Culture

'Mini-lungs' grown from tissue donated to Cambridge hospitals has provided a team of scientists from South Korea and the UK with important insights into how COVID-19 damages the lungs. Writing in the journal Cell Stem Cell, the researchers detail the mechanisms underlying SARS-CoV-2 infection and the early innate immune response in the lungs.

To date, there have been more than 40 million cases of COVID-19 and almost 1.13 million deaths worldwide. The main target tissues of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, especially in patients that develop pneumonia, appear to be alveoli - tiny air sacs in the lungs that take up the oxygen we breathe and exchange it with carbon dioxide to exhale.

To better understand how SARS-CoV-2 infects the lungs and causes disease, a team of scientists from the UK and South Korea turned to organoids - 'mini-organs' grown in three dimensions to mimic the behaviour of tissue and organs.

The team used tissue donated to tissue banks at the Royal Papworth Hospital NHS Foundation Trust and Addenbrooke's Hospital, Cambridge University NHS Foundations Trust, UK, and Seoul National University Hospital to extract a type of lung cell known as human lung alveolar type 2 cells. By reprogramming these cells back to their earlier 'stem cell' stage, they were able to grow self-organising alveolar-like 3D structures that mimic the behaviour of key lung tissue.

Dr Joo-Hyeon Lee, co-senior author, and a Group Leader at the Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, University of Cambridge, said: "We still know surprisingly little about how SARS-CoV-2 infects the lungs and causes disease. Our approach has allowed us to grow 3D models of key lung tissue - in a sense, 'mini-lungs' - in the lab and study what happens when they become infected."

The team infected the organoids with a strain of SARS-CoV-2 taken from a patient in South Korea who was diagnosed with COVID-19 on 26 January 26 2020 after traveling to Wuhan, China. Using a combination of fluorescence imaging and single cell genetic analysis, they were able to study how the cells responded to the virus.

When the 3D models were exposed to SARS-CoV-2, the virus began to replicate rapidly, reaching full cellular infection just six hours after infection. Replication enables the virus to spread throughout the body, infecting other cells and tissue.

Around the same time, the cells began to produce interferons - proteins that act as warning signals to neighbouring cells, telling them to activate their antiviral defences. After 48 hours, the interferons triggered the innate immune response - its first line of defence - and the cells started fighting back against infection.

Sixty hours after infection, a subset of alveolar cells began to disintegrate, leading to cell death and damage to the lung tissue.

Although the researchers observed changes to the lung cells within three days of infection, clinical symptoms of COVID-19 rarely occur so quickly and can sometimes take more than ten days after exposure to appear. The team say there are several possible reasons for this. It may take several days from the virus first infiltrating the upper respiratory tract to it reaching the alveoli. It may also require a substantial proportion of alveolar cells to be infected or for further interactions with immune cells resulting in inflammation before a patient displays symptoms.

"Based on our model we can tackle many unanswered key questions, such as understanding genetic susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2, assessing relative infectivity of viral mutants, and revealing the damage processes of the virus in human alveolar cells," said Dr Young Seok Ju, co-senior author, and an Associate Professor at Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology. "Most importantly, it provides the opportunity to develop and screen potential therapeutic agents against SARS-CoV-2 infection."

"We hope to use our technique to grow these 3D models from cells of patients who are particularly vulnerable to infection, such as the elderly or people with diseased lungs, and find out what happens to their tissue," added Dr Lee.

New research from an immunology team at the University of Chicago may shed light on the challenges of developing a universal flu vaccine that would provide long-lasting and broad protection against influenza viruses.

The study, published October 22 in Immunity, explores the behavior of polyreactive antibodies -- antibodies that are capable of binding to more than one distinct antigen -- in an effort to understand their role against influenza viruses. The researchers identified that broadly neutralizing antibodies are commonly polyreactive and are preferentially induced by novel and pandemic-level influenza viruses.

The research is inspired by the limited efficacy of the annual flu vaccine, which must be adjusted each year to provide the best protection against commonly circulating strains of the virus, and why it so rarely induces broadly neutralizing antibodies.

"For whatever reason, when we are exposed to the flu virus, the antibody response mounted targets the parts of the virus that want to change, so you have to get vaccinated every year to keep up," said Jenna Guthmiller, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Chicago. "But there are some parts of the virus that don't change. So why doesn't the seasonal flu vaccine produce antibodies that target those?"

This study has implications for the development of a universal flu vaccine that can elicit broadly neutralizing antibodies and that would only need be administered once or twice during a person's lifetime, instead of every year.

These polyreactive antibodies, like all antibodies, are produced by the body's B cells. When a person receives their annual flu vaccine, B cells will bind to the inactivated virus and begin generating antibodies against it, preparing the body to fight off the pathogen if it encounters the live flu virus in the environment.

This vaccine-induced immune response tends to produce very specific antibodies that target those frequently-changing epitopes on the surface of the virus, in contrast to broadly neutralizing antibodies that can identify the conserved regions that are the same every year.

It's not clear why these polyreactive antibodies aren't produced by the annual vaccine.

"Our research is trying to understand the features of broadly neutralizing antibodies, and why they're so rarely induced by the seasonal flu vaccine," said Guthmiller. "In this case, we were interested in understanding what gives polyreactive antibodies the ability to bind to multiple antigens, and the implications of that polyreactivity for the overall immune response."

The new study found that these polyreactive antibodies tend to bind to the portions of the flu virus that are conserved, and that they are preferentially produced when the body encounters a novel flu strain. Importantly, their unique ability to bind to more than one antigen is potentially due to their flexibility; the antibodies themselves can slightly adjust their conformation, allowing them to imperfectly bind to multiple similarly-shaped antigens.

This means that polyreactive antibodies are broadly neutralizing due to their ability to attach to and block the portions of influenza virus that are similar across strains and from year to year. Polyreactive antibodies are therefore ideal candidates for developing a universal flu vaccine -- one that can not only protect against common annual strains, but also novel influenza viruses, like the H1N1 strain seen during the 2009 pandemic.

The flexibility and strength of these polyreactive antibodies may make it seem like the ideal immune solution to protect against the flu, so why doesn't the seasonal flu vaccine tend to trigger their production?

In the study, the investigators also found that these polyreactive antibodies can sometimes bind to the body's own antigens, causing the polyreactive B cells to be destroyed to avoid an autoimmune response.

"What we're seeing is that there's this balance. Polyreactivity provides these beneficial features, like broader and better binding, but that comes at the cost of binding to self, which can cause issues," said Guthmiller. "Our seasonal flu vaccine keeps calling back the same specific antibody response because it's effective against these limited strains. To get these broadly neutralizing antibodies, like we'd want in a universal flu vaccine, we'll need something very different, but now we know this has the potential to be self-defeating because of this self-binding."

These results speak to the challenge of developing such a vaccine. "We already know it is difficult to target influenza in a universal fashion," said Patrick Wilson, PhD, a professor of medicine at UChicago. "For better or worse, this paper provides important insights into properties of antibodies that can more universally target many influenza strains."

The researchers are now working to understand how and why these polyreactive antibodies are self-reactive, and whether or not the immune system actively works to prevent them from being produced. Clarifying their role in the immune response will determine if these polyreactive antibodies can be leveraged safely and effectively and how they might be leveraged to produce a universal influenza vaccine.

Despite having bat-like wings, two small dinosaurs, Yi and Ambopteryx, struggled to fly, only managing to glide clumsily between the trees where they lived, according to a new study led by an international team of researchers, including McGill University Professor Hans Larsson. Unable to compete with other tree-dwelling dinosaurs and early birds, they went extinct after just a few million years. The findings, published in iScience, support that dinosaurs evolved flight in several different ways before modern birds evolved.

"We know some dinosaurs could fly before they evolved into birds," says Professor Larsson, Director of McGill's Redpath Museum. "What this shows us is that at least one lineage of dinosaurs experimented with a completely different mode of aerial locomotion. Gliding evolved countless times in arboreal amphibians, mammals, lizards, and even snakes - and now we have an example of dinosaurs."

Yi and Ambopteryx were small animals from the Late Jurassic of China, living about 160 million years ago. Weighing in at about half a kilogram, they are unusual theropod dinosaurs. Theropods are carnivorous dinosaurs that include all birds alive today. Most theropods were ground-loving carnivores, but Yi and Ambopteryx were at home in the trees and lived on a diet of insects, seeds, and plants.

"Once birds got into the air, these two species were so poorly capable of being in the air that they just got squeezed out," says lead author Thomas Dececchi, an assistant professor of biology at Mount Marty University. "Maybe you can survive a few million years underperforming, but you have predators from the top, competition from the bottom, and even some small mammals adding into that, squeezing them out until they disappeared."

Little creatures could glide, not fly

Curious about how these animals could have flown, the researchers, scanned fossils using Laser-Stimulated Fluorescence (LSF), a technique that uses laser light to pick up soft tissue details of their wing membranes that can't be seen with standard white light. Later, the team used mathematical models to predict how they might have flown, testing different variables like weight, wingspan, wing shape, and muscle placement.

"The results are clear these animals were not able to fly like birds," says Larsson. "They didn't have adaptations to even get close to the physical thresholds for powered flight, but their weird membranous wings do give them enough of an aerofoil to have glided. They are not comparable to living gliding squirrels or lizards but seem to have come up with a really novel way of getting a large enough wing membrane."

Although gliding is not an efficient form of flight since it can only be done if the animal has already climbed to a high point, it probably did help Yi and Ambopteryx stay out of danger while they were still alive.

"Living gliders don't travel long distances through the air," says Dececchi. "It's not efficient, but it can be used as an escape hatch. It's not a great thing to do, but sometimes it's a choice between losing a bit of energy and being eaten. Once they were put under pressure, they just lost their space. They couldn't win on the ground. They couldn't win in the air. They were done."

The researchers are now looking more closely at the musculoskeletal anatomy of these bat-winged and other feathered dinosaurs that evolved around the origin of birds. "The diversity of dinosaurs just before the origin of birds amazes me," Larsson says. "We used to think of birds evolving as a linear trend from their ground-dwelling dinosaur ancestry. We can know revise this textbook scenario to one that had an explosive diversity of experimentation, with dinosaurs evolving powered flight several times independently from birds, many having fully feathered wings but with bodies too heavy or wings too small to have gotten off the ground, and now, a weird bat-winged group of dinosaurs that were not only the first arboreal dinosaurs, but ones that glided! I feel like we are still just scratching the surface."

A team of medics from RUDN University conducted an experiment on rats and confirmed that surgeries in the nasal cavity can cause behavioral changes, namely, make the animals timider. This effect is associated with an ANS reaction triggered by stress. The results of the experiment were published in the Journal of Physics: Conference Series.

A deflected nasal septum can be corrected with a simple surgery that is often performed under local anesthesia. This procedure is recommended for patients with apnoea or chronic maxillitis. However, the side effects of the surgery include inflammations and edema. These processes and breathing difficulties caused by them can affect the autonomic nervous system (ANS) that regulates all involuntary functions of our body, such as digestion, blood supply, and heart rate maintenance. It is yet unknown what parts of the ANS react to septoplasty, and what behavioral changes such a reaction can lead to. A team of medics from RUDN University carried out experimental surgeries on rats and identified behavioral and physiological reactions to them.

For their experiment, the team chose ten healthy male rats. The animals received total anesthesia, and their septums were not actually cut but just scratched. No local painkillers or anti-inflammatory drugs were used after the surgery as they could have had an impact on the animals' ANSs. To assess the changes in their behavior, the team placed the rats in an unfamiliar environment: the so-called "open field", a square-shaped chamber with an open and well-lit center and holes in the center and all four corners. The open field test was performed once before the surgery and three times after it (in 2, 4, and 6 days, respectively). The medics also took electrocardiograms (ECG) of the rats before and after the procedure.

A minute by minute comparison of the animals' behavior in the open field before and after the surgery showed a considerable reduction of activity in the latter case. After the procedure, the animals were more reluctant to examine the chamber or enter the holes, stood motionless for long periods of time, left more droppings, and rarely got on their hind legs. The ECG showed that the rats' parasympathetic nervous systems that regulate relaxation and recovery processes were more active after the surgery.

According to the scientists, such behavioral changes may be due to post-surgical anxiety as well as physiological consequences such as inflammation, edema, and pain. Because of all these factors, the animals entered a depression-like state. The inflammation and shortage of oxygen activated the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), and recovery processes started to dominate in the animals' bodies. Based on a combination of behavioral and physiological data, the medics concluded that the nasal cavity surgery caused the rats to experience stress.

"Before this experiment, we had worked on a study on heart rate changes in human patients after septoplasty. I believe, these two works have a lot in common. Our earlier work had also shown increased PNS activity in certain cases. Post-surgical stress is likely to cause changes in the hippocampus area which leads to altered behavior. We need further studies to identify optimal parameters of local and total anesthesia and post-surgical pain management to prevent such consequences," said PhD Igor Kastyro, a senior lecturer at the Department of Human Physiology, RUDN University.

Old friends get together to relax, share meals, and trust and support each other. In the latter part of life, these friendships are highly valued. Recent research shows this happens in chimpanzees as well as humans.

Chimpanzee and human friendships show many parallels, according to new research published this week in Science by associate professor Martin Muller at The University of New Mexico Anthropology department, associate professor of Anthropology and co-director of the Comparative Human and Primate Physiology Center Melissa Emery Thompson, and their colleagues.

This work, a collaboration among researchers at UNM, University of Michigan, Tufts University, and Harvard University, uses data from the Kanyawara chimpanzee community living in Kibale National Park in Uganda and was funded by the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. These chimpanzees have been studied for decades by the Kibale Chimpanzee Project, and researchers leveraged this exceptional dataset to test socioemotional selectivity theory - an influential idea in psychology aimed at explaining why humans show changes in social interactions during aging.

"I study chimpanzee behavior and physiology, partly to help understand the evolution of human behavior and physiology... This study was part of a larger project on aging and health in chimpanzees. We were interested to see whether chimpanzees showed changes in their social relationships with aging that mirrored those commonly seen in humans," said Muller, who has traveled to Kibale once or twice a year for 20 years to supervise the collection of these data, and, more recently, worked with graduate students at UNM to organize, clean, and analyze them.

"Dr. Emery Thompson and I were part of this study, as was our graduate student Drew Enigk. Drew provided the data on male dominance ranks for the paper. He went through large numbers of aggressive interactions among the chimpanzees to see who won and lost fights, and who was submissive to whom. He then assigned dominance ranks using an Elo rating procedure, as is done to rank football teams or chess players," Muller noted.

Wild chimpanzees share social aging patterns with humans, by prioritizing strong social bonds, and interacting with others in increasingly positive ways as they get older.

Chimpanzee friends prefer each other's company. They tend to travel in the same groups and sit in proximity. Chimpanzee friends reciprocate. They groom each other, share meat with each other, and support each other in disagreements with other chimpanzees, Muller observed. And friendships can persist over many years. In laboratory studies, chimpanzees trust their friends more than other individuals in risky situations. Endocrine studies have shown that grooming with friends is particularly effective in reducing stress.

Socioemotional selectivity theory proposes that people shift their social behavior from a focus on forming new friends in young adulthood, to maintaining a smaller network of close, fulfilling relationships in old age.

"The proposal is that this shift happens because of our human ability to monitor our own personal time horizons--how much time we have left in our life--which causes us to prioritize emotionally-fulfilling relationships when time is perceived to be running out," Muller explained.

Using 20 years of behavioral data, researchers found that chimpanzees, like humans, increasingly prioritized mutual and equitable friendships with others that invested in them as they got older. Younger adults, in contrast, were more likely to form lopsided relationships where their partner did not reciprocate. Older chimpanzees also were more likely to be seen alone, but tended to socialize more with important partners when they did join the group. Finally, they showed a positivity bias in their overall behavior: reducing their aggressive behavior while maintaining levels of affiliative grooming.

"A major motivation for this paper was testing socioemotional selectivity theory. A large psychological literature suggests that in humans, old age leads to a focus on existing close relationships, increased attention to and memory for positive social interactions, and reduced engagement in tension and conflict. Psychologists have argued that this emphasis on positive relationships and emotions in old age results from a conscious sense of impending mortality. When the end is near, people accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative," Muller said.

"While that may partly be true, our data suggest that something more fundamental may be happening with the aging process," he continued. "No one thinks that wild chimpanzees are conscious of their impending mortality, but they too seem to show this same shift away from negativity in old age. We think that the importance of coalitions and alliances in chimpanzee society may be a critical factor. We have shown in Kibale that despite failing health and falling social status, older chimpanzee males often continue to successfully compete for mating opportunities and sire offspring. They do this primarily by forming coalitions with other males. If older individuals are reliant on coalitions, then this might explain their focus on positive interactions with close friends. Humans, of course, also use coalitions and alliances to a much greater extent than most primates, so this similarity in aging with chimpanzees may not be coincidental."

Taken together, these results show that chimpanzees share these special social aging patterns with humans, even though they do not have the same rich future time perspective and knowledge of their own mortality that we have. This is the first demonstration that a nonhuman shares these characteristics with us. The shared pattern between chimpanzees and humans could represent an adaptive response where older adults focus on important social relationships that provide benefits, and avoid interactions that have negative consequences as they lose competitive fighting ability. This research highlights how long-term behavioral datasets from wild animals like chimpanzees can help us understand and promote healthy aging in humans.

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. - Type 1 diabetes, or T1D, results from the autoimmune destruction of the insulin-producing cells of the pancreas. People with T1D require exogenous insulin and suffer swings in the levels of glucose in the blood that impact life expectancy and increase risks of cardiovascular disease, neuropathies and kidney failure.

One therapy is promising -- transplanting pancreatic islets from cadavers. But this requires immunosuppression, and reactivated autoimmunity leads to low graft viability and function after five years.

Now, a team of University of Alabama at Birmingham researchers has shown a simple way to protect transplanted islets, by coating them with a thin skin of alternating layers of two biopolymers. As reported in the journal Diabetes, this coating delays allograft and autoimmune-mediated rejection in mouse models of T1D.

"Our approach to inhibit proinflammatory immune responses with poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone)-tannic acid-encapsulated islets without systemic immunosuppression is a significant advancement toward successful islet transplants in humans," said senior authors Hubert Tse, Ph.D., and Eugenia Kharlampieva, Ph.D.

The biocompatible poly(N-vinylpyrrolidone)-tannic acid, or PVPON and tannic acid, or TA, are coated onto the islets in multiple alternating layers that are thin enough to allow oxygen and nutrients to easily reach the cells. This nano-thin encapsulation is about 120 times thinner than a sheet of plastic cling wrap. The key to its autoimmune protection, the UAB researchers say, are the layers of TA. This phenolic compound can scavenge reactive oxygen species and has an anti-inflammatory effect.

Oxidative stress from reactive oxygen species, or ROS, was already known to play a key role in the activation of alloreactive and autoreactive immunity toward engrafted islets, and the insulin-producing beta cells of the islets are more sensitive to ROS than many other cells of the body.

In autoimmune transplant experiments for the UAB study, more than half of the (PVPON/TA)-encapsulated grafts survived at 70 days post-transplant, while less than a quarter of the non-encapsulated grafts survived. In alloimmune transplant experiments, where the islets came from a different strain of mice, about 40 percent of the encapsulated grafts survived at 120 days post-transplant, while all of the unencapsulated grafts were rejected in less than 50 days.

In both types of transplantation, systemic immunosuppression was absent. The (PVPON/TA)-encapsulated islets maintained euglycemia significantly longer than non-encapsulated islets, and the grafts were immunomodulatory.

The mice receiving the encapsulated grafts had significant decreases in immune cell infiltration, ROS synthesis, inflammatory chemokines, cytokines and CD8 T cell infiltration, as compared to mice getting the non-encapsulated islets. ROS is known to promote proinflammatory M1 macrophages differentiation; in contrast, the mice receiving the encapsulated islets showed an increase in anti-inflammatory M2 macrophages.

Tse and Kharlampieva say much more can be done to improve immunosuppression by the encapsulation and extend that protection to other sources of islets that are more readily available than human cadaver islets.

"PVPON/TA coatings can be modified to increase the number of layers of PVPON and TA for
encapsulation, complexed with immune inhibitory receptors, including CTLA-4, PD-L1, and/or anti-inflammatory cytokines like IL-10 and TGF-beta, to further enhance localized immunosuppression," they said. "The use of PVPON/TA coatings is not limited to encapsulation of human islets, as our preliminary studies also demonstrate that PVPON/TA encapsulation does not compromise neonatal porcine islet function and can also be expanded to include human stem cell-derived pancreatic beta-cells."

Measures of Earth's vibrations zigged and zagged across Mostafa Mousavi's screen one morning in Memphis, Tenn. As part of his PhD studies in geophysics, he sat scanning earthquake signals recorded the night before, verifying that decades-old algorithms had detected true earthquakes rather than tremors generated by ordinary things like crashing waves, passing trucks or stomping football fans.

"I did all this tedious work for six months, looking at continuous data," Mousavi, now a research scientist at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth), recalled recently. "That was the point I thought, 'There has to be a much better way to do this stuff.'"

This was in 2013. Handheld smartphones were already loaded with algorithms that could break down speech into sound waves and come up with the most likely words in those patterns. Using artificial intelligence, they could even learn from past recordings to become more accurate over time.

Seismic waves and sound waves aren't so different. One moves through rock and fluid, the other through air. Yet while machine learning had transformed the way personal computers process and interact with voice and sound, the algorithms used to detect earthquakes in streams of seismic data have hardly changed since the 1980s.

That has left a lot of earthquakes undetected.

Big quakes are hard to miss, but they're rare. Meanwhile, imperceptibly small quakes happen all the time. Occurring on the same faults as bigger earthquakes - and involving the same physics and the same mechanisms - these "microquakes" represent a cache of untapped information about how earthquakes evolve - but only if scientists can find them.

In a recent paper published in Nature Communications, Mousavi and co-authors describe a new method for using artificial intelligence to bring into focus millions of these subtle shifts of the Earth. "By improving our ability to detect and locate these very small earthquakes, we can get a clearer view of how earthquakes interact or spread out along the fault, how they get started, even how they stop," said Stanford geophysicist Gregory Beroza, one of the paper's authors.

Focusing on what matters

Mousavi began working on technology to automate earthquake detection soon after his stint examining daily seismograms in Memphis, but his models struggled to tune out the noise inherent to seismic data. A few years later, after joining Beroza's lab at Stanford in 2017, he started to think about how to solve this problem using machine learning.

The group has produced a series of increasingly powerful detectors. A 2018 model called PhaseNet, developed by Beroza and graduate student Weiqiang Zhu, adapted algorithms from medical image processing to excel at phase-picking, which involves identifying the precise start of two different types of seismic waves. Another machine learning model, released in 2019 and dubbed CRED, was inspired by voice-trigger algorithms in virtual assistant systems and proved effective at detection. Both models learned the fundamental patterns of earthquake sequences from a relatively small set of seismograms recorded only in northern California.

In the Nature Communications paper, the authors report they've developed a new model to detect very small earthquakes with weak signals that current methods usually overlook, and to pick out the precise timing of the seismic phases using earthquake data from around the world. They call it Earthquake Transformer.

According to Mousavi, the model builds on PhaseNet and CRED, and "embeds those insights I got from the time I was doing all of this manually." Specifically, Earthquake Transformer mimics the way human analysts look at the set of wiggles as a whole and then hone in on a small section of interest.

People do this intuitively in daily life - tuning out less important details to focus more intently on what matters. Computer scientists call it an "attention mechanism" and frequently use it to improve text translations. But it's new to the field of automated earthquake detection, Mousavi said. "I envision that this new generation of detectors and phase-pickers will be the norm for earthquake monitoring within the next year or two," he said.

The technology could allow analysts to focus on extracting insights from a more complete catalog of earthquakes, freeing up their time to think more about what the pattern of earthquakes means, said Beroza, the Wayne Loel Professor of Earth Science at Stanford Earth.

Hidden faults

Understanding patterns in the accumulation of small tremors over decades or centuries could be key to minimizing surprises - and damage - when a larger quake strikes.

The 1989 Loma Prieta quake ranks as one of the most destructive earthquake disasters in U.S. history, and as one of the largest to hit northern California in the past century. It's a distinction that speaks less to extraordinary power in the case of Loma Prieta than to gaps in earthquake preparedness, hazard mapping and building codes - and to the extreme rarity of large earthquakes.

Only about one in five of the approximately 500,000 earthquakes detected globally by seismic sensors every year produce shaking strong enough for people to notice. In a typical year, perhaps 100 quakes will cause damage.

In the late 1980s, computers were already at work analyzing digitally recorded seismic data, and they determined the occurrence and location of earthquakes like Loma Prieta within minutes. Limitations in both the computers and the waveform data, however, left many small earthquakes undetected and many larger earthquakes only partially measured.

After the harsh lesson of Loma Prieta, many California communities have come to rely on maps showing fault zones and the areas where quakes are likely to do the most damage. Fleshing out the record of past earthquakes with Earthquake Transformer and other tools could make those maps more accurate and help to reveal faults that might otherwise come to light only in the wake of destruction from a larger quake, as happened with Loma Prieta in 1989, and with the magnitude-6.7 Northridge earthquake in Los Angeles five years later.

"The more information we can get on the deep, three-dimensional fault structure through improved monitoring of small earthquakes, the better we can anticipate earthquakes that lurk in the future," Beroza said.

Earthquake Transformer

To determine an earthquake's location and magnitude, existing algorithms and human experts alike look for the arrival time of two types of waves. The first set, known as primary or P waves, advance quickly - pushing, pulling and compressing the ground like a Slinky as they move through it. Next come shear or S waves, which travel more slowly but can be more destructive as they move the Earth side to side or up and down.

To test Earthquake Transformer, the team wanted to see how it worked with earthquakes not included in training data that are used to teach the algorithms what a true earthquake and its seismic phases look like. The training data included one million hand-labeled seismograms recorded mostly over the past two decades where earthquakes happen globally, excluding Japan. For the test, they selected five weeks of continuous data recorded in the region of Japan shaken 20 years ago by the magnitude-6.6 Tottori earthquake and its aftershocks.

The model detected and located 21,092 events - more than two and a half times the number of earthquakes picked out by hand, using data from only 18 of the 57 stations that Japanese scientists originally used to study the sequence. Earthquake Transformer proved particularly effective for the tiny earthquakes that are harder for humans to pick out and being recorded in overwhelming numbers as seismic sensors multiply.

"Previously, people had designed algorithms to say, find the P wave. That's a relatively simple problem," explained co-author William Ellsworth, a research professor in geophysics at Stanford. Pinpointing the start of the S wave is more difficult, he said, because it emerges from the erratic last gasps of the fast-moving P waves. Other algorithms have been able to produce extremely detailed earthquake catalogs, including huge numbers of small earthquakes missed by analysts - but their pattern-matching algorithms work only in the region supplying the training data.

With Earthquake Transformer running on a simple computer, analysis that would ordinarily take months of expert labor was completed within 20 minutes. That speed is made possible by algorithms that search for the existence of an earthquake and the timing of the seismic phases in tandem, using information gleaned from each search to narrow down the solution for the others.

"Earthquake Transformer gets many more earthquakes than other methods, whether it's people sitting and trying to analyze things by looking at the waveforms, or older computer methods," Ellsworth said. "We're getting a much deeper look at the earthquake process, and we're doing it more efficiently and accurately."

The researchers trained and tested Earthquake Transformer on historic data, but the technology is ready to flag tiny earthquakes almost as soon as they happen. According to Beroza, "Earthquake monitoring using machine learning in near real-time is coming very soon."

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (Oct. 22, 2020) -- Can COVID-19 infection increase the risk of developing Parkinson's disease?

That's the question posed by a new commentary published in the journal Trends in Neurosciences, which explores three known case studies of people developing Parkinson's-like symptoms in the weeks following infection with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. While rare, these cases provide important insights into potential long-term implications of infections.

The commentary was co-authored by Patrik Brundin, M.D., Ph.D., of Van Andel Institute, Avindra Nath, M.D., of the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke of the National Institutes of Health, and J. David Beckham, M.D., of University of Colorado.

"As we continue to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic today, we also must consider its implications for the future," Brundin said. "Evidence is mounting that the side effects of COVID-19 infection, such as inflammation and damage to the vascular system, could lay the foundation for development of Parkinson's disease. COVID-19 is clearly a major and ongoing public health threat, but the consequences of infection may end up being with us for years and decades to come."

Parkinson's disease is a multi-system disorder that begins years or even decades before its hallmark movement-related symptoms appear. Growing evidence suggests Parkinson's arises from a complex mix of factors that vary from person to person, including age, genetic predisposition, history of infections and exposure to certain environmental factors such as pollution or pesticides.

Viral infections in particular may play a role in triggering the earliest stages of Parkinson's by setting off a cascade that results in the death of brain cells that produce dopamine, a vital chemical messenger whose absence leads to movement issues such as freezing and tremor.

The three cases referenced in the commentary occurred in people without a family history of Parkinson's and without any known early Parkinson's symptoms. Two saw an improvement in their Parkinson's-like symptoms following treatment with traditional Parkinson's medications that replenish dopamine; the third recovered spontaneously. Although these medications treat symptoms, they often have challenging side effects and do not slow or stop Parkinson's progression.

"SARS-CoV-2 is considered a respiratory virus, however, its virulence and pathogenic potential particularly for neurological complications continues to surprise us," Nath said. "Some patients can develop severe neurological manifestations despite mild respiratory symptoms."

Based on evidence from the case studies and what is known about the mechanisms underpinning Parkinson's, Brundin, Nath and Beckham suggest three possible ways that COVID-19 infection could contribute to Parkinson's onset:

COVID-19 is linked to blood clots and other problems with the vascular system, including in the brain. These vascular insults could cause damage to the area of the brain that produces
dopamine, which subsequently could result in a loss of dopamine that mirrors Parkinson's.

There is a demonstrated link between chronic inflammation and Parkinson's. It is possible that severe inflammation resulting from COVID-19 could trigger brain inflammation and cell death
associated with Parkinson's.

SARS-CoV-2 may be a neurotropic virus, meaning that it attacks the nervous system. Because of this, COVID-19 and Parkinson's share some early symptoms such as loss of sense of smell and is-sues with the gut. Additionally, infection with SARS-CoV-2 could lead to an increase in alpha-synuclein, a protein associated with Parkinson's (this has been seen in other viral infections).

Although these cases do not prove that COVID-19 infection causes Parkinson's, they do suggest a troubling possible relationship between the virus and subsequent neurodegenerative disorders.

"The large number of respiratory cases due to SARS-CoV2 has allowed us to understand and analyze important neurologic complications of severe respiratory virus infections," Beckham said. "It is important that we continue our scientific investigations into this new virus so we understand all of the short and long-term complications of the COVID-19 pandemic."

Going forward, the authors call for long-term studies that follow people who were infected with COVID-19 to monitor them for Parkinson's development.

Today, the Energy Futures Initiative (EFI) and Stanford University released "An Action Plan for Carbon Capture and Storage in California: Opportunities, Challenges, and Solutions," a report providing policymakers with options for near-term actions to deploy carbon capture and storage (CCS) to meet the state's climate goals.

The study, six months in the making, concludes that CCS offers a clean technology pathway for rapidly reducing emissions from economically vital sectors that have few other options to decarbonize. It can also support clean, firm power, an essential enabler of intermittent renewable generation. The report will be introduced in a virtual briefing led by Ernest J. Moniz, former U.S. Secretary of Energy and founder of EFI and Franklin Orr, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University. They will be joined by the report's co-leads, EFI's Melanie Kenderdine and Sally Benson, Professor at the Department of Energy Resources Engineering at Stanford University.

"California has the most ambitious carbon reduction goals in the nation," said Benson. "Our study outlines the vital role that CCS could play in achieving carbon neutrality by 2045."

EFI, a nonprofit think tank established by former U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest J. Moniz, previously published "Optionality, Flexibility, and Innovation: Pathways for Deep Decarbonization in California," which concluded that the targeted use of CCS could be one of the single largest contributors to California's decarbonization by 2030.

"California has a strong economic base, a skilled workforce, and enviable innovation capacity at its laboratories, universities, and tech companies," said Kenderdine. "The state is well placed to accelerate its progress on developing the clean energy technologies that will decarbonize industry and the power sector, create jobs, and new industries enabled by CCS, such as a hydrogen economy, and become a global leader in deploying CCS technologies."

CCS, like all other emission reduction technologies, is not a "silver bullet" technology for decarbonization. Carbon capture paired with permanent geologic storage (i.e. deep saline reservoir) is a viable and important option for reducing emissions from the industrial and electricity sectors that are key contributors to California's economy and the reliability of its grid.

Technoeconomic analysis done for this study identified 76 existing electricity generation and industrial facilities as candidates for CCS, in total representing nearly 15 percent of the state's current greenhouse gas emissions.

Successful policy pathways for achieving California's ambitious emission reduction targets are critical. Additional and accelerated actions are needed to ensure that the state successfully transitions to a carbon neutral economy both economically and equitably. California's economy would be the fifth largest in the world as a stand-alone entity, so the state's success in meeting its emissions targets and as a technology leader have significant implications for the global climate solutions.

Some key takeaways from the report:

California's economy would see rapid near-term emissions reduction benefits from CCS;

The state has a strong foundation for supporting CCS projects, and the study has identified 76 facilities suitable for carbon capture;

California's geology makes it well suited for safe, permanent CO2 storage; and

California could prioritize CCS projects that have demonstrable local air quality benefits and local job opportunities in line with the state's climate and equity goals

CAMBRIDGE, MA - October 22, 2020--Rapid Reviews: COVID-19 (RR:C19), an open-access overlay journal published by the MIT Press that accelerates peer review of COVID-19-related research preprints, is currently soliciting reviews of the following COVID-19 preprints. These preprints have been selected for review because they have the potential to enhance our understanding of SARS-CoV-2 or have been flagged as potentially misleading. Preprints with two finished reviews should be published within 10-14 days. Additional information or early access to these peer-reviews is available upon request.

Highlights from Rapid Reviews editorial team:

"Measuring the missing: greater racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 burden after accounting for missing race/ethnicity data" by Katie Labgold, et al.

Preprint Summary: After bias-adjustment, the magnitude of the absolute racial/ethnic disparity, measured as the difference in infection rates between classified Black and Hispanic persons compared to classified White persons, increased 1.3-fold and 1.6-fold respectively.
 

"Seroprevalence of SARS-COV-2 antibodies in Scottish healthcare workers" by Hani Abo-Leyah, et al.

Preprint Summary: Serological testing can be used to determine the prevalence and incidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection. 299/2062 had positive antibody test against spike protein (Seroprev = 14.5%). 11/231 control tested sera positive (seroprev 4.8%). Healthcare worker's odds of having a positive test was 3.4 greater than control. Dentists most frequently associated with detected antibodies (26%) followed by health care assistants (23.3%) and porters (22.2%).
 

"Quantifying the impact of quarantine duration on COVID-19 transmission" by Peter Ashcroft, et al.

Preprint Summary: Asserts that there are greatly diminished returns in terms of avoided transmission with quarantine duration greater than 10 days. Also, the ratio of (prevented transmission):(days spent in quarantine) would decrease further when coupled with test-and-release strategies and hygiene reinforcement post-release. Lastly, they find that a pure test-and-release strategy performs almost as well as a 10-day quarantine, with far lower costs compared to lost productivity due to quarantine.

Physical Sciences/Engineering

"Ultrasensitive and selective detection of SARS-CoV-2 using thermotropic liquid crystals and image-based machine learning" by Yang Xu, et al.

Preprint Summary: This study developed a novel diagnostic strategy that uses liquid crystal-conjugated nucleic acid probes to detect SARS-CoV-2 genetic sequences and show 3-base pair mismatches reduce signal by log 7. The authors also develop a diagnostic kit, including machine learning algorithm and diagnostic app to facilitate use in a Point of Care setting.
 

"A sew-free origami mask for improvised respiratory protection" by Jonathan Realmuto, et al.

Preprint Summary: An origami mask with adequate filtration efficiency can be made by non-experts using two elastic straps, square piece of filter material, nose clip material (twist tie, paper clip, etc.), and stapler. These masks can be made easily with minimal materials while providing appropriate filtration as tested using a mannequin based test for air flow and filtration.
 

"Hitting the diagnostic sweet spot: Point-of-care SARS-CoV-2 salivary antigen testing with an off-the-shelf glucometer" by Naveen Singh, et al.

Preprint Summary: A SARS-CoV-2 salivary antigen assay that uses a glucometer as readout for point-of-care diagnosis. The test is based on low-cost($3.20/test) reagents and off-the-shelf glucometer, and was able to deliver 100% sensitivity and 100% specificity within one hour as benchmarked by RT-qPCR.
 

"SARS-CoV-2 viral budding and entry can be modeled using virus-like particles" by Caroline Plescia, et al.

Preprint Summary: This study documents purification and assembly of SARS-CoV-2 Virus-like particles (VLPs). They study viral budding and entry in the presence of potential inhibitory drugs, in BSL-2 conditions.

Biological/Chemical Sciences

"SARS-CoV-2 cell entry gene ACE2 expression in immune cells that infiltrate the placenta in infection-associated preterm birth" by Phatcharawan Lye, et al.

Preprint Summary: This study claims placental tissue affected by chorioamnioitis or stimulated with pro-inflammatory bacterial components (LPS) show marked ACE2 upregulation in the synctiotrophoblast, tissue-resident myeloid cells, villous stroma, and fetal blood vessels. The authors claim COVID19+ patients in ChA-afflicted patients are at increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 vertical transmission.
 

"Landscape of public T cell receptors associated with recovery from COVID-19" by Donjete Simnica, et al.

Preprint Summary: This paper identifies TCR sequences overrepresented in recovered COVID19 patients relative to samples from deceased patients. The study also finds these clonal populations present in samples obtained prior to the pandemic and find these clones are less prevalent in more high-risk demographics (older and cancer-afflicted individuals).
 

"SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein promotes hyper-inflammatory response that can be ameliorated by Spike-antagonistic peptide and FDA-approved ER stress and MAP kinase inhibitors in vitro" by Alan C-Y. Hsu, et al.

Preprint Summary: SARS-Cov-2 causes a damaging pro-inflammatory response by activating NF-kB signaling, downstream of ACE2 binding, MAPK signaling, and the ER stress response machinery. This response can pathway can be targeted with an inhibitory peptide against Spike or FDA-approved ER stress and MAPK inhibitors. 

Public Health

"Comparison of infection control strategies to reduce COVID-19 outbreaks in homeless shelters in the United States: a simulation study" by Lloyd A.C. Chapman, et al.

Preprint Summary: A combined strategy involving daily symptom screening, universal mask wearing, twice-weekly PCR testing and re-location of high-risk individuals was simulated to have a 68% probability of averting an outbreak in low-risk settings. Weaknesses in methodology include assumption of 1-day turnaround for test results and that previous cases become immune. Methods also limited by lack of contact tracing in model.
 

"Projected HIV and bacterial STI incidence following COVID-related sexual distancing and clinical service interruption" by Samuel Jenness, et al.

Preprint Summary: Relative decrease in sexual partnerships and clinical services of STI during pandemic would lead to a decrease in HIV and STI infections. Greater relative reduction to clinical services and longer service interruptions leads to increase in HIV and STI infection rates. Modelling suggests that sexual distancing lasting 3 months while clinical services interruption lasting 18 moths, would lead to an additional 890 HIV cases and 57.5K STI cases in the studied city (Atlanta) during the following 5yrs.
 

"COVID-19 is feminine: grammatical gender influences future danger perceptions and precautionary behavior"

Preprint Summary: Following surveys to French and Spanish speaking individuals, the authors show that the virus is considered less likely to be dangerous in the future when thoughts of the concept are activated with the feminine grammatical gender than when they are activated with the masculine grammatical gender, which in turn reduces intentions to engage in behaviors to reduce the chances of contracting the disease or spreading the virus in potential consumption episodes.

Medical Sciences

"SARS-CoV-2 antibody responses in patients with aggressive haematological malignancies" by Jenny O'Nions, et al.

Preprint Summary: The majority (8/9) of Patients with Hematologic Malignancy (PHM) with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection seroconverted and developed antibodies to the major SARS-CoV-2 antigens (S1 and N) with most (6/8) produced neutralizing antibody responses. Furthermore, the dynamics of antibody responses were broadly similar to that reported for the general population, except for a possible delay to seroconversion.
 

"COVID-19 classification of x-ray images using deep neural networks" by Elisha Goldstein, et al.

Preprint Summary: Deep Neural Networks can be used to reliably classify CXR images as COVID-19 positive or negative. The model achieved 89.7% accuracy and 87.1% sensitivity (testing 15% of images) in classification of COVID-19 and area under receiver operating characteristic curve of 0.95. This could be a tool used to rapidly identify and isolate positive COVID-19 patients, which would contribute to contain the disease.
 

"COVID-19 infection may cause thyroid dysfunction" by Hongmei Zhang.

Preprint Summary: Relative to the control, COVID+ patients had lower serum levels of T3 and TSH and higher levels of T4. Thyroid dysfunction in COVID+ patients manifested often as non-thyroidal illness syndrome (NTIS). The FT3/FT4 ratio was negatively correlated with COVID-19 death in the multivariate logistic regression analysis. AUC for the FT3/FT4 ratio was 0·716 (p =0·000, 95%CI=0·633-0·799).
 

Hospitalized COVID-19 patients who were taking a daily low-dose aspirin to protect against cardiovascular disease had a significantly lower risk of complications and death compared to those who were not taking aspirin, according to a new study led by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM). Aspirin takers were less likely to be placed in the intensive care unit (ICU) or hooked up to a mechanical ventilator, and they were more likely to survive the infection compared to hospitalized patients who were not taking aspirin, The study, published today in the journal Anesthesia and Analgesia, provides "cautious optimism," the researchers say, for an inexpensive, accessible medication with a well-known safety profile that could help prevent severe complications.

"This is a critical finding that needs to be confirmed through a randomized clinical trial," said study leader Jonathan Chow, MD, Assistant Professor of Anesthesiology at UMSOM. "If our finding is confirmed, it would make aspirin the first widely available, over-the-counter medication to reduce mortality in COVID-19 patients."

To conduct the study, Dr. Chow and his colleagues culled through the medical records of 412 COVID-19 patients, age of 55 on average, who were hospitalized over the past few months due to complications of their infection. They were treated at the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore and three other hospitals along the East Coast. About a quarter of the patients were taking a daily low-dose aspirin (usually 81 milligrams) before they were admitted or right after admission to manage their cardiovascular disease.

The researchers found aspirin use was associated with a 44 percent reduction in the risk of being put on a mechanical ventilator, a 43 percent decrease in the risk of ICU admission and - most importantly - a 47 percent decrease in the risk of dying in the hospital compared to those who were not taking aspirin. The patients in the aspirin group did not experience a significant increase in adverse events such as major bleeding while hospitalized.

The researchers controlled for several factors that may have played a role in a patient's prognosis including age, gender, body mass index, race, hypertension and diabetes. They also accounted for heart disease, kidney disease, liver disease and the use of beta blockers to control blood pressure.

COVID-19 infections increase the risk of dangerous blood clots that can form in the heart, lungs, blood vessels and other organs. Complications from blood clots can, in rare cases, cause heart attacks, strokes and multiple organ failure as well as death.

Doctors often recommend a daily low-dose aspirin for patients who have previously had a heart attack or stroke caused by a blood clot to prevent future blood clots. Daily use, however, can increase the risk of major bleeding or peptic ulcer disease.

"We believe that the blood thinning effects of aspirin provides benefits for COVID-19 patients by preventing microclot formation," said study co-author Michael A. Mazzeffi, MD, Associate Professor of Anesthesiology at UMSOM. "Patients diagnosed with COVID-19 may want to consider taking a daily aspirin as long as they check with their doctor first." Those at increased bleeding risk due to chronic kidney disease, for example, or because they regularly use certain medications, like steroids or blood thinners, may not be able to safely take aspirin, he added.

Researchers from Wake Forest School of Medicine, George Washington University School of Medicine, Northeast Georgia Health System, and Walter Reed National Military Medical Center also participated in this study.

"This study adds to the tremendous work our researchers are doing in the School of Medicine to help find new treatments against COVID-19 and save patients' lives," said E. Albert Reece, MD, PhD, MBA, Executive Vice President for Medical Affairs, UM Baltimore, and the John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean, University of Maryland School of Medicine. "While confirmatory studies are needed to prove that aspirin use leads to better outcomes in COVID-19, the evidence thus far suggests that patients may want to discuss with their doctor whether it is safe for them to take aspirin to manage potentially prevent serious complications."

Women who compete in martial arts and combat sports challenge gender norms in their profession but often embrace them wholeheartedly and even overdo them in their personal lives, finds a UC Riverside study published in Sociology of Sport Journal.

The findings underscore the need for caution when assigning a feminist label to an organization or activity simply because it features women in powerful positions.

"Because the sport of women's mixed martial arts, or WMMA, allows women to participate in activities that have traditionally been reserved for men, many have prematurely concluded that WMMA is actually a feminist enterprise," said author Justen Hamilton, a doctoral candidate in sociology. "My research revealed, however, that a feminist consciousness -- critical to any feminist enterprise -- is sorely lacking in the sport."

Hamilton, who has also been an MMA competitor and coach, noticed a discrepancy between how women fighters perform gender in their sport and in their personal lives. MMA is a full-contact, "no holds barred" combat sport in which athletes can use techniques adapted from a wide range of martial arts to seek victory by knockout, submission, referee intervention, or judges' decision. Many women who were physically powerful, highly aggressive competitors seemed to be involved in personal relationships with men even stronger and more assertive than themselves.

Hamilton interviewed 40 WMMA athletes about their relationships and feelings about femininity. Almost all of the heterosexual women, who were the majority of his sample, said although they loved being strong and able to defend themselves, they preferred to be with a man who could protect them. They subscribed to the masculine ideal of a man who is willing to risk his own safety to protect his family. The ability to provide physical protection was the essential quality of being a man.

"I don't wanna' be the one that's protecting 'cause then I'd be the one who was the masculine one," said an interviewee.

Being smaller and weaker than a man also made the women feel more desirable. One participant said being with a man smaller than her made her feel even bigger, which made her feel fatter, less feminine, and undesirable.

Differences of size and strength are perhaps even more important to the gender and sexual dynamics of heterosexuality for these MMA fighters than they are for other straight women, according to the study. They looked for men who were taller, heavier, and even able to pick them up and carry them. Some pointed to relationships that had failed because the men felt insufficiently masculine around them, or because they felt unattracted to a man less masculine than them.

"If I could beat your ass, I'm always gonna' look at you like a little brother. I'm never gonna' look at you like this guy that I could potentially date," said another interviewee. "It's like you kinda' want someone who is able to beat you up but will never do it."

The paper states that in their MMA careers, all of the women worked tirelessly to ensure that they were bigger, stronger, and more physically capable than their opponents. In their intimate relationships, however, most of the straight women sought to be smaller, weaker, and less physically capable than their partners to combat feelings of feminine insecurity. Because of this gender insecurity, most of the heterosexual women, regardless of race or ethnicity, exclusively dated hypermasculine MMA fighters.

"I like to be able to give my partner a good run for their money, physically, but I don't really like to win," explained one interviewee. "Because ... biologically ... I think I'm just attracted to masculine men. They have to be more masculine than me because I am a woman and there is supposed to be a difference."

Hamilton said statements such as this one stood out because they suggest these women athletes' commitment to a hetero-feminine identity take precedent over their desire for athletic success, perhaps to their own professional and personal detriment.

"What is important to remember, however, is that these desires don't exist in a vacuum, and they directly speak to our patriarchal system that encourages women to show deference to men," Hamilton said.

Many of these relationships also revolved around other conventional gender norms, such as the belief that women are more nurturing and should make a comfortable and supportive home while the man provides economic and physical security. The word "alpha" came up often in interviews, with women preferring a man who would be the dominant alpha to their submissive beta.

To the handful of lesbians in Hamilton's sample, none of these things mattered as much. In fact, the ability to protect a partner was important to some. The paper concludes that this complicated picture needs further investigation, particularly with regard to queer identities and other aspects of the women's lives, such as friendships.

Wisdom has gained increasing interest among researchers over the last few decades as a biologically based personality trait relevant to physical well-being and mental health. Previous studies have identified six common, measurable components of wisdom: pro-social behaviors (empathy, compassion, altruism and a sense of fairness), emotional regulation, self-reflection or insight, acceptance of divergent perspectives, decisiveness and social decision-making.

In a study published in the October 22, 2020 online edition of the Journal of Psychiatric Research, researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine add a seventh component of wisdom: spirituality.

"There has historically been controversy about whether spirituality is a marker of wisdom," said Dilip V. Jeste, MD, co-first author of the study, senior associate dean for the Center of Healthy Aging and Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Neurosciences at UC San Diego School of Medicine. "Our findings show that spirituality is significantly associated with better mental health and well-being and may add to an individual's overall wisdom."

Data for the study was collected from a national sample of 1,786 adults ages 20 to 82 living in the United States. Participants completed the original 24-item San Diego Wisdom Scale, as well as other validated measures of spirituality/religiosity, well-being, resilience, happiness, depression, anxiety, loneliness and strength of social network.

"All of the components included in our self-report-based measure correlated with the overall wisdom score, but to varying degrees," said Michael Thomas, PhD, co-first author of the study and assistant professor of psychology at Colorado State University. "The overall wisdom score had a much stronger association with pro-social behaviors than with spirituality. But still, spirituality was a significant indicator of wisdom."

The researchers also found that spirituality correlated positively with age: older people tended to be more spiritual. And women scored higher in spirituality than men.

"Spirituality does not require religious faith but is characterized by humility and ever-present connectedness to oneself or to others or to an entity that is transcendent, such as Mother Nature or God or the soul," said Jeste. "It helps reduce stress in many people and allows them to be more at peace, happier and healthier."

"Feeling connected to something makes you feel less lonely. Loneliness and wisdom also have a strong connection in the opposite direction -- that is, more wisdom would connote less loneliness."

A limitation of the study, the authors note, is that it was cross-sectional. "Longitudinal studies of more diverse samples are needed to explore mediation effects of these components on well-being and health," said Thomas. "It is important to study whether interventions that target wisdom and its components improve overall well-being and quality of life. Having evidence-based measures of wisdom, including spirituality, can help us objectively test these ideas."

WASHINGTON (Oct. 22, 2020)--A "safety net" made up of multiple ambitious and interlinked goals is needed to tackle nature's alarming decline, according to an international team of researchers analyzing the new goals for biodiversity being drafted by the UN's Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

The scientific advice comes at a critical time: The CBD recently announced that none of its 20 biodiversity targets for 2020, which were set in 2010, has been fully reached. Policymakers, scientists and other experts are now preparing for the next generation of biodiversity goals, which will be unveiled at the CBD's Convention of the Parties in 2021.

"To curb the many threats to our biological world, we need biodiversity targets that are distinct, manifold and appreciate different facets of biodiversity," Amy Zanne, associate professor of biological sciences at the George Washington University and a member of the international team of researchers who analyzed the new biodiversity goals, said. "Evolutionary diversity, for example, may be a harder concept to neatly portray in a simple biodiversity target but it is critical that we acknowledge that some species are evolutionarily distinct -- they hold a unique and irreplaceable position within the Tree of Life and their preservation should be prioritized."

On August 17, 2020, the CBD released a draft of their post-2020 biodiversity goals. The research team, which included more than 60 leading biodiversity experts from 26 countries, assessed the goals and asked a number of questions, including what scientific evidence supported them, how the goals reinforced or undermined each other, and whether one aspect of nature could serve as a shortcut for others. Their independent assessment was published today in the journal Science.

"We hope this is a useful tool in the CBD negotiations on a new strategy for nature and people," Sandra Díaz, a professor at the National University of Córdoba and lead author of the paper, said.

According to the researchers, member nations of the CBD should consider three critical points when setting new biodiversity goals:

Goals based on a single facet, such as species or ecosystems in isolation, are risky. Multiple, intertwined goals containing different facets, such as genes, populations, species, deep evolutionary history, ecosystems and more, are needed because of nature's complexity.

Goals should be defined and developed holistically rather than in isolation, with potential to advance multiple goals simultaneously and minimize trade-offs among them.

Only the highest level of ambition in setting each goal, and implementing all goals in an integrated manner, will provide a realistic chance of stopping--and beginning to reverse--biodiversity loss by 2050.

"Building a sufficiently ambitious safety net for nature will be a major global challenge," Díaz said. "But unless we do it, we are leaving huge problems for every future generation."

The researchers note they explicitly focused on the biological aspects of the draft goals and did not evaluate the economic or political consequences. They say, however, that not considering social and political issues when implementing new goals would be a recipe for failure.

In the new paper, GW's Zanne urged that different kinds of diversity be considered when setting biodiversity targets, which is reflected in the paper's supplement under "Species extinctions--risks, roles and history."

By expanding on existing designs for electrodes of ultra-thin solar panels, Stanford researchers and collaborators in Korea have developed a new architecture for OLED - organic light-emitting diode - displays that could enable televisions, smartphones and virtual or augmented reality devices with resolutions of up to 10,000 pixels per inch (PPI). (For comparison, the resolutions of new smartphones are around 400 to 500 PPI.)

Such high-pixel-density displays will be able to provide stunning images with true-to-life detail - something that will be even more important for headset displays designed to sit just centimeters from our faces.

The advance is based on research by Stanford University materials scientist Mark Brongersma in collaboration with the Samsung Advanced Institute of Technology (SAIT). Brongersma was initially put on this research path because he wanted to create an ultra-thin solar panel design.

"We've taken advantage of the fact that, on the nanoscale, light can flow around objects like water," said Brongersma, who is a professor of materials science and engineering and senior author of the Oct. 22 Science paper detailing this research. "The field of nanoscale photonics keeps bringing new surprises and now we're starting to impact real technologies. Our designs worked really well for solar cells and now we have a chance to impact next generation displays."

In addition to having a record-setting pixel density the new "metaphotonic" OLED displays would also be brighter and have better color accuracy than existing versions, and they'd be much easier and cost-effective to produce as well.

Hidden gems

At the heart of an OLED are organic, light-emitting materials. These are sandwiched between highly-reflective and semi-transparent electrodes that enable current injection into the device. When electricity flows through an OLED, the emitters give off red, green or blue light. Each pixel in an OLED display is composed of smaller sub-pixels that produce these primary colors. When the resolution is sufficiently high, the pixels are perceived as one color by the human eye. OLEDs are an attractive technology because they are thin, light and flexible and produce brighter and more colorful images than other kinds of displays.

This research aims to offer an alternative to the two types of OLED displays that are currently commercially available. One type - called a red-green-blue OLED - has individual sub-pixels that each contain only one color of emitter. These OLEDs are fabricated by spraying each layer of materials through a fine metal mesh to control the composition of each pixel. They can only be produced on a small scale, however, like what would be used for a smartphone.

Larger devices like TVs employ white OLED displays. Each of these sub-pixels contains a stack of all three emitters and then relies on filters to determine the final sub-pixel color, which is simpler to fabricate. Since the filters reduce the overall output of light, white OLED displays are more power-hungry and prone to having images burn into the screen.

OLED displays were on the mind of Won-Jae Joo, a SAIT scientist, when he visited Stanford from 2016 to 2018. During that time, Joo listened to a presentation by Stanford graduate student Majid Esfandyarpour about an ultrathin solar cell technology he was developing in Brongersma's lab and realized it had applications beyond renewable energy.

"Professor Brongersma's research themes were all very academically profound and were like hidden gems for me as an engineer and researcher at Samsung Electronics," said Joo, who is lead author of the Science paper.

Joo approached Esfandyarpour after the presentation with his idea, which led to a collaboration between researchers at Stanford, SAI and Hanyang University in Korea.

"It was quite exciting to see that a problem that we have already thought about in a different context can have such an important impact on OLED displays," said Esfandyarpour.

A fundamental foundation

The crucial innovation behind both the solar panel and the new OLED is a base layer of reflective metal with nanoscale (smaller than microscopic) corrugations, called an optical metasurface. The metasurface can manipulate the reflective properties of light and thereby allow the different colors to resonate in the pixels. These resonances are key to facilitating effective light extraction from the OLEDs.

"This is akin to the way musical instruments use acoustic resonances to produce beautiful and easily audible tones," said Brongersma, who conducted this research as part of the Geballe Laboratory for Advanced Materials at Stanford.

For example, red emitters have a longer wavelength of light than blue emitters, which, in conventional RGB-OLEDs, translates to sub-pixels of different heights. In order to create a flat screen overall, the materials deposited above the emitters have to be laid down in unequal thicknesses. By contrast, in the proposed OLEDs, the base layer corrugations allow each pixel to be the same height and this facilitates a simpler process for large-scale as well as micro-scale fabrication.

In lab tests, the researchers successfully produced miniature proof-of-concept pixels. Compared with color-filtered white-OLEDs (which are used in OLED televisions) these pixels had a higher color purity and a twofold increase in luminescence efficiency - a measure of how bright the screen is compared to how much energy it uses. They also allow for an ultrahigh pixel density of 10,000 pixels-per-inch.

The next steps for integrating this work into a full-size display is being pursued by Samsung, and Brongersma eagerly awaits the results, hoping to be among the first people to see the meta-OLED display in action.