Brain

DALLAS - April. 18, 2018 - Researchers at UT Southwestern Medical Center have identified a protein that is strongly associated with metastatic breast cancer and that could be a target for future therapies.

High levels of the protein ZMYND8 are correlated with poor survival in breast cancer patients, said Dr. Weibo Luo, Assistant Professor of Pathology and Pharmacology, and with the Harold C. Simmons Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Previous research has shown that breast cancer cells that are more aggressive in an oxygen-deprived, or hypoxic, environment. A protein family called hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF) controls responses to hypoxia, switching on pathways that lead to cancer cell growth and spread. "Our research shows that ZMYND8 is a regulator that activates hundreds of HIF-dependent oncogenes in breast cancer cells," Dr. Luo said.

Research with a mouse model of breast cancer showed that depletion of ZMYND8 blocks the growth of new blood vessels in tumors and leads to breast cancer cell death.

"Our studies uncovered a feedback loop that amplifies HIF-controlled oncogenes to drive breast tumor malignancy," said Dr. Yingfei Wang, Assistant Professor of Pathology, of Neurology and Neurotherapeutics, and with the Simmons Cancer Center and the Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute.

More about breast cancer

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Services: Breast Cancer Services at Simmons Cancer Center
Affiliations: Peter O'Donnell Jr. Brain Institute, CPRIT
Research: Weibo Luo Lab, Yingfei Wang Lab
Approximately 250,000 women were diagnosed with breast cancer in 2017, according to National Institutes of Health figures, and about 40,000 died of the disease. Metastatic breast cancer is cancer that has spread to other sites in the body, and the vast majority of breast cancer deaths occur in patients in whom the cancer has metastasized.

"This work uncovers a primary epigenetic mechanism of HIF-mediated breast cancer progression, and reveals a possible molecular target for diagnosis and treatment of aggressive disease," Dr. Luo said.

The research appears in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.

Expectations and biases play a large role in our experiences. This has been demonstrated in studies involving art, wine and even soda. In 2007, Joshua Bell, an internationally acclaimed musician, illustrated the role context plays in our enjoyment of music when he played his Stradivarius violin in a Washington, D.C., subway, and commuters passed by without a second glance.

Researchers at University of Arkansas, Arizona State University and the University of Connecticut studied this phenomenon and recently published their results in Scientific Reports. They found that simply being told that a performer is a professional or a student changes the way the brain responds to music. They also found that overcoming this bias took a deliberate effort.

The study involved 20 participants without formal training in music. Inside a functional magnetic imaging, or fMRI, machine in the newly founded Brain Imaging Research Center at the University of Connecticut, the participants listened to eight pairs of 70-second musical excerpts, presented in a random order. Each pair consisted of two different performances of the same excerpt. The participants were told that one of the pairs was played by a "conservatory student of piano" and the other was a "world-renowned professional pianist." Although participants were actually listening to a student and professional performance, they heard each pair twice during the experiment with the labels reversed, ensuring that the researchers could investigate the effect of the label independent of the qualities of the performance itself.

Participants rated their enjoyment of each excerpt on a scale of one to 10, and they indicated which of the two excerpts in each pair they preferred. The researchers used the fMRI scans to examine regions of the brain that are associated with auditory processing, pleasure and reward, and cognitive control.

In order to study the brain activity associated with bias, the researchers compared brain images of the participants who preferred the "professional" excerpts with images of participants who preferred the "student" excerpts. They found that when a participant preferred the piece attributed to a professional player, there was significantly more activity in the primary auditory cortex, as well as a region of the brain associated with pleasure and reward.

This activity started when the participant was informed that the player was a professional -- before the music even began -- and remained consistent during the excerpt, suggesting that the belief that a musician is a professional caused these participants to pay more attention to the music and biased their listening experience not just at the start, but throughout the excerpt.

The researchers also examined the brain activity of participants who preferred the "student" recordings over the "professional" recordings. While these participants were listening to the recordings attributed to the professional, researchers saw higher activity in a region of the brain related to cognitive control and deliberative thinking throughout the course of the excerpt. They also found that these participants had more connectivity between the parts of their brain related to cognitive control and reward.

"It was different when people listened carefully enough to realize we were fooling them--that is, when they realized they liked the performance labeled 'student' better," said Edward Large, a theoretical neuroscientist at UConn who made the fMRI available for the study.

"The participants who could resist the bias (who decided they liked the performance primed as student or disliked the one primed as professional) had to recruit regions devoted to executive control -- it looked like work for them to suppress the bias," said Elizabeth Margulis, distinguished professor of music theory and music cognition at the University of Arkansas. "These data demonstrate how critical factors outside the notes themselves, like the information you have about a performer (explicitly in the form of a prime or implicitly in the form of positioning on stage at Carnegie Hall or on a subway platform) can transform what you are able to hear and how you evaluate a musical performance."

These findings have implications beyond music preference, the researcher explained. "Our findings are relevant for behavioral economists, psychologists and artists alike, as they demonstrate that 'deliberative and effortful thinking' can play a crucial role in overcoming cognitive heuristics related to socially constructed concepts and stereotype," they wrote in the paper.

Taking painkillers during pregnancy could affect the fertility of the unborn child in later life, research suggests.

The study identifies that these drugs may also affect the fertility of future generations, by leaving marks on DNA.

The findings add to a growing body of evidence that certain medicines, including paracetamol, should be used with caution during pregnancy.

Researchers stress that advice for pregnant women remains unchanged. Current guidelines say that, if necessary, paracetamol - also known as acetaminophen - should be used at the lowest possible dose for the shortest possible time. Ibuprofen should be avoided during pregnancy.

Scientists at the University of Edinburgh looked at the effects of paracetamol and ibuprofen on samples of human fetal testes and ovaries. They found similar effects using several different experimental approaches, including lab tests on human tissue samples and animal studies.

Human tissues exposed to either drug for one week in a dish had reduced numbers of cells that give rise to sperm and eggs, called germ cells, the study found.

Ovaries exposed to paracetamol for one week had more than 40 per cent fewer egg-producing cells. After ibuprofen exposure, the number of cells was almost halved.

Experts say this is important because girls produce all of their eggs in the womb, so if they are born with a reduced number it could lead to an early menopause.

Painkiller exposure during development could have effects on unborn boys too, the study found. Testicular tissue exposed to painkillers in a culture dish had around a quarter fewer sperm-producing cells after exposure to paracetamol or ibuprofen.

The team also tested the effects of painkiller treatment on mice that carried grafts of human fetal testicular tissue.

These grafts have been shown to mimic how the testes grow and function during development in the womb.

After just one day of treatment with a human-equivalent dose of paracetamol, the number of sperm-producing cells in the graft tissue had dropped by 17 per cent. After a week of drug treatment, there were almost one third fewer cells.

Previous studies with rats have shown that painkillers administered in pregnancy led to a reduction in germ cells in female offspring. This affected their fertility and the fertility of females in subsequent generations.

The scientists found that exposure to paracetamol or ibuprofen triggers mechanisms in the cell that make changes in the structure of DNA, called epigenetic marks. These marks can be inherited, helping to explain how the effects of painkillers on fertility may be passed on to future generations.

Painkillers' effects on germ cells are likely caused by their actions on molecules called prostaglandins, which have key functions in the ovaries and testes, the researchers found.

The study, published in Environmental Health Perspectives, was funded by the Medical Research Council, Wellcome and the British Society of Paediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes.

Dr Rod Mitchell, who led the research at the University of Edinburgh's MRC Centre for Reproductive Health, said: "We would encourage women to think carefully before taking painkillers in pregnancy and to follow existing guidelines - taking the lowest possible dose for the shortest time possible."

Chara algae are ancient plant organisms that are commonly found in freshwater reservoirs and occur, though more rarely, in water bodies with salt water. An unusual feature of this type of algae is the huge size of individual cells, which can reach up to 1 mm in diameter and up to several centimeters in length. This feature makes Characean algae a unique object for the study of intracellular signals, which are associated with the appearance of signaling molecules in some parts of the cell (for example, when they are touched or illuminated) and their propagation to other cell areas. As these intracellular signals propagate, they cause various physiological responses, including changes in photosynthesis and respiration.

The paper published in the international scientific journal Functional Plant Biology by a research team including Alexander Bulychev and Anna Komarova from the Moscow State University's Department of Biophysics and Vladimir Sukhov from the Department of Biophysics of Lobachevsky University in early 2018, is focused on one of the aspects of the intracellular signaling problem, the role of cytoplasm in the transmission of signal molecules inside the Chara algae cells. It is well known that the cytoplasm that fills the living cells is in a state of an almost continuous motion and only stops moving under stress. The researchers have put forward a hypothesis that such a motion can participate in the transfer of a signal compound within the cell.

To test the proposed hypothesis, a small section of the Chara cell was illuminated with low intensity light, which activated photosynthesis processes and enhanced fluorescence in the illuminated zone. Further investigation showed that fluorescence intensification was observed not only in the illuminated area, but also in the dimmed parts of the plant, which were further away from the illuminated zone, in cell regions positioned downstream the cytoplasmic flow. In contrast, the areas upstream the illuminated zone did not change their fluorescence. This result shows that signal molecules formed in the illuminated area even under weak illumination. These molecules propagated with the moving cytoplasm, affecting photosynthesis and enhancing fluorescence in other parts of the alga cell. In the course of additional testing of the proposed hypothesis, an electric current was applied to the cell, causing a temporary stoppage of cytoplasmic streaming. Under these conditions, signal propagation significantly slowed down immediately after the action of the electric current; over time, it reached the initial velocity again. The treatment of Chara cells with cytochalasin, a substance that slows the cytoplasmic streaming, resulted in a gradual decrease in the signal propagation velocity.

According to Vladimir Sukhov, based on the experimental results, a mathematical model was developed that describes the propagation of intracellular signal at different velocities of cytoplasm movement. The model also took into account the process of diffusion of the signal compound molecules. "The proposed model describes the experimental results quite well and makes it possible to predict the efficiency of signal transmission under various conditions, including different velocities of cytoplasmic streaming," Sukhov notes.

The results obtained by the team are of fundamental importance, since it was shown for the first time that cytoplasmic streaming can play an important role in the transmission of intracellular signals in plants, and a mathematical model is proposed for a quantitative description of such type of propagation. At the same time, the results of this work also have significant applied prospects. Since intracellular signals play an important role in adapting plants to the effects of unfavorable factors, the ability to regulate them provides an additional tool for controlling the resistance of agricultural plants to such factors and, hence, their yield. The data published in Functional Plant Biology show a new potential "application point" for the development of methods to control intracellular signals by regulating the velocity of cytoplasm movement. It is obvious that the implementation of such methods in practice is quite a challenge. To solve this task, one must first make sure that cytoplasmic streaming plays an important role in intracellular signaling not only in Characean algae, but also in agricultural plants that are of the greatest interest from a practical point of view. Besides, one has to find ways to effectively control cytoplasmic streaming in open field or greenhouse conditions. The mathematical model proposed by the researchers can become an important tool for solving this problem: the analysis of this model will enable the prediction of the changes in the cytoplasmic streaming parameters that are necessary to obtain the required applied result.

Millions of Americans have the same life expectancy as the American national average in the 1970s, according to a new task force report from the Arnhold Institute for Global Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. But surprisingly, there are lessons to be learned by the United States in improving community health from low- and middle-income countries such as Rwanda, Ethiopia, and Brazil that have seen dramatic gains in life expectancy, according to The Task Force on Global Advantage findings.

The Arnhold Institute convened the Task Force, which included health care leaders from the United States and the world, after receiving support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, with a goal to produce a report that clearly identifies a set of global approaches that could yield breakthroughs in the health of America's most vulnerable communities.

Task Force findings distilled global best practices into five components:

Cover & Define: Coverage and access gaps should be mapped at the community level.

Anchor & Embed: Primary care health practices should be local anchor institutions that are embedded in the communities they serve.

Shared & Actionable Goals: Communities and health systems should track progress and act based upon common goals.

Simple Protocols & Accountable Care: A local integrator organization should foster ownership for health management in community settings.

Train & Organize: A network of community-based workers should be developed to organize community members, with the goal of identifying the most pressing community health needs.

"The findings hold great potential to improve the health of struggling communities in America. As global experience shows us, struggling communities can achieve breakthroughs if they are included in the design of their care. To equitably improve health outcomes in the United States, we have to find the world's best solutions and then make them our own," said Prabhjot Singh, MD, PhD, Chair of the Task Force and Arnhold Institute for Global Health Director. "The Arnhold Institute is committed to advancing the important findings of the Task Force."

Agnes Binagwaho, MD, PhD, the Vice Chancellor for the University of Health Equity and former Minister of Health in Rwanda, said, "The foundation for a healthy population is community health. As the Task Force found, it is paramount that efforts to improve health are informed by the needs of our communities. The lessons we have learned through rebuilding Rwanda's health sector have demonstrated how critical it is to equitably invest in our communities to improve health, a sense of well-being, trust, and social cohesion. These efforts have inspired us to create more health solutions with less. We are eager to share these lessons with the world."

Dennis S. Charney, MD, Anne and Joel Ehrenkranz Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, and President for Academic Affairs of the Mount Sinai Health System, said, "We at Mount Sinai are committed to identifying and embracing the strongest models for community care, regardless of the country of origin. We look forward to working with the Arnhold Institute to advance this important work."

AMES, Iowa - The danger and risk of riding out a storm is symbolic of the decision black men make to pursue a graduate degree in engineering. They do so knowing they will face challenges, but the barriers described by black men who shared their experiences as part of a six-year study show how race was a greater obstacle than they expected.

Brian Burt, lead author and an assistant professor in Iowa State University's School of Education, says it is a fitting analogy because these young men faced turbulent times as a result of structural inequalities and a lack of support from faculty and colleagues to weather the storm. Insight from the research is valuable in reversing the trend of underrepresented students and employees in all STEM fields, he said.

Burt and co-authors Krystal Williams, University of Alabama; and William Smith, University of Utah, interviewed 21 black men pursuing engineering graduate degrees at a research university. Several common themes detailed structural racism within the university, which led to unfair treatment, unwelcoming environments or isolation and unnecessary strain on black graduate students. These factors significantly affect a student's ability to succeed, Burt said.

"There's an assumption that students drop out of an engineering program because they couldn't cut it. That the problem is an individual flaw," Burt said. "Our research shows the main challenges these students faced were beyond their control. They were systemic, structural, historic and rooted in a legacy of science that is counterproductive for broadening student participation in STEM."

Collective high school (3.66) and college (3.58) GPAs show students in the study were strong academically. Black male graduate enrollment across the university was less than 2 percent during the study. A majority of the study participants had parents who went to college, including four with mothers and three with fathers who had doctorates.

The paper, published in the American Educational Research Journal, includes portions of student interviews that describe what it meant to be one of a few or the only black student in class. It affected everything from difficulty finding and joining a study group to feeling constant pressure to prove they belonged in the program.

"People are naturally going to want to be around people who look like them," Marcus, a third-year Ph.D. candidate in mechanical engineering, told researchers. "As a black man in engineering, I don't have that camaraderie. So, I am forced to immediately look outside of my comfort zone in order to find people who I can study with, talk with and have overall support."

Some students told researchers they considered leaving their program because of the negativity they faced. Many said they received discouraging messages from their advisers that ranged from passive-aggressive to explicit challenges regarding their ability to perform doctoral-level work. The ripple effect of these actions can affect generations, said Williams.

"If negative experiences cause black men to leave doctoral engineering programs, that hurts national efforts to broaden participation in these fields," Williams said. "It limits the number of black faculty who will train the next generation of engineers and diversify the future pool of researchers and scientists. It also has implications for national security, innovation and technological advancements because different perspectives may be excluded."

Death by a thousand cuts

The discrimination students experienced was overt at times, but they most often had to deal with racial microaggressions, researchers found. Those included verbal comments or behaviors, intentional and unintentional, which came across as hostile or derogatory. Other researchers have described the effect of racial microaggressions as "death by a thousand cuts" - the individual comment or action may seem minor, but the cumulative effect is harmful.

"Race is this constant thought process in which black students are often asking, 'Is this because of my race?' It's exhausting. This is not just happening in the research lab, but it happens in the classroom and study groups, or when looking for a place to eat," Smith said.

Taking corrective action

If colleges and universities are serious about increasing and retaining the number of underrepresented graduate students in STEM fields, faculty, administrators and staff need to investigate existing policies and recruitment strategies that may have unintended consequences, researchers said. Burt recommends the following steps:

Get rid of assumptions that there are no qualified black candidates to become faculty members

Improve recruitment and retention by admitting more black students

Implement programs to help students learn how to interact with students from other cultures

Implementing change at the graduate level will lead to short-term and long-term benefits, Burt said. Not only will it help recruit and retain black graduate students; it also will increase the number of black engineers working in the field and teaching on college campuses.

"We need more black males at the highest level to serve as models for younger generations. If there were more black scientists and engineers, I can only imagine how that would shape a child's mind," Burt said. "It also would bring to the table people with unique skills and insights based on their backgrounds to help address some of the world's most vexing problems."

Improving primary care quality is a national priority, but little is known about the extent to which small- to medium-size practices use quality improvement strategies to improve care. This is according to a recently published article in the Annals of Family Medicine entitled “Use of Quality Improvement Strategies Among Small- to Medium-Size U.S. Primary Care Practices.” Bijal Balasubramanian, MBBS, PhD, et al, examined variations in use of quality improvement strategies among 1,181 small- to medium-size primary care practices engaged in a national initiative spanning 12 U.S. states to improve quality of care for heart health and assessed factors associated with those variations.

The researchers found substantial variation in the use of quality improvement strategies among small- to medium-size primary care practices. Findings suggest that practices may need external support to strengthen their ability to do quality improvement and to be prepared for new payment and delivery models.

La Jolla, Calif., April 9, 2018 - Obesity is the second-leading preventable cause of cancer and represents one of the greatest threats to global human health. But it has not been clear exactly how whole-body metabolism affects tumor formation. In particular, the molecular mechanisms by which fat cells communicate with tumor tissue remain poorly understood.

Sanford Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) researchers recently addressed this question, revealing that inactivation of a protein called p62 in fat cells fuels aggressive, metastatic prostate cancer in mice. As reported in Cancer Cell, p62 deficiency triggers a shutdown of energy-consuming processes in fat tissue, thereby increasing the availability of nutrients for cancer cells.

"This work could lead to better therapies that consider cancer not just as a genetic or cellular disease, but as a whole-body process where tumors communicate with metabolic organs to maintain their unlimited appetite for nutrients," says co-senior study author Maria Diaz-Meco, Ph.D., a professor in the Cancer Metabolism and Signaling Networks Program at SBP. "This is a vulnerability that can be targeted therapeutically."

Diverting energy

Prostate cancer is the second-leading cause of cancer death among men in the United States, and obesity is a major risk factor for the progression and aggressiveness of this disease. But the underlying molecular mechanisms have remained unclear, in part due to the limitations of mouse models of obesity, which have not allowed researchers to study the specific crosstalk between fat cells and tumor tissue independently of dietary factors.

"Most of the studies addressing the role of adiposity and obesity in cancer use mice fed a high-fat diet," says co-senior study author Jorge Moscat, Ph.D., director and professor of the Cancer Metabolism and Signaling Networks Program at SBP. "Although this mimics some of the situations in patients, it prevents a real understanding of the signaling pathways that control the bidirectional communication between tumors and adipocytes, or fat cells. This is essential if we want to identify therapeutic targets that can be harnessed to prevent the pro-tumorigenic signals emanating from the adipose tissue."

To address this problem, Diaz-Meco and Moscat turned to a mouse model of obesity they previously helped to develop. These mice specifically lack p62 in fat cells, leading to increased adiposity and metabolic problems without altering food intake. In the new study, the researchers reveal a central role of p62 in fat tissue-tumor communication, which supports cancer metabolic fitness.

Specifically, they found that p62 deficiency in fat cells promotes the progression and metastasis of prostate cancer in mice by inhibiting a protein complex called mTORC1. The tumors suppress energy-consuming activities such as fat cell development, a metabolic process called oxidative phosphorylation, and fatty acid metabolism in white fat tissue. As a result, more fatty acids and other nutrients are available to support tumor growth. "This metabolic reprograming orchestrated by the loss of p62 in adipocytes appears to help tumors cope with the high-energy demands of an aggressive cancer," Diaz-Meco says.

Additional experiments showed that p62 deficiency in fat tissue promotes the synthesis of proteins called osteopontin and Cpt1a, which are critical for prostate cancer proliferation, migration and invasion. These findings are clinically relevant because high levels of osteopontin and Cpt1a are associated with aggressive, metastatic castration-resistant prostate cancer in humans. "The significance is huge because we identify a new set of therapeutic targets that, if modulated, should block the ability of activated adipose tissue to promote tumor malignancy," Moscat says.

Beyond genetics

According to the authors, the findings suggest that mTOR inhibitors currently used to treat a wide range of cancers may have the unintended consequence of shutting down fat tissue metabolism and fueling tumor growth, at least under certain circumstances. But this possibility needs to be evaluated in future studies. For their own part, the authors plan to further investigate the p62 signaling pathway in patients and identify druggable targets that could be evaluated for their therapeutic potential.

"We need to consider other aspects of cancer therapeutics beyond the better-known genetics," Diaz-Meco says. "That is, we need to invest more in the research of cancer metabolism, which deals with the identification of metabolic vulnerabilities that should be common to all types of cancers. This will ultimately lead to better therapies that are less susceptible to resistance, which is an all-too-common problem in oncogene-target approaches."

"There is a paradox at play when it comes to atrial fibrillation in the Latino population," said Dr. Dawood Darbar.

"While Latino individuals are less likely to develop atrial fibrillation than whites, despite having a higher burden of risk factors, they are more likely to suffer complications if the condition does develop," said Darbar, professor medicine and pharmacology in the University of Illinois at Chicago College of Medicine.

Understanding this paradox has been a challenge because most research on the genetic basis of atrial fibrillation, or AFib, has been performed in whites of European descent.

With the development of a large, diverse registry of patients with AFib, the most prevalent heart rhythm disorder worldwide, Darbar and his colleagues at UIC have confirmed for the first time the association of a chromosomal genetic variant with increased risk of AFib in Latinos.

The findings are reported in PLOS ONE.

To identify common genetic variants, the researchers studied 713 patients who sought care at the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago. The study group consisted of 103 Latino individuals who were prospectively enrolled in the UIC AFib Registry. Blood samples were analyzed for common genetic variants at a number of chromosomal locations and compared with genetic analysis results of 610 individuals without AFib.

"Our goal was to determine if the top nine gene variants known to be associated with AFib in white patients also increase susceptibility in Latinos," said Darbar, who is chief of cardiology.

"We found that one variant was also prevalent in Latinos with AFib, particularly those from Mexico," Darbar said, "and that its predictive effect was stronger in Latinos than in whites."

Latino patients were found to be at a 2.3-fold increased risk for developing AFib if they carried this common genetic variant, which is labeled rs10033464 SNP at chromosome 4q25.

Darbar says this finding not only sheds light on the underlying mechanisms of AFib, but it also, and more importantly, helps advance prevention and treatment strategies for AFib in Latinos.

"The presence of an AFib-associated genetic variant helps doctors personalize treatment for the individual patient," Darbar said. This is key, he says, to preventing complications, the most serious and common of which is stroke, which in some cases can lead to lifelong disability or death.

"It also alerts us to a possible familial link that can help identify when family members may also be at risk," Darbar said.

WACO, Texas (April 9, 2018) - Have you ever bought a gift for a friend, simply because it's a gift that you would like yourself?

If so, that was likely a time that you projected your own attitudes onto your friend, assuming your friend shared your preferences. Such activity is called "social projection" and is the focus of new marketing research from Baylor University's Hankamer School of Business.

The study, "I Love the Product, but Will You? The Role of Interpersonal Attachment Styles in Social Projection," is authored by Meredith David, Ph.D., assistant professor of marketing, and published in Psychology & Marketing. Research results are based on the surveys of 1,272 people across five studies.

The research reveals that people who are "secure" in interpersonal settings are the ones most likely to engage in social projection (making choices on behalf of others based on their own preferences). Conversely, those who are "anxious" in such settings are less likely to assume that others share their own preferences and less likely to make choices for others based on their personal attitudes.

"You'd think that secure people with lots of friends and healthy personal relationships would have a better idea of what someone would like as a gift, but that's not the case," David said. "This research shows that individuals who are anxious in interpersonal situations and who have fewer close, personal relationships are better at predicting what a person may like."

Securely attached individuals, David explained, are people who expect others will be available and supportive when needed. Anxiously attached individuals have less positive expectations about interpersonal-related situations and constantly worry about relationships.

"The findings of this study are counterintuitive and contrary to much of the literature, which says secure attachments are most desirable and attachment anxiety is only associated with negative behaviors and outcomes," David said. "My research suggests that secure attachments may not always be the best or most optimal."

Making choices for others

Secure individuals, David said, tend to be older, in a committed relationship and earn a higher-income. Anxious individuals tend to be younger, single and earn a lower income.

A securely attached person is more apt to choose a gift based on his/her own preferences. An anxious person is more apt to consider what the recipient may like, and will make a choice based less on his/her own personal preferences.

"A key takeaway is that secure people (people who have healthy relationships and feel comfortable in interpersonal settings, etc.) should be mindful of their propensity to assume others like what they like," David said. "Gifts should be thoughtful, and securely attached folks need to take caution when selecting and buying gifts. Importantly, these individuals should strive to put their own preferences aside when considering what others may like."

Research implications for marketers

David said her research can impact many areas of the market, including gift-giving and marketing to gift buyers, as well as human resources and hiring.

One example given in the study is that of a company that lists on its website a group of products that have been deemed "good gifts" for purchase. Based on the results of this research, the company could see a greater return if its target market consists mainly of securely attached individuals.

"Specifically, the findings show that less-anxious, more securely attached individuals are more likely to project their attitudes onto others," David said. "Thus, it is likely that, while shopping online, [securely attached] individuals are more likely to assume that others would also like products from that store."

Thus, a potential sale.

Research implications for those who make hiring decisions

David said human resources professionals and hiring managers may benefit by considering the attachment styles of job candidates and using the research to guide their evaluations as to which candidates may perform better in certain roles.

"For example, it is not uncommon that marketers and salespeople must predict preferences of the customers, at least as they relate to new products, pricing promotions etc. Sales and product development positions may be better suited for anxiously attached individuals; whereas financial, technical or market research positions may be a better fit for secure individuals," David said.

The genome is the body's instruction manual. It contains the raw information -- in the form of DNA -- that determines everything from whether an animal walks on four legs or two, to one's potential risk for disease. But this manual is written in the language of biology, so making sense of all that it encodes has proven challenging. Now, Columbia University researchers have developed a computational tool that shines a light on the genome's most hard-to-translate segments. With this tool in hand, scientists can get closer to understanding how DNA guides everything from growth and development to aging and disease.

The researchers recently published their findings in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"The genomes of even simple organisms such as the fruit fly contain 120 million letters worth of DNA, much of which has yet to be decoded because the cues its provides have been too subtle for existing tools to pick up," said Richard Mann, PhD, a principal investigator at Columbia's Mortimer B. Zuckerman Mind Brain Behavior Institute and a senior author of the paper. "But our new algorithm lets us sweep through these millions of lines of genetic code and pick up even the faintest signals, resulting in a much more complete picture what DNA encodes."

Geneticists have long looked for ways to decipher the mysteries hidden in DNA. One such mystery has involved a particularly pervasive class of genes known as the Hox genes.

"Hox genes are the body's master architects; they drive some of the earliest and most critical aspects of growth and differentiation, such as where in a developing embryo the head and limbs should be positioned," said Dr. Mann, who is also the Higgins Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biophysics (in Systems Biology) at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. "Hox genes do this by producing proteins called transcription factors, which bind to DNA sequences in order to turn large cohorts of genes on or off; like flipping thousands of switches in exactly the right order."

But decades of research into Hox genes uncovered a paradox: Even though each individual Hox gene guided a different feature of growth, the Hox transcription factors were all binding strongly and visibly to the same set of easily identifiable DNA sequences.

In 2015, Dr. Mann and his team discovered that the Hox transcription factors were also binding at many other locations -- just more discretely at so-called 'low-affinity sites.' The scientists believed these low-affinity binding sites to be key to the Hox transcription factors being able to drive one aspect of development versus another. The problem remained how to decipher these sites from the genome.

To address this challenge, Dr. Mann and his lab joined forces with the lab of Harmen Bussemaker, PhD, a Professor in Columbia's Department of Biological Sciences and Systems Biology and an expert in building computational models of genetic activity.

A few years ago, the two labs developed a genetic sequencing method called SELEX-seq to systematically characterize all Hox binding sites. But their approach still had limitations: It required the same DNA fragment to be sequenced over and over again. With each new round, more pieces of the puzzle were revealed, but information about those critical low-affinity binding sites remained hidden.

"It was akin to running the same paragraph through Google translate multiple times, but in the end still only ten percent of the words are accurately translated," said Dr. Mann.

To overcome this challenge, Dr. Bussemaker and his team developed a sophisticated new computer algorithm that was able to explain -- for the first time -- the behavior of all DNA sequences in the SELEX-seq experiment. They called this algorithm No Read Left Behind, or NRLB.

"In simple terms, NRLB allows us cover the entire spectrum of binding sites -- from the highest to the lowest affinity -- with a much greater degree of sensitivity and accuracy than any existing method, including state-of-the-art deep learning algorithms" said Dr. Bussemaker, who was the paper's other senior author. "Building on that foundation, we now hope to develop more in-depth biological and computational models to help answer the most complicated questions about the genome."

"For example, diseases such as schizophrenia, Parkinson's disease and autism have been mapped to particular DNA regions that do not appear to have a clear function," said Dr. Mann. "With NRLB, scientists could potentially piece together how transcription factors bind to and activate those regions. This will be critical for finding ways to manipulate that activity to one day reduce one's risk of disease."

A new method to sensitively measure the structure of molecules has been demonstrated by twisting laser light and aiming it at miniscule gold gratings to separate out wavelengths.

The technique could potentially be used to probe the structure and purity of molecules in pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, foods and other important products more easily and cheaply than existing methods.

Developed by physicists at the University of Bath, working with colleagues at the University of Cambridge and University College London, the technique relies on the curious fact that many biological and pharmaceutical molecules can be either 'left-handed' or 'right-handed'.

Although such molecules are built from exactly the same elements they can be arranged in mirror images of each other, and this configuration sometimes changes their properties drastically.

Notoriously the morning sickness drug Thalidomide caused birth defects and deaths in babies before it was pulled from the market in the 1960s. Investigation showed that the drug existed in two mirror images - the right-handed form was effective as a morning sickness drug, but the left-handed form was harmful to foetuses. This is one example of why testing what 'handedness', or chirality, a molecule has is essential for many valuable products.

The research team from the Centre for Photonics and Photonic Materials, and the Centre for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology at the University of Bath, used a special white-light laser built in-house and directed it through several optical components to put a twist on the beam. The twisted laser beam then hits a nano-scopic U-shaped gold grating which serves as a template for the light, further twisting the beam in either a right or left-handed direction. This deflects the beam in many directions and further splits it into its constituent wavelengths across the colour spectrum.

By carefully measuring the deflected light scientists can detect tiny differences in intensity across the spectrum which inform them about the chirality of the grating the laser beam interacts with.

The study, published in the journal Advanced Optical Materials, demonstrates the technique as a proof of principle.

Christian Kuppe, the PhD student who conducted the experiments, said: "At the moment chiral sensing requires high molecular concentrations because you're looking for tiny differences in how the light interacts with the target molecule.

"By using our gold gratings we aim to use a much smaller amount of molecules to conduct a very sensitive test of their handedness. The next step will be to continue to test the technique with a range of well-known chiral molecules.

"We hope that this will become a valuable way to perform really important tests on all sorts of products including pharmaceuticals and other high-value chemicals."

Dr Ventsislav Valev, who oversaw the work, said: "There's a great deal of scientific excitement about miniaturisation and working on nano-sized dimensions at the very small scale. However, in the rush to go as small as possible, some opportunities have been overlooked. Working with chiral nano-gratings is a great example of that."

BOZEMAN -- For years, researchers have known that it is hard to attract and keep women and some minorities in science, technology, engineering and math - or STEM - fields. Now, a Montana State University researcher has found that the same problem applies to sexual minorities.

Many have suspected the findings, but MSU professor Bryce Hughes' study, "Coming Out in STEM: factors affecting retention of sexual minority STEM students," published in the March 14 issue of Science Advances, was the first to provide quantitative evidence, he said. Hughes, an assistant professor of adult and higher education in the College of Education, Health and Human Development, found students who identified as lesbian, gay, bisexual or queer were 7 percent less likely than their heterosexual peers to complete their STEM degree.

Hughes analyzed data from a national survey given to university students in their first and fourth years in school to see whether first-year students who identified as LGBQ and planned to pursue a STEM major were still enrolled in a STEM major by their fourth year. The Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA collected the data in 2011 and 2015 from more than 4,000 students at 78 institutions across the U.S. Hughes said because of statistical limitations with the data collected, he did not specifically look at experiences of transgender and gender non-conforming students, but plans to in future work.

Overall, Hughes found that 71 percent of heterosexual students and 64 percent of LGBQ students persisted in STEM. After Hughes controlled for variables such as academic performance in high school and participation in undergraduate research, which are known to contribute to academic persistence in STEM, he found that heterosexual men were 17 percent more likely to stay in STEM than LGBQ males. However, LGBQ women were 18 percent more likely than heterosexual women to stay in STEM, which he attributed to gender stereotyping of sexual minority women as masculine and sexual minority men as feminine. Overall, though, Hughes noted that the probabilities for both groups of men staying in STEM were still higher than for both groups of women.

Interestingly, Hughes also found that nearly 50 percent of LGBQ undergraduates reported working in a lab or doing fieldwork, compared with 41 percent of heterosexual students. Previous research suggests that participating in research programs increases students' chances of completing their STEM studies. Hughes attributes the higher percentage of LGBQ undergraduates working in a lab or doing fieldwork to both their expectation of adversity and commitment to the field. Had lab and fieldwork participation not been so high for LGBQ students, the retention gap could have been even wider, he noted.

"We kind of assumed that if you go into a field anticipating that it might not be the most welcoming climate, you're probably more committed and likely to seek out experiences that you know will make a positive difference," he said.

Hughes' study did not determine the reasons for the disparity in retention, although he is interested in conducting qualitative research that investigates that question in the future. Some have speculated that the cultural climate surrounding the STEM fields may reinforce traditional gender role stereotypes and be less welcoming to sexual minority students, he said.

A colleague of Hughes' who is familiar with his work said his research is evidence that challenges do exist. It also helps broaden the view of underrepresentation, she said.

"We can easily see that a classroom has only a few women or is mostly white students," said Jessi L. Smith, MSU psychology professor. "Dr. Hughes' study is so important because it shines a light on an invisible minority group who are at risk for leaving STEM fields."

Alison Harmon, dean of the College of Education, Health and Human Development, said Hughes' research provides valuable insights for higher education administrators working to improve the college experience. She noted that providing a welcoming and inclusive environment for all students is a priority of the College of Education, Health and Human Development, as evidenced by a recent diversity and inclusion plan it adopted.

"Our plan states that our college is committed to an environment that fosters diversity and inclusion of all individuals in our college and the MSU community," Harmon said. "We believe that each student, staff and faculty member should feel welcomed and valued for their contributions to the educational process in all areas of teaching and learning, research and service in the MSU community and beyond."

Hughes said one of the biggest takeaways from the research is the importance of expanding the conversation around diversity.

"What we're seeing is broader patterns of exclusion in STEM fields," he said. "When we think about diversity within the STEM context, there's this perception that science is science no matter who is doing the science. What we've learned from work addressing racial and gender gaps and as we expand this conversation to sexual minority students is that there is some kind of subjectivity at play here. There is some way that different people are being pushed out of these fields."

And, he said, there is tremendous value to diversity in science.

"It's important to recognize that a wider, more diverse array of experiences in the field will only improve the outcomes," Hughes said. "People from different backgrounds may have a different way of approaching problems - which will often result in better solutions."

Mobile apps designed to help parents keep their children safe from online predators may actually be counterproductive, harming the trust between a parent and child and reducing the child's ability to respond to online threats, conclude two new studies from the University of Central Florida.

According to the national Crimes Against Children Research Center, 23 percent of youth have experienced accidental exposure to internet pornography. Another 11 percent have been victims of online harassment and 9 percent report receiving unwanted sexual solicitations online.

In a pair of studies led by the University of Central Florida, researchers examined the types of parents who use parental-control apps on their teen's mobile smartphone, whether the apps actually helped keep teens safe online, and what teens and younger children thought about their parents using these apps.

For a generation that has grown up with network technology and uses it for almost every facet of their lives, from completing homework assignments to connecting with friends and sharing personal information, the results of this research may be life changing.

The research team found that authoritarian parents, who were less responsive to their teen's need for autonomy, were the most likely to use the parental control apps, and the use of these apps was associated with teens experiencing more, not fewer, online risks, including unwanted explicit content, harassment and online sexual solicitations. This NSF-funded study was based on a survey of 215 parent-and-teen pairs in the United States.

"Parental involvement and direct supervision were both associated with fewer peer problems and less online victimization for teens, but neither of these factors correlated with the use of parental control apps," said Arup Kumar Ghosh, a doctoral student in UCF's College of Engineering and Computer Science, who conducted this research as part of his dissertation.

"The fear that teens will fall victim to unthinkable online dangers persists, and our research is challenging the current solutions for protecting teens online by tightening the reins. Instead, we suggest empowering teens to be agents of their own online safety," said Pamela Wisniewski, an assistant professor of engineering and computer science, who is an expert on adolescent online safety and advises Ghosh.

"Our findings suggest that most parental-control apps are just that--apps that attempt to control what teens can do online, but ultimately do little to keep them safe online," said Wisniewski.

In the second study, Ghosh, Wisniewski and their collaborators wanted to know how teens and younger children felt about these parental-control apps.

The researchers analyzed 736 publicly posted reviews written by teens and younger children for parental-control apps available for download on Google Play.

They found that approximately 79 percent of the reviews written by children rated the apps at either two stars or less out of a possible five. Further analysis uncovered three major themes behind the negative ratings - children found the apps overly restrictive, were an invasion of their personal privacy, and supported "lazy" or bad parenting instead of improving communication channels between them and their parents. The children explained that the apps prevented them from doing everyday tasks, such as homework assignments, and turned their parents into "stalkers."

"Teens, and even younger children, told us loudly and clearly that they would rather their parents talk to them than use parental control apps," Ghosh said. "Not because they wanted to get away with something bad, but because they wanted their parents' trust and respect."

Wisniewski added, "The more fearful we are as parents the more tightly we tend to hold on. In some cases, that can mean our children are not learning how to manage risk on their own."

By trying to completely shield teens from experiencing any and all online risks, some parents are keeping teens from developing the necessary coping mechanisms that they will need throughout their lives, the researchers suggested.

The researchers concluded that more parental control does not ensure teen safety and that a certain amount of autonomy in allowing teenagers to make appropriate decisions may be the best approach for parenting.

Future app designs should consider incorporating features that support engaged parenting and teach teens how to more effectively manage online risks. These studies suggest that children, particularly teens, should play a pivotal role in the design and development of mobile apps designed to keep them safe online.

Both research studies will be presented at the Association for Computing Machinery's Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems in Montreal this month. (April).

Dozens of giant footprints discovered on a Scottish island are helping shed light on an important period in dinosaur evolution.

The tracks were made some 170 million years ago, in a muddy, shallow lagoon in what is now the north-east coast of the Isle of Skye.

Most of the prints were made by long-necked sauropods - which stood up to two metres tall - and by similarly sized theropods, which were the older cousins of Tyrannosaurus rex.

The find is globally important as it is rare evidence of the Middle Jurassic period, from which few fossil sites have been found around the world.

Researchers measured, photographed and analysed about 50 footprints in a tidal area at Brothers' Point - Rubha nam Brathairean - a dramatic headland on Skye's Trotternish peninsula.

The footprints were difficult to study owing to tidal conditions, the impact of weathering and changes to the landscape. In spite of this, scientists identified two trackways in addition to many isolated foot prints.

Researchers used drone photographs to make a map of the site. Additional images were collected using a paired set of cameras and tailored software to help model the prints.

Analysis of the clearest prints - including the overall shape of the track outline, the shape and orientation of the toes, and the presence of claws - enabled scientists to ascribe them to sauropods and theropods.

The study, carried out by the University of Edinburgh, Staffin Museum and Chinese Academy of Sciences, was published in the Scottish Journal of Geology. It was supported by a grant from the National Geographic Society, and subsidiary funding from the Association of Women Geologists, Derek and Maureen Moss, Edinburgh Zoo and Edinburgh Geological Society.

Paige dePolo, who led the study, conducted the research while an inaugural student in the University's Research Master's degree programme in palaeontology and geobiology.

Ms dePolo said: "This tracksite is the second discovery of sauropod footprints on Skye. It was found in rocks that were slightly older than those previously found at Duntulm on the island and demonstrates the presence of sauropods in this part of the world through a longer timescale than previously known. This site is a useful building block for us to continue fleshing out a picture of what dinosaurs were like on Skye in the Middle Jurassic."

Dr Steve Brusatte of the University of Edinburgh's School of GeoSciences, who led the field team, said: "The more we look on the Isle of Skye, the more dinosaur footprints we find. This new site records two different types of dinosaurs--long-necked cousins of Brontosaurus and sharp-toothed cousins of T. rex--hanging around a shallow lagoon, back when Scotland was much warmer and dinosaurs were beginning their march to global dominance."