Culture

Body mass index (BMI) trajectories in the first years of life may be associated with lung function in later childhood. For example, children with accelerated BMI gain before age four years have higher lung function at age seven years, although they also exhibit airflow limitation. This is the conclusion of a new study by the Barcelona Institute for Global Health (ISGlobal), a centre supported by the "la Caixa" Foundation, which has been published in the European Respiratory Journal.

Early childhood is a key period for lung function development. Previous studies have found an association between weight in the first years of life and lung health in infancy and childhood. "These studies had certain limitations in terms of defining weight gain," explained Gabriela P. Peralta, researcher at ISGlobal and lead author of the study. "Most of them only considered the difference in weight between two points in time and did not take the overall trajectory into account. That's why we decided to carry out this new study."

The study used data on more than 1,200 children living in three areas of Spain--Sabadell, Valencia and Gipuzkoa--who were enrolled in birth cohort of the INMA Environment and Childhood Project. "First, we determined the children's BMI trajectory from birth to age four years and classified them in five categories. The trajectories differed in terms of weight at birth (which could be lower, average or higher) and speed of BMI gain (which could be slower or accelerated)," explained Peralta. BMI is an indicator based on weight in relation to height that is frequently used to classify overweight and obesity. The authors then analysed the relationship between BMI trajectory and lung function, which was measured by spirometry at age seven years. Forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1) and FEV1/FVC ratio were measured.

The findings showed that children with accelerated BMI gain before age four years, regardless of weight at birth, had higher lung function at age seven years but also airflow limitation, which indicates difficulty expelling air from the lungs. In contrast, children with lower weight at birth and slower BMI gain in early childhood had lower lung function at age seven years.

Maribel Casas, a researcher at ISGlobal and co-coordinator of the study, commented: "Our findings have important implications for research and public health." She added: "This study shows that BMI trajectories in early childhood are a useful tool for identifying growth patterns associated with poor respiratory health."

"Since weight gain is affected by modifiable factors, public health interventions in early childhood that promote healthy lifestyles--for example, healthy eating and physical activity--can help improve lung function and reduce respiratory morbidity in adulthood," concluded Judith Garcia-Aymerich, head of the Non-Communicable Diseases and Environment Programme at ISGlobal and co-coordinator of the study. "Public health strategies aimed at reducing respiratory health problems may need to focus on early weight gain."

Although most voters say they believe that voting will be safe and that their ballot will be counted despite the coronavirus pandemic, those who question election safety and some who question election integrity appear less likely to vote, according to a new RAND Corporation survey.

In addition, people who identify as Republicans are more likely to express concerns about the integrity of the 2020 elections, while Democrats are more likely to be concerned about safety -- underscoring the need for election officials to communicate to the public about both issues.

Researchers found that Black and Hispanic respondents tended to be less likely than White respondents to expect their vote to be counted accurately given the challenges posed by the coronavirus pandemic. Hispanic respondents also were less likely to report confidence in the preparedness of local officials.

Despite misgivings among some groups, the survey found that for most people there is no major change in their intention to vote in November. However, a smaller group of respondents reported that they were less likely to vote -- these same people are more likely to be those with safety concerns and in some cases integrity concerns.

"Many respondents are making plans to vote using remote methods -- such as vote-by-mail -- where they are available," said Jennifer Kavanagh, lead author of the study and a senior political scientist at RAND, a nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization. "We found that overall few people who voted in 2016 plan to opt out in 2020, but vote intentions do appear to be lower on average among those with safety concerns."

The survey found widespread support for sanitation and social distancing at poll locations, but lower support for sending mail-in ballots to all registered voters or using online voting.

Researchers say that policymakers who are interested in ensuring that pandemic-related concerns do not deter people from voting should prioritize safety and election integrity equally and clearly communicate with constituents about the steps being taken.

The study reports results of a survey of 2,389 people conducted during May and June about public safety, election integrity and preparedness of local officials to manage the November 2020 election during the pandemic.

Some of the participants, who are all part of RAND's American Life Panel, took part in a RAND election survey during 2016, allowing researchers to track attitudes over time. An update to the survey conducted in August is currently being completed.

Other finding from the survey include:

All else being equal, older voters had higher perceptions of safety and preparedness, and more confidence in election integrity than did younger voters.

Respondents who reported higher levels of education tended to be more supportive of social distancing and sanitation at the polls, as well as of expanded distribution of mail-in ballots to all registered voters as a way to address pandemic-related risks.

About one-third of survey participants reported they had some concerns about public safety, election integrity and preparedness of local officials to conduct elections during the pandemic.

Respondents who said they do not expect elections to be physically safe also were more likely to question whether their vote will be counted accurately and whether officials will be prepared.

"Different groups have different perceptions of safety, election integrity and preparedness of local officials for the 2020 election, and the relationship between perceptions and
intention to vote similarly varies across demographic groups," Kavanagh said.

Although election officials and other policymakers might wish to communicate broadly about their preparations for the 2020 election, the RAND analysis suggests that the effects of such a campaign would be maximized by targeting messages at specific groups that seem most prone to such concerns.

"Elections pose major challenges to local officials, even under the best of circumstances," Kavanagh said. "On top of the regular challenges election officials face, this year they will also have to manage issues like sanitation, ensuring social distancing, and processing larger numbers of absentee ballots. In addition, a significant number of people have concerns about safety and security of the elections.

"Those who are interested in ensuring that voters are not deterred by such concerns should consider targeted messages to different groups in order to best address their concerns."

[Vienna, 27 August 2020] To know which non-pharmaceutical interventions against the spread of coronavirus worked best, researchers and health authorities need data. In March, the Complexity Science Hub Vienna (CSH) started a comprehensive worldwide collection of governmental measures, which is now published in the Nature journal Scientific Data.

The CSH COVID-19 Control Strategies List (CCCSL) to date includes information on 6,068 interventions from 56 countries: 33 European, 12 Asian, five South American, two North American, three African, and one Oceanian countries, plus the cruise ship Diamond Princess. For the US, data were collected at the state level for 24 US states.

Highly detailed data for in-depth analyses

"The special value of our dataset is its granularity," says project leader and first author Amelie Desvars-Larrive (CSH and Univ of Veterinary Medicine Vienna). "To our knowledge, it is to date the most detailed classification of government measures against COVID-19."

On the most general level (L1), the scientists divided the measures in seven groups: case identification; contact tracing and related measures; environmental measures, such as disinfection and cleaning of common surfaces (public transports, markets); healthcare and public health capacity (e.g. increase of the hospital capacity or of the healthcare workforce); resource allocation (like operations involved in the allocation of budgets, deployment of resources, and distribution of goods for controlling a disease outbreak); risk communication; social distancing; travel restriction; and, a newer category, returning to normal life.

Each intervention is coded into four levels, from a broad categorisation of the measures (L1) to a very specific description (L4). "As an example, we have seven categories of travel restrictions, which are further divided into more than 50 subcategories," says Desvars-Larrive. Moreover, the use of self-explanatory codes makes the dataset readily comprehensible, even for non-experts.

The coding scheme of the dataset exhibits a great analytical flexibility and makes it especially valuable for computer-aided techniques like Machine Learning.

Dealing with a pandemic

"With the CCCSL, we hope to contribute to a better management of the corona crisis or similar epidemics in the future," says David Garcia (CSH & Medical Univ of Vienna), one of the co-authors. "With comprehensive data, scientists and politicians will be able to better assess individual risks, to develop tailor-made containment strategies or approaches how to end strict measures, for instance."

For example, scientists at the CSH were combining the CCCSL data with publicly available data on COVID-19 cases. "We quantified the impact of individual control policies and came up with a ranking according to their effectiveness in reducing coronavirus spread," explains Amelie Desvars-Larrive. These findings are currently under review.

The data were collected from public sources, including official government sources, scientific papers, press releases, government communications and social media. All records were hand-coded and are updated on a regular basis.

During the COVID-19 crisis, other research teams have concomitantly tracked data on government policies. Joining forces to fight the pandemic, the CCCSL and six other international datasets have been integrated into the global dataset Tracking Public Health and Social Measures (PHSM) aggregated by the World Health Organization.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Lower-income households that received mortgages through state affordable mortgage programs were less likely to default or foreclose than similar households that received conventional financing, a national study found.

Researchers examined the outcomes of homeownership programs administered by Housing Finance Agencies (HFAs), which are state chartered agencies operating in all 50 states that work to provide affordable housing to low- and moderate-income households.

The study of 140,000 households showed that HFA borrowers had a 29 percent lower risk of default and a 32 percent lower risk of foreclosure than similar households they were matched with that didn't receive loans through HFAs. Within the first two years after closing on the home, this translates into just over a 2-percentage point reduction in the default rate of 8 percent.

Surprisingly, it wasn't the structure of the loan itself - such as the lower interest rates offered to HFA customers - that was the main driver in their better performance, said Stephanie Moulton, lead author of the study and associate professor in The Ohio State University's Glenn College of Public Affairs.

It had to do with the supportive services HFAs provided customers, including direct loan servicing and homebuyer education and counseling.

"There's been a lot of talk that where you get your loan doesn't matter - you just have to get a good loan," Moulton said.

"But at least with these lower-income borrowers, it does seem to matter where they get their loans."

Moulton conducted the study with Eric Hembre of the University of Illinois-Chicago and Matthew Record of San Jose State University. Their results were published online recently in the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management.

The researchers used data from Fannie Mae, the government-sponsored mortgage financier, on 30-year, fixed-rate mortgages for single-family homes from across the country that were originated between 2005 and 2014.

The researchers matched 70,000 households that received HFA mortgages with similar households in the same geographic area with comparable income, credit, and other characteristics but who got their mortgages through the private market.

"Despite their reported superior performance, there had been no rigorous studies comparing HFA mortgages with loans of similar borrowers," Moulton said. "That's what we were trying to do here."

The fact that HFA borrowers had lower rates of default and foreclosure suggests big impacts on local economies, the researchers found.

Applying the results of the study to the 800,000 HFA loans originated between 2005 and 2014 suggests that there would have been 53,000 more defaults and 33,000 more foreclosures had those loans been originated through private lenders.

That translates to up to $232 million in saved local costs, Moulton said.

"That is a significant benefit to communities hit hard by the housing crisis during the time of our study," she said.

The researchers identified two ways that HFAs helped consumers. One was the structural characteristics of the loans themselves, including lower interest rates. But that corresponds to only about a 5.5 percent reduction in mortgage default. Specific types of down payment assistance and having loans originated through banks rather than third party originators also helped HFA borrowers.

The other type of impact came from the service delivery practices of HFAs, Moulton said. Each state's HFA services its loans differently, so the researchers were able to examine changes in practices over time and between HFAs to see which ones were most successful.

Some states require home buyer education and counseling, which helped HFA borrowers. "Some states match you with a counselor who you can contact even after the purchase if you run into problems. That helps a lot," she said.

In some of the state HFAs interviewed for the study, for example, counselors reach out to borrowers as soon as they miss a payment to see what's going on, Moulton said. In contrast, most private servicers wait until mortgage holders are 60 days behind, by which time it may be more difficult to help the homeowners.

"Those HFAs that build in these channels of communication mean that when something goes wrong, there is more likely to be quick action that can keep borrowers from spiraling into foreclosure," Moulton said.

These results suggest that government can have a significant impact in helping low- and moderate-income households afford and keep their own homes, she said.

"These HFAs are still leveraging the private market to originate the loans. But they have an important role in delivering services that make sure that these lower-income households have the help they need to succeed."

WASHINGTON -- Misconceptions about the way climate and weather impact exposure and transmission of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, create false confidence and have adversely shaped risk perceptions, say a team of Georgetown University researchers.

"Future scientific work on this politically-fraught topic needs a more careful approach," write the scientists in a "Comment" published today in Nature Communications.

The authors include global change biologist Colin J. Carlson, PhD, an assistant professor at Georgetown's Center for Global Health Science and Security; senior author Sadie Ryan, PhD, a medical geographer at the University of Florida; Georgetown disease ecologist Shweta Bansal, PhD; and Ana C. R. Gomez, a graduate student at UCLA.

The research team says current messaging on social media and elsewhere "obscures key nuances" of the science around COVID-19 and seasonality.

"Weather probably influences COVID-19 transmission, but not at a scale sufficient to outweigh the effects of lockdowns or re-openings in populations," the authors write.

The authors strongly discourage policy be tailored to current understandings of the COVID-climate link, and suggest a few key points:

1. No human-settled area in the world is protected from COVID-19 transmission by virtue of weather, at any point in the year.

2. Many scientists expect COVID-19 to become seasonal in the long term, conditional on a significant level of immunity, but that condition may be unmet in some regions, depending on the success of outbreak containment.

3. All pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions are currently believed to have a stronger impact on transmission over space and time than any environmental driver.

"With current scientific data, COVID-19 interventions cannot currently be planned around seasonality," the authors conclude.

China's FengYun-3 (FY-3) satellite programme is an important part of the Earth observing system and provides observations for numerical weather prediction (NWP), reanalyses, and climate studies. The latest platform in the programme, FY-3D, carries the Microwave Temperature Sounder 2 (MWTS-2), the Microwave Humidity Sounder 2 (MWHS-2), and the Microwave Radiation Imager (MWRI). Together, these instruments have radiometric capability spanning the microwave domain from 10 to 183 GHz and provide valuable information on surface and atmospheric temperature, humidity, and wind.

Data quality assessment is a fundamental step that leads to the optimal use of a new instrument, helps NWP centres define assimilation strategies, and guides the climate community in the generation of climate data records. In a new study published in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, Dr Fabien Carminati of the UK Met Office and his colleagues build upon the maturity and experience gained from the assessment of previous platforms from the FY-3 programme to evaluate the instruments onboard FY-3D and to support China in generating high-quality satellite data for a wide range of weather and climate applications. The analysis shows that the data quality of all three instruments has improved with respect to the instruments onboard FY-3C and generally compares well to that of reference U.S. instruments. The assimilation of FY-3D microwave observations in the Met Office NWP system has a positive impact, reducing the error of global weather forecasts by a small but significant 0.1% on average.

Observations from FY-3D microwave instruments not only benefit both the NWP and climate communities by complementing the current observing system but also ensure the continuity of Earth observations between FY-3C and FY-3E. The assimilation of microwave observations at the Met Office and other NWP centres leads to improved weather forecasts, better resilience to extreme weather events, and more accurate climate predictions and monitoring. This also has the potential to improve downstream activities in sectors as varied as economics, agriculture, or energy, and provide a firmer basis for management and decision making.

An extensive search and testing of current drugs and drug-like compounds has revealed compounds previously developed to fight SARS might also work against COVID-19.

Using the National Drug Discovery Centre, researchers from the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute identified drug-like compounds that could block a key coronavirus protein called PLpro. This protein, found in all coronaviruses, is essential for the virus to hijack and multiply within human cells, and disable their anti-viral defences.

Initially developed as potential treatments for SARS, the compounds prevented the growth of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (which causes COVID-19) in the laboratory.

The discovery, published yesterday in The EMBO Journal, was led by Professor David Komander, Professor Marc Pellegrini, Professor Guillaume Lessene and Dr Theresa Klemm.

At a glance

Australian researchers have identified a molecular target for potential new COVID-19 treatments

A chemical compound, originally discovered to inhibit SARS, shows promise for halting the growth of the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2)

The discoveries were made by leveraging the capabilities of the National Drug Discovery Centre and ANSTO's Australian Synchrotron, and may underpin the development of new drugs for COVID-19

Targeting a key viral protein

Coronaviruses, including the viruses that cause COVID-19 and SARS, all contain a protein called PLpro, which allows the virus to hijack human cells and disable their anti-viral defences.

Professor Komander said PLpro belonged to a family of proteins called 'deubiquitinases', which his team had studied for the last 15 years in a range of diseases.

"When we looked at how SARS-CoV-2 functions, it became clear that the PLpro deubiquitinase was a key component of the virus - as it is in other coronaviruses, including the SARS-CoV-1 virus, which causes SARS," he said.

"We quickly established the VirDUB program to investigate how PLpro functions and what it looks like. These are critical first steps towards discovering new drugs that could be potential therapies for COVID-19."

Using ANSTO's Australian Synchrotron, the VirDUB team rapidly ascertained how PLpro interacts with human proteins - homing in on a target that could be blocked by new drugs.

Discovering new medicines

The National Drug Discovery Centre was critical to rapidly search for drugs that could block PLpro.

"We scanned thousands of currently listed drugs, as well as thousands of drug-like compounds, to see if they were effective in blocking the SARS-CoV-2 PLpro," Professor Komander said.

"While existing drugs were not effective in blocking PLpro, we discovered that compounds developed in the last decade against SARS, could prevent the growth of SARS-CoV-2 in pre-clinical testing in the laboratory."

The next step is to turn these compounds into drugs that could be used to treat COVID-19, Professor Komander said.

"We now need to develop the compounds into medicines, and make sure they are safe for patients.

"Importantly, drugs that are able to inactivate PLpro may be useful not just for COVID-19 but may also work against other coronavirus diseases, as they emerge in the future."

A strong association between the genes influencing cattle temperament and autism in humans has been discovered by University of Queensland researchers.

UQ genomic expert Professor Ben Hayes said the research by his interdisciplinary team headed by Dr Roy Costilla could lead to improved animal welfare and meat quality.

"The research doesn't mean that cattle have autism; rather that cattle share an overlap of genes with humans which are critical in brain function and response to fear stimuli," Professor Hayes said.

Temperament is an important trait for day-to-day management of cattle.

"We knew that genetic factors were likely influence temperament in cattle and we thought that genes involved in behavioural traits in humans could also influence temperament in cattle.

"We found that genes known to contribute to autism spectrum disorders also influence temperament in cattle."

Professor Hayes said the results were important as it opened the way for research conducted on behavioural traits in humans to shed further light on temperament in cattle.

"As I've found talking to farmers over the years, it can be distressing having an animal that has a poor temperament in the mob, and stirs up all the other cattle putting them into a state of stress.

"If we can identify those animals early, or breed to eliminate them, we can potentially reduce the stress of the whole mob.

"That has great implications for welfare - not only of the cattle but also the people handling the cattle who are less likely to be charged or kicked."

Professor Hayes said there was an association between a calmer temperament in cattle and better meat quality.

"The cattle industry's standard for measuring temperament is 'flight time' - the speed in which cattle move after release from an enclosure," Professor Hayes said.

"What a producer wants is cattle that move calmly and slowly from the enclosure, rather than an animal that charges out in an aggressive or stressed state.

"Our study found flight time is about 35 percent heritable, which is very significant.

"It means you can make a lot of progress by breeding for better temperament - it's about the same as milk production in dairy cattle, and we've made big breeding gains there."

Professor Hayes said the same genes were identified in other genomic research conducted on domestication of foxes.

"The same genes just come up again and again," he said.
"Some DNA variants in those genes are more common in people with autism and, in cattle, some DNA variants in those same genes are found to make the cattle more fearful in new situations and have a reactive temperament."

It's the first time whole genome sequencing has been used to analyse temperament in beef cattle.
Researchers looked at 28 million data points per animal on the 9,000 cattle with temperament records in the initial study, and then validated the results in over 80,000 cattle from Ireland.

Professor Hayes said his team would incorporate the temperament data into a panel of markers available for producers that would also provide breeding values for fertility.

"It means a producer will be able to use a sample of tail hair which contains DNA to quickly get information on the genetic value of their animals for temperament and fertility.
The temperament analysis was conducted primarily in northern cattle Bos indicus breeds and was validated in Bos taurus cattle.

Nara, Japan - Fans of sake, the traditional Japanese alcoholic beverage, may have even more reason to enjoy it now: Japanese scientists have discovered that a mutant strain of sake yeast produces high levels of the amino acid ornithine.

In a study published this month in Metabolic Engineering, researchers from the Nara Institute of Science and Technology and the Nara Prefecture Institute of Industrial Development have revealed that a mutant strain of sake yeast produces 10 times the amount of the amino acid ornithine compared with the parent yeast strain.

Ornithine is a non-protein-making amino acid and a precursor to two amino acids - arginine and proline. It has been found to perform several physiological functions, such as reducing fatigue and improving sleep quality.

"We wanted to obtain sake yeast strains with improved ethanol tolerance," says a first author of this article, Masataka Ohashi. "During sake fermentation, the yeast is exposed to high concentrations of ethanol, which impedes yeast cell growth, viability and fermentation. Increased ethanol tolerance in sake yeast strains could improve ethanol production and reduce fermentation time."

To find ethanol-tolerant yeast strains, the researchers isolated mutants that accumulated proline, which can alleviate ethanol toxicity, using a conventional mutagenesis (i.e., one that doesn't involve genetic modification). They also conducted whole genome sequencing analysis, and performed brewing tests with sake yeast strains. Then they identified and analyzed a new mutation in a gene that encodes a variant of N-acetyl glutamate kinase that increases intracellular ornithine level.

"We previously constructed self-cloning industrial yeast strains that accumulate proline to increase ethanol tolerance and productivity of yeast," explains Prof. Hiroshi Takagi, a corresponding author. "But those yeasts have not been yet acceptable to consumers because they're considered to be genetically modified, even though a self-cloning yeast has no foreign genes or DNA sequences - they only have yeast DNA."

The researchers successfully isolated non-genetically modified yeasts that produced 10 times the amount of ornithine compared with the parent strain, which is widely used in Japanese sake breweries, and the sake brewed with them contained 4-5 times more ornithine.

The results of this study will contribute to the development of improved yeast strains for production of high levels of ornithine, and the strain obtained in this study could be readily applied to sake, wine, and beer brewing. Ornithine-accumulating yeast strains could also be used in the production of ornithine-rich dietary supplements made from these yeasts and their products.

Prof. Takagi also describes "There are two major purposes for breeding of industrial yeast: improvement of fermentation ability with enhanced tolerance to environmental stresses during fermentation processes and diversity of product taste and flavor with modified metabolic pathways. In yeast, amino acid metabolisms vary under different growth environments and the metabolic styles form a complicated but robust network. The elucidation of metabolic regulatory mechanisms and physiological roles for amino acids is important fundamental research for understanding life phenomenon. The yeast is reliable and safe in food production, and thus the development of novel strains that overproduce 'functional amino acids' such as ornithine, proline and branched-amino acids, would greatly contribute to food-related industries."

Milan, 27 August 2020 - DNA three-dimensional structure is determined by a series of spatial rules based on particular protein sequences and their order. This was the finding of a study recently published in Genome Biology by Luca Nanni, PhD student in Computer Science and Engineering at Politecnico di Milano, together with Professors Stefano Ceri of the same University and Colin Logie of the University of Nijmegen.

The first author of the study Luca Nanni said: "Our study's greatest innovation lies in having identified precise rules for the disposition of CTCF proteins. The beauty and simplicity of CTCF's grammar shows us how nature and evolution produce regularity and incredibly ingenious and functional systems." "Knowing these rules allow CTCF sequences to be engineered to obtain the desired DNA three-dimensional structure. For example, it should be possible to make two disconnected genes interact. Moulding DNA structure will open doors to the creation of pharmaceuticals for the treatment of diseases such as cancer."

The DNA molecule, which would be about two metres long if completely unrolled, wraps itself based on a complex system that maintains its accessibility and correct reading to reside in the cell's nucleus. Crucial in the study of the three-dimensional structure of the genome are topological domains, which are thought to aggregate DNA zones with similar roles and behaviour. For example, genes with similar function are likely to reside in the same topological domain. Nanni continued: "We focused on some specific DNA sequences that encode for the CTCF protein." "This protein isolates portions of DNA creating barriers between the various topological domains. With the help of computer simulations and the creation of a model for classifying these proteins according to their orientation, we identified a surprising regularity in their arrangement along the DNA sequence." The study showed that the orientation and order of these DNA sequences makes it possible to reconstruct topological domains. The human genome compresses following a "grammar" logic comprising CTCF sequences, orientation, and the distance between them.

Simple exercises can help to make people more playful and consequently feel more satisfied with their lives. This has been revealed in a new study by psychologists from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU) in the journal Applied Psychology: Health and Well-Being. The researchers had participants in an experiment perform a week of exercises to boost their playfulness. They found that the trait can be stimulated and trained - and that this improves a person's mood.

Playfulness is a personality trait that is expressed differently in people. "Particularly playful people have a hard time dealing with boredom. They manage to turn almost any everyday situation into an entertaining or personally engaging experience," explains Professor René Proyer, a psychologist at MLU. For example, they enjoy word games and mental games, are curious, or just like playing around. According to Proyer, this does not mean that these people are particularly silly or frivolous. On the contrary, earlier studies by the researchers from MLU have shown that adults can put this inclination to positive use in many situations: They have an eye for detail, easily adopt new perspectives and can make a monotonous task interesting for them.

Until now it had been unclear whether playfulness could be trained and what effects this might have on people. Therefore, the psychologists from Halle conducted a study on 533 people, teaming up with researchers from the University of Zurich in Switzerland and Pennsylvania State University (USA). Participants were randomly divided into one of three experimental groups or a placebo group. The people in the experimental groups completed one of three daily exercises for seven days. The exercises were intended to boost their playfulness: Before going to bed, they either had to write down three situations from that day in which they had behaved particularly playful, or they were to use their inclination to be playful in an unfamiliar situation, for example in their professional life, and write down that experience. Or they were to reflect more broadly on the playful behaviour they had observed in themselves that day. In contrast, the placebo group received a task that had no influence on the experiment. "All of these methods are based on established interventions of positive psychology," explains Kay Brauer, who is a researcher in Proyer's group.

All groups filled out a questionnaire before and immediately after weeks one, two, four and twelve after the intervention, with which the researchers measured various personality traits. "Our assumption was that the exercises would lead people to consciously focus their attention on playfulness and use it more often. This could result in positive emotions, which in turn would affect the person's well-being," says Brauer. And indeed, the tasks did lead to an increase in playfulness. The researchers also observed a temporary, moderate improvement in the participants' well-being. "Our study is the first intervention study on adults to show that playfulness can be induced and that this has positive effects for them," says Proyer.

The results of the study serve as a starting point for new research questions and practical applications. "I believe that we can use this knowledge in everyday life to improve various aspects," says Proyer. For example, special interventions in the workplace could lead to more fun or a potential to be more innovative at work. Romantic partners could do similar exercises that might increase their satisfaction in their relationship. "This does not mean that every company needs table tennis tables or a playground slide. However, one idea would be to allow employees to consciously integrate playfulness into their everyday work and, as a supervisor, to set an example for this kind of behaviour," concludes Proyer.

The introduction of cigarette-like mentholated 'cigarillos' (mini cigars which are leaf-wrapped) to the UK is helping big tobacco companies to bypass strict public health measures intended to reduce smoking, say researchers.

Writing in the BMJ's Tobacco Control in an article published Thursday 27 August 2020, the team from the University of Bath focus on the introduction and marketing of cigarillo products which mimic cigarette brands, are as dangerous to health, yet are not subject to the same public health measures or taxation.

Whereas the UK has some of the strictest tobacco control legislation in the world for cigarettes and Roll-Your-Own (RYO) tobacco - including restrictions on minimum pack sizes, standardised packaging, and most recently a ban on menthol cigarettes - cigarillos can be sold in small pack sizes, with striking colourful pack designs, and still remain mentholated.

The researchers identify that these products are clearly aimed at cigarette smokers. Earlier this year, in January 2020, one company Japan Tobacco International (JTI) launched 'Sterling Dual Capsule Leaf Wrapped', officially sold as cigarillos but closely resembling previous cigarette products from the same company and with the same brand. Other tobacco companies, Imperial and STG, have since launched similar products suggesting they are also keen to exploit these loopholes.

In March 2020, packs of 10 of these cigarillos were being sold for £4.60, significantly less than half the price of a 20-stick packet of Sterling Dual Capsule cigarettes (purchased for £10.95 in a convenience store). The researchers behind the study say the low pack purchase price is enhancing its consumer appeal, especially for poorer smokers.

Dr Rosemary Hiscock from the Tobacco Control Research Group at the University of Bath, who has been involved in a number of studies evaluating recent tobacco legislation, explains: "Although cigarillos have to carry large pictorial health warnings, they can still be sold in colourful branded packaging, in 10-stick packs, can feature price markings which keep prices low, and can include characterising flavours, like menthol. Cigarettes, by contrast, must be sold in standardised olive-coloured packets of at least 20 sticks featuring the brand name only in a standard font and without any price markings or flavours. Future legislation needs to extend existing rules for cigarettes to all other tobacco products and accessories."

Tobacco tax expert and lead author on the study, Dr Rob Branston from the University of Bath's School of Management adds: "Currently the market for cigarillos in the UK is relatively small, but this could grow rapidly in view of industry efforts to market these products as a new cheaper alternative and this should worry us all given the health impact of a cigarillo is broadly the same as a cigarette. To address this the UK should consider a variety of measures, including urgent adjustments to the tax system so that cigarillos packs can't be sold so cheaply.

"As an immediate first step we would like to see the Treasury extend a minimum excise tax to cigarillos, in order to appreciably raise the pack purchase price. If they are going to be sold as being cigarettes, they should be taxed like it too."

The authors advocate that taxation offers the most immediate way forward; amending UK tobacco regulation is the ideal solution but will take significantly longer to change than taxation and would require public consultation. The recent announcement on the proposed abolition of Public Health England (PHE) likely further complicates any such pro

Intensively tilled soils have lost up to 50% of their original C with the attendant degradation in soil properties and productivity. Restoring the C lost with current conservation practices (i.e., no-till, cover crops) often takes decades. Applying high-C coal combustion residue from sugar beet (Beta vulgaris L.) processing factories, known as char, may rapidly restore soil C and productivity in degraded croplands.

In a recent Journal of Environmental Quality article, researchers in the Nebraska High Plains evaluated soil and crop response to char containing about 30% C applied at different rates ranging from 0 to 67.3 Mg ha-1 to two relatively low C soils (

Findings suggest that this industrial by-product can be a potential strategy to rapidly restore C in degraded agricultural soils, but additional long-term (> 2 years) research with char application exceeding 67.3 Mg ha-1 under different soils and climates is needed to fully understand how char impacts soil properties and crop yields.

Until now, these flows of material had been detected only in other wavelength ranges, such as X-rays or the visible, depending on the phase in which the black hole is consuming its surrounding material. This study provides the first evidence that the winds are present throughout the evolution of the eruption, independently of the phase, and this is a step forward in our understanding of the mysterious processes of accretion onto stellar mass black holes. The article has just been published in Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters, and was chosen as an 'outstanding article' by the journal itself.

X-ray binaries, as their name implies, are binary stars which emit strong radiation in X-rays. They are formed by a compact object, normally a black hole, with a stellar companion. Low mass X-ray binaries (LMXB) have companions with masses equal to, or less than the mass of the Sun. In these systems the two stars orbit at a distance so small that some of the mass of the star falls into the gravitational well of the black hole, forming a flat disc of material around it. This process is called accretion, and the disc, is an accretion disc.

Some X-ray binaries, termed transitory, changed from quiescent states, in which the amount of mass accreting onto the black hole is small and its brightness is too low to detect from the Earth, to eruptive states in which the black hole has an augmented accretion rate, so that the material in the disc heats up, reaching values between one and ten million degrees Kelvin. During these eruptions, which can last from weeks to several months, the system emits a large flux of X-rays, and its brightness increases by several magnitudes.

We still don't know exactly what are the physical processes which occur during these accretion episodes. "These systems are places where matter is subjected to gravitational fields which are among the strongest in the universe, so that X-ray binaries are physics laboratories which nature provides us for the study of compact objects, and the behaviour of the matter surrounding them", explains Javier Sánchez Sierras, a predoctoral researcher at the IAC and the first author of the article.

One of the most important physical processes which scientists need to understand is the ejection of material, or winds, during accretion episodes. According to Teo Muñoz Darias, an IAC research and coauthor of the article, "the study of winds in those systems is a key to understand accretion processes, because the winds can get to expel even more matter than is accreted by the black hole".

Same wind, different states

The article which has just been published in Astronomy and Astrophysics Letters, and which has been chosen by the journal as a "highlight article", presents the discovery of winds from the black hole MAXI J1820+070 in the infrared, during the eruption which took place during 2018-2019. In the past two decades winds have been observed in X-rays during eruption, termed soft in which the radiation emitted by the accretion disc is dominant, showing high luminosity. More recently, the same group at the IAC has discovered at visible wavengths winds in the hard state of accretion which is characterized by the appearance of a jet, which comes out essentially perpendicular to the accretion disc, and which emits strongly at radio wavelengths.

"In the present study -stressed Sánchez Sierras-, we have shown the discovery of infrared winds which are present during both the hard and soft accretion states, during the full evolution of the eruption, so that their presence does not depend on the accretion state, and this is the first time that this type of winds has been observed". The researchers have also been able to show that the kinematic properties of the wind are very similar to those observed in 2019 in the visible range, reaching velocities of up to 1800 km/s.

"These data suggest that the wind is the same for both cases, but its visibility changes wavelength during the evolution of the eruption, which would indicate that the system is losing mass and also angular momentum during the process of the eruption", explains Muñoz Darias. These results are very important to the scientists, because they add a new element to the global picture of the winds in these systems, and represent a step forward towards the goal of completing our understanding of the processes of accretion onto stellar mass black holes.

The first complete dinosaur skeleton ever identified has finally been studied in detail and found its place in the dinosaur family tree, completing a project that began more than a century and a half ago.

The skeleton of this dinosaur, called Scelidosaurus, was collected more than 160 years ago on west Dorset's Jurassic Coast. The rocks in which it was fossilised are around 193 million years old, close to the dawn of the Age of Dinosaurs.

This remarkable specimen - the first complete dinosaur skeleton ever recovered - was sent to Richard Owen at the British Museum, the man who invented the word dinosaur.

So, what did Owen do with this find? He published two short papers on its anatomy, but many details were left unrecorded. Owen did not reconstruct the animal as it might have appeared in life and made no attempt to understand its relationship to other known dinosaurs of the time. In short, he 're-buried' it in the literature of the time, and so it has remained ever since: known, yet obscure and misunderstood.

Over the past three years, Dr David Norman from Cambridge's Department of Earth Sciences has been working to finish the work which Owen started, preparing a detailed description and biological analysis of the skeleton of Scelidosaurus, the original of which is stored at the Natural History Museum in London, with other specimens at Bristol City Museum and the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge.

The results of Norman's work, published as four separate studies in the Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society of London, not only reconstruct what Scelidosaurus looked like in life, but reveal that it was an early ancestor of ankylosaurs, the armour-plated 'tanks' of the Late Cretaceous Period.

For more than a century, dinosaurs were primarily classified according to the shape of their hip bones: they were either saurischians ('lizard-hipped') or ornithischians ('bird-hipped').

However, in 2017, Norman and his former PhD students Matthew Baron and Paul Barrett argued that these dinosaur family groupings needed to be rearranged, re-defined and re-named. In a study published in Nature, the researchers suggested that bird-hipped dinosaurs and lizard-hipped dinosaurs such as Tyrannosaurus evolved from a common ancestor, potentially overturning more than a century of theory about the evolutionary history of dinosaurs.

Another fact that emerged from their work on dinosaur relationships was that the earliest known ornithischians first appeared in the Early Jurassic Period. "Scelidosaurus is just such a dinosaur and represents a species that appeared at, or close to, the evolutionary 'birth' of the Ornithischia," said Norman, who is a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge. "Given that context, what was actually known of Scelidosaurus? The answer is remarkably little!"

Norman has now completed a study of all known material attributable to Scelidosaurus and his research has revealed many firsts.

"Nobody knew that the skull had horns on its back edge," said Norman. "It had several bones that have never been recognised in any other dinosaur. It's also clear from the rough texturing of the skull bones that it was, in life, covered by hardened horny scutes, a little bit like the scutes on the surface of the skulls of living turtles. In fact, its entire body was protected by skin that anchored an array of stud-like bony spikes and plates."

Now that its anatomy is understood, it is possible to examine where Scelidosaurus sits in the dinosaur family tree. It had been regarded for many decades as an early member of the group that included the stegosaurs, including Stegosaurus with its huge bony plates along its spine and a spiky tail, and ankylosaurs, the armour-plated 'tanks' of the dinosaur era, but that was based on a poor understanding of the anatomy of Scelidosaurus. Now it seems that Scelidosaurus is an ancestor of the ankylosaurs alone.

"It is unfortunate that such an important dinosaur, discovered at such a critical time in the early study of dinosaurs, was never properly described," said Norman. "It has now - at last! - been described in detail and provides many new and unexpected insights concerning the biology of early dinosaurs and their underlying relationships. It seems a shame that the work was not done earlier but, as they say, better late than never."