Culture

A group of researchers from Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin have confirmed Germany's first-ever case of animal-to-human transmission involving a specific species of virus known as the 'Seoul virus'. Working alongside colleagues from Friedrich-Loeffer-Institut (FLI), the researchers were able to confirm the presence of the virus in a young female patient and her pet rat. Their findings, which have been published in Emerging Infectious Diseases*, may influence the way in which we deal with both wild and domesticated rats.

Following multiple outbreaks earlier in the 21st century, hantavirus disease syndromes have gained increasing levels of public attention and were made notifiable in Germany in 2001. The Puumala and Dobrava-Belgrade viruses, for instance, which are common across central Europe and can be spread by numerous types of mice, usually cause acute fever. Occasionally, infection may result in HFRS (hemorrhagic fever with renal syndrome), an illness characterized by fever, low blood pressure and acute kidney failure. The Seoul virus, in contrast, which is mainly found in Asia and transmitted exclusively by rats, is far more likely to cause severe disease. Even outside Asia, however, there have been numerous reports of rat-to-human transmission of this highly virulent virus.

For the first time, a team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Jörg Hofmann, Head of the National Consultant Laboratory for Hantaviruses at Charité's Institute of Virology, has been able to describe an autochthonous (i.e. acquired in Germany) case of Seoul virus infection transmitted by a rat. Working in close collaboration with a team of researchers led by Prof. Dr. Rainer G. Ulrich at the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut (FLI) in Greifswald and colleagues at both local and regional health authorities, the researchers were able to identify the virus in samples from a young female patient from Lower Saxony and her pet rat. "The virus originally comes from Asia and was probably carried to Europe by wild rats on ships. However, it had not previously been observed in Germany," says the study's first author, Prof. Hofmann. The infected rat, which had been bred for domestic life, is likely to have been imported from a different country.

After developing symptoms of acute kidney failure, the young patient required intensive care treatment and was hospitalized for several days. Serology testing quickly confirmed a suspected diagnosis of hantavirus infection. The species of hantavirus responsible, however, remained unclear.

Working at Charité's specialist hantavirus laboratory, Prof. Hofmann and his team of researchers developed a special molecular diagnostic technique capable of identifying the Seoul virus in samples collected from the patient. Using the same technique, experts at the Friedrich-Loeffler-Institut were able to confirm that the patient's pet rat had been infected by the same virus. Explaining the results, Prof. Hofmann says: "Both viral sequences - the patient's and the rat's - were identical. This confirms that the disease was transmitted by an animal to a person - which means it is a zoonotic disease."

"Until now, only contact with mice would result in a suspected diagnosis of hantavirus infection. It will now be necessary to consider the possibility of infection after contact with either wild or domesticated rats as well," caution the study's authors. "The fact that this pathogen has been confirmed in a pet rat also means that the virus is capable of being exported, via the trade in these animals, practically anywhere in the world." Those keeping rats are therefore advised to exercise caution.

A new analysis of the United States government's response to COVID-19 highlights myriad problems with an approach that relied, in large part, on international supply chains and the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS). A panel of academic and military experts is instead calling for a more dynamic, flexible approach to emergency preparedness at the national level.

"When COVID-19 hit, the U.S. was unable to provide adequate testing supplies and equipment, unable to provide adequate personal protective equipment (PPE), and didn't have a functioning plan," says Rob Handfield, first author of the study and Bank of America University Distinguished Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at North Carolina State University.

"The SNS hadn't replenished some of its supplies since the H1N1 pandemic in 2009-10. Many of its supplies were expired. And there was no clear leadership. Federal authorities punted problems to the states, leaving states to fight each other for limited resources. And the result was chaos.

"We need to be talking about this now, because the nation needs to be better prepared next time. And there is always a next time."

To that end, Handfield and collaborators from NC State, Arizona State University, the Naval Postgraduate School and the Air Force's Contracting Career Field Management Team came together to outline the components that are necessary to ensure that there is an adequate federal response to future health crises. They determined that an effective federal program needs to address five criteria:

More Flexibility: In order to respond to unanticipated threats, any government system needs to have sufficient market intelligence to insure that it has lots of options, relationships and suppliers across the private sector for securing basic needs.

"You can't stockpile supplies for every possible contingency," Handfield says.

Inventory Visibility: The government would need to know what supplies it has, where those supplies are, and when those supplies expire. Ideally, it would also know which supplies are available in what amounts in the private sector, as well as how quickly it could purchase those supplies.

"The same is true on the demand side," Handfield says. "What do people need? Where? When?"

Responsiveness: The governmental institution overseeing emergency preparation needs to have leadership that can review information as it becomes available and work with experts to secure and distribute supplies efficiently. This would be an ongoing process, rather than a system that is put in place only in the event of crises.

Global Independence: The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the fact that the U.S. has outsourced manufacturing of critical biomedical materiel, because it was cheaper. Authorities need to consider investing in domestic manufacturing of PPE, testing supplies and equipment, pharmaceutical chemicals, syringes, and other biomedical supplies.

"The past year has really driven home the consequences of being dependent on other nations to meet basic needs during a pandemic," Handfield says. "Relying largely on the least expensive suppliers for a given product has consequences."

Equitable: The government needs to ensure that supplies get to where they are most needed in order to reduce the infighting and hoarding that we've seen in the COVID-19 pandemic.

"A first step here is to settle on a way of determining how to prioritize needs and how we would define an equitable allocation and distribution of supplies," Handfield says.

The last ingredient is bureaucratic: Coordinating all five of these components should be done by a permanent team that is focused solely on national preparation and ensuring that the relevant federal agencies are all on the same page.

"This is a fundamental shift away from the static approach of the SNS," Handfield says. "We need to begin exploring each of these components in more detail - and defining what a governing structure would look like. We don't know how long we'll have until we face another crisis."

COLUMBUS, Ohio - A new national survey by The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center finds that although a majority of Americans plan to take precautions at holiday gatherings, such as social distancing and asking those with COVID symptoms not to attend, many will also put themselves at risk. Nearly two in five report they will likely attend a gathering with more than 10 people and a third will not ask guests to wear masks.

This holiday season comes with a lot of worry and stress as families try to find ways to balance their desire to celebrate together with the risk of spreading COVID-19. While cases of the virus remain high, colder weather across the country is forcing gatherings indoors, where the virus can more easily spread.

"We're going to look back at what happened during this holiday season and ask ourselves, 'Were we part of the solution or were we part of the problem?'" said Dr. Iahn Gonsenhauser, chief quality and patient safety officer at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. "When you're gathered together around the table, engaged in conversation, sitting less than six feet apart with your masks down, even in a small group, that's when the spread of this virus can really happen."

Gonsenhauser says the safest solution is the one that people don't want to hear: find ways to communicate virtually and cancel in-person plans. However, if you do decide to have guests, it's important to have a plan in place and to communicate that plan to everyone attending. Consider wearing masks at all times, separating seating arrangements by household and assigning one or two people to serve the food. If you're moving your holiday plans outdoors, make sure to follow the same precautions you would indoors. And if you plan to travel or welcome out-of-town guests, stay informed about the COVID-19 rates and restrictions in both locations.

"If you have someone in your household who's high risk and you're in a low incidence area, you're going to want to think twice about having a celebration where people are coming from an area where there's a lot of virus in the community," Gonsenhauser said.

While celebrations will certainly look different this year, Gonsenhauser says it can also be an opportunity to make treasured memories with loved ones and experiment with new traditions. Try a virtual dinner or gift exchange or drop off surprise treats on friends' and family members' door steps.

The Bird 10,000 Genome Project (B10K) is a large international project co-led by University of Copenhagen, China National Genebank at BGI-Shenzhen, the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, Rockefeller University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences. In a study published today in Nature, the B10K achieved its family phase milestone releasing genomic resources for 363 bird species including 267 new genomes, and illustrating how these resources give improved resolution on genomic evolution analyses.

The paper also established a new pipeline to analyze the unprecedented scale of genomic data, which revealed a detailed landscape of genomic sequence gains and losses across bird lineages. The study showed that the passerine birds, the largest extant order of bird species, possessed genomic features that differed from other bird groups. Passerine genomes also contain an additional copy of the growth hormone gene. The songbirds, a group of Passeriformes, have lost a gene called cornulin, which might have contributed to the evolution of their diverse pure-tone vocalizations. Dense genomic sampling also facilitated the detection of signals of natural selection down to the single-base level, which may not be possible with few genomes.

- "Such detection power was only possible when the species were densely represented in the comparative genomic analyses," said Guojie Zhang, a principal investigator on the B10K and head of the Villum Centre for Biodiversity Genomics at Department of Biology, University of Copenhagen. "These genomes allow us to explore the genomic variations among different bird groups and help to understand their diversification processes".

The large collaborative effort involved over 150 researchers from 125 institutions in 24 countries. To sequence the bird genomes, the project heavily relies on tissue samples stored in museums around the globe. The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History, the Natural History Museum of Denmark, and the Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science contributed the majority of the samples for the project. This allowed them to sequence genomes from rare and endangered birds, which will be important resources for conservation actions.

Thirty years ago, the cloning of the green fluorescent protein GFP, together with genetic engineering tools, revolutionized biology by enabling researchers to fuse a fluorescent 'beacon' to any protein of interest so that it can be directly observed in living cells using fluorescence microscopy. Today's microscopes achieve live imaging, at nanometer resolution, in multicolor, allowing researchers to resolve even the smallest subcellular structures. Fluorescent proteins however have a limitation: the size of the fluorescent tag is often equivalent to the size of a typical folded protein, thus adding a considerable molecular 'cargo' to the protein under study and potentially impacting its function. This can become a particular obstacle for the study of microproteins, a newly appreciated class of proteins that are much smaller than average. Such tiny proteins have often been overlooked in the past but seminal discoveries of microproteins with important biological functions have sparked growing interest by the research community.

A study led by postdoctoral researcher Lorenzo Lafranchi from Simon Elsässer’s laboratory at Karolinska Institutet and SciLifeLab, now reports a method, which allows fluorescent tagging of proteins with minimal perturbation - a single amino acid - added genetically on either end of a (micro)protein of interest. The method is termed Single-residue Terminal Labeling, STELLA. It is based on a synthetic building block (a non-canonical "designer" amino acid, rather than one of the 21 canonical ones) that is incorporated together with a larger tag using a technique termed genetic code expansion. The tag is then swiftly removed by the cell, leaving a single terminal designer amino acid on the protein of interest. The designer amino acid introduces a chemical group into the protein that subsequently allows conjugation with a small organic fluorescent dye, lighting up the protein of interest inside of the living cell. As an advantage over existing labeling techniques relying on genetic code expansion, STELLA can be used to conveniently and universally label the termini of any proteins.

The study, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, demonstrates the utility of STELLA in fluorescent labeling a variety of human proteins and microproteins, localized to different subcellular compartments and organelles. Beyond cellular proteins, the team was also able to label and localize a number of elusive polypeptides produced by the SARS-CoV2 coronavirus causing Covid-19.

Men perceive themselves as having less power in their private than in their public lives, a new study from Lund University has suggested. Furthermore, both men and women agree: power in your private life matters more than that in public life.

Power is often associated with men who possess visible status and money. But it can also be exercised in one's private life to initiate and relationships with a partner, children and friends.

Researchers from Lund University, Stockholm University and Gävle University asked 808 Americans which areas they believe are important in life, and where they felt they had the most power.

"The debate on gender equality tends to focus on topics in the public domain such as salaries, leadership in companies and politics, where women are underrepresented. However, our results influence how we should view power today", says Sverker Sikström, professor of psychology at Lund University in Sweden.

The study showed that men perceive themselves as having more power in public life, while women view themselves as having more power in their private life. Notably, the participants valued private life over public life.

When power in the various areas was weighted by the importance participants assigned to each area, perceived gender differences in power disappeared.

"It is difficult to maintain the position that men have more power than women, when women are perceived as having more power in the areas that are viewed as the most important. The case for equality also needs to be made in the private life, where men often lose custody cases, are more negatively affected by separations, and have weaker networks of friends. Thus, equality needs to be improved both for men and women, in both private and public life", says Sverker Sikström.

It is important to note that the study primarily measured perceptions of power, rather than any objective measure of the concept, the researchers stress.

PLYMOUTH MEETING, PA [November 12, 2020] -- Studies have shown that utilizing a PARP inhibitor in the management of patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer who harbor BRCA 1/2 mutations is clinically beneficial [1]. New research in the November 2020 issue of JNCCN--Journal of the National Comprehensive Cancer Network sheds further light on this subject through cost-effectiveness analysis. The investigators seek to identify patient subgroups with the highest relative cost-effectiveness, through models based on efficacy and toxicity data from the Pancreas Cancer Olaparib Ongoing (POLO) trial, and measuring it against cost per quality-adjusted life year (QALY).

"With the present clinical evidence, olaparib should be prescribed for patients with metastatic pancreatic cancer harboring a germline BRCA 1/2 mutation, especially after the first-line platinum-based chemotherapy has been successfully completed," said researcher Lizheng Shi, PhD, School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, Tulane University. "Our economic analysis found that olaparib might be a cost-effective option for patients, particularly if we select for optimal sub-groups, such as those who completed at least 16 weeks of continuous first-line platinum-based chemotherapy."

Bin Wu, PhD, of Shanghai Jiaotong University in China, who co-authored this study also pointed out: "The cost-effectiveness of olaparib as measured by cost-per-QALY is reasonably close to the commonly used willingness-to-pay thresholds. The value of olaparib maintenance would be even more attractive if the price were lower."

The researchers calculated incremental cost-utility ratios (ICUR) for patients taking maintenance olaparib versus those taking a placebo. Medical costs included drug acquisition, costs attributed to health states, costs for managing adverse effects, and costs for end-of-life care. All were calculated and considered based on 2018 U.S. dollar values. Modeling suggested that maintenance olaparib would be cost-effective in certain scenarios, using a threshold of $200,000 per QALY gained.

"While there is emerging evidence that precision medicine is relevant to subsets of patients with advanced pancreatic cancer, definitive results to support the cost-effectiveness of maintenance olaparib is lacking," commented Robert A. Wolff, MD, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center. Dr. Wolff is a member of the NCCN Guidelines® Panel for Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma and was not involved in this study. "Cost-effectiveness analyses of PARP inhibitors used in similar patient populations with recurrent ovarian cancer have been negative [2]. Thus, either improved patient selection for maintenance olaparib or reduced drug costs are likely necessary to establish olaparib as a cost-effective therapy in metastatic pancreatic cancer."

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. -- A new machine learning algorithm, developed with Army funding, can isolate patterns in brain signals that relate to a specific behavior and then decode it, potentially providing Soldiers with behavioral-based feedback.

"The impact of this work is of great importance to Army and DOD in general, as it pursues a framework for decoding behaviors from brain signals that generate them," said Dr. Hamid Krim, program manager, Army Research Office, an element of the U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Develop Command, now known as DEVCOM, Army Research Laboratory. "As an example future application, the algorithms could provide Soldiers with needed feedback to take corrective action as a result of fatigue or stress."

Brain signals contain dynamic neural patterns that reflect a combination of activities simultaneously. For example, the brain can type a message on a keyboard and acknowledge if a person is thirsty at that same time. A standing challenge has been isolating those patterns in brain signals that relate to a specific behavior, such as finger movements.

Doing so, is the first step in developing brain-machine interfaces that help restore lost function for people with neurological and mental disorders, which requires the translation of brain signals into a specific behavior, called decoding.

As part of a Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative grant awarded by ARO and led by Maryam Shanechi, assistant professor at the University Of Southern California Viterbi School Of Engineering, researchers have developed a new machine learning algorithm to address the brain modeling and decoding challenge. The research is published in Nature Neuroscience.

"Our algorithm can, for the first time, dissociate the dynamic patterns in brain signals that relate to specific behaviors and is much better at decoding these behaviors," said Shanechi, the lead senior author of the study.

The researchers tested the algorithm on standard brain datasets during the performance of various arm and eye movements. They showed that their algorithm discovered neural patterns in brain signals that directed these movements but were missed with standard algorithms.

They also showed that the decoding of these movements from brain signals - predicting what the movement kinematics are by just looking at brain signals that generate the movement - was much better with their algorithm.

"The algorithm has significant implications for basic science discoveries," Krim said. "The algorithm can discover shared dynamic patterns between any signals beyond brain signals, which is widely applicable for the military and many other medical and commercial applications."

Shanechi said the reason for the new algorithm's success was its ability to consider both brain signals and behavioral signals such as movement kinematics together, and then find the dynamic patterns that were common to these signals.

This decoding also depends on our ability to isolate neural patterns related to the specific behavior. These neural patterns can be masked by patterns related to other activities and can be missed by standard algorithms.

In the future, the new algorithm could also enhance future brain-machine interfaces by decoding behaviors better. For example, the algorithm could help allow paralyzed patients to directly control prosthetics by thinking about the movement.

In a mouse study aimed at modeling human exposure to the toxic metal cadmium, researchers from North Carolina State University found that female offspring of mice exposed to cadmium during pregnancy became obese in adulthood, developed fatty livers and could not process glucose normally. Male offspring were not affected in the same way. The study also sheds light on how cadmium exposure could affect mitochondrial function and developmental signaling pathways in the liver.

Cadmium is a toxic heavy metal. Environmental exposure commonly occurs from fossil fuel emissions, smoking, and some food and water sources. It is an accumulative toxin, meaning that at normal exposure levels, exposure must occur over years to produce toxic effects. However, there is compelling evidence in humans that relatively short-term developmental exposure to cadmium may increase risk for obesity and obesity-related conditions such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes.

To explore the hypothesis that developmental cadmium exposure increases risk of obesity later in life, Scott Belcher, associate professor of biology at NC State, conducted a mouse study that modeled cadmium exposure during human gestational development.

Adult female mice were given cadmium at 500 parts per billion daily via drinking water from two weeks prior to conception through 10 days after giving birth. The dose and duration represented a developmental exposure period equivalent to human gestational development. There were no observed impacts from cadmium exposure on the pregnant mice.

There were 224 male and female offspring analyzed from the cadmium-exposed mothers. At the end of the study, the adult female offspring weighed 27% more and had seven times more fat than unexposed female offspring raised in identical conditions. Additionally, female offspring of exposed mothers had elevated triglycerides, fatty livers with increases in precancerous lesions, and altered responses to glucose. The livers of male offspring were unaffected by the cadmium exposure.

Using RNA sequencing analysis, Belcher and his team found that cadmium was altering mitochondrial functions and causing disruption of retinoid and insulin signaling in the livers of females, affecting pathways that are vital to normal glucose response.

"Essentially the cadmium is knocking out mechanisms that protect the liver from oxidative stress in females," Belcher says. "I was shocked at the extent of the difference in effects on female versus male offspring. We don't know why, but the response to maternal cadmium exposure is absolutely sexually dimorphic in the liver.

"To the best of our knowledge, this work is the first demonstration of an environmental compound acting as both a retinoid disruptor and as a sex-specific delayed obesogen," Belcher says.

Military and law-enforcement personnel repeatedly exposed to low-level blasts have significant brain changes - including an increased level of brain injury and inflammation - compared with a control group, a new study has found.

Led by University of Virginia School of Medicine researcher James Stone, MD, PhD, the study compared the brains of 20 "breachers" - specialists who use explosives to enter buildings and other structures - with a 14-person, age-matched control group. The breachers had been exposed to an average of 4,628 blasts, while the control group had been exposed to an average of three.

Blood measurements and neuropsychological assessments suggest that the breachers have increased levels of brain injury and inflammation, which the researchers wrote is "consistent with the theory that exposure to breaching-related blasts leads to system-wide effects in the brain."

The study also found that the breachers had statistically significant differences in blood flow, brain structure and brain activity.

"This study is the first to comprehensively assess military and law enforcement personnel to better understand whether repetitive blast exposure over a career can lead to changes within the brain," Stone said. "This is an area of high importance to military and law enforcement communities, as it is becoming increasingly clear there may be occupational health considerations related to repetitive low-level blast exposure in training and operations over the career of an exposed individual."

Investigating Brain Injury

The researchers wrote that further studies will be needed to determine more precisely what level and frequency of blast exposure may result in the observed brain changes.

Stone and his colleagues have two additional studies underway to further examine the effects of blasts on the brains of military personnel. The first - backed by a three-year, $2.1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Defense - is researching the effects of regular exposure to artillery blasts. The second is examining whether special operations forces are at risk for brain injury over their career.

"These additional studies will allow us to better understand whether the observations made in breachers are also seen in other blast-exposed populations, such as those that operate heavy weapons," Stone said. "We also hope to be able to shed light on how the brain responds to repetitive blasts on a molecular level."

The SARS-CoV-1 coronavirus pandemic has left a significant footprint on the global economy. For this reason, it had a substantial impact on the behaviour of all financial instruments, including cryptocurrencies. It turns out that the fluctuations experienced by the virtual currency market during this period reflect changes in other capital and commodity markets. This market has also shown relative stability during this difficult time. It is another proof that cryptocurrencies can be treated as a mature and full-fledged financial instrument.

Social systems are characterized by a vast network of connections and factors that can influence their structure and dynamics. Among these systems, the entire economic sphere of human activity seems to be the most interconnected and complex. All financial markets belong to this sphere, including the youngest of them - cryptocurrencies.

The first cryptocurrency - bitcoin - appeared in 2008 at the height of the global financial crisis. Its creators intended to provide a tool for carrying out transactions via the Internet without the participation of a central unit managing the issue of money. From this perspective, cryptocurrencies can be considered as an independent financial instrument. However, has the cryptocurrency market lived up to the hopes placed in it? How did it react to the situation caused by the emergence of crisis conditions? And have cryptocurrencies already reached the maturity and stability required of a full-fledged financial instrument?

Events related to the outbreak and development of the COVID-19 epidemic provided an excellent opportunity to seek answers to these questions. A group of scientists from the IFJ PAN in Krakow lead by Prof. Stanislaw Drozdz decided to study the behaviour of the cryptocurrency market in response to the economic situation caused by the coronavirus.

"Our previous quantitative analyses of the various characteristics of the complexity of the cryptocurrency market and the specifics of its correlation with more traditional world markets, such as stocks, currencies or commodities, showed that this market in these aspects became essentially indistinguishable and independent from them. With the pandemic ahead, however, we seriously considered the possibility that investors would start to get rid of something like bitcoin in the first place. Due to their virtuality, most potential market participants still perceive cryptocurrencies as quite peculiar items. In times of crisis, during violent economic and political turmoil, people resort to financial resources they consider more reliable. But our comparisons showed that solid instruments recorded drops at the most critical moments, while cryptocurrencies behaved much more stable," says Prof. Drozdz.

In the first phase of the pandemic, when it was not known how the whole situation would develop, there was an escape from risky financial instruments to bitcoin. One could observe a positive correlation of bitcoin with financial instruments considered safe, such as the Swiss franc, Japanese yen, gold and silver. Then there was a further increase in the number of infections around the world and the associated sharp drops in global stock markets - especially in the US - due to a total sell-off of all assets, including bitcoin. Investors resorted to cash, mainly the yen and the dollar. During this period, bitcoin lost its safe-haven status, but the same was true of gold and silver. Still, it behaved like a regular, traditional, and reliable financial instrument. Particularly significant is the correlation of bitcoin (BTC) and ethereum (ETH) with conventional financial instruments during the spikes on global stock exchanges as the epidemic slows down during the summer of 2020.

"This is an intriguing effect because there were no such correlations before the pandemic, and they remain at a significant level. It may be proof that bitcoin has become a full-fledged element of the financial market. One can say that the COVID-19 pandemic has positively verified cryptocurrencies. It turned out that investors were not afraid of bitcoin; quite the opposite - they included it in their investment portfolios," Dr. Marcin Watorek describes the research findings.

Scientists from Krakow focused on the dynamic and structural properties of the cryptocurrency market. They analyzed data showing the exchange rates of 129 cryptocurrencies on the Binance platform. The analysis consisted of three parts aimed at examining a different aspect of the market structure.

"We approached the topic from three standpoints: the dynamics of the cryptocurrency exchange rates to other virtual and fiat currencies, coupling and decoupling of cryptocurrencies and traditional assets, and the inner structure of the cryptocurrency market. We used data from January 2019 to June 2020. This period covers the specific time of the COVID-19 pandemic; we paid special attention to this event and examined how strong its impact was on the structure and dynamics of the market. The analyzed data include several other significant events, such as the double bull and bear phase in 2019," Dr. Jaroslaw Kwapien explains the methodology of the work.

The analysis of the cross-correlation between the cryptocurrency market represented by the BTC/USD and ETH/USD exchange rate and the traditional markets of major fiat currencies, major commodities (such as oil and gold) and US stock indices led to the conclusion that the cryptocurrency market was independent of other markets throughout 2019, but temporarily correlated with these markets during several events in the first half of 2020, such as in January, when the first COVID-19 case was reported in the United States, in March during the pandemic outbreak, and from May to July 2020 during the second wave of the pandemic. In the first case, bitcoin showed anti-correlation with major stock indices such as the S&P500 and Nasdaq100, but in the second and third cases, the corresponding correlations were positive. The correlations between bitcoin and several fiat currencies and the commodity market were also positive for these phases.

The lack of statistically significant correlations in 2019, when classic financial instruments experienced no turmoil, was presumably due to market cap asymmetry between the cryptocurrency market and conventional markets to the disadvantage of the former, which is still too small to have any significant impact on other markets. However, traditional markets can easily influence the cryptocurrency market when they become turbulent. This is what happened in March and June 2020.

"The most significant result of our analyses of the dynamics of the world's financial markets during the COVID-19 pandemic is that the cryptocurrency market, and especially bitcoin, turned out to be one of the most resistant to turbulence experienced by all global markets during this period. This observation is in line with and complements our previously published results on the approached stability and maturity of the cryptocurrency market in the past 2-3 years. The COVID-19 period seems to confirm those earlier signals", Prof. Drozdz summarizes the work.

DURHAM, N.C. -- In the orchestra of the brain, the firing of each neuron is controlled by two notes--excitatory and inhibitory-- that come from two distinct forms of a cellular structure called synapses. Synapses are essentially the connections between neurons, transmitting information from one cell to the other. The synaptic harmonies come together to create the most exquisite music--at least most of the time.

When the music becomes discordant and a person is diagnosed with a brain disease, scientists typically look to the synapses between neurons to determine what went wrong. But a new study from Duke University neuroscientists suggests that it would be more useful to look at the white-gloved conductor of the orchestra -- the astrocyte.

Astrocytes are star-shaped cells that form the glue-like framework of the brain. They are one kind of cell called glia, which is Greek for "glue." Previously found to be involved in controlling excitatory synapses, a team of Duke scientists also found that astrocytes are involved in regulating inhibitory synapses by binding to neurons through an adhesion molecule called NrCAM. The astrocytes reach out thin, fine tentacles to the inhibitory synapse, and when they touch, the adhesion is formed by NrCAM. Their findings were published in Nature on November 11.

"We really discovered that the astrocytes are the conductors that orchestrate the notes that make up the music of the brain," said Scott Soderling, PhD, chair of the Department of Cell Biology in the School of Medicine and senior author on the paper.

Excitatory synapses -- the brain's accelerator -- and inhibitory synapses -- the brain's brakes -- were previously thought to be the most important instruments in the brain. Too much excitation can lead to epilepsy, too much inhibition can lead to schizophrenia, and an imbalance either way can lead to autism.

However, this study shows that astrocytes are running the show in overall brain function, and could be important targets for brain therapies, said co-senior author Cagla Eroglu, PhD, associate professor of cell biology and neurobiology in the School of Medicine. Eroglu is a world expert in astrocytes and her lab discovered how astrocytes send their tentacles and connect to synapses in 2017.

"A lot of the time, studies that investigate molecular aspects of brain development and disease study gene function or molecular function in neurons, or they only consider neurons to be the primary cells that are affected," said Eroglu. "However, here we were able to show that by simply changing the interaction between astrocytes and neurons -- specifically by manipulating the astrocytes -- we were able to dramatically alter the wiring of the neurons as well."

Soderling and Eroglu collaborate often scientifically, and they hashed out the plan for the project over coffee and pastries. The plan was to apply a proteomic method developed in Soderling's lab that was further developed by his postdoctoral associate Tetsuya Takano, who is the paper's lead author.

Takano designed a new method that allowed scientists to use a virus to insert an enzyme into the brain of a mouse that labeled the proteins connecting astrocytes and neurons. Once tagged with this label, the scientists could pluck the tagged proteins from the brain tissue and use Duke's mass spectrometry facility to identify the adhesion molecule NrCAM.

Then, Takano teamed up with Katie Baldwin, a postdoctoral associate in Eroglu's lab, to run assays to determine how the adhesion molecule NrCAM plays a role in the connection between astrocyte and inhibitory synapses. Together the labs discovered NrCAM was a missing link that controlled how astrocytes influence inhibitory synapses, demonstrating they influence all of the 'notes' of the brain.

"We were very lucky that we had really cooperative team members," said Eroglu. "They worked very hard and they were open to crazy ideas. I would call this a crazy idea."

STONY BROOK, NY, November 12, 2020 - What happens in our brain that makes us experience the sweet taste of a donut or the bitter taste of tonic water? What are the patterns of neural activity responsible for the perception of taste? A new study from Stony Brook University found that the map of neural responses mediating taste perception does not involve, as previously believed, specialized groups of neurons in the brain, but rather overlapping and spatially distributed populations.

The findings, to be published in Current Biology, counter an influential but controversial theory based on studies suggesting that there is a topographic map in the gustatory cortex that is responsible for our perception of taste. According to this theory, the gustatory cortex has "hot spots" of neurons whose activation leads to the perception of certain tastes. The new study by Stony Brook researchers demonstrates such a simple map of taste does not exist in the cortex of behaving animals.

When we taste food, neural activity propagates from the tongue to the brainstem and up to the cerebral cortex region known as the gustatory cortex. Activation of the gustatory cortex contributes to our perception of taste and flavor. Early imaging experiments provided evidence in favor of the theory of taste coding that postulates the existence of spatially localized clusters of neurons encoding specific tastes. These clusters, also known as "hot spots" form a map of taste on the gustatory cortex, with an hot spot for "sweet," one for "bitter," one for "salty," and one for "savory." According to this model of taste function, the activation of one cluster would correspond to the sensation of a specific taste.

"Our experiments demonstrate there is not a map with hot spots in the gustatory cortex of behaving animals," says Alfredo Fontanini, MD, PhD, lead investigator and Chair of the Department of Neurobiology and Behavior in the College of Arts and Sciences and Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. "Instead, each taste is represented by spatially distributed ensembles of neurons sprinkled across the cortex. Neurons can represent one or many taste sensations and form what is called an ensemble code. Basically, neurons act very much like instruments in an orchestra playing different notes forming a chord."

The researchers demonstrated this activation repeatedly in behaving mice sampling different tastes from a spout. They used calcium imaging to determine how taste and task-related variables are represented in alert licking mice. With the experiments they collected data on how various taste stimuli evoke responses from neurons in the gustatory cortex. They found that some neurons respond to a single taste and other to multiple.

An analysis of the distribution of responses over multiple spatial scales demonstrated that taste representations are distributed across the cortex, with no sign of spatial clustering or topography as would be expected with a map of the gustatory cortex corresponding specific taste sensations.

"Our findings are important because they address one of the basic organizing principles of brain function," explains Dr. Fontanini. "Topographical maps are a pervasive feature of brain organization. Demonstrating that the spatial organization of taste responses is not as simple as previously believed makes us re-evaluate the neurobiological processes underlying taste perception and taste-related brain functions."

The researchers conclude that their overall data provides evidence for a distributed neurobiological brain process when it comes to taste, a coding scheme differing from the topographical brain organization of visual, somatosensory and auditory systems and similar to olfaction.

Households need financial support if Covid-19 restrictions are to be successful in Malawi. Furthermore, the authorities issuing the restrictions have an additional bearing on their enforceability. These are findings from a new study examining the relationship between authorities and civil compliance in one of the world's poorest countries.

In April 2020, then-President Peter Mutharika and his government announced plans to impose a 21-day national lockdown of Malawi. The announcement was met with country-wide protests. A coalition of domestic human rights organizations warned of a possible nationwide famine and accused the government of not taking sufficient measures to protect the country's poor. The shutdown decision was appealed to the country's highest court, which followed ruled against the government.

The spring's events highlight the tough challenges governments face when dealing with a pandemic in countries like Malawi. With its 18.6 million inhabitants, Malawi is one of the most densely populated countries in Africa, but also one of the poorest in the world, with 40 per cent of the population living in extreme poverty. Widespread poverty makes restrictive policies too costly for people, while a weak healthcare system exacerbates the adverse health effects of the pandemic. These contradictions have led political scientists to take an interest in authorities' abilities to pass restrictions that could work during a pandemic.

Local adaption of restrictions

The Program on Governance and Local Development (GLD), along with the Institute for Public Opinion and Research in Malawi (IPOR) and other international scholars, have examined factors affecting the population's ability to comply with Covid-19 restrictions, such as bans on larger crowds and social distancing.

They found that decision-makers need to adapt restrictions to local conditions to bring about measures that are the least costly for the individual. Decision-makers are further urged to cooperate with local authorities. The GLD-IPOR study shows that people are most likely to listen to their district health officials when it comes to Covid-19 measures as there is a respect for their medical expertise, according to Professor Ellen Lust, Founding Director of GLD.

The survey included interviews with 4,641 Malawians. Among other questions, respondents were asked what drives their compliance with Covid-19 regulations. For instance, do they comply out of respect for authorities, fear of retaliation, or is compliance with restrictions connected to the economic cost for the individual?

"The cost to the individual was found to be an important factor. Social distancing restrictions and directives to wash hands are easier to comply with as they are less costly for the individual. In a country where a large part of the population already suffers from socioeconomic vulnerability, regulations preventing people from working could have devastating consequences. If such restrictions are to be successful, food supply guarantees and income support are vital for people to survive."

Survey participants were also asked which authority in the local community they trusted the most concerning preventive measures and recommendations during the pandemic - the chief physician at the district hospital, the local religious leader, or a local traditional authority.

"The survey found that, while people have great respect for all three, they see them as authorities in different areas. When it comes to information about Covid-19 risks, people rely most heavily on the chief physician's recommendations in his capacity as a medical expert."

Lust concludes, 'we hope that this research will contribute to the development of sustainable strategies at national and local levels to counter the spread of Covid-19 in Malawi.'

EVANSTON, Ill. -- Long ago and far across the universe, an enormous burst of gamma rays unleashed more energy in a half-second than the sun will produce over its entire 10-billion-year lifetime.

After examining the incredibly bright burst with optical, X-ray, near-infrared and radio wavelengths, a Northwestern University-led astrophysics team believes it potentially spotted the birth of a magnetar.

Researchers believe the magnetar was formed by two neutron stars merging, which has never before been observed. The merger resulted in a brilliant kilonova -- the brightest ever seen -- whose light finally reached Earth on May 22, 2020. The light first came as a blast of gamma-rays, called a short gamma-ray burst.

"When two neutron stars merge, the most common predicted outcome is that they form a heavy neutron star that collapses into a black hole within milliseconds or less," said Northwestern's Wen-fai Fong, who led the study. "Our study shows that it's possible that, for this particular short gamma-ray burst, the heavy object survived. Instead of collapsing into a black hole, it became a magnetar: A rapidly spinning neutron star that has large magnetic fields, dumping energy into its surrounding environment and creating the very bright glow that we see."

The research has been accepted by The Astrophysical Journal and will be published online later this year.

Fong is an assistant professor of physics and astronomy in Northwestern's Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences and a member of CIERA (Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics). The research involved two undergraduates, three graduate students and three postdoctoral fellows from Fong's laboratory.

'There was a new phenomenon happening'

After the light was first detected by NASA's Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory, scientists quickly enlisted other telescopes -- including NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, the Very Large Array, the W.M. Keck Observatory and the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope network -- to study the explosion's aftermath and its host galaxy.

Fong's team quickly realized that something didn't add up.

Compared to X-ray and radio observations, the near-infrared emission detected with Hubble was much too bright. In fact, it was 10 times brighter than predicted.

"As the data were coming in, we were forming a picture of the mechanism that was producing the light we were seeing," said the study's co-investigator, Tanmoy Laskar of the University of Bath in the United Kingdom. "As we got the Hubble observations, we had to completely change our thought process, because the information that Hubble added made us realize that we had to discard our conventional thinking and that there was a new phenomenon going on. Then we had to figure out about what that meant for the physics behind these extremely energetic explosions."

Magnetic monster

Fong and her team have discussed several possibilities to explain the unusual brightness -- known as a short gamma-ray burst -- that Hubble saw. Researchers think short bursts are caused by the merger of two neutron stars, extremely dense objects about the mass of the sun compressed into the volume of a large city like Chicago. While most short gamma-ray bursts probably result in a black hole, the two neutron stars that merged in this case may have combined to form a magnetar, a supermassive neutron star with a very powerful magnetic field.

"You basically have these magnetic field lines that are anchored to the star that are whipping around at about 1,000 times a second, and this produces a magnetized wind," Laskar explained. "These spinning field lines extract the rotational energy of the neutron star formed in the merger, and deposit that energy into the ejecta from the blast, causing the material to glow even brighter."

"We know that magnetars exist because we see them in our galaxy," Fong said. "We think most of them are formed in the explosive deaths of massive stars, leaving these highly magnetized neutron stars behind. However, it is possible that a small fraction form in neutron star mergers. We have never seen evidence of that before, let alone in infrared light, making this discovery special."

Strangely bright kilonova

Kilonovae, which are typically 1,000 times brighter than a classic nova, are expected to accompany short gamma-ray bursts. Unique to the merger of two compact objects, kilonovae glow from the radioactive decay of heavy elements ejected during the merger, producing coveted elements like gold and uranium.

"We only have one confirmed and well-sampled kilonova to date," said Jillian Rastinejad, a co-author of the paper and graduate student in Fong's laboratory. "So it is especially exciting to find a new potential kilonova that looks so different. This discovery gave us the opportunity to explore the diversity of kilonovae and their remnant objects."

If the unexpected brightness seen by Hubble came from a magnetar that deposited energy into the kilonova material, then, within a few years, the ejected material from the burst will produce light that shows up at radio wavelengths. Follow-up radio observations may ultimately prove that this was a magnetar, leading to an explanation of the origin of such objects.

"Now that we have one very bright candidate kilonova," Rastinejad said, "I'm excited for the new surprises that short gamma-ray bursts and neutron star mergers have in store for us in the future."