Culture

What effect does extinction of species have on the evolution of surviving species? Evolutionary biologists have investigated this question by conducting a field experiment with a leaf galling fly and its predatory enemies. They found that losing its natural enemies could make it more difficult for the prey to adapt to future environments.

According to many experts, the Earth is at the beginning of its sixth mass extinction, which is already having dire consequences for the functioning of natural ecosystems. What remains unclear is how these extinctions will alter the future ability of remaining species to adapt.

Researchers from the University of Zurich have now pursued this question with a field experiment in California. They investigated how the traits of a tiny fly changed when a group of its natural enemies was removed. From their observations, they drew conclusions about changes in the genetic diversity of the flies.

Specific elimination of parasitoids

The fly Iteomyia salicisverruca lives on willow leaves in tooth-shaped growths called galls, which it induces in its larval stage. The natural enemies of this fly include several species of parasitic wasps. These wasps lay their eggs inside the fly larva within the gall, where they then develop into parasitic predators known as parasitoids. Before the adult wasp leaves the gall, it devours its host, the fly.

Some species of these parasitoids attack before the gall is formed, while others parasitize fly larvae later in their development and pierce through the gall. The researchers specifically eliminated the latter group of natural enemies by attaching fine-meshed nets over leaves with galls before they were attacked.

After three months, the biologists collected about 600 galls and checked if the fly larvae had survived. They also measured three traits that influence a fly's survival from parasitoid attack: the size of the gall; the number of flies within a gall; and the fly's preference to create galls on particular genetic varieties of willow trees. Using these data they then created "fitness landscapes" using computer models, which visualize the adaptability of a species.

Fewer enemies, less variability

It turned out that different combinations of these three traits helped flies survive ? when all of the fly's natural enemies were present. "So there are several equally good solutions that ensure the survival of the fly," says Matt Barbour, the study's lead author. In contrast, after some natural enemies were removed, only one specific combination of traits helped flies survive. "This suggests that the extinction of natural enemies constrains fly evolution toward only one optimal solution." Genetic variations that lead to a different development of the traits could thus be permanently lost in the flies' genome.

This loss of diversity might be of consequence: "The diversity of potential solutions for survival acts to preserve genetic variability in the gall's traits," says Barbour. And since genetic variation provides the raw material for evolution, the findings suggest that the extinction of this fly's natural enemies may make it more difficult for it to adapt to a changing environment.

"Thinking about the big picture, our study hints at a potential insidious side effect of extinctions," says Barbour. "The extinction of natural enemies may compromise the ability of remaining species to adapt and persist in an uncertain and changing world." If this is true, this would put many ecosystems at even greater risk than we currently realize.

Building on an extensive body of research on the efficacy of BioCell Collagen®, a new published laboratory study finds that daily supplementation with the branded matrix reduced common signs of UVB-induced photoaging compared to the group that did not receive the supplement. The study found that oral supplementation with BioCell Collagen, with controlled UVB exposure, resulted in reduced signs of photoaging, including significant decreases in wrinkles and transepidermal water loss, and significant increases in skin elasticity and hyaluronic acid (HA) content. The full findings of the peer-reviewed study were published in the May issue of Journal of Functional Foods and are available to view on ScienceDirect.

Photoaging - skin damage caused by exposure to sunlight and ultraviolet (UV) light - is responsible for 90 percent of visible changes to the skin. UVB-induced photoaging, like that administered in the study, damages the outermost layers of the skin , and contributes to premature aging, like wrinkles, fine lines, loss of skin elasticity and hydration.

"Nearly everyone is exposed to UVB-induced photoaging at some level and minimal research exists on options for reducing it through nutritional supplementation," said Brooke Alpert, RD and a leading skin nutrition expert. "This laboratory research study, along with prior studies in humans demonstrates that BioCell Collagen's unique matrix of hydrolyzed collagen type II peptides, chondroitin sulfate and hyaluronic acid may be used to address common, visible signs of photoaging, and is a promising step forward. These findings are incredibly encouraging for anyone desiring healthier-looking skin, especially for those seeking an effective, safe, non-invasive option for their skin routine."

BioCell Collagen is a clinically tested branded dietary ingredient with nearly two decades of research, that promotes youthful-looking skin, active joints, and healthy connective tissues.

Conducted by an independent research team, the study evaluated the use of BioCell Collagen in hairless mice, which have skin absorption levels comparable to human skin.

There were 40 hairless mice in the study, equally divided into four groups: a group receiving no UVB exposure and no supplement, a group receiving UVB exposure with no supplement; and two active groups receiving UVB and different dosages of the supplement.

Over the course of 14 weeks, the intervention groups supplemented once daily with BioCell Collagen at 200 mg/kg (human equivalence to 1g daily) or 600 mg/kg (human equivalence to 3g daily). For UV exposure, each animal was exposed to UVB radiation (290-320 nm) three times per week. The skin was measured and graded to determine the efficacy of BioCell Collagen on measurements of wrinkles, transepidermal water loss, skin elasticity and collagen levels.

BioCell Collagen significantly impacted skin-related changes commonly associated with UVB-induced photoaging (compared with non-supplemented controls), with supplementation found to reduce the negative effects of UVB on:

The formation of wrinkles, including the number, area, length, and depth of wrinkles

Skin elasticity

Skin hyaluronic acid content

Two things commonly attributed to UVB-induced skin aging: transepidermal water loss and matrix metalloproteinases enzyme content.

These findings follow numerous published studies on the efficacy of BioCell Collagen and show how the dietary supplement is a safe and effective option for healthy skin and joint aging. Once-daily administration over 14 weeks was well-tolerated, with no reported side effects.

"These findings are consistent with prior research on the efficacy of BioCell Collagen as a safe and effective component to a skin health routine," said Suhail Ishaq, president of BioCell Technology which sponsored the study. "Photoaging effects nearly everyone and is responsible for a vast majority of visible skin damage. While BioCell Collagen cannot replace your sunscreen, this study is further evidence that BioCell Collagen can serve as a safe, easy-to-take, non-invasive addition to a skin care regimen. Pairing daily oral supplementation of BioCell Collagen with a quality topical sunscreen to prevent damage can be the foundation of a good year-round skin care routine."

Alpert points to BioCell as an accessible solution for Americans who are facing both new and seasonal changes to their usual grooming and skincare routines.

"As we head deeper into spring and toward summer, the UVB-rays that cause photoaging will again become a challenge for our skin health making the use of a quality topical sunscreen imperative," said Alpert. "Even as we stay inside, practicing social distancing, we are faced with additional skin stressors, including dryness due to HVAC systems and issues related to increased screen time. This is a viable time for those seeking more subtle ways to support their skin health to introduce BioCell Collagen supplementation into a skin care regimen, along with a topical sunscreen."

"When seeking skin health solutions, look for products supported by research," said Alpert. "The unique bioavailable matrix of BioCell Collagen is conducive to good absorption in the body, which means that you can actually get the benefits shown by research."

What price are you willing to pay for food? As humans, we face this challenge each time we shop, but for some seals and dolphins this may be a life or death decision.

Modern medical scanning reveals the steep price some marine mammals are willing to pay for food, after a stranded fur seal was discovered with more than a dozen facial wounds inflicted by its seafood prey.

The extreme dangers facing hungry marine mammals are revealed in a new study published in the journal Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, led by marine biologist Dr David Hocking from the Monash University School of Biological Sciences.

"Marine mammals like whales, seals and dolphins need to eat seafood to survive," Dr Hocking said. "But, we seldom consider what the fish think of this situation. Obviously, they are less than enthusiastic about being eaten, and some of them have evolved elaborate defence systems to help them fight off would-be predators."

The study describes a stranded seal found at Cape Conran in south-eastern Australia, which - according to Dr Hocking - "followed its stomach one fish too far". Unusually, a fish spine was seen poking through the seal's cheek, prompting the researchers to CT scan the seal using the cutting-edge facilities at Monash Biomedical Imaging.

"We were shocked to discover not one, but six fish spines embedded in the seal's face," said Associate Professor Alistair Evans, a co-author on the study, also from the Monash School of Biological Sciences. These were later identified by comparing them with specimens at Museums Victoria.

"The fish spines turned out to be tail barbs from stingarees [a small type of stingray] and serrated spines from the back fin of Australian ghostsharks."

While seals are known to feed on these types of prey, this is the first time that researchers have understood how dangerous this process can be. This raises an interesting question: is the Cape Conran seal just an unusual case, or have similar injuries in other stranded individuals simply been overlooked?

"In New Zealand, fur seals target ghostsharks regularly. With that in mind, similar facial wounds may actually be rather common, even though they haven't been recognised much," said co-author Dr Felix Marx from Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa. "That's perhaps not surprising, as the injuries could easily have been hidden beneath the seals' thick fur."

Animals from future stranding events will be examined using X-ray and medical imaging to look for further evidence of facial injuries - a unique yet gruesome window into the eternal battle between predator and prey.

WASHINGTON (May 4, 2020) - As governments from countries including the U.S., Germany, Italy and the U.K., explore the possibility of issuing so-called "immunity passports," a leading global health and legal scholar warns that such action poses significant practical, equitable, and legal issues. In contrast, if and when a vaccine is developed, vaccination certificates will likely play an important role in ending the pandemic and protecting global health.

Writing in The Lancet, Alexandra L. Phelan, SJD, LLM, LLB, an assistant professor at Georgetown University Medical Center and a faculty member of its Center for Global Health Science and Security, writes that immunity passports "create an artificial restriction on who can and cannot participate in social and economic activities," warning that this creates "a perverse incentive for individuals to seek out infection."

"Immunity passports would be ripe for both corruption and implicit bias" and would "exacerbate the harm inflicted by COVID-19 on already vulnerable populations," Phelan argues. And she adds that the people "most incentivised to seek out infection might also be those unable or understandably hesitant to seek medical care due to cost and discriminatory access."

Immunity passports would also face legal challenges, argues Phelan, who is also an adjunct professor at Georgetown Law and a member of its O'Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. While the International Health Regulations prohibit health measures that are discriminatory and impede international travel, at present, she explains, countries may not have laws to expressly address discrimination experienced by those without "immunoprivilege."

"Immunity passports would risk enshrining such discrimination in law and undermine the right to health of individuals and the population through the perverse incentives they create," she writes.

In contrast, if and when a vaccine is developed, "vaccination certificates" may be an important tool to incentivize vaccination, evidence protection, and resume international trade and travel. Unlike immunity passports, vaccination certificates are expressly permissible under the International Health Regulations, which govern when countries can use them. Phelan sets out the legal steps required to be able to use vaccination certificates in the COVID-19 response.

"Until a COVID-19 vaccine is available, and accessible, which is not guaranteed, the way out of this crisis will be built on established public health practices of testing, contact tracing, quarantine of contacts, and isolation of cases," Phelan concludes. "The success of these practices is largely dependent on public trust, solidarity and addressing - not entrenching - the inequities and injustices that contributed to this outbreak becoming a pandemic."

Sleep patterns around the world have been disrupted as screen time increases and sleep routines change with COVID-19 self-isolation requirements.

Negative mood is not unusual in adolescence, but lack of sleep can affect mental health, causing anhedonia (or loss of pleasure), anxiety, anger and significantly increasing the risk of depression, a global study of more than 350,000 teens shows.

The results just published in Sleep Medicine Reviews connects less sleep with a 55% increased chance of mood deficits and double the risk of reduced positive mood.

From Asia, to Australia, New Zealand, Europe and North America, sleep clearly was a modifiable risk factor that can improve or depress mood in adolescents, says Flinders University sleep researcher Dr Michelle Short.

"Sleep duration significantly predicts mood deficits on all mood states, including
increased depression, anxiety, anger, negative affect and reduced positive affect," she says, with less sleep linked to an 83% higher chance or anger, 62% increased risk of depressed mood, and 41% higher risk of anxiety.

"Fortunately, there are many interventions individuals, family, the community and even public policy can encourage to maintain regular sleep in this at-risk population to reduce the likelihood of these problems spilling over into mental health issues needing clinical treatment," she says.

The researchers also recommend increased parental / guardian regulation of sleep and technology use, delayed school starting times, and monitoring academic and other pressures such as out-of-hours tutoring does not impede sleep routine.

Dr Short says that "while positive mood doesn't get much attention, it is still clinically relevant as one of the key symptoms of depression in anhedonia (loss of pleasure)."

"It is imperative that greater focus is given to sleep as for prevention and early intervention for mood deficits," the study concludes.

Growth hormone has been identified as playing a key role in reducing inflammation and increasing survival rates following liver surgery.

Researchers at The University of Queensland Diamantina Institute investigated how the body's growth hormone assists with liver regeneration in a study using mice.

Project leader Dr Andrew Brooks said mice did not survive surgery to remove two thirds of their liver if they lacked the receptor needed for transmitting growth hormone signals to cells.

Mice with normal growth hormone receptors survived the procedure and experienced full liver regeneration.

"We found that growth hormone induced production of a protein called HLA-G, which suppressed the inflammatory response after surgery," Dr Brooks said.

"By administering the HLA-G protein to mice deficient in the growth hormone receptor, we were able to reduce inflammation and enable liver regeneration and survival."

The study demonstrates the important role the HLA-G protein plays in suppressing inflammatory responses.

Dr Brooks said treating liver transplant patients with the HLA-G protein or growth hormone may also help suppress inflammation following surgery.

"It's thought this treatment may account for the reduction in mortality rates in liver failure patients who've been treated with growth hormone," he said.

"Patients with high levels of HLA-G protein are known to experience low levels of rejection of liver transplants.

"Surgical removal of part of the liver is commonly performed to remove benign or malignant tumours, however liver failure is a leading cause of death following these surgeries.

"It's hoped this study will lead the researchers to explore growth hormone or HLA-G as a new therapy to improve patient outcomes following organ transplants."

lts of the research, which were financed by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the government of the Kaliningrad region, were recently published in the Plants scientific journal.

Pavel Feduraev, project manager, PhD in Biology said:

"Cereal crops have bifunctional enzyme phenylalanine (tyrosine)-ammonia-liaise, which plays a very important role in the process of splitting metabolism into primary and secondary. It is important to understand that in the process of primary metabolism there is a synthesis of proteins, fats, carbohydrates, nucleic, and a number of organic acids, which are the basic resources of the cell. Secondary metabolism provides the cell with auxiliary, regulatory compounds, which largely determine the resistance of plants to adverse environmental factors. For example, one of the final products of secondary metabolism is a complex polymer - lignin, which consists of an additional protective shell of the cell. And the stronger this shell is, the more viable and resistant the plant will be. In particular, it is the lack of lignin that causes the wheat to die, which leads to the loss of a significant portion of the crop".

In a sense, any secondary metabolism occurs at the expense of primary. But scientists of the IKBFU offer to stimulate this process as much as possible, providing secondary metabolism with additional material.

Pavel Feduraev continues:

"Simply put, phenylalanine (tyrosine)-ammonia-liase takes amino acids, detaches the amino group from them, and uses the rest of the secondary metabolism. In the course of our experiments, we selected the concentrations of inductors (i.e. amino acids, which are metabolized by this enzyme), which actively stimulate the biosynthesis of secondary metabolites. The results obtained form the basis of the research".

According to the researcher, it will be possible to create a solution for the pre-sowing treatment of seeds, which will further stimulate the synthesis of secondary compounds as the plant grows.

People with low or no visual imagery are more likely to work in scientific and mathematical industries than creative sectors, according to new research.

Aphantasia, the term describing a person's inability to visualise in the mind, has been shown to be more common in scientific and technical industries. The opposite phenomenon of particularly vivid mental imagery, known as hyperphantasia, has also been shown to be more common in creative professions.

The research, led by the University of Exeter, asked 2,000 people with aphantasia and 200 with hyperphantasia about their career choices, amongst other topics. They also asked 200 control participants with mid-range imagery vividness who were recruited from the Exeter biobank ‘EXTEND’ study. They found that more than 20 percent of people who had no or little visual imagery worked in science, computing or mathematics; whilst more than 25 percent of people with extremely strong visual imagery worked in arts, design, entertainment and other creative industry.

Professor of Cognitive and Behavioural Neurology, Adam Zeman, initially coined the phrase 'aphantasia' in 2015 and led this project through a grant to the 'Eye's Mind' team funded by the United Kingdom Arts and Humanities Research Council.

He said: "This discovery adds importantly to our understanding of aphantasia. Our research shows that aphantasia has certain benefits to people working in technical sectors while hyperphantasia predisposes people to work in the arts. While this is the overall trend, we know there are many exceptions - for example, we recently organised an exhibition of art created by aphantasic artists which went on show in Exeter and Glasgow in 2019.

"At Exeter, we're right at the forefront of aphantasia research and it's exciting to work in such a developing area, continuing to discover more about something which was relatively unknown and unheard of until a few years ago."

Professor Craig Venter is a world famous geneticist who led the team reporting the first draft sequence of the human genome. He had long realised he had aphantasia, but was gratified to find a term that mirrored his experience. Whilst some would see this as a disadvantage, he has drawn on the positives when it comes to his work.

Craig said: "I have found as a scientific leader that aphantasia helps greatly to assimilate complex information into new ideas and approaches. By understanding concepts vs fact memorization I could lead complex, multidisciplinary teams without needing to know their level of detail."

Recounting his discovery that he couldn't visualise, he said: "I discovered that I had it when I returned to college after getting out of Vietnam. My realization came from competing in classes with then my wife who had a perfect photographic memory. By comparison I discovered I had none."

A new test can detect glaucoma progression 18 months earlier than the current gold standard method, according to results from a UCL-sponsored clinical trial.

The technology, supported by an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm, could help accelerate clinical trials, and eventually may be used in detection and diagnostics, according to the Wellcome-funded study published today in Expert Review of Molecular Diagnostics.

Lead researcher Professor Francesca Cordeiro (UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, Imperial College London, and Western Eye Hospital Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust) said: "We have developed a quick, automated and highly sensitive way to identify which people with glaucoma are at risk of rapid progression to blindness."

Glaucoma, the leading global cause of irreversible blindness, affects over 60 million people, which is predicted to double by 2040 as the global population ages. Loss of sight in glaucoma is caused by the death of cells in the retina, at the back of the eye.

The test, called DARC (Detection of Apoptosing Retinal Cells), involves injecting into the bloodstream (via the arm) a fluorescent dye that attaches to retinal cells, and illuminates those that are in the process of apoptosis, a form of programmed cell death. The damaged cells appear bright white when viewed in eye examinations - the more damaged cells detected, the higher the DARC count.

One challenge with evaluating eye diseases is that specialists often disagree when viewing the same scans, so the researchers have incorporated an AI algorithm into their method.

In the Phase II clinical trial of DARC, the AI was used to assess 60 of the study participants (20 with glaucoma and 40 healthy control subjects). The AI was initially trained by analysing the retinal scans (after injection of the dye) of the healthy control subjects. The AI was then tested on the glaucoma patients.

Those taking part in the AI study were followed up 18 months after the main trial period to see whether their eye health had deteriorated.

The researchers were able to accurately predict progressive glaucomatous damage 18 months before that seen with the current gold standard OCT retinal imaging technology, as every patient with a DARC count over a certain threshold was found to have progressive glaucoma at follow-up.

"These results are very promising as they show DARC could be used as a biomarker when combined with the AI-aided algorithm," said Professor Cordeiro, adding that biomarkers - measurable biological indicators of disease state or severity - are urgently needed for glaucoma, to speed up clinical trials as the disease progresses slowly so it can take years for symptoms to change.

"What is really exciting, and actually unusual when looking at biological markers, is that there was a clear DARC count threshold above which all glaucoma eyes went on to progress," she added.

First author Dr Eduardo Normando (Imperial College London and Western Eye Hospital Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust) said: "Being able to diagnose glaucoma at an earlier stage, and predict its course of progression, could help people to maintain their sight, as treatment is most successful if provided at an early stage of the disease. After further research in longitudinal studies, we hope that our test could have widespread clinical applications for glaucoma and other conditions."

The team is also applying the test to rapidly detect cell damage caused by numerous conditions other than glaucoma, such as other neurodegenerative conditions that involve the loss of nerve cells, including age-related macular degeneration, multiple sclerosis, and dementia.

The AI-supported technology has recently been approved by both the UK's Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency and the USA's Food and Drug Administration as an exploratory endpoint for testing a new glaucoma drug in a clinical trial.

The researchers are also assessing the DARC test in people with lung disease, and hope that by the end of this year, the test may help to assess people with breathing difficulties from Covid-19.

DARC is being commercialised by Novai, a newly formed company of which Professor Cordeiro is Chief Scientific Officer.

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Researchers in Oregon State University's College of Agricultural Sciences have taken a step closer to solving one of nature's most remarkable mysteries: How do salmon, when it's time to spawn, find their way back from distant ocean locations to the stream where they hatched?

A new study into the life cycle of salmon, involving magnetic pulses, reinforces one hypothesis: The fish use microscopic crystals of magnetite in their tissue as both a map and compass and navigate via the Earth's magnetic field.

Findings were published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

Researchers including David Noakes, professor of fisheries and wildlife at OSU and the director of the Oregon Hatchery Research Center, subjected juvenile chinook salmon to a type of brief but strong magnetic pulse known to reverse the polarity of magnetic particles and affect magnetic orientation behavior in other animals.

Orientation behavior of pulsed salmon and un-pulsed control fish were compared in a magnetic coil system under a pair of conditions: the local magnetic field, and one in which "map-like" information from the magnetic field had been shifted.

In the local field, pulsed and un-pulsed fish oriented almost identically. But after the magnetic map was shifted, the test and control salmon behaved much differently from each other - the control fish were randomly oriented and the pulsed fish displayed a preferred heading.

The difference in behavior suggests that chains of magnetite, which would have been altered by the pulse, may play a role in the navigation system of salmon.

Magnetic pulses are known to alter magnetic orientation behavior in a range of terrestrial and aquatic animals, among them mole rats, bats, birds, sea turtles and lobsters. The study by Noakes and colleagues at Oregon State, the University of North Carolina and LGL Ecological Research Associates, Inc. is the first evidence linking a magnetic pulse to behavioral changes in fish.

Magnetite, an oxide of iron and one of the primary iron ores, is expressed chemically as Fe3O4 and is the most magnetic of the Earth's naturally occurring minerals. Naturally magnetized magnetite is known as lodestone and was ancient people's introduction to the concept of magnetism.

Magnetite is the basis for one of two ways salmon are thought to find their way around; the other is the theory of chemical magnetoreception, which suggests biochemical reactions influenced by the ambient magnetic field are a navigational tool.

"In the big picture, these salmon know where they are, where they're supposed to be, how to get there and how to make corrections if needed," said Noakes, the study's corresponding author. "While they're in fresh water, they're imprinting upon the chemical nature of the water. When they hit salt water, they switch over to geomagnetic cues and lock in that latitude and longitude, knowing they need to come back to those coordinates. And when they decide to come back, it's months in advance because they're halfway to Japan."

After reaching the mouth of the river that took them to the ocean, the salmon swim upstream to spawn at the exact location where they hatched.

"In the river they seem to rely upon chemical signals," Noakes said. "There's ongoing research looking into that."

The magnetic pulse could have affected the salmon's map, compass or both, Noakes said.

"Our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that magnetoreceptors are based on magnetite crystals," he said. "But we'll need more research to confirm or refute this hypothesis and to definitively characterize the mechanisms that underlie magnetoreception in fish. We're trying to figure out the life cycle of the salmon from the points of highest information - when they go from fresh water to salt water and when they turn around and come back."

Researchers from Shanghai University of Finance and Economics and the University of Arizona published a new paper in the Journal of Marketing that examines brand name strategies when cultural products are marketed in foreign countries.

The study forthcoming in the Journal of Marketing titled "Branding Cultural Products in International Markets: A Study of Hollywood Movies in China" is authored by Weihe Gao, Li Ji, Yong Liu, and Qi Sun.

Cultural products such as movies and novels often have immediate brand name recognition in their home countries. But in foreign markets, consumers are accustomed to titles translated into the local language. In an era of globalization, the trend is to stay as much as possible to the original brand name, particularly for well-branded products (e.g., Batman and Superman movies). However, there is often a need to reframe brand names of cultural products that may be culturally distant to foreign consumers. For example, the animated comedy movie Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs was translated to It's Raining Falafel in Israel because meatballs are not something Israelis relate to, whereas falafel is a better equivalent to a local food staple.

By incorporating the unique characteristics of these cultural products, the research team develops a theoretical framework that integrates similarity, which focuses on how the translated brand name relates to the original brand name, and informativeness, which focuses on how the translated brand name reveals product content, to study the impact of brand name translations.

The movie market is the research context, specifically Hollywood movies shown in China from 2011 to 2018. The researchers show that higher similarity leads to higher Chinese box office revenue and this effect is stronger for movies that perform better in the home market. When the translated title is more informative about the movie, the Chinese box office revenue increases. The informativeness effect is stronger for Hollywood movies that have a greater cultural gap in the Chinese market. Moreover, both similarity and informativeness effects are strongest at the time the movie is released and reduce over time.

The study provides several valuable managerial implications for cultural product industries. First, the results point out that brand name translation is not a trivial task. How the brand name is translated can have important consequences on product sales. Two different strategies are described: 1) Make translated brand names resemble the original brand names; or 2) Make translated brand names informative of product content. While each can be managed to influence the sales in international markets, there is also a synergy between them--one strategy becomes more effective if the other strategy is also implemented. However, there are situations where achieving both goals in one brand name is difficult because it may require different brand name features and translation techniques. Therefore, companies need to make trade-offs between similarity and informativeness.

This trade-off leads to the second managerial implication. If the product has high home market performance but a small cultural gap, the translation should focus on brand name similarity. If the product has low home market performance but a large cultural gap, the translation should focus on informativeness. If the product has both high home market performance and large cultural gap, both similarity and informativeness will be highly effective in generating sales. Thus, the company should pay attention to both similarity and informativeness, with the relative emphasis between the two decided based on the effect size and the feasibility of each strategy. Finally, if the product has low home market performance and small cultural gap, both strategies will still be helpful, but will not be highly effective.

Third, results indicate that these branding strategies are most effective for product sales in the early period after introduction. This is particularly important for managers given the short life cycle of cultural products. It is critical for companies to be sensitive to brand name translation early and to make sure either similarity or informativeness, or both, are in place before introduction to help increase sales quickly.

Finally, related to the trade-off between similarity and informativeness, companies can follow this analysis to estimate the effect size of the moderating factors. Managers can then more precisely evaluate to what extent product sales will benefit from either strategy so that a sensible trade-off can be made.

PITTSBURGH, May 1, 2020 - Through serendipity, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health considerably reduced the toxicity of a potential antibiotic against the most feared drug-resistant bacteria, while also improving its stability in fighting infections.

The new antibiotic -- administered via the windpipe to target lung infections -- proved more effective than its experimental predecessor and traditional last-resort antibiotic therapies in fighting drug-resistant bacteria in laboratory cell cultures and mice. And it did so without notable toxic side-effects, according to findings published today in Science Advances.

"We were so surprised and happy," said lead author Y. Peter Di, Ph.D., M.B.A., associate professor in Pitt Public Health's Department of Environmental and Occupational Health. "At first, we were skeptical and repeated the experiment -- but yes, it was 20 times less toxic toward red blood cells in our lab. And when we saw similar results in mice, we were really excited."

Antimicrobial resistance is listed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as one of the biggest public health challenges of our time, with someone dying in the U.S. every 15 minutes from an antibiotic-resistant infection. It occurs when bacteria rapidly evolve resistance against antibiotics, making them "superbugs."

The experimental drug that Di's team developed is built from an engineered cationic antimicrobial peptide, or "eCAP," which is a synthetic and more efficient version of naturally occurring antimicrobial peptides that form a first line of defense against infections in humans. Developed by co-authors Berthony Deslouches, M.D., Ph.D., assistant professor in Pitt Public Health's Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, and Ronald Montelaro, Ph.D., professor emeritus in Pitt's Department of Microbiology & Molecular Genetics, eCAPs work by "punching into" bacteria, thereby destroying them.

The team was working with an eCAP called WLBU2, which was licensed by Pitt spin-off Peptilogics and is entering clinical trials for use in preventing infections associated with knee and hip replacements. They were looking for ways to make WLBU2 more stable so that it sticks around long enough to fight lingering infections in the lungs.

When the lungs naturally defend against foreign invaders, such as bacteria, they secrete mucus and proteins that also recognize and degrade WLBU2. To get around this problem, Di's team constructed a near-mirror image of WLBU2 -- which they call "D8" because that's how many pieces of the molecule flipped sides -- thinking it would be less likely to be recognized by the lung's defenses. It worked -- at four-fold lower concentration than WLBU2, D8 obliterated Pseudomonas aeruginosa, a superbug that plagues post-surgical patients, from blood in the lab.

This was not surprising, Di said. But when stability of a drug is increased, it often translates to higher toxicity because of longer exposure to the active form of the drug. So, the team exposed human red and white blood cells to concentrations of the D8 antibiotic nearly 25 times what would ever be used therapeutically to see if it would have negative effects on the cells. Surprisingly, they found that D8 was considerably less toxic than regular WLBU2, destroying less than 1% of red blood cells and less than 15% of white.

"It's one thing to see that in a petri dish," Di said, "but it's more important to demonstrate the increased safety in a living mammal."

So, the team moved the experiment to mice. While the WLBU2 at higher than 35 micrograms would kill some mice, there were no fatalities with D8 at four times that concentration, the highest dose administered in the experiment, which was more than 100 times the therapeutic dosage.

"This considerable improvement in lowering toxicity, coupled with the new drug's strong stability and activity against superbugs, is good evidence that this compound will be well-suited for clinical applications in treating respiratory infections," Di said, though he cautioned that they do not know why the new drug is less toxic or how well it is tolerated long-term. More experimentation is needed before it can be used to treat people.

The team is exploring its potential use for cystic fibrosis patients whose lives are greatly shortened by drug-resistant lung infections. They also are looking at using it for ventilator-associated pneumonias, which are emerging as serious secondary -- and potentially more deadly -- infections in COVID-19 patients.

Plastic is a kind of widely used artificial material. The invention of plastic gives us a lightweight, strong and inexpensive material to use but also bring us the plastic apocalypse. Many of the unrecycled plastic waste ends up in the ocean, Earth's last sink. Broken by waves, sunlight and marine animal, a single plastic bag can be broken down into 1.75 million microscopic fragments, which is called microplastics. Those microplastics might finally end up in our blood and system through the fish we eat or the water we drink.

During the long-term evolution of most plants on the earth, cellulose-based materials have been developed as their own structural support materials. Cellulose in plants mainly exists in the form of cellulose nanofibers (CNF), which have excellent mechanical and thermal properties. CNF, which can be derived from plant or produced by bacteria, is one of the most abundant all-green resources on Earth. CNF is an ideal nanoscale building block for constructing macroscopic high-performance materials, as it has higher strength (2 GPa) and modulus (138 GPa) than Kevlar and steel and lower thermal expansion coefficient (0.1 ppm K-1) than silica glass. Based on this bio-based and biodegradable building block, the construction of sustainable and high-performance structural materials will greatly promote the replacement of plastic and help us avoid the plastic apocalypse.

Nowadays, a team lead by Prof. Shu-Hong Yu from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) report a high-performance sustainable structural material called cellulose nanofiber plate (CNFP) (Fig. 1a and c) which is constructed from bio-based CNF (Fig. 1b) and ready to replace the plastic in many fields. This CNFP has high specific strength (~198 MPa/(Mg m-3)), which is 4 times higher than that of steel and higher than that of traditional plastic and aluminum alloy. In addition, CNFP has higher specific impact toughness (~67 kJ m-2/(Mg m-3)) than aluminum alloy and only half of its density (1.35 g cm-3).

Unlike plastic or other polymer based material, CNFP exhibit excellent resistance to extreme temperature and thermal shock. The thermal expansion coefficient of CNFP is lower than 5 ppm K-1 from -120 °C to 150 °C, which is close to ceramic materials, much lower than typical polymers and metals. Moreover, after 10 times of rapid thermal shock between 120 °C bake oven and -196 °C liquid nitrogen, CNFP remain its strength. Those result shows its outstanding thermal dimensional stability, which allow CNFP to own great potentials used as structural material under extreme temperature and alternate cooling and heating. Owing to its wide range of raw materials and bio-assisted synthesis process, CNFP is a kind of low-cost material with the cost of only 0.5 $/kg, which is lower than most of plastic. With low density, outstanding strength and toughness, and great thermal dimensional stability, all of those properties of CNFP surpass those of traditional metals, ceramics and polymers (Fig. 1d and e), making it a high-performance and environmental-friendly alternative for engineering requirement, especially for aerospace application.

CNFP not only has the power to replace plastic and saves us from drowning in them, but also has great potential as the next generation of sustainable and lightweight structural material.

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. - Giant elliptical galaxies are not as likely as previously thought to be cradles of technological civilizations such as our own, according to a recent paper by a University of Arkansas astrophysicist.

The paper, published May 1 in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, contradicts a 2015 study that theorized giant elliptical galaxies would be 10,000 times more likely than spiral disk galaxies such as the Milky Way to harbor planets that could nurture advanced, technological civilizations.

The increased likelihood, the authors of the 2015 study argued, would be because giant elliptical galaxies hold many more stars and have low rates of potentially lethal supernovae.

But Daniel Whitmire, a retired professor of astrophysics who is an instructor in the U of A mathematics department, believes that the 2015 study contradicts a statistical rule called the principle of mediocrity, also known as the Copernican Principle, which states that in the absence of evidence to the contrary, an object or some property of an object should be considered typical of its class rather than atypical.

Historically, the principle has been employed several times to predict new physical phenomena, such as when Sir Isaac Newton calculated the approximate distance to the star Sirius by assuming that the sun is a typical star and then comparing the relative brightness of the two.

"The 2015 paper had a serious problem with the principle of mediocrity," said Whitmire. "In other words, why don't we find ourselves living in a large elliptical galaxy? To me this raised a red flag. Any time you find yourself as an outlier, i.e. atypical, then that is a problem for the principle of mediocrity."

He also had to show that most stars and therefore planets reside in large elliptical galaxies in order to nail down his argument that the earlier paper violated the principle of mediocrity.

According to the principle of mediocrity, Earth and its resident technological society should be typical, not atypical, of planets with technological civilizations elsewhere in the universe. That means that its location in a spiral-shaped disk galaxy should also be typical. But the 2015 paper suggests the opposite, that most habitable planets would not be located in galaxies similar to ours, but rather in large, spherical-shaped elliptical galaxies.

In his paper, Whitmire suggests a reason why large elliptical galaxies may not be cradles of life: They were awash in lethal radiation when they were younger and smaller, and they went through a series of quasar and star-burst supernovae events at that time.

"The evolution of elliptical galaxies is totally different than the Milky Way," said Whitmire. "These galaxies went through an early phase in which there is so much radiation that it would just completely have nuked any habitable planets in the galaxy and subsequently the star formation rate, and thus any new planets, went to essentially zero. There are no new stars forming and all the old stars have been irradiated and sterilized."

If habitable planets hosting intelligent life are unlikely in large elliptical galaxies, where most stars and planets reside, then by default galaxies such as the Milky Way will be the primary sites of these civilizations, as expected by the principle of mediocrity, Whitmire said.

A study reported in the journal Cell Metabolism on April 30 adds to the evidence that people with type 2 diabetes (T2D) are at greater risk of a poor outcome should they become infected with the virus that causes COVID-19. But there is some encouraging news: people with T2D whose blood sugar is well controlled fare much better than those with more poorly controlled blood sugar.

"We were surprised to see such favourable outcomes in well-controlled blood glucose group among patients with COVID-19 and pre-existing type 2 diabetes," says senior author Hongliang Li of Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University. "Considering that people with diabetes had much higher risk for death and various complications, and there are no specific drugs for COVID-19, our findings indicate that controlling blood glucose well may act as an effective auxiliary approach to improve the prognosis of patients with COVID-19 and pre-existing diabetes."

More than 500 million people around the world have T2D. While it was clear that people with this condition fare worse with COVID-19, Li and colleagues wondered what role a person's blood glucose control might have on those outcomes.

To find out, they conducted a retrospective longitudinal multi-centered study including 7,337 confirmed COVID-19 cases enrolled among 19 hospitals in Hubei Province, China. Of those, 952 people had T2D and the other 6,385 did not. Among those with diabetes, 282 had well-controlled blood glucose; the other 528 did not.

The data showed that people admitted to the hospital with COVID-19 and T2D required more medical interventions. Despite those interventions, they also had significantly higher mortality (7.8% vs. 2.7%) as well as a greater incidence of multiple organ injury.

However, those with well-controlled blood sugar and COVID-19 were less likely to die than those whose blood glucose was poorly controlled. Meanwhile, those with well-managed T2D also received less of other medical interventions including supplemental oxygen and/or ventilation, and had fewer health complications.

The researchers say the new findings offer three main messages for people with diabetes:

People with diabetes have a higher risk to die from COVID-19 and develop more severe complications after infection. Therefore, they should take extra precautions to avoid becoming infected.

People with diabetes should take extra care to keep their blood sugar under good control during the pandemic.

Once infected, patients with diabetes should have their blood glucose level controlled to maintain it in the right range, in addition to any other needed treatments.

The researchers say they will continue to study the relationship between T2D and COVID-19 outcomes. The hope is to learn more about the underlying biology that is leading to poorer outcomes for people with T2D and high blood sugar.