Culture

Researchers have found common foxgloves brought to the Americas have rapidly evolved to change flower length in the presence of a new pollinator group, hummingbirds. The findings are published in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Ecology.

Researchers from the University of Sussex, Universidad de Los Andes (Colombia) and Universidad de Costa Rica, studying the common foxglove Digitalis purpurea, a bumblebee pollinated species native to Europe, have shown for the first time how rapid physical changes can occur in flowers following a change in environment and the presence of a new pollinator.

The researchers compared foxgloves in the UK, which are pollinated by bumblebees, with foxgloves introduced in two independent events to Costa Rica and Colombia around 200 years ago, which are pollinated by different species of bumblebees and also hummingbirds. They found the base of the cone structure of the flowers, called the proximal corolla tube, was 13-26% larger in populations in the Americas.

Foxgloves have long, narrow proximal corolla tubes. This part of the flower holds the nectar and by being this shape, they restrict floral visitors to those with long mouthparts such as long-tongued bumblebees.

"We found foxglove populations in Costa Rica and Colombia now have flowers with longer tubes at the base, when compared to native populations. There is also substantial natural selection on this floral characteristic in the naturalised populations." said Dr Maria Clara Castellanos at the University of Sussex and one of the authors of the study.

"Long corollas are a common feature in many hummingbird-pollinated plants, likely because this improves the precision of pollen transfer during the pollination interaction. It is also possible that long corolla tubes exclude other pollinators that are less effective."

Because foxgloves are biennial (meaning each generation takes two years) these changes have occurred in around 85 generations, indicating a rapid evolutionary change.

In the study the researchers also confirmed that hummingbirds are effective foxglove pollinators. "We counted pollen grains deposited in flowers and found that after a single visit they can bring in more pollen than a bumblebee." said Dr Castellanos.

The study also confirms how invasions can be used to understand evolution of floral structures. The researchers say that scenarios like this are likely to happen often as humans influence the range of plants and pollinators.

Dr Castellanos said: "Our research shows how rapid evolutionary change in a new environment can be an important force behind the extraordinary diversity of flowers."

Foxgloves are now naturalised in many areas of the world. They were introduced to Colombia and Costa Rica in the 19th Century, most likely by English architects and engineers. In these new tropical environments, foxgloves grow at high altitudes above 2,200 meters where temperatures are broadly similar to those in their native European range. Because there are no seasons, populations flower at different times of the year.

In the study, the researchers looked at both native UK foxglove populations and populations in mountainous areas in Colombia and Costa Rica. They compared the shape of the flowers and the reproductive success of the plants. They also recorded the pollinators in each location and how effective each pollinator was at transferring pollen.

The authors caution that although the changes they observed are consistent with natural selection hummingbirds have imposed during the evolution of native plants they pollinate, the study doesn't prove the changes to foxgloves have been directly caused by hummingbirds.

To do this, the researchers are planning to experimentally exclude pollinators from foxgloves in the field and record the consequences for the plants. They are also studying the genetic basis of the traits both in the greenhouse and using genomic approaches.

The researchers emphasise the importance of studying other plant groups in this context. "Plants around the world are experiencing changes in their pollinators and it is important to understand the evolutionary implications of this" said Dr Castellanos.

Workplace communication often took a back seat this past year, as employees and employers rushed to work remotely, struggled with technology barriers and adjusted to physical distancing. But the pandemic has resulted in valuable lessons for communicating on the job, according to a Baylor University study.

During the onset of COVID-19 -- along with accompanying layoffs and a recession -- "there likely has never been a moment with such demand for ethical listening to employees," said lead author Marlene S. Neill, Ph.D., associate professor of journalism, public relations and new media at Baylor.

"Ethical listening" was defined by one communication manager as "listening with an open mind and being able to hear the good, the bad and the ugly. Strategic listening is then taking the good and the bad and the ugly and knowing how to use the information."

For the study, published in the Journal of Communication Management, researchers interviewed 30 communication professionals in the District of Columbia and 13 states: Arkansas, California, Delaware, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Washington. Interviewees represented technology, financial and legal services, food and beverage, hospitality, energy, health care, trade associations, transportation, higher education and consultants.

The professionals interviewed stressed the importance of protecting confidentiality so employees feel comfortable giving feedback and do not fear retribution.

When COVID-19 hit and workers often no longer shared physical quarters, the use of Zoom soared, whether for large group meetings or one-on-one sessions, researchers noted. And while senior managers valued communication, it became less of a priority as companies made such quick changes as mandated quarantines.

For communications professionals, remote work made it harder for them to build trusting new relationships. They, like others, felt isolated, missing critical conversations and small talk.

"We heard that the pandemic posed challenges in internal communication due to the alienation many employees experienced, and it prompted us to reevaluate the moral responsibility communications holds for keeping employees feeling connected to their teams," said co-researcher Shannon A. Bowen, Ph.D., professor of journalism and mass communications at the University of South Carolina.

The study shed light on companies' challenges, how they strove to meet them and how they might use those strategies in the future.

For example, a communication manager for a trade association of the hospitality industry said that its members also are primary stakeholders in their companies.

"There were stakeholders who were saying, 'I'm going to have to close my doors. Please do something.' And there's only so much we can do. It called for a different type of empathetic listening. This is these people's livelihood. In hospitality, that's like any business owner, that's their baby. But it's not just their baby. It's a baby that generates income for the employees they deeply care about. It's not just that it impacts them; it impacts their employees, which is a double cut to the heart."

Meanwhile, a communication manager in health care encouraged senior leaders to schedule 30-minute "walk-around" sessions -- whether masked and in person or via technology.

"Trust has to be built with actions and follow-through, not just words," Bowen said.

For all the organizations studied, "the desire and follow-through to ethically listen to employees appeared to be a challenge," Neill said.

Most participants said the ratio of management messaging to employees compared to feedback was lopsided, with far more talking than listening.

"We cannot promise we are going to fix everything," said a communication manager in the financial services industry. "But we have the mantra if you are asking for feedback, it is critical that you close the loop and say that."

Communications managers often have limited staff to analyze feedback. They also contend with a lack of communication between departments, especially in larger organizations.

To solve those problems, some communications professionals suggested having a team member to sit in on department meetings and serve as a liaison. One professional in a law firm said she makes it a point to invite the less vocal members to share their thoughts, while another uses on-on-one meetings for them.

"They open up a lot more when it's just one on one," she said. "In groups, large groups, they do not speak as freely, because there's a hierarchy. If the older, more senior people are not saying anything, then the younger less seasoned attorneys more than likely will not say anything."

Some internal communicators also said that during the pandemic, they saw a need for shorter, more focused meetings, in part to cut down on stress. And one consultant said that more visual communications, such as videos and video conferencing, seemed to help employees feel that they are cared for.

"I'm making sure that I have my eyes trained on the screen on the facial expressions," said a communication manager for a trade association. "Part of active listening is also looking for visual cues of the reactions of your colleagues."

Neill said the researchers were encouraged by the heightened level of empathy for the impact of organizational decisions on employees' lives.

"We recommend that senior leadership and communication professionals seek ways to continue to improve moral sensitivity well after the global pandemic has receded, which can lead to more ethical decision-making," she said.

What started out as a second-year physics project is making its way into Amazon Web Service's (AWS) quantum computing program.

University of Sydney science undergraduate Pablo Bonilla Ataides has tweaked some computing code to effectively double its capacity to correct errors in the quantum machines being designed in the emerging technology sector.

The simple but ingenious change to quantum error correcting code has grabbed the attention of quantum researchers at the AWS Center for Quantum Computing in Pasadena, California, and the quantum technology programs at Yale University and Duke University in the United States.

"Quantum technology is in its infancy, partly because we haven't been able to overcome the inherent instability in the machines that produce so many errors," 21-year-old Mr Bonilla said.

"In second-year physics I was asked to look at some commonly used error correcting code to see if we could improve it. By flipping half of the quantum switches, or qubits, in our design, we found we could effectively double our ability to suppress errors."

The research is published today in Nature Communications.

The results of the study, co-authored by Dr Steve Flammia who has recently moved from the University of Sydney to AWS's quantum computing effort, are to feature in the tech company's arsenal of error correction techniques as it develops its quantum hardware.

Dr Earl Campbell is a senior quantum research scientist at AWS. He said: "We have considerable work ahead of us as an industry before anyone sees real, practical benefits from quantum computers.

"This research surprised me. I was amazed that such a slight change to a quantum error correction code could lead to such a big impact in predicted performance.

"The AWS Center for Quantum Computing team looks forward to collaborating further as we explore other promising alternatives to bring new, more powerful computing technologies one step closer to reality."

QUANTUM ERRORS

Errors are extremely rare in the digital transistors, or switches, that classical computers use to run our phones, laptops and even the fastest supercomputers.

However, the 'switches' in quantum computers, known as qubits, are particularly sensitive to interference, or 'noise', from the external environment.

In order to make quantum machines work, scientists need to produce a large number of high-quality qubits. This can be done by improving the machines so they are less noisy and by using some capacity of the machines to suppress qubit errors below a certain threshold in order for them to be useful.

That is where quantum error correction comes in.

Quantum errors can occur when the qubit flips on its axis. This is dubbed an X-error. Or errors can occur in its wave phase, known as a Z-error. A Y-error is a combination of flip (X) and phase (Z) errors.

An expert in quantum error correction from Duke University, who was not involved with the study, Professor Kenneth Brown, said: "Typically in quantum error correction, we assume that X, Y and Z errors are equally likely. However, this is not the case in real experiments where the errors are biased."

What Mr Bonilla has done is realign every second part of the error code. The code is designed to work across a two-dimensional network of connected qubits and is called a surface code.

QUANTUM CHESSBOARD

You can imagine the surface code like a chessboard. In its original design, the black squares were designated to detect Z-errors and the white squares designated to detect X-errors. But Z-errors are far more common, so much of the error correcting power was wasted looking for less common X-errors.

Rather than have the 'chess squares' alternate ZZZZ to XXXX, the new code flips half of the quantum switches so that each square looks for both types of errors. This new code is referred to as XZZX code, reflecting the redesign of the surface code.

Professor Brown from Duke said: "The XZZX code is remarkable because it performs optimally for any bias by making a simple local transformation on half the qubits that changes X for Z and Z for X."

Assistant Professor Shruti Puri from the quantum research program at Yale University said her team is interested in using the new code for its work.

"What amazes me about this new code is its sheer elegance. It's remarkable error-correcting properties are coming from a simple modification to a code that has been studied extensively for almost two decades," Assistant Professor Puri said.

"It is extremely relevant for a new generation of quantum technology being developed at Yale and elsewhere. With this new code, I believe, we have considerably shortened the timeline to achieve scalable quantum computation."

Co-author Dr David Tuckett from the School of Physics said: "It's a bit like playing battleships with a quantum opponent. Theoretically, they could place their ships anywhere on the board. But after playing millions of games, we know that certain moves are more likely.

"From experiment we know that Z-errors are much more common than X-errors. Pablo has redesigned the code to take this into account and produced a much more powerful result to suppress errors."

RETROFIT FOR INDUSTRY

Co-author and Associate Dean (Research) in the Faculty of Science Professor Stephen Bartlett said: "What's great about this design is that we can effectively retrofit it to the surface codes being developed across the industry.

"Having the code work on a two-dimensional surface is ideal for application in an industry that has historically produced 2D chip designs. We are optimistic that this work will help the industry build better experimental devices."

Co-author Dr Ben Brown from the University of Sydney Nano Institute and School of Physics worked closely with Mr Bonilla on the project. He said: "Building a functional quantum computer is a bit like trying to build the Wright Brothers' plane, and we haven't even gotten off the ground yet.

"Experimentalists are producing the strong, light-weight materials to build the plane, and we've just come up with a more aerodynamic design for the wings that have more lift. We might have just come up with the design that will help large-scale quantum computing take off."

CORVALLIS, Ore. - A new study by Oregon State University researchers found that shade provided by solar panels increased the abundance of flowers under the panels and delayed the timing of their bloom, both findings that could aid the agricultural community.

The study, believed to be the first that looked at the impact of solar panels on flowering plants and insects, has important implications for solar developers who manage the land under solar panels, as well as agriculture and pollinator health advocates who are seeking land for pollinator habitat restoration.

The findings, published in the journal Scientific Reports, are being released at a time when some states, such as Minnesota, North Carolina, Maryland, Vermont and Virginia, have developed statewide guidelines and incentives to promote pollinator-focused solar installations.

"The understudy of solar panels is typically managed to limit the growth of plants," said Maggie Graham, a faculty research assistant at Oregon State and lead author of the paper. "My thought coming into this research was can we flip that? Why not plant under solar arrays with something beneficial to the surrounding ecosystem, like flowers that attract pollinators? Would insects even use it? This study demonstrates that the answer is yes."

Pollinating insects aid in the reproduction of 75% of flowering plant species and 35% of crop species globally. In the United States, pollination services to agriculture are valued at $14 billion annually.

Habitat for pollinating insects is declining globally as a result of urbanization, agricultural intensification and land development. Changes in global climate can also cause shifts in habitat availability.

Meanwhile, solar photovoltaic installation in the U.S. has increased by an average of 48% per year over the past decade, and current capacity is expected to double again over the next five years, the researchers say.

The increased demand for solar panels leads to an interest in the field of agrivoltaics, where solar energy production is combined with agricultural production, such as planting agricultural crops or grazing animals, on the same land.

Graham works with Chad Higgins, an associate professor in Oregon State's College of Agricultural Sciences. Higgins recently published a paper that found co-developing land for both solar photovoltaic power and agriculture could provide 20% of total electricity generation in the United States with an investment of less than 1% of the annual U.S. budget.

Furthermore, wide-scale installation of agrivoltaic systems could lead to an annual reduction of 330,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S - the equivalent of 75,000 cars off the road per year - and the creation of more than 100,000 jobs in rural communities, while minimally impacting crop yield, Higgins found.

The new study led by Graham, who came to Oregon State after working at a nonprofit that focused on installing solar panels for low-income families, was conducted at the 45-acre Eagle Point Solar Plant in Jackson County, Oregon.

The research team collected data on pollinator and plant populations during seven, two-day sampling events from June through September 2019. Those corresponded with post-peak bloom times for flowers. Extending bloom times is important for pollinating insects because it provides them food later in the season, the researchers said.

The researchers collected data from 48 species of plants and 65 different insect species.

The study sites were broken into three categories: full shade plots under solar panels, partial shade plots under solar panels and full sun plots not under panels. Findings included:

Floral abundance was greatest in partial shade plots, where 4% more blooms were found compared to full sun and full shade plots.

The amount of flower species and the diversity of flowers didn't differ among the different plots.

An average of 3% more pollinating insects in partial shade and full sun plots than in full shade plots.

The amount of insect species and the diversity of insects was higher in partial shade and full sun than in full shade.

The number of insects per flower didn't differ among the different plots.

"Unused or underutilized lands below solar panels represent an opportunity to augment the expected decline of pollinator habitat," Graham said. "Near agricultural lands, this also has the potential to benefit the surrounding agricultural community and presents an avenue for future study. Solar developers, policy makers, agricultural communities and pollinator health advocates looking to maximize land-use efficiency, biodiversity and pollination services might want to consider pollinator habitat at solar photovoltaic sites as an option."

What The Study Did: This study used data from a national database to compare clinical outcomes of surgical patients with and without COVID-19.

Authors: Max R. Haffner, M.D., of the University of California, Davis, in Sacramento, is the  corresponding author.

To access the embargoed study: Visit our For The Media website at this link https://media.jamanetwork.com/

(doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2021.5697)

Editor's Note: The article includes conflicts of interest and funding/support disclosures. Please see the article for additional information, including other authors, author contributions and affiliations, conflict of interest and financial disclosures, and funding and support.

Using an innovative protein-based approach, researchers at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center and nearby Emory University have found genes and corresponding proteins that could point the way to new depression treatments.

Using a proteome-wide association study (PWAS) that integrated genome-wide association study (GWAS) data with human brain proteomic and genetic data, researchers have identified 19 genes that may lead to depression by altering brain protein levels. They also pinpointed 25 such proteins that offer promise as potential targets for new depression treatments.

The researchers detail their approach and findings in April 2021 in the journal Nature Neuroscience.

Depression is a common condition, but current treatments are ineffective for many people with the mental illness. This research sets the stage for finding new drugs to treat the illness by identifying important gene-protein pairs that likely contribute to the cause of depression and could serve as promising targets for future studies, according to lead researcher Dr. Aliza Wingo, a psychiatrist at the Atlanta VA. She's also an associate professor at Emory University.

Wingo works with Dr. Thomas Wingo, the first author of the study, at their joint laboratory at the Atlanta VA and Emory. The lab focuses on understanding the genetic basis of brain illnesses. They collaborated on the study with investigators at Emory's Center of Neurodegenerative Disease.

In seeking new therapies, the research team, with support from VA and the National Institutes of Health, aimed to identify brain proteins that likely cause depression. The team hypothesized that genetic variants influence depression by altering levels of certain brain proteins.

Genome-wide association studies played a key role in the research but were not sufficient by themselves, explained Thomas Wingo. GWAS is an important tool for its ability to spot variations associated with medical conditions, including depression, but the genome scans do not shed light on how genetic variations translate into increased disease risk. So the study design combined GWAS and human brain proteomic data toward answering the question, how can variations in brain protein levels explain some of the inherited risk for depression?

By examining proteins--which are the final products of gene expression and the main functional components of cells--PWAS can help elucidate the biological mechanisms underlying depression. The approach can importantly supplement information from GWAS by finding changes in the way a protein is being expressed in a normal gene versus a variant. Despite proteins' promise as biological informants, and in spite of the fact that proteins make up the bulk of drug targets and biomarkers, this study was conspicuous among depression studies for its direct look at proteins.

It was this rare scientific method--using the "largest and deepest reference human brain proteomes and summary statistics from the latest GWAS of depression," according to the authors--that allowed the researchers to identify the total of 25 proteins of interest, 20 of which prior GWAS studies did not peg as implicated in depression.

As for the 19 genes they homed in on, the researchers determined they "contribute to depression pathogenesis through modulating their brain protein abundance." The brain protein fluctuations detected by uniting GWAS and human brain proteomic data are likely among the earlier biological changes in depression and may predispose a person to the illness, said Aliza Wingo, making the findings particularly compelling in terms of therapeutic potential.

Follow-up research, including tests in model systems, is crucial to further examine the identified genes' possible roles in depression and to seek additional implicated genes and proteins, the study authors said. The provocative suggestion that the implicated proteins appear to contribute to the inherited risk of depression has spurred ongoing work at the Wingos' lab.

"We are very excited to continue to work on these promising targets in our lab but caution that the road leading to new drugs is long and difficult," said Thomas Wingo, noting another clinical hope based on this area of study: "We take heart that these findings could also prove useful as biomarkers for depressive symptoms. An effective biomarker--like hemoglobin A1C for diabetes--could help with diagnosis and management of depression."

An international team today reports the findings of an independent assessment of five commercially-available assays for tumour DNA sequencing - a fast, cheap and less invasive method to diagnose and monitor cancer.

The researchers revealed that all assays could reliably detect so-called circulating tumour DNA (ctDNA) when it made up 0.5% of the total DNA in blood, a level of sensitivity that allows detection, genetic analysis and monitoring of late-stage and metastatic tumours.

Published in the journal Nature Biotechnology, the study is a major milestone for the use of ctDNA assays as cancer diagnostics, outlining best-practice guidelines and uncovering key areas of future development.

The research was led by the Garvan Institute of Medical Research, the FDA National Center for Toxicological Research and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. It forms part of the FDA-led Sequencing Quality Control Phase 2 project, which aims to develop standard protocols and quality control metrics for the use of next-generation sequencing in precision medicine, to make it a reality for patients.

"In order for ctDNA assays to be of benefit to patients in the clinic, they need to accurately and consistently detect cancer mutations across different labs and samples. Our study is the most comprehensive evaluation of analytical performance among ctDNA assays to date and represents a significant step forward in the field," says first author Dr Ira Deveson from the Garvan Institute.

Next-generation sequencing to monitor cancer DNA

When cancer cells develop, they accumulate mutations in their DNA, fragments of which enter the bloodstream when cancer cells break down. Thanks to assays employing next-generation sequencing, these ctDNA fragments can now be detected in a patient's blood samples, which could be used to identify and monitor cancer as an alternative to more invasive tissue biopsies.

However, while ctDNA assays are already being adopted in precision oncology clinical trials, researchers and clinicians still lack a thorough understanding of how accurate current assays are, and which aspects of the technology still need to be improved. This knowledge helps define what applications ctDNA sequencing is suitable for and is needed before ctDNA sequencing can be implemented widely in clinical practice.

In their study, researchers from 12 participating laboratories in Europe, Asia and the United States evaluated the performance of current industry-leading ctDNA assays, from companies Roche Sequencing Solutions, Illumina, Integrated DNA Technologies and Burning Rock Dx and Thermo Fisher Scientific.

They tested the assays using synthetic experiments and mock-ctDNA reference samples. Their analysis revealed that all laboratories detected ctDNA mutations above 0.5% relative frequency (consistent with late-stage and metastatic tumours) with high sensitivity, precision and reproducibility using all participating assays. However, the assays detected lower levels of ctDNA (consistent with early-stage cancer or early signs of disease relapse) unreliably and inconsistently between different tests.

In their published paper, the researchers outline priorities for the future development of ctDNA assays, which they say will help advance the technology for clinical applications in monitoring tumour progression, response to therapy and cancer relapse.

"Our findings indicate that the participating ctDNA assays may be suitable for molecular stratification and profiling tumour evolution in advanced cancer patients. This should help clear a path for more advanced clinical trials of ctDNA assays," says Associate Professor Donald Johann Jr., M.D., from the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine departments of Biomedical Informatics and Internal Medicine.

"Understanding the current assays' detection limits was a crucial step towards a future where blood tests can be routinely used as a cancer screening tool. This critical study is a thorough analytical evaluation of ctDNA assays, which defined diagnostic limits, assessed reproducibility and identified key experimental variables that impact performance, and which has been called for by government, regulatory and clinical organisations," says Dr Joshua Xu from the U.S. FDA National Center for Toxicological Research.

"Our independent performance analysis is a crucial mechanism to drive advances in next-generation sequencing approaches for their use in cancer detection and management. We expect it will help improve the tests' sensitivity and reliability for diagnosing tumours at early stages," says co-senior author Associate Professor Tim Mercer from the Garvan Institute and the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology at the University of Queensland.

An amber fossil of a Cretaceous beetle has shed some light on the diet of one of the earliest pollinators of flowering plants.

The animal's remains were unearthed by researchers at the University of Bristol and the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Palaeontology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (NIGPAS) who were able to study its fossil faecal matter, which was composed solely of pollen.

Besides being a visitor of angiosperms - flowering plants - researchers now have conclusive evidence that the new fossil named Pelretes vivificus also fed on their pollen. Details of this discovery have been published today in Nature Plants.

"The beetle is associated with clusters of pollen grains, suggesting that short-winged flower beetles visited angiosperms in the Cretaceous. Some aspects of the beetle's anatomy, such as its hairy abdomen, are also adaptations associated with pollination," said Professor Chenyang Cai, palaeontologist from the School of Earth Sciences and NIGPAS.

Erik Tihelka, entomologist and palaeontologist at the School of Earth Sciences, added: "The fossil is associated with beetle coprolites - fossil faecal pellets - that provide a very unusual but important insight into the diet of short-winged flower beetles in the Cretaceous. The fossil faecal pellets are completely composed of pollen, the same type that is found in clusters surrounding the beetle and attached to its body. We thus know that Pelretes visited angiosperms to feed on their pollen. This finding provides a direct link between early flowering plants in the Cretaceous and their insect visitors; it shows that these insect fossils were not just incidentally co-preserved with pollen, but that there was a genuine biological association between the two."

While pollinators such as bees and butterflies provide crucial ecosystem services today, little is known about the origin of the intimate association between flowering plants and insects.

Cretaceous amber fossils provide an important source of evidence for understanding the biology of early angiosperms, before they became the dominant group of plants on Earth. Amber is the fossil resin of ancient trees that often fortuitously trapped insects and other small organisms, preserving them with life-like fidelity.

"Farmers who want to protect their orchards can set up sticky traps on trees to monitor insects. Now imagine if your only insight into an ancient ecosystem were such sticky traps and you were to reconstruct all its ecological interactions based solely on this source of evidence. That is the challenge faced by palaeontologists studying amber," explains Tihelka. "Luckily, the amber trap from northern Myanmar is one of the riches fossiliferous amber deposits known. Besides the unparalleled abundance of fossil insects, the amber dates back to the mid-Cretaceous, right when angiosperms were taking off," said Mr Tihelka.

Two hundred million years ago the world was as green as today, overgrown with dense vegetation. But it was not as colourful - there were no flowers. Flowering plants that make up over 80% of all plant species today, only begun to diversify in the Cretaceous, about 125 million years ago. Some scientists have attributed the huge evolutionary success of angiosperms to their mutualistic relationships with insect pollinators, but fossil evidence of Cretaceous pollinators has so far been scarce.

The flower beetle Pelretes vivificus lived in the Burmese amber rainforest some 98 million years ago. Its closest relatives are short-winged flower beetles (Kateretidae) that today occur in Australia, visiting a diverse range of flowers and feeding on their pollen.

"The pollen associated with the beetle can be assigned to the fossil genus Tricolpopollenites. This group is attributed to the eudicots, a living group of angiosperms, that includes the orders Malpighiales and Ericales," explains Dr. Liqin Li, fossil pollen specialist from NIGPAS who contributed to the study.

This shows that pollinators took advantage of early angiosperms soon after their initial diversification and by the mid-Cretaceous visited a diverse range of groups.

Family history of early cardiac events in first degree relatives such as a parent or sibling is a major risk factor, especially for premature events. Currently, data on risks in close relatives of patients with a family history of premature heart attacks, chronic stable angina or peripheral vascular disease are sparse.

Researchers from Florida Atlantic University's Schmidt College of Medicine in collaboration with an international team of leading scientists in Italy, the United Kingdom and Poland, assembled a consecutive series of 230 patients with premature onset of heart attacks, strokes, angina or peripheral artery disease and a comparison group of apparently healthy men and women during a 24-month period. The comparison group had no family or personal history of cardiovascular disease (CVD) and had normal electrocardiograms (ECGs), cholesterol, triglycerides, blood pressures and glucose. Researchers defined a premature event as occurring in men 60 years or younger and in women 65 years or younger.

"Our data indicate that early cardiac events pose major and different risks in close relatives," said Charles H. Hennekens, M.D., Dr.PH. senior author, the First Sir Richard Doll Professor and senior academic advisor in FAU's Schmidt College of Medicine. "Further, since families share more than genes, not surprisingly, these data are compatible with a role for both genetic and environmental factors."

The data, published in the International Journal of Cardiology, also suggest that first degree relatives of patients with premature heart attacks compared with those presenting with a first episode of chronic stable angina or peripheral vascular disease have a shorter survival time. Patients with heart attacks and chronic stable angina reported significantly higher frequencies of attacks in their first degree relatives than patients with peripheral vascular disease. In contrast, patients with chronic stable angina and peripheral vascular disease reported significantly higher frequencies of chronic stable angina and peripheral vascular disease, respectively, in their first degree relatives compared to patients with heart attacks.

"Family history of early onset events is a major and independent risk factor. Thus, patients with a positive parental or sibling history of premature cardiac events require even more aggressive therapeutic lifestyle changes as well as adjunctive drug therapies of proven benefit," said Hennekens. "In the United States, Europe and worldwide, most guidelines recommend risk scores for initial clinical assessments, which do not include family history of early events."

Hennekens formerly served as the first John Snow and the first Braunwald professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. His groundbreaking scientific findings have significantly improved the ability to treat as well as prevent CVD, and for more than a decade, he was ranked as the third most widely cited medical researcher in the world by Science Watch.

Hennekens has collaborated for several decades with Felicita Andreotti, M.D., Ph.D., first author and a professor at Catholic University Cardiovascular Medicine in Rome; and brought the data when she served as visiting professor at FAU's Schmidt College of Medicine. Their collaborations have included the major role of therapeutic lifestyle changes, especially overweight and obesity and physical inactivity as well as statins, PCSK9 inhibitors, aspirin, converting enzyme inhibitors and angiotensin receptor blockers.

In this study, Hennekens and Andreotti collaborated with Janet Robishaw, Ph.D., co-author and senior associate dean for research and chair of the Department of Biomedical Sciences in FAU's Schmidt College of Medicine. Andreotti had conducted the study at the Hammersmith Hospital and London Chest Hospital in the United Kingdom.

"Recent advances in human genome sequencing as well as basic and population genetics may help identify specific genotypes that predispose to atherosclerosis, thrombosis, or both," said Robishaw, a world renowned functional and translational genomics researcher with 30 years of sustained federal funding from the National Institutes of Health who trained under Nobel Laureate Alfred G. Gilman, Ph.D. "Further studies also are needed to identify and quantify the functional role of candidate and marker genes for cardiovascular phenotypes and risk factors, as well as to better understand plausible independent contributions as well as interactions between nature and nurture concerning family history as a major and independent risk factor in cardiovascular disease, especially of premature onset."

According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for many decades, heart disease has been the leading killer among American men and women, causing approximately 600,000 deaths each year of which about 25 percent present with sudden cardiac death.

Breast cancer survivors who are overweight have a statistically significant increased risk of developing second primary cancers, according to results from a study conducted by Kaiser Permanente researchers and published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

There are approximately 3.9 million breast cancer survivors in the United States today and studies have found women diagnosed with breast cancer have an 18% increased risk for developing a second cancer compared to the general population. This increased risk is likely due to shared risk factors between the first and second cancers, genetic susceptibility, and long-term effects of breast cancer treatment.

Obesity is also strongly associated with an increased risk of several types of cancer. In fact, an estimated 55% of all cancers in women occur in those who are overweight or obese. This study sought to examine the association between body weight, as measured by BMI, at initial breast cancer diagnosis and the risk of developing a second cancer among a large cohort of women diagnosed with invasive breast cancer.

Women diagnosed with an invasive breast cancer were at a small but statistically significant increased risk for second cancers associated with increasing BMI. The association was more pronounced when the analysis was limited to cancers that are "obesity-related," or for second breast cancers, and was strongest for a diagnosis of estrogen receptor-positive second breast cancer. This study was the first to examine the risk of a subsequent ER-positive breast cancer or obesity-related cancers specifically.

"These findings have important public health implications given the number of breast cancer survivors with excess body weight," said lead author Heather Spencer Feigelson, PhD, senior investigator at the Kaiser Permanente Colorado Institute for Health Research. "Our study examined whether cancer survivors are at an increased risk of developing a second cancer and what factors contribute to this increased risk. Our findings truly underscore the need for effective weight loss prevention strategies, including nutrition and physical activity guidelines for breast cancer survivors."

This study involved 6,481 women from Kaiser Permanente in Colorado and Washington, of whom 822 (12.7%) developed a second cancer. The majority of women were overweight (33.4%) or obese (33.8%) at the time of their initial diagnosis. The mean age at initial breast cancer diagnosis was 61 years, and most (82.2%) of the cohort was white. Black women comprised a small percentage of the cases but were more likely to be obese (50.9% of Black women were obese compared to 33.6% of white women). The patients' BMI at the first cancer was extracted from their medical records. The outcomes evaluated included: all second cancers, obesity-related second cancers, any second breast cancer, and ER-positive second breast cancers. Obesity related cancer includes colorectal, uterine, ovarian and pancreatic cancer.

"This study illustrates that modifying one's BMI may result in significant health and quality of life benefits among breast cancer survivors," explained Clara Bodelon, PhD, MS, Division of Cancer Epidemiology and Genetics at the National Cancer Institute, part of the National Institutes of Health.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Men were more likely to be the spouse with the most knowledge of a couple's finances in 2016 than they were in 1992 - especially in wealthy couples, a new study suggests.

Results come from a survey that interviewed the spouse in mixed-sex married couples that was identified by a household member as "more knowledgeable about the household finances."

In 2016, 56% of husbands were designated as most knowledgeable, up from 53% in 1992 and 49% in 1995. But among households in the top 1% of net worth, the husband was designated as the most knowledgeable in 90% of the households in 2016.

"Despite the progress women have made in society, there still seems to be a gender gap in who takes care of the finances, especially in wealthy households," said Sherman Hanna, lead author of the study and professor of consumer sciences at The Ohio State University.

The study was published online recently in the journal Financial Planning Review.

The researchers used data from the Survey of Consumer Finances, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Board. It included surveys of U.S. households conducted every three years from 1992 to 2016. The 2016 survey included 6,248 households.

Results showed that the likelihood that the husband was designated as the most knowledgeable was not related to household income, but only overall wealth based on their assets. Age differences between the spouses and the age of the husband did not have any effects.

Education had a strong effect, with the more educated spouse being more likely to have the most knowledge about the household finances.

Overall, the percentage of husbands listed as most knowledgeable about household finances ranged from 49% to 57% over the 24 years of the study, with the percentage rising or falling slightly from survey to survey, with a slight upward trend, Hanna said.

But the most notable statistic may be the connection between household wealth and who knows the most about the finances, he said.

Among the lowest quartile of household total wealth in the 2016 survey, about half reported the husband as knowing the most. That went up to about 65% among those who were in the 75th to 95th percentile in wealth and 90% among those in the top 1% of wealth.

"As net worth increases, the husband is going to be designated as the most knowledgeable and presumably the one making the financial decisions," said study co-author Kyoung Tae Kim, associate professor of consumer sciences at the University of Alabama.

The data in the study can't say why, but the researchers have some ideas based on previous research.

For most people, the majority of their wealth was tied to houses and cars. But for the wealthiest, most of their assets were businesses, investment real estate and financial instruments such as stocks and bonds, the SCF data showed.

"These things generally mean taking big risks, and research suggests men are generally more comfortable than women with risky choices," Hanna said. "In addition, studies show that men generally have more financial confidence than women."

That interpretation is bolstered by the fact that the other group in which husbands were most likely to be designated as knowing the most about household finances - other than the wealthiest - were households with negative net worth.

"These may be cases where the risks that the husbands took did not pay off and actually put them in debt," Hanna said.

There may be some reliance on traditional gender roles, as well, the researchers said. In lower-wealth households, where the financial decisions are relatively simple and limited to bill paying and record keeping, men may be more willing to have their wives handle the money.

But as wealth increases and, with it, the complexity of the finances, men may push to be the decision-makers, Hanna said.

The results have important implications for financial professionals, especially those who work with the wealthy, said study co-author Sunwoo Tessa Lee, a doctoral student in consumer sciences at Ohio State.

"Wealth advisers need to make sure that they work with wives as well as husbands," Lee said.

"Our results suggest many of these wives may not know enough about their household finances, which may be critical if they are ever widowed or divorced."

ATLANTA - APRIL 12, 2021 - New study finds higher medical financial hardship in adult survivors of adolescent and young adult (AYA) cancers than in adults without a history of cancer in the United States. The study appears in JNCI: The Journal of the National Cancer Institute.

Experts have known that cancer and its treatment can cause significant financial hardship to cancer survivors and their families. However, the long-term economic implications for adult survivors of AYA cancers were not fully understood. In this study, investigators led by Amy D. Lu, MD, The Hospital for Sick Children, and Zhiyuan "Jason" Zheng, Ph.D., American Cancer Society, used data from the National Health Interview Survey (2010-2018) and analyzed responses from adult (>18 years) survivors of AYA cancers (ages 15-39 at diagnosis) and adults without a cancer history. The study explored the various aspects of financial hardships including material (for example, ability to pay bills), psychological (for example, worries about medical bills), and behavioral (for example, delaying or foregoing medical care) measures.

Key study findings include:

Adult survivors of AYA cancers were more likely than adults without a cancer history, to report material and behavioral financial hardship, including problems paying medical bills or delaying or forgoing care because of cost.

Adult survivors of AYA cancers were more likely to report greater intensity of medical financial hardship than their counterparts without a cancer history.

Adult survivors of AYA cancers were more likely to report cost-related medication non-adherence, such as skipping medication doses, taking less medication, and delaying filling a prescription to save money.

"Multiple aspects of financial hardship associated with a cancer diagnosis may last for many years for survivors of AYA cancers," said Dr. Zheng.

As the incidences of AYA cancers increases, understanding the spectrum of medical financial hardship is critical to those caring for and designing policies for adult survivors of AYA cancers, and in guiding ongoing research in this area.

"Healthcare providers can help support increased awareness and assessment of financial hardship, as well as subsequent connection to existing financial and vocational assistance/support services. State and federal policies may have a broader impact through implementation of provisions of the Affordable Care Act in increasing insurance coverage options including affordability and accessibility," said the authors.

Study: "Disproportionate Burden: Estimating the Cost of FAFSA Verification for Public Colleges and Universities"

Authors: Alberto Guzman-Alvarez (University of Pittsburgh), Lindsay C. Page (University of Pittsburgh)

This study was published today in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.

Main Findings:

The institutional compliance costs of the FAFSA verification mandate in 2014 totaled nearly $500 million, with the burden falling disproportionately on public institutions and community colleges in particular.

Twenty-two percent of an average community college's financial aid office operating budget is devoted to verification procedures, compared to 15 percent at public four-year institutions and 1 percent at private four-year institutions.

Details:

The authors note that every year approximately 6 million of the 20 million students who apply for federal financial aid through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) are selected by the U.S. Department of Education to undergo a verification process that requires them to further attest that the information reported on their FAFSA is accurate. The verification requirement is an unfunded mandate with the administrative costs falling on students' institutions.

Prior research has shown that verification serves as a potentially unnecessary hurdle to college enrollment and success, especially for low-income and historically marginalized students, and creates a disproportionate burden on institutions these students are likely to attend.

This study provides new evidence on the estimated institutional costs of complying with and administrating the federal FAFSA verification mandate, by institution type and sector, and the scale of these costs in comparison with institutional aid office operating budgets and total student services expenditures.

The authors analyzed 2014 data from National Center for Education Statistics that included all U.S. postsecondary institutions participating in federal student financial aid programs. Their sample included 2,837 not-for-profit institutions that serve students receiving federal study aid and, as such, fall under the verification mandate.

The authors found that, on average, institutions were required to verify 39 percent of undergraduates who received aid. Two-year publics were required to verify nearly half (46 percent) of aid recipients compared to lower rates at four-year publics (35 percent) and privates (38 percent).

In 2014, the average institution spent $170,000 processing verifications. The total cost across U.S. institutions was $481 million. Verification costs fall more to public institutions, with two-year publics spending $225 million and four-year publics spending $189 million. The four-year private sector faces a considerably lower compliance cost burden ($67 million).

To scale the estimates by institutional resources, the authors draw on information from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators' Administrative Burden Survey for estimates of average financial aid office operating budgets by sector.

The results show that four-year and two-year public institutions devote a sizable share of their financial aid operating budget to administrating verification. The average four-year public spent 15 percent of its financial aid office operating budget to conducting verification, compared to 1 percent at the typical four-year private institution. The average community college spends 22 percent of its aid office budget on verification.

The authors also compared institution-level verification expenditures to total student service expenditures. The average four-year public devotes 1.5 percent of its student services budget to the verification process, compared to 0.5 percent at the typical four-year private. Community colleges, on average, spend 4 percent of student services budgets on verification.

"Community colleges devote a larger percentage of their financial aid operating and student services budgets to managing FAFSA verification," said coauthor Alberto Guzman-Alvarez, a doctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh. "This is concerning given that these colleges enroll nearly half of all undergraduates, and they disproportionately serve the least well-resourced students who most need financial aid to support their access to higher education."

"Financial aid administrators have experienced an increase in administrative burden due to increases in the rate with which students are selected for verification, which crowded out other supports that financial aid offices might provide, that may be especially important for lower-income and historically marginalized students," said Guzman-Alvarez.

The authors note that prior evidence suggests that current verification processes are not preventing the misappropriation of federal aid and students selected for verification had little to no change in their aid eligibility.

"We call for greater transparency in how the education department selects students for verification; an external audit of the current processes; and careful consideration of how compliance expenditures could be re-purposed to address other pressing needs within the financial aid system," said Lindsay C. Page, an associate professor of research methodology at the University of Pittsburgh.

To talk to the study authors, please contact AERA Communications: Tony Pals, Director of Communications, tpals@aera.net, cell: (202) 288-9333; Tong Wu, Communications Associate, twu@aera.net, cell: (202) 957-3802

Study: "21st Century Tracking and De Facto School Segregation: Excluding and Hoarding Access to College Prep"
Author: Heather E. Price (Marian University)

This study will be presented today at the AERA 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting.
Session: Schools and Social Policy: Segregation, Housing, and Transportation
Date/Time: Monday, April 12, 9:30 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. ET

Main Finding:

The prevalence of Black, non-Hispanic students in high schools that do not offer any AP or IB courses in multi-school districts that fund college-prep curricula cannot be explained by resource or school factors.

Details:

Using national data, this study examined how the characteristics of a high school related to whether it offers students Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) programs, when the high school is in a multi-high school district that offers these college-preparation curricula.

The author found that nationally, Indigenous students as well as Black, non-Hispanic students often find themselves enrolled in high schools without these curricula offered even though their district offers it in another high school. Students with other racial or ethnic identities do not find themselves relegated to schools without college-prep curricula.

The author found that bigger high schools with more resources are more likely to offer AP or IB curricula. Title I schools that serve substantial numbers of students experiencing poverty are 22 percent less likely to offer AP or IB compared to the schools in their district that are not Title I schools. (Prior research shows that Title I schools often need to minimalize gifted and talented curricular needs in lieu of more urgent student needs of special education, language, or health which demand the use of the schools' finite resources.)

The author's analysis found that school size explains the upward skew related to Asian enrollments in AP and IB, and that Title I status explains the Indigenous enrollments downward skew. This means that the differences in the racialized enrollment patterns of these student groups is a function of resources in these districts and not independently associated with heritage.

However, this is not the case for Black, non-Hispanic students; the differences in their enrollments in schools without college-preparation courses are not explained away with Title I or school size factors.

"There is a real and substantial relationship between the proportion of Black, non-Hispanic students enrolled in a school and whether the district puts college-prep resources in that school," said author Heather E. Price, an assistant professor of education at Marian University. "These separate schools within a district work to specifically de facto segregate Black, non-Hispanic students from schools with college-prep learning opportunities."

The author explained that districts with multiple high schools often concentrate college-prep resources into single schools. This is done by funneling students into standalone "college-prep specialty" tracked schools that house particularly large portions of their college-prep curricula in a single school. Multi-school districts commonly offer a variety of high schools: specialty schools, schools with no college prep, and/or comprehensive schools with some college-prep learning opportunities.

In districts with fairly diverse student populations, where specialty schools have not existed, the author found that specialty schools are less likely to be created as the proportion of White, non-Hispanic student population increases in a district. That is, the district is slower to establish a specialty school as the proportion of the White, non-Hispanic students in the district rise. But districts are more likely to establish college-prep specialty schools as the proportion of White, non-Hispanic students becomes less of the majority.

The author found that college-prep specialty schools also occur more often among hyper-segregated districts or in districts with smaller White populations.

"Some districts relegate students to schools that offer no AP or IB while other students in their district get the chance to take these courses," said Price. "My research found that between-school tracking of Black students to no college-prep schools is especially prevalent."

"There is glaring race-based inequality--schools with no college-prep curricula serve substantially greater proportions of Black students than the other schools in the same district," Price said.

"While tracking in the 20th century meant funneling certain students within a school on the honors course track, today it's happening under the auspice of AP and IB courses, not only within schools but between them," said Price.

"Formal between-school tracking with college prep in some schools and absent from others within the same district likely is a direct consequence of the rise of school choice," said Price. "This has given more power to wealthy parents who demand their children's placement in specialty schools in their districts over their neighborhood school."

The study used data from the U.S. Department of Education's Civil Rights Data Collection, the National Center for Education Statistics, and the Stanford Education Data Archive. One limitation to these data is the absence of information on the schools' achievement scores, which means the study could not test whether the schools not offering AP or IB serve students with lower-than-average achievement scores.

Study: "Paying for Whose Performance? Teacher Incentive Pay and the Black-White Test Score Gap"
Authors: Andrew J. Hill (Montana State University), Daniel B. Jones (University of Pittsburgh)

This study was published today in Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis.

Key Finding:

Teacher incentive pay programs that focused on raising student achievement in high-need high schools expanded the test score gap between Black and White students by between 64 percent and 85 percent.

Details:

The Black-White test score gap has proven to be one of the most persistent phenomena in American education, for reasons that cannot be entirely explained by student characteristics or school and teacher quality.

Teacher performance pay is increasingly common in the United States and often introduced with the goal of reducing gaps in test scores across groups of students. Performance pay aims to directly increase the effectiveness of teaching within high-need schools.

The authors used robust administrative data available in North Carolina to study the impacts of teacher incentive pay programs introduced for teachers in several districts in the state during the 2000s. Teachers in 34 high-need high schools were offered bonuses if their classroom test score averages increased sufficiently on state standardized tests over the course of the school year.

The authors found that performance pay had little impact on average student achievement overall. However, they found a considerable difference in the effect on Black students relative to White students.

Black students experience significantly smaller gains than White students under performance pay, and in some cases actually suffer as a result of the reforms. The result was that the gap in test scores between White and Black students, controlling for other factors, expanded by between 64 percent and 85 percent.

The authors also found some evidence that Hispanic students, like Black students, experience smaller gains than White students. Asian students are not impacted differently relative to White students.

"One potential explanation is drawn from existing work documenting that teachers' expectations of students differ by student race," said Andrew J. Hill, an associate professor of labor economics at Montana State University. "When average student achievement is incentivized--as is common in the U.S. and in the programs we studied--teachers may target their attention toward students they expect to achieve higher levels of growth. This may cause gaps to grow between groups of students, potentially by race."

The authors note their results should not be taken as evidence that performance pay, generally speaking, cannot have a positive impact on reducing test score gaps. Rather, they provide implications for how performance pay programs should be designed to meet the objectives of policymakers.

"We know from previous research that when performance pay explicitly incentivizes helping the lowest performing students, it leads to more attention from teachers and large gains among those students," Hill said.

To talk to the study authors, please contact AERA Communications: Tony Pals, Director of Communications, tpals@aera.net, cell: (202) 288-9333; Tong Wu, Communications Associate, twu@aera.net, cell: (202) 957-3802