Culture

COLUMBUS, Ohio - When researchers asked prospective study participants who they would like to see in videos promoting healthy lifestyle behaviors, the answer was unequivocal: They wanted to see themselves - that is, other mothers living in low-income households who were overweight or obese.

The researchers obliged. And the intervention they designed produced the desired results when it came to improving participants' diet. As a group, the women in the study who watched the videos and talked to their peers over 16 weeks were more likely to have reduced their fat consumption than women in a comparison group who were given print materials about lifestyle change.

The participants were women who face stubborn health challenges - highly stressed overweight low-income mothers of young children who, for example, tend to retain 10 or more pounds of pregnancy weight after childbirth and are likely to eat high-fat foods. They are at risk for life-long obesity and potential problems for themselves and new babies if they become pregnant again.

"I asked them during focus groups who should be in the videos, and they said, 'We want to see us. And our children. Do not lie to us and hire professionals, because we'll be able to tell,'" said Mei-Wei Chang, lead author of the study and associate professor of nursing at The Ohio State University.

"They said, 'We want to see them before the change and the struggles they had, and what happened after that.'"

Chang and colleagues identified two factors that led to the intervention's success: The study was designed to appeal to the participants' personal values and instill in these mothers enough confidence to take on the challenge of living a healthier life.

"My experience with this population is that they really want to make a change. Some might perceive that they don't want to. But they do - they just don't know how to," Chang said.

The research is published online in the journal Appetite and will appear in the August print issue.

The two psychosocial factors Chang and colleagues examined in this study are known as autonomous motivation (what's important in a person's life) and self-efficacy (a person's confidence in her ability to carry out a behavior or task). Previous research has shown that poverty can lead to low self-efficacy.

Autonomous motivation differs by population. In this study, the participants told researchers in focus groups before the intervention began that they wanted to be role models for their children. They hoped to be less stressed and happier, and to maintain good family relationships.

Chang recruited participants from the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which serves low-income pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding women and children up to age 5. Those eligible for the program must have an annual household income no higher than 185 percent of the federal poverty line.

The mothers were between the ages of 18 and 39 and their body mass index ranged from 25.0 to 39.9 - from the lowest indicator of being overweight to just below the extreme obesity range. The intervention was aimed at preventing weight gain by promoting stress management, healthy eating and physical activity. This study analyzed only the diet-related results.

During the trial, the 212 participants randomized into the intervention group watched a total of 10 videos in which women like them gave testimonials about healthy eating and food preparation, managing their stress and being physically active.

In the videos, the women wore casual clothes and told their stories, unscripted. They demonstrated meal prep with familiar foods and showed that simple, practical steps - like reading food labels - could gradually lead to a healthier lifestyle.

"They talked about a lot of things I didn't know," said Chang, who has worked with women enrolled in WIC for about 20 years. "They spoke their mind about what was important - like how they mentally dealt with changing behavior but not losing weight. And about being afraid to fail."

The participants also dialed in to 10 peer support group teleconferences over the course of the study.

In phone interviews, the researchers asked the mothers about what they were eating, their confidence in sticking to a low-fat diet and why they wanted to eat more healthfully.

Based on those surveys, the researchers determined that, compared to the group reading print materials, the mothers who watched videos and spoke with their peers reported larger increases in autonomous motivation and self-efficacy and a more significant decrease in fat intake after the 16-week intervention.

"Essentially, they said, 'If she could do it, I could do it.' That's why we used peers to develop the intervention," Chang said.

The researchers are still analyzing data related to physical activity results, and have found that the intervention's emphasis on coping self-efficacy helped reduce participants' stress. The videos are now part of WIC's continuing education series for mothers.

Childhood environment and socioeconomic status affect cognitive ability and brain development during adolescence independently of genetic factors, researchers at Karolinska Institutet report in a new study published in the journal PNAS. The study demonstrates how important the family environment is, not just during early infancy but also throughout adolescence.

While the way in which genes and environment affect the brain and cognitive faculties is a hotly debated topic, previous studies have not taken genes into account when describing environmental effects. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet in Sweden have therefore studied both environmental factors and a new genetic measure - an index value based on an aggregation of the 5,000 or so DNA locations that are most strongly associated with educational attainment.

The study involved 551 adolescents from different socioeconomic environments around Europe. At the age of 14, the participants gave DNA samples, performed cognitive tests and had their brain imaged in a MR scanner, a process that was repeated five years later.

At the age of 14, genes and environment were independently associated with cognitive ability (measured using working memory tests) and brain structure. The environmental effects were, however, 50 to 100 per cent stronger than the genetic. Differences in socioeconomic status were related to differences in the total surface area of the neocortex.

"The previous debate was whether there is a special area that is affected by the environment, such as long-term memory or language," says Nicholas Judd, doctoral student at the Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet and co-first author of the study along with his departmental colleague Bruno Sauce. "However, we've been able to show that the effect occurs across the neocortex and so probably affects a whole host of functions."

Genetic differences were also linked to brain structure, affecting not only the brain's total area but also specifically an area of the right parietal lobe known to be important for mathematical skills, reasoning and working memory. This is the first time a brain area has been identified that is linked to this genetic index.

When the researchers followed up on the teenagers five years later, they were able to examine how genes and environment had affected the brain's development during adolescence. What they discovered was that while the genes did not explain any of the cerebral changes, the environment did. However, it is unknown which aspect of the environment is responsible for this.

"There are a number of possible explanations, such as chronic stress, diet or intellectual stimulation, but the study shows just how important the environment is, not only during early childhood," says principal investigator Torkel Klingberg, professor of Cognitive Neuroscience at the Department of Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet. "Finding the most important environmental factors for optimising childhood and adolescent development is a matter for future research."

A research team from the Pablo de Olavide University of Seville, led by Pim Edelaar, from the institution's Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemical Engineering, has carried out an experimental study that shows that grasshoppers are perfectly aware of their own colouration when choosing the place that provides them with better camouflage. The research findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, show how organisms are able to adjust their environment, each according to their individual needs.

"It is often said that to survive and reproduce, organisms have to adapt to their environments. However, it is also possible that the organism 'adapts' the environment to itself. As an example we could take ourselves: if it is cold, we turn on the heating ", explains Pim Edelaar, who underlines how the study shows that other organisms also have this ability to adjust their environment.

The study 'Experimental evidence that matching habitat choice drives local adaptation in a wild population' focuses on grasshoppers, known for their high degree of camouflage via colours and shapes that can make them almost impossible to detect. "One explanation for the observed camouflage could be natural selection, by which the worst camouflaged individuals would be detected and eaten by predators. In this case, the environment would determine which individuals survive and which do not (that is, natural selection operates). In contrast, what this study shows is that the individual can play a determining role in avoiding the operation of natural selection, that is, there is an adjustment in which the individual is the protagonist", argues the researcher.

"We have studied a population of grasshoppers that is adapting to living on abandoned paved streets of very different colours. We have been able to verify that the grasshoppers are aware of their own colour, because they choose the type of substrate most similar to themselves, thus camouflaging themselves better, "explains Carlos Camacho, first author of the publication.

To verify this thesis, the researchers changed the colour of the grasshoppers with watercolour paint (something that does not affect them more than in their colour), and then observed that they modified their use of substrate: individuals painted in dark colour moved onto the dark asphalt, and individuals painted in pale colour moved onto the pale-tiled sidewalks. "Probably the grasshopper is able to compare the colour of its body with that of the substrate, and subsequently chooses the substrate that contrasts the least," says Adrián Baños, another member of the research team.

It is the first time that it has been demonstrated in such detail that variation between individuals affects their choice of environment. "It is logical that this happens, but it is not easy to prove it," recalls Alberto Sanabria, whose Master's thesis was the basis of the article. "When I was following the grasshoppers at 40ºC in the Seville summer, I didn't know what we were going to find, but it certainly was worth the effort and the sweat, literally," he adds.

The researchers point out that the variation between individuals is still often ignored in Biology, but that studies like this demonstrate its relevance. "It is very easy to ignore the differences between individuals and think about the average, but it is the same as in our society: no one is equal to another and the variation between individuals should not be overlooked", says Pim Edelaar. "For example, if a diverse environment becomes a homogeneous environment - for example, due to poor management - a large part of the population would not be comfortable, and could even disappear", he stresses.

The seeds of jojoba are one of the world's only known sustainable sources of liquid wax esters and have been used as an eco-friendly replacement for the similar oils that were once harvested from the spermaceti organ of the sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus), which nearly drove this species to extinction. "Jojoba is the only plant to store wax in its seeds. Such a vegetable oil has heretofore been unavailable", further explains Dr. Eberhard Munz (research group AAN). The liquid wax is usually referred to as jojoba oil. Jojoba oil possesses several advantages over sperm whale oil and and is widely used in pharmacy, cosmetics and hair care products. We (humans) have microscopic glands in our skin that secrets sebum (waxy matter). Jojoba oil is believed to play the role of sebum. As we age, the glands produce less and less sebum, which results in dry skin and hair. "Native americans used jojoba wax to lubricate skin, whereas european relied on sperm whale products. Since whaling is banned in most countries, the sale and use of whale oil has practically ceased", says Dr. Ljudmilla Borisjuk.

While there have been considerable efforts to engineer a transgenic crops with wax ester in the seeds of canola (Brassica sp.), camelina (Camelina sativa), crambe (Crambe abyssinica), and Lepidum (Lepidum campestre), the expression of desired jojoba sequences has resulted in only modest elevation of waxes in oilseeds. Seed germination rates of engineered lines with higher wax esters markedly decreased. "As jojoba seeds can accumulate up to 60 percent seed oil with more than 95 percent wax esters with no observable germination effects, there is likely much to be learned about how jojoba seeds synthesize, package, and mobilize waxes", says Dr. Borisjuk.

International team of scientists (USA, Germany and China) joined their technological forces to extensively investigate transcriptome, proteome, and lipidome of Jojoba seeds and report the high-quality, 887-Mb genome of jojoba assembled into 26 chromosomes with 23,490 protein-coding genes in the March edition of the journal Science Advances. Scientists from Heinrich Heine University (Düsseldorf), University of Göttingen and Leibniz-Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research (IPK, Gatersleben) take a part in this exploration.

Study of oil distribution inside of intact mature seed was performed using Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Imaging technology. "I am appreciate, that MRI investigations were representing the IPK in this large cooperation. Reason for that was our original technology for lipid visualisation", says Dr. Ljudmilla Borisjuk.

The genomic resources coupled with multi-omics and imaging studies, display missing evolutionary history information for this taxonomically segregated dioecious plant species and will support efforts to improve the agronomic properties of jojoba.

Due to establishment of the new technological NMR-imaging platform at IPK, structural and lipid imaging with close to cellular resolution is now available for wide range of international collaborations. "Now we are aiming to provide more insight into germination of the grain, because manipulation of wax content/composition affects germination of transgenics."

Fewer people than previously reported suffer from stroke as a result of COVID-19, a new analysis finds. However, strokes that accompany the pandemic virus, SARS-CoV-2, appear to be more severe.

In the NYU Grossman School of Medicine-led study, researchers found that fewer than 1 percent of hospitalized patients who tested positive during one month for the virus also suffered from a stroke. This contrasts with the rates reported recently in small studies in China and Italy, which ranged from 2 - 5 percent.

However, the current investigation also revealed that people with both conditions were younger, had worse symptoms, and were at least seven times more likely to die than stroke victims who were not infected.

"Our study suggests that stroke is an uncommon yet important complication of coronavirus given that these strokes are more severe when compared with strokes occurring in patients who tested negative for the virus," says study lead author Shadi Yaghi, MD, an assistant professor in the Department of Neurology at NYU Langone Health.

Yaghi, who is also the director of clinical vascular neurology research at NYU Langone, cautions that the public should always take stroke symptoms seriously. Should they experience symptoms like trouble walking or speaking, or sudden paralysis of the face or limbs, they should seek immediate medical care regardless of concerns about exposure to the virus.

The new study, publishing May 20 in the journal Stroke, is the largest of its kind, says Yaghi, among COVID-19 stroke victims and adds valuable insight into the poorly understood complications of COVID-19 disease.

For the investigation, the researchers used medical records to identify 32 stroke patients among 3,556 people who were being treated for COVID-19 at NYU Langone hospitals in New York City and Long Island between March 15 and April 19. Then, they compared the characteristics of this group with stroke patients without the virus admitted during the same timeframe, and with patients from the previous year, before the pandemic began.

The research team found that stroke patients with COVID-19 disease had more severe symptoms than their counterparts without the virus. In fact, during the study period, 63 percent died, compared with just 9 percent for those without the virus and 5 percent of pre-pandemic stroke patients.

The results also add to other early research suggesting that strokes among COVID-19 patients form differently than the majority of strokes. The condition, the researchers say, usually occurs when a blood vessel suddenly gets blocked, preventing blood from reaching the brain. Among study patients with COVID-19, at least 56 percent of the strokes appeared to arise from increased blood-clotting throughout the body. This finding may offer a clue to how physicians can better treat stroke occurring in patients who have the virus, the study authors say.

"Our findings provide compelling evidence that widespread blood-clotting may be an important factor that is leading to stroke in patients with COVID-19," says study senior author Jennifer Frontera, MD, a professor in the Department of Neurology at NYU Langone. "The results point to anticoagulant, or blood thinner therapy, as a potential means of reducing the unusual severity of strokes in people with the coronavirus."

In addition to investigating anticoagulant therapy, both Frontera and Yaghi plan to continue the study to see if the findings hold true through the end of the year.

SEATTLE (May 20) - Without access to soap and clean water, more than 2 billion people in low- and middle-income nations - a quarter of the world's population - have a greater likelihood of acquiring and transmitting the coronavirus than those in wealthy countries.

That's the conclusion of a new study by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington's School of Medicine.

More than 50% of the people in sub-Saharan Africa and Oceania lacked access to effective handwashing, according to the study published last week in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

"Handwashing is one of the key measures to prevent COVID transmission, yet it is distressing that access is unavailable in many countries that also have limited health care capacity," said Dr. Michael Brauer, a professor at IHME, which currently has one of the world's leading models of the coronavirus of the pandemic.

In 46 countries, more than half of people lacked access to soap and clean water. In Nigeria, China, Ethiopia, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Bangladesh, Pakistan, India, and Indonesia, more than 50 million persons in each were estimated to be without handwashing access.

"Temporary fixes, such as hand sanitizer or water trucks, are just that - temporary fixes," Brauer said. "But implementing long-term solutions is needed to protect against COVID and the more than 700,000 deaths each year due to poor handwashing access," Brauer said.

Even with 25 percent of the world's population lacking access to effective handwashing facilities, there have been "substantial improvements in many countries" between 1990 and 2019, Brauer said. Those countries include Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Nepal, and Tanzania, which have improved their nations' sanitation.

The paper does not estimate access to handwashing facilities in non-household settings such as schools, workplaces, health care facilities, and other public locations such as markets.

Earlier this month, the World Health Organization predicted 190,000 people in Africa could die of COVID-19 in the first year of the pandemic, and that upward of 44 million of the continent's 1.3 billion people could be infected with the coronavirus.

Observations made with the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT) have revealed the telltale signs of a star system being born. Around the young star AB Aurigae lies a dense disc of dust and gas in which astronomers have spotted a prominent spiral structure with a 'twist' that marks the site where a planet may be forming. The observed feature could be the first direct evidence of a baby planet coming into existence.

"Thousands of exoplanets have been identified so far, but little is known about how they form," says Anthony Boccaletti who led the study from the Observatoire de Paris, PSL University, France. Astronomers know planets are born in dusty discs surrounding young stars, like AB Aurigae, as cold gas and dust clump together. The new observations with ESO's VLT , published in Astronomy & Astrophysics, provide crucial clues to help scientists better understand this process.

"We need to observe very young systems to really capture the moment when planets form," says Boccaletti. But until now astronomers had been unable to take sufficiently sharp and deep images of these young discs to find the 'twist' that marks the spot where a baby planet may be coming to existence.

The new images feature a stunning spiral of dust and gas around AB Aurigae, located 520 light-years away from Earth in the constellation of Auriga (The Charioteer). Spirals of this type signal the presence of baby planets, which 'kick' the gas, creating "disturbances in the disc in the form of a wave, somewhat like the wake of a boat on a lake," explains Emmanuel Di Folco of the Astrophysics Laboratory of Bordeaux (LAB), France, who also participated in the study. As the planet rotates around the central star, this wave gets shaped into a spiral arm. The very bright yellow 'twist' region close to the centre of the new AB Aurigae image, which lies at about the same distance from the star as Neptune from the Sun, is one of these disturbance sites where the team believe a planet is being made.

Observations of the AB Aurigae system made a few years ago with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA, in which ESO is a partner, provided the first hints of ongoing planet formation around the star. In the ALMA images, scientists spotted two spiral arms of gas close to the star, lying within the disc's inner region. Then, in 2019 and early 2020, Boccaletti and a team of astronomers from France, Taiwan, the US and Belgium set out to capture a clearer picture by turning the SPHERE instrument on ESO's VLT in Chile toward the star. The SPHERE images are the deepest images of the AB Aurigae system obtained to date.

With SPHERE's powerful imaging system, astronomers could see the fainter light from small dust grains and emissions coming from the inner disc. They confirmed the presence of the spiral arms first detected by ALMA and also spotted another remarkable feature, a 'twist', that points to the presence of ongoing planet formation in the disc. "The twist is expected from some theoretical models of planet formation," says co-author Anne Dutrey, also at LAB. "It corresponds to the connection of two spirals -- one winding inwards of the planet's orbit, the other expanding outwards -- which join at the planet location. They allow gas and dust from the disc to accrete onto the forming planet and make it grow."

ESO is constructing the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, which will draw on the cutting-edge work of ALMA and SPHERE to study extrasolar worlds. As Boccaletti explains, this powerful telescope will allow astronomers to get even more detailed views of planets in the making. "We should be able to see directly and more precisely how the dynamics of the gas contributes to the formation of planets," he concludes.

The vast majority of young people who self-harm or experience suicidal thoughts appear to have only mild or moderate mental distress, instead of more obvious symptoms associated with a diagnosable disorder, according to a new study.

As such, measures to reduce suicide risk in young people should focus on the whole population, not just those who are most distressed, depressed or anxious, said Cambridge University researchers during Mental Health Awareness week.

They argue that the small increases in stress across the entire population due to the coronavirus lockdown could cause far more young people to be at risk of suicide than can be detected through evidence of psychiatric disorders.

"It appears that self-harm and suicidal thinking among young people dramatically increases well within the normal or non-clinical range of mental distress," said Professor Peter Jones, senior author of the study from Cambridge's Department of Psychiatry.

"These findings show that public policy strategies to reduce suicide should support better mental health for all young people, not only those who are most unwell," said Jones, who is also a consultant for the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust.

"Even modest improvements in mental health and wellbeing across the entire population may prevent more suicides than targeting only those who are severely depressed or anxious."

The Cambridge researchers conducted the study with colleagues from University College London. It was supported by the Wellcome Trust and the National Institute for Health Research, and is recently published in the journal BMJ Open.

Recent studies suggest a broad range of mental health problems - e.g. depression, anxiety, impulsive behaviour, low self-esteem, and so on - can be taken as a whole to measure levels of "common mental distress" (CMD).

Researchers analysed levels of CMD in two large groups of young people through a series of questionnaires.

They also separately collected self-reported data on suicidal thinking and non-suicidal self-injury: predictive markers for increased risk of suicide - the second most common cause of death among 10-24 year-olds worldwide.

Both groups consisted of young people aged 14-24 from London and Cambridgeshire. The first contained 2,403 participants. The study's methods - and findings - were then reproduced with a separate group of 1,074 participants.

"Our findings are noteworthy for being replicated in the two independent samples," said Jones.

CMD scores increase in three significant increments above the population average: mild mental distress, followed by moderate, and finally severe distress and beyond - which often manifests as a diagnosable mental health disorder.

Those with severe mental distress came out highest for risk of suicide. However, the majority of all participants experiencing suicidal thoughts or self-harming - 78% and 76% respectively in the first sample, 66% and 71% in the second - ranked as having either mild or moderate levels of mental distress.

"Our findings help explain why research focusing on high-risk subjects has yet to translate into useful clinical tools for predicting suicide risk," said Jones. "Self-harm and suicidal thoughts merit a swift response even if they occur without further evidence of a psychiatric disorder."

The findings point to a seemingly contradictory situation, in which most of the young people who take their own life may, in fact, be from the considerably larger pool of those deemed as low- or no-risk for suicide.

"It is well known that for many physical conditions, such as diabetes and heart disease, small improvements in the risks of the overall population translate into more lives saved, rather than focusing only on those at extremely high risk," said Jones.

"This is called the 'prevention paradox', and we believe our study is the first evidence that mental health could be viewed in the same way. We need both a public health and a clinical approach to suicide risk."

"We are surrounded by technology designed to engage the attention of children and young people, and its effect on wellbeing should be seen by industry as a priority beyond profit."

"At a government level, policies affecting the economy, employment, education and housing, to health, culture and sport must all take account of young people;
supporting their wellbeing is an investment, not a cost. This is particularly important as the widespread effects of the Covid-19 pandemic unfold."

Maternal antenatal corticosteroid treatment is standard care when there is a risk for preterm delivery. The treatment improves the prognosis of babies born preterm. However, a new study conducted by experts from the University of Helsinki, University of Oulu and THL Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare shows that children exposed to maternal antenatal corticosteroid treatment have higher rates of emotional, behavioral and psychological development disorders than nonexposed children.

The difference in the rates of these disorders was most evident in children born at term after maternal antenatal corticosteroid treatment exposure, as reported in the study published in JAMA. Of the term-born children who were exposed to this maternal treatment, 8.9% had been diagnosed with an emotional, behavioral or psychological development disorder. Of the nonexposed term-born children, the rate was 6.3%.

In high-income countries, antenatal corticosteroid treatment has been in routine use for over 30 years. Recommendations and clinical care guidelines for maternal antenatal corticosteroid treatment differ between continents and countries. In Finland the treatment is currently recommended when the risk for preterm delivery is at 34 gestational weeks or less. In select cases, the treatment is recommended even later in gestation. Corticosteroids accelerate fetal maturation, especially in the lungs, and increase the child's resilience to the stress that results from being born preterm.

The population-based register study used records from the Finnish Medical Birth Register and the Care Register for Health Care. The registers are kept at the THL Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare, which is the statutory statistical authority for social and healthcare data in Finland. The researchers followed up with over 670 000 singleton children born between 2006 and 2017. Of the pregnant mothers, 2.2% were treated with corticosteroids when preterm birth was imminent.

Maternal corticosteroid treatment is an effective treatment - but the long-term benefits and harms should still be weighed

The researchers emphasize that maternal corticosteroid treatment is an effective treatment and can be life-saving for babies who are born extremely or very preterm. However, in recent years, there has been considerable debate on whether to expand the treatment indications beyond 34 gestational weeks. In Finland, this treatment is recommended, for instance, in the case of elective caesarean section, until 36 gestational weeks. Gestational week 36 refers to a pregnancy that has lasted for 36 weeks and 6 days.

"This is an observational study, and the results do not prove that antenatal corticosteroids are the cause of the increased risks found in the study. However, we conclude that it is important to weigh the balance between the long-term benefits and harms, in particular when considering whether to expand the treatment indications to later gestational weeks. The prognosis of babies who are born preterm at later gestational weeks is very good in high-income countries," says Professor Eero Kajantie from the University of Oulu and THL Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare.

"Of the mothers who were treated with antenatal corticosteroids, 45% went on to deliver a term baby. This means that prediction of preterm birth is often very difficult," he adds.

Finding not explained by genes, smoking or other factors

The study took into account a number of factors that increase the risk of preterm birth, including maternal pregnancy disorders and smoking during pregnancy. The study also compared term-born maternal sibling pairs, of which one sibling was exposed to maternal antenatal corticosteroid treatment and the other sibling was not.

Also in these sibling comparisons, the treatment-exposed children had higher rates of emotional, behavioral and psychological development disorders, suggesting that shared genetic or familial factors do not explain these associations.

In term-born children, the findings could not be attributed to a single, specific disorder. However, in preterm children whose mothers had received corticosteroid treatment, the rate of mild intellectual disability was lower than in preterm children whose mothers had not received the treatment. This finding is in line with those showing that maternal antenatal corticosteroid treatment improves the prognosis of the children born preterm.

"Even though experimental studies in animals have shown that antenatal corticosteroid treatment has harmful effects on the neurodevelopment of the offspring, population-based cohort studies, like ours, cannot verify if any of the harmful effects on child disorders are accounted for by maternal corticosteroid treatment or if some other factor explains these associations. We tested for several candidates, but none of these factors explained the associations," says Professor Katri Raikkonen from the University of Helsinki.

Tests on new designs for next-gen solar cells can now be done in hours instead of days thanks to a new system built by scientists at Australia’s Monash University, incorporating 3D-printed key components.

The machine can analyse 16 sample perovskite-based solar cells simultaneously, in parallel, dramatically speeding up the process.

The invention means that the performance and commercial potential of new compounds can be very rapidly evaluated, significantly speeding up the development process.

“Third generation perovskite cells have boosted performance to above 25%, which is almost identical to the efficiency level for conventional silicon-based ones,” said project leader Mr Adam Surmiak from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Exciton Science (Exciton Science).

“But those results are from laboratory tests on millimetre-sized samples in indoor conditions – and therefore don’t take into account a whole range of real-world factors such as environmental conditions, the use to which the cells are put, the manufacturing process, and possible deterioration over time.

“To make proper decisions, we need to know how each different cell design will function at large scales in the real world – and to do that we need a proper data library so we can pick the best candidates to take to that next stage. This new system lets us build that very rapidly and speed up transition from laboratory to fabrication.”

Getting the recipe right for perovskite solar cells is regarded as critically important to the transition away from fossil fuels and towards renewable energy generation. They cost about 10 times less than silicon cells and are much cheaper to manufacture.

Rooftop solar panels made from perovskite will pay for themselves within months instead of years, which is the case with present models.

To achieve the high level of precision needed to build the system, PhD candidate Surmiak and his colleagues turned to Monash University’s Instrumentation Facility and the Melbourne Centre for Nanofabrication, part of the Australian National Fabrication Facility – highly specialised machining and equipment facilities. There, the researchers’ designs were produced using ultra-detailed milling and a 16-micrometre precision 3D printer.

Alongside the development and set-up of this new testing facility, Mr Surmiak was also able to significantly speed up the actual solar cell fabrication process.

The head of the Monash University lab in which Surmiak works, Professor Udo Bach, a chief investigator with Exciton Science, described the invention as world-leading.

“Experimental high-throughput concepts will become increasingly important for the discovery of the next generation of energy materials, fueling the transition to a carbon-neutral energy economy,” he said.

“Our new set-up has the capacity to test thousands of solar cells in one single day, putting us ahead of practically all other R&D labs worldwide.”

Speciation is the process by which new species forms and is the driving force of biodiversity. Since Darwin published On the Origin of Species, great efforts have been performed without interruption to explore the pattern and mechanism of speciation. It is well acknowledged that determining the forms of reproductive isolation and their relative importance in species divergence is of critical importance for our understanding of speciation. Although substantial investigations on reproductive isolation have been made on numerous model species, relatively limited work has been focused on natural systems that evolve in the wild. Previous studies have shown that, as the direct ancestors of Asian cultivated rice, Oryza rufipogon and O. nivara are a progenitor-daughter species pair and diverged very recently (roughly 150 thousand years) and provide a feasible model to study reproductive isolation and the underlying mechanism.

Here, researchers chose three pairs of sympatric populations of the two species from Nepal, Cambodia and Laos to have performed 238 combinations of artificial crossing, including the combinations between species, between populations within species, and between individuals within populations. On this basis, they estimated the seed set of crossing pollinations, F1 viability and fertility to evaluate the post-zygotic reproductive isolation. In addition, researchers collected the flowering time data of these populations censused in their previous common experiment to assess the pre-zygotic reproductive isolation.

The results showed that O. nivara flowered on average 80 earlier than O. rufipogon with non-overlap in flowering peak between sympatric populations. By contrast, no significant reduction was found in seed set of crossing pollinations, F1 viability and fertility relative to the estimates of the two parents. Researchers also found that interspecies crossing with O. nivara as the mother showed higher seed sets than the combinations with O. rufipogon as the mother and that artificial emasculation during hand pollinations affected the seed set to some extents. Together, this study demonstrated that divergent flowering time caused nearly complete reproductive isolation between two wild rice species and the change of flowering time of the new species O. nivara is an adaption to shifted environments.

Boston, Mass. - With nearly 5 million confirmed cases globally and more than 300,000 deaths from COVID-19, much remains unknown about SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the disease. Two critical questions are whether vaccines will prevent infection with COVID-19, and whether individuals who have recovered from COVID-19 are protected against re-exposure. A pair of new studies led by researchers at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) sheds new light on these questions. Both studies were published today in the journal Science.

"The global COVID-19 pandemic has made the development of a vaccine a top biomedical priority, but very little is currently known about protective immunity to the SARS-CoV-2 virus," said senior author Dan H. Barouch, MD, PhD, Director of the Center for Virology and Vaccine Research at BIDMC. "In these two studies, we demonstrate in rhesus macaques that prototype vaccines protected against SARS-CoV-2 infection and that SARS-CoV-2 infection protected against re-exposure."

In the first study, the team demonstrated that six candidate DNA vaccines induced neutralizing antibody responses and protected against SARS-CoV-2 in rhesus macaques. Barouch and colleagues -- who began working toward a COVID-19 vaccine in mid-January when Chinese scientists release the viral genome -- developed a series of candidate DNA vaccines expressing variants of the Spike protein, a key antibody target of the novel coronavirus. The vaccines are designed to train the body's immune system to recognize and respond quickly to the virus upon exposure.

To assess the efficacy of the vaccines, the researchers immunized 25 adult rhesus macaques with the investigational vaccines, and 10 animals received a sham control. Vaccinated animals developed neutralizing antibodies against the virus. Three weeks after a boost vaccination, all 35 animals were exposed to the virus. Follow-up testing revealed dramatically lower viral loads in vaccinated animals compared to the control group. Eight of the 25 vaccinated animals demonstrated no detectable virus at any point following exposure to the virus, and the other animals showed low levels of virus. Moreover, higher antibody levels were linked to lower viral loads, suggesting that neutralizing antibodies may serve as a correlate of protection and may prove useful as a benchmark in clinical testing SARS-CoV-2 vaccines.

In the second study, the team demonstrated that macaques that recovered from COVID-19 developed natural protective immunity against re-infection. "Individuals who recover from many viral infections typically develop antibodies that provide protection against re-exposure, but not all viruses generate this natural protective immunity," said Barouch, who is also Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and a member of the Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard.

After exposing nine adult macaques to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the researchers monitored viral levels as the animals recovered. All nine animals recovered and developed antibodies against the virus. More than a month after initial infection, the team re-exposed the rhesus macaques to the virus. Upon second exposure, the animals demonstrated near-complete protection against the virus. These data suggest natural protective immunity against COVID-19 in this model.

"Our findings increase optimism that the development of COVID-19 vaccines will be possible," said Barouch. "Further research will be needed to address the important questions about the length of protection, as well as the optimal vaccine platforms for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccines for humans."

Two new studies in macaques offer hope that humans could develop protective immunity against SARS-CoV-2, either as the result of a natural infection or by way of a vaccine. While there are differences between SARS-CoV-2 infection in macaques and humans, these findings - some of the first to show that non-human primates can develop protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 - are promising in light of the ongoing efforts around the world to develop a vaccine and antibody treatments for COVID-19. An understanding of protective immunity to SARS-CoV-2 is critical for vaccine and public health strategies. A key unanswered question is whether infection with SARS-CoV-2 results in protective immunity against re-exposure; there is currently no data on whether humans are protected from re-exposure in this way. Earlier this year, research investigating cynomolgus macaques found these animals to be promising models for testing COVID-19 therapeutics. Here, in two new studies in rhesus macaques, researchers explored whether initial exposure to SARS-CoV-2 protected against reinfection and whether vaccination protected against infection, respectively. In a macaque model of SARS-CoV-2 infection they developed, and which recapitulated certain aspects of human SARS-CoV-2 infection, Abishek Chandrashekar, Ralph Baric, Dan Barouch and colleagues tested whether 9 adult animals who had cleared the virus were immune to viral re-challenge 35 days later. All 9 animals showed little to no symptoms after re-challenge and exhibited immune responses that protected against the second infection (given at the same doses as the first). Additional research will be required to define the durability of natural immunity shown here, the authors note. "Rigorous clinical studies will be required to determine whether SARS-CoV-2 infection effectively protects against SARS-CoV-2 re-exposure in humans," they say.

In a separate study including many of the same researchers, and led by Jingyou Yu, the researchers designed prototypes of SARS-CoV-2 DNA vaccine candidates that expressed six different forms of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, which is used by the virus to bind and invade human cells. The vaccine candidates provide DNA that allows host cells to make the spike protein so as to generate antibody responses to it. Yu and colleagues vaccinated 35 adult macaques with these vaccines, in initial rounds and boost immunizations. These animals exhibited similar humoral and cellular immune responses to the macaques recovering from first-round infection in the study by Chandrashekar et al., Yu and colleagues report. And critically, when these vaccinated macaques were infected intranasally with SARS-CoV-2 six weeks later, they exhibited levels of antibodies in their blood sufficient to neutralize the virus in two weeks' time. These levels were similar to those seen in humans recovering from SARS-CoV-2 infection, the authors say. This also demonstrates protective immunity in the macaques, likely mediated by an immune system response, which was also the case in Chandrashekar et al. Yu and colleagues say that further research will be needed to determine the optimal vaccine platforms for a SARS-CoV-2 vaccine for humans, but that their work could accelerate the development of these vaccines.

Climate scientists from the IBS Center for Climate Physics discover that, contrary to previously held beliefs, Neanderthal extinction was neither caused by abrupt glacial climate shifts, nor by interbreeding with Homo sapiens. According to new supercomputer model simulations, only competition between Neanderthals and Homo sapiens can explain the rapid demise of Neanderthals around 43 to 38 thousand years ago.

Neanderthals lived in Eurasia for at least 300,000 years. Then, around 43 to 38 thousand years ago they quickly disappeared off the face of the earth, leaving only weak genetic traces in present-day Homo sapiens populations. It is well established that their extinction coincided with a period of rapidly fluctuating climatic conditions, as well as with the arrival of Homo sapiens in Europe. However, determining which of these factors was the dominant cause, has remained one of the biggest challenges of evolutionary anthropology.

To quantify which processes played a major role in the collapse of Neanderthal populations one needs to use mathematical models that can realistically simulate the migration of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens, their interactions, competition and interbreeding in a changing climatic environment. Such models did not exist previously.

In a new paper published in the journal Quaternary Science Review, Axel Timmermann, Director of the IBS Center for Climate Physics at Pusan National University, presents the first realistic computer model simulation of the extinction of Neanderthals across Eurasia (Figure 1). The model which is comprised of several thousands of lines of computer code and is run on the IBS supercomputer Aleph, solves a series of mathematical equations that describe how Neanderthals and Homo sapiens moved in a time-varying glacial landscape and under shifting temperature, rainfall and vegetation patterns. In the model both hominin groups compete for the same food resources and a small fraction is allowed to interbreed. The key parameters of the model are obtained from realistic climate computer model simulations, genetic and demographic data.

"This is the first time we can quantify the drivers of Neanderthal extinction," said Timmermann. "In the computer model I can turn on and off different processes, such as abrupt climate change, interbreeding or competition" he said. By comparing the results with existing paleo-anthropological, genetic and archeological data (e.g. Figure 1), Timmermann demonstrated that a realistic extinction in the computer model is only possible, if Homo sapiens had significant advantages over Neanderthals in terms of exploiting existing food resources. Even though the model does not specify the details, possible reasons for the superiority of Homo sapiens could have been associated with better hunting techniques, stronger resistance to pathogens or higher level of fecundity.

What exactly caused the rapid Neanderthal demise has remained elusive for a long time. This new computer modeling approach identifies competitive exclusion as the likely reason for the disappearance of our cousins. "Neanderthals lived in Eurasia for the last 300,000 years and experienced and adapted to abrupt climate shifts, that were even more dramatic than those that occurred during the time of Neanderthal disappearance. It is not a coincidence that Neanderthals vanished just at the time, when Homo sapiens started to spread into Europe" says Timmermann. He adds "The new computer model simulations show clearly that this event was the first major extinction caused by our own species".

A research team at the IBS Center for Climate Physics is now improving the computer model to also include megafauna and implement more realistic climate forcings. "This is a new field of research in which climate scientists can interact with mathematicians, geneticists, archeologists and anthropologists", said Axel Timmermann.

Birth control pills are an effective and safe form of birth control; however, they are associated with a number of side effects, including mood alterations. A recent research study from Aarhus University has shown that women who take birth control pills have a much higher level of the hormone oxytocin, also called the love hormone, in their blood compared to non-users. This study, published in Scientific Reports, helps to understand why birth control pills affect emotional life.

"Oxytocin is a hormone found naturally in the body and is secreted during social cues and bonding, reinforcing social behaviour," says Associate Professor Michael Winterdahl of the Department of Clinical Medicine, Aarhus University, who is behind the study.

Can one really get too much of the love hormone?

"A constantly elevated level of oxytocin may mean that it is not secreted in the same dynamic way as under normal conditions. It is precisely these dynamics that are important to our emotional lives. This may explain why feelings such as closeness, attachment and love appear to be altered in some women who use birth control pills" he explains.

Negative effects on romantic love

The researchers collected and analyzed blood samples from 185 young women in the United States. Participants also answered a variety of questions about their mental well-being.

"Many women have used birth control pills at some point in their lives. Our study presents, for the first time, evidence for changes in the levels of oxytocin in response to birth control, providing a mechanism by which some women experience altered mood. Since oxytocin is important for attachment to a partner, one can imagine that the constantly elevated level is important - not only for the woman herself, but also in the broader sense of the relationship," says the researcher.

According to Michael Winterdahl, the study suggests there may be changes in the behaviour of women who would not otherwise experience more traditional side effects.

"Humans are super social beings, we are able to put ourselves in the place of others, show empathy, fear loneliness and seek community - all driven by the brain's secretion of oxytocin. Even very small changes in brain oxytocin levels will affect the way we process emotions and thus how we interact with each other. Our study can help explain why some women on birth control pills experience a diminished sense of closeness, for example"

He emphasizes that, with the new knowledge, they can now begin to examine the risk profile for different types of birth control pills, and in the longer term, one may be able to predict who is at risk of mood alterations.