Culture

Alzheimer's disease is the most common dementia worldwide and it is characterized by learning impairment, memory loss, disorientation, and anxiety, among other behavioral and psychological symptoms. Since Alois Alzheimer described the first case at the beginning of the 20th century, important advances have been achieved in terms of understanding physiopathology, but, unfortunately, an effective treatment has not been developed yet.

Although what triggers Alzheimer's disease it is not well established, several researches claim that the aggregation of the Aβ peptide and of the tau protein, both present in normal brains, plays a pivotal role in Alzheimer's progression. Moreover, it is worth noting that there is a crosstalk between both, Aβ peptide and tau protein, which means that a reduction or an increase in one of them could affect the other. Thus, therapies directed to reduce Aβ, and recently to reduce tau, have been explored. However, the use of full-length antibodies targeting Aβ has not been effective in ameliorating cognitive decline and produced severe side effects in terms of neuroinflammation.

In previous studies, the Protein Design and Immunotherapy Group at the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of the UAB, led by Prof. Sandra Villegas, developed an antibody fragment, scFv-h3D6, able to reduce the levels of Aβ and to ameliorate memory loss in young, model of Alzheimer's disease, mice. However, what happens in advanced stages of the disease has never been studied before.

In a recent study published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences, the group has demonstrated that scFv-h3D6 is also effective in reducing Aβ levels in old mice, where the pathology is advanced the most. Interestingly, Aβ reduction because of scFv administration also produced a reduction in total tau levels and did not elicit any detectable side effect. Furthermore, a slight reduction in the neuroinflamatory extent featuring the AD brain was observed. Therefore, the treatment is efficient and safe.

"The main point of this study is that we have shown that therapy with antibody fragments works in the late phase of the disease, and not only decreases the main molecule in Alzheimer's, Aβ, but also reduces the levels of a second one, the tau protein, which ultimately kills the neuron and causes dementia", explains Sandra Villegas.
Future studies targeting both Aβ and tau pathologies in concert could show a putative pharmacological approach to treat this devastating disease.

Immunotherapy is a type of cancer treatment that helps the patient's immunological system to combat it and has a hugely positive impact in cancer treatments, even though it does not work in all cases: it is highly successful in some patients whereas in others it has little or no effect. Given the risks inherent in these procedures, a growing need has emerged to specify which patients are more likely to benefit from them, thus avoiding unnecessary exposure of those who will not benefit.

Fellow researchers from other centres in the Basque Country (Biocruces, PIE, BCAM), in Europe and the company FASTBASE Solutions Ltd have participated in the group led by Dr Larijani, who is also the director of the Centre for Therapeutic Innovation of the University of Bath (United Kingdom). The new predictive tool has been developed by using an advanced microscopy platform that identifies the interactions between the immune cells and the tumour cells and also informs about the activation state of the immune checkpoints that buffer the anti-tumour response.

The team has published its findings in the prestigious journal Cancer Research. Dr Larijani's team has analysed one immune checkpoint. In a healthy individual these checkpoints closely regulate the body's immune response, acting as a switch to prevent self-immune and inflammatory diseases.

Specifically, the immune checkpoint analysed comprises two proteins: PD-1 (present in immune cells known as T-lymphocytes) and PD-L1 (present in other types of immune cells and on the surface of many different types of tumours).

As a rule, when PD-1 on the surface of T-lymphocytes joins up with PD-L1 on the surface of other immune cells, it efficiently switches off the immune function of the T cell. And that is what tumour cells do: when PD-L1 is expressed on their surface, PD-1 is activated in the T-lymphocyte, so their anti-tumour function is deactivated and the tumour is allowed to survive and grow. The inhibitors used in immunotherapy function by interrupting the interaction between PD-L1 on the tumour and PD-1 in the T cell, thus restoring the patient's anti-tumour activity. This new tool determines the scope of the PD-1 / PD-L1 interaction in a tumour biopsy by predicting whether therapy using checkpoint inhibitors is likely to bring significant clinical benefits.

"Right now, decisions about whether to proceed with checkpoint inhibitor treatment are simply based on whether PD-1 and PD-L1 are present in the biopsies rather than in their functional state. However, our work has shown that it is much more important to know that the two proteins actually interact and, therefore, that they are likely to have a functional impact on the survival of the tumour," said Prof Larijani.

In their paper published in Frontiers of Physics, Franco Vazza (astrophysicist at the University of Bologna) and Alberto Feletti (neurosurgeon at the University of Verona) investigated the similarities between two of the most challenging and complex systems in nature: the cosmic network of galaxies and the network of neuronal cells in the human brain.

Despite the substantial difference in scale between the two networks (more than 27 orders of magnitude), their quantitative analysis, which sits at the crossroads of cosmology and neurosurgery, suggests that diverse physical processes can build structures characterized by similar levels of complexity and self-organization.

The human brain functions thanks to its wide neuronal network that is deemed to contain approximately 69 billion neurons. On the other hand, the observable universe can count upon a cosmic web of at least 100 billion galaxies. Within both systems, only 30% of their masses are composed of galaxies and neurons. Within both systems, galaxies and neurons arrange themselves in long filaments or nodes between the filaments. Finally, within both systems, 70% of the distribution of mass or energy is composed of components playing an apparently passive role: water in the brain and dark energy in the observable Universe.

Starting from the shared features of the two systems, researchers compared a simulation of the network of galaxies to sections of the cerebral cortex and the cerebellum. The goal was to observe how matter fluctuations scatter over such diverse scales.

"We calculated the spectral density of both systems. This is a technique often employed in cosmology for studying the spatial distribution of galaxies", explains Franco Vazza. "Our analysis showed that the distribution of the fluctuation within the cerebellum neuronal network on a scale from 1 micrometer to 0.1 millimeters follows the same progression of the distribution of matter in the cosmic web but, of course, on a larger scale that goes from 5 million to 500 million light-years".

The two researchers also calculated some parameters characterizing both the neuronal network and the cosmic web: the average number of connections in each node and the tendency of clustering several connections in relevant central nodes within the network.

"Once again, structural parameters have identified unexpected agreement levels. Probably, the connectivity within the two networks evolves following similar physical principles, despite the striking and obvious difference between the physical powers regulating galaxies and neurons", adds Alberto Feletti. "These two complex networks show more similarities than those shared between the cosmic web and a galaxy or a neuronal network and the inside of a neuronal body".

The encouraging results of this pilot study are prompting the researchers to think that new and effective analysis techniques in both fields, cosmology, and neurosurgery, will allow for a better understanding of the routed dynamics underlying the temporal evolution of these two systems.

Millions of years ago, in the warm Pacific Ocean off the coast of Southern California, walrus species without tusks lived abundantly.

But in a new study, Cal State Fullerton paleontologists have identified three new walrus species discovered in Orange County and one of the new species has "semi-tusks" -- or longer teeth.

The other two new species don't have tusks and all predate the evolution of the long iconic ivory tusks of the modern-day walrus, which lives in the frigid Arctic.

The researchers describe a total of 12 specimens of fossil walruses from Orange, Los Angeles and Santa Cruz counties, all estimated to be 5 to 10 million years old. The fossils represent five species, with two of the three new species represented by specimens of males, females and juveniles.

Their research, which gives insights on the dental and tusk evolution of the marine mammal, was published today in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Geology graduate Jacob Biewer, and his research adviser James F. Parham, associate professor of geological sciences, are authors of the study, based on fossil skull specimens.

Parham and Biewer worked with Jorge Velez-Juarbe, an expert in marine mammals at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, who is a co-author of the paper. Velez-Juarbe is a former postdoctoral scholar in Parham's lab and has collaborated on other CSUF fossil research projects. Parham is a research associate at the museum, which provides research opportunities for him and his students.

The researchers teamed to study and describe the anatomy of the specimens, most of which are part of the museum's collection.

"Orange County is the most important area for fossil walruses in the world," said Biewer, first author of the paper who conducted the research for his master's thesis. "This research shows how the walruses evolved with tusks."

Extinct Walrus Species Get Names

Today, there is only one walrus species and its scientific name is Odobenus.

For the new species found in Orange County, the researchers named the semi-tusked walrus, Osodobenus eodon, by combining the words Oso and Odobenus. Another is named Pontolis kohnoi in honor of Naoki Kohno, a fossil walrus researcher from Japan. Both of these fossils were discovered in the Irvine, Lake Forest and Mission Viejo areas.

Osodobenus eodon and Pontolis kohnoi are both from the same geological rock layer as the 2018 study by Parham and his students of another new genus and species of a tuskless walrus, Titanotaria orangensis, named after CSUF Titans. These fossils were found in the Oso Member of the Capistrano Formation, a geological formation near Lake Forest and Mission Viejo.

The third new walrus species, Pontolis barroni, was found in Aliso Viejo, near the 73 Toll Road. It is named after John Barron, a retired researcher from the U.S.Geological Survey and world expert on the rock layer where the specimens were found, Parham said.

Analysis of these specimens show that fossil walrus teeth are more variable and complex than previously considered. Most of the new specimens predate the evolution of tusks, Parham said.

"Osodobenus eodon is the most primitive walrus with tusk-like teeth," Parham said. "This new species demonstrates the important role of feeding ecology on the origin and early evolution of tusks."

Biewer explained that his work focused on getting a better understanding of the evolutionary history of the walrus in regards to its teeth.

"The importance of dental evolution is that it shows the variability within and across walrus species. Scientists assumed you could identify certain species just based on the teeth, but we show how even individuals of the same species could have variability in their dental setup," said Biewer, who earned a master's degree in geology in 2019.

"Additionally, everyone assumes that the tusks are the most important teeth in a walrus, but this research further emphasizes how tusks were a later addition to the history of walruses. The majority of walrus species were fish eaters and adapted to catching fish, rather than using suction feeding on mollusks like modern walruses."

Biewer, now a paleontologist in the Modesto area, also examined whether climate changes in the Pacific Ocean had an impact on ancient walruses. His work suggests that a rise in water temperature helped to boost nutrients and planktonic life, and played a role in the proliferation of walruses about 10 million years ago, which may have contributed to their diversity.

Sidebar:

For the fossil walrus research project, geology graduate Jacob Biewer spent hours in the lab measuring and describing the walrus bones.

"I sat many hours with a handy caliper taking notes on the lengths of teeth and width of skulls, among many other measurements," he said. "Describing bones is much more in depth and meticulous than it sounds. There are traits that the bones of each walrus species have -- the size, shape and number of teeth. I recorded how the bones are different from, or similar to, other extinct walrus species."

Biewer, a paleontologist who lives in Modesto, noted that despite the pandemic, he and Parham worked on the scientific paper with 300 miles of social distancing.

Completing his first journal publication, based on his master's work, and conducting the research project helped him to understand scientific methods and techniques that he now uses in his career, where he monitors construction sites for paleontological resources. He also teaches undergraduate geology courses at Cal State Stanislaus, where he earned a bachelor's degree in geology, and is considering pursuing a doctorate.

"The experiences I had in conducting this research, especially the presentations at national paleontological conferences, led to a big increase in my confidence in my scientific abilities," Biewer said. "I credit my time working with Dr. Parham directly to the achievements in my current employment -- from the skills he imparted to the doors he helped open."

A collaborative team of ecologists, led by those from Trinity College Dublin, has been using recordings of animal noises to assess biodiversity in sub-tropical Japan. The team assessed how effective these acoustic surveys were for pinpointing Okinawa's wild and wonderful fauna in different sonic conditions--and discovered that the incessant choruses of the local cicadas disguise the true diversity of the region.

The work, just published in the journal Ecological Indicators, underlines the great potential that acoustic surveys have for characterising the biodiversity of habitats while also highlighting some major potential pitfalls.

Many scientists believe we are now living through the sixth mass extinction in Earth's history, which has largely been driven by human actions and our exploitation of the environment, but there is general consensus that it is not too late to halt declines in biodiversity if we act now. However, we need to know which species (and how many) are present in any given habitat before designing conservation programmes.

Acoustic surveys

Acoustic surveys--simple audio recordings of the animal sounds in a habitat--offer the potential to record large volumes of data. They can do this relatively cheaply and easily, given that recording devices can be left unattended once set up. This technique also means researchers need not spend lengthy periods in unhospitable or dangerous habitats, species are more likely to be accounted for as they won't be scared away by human presence, and the data can be very sensitive as each species makes unique sounds.

However, the new research shows that consideration must be given to ambient conditions, with the time of day, season, and proximity to urban areas and human activity all likely to interfere to varying extents with the recordings, such that some species cannot be heard.
Interestingly, on the sub-tropical island of Okinawa off the coast of Japan, it is the incessant noise of the cicada insects that have the biggest impact in masking the hoots, clicks and chirps of hundreds of native animals.

Lead author of the study, Samuel Ross, is a PhD Candidate in Trinity's School of Natural Sciences. He said:

"In total, we used about 230 hours of sound recordings from a wide range of habitats across Okinawa to gain insights into the biodiversity of the region, to characterise how it changes near urban areas, and most importantly, to assess how effective the various audio recording and assessment techniques are in extracting reliable information."

"As you'd expect the weather is important, with heavy winds and rain affecting the information we can get from recordings, and human noise pollution is also problematic. However, it's cicadas that really impact the quality of such assessments during Okinawa's summer months."

To date, most bio-acoustic surveys have been conducted in the Tropics but the field is developing quickly and these monitoring techniques will prove useful in Ireland, which provides homes to a number of iconic, endangered animals.

Many of Ireland's creatures have a cultural significance and the ability to soothe and inspire, while other research is opening our eyes to the power of the acoustic environment in influencing mental health.

Samuel Ross added:

"These methods are still relatively new and the prospect that we can monitor biodiversity using only audio recording equipment is really exciting. I see this as the next frontier in assessing the state of the world's ecosystems."

The study was led by Samuel Ross and Ian Donohue, Associate Professor in Zoology, at Trinity, working closely with colleagues at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST), including Professor Evan Economo and Dr Nick Friedman, who run an island-wide project to monitor Okinawa's ecosystems using sound.

Dr Friedman added:

"The forests in Okinawa are really noisy when the cicadas are out. The sound they make is so loud, it's at least annoying if not painful. It conceals a lot of different species that are in the forest because they don't really bother calling to each other while the cicadas are going. Knowing this helps us strategise how to use soundscape recordings to measure biodiversity or track the health of an ecosystem."

PRINCETON, N.J.-- People around the world, especially in developing countries in Africa, Asia, and South America, consume wild game, or bushmeat, whether out of necessity, as a matter of taste preference, or, in the case of particularly desirable wildlife species, to connote a certain social status. Bushmeat consumption, however, has devasted the populations of hundreds of wildlife species and been linked to the spread of zoological diseases such as the Ebola virus.

New Princeton University research finds that when people in developing countries move from rural areas to cities, they consume less bushmeat over time, perhaps because other sources of animal protein are more readily available. They also found that children in urban areas generally have less of a taste for wild game than their parents. In the long term, this could be good news for conservation.

The researchers traveled to Brazil -- one of many countries worldwide experiencing a dramatic migration from rural to urban areas -- and interviewed thousands of adults and children about their wildlife consumption habits.

The study, published in the journal Conservation Biology, is among the first to explore how the consumption of wildlife changes as countries become increasingly urbanized. The results have profound implications for the rapidly growing wildlife trade, which is a multi-billion-dollar industry that threatens human health, drives species extinction, and damages ecosystems.

"In the Amazon, as in most developing countries, people are leaving rural areas and moving into cities. We find -- for whatever reason -- they are reducing their consumption of wild animals over time, providing a needed break for overhunted wildlife," said study co-author David Wilcove, professor of ecology and evolutionary biology and public affairs and the High Meadows Environmental Institute.

"A decline in per capita consumption of wild animals by urban residents gives us hope that pressure on hunted species may decrease over time. At the same time, we don't know whether this decline will be large enough to compensate for an increasing human population in urban areas," said Willandia Chaves, the lead author of the study, who worked on the project as a postdoctoral researcher at Princeton and is now an assistant professor in the Department of Fish and Wildlife Conservation at Virginia Tech.

Wilcove and Chaves conducted the study with Denis Valle of the University of Florida, Aline S. Tavares of the Universidade Federal do Amazonas, and Thais Q. Morcatty of Oxford Brookes University.

The researchers surveyed six small towns, three large towns, and Manaus, the largest city in the Amazon Basin. This included 1,356 households and 2,776 school-age children. They studied the consumption of imperiled tortoises and freshwater turtles, as they are among the top five most consumed and traded species in urban areas in the Amazon. An estimated 1.7 million turtles were eaten in northwestern Brazil in 2018.

While subsistence hunting is permitted, most wildmeat consumption in Brazil is illegal. Moreover, the turtle species that were being consumed where this study took place are highly endangered. For this reason, the researchers had to design a survey that would allow interviewees to honestly answer questions without implicating themselves.

To do this, they used dominoes. The head of each household (whether male or female) was asked a series of questions about their consumption of turtles (illegal) versus cornmeal (legal).

When asked, "Do you consume this item in your house?" respondents would randomly choose a domino from a bag: one dot represented cornmeal, and two dots for turtles. Because the researchers knew the ratio of one-dot to two-dot dominoes in the bag, they could calculate the consumption rates of turtles while protecting participants' responses by not linking the behavior to an individual participant.

While the domino approach is not new, it has rarely been employed in conservation studies, making this study more cutting-edge. "It's also exciting because it gives us much more reliable answers about sensitive activities than direct questioning does," Wilcove said.

Next, the researchers randomly selected 49 middle and high schools (11 in Manaus, 13 in large towns, and 25 in small towns) to study any generational differences in how much they liked and consumed bushmeat compared to adults. At each school, they randomly selected four classrooms and asked the schoolchildren to complete an anonymous questionnaire, with parental consent. This accounted for 2,700 students in 146 classrooms, and schoolchildren varied from 11 to 18 years in age.

First, the researchers found people generally consumed fewer turtles in larger urban areas. This could be because turtles cost more in larger cities than in small towns, and law enforcement also is likely stronger in larger urban centers. In small towns, on the other hand, the rates of turtle consumption are much higher, perhaps because people living there have ready access to wilder areas where the turtles live or perhaps because enforcement of wildlife laws is lax.

Second, children in urban areas are generally less likely to consume turtles than their parents. Social eating norms could play a role. If other children say it's "uncool" to eat turtles, then other kids might follow suit, or vice versa. Perhaps children consider the conservation implications of eating wildlife. Or perhaps it's simply because children's tastebuds haven't been fully developed. The researchers said more studies are needed to understand children's motivations.

"Is it a taste they will develop later in life, like children refusing to eat vegetables, or is it a lifelong switch?" Wilcove said. "We don't know yet, but the answer will mean a lot to the future of wildlife in the Amazon."

The researchers estimated that the overall consumption of endangered turtles in Amazonas state, the largest state in the Brazilian Amazon, is a very alarming 1.7 million turtles per year. Therefore, programs aimed at reducing consumption of illegal wildlife are urgently needed.

Certain towns seem to be "hotspots" for bushmeat consumption, so conservation efforts in those areas could be particularly important. Importantly, conservation education focused on schoolchildren, including increasing awareness regarding the plight of Amazonian turtles, could have long-term benefits if children forgo eating turtles as they become adults.

"Conservation efforts have focused on things like creating protected areas, working with rural communities to better manage wildlife, and improving enforcement - all important actions. However, unless we also target urban demand for wildlife, we will not be able to effectively address this issue," Chaves said.

"The bushmeat trade, both domestic and international has emerged as a massive threat to biodiversity, comparable to habitat destruction for some places. Yet, our knowledge of what drives this trade and how those drivers may change in the future is surprisingly weak. Until we better understand these issues, we are poorly equipped to solve this growing threat to wildlife," Wilcove said.

University of Texas at Dallas computer scientists have devised a new weapon against video game players who cheat.

The researchers developed their approach for detecting cheaters using the popular first-person shooter game Counter-Strike. But the mechanism can work for any massively multiplayer online (MMO) game that sends data traffic to a central server.

Their research was published online Aug. 3 in IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing.

Counter-Strike is a series of games in which players work in teams to counter terrorists by securing plant locations, defusing bombs and rescuing hostages. Players can earn in-game currency to buy more powerful weapons, which is a key to success. Various software cheats for the game are available online.

"Sometimes when you're playing against players who use cheats you can tell, but sometimes it may not be evident," said Md Shihabul Islam, a UT Dallas computer science doctoral student in the Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science and lead author of the study, who plays Counter-Strike for fun. "It's not fair to the other players."

In addition to fair play, cheating also can have an economic impact when dissatisfied players leave to play other games, Islam said.

Cheating incidents also can have serious consequences in esports, a fast-growing industry with annual revenues close to $1 billion. Cheating can result in sanctions against teams and players, including disqualification, forfeiture of prize money and a ban on future participation, according to the Esports Integrity Commission based in the United Kingdom.

Detecting cheating in MMO games can be challenging because the data that goes from a player's computer to the game server is encrypted. Previous research has relied on decrypted game logs to detect cheating after the fact. The UT Dallas researchers' approach eliminates the need for decrypted data and instead analyzes encrypted data traffic to and from the server in real time.

"Players who cheat send traffic in a different way," said Dr. Latifur Khan, an author of the study, professor of computer science and director of the Big Data Analytics and Management Lab at UT Dallas. "We're trying to capture those characteristics."

For the study, 20 students in the UT Dallas class Cyber Security Essentials for Practitioners downloaded Counter-Strike and three software cheats: an aimbot, which automatically targets an opponent; a speed hack, which allows the player to move faster; and a wallhack, which makes walls transparent so players can easily see their opponent. The researchers set up a server dedicated to the project so the students' activity would not disrupt other online players.

The researchers analyzed game traffic to and from the dedicated server. Data travels in packets, or bundles, of information. The packets can be different sizes, depending on the contents. Researchers analyzed features, including the number of incoming and outgoing packets, their size, the time they were transmitted, their direction and the number of packets in a burst, which is a group of consecutive packets.

By monitoring the data traffic from the student players, researchers identified patterns that indicated cheating. They then used that information to train a machine-learning model, a form of artificial intelligence, to predict cheating based on patterns and features in the game data.

The researchers adjusted their statistical model, based on a small set of gamers, to work for larger populations. Part of the cheat-detection mechanism involves sending the data traffic to a graphics processing unit, which is a parallel server, to make the process faster and take the workload off the main server's central processing unit.

The researchers plan to extend their work to create an approach for games that do not use a client-server architecture and to make the detection mechanism more secure. Islam said gaming companies could use the UT Dallas technique with their own data to train gaming software to detect cheating. If cheating is detected, the system could take immediate action.

"After detection," Khan said, "we can give a warning and gracefully kick the player out if they continue with the cheating during a fixed time interval.

"Our aim is to ensure that games like Counter-Strike remain fun and fair for all players."

PRINCETON, N.J. --Countries across the globe have been struggling to deal with the impact of Covid-19 and its accompanying economic slowdown. As economies "build back better," it may be an opportune time to introduce carbon pricing to tackle climate change, according to new Princeton University policy research.

While endorsed by many economists, carbon pricing has been slower to gain traction because of its potential to shock economies and the difficulty of securing political support for increasing taxes. However, fuel prices are already low and people are buying fewer goods and traveling less, so there could be greater benefits to introducing or strengthening carbon prices, the authors argue in the journal Climate Policy.

Carbon pricing -- whether in the form of taxes or emissions trading -- is an economic approach to account for the environmental costs of emitting greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels. Carbon taxes typically apply to the producer with increased costs ultimately trickling down to any activity using carbon. For example, oil-extraction companies would be taxed, adding costs to any process that involved burning oil. Emissions-trading schemes set some cap on emissions and permits to emit are traded, but the number of total permits available correspond to that cap.

"When we think about long-term problems like the pandemic or climate change, it's easy to assume that the solutions could conflict since they all require massive resources," said lead author Kian Mintz-Woo, a former postdoctoral research associate in Princeton's University Center for Human Values and the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA). "But what we describe in this article is how the context of the coronavirus crisis actually provides a unique opportunity for mutually reinforcing forward-thinking solutions to improve sustainability and wellbeing as countries recover."

Mintz-Woo, who recently joined the Philosophy and Environmental Research Institute at University College Cork, Ireland, added that this research expands on an op-ed co-authored with Princeton Professor Peter Singer published on May 7 by Project Syndicate.

With markets already reorienting to adjust to supply-and-demand shocks brought on by the pandemic, introducing carbon pricing now would result in marginally less disruption and could actually help drive greener economic activity. Placing a price on carbon could prompt industries to move away from more costly fossil-fuel intensive practices and toward long-term economic and environmental sustainability.

"Since carbon pollution already increases health and environmental costs borne by society, forcing those generating the costs to pay for them would lead to fairer production and consumption," Mintz-Woo said.

In the context of low fuel prices over an extended period, as seen in recent months, the researchers suggest that a carbon tax could help stabilize prices and ensure that renewable energy sources -- the prices of which were becoming cost-competitive even before the Covid-19 crisis -- can remain competitive. The researchers say that as economies move toward recovery, a carbon price can drive individuals and firms to adopt less carbon-intensive processes, rather than locking-in unsustainable energy practices that will ultimately require more drastic future corrections.

"Preventing commitment to future emissions is the key," Mintz-Woo said. "But that cannot come at the expense of those who may be at risk for job losses in this transition. Governments should use the revenue to both reduce any regressive effects of the taxation and retrain those who come from industries that could be adversely affected."

The researchers acknowledge that governments are under pressure to prioritize economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis, so any policy changes with the potential to dampen a stimulus effect could be unpopular. However, they argue that high prices are not the primary obstacle to consumer purchasing; the cause of the economic slowdown has more to do with restricted market activity during the pandemic.

Revenue generated from a carbon price could contribute toward government spending on social safety nets, fund other green priorities to drive innovation and new jobs, or be returned as credits to taxpayers. In all cases, the potential revenue source could be a welcome infusion during the Covid-19 crisis, when regional and national governments face massive fiscal shortfalls which can be expected to grow in the coming months.

"Right now, governments are considering bailouts for carbon-intensive sectors, like the airline industry," Mintz-Woo said. "While it's really hard on employees in that industry right now, government money would be far better spent on clean research and development investments and other strategies to help companies prepare for the future. And that means preparing for employment transitions away from carbon-intensive jobs and towards areas that will be more beneficial to the environment. Carbon pricing can help us do just that."

Health care workers -- particularly nurses -- have a higher prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection than non-health care workers, according to researchers at Rutgers, which released baseline results from a large prospective study of participants at Rutgers and affiliated hospitals recruited during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The study, published in the journal BMC Infectious Diseases, found that in early spring, the participants most likely to test positive for COVID-19 were nurses, workers taking care of multiple patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and those who worked in a hospital with a higher proportion of infected patients.

As of Nov. 15, 2020, according to the CDC, there were more than 216,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases among health care workers in the United States, leading to at least 799 deaths. The Rutgers study evaluated 546 health care workers with direct patient exposure at two New Jersey hospitals and 283 non-health care workers with no direct patient contact.

At the start of the study in March, 40 health care workers and one non-health care worker tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 infection. Among all participants enrolled, more than 7 percent of health care workers were found to be positive for the novel coronavirus as compared to the very low rates of positive testing among non-health care workers. Also, consistent with disparities observed in the general public, Black and Hispanic participants had more positive test results.

Health care workers who reported caring for five or more patients with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 and those who spent a greater proportion of their time in patients' rooms were more likely to test positive for the infection themselves.

Of the 40 infected health care workers, 25 were nurses. Intensive care unit workers had the lowest rates of infections among the health care workers, possibly due to the more consistent use of personal protective equipment.

"We have all heard about how health care workers are the heroes on the frontlines of this pandemic, but we still don't have solid answers about the risks to health care workers and who is most at risk ," said lead co-author Emily Barrett, an associate professor of biostatistics and epidemiology at Rutgers School of Public Health. "The initial results show that at the beginning of the pandemic, the higher rate of infection observed in urban North New Jersey areas, like Newark, was also reflected in the health care workers serving those communities."

"The baseline data reported here have helped us to monitor the spread of infection and examine risk factors for transmission among health care workers and others," said lead co-author Daniel Horton, an assistant professor of pediatrics at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and assistant professor of epidemiology at Rutgers School of Public Health. "These findings and our ongoing follow-up of study participants have informed local strategies to protect the health care workforce, their families and their patients."

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. - Nov. 16, 2020 - Even before the pandemic and the presidential election, Americans reported some of the highest perceived levels of stress in the world, according to the American Psychological Association. Not only does stress have negative effects on work and personal relationships, it also increases the risk of many chronic conditions, such as heart disease and Alzheimer's disease, and is associated with higher mortality rates.

But eating a Mediterranean diet may provide a relatively easy way to help lessen the physiological effects of stress and promote healthy aging, according to a new study conducted by researchers at Wake Forest School of Medicine, part of Wake Forest Baptist Health.

Findings from the study, the first preclinical trial to measure the effects of long-term consumption of a Western versus Mediterranean diet on stress under controlled experimental conditions, are published in the current online edition of the journal Neurobiology of Stress.

"It is very difficult to control or reduce stressors in our lives," said Carol A. Shively, Ph.D., professor of pathology and comparative medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine and principal investigator of the study. "But we do know that we can control our diet, and previous observational studies have suggested that lower perceived stress is associated with high fruit and vegetable consumption.

"Unfortunately, Americans consume a diet rich in animal protein and saturated fat, salt and sugar, so we wanted to find out if that diet worsened the body's response to stress compared to a Mediterranean diet, in which much of the protein and fat come from plant sources."

The researchers studied the effects of the chronic stress of low social status and the acute stress of being socially isolated for 30 minutes in 38 middle-age animals that were fed either a Mediterranean or Western diet. The diets were formulated to closely reflect human diets, with protein and fat derived largely from animal sources in the Western group and primarily from plant sources in the Mediterranean group.

To determine the diets' effect on stress responses, the scientists measured changes in the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems and in the adrenal gland hormone cortisol, in response to acute and chronic stress.

The sympathetic nervous system is involved in the "fight or flight" response and regulates bodily functions such as heart rate and blood pressure. The parasympathetic nervous system has opposite effects that help the body return to a calmer state. High sympathetic nervous system activity can be harmful to health, so maintaining a healthy balance between the two systems is important, Shively said.

Cortisol, the body's main stress hormone, helps the body access resources needed to fight or flee. However, if stress is continuous, cortisol levels stay high and damage tissues.

Compared to animals fed a Western diet, those fed the Mediterranean diet exhibited enhanced stress resilience as indicated by lower sympathetic nervous system and cortisol responses to stress, and more rapid recovery after the stress ended, Shively said.

"Our study showed that the Mediterranean diet shifted the balance toward the parasympathetic nervous system, which is good for health," Shively said. "By contrast, the Western diet increased the sympathetic response to stress, which is like having the panic button on all the time - and that isn't healthy."

As the animals aged over the 31-month study, which is equivalent to about 9 years in humans, the research group noted that sympathetic nervous system activity increased. However, the Mediterranean diet slowed the aging of the sympathetic nervous system.

The study's findings suggest that population-wide adoption of a Mediterranean-like diet may provide a relatively simple and cost-effective intervention to reduce the negative impact of psychological stress on health and delay nervous system aging, Shively said.

DALLAS, Nov. 16, 2020 -- Atrial fibrillation (AF), an irregular heartbeat that can increase the likelihood of stroke, was detected up to 10 times more frequently in high risk patients recovering from heart surgery who wore a continuous cardiac monitor for a month, compared to patients who had usual follow-up care following their procedure, according to late breaking research presented today at the American Heart Association's Scientific Sessions 2020. The meeting is virtually, Friday, November 13-Tuesday, November 17, 2020, and is a premier global exchange of the latest scientific advancements, research and evidence-based clinical practice updates in cardiovascular science for health care worldwide.

"The incidence of post-operative atrial fibrillation (POAF) after discharge from cardiac surgery is not well defined," said Subodh Verma, M.D., Ph.D., a cardiac surgeon at St. Michael's Hospital, University of Toronto in Canada, and one of the lead authors of the study. "Most studies are limited to the hospitalization phase only; studies beyond hospitalization are few. In addition, very little is known about patients who have little to no AF during hospitalization after cardiac surgery, and they are often sent home with no treatment. Therefore, the question of whether the risk of POAF extends after hospitalization remains an important and unanswered question, especially for patients who had no previous history of AF. Quantifying the risk of ongoing POAF after hospitalization is important because many patients have elevated stroke risk scores that increase the need for prompt AF treatment."

Researchers followed a total of 336 patients treated at eight medical centers across Canada who were recovering from cardiac surgery. The study participants did not have a history of atrial fibrillation prior to surgery and were at-risk for stroke based upon factors including their cardiac health, age and medical history.

The patients in the study were randomly assigned to two groups: 163 study participants underwent 30 days of 24-hour, real time, cardiac rhythm monitoring through an adhesive, patch-based monitor worn on their chest; 173 participants were in the control group and received 30 days of usual care, which did not involve planned cardiac rhythm testing/electrocardiogram assessment unless it was deemed medically necessary. The patients in both groups then had 14 days of continuous cardiac rhythm monitoring approximately six to nine months after their surgery.

The study determined that in the patient group who wore the 24-hour monitoring patch, atrial fibrillation was detected at a rate 10 times higher than in those who received usual care. Atrial fibrillation or atrial flutter lasting ?6 minutes occurred and was detected in 32 (19.6%) patients from the monitoring group and in three (1.7%) patients who received normal care during the 30 days they were followed.

"Our study points to the fact that POAF is not self-limited to hospital stay per se. A significant risk of POAF persists even in those patients without any preoperative or pre-discharge AF. These data may help inform physicians about the importance of surveillance and vigilance in patients at high risk of stroke with respect to monitoring and prompt treatment for AF," added Verma.

Managing the activity of the BCAP protein could help the body repair intestinal tissue from damage caused by inflammation, according to a new study led by experts at Cincinnati Children's.

The findings, published online Nov. 16, 2020, in PNAS, suggest that targeting BCAP with new medications could benefit people living with conditions such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

The multi-center research team was led by first author Ricardo Irizarry-Caro, BSc, and senior author Chandrashekhar Pasare, DVM, PhD, at Cincinnati Children's Division of Immunobiology,

"This study provides fundamental understanding of how macrophages regulate their responses to pathogens to provide an effective yet controlled inflammatory response and avoid damage of the host tissue," Pasare says. "More importantly, this study has implications for small-molecule drug discovery targeting BCAP, which could be used to either promote reparative macrophage transition or induce a robust inflammatory response by just altering one single protein."

Dampening inflammation would be helpful for managing inflammatory diseases such as IBD and rheumatoid arthritis. Meanwhile, in cancer treatment, promoting inflammation could help drive immune responses against solid tumors.

Macrophages and Inflammation

When macrophages sense bacterial pathogens such as E.coli, they activate an inflammatory response to get rid of the pathogen. However, this response needs to be kept in check to avoid damaging host tissue.

The new study shows that macrophages employ a molecule called BCAP to transition into a reparative state following clearance of infection. Turning down macrophage-triggered immune response once their task is complete is important because uncontrolled inflammation can lead to diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease (IBD).

Macrophages utilize Toll-Like Receptors (TLRs) to sense various pathogens, and activation of these receptors leads to early inflammation. The authors found that downstream of TLR activation, BCAP simultaneously activates a parallel pathway called the PI3K-AKT pathway, which acts to limit these inflammatory signals.

Specifically, researchers found that BCAP downstream of TLR activation inhibited two key proteins, GSK3b and FOXO1, which places a cap on the inflammation triggered by pathogen sensing. Yet this cap was not enough by itself to make macrophages stand down.

The team also found that BCAP was necessary for promoting a metabolic process called 'histone lactylation,' which leads to macrophage transition and supports intestinal repair after injury.

The co-authors say future research will focus on finding or developing drugs capable of controlling BCAP activity to dampen inflammation and promote tissue repair.

LAWRENCE -- Climate change is an emotionally charged topic that can stir political arguments and inspire people to take action. How people talk about it, especially news media and organizations dedicated to combating the issue, can influence how people think about climate change, a University of Kansas researcher shows in a pair of new studies.

Compelling arguments in climate change news

In one study, Hong Tien Vu, assistant professor of journalism & mass communications at KU, and co-authors examined the concept of "compelling arguments" in news media and how it affects public opinion. The study analyzed data from George Mason and Yale universities that surveyed Americans twice a year between 2009 and 2015. It compared that data to media coverage of climate change from The New York Times and Wall Street Journal published before each data collection. Previous research has focused on how coverage is communicated, but the current study incorporated sentiment and emotion of coverage and readers.

"What we wanted to see is, when incorporating emotion, if it affects how people think about climate change," Vu said. "When we factor in these variables, we can see it does in fact influence the way people view the issue."

The study appears in The Agenda Setting Journal and was co-written with Maxwell McCombs of the University of Texas at Austin, Annelise Russell of the University of Kentucky and Paromita Pain of the University of Nevada Reno. It analyzed three attributes of news coverage: existence, effects and solutions, or if the coverage states the problem exists, the effects it has on the planet and what can be done about it. That was compared to how people reported feeling about the issue, in positive or negative emotions, anger or sadness.

The findings showed climate change effects were mentioned most in the coverage, followed by solutions, then existence. Anger had the strongest influence on the salience of the issue on the public, as the more coverage used anger as a way to discuss the issue, the less people felt it was important. Positive emotions in coverage correlated with the public seeing the issue's importance. Priority of the matter also increased with use of negative emotions included in coverage. Anger also played the strongest role when compared to coverage of climate change effects and solutions. When demographic information was included, only political identification had significant effect on how people felt about climate change, showing that the issue has been highly politicized in the United States.

The results show that how media cover the topic can affect how people think about it. Media and media scholarship have long subscribed to a doctrine of presenting two sides of an issue, even if they are not even or there is little argument in favor of a given side. In public affairs news of great importance, such as climate change, news media has a responsibility to properly inform the public.

"When you talk about climate change, it's pretty abstract. News media has to help people make sense of it," Vu said. "What we found was, when we incorporate emotion, the significance level is higher, or the effects of the news on public opinion is higher. Covering facts alone is important, but we clearly see when emotion is included, it has an effect on the perceptions of the public. It's a fine line to walk."

NGOs and climate change social media activism

As the study on media message framing showed, climate change has been highly politicized, which has led to some news outlets not reporting on the topic or doing so in a way that supports a given agenda. With that in mind, Vu and colleagues conducted a study in which they analyzed how global climate nonprofits communicated about the issue through Facebook.

"That makes it very difficult for people to grasp the issue," Vu said of scant news coverage. "That's where I see the role of NGOs being important. Because they are on the ground, they can create resonance with audiences, including the public and policymakers. NGOs have the tools of the emerging media environment at their disposal."

The study analyzed climate change messages on Facebook from 289 climate NGOs in 18 countries. Forthcoming in the journal Science Communication, it was co-written with Matthew Blomberg, Hyunjin Seo, Yuchen Liu and Fatemeh Shayesteh, of KU's School of Journalism & Mass Communications, and Hung Viet Do of Trader Interactive. It analyzed the frames the organizations use in their messaging, including impact, action and efficacy. Impact refers to whether messages talked about the effects of climate change nationally or globally and if they happened in the past, are happening now or will happen in the future. Action applied to who can and should take action, while efficacy examined if messages created a sense of hope that people's actions will make a difference.

The analysis revealed that, in their messages aimed at persuasion, the NGOs used the action frame most frequently, followed by impact. Efficacy was used the least. The researchers also compared characteristics of the home nation of each NGO and the effect that had on message frames used. They found developed nations were more likely to discuss climate actions than developed countries, which focused more on impact, and framed climate change as a global issue affecting everyone.

"If we look at the issue globally, countries are very different from each other and compete with each other," Vu said. "There have been differences in how all countries should work together to combat climate change. Global climate NGOs can work across the world to bridge those differences and mobilize countries to work together. How they communicate about climate change is, therefore, important."

Findings also showed NGOs tend to use a diagnostic frame most often. In other words, the majority of their messages focused on identifying problems more than coming up with solutions or motivating people to understand the issue or take action.

Understanding how NGOs communicate via social media is vital, given their unique ability to reach audiences of people dedicated to combating the issue and policymakers, while bypassing the traditional gatekeepers of media, Vu said. He has previously conducted research about how NGOs discuss the topic on Twitter, and such analysis can help illustrate which methods are the most effective, which parts of the world are leading the conversation and how best to motivate people to take action.

AURORA, Colo. (November 16, 2020) - Researchers at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus have found that many pregnant Black Americans have low levels of choline, an essential nutrient that aids in prenatal brain development. Stress caused by institutional racism may play a role.

The study, out now in Schizophrenia Bulletin, also found that these low levels of choline were associated with higher levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Higher cortisol induces the mother to hold choline in her liver instead of delivering it to the baby.

"One of the possible causes of higher cortisol and lower choline levels in Black American women is the burden of institutional racism and the chronic subconscious stress that it causes," said Robert Freedman, MD, professor of psychiatry at the CU Anschutz Medical Campus and the study's lead researcher.

Women with lower levels of choline delivered on average two weeks prematurely, putting the babies at an increased risk of attention deficit disorder and other childhood mental health problems.

Researchers surveyed a sample of 183 pregnant women, with 25 self-identified Black women.

Choline levels in Black women were lower than those of white women from the same neighborhoods. While Black participants did not indicate more stress, their hair cortisol levels were markedly higher.

Researchers also examined a group of pregnant Black women in Uganda. Choline levels obtained from those 166 participants were significantly higher than Black American levels, indicating that high stress rather than ancestry contributes to low choline levels in Black American women.

In a separate clinical trial with 100 pregnant women, 50 women, of whom seven were Black, received a phosphatidylcholine supplement to raise their choline levels. Fifty received a placebo, eight of them were Black.

Both groups received instruction on how to increase choline in their diets. Premature birth was prevented in the seven Black women who received choline supplements, but not in the eight who received placebo. By age four, their children had fewer problems with attention and social behavior with others.

These two studies combined represent the largest group of Black women studied for the effects of prenatal choline on the outcome of their pregnancy.

"We hope to get the word out, to all women and especially to stressed, pregnant Black women, that taking supplemental choline, in addition to the prenatal vitamins they already take, can significantly improve outcomes for their children," said Freedman.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] -- The old ethics rules are no longer offering adequate protection to field research subjects, according to two leading social scientists from Brown and Pennsylvania State Universities -- and as a result, individual people and even entire societies are being left vulnerable to financial ruin, emotional manipulation and more.

In a peer-reviewed essay, Rose McDermott, a professor of international relations at Brown, and Peter K. Hatemi, a professor of political science at Pennsylvania State, argue that the advent of computers, the internet and social media have yielded massive change in the design and execution of certain types of large field experiments -- change that traditional ethics guidelines couldn't have anticipated.

Equipped with no widespread formal guidelines on securing voluntary consent in the internet age, scientists are designing big experiments that can, and often do, cause harm, McDermott and Hatemi say. But if research institutions, leading journals and scientific professional organizations were to publish and enforce updated ethical standards, scientists might better understand how to gather important insights without unintentionally damaging people and societies.

"The concern we're voicing is that early ethical guidance doesn't account for field experiments on huge numbers of people, because these experiments weren't common or even possible before the 1990s," McDermott said. "There's evidence that some of these recent experiments have stoked racial resentment, changed election outcomes and caused huge societal divisions. We're not saying these kinds of big field experiments aren't valuable -- we're saying we need to come up with ways to do it ethically."

McDermott's and Hatemi's essay was published as a "Perspective" piece on Monday, Nov. 15 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Perspective pieces undergo the same submission and review processes as research reports, but rather than describing the results of original research, they present a balanced, objective and thoroughly researched viewpoint on a specific field.

McDermott said that when today's scientists design experiments, they most often refer to ethical guidelines written decades ago, such as the Declaration of Helsinki -- a much-revised medical ethics guide first written in 1964 -- and the 1979 report "Ethical Principles and Guidelines for the Protection of Human Subjects of Research," now commonly known as the Belmont Report. But those guidelines, she said, were not created with computers, the internet and social media in mind.

"You've had a rise in the ability to do massive computing projects and analyze lots of data very quickly," McDermott said. "With social media platforms, you can have all kinds of access to huge populations. Combine with that the immense pressure on academics to publish high-impact research quickly and frequently, and you've got a world that looks very different than it did when the Belmont Report was published."

As a result, McDermott said, researchers have recently undertaken studies that made important discoveries but also changed people's behaviors, caused them trauma or even financially endangered them.

For example, several studies that have sought to identify what increases or depresses voter turnout have unintentionally altered election outcomes by influencing voters with racially-charged mailers and phone calls and door-to-door visits from fake political candidates. Scientists seeking to understand how social media alters people's moods and political affiliations have inadvertently engaged in the emotional manipulation of hundreds of thousands of people by pushing certain types of posts to their feeds. And many studies investigating the benefits and drawbacks of financial assistance have purposely given or withheld money from research subjects, causing them to become homeless or suffer from increased domestic violence.

"Science is a process of trial and error, and I think in the early days of large field experiments, people couldn't anticipate what might happen to the subjects," McDermott said. "But now we do know what can happen if we're not careful. We need to stop, take a breath and take stock of the damage some of these experiments have done so that we can learn from those mistakes and implement changes."

Those changes, McDermott and Hatemi argue, must come primarily from the top down. In their essay, the two scholars called on academic professional associations, journals and research institutions to update their policies to not only adhere to existing ethical norms but also formulate new requirements to address potential harm in large-scale field experiments that impact entire populations.

McDermott said she hopes the PNAS essay helps spur the kind of systemic change Henry Knowles Beecher kickstarted with his famous 1966 essay exposing unethical practices in the field of medical experimentation. Beecher's investigation eventually led to the passage of federal rules requiring scientists to obtain informed consent from study participants.

"While we would be happy to see individual scholars and individual universities addressing issues of informed consent in their field research, real change can only happen if it's systemic," McDermott said. "It's just like reversing climate change: Yes, it's good that you bought a Prius, but really what we need is for governments to shut down coal-fired plants. All of the institutions that hold power in science need to work in concert."