Winneg, APPC's managing director of survey research; and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, APPC's director.

The 2018-19 ASK survey data were also used in other Annenberg vaccination studies, including:

"Policy Views and Negative Beliefs About Vaccines in the United States, 2019" (American Journal of Public Health, October 2020)

"Prospective associations of regional social media messages with attitudes and actual vaccination: A big data and survey study of the influenza vaccine in the United States" (Vaccine, September 2020)

"Intentions to Seek Information About the Influenza Vaccine: The Role of Informational Subjective Norms, Anticipated and Experienced Affect, and Information Insufficiency Among Vaccinated and Unvaccinated People" (Risk Analysis, February 2020)

"How trust in experts and media use affect acceptance of common anti-vaccination claims" (Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, January 2020)

"Concerns for others increase the likelihood of vaccination of influenza and COVID-19 more in sparsely rather than densely populated areas" was published in PNAS on December 18, 2020. The paper's DOI is 10.1073/pnas.2007538118.

International research led by the Radboud university medical center shows that a full blood count of COVID-19 patients predicts fairly accurately whether the infection will have a complicated course or not. This makes it easier for healthcare providers to estimate the expected clinical picture. This study, conducted in eleven hospitals, has now been published in the scientific journal eLife.

In patients presenting to hospitals with a COVID-19 infection, full blood count analysis (hemocytometry) are commonly performed at the emergency department and during hospitalization. COVID-19 is accompanied by specific changes in the circulating blood cells that are analyzed by a full blood count. These changes in the blood cells, especially those that can be identified using new techniques, are used to create an algorithm with a predictive value. The developed algorithm appears to predict the course of COVID-19 better than the value of the individual blood cells, as used so far. The reliability increases to 93% after six days.

Predicting disease progression

Using data generated by full blood count measurements, the researchers wanted to know whether it is possible to predict whether a hospitalized COVID-19 patient will become seriously ill and needs treatment at the Intensive Care. For this purpose, they examined the data of 982 adult patients in eleven different hospitals across Europe. And this turned out to be possible: specific changes in the circulating blood cells of COVID-19 patients proved to be of use as indicators whether a serious course of events was expected. New laboratory techniques make it possible to detect whether immune cells in the blood are activated and it turned out that especially these activated cells were more present of COVID-19 patients with a severe course, including during the early course of the disease. In a second study population the researchers were able to confirm the value of the prognostic score.

Cheap and available

Internist-infectiologist and principal investigator André van der Ven of Radboud university medical center explains: "A full blood count is a fully automated, inexpensive, immediately available measurement and one of the most requested laboratory determinations in the world. Full blood count measurements are also routinely requested from COVID-19 patients who present to the hospital. By using certain techniques, the character of certain blood cells can be better determined and by using these new techniques, we have been able to develop a reliable prognostic score. This score gives a good insight into whether a serious course of events can be expected and can help healthcare professionals to make treatment decisions".

Ithaca. N.Y.--A new study from scientists at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology examines public attitudes toward non-native bird species and whether people are willing to manage them to protect native cavity-nesting birds, such as Eastern Bluebirds and the American Kestrel. The findings are published in the Journal of Environmental Management.

"We examined the association between participating in the Cornell Lab's NestWatch citizen-science project and enjoyment, knowledge, and management of two non-native species--the European Starling and the House Sparrow," says lead author Tina Phillips.

The researchers surveyed nearly 1,000 people who monitor nest boxes in the United States and Canada, 30% of whom were also reporting their observations to NestWatch, a citizen-science project focused on nesting birds.

"We found that NestWatch participants were more likely to have negative views of non-native species, score higher on bird identification tasks, and to manage for invasive species than non-participants," says Robyn Bailey, NestWatch project leader.

Survey respondents were also more likely to undertake management practices if they believed non-native birds were a continental-wide problem, underscoring the important role of individual factors such as perception.

The researchers conclude that an informed and engaged public can play an important role in reducing the negative effects of non-native species on native cavity-nesting birds. The study also highlights the important role regular monitoring through citizen science may play in shaping attitudes and behaviors and increasing knowledge.

A new device designed to help scientists study in detail what happens during electrochemical reactions has been developed by researchers at the Center for Innovation in New Energies (CINE) in collaboration with researchers at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS), a unit of the Brazilian Center for Research in Energy and Materials (CNPEM). CINE is an Engineering Research Center (ERC) established by FAPESP (São Paulo Research Foundation) and Shell and is hosted by the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) in the state of São Paulo, Brazil.

The device, a spectroelectrochemical cell, improves the performance of fuel cells, electrolyzers, batteries and other appliances used to convert chemical energy into electricity or vice-versa. A great deal of research on equipment of this kind has been done as part of the effort to develop renewable energy generating and storage solutions.

The new device is a cell that can be used to monitor electrochemical experiments involving a range of spectroscopic instruments that operate in specific frequency bands of the electromagnetic spectrum, such as infrared, visible light, and X-rays, and to analyze multilaterally the behavior of materials in electrochemical reactions - both molecules in electrolyte solution and electrodes.

An article on the research is published as a front cover feature by ChemElectroChem, alongside an interview with the last author, Pablo Sebastián Fernández, a researcher at CINE.

"The main difference and advantage of our device is that different kinds of analysis can be performed with a single cell, thanks to a window that can be swapped out in accordance with the analysis of interest," Fernández told Agência FAPESP. "It's possible to use windows transparent to infrared, windows transparent to visible light and windows transparent to X-rays, obtaining spectroscopic analysis in each of these frequency bands, among other things."

This means a single cell is capable of in situ infrared spectroscopy, Raman spectroscopy (which uses visible light), and X-ray absorption and diffraction, among other techniques.

Aside from the special window, the device contains all the normal components of an electrochemical cell, such as a work electrode, counterelectrode, reference electrode, and electrolyte with salts and molecules of interest.

"The electromagnetic radiation beams that pass through the window interact with both the molecules of interest, which are in the electrolyte, and the catalyst whose efficiency is being studied," Fernández said.

Another advantage, he added, is that the electrolytic solution can be changed during the analysis and measured under flow conditions, thanks to the cell's architecture.

The interests of Karolina Mikulska-Ruminska, Dr., from the Department of Biophysics in the Institute of Physics, NCU focus on widely understood biological structures, especially proteins. In her work, she applies calculation methods in computer simulations. During her postdoctoral internship in the group of Ivet Bahar, Prof. at the University of Pittsburgh, she already began her cooperation with medical doctors from Los Angeles and the researchers from the University of Pittsburgh.

The latest effects of her scientific inquiries can be read about in the article „Recruitment of pro-IL-1α to mitochondrial cardiolipin, via shared LC3 binding domain, inhibits mitophagy and drives maximal NLRP3 activation", which has just been published in PNAS. Doctor Mikulska-Ruminska and Jargalsaikhan Dagvadorj from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles are the first authors of the publication. The article refers to the mechanisms of the activities of the immune system under inflammatory conditions.

- One of the main objectives of our research was to define what role is played by the protein - prointerleukin-1 alpha (pro-IL-1α). It is known that the mature form of this pro-inflammatory cytokine (IL-1α) is responsible for the formation of inflammatory states, fever and sepsis. It was a huge discovery to find out that the same protein in an inactive form of precursor (pro-IL-1α) plays such a key role in regulating the response of the immune system - explains Mikulska-Ruminska, Dr.

Dangerous inflammation

Interleukins (IL) are a group of cytokines, that is proteins, which take part in inflammatory processes of the immune system. The proteins are numbered - a few dozen have been classified. Dr. Mikulska-Ruminska got her interest in the first group: IL-1. This is a collective term which refers to the cytokines of key importance in inflammation processes. They are secreted in response to various types of antigens, for instance of viral, bacterial, or fungal origin. Out of 10 different strains, one of the most significant is, already mentioned, IL-1α, which most often occurs as a membrane cell and it interacts with the neighboring cells and IL-1β. It is these cytokines that have become the focus of the examination of the Polish researcher and American scientists.

- At this point, it is necessary to mention the inflammasome NLRP3. This is a structure within a cell which consists of many specialized proteins. In a healthy cell it remains inactive. It becomes activated when the organism is endangered with, for instance, the presence of microorganisms or cells which appeared due to the damage of tissues, and metabolic disorders - explains Dr. Mikulska-Ruminska. Active inflammasomes NLRP3 transform the interleukin 1 beta (IL-1β) and interleukine18 (IL-18) into their active forms, due to which an inflammatory state is generated in the organism.

- Obviously, there is quite a numerous group of inflammations which are necessary for the organisms, for instance to eliminate bacteria or viruses. A chronic state, however, leads to many dangerous diseases. The best example of this is so called "cytokine storm", which is hyperreaction of the immune system, which is a serious problem in the most serious cases of COVID-19, which medical doctor are fighting against at the moment - explains Dr. Mikulska-Ruminska. - Hyperactivity of NLRP3 triggers off numerous pathological conditions, including atherosclerosis, arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease or type 2 diabetes.

A lot of scientists also find connection between chronic inflammatory state and Alzheimer's disease, which is progressive neurodegenerating disease that leads to gradual atrophy of cognitive and memory functions. Although the pathophysiological mechanism of the disease has not yet been entirely discovered, researchers believe it is related to the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome.

- Our research reveals the mechanism due to which cells modulate the activation of NLRP3 inflammasome. This is very crucial as it is connected with the possible therapeutic application, for example while treating the above-mentioned diseases - says Dr. Mikulska-Rumi?ska. - Shortly speaking, we have found that the cells which lack pro-IL-1α are characterized by a decreased activity of NLRP3 inflammasome and caspase-1 (an element of the inflammasome which activates cytokines). This leads to a lesser release of IL-1β and decreased damage of mitochondria. The role of pro-IL-1α is therefore extremely important - it regulates the activation of the inflammasome, and thus is a key protein to initiate an inflammatory state.

Competing proteins

The scientists have also become interested in one more issue. Dr. Mikulska-Rumi?ska has discovered that the fragment IL-1α (so called signal peptide) is extremely similar to another protein - LC3b, which plays a key role in purifying the organism from damaged or redundant cells. The sequences of both of them are almost identical.

- We have shown that pro-IL-1α interacts in the mitochondrial membrane with cardiolipin. Cardiolipin is an important phospholipid which normally binds with another protein - LC3b and, at the same time, sends a signal "eat me" to eliminate calls - explains Dr. Mikulska-Ruminska.

Simulations of the molecular dynamics for such a set have shown what structural elements are the key elements for interactions with cardiolipin. What is more, it has turned out that the same structural elements are present in the protein LC3b.

- These proteins may compete with each other, which may trigger off serious consequences - explains Dr. Mikulska-Ruminska. - When pro-IL-1α in a, for instance, damaged cell connects with cardiolipin, LC3b is not able to perform its job, which is to communicate to the organism that it should be "thrown out". This happens because cardiolipin gets intercepted by pro-IL-1α and can no longer interact with LC3b.

This discovery may also contribute to developing new strategies of treatment of inflammatory states responsible for the development of numerous diseases.

ANN ARBOR, Michigan -- By taking a lesson from prostate cancer, researchers now have a promising lead on a treatment for COVID-19.

Two proteins, ACE2 and TMPRSS2, help the coronavirus gain entry and replicate within cells. TMPRSS2 is well-known to Arul Chinnaiyan, M.D., Ph.D. His lab discovered that TMPRSS2 fuses with the ETS gene to drive more than half of all prostate cancers. They also knew that TMPRSS2 was regulated by the androgen receptor.

So when cancer research shut down in the spring, Chinnaiyan's lab turned its attention to the coronavirus. With a grant from the National Cancer Institute, the team used its existing knowledge and resources to determine how TMPRSS2 was regulated in the lungs.

They found that, just like in prostate cancer, TMPRSS2 is regulated by the androgen receptor in the lungs. And notably, blocking the androgen receptor led to lower expression of TMPRSS2 as well as ACE2, which led to decreased coronavirus infection in mice and cellular models. Results are published in PNAS.

"What's especially appealing about this is that anti-androgen treatments are already FDA-approved. This opens the door to look at these drugs, which we know work in prostate cancer, as potential COVID-19 treatments," says Chinnaiyan, director of the Michigan Center for Translational Pathology.

Using cell lines infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, researchers found that inhibitors of androgen receptor, including enzalutamide, apalutamide and darolutamide, inhibited the coronavirus infection.

They also tested a class of drugs designed to inhibit or degrade BET proteins. BET protein activity is essential for androgen signaling and these drugs are being looked at for prostate cancer. In cell lines infected with coronavirus, the BET inhibitors decreased androgen signaling and inhibited viral infection.

The findings also provide some explanation for observations that COVID-19 affects men more than women. Researchers looked at human lung tissue and found higher androgen receptor signaling in men than women. They also found androgen signaling was highest in men over 70 and in smokers.

"This explains why elderly men who are smokers are more vulnerable to COVID-19 infection. High androgen receptor signaling allows the virus to gain entry and replicate more easily. This may explain why the disease is often particularly severe in older men," Chinnaiyan says.

Several clinical trials are underway testing androgen receptor inhibitors as a treatment for COVID-19, and additional trials are being developed to look at BET inhibitors.

Researchers at the Francis Crick Institute have uncovered an important process in how our immune system detects signs of disease and activates a protective response. This understanding could improve efforts to find new and effective immunotherapy treatments for diseases like cancer.

In their study, published in Nature Immunology, the scientists found a mechanism by which specific immune cells, called dendritic cells, relay signals of disease to surrounding T-cells.

If a cell becomes cancerous or infected with a virus, the proteins inside it change to reflect this. Dendritic cells need to present these proteins to T cells to initiate an immune response. But how can they do this if the proteins are inside another cell? It turns out dendritic cells that come across a diseased cell that is dying from infection or cancer engulf bits of the dead cell and hold those bits inside themselves, within pockets called phagosomes.

By studying this process in mouse immune cells, the researchers found that in order to present the dead cell proteins to T-cells, invoking a response, the phagosome bursts, setting the proteins free within the inside of the dendritic cell. There, the proteins get chopped into small fragments that travel to the dendritic cell surface and are presented to the T-cells. The researchers found that key to this mechanism is a receptor called DNGR-1.

Caetano Reis e Sousa, author and group leader of the Immunobiology Laboratory at the Crick says: "For decades there has been a question over how proteins within phagosomes escape in order to be chopped up and presented at the dendritic cell surface. We've been working on this for many years so it's exciting to finally have evidence of a specific receptor which signals for phagosomes to burst.

"A better understanding of this process, which is fundamental to our immune system, could lead to new ways to exploit our body's natural defences against infection and cancer."

The researchers are continuing to study this process in detail to find out more about the precise mechanism and piece together a detailed account of the fate of proteins, from dead cells to dendritic cells.

The yield and quality of many crops benefit from pollination, but it isn't just honey bees that do this work: bumble bees also have a role. However, placing honey bee or bumble bee colonies next to the field does not guarantee that they will visit the desired plants since there may be other plant species flowering at the same time that prove more attractive. A team from the University of Göttingen, together with researchers from the University of Applied Sciences Mittweida and the Julius Kühn Institute, used innovative molecular biological methods and traditional microscopy to investigate the pollen collecting behaviour of honey bees and bumble bees in agricultural landscapes. They show that bumble bees take much more pollen from dif-ferent plant species than honey bees to satisfy their need for protein. Furthermore, less pollen from the target - in this case strawberry plants - is collected when there are fields of flowering oilseed rape in the surrounding landscape. The results have been published in the journal Molecular Ecology.

The researchers placed honey bee and bumble bee colonies next to strawberry fields in the Göttingen and Kassel region and collected pollen from returning honey bees and bumble bees. The bees collect the pro-tein-rich pollen mainly for feeding their offspring. The pollen DNA was investigated working closely with the Division of Molecular Biology of Livestock and molecular Diagnostics at the University of Göttingen, and the Department of Biochemistry/Molecular Biology of the Mittweida University of Applied Sciences. "DNA analysis tells us which plant species the bees have visited and how diverse their foraging behaviour is. To do this, we sequenced the DNA of the pollen and compared the sequences using a database of regional plant species," says Dr Svenja Bänsch, post-doctoral researcher in Functional Agrobiodiversity at the Uni-versity of Göttingen.

"Our study shows that honey bees and bumble bees use very different plants to source their pollen in the landscape. In particular, the wide range of bumble bee nutrition, which they find mainly in flower-rich habi-tats, should be taken into account when taking steps to improve nature conservation. Both honey bees and bumble bees, whose colonies can be purchased or rented, are suitable pollinators in strawberry cultivation. However, naturally occurring wild bees should be encouraged as a priority," concludes Professor Catrin Westphal, Head of Functional Agrobiodiversity at the University of Göttingen.

A new study from Stanford University identified 12 Tel Aviv University (TAU) researchers among the world's top 50 researchers in their fields. 333 TAU faculty members were also ranked among the top 2% of researchers in their respective disciplines based on publications, citations, and impact. 155 of them are included in the top 1%, and 74 in the top 0.5%.

The study appeared in PLOS Biology on October 16, 2020.

TAU's Vice President for Research, Professor Dan Peer, himself ranked among the top 0.4% in the world in nanotechnology, says, "This is a cause for real national pride. TAU is known for its academic excellence and recognized as a leading interdisciplinary university. It is a great honor for us that 333 of our researchers rank among the top 2% of the world's best researchers."

Professor Itzhak Gilboa from the Berglas School of Economics is ranked sixth in the world in Theoretical Economics, and his colleague Professor Emeritus David Schmeidler from the School of Mathematical Sciences is 12th in the world in the same discipline. Professor Jiska Cohen-Mansfield from the Sackler Faculty of Medicine is ranked 12th in the world in the field of Geriatrics. Three faculty members from the Fleischman Faculty of Engineering also rank high in their fields of research: Professor Emilia Fridman (at #26), Professor Emeritus Gedeon Dagan (#29), and Professor Boris Malomed (#29).

Professor Emeritus Micha Sharir from the Blavatnik School of Computer Science is ranked 35th and Professor Arie Levant from the School of Mathematical Sciences is ranked 36th. Four faculty members from the Entin Faculty of Humanities also appear on the list: Professor Emeritus Rachel Giora from the Department of Linguistics (ranked 40th in the world), Professor Israel Finkelstein from the Department of Archaeology (#44), Professor Emeritus Benjamin Isaac from the Department of Classics (#45), and Professor Emeritus Elana Shohamy from the Constantiner School of Education (#47).

At the start of the pandemic, young Singaporeans regarded COVID-19 as a threat to the older generation but not to themselves, finds NTU Singapore study

During the early stages of the COVID-19 outbreak, young Singaporeans understood the infectious disease to be risky for their parents and older relatives, but not themselves, a Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) study has found.

Young Singaporeans were more concerned about the dangers of fake news surrounding COVID-19 rather than the health threat posed by the disease and believed misinformation about the pandemic affected the older generation more than them.

The study led by NTU Singapore's Associate Professor Edson Tandoc Jr and researcher James Lee Chong Boi involved eight focus group discussions with 89 participants aged 21 to 27.

The discussions were held in early February, two months after the first COVID-19 case in the world was confirmed in China last year. Singapore saw its first case in January. At the start of the study, 24 cases here had been confirmed, increasing to 74 by the time the last focus group discussion was conducted. China's numbers were rising exponentially and South Korea had started reporting a steady rise in its number of cases.

Through the focus groups, the two authors from NTU's Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI) found that rather than actively seeking information about COVID-19, many young adults got their news about the virus from social media platforms and messaging platforms such as WhatsApp.

This in turn shaped their view that the virus was risky for older generations but not for themselves, which in turn shaped their behavioural response to the outbreak, such as not wearing face masks, which was not mandated in the early stages of the outbreak.

Assoc Prof Tandoc, who led the study, said: "Studying initial public reaction towards a health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic could guide practitioners and social policy makers on how to handle the outbreak in the long term. An important consideration from these findings is how to make young people who think they are not prone to COVID-19 to be still engaging in proactive behaviours against the virus. This is even more important during the initial phase of the pandemic, where credible information about the new virus was scarce.

"The results also document how making sense of what is happening in the early stages of a health crisis can go beyond the disease itself and focus more on social order and information quality, which can also shape behaviours. This process of sensemaking, shaped young Singaporeans' initial view that they are not vulnerable to the virus. This also might explain why some young people, such as those reported in other countries, continued to engage in risky behaviour, like going to the beach or partying, during the pandemic."

The study was published in the peer-reviewed academic journal New Media & Society in October.

When misinformation becomes viral

Like in other countries, the COVID-19 outbreak in Singapore was accompanied by an 'infodemic' - a wave of fake news about the pandemic - from messages claiming malls and MRT stations were closed due to suspected cases, to various home remedies to protect oneself from the virus, such as drinking sesame oil. Such misinformation could undermine global response to the crisis and jeopardise health warnings and precautionary measures employed by health officials in containing the disease, said the researchers.

Perceiving the virus as not a big threat to their age group, the participants said that they were more focused on combating the spread of misinformation. The young adults felt the COVID-19 falsehoods affected their parents and older relatives more than themselves. Many of these instances of information sharing were facilitated by messaging apps, such as WhatsApp, the most popular messaging app in Singapore.

One respondent cited generational differences as a factor. His generation would seek to verify a piece of new information, such as a list of 'COVID-19 hotspots' that would later be debunked as a falsehood, rather than to accept it without question. But his parents' generation would change their behaviour based solely on the information, taking a "just-in-case" approach instead.

Assoc Prof Tandoc said: "It was interesting to hear how participants felt the need to actively protect their parents and older relatives from misinformation about COVID-19. This contributed to how they made sense of the outbreak, understanding it more as an issue of social order that involves tackling misinformation so people would not panic, than as a health risk.

"Fighting misinformation is particularly crucial in a time like this, when information flows quickly through channels like social media and messaging apps, to protect not just ourselves but also others in the community. It is therefore important for us to keep an eye not only on the public's information behaviour, but also on the quality of information flowing through various channels - an effort that the work my colleagues and I are doing at WKWSCI seeks to contribute to."

A research team at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has quantified the effects of an infection with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) on the development of cervical cancer. Their results show that the risk of developing cervical cancer is six times higher in women who are infected with HIV. Southern and Eastern Africa are particularly affected.

According to WHO statistics, cervical cancer is the fourth most common type of cancer for women. In 2018 an estimated 570,000 women worldwide were diagnosed with cervical carcinoma, with approximately 311,000 of these women dying.

On the other hand cervical cancer, usually caused by Human Papillomavirus (HPV), is also one of the most successfully preventable and treatable types of cancer, as long as it is detected at an early stage and treated effectively.

Cervical cancer is at the same time the most frequently detected cancer for women who live with HIV, since their immune systems are weakened by the HIV infection.

The TUM School of Medicine's Center for Global Health and the Chair of Epidemiology at the TUM Department of Sport and Health Sciences have now dedicated their efforts to this relevant topic in the publication "Estimates of the Global Burden of Cervical Cancer Associated with HIV", published in the renowned journal The Lancet Global Health.

Systematic review and meta-analysis of 24 studies

The lead authors Dr. Dominik Stelzle (Center for Global Health and Chair of Epidemiology) and Dr. Luana Tanaka (Chair of Epidemiology) conducted a systematic review as well as a meta-analysis of a total of 24 studies from the years 1981 to 2016, in which 236,127 women with HIV from four continents (Africa, North America, Asia and Europe) participated.

These studies covered a total of 2,138 cervical carcinoma cases. The results were linked with data from UNAIDS on worldwide HIV infection and with data on cervical carcinoma from the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), the WHO's Cancer Research Center, and then evaluated.

"Until now there have only been estimates from countries with high net income levels," says Dr. Stelzle. "That's why we looked at the figures on global incidence of cervical carcinoma in connection with an HIV infection and included estimates for countries with low net incomes. In most parts of the world the numbers are under five percent. In some countries however we're talking about well over 40 percent of cases."

Risk is six times higher for women with HIV

The objective of the study was to calculate the share of women living with HIV among the number of women with cervical cancer. The authors found that 5.8 percent of all new cervical cancer cases worldwide in the year 2018 were diagnosed for women with an HIV infection. This is equivalent to 33,000 cases a year, 85 percent of which occurred in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Furthermore, based on their results the team was able to show that women with HIV have a sixfold higher risk of developing cervical cancer than women without HIV infection.

"The association between cervical carcinoma and HIV is plausible," says Prof. Andrea S. Winkler, co-director of the Center for Global Health. "Cervical carcinomas are usually caused by infections with Human papillomavirus (HPV), which are sexually transmitted just as HIV is. Based on our results it can be assumed that an infection with HIV represents a risk factor for an infection with HPV."

Southern and eastern Afrika most affected

The regions most strongly affected are southern and eastern Africa, where respectively 63.8 percent and 27.4 percent of cervical carcinomas were diagnosed in women with an HIV infection.

"With over 75 percent, Eswatini in southern Africa is the country with the highest share of women suffering from cervical cancer in connection with an HIV infection, followed by Lesotho with 69 percent, Botswana with 67 percent, South Africa with 64 percent and Zimbabwe with 52 percent," says Dr. Tanaka.

Based on the results, the TUM authors determined that women with an HIV infection have a significantly higher risk of developing cervical cancer. They also pointed out that this means that HPV vaccinations and early-stage cervical carcinoma screenings are of particular importance, especially in the African countries south of the Sahara.

"Although cervical cancer screenings already exist in Africa, until now they have been performed primarily on women with a higher socio-economic status who could afford the screening," says Prof. Stefanie Klug, who holds the Chair of Epidemiology at TU Munich. "The goal has to be to end this dependency on economic means and to succeed in introducing free HPV vaccination for girls and screening for adult women."

Stars are born in dense clouds of molecular hydrogen gas that permeates interstellar space of most galaxies. While the physics of star formation is complex, recent years have seen substantial progress towards understanding how stars form in a galactic environment. What ultimately determines the level of star formation in galaxies, however, remains an open question.

In principle, two main factors influence the star formation activity: The amount of molecular gas that is present in galaxies and the timescale over which the gas reservoir is depleted by converting it into stars. While the gas mass of galaxies is regulated by a competition between gas inflows, outflows and consumption, the physics of the gas-to-star conversion is currently not well understood. Given its potentially critical role, many efforts have been undertaken to determine the gas depletion timescale observationally. However, these efforts resulted in conflicting findings partly because of the challenge in measuring gas masses reliably given current detection limits.

Typical star formation is linked to the overall gas reservoir

The present study from the Institute for Computational Science of the University of Zurich uses a new statistical method based on Bayesian modeling to properly account for galaxies with undetected amounts of molecular or atomic hydrogen to minimize observational bias. This new analysis reveals that, in typical star-forming galaxies, molecular and atomic hydrogen are converted into stars over approximately constant timescales of 1 and 10 billion years, respectively. However, extremely active galaxies ("starbursts") are found to have much shorter gas depletion timescales. "These findings suggest that star formation is indeed directly linked to the overall gas reservoir and thus set by the rate at which gas enters or leaves a galaxy," says Robert Feldmann, professor at the Center for Theoretical Astrophysics and Cosmology. In contrast, the dramatically higher star-formation activity of starbursts likely has a different physical origin, such as galaxy interactions or instabilities in galactic disks.

This analysis is based on observational data of nearby galaxies. Observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/Submillimeter Array, the Square Kilometer Array and other observatories promise to probe the gas content of large numbers of galaxies across cosmic history. It will be paramount to continue the development of statistical and data-science methods to accurately extract the physical content from these new observations and to fully uncover the mysteries of star formation in galaxies.

Baltimore, MD-- The CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing system can help scientists understand, and possibly improve, how corals respond to the environmental stresses of climate change. Work led by Phillip Cleves--who joined Carnegie's Department of Embryology this fall--details how the revolutionary, Nobel Prize-winning technology can be deployed to guide conservation efforts for fragile reef ecosystems.

Cleves' research team's findings were recently published in two papers in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Corals are marine invertebrates that build extensive calcium carbonate skeletons from which reefs are constructed. But this architecture is only possible because of a mutually beneficial relationship between the coral and various species of single-celled algae that live inside individual coral cells. These algae convert the Sun's energy into food using a process called photosynthesis and they share some of the nutrients they produce with their coral hosts--kind of like paying rent.

Coral reefs have great ecological, economic, and aesthetic value. Many communities depend on them for food and tourism. However, human activity is putting strain on coral reefs including warming oceans, pollution, and acidification and that affects this symbiotic relationship.

"In particular, increasing ocean temperatures can cause coral to lose their algae, a phenomenon called bleaching, because the coral takes on a ghostly white look in the absence of the algae's pigment," Cleves explained. "Without the nutrients provided by photosynthesis, the coral can die of starvation."

In 2018, Cleves headed up the team that demonstrated the first use of the CRISPR/Cas9 genome editing on coral. Now, his teams used CRISPR/Cas9 to identify a gene responsible for regulating coral's response to heat stress.

Working first in the anemone Aiptasia, one team--including Stanford University's Cory Krediet, Erik Lehnert, Masayuki Onishi, and John Pringle--identified a protein, called Heat Shock Factor 1 (HSF1), which activates many genes associated with the response to heat stress. Anemones are close coral relatives that have similar symbiotic relationships with photosynthetic algae, but they grow faster and are easier to study. These traits make Aiptasia a powerful model system to study coral biology in the lab.

Then another Cleves-led team--including Stanford University's Amanda Tinoco and John Pringle, Queensland University of Technology's Jacob Bradford and Dimitri Perrin, and Line Bay of the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS)--used CRISPR/Cas9 to create mutations in the gene that encodes HSF1 in the coral Acropora millepora, demonstrating its importance for coping with a warming environment. Without a functioning HSF1 protein, the coral died rapidly when the surrounding water temperature increased.

"Understanding the genetic traits of heat tolerance of corals holds the key to understanding not only how corals will respond to climate change naturally but also balancing the benefits, opportunities and risks of novel management tools," said Bay, who is the AIMS principal research scientist and head of its Reef Recovery, Restoration and Adaptation team.

Added Cleves: "Our work further demonstrates how CRISPR/Cas9 can be used to elucidate aspects of coral physiology that can be used to guide conservation. This time we focused on one particular heat tolerance gene, but there are so many more mechanisms to reveal in order to truly understand coral biology and apply this knowledge to protecting these important communities."

A University of Ottawa study has found a specific Alzheimer's treatment is effective in male and not female mice, providing a window into the biology of the disease and the effectiveness of targeted treatments.

The paper, 'AB oligomers induce pathophysiological mGluR5 signaling in Alzheimer's disease model mice in a sex-selective manner', published in Science Signaling Magazine highlights the mechanisms underlying Alzheimer's disease are fundamentally different between men and women in regards to one specific treatment.

The study was led by first author Dr. Khaled Abdelrahman alongside senior author Dr. Stephen Ferguson, both of the Faculty of Medicine's Department of Cellular and Molecular Medicine and the Brain and Mind Research Institute.

Dr. Abdelrahman shared some insights into the findings.

What exactly did you set to study?
"The research involved assessing the memory function in female and male Alzheimer's mice after they were treated with a drug that selectively blocks a receptor to regulate memory and learning. We then assessed the recovery of memory deficits after treatment and how it is different between sexes. We also examined whether the binding of a toxic Ab; peptide to this receptor is different between male and female mouse and human brain." (Note: An AB peptide is found in the brain of an Alzheimer's patient and is a hallmark of the disease.)

What did you find?
"We showed at least one promising Alzheimer's disease treatment was effective in reversing the disease in male mice but that it was unable to do so in female mice. This will have important implications for future drug discovery and clinical trials design for Alzheimer's disease."

How do these findings translate to humans?
"We utilized post-mortem brain tissue from male and female human donors to corroborate our findings. The benefit to humans is that these selective differences may be applicable to many drugs in the market or in clinical trial phases."

What kind of impact can this discovery have?
"We have to be careful when designing clinical trials in the future since many drug candidates have the opposite or different outcomes for both sexes; not all drugs that work for men will work with women, and vice-versa. It also changes how clinical trial data should be evaluated and segregated by sex. Importantly, it defines a previously unknown differences in the biophysical properties of an important receptor in the brain that regulates memory and learning."

What was your reaction to these findings?
"As a pharmacist, I have witnessed many patients in practice who struggle with Alzheimer's disease and ineffective treatments. This motivated me to make effort in understanding the mechanisms that lead to the disease for better therapeutic approaches to be undertaken."

Using human-induced pluripotent stem cells engineered from a single family's blood samples, a gene signaling pathway linked to a higher risk for developing schizophrenia was discovered by scientists at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The research was published in a recent issue of Neuropsychopharmacology.

The signaling pathway researchers pinpointed is called phosphoinositide 3-kinase/glycogen synthase kinase 3 (PI3K/GSK3). Among the differentially expressed genes along the pathway was one called serum-glucocorticoid kinase 1 (SGK1), an inhibitor of GSK3 beta, which has been associated with schizophrenia.

"We believe this has direct implications for the treatment of patients," said senior author Consuelo Walss-Bass, PhD, professor in the Louis A. Faillace, MD, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at McGovern Medical School at UTHealth. "There is a new antipsychotic that just received approval from the Food and Drug Administration that directly targets the pathway we identified as dysregulated in neurons from the patients, and several other antipsychotics also target this pathway. This could help pinpoint who may respond better to treatments."

Researchers led by Walss-Bass and first author, postdoctoral research fellow Laura Stertz, PhD, used blood samples from adult members of a large family with multiple individuals affected by schizophrenia. Through human-induced pluripotent stem cell (hiPSC) technology, the blood cells were reprogrammed into stem cells, which were then directed to become brain neurons. Those neurons could be studied in a virtual biopsy and compared to neurons engineered from individuals who did not have schizophrenia, but came from the same family from a homogenous population in the Central Valley of Costa Rica.

"Mental health research has lagged behind because we don't know what is happening biologically. We are diagnosing people based on what they are telling us," Walss-Bass said. "Even postmortem, the brain tissue in mental health disorders looks perfectly fine. In Alzheimer's disease, you can see a difference compared to controls. But not in psychiatric disorders. Now by studying virtual brain biopsies, we can tell what is happening biologically."

Among the differentially expressed genes the researchers saw in the virtual biopsies were five that have previously been identified as schizophrenia candidate genes by genome-wide association studies.

Among the genes associated with the PI3K/GSK3 pathway was SGK1, which inhibits GSK3 activity. Those alterations are linked to whether a person has a higher risk of developing schizophrenia.

"We were able to find significant, meaningful differences with a small control group," Walss-Bass said. "Neurons of patients with schizophrenia had alterations in the signaling pathway. This research may help to understand how or why some antipsychotics targeting GSK3 work and also to develop other target-specific medications."

Walss-Bass said identifying patients with specific biological pathway markers could identify them as the best candidates for medications, creating the personal pharmacology that is needed to treat psychiatric disorders.