Culture

Researchers at the Universitat Politècnica de València (UPV) have carried out a comprehensive study of the videos about Covid-19 published on YouTube and directly or indirectly related to the Spanish territory. In total, they have analyzed 39,531 videos, posted between January 1st and April 30th of the present year. In addition, they have characterized their impact, studying the number of views, what were the most liked and least liked videos, the comments generated, etc.

One of the main conclusions of the study, published in El profesional de la información journal, is that the video with most views in this period was Resistiré 2020 ("I will survive 2020"), the tribute song to the pandemic produced by Warner Music Spain and played by more than 30 artists in self-quarantine from their homes. From its release date until April 30th, it totaled almost 28.7 million views. The second most liked video was Canciones del coronavirus, by the Spanish influencer El Rubius - with one million likes.

The study also collected international videos about Covid-19 with a high impact. The one that registered the most comments--almost 86,000--was a video posted by CNN, where Bill Gates made a prediction about when the peak of infections would happen.

"The list of the most popular videos includes documentaries about the origin of coronavirus, not necessarily proven by the scientific community, as well as musical events celebrated as part of the pandemic," adds Enrique Orduña-Malea, researcher at the Department of Audiovisual Communication, Documentation and History of Art (DCADHA, in Spanish) at UPV, and one of the authors of the study.

The results also show that the number of videos about Covid-19 posted on YouTube increased from the declaration of the state of emergency in Spain and gradually reduced, with some upturns linked to political decisions.

"There were upticks of posts linked to social situations--cases detected--and political decisions--approval of the state of emergency and consecutive extensions. All kinds of videos have been posted, from news produced by the mass media to videos disseminated by the health services to prevent infections, as well as academic videos with a technical or scientific point of view about the virus. It is must also be noted that there are several videos from individual users with personal and professional experiences during the self-quarantine, streaming information services with official statistics (such as the Coronavirus Life Map), as well as fake news," explains Cristina Font-Julián, co-author of the study and researcher at the DCADHA of the Universitat Politècnica de València.

Where did the most posts appear?

The channels with the most posts about Covid-19 were mainly mass media, both national (in this order: Europa Press, El Mundo, El País, La Vanguardia, Agencia EFE) and regional (IB3 Notícies, Navarra Televisión, Faro TV Ceuta, Málaga 24h TV Noticias and Radio Televisión de Castilla y León). Moreover, the study showed a high presence of Spanish-language foreign media (Noticias Caracol, TeleSUR and RT).

With regard to entities linked to the health industry, the study carried out by UPV researchers proved that the video with the most views was Cómo afecta el #coronavirus a los niños ("How does coronavirus affect children?"), posted by the Asociación Española de Pediatría (Spanish Pediatric Association), with 428,251 views; and the video with most likes was Paciente con coronavirus recibe el alta de UCI en IMED (Coronavirus patient is discharged from the ICU at IMED), from the Hospital IMED Levante (3,051 likes.)

"Despite the difficulties of extracting massive data from YouTube for specific requests, the results show that the channels with the greatest volume of videos about the pandemic and most impact on average are provided by consolidated media on YouTube and with a large previous audience on this platform. They indirectly reflect, therefore, the audience's preferences and patterns prior to the pandemic," explains José Antonio Ontalba-Ruipérez, researcher at the DCADHA of the UPV and coauthor of the study.

Moreover, among the posts collected, the authors of the study say that they have found serious and useful videos, some of them informative about the disease (how to prevent infection, for example) and others with an academic point of view (origin and explanation of the disease.) "On average, these videos have a moderate to high impact, but they are only a small percentage of the total. News and entertainment videos (including music videos) are not only the most abundant but also the most viewed. Therefore, they occupied the top positions both in importance for YouTube and in the rankings of total views and likes. That is, we need to do a bit of digging to find those academic videos. They are not the first thing that appears if we only look at the highest metrics," concludes Enrique Orduña.

Researcher Judith Lind has studied how staff at fertility clinics view the assessments that childless couples and women undergo in order to access assisted reproduction. It emerges in the interviews that the assessment of the potential parents is based on the child's future welfare and on the responsible use of public resources.

In Sweden, childless couples and single women can access publicly funded fertility treatment. But the legislation differs between different couples. In those cases where the couple requires sperm or eggs from a donor, the legislation demands a special assessment of their suitability as parents.

"Fertility treatment is expensive, and public resources are intended to enable treatment for everyone, regardless of income. At the same time, my study shows how clinic staff argue that access to treatment should be limited specifically because public resources are used", says Judith Lind, senior lecturer at the Department of Thematic Studies, Linköping University.

Judith Lind has previously investigated parent suitability in other contexts, such as adoption. She is interested in how parenthood ideals and the notion of the welfare of the child are expressed in assessments of potential parents.

The new study, "Child welfare assessments and the regulation of access to publicly funded fertility treatment", has been published in the journal Reproductive Biomedicine & Society Online.

Assessment focussing on what's best for the child

In bioethics research, there is a discussion about whether it is reasonable to limit access to fertility treatment with reference to the welfare of the future child, or if everyone should have the right to fertility treatment. Judith Lind wanted to study how clinic staff reason about this ethical issue and how they justify and legitimise that people who want fertility treatments are assessed.

Interviews were conducted with 64 employees in nine focus groups at four of the six publicly funded fertility clinic in Sweden.

The results show that what was considered most important was the future well-being of the child and the responsible use of public resources.

In every focus group, the child's welfare was cited as an argument for why a psychosocial assessment was conducted. The employees at the clinics said that it was their duty to prioritise the best interests of the child, and thus to refuse treatment for the couples and women who they considered unsuitable as parents. However, many questioned why the psychosocial assessment is only conducted when donated gametes are used. One doctor argued that the rights of the child should also "apply to children born with people's own gametes".

Use of public resources

In their work with fertility treatments, the clinics are guided by an assessment of the future welfare of the child as well as by the responsible use of public resources. Taxpayers' money, they argue, should not be used for something that in the end does not turn out well. For instance, if one believes that the future parents would not be able to take care of or provide for a child.

That public resources are used for the treatment justifies, according to the employees, that those who are to undergo it have a psychosocial assessment. The purpose of the assessment is to prevent treatment that results in problems for the child and, by extension, for society.

The aim of assisted reproduction is, for the people who work with it, not children, but functioning families. Some of the employees explained that their job is about creating "children with good lives", or "happy children and super-happy families".

"This argument has not received sufficient attention in previous research. With the study I hope to contribute to a discussion of assisted reproduction and the priorities that guide the treatment", says Judith Lind.

Transcription of genetic information is a fundamental process for life. If it does not work correctly, the consequences for the organism range from lethality to defects during development, genetic diseases, insufficient response to infections and stresses or propensity to develop cancer, given its pleiotropic effect. For this reason, it is important to know in depth the process by which this "DNA copy" is obtained and what elements are involved.

Along these lines, experts from the University of Seville and the Andalusian Center for Molecular Biology and Regenerative Medicine (Cabimer), in collaboration with the research group of Professor Patrick Sung from Yale University (USA), have published a new research article in which they show for the first time, the crucial role that the protein UAP56 / DDX39B plays for a correct transcription of the genetic material and the integrity of the genome.

"DNA-RNA hybrids, or R loops, are structures that generate genomic instability, a common feature of tumor cells. In this article we have discovered that the human protein UAP56 / DDX39B has a key role in the elimination of DNA-RNA hybrids that are accidentally generated during transcription, guaranteeing the integrity of the genome, as well as a correct gene expression", explains Andrés Aguilera, professor at the University of Seville and director of Cabimer.

UAP56 / DDX39B is a protein found in the nucleus of mammalian cells. It is conserved in all eukaryotes and plays an essential role in the transcription and processing of RNAs. Organisms cannot live without this protein, its inactivation produces defects in the expression of genes and in the stability of genomes, which is why it is important to know its functions.

On the other hand, unscheduled R loops are DNA-RNA hybrids that are accidentally generated between the nascent RNA and its template DNA during transcription. They form spontaneously, thanks to the pairing capacity of the nucleic acid chains, and for this reason cells have developed machineries to prevent and eliminate R loops, thus avoiding their negative consequences.

This work is part of the PhD thesis of Dr. Carmen Pérez Calero, defended in February 2020 at the University of Seville, and is part of the ERC Advanced research project of the European Research Council obtained in 2015, funded of 2.35 million euros.

MINNEAPOLIS -The jury's still out on whether the use of marijuana may increase the risk of stroke. While several larger studies have found an increased risk, other studies have found no such increased risk. Adding to the debate is a new study that looked at recent marijuana use and risk of ischemic stroke published in the June 3, 2020, online issue of Neurology® Clinical Practice, an official journal of the American Academy of Neurology. Ischemic stroke is a stroke caused by a blockage in a blood vessel, such as a blood clot.

"Previous studies that investigated cannabis use and risk of stroke have had conflicting results, some showing a decreased risk and others showing a greatly increased risk," said study author Carmela V. San Luis, M.D., of the University of Mississippi in Jackson and a member of the American Academy of Neurology. "Our observational study looked specifically at recent cannabis use by reviewing drug testing data for people admitted to the hospital. While more research is needed with larger numbers of people, our study lends support to the studies showing that cannabis use does not increase the risk of stroke."

The study involved 9,350 people who were 18 years and older who had been admitted to a hospital and screened with a urine test for drug use. People who tested positive for drugs other than marijuana were excluded from the study. A total of 1,643 people, or 18%, tested positive for marijuana. Those who tested positive were more likely to be male, younger and current smokers than those who tested negative.

San Luis noted that the study captured only whether people had used marijuana recently. It did not collect information about how much marijuana was consumed or any other information about their history of prior use.

Of those who tested positive, 130 of 1,643 people, or 8%, had an ischemic stroke. Of those who tested negative, 16% had an ischemic stroke, or 1,207 of 7,707 people. But after researchers adjusted for other factors that affect stroke risk, such as age, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, sickle cell disease, obesity, diabetes, smoking and heart conditions, there was no link between recent cannabis use and either an increased or decreased risk of stroke.

The study was observational, so the results do not prove that recent marijuana use has no effect on a person's risk of stroke, they only show that researchers found an association.

"Our research adds to the list of studies with conflicting results, so it is important to continue to investigate stroke risk and cannabis use," said San Luis. "Future studies are now needed in larger groups of people that not only include data from drug screenings but also dosing amounts as well as a person's history of cannabis use."

Other limitations of the study include that information on synthetic cannabis was not available and researchers were unable to adjust for risk factors such as physical inactivity and body mass index.

The excellent results of the phase III international paediatric study, Inter-B-NHL ritux 2010, have been published today in the New England Journal of Medicine. This academic trial involved two international cooperative groups -- the European Intergroup for Childhood Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma (EICNHL) and the Children's Oncology Group (COG). The trial sponsors were Gustave Roussy (for countries in Europe and Asia) and COG (for Australia, Canadaand the United States) and included a partnership with Roche. It establishes a new standard treatment with an improved cure rate for children with advanced non-Hodgkin lymphoma, mainly Burkitt lymphoma. It supports the value of an immunotherapeutic agent, which was authorised in March 2020 by the European Commission for the treatment of a rare childhood cancer.

"With a three-year survival rate exceeding 95%, these results are outstanding. This study changes the international treatment bench-mark in young patients with advanced B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma", declared Dr. Véronique Minard-Colin, paediatrician at the Gustave Roussy Department of Child and Adolescent Oncology in France who coordinated this major international trial with Dr. Thomas G. Gross currently at Children's Hospital Colorado in the United States.

The management of children with Burkitt lymphoma has improved considerably over recent decades. Cure rates have risen from 30% in the 1980s to higher than 85% with chemotherapy alone (LMB protocol) with no major late sequelae associated with the medication or the disease. This conventional LMB treatment was established more than 30 years ago by Dr. Catherine Patte, paediatric oncologist at Gustave Roussy and her French collaborators. However, despite this advance, about 15% of children continued to die of this condition.

Rituximab is a monoclonal anti-CD20 antibody directed against lymphoma cells. This immunotherapeutic agent, developed by Roche is indicated in combination with chemotherapy as a treatment for adults with malignant non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The international Inter-B-NHL-ritux 2010 clinical trial evaluated rituximab in children and adolescents by means of a Paediatric Investigation Plan in the context of European Paediatric Regulation.

As Burkitt lymphoma is a rare disease (~1000/1200 new cases/year in Europe and in the US), 12 countries collaborated to address the question as to whether rituximab would increase survival of children and young adults. The Inter-B-NHL ritux 2010 phase III randomised trial was conducted between December 2011 and November 2015 and involved 328 patients age 2-18 years, treated in 176 centres distributed over four continents (Europe, North America, Australia and Asia). It assessed the effects of addition of rituximab to standard LMB chemotherapy in high-risk B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma (the majority with Burkitt lymphoma).

When rituximab is administered with chemotherapy, more than 95% of children and adolescents with advanced Burkitt lymphoma remain alive and disease-free after more than three years of follow-up. This new combined therapy increases overall survival by around 10% and reduces the rate of occurrence of an event (death, relapse, tumour progression, second cancer, etc.) by 70%.

Aggressive B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma is a cancer which develops in the lymphatic system, carrier of immune cells throughout the body. It can develop in any part of the body. It is most frequently seen in the abdomen and neck, areas which harbour many lymph nodes. It is one of the most aggressive cancers and grows very rapidly although it is rare and affects both children and adults. It is the most common lymphoma in children, accounting for more than 60% of paediatric non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Cancers are fortunately rare in childhood, but this means that the development of new drugs to treat them must be conducted internationally. The Inter-B-NHL ritux 2010 trial is an excellent example of an international cooperation of academic clinical research in childhood cancer and of the importance of public-private collaborations with the pharmaceutical industry, so that positive findings result in marketing authorisation. The trial was run as part of a Paediatric Investigation Plan. Rituximab (MabThera®) has been authorised in Europe since March 2020 for the treatment of children with high-risk B-cell non-Hodgkin lymphoma. It will be available for all children and costs will be reimbursed through the health systems of member states and beyond.

This international trial was sponsored by Gustave Roussy and financed by a hospital clinical research programme of the French Ministry of Health (PHRC2010), Cancer Research UK, the National Institute for Health Research Clinical Research network, Children's Cancer Foundation Hong Kong, US National Cancer Institute, St. Baldrick's Foundation, and Roche.

Social media is an integral part of medicine, and an increasingly important conduit for sharing information about clinical trials. In an article in JCO Clinical Cancer Informatics, researchers from SWOG Cancer Research Network pose provocative questions aimed at sparking discussion and creating consensus on how cancer clinical trial stakeholders can best interact on social platforms.

Written by members of SWOG's digital engagement committee, the article notes the growing role that platforms like Facebook and Twitter play in raising awareness about trials and boosting their accrual. This significant promise - to make trials a larger part of the cancer care conversation and to make them more inclusive - is matched by significant legal, ethical, and logistical challenges for patients, researchers, institutional review boards, and trial sponsors.

According to the authors, these challenges include the risk of misinformation, the possibility of unblinding treatments used in trials, and the lack of clarity around regulatory oversight of social media content. What social content regarding cancer trials requires institutional review board approval before posting?

"With this article, we're raising the question: How can we best use social media to talk about cancer trials in ways that are meaningful, ethical, and engaging to every stakeholder?" said Krishna Gunturu, MD, a SWOG digital engagement team member, an oncologist with Lahey Hospital and Medical Center, and the lead author of the article. "To realize the potential of social media as a cancer trial educator and equalizer, we need consensus."

Specifically, the SWOG team asks:

Is it time to ask study volunteers to sign a code of conduct? This may help prevent disclosure of data during trial conduct and analysis, thus ensure the integrity of clinical trial data. A code, or confidentiality disclosure agreement, could also help patients by specifying that they maintain access to their own trial data.

Should social media be a required activity of a clinical researcher? The authors note that social media is an important way for researchers to directly engage with patients by sharing information, dispelling myths, and highlighting critical trials through direct digital conversation. To help, SWOG is creating social media toolkits to accompany new trials. The aim is to give study leaders access to IRB-approved information - text and graphics - that can be used in Twitter and Facebook posts as soon as their study opens.

Is there an appropriate scope of IRB review related to social media use? SWOG members point out that there are no rules for what kinds of social content requires IRB approval, and when and how. It's also not clear what constitutes "active" and "passive" social media recruitment under National Institutes of Health social media guidance.

How should sponsors collaborate with stakeholders on social media activities? Specifically, the SWOG team believes that patient advocates can play a critical role in public engagement in cancer trials. Advocates currently run a slew of Facebook and Twitter support groups for nearly every cancer type, and are often at the table when cancer trials are conceived and developed. Should trial sponsors do more to encourage patient advocate participation in social media?

"These are key questions, and we need to come together as a cancer clinical trial community to arrive at answers," said study co-author and SWOG Digital Engagement Committee Chair Don Dizon, MD, a professor of medicine at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and a member of the Lifespan Cancer Institute. "Our goal is to call everyone with a stake in cancer trials to action so we can use social media as a tool to advance cancer research."

A new study maps for the first time the evolutionary history of the world's terrestrial vertebrates: amphibians, birds, mammals and reptiles. It explores how areas with large concentrations of evolutionarily distinct species are being impacted by our ever-increasing "human footprint."

Research for the study was led by Dr. Rikki Gumbs of the EDGE of Existence Programme at the Zoological Society of London and Imperial College London and Dr. James Rosindell of Imperial College London in collaboration with Prof. Shai Meiri of the School of Zoology at Tel Aviv University's George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences and Steinhardt Museum of Natural History and other colleagues. The study was published in Nature Communications on May 26.

"Being 'evolutionarily distinct' means that you have no close living relatives," explains Prof. Meiri, who generated and interpreted the reptile-related data for the study. "In other words, you are alone on your branch of the evolutionary tree of life. Aardvarks, crocodiles, and kiwis were all separated from their closest evolutionary relatives tens of millions of years ago and bear a unique evolutionary history.

"The new research will provide a clear understanding of how best to protect nature given the current threats to specific locations and endangered species."

The researchers developed two new metrics that combine phylogenetic diversity and the extent of human pressure across the spatial distribution of species -- one metric valuing regions and another prioritizing species. They evaluated these metrics for reptiles, which have been largely neglected in previous studies, and contrasted these results with equivalent calculations for all terrestrial vertebrate groups. The researchers found that regions under high human pressure coincided with those containing irreplaceable reptilian diversity.

"Our analyses reveal the incomprehensible scale of the losses we face if we don't work harder to save global biodiversity," says Dr. Gumbs, the lead author on the paper. "To put some of the numbers into perspective, reptiles alone stand to lose at least 13 billion years of unique evolutionary history, roughly the same number of years as have passed since the beginning of the entire universe."

Using extinction-risk data for around 25,000 species, the researchers found at least 50 billion years of evolutionary heritage to be under threat, as well as a large number of potentially threatened species for which we lack adequate extinction risk data. This suggests that the calculation underestimates the number of species that may be affected.

According to the study's calculations, the Caribbean, the Western Ghats of India, and large parts of Southeast Asia -- regions that are home to the most unique evolutionary history -- are facing unprecedented levels of human-related devastation.

"This new study highlights which species should be prioritized for conservation, based on their evolutionary uniqueness and the intense human impact on environments where they are thought to dwell," Prof. Meiri says.

According to the research, the greatest losses of evolutionary history will be driven by the extinction of entire groups of closely-related species, such as pangolins and tapirs, and by the loss of highly evolutionarily distinct species, such as the ancient Chinese crocodile lizard (Shinisaurus crocodilurus); the Shoebill (Balaeniceps rex), a gigantic bird that stalks the wetlands of Africa; and the Aye-aye (Daubentonia madagascariensis), a nocturnal lemur with large yellow eyes and long spindly fingers.

The study highlights several unusual species as urgent conservation priorities, including the punk-haired Mary River turtle (Elusor macrurus), the Purple frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis), and the Numbat (Myrmecobius fasciatus). It also highlights many lesser known species, about which little is now understood by scientists, as priorities for further research. Adequate extinction risk data is currently lacking for more than half of the priority lizards and snakes identified.

"These are some of the most incredible and overlooked animals on Planet Earth," says Dr. Gumbs. "From legless lizards and tiny blind snakes to pink worm-like amphibians called caecilians, we know precious little about these fascinating creatures, many of which may be sliding silently toward extinction."

The study also identifies regions where concentrations of irreplaceable diversity are currently under little to no human pressure, particularly across the Amazon rainforest, the highlands of Borneo, and parts of southern Africa.

Co-author Dr. Rosindell concludes, "Our findings highlight the importance of acting urgently to conserve these extraordinary species and the remaining habitat that they occupy -- in the face of intense human pressures."

Toronto and Spanish physicians describe in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) an approach to create dedicated COVID-19 patient units, infection control protocols and care teams to help other hospitals safely care for patients.

"The care of patients admitted to hospital with COVID-19 cannot be construed as falling within usual hospital operating procedures," writes Dr. David Frost, a general internist at University Health Network and the University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, with coauthors. "Meticulous planning is required. There are unique challenges regarding necessarily strict infection control procedures, provision of care to potentially large numbers of patients and clinical considerations specific to COVID-19."

The approach is based on real-world experience in Madrid, Spain, and from Toronto's University Health Network, one of Canada's largest hospitals, as well as relevant medical literature.

Some highlights include

Creating a dedicated COVID-19 unit with delineated risk zones and protocols

Establishing a buddy system for health care professionals to safely doff and don personal protective equipment (PPE)

Considering how rapidly care teams can be scaled up, how to integrate other physicians and how to maintain continuity of care

Standardizing procedures with checklists to maximize efficiency and safety for ward rounds

Adopting patient-centred practices to help lessen isolation and ensure links with families and caregivers

Fostering a culture of safety and clear communications to all stakeholders

To provide rapid access to the approach, the authors have created an open-access website http://www.torontocovidcollective.com.

"The ability to rapidly disseminate information, iterate protocols and collaborate with physicians around the world will continue to be important through subsequent waves of the pandemic," the authors write.

The Chapman University National COVID-19 and Mental Health Survey provides an in-depth look at the experiences of 4,149 adults living in the United States. The study asked questions about how the COVID-19 pandemic is impacting people's mental health, physical health, romantic relationships and encounters of prejudice and discrimination.

What Are the Effects of COVID-19 on Mental Health and Behaviors?

Conducted at the end of April 2020, survey findings revealed that most people are staying home more than normal (89%), and the majority reported feeling more stressed (61%), nervous, anxious, or on edge (60%), and feeling down, depressed, or hopeless (45%) than normal due to the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. People attributed the changes in their health behaviors to the pandemic, with about one-third reporting eating more because of stress (37%), eating more junk food (41%) and getting less exercise (35%).

"As a nation, we have focused a lot of attention on the physical health risks of COVID-19 and not nearly as much on the mental health," said David Frederick, Ph.D., an associate professor of health psychology who led an all-Chapman team of researchers to conduct this study at the height of the pandemic. "We know from past research that natural disasters, epidemics and chronic stressors all harm our mental health, but what we're experiencing now is radically different than any of those previous experiences. The scale is so much larger."

The data also shows that essential workers like grocery store clerks, delivery personnel and restaurant employees are facing even worse mental and physical health problems. People in these occupations, where they are currently exposed to many people during the day, report more loneliness, anxiety, depression, negative emotions, negative health symptoms in the past week and more flu-like symptoms in the past month.

About half of respondents are "very concerned" about catching COVID-19 (54%), but about 42% believe their chances of catching the coronavirus are very low. Surprisingly, essential workers did not differ from other people in their concerns about catching COVID-19. Similar results were found for people who identified as being in a "frontline" job, such as healthcare professionals and police officers, where they did not perceive greater overall risks to COVID-19.

How is COVID-19 Affecting Romantic Relationships?

A snapshot of how people's romantic and sex lives were changing during the pandemic was analyzed from 2,702 survey participants who reported being in a long-term relationship. Sixty-four percent (64%) are spending more time with their partner, and the average couple snuggled four times and said "I love you" six times during the past week. Additionally, about one-fourth reported having fewer arguments with their partner in the past week (24%) while one-fourth reported having more arguments than normal (25%).

"Most people are spending more time with their romantic partner. For some couples, the silver lining is that they are getting to connect with their partner. For others, staying home together allows little stressors to build and blow up which then promotes conflict over existing disagreements," Frederick said.

A subset of people reported wanting to have sex more often with their partner (31%), versus only 22% who want sex less often than normal. Only 19% of the survey participants are having sex more often.

"Some couples are experiencing a disconnect sexually -- this is not surprising. One partner may want to have sex while the other partner is not interested at the moment," said co-investigator Amy Moors, Ph.D., assistant professor of psychology at Chapman and research fellow at The Kinsey Institute. "Anxiety and stress regarding health, finances, and a host of other thoughts that consume our cognitive energy can make it challenging to feel in the mood."

Among Ethnic Minorities, Do They Perceive Prejudice or Discrimination Related to Their Ethnicity and COVID-19?

The survey asked ethnic minorities to think about their experiences since the COVID-19 pandemic started and if they had experienced any incidents that they think were motivated specifically by connections between their ethnicity and COVID-19.

Thirty-two percent of Asian Americans and 38% of Chinese Americans reported at least one incident of racism. One-fourth of the Chinese Americans surveyed say they have experienced three or more racist incidents (25%). These include rude comments, feeling unwelcomed, being told to "go back" to their country, or being physically threatened.

Black Americans, who have been hardest hit as a group by COVID-19, were next most likely to report at least one incident (26%) and three or more incidents (21%).

Among both Blacks and Asians, experiencing more racist incidents was linked to greater stress, loneliness, anxiety, depression, negative emotions and number of health symptoms in the past week.

"I am troubled by these findings," said Jason Douglas, Ph.D., assistant professor of public health at Chapman and one of the researchers on the study. "We need clear and consistent messaging to indicate that viral pandemics do not stem from our ethnocultural minority communities. Rather, residents living in disadvantaged, ethnocultural minority communities are at greater risk for COVID-19 related morbidity and mortality due to longstanding systemic inequities that unfairly limit access to health-protective resources."

How Are People Coping with The COVID-19 Pandemic?

The most frequently used coping strategy was distraction through activities such as exercising, gardening, or watching television (69%). About half of people reported trying to find meaning in the experience by looking for something good in what was happening (48%). Thirty-six percent said that they have received comfort and understanding from someone, while 31% said that they found comfort in their religion or spiritual beliefs.

"How people cope in times of stress is very important," said Brooke Jenkins, Ph.D., assistant professor of health psychology at Chapman and one of the study's authors. "When stress is more outside of our control, techniques like distraction and reappraisal are beneficial. For example, if you feel that you have to stay home and that is outside of your control, then engaging in distracting activities like TV, gardening and exercise can be quite helpful."

For stress that seems more controllable, Dr. Jenkins recommends engaging in active coping. "For example, if you feel that you can actively reduce your risk of exposure to COVID-19, then getting advice from others and taking action to improve your situation will likely be helpful," she said.

The researchers saw that people who "took action to make their situation better" and who "looked for something good in what is happening" reported as having the best mental health. In contrast, people who gave up trying to deal with it, used drugs or alcohol, or said things to let unpleasant feelings escape tended to have worse mental health.

"The pandemic is creating many different stresses for people, there is no single strategy that will be optimal for coping with all of them," said Tara Gruenewald, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at Chapman and project co-investigator. "A good rule of thumb is to gravitate toward those forms of healthy stress management you normally engage in, whether that is exercise, a good book, a favorite hobby, meditation or connecting with others. Of course, being safe and avoiding infection means we have to alter the way we engage in these activities, but the important thing is to make time to do them."

Methodology

The survey was conducted online through Amazon's Mechanical Turk. The survey asked participants to think about the effect that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on their lives within the past week. Only the 4,149 participants who passed standard data quality checks were analyzed. The study uses a national dataset from all 50 states, but the sample is not nationally representative. The sample included adults age 18 and older with the average age being 39. The survey was listed as the "Personal Attitudes and Experiences Study" to draw in a wide range of participants.

About 9,000 years ago in the Balsas River Valley of southwestern Mexico, hunter-gatherers began domesticating teosinte, a wild grass. Fast-forward to the present, and what was a humble perennial has been turned into the world's biggest grain crop: maize.

Humanity deeply relies on maize, or corn, but just when it became a major food crop in the Americas has been a source of mystery and dispute.

Now, a UC Santa Barbara researcher and his collaborators, by testing the skeletons of an "unparalleled" collection of human skeletal remains in Belize, have demonstrated that maize had become a staple in the Americas 4,700 years ago.

In a new paper, "Early isotopic evidence for maize as a staple grain in the Americas" in the journal Science Advances, Douglas J. Kennett, a UCSB anthropology professor, details how the discovery of human skeletons buried in a rock-shelter over a period of 10,000 years opened a window on maize consumption nearly three millennia before the rise of Maya civilization.

"What this paper shows is that by 4,700 years ago," Kennett said, "there is a significant shift towards maize cultivation and consumption, exceeding what we would consider to be a staple grain. And by 4,000 years ago maize was a persistently used staple and its importance continues through the Classic Maya period and until today."

Kennett, the paper's lead author, said the breakthrough came with the discovery of two rock-shelters with remarkably well-preserved skeletal remains in the Maya Mountains of Belize. Bones in the Neotropics typically degrade because of heat and humidity, but these rock shelters preserved the skeletal material well enough to measure stable isotopes revealing the diets of these people prior to death.

"The lowland Neotropics is not kind to organic material," Kennett said. "Bones degrade quickly if left out in the open. But these are special sites because they provide dry shelter from the elements that helps preserve bones that we were able to extract collagen from for nitrogen and carbon isotope analysis."

Maize synthesizes carbon using a distinctive photosynthetic pathway, which is evident isotopically in people that consume this important cultigen. There are very few plants in the lowland Neotropics that synthesize carbon in this way, so it's clear isotopically when people start eating substantial amounts of maize.

Skeletons dated to older than 4,700 years ago show minimal or no maize consumption. Some individuals dated to 4,700 to 4,000 years ago, however, show about 30% of maize consumption -- what Kennett calls a transitional period. By 4,000 years ago the carbon isotopic evidence indicates that maize consisted of more than 70% of the diet of individuals in the Maya lowlands.

"If you measured the isotopic composition of Maya people today," he said, "they would look very similar because they're consuming a great deal of maize on a daily basis. In terms of broader significance, this is the earliest evidence for the use of maize as a staple in the Americas that we're aware of so far."

The transition to agriculture in the Neotropics, as evidenced by the use of maize as a staple, has tantalizing implications for the rise of Maya civilization. As Kennett notes, where the Maya came from and when they moved into the area are still open questions. Classic Period Maya society didn't start to develop until about 2,000 years ago.

"So the question is, when do Maya people first move into the region and are they the earliest agriculturalists?" he said. "It is possible that the early agriculturalists identified in our study moved into the area and that they are somehow related to the Maya that we associate with emergence of Maya civilization later in time."

The Latin name for brook trout -- Salvelinus fontinalis -- means "speckled fish of the fountains," but a new study by Penn State researchers suggests, for the first time, that the larger streams and rivers those fountains, or headwaters, flow into may be just as important to the brook trout.

With few exceptions, brook trout are found now only in small mountain streams that stay cold enough year-round to meet their biological needs, below 68 degrees Fahrenheit. Because these trout in the United States are threatened by a warming climate, many have assumed those headwater habitats alone are critical for their survival.

But a genetic analysis of brook trout in streams across the 460-square-mile Loyalsock Creek drainage in north-central Pennsylvania shows that the fish are very similar genetically, suggesting close relatedness among populations. The only way that could have happened, according to researcher Shannon White, postdoctoral scholar in the College of Agricultural Sciences, is fish moving between tributaries in the 86-mile-long Loyalsock Creek.

Temperatures in Loyalsock Creek exceed brook trout thermal tolerance from approximately June through September, White pointed out, so fish are believed to inhabit only the bigger river system during the winter. Although the behavior and survival of brook trout in Loyalsock Creek are not well understood, researchers hypothesize that some brook trout move into the mainstem after spawning in a tributary in October or November and stay until late spring, when some swim up new tributaries.

"It's pretty simple -- if widespread populations are related genetically, it indicates that fish are moving around between those populations," she said. "There's a high degree of genetic connectivity between populations separated by the mainstem, and that indicates that brook trout are swimming into Loyalsock Creek and using it as a movement corridor to connect populations in other tributaries."

Understanding patterns of population connectivity is critical for species conservation, White added, because populations that are more connected typically are able to survive and adapt to disturbance and stress.

To build what White called "a family tree" of brook trout in the Loyalsock drainage, researchers collected 1,627 adult brook trout from 33 sites, with an average of 49 individuals collected from each site. They clipped the caudal fins of those fish and conducted genetic analysis on those tissue samples.

To estimate statistically how unique habitat features, such as road culverts and waterfalls found in streams, influence the movement of wild brook trout, researchers developed what they call the "bidirectional geneflow in riverscapes" model as part of a practical framework that uses genetic data to understand patterns and drivers of fish movement.

The novel modeling approach is significant, explained researcher Tyler Wagner, adjunct professor of fisheries ecology, because it shows that brook trout -- at least in the Loyalsock Creek watershed -- are not confined just to the headwaters. They are using the mainstem as a seasonal, thermally suitable corridor for movement.

There is no reason to expect that the Loyalsock drainage is different from others in the East, Wagner contends, so these results likely have implications for the conservation and management of wild brook trout. Specifically, these results suggest that conservation of larger streams and rivers may be necessary to protect and conserve critical brook-trout movement corridors that keep brook trout populations healthy.

"Some of the most fundamental questions in ecology relate to how organisms move through their environment," said Wagner, who is assistant leader of the U.S. Geological Survey's Pennsylvania Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Penn State. "These questions historically have been hard to address in fishes because it can be difficult statistically to estimate how unique habitat features found in streams and rivers influence movement. To address this void, we developed the riverscapes geneflow model."

The findings of the Penn State study, recently published in Ecological Applications, contrast with other research related to brook trout behavior, White conceded. The consensus has been that trout do not move very far, she said. "But Loyalsock Creek is a fairly big watershed, and we have found that fish are moving quite a bit, and populations on opposite ends of the watershed are connected to one another genetically."

However, White, who conducted a wide range of research on the brook trout population in the Loyalsock drainage while pursuing her doctoral degree in ecology at Penn State, noted that only a small proportion of the fish travel -- and it is not just the young males that branch out. This is different from most wildlife species.

"In a separate study we used telemetry to monitor the movement of 162 fish and found that there is a small proportion of the population that moves," she said. "It's only about 20% of fish that get into Loyalsock Creek. In terms of males, females, and the size of fish that are moving, it doesn't really seem to make a difference. This would suggest that there may be a genetic component to movement, in the sense that some fish have genes that are programmed to make them travel."

Below please find a summary and link(s) of new coronavirus-related content published today in Annals of Internal Medicine. The summary below is not intended to substitute for the full article as a source of information. A collection of coronavirus-related content is free to the public at http://go.annals.org/coronavirus.

1. Prevalence of Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Infection

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has spread rapidly throughout the world. Infected persons who remain asymptomatic may play a role in the ongoing pandemic, but their relative number and effect have been uncertain. Researchers from Scripps Research Translational Institute reviewed the available evidence on asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection and found asymptomatic persons seem to account for approximately 40 to 45 percent of SARS-CoV-2 infections, and they can transmit the virus to others for an extended period, and conclude it is imperative that testing programs include those without symptoms. Read the full text: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-3012.

Media contacts: A PDF for this article is not yet available. Please click the link to read full text. The authors, Eric J. Topol, MD, and Daniel P. Oran, AM, can be reached by contacting Anna Andersen at aanders@scripps.edu.

2. Where Is the ID in COVID-19?

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has challenged all of medicine. However, in recent weeks, the nation's need for more infectious disease (ID) expertise has become a clear focal point. Cognitive specialties, such as ID, have attracted fewer physicians to the field than other, high-income-generating specialties. Authors from Massachusetts General Hospital and Lahey Hospital and Medical Center examined how the distribution of ID specialists matches the needs of the COVID-19 pandemic across the U.S. and found that nearly two-thirds of all Americans live in 90 percent of counties with below-average or no ID physician access. Read the full text: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-2684.

Media contacts: A PDF for this article is not yet available. Please click the link to read full text. The lead author, Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, can be reached at rwalensky@mgh.harvard.edu.

New results from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope suggest the formation of the first stars and galaxies in the early Universe took place sooner than previously thought. A European team of astronomers have found no evidence of the first generation of stars, known as Population III stars, as far back as when the Universe was just 500 million years old.

The exploration of the very first galaxies remains a significant challenge in modern astronomy. We do not know when or how the first stars and galaxies in the Universe formed. These questions can be addressed with the Hubble Space Telescope through deep imaging observations. Hubble allows astronomers to view the Universe back to within 500 million years of the Big Bang.

A team of European researchers, led by Rachana Bhatawdekar of the European Space Agency, set out to study the first generation of stars in the early Universe. Known as Population III stars [1], these stars were forged from the primordial material that emerged from the Big Bang. Population III stars must have been made solely out of hydrogen, helium and lithium, the only elements that existed before processes in the cores of these stars could create heavier elements, such as oxygen, nitrogen, carbon and iron.

Bhatawdekar and her team probed the early Universe from about 500 million to 1 billion years after the Big Bang by studying the cluster MACSJ0416 and its parallel field with the Hubble Space Telescope (with supporting data from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and the ground-based Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory). "We found no evidence of these first-generation Population III stars in this cosmic time interval" said Bhatawdekar of the new results.

The result was achieved using the Hubble's Space Telescope's Wide Field Camera 3 and Advanced Camera for Surveys [2], as part of the Hubble Frontier Fields programme. This programme (which observed six distant galaxy clusters from 2012 to 2017) produced the deepest observations ever made of galaxy clusters and the galaxies located behind them which were magnified by the gravitational lensing effect, thereby revealing galaxies 10 to 100 times fainter than any previously observed. The masses of foreground galaxy clusters are large enough to bend and magnify the light from the more distant objects behind them. This allows Hubble to use these cosmic magnifying glasses to study objects that are beyond its nominal operational capabilities.

Bhatawdekar and her team developed a new technique that removes the light from the bright foreground galaxies that constitute these gravitational lenses. This allowed them to discover galaxies with lower masses than ever previously observed with Hubble, at a distance corresponding to when the Universe was less than a billion years old. At this point in cosmic time, the lack of evidence for exotic stellar populations and the identification of many low-mass galaxies supports the suggestion that these galaxies are the most likely candidates for the reionisation of the Universe. This period of reionisation in the early Universe is when the neutral intergalactic medium was ionised by the first stars and galaxies.

"These results have profound astrophysical consequences as they show that galaxies must have formed much earlier than we thought," said Bhatawdekar. "This also strongly supports the idea that low-mass/faint galaxies in the early Universe are responsible for reionisation."

These results [3] also suggest that the earliest formation of stars and galaxies occurred much earlier than can be probed with the Hubble Space Telescope. This leaves an exciting area of further research for the upcoming NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope -- to study the Universe's earliest galaxies.

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Lockdowns implemented across the world due to the COVID-19 pandemic have negatively impacted diet, sleep and physical activity among children with obesity, according to University at Buffalo research.

The study, published in April in Obesity, examined 41 overweight children under confinement throughout March and April in Verona, Italy.

Compared to behaviors recorded a year prior, the children ate an additional meal per day; slept an extra half hour per day; added nearly five hours per day in front of phone, computer and television screens; and dramatically increased their consumption of red meat, sugary drinks and junk foods.

Physical activity, on the other hand, decreased by more than two hours per week, and the amount of vegetables consumed remained unchanged.

"The tragic COVID-19 pandemic has collateral effects extending beyond direct viral infection," says Myles Faith, PhD, UB childhood obesity expert and co-author on the study. "Children and teens struggling with obesity are placed in an unfortunate position of isolation that appears to create an unfavorable environment for maintaining healthy lifestyle behaviors."

"Recognizing these adverse collateral effects of the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown is critical in avoiding the depreciation of hard-fought weight control efforts among youths afflicted with excess weight," says Faith, chair and professor of counseling, school and educational psychology in the UB Graduate School of Education.

The study was led by Steven Heymsfield, MD, professor at the Louisiana State University Pennington Biomedical Research Center; and Angelo Pietrobelli, MD, professor at the University of Verona in Italy.

Children and adolescents typically gain more weight during summer vacation than during the school year, says Faith, which led the researchers to wonder if being homebound would have a similar effect on the kids' lifestyle behaviors.

"School environments provide structure and routine around mealtimes, physical activity and sleep - three predominant lifestyle factors implicated in obesity risk," says Faith.

The researchers surveyed 41 children and teens with obesity in Verona, Italy, who were involved in an ongoing long-term study. Lifestyle information regarding diet, activity and sleep was collected three weeks into Italy's mandatory national lockdown and compared to data on the children gathered in 2019. Questions focused on physical activity, screen time, sleep, eating habits, and the consumption of red meat, pasta, snacks, fruits and vegetables.

The results confirmed the negative change in behavior, indicating that children with obesity fare worse on weight control lifestyle programs while at home compared to when they are engaged in their school curriculum.

"Depending on the duration of the lockdown, the excess weight gained may not be easily reversible and might contribute to obesity during adulthood if healthier behaviors are not re-established," says Faith. "This is because childhood and adolescent obesity tend to track over time and predict weight status as adults."

Government officials and policymakers should consider the potential harmful effects of lockdowns on youths with obesity when making decisions regarding when and how to loosen restrictions, says Faith.

There is also a need to establish and evaluate telemedicine programs that encourage families to maintain healthy lifestyle choices during periods of lockdown, he adds.

Faith and colleagues are conducting an ongoing National Institutes of Health-funded study that is testing a family-based treatment for childhood obesity using telemedicine technology that allows participants to be treated in their homes.

A new, hair-sprouting dollop of human skin created in the lab might one day help prevent hair loss.

Organoids are small, lab-grown cell groupings are designed to model real-world organs -in this case, skin. A paper published in Nature describes the hairy creation as the first hair-baring human skin organoid made with pluripotent stem cells, or the master cells present during early stages of embryonic development that later turn into specific cell types.

The hirsute organoid's development was led by Karl Koehler, Ph.D., formerly of Indiana University School of Medicine and now at Boston Children's Hospital. An Oregon Health & Science University graduate student, Benjamin Woodruff, contributed by helping make the organoids as a post-baccalaureate research technician in the Stanford University lab of Stefan Heller, Ph.D.

"This makes it possible to produce human hair for science without having to take it from a human," explained Woodruff, who now is completing his first year of cell and developmental biology graduate studies at OHSU. "For the first time, we could have, more or less, an unlimited source of human hair follicles for research."

Having access to more hair-growing skin can help researchers better understand hair growth and development - and maybe even provide clues needed to reverse a retreating hair line.