Culture

Scientists at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (NTU Singapore) and the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) have found that people who hold negative opinions of genetically-modified (GM) food are likely to feel the same about nano-enabled food - food with nano-additives to enhance flavour, nutrition or prolong shelf life.

In a survey of 1,000 respondents led by NTU comprising adult Singaporeans and permanent residents, close to a third found GM food unappealing, and their negative feelings influenced how they viewed nano-enabled food. Over a third felt neutral about GM food, while the remaining respondents welcomed it.

While the study focused specifically on reactions towards nano-enabled foods, lead investigator and NTU Associate Professor Shirley Ho said that the "spillover effect" they observed from GM food to nano-enabled food could possibly extend to other novel food technologies as well, given that mental associations that people make between similar technologies have shown to influence their behaviour towards a newer technology. This represents a cause for concern for policy makers as Singapore invests in food science and technology as one of its strategies to bolster food security.

With the COVID-19 outbreak extending into the second quarter of the year, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations has warned of global disruption in food supply brought about by movement restrictions and border controls in a protracted crisis.

The global pandemic has thrust the issue of food security and the necessity to explore cutting edge research in novel food technologies into the spotlight, said Assoc Prof Ho of NTU's Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of food security for a small country like Singapore, which imports more than 90 per cent of its food consumed in the country. We don't have the problem of disrupted food supply yet, but we have to anticipate the possibility," said Assoc Prof Ho.

"Our study is a timely examination of the public's reactions towards novel food technologies. We may soon be able to make food last longer with the help of science, or dine on lab-cultured meat, but all these would be futile if a sizeable group of people reject these new food innovations."

"This study highlights the challenge in communicating safety of new food technologies as innovations advance to meet global food needs for a growing world population," added Dr K. Viswanath, Lee Kum Kee Professor of Health Communication at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and a co-author on the paper.

The study was published in the Journal of Communication on 5 June.

Tech-enabled food doesn't go down well with some Singaporeans

To study public opinion on engineered food, the NTU-Harvard team first surveyed 1,000 Singapore citizens and permanent residents on their thoughts on GM food - for example, asking whether they consider it to be delightful, nutritious, fresh and appealing.

Close to a third, or 305 respondents, showed unfavourable attitudes towards GM food.

The team then investigated how the respondents' pre-existing attitudes towards GM food affected their feelings about nano-enabled food, and found that those who had unfavourable attitudes towards GM food were also unfavourable about nano-enabled food - what the scientists called a spillover effect.

The scientists also found that participants who were unfavourable towards technology-enabled food may not be swayed to do the same after watching others eat this food.

Assoc Prof Ho, who is also NTU's Research Director for Arts, Humanities, Education and Social Sciences, explained: "This spillover effect could potentially be due to a general rejection of technology-enabled food and other notions associated with it. The mental associations that people make between similar technologies may influence their behaviours toward a newer technology. This is especially so in cases where the technology from which people draw cues is socially contestable."

The findings also highlight the key role communication plays in bridging the gap between science and the public, she added.

The study was funded by the NTU-HSPH Initiative for Sustainable Nanotechnology, and done in collaboration with Prof K. Vish Viswanath and Dr Mesfin Awoke Bekalu at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health. Other NTU authors include PhD student Tong Jee Goh, research fellow Dr Agnes Chuah, and research associate Yan Wah Leung.

A similar survey is being conducted by the team in the US. The findings will provide a comparative study of attitudes towards tech-enabled food across different regions and populations.

For the first time, researchers at The Westmead Institute for Medical Research (WIMR) have identified and described a new and unique subset of human cells that are involved in the immune response against hepatitis B (HBV) infection. The discovery could help develop new treatments for HBV and inform future vaccine design.

Currently, HBV vaccination protects against subsequent infection through immunological memory - the vaccine 'trains' the immune system to eliminate pathogens when the body is exposed to the virus.

For years, immunological memory was thought to be driven by B and T immune cell responses. Recent studies in mice have suggested that natural killer (NK) cells can also 'remember' viral infections, but it remained unknown whether this applied to human viral infections.

Researchers from WIMR studied NK cells in humans who had been vaccinated against, or infected with HBV, and compared them to those who had not been exposed to the virus.

The study, undertaken by PhD student Ratna Wijaya and led by Professor Golo Ahlenstiel and Dr Scott Read, describes for the first time, the presence of memory NK cells (mNKs) in humans following exposure to HBV.

Professor Ahlenstiel said, "This finding is quite significant, as it helps our understanding of how the body fights against HBV following vaccination.

"Previously, we thought that the NK immune response was part of our 'innate' immune system. The innate immune system fights against all antigens (foreign bodies, such as viruses), rather than specifically targeting certain antigens. We have now confirmed that NK cells in humans can acquire an immunological 'memory', and specifically target HBV-infected cells in subsequent infections."

HBV is a virus that attacks the liver. Although some individuals who are infected with HBV can eliminate the virus from their body, others, particularly those who are infected in childhood, may develop chronic infections.

"Vaccines have been vital in preventing the spread of HBV," Professor Ahlenstiel said.

"However, not everyone who is vaccinated will experience the same level of protection. A percentage of those vaccinated - roughly five per cent - will not develop immunity against HBV. This means they can still develop an infection, including a chronic infection.

"Without proper treatment, chronic HBV can lead to serious complications, including liver cancer, and liver cirrhosis with chronic liver failure. It is vital that we prevent such infections where we can.

"We hope that, through our discovery, we can harness the anti-viral properties of mNKs to develop new treatments and improve vaccines so that everyone is protected against this virus."

Some of the world's largest, most spectacular and unheralded mammals are silently slipping away, species like Tibetan wild yaks and Patagonia's huemul, Bhutan's takin and Vietnam's saola. Even Africa's three species of zebras and wildebeest have suffered massive reductions over the last several decades.

The reasons for these losses are more than disease and habitat fragmentation, deforestation or wildlife trade, according to researchers. Ultimately, the cause is rampant human population growth. And unless human behavior changes in unprecedented ways, these scientists warn that future communities of these mammals will never resemble those of the recent past or even today.

The findings are based on a new study, "Disassembled food webs and messy projections: modern ungulate communities in the face of unabating human population growth," published June 9 in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution.

Joel Berger, lead author of the study and a professor at Colorado State University, said that the time for action is now, and that touting past conservation achievements does little to better humanity's future.

"We all must realize we're members of a broad, beautiful and living planet, and we must find ways to subsist in this together or suffer more severe consequences than what we already see," said Berger, also a senior scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). "For many assemblages of animals, we are nearing a moment in time, when, like Humpty Dumpty, we will not be able to put things back together again." Berger is also the Barbara Cox Anthony University Chair of Wildlife Conservation at CSU.

Analyzing ecological, human disruptors

In this study, the research team - which also included Alejandro Vila, the director for Science for WCS's Patagonia Program; Cristobal Briceno, a professor and veterinarian at University of Chile; and Joanna Lambert, a professor at the University of Colorado Boulder - analyzed direct and indirect disruptions that lead to the changing roles of mammals in global ecosystems and noted how the nature of ecological interactions has changed and will do so, on an even larger scale, in coming decades.

More specifically, they looked at what has transpired with the huemul in Patagonia, takin in Bhutan, wild horses in deserts, wolves and coyotes in North America, and the inevitability of change in big ecosystems as large carnivores are extirpated.

Scientists said this is happening as the human population increases it footprint on land.

"Even in the remote reaches of the Himalayas, stray and feral dogs, a direct result of human intrusions, wreak havoc on wild and domestic species of high economic value and cultural importance," said Tshewang Wangchuk, a study co-author, conservation biologist and president of the Bhutan Foundation.

Humans only recently colonized parts of the Himalayas, areas where ice has receded due to warming temperatures. Yet, the authors also point to human population change at a global scale. In 1830 when Vice-Admiral Robert Fitzroy captained his ship, the Beagle, through the Magellan Straits of South America, fewer than 1.2 billion people inhabited Earth. By Earth Day in 1970, there were more than 3.5 billion.

Today, only 50 years later the world's population approaches eight billion. Livestock and humans now constitute a staggering 97 percent of the planet's mammal biomass.

Food webs irretrievably altered

The research team said worldwide food webs have become irretrievably altered by humans, with little hope to reconstitute even recent past conditions or to put back the ecological functions once created by native species.

Feral pigs, for instance, exist today on every continent except Antarctica, and in 70 percent of the states in the United States. These animals disrupt fish, reptiles, birds and other small mammals, plants and soils. In addition, climate change warms the oceans, which in turn foments marine algal blooms, reducing fishery catches. With less demand for fish, a consequent uptick in wildlife poaching on land occurs.

The scientists also documented how an appetite for fashion like cashmere increases imports to the west from Mongolia, India and China, resulting in economic incentives for desert pastoralists to produce more domestic goats in central Asia. These goats compete for food with native species and are in danger due to increasing numbers of dogs in these areas. The dogs are not only predators but also carry diseases, which jeopardizes endangered species like snow leopards, kiang and Przewalksi's gazelle.

Use 'ecological grief' to implement action

Berger and the study authors suggest that despite the grim findings, all is not yet lost.

The world has remarkable protected areas including: Serengeti and Kruger National Park in Africa, Yellowstone and Wrangell-St. Elias National Park & Preserve in North America, Madidi National Park in Bolivia, the Patagonia Ice Fields of Chile and Argentina, Chang Tang Nature Reserve in China, and Northeast Greenland National Park, the world's largest national park.

And although food webs with large mammals will be different from those of the past and operate differently today, there are options to shape the future.

"It is not too late and we simply do not have the luxury of time to mourn what we have lost," said Lambert. "We need to use our ecological grief to implement action and honor the exceptional biodiversity that remains. This can be done by protecting large tracts of the planet's wild places."

Long-term research is important to understand how land management impacts runoff and erosion, which pose serious threats to soil and water quality worldwide. To better understand these processes in agricultural landscapes of the southern Great Plains of the United States, eight 1.6 -ha watersheds were established and instrumented in 1976 at the USDA-ARS Grazinglands Research Laboratory in El Reno, Oklahoma.

Researchers recently summarized 23 years of data from the site in the Journal of Environmental Quality, showing the effects of native tallgrass prairie and crop-livestock systems on erosion and water quality (nitrogen, phosphorus, and suspended sediments).

The watersheds were equipped to measure precipitation and surface runoff quantity and quality. Initially, all watersheds were in native tallgrass prairie, but later four of the them were cropped into winter wheat (two conventionally tilled, one no-till, and one no-till with a summer forage crop), while the other four watersheds remained in native tallgrass prairie.

The authors described available archived historical data, including methods of collection and analyses. Such a long-term research database is essential for determining the impact of different agricultural management systems, understanding the processes related to hydrologic transport and water quality, and validation and development of models capable of defining hydrology responses and water quality.

The world's waterfront cities should not be deluged with apparently green developments because they still carry the potential to cause damage to the marine and coastal environment, scientists have warned.

Coastal urban areas all over the world have expanded at an increasingly fast pace in recent years, with developers innovating a variety of ways to try and minimise their impact on natural habitats.

However, an international team of scientists has said the artificial structures and reclaimed land that have resulted are often poor surrogates for the natural environment they replace.

They say that where societal and economic demand makes development inevitable, more attention must be paid to claims over biodiversity gain because a 'greened' development will always impinge on natural systems.

The calls are made in a commentary article, accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Ecology and written by eco-engineers, ecologists and marine biologists from the UK, Italy and Malaysia.

Led by researchers from the University of Plymouth, it particularly focuses on the application of so-called integrated greening of grey infrastructure (IGGI).

Despite it already being implemented in many places, they believe there is considerable scope for it to be misused, leading to the 'greenwashing' of new developments including seawalls, breakwaters and artificial islands.

Instead, the scientists say it can undoubtedly be used to enhance previously-developed or degraded environments, and those projects should act as a testbed for where IGGI can have a positive - and, just as importantly, a negative - impact.

Dr Louise Firth, Lecturer in Marine Ecology at the University of Plymouth, is the article's lead author. She said: "The artificialisation of the global coastline is driving humanity to develop novel solutions to halt biodiversity loss and enhance the marine built environment. While IGGI has demonstrated real promise in experimental trials and redevelopment projects, there are many limitations and unknowns and now is the time to have an open discussion about its risks and benefits.

"It is certainly true that when incorporated in redevelopment or regeneration, it can represent something of a laurel wreath with measureable benefits for humans and nature. However, in new developments, it could be viewed as a fig leaf covering up environmental damage or even worse, a Trojan horse deliberately causing harm."

In the article, the researchers do highlight a number of projects where existing structures or developments are being regenerated for environmental benefit. These include the Billion Oyster Project in New York, which is using artificial structures to install oysters with widespread success.

They also highlight areas which could be at risk of greenwashing, including disused oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, which may be supporting marine life now but may not continue to do so as their structures degrade.

Their article adds that over the last 30 years, Asia and the Middle East have experienced the greatest population and urban growth while constructing some of the most ambitious and iconic land reclamation projects. However, of the top 50 countries expected to experience the fastest population growth from 2020-2100, 86% are African and 72% of them are coastal.

These countries have some of the largest remaining stretches of 'unaltered' coastlines, but limited environmental protection policies, and as such are potentially the most vulnerable to future habitat loss and megadevelopment.

To succeed in modern life, people need to accomplish challenging tasks effectively. Many successful entrepreneurs, businesspeople, students, athletes and more, tend to be more strategic - and hence, more effective - than others at meeting such challenges. A new study published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that one important psychological factor behind their success may be a "strategic mindset".

This research, led by Assistant Professor Patricia Chen from the Department of Psychology at the National University of Singapore (NUS) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, shows that people with a strategic mindset are the ones who, in the face of challenges or setbacks, ask themselves: "How else can I do this? Is there a better way of doing this?". Done in collaboration with Stanford University psychologists, this research shows that, as a result, these people tend to apply more effective strategies when working towards their goals in life - including educational, work, health and fitness goals. In turn, they achieve higher school grades, make greater progress towards their professional, health, and fitness goals, and even perform a novel challenging task more efficiently.

"These findings are exciting because psychological science has long known that having a wide repertoire of strategies matters. But until now, we hadn't understood why some people use their strategies more than others at the right time. We developed our research on the strategic mindset to explain why this might be," said Asst Prof Chen, lead author of the study.

Asst Prof Chen and her collaborators conducted a series of three studies, involving over 860 college students and working adults from the United States. One of their studies on 365 college students found that students' strategic mindset predicted how much they reported using effective learning strategies in their classes. And the more they used these effective strategies, the better they performed in their classes that semester, and also in new, different classes the subsequent semester. A second study surveying 365 adults across the United States about their strategic mindset, and relating their mindset to how effective these adults were at pursuing professional, educational, health, and fitness goals of importance to them, produced similar findings.

Can people learn a strategic mindset? Yes, the researchers found that a strategic mindset can indeed be taught. In an experiment, they randomly assigned some people to learn about a strategic mindset through a brief training session. Later, they gave these people a novel, challenging task to accomplish as quickly as possible. Compared to other people in the study who were not exposed to these strategic mindset ideas, those who had learnt about a strategic mindset later applied more effective strategies to accomplish the task. Their strategic behaviours, in turn, translated into faster task performance. Additionally, these people who had learnt about a strategic mindset also voluntarily practised the task more before they had to perform it under time pressure - suggesting that a strategic mindset also has important implications for practice.

How does the strategic mindset work? Co-author Professor Carol Dweck from the Department of Psychology at Stanford University explained, "There are key points in any challenging pursuit that require people to step back and come up with new strategies. A strategic mindset helps them do just that."

Today, many around the world are facing greater struggles. The good news is, people can immediately apply this insight to their lives. Asst Prof Chen advised, "As you approach whatever challenging goal you are pursuing, you can ask yourself, 'What are things I can do to help myself (and others)? Is there a way to do this even better?' If something you have been working on isn't going so well, can you step back and ask yourself, 'How might I go about this differently? Is there another approach I can try to help this go better?'"

Asst Prof Chen and Prof Dweck have already been working hard on the next steps for this research: to develop and test ways to cultivate a strategic mindset among children and adults at scale.

Failure to disclose organizational financial conflicts of interest by producers of Canadian clinical practice guidelines on medications is widespread, pointing to the need for reform, a new research paper highlights in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal).

Most Canadian guideline producers who make recommendations on medications routinely receive industry funding, including from companies that produce drugs evaluated in the guidelines.

"We didn't find any examples where guideline-producing organizations disclosed their organization's industry funding in a guideline," said Katharine Elder, a researcher at the Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital, Montréal, Quebec, the study's lead author.

"Reform is urgently needed to ensure that guidelines used in Canadian health care are free of commercial influences that may not reflect the best interests of patients," says Dr. Brett Thombs, professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Lady Davis Institute at the Jewish General Hospital and McGill University. "Ideally, reform would come from guideline-producing organizations themselves, either out of a desire to better serve the public and society or through pressure from members."

International directives for guideline producers recommend that they should avoid including committee members with financial conflicts of interest, not allow members with conflicts to influence recommendations, and not permit chairs and cochairs to have conflicts of interest. Most of the guidelines reviewed, however, included members with financial conflicts of interest, and all that reported on chairs or cochairs had one of these people with a financial conflict of interest.

"Our results suggest that these recommendations have largely been ignored by many Canadian disease or condition interest groups and medical professional societies that produce clinical practice guidelines," added Dr. Thombs.

The study investigated the creation of Canadian clinical practice guidelines that included drug recommendations. They included 21 clinical practice guidelines, with 3 from government-supported organizations, 9 from disease or condition groups and 9 from medical professional societies. None of 3 government-sponsored guideline producers received industry funding, and none of their members disclosed financial conflicts of interest. Among the 18 disease or condition interest groups and medical professional societies, more than 90% reported on their websites receiving industry funding from producers of drugs being recommended. However, none disclosed this funding in a guideline.

An educational video about hospice care can provide valuable information for patients with advanced cancer and their caregivers, improve perceptions of this quality form of care at the end of life, and increase its use. These are the findings of a study published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society (ACS).

Hospice delivers high-quality care to patients who are dying, and it typically uses less aggressive and less costly care at the end of life. Despite high patient and caregiver satisfaction with hospice, less than half of patients in the United States die while under hospice care and many use hospice for only several days.

To provide more awareness about hospice, Areej El-Jawahri, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital, and her colleagues developed a hospice video educational tool for patients with cancer and their caregivers. In their study, the researchers randomized 75 patients (with 18 caregivers) to watch a six-minute video depicting hospice and 75 patients (with 25 caregivers) to receive a verbal description identical to the message in the video.

After receiving the information about hospice, patients were asked whether they would prefer to receive hospice at the end of life. Although there was no difference between the groups concerning patients' preferences about hospice, patients in the video group reported greater knowledge about hospice than patients in the verbal description (control) group, and they were less likely to feel that hospice is only about death (6.7 percent versus 21.6 percent). Among patients who died, those who were in the video group were more likely than those in the control group to have used hospice (85.2 percent versus 63.6 percent) and to have used hospice for a longer length of time (median of 12 versus three days).

Among caregivers, those in the video group reported greater knowledge about hospice than those in the control group, were more likely to prefer hospice for their loved ones (94.4 percent versus 65.4 percent), and were less likely to feel that hospice is only about death (0 percent versus 23.1 percent).

"This work highlights the potential benefits of using video educational tools to better inform patients about their end of life options and impact the care they receive at the end of life.," said Dr. El-Jawahri.

The researchers evaluated the NewAccess program, which is an Australian adaptation of the United Kingdom's IAPT (Improving Access to Psychological Therapies) approach of delivering low intensity therapies for symptoms of depression and anxiety - and the results have underlined its effectiveness.

"The timeliness of this study is significant, as its findings tie in to current COVID-19 situation and service delivery," says Professor Michael Baigent, from the Department of Psychiatry at Flinders University.

Due to the study results, Professor Baigent is urging for more widespread acceptance and use of NewAccess in our health system. Professor Baigent is a board director of mental health organisation Beyond Blue, which has been trialling NewAccess around Australia.

The results - The Australian version of IAPT: Clinical outcomes of the multi-site cohort study of NewAccess, by Michael Baigent, David Smith, Malcolm Battersby, Sharon Lawn, Paula Redpath and Alicia McCoy - have been published in the Journal of Mental Health.

Better Access, was introduced to Australia in 2006 with the aim of providing Australians with equitable access to psychological therapies. However, GP referrals of psychological therapy for anxiety and affective disorders is not straightforward and is a time-consuming practice, with services not within reach for many Australians.

A 2015 analysis of national Australian data reveals that only 26% of those with an anxiety or depressive illness were receiving an evidence-based treatment.

Many people can be helped by the evidence-based treatments provided by the re-modelled NewAccess treatment, which can be provided by phone or face to face and can be accessed easily.

Referring to this type of service does not require a lengthy mental health care plan and should be at least as easy for a GP as writing a script. People can also self-refer.

Professor Baigent says the new Flinders University study has shown that the NewAccess treatment - the new name for the re-modelled Australian program, since 2013 - shows itself to be effective in addressing the known barriers to access of evidence-based early intervention for depression and anxiety in Australia, which are:

Affordability: NewAccess is free and has no co-payment.

Access: NewAccess therapy is available by telephone as well as face to face and by self-referral or referral.

Stigma: It provides a less confronting alternative to traditional service-based treatments.

Workforce constraints and distribution: Greater uptake of NewAccess will develop an effective new workforce for its specific tasks, thereby enabling mental health professionals to focus on more complex cases commensurate with their expertise.

Transparent outcomes: Clinical progress is measured every contact, shared with the client (which they find highly motivating), and outcome recovery rates are visible to program funders.

Of the 3900 people assessed for the study, there was a clinically meaningful improvement shown by reliable recovery rates in both depression and anxiety symptoms at post-treatment assessment.

The study concludes that because NewAccess has demonstrated positive clinical outcomes in Australia, that compare favourably with international studies with the same methodology, it has a broad reach - which is necessary to address large mental health needs in Australia.

Presently, large numbers of Australians will experience - at some stage in their lives - affective disorders (depression, dysthymia, bipolar affective disorder; 15%) and anxiety disorders (26%, but higher if specific phobias are included).

Approximately, 80% of people who have an anxiety disorder and 50% of those with an affective disorder have mild to moderate severity levels - for which the initial recommended treatment is by psychological rather than pharmaceutical methods. And this is where Professor Baigent says NewAccess can prove particularly effective.

NEW YORK...June 8, 2020 - Ben-Gurion University of the Negev (BGU) researchers have determined that zero interest rates are more efficient than negative interest rates in terms of motivating individual investors to borrow money and take risks.

"President Trump tweeted in September 2019, 'The Federal Reserve should get our interest rates down to ZERO, or less.' The goal of this paper is to evaluate the impact of zero and negative interest rates on individuals' investment decisions," says Prof. Mosi Rosenboim, of the BGU Guilford Glazer Faculty of Business and Management.

"The suggestion to implement a negative monetary policy has divided economists and politicians and is relevant given the financial fallout from the pandemic shutdown," adds Prof. Rosenboim.

The study, published in the Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, proved that that there is no statistical difference between the effect that positive and negative interest rates have on the change in the allocation of risky assets in investment portfolios.

In several lab experiments, the researchers demonstrated that a zero-interest rate policy has the strongest impact on individuals' investment decisions driving their decisions to borrow money and the percentage of risky assets in their portfolios. Specifically, dropping the interest rate below zero, a negative interest rate policy, is less effective in terms of increasing leverage and shifting individuals' allocations to risky assets.

"Indeed, where investors are concerned, moving from a zero-interest rate policy to a negative interest rate policy might even have the opposite effect," says Prof. Lior David-Pur of BGU's Department of Economics and head of the Government Debt Management Unit in the Israeli Ministry of Finance. "Specifically, when interest rates decline from zero to a negative interest rate, the average leverage decreases instead of increases. The results clearly indicate that individuals react strongly to zero interest rates."

"Finally, the counterintuitive effect of negative interest rates on saving accounts implies that savers should pay interest rather than receive it," says BGU economics researcher Dr. Koresh Galil.

"Hence, one can argue that there is no reason for savers to accept negative rates and would prefer to hold cash. However, in practice, the answer to this question is less clear because there are risks associated with holding cash such as losing it or being robbed. This argument is reinforced because worldwide negative interest rates are low, below 1%."

The researchers say that further work is needed to understand how far below zero interest rates can go before they will prompt people to hoard cash.

"There is a good alternative to zero-interest savings accounts and CDs for individuals 65 and over," says Doug Seserman, chief executive officer of American Associates, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev. "There's never been a better time to get high-interest rates on charitable gift annuities, which provide guaranteed fixed-rate lifetime income and charitable tax deductions." For more information visit http://www.aabgu.org/cga-rate-request or call 646-452-3689.

Becoming a dad and preparing for fatherhood can be daunting and for those who have had a baby born very prematurely, there can be extra pressures and responsibilities to navigate. A recent collaborative study, involving the Turner Institute for Brain and Mental Health at Monash University, takes a look at the mental health of fathers of babies born very prematurely and the impact on their early parenting behaviours.

Following the journey of 100 fathers of babies born before 30 weeks' gestation, the study found that almost one in five fathers experienced high depressive symptoms, and approximately half of all fathers experienced moderate anxiety symptoms that persisted throughout the first year of their baby's life.

However, the study also found the experience of more severe mental health symptoms had little effect on fathers' parenting behaviours with their baby at 12 months.

Led by Grace McMahon from the Turner Institute and conducted in the Centre for Research Excellence in Newborn Medicine at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute, the study asked fathers about their symptoms of depression and anxiety shortly after the baby's birth, around the baby's expected due date, and then again at three, six and 12 months after the baby's expected due date. At 12 months, fathers and their babies were videotaped during a play session to look at a range of parenting behaviours.

Ms McMahon said that fathers' experiences following very premature birth are rarely studied but are crucial to understand given the potential stress associated with concerns about their baby's health and managing family and work activities, as well as the importance of fathers for the babies' wellbeing and development.

"The high rates of fathers reporting persistent mental health difficulties in this study is concerning and highlights the need to include fathers in ongoing mental health screening and support following very premature birth," Ms McMahon said.

"While our finding of minimal impact of depression and anxiety symptoms on fathers' early parenting behaviours is encouraging news for fathers suffering with mental health difficulties, we do believe that these relationships are complex and further research is needed to better understand the experiences of fathers following very premature birth".

Some landscapes can hold their own against climate change better than others.A studyfrom the University of California, Davis, maps these places, called “climate refugia,” where existing vegetation is most likely to buffer the impacts of climate change through the end of the century.

It found that about 15 percent of natural lands in California serve as climate refugia for the state’s plants, including trees, shrubs, annuals and perennials. The mapping tool can help natural resource managers prioritize and plan climate-adaptive management efforts, such as wildlife habitat conservation and post-wildfire restoration.

The study is published in a special issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution devoted to the theme of climate refugia. The issue and an accompanyingwebsite, climaterefugia.org,include other refugia related to fish and wildlife, rivers and wetlands, mountains and forests.

THE SLOW LANE FOR CLIMATE CHANGE

As climate change intensifies, identifying and mapping areas of relative stability -- what the journal calls the "slow lane" for climate change -- marks a path toward conserving them and the habitat and services they provide to wildlife and humans.

"This paper shows that there are places where, if you retain what's standing there now, it would have a better chance of remaining for a longer period of time -- like a century -- under wetter and drier conditions," said lead author James Thorne, a research scientist with the UC Davis Department of Environmental Science and Policy.

SO WHERE ARE THESE PLACES?

The northwest Klamath Mountains, northern Sierra Nevada and the Central Coast ranges contain large areas where existing vegetation types are expected to persist under both wetter and drier future climate conditions. These areas are called "consensus refugia."

The three forest types occupying consensus refugia across large parts of Northern California include Klamath mixed conifer, Sierra mixed conifer and Douglas fir. Grasslands and coastal sage scrub cover much of the refugia in the Central Coast ranges.

Vegetation with the largest portions (more than 50 percent) of their extent in climate refugia include montane chaparral and Klamath mixed conifer forests. A quarter of existing Douglas fir also occurs in consensus refugia.

Other findings:

- Elevation and latitude matter: Blue oak woodland and blue oak-foothill pine occurred less in consensus refugia than oaks at higher elevations.

-Iconic coast redwood forests (0.4 percent of its current range), coast live oak woodland (3.8 percent) and red fir forests (2.3 percent) were poorly represented within the consensus refugia.

POCKETS OF REFUGIA, WINDOWS OF OPPORTUNITY

If only 15 percent of California's natural lands have climate refugia characteristics for both a wetter and drier future, what does that mean for the remaining 85 percent? Thorne explains that it doesn't mean all other plants and trees will be outright destroyed. But they will likely face a higher level of climate stress than vegetation in refugia. Stress can affect rates of regeneration, reproduction and resilience under warming temperatures, drought, flood and fire.

Previous work by Thorne modeled climate risk to California's native vegetation under various emissions-saving scenarios and found that half the state's native vegetation is at risk for climatic stress. This new paper assumes a business-as-usual climate scenario under which greenhouse gas emissions continue their current trajectory.

"California is one of the biodiversity hot spots of the world," Thorne said. "Our natural ecosystems help to support all of the people in the state as well as this incredible range of species. My hope is that we start to be proactive in our management of landscapes, understanding that climate change is going to bring impacts and that we have to change how we address them."

The National Climate Center (NCC) of China has just completed a report in which it provides an authoritative assessment of China's climate in 2019 based on the NCC's operational system. More specifically, it gives a summary of China's climate along with all major weather and climate events throughout the year.

"In the context of global warming, more and more attention has been paid to climate. Last year, we issued a brief report on the annual climate state in China through publication in Atmospheric and Oceanic Science Letters (AOSL). It provides information on climate features, meteorological disasters, and climate impacts to the public. This is the second consecutive year that the NCC has published this annual national climate statement in AOSL," says Dr Chan Xiao, Director of the Science & Technology Division at the NCC.

Some of the highlights of the report include:

The mean temperature in China was 0.79°C above normal, and the annual rainfall was 2.5% above normal.

There was increased typhoon genesis but a reduced number of landfalling typhoons and with weaker intensity. Rainstorms occurred frequently but with relatively limited damage.

The number of high-temperature days was more than normal, with significant regional features. Obvious regional and periodic droughts resulted in slight impacts and losses.

Severe convective weather events were relatively less frequent and brought about limited economic losses.

Low-temperature freezing and snow disasters were obviously light.

Northern China experienced fewer dust storms in spring.

"With the rapid improvement in our society's ability to reduce the risks of meteorological disasters, we see that both the economic loss to GDP ratio and the number of fatalities in relation to disasters are showing a downward trend," says Dr Xiao when explaining why in 2019 the areas of affected crops, the numbers of deaths and missing people, and the direct economic losses were all significantly less than average over the past 10 years.

Nonetheless, Dr Xiao warns that exposure and vulnerability are increasing: "According to the WMO Statement on the State of the Climate in 2019, the global average temperature of 2019 was 1.1? above the pre-industrial average, which is the second warmest on record. China also experienced a warm year and the year 2019 was the fifth warmest year since 1951. This trend is expected to continue over China and worldwide. Reducing the risk of meteorological disasters remains a major challenge for us to face," concludes Dr Xiao.

In contrast to the prehistoric remains of the Near East, the megalithic monuments of Arabia remain largely unknown. These monumental structures, made of dry stone walls, still hold many secrets in terms of their construction, function and chronology. An international collaboration (1) of scientists from France, Saudi Arabia and Italy (2), led by Olivia Munoz, a researcher at the CNRS, have discovered a 35-metre long triangular platform in the oasis of Dûmat al-Jandal (northern Saudi Arabia). Built in several phases from the 6th millennium BC, this exceptional monument was probably dedicated to ritual practices, some of which were probably funerary and commemorative. To arrive at these conclusions, scientists studied and dated the objects and human remains from deposits found in and around the platform - in the two side niches and also in nearby tombs. These discoveries, which appear in the journal Antiquity on June 9th, 2020, demonstrate a ritual use during Prehistory, and are a potentially symbolic imprint left by nomadic pastoralists in the landscape during this remote period.

(1) The excavations were carried out within the framework of the Italian-French-Saudi archaeological mission in Dûmat al-Jandal (MADAJ), co-directed by Guillaume Charloux of the Orient and Mediterranean laboratory (CNRS/ Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/Sorbonne Université/Collège de France/EPHE) and Romolo Loreto (Università degli Studi di Napoli "L'Orientale").
(2) This work involved the following teams:

* "Archéologies et sciences de l'Antiquité" laboratory (CNRS/Université de Paris Nanterre/Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/Ministère de la Culture)

* Department for Near Eastern Antiquities, Louvre Museum

* Orient and Mediterranean laboratory (CNRS/Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne/Sorbonne Université/Collège de France/EPHE)

* "Archéozoologie, archéobotanique : sociétés, pratiques et environnements" laboratory (CNRS/MNHN)

* "Centre français de recherche de la péninsule arabique" (CNRS/Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères), formerly known as "Centre français d'archéologie et de sciences sociales"

* archaeological mission "Oasis de l'Arabie déserte" (Ministère de l'Europe et des Affaires étrangères)

* LabEx RESMED (ANR-10-LABX-72)

* Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage