Culture

After months of technology-based communication enforced by COVID-19, many of us are missing a "live" human voice. But we're not the only ones -- a new study reveals that cows also prefer a face-to-face chat. The research, published in Frontiers in Psychology, discovers that cows are actually more relaxed when spoken to directly by a live human, rather than when listening to a recorded voice via a loudspeaker.

"Cattle like stroking in combination with gentle talking," says Annika Lange of the University of Veterinary Medicine, Vienna, Austria. "In scientific contexts, a recording of a human voice speaking gently could be used to relax the animals, because it can be difficult to repeat the same phrases in the same way during experiments."

Using a recorded voice means conditions are as similar as possible in each trial, following a concept known as "standardization" -- an important principle of scientific experimentation. However, the team of scientists wanted to find out if cows respond differently to the sound of recorded voices compared to a human talking directly to them. "Our study suggests that live talking is more relaxing for our animals than a recording of a human voice", Lange says. "Interactions may be less positive when they become artificial through standardization".

The team worked with a herd of 28 cattle, comparing the benefits of either stroking the animals while playing a recording of an experimenter's voice, or stroking while speaking to the animals directly. After monitoring the animals' responses during the experiments, they found live talking was the best mood enhancer for their bovine friends.

Heart rate variability was higher when cattle were spoken to directly, indicating they were enjoying themselves. After this treatment, heart rates were lower than after listening to a recorded voice, showing that the animals were more relaxed following the live chat.

How does a chilled cow behave? "When relaxed and enjoying the interaction, the animals will often stretch out their necks as they do when they groom each other," says Lange. "Additionally, it is thought that ear positions may indicate mood: hanging ears and low ear positions appear to be linked to relaxation."

The experiment included only one herd and one playback recording. Lange calls for further research to see if results are also valid for different herds and situations, such as with cows that are more fearful of humans. This will help in further studies on the improvement of cattle-human relationships, an important aspect of animal welfare.

Plans to release a virus to reduce numbers of invasive Common Carp in Australia are unlikely to work and should be dropped, researchers say.

Australian Government scientists have asked for approval to release Koi Herpesvirus (KHV) into the continent's largest freshwater supply to kill non-native carp.

The new study, by the University of Exeter and the University of East Anglia, demonstrates that Common Carp would evolve resistance to the virus and carp numbers would soon recover.

Carp can cause ecological damage in large numbers by uprooting vegetation and increasing sediment in the water, with significant knock-on effects for other species in the ecosystem.

This means control is required - but the study says releasing KHV is not the answer.

"Viral biocontrol is highly questionable and, as our study shows, it is unlikely to reduce carp numbers in the long term," said Dr Jackie Lighten, of the University of Exeter.

"Our modelling shows that even under the most optimal conditions for biocontrol, populations quickly recover.

"Releasing KHV carries significant risks to human and ecosystem health, which likely outweigh the benefits, and we have previously urged further detailed research to avoid an unnecessary ecological catastrophe.

"Based on our findings, we believe the plan to control Australia's carp with KHV is dead in the water."

Dr Lighten previously argued in the Australian Senate that the country's National Carp Control Program (NCCP) was omitting key areas of research from its work.

A key component of this is computer simulation modelling to assess if the virus would effectively kill the fish in light of the genetic component of resistance to KHV, which resides in the global carp population.

Dr Katie Mintram, of the University of Exeter, said: "Modelling the epidemiology of proposed viral releases is essential for risk assessment and estimation of likely outcomes.

"We built a simulation model which allowed us to examine realistic interactions among carp, virus and disease resistance, to estimate how long it would take carp populations to recover even if 95% of them were wiped out.

"We show that the biological characteristics of the carp, including their rapid breeding rates, allow infected populations to recover rapidly with individuals that are KHV resistant."

The authors modelled a "best-case scenario" for the virus to eradicate carp - but the carp population still evolved resistance, making future outbreaks of the virus ineffective.

"The modelling strategy that we took is a very powerful way to assess how disease can spread among individuals within a population," said Professor Cock van Oosterhout, of the University of East Anglia.

"It's an 'Individual Based Model', which is similar to those used by scientists around the world to understand and prevent the spread of Covid-19.

"It is widely accepted as the current gold standard in projecting disease outcomes but, worryingly, the NCCP chose to ignore this approach.

"Also, they didn't model the impact of disease resistance, which is crucial in understanding the epidemiology of infectious disease."

KHV appeared in European aquaculture (fish farming) facilities in the late 1990s and rapidly spread around the world, resulting in the deaths of millions of carp.

Common Carp are among the world's most farmed fish for food, popular pets (Koi) and a prized fish for recreational angling. KHV has caused millions of dollars of damage worldwide.

Dr Lighten said: "We recommend that the Australian Government takes bold steps to significantly improve the health of its waterways, rather than releasing a potentially catastrophic virus into its ecosystems.

"Freshwater is in desperate shortage in large parts of Australia, so the first step must be to reduce the amount of water extracted for thirsty crops such as cotton.

"This would help to restore habitat for native species, thereby reducing habitat for carp.

"Proper governance is what's needed, rather than giving an unhealthy and fragile ecosystem a foreign virus, which could significantly tip the balance out of favour for native species."

Dr Lighten added: "If the current global Covid-19 pandemic has reminded of anything, it's that viruses are hard to predict and manage.

"It is madness that the release of a high pathogenic virus is being considered as one of the first steps to restore a damaged and fragile ecosystem.

"This is even more so, considering that very little progress has been made in reducing the volume of water extracted from the Murray-Darling Basin, which should be primary in restoring river health over releasing a pathogen that could have significant ecological repercussions."

Russian propaganda is hitting its mark on social media -- generating strong partisan reactions that may help intensify political divisions -- but Facebook users are less apt to press the "like" button on content when they learn that it is part of a foreign propaganda campaign, according to a new RAND Corporation report.

Researchers say that Russia is using political memes to polarize Americans, particularly those at the extreme ends of the political spectrum who typically like and share content that aligns with their political views at higher rates than others.

But a unique RAND study that exposed these hyper-partisan news consumers to potential interventions suggests that most are open to reconsidering their initial response to a Russian meme after its source is revealed to them.

"Left- and right-wing audiences are particular targets of Russian propaganda efforts, so they naturally have a big reaction because the propaganda speaks to them," said Todd Helmus, the study's lead author and a senior behavioral scientist at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research group. "A big reaction also means a lot of room for improvement in terms of learning how to think critically about the source of a particular news item, and the consequences of passing it along to others."

The RAND report is the third of a four-part series intended to help policymakers and the public understand -- and mitigate -- the threat of online foreign interference in national, state and local elections.

The latest study used a randomized controlled trial of more than 1,500 Facebook users to understand how people react emotionally to Russian propaganda -- specifically, memes that Russia used in the 2016 U.S. election cycle -- and whether media literacy content or labeling the source of a meme could help prevent the spread, and thus influence, of Russian propaganda on social media platforms.

The study may be the first to test the impact of media literacy and labeling interventions on audience reactions to actual Russian propaganda memes.

Researchers asked participants about their consumption of news and categorized them into five groups. They found that two of the groups react in the strongest and most partisan way to Russian memes.

The first of those two groups is the "Partisan Left," who lean left politically and most often received their news from the New York Times. They also are least likely to believe that COVID-19 is a conspiracy. The second is "Partisan Right," who lean right politically and get their news from Fox News or politically far-right outlets. They are the group most likely to believe that COVID-19 is a conspiracy.

People in these two groups also are the most likely to change their minds about liking a meme if the meme is revealed to be from a Russian source, according to the study.

Among members of the Partisan Right group, exposure to a short media literacy video reduced the number of likes for pro-U.S. and politically right-leaning Russian content. The video also reduced likes of pro-USA themed Russian content among all study participants. The media literacy video had no significant effect on likes associated with left-leaning Russian content.

While it is difficult to assess whether revealing the source of memes is a feasible mechanism for helping people recognize propaganda, researchers say there may be immense value in developing a third-party software plug-in that could unmask the source of state-sponsored content.

RAND researchers recommend educating Americans about the presence of Russian propaganda and encouraging them to be highly suspicious of sources and their intent. An example of a Russian meme, with directions on how to refute it, could help inoculate Americans against propaganda.

Additionally, researchers point to technological media literacy interventions as a promising way to reduce the impact of Russian propaganda.

"Media literacy interventions that can be placed on phones or other devices have the potential to help people think through the way they interact with news or media content," Helmus said.

This research was sponsored by the California Governor's Office of Emergency Services.

The first report in the RAND series concluded that the main goal of foreign interference is to paralyze the American political process by driving people to extreme positions that make it ever more difficult to reach consensus. The second report concluded that coordinated efforts on Twitter to interfere in the current U.S. presidential election may have worked in favor of President Trump, and against the candidacy of Vice President Biden.

The report, "Russian Propaganda Hits Its Mark: Experimentally Testing the Impact of Russian Propaganda and Counter-Interventions," is available at http://www.rand.org. Other authors of the study are James V. Marrone, Marek N. Posard and Danielle Schlang.

The RAND National Security Research Division conducts research and analysis on defense and national security topics for the U.S. and allied defense, foreign policy, homeland security, and intelligence communities and foundations and other non-governmental organizations that support defense and national security analysis.

Two new studies from the University of Melbourne will help the largest, most powerful and complex space telescope ever built to uncover galaxies never before seen by humanity.

The papers are published in The Astrophysical Journal and the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society and show that NASA's James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch late next year, will reveal hidden galaxies.

Powerful lights called 'quasars' are the brightest objects in the universe. Powered by supermassive black holes up to a trillion times the mass of our Sun, they outshine entire galaxies of billions of stars.

Simulations led by Science PhD candidate, Madeline Marshall, show that while even NASA's Hubble Space Telescope can't see galaxies currently hidden by these quasars, the James Webb Telescope will be able to get past the glare.

"Webb will open up the opportunity to observe these very distant host galaxies for the first time," said Ms Marshall, who conducted her research at the ARC Centre of Excellence in All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D).

"That can help us answer questions like: How can black holes grow so big so fast? Is there a relationship between the mass of the galaxy and the mass of the black hole, like we see in the nearby universe?"

Although quasars are known to reside at the centers of galaxies, it has been difficult to tell what those galaxies are like and how they compare to galaxies without quasars.

"Ultimately, Webb's observations should provide new insights into these extreme systems," said ASTRO 3D co-author Stuart Wyithe of the University of Melbourne.

"The data it gathers will help us understand how a black hole could grow to weigh a billion times as much as our Sun in just a billion years. These big black holes shouldn't exist so early because there hasn't been enough time for them to grow so massive."

The University of Melbourne team collaborated with researchers from the US, China, Germany, and The Netherlands to use the Hubble Space Telescope to try to observe these galaxies.

They then used a state-of-the-art computer simulation called BlueTides, which was developed by a team led by ASTRO 3D distinguished visitor, Tiziana Di Matteo, from Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, US.

"BlueTides is designed to study the formation and evolution of galaxies and quasars in the first billion years of the universe's history," said Yueying Ni of Carnegie Mellon University, who ran the BlueTides simulation.

"Its large cosmic volume and high spatial resolution enables us to study those rare quasar hosts on a statistical basis."

The team used these simulations to determine what Webb's cameras would see if the observatory studied these distant systems. They found that distinguishing the host galaxy from the quasar would be possible, although still challenging due to the galaxy's small size on the sky.

They also found that the galaxies hosting quasars tended to be smaller than average, spanning only about 1/30 the diameter of the Milky Way despite containing almost as much mass as our galaxy.

"The host galaxies are surprisingly tiny compared to the average galaxy at that point in time," said Ms Marshall.

Oncotarget Volume 11, Issue 29 reported that Immunosuppressive chemoresistance is a major burden in lung cancer.

Recent data reveal that long noncoding RNAs present in the lung tumor microenvironment are implicated in chemoresistant-related immune deregulation, and metastasis but their exact pathogenic role is still unknown.

In this study, the Oncotarget authors investigate the role of lncRNA PCAT-1 in chemoresistant immunosuppression and its involvement in tumor stroma remodeling. Findings reveal PCAT-1 to regulate Kras-related lung chemoresistance through increased expression of the immunosuppressive micrornas miR-182/miR217 in lung tissues, thus promoting a pre-metastatic niche formation and a subsequent increase in lung metastatic burden.

Subsequent PCAT-1 knockdown impaired CAF-mediated stromal activation, and reversed chemoresistance and tumor growth in vivo.

Overall, these findings demonstrate the versatile roles of PCAT-1 in sustaining lung immunosuppressive neoplasia through tumor microenvironment remodeling and provide new opportunities for effective metastasis inhibition, especially in chemoresistant tumors.

"Overall, these findings demonstrate the versatile roles of PCAT-1 in sustaining lung immunosuppressive neoplasia through tumor microenvironment remodeling and provide new opportunities for effective metastasis inhibition, especially in chemoresistant tumors"

Dr. Savvas Petanidis from The Aristotle University of Thessaloniki as well as the I.M. Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University said, "Lung cancer remains the leading cause of cancer-related deaths and despite extensive research efforts, the survival rate of lung cancer patients remains significantly low."

Emerging evidence indicates that lncRNAs present in the lung tumor microenvironment promote tumor growth through cancer cell remodeling that favors immunosuppressive metastasis.

These decisive tumor propagating effects of lncRNA permit tumor cells to bypass immune surveillance and reduce T-cell infiltration into tumor, limiting the clinical benefits of immune checkpoint therapies.

Fibroblasts which play a key role in this mechanism, constitute most of the stromal cells in tumor tissues, secrete a wide spectrum of chemokines or cytokines to the tumor microenvironment, thus promoting growth, invasion, angiogenesis.

Furthermore, fibroblast-derived exosomes induce cancer stem cell expression that contributes to altered tumor metabolism and emergence of chemoresistance in tumor microenvironment.

In this study the authors characterize for the first time the role of lncRNA PCAT-1 in Kras-related lung chemoresistance and its role in tumor stroma remodeling via immunosuppressive miR-182/miR217 expression and fibroblast differentiation.

"In this study the authors characterize for the first time the role of lncRNA PCAT-1 in Kras-related lung chemoresistance and its role in tumor stroma remodeling via immunosuppressive miR-182/miR217 expression and fibroblast differentiation"

The Petanidis Research Team concluded in their Oncotarget Research Paper that "our findings reveal for the first time the key role of lncRNA PCAT-1 in regulating Kras-related lung chemoresistance and its role in tumor stroma remodeling via immunosuppressive miR-182/miR217 expression. Aberrant expression of PCAT-1 in the tumor microenvironment triggers fibroblast differentiation which negative regulates p27/CDK6 by inducing G0/G1 cell cycle arrest and AMPK augmentation, contributing to a tumor-favoring metabolic status. Our findings highlight the crucial relationship between CAFs and PCAT-1 which establish a CD133/SOX2-related stem cell phenotype and promote cancer cell chemoresistance. Decoding these molecular mechanisms and their impact in chemotherapy induction is essential for introducing novel immune-based strategies to restore and maintain antitumor immunity in chemoresistant metastasis."

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DOI - https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.27675

Full text - https://www.oncotarget.com/article/27675/text/

Correspondence to - Savvas Petanidis - spetanid@auth.gr

Keywords -
PCAT-1,
miR-182,
immunosuppression,
Kras,
miR-217

About Oncotarget

Oncotarget is a weekly, peer-reviewed, open access biomedical journal covering research on all aspects of oncology.

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DOI

10.18632/oncotarget.27675

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- During the pandemic, the amount of screen time for many people working and learning from home as well as binge-watching TV has sharply increased. New research finds that wearing blue-light glasses just before sleeping can lead to a better night's sleep and contribute to a better day's work to follow.

"We found that wearing blue-light-filtering glasses is an effective intervention to improve sleep, work engagement, task performance and organizational citizenship behavior, and reduced counterproductive work behavior," said Cristiano L. Guarana, assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business. "Wearing blue-light-filtering glasses creates a form of physiologic darkness, thus improving both sleep quantity and quality."

Most of the technology we commonly use -- such as computer screens, smartphones and tablets -- emits blue light, which past research has found can disrupt sleep. Workers have become more dependent on these devices, especially as we navigate remote work and school during the coronavirus pandemic.

The media have recently reported on the benefits of blue-light glasses for those spending a lot of time in front of a computer screen. This new research extends understanding of the circadian rhythm, a natural, internal process that regulates the sleep-wake cycle and repeats roughly every 24 hours.

"In general, the effects of wearing blue-light-filtering glasses were stronger for 'night owls' than for 'morning larks,' said Guarana, who previously has studied how lack of sleep affects business decisions, relationships and other behaviors in organizations. "Owls tend to have sleep periods later in the day, whereas larks tend to have sleep periods early in the day.

"Although most of us can benefit from reducing our exposure to blue light, owl employees seem to benefit more because they encounter greater misalignments between their internal clock and the externally controlled work time. Our model highlights how and when wearing blue-light-filtering glasses can help employees to live and work better."

The findings appear in the paper, "The Effects of Blue-Light Filtration on Sleep and Work Outcomes," published online by the Journal of Applied Psychology. Guarana is the corresponding author; his co-authors are Christopher Barnes and Wei Jee Ong of the University of Washington.

The research found that daily engagement and performance of tasks may be related to more underlying biological processes such as the circadian process.

"Our research pushes the chronotype literature to consider the relationship between the timing of circadian processes and employees' performance," the researchers wrote.

A good night's sleep not only benefits workers; it also helps their employers' bottom lines.

"This study provides evidence of a very cost-effective means of improving employee sleep and work outcomes, and the implied return on investment is gigantic," said Barnes, professor of management and the Evert McCabe Endowed Fellow at the University of Washington's Foster School of Business. "I personally do not know of any other interventions that would be that powerful at that low of a cost."

Across two studies, researcher collected data from 63 company managers and 67 call center representatives at Brazil-based offices for a U.S. multinational financial firm and measured task performance from clients. Participants were randomly chosen to test glasses that filtered blue light or those that were placebo glasses.

"Employees are often required to work early mornings, which may lead to a misalignment between their internal clock and the externally controlled work time," the researchers said, adding that their analyses showed a general pattern that blue-light filtration can have a cumulative effect on key performance variables, at least in the short term.

"Blue-light exposure should also be of concern to organizations," Guarana said. "The ubiquity of the phenomenon suggests that control of blue-light exposure may be a viable first step for organizations to protect the circadian cycles of their employees from disruption."

PHILADELPHIA (October 12, 2020) - Smell loss is a frequently reported symptom of COVID-19 but reports of prevalence vary from study-to-study and range from 5% to 98%. With such a wide range of estimates, it is difficult to prioritize its importance for testing and treatment.

Investigators, led by the Monell Chemical Senses Center, determined in part why the reports vary so much. They reviewed existing research to determine whether the studies that used direct measures versus self-report of smell loss could explain the range of estimates. They found that with direct measures, about 77% of COVID-19 patients had smell loss versus only 44% with self-report.

Direct measures of smell ability involve having patients smell and report on actual odorants, whereas self-report methods include obtaining data through patient questionnaires, interviews, or electronic health records. Direct measures are objective whereas self-report are subjective measures of a person's experience.

"Objective measures are a more sensitive method to identify smell loss related to COVID-19," said first author Mackenzie E. Hannum, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at Monell.

On the other hand, subjective measures, "while expedient during the early stages of the pandemic, underestimate the true prevalence of smell loss," said Vicente A. Ramirez, a doctoral student at the University of California, Merced and Monell summer intern. Drs. Hannum and Ramirez are both investigators in the lab of senior author Danielle R. Reed, PhD, Associate Director at Monell.

Their research suggests subjective methodologies underestimate the true prevalence of loss of smell and that smell loss may be an effective screening method for early COVID-19 detection. The team published their findings in Chemical Senses, which is available as an open-access paper.

In addition, the team created a web resource that tracks the publication of COVID-19 and smell loss reports, which is updated weekly. (Please be patient when accessing the portal, the page takes a moment to load.) As of mid-October 2020, the online portal contains 118 studies of smell loss with close to 44,000, and this number grows daily.

The disparity between the reported prevalence of loss of smell in objective and subjective methods calls for further examination of the consequences of self-report. "Measuring people for smell loss may become as routine as measuring body temperature for fever" said Reed.

Coauthor Paule Joseph, PhD, a clinician at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) adds, "measurement of smell should be a part of all COVID-19 clinical exams and is a valuable screening tool."

Researchers do not yet have a clear picture of the trajectory of COVID-19-induced smell loss; the team found varied reports among the studies they analyzed. Several studies reported significant improvements quickly after the onset of symptoms. However, other studies said that many patients still had not returned to a normal sense of smell more than two weeks after the beginning of smell loss.

Dietary supplementation of fatty acids produced from microalgae have wide-reaching health benefits for humans, including the ability to reduce obesity, diabetes and fatty liver disease, preventing hair loss, and assisting wounds to heal.

However, its widespread development has been hampered by the current limits of bioimaging tools needed to allow easy, rapid and non-invasive evaluation of lipid conditions within microalgae.

A novel protocol to detect lipid production in microalgae has been discovered at Flinders University by Mohsinul Reza, a PhD student under the supervision of Professors Jian Qin and Youhong Tang.

The study - "Understanding the lipid production mechanism in Euglena gracilis with a fast-response AIEgen bioprobe, DPAS" published by Materials Chemistry Frontiers, DOI: 10.1039/D0QM00621A) - details the development of a novel protocol by using a novel aggregation induced emission (AIE) fluorescent bioprobe to detect the production of lipid drops from microalgae.

Mr Reza has discovered the optimal condition to maximise the production of long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acid such as omega-3 fatty acids eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) in Euglena gracilis - a species of lipid-producing microalgae that can biosynthesise multiple beneficiary compounds as food supplements for human health.

"This technique enables us to visualise the distribution and quantity of lipid drops in live algae on a confocal microscope," says Professor Jian Qin. "This new method could screen the capacity of lipid droplet production in other algal species that have the potential as a source to produce healthy food for humans."

The new technique improves on traditional fluorescent probes currently used for lipid imaging, which often suffer from reduced photostability and difficulties in dye acquisition techniques that limits their usage for microscopic imaging.

The new bioprobe DPAS (a lipid-specific AIE fluorogen that is synthesised from very cheap materials) could surpass the performances of the traditional fluorophore for lipid droplets staining in terms of photostability, rapid and easy sample preparation techniques.

This new technique significantly eases the lipid study in this algal cell type. This fluorescent probe is also biocompatible and suitable for multicolour imaging that broadens the horizon of this dye for biological studies.

The researchers also observed cultural conditions that can produce higher amount of health beneficiary fatty acids, which suggests that promising bio-functional compounds could be available from culturing Euglena gracilis microalgae in the applied conditions.

In details, the researchers tested five different treatments and analysed the results using DPAS and BODIPY (a well-known staining probe) to compare the results. They found that the presence of organic carbon in the form of glucose and deprivation of nitrogen and calcium from the algal culture enhanced lipid production in a dark condition.

When COVID-19 hit the United States, small towns near ski areas such as Park City, Utah, and Sun Valley, Idaho, experienced some of the highest per capita cases; people from around the world had brought the virus along with their skis. As the coronavirus spread, gateway communities--communities near scenic public lands, national parks, and other outdoor recreational amenities--felt acute economic pressure as the virus forced them to shut down tourist activities.

Now, many gateway communities are facing an entirely new problem: a flood of remote workers fleeing big cities to ride out the pandemic, perhaps permanently. Like oil discovery led to western boomtowns, the pandemic has led to the rise of "Zoom Towns"--and with this so-called amenity migration comes a variety of challenges.

"This trend was already happening, but amenity migration into these communities has been expedited and it can have destructive consequences if not planned for and managed. Many of these places are, as some people say, at risk of being loved to death," said Danya Rumore, director of the Environmental Dispute Resolution Program and research assistant professor in the Department of City & Metropolitan Planning at the University of Utah.

Rumore, who is from the gateway community of Sandpoint, Idaho, leads a team of researchers at University of Utah and University of Arizona who study planning and development challenges in western gateway communities. In a new paper in the Journal of the American Planning Association, the team published the results of a 2018 study involving a survey with public officials in more than 1200 western gateway communities and in-depth interviews with officials from 25 communities. In an eerie foreshadowing, a town manager from a developed gateway community said, "We don't have the staff capacity to deal with major crises."

"Our research shows that as small, rural gateway communities grow, they tend to experience a suite of big city problems, like housing affordability and transportation issues," Rumore said. "In 2018 these public officials expressed a sense of already being behind the curve, and in need of additional capacity and resources to plan and adapt to rapid growth."

In an effort to help gateway communities and the regions around them plan for and respond to COVID-19 and planning pressures, Rumore and others have launched the Gateway and Natural Amenity Region (GNAR) Initiative based at Utah State University in the Institute of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism. The GNAR Initiative will begin hosting a webinar series on amenity migration beginning Oct. 15.

Loved to death

As part of the study, officials were asked specific questions about their communities' planning challenges and opportunities. Housing and cost of living were key concerns for many gateway communities; 80% of respondents reported that housing affordability was moderately or extremely problematic for their community. Respondents also cited traffic congestion and other transportation issues as problems. These issues appear to be more strongly associated with population growth than with tourism and will likely get worse as COVID-19 drives rapid migration to these places.

The influx of remote workers could present economic development opportunities for gateway communities, Rumore said, but could also drive up housing prices and cost of living. Half of the survey respondents said that the average wage relative to cost-of-living was moderately or extremely problematic for their community in 2018, prior to this new wave of amenity migration.

"If you've been living there and growing up in this community and you don't have a job that's paying the salary of someone who's in, for example, downtown Seattle, you're going to be excluded from this community and your ability to invest in land and property if you haven't already," said Philip Stoker, assistant professor at the University of Arizona and co-author of the study.

For Zacharia Levine, doctoral student at the U and co-author of the paper, the topic is personal. For 6 years he served as the community and economic community director for Grand County, Utah, which encompasses the gateway city of Moab, the Colorado River, and two national parks--Arches and Canyonlands. Over the last ten years, Moab visitation has grown to more than 3 million people per year. The locals felt it.

"The primary challenges residents reported included downtown congestion, housing affordability and availability, environmental degradation, and a general decline in quality of life. Much of Moab's infrastructure was built when the town became a uranium boomtown; it was never designed to accommodate the world. Just in the last few years, we've had to build new water storage facilities, sewer treatment facilities, roads, and other public infrastructure," said Levine. "Further, our local governments have struggled to increase their human resource capacities to plan for the future, let alone to deal with current issues."

Levine began working with Rumore in hopes of finding guidance to address these immense challenges, but the academic planning literature lacked resources that focused on planning for these unique rural communities. The problem was hardly unique to Moab--some places such as Jackson, Wyoming, and Breckenridge, Colorado, have been experiencing amenity migration and related growth and development pressures for decades. Other gateway communities, such as Torrey, Utah that never thought it would happen to them, are just starting to feel the pressure. Like Rumore, Levine is worried that the flood of remote workers would catch many gateway communities, particularly those that are less developed, off guard.

"Many places have experienced this common trajectory. How does a gateway community navigate tourism, and growth writ-large, more gracefully?" Levine asked. "COVID-19 really blew the lid off that challenge."

The GNAR Initiative

The GNAR Initiative is an affiliation of university faculty, government and state agencies, non-profit organizations and community leaders that supports research, educational efforts, and capacity building to help public lands managers and others. The initiative provides an online toolkit for gateway communities, hosts educational events and community peer-to-peer learning forums, and supports cross-university research initiatives.

As part of its efforts to raise awareness about the likelihood of amenity migration to gateway communities and to share tools and resources, the GNAR Initiative will begin hosting a webinar series on amenity migration beginning Oct. 15.

"The main takeaway from our study and work with gateway communities is that these towns and cities need to plan ahead to manage change and the things that come with it," Rumore said. "The goal of the GNAR Initiative is to help these places thrive and preserve the things that make them so special."

40% of tenant households across Australia indicated that after paying rent there was not enough money left over to buy essentials due to COVID lockdowns

One third of renters surveyed were ignored or unable to negotiate a rent reduction with their landlord

5% of renters were issued with an eviction notice during the pandemic

Around half of survey respondents indicated that their mental health had been negatively affected by COVID-19 lockdowns.

Almost 40% of Australian tenant households can't afford essentials such as bills, clothing, transport and food, after paying rent, because their incomes have reduced significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, new research from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute has found.

The research, 'Renting in the time of COVID-19: understanding the impacts', led by the University of Adelaide surveyed 15,000 public and private renting households across all Australian states and territories during July and August 2020.

The research identified challenges for the rental sector and brings insights into how the rental market is performing, the uptake of existing support measures and the demand for future assistance.

According to the research, as a result of the COVID-19 lockdowns, Australian tenant households earning less than $90,000 per year had higher rates of reduced working hours (up to 26% of households), temporary job loss (up to 16%) or reduction to overall income (up to 11%) when compared to higher income households.

One in six respondents reported that they had accessed government income assistance, such as JobKeeper or JobSeeker, for the first time, with low-to-moderate income households having a higher need for assistance.

Around half of survey respondents indicated that their mental health had been negatively affected by COVID-19 lockdowns and just over 10% reported that this had been significant.

'COVID-19 has been devastating for many Australians but those in the rental sector have been particularly impacted,' says project leader Professor Emma Baker, University of Adelaide Professor of Housing Research.

'The pandemic, and the subsequent economic and social lockdown, has rapidly changed our housing system: the way we use our homes, our ability to afford them, and the role of government safety nets. The pandemic has placed many people in the rental market at risk; they face uncertainty, tenure insecurity, financial hardship and significant mental health effects.'

In examining the stability of tenancies during the pandemic, researchers found that just over 5% of respondents had been issued with an eviction notice during the pandemic. Even though some of those tenants benefitted from state and territory eviction protections, just over half of households issued with eviction notices went on to be evicted.

In addition, 16% of tenant households surveyed had requested a rent alteration (either a deferral or reduction) as a result of COVID-19-related hardship, and of those households, 30% said that the landlord would not negotiate or did not respond to their request.

The report also found there is considerable uncertainty about the need for government income support into the future. When households were asked if they think they will need financial assistance in the coming 12 months, 28% responded that they would, 31% said they did not know and 40% said that they would not.

'Many renters are currently buffered from the full economic effects of the pandemic by their savings, their superannuation and rent deferment, as well as a temporary government supports in the form of eviction moratoriums, JobKeeper and JobSeeker,' says Professor Baker.

'With the on-going health and economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic still evolving, if these savings and superannuation buffers eventually run out, renters will be entirely dependent on packages of government support. In the absence of an effective and accessible vaccine, it is likely that the situation for renters captured in this mid-2020 snapshot will be different--and almost certainly worse--by mid-2021.'

There is an old saying, "If rubber is the material that opened the way to the ground, aluminum is the one that opened the way to the sky." New materials were always discovered at each turning point that changed human history. Materials used in memory devices are also drastically evolving with the emergence of new materials such as doped silicon materials, resistance changing materials, and materials that spontaneously magnetize and polarize. How are these new materials made? A research team from POSTECH has revealed the mechanism behind making materials used in new memory devices by using artificial intelligence.

The research team led by Professor Si-Young Choi of Department of Materials Science and Engineering and the team led by Professor Daesu Lee of the Department of Physics at POSTECH have together succeeded in synthesizing a novel substance that produces electricity by causing polarization (a phenomenon in which the position of negative and positive charges is separated from the negative and positive charges within the crystal) at room temperature and confirmed its variation in the crystal structure by applying deep neural network analysis. This paper was published in the recent issue of Nature Communications.

The atomic structures of perovskite oxides are often distorted and their properties are determined by the oxygen octahedral rotation (OOR) accordingly. In fact, there are only a few stable OOR patterns present at equilibrium and this inevitably limits the properties and functions of perovskite oxides.

The joint research team focused on a perovskite oxide called CaTiO3 which remains nonpolar (or paraelectric) even at the absolute temperature of 0K. Based on the ab-initio calculations, however, the team found that a unique OOR pattern that does not naturally exist would be able to facilitate the ferroelectricity, a powerful polarization at room temperature.

In this light, the research team succeeded in synthesizing a novel material (heteroepitaxial CaTiO3) that possesses the ferroelectricity by applying interface engineering that controls the atomic structures at the interface and accordingly its physical property.

In addition, deep neural network analysis was applied to examine the fine OOR and the variation of a few decades of picometer in the atomic structures, and various atomic structures were simulated and data were utilized for AI analysis to identify artificially controlled OOR patterns.

"We have confirmed that we can create new physical phenomena that do not naturally occur by obtaining the unique OOR pattern through controlling the variation in its atomic structure," remarked Professor Daesu Lee. "It is especially significant to see that the results of the convergent research of physics and new materials engineering enable calculations for material design, synthesis of novel materials, and analysis to understand new phenomena."

Professor Si-Young Choi explained, "By applying the deep machine learning to materials research, we have successfully identified atomic-scale variations on tens of picometers that are difficult to identify with the human eye." He added, "It could be an advanced approach for materials analysis that can help to understand the mechanism for creating new materials with unique physical phenomena."

Plastic gathered from remote corners of the South Pacific Ocean, including nesting areas of New Zealand albatrosses, has confirmed the global threat of plastic pollution to seabirds.

Published on 12 October in the journal Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, the study looks for patterns in the plastics seabirds from around the South Pacific ingest.

It uses data gathered by Canterbury Museum Senior Curator Natural History Dr Paul Scofield and Wellington ornithologist Christopher Robertson in the late 1990s and 2000s.

"Plastic pollution is a major threat to seabird species, not just here in New Zealand but around the world," says Dr Scofield. "Knowing more about how seabirds interact with plastic might help us solve this problem in the future. At the moment, it's only getting worse."

Christopher Robertson, co-author of the study says, "One of the interesting takeaways from this study is that it shows you just how far plastic can travel in the ocean. Some of the areas where we collected the plastic are very remote. To me, that shows that this is a global issue; it's not something a single country can solve on its own."

"The samples provided by our colleagues from New Zealand allowed us to assess the patterns of seabird-plastic interactions on a larger scale, across the entire South Pacific Ocean," says the study's lead author, Valeria Hidalgo-Ruz from the Chilean Millenium Nucleus Centre of Ecology and Sustainable Management of Oceanic Islands.

"The results confirm that even seabirds in one of the most remote areas of the world, the Rapa Nui (Easter Island) ecoregion, are strongly affected by this global problem, highlighting the need for urgent solutions."

In the late 1990s and 2000s, fieldworkers gathered thousands of pieces of plastic from albatross nesting sites on the Chatham Islands, Campbell Island and Taiaroa Head in Otago. The birds swallowed most of the plastic while foraging at sea and then regurgitated it at the nesting sites as they tried to feed their chicks.

Between 2003 and 2004, the team also examined plastic from the stomachs of Sooty Shearwaters killed by fishing operations around the Chatham Rise and the southeast coast of the South Island.

The study compared these plastics with similar samples from other locations around the Pacific including coastal Chile and Rapa Nui. The researchers examined the types of plastic found along with their shape, colour and density.

Albatrosses are more likely to eat brightly-coloured plastic, in particular red, green and blue. The birds probably mistake these objects for prey. The study suggests the brightly-coloured fishing gear of commercial fishing operations around the Chatham Islands and in Chile could be the source of some of the plastic found at those nesting sites.

Plastics found in the stomachs of diving seabirds like the Sooty Shearwater were dominated by hard, white/grey and round plastic items. The researchers believe most of these objects are ingested accidentally when the birds eat fish or other prey that have consumed plastic.

The ingestion of marine plastics is a major issue for seabird conservation and will affect most seabird species by 2050, according to estimates.

The number of trees inhabiting the Western Sahara, the Sahel and the Sudanian zone has exceeded the expectations of scientists, with more than 1.8 billion having been located thanks to an international collaboration including researchers from the CNRS*. High-resolution remote sensing made it possible to gather a multitude of satellite images of these areas, which were then analysed by applying an artificial intelligence pattern recognition method. According to the study, which focused on trees with a crown size greater than 3m², isolated trees cover an area of 1.3 million km², about 2.5 times the surface area of France. Scientists also noted that crown size and tree density depends closely on the climatic regime and land use. These trees make a major contribution to local resources, biodiversity and carbon storage, as well as playing a crucial role in dry tropical ecosystems and agrosystems. This work, published on 14th October in Nature, highlights the possibility of creating an inventory of all the non-forest trees on the planet, in order to assess their contribution to environmental issues.

Favourable climatic conditions influenced the sequence of settlement movements of Homo sapiens in the Levant on their way from Africa to Europe. In a first step, modern humans settled along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. Only then did they spread out into the Sinai desert and the eastern Jordanian Rift Valley. This is the result of archaeological research conducted by Collaborative Research Centre 'Our Way to Europe' (CRC 806) at the universities of Cologne, Bonn, and Aachen. The article 'Al-Ansab and the Dead Sea: mid-MIS 3 Archaeology and Environment of the Early Ahmarian Population of the Levantine Corridor' was published in PLOS ONE.

For more than ten years, the team has been analysing sediments, pollen, and archaeological artefacts around the site of Al-Ansab 1 near the ancient ruin-city of Petra (Jordan). The goal was to gain an understanding of the environmental conditions that prevailed at the time of human expansion. 'Human presence consolidated in the region under favourable climate conditions', said Professor Dr Jürgen Richter, lead author of the study.

The success story of anatomically modern humans outside of Africa began about 100,000 years ago with well-known sites such as Qafzeh and Skhul in Israel. However, these early records only reveal a brief, temporary expansion of the territory into the Levant. Permanent settlement of the region only dates back to about 43,000 years ago, scientists believe. During the epoch of the so-called 'Early Ahmarian', modern humans gradually had been spreading throughout the Levant - a first step on their way to Asia and Europe.

Favourable climatic conditions were preconditions for permanent human settlement. On a large scale, this is illustrated by the presence of the so-called Lake Lisan. This freshwater lake was located where the Dead Sea is today. However, it was of a much larger extent and carried greater water volume. Most of the water evaporated only with the end of the last ice age, leaving behind the hypersaline Dead Sea known today.

Even on a small scale, the scientists were able to recognise the favourable environmental conditions: geo-archaeological teams from the University of Cologne and RWTH Aachen University examined the site of Al-Ansab 1. Whereas today, the Wadi Sabra, in which the site is located, is strongly shaped by seasonal flash floods, geomorphological and archaeological investigations showed that at the time of settlement, the conditions were less erosive and continuously wet, permitting the presence of humans.

'This enabled the spread of humans from the coastal Mediterranean area to the formerly drier regions of the Negev desert and the eastern slopes of the Jordan Rift Valley. They hunted gazelles in the open landscape - a prey we found in many sites in the region from this period', says Richter. 'Humans did not come by steady expansion out of Africa through the Levant and further to Europe and Asia. Rather, they first settled in a coastal strip along the Mediterranean Sea.'

The region around the site of Al-Ansab 1 therefore was a stepping stone on Homo sapiens' way - a journey that did not take a straight path to the European continent, but was guided by complex interactions between humans and their environment.

Researchers from the University of Seville, in collaboration with colleagues from the Universities of Murcia and Marburg (Germany) have identified a new protein that makes it possible to repair DNA. The protein in question, called cryptochrome, has evolved to acquire this and other functions within the cell.

Ultraviolet radiation can damage the DNA, leading to mutations that disrupt cell function and can allow cancer cells to grow out of control. Our cells have DNA repair systems to defend themselves against this sort of damage. One of these systems is based on a protein, photolysis, which uses blue light to repair DNA damage before it leads to mutations.

Over the course of evolution, the genes for photolysis duplicated and became specialised, creating new proteins, cryptochromes, which have honed their ability to perceive blue light and now perform other functions in cells. For example, cryptochromes use blue light as a signal to regulate plant growth and the rhythm that controls daily activity (the circadian rhythm) in fungi and animals.

The authors of this study discovered that in the fungus Mucor circinelloides, a human pathogen, cryptochromes are the protein responsible for DNA repair after exposure to ultraviolet radiation, a function that should be performed by photolysis. They also suggest that cryptochromes in this fungus acquired their ability to repair DNA during evolution from an ancestral cryptochrome that was not able to repair DNA. This discovery illustrates how proteins change as their functions evolve.

The results have been published in an article in the prestigious journal Current Biology.