Culture

A new study in Frontiers in Psychology suggests that high national math achievement combined with societal pressures may contribute to how well girls and boys like math. Past research has shown that achievement-driven cultures frequently correlate with less enthusiasm for learning subjects like math. This study of over 500,000 eighth graders from 50 countries is the first to show that girls appear even more susceptible to this effect, providing insights into how to close this gender gap.

"I think we need to look more critically at the idea that we can judge a country's school system mainly on the achievement level its pupils attain--other important aspects, such as pupils feeling interested in their schoolwork, may get lost in the process," says the author, Prof Kimmo Eriksson of Mälardalen University College and Stockholm University in Sweden. "It seems that cultures that promote high achievement in math may also tend to kill many pupils' interest in math schoolwork and I found that this negative effect of high-achievement culture was stronger among girls than among boys."

Eriksson used the results from the multinational Trends in Mathematics and Science Survey (TIMSS) from 2011 and 2015 to look at trends between math performance and students' interest levels. Although the survey had been performed in prior years, 2011 and 2015 were the first years when the survey included both a math test as well as a questionnaire about the students' interest in what they were learning.

The results showed that girls were significantly less interested in math in countries like Japan, Hong Kong, Sweden and New Zealand. But, surprisingly, the roles were reversed in countries like Oman, Malaysia, Palestine and Kazakhstan, where girls were far more engaged in the subject.

One particularly striking result was that whichever way national interest levels trended, the effect was more pronounced among girls. Eriksson named this effect 'female amplification' and suggests that this may be due to girls' stronger tendency to conform to peer influence.

It is important to note that these findings only imply correlation. Additional research is needed to better understand the underlying factors that cause these differences. But these observations may provide useful guidance for how to promote both math interest as well as achievement for girls and boys. Countries such as Singapore have also shown that it is possible to have both high interest and high performance, and further study of these school systems may help improve teaching methods elsewhere.

"By highlighting how girls' interest in schoolwork is especially sensitive to high-achievement culture, perhaps my work can make researchers and policy-makers recognize and address this challenge: How can schools promote high achievement in mathematics without killing pupils' interest in their schoolwork?" says Eriksson.

With new insights into how the genetic tool CRISPR - which allows direct editing of our genes - evolved and adapted, we are now one step closer to understanding the basis of the constant struggle for survival that takes place in nature. The results can be used in future biotechnologies.

In 2020, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer A. Doudna for their discoveries of the molecular mechanism behind CRISPR-Cas and the use of the technology as a genetic tool. Although CRISPR-Cas has found many uses in biotechnology and medicine, it originates in nature, where it functions as a microbial immune system.

Just as our immune system remembers the pathogens we have been exposed to earlier in life, CRISPR-Cas provides microorganisms with an ability to respond quickly to viruses they have previously encountered by storing a small amount of the viral DNA in their own genome.

CRISPR-Cas is found naturally in most bacteria as well as the so-called archaea. When examining the origin of life on Earth, archaea are particularly interesting, as they form a kind of "missing link" between bacteria and the cells of higher eukaryotes like our own. Studies of these organisms can therefore provide us with important insights into how the CRISPR-Cas immune system has evolved over hundreds of millions of years.

New results reveal why toxins are present among CRISPR-Cas genes

New research results from researchers at the Department of Molecular Biology and Genetics, Aarhus University - obtained in close collaboration with leading researchers from the University of Copenhagen and Old Dominion University in Virginia, USA, and published in two articles in leading, international journals - now shed new light on how CRISPR-Cas emerged early during the development of life on Earth, as well as how this immune system is constantly adapting to new challenges.

The research group from Aarhus - led by Associate Professor Ditlev E. Brodersen - has discovered how a part of CRISPR-Cas that is responsible for incorporating foreign, viral DNA into the microorganism's own genome has originated from another, very common type of genes in bacteria and archaea that surprisingly encode toxins.

The new knowledge therefore provides insights into an evolutionary process in which the toxin genes were present early during the development of life, and over time were integrated and adapted as part of the CRISPR-Cas modules that many microorganisms possess to this day. For the first time, we have an answer to a question that has puzzled researchers for a long time, namely why toxin genes exist among the CRISPR-Cas genes.

- "This understanding of how certain proteins are 'recycled' in several different situations, is enormously useful for researchers," explains Ditlev Brodersen, "because when we understand the entire repertoire of functions that certain proteins possess, it opens up for the possibility of using them as specific tools in genetic engineering. For example, it might be possible to get disease-causing bacteria to direct their CRISPR-Cas systems towards themselves and thus avoid infection."

A constant battle between microorganisms and viruses

In another article, published in the renowned journal, Nature Communications, the researchers describe new findings that provide insights into the constant battle between microorganisms and the viruses that represent their worst enemies.

In a boiling mud puddle on Iceland lives a very special organism, an archaea called Sulfolobus islandicus, which for millions of years has adapted to life in this place, that with a constant temperature of 80-100°C and an acidity corresponding to stomach acid constitutes one of the most inhospitable places on earth.

But even though Sulfolobus has chosen a very unattractive place to live, it still encounters resistance, not the least from small, rod-shaped DNA viruses that constantly poke holes in the cells and shoot their foreign DNA into them, causing Sulfolobus to explode in a wealth of new virus particles. To avoid this fate, Sulfolobus has developed a CRISPR-Cas defence, by which it has stored small parts of the viral DNA in its own genome to be able to withstand these attacks.

Anti-CRISPR - Upsetting the applecart

But in the constantly escalating battle between life and death, the virus has developed a countermeasure: It has managed to cope by producing a small weapon, an anti-CRISPR protein that, like upsetting the applecart, blocks the CRISPR-Cas response in Sulfolobus.

The new results from Ditlev E. Brodersen's group at Aarhus University - generated in close collaboration with Associate Professor Xu Peng from the Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen - now for the first time show how this fight takes place in the boiling pools.

The researchers have been able to visualise how the anti-CRISPR protein binds strongly to the largest protein of the CRISPR-Cas system, thereby directly preventing it from destroying the viral DNA. In this way, the virus bypasses - at least for some time - being beated off by CRISPR-Cas. The new results give scientists insights into the arms race that is constantly taking place in nature, and how the evolution of life is in fact a constant struggle for survival.

- "We now know the details of how the anti-CRISPR protein can block the CRISPR-Cas immune system, so the question is what will be the next move in this arms race," says Ditlev Brodersen. "Perhaps the microbes will begin to form anti-anti-CRISPR proteins, a third type of protein that can prevent the anti-CRISPR protein from working, but we have yet to find these in Sulfolobus archaea. So right now the ball is back on Sulfolobus' half of the field", says Ditlev Brodersen, "and the cold war is always warm in the boiling pool".

Scientists from NUST MISIS have improved the technology of 3D printing from aluminum, having achieved an increase in the hardness of products by 1,5 times. The nanocarbon additive to aluminum powder, which they have developed, obtained from the products of processing associated petroleum gas, will improve the quality of 3D printed aerospace composites. The research results are published in the international scientific journal Composites Communications

Today, the main field of application for aluminum 3D printing is the creation of high-tech parts for the aviation and space industries. The presence of even the slightest defects in printed structures is critical to the safety of the technology being created. According to NUST MISIS scientists, the main risk of such defects is the high porosity of the material, caused, among other reasons, by the qualities of the original aluminum powder. To ensure a uniform and dense microstructure of printed products, scientists from the MISIS Catalis Lab proposed adding carbon nanofibers to the aluminum powder. The use of this modifying additive makes it possible to ensure a low porosity of the material and an increase in its hardness by 1.5 times.

"Changing the chemical and phase composition of the powder for printing by introducing additional components into the main matrix allows improving its properties. In particular, carbon nanofibers have high thermal conductivity, which helps to minimize temperature gradients between printed layers during product synthesis, at the stage of selective laser melting. Thanks to this, the microstructure of the material can be almost completely eliminated from inhomogeneities," said the head of the laboratory, professor at NUST MISIS, Ph.D. Alexander Gromov.

The technology for the synthesis of nanocarbon additives developed by the research team includes methods of chemical deposition, ultrasonic treatment, and IR heat treatment. The used carbon nanofibers must be a by-product of associated petroleum gas processing. During its catalytic decomposition, carbon accumulates in the form of nanofibers on dispersed metal particles of the catalyst. Usually, at present, associated gases are simply burned in the fields, which harms the environment. Therefore, the application of the new method also has a serious environmental significance, -- said Professor Gromov. The study has been carried out jointly with specialists from the Boreskov Institute of Catalysis SB RAS. In the future, the research team plans to determine the optimal conditions for selective laser melting of new composite powders, as well as to develop a technology for post-processing and industrial use of synthesized products.

The term "superfood" is not legally regulated. Superfoods, however, are often referred to as foods whose ingredients are considered particularly beneficial to health - for example, due to their high content of vitamins or minerals and fibre. Only 8 percent of respondents associate health risks with the consumption of superfoods.

"Superfood products are often not sufficiently investigated to be able to evaluate them from a health perspective," says BfR President Professor Dr. Dr. Andreas Hensel. "A balanced and varied diet remains the best basis for staying healthy. This can be supported by the consumption of imported superfoods just as by the consumption of local fruits and vegetables."

Link to the Consumer Monitor special on superfoods:
https://www.bfr.bund.de/cm/364/bfr-consumer-monitor-2020-special-superfoods.pdf

Link to the superfoods A-Z index:
https://www.bfr.bund.de/en/a-z_index/superfoods-259079.html

In Germany, 70 percent of the respondents have already heard of the term "superfood". About half see high health benefits in these foods. The main benefits cited are the content of vitamins, a generally positive effect on the body and a strengthening of the immune system. One third of respondents have superfoods on their menu at least once a week. However, almost 40 percent state that they do not consume any superfoods at all.

Compared to local foods, the majority tend to label imported foods, such as chia seeds, goji berries and quinoa, as superfoods. Yet, local foods often provide comparable health benefits. For example, blackcurrants present an alternative to goji berries due to their high content of vitamin C just as linseed, with its high content of proteins and omega-3 fatty acids, shares similarities with the nutritional profile of chia seeds.

About two out of five respondents consider the health benefits of superfoods to be scientifically proven. Just as many assume that superfood products are tested for health safety before they are available in Germany.

This particularly applies to superfoods that were rarely used for consumption in the European Union before 1997 and are, therefore, considered to be novel foods. They have to go through strict approval procedures, including an official health safety assessment. Thus far, this has applied to chia seeds, for example.

However, some superfood products, such as certain food supplements, consist of extracts or preparations of plant-based superfoods, which may contain potentially harmful substances in concentrated form. The lack of standards in extraction procedures or partly insufficient data from studies can make the health risk assessment of these products difficult. For this reason, they cannot be compared to the plant-based superfoods from which they are derived.

Only 8 percent of respondents believe that superfoods can pose health risks. Even though the positive effect of these foods for the health usually takes centre stage, certain ingredients and contaminants can be harmful to health if consumed excessively. In some cases, superfoods can also trigger intolerances or allergic reactions.

More detailed information on the possible health risks of superfoods can be found at: https://www.bfr.bund.de/cm/343/superfoods-super-gut.pdf (in German)

Products derived from nanotechnology are efficient and highly sought-after, yet their effects on the environment are still poorly understood. A research team from the University of Geneva (UNIGE), working in collaboration with the University of California at Santa Barbara, have investigated the effects of nanosilver, currently used in almost 450 products for its antibacterial properties, on the algae known as Poterioochromonas malhamensis. The results - published in the journal Scientific Reports - show that nanosilver and its derivative, ionic silver, disturb the alga's entire metabolism. Its membrane becomes more permeable, the cellular reactive oxygen species increases and photosynthesis is less effective. The Swiss-American team was able to demonstrate for the first time the metabolic perturbations induced by nanosilver following its uptake in the food vacuoles of freshwater algae, paving the way for early detection of the metabolic changes before they express themselves physiologically.

The nanosilver is used for its antibacterial properties and is employed in textiles and cosmetics, inter alia. In addition, the agro-food, biomedical and biopharmaceutical industry is interested in it for developing drugs, devices and pesticides. «Since nanosilver is designed to destroy, repel or render harmless noxious organisms such as bacteria, scientists have realised that it might also be harmful to organisms that are crucial to our environment,» begins Vera Slaveykova from the Department F.A. Forel for Environmental and Aquatic Sciences in UNIGE's Faculty of Sciences. To assess the influence of nanotechnology products on phytoplankton and to evaluate the impacts on aquatic environment, the researcher team conducted a study on the alga Poterioochromonas malhamensis as a model phytoplankton species. «The phytoplankton are everywhere, in lakes and oceans," continues Professor Slaveykova. «As a whole, phytoplankton generate almost half of the oxygen we breathe. And they have a second essential role, since they are at the base of the food chain. If they accumulate nanoparticles, these will be integrated into the aquatic food chain».

Multiple disturbances

The study led by Professor Slaveykova shows that treating the algae with nanosilver disrupts the metabolism of the amino acids that are vital for producing cellular proteins, the nucleotide metabolism that is important for genes, and fatty and tricarboxylic acids making up the membranes, as well as the photosynthesis and photorespiration elements.

The study results suggest that the silver ions released by the silver nanoparticles are the main toxicity factor. «The nanosilver is internalised in the algal cells by the phagocytotic mechanism used to supply cells with organic matter,» continues Professor Slaveykova. The study is the first to demonstrate that nanoparticles can follow such internalisation path in a species of phytoplankton. «These measurements were carried out in Geneva by Dr Liu using transmission electron microscopy. This entry mechanism is only known in Poterioochromonas malhamensis; it is still unknown if other phytoplankton species express it,» explains the Geneva researcher.

To finish demonstrating nanosilver's toxicity, the international research team highlighted the fact that metabolic disturbances induce physiological dysfunctions. Professor Slaveykova observed lipid peroxidation leading to membrane permeabilization, increased oxidative stress and less efficient photosynthesis - and, it follows, reduced oxygen production.

An Approach That Needs to Be Implemented

The study underlines the full potential of metabolomics geared towards the molecular basis of the disruptions observed. «It's a fundamental contribution to the field: although the metabolomics approaches are properly in place in medical and pharmaceutical sciences, it's not at all the case for environmental toxicology where phytoplankton metabolomics is still in its infancy. The metabolomics is, therefore, a technique that offers the possibility of early detection of changes induced by a toxin, upstream of more global effects such as the alga growth inhibition and their impact on oxygen production. As it's never easy to demonstrate the relationships between cause and effect in complex environment, it is now essential to use approaches like these.»

The gasp of surprise. Fans leap to their feet. Shouts ring out.

The most exciting moments in sports are often linked to surprise, an unexpected change of circumstances that abruptly shifts the anticipated outcome of the game.

Princeton neuroscientist James Antony decided to capitalize on these moments to study how human brains process surprise.

"We're trying to figure out how people update their understanding of things that are occurring in the real world, based on how events unfold over time -- how they set up these contextually-based predictions, and what happens when those are confirmed or contradicted," said Antony, a CV Starr Fellow in Neuroscience and the first author on a paper published today in the journal Neuron.

The researchers observed 20 self-identified basketball fans as they watched the last five minutes of nine games from the 2012 men's NCAA March Madness tournament. While they watched the games, a specialized camera tracked their eye movements and functional MRI scans measured their neural activity. The scientists chose basketball because the frequent scoring provided more opportunities to observe how the brain responded to changes.

"This study has both theoretical significance, in terms of testing and refining models of how surprise affects the brain and behavior, and also popular science appeal," said Ken Norman, the senior author on the paper, who is the Huo Professor in Computational and Theoretical Neuroscience and the chair of the Department of Psychology. "Sporting events like the NCAA tournament are both incredibly compelling and also hyper-quantifiable -- you can assess, moment-by-moment, exactly how probable an outcome will be, given what happened in previous games -- making them an ideal domain for studying how cognitive processes like memory, event understanding and emotional responses work in the real world. James' paper is the first to unlock the potential of this approach."

At surprising moments in the March Madness games -- key turnovers, last-minute three-pointers -- a typical participant would register rapid pupil dilation and shifts in the pattern of activity in high-level areas of the brain areas like the prefrontal cortex.

"There's a lot of nuance -- it's not like 'Surprise is surprise is surprise is surprise,'" Antony said. "Different kinds of surprises have different effects that we observed in different brain systems."

One interesting result was that shifts in the pattern of activity in high-level brain areas only happened at moments that contradicted the watchers' current beliefs about which team was more likely to win. "This fits with the idea that patterns in these areas reflect the story of the game, and that the chapters of this story are defined by which team has momentum," Norman said.

The researchers received help from legendary basketball statistician Ken Pomeroy to create a "win-probability graph," a tracker for which team was most likely to win at any given moment. Sport websites and sports announcers have long used win-probability graphs to quantify the likely impact of any given turnover or basket.

What the scientists realized was that avid sports fans have an intuitive version of that graph in their heads, Antony said.

"You can tell this by the way people react to things," he said. "We're measuring it in this somewhat confined setting here, but if you imagine two friends watching a championship game, and there's a huge moment, one might get so excited that they tackle their friend over the couch. That doesn't happen at a moment that isn't eventful or only has a minimal impact on the overall outcome."

"People really do have win-probability graphs in their heads," Norman said. "When the win-probability graph shifts in either direction, that leads to better memory for that part of the game, and it seems to affect pupillary response in addition to memory. There's an interesting association between those things."

Historically, neuroscientists studying surprise have created very stripped-down experiments to build a particular expectation, then violate it.

"As a field, we've been eager to see whether the principles that we've come up with -- based on these very simplified scenarios -- apply in real life," Norman said. "The challenge is that in real life, it's hard to pinpoint the moment when the surprise occurs, or how big the surprise was. Sports let us precisely quantify surprise in a real-world setting, giving us the perfect opportunity to see whether these ideas about surprise generalize outside of the lab."

Stars produce their energy through nuclear fusion by converting hydrogen into helium - a process known to researchers as "hydrogen burning". There are two ways of carrying out this fusion reaction: on the one hand, the so-called pp cycle (proton-proton reaction) and the Bethe Weizsäcker cycle (also known as the CNO cycle, derived from the elements carbon (C), nitrogen (N) and oxygen (O)) on the other hand.

The pp cycle is the predominant energy source in our Sun, only about 1.6 per mil of its energy comes from the CNO cycle. However, the Standard Solar Model (SSM) predicts that the CNO cycle is probably the predominant reaction in much larger stars. As early as the 1930s, the cycle was theoretically predicted by the physicists Hans Bethe and Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker and subsequently named after these two gentlemen. While the pp cycle could already be experimentally proven in 1992 at the GALLEX experiment, also in the Gran Sasso massif, the experimental proof of the CNO cycle has so far not been successful.

Both the pp cycle and the CNO cycle produce countless neutrinos - very light and electrically neutral elementary particles. The fact that neutrinos hardly interact with other matter allows them to leave the interior of the sun at almost the speed of light and to transport the information about their origin to earth unhindered. Here the ghost particles have no more than to be captured. This is a rather complex undertaking, which is only possible in a few large-scale experiments worldwide, since neutrinos show up as small flashes of light in a huge tank full of a mixture of water, mineral oil and other substances, also called scintillator. The evaluation of the measured data is complex and resembles looking for a needle in a haystack.

Compared to all previous and ongoing solar neutrino experiments, Borexino is the first and only experiment worldwide that is able to measure these different components individually, in real time and with a high statistical power. This week, the Borexino research collaboration was able to announce a great success: In the renowned scientific journal Nature, they present their results on the first experimental detection of CNO neutrinos - a milestone in neutrino research.

Dresden physicist Professor Kai Zuber is a passionate neutrino hunter.

He is involved in many different experiments worldwide, such as the SNO collaboration in Canada, which was awarded the Nobel Prize for its discovery of a neutrino mass. The fact that with Borexino, he and his colleagues Dr Mikko Meyer and Jan Thurn have now succeeded in experimentally proving the CNO neutrinos for the first time is another major milestone in Zuber's scientific career: "Actually, I have now achieved everything I had imagined and hoped for. I (almost) no longer believe in great new discoveries in solar neutrino research for the rest of my lifetime. However, I would like to continue working on the optimization of the experiments, in which the Felsenkeller accelerator here in Dresden plays an extremely important role. For sure, we will be able to have even more precise measurements of the Sun in the future."

It is largely unknown why influenza infections lead to an increased risk of bacterial pneumonia. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have now described important findings leading to so-called superinfections, which claim many lives around the world every year. The study is published in the journal PNAS, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and can also contribute to research on COVID-19.

The Spanish Flu was an influenza pandemic that swept across the world in 1918-20 and unlike many other pandemics disproportionately hit young otherwise healthy adults. One important reason for this was so-called superinfections caused by bacteria, in particular pneumococci.

Influenza is caused by a virus, but the most common cause of death is secondary bacterial pneumonia rather than the influenza virus per se. Pneumococcal infections are the most common cause of community-acquired pneumonia and a leading global cause of death. A prior influenza virus infection sensitizes for pneumococcal infections, but mechanisms behind this increase susceptibility are not fully understood. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet have now identified influenza-induced changes in the lower airways that affect the growth of pneumococci in the lungs.

Using an animal model, the researchers found that different nutrients and antioxidants, such as vitamin C and other normally cell protective substances leak from the blood, thereby creating an environment in the lungs that favours growth of the bacteria. The bacteria adapt to the inflammatory environment by increasing the production of the bacterial enzyme HtrA.

The presence of HtrA weakens the immune system and promotes bacterial growth in the influenza-infected airways. The lack of HtrA stops bacterial growth.

"The ability of pneumococcus to grow in the lower airways during an influenza infection seems to depend on the nutrient-rich environment with its higher levels of antioxidants that occurs during a viral infection, as well as on the bacteria's ability to adapt to the environment and protect itself from being eradicated by the immune system," says principal investigator Birgitta Henriques Normark, professor at the Department of Microbiology, Tumor and Cell Biology, Karolinska Institutet.

The results provide valuable information on how bacteria integrate with their environment in the lungs and could be used to find new therapies for double infections between the influenza virus and pneumococcal bacteria.

"HtrA is an enzyme, a protease, which helps to weaken the immune system and allows pneumococcal bacteria to penetrate the protective cell layer on the inside of the airways," explains the paper's first author Vicky Sender, researcher at the same department. "A possible strategy can therefore be use of protease inhibitors to prevent pneumococcal growth in the lungs."

It is still not known if COVID-19 patients are also sensitive to such secondary bacterial infections, but the researchers think that similar mechanisms could potentially be found in severely ill COVID-19 patients.

"It's likely that acute lung inflammation, regardless of cause, gives rise to leakage of nutrients and antioxidants, and to an environment that fosters bacterial growth," says Professor Henriques Normark.

Why do so many Republicans still believe that the recent US presidential election was fraudulent? Is it possible to reach coronavirus deniers with factual arguments? A study by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the University of Amsterdam provides insights into what it is that stops people from changing their minds. Their findings have been published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B.

By talking to other people and observing their behavior, we can learn new things, acquire new skills, and adapt to changing conditions. But what if the information provided by the social environment is inconsistent or contradictory? In a recent study, researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and the University of Amsterdam have investigated how people deal with information from diverse social sources, and how they use that information to form beliefs. "The internet, in particular, has dramatically changed the structure and dynamics of social interactions. The availablility of social sources is to some extent controlled by algorithms--what we see is biased in favor of our own preferences. At the same time, the internet gives us access to potentially conflicting views," says lead author Lucas Molleman, associate research scientist in the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and postdoc at the University of Amsterdam.

The researchers first conducted an experimental study with 95 participants from the United States. Participants completed an adapted version of the Berlin Estimate AdjuStment Task (BEAST), which reliably measures individuals' use of social information. They were shown images of groups of animals and asked to estimate the number of animals. They were then shown the estimates of three other participants and asked to make a second estimate. The more participants adjusted their estimates to those of their peers, the more account they had taken of social information.

Across 30 rounds of the task, the researchers varied the conditions of the study, presenting participants with estimates that deviated to a greater or lesser extent from their own estimate, and that were more or less extreme. The results showed that whether participants integrated information from the social environment in their second estimate depended on whether and how strongly their peers' estimates deviated from each other and from their own estimate. Participants were most likely to adjust their estimates when their peers were in close agreement with each other and their estimates were not too different from the participant's own. Higher variation in peers' estimates reduced their impact on the participant's own judgment. In general, participants gave more weight to their own initial estimate than to their peers' estimates. Overall, three adjustment strategies were identified: (1) sticking to one's original estimate, (2) adopting the estimate of one of the three peers, or (3) compromising between one's original estimate and the peer estimates. The relative frequency of these strategies differed significantly between study conditions. When participants observed a single peer who closely agreed with them, they were more likely to stick to their original estimate or to adopt the estimate of the near peer. When none of the peers were in close agreement with them, participants were more likely to compromise by adjusting their estimate towards, but rarely beyond, that of the nearest peer.

"Our experiment quantifies how people weigh their own prior beliefs and the beliefs of others. In our context, there is actually no reason to assume that one's own estimate is better than anyone else's. But what we see here is an effect known in psychology as 'egocentric discounting' - namely that people put more weight on their own beliefs than on those of others," explains co-author Alan Noveas Tump, postdoc at the Center for Adaptive Rationality of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development. "What's more, our study reveals that this weighting is strongly impacted by the consistency of others' beliefs with one's own: people are more likely to heed information that confirms their own beliefs."

Building on these findings, the researchers developed a model that integrates the observed adjustment strategies and captures that people pay particular attention to social information that confirms their personal judgements. Using simulations, they then investigated how people would behave in real-life situations. For example, they simulated a typical filter bubble, where social information tends to come from like-minded people. They also simulated typical attempts to change people's minds by confronting them with information inconsistent with their own beliefs. Finally, they investigated how people react to being simultaneously exposed to different groups with extreme beliefs. Their simulations suggest that confirmation effects can lead to divergent social information being ignored, filter bubble effects being exacerbated, and people becoming more extreme in their attitudes.

"Although our study was experimental in design, our model helps explain many contemporary phenomena. It shows how the way people process social information can exacerbate filter bubbles on the internet, and why public debates often become polarized as people quickly become impervious to opposing arguments. As interactions increasingly often take place online, people can often find information that confirms their existing beliefs, making them less willing to listen to alternatives," says co-author Wouter van den Bos, adjunct research scientist in the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and associate professor at the University of Amsterdam.

In future studies, the researchers want to integrate further aspects of reality into the model to find out, for example, whether it matters whether social information comes from a friend, a stranger, an expert, or someone with the same or different political partisanship. They are also investigating how other people influence individuals' altruistic giving and compliance with social norms.

Modern microscopes used for biological imaging are expensive, are located in specialized laboratories and require highly qualified staff. To research novel, creative approaches to address urgent scientific issues -- for example in the fight against infectious diseases such as Covid-19 -- is thus primarily reserved for scientists at well-equipped research institutions in rich countries. A young research team from the Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology (Leibniz IPHT) in Jena, the Friedrich Schiller University and Jena University Hospital wants to change this: The researchers have developed an optical toolbox to build microscopes for a few hundred euros that deliver high-resolution images comparable to commercial microscopes that cost a hundred to a thousand times more. With open-source blueprints, components from the 3D printer and smartphone camera, the UC2 (You. See. Too.) modular system can be combined specifically in the way the research question requires -- from long-term observation of living organisms in the incubator to a toolbox for optics education. The research team presents its development on November 25, 2020 in the renowned journal Nature Communications (DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-19447-9).

The basic building block of the UC2 system is a simple 3D printable cube with an edge length of 5 centimeters, which can host a variety of components such as lenses, LEDs or cameras. Several such cubes are plugged on a magnetic raster base plate. Cleverly arranged, the modules thus result in a powerful optical instrument. An optical concept according to which focal planes of adjacent lenses coincide is the basis for most of the complex optical setups such as modern microscopes. With the UC2 toolbox, the research team of PhD students at the lab of Prof. Dr. Rainer Heintzmann, Leibniz IPHT and Friedrich Schiller University Jena, shows how this inherently modular process can be understood intuitively in hands-on-experiments. In this way, UC2 also provides users without technical training with an optical tool that they can use, modify and expand -- depending on what they are researching.

Monitor pathogens -- and then recycle the contaminated microscope

Helge Ewers, Professor of Biochemistry at the Free University of Berlin and the Charité, is investigating pathogens usind the UC2 toolbox. "The UC2 system allows us to produce a high-quality microscope at low cost, with which we can observe living cells in an incubator", he states. UC2 thus opens up areas of application for biomedical research for which conventional microscopes are not suitable. "Commercial microscopes that can be used to examine pathogens over a longer period of time cost hundreds or thousands of times more than our UC2 setup," says Benedict Diederich, PhD student at Leibniz-IPHT, who developed the optical toolbox there together with René Lachmann. "You can hardly get them into a contaminated laboratory from which you may not be able to remove them because they cannot be cleaned easily". The UC2 microscope made of plastic, on the other hand, can be easily burned or recycled after its successful use in the biological safety laboratory. For a study at Jena University Hospital, the UC2 team observed the differentiation of monocytes into macrophages in the incubator over a period of one week in order to gain insights into how the innate immune system fights off pathogens in the body.

Building according to the Lego principle: From the idea to the prototype

Building according to the Lego principle -- this not only awakens the users' inner play instinct, observes the UC2 team, but it also opens up new possibilities for researchers to design an instrument precisely tailored to their research question. "With our method, it is possible to quickly assemble the right tool to map specific cells," explains Benedict Diederich. "If, for example, a red wavelength is required as excitation, you simply install the appropriate laser and change the filter. If an inverted microscope is needed, you stack the cubes accordingly. With the UC2 system, elements can be combined depending on the required resolution, stability, duration or microscopy method and tested directly in the "rapid prototyping" process.

The Vision: Open Science

The researchers publish construction plans and software on the freely accessible online repository GitHub, so that the open-source community worldwide can access, rebuild, modify and expand the presented systems. "With the feedback from users, we improve the system step by step and add ever new creative solutions," reports René Lachmann. The first users have already started to expand the system for themselves and their purposes. "We are eager to see when we can present the first user solutions".

The aim behind this is to enable open science. Thanks to the detailed documentation, researchers can reproduce and further develop experiments anywhere in the world, even beyond well-equipped laboratories. "Change in Paradigm: Science for a Dime" is what Benedict Diederich calls this vision: to herald a paradigm shift in which the scientific process is as open and transparent as possible, freely accessible to all, where researchers share their knowledge with each other and incorporate it into their work.

UC2 experiment box brings science to schools

In order to get especially young people interested in optics, the research team has developed a sophisticated tool set for educational purposes in schools and universities. With "The Box" UC2 introduces a kit that enables users to learn about and try out optical concepts and microscopy methods. "The components can be combined to form a projector or a telescope; you can build a spectrometer or a smartphone microscope," explains Barbora Maršíková, who developed experiments and a series of ready-to-use documentations that the UC2 team already tested in several workshops in and around Jena as well as in the US, in Great Britain and Norway. In Jena, the young researchers have already used the UC2 toolbox in several schools and e.g. supported pupils to build a fluorescence microscope to detect microplastics. "We have combined UC2 with our smartphone. This enabled us to build our own fluorescence microscope cost-effectively without any major optical knowledge and to develop a comparably simple method for detecting plastic particles in cosmetics," reports Emilia Walther from the Montessori School in Jena, who together with her group is pursuing an innovative interdisciplinary learning approach.

"We want to make modern microscopy techniques accessible to a broad public," says Benedict Diederich, "and build up an open and creative microscopy community". This build-it-yourself approach to teaching has a huge potential, especially at times of the Corona pandemics, when access to teaching material at home is severely limited.

MANHATTAN, KANSAS -- In a paper published Wednesday, Nov. 25, in Nature, Kansas State University researchers, in collaboration with the international 10+ Genome Project led by the University of Saskatchewan, have announced the complete genome sequencing of 15 wheat varieties representing breeding programs around the world -- an invaluable resource to improve global wheat production.

This effort gained momentum in 2018 when the Kansas State University team, in collaboration with the International Wheat Genome Sequencing Consortium, published the genome assembly of Chinese Spring, the first complete reference genome of bread wheat. With rapid advances in DNA sequencing technology, and with experience from assembling the first wheat genome, the 10+ Genome Project brought together the expertise and resources of more than 95 scientists from universities and institutes in Canada, Switzerland, Germany, Japan, the U.K., Saudi Arabia, Mexico, Israel, Australia and the U.S.

This study represents the start of a larger effort to generate thousands of genome sequences of wheat, including genetic material brought in from wheat's wild relatives.

"It's like finding the missing pieces for your favorite puzzle that you have been working on for decades," said project leader Curtis Pozniak, wheat breeder and director of the University of Saskatchewan Crop Development Centre. "By having many complete gene assemblies available, we can now help solve the huge puzzle that is the massive wheat pan-genome and usher in a new era for wheat discovery and breeding."

"Our team was uniquely suited to represent U.S. wheat in this effort here in America's breadbasket and as a land-grant institution with a strong history in wheat research," said Jesse Poland, associate professor at Kansas State University and director of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Applied Wheat Genomics and the Wheat Genetics Resource Center. "We are fortunate to have world leaders in breeding and genetics under one roof, and generous support from the National Science Foundation, Kansas Wheat and many others."

The Kansas team was responsible for sequencing and analyzing the hard red winter wheat variety Jagger, released in 1994 by the Kansas State University breeding program, now led by Allan Fritz. Jagger was a landmark wheat variety in the Great Plains and covered millions of acres for many years. It was selected for this project because of its relevance as a breeding parent as it is found in the pedigrees of current varieties across the U.S.

"Because of our collaboration in this project, we've had access to this phenomenal genomics resource as it's been built, which has already led to tremendous discovery," Poland said. "K-State plant genetics graduate student Emily Delorean is using data from the 10+ Genomes Project to develop a comprehensive analysis of important quality genes and develop better molecular breeding tools, which will have a huge impact on bread making."

In a companion publication published in Theoretical and Applied Genetics, Kansas State University scientists Liangliang Gao, Dal-Hoe Koo and team completed detailed characterization of the 2N introgression, a chromosome segment that was transferred from wild wheat relative Aegilops ventricosa, which is found in Jagger, but was not present in the original Chinese Spring reference genome. The 2N segment possesses resistance genes to multiple wheat diseases, including stem and leaf rust, nematodes and the emerging wheat blast disease. The team found that this chromosome segment is present in about 80% of Kansas wheat lines and also a large proportion of wheat around the world, marking its importance toward addressing global wheat improvement.

"Progress of this magnitude is only possible because of the strength of the international wheat breeding network and strong international collaborations in wheat research," said Justin Gilpin of Kansas Wheat. "It is exciting for the Kansas wheat growers to be part of this excellent work."

RENO, Nevada - Freshwater fish reserves are extraordinarily successful at protecting multiple species of fish, a new study of a network of community-based reserves in Thailand has found.

Aaron Koning, a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Nevada, Reno's Global Water Center, spent seven years studying a network of freshwater protected areas (fish reserves) that communities established in one branch of the Salween River Basin in northern Thailand.

He mapped more than 50 reserves, all community organized and managed independently of government support, throughout the river and its branches. The area supports more than 40 species of fish, ranging from large minnows to catfish to needlefish. The results are published today in the scientific journal Nature in the article "A network of grassroots reserves protects tropical river fish diversity."

"The conservation benefits of each reserve established independently by local Pgagayaw, or Karen, indigenous communities are remarkable, and the collective benefits for fish within the entire network of reserves are even greater," Koning said. "Twenty-seven years ago, one community created a reserve in an effort to protect their fish, and since then reserves have spread among communities throughout the valley. It's a great story of effective community-based resource management."

Koning worked with a team of scientists who he had known from his work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison: Martin Perales from the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Etienne Fluet-Chouinard, now from Stanford University, and aquatic conservation ecologist and Associate Professor Peter McIntyre of Cornell University.

"During six weeks of fieldwork related to this study, Martin and I lived with friends in riverside villages, but made the 90 minute drive to Mae Sarieng for internet access on a couple of weekends."

They bounced around the study area of the 50-mile-long Mae Ngao River in a 1999 Toyota Hilux 4X4 truck, through the various regions and communities, including teak forests and upland agricultural areas with rice paddies and soybean crops.

"When I initially started documenting the locations of reserves several years ago, I tried to find the locations of as many reserves within the basin as I could by exploring every road and trail on the map, and many that weren't on any map," he said. "For our fish surveys, we selected a set of 23 reserves distributed throughout the river basin that broadly represented all of the reserves. While there are probably 40 species within this river valley, in this study we regularly observed 33 species of fish."

Intensive fisheries have reduced fish biodiversity and abundance in aquatic ecosystems worldwide. No-take reserves have become a cornerstone of marine ecosystem-based fisheries management. The team used the knowledge gained from decades of study on marine reserves to test if the same principles of success might apply to this network of riverine reserves, where one might not think reserves would work.

"The applicability of this marine reserve network paradigm to riverine biodiversity and inland fisheries remains largely untested," Koning said. "Our research shows that freshwater reserves created by 23 separate communities in Thailand's Salween basin have dramatically increased fish richness, density and biomass when compared to adjacent areas. One river reserve is 1,000 feet long and just 12 feet wide in dry season, but you can see fish everywhere."

Underwater fish surveys were done using masks and snorkels with lots of crawling over and around rocks underwater. In many reserves, the abundance and size of fish seeking protection was evident by eye from the river bank in the dry season.

McIntyre, now Koning's colleague in this research, was once his doctoral advisor at the University of Wisconsin, and co-advisor for his postdoctoral work at Cornell. McIntyre said he was shocked that the reserves worked so well.

"When you see piles of fish in each of these reserves, it is clear that something big is happening," he said. "Questions remain about whether the fish populations are viable in the long run, and how durable the governance approach will prove, but this unique experiment in conservation still has much to teach us."

Despite their small size, grassroots reserves enhanced the species richness, density and biomass of protected fish communities enormously. Relative to adjacent fished areas with comparable water depth and substrate composition, reserves held 27% more fish species; 124% higher fish density and an astounding 2,247% higher biomass on average.

"Our results demonstrate that small reserves have great benefits for intensively harvested fishes in this tropical river, even though their collective area encompasses only 2% of the channel in our study catchment," Koning said. "The area of individual reserves ranged from just a half acre up to six acres."

"One of the most important findings is that the network of reserves adds benefits beyond those arising from any single reserve," McIntyre said. "Another key lesson is that communities have the power to protect the resource themselves, in a way that doesn't prevent them from using it intensively outside of the reserve boundary."

This study demonstrates that fish reserves can work well in subsistence fisheries targeting rivers, thereby offering a model for protecting fish biodiversity and offsetting overfishing in rivers worldwide. The study is especially timely given that overharvest of fisheries threatens thousands of species and the food security of hundreds of millions of people around the world.

"Freshwaters are under-represented among the world's protected areas, and our findings suggest that networks of small, community-based reserves offer a generalizable model for protecting biodiversity and augmenting fisheries as the world's rivers face unprecedented pressures," Koning said.

In Southeast Asia, riverine reserves are commonplace; hundreds of communities have designated no-fishing zones that together form de facto reserve networks in rivers throughout the region.

The idea has the potential to be a big step forward in terms of freshwater biodiversity protection, not just in Thailand but worldwide. These results and the model could be applied in freshwater ecosystems worldwide - including highly diverse and highly threatened tropical rivers such as the Amazon, Congo and Mekong Rivers.

McIntyre echoed Koning's take on the potential for worldwide implementation.

"Aaron's findings offer a great model for other parts of the world, "he said. "The role of cultural traditions and governance structure can't be overstated, so we do not expect simplistic transferability. However, many of the principles identified could be applicable to subsistence fisheries elsewhere."

Koning is currently a postdoctoral researcher working with Zeb Hogan and based at the University of Nevada, Reno's Global Water Center in the College of Science.

Koning and Hogan, an aquatic conservation ecologist, along with Sudeep Chandra, the Director of the Global Water Center at the University of Nevada, Reno will be replicating the Thailand study on Cambodian rivers as part of their Wonders of the Mekong project, a comprehensive approach to fish conservation, economics and cultural values.

Boston, Mass. - Even as tens of thousands of Americans test positive for COVID-19 each day, physicians still aren't sure why some people experience mild to no symptoms while others become critically ill. New research led by Robert E. Gerszten, MD, Chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) sheds new light on the genetic risk factors that make individuals more or less susceptible to severe COVID-19. The findings, published in a letter in the New England Journal of Medicine, illuminate the mechanisms underlying COVID-19, and potentially open the door to novel treatments for the disease.

"Patients with COVID-19 display a wide array of clinical manifestations and degrees of severity, ranging from flu-like symptoms to acute respiratory distress," said Gerszten, who is also Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. "While pre-existing conditions, particularly cardiovascular and metabolic disease, are risk factors for disease severity and outcomes, the underlying reasons that some people develop life threatening disease while others remain asymptomatic are not well understood."

A growing body of genetic evidence from patients in China, Europe and the Unites States links COVID-19 outcomes to variations in two regions of the human genome, findings which were published in the NEJM. But the statistical association doesn't explain how the differences modulate disease. To do that, scientists need to understand which proteins these sections of the genome code for and the role these proteins play in the body in the context of disease.

Over the last decade, Gerszten and colleagues have generated just such a database -- an immense library of all the proteins and metabolites associated with various regions of the human genome. When they looked up one genomic "hot spot" found to be associated with COVID-19 disease severity, they quickly realized that the very same region was linked to a protein that has recently been implicated in the process by which the SARS-CoV-2 virus infects human cells.

"Groups are increasingly finding genomic hotspots related to diseases, but it's often not clear how they impact the mechanisms of disease," said Gerszten. "We leveraged our huge database -- it's more than 100 terabytes' worth of data -- to very quickly determine that the protein most highly expressed by that region turned out to be a co-receptor for the virus that causes COVID-19, suggesting that this might be a target for therapeutic interventions. The so-called antibody cocktails currently available mostly target the spike proteins on the virus. In turn, our work identifies which proteins in the human body that SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses latch on to."

The second region was linked to a poorly understood protein that appears to play a role attracting immune cells called lymphocytes to sites of infection, which also merits further study. Early analyses from their work also suggest that these genetic variants and proteins may vary across races. Taken together, these findings provide important contributions as the scientific community works rapidly to understand the mysteries of COVID-19.

Wheat researchers at the John Innes Centre are pioneering a new technique that promises to improve gene discovery for the globally important crop.

Crop breeding involves assembling desired combinations of traits that are defined by underlying genetic variation. Part of this genetic variation often stays the same between generations, with certain genes being inherited together. These blocks of genes - very rarely broken up in genetic recombination - are called haplotype blocks. These haplotypes are the units that breeders switch and select between plants to create new crop lines.

In the new study which appears in Communications Biology John Innes Centre researchers led by the group of Professor Cristobal Uauy show that current platforms used by breeders do not provide the resolution needed to distinguish between haplotypes, potentially leading to inaccurate breeding decisions.

They defined shared haplotype-blocks across the 15 bread wheat cultivars assembled in the 10+ Wheat Genome Project a major international collaboration published today in Nature.

To illustrate the application of this haplotype-led approach to support crop improvement, they focused on a specific region of the wheat genome on chromosome 6A.

Through detailed genetic studies and extensive field experiments, they showed that UK breeders are maintaining multiple genes as an intact chromosome 6A haplotype to maximise the expression of desirable traits including flowering time and yield.

Given the low diversity on chromosome 6A, they tested the haplotype approach to discover and introduce novel haplotypes from wheat landraces not subjected to modern breeding.

Combining haplotype knowledge, genetics and field studies, they identified three novel haplotypes in the landraces associated with improved productivity traits in UK environments.

As these haplotypes are not present in modern germplasm, they represent novel variations that could be targeted for yield improvement in elite cultivars, using modern genomic tools.

Lead author Dr Jemima Brinton says: "We used strict criteria to distinguish these shared haplotype blocks from near-identical sequences. We argue that this stringency is essential for crop improvement. The breeding process is poised to undergo an improvement in precision and efficiency through haplotype-led breeding."

The knowledge generated in the study directly affect the breeding and discovery process by allowing scientists to:

Perform focused discovery of novel haplotypes and use breeding strategies to introduce this genetic diversity into modern germplasm.

Prioritise research targets to understand the biological functions of sequences selected by breeders

Perform more precise selection of parents to maximise genetic gains within breeding programmes

Intentionally assemble optimised haplotype combinations

To make the work more accessible to readers, scientists and breeders, the group developed a new haplotype visualisation interface at http://www.crop-haplotypes.com.

The lives of patients hospitalised with COVID-19 are being saved by doctors who are using an existing medical treatment at an earlier stage.

Dr Luigi Sedda of Lancaster University analysed the results from the team at Wrightington, Wigan and Leigh Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust (WWL). Their research has now been published in the prestigious medical journal BMJ Respiratory Open.

He said: "We show that Continuous Positive Airway Pressure (CPAP) in the first days of hospitalisation seems to save between 10% to 20% of patients. However it is important to underline that this was a pilot study with a small sample size, although comforting evidence is starting to emerge elsewhere."

According to NHS England, 96% of people who died with Covid had at least one serious health condition and the majority are over the age of 80.

The team led by Dr Abdul Ashish used the CPAP machines on patients with COVID-19 admitted to the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary in Wigan.

In the case of patients with severe acute respiratory syndrome, COVID-19 may cause the lungs to swell and collapse. Using CPAP treatment, which is often used at home to help people with sleep problems, helps to keep the lungs open and makes breathing easier.

The research conducted by the team showed how CPAP treatment can be delivered effectively in a ward setting, with low resources both across the country and worldwide where intensive care bed availability is limited.

The research has so far helped almost a hundred patients at the Royal Albert Edward Infirmary.

Consultant Respiratory Physician Dr Ashish said: "When you use CPAP early in the admission it stops the patient getting worse, therefore avoiding invasive ventilation techniques. As CPAP is readily available and can be used in a ward setting, we have demonstrated that, when used early, it can be very effective way of treating severe COVID-19 pneumonia.

"We are one of the early adopters of ward based CPAP in the North West and have developed local protocols and pathways by modifying our existing CPAP machines to deliver good outcomes for our patients."

The researchers also found that the early use of CPAP potentially reduces lung damage during the worst of the COVID-19 infection and allows the patient to recover from the inflammatory effects. However, when used later, CPCP does not prevent lung damage thus leading to additional inflammation and a reduction in survival chances.

Dr Martin Farrier, Associate Medical Director, said: ""We are at the forefront of developing care for COVID-19 patients and have developed a very effective treatment strategy for our population who develop lung failure following COVID-19 infection. The people of Wigan can be sure that they are going to get the best care at WWL because we have helped to develop the best care."

He praised Dr Luigi Sedda and his team at Lancaster University.

"This collaboration with Lancaster University has been remarkable and allowed us to deliver high quality research.

"The BMJ Respiratory Open is a very significant journal, but more than that, the results of the work are important in terms of our response to COVID-19 and for our organisation. This is the most important publication on the use of CPAP in treating COVID-19 patients and shows a significant association with a fall in mortality. The way that we treat patients here in Wigan has been influential in the way that patients are now treated in other organisations."