Earth

Researchers at Lund University in Sweden, in collaboration with colleagues in Dresden, Germany, have developed a way of combining a bone substitute and drugs to regenerate bone and heal severe fractures in the thigh or shin bone. The study, published in the research journal Science Advances, was conducted on rats, but the researchers think that the method in various combinations will soon be commonplace in clinical settings.

"The drugs and materials we used in the study for the regeneration of bone are already approved. We simply packaged them in a new combination. Therefore, there are no real obstacles to already using the method in clinical studies for certain major bone defects that are difficult to resolve in patients. But we want to introduce the technique in a controlled form via clinical studies and have recently been granted ethical approval", says Deepak Raina, orthopaedics researcher and the lead author of the study.

Bones in the human body have a fantastic ability to repair injury, but some defects are so large or complicated that the healing process is delayed or absent. This may be due to the bone having been subjected to a major trauma in connection with a traffic accident for example, or a tumour or infection causing a major bone defect. These cases are currently treated through bone transplantation, usually with bone taken from the patient's own pelvis.

"In cases involving severe open fractures in the lower leg, over 5 per cent of all fractures fail to heal. With our method, we will be able to avoid taking bone from the pelvis, which is a major gain for the patient."

There is a need for new solutions and several research teams, both in Europe and in the USA, are working on improving the bone healing process. So far, the injectable cocktail successfully mixed by the Swedish and German researchers consists of three different components: an artificial ceramic material developed in Lund, a bioactive bone protein (rhBMP-2) and a drug, bisphosphonate, that combats bone resorption.

"The bone protein we use has had negative effects in previous studies due to a secondary premature bone resorption, among other things. We have successfully mitigated this effect with the bisphosphonate and, by packaging the drug in a slowly resorbing bone substitute, we can control the speed of release. In the current study with the combination, we achieved a six-fold reduction in the amount of protein compared to previous efforts, while still inducing bone formation. The result was that even fractures with an extensive bone defect could heal without complications. We believe this finding will be of great clinical use in the future", says Deepak Raina.

The Messina Strait, a submarine bridge separating the island of Sicily from the Italian Peninsula, is the area with the largest marine litter density worldwide -more than a million objects per square kilometre in some parts-, as reported in a new review paper published in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Also, over the next thirty years, the volume of rubbish in the sea could surpass three billion metric tons (Mt), as cited in the study, whose corresponding authors are the experts Miquel Canals, from the Faculty of Earth Sciences of the University of Barcelona, and Georg Hanke from the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC), where scientists carry out research in order to provide independent scientific advice and support to EU policies.

Led by the University of Barcelona, this paper gathers the results of the scientific meeting on macrolitter that took place in May 2018, promoted by the European Commission's Joint Research Centre (JRC) and the German Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI). A team of twenty-five scientists from across the world treated issues such as data needs, methodologies, harmonisation and needs for further development.

The study provides a synthesis of current knowledge on human-sourced materials lying on the seafloor and goes through the methodologies to improve future studies, "highlighting the need to understand litter occurrence, distribution and quantities in order to provide insight for appropriate (policy) measures", notes Georg Hanke, who adds that "the paper also shows the need to employ new methodologies -i.e. imaging approaches- to cover areas that had not been considered previously, and provides tools to enable quantitative assessments such as those under the EU Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD)".

Among other signatories of the article are experts from the University of Açores (Portugal), Alfred Wegener Institute (Germany), Utrecht University (Netherlands), the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research (Norway), the Secretariat of the Barcelona Convention on the protection of the Mediterranean Sea, Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI, California, United States), the Institute for Global Change of the Japan Agency for Marine Earth Science and Technology Research (JAMSTEC, Japan), IFREMER (France) and Oxford University (United Kingdom), among other institutions.

When litter arrives before humans do

The ocean floor is increasingly accumulating marine litter. Whereas the largest seafloor litter hotspots -likely in the deep sea- are still to be found, plastics have already been found in the deepest point on Earth, the Mariana Trench -at a depth of 10,900 meters- in the Pacific Ocean. In some cases, litter concentrations reach densities comparable to large landfills, experts warn.

Despite the scientific community efforts, "the extent of marine litter on our seas and oceans is not yet fully known. The marine regions most affected by this problem are in landlocked and semi-enclosed seas, coastal bottoms, marine areas under the influence of large river mouths, and places with high fishing activity, even far from land", says Professor Miquel Canals, head of the Consolidated Research Group on Marine Geosciences at UB.

Canals highlights that "the level of waste treatment in coastal countries is decisive: the less treatment -or the more deficient-, the more waste reaching the ocean, and therefore, the ocean floor, which is a problem that affects specially third world countries".

The long journey of litter to seafloor

Plastics, fishing gears, metal, glass, ceramics, textiles and paper are the most abundant materials in seafloor litter hotspots. Geomorphological features, the submarine relief and the nature of the seafloor determine the distribution of litter items on the seabed. Ocean dynamics, --that is, processes such as dense water cascades, ocean currents and storms-- ease the transport and dispersal of litter across the ocean, from coasts to abyssal plains, thousands of meters deep. However, these factors do not occur in all ocean ecosystems and also vary over time and in intensity where they take place.

Due to a gravitational effect, light waste is usually transported along and into marine regions where dense currents flow --i.e. submarine canyons and other submarine valleys-- and where flow lines concentrate, such as nearby large submarine reliefs. Finally, materials transported by ocean dynamics accumulate in depressions and quiet marine areas.

The properties of materials dumped in the marine environment also affect their dispersion and accumulation on the ocean floor. It is estimated that 62% of the dirt accumulated on seabeds is made of plastics, "which is relatively light and easy to transport over long distances. On the other hand, heavy objects such as barrels, cables or nets are usually left at the point where they are initially fell or got entangled", says Canals.

Litter drowns marine life

Litter is a new threat to marine biodiversity. It is already known that nearly 700 marine species, 17% of which are on the IUCN red list, have been affected by this problem in several ways. Seabed entangled fishing gears can cause serious ecological impacts for decades because of ghost fishing. The slow decomposition of fishing nets -usually made of high-strength polymers- aggravates the detrimental effects of this type of waste on the marine ecosystem.

Other human activities -dredging, trawling, etc.- trigger secondary dispersal by remobilization and fragmentation of seafloor litter. In addition, seabed waste concentrations can easily trap other objects, thus generating larger and larger litter accumulations. It is paradoxical that waste may increase the heterogeneity of the substrate, which can benefit some organisms. Some xenobiotic compounds -pesticides, herbicides, pharmaceuticals, heavy metals, radioactive substances, etc.- associated to litter are highly resistant to degradation and endanger marine life. However, the extent of the effects of litter on the habitats of the vast expanses of the deep ocean still is a chapter to be written by the scientific community.

"In the Mediterranean Sea -says Miquel Canals- seafloor marine litter already is a serious ecological problem. In some places of the Catalan coast, there are large accumulations of waste. When there are strong storms, such as Gloria, in January 2020, waves throw this waste on the beach. Some beaches in the country were literally paved with rubbish, thus showing to which extent the coastal seabed is littered. There are also noticeable concentrations of waste in some submarine canyons outside Catalonia".

Robotic technology for large depths

Beach litter and floating garbage can be identified and monitored by simple, low-cost methods. In contrast, the study of seafloor litter is a technological challenge, the complexity of which increases with water depth and remoteness of the marine area to be investigated. The study reviews both methodologies allowing physical sampling of seafloor waste and in situ observations.

New technologies have enabled major advances in the study of the environmental status of the seabed worldwide. The use of unmanned remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) is critical for in situ observation, despite the limitations for physical sampling. Classic technologies such as bottom trawling also have limitations, as they do not allow determining the precise location of the bottom-sampled objects. "Future methodologies should aim at easing the comparison of scientific data from different places. It should also be easier for observation and sampling efforts to generate consistent data sets, something that we are still far from achieving", says Canals.

Avoiding excess waste generation to take care of the planet

Knowledge and data about seafloor litter are necessary for the implementation of the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and other international policy frameworks, including global agreements. The publication shows how research on seafloor macrolitter can inform these international protection and conservation frameworks to prioritize efforts and measures against marine litter and its deleterious impacts.

The authors warn about the need to promote specific policies to minimize such a serious environmental problem. The study also addresses the debate on the removal of litter from the seabed, a management option that should be safe and efficient. In relation to this, the Joint Research Centre (JRC) is co-chairing the MSFD Technical Group on Marine Litter, which provides an information exchange and discussion platform to provide agreed guidance for MSFD implementation.

"Marine litter has reached the most remote places in the ocean, even the least (or never) frequented by our species and not yet mapped by science," says Miquel Canals. "In order to correct something bad, we must attack its cause. And the cause of the accumulation of waste on the coasts, seas and oceans, and all over the planet, is the excess waste generation and spillage in the environment, and poor or insufficient management practices. As humans, we have little or no care at all to prevent litter from accumulating everywhere".

The psychological well-being of both men and women declined when Denmark closed down during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic in the spring of 2020 - with women being hit the hardest. But during the second wave, it is the other way round in terms of gender: The psychological well-being of men and women is generally low, but it has fallen most in men.

This is shown in a survey conducted by Søren Dinesen Østergaard, among others. He is professor at the Department of Clinical Medicine and affiliated with the Department of Affective Disorders at Aarhus University Hospital - Psychiatry in Denmark.

The survey is the latest of three assessments of Danes' psychological well-being during the pandemic. The first survey was carried out during the spring shutdown, the second at the end of April after the level of infection had fallen, and the third and recently published survey during the period from 20 November to 8 December last year. The results of the three surveys have been published in the journal Acta Neuropsychiatrica.

"We see that men's psychological well-being is lower in the November-December measurement than it was during the spring lockdown, while the trend has gone in the opposite direction for women," says Søren Dinesen Østergaard.

The 5-item WHO well-being index (WHO-5) is used as a screening tool by, e.g., general practitioners, to assess whether a patient should be further examined for depression. The responses to the five questions in the WHO-5 result in a total score between 0 and 100 - with a higher score indicating higher psychological well-being. If the score is below 50, the probability of depression is substantial.

Søren Dinesen Østergaard explains that the average WHO-5 score in the November-December survey had decreased by just under 4 points for men and 2.5 points for women since the (second) assessment at the end of April. Compared to the first assessment at the end of March/beginning of April, during the peak of the first wave, the psychological well-being has risen slightly, with just under 1.5 points, for women, while it has fallen correspondingly for men. However, there are still more women with scores below 50 on the WHO in the November-December assessment - 27 per cent of women compared to 23 per cent of men.

"Of course, we cannot know for sure that the course of the corona pandemic is the cause of the variations we see in the psychological well-being. But the results fit this explanation. The onset of winter may, however, also play a role," he adds. He points out that it is established that the number of Danes who are diagnosed with depression increases significantly after the transition to winter time. He emphasizes that as it is primarily women who experience seasonal variations in mood, this explanation does not fit well with the fact that the decline in psychological well-being during the second wave of the corona pandemic is greatest among men.

"The gender difference in our results is interesting, but we cannot determine the underlying mechanisms based on the data at hand. Perhaps it has to do with uncertainties related to employment. The job market has been negatively affected by the pandemic, especially the private sector, which occupies more men than women, so perhaps it is a question of men worrying more about their employment prospects and their family's economic situation than women. This is something we will try to address in the next round of the survey," he says.

Climate researchers have found a simple but efficient way to improve estimations of ultimate global warming from complex climate models. The finding is relevant for the evaluation and comparison of climate models and thus for accurate projections of future climate change - especially beyond the year 2100. The study is published in Geophysical Research Letters by Dr. Robbin Bastiaansen and colleagues at the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, Utrecht University, The Netherlands. The work is part of the European TiPES project coordinated by the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.

Complex climate models are rarely used to simulate the effect of global warming for a given amount of CO2 beyond a couple of centuries into the future. The reason for this is twofold. First, even on a supercomputer, such a model must already run for months to obtain a 150-year projection; reaching the end of a long simulation is therefore not practical. Second, policymakers are mainly concerned about how much climate change a given amount of CO2 will cause within the coming decades.

Earth warms for more than 1000 years

In the real world, however, temperatures continue to go up for more than a thousand years after CO2 is added to the Earth system. A typical climate model simulation therefore estimates less than half of the summed global warming. That is a challenge because, in order to improve models, it is necessary to compare and evaluate models. The final global mean temperature from a given amount of CO2 is an important parameter in the evaluation of a model.

The traditional way of solving this problem is to take the two most predominant results (called observables) from the simulation of the first 150 years and use these to estimate at which global mean surface temperature a full simulation would have ended. The two observables most often used are the global mean surface temperature and the radiation imbalance at the top of the atmosphere. This leads to a rather good estimation but the approach introduces considerable uncertainty - mainly underestimating total global warming.

More accurate estimates

However, an advanced climate model produces a multitude of other data on, for example future ocean currents, weather patterns, sea ice extend, ground color, climate belts, precipitation, and many more.

"And what we did, was add another observable on top of the two traditional ones. That is the idea. If you use additional observables, you will improve estimates over longer time scales. And our work is proof that this is possible," explains Dr. Robbin Bastiaansen.

In the best-case scenario, the new method halved the uncertainty compared to traditional methods.

The work is expected to be useful in assessing tipping points in the Earth system, as studied in the TiPES project, funded by the EU Horizon 2020.

Scientists from the Joint Institute for High Temperatures Russian Academy of Sciences (JIHT RAS) and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) have experimentally confirmed the presence of an intermediate phase between the crystalline and liquid states in a monolayer dusty plasma system. The theoretical prediction of the intermediate - hexatic - phase was honoured with the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2016: the prize was awarded to Michael Kosterlitz, David Thouless and Duncan Haldane with the formulation "for theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter."

In a scientific article in the journal Scientific Reports, the JIHT RAS scientists published their observations and detailed descriptions of experiments, during which they first observed the hexatic phase in two-dimensional structures in plasma. The paper describes methods for accurately identifying phase transition points and presents a detailed analysis of the structural properties of such a system. The data obtained during the experiment are fully consistent with the Berezinsky-Kosterlitz-Thouless theory.

"Our design of experiment makes it possible to clearly observe a two-stage process of crystal melting and to identify the points of the phase transition "solid-hexatic phase " and "hexatic phase-liquid," said Ph.D. Elena Vasilieva, the senior researcher in Laboratory of Dusty Plasma Diagnostics, JIHT RAS. "The long time of the experiment, sufficient to establish a stationary state of the system, in combination with precise methods of controlling the temperature of particles, made it possible to smoothly change the parameters of the system and "catch" the hexatic phase."

According to Elena Vasilieva, despite the existence of the Berezinsky-Kosterlitz-Thouless theory for more than 40 years, which predicts two-stage melting from a crystal to a liquid phase with the formation of an intermediate hexatic phase, it has not yet been possible to study these processes in laboratory plasma systems. Two-dimensional transitions have already been observed in polymer colloids, magnetic bubbles in thin films, liquid crystals, and superconductors, but there has been no experimental evidence of two-stage melting in dusty plasmas for a long time.

"Our experiment was successful due to a number of factors. For example, we used an unconventional approach to form a monolayer dusty system, namely we used particles with a metal surface that are capable of absorbing laser radiation and converting it into the energy of their own motion. The particle system had a long time for relaxation before recording the experimental series. In addition, a homogeneous laser beam was used to uniformly influence the structure and its precise heating," commented Oleg Petrov, the director of the Joint Institute for High Temperatures Russian Academy of Sciences.

The study of the physical properties of two-dimensional systems is of great practical importance. Such research is now rapidly developing, promising in the future new materials with desired properties and devices based on them in microelectronics, medicine for DNA sequencing, etc.

The results presented in the article were obtained with the support of the Russian Science Foundation in the framework of the project "Active Brownian motion of Coulomb particles in plasma and superfluid helium."

The synthetic chemicals known as PFAS, short for perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are found in soil and groundwater where they have accumulated, posing risks to human health ranging from respiratory problems to cancer.

New research from the University of Houston and Oregon State University published in Environmental Science and Technology Letters suggests why these "forever chemicals" - so called because they can persist in the environment for decades - are so difficult to permanently remove and offers new avenues for better remediation practices.

The work focused on the interactions sparked when firefighters use firefighting foam, which contains PFAS, to combat fires involving jet fuel, diesel or other hydrocarbon-based fuels. Firefighter training sites are well-documented sources of PFAS pollution.

Konstantinos Kostarelos, a researcher with UH Energy and corresponding author for the work, said the interactions form a viscous water-in-oil microemulsion, which chemical analysis determined retains a high level of the PFAS.

Unlike many emulsions of oil and liquid, which separate into their component parts over time, these microemulsions - comprised of liquids from the firefighting foam and the hydrocarbon-based fuel - retain their composition, Kostarelos said. "It behaves like a separate phase: the water phase, oil phase and the microemulsion phase. And the microemulsion phase encapsulates these PFAS."

Experimental trials that simulate the subsurface determined about 80% of PFAS were retained in the microemulsions when they flow through the soil, he said. "If they passed through easily, they wouldn't have been so persistent over the course of decades."

Produced during the post-World War II chemical boom, PFAS are found in consumer products ranging from anti-stain treatments to Teflon and microwave popcorn bags, in addition to firefighting foam. They were prized because they resist heat, oil and water - traditional methods of removing or breaking down chemicals - as a result of the strong bond between the carbon and fluorine atoms that make up PFAS molecules.

They have been the target of lawsuits and regulatory actions, and new chemical formulations have shortened their half-life.

In the meantime, the toxic legacy of the older formulations continues to resist permanent remediation. Kostarelos said the new understanding of microemulsion formation will help investigators better identify the source of the contamination, as well as stimulate new methods for clean-up efforts.

"It's very viscous," he said. "That's very useful information for designing a way to recover the microemulsion."

CORVALLIS, Ore. - Tiny amounts of gender bias in employee hiring decisions contribute to concerning rates of discrimination and productivity losses that together represent significant costs, financial and otherwise, for employers, a new study from Oregon State University has found.

Gender bias is a subtle, unintentional preference for one gender over the other. Despite significant efforts to reduce bias in hiring over the last several decades, it continues to persist and pose potential problems for companies, said Jay Hardy, an assistant professor of management in OSU's College of Business and lead author of the study.

"The research has long shown bias exists. This study shows that it matters," Hardy said. "When carried through the hiring decision-making process, tiny amounts of bias will balloon into a high probability of discriminatory hiring outcomes in the eyes of the law, which also has important financial consequences for companies that end up hiring less-qualified candidates.

"The message of this study is that you can't ignore gender bias, even if you think its influence is so small as to not be concerning. Society generally recognizes bias as a moral issue, but we are now learning the extent to which it is a financial and strategic issue, as well."

The findings were published today in the Journal of Management. Co-authors on the paper are Richard Martell and Andy Olstad of Oregon State and Kian Siong Tey, Wilson Cyrus-Lai and Eric Luis Uhlmann of INSEAD, one of the world's largest graduate business schools, with locations in Europe, Asia, the Middle East and North America.

Hardy's research focuses on areas of human resources, including employee recruitment and selection and systematic bias in hiring. His goal for the study was to better understand the effects gender bias in hiring might have for employers.

"Bias is a problem ingrained in us. It is systematic," Hardy said. "It's not typically about bad intent. It is a natural response of human beings to make sense of our complex world by taking mental shortcuts. However, these cognitive shortcuts can have big consequences for us when high stakes rewards like a sought-after job are on the line. Our goal is to better understand it so we can find solutions."

Hardy and his colleagues first reviewed about 30 years of studies on gender bias and hiring in the workplace. The good news is that there appears to be less gender bias effect than there used to be. A couple of decades ago, gender bias influenced about 4% of hires. Today bias influences 1% or possibly fewer hires, Hardy said.

"The science shows that the effects of gender bias on hiring are very small," Hardy said. "In broad strokes, it seems like hiring decisions are actually pretty fair - certainly more fair than they used to be."

To better understand the impact this bias has and what it means for companies, Hardy and his colleagues ran a series of computer simulations. The researchers found that even a small amount of bias in hiring decisions can lead to discriminatory action against job candidates, putting companies at risk of costly legal action. They also found that biased hiring decisions can be costly for companies because a less-qualified candidate may not be successful in the position.

For example, a typical Fortune 500 company that hires 8,000 new employees a year with a 1% gender bias effect can expect 32 additional failed hires and many more sub-optimal hiring decisions, resulting in productivity losses of about $2.8 million per year. A 4% bias effect would lead to an additional 192 failed hires and an additional $17 million in lost productivity.

The study focused specifically on gender, but Hardy said it is likely that other types of bias would have similar or even bigger impacts. Past research has demonstrated that racial bias effects in hiring are much larger than they are for gender, so it is reasonable to think there would be more discrimination and more costs for employers as a result, he said.

"My estimates for gender bias were conservative and my simulations modeled near-optimal hiring conditions, so the impact of gender bias is likely to be higher in many real-world hiring contexts than my study indicates," Hardy said.

Hardy and his colleagues also simulated the impacts of some common methods for reducing gender bias in hiring, such as targeted recruiting efforts to build a bigger pool of female candidates, and found those methods still pose challenges.

"The targeted recruitment of highly qualified candidates can increase representation, but if you're not fixing the underlying bias problem, these methods do not address discrimination and can lead to other issues, including employee dissatisfaction," Hardy said.

Companies looking to reduce gender bias in their hiring processes should look for ways to remove human judgments from the process as much as possible, Hardy said. Interviews are one of the most common but least objective hiring tools, he noted. Future work by Hardy will further explore how to address bias in hiring and other employment decisions.

"Hiring is always going to be an imperfect process because human beings are complicated," Hardy said. "But the gold standard for any hiring manager should be to be as objective as possible in the hiring process."

New high-resolution structures of the bacterial ribosome determined by researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago show that a single water molecule may be the cause -- and possible solution -- of antibiotic resistance.

The findings of the new UIC study are published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

Pathogenic germs become resistant to antibiotics when they develop the ability to defeat the drugs designed to kill them. Each year in the U.S., millions of people suffer from antibiotic-resistant infections, and thousands of people die as a result.

Developing new drugs is a key way the scientific community is trying to reduce the impact of antibiotic resistance.

"The first thing we need to do to make improved drugs is to better understand how antibiotics work and how 'bad bugs' become resistant to them," said Alexander Mankin, professor of pharmaceutical sciences at the UIC College of Pharmacy and co-author of the paper.

Mankin and his colleague, Yury Polikanov, associate professor of biological sciences at the UIC College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, have been studying the mechanism of action of one of the most popular types of antibiotics used in the clinic today -- macrolides.

"Macrolides are among the most successful antibiotics that are commonly used to treat infections that spread in the community -- people get macrolide antibiotics, like azithromycin, for example, all the time," said Polikanov, the corresponding author of the paper. "Macrolides work by entering bacteria and binding to the ribosomes, the protein synthesis machine of the cell. Once bound, the drug prevents ribosomes from making new proteins, thereby stopping bacteria from growing and replicating. However, resistant bacteria change their ribosomes so that the drug cannot bind to them anymore."

Through years of partnership between their two labs, the UIC researchers were able to understand how macrolides bind to the ribosome, how bacteria respond to macrolides and how they become resistant to these commonly used drugs. They also learned how to capture high-resolution images of the ribosomes invaded by antibiotics.

"We compared the hi-res structures of the ribosomes from sensitive and resistant bacteria and noticed that a water molecule that is needed for the tight antibiotic binding was not present in the ribosomes from the drug-resistant bugs. In the ribosomes from the drug-resistant bacteria, there was simply no room for this water molecule," Polikanov said.

The water molecule, the researchers found, acts as a bridge between the ribosome and antibiotic. When resistant bacteria change the chemical makeup of their ribosomes, this bridge between the ribosome and the drug cannot be built. While the scientific community has long guessed that differences in the structures of the sensitive and resistant ribosomes were important -- why these changes prevent drug action was previously unknown.

"This study offers the first convincing explanation of why macrolides are unable to bind to ribosomes of the resistant bacteria," Mankin said.

"We are very much excited by this discovery," Polikanov said. "Because we now know how exactly macrolide antibiotics interact with their target, the ribosome. This discovery is important because it will inform and facilitate the development of new antibiotics that do not need this water molecule for binding. There is a huge demand for such drugs that are able to kill even those bacteria that became resistant to the currently used drugs."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, parents have been faced with challenging circumstances to balance work, household, care of children and support of distance learning for school-age children without help from their regular support systems such as schools, childcare, and often other family members as well. A new longitudinal study in Germany examined day-to-day parenting behavior during the restrictions and closures caused by the pandemic from the end of March until the end of April 2020. Research showed that autonomy-supportive parenting (offering meaningful choices when possible) contributed to positive well-being for both children and parents.

The findings were published in a Child Development article written by researchers at DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education and the Center for Research on Individual and Adaptive Education of Children at Risk (IDeA) in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.

"We explored whether or not autonomy-supportive parental behavior would facilitate adaptation and better child well-being. We also explored whether such parenting behavior helps to create a positive emotional climate that benefits parents as well as children," said Andreas B. Neubauer, postdoctoral research scientist at DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education. "Findings suggest autonomy-supportive parenting behavior is positively associated both with better child well-being and higher parental need fulfillment." According to the authors, such parenting behavior requires parental energy and vitality but also reciprocally contributes to it.

Participants for the online study were recruited via social media, a press release, and contacts to school and parent-teacher associations. The study assessed parents of school children using online questionnaires over three weeks through the following methods:

970 parents filled in an online questionnaire after which they could opt to enroll in a second part of the study (562 parents participated).

Through the second part of the study, for three consecutive weeks, parents (predominantly female and well-educated) received 21 daily online questionnaires with questions such as "As far as possible, I let my child decide today what he or she wanted to do" or "As far as possible, my child was able to do what he or she liked today." They also received a final questionnaire after the three weeks.

Parents were asked about their parenting behavior, the extent to which their psychological needs were fulfilled and their child's well-being.

Additionally, parents were asked about their own well-being, their perceptions of the family climate and their child's behavior once before the 21-day period and once again after the 21 days.

"Our findings from the daily questionnaires suggest that autonomy supportive parenting is beneficial for the well-being of both children and parents," said Florian Schmiedek, professor, and head of the cognitive development unit at DIPF | Leibniz Institute for Research and Information in Education. "Helping parents in their daily parental behavior choices might be an effective way to improve the family climate and child wellbeing in a crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic."

The authors recognize several limitations within the present study: only one aspect of autonomy-supported parentings was assessed ("choice within limits"), the questionnaire had previously only been used in adolescents, the reports were only obtained from the perspective of predominantly female parents, and a daily low compliance rate (however this was considered adequate given the demanding time period).

Philadelphia, January 19, 2021 - Early life experiences can have an outsized effect on brain development and neurobiological health. New research is showing that those effects can be passed down to subsequent generations, reporting that the infant children of mothers who had experienced childhood emotional neglect displayed altered brain circuitry involved in fear responses and anxiety.

The study appears in Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging, published by Elsevier.

"These results show that our brain development is not only shaped by what happens in our own life, but is also impacted by things that happened to our parents before we were even conceived," said lead author of the study, Cassandra Hendrix, PhD, Department of Pyschology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA.

Dr. Hendrix and her colleagues studied 48 Black mother-infant pairs starting in the first trimester of pregnancy. Mothers were given a questionnaire to assess childhood trauma (experiences of early abuse or neglect). The mothers were also evaluated for current, prenatal stress levels, and for anxiety and depression. One month after birth, infants underwent a brain scan using resting-state functional magnetic resonance imaging, a non-invasive technology that could be used while the babies slept naturally.

"These remarkable results leverage our ability to image the brain and its functioning very early in life," said Cameron Carter, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging.

The researchers focused on brain connections between the amygdala, which is central to processing fearful emotions, and two other brain regions: the prefrontal cortex and the anterior cingulate cortex. Both areas play a key role in regulating emotions. Babies whose mothers experienced childhood emotional neglect had stronger functional connections between the amygdala and the cortical regions.

After controlling for mothers' current stress levels, the researchers found that the more emotional neglect a mother had experienced during her own childhood, the more strongly her baby's amygdala was connected to the frontal cortical regions. Physical abuse or neglect of the mother were not correlated with the stronger connectivity. The findings suggest that childhood emotional neglect has intergenerational effects on brain structure and function.

The significance of the stronger connection remains unclear, said Dr. Hendrix. "The neural signature we observed in the 1-month-old infants of emotionally neglected mothers may be a mechanism that leads to increased risk for anxiety, or it could be a compensatory mechanism that promotes resilience in case the infant has less supportive caregivers. In either case, emotional neglect from a mother's own childhood seems to leave behind a neural signature in her baby that may predispose the infant to more readily detect threat in the environment almost from birth. Our findings highlight the importance of emotional support early in life, even for subsequent generations."

"The findings add to evidence of the intergenerational consequences of early life adversity, such as maternal neglect," added Dr. Carter. "Future studies that follow children longitudinally will help us understand the functional significance of these changes in brain function in terms of the emotional and social development of children of mothers who experienced early neglect."

LA JOLLA, CALIF. - Jan 20, 2020 - Scientists have identified two drugs that are potent against acute myeloid leukemia (AML) when combined, but only weakly effective when used alone. The researchers were able to significantly enhance cancer cell death by jointly administering the drugs that are only partially effective when used as single-agent therapies. The study, a collaboration between Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and the University of Glasgow, was recently published in the journal Nature Communications.

"Our study shows that two types of drugs, MDM2 inhibitors and BET inhibitors, work synergistically to promote significant anti-leukemia activity," says Peter Adams, Ph.D., a professor at Sanford Burnham Prebys and senior author of the study. "The results were surprising because previous research had shown that each drug on its own had modest benefit against AML. The new research provides scientific rationale to advance clinical studies of the drug combination in patients with AML."

There are many types of AML, and different cases have different chromosome changes, gene mutations and epigenetic modifications, making it difficult for researchers to find novel therapies that will work for a substantial proportion of patients. Although much progress has been made toward finding effective treatments in recent years, the long-term overall survival has stagnated. According to the American Cancer Society, the five-year survival rate for adults with AML remains less than 30%.

Notably, TP53, the most frequently mutated gene in all human cancers, is found unaltered in about 90% of AML patients. Since the product of the TP53 gene, p53, acts to suppress tumors, scientists have sought drugs that reactivate or boost its anti-cancer powers in AML, which should provide a clinical benefit. However, such drugs on their own have been disappointing in AML.

"We were interested in combining MDM2 and BET inhibitors because each showed encouraging pre-clinical activity, but limited activity when given to patients as a single agent," says Adams. "Previous research had shown that MDM2 inhibitors activate p53, and BET inhibitors suppress genes associated with leukemias--but not p53.

"Our research unexpectedly showed that like MDM2 inhibitors, BET inhibitors activate p53, but through a different pathway. BET inhibitors mute the power of a protein called BRD4, which we found is a p53 suppressor in AML," says Adams. "Between the two drugs, you end up with a 'double whammy' effect that fully unleashes the anti-cancer activity of p53.

"Better therapies for AML are desperately needed," adds Adams. "This study illustrates that targeting BRD4 as part of a combination therapy holds promise for patients diagnosed with this very dangerous disease."

More than 3,000 animal species in the world today are considered endangered, with hundreds more categorized as vulnerable. Currently, ecologists don't have reliable tools to predict when a species may become at risk.

A new paper published in Nature Ecology and Evolution, "Management implications of long transients in ecological systems," focuses on the transient nature of species' and ecosystem stability and illustrates how management practices can be adjusted to better prepare for possible system flips. Some helpful modeling approaches are also offered, including one tool that may help identify potentially endangered populations.

One of the challenges of predicting species at risk is presented when a shift from relative security to vulnerability is that transient risk factors may not be known.

"A species or an ecosystem may seem perfectly stable when it unpredictably becomes vulnerable, even in the absence of an obvious stressor," said Tessa Francis, lead ecosystem ecologist at the Puget Sound Institute, University of Washington Tacoma, managing director of the Ocean Modeling Forum, University of Washington, and lead author of the paper. "In some cases, modeling interactions between species or ecosystem dynamics can help managers identify potential corrective actions to take before the species or system collapses."

Ying-Cheng Lai, a professor of electrical engineering and physics at Arizona State University, focused on the mathematical modeling process of the research.

"The Mexican gray wolf is an example of an endangered species that is experiencing a population resurgence in some areas, yet remains vulnerable in others," said Lai. "The predator-prey relationship between the Mexican gray wolf and elk, mule, white-tailed deer, pronghorn, javelina, rabbits, and other small mammals is an example of how interspecies relationships can affect endangerment. In a general predator-prey relationship, a significant reduction in the prey population can make the predator endangered.

"These kinds of interactions, plus other factors such as the species decay rate, migration, the capacity of the habitat, and random disturbances, are included in the mathematical prediction model," Lai continued, "and it turns out that, more common than usually thought, the system evolution dynamics can just be transient. Transients in ecosystems can be good or bad, and we want to develop control strategies to sustain the good ones and eliminate the bad ones," said Lai.

Alan Hastings, a theoretical ecologist at UC Davis and an external faculty member at the Santa Fe Institute, notes that "As we apply these mathematical models to understanding systems on realistic, ecologic time scales, we unveil new approaches and ideas for adaptive management.

"The goal is to develop management strategies to both extend a positive ecosystems as long as possible and to design recovery systems to support resurgence from vulnerable states," said Hastings. "Over time, as successful predictions are incorporated into the mathematical model, the tool will become more accurate."

But mathematical models are not a panacea, cautions Dr. Francis. "While models can be useful in playing out 'what ifs' and understanding hypothetical consequences of management interventions, just as important is changing the way we view ecosystems and admitting that things are often less stable than they appear."

Young Seychelles warblers fare better if their elderly parents have help raising them, according to new research from the University of East Anglia (UEA) and the University of Groningen.

Seychelles warblers, a cooperatively breeding species of songbird that lives in small family groups, share the care of young between parents and helpers. This collaboration can compensate for a decline in the ability of elderly parents to provide sufficient care, the researchers found. It may also promote more social behaviour in family groups with older parents.

The findings help explain why social species, such as humans, often do better if they live in groups and cooperate to raise offspring.

The study was conducted using data collected on individual Seychelles warblers studied on Cousin Island, a tiny island in the Seychelles, over the last 30 years. The research was led by researchers at UEA and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands, in collaboration with the University of Sheffield and Nature Seychelles.

The paper, 'Helpers compensate for age-related declines in parental care and offspring survival in a cooperatively breeding bird', is published on 19th January 2021 in the journal Evolution Letters.

Prof David S Richardson, from UEA's School of Biological Sciences, is senior author of the paper. He said: "In many animal species, offspring from ageing parents do not survive as well as offspring from younger parents.

"The cooperative nature of Seychelles warblers means care for offspring is often shared between the dominant breeding pair and a variable number of adult subordinate helpers that help with various aspects of rearing, including providing food for the offspring.

"The amount of care that dominant breeders provide is reduced when they are assisted by helpers and this lower parental investment can improve the parents own survival and future reproductive output."

Furthermore, the additional care from helpers reduces offspring mortality. The chances of survival of juvenile offspring declines progressively with age of the mother bird, but these declines are mitigated when helpers are present. This effect does not arise because individual helpers provide more care in response to the lower provisioning of older dominant females, but because older female breeders have recruited more helpers, thereby receiving more overall care for their brood.

Dr Martijn Hammers from the University of Groningen is first author of the study. He said: "Such late-life fitness benefits of breeding cooperatively lead to the prediction that older parents should be more inclined to recruit helpers to improve their both their own survival and that of their offspring."

In the Seychelles warbler, female subordinates are more likely to become a helper and provide more help than males, and the likelihood that female subordinates help increases sharply with age of the dominant female. Therefore, older dominant females may be predicted to produce more female offspring, although this final prediction remains to be tested.

ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- An estimated one in five teenagers has symptoms of a mental health disorder such as depression or anxiety, and suicide is the second leading cause of death among teens.

But the first person a teen confides in may not always be an adult - they may prefer to talk to another teen.

And three-quarters of parents in a new national poll think peers better understand teen challenges, compared to teachers or counselors in the school. The majority also agree that peer support leaders at school would encourage more teens to talk with someone about their mental health problems, according to the C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health at Michigan Medicine.

"Peers may provide valuable support for fellow teens struggling with emotional issues because they can relate to each other," says Mott Poll Co-Director Sarah Clark, M.P.H.

"Some teens may worry that their parents will overreact or not understand what they're going through. Teachers and school counselors may also have limited time to talk with students in the middle of other responsibilities."

Previous research suggests that as many as half of children and teens who have at least one treatable mental health disorder may not receive treatment due to several barriers. But teens who don't have a diagnosed condition may still experience occasional problems with emotions, peer and family relationships, anxiety, academic challenges, substance abuse or other issues negatively impacting self-esteem.

These type of situations may increase risk of developing or triggering depression during tween and teen years, experts say.

Some schools have instituted peer support leaders to give teens safe channels to share problems. Teens who serve as mentors in these programs are trained with oversight from teachers, counselors or mental health professionals. They are available to talk with their fellow students on a walk-in basis at a designated place at school or by referral from school staff.

"We have seen strong examples of school programs that prepare teens to be good listeners and to identify warning signs of suicide or other serious problems," Clark says.

"The peer support mentors' role is to listen, suggest problem solving strategies, share information about resources, and, when appropriate, encourage their fellow student to seek help. The most essential task is to pick up on signs that suggest the student needs immediate attention, and to alert the adults overseeing the program. While this doesn't replace the need for professional support, these programs offer young people a non-threatening way to start working through their problems."

The nationally-representative poll report included responses from 1,000 parents of teens ages 13-18 about their views on programs like peer support leaders.

Weighing Benefits and Concerns of Peer Support

Most parents say they see benefits to peer mentor programs. Thirty-eight percent believe if their own teen was struggling with a mental health problem, their teen would likely talk to a peer support leader and 41% of parents say it's possible their teen would take advantage of this option. Another 21% say it's unlikely their child would seek support from a peer mentor.

However, parents did express some concerns about peers providing mental health support to fellow teens as well. Some worried about whether a peer would keep their teen's information confidential (62%), if the peer leader would know when and how to inform adults about a problem (57%), if the peer leader would be able to tell if their teen needs immediate crisis help (53%), and if teens can be trained to provide this kind of support (47%).

"Some of parents' biggest concerns pertained to whether the peer leader would be able to tell if their teen needed immediate professional intervention and how to initiate those next steps," Clark says.

Despite these concerns, a third of parents still say they "definitely favor" having a peer support leaders program through their teen's school, while 46% say they would probably support such a program.

A quarter of parents also say their teen's school already has some type of peer support program - and these parents are twice as likely to favor such efforts.

"This suggests that parent support increases once they understand how peer support programs work," Clark says. "Most parents agree with the rationale for peer support programs but may be uncertain until they see how they operate and benefit students."

Two in three parents, or 64%, would also allow their teen to be trained as a peer support leader, recognizing the benefits to the community, the school and their child's individual growth.

However, roughly half of parents worried whether there would be sufficient training and that their teen may feel responsible if something bad happened to a student using the program. About 30% weren't sure if their teen was mature enough to serve as a peer support leader.

"Most parents approve of their teen being trained as a peer support leader, seeing it at as an opportunity to develop leadership skills and better understand the challenges that different teens face," Clark says. "But many also wanted reassurance that teens in these roles would have the adult guidance and support necessary to deal with difficult emotional situations."

"Close connection to knowledgeable adults is an essential part of any school-based peer mental health program, particularly in regards to suicide prevention," she says.

Clark says parents of teens considering service as a peer support leader may want to learn more about the training and resources offered, including whether the peer support leaders receive counseling and support in the event of a negative outcome.

She adds that when it comes to young people's mental health, "it takes a village" to support them and help identify warning signs that they may be in trouble.

"The adults in teens' lives - including parents, teachers and other mentors - serve critical roles during challenging times," Clark says. "But peers may also be an untapped resource to help teens who need someone to talk to."

Scientists of Tomsk Polytechnic University jointly with colleagues from the University of Lille (Lille, France) synthetized a new material based on reduced graphene oxide (rGO) for supercapacitors, energy storage devices. The rGO modification method with the use of organic molecules, derivatives of hypervalent iodine, allowed obtaining a material that stores 1.7 times more electrical energy. The research findings are published in Electrochimica Acta academic journal (IF: 6,215; Q1).

Photo: modified rGO supercapacitor electrodes

A supercapacitor is an electrochemical device for storage and release of electric charge. Unlike batteries, they store and release energy several times faster and do not contain lithium.

A supercapacitor is an element with two electrodes separated by an organic or inorganic electrolyte. The electrodes are coated with an electric charge accumulating material. The modern trend in science is to use various materials based on graphene, one of the thinnest and most durable materials known to man. The researchers of TPU and the University of Lille used reduced graphene oxide (rGO), a cheap and available material.

"Despite their potential, supercapacitors are not wide-spread yet. For further development of the technology, it is required to enhance the efficiency of supercapacitors. One of the key challenges here is to increase the energy capacity.

It can be achieved by expanding the surface area of an energy storage material, rGO in this particular case. We found a simple and quite fast method. We used exceptionally organic molecules under mild conditions and did not use expensive and toxic metals," Pavel Postnikov, Associate Professor of TPU Research School of Chemistry and Applied Biomedical Science and the research supervisor says.

Reduced graphene oxide in a powder form is deposited on electrodes. As a result, the electrode becomes coated with hundreds of nanoscale layers of the substance. The layers tend to agglomerate, in other words, to sinter. To expand the surface area of a material, the interlayer spacing should be increased.

"For this purpose, we modified rGO with organic molecules, which resulted in the interlayer spacing increase. Insignificant differences in interlayer spacing allowed increasing energy capacity of the material by 1.7 times. That is, 1 g of the new material can store 1.7 times more energy in comparison with a pristine reduced graphene oxide," Elizaveta Sviridova, Junior Research Fellow of TPU Research School of Chemistry and Applied Biomedical Sciences and one of the authors of the article explains.

The reaction proceeded through the formation of active arynes from iodonium salts. They kindle scientists` interest due to their property to form a single layer of new organic groups on material surfaces. The TPU researchers have been developing the chemistry of iodonium salts for many years.

"The modification reaction proceeds under mild conditions by simply mixing the solution of iodonium salt with reduced graphene oxide. If we compare it with other methods of reduced graphene oxide functionalization, we have achieved the highest indicators of material energy capacity increase," Elizaveta Sviridova says.