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Philadelphia, October 15, 2020 - Drugs of abuse, like cocaine, are so addictive due in part to their cellular interaction, creating strong cellular memories in the brain that promote compulsive behaviors. Researchers have tried to understand the formation of these memories in hopes of finding ways to disrupt them as a potential treatment for substance use disorder (SUD). A new study shows that cocaine use in mice leads to the formation of synapses by an unexpected architect: a type of cell called astrocytes.

The study appears in Biological Psychiatry, published by Elsevier.

Glia, a diverse class of brain support cells that includes astrocytes, were once thought of as the "glue" that holds neurons together, without a significant role in cognition or memory. In this study, Yan Dong, professor of Neuroscience at the University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA, USA, and the study's senior author, said: "We demonstrate that astrocytes respond to cocaine experience by promoting the formation of new synapses." Synapses are the physical connection points between neurons and are thought to be the cellular substrate for embedding memory traces.

Like many cellular associations in the brain, these drug-induced synaptic connections are not conscious memories but rather a re-patterning of the brain that, in this case, contributes to addiction. "Memories associated with drugs of abuse can be extremely durable and often trigger drug relapse even after long abstinence," said Dr. Dong.

John Krystal, MD, Editor of Biological Psychiatry, said of the study, "We often think of the response to cocaine as purely neural. Yet, here we see that supporting cells called astrocytes play a critical role in a lasting effect of repeated cocaine exposure."

To investigate the synapse formation, the researchers bred transgenic mice in which they could visualize calcium signals, which astrocytes use to communicate with other cells. They focused on the nucleus accumbens, a region deep in the brain associated with reward, learning and addiction. The data showed that astrocyte signaling was required for the cocaine-induced synapse formation.

The team next performed behavioral experiments in which rats self-administered cocaine, an animal model of addiction. When the researchers blocked formation of the synapses, the rats did not seek cocaine after drug withdrawal in the same way that control rats did.

"Thus, these new synapses may constitute a unique set of neuronal substrates involved in cocaine-associated memories," said Dr. Dong. "Our results provide an unexpected yet concrete target: glial-mediated synaptogenic signaling," he added, suggesting that the new synapses might be manipulated for potential therapeutic benefit for substance use disorder.

Tropical Storm Nangka made landfall south of Haiphong, Vietnam and began to weaken. NASA's Aqua satellite revealed wind shear was affecting the storm as it continued to push inland.

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument that flies aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible image of Tropical Storm Nangka on Oct. 14, 2020 at 2:25 a.m. EDT (0625 UTC) that revealed after the storm made landfall it began weaken. In the imagery, strong storms continued to circle the center and were in the northern quadrant.

On Oct 14 at 5 a.m. EDT (0900 UTC), Nangka was centered near latitude 20.2 degrees north and longitude 106.1 degrees east, about 59 nautical miles southeast of Hanoi, Vietnam. Nangka tracked west-northwestward and further inland and was being affected by vertical wind shear.

In general, wind shear is a measure of how the speed and direction of winds change with altitude. Tropical cyclones are like rotating cylinders of winds. Each level needs to be stacked on top each other vertically in order for the storm to maintain strength or intensify. Wind shear occurs when winds at different levels of the atmosphere push against the rotating cylinder of winds, weakening the rotation by pushing it apart at different levels. Once a tropical cyclone makes landfall, the topography contributes to wind shear that weakens a storm's circulation.

Nangka is forecast to move further inland while dissipating over the mountainous terrain of northwest Vietnam and northern Laos over the next day and a half.

About NASA's Worldview and Aqua Satellite

NASA's Earth Observing System Data and Information System (EOSDIS) Worldview application provides the capability to interactively browse over 700 global, full-resolution satellite imagery layers and then download the underlying data. Many of the available imagery layers are updated within three hours of observation, essentially showing the entire Earth as it looks "right now."

NASA's Aqua satellite is one in a fleet of NASA satellites that provide data for hurricane research.

Tropical cyclones/hurricanes are the most powerful weather events on Earth. NASA's expertise in space and scientific exploration contributes to essential services provided to the American people by other federal agencies, such as hurricane weather forecasting.

By Rob Gutro
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

Vanderbilt University researchers have reported the counterintuitive discovery that certain chemotherapeutic agents used to treat tumors can have the opposite effect of tissue overgrowth in normal, intact mammary glands, epidermis and hair follicles. The researchers also are the first to report the discovery of an innate immune signaling pathway in fibroblasts--the spindle-shaped cells responsible for wound healing and collagen production--that causes cells to proliferate. Such signaling pathways previously were attributed only to immune cells.

The article describing the research, "DNA Damage Promotes Epithelial Hyperplasia and Fate Mis-specification via Fibroblast Inflammasome Activation," was published in the journal Developmental Cell on Oct. 13.

The findings of this work, led by postdoctoral fellow Lindsey Seldin and Professor and Chair of the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology Ian Macara, have broad implications for diseases associated with the immune system like psoriasis, as well as cancer and stem cell research.

Understanding the functionality of stem cells and the way that their behavior is regulated has been a longstanding research interest for Seldin. "Normal stem cells have an amazing ability to continuously divide to maintain tissue function without forming tumors," she explained. "We wanted to understand what happens to these cells in their native environment when subjected to damage, and if the response was connected to a specific tissue."

By testing perturbations to the epidermis, mammary gland and hair follicles vis-à-vis mechanical damage or DNA damage through chemotherapeutic agents, the researchers saw a paradoxical response: Stem cells, which otherwise would divide slowly, instead divided rapidly, promoting tissue overgrowth.

When the tissues were subjected to DNA damage, their stem cells overly proliferated, giving rise to different cells than they normally would. "This was a very perplexing result," said Seldin, the paper's lead author. "We were determined to figure out if this was a direct response by the stem cells themselves or by inductive signals within their environment." The key clue was that stem cells isolated from the body did not behave the same way as in intact tissue--an indication that the response must be provoked from signals being sent to the stem cells from other surrounding cell types.

The investigators turned their attention to fibroblasts, the predominant component of the tissue microenvironment. When fibroblasts in the epidermis were removed, the stem cell responsiveness to DNA damage was diminished, indicating that they played an important role. RNA sequencing revealed that fibroblasts can signal by way of inflammasomes--complexes within cells that help tissues respond to stress by clearing damaged cells or pathogens, which also in this case caused stem cells to divide. "This is an astounding discovery," said Macara. "Inflammasome signaling has previously been attributed only to immune cells, but now it seems that fibroblasts can assume an immune-like nature."

Seldin intends to replicate this work in the mammary gland to determine whether fibroblasts initiate the same innate immune response as in the epidermis, and more broadly how fibroblasts contribute to the development of cancer and other diseases associated with the immune system.

Here we report that Reelin-Dab1 signaling regulates the proliferation and radial distribution of OPCs in the late embryonic mouse neocortex. OPCs express Reelin signaling molecules and respond to Reelin stimulation. Reelin-Dab1 signaling suppresses the proliferation of OPCs both in vitro and in vivo. Reelin repels OPCs in vitro, and the radial distribution of OPCs is altered in mice with either attenuated or augmented Reelin-Dab1 signaling. This is the first report identifying the secreted molecule that plays a role in the radial distribution of OPCs in the late embryonic neocortex. Our results also show that the regulation of Reelin function by its specific proteolysis is important for the normal development of OPCs.

People who have undergone obesity (bariatric) surgery live three years longer, on average, than those given conventional treatment for their obesity, a University of Gothenburg study shows. Compared with the general population, however, both groups' excess mortality is high.

The results published in The New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) are based on the Swedish Obese Subjects (SOS) study, which started in 1987 and is led from the Sahlgrenska Academy, University of Gothenburg.

The study comprises data on 2,007 adult patients who had undergone bariatric surgery and a control group of 2,040 given conventional (nonsurgical) treatment for obesity. Also included was a representative reference group of 1,135 people from the general population.

Among those who underwent surgery, estimated average life expectancy was 3.0 years longer than in people treated with non-surgical obesity care, but 5.5 years shorter than in the general population.

It has been known for some time that bariatric surgery brings about lasting weight loss and lowered risks of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and cancer, leading to lower mortality. On the other hand, to what extent this translates to extension of life expectancy after bariatric surgery has been unknown.

Dr. Lena Carlsson Ekander, Professor of Clinical Metabolic Research at Sahlgrenska Academy, has been responsible for the SOS study since 2005 and is the lead author of the article.

"Now, for the first time, we've got a measure of how much bariatric surgery prolongs life expectancy for the average patient. But it's important to point out that it's a matter of averages. Not all patients are the same, so you can't draw the conclusion that everyone who gets the operation done lives three years longer," she says.
Despite the beneficial effects of bariatric surgery -- the reduced risk of worsening health and premature death -- still only a minority of the patients eligible for surgery actually undergo an operation. The researchers emphasize the importance of patients getting appropriate information to make an informed choice when considering obesity treatment.

"In this study, we investigated mortality over as long as three decades. In addition, we estimated life expectancy after bariatric surgery and regular obesity treatment and compared it with life expectancy in the general population," Dr. Carlsson Ekander says.

"Obesity has long been known to reduce average life expectancy by some five to ten years. Our study shows that bariatric surgery prolongs it by three years. But even after surgery, patients still have a shorter life expectancy than the general population. That's why it's very important for bariatric patients to be offered adequate postoperative monitoring and follow-up," she concludes.

Nanoscale temperature measurement with high sensitivity is important to investigating many phenomena such as heat dissipation of nano-/micro-electronics, chemical reactions in nanoliter volume, thermoplasmonics of nanoparticles, and thermal processes in live systems. There have been various nanoscale thermometry schemes, including the SQUID-based nanothermometry, scanning thermal microscopy, and fluorescence thermometry based on rare-earth nanoparticles, dyes, or proteins. However, these techniques are limited by various factors, such as contact-related artifacts, fluorescence instability, low sensitivity, or the requirement of extreme working conditions.

The recent development of diamond-based thermometers provides a promising alternative. The spin resonance frequencies of nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers in diamond shift with the environmental temperature change. Owing to the photostability of NV centers and the bio-compatibility and high thermal conductivity of the diamond material, diamond-based thermometers were applied to monitor the thermal processes in micro-electronics and live systems. However, the sensitivity of the diamond-based thermometers is limited by the relatively small temperature dependence of the NV spin resonance frequencies. Thus, there arises the idea of hybrid diamond thermometer, in which the temperature change in the environment is transduced to a magnetic signal to be detected by the NV center spins.

In a new research published in the Beijing-based National Science Review, scientists at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in Hong Kong, China, and at the University of Stuttgart in Stuttgart, Germany constructed an ultra-sensitive hybrid nanothermometer. The hybrid nanothermometer was composed of a single NV center in a diamond nanopillar and a single copper-nickel alloy nanoparticle. The magnetic nanoparticle was placed close to the diamond nanopillar via nano-manipulation based-on atomic force microscopy. Near the Curie temperature of the magnetic nanoparticle, a small temperature change leads to a large magnetic field change due to the critical magnetization. This thermally sensitive magnetic signal was then measured by the NV center. The newly developed hybrid nanothermometer has a temperature sensitivity as high as a precision of 76 microkelvin in one second of measurement. This is by far the most sensitive nanothermometer working under ambient conditions.

Employing this hybrid sensor, the scientists monitored the temperature changes due to a laser heating process and environment temperature fluctuations. In addition, they measured the thermal dissipation near the sensor by additional heating with the current passing through a conducting wire. The ultra-sensitive hybrid nanothermometer is especially useful in measuring millikelvin temperature variation with high temporal resolution. The new sensor may facilitate the study of a broad range of thermal processes, such as nanoscale chemical reactions, nano-plasmonics, heat dissipation in nano-/micro-electronics, and thermal processes in single cells.

New UBC research is highlighting the need for improved training when it comes to helping young people living with psychosis determine their sense of identity.

"Identity development is a normal part of growing up and generally happens when someone is in their late adolescence or early adult years," explains Shelly Ben-David, assistant professor at UBC Okanagan's School of Social Work and study lead author. "It's that time in life when a young person starts asking who they are and exploring their personal goals, their own values and even their role in life."

But at this stage in life, when personal identity is being explored and acknowledged, young people might also have their first experience with a mental health issue such as psychosis--if that happens, those young people may have a difficult time clearly defining their personal identity or even a sense of worth.

"The onset of psychosis in adolescence or young adulthood has the potential to dramatically interfere with identity-related processes", says David Kealy, assistant professor with UBC Vancouver's department of psychiatry and study co-author. "This creates an entire level of vulnerability for youth to contend with in their early psychosis recovery."

Kealy explains that psychotic disorders are stigmatized in society and that can lead to a negative sense of self in a young person.

"This can become a profound obstacle for someone in the beginning stages of their adulthood," he adds.

Ben-David says part of the solution is early intervention, since the longer the psychosis goes untreated, the worse the outcome.

"Current psychosis treatment often tends to not focus on identity development and indeed our study shows that there's a lack of training in this area," says Ben-David.

With that in mind, the researchers surveyed more than 300 multi-professional clinicians working in early psychosis intervention programs in BC. They found that only half of those surveyed felt they had a high level of confidence in their ability to address issues related to identity in treatment--revealing a gap between clinicians' recognition of the importance of identity as a concern and their capacity to help their clients with this issue in a consistent and meaningful way.

"Our findings indicate a need for early psychosis programs to invest in identity-related training for clinicians," says Ben-David. "Next steps are to work closely with the community to explore the impact of identity-focused interventions in the early stages of psychosis."

"Our goal is to help as many young people as possible."

A new study by researchers at the University of Eastern Finland provides novel insight into the previously unknown effects of factors regulating blood vessel formation. In the study, bone morphogenetic factor 6, i.e. BMP6, was shown - for the first time - to regulate blood vessel formation via vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 2 (VEGFR2) and Hippo signalling pathway. The findings can be used in developing treatments for cardiovascular diseases.

Cardiovascular diseases are the leading cause of death in the Western world. In many of these diseases, blood circulation is decreased due to narrowed blood vessels, leading to inadequate tissue perfusion and oxygen deprivation. The formation of new blood vessels offers a novel treatment option for these diseases. The development of this treatment requires a thorough understanding of cellular signalling mechanisms that regulate neovessel formation.

Bone morphogenetic proteins, BMPs, are growth factors originally discovered as regulators in bone formation. Later on, their regulatory role on the development and maintenance of a wide range of tissues has become apparent. BMPs have a vital role in the development of the cardiovascular system. In addition, BMPs have been shown to regulate blood vessel formation but their exact mechanisms are unknown. Crosstalk of BMP-signalling with a well-known blood vessel formation regulator, VEGF, and its downstream effectors is poorly understood.

The new study now shows that VEGF gene transfer or oxygen deprivation of the tissue induce the expression of BMPs. Bone morphogenetic factor 6 ligand was further demonstrated, for the first time, to regulate blood vessel formation. BMP6 was shown to act in endothelial cells via VEGFR2 and Hippo signalling pathways by inducing nuclear localization of Hippo signalling pathway mediator TAZ. Hippo signalling has an important role in tissue size control and cell proliferation, and its malfunction has been associated with cancer.

The findings from this research improve our understanding of multifactorial communication of cell signalling pathways in blood vessel formation. The discoveries related to BMP6 and Hippo signalling can be used in the development of novel treatments for cardiovascular diseases.

The study, openly accessible in Angiogenesis, was carried out in the Vascular Biology junior research group of Academy Research Fellow, Adjunct Professor Johanna Laakkonen at the A.I. Virtanen Institute for Molecular Sciences. The main authors of the article, Heidi Pulkkinen, MSc, and Miika Kiema, MSc, are Early Stage Researchers in the Doctoral Programme of Molecular Medicine at UEF. Understanding how the cell types interact in vascular diseases is one of the central research interests of the Laakkonen junior research group. The group's goal is to implement these discoveries for improved treatment and diagnosis of cardiovascular diseases.

The newly published study is supported by the Academy of Finland, the European Research Council, Sigrid Juselius Foundation and the Finnish Foundation for Cardiovascular Research. The article is part of a project that has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sk?odowska-Curie grant agreement.

The Fourier transform is an important mathematical tool that decomposes a function or dataset into a its constituting frequencies, much like one could decompose a musical chord into a combination of its notes. It is used across all fields of engineering in some form or another and, accordingly, algorithms to compute it efficiently have been developed--that is, at least for conventional computers. But what about quantum computers?

Though quantum computing remains an enormous technical and intellectual challenge, it has the potential to speed up many programs and algorithms immensely provided that appropriate quantum circuits are designed. In particular, the Fourier transform already has a quantum version called the quantum Fourier transform (QFT), but its applicability is quite limited because its results cannot be used in subsequent quantum arithmetic operations.

To address this issue, in a recent study published in Quantum Information Processing, scientists from Tokyo University of Science developed a new quantum circuit that executes the "quantum fast Fourier transform (QFFT)" and fully benefits from the peculiarities of the quantum world. The idea for the study came to Mr. Ryo Asaka, first-year Master's student and one of the scientists on the study, when he first learned about the QFT and its limitations. He thought it would be useful to create a better alternative based on a variant of the standard Fourier transform called the "fast Fourier transform (FFT)," an indispensable algorithm in conventional computing that greatly speeds things up if the input data meets some basic conditions.

To design the quantum circuit for the QFFT, the scientists had to first devise quantum arithmetic circuits to perform the basic operations of the FFT, such as addition, subtraction, and digit shifting. A notable advantage of their algorithm is that no "garbage bits" are generated; the calculation process does not waste any qubits, the basic unit of quantum information. Considering that increasing the number of qubits of quantum computers has been an uphill battle over the last few years, the fact that this novel quantum circuit for the QFFT can use qubits efficiently is very promising.

Another merit of their quantum circuit over the traditional QFT is that their implementation exploits a unique property of the quantum world to greatly increase computational speed. Associate Professor Kazumitsu Sakai, who led the study, explains: "In quantum computing, we can process a large amount of information at the same time by taking advantage of a phenomenon known as 'superposition of states.' This allows us to convert a lot of data, such as multiple images and sounds, into the frequency domain in one go." Processing speed is regularly cited as the main advantage of quantum computing, and this novel QFFT circuit represents a step in the right direction.

Moreover, the QFFT circuit is much more versatile than the QFT, as Assistant Professor Ryoko Yahagi, who also participated in the study, remarks: "One of the main advantages of the QFFT is that it is applicable to any problem that can be solved by the conventional FFT, such as the filtering of digital images in the medical field or analyzing sounds for engineering applications." With quantum computers (hopefully) right around the corner, the outcomes of this study will make it easier to adopt quantum algorithms to solve the many engineering problems that rely on the FFT.

Drought usually originates from a deficiency of precipitation over an extended period of time and is identified as one of the extreme aspects of the hydrological cycle. Because of its destructive impacts on human life, agriculture, ecology, and physical systems of affected regions, there is increasing interest in understanding changes in drought under global warming and quantifying the role of human and other external influences on drought.

A severe drought occurred in East China from August to October 2019 against a background of long-term significant warming and caused widespread impacts on agriculture and society, emphasizing the urgent need to understand the mechanism responsible for this drought and its linkage to global warming.

"Whether severe droughts of this type are likely to increase under anthropogenic global warming is of great concern for both the public and policymakers," says Congwen Zhu, the corresponding author of a recently published paper in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences. "Thus, our study was aimed at understanding the possible mechanisms responsible for this most severe drought in East China and to further explore its linkage with natural climate variability and anthropogenic global warming."

Zhu is a researcher from the Chinese Academy of Meteorological Sciences (CAMS). He and his colleagues found that warm central equatorial Pacific sea surface temperatures and anthropogenic warming were possibly responsible for this drought event.

"This drought was naturally driven by the extremely warm central equatorial Pacific sea surface temperature. However, global warming has enhanced the probability of a severe drought like this occurring," concludes Shuangmei Ma, the first author of the paper, who is an associate researcher at CAMS.

WASHINGTON, October 14, 2020 -- Artificial intelligence is lauded for its ability to solve problems humans cannot, thanks to novel computing architectures that process large amounts of complex data quickly. As a result, AI methods, such as machine learning, computer vision, and neural networks, are applied to some of the most difficult problems in science and society.

One tough problem is the diagnosis, surgical treatment, and monitoring of brain diseases. The range of AI technologies available for dealing with brain disease is growing fast, and exciting new methods are being applied to brain problems as computer scientists gain a deeper understanding of the capabilities of advanced algorithms.

In a paper published this week in APL Bioengineering, by AIP Publishing, Italian researchers conducted a systematic literature review to understand the state of the art in the use of AI for brain disease. Their search yielded 2,696 results, and they narrowed their focus to the top 154 most cited papers and took a closer look.

Their qualitative review sheds light on the most interesting corners of AI development. For example, a generative adversarial network was used to synthetically create an aged brain in order to see how disease advances over time.

"The use of artificial intelligence techniques is gradually bringing efficient theoretical solutions to a large number of real-world clinical problems related to the brain," author Alice Segato said. "Especially in recent years, thanks to the accumulation of relevant data and the development of increasingly effective algorithms, it has been possible to significantly increase the understanding of complex brain mechanisms."

The authors' analysis covers eight paradigms of brain care, examining AI methods used to process information about structure and connectivity characteristics of the brain and in assessing surgical candidacy, identifying problem areas, predicting disease trajectory, and for intraoperative assistance. Image data used to study brain disease, including 3D data, such as magnetic resonance imaging, diffusion tensor imaging, positron emission tomography, and computed tomography imaging, can be analyzed using computer vision AI techniques.

But the authors urge caution, noting the importance of "explainable algorithms" with paths to solutions that are clearly delineated, not a "black box" -- the term for AI that reaches an accurate solution but relies on inner workings that are little understood or invisible.

"If humans are to accept algorithmic prescriptions or diagnosis, they need to trust them," Segato said. "Researchers' efforts are leading to the creation of increasingly sophisticated and interpretable algorithms, which could favor a more intensive use of 'intelligent' technologies in practical clinical contexts."

Abu Dhabi, UAE - October 13, 2020: The impairment of adipogenesis, the process in which fat cells (also known as adipocytes) accumulate to become fat tissue, can lead to many diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and heart conditions. The process of adipogenesis is regulated by a series of signals which program the adipocytes to express specific genes and congregate into adipose tissue.

A team of researchers from NYU Abu Dhabi (NYUAD), led by Associate Professor of Biology Piergiorgio Percipalle in collaboration with Research Assistant Professor Mohamed Al-Sayegh, recently studied the molecular basis of adipogenesis and discovered that the protein actin (a specific variant referred to as β-actin) has an important role in activating the genes which need to be expressed in order to create fat tissue. This further understanding of the adipogenesis process can be applied to future research on diseases caused by malfunctioning fat tissue formation.

In the paper titled β-actin contributes to an open chromatin for activation of the adipogenic pioneer factor CEBPA during transcriptional reprogramming, published in the journal Molecular Biology of the Cell, Percipalle and his team investigates adipogenesis in embryonic mouse tissue to determine how critical the role of β-actin is in the process. It was found that in the fat cells lacking β-actin, the series of genetic signals was impaired, which affected the expression of the genes needed to form fat tissue.

As many diseases are caused by the accumulation of adipose tissue in certain areas, understanding the molecular process of adipose tissue formation is vital. The details of the connection between impaired adipogenesis and metabolic diseases such as diabetes, obesity, and cardiovascular diseases are currently unknown. This study's findings about the importance of the β-actin protein provide guidance into further tissue-based disease research.

"To understand how to treat diseases, we must have a deeper understanding of the causes of the diseases," said Percipalle. "This research has shown that the signaling pathway within adipose cells is an intricate system in which β-actin plays an important role. With this new knowledge, we can pursue a closer look into the molecular mechanisms of adipogenesis and find new insights into how to treat related diseases."

When permafrost thaws due to global warming, not only the greenhouse gases known to all, but also organic compounds are released from the soil. They may have a significant impact on climate change.

Arctic peatlands are very rich in carbon. The effects of the Arctic permafrost thawing on carbon dioxide and methane emissions have been investigated and assessed extensively globally. It is known that when the permafrost thaws, carbon dioxide and methane, which accelerate climate change, are released from the soil. Less attention has been paid to the fact that thawing permafrost may also release volatile organic compounds into the air.

Researchers at the University of Helsinki observed in a study for the first time that large quantities of volatile organic compounds, including monoterpenes, sesquiterpenes and diterpenes, are released from permafrost peatland soil thawed in laboratory incubations. The peatland soil samples were collected from Finnish Lapland. The study demonstrated that global warming accelerates the release of these compounds, particularly those with lower volatility, from the Arctic permafrost.

In the Arctic region, the anthropogenic influences are weak and aboveground vegetation is scarce. The released organic compounds from thawing permafrost can be highly reactive and contribute to the formation of small particles that suspend in the air. These processes can significantly impact the complex causalities associated with climate change and, consequently, the Arctic climate as well as global warming as a whole.

Compounds released from the soil and formed in the air can, for example, increase cloud formation, making increased cloudiness reflect solar radiation away from the Earth, which curbs global warming.

"For now, it's impossible to say with certainty whether the release of organic compounds accelerates or decelerates climate change. They introduce in any case additional uncertainties to climate change modelling." says Associate Professor Federico Bianchi from the University of Helsinki's Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research (INAR).

According to Bianchi, much more research is needed to determine the significance of the findings now made. One of the biggest uncertainties in modelling climate change is precisely the effect aerosols have on global warming. Finnish researchers are at the global top in aerosol research.

Everybody, it seems, is stressed out to some degree by the coronavirus pandemic.

It may be anguish over the sickness or death of a friend or family member. It may be anxiety over a job that has been altered or eliminated. It may be disquiet over the competing demands of work and family while working from home.

These are natural emotions during stressful times, says Emily Kroska, a clinical psychologist at the University of Iowa. The good news, she adds, comes from a new study she led that shows how people might reduce their distress.

In that study, Kroska's research team surveyed Americans' responses to various situations wrought by the coronavirus pandemic. The team found that those who took stock of their emotions--be they sadness, anxiety, fear, loneliness, and the like--and then addressed those emotions with mindful action--such as calling a friend or family member­--reported lower stress levels than those who steered away from identifying with their emotions or did not gauge the potential effects of their behavior.

"The goal is to try and help people become more resilient by remaining in touch with their emotions and finding creative ways to maintain or build upon relationships with people or activities that are important to them," says Kroska, assistant clinical professor in the UI Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences. "People who do that will generally not be as distressed, or anxious, as those who don't."

The researchers in May surveyed 485 adults across the nation, asking them to describe their experiences with various situations arising from the coronavirus pandemic. The respondents identified physical sensations such as sweating, accelerated heart rate, and fear for their own safety, as well as "objective hardship measures," including making rent or mortgage payments, loss of personal income, living apart from family members, or difficulty getting grocery items or household supplies.

"Basically, we wanted to learn about the full sort of adversities that people encountered due to COVID-19," Kroska says. "We found everyone encountered some degree of adversity, which is quite sad but expected."

The researchers used those answers to measure a respondent's "psychological flexibility" or, generally speaking, their ability to roll with the emotional punches inflicted by the pandemic. The researchers determined respondents' psychological flexibility based on three factors: Openness, behavioral awareness, and valued action.

Survey respondents who were open to their emotions and were more aware of how they were responding to those emotions were found to have lower levels of pandemic-induced distress. As a whole, psychological flexibility accounted for a substantial proportion of pandemic-induced distress.

Kroska gives the example of turning to Zoom to connect with someone who's important to you, even if speaking with that person remotely is inferior to conversing face to face.

"If you are creative with trying to talk with your family remotely instead of in person, but you're resentful about it the whole time and think it sucks, that's going to cause more distress," says Kroska. "But if you're willing to say, 'OK, this isn't what we were exactly hoping for, but we're going to make the best of it,' that's the values and the openness piece. It's the combination that's required.

"Really what it comes down to is, can you adapt? Can you do what matters even when it's challenging?" Kroska adds.

Kroska, who counsels patients affected by distress stemming from the pandemic, as well as stress more generally, says it's natural for people to be anxious.

"People don't want to be distressed, but they're going to be during this pandemic," she says. "Being flexible and continuing to do what is important to you even during these difficult times is important and is associated with less distress. I think people are desperate for anything that will help them feel less stressed out."

A new study suggests that engaging, high-quality media programming could help Democrats and Republicans see eye to eye when it comes to climate change.

The study, published in the Journal Science Communication, surveyed 2,015 participants before and after watching one of two broadcast programs. The study group watched an episode of "Years of Living Dangerously," a National Geographic series that included episodes on solar energy use in the U.S. and India, coal use in the U.S. and China, and deforestation. A control group watched a video called "Spillover: Zika, Ebola, and Beyond," which was about the spread of diseases between animals and humans.

The researchers found that when Republicans and Democrats watched "Years of Living Dangerously," which aired in 2016 and won an Emmy Award, they were more likely to see eye to eye. Both were likely to believe that they could personally take action against climate change.

Among Republicans who were most engaged with the "Years of Living Dangerously" program, their pre- and post-video surveys showed that their perceptions of the risks associated with climate change and their belief that they could take action were both greater after they watched the episode -- similar to those of Democrats.

"The more transported or absorbed an individual was by the documentary, the closer they paid attention. The more emotionally and cognitively involved they were, the more they felt climate change was a real risk affecting their lives," said Ashley Bieniek-Tobasco, research assistant professor of environmental and occupational health sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago School of Public Health and first author of the study.

"Those most engaged also tended to have stronger beliefs in their ability to take action to help tackle climate change, such as contacting a government official about climate change, after watching the videos," she said.

Among the participants, 624 watched the videos in a lab setting and 1,391 watched the videos online.

Of those who watched the videos in the lab, approximately 60% were Democrats, 9% were Republicans and 30% were other affiliations. Among participants who watched the videos online, approximately 37% were Democrats, 27% were Republicans and 37% were other affiliations.

Survey questions before and after the videos focused on three main areas: perception of the risk posed by climate change, efficacy beliefs or beliefs that an individual can do something personally about climate change and narrative transportation.

"Narrative transportation is a term we use to describe how immersed or absorbed a person is while consuming a narrative, be it a film or a book," Bieniek-Tobasco said. "It encompasses attention and emotional and cognitive engagement with the story. It is the idea that you are transported into the story, or to another time or place while consuming the story."

"Democrats started with higher-risk perceptions and efficacy beliefs in regard to climate change when compared to Republicans, but after watching the video, among participants who were most transported or engaged, that difference went away," she said.

Bieniek-Tobasco and colleagues say their findings suggest that the messages used to persuade audiences can be very effective in influencing climate change attitudes and beliefs if the content is engaging.

"Narrative transportation predicts efficacy beliefs and risk perceptions and appears to reduce political polarization in climate change attitudes and beliefs," she said. "This tells us that engaging storytelling is potentially a powerful tool for combating polarization. If used in the right way, it may also catalyze changes in political behaviors needed to build political will to implement policy solutions to address climate change, and ultimately protect our health."