Culture

Because of the quick and deadly outbreak in late December of a novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China, now known as COVID-19 - infecting tens of thousands and killing hundreds within weeks, while spreading to at least 24 other countries - many governments, including the United States, have banned or significantly restricted travel to and from China.

And while travel bans are frequently used to stop the spread of an emerging infectious disease, a new University of Washington and Johns Hopkins University study of published research found that the effectiveness of travel bans is mostly unknown.

However, said lead author Nicole Errett, a lecturer in the UW Department of Environmental & Occupational Health Sciences in the School of Public Health, that's largely due to the fact that very little research into the effectiveness of travel bans exists.

"Some of the evidence suggests that a travel ban may delay the arrival of an infectious disease in a country by days or weeks. However, there is very little evidence to suggest that a travel ban eliminates the risk of the disease crossing borders in the long term," said Errett, co-director of the ColLABorative on Extreme Event Resilience, a research lab focused on addressing real-world issues relevant to community resilience.

The researchers combed through thousands of published articles in an effort to identify those that directly addressed travel bans used to reduce the geographic impact of the Ebola virus, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome), MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) and the Zika virus. They did not include studies of influenza viruses, for which travel bans have already been shown to be ineffective in the long term.

In the end, the researchers were able to identify just six studies that fit their criteria. Those six were based on models or simulations, not data from actual bans after they were implemented, to assess the effectiveness of travel bans in controlling outbreaks. Consequently, to improve research in this area, the study authors recommend that research questions, partnerships and study protocols be established ahead of the next outbreak so empirical data can be collected and assessed quickly.

"Travel bans are one of several legal options that governments have drawn on to mitigate a pandemic," said co-author Lainie Rutkow, a professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. "As coronavirus spreads, our study raises the importance of understanding the effectiveness of legal and policy responses intended to protect and promote the public's health."

"When assessing the need for, and validity of, a travel ban, given the limited evidence, it's important to ask if it is the least restrictive measure that still protects the public's health, and even if it is, we should be asking that question repeatedly, and often," said co-author Lauren Sauer, an assistant professor of emergency medicine at Johns Hopkins University's School of Medicine and director of operations with the university's Office of Critical Event Preparedness and Response.

Consequently, the authors write, additional research is "urgently needed" to inform policy decisions, especially in light of the tremendous social, economic and political impacts of their implementation.

STONY BROOK, February 13, 2020 -- Governments must provide larger spatial protections in the Greater Caribbean for threatened, highly migratory species such as sharks, is the call from a diverse group of marine scientists including Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) PhD Candidate, Oliver Shipley, and led by the conservation NGO Beneath the Waves in a letter to published in Science (Feb. 14).

With up to one-third of all open ocean shark species threatened extinction due to overfishing, conservation strategies that protect areas where sharks spent significant portions of their time are becoming increasingly important. In light of recent calls to protect 30 percent of our oceans by 2030, large marine protected areas, which can stretch from 100,000 sq. km to over 300,000 sq. km, have emerged as a popular management tool for their potential to enhance ecological processes and promote sustainable fisheries. One of the greatest benefits of these large conservation zones is their potential to conserve sharks, which travel long distances and can connect multiple jurisdictions over short time periods.

The letter in Science states that the Greater Caribbean, which boasts some of the highest rates of marine biodiversity and contains some of the most migratory shark species in the world, has been overlooked in these conversations.

"Through conducting years of scientific research on sharks in the Caribbean, I have witnessed first-hand, the benefits that marine protected areas can have for shark populations," said Shipley, a close collaborator of Dr. Austin Gallagher, Chief Scientist at Beneath the Waves. "We hope that currently protected nations, such as The Bahamas, can carry the torch and provide a foundation on which to base broader policy. For this to be a success, we will need to continue to build strong relationships and further understand the needs of key stakeholder groups throughout the wider Caribbean. We are extremely confident that this is going to happen."

"The diversity of countries sharing ocean space in the Greater Caribbean is remarkable, and we know that migratory shark species connect many of these countries along their migrations," said Gallagher. "Though there are many examples of establishing marine protected areas in the region, there are few that are big enough to encompass the space use of large sharks, such as tiger sharks which can move thousands of miles per year."

Recent research suggests that sharks are surprisingly rare in many Caribbean nations, likely due to decades of unregulated overharvest. However, certain areas such as the Bahamas, which have banned longline fishing and protected sharks in recent decades, have benefitted from the significant socioeconomic inputs generated from live sharks in the diving industry, estimated to be over US $140 million per year.

A new study of people who received medical assistance in dying (MAiD) in Ontario found that about three-quarters were cared for by palliative care practitioners at the time of their request for MAiD, and MAiD recipients were younger, wealthier and more likely to be married than the general population at time of death. These findings dispel concerns that MAiD requests are driven by lack of access to palliative care services or by socioeconomic vulnerabilities.
The article is published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) along with a related editorial. http://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.200016

MAiD was legalized in Canada in June 2016, and as of October 2018, 6749 Canadians received MAiD.

The federal government and the government of Quebec are currently in consultation around drafting new eligibility criteria for MAiD, after a decision of the Quebec Superior Court that one provision of the previous laws violated the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

"There has been and will be much discussion about socioeconomic vulnerability and access to palliative care, and how these factors influence requests for MAiD," says Dr. James Downar, lead author of the study and a specialist in critical care and palliative care at The Ottawa Hospital and University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario. "Since this study represents the comparison of MAiD recipients to all deaths overall, and uses Canadian data, it could help inform this discussion and the upcoming legislation."

Researchers analyzed clinical and socioeconomic data from 2241 Ontarians who received MAiD, and compared this with data from all 186 814 people in the province who died between June 2016 to October 2018, from databases kept by the Office of the Chief Coroner for Ontario and ICES. Among those who received MAiD, the median age was 75 years and half were women; almost two-thirds of patients (64%) had cancer, 12% of patients had neurodegenerative disease, 8.5% had cardiovascular disease and 7.5% had respiratory disease.

Patients who received MAiD reported both physical (99.5%) and psychologic (96.4%) suffering.

"[W]e found that people who chose MAiD reported physical or psychologic suffering as the primary reason, despite engagement of palliative care in [77%] of patients, which suggests that for many patients the MAiD requests were not because of poor access to palliative care," write the authors.

Almost half of MAiD recipients were married and the majority (85%) lived in a private home before receiving MAiD. They were younger than people who did not receive MAiD and more likely to live in a higher income neighbourhood, which suggests that MAiD requests are unlikely to be driven by social or economic vulnerability, say the authors.

Requests for MAiD can be emotionally difficult for patients and families, and any delays can exacerbate distress. The study found that only 6.6% of families reported challenges with access to MAiD and these delays were not associated with socioeconomic status. The authors noted, however, that the MAiD data set included only people who actually received MAiD, so these findings would not reflect the experience of patients who requested MAiD but never received it.

"The data presented here do not address the moral question of whether any amount of suffering can justify the hastening of death. However, the growing trend toward legalization and use of MAiD in many parts of the world should prompt the health care and research community to improve our understanding and treatment of the type of distress that leads to a MAiD request," the authors conclude.

In a related editorial, Dr. Andreas Laupacis, CMAJ's editor-in-chief, writes, "Downar and colleagues' findings should allay fears that people living in Ontario are choosing MAiD because they have little social support or have poor access to health care. This study found the opposite, which suggests that more attention needs to be paid to ensure that those who are socially or economically vulnerable and eligible for MAiD are aware that MAiD is an option." http://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.200213

He cautions that as we move into a new era in which the Canadian government is considering expanding eligibility to MAiD to minors, people with severe mental illness and to those who anticipate losing the capacity to request MAiD in future, Canada will need new safeguards.

"If access to MAiD is expanded, new safeguards, specifically tailored to each new indication for MAiD, should be put in place. Then, we must once more proceed with caution, measure carefully and reassess," concludes Dr. Laupacis.

Biologically important changes in DNA seen in smokers are also being found in people who vape, according to a new study published in the journal Epigenetics.

A team of scientists at the Keck School of Medicine of USC have found people who vape exhibit similar chemical modifications in their overall genome and in parts of their DNA as people who smoke cigarettes.

These specific chemical alterations, also known as epigenetic changes, can cause genes to malfunction -- and are commonly found in nearly all types of human cancer as well as other serious diseases.

The findings add to a growing list of health concerns associated with vaping, which is perceived by many as a safer alternative to smoking. E-cigarette use has soared among youth, with more than 25 percent of high school students now using the products, according to the CDC.

The new study, led by Ahmad Besaratinia, PhD, associate professor at the Keck School of Medicine of USC, examined a group of people matched for age, gender and race, divided equally into three categories: vapers only, smokers only and a control group of people who neither vaped nor smoked.

Blood was drawn from each of the participants and tested for changes in levels of two specific chemical tags attached to DNA that are known to impact gene activity and/or function. These chemical tags include: (1) methyl groups in a specific DNA sequence, named Long Interspersed Nucleotide Element 1 (LINE-1); and (2) hydroxymethyl groups in the genome overall. Changes in the levels of these chemical tags, which are important for genomic stability and regulation of gene expression, occur in various stages of development, as well as in diseases such as cancer.

Of the 45 study participants, vapers and smokers both showed significant reduction in the levels of both chemical tags compared to the control group. This is the first study to show that vapers, like smokers, have these biologically important changes detectable in their blood cells.

"That doesn't mean that these people are going to develop cancer," said Besaratinia. "But what we are seeing is that the same changes in chemical tags detectable in tumors from cancer patients are also found in people who vape or smoke, presumably due to exposure to cancer-causing chemicals present in cigarette smoke and, generally at much lower levels, in electronic cigarettes' vapor."

This is the newest study Besaratinia's team has done on vapers and smokers. Their earlier study published last year (IJMS, 2019) examined changes in gene expression in epithelial cells taken from the mouths of vapers and smokers compared to a control group. In that study, both vapers and smokers showed abnormal gene expression in a large number of genes linked to cancer.

"Our new study adds an important piece to that puzzle by demonstrating that epigenetic mechanisms, specifically changes in chemical tags attached to the DNA, may contribute to the abnormal expression of genes in vapers and smokers alike," said Besaratinia.

He and his team plan to continue their research. The next step is to look at the whole genome and identify all the genes targeted by these two chemical changes in vapers versus smokers.

"Considering the established role many genes play in human diseases, this investigation should provide invaluable information, which may have immediate public health and policy implications, said Besaratinia. "The epidemic of teen vaping and the recent outbreak of vaping-related severe lung injury and deaths in the U.S. underscore the importance of generating scientific evidence on which future regulations for electronic cigarette manufacturing, marketing, and distribution can be based."

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Beetle parasites clinging to a primitive bee 100 million years ago may have caused the flight error that, while deadly for the insect, is a boon for science today.

The female bee, which became stuck in tree resin and thus preserved in amber, has been identified by Oregon State University researcher George Poinar Jr. as a new family, genus and species.

The mid-Cretaceous fossil from Myanmar provides the first record of a primitive bee with pollen and also the first record of the beetle parasites, which continue to show up on modern bees today.

The findings, published in BioOne Complete, shed new light on the early days of bees, a key component in evolutionary history and the diversification of flowering plants.

Insect pollinators aid the reproduction of flowering plants around the globe and are also ecologically critical as promoters of biodiversity. Bees are the standard bearer because they're usually present in the greatest numbers and because they're the only pollinator group that feeds exclusively on nectar and pollen throughout their life cycle.

Bees evolved from apoid wasps, which are carnivores. Not much is known, however, about the changes wasps underwent as they made that dietary transition.

Poinar, professor emeritus in the OSU College of Science and an international expert in using plant and animal life forms preserved in amber to learn more about the biology and ecology of the distant past, classified the new find as Discoscapa apicula, in the family Discoscapidae.

The fossilized bee shares traits with modern bees - including plumose hairs, a rounded pronotal lobe, and a pair of spurs on the hind tibia - and also those of apoid wasps, such as very low-placed antennal sockets and certain wing-vein features.

"Something unique about the new family that's not found on any extant or extinct lineage of apoid wasps or bees is a bifurcated scape," Poinar said, referring to a two-segment antennae base. "The fossil record of bees is pretty vast, but most are from the last 65 million years and look a lot like modern bees. Fossils like the one in this study can tell us about the changes certain wasp lineages underwent as they became palynivores - pollen eaters."

Numerous pollen grains on Discoscapa apicula show the bee had recently been to one or more flowers.

"Additional evidence that the fossil bee had visited flowers are the 21 beetle triungulins - larvae - in the same piece of amber that were hitching a ride back to the bee's nest to dine on bee larvae and their provisions, food left by the female," Poinar said. "It is certainly possible that the large number of triungulins caused the bee to accidently fly into the resin."

Evidence of intrauterine vertical transmission was assessed by testing for the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2, formerly the 2019 novel coronavirus or 2019-nCoV) in amniotic fluid, cord blood, and neonatal throat swab samples from six pregnancies. All samples were negative.

Study also evaluated clinical characteristics of the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) infection in nine pregnant women.

There is currently no evidence that the 2019 novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) causes severe adverse outcomes in neonates or that it can pass to the child while in the womb, according to a small observational study of women from Wuhan, China, who were in the third trimester of pregnancy and had pneumonia caused by COVID-19.

In the study, published in The Lancet, there were two cases of fetal distress, but all nine pregnancies resulted in livebirths. The study also finds that symptoms from COVID-19 infection in pregnant women were similar to those reported in non-pregnant adults, and no women in the study developed severe pneumonia or died.

The authors of the new study caution that their findings are based on a limited number of cases, over a short period of time, and only included women who were late in their pregnancy and gave birth by caesarean section. The effects of mothers being infected with the virus during the first or second trimester of pregnancy and the subsequent outcomes for their offspring remain unclear, as well as whether the virus can be passed from mother to child during vaginal birth.

The new study comes after the news of a newborn (born to a mother infected with COVID-19) testing positive for COVID-19 infection within 36 hours of birth, which prompted questions about whether the virus could be contracted in the womb.

Talking about this case, lead author of the study Professor Yuanzhen Zhang, Zhongnan Hospital of Wuhan University, China, says: "It is important to note that many important clinical details of this case are missing, and for this reason, we cannot conclude from this one case whether intrauterine infection is possible. Nonetheless, we should continue to pay special attentions to newborns born to mothers with COVID-19 pneumonia to help prevent infections in this group." [1]

Co-author, Prof Huixia Yang, Peking University First Hospital, China, adds: "Existing studies into the effects of COVID-19 apply to the general population, and there is limited information about the virus in pregnant women. This is important to study because pregnant women can be particularly susceptible to respiratory pathogens and severe pneumonia, because they are immunocompromised and because of pregnancy-related physiological changes which could leave them at higher risk of poor outcomes. Although in our study no patients developed severe pneumonia or died of their infection, we need to continue to study the virus to understand the effects in a larger group of pregnant women." [1]

In the study, the medical records of nine pregnant women who had pneumonia caused by COVID-19 infection were retrospectively reviewed. Infection was lab-confirmed for all women in the study, and the authors studied the nine women's symptoms.

In addition, samples of amniotic fluid, cord blood, neonatal throat swabs and breast milk were taken for six of the nine cases [2] and tested for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). Importantly, the samples of amniotic fluid, cord blood, and neonatal throat swabs were collected in the operating room at the time of birth to guarantee that samples were not contaminated and best represented intrauterine conditions.

All mothers in the study were aged between 26-40 years. None of them had underlying health conditions, but one developed gestational hypertension from week 27 of her pregnancy, and another developed pre-eclampsia at week 31. Both patients' conditions were stable during pregnancy.

The nine women in the study had typical symptoms of COVID-19 infection, and were given oxygen support and antibiotics. Six of the women were also given antiviral therapy.

All nine pregnancies resulted in livebirths, and there were no cases of neonatal asphyxia. Four women had pregnancy complications (two had fetal distress and two had premature rupture of membrane), and four women had preterm labour which was not related to their infection and occurred after 36 gestational weeks. Two of the prematurely born newborns had a low birthweight.

The authors note that their findings are similar to observations of the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus in pregnant women, where there was no evidence of the virus being passed from mother to child during pregnancy or birth.

They also explain that future follow-up of the women and children in the study will be necessary to determine their long-term safety and health.

They note some limitations in their study, including that the risk of infection in pregnant women and the effects of the time or mode of delivery on pregnancy outcomes were not evaluated. They say that future research is needed to determine whether COVID-19 could damage the placenta as this could increase risk of vertical transmission.

Writing in a linked Comment, Dr Jie Qiao (who was not involved in the study), Peking University Third Hospital, China, notes that this new research helps to understand the clinical characteristics, pregnancy outcomes, and vertical transmission potential of COVID-19, and notes that this is valuable for preventive and clinical practice in China and elsewhere under such emergent circumstances.

She also compares the effects of the virus to those of SARS, and says: "Previous studies have shown that SARS during pregnancy is associated with a high incidence of adverse maternal and neonatal complications, such as spontaneous miscarriage, preterm delivery, intrauterine growth restriction, application of endotracheal intubation, admission to the intensive care unit, renal failure, and disseminated intravascular coagulopathy. However, pregnant women with COVID-19 infection in the present study had fewer adverse maternal and neonatal complications and outcomes than would be anticipated for those with SARS-CoV-1 infection. Although a small number of cases was analysed and the findings should be interpreted with caution, the findings are mostly consistent with the clinical analysis done by Zhu and colleagues of ten neonates born to mothers with COVID-19 pneumonia."

MIAMI--Toxic and invisible oil spread well beyond the known satellite footprint of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, according to a new study led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel school of Marine and Atmospheric Science. These new findings have important implications for environmental health during future oil spills.

The UM Rosenstiel School-led research team combine oil-transport modeling techniques with remote sensing data and in-water sampling to provide a comprehensive look at the oil spill. The findings revealed that a fraction of the spill was invisible to satellites, and yet toxic to marine wildlife.

"We found that there was a substantial fraction of oil invisible to satellites and aerial imaging," said the study's lead author Igal Berenshtein, a postdoctoral researcher at the UM Rosenstiel School. "The spill was only visible to satellites above a certain oil concentration at the surface leaving a portion unaccounted for."

On April 20, 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded, releasing 210 million gallons of crude oil into the Gulf of Mexico for a total of 87 days, making it the largest oil spill in U.S. history. Oil slicks from the blowout covered an estimated area of 57,000 square miles (149,000 square kilometers).

These new findings, published in Science Advances, showed a much wider extent of the spill beyond the satellite footprint, reaching the West Florida shelf, the Texas shores, the Florida Keys and along the Gulf Stream towards the East Florida shelf.

"Our results change established perceptions about the consequences of oil spills by showing that toxic and invisible oil can extend beyond the satellite footprint at potentially lethal and sub-lethal concentrations to a wide range of wildlife in the Gulf of Mexico," said Claire Paris, senior author of the study and professor of ocean sciences the UM Rosenstiel School. "This work added a 3rd dimension to what was previously seen as just surface slicks. This additional dimension has been visualized with more realistic and accurate oil spill models developed with a team of chemical engineers and more efficient computing resources."

The new framework developed by the researchers can assist emergency managers and decision makers in better managing the impacts of future potential oil spills, said the authors.

INFORMS Journal Manufacturing & Service Operations Management Study Key Takeaways:

An increase in the number of stores directly decreases consumer waste due to improved access to groceries.

Too many stores could increase store waste due to distribution of inventory and price competition.

The optimal solution to reduce food waste is to increase the number of stores in a given area, but not too much. The perfect balance will ensure a drop in food waste.

CATONSVILLE, MD, February 12, 2020 - Food waste is a big problem in the United States. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, food waste is estimated at between 30-40 percent of the food supply. New research in the INFORMS journal Manufacturing & Service Operations Management finds that increasing the number of grocery stores in certain areas can drastically decrease waste.

The study, "Grocery Store Density and Food Waste," was conducted by Elena Belavina of Cornell University and examined grocery industry, economic, and demographic data, finding that store density in most American cities is well below the optimal level, and modest increases in store density substantially reduces waste.

The research finds that areas like Manhattan have a lot of grocery store options and a lot of people. A high number of stores in this area reduces food waste by consumers and retailers. With more stores, households have to travel less to visit a store, which means consumers make more frequent trips with smaller purchases per trip. In turn, these smaller basket sizes imply less food waste because it's less likely the food will expire before it's used.

Thus, increasing grocery store density allows households more flexibility to decide how often and how many groceries to purchase to accommodate their needs. The author found that in a city like Chicago, results show even modest increases in store density can lead to substantial decreases in food waste.

"Just 3-4 more stores in the Chicago area can lead to 6-9% reduction in waste. This is accompanied by a 1-4% decrease in grocery expenses for households," said Belavina, an associate professor in the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell. "What's more, increasing the number of grocery stores in a given area also works to combat emissions, while reducing consumer food expenditures, achieving two goals that are often considered competing."

"The key is finding the right number of stores for each area. An increase in the number of stores decreases consumer waste due to improved access to groceries, but too many store options increase retail waste due to relocating inventory, price competition and diminished demand by customers."

LAS VEGAS - February 11, 2020 - Popular diets low in carbs and high in fat and protein might be good for the waistline, but a new UNLV study shows that just the opposite may help to alleviate the hospital-acquired infection Clostridioides difficile.

In a study published in mSystems, an open access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, UNLV scientists found that an interaction between antibiotic use and a high-fat/high-protein diet exacerbate C. diff infections in mice. Conversely, they found that a high-carbohydrate diet - which was correspondingly low in fat and protein - nearly eliminated symptoms.

C. diff, an intestinal infection designated as an urgent threat by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is often acquired when antibiotics have wiped out the "good" bacteria in the gut. Hundreds of thousands of people are diagnosed with C. diff infections each year and more than 10,000 die.

"Every day, we are learning more about the human microbiome and its importance in human health," said Brian Hedlund, a UNLV microbiologist and study co-author. "The gut microbiome is strongly affected by diet, but the C. diff research community hasn't come to a consensus yet on the effects of diet on its risk or severity. Our study helps address this by testing several diets with very different macronutrient content. That is, the balance of dietary carbohydrate, protein, and fat were very different." 

Though studies suggest dietary protein exacerbates C. diff, there's little or no existing research exploring the interaction of a high-fat/high-protein diet with the infection. Hedlund and study co-author Ernesto Abel-Santos, a UNLV biochemist, caution that the study was conducted using an animal model, and more work is underway to begin to establish a link between these diets and infections in people.

"Extreme diets are becoming very popular but we do not know the long-term effects on human health and specifically on the health of the human gut flora," Abel-Santos said. "We have to look at humans to see if it correlates."

Recent studies suggest that because antibiotics kill bacterial species indiscriminately, the medications decimate populations of organisms that compete for amino acids, leaving C. diff free to propagate.

But Hedlund said the story is even more complex. "It's clear that it's not just a numbers game," he said. The new work suggests that diet may promote microbial groups that can be protective, even after antibiotics. For an infection to flourish, he said, "you might need this combination of wiping out C. diff competitors with antibiotics and then a diet that promotes overgrowth and disease."

The new study raised other questions as well. For example: The high-carb diet, which was protective against C. diff infection, gave rise to the least diverse community of microbes.

"Lots of papers say that a lower microbial diversity is always a bad thing, but in this case, it had the best disease outcome," said Abel-Santos. However, he cautions that a high-carb diet could lead to animals becoming asymptomatic carriers that can disseminate the infection to susceptible subjects.

With more than a quarter of U.S. adults now having tattoos -- and nearly half of millennials sporting them -- only a handful of studies have focused on religious tattoos. But a new study by researchers at Baylor University and Texas Tech University analyzes faith-centered tattoos and is the first to use visual images of them.

The study, published in the journal Visual Studies, analyzed 752 photos of tattoos taken at a Christian university in the United States and found that nearly 20% of those were overtly religious in content.

"The embrace of tattoos in the United States reflects a generational shift toward greater individualism and self-expression," said lead author Kevin D. Dougherty, Ph.D., associate professor of sociology at Baylor University. "Americans born since the 1970s have increasingly embraced tattoos as an acceptable means to communicate identity and belonging, whereas previous generations of Americans largely did not. Today, men and women in the United States are equally likely to have tattoos."

A 2016 Harris Poll showed that 29% of American adults had at least one tattoo -- up from 14% in 2008.

"An interesting discovery in our research is that the religious tattoos of college students are more likely than non-religious ones to face inward, toward the owner," Dougherty said. An example is a tattoo on the inner wrist.

"We speculate that religious tattoos may serve a different purpose than do tattoos of favorite sports teams, occupations or hobbies. While any visible tattoo is a public proclamation, tattoos oriented toward the owner represent a personal reminder of identity or affiliation. In this way, religious tattoos are personal but not private. They may encourage individuals to live in accordance with their religious beliefs."

The study also found some evidence that a generally visible tattoo may be conceptually different from tattoos hidden by clothing, said co-author Jerome R. Koch, Ph.D., professor of sociology at Texas Tech University. He has studied body art on college campuses for more than a decade.

"Generally visible tattoos seem intended more toward stories of life and remembrance, which the wearer may be willing to openly discuss," Koch said. "Tattoos which are only visible, say, to someone else with whom they are intimately involved may be more closely tied to sense of self, private memories and/or emotional conflicts."

Photos used in the study were taken by sociology students as part of a semester-long research project. Researchers analyzed 752 photos by owners' gender; whether the tattoos were religious in nature; and tattoo size -- small (1 inch by 1 inch or smaller), medium (3 inches by 3 inches) or large (larger than 3 inches or more than a quarter of an arm or leg). The study also examined whether the tattoo faced the owner or faced out; and whether those with religious content featured an image, text or both image and text.

The analysis found that:

Overt religious content appeared in 145 photos (19% of total sample).

More men in the photos (23%) had religious tattoos than women (17%).

Of the religious tattoos on women, most (69%) were small and in more easily concealed locations. The most frequent sites of their religious tattoos were the wrist (23%), foot (18%) and back (18%).

Men's religious tattoos were more likely to be large than non-religious ones (61% compared to 44%). Most prevalent sites for men's religious tattoos were upper arm (26%), forearm (21%) and back (19%).

Half of the religious tattoos were images -- the most common being the cross. More than one quarter were text, often Bible references, with a slight majority being New Testament references. But the Old Testament book of Psalms was most popular. Images with text comprised 21% of religious tattoos.

Religious tattoos were more likely than non-religious ones to face the owner, with 26% facing inward, in contrast to 18 % of non-religious tattoos.

Researchers said they have no way of knowing if these findings apply to all students at the university or to students at other universities. They also say it is probable that they undercounted religious tattoos -- in part because tattoos may have religious or spiritual connotations but not be recognized as such.

Dougherty and Koch are expanding their research to a national level with random samples.

"So far, all our work has involved college students as respondents," Koch said. "Since we know tattoos tell life stories, broadening our respondent base is the next logical step. How might life stories expressed through body art -- religious and otherwise -- differ by wider differences in the race, age and social class?"

"We have a study in progress on religion and tattoos in a national sample of U.S. adults," Dougherty said. "Our research question is: Do religious people in the United States today get tattoos? We also have plans for a national survey on religious tattoos. This will allow us to determine the percentage of Americans with religious tattoos and how they differ from other Americans without a tattoo or with tattoos that have no religious significance."

Future research also might examine how tattoos are viewed in other parts of the globe, Koch said.

"It would be interesting to compare and contrast the path toward legitimation of tattoos in different parts of the developed Western world," he said. "We have some information from other scholars that, for example, conservative Catholicism in Latin America may continue to stigmatize tattoo wearers. So broader religious/folk culture may be in play where there is greater antipathy or stricter cultural norms against body art. Conversely, some of our students have reported that the fact their tattoo was religious lent legitimation with their families more than a tattoo of another type might."

AURORA, Colo. (Feb. 12, 2020) - A major multi-center investigation of children with cystic fibrosis has identified a test that allows earlier identification of those at risk for cystic fibrosis liver disease.

The study, which includes 11 clinical sites in North America, was led by Michael Narkewicz, MD, professor of pediatrics from the University of Colorado School of Medicine and Children's Hospital Colorado. The findings of the study are published today ahead of print in The Journal of Pediatrics.

Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disorder that primarily affects the lungs and the pancreas, but can also create problems in the liver and other organs. Advanced cystic fibrosis liver disease refers to advanced scarring of the liver, which occurs in about 7 percent to 10 percent of patients with cystic fibrosis. The exact cause of advanced cystic fibrosis liver disease is not known, but only individuals with cystic fibrosis develop it.

"As we develop new therapies for cystic fibrosis and for other liver diseases, it is critical that we better understand which patients with cystic fibrosis are at higher risk for cystic fibrosis liver disease," said Narkewicz. "Our study is a vital first step in identifying those patients and should help in the creation of targets for therapies that could prevent cystic fibrosis liver disease."

The results reported in the article show that researchers could identify children at higher risk for advanced liver disease by using research-based ultrasound screening with consensus grading by four radiologists. The report is a four-year interim analysis conducted as part of a projected nine-year study.

The study covers 722 participants recruited between January 2010 and February 2014. Children from 3 years to 12 years of age who had been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis were eligible to enroll in the study. Using research-based ultrasound screening, researchers sought to determine whether the participants had a heterogeneous pattern on their livers that could indicate a higher risk for advanced cystic fibrosis liver disease. The study found that of the participants with the heterogeneous pattern were at a nine-fold higher risk than those participants with a normal pattern to develop advanced cystic fibrosis liver disease.

"This is the first large multicenter study of ways to predict which children with cystic fibrosis are at higher risk for advanced liver disease," Narkewicz said. "The findings show that we have found an important way to project which patients might develop cystic fibrosis liver disease. It also gives us clinical therapeutic targets for interventional therapies that could prevent the development of this liver disease. "

These research-based ultrasound exams relied on multiple radiologists reviewing the results. Narkewicz said clinically based liver ultrasound exams may not have the same predictive value. The research-based ultrasound tests are a next step after liver enzyme monitoring and could indicate an increased risk for developing advanced cystic fibrosis liver disease. Researchers are continuing to study the magnitude of the risk.

As machine learning continues to surpass human performance in a growing number of tasks, scientists at Skoltech have applied deep learning to reconstruct quantum properties of optical systems.

Through a collaboration between the quantum optics research laboratories at Moscow State University, led by Sergey Kulik, and members of Skoltech's Deep Quantum Laboratory of CPQM, led by Jacob Biamonte, the scientists have successfully applied machine learning to the state reconstruction problem.

Their findings have been reported in the Nature Partner Journal, npj Quantum Information, and are the first to show that machine learning can reconstruct quantum states from experimental data in the presence of noise and detector errors.

Skoltech PhD student Adriano Macarone Palmieri, lead author of the study, described the findings as " a new open door towards deeper insights ." Adriano has a Master's Degree in Physics from Bologna and joined Skoltech from Italy, where he worked as a data scientist.

Working closely with MSU's PhD student, Egor Kovlakov, Adriano reached out to his former colleague and a current postdoctoral fellow at Bocconi University, Federico Bianchi. Federico, a machine learning expert with a recent PhD from the University of Milano-Bicocca, describes the findings as "a sound example of data driven discovery which combines machine learning and quantum physics." While Federico didn't have experience with quantum mechanics prior to joining this study, he viewed the problem in terms of information and helped create a novel model of the system based on deep feed forward neural networks.

Both Adriano and Federico worked tirelessly and in close collaboration with many members of Deep Quantum Laboratory, including Dmitry Yudin who describes the findings as an important first step towards the practical use of neural network architecture in a lab for improving quantum tomography with available quantum setups of noisy experimental data. Such quantum information processing is used ubiquitously in paradigmatic quantum devices for quantum computation and optimization. In the forthcoming future, the researchers plan to address further challenges of upscaling quantum information devices, and expect this work to be foundational in their further research.

These results wouldn't have been possible without the experimental research of Egor Kovlakov, supported by Stanislav Straupe and Sergei Kuliik, from MSU. Over the last several years, they have applied a wide range of techniques to the state reconstruction problem. To the surprise of the coauthors, deep learning outperformed these state-of-the-art methods in a real experiment.

The MSU team generated data with an experimental platform based on spatial states of photons to prepare and measure high-dimensional quantum states. Experimental errors in state preparation and measurements inevitably plague the results and the situation becomes worse with increasing dimensionality. At the same time, extending the dimensionality of accessible quantum states is extremely important for quantum communication protocols and, especially, quantum computing. This is where machine learning techniques come in useful. The Skoltech team implemented a deep neural network implemented to analyze the noisy experimental data and efficiently learn to perform denoising, significantly improving the quality of quantum state reconstruction.

Skoltech's Deep Quantum Laboratory team believes that machine learning techniques will play an essential role in the future development of quantum technologies. As the available quantum devices become more and more complex, it gets harder and harder to control all the parameters at the desired level of precision.This came out as a very natural field of application for deep learning and machine learning techniques in general.

Accurately predicting biodiversity loss from climate change requires a detailed understanding of what aspects of climate change cause extinctions, and what mechanisms may allow species to survive.

A new study by University of Arizona researchers presents detailed estimates of global extinction from climate change by 2070. By combining information on recent extinctions from climate change, rates of species movement and different projections of future climate, they estimate that one in three species of plants and animals may face extinction. Their results are based on data from hundreds of plant and animal species surveyed around the globe.

Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the study likely is the first to estimate broad-scale extinction patterns from climate change by incorporating data from recent climate-related extinctions and from rates of species movements.

To estimate the rates of future extinctions from climate change, Cristian Román-Palacios and John J. Wiens, both in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, looked to the recent past. Specifically, they examined local extinctions that have already happened, based on studies of repeated surveys of plants and animals over time.

Román-Palacios and Wiens analyzed data from 538 species and 581 sites around the world. They focused on plant and animal species that were surveyed at the same sites over time, at least 10 years apart. They generated climate data from the time of the earliest survey of each site and the more recent survey. They found that 44% of the 538 species had already gone extinct at one or more sites.

"By analyzing the change in 19 climatic variables at each site, we could determine which variables drive local extinctions and how much change a population can tolerate without going extinct," Román-Palacios said. "We also estimated how quickly populations can move to try and escape rising temperatures. When we put all of these pieces of information together for each species, we can come up with detailed estimates of global extinction rates for hundreds of plant and animal species."

The study identified maximum annual temperatures -- the hottest daily highs in summer -- as the key variable that best explains whether a population will go extinct. Surprisingly, the researchers found that average yearly temperatures showed smaller changes at sites with local extinction, even though average temperatures are widely used as a proxy for overall climate change.

"This means that using changes in mean annual temperatures to predict extinction from climate change might be positively misleading," Wiens said.

Previous studies have focused on dispersal -- or migration to cooler habitats -- as a means for species to "escape" from warming climates. However, the authors of the current study found that most species will not be able to disperse quickly enough to avoid extinction, based on their past rates of movement. Instead, they found that many species were able to tolerate some increases in maximum temperatures, but only up to a point. They found that about 50% of the species had local extinctions if maximum temperatures increased by more than 0.5 degrees Celsius, and 95% if temperatures increase by more than 2.9 degrees Celsius.

Projections of species loss depend on how much climate will warm in the future.

"In a way, it's a 'choose your own adventure,'" Wiens said. "If we stick to the Paris Agreement to combat climate change, we may lose fewer than two out of every 10 plant and animal species on Earth by 2070. But if humans cause larger temperature increases, we could lose more than a third or even half of all animal and plant species, based on our results."

The paper's projections of species loss are similar for plants and animals, but extinctions are projected to be two to four times more common in the tropics than in temperate regions.

"This is a big problem, because the majority of plant and animal species occur in the tropics," Román-Palacios said.

U.S. Army convoys could be made safer for soldiers by implementing autonomous vehicle technology to reduce the number of service members needed to operate the vehicles, according to a new study from the RAND Corporation.

"The Army is interested in autonomous technology because if they can reduce the number of soldiers needed to run a convoy, they can keep soldiers safe," said Shawn McKay, lead author of the study and a senior engineer with RAND, a nonprofit research organization.

McKay and his colleagues examined three different autonomous vehicle concepts: the fully autonomous employment concept, where all the vehicles are unmanned; the partially unmanned employment concept, featuring a lead truck with soldiers followed by unmanned vehicles in a convoy; and minimally manned, a "bridging" concept featuring a soldier in the driver's seat of each of the follower trucks to monitor the automated system and driving environment.

A minimally manned Army convoy put 28 percent fewer soldiers at risk compared to current practices. A partially unmanned convoy would put 37 percent fewer soldiers at risk, and a fully autonomous convoy would put 78 percent fewer soldiers at risk.

The technology to make an Army convoy fully autonomous doesn't exist yet. McKay said part of the challenge for the Army is that current automated technology is still limited and has mainly been tested in settings with well-manicured infrastructure, including standardized road markings and signs.

"We're looking at a combat environment - it's very complex," McKay said. "An Army convoy could be operating in a Third World environment where road markings and road conditions are very poor, there's open terrain, there's herds of animals, and you're under combat situations."

"With current technology, human 'operators' are still required to monitor the driving environment and regain control when the autonomous systems are unable to handle the situation. When you have a convoy of several vehicles driving autonomously and one halts due to an obstacle the autonomous system cannot handle, you have a situation where the convoy becomes vulnerable. The bridging concept mitigates this risk while still reducing soldier risk."

Partially unmanned technology won't be available for highway driving for several more years, but minimally manned is currently ready for Army adaptation and deployment in urban and highway environments, McKay said.

The study recommends the Army implement the minimally manned concept as a necessary bridging strategy to achieve the partially unmanned capability. The Army also should develop clear and practical technical requirements to reduce key development risks, such as from cyberattack. Pressure to leverage automated trucks to reduce the number of soldiers at risk may build before the Army has worked out all the problems with these systems so the Army will need to prepare accurate assessments of system readiness and the risks associated with implementation before the Army is ready.

Economists and business leaders agree that innovation is a major force behind economic growth, but many disagree on what is the best way to encourage workers to produce the "think-outside-of-the-box" ideas that create newer and better products and services. New research from the University of California San Diego indicates that competitive "winner-takes-all" pay structures are most effective in getting the creative juices flowing that help fuel economic growth.

The findings are based on a study authored by professor of economics Joshua Graff Zivin and assistant professor of management Elizabeth Lyons who partnered with Thermo Fisher Scientific, one of the globe's largest bio tech companies, in creating a contest for the Baja California office. Participants in the competition, which was open to all non-management employees of Thermo Fisher and other tech companies in the region, were asked to design digital solutions to help share medical equipment across small healthcare clinics in the region.

The competition was created to test which of two common compensation models produced more novel ideas. Those who signed up were randomly selected to compete in either the "winner-takes-all" category, in which there was one prize of $15,000 awarded to first place, or the "top 10" category, in which the same amount of prize money was spread out among the top 10 entries.

"Participants under the winner-takes-all compensation scheme submitted proposals that were significantly more novel than their counterparts in the other scheme," said the authors of National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) working paper, who both hold appointments with the UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy. "While the two groups did not statistically differ from one another on their overall scores, the risk taking encouraged by the competition with a single prize resulted in innovators pursuing more creative solutions."

They added, "These findings are significant because the 21st century economy is one that prizes novelty. Firms view it as an important source of comparative advantage. It is also an essential ingredient in the development of technological breakthroughs that transform markets with major impacts to consumers and producers."

How firms can produce more creative ideas with a limited amount of resources

Most modern-day mechanisms created by chief technology officer (CTOs) and management gurus designed to spark innovation often rely on performance-based-pay and hinge on assumptions regarding the ability and ambitions of employees and their risk preferences. However, the results from the NBER paper show that with identical groups of innovators, companies can increase the innovative output of employees just by changing how they pay them.

"Those competing for one big prize had to push further in making their results creative; however what is most surprising is that this is a relatively low-cost way for companies to induce more radical innovation," Lyons noted.

Though there was more risk vs. reward in the "winner-takes-all" category, both produced the about the same number of submissions (20 in "top 10" category and 22 in the "winner-takes-all" category), indicating that having less of a chance of winning a monitory award did not have an impact on the amount of work output.

The entries were judged by a panel of six experts. Half of the judges were from industry (Thermo Fisher and Teradata) and the other half were from academia (computer sciences professors from local universities in the Baja California region).

The novelty of the submissions was evaluated on a scale from one to five, relative to what is currently and/or soon to be available on the market. The lowest possible score of one was given for proposed solutions already on the market and the highest score of five was awarded to submissions in which no one else has thought of a similar idea.

Those who entered could work as an individual or in teams. The results of teams vs. individual entries in both categories are consistent with other studies, showing that teams with diversified skill-sets and deepened professional experience produced better entries than that of individuals. However, the team entries in the "winner-takes-all" category were again more novel than the group work in the "top 10" category.

Subsequently, participants in both categories were surveyed on their risk preferences. Not surprisingly, those less averse to risk performed better in the "winner-takes-all" category.

The results also revealed that women who submitted entries in the contest performed better than average in both categories of the competition.

In conclusion, the authors noted that genius is not created by incentives, but empowered by them.

"It is important to recognize that incentives alone are insufficient to spark creativity," they wrote. "More work is required to understand the raw ingredients that shape the relationship between creativity and compensation."