Culture

The Heteroptera are a large group of insects. However, not all of its representatives are widely known as true bugs. For example, it includes a pond water strider (Gerris lacustris), which is very common in Russia. 'Most often, when it comes to these insects, people imagine blood-sucking bed bugs. They bring the rest of the bugs into disrepute, but most of these insects do not bite. The bug we discovered belongs to the plant bugs (Miridae) and it also does not feed on human blood,' says Veronica Tyts, the first author of the research, a first-year master's student in the biology programme at St Petersburg University.

Borneo, also known as Kalimantan, is the third-largest island in the world. About 1% of the island's territory is occupied by the state of Brunei Darussalam where Ulu Temburong National Park is located. Its tropical forests remain practically intact and preserve an amazing variety of flora and fauna. Here Claas Damken, a research participant from Jalan Universiti, Brunei Darussalam, Brunei, collected the Heteroptera, which were later sent to Anna Namyatova, the second author, for identification.

'This collection included very important samples for us. Within the large family of the Miridae, there is a subfamily that I specialise in. Most of its representatives are extremely rare in different collections. The fact is that in nature they live in the forest floor and have a cryptic lifestyle. At the same time, the sample from Brunei turned out to be relatively large: nine specimens are representing the monotypic new genus Tatupa. Monotypic means that only one species belongs to it - Tatupa grafei. It is highly probable that the bug is endemic, that is, it does not live anywhere except the island of Borneo,' says Veronica Tyts.

Tatupa grafei belongs to the relatively small Rhinocylapus-complex, currently comprising 24 species. Its representatives vary in colour and have huge antennae, often twice longer than a body. The Tatupa grafei bug is golden and spotted. It is noteworthy that in the Rhinocylapus-complex, sexual dimorphism is very common: the male can be half the size of the female. Before copulation, the males sit on the back of the female and 'ride' it for some time.

'At the same time, the males and females of Tatupa grafei are the same size. Their body length, without antennae, is approximately five millimetres. Of course, there is a compelling question: why one part of the group is characterised by sexual dimorphism, while the other does not. In the future, we would like to find an answer to it as well,' notes Veronika Tyts.

Most aspects of the behaviour of the Tatupa grafei bugs are unknown due to the extremely small number of its representatives. These insects are often found on fungi growing on rotten wood. Because of this, it has been suggested that these bugs feed on fungi, but whether this is true remains to be explored. It is also possible that Tatupa grafei eats smaller insects, which feed on fungi. The third version is that the bug menu can be mixed and consist of both fungi and insects. The answers to these questions can be given by observing Tatupa grafei bugs in a natural environment, but it is pretty tricky to carry it out.

The genus name Tatupa is a random combination of letters. The scientists could not come up with a suitable name for it for a long time. It was important that no animal has the same name. Additionally, the scientists needed to find out if the word Tatupa exists in any languages and what it means. It turned out that there was only one hit on the Internet - in an episode of a Polish television game where its participants are busy coining new words. The species is named after the Brunei professor Ulmar Grafe, who had provided significant support to the scientists.

'The planet's biodiversity is a great treasure that we, unfortunately, are constantly losing. It is important to find and describe new types of living organisms to preserve them - if not in their natural habitat, then at least in the vast knowledge database created by mankind. Moreover, each of these creatures has a specific role in the global ecosystem. And the more ramified the connections in it, the higher its stability. Therefore, the small bug we discovered may play a significant role in the ecosystem of the island of Borneo,' says Veronica Tyts.

Alongside Veronica Tyts, Fedor Konstantinov, Candidate of Biology and Associate Professor of the Department of Entomology at St Petersburg University, took part in the discovery and description of Tatupa grafei. Other authors of the research were: the already mentioned Claas Damken; Anna Namyatova, a senior research associate at the All-Russian Research Institute of Plant Protection; and Rodzay A. Wahab, a lecturer at Jalan Universiti, Brunei Darussalam, Brunei.

Colour photographs of Tatupa grafei were taken at the Department of Entomology of St Petersburg University using a camera attached to a stereo microscope. The rest of the images were created using a scanning electron microscope of the resource centres of the Research Park of St Petersburg University 'The Centre for Molecular and Cell Technologies' and 'The Centre for Microscopy and Microanalysis'. Aleksei Miroliubov, a centre engineer, rendered significant assistance to the scientists.

The authors of the publication are currently continuing the research, which will result in a long paper on the phylogeny of rare bugs from the Rhinocylapus-complex. The researchers plan to build a phylogenetic tree that will reflect the probable evolutionary relationships of organisms. To achieve this, a morphological analysis of insects and an analysis of their DNA markers have been carried out. As for the specimens, seven of the nine provided specimens will return to their homeland in Brunei, while the other two will remain in the large collection of the Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

September 22, 2020 - A geocoding approach - linking routinely collected public health data to neighborhood socioeconomic factors - shows consistently higher rates of COVID-19 illness and death among people living in more-disadvantaged communities, reports a study in the November/December Journal of Public Health Management and Practice. The journal is published in the Lippincott portfolio by Wolters Kluwer.

"Our study provides evidence of stark social inequities in COVID-19 outcomes at both the county and ZIP Code levels in the United States," comments Jarvis T. Chen, ScD, of Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Boston. "These marked disparities speak to how the COVID-19 pandemic is affecting vulnerable populations and exacerbating existing health inequities."

Socioeconomic Factors Affecting COVID-19 Outcomes - Geocoding Provides New Insights

Dr. Chen and coauthor Nancy Krieger, PhD, analyzed county- and ZIP Code-level data on COVID-19 outcomes - deaths, confirmed cases, and percent positive cases - in New York City and Illinois, as of May 5, 2020. At that time, New York and Illinois were among the "hotspots" for COVID-19 cases and deaths in the United States.

The researchers applied an established geocoding method to analyze COVID-19 outcomes in terms of key neighborhood socioeconomic factors, including the percentage of residents living in poverty, percentage with household crowding, and percentage of persons of color (other than non-Hispanic white).

These and other area-based socioeconomic measures (ABSMs) have been shown to be strong indicators of disparities across a wide range of health outcomes. The ASBMs were developed as part of the Public Health Disparities Geocoding Project, established to address the lack of information on socioeconomic factors in most public health surveillance data.

The analysis showed consistently higher levels of COVID-19 outcomes for residents of more socioeconomically disadvantaged areas. County-level data showed higher rates of COVID-19 deaths in areas with more people living in poverty, increased household crowding, and more people of color. The COVID-19 death rate was about five times higher than in counties with the highest percentage of people of color.

Analysis of fine-resolution ZIP Code data showed higher rates of confirmed COVID-19 cases for all ABSMs. In Illinois, the rate of COVID-19 diagnosis was five times higher in ZIP Codes with the highest percentage of people of color.

ZIP Code data from New York City also showed similar disparities, even with the City's much higher infection rates. The rate of positive COVID-19 tests was more than 60 percent higher in ZIP Codes with the highest percentage of people with poverty-level incomes.

There's an urgent need for real-time data to help in identifying community groups at highest risk of COVID-19 infection, serious illness, and death. Routinely collected public health data include little or no information on socioeconomic factors that can have an important impact on COVID-19 risks. Data on race/ethnicity is more often collected but is missing for many patients.

Geocoding health records and linking them to US Census data on neighborhood factors, including the use of ABSMs, can compute valid estimates of socioeconomic disparities in health. "Looking across the US, people living in the most impoverished, crowded, and racially and economically polarized counties are experiencing substantially elevated rates of COVID-19 infection and death," Drs. Chen and Krieger write.

State and local health departments can easily apply the same methods to routinely collected surveillance data using an Excel spreadsheet or R code available from the authors' website: https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/thegeocodingproject/covid-19-resources/.

Dr. Chen comments: "Our cost-effective straightforward methodology and results can motivate and guide state and local health departments to generate data relevant to monitoring inequities in COVID-19 outcomes and guiding resource allocation to mitigate these inequities."

A new study suggests that the messages Black girls hear at home about being Black, and about being Black women in particular, can increase or decrease their risk of exhibiting the symptoms of depression. Positive messages - and positive feelings about being Black - were associated with a decreased likelihood of symptoms of depression; negative messages about Black women were associated with a greater risk of symptoms of depression.

"Black teenage girls are more likely to report symptoms of depression than Black boys or white teens," says McKenzie Stokes, first author of a paper on the work and a Ph.D. student at North Carolina State University. "We wanted to learn more about some of the factors that may contribute to that higher rate of depression."

"Identifying and understanding these factors is an important step in addressing depression in Black girls in a meaningful way," says Elan Hope, co-author of the paper and an associate professor of psychology at NC State.

The researchers drew on in-depth, national survey data from 287 Black girls between the ages of 13 and 17.

Specifically, the researchers were interested in aspects of racial socialization related to how Black caregivers talk to their children about taking pride in being Black and being Black women.

Study participants were asked how frequently they heard positive messages from their primary caregivers about being Black and about being Black women. Study participants were also asked how frequently they heard oppressive messages about Black women.

The survey also asked study participants about emotional symptoms associated with depression, such as apathy and sadness.

The researchers found that the more positive messages study participants received about being Black and being Black women, the more positive they felt about being Black and the fewer depressive symptoms they reported. However, the more oppressive messages study participants heard about being Black women, the more likely they were to report symptoms of depression.

"Our findings highlight the importance of avoiding negative stereotypes about Black women," Hope says. "Because we found that those negative remarks had an effect even in households that reported positive messages about being Black and being Black women.

"For example, when people say they don't want to go into the sun, because they don't want to get any darker, what is a child with dark skin supposed to think when hearing that? These sorts of remarks, even when the speaker is referring only to herself or himself, can adversely affect the attitudes of Black girls toward their own blackness."

"This work also highlights the potential value of incorporating gender-specific messages into existing programs and interventions aimed at addressing mental health in Black youth by fostering Black pride," Stokes says.

Much of life on planet Earth today relies on oxygen to exist, but before oxygen was present on our blue planet, lifeforms likely used arsenic instead. These findings are detailed in research published today in Communications Earth and Environment.

A key component of the oxygen cycle is where plants and some types of bacteria essentially take sunlight, water and CO2 and convert them to carbohydrates and oxygen which are then cycled and used by other organisms that breathe oxygen. This oxygen serves as a vehicle for electrons, gaining and donating electrons as it powers through the metabolic processes. However, for half of the time life has existed on Earth, there was no oxygen present and for the first 1.5 billion years we really do not know how these systems worked, says lead author of the study and UConn Professor of Marine Sciences and Geosciences Pieter Visscher.

Light-driven, photosynthetic organisms appear in the fossil record as layered carbonate rocks called stromatolites dating to around 3.7 billion years ago, says Visscher. Stromatolite mats are deposited over the eons by microbial ecosystems, with each layer holding clues about life at that time. There are contemporary examples of microbes that photosynthesize in the absence of oxygen using a variety of elements to complete the process, however it is not clear how this happened in the earliest life forms.

Theories as to how life's processes functioned in the absence of oxygen have mostly relied on hydrogen, sulfur, or iron as the elements that ferried electrons around to fulfill the metabolic needs of organisms.

Visscher explains these theories are contested, for example photosynthesis is possible with iron but researchers do not find evidence of that in the fossil record before oxygen appeared some 2.4 billion years ago. Hydrogen is mentioned yet the energetics and competition for hydrogen between different microbes shows it is highly unfeasible.

Arsenic is another theoretical possibility, and evidence for that was found in 2008. Visscher says the link with arsenic was strengthened in 2014 when he and colleagues found evidence of arsenic-based photosynthesis in deep time. To further support their theory, the researchers needed to find a modern analog to study the biogeochemistry and element cycling.

Finding an analog to the conditions on early Earth is a challenge for a number of reasons, besides the fact that oxygen is abundant on modern earth. For instance, the evidence shows early microbes captured atmospheric carbon and produced organic matter at a time when volcanic eruptions were frequent, UV light was intense in the absence of the ozone layer, and oceans were essentially a toxic soup.

Another challenging aspect of working within the fossil record, especially those as ancient as some stromatolites, is that there are few left due to the cycling of rock as continents move and time marches on. However, a breakthrough happened when the team discovered an active microbial mat, currently existing in the harsh conditions in Laguna La Brava in the Atacama Desert in Chile.

The mats have not been studied previously but present an otherworldly set of conditions, like those of early Earth. The mats are in a unique environment which leaves them in a permanent oxygen-free state at high altitude where they are exposed to wild, daily temperature swings, and high UV conditions. The mats serve as powerful and informative tools for truly understanding life in the conditions of early Earth.

Visscher explains, "We started working in Chile, where I found a blood red river. The red sediments are made up by anoxogenic photosynthetic bacteria. The water is very high in arsenic as well. The water that flows over the mats contains hydrogen sulfide that is volcanic in origin and it flows very rapidly over these mats. There is absolutely no oxygen."

The team also showed that the mats were making carbonate deposits and creating a new generation of stromatolites. The carbonate materials also showed evidence for arsenic cycling - that arsenic is serving as a vehicle for electrons -- proving that the microbes are actively metabolizing arsenic much like oxygen in modern systems. Visscher says that these findings, along with the fossil evidence gives a strong indication of what was seen on early earth.

"Arsenic-based life has been a question in terms of does it have biological role or is it just a toxic compound?" says Visscher. That question appears to be answered, "I have been working with microbial mats for about 35 years or so. This is the only system on Earth where I could find a microbial mat that worked absolutely in the absence of oxygen."

Visscher points out that an important tool they used to perform this research is similar to one onboard the Mars Perseverance rover, currently en route to Mars.

"In looking for evidence of life on Mars they will be looking at iron and probably they should be looking at arsenic also."

Topographically sketched catchment areas are a spatial unit based on the shapes of the earth's surface. They show how human activities and climate change influence the available quantities of water. Knowledge of these units is fundamental to sustainable water management. However, due to underground connections, some catchment areas accumulate water from areas beyond their topographic boundaries, while others are effectively much smaller than their surface topography would suggest. Currently, most hydrological modelling strategies do not take these groundwater connections into account, but assume that the catchments are independent of their surroundings. For this reason, Dr. Yan Liu and Assistant Professor Dr. Andreas Hartmann from the Chair of Hydrological Modeling and Water Resources at the University of Freiburg, together with a team of researchers from the University of Bristol in England and Princeton University in the US, have introduced the Effective Catchment Index (ECI). Using this new metric, they were able to determine how topographic and actual catchment areas differ when analyzing a global data set. The team recently published the results in the journal Environmental Research Letters.

Using the ECI, the team led by Liu and Hartmann was able to demonstrate that the assumption of a closed water balance, i.e. that the level of a river changes only through precipitation and evaporation from its topographic area, for example, does not apply to a considerable number of catchments around the world. Every third catchment studied has an effective catchment area that is even greater than twice or less than half its topographical area. The scientists recognized that these areas influence or are influenced outside their topographical boundaries by water management activities such as pumping groundwater and, for example, deforestation or reforestation.

With their analysis, the researchers show that the ECI they have redefined is suitable for investigating how drought can spread across topographical boundaries as a result of water exchange. It can also be used in the analysis of the effects of climate and land use changes on cross-boundary water exchange. "This is how we have seen where we need to further investigate underground networks across topographical boundaries in order to support sustainable water management," says Hartmann.

In 2016, a supercomputer beat the world champion in Go, a complicated board game. How? By using reinforcement learning, a type of artificial intelligence whereby computers train themselves after being programmed with simple instructions. The computers learn from their mistakes and, step by step, become highly powerful.

The main drawback to reinforcement learning is that it can't be used in some real-life applications. That's because in the process of training themselves, computers initially try just about anything and everything before eventually stumbling on the right path. This initial trial-and-error phase can be problematic for certain applications, such as climate-control systems where abrupt swings in temperature wouldn't be tolerated.

Learning the driver's manual before starting the engine

The CSEM engineers have developed an approach that overcomes this problem. They showed that computers can first be trained on extremely simplified theoretical models before being set to learn on real-life systems. That means that when the computers start the machine-learning process on the real-life systems, they can draw on what they learned previously on the models. The computers can therefore get on the right path quickly without going through a period of extreme fluctuations. The engineers' research has just been published in IEEE Transactions on Neural Networks and Learning Systems.

"It's like learning the driver's manual before you start a car," says Pierre-Jean Alet, head of smart energy systems research at CSEM and a co-author of the study. "With this pre-training step, computers build up a knowledge base they can draw on so they aren't flying blind as they search for the right answer."

Slashing energy use by over 20%

The engineers tested their approach on a heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) system for a complex 100-room building using a three-step process. First, they trained a computer on a "virtual model" built from simple equations that roughly described the building's behavior. Then they fed actual building data (temperature, how long blinds were open, weather conditions, etc.) into the computer, to make the training more accurate. Finally, they let the computer run its reinforcement-learning algorithms to find the best way to manage the HVAC system.
Broad applications

This discovery could open up new horizons for machine learning by expanding its use to applications where large fluctuations in operating parameters would have important financial or security costs.

Recently computer scientists at USC Institute of Technologies (ICT) set out to assess under what conditions humans would employ deceptive negotiating tactics. Through a series of studies, they found that whether humans would embrace a range of deceptive and sneaky techniques was dependent both on the humans' prior negotiating experience in negotiating as well as whether virtual agents where employed to negotiate on their behalf. The findings stand in contrast to prior studies and show that when humans use intermediaries in the form of virtual agents, they feel more comfortable employing more deceptive techniques than they would normally use when negotiating for themselves.

Lead author of the paper on these studies, Johnathan Mell, says, "We want to understand the conditions under which people act deceptively, in some cases purely by giving them an artificial intelligence agent that can do their dirty work for them."

Nowadays, virtual agents are employed nearly everywhere, from automated bidders on sites like eBay to virtual assistants on smart phones. One day, these agents could work on our behalf to negotiate the sale of a car, argue for a raise, or even resolve a legal dispute.

Mell, who conducted the research during his doctoral studies in computer science at USC, says, "Knowing how to design experiences and artificial agents which can act like some of the most devious among us is useful in learning how to combat those techniques in real life."

The researchers are eager to understand how these virtual agents or bots might do our bidding and to understand how humans behave when deploying these agents on their behalf.

Gale Lucas, a research assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering and at USC ICT, as well as the corresponding author on the study published in the Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research, says, "We wanted to predict how people are going to respond differently as this technology becomes available and gets to us more widely."

The research team, consisting of Mell, Sharon Mozgai, Jonathan Gratch and Lucas, conducted three separate experiments, focusing on the conditions under which humans would opt for a range of ethically dubious behaviors. These behaviors included tough bargaining (aggressive pressuring), overt lies, information withholding, manipulative use of negative emotions (feigning anger), as well as rapport building and appealing through use of sympathy. Part of these experiments involved negotiations with non-human, virtual agents and programming virtual agents as their proxies.

The researchers found that people were willing to engage in deceptive techniques under the following conditions:

If they had more prior experience in negotiation

If they had a negative experience in negotiation (as little as 10 minutes of a negative experience could affect their intention to use more deceptive practices in future negotiations)

If they had less prior experience in negotiation, but were employing a virtual agent to negotiate for them

Say the authors, "How humans say they will make decisions and how they actually make decisions are rarely aligned." When people programmed virtual agents to make decisions, they acted similarly to as if they had engaged a lawyer as a representative and through this virtual representative, were more willing to resort to deceptive tactics.

"People with less experience may not be confident that they can use the techniques or feel uncomfortable, but they have no problem programming an agent to do that," says Lucas.

Other outcomes: when humans interacted with a virtual agent who was fair, they were fairer, but when the virtual agent was nicer or nasty in terms of its emotional displays, participants did not change their willingness to engage in deceptive practices.

The researchers also gleaned some insights about human behavior in general.

Compared to their willingness to endorse the more deceptive techniques including overt lies, information withholding, and manipulative use of negative emotions, "people really don't have any problem with being nice to get what they want or being tough to get that what they want," says Lucas, which suggests that these apparently less deceptive techniques are considered more morally acceptable by the participants.

The work has implications for ethics on technology use and for future designers. The researchers say, "If humans, as they get more experience, become more deceptive, designers of bots could account for this."

Lucas notes, "As people get to use the agents to do their bidding, we might see that their bidding might get a little less ethical."

Mell adds, "While we certainly don't want people to be less ethical, we do want to understand how people really do act, which is why experiments like these are so important to creating real, human-like artificial agents."

The field of structural biology has made enormous strides, peering into the activities of nature at the tiniest scale. Such investigations are critical for charting the behavior of important macromolecules and understanding their essential role in living organisms.

Researchers at the Biodesign Center for Applied Structural Discovery and ASU's School of Molecular Sciences have taken a new approach to studying molecules of life, examining not only their static structures at high resolution but the all-important dynamic movements of such molecules as they carry out biological functions.

The new method involves an aggressive reprocessing of data obtained through a groundbreaking technique known as cryogenic electron microscopy or cryo-EM. Here, molecules targeted for study are flash-frozen in a thin membrane of ice before being subjected to electron microscopy. Tens or even hundreds of thousands of still images are collected, then reassembled by means of computer.

The technique offers a powerful alternative to X-ray crystallography for probing the molecular world in keen detail. Indeed, cryo-EM excels in the areas of study that are most challenging for X-ray crystallography, the imaging of large protein complexes resistant to conventional crystallization methods.

Although early iterations of cryo-EM struggled to compete with the extreme image resolution characteristic of X-ray crystallography, rapid advances in the field now enable cryo-EM to produce stunning macromolecular images at near-atomic-resolution.

In the new study, Abhishek Singharoy and his colleagues demonstrate that cryo-EM can be pushed to even greater extremes of clarity, by extracting precious information previously buried in the reams of cryo-EM data.

"Now, we can actually see minimum free-energy pathways image-by-image during a simulation," Singharoy says. "It was impossible to see energetically feasible molecular movies before. Now cryo-EM, machine learning and molecular dynamics simulations have got us there."

Abhishek is joined by joint first authors Ali Dashti and Ghoncheh Mashayekhi of the Department of Physics, University of Wisconsin Milwaukee and ASU researcher Mrinal Shekhar. The new study is the result of a collaboration between five groups: Abbas Ourmazd's, and Peter Schwander's at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, Joachim Frank's at Columbia Medical Center, Amedee des Georges at CUNY, and Singharoy at ASU.

The findings are reported in the current issue of the journal Nature Communications.

Applying the new strategy pioneered by co-authors Abbas Ourmazd and 2017 Chemistry Nobel Laureate Joachim Frank, which involves mathematical techniques of geometric machine learning combined with classical molecular dynamics simulations, helped researchers capture the fleeting movements of ryanodine receptor type 1, an important calcium channel able to bind other molecules. Subtle conformational changes of the receptor play a crucial role in the contraction of skeletal muscle and muscles of the heart, once the receptor has been triggered by a specific binding molecule.

Using single-particle cryo-EM, the group was able to assemble impressive molecular movies of ryanodine receptor type 1's continuous conformational changes, built from some 800,000 cryo-EM snapshots of molecules trapped in ice, like insects entombed in amber.

Combining snapshots that were intermediary between the fully closed and open conformations helped capture this receptor's structural shape-shifting before and after binding by activating molecules.

The new technique will be a boon in practical areas, particularly, drug discovery, while helping to resolve foundational issues in molecular biology.

New research by an international team of chemists describes a new type of artificial cell that can communicate with other cells within the body--with potential applications in the field of smart pharmaceuticals.

"In the future, artificial cells like this one could be engineered to synthesizes and deliver specific therapeutic molecules tailored to distinct physiological conditions or illnesses--all while inside the body," explained Sheref Mansy, professor in the University of Alberta's Department of Chemistry, who co-authored this study in collaboration with researchers at the University of Trento, Italy.

The artificial cells work by detecting changes in their environment within the body. In response, the artificial cell creates and releases a protein signal that influences the behaviour of other cells within the body. "In this way, the changing needs of the host would be rapidly met in a manner that does not flood the entire organism with drug molecules," said Mansy.

Mansy's lab is the first to build artificial cells that can chemically communicate with and influence the behaviour of natural living cells--first with bacteria, and now with cells found in multicellular organisms. "This work begins to bridge the divide between more theoretical 'what is cellular life' type of work and applicative, useful technologies," added Mansy.

Researchers from the OU Institute for Environmental Genomics and Department of Microbiology and Plant Biology lead a study that aims to better understand ecological community assembly mechanisms in response to climate warming.

"Understanding community assembly rules is a longstanding issue of ecologists," said Jizhong Zhou, the director of the Institute for Environmental Genomics and a George Lynn Cross Research Professor in the OU College of Arts and Sciences. "We developed a novel framework to quantitatively infer community assembly mechanisms by phylogenetic bin-based null model analysis i.e., iCAMP."

Using the iCAMP framework, the researchers revealed new findings on the dynamic changes of ecological processes from 2009 to 2014 in grassland bacterial communities under long-term experimental warming.

"In simulated data, iCAMP shows outstanding performance in terms of precision, sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, and robustness," Zhou said. "Using iCAMP, we showed that climate warming increased homogeneous selection in soil bacterial community assembly, which was also related to the changes in drought and plant productivity."

Zhou adds that the general framework used in this study has potential to benefit not only microbial ecology, but also plant and animal ecology and that their findings have important implications for predicting and mitigating the ecological consequences of climate warming.

Widespread COVID-19 testing may be an obvious way to control an outbreak in a long-term care facility. But communication among the facility's staff, its residents and the residents' family members is crucial, too.

A new study led by Carl Shrader, a physician and researcher in the Department of Family Medicine in the West Virginia University School of Medicine, revealed the role that communication played in quashing a COVID-19 outbreak at Sundale, a long-term care facility in Morgantown.

"Timely communication was challenging and made more difficult by a lack of evidence-based information and widely circulating misinformation," said Shrader, who directs WVU's residency program. "There is a delicate balance between rapid dissemination of accurate information with the need for personal individual discussion in an unknown situation."

Shrader is also the medical director at Sundale, which was the epicenter of West Virginia's COVID-19 pandemic. From the first diagnosis of COVID-19 in a Sundale resident--in March--he took a leading role in the facility's response to the outbreak.

Before the facility was free of COVID-19, 52 residents and 19 staff members would be diagnosed with it. For five of those residents, the virus would prove fatal. But "despite the challenges of managing a COVID-19 outbreak in the absence of information, our facility's staff, families and leadership were able to work together to ensure limited viral spread and no change in the average monthly mortality at the facility," Shrader said.

He feels that early and widespread COVID-19 testing at the facility was key to keeping the infection rate low. As soon as the first cases came to light, the staff immediately tested all of the facility's hundred residents, whether or not they had symptoms of COVID-19. People who tested positive were separated from the other residents and housed in the same unit to prevent the virus from spreading.

Follow-up testing in the weeks that followed identified more residents who had the virus and confirmed when residents had gotten over it.

Because test kits were scarce early in the pandemic, not every staff member at Sundale could be swabbed for the virus. Fifty-six of the 162 staff members--mostly certified nursing assistants and licensed practical nurses--were chosen for testing because of their frequent contact with residents. All other facility staff members were directed to local drive-up testing sites.

"Maintaining availability of adequate staff in all divisions to ensure safe operation of the facility was high priority," Shrader said. "Clear communication about testing and staffing decisions was crucial in allaying fear and frustration."

Meeting with the staff members and explaining why some of them received the rapid test while others didn't alleviate staff members' concerns, prevented resentment from building and fostered the spirit of teamwork that makes good resident care possible.

Staff members weren't the only people who benefited from communication. So did residents' family members.

At first, the facility staff tried to keep family members informed by speaking to them over the phone, but they soon discovered that they couldn't keep up with the calls. There were simply too many people--with too many questions and concerns--to speak to them all individually.

Much of the information staff members were providing applied to multiple residents. So, with the residents' and family members' permission, they began using a version of Zoom that's compliant with medical-privacy laws to talk--and listen--to many family members at once.

Not only could the staff communicate with family members this way, but the family members could share information and build relationships with each other as well.

"Families, residents and staff bonded through this unique experience, and the creative use of technology to maintain open communication aided in this," said Courtney Pilkerton, an assistant professor of family medicine and member of the research team. "Zoom meetings continue to be popular, and many family members have requested that calls continue as they have found significant value in sharing their experiences with each other."

But communicating with one category of people was particularly difficult: residents with dementia.

"Living with dementia means a life revolving around a structured schedule," said Shauna Assadzandi, a medical resident at Sundale who was involved in the study. "Disruptions in that schedule can bring significant distress. If their son came every day to feed them lunch and dinner and now is not there, they may feel abandoned--not understanding why their son can no longer visit."

Staff at the facility had to pay special attention to those residents so they could spot psychosomatic symptoms--such as lack of appetite--and address them early. Just because some residents couldn't describe their feelings of loneliness, sadness or worry doesn't mean they weren't experiencing them.

"Older individuals--and, more specifically, those with dementia--don't always verbalize concerns, and it becomes crucial to watch for physical signs of distress, including weight change and intake of food and fluids," Assadzandi said.

"Much of our nursing staff has worked in the facility on the same unit for many years," she said. "They know the residents well and are often the first to notice small changes in behavior. These strong connections between staff and residents allow for more rapid and individual changes to care when needed."

A study conducted by researchers at São Paulo State University (UNESP) suggests that irisin, a hormone secreted from muscles in response to exercise, could have a therapeutic effect on COVID-19 patients. When they analyzed adipose cell gene expression, the researchers found that irisin modulated genes associated with replication of the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 in human cells.

This finding was based on analysis of the transcriptome (all RNAs produced by genes) of adipose cells not infected by SARS-CoV-2 and treated with irisin. “We compared data for genes important in COVID-19 with our transcriptomic data to make correlations. The results offer a clue in the search for treatment of the disease during the emergency caused by the pandemic. It must be stressed that our findings are preliminary and merely suggest that irisin could have therapeutic potential in cases of COVID-19. Further research can pick up from here to see whether irisin’s effects on patients with the disease are indeed beneficial,” Miriane de Oliveira, a researcher at UNESP’s Medical School in Botucatu, São Paulo (Brazil), told Agência FAPESP.

An article describing the study is published in the journal Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology. The data were produced by Oliveira in postdoctoral research supported by FAPESP and focusing on the action of irisin and thyroid hormones in adipocytes.

The use of sequencing techniques enabled the researchers to identify 14,857 genes expressed in a subcutaneous adipose cell line. They observed alterations in gene expression when cells were treated with irisin.

Because of the pandemic, researchers decided to investigate the possible effects of irisin on genes associated with the replication of SARS-CoV-2. From data cross-tabulation, they discovered that treatment of adipocytes with irisin reduced expression of the genes TLR3, HAT1, HDAC2, KDM5B, SIRT1, RAB1A, FURIN and ADAM10, which in turn regulate ACE-2, a key gene for viral replication because it encodes the protein to which the novel coronavirus binds in order to invade human cells.

Another positive finding was that irisin tripled levels of transcription of the gene TRIB3. Previous research has demonstrated the importance of maintaining expression of TRIB3. In fact, expression of TRIB3 is frequently diminished in older people, a factor that may be linked to augmented replication of SARS-CoV-2 and a higher risk of COVID-19 in this segment of the population.

“A third important point is the finding by other research groups that adipose tissue appears to serve as a repository for the virus,” Oliveira said. “This helps explain the higher risk of developing severe forms of the disease for individuals with obesity. In addition, obese people tend to have lower levels of irisin and higher levels of the receptor molecule used by the virus [ACE-2] than nonobese people” (read more at: agencia.fapesp.br/33729).

Produced endogenously during continuous exercise, irisin is known to be involved in the browning of adipose tissue. White fat stores energy in the form of triglycerides and lipids and can become inflamed. Brown fat breaks down blood sugar and fat molecules to create heat and help maintain body temperature. Thus, irisin is part of a calorie-burning process that can help treat metabolic disorders such as obesity. It is also known to modulate the activity of macrophages, which are immune cells that can release cytokines and trigger inflammation.

Data management

Oliveira’s study is an example of how managing data obtained in basic research can lay the foundation for other discoveries and research. “We began with a comparative analysis of the action of irisin and thyroid hormones in moderating fat accumulation and modulating genes in adipose cells,” she said. “The study produced a large amount of data, and with the advent of the pandemic and the discovery by other research groups of genes associated with replication of SARS-CoV-2, we decided to use our database to investigate how irisin [and thyroid hormones] may influence the disease.”

The original investigation set out to discover how these hormones perform their thermogenic role in reducing adipose tissue and generating energy in adipocytes. “We did this by means of transcriptomics to identify the genes affected by the hormones in question, and our findings served as a basis for the study relating to COVID-19,” Oliveira said.

This study showed that irisin not only moderates fat accumulation but also stimulates the expression of uncoupling protein 1 (UCP1), releasing heat and reducing fat deposits. Increased levels of UCP1 are compatible with decreased DNA damage and oxidative stress.

With this better understanding of the role played by irisin in obesity and possibly in COVID-19, the research group will now analyze its effect on cells infected with SARS-CoV-2. The principal investigator for this project is also Célia Regina Nogueira de Camargo, a professor in the Clinical Medicine Department of UNESP’s Botucatu Medical School. The project is supported by the Ministry of Education’s Coordination for the Improvement of Higher Education Personel (CAPES).

“The aim is to take another step in this line of research and determine whether the results obtained in our bioinformatics investigation can be confirmed in a three-dimensional adipose cell culture model,” Oliveira said. “We want to understand how irisin modulates the genes associated with SARS-CoV-2 replication.”

The article “Irisin modulates genes associated with severe coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outcome in human subcutaneous adipocyte cell culture” (doi: 10.1016/j.mce.2020.110917) by Miriane de Oliveira, Maria Teresa De Sibio, Lucas Solla Mathias, Bruna Moretto Rodrigues, Marna Eliana Sakalem and Célia Regina Nogueira can be retrieved from www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0303720720302173.

Journal

Molecular and Cellular Endocrinology

DOI

10.1016/j.mce.2020.110917

Scientists from the CNRS, ENS-PSL, Inserm, and Sciences Po (1) revealed an increase in facial displays of trustworthiness in European painting between the fourteenth and twenty-first centuries. The findings, published in Nature Communications on 22 September 2020, were obtained by applying face-processing software to two groups of portraits, suggesting an increase in trustworthiness in society that closely follows rising living standards over the course of this period.

In having their portraits drawn, the greats of this world have sought, depending on the period, to display their power and inspire fear, or on the contrary to display a trustworthy appearance. Using their sources, historians had already perceived a shift toward greater trustworthiness over time, although these changes were difficult to document quantitatively.

To follow the historical evolution of interpersonal trust, a team of cognitive science researchers from the CNRS, ENS-PSL, Inserm and Sciences Po1 has created a facial analysis algorithm that can reproduce human judgements regarding the trustworthiness displayed by a face. To validate the algorithm, the scientists initially tested it on photographs of faces whose trustworthiness had already been rated by humans. During other tests, the algorithm reproduced the conclusions drawn from the scientific literature regarding the impact that factors such as age, gender, facial features or the emotions displayed have on the trustworthiness of a face.

By analysing a collection of 1,962 English portraits painted between 1506 and 2016 from the National Portrait Gallery in London, the authors observed that the number of facial cues connected to interpersonal trust increased over time. They also successfully reproduced their conclusions on 4,106 portraits from the Web Gallery of Art, which includes works from nineteen Western European countries between the years 1360 and 1918.

However, does this evolution reflect the transition of relatively violent societies into more cooperative ones? To validate this hypothesis, the algorithm was then applied to Selfiecity, a database including 2,277 photographic self-portraits posted on social media in six cities across the globe. The trustworthiness of faces was indeed correlated to the interpersonal trust and cooperation previously measured through international surveys.

In seeking the potential causes of this evolution, the team observed that increased trustworthiness in the portraits was more closely associated to increased per capita GDP than to institutional changes such as the emergence of more democratic institutions. The scientists are continuing this study on the basis of other sources, such as literary texts and musical production.

Boston, Mass. - A new review article from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) shows people who are biologically male are dying from COVID-19 at a higher rate than people who are biologically female. In a review published in Frontiers in Immunology, researcher-clinicians at BIDMC explore the sex-based physiological differences that may affect risk and susceptibility to COVID-19, the course and clinical outcomes of the disease and response to vaccines.

"The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed a striking gender bias with increased mortality rates in men compared with women across the lifespan," said corresponding author Vaishali R. Moulton, MD, PhD, an assistant professor of medicine in the Division of Rheumatology and Clinical Immunology at BIDMC. "Apart from behavioral and lifestyle factors that differ between men and women, sex chromosome-linked genes, sex hormones and the microbiome control aspects of the immune responses to infection and are potentially important biological contributors to the sex-based differences we're seeing in men and women in the context of COVID-19."

Moulton and co-authors Nirupa Gadi, Samantha C. Wu and Allison P. Spihlman, all medical students in Moulton's laboratory at BIDMC, acknowledge that demographic differences between men and women predispose each group to risk in different ways. Men, for example, are more likely to smoke cigarettes, a known risk factor for severe COVID-19, and are more likely to have cardiovascular disease and hypertension, important underlying comorbidities in COVID-19; while women are more likely to hold jobs in health care, increasing their potential exposure to the virus.

Nonetheless, many animal and human studies demonstrate that females tend to mount stronger immune responses to infections than males, a trait that may be linked to increased susceptibility to inflammatory and autoimmune diseases. Reviewing the scientific literature regarding sex-based differences in cells of the immune system, X chromosome-linked genetics, sex hormones, the ACE-2 receptor and the microbiome, the scientists conclude that sex is a crucial yet understudied and often overlooked variable in research related to immunity and infectious disease.

"Vaccine-related research and clinical trials, including those currently underway for COVID-19, must include sex as a key variable when measuring and reporting outcomes," said Moulton, who is also an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard Medical School. "Understanding these factors will both help us better understand COVID-19 and guide the design of effective therapies and vaccine strategies towards sex-based personalized medicine moving forward."

Michigan Tech's Open Sustainability Technology (MOST) Lab developed three new open-source tools in response to COVID-19: a high-temperature 3D printer, a firefighter PAPR mask and a printable, emergency-use ventilator.

Today, with the evolution of digital manufacturing technologies such as 3D printers and circuit milling systems, humanity can share designs with others who can then replicate medical-grade devices for the cost of locally sourced materials. When the team began these studies last spring, personal protection equipment (PPE) was in short supply, most PPE was one-use and disposable, and the demand for hospital equipment was greater than supply. So the MOST Lab focused on a printer that could make reusable face masks, respiratory equipment that could be custom fit for firefighters and an inexpensive design for a 3D-printed ventilator.

Joshua Pearce leads the MOST Lab and is the Richard Witte Endowed Professor of Materials Science and Engineering and a professor of electrical and computer engineering. His team intentionally made open-source designs, which have been published in a special edition of HardwareX dedicated to COVID-19 technology.

"The nature of these designs is such that desired features are relatively easy to add with the test using protocols and parametric design files provided," Pearce said. "Our hope is that such devices can be built upon by others to achieve full regulatory approval in all countries to ensure humanity is prepared for the next pandemic."

Specs for the high-temp 3D printer Cerberus:

three-headed, self-replicating rapid prototyper (RepRap)

open-source and can be built for less than $1,000

200 degree Celsius-capable heated bed

500 degree Celsius-capable hot end

isolated heated chamber with 1 kilowatt space heater core with mains voltage chamber and bed heating for rapid start

prints polyetherketoneketone (PEKK) and polyetherimide (PEI, ULTEM) with tensile strengths of 77.5 and 80.5 MPa, respectively

Specs for the powered air-purifying particulate respirator (PAPR) for firefighters:

open-source and can be 3D-printed and assembled with widely available components for under $150, replacing commercial conversion kits (saving 85%) or proprietary PAPRs (saving over 90%)

parametric designs allow for adaptation to other core components and can be custom fit specifically to firefighter equipment, including their suspenders

controllable airflow and its design enables breathing even if the fan is disconnected or if the battery dies

meets National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) airflow requirements for four hours, which is 300% over expected regular use

Specs for emergency-use ventilator:

open-source and can be 3D-printed for less than $170

resuscitation system based on open-source Arduino controller and 3D-printable parametric component-based structure

controlled breathing mode with tidal volumes from 100 to 800 milliliters, breathing rates from 5 to 40 breaths/minute, and inspiratory-to-expiratory ratio from 1:1 to 1:4

The system is designed for reliability and scalability of measurement circuits through the use of the serial peripheral interface and has the ability to connect additional hardware due to the object-oriented algorithmic approach.

Experimental results after testing on an artificial lung for peak inspiratory pressure (PIP), respiratory rate (RR), positive end-expiratory pressure (PEEP), tidal volume, proximal pressure, and lung pressure demonstrate repeatability and accuracy exceeding human capabilities in BVM-based manual ventilation.