Culture

The Covid-19 pandemic, like many other health crises, has had unequal effects on the U.S. population, with communities of color often hit the hardest. A new study co-authored by an MIT professor identifies a related challenge: Different social groups have different reactions to the fact that Covid-19 has generated those health inequities.

More specifically, the study, based on a multilayered survey of U.S. residents, finds a divergence among racial groups when people are informed about the varying effects of the pandemic. Upon learning more about the social distribution of Covid-19, Black Americans tend to gain a better understanding of their risk. But among white Americans given the same information, there is a split response.

The study used "feeling thermometers," on a scale from 0 to 100, to let participants rate their attitudes towards other racial groups. After learning more about health disparities, whites with "warmer" feelings toward Blacks favored a more vigorous public health response, while those with a "cooler" view of Blacks subsequently viewed Covid-19 as a less urgent problem and became less inclined to support strong public health measures.

"From a public health perspective, there is both good and bad news," says MIT political scientist Evan Lieberman, co-author of a new paper detailing the study's results. "For African Americans who were learning from this study that death rates were higher among African Americans, this increased their perception that they were at greater risk from Covid. ... That's good news because a big part of public health messaging is to make people aware of these dangers."

Moreover, Lieberman adds, "A second piece of good news is that a large share of white Americans feel empathic or close to Black Americans." And those fitting this description "became more invested in the notion that the government should do more on Covid."

However, white participants who admitted to having colder feelings about Blacks became more reluctant to support extensive efforts to tackle the pandemic.

"We did find that those whites who had these cooler views toward African Americans, to the extent they were aware of these disparities in death rates, were more likely to perceive that this was not a problem that affected them, and wanted less aggressive action on Covid-19," says Lieberman.

The paper, "How information about race-based health disparities affects policy preferences: Evidence from a survey experiment about the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States," is published in the May issue of the journal Social Science and Medicine. The authors are Lieberman, who is the Total Professor of Political Science and Contemporary Africa at MIT; and Allison Harell, a professor of political science at the University of Québec at Montréal.

To conduct the study, the researchers conducted an online survey from August to September 2020, using the Qualtrics platform and working with the survey firm Dynata. The final sample is a demographically representative group of 3,961 adult Americans. The participants were asked a variety of questions, and responded to the "feeling thermometers" about other racial groups.

Some participants were then given information about the health disparities generated by Covid-19 -- as of last summer, there were 2.5 times as many deaths per capita for Black Americans, compared to white Americans. Then respondents were asked a series of follow-up questions about Covid-19 risk, the government reaction, public health measures, personal liberties, and economic relief measures.

Only about 15 percent of the whites in the survey reported an unfavorable view about Blacks generally. But among those who did, there was a significant shift in perspective after being presented with information about Covid-19 health disparities. Those least favorable toward Blacks were most likely to think the government was doing too much to combat Covid-19 for instance, while those more favorable were most likely to think the government was doing too little. The researchers identified a similar pattern related to acceptance of certain public health measures such as social distancing and restricting access to public venues.

"It was telling that this share of participants, when they learned this information, became disinclined to have a public health response to Covid," Lieberman says. "Whites who were cool toward Blacks at the start of the study were already relatively less inclined to support aggressive Covid policies. So, the overall effect of receiving the information was to further polarize attitudes on this important set of policies."

Moreover, he says, the results are of a piece with other findings indicating that, for instance, white American men disproportionately do not want to get vaccinated.

"That's a clear expression of a denial of the problem and a lack of interest in participating in what needs to be a coordinated effort to achieve herd immunity," Lieberman says. "They're not interested in a multiracial collective [solution], nor do they perceive themselves to be particularly vulnerable."

Lieberman and Harell recognize their findings can seem vexing, since health officials place a premium on delivering facts to the public -- and in this case, the facts can lead a portion of the population to become more indifferent to the problem. Still, Lieberman says, the research could help make public health messaging more effective.

"The best strategy would be some targeting in messaging," Lieberman suggests. Communicating the facts about Covid-19 disparities usefully informed Black participants, after all, while for some others, he says, it may be necessary to attempt "more messaging that reminds us of the different ways we're interconnected, in which we all lose out to the extent that this pandemic persists."

Reformulating a certain amount of Covid-19 messaging may not be easy. Still, Lieberman says, even if policymakers "are uncomfortable with the notion that there might be any negative effects of disseminating true information, it's fairly clear that's an important reality."

New research demonstrates that African and Asian leopards are more genetically differentiated from one another than polar bears and brown bears. Indeed, leopards are so different that they ought to be treated as two separate species, according to a team of researchers, among them, scientists from the University of Copenhagen. This new knowledge has important implications for better conserving this big and beautiful, yet widely endangered cat.

No one has any doubts about polar bears and brown bears being distinct species. Leopards, on the other hand, are considered one and the same, a single species, whether of African or Asian origin. But perhaps that shouldn't be the case. In a surprising new research result, to which the University of Copenhagen has contributed, it has been made clear that the intercontinental cat cousins are more genetically different than the two species of bear.

"If one sticks with the traditional concept of speciation, the genetic difference is so great that African and Asian leopards shouldn't belong to the same species at all. As leopards are known to roam far and wide, we had expected to come across a much greater mix of genes among them. So, the result came as a surprise," says postdoc and study co-author Rasmus W. Havmøller of the University of Copenhagen's Natural History Museum of Denmark.

The genomes of 26 leopards were mapped by the researchers and account for eight of nine living leopard subspecies. Some of the genetic material used for the study was sourced from leopards in the Natural History Museum's collection. The findings have just been published in the journal Current Biology.

Current subspeciation doesn't hold water

Genome analysis indicates that current differentiations in leopard subspecies just don't hold water. While nine leopard subspecies have been officially identified, the study shows that in example Indian and Sri Lankan leopards are so closely related that they could be considered as a unified evolutionary significant unit.

According to Rasmus W. Havmøller, subspeciation is a central concept when it comes to the conservation of the iconic but endangered feline, whose overall distribution has shrunk by 75% - and locally, by as much as 98% - over the past 250 years.

"When planning leopard conservation efforts, one orients around different subspecies, which might each have their own conservation status. Therefore, this new knowledge can be useful if we are to develop better conservation strategies for leopards. I hope that these results spur debate about the role of genomics in subspeciation," says Rasmus W. Havmøller.

He adds that the results can hopefully be used as a tool to determine which animals are able to be intermixed across geographic regions, so as to maintain high genetic diversity, and whether leopard populations can be merged, as is frequently discussed:

"The answer must now be a resounding no when it comes to African and Asian populations. There is a risk of reducing genetic diversity when crossing a leopard that specialises in living in hot deserts, for example, with another that has adapted to frigid mountain conditions. You are likely to create offspring that are not well adapted to either habitat. On the other hand, our results demonstrate that there might be a solid foundation for interbreeding some of the more genetically similar Asian subspecies."

Emigrated from Africa in one go

Throughout history, leopards have dispersed over a vast area, from Siberia to South Africa. The new research also sheds light on when leopards spread from the African continent, their original home. Here too, the new results surprise - indicating that leopard migration from Africa occurred in a single 'dispersal event' some 500-600,000 years ago. Since then, there has been virtually no contact between leopards on the two continents.

"Until now, it was thought that the colonization of Asia by leopards occurred in several waves and not at once, as our results suggest. The timeframe accords with the concentration of ice at the poles, which precipitated low water levels between Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. This is what made it possible for leopards to cross the sea," explains Rasmus W. Havmøller.

The next step is to find out how the substantial genetic differences in African and Asian leopards are expressed - something that the current body of study does not reveal.

Rasmus W. Havmøller's cautious guess is that the differences are mainly expressed in characteristics linked to how leopards adapt locally.

AURORA, Colo. (May 10, 2021) - Looking to safely block a gene linked to factors known to cause heart disease, scientists at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus may have found a new tool - light.

The study, published Monday in the journal Trends in Molecular Medicine, may solve a medical dilemma that has baffled scientists for years.

The gene, ANGPTL4, regulates fatty lipids in plasma. Scientists have found that people with lower levels of it also have reduced triglycerides and lipids, meaning less risk for cardiovascular disease.

But blocking the gene using antibodies triggered dangerous inflammation in mice. Complicating things further, the gene can also be beneficial in reducing the risk of myocardial ischemia and helping to repair a damaged heart.

"The scientific community is still trying to figure out a way to safely inhibit it," said the study's lead author Tobias Eckle, MD, PhD, professor of anesthesiology at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. "Now we have discovered that ANGPTL4 is a gene with a circadian pattern. It can be influenced by light."

Eckle previously discovered that light therapy can protect the heart. In this study, his team did an unbiased, whole genome array, profiling intense, light-dependent cardiac gene expressions. They found that ANGPTL4 was the top light dependent gene.

Eckle believes the gene could be manipulated by light without risking the lethal effects of blocking it entirely.

"We demonstrate that if you want to get around this problem you don't knock out the protein, you enhance the circadian amplitude by increasing its troughs and peaks," he said. "Throughout the day, you will have times of enhanced protein expression and times with lower expression."

Eckle said the gene can be activated by light therapy, a flavonoid known as nobiletin or through drug formulations.

"In fact, circadian amplitude enhancement of ANGPTL4 would be quite distinct from disabling or even overexpressing it," Eckle said. " Enhancing peaks and troughs would mean that at specific times of day, the ANGPTL4 response would be enhanced and 12 hours later the response would be even more robustly suppressed."

The discovery, Eckle said, reinforces the physiological importance of circadian rhythms as well as the light and oxygen pathways threading through the human body.

"Sunlight and oxygen are the most life-sustaining things on this planet," Eckle said. "We evolved to adapt to those two things and we have pathways throughout our body that sense them."

He said that chronotherapy, giving medications at different times of the day to maximize benefits and minimize side-effects, is a new frontier in medicine.

"The administration of any drug should be connected to a specific time of day," he said. "I believe chronotherapy is the future of medicine."

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- Log on to any app store, and parents will find hundreds of options for children that claim to be educational. But new research suggests these apps might not be as beneficial to children as they seem.

A new study analyzed some of the most downloaded educational apps for kids using a set of four criteria designed to evaluate whether an app provides a high-quality educational experience for children. The researchers found that most of the apps scored low, with free apps scoring even lower than their paid counterparts on some criteria.

Jennifer Zosh, associate professor of human development and family studies at Penn State Brandywine, said the study -- recently published in the Journal of Children and Media -- suggests apps shouldn't replace human interaction nor do they guarantee learning.

"Parents shouldn't automatically trust that something marked 'educational' in an app store is actually educational," Zosh said. "By co-playing apps with their children, talking to them about what is happening as they play, pointing out what is happening in the real world that relates to something shown in an app, and selecting apps that minimize distraction, they are able to leverage the pillars of learning and can successfully navigate this new digital childhood."

According to previous research, about 98 percent of kids ages eight and under live in a home with some type of mobile device, like a smartphone or tablet. While watching videos and playing games are popular ways children spend their time on these devices, the researchers said there are also many apps that are not only popular but claim to be educational.

Marisa Meyer, a research assistant at the University of Michigan, said the idea for the study came about when reviewing the top-downloaded apps on the Google Play marketplace for different research.

"We noticed a concerning number of apps being marketed to children as 'educational' without reputable justification or verification of these educational claims," Meyer said. "Our study was an effort to create a coding scheme that would allow us to evaluate apps marketed as educational and have a framework to verify, or refute, those claims."

For the study, the researchers developed a system for evaluating educational apps that was based on Zosh's previous work in Psychological Science in the Public Interest, which used decades of research on the science of learning to uncover the "pillars" of learning - or the contexts and traits of truly educational experiences. In that piece, Zosh says, "we explored how these pillars might give us insight into how to leverage new technology to create truly educational experiences for young children.

In the current study, Zosh and the other researchers tested the apps children are actually using against these pillars to uncover what today's apps are doing well and where they struggle in supporting learning in young children. The researchers deemed an app high-quality based on how it performed across each pillar.

"The first pillar is to facilitate active, minds-on thinking in the children -- asking them to question, guess, evaluate, and think deeply, rather than simply tapping or reacting to on-screen stimuli," Zosh said. "The second is that it helps children stay tuned into the learning at hand, rather than distracting them with overwhelming sound effects, flash ads, and gimmicky rewards."

The researchers said the third pillar is containing relevant and meaningful content that facilitates a connection of app-based learning to the user's external world. Finally, the fourth pillar is that the app provides opportunities for social interaction, either in-person or mediated by the screen.

The top 100 children's educational apps from the Google Play and Apple app stores, as well as 24 apps most frequently played by preschool-age children in a separate longitudinal cohort study, were analyzed for the study. Each app was given a score of zero (low) to three (high) for each pillar. Apps that had a combined score of less than five after adding the scores for each pillar were considered low quality.

After analyzing the data, the researchers found that a score of '1' was the most common rating for all four pillars. For the fourth pillar -- Social Interaction -- a score of '0' was the second most common rating.

According to the researchers, because these apps might not provide high-quality educational experiences for kids, they risk parents choosing them over other activities -- such as reading, physical activity or pretend play -- that could actually be more beneficial.

Meyer added that the study also has implications not just for parents, but for app developers, as well.

"If app designers intend to engender and advertise educational gains through use of their apps, we recommend collaborating with child development experts in order to develop apps rooted in the ways children learn most effectively," Meyer said. "We also recommend that app designers and app stores work with child development experts to create evidence-based ratings of apps, so that higher-quality products with fewer distracting enhancements can be easily identified by parents."

A new survey led by researchers from North Carolina State University found that the future of hunting in the United States might look different than it has in the past.

In The Journal of Wildlife Management, researchers reported findings from a nationwide survey of college students' interest and participation in hunting. They found current, active hunters were more likely to be white, male and from rural areas, and to have family members who hunted. But they also found a group of potential hunters - with no hunting experience but an interest in trying it - who were more diverse in terms of gender, race and ethnicity.

"There are a lot of potential hunters out there who look nothing like current hunters, suggesting there are many different pathways into hunting," said study co-author Lincoln Larson, associate professor of parks, recreation and tourism management at NC State. "We are working to find messages and strategies that resonate with new and diverse groups."

In the study, researchers surveyed 17,203 undergraduates at public universities in 22 states from 2018 to 2020 to understand college students' perspectives on hunting. Recruiting new hunters has become a priority for state wildlife agencies as declines in hunting participation have also meant a reduction in a vital source of funding for agencies' operations: revenue from hunting licenses and excise taxes on hunting gear and ammunition.

"For nearly 100 years, hunting and angling have combined to provide a majority of wildlife conservation funding in the United States," Larson said. "Without people participating in these activities, our current conservation model won't work. By helping college students connect with public lands and wildlife, we can create a more sustainable source of funding into the future."

They found 29 percent of all students in the survey had hunted at some point in the past, and another 11 percent had accompanied a hunter in the field. The biggest predictor of whether a student hunted was having an immediate family member who also hunts.

When they sorted students into categories of active, potential, lapsed and non-hunters, they found approximately 26 percent of students were active hunters.

They were 84 percent white, 74 percent male, and many were from rural hometowns. In addition, most active hunters had immediate family members who also hunted, and just 7 percent reported no social support for hunting.

In comparison, the largest group of college students were non-hunters, at 50 percent. The smallest group, at 3 percent, were lapsed hunters. Twenty-two percent of students were potential hunters, which meant they said they might try it once, or they might hunt rarely or regularly in the future.

Potential hunters were a more diverse group compared to active hunters. Forty-seven percent were female, and 38 percent identified as either Black or African-American, Hispanic or Latinx, Asian, American Indian or other.

Forty-three percent of potential hunters were from urban hometowns, and 74 percent did not have immediate family members who hunt. Seventy-nine percent were majoring in fields outside of agriculture or natural resources.

"We found many potential hunters who don't share the same attributes as active hunters," Larson said. "What's motivating them, what's limiting their participation and how do we build a bridge to help connect them to hunting and wildlife conservation?"

For students across the survey, getting ethically and locally sourced meat was the biggest motivator for hunting. Students across all groups also supported hunting as a conservation tool. Hunting for social reasons or for sport were more prominent motivations among active hunters. The biggest constraints they found among non-hunters, potential hunters and lapsed hunters was interest in other activities.

"One of our biggest takeaways is that many students, regardless of their background, support ecological conservation motivations for hunting. They care about controlling over-populated species and about improving personal and environmental health by eating local game meat," said the study's lead author Victoria Vayer, a former graduate student in parks, recreation and tourism management at NC State. "If we use messaging that relates to those motivations, instead of emphasizing contentious things like trophy hunting, we could reel in more potential hunters without eroding support among people who don't hunt."

Endometriosis, a disease found in up to 10 per cent of women, has been enigmatic since it was first described. A new theory developed by researchers at Simon Fraser University suggests a previously overlooked hormone -- testosterone -- has a critical role in its development. The research could have direct impacts on diagnosis and treatment of the disease, signaling hope for women with endometriosis worldwide.

The disease is caused by endometrial tissue growing outside of the uterus, usually in the pelvic area, where it contributes to pain, inflammation, and infertility. But why some women get it, and others do not, has remained unclear.

The new research is based on recent findings that women with endometriosis developed, as fetuses in their mother's womb, under conditions of relatively low testosterone, compared to women without endometriosis.

According to the researchers' theory, this low testosterone 'programs' the developing reproductive system of women to exhibit the unique suite of traits that is linked with endometriosis, including early menarche, short menstrual cycles, high pain sensitivity, high inflammation, and altered levels of the hormones that control ovulation and the menstrual cycle.

The researchers found their theory to be supported by a remarkable range of data in the literature, from genetics and development to endocrinology, morphology, life history, and evolutionary biology, thus providing the first comprehensive explanation for the traits associated with endometriosis.

The theory can explain almost all symptoms of endometriosis as downstream effects of low early-life testosterone. The findings are presented in two recent papers published in Evolution, Medicine and Public Health, and Evolutionary Applications.

"Low testosterone in early development is the strongest known correlate of endometriosis, and its effects can explain the majority of endometriosis symptoms," says SFU biological sciences professor Bernard Crespi, a Canada Research Chair and co-author of the work with graduate student Natalie Dinsdale. "What's more, the new theory has direct implications for endometriosis diagnosis and treatment."

Crespi notes that testosterone has apparently been overlooked in studies of endometriosis because it is usually regarded as a 'male' hormone, even though it is known to have key effects in females as well.

"It is very common for researchers to focus on estrogen as a female hormone, and testosterone as a male hormone, but in reality, these are both critically important hormones in all humans," says Ben Trumble, an assistant professor at the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University, who was not associated with these studies. "I applaud the authors for moving beyond this binary hormonal blind spot, and studying the full range of steroids that can impact women's health."

"This work establishes endometriosis as a developmental endocrine disorder, with roots in early life," says Crespi. "It also clarifies the relationship of endometriosis with polycystic ovary syndrome, a disorder driven by too high, rather than too low, levels of prenatal testosterone. We show that polycystic ovary syndrome is essentially opposite to endometriosis in its causes, correlates, and major symptoms. As such, this work should help to transform our understanding of both disorders."

Admit it: Daily commutes - those stops, the starts, all that stress - gets on your last nerve.

Or is that just me?

It might be, according to a new study from the University of Houston's Computational Physiology Lab. UH Professor Ioannis Pavlidis and his team of researchers took a look at why some drivers can stay cool behind the wheel while others keep getting more irked.

"We call the phenomenon 'accelerousal.' Arousal being a psychology term that describes stress. Accelarousal is what we identify as stress provoked by acceleration events, even small ones," said Pavlidis, who designed the research. According to the professor, the reason for it goes deeper than you might think.

"It may be partly due to genetic predisposition," Pavlidis said. "It was a very consistent behavior, which means, in all likelihood, this is an innate human characteristic."

To reach these conclusions, UH researchers, in collaboration with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, took a hard look at how individual drivers reacted to common acceleration, speed and steering events on a carefully monitored itinerary. Results appeared in the May 2021 proceedings of ACM CHI, the premier forum on Human-Computer Interaction research. (Click here.)

"Thanks to our work, we now have an understanding of accelerousal, a phobia that was hidden in plain sight," said Tung Huynh, a research assistant with the team.

For the study, 11 volunteer drivers were monitored for signs of instantaneous physiological stress during separate half-hour drives along the same route in the same Toyota Sienna minivan.

Stress measurements were taken via thermal imaging targeting the drivers' levels of perinasal perspiration, which is an autonomic (involuntary) facial response reflecting a fight-or-flight reaction. Simultaneously, a computer in the Toyota Sienna functioned like an airplane's black box, recording the vehicle's acceleration, speed, brake force and steering.

The driving tests were conducted by Texas A&M Transportation Institute researchers under the direction of Dr. Mike Manser, manager of the Institute's Human Factors Program.

When data was crunched at the University of Houston, researchers found about half the participants consistently exhibited peaked stress during periods of commonplace acceleration, such as happens in stop-and-go progress through red lights. The other half showed no notable changes from their baseline measurements.

"This has all the characteristics of long-term stressor, with all the health and other implications that this may entail," Pavlidis said.

Even more revealing is how far apart the two extremes were.

"The differences were significant, with 'accelaroused' participants logging nearly 50% more stress than non-accelaroused ones," Pavlidis said. "Moreover, psychometric measurements taken through a standardized questionnaire given to every volunteer at the end of the drive revealed that acceleroused drivers felt more overloaded." The anxious drivers were more exhausted after their drives, in other words, than the calm drivers were after theirs.

"This was a clear indication that accelerousal was taking a toll on drivers, and that the drivers were not consciously aware of that," Pavlidis said.

This small-scale study, he suggests, points to the need for deeper research. It also highlights the instrumental role technology could play in understanding human response to demands of driving. Such understanding could not only improve safety on our roads but will also safeguard the long-term health of drivers.

"For instance, delivery drivers, which is an expanding class in the current gig economy, are exposed to stop-and-go events all the time. Therefore, delivery drivers who experience accelerousal - and for now, are unaware - could have a way to detect this condition in themselves and account for its long-term stress effects," Pavlidis explained.

These findings will have even more relevance over coming decades, as automotive innovators move toward semi-automated vehicles that could sense and relieve stressed drivers.

During the recent tests, great care was taken to equalize the volunteers' driving experiences. Each drive happened during daylight hours, in clear weather and light traffic over the same 19-kilometer town itinerary (almost 12 miles). Participants were experienced drivers of similar age (18 to 27) and all had normal vision.

Where would you score on the accelerousal scale? Watch out for signs, the professor urges, and ask yourself: Does driving wear you out more than it does your friends and family?

"That could be a telltale sign of accelerousal," Pavlidis cautioned.

Chemotherapy can induce a painful peripheral neuropathy (CIPN), a chronic condition and common adverse effect for cancer patients undergoing treatment. Researchers at University of California San Diego School of Medicine, with colleagues elsewhere, have used a mouse model to demonstrate the pivotal role of cholesterol in CIPN, and proposed a novel therapeutic approach to reverse it.

The findings are published in the May 10, 2021, online issue of the Journal of Experimental Medicine.

The study was a collaboration between the laboratories of senior study author Yury Miller, MD, PhD, professor of medicine, and Tony Yaksh, PhD, professor of anesthesiology and pharmacology, both at UC San Diego School of Medicine. Miller studies cholesterol metabolism and cardiovascular and neuro inflammation. Yaksh specializes in neuropathic pain.

"It was truly gratifying to work at the intersection of two disciplines and identify the role cholesterol plays in activation of microglia -- immune cells of the spinal cord -- and regulation of chronic pain," said first author Juliana Navia-Pelaez, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow in Miller's lab.

"The metabolism of cellular cholesterol was already linked to neurological conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease, but we were first to show its role and underlying mechanisms in chronic pain."

Cholesterol is essential for brain function, both during development and in adult life. It is a major component of cell membranes, a precursor to some hormones and serves as a cellular messenger. However, excess of cholesterol is detrimental to human health; buildup of cholesterol plaques in large arteries often causes heart attacks and stroke.

The UC San Diego team found that changes in cholesterol metabolism contributed to reprogramming of microglia in a way that perpetuated chronic inflammation in the spinal cord. Genetically modified mice lacking cholesterol transporters in microglia were unable to remove excessive amounts of cholesterol, and thus experienced pain -- even without chemotherapeutic intervention.

The outer membrane of these cells, which is normally fluid, became rigid with accumulated cholesterol in the form of floating solid platforms called lipid rafts. The lipid raft environment, said the authors, favors assembly and activation of cellular proteins that mediate inflammatory response, such as Toll-like receptor-4 (TLR4).

"We were surprised to find that in CIPN, enlarged lipid rafts and TLR4 assemblies persisted for days and weeks," said Miller. "We even started calling them 'inflammarafts' to stress the importance of these membrane domains in neuroinflammation and pain states."

To reverse the harmful effects of excessive cholesterol in microglia, researchers used a modified version of the apoA-I binding protein (AIBP), which hastens cholesterol removal and disrupts inflammarafts, but does not damage physiological lipid rafts. A single injection of AIBP in the spinal canal of mice reversed CIPN pain, and the therapeutic effect lasted for several weeks, without adverse effects.

"The long-lasting effect we observed with the delivery of AIBP points to a reprogramming of these immune cells that implies cholesterol plays a fundamental role in gene expression," said Navia-Pelaez. "It might even act as a driver of epigenetic alterations in microglia and ultimately pain behavior."

The authors said the results are part of a promising series of investigations, conducted by UC San Diego and Raft Pharmaceuticals.

"Considerable work remains to be done in terms of safety and kinetics to move this new biologic ahead for clinical trials," said Yaksh, "but the present results are exceedingly promising as they provide a hitherto unappreciated target -- inflammarafts in immune cells -- for drug development in the management of chronic neuropathic pain."

Evidence of recent volcanic activity on Mars shows that eruptions could have taken place in the past 50,000 years, according to new study by researchers at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the Planetary Science Institute.

Most volcanism on the Red Planet occurred between 3 and 4 billion years ago, with smaller eruptions in isolated locations continuing perhaps as recently as 3 million years ago. But, until now, there was no evidence to indicate Mars could still be volcanically active.

Using data from satellites orbiting Mars, researchers discovered a previously unknown volcanic deposit. They detail their findings in the paper "Evidence for geologically recent explosive volcanism in Elysium Planitia, Mars," published in the journal Icarus.

"This may be the youngest volcanic deposit yet documented on Mars," said lead study author David Horvath, who did the research as a postdoctoral researcher at UArizona and is now a research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute. "If we were to compress Mars' geologic history into a single day, this would have occurred in the very last second."

The volcanic eruption produced an 8-mile-wide, smooth, dark deposit surrounding a 20-mile-long volcanic fissure.

"When we first noticed this deposit, we knew it was something special," said study co-author Jeff Andrews-Hanna, an associate professor at the UArizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the senior author on the study. "The deposit was unlike anything else found in the region, or indeed on all of Mars, and more closely resembled features created by older volcanic eruptions on the Moon and Mercury."

Further investigation showed that the properties, composition and distribution of material match what would be expected for a pyroclastic eruption - an explosive eruption of magma driven by expanding gasses, not unlike the opening of a shaken can of soda.

The majority of volcanism in the Elysium Planitia region and elsewhere on Mars consists of lava flowing across the surface, similar to recent eruptions in Iceland being studied by co-author Christopher Hamilton, a UArizona associate professor of lunar and planetary sciences. Although there are numerous examples of explosive volcanism on Mars, they occurred long ago. However, this deposit appears to be different.

"This feature overlies the surrounding lava flows and appears to be a relatively fresh and thin deposit of ash and rock, representing a different style of eruption than previously identified pyroclastic features," Horvath said. "This eruption could have spewed ash as high as 6 miles into Mars' atmosphere. It is possible that these sorts of deposits were more common but have been eroded or buried."

The site of the recent eruption is about 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from NASA's InSight lander, which has been studying seismic activity on Mars since 2018. Two Marsquakes, the Martian equivalent of earthquakes, were found to originate in the region around the Cerberus Fossae, and recent work has suggested the possibility that these could be due to the movement of magma deep underground.

"The young age of this deposit absolutely raises the possibility that there could still be volcanic activity on Mars, and it is intriguing that recent Marsquakes detected by the InSight mission are sourced from the Cerberus Fossae," Horvath said. In fact, the team of researchers predicted this to be a likely location for Marsquakes several months before NASA's InSight lander touched down on Mars.

A volcanic deposit such as this one also raises the possibility for habitable conditions below the surface of Mars in recent history, Horvath said.

"The interaction of ascending magma and the icy substrate of this region could have provided favorable conditions for microbial life fairly recently and raises the possibility of extant life in this region," he said.

Similar volcanic fissures in this region were the source of enormous floods, perhaps as recently as 20 million years ago, as groundwater erupted out onto the surface.

Andrews-Hanna's research group continues to investigate the causes of the eruption. Pranabendu Moitra, a research scientist in the UArizona Department of Geosciences, has been probing the mechanism behind the eruption.

An expert in similar explosive eruptions on Earth, Moitra developed models to look at the possible cause of the Martian eruption. In a forthcoming paper in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, he suggests that the explosion either could have been a result of gases already present in the Martian magma, or it could have happened when the magma came into contact with Martian permafrost.

"The ice melts to water, mixes with the magma and vaporizes, forcing a violent explosion of the mixture," Moitra said. "When water mixes with magma, it's like pouring gasoline on a fire."

He also points out that the youngest volcanic eruption on Mars happened only 6 miles (10 kilometers) from the youngest large-impact crater on the planet - a 6-mile-wide crater named Zunil.

"The ages of the eruption and the impact are indistinguishable, which raises the possibility, however speculative, that the impact actually triggered the volcanic eruption," Moitra said.

Several studies have found evidence that large quakes on Earth can cause magma stored beneath the surface to erupt. The impact that formed the Zunil crater on Mars would have shaken the Red Planet just like an earthquake, Moitra explained.

While the more dramatic giant volcanoes elsewhere on Mars - such as Olympus Mons, the tallest mountain in the solar system - tell a story of the planet's ancient dynamics, the current hotspot of Martian activity seems to be in the relatively featureless plains of the planet's Elysium region.

Andrews-Hanna said it's remarkable that one region hosts the epicenters of present-day earthquakes, the most recent floods of water, the most recent lava flows, and now an even more recent explosive volcanic eruption.

"This may be the most recent volcanic eruption on Mars," he said, "but I think we can rest assured that it won't be the last."

The volcanic deposit described in this study, along with ongoing seismic rumbling in the planet's interior detected by InSight and possible evidence for releases of methane plumes into the atmosphere detected by NASA's MAVEN orbiter, suggest that Mars is far from a cold, inactive world, Andrews-Hanna said.

"All these data seem to be telling the same story," he said. "Mars isn't dead."

The American College of Chest Physicians® (CHEST) recently released new clinical guidelines on the Diagnosis and Evaluation of Hypersensitivity Pneumonitis (HP). The guidelines contain 14 evidence-based recommendations to improve individual diagnostic decision-making and to decrease diagnostic practice variability.

Occurring at any age, HP is an immunologically mediated form of lung disease resulting from inhalational exposure to a large variety of environmental and/or occupational inciting antigens (typically fungal, bacterial, avian). Over the years, the categorization of HP based on clinical features and disease duration coupled with traditional diagnostic criteria has been unhelpful, even when accurate, when separated from a probabilistic diagnostic reasoning approach and multidisciplinary consensus.

By outlining a patient-centered and interdisciplinary diagnostic approach to a confident or working HP diagnosis, these guidelines will serve as a central source to help optimize diagnostic consistency and decision-making in HP across multidisciplinary teams and among clinicians.

"Guidelines for medical diagnoses are fundamental to better align diagnostic approaches across practicing institutions," says Evans Fernández, MD, MS, a pulmonologist at National Jewish Health. "Along with streamlining the approach to diagnosing HP, the guidelines also provide a diagnostic algorithm incorporating the evidence and informed by expert consensus, to aid physicians in gauging the probability of HP."

Several of the guidelines presented in the report include the following recommendations:

In patients with suspected HP, the panel suggests:

Classifying patients based on the likelihood of occupational or environmental inciting antigen exposure and as fibrotic or nonfibrotic based on the presence or absence of fibrosis on high-resolution CT of the chest.

Against performing bronchoalveolar lavage fluid analysis in patients who have a compelling exposure history within the appropriate clinical context and a pattern typical for HP on high-resolution CT of the chest.

Considering histological lung biopsy for additional diagnostic evaluation when all available data such as clinical, laboratory and radiologic findings (along with bronchoscopic results) do not yield a confident diagnosis, and results may help guide management.

The full list of recommendations and an explanation of the methodology applied is available on the journal CHEST® website.

"Along with the physician's diagnosis, it is important for patients to understand their disease," says Dr. Fernández. "To assist those diagnosed with an interstitial lung disease, like HP, there are resources available on the CHEST Foundation website."

PHILADELPHIA-- Human brain organoids are remarkable platforms for modeling features of human brain development and diseases. Building on methods to generate organoids to model different brain regions such as the cortex and the midbrain, researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania have generated the first organoids of the arcuate nucleus (ARC), an essential structure in the hypothalamus that sends signals of hunger and feeling full. This part of the hypothalamus exhibits a tremendous amount of cell diversity, and is far more complex than previously modeled parts of the brain.

In a paper published today in Cell Stem Cell, researchers at Penn report generating arcuate organoids (ARCOs) that model the ARC of the hypothalamus. Previous studies have generated 2D hypothalamic-like neurons and 3D hypothalamic organoids from human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs). However, no protocols previously existed to generate hypothalamus nucleus-specific organoids.

Researchers applied a machine learning approach and used published mouse data to predict ARC populations in the human hypothalamus at the single-cell level. Researchers then compared individual clusters of cells from the ARCO dataset with the predicted human ARC cells in the neonatal human hypothalamus. Using this approach, they determined that the ARCOs exhibit very similar cell type diversity and molecular signatures to those of human ARCs.

"This model provides opportunities to examine the previously inaccessible human fetal development of the hypothalamic arcuate nucleus," says senior author Guo-li Ming, MD, PhD, a professor of Neuroscience at Penn. "For the first time, we have an atlas of cell types in the human hypothalamus, which will be a blueprint to further understanding the development of brain disorders, such as certain causes of obesity and autism."

Knowing that a dysfunction within the hypothalamus can lead to disorders such as Prader-Willi syndrome (PWS) - a genetic disorder caused by a loss of function of specific genes on chromosome 15, in which patients become constantly hungry, often leading to obesity and other complications - researchers generated iPSCs from two patients with known genetic mutations that cause PWS, and used those to derive ARCOs. They showed that ARCOs derived from patients with PWS maintain disease- and patient-specific gene signatures. For example, one of the cell types within the ARC is responsible for regulating the leptin response, which regulates food intake, and it is known that this pathway malfunctions in patients with PWS. Researchers found that indeed there is also a dysfunction in leptin response and the signaling pathways in the PWS ARCO, suggesting that not only can the ARCOs recapitulate single nuclei in terms of their cell type diversity and molecular signatures, but the patient-derived ARCOs can recapitulate certain disease signatures.

"Our study provides a scalable, efficient, and robust protocol to generate ARC-specific organoids, which can be used to model early hypothalamic developmental processes and related brain diseases," Ming says. "I look forward to future studies with a larger cohort of Prader-Willi syndrome donors to help us better model PWS in ARCOs and further understand the potential pathology of the disorder at the cellular and molecular levels."

Scientists have made major advances in understanding and developing treatments for many cancers by identifying genetic mutations that drive the disease. Now a team led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian and the New York Genome Center (NYGC) has developed a machine learning technique for detecting other modifications to DNA that have a similar effect.

The study, published May 10 in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, focuses on a type of chemical modification to DNA, called methylation, that typically silences nearby genes. The new technique can analyze the thousands of DNA methylation changes detected in tumor cells and infer which ones are likely driving tumor growth.

Methylation is an "epigenetic" process that normally regulates gene activity across the genome by altering the structure of DNA without changing the information contained in the genes. Occasionally, though, excessive methylation, called hypermethylation, occurs near a tumor suppressor gene, silencing the gene and helping to trigger or drive the runaway cell division of cancer.

"If we can profile a large number of tumors with techniques like this, we can map the epigenetic changes that are contributing to tumor growth in certain cancers," said senior author Dr. Dan Landau, an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Hematology and Medical Oncology and a member of the Sandra and Edward Meyer Cancer Center at Weill Cornell Medicine. "Then we can use that information to improve our understanding of cancer origins, as well as to optimize treatments for individual patients."

The challenge addressed by the new technique is similar to the one cancer researchers have faced regarding DNA mutations--how to distinguish "driver" mutations from more abundant "passenger" mutations that have no effect on cancer. Though there are now sophisticated methods for making the distinction among genetic mutations, techniques for distinguishing driver methylation changes from passenger methylation changes have not been nearly as sophisticated, said Dr. Landau, who is also a core member of the NYGC and an oncologist at NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center.

The new algorithm developed by Dr. Landau's team is called MethSig. It uses available information, such as the background rate of methylation in a particular area of the genome, to estimate when a given methylation change is likely to be a cancer driver.

The researchers applied the algorithm to DNA methylation maps from different tumor types and found that it inferred a small number of cancer-driver events--a median of a dozen or so, in each tumor--compared to thousands of passenger methylation changes. The patterns of inferred driver methylation were consistent across patients and tumor types, as well as other statistical features suggesting the algorithm's non-incremental increase in performance compared to existing methods.

The team further validated several of the most strongly inferred DNA methylation cancer drivers by knocking out the affected gene in chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL) cells, and showing that the gene's absence enhanced cell growth when the cells were untreated, and also in the presence of some standard CLL treatments. Overall, the researchers concluded that their algorithm detects likely cancer-driving methylation changes much more sensitively and selectively than current methods.

In a demonstration of the algorithm's potential for improving cancer prognosis and treatment, the researchers applied MethSig to another set of CLL samples and used its inferences to predict the aggressiveness of individual patients' cancers.

"The classifier we developed using MethSig produced estimated risks for each patient, and we found that patients with higher estimated risks were more likely to have had worse outcomes," said first author Dr. Heng Pan, a senior research associate in the HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Al?Saud Institute for Computational Biomedicine at Weill Cornell Medicine, who performed most of the experiments in the study.

The researchers plan to continue using and improving the MethSig algorithm with more cancer datasets and more comprehensive genomic information.

"Ultimately we envision being able to map the entire landscape of cancer-driving DNA methylation changes, for different tumor types and in the contexts of different treatments, so that we can expand the scope of precision medicine beyond genetics to include also the critical dimension of epigenetic changes in cancer " Dr. Landau said.

DALLAS, May 10, 2021— Hospitalized COVID-19 patients with impaired first-phase ejection fraction were nearly 5 times more likely to die compared to patients with healthier measures of this early, often undetected sign of heart failure, according to new research published today in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal. First-phase ejection fraction is a measure of the left ventricular ejection fraction until the time of maximal ventricular contraction.

Cardiovascular risk factors and/or disease have been recognized as COVID-19 risk factors that have a high negative impact on patient outcomes, since early in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Researchers hypothesized that predisposition to heart failure would be associated with more severe cases of COVID-19 in hospitalized patients.

“Traditionally, heart function is measured by ejection fraction, or how much blood the left ventricle pumps out with each contraction of the heart,” said study author Phil Chowienczyk, M.B.B.S., B.Sc., professor of cardiovascular clinical pharmacology at St. Thomas' Hospital, in London. “First-phase ejection fraction is a new measure of the heart’s function that seems to be much more sensitive of early, undetected damage to the heart than traditional ejection fraction measures.”

To determine if first-phase ejection fraction predicted adverse patient outcomes, researchers analyzed mortality rates for 129 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Wuhan, China, and 251 hospitalized COVID-19 patients in South London, treated between February and May 2020, were analyzed. All patients had echocardiography upon hospital admission, and the average patient age was 58 years. Researchers compared echocardiography results of COVID-19 patients to adult patients with otherwise similar health profiles who had an echocardiography test before the pandemic.

First-phase ejection fraction was measured with conventional echocardiography imaging conducted at hospitalized patients’ bedsides. Researchers note that there is not a universally established ‘normal’ value for first-phase ejection fraction.  Based on previous research, they estimated that the normal first-phase ejection fraction value should be above 25%. When first-phase ejection fraction was less than 25%, researchers referred to it as ‘impaired,’ suggesting relatively subtle signs of heart damage.

The authors found that COVID-19 patients with a first-phase ejection fraction of less than 25% had a nearly five-fold higher risk of death than those with an ejection fraction of 25% or higher. They also found that a similar proportion of people with similar risk factors who did not have COVID-19 had low values of first-phase ejection fraction. This suggests that the damage to the heart may be due to chronic pre-existing conditions and was not the result of COVID-19 infection.

“Patients with impaired first-phase ejection fraction could be prioritized for vaccines and, if they get COVID-19, monitored closely at the early stages of their illness to prevent deterioration,” Chowienczyk said. “The findings suggest that if we can prevent the very early chronic damage to the heart detected using first-phase ejection fraction imaging, then people will be much more likely to survive respiratory infections like COVID-19. Healthy lifestyle choices, better treatments and adherence to treatments for high blood pressure and high cholesterol are also important.”

Researchers note that this is a relatively small study, so the findings need to be confirmed in larger studies with more patients. If the results are confirmed, first-phase ejection fraction could be a new way to identify patients at elevated risk of dying from COVID-19 and possibly other types of pneumonia.

DALLAS, May 10, 2021 — In a small study, researchers found college athletes who contracted COVID-19 rarely had cardiac complications. Most had mild COVID symptoms that did not require treatment, and in a small percentage of those with abnormal cardiac testing, there was no evidence of heart damage on special imaging tests. All athletes returned to sports without any health concerns, according to new research published today in the American Heart Association’s flagship journal Circulation.

In spring 2020, concerns about heart damage, especially inflammation, among athletes with COVID-19 led to recommendations for cardiac screening based on symptom severity before resuming training and competition. The preferred diagnostic test for heart inflammation is an MRI of the heart, or cardiac magnetic resonance imaging. The American College of Cardiology’s Sports & Exercise Cardiology Council’s standard recommendations, issued in May 2020, do not advise cardiac MRI as an initial screening test based on COVID symptoms alone, so researchers investigated if symptom severity was associated with heart inflammation or poor recovery after COVID-19.

“Our study results support an approach to cardiac screening guided by patient symptoms and severity of COVID illness in line with current recommendations from sports-cardiology groups before resuming exercise or sports,” said senior study author Ranjit R. Philip, M.D., pediatric cardiologist at Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital and assistant professor in pediatric cardiology at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in Memphis.

From July 9, 2020 to October 21, 2020, researchers at the University of Tennessee Health Sciences Center reviewed health records to identify 137 college athletes (average age of 20, 68% male) who were referred for cardiac screening to return to play after testing positive for COVID-19. On average, the athletes were evaluated 16 days after testing positive for the COVID-19 virus. Nearly half of the participants were African American students, nearly half were white students, and 7% were Hispanic students. Of the 11 sports represented at three universities, more than a third of the athletes were football players, followed by dance, basketball, baseball, softball, tennis, soccer, cheer, track, volleyball and golf athletes.

Most (82%) of the athletes had COVID-19 symptoms; the symptoms were mild for the majority (68%); and none required treatment or hospitalization. The most frequent symptoms were the loss of smell/taste (58%), fever (less than 2 days, 42%), headache (41%) and fatigue (40%). Less frequently reported symptoms were shortness of breath (12%) and chest pain/tightness (11%). African American and Hispanic athletes were more often symptomatic compared to white athletes (86% and 100% vs. 75%, respectively). No differences in symptoms or severity were found based on gender or sport.

All of the athletes underwent initial heart imaging tests, including ultrasound of the heart and electrocardiogram to screen for possible heart damage, and received a blood test (troponin level). Troponin is a protein that is released in the blood and found in the muscles of the heart when there is heart damage. Only participants who had abnormal test results received a cardiac MRI.

Researchers found:

Less than 4% (5) of the 137 athletes showed heart abnormalities on initial screening tests.
Further screening via cardiac MRI of the 5 athletes identified found no heart damage or inflammation.
After COVID-19 recovery, all athletes were able to resume their full training and competition regimens without any complications.

“We were encouraged to find so few abnormal tests in these athletes as well as negative cardiac MRIs in those who did have an abnormal test during the initial screening, and no athlete had any problems after returning to exercise and sport,” said Benjamin S. Hendrickson, M.D., co-author and pediatric and congenital cardiologist with Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital and assistant professor of pediatrics (cardiology) at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center.

“Our findings may offer reassurance to high school athletes, coaches and parents where resources for testing can be limited,” Philip added.

Limitations that could have affected the study’s results include the lack of a control group without COVID-19 and the use of a regular as opposed to the high-sensitivity troponin test.

The new study by Dr. Philip and colleagues also confirms recent research published April 17 in Circulation, that found no adverse cardiac events related to SARS-CoV-2 infections observed among more than 3,000 collegiate athletes during short-term clinical surveillance. Findings also suggested a safe return-to-play without cardiac testing for asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic athletes.

Other efforts to track how COVID-19 impacts college athletes includes an initiative from the American Heart Association and the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine (AMSSM) to accelerate a critical new research initiative studying cardiac conditions in athletes. The collaborative data registry, started in January 2021, aids research on COVID-19 and, long-term, it will develop a deep knowledge base on cardiac disease in athletes beyond the pandemic.

UK landowners and conservationists welcome wider-spread use of Gene Conservation Units (GCUs) to help protect some of the rarest plants and insects, research at the University of York has shown.

In particular the Great Yellow Bumblebee and the Mountain Ringlet Butterfly, which are at risk of further population decline, would benefit from Gene Conservation Units, currently only employed for forest trees and agricultural species or their relatives.

Genetic diversity in these species is essential if they are to adapt to new, and often challenging, environmental conditions. Gene Conservation Units are areas of land managed to allow the recovery of species, and maintain evolutionary processes to enable them to adapt to environmental change.

For tree species, this means promoting natural regeneration, and for others, it means ensuring that the breeding population is large enough, and diverse enough, to be able to weather the changes ahead. Habitat management may achieve this, as well as population monitoring to ensure a large population is sustained.

PhD researcher Melissa Minter, from the Department of Biology at the University of York, said: "In investigating whether landowners would be interested in adopting a system of GCUs, we looked at the potential benefits these might bring to some species of insects and plants.

"We have shown that the genetic diversity of cold-adapted butterflies, such as the Mountain Ringlet, is at high risk of local extinction in a warming climate and so conservation measures are needed to secure the survival of threatened populations.

"Similarly, the Great Yellow Bumblebee now only survives on a few Scottish islands and the northern tip of mainland Scotland, which means that any changes in our climate could negatively impact their already depleted population.

"We wanted to know if GCUs could provide a solution to some of these issues and whether this concept could be applied to other species, in addition to forest trees."

The research involved a survey questionnaire of conservationists and land managers to gather opinions on adopting a system of GCUs to protect biodiversity. The survey results showed that if GCUs could be co-developed with stakeholders, then a GCU approach is more likely to appeal to land managers.

Specifically, landowners would benefit from setting-up GCUs on their land as recognition of best practice in conserving species and genetic diversity, and supporting evolutionary processes to help species cope with environmental change. A working group has now been established to look at how the first non-tree GCU could be developed.

NatureScot's Beinn Eighe National Nature Reserve (NNR) was registered as the UK's first GCU in recognition of its ancient Caledonian pine forest in 2019. Since then, the Woodland Trust have registered several more sites across the UK, including three more in Scotland, for six tree species.

NatureScot Woodlands Officer and research co-author Jeanette Hall said: "We have seen first-hand how successful the Gene Conservation Unit approach can be with the registration of our Beinn Eighe NNR and this research shows the exciting potential for working with land managers to expand this work to cover many more plant, animals and wild species.

"Conserving genetic diversity remains an international biodiversity priority so in what will be an important year for nature and tackling climate change, it's great to see partnership working across the UK leading the way in this field."

Genetic diversity was the focus of one of the international Aichi 2020 biodiversity targets. This year new global targets to improve nature will be agreed at a Conference of the Parties in Kunming, China (COP15), followed by the COP26 on climate change in Glasgow.