Culture

(New York, March 16) A new CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) survey released today found that 60% of New York State residents believe their chances of contracting the novel Coronavirus are low or very low. The survey of 1000 New York households, conducted between March 13-15, 2020 and considered accurate within a range of 3%, also found that more than half (55%) of all respondents live in households with one or more members over age 60, the highest risk age group for Coronavirus infection. However, just more than one-fourth (27%) of them believed that they were living with someone who has a high chance of becoming sick. In general, a bare majority of New Yorkers (51%) said they have some knowledge of Coronavirus, while 34% believed they know a lot about it.

A substantial majority of New York residents believe that current policies help in containing the virus, including closing schools and universities (68%), limiting travel to and from certain countries (69%), and two weeks of quarantine for people exposed to the virus (71%).

Messages about ways to prevent the spread of the virus have led many residents to change their plans and routines in the past week. Almost one-fourth (24%) of respondents reported they did not attend an event they had paid for due to concerns about the virus, and almost two in five respondents (39%) decided to stay home instead of going to work or changed existing travel plans (40%). Almost three in five (57%) said they had stayed at home instead of going to a restaurant or movie, and almost two-thirds (64%) say they have avoided shaking hands or hugging. The single recommendation that most respondents reported following regarded handwashing. Nine out of ten (88%) of New Yorkers reporting they increased the frequency of which they wash their hands or used hand sanitizer.

Almost three New Yorkers in ten (29%) rated television news ranked as the most trusted source of information about Coronavirus, followed by the CDC at 26%, and the WHO at 15%. Only 7% of respondents reported that President Trump was their most trusted source of information.

While an equally low percentage of respondents said social media were their most trusted information source, most people (51%) reported that they do share information on Coronavirus on these platforms at least once a day. Three in ten (30%) said they have passed along information on social media about Coronavirus without knowing it was accurate. The most frequently used online media sources respondents reported using were news media posts (36%), followed by friends (27%) and the government (20%).

"We conducted this survey and will update it regularly over the course of this public health crisis as a part of our unique mission within the City's largest public university," said CUNY SPH Dean Ayman El Mohandes. "Working together promoting evidence-based communication with innovative approaches for individual and community action, we can and will help address the threat of COVID-19."

The complete survey results and related commentary can be found at https://sph.cuny.edu/research/covid-19-tracking-survey/week-1/ and at JHC Impact, an initiative of the Journal of Health Communication: International Perspectives.

The CUNY SPH survey was conducted by Emerson College Polling from March 13-15, 2020. The sample for the NY Statewide results, n=1,000, with a Credibility Interval (CI) similar to a poll's margin of error (MOE) of +/- 3 percentage points. The data sets were weighted by gender, age, ethnicity, education and region based on the 2018 1-year American Community Survey model. It is important to remember that subsets based on gender, age, ethnicity and region carry with them higher margins of error, as the sample size is reduced. Data was collected using an Interactive Voice Response (IVR) system of landlines (n=477), SMS-to-online (n=360) and an online panel provided by MTurk and Survey Monkey (n=166).

The CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) is committed to teaching, research and service that creates a healthier New York City and helps promote equitable, efficient and evidence-based solutions to pressing health problems facing cities around the world.

Toxic personality is a term used to describe people who behave greedily, immodestly and unfairly and take the truth very lightly. Dr. Mareike Kholin, Bastian Kückelhaus and Prof. Dr. Gerhard Blickle from the Department of Psychology at the University of Bonn found out why such people can still succeed in their careers. The trick that leads to the top is social skill. The results are presented online in advance in the journal "Personality and Individual Differences". The print version will be published in April.

Social skills are in themselves a good thing in the workplace. They can open locked doors and help to cope with daily stress. But they can also be used to deceive others, abuse trust or construct a façade of harmlessness beyond which actually lurks deceitfulness. Dr. Mareike Kholin and the research team determined that toxic personalities who are considered socially adept by their colleagues were considered more capable by their superiors and occupy a higher hierarchical position. "We have to get used to the idea that social skills can be a double-edged sword," says Kholin.

In personality tests, "toxic" persons have low scores in the categories "honesty" and "modesty". "Such personalities tend to focus on themselves all the time," says Blickle. "Good social skills enable them to deceive others." On the other hand, those who are distinctly honest and modest are a real joy for their team: Such individuals behave fairly and allow colleagues to share in their successes.

Low values for the characteristics "honesty" and "modesty"

Psychologists from the University of Bonn investigated the phenomenon by interviewing various work teams: First the participants completed an anonymous online survey and assessed themselves on the characteristics "honesty" and "modesty", among others. Then colleagues provided information on the social skills of the participant. The participant's supervisor then gave an appraisal of his work performance. The researchers were able to collect data from a total of 203 of such "trios" of employees, colleagues and superiors.

The results showed that workers with low values for honesty and modesty can nonetheless succeed in their careers if they balance the toxic parts of their personality with social skills. Bastian Kückelhaus: "Trickery, disguise and deception are the dark side of social skills."

How can toxic personalities be assessed more accurately?

But how can companies and teams respond to these findings? "In order to slow down the ascent of toxic personalities, more attention should be paid to actual performance and less to the good impression when selecting staff and making assessments," advises Prof. Blickle. This is particularly difficult in activities where it is important to impress and arouse interest, such as in sales or leadership positions. "Here, it makes sense for instance to also look at the sickness and notice rate of employees, or customer loyalty," Blickle adds.

KNOXVILLE --The best bargains for conserving some of the world's most vulnerable salamanders and other vertebrate species can be found in Central Texas and the Appalachians, according to new conservation tools developed at the National Institute for Mathematical and Biological Synthesis (NIMBioS) at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville.

The study involves a suite of computer algorithms that surf across many different kinds of data to create maps of top priorities and projections of what species would benefit the most from increases in conservation dollars.

An interdisciplinary team of computer programmers, biodiversity data scientists, conservation decision makers, economists, and others from around the globe convened at NIMBioS to develop the optimization tool, which was published in the journal Ecological Applications.

The study is available at https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.2118

Determining where the best protection payoffs are to be found has traditionally been a challenge for conservation, especially when budgets are stretched thin.

"The challenge for conservation practitioners is how to best combine many really disparate kinds of data and do so in a way that lets them compare possible options for protection--the goal being to find opportunities where conservation efforts offer the greatest bang for the buck," said the study's lead author, UT Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Paul Armsworth.

The algorithm considers data including land acquisition costs, future development patterns, budget allocations for conservation, and the presence of threatened species.

The new approach could prove valuable to conservation and natural resource managers looking to optimize conservation dollars.

"It's basically a giant bargain-hunting formula for biodiversity conservation," said Joe Fargione, science director for the North American region at the Nature Conservancy, a leading conservation organization. "The authors are finding important bargains--places where the most good for the most species can be done, sometimes at very low cost."

When comparing many possible scenarios and models, the researchers found that some priority areas for protection arose repeatedly. In the United States, those appeared to be in counties around Austin, Texas, and parts of the southern Appalachians.

The unique geology and complex groundwater systems around Austin provide habitats for highly specialized species. Many salamander species found there occur nowhere else in the world, with some receiving protection under the US Endangered Species Act because of their vulnerability to extinction.

The ancient mountains of southern Appalachian Mountains provided a refuge for species through past Ice Ages. The rich topography and diversity of habitats in the region provide a global hotspot for many different groups of species.

"Both areas offer very good deals if you only have a limited budget to work with and are trying to protect vulnerable species. Adding more protection into these places wouldn't be too expensive. And these habitats could be in trouble in the future if additional protection isn't undertaken," Armsworth said.

Crick and Imperial researchers have found that a key antibiotic widely used to treat drug-resistant tuberculosis does not work as expected - a finding which could be used to develop new drugs. The study was part-funded by the Francis Crick Institute and the Wellcome Trust.

The research, published in Nature Chemical Biology, found that contrary to current understanding, an antibiotic used to treat tuberculosis is unable to permanently prevent one of the enzymes it targets from functioning. By uncovering how this enzyme is re-activated, the research could lead to the development of improved versions of the drug which could be used against antibiotic resistant bacteria.

For more than 50 years, the antibiotic D-cycloserine has been used to treat cases of TB that are resistant to first-line drugs. It had been thought that this drug in part worked by irreversibly preventing an enzyme, alanine racemase, from helping to build TB bacteria's cell walls.

However, this study found that despite being exposed to D-cycloserine, about 10% of the alanine racemase enzyme was later able to function effectively again. This enzyme is capable of regaining activity by inactivating the drug, in a process called hydrolysis. This change means the modified drug can no longer bind to and block the enzyme.

The drug however can still treat TB because it also inhibits another enzyme involved in building TB cell walls, D-Ala:D-Ala ligase.

"You could say that alanine racemase acts like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. When first exposed to the drug, it's Dr Jekyll, as it is a good target for the drug, and this stops the bacteria for a time. However, over time it turns into Mr Hyde, as it stops the drug from targeting it and so it can function again. If it weren't for the drug also blocking a separate target, it would be ineffective against TB," says Luiz Pedro Carvalho, group leader in the Mycobacterial Metabolism and Antibiotic Research Laboratory at the Crick.

These findings could lead to the development of new drugs. One new route, for example, would be to develop similar molecules that cannot be hydrolysed and therefore would irreversibly inhibit alanine racemase. Various bacteria have the same enzyme or a version of it, so such drugs could provide a new way to treat these diseases.

"For decades, it's been thought this drug worked in one way, that its action could not be reversed, so it's rather incredible that we've found it gets inactivated by one of its targets," further explains Luiz Pedro Carvalho. "The fact this has been missed for so long demonstrates how important it is to work with the right protein derived from the organism you want to understand."

Cesira de Chiara, principal laboratory research scientist in Luiz's lab, says: "The key here is that tuberculosis takes a relatively long time to replicate, about 20 hours, so there's enough time for this enzyme to be inhibited and then re-activated. Previous studies missed this re-activation as they haven't studied the process of inactivation of the enzyme by the drug over such a long period.

"If we could create a tweaked version of this drug that can permanently block this family of enzymes, we could further improve its effectiveness against the raising threat of antibiotic resistant bacteria, perhaps reducing the doses and, with them, the risk of potentially toxic side-effects."

Philadelphia, March 16, 2020 - An e-cigarette carried in the left breast shirt pocket of a patient with an implantable cardioverter-defibrillator (ICD) caused magnetic reversion, interrupting the ICD's ability to detect and treat dangerous heart rhythm problems, clinicians report in HeartRhythm Case Reports, published by Elsevier. The patient was not aware that the e-cigarette has an integrated magnetic component, and it had suspended detection of heart rhythm problems by the ICD four times before he reported it to his healthcare team.

"To our knowledge this is the first reported case of magnetic reversion of an ICD by an e-cigarette," stated senior investigator Usha B. Tedrow, MD, MPH, and lead authors Julie B. Shea, MS, RNCS, Martin Aguilar, MD, and William Sauer, MD, from the Cardiovascular Arrhythmia Service at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA. "Given the increasing use of e-cigarettes worldwide, recognition of this potentially serious interaction appears clinically important."

A 48-year-old male with an ICD reported that he heard his device "beep" several times, both at home and at his office. There were no adverse symptoms associated with the beeping, and remote monitoring found the device was working normally. The patient denied any magnetic exposure, but data provided by the ICD manufacturer found four instances of magnet interactions with the device, corresponding with when the patient heard the tone.

Upon further questioning, the patient recalled using his e-cigarette (JUUL vape device), which he frequently stored in his left breast pocket, overlying the ICD. When the healthcare team held the device up to his ICD, it triggered the steady magnet tone. The patient was educated about the importance of keeping any type of magnet away from his ICD. JUUL's website does recommend keeping e-cigarettes away from key cards, credit cards, and other items with magnetic strips, as well as pacemakers.

"Magnets are ubiquitous in commercially-available electronic devices. They can be integrated in ways that are difficult to recognize. Although manufacturers are not routinely required to specify the strength of the magnetic fields and safety information for interference with medical-grade devices, the general recommendation is that any portable electronic or magnetic device be kept at least six to 12 inches away from an implant," noted Dr. Tedrow and Ms. Shea.

There are commercially available magnetic field meters, and even several smartphone applications, that can be used to estimate the strength of a magnet. Practically speaking, most cardiac implantable devices have a magnetic exposure upper limit of 10G, and manufacturers typically recommend a 2:1 safety margin for safe clinical operation. "As such, finding the distance at which the magnetic field is 5G or less would, in principle, provide adequate clearance for safe clinical operation of cardiac implantable devices," Dr. Aguilar added.

"Practitioners should remain vigilant regarding the use of new technology by their ICD patients. In our case, there was no adverse effect from the interaction of the e-cigarette with the device, but if it had happened during a tachycardia episode, it could have had serious, perhaps even fatal consequences," cautioned Dr. Tedrow and Ms. Shea.

Finally, some good news has emerged about the novel coronavirus that has spread to about 50 countries across the world. Chinese professors report in the journal Frontiers in Pediatrics that it doesn't appear that the viral infection is transmittable from pregnant mothers to newborns at birth.

The study is the second out of China within the last month to confirm that mothers infected with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) during pregnancy did not infect their babies.

All four mothers in the current study, which focused on the health of the newborns, gave birth at Wuhan's Union Hospital while infected. Wuhan in Hubei Province is believed to be the epicenter of the current outbreak that has sickened more than 100,000 people worldwide and killed more than 3,400 -- most of them in China.

None of the infants developed any serious symptoms associated with COVID-19 such as fever or cough, though all were initially isolated in neonatal intensive care units and fed formula. Three of the four tested negative for the respiratory infection following a throat swab, while the fourth child's mother declined permission for the test.

One newborn did experience a minor breathing issue for three days that was treated by non-invasive mechanical ventilation. Two babies, including the one with a respiratory problem, did have body rashes that eventually disappeared on their own.

It's impossible to conclude whether there's a connection between these other medical issues and COVID-19. "We are not sure the rash was due to the mother's COVID-19 infection," said study co-author Dr. Yalan Liu at Huazhong University of Science and Technology. She also works in the Department of Pediatric at Union Hospital.

All four infants remain healthy, and their mothers also fully recovered.

In the previous retrospective study on nine pregnant mothers infected with COVID-19, researchers also found no evidence that the viral infection can pass to the child. All nine births were done by cesarean section. Three of the four pregnancies in the current study were also brought to term by C-section.

"To avoid infections caused by perinatal and postnatal transmission, our obstetricians think that C-section may be safer," Liu said. "Only one pregnant mother adopted vaginal delivery because of the onset of the labor process. The baby was normal. Maybe vaginal delivery is OK. It needs further study."

In previous coronavirus outbreaks, scientists found no evidence of viral transmission from mother to child, but SARS and MERS were both associated with "critical maternal illness, spontaneous abortion, or even maternal death," according to Liu.

Globally, an estimated 3.4 percent of reported COVID-19 cases have died, according to the latest data from the World Health Organization. In comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1 percent of those infected. However, COVID-19 does not appear to spread as easily as influenza. Note that transmission and fatality rates are currently subject to change and revision as more research is done on the virus.

The authors said further investigations into other aspects of potential COVID-19 infection in newborns and children are needed. For example, the sensitivity of the current diagnostic test for detecting the virus is about 71 percent, so they suggest evaluating its reliability in children.

Toward that end, the researchers are collecting additional samples from the newborns, including placenta, amniotic fluid, neonatal blood and gastric fluid, among others, to detect possible receptors for the virus.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- Experts recommend starting conversations about inappropriate touching during the preschool years, but less than half of parents of preschoolers in a national poll say they've begun that discussion.

Meanwhile, one in four parents of elementary school-age children say they have not yet begun talking about inappropriate touching, according to the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health at the University of Michigan.

The report is based on responses from 1,106 parents who had at least one child age 2-9 years.

"This is a conversation parents should be having multiple times in age-appropriate ways," says Mott Poll co-director Sarah Clark.

Three in five parents agree that the preschool years is the right time to talk about inappropriate touching. But among parents of preschoolers who have not talked about it, 71% believe their child is too young.

Many parents also say they want more help navigating the conversation - but two in five say they haven't received any information on how to talk with their child about inappropriate touching. Just a quarter of parents have received such information from a health care provider.

"Many parents have not gotten any information about how to talk with children about inappropriate touching. Without practical tips or suggestions, parents may be at a loss for how to begin."

Clark notes that parents may start this process during the preschool years by teaching the anatomically correct names for body parts and explaining what parts are private.

Among parents of elementary school-age children who have not talked about inappropriate touching, the most common reason was just not getting around to it (39%). Another 18% said that discussions are unnecessary because inappropriate touching of children rarely happens.

"Parents shouldn't disregard the reality of child sexual abuse," Clark says. "Statistics show that up to 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused before the age of 18."

Other common reasons for not talking about inappropriate touching with school-age children include feeling the child is still too young (36%), not wanting to scare the child (21%), and not knowing how to bring it up (18%).

"It's clear that this is a challenging area for many parents. However, it's essential to help children understand the difference between appropriate and inappropriate touching, and that they should tell mom or dad if any inappropriate touching occurs. Failure to do so leaves children unequipped to deal with one of the gravest dangers of childhood."

In addition to discussions, Clark says parents should think about family rules that can reinforce the concept of personal boundaries. For example, parents shouldn't force children to accept hugs, kisses or other physical contact from anybody, including family members and friends.

Sixty percent of parents said they'd like their child's school to teach students about the topic, and 76% want the school to provide information for parents.

"In the past, talking about appropriate vs inappropriate touching was probably something that parents would want to keep in the family," says Clark. "However, it's clear that parents want information and resources on how best to approach this sensitive topic. Schools and child health providers have a substantial role in helping families recognize and confront child sexual abuse."

A unique rock carving found in the Teymareh rock art site (Khomein county) in Central Iran with six limbs has been described as part man, part mantis. Rock carvings, or petroglyphs, of invertebrate animals are rare, so entomologists teamed up with archaeologists to try and identify the motif. They compared the carving with others around the world and with the local six-legged creatures which its prehistoric artists could have encountered.

Entomologists Mahmood Kolnegari, Islamic Azad University of Arak, Iran; Mandana Hazrati, Avaye Dornaye Khakestari Institute, Iran; and Matan Shelomi, National Taiwan University teamed up with freelance archaeologist and rock art expert Mohammad Naserifard and describe the petroglyph in a new paper published in the open access Journal of Orthoptera Research.

The 14-centimetre carving was first spotted during surveys between 2017 and 2018, but could not be identified due to its unusual shape. The six limbs suggest an insect, while the triangular head with big eyes and the grasping forearms are unmistakably those of a praying mantid, a predatory insect that hunts and captures prey like flies, bees and even small birds. An extension on its head even helps narrow the identification to a particular genus of mantids in this region: Empusa.

Even more mysterious are the middle limbs, which end in loops or circles. The closest parallel to this in archaeology is the 'Squatter Man,' a petroglyph figure found around the world depicting a person flanked by circles. While they could represent a person holding circular objects, an alternative hypothesis is that the circles represent auroras caused by atmospheric plasma discharges.

It is presently impossible to tell exactly how old the petroglyphs are, because sanctions on Iran prohibit the use of radioactive materials needed for radiocarbon dating. However, experts Jan Brouwer and Gus van Veen examined the Teymareh site and estimated the carvings were made 40,000-4,000 years ago.

One can only guess why prehistoric people felt the need to carve a mantis-man into rock, but the petroglyph suggests humans have linked mantids to the supernatural since ancient times. As stated by the authors, the carving bears witness, "that in prehistory, almost as today, praying mantids were animals of mysticism and appreciation."

Why normal cells turn into cancer cells One of the factors is deeply related to the failure of the cell differentiation mechanism called DNA methylation (*1). The joint research groups of The Institute of Medical Science, the University of Tokyo, Yokohama City University, and Center for Integrated Protein Science Munich (CIPSM) have clarified new mechanism for controlling DNA methylation in cells.

Ubiquitination (*2) of a protein called PAF15 (*3) is an important factor for the inheritance of DNA methylation, according to the new research. The group also successfully demonstrated a molecular mechanism by which PAF15 is ubiquitinated. In this way, the group revealed the mechanism underlying how cellular memory is inherited when cells proliferate.

The research was published in Nature Communications (online version, March 6, 2020). The results are expected to greatly contribute to applications in this field, such as the development of new inhibitors of DNA methyltransferase that specifically target cancer cells.

The primary mechanism of this DNA methylation has not been fully elucidated

There are two factors that transform normal cells into cancer cells. One is a genetic mutation that alters the DNA sequence, and the other is an epigenetic mutation (*4) that changes how genes are used. An epigenetic mutation is defined as an aberrant pattern of "DNA methylation" and "histone modification" (*5). When cells proliferate, both genetic and epigenetic mutations are transmitted to new cells.

The research team decided to investigate the mechanism of faithful "DNA methylation inheritance" which is critical for cancer suppression and has not been sufficiently investigated. As one of the lead researchers, associate professor Atsuya Nishiyama of the University of Tokyo, explains as follows:

"Every cell has the same genetic information. Each cell has very different characteristics. It is DNA methylation that determines the characteristics of each cell. Until now, the correlation between the failure of the mechanism of DNA methylation and cancer of cells was known, but how DNA methylation controls disease was not. That's why we conducted research to understand the basic mechanisms of DNA methylation. "

PAF15 is a factor guaranteeing the maintenance of DNA methylation

The research group conducted experiments using a cell-free system derived from Xenopus laevis eggs to analyze the DNMT1 protein complex. Their work resulted in the new discovery of PAF15 as a factor that specifically binds to DNMT1(*6).

Further analysis revealed that PAF15 binds to chromosomes via PCNA (*7) during DNA replication, The research group also showed that two lysine residues of PAF15 undergo monoubiquitination by UHRF1 (*8) to facilitate DNMT1 chromatin localization. These results indicate that PAF15 is an important regulator of DNMT1.

During unperturbed S-phase, most of the DNMT1 on the chromosome was bound to ubiquitinated PAF15. Elevated histone H3 ubiquitination levels and the interaction between DNMT1 and ubiquitinated H3 were observed in conjunction with the inhibition of PAF15 function.

This finding suggests that PAF15 ubiquitination is the primary pathway controlling DNMT1 localization to DNA methylation sites, and that histone H3 ubiquitination may serve as a backup system. The team also introduced mutations to amino acids at the ubiquitination site of PAF15 in mouse ES cells, and found that the level of DNA methylation in the whole genome was greatly reduced, thus making it clear that PAF15 was a factor guaranteeing the maintenance of DNA methylation.

(Please see the research group's paper for details:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-15006-4)

Potential to greatly contribute to the development of DNA methylase inhibitors

DNA methylase is also attracting attention as a material for anticancer drugs. The results of this study have shown not only the scientific significance of clarifying the new mechanism of DNA methylation inheritance, but also the potential to greatly contribute to the development of DNA methyltransferase inhibitors.

In addition, it has been reported that PAF15 is over-expressed in various cancer cells. It will be important to clarify the effect of PAF15 on DNA methylation control in the future.

Inflammation in the brain may be more widely implicated in dementias than was previously thought, suggests new research from the University of Cambridge. The researchers say it offers hope for potential new treatments for several types of dementia.

Inflammation is usually the body's response to injury and stress - such as the redness and swelling that accompanies an injury or infection. However, inflammation in the brain - known as neuroinflammation - has been recognised and linked to many disorders including depression, psychosis and multiple sclerosis. It has also recently been linked to the risk of Alzheimer's disease.

In a study published today in the journal Brain, a team of researchers at the University of Cambridge set out to examine whether neuroinflammation also occurs in other forms of dementia, which would imply that it is common to many neurodegenerative diseases.

The team recruited 31 patients with three different types of frontotemporal dementia (FTD). FTD is a family of different conditions resulting from the build-up of several abnormal 'junk' proteins in the brain.

Patients underwent brain scans to detect inflammation and the junk proteins. Two Positron Emission Tomography (PET) scans each used an injection with a chemical 'dye', which lights up special molecules that reveal either the brain's inflammatory cells or the junk proteins.

In the first scan, the dye lit up the cells causing neuroinflammation. These indicate ongoing damage to the brain cells and their connections. In the second scan, the dye binds to the different types of 'junk' proteins found in FTD.

The researchers showed that across the brain, and in all three types of FTD, the more inflammation in each part of the brain, the more harmful build-up of the junk proteins there is. To prove the dyes were picking up the inflammation and harmful proteins, they went on to analyse under the microscope 12 brains donated after death to the Cambridge Brain Bank.

"We predicted the link between inflammation in the brain and the build-up of damaging proteins, but even we were surprised by how tightly these two problems mapped on to each other," said Dr Thomas Cope from the Department of Clinical Neurosciences at Cambridge.

Dr Richard Bevan Jones added, "There may be a vicious circle where cell damage triggers inflammation, which in turn leads to further cell damage."

The team stress that further research is needed to translate this knowledge of inflammation in dementia into testable treatments. But, this new study shows that neuroinflammation is a significant factor in more types of dementia than was previously thought.

"It is an important discovery that all three types of frontotemporal dementia have inflammation, linked to the build-up of harmful abnormal proteins in different parts of the brain. The illnesses are in other ways very different from each other, but we have found a role for inflammation in all of them," says Professor James Rowe from the Cambridge Centre for Frontotemporal Dementia.

"This, together with the fact that it is known to play a role in Alzheimer's, suggests that inflammation is part of many other neurodegenerative diseases, including Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease. This offers hope that immune-based treatments might help slow or prevent these conditions."

Drawing on the largest sample of transgender people ever surveyed, a new study is the first to assess the relationship between gender-concordant IDs and mental health among transgender people in the USA.

The study finds that possessing gender-concordant IDs is associated with reduced psychological distress, and a lower prevalence of suicidal thoughts and suicide planning.

The authors suggest policy changes to increase access to gender-concordant IDs. For example, by reducing fees, administrative hurdles and eligibility requirements, and also by either expanding gender options beyond male or female, or by removing gender markers entirely.

Results from a survey of over 20,000 American trans adults suggest that having access to identification documents which reflect their identified gender helps to improve their mental health and may reduce suicidal thoughts, according to a study published in The Lancet Public Health journal.

The authors note that the survey only questioned respondents at one time point, making it difficult to confirm whether lack of gender-affirming IDs caused psychological distress or the other way around. It is possible that trans people suffering from psychological distress might find it harder to obtain IDs. However, a previous Canadian study [1] found that having at least one document showing a trans person's preferred gender marker was associated with fewer suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, and previous research has found that mental health risks in transgender adolescents are reduced when their preferred name is used socially [2].

"Our results suggest that governments and administrative bodies can play an important role in helping to reduce psychological distress for trans people, simply by making it easier to access identity documents that reflect their identity," says Dr Ayden Scheim from Drexel University, USA. [3]

Of the 1.4 million Americans who identify as transgender, over half are estimated to have clinical depression, compared to around 30% over a lifetime in the general US population, while 31% to 41% attempt suicide at some point during their lives, compared to less than 9% generally in the US. These mental health disparities can be attributed in part to a lack of recognition and acceptance of trans people's identified gender. Lack of gender-concordant official documents can prevent access to services such as healthcare, education, and employment, and increase exposure to verbal harassment and violence.

The authors suggest that at the moment, the ID change process in the USA, which varies across states, can be difficult to impossible. For example, in most US states updating a name on government-issued ID first requires a court-ordered name change, which can cost several hundred dollars. Most states require medical letters or affidavits to validate reclassification requests, and some may require gender transition surgery. In most jurisdictions, gender markers reflecting non-binary gender identity (such as an 'X' marker) are not yet available.

To explore the impact of access to IDs on psychological distress, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts, researchers analysed data from 22,286 trans people, who were surveyed in 2015. Respondents were asked whether all, some or none of their IDs - including birth certificates, passports and driving licences - listed their preferred name and gender marker. Psychological distress was measured using a validated scale with a score between 0 and 24, with 13 or greater indicating serious psychological distress. To assess respondents' suicide risk, they were asked whether they had seriously considered suicide in the previous 12 months, whether they had made any plans to kill themselves and whether they had attempted suicide.

To ensure that the analysis was able to pick up any association between mental health and access to updated IDs, the authors of the current study adjusted the results to account for other variables that could contribute to psychological distress and suicidal thoughts - such as age, ethnicity, medical transition status and years living full-time in the identified gender.

The results found that 45.1% of respondents (10,288 out of 22,286) had no IDs with their preferred name and gender marker, 44.2% (9,666/22,286) had some ID that matched their name and/or gender, and only 10.7% (2,332/22,286) had their preferred name and gender on all their documents. The authors weighted the sample to reflect the age and ethnicity of the US population, although they note that trans demographics may not mirror broader US population demographics.

The reasons for not changing gender markers included a lack of suitable gender options (in the group with no concordant ID, people with non-binary identities were over-represented), cost, and perceived ineligibility (for example, believing that additional medical treatment was required). The authors also identified geographic variation in the results, with participants in western states more likely to have gender-concordant ID, while those in the Midwest were less likely.

Those with all gender-concordant IDs had a 32% lower prevalence of serious psychological distress than those with no updated documents. They were also 22% less likely to have had suicidal thoughts in the past year and 25% less likely to have made plans to kill themselves. Those with some updated IDs had smaller reductions in distress and suicidal thoughts (e.g., 12% reduction in distress). The results did not indicate an association between access to IDs and suicide attempts, once the authors had adjusted for other influences on mental health.

"When a trans person changes their gender on their official documents, it can be a critical step towards gaining social acceptance and legal recognition, and our findings suggest that policy changes to support trans people with taking this step should be considered, in order to help improve their wellbeing, reduce their exposure to discrimination and reduce suicidal thoughts," says Professor Greta Bauer from Western University, Canada. [3]

The authors note that other variables not covered in the study may mediate psychological distress, for example access to social support.

Writing in a linked Comment, lead author Dr Monica Malta (who was not involved in the study) from the University of Toronto says: "The cross-sectional study design prohibits causal interpretation of the identified relationships, and reverse causation is plausible--those with better mental health might be better able to navigate the difficult bureaucratic requirements to obtain gender congruent IDs. Even with those limitations, the large dataset and careful inclusion of potential confounders strengthen the study design. Thus, the authors' findings support the need to increase the availability of and streamline the processes to obtain gender congruent IDs. Gaining gender-congruent IDs should be easy, affordable, and quickly completed by adequately trained officials at TGD-friendly environments."

PHILADELPHIA (March 16, 2020) - Having gender-affirming documents, such as a passport, driver's license, or birth certificate, may improve mental health among transgender adults, according to findings published today in The Lancet Public Health from researchers at Drexel University's Dornsife School of Public Health.

"Having IDs that don't reflect how you see yourself, and how you present yourself to the world, can be upsetting," said lead author Ayden Scheim, PhD, an assistant professor in the Dornsife School of Public Health. "It can also potentially expose people to harassment, violence, and denial of service. Despite this, the relationship between gender-concordant ID and mental health had not previously been examined in the US."

The study used data from 22,286 adults in the United States who participated in the 2015 US Transgender Survey -- conducted by the National Center for Transgender Equality -- and were living day-to-day in a gender different from the one assigned at birth. Just under half - 45% - did not have their preferred name and gender designation on any identification documents, 44% had limited gender-affirming identification and just 10% had their preferred information on all documentation.

As compared to those with no gender-affirming identification, those with their preferred name and gender on all documents were 32% less likely to be classified as seriously psychological distressed, 22% less likely to have seriously considered suicide in the past year, and 25% less likely to have made a suicide plan in the last year.

The work is first study in the United States to look at the connection between identification documents and improvements in multiple measures of mental health, including suicidal thoughts. A previous study from Canada found that, among trans men and women living full-time in their gender, having updated documentation lowered suicide thoughts and attempts.

"The process, costs, and restrictions associated with updating identification documents vary from state to state," said Scheim. "These roadblocks prevent many people from getting the documents they need."

In addition to benefits in social interactions, such as ordering a drink in a bar, having ID is typically required to receive health care, obtain employment, open a bank account and other aspects of life. The process for changing identification documents can vary greatly.

California Rep. Ro Khana recently introduced a bill championed by transgender rights groups that would allow an unspecified or "X" option on a passport, in addition to the "M" or "F" genders currently listed. If the bill becomes law, this option would be available to any U.S. citizens identifying as nonbinary or intersex, even if their home state does not allow the X option on driver's license or other state issued IDs.

Although previous studies have looked into how medical gender affirmation procedures, such as hormones and surgery, impact mental health, very little is known about how legal identification affects mental health.

"Having accurate identification should be a fundamental human right. While many of us take it for granted, obtaining IDs can be very difficult for trans people," Scheim said. "This is an area where tangible and relatively simple policy changes could aid public health."

The researchers note that psychological distress and suicidal thoughts might have made it more difficult for participants to obtain updated identification, rather than the lack of identification leading to the poor mental health. Despite this limitation, the study's data comes from the largest sample of trans adults ever surveyed and controls for other factors that could contribute to the connection between identification and mental health.

In light of this finding, the authors advocate for reducing or removing the barriers to changing gender and name on forms of identification, or possibly even removing the mention of gender.

"Beyond reducing barriers to changing gender and name on ID, we should be asking why gender needs to be indicated on photo ID at all," Scheim said. "Including this attribute serves no clear purpose for identifying people -- that's what the photo is for."

DURHAM, N.C. -- Chronic exposure to microplastic fibers causes aneurysms, erosion of surface layers and other serious damage to fish gills, and increases egg production in female fish, a sign that chemicals in the fibers may be acting as endocrine disruptors, a new study by U.S. and Chinese scientists finds.

The minuscule fibers, which are made of polyester, polypropylene and other types of plastics, are shed or washed off of synthetic textiles used in clothing and other consumer and industrial products. Once shed, they enter wastewater and accumulate in oceans, rivers and lakes worldwide, accounting for more than 90% of microplastic pollution in some areas.

"Past field studies have shown that many fish eat large quantities of the fibers every day but have protective mechanisms within the gut that seem to be preventing damage," said David E. Hinton, Nicholas Distinguished Professor of Environmental Quality at Duke University. "But when you extend your study down to the tissue and cellular levels, as we did, harmful changes are observed."

"In addition to the fibers that fish eat, hundreds or thousands of microfibers also pass through their gills each day, and we find that this is where much of the damage occurs," said Melissa Chernick, a researcher in Hinton's lab at Duke's Nicholas School of the Environment.

The team published its peer-reviewed findings March 9 in the open-access journal PLoS ONE.

Fish exposed to high levels of microfibers in their tank water for 21 days exhibited aneurysms, fused membranes and increased mucus production in their gills as well as significant changes to the epithelial cells lining their gills and other effects.

"There were severe changes, and a lot of them. And each change can affect respiration," Chernick said. "If you're a fish in the wild with gill damage and you're in a low-oxygen environment or being chased by a predator, you're in trouble. The same goes if you're competing with other fish for food. Just having these damages would cause you to be less competitive."

Though the gut itself seems to be protected from similar damage, the new study finds that when microplastic fibers are in the gut, they may release chemical coatings that are taken up into the fish's bloodstream.

The researchers are still working to identify these chemicals and determine their impacts, but one troubling effect has already been observed. Female fish exposed to fibers containing polypropylene produced more eggs over time, suggesting that chemicals that may be leaching from the microfibers are acting as endocrine disruptors.

Worldwide, nearly six million tons of synthetic fibers such as polyester or polypropylene were produced in 2016. These textiles shed microfibers during washing or regular use. A single garment can shed nearly 2,000 microfibers per wash, Chernick noted, and because wastewater treatment plants aren't equipped to remove the fibers, they escape into downstream surface waters and accumulate in the environment. They can also enter the environment through sewage release, stormwater runoff or atmospheric deposition.

"Even if they are released miles from the ocean, they can work their way down there. So they affect both freshwater and marine organisms," Hinton said.

Hinton and Chernick conducted the new study with Lingling Hu of Zhejiang University of Technology in China, and Lee Ferguson and Anne Lewis of Duke. Ferguson is an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, ecotoxicology and environmental health. Lewis is a doctoral candidate in civil and environmental engineering.

To conduct the research, they placed 27 breeding pairs of healthy Japanese medaka fish (Oryzias latipes) in water tanks with high levels of suspended microplastic fibers. They monitored fish weights, egg production, and ingestion and egestion of fibers - how much fiber went in, how much was excreted out - weekly. After 21 days, they examined the fish's tissues to see what changes, if any, had occurred. Tank water was changed weekly and stored for chemical analysis, to determine what dyes or additives had been released.

"Microplastic pollution is an environmental threat that poses increasing risks for species and ecosystems worldwide," Chernick said. "Until now, most studies have focused primarily on looking for the presence of plastics in animals, without identifying what the effects on various tissues might be. But that's exactly where our study suggests the science needs to go."

Stimulating immune cells with two cancer immunotherapies together can shrink the size of the viral "reservoir" in SIV-infected non-human primates treated with antiviral drugs, researchers have concluded. The reservoir includes immune cells that harbor virus despite potent antiviral drug treatment.

The findings, reported in Nature Medicine, have important implications for the quest to cure HIV, because reservoir shrinkage has not been achieved consistently before. However, the combination treatment does not prevent or delay viral rebound once antiviral drugs are stopped - illustrating how difficult achieving a cure will be. Monkeys infected with SIV (simian immunodeficiency virus) are considered to be the best model for HIV infection in animals.

"It's a glass-half-full situation," says senior author Mirko Paiardini, PhD. "We concluded that immune checkpoint blockade, even a very effective combination, is unlikely to achieve viral remission as a standalone treatment during antiretroviral therapy."

He adds that the approach may have greater potential if combined with other immune-stimulating agents. Or it could be deployed at a different point -- when the immune system is engaged in fighting the virus, creating a target-rich environment. Other HIV/AIDS researchers have started to test those tactics, he says.

Paiardini is an associate professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at Emory University School of Medicine and a researcher at Yerkes National Primate Research Center. The study was performed in collaboration with co-authors Shari Gordon and David Favre at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and GlaxoSmithKline; Katharine Bar at the University of Pennsylvania; and Jake Estes at Oregon Health & Science University.

"This was a very complex study and we are especially thankful to veterinarians and animal care staff," Paiardini adds.

Although antiviral drugs are available that can suppress HIV to the point of being undetectable in blood, the virus embeds itself in the DNA of immune cells, frustrating efforts to root it out. Only two individuals have ever achieved what their doctors consider a durable cure, and they went through a bone-marrow transplant for leukemia or lymphoma -- not widely applicable.

Paiardini and his colleagues reasoned that chronic viral infection and cancer produce similar states of "exhaustion": immune cells (T cells) that could fight virus or cancer are present, but unable to respond. In long-term HIV or SIV infection, T cells harboring the virus display receptors that make them targets for checkpoint inhibitors, cancer immunotherapy drugs that are designed to counteract the exhausted state. In the context of HIV infection, these types of drugs have been tested to a limited extent in people living with HIV who were being treated for cancer.

In the Nature Medicine paper, the researchers used monkey biosimilar versions of ipilimumab and nivolumab, which block the inhibitory receptors CTLA-4 and PD-1, respectively. In monkeys that received both CTLA-4- and PD-1-blocking agents, researchers observed a stronger activation of T cells, compared to only PD-1 blockade. DNA sequencing of viruses in the blood revealed that a broader range of viruses were reactivated with the combination, compared to single checkpoint inhibitors.

"We observed that combining CTLA-4- and PD-1 blockade was effective in reactivating the virus from latency and making it visible to the immune system," Paiardini says.

In previous studies, limited shrinkage of the viral reservoir has been seen only inconsistently with single checkpoint inhibitors or other immune-stimulating agents. Only combination-treated animals showed a consistently measurable and significant reduction in the size of the viral reservoir. This was measured with "DNAscope", an imaging technique to visualize infected cells within tissues, and by measuring the frequency of CD4 T cells, the main targets of HIV and SIV, harboring intact viral DNA.

Despite this effect, once antiviral drugs were stopped, the virus still came back to the same level in combination-treated animals.

"We believe this is due to having much less viral antigens around after long-term antiretroviral therapy, compared with the situation in cancer," says Justin Harper, lab manager and first author of the paper. "This makes much more difficult for the immune system to recognize and kill those cells."

A note of caution: the equivalent combination of CTLA-4 and PD-1 blockade in humans has been tested in the context of cancer treatment. While the two drug types can be more effective together, patients sometimes experience adverse side effects: severe inflammation, kidney damage, or liver damage.

In the Nature Medicine paper, the combination-treated animals did not experience comparable adverse events, the researchers reported. Further investigation is necessary to determine whether the combination of checkpoint inhibitors exhibits an acceptable toxicity profile in people living with HIV without cancer.

Inflamed tensions between India and Pakistan over the Kashmir region have raised concerns about the potential for a limited nuclear war between the two countries. But a new study combining climate, agriculture and economic models finds that the repercussions would extend far beyond the region, producing a decade of global cooling and a severe decline in crop production that would compromise global food security. 

The study, led by a University of Chicago scientist, is the first to refine simplistic Cold War-era estimates of global climate and agricultural consequences of a nuclear conflict. Its results show how a sudden change in climate would cause severe crop losses, and an interdependent world economy would exacerbate the effect of regional conflict, causing a global crisis. 

The scenario exceeds any food system shock seen in modern history, said first author Jonas Jägermeyr, a postdoctoral researcher in UChicago's Department of Computer Science and NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

"Sudden cooling is actually more harmful to global crop production than the same amount of anthropogenic warming," Jägermeyr said. "It primarily hits the northern breadbasket regions, while basically happening overnight compared to a gradual, long-term, systemic climate change where societies have potential for adaptation. In this case, cooling happens within a year, and we don't have the capacity to roll out new varieties of crops to adapt to a changed environment."

The study, published March 16 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, simulated the worldwide indirect consequences from the use of nuclear weapons and the release of massive amounts of fire-related soot into the Earth's atmosphere. With an estimate of 5 million tons of soot entering the stratosphere and blocking sunlight, climate models predict an average worldwide decline in temperature of 1.8 Celsius degrees and an 8% drop in precipitation. This sudden climate change would take 10 to 15 years to return to normal, the authors found. This period of cooling would also only delay, not undo, climate change; after a decade, global warming would surge again.

That abrupt cooling would wreak havoc on global agriculture, models showed. Maize, wheat, soybeans and rice--the world's staple food crops--all show significant declines, with maize and wheat yields both decreasing by over 10% for the first five years. The agricultural impact is most severe in high-latitude regions such as the United States, Europe, China and Russia, causing an alarming "multiple breadbasket failure." There, lower temperatures would mean plants struggle to reach maturity before fall frost events begin, causing widespread crop failure, the authors reported. 

"The impact is very stark," Jägermeyr said. "It would be the largest anomaly ever recorded, larger than the Dust Bowl event in the '30s and exceeding the impact from the largest volcanic eruptions in modern history."

In order to simulate how these agricultural losses would affect global food security, the study added in models of economic trade. While food reserves would absorb some of the impact of crop shortages in the short term, sustained losses eventually deplete these stores and reduce export of food to countries in the "Global South" reliant upon trade to feed their population. By year four after the nuclear conflict, 132 of 153 countries -- a total population of 5 billion people -- would experience food shortages above 10%, the study found.

With such a foreboding projection, the study could inspire further nuclear mitigation at a time of expiring treaties and heightened military spending. In contrast to the global nuclear war scenarios studied in the 20th century, the research emphasizes that even a localized exchange of nuclear weapons could be catastrophic for people around the world. 

"As horrible as the direct effects of nuclear weapons would be, more people could die outside the target areas due to famine, simply because of indirect climatic effects," said co-author Alan Robock at Rutgers University. "Nuclear proliferation continues, and there is a de facto nuclear arms race in South Asia. Investigating the global impacts of a nuclear war is therefore--unfortunately--not at all a Cold War issue."