Earth

A 13-million-year-old fossil unearthed in northern India comes from a newly discovered ape, the earliest known ancestor of the modern-day gibbon. The discovery by Christopher C. Gilbert, Hunter College, fills a major void in the ape fossil record and provides important new evidence about when the ancestors of today's gibbon migrated to Asia from Africa.

The findings have been published in the article "New Middle Miocene ape (primates: Hylobatidae) from Ramnagar, India fills major gaps in the hominoid fossil record" in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The fossil, a complete lower molar, belongs to a previously unknown genus and species (Kapi ramnagarensis) and represents the first new fossil ape species discovered at the famous fossil site of Ramnagar, India, in nearly a century.

Gilbert's find was serendipitous. Gilbert and team members Chris Campisano, Biren Patel, Rajeev Patnaik, and Premjit Singh were climbing a small hill in an area where a fossil primate jaw had been found the year before. While pausing for a short rest, Gilbert spotted something shiny in a small pile of dirt on the ground, so he dug it out and quickly realized he'd found something special.

"We knew immediately it was a primate tooth, but it did not look like the tooth of any of the primates previously found in the area," he said. "From the shape and size of the molar, our initial guess was that it might be from a gibbon ancestor, but that seemed too good to be true, given that the fossil record of lesser apes is virtually nonexistent. There are other primate species known during that time, and no gibbon fossils have previously been found anywhere near Ramnagar. So we knew we would have to do our homework to figure out exactly what this little fossil was."

Since the fossil's discovery in 2015, years of study, analysis, and comparison were conducted to verify that the tooth belongs to a new species, as well as to accurately determine its place in the ape family tree. The molar was photographed and CT-scanned, and comparative samples of living and extinct ape teeth were examined to highlight important similarities and differences in dental anatomy.

"What we found was quite compelling and undeniably pointed to the close affinities of the 13-million-year-old tooth with gibbons," said Alejandra Ortiz, who is part of the research team. "Even if, for now, we only have one tooth, and thus, we need to be cautious, this is a unique discovery. It pushes back the oldest known fossil record of gibbons by at least five million years, providing a much-needed glimpse into the early stages of their evolutionary history."

In addition to determining that the new ape represents the earliest known fossil gibbon, the age of the fossil, around 13 million years old, is contemporaneous with well-known great ape fossils, providing evidence that the migration of great apes, including orangutan ancestors, and lesser apes from Africa to Asia happened around the same time and through the same places.

"I found the biogeographic component to be really interesting," said Chris Campisano. "Today, gibbons and orangutans can both be found in Sumatra and Borneo in Southeast Asia, and the oldest fossil apes are from Africa. Knowing that gibbon and orangutan ancestors existed in the same spot together in northern India 13 million years ago, and may have a similar migration history across Asia, is pretty cool."

Newly discovered deep seabed channels beneath Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica may be the pathway for warm ocean water to melt the underside of the ice. Data from two research missions, using aircraft and ship, are helping scientists to understand the contribution this huge and remote glacier is likely to make to future global sea level rise.

Researchers from UK and US International Thwaites Glacier Collaboration (ITGC), collected data from the glacier and adjoining Dotson and Crosson ice shelves during January-March 2019. While one team collected airborne data flying over the glacier and ice shelf in a British Antarctic Survey Twin Otter aircraft, the other mapped the sea floor at the ice front from the US Antarctic Program icebreaker RV Nathaniel B Palmer.

Publishing this month (9 September) in the journal The Cryosphere the two research papers describe the discovery. Thwaites Glacier covers 192,000 square kilometres (74,000 square miles) - the size of Great Britain or the US state of Florida - and is particularly susceptible to climate and ocean changes.

Over the past 30 years, the overall rate of ice loss from Thwaites and its neighbouring glaciers has increased more than 5-fold. Already, ice draining from Thwaites into the Amundsen Sea accounts for about four percent of global sea-level rise. A run-away collapse of the glacier could lead to a significant increase in sea levels of around 65 cm (25 inches) and scientists want to find out how quickly this could happen.

Lead author Dr Tom Jordan, an aero-geophysicist at British Antarctic Survey (BAS), who led the airborne survey, says:

"It was fantastic to be able to map the channels and cavity system hidden beneath the ice shelf; they are deeper than expected - some are more than 800 metres deep. They form the critical link between the ocean and the glacier.

"The offshore channels, along with the adjacent cavity system, are very likely to be the route by which warm ocean water passes underneath the ice shelf up to the grounding line, where the ice meets the bed."

Dave Porter at LDEO Columbia University, who flew over Thwaites Glacier for the airborne survey, says:

"Flying over the recently-collapsed ice tongue and being able to see first-hand the changes occurring at Thwaites Glacier was both awe inspiring and disconcerting, but also gratifying to know the airborne data we were collecting would help reveal the hidden structures below."

Exceptional sea-ice break up in early 2019 enabled the team on the RV Nathaniel B Palmer to survey over 2000 square kilometres of sea floor at the glacier's ice front. The area surveyed had previously been hidden beneath part of the floating ice shelf extending from Thwaites Glacier, which broke off in 2002, and in most subsequent years the area was inaccessible due to thick sea-ice cover. The team's findings reveal the sea floor is generally deeper and has more deep channels leading towards the grounding line under the ice shelf than was previously thought.

Lead author, Dr Kelly Hogan, is a marine geophysicist at BAS. She was part of the team surveying the seabed. She says:

"We found the coastal sea floor, which is incredibly rugged, is a really good analogue for the bed beneath the present-day Thwaites Glacier both in terms of its shape and rock type. By examining retreat patterns over this sea-floor terrain we will be able to help numerical modellers and glaciologists in their quest to predict future retreat.

"This research has filled a critical data gap. Together the new coastal sea floor maps and the cavity maps track the deep channels for over 100 km to where the glacier sits on the bed. For the first time we have a clear view of the pathways along which warm water can reach the underside of the glacier, causing it to melt and contribute to global sea-level rise."

NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite provided forecasters with a visible image of Tropical Storm Paulette as it tracked through the Central North Atlantic Ocean on Sept. 8. Paulette, like some other tropical storms this year, has broken a season record.

Tropical Depression 17 developed on Sunday, Sept. 6 by 11 p.m. EDT about 1,160 miles (1,865 km) west of the Cabo Verde Islands. Twelve hours later on Sept. 7 at 11 a.m. EDT, it had strengthened and organized into a tropical storm and was renamed Tropical Storm Paulette.

Record-Breaking Paulette

Paulette's development set another hurricane season record. Paulette is the 16th named storm of the 2020 Atlantic hurricane season. It is also the earliest 16th named storm of any Atlantic season by 10 days. The previous record was Philippe, which formed on September 17, 2005.

Satellite Views of Paulette

On Sept. 8, the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) instrument aboard Suomi NPP provided a visible image of Paulette when it passed overhead. Forecasters looking at the VIIRS imagery noted that Paulette's organization had noticeably improved since last night. The tropical storm is still sheared (vertical wind shear is pushing against the storm from the northeast), with its outflow restricted to the southwest.

The National Hurricane Center noted, "Overnight AMSU imagery indicated that convection was beginning to wrap around the western portion of its circulation." The Advanced Microwave Sounding Unit (AMSU) is a multi-channel microwave radiometer installed on meteorological satellites. The instrument examines several bands of microwave radiation from the atmosphere to perform atmospheric sounding of temperature and moisture levels. That instrument flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite and NOAA weather satellites.

On Sept. 8 at 12:05 a.m. EDT (0405 UTC) NASA's Aqua satellite analyzed Paulette using the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument. AIRS found coldest cloud top temperatures as cold as or colder than minus 63 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 53 degrees Celsius). NASA research has shown that cloud top temperatures that cold indicate strong storms that have the capability to create heavy rain.

Paulette's Status

At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 UTC) on Sept. 8, the center of Tropical Storm Paulette was located near latitude 18.4 degrees north and longitude 43.3 degrees west. Paulette is moving toward the northwest near 6 mph (9 kph). The estimated minimum central pressure is 995 millibars. Maximum sustained winds are near 65 mph (100 kph) with higher gusts.

A turn toward the west-northwest or west with a slight increase in forward speed is expected during the next couple of days. Moderate additional strengthening is possible today and Paulette could be near hurricane strength by tonight, Sept. 8.

Like most scientists, University of Alberta biochemist Ing Swie Goping is curious. When her team discovered that a protein was associated with poor outcomes in breast cancer patients, she wanted to know why. Now, that curiosity has led to the discovery of a new mechanism for how certain breast cancers develop, which could one day lead to better treatment options.

In her previous research, Goping, a professor in the Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, identified that the protein, BCL-2 interacting killer (BIK), was associated with relapses in breast cancer patients.

In a new study published in the journal Cell Death and Disease, she found that the problem lies with the cellular "self-destruct" process of apoptosis.

Cells in the human body regularly undergo apoptosis when a destruction sequence is triggered and a cell is killed. Normally a cell-death sequence runs to completion, causing DNA damage so severe that the cell kills itself. This is the desired outcome for cancer cells.

But in ER-positive breast cancer patients--those with breast cancers that have cells that grow in response to the hormone estrogen--when BIK is triggered, the sequence is not able to fully complete itself and instead undergoes what is termed "failed apoptosis," in which cell DNA is damaged to the point that mutations form, making the cancer cells more aggressive.

"The cell that has DNA damage then manages to repair itself, and becomes a worse adversary because it has mutations," said Goping, who is also a member of the Cancer Research Institute of Northern Alberta.

"Those mutations give it the repertoire to do whatever it can to evade therapy or to metastasize--whatever it needs to do to survive."

Goping plans to continue looking at BIK and gaining more information about how it functions in apoptosis. In better understanding the process, she hopes other treatments may be found that may not have been previously considered for ER-positive breast cancer patients.

LA JOLLA, CA--Cutting calories significantly may not be an easy task for most, but it's tied to a host of health benefits ranging from longer lifespan to a much lower chance of developing cancer, heart disease, diabetes and neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's.

A new study from teams led by Scripps Research Professors Bruno Conti, PhD, and Gary Siuzdak, PhD, illuminates the critical role that body temperature plays in realizing these diet-induced health benefits. Through their findings, the scientists pave the way toward creating a medicinal compound that imitates the valuable effects of reduced body temperature.

The research appears in Science Signaling.

Making the cool connection

Conti has spent years studying how and why calorie restriction leads to better health, with the ultimate goal of translating the findings into medicines that can mimic what happens naturally when a person eats less.

One consistent observation is that when mammals consume less food, their body temperature drops. It's evolution's way of helping us conserve energy until food is available again, Conti explains. It makes sense, considering that up to half of what we eat every day is turned into energy simply to maintain our core body temperature.

Conti's previous work showed that temperature reduction can increase lifespan independently of calorie restriction--and that these effects involve activation of certain cellular processes, most of which remain to be identified.

On the flip side, studies have shown that preventing body temperature from dropping can actually counteract positive effects of calorie restriction. Notably, in an experiment involving calorie-restricted mice, anti-cancer benefits were diminished when core body temperature remained the same.

"It's not easy to discern what's driving the beneficial changes of calorie restriction," Conti says. "Is it the reduced calories on their own, or the change in body temperature that typically happens when one consumes fewer calories? Or is it a combination of both?"

Metabolites hold the answer

In the new research, Conti and his team designed an experiment that would allow them to independently evaluate the effects of reduced nutrients and those of body temperature.

They compared one group of calorie-restricted mice housed at room temperature--about 68 degrees Fahrenheit (22 degrees Celsius) to another group housed at 86 degrees (30 degrees Celsius). The warmer environment invoked "thermoneutrality," a state at which most animals cannot easily reduce their body temperature.

The Siuzdak team, using a technology they developed called activity metabolomics, then evaluated the mice by measuring their metabolites, or chemicals released by the animals' metabolism. Through this, they were able to look for molecules in the bloodstream and in the brain that are changed by the reduction of either nutrients or body temperature.

"The data we collected showed that temperature has an equal or greater effect than nutrients on metabolism during calorie restriction," Conti says. Notably, the team provided the first comprehensive profiling of the metabolites that are changed by temperature reduction.

Through a computing analysis of results from both groups of mice, the scientists were able to prioritize which metabolites were most responsible for triggering changes to core body temperature. In a separate experiment, they also showed it is possible to administer certain metabolites as a drug to affect body temperature.

Conti says further work to validate the changes induced by temperature during calorie restriction should provide novel targets for future medicines he calls "temperature mimetics," which could offer the health-promoting effects without having to reduce body temperature.

COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) infections tend to be more severe among older adults and males, yet the mechanisms underlying increased mortality in these two demographics are unknown. A study published in the open access journal PLOS Biology on September 8, 2020 by Nicole Lieberman and Alexander Greninger at University of Washington and colleagues suggests that varying immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 due to age and sex may depend on viral load and the time-course of infection

The clinical manifestations of COVID-19 vary widely across different patient populations, despite the virus's limited genetic diversity. To better understand the mechanisms that drive the diverse responses of infected individuals (hosts) among different patient demographics, researchers extracted and sequenced viral RNA from swabs collected from 430 COVID-19 positive cases and 54 negative controls. The scientists then analyzed the hosts' antiviral and immune responses across infection status, viral load, age and sex.

Researchers found that immune cell responses were not activated until after three days following the onset of infection, and that immune cell composition and function fluctuated with viral loads, in a way that suggested a dysfunctional antiviral response in males and the elderly. While these findings have important implications for development of immunomodulatory treatments for SARS-CoV-2, additional studies are needed as swabs were taken from the nasopharynx, which is not a sensitive anatomic location for accurately examining markers of systemic inflammation.

Elderly individuals as well as men have suffered higher mortality rates since the onset of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic and may indicate weaker immune responses underlying poor clinical outcomes. According to the authors, "Collectively, our data demonstrate that host responses to SARS-CoV-2 are dependent on viral load and infection time with observed differences due to age and sex that may contribute to disease severity."

What The Study Did: This study examined the location of mass shootings (four or more people injured or killed by a firearm) last year relative to schools and other places frequented by children.

Authors: Michael L. Nance, M.D., of Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, is the corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.3371)

Editor's Note: The article includes conflict of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. - As your preschooler plays an alphabet game, does a puzzle or dresses up a favorite character through an app on a phone or tablet, companies may be stealthily collecting their personal information for marketing purposes.

Just like adults, children often leave digital footprints disclosing what websites they use and which games they play as well as data identifying their location and device.

Except their information is supposed to be off limits to advertisers.

But while federal privacy laws prohibit digital platforms from storing and sharing children's personal information without verifiable parental consent, those rules aren't always enforced, researchers find. And privacy violations are most likely to affect kids from lower-education households.

Children raised by parents without college degrees showed two to three times higher rates of digital information being transferred to third parties, according to the study that appears in JAMA Pediatrics.

"Our study suggests that potential violations of child digital privacy laws are common, and social economic factors may influence which children are at greater risk for these violations," says senior author Jenny Radesky, M.D., developmental behavioral pediatrician and Michigan Medicine C.S. Mott Children's Hospital.

Potential factors that may explain this disparity include the degree of digital savviness or privacy awareness that parents have, authors say, which tends to correlate with level of education. Parents with advanced degrees also may research kids' apps before installing them, thereby avoiding the glut of lower-quality kids' apps in the app stores that could harbor more data trackers, Radesky says.

Tracking children

Advertisers can learn a lot about consumers from how they spend time on smartphones and tablets, such as what they download or purchase, their location and frequently visited websites. For this reason, many apps collect device's unique identifiers (like Google's 'advertising ID' or 'Android ID' or even someone's location or email) and send them to third party marketing companies that analyze the data, combine it with data about the user from other sources, and deliver 'insights' about the user.

These techniques power the mobile advertising business.

Knowing that kids' apps often collect and share these identifiers, Radesky and colleagues analyzed 450 apps used by families with children ages three to five. Two-thirds of apps played by 124 preschool-aged children showed collection and sharing of persistent digital identifiers with large third party databases such as Facebook Graph, the primary tool for getting information in and out of the Facebook platform.

For each app, researchers calculated the number of unique data transmissions detected and the number of third party domains involved.

The most commonly transmitted data included advertising identifiers (information used by advertisers to track users), followed by Android identifiers, hardwire transmissions (i.e. device serial number) and geolocations.

Digital data for children under age 13 is protected under the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act. But enforcement of the law has mostly been limited to actions filed against large platforms like TikTok and YouTube.

Radesky notes that in previous research, parents and children have reported not understanding digital privacy concepts, including apps' collection practices, targeted advertising or how private information is stored.

"Consumers often don't know when digital data is being collected or shared with third party companies, which makes it difficult to make informed decisions about choosing apps for their children," Radesky says.

Better protection for children's digital privacy

Older children and those with their own devices showed a high number of transmissions to third parties, but authors note that this may be because older children may be more likely to have their own devices and use a higher number of apps not intended for children.

This raises the question around whether general audience apps should consider younger audiences in their design, Radesky says. Children may easily download age-inappropriate apps from Google play when parent controls aren't enabled.

"App developers and platform designers play an important role in reducing or eliminating children's data collection from their products. This may be standard practice for tracking adults' behaviors, which itself is ethically questionable, but it is off limits for kids," Radesky says.

Why does data collection matter? Radesky notes that, because of their developmental level, children don't understand the persuasion behind advertising and can't resist it.

"It's not fair to monitor kids' behavior to then serve them the perfectly crafted advertisement or in-app purchase, with the goal of monetizing their play," Radesky says.

"Play should not be surveilled by companies. Kids should be free to play without nudges or persuasion motivated by profit motives."

She notes that many of the digital identifiers that track users across apps are not needed to help apps function better. PBS KIDS for example created a novel identifier for each user that can't be traced back to their identity or across other apps, but still allows tracking of app functioning and use.

One of the study's limitations is that in homes with shared devices, researchers relied on parents reports of which apps their child uses - which may not always be accurate. The method the team used for measuring data transmissions also tends to underestimate their quantity, so results represent a minimum estimate of what the apps actually collected and shared.

"Our findings highlight the need for comprehensive testing of app and platform data collection practices by regulatory bodies," Radesky says. "We need more accurate information to better craft privacy legislation that adequately protects children's rights in the modern digital environment."

A new UC Riverside study finds that climate change will have a devastating effect on the greater Palm Springs area's dominant industry -- tourism.

Thousands known as "snowbirds" flock to the region annually from elsewhere in the country to escape freezing winters. However, due to climate change, the number of days above 85 degrees between November and April is projected to increase by up to 150% by the end of the century.

These changes are enough to prevent many from patronizing the area's famous outdoor attractions and events such as the annual Coachella Valley Music Festival, according to the study published this week in the journal Climatic Change.

Many businesses in the Palm Springs area already close due to lack of customers during the hot summer months, when daytime high temperatures average up to 108 degrees in July and August. Employment follows these patterns, with regional employment declining by 7.2 percent between April and October in 2017.

The researchers modeled two different future climate scenarios -- one in which heat-trapping gases are significantly reduced, resulting in slowed warming, and one in which emissions are not mitigated at all.

"The two scenarios differed a little by mid-century, but were very different by 2100," said Francesca Hopkins, assistant professor of climate change and sustainability. "In both cases we saw big declines in the number of days suitable for snowbirds, but this was much more pronounced in the scenario with no emissions reductions."

In order to assess future effects of increased heat, the researchers analyzed two key components of the local tourism industry in addition to the winter weather: the number of visitors to The Living Desert Zoo and Gardens, a popular outdoor zoo, and the likelihood of extreme heat at the Coachella music festival.

The Living Desert, established 50 years ago, is a nonprofit zoo visited by more than 510,000 people last year. The research team found that it stands to lose up to $1.44 million annually in tourism in today's dollars with 18 percent fewer visitors at the end of the century.

Similarly, heat is also projected to impact the annual Coachella music festival, which began in 1999, and attracts roughly 250,000 concertgoers. The researchers did not assume that increased heat will necessarily affect attendance. However, they did find that probability of attendee exposure to extreme heat -- if it continues to be held in April -- could increase six-fold by end of century if climate change goes unmitigated.

"Though other studies have focused on the impact that climate change will have on cold winter destinations popular for sports like skiing, this is one of the first to focus on a warm winter destination, and its impact on such a specific region," Hopkins said.

Places like the Coachella Valley are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change because they cannot shift snowbird season to cooler times of year, since those don't exist, Hopkins explained.

Cindy Yañez, a UCR physics graduate and first author of the study, was born in the Coachella Valley, and has lived there most of her life. Many people in the area have jobs that require them to work outdoors, either in agriculture or tourism. She wonders whether there will be a climate breaking point that might cause locals like these to move away.

"Weather is a resource that draws in money just like other resources do. If that gets redistributed it could have severe impacts on peoples' lives both physically and economically," Yañez said. "I am hoping this research will start a conversation in the community. We still have time to avoid the worst of these predictions if we can reduce our greenhouse gas emissions today."

Tina Cheng, M.D., M.P.H., director of the Department of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Children's Center and a Chinese academic pediatrician, and her daughter, Alison Conca-Cheng, a third-year medical student, wrote a commentary published in Pediatrics on Sept. 1 in response to a study on racism affecting Chinese American parents and children. Both Cheng and Conca-Cheng report that they have experienced -- both inside and outside the health care setting -- implicit and explicit bias.

In their commentary, Cheng and Conca-Cheng say racism against any group is an "enduring crisis which is inflamed in the presence of other crises," adding that addressing such racism is necessary to achieve health equity. They offer critical steps to combat the problem, including calling on people to learn about the history of racial bias and how it affects families, as well as urging parents and schools to teach children about it. They also urge clinicians to understand how race is a social determinant of health and how racial biases continue to be correlated with poorer health outcomes. They ask clinicians to learn about and address their own biases, which they say can affect patient interactions, medical training and workplace conditions.

Cheng has limited availability for media interviews about racism and COVID-19.

Around 100,000 years ago, the climate worsened abruptly and the environment of Central-Eastern Europe shifted from forested to open steppe/taiga habitat, promoting the dispersal of wooly mammoth, wooly rhino and other cold adapted species from the Arctic. Neanderthals living in these territories suffered severe demographic contractions due to the new ecological conditions and only returned to the areas above 48° N latitude during climatic ameliorations. However, in spite of the discontinuous settlement, specific bifacial stone tools persisted in Central-Eastern Europe from the beginning of this ecological shift until the demise of the Neanderthals. This cultural tradition is named Micoquian, and spread across the frosty environment between eastern France, Poland and the Caucasus. Previous genetic analyses showed that two major demographic turnover events in Neanderthal history are associated with the Micoquian cultural tradition. At ~90,000 years ago, western European Neanderthals replaced the local Altai Neanderthals population in Central Asia. Successively, by at least ~45,000 years ago, western European Neanderthals substituted the local groups in the Caucasus.

The paper published in Scientific Reports and led by researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, Wroclaw University, Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals Polish Academy of Sciences, and University of Bologna reports the oldest mitochondrial genome of a Neanderthal found in Central-Eastern Europe. The molecular age of ~80,000 years places the tooth from Stajnia Cave in this important period of Neanderthal history when the environment was characterized by extreme seasonality and some groups dispersed eastwards to Central Asia. "Poland, located at the crossroad between the Western European Plains and the Urals, is a key region in understanding these migrations and for solving questions about the adaptability and biology of Neanderthals in periglacial habitat. The Stajnia S5000 molar is truly an exceptional find that sheds light on the debate over the wide distribution of the Micoquian artefacts", says Andrea Picin, lead author of the study and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.

Genetic analysis

Neanderthal remains associated with the Micoquian cultural tradition are very few and genetic information has only been extracted from samples of Germany, Northern Caucasus and Altai. "We were aware of the geographical importance of this tooth for adding more chronological points in the distribution map of genetic information of Neanderthals", says Mateja Hajdinjak, co-author of the paper and Postdoctoral Researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. "We found that the mitochondrial genome of Stajnia S5000 was closest to the one of a Mezmaiskaya 1 Neanderthal from the Caucasus. We then used the molecular genetic clock in order to determine its approximate age. Although the molecular branch shortening approach comes with a wide error range, crossing the information with the archaeological record permitted us to place the fossil at the beginning of the Last Glacial".

The tooth was discovered in 2007 during fieldwork directed by Mikolaj Urbanowski, co-author of the paper, within animal bones and a few stone tools. The opening of the cave was probably too narrow for prolonged settlement, and Neanderthal occupations were short-term. The site could have been a logistical location settled during forays into the Krakow-Czestochowa Upland.

"We were thrilled when the genetic analysis revealed that the tooth was at least ~80,000 years old. Fossils of this age are very difficult to find and, generally, the DNA is not well preserved", say Wioletta Nowaczewska of Wroclaw University and Adam Nadachowski from the Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals Polish Academy of Sciences, co-authors of the paper. "At the beginning, we thought that the tooth was younger since it was found in an upper layer. We were aware that Stajnia Cave is a complex site, and post-depositional frost disturbance mixed artefacts between layers. We are happily surprised by the result". Concerning the paleoanthropological features, Stefano Benazzi of Bologna University, co-author of the paper, adds, "The morphology of the tooth is typical of Neanderthal, which was also confirmed by the genetic analysis. The worn condition of the crown suggests that it belonged to an adult".

Neanderthals in periglacial environments

Archaeologists have been puzzled for a long time by the resilience of Neanderthals in these regions and by the persistence of Micoquian stone tools for more than 50,000 years across a huge area. Beyond the taphonomic issues, the lithic assemblage of Stajnia displays a set of features that are common to several key sites in Germany, Crimea, Northern Caucasus and Altai. These similarities are likely the result of increasing mobility of Neanderthal groups that frequently moved across the Northern and Eastern European Plains chasing cold adapted migratory animals. The Prut and Dniester rivers were probably used as the main corridors of dispersal from Central Europe to the Caucasus. Similar corridors could also have been used at ~45,000 years ago when other western Neanderthals carrying Micoquian stone tools replaced local populations at Mezmaiskaya Cave in the Caucasus.

In summarizing the wider implications of this study, Sahra Talamo from the University of Bologna says, "The multidisciplinary approach is always the best way to better contextualize a challenging archeological site, as is evident in this research. The result of the Neanderthal of Stajnia is a great example showing that the molecular clock is incredibly effective for dates older than 55,000 years BP".

A new study from North Carolina State University and the University of Virginia finds that experiences with racism are associated with increased social consciousness and social justice activism in Black youth.

"There are many reasons that people become activists on social justice issues, but anyone who is familiar with the civil rights movement of the 1960s could tell you that racism drove activism," says Elan Hope, corresponding author of the study and an associate professor of psychology at NC State. "However, there has been almost no research on how racism drives activism, especially for young people. There is also little or no research on the extent to which racism is influencing activism right now - and the subject seems both timely and important."

To explore these issues, the researchers conducted an in-depth survey of 594 Black adolescents from across the United States. The study participants were between the ages of 13 and 18, with a median age of 15.

Study participants were asked about their experiences with three different types of racism - individual, cultural and institutional - as well as how those experiences affected them. Individual racism includes racist behavior targeting an individual, such as referring to someone as an ethnic slur. Cultural racism is racism that is embedded in cultural norms, such as media representation of negative stereotypes. Institutional racism is often embedded in policies and regulations, and includes racist behaviors and attitudes found in established institutions - such as police questioning a Black person simply for being in a white neighborhood.

The researchers found 84% of study participants had experienced at least some form of racism.

Study participants were also asked a series of questions aimed at assessing the extent to which they perceived inequality in the systems around them; the extent to which they believed they were capable of changing those systems; and the extent to which they had taken action to change the relevant systems. These three factors correlate to critical reflection, critical agency and critical action, which are the three elements of a social concept called critical consciousness, which aims to explain what is necessary for individuals and communities to seek change in an unjust system.

To better understand the relationship between the different types of racism and three elements of critical consciousness, the research team developed three statistical models - one for each type of racism. And there were significant differences across forms of racism.

The researchers found that the more stress individuals reported from individual racism, the more likely they were to perceive inequality and the more likely they were to feel that they were capable of changing the systems that contributed to that inequality. The researchers also found an indirect relationship: that these increases in perceived inequality and critical agency were associated with an increase in action aimed at changing the oppressive system.

The more stress an individual reported from institutional racism, the higher the level of perceived inequality. However, there was no increase in critical agency; it didn't make people feel they could change the system. But it was directly tied to increased actions aimed at changing the system.

Increased stress from cultural racism was directly related to higher levels of perceived inequality, higher feelings of agency and more action aimed at changing the relevant systems. In addition, the higher levels of perceived inequality also contributed to taking action.

"In short, the relationships between all of these variables are complicated, but clear," Hope says.

"We know Black children are experiencing racism. We're optimistic that these findings can help us work with young people to not only find healthy ways of dealing with the stresses caused by racism, but also to channel their energy into constructive efforts to change the systems causing those stresses in the first place."

The paper, "Relations between racial stress and critical consciousness for black adolescents," is published in the Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology. The paper was co-authored by Qiana Cryer-Coupet, an assistant professor of social work at NC State; Alexis Briggs, a Ph.D. student at NC State; and Chauncey Smith of the University of Virginia.

Future wireless networks of the 6th generation (6G) will consist of a multitude of small radio cells that need to be connected by broadband communication links. In this context, wireless transmission at THz frequencies represents a particularly attractive and flexible solution. Researchers at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) have now developed a novel concept for low-cost terahertz receivers that consist of a single diode in combination with a dedicated signal processing technique. In a proof-of-concept experiment, the team demonstrated transmission at a data rate of 115 Gbit/s and a carrier frequency of 0.3 THz over a distance of 110 meters. The results are reported in Nature Photonics (DOI: 10.1038/s41566-020-0675-0).

5G will be followed by 6G: The 6th generation of mobile communications promises even higher data rates, shorter latency, and strongly increased densities of terminal devices, while exploiting Artificial Intelligence (AI) to control devices or autonomous vehicles in the Internet-of-Things era. "To simultaneously serve as many users as possible and to transmit data at utmost speed, future wireless networks will consist of a large number of small radio cells," explains Professor Christian Koos, who works on 6G technologies at KIT together with his colleague Professor Sebastian Randel. In these radio cells, distances are short such that high data rates can be transmitted with minimum energy consumption and low electromagnetic immission. The associated base stations will be compact and can easily be mounted to building facades or street lights.

To form a powerful and flexible network, these base stations need to be connected by high-speed wireless links that offer data rates of tens or even hundreds of gigabits per second (Gbit/s). This may be accomplished by terahertz carrier waves, which occupy the frequency range between microwaves and infrared light waves. However, terahertz receivers are still rather complex and expensive and often represent the bandwidht bottleneck of the entire link. In cooperation with Virginia Diodes (VDI) in Charlottesville, USA, researchers of KIT's Institute of Photonics and Quantum Electronics (IPQ), Institute of Microstructure Technology (IMT), and Institute for Beam Physics and Technology (IBPT) have now demonstrated a particularly simple inexpensive receiver for terahertz signals. The concept is presented in Nature Photonics.

Highest Data Rate Demonstrated So Far for Wireless THz Communications over More Than 100 Meters

"At its core, the receiver consists a single diode, which rectifies the terahertz signal," says Dr. Tobias Harter, who carried out the demonstration together with his colleague Christoph Füllner in the framework of his doctoral thesis. The diode is a so-called Schottky barrier diode, that offers large bandwidth and that is used as an envelope detector to recover the amplitude of the terahertz signal. Correct decoding of the data, however, additionally requires the time-dependent phase of the terahertz wave that is usually lost during rectification. To overcome this problem, researchers use digital signal processing techniques in combination with a special class of data signals, for which the phase can be reconstructed from the amplitude via the so-called Kramers-Kronig relations. The Kramers-Kronig relation describe a mathematical relationship between the real part and the imaginary part of an analytic signal. Using their receiver concept, the scientists achieved a transmission rate of 115 Gbit/s at a carrier frequency of 0.3 THz over a distance of 110 m. "This is the highest data rate so far demonstrated for wireless terahertz transmission over more than 100 m," Füllner says. The terahertz receiver developed by KIT stands out due to its technical simplicity and lends itself to cost-efficient mass production.

A University of Houston researcher is reporting that the brains of older women with Type 2 diabetes do not use as much oxygenated blood as those who don't have the disease. The research is the first to point to changes in blood use in the brain as the primary reason for diabetes-related deficits in motor function. It also furthers the understanding of sensory and motor symptoms as a precursor to developing dementia and Alzheimer's diseases, both of which are linked to diabetes.

"It's a pretty significant finding. Typically, when someone presents with a sensory or motor issue along with Type 2 diabetes mellitus, the assumption is that it's the result of peripheral nerve damage in the hands and feet," said Stacey Gorniak, associate professor in the UH Department of Health and Human Performance and director of the Center for Neuromotor and Biomechanics Research. Gorniak published her findings in the journal Neurophotonics.

Until now there has been no assumption that something is going on with respect to brain function that is affecting sensory and motor functions in persons living with Type 2 diabetes.

"Emerging evidence has suggested that factors outside of nerve damage due to Type 2 diabetes mellitus, such as impaired cortical blood use, contribute significantly to both sensory and motor deficits in people with diabetes," reports Gorniak.

Nearly 24% of the 40 million people in the United States over the age of 60 live with Type 2 diabetes. Problems with hands, fingers and feet are common side effects of the disease and can lead to a loss of independent living and decline in quality of life.

Gorniak's testing method is unique. Rather than using a typical MRI to monitor the use of oxygenated blood, she opted to use a technique called functional near infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS). The fNIRS is a method that delivers infrared light into the scalp to measure use of both oxygenated and unoxygenated blood use by the brain. This technique differs from MRI as MRI cannot measure oxygenated blood use. The fNIRS method can be used on persons who cannot have an MRI.

She tested a group of 42 post-menopausal women, over 60, half of whom had Type 2 diabetes, and asked them to perform various exercises with their hands. She chose this group because they are generally at the highest risk for diabetes, heart disease and dementia.

"Our work demonstrates that motor changes in people with diabetes occur independent of sensory impairment and that these changes are unrelated to disease duration and severity. Our data point towards other factors such as changes in muscle and reduced function of the cortex as underlying mechanisms for problems in sensory and motor functions," Gorniak reports.

Her findings, she said, opens research possibilities for other groups of people with the disease, in hopes of finding a way to therapeutically avoid the negative health effects of diabetes.

"We need to see what this looks like in a larger population, including men, and then we can start developing treatments or different ways we could potentially stop these negative impacts of Type 2 diabetes," said Gorniak.

ITHACA, N.Y. - Scientists have detected signs of a frog listed extinct and not seen since 1968, using an innovative technique to locate declining and missing species in two regions of Brazil.

The frog, Megaelosia bocainensis, was among seven total species - including four other declining species, and two that had disappeared locally for many years - that were detected. The findings appeared in a paper, "Lost and Found: Frogs in a Biodiversity Hotspot Rediscovered with Environmental DNA," published in August in Molecular Ecology.

Megaelosia bocainensis. A disappeared species from Parque Nacional da Serra da Bocaina, Brazil, known only from this museum specimen collected in 1968, and detected by eDNA surveys.
In the study, the researchers collected and screened environmental DNA (eDNA) in the biodiverse Atlantic Coastal Forest and Cerrado grasslands of Brazil.

The eDNA technique offers a way to survey that can confirm the presence of species undetected by traditional methods, providing a tool for conservation scientists to evaluate the presence of threatened species, especially those with low population densities and those not seen in years.

After careful research to identify species at various levels of threat in these regions of Brazil, the researchers used the eDNA method to search for 30 target amphibian species in six localities where the frogs were known to previously live.

"Little bits of DNA in the environment don't tell us about how many individuals there are or whether those individuals are healthy, but it does tell us that the species is still present," said senior author Kelly Zamudio, the Goldwin Smith Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology in the College of Arts and Sciences.

"This is one more kind of survey data, and for species that are declining or locally disappeared, it not only means they are there, but there's now the potential to study them in more detail," she said, noting that for many species, very little is known.

Around the world, conservationists have been challenged to keep pace with declining and disappearing amphibians. At the same time, living organisms leave DNA traces in the soil, water and air. Now, scientists are increasingly using highly sensitive sampling techniques to detect eDNA for conservation purposes.

In the study, the researchers targeted 13 frog species that have totally disappeared and are presumed extinct; 12 frogs that have disappeared locally but are still found in other parts of their range; and five species that were once very abundant and are still there but hard to find.

The researchers hiked into the sampling sites carrying battery packs, a shoebox-sized peristaltic pump and backpacks of sterile tubing. They used the pump and tubing to draw up to 60 liters of stream or pond water through a capsule fitted with a filter for capturing DNA. A buffer was then applied to stabilize and preserve the DNA on the filter.

Back in the lab, the researchers extracted the DNA, genetically sequenced it, weeded out genetic material from humans, pigs, chickens and other organisms until they could isolate all the frog DNA.

"Now you've got a subset of genetic sequences that we know only belong to frogs, and then it's step by step, going finer and finer, until you get to the genus and species you are looking for," Zamudio said.

Identifying M. bocainensis required clever detective work: The species disappeared long ago, and there were no tissues from which to extract DNA for comparison with the eDNA. But the researchers did have the sequences for all the sister species in the genus Megaelosia and they knew the ranges of the sister species and M. bocainensis.

"We know there's a Megaelosia there," Zamudio said, "we just don't know which one it is, but the only one that has ever been reported there historically is the one that went missing. Do we believe it? That's how far the analysis can take us."

Zamudio added that samples from nearby areas may be worth collecting for more signs of M. bocainensis.