Culture

Primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC) is a rare, chronic, inflammatory disease of the bile ducts and is difficult to treat, since its causes have not yet been adequately researched. Using RNA sequencing, an international research consortium led by Michael Trauner, Head of MedUni Vienna's Division of Gastroenterology and Hepatology (Department of Medicine III), has now succeeded in identifying a new prognostic factor for PSC from liver biopsies. This is so-called cellular ER stress. ER stress is the name given to a complex cellular response to stress caused by the build-up of misfolded proteins in the endoplasmic reticulum (ER).

PSC is a rare disease with a poor prognosis and can lead to cirrhosis of the liver or bile duct cancer. It affects 0.01% of the population but, even though it is rare, PSC is responsible for more than 10% of all liver transplants, making it the third most common indication on liver transplant waiting lists in Europe.

In the recent study, which has now been published in the leading journal Hepatology, the researchers were able to identify a molecular signature for ER stress both in the liver cells (hepatocytes) and also in the bile duct epithelium - and notably as a stand-alone factor that is independent of the disease stage or degree of liver fibrosis (laying down of scar tissue) as a precursor to possible liver cirrhosis. "Using transcriptional analysis, we were able to identify a personalised molecular signature of primary sclerosing cholangitis, which shows that patients with an impaired response to ER stress have a poorer prognosis with a higher incidence of complications," explains Trauner. "This discovery also opens up new treatment options, since ER stress can be counteracted with drugs."

Since the build-up of potentially toxic bile acids in cholestasis results in ER stress, it is now being attempted to restore this balance pharmacologically using the new bile acid therapeutics that are available. Beneficial effects can reportedly be expected from drugs already in clinically testing - however, more research has already been initiated to explore this further.

Researchers have mapped the distribution of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in deceased patients with the disease, and shed new light on how viral load relates to tissue damage.

Their study of 11 autopsy cases, published today in eLife, may contribute to our understanding of how COVID-19 develops in the body following infection.

More than 24 million SARS-CoV-2 infections have been reported to date, and the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 has exceeded 828,000 worldwide. COVID-19 occurs with varying degrees of severity. While most patients have mild symptoms, some experience more severe symptoms and may need to be hospitalised. A minority of those in hospital may enter a critical condition, with respiratory failure, blood vessel complications, or multiple organ dysfunction.

"Clinical observations suggest that COVID-19 is a systemic disease, meaning that it affects the entire body rather than just a single organ such as the lungs," explains co-first author Stefanie Deinhardt-Emmer, Resident in Medical Microbiology, Jena University Hospital, Jena, Germany. "But we don't currently have a clear understanding of disease development in humans and other organisms, due to the lack of appropriate experimental models. Investigating the viral distribution of SARS-CoV-2 within the human body and how this relates to tissue damage would help us address this gap."

To do this, Deinhardt-Emmer and colleagues studied 11 autopsy cases of patients with COVID-19. They performed the autopsies at the early postmortem stage to minimise bias due to the degradation of tissues and viral ribonucleic acid (RNA - a molecule similar to DNA).

Their analysis revealed high viral loads in most of the patients' lungs, which had caused significant damage to those organs. Using an imaging technique called transmission electron microscopy, the team also visualised intact viral particles in the lung tissue.

"Interestingly, we also detected SARS-CoV-2 RNA throughout various other tissues and organs unrelated to the lungs that did not cause visible tissue damage," says co-first author Daniel Wittschieber, Senior Forensic Pathologist at Jena University Hospital. The researchers say that this distribution of viral RNA throughout the body supports the idea that our immune system is unable to respond adequately to the virus' presence in the blood.

"We show that COVID-19 is a systemic disease as determined by the presence of virus RNA, and yet unrelated to tissue damage outside the lungs," says co-senior author Bettina Löffler, Director of the Institute for Medical Microbiology, Jena University Hospital. "To our knowledge, this study is the only one to date that has measured viral loads in a wide variety of organs and tissues, with more than 60 samples studied per patient."

"The insights gathered from our work may add to our understanding of how COVID-19 develops in the body following infection," concludes co-senior author Gita Mall, Head of the Institute of Forensic Medicine, Jena University Hospital.

Math's top prize, the Fields Medal, has succeeded in making mathematics more inclusive but still rewards elitism, according to a Dartmouth study.

Published in Nature’s Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, the study analyzed the effectiveness of the Fields Medal to make math at its highest level more representative across nations and identities. The result provides a visual, data-driven history of international migration and social networks among math elites, particularly since World War II.

"With so much recent discussion on equality in academia, we came to this study recognizing that math has a reputation of being egalitarian," says Herbert Chang, a research affiliate in Dartmouth's Fu Lab and lead author of the paper. "Our results provide a complex and rich story about the world of math especially since the establishment of the Fields Medal."

The Fields Medal, widely considered the Nobel Prize of mathematics, is awarded every four years to mathematicians under the age of 40. It was first presented in 1936 to honor young mathematicians from groups that were typically underrepresented in top math circles.

According to the Dartmouth mathematicians, the prize has received criticism over its history for rewarding existing power structures rather than making math more inclusive and equitable at the elite level. Against this criticism, the study set out to explore how well the award has lived up to its original promise.

The analysis shows that the Fields Medal has elevated mathematicians of marginalized nationalities, but that the there is also "self-reinforcing behavior," mostly through mentoring relationships among math elites.

As example, the study found that the award succeeded in integrating mathematicians from Japan and Germany after WWII. But it also found that two-thirds of 60 medalists emerged from the same math "ancestral tree."

Although the study found diversity among award winners from top math countries, it also found that groups with Arabic, African, and East Asian language identities remain under-represented at the elite level.

The research team defines "elite" as a connection between Fields medalists, rather than other indicators that measure academic productivity and impact.

"It's a privilege for a young mathematician to inherit a powerful network of relationships from an influential academic advisor," says Feng Fu, an assistant professor of mathematics and the senior researcher for the study. "The growing number of doctoral degrees awarded to international mathematicians in the U.S. indicates that mathematics can be a powerful integrative force in our common humanity."

According to the paper, only France exports more elite mathematicians to the United States than it receives from the U.S. "This seems to affirm France as the intellectual capital of mathematics," say the authors.

"A mathematician that is French and attends a top 50 institution means they are 6.4 times more likely to gain membership into the elite circle," the research team says in the study. "On the other hand, being East Asian and attending a top 50 institution only affords you 1.5 times the likelihood of gaining membership into this elite circle."

Among other findings of the study:

- All Fields medalists can be traced to nine "academic family trees"; the largest holds 44 out of 60 medalists.

- Germany has consistently high levels of pluralism in mathematics except for the period of WWII.

- Japan has recently opened to higher levels of non-Japanese elites within the country.

- The number of Russian elite mathematicians decreased significantly after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

The research team used artificial intelligence techniques to study data on more than 240,000 mathematicians dating as far back as the 16th century. The information was taken from the Mathematics Genealogy database maintained by North Dakota State University.

Researchers organized elite mathematicians by countries and lingo-ethnic categories and then mapped their flow between nations and across ethnic lines. Connections were drawn to show the physical movement, identity and academic relationship of mathematicians.

"There are many sources of inequality in elite-level math and academia. Our goal was to characterize how a single factor--mentorship--plays a role, while telling a comprehensive story about mathematics," says Chang, who was in Dartmouth’s Jack Byrne Scholars Program in Math and Society as an undergraduate.

Prior studies of the Fields Medal and elitism in math have focused on how mathematicians cite research. According to the research team, such an approach might miss the structural forces that prevent access to individuals from outside elite math circles.

The research advances past studies by providing a high-level view of the relationship between mentorship, prize giving, and ethnicity.

The research team concludes, as other researchers have in the past, that the Fields Medal should "return to its roots" in order to achieve its original goal of elevating marginalized voices.

Making people fear the coronavirus may motivate us to wash our hands, keep our distance and wear a face mask. But fear also takes a heavy toll on our mental health and is fertile ground for discrimination and prejudice. New research shows a different path.

When the coronavirus pandemic hit the world in the spring of 2020, feelings of being capable or efficacious against the virus were a key factor in driving compliance with the authorities' guidelines. This is the result of a new study based on large surveys across eight Western democracies, published in British Journal of Health Psychology.

The extent to which we personally felt informed and capable of acting clearly affected the extent of our behaviour to prevent infection, e.g. by keeping our distance and refraining from handshakes.

"These are important findings because they show a pathway to public compliance with pandemic health advice which is not driven by personal fear. Today, in the spring of 2021, many countries are hit by a third wave of infections and authorities may be tempted to induce fear to make people follow guidelines. Our findings provide policy makers with an alternative," says Michael Bang Petersen, one of three authors behind the study, and a professor of political science at Aarhus University, Denmark.

Tell us what to do, and we will do it

In fact, the study shows that when people feel capable of handling the crisis, the impact of fear is no longer important. Those who feel efficacious comply with the authorities' guidelines regardless of whether they are worried about the health of themselves and their families. And they also comply regardless of whether they trust their government and their fellow citizens.

"Our study shows that in the first stage of the pandemic, a sense of urgency emerged and made people put aside individual considerations and political differences. This sense caused people across the world to say: 'Tell us what to do, and we will do it,'" says Professor Michael Bang Petersen.

26,000 participants from the UK, the USA and six EU countries

The study is based on representative surveys conducted in Denmark, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. A total of 26,508 people participated from March to May 2020 as the early events were unfolding.

"The study provides a unique insight into behaviour during the first wave of an unprecedented crisis, which we can utilise both in the present and in the long term. Often, decision-makers are worried that the population will panic. But our data shows that authorities do not need to fear this. Instead, they should tell people as clearly as possible about the actual challenges and how people should act," Michael Bang Petersen concludes.

Drinking beetroot juice promotes a mix of mouth bacteria associated with healthier blood vessels and brain function, according to a new study of people aged 70-80.

Beetroot - and other foods including lettuce, spinach and celery - are rich in inorganic nitrate, and many oral bacteria play a role in turning nitrate to nitric oxide, which helps to regulate blood vessels and neurotransmission (chemical messages in the brain).

Older people tend to have lower nitric oxide production, and this is associated with poorer vascular (blood vessel) and cognitive (brain) health.

In the new study, by the University of Exeter, 26 healthy older people took part in two ten-day supplementation periods: one with nitrate-rich beetroot juice and another with nitrate-free placebo juice, which they drank twice a day.

The results showed higher levels of bacteria associated with good vascular and cognitive health, and lower levels of bacteria linked to disease and inflammation.

Systolic blood pressure dropped on average by five points (mmHg) after drinking the beetroot juice.

"We are really excited about these findings, which have important implications for healthy ageing," said lead author Professor Anni Vanhatalo, of the University of Exeter.

"Previous studies have compared the oral bacteria of young and older people, and healthy people compared to those with diseases, but ours is the first to test nitrate-rich diet in this way.

"Our findings suggest that adding nitrate-rich foods to the diet - in this case via beetroot juice - for just ten days can substantially alter the oral microbiome (mix of bacteria) for the better.

"Maintaining this healthy oral microbiome in the long term might slow down the negative vascular and cognitive changes associated with ageing."

The researchers ran tests to identify clusters (or "modules") of oral bacteria that tend to thrive together in similar conditions.

A module (Prevotella-Veillonella) that has been associated with inflammation was reduced after nitrate supplementation, including a decrease of Clostridium difficile (which can infect the bowel and cause diarrhoea).

Professor Vanhatalo stressed that more research is needed to confirm the findings and see whether similar effects are found in other groups.

"Our participants were healthy, active older people with generally good blood pressure," she said.
"Dietary nitrate reduced their blood pressure on average, and we are keen to find out whether the same would happen in other age groups and among people in poorer health.

"We are working with colleagues in the University of Exeter Medical School to investigate interactions between the oral bacteria and cognition to better understand the how diet could be used to delay cognitive decline in older age."

Much research has been conducted into the benefits of a healthy gut microbiome, but far less is known about the oral microbial community, which plays a crucial role in "activating" the nitrate from a vegetable-rich diet.

Computer scientists at the University of Surrey have created a ground-breaking model that could improve our understanding of developmental disorders such as autism.

Scientists have long tried to better understand how the cerebral cortex and its layers develop, with pathologies such as autism, schizophrenia and epilepsy linked to this process.

In a paper published by the journal Cerebral Cortex, scientists from Surrey, Newcastle University, and Nottingham University detail how they developed and used a computational model to simulate cell division, cell migration and apoptosis (cell death) in the hope of understanding how these processes affect the development of the brain.

With the help of their computer model, the researchers reproduced a wide number of cerebral structures to study - from rats, to macaques, to humans.

The team also observed that slight changes in how cells perform division and apoptosis lead to the development of cortical structures found in neurodevelopmental disorders such as autism, polymicrogyria and subcortical band heterotopia.

Dr Roman Bauer, Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council Research Fellow and lead author of the study from the University of Surrey, said: "We are working towards a comprehensive computational model of the cerebral cortex and how it develops - taking into account how neurons behave and organise themselves in our brains. It is clear to us that computational models have a crucial role to play in helping us to comprehensively understand the complex biological processes that lead to developmental disorders."

Marcus Kaiser, Professor of Neuroinformatics at the University of Nottingham and senior author of the study, said: "A large proportion of nerve cells dies before birth, but it was unclear why these cells are just born to die at such an early stage. The team's results showed that cell death plays an essential role in developing the brain, as it influences the thickness of the cortex's layers, variety and layer cell density."

The first online advertisement was a banner for AT&T that appeared on the HotWired.com website in 1994, when there were just 30 million internet users worldwide. Today, 57% of the world's population has access to the internet and advertising technology has advanced to the point that by 2018 the digital advertising market in Europe alone was worth 55 billion euros. Of this amount, 16.8 billion euros is accounted for by programmatic advertising, which uses artificial intelligence to automate much of the buying and selling of internet advertising.

A new report, published by Open Evidence, a spin-off of the UOC, whose authors include Francisco Lupiáñez, a member of the UOC's Faculty of Information and Communication Sciences and a partner and director of Open Evidence, examines the current situation and the challenges for online advertising. The results reveal an online market that is increasingly dominated by just a few companies (e.g., Google, Facebook) which occupy strategic roles throughout the advertising chain, affecting free competition. Among these challenges, the authors point to "the opacity and lack of transparency" in the market and the need to tackle this issue by combining self-regulation in the sector with domestic and international regulatory measures.

The personalization of advertising

The automation of the advertising market has enabled a better fit between supply and demand, allowing digital media publishers to sell advertising space and advertisers to easily reach large audiences on many websites. The system is based on users' data which is collected by browsers and cookies, i.e. small fragments of code that are stored on devices and record information including demographic details and online behaviour, such as the type of website visited and purchases made. This data is sold to advertisers, who can then use it to personalize advertising messages and show them at the best time and place.

This personalization of advertising activity has gone hand-in-hand with the growth of Google and Facebook, which headed the sector in 2017 with 33% and 16.2% of global revenues, respectively. "Both companies, and, to a lesser extent, Amazon, profit greatly from users' data and from providing a vast inventory of advertisements through their websites and services that can be monetized, generating most of their advertising revenues". The researchers note that "83.9% of Facebook's revenues and 98.5% of Google's revenues in 2019 were generated from advertising services".

Potentially anti-competitive practices

The report also states that this market leadership allows Google and Facebook to benefit from economies of scale and network effects, thanks to the interdependence of their services. It also details how a single company can operate "simultaneously as both buyer and seller". Google, for example, is involved on both the demand side for advertising space, through its DV360 campaign manager, and on the supply side, through its AdX exchange platform. At the same time, it also has a key role in support technologies such as website analytics and as a shopwindow for advertisements via its search engine.

All these advantages, argue the researchers, mean these platforms may potentially engage in "anti-competitive practices" such as favouring their own products, using their market power in new sectors, or acting as a barrier to access, by charging higher rates to advertisers, publishers or providers of complementary services, for example.

Technological complexity, opacity and fraud

The report highlights the opacity of the online advertising market as one of the gravest issues among the consequences of this type of practice. This lack of transparency is due "in part to the complexity of programmatic advertising, but also to the practices of the online platforms". Within these platforms, so-called "walled garden" companies like Amazon and Facebook can use their dominant positions to limit the release of information on the cost, revenues and effectiveness of advertising placement. These activities make it "very difficult to know how the money is spent and where the advertisements appear, leading advertisers and publishers to question the effectiveness of the online advertisement and hindering decision-making".

Fraud is another effect of this opacity in the value chain of advertising technology, including dependence on algorithms and the large number of intermediary businesses. According to 2017 figures published in the report, fraud cost advertisers around 13.6 billion euros globally.

International cooperation between regulatory authorities

The study's conclusions also set out a number of solutions to these issues, including responses at public policy level and at the level of the sector and the companies involved. With regard to the issues of competition and transparency, these include measures such as "the creation of units within the regulatory authorities to deal specifically with digital platforms, with control and executive powers; the establishment of codes of conduct; regulatory reforms on disclosure and interoperability, and, if necessary, anti-trust measures". Given the transnational nature of the platforms, the researchers also recommend "cooperation between regulatory authorities to share learning, improve cross-border regulation and coordinate measures".

The report also examines various self-regulatory initiatives within the industry, such as the development of standards and practices for measuring and ensuring the quality of advertisements, guidelines for improving transparency on tariffs and programmes governing users' privacy and consent. Finally, it emphasizes that no measure is sufficient "in itself", but "a better implementation of existing initiatives and a combination of the proposed measures could be effective in tackling the problems identified in this sector".

A team of scientists has been using DESY's X-ray source PETRA III to analyse the structural changes that take place in an egg when you cook it. The work reveals how the proteins in the white of a chicken egg unfold and cross-link with each other to form a solid structure when heated. Their innovative method can be of interest to the food industry as well as to the broad field of research surrounding protein analysis. The cooperation of two groups, headed by Frank Schreiber from the University of Tübingen and Christian Gutt from the University of Siegen, with scientists at DESY and European XFEL reports the research in two articles in the journal Physical Review Letters.

Eggs are among the most versatile food ingredients. They can take the form of a gel or a foam, they can be comparatively solid and also serve as the basis for emulsions. At about 80 degrees Celsius, egg white becomes solid and opaque. This is because the proteins in the egg white form a network structure. Studying the exact molecular structure of egg white calls for energetic radiation, such as X-rays, which is able to penetrate the opaque egg white and has a wavelength that is no longer than the structures being examined.

"To understand the structural evolution in detail, you have to study the phenomenon on the micrometre scale," explains Nafisa Begam, the lead author of the first study, who is an Alexander von Humboldt fellow in Schreiber's group. The scientists used so-called X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy (XPCS) with a specific geometry allowing them to determine the structure and the dynamics of the proteins in the egg white.

For their experiments on the P10 beamline at PETRA III the scientists used a chicken egg from a supermarket and filled the egg white into a quartz tube with a diameter of 1.5 millimetres. "Inside, the egg white was heated in a controlled manner while we analysed it with the help of the X-rays," explains DESY co-author Fabian Westermeier. "The X-ray beam was expanded to 0.1 by 0.1 millimetres, to keep the radiation dose below the damage threshold of the protein structures."

The measurements reveal the protein dynamics in the egg white over a period of about a quarter of an hour. During the first three minutes, the protein network grew exponentially, reaching a plateau after about five minutes, at which virtually no more protein links were formed. At this time, the average mesh size of the protein network was about 0.4 micrometres (thousandths of a millimetre).

In the second study, the team used the XPCS technique to investigate the self-organisation of protein solutions into domains with, respectively, high and low protein concentration, as an example of structure formation in cell biology. In the process, they were able to follow the temperature-dependent dynamics over time. "At high protein densities, mobility decreases, which slows down the phase separation. This is important for the special dynamics of the system," reports lead author Anita Girelli from Schreiber's group.

The studies, which were funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF), not only reveal new details about the structural changes occurring in egg whites, but also prove the experimental concept, which can be used for other samples too, as demonstrated by the second study. "Successfully applying X-ray photon correlation spectroscopy opens up a new way to study the dynamics of biomolecules, which is essential if we are to understand them properly," Schreiber comments.

DESY is one of the world's leading particle accelerator centres and investigates the structure and function of matter - from the interaction of tiny elementary particles and the behaviour of novel nanomaterials and vital biomolecules to the great mysteries of the universe. The particle accelerators and detectors that DESY develops and builds at its locations in Hamburg and Zeuthen are unique research tools. They generate the most intense X-ray radiation in the world, accelerate particles to record energies and open up new windows onto the universe. DESY is a member of the Helmholtz Association, Germany's largest scientific association, and receives its funding from the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) (90 per cent) and the German federal states of Hamburg and Brandenburg (10 per cent).

Adding the nutrient selenium to diets protects against obesity and provides metabolic benefits to mice, according to a study published today in eLife.

The results could lead to interventions that reproduce many of the anti-aging effects associated with dietary restriction while also allowing people to eat as normal.

Several types of diet have been shown to increase healthspan - that is, the period of healthy lifespan. One of the proven methods of increasing healthspan in many organisms, including non-human mammals, is to restrict dietary intake of an amino acid called methionine.

Recent studies have suggested that the effects of methionine restriction on healthspan are likely to be conserved in humans. Although it might be feasible for some people to practice methionine restriction, for example, by adhering to a vegan diet, such a diet might not be practical or desirable for everyone. In the current study, a research team from the Orentreich Foundation for the Advancement of Science (OFAS), Cold Spring, New York, US, aimed to develop an intervention that produces the same effects as methionine restriction, while also allowing an individual to eat a normal, unrestricted diet.

An important clue for developing such a treatment is that methionine restriction causes a decrease in the amounts of an energy-regulating hormone called IGF-1. If a treatment could be found that causes a similar decrease in IGF-1, this might also have beneficial effects on healthspan. Previous research has shown that selenium supplementation reduces the levels of circulating IGF-1 in rats, suggesting that this could be an ideal candidate.

The team first studied whether selenium supplementation offered the same protection against obesity as methionine restriction. They fed young male and older female mice one of three high-fat diets: a control diet containing typical amounts of methionine, a methionine-restricted diet, and a diet containing typical amounts of methionine as well as a source of selenium. For both male and female mice of any age, the authors found that selenium supplementation completely protected against the dramatic weight gain and fat accumulation seen in mice fed the control diet, and to the same extent as restricting methionine.

Next, they explored the effects of the three diets on physiological changes normally associated with methionine restriction. To do this, they measured the amounts of four metabolic markers in blood samples from the previously treated mice. As hoped, they found dramatically reduced levels of IGF-1 in both male and female mice. They also saw reductions in the levels of the hormone leptin, which controls food intake and energy expenditure. Their results indicate that selenium supplementation produces most, if not all, of the hallmarks of methionine restriction, which suggests that this intervention may have a similar positive effect on healthspan.

To gain insight into the beneficial effects of selenium supplementation, the researchers used a different organism - yeast. The two most widely used measurements of healthspan in yeast are chronological lifespan, which tells us how long dormant yeast remain viable, and replicative lifespan, which measures the number of times a yeast cell can produce new offspring. The team previously showed that methionine restriction increases the chronological lifespan of yeast, so they tested whether selenium supplementation might do the same. As it turned out, yeast grown under selenium-supplemented conditions had a 62% longer chronological lifespan (from 13 days to 21 days) and a replicative lifespan extended by nine generations as compared with controls. This demonstrates that supplementing yeast with selenium produces benefits to healthspan detectable by multiple tests of cell aging.

"One of the major goals of aging research is to identify simple interventions that promote human healthspan," notes senior author Jay Johnson, Senior Scientist at OFAS. "Here we present evidence that short-term administration of either organic or inorganic sources of selenium provides multiple health benefits to mice, the most notable of which being the prevention of diet-induced obesity. In the long term, we expect that supplementation with these compounds will also prevent age-related disease and extend the overall survival of mice. It is our hope that many of the benefits observed for mice will also hold true for humans."

LAWRENCE -- Recent incidents of racial discrimination and violence against Asians and Asian-Americans in the United States have prompted critical discussions about how to talk about such biases with younger age groups. New research from the University of Kansas shows using critical race media literacy, or examining how race and gender are addressed in popular culture, can be an effective way to discuss those topics and engage students.

KU researchers published a study in which they observed an American teacher using critical race media literacy to discuss racism and sexism in superhero movies in English as a foreign language classes in a South Korean high school. They argued that successful implementation can provide a model for discussing social topics in K-12 classrooms in countries like the United States.

Hyesun Cho"I think now, more than ever, it's important for us educators to teach our students how to contest prejudice and discrimination against certain racial groups," said Hyesun Cho, associate professor of curriculum & teaching in KU's School of Education & Human Sciences.

The recent mass shooting of several Asian-American women in Atlanta made headlines, but the topic can be difficult to discuss in schools.

"Teachers often are hesitant to discuss race and gender in the classroom because they are understandably concerned about sounding too political," said Peter Johnson, doctoral candidate in curriculum & teaching and study co-author. "I think that is one roadblock that we need to address, and this approach can help do that."

The study was published in the International Journal of Multicultural Education and presented at the Second Language Research Forum 2020 Conference hosted by Vanderbilt University.

Cho has led a study abroad program with KU students since 2015, traveling to South Korea to gain experience working in high schools while teaching English. The researchers observed classes where students explored issues of racism or sexism in popular culture on their own. Several groups of students shared examples in popular movies like "Black Panther" and "Dr. Strange" to appeal to their classmates. Students made presentations in English about how the wildly popular films addressed race both in positive ways, such as empowering African characters in "Black Panther," and in more negative ways, including a white actor portraying an Asian character in the 2016 film "Doctor Strange." The students were highly effective at discussing critical race theory and other complex topics, the authors wrote, and using media that students find compelling is a key way to give students a safe, comfortable way to discuss difficult topics.

"Do not underestimate our students' intelligence and higher thinking skills. That's the argument we're making here, even if they are working in a second or third language," Cho said. "Discussing critical race media literacy worked very well in Korean classrooms, despite misconceptions that often exist about these students' English proficiency and cultural background. If the teacher gets to know students and their interests and creates a safe space for them to express their thoughts about social issues, this approach can work in other teaching contexts."

Not only can using topics relevant to students' interests help encourage their participation, but it can help teachers connect with students. Educators are more effective when they get to know their students, their communities, families, backgrounds and experiences, Cho and Johnson wrote. The teacher in the study was born in Thailand, raised in the United States and speaks English as a first language. However, he faced discrimination when applying for jobs at South Korean schools, as it was assumed he was not a "true, American English speaker" because he was not white. Sharing such experiences can help expand discussions of power structures beyond media representations.

South Korea, like the United States, has an educational culture highly focused on testing and assessment. A common argument is that topics like racism and sexism can't or shouldn't be covered in school because they take time away from focusing on testing areas. However, the students displayed high levels of critical thinking, use of language, technological savvy and other educational skills in their presentations. That success suggests adaptability to other settings and levels of curriculum, Cho and Johnson wrote.

Cho said she hoped to return to South Korea to study other implementations of critical race media literacy in classrooms to gauge their effectiveness and to form new recommendations for teachers to address the topics in their own classrooms. Both Cho and Johnson also encourage prospective educators they are currently teaching to consider such methods to engage their future students and empower them to take ownership of their education.

"We try to frame it for our future teachers so that they understand they are able to have a classroom where students feel comfortable to ask the questions they have on their minds," Johnson said. "It can be tough to strike a good balance, but this shows they can use media such as films students are interested in to get them to think about deeper issues."

While it can be difficult to discuss to racism, sexism or the recent violence against Asians and Asian-Americans in a classroom setting, the use of critical race media literacy works, the researchers said.

"This is a new imperative for survival in the current, racially contested world. Especially given the anti-Asian-American violence we have seen in the U.S., it is everyone's responsibility to address it," Cho said. "Students want to be heard, and this study shows it's not an impossible task to discuss these social issues and can be done in a way that uses content relevant and readily accessible to students throughout K-12 education."

Through his role on the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, UVA Health's Li Li, MD, PhD, MPH, has helped develop new lung cancer screening guidelines that expand screenings to more high-risk patients.

The new guidelines are focused on Americans at higher risk because of their history of smoking, which is the leading cause of lung cancer. There are two significant changes in the new guidelines. For those who are still smoking or quit less than 15 years ago, a yearly screening using a low-dose computed tomography (CT) scan is now recommended:

beginning at age 50, instead of age 55.

for anyone who has smoked 20 pack-years in their lifetime, instead of 30 pack-years. A pack-year equals smoking a pack of cigarettes a day for a year.

The new guidelines came following a review of the latest evidence of the benefits of lung cancer screening by Li and his colleagues on the Task Force, an independent, volunteer panel of national experts in prevention and evidence-based medicine. That evidence showed expanding the criteria would open screenings to more Black people and women, who data shows tend to smoke fewer cigarettes than white men.

"The new guidelines will have a tremendous impact on primary and secondary prevention of this dreadful cancer," Li said. "It is a big step forward in reducing lung cancer disparities in Black people and women."

Screenings are recommended for Americans ages 50 to 80 who meet the 20 pack-year criteria and are still smoking or quit less than 15 years ago. The Task Force recommends that current and former smokers who meet the updated criteria should discuss lung cancer screening with their doctor to determine whether the screening is right for them.

"Increasing the awareness and uptake of lung cancer screening, together with effective smoking cessation programs, are pressing priorities for UVA Health in its concerted effort to improve the health of residents in our region," Li said.

WHAT:

When variants of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) emerged in late 2020, concern arose that they might elude protective immune responses generated by prior infection or vaccination, potentially making re-infection more likely or vaccination less effective. To investigate this possibility, researchers from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and colleagues analyzed blood cell samples from 30 people who had contracted and recovered from COVID-19 prior to the emergence of virus variants. They found that one key player in the immune response to SARS-CoV-2--the CD8+ T cell--remained active against the virus.

The research team was led by NIAID's Andrew Redd, Ph.D., and included scientists from Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the immunomics-focused company, ImmunoScape.

The investigators asked whether CD8+ T cells in the blood of recovered COVID-19 patients, infected with the initial virus, could still recognize three SARS-CoV-2 variants: B.1.1.7, which was first detected in the United Kingdom; B.1.351, originally found in the Republic of South Africa; and B.1.1.248, first seen in Brazil. Each variant has mutations throughout the virus, and, in particular, in the region of the virus' spike protein that it uses to attach to and enter cells. Mutations in this spike protein region could make it less recognizable to T cells and neutralizing antibodies, which are made by the immune system's B cells following infection or vaccination.

Although details about the exact levels and composition of antibody and T-cell responses needed to achieve immunity to SARS-CoV-2 are still unknown, scientists assume that strong and broad responses from both antibodies and T cells are required to mount an effective immune response. CD8+ T cells limit infection by recognizing parts of the virus protein presented on the surface of infected cells and killing those cells.

In their study of recovered COVID-19 patients, the researchers determined that SARS-CoV-2-specific CD8+ T-cell responses remained largely intact and could recognize virtually all mutations in the variants studied. While larger studies are needed, the researchers note that their findings suggest that the T cell response in convalescent individuals, and most likely in vaccinees, are largely not affected by the mutations found in these three variants, and should offer protection against emerging variants.

Optimal immunity to SARS-Cov-2 likely requires strong multivalent T-cell responses in addition to neutralizing antibodies and other responses to protect against current SARS-CoV-2 strains and emerging variants, the authors indicate. They stress the importance of monitoring the breadth, magnitude and durability of the anti-SARS-CoV-2 T-cell responses in recovered and vaccinated individuals as part of any assessment to determine if booster vaccinations are needed.

Most businesses were ill-prepared to deal with the pandemic and muddled though the challenges stemming from it, according to a report published today.

Resilience reimagined: a practical guide for organisations was produced by Cranfield University, in partnership with the National Preparedness Commission (NPC) and Deloitte. The report presents insights from business leaders from a range of sectors and makes seven recommendations for organisations on how to become more resilient, drawing on lessons from past 12 months.

Cranfield University's Professor David Denyer and Mike Sutliff conducted in-depth interviews and four focus groups with more than 50 C-suite level people (boards, senior executives, policymakers, and resilience directors) from FTSE 100 companies, multi-nationals and major national infrastructure organisations, many of them household names.

The report warns we are entering a new period of uncertainty and change, with an ever-increasing possibility that things will go wrong. It sought answers from leading figures about how resilience can be developed, who does it well and what other businesses can learn from them.

It also outlines practical steps necessary to strengthen resilience for long-term success and makes recommendations to business leaders on what more they can do to help their organisations to develop the ability to cope.

Cranfield's research found that the organisations that coped best with the pandemic had already been doing the following three things:

They understood what was most important to their customers and therefore what were the most essential things to continue to deliver as the crisis unfolded.

If something went wrong, they knew what the thresholds of tolerable impacts to the customer/user were and had examined in advance alternative ways of delivering those outcomes that mattered the most.

They had relentlessly stress tested for possible disruption without worrying about what type of threat they might have to face - a cyberattack or a pandemic - learning how to cope when under pressure from challenges that might not be foreseeable or imaginable.

Professor David Denyer, Professor of Leadership and Organisational Change at Cranfield University, said: "We do not know what shape the next crisis will take but we can take proactive action to prepare.

"Businesses and organisations need to seize the learnings from this crisis and develop the agility to cope with the next. Whether it is another pandemic, another financial crisis or threats from a cyber attack or climate change, the risks are multiple and complex but the capabilities of readiness, responsiveness, recoverability and regeneration, the 4Rs, are ones that can be ingrained.

"One of the reasons the financial sector coped better than most during the pandemic was that it had taken on the lessons from the 2008 crash. By going through that crisis, these organisations had stress-tested, they knew their tolerances and what an acceptable level of failure was to them and their customers.

"Our research, in partnership with the National Preparedness Commission and Deloitte, gives organisations vital practical steps to reimagine the way they think about resilience and respond to future crises."

Lord Toby Harris, Chair of the National Preparedness Commission, said:
"The last year has been like no other for most business organisations, but some coped and responded much better than others. We asked Cranfield University to look at why this was and what the lessons are for the future.

The Government wants to build a whole-of-society approach to resilience, so that every business, every organisation and every individual can play their part in making sure that as a nation we can withstand any future crisis. This means changing organisational cultures to foster an active and agile response to events and this report highlights some of what is needed to make this a reality."

Rick Cudworth, Partner at Deloitte said:
"Dealing with complex events requires flexibility and creativity; dealing with future uncertainty requires the ability to change course and adapt rapidly. This report clearly shows that resilience is about much more than well-rehearsed plans. This is a fundamental change in thinking, which requires senior leaders to make strategic choices, balancing control, agility, efficiency and innovation. It is great to see leaders pointing to resilience being central to a new 'social contract' for responsible business.

"By adopting the seven practices in this report organisations will be able to build stronger resilience and be better positioned to thrive going forward."

As social media platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok and others continue to grow in popularity, adolescents are spending more of their time online navigating a complex virtual world.

New research suggests that these increased hours spent online may be associated with cyberbullying behaviors. According to a study by the University of Georgia, higher social media addiction scores, more hours spent online, and identifying as male significantly predicted cyberbullying perpetration in adolescents.

"There are some people who engage in cyberbullying online because of the anonymity and the fact that there's no retaliation," said Amanda Giordano, principal investigator of the study and associate professor in the UGA Mary Frances Early College of Education. "You have these adolescents who are still in the midst of cognitive development, but we're giving them technology that has a worldwide audience and then expecting them to make good choices."

Cyberbullying can take on many forms, including personal attacks, harassment or discriminatory behavior, spreading defamatory information, misrepresenting oneself online, spreading private information, social exclusion and cyberstalking.

The study surveyed adolescents ranging in age from 13-19 years old. Of the 428 people surveyed, 214 (50%) identified as female, 210 (49.1%) as male, and four (0.9%) as other.

Exploring social media addiction

When adolescents are online, they adapt to a different set of social norms than when they're interacting with their peers in person. Oftentimes, they are more aggressive or critical on social media because of the anonymity they have online and their ability to avoid retaliation. Additionally, cyberbullies may feel less remorse or empathy when engaging in these behaviors because they can't see the direct impact of their actions.

"The perpetrator doesn't get a chance to see how damaging their bullying is and to learn from their mistakes and do something different," said Giordano. "It's a scary situation because they don't have the natural consequences they do with offline bullying."

Teenagers who are addicted to social media are more likely to engage in cyberbullying, as well as those who spend more time online. Participants in the study reported spending on average over seven hours online per day, and the reported average maximum hours spent online in one day was over 12 hours.

"Social media addiction is when people crave it when they're not on it, and continue their social media use despite negative consequences," said Giordano. "Some negative consequences could be they're tired during the day because they're scrolling all night long, they're having conflicts with their parents, they're getting poor grades in school or they're engaging in actions online that they later regret, but they still continue to use social media."

Social networking sites are designed to give people a dopamine hit, she added, and some people compulsively look for that hit. "It's feeding into that addictive behavior, and they may be using cyberbullying as a way to get likes, shares, comments and retweets," she said. "That's the common thread you see in behavioral addictions--people start relying on a rewarding behavior as a way to make them feel better when they're experiencing negative emotions. And so, I think the social media addiction piece is really interesting to show that there's another factor at play here in addition to the number of hours spent online."

The study also found that adolescent males are more likely to engage in cyberbullying than females, aligning with past studies that show aggressive behaviors tend to be more male driven. More research on the socialization process of men can help determine what's leading them to engage in more cyberbullying behaviors.

Next steps for counselors and clinicians

Giordano believes that counselors need to start assessing adolescents for social media addiction if they are engaging in cyberbullying and to provide treatment plans to help redefine their relationship with technology. These interventions may include helping adolescents examine how they define their self-worth and restricting the amount of time they spend on social media platforms.

"There's quite a few strong and reliable assessments for social media addiction for adolescents that have good psychometric properties," said Giordano. "I think when clinicians see cyberbullying happen, they really need to explore the individual's relationship with social media and to address social media addiction, not just the cyberbullying."

Often, school counselors are not aware of cyberbullying until after an incident occurs. To address this issue, Giordano recommends that schools start educating students earlier about cyberbullying and social media addiction as a preventive method instead of waiting to repair the damage. Whether it's through an awareness campaign or support group, schools can help students talk about cyberbullying to give them a chance to understand the consequences of their actions and prepare them for potential risks.

"We need schools and school counselors to do this preventative work early and educate students about the risk of addiction with some of these rewarding behaviors like gaming and social media," said Giordano. "We need to teach them the warning signs of behavioral addiction, what to do if they start to feel like they're losing control over their behaviors and help them find other ways to manage their emotions, rather than turning to these behaviors. There are a lot of programs already moving in this direction, and I think that's amazing and there needs to be more of it."

Counselors can help decrease the risk of some of these addictive behaviors at a young age by teaching and equipping children with emotional regulation skills and other ways to cope with their feelings.

"If you think about it, adolescents are not only figuring out who they are offline, but they're also trying to figure out who they want to be online," said Giordano. "We're giving them even more to do during this developmental period, including deciding how they want to present themselves online. I think it's a complex world that we're asking adolescents to navigate."

PULLMAN, Wash. - Washington State University researchers have discovered a protein that could be key to blocking the most common bacterial cause of human food poisoning in the United States.

Chances are, if you've eaten undercooked poultry or cross contaminated food by washing raw chicken, you may be familiar with the food-borne pathogen.

"Many people that get sick think, 'oh, that's probably Salmonella,' but it is even more likely it's Campylobacter," said Nick Negretti ('20 Ph.D.), a lead member of the research team in Michael Konkel's Laboratory in WSU's School of Molecular Biosciences.

According to a study on the research recently published in Nature Communications, a secreted protein known as CiaD facilitates cell entry by Campylobacter and takes control of important cell processes by changing the composition of a protein complex inside the cell.

By gaining insight into the infection process and the specific actions of the Campylobacter secreted proteins, the work gives the WSU team and the rest of the field a foundation to understanding why infections occur and persist.

Until the Konkel Lab's latest finding, the functions of the bacterium's proteins and how they infect the cell were largely unknown.

"We knew these things were happening, but we didn't know how," said Negretti. "Now, if we can stop this process, disease won't happen."

The work was funded by a 5-year, $1.9 million grant from the National Institutes of Health and builds on two decades of research in the Konkel Lab.

Most often known for the nausea, vomiting and bloody diarrhea that comes with it, once ingested, Campylobacter jejuni secretes proteins that infiltrate the cells lining the intestinal tract, which allows it to hide from the immune system.

The bacteria account for 400 to 500 million cases of diarrhea annually, and the World Health Organization recognizes it as a serious threat due to its antibiotic resistance.

The infection is also correlated with stunted linear growth in impoverished children, and in developed countries, a higher incidence of Guillain-Barré syndrome, when the body's immune system attacks the nerves.

The research was a seven-year collaborative effort, using the latest molecular biology and biochemistry methods.

The work was done in partnership with researchers Geremy Clair and Joshua Adkins with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. Using mass spectroscopy, Adkins and Clair were able to study protein-to-protein interaction that helped the WSU researchers narrow their focus and uncover the target of CiaD.

Konkel said the research would not have been completed without post-doctoral fellow Prabhat Talukdar and graduate students Courtney Klappenbach and Cody Lauritsen leading the work through its final stretch amid the pandemic.

Now, the researchers are hopeful the work will lead to real-world solutions, in particular finding ways to prevent the pathogen from stunting growth in children.

"With this finding, we can speculate that processes like this that affect the cell could impact the intestinal cell's ability to form the correct structures to absorb nutrients," Negretti said. "While this is a mechanistic level of understanding, the answers to how the bacteria is specifically affecting cells in the body could have broader ranging impacts into understanding the public health importance of this pathogen."

The team also looks forward to learning the functions of other secreted proteins.

A major breakthrough into understanding C. jejuni disease was made in 1999 when the Konkel Lab discovered that proteins are secreted from the bacterium. In 2009, the CiaD protein was identified by Jeffrey Christensen, a post-doctoral fellow in the laboratory.

"We then identified CiaD was delivered to the host cells in 2013," Konkel said. "A major question for the past 20-years has been: what are these secreted proteins and what do they do? This is just the first protein to have an identified cell target."