Culture

Women are significantly underrepresented in the editorial boards of marketing academic journals, and awards and recognition favour men, new research from the University of Bath School of Management has found.

In their study 'It's hard to be what you can't see - gender representation in marketing's academic journals', Professor Andrea Prothero of Business and Society at University College Dublin and co-researcher Professor Pierre McDonagh examined gender representation in 20 marketing academic journals through three areas - the gender composition of editorial boards, special issue celebrations and the awards process.

The research found that since 2017 the number of women in editorial board roles had grown by 4.5% and that the number of female editors-in-chief had risen to 39 percent from 18 percent over the same period. But men still held 68% of all editorial board roles and the discrepancy was even greater at the advisory board level.

"The results are stark, disappointing and somewhat shocking. I think many people might expect both marketing and academia to be progressive areas but in 2021 it is simply not acceptable for example, that 88% of advisory board members within our journals are men, or that some journals in our field have never had a female editor-in-chief," McDonagh said.

Prothero said she and McDonagh were moved to study this issue as they believed many scholars were not aware of the scale of the gender discrimination problem in marketing academic journals or of the particular challenges around awards and celebrations of academic achievement.

"Our research also highlighted how journal celebrations also favour men. Special issues for example include reflections from previous editors (who are mostly men), and invited commentaries (who are mostly men). And, where journals and/or their related associations celebrate outstanding research through awards processes, those awards which are named after leading figures in the field are all named after men!" she said.

McDonagh said he and Prothero were not arguing that women are deliberately excluded from awards and recognition, but that structural, systemic and institutional biases meant male colleagues were privileged over women.

"And this of course, also means that injustice and inequality for female academics are perpetuated. Our goal is to get scholars in the marketing academy to think differently about things that are hidden in plain sight. We also want them to join us in asking for meaningful change with respect to existing gender discrimination in the marketing journals," he said.

McDonagh said publishing houses and editors should take four steps towards tackling gender representation issues.

Firstly, build diversity into existing journal review boards, and second, introduce a quota system to ensure diversity of people across advisory boards, manuscript review boards, and in roles such as associate editors, co-editors, and editors-in-chief. Publishing houses in particular, have been discussing more inclusive and diverse editorial boards across academia, but Prothero said it was important to move beyond talk and implement new policies. And, while this study focused on gender representation, other dimensions such as race were equally as important.

"As a third step, we should ask awkward questions of the leaders in our field - why do the majority of named awards in our field honour white men? We request awards which also honour the leading people of colour and females in our field, he said.

Finally, Prothero and McDonagh urged editors-in-chief to celebrate those less visible to others.

"We have female role models for younger scholars to inspire them to greatness, but they are not celebrated or included either in editorial boards or in special issue celebrations to the same extent as men. Let's rectify this. Quite simply the current status quo is an injustice - not everyone is a white male academic, so why do they dominate everything?" he asked.

An international research team has sequenced the genomes of the oldest securely dated modern humans in Europe who lived around 45,000 years ago in Bacho Kiro Cave, Bulgaria. By comparing their genomes to the genomes of people who lived later in Europe and in Asia the researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, show that this early human group in Europe contributed genes to later people, particularly present-day East Asians. The researchers also identified large stretches of Neandertal DNA in the genomes of the Bacho Kiro Cave people, showing that they had Neandertal ancestors about five to seven generations back in their family histories. This suggests that mixture with Neandertals was the rule rather than the exception when the first modern humans arrived in Europe.

Last year, a research team led by researchers from the National Institute of Archaeology with Museum at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany, reported the discovery of modern human remains found in direct association with the Initial Upper Palaeolithic stone tools at the site of Bacho Kiro Cave in Bulgaria. The oldest individuals found in the cave were directly radiocarbon dated to between 43,000 and 46,000 years ago. They are thus the earliest known dispersal of modern humans across the mid-latitudes of Eurasia.

Mateja Hajdinjak and colleagues have now sequenced the genomes of five individuals found at the Bacho Kiro Cave. Four individuals are between 43,000 to 46,000-years-old and were found together with stone tools belonging to the Initial Upper Palaeolithic, the earliest culture associated with modern humans in Eurasia. An additional individual found in the cave is around 35,000-years-old and found with stone tools of a later type. It was previously thought that bearers of the Initial Upper Palaeolithic died out without contributing genetically to modern humans arriving later. However, the researchers now show that the oldest Bacho Kiro Cave individuals, or groups closely related to them, contributed genes to present-day people. Surprisingly, this contribution is found particularly in East Asia and the Americas rather than in Europe where the Bacho Kiro Cave people lived. These genetic links to Asia mirror the links seen between the Initial Upper Palaeolithic stone tools and personal ornaments found in Bacho Kiro Cave and tools and ancient jewelry found across Eurasia to Mongolia.

Genetic differences between individuals

Importantly, the later 35,000-year-old individual found in Bacho Kiro Cave belonged to a group that was genetically distinct from the earlier inhabitants of the cave. This shows that the earliest history of modern humans in Europe may have been tumultuous and involved population replacements.

The earliest people at Bacho Kiro Cave lived at a time when Neandertals were still around. The researchers therefore scanned their genomes for fragments of Neandertal DNA. "We found that the Bacho Kiro Cave individuals had higher levels of Neandertal ancestry than nearly all other early humans, with the exception of a 40,000-year-old individual from Romania. Crucially, most of this Neandertal DNA comes in extremely long stretches. This shows that these individuals had Neandertal ancestors some five to seven generations back in their family trees" says Mateja Hajdinjak.

Although only a handful of genomes from modern humans who lived at the same time in Eurasia as some of the last Neandertals have been recovered, nearly all of them have recent Neandertal ancestors. "The results suggest that the first modern humans that arrived in Eurasia mixed frequently with Neandertals. They may even have become absorbed into resident Neandertal populations. Only later on did larger modern human groups arrive and replace the Neandertals" says Svante Pääbo, who coordinated the genetic research.

3D-mammography reduces the number of breast cancer cases diagnosed in the period between routine screenings, when compared with traditional mammography, according to a large study from Lund University in Sweden. The results are published in the journal Radiology.

"Our results indicate that 3D-mammography, or digital breast tomosynthesis, possibly detects cancers that would otherwise have been diagnosed later at a more advanced stage", says Kristin Johnson, doctoral student at Lund University and radiology resident at Skåne University Hospital.

A large prospective screening study conducted at Skåne University Hospital in Malmö (Malmö Breast Tomosynthesis Screening Trial) between 2010 and 2015 included almost 15,000 women who received both 3D-mammography and traditional mammography. In 2018, the researchers published results from the trial showing that 3D-mammography detects just over 30 percent more cases of breast cancer compared to traditional mammography.

This time, the researchers compared cancers detected in between screenings, so called interval cancers. The women who received 3D-mammography were matched by age and screening date with women in a control group who were screened using regular mammography. A total of 13,369 women were included in the study and 26,738 women in the control population.

The number of interval cancer cases can be used to assess a screening method's effectiveness in detecting cancer and potential to reduce breast cancer mortality in the long run, and is one of the most important outcome measures to take into account in discussions about possibly switching to 3D-mammography as a screening method. The researchers also compared the types of breast cancer involved as well as the extent of the spread of cancer in the patients.

"Among the study participants who received 3D-mammography, we found that it was less likely, 40 percent lower odds, to get interval cancer compared to the control group that was screened with regular mammography. Interval cancer cases generally have a relatively aggressive biological profile with faster growing tumors than in screening-detected breast cancer. However, the study did not show any major differences between the groups regarding the biological profile, says Kristin Johnson.

Kristin Johnson clarifies that the women who were screened with both 3D-mammography and 2D-mammography thus received two radiological assessments, in contrast to the control group. This may have had some effect on the fewer number of cases of interval cancer in the study group.

Several European studies have shown that 3D-mammography detects more cases of breast cancer, although the scientific basis for using 3D-mammography in screening is considered weak due to lack of information on effects on interval cancer rates. Therefore, today's overall European guidelines are still vague. In addition, the guidelines for screening programs differ between countries within as well as outside Europe.

The researchers believe that their results, which so far are the only ones published that show a reduced interval cancer rate, further support that 3D-mammography can supplement or replace mammography in screening. In the long run, they can also help strengthen the European recommendations.

"Screening with 3D-mammography shows potential in reducing interval cancers. However, we need to see more studies pointing in the same direction", concludes Kristin Johnson.

WESTMINSTER, Colorado - April 07, 2021 - As the number of weed populations resistant to multiple herbicides continues to soar, it is clear that better tools are needed to help growers rapidly diagnose resistance issues. With more timely access to information, they can take earlier, proactive steps to keep resistant weeds from spreading.

A recent article in the journal Weed Science describes a new rapid "leaf-disk assay" that uses chlorophyll fluorescence emissions to determine whether a weed is resistant to various systemic and contact herbicides. In contrast to time-consuming and labor-intensive greenhouse screenings and population studies, leaf-disk assay results are available in about 48 hours.

In a recent research study, scientists were able to use the fluorescence technique to rapidly detect resistance to glyphosate, dicamba and fomesafen in broadleaf and grass weeds, including Palmer amaranth, waterhemp, kochia and goosegrass.

The assay clearly separated populations susceptible to herbicides from those that are highly resistant. It exhibited less sensitivity, though, in identifying populations with lower levels of resistance.

Though further work is needed to fine-tune the new test for greater precision, researchers say it holds great promise.

"In addition to the speed, the leaf-disk assay requires fewer technical skills," says Chenxi Wu, research scientist at Bayer CropScience. "That means more weed science labs will be able to use the technique to identify multiple resistances efficiently - helping growers take more immediate and informed actions."

An international team of researchers has studied individual differences in the behaviour of red deer. They found that several observed behaviours form a personality component, which they labelled "Confidence/Aggressiveness".

As is commonly known, individual people behave consistently different from each other and these kinds of consistent differences in behaviour are called personality. Studies on species other than humans, from insects to elephants, have found that personalities are widespread in nature.

The team consists of researchers from the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague, the University of South Bohemia, Czech Republic, the University of Vienna, Austria, and the University of Turku, Finland and is led by Bruno Esattore from the Department of Ethology at the Institute of Animal Science in Prague. The team of researchers studied personality of red deer with a newly developed questionnaire, as well as observed their behaviours.

The researchers identified a single personality component related to Confidence/Aggressiveness. Interestingly, some of the behaviours making up this component were linked with dominance behaviour in red deer. The study has just been published in Behavioural Processes.

- Many personality studies have focused on primates, rodents, birds, field crickets or fish. Despite of their well-studied biology and increasing popularity in the farming sector, the personality structure of one of Europe's most iconic mammals, the red deer, has until now been unknown, says the lead author of the study Bruno Esattore.

The personality data were collected by using a novel questionnaire for which experienced observers rated 15 behaviours on a scale from 1 to 5, with 1 meaning the deer shows this behaviour "Almost never" and 5 meaning "Most of the time".

- We think it is extremely interesting that inter-individual differences which have been so far overlooked or even regarded as distracting are those that eventually make the difference when trying to identify the personality of these animals, states Doctoral Candidate Laura Saggiomo from the Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences of the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague.

- These findings are exciting, but of course, they are not the final picture of how personality manifests in red deer, says Postdoctoral Researcher Vedrana Šlipogor from the Department of Zoology of the University of South Bohemia in Budweiss, Czech Republic.

The team put lots of care into the making of the questionnaire, however, for a majority of the 15 behaviours the observers did not agree very well on their ratings of the deer.

- This was an unexpected result and shows that we have to be careful with our behavioural descriptions and to consider observer perceptions when using questionnaire ratings of animal behaviour for scientific studies, Šlipogor further states.

The team then linked these findings with observations of the dominance interactions of the male deer in their bachelor groups.

- We found no relationship between deer's dominance and personality, but dominance was related to some of the rated behaviours, showing our personality questionnaire captured some biologically meaningful variation, says Bruno Esattore.

Studies on animals kept in zoos or different facilities or farms have shown that knowing the individual characteristics or personalities of animals can help to implement the best strategy in guaranteeing their welfare.

- Personality has not been largely considered in welfare management decisions, but lately it is receiving more and more attention. We believe that studies like ours can help to add to the improvement of animal management and welfare, concludes Martin Seltmann from the Department of Biology at the University of Turku.

For those who live in an area blighted by ticks, the threat of Lyme disease can cast a shadow over the joy of spring and summer. These blood-sucking arachnids can transmit bacteria into the bloodstream of their unsuspecting host, causing the disease. Early treatment is essential, but current tests are not usually sensitive enough to detect the disease in early-stage patients. A recent study in open-access journal Frontiers in Microbiology reveals a new test for Lyme disease, which is the first to reliably distinguish between early- and late-stage patients. The test detects a genetic sequence left by a virus that resides in Lyme-causing bacteria, and can detect just one bacterial cell in a small blood sample.

As the most common tick-borne infection, Lyme disease affects nearly 500,000 people in the U.S. every year. Symptoms include fever, fatigue, joint pain, and a distinctive 'bullseye' rash, but if left untreated, the disease can cause paralysis and even death. As such, early diagnosis is important, but difficult.

"Early diagnosis of Lyme disease is absolutely vital in reducing suffering, because early Lyme can be treated, but late Lyme is very difficult to treat," explained Dr Jinyu Shan of the University of Leicester, lead author on the study. "Current tests cannot typically detect the low numbers of bacteria in early-stage patient blood samples. Our goal was to design a highly sensitive test to help doctors to identify Lyme disease as early as possible."

Shan's test is based on polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, which works by amplifying small amounts of specific genetic material so that it can be detected. To date, this technique has not been particularly useful in detecting Lyme-causing bacteria in the blood. Such bacteria often lurk in tissues, and may not be present in the blood in large numbers. Additionally, many of the genetic sequences targeted by PCR have only a single copy within each cell, making it difficult to find and amplify enough for detection.

Shan and his colleagues realized that there is another potential PCR target in Lyme-causing bacteria. These targets are called prophages, and are a genetic sequence that was inserted into the bacteria by a virus. Happily, such genetic material can escape the bacteria and is therefore more likely to be detectable in the blood, and multiple copies are present in individual bacterial cells.

The researchers assessed their new prophage-targeted test by adding small amounts of Lyme-causing bacteria to blood samples. They found that the test was very sensitive, detecting just one bacterial cell in 0.3 mL of blood. This suggests that the test is sensitive enough for use with human samples, as people infected with Lyme-causing bacteria typically have between 1 and 100 bacterial cells per mL of blood.

Based on these promising results, the researchers used their PCR test to analyze blood samples from healthy volunteers and patients with either early-stage or late-stage Lyme disease. Strikingly, the test could successfully distinguish healthy, early-stage and late-stage Lyme disease samples, and is the first technology to successfully achieve this. "The test could also be very useful in rapidly ruling out someone with suspected Lyme disease," said Shan.

The technique may also be applicable to diagnostic tests for other bacterial infections, if researchers can identify suitable prophage sequences for such bacteria. The technology will need further development before it is suitable for clinical use, but the researchers have already begun the groundwork for this. "We are currently working with a commercial partner, and investigating regulatory issues and the potential for a clinical trial for this technology," said Shan.

Progression of Duchenne Muscle Dystrophy (DMD) can be delayed in mice by supplementing their diets with Urolithin A, according to new results reported today. The findings, published in Science Translational Medicine, raise hopes that new treatment options could one-day be developed for DMD, an uncurable genetic condition characterized by progressive muscle degeneration. About 1 in 3,500 boys are born with DMD, which usually develops in childhood and significantly reduces life expectancy.

The new research carried out at the laboratory of Professor Johan Auwerx, MD, PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology EPFL and the University of Lausanne in collaboration with scientists at the Swiss life science company Amazentis, highlights the important role that defective mitochondria can play in DMD. The powerhouses of cells, mitochondria produce the energy necessary for normal muscle function. But muscle cells taken from both human DMD patients and from mice bred to mimic the condition show significant defects in mitochondrial activity, the study finds. Specifically, patterns of gene expression show the development of DMD is associated with a marked decrease in mitophagy - the process cells rely on to remove and recycle defective mitochondria and maintain energy levels high.

"Duchenne Muscle Dystrophy is the most common fatal genetic disease diagnosed in childhood with still no cure available," says Johan Auwerx, MD, PhD, lead-author and Professor at the EPFL. "Our work represents a significant breakthrough in the search for new therapeutic approaches for muscular dystrophies."

The natural compound Urolithin A is known to activate mitophagy and improve mitochondrial health in both mice and humans. When the study scientists and lead authors, Peiling Luan and Davide D'Amico, fed the compound to DMD mice for just ten weeks, they saw mitophagy levels rise effectively restoring them to normal. This led to a significant reduction of muscle damage and improvement in muscle health and performance. The DMD mice administered Urolithin A saw grip strength increase by 31% and running performance increase by 45% compared with control untreated animals. And they lived longer - survival increased by 40%.

Importantly for the human disease, Urolithin A reduced a damaging condition called fibrosis in muscles of the DMD mouse heart and diaphragm by 36% and 39%, respectively. Similar damage seen in DMD patients typically leads to fatal cardiac or respiratory failure. Urolithin A was also able to enhance the regeneration of mouse muscle stem cells. This is particularly relevant to the disease in humans as the onset of DMD is linked with the exhaustion of functional stem cells.

Davide D'Amico, PhD, Project Leader at Amazentis and a first author of the paper, said: "Prior to this study, it was understood that the dramatic loss of muscle function in DMD patients was associated with mitochondrial dysfunctions. Here we discovered that defective mitophagy, the removal and recycling of dysfunctional mitochondria, plays a key role in the progression of DMD."

Chris Rinsch, PhD, Co-founder and CEO of Amazentis, said, "The rigorous science being published in Science Translational Medicine strengthens the scientific evidence of Urolithin A as a potent enhancer of muscle function. It's exciting to see this natural metabolite can support not only healthy muscle, but also shows promise for progressive muscle diseases in pre-clinical research."

The lungs were for a long time considered to be sterile in health, while in diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) failure in immune mechanisms were thought to allow microorganisms to proliferate and persist. New sequencing techniques have shown that several microorganisms reside in the lungs of healthy individuals, as well. Few studies have examined the fungal community in COPD and compared it to healthy controls using such techniques. According to the study findings, the compositions of these environments seem to be unaffected by the use of inhaled steroids.

Lungs have a unique fungal environment

The Bergen COPD Microbiome study (short name "MicroCOPD") is the world's largest single-centre study on the fungal community in lungs of persons with COPD. The Bergen Respiratory Research Group collected samples from the lungs of 233 individuals with and without COPD using bronchoscopy. Lung and mouth samples from 193 of these individuals were subsequently sequenced to detect residing fungi.

"Results showed that both healthy and diseased lungs had a different fungal composition than the mouth, suggesting that lungs have a unique fungal environment", says PhD candidate Einar Marius Hjellestad Martinsen.

The lungs were dominated by the fungus Candida. Interestingly, there were no differences in compositions between lungs from healthy individuals and patients with COPD. Furthermore, patients with COPD using inhaled steroids did not have any differences in the fungal community of their lungs compared to those not using inhaled steroids.

Disease-causing fungus

The prevalence and severity of fungal infections have increased in recent years. The finding that Candida is frequently found in healthy lungs could thus be of special importance. Candida is found as part of the normal flora on several mucous membranes, and is capable of causing disease, for instance thrush in the mouth or vagina.

"It would be of great interest to further examine if fungal lung infections are caused by fungi that are already present in the lungs", says Hjellestad Martinsen.

"If so, emphasis should be placed on these fungi to reveal what triggers are responsible for converting them from being "friendly residents" of our lungs to disease-causing intruders."

We know that use of inhaled steroids can have immunosuppressive effects, which can predispose to fungal outgrowth. The observation that inhaled steroids did not seem to affect the composition of the fungal environments in the lungs is interesting in this regard. Inhaled steroids are frequently used by patients with COPD and asthma, hence it would be of importance to know more about their influence on fungi found in the lungs.

The research group consists of several researchers working on the bacterial and fungal microbiota in the lungs, and the group is currently examining whether fungi is present also in other lung diseases.

A joint research team led by Dr. MAO Fangyuan and Dr. ZHANG Chi from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology (IVPP) of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and Prof. MENG Jin from the American Museum of Natural History have discovered two new species of mammal-like, burrowing animals that lived about 120 million years ago in what is now northeastern China.

The new species, described in Nature on April 7, are distantly related. However, they independently evolved traits to support their digging lifestyle. They represent the first "scratch diggers" discovered in this ecosystem.

"There are many hypotheses about why animals dig into the soil and live underground," said Prof. MENG, lead author of the study. "For protection against predators, to maintain a temperature that's relatively constant, or to find food sources like insects and plant roots. These two fossils are a very unusual, deep-time example of animals that are not closely related and yet both evolved the highly specialized characteristics of a digger."

The fossil mammaliamorph species--predecessors to mammals--were discovered in the Jehol Biota, which represents the Early Cretaceous epoch, about 145 to 100 million years ago.

One is a mammal-like reptile called a tritylodontid and represents the first of its kind to be identified in this biota. About a foot in length, it was named Fossiomanus sinensis. The other one, Jueconodon cheni, is a eutriconodontan, a distant cousin of modern placental mammals and marsupials, which were common in the biota. It is about seven inches long.

Mammals that are adapted to burrowing have specialized traits for digging. The researchers found some of these hallmark features, including shorter limbs, strong forelimbs with robust hands, and a short tail, in both Fossiomanus and Jueconodon. In particular, these characteristics point to a type of digging behavior known as "scratch digging," accomplished mainly by the claws of the forelimbs.

"This is the first convincing evidence for fossorial life in those two groups," said Dr. MAO. "It also is the first case of scratch diggers we know about in the Jehol Biota, which was home to a great diversity of animals, from dinosaurs and insects to plants."

The animals also share another unusual feature: an elongated vertebral column. Typically, from the neck to the hip, mammals have 26 vertebrae. However, Fossiomanus had 38 vertebrae--a staggering 12 more than the usual number--while Jueconodon had 28.

To try to determine how these animals got their elongated axial skeleton, the paleontologists turned to recent studies in developmental biology, finding that the variation could be attributed to gene mutations that determine the number and shape of the vertebrae during early embryonic development of these animals. Variation in vertebrae number can be found in modern mammals as well, for example, in elephants, manatees, and hyraxes.

An epigenetic study at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences shows that in mouse egg cells, modifications to histone H2A at lysine 119 lay the groundwork for inherited DNA functional modifications from the mother.

In books and the movies, a group of people on a special mission always sends out a scout to do reconnaissance before they proceed. Sometimes, the scouts leave signs or markers that allow the group to know where there should go. Researchers led by Azusa Inoue at the RIKEN Center for Integrative Medical Sciences in Japan have discovered a mark left behind in unfertilized egg cells that determine which DNA modifications will be inherited if the egg is fertilized. Specifically, they found that without initial modifications to histone H2A at lysine 119--technically called H2AK119ub1--later inheritable modifications would not occur. When allowed to develop, one consequence of this deficit was an enlarged placenta after embryo implantation. This study was published in Nature Genetics on April 5.

For many years we were taught in school that acquired traits were not inherited. In some sense this was correct; stretching your neck a lot to get food will not result in children with longer necks. However, your DNA function can be modified throughout your life. For example, DNA structure in chromosomes is supported by proteins called histones. When histones are modified, they can change how genes are expressed in the body. This is epigenetics, and a previous study by Inoue and colleagues showed that acquired tri-methylation of histone H3 at lysine 27 (thankfully abbreviate to H3K27me3) in mammalian egg cells can be inherited. In the new study, the team used technology called low-input CUT&RUN to begin answering the question of how this happens.

First, the researchers examined the timing of the two different histone modifications. They found that every gene exhibiting H3K27me3 also showed H2AK119ub1 in mouse egg cells. Suspecting its importance, the researchers knocked out two proteins that make up H2AK119ub1 in egg cells. Low-input CUT&RUN showed that the knock-out egg cells had much less H3K27me3 than controls at a subset of genes that normally bring H3K27me3 into the next generation. Thus, H2AK119ub1 acts like a kind of marker left by a scout, identifying where subsequent H3K27me3 should follow. "We discovered that H2AK119ub1 is necessary for maternal inheritance of H3K27me3, making the H2AK119ub1-H3K27me3 pathway a major player in transgenerational epigenetic inheritance in mammals," says Inoue.

The researchers then found something they didn't expect. Testing showed that the loss of H3K27me3 was itself inherited by fertilized embryos, and could not be reversed. Furthermore, this deficiency led increased lethality--miscarriages--and enlarged placentas. "It was surprising to find that defects in an egg's histone modification are irreversibly inherited by embryos and cause long term consequences in development," says Inoue.

The results thus showed that despite normal DNA in the mouse egg cell, if the proper instructions--first H2AK119ub1 and then H3K27me3 modifications--were missing, miscarriages and enlarged placentas could occur. These findings have clinical implications, especially for reproductive medicine and placental defects. "The next step," says Inoue, "is to see whether any diseases or surrounding environments can affect the heritable histone modification."

In a new paper published in the Journal of Environmental Policy & Planning, the University of Maryland teamed up with local researchers to examine green infrastructure adoption and leadership in Tucson, Arizona, an interesting case study where grassroots efforts have helped to drive policy change in a growing urban area surrounded by water-constrained desert. Green infrastructure (any installation that manages water or environmental factors, such as rain gardens, stormwater basins, or urban tree cover) is slowly transitioning from a fringe activity to an important part of the way governments and municipalities are dealing with water and the local effects of a changing climate. By examining the trajectory of sustainability and the role of policy entrepreneurship in broader adoption, Tucson can provide a peek into the future of green infrastructure in the Southwest and across the country.

"This work came out of a long term collaboration in Arizona trying to understand a lot of aspects of how green infrastructure (GI) is used there," says Mitchell Pavao-Zuckerman, assistant professor in Environmental Science and Technology at UMD. "We are looking at the functionality of GI, its practical benefits, but also how governance and learning around GI changes, inhibits, or helps adoption. Looking at evolution and adoption, we can see different types of players that are key, like policy entrepreneurs who are early adopters or innovators in either practice or policy and how they help diffuse knowledge around the city. Learning these lessons, we gain a lot of insight into how policy is changing, and how other areas could adapt going forward."

Funded by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Coupled Human and Natural Systems program, Pavao-Zuckerman collaborated with the University of Arizona, the Udall Center for Public Policy in Tucson, and the University of Virginia to examine these GI trends. The researchers took a mixed methods approach to the work, examining policy, documentation, and newspaper reports to create a timeline of GI developments in the history of the city. The timeline was then used as a starting point when interviewing stakeholders and GI players in Tucson, providing a richer context and backdrop to the interview data.

"The timeline and our approach to gathering this information is innovative; it puts a method behind anecdotal stories," explains Pavao-Zuckerman. "Studying this kind of process in an urban setting around GI is a new thing, so that is one of the unique pieces of this paper. In lots of places, you have this knowledge and history of how things have come about, but using the timeline and interviews to document how things have changed, and putting it within theories of adaptation and governance - these are new frontiers for working with GI and urban environments."

As Pavao-Zuckerman describes it, Tucson provides a compelling look at how GI emerges in places that don't necessarily have water quality mandates, which are prominent in Maryland and the area surrounding the Chesapeake Bay. In Tucson and much of the Southwest, water sustainability and conservation is often the driver.

"In Maryland with the Bay, a lot of GI is implemented as a way to meet water quality standards and meet pollution reduction targets," says Pavao-Zuckerman. "But in this case, there aren't water quality mandates, and the focus is really on harvested water. A lot of water consumption in the Southwest goes to domestic irrigation for lawns and gardens, which can sometimes be up to 50% of potable water usage, so the demand is huge. You also see integration with urban tree canopy and stormwater basins that can help mitigate heat islands and buffer for future climate change when things get even hotter out there. So you see the same types of things there as in the Bay area, like curb cuts to redirect stormwater and urban tree cover, but it is coming from a different place. So it is interesting to see how you get to the same place from a different start point."

One thing that Pavao-Zuckerman and the team found in Tucson that the rest of the country can learn from is an overall culture of what is known as water ethics. Similar to the concept of One Health (the intersection and interconnectedness of animal, human, and environmental health), Tucson water municipalities call it One Water.

"Part of what we see going forward is a more holistic way of thinking about water," says Pavao-Zuckerman. "Stormwater is usually thought of as a waste stream that we want to get rid of as quickly as possible, but people are starting to see it as a resource and not a waste. The water municipality there calls it One Water, thinking about the integration of the whole water system. Instead of thinking of stormwater and drinking water as two separate things, we think about water collectively, and that gives you a different perspective for management. That mindset will hopefully also start to happen in other places."

Other key findings from the paper include the need to think about GI across all scales, from individual and neighborhood adoption to the city level. Additionally, there is a need for more equitable dispersion of GI to ensure environmental and social justice.

"A lot of this practice is done effectively voluntarily," explains Pavao-Zuckerman. "Neighborhoods and the city will promote it, but the city isn't necessarily going out and implementing most of these structures - that is up to the home or property owner. Because implementation has started from policy entrepreneurs and individuals in Tucson, it didn't happen randomly and also didn't happen necessarily in communities where it is most needed. Most cities are like this, with more affluent communities having more implementation, and places that have less money or more people of color tend to have less implementation, so they are bearing the brunt of the environmental harms that they are trying to solve. So that needs to be part of the trajectory going forward, thinking about how to shift practice to reflect that and encourage cooperation at all levels and scales to be more equitable."

Overall, this paper provides a landscape of GI implementation and gives researchers, policy makers, and advocates alike a chance to understand where things are coming from so they can think more strategically about where things are headed.

"It lets us do backcasting and forwardcasting," emphasizes Pavao-Zuckerman. "We can see where things came from and new threads that are starting to emerge. GI is important because it adds different aspects of resilience to an environment. It helps to buffer environmental extremes, and it adds more flexibility throughout the landscape to withstand and respond to extreme events. We think of climate change as this thing that is going to be hotter, wetter, or drier, but it is the extreme ends of weather events that really hit cities and people hard, and GI is something that we think is going to really help. We are paying particular attention to the role of people and organizations in driving GI change in this work to understand it as a way for how people can shape urban transformations to make a more sustainable and resilient community."

While studying genetic diversity in bumblebees in the Rocky Mountains, USA, researchers from Uppsala University discovered a new species. They named it Bombus incognitus and present their findings in the journal Molecular Biology and Evolution.

Bumblebees are vital for agriculture and the natural world due to their role in plant pollination. There are more than 250 species of bumblebee, and they are found mainly in northern temperate regions of the planet. Alarmingly, many species are declining due to the effects of climate change, and those with alpine and arctic habitats are particularly threatened. However, the full diversity of bumblebee species in these environments is still unknown.

Matthew Webster's research group at Uppsala University, together with colleagues in the USA, studied genetic diversity in bumblebees in the Rocky Mountains, Colorado by collecting hundreds of samples and sequencing their genomes. Surprisingly, the data revealed the presence of a new species, which was indistinguishable in appearance to the species Bombus sylvicola, but clearly distinct at the genetic level. The authors named this species Bombus incognitus.

By comparing the genomes of Bombus sylvicola and Bombus incognitus, the team were able to learn about how this new species formed. They found signals consistent with gene flow between the species during their evolution. They also identified parts of chromosomes that are incompatible between species, which act as genetic barriers to gene flow and were likely important in causing the species to separate.

These results indicate that the number of bumblebee species in arctic and alpine environments may be larger than previously thought. It is possible that mountainous terrain is conducive to speciation. Cold-adapted populations could become isolated at high altitudes during periods of warming in their evolutionary history, leading to the formation of new species. It is also possible that additional genome sequencing of bumblebees will reveal even more cryptic species that have so far gone undetected.

Ants react to social isolation in a similar way as do humans and other social mammals. A study by an Israeli-German research team has revealed alterations to the social and hygienic behavior of ants that had been isolated from their group. The research team was particularly surprised by the fact that immune and stress genes were downregulated in the brains of the isolated ants. "This makes the immune system less efficient, a phenomenon that is also apparent in socially isolating humans - notably at present during the COVID-19 crisis," said Professor Susanne Foitzik, who headed up the study at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU). The study on a species of ant native to Germany has recently been published in Molecular Ecology.

Effects of isolation in social insects little studied so far

Humans and other social mammals experience isolation from their group as stressful, having a negative impact on their general well-being and physical health. "Isolated people become lonely, depressed, and anxious, develop addictions more easily, and suffer from a weakened immune system and impaired overall health," added Professor Inon Scharf, lead author of the article and cooperation partner of the Mainz research group at Tel Aviv University in Israel. While the effects of isolation have been extensively studied in social mammals such as humans and mice, less is known about how social insects respond in comparable situations - even though they live in highly evolved social systems. Ants, for instance, live their entire lives as members of the same colony and are dependent on their colony mates. The worker ants relinquish their own reproductive potential and devote themselves to feeding the larvae, cleaning and defending the nest, and searching for food, while the queen does little more than just lay eggs.

The research team looked at the consequences of social isolation in the case of ants of the species Temnothorax nylanderi. These ants inhabit cavities in acorns and sticks on the ground in European forests, forming colonies of a few dozen workers. Young workers engaged in brood care were taken singly from 14 colonies and kept in isolation for varying lengths of time, from one hour to a maximum of 28 days. The study was conducted between January and March 2019 and highlighted three particular aspects in which changes were observed. After the end of their isolation, the workers were less interested in their adult colony mates, but the length of time they spent in brood contact increased; they also spent less time grooming themselves. "This reduction in hygienic behavior may make the ants more susceptible to parasites, but it is also a feature typical of social deprivation in other social organisms," explained Professor Susanne Foitzik.

Stress due to isolation adversely affects the immune system

While the study revealed significant changes in the behaviors of the isolated insects, its findings with regard to gene activity were even more striking: Many genes related to immune system function and stress response were downregulated. In other words, these genes were less active. "This finding is consistent with studies on other social animals that demonstrated a weakening of the immune system after isolation," said Professor Inon Scharf.

The discovery by the team of biologists led by Professor Susanne Foitzik is the first of its kind, combining behavioral and genetic analyses on the effects of isolation in social insects. "Our study shows that ants are as affected by isolation as social mammals are and suggests a general link between social well-being, stress tolerance, and immunocompetence in social animals," concluded Foitzik, summarizing the results of the Israeli-German study. Foitzik is also collaborating with her Israeli partner Professor Inon Scharf and with co-author and group leader Dr. Romain Libbrecht of JGU on a new joint project on the fitness benefits and the molecular basis of spatial learning in ants, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).

By Karina Ninni | Agência FAPESP – A multidisciplinary research group affiliated with the Department of Physical Education’s Human Movement Laboratory (Movi-Lab) at São Paulo State University (UNESP) in Bauru, Brazil, measured step length synergy while crossing obstacles in patients with Parkinson’s disease and concluded that it was 53% lower than in healthy subjects of the same age and weight. Step length is one of the main variables affected by the disease.

Synergy, defined as combined operation, refers in this case to the capacity of the locomotor (or musculoskeletal) system to adapt movement while crossing an obstacle, combining factors such as speed and foot position, for example. Improving synergy in Parkinson’s patients while they are walking can make a significant difference to their quality of life, as they tend to fall three times more often on average than healthy people of the same age.

“There are patients in our exercise group who fall three or four times a week. It’s important to understand how these patients’ gait and locomotion adapt while crossing obstacles so that we can improve step-length synergy. This approach enables us to refine the exercise protocol, improve locomotion, and try to reduce fall frequency,” said Fabio Augusto Barbieri, a professor in UNESP’s Department of Physical Education and its Movement Science Graduate Program.

An article on the study is published in the journal Gait & Posture. Barbieri is the last author. The first author is mechanical engineer Satyajit Ambike, a professor in the Department of Health and Kinesiology at Purdue University in the United States. The study is the first to report on impaired locomotor synergies in Parkinson’s patients.

“The innovation in our study is its focus on gait timing, or rhythmicity, the constancy with which patients position their feet to maintain locomotion,” Barbieri said. “This can be evaluated by measuring step-length synergy. Synergy presupposes a goal and has to do with the way the locomotor system adjusts to achieve it. In our case, we investigated how the system adapts to achieve the objective of crossing an obstacle during locomotion.”

The researchers found that Parkinson’s patients are less able to adapt the position of their feet than healthy people as they approach and cross an obstacle. “The locomotor system always tries to adapt in order to maintain constancy during locomotion. Absent this constancy, we may make mistakes that can lead to a fall,” Barbieri said. “Parkinson’s patients are less constant in positioning their feet while walking, and gait timing tends to be unstable as a result. Their speed rises and falls as they walk, and step length varies along with foot placement.”

Obstacles

Thirteen Parkinson’s patients and 11 neurologically healthy controls participated in the study. All participants were over 50. To be eligible they had to be able to walk without assistance, to have normal sight and hearing (with or without lenses and hearing aids), to have no orthopedic or neurological diseases apart from Parkinson’s, and to be able to understand and follow instructions. The patients took medication for Parkinson’s (Levodopa) for at least three months before data collection.

The participants had to walk along a gangway (length 8.5 m, width 3.5 m), and cross a foam rubber obstacle (height 15 cm, width 60 cm, depth 5 cm) placed 4 m from the starting point. Gait speed was not imposed but chosen by each participant. No instructions were given regarding which leg should cross the obstacle first, but its position was adjusted for each participant so that the right leg had to lead.

“We tried to standardize the task so that all the subjects crossed the obstacle with their right leg leading,” Barbieri said. “The idea was to ensure there was no interference from other factors in the locomotion pattern. The height of the obstacle was 15 cm because that’s the standard curb height in Brazil. We thought it would be best to stick to the standard.”

A number of systems need to work together for synergy to happen in terms of achieving an objective, he explained. “When the distance between the toes and the obstacle [before it is crossed] and between the heel and the obstacle [after it is crossed] varies a lot, the risk of contacting the obstacle increases. Being too close to the obstacle before crossing entails having to raise the leading leg so high that it may prove impossible. If the trailing foot comes down too close to the obstacle after crossing, the heel is likely to touch it,” he said, adding that gait timing should ideally be constant and the foot should not come too close to the obstacle on either side.

Biomechanics

Step-length synergy was measured using a methodology derived from mechanical engineering and adapted to the study of human movement. The methodology is not specific to gait analysis or Parkinson’s, but adapted from a set of techniques used to measure upper-limb strength by Ambike and Mark Latash of Pennsylvania State University.

Eight motion capture cameras used in the study were purchased with funding from FAPESP (grant no. 2017/19516-8). The study was also supported by a visiting researcher grant.

Twenty reflective markers were placed according to a specific gait analysis model on the body of each participant in the experiment. “While the subject is walking along the gangway toward the obstacle and crossing it, the cameras emit infrared light, which is reflected by the markers. The cameras capture the position of the markers, enabling us to determine step length and duration. Gait analysis software does the other calculations,” Barbieri explained.

The study was the first time this methodology was applied to gait analysis, according to Barbieri. “Another innovation was that we used a single variable to detect possible gait timing-related incapacities relatively simply, facilitating more consistent future intervention to improve gait timing via training,” he said. “This is the point of gait analysis in general. You want to determine possible variables of changes in gait and modify intervention on that basis.”

The same researchers have since begun a study to find out whether the height of the obstacle affects step-length synergy. “We want to know if this synergy changes because the obstacle is higher or lower. This concerns the environment in which the patient moves. If there are obstacles of a certain height in the area, they may cause problems and lead to falls, so we can modify the environment to facilitate locomotion,” Barbieri said.

The article “Step length synergy while crossing obstacles is weaker in patients with Parkinson’s disease” by Satyajit Ambike, Tiago Penedo, Ashwini Kulkarni, Felipe Balistieri Santinelli and Fabio A. Barbieri can be retrieved from: www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0966636221000011.

Journal

Gait & Posture

DOI

10.1016/j.gaitpost.2021.01.002

You might not think an animal made out of stone would have much to worry about in the way of predators, and that's largely what scientists had thought about coral. Although corallivores like parrotfish and pufferfish are well known to biologists, their impact on coral growth and survival was believed to be small compared to factors like heatwaves, ocean acidification and competition from algae.

But researchers at UC Santa Barbara have found that young corals are quite vulnerable to these predators, regardless of whether a colony finds itself alone on the reef or surrounded by others of its kind. The research, led by doctoral student Kai Kopecky, appears in the journal Coral Reefs.

Kopecky and his co-authors were curious how corals can reemerge following large disturbances like cyclones and marine heatwaves, which periodically devastate the reefs of Mo'orea, French Polynesia, where the research was conducted.

"Mo'orea is prone to big heat shocks, storm waves, cyclones and predatory sea star outbreaks," said co-author Adrian Stier, an associate professor in the Department of Ecology Evolution & Marine Biology and one of Kopecky's advisors. "It just wipes the slate clean in terms of coral death. And sometimes, just a few years later, you can swim around and see thriving life. We're still really curious about what allows these ecosystems to bounce back."

Scientists had implicated predators in shaping coral population dynamics, but there hadn't really been many direct studies. "People who study coral reefs have thought a lot about the supply of new babies coming from elsewhere, or limitation by the amount of nutrients, or competition with algae as important drivers of coral recovery," Stier continued. "But there hasn't been as much done on the importance of predators as a limiting factor."

After reviewing the literature on coral growth, mortality and predation, Kopecky decided to focus on the effects predation and density had on young coral colonies.

He planted small nubbins of Pacific staghorn coral at various locations on the reef either alone, in a group of four, or in a group of eight. Some of these groups were protected by metal cages, while others were left exposed. For the unprotected coral, Kopecky sought to determine whether high density increased or decreased predation on the staghorn. For the protected groups, he was curious how density influenced coral growth.

The researchers found that protection was key to these small corals' futures. After 30 days out on the reef, nearly all of the unprotected nubbins had been completely consumed. In fact, density had virtually no effect on this outcome.

The researchers let the experiment run for an entire year. When they returned, virtually none of the unprotected specimens remained. On the other hand, the caged corals had outgrown their accommodations by year's end.

"The corals that were protected grew all the way into the upper corners of the cages and were poking little branches out," Kopecky recalled. "They formed a cube of coral inside the cages, whereas the ones that were exposed to predators were just barely hanging on."

Coral are not typically fast-growing organisms, but staghorn coral grows quickly, giving it a competitive edge following disturbances that remove large amounts of coral. But according to Kai, staghorn coral are like the popcorn chicken of the reef: irresistible to a hungry corallivore.

The protected corals grew so quickly that Kai had to adopt a different way to measure them, because at a certain point the nubbins fused, and he could no longer unscrew their base plates to measure them in the lab.

So, if there's no protection in numbers for these tasty staghorns, how do they ever survive their infancy?

The corals benefit from the protection of fish like the Dusky farmerfish, which farms algae on the reef. These farmer fish doggedly defend their territories, offering protection to any small coral that happens to settle in their range, Kopecky explained. And while algae and coral are often considered archenemies -- with the former able to outcompete the later -- by munching on their crops, the farmer fish keep the algae in check. This enables the coral to get through the stage where they're vulnerable to predation.

In fact, researchers rarely see staghorn corals in large colonies absent the protection of these fishy farmers, Kopecky added.

The authors thought density would have some effect on predation. "I think it just turns out that this coral is so tasty that predators simply mowed everything down," Stier remarked.

The team is considering running a similar experiment with cauliflower coral, which is more robust and slower-growing than the staghorn. Hopefully it's also slightly less scrumptious, as well.

"When these pufferfish eat enough, you can see their bellies weighted down by the coral rocks that are in their stomachs," Stier said. "I mean, they're oddly shaped fish to begin with; they're already having a hard time swimming without that ballast, but this makes it extra tricky."

"It really is a cartoonish dynamic," Kopecky added.

Staghorn coral is widely used in reef restoration efforts, especially in the Caribbean where this and a related species (elkhorn coral) are endangered. In fact, before joining UC Santa Barbara, Kopecky spent several months working as a coral restoration technician on the U.S. Virgin Islands.

"I had an opportunity to see coral restoration in action, but also see some of the limitations associated with it," Kopecky said. "And then I was able to go and conduct research, like this experiment, that can feed back into and inform how restoration might be improved."

Getting out-planted coral nubbins through this vulnerable life stage presents a major bottleneck to restoration efforts, Kopecky explained. He has already received feedback on the study from people engaged in coral reef restoration expressing how relevant his findings are to their work.

"When you protect these young, vulnerable corals from predators, the amount of growth is substantially higher than when they're not protected," Kopecky said. "It's clear that coral predators can really shape whether young corals actually reach the size where they're no longer vulnerable to predation."