Culture

Engaged listening techniques such as eye contact, nodding and using key words to praise openness helps teenagers when they admit bad behaviour and share hurt feelings with their parents, a new study has shown.

University of Reading and Haifa researchers asked 1001 13 to 16-year-olds to watch a staged conversation between a parent and teenager about a difficult situation, with the parent adopting different body language and listening behaviour in different versions.

The participants who watched the versions where the parent was visibly attentive stated that they would have felt better about themselves as the teenager and would be more likely to open up about their feelings again in the future.

The study, the first to look at quality of listening in isolation from other parenting techniques, revealed that being more engaged while listening made the teenagers feel more authentic and connected with the parent.

Dr Netta Weinstein, associate professor in clinical and social psychology at the University of Reading, who co-led the study, said:

"We all know that listening to someone talk about their problems is an effective way of reassuring them and establishing a connection. However, until now there has been little thought given to the quality of that listening, and the difference that makes."

"This study shows that in parent-teenager relationships, quietly listening to a teenager while showing them they are valued and appreciated for their honesty has a powerful effect on their willingness to open up."

For the study published in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, a roughly even split of male and female adolescents were recruited, with three identifying as another gender. The team found that active listening was equally important across all participants.

The first video conversation scenario portrayed a teenage boy admitting to his mother that he had tried vaping and felt ashamed, and in the second he tells his mother he was rejected by his peers after refusing to vape and felt hurt.

Each video scenario had a version where the parent listened attentively, and another where they appeared more distracted, and used less eye contact.

Dr Weinstein said:

"With such a large group of participants, it is reassuring to see that active listening was universally beneficial across these years of adolescence."

"The study has some important implications for teenage wellbeing as well. The participants said that the good listening model observed in the videos would lead to better wellbeing. Although we don't know how often the expectations meets reality, but it's clear that active listening is more likely to lead to a good outcome for teenagers than the more passive style we tested it against."

Highlights

Among adults with kidney failure undergoing hemodialysis in New York City, Black and Hispanic patients were more likely to develop symptomatic COVID-19 than White patients.

Neighborhood-level social vulnerability factors were associated with COVID-19 incidence among White patients, but these factors did not explain racial/ethnic disparities.

Washington, DC (June 1, 2021) -- In an analysis of patients on hemodialysis in New York City, there were substantial racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19 rates that were not explained by neighborhood social vulnerability. The findings appear in an upcoming issue of JASN.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disproportionately affected socially disadvantaged groups, including Black and Hispanic individuals, those with limited English proficiency, and persons of low socioeconomic status. To examine potential racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in COVID-19 in individuals with kidney failure who are undergoing hemodialysis (which puts them at risk of acquiring COVID-19 because they travel several times each week to receive treatment in a congregate setting), Sri Lekha Tummalapalli, MD, MBA, MAS (Weill Cornell Medicine and The Rogosin Institute) and her colleagues analyzed information on 1,378 patients receiving in-center hemodialysis in New York City between March 1, 2020 and August 3, 2020.

A total of 247 patients (17.9%) developed symptomatic COVID-19. Compared with non- Hispanic White patients, non-Hispanic Black patients and Hispanic patients were 1.76-times and 2.66-times more likely to develop symptomatic COVID-19, respectively, after adjustments. "Racial/ethnic disparities in COVID-19 incidence among patients on hemodialysis largely mirrored community transmission patterns, and likely reflect neighborhood spread to this vulnerable population," said Dr. Tummalapali.

The investigators found that neighborhood-level social vulnerability factors--such as income, education level, languages spoken, and housing crowding--were associated with COVID-19 incidence among non-Hispanic White patients, but these factors did not explain racial/ethnic disparities. Black and Hispanic patients on hemodialysis faced an excess risk of acquiring COVID-19, regardless of the neighborhood they lived in.

"These results suggest that other unmeasured household and community exposures contribute to racial/ethnic disparities in acquiring COVID-19," said Dr. Tummalapalli. "Understanding factors that drive disparities could inform policies and interventions designed to mitigate disparities."

A first encounter with the dengue virus typically causes very mild symptoms; however, a subsequent infection is a different story. For a small proportion of people who are reinfected, the virus can cause severe symptomatic disease, which is often life-threatening.

"The main hypothesis for some time has been that antibodies generated the first time around, instead of providing protection against disease, can actually exacerbate it," says Stylianos Bournazos, research assistant professor at Rockefeller. "But even in secondary infection, we see a wide range of symptoms--so the presence of antibodies alone cannot explain why only some cases turn deadly."

Now new findings published in Science by the lab of Jeffrey V. Ravetch in collaboration with the Pasteur Institute in Cambodia suggest that the susceptibility and severity of dengue disease comes down to a particular type of antibody that is missing a specific sugar, fucose, on its stem. This impacts the antibody's so-called Fc region, which is responsible for binding and passing instructions along to other immune cells.

Previously, researchers in the Ravetch lab found that patients with severe dengue disease have unusually high levels of these fucose-less antibodies. However, it was not clear whether the absence of fucose was the result of severe disease or its cause.

By analyzing samples from a variety of dengue patients early in the onset of their disease, the team found that those who eventually developed the most severe disease also had significantly higher levels of fucose-deficient antibodies at the time of hospital admission. As a result of this change to their structure, the antibodies bind too strongly to white blood cells, increasing inflammation and leading to the destruction of platelets crucial for blood clotting. The result is hemorrhagic fever and shock syndrome often seen in severe dengue disease.

The findings suggest that the fucose status of antibodies represents a robust prognostic tool, says Ravetch, Theresa and Eugene M. Lang Professor and head of the Leonard Wagner Laboratory of Molecular Genetics and Immunology. "It can help us identify patients at risk of severe illness so they can receive appropriate medical care early on."

As India continues to be ravaged by the pandemic, a Swansea University academic is investigating how green tea could give rise to a drug capable of tackling Covid-19.

Dr Suresh Mohankumar carried out the research with colleagues in India during his time at JSS College of Pharmacy, JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research in Ooty prior to taking up his current role at Swansea University Medical School.

He said: "Nature's oldest pharmacy has always been a treasure of potential novel drugs and we questioned if any of these compounds could assist us in battling the Covid-19 pandemic?

"We screened and sorted a library of natural compounds already know to be active against other coronaviruses using an artificial intelligence-aided computer programme.

"Our findings suggested that one of the compounds in green tea could combat the coronavirus behind Covid-19."

The researchers' work has now been highlighted by online journal RSC Advances and has been included in its prestigious hot articles collection chosen by editors and reviewers.

Associate Professor Dr Mohankumar emphasised that the research was still in its early days and a long way from any kind of clinical application.

"The compound that our model predicts to be most active is gallocatechin, which is present in green tea and could be readily available, accessible, and affordable. There now needs to be further investigation to show if it can be proven clinically effective and safe for preventing or treating Covid-19.

"This is still a preliminary step, but it could be a potential lead to tackling the devastating Covid-19 pandemic.

Dr Mohankumar has worked in pharmacy education, research and administration around the world for more than 18 years and recently moved to Swansea to join its new MPharm programme.

Head of Pharmacy Professor Andrew Morris said: "This is fascinating research and demonstrates that natural products remain an important source of lead compounds in the fight against infectious diseases. I'm also really pleased to see this international research collaboration continuing now that Dr Mohankumar has joined the Pharmacy team."

Dr Mohankumar added he is now looking forward to seeing how the work can be developed: "There now needs to be appropriate pre-clinical and clinical studies and we would welcome potential collaborators and partners to help carry this work forward."

EAST LANSING, Mich. - New research from MSU shows that an infant's gut microbiome could contain clues to help monitor and support healthy neurological development

Why do some babies react to perceived danger more than others? According to new research from Michigan State University and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, part of the answer may be found in a surprising place: an infant's digestive system.

The human digestive system is home to a vast community of microorganisms known as the gut microbiome. The MSU-UNC research team discovered that the gut microbiome was different in infants with strong fear responses and infants with milder reactions.

These fear responses -- how someone reacts to a scary situation -- in early life can be indicators of future mental health. And there is growing evidence tying neurological well-being to the microbiome in the gut.

The new findings suggest that the gut microbiome could one day provide researchers and physicians with a new tool to monitor and support healthy neurological development.

"This early developmental period is a time of tremendous opportunity for promoting healthy brain development," said MSU's Rebecca Knickmeyer, leader of the new study published June 2 in the journal Nature Communications. "The microbiome is an exciting new target that can be potentially used for that."

Studies of this connection and its role in fear response in animals led Knickmeyer, an associate professor in the College of Human Medicine's Department of Pediatrics and Human Development, and her team to look for something similar in humans. And studying how humans, especially young children, handle fear is important because it can help forecast mental health in some cases.

"Fear reactions are a normal part of child development. Children should be aware of threats in their environment and be ready to respond to them" said Knickmeyer, who also works in MSU's Institute for Quantitative Health Science and Engineering, or IQ. "But if they can't dampen that response when they're safe, they may be at heightened risk to develop anxiety and depression later on in life."

On the other end of the response spectrum, children with exceptionally muted fear responses may go on to develop callous, unemotional traits associated with antisocial behavior, Knickmeyer said.

To determine whether the gut microbiome was connected to fear response in humans, Knickmeyer and her co-workers designed a pilot study with about 30 infants. The researchers selected the cohort carefully to keep as many factors impacting the gut microbiome as consistent as possible. For example, all of the children were breastfed and none was on antibiotics.

The researchers then characterized the children's microbiome by analyzing stool samples and assessed a child's fear response using a simple test: observing how a child reacted to someone entering the room while wearing a Halloween mask.

"We really wanted the experience to be enjoyable for both the kids and their parents. The parents were there the whole time and they could jump in whenever they wanted," Knickmeyer said. "These are really the kinds of experiences infants would have in their everyday lives."

Compiling all the data, the researchers saw significant associations between specific features of the gut microbiome and the strength of infant fear responses.

For example, children with uneven microbiomes at 1 month of age were more fearful at 1 year of age. Uneven microbiomes are dominated by a small set of bacteria, whereas even microbiomes are more balanced.

The researchers also discovered that the content of the microbial community at 1 year of age related to fear responses. Compared with less fearful children, infants with heightened responses had more of some types of bacteria and less of others.

The team, however, did not observe a connection between the children's gut microbiome and how the children reacted to strangers who weren't wearing masks. Knickmeyer said this is likely due to the different parts of the brain involved with processing potentially frightening situations.

"With strangers, there is a social element. So children may have a social wariness, but they don't see strangers as immediate threats," Knickmeyer said. "When children see a mask, they don't see it as social. It goes into that quick-and-dirty assessment part of the brain."

As part of the study, the team also imaged the children's brains using MRI technology. They found that the content of the microbial community at 1 year was associated with the size of the amygdala, which is part of the brain involved in making quick decisions about potential threats.

Connecting the dots suggests that the microbiome may influence how the amygdala develops and operates. That's one of many interesting possibilities uncovered by this new study, which the team is currently working to replicate. Knickmeyer is also preparing to start up new lines of inquiry with new collaborations at IQ, asking new questions that she's excited to answer.

"We have a great opportunity to support neurological health early on," she said. "Our long-term goal is that we'll learn what we can do to foster healthy growth and development."

EAST LANSING, Mich. - It can be easy to forget that the human skin is an organ. It's also the largest one and it's exposed, charged with keeping our inner biology safe from the perils of the outside world.

But Michigan State University's Sangbum Park is someone who never takes skin or its biological functions for granted. He's studying skin at the cellular level to better understand it and help us support it when it's fighting injury, infection or disease.

In the latest installment of that effort, Park, who works in IQ -- MSU's Institute for Quantitative Health Science & Engineering -- has helped reveal how the skin's immune cells organize themselves to ward off would-be intruders. Park and his colleagues published their work in the journal Nature Cell Biology.

"Immune cells are the soldiers of our body. In our skin, that army is maintained according to two factors: density and distribution," said Park, an assistant professor in the College of Human Medicine's Department of Medicine and Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology.

"We need enough immune cells to cover the whole area of our skin uniformly for proper protection. Otherwise, our skin would be vulnerable to damage and infection," Park said. "As sensible as that might sound, it was unclear how, or even if, these immune cells were organized before this study. Many researchers thought the cells' distribution was random."

Skin's immune cells have a history of being misunderstood. Many people don't realize that our outermost layer of skin, the epidermis, is home to immune cells. And when the German scientist Paul Langerhans first discovered one type of these immune cells in the late 1800s -- cells that are now called Langerhans cells -- he mistook them for cells from our nervous system (to be fair, they do have a similar morphology).

To bring more clarity to how skin's immune cells do their jobs, Park and his co-workers used state-of-the-art microscopy tools. The researchers illuminated how live immune cells arranged themselves in the skin of mice, a popular animal model with a skin biology similar to that of humans.

"IQ has so many advantages for a young investigator like me," said Park, who joined MSU in January 2020. Just two months later, he had to start working from home due to the coronavirus pandemic. But thanks to IQ's strong microscopy core, Park's team was able to work almost immediately as restrictions lifted.

"I didn't have to wait to set up microscopes in my own lab or train my students how to use them," he said. "At IQ, we already have many different microscopes for a wide range of animal models."

As a result, Park's team is revealing the skin's structure and function like never before. Having validated these new techniques and observing how immune cells are organized in the healthy skin of mice, Park's team can start probing new questions about how skin heals.

"My lab is interested in how skin regenerates and recovers from injury," he said. That injury could be a cut, an infection, an allergic reaction or an even more persistent disorder, such as psoriasis. "We can answer so many questions with our intravital imaging technique that you just can't with conventional methods."

Toronto -- Math continues to be a powerful force against COVID-19.

Its latest contribution is a sophisticated algorithm, using municipal wastewater systems, for determining key locations in the detection and tracing of COVID-19 back to its human source, which may be a newly infected person or a hot spot of infected people. Timing is key, say the researchers who created the algorithm, especially when COVID-19 is getting better at transmitting itself, thanks to emerging variants.

"Being quick is what we want because in the meantime, a newly-infected person can infect others," said Oded Berman, a professor of operations management and statistics at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management.

This latest research builds on previous work Prof. Berman did with co-investigators Richard Larson of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Mehdi Nourinejad of York University. The trio initially developed two algorithms for identifying choice locations in a sewer system for manual COVID-19 testing and subsequent tracing back to the source. Sewers are a rich environment for detecting presence of the disease upstream because genetic remnants of its virus are shed in the stool of infected people up to a week before they may even know they are sick.

The investigators' new research refines and optimizes that initial work by more accurately modelling a typical municipal sewer system's treelike network of one-way pipes and manholes, and by speeding up the detection/tracing process through automatic sensors installed in specific manholes, chosen according to an easier-to-use algorithm.

Under this scenario, a sensor sends out an alert any time COVID-19 is detected. Manual testing is then done at a few manholes further upstream, also chosen according to the algorithm, until the final source is located, be that a small group of homes or a "hotspot" neighbourhood. Residents in that much smaller area can then be contacted for further testing and isolation as needed, limiting potential new outbreaks.

Applying this approach to a wastewater system with 2,000 manholes shows that only seven sensors would have to be installed along the network to detect and trace COVID-19 back to its origin within one day.

"The sensors allow us to manually sample a smaller number of manholes than in our earlier work and to detect the infection much sooner," said Prof. Berman.

Although such sensors are not yet available, such technology is under development. An accurate and rapid on-site test for COVID-19 and field testing for finetuning the system will also be needed.

The results hold promise not only for detecting COVID-19 but other viruses too, such as noroviruses which are highly infectious and cause vomiting and diarrhea. There is also potential for the work to be used in surveillance for crystal meth labs and illegal bomb production, because of the chemical by-products that end up in wastewater.

Prof. Berman typically works on problems of the future, such as the introduction of autonomous cars, making his wastewater research the first time that he has applied his expertise to an urgent global issue.

"It's exciting to work on something that is very much needed and might have the potential to help people soon," he said. "It's very different from what I've done before."

ROCHESTER, Minn. -- A study by researchers at Mayo Clinic Cancer Center has found that cancer patients diagnosed with COVID-19 who received care at home via remote patient monitoring were significantly less likely to require hospitalization for their illness, compared to cancer patients with COVID-19 who did not participate in the program. Results of the study were presented Friday, June 4, at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting and published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.

"For our study, we evaluated 224 Mayo Clinic patients with cancer who were found to have COVID-19 through standardized screening prior to receiving cancer treatment, or due to symptoms or close exposure," says Tufia Haddad, M.D., a Mayo Clinic medical oncologist and the study's senior author. Researchers followed the patients March 18-July 31, 2020.

Dr. Haddad says that at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, Mayo Clinic rapidly developed and implemented a remote patient monitoring program to support Mayo Clinic patients who were diagnosed with COVID-19 and at risk for severe illness.

The program featured the use of in-home technology to monitor oxygen levels, vital signs and symptoms of COVID-19 infection, and a centralized virtual care team of nurses and physicians to manage patients. Dr. Haddad says the program had served more than 8,000 patients in rural and urban locations across 41 states by November 2020.

Researchers found that among patients who did not require urgent hospitalization at the time of their COVID-19 diagnosis, those whose care was managed by the remote patient monitoring program were significantly less likely to require hospitalization for their illness, compared with those who were not managed by the program.

"After balancing the two groups of patients who were or were not managed by the remote monitoring program for factors known to impact COVID-19 outcomes, such as old age, male gender and obesity, there was a 78% reduction in the risk of hospitalization (a 2.8% risk for patients on the remote monitoring program, compared to 13% for patients not on the program) attributed to the remote monitoring program," says Dr. Haddad.

In addition, Dr. Haddad says that when cancer patients who had been managed through the remote monitoring program were hospitalized, they experienced fewer hospitalizations of more than a week, ICU admissions and deaths.

"It is possible that our results were due to early detection of adverse symptoms and vital sign trends that enabled earlier care interventions to alter the trajectory of disease." Dr. Haddad is encouraged by the results, but she cautions that further research will be necessary to confirm them.

Effector and killer T cells are types of immune cells. Their job is to attack pathogens and cancers. These cells can also go after normal cells causing autoimmune diseases. But, if harnessed properly, they can destroy cancer cells that resist treatment.

Scientists at St. Jude wanted to understand how these T cells are controlled. They looked at enhancers, sequences of DNA that when bound to certain proteins determine how genes are turned on or off.

The scientists found that enhancers of a gene named Foxp3 work as a pair to keep effector and killer T cells in check. The enhancers working together is essential.

"These enhancers go together like your left and right hands," said Yong Feng, PhD, of St. Jude Immunology. "They work together in different ways to curb the effector and killer T cells, playing a critical role in how the immune system makes sure it only attacks the right target."

Physicists in Israel have created a quantum interferometer on an atom chip. This device can be used to explore the fundamentals of quantum theory by studying the interference pattern between two beams of atoms. University of Groningen physicist, Anupam Mazumdar, describes how the device could be adapted to use mesoscopic particles instead of atoms. This modification would allow for expanded applications. A description of the device, and theoretical considerations concerning its application by Mazumdar, were published on 28 May in the journal Science Advances.

The device which scientists from the Ben-Gurion University of the Negev created is a so-called Stern Gerlach Interferometer, which was first proposed one hundred years ago by German physicists Otto Stern and Walter Gerlach. Their original aim of creating an interferometer with freely propagating atoms exposed to gradients from macroscopic magnets has not been practically realized until now. 'Such experiments have been done using photons, but never with atoms', explains Anupam Mazumdar, Professor of Theoretical Physics at the University of Groningen and one of the co-authors of the article in Science Advances.

Diamonds
The Israeli scientists, led by Professor Ron Folman, created an interferometer on an atom chip, which can confine and/or manipulate atoms. A beam of rubidium atoms is levitated over the chip using magnets. Magnetic gradients are used to split the beam according to the spin values of the individual atoms. Spin is a magnetic moment that can have two values, either up or down. The spin-up and spin-down atoms are separated by a magnetic gradient. Subsequently, the two divergent beams are brought together again and recombined. The spin values are then measured, and an interference pattern is formed. Spin is a quantum phenomenon, and throughout this interferometer, the opposing spins are entangled. This makes the interferometer sensitive to other quantum phenomena.

Mazumdar was not involved in the construction of the chip, but he contributed theoretical insights to the paper. Together with a number of his colleagues, he previously proposed an experiment to determine whether gravity is in fact a quantum phenomenon using entangled mesoscopic objects, namely tiny diamonds that can be brought in a state of quantum superposition. 'It would be possible to use these diamonds instead of the rubidium atoms on this interferometer', he explains. However, this process would be highly complex as the device, which is currently operated at room temperature, would need to be cooled down to around 1 Kelvin for the mesoscopic experiment.

Free fall
If this is realized, two of these atom chips could free fall together (to neutralize external gravity), so that any interaction occurring between them would depend on the gravitational pull between the two chips. Mazumdar and his colleagues aim to determine whether quantum entanglement of the pair occurs during free fall, which would mean that the force of gravity between the diamonds is indeed a quantum phenomenon. Another application of this experiment is the detection of gravity waves; their deformation of space-time should be visible in the interference pattern.

The actual implementation of this experiment is still a long way off, but Mazumdar is very excited now that the interferometer has been created. 'It is already [a] quantum sensor, although we still have to work out exactly what it can detect. The experiment is like the first steps of a baby - now, we have to guide it to reach maturity.'

Researchers in Lund, Copenhagen and Norwich have shown that harmful mutations present in the DNA play an important - yet neglected - role in the conservation and translocation programs of threatened species.

"Many species are threatened by extinction, both locally and globally. For example, we have lost about ten vertebrate species in Sweden in the last century. However, all these species occur elsewhere in Europe, which means that they could be reintroduced into Sweden. Our computer simulations show how we could theoretically maximize the success of such reestablishments", says Bengt Hansson, biologist at Lund University.

In a new study published in Science, the researchers investigated which individuals might be most suited for translocation to new populations. To date, conservation geneticists have opted to select the most genetically variable individuals. However, the authors argue that is important to consider what type of genetic variation is being move around. Using computer simulations, they showed that harmful mutations present in the genome of translocated individuals can cause problems in future generations. This so called "mutation load" could jeopardize the viability of the new population in the long run and eventually led to extinction.

According to Hansson and van Oosterhout, geneticist at University of East Anglia, Norwich, who led the study, the best choice is to exclude individuals with many harmful mutations, whilst at the same time, selecting individuals from multiple different source populations.

"Active translocation of animals between localities is sometimes the last option available to conservation biologists. By carefully selecting individuals based on their low mutation load, we can minimize the loss of fitness that is normally associated with inbreeding in small populations", says Bengt Hansson.

Huge advances have been made in DNA sequencing technologies, and the whole genomes of individuals can now be sequenced for relatively little costs. This opens up new possibilities to improve the conservation management of threatened species.

"For many species of mammals and birds, we now know which mutations are harmful. Similar mutations are also found in humans, so we understand what they do, and hence, we know what to look out for when analyzing the sequence data of those species. The advantage of using DNA sequencing is that we can see these mutations in the genome, even if an individual carries just a single copy of the mutant gene. This means we can select against those bad mutations even before they cause a problem. Our computer model shows that at least theoretically, this ensures the best probability for population survival. This could help conservation managers in picking the optimal individuals of a threatened species for translocation into a new habitat", says van Oosterhout.

The COVID-19 pandemic forced instructors to adapt their courses for online learning. Laboratory courses were particularly difficult due to lack of access to specialized equipment for remote learners. To overcome this challenge, researchers from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign designed a laboratory exercise to teach students how to use micropipettes, through remote learning, using at-home kits.

Micropipettes are common--and essential--laboratory instruments and are used in several fields including molecular biology, microbiology, and biochemistry. They are used to accurately transfer very small volumes of liquid. To teach students how to use these instruments, the researchers developed kits, costing $135 per student, that were a fraction of the cost of the instructional equipment that is normally used for in-person classes.

"Although lab kits have been developed previously, they did not focus on micropipetting skills," said Karin Jensen, Teaching Assistant Professor of Bioengineering, who worked with Associate Professor of Bioengineering Pablo Perez-Pinera (ACPP) to develop the project. "In an effort to provide remote students with lab experience, we developed and shipped kits to students. These kits contained equipment and reagents for them to practice their technique and perform experiments remotely."

Each kit contained a mini-scale, a glucose meter, a pipet-aid, and a set of micropipettes. Each student was provided with the kit, an instructional video, and a laboratory manual. They were instructed to follow the protocol step by step with the goal of learning how to correctly dilute the glucose solutions and verifying their accuracy using the glucose meter. They also shared their data with the instructors for feedback and grading.

The students also filled out surveys and course feedback forms about the effectiveness of these online classes. "We found that most of the students were excited to use lab equipment despite being in an online section," Jensen said.

The researchers are now working to improve the exercise. "Beyond COVID-19, there is still a need to develop remote lab learning opportunities for students who cannot attend in-person labs," Jensen said. "Remote lab activities, similar to what we describe, will be important in increasing access to STEM education."

A research group of the Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology of the University of Bologna analyzed more than one million SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences. This analysis led to the identification of a new variant that, over the past weeks, has been spreading mostly in Mexico but has also been found in Europe. Their paper published in the Journal of Medical Virology presented the so-called "Mexican variant", whose scientific name is T478K. Like other strains, this presents a mutation in the Spike protein, which allows coronaviruses to attach to and penetrate their targeted cells.

"This variant has been increasingly spreading among people in North America, particularly in Mexico. To date, this variant covers more than 50% of the existing viruses in this area. The rate and speed of the spread recall those of the 'British variant'", explains Federico Giorgi, who is the study coordinator and a professor at the Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology of the University of Bologna. "The mutation of the Spike protein is structurally located in the region of interaction with human receptor ACE2. Coronaviruses attach to this receptor to infect cells, thus spreading the infection with more efficacy".

The researchers started from the analysis of almost 1.2 million sequenced samples of the SARS-CoV-2 genome found in international databases until April 27, 2021. The new T478K variant was detected in 11435 samples. This is double the number of samples that presented the same variant just a month earlier. Such an increase since the beginning of 2021 alarmed the researchers.

The "Mexican variant" spreads evenly across males and females and age ranges. This variant represents 52.8% of all sequenced coronaviruses in Mexico, whereas in the United States it shows up only in 2.7% of the sequenced samples. As concerns Europe, the "Mexican variant" has spread feebly in Germany, Sweden, and Switzerland. In Italy is virtually non-existent with only 4 reported cases.

The mutation characterizing this variant is located in a region of the Spike protein that is responsible for the interaction with the human receptor ACE2: this is the mechanism allowing coronaviruses to access the cells. Similar mutations are common to all variants that have been at the center of attention in the past months. Indeed, recent coronavirus variants stand out for their high infection rates, which made them pervasive in many areas of the world.

Researchers tested the action of T478K Spike protein with in silico simulations and found out that this mutated protein can alter the superficial electrostatic charge. Consequently, it can change not only the interaction with the ACE2 human protein but also with the antibodies of the immune system and thus hinder drug efficacy.

"Thanks to the great amount of data available in international databases, we can hold an almost real-time control over the situation by monitoring the spread of coronavirus variants across different geographical areas", concludes Giorgi. "Keeping up this effort in the next months will be crucial to act promptly and with efficient means".

Tiny algae in Earth's oceans and lakes take in sunlight and carbon dioxide and turn them into sugars that sustain the rest of the aquatic food web, gobbling up about as much carbon as all the world's trees and plants combined.

New research shows a crucial piece has been missing from the conventional explanation for what happens between this first "fixing" of CO2 into phytoplankton and its eventual release to the atmosphere or descent to depths where it no longer contributes to global warming. The missing piece? Fungus.

"Basically, carbon moves up the food chain in aquatic environments differently than we commonly think it does," said Anne Dekas, an assistant professor of Earth system science at Stanford University. Dekas is the senior author of a paper published June 1 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that quantifies how much carbon goes into parasitic fungi that attack microalgae.

Underwater merry-go-round

Researchers until now have predicted that most carbon fixed into colonies of hard-shelled, single-celled algae known as diatoms then funnels directly into bacteria - or dissolves like tea in the surrounding water, where it's largely taken up by other bacteria. Conventional thinking assumes carbon escapes from this microbial loop mainly through larger organisms that graze on the bacteria or diatoms, or through the CO2 that returns to the atmosphere as the microbes breathe.

This journey is important in the context of climate change. "For carbon sequestration to occur, carbon from CO2 needs to go up the food chain into big enough pieces of biomass that it can sink down into the bottom of the ocean," Dekas said. "That's how it's really removed from the atmosphere. If it just cycles for long periods in the surface of the ocean, it can be released back to the air as CO2."

It turns out fungus creates an underappreciated express lane for carbon, "shunting" as much as 20 percent of the carbon fixed by diatoms out of the microbial loop and into the fungal parasite. "Instead of going through this merry-go-round, where the carbon could eventually go back to the atmosphere, you have a more direct route to the higher levels in the food web," Dekas said.

The findings also have implications for industrial and recreational settings that deal with harmful algal blooms. "In aquaculture, in order to keep the primary crop, like fish, healthy, fungicides might be added to the water," Dekas said. That will prevent fungal infection of the fish, but it may also eliminate a natural check on algal blooms that cost the industry some $8 billion per year. "Until we understand the dynamics between these organisms, we need to be pretty careful about the management policies we're using."

Microbial interactions

The authors based their estimates on experiments with populations of chytrid fungi called Rhizophydiales and their host, a type of freshwater algae or diatom named Asterionella formosa. Coauthors in Germany worked to isolate these microbes, as well as bacteria found in and around their cells, from water collected from Lake Stechlin, about 60 miles north of Berlin.

"Isolating one microorganism from nature and growing it in the laboratory is difficult, but isolating and maintaining two microorganisms as a pathosystem, in which one kills the other, is a true challenge," said lead author Isabell Klawonn, who worked on the research as a postdoctoral scholar in Dekas' lab at Stanford. "Only a few model systems are therefore available to research such parasitic interactions."

Scientists surmised as early as the 1940s that parasites played an important role in controlling the abundance of phytoplankton, and they observed epidemics of chytrid fungus infecting Asterionella blooms in lake water. Technological advances have made it possible to pick apart these invisible worlds in fine and measurable detail - and begin to see their influence in a much bigger picture.

"We're realizing as a community that it's not just the capabilities of an individual microorganism that's important for understanding what happens in the environment. It's how these microorganisms interact," Dekas said.

The authors measured and analyzed interactions within the Lake Stechlin pathosystem using genomic sequencing; a fluorescence microscopy technique that involves attaching fluorescent dye to RNA within microbial cells; and a highly specialized instrument at Stanford - one of only a few dozen in the world - called NanoSIMS, which creates nanoscale maps of the isotopes of elements that are present in materials in vanishingly small amounts. Dekas said, "To get these single-cell measurements to show how photosynthetic carbon is flowing between specific cells, from the diatom to the fungus to the associated bacteria, it's the only way to do it."

The exact amount of carbon diverted to fungus from the microbial merry-go-round may differ in other environments. But the discovery that it can be as high as 20 percent in even one setting is significant, Dekas said. "If you're changing this system by more than a few percent in any direction, it can have dramatic implications for biogeochemical cycling. It makes a big difference for our climate."

Though it might seem inanimate, the soil under our feet is very much alive. It's filled with countless microorganisms actively breaking down organic matter, like fallen leaves and plants, and performing a host of other functions that maintain the natural balance of carbon and nutrients stored in the ground beneath us.

"Soil is mostly microorganisms, both alive and dead," says Jennifer Bhatnagar, soil microbiologist and Boston University College of Arts & Sciences assistant professor of biology. It's typical to see several hundred different types of fungi and bacteria in a single pinch of soil off the ground, she says, making it one of the most diverse ecosystems that exist.

Because there's still so much unknown about soil organisms, until now scientists have not attempted to predict where certain species or groups of soil microbes live around the world. But having that knowledge about these organisms— too small to see with the naked eye—is key to better understanding the soil microbiome, which is made up of the communities of different microbes that live together.

A team of BU biologists, including Bhatnagar, took on that challenge—and their research reveals, for the first time, that it is possible to accurately predict the abundance of different species of soil microbes in different parts of the world. The team recently published their findings in a new paper in Nature Ecology & Evolution.

"If we know where organisms are on earth, and we know how they change through space and time due to different environmental forces, and something about what different species are doing, then we can much better predict how the function of these communities will change in terms of carbon and nutrient cycling," Bhatnagar says. That kind of knowledge would have huge implications for agriculture, climate change, and public health.

"The health of the soils is so tied to the soil microbes," says Michael Dietze, senior author on the study and a BU College of Arts & Sciences professor of earth and environment. Dietze, Bhatnagar, and researchers from their labs joined forces to work on this project, which involved analyzing hundreds of soil samples collected by National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) research sites. Bhatnagar and her lab members brought to the team their soil expertise, while Dietze and his lab offered their unique ability to develop precise ecological forecasts and near-term environmental predictions.

The team learned that microbe predictability increases as spatial area increases, so the bigger the piece of land their model makes forecasts about, the more likely the predictions about what types of microbes live there will be accurate.

Dietze says the ability to accurately predict which microbes would likely be found in a given soil sample also increased as the researchers looked at organism groupings higher up on the phylogenetic scale, a system that classifies organisms based on evolutionary relatedness. On the smallest end of the scale, a "species" represents the finest level of classification; on the other end, a "phylum" makes up the largest and most diverse groupings of organisms. They were surprised to find that they were better able to predict the presence of a whole phylum, as opposed to individual species.

After receiving the genomic data of the soil samples from NEON, the research team's forecasting models take into account environmental factors specific to the place where the soil came from—what plants live there, the soil acidity (pH), temperature, climate, and many others. They found their model was best able to predict the presence of microorganisms based on their symbiotic relationship with local plant species. Mycorrhizal fungi, for example, is a very common soil microbe that about 90 percent of plant families associate with, including pines and oak trees in New England.

In contrast, the team found it was more difficult to predict large groups of organisms based on their relationship with soil acidity. Despite knowing soil acidity levels, and what types of bacteria would typically like to live in that environment, their model couldn't accurately predict the amount of bacteria that were actually present in the soil sample, Bhatnagar says. "That means there is something else beyond the relationship with [acidity], beyond the relationship with any other environmental factor that we typically measure in our ecosystems," she says.

Now, Dietze and Bhatnagar's team are expanding their forecasts beyond predicting microbes based on only their location, to also include specific times of the year.

"Building a framework for forecasting the soil microbiome at sites across the US will improve our understanding of seasonal and interannual change," says Zoey Werbin, a PhD student working in Bhatnagar's lab and an author on the paper. "This could help us anticipate how climate change could affect microbial processes like decomposition or nitrogen cycling."

With her dissertation project, Werbin hopes to answer fundamental questions about how and why the soil microbiome varies over time and space.

"The more we learn, the more we realize how important soil microbes are for agriculture, public health, and climate change. It's really exciting to investigate how microscopic organisms can have such large-scale effects," Werbin says. "We know certain factors, like temperature and moisture, affect microbial communities. But we don't know how important those factors are compared to natural variability, or interactions between microbes. My PhD project will help identify the driving forces of the soil microbiome, as well as the biggest sources of uncertainty."