Culture

Increasing gender diversity has been a long-sought goal across many of the sciences, and interventions and programs to attract more women into fields like physics and math often happen at the undergraduate level.

But is representation enough to improve gender diversity in science? In a new study, Colorado State University researchers say there's more to the story: They've found that even when undergraduate women outnumber men in science courses, women may still be experiencing gender biases from their peers.

The CSU team, combining expertise in gender psychology, instructional intervention and physical sciences, conducted a survey-based study among both physical and life science undergraduate courses at CSU, asking students how they perceived each other's abilities within those courses. Their results were published online June 25 in the journal PLOS ONE.

"The assumption has been that if you have the numbers, if you just increase the number of women, you won't have bias," said study co-author Meena Balgopal, professor in science education in the CSU Department of Biology. "But we find that's not the case."

For their study, the researchers focused on courses with a peer-to-peer learning component, such as group lab work, partner work or breakout sessions during lectures. They recruited instructors to administer surveys asking students how they perceived each other, with questions including: Are there any students in your class you are more likely to go to if you need help with the class? Thinking about your course, do any students stand out as particularly knowledgeable? Thinking about your course, who would you consider to be the best student(s) in the class? In total, they surveyed about 1,000 students.

Outnumbered and undervalued

Here's what the researchers found: In physical science classes - where women are more traditionally underrepresented - women were indeed outnumbered, and they had higher average GPAs, statistically higher course grades, and were 1.5 times more likely to earn an A or A-plus than men. However, the researchers found that both men and women presumed that the men in the class outperformed the women. In these classes, both women and men were less likely to select a woman as someone they would seek help from, find knowledgeable, or perceive as best in the class.

They saw a similar, albeit lesser effect in life science classes, where, in contrast to physical sciences, women tend to outnumber men, particularly in biology classes. In their study results, women both outnumbered and outperformed men in terms of GPA and statistically higher course grades. In these courses, men were equally likely to identify a woman or a man in all categories such as someone they'd seek help from, or find knowledgeable, or consider best in the class, and women identified women and men equally only in the category of "best in the class."

The researchers acknowledged limitations in their study: Although the surveys allowed participants to self-identify their own genders, when they referred to classmates, the researchers only recorded how students perceived the genders of their classmates. They also found that the surveys were not representative of the overall demographics of the courses; students who chose to answer the surveys were more likely to be STEM majors, white students, physical science students, and students with overall higher class grades and GPAs.

Also, while they wanted to perform intersectional analyses for women of color or gender minorities and how their peers perceived them, they did not have a large enough sample to draw meaningful conclusions from the data.

The researchers were inspired to conduct the study after a 2016 study by University of Washington researchers found a pro-male bias for ratings of students' abilities among male students in undergraduate biology courses. The CSU team wanted to see if the same effect could be found here, and their choice of methodology was intentionally similar.

Learning from the results

Balgopal said from an instructional design point of view, their results could reveal opportunities for more thoughtful attention to things like group work, and how instructors guide active learning.

"It would be really interesting to understand where these biases originate," said Balgopal, who, along with co-author A.M. Aramati Casper, is interested in pedagogical interventions that improve classroom learning outcomes.

For first author and gender psychologist Brittany Bloodhart, the most striking aspect of the study was not that gender bias persists among undergraduate STEM students, but that it's happening at the same time when women are consistently outperforming men in these fields, rather than being negatively affected in performance.

Among the research that shows girls and women are better in STEM, it's often discounted in various ways - girls work harder, are more attentive in class, study more, etc., which leads to better grades, Bloodhart said. When women perform worse than men on standardized tests, some claim that this reflects a difference in natural ability because they consider such tests the "real" measures of STEM ability. However, many studies support the view that standardized tests are also biased, and a poor predictor of actual STEM ability.

There is also a "variability hypothesis," which says that on average, girls and women have better outcomes in STEM than boys and men, but there is less variation in women's natural STEM talent compared to men.

"Our study refutes that variability hypothesis," Bloodhart said. "We didn't find any evidence that men were more variable than women or that they were more likely to get the top scores."

As the political climate in the United States becomes increasingly charged, some businesses are looking to have their voices heard on controversial issues. The impact of corporate sociopolitical activism on a company's bottom line depends on how the activism aligns with the firm's stakeholders, according to new research published in the Journal of Marketing.

Study co-author Nooshin Warren, assistant professor of marketing in the University of Arizona Eller College of Management, says that over the last 10 years, purpose-driven corporate actions have evolved from companies contributing to widely supported causes, such as cancer research, to companies taking stances on more divisive issues, such as gun control and LGBTQ rights. The movement from philanthropic activities to sociopolitical activism has significant effects on firm value and stock market performance, which vary depending on how the activism aligns with the views of a firm's customers, employees and state regulators.

"In the past few years, we have reached the intersection of politics and doing societal good," Warren said. "Companies still have value systems and want to advance society, but the biggest difference in this case is that societal good is debatable, political and partisan."

The researchers examined a dataset of 293 instances of corporate activism between January 2011 and October 2016 by 149 firms throughout the United States. The hot-button sociopolitical issues were selected based on the Pew Research Center's 2014 Political Polarization in the American Public report and Political Polarization and Typology Survey. Some corporate activism examples included Amazon removing Confederate flag merchandise from its website, JCPenney featuring two lesbian moms in a Mother's Day advertisement and the Kroger grocery chain issuing a statement in support of its policy allowing customers to carry firearms in its stores.

Researchers surveyed 1,406 people and asked them to label each corporate activism event on a scale from "very liberal" to "very conservative." A second survey of 375 people helped researchers identify a given company's typical customers as having more liberal or conservative views. The team gauged the political leanings of company employees through political contribution data from the U.S. Federal Election Commission. The researchers then looked at the political composition of the legislature of the state where each firm is headquartered.

Put simply, Warren said, if a company's activism aligns with the values of its customers, employees and state regulators, the impact will be positive. If it misaligns, the impact will be negative.

"The strongest effects come from alignment with consumers' values, and consumers are obviously the most vital source of revenue for a firm," Warren said. "Punishment from a government can have a sudden and significant impact on a company as well. Employees, although very important, have less of an immediate impact."

The researchers measured changes in stock market value in the five-day window surrounding a corporate activism event. The team found if a company's action was misaligned with its key stakeholders, the company's stock market value decreased 2.45% compared to market expectations, as established by the Center for Research in Security Prices. If aligned with their stakeholders values, stock prices increased by .71%

The researchers further investigated the response of consumers to activism and found that as long as the activism is in line with consumers' political values, the company's quarterly and annual sales grow after the activism. When activism is highly deviated from customers and the government, sales growth suffers. This is especially true when activism highly deviates from all three key stakeholders, which resulted in a sales decline of 4%.

Warren says companies have important decisions to make concerning the current unrest over racial justice issues.

"I wish racial equality was not a polarizing issue, but given that it is, firms should carefully identify their consumers, employees and other stakeholders, and resonate with their values," Warren said. "But it is important to stay authentic, as society is watching carefully and will hold firms accountable for their actions as well as for their silence."

What Companies Should Know

If a company wants to engage in corporate activism and alleviate negative results, Warren said, it should consider five factors that the researchers showed can amplify the effects of alignment or misalignment.

The messenger. Warren says a statement means more to customers when it comes from a CEO rather than a public relations representative. She says that's especially true for "celebrity CEOs" like Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg or Amazon's Jeff Bezos.

Action vs. statement. Action provides more impact than statements, both positive and negative, Warren says. For example, she says Target providing transgender-inclusive bathrooms has a stronger impact than a company simply stating support for the LGBTQ community.

Number of firms. Warren says multiple companies taking a stance together can mitigate negative impact from misalignment with lawmakers, since regulators are much more likely to punish one firm than an entire industry.

Internal vs. external benefits. If a company's message or action is specifically for its own benefit or that of its employees, consumers may view that as less of a societal good, and more of a company simply thinking about its bottom line.

Even with effective anti-retroviral therapy, patients infected with the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) sustain central nervous system damage. Whether these problems can be mainly attributed to the disease, its treatments, or the body's immune responses is still being debated, but detecting these changes early and reliably is difficult.

Findings from a new study published in Clinical Neurophysiology, involving a collaborative effort between Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine and the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University, are shedding further light on how the brain's auditory system may provide a window into how the brain is affected by HIV.

"We've been performing a variety of hearing tests on an established cohort of HIV-positive patients in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania," says Jay Buckey, Jr., MD, a professor of medicine at Geisel who co-led the study. "Initially, we thought we'd find that HIV affects the ear, but what seems to be affected is the brain's ability to process sound."

To test this hypothesis, the researchers used what's called a speech-evoked frequency-following response (FFR). In this test, brain waves are recorded from scalp electrodes (as in an electroencephalogram) while sounds common to everyday speech, like "ba," "da," or "ga," are played into the ear. This offers an objective, non-invasive way to record brain waves and assess the brain's auditory functions.

"There are many acoustic ingredients in speech, such as pitch, timing, harmonics, and phrase," says Nina Kraus, PhD, Hugh Knowles Professor of Communication Sciences and Neurobiology at Northwestern, who co-led the study with Buckey. "The FFR enables us to play speech sounds into the ear of study participants and figure out how good a job the brain is doing processing these different acoustic ingredients."

When comparing the FFR results of 68 HIV-positive adults to 59 HIV-negative adults, the investigators found that the auditory-neurophysiological responses to certain speech cues were disrupted in HIV-positive adults, even though they performed normally on hearing tests--confirming that these hearing difficulties are grounded in the central nervous system.

"When the brain processes sound, it's not like a volume knob where all of the acoustic ingredients are either processed well or poorly," Kraus explains. "With the FFR, we're able to see which aspects of auditory processing are affected or diminished and ask, 'Is there a specific neural signature that aligns itself with HIV?'"

That's why the researchers envision the FFR as a viable tool for further understanding not only the mechanisms of brain dysfunction associated with HIV, but also other disorders that affect the brain such as concussion, Alzheimer's disease, and the Zika virus infection.

"Typically, if you want to assess cognitive function, you're going to do things like have people do math problems, remember a list of words, work on some sort of puzzle or task, or do a drawing," says Buckey. "It requires people who are trained in doing this kind of testing, and the tests may be fairly specific to the language people speak and the culture they come from.

"What's significant about our results is that the test doesn't require any actions on the patient's part; it's recorded passively--subjects can even sleep or watch a movie," he says. "We think the FFR holds a lot of promise as a way to assess the brain easily and objectively."

EAST LANSING, Mich. - How do you feel about your neighborhood now that you've been confined during a pandemic? A Michigan State University researcher conducted a study to quantify what makes people happy with their neighborhoods and discovered that it has almost nothing to do with the neighborhood itself.

"It's all in our heads," said Zachary Neal, associate professor of psychology at MSU and author of the study. "Contrary to what many would think, characteristics of your neighborhood have little to do with how satisfied you are with it."

Published in the journal Urban Studies, Neal's research revisited findings from 27 earlier studies that spanned 11 countries in North America, Europe and Asia, and included a sample of more than 400,000 adults living in those neighborhoods. Each study estimated how much an individual's satisfaction with his or her neighborhood depended on the neighborhood itself.

"I was interested in what makes people satisfied with their neighborhoods and whether there's anything the residents or city planners could do to improve satisfaction," Neal said. "Previous research about what matters has been mixed, which made me wonder if this research is looking for something that doesn't exist and that maybe neighborhoods really don't have much to do with how satisfied people say they are."

By combining each study's estimate using meta-analysis, Neal computed a more precise estimate of the true impact of neighborhoods. He found that all the characteristics of a community neighborhood -- from curb appeal to its services, like snow plowing -- account for just about 16% of a person's satisfaction with the neighborhood.

"Each study included an ICC, or intraclass correlation coefficient, which indicates how similar satisfaction is among people in the same neighborhood," Neal said. "Across these studies, the ICC values were quite low, which means there is a lot of variation in satisfaction even among people in the same neighborhood. That tells us something besides the neighborhood itself is responsible for how much satisfaction each person reports having."

Neal explained that having a clear understanding of what makes people satisfied with their communities is critical for people whose jobs are connected with building and maintaining neighborhoods, such as local officials, developers and city planners. Additionally, enormous amounts of money go into neighborhood maintenance; but, if people aren't so concerned with neighborhood characteristics, then these efforts may not translate into increased satisfaction.

So, what does satisfaction depend on? Neal shared two likely prospects.

"One possible explanation is that a person's satisfaction may depend more on the person than on the neighborhood," Neal said. "Agreeable people are likely to be satisfied with their neighborhood, but there will always be others who think that the grass is greener elsewhere."

The second possible determinant relates to a resident's perception of the neighborhood as opposed to what it actually is.

"Perhaps neighborhood satisfaction, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder," Neal said. "We might expect residents to be more satisfied with their neighborhood if its schools are good. But, in practice, they will be more satisfied if they merely think its schools are good, even if the schools aren't actually that great."

With millions of people staying home during the COVID-19 pandemic, Neal said there's a chance they might see their communities through a different lens.

"It's still early to tell, but the longer we are confined to our own neighborhoods, the more perceptions of them might change," Neal said. "I'm collecting new data about neighborhood satisfaction in Michigan during the stay-at-home order and hope to collect these data again after the order is lifted so we can understand how things are changing."

Batten disease is a family of 13 rare, genetically distinct conditions. Collectively, they are the most prevalent cause of neurodegenerative disease in children, affecting 1 in 12,500 live births in the U.S. One of the Batten disease genes is CLN6. How mutations in this gene lead to the disease has been a mystery, but a study led by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine and published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation reveals how defective CLN6 can result in Batten disease.

"People with Batten disease have problems with their cells' ability to clear cellular waste, which then accumulates to toxic levels," said first author Dr. Lakshya Bajaj, who was working on this project while a doctorate student in the laboratory of Dr. Marco Sardiello at Baylor. Bajaj is currently a post-doctoral associate at Harvard Medical School.

In cells, lysosomes process cellular waste. They are sacs containing enzymes, a type of proteins that break down waste products into its constituent components that the cell can recycle or discard. In Batten disease caused by mutations in CLN6, the lysosomes do not process waste effectively for unknown reasons. This results in waste accumulation. Batten disease is a type of lysosomal storage disorder. Although all types of cells can be affected by defects in lysosomal waste management, brain cells, neurons, are particularly susceptible.

"Waste accumulation in neurons perturbs many cellular processes and eventually results in cell death. This leads to the progressive degeneration of motor, physical and intellectual abilities observed in Batten disease patients," Bajaj said.

CLN6: another piece of the Batten disease puzzle

The connection of CLN6 with Batten disease was a bit of a mystery. This protein is not found in lysosomes, but in the endoplasmic reticulum, a structure inside cells where proteins, including lysosomal enzymes, are made. The endoplasmic reticulum is separate from the lysosomes. So, how do defects in a protein located outside of the lysosomes interfere with lysosomal function?

The Sardiello lab had previously solved a similar mystery involving CLN8, another protein located in the endoplasmic reticulum and whose mutations also cause a type of Batten disease.

"We showed that CNL8 assists on the exit of lysosomal enzymes from the endoplasmic reticulum en route to the lysosomes. When CLN8 is defective, the transport of enzymes from their place of synthesis to the final destination is deficient and the lysosomes end up having fewer enzymes to work with," said Sardiello, associate professor of molecular and human genetics at Baylor and corresponding author of this work.

CLN6 and CLN8 work together

The clinical manifestations of Batten disease caused by CLN8 mutations and those of Batten disease due to defective CLN6 are remarkably similar. This and other evidence led the researchers to suspect that CLN6 and CLN8 might be working together.

Their investigations revealed that CLN6 and CLN8 do interact with each other forming a molecular complex that collects lysosomal enzymes at the endoplasmic reticulum and mediates their trafficking towards the lysosomes.

"We propose that CLN8 and CLN6 together herd the enzymes into a hub, a sort of 'bus stop.' Then, CLN8 escorts the enzymes on the bus en route to the lysosomes, while CLN6 remains at the bus stop. CLN8 returns to the bus stop after delivering the enzymes, and they repeat the process," Bajaj said. "When CLN6 is defective, the enzymes are not effectively herded into the bus stop and fewer are transported to the lysosomes."

The researchers are interested in finding whether other factors are involved in transporting enzymes to the lysosomes. For instance, whether there are other 'bus conductors or herders' of lysosomal enzymes involved that, if defective, may also contribute to Batten disease.

DALLAS, June 29, 2020 -- Young children with narrow retinal artery diameters were more likely to develop higher blood pressure, and children with higher blood pressure levels were more likely to develop retinal microvascular impairment during early childhood, according to a new study published today in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal. This is the first study to show this connection in children.

High blood pressure, the main risk factor for the development of cardiovascular disease (CVD), can manifest as early as childhood, and the prevalence of high blood pressure among children continues to rise. In previous studies, analysis of blood vessels in the retina has shown promise as a predictor of CVD risk among adults. In the study titled, "Retinal Vessel Diameters and Blood Pressure Progression in Children," researchers sought to predict the development of high blood pressure in children over four years based on retinal blood vessel measurements.

"Hypertension continues as the main risk factor for the development of cardiovascular diseases and mortality," says Henner Hanssen, M.D., the study's lead author and a professor in the department of sport, exercise and health at the University of Basel in Switzerland. "Primary prevention strategies are needed to focus on screening retinal microvascular health and blood pressure in young children in order to identify those at increased risk of developing hypertension. The earlier we can provide treatment and implement lifestyle changes to reduce hypertension, the greater the benefit for these children."

Researchers screened 262 children ages six to eight from 26 schools in Basel, Switzerland, in 2014, for baseline blood pressure and retinal arterial measurements. Both measures were taken again in 2018. Blood pressure measurements at both baseline and follow-up were performed in a sitting position after a minimum of five minutes of rest and were categorized based on the American Academy of Pediatrics' blood pressure guidelines. These guidelines utilize the same measurements as the American Heart Association/American College of Cardiology 2017 Guideline for the Prevention, Detection, Evaluation, and Management of High Blood Pressure in Adults.

Results from the analysis indicate:

children with narrower retinal vessel diameters at baseline developed higher systolic blood pressure at follow-up;

retinal vessel diameters could explain 29 -31% of the changes in systolic blood pressure progression between 2014 and 2018;

children with higher blood pressure levels at baseline developed significantly narrower arteriolar diameters at follow-up, depending on weight and cardiorespiratory fitness; and

initial blood pressure measures explained 66-69% of the change in retinal arteriolar diameter from baseline to follow-up.

"Early childhood assessments of retinal microvascular health and blood pressure monitoring can improve cardiovascular risk classification. Timely primary prevention strategies for children at risk of developing hypertension could potentially counteract its growing burden among both children and adults," said Hanssen.

Researchers noted limitations of their study include that they could not confirm blood pressure measurements over a single 24-hour period, so they would not account for "white coat" hypertension, a condition where patients have high blood pressure readings when measured in a medical setting. Developmental stage including puberty status of each child was not accounted for in the study, as well as genetic factors or birth weight - variables that could impact blood pressure development and microvascular health. In addition, reference values for appropriate retinal vessel diameters in children do not currently exist, so future studies are needed to determine age-related normal values during childhood.

CHAPEL HILL, NC - The findings of a nationwide survey assessing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the emotional wellbeing of the U.S. adult population have been released online. The survey was a collaboration between UNC School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School, and was quickly organized to gain an understanding of how individuals are responding to the stressors of isolation and quarantine, record unemployment levels, and the virus' threat to their health.

"We were very careful to balance the demographics and geographic distribution of survey respondents so that it is an accurate representation of the U.S., and essentially a snapshot of the population," said principal investigator Olafur Palsson, PsyD, professor of medicine in the division of gastroenterology and hepatology in the UNC School of Medicine.

The study consisted of a nationwide internet survey of 1,500 people conducted during the second half of May, when the pandemic was just beyond its peak in the nation. It is worth noting that the survey ended on May 30, five days after George Floyd was killed by a police officer in Minnesota. Nearly 90 percent of survey responses were collected before the movement across the U.S. to increase recognition of systemic racism.

"We saw that levels of concern or worry differed among different demographics including age and race," Palsson said. "Women and men tended to experience similar degrees of emotional impact associated with the pandemic on average, but younger people were more affected by it than older individuals, and the Hispanic population seemed to be the most impacted emotionally when comparing ethnic groups."

The study assessed a broad range of specific emotional effects related to the pandemic, and found that there were stressors that seemed to affect a majority of the population. Nearly 80 percent of respondents were frustrated on some level with not being able to do what they normally enjoy doing. Around the same number were worried about their own health, and nearly 90 percent of those surveyed were more worried about the health of loved ones than before the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Most people have family or friends with chronic illness or health conditions that would make them more vulnerable to the virus, so worry about loved ones seems to be a shared feeling no matter who you are," Palsson said.

The emotional and mental impact of the pandemic could have long-term implications on well-being. Palsson and co-authors Sarah Ballou, PhD, instructor in medicine at Harvard Medical School and director of gastrointestinal psychology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, and Sarah Gray, PsyD, instructor in psychology at Harvard Medical School and practicing psychologist at Massachusetts General Hospital, wanted to get the results of the study out as quickly as possible to aid in addressing what could be a growing mental health crisis.

"Understanding the psychological side of this pandemic has been somewhat neglected because there is so much else that is of concern right now," Palsson said. "Our survey findings indicate that the anxiety and depression related to the emotional impact of these events are pushing more and more people into the clinical category of what is diagnosable as a mental health condition. We want people to seek the help they need."

Humans and monkeys may not speak the same lingo, but our ways of thinking are a lot more similar than previously thought, according to new research from UC Berkeley, Harvard University and Carnegie Mellon University.

In experiments on 100 study participants across age groups, cultures and species, researchers found that indigenous Tsimane' people in Bolivia's Amazon rainforest, American adults and preschoolers and macaque monkeys all show, to varying degrees, a knack for "recursion," a cognitive process of arranging words, phrases or symbols in a way that helps convey complex commands, sentiments and ideas.

The findings, published today (Friday, June 26) in the journal Science Advances, shed new light on our understanding of the evolution of language, researchers said.

"For the first time, we have strong empirical evidence about patterns of thinking that come naturally to probably all humans and, to a lesser extent, non-human primates," said study co-author Steven Piantadosi, a UC Berkeley assistant professor of psychology.

Indeed, the monkeys were found to perform far better in the tests than the researchers had predicted.

"Our data suggest that, with sufficient training, monkeys can learn to represent a recursive process, meaning that this ability may not be as unique to humans as is commonly thought," said Sam Cheyette, a Ph.D. student in Piantadosi's lab and co-author of the study.

Known in linguistics as "nested structures," recursive phrases within phrases are crucial to syntax and semantics in human language. A simple example is a British nursery rhyme that talks about "the dog that worried the cat that killed the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built."

Researchers tested the recursive skills of 10 U.S. adults, 50 preschoolers and kindergarteners, 37 members of the Tsimane' and three male macaque monkeys.

First, all participants were trained to memorize different sequences of symbols in a particular order. Specifically, they learned sequences such as { ( ) } or { [ ] }, which are analogous to some linguistic nested structures.

Participants from the U.S. and monkeys used a large touchscreen monitor to memorize the sequences. They heard a ding if they got a symbol in the right place, a buzzer if they got it wrong and a chime if the whole sequence was correct. The monkeys received snacks or juice as positive feedback.

Meanwhile, the Tsimane' participants, who are less accustomed to interacting with computers, were tested with paper index cards and given verbal feedback.

Next, all participants were asked to place, in the right order, four images from different groupings shown in random order on the screen.

To varying degrees, the participants all arranged their new lists in recursive structures, which is remarkable given that "Tsimane' adults, preschool children and monkeys, who lack formal mathematics and reading training, had never been exposed to such stimuli before testing," the study noted.

"These results are convergent with recent findings that monkeys can learn other kinds of structures found in human grammar," Piantadosi said.

NIMS and AIST have developed a small sensor capable of continuously monitoring the plant hormone ethylene. Ethylene gas promotes ripening in fruits and vegetables, but excessive exposure promotes them to rot. The new small sensor can be used to monitor fruits and vegetables by continuously detecting ethylene gas, ensuring the freshness during transportation and storage, and helping reduce food waste.

Ethylene is a gaseous molecule released by fruits and vegetables as a ripening-promoting phytohormone. Fresh produce can be artificially ripened in postharvest storage by introducing ethylene into a storage facility. Continuous monitoring of ethylene concentrations in these facilities may allow the ripening progression of stored produce to be estimated more accurately, enabling optimal transportation and storage schedule. This potential benefit has led to high demand for the development of small, inexpensive ethylene sensors from the agricultural and food industries. Small sensors capable of detecting ethylene are commercially available, but many of them operate only at high temperatures (200~300 ℃). Besides, the commercially available sensors using semiconductors as sensing materials can detect other gaseous molecules (e.g., alcohol and methane) at the same time due to its highly active surface. These existing sensors therefore lack selective sensitivity to ethylene.

In this research project, we developed a small, highly sensitive sensor capable of detecting ethylene with great selectivity. This sensor consists of three components: a highly active catalyst that selectively converts ethylene into acetaldehyde, a reagent that reacts with acetaldehyde to release acidic gas and an SWCNT (single-walled carbon nanotube) electrode which is very sensitive to acidic gas (figure). This highly active catalyst can repeatedly convert ethylene into acetaldehyde as analyte-air passes through it. In addition, the catalyst can operate at near room temperature (40 ℃), making the small sensor energy efficient. The acidic gas produced by the reaction between acetaldehyde and the reagent strongly withdraws electrons from the SWCNT semiconductor, changing the semiconductor's electrical resistance. These characteristics and mechanisms enable the sensor to selectively and sensitively detect ethylene even at an extremely low concentration (0.1 ppm) by monitoring changes in electrical resistance. This sensor is expected to be effective in monitoring ethylene concentrations for many types of fresh produce in storage. For example, the ethylene concentrations that promote ripening in bananas and kiwifruit are approximately 500 ppm and 10 ppm, respectively: well within the sensor's useful sensitivity range.

This small, energy-efficient, low-cost ethylene sensor is designed to be compatible with big data integration and networking systems, and may therefore serve as a vital tool in putting Japan's super-smart society vision (the Society 5.0 initiative) into practice in the agricultural and food industries. This research group is designing different types of highly active catalysts to develop small sensors that can detect gaseous molecules other than ethylene.

The unique remains of a prehistoric, giant wombat-like marsupial - Mukupirna nambensis - that was unearthed in central Australia are so different from all other previously known extinct animals that it has been placed in a whole new family of marsupials.

Mukupirna - meaning "big bones" in the Dieri and Malyangapa Aboriginal languages - is described in a paper published today in Scientific Reports by an international team of palaeontologists including researchers from the UNSW Sydney, Salford University in the UK, Griffith University in Brisbane, the Natural History Museum in London, and the American Museum of Natural History in New York. The researchers reveal that the partial skull and most of the skeleton discovered originally in 1973 belonged to an animal more than four times the size of any living wombats today and may have weighed about 150kg.

An analysis of Mukupirna's evolutionary relationships reveals that although it was most closely related to wombats, it is so different from all known wombats as well as other marsupials, that it had to be placed in its own unique family, Mukupirnidae.

LUCKY BREAK

UNSW Science's Professor Mike Archer, a co-author on the paper, was part of the original international team of palaeontologists along with Professor Dick Tedford, another co-author, that found the skeleton in 1973 in the clay floor of Lake Pinpa - a remote, dry salt lake east of the Flinders Ranges in South Australia. He says their discovery of Mukupirna was in part due to good luck after an unusual change in local conditions exposed the 25 million-year-old fossil deposit on the floor of the dry salt lake.

"It was an extremely serendipitous discovery because in most years the surface of this dry lake is covered by sands blown or washed in from the surrounding hills," he says.

"But because of rare environmental conditions prior to our arrival that year, the fossil-rich clay deposits were fully exposed to view. And this unexpected view was breathtaking.

"On the surface, and just below we found skulls, teeth, bones and in some cases, articulated skeletons of many new and exotic kinds of mammals. As well, there were the teeth of extinct lungfish, skeletons of bony fish and the bones of many kinds of water birds including flamingos and ducks.

"These animals ranged from tiny carnivorous marsupials about the size of a mouse right up to Mukupirna which was similar in size to a living black bear. It was an amazingly rich fossil deposit full of extinct animals that we'd never seen before."

GENTLE GIANT

Professor Archer says when Mukupirna's skeleton was first discovered just below the surface, nobody had any idea what kind of animal it was because it was solidly encased in clay.

"We found it by probing the dry flat surface of the Lake with a thin metal pole, like acupuncturing the skin of Mother Earth. We only excavated downwards into the clay if the pole contacted something hard below the surface - and in this case it turned out to be the articulated skeleton of a most mysterious new creature."

The researchers' recent study of the partial skull and skeleton reveals that despite its bear-like size, Mukupirna was probably a gentle giant. Its teeth indicate that it subsisted only on plants, while its powerful limbs suggest it was probably a strong digger. However, a close examination of its features revealed the creature was more likely suited to scratch-digging, and unlikely to have been a true burrower like modern wombats, the authors say.

Lead author on the paper Dr Robin Beck from the University of Salford says Mukupirna is one of the best-preserved marsupials to have emerged from late Oligocene Australia (about 25 million years ago).

"Mukupirna clearly was an impressive, powerful beast, at least three times larger than modern wombats," he says. "It probably lived in an open forest environment without grasses, and developed teeth that would have allowed it to feed on sedges, roots, and tubers that it could have dug up with its powerful front legs."

SERIOUSLY STRANGE

Griffith University's Associate Professor Julien Louys, who co-authored the study, said "the description of this new family adds a huge new piece to the puzzle about the diversity of ancient, and often seriously strange marsupials that preceded those that rule the continent today".

The scientists examined how body size has evolved in vombatiform marsupials - the taxonomic group that includes Mukupirna, wombats, koalas and their fossil relatives - and showed that body weights of 100 kg or more evolved at least six times over the last 25 million years. The largest known vombatiform marsupial was the relatively recent Diprotodon, which weighed over 2 tonnes and survived until at least 50,000 years ago.

"Koalas and wombats are amazing animals" says Dr Beck, "but animals like Mukupirna show that their extinct relatives were even more extraordinary, and many of them were giants."

The original party that discovered Mukupirna in 1973 was an international exploration team led by Professor Dick Tedford from the American Museum of Natural History along with palaeontologists from the South Australian Museum (Neville Pledge), Queensland Museum (where Professor Archer was Curator of Fossil & Modern Mammals at the time), Flinders University (Professor Rod Wells) and the Australian Geological Survey Organisation (Mike Plane and Richard Brown).

Students can hide their ignorance and answer questions correctly in an exam without their lack of knowledge being detected by teachers - but only in the quantum world.

University of Queensland researchers have successfully verified a counterintuitive idea from quantum theory - that ignorance of the whole does not necessarily imply ignorance of the parts - in the lab.

UQ physicist Dr Jacqui Romero from the ARC Centre of Excellence for Engineered Quantum Systems (EQUS) said the team's findings would be important when evaluating security in quantum encryption.

"What's also really nice is that we provide an accessible, real-world interpretation of a statement that comes from pure probability theory," Dr Romero said.

According to classical intuition, ignorance can be traced to a source - if a student's knowledge of a book is incomplete, a teacher can design a test to probe which parts of the book are unknown to the student.

UQ PhD candidate and EQUS experimental physicist Michael Kewming said that this wasn't always the case in the quantum world.

"Our results confirm that the student's source of ignorance can be concealed from the teacher using quantum systems," Mr Kewming said.

"When we communicate, we use special symbols called letters that form an alphabet.

"In our study, we do the same thing but we use light to create a quantum alphabet."

According to Mr Kewming quantum alphabets have strange properties.

"Let's say the student is sitting an exam that covers two topics, and although they haven't studied they've been given a single hint by a knowledgeable friend," he said.

"In the classical situation, this hint can only be so helpful - providing information about only one topic - and the teacher can still uncover which topic the student is ignorant of.

"But a hint written using our quantum alphabet could simultaneously contain information about both topics, despite appearing to be about only one.

"As a result, the teacher cannot determine the source of the student's ignorance because the hint is always useful to the student."

The UQ research team was able to verify this in a physical experiment by writing information in the shape of single photons - the particles that make up light.

"Our result has implications for the security of quantum-based encryption because we have shown that what is true for classical hints is not true for quantum hints," Dr Romero said.

Unfortunately for students preparing for exams, quantum hints won't be available outside the lab anytime soon.

The results are published in Physical Review Letters.

Clinician scientists at RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences have begun a clinical trial of a promising therapy for critically ill COVID-19 patients in intensive care.

In a paper published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, the team, led by RCSI Professors Gerry McElvaney and Ger Curley, describe changes in the body's normal inflammatory response in patients infected with COVID-19, in particular among those who require admission to intensive care.

The team has begun a randomised double blind placebo controlled clinical trial of alpha-1-antitrypsin to treat critically ill patients mechanically ventilated in ICU with COVID-19 associated Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome. Alpha-1-antitrypsin is a naturally occurring human protein produced by the liver and released into the bloodstream which normally acts to protect the lungs from the destructive actions of common illnesses.

RCSI Professor of Medicine Prof. Gerry McElvaney said: "As of late June, more than 9.5 million laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 have been documented globally, with over 490,000 deaths. These numbers continue to grow substantially. In Beaumont Hospital, we have had over 500 patients admitted to the hospital, and nearly 50 patients requiring admission to intensive care.

"The current management of severe COVID-19 remains supportive, focusing on supplemental oxygen and ventilator support in the event of acute respiratory failure. Despite the implications for global health, the inflammatory characteristics of patients with COVID-19 are not yet fully understood. A greater understanding of how the body's inflammatory mechanisms are impacted upon by COVID-19 could open the door to several potential therapies including antiviral medications and targeted immune-modulators such as alpha-1-antitrypsin."

Prof. Ger Curley, RCSI Professor of Anaesthesia and Critical Care and Consultant in Anaesthesia and Intensive Care in Beaumont Hospital explained that "we know from in-hospital studies that many COVID-19 patients in ICU develop severe inflammation throughout the body with a disproportionately high rate of progression to acute respiratory distress syndrome, acute renal failure, shock and heart arrhythmia."

In a collaboration between the Departments of Medicine and Critical Care and Anaesthesia, a team of clinician scientists led by Prof. McElvaney and Prof. Curley sought to ascertain the type of inflammation affecting the COVID-19 patient in ICU, and to determine whether there was a relationship between this type of inflammation and the need for intubation and mechanical ventilation.

The study showed that a number of highly inflamed proteins were all increased in infected patients compared to healthy controls. There was also a difference in the profiles of patients in ICU and those who were infected but stable.

Prof. Curley explained, however, that the most unanticipated differentiating factor between patients with stable and severe disease was not the degree of increase in inflammatory proteins, but rather the relative decrease in levels of an anti-inflammatory protein which indicates that the patients' anti-inflammatory mechanisms were failing.

"This finding suggests to us that a therapy which augments the body's own inflammation resolving mechanisms might have a positive impact. Alpha-1 protects the airway from damage during acute pulmonary infection. It is also a potent anti-inflammatory and acts to protect the immune system. Of particular relevance to COVID-19, it has been shown to modulate the production and activity of several key pro-inflammatory proteins", explained Prof. Curley.

"We are confident that this clinical trial will demonstrate the potential for Alpha-1 to improve the outcomes for patients with the most severe COVID-19 induced respiratory difficulties."

This is the first Investigational Medicine Product trial to be approved in Ireland to test a therapy to treat COVID19. The trial is being sponsored by RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences and is coordinated by the RCSI Clinical Research Centre. Beaumont Hospital is the first site to recruit patients and other sites in Ireland will also participate. This investigator initiated study benefited from generous support from Grifols, a Barcelona-based multinational healthcare company and a leading global producer of plasma-derived medicines, which provided access to the alpha1-proteinase inhibitor study drug.

Ranked number one globally for Good Health and Well-being in the Times Higher Education (THE) University Impact Rankings 2020, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences is an international not-for-profit university, with its headquarters in Dublin.

RCSI is exclusively focused on education and research to drive improvements in human health worldwide. It is among the top 250 universities worldwide in the THE World University Rankings (2020) and its research is ranked first in Ireland for citations. RCSI has been awarded Athena Swan Bronze accreditation for positive gender practice in higher education.

Research from the University of Kent has found that people who adopt a collectivist mindset are more likely to comply with social distancing and hygiene practices to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.

People who are more individualist are less likely to engage, partly due to beliefs in COVID-19 conspiracy theories, and feelings of powerlessness surrounding the pandemic.

This study suggests the need for the UK Government and other world leaders to consider promoting collectivism amongst the general public, and to combat the spread of conspiracy theories and other types of misinformation. Doing so may increase levels of engagement in practices to help reduce the spread of COVID-19.

The research was led by Mikey Biddlestone alongside Ricky Green and Professor Karen Douglas at the University of Kent's School of Psychology. A total of 724 participants completed an online questionnaire addressing their actions relating to social distancing and hygiene measures, their individualist-collectivist mindset, feelings of powerlessness surrounding the pandemic, and their beliefs in COVID-19 conspiracy theories such as the idea that COVID-19 was made in a Chinese laboratory.

Mikey Biddlestone said: 'Interventions that focus on collective empowerment and champion a 'we are in this together' mentality could encourage people to comply with guidelines that will reduce the spread of COVID-19. Promoting collectivism could make a positive difference to future public health crises too, as leaders look to improve response strategies. A collectivist mindset might also make people less susceptible to conspiracy theories and misinformation that can negatively affect their behaviour.'

It is well-known that victims of bullying can have higher risks of future health and social problems. However, different victims experience a broad range of responses and some may not suffer at all. Researchers felt this implied there might be factors that could protect against some consequences of bullying. In a study of over 6,000 adolescents in Japan, they found a strong candidate in the moderation of what is known as emotional competence.

Online bullying, or cyberbullying, is not a new phenomenon, but as the world becomes more dependent on online communication, it does become a greater threat. Lead author Yuhei Urano, Associate Professor Ryu Takizawa and Professor Haruhiko Shimoyama from the Department of Clinical Psychology at the University of Tokyo and their team investigated protective factors for the adverse effects of cyberbullying victimization. They analyzed data from 6,403 adolescents aged 12 to 18 (1,925 male, 4,478 female) for their study.

"We chose users of a social networking app as participants of the study, because they were likely to experience more online interactions than others," said Urano. "The surveys explored instances of cyberbullying victimization and a cross section of other personal and social information. These allowed us to investigate whether the ability to handle emotions, called emotional competence, correlated with the severity of the repercussions of cyberbullying."

What the researchers found may at first seem counterintuitive, but after careful analysis, their results showed that higher emotional skills were not always associated with better mental health; they may actually make things worse depending on the social context. It depends on the individual's specific emotional competence, defined as the ability to identify, understand, express, regulate and use emotions. There is intrapersonal emotional competence, the ability to handle one's own emotions, and interpersonal emotional competence, the ability to handle others' emotions.

"We thought that intrapersonal emotional competence showed buffering effects against cyberbullying, because the ability to handle one's own emotions is known to have a positive impact on our mental health," said Urano. "On the other hand, we thought interpersonal emotional competence showed the opposite effect. Because the ability to understand emotional states in others may encourage individuals to dwell on the bully's intentions."

The researchers hope this study could pave the way to investigations about the different roles of intrapersonal and interpersonal emotional competence, both the positive and negative effects they may have. However, given the inherent complexity of the topic in question, they suggest that in order to correctly determine the causal relationships behind their results, more longitudinal studies should be conducted in the future.

The research team of Assistant Professor Masahiko Sato and Professor Yasushi Todo of the National Institutes of Natural Sciences (NINS) National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS) has succeeded using computer simulation in reproducing the high-pressure plasma confinement observed in the Large Helical Device (LHD). This result has enabled highly accurate predictions of plasma behavior aimed at realizing an economical helical fusion reactor.

In order to realize fusion energy, we must confine high pressure plasma using the magnetic field for a long duration. Although higher pressure plasma can be confined by a stronger magnetic field, it costs more to generate a stronger magnetic field using electromagnetic coils. Therefore, if the magnetic field strength is the same, a device that can confine higher pressure plasma is economically desirable. Because the LHD has succeeded in maintaining high-pressure plasma, there is great expectation in realizing a helical fusion reactor.

Design research for a future fusion reactor is performed based on computer simulations predicting the behavior of magnetically confined plasma. We require highly accurate simulations. To confirm the accuracy, the simulations are required to reproduce the experimental results obtained by the existing devices. However, the simulations had not reproduced the experimental results obtained by the LHD showing that high-pressure plasma is maintained. This has been a serious problem for the design research for an economical helical fusion reactor.

Simulations of high-pressure plasma in the LHD had been performed using a model in which the plasma is treated as a fluid. In this fluid model, the motion averaged over many ions consisting the plasma is calculated, and the difference among many ions with various velocities are neglected. At NIFS, a program that calculates individual motions of many ions was developed to improve the simulation accuracy. This program, which is called "the hybrid simulation program," has been used to study energetic ions that will play an important role in sustaining high-temperature plasma in a future fusion reactor.

Assistant Professor Masahiko Sato and Professor Yasushi Todo attempted to reproduce high-pressure plasma confinement in the LHD by using the hybrid simulation program. They focused on the ions moving back-and-forth, which are called "trapped ions" (Image 1) and whose motion is a characteristic of the LHD. To investigate the effect of the trapped ions, the researchers studied the long-time evolution of plasma pressure and tens of millions of ions including millions of trapped ions. Although such a simulation requires enormous amounts of calculations, the researchers, by making full use of "Plasma Simulator" (the supercomputer owned by NIFS), has succeeded in reproducing the LHD experimental result showing that high-pressure plasma is maintained (Image 2). From the detailed analysis of the simulation data, it has been found that the trapped ions greatly contribute to the stable confinement of high-pressure plasma by suppressing the fluctuations that can cause the reduction of plasma pressure.

Thus, the research team has significantly improved the prediction accuracy of high-pressure plasma in a future helical fusion reactor. It is expected that the design research aimed at an economical helical reactor will be accelerated based on this study.

This research result was published as Sato and Todo "Ion kinetic effects on linear pressure driven MHD instabilities in helical plasmas" in Journal of Plasma Physics in June 2020.