Culture

Bethesda, MD - Zika virus is capable of replicating and spreading infectious particles within the outermost cells lining the vaginal tract, according to new research. The findings provide the first molecular-level insights into how the virus can move from person to person through sexual contact.

While Zika is primarily spread by mosquitoes, researchers have been aware of its potential for sexual transmission based on cases in which people became infected after having sex with a partner who had visited a Zika-affected area. Previous studies have also found Zika particles present in semen and vaginal fluid from infected individuals.

Having a more detailed understanding of how Zika infiltrates the body through sexual contact could help scientists identify new ways to prevent or treat Zika infections. The new study examined how Zika particles behaved in cultures of human vaginal epithelial cells and identified the virus's likely entry point as a protein on the surface of the cells called tyrosine-protein kinase receptor UFO, which is encoded by the AXL gene.

"The outcome of this research highlights how local replication of Zika in the vaginal epithelium plays an important role in mediating sexual transmission and subsequent systemic infection in the human host," said lead study author James Mungin Jr., a doctoral candidate at Meharry Medical College. "Additionally, our research findings confirming that the receptor UFO (AXL) promotes viral entry can be very instrumental in developing drugs and antibody-based therapies that target and block this receptor, therefore eliminating the pathology caused by this virus."

Mungin was scheduled to present the research at the American Society for Investigative Pathology annual meeting in San Diego this month. Though the meeting, to be held in conjunction with the 2020 Experimental Biology conference, was canceled in response to the COVID-19 outbreak, the research team's abstract was published in this month's issue of The FASEB Journal.

Zika spread rapidly around the world during a major 2015-2016 outbreak, causing about 42,000 infections in the United States and its territories. While the number of cases has since dropped precipitously, the virus is still considered a health threat in many places around the world. Babies born to mothers infected with Zika have a high risk of birth defects.

Mungin and colleagues found that Zika virus particles were able to successfully enter vaginal epithelial cells through the UFO receptor, replicate their RNA genome and steadily release infectious viral particles inside the cells. The research team plans to further study the factors that contribute to Zika replication for insights on how those factors might be interrupted.

Like Zika, many other viruses in the flavivirus family are spread by insects. However, research on those other viruses, such as dengue and yellow fever, does not always translate well to Zika because they are not sexually transmitted.

"Interestingly, sexual transmission among flaviviruses is in fact unique in nature," said Mungin. "As of now, Hepatitis C and Zika virus have been identified as the [only] two flaviviruses known to establish infection via sexual contact with an infected partner."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, using condoms can prevent sexual transmission of Zika.

(New York) April 27, 2020 - Stand Up To Cancer® (SU2C)-supported research will be presented during the American Association for Cancer Research Annual (AACR) Virtual Meeting 10 from April 27th to 28th.

Work presented by SU2C-funded investigators highlights continued support for developing effective immunotherapy approaches to pediatric and young adult ALL and lung cancer as well as progress in the emerging field of Cancer Interception. Cancer Interception seeks approaches to intervene and stop the formation or progression of early or pre-cancerous conditions.

"Stand Up To Cancer has invested significantly and has made notable contributions in advancing the field of immunotherapy and has pioneered new approaches to cancer diagnostics and treatment, notably through Cancer Interception," stated SU2C CEO Sung Poblete, PhD, RN. "Not only are we excited about the continuing impact SU2C is making in new immunotherapy approaches to treat refractory ALL in children and young adults and to treat non-small cell lung cancer, but we are making measurable strides in moving cancer interception forward toward clinical practice so we can identify and treat patients at earlier stages to optimize outcomes."

Tuesday, April 28, VMS.PR01.01. Translational Prevention Studies

10:50-11:00 a.m. (1098) - Mediators of early immune response in bronchial premalignant lesions

Members of the SU2C-LUNGevity Foundation-American Lung Association Lung Cancer Interception Dream Team used gene expression profiling to identify genes that may be responsible for immune suppression or activation in Bronchial premalignant lesions (PMLs) which are precursors to lung squamous cell carcinoma. Of 15 candidate genes identified, the GSTP1 gene was found to be upregulated in progressing lesions and negatively correlated with several immune activation pathways. Ultimately, GSTP1 represents a promising new target for immunotherapy of squamous cell lung cancer and may allow for novel early intervention treatments.

Tuesday, April 28, VCTPL05. Adoptive Cell Transfer Therapy

11:05-11:15 a.m. (CT051): Safety and efficacy of CD19/CD22 CAR T cells in children and young adults with relapsed/refractory ALL

Haneen Shalabi, DO, investigator on the St. Baldrick's Foundation - Stand Up To Cancer Pediatric Cancer Dream Team reports that the team, which has been pioneering dual antigen targeting strategies for CAR T cell therapy, tested a novel humanized bispecific CD19/CD22 CAR T cell construct in patients with relapsed/refractory B ALL seeking to prevent antigen negative escape. In this phase 1 study, CD19/22 CAR was well tolerated and effective in CAR naïve patients, with four of six patients achieving minimal residual disease, negative complete remission. Future plans include exploring an additional dose level, intensifying lymphodepletion for prior CAR patients, and evaluating CAR T-cell product characteristics with outcomes.

1:00-1:10 p.m. (CT056): Durable complete responses to adoptive cell transfer using tumor infiltrating lymphocytes (TIL) in non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC): a phase I trial.

Ben Creelan, MD, clinical lead on the SU2C Catalyst® Lung Cancer Immunotherapy Research Team, led by Scott J. Antonia, MD, PhD, H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute, will be presenting data on durable complete responses in metastatic non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) with manageable toxicity, potentially extending the benefits of adoptive cell transfer seen in melanoma to NSCLC.

Tuesday, April 28, VCTPL02. Early Detection and ctDNA

2:30-2:40 p.m. (CT023): Phylogenetic tracking and minimal residual disease detection using ctDNA in early-stage NSCLC: A lung TRACERx study

Christopher Abbosh, MB, young investigator on the SU2C-LUNGeivity-American Lung Association Lung Cancer Interception Dream Team reports that circulating tumor DNA is an adjuvant biomarker capable of both detecting minimal residual disease following surgery and defining the clonality of relapsing disease. These data pave the way for clinical trials predicated on escalation of adjuvant standard of care in patients who exhibit minimal residual disease following surgery.

Tuesday, April 28, VMS.CL11.01 - Predictive Biomarkers for Immunotherapeutics

3:55-4:05 p.m. (5666) - A noninvasive approach for early prediction of therapeutic benefit from immune checkpoint inhibition for lung cancer.

Maximilian Diehn, MD, PhD, co-leader and Ash Alizadeh, MD, investigator on the SU2C-LUNGevity Foundation-American Lung Association Lung Cancer Interception Research Team, and other team members report on the use of circulating tumor DNA to predict which non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) patients will achieve durable clinical benefit after treatment with immune checkpoint inhibitors. Currently, conventional imaging is often not able to identify which patients will achieve durable clinical benefit. The team was able to demonstrate that pre-treatment circulating tumor DNA and circulating immune profiles can provide accurate, noninvasive, and early forecasting of ultimate outcomes for NSCLC patients receiving immune checkpoint inhibitor therapy.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- While most people will say they are extremely concerned with their online privacy, previous experiments have shown that, in practice, users readily divulge privacy information online.

In a study published in the latest Proceedings of Computer-Human Interaction (CHI 2020), a team of Penn State researchers identified a dozen subtle -- but powerful -- reasons that may shed light on why people talk a good game about privacy, but fail to follow up in real life.

"Most people will tell you they're pretty worried about their online privacy and that they take precautions, such as changing their passwords," said S. Shyam Sundar, James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory.

"But, in reality, if you really look at what people do online and on social media, they tend to reveal all too much. What we think is going on is that people make disclosures in the heat of the moment by falling for contextual cues that appear on an interface."

Sundar, who is also an affiliate of Penn State's Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS), said that certain cues analyzed by the researchers significantly increased the chance that people would turn over private information such as social security numbers or phone numbers. The cues exploit common pre-existing beliefs about authority, bandwagon, reciprocity, sense-of-community, community-building, self-preservation, control, instant gratification, transparency, machine, publicness and mobility.

"What we did in this study is identify 12 different kinds of appeals that influence people to reveal information online," said Sundar. "These appeals are based on rules of thumb that we all hold in our head, called heuristics."

For example, the rule of thumb that 'if most others reveal their information, then it is safe for me to disclose as well' is labeled 'bandwagon heuristic' by the study.

"There are certainly more than 12 heuristics, but these are the dominant ones that play an important role in privacy disclosure," added Sundar, who worked with Mary Beth Rosson, Professor-in-Charge of Human Computer Interaction and director of graduate programs in the College of Information Sciences and Technology.

The researchers explain that heuristics are mental shortcuts that could be triggered by cues on a website or mobile app.

"These cues may not always be obvious," according to Rosson. "The bandwagon cue, for example, can be as simple as a statement that is added to a website or app to prompt information disclosure," she added.

"For example, when you go on LinkedIn and you see a statement that says your profile is incomplete and that 70 percent of your connections have completed their profiles, that's a cue that triggers your need to follow others -- which is what we call a bandwagon effect," said Sundar. "We found that those with a stronger pre-existing belief in 'bandwagon heuristic' were more likely to reveal personal information in such a scenario."

For the authority cue, Rosson said that a graphic that signals the site is being overseen by a trusted authority may make people comfortable with turning private information over to the company.

"The presence of a logo of a trusted agency such as FDIC or even a simple icon showing a lock can make users of online banking feel safe and secure, and it makes them feel that somewhere somebody is looking after their security," said Rosson.

The researchers said that ingrained trust in authority, or what they call 'authority heuristic,' is the reason for disclosure of personal information in such scenarios.

"When interviewed, our study participants attributed their privacy disclosure to the cues more often than other reasons," said Sundar.

An awareness of major cues that prey on common rules of thumb may make people more savvy web users and could help them avoid placing their private information into the wrong hands.

"The number one reason for doing this study is to increase media literacy among online users," said Sundar.

He added that the findings could also be used to create alerts that warn users when they encounter these cues.

"People want to do the right thing and they want to protect their privacy, but in the heat of the moment online, they are swayed by these contextual cues," said Rosson. "One way to avoid this is to introduce 'just-in-time' alerts. Just as users are about to reveal information, an alert could pop up on the site and ask them if they are sure they want to do that. That might give them a bit of a pause to think about that transaction," she added.

For the study, the researchers recruited 786 people to participate in an online survey. The participants were then asked to review 12 scenarios that they might encounter online and asked to assess their willingness to disclose personal information based on each scenario.

To ensure that the sample was representative nationally, the participants were chosen so that their demographics were consistent with statistics provided by the U.S. Census Bureau.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- People find it convenient to use Facebook or other social media accounts to sign up for most new apps and services, but they prefer to use their e-mail address or open a new account if they feel the information in the app is too sensitive, according to a team of researchers.

In a study, the researchers said participants were willing to use their Facebook ID to access relationship apps, such as class reunion and matchmaking apps, but balked at using the same feature for an app that arranges extramarital affairs.

The findings suggest that because people try to keep sensitive areas of their relationships separate from other parts of their lives, they may hesitate to use single sign-on services, said S. Shyam Sundar, James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory.

"Even though technically one's activities on Tinder will not be visible to friends on Facebook, they seem to have a psychological fear of that happening, so they want to keep their social networks separate and not have them bleed over into other parts of their lives," said Sundar. "Just the idea that they might be using a hook-up app or affair app would be too scandalous for some people and wouldn't be something they would want shared."

Eugene Cho, doctoral student in mass communications and lead author of the study, said users prefer to use their e-mail address or open a new account on these sensitive apps rather than use their Facebook login credentials. "They seemed to be wary of potential leakage of data from these apps to their social networks," she added.

Sundar, who is also an affiliate of Penn State's Institute for Computational and Data Sciences (ICDS), suggested that the findings have broader implications outside of the realms of dating and relationships.

"This is just as applicable to sites that enable financial transactions, such as stock trading sites, or bank sites, where people are very concerned about their information and protecting their transactions," said Sundar. "We just happened to choose these sites for the study because it provides a venue that is easy to explore in an experiment."

According to the researchers, who released their findings in the Proceedings of the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2020), released today (April 25), the single sign-on is designed to make logging on to apps more convenient. Many apps allow users to either create a new account or, to save trouble, use their Facebook or Twitter login credentials.

"We are using so many apps these days that the single sign-on is a convenient way to access so that way you don't have to create yet another account, or remember yet another password," said Sundar, who worked with Eugene Cho and Jinyoung Kim, both doctoral students in mass communications at Penn State.

According to Cho, the main reason why people use their Facebook ID instead of using their e-mail address or creating a new account is the ease with which they can share the app with their friends. "The flipside is that it prevents them from using their social media login information for privacy-sensitive apps," she added.

Sundar said that security-conscious users are particularly prone to this tendency. "We found that the tendency to avoid using Facebook ID for affair apps was significantly higher for individuals who have less faith in the security of online systems in general," he added.

He added that designers and developers must address the skepticism about using these apps.

"There's a perception problem that many mobile and social media applications, in general, have, that many people do not perceive them as secure and trustworthy," said Sundar. "So, this means designers and developers need to do more work to convince users that the single sign-on service will keep the information separate from their social networks."

The researchers suggested that more disclaimers and security assurances may bolster the use of single sign-on services, but added that actual security must be maintained.

To conduct the experiment, the researchers created four different sign-up pages for relationship apps with varying degrees of sensitivity, including a high school reunion app, a matchmaking app for more serious relationships, a hook-up app for less serious dating, and an affair-arrangement app.

They then recruited 364 participants through an online microwork site and randomly assigned them to one of those four conditions. The participants could either choose to access the app through one of three social media single sign-on features, or use their e-mail address or create a new account specifically for that app.

The participants were then asked a series of questions on perceived security, ease of sharing and usability of the app.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Individuals who fear talking in front of a crowd could soon have a new tool to ease public speaking anxiety: their smart speaker.

A team of researchers at Penn State has developed a public-speaking tutor on the Amazon Alexa platform. The tutor enables users to engage in cognitive restructuring exercise - a psychological technique that helps anxious individuals recognize and modify negative thinking behaviors. When users deployed the tutor in a recent study, their pre-speech anxiety was relieved, according to the researchers.

"This study represents a significant shift in our use of smart speakers, from a tool that answers questions to one that acts as a helper or coach," said S. Shyam Sundar, James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects in the Bellisario College of Communications and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory at Penn State.

According to Jinping Wang, doctoral student in the Bellisario College of Communications and lead author on the paper, users' interactions with Alexa not only helped to ease their speech anxiety, but their feedback suggests that the tutor could be a viable alternative to person-to-person coaching sessions.

"There is often a concern of being judged by human tutors or human therapists," said Wang. "If we can use a machine like Alexa to provide such training to individuals with speech anxiety or social anxiety, we can help them get rid of their concern of being judged by a human."

In the study, participants were guided to interact with an Amazon Echo smart speaker and were randomly assigned to interact with either a highly social Alexa or one that was less social in its greetings and expressions. The participants were then encouraged to use what they learned to prepare and present a short speech through a virtual reality application that simulated a room with a 20-person audience. After their speech, participants completed a questionnaire about their experience.

The researchers found that the high-sociable condition - through which Alexa adopted a more personal conversation style- provided a better user experience by establishing a sense of interpersonal closeness with the user.

"If you think about the usual interactions with Alexa, they're quite dry and very functional," said Saeed Abdullah, assistant professor of information sciences and technology and a collaborator on the project. "But providing some sort of social cues seems to result in positive outcomes for users."

Sundar added, "People are not simply anthropomorphizing the machine, but are responding to increased sociability by feeling a sense of closeness with the machine, which is associated with lowered speech anxiety."

According to the researchers, the approach has the potential to assist individuals who are anxious about public speaking, from the comfort of their own homes. Smart speakers could be utilized similarly in future work to explore aiding individuals with other forms of anxiety.

"Alexa is one of those things that lives in our homes," concluded Sundar. "As such, it occupies a somewhat intimate space in our lives. It's often a conversation partner, so why not use it for other things rather than just answering factual questions?"

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. - Giving users of smart assistants the option to adjust settings for privacy or content delivery, or both, doesn't necessarily increase their trust in the platform, according to a team of Penn State researchers. In fact, for some users, it could have an unfavorable effect.

Trust in Amazon Alexa went up for regular users who were given the option to adjust their privacy and content settings, the researchers found in a recent study. However, for power users - individuals whose skills and expertise are more advanced than others - trust went down when they were given the opportunity to make privacy setting adjustments.

"That's kind of counterintuitive," said S. Shyam Sundar, James P. Jimirro Professor of Media Effects and co-director of the Media Effects Research Laboratory (MERL) at Penn State. "The mere presence of privacy settings seems to trigger thoughts of potential privacy problems among those who are aware of such loopholes in communication technologies"

He added, "Once you give power users these options and they realize [that privacy settings are] actually controllable, they tend to panic and see the between-the-lines message rather than see customization for what it is, which is really a benevolent effort to provide more user control."

Another major finding of the study showed that users who were sensitive about their privacy found content less credible when given the option to customize their privacy settings. However, trust in the content increased when these users were also given the opportunity to customize that content.

"It is really interesting to see that content customization, which is unrelated to privacy, alleviated the negative priming effects of adjusting privacy settings," said Eugene Cho, doctoral student in mass communications and lead author on the team's paper. "The empowering effect of customization noticed in our other studies extend to smart speaker interactions and to the context of privacy."

But, the quality of content customization services could be impacted by privacy customization settings, said Saeed Abdullah, assistant professor in the College of Information Sciences and Technology and a collaborator on the project. This concept is similar to other artificial-intelligence algorithms that draw on user history to drive personalized content on well-known platforms, such as suggesting the next movie to watch on Netflix or products to buy on Amazon.

"For example, if you delete your user history or your audio recordings from Alexa, it might mean that the platform cannot personalize its offerings very well for you," Abdullah said. "Some people might like them, as some people like to have the best recommendations from the systems. And in that case, they might not take advantage of the privacy options."

He added, "So in other words, the differences between individuals and their perceived expectations of these systems mean that people will use privacy settings in a different way. That's why providing control is so important."

As smart speakers become more common, there's increased concern about the degree to which the devices could be infringing on users' privacy. The researchers hope that their work will inform designers and service providers to consider incorporating various content customization options to lower mistrust in content and relieve privacy concerns.

"If users want the devices to function the way they're supposed to function, they are supposed to always be on," Sundar said. "I feel like we've reached a point in our cultural conversation about the acceptability of having these kinds of devices in our homes, and to what extent we are comfortable."

"Our findings can help us to better design smarter, more privacy-sensitive and more trustworthy smart speakers in the future," added Abdullah.

In the study, 90 participants were recruited to interact with Amazon Alexa through an Amazon Echo device by asking several health-related questions. In the first part of the study, half of the users were randomly given the opportunity to customize their privacy settings - such as deleting their voice recordings -- while the others were not. Then, another random half of the sample was able to customize their content - such as adjusting speed or content length, or selecting the source of information - while the other half was not afforded the opportunity.

Atoms and molecules behave very differently at extreme temperatures and pressures. Although such extreme matter doesn't exist naturally on the earth, it exists in abundance in the universe, especially in the deep interiors of planets and stars. Understanding how atoms react under high-pressure conditions--a field known as high-energy-density physics (HEDP)--gives scientists valuable insights into the fields of planetary science, astrophysics, fusion energy, and national security.

One important question in the field of HED science is how matter under high-pressure conditions might emit or absorb radiation in ways that are different from our traditional understanding.

In a paper published in Nature Communications, Suxing Hu, a distinguished scientist and group leader of the HEDP Theory Group at the University of Rochester Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE), together with colleagues from the LLE and France, has applied physics theory and calculations to predict the presence of two new phenomena--interspecies radiative transition (IRT) and the breakdown of dipole selection rule--in the transport of radiation in atoms and molecules under HEDP conditions. The research enhances an understanding of HEDP and could lead to more information about how stars and other astrophysical objects evolve in the universe.

WHAT IS INTERSPECIES RADIATIVE TRANSITION (IRT)?

Radiative transition is a physics process happening inside atoms and molecules, in which their electron or electrons can "jump" from different energy levels by either radiating/emitting or absorbing a photon. Scientists find that, for matter in our everyday life, such radiative transitions mostly happen within each individual atom or molecule; the electron does its jumping between energy levels belonging to the single atom or molecule, and the jumping does not typically occur between different atoms and molecules.

However, Hu and his colleagues predict that when atoms and molecules are placed under HED conditions, and are squeezed so tightly that they become very close to each other, radiative transitions can involve neighboring atoms and molecules.

"Namely, the electrons can now jump from one atom's energy levels to those of other neighboring atoms," Hu says.

WHAT IS THE DIPOLE SELECTION RULE?

Electrons inside an atom have specific symmetries. For example, "s-wave electrons" are always spherically symmetric, meaning they look like a ball, with the nucleus located in the atomic center; "p-wave electrons," on the other hand, look like dumbbells. D-waves and other electron states have more complicated shapes. Radiative transitions will mostly occur when the electron jumping follows the so-called dipole selection rule, in which the jumping electron changes its shape from s-wave to p-wave, from p-wave to d-wave, etc.

Under normal, non-extreme conditions, Hu says, "one hardly sees electrons jumping among the same shapes, from s-wave to s-wave and from p-wave to p-wave, by emitting or absorbing photons."

However, as Hu and his colleagues found, when materials are squeezed so tightly into the exotic HED state, the dipole selection rule is often broken down.

"Under such extreme conditions found in the center of stars and classes of laboratory fusion experiments, non-dipole x-ray emissions and absorptions can occur, which was never imagined before," Hu says.

USING SUPERCOMPUTERS TO STUDY HEDP

The researchers used supercomputers at both the University of Rochester's Center for Integrated Research Computing (CIRC) and at the LLE to conduct their calculations.

"Thanks to the tremendous advances in high-energy laser and pulsed-power technologies, 'bringing stars to the Earth' has become reality for the past decade or two," Hu says.

Hu and his colleagues performed their research using the density-functional theory (DFT) calculation, which offers a quantum mechanical description of the bonds between atoms and molecules in complex systems. The DFT method was first described in the 1960s, and was the subject of the 1998 Nobel Prize in Chemistry. DFT calculations have been continually improved since. One such improvement to enable DFT calculations to involve core electrons was made by Valentin Karasev, a scientist at the LLE and a co-author of the paper.

The results indicate there are new emission/absorption lines appearing in the x-ray spectra of these extreme matter systems, which are from the previously-unknown channels of IRT and the breakdown of dipole selection rule.

Hu and Philip Nilson, a senior scientist at the LLE and co-author of the paper, are currently planning future experiments that will involve testing these new theoretical predictions at the OMEGA laser facility at the LLE. The facility lets users create exotic HED conditions in nanosecond timescales, allowing scientists to probe the unique behaviors of matters at extreme conditions.

"If proved to be true by experiments, these new discoveries will profoundly change how radiation transport is currently treated in exotic HED materials," Hu says. "These DFT-predicted new emission and absorption channels have never been considered so far in textbooks."

The use of big data can help scientists' chart not only the degradation of the environment but can be part of the solution to achieve sustainability, according to a new commentary paper.

The paper, 'Opportunities for big data in conservation and sustainability', published today in Nature Communications, said increased computing speeds and data storage had grown the volume of big data in the last 40 years, but the planet was still facing serious decline.

Lead author Dr Rebecca Runting from the University of Melbourne's School of Geography says that while we currently have an unprecedented ability to generate, store, access and analyse data about the environment, these technological advances will not help the world unless they lead to action.

"Big data analyses must be closely linked to environmental policy and management," Dr Runting said. "For example, many large companies already possess the methodological, technical, and computational capacity to develop solutions, so it is paramount that new developments and resources are shared timely with government, and in the spirit of 'open data'."

Commentators noted that 2.3 million km2 of forest was lost over the years 2000 to 2012 and that dynamic marine and coastal ecosystems have revealed similar declines. An analysis of over 700,000 satellite images shows that Earth has lost more than 20,000 km2 of tidal flats since 1984.

"In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, we are currently seeing governments making rapid (health) decisions based on fairly sophisticated data analysis," Dr Runting said. "There may be opportunities to learn from this and achieve a similarly tight coupling of analysis and decision-making in the environmental sector."

Co-author Professor James Watson from the University of Queensland said with platforms like Google Earth Engine and the capacity of satellites to track and send information quickly to computers, big data was capable of identifying eco-health risks globally.

"What the big data revolution has helped us understand is the environment is often doing worse than what we thought it was. The more we map and analyse, the more we find the state of the environment, albeit Antarctic ice sheets, wetlands, or forests, is dire. Big data tells us we are running out of time," Professor Watson said.

"The good news is the big data revolution can help us better understand risk. For example, we can use data to better understand where future ecosystem degradation will take place and where these interact with wildlife trade, so as to map pandemic risk."

Dr Runting said big data has been pivotal in quantifying alarming spatial and temporal trends across Earth. For example, an automated vessel tracking and monitoring system is being used to predict illegal fishing activity in real-time.

"This has allowed governments quickly investigate particular vessels that may be undertaking illegal fishing activity within their jurisdiction, including within Australian waters," she said. Similarly, Queensland's Statewide Landcover and Trees Study uses satellite imagery to monitor woody vegetation clearing, including the detection of illegal clearing.

Professor Watson cited a similar example. "Global forest watch has been a game change for monitoring the state of the world forests in near real time. This can help identify illegal activities and informed active enforcement of forest conservation around the world," Professor Watson said.

The paper also noted positive environmental changes due to human intervention such as greening seen in large expanses in China, which was driven by large scale national policies, including forest conservation and payments for restoration.

NASA is celebrating the Hubble Space Telescope's 30 years of unlocking the beauty and mystery of space by unveiling a stunning new portrait of a firestorm of starbirth in a neighboring galaxy.

In this Hubble portrait, the giant red nebula (NGC 2014) and its smaller blue neighbor (NGC 2020) are part of a vast star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, located 163,000 light-years away. The image is nicknamed the "Cosmic Reef," because it resembles an undersea world.

Thirty years ago, on April 24, 1990, Hubble was carried aloft from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida aboard the space shuttle Discovery, along with a five-astronaut crew. Deployed into Earth orbit a day later, the telescope opened a new eye onto the cosmos that has been transformative for our civilization.

Hubble is revolutionizing modern astronomy, not only for scientists, but also by taking the public on a wondrous journey of exploration and discovery. Hubble's never-ending, breathtaking celestial snapshots provide a visual shorthand for Hubble's top scientific achievements. Unlike any space telescope before it, Hubble made astronomy relevant, engaging and accessible for people of all ages. The space telescope's iconic imagery has redefined our view of the universe and our place in time and space.

"Hubble has given us stunning insights about the universe, from nearby planets to the farthest galaxies we have seen so far," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for science at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C. "It was revolutionary to launch such a large telescope 30 years ago, and this astronomy powerhouse is still delivering revolutionary science today. Its spectacular images have captured the imagination for decades, and will continue to inspire humanity for years to come."

Unencumbered by Earth's blurring atmosphere, the space observatory unveils the universe in unprecedented crystal-clear sharpness across a broad range of wavelengths, from ultraviolet to near-infrared light.

Hubble's top accomplishments include measuring the expansion and acceleration rate of the universe; finding that black holes are common among galaxies; characterizing the atmospheres of planets around other stars; monitoring weather changes on planets across our solar system; and looking back in time across 97% of the universe to chronicle the birth and evolution of stars and galaxies.

Hubble has yielded to date 1.4 million observations and provided data that astronomers around the world have used to write more than 17,000 peer-reviewed scientific publications, making it the most prolific space observatory in history. Its archival data alone will fuel future astronomy research for generations to come.

Hubble's longevity can be attributed to five space shuttle servicing missions, from 1993 to 2009, in which astronauts upgraded the telescope with advanced instruments, new electronics and on-orbit repairs. The venerable observatory, with its suite of cameras and other instruments, is expected to stay operational through the 2020s, in synergy with the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope.

Hubble Space Telescope's iconic images and scientific breakthroughs have redefined our view of the Universe. To commemorate three decades of scientific discoveries, this image is one of the most photogenic examples of the many turbulent stellar nurseries the telescope has observed during its 30-year lifetime. The portrait features the giant nebula NGC 2014 and its neighbour NGC 2020 which together form part of a vast star-forming region in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, approximately 163 000 light-years away. The image is nicknamed the "Cosmic Reef" because it resembles an undersea world.

On 24 April 1990 the Hubble Space Telescope was launched aboard the space shuttle Discovery, along with a five-astronaut crew. Deployed into low-Earth orbit a day later, the telescope has since opened a new eye onto the cosmos that has been transformative for our civilization.

Hubble is revolutionising modern astronomy not only for astronomers, but also by taking the public on a wondrous journey of exploration and discovery. Hubble's seemingly never-ending, breathtaking celestial snapshots provide a visual shorthand for its exemplary scientific achievements. Unlike any other telescope before it, Hubble has made astronomy relevant, engaging, and accessible for people of all ages. The mission has yielded to date 1.4 million observations and provided data that astronomers around the world have used to write more than 17 000 peer-reviewed scientific publications, making it one of the most prolific space observatories in history. Its rich data archive alone will fuel future astronomy research for generations to come.

Each year, the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope dedicates a small portion of its precious observing time to taking a special anniversary image, showcasing particularly beautiful and meaningful objects. These images continue to challenge scientists with exciting new surprises and to fascinate the public with ever more evocative observations.

This year, Hubble is celebrating this new milestone with a portrait of two colourful nebulae that reveals how energetic, massive stars sculpt their homes of gas and dust. Although NGC 2014 and NGC 2020 appear to be separate in this visible-light image, they are actually part of one giant star formation complex. The star-forming regions seen here are dominated by the glow of stars at least 10 times more massive than our Sun. These stars have short lives of only a few million years, compared to the 10-billion-year lifetime of our Sun.

The sparkling centerpiece of NGC 2014 is a grouping of bright, hefty stars near the centre of the image that has blown away its cocoon of hydrogen gas (coloured red) and dust in which it was born. A torrent of ultraviolet radiation from the star cluster is illuminating the landscape around it. These massive stars also unleash fierce winds that are eroding the gas cloud above and to the right of them. The gas in these areas is less dense, making it easier for the stellar winds to blast through them, creating bubble-like structures reminiscent of brain coral, that have earned the nebula the nickname the "Brain Coral."

By contrast, the blue-coloured nebula below NGC 2014 has been shaped by one mammoth star that is roughly 200 000 times more luminous than our Sun. It is an example of a rare class of stars called Wolf-Rayet stars. They are thought to be the descendants of the most massive stars. Wolf-Rayet stars are very luminous and have a high rate of mass loss through powerful winds. The star in the Hubble image is 15 times more massive than the Sun and is unleashing powerful winds, which have cleared out the area around it. It has ejected its outer layers of gas, sweeping them around into a cone-like shape, and exposing its searing hot core. The behemoth appears offset from the centre because the telescope is viewing the cone from a slightly tilted angle. In a few million years, the star might become a supernova. The brilliant blue colour of the nebula comes from oxygen gas that is heated to roughly 11 000 degrees Celsius, which is much hotter than the hydrogen gas surrounding it.

Stars, both big and small, are born when clouds of dust and gas collapse because of gravity. As more and more material falls onto the forming star, it finally becomes hot and dense enough at its centre to trigger the nuclear fusion reactions that make stars, including our Sun, shine. Massive stars make up only a few percent of the billions of stars in our Universe. Yet they play a crucial role in shaping our Universe, through stellar winds, supernova explosions, and the production of heavy elements.

"The Hubble Space Telescope has shaped the imagination of truly a whole generation, inspiring not only scientists, but almost everybody," said Günther Hasinger, Director of Science for the European Space Agency. "It is paramount for the excellent and long-lasting cooperation between NASA and ESA."

The larvae of the roundworm Heligmosomoides polygyrus bakeri (Hpb) need a very special environment in order to survive: They have to invade the mucosal layer of the intestine in rodents, the only place where they can then develop into adult worms capable of reproduction. To do this, the tiny larvae have to outdo the host's immune system, which defends the host against the intruders with inflammatory reactions, the secretion of fluids and muscle contractions. "Normally the larvae of the parasitic worm would have no chance of withstanding these immune responses. But they use active molecules to specifically modulate the immune response of the host," explains Dr. Julia Esser-von Bieren, researcher at the Center of Allergy and Environment (ZAUM) at Technical University of Munich and Helmholtz Zentrum München. "We want to harness these evolutionarily matured active ingredients to treat chronic inflammatory diseases."

A worm protein alters the immune response

Together with her team Esser-von Bieren has succeeded in isolating, identifying and analyzing a substance that the worm larvae use to trick the immune system of their host: The protein Hpb glutamate dehydrogenase activates various immunoregulatory metabolic pathways. These pathways ensure the formation of anti-inflammatory mediators in the immune cells of the host organism. At the same time the number of inflammatory mediators is reduced.

"The ability of Hpb glutamate dehydrogenase to weaken the immune response makes it a promising candidate for treatment of chronic airway inflammation," says Esser-von Bieren. Respiratory illnesses such as allergic asthma are often the result of an over-reaction by the immune system due to an overproduction of inflammatory mediators known as leukotrienes, which can trigger asthma attacks. However, the medications currently given to patients, usually cortisone, hardly have any effect on these mediators at all.

Active ingredient for new asthma medications

The researchers used a mouse model of allergic asthma to successfully show that the larval protein can be used to suppress inflammatory reactions. Investigations using human cell cultures also provided encouraging results, says Esser-von Bieren: "We paid particular attention to the effects on certain human immune cells known as macrophages. Constant activation of macrophages results in chronic inflammation. By adding Hpb glutamate dehydrogenase we were able to significantly reduce the pro-inflammatory activity of the macrophages. Here the substance turns out to have greater efficacy than cortisone."

However, Esser-von Bieren points out that there is still a long way to go before a finished medication can be produced: "We're in the pre-clinical phase and still have to address a number of questions, for example how the worm protein is received by cells in the respiratory tract and what the overall effects on the human immune system are."

What The Study Did: Researchers in this survey study examined whether watching the 2019 movie "Joker," in which the namesake character is violent and has mental illness, was associated with a change in the level of prejudice toward people with mental illness compared with others who watched another movie.

Authors: Damian Scarf, Ph.D., of the University of Otago in Dunedin, New Zealand, is the corresponding author.

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

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.3423)

Editor's Note: Please see the articles for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflicts of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

What The Viewpoint Says: The reasons for and reality of a rapid advance toward telemedicine in neurology during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic is described in this Viewpoint article.

Authors: Bastiaan R. Bloem, M.D., Ph.D., of Radboud University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, is the corresponding author.

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

(doi:10.1001/jamaneurol.2020.1452)

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

What The Study Did: This study investigates the depression and anxiety of children in China's Hubei province during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) lockdown.

Authors: Ranran Song, Ph.D., M.S., of the Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China, is the corresponding author.

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

(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.1619)

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What The Article Says: This Patient Page calls attention to risk factors for child abuse during the COVID-19 pandemic and discusses ways to reduce stress and risk of child abuse during social isolation.

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

(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.1459)

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